Cultural Identity, Consumerism, and Ravioli :)

As I have previously blogged, I hate running in the summer. The humidity, sweat, heat, I hate it all. I recently started getting chills, which significantly alarmed me. If you are a heat runner or just a runner in general, you should read this article. Here is a snip bit:

Goose bumps and chills occurring while exercising in warm, humid conditions are concerning symptoms. Evaporation of sweat is the main mechanism by which the body regulates the core temperature while exercising. When this system is not working well or is overwhelmed by heat stress, the core temperature will continue to rise. The high level of humidity during your race inhibited the evaporation of sweat, compromising the body’s cooling mechanism. Another factor that impedes the cooling mechanism is dehydration; this compromises sweat production. Even though you drank fluid at every station, the humidity could cause an even greater sweat rate than usual.

Onto the fun stuff:

FOOD!

I'm very good at eating three healthy meals a day. What I'm not so good at is healthy snacking. I rarely snack, and at dinner I find myself hungry. I would like to snack on cupcakes, chocolate cake, pistachio ice cream with peanut butter cups, and many other generally unhealthy options. But, snacks are important. They help you maintain energy and keep you full between meals, which decreases your chances of pigging out. I read this, which improved my ideas a bit.

Recipe of the day:

Tomatoes and Ravioli with Escarole.

My only suggestion is to use whole wheat ravioli if you can find it, or sub ravioli for delicious eggplant or grilled chicken to remove the excess carbohydrates, depending on your diet.

Side comment, but I love to BBQ. BBQs are traditional unhealthy, as I previously posted. My new favorite side to replace potato salad and pasta salad, is zucchini. Slice up a zucchini, and chop up garlic. Salt and pepper the veggies, wrap them in foil, and pop them on the grill. By the time your meats are cooked up, the zucchini will be super tender and delicious. Less calories, fat, and just overall healthier, but tasty side option.

Last thing I wanted to comment on, and I've been thinking about this for a while: The word diet is pejorative in our culture. In my opinion, companies like Jenny Craig and Nutri-system capitalize on this negative connotation be promising its customers with weights loss that occurs without changing your diet. Jenny Craig offers it's costumers "Jenny Cheese Curls," which closely mirror Cheetos. It's like a magic potion; a person can still eat crappy foods, with little nutritional value, but meet his or her desired weight.

The problem? The majority of these costumers gain weight back.

The reason? They never learn anything about nutrition. Instead of going on a diet, without the pejorative context, because I feel diet is truly a lifestyle choice, they sustain the negative diet connotation eating these "healthy" options of the same crap they were eating before. A person who wants to loose weight or eat healthier shouldn't be eating "Jenny Cheese Curls" or the "Jenny Anytime Peanut butter chocolate bar" as part of their diet plan; they should instead opt for apples, bananas, dark chocolate, nuts, and the list goes on. The only true way to maintain a healthy lifestyle is to learn the ropes and climb the mountain.

It makes me upset to think that companies capitalize on people's ignorance, and sustain our cultural identity as one that lacks nutrition as a key ideology.