I have been trying to write this post forever. I had time the other night but Blogger was down.
My birthday was a couple weeks ago and instead of going out for dinner, which I have found to be rather hit-or-miss since I've become spoiled with fresh, nutritious paleo food, I wanted to cook up a rack of ribs and make one of my recent side dish favorites.
Birthday deliciousness!
I found this rib rub recipe from Cosmopolitan Primal Girl but used a slightly different method:
Birthday Ribs
1 rack (pork) baby back or loin back ribs
3 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
ground pepper
Preheat oven to 200 degrees f. Or don't. With the long cooking time, does it really matter? Rinse ribs and pat dry. If there is a sheath of connective tissue on the underside of the ribs, do your best to remove it. Combine all spices and sprinkle over ribs, then use your fingers to pat the spice rub all over the meat. In my opinion the thicker the spices, the better!
Cover a cookie sheet large enough to hold the rack of ribs with foil, then wrap the spice rubbed ribs in foil and seal it up as well as you can. My rack was meaty side down, but I don't know if it really matters.
Place the ribs in the oven and forget about them for 4 to 5 hours. I checked mine at about 4 and a half, flipped them over, and basted the meaty side with some of the cooking juices. By 5 hours, they were falling apart tender so I turned the broiler on and basted them a couple more times to make the spice crust a little crisp.
Cut into 2 or 3 bone sections to serve. Don't they look fabulous?
Meaty and tender
Broccoli slaw with avocados and blueberries
I don't know what it is about this combination but I can't get enough of it. I've been making broccoli slaw this way for months now and it seems like I never get sick of eating it.
2 12 oz bags of broccoli slaw
3 oz homemade mayo (it tastes great with more, too!)
1/4 c apple cider vinegar
1 tsp prepared dijon mustard
1 1/2 tsp poppy seeds
1 1/2 tsp celery seeds
5 drops liquid stevia (optional)
fresh blueberries and diced avocado as desired (I don't add these to the big bowl of slaw)
Place the bags of slaw in a large mixing bowl. Combine all other ingredients and pour over slaw, toss to coat. It has quite a bit of bite at first but will mellow a little bit in the fridge. Add blueberries and diced avocado at serving time.
Well, by the end of day one of my intuitive eating week, I failed and logged my food. I think I've been doing it for so long by now it's just become habit. It's sick. Not sure where I will go next with this, but it's not a huge concern at the moment, just another time waster.
Annndd.... Yesterday and today I ate a few squares of 88% dark chocolate. Today, binge-o-rama. I demolished half a jar of sunflower butter and completely screwed my calorie deficit for the day (and then some!) Obviously my body is unable to handle added sugar of any kind because when I have it, it triggers insane cravings. I seem to do fine with dark chocolate before a run, and I actually find it to be pretty good fuel, but if it's not immediately before a workout then forget it. Like Dr. Lustig says, sugar is poison.
In other, less food related news running is going really well. I struggled a little with hydration and fueling last week on my 7 mile run, but I'm going to pick up a hydration pack and make sure to get that straightened out before I run that far outside again. My body is feeling good and I'm actually enjoying my runs most of the time. When I get my recent stats loaded up I'll post them!
Finally... I acheived a bodyweight deadlift yesterday, woohoo!
I just wanted to drop in and make a quick post... I think I'm going to do an experiment this week.
Since I had a fair bit of success eating more intuitively while we were on vacation, I'm going to just leap in and do it this week. I'll still log everything I eat and may even weigh stuff, but I'm not going to calculate macros.
Smoked paprika pork loin with roasted root vegetables
This ended up being really tasty. The roasted veggies include parsnips, carrots, turnips, beets, and onion. I rubbed the pork loin down with a simple blend of smoked paprika, cayenne, black pepper, sea salt and olive oil and let it marinate in the fridge overnight. I will make this again!
Wow, could I have come up with a more depressing title?
First, a warning, this post is not 'all about' running or paleo. It will probably be filled with whining.
The week has been rough. Nothing's really wrong. I haven't injured myself. No one has died. But, Wednesday I lost my running buddy.
When I first got the wild hair to run the half marathon, I asked someone at work if she would be interested in running a well known local 12k with me, which takes place a few weeks before the half. It seemed like we had quite a bit in common and I was hoping to make a new friend. She agreed, we discussed plans to do our weekly long runs together, I shared my training schedule with her and she liked it and decided to follow it. We had been updating each other on our results via Facebook. It was nice to have someone to talk running with. Well, Wednesday she told me that she is having surgery the week before the race and so she's decided not to do it.
Now, surgery is a totally legitimate reason to cancel something. But since there's so much time between now and then I asked if she still wanted to run on Saturdays and she said no. Then she mentioned that she's "still following my training schedule!" and, "has really started to love running!"
We never actually got to run together because the weather here has been yucky lately, and I am probably taking this far too personally. But I can't help but feel like I got, uh... honey badgered. As in, "Thanks for the treats, stupid!" (this video is not safe for work due to language)
I didn't think it would really affect me as much as it has. Running the half was my personal goal from the start and I usually prefer to exercise on my own. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with running. Maybe I'm just disappointed that it seems like she didn't want to run with me.
So, along with getting that news Wednesday, the rest of the week has had me in a little funk. My legs were sore during my run on Tuesday and it was painful. I still did my press and deadlift workout on Wednesday though I did fewer reps of the assistance work. Thursday I decided to skip my run due to knee pain (okay, okay, I was a little sad, too! But mostly it was because of my knees) and of course Friday was my scheduled rest day.
Aside from the difficulty with running and my lack of a social life, I've been feeling bingey all week long. I've had a couple run-ins with homemade almond butter and a little too much fruit. The scale has been creeping up and I'm about 5 lbs over the weight I was at when I started this whole thing.
I guess that leads me to my new strategy. Feeling disenchanted with running, for whatever the reason may be, I downloaded The Primal Blueprint. I've always liked Mark Sisson's take on chronic cardio, and I had it in the back of my mind since before I decided to train for the half. I haven't finished the book yet, but I've decided to change up my training strategy a bit based on Mark's recommendations. Basically this means lowering my intensity during my runs, adding in sprints once a week, and continuing to lift weights. See below:
I tried to keep my hr during today's run between 55 and 75% of my max (105-144 bpm). This meant that instead of running I was pretty much at a slow jog, with a couple short walk breaks if my hr got over my target zone. I have to say, it definitely took me longer to do my 4 miles today than it did last week, but I could tell I didn't dip into my glycogen stores as much as I have in the past. I came home feeling pretty stable and I didn't need a piece of fruit or a sweet potato after my run.
Distance: 4.26 miles
Time: 56:12
Avg HR: 132
Max HR: 157
Along with switching up my training strategy, I'm trying a couple different things with food this week. No fruit except berries, and no nuts except macadamia nuts. The fruit is definitely affecting me in the same way sugar does (makes me want to binge, eat when I'm not hungry, and puts me in a nasty mood!) and the nuts are just too easy to overconsume. I stopped buying almond butter for that reason, but it looks like even the 2 year old bag of raw almonds in the pantry is a trap, the nuts are just screaming to be turned into almond butter (delicious when roasted, salted, and ground up with some coconut oil *drool*). Anyway. The goal is to try the lower intensity running for a bit, and to keep my insulin well controlled. Hopefully I'll see a bit of improvement with these changes!
Saturday I completed my 'long' run for the week. I have to say that after an actual day of rest, I felt awesome and had a really good run. Stats:
Distance: 4 miles
Time: 45:40
Avg HR: 150
Max HR: 169
So I shaved about 2 minutes off last week's time. I'll take it! The three mile runs are getting quite a bit easier at this point. I have been having a little bit of knee pain lately but nothing too bad. If it gets any worse I'll consider doing something about it, but for now the plan is to just deal with it.
I've been a little discouraged this week because my weight seems to be creeping up. I know I'm lifting weights, I know I'm running, I know I'm probably building some muscle, but I also think I've been eating a little too much. Since Friday I've been trying to eat primarily raw veggies because I think it's easier to avoid overeating that way.
For instance, I can easily put down 12 oz of broccoli if I roast it, because it loses almost half it's volume in water in the oven! But, 12 oz of raw broccoli? Uh, no way. That's an entire dinner plate heaped with broccoli! The same with cauliflower... I could put down an entire head of roasted curried cauli, but there's no way I could eat a whole head of raw stuff. And of course, those veggies need a healthy dollop of coconut oil to be properly roasted. I'm not afraid of fat by any means but it's easy to consume too much food with (the oh, so delicious) roasted veggies.
So this week I'm going to stick mostly with salads. I am trying out a new dressing and it sounds promising. If it passes the taste test tonight I'll post the recipe!
This week's menu plan:
Roast chicken
Carrots
Salad
Carnitas
Broccoli slaw
Salad
Flank steak
Garlic green beans
Salad
Leftovers
Carrots and Broccoli slaw
Salad
Apricot sage pork chops with red cabbage and fennel
I've wanted to sit down to write so many times during the last few days but I just haven't had the time.
My body has felt... a little rough this week. Part of it is that I'm working out so often, and I think the other part has to do with supplementation. After my first couple runs I began to notice what I thought were some indications of rising cortisol levels. My husband has been taking l-glutamine for a couple weeks and it's supposed to be good for a lot of things like healing the gut, muscle building, workout recovery, and managing cortisol levels, so I started taking it.
The last couple days, however, I've been feeling 'off'. A few dizzy spells, quite tired, having a hard time getting motivated to work out, feeling especially sore, not recovering as well as I was, etc. Earlier this week I happened to listen to a podcast where the person being interviewed mentioned that even though glutamine is good for healing the gut, some people have to be careful because it's a GABA precursor. I probably can't do a very good job explaining the neuro-endocrine side of how it all fits together, but the way I've been feeling leads me to believe that it's the l-glutamine that's making me feel weird. I've stopped taking it for now and I'll see if my situation improves.
In light of how I've been feeling this week, yesterday's run was a slog. I didn't want to go, had no motivation to do it, barely dragged my behind out of the house, and did the bare minimum required to get it done. I knew going into training that I'd have some days like that so I'm just glad that I got the miles in. I also took Monday as a rest day and cut back on my assistance work after my weights session tonight. Tomorrow's another day, though, and hopefully my brain chemistry will return to normal soon so I can start feeling a little better!
There must be something going on around the paleo blogging community lately because I've seen two blog posts about this recently... the need to adjust one's thinking and behaviors surrounding food. One is from Primal Kitchen and the other from AndreAnna. It seems I've started taking the attitude that since I've worked out I should be eating larger portions because "of course I need to have plenty of food to recover properly"!
I've been tracking my intake for months now, and what I've realized lately is that I'll eat to fulfill my calorie allotment even when I'm not hungry. Even when I'm stuffed, I'll finish my portion because I've already counted it into my allowance. I really want to shift towards a more intuitive based style of eating. I'm not sure how this will end up looking when all is said and done, but expect to see a few more posts about working towards that goal. I started this morning. When I woke up I wasn't hungry, so I had some broth and didn't eat until lunch. At lunch I had a snack sized portion of food, and then ate my lunch when I came home because my stomach was growling. After years of not being able to trust my body's hunger signals, it's going to take awhile to learn how to respond to them.
Luckily I've got plenty of opportunity to figure it out!
We had a class at our church tonight scheduled for 6:30p, so I had planned to rush home, do my workout, and get dinner on the table before we headed out. Well, it seemed like everything was conspiring against me today. On the way to work this morning I ran out of washer fluid not even half way there, and there had been deicer sprayed on the roads so my windshield was sticky, which meant I had to go pick up a bottle of washer fluid before heading home. Then, while I was at work we got several inches of snow, or so it appeared. I work about 20 miles from home, and in between home and work there is what I like to call the Bermuda Triangle of weather. At home, we got between 8" and 10", and the roads were (are!) covered in a sheet of ice, and there were multiple slide-offs on the freeway.
So, traffic was a mess and the roads were dangerous. I finally made it home, quickly changed, and went into the uninsulated garage in about 20 degree weather to lift freezing cold metal things. I was able to finish my workout in about a half hour, then went to prepare dinner. In the middle of my preparations, and running later than I'd planned I got a call saying that our class was cancelled. Thank God. After that we were able to have a leisurely dinner and relax a bit.
That was a really long explanation, basically just to say that I was stressed and crunched for time, but still managed to get my workout in. Whew! I can't wait for the snow to go away!
Other than complaining about the weather, here's some of what I ate today.
b: chicken breast, broccoli slaw sauteed in coconut oil,
blueberries, and 1/2 an avocado.
l: chicken breast, roasted curried cauliflower and
carrots in coconut oil
