I definitely snuck down to our car last Saturday morning to get some dumbbells. The oak stairs at the bed and breakfast creaked with each step.
Out of consideration for the guests below us, Michel and I modified our workout to be low impact.
Plain 5 lb dumbbells sit in front of a blue antique glass beauty set that includes a perfume sprayer. Boxes of Chanel No. 5 sit in the background.
We washed up then took our bags and weights to the car. Other guests, decked out in cycling gear were enjoying the 7 course breakfast. We went for a walk until our seating time.
It was worth the wait.
Breakfast of oatmeal, fruit, smoothie, coffee, juice all served in crystal drinks ware and blue and white chins. There were croissants and soufflé too!
As our trip through New Brunswick continued we worked out in the kitchen of our next stay.
This open kitchen meant we easily fit two sweaty humans in there.
The best spot, bar none, has been the two workouts on the deck of my parents’ house. They overlook the St Croix River that forms the US border with Maine.
5 lb dumbbells sit on the deck railing. Beyond is the lush riverbank.
Was is a bit quirky to pack our dumbbells into the car?
Yes.
Was it awkward?
Sometimes.
Was it worth it?
Absolutely.
We had committed to doing a 4 week strength program. I wanted to figure out how to make it work on our vacation.
It felt good to keep the consistency. It was fun to figure out when & where. Our families were very supportive.
I’ll definitely keep fitness as part of my vacation planning in future.
Yes, science is always testing more foods that might or might not help us live longer, get less injured, stay more cognitively engaged, or avoid various serious medical conditions.
The latest one of these studies that we’ve come across at Fit is a Feminist Issue is: Prunes.
Yes, these.
Prunes in a bowl, with plums hanging out beside them. From Forks over Knives.
Prunes are the new new fruit for bone health (well, according to a 2022 study that just came across our social media feeds, and also a 2024 study by the same prune-forward research group).
In the 2022 study, they looked at the impact of daily prune intake on hip bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. They divided the study participants into three groups:
no prunes
50 grams of prunes daily (4–6 prunes)
100 grams of prunes daily (10–12 prunes)
What did they find? Read on…
A 50-g daily dose of prunes can prevent loss of total hip BMD in postmenopausal women after 6 mo, which persisted for 12 mo. Given that there was high compliance and retention at the 50-g dosage over 12 mo, we propose that the 50-g dose represents a valuable nonpharmacologic treatment strategy that can be used to preserve hip BMD in postmenopausal women and possibly reduce hip fracture risk.
Fine print: participants in the 100-gram group (10–12 prunes a day!) didn’t keep up the prune pace very well; their dropout rate was much higher than in the no-prune or the 50-gram group.
The same good prune-induced effects happened in this 2024 study, measuring cortical bone structure and estimated bone strength of the tibia bone in postmenopausal women. Here’s what one of the researchers said in this article:
“This is the first randomized controlled trial to look at three-dimensional bone outcomes with respect to bone structure, geometry and estimated strength,” said Mary Jane De Souza, distinguished professor of kinesiology and physiology at Penn State. “In our study we saw that daily prune consumption impacted factors related to fracture risk. That’s clinically invaluable.”
“It’s pretty exciting data for a 12-month study,” De Souza said. “We were able to maintain and preserve bone at the weight-bearing, cortical bone of the tibia and the maintenance of cortical bone and bone strength is key to avoiding fracture.”
This Penn State-based research group is doing a variety of studies to better understand the relationships between prunes and bone health, including how prune consumption affects the bacteria in the gut biome. I’ll spare you the details, but those really motivated can read more about it here.
Let’s now take a moment to put this new research in perspective.
We have all seen a ton of articles touting some food or supplement and its effects on some aspect of our functioning, longevity and overall health. And (I hope that) we have all learned to take these splashy headlines with a grain or pinch of salt (but not too much salt, as that’s supposed to be bad for us… sigh…)
I mean, it’s hard enough to manage our busy and complex lives without piling on extra daily portions of prunes or blueberries or flaxseed or kale or grapefruit or whatever the new food-of-the-week is. And, the effects of some of these foods on our particular long-term health goals are often pretty diffuse and small, compared to factors like regular physical activity or good sleep.
For me, this prune news has captured enough of my interest that imma buy some prunes and see if I like them enough to eat them regularly. You do you.
Hey readers, any prune fans out there? Let us know– I promise this is a safe space for sharing.
There have been lots of clothing posts at FIFI: nap dresses, swim dresses, bikinis, sports bras, cycling jerseys, beach pyjamas, angry white pyjamas for Akido, among others.
This is my not-very-stylish but oh-so-practical contribution for this summer: the towel fabric changing robe.
Diane in a striped robe, with trees and her beloved pond in the background.
It has a kangaroo pocket and hood, neither of which I use. I don’t actually use the slits that allow me to reach inside, remove my swimsuit and put on clothes either.
I do wear it a lot though. I throw it on over top of my suit and ride my bike to the pond while wearing it. Often, I hop on my bike afterwards and ride to the community garden to water my plants. It has been a miserably hot and dry summer, so leaving my wet suit on helps me stay cool. I haven’t yet continued on to the grocery store before going home, but I have been tempted.
I have clearly reached the age where I no longer care even a little bit about looking ridiculous if I can be comfortable.
I know, I know! Since the advent of social media, we’ve been swamped with National Days and I’m pretty sure that National Dog Day (or Puppy Day or Rescue Day or I Love My Dog Day) happens several times a year.
And one part of me wants to resist falling for a trend or buying into the hype but another (very determined!) part of me says ‘Why not celebrate good things more often?’
Yes, I know that it is hard to celebrate things – even the very best things- every day.
And if you celebrate things every day, aren’t you just establishing a new normal and nothing is actually being celebrated?
Yeah, probably.
But maybe having multiple points in the year to celebrate important parts of your life is a good compromise between all of those things.
*****
With all of that wondering (overthinking? probably.) out of the way, I’m going to go ahead and celebrate National Dog Day today.
Even after 6 years, I still find myself somewhat surprised to have a dog.
It’s a good kind of surprise.
It’s delightful to have Khalee in my life, to take her for walks and to give her treats and to just have her company even though part of my brain is still astounded that she lives here.
You see, I have always been allergic to animals and while we had pets some of the time when I was growing up, my allergies kind of forced me to keep my distance.
I don’t think any of us realized that I could take an allergy pill daily. I only took them when my symptoms got really bad – they were a treatment, not a prevention – and as a result, while I loved our dog, Sox, and our guinea pigs and the like I didn’t get the same kind of close to them that other people got to their pets.
So, when my friends started getting pets for their kids – or when it was suggested that I get a pet for mine – I would comment that I couldn’t imagine having an animal living in my house.
Now, before you get all upstrapless about my tone there, I wasn’t judging them and I wasn’t saying dogs were bad. I was actually bewildered by the idea.
I liked dogs and cats but I didn’t understand them. I couldn’t get close to them (because: allergies) and so all I was imagining was having another creature to take care of and my brain just flatly refused to entertain the idea.
But once my ADHD meds were sorted and my kid’s therapist had recommended that we get a ‘tactile’ pet, I had a bit more capacity AND I had an extra reason to take on the responsibility of giving a dog a home.
This is a photo of Khalee from 2019 and I love how it looks like she is hoping I understood how important that secret she just told me was. Image description: a close-up photo of Khalee, a light-coloured, medium-sized dog, standing on a dark laminate floor with an orange wall in the background. She has her mouth slightly open and her eyes look serious.
In that post, I mention that I didn’t consider ‘dog person’ as part of my identity. I’m still not sure that it would occur to me to mention how I feel about dogs when having a casual conversation but I am a friend to dogs in a way I never was before and everypup recognizes me as a soft touch for a pat or a snack.
Khalee has branched out a bit since that post – she doesn’t follow every step I take anymore, unless I am in the kitchen or carrying a plate of food, of course.
She gets up waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too early and she sometimes needs to go out over and over and over and that can be annoying in the moment but she also keeps me company when I’m working on something challenging and she gives me a reason to go out for a (often very slow) walk and she’s happy to see me when I come home (even if I have just been out in the driveway) and, well, she’s just great.
And appreciating her for her mere existence – she’s good because she’s good, not because of anything specific she does – has made it a lot easier to feel that way about creatures in general, including people.
A recent, sleepy photo of Khalee. Image description: a photo of Khalee, a medium-sized, light-haired dog resting with her head on her paws, facing the camera. Her face takes up most of the image and she looks gentle, relaxed, and sleepy.
So yeah, I’m up for celebrating National Dog Day.
If you are looking for some other ways to celebrate National Dog Day, check out this list on the National Dog Day website.
Khalee is DEFINITELY a Feminist. Image description: a photo of Khalee, a light-haired, medium-sized dog resting on my bed. She has her mouth open slightly and she is looking directly at the camera. Next to her is a rectangular pillow that says ‘Feminist’ in red cursive with a pink, yellow, and green rainbow behind it.
As a bonus, here are some photos of some of my other dog friends…I mean, my friend’s dogs…hmm, maybe I was right the first time.
This is my friend, Gal, she likes highway driving but she is not a fan of driving slowly. that’s why we don’t let her take the wheel. Image description: a photo from the passenger seat of a car with Gal, a husky, poking her head out from the backseat and resting her chin on the center console. You can see my left arm next to her head and my friend’s shoulder and a piece of her hair on the other side of Gal’s sweet face.Archie! My friend Archie likes to sleep on the back of your neck if you sit on his couch when you visit. He is a fan of treats – that’s something we have in common. Image description: a small black, white, and brown dog wearing a plaid bowtie sits upright on a brown couch. He has true puppydog eyes – round and bright and very likely to convince you to hand over a potato chip.Maisie and I are good friends, especially if I am willing to share my snacks, scratch her head, or hold her chew toy at chomping height. Image description: a large grey dog with fuzzy hair sits upright on a weathered patio. She has her tongue stuck out a little ways and her hair hangs over her eyes. You can see my friend’s arm as she reaches out to pat Maisie’s back, and you can see grass, flowers, and trees in the background. Reuben is a new friend of mine and he is VERY fuzzy and he was wondering if maybe I had a treat for him. (I did!) Image description: a tall, light brown, curly-haired dog is sitting upright on a tile kitchen floor next to a table with a flowered table cloth.Spritz (a.k.a. Spritzie) is a teeny brown chihuahua who liked being up in my arms until he very much did not and then I gently laid him down on the floor. Image description: a photo of me holding a teeny brown chihuahua in the crook of my left arm while I take a selfie with my right. I am wearing a beige sweater and I have my hair pulled back from my face with a black cloth band.
And just in case you want to know more about how helpful Khalee is, here are some of my posts that feature her:
What we did: Three days and two nights on East Arm, Joe Lake in Algonquin. It was a trip planned by a friend to do with kids but when that didn’t work out he asked Alex, Sarah and I to join instead. So it was on a busier lake than we normally book and pretty easy in terms of paddling and portaging. In the end the friend couldn’t come either so it was Alex, Sarah and me.
🛶 On our way out I was amused and happy to see a group of Amish young women setting off in canoe in long dresses and bonnets. A gentleman pushed them off and away they went.
🛶 Late August camping is just perfect. No black flies but the water is still warm.
🛶 The aeropress is worth its weight for excellent coffee while camping.
🛶 Canoe Lake might be too busy for my taste and not as rugged as I might like but I loved seeing so many kids out there with camps and with their families.
🛶 The loons! I even read up on loon gatherings after this trip. Turns out it’s complicated. But I loved all the flying and swimming and the loon calls.
🛶 There’s so much everyday exercise. Yes paddling and portaging but also setting up tents and hanging the food. I discovered you get a lot of steps in the day when your toilet/thunderbox is 200 m back in the woods. There is also just a lot of getting down and back up from the ground.
🛶 On our way out we saw my daughter and occasional blogger Mallory on her way into Joe Lake with her Trails campers on a week long trip.
🛶 Alex taught us some great paddling songs from his days as a camp counselor leading canoe trips.
🛶 The waterproof map costs more but is worth it.
Map propped against my back for better navigating.
🛶 One of the good things about starting a trip on Canoe Lake is that your exit point has ice cream and hot showers. But that means there’s also a gift shop and I bought some fridge magnets, a Christmas tree ornament, and a new hat (featured in the photos below).
Fridge magnets
What we thought after it was all over: When can we go again? Big trips that require lots of planning are wonderful but it’s also fun just to pack a few bags, load the canoe and head into the lakes and the woods with a friend or two. Thanks Alex! You’re a great tripping companion.
I saw this social media post the other day and it hit home.
On the one hand, I’ve got super strong legs. I’m very happy with the amount of weight I can press on the leg press machine. After knee replacement, my legs can carry me up hills and on long bike rides. They help me carry bins of laundry up flights of stairs and propane tanks to the BBQ. Thank you, legs!
On the other hand, at various times in my life I remember feeling sensitive about how solid they looked. Here’s kid me standing tall in knee socks. My dad used to joke about my footballer knees. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. But I knew it wasn’t a good look for women. He was being funny, not mean, but the athletic association wasn’t one I wanted back then.
Honestly, I’m still a bit sensitive about my legs. I wear shorter skirts with tights but rarely with bare legs. It’s not about my knee scars, from knee replacement surgery. I’m weirdly proud of my knee scars.
I wear shorts everywhere all summer, so it can’t bother me that much. However, I hate photos with my legs in them. I delete them quickly from social media or at least untag myself. I dislike them enough that I’m not including them here as examples!
And yet, the one kind of leg photo I do like is me in bike shorts.
Riding with Sarah and her ZSun Zwift buddy. We even angled the camera from the gound for a better shot of our legs.
In an earlier post about cycling clothes I wrote, “Me, I’m very happy in lycra. I often think I look better in bike clothes than just about anything else. I’m not sure if it’s just that they do suit me or if they just make very happy. Bike clothes mean bike rides!” (2016)
So bike clothes help. The other thing that helps is reminding myself of the many advantages of having strong legs. The two biggies are reducing the risk of cognitive decline and helping improve metabolism.
Harvard Health: Big thighs may be wise (2012): “They found that people with big thighs had a lower risk of heart disease and premature death than those with thin thighs. In round numbers, a thigh circumference (measured where the thigh meets the butt) of about 62 cm (about 24.4 inches) was most protective; bigger thighs provided little if any extra benefit, but progressively thinner thighs were linked to progressively higher risks. The predictive value of thigh size held up even after the scientists accounted for other indicators of body composition, including waist circumference, BMI, height, and body fat percentage. And thigh size remained a strong independent predictor even after researchers adjusted for risk factors such as smoking, exercise, alcohol use, systolic blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and (for women) menopause.”
Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health: “Groundbreaking research shows that neurological health depends as much on signals sent by the body’s large, leg muscles to the brain as it does on directives from the brain to the muscles. Published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, the study fundamentally alters brain and nervous system medicine — giving doctors new clues as to why patients with motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy and other neurological diseases often rapidly decline when their movement becomes limited.”
I’ve been in physical therapy for six weeks for sciatica, which has been centered on my right hip and glute. I had the same problem in my left hip and glute two years ago, and got physical therapy for it, which helped enormously.
But it came back, this time on the other side. Which brings me to the first lesson from this round of PT:
Lesson one: our physical vulnerabilities don’t ever go away; they’re always there and in need of attention and care.
I knew this, of course, as do we all. But when we devote concentrated attention to some problem, we tend to hope and believe that it’ll be fixed, once and for all. Well, in the case of our musculoskeletal bodies, this just isn’t true.
Lesson two: slow and steady actually works.
Once I got into physical therapy and made a little progress– less pain and more function– I was ready to throw myself into more intense activity. But they counseled me to let pain guide me; if doing something hurt a lot, stop doing it. Sounds simple, but this bears repeating.
Lesson three: more activity brings more discomfort, but it’s okay.
When I was on vacation in Canada, swimming and dog walking and just generally being more active, I had some level of pain every day, for much of the day. Because I’d been prepped for this, I didn’t freak out. I did what I wanted and could do, took Tylenol when needed, and enjoyed the fact that I was able to be more active and out there than the previous month. Yay.
Lesson four: sitting in cars and planes is evil for the body (or at least my body).
Yes, I knew this, but driving from Boston to Ontario and back again (with some detours along the way) showed me once again how my body is vulnerable. And don’t get me started on air travel; that’s what precipitated this flare-up. This doesn’t mean I can no longer drive. But it does mean that 1) I should stop more often and get out and stretch and walk around; 2) I should know that after a very long drive, my body will need attention through stretching, rest, and movement; and 3) If I ignore and push through this, I do so at my peril.
Lesson five: bodies are wonderful things. They take a licking and keep on ticking. And they respond to focused attention and care. This means that I have renewed appreciation and love for my physical self. This time around, both the physical therapists and I are working on a maintenance plan that I can and will follow. I really love what my body can do, and I want to keep doing it for a long time to come.
I’m waking up this morning in Gananoque (ga-nan-KNOCK-way) in a four post bed. It’s ostentatious. It’s the exact opposite of every stay Michel and I have ever booked on our way home to New Brunswick.
The 1,000 Islands Bed & Breakfast was a Michel find. He convinced me that on the return trip we always drive through. We can afford the nicer stop on the way down.
A claw foot tub stands under a chandelier. It looks swanky.
Our vacation is one week. We will drive over 3,000 km by September 1. We know it is a lot but flying is expensive and doesn’t get us close to where our families live.
Last week we were gathering gear, cleaning bikes and planning cycling routes. Then Michel looked at me and said “What if we left the bikes behind?”
Huh.
What if we left the bikes behind?
We had both assumed cycling had to be the center of our activities over our vacation.
Huh.
Then we talked through what we enjoyed the most from vacations over the past couple years. Time together. Traveling light. Being spontaneous.
It then became clear, less stuff, less structure, more fucking chill. Like. Way more chill. Still more. Almost chill enough. There it is. Very. Fucking. Chill.
We need sleep and rest and recovery.
So we are tucking some dumbbells in the trunk.
A triangular metal weight rack has 5 pairs of dumbells. The lightest is 3 lbs, the heaviest 20 lbs.
We can keep our Peloton strength training going. It’s an app and I often just work out in my underwear. Super classy! Also very chill.
The rest of the week, when driving, we are looking for waterfalls that are short walks. It served us great in Iceland last year. We’d whisper “foss” (Icelandic for “falls”) and point. It was silly and wonderful. We need more of both.
Michel poses in front of Schribner Brook Falls in 2021. Lucy the dog is having a drink.
Four years ago we made it our mission to hike all the trails near McAdam NB. The shortest one was Schribner Brook Falls. It was a pullover and park with a, maybe five minute walk? It was a magical little stop.
So the cycling stuff is in London and that feels like a good choice this week.
So here is to a week of weights, walks and waterfalls with a giant serving of chill.
