Wednesday, September 28


5 am: WOD
3 400 meter sprints
1:28
2:00
1:59


I was a little disappointed in my second two runs, but I have to tell you that I honestly thought I was going to die on that second run. Seriously, as I was running I could actually see my legs giving out. Me collapsing onto the ground and hurting myself. It was crazy. Clearly I did not have my mind in the right place for that workout.


breakfast - 6:30 am: 2 eggs, black coffee
lunch - 11:30 am: grilled chicken thigh, lettuce, tomato, and avocado with olive oil and vinegar
snack - 3:00 pm: pistachios
dinner - 7:00 pm: New York strip steak and grilled asparagus


Today was tough. I was really hungry all day. I need to get better at packing snacks so that I am not so hungry in between meals. 

Still Going...

Tuesday:


6:00am - CrossFit Prep (This is basically the precursor to actually being a Crossfitter. We learn different lifts and work on skills like dips, pull ups, and running)
Overhead squat - 77#
Push press - 82#
Front squat - 89#


(Also, I got my pictures taken this morning - basically the winner is chosen by the other members of the gym based on picture and change in body tone. I'm nervous about everyone seeing those pictures, but it is DEFINITELY motivation to stay strong!!)


7:30 am - breakfast: 2 eggs, black coffee (are you noticing a trend? I need to change it up a little)
11:45 am - lunch: @Smashburger: 1/3 lb. Arizona burger with no bun and no cheese, veggie frites with no green beans
6:45 pm - dinner: Lamb shoulder chop, roasted brussels sprouts, raw red bell pepper


It was a super busy day at work with lots of meetings and time out the office so I didn't have a snack and I think I paid for it a little after dinner with a major desire for more food. But I stayed strong. 


Dirty asked me the other day what was the hardest thing to give up and I would have to say, on a daily basis, it is cheese/dairy. I don't mind drinking iced coffee black, but I do like cream in my hot coffee so I'm really going to have to work on that. Additionally, cheese is hard. I wouldn't say that I eat a lot of cheese, but it is a nice addition to salads, especially when you eat a lot of salads. I have not gotten to the part of the book where they discuss dairy products and why they are not included in this diet, but I'll keep you updated as I know.


I have some thoughts on diets that I will most likely share tomorrow/tonight. (I'm really going to try to write this blog post at the end of every day so it makes a little more sense. 

Day 2! What, what?!?!

Ok, I guess that Monday was technically day 3 of the competition, but it was only day 2 of having to report my food, so...


Here is my day at a glance. I will start with my workout - hopefully as we get further along in this journey I won't have to explain every line.


6:00 am - WOD (stands for workout of the day)
(I usually attend the 5 am class, but due to a miscommunication there was no 5 am so I stayed for 6) 
Wall Balls and Kettle Bell Swings 
30-20-10 (this means three rounds, 30 of each in the first, 20 of each in the second, 10 of each in the third)
35# kettle bell, 14# medicine ball (each person gets to choose their weights. typically there is a prescribed weight for men and one for women and you can scale down from there. I don't know what the Rx was for this workout)
6:28 (This is how long it took me to complete the three rounds)


7:30 am - breakfast: 2 eggs, black coffee
11:30 am - lunch: grilled sirloin steak, lettuce, tomato, roasted cauliflower, and avocado with olive oil and vinegar
2:30 pm - snack: handful of raw almonds, 1/2 grapefruit
6:30 pm - dinner: grilled chicken thigh, mushrooms sauteed in butter, grilled onion


Feeling good so far. I will say that I really could have used a piece of dark chocolate after dinner last night, but I stayed strong. I don't want to have a cheat for at least two weeks.


I am slowly making my way through The Paleo Solution - I am enjoying it, but there is a lot of science talk and I do not have a science brain. As I get further into that, you will likely be learning some of what it says. 

Paleo Challenge 4.2

I have officially joined the Paleo Challenge at CrossFit Fury.


Basically this means that I have to do the following:

• Eat only Paleo meals
• Post everything I eat on a Facebook page for the entire group to see each day
• Post a picture of one of those meals on the Facebook page
• Read The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf
• Watch Food, Inc.
• Attend track practice every Saturday morning at 7:30 am

In order to keep myself motivated and honest, I will also be posting my meals here each day for all of you to see. In addition, on the days that I have CrossFit, I will post the workouts and my times. 

Realizing that everyone is probably unfamiliar with Paleo eating, I will talk here about what that means, and probably share some information that I find important. 

I may share some recipes with you. I may share some struggles with you. I will (hopefully) share some triumphs with you. (Come on, first pull up!)

Yesterday was the first day for posting our meals, so I'll share with you that information to get started.

9 am: coffee w/ heavy cream (I will be cutting out the cream, but it is soooo hard to give up.)

11 am: 3 slices of bacon, half an avocado and grape tomatoes with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

1 pm: bell pepper slices with guacamole and salsa

2 pm: shredded beef roast and lettuce with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper

6:45 pm: shrimp, carrots, cauliflower, and red bell pepper with Paleo coconut curry

I look forward to sharing this journey with you! And thank you in advance for your support!!

Breaking All The Rules

Ok, maybe not all of the rules...

But I did do some Christmas baking and candy making today.

I debated yesterday on whether or not to do it. 

And I caved this morning.

I took two recipes from A Whisk and  A Prayer: Snickers and Cookie Brittle.

They were both phenomenal.

She does a much better job at food photography than I do, so I'll let you head over there to check out the recipes and pictures. 

I will say a few things though:

1. The nougat in the Snickers stays pretty chewy and it has made the cutting of my large candy block difficult. I don't know how to remedy that, just a word of warning.

2. If you go ahead and eat all of the edges of the Snickers, you may go into a diabetic coma. I'm serious!

3. If you make the cookie brittle, I would get the butter to the almost melt stage, it makes it much easier to mix.

4. The longer you cook the brittle, the more brittle it will be. Seems logical, but I kept thinking that I was going to overcook it so I ended up with two very different things - a more chewy cookie and a real brittle-y cookie. I guess it depends on your taste.

Since I skipped the food photography this time, I took a few pictures of my kitchen in the process:

A completed pan of cookie brittle - with a combo of milk and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

 You can see the beginning of the snickers there in the foreground - it is the nougat layer.

 

Does anyone want to come clean for me?

Wow!

I know you thought that you were never going to read another post on this blog again.

I was beginning to think that was true.

However, tonight, all of that changed!

I don't want to toot my own horn, but I'm a great cook!

Since I've been "working from home" since November, I am really trying to make my own meals and not eat out.

Yesterday, I roasted a turkey breast. I don't even like turkey, but this one was good and it is nice to have in the fridge for a quick snack or lunch.

But back to tonight.

I've had a couple of spaghetti squash sitting on the counter that need to be cooked.

Earlier today I was looking for butter in the freezer (to do some Christmas baking) and I found a bag of uncooked shrimp.

I decided that I would combine the two.

And combine I did.

First, I popped the spaghetti squash in the oven - it takes a long time to cook.

One of the things I've learned is that if I don't want to eat after 8, I need to start thinking about dinner around 4:30 so that I have time to get everything prepared. 

So, after about 30 minutes of the spaghetti squash cooking, I started preparing the makings for the shrimp. 

I diced up about 4 cloves of garlic. (What can I say? I'm Basque and Italian - I LOVE my garlic)

Then I heated some olive oil in a pan. No, I don't know how much - I just drizzled it in until it looked right - remember this is going to be the sauce for the squash.

Once it was hot, I threw in the garlic, after about a minute, I threw in some crushed red pepper.

I have a friend who LOVES crushed red pepper. Puts it on everything. One year, her brother and SIL got her this for Christmas:

Ok, I need to get better at my food photography.

Either way.

So then I threw in the uncooked shrimp.

I'm going to stop here and tell you that I hate cooking shrimp. It is such a delicate balance between salmonella and chewy protein.

But it is nice to add variety to my life and it was nice to use it from the freezer.

Once the shrimp was all pink, I turned off the heat and threw in some diced up sun dried tomatoes.

Then I added some salt.

I once took a cooking class and the teacher told us that the main reason people think they can't cook is because they don't use enough salt. I took it to heart.

Once the spaghetti squash was shredded, I put the shrimp mixture on top and then mixed it all together.

You can't really tell from this picture how great it all looked and tasted.

And even better with a nice glass of red wine.

Pomodoro Sauce

I made my first dish for this blog last night.


And even managed to take pictures. 


As you may know, I try to spend Sunday afternoons preparing food for the week ahead. It helps me to both eat healthy and save money on eating out.


Yesterday was no exception. 


After a morning/early afternoon full of Mother's Day celebration, I was a little tired when I got home, but decided that I needed to get my act together and prepare food or I would spend another week regretting my choices.


Dirty Shirley had some grape tomatoes on the counter that were just about to reach the end of their useful life. I looked at them all weekend thinking that I needed to do something with them, and last night it hit me! I would make some sauce for my spaghetti squash. 


One quick call to Match.mom verified that I could actually use grape tomatoes for this purpose and I was set to go. 

You can see in this picture that the tomatoes are starting to get wrinkly. (Some had to just be thrown away, but most of them were good.)

I started out with three cloves of garlic and approximately 4 Tbsp. of olive oil. I happen to really like olive oil and garlic, if you don't, you may cut it down a little, but I can't promise it will be as good as mine.


Two other things to notice:


1. My beautiful Calphalon stainless steel pot. (Thanks Match!)
2. The little bit of green in the garlic. Dirty and I got crazy one day at Costco and bought the big bag of garlic thinking that we use a lot of it. Some is starting to sprout. I'm not concerned.

While the garlic was heating up, I sliced the tomatoes in half. I wanted them to be small enough to eat easily, but not so small that you forgot there were fresh tomatoes in the sauce. 


After I sliced them all, I put them in the pot to cook down a little. I stirred them every minute or so for about 10 minutes. 


While I was doing that, I headed out to the back porch to get some fresh basil off of our plant. 

You can't really see it in this picture, but something is getting into my basil plant and chewing little holes in the leaves. If I find that thing, it will suffer!


Either way, I have to give a little shout-out to Dirty right now. Before she moved in I couldn't keep anything alive. Seriously, my plants that are on drip system were struggling. But now, we have a thriving basil plant and a thriving tomato plant! Thanks, Dirty!

I washed the basil and gave it a rough chop. And after the tomatoes had cooked down to a saucy goodness, I threw the basil in, and stirred it around, and let it cook for about three minutes before turning the heat off.


I wish that this was a scratch and sniff photo because this sauce smelled DIVINE! It actually reminded me of college when I used to eat at the OG all of the time with Peach because IT worked there. Until one night...well, never mind, I'll tell you that story on the other blog some day.


Once I turned the heat off of the sauce, I started taking care of my spaghetti squash, which had been cooking for about an hour.

On the left you can see what it looks like after I've used two forks to get the "meat" off of the sides. On the right, after I've removed the seeds, but haven't separated it.

The finished product!


SO good!


I would add a little freshly grated salty Italian cheese. I chose Parmigiano-Reggiano. 


I also seem to remember that at some point when I was in college, Match.mom made a bunch of this sauce and froze it. So I think this is a possibility, but I can not say for sure.


Enjoy!