on the blahs

In the “out of left field” department, I’m struggling with a deep case of the blahs this week. Sure, some of it is post-Spring Break depression, but a lot of it stems from some minor diet changes, digressions, and the realities of life this week. Let me explain them one by one.

The Benefits of Raw

Last week we were out of town for about 5 days. During that time, we ate raw fruit and veggies along with almonds, macadamia nuts and some boiled eggs and simple grilled chicken for our meals. We digressed from this to eat meals with the family, but mainly for social reasons. Our stocked cooler provided the main source of our food. Because of this great baseline, even when I enjoyed tortilla chips and salsa at a Tex Mex restaurant and a brownie with ice cream for a birthday celebration, I still felt good. I felt light. I could feel that I was losing weight. And I did – even with the traveling and the treats I lost 1 pound last week.

Don’t Over-think Food

After a week of eating mostly raw, whole ingredients, I felt the pressure was on to provide some hearty cooked meals for dinner. In addition, I’m doing some experimentation on the paleo and primal fronts, so I’ve noticed that I tend to rely more on things like coconut oil and olive oil instead of nuts for my fat sources. The portions are not huge, but they just feel heavier than their raw counterparts. And during the day when the family was off to school I was making omelets for breakfast and generally having dinner leftovers for lunch (except for one meal, which I will discuss below). While none of this is necessarily “bad” per se, I was just left feeling worse off than I did last week.

Could it be that eating raw and whole foods as a majority of your diet could have such powerful effects?

1 Bad Choice Has Major Consequences Now

When you eat crap every day for every meal, crap for one meal doesn’t really have a huge effect on your metabolism, your body’s tendency to burn fat instead of storing it, your mood, etc. So the logic is always, “one bad meal won’t hurt.” But when every meal is one bad meal… it’s a vicious cycle.

Factor in the issue above and some stressful situations at work and I had a familiar need to escape to some bad food choices. So on Tuesday I was out and about and I grabbed a sack at Jack in the Box. I was thinking, “It’s just one meal…” And it probably would have been, but I was already struggling with the shift from mostly raw foods. Boy, it sure tasted good and it did fulfill my immediate emotional need to connect with food, but I think it compounded my body’s issues this week and as a result I’ve put on a few pounds in just a few days.

Workouts Are NOT Enough

Last week I took a break from long workouts and still lost weight and felt great. I’ve been working out this week, but my diet and other stress factors are overpowering the benefits of 2 great CrossFit WOD’s. This is just another powerful reminder about the constant need for balance in all areas of our lives.

Injuries Suck

I’ve been dealing with a shoulder injury that has now contributed to an injured pectoral muscle. It’s not stopping me, but it is slowing me down. Most of all it’s just frustrating because I’m seeing so many positive changes in other areas and I want to see them in my workouts as well. I think I’m underestimating how much stress this is causing me right now.

And so, today is another day. I’m not dwelling on the choices made this week or the realities of life right now, rather I am thankful that I am more in tune with my body now and I’m really starting to connect the dots when it comes to diet, stress, and overall living conditions. Grok would look at his living conditions and make adjustments when things were out of balance, and so will I. Grok on.

on eating by spreadsheet

When I first started thinking on what I wanted to write about and communicate here, I was very much focused on The Zone. Every CrossFitter is likely to know about The Zone thanks mainly to the now infamous CrossFit Journal Issue #21 from way back in May 2004 (our copy is covered in who knows what, the ink is smeared, it’s in bad shape from being used so much). On day two of my training regiment I was introduced to this new way of thinking about food. At first, I was drawn to the regimen and the counting and the weighing, but I burnt out on it quickly because food is and always has been more about the emotions for me. The math was ruining it! However, earlier this year I decided to hit it hard again and read up on Dr. Sears’ Top 100 Zone Foods. It worked and I began to see results again.

Even just a week ago I was deep in the spreadsheet mindset and I was working on a spreadsheet that calculated the carbohydrate food blocks by weight. It just kinda hit me like a lightning bolt: “What in the world are you doing? This is dumb. I shouldn’t have to crack open a spreadsheet every time I want to eat!” That same day I came across Mark Sisson’s website, Mark’s Daily Apple. His approach to the whole paleo/CrossFit subculture just seemed to fit me better than others. I love his approach to balance on both the food and the fitness. It just all goes together easier for me – and there’s not a single spreadsheet for download on his website. Before Mark, “going paleo” seemed to be extreme to me with no balance for living life.

I’m still plugging through his book and I plan to finish it this week, but I’ve already started to put his basic principles into practice and I feel better, I have more energy, and I’m losing weight without really trying. In just 4 days I’ve lost about 2 pounds while eating what I like! I know this is just a microcosm, but this feels very sustainable to me.

As we head into Spring Break this week we’re actually planning ahead by bringing our own food. We don’t want to be ostracized by the rest of the family or be seen as pariahs, but at the same time we don’t want to go backwards either. Just something simple like replacing the daily morning donut regimen with some eggs, berries, and nuts. Also, instead of snacking like we normally would on vacation, we’ll just grab some pre-cut vegetables from our cooler. Then for lunch and dinner we’ll eat what everybody else eats, just in moderation.

I’ll report back in and let you know how we did.  As of yesterday, my weight was 265. Posting that here will keep me honest and accountable!

on cheat meals

Since we started this endeavor 6 months ago and more earnestly in January, my goal has always been to eat well about 90% of the time. I just flat out like food too much – all kinds of food. In addition, I have 3 children ages 15, 12, and 10 and while we want to teach them about making wise food choices, we also know that they need some balance in their lives as well. This has been my mantra and I’ve made progress while sticking to it.

As I mentioned yesterday, I downloaded The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson yesterday on my Kindle. As soon as I started to read it, it was like we are kindred souls and I didn’t feel this huge gulf of “I’m much smarter than you” that some of these diet and way of life books make me feel. This is another quote of his on the topic of balance and it made me realize that part of my goal with the happy gastronomer has already been fulfilled – not by me, but by Mark! Read this:

I strongly support you making allowances for, adjustments to, and occasional deviations from the Primal Blueprint based on your particular real-life concerns and constraints. You’ll encounter many references to my 80% Rule in the book …, which basically means you can chill out and enjoy your life rather than invite the additional stress and anxiety that comes from a perfectionist approach or an overly strict regimen.”

For the record, he does say that you should strive for 100% perfection in the plan but with a realistic expectation that you will hit about 80% and that’s OK.

Anyhow, it’s always been our “thing” on Friday night to reward ourselves and the kids with a treat meal – and their favorite (and one of ours, I’ll admit) is Taco Bell. I can hear the gasps from everyone now, but suck it – I’m not competing later today in the sectionals.

But last night as I lay in bed I noticed that I just didn’t feel right. In fact, I felt like crap. I checked my blood pressure and it wasn’t bad, but it was elevated and so was my pulse. My body wasn’t starting to shut down at about 9:00 like it normally did. To top it all off I’m up at 4:30 AM writing this instead of waking up at 6:30. Overall result: cheat meal FAIL.

And it hit me: my body is finally starting to reject my drug of choice: food that’s bad for me. The challenge for me now is what next?

on mark sisson and the primal blueprint

Even though The Zone doesn’t specifically forbid things like sugar and bread, it’s highly discouraged because you don’t get the amount of fiber that you need from those carbohydrate sources. So we’ve been avoiding breads and sugars for about 90% of our meals for the past 6 months. Because I’m around people who are CrossFitters, I can’t seem to escape the transition from The Zone to Paleo. It’s everywhere and now it seems to be going mainstream thanks to Mark Sisson and his new book entitled The Primal Blueprint. As if I need another source of nutrition information to further cloud my already clogged braincells, it’s everywhere I turn saying, “Read me. Read me!” Today I was perusing some stuff on the interwebz and came across this quote from that book:

“Let me reiterate my distaste for a perfectionist mentality toward diet, physical appearance, lifestyle change, and even school, career, and competitive athletics. Respecting the broad definition of health and the legacy of a simple lifestyle that our ancestors lived, we need to reject the measuring and judging forces of society and pursue fun and peace of mind in conjunction with health and fitness goals.”

Can you say … balance? He doesn’t use that word, but that’s exactly what he’s describing here. OK, so I may have to eat a little crow here and pick up this book for my Kindle and read it over Spring Break. Is crow paleo?

Sigh… what am I becoming?

on food balance

I never thought I would say this, but I’m becoming obsessed with the upcoming CrossFit Games. I can’t explain it, but for some reason I’m checking both the Central Southern Texas Sectional and the 2010 Crossfit Games websites daily for insight into the WOD’s and the competitors. I’m pretty sure that by now I’ve invested more time in the CrossFit Games than I did last month in the Winter Olympics (minus my disturbing addiction to curling). I’m blessed to know many of the competitors in this weekend’s sectional competition and I can’t wait to go witness the spectacle in person.

my first fight gone bad

But I have a confession to make. I love CrossFit for what it is, but I’ll never be a serious competitor. I know that’s heresy, but it’s not my goal. My goal is to have a balanced, sustainable, healthy lifestyle and if being a competitor is a symptom of that goal then so be it.

As I’ve observed my trainer, Heather Hodges, train for the games over the last several months, I’ve been amazed by her willpower to stick with a very strict diet. For her, the goal is to be competitive and win, and so her diet is simply one of many tools in her arsenal. So for her to eat the same cucumber for breakfast every day is not a stumbling block for her because her love for the competition is greater than her love for the food. I respect and admire that, but I don’t aspire to be that.

As a gastronomer, my love for food is greater than my love for competition. Maybe one day that will change, but for now I just want to stay healthy, continue to make progress with my weight and overall fitness, and also be happy eating food! That’s a key component for me and what I’ve learned the last 6 months is that I can eat healthy while maintaining my fairly high food balance standards.

I keep using the words food and balance together, but what does that mean? More on that next time…

on gastronomy

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. -Voltaire

At the intersection of food and art lies gastronomy. Food, like art and music, has the power to evoke an emotional response. A gastronomer is one who is constantly searching for that emotional response to food. For example, nothing frustrates me more than having to settle for a bag of frozen green beans at dinner time. It’s not that I don’t like green beans, it’s just that that particular application (frozen, steamed in a bag) lacks soul. Soul is a key component in the quest to find an emotional connection with food and the world around it.