What keeps you motivated to exercise?

 A few weeks ago on Twitter, American College of Sports Medicine, (ACSM) posed a question: What keeps you motivated to exercise?

I tweeted my 104-character response: “I love being able to do physically difficult things. I feel GREAT when I exercise, but feel grouchy and sluglike when I don't.”

A few things kept me from my regular workout over the past few weeks. I went to Paris for a week. I was stuck on a plane. I walked a lot (miles and miles a day) and I danced at night, but I did not do my regular workout. Then I came home and I had a pretty bad sinus infection that made it hard for me to do much more than sit in a chair and be grumpy.

Today was my first real day back at the gym, after two and a half weeks. The break has given me the opportunity to reflect a little more deeply on what motivates me to keep exercising. I think everyone has his own answers to this question, but these are mine.

• I like people better when I exercise. Especially when I exercise with others. I am a naturally shy person, but when I was sick, I could feel myself wanting to draw further into my cocoon. When I went out, to the coffee shop or the grocery store, I felt irritated by my fellow humans. Too noisy, too slow, too pushy, whatever…but then I spent an hour working out with six other women this morning, and we were all getting sweaty together, and by the end of the hour, I thought they were the most beautiful women God ever put on the Earth. Even when I left the gym, I found myself smiling at people and saying hello. I felt friendly again. I think that comes from doing physically challenging things with other humans. It’s kind of what we are made to do.
• I value being able to do difficult things. When we were in Paris, we climbed the stairs on the Eiffel tower as far as you are allowed to. The benefit: we paid 1/3 the money and had no line at all. I am thankful that, at 41 years of age, my knees and back and feet and lungs are capable of climbing 720 steps up and 720 steps down. We also walked, I would estimate, at least 5 miles per day during our trip. If I didn’t exercise regularly, I would not have been able to handle that much activity comfortably.
• I like being able to dance, especially to fast music. I am not a big talker. I can’t express myself adequately through spoken words. Yes, I can write, but words aren’t alive and they aren’t attached to me. When I meet people, I can’t ask them to go read my blog to get to know me better. But when I dance, I am able to be everything I am: mother, daughter, saint, sinner, lover, fighter, thinker, maniac. I can express all that through movement, but only if my body is working. For me, not being able to move is like being mute. And to keep dancing all night, to keep up with fast music, I need to have strength and endurance.
• Exercise lifts my spirits. Scientists say that brain chemicals called endorphins kick in when we exercise. They mask pain, give us energy, and push us through fatigue. All I know is that I can be having the worst and crappiest day, and about 7 minutes into a good run, dance, or a great exercise class, I start to feel happy, and I stay that way for several hours afterward.
• It quiets my mind. I have a busy brain. I think about things that are my responsibility, like my job, and how I’m going to pay for my kids’ college, but I also think about things that are way out of my sphere, like how humans are consuming resources at a faster rate than they can be replaced. If I don’t reign it in, the thought factory cranking in my brain will keep me up at night, making lists and envisioning outcomes. Exercise helps. The more physically and mentally challenging an activity is, the larger the percentage of my attention it requires, and eventually there is no room in my head for anything other than the task at hand. Difficult things like dancing push out thoughts of anything else. Sometimes I need to think about things in a quiet space. In that case, I can go for a run: there, all my body has to do is move forward. I have time to pick through all the threads of my thoughts while the endorphins do their work, making all my problems seem simpler, easier, fixable. 

Everyone’s motivations are different. You might like to maintain your dress size or keep your blood pressure down. It doesn’t matter why you do it, but it’s helpful to take the time to identify your motivation, so that when you encounter fitness roadblocks (and everyone does), you remember why you were doing it in the first pace.

Gluten-Free Slow Cooker Beef Bourguignon

Gluten-Free Slow Cooker Beef Bourguignon

This was the dish that destroyed my gluten-free resolve when I was in Paris. I had been there for about five days when I tried it. I had been dutifully eating salads, skewers of meat and other dishes that had a 98 percent chance of being gluten-free, but the saucy deliciousness of beef bourguignon as I know it in the states is one of my favorites. Since I know enough about cooking to understand that most stews with a thick, gravy-like sauce are made with flour, I really should have stayed away. But I rationalized: at least this iteration was served with steamed potatoes instead of noodles. Maybe, just maybe, it would be okay.

It was delicious. It was one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. I ordered it at the sidewalk café of a restaurant whose name I will never remember, somewhere on a back street a few blocks from the right bank of the Seine, near St. Michel and the Latin Quarter.

Our server brought me my own little copper pot, with its own lid, filled with this insanely delicious stew. The beef came in larger chunks than you would expect to find in a stew, but they were so tender, you could cut them with the side of a spoon.  Two whole, steamed potatoes swam in the broth along with the meat and some sliced carrots, but there were no other discernable vegetables. Even if you could not see the other veggies, you could taste them. They were in there, but the chef had gone to the effort of straining the sauce or possibly pureeing it before replacing the beef and potato in it.

I can’t describe the level of food ecstasy we experienced with this dish. It was everything we strive to avoid in our daily healthy living efforts: fatty, salty, and red-meaty. Not only that, I knew that velvety texture was achieved through wheat gluten. And I ate it anyway. I confess that the luscious sauce was so addictive that I did the unthinkable—the thing I actually have nightmares about—I ate a half a slice of authentic, wheat-laden, wonderful bread in an effort to ingest every particle of sauce that remained in the copper pot.

Did I pay for my transgressions? Of course I did. I will spare you the details.

But fortunately, now that I am home, I have returned to my test kitchen and have been able to produce a delicious facsimile of that utopian meal, with no harmful after-effects.

This dish takes time. Of course it is possible to find short-cut beef bourguignon recipes. But if you’re going to do that, you might as well just buy a Lean Cuisine out of the freezer section. In this case (as in many others) it’s worth it to go big or go home. We can’t reproduce every flavor of this dish in the US, because we don’t have the same French cows raised on the same diet, or even the same tap water, but my home-made rendition was pretty delicious, anyway.

For full flavor, start this dish a day ahead of time. Marinate the meat the full 24 hours in the fridge before cooking. Choose a good-quality, luscious red wine like a pinot noir or Beaujolais. Follow each of the steps, browning the meat separately, straining the vegetables, and sautéing them separately.

Although this is slow food, most of the time is hands-off, so you can be reading, sleeping, working out, learning to dance, or watching Game of Thrones.

Gluten-free Slow-Cooker Beef Bourguignon

Adapted from Joy of Cooking

2-3 lbs boneless chuck roast, cut into 2-inch cubes

Place the meat in a 13x9 in. Pyrex/glass cake pan deep enough to contain the meat & marinade. Add:

2 cups dry red wine. (I used a California Pinot Noir)

¼ cup olive oil

1 onion, chopped (I used a Vidalia)

1 carrot, chopped

1 garlic clove, pressed or chopped

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 tsp chopped fresh thyme

1 tsp black pepper

½ tsp salt

Stir the meat to combine the meat & marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 24, turning the meat and stirring once or twice during the process.

Gluten-free beef bourguignon marinade

About 6 hours before you plan to eat, remove the beef from the marinade (SAVE THE MARINADE AND ALL THE VEGGIES) and place the beef cubes on a stack of paper towels. Turn the meat to pat dry. This will help the meat brown better.

Set a strainer over a bowl, and pour the marinade through the strainer, reserving the vegetables and liquid separately.

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook

4 ounces bacon, cut into 1-inch slices

Remove and reserve the bacon. Leave the fat in the pan. Over medium heat, brown the beef on all sides, working in batches and being careful not to overcrowd the pan. When the beef is browned, place it in your slow cooker. Once all the beef is browned, sautee the reserved vegetables from the marinade until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove the vegetables to the slow cooker.

To your reserved liquid marinade, add

½ cup good-quality beef broth

2 tbsp gluten-free corn starch

Whisk quickly to combine. Pour the liquid into the medium-heat pan, and stir until the sauce begins to thicken, about 5 minutes. Scrape the bottom of the pan to remove any burned bits. Pour the liquid into the slow cooker. Add:

2 cups small boiling (pearl) onions, if you can find them. I could not, so I used a chopped Vidalia onion.

Cover and set the slow cooker on low if your choices are low/high. Medium if you have that option. Allow to cook for about 5-6 hours, until the meat is fork tender. Add:

2 cups sliced button mushrooms

Cover and continue to cook for another 20 minutes, while you prepare mashed potatoes to catch all the delicious sauce. When ready to serve, add ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley and salt and black pepper to taste.

3 May 2014 Gottaswing Jam with King Teddy