Dad Rewrite (programming)

Max Capacity Training

2011-08-29T07:23:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across Max Capacity Training a little over three weeks ago. I love the concept and execution behind this site.

The basic idea is around short, intense, bodyweight workouts. There are 3 workouts a week performed for 3 weeks - each day uses four different exercises in some HIIT style (e.g. 50/10 work/rest, traditional tabatas, or a reps target). The workouts do a good job changing it up so it doesn't get boring.

If you are a facebook user, the site lets you post your stats for some motivation, inspiration (for others), and as a way of tracking your progress. It even uses the numbers to calculate rep targets for the 3rd week of the program.

If you are looking for a quick bodyweight workout to enhance endurance, strength, and conditioning, I can't recommend this site enough. Did I mention it is free????

Crock Pot Pork Shoulder

2011-03-30T08:31:00.001-04:00

We threw a pork shoulder from our CSA into the crock pot and cooked it low all day. Midway through, I tossed in a jar of Whole Foods 365 Salsa. This couldn’t be any easier or taste any better.

The rest of the meal: roasted kale, kale sautéed with lemon, kimchi (found some at Whole Foods), and a combination of Japanese and Jewel Yams (amazing!) with a generous amount ghee and coconut oil.

I am following the Perfect Health Diet’s macro percentage recommendations (using fitday.com to track until I get it is familiar). I find that I am more satiated and snack less when doing so. Here is yesterday’s breakdown ( I don’t track the veggies I eat):

Weekend and Rainbow Kale Salad

2011-03-07T07:56:00.001-05:00

All in all, I had a good weekend. I did end up “cheating” on Saturday – I had some peanut butter on an apple and a rather large bowl of leftover homemade ice cream that we found on the Perfect Health Diet website. We had that on my birthday last week – it did have Famous Amos cookies in it which aren’t nearly as good or tempting as I remember.

Sunday, I was back at it and had a great day. Dinner was spectacularly colorful and tasty:

Grassfed hamburger, bok choy, Rainbow Kale Salad (saw recipe card at Whole Foods), and various kinds of roasted sweet potatoes (3 kinds). I didn’t get a picture of the “kale crisps” (kale roasted with a bit of EVOO in the oven) – the kids loved those.

From Whole Foods website, here’s the Rainbow Kale Salad:

Ingredients

1 bunch lacinato (a.k.a. dinosaur) kale, thick stems removed and leaves thinly sliced
4 cups shredded red cabbage (about 1 small head, quartered and cored)
2 navel oranges or Clementines, peeled and segmented
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (from about 1 small orange)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method

In a large bowl, combine kale, cabbage, orange segments, onion, bell pepper and sunflower seeds.
In a small bowl, whisk together mustard, orange juice, vinegar and pepper. Pour over the kale mixture and toss to coat. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 2 days.

Day 5

2011-03-05T13:24:00.001-05:00

Day 4 went great, though I’m willing to bet the green beans we had from a local Chinese restaurant were probably sautéed in some industrial oil. Given that we didn’t have time to cook dinner, though, I am happy how it went down.

Slept awesome last night – ate a rather large sweet potato (1/2 at lunch, 1/2 at dinner). Just ate 1/2 a sweet potato with today’s lunch.

I already hit the gym – Saturday’s are my lift heavy day. I did

Squats 5x5 @ 210lbs

Bench 5x5 @ 185lbs

Single Arm DB Rows 3x8 @60

DB Jumps 6 sets of 12 with 25DBs.

Saturday’s are typically “dinner out” and “cheat meal”. Right now, I’m feeling pretty awesome after a solid week and not really in need of a cheat, but if the mood strikes me later, perhaps I will have something “off the menu”.

The rest of the day, it’s

No refined sugar.

No dairy.

No grains.

No legumes.

No nuts or seeds.

No alcohol.

Daily Goal

2011-03-04T12:45:00.001-05:00

Day 3 in the bag. I didn’t even feel like the glass of red wine. I did a nice DB/KB workout at home

I seem to really thrive if I have grass-fed beef for breakfast. I need to track this and see if it’s true or selective memory.

More of the same diet-wise today. Tonight might be challenging.

Interesting anecdote – this week, on days where I have had some baked sweet potato, I have slept very well. On days where it’s just fruit and non-starchy vegetables, my sleep has been terrible. Today is a sweet potato day. We’ll see if the pattern holds.

This is easy

2011-03-03T07:55:00.001-05:00

I’m on a series of one day challenges. Success is much easier when you break it down.

Today:

Don’t eat refined sugar.

Don’t eat dairy.

Don’t eat grains.

Don’t eat legumes.

Don’t eat nuts or seeds (they distress me in many ways)

Move around a bit. Maybe some bodyweight stuff.

Perhaps a glass a red wine today if the mood strikes me.

Robb Wolf as Dexter

2011-03-02T17:04:00.000-05:00

I just stumbled on this. Being a huge Dexter fan, I was pretty amused.

Today

2011-03-02T11:04:00.001-05:00

Yesterday went well. I lifted some heavy things and ate according to plan..

Meal 1 was a salad with meat and some fruit.

Meal 2 was a snack of chicken, carrots, and two apples.

Meal 3 was a lot of brined chicken and veggies.

I think I can do that again today (minus the “lift heavy things” bit).

Today

2011-03-01T06:58:00.001-05:00

Pretty simple goal for today:

Don’t eat sugar.

Don’t eat dairy.

Don’t eat grains.

Don’t eat legumes.

Don’t eat nuts or seeds (they distress me in many ways)

No wine.

I can do that for one day. I am sure of it.

My blog appears to be dead

2010-10-22T08:45:00.001-04:00

It may come back to life. I don’t know. Winter is coming…

Still doing roughly the same thing – eating real food, reading things like Robb Wolf’s very good The Paleo Solution and all the China Study stuff, working out hard with things like Tacfit Commando 2.0 (awesome), Tacfit Kettlebell Spetsnaz (just ok), and Escalating Training Density (just started a program I created myself), and still trying to find a way to get to that magic 10% body fat that has always eluded me (daily or periodic IF just doesn’t seem to work for me).

Turkey

2010-05-16T10:33:00.001-04:00

We had a guest over for a play date.

I saw him get down…no idea how he got up there. I didn’t think wild turkeys could fly.

Turbulence Training Keeps Getting Better

2010-05-14T12:07:00.001-04:00

I’ve been a platinum member of Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training website for about 3 years. It used to be that Craig would release one new workout per month but this year, he had been releasing 2,3,4+ workouts each month. These aren’t beginner workouts either – they are getting tougher and more athletic. I was thinking I might let my membership expire this summer because I have so many workouts to pick from but his stuff keeps getting better and better (and tougher and tougher) that I am not sure I want to let it go.

Take, for example, the program he just released the other day: Bodyweight Cardio 3.

I was looking for a bodyweight routine today to offset some of the heavier workouts I have been doing this week (I just started doing Phase 1 of Rusty Moore’s new program this week. It’s been real tough - it is very different than my normal routine). I decided to try workout B from Bodyweight Cardio 3 as a light, off-day workout to get the blood pumping.

All you need for this workout is a stopwatch, though I highly recommend pants (actually, please wear pants). The program involves 5 bodyweight exercises per round for 5 rounds. You do each exercise for 1 min and then you rest 1 min after the round. Egad - what a great workout. Craig has you doing all kinds of jumping, lunging, and pushups. Even better, the exercises force you to hit all types of different angles. It’s really well thought out total body workout. Highly recommended!

Asparagus Pesto

2010-05-13T07:44:00.001-04:00

I saw the same post on Modern Paleo that Marc saw the other day. Here’s our usage: cod wrapped around baby spinach with Asparagus Pesto (recipe here.). Spinach and garlic on the side.

It was pretty good – the pesto was a tad sweet which was a bit unexpected. Unfortunately, this dinner wasn’t nearly filling enough and I found me snacking a bit later.

Tasty Ranch Dip

2010-05-04T09:31:00.001-04:00

We had a simple dinner last night. I was completely blown away by the ranch dip my wife and son made. Believe it or not, the recipe came from the Disney Family Fun magazine. It was a perfect compliment to the raw veggies – it was so good that the shrimp was one of the last things on my plate (usual). I went for seconds on the veggies. Summer is here!

RANCH DIP:

1 16-ounce container sour cream
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 tablespoons minced, fresh parsley
2 tablespoons minced, fresh dill
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (or 1 clove garlic, crushed)
2 tablespoons grated onion (optional)
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream and vinegar until smooth. Add the parsley, dill, garlic powder, onion, if desired, and salt and pepper and stir. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Shrimp, raw carrots, zucchini, summer squash, carrots, and cucumbers with the ranch dip, and some zucchini & summer squash sautéed in coconut oil.

Shoe Review

2010-03-24T16:50:00.001-04:00

I have a lot of shoes. Here are my thoughts on some of them:

Terra Plana Aqua

I was a little hesitant to purchase these as they seem overly expensive at $150.00. With a little googling, I was able to find 1/2 off coupons that places them at a more palatable $85 price point. I put these on this year’s birthday list with the caveat that I only wanted them at $85.

My wife was successful finding a coupon – she got me the white ones.

Overall, I am impressed with the materials and quality – these are well made shoes. They aren’t overly snug which means I can wear them with some of my heavier socks. I noticed that the red dye is bleeding so watch out with white socks – I don’t want that on my feet so I will be using socks with these for the foreseeable future.

From a feel perspective, there is little to no cushioning so walking on cement with these is a bit jarring. They don’t really feel like gym shoes though they could be used for that I suppose – I’d skip pylos and stuff like that unless you were outside on the grass.

I’ve decided to use these as sneakers I wear to work. They are fine for walks at lunch time (asphalt).

The sound these make when walking around at the office – well, it makes me think of ballerina shoes. No, I never worn those, but that is what I think it would be like.

UPDATE: One other note on these: it is nearly impossible to walk quietly in them. I leave for work very early and these things really make a racket on our hardwood floors (they slap the surface). Compare that to the Nike Free’s which are absolutely silent on hardwood floors.

Vibram FiveFingers KSO

These have become almost cliché in the paleosphere but they still evoke stares from everyone else. I call them my “freak” shoes to friends around town. Yeah, I get plenty of light-hearted jokes about them which is fine by me. Any attention is good attention, right?

For the most part, these have become my defacto beach shoes. We spend a lot of time in Maine and these get a real workout. They are great for long beach walks, sprints, and wading into the ocean. I also use them for sprinting at the field where my kids go to school.

I’ve got the blue camo ones seen above – they are way to loud to wear to work or out and about town (for me anyways).

My first pair developed a rip in the toe after a few uses – the store took them back (despite it being several months after the purchase). My second pair have been solid. I read somewhere that you might want to get them one size larger – they seem to hold up better. I did this and while I don’t know if that contributed to the durability, I can’t say it hurt it.

For the most part, the individual toes don’t bother me, but they do become noticeable after a while. You have to decide for yourself if you can deal with that or not.

Vibram FiveFingers KSO Trek

I got these for Christmas this year. They feel so nice – the leather is wonderful. I bought these a bit smaller than my other KSOs – I haven’t worn them for extended periods yet so the jury is out if the individual toes of the smaller size will bother me over the long haul.

The soles on these are much thicker than the normal KSOs so they feel a bit different. These are pretty subdued - I plan to wear them to work at some point. I see me using these as trail hiking shoes and for working around the house ( I wore them last weekend to turn over my compost bin). I can also see me wearing them out and about town (though not if I keep walking around my compost!).

I did notice one oddity with these – it feels like there is fine beach sand in them (I noticed the first time I tried them on). Of course, this is unlikely because they haven’t been out of Wellesley.

Nike Free 5.0 v4

Of all the shoes I’ve bought over the last year, these are my absolute favorites. I just bought a second pair and convinced my wife to buy some as well (hers are the green swoosh ones above). I can’t say I am done buying more of them either. My love of these shoes is bordering on unnatural.

These are like “wearing socks with a sole” as one of my facebook friends said (yeah I posted a picture of my new ones to facebook like they were my kids or something…yikes). They are very light, extremely flexible, and provide some very basic cushioning. They also fit snugly so I either need to avoid socks (leads to sweaty feet) or buy really thin socks. I chose the thin sock root.

I wear these to the gym, on walks around the neighborhood (walking on asphalt in Vibrams is not a great experience in my book), jogging (when I do that on occasion), and to play racquetball. I shouldn’t wear them to work but I find myself doing that too. I like them that much.

I hurt my foot last summer and while it is much better, it still bothers me when I walk barefoot or with my Vibrams on hard surfaces. Not so with these shoes – my foot rarely bothers me when I wear these (unless I am doing suicides at the gym – then it might bother me a little).

At first, these were very snug on my feet - almost too snug. But after some use, they loosened up just a bit and now they just feel like an extension of my foot. One oddity is that the laces always seem to come undone unless you double knot them.

What I’ve Become

2010-03-16T19:49:00.001-04:00

No way did I ever see this coming in my wildest imagination…

Dinner – here is what I came up with tonight.

I cut up 1/2 a package of thick bacon from Trader Joe’s and cooked it slow in the Lodge cast iron pan that I recently got for my birthday (yep, a birthday present and I love it). When it was starting to crisp up a bit, I added two Chestnut Farm’s pork chops and fried them nice and slow.

Meanwhile, I cut up a couple of summer squash and diced up a tomato.

I sautéed the squash in bacon fat and Penzy’s “Sunny Paris” seasoning in my wife’s new yellow Le Creuset pan (which is pretty darn nice). Yikes, who am I?

At the end, I added the tomatoes and some fresh parsley and basil out of my wife’s herb garden that lives above our sink.

Here’s the end result. It must have been ok because my wife did all the dishes ;)

146 Reasons Why Sugar Is Ruining Your Health

2010-03-09T08:51:00.001-05:00

I was listening to Jimmy Moore’s Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb show and heard about Dr. Nancy Appleton’s “sugar is bad” list. It’s quite a list – perhaps people should stop giving sugar a free pass

Here’s the full list from Dr Appleton’s website:

146 Reasons Why Sugar Is Ruining Your Health

By Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.

www.nancyappleton.com

Author of LICK THE SUGAR HABIT and LICK THE SUGAR HABIT SUGAR COUNTER.

1. Sugar can suppress the immune system.

2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in the body.

3. Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.

4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.

5. Sugar contributes to the reduction in defense against bacterial infection (infectious diseases).

6. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function, the more sugar you eat the more elasticity and function you loose.

7. Sugar reduces high density lipoproteins.

8. Sugar leads to chromium deficiency.

9 Sugar leads to cancer of the ovaries.

10. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose.

11. Sugar causes copper deficiency.

12. Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.

13. Sugar can weaken eyesight.

14. Sugar raises the level of a neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

15. Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.

16. Sugar can produce an acidic digestive tract.

17. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline levels in children.

18. Sugar malabsorption is frequent in patients with functional bowel disease.

19. Sugar can cause premature aging.

20. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.

21. Sugar can cause tooth decay.

22. Sugar contributes to obesity

23. High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.

24. Sugar can cause changes frequently found in person with gastric or duodenal ulcers.

25. Sugar can cause arthritis.

26. Sugar can cause asthma.

27. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).

28. Sugar can cause gallstones.

29. Sugar can cause heart disease.

30. Sugar can cause appendicitis.

31. Sugar can cause multiple sclerosis.

32. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.

33. Sugar can cause varicose veins.

34. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.

35. Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.

36. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.

37. Sugar contributes to saliva acidity.

38. Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.

39. Sugar can lower the amount of Vitamin E (alpha-Tocopherol in the blood.

40. Sugar can decrease growth hormone.

41. Sugar can increase cholesterol.

42. Sugar can increase the systolic blood pressure.

43. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.

44. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)(Sugar bound non-enzymatically to protein)

45. Sugar can interfere with the absorption of protein.

46. Sugar causes food allergies.

47. Sugar can contribute to diabetes.

48. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.

49. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.

50. Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.

51. Sugar can impair the structure of DNA

52. Sugar can change the structure of protein.

53. Sugar can make our skin age by changing the structure of collagen.

54. Sugar can cause cataracts.

55. Sugar can cause emphysema.

56. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis.

57. Sugar can promote an elevation of low density lipoproteins (LDL).

58. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in the body.

59. Sugar lowers the enzymes ability to function.

60. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.

61. Sugar can cause a permanent altering the way the proteins act in the body.

62. Sugar can increase the size of the liver by making the liver cells divide.

63. Sugar can increase the amount of liver fat.

64. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.

65. Sugar can damage the pancreas.

66. Sugar can increase the body's fluid retention.

67. Sugar is enemy #1 of the bowel movement.

68. Sugar can cause myopia (nearsightedness).

69. Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.

70. Sugar can make the tendons more brittle.

71. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraine.

72. Sugar plays a role in pancreatic cancer in women.

73. Sugar can adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders..

74. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves.

75. Sugar can cause depression.

76. Sugar increases the risk of gastric cancer.

77. Sugar and cause dyspepsia (indigestion).

78. Sugar can increase your risk of getting gout.

79. Sugar can increase the levels of glucose in an oral glucose tolerance test over the ingestion of complex carbohydrates.

80. Sugar can increase the insulin responses in humans consuming high-sugar diets compared to low sugar diets.

81 High refined sugar diet reduces learning capacity.

82. Sugar can cause less effective functioning of two blood proteins, albumin, and lipoproteins, which may reduce the body’s ability to handle fat and cholesterol.

83. Sugar can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.

84. Sugar can cause platelet adhesiveness.

85. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance; some hormones become underactive and others become overactive.

86. Sugar can lead to the formation of kidney stones.

87. Sugar can lead to the hypothalamus to become highly sensitive to a large variety of stimuli.

88. Sugar can lead to dizziness.

89. Diets high in sugar can cause free radicals and oxidative stress.

90. High sucrose diets of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.

91. High sugar diet can lead to biliary tract cancer.

92. Sugar feeds cancer.

93. High sugar consumption of pregnant adolescents is associated with a twofold increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.

94. High sugar consumption can lead to substantial decrease in gestation duration among adolescents.

95. Sugar slows food's travel time through the gastrointestinal tract.

96. Sugar increases the concentration of bile acids in stools and bacterial enzymes in the colon. This can modify bile to produce cancer-causing compounds and colon cancer.

97. Sugar increases estradiol (the most potent form of naturally occurring estrogen) in men.

98. Sugar combines and destroys phosphatase, an enzyme, which makes the process of digestion more difficult.

99. Sugar can be a risk factor of gallbladder cancer.

100. Sugar is an addictive substance.

101. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.

102. Sugar can exacerbate PMS.

103. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.

104. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.

105. The body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.

106. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.

107. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

108. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.

109. Sugar can slow down the ability of the adrenal glands to function.

110. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual and to promote chronic degenerative diseases.

111.. I.Vs (intravenous feedings) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to the brain.

112. High sucrose intake could be an important risk factor in lung cancer.

113. Sugar increases the risk of polio.

114. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.

115. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.

116. In Intensive Care Units, limiting sugar saves lives.

117. Sugar may induce cell death.

118. Sugar can increase the amount of food that you eat.

119. In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44% drop in antisocial behavior.

120. Sugar can lead to prostrate cancer.

121. Sugar dehydrates newborns.

122. Sugar increases the estradiol in young men.

123. Sugar can cause low birth weight babies.

124. Greater consumption of refined sugar is associated with a worse outcome of schizophrenia

125. Sugar can raise homocysteine levels in the blood stream.

126. Sweet food items increase the risk of breast cancer.

127. Sugar is a risk factor in cancer of the small intestine.

128. Sugar may cause laryngeal cancer.

129. Sugar induces salt and water retention.

130. Sugar may contribute to mild memory loss.

131. As sugar increases in the diet of 10 years olds, there is a linear decrease in the intake of many essential nutrients.

132. Sugar can increase the total amount of food consumed.

133. Exposing a newborn to sugar results in a heightened preference for sucrose relative to water at 6 months and 2 years of age.

134. Sugar causes constipation.

135. Sugar causes varicous veins.

136. Sugar can cause brain decay in prediabetic and diabetic women.

137. Sugar can increase the risk of stomach cancer.

138. Sugar can cause metabolic syndrome.

139. Sugar ingestion by pregnant women increases neural tube defects in embryos.

140. Sugar can be a factor in asthma.

141. The higher the sugar consumption the more chances of getting irritable bowel syndrome.

142. Sugar could affect central reward systems.

143. Sugar can cause cancer of the rectum.

144. Sugar can cause endometrial cancer.

145. Sugar can cause renal (kidney) cell carcinoma.

146. Sugar can cause liver tumors.

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2. Couzy, F., et al."Nutritional Implications of the Interaction Minerals," Progressive Food and Nutrition Science 17;1933:65-87.

3. Goldman, J., et al. "Behavioral Effects of Sucrose on Preschool Children." Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.1986;14(4):565-577.

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Lee, A. T. and Cerami, A. "The Role of Glycation in Aging." Annals of the New York Academy of Science. 663:63-67.

7. Albrink, M. and Ullrich I. H. "Interaction of Dietary Sucrose and Fiber on Serum Lipids in Healthy Young Men Fed High Carbohydrate Diets." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1986;43:419-428.

Pamplona, R., et al. “Mechanisms of Glycation in Atherogenesis.” Medical Hypotheses. Mar 1993;40(3):174-81.

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Thomas, B. J., et al. “Relation of Habitual Diet to Fasting Plasma Insulin Concentration and the Insulin Response to Oral Glucose,” Human Nutrition Clinical Nutrition. 1983; 36C(1):49_51.

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Taub, H. Ed. "Sugar Weakens Eyesight," VM NEWSLETTER;May 1986:6

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16. Ibid.

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18. Ibid.

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Riva Touger-Decker and Cor van Loveren, “Sugars and Dental Caries.”

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24. Yudkin, J. Sweet and Dangerous.. (New York;Bantam Books:1974), 129.

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Cheng, J., et al. “Preliminary Clinical Study on the Correlation Between Allergic Rhinitis and Food Factors.” Lin Chuang Er Bi Yan Hou Ke Za Zhi Aug 2002;16(8):393-396.

27. Crook, W. J. The Yeast Connection. (TN:Professional Books, 1984)..

28. Heaton, K. "The Sweet Road to Gallstones." British Medical Journal. Apr 14, 1984; 288:1103-1104.

Misciagna, G., et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1999;69:120-126.

29. Yudkin, J. "Sugar Consumption and Myocardial Infarction." Lancet..Feb 6, 1971;1(7693):296-297.

Reiser, S. "Effects of Dietary Sugars on Metabolic Risk Factors Associated with Heart Disease." Nutritional Health. 1985;203-216.

30. Cleave, T. The Saccharine Disease. (New Canaan, CT: Keats Publishing, 1974).

31. Erlander, S. "The Cause and Cure of Multiple Sclerosis, The Disease to End Disease. Mar 3, 1979;1(3):59-63.

32. Cleave, T. The Saccharine Disease. (New Canaan, CT: Keats Publishing, 1974.)

33. Cleave, T. and Campbell, G. Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis and the Saccharine Disease: (Bristol, England, John Wrightand Sons, 1960).

34. Behall, K. "Influence of Estrogen Content of Oral Contraceptives and Consumption of Sucrose on Blood Parameters." Disease Abstracts International. 1982;431-437.

35. Glinsmann, W., Irausquin, H., and K. Youngmee. Evaluation of Health Aspects of Sugar Contained in Carbohydrate Sweeteners. F. D. A. Report of Sugars Task Force.1986;39:36_38.

36. Tjäderhane, L. and Larmas, M. “A High Sucrose Diet Decreases the Mechanical Strength of Bones in Growing Rats.” Journal of Nutrition. 1998:128:1807-1810.

37. Appleton, N. New York: Healthy Bones. Avery Penguin Putnam:1989.

38. Beck_Nielsen H., Pedersen O., and Schwartz S. “Effects of Diet on the Cellular Insulin Binding and the Insulin Sensitivity in Young Healthy Subjects." Diabetes. 1978;15:289-296 .

39. Mohanty P. et al. “Glucose Challenge Stimulates Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) Generation by Leucocytes.”Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Aug 2000; 85(8):2970-2973.

40. Gardner, L. and Reiser, S. "Effects of Dietary Carbohydrate on Fasting Levels of Human Growth Hormone and Cortisol." Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. 1982;169:36-40.

41. Reiser, S. "Effects of Dietary Sugars on Metabolic Risk Factors Associated with Heart Disease." Nutritional Health. 1985;203:216.

42. Preuss, H. G. “Sugar-Induced Blood Pressure Elevations Over the Lifespan of Three Substrains of Wistar Rats.” J Am Coll of Nutrition, 1998;17(1) 36-37.

43. Behar, D., et al. “Sugar Challenge Testing with Children Considered Behaviorally Sugar Reactive." Nutritional Behavior. 1984;1:277-288.

44. Furth, A. and Harding, J. "Why Sugar Is Bad For You." New Scientist.”Sep 23, 1989;44.

45. Lee AT, Cerami A. “Role of Glycation in Aging.” Ann N Y Acad Sci. Nov 21,1992 ;663:63-70.

46. Appleton, N. New York:Lick the Sugar Habit. (New York:Avery Penguin Putnam:1988).

47. "Sucrose Induces Diabetes in Cat." Federal Protocol. 1974;6(97).

48. Cleave, T.:The Saccharine Disease: (New Canaan Ct: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1974).131.

49. Ibid. 132.

50. Vaccaro O., Ruth, K. J. and Stamler J. “Relationship of Postload Plasma Glucose to Mortality with 19 Year Follow-up.” Diabetes Care. Oct 15,1992;10:328-334.

Tominaga, M., et al, “Impaired Glucose Tolerance Is a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Disease, but Not Fasting Glucose.” Diabetes Care. 1999:2(6):920-924.

51. Lee, A. T. and Cerami, A. "Modifications of Proteins and Nucleic Acids by Reducing Sugars: Possible Role in Aging." Handbook of the Biology of Aging. (New York: Academic Press, 1990.).

52. Monnier, V. M. "Nonenzymatic Glycosylation, the Maillard Reaction and the Aging Process." Journal of Gerontology 1990:45(4 ):105-110.

53. Dyer, D. G., et al. "Accumulation of Maillard Reaction Products in Skin Collagen in Diabetes and Aging." Journal of Clinical Investigation. 1993:93(6):421-422.

54. Veromann, S.et al.”Dietary Sugar and Salt Represent Real Risk Factors for Cataract Development.” Ophthalmologica. Jul-Aug 2003 ;217(4):302-307.

55. Monnier, V. M. "Nonenzymatic Glycosylation, the Maillard Reaction and the Aging Process." Journal of Gerontology. 1990:45(4):105-110.

56. Schmidt A.M. et al. “Activation of receptor for advanced glycation end products: a mechanism for chronic vascular dysfunction in diabetic vasculopathy and atherosclerosis.” Circ Res.1999 Mar 19;84(5):489-97.

57. Lewis, G. F. and Steiner, G. “Acute Effects of Insulin in the Control of VLDL Production in Humans. Implications for Theinsulin-resistant State.” Diabetes Care. 1996 Apr;19(4):390-3

R. Pamplona, M. .J., et al. "Mechanisms of Glycation in Atherogenesis." Medical Hypotheses. 1990;40:174-181.

58. Ceriello, A. “Oxidative Stress and Glycemic Regulation.” Metabolism. Feb 2000;49(2 Suppl 1):27-29.

59. Appleton, Nancy. New York; Lick the Sugar Habit. (New York:Avery Penguin Putnam, 1988).

60. Hellenbrand, W. ”Diet and Parkinson's Disease. A Possible Role for the Past Intake of Specific Nutrients. Results from a Self-administered Food-frequency Questionnaire in a Case-control Study.” Neurology. Sep 1996;47(3):644-650 Cerami, A., Vlassara, H., and Brownlee, M. "Glucose and Aging." Scientific American. May 1987: 90.

62. Goulart, F. S. "Are You Sugar Smart?" American Fitness. Mar-Apr 1991: 34-38.

63. Ibid.

64. Yudkin, J., Kang, S. and Bruckdorfer, K. "Effects of High Dietary Sugar." British Journal of Medicine. Nov 22, 1980;1396.

65. Goulart, F. S. "Are You Sugar Smart?" American Fitness. March_April 1991: 34-38

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. Nash, J. "Health Contenders." Essence. Jan 1992-23: 79_81.

71. Grand, E. "Food Allergies and Migraine."Lancet. 1979:1:955_959.

72. Michaud, D. ”Dietary Sugar, Glycemic Load, and Pancreatic Cancer Risk in a Prospective Study.” J Natl Cancer Inst. Sep 4, 2002 ;94(17):1293-300.

73. Schauss, A. Diet, Crime and Delinquency. (Berkley Ca; Parker House, 1981).

74. Christensen, L. "The Role of Caffeine and Sugar in Depression." Nutrition Report. Mar 1991;9(3):17-24.

75. Ibid.

76. Cornee, J., et al. "A Case-control Study of Gastric Cancer and Nutritional Factors in Marseille, France," European Journal of Epidemiology. 1995;11:55-65.

77. Yudkin, J. Sweet and Dangerous.(New York:Bantam Books,1974) 129.

78. Ibid, 44

79. Reiser, S., et al. “Effects of Sugars on Indices on Glucose Tolerance in Humans." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1986:43;151-159.

80. Reiser,S., et al. “Effects of Sugars on Indices on Glucose Tolerance in Humans." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1986;43:151-159.

81. Molteni, R, et al. “A High-fat, Refined Sugar Diet Reduces Hippocampal Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor, Neuronal Plasticity, and Learning.” NeuroScience. 2002;112(4):803-814.

82. Monnier, V., “Nonenzymatic Glycosylation, the Maillard Reaction and the Aging Process.” Journal of Gerontology. 1990;45:105-111.

83. Frey, J. “Is There Sugar in the Alzheimer’s Disease?” Annales De Biologie Clinique. 2001; 59 (3):253-257.

84. Yudkin, J. "Metabolic Changes Induced by Sugar in Relation to Coronary Heart Disease and Diabetes." Nutrition and Health. 1987;5(1-2):5-8.

85. Ibid.

86. Blacklock, N. J., "Sucrose and Idiopathic Renal Stone." Nutrition and Health. 1987;5(1-2):9-12.

Curhan, G., et al. “Beverage Use and Risk for Kidney Stones in Women.” Annals of Internal Medicine. 1998:28:534-340.

87. Journal of Advanced Medicine. 1994;7(1):51-58.

88. Ibid

89. Ceriello, A. “Oxidative Stress and Glycemic Regulation.” Metabolism. Feb 2000;49(2 Suppl 1):27-29.

90. Postgraduate Medicine. Sept 1969:45:602-07.

91. Moerman, C. J., et al. “Dietary Sugar Intake in the Etiology of Biliary Tract Cancer.” International Journal of Epidemiology. Ap 1993;2(2):207-214.

92. Quillin, Patrick, “Cancer’s Sweet Tooth.” Nutrition Science News. Ap 2000.

Rothkopf, M.. Nutrition. July/Aug 1990;6(4).

93. Lenders, C. M. “Gestational Age and Infant Size at Birth Are Associated with Dietary Intake among Pregnant Adolescents.” Journal of Nutrition. Jun 1997;1113-1117.

94. Ibid.

95. Bostick, R. M., et al. "Sugar, Meat.and Fat Intake and Non-dietary Risk Factors for Colon Cancer Incidence in Iowa Women." Cancer Causes & Control. 1994:5:38-53.

96. Ibid.

Kruis, W., et al. "Effects of Diets Low and High in Refined Sugars on Gut Transit, Bile Acid Metabolism and Bacterial Fermentation.” Gut. 1991;32:367-370.

Ludwig, D. S., et al. “High Glycemic Index Foods, Overeating, And Obesity.” Pediatrics. Mar 1999;103(3):26-32.

97. Yudkin, J and Eisa, O. “Dietary Sucrose and Oestradiol Concentration in Young Men”. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism. 1988:32(2):53-55.

98. Lee, A. T. and Cerami A. "The Role of Glycation in Aging." Annals of the New York Academy of Science. 1992; 663:63-70.

99. Moerman, C. et al."Dietary Sugar Intake in the Etiology of Gallbladder Tract Cancer." Internat J of Epi. Ap 1993; 22(2):207-214.

100. "Sugar, White Flour Withdrawal Produces Chemical Response." The Addiction Letter. Jul 1992:4.

Colantuoni, C., et al. “Evidence That Intermittent, Excessive Sugar Intake Causes Endogenous Opioid Dependence.” Obes Res. Jun 2002 ;10(6):478-488.

101. Ibid.

102. The Edell Health Letter. Sept 1991;7:1.

103. Sunehag, A. L., et al. “Gluconeogenesis in Very Low Birth Weight Infants Receiving Total Parenteral Nutrition” Diabetes. 1999 ;48 7991-8000).

104. Christensen L. et al. “Impact of A Dietary Change on Emotional Distress.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology .1985;94(4):565-79.

105. Nutrition Health Review. Fall 85. Sugar Changes into Fat Faster than Fat.”

106. Ludwig, D. S., et al. “High Glycemic Index Foods, Overeating and Obesity.” Pediatrics.Mar1999;103(3):26-32.

107. Girardi, N.L.” Blunted Catecholamine Responses after Glucose Ingestion in Children with Attention Deficit Disorder.” Pediatrics Research. 1995;38:539-542.

Berdonces, J. L. “Attention Deficit and Infantile Hyperactivity.” Rev Enferm. Jan 2001;4(1)11-4

108. Blacklock, N. J. “Sucrose and Idiopathic Renal Stone.” Nutrition Health. 1987;5(1 & 2):9-17.

109. Lechin, F., et al. “Effects of an Oral Glucose Load on Plasma Neurotransmitters in Humans.” Neurophychobiology. 1992;26(1-2):4-11.

110. Fields, M. Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Aug 1998;17(4):317-321.

111. Arieff, A. I. Veterans Administration Medical Center in San Francisco. San Jose Mercury; June 12/86. “IVs of Sugar Water Can Cut Off Oxygen to the Brain.”

112. De Stefani, E.“Dietary Sugar and Lung Cancer: a Case Control Study in Uruguay.” Nutrition and Cancer. 1998;31(2):132_7.

113. Sandler, Benjamin P. Diet Prevents Polio. Milwakuee, WI,:The Lee Foundation for for Nutritional Research, 1951.

114. Murphy, Patricia. “The Role of Sugar in Epileptic Seizures.” Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients. May, 2001.

115. Stern, N. & Tuck, M. “Pathogenesis of Hypertension in Diabetes Mellitus.” Diabetes Mellitus, a Fundamental and Clinical Test. 2nd Edition, (Phil. A:Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2000)943-957.

116. Christansen, D. “Critical Care: Sugar Limit Saves Lives.” Science News. June 30, 2001;159:404.

117. Donnini, D. et al. “Glucose May Induce Cell Death through a Free Radical-mediated Mechanism.”Biochem Biohhys Res Commun. Feb 15, 1996:219(2):412-417.

118. Allen S. Levine, Catherine M. Kotz, and Blake A. Gosnell . “Sugars and Fats: The Neurobiology of Preference “J. Nutr.2003 133:831S-834S.

119. Schoenthaler, S. The Los Angeles Probation Department Diet-Behavior Program: Am Empirical Analysis of Six Institutional Settings. Int J Biosocial Res 5(2):88-89.

120. Deneo-Pellegrini H,. et al.Foods, Nutrients and Prostate cancer: a Case-control study in Uruguay. Br J Cancer. 1999 May;80(3-4):591-7.

121. “Gluconeogenesis in Very Low Birth Weight Infants Receiving Total Parenteral Nutrition. Diabetes. 1999 Apr;48(4):791-800.

122. Yudkin, J. and Eisa, O. “Dietary Sucrose and Oestradiol Concentration in Young Men. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism. 1988;32(2):53-5.

123. Lenders, C. M. “Gestational Age and Infant Size at Birth Are Associated with Dietary Intake Among Pregnant Adolescents.” Journal of Nutrition 128; 1998::807-1810.

124. . Peet, M. “International Variations in the Outcome of Schizophrenia and the Prevalence of Depression in Relation to National Dietary Practices: An Ecological

Analysis.” British Journal of Psychiatry. 2004;184:404-408.

125. Fonseca, V. et al. “Effects of a High-fat-sucrose Diet on Enzymes in Homosysteine Metabolism in the Rat.” Metabolism. 200; 49:736-41.

126. Potischman, N, et.al. “Increased Risk of Early-stage Breast Cancer Related to Consumption of Sweet Foods among Women Less than Age 45 in the United States." Cancer Causes Control. 2002 Dec;13(10):937-46.

127.Negri. E. et al. “Risk Factors for Adenocarcinoma of the Small Intestine.”

International Journal of Cancer. 1999:82:I2:171-174.

128.Bosetti, C. et al. “Food Groups and Laryngeal Cancer Risk: A Case-control Study from Italy and Switzerland.” International Journal of Cancer, 2002:100(3): 355-358.

129. Shannon, M. “An Empathetic Look at Overweight.”CCL Family Found.” Nov-Dec.1993. 20(3):3-5.

130. Harry G. Preuss, M.D., of Georgetown University Medical School

131., “Health After 50.” Johns Hopkins Medical Letter. May, 1994.

132. Allen, S. "Sugars and Fats: The Neurobiology of Preference." Journal of Nutrition. 2003;133:831S-834S.

133. Booth, D.A.M. etc al. “Sweetness and Food Selection: Measurement of Sweeteners’ Effects on Acceptance.” Sweetness. Dobbing, J., Ed., (London:Springer-Verlag, 1987).

134. Cleve, T.L On the Causation of Varicose Veins. “Bristol, England, John Wright, 1960.”

135. Cleve, T.L On the Causation of Varicose Veins. “Bristol, England, John Wright, 1960”.

136. Ket, Yaffe et al. “Diabetes, Impaired Fasting Glucose and Development of Cognitive Impairment in Older Women. Neurology 2004;63:658–663.

137. Chatenoud, Liliane et al. “Refined-cereal Intake and Risk of Selected Cancers in Italy.” Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, Dec 1999;70:1107-1110.

138. Yoo, Sunmi et al. “Comparison of Dietary Intakes Associated with Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors in Young Adults: the Bogalusa Heart Study” Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Oct;80(4):841-848.

139. Shaw, Gary M. et al. “Neural Tube Defects Associated with Maternal Periconceptional Dietary Intake of Simple Sugars and Glycemic Index.”

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140. Krilanovich, Nicholas J. “Fructose Misuse, the Obesity Epidemic, the Special Problems of the Child, and a Call to Action “ Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, Nov 2004;80:1446-1447.

141.Jarnerot, G., “Consumption of Refined Sugar by Patients with Crohn's Disease, Ulcerative colitis, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Scand J Gastroenterol. 1983 Nov;18(8):999-1002.

142. Allen, S. "Sugars and Fats: The Neurobiology of Preference." J Nutr.

2003;133:831S-834S.

143. De Stefani E, Mendilaharsu M, and Deneo-Pellegrini H. Sucrose as a Risk Factor for Cancer of the Colon and Rectum: a Case-control Study in Uruguay. Int J Cancer. 1998 Jan 5;75(1):40-4.

144. Levi F, Franceschi S, Negri E, La Vecchia C. “Dietary Factors and the Risk of Endometrial Cancer. Cancer. 1993 Jun 1;71(11):3575-3581.

145. Mellemgaard A. et al. “Dietary Risk Factors for Renal Cell Carcinoma in Denmark.” Eur J Cancer. 1996 Apr;32A(4):673-82.

146. Rogers AE, Nields HM, Newberne PM. “Nutritional and Dietary Influences on Liver Tumorigenesis in Mice and Rats. Arch Toxicol Suppl. 1987;10:231-43. Review.

Nancy Appleton

P.O. Box 3083

Santa Monica

CA 90403

Taking heart health into my own hands…

2010-02-11T18:14:00.001-05:00

This was on my desk this morning.

It was accompanied by this email:

While this was surely meant with the best of intentions, the execution is so flawed it’s laughable. Talk about mixed messages. I am sure the justification is that “dark chocolate is good for you”. Cacao may be good for you, but refined sugar never is – and this industrial stuff is loaded with it.

New “toy”

2010-02-04T18:29:00.001-05:00

My wife thinks I have a shoe “thing”. She’s right.

Here’s the latest addition – Vibram FiveFinger KSO Treks. The leather is so nice –they feel great.

They will be worn at work….soon.

What real bacon looks like

2010-02-04T17:34:00.001-05:00

From our CSA. The stuff you find in the store just doesn’t look like this.

So I can remember

2010-02-02T09:19:00.001-05:00

Some outstanding meals c/o my wife. First up, grass-fed leg of lamb with mustard sauce, asparagus, and avocado/tomato/TJ’s spicy salsa. The lamb recipe was out of the awesome Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1. This book saved my mayo and produced an outstanding pork shoulder.

Next up, wild caught cod with veggies and coconut oil.

My so sugar challenge is going strong. I am proud to have not BROKEN the chain.

Real Food

2010-01-30T06:57:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Jimmy Moore for finding this. Maybe a bit of Hollywood shine will help…

This clip links to the excellent Food Inc.

Quick foods

2010-01-29T09:54:00.001-05:00

While most of the meat we eat comes from our CSA (and supplemented with wild caught fish from Whole Foods), I also like to buy some items from US Wellness Meats. They have some great “quick foods” that I can turn to in a pinch. Here are my favorites.

Eye of round: I buy a couple of these to make homemade beef jerky. Jerky is super easy to make if you have a dehydrator and is a great snack.
Salted grass-fed butter: We buy about 5lbs at a time and freeze it.
Salt Free pemmican pail: I love having this around. It makes a great quick meal – you can eat it cold (which is ok) or fried up (love it). When fried, it reminds me a bit of corned-beef hash. I’ve tried all of their pemmican and like them, but I prefer the salt free one so I can salt as needed.
Liverwurst: I just tried this for the first time and it is excellent and quick – just thaw an eat. Organ meats never tasted so good: this is made of grass-fed beef trim (30%),liver (30%), heart (20%) and kidney (20%).

On my next order, I plan try out the Braunschweiger as well.

Here’s a breakfast that I threw together this morning. The veggies, sautéed in grass-fed butter, were green/red pepper, Trader Joe’s broccoli slaw, and a bunch of sea vegetables (for the iodine content which Marc picked up on from a previous post) – Dulse, Alaria, Kelp, Laver (all organic). The protein is salt free pemmican (plenty of salt from the sea veggies) and a pastured fried egg.

What I’ve been doing

2010-01-26T10:25:00.001-05:00

Some quick hits about what I’ve been up to lately.

Sugar

I am committed to finally getting out from under the sugar yoke this year. Over the last two years, I’ve cut out grains, artificial sweeteners, and most sugar, though I still eat a lot of dark chocolate (85 or 90) and have (real) ice cream more often than I should. I also regularly will have junk at “special occasions” – birthdays, holidays, etc. I put a “Don’t Break the Chain” link on my blog – each day, I don’t have sugar, I mark it off on the calendar. My goal is to NOT BREAK THE CHAIN. I’ve NEVER gone this long without sugar (sugar, honey, etc) so I am pleased how this has gone. It hasn’t been that hard really.

Paleo Problems

Richard Nikoley’s excellent post a while back highlighting it isn’t always greener on the paleo side of the fence came at a great time for me. I have struggled with some of the things mentioned and it is great to hear that I am not the only one. As part of the self experimentation thing ( aside: I refuse to use the “n equals one” phrase which appears to be all the rage lately…talk about an overused phrase ), I think I linked my problems to nuts…I hate to give them up and I miss them greatly, but I don’t like being a slave to the thrown.

Activities

In search of another activity to get me moving that doesn’t involve free weights, I started playing racquetball. So far, I am really enjoying it. My conditioning has proved to be excellent so far.

I recently took a class called ChiWalking. It, along with its sibling ChiRunning, is a style of walking/running meant to prevent injury and wasted energy. I found it pretty interesting and am looking forward to trying it once the weather clears up (the running variant). While I realize chronic running expresses the wrong kind of genes and overuse of it leads to all kinds of problems, I still like to do it (on occasion) and hope this method will prevent a lot of the problems I had in the past (shin splints, ankle and foot problems, etc.) Who knows, I might even want to do the Maine 1/2 Marathon in October – I think I could run once a week or maybe every other week and have no problem doing it. Occasional stressors are good.

Shoes

I am thinking about getting a pair of Terra Plana Aqua’s to go along with my Nike Free 5.0 and my Vibrams. These shoes look like they’d be good for work. Anyone ever try these out?

From the site:

VivoBarefoot is a revolutionary, back-to-basics design based on the simple principle that being barefoot is the healthiest way for you and your feet to be. An ultra thin (3mm) puncture resistant sole allows your feet to be as millions of years of evolutionary design intended Barefoot!

Unusual breakfast

2010-01-26T07:27:00.001-05:00

I threw this together on the fly – it came out pretty good. I sautéed green and red peppers in ghee with a bit of garlic, garlic powder, and onion powder. I then added some Wakame and Nori, a big hand full of ham steak we got from the CSA, and right at the end, two huge handfuls of arugula and some EVOO.

Oikos yogurt

2010-01-06T19:57:00.001-05:00

I finally got to Whole Foods and picked up my free Oikos yogurt that I won from Feel Good Eating. I ended up getting the plain yogurt as all the flavored variants contain added sugar (why is it considered healthy to have 0 fat and added sugar? Even the honey flavored one has added sugar). We avoid sugar as much as possible because it is evil.

Overall, I agree with Marc that it tastes good. I love the fact that it is organic. It would be even better if they put the healthy fat back in. If we could convince them there is a market for a full fat, organic, sugar-free greek style yogurt, we’d be on to something. I’d ask for milk from grass-fed cows, but I don’t want to push it!

Where do you turn when you have doubts?

2010-01-06T19:47:00.001-05:00

Overall, I’m comfortable with the path I’ve taken health-wise. I find it much easier to maintain a healthy weight and body composition eating meat (grass-fed as much as possible and organ meat as well), fish, some vegetables and fruits (but lately not a lot), nuts, and natural fats (EVOO, butter, tallow, macadamia nut oil etc.). I’ve noticed lots of other improvements (disappearance of skin tags, acne, and cold sores, greatly improved immune system, improved mood) as well. Things aren’t perfect (see the end of this post), but overall I think I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been.

Yet, there are times when the constant barrage of health advice (often contrary to what I do) starts to seep in a bit and creates doubt. How can all this conventional wisdom be wrong? Why am I more apt to trust internet bloggers (see my blogroll) who I don’t know from Adam over trained doctors, government agencies, trained dietitians, and the media?

For example, I eat a lot of saturated fat and cholesterol (am I heading for CVD?). I never eat whole grains (heart attack, here I come). I eat a lot of red meat (I have a date with cancer). I eat very little carbohydrate (how will my brain function?) and I skip breakfast more often than not (slowing my metabolism no doubt). My serum cholesterol is high (305 last time), but so isn’t my HDL (62) and my triglycerides (70) and fasting insulin (2.3) are low. We are told by the media, by most of our doctors, by our friends, relatives, and coworkers that this is bad. I am clogging my arteries. I am starting the cancer process. I am increased risk of CVD.

I am not a researcher or trained in biochemistry. I don’t read studies for a living. I don’t have any formal education in health or nutrition. I am not in tune with the inner workings of government panels or research grants. I am an average joe trying to make the best decisions to enhance the odds for a long and healthy life.

In the end, it usually comes down to what makes the most logical sense assuming we are an evolved species. Chris Masterjohn made a great point in his interview with Jimmy Moore (paraphrasing): don’t believe someone because of their credentials. Listen to all the arguments and then decide who’s makes the most sense.

In these times of doubt (they are not long and they do not come often), I also find myself turning to bloggers to reassure me. Richard Nikoley’s fiery posts combine logic and reason with a “screw you” attitude (Dr. Kurt Harris calls him “John the Baptist with attitude”); Mark Sisson’s amusing, well written-and-researched entries give me confidence; and Arthur DeVany’s track record, calm approach, and life philosophy gives me strength. There are others of course (Dr. Eades, Dr. Davis), but these are the blogs I find myself coming back to again and again to reassure myself that I’ve made the right choices.

Do you ever have doubts? What do you do when that happens?

Delmonico Steak & Curry Wild Salmon

2010-01-04T21:03:00.001-05:00

A couple of meals that came out pretty good.

First up, grass-fed Delmonico steak. I marinated this for about 2 hours in EVOO, red wine vinegar, and fresh Thyme. Raw broccoli and a few berries round it out. I'm not a big fan of red wine vinegar on salads, but I was inspired by Andy to try it as a marinade and it came out great.

Next up, wild salmon poached in coconut milk (full fat of course). I put a can of coconut milk with a spoon of Thai Kitchen Green Curry Paste and some fresh ground pepper in a pan and heated it on middle heat. After it was bubbling and the paste had integrated into the milk, I poached the salmon (covered) for about 10 minutes. At the end, I added a 1/4 tsp of coriander and served it garnished with some roasted brussel sprouts. This was one extremely tasty meal. I am thrilled it wasn’t dry which is something that seems to happen more than not when cooking wild salmon. (Dessert was two hard boiled eggs with my homemade mayo).

Warning: Personal details follow involving digestion problems and nastiness…read at your own risk….

Normally, I’d eat a lot more veggies with meals, but lately I am beginning to wonder if they are causing gastro-intestinal problems and energy zaps. I’ve been eating this way for almost a year and a half, so I believe I should be acclimated to the increased fiber. Yet, I have noticed periods of low energy (like a sugar crash) after large servings of veggies (a large salad with a large side of spaghetti squash followed by a serious energy crash an hour later the most recent example). Additionally, I have lengthy bouts with, well, lets call it “intestinal distress”, usually in the evenings (after an otherwise “normal” day). I have gone this long thinking there is no way a diet loaded with fruits and veggies could be the cause, but now I am beginning to wonder if maybe they are. So I am doing an experiment where I am eating minimal fruits and veggies to see how it goes. I’ve been doing this since the start of the new year and I’ve had good results except for today when I had a decent portion of raw broccoli (3 heads), raw cauliflower (2 small heads), and two stalks of celery for lunch and ended up running to the facilities 1 hour later. Odd.

Olive Tapenade Meatloaf

2010-01-03T13:09:00.001-05:00

I made this one up this morning.

1lb grass-fed hamburger
1 lamb heart (optional) ground up in the food processor
Olives ( I used Trader Joe’s Spanish Manzanilla and TJ’s Pitted Greek Kalamata)
Sundried tomatoes in Olive Oil

If you are using heart, chop it up in a food processor. I used a small lamb heart. Mix it up with a hamburger. (Sometimes I put the hamburger into the food processor after the heart is chopped up and mix it that way. This time, I did it by hand. The end consistency seems to be about the same.)

(In the picture above, the heart is on top).

I then added olives and sundried tomatoes into my Magic Bullet and chopped them up. I was aiming to get about a 1/2 cup of tapenade.

I mixed that up with the meat and baked it uncovered at 325 for about 45min. (I used the oven probe to get it to 150 degrees.)

The result

There was quite a bit of juice at the bottom so I poured that off. It came out very tasty.

How Julia Child Saved My Mayo

2010-01-02T14:36:00.001-05:00

I haven’t had much luck making my own mayonnaise. I’ve tried a few times but it usually ends up in the disposal. I haven’t quite figured out the right oil to use (EVOO turns out to be way too strong and I won’t use frankenoils like Canola) and I haven’t been able to get a proper emulsion. Last time, I ended up with globules of what looked like mayonnaise floating in oil (it separated).

Inspired by Feel Good Eating (once again) and craving egg salad, I took another stab at it, this time using macadamia nut oil. Macadamia nut oil is pretty expensive, so I hemmed and hawed about it but ultimately decided to give it a go. I used Marc’s recipe and decided I would add the oil REALLY SLOWLY this time. The bottle of mac nut oil we have makes that easy – it just dribbles out. Because of this, I decided to use some EVOO as well.

I was at it for at least a half hour and the mayo was looking good. The blender was getting pretty hot and I was worried it might burn it out but that wasn’t going to stop me…if the Cuisinart wasn’t up to it, tough. The mixing container that came with the blender has convenient measuring marks on the side and I was just under a cup mayonnaise. Marc’s recipe calls for 1.5C of oil so I was getting close.

It was at that time that I asked my wife to take over so I could turn on the NHL Winter Classic (it was at Fenway Park). My wife is an excellent cook so I had no worries. When I came back – maybe 2 minutes later – she had a puzzled look on her face – the mayo had turned to liquid! She said she was adding the oil slowly but it didn’t look like anything was happening, so she added more…apparently a bit too much.

I am not overly proud of my reaction. Let’s say I issued a few bombs of the F variety (fortunately out of earshot of the kids).

My wife was not deterred. She is into Julia Child lately – we watched Julie & Julia the other day (actually not half bad though I feel asleep and missed the ending) and she’s been reading books by her. I happened to buy her a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas. She immediately opened it and proclaimed “I CAN FIX THIS!”

“Whatever” was my reaction. It looked pretty broken to me. I grabbed a spoon of the “soup” and put it on my hard boiled egg and went off to watch the hockey game.

It turns out that she did save the mayo. I was shocked. She channeled Julia and warmed up a metal mixing bowl. She put a tablespoon of prepared mustard in the bowl and then, teaspoon by teaspoon, whisked the soup in with it. It worked! I don’t care if Julia says (in the Mastering the Art of French Cooking) that this method ALWAYS work, I was still surprised. It came out a bit mustardy which is fine by me – it’ll make excellent egg salad.

My prize

2009-12-31T13:13:00.001-05:00

I got lucky a few times over the last year. Earlier in the year I won a True Lemon prize pack from Jimmy Moore’s blog and just the other day, I won some Stony Field Oikos Greek Style yogurt off Marc’s excellent “Feel Good Eating” blog. True to Marc’s picture, I got my prize in today. I’ll report back on the yogurt after we give it a go.

Sardines

2009-12-30T15:44:00.001-05:00

This is one of my favorite quick meals (I hesitate to use lunch since this was my first meal today and it’s 3:30pm EST).

This is a can of sardines packed in olive oil. I buy them at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. When shopping for these avoid the ones with soybean oil – only God knows what that is. Mash them up with a bit of mustard and put them on a salad (here it’s baby spinach, tomato, sundried tomatoes, 1/2 avocado, and macadamia nut oil). Very tasty. The side is some leftover spaghetti squash with a bit of Hawaiian sea salt (it’s a cool red clay color).

Update:

Odd, about an hour or two after eating this meal, I had a serious energy crash. We were walking around the mall and I just wanted to lay down and sleep. It felt like a huge sugar crash.

Brining

2009-12-23T12:24:00.002-05:00

When it comes to poultry, I generally prefer the legs and thighs. I find the breast meat to be, well, boring (and usually dry). With our CSA, I don't get to choose the cuts we get - we usually get whole birds. Sadly, there are no existing chicken breeds (that I know of) that consist of just legs and thighs so this means we get a lot of the breast meat.

My wife likes throwing the bird into a crock pot but I was never a big fan of it. While the meat doesn't dry out, it also falls off the bone and gets all sloppy. I prefer it roasted (and eaten cold)...but that usually leads to dry and boring white meat. It requires me adding a lot of mustard to make it enjoyable. This isn't a bad thing, but I also don't crave it (like a good grass-fed ribeye).

Enter brining. Wow, this is awesome. I have brined a few chickens now and the meat comes out great. It's so good, I can't stop eating it...plain without mustard. It turns out to be really easy to do...I highly recommend it.

My only complaint is that most of the brine recipes I see include some form of sugar. The theory, I believe, is to add sugar to help crisp up the the bird during cooking. Enter Lou and his most Excellent Chicken Brine. He calls BS on the sugar theory and provides a recipe without it. I tried it last night and it was spectacular. Thanks Lou!

The bird can get salty if you leave it in the brine too long so be vigilant and don't over do it.

Lou's Most Excellent Chicken Brine (sugar free!):

½ cup kosher salt
1 TBS coarse ground black pepper
6 garlic cloves, crushed (skins on are OK too)
½ medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 bay leaf, crushed
5 whole parsley sprigs, coarsely chopped
1 TSP dried oregano
1 TSP dried or fresh chives
1 TSP dried thyme
1 TSP dried rosemary

In a 4 quart bowl or pot fill with 2 quarts of cold water. Add the pepper and salt and stir until dissolved (this will take a bit of time)., then the onion and garlic. Take all the herbs - fresh and dried - and coarsely chop together. Add chicken and place in fridge according to times below. Try not to exceed these times as the chicken may become too salty.

Boneless chicken breasts: 30 minutes
Bone in chicken parts: 40 minutes
Whole chicken: 60 minutes

Goat Heart

2009-12-13T19:30:00.001-05:00

The nice people who raise the meat we consume usually have a cooler at the monthly pickup with an assortment of “bits” (freebies). This time around, I grabbed some goat and pork liver and a goat heart.

I am starting to get used to dealing with heart. While I am not at the point of eating them off skewers a la Nourishing Traditions, I do like to grind it up in the food processor and add it to ground beef. The burgers come out a bit redder in color but don’t taste any different. I like dealing with goat or pork hearts as they are a lot smaller than beef hearts and much less intimidating. The kids ate the burgers tonight and had no idea the big hunk of CoQ10 and other nutrients they were getting!

Tonight’s dinner, while pretty simple, came out quite good. There were lots of nice colors and flavors.

Grass-fed goat heart and beef burgers with some Penzeys Bavarian spices, tomato, avocado, olives, broccoli with a bit of soy sauce and garlic, and a few oven sweet potatoes fries.

Some meals

2009-12-09T08:55:00.001-05:00

Dinner last night was grass-fed Delmonico steak marinated for 2 days in EVOO, Balsamic Vinegar, and some spices we got from a trip to the local Penzeys. The last time I made Delmonico steaks, I didn’t marinate them and they were extremely tough. I served it with zucchini sautéed in coconut oil (and more Penzeys spices) and 1/2 an avocado – my wife went with salsa on top, I went with sunflower seeds.

Breakfast this morning: sautéed yellow pepper and bacon in butter with paprika and garlic powder scrambled with 3 eggs, heavy cream, and a scallion. I added some sliced turkey and a few berries on the size.

Chicken Leg

2009-12-07T19:33:00.001-05:00

I am not exactly sure how my wife cooked this (perhaps I’ll get her to guest post), but dinner was excellent. I think she used some combo of bacon fat, scallions, thyme, rosemary, white wine, grass-fed butter, and some pastured chicken legs from the CSA in her funky Le Creuset casserole dish to cook this one up.

Here’s the recipe courtesy of my wife Meredith (who says she was inspired from her recent reading of Julia & Julia)

2 Tbs bacon fat
6 scallions, sliced
3 sprigs rosemary - leaves removed
5 sprigs thyme - leaves removed
3 chicken legs (w/ skin)
salt and pepper
1 cup white wine
1 Tbs butter

Brown the scallions and herbs in the bacon fat. Add the chicken legs, skin side down (sprinkle with salt and pepper) - leave them alone until nice and crispy on the outside (medium high heat). Turn the chicken legs. Add wine. Turn down to simmer, cover. Cook about 30 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken. Add butter and turn up heat on sauce to reduce a bit. Drizzle sauce over chicken when serving. Enjoy!

Breakfast

2009-11-15T10:08:00.001-05:00

I got this one from Jonny Bowden’s.

Fry up a small apple in grass-fed butter. I added a bit of cinnamon as well. Scramble in 3 eggs and a bit of heavy cream. I had some ham leftover from our CSA so I added that as well. At the end, I added a big handful of baby spinach and then sprinkled with turmeric. Green tea and lemon was the beverage.

Tweet your weight

2009-11-12T09:44:00.001-05:00

Despite the fact that worrying about your body weight is misguided (you should be worried about your body composition), the nerd in me finds this scale interesting. Social support and accountability can be very motivating if you are having trouble sticking to plan.

Healthy Living

2009-11-09T19:57:00.001-05:00

We had a “healthy living” presentation at work today. I knew it would be chock full of humorous conventional wisdom so I couldn’t resist going. I learned about how saturated fat is going to kill me and how I should eat small meals throughout the day to keep my metabolism stoked and my blood sugar stable. There were some great tips on getting 5 servings of fruit a day – fruit juice included and that I you should always eat breakfast because you have nothing in the tank after such a long fast.

I was enthralled by the diabetes discussion which went on for 5-10 minutes but never once mentioned sugar or HFCS. It turns out the real problem is lack of exercise.

Best of all, my confusion over anaerobic vs. aerobic exercise was cleared up – anaerobic exercise is like trying to sprint for 50 yards while holding your breath.

Seriously.

One more tip – if you can’t afford a gym membership, one thing you could do is curl soup cans. I plan to integrate that into my regimen.

I went home and celebrated with a grass-fed eye of round from Chestnut Farms and some sautéed squash. My wife might have used grass-fed butter to sauté the squash – I’ll have to have a talk with her about that.

It’s been a long time

2009-11-05T17:23:00.001-05:00

I haven’t posted or even been interested in posting for quite some time. I really needed to step away for a bit. I’ve spent an enormous amount of free time over the last year pouring over blogs, reading books, posting, and commenting. Obsessive would be a good description – and I needed a break.

Part of the beauty of the primal / evolutionary fitness lifestyle is that you aren’t supposed to obsess over things – no calculating macronutrient requirements, no excessive and rote workouts, avoidance of stress. With all the energy I was spending learning and participating in the community (blogging, commenting, tweeting, etc), well, it just didn’t feel all that primal. I felt a little TOO focused on it.

Sometimes it’s good to back off and relax.

Anyway, first a picture of last night’s dinner which was too pretty to not capture. This is Peloponnesian Shrimp straight out of The Paleo Diet with cauliflower and grass-fed butter.

As for blogs, have you checked out Nephropal yet? Wow, what a cool blog.

September’s Exercise Slate

2009-09-14T16:01:00.001-04:00

We’re back at home after a nice summer at Old Orchard Beach. That means I can get back to the gym and start pushing free weights around. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing KB and body weight stuff but after a while, I just want to get back to the heavy stuff.

For the month of September (at least), I decided on the following structure. Thanks to Jeff for the advice on constructing this workout.

Sat – Big 5 workout (super slow to failure) as described in Dr. Doug McGuff’s Body By Science
Sun – Off
Monday – Supposed to be off, though I have been doing a 20min set of max number of dead lifts/1 arm shoulder presses in sets of 2.
Tuesday/Wed/Thurs – On one of these days (depending on how I feel) I’ve been doing a workout a la Arthur De Vany combining hierarchical ascending sets, alactics, and negatives using compound movements like squats, dead lifts, rows, presses, etc.
Friday Off

This is my second weak on the program. My hunger is way up which is a bit unfortunate as I still need to burn some fat and find myself eating a lot more. But I like the workouts – short, intense and very different from each other. I should probably drop the deadlist/press workout as my back bothers me when I finish it.

Crepes Recipe

2009-09-14T09:49:00.001-04:00

We hit GOLD this weekend. We tried out a crepes recipes from the Grain-Free Foodies blog (see below) for the kids dinner. BINGO! they loved it. Saturday night, they made pizza crepes (double batch)– tomato sauce, pepperoni, pineapple, and a bit of cheese. We did it again Sunday night (another double batch), filling them with apples & onions sautéed in butter, more pizza sauce, and even a bit of strawberry jam.

Crepes

via Grain-Free Foodies by Teri on 9/5/09

I am always pleased when I find a food that my whole family enjoys. This definitely fits the bill. I brought these to a non-GAPS brunch recently and was told that they are better than regular crepes. I think they are virtually indistinguishable. The key seems to be generous amounts of vanilla, plus delicious fillings of course.

A lovely lady named Millie, from the GAPSHelp group, posted this recipe http://www.tiana-coconut.com/coconut_flour_recipes.htm recently. I modified it slightly to work for GAPS and my taste buds
Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon honey
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons coconut flour
Method
Blend together butter, eggs, honey, vanilla and salt. Stir in coconut milk. Thoroughly mix in coconut flour. Heat 1/2 teaspoon butter in a small skillet. Pour one tablespoon of the batter into the skillet; immediately rotate skillet until there is a thin even layer of batter. Crepe should be about 4 inches in diameter. Cook until batter is bubbly and cooked (I find it easier to flip if they are slightly browned) around the edges. Turn and cook the other side for a moment. Cover one side of crepes with your choice of chopped fruits, nuts, honey lemon curd, apple butter or homemade jam. Roll up and serve.

Protect yourself from the flu

2009-09-11T15:03:00.001-04:00

We got an email at work today about protecting yourself from the flu. Here’s the list of things they suggest:

• Wash your hands with soap and water several times a day.
Wash thoroughly (for at least 30 seconds) using hot water and plenty of soap. If you don’t have access to soap and water, an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with 60–95 percent alcohol will work, too.

• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you sneeze or cough.
Or, be sure to sneeze or cough into your elbow rather than your hands. Be sure to clean your hands and dispose of tissues properly.

• Avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes.
This is how germs are spread.

• Don’t Spread the flu!!!! Stay home if you are sick.
Symptoms of flu include fever (100 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius) or chills and cough or sore throat. In addition, symptoms of flu can include runny nose, body aches, headache, tiredness, diarrhea, or vomiting. CDC recommends that sick workers stay home if they are sick with flu-like illness until at least 24 hours after they are free of fever without the use of fever-reducing medicines.

• Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

• Regularly disinfect your desk at work and in your home.
Wipe down doorknobs, handles, telephones, remote controls, headsets, your computer keyboard and mouse, and other items or areas that are frequently touched.

• Do not use other workers’ phones, desks, offices, or other work tools and equipment.
Avoid sharing towels, utensils, cups, and anything else that can spread the flu to another family member or someone else.

• If you have children, teach them good hygiene practices, too.

• Get vaccinated against seasonal flu.
Get vaccinated against seasonal flu, when vaccine is available in your area. If you are at higher risk for 2009 H1N1 flu complications you should receive the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine when it becomes available. People at higher risk for 2009 H1N1 flu complications include pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions (such as asthma, heart disease, or diabetes). For more information about priority groups for vaccination, visit www.cdc.gov/H1N1flu/vaccination/acip.htm

Other than the last item, this is a decent list but it’s missing some critical things in my opinion:

Make sure you aren’t deficient in Vitamin D. See www.grassrootshealth.net for how to get tested. If need be, supplement Vitamin D3 to get your levels into the 40-60 ng/ml range.
Make sure you get a lot sleep.
Stop eating sugar.
Replace grains with fruit and vegetables. My immune system got much better when I stopped eating grains.
As Mark Sisson says, lift something heavy once in a while.

Anything you’d add?

Elated (and a bit scared)

2009-09-11T12:11:00.001-04:00

I’ve said this before, but I love our CSA. Yes, the meat tastes phenomenal and I know it’s healthy because the animals are raised eating what they are designed to eat. But there’s more to it than that. It’s very cool to actually get to KNOW the person who is providing the food that hits the table. It’s also nice to know that these animals are more than just the frozen packages in my freezer – that they had lives and that they lived well. Checkout this excerpt from our monthly update:

This summer we have had pig heaven up in two of our back fields and woods. Both our breeders and our feeders have enjoyed a summer of woods, pasture and muck holes/wetlands to play and frolic in. All are growing well and seem very healthy and happy. Currently we have five sows in the barn ready to farrow. We have just move three back up with Mike. One sow, Lily, had ENOUGH of her piglets by about seven weeks. She would lay on her stomach and refuse to open the nipple bar. Her eight little ones would scream and holler and carry on for a nursing and she turned a deaf ear. The first few times this happened I thought one of the piglets was stuck in the slats at the front of the stall. This occasionally happens – from about a week to eight weeks the piglets run around the barnyard and explore the area then go back to mama. This gives them experience and confidence so that when we do move them to the pasture they are fine and happy to be outside. Usually a sow will start to allow nursing only a few times a day by five weeks, but I have never seen one shut down as completely as Lily – nor have I heard a litter scream as loudly.

Sounds a little better than what you hear about CAFO operations, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I usually ask if I can get a little liver and marrow bones with our monthly pickup and they usually throw in a few packs of liver/bones if they got them. I was completely shocked to see this show up yesterday:

Oh my God! More than a bit of liver! There is liver, tongue, and heart from cows and pigs in there. I was blown away. I’ve never eaten heart or tongue - it’s a bit intimidating and scary. Fortunately, Nourishing Traditions has recipes for just this type of thing so I’m not completely lost. If you have suggestions, let me know. One of the first things I plan to do is grind up beef heart with ground beef and make burgers.

By the way, here is the normal stack of meat we get (25 lbs/month). It’s usually some combo of beef, pork, and chicken. Lamb is coming soon.

Curious – why do people put so little value on what they eat?

2009-09-10T12:30:00.001-04:00

There is a tenant picnic today for all the buildings in the office park at work. I know how these things go – lots of low quality food. I don’t want to sound unthankful, but the thought of eating feedlot burgers, processed hotdogs, HFCS-laden rolls, and lots of sugary desserts is very unappealing.

Around lunchtime, talk began about heading down to the picnic. I must have heard the term “free food” 20 times. It was the overriding factor in heading down. I didn’t hear “what a nice gesture” or “wow, something different to do” or “it’s a nice day, let’s get outside”. I heard “free food” over and over again. Free overrides all other concerns.

As a college student this was absolutely my mentality. The first few years as a member of the workforce, this was my mentality. Nowadays, not so much. I am more interested in quality food rather than cheap food. Does this make me an elitist or just someone with different priorities? I’m curious how people perceive that. I don’t drive a Beamer, buy $100 blue jeans, or have a iPhone. I do spend a decent amount of cash on quality meats, quality dairy, quality supplements, and organic produce and I don’t get excited by food just because it’s free.

Looking back at changes over year, Part 1

2009-08-25T06:10:00.001-04:00

Jeff asked in a comment about changes I’ve noticed after a year of an evolutionary lifestyle. I decided to take inventory of all the changes I implemented. I was surprised to see the list so large!

No grains of any kind
No starchy vegetables (e.g. potatoes)
No vegetable oils or margarines
No legumes
1. occasionally ate peanut butter though I did try to avoid it
No dairy
1. tried a bit of raw milk for a while and home made raw milk kefir
2. used pastured butter and ghee
3. ate ice cream on occasion
No sweeteners (sugar or zero calorie)
1. Occasionally had raw honey
No soda
No processed foods like ThinkThin bars, whey powders, etc
Liberally ate
1. Pastured meats (all kinds), eggs (store bought and free range from the farm), lots of seafood, some game (venison, bison), bacon
2. Vegetables of all kinds (limited starchy ones like beets, winter squash, etc)
3. Lots of berries, apples, some melon, grapes
4. Lots (too many) raw nuts/seeds, coconut, coconut milk, coconut butter
5. Occasional almond flour, coconut flour
6. Occasional (perhaps not occasional enough) dark chocolate (85 or higher), red wine
7. Lots of EVOO, bacon fat, some tallow, coconut oil, avocado
8. No sugar added mustard, apple cider vinegar
9. Drank coffee, tea, water, seltzer water, ginger/apple cider vinegar tea
Made an effort to buy organic and non-GMO as much as possible
Most of the meat / eggs eaten over last 6 months have been humanely raised eating its natural diet

Last 3 months have been from local farms

Quit jogging
Walked (sometimes using weighted vest) now and again. This was very much a power law – I’d walk a lot for a few weeks and then not so much.
Added regular sprints
1. Ran in Vibrams on grass fields or the beach as much as possible
2. No more that 1x a week, usually less
Continued resistance training, both weights and body weight
1. 20-40 min of exercise 2 to 3 times a week usually
Experimented with protocols
1. 5x5 ( strong lifts )
2. Men's Health Huge in a Hurry
3. De Vany Hierarchical, alactic, some negatives
4. HIT as described in Body by Science
Supplements
1. Vitamin D3
2. Fish oil / Cod Liver Oil
3. Multivitamins
  1. Tried a couple of different ones, currently trying out Mark Sisson’s Damage Control Master formula
4. Greens+ / Barlean’s Greens on occasion
5. probiotics on occasion
6. amino acids for a month per The Diet Cure
Got more sun – I’ve used very little sunscreen this summer and made a point to get more rays
Experimented with cold showers

As far as eating goes, I’d say on average I stayed with the above plan 85% of the time.

A funny thing happened when I started eating real food

2009-08-20T17:37:00.001-04:00

It’s been just about a year now that I’ve “gone primal” as Mark Sisson would say. (In truth, I’m somewhere between the Primal Blueprint and Arthur De Vany’s Evolutionary Fitness though I am not even sure I could explain the difference between the two. I suppose De Vany is a little more conservative with fat intake and has some unique exercise ideas. The other noticeable difference is that Sisson’s work is very approachable and user-friendly; De Vany’s work is more cerebral. )

At any rate, in addition to completely changing what I eat, we also changed how we buy our food. We now support local farming as much as possible; we joined a CSA and get terrific, pasture-fed meat, buy real chicken/duck eggs from the farm, and raw milk for the kids (I don’t drink it). We do our best to buy organic produce and we stopped buying most things you find at the grocery store (commodity meat, franken oils, processed food, etc).

What’s the point of this rambling? Well, I used to really look forward to going out to dinner. Now, not so much. While I can generally find something on most menus that fits the bill, I am usually turned off by the commodity nature of it. That beef at the chain steak house? It kind of turns my stomach to think where it came from and it doesn’t taste any where as good as the one in my freezer right now. Neither does the frozen broccoli they will likely be serving along side of it. The pre-dinner bread no longer appeals to me and neither do the overpriced desserts.

My wife and I had planned to go out to a very fancy restaurant to end our summer in Maine tomorrow night. This place certainly would not be serving frozen broccoli and yet the excitement and anticipation for a fancy-pant dinner really wasn’t there. We decided to cancel the reservation. Why bother? It won’t taste as good or be as healthy as what we make at home.

We still have a sitter, so we’ll go see District 9 instead.

What it’s like to be 8

2009-08-16T15:41:00.001-04:00

We bought my son one of those flip video camera’s for his birthday. Maybe he’ll leave mom’s camera alone now.

Anyway, here is some of his work. I think it captures an 8 year old pretty well.

Thoughts on Very Low/Zero Carb

2009-08-03T14:58:00.001-04:00

I decided to try out a very low carbohydrate diet the last two weeks. While I haven’t eaten grains or starchy vegetables for close to a year, I still was having some problems:

If I were to guess, my normal carbohydrate intake would be 75-125g / day. Most of that would be from a 1-2 servings of fruit (berries or apples usually), nuts, coconut, and green veggies. I thought that was low-carb. While I generally feel good (if not great), I was not as lean as I would like to be (hello stubborn belly fat!) – especially for someone who eats what many would consider healthy.
I found that evening binges were usually a problem. Even though I was eating “clean” foods, I would eat way too much in the evenings (nuts, dark chocolate, fruit, coconut). Many times, I wasn’t really hungry but I felt compelled or driven to eat.

For the last two weeks, I’ve eat mostly grass-fed beef, chicken, some eggs, some pork, some bacon, canned sardines, and fish/shellfish (salmon, haddock, lobster, some shrimp). I’ve used grass-fed butter/ghee/coconut oil to supplement the meals to make sure I had enough fat to satisfy me. I drank water, coffee, tea and used a bit of mustard (w/o added sugars). I occasionally had a few green vegetables with dinner – we went out to eat three times and I had a bit of the steamed broccoli or summer squash that they served (with butter). I also ate one avocado with some sunflower seeds because I was still very hungry one evening and all our beef was in the freezer.

I also took my multi-vitamin, vitamin D3, and 1 tbsp of Cod Liver Oil a day.

Here’s what I found:

I had no problem with snacking. I never felt compelled to eat. In fact, I never got “food panic” where all principal goes out the window and I gorge on something. This would happen at least every 2 weeks for me, but more often every 3-4 days.
When I ate fatty grass-fed beef, I would be satiated for hours on end. I could get away with 2 meals and be perfectly satiated the rest of the time. If I got small hunger pangs, they would be easy to ignore and would subside quickly. I did not get any of those gnawing “go eat!” pangs that disrupt my focus.
When I ate chicken/eggs/pork, I found I ate a lot more food ( I grazed more) and ate more often. There just wasn’t enough fat there.
I don’t have a scale but I would bet I did not lose any weight. However, I took impromptu waist measurements over the two weeks and I seemed to have lost anywhere from .25-.75”. It fluctuates (and goes up in the afternoons), but it’s the first time I have measured < 33” on my waist. Most excellent!
Of course, I had no issues exercising but I didn’t expect I would.
“Elimination” was less regular (every 3/4 days) but wasn’t bothersome.

For me, the important take away is hunger control. This is critical. Carbohydrates drive hunger in my diet. It’s clear that if I control carbohydrate intake I can effectively control hunger.

While there are some that eat nothing but meat and water, I think some vegetables would be ok. When I ate a little broccoli, I didn’t suddenly get cravings. I plan to add some low-carb vegetables in with dinners over the next week and see how the hunger-control goes.

Primal Challenge Starts Today!

2009-08-03T13:42:00.001-04:00

Mark’s Daily Apple is kicking off a 30 day health challenge today. Mark’s ideas have helped to change my life – I’ve never been healthier or happier.

What’s cool about this challenge is that it isn’t a competition. It’s about defining a goal (in the spirit of the Primal Blueprint) and accomplishing that goal. Checkout the video below for info and then head over to MDA and get started!

The Primal Blueprint Health Challenge from Mark Sisson on Vimeo.

Local Breakfast

2009-08-02T11:00:00.001-04:00

We went to the Scarborough (ME) farmer’s market this morning – we grabbed the last dozen of eggs from Broadturn farm. The yokes were nearly the size of the shells and they were as orange as the setting sun. We were also excited to pick up some raw milk cream, oops…sorry the powers-that-be in Maine frown on the term “raw” and prefer “un-pasteurized”… from Wright’s Haven Farm. Wright’s also had lots of meat though they do supplement with grains so I’ll be passing. They did have some other meats – bison, goat, and venison. This week, I bought a pound of ground venison. Next week, I’ll get something else.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs with a bit of the un-pasteurized cream and left-over grass-fed sirloin from our awesome CSA (Chestnut Farms). Talk about a fresh-from-the-farm breakfast…

Tomorrow is the end of week 2 on a very low carb diet. I’ll post my thoughts on it soon.

Workouts for the week

2009-07-31T09:38:00.001-04:00

This is more for my tracking purposes than general enlightenment. Of course, that could be said for 99% of my posts…

Anyway, I did the following “gym free” workouts this week. I hope to repeat these the next few weeks to see my progress.

Monday

TRX Atomic Pushup/TRX Rows superset, each for max reps x3 sets, 1 minute rest
Bulgarian Split Squats (TRX) each leg for max reps x3 sets, 1 minute rest
TRX Tricep Extension / Chinup superset, each for max reps x3 sets, 1 minute rest
6 sets, 12 box jumps, 30 second rest

Wednesday

Craig Ballantyne’s 10x10 challenge – 3 rounds with 20LB dbs

Thursday

6 Beach sprints

Friday

I attempted to do some De Vany Hierarchical stuff using my weight vest, dumbbells, and KBs.

Squat (in order, no rest) (just 1x)

Bodyweight squat (until lots of burn)
Bodyweight squat holding 26lb KB (until lost of burn)
Bodyweight squat w/ 50lb weight vest (unit lots of burn)

Declined Pushups

Max reps to burn (50ish)
With 30lb in weight vest (only a few)

This was not bad and has some potential. I was just messing around and making things up as I went along.

Then did 2 sets of the following (no rest between exercises):

1 Arm KB Shoulder Press (12/side)
Behind head DB Tricep extension (12)
DB Clean and press (5/side)

A first! Real food for dinner

2009-07-27T07:22:00.001-04:00

Last night, somehow, the kids agreed to and thoroughly enjoyed a complete REAL FOOD dinner. You could even make the argument that it was primal. I don’t know how this happened – maybe I just wore them down. Here’s the documentation:

My son is a carbohydrate addict. How do I know this? Because I think he’s mini-me. I see how he eats, what he eats, his preoccupation with sweets and junk, his drive to eat carbohydrates…it’s like I am watching reruns of myself. Given that, last night was extra special. Here’s the dinner:

That’s a 2 egg omelet with bacon, tomatoes, and a boatload of sautéed onions (he absolutely loves them and can’t stop eating them) with a side of cucumber and a glass of raw milk. The new item on the list was eggs – these were formerly off limits unless they were hidden in baked goods or French toast. What’s missing from that picture? BREAD and ketchup! Woohoo!

Not to be outdone, my daughter got pretty caveman on her own. She’s different – while she prefers junk like any kid, she doesn’t show the same drive or preoccupation with carbohydrates. For example, if she’s full, she’ll stop eating. My son needs to be close to throwing up for that to happen.

Her dinner was leftover grass-fed rib eye fried up in bacon fat, bacon, cucumbers, squash with butter (that’s a new one!) and a glass of raw milk.

Big night. Back to bagels this morning I am sure…

Experimenting with Very Low Carb

2009-07-25T22:08:00.001-04:00

I’ve been eating according to the Primal Blueprint for close to a year now. I love it. I feel great and can’t imagine eating any other way now.

My only “complaint” is that I still haven’t achieved the level of leanness that others have achieved. I’m lean, but not Jeff Erno or Keith Norris lean. I decided it was time to start tweaking.

I think my “problem” is that I am still addicted to carbohydrates. When I eat them, I seem to want more. Many times, I lose it and end up eating all kinds of stuff – some of it not #primal. While I think it’s ultimately healthier that I have switch from bagels, breads, and sweet treats to fruit, vegetables, and raw nuts, I still find that I periodically get cravings for dark chocolate (read: sugar) or full fat ice cream (read: more sugar) and I often seem to binge on raw nuts. One handful of nuts leads to many, many handfuls. As I don’t binge on rib eye steaks (which I love) and I do binge on almonds, it seems to me it’s the carbohydrates in the nuts.

Many people talk about how hunger is very manageable on high fat/low carbohydrate diets. As Gary Taubes points out in Good Calories, Bad Calories, people routinely eat less when restricting carbohydrates. While I thought I was on a low carb diet, I still seemed awfully hungry a lot of the time. And there is the somewhat regular binging on things like nuts that I mentioned above.

In Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes talks about the studies Ethan Sims of the University of Vermont did with inmates. He found that they could eat 10,000 calories of carbohydrates and still be hungry in the evening (that feeling is very familiar!). With protein and fat, he couldn’t force people to eat much more than 5,000 calories. He also relays the starvation studies Ancel Keys did where men were put on starvation diets of mostly carbohydrates and how the men were completely miserable, depressed, and would even resort to self-mutilation. It got me thinking – maybe my carbohydrates are still too high.

Last Monday, I decided to try an keep my daily carbohydrate intake to < 20 grams for a bit and see what happens. Here’s some things I have found doing this for about a week:

Wow, you really DO feel satiated on much less food than you could image. I eat a big steak for breakfast and I am literally satisfied for 5,6,7 hours afterwards. Any slight hunger pangs quickly go away. It’s really amazing.
I have had no cravings for nuts or chocolate all week.
Grassfed beef will keep you satiated for hours on end. I think it is the TRUE superfood.
Fish sucks for satiation. It’s not fatty enough. The one issue I had this week was a dinner about 7 or 8 hours after a lunch of grassfed steak. I ate a whole pound of haddock with lots of coconut oil and that wasn’t enough. I ended eating some chicken, but that was just about gone (mostly white meat left –bleh), so I ended up having a whole avocado and that did the trick. I would have had more beef, but it was all frozen.
Chicken is ok if it’s the dark meat and with the skin. It is secondary to beef though.
Eggs are ok, but they do have some carbs so I am trying to limit those.
Energy levels have been great.
Mood has been very good.

Lunch in Harpswell, ME

2009-07-25T20:46:00.001-04:00

We took a drive out to Harpswell for a late lunch at Estes Lobster House. What a great afternoon. The weather was beautiful, it wasn’t very crowded, and the views were excellent. Oh and I ate a lot of lobster.

Some pictures…

The views…

And my lunch…

First up was some shrimp…

Then the lobsters. I ate three of them and drank a bottle of water.

My wife’s salad was quite fetching so we took a picture of that.

Here’s me in my bib.

And here is the rest of the crew.

Beach KB Workout

2009-07-17T09:33:00.001-04:00

Steve Maxwell’s By the Sea, By the Sea--My Kettlebell & Me post came at a perfect time for me – all my workouts this summer will be done with bodyweight supplemented with dumbbells/kettlebells/TRX/weighted vest/resistance bands.

This was a great workout. It didn’t look that hard but I was struggling by the end.

I did 5 sets of 12 hack squats/12 KB alternating swings first using my 35# KB. I need to get a larger one for this.

I then did 5 rounds (took just about 13 minutes -I had nothing left for another set to get to 15min), of the crush pushups/plank rows/hot potato drill (used the smaller KB). I did 10 reps per exercise. The hardest part, for me, were the crush pushups, though the hot potato drill was surprisingly tiring as well. Good stuff!

Here’s the gym equipment I used – 2 KBs (different sizes but Steve shows that is just fine for this workout), a watch, and my awesome Vibrams:

Why food labels are wrong

2009-07-16T16:16:00.001-04:00

I was reading an article on food labels and why they are misleading. It goes into how the American chemist Wilbur Olin Atwater calculated the energy content of food “by burning small samples in controlled conditions and measuring the amount of energy released in the form of heat.” Like most complex problems, the article goes on to describe the assumptions, simplifications, and estimations used to estimate the caloric contents we find on food labels.

It’s an interesting article, but all I could think of as I read it was how unnecessary this is. It’s simple: when hungry, eat the food we spent million(s) of years eating. You don’t need labels for real food and you don’t need to do daily calorie intake calculations to assure calories out > calories in. Just eat real food when you are hungry and it all takes care of itself.

A few meals

2009-07-15T21:28:00.001-04:00

A couple of good meals today:

My first meal was around 1:30pm – I just wasn’t hungry until then. It was a bunch of leftovers – a grass-fed burger, sirloin, and roasted chicken (with skin of course) from our CSA and some pork from our Slanker’s order. For veggies, I sliced up some broccoli and zucchini and fried it in a lot of coconut oil and spicy curry powder. I threw some full fat coconut milk that was leftover in fridge on right at the end to make a nice sauce. I also ate a little raw broccoli as I was cooking the other veggies. Those were some good eats.

Dinner was just as tasty – steamers from Bailey’s in Scarborough ME, Pastureland butter, and a salad with avocado and EVOO and white balsamic vinegar for dressing. Dessert was blueberries and strawberries in coconut milk with some pecans and sunflower seeds.

I also snacked a little bit – had a couple ounces of nuts (raw mixed nuts, hazelnuts), some coconut nut, a small organic apple, and a few cherries. I probably had more nuts than I should of…

Delicious links on the primal lifestyle

2009-07-15T13:25:00.001-04:00

If you are interested in the primal blueprint / evolutionary fitness lifestyle, I have collected a bunch of links that I find useful. Check them out on delicious.

BBS Bodyweight Workout

2009-07-15T10:11:00.001-04:00

We’re fortunate to be spending the summer with my wife’s parents at Old Orchard Beach (ME). I like being able to see and hear the beach as I work. It’s even better for grabbing a quick walk to stretch the legs and get some Vitamin D. (My vibrams are getting a lot of use)

This means most of my workouts this summer will be bodyweight and/or light dumbbell/kettlebell workouts. This is fine with me – these workouts are great to get the heart going and I never end up hurting myself from trying to lift too much.

My wife was looking for something to do. Usually, I give her a Turbulence Training workout – Craig Ballantyne has lots of workouts that use bodyweight only. For something different, though, I decided to put her on a Body by Science style workout – basically super-slow movements to failure. I time each exercise to get her total time under load, aiming for movements that last 90-120 seconds.

Here’s the workout we are using (done it 2x, one week apart)

Left Leg Pistol using TRX for ballance
Right Leg Pistol using TRX for ballance
Jackknife (legs suspended in TRX)
TRX Chest Press (like ring pushups though body is at an angle from the wall where TRX is mounted)
TRX Standing Rows (opposite pulling movement to TRX Chest Press)
Pushup (floor, from knees)
Left Split Squat (using weight vest for added resistance)
Right Split Squat (using weight vest for added resistance)
Some ab exercise (not superslow). We’ve used rotating planks (plank 2 side planks) and Hip Extensions using the TRX

As for me, I am just doing different stuff – whatever I feel like doing. I tried an EDT workout last night using the following exercises:

15 Min PR Zone

Atomic Pushups
TRX T Deltoid Flys

15 Min PR Zone

TRX Left Leg Bulgarian Split Squat
TRX Right Leg Bulgarian Split Squat
TRX Hip Extensions

See this for examples of the lower body stuff.

I am not sure EDT and bodyweight mix well – at least not these exercises. I didn’t feel spent after it was done, so I did 20 atomic pushups and 15 of the Bulgarian splits fast at the end to get a good sweat and burn going.

Good to be back in Maine

2009-07-02T20:14:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-30T08:48:00.005-04:00

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

2009-06-26T13:00:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-21T11:29:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-17T19:52:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-17T12:24:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-12T13:42:00.001-04:00

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.)

Tweet your meal pics

2009-06-11T20:13:00.003-04:00

I love this idea. Pay Now Live Later is displaying pictures of food porn (primal meals) posted to twitpic with the tag #primal. The #primal tag is something Mark Sisson suggested to use as a way of building a twitter community of primal blueprint enthusiasts. Methuselah took a good idea and made it better.

While at Methuselah's site, be sure to check out his paleo in a nutshell series.

Food
Exercise

Good stuff.

Vibrams Update

2009-06-08T11:38:00.001-04:00

I emailed Vibram about the hole that developed in my Vibrams after very little use and they got back to me right away – they suggested I take them back to the store for an exchange. I went over to City Sports (great store – love that place) and they exchanged no questions asked. I am a bit relieved as I bought them back in February but didn’t use them until the weather warmed up. Per some suggestions, I got one size larger, and as a bonus, I got the cool “Blue-Light Grey” color:

While at City Sports, I also tried out the Nike Free 5.0’s. I liked them and might get some to wear to work. They have a little bit of a heal which is odd but they are light and have a lot less support then what I wear. Unfortunately, they only had the ugly green color in stock – they ordered some of the whites for me from a different store.

I love my Vibram Five Fingers EXCEPT…

2009-06-07T11:50:00.001-04:00

I have used my Vibram Five Fingers KSO’s about a 1/2 dozen times. I throw them on, do some sprints and that is about it. I love them for this.

Today, we were going to play some Frisbee in the back yard and I decided to use the Vibrams. I was really disappointed to see that there is a hole in one of the seams by the toe. That is ridiculous for a product costing what it does given the amount of usage they’ve seen. I sent them an email – I hope they do the right thing and exchange them.

How are other people’s Vibrams holding up? With all the love for them out there, I'm hoping I just got a defective pair.

Rosemary Balsamic Chicken + Zucchini

2009-06-05T19:41:00.001-04:00

I’ve been busy lately – the weather has been nice and I haven’t been as motivated to post. We’ve been spending lots of time outside between keeping up with the lawn and going to little league practices and games.

This dinner came out pretty darn good so I had to snap a picture. I bought some chicken thighs from Trader Joes and marinated them for 24 hours in .5C balsamic + .5c EVOO + a bunch of rosemary. I grilled these earlier in the day – we served them cold for dinner (I prefer cold chicken almost always).

The side is zucchini sautéed in EVOO, garlic, onions, and shitake mushrooms. We added some homemade tomato sauce right at the end. Outstanding. To round out the dish, I cut an avocado and topped it with a bit of Himalayan salt and almonds – it was ripe and I hate throwing them out!

Dessert tonight is almond meal blueberry bread which I based off of Bryce’s concoction. I made it once before and it was quite good. We’ll be digging into that once the kids are in bed.

This week I also made the Caveman Custard (which was decent but not spectacular) and cheese-less pizza which was really tasty though the cauliflower crust wasn’t firm enough to eat without a knife & fork. I’ll be making it again. We used the recipe for the crust off CastleGrok’s page and added homemade tomato sauce, bacon (of course), tomato slices, onion, and a little pineapple.

I also made a grass-fed brisket that came out fantastic – I’ve been eating it all week. It was slow cooked in a red wine and balsamic vinegar. Good stuff.

Composting

2009-05-25T14:34:00.001-04:00

I built my compost bin today. Despite being 0% handy around the house, even I was capable of putting it together. I used a couple of pallets that were being throw out, some wood screws, and a few pieces of slate to rest the pallets on. The front pallet is held on by a few bungie cords – easy to take the front off to load it or turn over the compost. Total project cost was a few bucks for the screws and cords. I look forward to some rich soil in the next few years so we can increase the size of our garden out back.

Olive and Sundried Tomato Tapenade

2009-05-25T06:52:00.003-04:00

A month or so ago, we had an excellent dinner at a restaurant called Pananas. While we declined the obligatory bread they offered, we did eat the topping – a black olive tapenade made with sundried tomatoes. They assured me it was just olives, tomatoes, and EVOO. It was good enough to request extra as well as an attempt by me to walk out of the place with a doggy bag stuffed with it.

I successfully created my own version of it last night. I used a jar of organic mixed olives (black & green) which I pitted. I added then with some Trader Joe’s sundried tomatoes (in olive oil) and pulsed them together. It made an excellent topping to the medium grass-fed sirloin steak I grilled.

Taco Frittata & “Hash Browns”

2009-05-25T06:52:00.001-04:00

Big breakfast of lightly sautéed baby spinach in coconut oil, a left over Trader Joe’s chicken sausage, 4 eggs, and some homemade taco seasoning my wife made. I just covered it and let it cook slowly on the stop top. I pan fried the left over spaghetti squash in butter for the hash browns.

Beautiful dinner

2009-05-23T09:09:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately – the weather is nice and I’ve been out enjoying it. Sitting around the house on the computer isn’t terribly primal!

Last night was “clean out the fridge” night. Our dinner turned out delicious and gorgeous to boot.

Up top are a few grass-fed burgers with Trader Joe’s Chipotle Salsa (I blend it up b/c I don’t like it chunky) and a bit of Trader Joe’s raw milk cheddar. Below was a salad of mustard greens, lettuce, avocado, tomato, sunflower seeds, grapefruit, and some Bragg Organic Vinaigrette which turns out to be one of the few decent salad dressings you can find in the store.

Cheerios is a drug

2009-05-13T19:24:00.005-04:00

I was amused at this story:

Popular US breakfast cereal Cheerios is a drug, at least if the claims made on the label by its manufacturer General Mills are anything to go by, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said.
"Based on claims made on your product's label, we have determined that your Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug," the FDA said in a letter to General Mills which was posted on the federal agency's website Tuesday.

Cheerios labels claim that eating the cereal can help lower bad cholesterol, a risk factor for coronary heart disease, by four percent in six weeks.

Citing a clinical study, the product labels also claim that eating two servings a day of Cheerios helps to reduce bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, the FDA letter says.

I couldn't agree more - Cheerios is a drug. Not because of that reduce-cholesterol-as-part-of-a-low-fat-diet mumbo jumbo, but because it's a highly processed form of sugar. And sugar is addictive.

Immensely satisfying

2009-05-12T10:28:00.001-04:00

Another egg creation - this time it was a 3-pastured-eggs-with-a-splash-of-raw-milk omelet. The key ingredient was some Amy’s Organic Fire Roasted Vegetable Salsa and a slice of bacon. I put it on a bed of baby spinach. Fantastic.

(I blended up the salsa in my Magic Bullet – I don’t like it chunky…)

There's got to be a market for real salad dressing

2009-05-11T06:24:00.005-04:00

We had a nice Mother's day yesterday - we went for a long walk along the Brook Path here in Wellesley, did some work on the flower beds out front, and then went out for an early dinner at Johnny's Luncheonette. Despite their silly low-fat, turkey bacon slant, I had an excellent (real egg) omlette with sundried tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms and pork bacon with a side of sliced tomatoes.

I wanted to grill up some chicken to have around the house this week so after our walk we stopped at the local megamart to pick up some Bell & Evans. It was late afternoon and I didn't have a lot of time so I (stupidly) wandered over to the salad dressing aisle to see if I could find something to marinate the chicken. Egad. What a freak show. There was a complete aisle dedicate to modern man's worst inventions. There wasn't one dressing out of the hundreds of bottles that didn't include some frankenoil, GMO product, or loads of sugar. I ended up blowing more time reading labels then I would have spent doing what I normally do (make my own).

Why can't I buy a simple dressing using stuff that wasn't invented in the last 50-100 years? Everything is soybean this, canola that. WTF. There has got to a market for real food salad dressing. Come on food producers - give me a low sugar, real food salad dressing - I'll even let you dispense it in 100 calorie packets if that helps you out.

In the end, I scraped together a marinade with stuff we had in the fridge - a little organic pineapple juice, juice from 1/2 a left over lemon, some apple cider vinegar (with the mother of course), various spices in the spice rack, and some EVOO. I had a bite of the end result and it came out better than I had hoped.

More egglove

2009-05-07T10:20:00.001-04:00

This isn’t terribly creative or out of the ordinary (well, using kelp is) but it tasted so good I just had to post it – it will make a nice walk down memory lane. Using coconut oil, I quickly sautéed broccoli, sweet green pepper, a stalk of kale, and some organic kelp (I rinse the kelp b/c it is quite salty and then cut it up using scissors). I then scrambled up 4 pastured eggs with a shake of turmeric and some fresh ground sea salt. The turmeric accounts for a bit of the deep orange, but that nice color is mostly the yokes. It was just fantastic – I savored every bite of it.

More on eggs

2009-05-05T20:51:00.001-04:00

It turns out the pastured eggs I buy are more than just pretty. Stephan writes on the excellent Whole Health Source blog about a study comparing the nutritional value of “commodity eggs” vs pastured eggs. What a surprise, the large, orange yokes are significantly more nutritious.

From Stephan’s post:

Vitamin A:

Conventional: 487 IU

Pastured avg: 792 IU

Skagit Ranch: 1013 IU

Vitamin D:

Conventional: 34 IU

Pastured avg: 136 - 204 IU

Skagit Ranch: not determined

Vitamin E:

Conventional: 0.97 mg

Pastured avg: 3.73 mg

Skagit Ranch: 4.02 mg

Beta-carotene:

Conventional: 10 mcg

Pastured avg: 79 mcg

Skagit Ranch: 100 mcg

Omega-3 fatty acids:

Conventional: 0.22 g

Pastured avg: 0.66 g

Skagit Ranch: 0.74 g

Do you have swine flu?

2009-05-04T17:06:00.001-04:00

The answer shouldn’t surprise you.

Pastured eggs

2009-05-04T08:20:00.001-04:00

We’ve been buying fresh pastured eggs from a local farm for a couple of weeks now. I still continue to be awed every time I use them. The shells are cool colors and thick. The yokes are immense and usually dark. They are variable. Oh, and they taste great.

Here are my eggs cooking this morning:

And here’s the end result – tomato and some balsamic vinegar, spinach and bacon sautéed in coconut oil, fresh coconut I cut up yesterday, and the eggs.

Parchment paper fish

2009-04-28T12:01:00.002-04:00

My wife cooks this dinner up at least once a week. She buys whatever fresh-caught fish is available and treats it the same way. She cuts up zucchini, summer squash, asparagus, peppers, and baby spinach. If the fish is large, she uses a casserole dish, if it is small, she uses individual Pyrex plates. Either way, she throws all the veggies down, puts the fish on top and put some melted coconut oil (this is KEY) on top of the fish. Sometimes she grates up ginger and puts that on top as well. She then covers the pan with parchment paper, ties it with twine, and puts it in the oven. Last night, it took about 45 min at 375. It always comes out wonderful – the fish is never dry which is a real problem for us when we use wild caught.

(Note that for smaller fish, she sometimes puts the parchment down FIRST on the small Pyrex dish, puts the veggies/fish on the paper and then wraps it up with the twine. At least that is what I think she does….if there is interest, I can ask…or maybe just learn to do it myself!)

Last night, fresh Cod was wild so that is what we ate. I supplemented with some raw broccoli and celery.

Disgusting on many levels

2009-04-26T19:28:00.001-04:00

We brought my kids to a new park by my parents house in Western Massachusetts. I don’t know why I took a picture of the trash cans below. It just caught me. What once was something I took for granted now bothers me on many levels – how much crap we generate and throw out, how consumer-driven everything is, the utter garbage people consume on a regular basis, how disassociated people are with what they eat and where it came from…

Chicken Thighs a la Feel Good Eating

2009-04-26T18:58:00.001-04:00

Tonight, I grilled chicken outside per Marc’s recipe. It turned out quite solid. We served it with cabbage & kale salad with my favorite Tahini Mustard Dressing.

Poached Orange Roughy

2009-04-24T13:04:00.001-04:00

I poached a little frozen wild caught orange roughy that I bought at Trader Joe’s. I used a can of coconut milk, three cloves of minced garlic, curry paste (maybe a teaspoon), fresh ground pepper and some fresh ginger and brought it to a slow boil. I put the fish in (thawed) and let it simmer for about 12 min covered. This couldn’t be easier and it tastes great.

I served it on some baby spinach with left over cabbage and spaghetti squash.

Pastured Eggs

2009-04-24T12:58:00.001-04:00

We were in luck this morning – the local farm where we buy fresh, raw milk had some pastured eggs available. I’ve never seen eggs like this – these eggs are from chickens that run around outside and eat what they find. I can’t wait to crack into these.

Crossfit Kids

2009-04-22T06:31:00.001-04:00

A while back, Jeff mentioned he started his kids on Fred Hahn’s Strong Kids, Healthy Kids program. I never bought the book, but I think getting the kids out moving around is critical.

Along those lines, I stumbled upon Crossfit Kids this morning. Cool idea!

From the site

General Guidelines
CrossFit Kids is created as a tool for parents, teachers and Coaches to use with their kids.
We expect that kids will look at the site, be excited and motivated by the videos and pictures,
but that a parent, teacher or Coach will be helping to monitor and guide them through the workouts.

MDA’s Slow-Cooked Asian Pepper Steak

2009-04-21T19:33:00.001-04:00

We made the Slow-Cooked Asian Pepper Steak from Mark’s Daily Apple the other day in the crock pot and served it for dinner this evening. We didn’t have all the ingredients, but it came out great anyways. We used grass-fed stew beef.

I whipped up a veggie side dish in about 15 minutes. I cut up a zucchini, summer squash, 1/2 green pepper, and 1/2 red pepper and sautéed it in coconut oil, garlic, and red chili pepper. I threw on some crispy bacon and fresh parsley at the end. Excellent dinner.

Dr. Jonny Bowden on Raw Milk

2009-04-21T18:03:00.001-04:00

All the cards seem to be lining up. A few days after we added raw milk to our diet, Dr. Jonny Bowden puts out a video on milk. Check it out.

MILK - DAILY NUTRITION - watch more recipes and videos

The food pyramid, it’s mythology!

2009-04-21T17:59:00.001-04:00

From the The Thrifty Dieter’s blog (which I recently found and like quite a bit), check out this preview of “The Paleo Diet”.

I might have to get one of the bacon tee shirts as well.

New almond meal pancake variant

2009-04-20T08:31:00.001-04:00

In a quest to get my kids to eat something other than flour, I tried a new variant of the MDA almond meal pancakes. I modified the recipe found on lowcarbdude.

1 cup almond meal
2 eggs (from our trip to the farm)
1/4 cup raw milk (from our trip to the farm)
2 coconut tbsp oil (melted)
1 tsp baking powder

These are pretty darn good. They aren’t as dry or as heavy as the MDA ones. The baking powder helps fluff them up. I didn’t give them to the kids yet, but I think I will try it out next time we do pancakes.

Supporting local farming

2009-04-18T11:46:00.001-04:00

I was thrilled this morning to head out to a local farm to purchase raw milk, grass-fed beef, cheese, eggs, and other goodies they had there. I was bummed that they were out of pastured eggs – I guess there is very strong demand for them and they go fast. I got a couple of dozen of the free range ones (chickens in a house running around on the floor).

I don’t drink milk normally, but my kids do. We moved them to whole milk several months back and now I am looking to go all the way and get it the way nature intended it – raw from grass-fed cows. There are a lot of compelling reasons to use the raw form ( http://realmilk.com is a great resource on it). It’s full of vitamins (A, D, K), enzymes, healthy fats, CLA, and useful bacteria. It’s not strict paleo food, but it is one food I could see me adding to my diet if it is raw.

When we got back, we all had a glass. The kids said it was fine (didn’t notice a difference). I haven’t drank whole milk in years – it was very creamy. It was pretty cool having something that came straight from the cow this morning.

Here’s the loot (all locally produced!)

From left to right: grass-fed beef, ground veal, and stew meat, raw milk gouda and cheddar, 2 1/2 gallons of raw milk, 1lb of whole bean coffee (roasted locally), and 2 dozen eggs.

Another breakfast picture

2009-04-18T11:26:00.001-04:00

We made the MDA coconut pancakes again – my son wanted pancakes and we had such great success with my daughter with them that I was all for it. He ate them, but he knew something “was up” so he took a long time to get through them (I had to encourage him with cold bacon). At least he didn’t gag (which is very common when presented with something that is not quite “right”).

I scoffed up a few of them with my breakfast – they are very tasty.

My plate:

Breakfast

2009-04-17T14:39:00.001-04:00

Sautéed broccoli, yellow pepper, and kelp in coconut oil with three fried eggs and a few coconut pancakes from Mark’s Daily Apple. I am thrilled with the pancakes – my daughter devoured them. This is HIGHLY unusual as she has become very picky – she won’t touch the almond variant.

Danny Ainge

2009-04-16T20:39:00.001-04:00

I see that Danny Ainge, GM of the Boston Celtics, is recovering nicely from a heart attack. He’s only 50 and now full of stents. What are the chances Danny is being put on a low-carb, high fat diet (a la Primal Blueprint)? I bet pretty small. More likely, it’s time for some “healthy whole grains”, chicken breast without the skins, and some “heart-healthy canola/soybean oil” with his salad.

I should send Danny a get-well copy of Tom Naughton’s excellent Fathead DVD. I could hand-deliver it – we live in the same town.

Hats off to Superhuman Radio

2009-04-16T20:26:00.001-04:00

Many thanks to Andy and Keith for pointing me to Superhuman radio with their blog posts and tweets. At first, I thought it was a bit muscle-heady but there have been some excellent podcasts on eating real food, raw milk, the paleo diet, livestock ID tagging, etc. This, along with Jimmy Moore’s Livin La Vida Low-Carb Show and (newly found) Underground Wellness Show make morning walks or driving to work a real pleasure.

Carl Lanore of Superhuman Radio talks A LOT about raw milk. As milk is one of the few good protein sources I can get my kids to use, I started looking into it. I was pleased to find it available from some local farms. We have a “raw milk orientation” this Saturday – I’m really looking forward to meeting the farmer, seeing the cows, etc. We’re buying a gallon - I will drink it for a bit to see if I want to move the kids to it. I don’t normally use dairy (on the grounds of it not being a paleo food), but I hear so much great stuff about raw milk that I’m willing to try it out.

A few meal pictures

2009-04-16T20:06:00.001-04:00

On Easter, we cooked up a grass-fed standing rib roast. It couldn’t have been easier to cook – wrap in twine, throw some EVOO and herbs on it, put in the oven temperature probe, and pull it out around 130 degrees and let it set for a bit.

It was quite tasty. Here’s the end result:

Here’s another meal we ate this week. It’s a salad of kale, cabbage, and red pepper with a funky dressing made with fresh-squeeze OJ, Lime, and EVOO with a few grass-fed “greek” burgers (hamburg with feta and garlic). Awesome.

Dehydrator

2009-04-14T08:20:00.001-04:00

We soaked some almonds and cashews this weekend and then dried them out all day in the oven. They were quite tasty - light and crunchy.

That got me thinking about investing in a dehyrator - anyone have any recommendations?

Got my cred

2009-04-11T09:12:00.001-04:00

I continue to alternate workout styles. I did a Body By Science Big 5 workout on Tuesday, sprints on Wednesday, a power walk with 50lbs in the weighted vest on Thursday, and a 5x5ish style workout this morning.

Today I got my cred (like Keith, I love that name!) Here’s the workout – I made it up on the fly:

Warm up

Jump rope
Medicine ball “hindu” squats

DB Snatch (alternate left/right hand) – 1 min rest

5/50# 5/55 5/55 5/55 3/55 5/55

Deadlift – 3 min rest

5/135 5/185 5/235 5/255 5/235 5/235

Chinup/Overhead Shoulder Press/Slow pushup combo – 1 min rest

5/5/5 5/5/10 5/5/10 5/5/10 5/5/10

I haven’t done deadlifts in a while. I was glad to see I felt strong hitting one set at 255 – I didn’t want to push it though.