What a Typical Day Looks Like

The Change That Changes Everything, Part 11

As I mentioned earlier, one of the big changes we fell into after our first few weeks of eating this way, was to switch to eating our "main meal"—think the typical heavier "dinner" meal most Americans enjoy each evening—to the middle of the day instead of at night, unless we are eating socially with others and need to work around more standard mealtimes. (I recognize that having the big meal midday would be challenging if we were not both working from home at this point. More on this point later.)

Lots of folks have asked me what a typical day of eating looks like for us, so here it is, loosely chronicled. Since I don't really know which parts of this protocol have worked together to alleviate my pain, I am reluctant to alter or remove any of these practices at this point. It's working for us, so we're not modifying things much.

That said, here's what food and exercise look like in a typical day for us.

EXERCISE: Each morning (after devotions and reading the news and catching up with texts and emails and such), we usually walk 3 miles or so with our dogs at a 16–17-minute/mile pace. This is done on an empty stomach, with nothing having been consumed but some water. The fresh air and sunshine and birdsong and movement are all really pleasant, and I really miss it if I don't get it. We do this most every morning, rain or shine, and are usually done by 8 a.m. or so.

Again, previously—before this switch, during my "pain-full" years—I was not able to walk this far or this fast. But walking even a little bit each day did help keep my pain at a manageable level even in the old days, so I assume it is a very important part of keeping oneself pain-free. I highly recommend getting out there and moving all your limbs and joints by walking. If you have some other beloved workout routine that is already working for you, then by all means, keep it up!

I've also recently taken up Pilates, as it feels like a really effective, really safe way of moving and strengthening my body—and I do not fear hurting myself, which I used to do quite frequently when attempting to work out at the gym or using free weights at home. (My body was previously riddled with pain and very injury-prone, all the time!) So, in addition to the daily walking, I also try to do a 50-minute Pilates workout almost every day, if I can craft it into my workday and other responsibilities.

INTERMITTENT FASTING: It's also worth mentioning again that we try to eat within a condensed window ("intermittent fasting") as much as possible, which for us looks like not eating in the morning before sometime between 9 and 10 a.m., and then trying not to eat at all after sometime between 5 and 6 p.m. We don't pull this off exactly this way every day, of course, but it is just the usual attempted goal. This narrows our eating window to around 8 hours, and widens our overnight fasting window to around 16 hours. Lots of really good things happen when your body is able to fast daily for this long, focusing its reparative energy on things on other than digestion.

Since my husband and I are both working from home, we are able to prepare food and eat it at various times over the course of our waking hours. However, the typical meal/eating patterns we have fallen into look something like this:

BREAKFAST (as late as practical, but always after 9 a.m.)

* fresh juice on an empty stomach

NOTES: I alternate here on different days between purified water with the juice of one lemon on one day; fresh celery juice on a different day; and a fresh green juice of celery, cucumber, lemon, and a granny smith apple still other days. I use an Omega juicer for the fresh celery juice or green juice. (Omega and Champion are good brands.) For the lemon water I just use my little hand juicer for the lemon. This is mostly governed by how much time and inclination I have on any given morning to go to the trouble of the more-involved juices...

* some variety of oatmeal bowl

NOTES:  We eat some sort of organic oats every morning, prepared very differently to enhance a feeling of variety. 

--> cooked steel cut oats (organic ones sometimes at BJ's or Sam's; otherwise I order Bob's Red Mill organic steel cut oats through Amazon)

--> cooked rolled oats (GF organic ones sometimes at Costco; otherwise I order Bob's Red Mill organic thick-cut rolled oats through Amazon)

--> "raw bits" (uncooked rolled oats soaked with homemade almond milk) 

It is very important to buy your oats organic. It is one of the crops most sprayed with glyphosate and other poisons (along with wheat and legumes). They are sprayed twice during the growing process to fight pests, then again at harvest as a desiccant so that they can force two rounds of growing in one season. 

To the oats bowl we add: 

* finely diced spinach (remember, "beans and greens with every meal"!)

* smashed white beans of some sort (navy, cannellini, great northern, garbanzo)

* any variety of fresh fruits and berries (diced or grated apple, diced or mashed banana, berries, kiwi, peach, mango, fresh pineapple, etc.)

* a small amount of some sort of raw nuts and/or seeds (sliced almonds, whole almonds, crushed walnuts, crumbled pecans, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, etc.)

* hemp hearts or raw pumpkin seeds daily, for protein

* freshly ground flax seeds and ground chia seeds daily—I use a designated coffee grinder for this

NOTE: I will try to vary this so it feels different every time, but we LOVE having this breakfast every morning, so we wouldn't mind if it felt very much the same each morning. There are times I feel almost manic after my juice and my breakfast bowl, I feel so good compared to how I used to feel eating my other "regular" diet.

DINNER (early afternoon, usually sometime between 1–3 p.m., but dependent upon when breakfast was, and what the day looks like) 

NOTE: We've taken to that old vintage tradition of calling the main meal served in the middle of the day, "dinner"—and the later, smaller meal (if consumed), "supper." In our new way of eating, "lunch" is usually reserved for referring to a meal eaten out with friends at a more conventional lunchtime, around noon. 

The thing that helped my transition out of the initial "this is impossible and unsustainable," and into "I think I can do this"—after about the first month—was to switch to this way of timing our eating/thinking about food prep: 

(1) breakfast, followed by

(2) one big, main prepared meal—for us eaten mid-afternoon—and 

(3) the other (evening) meal as a light, snacky sort of a meal—for us eaten between 5–6 p.m., and only if we're actually hungry.

I do believe that eating the main meal earlier in the day—and going to bed with a relatively empty stomach—is a huge part of the success of this program. Whenever your body is sleeping, but unburdened by digestion, it can focus on autophagy and other reparative functions that help keep your body functioning well. You can read all about this in the books I recommended in an earlier post.

The main midday meal is usually some combination of fresh organic veggies, whole grains, legumes, and nuts or seeds, prepared without the use of any oils or refined sugars. It's more delicious than it sounds, and there is much more variety than it might seem like on the surface!

At first, I couldn't just "throw things together" and was very tied to recipes—which was time-consuming and frustrating—because everything about this way of cooking was new, and I didn't know what to do at all. I had to look literally everything up. That is all gone now, and I can throw things together at the drop of a hat like I used to do, from whatever ingredients I have on hand. Often, I will chop the veggies and dry sauté them with just salt and pepper and an all-purpose spice blend, then ask my husband if he wants dinner to be Asian, or Southwestern, or Indian. The base is fundamentally the same, and only how I would shift into seasoning it and making the sauces and sides would be a little different.

I always make quite a lot, so that we can eat it again in the near future, and I can still freeze some for later. This way, I always have a few things that I can pull out of the freezer in a pinch, so I don't have to cook from scratch every single day.

SUPPER (evening, but not every night. Around 5 p.m. we start to "check in" with ourselves and decide if we're feeling hungry and will want to eat another meal this day. If so, and I have the energy and the hankering, I'll cook another light meal. But most days, this last "meal" looks something like a sweet potato and greens, or a rice cake with peanut butter and sliced banana, or bias-cut carrots and homemade hummus, or a salad with chickpeas. I don't do a lot of heavy meal prep for this evening "meal." (Think of the way most folks handle lunch on any given day. For us, that smaller, lighter eating happens at suppertime.)

So, that's it. That is a skeletal outline, in a nutshell, of what this way of eating can look like on a day-to-day basis. It gets easier—both practically and psychologically—every single day. If I were not working from home during the day and therefore able to prepare and serve our main meal midday, I would be preparing the main meal when I got home from work at night but eating it the next day midday, at work. It's a little more work that way—and nothing is ever quite as good reheated as eaten fresh—but rather than eat the heavy meal quite late, after work, I'd prep several of them ahead of time (over the weekends, in the evenings after work, etc.) and eat them midday. Of course, you'll find whatever works with your particular life and goals and practices, as you go along.

I also highly recommend that you download Dr. Gregor's Daily Dozen app (published by nutrition facts.org) which is available in the Apple Store and I'm sure there's one for Android as well. This is simply a daily checklist where you can check off the recommended number of servings of several different food categories, to help you be sure you are getting enough nutrients and calories and plant protein to thrive with a whole food, plant-based diet. It's free and quite handy to use, and it has lots of helpful information about different foods as well.

If you have read all of this post and still have specific questions about daily food prep, feel free to reach out to me or to leave them in the comments.

My best advice? Give this way of eating a try—a real, full-fledged, no-cheating, "all-in" try—for a predetermined trial period. (I recommend three months, but you'll know after only one or two if it's helping you at all in any ways that matter enough to you to continue.) Get a physical. Have your bookwork done. Step on the scale. Then give it a try and see where it takes you.

And if you have the sort of miraculous results that we did, let us hear from you!

Read Part 12, Some Recipes That Are Working for Us

NOTE: The information provided on the site is for educational purposes only, and does not substitute for professional medical advice. You should consult a medical professional or healthcare provider if you’re seeking medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. I am not a medical professional or healthcare provider, and I have no professional medical, nutritional, or dietary credentials. You yourself are responsible for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon any information or advice appearing on this site. 

Start the story at the beginning with Part 1.

A Tradition Is Born?

Here are the official photos at the start of the half marathon. OG is the second of our children to run a half marathon with their dad and their aunt. I wonder if one day their little sister EL will join them?

 

We Run On Fumes

My husband and my daughter OG are training for a half marathon in October. They've done several small runs in preparation, the most challenging of which was this mud run.

 

 

I ask you: Who looks this good after miles and miles of running in sand and mud?! (I think I would be dead. I am not kidding!)

After this, conquering the half marathon next month is just a matter of context.

*Entry 9, September - The 12 Months of 2014 Blog Challenge
The title is a line from the song "I Run to You" by Lady Antebellum.

#megsmiles

Meg smiles?  Or Meg's miles?  Exactly.

More than 71,000 runners* have pledged on Facebook to run in the #Megsmiles Memorial Run set for today, Saturday, January 18, 2014. (*It turns out that nearly 100,000 runners from around the world participated before it was all said and done.)

Meg Menzies was a 34-year-old mother of three who was killed Monday morning by a drunk driver while on her Saturday morning "long run."

Those in the running community are very familiar with those--I am not!--and those Saturday morning runs can often be a source of camaraderie and fellowship for them.

My husband and daughter often take such runs, and they are pictured here with our dogs on their #megsmiles 3-mile run this morning.

My son Philip took a short run with his Vibram 5-fingers, and I took a longer run on the treadmill inside.
 
Although we didn't know Meg personally, we are indignant that her family was robbed of her by the careless actions of a drunk driver.  And we run in support of her and all other runners, who should be safe on the road from people who consume alcohol and get behind the wheel.

Lest anyone think I'm on a sanctimonious high horse because I don't drink and drive, I take a humble moment--although it is true that I do not drink and drive--to admit with grief and shame that I have been guilty of texting while driving--reading them, writing them, dictating them to Siri, and listening to them read to me by Siri.  I reaffirm my refusal to do so anymore as I run for Meg this morning, since texting or talking while driving has been shown to cause greater impairment behind the wheel than drinking and driving!  (...Yes, even just talking on the cell phone while driving!)

May no more Megs die at the hands of the likes of one of us!

Exercise Is Just Plain Good

And I don't necessarily mean that it is good for you, although that is unarguably the case.  We all know that.  It doesn't necessarily make us do it. 

 I'm talking something much more base, much more immediate, much more self-serving...and something I want to remember forever, when I'm tempted to forget.  When I'm tempted to stop exercising--as I always am--I want to remember this:  

Exercise makes me feel better.  

So this post is to my future self, the one who will decide that:
+ she's too tired (Remember, you feel much less sleepy when you exercise!)
+ her back hurts (Remember, it hurts less when you exercise regularly!)
+ she doesn't have time (Remember, you have lots more energy when you exercise!)
+ it's too cold (Remember, you can use the treadmill or the elliptical!)
+ it's boring (Remember, there's always Netflix--the inferior motivation for us "less-spiritual-than-Ann-Voskamp-who-listens-to-Scripture-read-aloud-while-she-exercises" types!)

Remember, future self: Exercise makes you feel better!!!

The 7-Minute Workout

Do we really have time not to?

As my kids have gotten older and their scholastic workloads have gotten heavier, it has gotten increasingly difficult to fit into their homeschool days all the things I want them to be able to do. I have long said that overworking our students is a notorious problem of us homeschoolers, who don't have the built-in parameters and time limits of the typical public or private school day.

Even if you get special permission from the school for your child to skip lunch ("Now that's a healthy practice for efficient learning," she says sarcastically), high school students these days typically can only fit in between five and six courses per year, no matter how full they stuff their schedules. Once you've covered the "requisite four" of English/language arts, math, science, and history/social studies, this leaves only 1-2 spots for electives. All electives.

The foreign language required for 2-3 years to be able to graduate, and recommended for 4-5 years for college-bound students, usually takes spot five. This typically leaves one more spot, if you're not willing to stop eating lunch in order to take more classes.

One more spot. One.

Band? Art? Drama? Chorus? Home economics or "shop" (insert whatever PC terms they're using in any given year for these decidedly non-PC, old-school names)? How about the less traditional, specialized electives like marketing? fashion design? The specialized academies like the School for the Arts? legal academy? math and science academy? international baccalaureate programs? AP coursework? Dual-enrollment?

It is enough to make your head spin. And there aren't enough hours in the public school day to fit in all the things you might want to study. (As I said earlier, we homeschoolers have to make sure we don't overload our students, who have more scholastic time on their hands during our time-efficient days and who have no built-in parameters as to the number of courses they may take in a given year! But that is a subject for another post.)

This post is about the not-so-obvious omission from the list... so neglected these days by most high school students as to be completely void from most teens' scholastic days... Did you even notice its absence? PE. Physical education. Getting outside. "Working out."

These things are known to be crucial to our health, both physically and emotionally. They strengthen our bodies and our minds. They help us burn stress. They help us think better.

And yet they've been entirely eliminated from most high school students' days. They are no longer "required" subjects, and as such are not taken. Who has time with all those other things scrambling for the spot?

I just read an interesting article that has me thankful that my kids are still overloaded with PE in their days. Their grandfather, a real workout buff even in his sixties, faithfully comes over three times a week and works them out, hard, for about an hour. Recently I've pledged to join them. Why? Because as much as I've thought I need the time that they're occupied elsewhere for my teaching and housekeeping duties, I need the physical activity more. Just like they do, I need to burn some calories and stress and get moving in order to be more productive and fruitful throughout the rest of my day.

The next question raised by this article is whether we need to move it earlier in our day...

No Temerating!

After a pamphagous* week-end, I have decided to get careful about what I'm eating (quality and quantity) and commit to some sort of exercise every day. I need to lose a few pounds, and I know I feel a lot better when I eat less and work out more.

It is a strange time of year to decide this, heading into the "feasting" holidays, but I figure if I don't do it now, I might have five or ten MORE pounds to worry about come the obligatory solennial "start-on- January -1-but-end-by-January-13-diet" that most Americans (myself included) go on.

*Pamphagous, by the way, is a word I found on Save the Words, a site which makes you aware of words that are falling out use so you can begin to use them again in conversation and correspondence if you think they're worth saving. (All the italicized words are from that site, too. Do you know what they mean?!) Since I am extremely pamphagous most of the time, but would like not to be, I decided to begin to use that word. Literally, it means "omnivorous," but connotatively it means "eating or consuming everything."

Hopefully, I will develop the lubency for running that my husband and sister-in-law demostrated as they trained for the OBX 1/2 Marathon they completed this weekend; the rest of us joined them only in their mandatory pre-run carb-fest. Blech! I need to get home and have a good, cold salad!

So, anyway, I pledge to eat less and work out more, and maybe lose a few pounds in the process. And I'm hoping not to temerate.

You can look up these words, or find some of your own, on Save the Words.org. Just click on "adopt-a-word," then type the word into the box and click "find." The word will appear in a new box to the right... hover over it for a definition and a smarty-pants, potentially politically-loaded sample sentence.

The Ignominy of Bikini Shopping with Your 8-Year-Old Daughter

I have a friend whose name is "Nasty." Not really, of course, but that's what everyone calls her. Everyone. Her real name is Helen, but years ago a young nephew laughingly decided to call his Aunt Helen - who was gardening and elbow-deep in dirt and mud at the time - "Aunt Dirty." That stuck, but just with family... until one unfortunate day at a party when some other friend asked, "What is it your nephew calls you? Aunt Nasty?" And that was that. She's been Nasty ever since. To everyone.

At least that's the way it was told to me when I met her some three decades ago at the age of twelve. She was an older lady (who isn't, when you're twelve?!) who lived near the bayfront condominium that my father's company kept for hosting visiting executives. When it wasn't in use, it was available for us to sit, oceanside, on the outside deck. We used it often. We met the neighbors, who became our friends. Aunt Nasty and her husband Chuck were among them.

Aunt Nasty lived at the beach. I mean that literally and figuratively, as she was actually out in the sun and surf just about daily. She was tanned to a deep golden brown year-round, and she always wore a bikini.

She has to be into her seventies by now. And though she and her husband have moved from that bayside condominium to a nearby oceanfront retirement community, Nasty still lives at the beach. Literally and figuratively. And she still wears a bikini.

What does all this have to do with The Ignominy of Bikini Shopping with Your 8-Year-Old Daughter? Everything. Because yesterday I went bikini shopping with my sweet EL.

This was not bikini shopping for her, mind you, but for me. I have a secret stash of inexpensive bikinis that I wear only in the privacy of my own family... at Grampa's backyard pool when no guests are present, or at the beach when we are clustered as a family unit of private little beach chairs. Why? I've posted about this issue before (modesty and bikinis and why I wear one anyway), but I'll say it again here in the words of Nasty's husband, Chuck: "Since Helen wears a bikini, all the good parts glow in the dark."

So yesterday, I was picking up a couple of things at WalMart with my daughter EL, and we found a clearance rack of bikini separates. The price was right, so we decided to see if we could find any in my size. (You never know what is your size until you try them on, by the way, but I started at "extra large," at least with the bottoms! They were bikinis, after all... usually only skinny people wear them.)

Trying on bathing suits is never a fun thing, but trying on bikinis at 42, after giving birth four times, is downright depressing. The only way to lighten things up and turn them fun? Cram yourself into a fitting room with your 8-year old daughter while you do it...

EL, casually: "I don't want to be extra large when I grow up."
me: "Well, nobody wants to be extra large. You don't really choose to become extra large."
EL: "Well, they eat less. And they exercise. That seems like 'choice things' to me."

Then, a bit later, rather timidly: "Not to be rude, Mom, but let's leave that one for someone else..." Apparently, there's bad, and then there's really bad...

Oh, the price you pay for glow-in-the-dark good spots!

Hacking My Brain

I read this article this morning, entitled 15 Ways to Hack Your Brain, and I was happy to learn a few tricks of the trade I didn't know already regarding "brain boosting" and such.

This is feeling particularly crucial after all the "time off" from the normal routine this past week... especially with the heavy holiday eating, the disrupted sleep, and the extra excitement of houseguests.

My brain was feeling foggy and slow to jump on board with the weekly routine this morning...

"Winning the War on Cancer"

I just read a very interesting article called Winning the War on Cancer. It is worth a look, especially since cancer has officially surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans under the age of 85.

The Question of Sports

I received an email from a friend of mine, mostly musing aloud regarding some unspecified "pressure" she was feeling regarding getting her young, homeschooled son "Z" into some sort of organized sports simply because that seems to be "what you're supposed to do" with boys. She didn't really have any specific question beyond the rhetorical, but was just requesting for me to muse aloud with my own thoughts and experiences to give her some "food for thought." So, here it is. This is a modified version of an email reply I sent her. I'm sure she'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences, too, so feel free to offer your own input by way of comments.

PT (my son) is not a "sporty" type, so I have not felt compelled to provide lots of structured sports opportunities for him. If he seemed especially inclined and/or gifted with this bent, I might feel differently, but as it stands, any "competitive team sport" participation has been totally for the fun/social and exposure dimensions, as well as to reinforce our verbal assertion that being physically active is important. Basically, I haven't wanted him to be a total nerd. (We tell him that he can be a genius-type if he wants to, but that he can't be a "squishy man," so he has to train himself physically whether he is inclined to love doing so or not.)

Toward that end, here's what we've done...

He did local recreation league soccer for a few seasons when he was little. He took a year of "creative movement" when the girls were doing dance... this was the young boys' version of a class designed to encourage physical-movement-with-coordination-and-agility. He was kind of a spaz before that, since his body was growing faster than his balance could seem to keep up with. That class helped him get a handle on that klutzi-ness, plus it was just lots of fun. One year, I put him in a homeschool tennis class (taught by a good friend through the local recreation program). After that, he did swim team, which was good for him to cinch swimming skills and to push himself physically. He did a season of rec league baseball. For a while he did fencing (with his dad), just because he really wanted to and we found a cheap fencing club. This summer he did a nightly, week-long Upwards basketball camp. We currently have a semi-permanent badminton net set up in the back, which we use for occasional badminton and volleyball fun. We also keep a frisbee and a football handy out there.

So, that is to say, was have exposed him to a lot of these things in the cheapest way possible, just to make sure he's not a secret whiz at something and we don't know it, and to help him figure out what he might be inclined to enjoy enough to continue for life. (I figure that's sort of what goes on in public school PE once you hit middle school... a basketball unit, a soccer unit, a gymnastics unit, etc.) We also just want him to be able to handle the occasional adult scenario that might arise where a bunch of guys grab a basketball and start a pickup game, or grab a football out in a field at a picnic, or start up ultimate frisbee, or volleyball. These things come up, and we don't want him to make a fool of himself or be unable to participate from total lack of exposure to it.

For our official PE program for homeschool, my dad comes over and works their butts off three days a week for about an hour each time, doing "personal training" style workouts... calisthenics, running, weight training, isolated exercises, stretching, etc. They come in sweaty, red-faced, panting and about to faint. I figure that this is something important to work into habitual life, and is much more likely to be continued into adulthood than if your big exercise thing as a kid was soccer or football or something that required a team.

We didn't begin much of this stuff before the age that Z. is now. He, like PT, is going to be more intellectually-inclined than physically-inclined, I'd think, but that remains to be seen with his younger brother. I'd think that a "tad-of-cheap-exposure-here-and-there" approach would be beneficial for both of them. By the same token, their dad is a runner, and you have a built-in, easy thing right there if L. is willing to begin to "train" them in that. If it were my house, starting today I'd have L. (if he's willing) get all decked out and dressed for running like he usually does, and then take the boys with him for their running time (before his). They can walk fast for a minute, jog for a minute, etc. for however many cycles they can handle. If it is only five or ten minutes long, that's great. Make it a positive experience (no severe pushing, no impatient grumping, etc.) and a consistent time with dad, and they'll come to enjoy it. And if he heads out for his full run after this run with the boys, positively spinning that as they get older and stronger they can join him for that, they'll have a "goal" to look forward to.

Then figure out some cheap, quick-season sports option that seems to mildly appeal to Z. and let him do a season of it. Or you could just get deliberate about L.'s going out once or twice a week with him (schedule it) and "playing catch" or doing "dribbling drills" or whatever, just getting his hands and feet on various types of sport balls to improve his eye-hand coordination and ability to catch/throw, etc.

Anyway, there are lots of options, and I wouldn't feel extreme pressure at all. The only thing you're trying to avoid is the "pale, squishy man" syndrome when he's an adult.

Some thoughts from better experts than I:

I Timothy 4:7-8 "...train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." Read it with an emphasis on IS, to remind yourself that there is need and value in physical training. Then read it with an emphasis on SOME, to remind yourself that it isn't, however, paramount, even for little boys and young men. And finally, note that it never says that it is valuable to sit around on your butt spending inordinate hours watching others who have trained themselves physically, while you yourself have not! (Yes, current Olympic madness notwithstanding.)

Susan Wise Bauer, in The Well-Trained Mind: "If your teenager has a good chance of becoming a professional basketball or football player, home schooling proably isn't a good option. There's simply no foolproof way to plug a home-schooled student into the pro-sports assembly line that starts in high school...

"But players who are serious contenders for a professional team sports career make up a very small segment of the total high-school population. For the average, academically-inclined teenager, we think the question of organized team sports has gotten too much emphasis. How many students will find that team sports make up an important part of life after high school? And even in a regular school, very few players are actually able to play regularly on official teams...

"A more relaxed approach to physical education is simply making sure that your children exercise every day, from kindergarten through twelfth grade... (concentrate) on general physical fitness and on sports skills that (can) be honed either individually or without a large team of people: running, cycling, horseback riding, tennis, golf, handball, swimming. All are suitable for individual recreation as well as for competition, if the student enjoys the challenge" - from Bauer, Susan Wise, The Well-Trained Mind (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004) 671-673.

She goes on, and the chapter is a good one. I refer you to the book itself if you'd like to read more. I tend to agree with her that most of the population is not going to be sporty enough to really excel in team sports. If PT (my son) seemed potentially to be one of them, we might handle it differently, but since neither his physical nor preferential bent is in that direction, we've not sweated it. I think it is safe to assume, at this point, that Z.'s bent is similar, and go with a similar "casual exposure" program regarding sports skills themselves, and a "committed to raising a non-squishy man" program regarding regular physical activity.

I know that those who have played on organized sports teams in institutional school (or even those of you who have seen and loved "Facing the Giants") will argue that there is still great value in playing team sports even for the child who doesn't have career potential with it. Granted. But for the purposes of discussion here, we're talking about the intellectually-inclined child who is not particularly naturally sporty. Does one need to feel obligation to provide him (or her, for that matter) with exposure to numerous team sport experiences?

Let us know what you think...