We Have a Winner!!

Ladies and Gentlemen… May I present the one, the only, the lovely winner of the StrengthBox/Death Track Dolls (go see them play next Saturday) Eat REAL Challenge: Janimal Downright Dirty Dawson!!

Jan improved her baseline workout time by over 12%, earning her the title of Total Asskicker of the World… and she is also the recipient of a month of free training at StrengthBox!

A while back I put the Dolls through a brief but intense workout, noted their times, and told them to give up all the foods they love (grains, sugar, dairy) and focus on REAL nutrition (meat, fish, eggs, veggies, nuts, seeds, fruit) in the name of athletic amazingness. For a whole month. I encountered some pushback, as you may imagine… but in the end, those who stuck it out saw some incredible improvements in strength and speed, not to mention hawtness. When we repeated the workout at the end of the challenge, I was damn impressed with my derby ladies. Intrigued? Check us out. Are you up for a challenge?

Eat REAL Challenge, Recess, and Chocolate Treats

Can it be true? An actual blog post?

Yeeesh. Sorry, kids, it’s been too long. I have a list of excellent excuses, but excuses are for party poopers. Let’s move on to the news from the last month or so, shall we?

1. StrengthBox and Recess! have merged and become one and the same… the inimitable Death Track Dolls are continuing to kick ass and take names, and recently mopped the floor with the Venus Fly Tramps (check out some fantastic bout footage here). I credit burpees, of course.

2. I made these:

Paleo. Peppermint. Patties. (I consider very very dark chocolate to be Paleo. So shoot me.) Yes, you read that right. I modified this recipe from Elana’s Pantry slightly (sub 2 tablespoons of honey for the 1/4 cup agave nectar, sub unsweetened or 90% Cocoa Camino baking chocolate for the 73% chocolate, more peppermint oil to taste, and for half the batch I added a bunch of finely shredded coconut and vanilla instead of peppermint to make a “Mounds” style treat).

3. The StrengthBox Eat REAL Challenge is wrapping up this Saturday! We’ll be repeating the baseline workout to see who’s moving faster and feeling stronger… which StrengthBoxer and which Doll will take home the ultimate prize (one month of FREE unlimited group training at StrengthBox)? Stay tuned for updates!

This month has been full, busy, and completely amazingballs (my new favorite word), and next month will be even better.

Cheat on Your Cheats

Why do people cheat? Whether it’s on their diets, on exams, on partners… it’s likely because they’re not getting what they want or need (yumminess, good grades, emotional support). So if you’re eating clean but the sugar beast has you in its grasp and you just… can’t… resist… consider this:

Eating treats does some wackadoo chemical things to your brain. It feels good. Serotonin happiness, brief energy boost, etc. You know this, you know your craving is probably based in something other than hunger. Are you bored, and munching is something to pass the time? Are you tired and feel like you need a little pick-me-up? Get this: you can cheat your cheat. You can get EXACTLY the same chemical payoff by way of an endorphin rush by moving your body.

I know, I know, it sounds less fun and more effort-ful to move around than to chow down the chocolate… but try this for a week. Whenever you find yourself reaching for comfort by way of snacks -

(Side note: I’m not talking about when you’re hungry. When you’re hungry, eat real food.)

- whenever you’re heading down the mindless munching path, set a timer for 10 minutes and DO SOMETHING ELSE. Burpees, pushups, squats, high knees running, jumping jacks, any combination of any series of movements you can think of as long as it makes you huff and puff. Work up a little sweat. Then if you still want the comfort-y food, eat it. I bet it’ll be easier to walk away once you’ve fulfilled your own need for endorphins.

Bonus: you get to walk around feeling all high-and-mighty when you’ve defeated the cheat-monster. You get to be “that guy”, telling your friends how you avoided the cookie by doing pushups. You get to watch your friends slowly back away. Then two weeks later when they ask why you’re looking so freaking awesome, you get to say “remember, the pushups and the cookie and and and?” and then you get to say “I TOLD YOU SO!” which is sweeter than any damn cookie.

Chicken Soup

This is so easy it ought to be criminal.

Roast a quartered chicken (I used a happy, free-range, organic chicken from The Healthy Butcher) at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, then broil for 5 minutes to crispify the skin. If you want, sprinkle some coarse sea salt and a spice rub on the skin first. Yummo.

Take all the meat off the bones and dice it, then put the bones in a stock pot and add water to cover.

What? You want to add an onion? Garlic? I didn’t, but you can.

Boil the hell out of it for an hour or more… I bring it to a boil in the morning, leave it simmering during breakfast, turn of the heat then bring it back up to a boil at night.

Grab some clean glass almond butter jars, and fill each about halfway with diced chicken, then fill the other half with fresh or frozen chopped spinach (or chard, or bok choy, or rapini… I won’t judge your choices). Ladle hot broth in to about an inch below the edge of the jar. Sprinkle in some salt, wheat free soy sauce, or lemon juice. Screw the lid on and stick it in the freezer.

Wala! A perfectly Paleo, low carb, deeeelish frozen dinner for some chilly evening when you have no time to cook. Just pop the top off and stick the jar in the microwave.

Armpits and Sugar

I saw this in the comments over at PaNu:

I have noticed substantially less absolute need for personal hygeine with paleo or at least VLC eating. I have stopped using deodorant completely. My shirts could easily be worn several days in a row before washing. On VLC the glucose in your sweat, sebum, etc must be much lower. Less sugar – less bacteria.

And at the risk of oversharing… I have to agree! I used to think stinky sweat was due to the amount of coffee in my life, but found when eating super clean (meat, fat, green veggies, nuts and seeds, in that order; no sugar, grains, or dairy) I could drown myself in caffeine and not get smelly. Jittery, yes. Smelly, no. (I’ll talk about the caffeine-insulin-cortisol trifecta in a later post.) Curse you, sugar! You make my armpits reek!

Yet another reason to avoid the stuff.