During Patricia Burton's grocery runs, she has splurged on organic meat, chicken and fish from the butcher or from farms around me.Illustration by Kat Frick Miller
Patricia Burton has been participating in dragon-boat racing for 15 years, a sport that has pushed her to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Now, she’s even more diligent as she prepares to try out for the national team.
Part of the process requires benchmark testing, where she will lift 40 per cent of her overall body weight. To bolster her efforts, she’s trying to lose eight pounds.
The retired 67-year-old from Northumberland County, Ont., hopes to land a spot on one of Canada’s teams at the 17th World Dragon Boat Racing Championships taking place in Germany next summer.
“It takes year-round training to prepare for the races,” says Burton.
Throughout the year, she trains five to six times a week, mixing resistance training at the gym with cycling and outdoor boat paddling in the spring and summer months. In the winter, she and her team, the Brighton Dragon Boat Club, train on paddle ergometers, equipment set up like a dragon boat in an indoor tank.
“Most athletes paddle one side of the boat so this can create muscle imbalances and aches and pains,” she explains. Weight training can help offset this.
All of this training requires energy, says Burton, whose primary diet goal is to avoid highly processed food. At the grocery store, this means shopping the outside aisles, where the meat, dairy and fresh produce sections are.
Burton and her husband, Graham, who also participates in dragon-boat racing, prefer to buy their protein from local butchers and farms and shop at farmers’ markets for fresh vegetables. She also grows her own garden produce, which she dehydrates, pickles and freezes to consume throughout the year.
As for those eight pounds, Burton tracks what she eats and prioritizes high-quality protein and vegetables to keep her satiated and fuelled.
Here is how Burton shops for groceries.
How I save: In the summer I grow some of my own vegetables and herbs, and freeze them for the winter. It’s a small garden but I’m able to grow some swiss chard, tomatoes, kale and other vegetables.
How I splurge: I buy organic meat, chicken and fish from the butcher or from farms around me. I’ll drive about 30 minutes to Cobourg, Ont., to Houston’s Natural Meats, which sources its products from Mennonite communities around Southern Ontario. You can taste the difference.
The hardest shopping habit to keep up: I try to eat healthy foods, and be aware of what goes into my food. Reading and researching packaged goods is time consuming.
How I’ve changed my eating habits recently: Being more aware of what I put into my body and ingredient choices isn’t new, but the amount of research I put into it is. I use an app called Yuka, which lets me scan any product label and tells me the health impact of food items and cosmetics.
Five items always in my cart:
- Organic whole chicken – Grandview Pastures – $20: The chicken from this local farm is pasture-raised, and I’ve noticed the fat around it has a different colour than the chicken I buy in the grocery store: It has a bit of a yellow tinge.
- Wraps – Wrap It Up Raw – $8.50: These wraps are great. The company, which is based in Southern Ontario, makes the wraps with raw ingredients such as flax seeds and carrots.
- Almond-flour crackers – Simple Mills – $14.49: These are a great snack. I usually buy them in bulk.
- Star anise – Farm Boy – $4.99: I use this as a spice for a Vietnamese soup, pho, recipe that I recently began making. I like the rice noodles in the broth, and I use some leftover chicken as a protein in it.
- Organic pitted dates – Terra Delyssa – $10.99: These are great for energy, especially as a snack when I’m working out or training.
This interview has been edited and condensed.