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On Sunday March 3, some of the CrossFit Mercer crew went to Scappa | A Brick Oven Trattoria. Chris Stevens, the owner and chef, prepared Fish Cakes and Paleo muffins for us. I have to say, both the fish cakes and the muffins were fantastic. The muffins had sugar on top for texture, so that part is technically not paleo. I scraped it off, but the recipe doesn’t include the sugar topping. Instead of honey, you can use agave syrup.

Chris is also a member of CrossFit member, so he has an interest is what we are trying to do.

Fish Cakes with Lemon Caper Aioli

• 6 ounces Flounder of white fish
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp real mayonnaise (or home made mayo) [avoid most conventional oils: canola oil, veg oil, seed oil, peanut oil]
• 1 tbsp parmesan cheese (skip this if you are not doing dairy)
• 1/2 tbsp flax meal
• 1/2 tbsp almond meal (ground up almonds) or almond flour
• 1/8 tsp sea salt, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 1/8 tsp black pepper, 1/4 tsp dried minced onions
• 1 tbsp olive oil (or coconut oil) for frying
• aioli sauce: 1/2 cup real mayonnaise, 4 cloves garlic minced, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp grated lemon zest, 2 tbsp capers, 1 tbsp fresh parsley, 1 pinch sea salt, 1 pinch black bepper

1. Fresh flounder or white fish (ground up)
2. Combine all ingredients, except olive oil and sauce ingredients, in mixing bowl
3. Heat olive oil in frying pan on medium high heat
4. Form patties with hands, and drop into fry pan
5. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes on each side until browned and crusted
6. Make sure it is browned before flipping over

1. mix all ingredients in bowl
2. cover and refrigerate
3. can be made in advance, so it can chill while patties are cooking

Paleo Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup honey
• 6 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips (Whole Foods or Wegmans have organic dark choc chips)

Cooking steps:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. line a muffin pan with muffin cups
3. In a large bown, mix together coconut oil and honey. Whisk in eggs until combined. Add in vanilla and mix.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together coconut flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda
5. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until incorporated.
6. Fold in chocolate chips and fill the muffin liners 2/3 full. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Miscellaneous stuff we chatted about:

• I asked if sweet potatoes are paleo or not. Avoid regular yellow and white potatoes. Sweet potatoes in moderation are fine on Paleo, and I need them because of my endurance events. I found this article which defends sweet potatoes on Paleo. They have a lower glycemic index than regular potatoes.
• It was recommended I check out Brian MacKenzie’s blog, since I do endurance events.
• 3Fuel – try it for endurance events while on Paleo. Keeps you fueled on long, endurance runs.
• A few people recommended Aqua Hydrate performance water. Apparently this was created by Mark Wahlberg and Puff Daddy (working with John Cochran from Fiji water), haha.
• Take a look at Beach Plums from Jalma Farms, high in antioxidants.
• Check out the burpeessuck.com website for CrossFit-related t-shirts.
• Make Kale Chips on your own. It’s easy and much cheaper than buying them. Make them crispy enough, and add a spicy hot sauce. 350 for 10 to 20 minutes, flipping them around half way (thanks to Katy).
• If you do the 30 day whole food challenge: Don’t try to re-create junk food with paleo ingredients because you want to eliminate the desire for sugar.

Crossfit:

Warmup
800 meter run
Burgener warmup
Couch stretch

Strength
Snatch Balance
7×3
My form in olympic lifting is still poor. So, I started with an empty bar and did extra in each set.
45, 45, 65, 75, 75, 85, 85

WOD
12 min AMRAP
3 Dead-hang pullups
5 bent-over rows (65#)
7 push-ups

The pull-ups got much more difficult in the later sets, and ate up my time. I started out at a 40 second pace per set, but that dwindled. I finished 13 sets.

CASH OUT

30 toes to bar

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.

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

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?

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

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:

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.

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.

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)