{I am temporarily off my Friday OSC posting schedule but hope to return to it soon.}

I am going to make this post short and sweet, my friends, since my last post for One Simple Change was a little “heavy”.

Today I want to talk about the importance of moving your body (aka getting regular exercise).

I probably don’t need to tell you that exercise helps increase your metabolism (making it a must if you want to shed some pounds). It is also vital to heart health and good overall muscle tone, it reduces your risk of cancer and other diseases, it’s associated with better sleep, and it benefits you mentally. I think we all know that exercise is good for us, right?!

I personally have always been active, but as I’ve noted a few times right here on the blog, I have been rather sporadic about exercise over the past two years. In other words: I’ve been lazy. I’ve written post after post about how I was turning over a new leaf with a new exercise plan, but I still struggled through this winter to get my act together and exercise on a regular basis. So I get it when people say they can’t find the time or the motivation or “the whatever” to get enough exercise.

Because I’ve been super busy over the past month or so and because I tend to get really overwhelmed when I get super busy, I made it a point to start exercising regularly again. I firmly believe that this has kept my stress level in check, plus I just feel better. Healthier.

What does regular exercise mean to me lately? Well, it doesn’t mean going to a gym. Though I do go to karate classes once or twice a week and have for the past eight years, I otherwise prefer to work out at home or to do something outside (like going for a walk, run, or hike).

I like to keep things interesting so sometimes I’ll do an exercise video and sometimes I’ll do a work out with weights (a dear friend of mine has a background in personal training and I love working out with her). Sometimes I’ll do yoga. Sometimes I do a bit of all three. Also, gardening season around here means piles of rocks, soil, compost, and mulch that need to be moved around the yard: I get a great workout wheelbarrowing heavy stuff around for an hour or so a couple of times a week.

Just like I believe it’s best to eat a balanced diet, for overall fitness and for health it’s best to exercise in a balanced way, as well. This means doing more than just cardio…it means paying attention to strength and flexibility, as well.

So go find something physical (or better yet, a few things) that you like to do and do them on a regular basis. Aim to do a mixture of cardio, strength, and flexibility training. Don’t get too hung up on making sure you’re doing the perfect amount of each, and definitely don’t just think about how many calories you are burning. Remember that for it to give you benefits over the long term, exercising should be fun and enjoyable as well as good for you.

If you truly enjoy going to the gym, then go to the gym. Working out with machines or free weights and/or taking group classes can be great for your body. If you don’t belong to a gym, though, there are many other things you can do to get fit: walking, running, and hiking require little more than a good pair of shoes to get started. Biking is another great way to exercise outdoors. Swimming is non-impact and great for beginner exercisers. There are many different types of dance classes out there, as well as a variety of martial arts to choose from. Some people enjoy tennis, others skiing, and yet others gravitate toward yoga or pilates. My friend Liz has gotten super fit by working out at home and here’s how she does it.

Maybe you enjoy lots of different things- feel free to do them all!

Move your body: that’s all there is to it. Even if you’ve never exercised regularly in your life, you can make a change tomorrow. Or today.

As always, I enjoy hearing from you in the comments section. Are you an avid exerciser? Or do you struggle with moving your body enough? Let me know where you’re at at, and if you’re “in” for this week’s One Simple Change.

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I recently spent 3 days up at King Arthur Flour‘s Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vermont. The occasion? KAF’s 2nd annual Blog and Bake event.

When I received my invitation to visit KAF, I knew immediately that I wanted to go. You see, I don’t really consider myself a great baker. Sure I like to bake, but I’ve never really had any baking instruction. I stay in my comfort zone when it comes to baking and there are certain things I don’t ever make because I simply don’t know how, or because I think they’re too much work. I also think I’d be better at “healthy” baking if I knew more about baking in general.

So I talked my husband into changing his schedule so he could take care of the kids (he usually travels for work during the week), and off I went to Vermont. (Thank you Dan- you are the best!!!)

King Arthur Flour is America’s oldest flour company: it’s been around since 1790. Headquartered in Vermont since 1994, KAF is currently 100% employee owned. The Baking Education Center where we spent most of our time is brand new and absolutely beautiful, and our group of 13 bloggers from around the country had an excellent time there learning from KAF’s fun and talented instructors.

Though I’d love to share everything I learned at KAF with you, I don’t think that’s going to be possible. So instead, I am going to use my photos to show you the highlights of how we spent our time, and I’ll tell you my main takeaways from each class.

Upon our arrival on Sunday afternoon, we jumped right into Recipe Development, Testing, and Writing with Susan Purdy. Susan is a cookbook author, culinary instructor, and expert in high altitude baking.

We were divided into two groups, then each group was given a set of ingredients. Each group had to come up with a recipe featuring their ingredients, then we had to write up the recipe so that the other group could recreate it. We all soon realized that trying to do a project like this can bring up some “too many cooks in the kitchen”-type feelings, but I think we all learned a ton. I know I did.

My main takeaways from this class were:

1. Keep meticulous notes while you are recipe testing! Measure EVERYTHING (and use a tape measure to measure slices of bread, etc.); never discard a recipe draft.
2. You can not test a recipe too many times before publishing it.
3. Give multiple cues for what a recipe should look like when it’s finished.
4. Be very specific about the yield of the recipe (I need to work on this one).
5. Refine the language of your recipe when editing the 2nd or 3rd draft; aim for language to be as active and concise as possible.

After a nice hangout with everyone that evening and a restful sleep at The Norwich Inn, we gathered the next morning for a class on Basic Bread Baking. We also learned how to make whole grain scones in this session.

My main takeaways from this class were:

1. I have been measuring my flour wrong! To measure properly, you should fluff your flour first, then “sprinkle” it into your measuring cup with a big spoon, then level it off. 1 cup of flour should equal 4.25 ounces.
2. Water (and all liquids) should be measured at eye level (remember science class?).
3. A plastic bowl scraper is an excellent tool…perfect for mixing up bread dough.
4. Don’t be too heavy handed about adding flour and don’t “muscle it” too much when kneading bread dough. Use the “doorbell” test to see if you have kneaded your dough sufficiently.
5. To make flaky scones, make sure to leave some flattened pieces of butter in the dough. For cakey scones, work the butter in until the dough is like cornmeal.

We took a break for a delicious lunch, then reconvened to talk about choosing the right flour for your baking needs.

My main takeaways from this class were:

1. Not all brands of flours are the same. KAF has very high standards, and they rigorously test their products to ensure consumers get consistent results with their flours.
2. You can certainly try using alternative flours in a recipe that calls for all-purpose, but you will get very different results depending on the flour you use. See the photo above with all the muffins? That’s the exact same recipe (no adaptations) made with various KAF flours.
3. KAF makes many types of flour- way more than I was aware of before attending this event- and they have many gluten free items. They are not all available in stores, but you can find them in their online catalogue.

In the afternoon, we got to do something unexpected and really fun. Mary Ann Esposito arrived with her tv crew to film a segment of her show Ciao Italia and our group got to be part of the episode. It was so interesting to watch the making of a cooking show in action, plus Mary Ann is such a pro and could not have been sweeter. For the show, she demonstrated how to make Sweet Potato Gnocchi, Chicken Cutlets in White Wine, and Chiffon Cake with Lime Curd; afterwards, she signed a copy of her cookbook for each of us.

Later on that night, we got to sample everything Mary Ann had made for the show at a celebrity dinner in her honor back at The Norwich Inn.

The next day, we gathered for our last two classes: Portable Pies and Hasty Pastry. I was really looking forward to this one because I am one of those people who’s always been afraid of pie crust. And puff pastry? I made it once and swore I’d never do it again- it’s a lot of work- so I was eager to see whether “Blitz Puff Pastry” would live up to its name.

My main takeaways from this class were:

1. When making pie crust, you are looking for the perfect balance of short/tender and flaky. It’s best to cut half the butter you’re using into small pieces, then work them into the flour with your hands until it looks like cornmeal. Next cut the other half larger, drop the pieces into the flour, and flatten them down between your thumb and forefinger. Visible butter is good, and delicious pie crust is not hard to make at all!
2. Proper hydration of pie crust dough is key. Water used should be very cold and should be added in 1 tablespoon increments; pie crust dough must be chilled- this relaxes the gluten and contributes to hydration.
3. Once again, a plastic bowl scraper is the perfect mixing tool.
4. A combination of butter and lard (leaf lard is best) is great for a savory dough (like for empanadas). Work the lard in first because it breaks down quicker than the butter.
5. Blitz puff pastry truly is easy to make…so much more so than regular puff pastry…and it has tons of applications.

Before Blog and Bake officially finished up, we got to take a tour of the KAF test kitchen, offices, and mail order fulfillment facilities. I was super impressed by the test kitchen. It’s not that big, but it’s super organized and very busy: the test kitchen team tested one of their gluten free bread recipes 700 times!

The vibe in the offices was so friendly; it looks like a great place to work. We met a couple of the folks who answer the baker’s hotline…did you know you can call them with a question about any recipe (not just those put out by KAF)? What an amazing resource.

The mail order center is HUGE. The folks at KAF fill A LOT of orders and are absolutely meticulous about the job…it was very cool to see how it all goes down.

As soon as the tour finished up, I raced through the new KAF shop before hitting the road to drive back home. To say that it is a baker’s paradise is a vast understatement: it’s the best baking shop I’ve personally ever visited. I picked up some of their harder to find flours, a new bread pan, a couple of the plastic bowl scrapers I mentioned above, and a few other baking “necessities”. My husband did not really agree that they were necessities but what does he know ;)

I enjoyed every minute of my time at KAF: if you are ever up near Norwich, VT. for any reason, you really must go visit (honestly, it’s worth making a trip just to go to the store), and if you want to learn about baking, they’ve got many classes and the instruction is top notch.

SO many thanks go to the team at KAF for making this event possible and for inviting me to attend. You will definitely be seeing lots of recipes inspired by my trip in the future!

For more glimpses into the Blog and Bake experience, please check out these posts from my fellow attendees:

Art and Lemons
The Professional Palate
Mommie Cooks
Stetted
Thyme In Our Kitchen
Whisk. Write. Repeat.
Bakeaholic Mama
Lunches Fit For A Kid
The Manly Housekeeper
Smells Like Home
Primlani Kitchen
Fork On The Road

Disclosure: King Arthur Flour provided accommodations, meals, and baking instruction for me during the Blog and Bake event. All opinions expressed in this post are 100% mine.

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I am happy to report that I had a fantastic time at my Cornell reunion. I missed my 5, 10, and 15 year reunions for one reason or another, and I almost didn’t go to this one because I’ve got a lot on my plate this month. But I am so glad that I made the trip to Ithaca! I spent most of my time catching up with friends, of course, but I couldn’t resist snapping just a few photos of the stunning gorges before I left.

At one point on Saturday afternoon, a group of us gathered to share memories of our friend Liz, who died in a car accident in December of 1999. Liz was beautiful inside and out…the type of person who truly made the world a better place. It was nice to get together and talk about how much we all still miss her.

On my way back from the reunion, my heart was full but I was bothered by something. I kept thinking about this post that I put up on Friday night. I felt weird about it. I wished I hadn’t hit the publish button.

I sat with the discomfort for a bit. And tried to figure out why I felt this way.

I realized that I equate not posting on time with failure. And I was really upset with myself for failing.

Hmmmmmm.

I trashed the post I was going to finish up so we can talk about being kind to yourself today instead.

{If you are new to my blog, this is the 21st post in my One Simple Change series. OSC happens once a week (usually on Fridays). For these posts, I take off my food blogger hat and rummage around for the one I used to wear when I practiced naturopathic medicine. Then I write about small changes you can make in your life…changes that when practiced and cultivated into habits will improve the quality of your life and help make you a healthier person. This is generally a food blog, and many of my OSC posts focus on healthy eating/nutrition. But some do not, because being truly healthy is about more than the foods that you eat.}

I’ve only been aware of the term “self-compassion” for a couple of months. I wish I’d learned about it sooner, because I have a history of being quite unkind to myself: I was clearly not being kind when I got angry at myself for not finishing last week’s post, made a bunch of excuses, then set another public deadline I couldn’t possibly meet (because I set myself up for failure again, and once again got angry at myself).

What does it mean to be kind to yourself? Being kind to yourself means not judging yourself harshly for not being perfect. It means not holding yourself to impossibly high standards. It means putting an end to comparing yourself to others. It means not beating yourself up for making a mistake. It means not criticizing yourself for “not being good enough” at something. It means not punishing yourself for not meeting a self-imposed deadline when you’ve simply got too much going on.

Being kind to yourself means being your own cheerleader. When you are consistently kind to yourself, you don’t need others to validate your efforts and boost your confidence because you can do those things for yourself.

Do you have an “inner voice” that’s overly critical, too? We should teach our inner voices to say nice things (or not to say anything at all), don’t you think? Wouldn’t it make sense to have reasonable expectations for ourselves so we aren’t setting ourselves up for failure? And why beat ourselves up when things don’t go the way we planned? We should be kind to ourselves when things are going well…and when they’re not. If we were kinder to ourselves, I think we’d all suffer a lot less and there’d be less need for so many people to be medicated for anxiety and depression.

Let’s be clear that being kind to yourself does not mean allowing yourself to spend all your days laying on the couch eating bon bons. Quite the contrary: being kind to yourself means respecting your body so that you take excellent care of yourself. Being kind to yourself means you are more likely to put good food into your body, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. When you are kind to yourself, you’ll feel better physically and mentally. You’ll be more likely to excel at all that you do, and you’ll be better able to take good care of others.

Many people are excellent at showing compassion to others but fall short when it comes to being kind to themselves. What about you? Are you self-compassionate or is this an area you need to work on? Are you “in” for this One Simple Change? I’d love to hear what this topic brings up for you in the comments section below.

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