So, About That Challenge

As I mentioned last time, October 1 marked the beginning of a 30-day nutrition challenge at Crossfit Center City. I kicked off my challenge by meeting with a coach, where we took stats and reviewed a three-day food journal I kept last Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Here are my goals, for 30 days as well as for the rest of 2011:

In case you can't read - my primary goals for October 31 are to lose enough body fat to drop another clothing size (for anyone playing along at home, that should take me from a size 8 back into a size 6. It won't necessitate buying new clothes yet but will open up a whole slew of pants I haven't worn since late 2009) and to seriously improve my pull-ups. Right now, I can do about 4 or 5 with the "light" plus "mini" bands, and can do one very ugly pull up with the mini band alone. If we're doing pullups in a metcon, I have to use the "average" band. By the time 30 days is up, I would LOVE to be repping them with a light band or better. Truth be told, this would actually make me even happier than dropping a pants size.

By 12/31/2011, I want to improve all three lifts for the Crossfit Total, to go from a 230lb DL to 250, from a 165lb back squat to 185, and from a 75lb press to 80, and to do bodyweight pull ups. And not need to go to my knees for pushups.

I have a lot of work to do.

BUT ANYWAY. Starting this week, my major focus was something I knew was coming, but was dreading: cutting out the artificial sweeteners.

I don't care about the 3/4 packet of sweet & low I usually add to my morning coffee. But I freakin' care about my precious diet soda. Remember that time I tried to switch to drinking only water at work to save money? Yeah, clearly that didn't go too far. According to my blog, I lasted at least a week, but I can tell you - although there's no record of it - that it definitely didn't last much more than that.

So I spent a few minutes washing my pink water bottle on Friday afternoon, since god knows when the last time was that I used it. And now that will be my best friend at work. I've been carrying around a freebie North Face squeeze bottle at home - something I picked up at the Philly Half expo last year - and I'll throw this random metal bottle I have into my gym bag. For someone who doesn't like to drink water, I sure have a buttload of bottles.

Okay, so. I'm cutting out the artificial sweeteners, at least for now. Erin promises this will have a tremendously positive effect on my health, and will aid me in reaching my goals. I'm skeptical, but clearly I need to give this the whole 30 days before I can really judge, so here goes.

The other big focus was to not eat fruit for breakfast. See, I used to eat fruit and plain Greek yogurt every morning, with the occasional granola mixed in. When I cut out dairy back in July, I swapped my 4-6 ounces of yogurt for a couple tablespoons of almond butter, but kept the fruit. Even though I found that the almond butter had more staying power than the yogurt, I would still end up hungry by 10:30 or 11 most mornings. This doesn't happen when I have eggs. So, I've been googling "microwave omelet" for the last ten minutes or so, and we'll see how that goes this week.

All in all...the past two days have been a little challenging, but nothing awful. Yesterday I spent hours baking pumpkin whoopie pies, and then filling said whoopie pies with two flavors of homemade frosting. I managed not to taste the batter, the frosting, the finished product, or so much as lick my fingers. I had dinner at my friend's house without an issue (due in no small part to the fact that I ate about half a rotisserie chicken and some raw green beans before I left the house). Today, when walking through Costco to stock up for the week, I couldn't help but feel small pangs of jealousy for people who were spending the day watching the game while chowing down on chips and dip. And I pretty much would have killed someone for a cold Pepsi Max with my steak tonight.

But so far, two days of success, down. 28 more to go. Here's to bodyweight pull ups.

Last Supper

Today starts CFCC's fall body composition challenge. For the next 30 days, I am focusing on keeping my nutrition super-clean, starting to experiment with supplements, and gettin' strong. Adios, gluten. Buh-bye, copious amounts of fruit and Larabars. And - this is the one I'm really going to be bummed about - see ya later, artificial sweeteners. (As of now, my precious aspartame is the one thing I do plan to reintroduce come October 31, but we'll see.)

However...the challenge started today. October 1. Yesterday was September 30. Which meant my last chance for some unrestricted eats.

And I was so, so grateful that I had booked a class at Audrey Claire COOK months ago.

What better way to spend my last supper than with burgers handmade by Rob Wasserman and Michael Yeamans of Rouge? (And also of 500 degrees, which I thought opened a few months ago. Um, apparently it's been open for a year and a half. Fail.)

You better believe I started out with some bread. This was nice and crusty, with a dusting of salt on the ends and some fennel seeds baked in that I actually kind of liked. (I usually despise fennel, since I cannot stand licorice.)

As you can see, the space is fabulous - very intimate. There are sixteen seats spread around the bar, and you're only a foot away from the action at most.

It had a distinctive dinner party feel. Mike (who looks a WHOLE lot like Cliff Lee) did almost all of the hands-on work, while Rob led the show by talking through the courses and entertaining us. (By the way, sorry for the iPhone pics, but I wasn't sure if photography was going to be allowed so I didn't bother bringing the DSLR.)

First course was a tuna tartare, diced from the biggest, freshest slab of tuna I've ever seen, and tossed with a chili/soy sauce/rice vinegar dressing. It was served with salted wonton chips, some seaweed salad and an extremely pungent wasabi mayo.

The first course was paired with a light, crisp white wine - whites aren't my favorite, but this was decent. I was much happier when they started pouring a shiraz - it meant that the big guns were coming out. And I was right - we took a break between these two courses so that Mike could get our dessert (a flourless chocolate cake) in the oven.

After the miniature cakes were in the oven, he came around the table and gave a dollop of leftover raw batter to anyone who was willing to admit they wanted it. You better believe I got some, and ho.lee.shit. Five ingredients (sugar, eggs, butter, dark chocolate, heavy whipping cream) - serious bliss. I regret not taking a picture of that.

I didn't have too much time to mourn, because before I knew it, the burgers were fryin'.

O.M.G. Naturally, they weren't about to reveal their proprietary blend of meats, but they did confirm that it was 80/20, with a mix of beef, short rib and brisket. BRISKET. Under that beautiful blanket of gruyere is a pile of perfectly caramelized onions.

I mean, COME ON.

Third course was a truffled gnocchi. Below is about $600 worth of food: three white truffles, sitting gracefully in a bowl of dry rice, and a gigantic pile of truffle butter.

Mike showed Rob how to shave those gorgeous, expensive fungi over the handmade gnocchi.

This was easily my favorite dish of the night, and I am a serious, serious fan of red meat. The gnocchi were soft and pillowy, and the garlic oil and truffle butter combined with the shaved truffle was almost cheesy. I could have eaten a bucket of this.

A few minutes later it was time for dessert. (Cooked this time - not like the raw batter palate cleanser we had earlier in the night.)

The flourless chocolate cake was good, but not mind blowing. It stood up well to the Barbera that was flowing, and it somehow managed to be dense and fluffy at the same time.

("I like soup. It's a chunky soup...it's a liquid soup...it's chunky and liquid at the same time. I don't get how they do that shit.")

All in all, it was a fabulous night, and the best "last supper" I could have asked for. If any of you are considering it, DEFINITELY grab a reservation at Cook. It was a great experience - definitely a little pricey ($250 for PhillyGuy and I), but we got four courses, three free-flowing wines, and an intimate, informative cooking demonstration, with recipes to bring home. Maybe not a once-a-month thing, but we'll definitely be back. AFTER the body composition challenge, anyway.

Plus, being able to indulge like that last night made it juuuuuuust a little less painful to spend most of today baking goddamn pumpkin whoopie pies. I can't eat 'em, but DAMN do they look beautiful - plenty of pictures and I'll share tomorrow.

Happy weekend!

Elimination Diet

I mentioned on Twitter a while ago that PhillyGuy has been prescribed a very restrictive diet.

He's been having some GI issues and, among other things, is now being tested for various food allergies. This requires a couple of things, including starting with a completely clean slate.

The doctor called it an "elimination diet." Because it basically has eliminated all major possible allergens from his diet. What does that include? Let's see. Gluten and lactose, for sure. All dairy products. Most sugars - refined AND naturally occurring. Acidic stuff. Any refined carbohydrates or other processed food. Nothing with nitrates. Artificial sweeteners. Artificial ANYTHING. And (I suspect) soy.

However, instead of going at this from a "don't eat X, Y and Z" angle, the doctor (very helpfully) prescribed it from an "only eat A, B, and C" angle, which makes it much easier to follow. What does that leave us?



Just about any type of meat, as long as it's not processed - that means pork, chicken, red meat and fish. No ham, no bacon, no processed or treated lunch meat. Eggs. Brown rice, quinoa and millet (which I actually thought was birdseed and did not realize was available for human consumption). Nuts. Specific types of green and generally non-fibrous vegetables - summer squash, spinach, asparagus, green beans. Cook and season your foods with olive oil, parsley, salt and black pepper. Drink water, mint tea (SO GOOD) or fennel tea (vom vom vom).



It's been a challenge, for sure. Our meals have been repetitive, but (honestly) delicious. On the weekends, for breakfast we almost always have eggs over-easy, on top of quinoa and spinach. I've been pan-frying thick-sliced turkey breast and pretending it's canadian bacon. Dinner has been some kind of meat, either pork chops, chicken breast or steak, simply grilled with just salt, pepper and parsley. On the side, I roast veggies - almost always asparagus or fresh green beans - with olive oil, salt and freshly-ground pepper.



It's a challenge because it eliminated SO MANY of the things we had made staples, like mushrooms and onions and garlic and brussels sprouts. And seasonings! I have a cabinet full of herbs and spices that I can't touch.



But it's also been good, and not only because PhillyGuy is feeling MARKEDLY better. It's been good because we don't go out to eat or order takeout as often. It's been good that I now appreciate how tasty simple things can be. The first night I made veggies with only salt and pepper, instead of our usual rosemary/parmesean cheese mix, we were both shocked at how GOOD it was.

I've been cheating, though. Brown rice with just salt and pepper isn't quite as tasty as, say, asparagus. So I use some Earth Balance, too. I figure it's dairy free, gluten free and vegan...how bad could it possibly be?? (Answer: soy. I bet soy is off-limits.)

Don't get me wrong - I'm looking forward to the next stages of this diet, when he gets to systematically introduce different allergens. Fruit would be nice, you know. Or cheese. In the meantime, the lack of tasty food groups and different spices has not stopped the dogs from assuming their usual begging positions.



It also hasn't stopped Sophie from having demon eyes in every freakin' picture.



And it hasn't stopped them from playing with their Martha Stewart screaming skeleton toy. That no longer screams (thank god) because Cosmo broke the screamer thing within the first ten minutes that the toy was in the house.



Still looking for anyone who wants to join a little pace group for the Philly half this weekend!

Stuck on You

I have something of an obsessive personality.

When I like a song, I want to hear it over and over and over again and it goes on every single playlist and/or CD I make. When I get new clothes or shoes or a bag, I want to wear them immediately, and sometimes think of ways to wear an item multiple times in a week.

Where it's always been most clear is my tendency to get "stuck" on certain foods. My senior year of college, I had rice Chex for breakfast every.single.day for six or seven months straight. My first year here at the firm, I discovered Gia Pronto and ordered the same exact salad (identical ingredients, no variation at all) every day for lunch from February through September or so -- and the only reason that broke off was because I took two and a half weeks off for my wedding and honeymoon.

The P90X nutrition plan really plays to these tendencies of mine. There are a couple of ways to approach the plan -- detailed meal plans with recipes vs. a "portion" version, where you can eat whatever so long as it fits into the prescribed outline. This is what I've been doing -- I get five "portions" of protein, two of veggies, one fruit, two dairy, one carb, one condiment and one fat, plus a protein bar (they "prescribe" the Beachbody/P90X brand, but Clif Builder's bars have about the same makeup, a better ingredients list and (bonus) are actually sold in stores near me). It took some getting used to, but it's been working fabulously for me.

I've been keeping a notebook to track my eating, mainly to keep tabs on what I've eaten for the day, what I have left and where I need to catch up. And, unsurprisingly, I've found myself eating nearly identically every single day. Breakfast? Berries (about 1.25 cups of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and/or blackberries -- whatever's on sale), Fage 0 and iced coffee. Midmorning I have my bar. Lunch is almost always a salad -- I've been leaning towards the Mediterranean salad from Jake & Max's in the Comcast center, with crabmeat, shrimp, red peppers, artichokes and capers. In the afternoon, I have another yogurt (either Fage 0 or plain Chobani, whatever DiBruno's has in stock) with an ounce of dried fruit. Dinner is either two sandwiches (arnold's thin and a bunch of turkey), if I'm lazy, or grilled something (chicken, pork, fish) and a sweet potato with hot sauce and plain greek yogurt. If I'm craving something sweet, I'll have half of a bar. And then the next day...exactly the same thing.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Looking back over the past three weeks, my notebook is full of identical pages. Sometimes, I'll go crazy and switch things up -- have a sandwich (turkey on wheat with mustard, sweet peppers, lettuce and tomato) for lunch and save my veggies for dinner, so I can have a big salad then. But I really had to laugh when I saw this. Not like I'm surprised!

Are you a creature of habit?

"You keep using...

that word...I do not think it means what you think it means."

What word is that? Oh, just all the variations of "ZOMG REALLY BUSY" I've been throwing around about work for the past eight months or so. I'm beginning to realize that it's not that I've been "really busy" this year. It's that, for the first two years, I was sort of slow. And that this is not really "busy" so much as it is "what it's like working at a big firm."

I mean, not for everyone. Some people bill a whole heck of a lot more hours than I do. And others have the seriously unfortunate fate of being stuck on massive non-billable projects, like "here spend 40 hours this morning writing this article for me, oh and also make sure you bill at least 160 regular hours too."

Anyway. I've been surviving -- and mostly without issue! But this week has worn me down. Mostly because it's been filled with dealing with shenanigans. Shenanigans from clients, shenanigans from opposing counsel, you name it. It's gotten to the point where, whenever my phone rings, I look at it and yell "OH MY GOD NOW WHAT??" (before I pick it up, of course).

I've also developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of a certain partner coming down the hall towards my office. When I hear that familiar throat-clearing, I immediately fill with a sense of annoyance and dread.

The point of writing this out is twofold. One, to explain why I can sometimes be a pretty flaky blogger. (Not like I haven't explained that before.) And two, to marvel at the fact that, despite all of this "insanity" (or "normal life" -- I'll make the official call in about 6 months), I've managed to stay on track with P90X, both with the workouts and the nutrition.

Pretty sure my diet has done a complete 180. I eat lots of fruit, plain yogurt, veggies and chicken. And it's making a difference. I sustained my initial 5-lb loss and we'll see, on Monday, whether I'm down any more. I certainly feel a difference, and I definitely saw it in my arms and shoulders when I was at the gym last night, doing shoulders/biceps/triceps. I can't believe we're almost through our third week, and I'm sort of looking forward to the first set of progress pictures we'll take in another 10 days.

In the meantime, though -- I'm really, REALLY looking forward to yoga tonight. But mostly, right now, I just want to take a nap. I think I'll settle for some coffee instead, and cross my fingers that I'm done with shenanigans for this week.

OW OW OW OW

OW OW OW.

THAT is how I felt this morning when I woke up. An hour of pushups and "modified" (i.e. done 100% with a resistance band) pullups followed by the lamest attempt at 15 minutes of abs ever is no freakin' joke!

My chest is sore -- a little more so than I typically am following a chest workout, but nothing ridiculous. My ABS, though -- ooooh boy. Not only did my 15 minute "ab ripper X" shenanigans burn like crazy, I could really feel everything clenching during the pushups. Because, you know, I have the weakest abs EVER.

We'll get there! I'll improve. That's the idea.

Today is plyometrics. PhillyGuy did his this morning, and gave it stellar reviews -- he had trouble completing it. I think -- HOPE -- I'll do better with it, but we'll see. I'm working out at night, which is what I prefer.

I can tell eating is going to be a struggle with this. P90X gives you a diet plan to follow. As I've mentioned before, I do significantly better when I have a specific plan laid out for me, and so I'm planning to follow this to the letter. Unfortunately, like most commercial "diets," this comes in three phases, the first of which is quite restrictive. Unlike -- I'm sure -- a lot of people, I don't mind and sort of appreciate an initial, brief restrictive phase. I've "officially" done the South Beach diet a few times -- it's how I lost weight the first time and how I lost my law school 20 during my 1L year. In theory, I intend to live my life on Phase 3 of that diet -- eating whole, normal, good-for-you foods. That is theory. In practice, I eat a little of this and that here and there, until suddenly I realize I've just been eating whatever I want for long enough to have completely fallen away from eating reasonably.

Anyway -- I don't mind the idea of that initial "Phase 1" restrictiveness. You can't deny the motivational kick from seeing the number on the scale drop quickly as you lose your water weight, of course, but more importantly, I find that quitting crappy food "cold turkey" is significantly more effective in making sure I don't overdo it. Moderation and I are not the best of friends, and while I never miss chocolate once I break my habit, I find that "just one ounce a day" turns into "one ounce at work after lunch" plus "a couple small handfuls of mini chocolate chips at night after dinner" plus "just a spoonful of almond butter to go with them" and BAM, I've just dedicated an extra 600 calories to stuff I don't AT ALL need.

Regardless, though, this phase is super restrictive. Like every Phase I that I've seen, it's very low-carb, high-protein. Calorie-wise, it's pretty standard -- about 1800 per day. But the types of foods I have to eat are, at least initially, unsatisfying. Here's yesterday's eats:

- Breakfast: "protein shake." They call it that, I'll call it my Green Monster (woo, now I feel like a real blogger!). 1/2 banana, 1/2c berries, handful of spinach, scoop of protein powder, 1/2c milk, ice.
- Midmorning snack: Clif Builder's Bar
- Lunch: tuna salad made with 6oz tuna, plain Chobani, stone-ground mustard, dill and various spices over salad made with 2c spinach and 1/2c total of chopped red pepper, tomato and portabella mushrooms
- 5pm "snack:" 6oz plain Chobani
- Dinner: 6.5oz grilled chicken, 1/2 sweet potato with Texas Pete and plain Chobani, 2/3oz reduced-fat cheddar "snack cheese"

Let's be clear: I am NOT hungry on this diet. I get more than enough food in terms of calories and fuel, and it's GOOD stuff...but my dinner left me feeling full, but unsatisfied. I wanted something else to eat -- a side of veggies would have done the trick. Alas, I get X number of "servings" (e.g., 3oz of chicken breast is one protein, 1 cup of cooked veggies is one veggie), and I had used up my veggies by frontloading them in my lunch. I've learned my lesson and made sure to save a veggie for tonight. It's going to take some getting used to, but I can do it for two weeks -- I get to add in more fruit and veggies in a couple weeks, so I can live. Also, it ain't going to kill me to learn to just STOP EATING when I'm full, instead of mindlessly continuing to much just because I feel like there should be something else there.

(It does, however, make me want to punch PhillyGuy, who gets about twice as much food as me and complains that he doesn't know just how he's going to manage to eat all of this protein!)

Also, I should really buy stock in Chobani. How did I live without Greek yogurt? Yet another thing I owe to the blogworld. Thanks, guys :)

There are so many things that are a regular part of my life now that didn't occur to me before I started reading blogs. What has the blogworld introduced to you?