Packing, Paleo and Princess

Packing for the trip back home to Wisconsin tomorrow.  Bike helmet, check.  Bike gloves, check.  Polarized sunglasses, check.  Sunscreen, check. Windbreaker, check-check.  (No granny sweater this time!)  It's surprisingly fun organizing the suitcase and tote bag for a trip where you know you're going to be active.

I have only two goals for this trip home.  1) to hold my baby niece (the "Princess" in the title, if you haven't already gathered that) as much as possible and 2) to ride my bike whenever I am not busy accomplishing goal #1.  That's it, and the mere smallness of the to-do list pretty much guarantees the awesomeness of the next five days.

To be perfect accurate, I am actually RE-packing, having just returned from a trip to Laramie for my very first board meeting as a newly minted arts council trustee.  I cannot believe how informative this trip was.  I mean, of course, there was the whole art thing.  Very, very interesting.  But I also picked up all kinds of other good information regarding health and fitness. 

One of my fellow trustees, Janelle, and her husband (whom she introduced as her "spousal unit", which amused me no end) are uber-fit.  Janelle is a serious and impressive athlete.  She runs marathons.  Real ones.  She also does cross-fit training and follows a nutritious regimen that combines Zone with Paleo.  (Yeah, I purposely threw those out casually like that to make myself sound "totally down with" the trending nutrition lingo.... feeling oh so cool now.)  But seriously, I actually DO know what both those things are, in no small part thanks to Janelle.

Zone nutrition looks at your body type and goals and determines what percentages and combinations of proteins, carbs, etc. you need to combine throughout the day to meet your dietary needs in the most efficient way.  The Paleo Diet refers to... well, what it sounds like.  My brother likes to call it the "Caveman" diet -- meat, vegetables, fruit.  So, Janelle (whose body fat percentage is about 6) does the zone percentages, but tries to fulfill them with Paleo-approved foods.  (I hope I have that right.  Janelle, if I need to, I will print corrections later.)

I told her in no uncertain terms that I am not fooling with the Zone yet.  Waaaaay too much math and science for this intellectual lightweight.  However.... given my recent foray into gluten free and anti-inflammatory nutrition, I want to try Paleo for one month (30 days of June) and do some journaling and analyzing with it.  I think the protein will be especially good as I prep for this ride.

And, as a concession and nod to Janelle and spousal unit's crazy good health and athletic prowess, I am willing to at least do some reading about the cross-training trend.  BUT... remember that this is being said by the woman who, two days ago, managed to open HER OWN CAR DOOR, scrape it across her calf and take a nice chunk of flesh out of said calf.  And that's not even mentioning getting INTO the car today and hitting my head on the side of the window as I got in.  Worrisome.

Another trustee told me in passing that she doesn't eat dairy.  I asked immediately about her digestive system, because frankly despite my Wisconsin dairy queen genes, I'm starting to present symptoms that seem suspiciously lactose intolerant.  The woman said that a naturalist told her that all kinds of skin problems, including eczema and even acne, have been attributed to dairy.  When my co-trustee cut out the dairy, the skin problems went away.  I have all these crazy little dry skin patches that I keep attributing to the dry Western air -- but what if they are being aggravated by dairy, especially if other symptoms are suggesting my body doesn't like it?

It's all a little overwhelming and confusing, but also empowering.  I think we have a lot more control over how our bodies function, rejuvenate, age and perform maintenance than we think we do, by controlling what we put into them.  I do know that by limiting my refined carbs and replenishing vitamins D and B12 in my body, I cut down more than 80 percent of the body pain I was having.  That's not coincidence.

So... I am going to read a lot more about this.  I'm going to experiment with Paleo over the next month.   But first I am going to hold my baby niece and ride my bike.

(A girl's gotta have priorities...)

Oh... and excuse the randomness, but I promised (read: threatened) to immortalize my brother's snobby-snob intellectual elitism in this blog.  I was COMPLIMENTING his writing skills and made the mistake of comparing him to Ernest Hemingway -- who, apparently, is not the RIGHT kind of literary genius and ergo it offended my brother's sensibilities to be lumped in with him.  So then I told Matt he could cast his lot with Joyce James, who was a PERVERT among other things.  I'm still getting smacked down for that one.  What-EVER... Ok, James Joyce, not Joyce James.  You knew who I was referring to.... next time I will just compare you to Stephanie Meyer and be done with it.

Okay.. enough sibling bickering.  Night blog -- next post will be from lovely Milwaukee. (And PS.  I did sneak the granny sweater into the suitcase... but I won't ride with it -- promise!  I'm just kind of all Linus about it now...)