Back on the Wagon...again.

So I got my first weeks worth of work outs. They seem pretty easy, but I know if I put 100% in all movements, it should be a pretty nice work out with a bit a sweat happening.

So here is my agenda for the week:

D1: run/jog 100m + 5 Air Squats to med ball + 5 Dumbbell Press x 3 rounds for time.

D2: Walk 15min for distance.

 

D3: 5 Split Squats (in place lunges - use abmats if needed) 5RM Push Press x 3 rounds. 2min rest between sets.

D4: 500m C2 Rowing x 4 rounds. Rest between rds equivalent to work. 

D5: Sled Drag 100m x 6. Rest as needed. Go heavy. 

 

For nutrition, I will be eating clean (whole 30 style) with the exception of a carb frenzy following D1, D3, and D5. Anythings game, but only after those workouts. Period.

 

 

Where is the Cheese? Time to Share Good News!

Okay--Time to Share Good News! Day26

I bought some jeans a few months ago and could not fit into them. Well today is jeans day at work and I thought I would give them a shot. BINGO!--they fit! I swear they were like 4 inches too small around my waist at least. This is a very nice start to a beautiful Friday in the Rose City. 

I had also slept in to 5:45 this am (I normally wake up by 4:30-5:00) and slept through the night without leg cramps or having to pee every hour.

http://mypanera.panerabread.com/articlestips/article/access-into-paneras-hidden-menu/

Since I was running late for work--I skipped breakfast at home, but stopped byPanera Bread and ordered off their Hidden Menu. I had their POWER BREAKFAST EGG BOWL WITH STEAK. Sorry for all caps there (I just copied and pasted it from their website). Num Num Nummy--if you have a Panera Bread Restaurant nearby  I HIGHLY suggest stopping by and ordering from their hidden menu. 

It's nice not to complain and be able to share good news. I sure must have been quite sick before changing my eating ways. Although I will be celebrating with a taco fest on day 31, I think day 32 I will be right back here eating mainly whole foods and not processed with sugar, wheat or dairy. I think I am okay without cheese anymore. I was concerned that I couldn't give up the cheese, but I think I have it licked.

Just stay away from and quick stalking me.

I put the DEAD in Deadlifts

Well--I just about finished Whole30 day 18. It is getting easier to eat this way when I have the proper food around, but it is also getting tougher to avoid the temtations that are all over work and my home. A cracker here, a soda pop there and cheese everywhere. I have decided on my day 31, I want to eat Tacos (authentic), Popcorn, Chips & Salsa & a huge Cheese Sandwich. And then for lunch...hahahaha...I am not kidding here. I want all that shit and more.

Uh WOW--I better move on past the foods I am missing...although I think I might get sick from that stuff at this point in my little journey.

I have not been working out much at all. I went to Crossfit yesterday for my first real workout and it didn't turn out so well. First off, the entire class was dedicated to deadlifts. This, I knew was my wife's favorite, but I absolutely hate them. It's heavy and I have to bend down (this is just how lazy I really am--I hate bending down) and most importantly, I get super lightheaded when doing this...


I don't have any pix of me with deadlifts so here is a pic of me doing thrusters at a competition. Oh and I am the one with the fat butt bending over. The guy behind me admiring my fine glutes is the coolest coach in the world, Tim.

...anyway, let me go back in time. Maybe an hour earlier. My son had flag football practice at a local park, so I hung out and watched. It was a beautiful day. I was there about an hour and then had to head off to Crossfit--even though I tried a few times to get out of it with my wife and friend, but they wouldn't have any of my shenanigans.

I got to Mahoney Crossfit and began to warm up and started to get a tickle in my throat and my mouth got really super dry. I began to cough a little bit. Then we all went to get our weights to start warming up on those deadlifts that I so truley love. I got a few lifts in and began coughing a whole bunch more...yes, my alergies kicked in full gear. I stopped for a bit and left the room, went to the bathroom and coughed up some crap, then went back to work. As the weights got heavier for me, I was getting super lightheaded and having a tougher and tougher time keeping on my feet. Eventually, I just had to stop. I put my stuff away, went outside and walked and waited for my wife to cool dow.n with the others in the class. I didn't cool down or stretch...I was to angry with myself for such a poor showing and not feeling good while doing the workout. I ended up paying dearly later that night with leg cramps. That will teach me not to cool down and stretch afterwords.



Another pic of me doing thrusters...I like this pic, it looks like I got a boner, but I don't. My little guy is more like a frightened turtle at this point of the competition.

 

I plan to go back again on Monday. Let's hope I can do better this time.






Here is a pic of a frightened turtle.



Hope my garden sleeps well...I made them 3 beds!

I have been gone, but have not forgotten you all, not this challenge. I have been pretty busy this week with work, my son's flag football practices and games, CrossFit, Graphic Design and printing of CrossFit packets and new people paperwork (that I had procrastinated on for almost 3 weeks). I have also been preparing foods...all the freaking time! It's getting annoying and I realize why I normally eat like crap. Because it's easy.

I know that it is best to take a weekend and prepare, which I did last weekend and even today. But still there are things you must prepare. Cook some eggs in the am (I did have frozen ones, but those were for snack or low blood sugar times for me). So last week I made the Moroccan Meatballs and those were pretty good, but I was tired of having them for every lunch, so today was still a nice day and I BBQ'd up about two chickens, 4 fish, and some sirloin steak. This should liven up my lunches a bit. I now need to cut up and mix up my vegi-mix for the week but I am SO TIRED!

I have built 3 raised garden beds and over ordered on soil (by only about twice the amount I needed). I was only planning to build 2, but I went back to the hardware store and got more lumber and made a big one 5'x10'...then got my shovel and wheelbarrow and started to move some earth into the beds. I still now have about 2 of my 5 square yards left on my driveway, so if any of you are nearby, just come and take it away.

I got the plans for the garden beds from Sunset Magazine and you can see the easy instructions right here. They look real nice and are easy to make--even a wimpy dad can build 1, or 2, or 3 even!


So that's it for now...I gotta start thinking of what to put in the gardens and how to keep my 3 stupid dogs out.

Failing To Prepare is Preparing to Fail

I have had that mantra throughout this first week of my W30 process. I believe this has been on my mind because I ended up diving into this at the last second with my group of CrossFitters at Mahoney CrossFit. I ended up, even though I knew what I was getting into, just not preparing for this new whole food deal. Eggs were easy to do, so I went to those. I didn't have much grass fed proteins, so had shrimp instead. Vegetables  were mainly carrots, celery, asparagus and bell peppers. All of which I had on hand. I couldn't clear the cupboards because my wife does daycare and is required by the FDA to have sugar and carbs galore (and beans) as a staple to the food for the children she watches.

This was why she was not on board with me for this (I am not going to say the D word) diet (damnit, I said it anyway)! So the Whole30 "D-word" is going to be a struggle for me and has been for my first week. After the first day, I did end up going shopping and picked up some items I will need for my new way of eating. Two things I am having trouble with is finding Coconut Oil and Ghee...sorry, but WTF is GHEE? I did end up finding the special butter that was asked of us, but have only used it to prepare for one meal. Since I no longer eat bread, cutting butter has been pretty easy.

Some of the new foods that have been saviors to me have been:

• Asparagus
• Bell Peppers (red, yellow, and orange)--never cared for them before
• Eggs
• Sweet Potatoes--Used to love them, now not so much since it's the only real starch I can eat. I don't want sweet flavor, I want salty greasy crap.
• Shrimp

Of course I eat other things, but these seem to be my mainstays, but I am beginning to get tired of all these items all ready. I have to prepare different foods to get me through this next week. 

So yesterday (SUNDAY), I ended up preparing a bunch of stuff:

• Moroccan Meatballs http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/2009/03/05/mmmmm-moroccan-meatballs/ 
• BBQ'ing (in the rain--it's Oregon...that is what we get in spring and winter and summer, but not so much in the fall oddly enough).
• I BBQ'ed some Grass Fed Longhorn steaks
• and BBQ'ed up some chicken tenderloins.

Moroccan Meatballs (I made with Ground Turkey though)

Then packaged all those items into single proportions to take to work with me, have a quick breakfast or dinner.

So that is it for now. 

-theDUKE-

Damn Carl's Jr and My Mouth! (W30d4)

So it's day FOUR and I am already angry at the world for allowing me to do such a "drastic" change in my life as to eat whole foods (not processed).


I come home from work, prepare my lunch for tomorrow and don't have the energy to make a dinner for the family. I am run down, not sleeping well and just a plain old dickhead. The wife didn't want to cook either because she was not feeling well either (that time of her month plus alergies).


I did need to get more groceries though for breakfasts and other meals and since I was the only one on this Whole30 diet thingy, I needed to get stuff for me. I told the family that I wasn't going to cook and that I was headed out to the store and to go ahead an either cook something or go to Carl's Jr and get themselves some food and don't get anything for me unless they had some Sweet Potato Fries and that I could sure go for some carbs.


I leave and go to the store, come back with $50 of healthy shit. I am low blood suger and already pissed at the world and my family brings home Carl's Jr for dinner. and none for me, that's cool. Oh I was fit to be tied. So angry that I could spit nails (plus add any other angry reference you can think of). But I knew I told them that they coold do it, but I was still mad at them for following my directions and the food smelling so damn good.


Carl's Jr commercial :-(


I ended up having some organic chicken sausage and mashed sweet potato with asparagus, but those burgers smelled so good, I was still mad though and I guess my wife could tell...she ended up going back to the store and getting me some (sweet potato) fries...she does love me. 



NOTE: Our Crossfit group decided to take on this challenge (those who wanted to). The only downfall is that anyone who cheats has to do 100 burpees for each offence in front of the whole group...well, I am a big guy and can only get about 30 done so I basically cannot cheat. Was pretty disappointed when my wife told me she wasn't going to do the challenge with me, but I understood. She does daycare and the FDA requires her to feed the children crud, so it is in the house and too much of a temptation for her and she is pretty sure she won't be able to follow through.

I am guessing that burgers and fries are a big temptation for me and will have to ask them not to do that again. At least around me.

-theDUKE-

W30d6—Diary of a Wimpy Dad

Boy I really had to struggle with my title, I was going to try a take-off of the Whole30 thing by saying Whole Grains, Hole45 (I am 45 years old...well close enough). But I decided to take on the Wimpy Dad roll since my daughter just watched that movie and it was kinda fresh in my mind. I never really did consider myself a wimp, but now I am on Day 6 (knock on wood that I continue), I notice I am complaining, and irritable and basically everything one would consider as a wimp.

Yesterday I found me annoying my wife as well as me with my "I can’t have that anymore" comments. Yeah, it bugged me too. I have decided that I am going to migrate away from that comment to something more positive and less annoying like "I don't eat that anymore". It gives me more of a sense of control and not being a little b*tch.

So I just finished making breakfast this morning and since I have been craving carbs, I decided to use my sweet potato mash mix and add 3 organic natural eggs, a butt load of garlic, some red pepper, and onion powder. I did this to try and take some of the sweetness away from the potato. I then took an avocado and mashed it up (see my violent nature here—I freaking mash everything!) I then added some of my fresh salsa I had pre-made (guess it’s not all that fresh after all) as well as some of my asparagus mole and mixed that s**t up big time.  After cooking up the egg-sweet potato mash mix, I then plated it and put my “guacamole” on top and I do have to say...

…that it’s the worst looking pile of crap I have ever made! Don’t just take my word for it, look and judge for yourself.

Crappy Looking Breakfast

Yup—that’s some messed up breakfast my friends. But, since I am diabetic and have already been awake for a couple of hours I decided to eat it anyway. Not all of it though, it was way too much. It wasn’t great, but it also wasn't that bad either. It certainly was not as bad I it looks and I don’t think I will die at this point from it, so I may have dodged a bullet.

Not all my food this past week was horrible. My lunch on day two (at work even) was fantastic…take a look at this.

Nice Looking Lunch Huh?

I got shrimp cooked in extra virgin olive oil with some red peppers, garlic and onion. Plus some fresh cooked asparagus all on top of (you can't see it, but it is there) a mix of cilantro, green onion, avocado, celery, red-orange-yellow bell pepper and cabbage. Now this was spectacular.

Anyway, I need to stop here, I will be posting more lately tonight. I have never thought of blogging before, but I think I may like this. And I am still not throwing up my breakfast. Think I will head out to Lowes and get some soil for our raised garden.

PEACE!

-theDuke-