Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Tuesday week 3

Did 5-3-1 presses today, got 9 reps at 46kg for the last set, same reps one more kg than last time. A little disappointing after yesterday's high rep squat day.

Breakfast - Big Bowl of blueberries, a handful of almonds, a couple oz of salami and a slim jim.
Lunch - same as yesterday; deviled eggs and steak salad at seastar
Dinner - steak and salad

Monday, September 26, 2011

Monday of week 3

Did back squats at the gym this morning for the 5-3-1 program. I did 23 reps at 76kg this morning. I couldn't believe I did so many. I looked back at 2 weeks ago when I had done the same weight, and I could only do 11 reps. Either something is weird, or I am making progress.

Breakfast - post workout big bowl of blueberries, two eggs and two oz or so of hebrew national salami, and a few almonds.
Lunch - 3 deviled eggs with ahi tartare, and a steak salad at Seastar.
Dinner - Salad (lettuce, carrots and goat cheese), steamed broccoli with a little butter, and turkey pastrami
Snack - one slim jim with tabasco sauce and some cashews

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Weekend of week 2

Friday
Breakfast -- beef sticks and blueberries
First lunch --- greek salad
Second lunch -- 4oz salmon
Dinner -- 4 glasses of wine, beef tartare, cheese curds, lamb satay and chicken curry

Saturday --
Pre-crossfit breakfast - blueberries and beef sticks
Lunch -- Hales's omelette special; three eggs, cheddar cheese, three different kinds of peppers and onions, caribbean habanero jerk sauce and sour cream
Dinner -- 4 glasses of wine, corn chips and salsa, beef with salsa and chimichurri sauce and caramelized onions

Sunday
Lunch-- 2 eggs and fried Hebrew National beef salami
Dinner -- salad with ceasar dressing, italian spiced meatballs

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Big dinner!

The day started well...I did deadlifts this morning. 11 at 97kg for my last set.
Came home and had four beef sticks (two oz) on the way to work.
For lunch, I had steak salad at Seastar again, so about 4oz of steak, greens, peppers and onions, blue cheese.
When I got home, I had two beef sticks and a slim jim for a snack, then for dinner I had three chicken sausages, two bowls (maybe 3 cups?) of blueberries and about 20 almonds.
huge dinner for me, but maybe I will start bulking up like andy suggests.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Eggs, eggs, eggs

Slept in this morning, no crossfit this morning after going to Adult Gymnastics last night. Super fun doing flips!

Breakfast - 2 eggs, beef sticks, a few almonds, and maybe 1/2 cup of blueberries
Lunch - large salad at the cafeteria; spinach, greens, asparagus, peppers, onions and salmon, with ceasar dressing
Dinner - had a glass of wine and deviled eggs with wasabi roe and gravlox at the seastar bar across the street from work. Then a couple beefsticks and a couple slim jims when I got home. Not organic, but at least gluten and carb free!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Week 2 Sunday-Tuesday

Sunday
Breakfast and lunch - Beef sticks, cheddar cheese and blueberries
Dinner - Left over pot roast and broccoli

Monday
Breakfast - Beef sticks, almonds and blueberries
Lunch - Steak salad, hold the tomatoes
Dinner - Scrambled eggs with basil and salt, maple turkey sausage, blueberries

Tuesday
Breakfast - Beef sticks, almonds, and blueberries
Lunch - Steak salad, hold the tomatoes
After school snack - Two Tabasco Slim Jims, several beef sticks, two pieces of cheddar cheese
Dinner - Leftover pot roast and broccoli
Went to Adult Gymnastics class tonight, and when I got home had a couple more beef sticks and some more crystal light before heading to bed.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Week 1, Sunday

I finished the week at 166.2, which is down from 168.8 last Sunday morning, and 167.something on Saturday. Good progress, although my fat-calculating scale says that I actually have more fat that last week. I think that's because I have lost some water weight, and dehydration leads to coming in heavy on the fat.

Breakfast -- 3 beef sticks, 1/2 cup of blueberries and 5 lime and chili coated almonds
Lunch was more of a snack throughout the day affair, as it usually is on Sundays. Beef sticks, a few more almonds, a piece of cheddar cheese, another cup of blueberries and an atkins bar.
Dinner -- left over pot roast and broccolini.

Saturday, week 1 - a bit gimpy

Following my dead lifts yesterday, my hip got tighter and tighter through the day, and it was painful sleeping last night, so I took the morning off and slept in a bit.
Breakfast -- 6 beef sticks (1/2 oz each) about a 1/2 cup of blueberries and a piece of cheddar cheese for some fat.
Lunch -- went to a kid's birthday party and passed up bagels, capri sun, cake, hummus, chips. I ended up having three hebrew nationals on a fork and a bottle of sugar free green tea, and three grapes.
Dinner -- Parmesan-crusted salmon with macadamia nut beurre blanc, sub double asparagus for potatoes, and a side salad with balsamic vinaigrette

Friday, September 16, 2011

Week 1, Friday

Workout this morning -- 5-3-1 Deadlifts, last set 13 x 94kg!

Breakfast was 2 eggs, plus four beef sticks (about 2oz total)
Lunch was a salad at the company cafeteria, mixed greens, spinach, steak, peppers, onions, asparagus, almonds and balsamic vinaigrette
Dinner was salad, broccoli, and pot roast
For dessert, everyone else had cake. I had four beef sticks and an atkins bar.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Thursday, week 1

This morning I went over to the gym and we didn't do 5-3-1. The WoD was 4 rounds for time of:
500m row
25 push ups
1/4 mile run
Yuck.

But I think it burned some calories.
After that I had two eggs and about 1/2 a cup of blueberries for breakfast, and a handful of almonds at work.
We were in an all day leadership review, so all I got was a box lunch. When I say box lunch, what I mean is that I had a tuna sandwich where I age the tuna and cheese off of the sandwich and left the bread there. I also said no to the cookie, bag of chips and fruit cup that were in the box.
For dinner, I had leftover chicken sausage (yum!), leftover greenbeans and pearl onions, and mixed green and feta salad with ceasar dressing.
I expect I will be lighter tomorrow, as this is the second or third day of super low carb dieting. I'm going to keep it up for a few more days at least, then go back to paleo+zone.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Week 1 wednesday - rest day

I made today a rest day after two heavy lifting days on Monday and Tuesday.
So I had time to make myself two eggs for breakfast plus half of a leftover chicken sausage. I tacked on an Atkins bar on the way to work.
For lunch, I had steak with chimichurri sauce and it came with a mixed green, chicken and peach salad. I left the peaches on the plate.
For dinner, my wife made a steak, marinated in something at the Ballard Market, plus a mixed green salad with feta, and raspberry vinaigrette, and a green bean and pearl onion mixture.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Tuesday of Week 1

Started the morning with military press -- 3 sets.
This was week one of the 5-3-1 series. I did 5x36kg, 5x 40kg, and finished with 11x45kg. That's two more at 45kg than I did last week. For assistance exercise, we did chest to bar pullups and we got to choose one other. I told dave I wanted to practice handstand on rings, because what's the point in doing a handstand if you can't do it on the rings. He took me at my word, and made me practice lifting myself off the ground with arms locked out on the rings. Guess what, it's hard and I couldn't really do it.

Now, onto the food.
Breakfast -- I had a couple oz of summer sausage, skipped the blueberries and had a piece of cheddar cheese for fat. I'm gonna try to go super-low-carb for the next week or so and see if I can get a jump start on this Paleo thing. I also had another Atkins bar on the way to work.
Morning snack -- I walked over to the Whole Foods looking for some beef jerky. They sell organic beef jerky there, but I looked at the label and it had 5g of sugar in it, so I skipped. I bought some organic almonds to keep in my office and some scrambled eggs from the hot table. I sprinkled some shredded mozzarella on the eggs, but they weren't hot enough to melt the cheese.
Lunch -- By lunchtime, I had forgotten the plan to skip carbs and had roasted yams on my salad (build your own at the cafeteria), along with spinach, onions, peppers, asparagus, and a hunk of steak, sliced thin.
After-school snack -- Another two oz of summer sausage (finished it off) and a slice of cheddar cheese.

Dinner -- chicken sausage (1.5 sausages) and broccoli (sauteed in garlic) and a salad (spinach, goat cheese and a vinaigrette dressing)

also, I should mention that I have a caffeine addiction so I have 1-2 diet cokes every morning that I haven't reported.


Monday, September 12, 2011

Happy Monday, week 1!

Today is the first weekday of week 1! I got down to the gym for some 5-3-1 back squat action, my first week. 5 sets of 5 back squats, finishing up with a set of 11 at 77kg (85% of 90% of 100). After that, I had my personal training with Dave W, which we spent rolling out my biceps, and then some straight arm shoulder/bicep loosening exercises.

For breakfast, I had a two block (1 cup blueberries, 6 almonds and 2oz of summer sausage) breakfast.
I supplemented that with an Atkins bar (not sure how many blocks that is,  but it's pretty low carb and 240 calories of protein and fat). Once I got to work I chomped on almonds throughout the day.  I buy organic almonds by the pound at Whole Foods, and I think it is a little too convenient, as I eat them all day. 
For lunch, I had a steak salad, nothing very interesting. A chunk of steak, medium rare, sliced pretty thin on a bed of spinach with a little vinaigrette. 

For "After school snack," I had another cup of blueberries, 2 oz or so of salami/summer sausage, and 7 almonds. 

For dinner, I had four almonds (I have already had more than enough today), and egg salad on a lettuce leaf. I am going to try to skip the blueberries, as I want to frontload the carbs to earlier in the day.

Oh -- and for dessert, or just to not make me feel hungry...I had another Atkins bar. Gonna try to finish all the ones I have here at home and see if I can replace them with something a little more paleo friendly!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Horiatiki omelette for lunch!

For those who think that you can't have a delicious lunch while on paleo, try Georgia's Greek deli on 85th st and 3rd Ave in Seattle's Ballard/Greenwood neighborhood. I had a three (maybe four) egg horiatiki omelette, with kalamata olives, green and red onions, green and red peppers, capers and feta cheese. Yum! Eggs for protein, olives and feta for fat and peppers and onions are good carbs. Throw on a little Tabasco and i say again: yum!
 

I also asked them to leave off the (exceptionally good) Greek hash browns and ordered an English muffin as the bread, which I gave to my 7 year old, which kept the bad carbs off my plate. It's tough for me to not eat the potatoes and bread when it's on my plate, so I try to be proactive in making sure to not cook those. It also stops that food from going to waste!

Less exciting, I followed that up with a 5:00 snack of 2oz of Summer sausage, 6 almonds and a cup or so of blueberries.

Dinner was a veritable plethora of foods from Ballard Market -- I had two serving spoons full of tuna salad and one serving spoon full of egg salad, served on lettuce leaves. And one piece of falafel - maybe 1/4-1/2 oz.

First day of Paleo challenge, Sunday morning.

I woke up this morning and weighed a pound more than yesterday morning, ugh! It may have something to do with the double stuff oreo cakesters that I ate in the morning before the "before" picture. So now I'm back on the straight and narrow.

I started the day with a 4-block breakfast, although split into two parts.

About 2.5-3oz of Beef Summer Sausage for protein
9 almonds (blue diamond, roasted salted) for fat
about 2 cups of blueberries for carbs

If anyone is interested in zone diet blocks, you can find them here: Zone Diet Blocks


Saturday, September 10, 2011

Paleo Challenge, Take 2!

We started the fall Paleo Leaning challenge today, at Level 4 Crossfit. I weighed in this morning at 167.7 or so, which is within one pound of what I weighed at the end of the last Paleo challenge. Annelisa gave me a hearty congratulations for being able to maintain. That's one way to look at it...I was down to 162 at one point a few weeks after the challenge ended, but I wasn't able to maintain that weight. I'm going to set a target of getting to 160 in the next seven weeks, although it will be tough because I have the "geekend" coming up in a few weeks, where we sit around for a long weekend and drink beer, play games and eat a ton of food. Fortunately, the meals are mostly paleo friendly -- chicken wings, steak, eggs for breakfast, etc. The hard part is the avoiding the beers, miscellaneous chocolate bars and chips and other crap which floats around. I am pushing for buying almonds and blueberries for snacks, which might help.

I also have to go to a wedding in China one weekend near the end of the challenge, so that will be another challenge challenge.

I had my picture taken by Nancy this afternoon, so my first official meal of the paleo challenge was at Romio's pizza (now Razzi's pizza), 85th and Greenwood. They have a gluten-free menu, which I took advantage of. Nothing too exciting...I had a greek salad, hold the tomatoes. The dressing seemed like mostly olive oil and some herbs and spices, maybe a little vinegar of some sort. It had about 6 olives for fat, and some feta cheese crumbles. I had about 3oz of beef summer sausage when I got home to cover my protein needs.

I'm also taking 10 fish oil caplets (about 3g of DHA + EPA) per day, and some 5-HTP and ZMA to help me sleep, and maybe to promote muscle recovery. All of these are available from Amazon. Some of them you can get through the Subscribe and Save program (Save 15% off the price if you sign up to get regular deliveries). Good luck to all who are participating!