Food ideas

Eating this way, and listening to all the many cool podcasts out there (Robb Wolf, Balanced Bites, etc.) has me on a constant search to add more awesome foods to my life in more incredible combinations.

So yesterday, I finally threw some coconut milk into a blender with some frozen blueberries and frozen peaches. It was amazing (although go easy on the coconut milk at first, folks, or you could find yourself with a bit of intestinal distress....the medium-chain fatty acids in there are wonderful for you, but they take just a little getting used to for some people). I cook with coconut milk all the time, but this is the first time I used it in another context.

But.... I find cleaning out a blender to be a pain in the ass, so what's the lazier way to do this?

How about just heating up the frozen fruit in the microwave and then pouring some coconut milk over it?

Tried it this morning....it is equally amazing. I am thinking this may become part of the pre-workout ritual. I will try it tomorrow and report back.

Idea #2: bone broth. I keep reading about the benefits of it. It's loaded with beneficial minerals. So I went searching for a paleo bone-broth recipe and stumbled on this one from Balanced Bites.

It even uses a crockpot. Nice. All I have to do now is figure out a way to freeze/store it so it is easily accessible in small servings. I am thinking a pile of ice-cube trays?

Hell, I even have packages from Philly Cowshare in our fridge labeled "soup bones." This is going to be easy, once I buy more ice-cube trays, that is.

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Primal eating challenge, day 28

Today I drove down to CrossFit OTG to watch a competition they were holding there. Lots of impressive performances by amazing athletes. It was really inspiring stuff. It reminded me of the very first time I learned about CrossFit -- at an in-house competition at CrossFit 215 in Philly back in early 2010. That one inspired me to try CrossFit. A little less than two years later and I am a dedicated crossfitter, and have been eating paleo/primal for over a year. Cool stuff.

So what about the food?

Breakfast: eggs, andouille sausage, and broccoli, plus black coffee. Oh...some blueberries and almond butter too. In figured lunch might be a long way away, so the extra fat of the almond butter was a welcome addition to breakfast to help keep me full.

Had a Larabar at about 11:30 a.m.

Lunch, when I got home from the competition: coconut-milk/blueberry/peach smoothies made in a blender, followed by two grassfed burgers with grassfed cheese, over salad greens.

More black coffee.

Dinner: an amazing collection of paleo food at a paleo potluck dinner. I had chili, pulled pork, coconut-curry beef, homemade Larabars, pumpkin pie (no sugar/sweetener!), sausage meatballs wrapped around olives, endive and other veggies, squash....it was incredible.


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Primal eating challenge, day 27

Woke up this morning and got excited, as I mentioned two posts ago, over the prospects of power cleans at the gym. I matched my old PR, but I was hoping for more. What I really noticed was that I must be stronger, because otherwise my form sucked after so long away from this movement. On a number of the reps,I just kinda reverse-curled it, which is awful from a form standpoint, but proof to me that it was probably strength, not form, which got the job done.

Anyway, on to the food....

Pre-workout: frozen blueberries heated in microwave, plus black coffee.

Immediate post-workout: coconut water.

Breakfast: some of the crockpot chicken plus eggs, bacon and asparagus.
More black coffee.

Lunch (on the road): Chipotle salad with onions, peppers, carnitas, guacamole and lettuce.

Some almonds and grassfed cheese.

Starbucks black coffee, grande.

Dinner: Whole Foods fresh pork andouille sausage and broccoli.

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True story

There we were, on the highway, exiting with the sole purpose of going to a nearby Chipotle restaurant to get a delicious lunch salad with carnitas, guacamole, salsa and veggies (or, in the case of my partner in crime, barbacoa instead of carnitas). A short time later, we learned that just a mile past that exit, on the highway where we had been, was a huge tractor-trailer accident that had occurred moments after we exited -- like we might have been in it if we had stayed on that road. As we contemplated our well-timed lunch, we realized the truth:

Paleo saves lives.




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Power cleans!!!

I started CrossFit, on my own, at a globo-gym, in March 2010. Realizing quickly that I had no idea what I was doing on Olympic lifts, I went to a couple of O-lift seminars at CrossFit Tribe in Pennsauken, NJ.

Jesus, I was horrible. I still remember the feeling of dread when I became immediately aware that all the other "beginners" around me had much more experience than me and that I was far closer to a man wrestling a barbell than someone who was actually properly lifting.

But somehow -- and I have no idea how I got past my desire to leave right then -- I stuck it out, and stayed with CrossFit, eventually joining CrossFit Aspire, where I am happily coming up on 18 months of membership.

Since then, I have learned to love the complexity of the clean, but the vagaries of schedules have been such that I don't think I have actually done a clean at CrossFit Aspire in almost six months! That all changes this morning when I happen to be going there on a day when the strength component is: "Power clean 3,3,3."

Wish me luck.




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Primal eating challenge, day 26

Breakfast: eggs scrambled with wild salmon, bacon, and broccoli. Black coffee.

Lunch: that apple/chicken/bacon/pecan thing from dinner over greens, with guacamole. Plus one apple.

One lemon Larabar.

DD medium coffee, black.

Almonds and grassfed cheese.

Dinner: grassfed t-bones and asparagus on the grill. Blueberries and cherries too.






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A name change, or not?

I am not sure if I like it, but I was getting tired of explaining that More Spiel is a song title by the Minutemen, just about my favorite punk band ever. Simultaneously, taking into account the primal-food orientation that this thing has assumed as of late, I thought I should have a title that acknowledged that angle a little more. Feel free to spout off about the name change in the comments. I'm not married to it.

And, before you ask, I don't think I can change the URL, so it seems that "more spiel" ought to end up in the name somehow.

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Primal eating challenge, day 25

Woke up and, fueled by a generous helping of black coffee, prepped a crockpot feast for tonight's dinner. It is basically a modification of that pork-chop recipe that I just made. If you wanna be like me (why?), do this:

Put nine boneless chicken breasts into crockpot (I used Wegmans free-range organic). Then cut up six slices of thick bacon (I used Whole Foods uncured applewood) and cook in pan. When bacon is almost cooked, add to the pan: four diced Granny Smith apples, about a cup of chopped pecans (I used more) and as much garlic as you want (I used a measuring cup labeled "metric shit ton" and filled it to the line, but we love garlic, so caveat emptor and all that). When the apples, pecans, bacon and garlic have properly rubbed themselves all over each other (OK, you helped with this, and you liked it) resulting in a beautiful chunky slurry of applebaconypecanygarlicy wonderment, transfer all that lovely goop to the crockpot right on top of the chicken, set on "low" and cook it for eight hours. Nommers (or so I hope).

On to today's food:

Breakfast: bacon, (the sad end of the) crockpot lamb, spinach and eggs, all scrambled in the bacon grease. More coffee.

Walked Ruby the pup for a couple miles before heading off to work, so I indulgently "recovered" with a Vita Coco coconut water. As a woman in a convenience store in Middle-of-Nowhere, Michigan once said to me -- albeit in reference to a stick of deer jerky, not Vita Coco -- "Them are good." (True story, I swear).

Lunch: those crockpot pork chops, organic sauerkraut and salad greens, all mixed together. Awesome, but, perhaps, not for the faint of palate. I have a sauerkraut problem. I really really do. It is rivaling my guacamole problem.

One pecan Larabar.
DD black coffee, medium.

Dinner: the (I hope) amazing crockpot chicken that I just described, plus a vegetable draft pick to be named later (probably broccoli, but I am writing this pre-dinner).

Then the plan is to drag my sorry inflexible ass to our CrossFit gym's new yoga class in order to embarrass myself toward mobility. More on that experience tomorrow. I will also update this post if I jam more food into my gaping maw.



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Primal eating challenge, day 24

Last night, I put this recipe into the crockpot. Came out great.

5:30 a.m., pre-workout: frozen blueberries heated in microwave. Black coffee.

Breakfast: eggs scrambled with crockpot lamb, spinach. Plus bacon and coconut water to drink. Didn't bother with more coffee.

A pecan Larabar

Lunch: Crockpot lamb and sauerkraut over spinach.

DD coffee, medium, black.

Some grassfed cheese and almonds.

Dinner: crockpot stuffed pork chops (stuffing is pecans, bacon, apples and garlic) plus asparagus.

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This stuff works -- 24 days in.

It's day 24 of my primal eating challenge, and I don't want to say

that it has been "easy," because that makes me sound smug about it and

I really don't want to sound that way because I am fully aware of some

of the absolutely nightmarish sugar and grain addictions that some

people confront as a part of these challenges. It's not quite kicking

heroin, but it can be a very big deal.

But for me it's been, at worst, moderately annoying at times. The only

things I have repeatedly passed up on that I would normally consume

are booze, dark chocolate and pre-workout protein powder (no, not

together...heh) ; oh, and I suppose the odd black bean here and there.

In other words, I really don't eat gluten anyway. This primal-eating

journey of mine has been a long slow burn that started last year,

rather than a turn-on-a-dime reversal of long-entrenched bad habits

just for the challenge.

It was also spectaularly well-timed, coming just after I got home from

two weeks in Germany with Jamie where we ate and drank gluten-y things

that we never would otherwise.

So what have I learned? A lot, actually.

Despite spending some of the challenge battling with (and fighting

off) a sinus infection/cold that normally would have had me way down

and out, I feel really effing good being this uber-clean about my

eating. My energy levels are higher and I need less caffeine than

usual to get through a day. I think my immune system is doing really

well, because I know a lot of people who got hit pretty hard with this

cold. I didn't.

I also learned that while dairy is often a great source of good fat

for me, when it is grassfed, I need to stay away from it altogether if

trying to battle a cold. As soon as I made that switch mid-challenge,

the evil cold-induced snot began to dissipate.

My Raynaud's, as I told you already, appears to be gone. When I drink

post-challenge, I need to be smart about it and do it in ways that

don't make it a giant insulin spike, which will trigger Raynaud's

again. I also need to see how that goes, and be realistic in my future

evaluation of whether resuming alcohol intake, even through "smart"

drinking, means the return of Raynaud's anyway. If so, some tough

choices may have to be made.

Likewise -- and this is one I haven't discussed here in a while -- a

lifetime of sometimes-on/sometimes-off acid reflux (GERD) seems to

have gone completely by the wayside as well. I hadn't been taking

Prevacid for much of the time since I went primal last year, just some

occasional antacids, but, in the three months prior to the challenge,

I had re-experienced some GERD and so I restarted the Prevacid, with

little effect, so I added a nighttime Zantac. Then, when I mentioned

it to my doc at a September physical, he had suggested trying *just*

the Zantac, since it is just an antacid rather than a full-on

proton-pump inhibitor (PPI). That did the trick, even amidst the beery

goodness of Deutschland. But then, when I started this challenge, I

skipped some Zantac, and found I didn't even need that. Apparently,

all that stuff about reevaluating alcohol in regards to Raynaud's

applies to GERD too.

I also learned some super-micro/tweak-ish things about eating. I

mentioned at one point that fruit ingested immediately pre-workout

causes the glycolytic demands of the workout to kickstart your liver

to use fructose as an energy source. That's good, and it works well.

While I miss my pre-workout protein shakes, I think that if I revisit

them post-challenge, I am going to keep eating fruit pre-workout as

well. I also am not going to eat much of it otherwise. I already knew

that fruits and veggies are not interchangeable, but I learned it

again this month. If I eat too much fruit in a setting other than

immediately pre-workout, it moderately spikes my insulin. That's bad

news, and it makes me crazy.

I also learned that good carbs like sweet potatoes and even

occasionally white rice are good for me all the time. Yeah, they are a

righteous bump toward recovery if ingested in the hour post-workout,

but for a guy like me, who is lean enough and doesn't want to lose

weight. I could eat 'em at nearly every meal and feel great. In fact,

I think I feel better when I do.

Additionally, I became aware of a strong preference I have for

grassfed ruminants (beef and lamb) over other meat sources. Yeah, pork

is delicious and I definitely eat some of it, and salmon is awesome if

wild-caught, but I don't think I ate chicken once yet during the

challenge, and I haven't missed it. Sure, I'll eat it sometimes, but a

steady intake of grassfed beef and, especially, lamb has me flying

high.

In the gym, I haven't been a rockstar lately, even by my own meager

standards, but I blame that on my cold hanging around just enough to

screw with my sleep. I've been fine, just not PRing alll over the

place. Hell, but even with the beginnings of a cold, I nearly PR'd my

"Helen" time (one effing second!!) and I have come close in some other

workouts, just nothing spectacular. But let's be serious, no one ever

used the word "spectacular" to describe my typical gym performance, so

even the ability to hang on through a cold with decent workouts has

been a really good thing, and a direct result of good eating. I am

curious to see how my post-challenge time comes in on a gym-specific

benchmark workout that we are all doing on November 14.

All in all, this challenge has been a very very good thing so far. I

have a week to go and am hoping for some more positive revelations in

that time. Let's go.