Things I Love

Thing I love, number one: recently, I've hit a new level of genius (and laziness): you can scramble eggs in the microwave.

They aren't quite as tasty as pan-cooked eggs (mostly, I suspect, because you don't add any cooking fat), but it is faster since there's no cleanup required.  So, I've been bringing a little tupperware to work with me, with a couple of eggs (three if I'm not adding meat OR two plus meat of choice) and some veggies (salsa is a really good "cheater" veggie...or a handful of spinach and cherry tomatoes...and lately, SO MUCH KIMCHI).  When I get there, I break the eggs into the tupperware with whatever meat I'm using, stir it all up with a fork, microwave for a minute and 15 seconds, stir, and nuke for a little longer to finish cooking - usually another 15-45 seconds, depending on the meat.  Top with veggies of choice, and it looks like this: 

Thing I love, number two: so this morning, I'm standing there in the office kitchen chatting with a coworker, who's watching me stir a couple of eggs in with leftover smoked pulled pork and a (particularly beautiful) chunk of brisket.  I work in a small office, so everyone has noticed my recent weight loss and several people keep asking me how I did it.  I usually say that I found out I was allergic to gluten, which isn't COMPLETELY true, but generally staves off any scrutiny about "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT EATING WHOLE GRAINS ARE YOU ON ATKINS UGH YOU ARE GOING TO DIE."  

Anyway, she's telling me how she needs to start eating better, and going to the gym, and she just can't seem to lose weight.  "It's not like I overeat!  I haven't eaten anything yet today, and in a little while I'm going to have a yogurt.  That's what I'll have today...a yogurt."

It makes me die a little bit inside to know how miserable and frustrated she must feel.  I hate having my eating choices criticized, so I generally don't do the same to others (PhillyGuy must be rolling his eyes through the back of his skull right now - but it's DIFFERENT because I LOVE YOU!), but I always feel like I have this big amazing secret I want to share with all the sad dieters existing on boiled chicken breast and Yoplait.

One of the things that's surprised me with my third BCCC is that I'm not actually getting quite as much protein as I'd assumed I was.  Focusing on gettin' SKRONGER means that I need to make sure I'm eating a sufficient amount of protein - at LEAST one gram per pound of lean body mass.  With some very rough estimating, I've been using 115lbs as my LBM - so I shoot for 120-150g of protein every day.  I figured that'd be a given.  It is NOT.

Which brings us to thing I love, number three: canned fish.

Sardines, tuna, smoked herring (what my grandfather used to call "kippered snacks"): whatever.  They don't need to be refrigerated or cooked or prepared, which means I can keep a couple tins stashed in my desk drawer.  It's a decent way to get a hit of protein - one little tin of sardines has 22g - and if you stick with a good brand, the ingredients are nice and clean.

(Incidentally...how is a serving HALF of this little baby tin?)  So we'll see.  The past week has been rough, but I'm off antibiotics now and feeling MUCH better.  I'm still taking a probiotic supplement and eating kimchi and yogurt like it's my job, but hopefully my gut flora will rebuild themselves pretty quickly and I'll be back to normal. 

Log:

Tuesday May 15: some strict HSPU work - tripod to headstand and pressing up from the bottom. THAT SHIT IS NOT EASY.  Even though I can do a few sets of strict HSPUs with light and mini bands, and can kip them easily, I couldn't even press out of the bottom with an average (green) band.  Oy.  Strict overhead press, peak of three. 45-60-70-80-85x2, failed on the third.  This is a PR, since I could never get 85 up before, but it was incredibly ugly - I went up on my toes, arched the shit out of my back, etc.  These are still on my suck list.  Oh well.  Metcon: AMRAP 7 minutes, burpees.  I got 93 - quads seizing, sweat dripping off of my face, mascara annihilated, and beating my score from the open by nearly 20.

Paleo Breakfasts

One of the notable changes I made with the CFCC BCCC was eliminating my usual breakfast of some kind of fruit and almond butter.

The "why" behind this is pretty simple: sugar and fat without any real protein is not a good way to start your day. Not only do you end up with a quick insulin spike, but - and this is anecdotal - it just doesn't keep you full. At all. There's not much to run on.

I needed protein-focused breakfast alternatives. And, since I'm kind of lazy and not at all interested in cooking every single weekday morning, I needed (or at least really wanted) stuff that could be made ahead of time, preferably the night before, with minimal work in the mornings.

Here's what's been in my rotation the past few weeks.

Option 1: go to DiBruno's in the Comcast Center and pick up a made-to-order omelet, usually with bacon, tomatoes and green pepper.



Pros: very tasty, and the least work possible, since someone else is doing the cooking. DiBruno's cooks with clarified butter, and the ingredients are decent quality. Cons: it's not cheap. An omelet is $4.99. And obviously, it's just not possible to get an omelet without coffee too (even if I've barely finished the first cup that I made at home), so it ends up being closer to $8 after tax and all that good stuff. Who needs to spend $40 a week for convenience?

Next: scrambled eggs with whatever's in the fridge. This is from this morning and included grape tomatoes, crumbled bacon (I bought a big bag of precooked bacon crumbles at Costco), and spinach.



Pros: much cheaper than an omelet from DiBruno's and just as tasty. I definitely know what's going into it since I made it myself. Cons: more time-consuming than buying pre-made breakfast and no make-ahead option (scrambled eggs do not reheat so well). Still, time commitment was moderate - about ten minutes total, including time to wash the pan and spatula.

Next: smoked pork topped with two over-easy eggs.



Pros: god, this is delicious. And it's easy. The pulled pork is Kirkland brand from Costco, with a surprisingly paleo-approved ingredients list. I had some for dinner one night, and then reheated the rest over the course of a few days for breakfasts (and leftover dinners). Cons: it's definitely fatty, which can leave me feeling a little sluggish if I'm too generous with the pork. I think next time I will add in some spinach or something a little more "fresh" tasting. This is also not a make-ahead deal, but cooking and cleanup time is minimal at six minutes total.

Finally: soft-boiled eggs, smoked salmon, spinach, grape tomatoes.



Pros: a complete make-ahead breakfast. I soft-boiled six eggs on Tuesday night and made two of these neat little containers with 4oz of smoked salmon each, a handful of tomatoes and a handful of spinach. It's lower in fat than some of my other breakfasts (cough, smoked pork, cough) and it doesn't need to be heated. Cons: smoked salmon can be kinda stinky. And it's pricey, which bumps the cost of this breakfast up a bunch. Also, I haven't mastered the soft boiled egg yet (that's not really a con, it's just me).

So...that's what I've been rotating through. So far, the salmon dish has been my favorite. It's cold and refreshing and not heavy but still unbelievably tasty. I'm going to try steaming my next batch of soft-boiled eggs, which promises to be simpler and also help the shells peel more completely, so I don't waste half an egg by picking the shell off bit by bit.

Lots of benchmark workouts this week, since we're between strength cycles:

Monday: A little snatching, followed by Crossfit Disco. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of box jumps (24/20) and pull ups. Cap of 10:00, even if you're as RX'ed...which I was not. I used the average band for my first couple sets of pullups and then quickly realized I was failing every couple reps, so I added the mini band so I could finish within the cap. I fucking suck at pull ups. 9:57.

Wednesday: Some kettlebell snatch work, followed by Helen. 3 rounds for time of 400m run, 21 American KB swings (1.5/1pood), 12 pull ups. I used the RX'ed weight but did Russian swings as American were bugging my left shoulder, and average + mini bands. 11:51. In the third round, I was failing every third or fourth pull up. BAH.

Thursday: Elizabeth. 21-15-9 of power cleans (135/95) and ring dips. Last time we did Elizabeth was during the last week of September, when I didn't log a single workout. I know I used 65lbs and recalled it being relatively easy, and I know I'm not so hot at ring dips, so I estimated that it took me over 10 minutes to complete. This may not have been correct. Using the light band for my dips and 65lbs, I completed this in 8:41. Time to move up in weight. Not in dips (I did them 2-3 at a time and failed a few reps in the last two sets).

Tonight is Jeremy, which I haven't done since my very first on-ramp class. And, since that was with a PVC pipe and still kicked my ass, I'm pumped to see how today goes. Happy weekend!

Short & Sweet

Making this a quick one - I'm trying to blow through a ton of work today in the hopes of getting out of here early enough to get home, walk my pups and get back to CFCC for some snatch action. (The jokes just write themselves.)

I sort of expected this weekend to be something of a challenge. PhillyGuy and I road tripped it up to visit his parents and grandparents, which - like any visit to an Italian family - typically involves food (and gluten, and sugar, and and and) in excess. Normally, for a weekend like this, while I don't just go balls to the wall and eat everything that's offered to me, I have no compunctions about eating a fresh cider donut or a couple pieces of toast with breakfast or a slice or two of sheet pizza. Not so much this time.

I prepared myself as best I could by packing some necessities into my purse:



Two bags of my favorite buffalo jerky (for snacks and, if necessary, emergency meal replacements...I asked PhillyGuy to get me four, but this is apparently all that was left in the store), jump rope (for travel WOD-ing on the in-laws' back porch), water bottle (for surgically attaching to my hand), food log (for, well, food logging).

Also, my nook (for reading lots of US Weekly and maybe some of the Impressionists). Which has nothing to do with this challenge.

Here are the challenges I expected: lots of donuts, pizza, bread and desserts being offered. Lots of pressure to change my mind after I politely declined said donuts, pizza, bread and/or desserts. Lots of scrutiny about what I was eating or not eating. Lots of questions about what I was doing and why.

Here is what actually happened: true to form, Mama PhillyGuy greeted us with a jug of fresh cider and a dozen or two warm, fresh cider donuts from the Cider Mill down the street. She offered both of us one (or two or ten), and asked me if I'd ever had one warm. Perhaps PhillyGuy gave his parents a heads up, or perhaps they gleaned some stuff from facebook or something, but she wasn't surprised when I told her that I wasn't going to have one.

There were some questions about what I was doing - "is it some kind of cleanse or something?" has been a common one, not just with my inlaws but with almost everyone who's caught wind of it - but thankfully, very little else. There was one point where she literally shoved some kind of caramel apple pie directly under my face, and one incident in the grocery store where she tried to convince me that I could have apple crisp, since she didn't add sugar to her apples, but all in all, it was really nothing.

Which I was completely grateful for. I really, really dislike being scrutinized about my eating, particularly WHILE I'm eating. They were very accommodating - when his dad grilled up some spiedies and locally-made sausages for lunch, Mama PhillyGuy helped me check all of the labels to make sure there was no added sugar or anything else funny in the ingredient lists, and made sure that she was OK to use her regular rice vinegar to dress the salad - but not at all intrusive, and no one tried to get into a debate with me about how whole grains are healthy or whatever.

All in all, the weekend was a non-issue, but it's eye-opening. My takeaways:

- It's amazing just how much ritual is built around food. PhillyGuy and I have discussed numerous times how it's a struggle, particularly for him, to eat well when we visit his parents. It's not just because there is, literally, ALWAYS food available - plates of candy and homemade cookies everywhere at Christmas, everyone you visit putting out a tray of snacks, ranging from antipasto and crackers to home-smoked prosciutto to candied nuts and cheese - when you come hang out with them. It's also because you associate so many things with "coming home" or "family time" or whatever. It's fall, so we always, ALWAYS have cider and cider donuts and usually an apple pie or apple crisp. His parents frequently pick up a sheet pizza to snack on when the kids come visit (like spiedies, it's a Binghamton thing - pizza baked in a sheet pan, topped with american cheese) that we inevitably graze on, hot or cold, for the duration of our stay. We'll go visit his uncle, who might make three varieties of homemade pizza or homemade pasta or both. You don't eat because you're hungry, you eat because it's ritual.

- Not partaking in the ritual feast doesn't stop you from partaking in the important part of the ritual - hanging out with people you love and catching up with them.

- The only time I was a little jealous of the "let's eat whatever" mentality was Saturday night. We were all stuffed from gorging ourselves on spiedies, salad and sausage around 2 or 3 that afternoon, so no one had dinner. Around 8 or 9, people started getting snacky, and one by one, my husband and his parents went into the kitchen and then returned to the living room with big plates of apple pie and whipped cream. I didn't want the actual pie (I'm not a pie fan in general), and I wasn't even hungry OR particularly snacky myself, but I felt a little left out that everyone else was eating and I wasn't. So silly, right?

- PhillyGuy had the bright idea that "he" (read: both of us) would make breakfast for nine people. While cooking this much food in someone else's kitchen is nerve-wracking, this was good because I got to control the menu enough to ensure that there was plenty of food for me. We made two pounds of Whole Foods fresh cut black forest bacon, twenty eggs (some fried, some over easy, the rest scrambled), a few links of kielbasa, and diced sweet potatoes pan-fried in bacon grease with an onion. I had three (small-ish) eggs, a little bit of potato, three slices of bacon and two small slices of kielbasa. Everyone else built out the breakfast with toast, pastries, a variety of cider donuts, juice and fruit - and no one commented on what I was or wasn't eating, which was a relief.

- There is a noticeable difference in the quality of the $5 jumprope I picked up at Target and the jumpropes at the gym. The workout I intended to do involved 50-40-30-20-10 double-unders alternated with overhead squats with the rope, but I couldn't get the rope to move fast enough to do more than one DU at a time. After it took the better part of 5-6 minutes to get to 25 DU's, I said "F this noise" and switched to twice as many singles. Total, this workout took me about 12 minutes, I worked up a nice dripping sweat, and got it all out of the way before my inlaws even woke up. There truly is NO excuse not to work out when you're traveling.

So now I'm back to work and experimenting with portable breakfasts with minimal AM prep time.



Repeat from Friday and one other day last week: shredded smoked pork (from Costco - surprisingly clean ingredients list and I think $8 for three or four pounds) topped with two over-easy eggs. Total prep time of six minutes, including a quick wash of the pan and spatula.

Rest of last week's workouts:

- Friday 10/7 - Lynne redux. 5 rounds of max bench presses and max pull ups. I hadn't done this workout since the first round four weeks ago, before I hurt my shoulder. We were instructed to use the same weight and (if applicable) same band, with the goal being to show progress in the number of reps you could complete. For me, this was 90lbs/average band. The weight felt a LOT heavier than it had the first time, which I chalked up to my shoulder - I was noticeably weaker on my left side, but I was eking out 5 or 6 reps in each round. And then, three rounds in, Liz noticed that I was actually lifting 95 pounds, not 90. So, you know, fail. Can't measure progress with this one, but my rounds were 6/11, 5/11, 4/10, 4/9 and 4/8.

- Sunday 10/9 - travel workout! I put together my own based on the suggested workouts available on the CFCC page. 50-40-30-20-10 DU's alternated with 25-20-15-10-5 OH squats with the rope...except I actually did 25DU's followed by 80-60-40-20 singles due to rope suckage. Still sweated my butt off.

OK, so...so much for a "short" and "quick" post. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Weekend Breakfasts

Weekends are my favorite.

I know. What a stupid, cliche thing to say. NO SHIT, weekends are your favorite.

"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called 'EVERYBODY,' and they meet at the bar." - Drew Carey. (and no, I don't hate my job. In fact, I love it. But weekends are still my favorite.)

One of the best things about the weekend is breakfast. I love going out to breakfast, I love making breakfast. Recently, I discovered that I love over-easy eggs. And even more recently than THAT, I discovered that I love over-easy eggs on an open-face bagel sandwich.



I start by preparing the bagels. I've been using Everything Bagel Thins, which suck as bagels but are perfect for sandwiches. I have one bagel thin with both halves spread with copious amounts of roasted red pepper and/or sundried tomato hummus. PhillyGuy gets two, with garlic hummus spead on one half of each and a Laughing-Cow-style soft cheese wedge spread on the other. This weekend I used Weight Watchers brand Parmesean Peppercorn flavor.



Next comes the best layer: bacon. I cooked six slices of bacon and broke each slice in half. Each bagel thin gets topped with one slice (two halves, side by side).



I may have mentioned that PhillyGuy's uncle gave us a five-pound wheel of provolone cheese for Christmas.



Obviously we need to keep chipping away at it, and I think bagel sandwiches really benefit from a few shavings of creamy, super-sharp provolone.





I like to put a handful of baby spinach on mine, but I leave the green stuff off of his.



And then the really important part is the egg.



I have no idea if I cook "over easy eggs" properly, but what I like to do is fry the egg until the white is mostly solidified, and then flip it over for about ten seconds before sliding it onto the bagel half.



This results in a ton of runny yolk that soaks into everything and makes me feel like I was a giant fool for spending the vast majority of my life convinced that I "didn't like" eggs. IDIOT. EGGS ARE DELICIOUS.

This particular weekend I also wanted to finish off the last of a Costco-size container of Fage 0, so I dumped in a bunch of berries and called it good.



And then Sophie was super excited that she got to REALLY finish it off.



And Cosmo was like, "SHUT UP EVERYONE. It's SATURDAY and I am TRYING to SLEEP."