paleo

Yes I’m a GIRLBABY … sometimes!

This week has been full of wah wah wah, I know! I think I’m allowed to have a pity party every now and then. And I feel very deja vu about that intro. I’ve probably said something very similar in past posts! At least I’m admitting my faults at the same time and not just sitting here say WHY is this happening to me? And I thank you for putting up with me even if that means you aren’t reading my crybaby petty complaining. I still have people that show me the love and encouragement on the Facebook! And for that I THANK YOU!

As this week comes to a closing I can re-iterate that my eating is tons better than last week. Although my body parts still feel inflamed, the pain is subsiding. Clean eating does a body GOOD, I PROMISE! And although I’m dragging ass at the box I’m still putting forth max efforts. We have a competition coming up in 3 weeks that I am excited about. Well some days I’m more excited than others because some days I’m just nervous thinking about it. It will be fun at least and hopefully we suck less than others! Hahaha! So my goal for the next three weeks is GO HARD or STAY HOME! And I plan to go Paleo 100% if possible – maybe 95% for all you literal peeps just because we aren’t cave folks and I sure as hell ain’t hunting down anything. I typically stick to a 85-90% clean eating range so 100% isn’t a major leap but it’s a leap! And I’m just talking food here. I’m not talking about giving up the beauty of modern times, technology, etc. I’m referring to eating clean, pasture raised, grass fed, chemical free REAL FOODS!

So now I’ve made my declaration I hope most importantly to not let myself down because I want to be better for me but also for all you that read along regularly. I am human, I do make mistakes, I do go off the grid but it’s all about accountability, right? So pray I will be successful. It’s not easy, I will never say it’s easy because life likes to throw you curveballs!

Moving on to today’s WHITEBOARD.

7/27/12 WOD

Skill/Strength: 3 rounds of 10 for Pistols (one legged squats) and Banded Push Ups
Good news! I finally did Pistols on the ground! I did however use a 15lb plate for counter balance and I could only do them on my right leg but hell ya I was happy. My left leg is sad and gimpy and I was having troubles on the box and on the ground. There’s a painful point in the bending of my knee that hurts like a mofo. Once my IT Band crosses the inflammed bursa sack I’m fine. But it’s the whole OH SHIT IT’S GONNA HURT point that I try to avoid. So Coach is having me do Pistols “backwards” if you will on my left leg. I start out sitting on a med ball. Left leg is flat on ground with heel against the ball and right leg is being held straight out. From there I attempt to stand up. This still hurts but not near as bad as squatting down. I managed to get reps in this way and with more mobility work, eating clean and what now I hope to remedy this whole IT Band issue!

This is how a pistol SHOULD look like.

This is kind of how I did them but with a bumper plate instead of weird KB
looking thing.

I way underestimated Banded Push Ups. My silly self thought a Green Band would be fine! Hell to the NO, I did maybe 5 and Coach gave me a blue band. Still not easy but do-able.

MetCon: 10 Rounds of TEAM 40yd KettleBell Suicides and 80yd sprint
We had teams of 2. The goal was run suicides while carrying KBs. Cones were set up every 10yds for 40yds. If you don’t know what suicides are you are lucky. You run down to first cone, run back to start, run down to second cone then back to start, etc. You may see people doing this at a basketball court or on a football field. It’s a butt whoopin no matter how you do it. Carrying an extra 35lbs well that’s plain ol SILLY and a butt whoopin! I felt gung ho and ready to GO H.A.M. but after the 2nd cone I wanted to just go HOME. I struggled. There is no good way to carry a KB and run, not one good way at all. That’s 200yds carrying a KB and then 80yds sprinting (hahahha, I could not sprint at all) times 5! I apologized to my teammate for sucking. He was going strong and would keep us a little closer to the team we were racing against but I kept slowing us down. Time: 17:40

This weekend will be ALL REST weekend and getting my ass in gear for better eating. I hope you have a Fantabulous Friday and Kick Ass weekend. Enjoy life! I demand it! And everyone with me in chorus: BE AWESOME!

NOODLE limbs and NOODLE food

My arms are noodles. And my hands are dead. If I had to rush and lift something heavy off of someone I would be useless! Hahaha, what are the odds of me having to save someone like that? Hopefully not good because I would be of no help.

The Boom Box had this little gem of a workout for us on the whiteboard –
Skill/Strength: DU practice then Max DUs in 5 minutes. I really thought I would get more than 168 but I did not. I could barely string 10-12 together much less get a good solid 30-40 in a row. I think I stopped caring at the halfway point and was just hoping time would speed up. I wasn’t happy I couldn’t get my double unders controlled. But ah well. There’s always a next time.

6/26/12 WOD

MetCon: 4 ROUNDS of 1 minute Bar Hang, 10 sec transition, 1 minute DeadLift Hold (135lbs), 10 sec transition

BONUS: 5 Burpee Penalty for every time you drop off the bar or drop the bar at the end of the 4 rounds.

I’ve learned over the months to not underestimate the WOD on the board. I used to do that a lot and really get the crap beaten out of me. Today that silly little thought really started creeping in. I was sure this would be hard but really it didn’t sound THAT bad. Uh ya, how about after 30 seconds of hanging on the bar was I ready to die. I would not be good in a torture type situation. I would sing like a bird. This my friends was torture. (And please I’m not diminishing the fact that people really do get tortured and it’s a terrible thing. This is for entertainment purposes only. And it’s sad that I have to say that cause there are some people out there that are too serious.) Moving on to the Deadlifts. Well the weight was easy to get up but easy to HOLD, hell no! It sucked! I dropped it twice on the first minute out of pure shock on much it sucked. I dropped the bar once each round for the rest. I dropped A LOT while hanging on the bar. I am unable to suck it up and look past the PAIN at least when it comes to my hands. So at the end of our 4 rounds I had a total of 12 drops which meant 60 Burpees lay before me. I didn’t rush through them but I didn’t drag ass either. I look forward NEVER to any similar workouts. The end!

JOKES JOKES it’s not the End.

I have SWEET POTATO noodles to talk about!! We are always stocked up on ground beef and I was going to do my standard meatballs with zucchini pasta but I thought I’d mix it up a bit. I had recently read about SWEET POTATO noodles but I didn’t really follow up on it. It was just a FB status. After some googling I found it posted over at Civilized Caveman Cooking. It was easy enough and was pretty darn tasty!

Sweet Potato Slices. After you slice them on the mandolin you cut them into thin strips aka NOODLES!

Meatballs over the NOODLES 🙂 YUMMY!

Ingredients:

2 Medium Sweet Potatoes or Yams, long in shape
2 Tbsp Grass fed butter, I used salted
1-2 Tbsp Sage
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
Sea Salt for taste

Process:

Wash your sweet potatoes under cold water and then peel
Once peeled, CAREFULLY using your Mandoline, slice your sweet
potato lengthwise into thin strips
Once sliced, use a knife and cut them to about 1/4 inch thickness and set aside
Melt your butter in a large state pan over medium heat and add in all of your sweet potato “noodles”
Continually stir and cook until the sweet potatoes are cooked through to your liking, about 5 minutes for me
Sprinkle with your sage and cinnamon and mix well
Transfer to a plate and Enjoy

Instead of cinnamon and sage I substituted himalayan salt and garlic powder. I was serving meatballs over this and it turned out pretty darn good!!!

Now it’s the end. Hopefully you are making life AWESOME. Have a torture free Tuesday!!

Sumo Summer!

Yup it’s a lame title. And I don’t care what you think! Hehe. I do care. Just like me please 🙂 Or don’t cause ya I don’t care. I was at a loss for creativity which happens more often than not. We did Sumo Deadlifts. It’s the 2nd day of summer. It seemed to work. And instead of editing forever, I just went with it. Why am I still explaining myself. I’m slightly crazy in case y’all haven’t figured that out!

I am still seriously sore from Monday and Tuesday’s workout and then we’re slapped in the face with 3 600m RUNS and Sumo Deadlifts!!! Are you kidding me? All day yesterday it never dawned on me that my ribs felt like I got beat because I did 100 situps on Tuesday. And my legs are dead from Sprints. I really didn’t think it would take a toll on me like it did but I’m still achy.

At least after the warm up, my legs started feeling better which is a good thing. Skill/Strength was to work on the Sumo Deadlifts. It’s a much different movement than regular ol’ deadlifts. And I feel much stronger at these which is an awesome feeling. I didn’t ask, nor have I researched on whether or not that’s typical – to feel stronger on Sumo’s vs. Regular. But I did feel pretty good. We worked our way up to a good weight for the Metcon.

MetCon: 600m run, 10 Sumo Deadlifts, 600m run, 10 Sumo Deadlifts, 600m run…. RX weight was 165 for the ladies and I went 10lbs lighter. I probably could have gone that heavy but that 10lbs would have been much more of a struggle as I was already struggling with the 155. And believe me after running a 600, my legs were not happy! Anytime running is involved I’m generally not happy. I do it for the better good of myself and my body, not my brain and piss poor attitude! Time 11:20

06/21/12 WOD

I did much better at the second set of Sumo Deadlifts. Not sure why exactly. Maybe I was too tired to think which in turn allows me to just DO.

Useless info
With my new found free evenings I can be way more productive in the kitchen! That’s a bonus indeed! I managed to roast a chicken, cook broccoli two ways for the rest of the week, get the kids some sauteed sirloin, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes and be done by 7:30! Who am I? There are some nights that kids are eating less than ideal and Ernie and I are eating closer to 9:30 because I’m just finishing dinner at that time. I know this freedom won’t last long, we have football coming up. As much as I know I can do pre planned foods for the week, I really like fresh cooked food. I’m a snob like that I suppose. Or maybe I suck at food storage. Who knows.

Also I finally bought into fancy waters… And I mean just paying the extra money for them for now. I haven’t bought into the idea fully just yet. I’m sure there’s good things to Alkaline Water with Electrolytes but I’m not sure how much more beneficial it will be for me. Anyhow we are buying out Albertson’s stock regularly of AquaHydrate. I need to do research, consistently drink the stuff and just self test for me. We’ll see how it goes. If I remember to do so I will keep you posted. If I forget just yell at me or something to share how it goes. It’s not cheap so we’ll see how long this lasts! LOL.

See y’all tomorrow. Have a T-REX kind of Thursday! Which of course is AWESOME!

What is it about Mondays?

Seriously I feel sorry for this day. It takes blame for everything! It can make or break your week sometimes. It can make your Sunday sad just knowing Monday is lurking right around the corner. I’m sure there’s some Betty Crocker mom or some overachiever suck up out there that thinks Monday’s are FABULOUS but I know it’s not…my weekend is over…my stupid commute is waiting for me and back to work I go. Today is no different. Another Monday and another case of the blahs!

But enough of my crybaby self. Lets get to the work I put in at the BOOM BOX. My IT band was already giving me grief! Skill/Strength was Back Squat at 65% of our max + 5lbs 3 x 5. I worked up to 100lbs and did 3 sets of 5 reps. I could have had better form on all 3 sets. I was giving in to the IT band and not getting full depth. Then when I got full depth I leaned too far forward. Not the greatest of moments but I knew what needed to be corrected. Definitely need icing and extra mobility work on my left leg.

6/18/12 WOD

MetCon – Curtis P’s 30 for time!
I had no clue what a Curtis P is but I soon found out. I still don’t know the story if any behind it but I know this series of movements is no JOKE.


So what you have here is a Power Clean, Lunge on each leg and the finish with a Push Press. That’s one rep! Now the goal is to do 30! I’ve never tried lunging with a bar racked across my shoulders so that movement alone was a new and stressful thought. With my IT Band already giving me grief I wasn’t making full depth in my lunge on that side and this was just with the bar, let alone weight added to it. But I still added weight. So I gave 65lbs a go and it’s not so bad to clean and I can get my right knee to the ground but I really can’t get my left knee down so MODIFICATION here we come. First Coach had me do a front squat after I cleaned the bar. This wasn’t so bad so that turned into Power Clean, Thruster for me. The weight wasn’t too heavy but I messed up too many times forgetting to clean the bar each time. I wanted to just bust out thrusters and this actually slowed me down and gave me extra work. That was with the first 10 that I was low functioning mentally. The second set of 10 went fairly quickly and I had a good rhythm. By the last 10 I was now feeling fatigued… I busted out 6, 2 and then 2. Time 6:33

I was drained but still wished I could have done the actual Curtis P’s. It’s fine I know. There will be a next time I’m sure. Never hurts to get Thruster work in.

Other Crap
Ok so it’s not crap. We had a busy busy weekend. Kid baseball = WIN. Movie: That’s My Boy = WIN (yes I thought it was hilarious and I don’t care what anyone else thinks). RANGERS GAME for Father’s Day = WIN.

After the AllStar game on Saturday, Jakob got to meet Jim Sundberg, one of the greatest Catchers ever and title name to the tournament they are playing in.

The MEN in my life enjoying the game.

Yup that’s the BOOMSTICK, huge ass HOT DOG. And Yes we all ate it, including me 😦

What no KNIFE… only a fork? We had troubles cutting into the ginormous hot dog and no one wanted to run down and get a knife!

I didn’t eat all that fantastic this weekend as you can see but it wasn’t all that BAD either. A little bit of everything. I most definitely went over my 20% in the 80/20 rule of Paleo lines of thinking. Maybe that’s why my knee was giving me so much grief. A little inflammation from poor eating? Probably so.

I’m good at cleaning things up in regards to food. Actually I’m super great at it. I know how to buckle down and take care of business. It helps that I follow Paleo more on the 90/10 scale if not even better than that. 100% is what I need to do because the beach awaits me in 3 1/2 weeks but 100% sometimes is little too much, even for me.

Ready for this Monday to be over! Hope you all are having a better go at it. Trying to feel awesome but all I fell is BLEH! Hehe. Until tomorrow!

Tired Tuesday & Tex-Mex Hash Breakfast Casserole

Yup I’m tired, sleepy, and more tired. I’ve been watching Game of Thrones Season 1 and I’m allowing it to interfere with my sleep habits. Not good and I’ll probably have to slow my roll cause I fear a Crash and Burn is coming. Rest is key to recovery and I’m eating into my rest. Darn series!!

6/5/12 WOD

I still woke up for the BOOM BOX and put my work in. Back Squats were the skill/strength today. We did 6 sets of 3 at 80% of our 1 RM getting around 2 minutes rest between sets. This wasn’t too bad. I did lose strength on the last set but still pushed through the sets at 115lbs. My first set was slightly lighter because at 5am, I can’t count!

The MetCon rang a familiar tune. Plyo Push Ups and Sled Pulls!
I found a very similar workout from Feb. 21 and I remember it about killed me! If you read that post then you should really know I don’t want to do this workout. But it didn’t kill me last time so I’m thinking it won’t kill me this time around.

 

This morning we didn’t go for time, we just did work for the sake of putting in work. I recall last time we did this I thought my ass fell off during one of the pulls. But this time wasn’t as strenuous. Looking back at that MetCon in February I saw we did heavier weight, not much heavier but indeed a bigger load. I am a little stronger 3 months later so that probably helped this time around but I’m telling you SLED PULLS may be the death of me at some point. I was not made for that movement at all! I’m just glad there was no times kept today. It would have been a sad day for me on the whiteboard!

Tex-Mex Hash Breakfast Casserole
So I had some extra ground beef and I wasn’t feeling meatloaf or meatballs, what can I make? I went to the good ol google for paleo and ground beef recipes and I stumbled across two recipes that sounded great from PaleOMG. (Yes you should follow this blog, always good stuff!) The first recipe I found was Sweet Potato Enchiladas and the second was the Tex-Mex Hash Breakfast Casserole. Well I was all set to make enchiladas. I had the sweet potatoes but they were a pain in the ass to get thin sliced as the recipe called for so I bailed on that recipe and chose the casserole. My food processor can shred those sweet potatoes right up! It was quite tasty and definitely different than the rut I’ve been stuck in food-wise. I did make the homemade sauce from the Enchilada recipe and it’s below as well. We ate it for dinner but it could be for any meal really. I’m really hoping it’s good for lunch. Leftover casserole can either be AWESOME or just plain ol blah. We shall see! I also gave some leftovers to my dad. He’s been going Paleo-ish. I hope he liked it as well 🙂 I did fail to take a picture so unless lunch looks beautiful you may have to wait till the next time I make this dish.

I know shut up and give us the recipe! Here it is:

Tex-Mex Hash Breakfast Casserole

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 25 mins
Total time: 40 mins
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

  • 1lb Grass fed Ground Beef
  • 2 sweet potatoes, shredded
  • 1 small yellow onion, diced
  • 6 eggs, whisked
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tablespoon bacon fat (or other fat)
  • 1 (14oz) can of El Pato Enchilada Sauce or homemade
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon oregano
  • salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
  2. Pull out a large skillet or oven proof cooking dish. (aka cast iron skillet, etc)
  3. Place skillet over medium heat, add a tablespoon of fat then add your minced garlic and diced onion.
  4. When onion just begins to soften, add your ground beef and use a spoon or spatula to break it up and combine with onion.
  5. Now use your shredding attachment on your food processor to shred you sweet potatoes. If you don’t have a food processor, just use a grater then go to the store and buy a food processor for next time. Life will be better with one.
  6. When your meat is almost cook through, add all your spices to the meat and onions and mix to combine the flavors.
  7. Now pour your shredded sweet potatoes on top of the meat and pat down then add your enchilada sauce on top.
  8. Cover and let simmer for around 8-10 minutes.
  9. Once sweet potato begins to soften, remove from heat, add your whisked eggs and stir to combine it all together.
  10. Place in oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until eggs are cooked through.
  11. Let cool, this b*tch is gonna be hot!! The enjoy! For breakfast, lunch or dinner!!

For the sauce

Pulled from Sweet Potato Enchilada Recipe

  • 1 (14oz) can tomato sauce
  • 1/4 yellow onion, minced
  • 1/3 cup vegetable broth
  • 1 tablespoon Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
  • salt and black pepper, to taste
  1. Place a saucepan over medium heat for your sauce. Add your tablespoon of oil along with your minced onion.
  2. When the onion becomes translucent, add your tomato sauce and vegetable broth, as well as all your seasonings. Let that cook down until it thickens just a bit.

That’s it for this Tuesday. Hopefully I won’t let Game of Thrones consume my night and I’ll get some sleep!!! Have a tremendously terrific day 🙂

It’s JUNE?!?

Oh yes it is… where does time go? Seriously. The kids are now on summer break and I am not! (Why oh why didn’t I become a teacher?) I’ve now been doing the CrossFit for 9 months! I can hardly believe it. Am I stronger? YES! Am I healthier? YES! Am I a NINJA? YES! No? Ok maybe not really but I like to believe I have some wicked ninja potential.

But also on the flip side I still deal with issues such as my weight, my eating habits and my mental state in regards to what “fit” is. I can tell you though that in the past year and a half I have come a long way, mentally and physically. And yet I still have that fat girl in my head saying ugly things. As the cliché goes, we are our own worst critic. I am extremely harsh on myself and it’s hard to break that habit. I’m dealing and I’m getting better. I just needed to get it out and let y’all know I’m human. I’m not on a soapbox or anything and I want to be clear about it. I’m always pushing the Paleo, CrossFit and getting healthy AND I’m not here to say it’s easy. I’m here to say it’s work and it can be hard sometimes and you gotta put time in but it’s all possible if you WANT it! It’s possible if you put aside your excuses – the what if’s, the but’s and the I’m really happy with myself cause I like to eat and there’s NO WAY I’m giving _____ up! I could go on and on. No time. I have kids. They won’t eat what I need to eat. My husband, My wife. NO support… blah blah blah. I hear ya. I can hear you saying it now. I’m hoping today is the day you say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”. But it’s the weekend Stephanie. I can’t do it now. It’s Pizza night! I’m here to tell you YOU CAN. So just grow up a little and put your big girl panties on and at least make a plan to start.

Alright Alright if you’re still reading. I’m DONE for now. I need to recap my BOOMERIFIC morning. I feel the need for some dun dun dun sound effects: Drama Button

THE CRIPPLER!

30 Back Squats (Body Weight)

1 mile run

6/1/12 WOD

Yuuuupppp! Insane right? Well my body weight is damn near my MAX Back Squat so we took a percentage of our body weight. My weight today for Back Squats was 100lbs even. Not super heavy but 30 reps is A LOT! I should have kept better time at when I finished the squats so I could gauge my run. It’s not easy taking off to run after so many squats in a row. I broke the 30 up – 1 set of 10 and 4 sets of 5. I thinkI finished somewhere between 3 and 4 minutes but I am not certain. Overall time: 13:54. One more time for those of you who don’t follow along regularly. I suck at running, I don’t like running and yes I suck at running. Unlike on Monday where I walked some of the mile due to my poor eating and the blazing sun, I’m happy to report I did not stop this time. In the past I typically don’t stop anyways but my self sabotaging eating habits really screwed me over this week. My wannabe skinny girl in my head kept saying, Coach just made you weigh in to determine backsquat and it is not a number you are happy with so DON’T STOP! And I didn’t. I forget how long it takes to rid your “clean” body of “junky foods” but I’m thinking it’s still a while. Just gotta keep keepin on!

I think the plan this weekend is to check out a local farm that’s not too far away. Hopefully I’ll be a good lil blogger and take some pics to share.

Hope y’all have a ADVENTUROUS and AWESOME weekend!

Thursday Fun!

First of all the Sweet Potato Brownies were a hit with Jonas’ friend! I was worried…with teens you never know! I’m now curious if her parents enjoyed them as well, that is if they made it to the parents 🙂

WOD
I almost didn’t make it to the BOOM BOX this morning. At some point I managed to turn off my alarm or something and I woke up at 4:49! I’m supposed to leave by then if not earlier. On top of my tardiness it was a stormin cats and dogs! So I was a few minutes late but nothing to severe.

Even better to being late my left IT band was giving me grief in the warm up. This is not good because lunges are part of the MetCon. And that’s not good why? WELL, that silly ol’ band hurts most doing lunges. I rolled it out quite a bit and it loosened up enough to get through the work.

5/31/12 WOD

Before we hit up the MetCon our Skill/Strength was Dead Lifts! Used to be a favorite and it’s slowly falling down the list of fave lifts. It was a 5 @ 140lbs, 3 @ 150lbs and 1+ @ 155lbs. I was having issues getting my knees to bend when coming back down to ground so Coach had me bring my feet in closer together. With just that little change there was much to be felt in my legs. Not bad just different. HOPEFULLY BETTER in the long run! I finished with 8 reps at 155lbs. Again feeling good but fingers may explode off my hand one day!

The MetCon was 2- 5 min AMRAPs with a 2 minute rest in between. The first part was 10 Diamond Sit Ups, 10 Lunges, rinse and repeat as much as you can. We got to rest for 2 minutes then moved on to 5 minutes of 10 Hand Release Push Ups and 10 Lunges. Rinse and Repeat. We kept track of total reps. It does get hard to keep up with the counting though. It sounds easy but when you’re tired and more tired your brain wants to stop working. My total reps ended up being 280. Not bad but one guy got 310. I felt like a slacker after that! We’ll see what the rest of the day brings. Hopefully I wasn’t too far behind the curve :/

Other news
I stumbled across a FB share of a blogger: http://www.sarahwilson.com.au/2012/03/paleo-101/

She explains PALEO very well in my opinion without being too science-y. I probably eat more meat than she does but overall I think she’s got it on the spot in regards to starting out and understanding the basics.

From there it’s everyone’s responsibility to do their own research, testing and learning on their own. We are all different. We have different food reactions, different tastes, etc. It’s a constant experiment. Don’t ever forget that. The idea is to get as close to the goal as possible every day. Some days will be on target, some days will be slightly off and you all know just by reading my stuff some days don’t even come close to any goal. It happens. We are HUMAN! Just know that you want to keep your OFF days to a minimum. Just because you screw up one meal doesn’t mean your day is done and what the hell eat like crap the rest of the day. OR WEEK! Or whatever you may be thinking. Don’t let mental justifications make you fail for the day or sabotage your day/week/month/year! Make a Change. It’s for the better.

Have a PERFECT THURSDAY! OH ya BE AWESOME TOO!

Brownies!!!

Hello Hello on this not typical day of blogging! As most of you know Wednesdays are a rest day for me and I typically stay quiet but not today as I have a special recipe to share with you.

It’s true….more BROWNIES. Now before you bash me about my sugar detox and trying to get back on track, I just want to let you know I haven’t even had a full on brownie. Just a couple of tastes for good measure. My kiddos were the official taste-testers and approvers of this show.

Now I made these because one of Jonas’ (oldest son) friends was diagnosed with Celiac’s Disease. If you are unaware of this it’s basically an intolerance to gluten. Also if you are unaware, GLUTEN is found in many products out there that you would have no idea contained gluten. This can really be detrimental to one’s health. I’m not going to go into a gluten lesson and all the badness that it can create so you’ll just have to look it up yourself or ask me via the comments section. Anyhow, Jonas’ friend knows that we strive for the Paleo lifestyle and she is definitely interested. Well my thoughtful son volunteered for me to make her a “treat” that wasn’t packaged, but made out of goodness and considered Paleo. He proposed this at the beginning of my sugar detox and I clearly told him NO. But now that I have this sugar thing under control I made a batch of these pretty darn good BROWNIES for him to share with her.

I found them via Multiply Delicious. She shared them via http://vaughangela.com/sweet-potato-brownies/ Here is the recipe:

The Good Stuff:

2 medium sweet potatoes (Steph’s note: I used Japanese Sweet Potatoes as I have read traditional ones get too mushy)
4 ounces dark chocolate
1 tablespoon honey
3 eggs
1/4 cup dark cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla or almond extract
1 tablespoon coconut flour
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup walnuts

The How To:

Clean potatoes, peel, and cut into chunks. Boil until tender then drain and cool.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt dark chocolate in coconut oil, either in microwave in 20 second intervals or in a double pan on the stove.

Puree sweet potato in food processor until smooth.

Add all other ingredients (except walnuts) and puree until smooth.

Stir in walnuts.

Place parchment paper in the bottom of an 8×8 inch baking pan.

Pour into pan on top of parchment paper.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 – 45 minutes until firm.

Remove from oven, let cool then serve.

YUMMO! Now I left out the walnuts because I wasn’t sure of the friends feeling about walnuts. I used about 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips instead. My next batch will include walnuts and chocolate chips.

These were a great alternative to my extra yummy but made with AGAVE nectar brownies that I made a couple of months ago. Also not using almond flour probably cut the calorie count down a lot, if counting calories is your thing. I hope the friend loves them 🙂

Have a Happy Wednesday. Be Awesome!!!

Maybe Just Maybe I’ll keep the Sugar Detox ROLLING!

I’ve been reporting that I’ve been feeling great this whole time with the exception of the first few days and it’s all true. But yesterday and today seem to be EXTRA good. Is it just now that my body has finally accepted this way of being? I’m not sure, I’m just saying, I’m MORE AWAKE and I have more ENERGY than I felt last week. I was already feeling great and felt fine. No Cravings. But Normal. However, the past two days I feel more alert and energized. Of course I’m still sleepy at 4:30 am when it’s time to get up but I’m not drained sleepy. And I’m not having a midmorning yawnfest. “MY” extended end date is through this Thursday but maybe I’ll just keep trucking. That’s just A MAYBE folks. And you’ll know I’ll keep you posted in whatever it is I decide.

WOD
The BOOM Box is growing and I LOVE IT cause I LOVE MY BOX! It’s great to see new faces in the 5am and 6am classes. And even thought I don’t see the afternoon folks, I know new people are coming and it’s great. I hope they make it their workout home 🙂 Enough LOVE talk and onto the workout.

5/22/12 WOD

Skill/Strength: We worked on Press today. We took 90% of our max then took 80%, 85% and 90% of that for a 3, 3, 3+ combo. After a couple of warm ups with the 35lb bar I jumped to 50, 55, and 60lbs. My last set I completed 8 reps. Not bad since Press is one of my weaknesses.

MetCon: 3 Rounds of 50 KB swings and 400m run. Have I complained about all the running we’re doing lately? hehe, YES I complain lots. But doesn’t it seem like more running than one should want to do? JOKES of course. I need to run even if I despise it. I worked with 1POOD (about 35lbs) for my KB Swings. I did all 3 rounds UNBROKEN. And well the running sucked. So I think the runs took up too much time but that’s part of it. TIME: 11:57

Well I already touched base on the Sugar Detox and I don’t want to bore you with more rambling. But I did manage to try out a new recipe. Another Blogger Friend of mine posted it from Everyday Paleo. I pretty much had all the ingredients so I made it. Simple with a slight twist take on Meatballs. It was a win for having something different. It can be found at Everyday Paleo and below as I have copied it from them. The only thing I didn’t have was Ground Pork, so I doubled up on the Beef. I served mine up on some shredded and sauteed zucchini. It was wonderful!

Mexican Meatballs served over Zucchini Faux Noodles.

The Sauce (Seafood enchilada sauce from Everyday Paleo)

Note: prepare sauce or have it simmering prior to putting meatballs into the oven.

1 medium onion, minced

2 tbsp coconut oil

2 cups tomato puree (make your own-about 4 large tomatoes pureed in a food processor)

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbsp chili powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp sea salt

Saute the onions in coconut oil until limp.  Add tomato puree, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano and salt.  Mix well and let simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring often.  Pour the sauce into a food processor and process until smooth.

Meatballs

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground pork

1 1/2 tsp salt

3 garlilc cloves

1 tbsp oregano

1/2 small onion, minced

2 tsp cumin

Mix together all ingredients and form golf ball size meatballs.  Place meatballs into a glass dish (will probably need 2- makes about 24 meatballs) and bake at 375 for 15 min.  Then spoon sauce over the meatballs and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Try it out. Let me know what you think about it.

That’s it for today folks. Have a MARVELOUS TUESDAY.

DAY 9 SUGAR DETOX UPDATE/RECAP

Not quite halfway there but getting close! And for the most part I’m doing great, feeling great, killing WODs still and overall just fine and dandy!

If you’ve been following along you know all this but if you’re new and may be interested in doing this 21-Day Sugar Detox then I’ll just recap a bit. The ladies over at Balanced Bites have this lovely sugar detox program suited for all levels of folks. There are 3 levels to accommodate your comfort level of letting things go. I chose level 3 because I already live a Paleo lifestyle. So I’ve given up a lot of things from the SAD (Standard American Diet).

Why would I want to do a Sugar Detox if I’ve already changed my lifestyle so drastically? Well I’ll tell you. I’m ADDICTED to SUGAR, even the kind that occurs in nature, i.e. fruit, honey. I CRAVE sweet things all the time and those cravings lead me to make YUMMY YUMMY Paleo-ish (sometimes not so paleo) treats but I tend to make too much and just want more. Every now and then I even go all crazy and eat cookies made out of all the badness of flour, sugars, artificial flavors, etc.

I also recently learned my “favorite” sweetener AGAVE NECTAR was dubbed LIQUID DEATH and that just made me realize I need to shake things up and not let myself stay in this idea that I’m doing alright. I mean in the grand scheme of life I’ve moved my eating habits to GREAT vs. POOR but I still feel like I’m missing something, not achieving all the things I need to in regards to my health. So why not give this sugar detox a go? It’s only 21 days.

I won’t lie the first few days I was shocked at how I felt. I really didn’t think I had that much sugar in me to make that big of a difference. Days 2-5 I had small annoying headaches, felt tired all day, and just was overall blah. After that everything seemed to fade away. I’m doing fine, great, just peachy 🙂 But again please note I have given up grains, refined foods, and a lot of dairy and already had those sorts of withdrawls. So if you do this coming straight from SAD know you’re body will react differently. I do hope to benefit from some weight loss as well but that’s not my primary goal. I did weigh in on Day 1 and won’t weigh till Day 21 just to see. I should be content with my weight/body etc… but as with most women I still have issues, lots of mental issues that come with years of wanting to look a certain way, wishing I could have my pre-baby body, and so forth. After starting CrossFit many of those issues have fallen to the wayside but in all honesty I still think about dumb stuff like that more often than I should. It’s part of it in my life and I deal the best I can.

As far as food goes, the 21-Day Sugar Detox provides you with recipes to help get you through the weeks. I however have not tried any of their recipes! We are so busy as of late that I’ve just been sticking to the basics. Meats, veggies, more meats, more veggies and EGGS 🙂 Those are my staples with or without the detox so I’m good there. I’ve had to up the intake of my veggeies because my biggest let go is FRUIT! I heart FRUIT! Berries, peaches, plums, etc. But I have done well in letting go of the fruits. I’ve even kept sweet potatoes to a minimum 🙂

Know that I’m just your average American. Busy mom of 3 busy boys. Works full time. Etc. I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist. Just a person trying to do what’s right for me and my family. If you have questions I am more than happy to share my experiences and learned knowledge but I am not an expert by any means. Just wanted to make that clear 🙂

That’s it for today. I typically don’t blog on Wednesdays as this is my rest day and I have no workouts to report on but I figured I might as well while on this short journey. Have an AWESOME day. Become addicted to being AWESOME!