Week 2 of the reformation

Monday
Skipped the gym this morning, because I'm trying to get my shoulder well. It's starting to feel better, but I think I may take tomorrow off and see if I can get it nailed.
Started the morning with about 2oz of summer sausage [8g] and a bowl of blueberries.
For lunch, I did well - went to the Garage Cafe for a Grass Fed double burger, hold the bun [56g protein]. Instead of fries today, I got autumn seasonal vegetable medley, which included brussel sprouts, squash, carrots, kale (I think), and onions. They had chimichurri sauce for the meat, and I got them to put it on my veggies instead. Yum!
Tomorrow my beef jerky from Steve's Club should arrive, and my new protein "unsweetened" protein powder. I will see if the unsweetened powder doesn't have xylitol, which may mean I can eat more of it without digestive problems. Tonight, Jen is cooking Steaks that we got from Amazon Fresh. The brand is "NW Grass Fed Beef" so I think that they should be good for me!

This afternoon, I did a search on Amazon for "non-dairy protein bar" and found several results, including the Clif Builder bar. It turns out that the Clif builder bar is available about 100 feet away from me at the vending machine, so I went and tried it. It has [20g] of protein, but a lot of it is soy based, which my stomach didn't seem to handle well. I may try it one more time tomorrow, and see how it goes. there were a couple others on Amazon which were soy, gluten, dairy free which might be another option.

For dinner, I had Jen's leftover steak, about 4oz [28g] plus two turkey sausages [20g], some salad with vinaigrette and goat cheese crumbles, and slices of sweet potato (about 2oz?).

I'm heading over to the gym for Military Press this evening after dinner, then I'm planning on having a Steve's Club beef jerky [28g] for an after workout meal.

Total for today will be:
8+56+20+28+20+28 = 56+56+48 = 160g protein for the day.

Tuesday
Started the day with Steve's beef jerky [28g] and a bowl of blueberries for breakfast.
Lunch was a 1/3 lb burger [42g?] and some fries.

Lots of parties this weekend!

Saturday
Started the day out strong with two hours of crossfit with dave. First hour was hip mobility and the second we did tumbling, rope pull ups and 30 second handstands x8 rounds. 4 min total is a lot of handstands, even against the wall.

For lunch, I had a half pound burger at hale's and followed it up with a snack of summer sausage, protein drink (just one scoop) and a bowl of blueberries. Total protein so far of 80g.
I took Elijah to a bday party and had little mini tacos in corn tortillas, which my gluten free app tells me were compliant. Also was able to avoid eating the cheese which was on the table.

We had folks over for an early chanukah celebration. We had potato latkes and my wife made me a special batch with no matzo meal (which has gluten), so I made it through the night clean on that one. I was able to eat about 10 chunks of deep fried beef with Lysander's rub. Not sure how much protein each was, but I doubt I made it to 100g from the fried beef. I had a 1 scoop glass of Protein shake [12g] before the party which helped with the total protein for the day.

Unfortunately, a friend brought a bag of ghirardelli milk chocolate peppermint bark, and as the evening proceeded and my inhibitions were lowered by our libations, I succumbed to the Peppermint Bark. It didn't break "Rule 1" which is no Gluten, but it broke the no dairy rule. I think this is recoverable.

Interestingly enough, I went to the doctor for the follow up visit on Monday, 12/5 and started the diet on Tuesday, 12/6. I weighed in on 12/6 at 184.2 with 52.6lb body fat, and this morning I weighed in at 186.1 with 49.2 lbs body fat. This is of course according to a body fat scale which is notoriously poor for getting the body fat right. But, it is cause for cautious optimism. Of course, now that I have written this down, I'm sure that things will go sideways tomorrow.

Sunday
This morning, I started the day with a bowl of blueberries, 3 oz of sweet potato (raw, sliced), 5 oz of summer sausage [20g] and 6 turkey sausage sticks [16g]. (And gave the last two pieces of peppermint bark to the kids so I didn't eat them)

The rest of the day was a pretty big fail. I had some more summer sausage [12g?] at midday, and then went to another kid's birthday party. The only thing to eat there (besides cake, sun chips and string cheese which are verboten) was grapes. I had a few of those. I had a glass of 1 scoop protein [12g] when we got home, and then two turkey patties [16gx2] and another glass of protein shake [12g].

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.

Week 7

Monday
Breakfast - pre-workout blueberries and sweet potatoes
Post workout - Double portion of Syntha-6 in Whole milk
Lunch - Steak salad
Snack - Walked past a leftover pepperoni pizza at work and ate two pieces
Snack - 4 beef sticks and a handful of almonds
Dinner - Two chicken sausages, spinach/feta salad, and a little leftover horiatiki salad
Dessert - blueberries and whip cream

Tuesday
Breakfast - Atkins bar
Snack - 70% cocoa chocolate bar
Lunch - Steak salad with balsamic vinaigrette
Snack - small box of raisin and a couple gulps of kale juice
Dinner - Hormel Chili, two bowls of blueberries, slim jim, two beef sticks, two glasses of whole milk, and an atkins bar
Dessert - Bowl of blueberries and whip cream

Wednesday
Breakfast - Atkins bar and a slim jim and a big glass of milk
Snack - 70% cocoa chocolate bar, and Jack Links Beef Jerky
Lunch - Burger hold the bun and a few french fries
Dinner - 5 beef sticks, one tuna patty, one bowl of blueberries, a big glass of milk and some salad
Dessert - Bowl of blueberries with whip cream

Thursday
Breakfast - Atkins bar and a big glass of milk
Lunch - Steak Salad and a smoothie with double protein powder
Dinner - Tuna patty, a glass of milk, broccoli, spinach salad,

Friday
Breakfast - Atkins bar, half a sweet potato
Lunch - Big burger with habanero mayo, jalapenos, satan's tears ketchup (Called the tear jerker) and a butterfinger milkshake
Dinner - Steak and chicken wings

Weekend, week 6

Saturday
Breakfast - Beef sticks, blueberries and a handful of almonds
Lunch - Cheese, more blueberries with whip cream, and a glass of milk
Dinner - Left over Steak
Dessert - bowl of blueberries and whip cream

Sunday
Floor press at the Crossfit - Finished up at 5 reps x 80kg (body weight), but could have done more I think.
Breakfast - 2 scoops of Syntha-6 in 10oz of whole milk and about 1/3 of a sweet potato
Lunch - Blueberries, beef sticks, and an atkins bar
Dinner - Meatballs, almonds, salad with ceasar dressing, peppers and onions, and a little left over broccoli
Dessert - bowl of blueberries with whip cream

Friday week 6

Breakfast - Beef sticks and a slim jim, some almonds and blueberries, and a blueberry/strawberry and whey protein smoothie
Lunch - Four pieces of cheese
Dinner (post workout) - Beef sticks, Blueberries, two small chicken sausages, sauteed peppers and onions, glass of milk, glass of home made kale/beet/lemon juice, 1/2 of a Steve's original Paleo pack.
Snack - Atkins Bar

Thursday week 6

Breakfast - Steve's Paleo kit, plus a bowl of blueberries and half a sausage
Lunch - Salad with a piece of Salmon
Dinner - Various quesadillas at work event, and three glasses of wine.

Wednesday of week 6

Breakfast - nothing
Lunch - Steve's original Paleo Kit
Snack - Bowl of blueberries, three slim jims
Dinner - Hormel Chili, no beans and a bowl of blueberries

Tuesday, week 6

Breakfast - Three egg and cheese omelet, one piece of string cheese
Lunch - Chicken noodle soup, two pieces string cheese
Dinner - Chicken broth

Monday, week 6

Breakfast
Atkins bar, two beef sticks, slim jim, big bowl of blueberries and a handful (maybe 10) almonds
Lunch - Salad at work cafe, with salmon on top
Dinner - Fat free yogurt, two cups of milk, two pieces of cheddar cheese, three fried eggs

Monday, week 5

Monday

Breakfast - A handful of almonds, a couple slices of cheese, two bowls of blueberries

Lunch - snacking throughout the day on almonds, blueberries, cheese, slim jims

Dinner - Two large pieces of chicken, several slices of sweet potato, kale-cucumber-apple-lemon juice, lentils, and paneer saag.

End of Week 4

Went to Crossfit this morning and did weighted ring dips (the Tuesday workout because we're leaving town, then finished with the WoD, "Suicide by Thrusters." Do two "suicides" (think shuttle run from high school gym) and then a minute and a half of Dumbbell thrusters (35lb each side).
Pre-workout - bowl of blueberries and a handful of almonds
Post-workout breakfast - 3 fried eggs, two pieces of cheese, a Hebrew National hotdog (1/8 lb) and a glass (2 cups or so) of whole milk
Lunch with my kids at Hale's Ales - Three egg omelette with cheese, jalapenos and onions, and a few chunks of roasted potato.
Mid-afternoon snack - Atkins bar and some almonds and a glass of milk
Second mid-afternoon snack - Kale and cucumber juice with a splash of apple, strawberry and ginger, made in the Breville juicer
Dinner - 8oz steak, tall glass of milk, and some broccolini.
Snack -Atkins bar

Week 4 Thurs, Fri, Sat

Thursday
Breakfast - 2 eggs, sweet potato and almonds
Lunch - Summer sausage and almonds (stayed home from work)
Dinner - three eggs, 1/2 of a stick of summer sausage (about 4oz) and a glass of whole milk

Friday
Breakfast - One atkins bar
Lunch - 2 pieces of some sort of crustless quiche, salad, and a piece of turkey
Dinner - Finished the summer sausage, some cheese, glass of whole milk

Saturday
Fasted for Yom Kippur
Dinner - Gluten Free pizza and hummus with gluten free pita

Week 4 Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday - I am trying to embrace the "lift big, eat big" diet this week and going forward. I probably will lose the leaning challenge, but I hopefully will make up for it in muscle!

Breakfast - Blueberries, a few slices of sweet potato (I'm starting to like eating sweet potato raw) and a couple eggs, up. And some almonds
Lunch - all day meeting at work so all I had was a hunk of chicken and some salad that was provided. I think I had a couple slices of peach too
Before evening workout snack - A few slices of sweet potato and a slim jim for a little bit of protein. Should have had more preceding the 2k row (ugh!)
Dinner - Two bowls of blueberries (4-5 cups?), about 1/4 of a sweet potato, a couple slim jims, about a third of a summer sausage, sliced and sauteed, some almonds, a couple pieces of string cheese.

Looking back on this, I think I didn't eat enough, even though I'm stuffed, and I seem to be putting on weight (for better or worse!)

Wednesday
Breakfast - Blueberries, sweet potato slices, about half of a beef summer sausage, a couple of pieces of string cheese
Lunch - 8oz Sirloin Steak at the Keg and a small ceasar salad
Dinner - Steak with parsnip potato mash, whatever that is, and for an appetizer a poblano pepper stuffed with some kind of cheese. And several glasses of wine.

The rest of week 3!

Wednesday
B - 2 eggs, 6 almonds, and a bowl of blueberries
L - Deviled eggs and steak salad at seastar
D - Steak and salad

Thursday
B - 3 egg omelette with sauteed sweet potatoes and parmesan cheese
L - 3 egg omelette at Shari's with onions, peppers and cheese
D - 2 beers and 3 pieces of pepperoni pizza (Ugh!)

Friday-Sunday
I was on a long weekend with my buddies, so we were sitting around playing games and eating all day.
I ate 3 gallons of blueberries, a whole package (16oz?) of dried mangoes, and a couple bags of beef jerky throughout the day. In addition
Friday Breakfast - 4 egg omelette with sweet potatoes and mozzarella cheese
Lunch - Pastrami, onions, mayo, banana peppers (no bread)
Dinner - Cheeseburger, hold the bun and one beer (corona)

Saturday
Breakfast - 4 egg omelette with sweet potatoes and mozzarella cheese
Lunch - just snacked all day
Dinner - Buffalo wings (sauce is Frank's red hot sauce and butter)

Sunday
Breakfast - 2 eggs, up
Lunch - leftover wings and two coronas and snacking all day
Dinner - Steak, medium rare, and grilled onions (no potato for me) and 3-4 glasses of wine

Monday
Breakfast - beef jerky, the last of the blueberries and a handful of almonds
Lunch - Wendy's burger (open face) and chicken nuggets (ugh again)
Dinner - 3 eggs up, a couple pieces of cheese, small bowl of blueberries, handful of almonds

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 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

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

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 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.

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!

Lots of bench press and pullups on "vacation" day 3

Yesterday's workout was sort of a grinder, as it seems like is often the case here in Kauai. But fun.

I had planned to take Wednesday of my vacation week as a vacation from Crossfit too. I skipped the morning class, but Melinda went and reported back a "fun" workout. It started with weighted pushups and then the WoD was called "Conga Line." She convinced me to go to the 4:30pm class.
It didn't hurt that I was feeling guilty about having smores with my kids at lunchtime, so this assuaged some of my paleo-inspired guilt.

We started by doing sets of 1 pushup with increasing weight placed on our shoulders. I was able to do a pushup with 100 lbs on my shoulders. The top guy was 145, and the top woman (the legendary Melissa, who I have never met) was able to do 110 lbs.

Then we did seven sets of:
AMRAP bench press
AMRAP pullups
Rest
Me and my partners started at 65 lbs and I was able to do 50 reps at 65, then 12 (kipping) pullups in a set. We then added 10 lbs, and I was only able to do about 26, and again 12 pullups. We ended the last set at 135 lbs, and I was able to do 5. And then another 10 pullups. Overall, around 75 pullups (no band) and over 100 bench press reps.

We finished off the evening with ahi tuna and marlin sushi, yum! Along with diced radishes and cucumbers, and some kim chi, and a side of blueberries to provide carbs. Go Paleo!

"Manion" workout of the day

This morning I worked out again at the 6am class at Kauai Crossfit. One of the advantages of this was that I got to see the sunrise over Kauai from the outdoors "gym."

Today's workout was hero workout "Manion":
7 rounds for time of
400m Run
29 reps back squats (I did 95 lbs, Rx was 135 lbs for men)

Jerome put a time limit of 30 minutes on this workout. I was the only one of the six of us to finish, in 28:15. I think that means I didn't do enough weight on the back squats. But all told it was 203 back squats, so 95 lbs is (to me) respectable. I probably should have done 105.

I got home and had three eggs for breakfast, about 10 almonds and a small bowl of blueberries, then went to see the Rolfer.

The Rolfer (Ken Solin at the Kapaa Massage Center) worked over my arms, shoulders, elbows, and did a bit of work on my hips/pelvis. It will take a few days to know whether it did any good, but he also recommended that I walk around with my elbows farther out from my body than I do today, and that will take strain off of them.

Then we went down to the beach with the whole family and Toby looked for "beach glass". We were there for thirty whole minutes and I don't think I even got a sunburn. We dragged the kids off the beach and out to Bushido Sushi in downtown Kapaa. Jen and I had sushi (I got spicy tuna hand roll, hold the rice for a nice Paleo meal) and the boys had edamame and rice. Most of the rice unfortunately went on the outside of Elijah, not the inside:

Then Elijah fell asleep in the car on the way home!

Kauai Crossfit workout!

First day of vacation on Hawaii time, I awoke before the alarm went off at 5:30 (8:30 pdt) and joined my friend Melinda at Kauai Crossfit.
Melinda told me last night that she was glad she missed the workout of the day on Sunday because it were her "two least favorite exercises put together." -- 100 Wall ball burpees.
We got to the "gym" which is really a 500sf patio with some work out gear, looking out over the beach, and found that Jerome had decided to redux the 100 wall ball burpees. So we had two WoDs -- first we did 500m rows x3 with 90s rest in between. I did 1:45, 1:50, 1:55. And then 100 wall ball burpees for time. I did a 14 lb ball 100x in 11:35 I think. And finish it off with a 1 mile run for cooldown. There was a woman there named Sunshine, who beat me by about 10 seconds with the 14 lb ball as well.
It was nice to see the sun rise over the ocean, but I didn't have a camera, so will have to go back tomorrow for more!
After Crossfit, I made myself a three egg scramble, with eggs from Melinda's chickens that run around her backyard. supplemented with "emergency protein snack" which consists of ground beef, onions and peppers sauteed and then saved in the fridge so that you can snack on protein not crappy carbs!
(btw, it occurred to me that Crossfit is kind of like AA. Even when you're traveling, you need to find "meetings," and you can find them all over the world.)

Paleo in Kauai!

We are on vacation this week, visiting our friend Melinda at her house in Kauai. Melinda is in her third month of crossfit and about third week of paleo eating! We got to her house this evening, and she had a whole chicken, freshly chopped onions, cabbage and garlic in a dish, and was squeezing some lime over it. The recipe is from nom nom paleo.


The lady who writes the nom nom blog is a very busy working mother of two who finds the time to make quick, yummy paleo recipes. So I am looking forward to it! Will try to update after dinner.

Hopefully this week will make up for falling off the wagon and eating mike rupp's awesome hummus and pita last night!

Update from after dinner: went back for seconds on chicken, broccoli and cabbage. As a gravy, she pureed the drippings from the bottom of the chicken/cabbage/onion dish, and we spooned it over the top of everything. Yum!

Suffering on Saturday! at Level 4 Crossfit

Recently, one of the trainers (Jim) and one of the elite guys (BJ) at the Crossfit decided to start a once a week advanced class. They call it Suffering on Saturday, and it is (sort of) by invitation only. The selection process seems to have been somewhat unscientific, because I got on the email list. :)

It is somewhat daunting, but in another way really great, to be the weakest kid in the class. This morning we started with practice doing "Hand stand push ups" where you start from a headstand and kick your feet up and push up with your hands. I could sort of do it with my spotter helping me. But not really without her. The we had not 1 but 2 "Workouts of the Day" (WOD). The first was pretty killer:
1) 5 front squats (1/2 body weight = about 40kg for me) Everyone else did 45kg.
2) 50' tire drag with some fat weights in the tire.
3) 10 push presses (same 1/2 body weight)
2 times through the whole thing
The 50' tire drag was the toughest. My quads were bound up after the first one, and you wouldn't think 50' is that far. Trust me, it is. The best time was 1:03 for the whole thing, I did about 1:47 for the first round and 2:01 for the second round. That shows either how great these guys are, or how far behind I am. Either way, it was pretty tough.
Then we had WOD #2
As many Reps as Possible (AMRAP)
1) 3 Hand Stand Push ups (HSPU)
2) 3 dips (ring or rack)
3) 3 squat cleans (1/2 body weight)
I ended up doing pushups with my feet up on a box instead of the HSPU because I couldn't quite get the HSPU, but I was able to do ring dips throughout and the 40kg cleans. I had to skip the squats on a couple sets at the end because I felt my hip start to hurt on the squats.

All in all, I'm happy to be included and hope I get stronger little by little (or a lot by lot). Heading to Kauai tomorrow, and I'm gonna hit kauai crossfit and see how they do it there.

Half Marathon, muscle up, paleo challenge!

Ugh, I haven't posted since just after the Paleo challenge ended. Lots of interesting things have happened since then. On June 6, I did my first muscle-up! I did a bunch of practice on different pieces -- chest high pullups with a band, weighted pullups, chinups, banded muscleups. But the key thing that made the difference was a hard core false grip. It all came together Saturday, 6/4, the two days before my 41st birthday. I went in on Monday, and made sure the instructors saw it. It hurt my elbow a lot so I haven't done once since. :(

I also dropped from 167.3 at the end of the Paleo challenge, all the way down to 162.3 at one point. But I'm now hovering between 164 and 165. Need to get back on the straight and narrow!

At the end of June, my running partner Annelisa and I ran the Seattle Rock n Roll Half Marathon and finished in 1:56 and 1:57, beating our goal of 2:00. Here's a picture of me at the end of the half marathon

I eventually passed the woman next to me. Annelisa came in one minute after me.

That's about all for now!

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Monday night - Elizabeth

Did a ghetto version of Elizabeth at the Crossfit tonight.
40kg cleans, and banded ring dips (21-15-9) My elbows and arms hurt a lot now.

For my feeding today:
Breakfast -- fasted
Lunch -- a few almonds just before noon, then a albacore spinach salad at Portage Bay Cafe. Not much dressing, just dry fish, spinach, something like pickled beans and a couple other veggies.
Dinner -- Beefsticks x8, A cup or two of berries, handful of almonds, and half an atkins bar. Yum.

Test mobile post

This is a post to test the mobile posting capability of blogger, and to say I'm gonna try to do some rings practice now.

Feeling a bit fat tonight...

Tonight's dinner was about 4oz of grass-fed angus beef, ny strip. We had salad with kalamata olives, various berries (although mostly strawberries), and I grabbed a handful -- around 6 -- wasabi-coated almonds to get the fat content up.

I weighed myself afterwards at 172.6, ugh! But I could be up to 3 lbs lighter in the morning, so hope to come in below 170 in the morning. I hope this "cheat your way thin" thing really works, and I'm not just slowing myself down when eating carbs.

As an aside, I was working on muscle up progressions this morning, based on some videos I saw on youtube. I'm thinking that maybe I'm strong enough but not coordinated enough...although maybe I'm neither. I certainly haven't spent enough time rolling my arms out, which isn't helping. So I'm starting to use the pain ball on my biceps and triceps. Will that help? I don't know, but it probably won't hurt!

Strategic overfeeding

Duncan mentioned to me "strategic overfeeding" as a way to lose more fat. What this means is once a week eating a bunch of carbs, so that the body continues to produce leptins which help burn fat. If one goes on a long term diet, the body will see that as a bad thing and stop producing leptins and start storing all the fat it can, as a survival technique. It takes one week of dieting for leptin production to decrease. So, the idea of this (also called "cheat your way thin") is that if you cheat one day a week, your body will not resist the dieting.

Anyway, today I had two pieces of french toast with maple syrup for lunch, along with hummus and pita. This afternoon I had a cookie too. We will see what the damage from today is, and whether it will be more than overcompensated by the fat/weight I lose the rest of the week.

For the fullness of the food log, I also had a 3 egg feta omelet, several beef sticks, an atkins bar and a couple cups of blueberries/strawberries throughout today.

One other interesting note. We are entering allergy season, and I haven't had any allergy problems (Stuffy nose, congestion) yet, aside from a little bit of itchy eyes. Today, I ate carbs, and I have some congestion. Not bad enough to have to use my nasal spray, but it seems worse than the past few days. If it clears up after a couple no carb days, I am going to start believing that paleo actually helps sinusitis.

One week post-challenge

I did well last week, and started recovering from my binge day. Lost half of the weight that I gained. Today, I went to a kid's bday party this morning, and ate four (children's) slices of pizza. Boo. I am going to run 8 this afternoon, so that may help undo some of the problem. And tomorrow is mother's day, and we are going to the donut store for breakfast for mother's day. So that won't help much.

On a happier note, I won the leaning challenge, based on the improvement over 7 weeks in no-shirt pictures. It was great to be recognized for the diligence I put in. Everyone there was super nice, and that was even better than winning.
:)

Recovering from binge day

Saturday I weighed in at 167.5 and then had my "After" picture taken after the 7 mile run. I then proceeded to begin undoing all the good I had done. Pancakes and maple syrup at ihop, then in the evening pizza, a half bottle of wine, and then cake and then we went to Cold Stone Creamery for Oreo ice cream with marshmallows, caramel and cookie dough. By Monday morning, I weighed 172+, up five pounds. Yikes!

So I got back on the straight and narrow starting Sunday actually. Eggs, summer sausage or other good protein for breakfast. Along with a cup of blueberries and 6 almonds. This is a 2 block meal. I found that I could get below 14 blocks for the day without trying very hard. Two blocks for breakfast, 2-3 for lunch, 2 for snack and 4 for dinner, brought me in at 11 or so.

I tried Tandoori chicken, a couple cups of strawberries and some quac one day for lunch. Today, I had a spicy tuna hand roll, hold the rice, and a couple orders of sashimi at the company cafe. I forgot to eat carbs, so I walked over to whole foods in the afternoon and got a package of mixed berries, and ate half of it. I was back to 169.5 by this morning and hope to get to 169 tomorrow morning. That's a good platform to start knocking off the next 10 lbs or so. Goal: six pack abs. It may take more than 10 lbs, but next stop is 160, and getting under 20% fat. I am at 22% fat, which is 36 lbs, but that's not so bad, considering I was at 40 lbs fat a few weeks ago.

7 mile run by glickdav at Garmin Connect - Details

7 mile run by glickdav at Garmin Connect - Details

Ran 7 miles this Saturday before the "After" picture to end the Paleo challenge. This was week 2 of 9 for the half marathon training program. Working our way up to 13!

Friday, Week 7. Last day!

16 hours til my "After" Picture

Breakfast: 2oz of summer sausage, 6 wasabi almonds, 1 cup of blueberries
Lunch: Around 4oz of corned beef, around 2 cups of strawberries and some grilled veggies
Dinner: 1 chicken bratwurst, 2 cups blueberries, 9 wasabi almonds

Thursday, week 7

Less than 48 hours to go...I can already smell the donut I'm gonna eat after picture day on Saturday.

Thursday
Breakfast: ~2 cups strawberries and blueberries, ~2 oz summer sausage, and 5 wasabi almonds
Lunch: two pieces of tandoori chicken (4oz?), ~2 cups of strawberries, and 8 olives
Dinner: 1 chicken brat, a few oz of spinach souffle, and 12 wasabi almonds.

Wednesday, Week 7

Almost done! Just a few more days til picture day.
I was back up to 171.5 or so today, a pound up from yesterday.

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Leftover gyros omelet from Monday and a cup of blueberries
Lunch: Spinach salad with onions, roasted peppers, and 6-7oz of salmon, and ceasar dressing
Dinner: Lettuce salad with carrots, 6 slices of pastrami, about 2 cups of strawberries, and 9 wasabi-coated almonds

Monday and Tuesday, week 7

I was out of town last week and didn't get to keep my blog updated. The good news is that I stuck to the Paleo diet and am down three pounds of fat (almost 2%) week over week.

So I'm starting out this week being better at logging.

Breakfast: 2 eggs up in olive oil, 1 cup of blue berries and 4 cashews
Lunch: went to Georgia's Greek Deli and had 2/3 of a gyros omelet with a few veggies, and a stuffed Macedonian pepper (stuffing had feta, olive oil and spices).
Afternoon snack: 1 cup blueberries, four beef sticks (2oz) and 4 cashews
Dinner: 4 pieces of pastrami with a little mayo, 6 cashews and a cup of blueberries

Tuesday
Breakfast: Four beef sticks (2oz), a cup of blueberries and 6 cashews
Lunch: Spinach salad with two eggs, some turkey cubes, onions, and a dollop of quac. Balsamic and olive oil for dressing.
Afternoon snack before tempo run: 2 beef sticks (1oz), 1 cup blueberries, 3 cashews
Dinner: Four slices of pastrami with a little mayo, 3 cashews and lettuce salad with feta and raspberry vinaigrette.

Monday, week 6

Getting towards the end of the paleo challenge. I hurt my back doing the rowing machine too much earlier this week, so I've missed crossfit for the last five days or so. Worked out with a trainer today to help stretch/loosen my back. Hopefully it will pay dividends.

Breakfast -- 2 oz summer sausage, 2 eggs, and half a sweet potato scramble
Lunch -- 2 more eggs, 2 oz summer sausage and half a swee potato, plus a cup of blueberries

Wed and Thursday and Friday, week 5

Wednesday
Breakfast: 2 eggs, sweet potatoes and 4 beef sticks
Lunch: Spinach salad with brisket
Dinner: 4oz steak, salad, carrots and blueberries

Thursday
Breakfast/Lunch -- several 2 block snacks of 4 beef sticks and a cup of blueberries
Dinner: 4oz steak, carrots, spinach salad, blueberries

Friday
Breakfast -- Two eggs, four beefsticks and sweet potato sauteed in olive oil.
Lunch -- Flat iron steak sandwich, hold the bread, with a salad on the side.

Tuesday, week 5

Did my first level 2 class last night, it went well.
Down to 173.3 lbs today = 78.8kg.

Breakfast: 2.5oz of sweet potato diced and sauteed in olive oil, then thrown in with two eggs. 2oz of salami to get my full protein blocks.

Monday, Week 5!

Starting week 5, I went to the Mobility class this morning with Jim. It was great, really seemed to loosen up my hips.
Afterwards, came home and made breakfast;
Breakfast: Half a red onion and 3 oz of sweet potato, cut up and sauteed in a pan with olive oil. Threw in four eggs, and turned it into a scramble.

Lunch: Spinach salad with a few tbsp of quac, two eggs and some chicken. also onions and a few peppers.

Dinner: Chicken sausage (around 4oz), around a cup of peas, and 25 baby carrots (2 cups)

Sunday, week 4

Went to the 9am crossfit in the new gym today. There were about 20 people there, and a lot of fun running around in the big gym. I used my weightlifting shoes for the first time. split jerks, I got up to 60kg x3, and I maybe coulda done some more. The shoes definitely helped.
After the workout, I did a farmer's walk with 32kg (red) kettlebells with Erica, Dora and Sherry. Up to Leary from the new building and back. Then finished with some attempts at false grip pullups and a guy I hadn't met (Steve) came and suggested that I do some close grip chinups (knuckles facing me, rather than away) and work to pull all the way up to my sternum. Much harder, so used a big blue band and a purple band. I can see a lot of work ahead to get to a muscle up.

When I got home, I had
Breakfast: leftover steak (4oz) and about 0.6 cups of white sweet potatoes, cooked in the microwave. This is my first time eating sweet potatoes, so I hope that they don't ruin the diet. Scott and Nat recommended it, so it probably can't be too awful.
Lunch: Had the last two oz of the leftover steak, a piece of leftover adobo chicken, spinach and red pepper salad (with raspberry vinaigrette and feta cheese), and about 1/4 cup of lentils. I also ate up the leftover red pepper which didn't go in the salad. Not sure how close I got to four blocks, but probably not too far off.

Saturday, finishing up week 4

I weighed in this morning at 174.2, almost two pounds below last saturday, and 7 down from picture day 4 weeks ago. The Paleo + Zone seems to be working.

Breakfast - Half an onion (1.5 cups) and one red bell pepper (1 cup) sauteed in the (small amount of) grease from my 6 pieces of turkey bacon, and a little bit of olive oil. Threw in about an ounce of summer sausage for the fourth block of protein.
Lunch - I have finished off pretty much all the veggies in the house. Had one hebrew national jumbo frank (not the 1/4 pounder) and for carbs had about 1 cup of carrots, half cup of blueberries, and 12 small spears of asparagus sauteed in left over grease from the summer sausage.

Snack - 2 oz of summer sausage pan-fried, 4 cashews and 21 spears of asparagus sauteed in the same pan with the summer sausage, seasoned with sea salt.

Friday, Week 4

Good news this morning. I weighed in at 174.5, my lowest weight in years. Adding in those veggies seem to be helping! I'm taking the day off work, so I am going to Crossfit this morning at the luxurious hour of 9am. I may even have breakfast before I go, to see if I perform better with carbies in the system, or whether I throw up. :)
Breakfast
I sauteed a whole onion and a whole red pepper in olive oil, and had one egg and six slices of turkey bacon for protein. A few cashews (9?) for fat.
Lunch - Don't really remember, I was kind of snacking throughout the day. :(
Dinner - Crossfit Potluck at the new Gym! I had some duck that Wen brough and some chicken salad-type stuff. Also grazed on celery and carrots and had several spears of pickled asparagus.

Week 4, Thursday

Trying to pack in the veggies --
Breakfast - three left over meatballs (2oz), plus four beef sticks (2oz) + I sliced up a whole onion and a whole red bell pepper and sauteed in olive oil. Ate 2 cups for breakfast (about half) and saved the other half for later.

Lunch -- I went over to whole foods to make a spinach salad. I got a quarter pound of beef brisket and about a quarter pound of grilled veggies in addition to the salad. I finished those off, then started on the salad, but was unable to finish the salad. I ate the quac to get my fat intake for the meal. I will try to finish off the salad for snack this afternooon.

Dinner -- two pieces of chicken adobe (made with splenda brown sugar), 14 spears of asparagus with a few dollops of butter, and some more of my left over spinach salad. Still probably not enough veggies, but trying to keep it up there.

Wednesday, week 4

I am continuing to try to stick to the Paleo + Zone plan, although not weighing portions, so maybe not really doing it right.
Breakfast - 3 eggs and 1 bell pepper in a scramble, with olive oil to pre-saute the peppers before throwing in the eggs. And two beef sticks to get up to four blocks of meat.
Lunch - 2 pieces of salmon and three half eggs. A couple cups of spinach and some bell peppers and onions, as much as I could fit onto the plate. And creamy ceasar dressing for fat.
For snack, I had 2oz of beef brisket from the whole foods, and cut up red and yellow peppers (also from the WF).
For dinner, I had 4.5 meatballs, 1/2 an atkins bar, about 12 baby carrots, and three tbsp or so of peas.

Week 4, Monday and Tuesday

Week 4 was not good to me. I gained two pounds, not what I was hoping for.
I decided to retrench and asked Scott and Nat for help. They suggested I mix Paleo with the Zone diet, which helps you adjust portion size.

What I learned is this: I don't eat nearly enough vegetables! I eat about the right amount of protein -- 4oz of meat (an egg counts as 1 oz) or so per meal. Roughly 3 tbsp of Guac or 9 cashews is about right for fat content. So I am actually pretty good on those two. But to get the right amount of vegetables, I would have to eat 16 cups of spinach, or 2 cups of cooked onions, or 4 cups of cooked butternut squash, or 14 asparagus spears, or some combination. At every meal! That's a lot of veggies.

so now to my food log.

Monday
Breakfast - Atkins Bar and two beef sticks (before I turned over my new leaf)
Lunch - Two eggs, two buffalo-style chicken wings, what I estimated was around 3 tbsp of guac, and then filled the salad box with lettuce, onions and carrots.
Dinner - Two eggs, sunny side up. four slices of turkey bacon (around 2 oz I think). Then I cut up a whole onion, sauteed it and threw in some spaghetti squash cubes that were in the freezer. I ate two cups of that combination.

Tuesday
Breakfast - 3/4 of left over chicken sausage (I think this is about 3oz) and the leftover onions and squash (about 1 cup).
Lunch - 3 kobe beef sliders, sans bun. A plateful of Ceasar salad, sans croutons. Unfortunately I couldn't measure the portions, but the sliders were probably about an ounce each, and the salad was a 3-4 cups. Not nearly enough veggies. :(
Dinner - 2 beef sticks (1/2 oz each), 4.5 meatballs, a couple cups of salad with a little feta cheese and raspberry vinaigrette, and about 10 baby carrots

Sunday week 3

Breakfast - after workout had two beef sticks and some chicken sausage, and about three spoonfuls of ice cream.
Lunch - atkins bar
Dinner - Chicken sausage and mixed green salad.

Video from this morning at Crossfit - Beginner's Skin the Cat

Richard took this video of me fooling around on the rings after class. 

Week 3 Saturday

Breakfast -- 4 beef sticks
Lunch -- burger salad with mixed greens, onions, jalapenos, beef, a little feta, buffalo wing sauce and ceasar dressing.  Also had some of the french fries which were sitting on the table (boo!)
Dinner -- spinach souffle (around 2oz) and kalby(sp?) beef from fred meyer

Week 3 friday

Started off the day with no xfit, since today is my day off.

Breakfast 2 beef sticks, one atkins bar.
Lunch indian food
Chicken masala, meatballs in some sort of yummy sauce, paneer sag, and lamb halal (?)  Unfortunately no veggies.
Bugged out of work a little early for a restful couple hours.  Was stupid and went to crossfit on my day off and the work out was Murph.  Aargh!  Got through it in 47:49.
Dinner is two beef sticks and lots of water and one spoonful of ice cream off my boy's plate. 

Hoping to do better on the veggies tomorrow.

Week 3 Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday
Breakfast -Atkins bar, 2 beef sticks
Lunch - Spinach salad with onions, balsamic vinaigrette, guac, tuna salad and two eggs.
Dinner- Ahi poke, Tuna sashimi, and spinach salad with candied walnuts with ceasar dressing
Two glasses of wine.

Thursday
Breakfast - Atkins bar and 2 beef sticks
Lunch - Atkins bar
Snack - Atkins bar
Dinner - one chicken sausage, two spoonfuls of peas and 4  beef sticks

Week 3, Tuesday

Weighed in this morning at a whopping 178.  Not sure what I did yesterday that was so bad, but got some work to do to get back down to 175.  Damn!

Breakfast -- atkins bar and three beef sticks
Lunch -- spinach salad, onions, quac, and corned beef for protein
Afternoon snack -- 4oz beef jerky from Whole Foods
Dinner -- Atkins bar and 4 beef sticks

Monday morning, start of Week 3!

Last night I weighed in at 176.5 in the evening, which meant that I'm in line for setting a new low.  That was great.  But then I couldn't sleep, and was up on and off til 3am.  It was tough to not eat anything (low carb or not) while I was up late.  I persevered, and weighed in at 175 this morning before Crossfit.  So a good start to the week!

We're out of Atkins bars, beef sticks, and eggs.
I had to resort to slicing my own Hillshire Farms Summer Sausage.  Had a couple ounces of that for breakfast.
I had lunch with a Crossfit friend at our Cafeteria -- Grilled Tuna with summer vegetables, onion relish served on some sort of slaw.  On a bed of rice which I didn't eat.
Afternoon snack -- another couple ounces of summer sausage
Dinner -- My leftover atkins pizza from Romio's, which consists of mozzarrella, pepperoni and a few jalapenos.  Oil base, so no tomato sauce carbies.

I feel fuller than yesterday, so hopefully I won't put on any weight in the morning.

Saturday and Sunday morning!

Saturday I had my normal weekend fare --
Atkins bar and some beef sticks in the morning for breakfast.

Snacked on beef sticks throughout the day, and one string cheese stick.
Dinner was leftover buffalo meatloaf with mayo and some salad with vinaigrette.

Sunday morning I started off with a crossfit workout which culminated in 15 tuck jumps plus 15 situps x9. Then did a bonus Farmer's Walk with Dora, Sherry and Erica. Erica and Sherry carried the reds, and I carried the greens, so I have resolved to carry reds next week!

Upon returning home, I found the kitchen alive with my wife cooking cinnamon rolls (cinnabon recipe) and hot dog pancakes for some friends. Aargh! She has promised to make me hot dog scrambled eggs. The jury is still out, but I will try to resist the carby goodness!

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls, my favorite!  Will...try...to...resist!

The good news is that she also made me some hot dog eggs:

So I was able to make it through breakfast relatively unscathed. I had one fingerful of frosting and once bite of cinnamon roll.  (This was to help spike blood sugar and get all that good protein into my muscles.)

So total breakfast was:
1 atkins bar, 3 beef sticks, roughly 3 scrambled eggs and a jumbo hebrew national hot dog, 1 bite of cinnamon roll, and a finger swipe of frosting from the bowl.  Hopefully the leftovers will go quickly into the compost or my resolve may crumble.

Two weeks in -- really jonesing for a glass of wine

Breakfast and lunch today were normal -- beef sticks and 3/4 atkins bar (my boy had the other quarter) for breakfast, a whole foods salad, supplemented with 4 buffalo wings for lunch.
In the afternoon, I really started jonesing for a glass of wine.  I made it home and am just finishing my afternoon snack of another atkins bar.
we are going out to the Chile Pepper again tonight, and I'm gonna have carne asada, sans beans and rice, plus queso fundido.  Will be tough to skip the wine, but I think I can do it!

Thursday -- almost through week 2

Down to 80 kg this morning (176 lbs).  This was one of my goals, to make the 1/4 bodyweight and 1/2 bodyweight lifts for Level 2 easier to calculate and remember.
Btw, people asked me how I track body fat %.  I use this scale.  It gives you weight and body fat %, and transmits it via wifi to your computer and ipad/iphone. Makes it easy to track progress.

This morning for breakfast: Guess what -- atkins bar and 2 beef sticks (Again).

Lunch was a special treat.  I went to Seastar and had steak salad with hazelnuts.  Yum!

Afternoon snack was 1.2oz of Oberto beef jerky and a Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi.  I don't get to have CFDP or CFDC very often, so I treasure it.  I know it's not good for me, most likely. 

For dinner, my wife is making meatloaf, with organic grass fed beef, and she through in some buffalo wing spice to liven it up.  Looking forward to seeing how it tastes. 

Tonight marks two weeks since I had a drink of alcohol, maybe a little longer.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday is my day off from crossfit, so got to sleep in til 7.  You'd think I would be well rested, but tired all day.  Now I am up late at night, not being able to sleep although I went to bed at 8:30.  I hope the paleo isn't making me tired.

Food log:
Breakfast: 2 beef sticks and an Atkins bar
Lunch: Whole foods salad, with 2 eggs and guac
Afternoon snack: 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar
Dinner: 10 spears of asparagus with salt, and a hunk of carne asada, around 4oz.
Late evening snack: 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar (damn sleeplessness!)

Wednesday
Got up this morning and was back down to 176.6, even though I had the midnight snack.
Tired this afternoon and evening, hoping I'll be able to sleep well tonight.

Breakfast: Atkins bar and two beef sticks.
Lunch: Salad bar down at the other work building Market Fresh.  not nearly as good as Whole Foods.  Threw in some salmon and eggs, rather than usual hard boiled eggs at MF, and no guac!
Dinner: Atkins bar, four beef sticks, and a piece of asada that was left over from last night.

Now gonna try to get to sleep, and hopefully will be down to 176 in the morning (/crossing fingers)

Not a very interesting day, Monday of the second week

Breakfast: Atkins bar and two beef sticks
Lunch: Whole Foods salad, with two eggs for protein
Afternoon snack: Atkins bar and two more beef sticks, maybe 4.
Dinner: 2nd half of last night's Atkins pizza -- ie mozzarella, pepperoni and jalapeno.

I ate earlier than usual tonight, around 6.  That sometimes helps with the weight loss, at least in the short term.

Sunday, end of week 1

Started the day with a Crossfit workout, followed by yoga and then 11 unassisted pullups.

When I got home, had 2 beef sticks and a left over chicken sausage.
For lunch, had a slice of cheese and a hebrew national jumbo hotdog

For dinner, atkins pizza -- pepperoni, cheese, and jalapenos on an oil base.  And ceasar salad.

Saturday morning, 1 week in to the Paleo challenge

Last night we went with friends to the Chile Pepper.  They had beer and wine (x3), my wife had a margarita (actually 2), and I had a pitcher of water.
I ordered the Carne Asada hold the beans, rice and gave away the enchilada with mole sauce that came with it.  So I had a slab of spice-rubbed beef.  And for appetizer, I had queso fundido, hold the tortilla.  Yum!


This morning, I got up at 7:30 and weighed in at 176.6 with 42.6lbs of fat.  this is down from 181.7 and 45.3lbs of fast when I weighed in and took my "before" pictures 8 days ago.  So good progress for the first week.
I went to 8am Crossfit class where the workout of the day was 21 KB swings (20kg), 250m row, then slam balls (40lbs) AMRAP in 3 min.  So it took around 1:45 to finish the KB swings and row, so just over a minute of slam balls.  Then the whole thing x3, with six minutes rest in between so your partners could do it.

anyway, pretty complex, but when you lift a 40lb medicine ball above your head and slam it down on the ground 20x in a row, that takes something out of you!
For breakfast, 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar. My wife got some thai chili pepper tuna salad for me.  But I had a few bites and then looked at the ingredients.  There are 18g of sugar in the tin.  I probably had 6 of those grams before I realized. Argh.
Not as bad as donuts though!

Lunch was Hebrew National Jumbo hot dog.
afternoon snack was an atkins bar and two pieces of cheddar cheese.
Dinner was some lettuce salad with vinaigrette, and a chicken sausage from whole foods.  I ended up eating a couple beef sticks after dinner, later in the evening.  boo.

Friday, day 5

Breakfast - my atkins bars showed up, so I had one of those along with two beef sticks.
(went to our organization all hands, and there were tons of donuts there, I avoided them.)
Lunch - salad bar at the main Amazon cafe.  Plus paneer on a stick x2.  Cheese blocks, and red peppers on a skewer.

Afternoon snack -- Atkins bar, and two beef sticks.

Dinner -- Carne Asada, hold the beans and rice, and queso fundido as an appetizer.  Yum!
Also, lentil soup.

Thursday morning -- donut challenge

This morning I ran out of Atkins bars -- but fortunately I had just ordered some from Amazon and they got here tonight.  But I changed my usual breakfast.
Breakfast:
Four beef sticks

Around 10 this morning, I was on my way to a  meeting and I walked past a cubicle with a box of krispy kreme donuts sitting in it.  Oh noooo!  I was able to resist their siren song, but then I got to my meeting, and there was a box of Top Pot Donuts.  Double Oh nooooo!  So I sat at the other end of the table, and was able to resist their lure.  And then I went to another meeting and there was a container of Jelly Bellies!!  Aarrgghhh!
Again, I sat at the other end of the table.  I got through unscathed, and satisfied with my will power, and the power of the leaning challenge.

Lunch:
Spinach salad at the Whole Foods.  Still out of pulled chicken and onions.  But they had guac today.
So I had spinach salad with a few carrots and radishes, some guac, an egg, and a couple chicken wings (although they were definitely not buffalo wings as advertised).

Dinner:
Took my boy to karate tonight straight from work, so I drove up to the house, my wife handed me the boy and a pack of beef sticks, and had that for mid-afternoon snack to get me through karate.  Now we have lamb burgers on the barbie, greek yogurt sauce, lettuce salad with balsamic and feta, and there are grapes on the table.  I had one grape and a bite of brisket with bbq sauce, but other than that stayed low carb.

It's wednesday, and halfway through the first week.

This morning's weigh in 178.8, with 44 lbs fat.  Good progress for the first half of the week.

Breakfast continued to be 2 beef sticks and an atkins bar.  but I'm out of atkins bars now, so tomorrow it will change.  I did order some more bars from Amazon.
Btw, I do know that Dave says that all bars are terrible for you, but the Atkins bars seem better than most.  Much lower carb especially. 

Lunch
Today the Whole Foods was out of Guac, out of onions and out of pulled chicken!  Very disappointing. I was able to sub in corned beef brisket from the hot meal counter, and that covered both the protein (chicken) and the fat (guac) that I wasn't getting. Also threw in some Jalapenos for some flavor.

Dinner
Just got home from work.  So far, I've had four beef sticks, but there's something that smells like corned beef brisket in the oven, so I think I will have some of that for dinner. 

Day 2

Down 1 pound since Saturday, day off from crossfit.

Breakfast
2 Beef Sticks
1 Atkins bar

I get both of these home delivered from Amazon using the Subscribe and Save program.  They deliver each month, and I get a 15% discount for having the subscription.

Lunch:
Leftover spinach salad plus a quarter pound of corned beef brisket from whole foods and some asparagus and red peppers.
Yum!

Dinner:
5 beef sticks and an Atkins bar.

After dinner, I went weight lifting with a colleague who used to be a Olympic weight lifter, Sam Maxwell.  I did some dead lifts, squats, and military press.  He told me that (no surprise) my biggest problem is flexibility.  Chest up, butt down, knees out.  

Day 1 of the Leaning Challenge!

Today is Monday, the first day of the Leaning Challenge.
I woke this morning and weighed 181 lb, with about 46lbs of fat.  The fat number jumps around a lot, so hard to know exactly. But I'm gonna try to get under 40 in the next few weeks. 

I started the day at Crossfit - We did Front Squats and then "Crappy Fran" which is three sets of 35kg push presses and then jumping pullups, 21-15-9. 
Then Breakfast:
2 pieces of beef summer sausage http://www.amazon.com/Old-Wisconsin-Sausage-20-Ounce-Packages/dp/B001IZM92I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300128178&sr=8-1
one atkins bar (http://www.amazon.com/Atkins-Advantage-Chocolate-Peanut-Butter/dp/B001GAOHJS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300128144&sr=8-1)

Lunch:
Spinach Salad with onions, guacamole, scallions, salsa verde, an egg, some pulled chicken, and olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Whole Foods salad buffet.  I will refer to this as "Whole Foods Salad" in the future, since I eat this a lot for lunch.

After school snack:
Finished off the beef summer sausage (about 5 slices)
Plus 1 slice of cheddar cheese

Dinner:
Red leaf lettuce salad with turkey bacon and cardini's ceasar dressing. 

Bonus:
Fiber Choice tablets
6 liquid gels of Nature Made Fish Oil
 Everyman's Daily vitamin

That's all for today.  I think I am entering ketosis today or tomorrow...I've been super-good since Friday night, so I expect I should start seeing some results soon.

The leaning challenge starts tomorrow

Starting the Paleo Leaning challenge tomorrow. You have 7 weeks to tighten up your body, lose fat, etc.  They take before and after pictures and then they judge each contestant to see who has made the most improvement.  Everyone puts in $30, and the winner takes the kitty.

I actually think I started yesterday, since I took my before pictures Friday.  I went to the bar Friday afternoon and drank water, and then went to a bday party and drank water there Saturday night.  They had lamb and beef skewers which were completely paleo-compliant, and I had some goat cheese appetizer on celery.  Not quite paleo compliant (dairy not allowed), but was Atkins compliant. 

Today I ate:
Slices of salami/summer sausage
Atkins bars -- low carb, but they have nuts and now they are making them with sugar alcohols. Lots of fiber too.
For Dinner, we had "atkins pizza."  No dough, lots of cheese, pepperoni and jalapenos.

A few bad days

It's sunday morning, and I'm up 2.5 pounds from my low on Thursday and Friday morning.  I think it is temporary setback, but I have been doing bad stuff.

All of my actual meals continue to be low carb and healthy...either beef summer sausage (not great quality beef, but at least no carbs) or cage-free eggs for breakfast.  I went to a pizza place friday for lunch, and ate a kale salad, and just had one small piece of my colleague's pizza.  Dinner I even did well, having steak both nights.  On Saturday, had chimichurri sauce on the steak...yum.

But both nights I had several glasses of wine.  Friday I went out with a friend after dinner, and had almost a bottle of champagne, which is bad in itself.  But it led me to order a pizza near the end of the night. I ate half the pizza there, and then carried out the rest at midnight.  I had one piece in the morning, then through the rest in the compost bin. 

Saturday night, I went to some friends's house and we had red wine, and then quesadillas for appetizers.  Dairy and grain in the tortilla.  I ate a bunch of that, and then the steak and chimichurri.  Steak and chimichurri is actually very paleo, but I ate a ton of it. 

My big lesson -- stay away from the wine, because it is bad and makes me do things I wouldn't otherwise do...lots of people learn that lesson in college, I am relearning it now.

I did go to crossfit yesterday morning, and did kettlebell clean and jerks, and will go this morning for the crossfit class, followed by yoga.  So that may slightly temper my badness. 

It's been over a week I think

My weight history on "the google 15" somehow disappeared, but I think I'm down about 2 lbs over the last week, which is about the same pace I've been on for the last 10-12 weeks, with the exception of when I went to europe for a week.  That slowed things down a bit.

Today, I had two "Al Fresco" brand chicken sausages for dinner.  Lunch was spinach salad with onions, back to balsamic vinaigrette, with a scoop of guac and a piece of tandoori chicken.  Also a few oz of pulled chicken from the whole foods lunch bar.  Breakfast was a strawberry-nana smoothie, with no cal powdered milk and whey protein.  I think I've earned a free smoothie at the smoothie shop.


I'm going to the xfit tomorrow morning, then for personal training wednesday morning with dave at the xfit.  Today, I had to take off.  Too many sore parts.  I've been using a lacrosse ball at home to "roll out" some of the soreness in my glutes and in my shoulders.  It actually helps a lot, although it is painful.

Friday night

Breakfast - 1 banana
Lunch - spinach salad with guac and tandoori chicken, and an egg

Dinner - phase 1 -- 10 deviled eggs, and 2x 8oz of wine at the bar.  Gonna try to minimize dinner, phase 2, now that I'm home.

Bad Night

Yesterday, I started off the day well with two eggs, sunny side up, cooked in ex-virgin olive oil.
Lunch was the usual at whole foods.

Dinner, I went out with a friend for dinner and drinks.  Was good during dinner, ate just a steak salad at palace kitchen.  was very good.  Then we had a couple more glasses of wine and another guy showed up.  I ate some of his fries, then ordered some more fries.  Bad Dave!  Also ordered some sort of tuna appetizer, which was less bad.  Up one pound this morning.
Gonna try to xfit tonight as penance.  But may just go to bed early.

Missed Xfit, went to see my boy pass his karate test (yay!), and then had chicken wings and ceasar salad at the pizza place.  I think that these are ok, but they are probably not the highest quality meat!

Day 3

Today started with two eggs, sunny side up on the skillet, with extra virgin olive oil. 

Lunch at the whole foods -- spinach salad, onions, green onions, chicken to provide protein rather than my usual feta cheese.  Balsamic vinegar and olive oil to replace my usual balsamic vinaigrette.  Topped it off with some whole foods fresh green salsa and some guac.  Put it in a box, shake it up and voila!

Dinner, my wife made chicken sausage from Fred Meyer's deli/butcher counter...at least it was wrapped up in butcher paper, rather than plastic mass produced packaging.  That is a good sign?  Who knows.  And lots of peas!

I again had a couple old wisconsin beef sticks after dinner.  I was down to 183.8 this morning, from 185+ this weekend, so I am making some quick progress, although there is some noise in both of those numbers.  No exercise today, aside from two sets of front and each side plank poses, x1 min each. 

Tomorrow morning, Xfit, and tomorrow evening, red wine with a buddy.  Hope to keep it at 1-2 drinks.

Day 2 of the Paleo diet

Started the morning with a smoothie at the Custom Smoothie shop down the street from work.  I have started getting good at ordering Paleo/Elimination/Low Carb.  I get a Strawberry Nana smoothie, with Hemp milk (they don't have coconut milk), no sugar, whey protein and I think they throw in some strawberry fruit juice sometimes.  I make them leave out the sugar, real milk, and anything else sweet.  I have to check with Jess on whether Whey protein is ok.  The lady at the smoothie shop says it's animal protein, so I need to verify.

Lunch -- had lunch down at my old building at the Market Fresh salad bar.  Definitely not as good as the Whole Foods salad bar.  But not so bad.  Had spinach salad with onions and peppers, threw in some cooked salmon and hard boiled eggs.  Sriracha hot sauce and Balsamic vinaigrette. I need to check also whether Balsamic vinaigrette is ok.  I'm not sure if I spelled it right, but Firefox corrected me to this, so blame it on them if I didn't.

Dinner -- Jen buys this marinated steak from the Fred Meyer.  It's pretty good, but a little sweet kind of like teriyaki.  So maybe a little sugar in the marinade and I don't know the quality of the beef.  Also, I finished off the peas in the bowl, and on the kids's plates.  I've never had the need to finish peas before.

Also, I went to evening crossfit this evening (I usually go in the morning).  I clean and jerked 60kg, military pressed 54kg x3, and one of the instructors said that I looked like I'm losing weight.

And I lost my ID at work, and I have the choice to get a new picture or keep the old.  I was 28, weighed 190 and had hair when it was taken.  I'm now 40, shaved head and 185 (although probably with more muscle).  I want to wait a month and see how much more I lean out and then take the picture!

Oh, one more thing to admit...I had a couple Old Wisconsin Beef Sticks before Xfit, and another couple after dinner.  They are low carb (less than 1g carb), but probably don't meet the "food quality" test.  I'm guessing the beef sticks aren't made from grass-fed beef!

Learning about Paleo Diet

I've been going to the local Crossfit for several months now.  It has been great, lots of interesting exercises during the class. I've lost about 20 lbs between the workouts there and doing the atkins diet for 3-4 months.  I went to a seminar that Dave and Jess gave on the Paleo diet this weekend, and I'm going to try to adjust my Atkins diet to be more Paleo.  The main differences are that the Paleo diet is no dairy, no peanuts, and soy doesn't count as protein.  Also, fruit seems to be more supported on the Paleo diet.

One of the things that they recommend is to do a "food log."  So I'm gonna try to make this food log blog.

Interestingly, I went to my boss's house last night for a post-holiday party.  There was lots of stuff there.  I think I was pretty good -- from the appetizers, I had tuna steak skewers with ginger, and a wasabi cream sauce (not sure exactly what was in this).  And for dinner, I skipped the pastry thing, and had the veggies in butter, with some salt.  I stayed strong and skipped cheesecake for desert.

Today, I went to Crossfit in the morning, and then had some left over corned beef for breakfast.  I think that my wife used grass-fed beef (which is recommended by the Paleo people.)  Food quality is important!  I had beef bacon (from grass fed, no antibiotics cows) and eggs for lunch.  And for dinner we had Isernio's Chicken Sausage and a lettuce and apple salad, with Paul Newman's Ceasar dressing on it.  Both the Isernio's and the Paul Newman said "all natural" which Dave says doesn't mean anything.  So maybe need to raise the bar on the salad dressing, and ask them about what type of (non-pork) sausage is the best.

Tomorrow, I'll be back at work which actually helps the diet.  I usually have a strawberry-banana smoothie for breakfast and a spinach salad for lunch at work.  Will need to leave out the feta from the lunch time salad, and replace with chicken or turkey.  That will be disappointing.