Quick Tostadas

Running food: As we’ve discussed before, we want to eat a lot so we’re never hungry, but we want to eat low-fat.

The only way to lose weight, or keep weight off, is to burn more calories than you consume. That’s it.

If I eat 5,000 calories a day, but only burn 4,000, I’m going to gain weight. If I start running and burning 5,200 calories a day—I’ll lose weight.

However...If I start running and then increase my eating because I think I’m “safe” from all the exercise, I could end up eating 7,000 calories and only burning 5,200!

The trick is to eat lots of low-fat, high-fiber, healthy foods. Baked chips instead of fried. Rice and beans. Baked tofu instead of deep-fried chicken. Oatmeal instead of fatty, sugary mega-muffins.

Check out Dr. McDougall’s website for tons of recipes (look under the newsletter link).

Here’s one of my favorite work snacks:

Buy one package of fresh, soft corn tortillas (not the crispy fried ones!).
One can of vegan fat-free refried beans (most of them are naturally veg and fat-free).
One jar of your favorite salsa.

Plop a big spoonful of beans onto the tortillas. Spread evenly. Top with another tortilla. Microwave for 1 minute. Top with your salsa and eat. That’s it!

If you’re feeling like a chef, add shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and/or whole beans. Add vegan ground “beef” or vegan “chicken” strips if you like that sort of thing.

Sometimes I’ll eat 4 of these in a day, but I never worry about the fat or calories. They leave me so full I’m not even tempted by the bag of greasy chips sitting on the office kitchen table.

Alex

Share Your Efforts with the World!

People can’t support you if they don’t know you’re what you’re doing! In case you forgot, you’re training unbelievably hard for three months, pushing yourself to run 10 or 20 or even 30 miles a week in all weather conditions, all so you can run a race with the PETA Pack for animals.

Furthermore, people won’t support you if they don’t know WHY you are doing this and why their support is so important to you and the animals! These reasons may be different for each of us, but the bottom line is that we are doing this in an effort to get help for the animals that need it so desperately—to spread awareness about animal abuse and exploitation and to inspire people to help and to donate.

Many of us are doing a fantastic job spreading the word to your friends and family—and it’s clearly paying off. We’ve already raised over $11,500! That’s HUGE. But we’ve still got a way to go to reach our individual goals and $100,000 collectively. Lucky for us, there are literally endless opportunities to share your PETA Pack fundraising page with the world.

BUT FIRST—Perfect Your Page! Before you ask people for their support, make sure your fundraising page is presenting everything you want your friends to know. What are you doing? How much time and effort are you putting into this and most importantly, why? Where will the donations go? Why are these donations so important to you and to animals? How is training going so far? Are you planning to accomplish things you never thought you could?

10 Ways to Share Your Efforts with the World (and raise money!):

1. Email. Write a really powerful email and send an email to everyone in your address book. Friends, family, family friends, friends of family friends, co-workers, neighbors, the parents of the child you once babysat, old friends from school—anyone. Personalize the emails to the people closest to you, so they have to at least respond. First email them to let them know you’re doing this, again to give them an update about how it’s going, and a final time right before the race!

2. Email Signature. Include a link to your fundraising page below your email signature or as a P.S.! For example: “I’m training to run a half-marathon for animals and your support would mean the world to me.” This is a super easy way to send gentle reminders to the you communicate with that you’re still huffing and puffing away and still want their support!

3. Post to Facebook. So easy! It takes literally 30 seconds. Post your fundraising page to Facebook by copy-pasting the link into the status update box. Update your status whenever you run an impressive distance, have a PETA Pack story to share, receive a donation, discover a new running location, etc!

4. Blog. Have a blog? Write a post about the PETA Pack and ask your readers for support!

5. Website. If you have one, we’ve got an awesome little icon you can include that links to the PETA Pack site.

6. Twitter. If you’re one of the 18 million people on Twitter, tweet about @PETAPack2010 and your training adventures!

7. Go door to door. I never was a girl scout, but I do appreciate that with the right approach, going door to door can be a very successful fundraising technique. Dress professionally or in a PETA shirt. Explain what you are doing and why, and tell them that you would really appreciate their support. Ask for checks made out to PETA, not cash, to prove you are credible. Carry PETA leaflets with you if you have some. Send the checks to Michelle at the Oakland Office and we will add the money to your fundraising page!

8. Collection Boxes. Create some donation collection boxes and ask if you can put one at work, in stores, at the vet’s office, a library, a grocery store, etc. Have children in school? See if their class will have a change drive for animals. Just be sure to follow up and collect the donations from the boxes regularly!

9. Host a Fundraising Party/Event! Make a delicious vegan dinner, host a vegan drinks night, have a dance party, a Super Bowl party… anything! Get creative. Invite friends and ask for a minimum donation to attend. Your fundraising page can serve as your guest list!

10. Help with PETA Pack Fundraising Events! We are organizing a Popcorn and Movie Night, Vegan Bake Sale, and Wine & Dine event with a very special guest. We will ask for a minimum donation from guests, and the PETA Packers who to come to the events, bring food, spread the word, and bring friends will receive a portion of the money raised on their fundraising page!

Don't you dare diet!

I’m getting tons of requests about how to lose weight. People either want to get into shape in the first place, or get into better shape and try to win the darn race on March 28. I’ll tell you this: Don’t diet!

Dieting is dreadful. It makes you hungry all the time, which in turn makes you break down and eat junk because you’re starving. It leaves you with low energy. Dieting makes your body burn fewer calories because it’s always feeling hungry and it can’t trust you to feed it on a regular basis.

And dieting makes daily life not fun. Counting every calorie, stressing over food, always feeling hungry (or feeling guilty because you broke down and ate a tub of ice cream) and anxious.

Try eating more food instead. Here is what I consider the magic formula: Eat often, eat well, eat good veggie foods, and exercise. It’s easy!

I eat more than anyone I know, yet I don’t own a scale and never think about my weight. I never count calories and whenever I feel hungry, I eat. It’s what I eat, not how much. Here are some comparisons to get you thinking:

You can eat one small order of fries and ingest 540 calories, most of them from fat, and still feel hungry because while your snack was calorie-dense, it wasn’t bulky so your stomach still feels empty and unsatisfied.

Alternatively, you can eat one large baked potato topped with salsa (as much salsa as you want) and you’ll only get 278 calories…zero of them from fat!...and you’ll feel so full you might not finish.

That’s what I think about when I eat.

How about hummus? 2 Tb of hummus will give you 80 calories and lots of fat from the tahini and olive oil in it. Nobody eats 2 tablespoons of hummus. If you eat half a cup, more realistic, you’re going to eat 320 fatty calories!

Instead? Salsa. Regular old tomato salsa, black bean salsa, spicy pineapple salsa…you name it…most salsas have 10 calories in a 2 Tb serving. 10! And no fat! You can sit in front of the TV and eat an entire bag of baked blue corn chips (not the fried ones!) with a big jar of your favorite salsa, you’ll be full (over full), and you won’t feel guilty.

One more: Which would you enjoy more, 9 tortilla chips or 2.5 cups of popcorn?? Who eats 9 chips? That’s crazy. Next time you’re having a mid-afternoon snack attack, grab a bag of air-popped popcorn and go nuts.

Don’t let yourself go hungry. Eat, just eat well. Now that you're running, you need food for energy!

Last example: Let’s talk about dinner. Let’s talk about pasta for dinner. Pasta is a great food on its own—vegan, low-fat, full of energy-giving carbs that are great for runners. But if we smother the noodles in cream, cheese, meat or even olive oil, we turn a great meal into a fat bomb. Instead, try spaghetti with marinara sauce. If you get a vegan marinara sauce (most jars are, just check for cheese), you can eat a gigantic bowl of spaghetti and tomato sauce for dinner and go to bed happy as a well-fed runner. Which you will be.

½ cup of macaroni and cheese has 360 calories and half of them are from fat! And you’ll still be hungry after ½ cup. However, one and ½ cups of spaghetti with pre-made, vegan marinara sauce has only 180 calories and no fat!

I’ll start sending recipes in the next few weeks. Lentil soup, roast squash, minestrone, rice and bean burritos, etc. All the recipes will be easy to make, hearty and filling, vegan and low-fat. They’ll be stuffed with vitamins and minerals and energy carbs and protein.

For more ideas now: Check out Dr. McDougall. His main site has general eating information and the newsletters are packed with great recipes. And you should be checking www.vegcooking.com every day for new meal ideas!

Happy running and happy eating!

Alex

p.s.

OK, there may be one person who can eat more than me: Coach Darren! Be sure to ask him for eating tips when you're talking to him.

Money!

MONEY: Time to gradually start thinking about your fundraising. I know it’s hard to talk about money—every time I bring it up I can feel people thinking, “Geez, I thought lawyers were bad…” J Since we’re all busy working and training, I won’t waste time beating around the bush. The animals need you AND fundraising is fun!

First: Make your personal fundraising page. Go to the “support a runner” page and click "show all runners" to check out your team-mates, for example, Dana Portnoy. If you need any help setting up your page, let us know!

Make your page YOUR page. Your photo can be you, your dog, or an animal suffering on a factory farm. Your text can be anything you want. The most important thing is to be yourself and be sincere!

Second: Write an e-mail message to everyone you know. Again, be yourself. We all have different reasons why we’re training, and why we want to help animals. Some people want to help stop cat and dog overpopulation. Others want to fight fur or shut down slaughterhouses. Whatever your passions are—they’re OK and you should share them with your friends, colleagues and family members. Tell them you’ll do the sweating and huffing and puffing for 3 months, and you hope they will emotionally support you by donating to your page. Send them a link to your page.

Remember this as you write your message: Animals are dependent on us for help. They cannot speak for themselves. You are asking your family and friends to give for their sakes—the animals—not for your own interests.

On top of that, you're giving a gift to the people you ask. By asking them to support your training efforts and PETA's vital work, they'll know that you've included them in something wonderful. They'll get to hear about how your training is going and your feelings of achievement and happiness, and they'll feel like they're a part of it.

It's good to ask for help. Animals are counting on us, and many of our friends and family members want to be involved in our challenges and achievements, they just don’t know what we need.

We'll talk about this more during the training. You won't be left to handle this important task alone.

Thank you so much for helping to make PETA a stronger voice for animals, who are voiceless.

This post was written by Alex Bury

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast!

This post is a little late because I was busy making the Breakfast of Champions. Every Sunday I make a gigantic pot of steel-cut oatmeal, to feed me for the next week. Steel-cut oats are also called Irish Oats. They’re tough little things, totally different from the quick oats we’re used to. You can’t really eat quick oats the next day. Ick. But Irish Oats cook for a good 30 minutes and make a fabulous thick porridge that reheats beautifully. 30 seconds in the microwave, some sliced banana, voila: a perfect breakfast.

Make a big pot on Sunday so that your mornings are taken care of. Now that we’ve added training to our already busy lives, we need to find food that is both fast AND healthy. I cook 2 cups of oats in 8 cups of water and that lasts me through the week. Sometimes I add a handful of raisins, a chopped apple or two, or a whole cinnamon stick. Every morning I spool out my serving, heat it, and top with banana. Sometimes walnuts, cinnamon, more apple, things like that. Not only is this convenient and healthy, it’s filling. A big bowl of oats will keep you from grabbing a donut or fatty muffin, it will give you loads of energy for the day, and it won’t give you any fat for those hips.

Compare this: One donut has around 340 calories and enough fat to condition your hair. One big bowl of oatmeal has only 140 calories and no fat!! Donuts are fatty and calorie-dense, but not filling. Eat a donut and 30 minutes later you’ll be hungry for more junk. Oatmeal is the opposite. Filling and packed with nutrients and energy, but not fat and calories. When you’re full you don’t have to worry about giving in to junk food temptations.

Icing on the cake: When you eat foods like oatmeal you don’t have to measure or count calories. The more you eat the better because it will fill you up. I’ll be posting lots more energy foods like this. I’m not suggesting we won’t be eating our beer and French fries on Saturday nights, after our long runs. I’m suggesting that we eat less fat in general so that our training goes better and our junk food nights are that much more enjoyable!

Note: I don’t eat a big bowl of oatmeal before running. A bouncing, full stomach does not a fast runner make.

Alex