Spring 14 Paleo Challenge, Week 1

Sunday, 3/23
Breakfast -
4oz meatloaf (grass fed hamburger, gluten free bread crumbs, chopped onions and celery) with homemade sauce (ketchup with chipotle peppers added)
8oz glass of "attitude cleanse" veggie juice (beets, ginger, cayenne, assorted veggies) from Alive Juice Bar
2tsp (6g of fat) organic almond butter

Lunch
4oz meatloaf
2 cups blueberries
1 tsp almond butter

Snack
2oz summer sausage
1 tsp almond butter
8oz veggie juice

Dinner
5oz meatloaf
80g sweet potato, raw, sliced
2tsp almond butter
4oz veggie juice

Monday, 3/24
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 3 slices bacon

Lunch
Spinach salad with peppers, pickled onions, balsamic vinaigrette and 4oz Salmon

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Dinner
6-7 chicken skewers (1oz each?)
2tsp almond butter
1 cup blueberries

Tuesday, 3/25
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 2 slices bacon
2 tsp Almond butter

Side note: First time I have used the second hole in my belt for a while!

Lunch
Spinach salad with peppers, pickled onions, sheep feta, eggs, balsamic vinaigrette, and 4oz salmon on top

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Dinner
5oz chicken bratwurst with 1-2 tsp of mayo
Homemade sweet potato chips (unknown qty)

Wednesday, 3/26
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 3 slices bacon

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Lunch
Steak Salad at cuoco

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Dinner
~6oz ribeye steak
Salad with balsamic and sheep feta
1/3 hot dog
2 tsp almond butter

Muscle up transition practice after dinner!

Thursday, 3/27
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 3 slices bacon

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Lunch
Salad

Snack
Nugo Organic Bar

Workout with Zack -- handstand practice and hammy stretching!

Dinner 

6oz grassfed beef burger, light BBQ sauce

2 slices bacon
1 tbsp (14g fat) of coconut oil

Friday, 3/28
Breakfast
3 egg scramble, 3 slices of bacon "the usual"

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Lunch
Spinach salad, added a little kale this time along with my usual toppings.

Snack
4oz organic beef jerky

Dinner
Steak with sheep feta, spinach and spices rolled inside it
Cauliflower and Sweet potato dish of some sort
10 almonds
asparagus/leeks/pine nuts/bacon bits dish of some sort

After dinner snack
~2oz summer sausage and 1/2 cup blueberries

Saturday, 3/29

Crossfit homework (muscle up, ring rows and dips practice) plus Dave's mobility class

Brunch

3 egg "el diablo" omelet at Hale's, with goat cheese and veggies

7 slices of bacon

Snack
1/2 cup of blueberries
2oz or so of summer sausage
6 almonds
4oz organic beef jerky

Dinner
Leftovers from last night
3tsp almond butter
1/2 cup blueberries

Sunday, 3/30
Munched throughout the day...
20 almonds, 3 tsp almond butter, 4-6 oz of summer sausage, 4oz beef jerky, 3 cups blueberries
6oz reheated steak

Dinner
Eggs, chicken sausage, kale scramble
2tsp almond butter

Pre-Paleo Challenge Spring 2014 (v7)

Started the Paleo Challenge today, but have been cleaning up my diet for the last week in preparation. Returned from a week of vacation and then a week of out of town corporate meetings, to find my weight at a Crossfit-era record high of 193. My allergies were acting up so much that for a week I couldn't sleep due to nasal congestion and itchy eyes. I was taking my prescription nasal spray and eye drops, plus Zyrtec, plus benadryl to sleep. And I would still wake up with itchy, inflamed eyes.

For the last week, I've been trying to be pretty strict Paleo -- no Gluten for sure, minimum Dairy (I even stopped putting whip cream on my blueberries). My allergies have cleared up, although not sure whether that's because it was really tree pollen, or because I've cleaned up the diet. I do know that the summer that I was very strict Paleo (2011), I didn't once use any allergy medication for the first time since I was five years old.

Nancy took my "before" picture at the gym on Friday night, and we take the after pictures on May 24th, after 7 weeks.

Coming up on a month of strict paleo

Stopped I'm on week 4, and I'm down about 7 pounds from where I started, although most of that loss was in the first week. Today, I stuck mostly with my normal diet.
Monday
Breakfast - Omelet and side of Bacon
Lunch - Steve's Paleo Jerky and about 10 almonds
Snack - More jerky (Golden Valley Natural) when I got home.
Dinner - Left over corned beef brisket, cauliflower, and broccoli
I went to the gym after dinner and did Wendler back squats, finished at 5x130kg. Hard!
Post-workout snack - Protein shake and blueberries

Tuesday
Breakfast - Omelet and side of Bacon
Snack - 10 almonds
Lunch at the airport, Qdoba steak, veggies an guac
Snack on the plane - Beef jerky and potato chips
Dinner - burger with goat cheese and onions, no bun or fries.

Wednesday
Breakfast - Omelet and bacon, and some chicken sausage
Lunch - corned beef sandwich, hold the sandwich. Tuna salad and a bit of salad
Dinner - ceasar salad with steak tips, no croutons
Snack on the plane - Beef jerky and back of potato chips
Snack at home - 1/8 cup blueberries, tsp of almond butter, and some beef jerky

Thursday
Breakfast - omelet and bacon
Lunch - salad with salmon
Snack -nugo organic bar
Pre-workout - Gu packet
Workout with Steve: Trap Bar DL, finished w/ 5@150kg. Not too shabby!
Then did a WOD - AMRAP 12min:
6 Push Press (45kg)
8 burpees
10 KB Swings
Steve diagnosed my problem as burpees, and BW exercises in general...something to work on!
Post-workout snack - Protein shake and a few slices of sweet potato, and two tsp Almond butter
Post-snack snack - 1/4 cup blueberries and some beef jerky.

Friday

We are headed for chelan this weekend, which will hurt the diet a bit, but hopefully not disastrously. 

For breakfast, I had the usual bacon and eggs. Didn't have lunch because I was booked at work and them off to massage (yay!)

We then loaded up the van around 4 and headed for chelan. I snacked on beef jerky and had a diet Pepsi (boo!) to stay awake during the ride. Stopped at cle elum for dinner at a Mexican place. Had carne Asada with no beans and rice.

Saturday I worked out at cvcf. 5 rounds of 400m run, 20 burpee box jump overs, 30 75 lb push press...40 minutes, ugh!

Had an omelet after that at the apple cup cafe. We went to "sip and stroll" that afternoon where we tasted 10 wines while walking around downtown chelan. That evening, we went to dinner with friends: ribeye steak, caramelixed onions, asparagus. For appetizers, had artichoke heart and goat cheese dip on gluten free crackers. And a bunch more wine. 27 days with no alcohol, not too bad!

Sunday

Went to 8am hot yoga to get rid of the toxins from night before. Had an omelet with summer sausage for breakfast and a bottle of Kevita lemon cayenne probiotic cleanse. Snacked on summer sausage and late lunch of blackened salmon Caesar salad. Finished off the day with goat cheese on rice crackers, an uncured hot dog, and a bowl of blueberries.

Monday (no weigh in this morning because we're in chelan)

Omelet with summer sausage and goat cheese and bolt house farms veggie juice. it advertises the veggies in large print on the bottle, but when you read the small print, the first ingredient is pear juice. 19g sugar. Not sure if the goodness from the veggies outweighs the badness of the sugar.

Stopped at the Roslyn cafe on the way back from chelan and had an omelet with sausage, bacon, onions and peppers in it. Topped with cheddar.
Didn't really have much for dinner. Felt bad from the big omelet. Just a bowl of blueberries.

Tuesday morning weigh-in: 182.2, down about 8.5 lbs since I started 4 weeks ago.

Week 3 of the Fall '13 Paleo revival

Week 3 - Monday's food log:
Breakfast - omelet with veggies, and side of bacon
Lunch - Spinach and mixed greens salad (with other veggies), topped with salmon
Snacks - Nugo Organic bar, and Tanka bar
Dinner - hamburger with mayo, frozen veggies, a few almonds

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Nugo Organic bar (lame!)
Lunch - Spinach, mixed green, veggies salad, with 4oz salmon
Pre-workout snack - 1/4 cup blueberries
Workout with Steve - Following the bad ass workout this weekend (clean ladder! See previous post), Steve took it easy on me. Sets of 8 trap bar deadlift. Worked up to 140kg x 8 reps. Then did 20 Minutes EMOTM, 1 tire flip with the 900 lb tire. Right up my alley. Finished with dead bug core strengthener. I had a egg white protein shake after the workout, before dinner. 23g Protein.
Dinner - Chicken adobo (one breast) made with splenda, a few slices of summer sausage, 12 stalks of asparagus, and about 6 almonds after dinner. Did 3x15 OHS with the PVC afterwards, to get the heart rate up a bit. That's what Tim Ferriss says to do.

Wednesday morning:
Day 16 of the revival! 183.3 this morning, down 7.5 lbs...not a bad first 16 days.
Breakfast - omelet and bacon, as per usual at the cafeteria
Snack - Nugo organic bar
Lunch - usual salad with 4oz of fish on top.
Snack - Nugo Organic bar
Snack - Steve's Paleo Jerky when I got home
Dinner - 6oz grassfed steak, ~1/4 cup blueberries and 12 almonds
After dinner, did what has become my active recovery workout -- 3 sets of 15 Overhead Squats with the PVC. In between, I used the softball to roll on my glutes, the roller on my quads/IT bands, the 7" ball on my abs/psoaz, ankle mobs against the wall. Lots of mobility stuff for me to do OHS. When I was done, I watched a video on how to learn to do a back tuck in 10 minutes (sent it to Steve). The last 2.5 minutes of the video, I was in a pretty deep squat. 1/4 of the way to finishing the Starrett 10 minute squat challenge! I've done it before, with 5 2-minute squat holds. I think I could do more now. I couldn't get my ankles quite on the ground in the full deep squat, but had I been in lifting shoes, they woulda been. Calling it a victory for now.

Thursday:
Started the day with bacon and eggs at the cafeteria
For lunch, went to the sushi place, but rather than get the high GI rice sushi, I had a bento box with beef yakinimu (or something like that) and kalbi beef. There was some soy sauce (with gluten) in there, but overall not too bad. Went trick or treating with the kids at work today, and the beverage buyer offered me "Zevia" and Diet Tonic Water from her stash. The Zevia had sugar alcohol (erhythritol?) along with Stevia in it and the Diet Tonic Water had Aspartame in it. It pays to read the label! I had a few sips of each before leaving them behind. Had about 10 almonds when I got back to my office.
For dinner, we're going out to a pizza place and I'm going to have crustless pizza, which consists mostly of mozzarella, pizza sauce and toppings (pepperoni and jalapeno). There's a lot of calories there, but I'm due for a cheat day so my body doesn't adapt to the low calorie input. So I think I'm going to do it! The plan is to do some OHS or something to burn a little bit of calories after dinner.
Man - that crustless pizza was yummy! I coulda eaten two of them...instead I came home and did some OHS, but weight will probably still be up in the morning!

Friday!
I started the morning with a workout with Steve. We did some mobilizations and then the workout was "5 minutes of work." How hard could that be? 1 min - 20 seconds AMRAP push press, 20 second AMRAP Box Jump, 20 second AMRAP burpees. Then get 5-6 minutes of rest, and do it again for 5 rounds. I was able to stay consistent at 19-21 push presses, 9-10 box jumps and 7-9 burpees. Apparently the longer it takes to recover, the more elite you are, because you are able to work at higher intensity during the minute.

I got home and didn't have time to eat, so I had Steve's Paleo Jerky for breakfast when I got to work. I didn't have time for lunch either, so ended up having some almonds and an "attitude cleanse" veggie juice at the juice bar, and then another pack of Paleo Jerky at the end of the day, along with about 4 almonds.

Dinner was corned beef, asparagus and "cabbage noodles" which is a recipe my mom found in a paleo cookbook. Yum!

Saturday:
Went to Mike's L2 class on Saturay morning. WOD:
AMRAP 10 Min: 5 60kg C/J, 7 Toes to Bar, 9 20lb Ball Slams. 5 rounds + 2 reps
Then stuck around for Dave's Mobility class. Dave said he's "really excited" about the progress I've made on my handstands! And Dave does not give praise lightly...
Post-workout meal - El Diablo omelet at Hale's with goat cheese instead of cheddar jack, and extra veggies.
Snacks throughout the day - omelets, beef jerky, blueberries around the house.
Dinner: Pizza from Razzi's with Gluten Free crust.
OHS after dinner, 3x15 with PVC pipe.

Sunday:
Breakfast - several slices of summer sausage, left over corned beef, and 1/4 cup blueberries
Pre-workout snack - trying a new idea today. Had an egg white protein shake, 5 almonds and a 1/4 cup of blueberries before the two hour "competition class." It will either ensure I have plenty of energy during class, or go horribly wrong...we will see.
Great workout with Steve and the competition class
Started with 4 rounds of:
AMRAP dips (2020 tempo, aka slow up and down)
2 rope climbs (I finally was able to do them. Did two sets of 2, 2 sets of 1)
Max Freestanding handstand with a spotter

Then moved into the team workout. Team Event 4 from 2010 CF games.
Each team consists of 2 men and 2 women, women start, and go through:
75 Backsquats (40kg)
40 Pullups
25 Shoulder to Overhead (40)
75 Front Squats (30)
40 Pullups
25 Shoulder to Overhead (30)
75 OHS (20)
40 Pullups
25 Shoulder to Overhead (20)
Men hold the bar during transitions, and during the pullups. Bar never hits the ground
Then repeat with men at weights 60, 40, 30, with women holding bar during transitions and pullups.

Our team ended up winning with a time of 36:37. My partner was a pullup machine, but I paid him back with doing extra push presses on the first two sets. All in all a fun workout. Was happy I could knock out several sets of 10 OHS at 30kg. I couldn't do that a few months ago!

Post workout, I had another egg white protein shake, and a few glutino gluten free pretzels. Probably not the best thing, but I wanted a little bit of carbs. For dinner, organic uncured hotdogs from applegate and kale and goat cheese salad!

Monday morning weigh-in::183.8, plus half a pound or so from last week :(
That's what happens when I cheat a little too much on the pizzas....

2nd week back on the strict paleo

Last week, I recommitted to the Paleo diet after spending the weekend in Chelan drinking wine, eating gluten and other crap, and eating sugary "trip snacks" while driving home. The first week was very successful, as the first week of diets usually is - down 5 lbs from 190 to 185. Goal weight is 175. I expect that I will not lose another 5 lbs this week, but I would like to lose 1 or 2, so continuing with the food log to keep myself focused.

Started the morning with an omelet at the work cafe, with a side of bacon. For lunch, we went to Flying Fish, and I had a steak (about 4oz), hold the udon noodles, double down on the veggies, with hoisin sauce. Upon returning to my office, I supplemented the lunch with nine almonds.
I got out of work early, so I grabbed a builder's bar when I got home and ate half of it on the way to the crossfit. This was my third day in a row, so I thought active recovery was in order. I went to Mike's snatch class, thinking that the light weights would be perfect for this. Unfortunately, I saw the other guys doing deadlifts, and got jealous. So Mike let me do my own deadlifts. Did Wendler 5/5/5, finishing at 135kg x5 reps. That seemed like enough for the day. I am now finishing the rest of the builder bar, and getting ready to eat dinner, which looks like a 4oz grassfed steak, and the rest of the mashed sweet potato. I had a tsp of almond butter and a couple fiber choice tablets to get some fat and fiber.

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Another omelet, and a side of bacon, 3 almonds in my office
Lunch: Corned beef hash (root veggies, no potatoes) with eggs on top. Ate half of it, boxed up the rest. Had 9 almonds as an afternoon snack.
Dinner: I had some beef jerky when I got home, along with a few tsp of almond butter. Jen heated up some brisket (about 4oz) with bbq sauce, so I ended up with double the protein I needed, and less carbs than needed.

Wednesday:
Skipped breakfast (intermittent fast!)
Lunch: package of paleo beef jerky, and about 16 almonds
Snacks in the afternoon:  Nugo organic bar, tanka bar...not a good afternoon. Need some good carbs before Steve/Jim's class tonight! This is the first time I've been hungry over the last two weeks.
More snacks when I got home: 4 slices of sweet potato and half a bowl (<1/4 cup) blueberries.
Went to Jim's class and it was what we call a "grinder!"
Start out with five rounds alternating between power cleans (45kg, 55, 60, 65, 70) and 3x muscle up negatives.
Then the workout:
EMOTM for 12 minutes
Power cleans at 80% 1RM (70kg) then 10 DU and jump rope for rest of the minute, no rest.
Then
EMOTM for 16 minutes
ODD 200m row
EVEN 12 situps
Then Partner 2k row

After class, for extra credit I did 2 muscle ups on the high rings.

Then, home for dinner:
6oz grassfed ribeye
Kale salad with goat cheese crumbles and balsamic vinaigrette
The rest of the 1/4 cup of blueberries from earlier. I felt healthy with every bite I was eating!

Thursday:

Omelet and bacon for breakfast

Spinach salad with 4oz salmon for lunch

About 12-16 almonds for afternoon snack

Dinner was a chicken breast (with bone and skin on) and some mixed frozen veggies. I supplemented with a hunk of brisket and a bowl of blueberries.

Friday:
Took the morning off of work, went to Jim's movement class. Did lots of goblet squats and broad jumps, and finished with 1 MU, for extra credit!
Tried my egg white shake in water, very yummy and 23g of protein, when I got home.
Then Jen and I went to the Ballard Skillet for brunch. Deconstructed corned beef hash, hold the fingerling potatoes. Yum!
Dinner: two hunks of brisket (10oz?), 1/4 cup blueberries and 10 lime and chili almonds

Saturday:
I got up and went to the Level 2 Crossfit class down at the gym. Great workout today -- A reverse clean ladder (10, 9, 8...1) cleans, with a round of Cindy (5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats) between each set. I did the Rx weight, 55kg, on the cleans, and was pretty much dead after the 17 minutes it took me.
Came home and had an egg white protein shake mixed up in Coconut milk. I had never had coconut milk, but it's pretty thick and about 90% fat. I don't think I'll be doing that again! It seems to have taken its toll on my digestive system too...not sure if it was the coconut milk or the xylitol that they snuck into the protein powder. Will have to experiment with that.

Then I had a hunk of brisket for good measure while I watched the Crossfit Invitational, live from Berlin! Team World, including my favorite Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet upset the Team USA team. Pretty fun stuff! I had several slices of sweet potato along with that. For snack later I had about 6 slices of summer sausage with mayo.
For dinner, we had leftover chicken breast and kale salad with goat cheese and vinaigrette.
Family is having ice cream for dessert, but I'm going to pass. It is tempting to have a "cheat day" or even a cheat meal, but it seems to take several days to recover from that (weight  up, cravings for sugar return, etc). So I'm gonna go ahead and abstain. Week 2 weigh in on Monday morning, hope to at least maintain the 5 lbs loss from last week.

Sunday:
Had a 3 egg scramble with goat cheese, and a couple slices of summer sausage for breakfast. Mid morning snack was some beef jerky and about 10 almonds (lime and chili).
Lunch: The rest of the brisket (8oz?), 10 almonds, and a 1/4 cup of blueberries.
Monday morning weigh-in: 184.0, down 6.8 pounds in 2 weeks.

1 day at a time...

In the many months since I stopped my food journal, I have gained about 14 lbs, from 176 to 190. I've gotten a bunch stronger as well. I can now Deadlift 400 lbs, overhead squat 110 for a set of 3, and can manage a muscle up at this heavy weight. My squat has also gotten deeper.

So now my friend Annelisa (who is in Phoenix) and I are going to start keeping track of our food intake, and I'm going to try to get back to about 175. If so, I think I will like what I see with all the extra muscle!
Another friend of mine, who spent some time at AA, told me you don't have to take it one day at a time, you have to treat your diet like alcoholism, one hour at a time.

So, after a weekend in Chelan including a bunch of wine and a little gluten.  And a long drive home with sugary "trip snacks," I resolved to get back on the straight and narrow as of yesterday, Monday 10/14.

Monday morning, I got up and had a 3 egg scramble with peppers and onions (not nearly enough carbs) and a side of bacon. This is my standard breakfast when I eat at the work cafe. Along with a glass of (fresh squeezed 2 wedges) lemon water.
We had an all day "offsite" with my staff and I have now trained our department assistant that no food aside from lunch is allowed in the conference room, because I will stare at it for six hours then eat 14 cookies. So I was clean all morning and afternoon.
I had a tanka bar for snack at about 11am, then a spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette, topped with 4 oz of steelhead salmon.

In the evening, we did a "team-building event" on an electric boat. There was beer, wine, meat on a stick, veggies on a stick, and potato salad. I had several kabob like things of beef. It was marinated in soy sauce, so not quite gluten free, but better than potato salad. I also drank talking rain water rather than beer or wine. Good on me! I ended up having a scoop of peanut butter in the middle of the night to help me get back to sleep.

Tuesday, I had the same breakfast -- bacon and scrambled eggs, with peppers and onions. I also had a scoop of organic almond butter before I left home to provide the fat. I had a tanka bar for snack around 11, then 2-3 oz of beef jerky and another tanka bar in the afternoon. a little soy sauce in the jerky, but again maybe not the worst thing I could have.
After work, in preparation for the gym, I had an ounce or two of sweet potato, a GU packet, and a spoonful (1-1.5 tsp) of almond butter.
For dinner, Jen made savory roasted chicken and mashed sweet potatoes. Yum! Two days clean...one hour at a time.

Wednesday morning breakfast, I had leftover peppers, onions and chicken from our meal at La Brisa, so fried these up in walnut oil and scrambled three eggs with them. Instant Paleo omelet!

For lunch, I again had a spinach salad with various veggies, balsamic vinaigrette, and 4oz salmon. In the evening, I went to the bar with some friends for several hours, but was able to stick to water for the whole time! On arriving home, I had a tsp of almond butter, a leftover chicken sausage, and a big spoonful of mashed sweet potato. Unfortunately, this is at about 11pm. 

Thursday morning, day 4!!

I weighed in this morning 3 lbs lighter than Monday, 187.5. Part of this was small dinner last night (not really sustainable), but part was that I didn't drink any wine! I drank about three big bottles of pellegrino. This morning, I had an omelet at work, with a side of bacon, and for lunch, a spinach salad with some sweet potato and other veggies, topped with 4oz salmon and balsamic vinaigrette. I threw in a package of Steve's club's Beef Jerky (28g protein, 4 blocks).

I worked out with Steve tonight...presses, bench, 1 min rows...

Dinner was an organic grass fed hot dog (56g), big scoop of mashed sweet potato and a tsp of almond butter. Still no wine! 

Update: Didn't eat enough...was up at 11:30 and had another tsp of Almond butter, and then again at 1:30 for several slices of sweet potato.

Friday (Day 5 of the 1 day at a time plan!)

Breakfast - Omelet with side of bacon at work

Snack - Steve's beef jerky

Lunch - Corned beef hash with three eggs up. I could only eat half of it, which is very sad, and then I forgot to take the leftovers with me!

Dinner - It's Shabbat dinner, which means there's wine and dessert, so I'm in the danger zone again, but I think I can hold out! Update: held out...no dessert. We had brisket with yummy, ketchup-based bbq sauce. Very yummy, but kinda sugary from the bbq sauce. :( Salad along with that.

Saturday

Got up and headed for the gym. Did Mike's 9am class, which consisted of Romanian Deadlifts (up to 80kg), and then for the WOD, we did 7 min AMRAP with a partner, I go you go. 5 deadlifts, 4 cleans, 3 front squats. Started with 50kg, but moved up to 60kg and did some extra rounds because my partner went slow. I stayed for Dave's 10am mobility class where we did lots of ab work. Always fun. Finished with a couple muscle ups on the high rings after class.

I then headed over to Hale's for brunch of an El Diablo omelet (sub goat cheese for pepper jack) and a side of bacon. Yum!

Afternoon snacks - tsp of almond butter and a bowl (1/2 cup?) of blueberries.

Dinner - Three pieces (about 10oz) of brisket with bbq sauce. After dinner, a couple tsp of almond butter. 

Sunday 

This will be one week of good eating! Started the morning (around 10am) with an onion and goat feta cheese omelet (3 eggs). Headed for the gym at 3pm for Steve's "performance" class. That usually lasts two hours, and then will have dinner. 

Snack - 1/4 cup blueberries and 1 tsp almond butter

Had a gu packet before crossfit then headed off to class. We started with 4 rounds (not for time) of 5 hspu, 3 rope climbs and then AMRAP double unders. I could only do about 1 rope climb at a time, although Steve taught me how to do the Spanish wrap which should make it easier.  And I did 40 singles instead of doubles. 

Once we finished that, we did 1RM close grip bench press (102kg) and 1RM power clean (90kg). Steve gave me a larabar to keep me going...

We finished with a bunch if prowler pushes. 5 rounds of 50m @90% with 90s rest.Then 3 rounds of 75m @100% with 5 min rest. The final rounds kicked my ass.

After class, I had a veggie protein shake (23g protein) and a small piece (2oz?) of brisket. Then we went out to dinner at Georgia's and had Macedonian peppers, lamb souvlaki, a little falafel, hummus, 6 Kalamata olives, and some grilled veggies. I'm stuffed!

Final tally for the first week of renewed dieting: 185.2, down 5 lbs from last Monday! Starting a new post for week 2.

Trying to get lots of protein

Wednesday, 12/8 -- Day 2
This morning i weighed about 184 lbs. This seems like as good a weight at any to start my own personal paleo challenge. It's the same weight I was at beginning the first paleo challenge in the spring. I started the day with about three oz of summer sausage [13g protein], a bowl of blueberries and a Steve's Ironman Paleokit [35g protein, 27g carb]. I have the bad feeling that I'm gonna have to cut back on the fructose from the Paleo kits and the blueberries.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm out of paleo kits for now. So I'll not be getting the carbs from that anymore. I'll have to replace the protein with the powder I ordered from Amazon yesterday (should be here tomorrow with Prime shipping!)

Lunchtime was a burger, no bun [28g of protein] and some fries (booo!) Fries are high Glycemic index, but at least gluten and dairy free.

I had a 70% cocoa chocolate bar to get through the afternoon, and another third of a loaf of summer sausage for 13g protein.

At the barking dog, I got a 10 oz hamburger! [70g protein]. The tally for the day is not sooo bad:

13+13+28+35+70 = 159g.

I also had three glasses of wine, which should be ok (?). I think that they may have been 8oz pours, because I didn't feel so hot this morning.

Thursday
I woke up early this morning after my several glasses of wine last night and was able to convince myself to go down to the Crossfit for the 7am class. It was "Squat day" in the Wendler 5-3-1 program, and I was on the 5/3/1+ week, so finished with 12 reps at 103kg. Not so bad! Next week I'll move my theoretical 1rep max up to 125kg or 130kg and start the cycle again. If you're interested in getting strong, and/or curious about what the 5-3-1 program is, check out this link: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/how_to_build_pure_strength

Post-workout breakfast is 2.5oz of summer sausage [about 11g protein] and a bowl of blueberries, no whip cream. I'm out of the Paleo Kits and deciding whether to order some more. I think I will, although before I do that, I want to figure out if I'm going to try to cut out berries in order to cut down on fructose carbs. I should get my vegetable protein powder today from Amazon which will replace the protein I was getting from the Paleo kits if my stomach can handle it!

Hmm, just decided that I would get the Grass fed Just Jerky from Steve's. 28g of protein, no carbies. I ordered a 25 pack for about $6/pack.

Lunch consisted of two 4oz patties of Grass fed beef burger [56g protein], hold the bun, hold the bacon, hold the cheese. they also gave me french fries. I have some cognitive dissonance around fries. They are gluten-free, but high GI and probably have about 70g of carbs. I should probably find some other veggie carbs.

Dinner - a 1/2 pound steak [56g protein] and a little bit of salad. Had to forego the cheesy bits that Jen had added to the salad. For "dessert," I had my first shake with the new veggie protein powder [23g protein]. It has all kinds of stuff in it - chlorophyll, spirulina, algae, and rice, pea and hemp protein! Didn't taste bad, but hard to mix up, even with the little mixey thing that we have. May have to use the blender in the future.

Total protein for the day:
11+56+56+23=146g protein.  A little low.

Friday
This morning I was up and at-em for the 12 days of Crossfit at our box. Like the song, you do 12 rounds of stuff, each one adding one more thing onto it. It was a brutal 40 minute WOD.  I had Ribose-D in water before the workout, and afterwards I had 2.75oz of summer sausage [11g protein] and some carrots. Also, I had one scoop of Veggie protein in about 8oz of water [11g protein], which affected my stomach less than the two scoops I had last night. I will probably try to have one scoop in the morning and one at night.

For lunch, I had a double burger and fries again [56g protein]. I forgot to get the seasonal veggie medley until it was too late, so I got them dang ol' carby fries. So I'm only at 78g protein so far. I'm not too worried because tonight is potluck at the gym, and Dave usually makes copious amounts of chicken sausages, so I can probably put down close to 100g of protein from those!

Starting again, but not as part of the Paleo challenge

It's about six weeks after the Paleo challenge, and I'm up to 184 lbs. That's up 22 lbs from my minimum weight back in June while I was training for the half marathon. It's not all bad, as I've been working on putting on some muscle. Unfortunately, it's not clear how much of the additional weight is fat and how much is muscle.

But...I have learned some stuff over the past six weeks. My goal since the middle of the paleo challenge was to put on muscle. From reading the blogs, I learned that I had to eat an enormous amount of protein along with lifting in order to put on muscle. So I bought some protein powder, whey based, and started drinking a lot of milk. One morning I put two servings of protein powder (22g protein x2) in a 16oz glass of milk (8g of protein x2), and I learned what people meant by "my stomach didn't handle it well.  They mean you get gas. Lots of gas. So I ruled out dairy as a source of protein, which also ruled out my atkins bars, which has 20g of protein each, but this was mostly from whey as well.

I then went to get a food allergy test, as suggested by Duncan at the gym. I went to my doctor who did an "IGE" test. I never actually saw the doc. The nurse took my blood and called me with the test results, which said basically that I wasn't allergic to anything.  I was telling a friend about this, and he suggested I go to his naturopath doctor. Long story short, I did. She did the IGG food allergy test, and it turns out I'm allergic to lots of stuff! Including pretty much all dairy (except sheep and goat's milk), gluten of course, beef and lamb came out high, as well as almonds, garlic, and some beans. After getting this I scheduled an appt with her to review the results. In the two weeks before the appt, I figured that I'd be on the kale juice only diet once we met. It turned out not so bad. She said I can still eat meat, but I should completely cut out gluten and dairy, and cut out eggs, beans, and garlic and almonds for the first month. Strange, that's the paleo diet - no gluten, beans and dairy! Go figure.

In addition, she has given me a ton of supplements to take -- Seriphos (to sleep better), which lowers cortisol levels, multi-vitamin, mega-dose (5000IU) of D3, sublingual DHEA to promote the breakdown into different testosterones, Taurine (I was low on taurine, which is an essential protein (Amino acid?). That's about it. My medicine shelf looks like a geriatric!
So today, I started on my new gluten and dairy-free diet. For breakfast, I had about a third of a loaf (about 3 oz) of beef summer sausage [13g of protein], along with a bowl of blueberries with no whip cream :(. For lunch, I had a double burger at the work cafe, with no bun and no cheese. [about 56g of protein?] I just read on the net that 1oz of beef is about 7g of protein. I also had some fries. I know these are bad carbs, but since they don't have gluten or dairy, I ate them. I had a 70% cocoa chocolate bar in the afternoon. No bad stuff, but some un needed sugar. For dinner, I had an 8oz steak, and about 3/4 of my wife's steak, so 14x7g = 98g! of protein. Now I'm finishing a big bowl of blueberries for dessert (still no whip cream). Jen made vegetables for dinner, but they were cooked in garlic butter, which I realized too late is dairy, so I passed on this.  So I made it through the first day with no dairy or gluten! And total protein intake was:

Breakfast 13g
Lunch 56g
Dinner 98g
Total = 167g!

That's almost what I need, which is 1g for every pound I weigh. So good start for the first day. I also ordered http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EOKYHK/ref=ox_ya_os_product, which is a plant-based vegan protein powder, made of pea, rice and hemp protein, plus "barley grass, barley juice, spirulina, wheat grass, chlorella, alfalfa, red beet root, broccoli, and chlorophyll." It does have some xylitol, so I hope it is just a small amount and won't give me gas. We will see. This has like 23g of protein per serving.

Unfortunately, I skipped the gym today because my shoulder has been sore. I am hoping getting the gluten out and adding more protein will help reduce the chance of injury! Again, we will see.

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.

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!

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

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, 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.

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 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.

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!

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

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!