Good to be back in Maine

Tonight's dinner - we bought the lobsters from Bailey's Lobster Pound in Scarborough. I ate 3 of them with a bunch of butter (pastured cows) and a salad.

LDL Cholesterol

A while back, I posted my lipids. Of note was my "high cholesterol". Here are the numbers:

Total Cholesterol: 252
HDL: 78
Triglycerides: 27
LDL: 168

The LDL wasn't measured directly as we didn't order that test. It was calculated using the Friedewald equation. It was flagged as high on the lab report and I was a bit concerned at the time (though now that I've looked into it, I am not worried any more...)

Recently, Dr. Eades posted that the Friedewald equation doesn't give a reasonable answer if triglycerides are above 400 or less than 100. Stephan had a few posts filling out more of the details on Dr. Eades post. There is a cool calculator that will provide a more realistic LDL if triglycerides are low. I plugged my numbers in and got the 168 from Friedewald and a 117 with the "Iranian". Much better!

Sprint graph with my forerunner 305

Yesterday, I threw together an impromptu workout, doing the following in about 25 min

10min –> On every minute, 25 KB swings (w/ a pood KB) (total == 250 swings)

Alternating sets of 20x5, as little rest as possible:

• Prisoner Squats (fast and bouncy)
• Pushups

(Total == 200 reps)

Alternating sets of 25x4, as little rest as possible:

• Swiss ball leg extensions
• Jackknifes, legs on Swiss ball

(Total == 200 reps)

It wasn’t quite Craig Ballantyne’s Kettlebell 555, but it was a very good workout nonetheless.

Today, we have a break in the rain (FINALLY!). I threw on my Vibrams and did some sprints. I did 6 sets – not sure how far they were, but I found a spot with a little hill in the beginning which made them a bit tougher. At the end, I ran the length of the field 4 times – 2x backwards, 2x forwards.

I wore my Garmin Forerunner 305 so I could see my heart rate. The graph of the workout was pretty cool:

(Red == heart rate, Blue == speed. Up top, the horizontal lines are my sprints, the diagonal is the 4 runs across the field).

In the midst of my first 24 fast in a long, long time. Fasting has been very difficult lately , but I think I am going to make it (ends around 5:30).

Fun weekend

We went camping this weekend at Camp Resolute in Bolton, Massachusetts. It was cub scout Family Camp. We had a great time hanging out with the other families in our den.

I wore my Vibram Five Fingers most of the weekend. They are awesome – way better than flip flops or sandals with their hard, inflexible soles. I jumped in the lake with them, took a hike, and just wandered around the camp ground. I put my Merrill hiking shoes on in the evening and I was immediately stuck by how unforgiving the walking experience is in them (it felt like walking on steel shanks) and how hot your feet get cooped up in there.

Of course, these “shoes” drew a lot of attention – most people definitely think I am out there now. I probably am. No matter, the Vibrams are here to stay. I might even try wearing them to work one day.

The other thing I “did” that drew a lot of attention is not eat the camp food. We brought some chicken, smoked salmon, cut up veggies, and nuts with us and my wife and I went with that. The camp food was standard SAD stuff – things my wife and I just don’t have the taste for any more. My kids were in heaven – no mommy and daddy food. Breakfast this morning was like going through Easter baskets and devouring all in sight. I told them “go for it – have whatever you want”. They ate pancakes, chocolate chip muffins, lucky charms (they’d never seen that one before)…you name it. Tomorrow, it’s back to business though!

Rather than eat the camp breakfast this morning, I came home and cooked this up in 5 minutes:

Leftover lamb mixed into some lightly sautéed yellow/red peppers and broccoli in coconut oil.

More food porn

Some random meals I never got around to posting…

Monday’s dinner was salmon, grilled on a cast iron griddle with tomatoes and roasted brussel sprouts. We pulled the salmon out of the freezer – my guess is it was farmed which is too bad. It was still pretty tasty.

 

 

Wednesday’s breakfast was so amazing I horded it so I wouldn’t have to share. It was 4 pastured eggs + heavy cream, scrambled in butter. Goodness, I have been missing out -  the cream completely transforms scrambled eggs to spectacular. The side was shiitake mushrooms + broccoli + 1 slice of bacon sautéed in butter and coconut oil. I threw random spices on the veggies – wish I could remember what they were because the whole thing was extremely flavorful.

 

 

Here’s the grass fed leg of lamb my wife cooked for dinner tonight. I don’t know how she prepared it, but it was yummy.

The full dinner was lamb, mint pesto off the Caveman food blog, and zucchini + summer squashed sautéed in coconut oil.

Chipotle

I’ve never eaten at Chipotle (at least I don’t recall eating there), but after the video below, I am willing to give it a try (assuming they have something on the menu not involving tortillas and rice).

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7857921

Minor improvement in breakfast

All my kids like to eat in the morning are traditional carbs – bagels, toast, cereal, pancakes (made with crap flour - “normally” as they call it). We’ve slowly been able to trim the quantity down – they only get 1/2 a bagel with real butter and fruit each morning along with a glass of raw milk (my son used to eat nothing but a whole, adult-sized bagel).

We’ve had very limited success with things like pancakes made with coconut flour (which are excellent) and almond meal. They immediately know it isn’t “normal” flour and start picking around and saying they aren’t hungry. These substitutes are pretty good, especially with the real butter and maple syrup I put on them, but once a kid gets it in their head that it is different, it’s impossible to change their mind.

We had some better success this week moving to parfaits using greek style yogurt (for some reason it was 2% Fage…not sure why we didn’t have the full fat stuff), fruit, cacao nuts, almonds, and raw honey. I got them to have this over a 1/2 bagel one time this week – that is a victory. Maybe we can get them to have it twice next week.

The picture below is the first trial run of a snack parfait to see if they would eat it. The right is topped with real mint leaves and strawberries. We just layered yogurt and raw honey and threw in some crunchies (cacao nibs, nuts).

Here’s the breakfast my son eventually ate. The eyes on the smiley face were blueberry muffins using sprouted flour that my wife is experimenting with.

Last, my daughter actually looks like she likes her breakfast!

(Note: she has worn her brother’s old cub scout hat for about 3 weeks straight.)