Category Archives: Diet
Sometimes I hate the grocery store
So Ryan and I pretty much only go to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods or The Meat House. We will soon be going to more farmer’s market, but that is tomorrow’s post.
There is, however, a Stop and Shop right by our house. We usually only go there when we want junk food for a cheat day or when we need more toilet paper, paper towels or some other non-food necessity.
But today we decided to stop there since we didn’t have any nitrite free bacon to cook our weekend potatoes in.
For one, the store only had one nitrite free bacon. AND it was WAY more expensive than the other bacon packages.
No wonder people think eating “healthy” is so expensive.
We then walked down a couple of other aisles.
Down one aisle were these “Honest Teas” which are supposed to have less sugar than the usual tea drinks out there. If 20g of sugar is “less” sugar per serving, I don’t want to know what the other tea drinks have!
Also, right next to these “healthy” tea drinks were 20 oz Red Bulls.
Let me just say, “OUR SOCIETY IS OVER CAFFEINATED!!!!”
A 20 oz Red Bull!?!
You shouldn’t even drink 1 oz of that crap!!!
Anyway, we then walked down the next aisle, which of course was overloaded with cereal advertising how healthy it is.
HA!
We of course then were more than ready to leave and didn’t even feel like looking around to see if there was anything else we needed.
On our way out, we ran into Smart Balance butter and marshmallows.
Conventional wisdom has you believing that these two foods are pretty good to consume. I mean marshmallows are fat-free and Smart Balance butter isn’t real butter and is infused with Omega-3s! Both are good things right!?!
AH! I looked at both of those products and just thought about how I couldn’t believe that I used to buy both on a regular basis!!!! I used to think they were both healthy enough!
AH!
With stores like Stop and Shop, where crap is everywhere and the good stuff is WAY more pricey than the bad stuff, no wonder people think eating well is expensive.
With aisles full of cereals that say they are healthy, no wonder people are so confused about what is good for them!
I mean shoot! People see fruit roll-ups in a commercial that tells them that fruit roll-ups are a fat-free food with vitamins and minerals. They then see that same claim on 100 billion products lining the shelves around them so of course believe it must be true!
No wonder people eat crap with stores like that!
Me after my Stop and Shop experience. Look my hair even went blonde it made me so crazy!
Kombucha – Home Brewing It!
So Erin gave us a scoby, which I promptly named “Freddy.” Don’t ask me why, but I did.
Ryan on the other hand put the scoby to use. He brewed our first batch of kombucha!
Kombucha is a fermented tea that is believed to possess all of these great health benefits. Whether or not it is really THAT good for you doesn’t really matter. It isn’t bad for you and I think it is delicious. So even if it has one quarter of the health benefits people claim that it has, I’m drinking it!
Here is our recipe!
Makes 1 quart of kombucha
Ingredients:
You will need a glass jar to hold the liquid and a coffee filter or towel for a lid.
- 2 1/2 cups hot (not boiling) water
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 black tea bags
- 1 green tea bag
- 1/2 cup already-made unflavored kombucha tea
- Kombucha culture (Scoby)
Heat up water to just before boiling and add sugar. Make sure it is all dissolved. Seep tea bags for 5-10 minutes in water that is hot but not boiling. Then let the tea completely cool to room temperature.
Then add tea to the scoby with starter kombucha (or already-made kombucha) in a mason jar.
Cover with a coffee filter and rubber band. Make sure nothing metal touches the kombucha or scoby. Make sure your hands are clean when handling the scoby.
Let sit for 5-30 days and enjoy!
If you choose not to follow this recipe, make sure to be careful in which one you select. Apparently you can brew a batch that is bad for you!
Breakfast is overrated
So in my opinion breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day, especially as we know it.
How about you just skip the porridge?
The worst thing you could do is force down breakfast if you aren’t hungry. The worst thing you could do is start your morning with simple sugars, a ton of carbs and gluten.
Am I saying you should skip breakfast? Yea if you want.
I’m just saying breakfast isn’t the be all and end all of meals especially as we are advised to eat by conventional wisdom.
So should you skip breakfast? And if you do eat it, what should you eat?
So I skip breakfast except on the weekends. I mostly skip it because I’m not usually hungry until about lunch time. I also skip it because it feels super unnatural to force down food at 4:30 a.m. Also, I feel too lazy most of the time to prepare breakfast food for the next day.
AND I’ve also never been a big fan of breakfast food. I love the occasional pancake binge, but other than that I’ve never LOVED breakfast.
So I only eat it on the weekends. And then I make omelets or scrambles or even some almond butter protein pancakes. I eat breakfast when I can actually sit down and enjoy it.
BUT if you are a breakfast fan or just feel like you don’t function as well if you don’t eat something in the morning, you do have options (even if none of them are cereal!).
You can make hard-boiled eggs, omelets, scrambles, hashes, protein (no gluten) pancakes. You can make steak and eggs, bacon and eggs, veggies and eggs. You can have nuts, and smoothies (delicious with frozen berries, protein and kefir!).
There is so much out there you can eat so STOP FOCUSING ON THE FOODS YOU CAN’T EAT! Shoot you can even have steak and bacon and some potatoes (if you eat them) for breakfast! Breakfast doesn’t have to be traditional breakfast food! It can be anything you love!
So once I’ve told clients they don’t HAVE to eat breakfast. And once I’ve told them all the good things they can eat that AREN’T carb-laden, they usually come back with, “But nothing is as easy to grab and go as cereal!”
Yes cereal is easy to grab and go, BUT if you make hard-boiled eggs (aka stick eggs in a pot of water for about 10ish minutes) on Sunday, you have breakfast for a few days! You can also make individual egg scrambles in the oven using a muffin tin (they can have veggies and bacon or anything else you want!). Or you can make the protein pancakes and store them in the refrigerator for breakfast or snack all week! Shoot you can even grab some macadamia nuts, fruits and some leftover meat that you made for another meal if you want! That is definitely an easy grab and go meal!
Yes most of these things do take some prep time, but they are easy to take with you once they are made and you can make enough for the entire week. PLUS THEY ARE GOOD FOR YOU!
Do you eat breakfast? And if so, what is your favorite dish!?!
The good, the bad and the simply stupid
First off, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a tenacious young woman, Fern! Happy Birthday!
Now onto the good, the bad and the simply stupid!
The Good
I LIKE IT!
- I like this quote from Michelle Obama,”You wouldn’t think of watering a plant with soda.” No you definitely wouldn’t.
- Interesting research about dietary fat and cholesterol absorption.
- I’ve discovered that I love designing workouts that ask you to do as many rounds as possible in under a certain time limit (usually 20 or 30 minutes). If you push hard for 20-30, you will probably get more out of the workout than steady-state cardio for an hour. Actually I GUARANTEE you’ll get more out of it!
As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes:
5 Dips
10 Inverted Rows
15 Burpees
20 Front squats with weight
Your quads definitely burn a bit between the burpees and using a challenging weight on front squats!
The Bad
- Ryan and I watched a Restaurant Impossible, in which Robert helps upgrade a community center. While they do create a garden and make the place super nice, the thing that bothered me the most was the prepackaged food the kids were being served. IT WAS ALL CARBS AND IT WAS BEING PASSED OFF AS HEALTHY! When seriously will the low-fat diet fad pass!?!
- If only they ate Primally, they wouldn’t have to suffer. They could bulk up or slim down easily and healthily! Celebrities and stupid diets…BLEH! Of course I do understand that some roles demand extremes but still…I mean especially Anne Hathaway! You want a catwoman body!?! Eat Primally!
The Simply Stupid
- Silk Pure Almond milk – According to their commercial people preferred the taste over regular milk. Of course the flavor they show in the commercial isn’t the Original, which has very little sugar – they instead show chocolate and vanilla! Of course people prefer them! They have more sugar and more CRAP in them!
- Yesterday while at the gym, there was a guy who walks in and starts doing bicep curls. He definitely looked like one of those guys who follow the Muscle and Fitness Bodybuilder workouts. He was definitely one of those guys that thought he was “big” because he had lots of muscle. He was definitely one of those guys that annoys me. BUT the best part of this story is what Ryan told me when we left, “So you know that guy who was doing all the bicep curls? I thought he was reading a Muscle and Fitness since it seemed like that is where he was drawing his workout from, but no…he wasn’t. He was reading a People magazine.”..For some reason this made me laugh…
I ned food.
Yes that was an intentional spelling mistake. (One of the Cave Kids’ songs is “I need food,” and the demo of this song on our computer is “I ned food.”)
Anyway, stupid joke (that only amused me and maybe Ryan).
BUT really you do actually need food.
AND I think that most of the population thinks about food (and/or consumes it) as often, if not more so, than the male supposedly thinks about sex!
So we are thinking about food a lot then! 😉
And because we are thinking about food all of the time, we tend to have lots of questions about diet.
One of the most interesting diet questions I’ve received recently was “How do you manage to stick to Primal when you are on your period and craving crap?”
I had two different answers for her.
The first one was – sometimes you just have to indulge. If I’m craving something specific and I just can’t shake the craving, I’m going to indulge. If I don’t, I’ll just end up bingeing on crap at some future date instead of having a controlled cheat.
My second answer was – if I’m not craving anything specific just something sweet/salty/flavorful, I’ll indulge in a Primal cheat. I’ll allow myself some dark chocolate on a day when I wouldn’t usually eat it. Or I’ll eat some cheese and salami, an extra piece of bacon or even some dark chocolate macadamia nut bark if we have some around!
Essentially what I told her to do was listen to her body and “measure” her cravings. Do you really want pizza or do you just want a little extra salt? Do you really want ice cream or would some frozen berries and chocolate suffice?
I find that 90% of the time, I’m super satisfied with just a Primal cheat.
The key here is to not have a ton of non Primal crap around to tempt you, but to keep some extra Primal cheats around when you know it is that time of the month. Having the Primal cheats around will keep you from going in search of something worse!
Anyway, what do you do when you are craving bad food on your period?
(P.S. You Man Bicep Males also need to read this as you are all subject to sympathy cravings! :-P)
The good, the bad and the simply stupid
So I’m not trying to brag, but I feel better after 16 hours of spin than I do after one of my own tough 30 minute lifts.
My taking-on-16-hours-of-spin face!
Honestly, no muscles are sore or even really tight. The ONLY pain I have besides a slightly bruised crouch is one knee that doesn’t like going up and down stairs too much.
Be it the ice bath, my diet with no gluten or my workouts (or all three combined), I feel perfectly normal today…just like I do after any other week of working out.
Anyway, all I can say is you definitely don’t need to carb load with crap gels and gluten to survive endurance cardio!
The Good
- Ice baths are amazing! They really do aid in muscle recovery. AND Tim Ferriss has done the research, and found the science to prove that ice baths may also help you lose fat!
- Get a healthy dose of Vitamin D! This just shows how important going out in the sun is! We all fear skin cancer, but some sun is good! And of course if you can’t get sun, you can always take a supplement! BUT anyone else seem to feel WAY BETTER when they’ve gotten some sun? I definitely do!
- Cool?!? Good news for me I guess! What do you think?
- I’m glad the FDA didn’t let them call high fructose corn syrup “corn sugar!”
- Thank you Therese for taking up the challenge of trying something new! Great job with the monkey bars!
-
These are not easy and Therese is killing it!
- Our Jump Rope Slide is done!
The Bad
- Caffeine is not an alternative to sleep people! I’ve seen too many people over the last couple of days guzzle down espresso shots and Red Bull rather than sleeping enough. I know it is hard to get enough sleep sometimes, but seriously nothing is more important! Your body recovers and rebuilds when you sleep!!! So stop drinking your Starbucks bazillion shot coffees and Red Bulls and instead go to bed!
The Simply Stupid
- Is this really an article on WebMD?
- There is this girl on Fiverr.com saying she can give you flat abs in 3 days. How are people this stupid!?!
- This honestly sounds like something a client has said to me at some point…
And lastly, Happy Father’s Day people! All you Dad’s out there who are reading this…you better be supporting your women and making sure they lift heavy!!!
Self-Experimentation vs. Accepting Conventional Wisdom
12 hours down, 4 more to go tomorrow.
My body actually feels pretty good aside from a very sore butt from the saddle. I do attribute it to the fact that I do weight training AND don’t eat gluten.
I’ve caused my body no additional inflammation from crap food!
My dinner tonight – Free roaming, grass-fed buffalo flank steak and “loaded” potatoes (nitrite free bacon, grass-fed cheese and a primal “ranch” sauce!
However even with the healthy eating, the joints and muscles aren’t 100% so I decided to take an ice bath today.
It couldn’t hurt right?
I mean worse case scenario I sit in frigid water for 10 minutes and it only makes everything go numb for a few minutes.
But I still got strange looks from everyone I told. Why would I ever take an ice bath?
WHY NOT!?!
It could help and if it doesn’t help, it most definitely won’t hurt! As I said above, worse case scenario I waste 10 minutes to only have the muscles go numb for a few minutes.
I must say though, it took some courage to fully submerge my lower body. I stuck one foot in and gasped. BUT everything feels pretty good right now.
We will have to see tomorrow though! (And hey, Tim Ferriss touts them for their fat loss benefits so I guess that isn’t a bad extra bonus! ;-))
Anyway, the point of all this isn’t really to talk about my ice bath, it is to pose the question: Why are people so afraid of TRYING something if conventional wisdom doesn’t tell you to do it?
I mean what really do you have to lose if you TRY something in the hopes of becoming healthier/fitter/stronger?
Some wasted time?
NOT EVEN.
Time isn’t wasted if you LEARN SOMETHING FROM IT!
So why are people so afraid to try things that aren’t approved by conventional wisdom but have studies proving their benefits while they so easily accept that eating Gatorade chews is how they should fuel for a competition just because the media tells them to!?!
Can someone please explain this to me?
Death by Cardio
Tomorrow, Friday and Saturday I will suffer death by cardio – 16 hours of spin. At least my suffering is for a good cause!
A few of the riders from last year!
I have three comments to make about this death by cardio though.
One….
BLEHHHHHHHHH! Have I mentioned before I hate cardio?!?
Two…
I’m prepared for my body to hurt after all of the hours. Not my muscles necessarily, but my butt and my knees. Because I knew I would be in enough pain, I didn’t want to be sitting on the bike super sore from heavy lifts this week.
I did lift heavy Monday (my butt and hamstrings are still sore) and I did lift yesterday (my shoulders, triceps and chest were brutalized), but today I chose to do a short and killer cardio bodyweight workout. It is bad enough being sore when I teach two classes let alone ride for 16 hours!!!
So if you are looking for a great cardio, bodyweight workout, try this workout of the week!
10 rounds:
10 Ab roller
20 Box Jumps
30 Double Unders
Shoot for under 20 minutes!
Three….
Mark Sisson had an interesting post the other day about trying your own little self experiment.
I’m going to be trying my own little experiment the next couple of days. I’m going to prove that you don’t need to eat all those crap gels and simple carbohydrates to survive such an intense workout session.
While everyone else will be drinking Gatorade and chowing down on crap carbs, I will be eating my delicious Primal meals and snacks. Nuts, fruits, all sorts of protein and some veggies. I may even throw in some potatoes on Friday after 7 hours of spinning tomorrow. BUT we will see!
I’m betting I will feel better than everyone else…What do you think?
Also, thank you to all of those who donated! A special thanks goes out to our mystery donor who made our day today!!!
Thank you all! Wish the Man Bicep Team good luck! I hope my butt survives!!!
Go figure…Conventional wisdom I hate
Ok so the phrase/sentiment I hate below isn’t really conventional wisdom BUT it is uttered all too frequently!
Don’t be fooled by this picture. It doesn’t have that much to do with the post. I just like it.
So yesterday I hopped on the treadmill at the end of my workout to jog a mile. I’ve been trying to casually run occasionally because I want to be good at it even if I don’t enjoy it. (Also, I think I’m hoping I’ll learn to love it…not working yet…)
While I was jogging on the treadmill, and drenched in sweat from my workout, one of the trainers at my gym said to me,”Feeling guilty about the weekend, huh?” He then smiled and laughed.
I think the first emotion that registered across my face was shock. And then I got defensive.
Yes, I did go to New York this past week. And yes, I did eat all of the delicious foods that I know are bad for me.
But, did I feel guilty about it?
HARDLY.
I had throughly enjoyed myself. Why would I feel guilty?
After I got defensive, I got angry.
WHAT THE HECK KIND OF COMMENT WAS THAT?!?
I’ve never understood that attitude – the attitude of “if I eat badly I’ll just go on the treadmill and sweat it off and then I’ll be skinny again.”
Do people actually really think that works?
Unfortunately they do…
But it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just eat whatever you want and then just go and work it off. That doesn’t make you healthy!!!
I honestly believe it is actually the worst mentality to have.
It places all the importance on calories in vs. calories. Also, maintaining a healthy weight doesn’t mean you are healthy!
And most importantly you can’t exercise off a bad meal!!!
If you really want to “make up” for a bad meal or weekend, eat well for the next few weeks!!!
Have you ever been guilty of thinking a workout will make up for poor eating choices? If so, WHY!?!
P.S. Is anyone else amused by this article?!
WOW..I can’t believe it’s not peanut butter…
Actually I CAN believe it’s not peanut butter.
EW!
SchoolSafe WOWButter is a peanut free soy butter that supposedly tastes like peanut butter and is safe for school since it won’t set off anyone’s nut allergies.
I honestly thought this website was a joke when Francine sent it to me yesterday.
BUT NOPE!
I honestly don’t even know which part of this to start ranting about.
So here are the ingredients, which speak for themselves (all of which are things I despise).
Ingredients:
Non GMO Toasted Soy, Soy Oil, Granulated Cane Sugar, Monoglyceride (from vegetable oil, prevents oil separation) and Sea Salt.
Ok so I don’t hate sea salt, but soy oil? Sugar? Vegetable oil? UHMMMMM…
I think I would rather just not give my kid peanut butter than to give them that crap.
Actually, I wouldn’t give my kids peanut butter since it actually isn’t a nut! And I definitely wouldn’t give them this even more processed crap!
I mean did someone ACTUALLY think this was a good solution for peanut allergies?!?
Also, PLEASE DONATE TO THE MAN BICEP TEAM! All three of us are cycling for 16 hours and would appreciate any help we can get to reach our fundraising goal!!!! Click on this link to donate! Put Man Bicep in the notes section and leave a comment on this post!!!!
THANK YOU!
Man Bicep 