Archive for February, 2013

Thursday’s Meals

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

The Paleo Diet saga continues…

Lunch included a whole bag of spinach with peppers, etc, and dinner was a recipe from Civilized Caveman for grass-fed beef burgers with avocado, sundried tomatoes, lemon juice, sea salt, and black pepper. It was great.

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Banana Bread Sans Sugar and Bread

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

A recipe I will need to try, posted from Just Eat Real Food by Donna on Facebook:

No Sugar, No Grains, Easy and Amazing Banana Bread
Source: http://www.primallyinspired.com/no-sugar-no-grains-easy-and-amazing-banana-bread/
(There appears to be lots of good stuff on primallyinspired.com).

4 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup coconut oil or grass-fed butter, melted
4 free-range eggs
1tsp vanilla
1½ tsp cinnamon
½ cup organic coconut flour
1 heaping tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
optional add-ins: 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips, walnuts, pecans, slivered almonds, raisins, etc.

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Combine everything together in a medium bowl and mix.
  3. Grease a bread pan with coconut oil or butter
  4. Add to pan and bake for ~45 min or until center is set and top is golden.

* Bananas should be extremely ripe (brown). If they are not overly ripe, your bread will not be as sweet and probably not taste as good. If you don’t have non-ripe bananas, add about a 1/3 cup of maple syrup.

** Purchase coconut flour here: Organic Coconut Flour 3 Lbs by Nutiva

Workout 02/27/2013

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

Crossfit:

Warmup
Establish Front Rack position, band stretch
PVC
20 air squats
Couch stretch
Ankle mobility
Hip mobility

Strength
Push Jerk
7×2
3-3-3-2-2-1
75×3, 105×3, 105×3, 125×2, 125×2, 135×1

WOD
5R
10 KB Snatches right
10 Ring Dips
10 KB Snatches left
10 Frog situps

Total time: 8:51
Timed splits (situps took the longest):
001: 00:01:35.31
002: 00:01:43.95
003: 00:01:45.17
004: 00:01:51.58
005: 00:01:55.44

Cash Out
100 DB Unders: I may have gotten 100, but only managed to get two consecutive double-unders. I had to keep starting over after whipping my shin with the open wire on the jumprope. I have some nice welts now 🙂 Need to work on these – where’s Rocky Balboa when you need him?

Workout 02/26/2013

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

Crossfit

Warmup
Couch Stretch
3 minutes Jump Rope
400m run with jump rope

Strength
Good Mornings (start with barbell on shoulders, bend forward almost into a starting deadlift position. bend knees slightly)
5×5
35 x 5 – empty bar
55 x 5
85 x 5
105 x 5
145 x 5

WOD
Cindy – 20 minute amrap
200m run
5 Pullups   (or scale up, SU, C2B or SD,  ring rows or jumping pullups)
10 Pushups, SU ring pushups
15 Air Squats, SU goblet Squats or jumping air squats

I did 10 rounds. I timed and tracked my splits with a free iPhone stopwatch timer:

Round 1: 01:43.7
Round 2: 01:50.5
Round 3: 01:56.5
Round 4: 02:02.2
Round 5: 01:57.1
Round 6: 02:05.4
Round 7: 02:06.4
Round 8: 02:10.6
Round 9: 02:10.6
Round 10: 02:02.5

Make sure there is quality in the movement

Workout 02/25/2013

Monday, February 25th, 2013

I was home all day on domestic duties, so couldn’t make my normal Monday 5am karate class and 7am crossfit class. I took the 5:30pm crossfit class instead.

Crossfit:

Warmup
800 meter run (did a little extra)
10 KB Swings (16kg) – actually ended up doing about 50
10 KB High Pulls each side (16kg) – did about 25 each arm
couch stretch
ankle mobility

Strength

7×2 power snatch from the take off position
Started with 95 pounds, but then dropped down to 65 then 75 for the last two sets to work on form.

WOD

10 Min EMOM
3 stone to shoulder (115 lb atlas ball)
3 dead-hang pull-ups.

After the 10 minutes expired, I did one extra set.

Workout 02/24/2013 – 22 Mile Training Run

Monday, February 25th, 2013

I prefer to do my long runs in the morning, and on Sundays I have the opportunity to join the HATRs for some company. I usually get 10 to 12 miles done before 7am, then meet the other runners at 7am in the East Picnic Area of Mercer County Park. But this weekend, I couldn’t be away from home in the morning. So, I had to do an afternoon run, going it alone.

I decided to run from my house in Ewing to the canal path on Lower Ferry Road, then to Lambertville and back. This was about 22 miles.

Now that I’m on the Paleo diet, I shouldn’t be eating things like Gu or Shot Blocks, etc. Also, I didn’t have my normal peanut-butter toast in the morning, or additional carbs the day before. Now, I’m not a crazy carb-loader, but I do typically consume a healthy portion the day before long runs. So, this run was going to be a serious test.

And… I failed. I was properly hydrated, but not properly fueled. I was strong until mile 14, when I started to feel a loss of energy. At the pace I ran, that shouldn’t have happened so soon. At mile 15, I felt completely energy-depleted. The last 7 to 8 miles were completely horrible. I struggled through them as if I was gutting out the last few miles of a marathon race. So, I’ll need to do lots of research on fueling for endurance events while on the paleo diet.

Workout 02/23/2013

Saturday, February 23rd, 2013

Karate in the morning at Gold’s.

Crossfit:
Performed my baseline metabolic conditioning, which consists of 4 rounds of the following:

500 meter row (at level 10)
15 push-ups
15 ring-rows
15 frog sit-ups

I completed this in 12:57. I sped through the transitions with no rest, and tried to maintain a 1:50/500m pace on the rowing machine. I think one of two of my rowing sets were 1:55, but I think the first one was 1:47.

In 90 days, I’ll repeat this metcon and see how I’ve improved.

Later in the day, I traveled to Long Branch to do the Polar Bear Plunge.

Paleo and Primal Diet Info

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

There seems to be no end to the Paleo resources on the web. Here are a few recommended to me by friends, and some info I swiped from our crossfit fb page.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

http://www.bulletproofexec.com/

http://robbwolf.com/

http://the21daysugardetox.com/

Suggestions for “snacking” from folks at CFM:

1) Don’t snack. Have larger meals.
2) But if you must snack: Almonds, shelled hemp seeds, Coconut flakes, hard boiled eggs, grilled chicken, beef jerky (make sure it’s not full of sugars), broccoli, carrots, any other veggie to eat raw.  (credit: Bryce L)
3) don’t shy away from the natural oils (butter,olive,coconut, etc.) and have at least a fist sized portion of protein. Gum is great if it’s an oral fixation thing, go for one that’s rich in xylitol like Icebreakers Ice cubes which is also affordable. (credit: Bryce L)
4) apple chips, cinnamon flavored found at whole foods http://www.yogavive.net/shop/products_all.html (credit: Jennifer S)
5) Kale chips (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-kale-chips/), some Lara bars are paleo friendly (credit: Jennifer C, Amy V)
6)  http://www.bradsrawchips.com/ as a snack. You can get them at Whole Foods, but they are not cheap. (credit: Jeff L)

 

 

Workout 02/22/2013

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

4 mile run from home to CrossFit (4:30)

Crossfit – 5am
Warmup
7x Junk Yard Dog (partner routine: one site on the floor, legs straight in front and arms out to each side, other person jumps over the first arm, then the legs, then the other arm)
Squat Therapy 3 minutes
Couch Stretch 2x

Strength
Low Bar Back Squat (shared rack and bar with Bill)
In this exercise, you can actually not grip the bar; just let it lean against your wrists and shoulder blades. Look down at the floor as you bend over, per Eva T‘s recommendation from her talk on Saturday at CFM.
7×2
95
95
95
115
115
125 (3x)
125 (3x)

WOD
5 min amrap – completed 8
5 ring dips, scale with box
5 push press, medium weight (95lb)
2 min rest
5 min amrap – completed 8+
5 box jumps (24″)
5 ring pushups
2 min rest
5 min amrap – completed 9+
5 jumping air squats
5 handstands, kick up, stick it and then come down

4 mile run home from CrossFit Gym: 6:15 – 6:50; (legs felt pretty heavy during the run, likely from the box jumps and jumping air squats, but I pushed through without stopping except once to look at the sunrise from the Olden Ave bridge)

Workout 02/20/2013

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013

Karate
Basics, Heian YonDan review with Ron.

Crossfit
Warmup
Dynamic – Walking lunges, Frog hops, high knees, butt kicks, very short sprints
Burgener warm up, couch stretch.

Strength – Clean 5 x 3
115 x 3
135 x 3
145 x 3
165 x 3
165 x 3

WOD: (took me 10 mins)
Thrusters 10 – 1 (75lb)
Burpees 1 – 10
These are intermixed, so: 10 thrusters, 1 burpee, 9 thrusters, 2 burpees, etc…