In light of my renewed focus on nutrition, I thought it would be a horrible idea to fall into the tried and true tradition of Easter brunch at one of the many restaurants in Austin. Instead, I invited a few friends over for an attempt at Paleo Easter. On the menu:
- Paleo pancakes, courtesy of the Performance Menu
- Scrambled eggs
- Bacon!
- Lemon tarts, also courtesy of the Performance Menu (see earlier post)
All in all, the paleo pancakes pretty much rocked. We messed around with various toppings: dark chocolate chips in the pancakes (awesome), raspberry topping (awesome), heavy whipped cream topping (awesome again)… all three combined, amazing. Ryon did an awesome job with the eggs and bacon; I screwed up the flipping of the first couple pancakes, and handed that job over to Ryon, who then rocked it.
I did my first intermittent fast from 5pm Saturday through 1pm Sunday… about 20 hours. I even ran 5k Sunday morning, while still fasting! I can say that my performance didn’t degrade at all, I just need to remember to drink a lot more water. I think I’m going to start a weekly IF protocol, just not sure which day — in true CrossFit style, I’m going to keep it interesting and just fast whichever day seems most appropriate.
Today’s WOD: run 5k. 22:02, PR.
Posted in life on 11. Apr, 2009
Warning! There are a crapload of links from this post to other places… don’t get lost!
Today is the first true rest day I’ve had in a looong time. Like in a couple weeks, at least. Full rest day; we’re talking at the moment, I’m laying on the couch, balcony door is open, cool breeze coming in, golf is on in the background, and it feels like Sunday to me. Which is great, because tomorrow is Sunday, and that just means I’ve got an extra day in my weekend (I know, I don’t, but whatever).
On more Sundays than not, I tend to have an introspective, contemplative attitude. Sundays to me mean getting ready for the week ahead, getting some last-minute errands done, and then figuring out how to hold on to those last few hours before you have to turn everything back on and re-engage with the world. Part of that attitude has to do with me being tragically hungover on Sunday mornings, especially lately. It’s for this reason that I usually find a way to listen to A Sunday by Jimmy Eat World (iTunes link).
Not this weekend, no way.
This weekend I’m focusing on regrouping my life from end-to-end. As Gwen Stefani so eloquently put it,
This shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
My training schedule is beginning to collide with my teaching schedule, which is also colliding with my work schedule (can’t link… employer would not be pleased, let’s just say that my current job requires a lot of collaboration). The convergence of this banananess is causing havoc in my life… I’m 30 years old, and I can’t keep up with the fucking dishes. I mean really, Eric, the dishes? C’mon! Really?
I used to think I needed structure. I’ve got calendars and schedules and all kinds of lists and shit. There’s enough structure to build the 42-story building that’s going up next to my 4-story apartment complex. I’m beginning to think it’s not structure, it’s simplification and efficiency. I need to go back to what Mom taught me when I was growing up — take the dishes as an example; just put the fuckers away when you’re done, and then you’re caught up on the dishes.
So my new goal is to stay current, stay engaged, stay present.
Let’s see if I can squeeze out any extra time to pursue other goals and perhaps dreams.
Introspection over. On to what I had originally intended to post this week.
- The Healthy/Fuck Off scale. First off, I just recently stumbled upon Byers’ blog and she cracks me up. This post, and the one on bacon. The Healthy/Fuck Off scale is a scale of foods that you know are healthy and you’re cool with eating, down to foods that are totally not healthy, but if you told me I can’t eat them, I’d tell you to fuck off. The idea being that if you can identify the fuck off foods, you can control your consumption of them and not totally block them out of your diet. I can tell you right now, booze, pizza, some cookies, and molten chocolate cake are on low (very low) on the healthy scale and very high on the fuck off scale. What’s on yours?
- The Performance Menu. Anyone who tells me they don’t have time to cook is lying. Simply lying. Read the beginning of this post. I cook, you can too! And the free recipes on this site are so damn good that it makes me want to buy the book(s). Top that off with most of them being quick… Performance Menu FTW! I made the Lemon Tarts the other day, amazing. Tomorrow for Easter brunch, I’d like to have a few friends over for an attempt at the Quick Paleo Pancakes. Later this week, we’re going for the Paleo Pizza. So many options, and you just feel good eating this stuff!
- A quick recap on wtf I did to my blog layout. I got really tired of the time-formatted posts, so I decided to start messing around with the Interwebs and “mashups.” As someone with an MS in Computer Science, I thought the whole mashup concept was total bullshit. Until now. I took the feed of my workout log from Dailymile, a filtered version of my twitter feed, and BAM! Food log and training log line the sides of this place.
I’m going to shuffle around my training and teaching schedules a bit in the coming weeks. I’ve also got a cool conditioning class I’m starting up at Pure Austin in May. I’m excited about the future, but it’s time to stay present and stay engaged.
–e
p.s. Jeremy tells me I need more pictures on my blog.
CNN has an article today on a dude who wants six pack abs, and has found that doing crunches is not enough (gasp!). from the article…
Every day, Jason Dinant chows down 16 hard-boiled egg whites, one and a quarter pound of meat and four cups of vegetables, sprinkled with an occasional carbohydrate.
it’s a tough diet to follow, but it really does work!
I get questions about CrossFit from the women in my spin classes often. Their main concern is that weighlifting will make them pack on muscle or look man-ish.
Empirically, I tell them they won’t… that weight training using the CrossFit method will shred body fat and increase strength and muscle definition, but they certainly won’t be looking like a female bodybuilder anytime soon.
Why? I never really knew why until I started reading a little bit. I just know that all the women who work out at our affiliate are not bulky. They’re just ripped in awesome ways, and they look great.
So I came across an article on CrossFit Delaware’s site that really helps break down what women do in the gym, why it’s ineffective, and why CrossFit won’t make you huge. The short of it is that you need testosterone to build a ton of muscle, and women simply don’t produce enough of it to pack on muscle. You have to try to get that much muscle — you have to intend to grow it.
Thoughts?
I’ve done enough of these athletic events that I have a bit of a ritual around it… here’s my day-before and day-of agenda.
the day before
wake up at a reasonable hour, from a good night’s sleep, and do something athletic. don’t blow it out, just sweat a little.
eat a great breakfast.
run last-minute errands and stay hydrated all day long.
take a nap.
get some dinner, usually a steak with some vegetables and a few more starches than i’d normally eat. alcohol’s fine, just no more than 2 drinks.
put together race bag, assemble race belt, ensure that all of the following are in the race bag:
- gels: 1 for every 40 minutes. usually no caffeinated gels, depends on how i feel.
- 1 water bottle to run with that i’m ok with losing (for foot races).
- 1 water bottle to drink from with some sort of caffeine in it.
- 1 water bottle with recovery drink.
- post-race shirt and towel.
- race belt with number attached.
- bodyglide!
go to bed at a reasonable hour, have some nuun right before bed.
morning of
wake up 1 hour before i need to leave the house. have some coffee and some breakfast, not too much food. usually some eggs and fruit or some bread.
leave for the race, begin drinking first water bottle.
get to the race, get organized, hit the bathroom, and warm up. use the standard crossfit warmup without the pushups and with extra running drills.
race!
drink recovery drink.
sleep!
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