Coconut Lime Macaroons

I've been indulging in a bit too much chocolate lately, and dealing with some sugar cravings as a result. The other day in Wegman's I actually stopped to eyeball the various pastries and cookies (there's just something about food on display that calls to me!), but I forced myself to move on. Then I saw the containers of macaroons and thought, well at least those will be paleo. Not so much, they had flour in them.

What's a girl to do except make her own? Especially when you follow a link to a blog and this Coconut Lime Macaroon recipe from Comfy Belly happens to be the post of the day. So last night at the ridiculous hour of about 10:30 I set to making them. They were incredibly (dangerously?) simple to make and they are so good. I used the whites from 4 very large farm eggs and stuck to the lower 3T of honey and thought the consistency was perfect. Since I was torn about whether or not to dip them in dark chocolate, I decided to do half and half.

(Man, I wish I could take more photos in daylight!)

Unfortunately sometime today I think I decided to start a 21-day sugar detox tomorrow, which means I will eat what I can tonight, but the rest have to go. Who wants to help me finish off some macaroons? Get here fast! "What I can" may turn out to be a lot. :P

Chicken & Vegetable "Lo Mein"

On the menu tonight, Chicken & Vegetable Lo Mein from The Food Lover's Make It Paleo cookbook. You can find the recipe over here on The Food Lover's Kitchen (formerly The Food Lover's Primal Palate) website, but I recommend picking up a copy of the cookbook if you see it. The recipes are all fairly straightforward and simple, but it's nice to have a few paleo cookbooks to page through for inspiration, and everything I've made from this one has always been tasty. This recipe was no exception.

And, it has water chestnuts. I've loved water chestnuts since I was introduced to them in Chinese food as a kid. If you don't like 'em with their absolute lack of flavor yet satisfying crunch, we may have to stop being friends. In any event, all in all a satisfying, healthy dish, even if the name's a bit misleading (love the addition of the cabbage, but without the noodles there's no way you're convincing anyone this is anything more than a tasty stir-fry, sorry).

Samosa Breakfast Hash

I'm lucky in a few ways when it comes to paleo eating. One, I love to cook (duh). Two, I don't mind eating leftovers. For days. And, three, I could eat bacon & eggs for breakfast every day of the year. When I get bored, I switch from frying my eggs to scrambling them. Or sometimes I get really crazy and make an omelet.

But, for a lot of people, what to eat for breakfast when you've thrown out your boxes of cereal and packets of oatmeal is challenging. And if I'm being honest, I had been planning to take a brief break from bacon and cook up some sausage, except my farmer canceled last weekend's meat drop. So, it was timely that a friend posted this recipe for Samosa Breakfast Hash from Paleo Cupboard tonight! It was an easy decision to postpone the meal I had been planning and cook up a big batch of this hash instead. Of course, I had to make a few changes.

Since the recipe said the hash would freeze/reheat well, I decided to make a double batch so I could freeze some individual portions, but it turns out I didn't have enough curry powder for 2 lbs of meat (I used dark meat turkey) so I just used what I had (5 T) and left the other spices as they were called for in the recipe. I might up the cinnamon and ginger a touch next time, but I felt the flavor and heat were pretty spot on otherwise.

I also used green onions instead of regular onion and because I wanted something reminiscent of the peas that are usually in samosas, I defrosted some haricot verts and used my scissors to cut them into shorter pieces and added those. Lastly, I subbed in turnips for rutabaga because I thought they'd better emulate the potato.

I had the resulting hash for dinner with 2 fried eggs on top:

Delicious!

Mobility

Here's a concept I was completely ignorant of prior to starting Crossfit:

Mobility.

I wish I hadn't been because I would have approached my return to exercise a bit differently. I did make an effort to very gradually increase my activity level since I started working out again last February, at first just swimming, then adding in cycling and later weight lifting, and eventually Crossfit. Still, there was a key component I was overlooking:

Mobility.

The large majority of us sit at our desks for a large percentage of our lives. I've been doing it for 14 years and up until February of last year, for quite a few years I was largely sedentary outside of the office as well. This leads to an incredible loss of, you guessed it:

Mobility.

I've suffered from tendonitis in my wrist off and on for about 10 years now and was in physical therapy a few years ago for a problem I was having with my trapezius, both from my poor posture at my desk. But when you're not particularly active, you may not have obvious injuries that would prompt seeking medical treatment. Instead, you may have poor range of motion or suffer aches and pains, but there's nothing like introducing intense exercise to draw attention to the misalignments and weaknesses in your body.

This article does a good job of summarizing a lot of my thoughts on this issue of late. Unfortunately, as stated in the article it's taken another injury (this time a strained QL muscle in my back) to get me to realize that a few things could have potentially addressed some of my ROM issues before I started working out so intensely, potentially allowing me to avoid these injuries rather than having them essentially identify my weaknesses.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20. The main thing is that I'm educating myself now and have decided to make improving my mobility a priority. To that end, I'm doing a few things:

1. Seeing a chiropractor

As I mentioned, I strained my QL muscle so right now, the focus of my visits is on correcting that issue, but he felt confident we could address it in a few visits. His main concern is actually the poor ROM in my neck, which is not surprising so we're planning on 8-10 visits to work on improving that with maintenance visits TBD (probably 1-2/month) after that.

2. Mobility WODs

A link from one of my Crossfit coaches led me to this awesome site: Mobility WOD. There's a new mobility WOD for each day (I believe some repeat so you are able to guage your progress) for an entire year. Their original intent was to do the daily WODs for a year, but it looks like they are keeping it going. Bottom line, over 365 WODs geared solely toward improving your mobility. My goal, in order to be realistic, is to do one at least 3 days per week. I started with the first WOD today. It was tough - I had to break it up into 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 minute segments and there was no way I could have done it without holding onto something to hold myself up - but it got easier as I went and I felt good after doing it.

3. Active recovery - I'm lumping a bunch of stuff into this category. I bought a foam roller a while back (you can get this one for less than $30 on Amazon) that you can use to release tension and improve blood flow to sore or tight areas. I also did a little reading on Trigger Therapy and have been practicing that with a lacrosse ball at the gym or a tennis ball at home. And I'm focusing on rest days that involve easy swims or simple squats, sit-ups, push ups, and pull-ups followed by stretching at home to get blood flow to my sore areas.

None of this is specific to Crossfit. In fact, I hope I will inspire each and every one of you to think about where you may be lacking in mobility and do something to start addressing it. When I think about the fact that our bodies are built to support the lifestyle that our paleolithic ancestors lived and how far removed we are from that, I'm incredibly bummed that we're doing ourselves such a huge disservice. Remember this article I posted earlier from Chris Kresser? We are literally making ourselves sick by sitting around. So even if I just inspire you to get up from your desk a few times a day to walk around or stretch, I will consider this long ass post worthwhile. On that note, quit reading this and go take a walk or cop a squat for 10 minutes as in that first mobility WOD (report back if you do)!

Sunday Cook Up Catch Up

No seriously, I also talk about paleo eating! Which is why I'm going to take this opportunity to share some paleo recipes and food photos I've been hoarding. First up is my Sunday cook up from two (yes, two!) weeks ago, this White Chicken Chili recipe from Cook's Illustrated that was passed on to me by the same friend who gave me that great pumpkin curry soup recipe.

I only needed to make a few adjustments to make it totally paleo. First, I used chicken thighs (breasts are fine, but I prefer the fattier dark meat) that I seared in sunflower oil (I still need to research this a bit more, but I think the general thinking is nut oils, while paleo aren't ideal for high heat cooking so you can use whatever paleo friendly oil/fat you'd like) and I used homemade chicken stock. Lastly, I replaced the beans with additional chicken, using about 3 1/2 pounds total.

For the most part I followed the instructions, but I simplified where I could. For instance, why waste time mincing the jalapenos yourself when you can just throw them in the food processor with the rest of the peppers? Overall, it was a simple process and the resulting chili was really tasty and filling. My only complaint, the heat was very subtle. Next time I will definitely add more jalapeno. I served the chili with fresh avocado and extra chopped cilantro (both a must in my opinion):

Last week's cook up was yet another variation on Nom Nom Paleo's Slow Cooker Cheater Pork Stew. I've made a stew using this recipe as a base 3 times now, never doing exactly what she says or the same thing twice. It's an incredibly easy and forgiving recipe - use whatever tougher/cheaper cut of meat, spice blend, and vegetables you have on hand and it will taste delicious every time. This time was probably the closest I've gotten to her original recipe, but I used beef chuck roast instead of pork shoulder and added quartered cremini mushrooms. In the past, I've used a different spice blend, chopped fresh tomatoes in place of the marinara and I haven't always included the cabbage. Seriously, when you're in a pinch, make this stew.

Finally, last night I knew I'd need a quick and easy recipe since I worked at the winery all day and I had a few things to use up in my fridge so I made a Sausage & Spinach Frittata using (again) a Nom Nom Paleo recipe as a base. I sliced and sauteed some mushroom & cognac turkey sausage from Three Little Pigs in a bit of bacon fat in my 10" cast iron pan. When the sausage was browned, I removed it and added some chopped onion to the fat in the pan. Once the onions were caramelized, I added several large handfuls of baby spinach and mixed it until wilted. While the meat & veg were cooking, I beat 6 XL eggs with a few tablespoons of heavy cream, salt, & pepper. Once the spinach was wilted, I added the egg mixture to the pan and let it cook over medium heat for a few minutes until the bottom was set, then I baked it for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Finally, I broiled it for a few minutes at the end to brown the top. Here's the resulting frittata:

I sliced it up and served it alongside a nice green salad. It was a surprisingly satisfying meal for how simple it was and the reheated leftovers were still delicious tonight. Frittatas are definitely going into my regular rotation.

There you have it my friends. 3 weeks of Sunday meals. Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to eat for the rest of the week!

Monthly Check In

Wouldn't it be great if muscle weighed the same amount as fat? Yeah, it does, and I'm an idiot for forgetting that until my coach kindly reminded me that a pound is a pound is a pound. What I meant was wouldn't it be great to be able to see our fat loss on the scale even while we build muscle? Because even though we are capable of understanding that we can be fitter and leaner without losing actual pounds, we've unfortunately all been programmed throughout our lives to care what the scale says.

I decided to switch to monthly instead of weekly check ins for that very reason as I didn't want to be discouraged if the number didn't change on the scale, despite feeling stronger or looking leaner. So imagine my reaction when I stepped on the scale yesterday and I still weigh the SAME THING as I did 4 weeks ago!

Thankfully I have my tape measure and body fat calipers to reassure me of the changes I see in the mirror. I've lost another 1/2" off of my waist and 3/4" off of my hips (ie. unhealthy abdominal fat). And, if you believe that I'm measuring correctly (or consistently measuring incorrectly), I've gone down another 2% in body fat.

I will admit I felt a brief twinge of disappointment when I stepped on the scale, but while I want to lose weight and look better, what's most important to me is simply that I'm meeting the goals I've set forth of clean paleo eating and Crossfitting and swimming regularly. If I continue with that as I have been, the rest will fall into place.

Crossfit Catch Up

Wow, I am seriously behind on my blogging; time to play a little catch up. Let's get the crap out of the way. Today was the first day I felt shitty about my performance at Crossfit. I've had plenty of days where things have been really hard and I've thought I was going to vomit or die or both, but today I felt like my body just wouldn't do what I wanted to. I was fatigued, sore, tight, my back is bothering me - it all added up to a crap workout. :( Which sucks, because I was excited to do this workout when it was posted last night. Oh well, them's the breaks. Nothing to do but get back in there tomorrow and go back to kicking ass!

On a more positive note, on Friday I completed my Foundations class and I went out with a bang. You all know I was really looking forward to repeating Fight Gone Bad to see how I had improved since I did that WOD 6 weeks ago. However, the big accomplishment turned out to be not how many additional reps I did, but the fact that I Rx'ed my first workout! This means I used the prescribed weights and didn't need to scale anything. Here's what I did:

3 rounds of AMRepsAP in 1 min each of:

Wall balls (14#)
Sumo Deadlift High Pull (55#)
Box Jumps (20") (yep, I am back to doing box jumps and my box actually had an extra inch, you know, for the record :P)
Push Press (55#)
Row for Calories
1 min rest before moving on to next round

My total score was 210. Last time my score was 259, but I scaled so I was using a 10# wall ball, 35# for the high pulls and presses, and a 12" box - laughable! (Although to be fair, I scaled the box jumps because I was freshly injured and they were exacerbating it.) In any event, I was pleased I was able to Rx the workout even though I'm already thinking about how I could have changed my strategy to do better. Thankfully I'll have a chance again in a few weeks. I use the term thankfully loosely though as this workout was much harder than I remembered. Like super hard.

So that makes me an official Crossfit girl (again). As if to ensure my street cred, yesterday's WOD included a ton of ring dips, which left me with 3 large bruises on my arms. And today's included a large number of pull-ups so my hands are ripped up again. Between that and how sore I am, I am feeling beaten, battered, and bruised. Yep, I'm officially a Crossfit Girl.