I need more health and fitness books like I need another pet (NOTE: I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE CRITTERS IN MY HOME). I wish I WISH that the paleo books or “Lights Out” was in the list, but alas they are not. I still managed to find ten books on the list that I will order, here are a few:

5 Square Low Carb Cookbook
Following the motto “eat more, eat clean”, this cookbook is from a culinary whiz who runs a low-carb meal delivery company in New York. It looks like this particular cookbook also leaves out dairy, so it sounds like there might be a lot of paleo-compatible recipes in here.

Complete Guide to Sport Injuries
Though I’ve learned a lot about injuries and treatment from the hunky Kelly Starrett at the CrossFit Journal, I’m sure I could also make use of a good reference book.

Fitness for Travelers: The Ultimate Workout Guide for the Road
I travel a few times a year, and my gym is a 20-minute drive away. I hope this book will give me a few new ideas for getting my on when I can’t get to equipment.

A Woman’s Book of Strength
From the description of this book I can’t really tell what to expect from it. Is this about being muscle-strength strong or iron-will strong? Is it both? I like the title and the cover though!

Sleep Away the Pounds
If I can’t have the “Lights Out” book, then I guess I’ll see what this has to say. Though I probably won’t follow the 21-day plan, I’m interested in picking up a few good sleep hygeine tips from this book.

The Politics of Stupid
For 99 cents I will see if the contents of this book are as interesting as the author or the title.

Just so y’all know: if you click on any of the links in this mighty fine post and buy a book from the site, they toss a few shiny gold coins my way so I can…buy more books.

I eat pretty much the same stuff all week long but on the weekends I sleep in and my day is a lot less regimented, so I tend to only eat four meals instead of five. Weekends also mean I have extra time in the morning to cook BACON! So long as I eat paleo, I have no “rules” that I follow on weekends. In fact, I tend to allow myself unlimited fruit on the weekends. Sometimes I pick up a one-litre jug of freshly squeezed orange juice at the market and drink it all in one sitting. I guess that’s what accounts for a “treat” when you’re paleo.

0930, Breakfast: 2 large free-range Omega3 eggs, four heavenly slices of bacon, 1 cup of fresh strawberries, 1 cup OJ.

1300, Lunch: Chicken breast with pecan crust coating, roasted broccoli and cherry tomatoes.

1600, Mid-Day Meal: Spaghetti squash with turkey tomato sauce, and a handful of almonds.

1900, Supper: Cooked shrimp and a buttload of guacamole wrapped in lettuce leaves.

Fresh fruit, bacon, and quacamole. What is there not to like about eating this way?!?!?!!

Before the challenge I was still progressing in my workouts, but wasn’t really seeing any weight/fat loss. I remember having a mid-afternoon energy slump every day, despite eating regularly and trying to keep the carbs to a minimum. That being said, the big things I’m noticing on Paleo:

• Continuing to progress with workouts, particularly strength. I don’t seem to have done a lot of metcons or repeated any benchmark workouts this month to tell if I’m getting better at the power/endurance stuff.
• Steady and consistent fat loss. I’ve dropped 8.5 pounds of weight, and dropped a few % of bodyfat. Losing fat without losing muscle is a big deal. Bodyweight work is going to be a lot easier without quite so much bodyweight.
• More energy. Let me qualify that though. I’m not bouncing off the walls or feeling jittery or restless. I feel calm and alert consistently throughout the day, without any low-energy lulls.

I feel good eating what I eat, and I feel good about what I eat. I’m really proud that I’ve stuck it out 25 days, and will probably continue to eat like this past the 30-day challenge. Treats take on a new meaning on paleo. A treat used to be something “forbidden” like pizza. Now that I’m on a “no cheat” challenge the treats are simple things like mounds of quacamole or bacon-wrapped scallops. The great thing is that the “treat” isn’t a “cheat”, so there isn’t the associated guilt.

If you’ve read this far you might be interested to see what I eat in the course of a day. I figured a work day would be a good example, because some people have a hard time eating right as part of their work schedule.

0630, Breakfast: 2 free-range Omega3 eggs scrambled with 1/2 cup spinach. 1 cup strawberries and 1/4 cup raspberries.

1000, Snack: 2 oz beef jerky, handful of almonds, 1 apple.

1300, Lunch: Salmon and mixed veggies with coconut curry sauce.

1500, Mid-Afternoon Meal: Chicken breast crusted with cashews, roasted broccoli and cherry tomatoes

1800, Supper: 1 cup spaghetti squash, 3/4 cup ground turkey tomato sauce, 2 cups romaine and chopped tomatoes and cucumbers with some homemade mayo on top, and sprinkled with no-salt seasoning.

I’m obviously not starving, and I think anyone would have to be crazy to try to convince me that I’m somehow missing something without any bread, dairy, or sugar in any of those meals.

So yesterday was busy. I made my usual trip to the farmer’s market where I picked up my free-range Omega-3 eggs and bacon (which I’m going to assume is nitrite-free). I also found out that the chorizo sausage I buy is at least gluten-free, so is probably acceptable during my challenge. I grabbed a whole liter of freshly squeezed orange juice and had a juice binge in the afternoon. I also picked up some wild boar sausage from New Brabant Wild Boar. I think I’ll use that in a tomato sauce later this week.

Rob wanted to treat me to a nice dinner out (Jasmin is off camping with a friend this week) so we headed to Montana’s steak house. It wasn’t as “nice” as we had hoped atmosphere-wise, but the food was good nonetheless. Eating out when you’re “dieting” can be intimidating to some, but I’ve done so many weird diets I’m not phased by it anymore. I had an 8-oz steak and two shrimp skewers with seasoning but no sauce, and a double helping of broccoli. It was that easy!

Here are some food pics from the past two days:

Shrimp, gazpacho, avocado

Salmon and mixed veg with curry sauce. Sauce recipe coming soon!

Today I’m focusing on cooking up a buttload of meat to get me through most of the week. I have pork in the crockpot and beef jerky doing its thang in the dehydrator. The great thing with the crockpot and the dehydrator is that while things cook I can get out and do more important things – like fishing! Yes, I actually am going fishing today. How paleo is THAT!?!?!!

So my “first” paleo meal last night wasn’t even paleo. I guess I need to cut out all things soy, so the soy sauce on my veggies was a no-no. Then this morning I read here that eggs are OK but should be limited. Uh-oh! I usually eat three eggs and a bunch of fruit for breakfast. That’s when I decided I’d better order the book “The Paleo Diet” and get more details about all the rules. If someone is going to tell me I can’t eat my free-range Omega 3 eggs they’d better have a convincing argument.

So here were my meals today:

• 3 eggs scrambled in some EVOO and 1 1/2 cups pineapple for breakfast.
• 4oz of heavily peppered turkey breast, 2 apples, and a binge of macadamia nuts (1/3 cup!) for second breakfast.
• 4oz of chicken thigh with 1 1/2 cups broccoli tossed with some sesame oil for lunch.
• 2ox salmon with chives, 1oz macadamia nuts, and a big 2-cup bowl of fresh gazpacho for supper.

Look I took a “before” picture. LOL, this is my gazpacho before it turned into soup:

I’m clearing all the sugars and starches out of my diet and eating strict paleo for the month of July – and I’m not giving myself the usual weekly “cheat day”. It’s not my fault, really. I was having a great carb-o-holic Canada day. I ate half a freaking pizza for breakfast and chugged a box of Smarties after my workout. Life was good! Then I had to go and check my blog feeds, and dangit if one of my CrossFit heroes and imaginary internet girlfriends didn’t post a 30-day paleo challenge. She’s really convincing too, you should definitely click on that link.

I figured I ate pretty bad earlier today, so I’d better get started ASAP. I passed up all the Chinese food I made for supper, even the chicken (cornstarch). I turned down the white rice, the onion cake, and (ohmygodkillmenow) even the potstickers. Here’s my first paleo meal of the 30-day challenge: stir-fried veggies and chicken thigh tossed with a tablespoon of soy sauce:

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One of the great things I learned about when I tried eating Raw Vegan were green smoothies. The premise is that dark leafy greens are really dense in nutrients and we should eat a lot of them (something we can all agree with), however it takes a lot of time to eat really big quantities of greens. Unlike the apes, most modern humans don’t have the freedom to spend all day sitting and chewing through pounds of spinach. As well, lots of people find dark leafy greens unpalatable without fatty dressings or lots of salt, etc. Green smoothies to the rescue!

A green smoothie is a smoothie-consistency drink make from about 60% fruit and 40% green matter by volume. The fruit gives the drink a nice sweetness and takes the edge off the green grassy taste, while blending helps to pre-process the greens into a more digestible form and compacts them so they can be eaten quickly.

My preferred green smoothie is Mango-Parsley, here’s the how-to:
Peel and slice 2 fresh mangoes. Place the mango in a blender with one whole bunch of parsley, with most of the stem removed (I think it would make about 1 cup of parsley if you compacted it all). Add a cup of water and blend, adding more water until it is a consistency you like.

And here I am with my green smoothie, trying to imitate the very buff Marge Simpson:

From my calculations, my green smoothie makes up eight Zone “blocks”, so technically I should divide it in half and split it over two meals. Using FitDay, I calculate that my smoothie is about 290 calories, 2g fat, 74g carb, and 4g protein. It provides more than 100% of the vitamin A, K, and C than I need as part of my RDA – plus it provides a pretty good concentration of other vitamins and minerals. I think that’s pretty durn healthy!

You can read all about green smoothies in the book “Green for Life”, available at rawfamily.com. The Marge picture is from one of my favorite episodes – “Strong Arms of the Ma”.