CrossFit: October 14, 2013

Warm-Up: 400m run (x2), 60 single unders, 15 hollow rocks, 15 hollow supermans

Skill: Squat Cleans 5x5x3x3x1x1 building – I wasn’t super motivated today so I only went up to 75#

WOD: 5 RFT of 3 squat cleans (65#), 6 show me push-ups, 12 jumping lunges (6 each leg) – 8:45

Bonus: 26 Birthday Burpees since my birthday was Saturday 🙂

Feels good to be back in the box and nutrition definitely makes difference! I ate gluten (a blueberry humble pie to be exact) yesterday along with general junk food all weekend driving and tailgating so my crossfit performance left something to be desired this morning. I am thankful I got up and went and I am back on the good path with my food!!

Adventures De Madre

My mom’s week trip to Kansas City was extremely busy which is no surprise. My mom doesn’t really know how to sit still. Let’s see if I can recap her trip:

Monday – I went to the office for work in the morning so she went and walked at Loose park, ate breakfast, cleaned out the tall closet to the left of my refrigerator that I’ve been ignoring since we moved in, showered, cleaned off my front door (it was very dusty), and swept my porch before I came back home at 1pm. Then we drove out and picked up my antelope which was finally done at the processor in Wellington, Missouri. On the way back to KC, we stopped in Lee’s Summit to look for a sewing machine and fabric. We found an awesome place to get some called Fabric Recycle which is right next door to El Maguey which is the best mexican food I’ve eaten in the Midwest. This meant we had nachos and margaritas for dinner.

Tuesday – we walked in Loose Park and drank coffee in Starbucks in the Plaza before stepping in Barnes & Nobel and Pottery Barn on the way home. After showering, we went out shopping for a sewing machine and some household items. Tuesday night I have Gospel Community so I left Mom at home to play with the sewing machine we bought. By the time I came home, she was already frusterated with the one we purchased and wanted to take it back.

Wednesday – took the dreadful sewing machine back and went to the Bernina store. The owner showed us several models and Mom ended up buying a Bernina 135 that was used.

It makes 25 stitches and has a semi-automatic button hole maker. It is a very nice machine! I am truly blessed to have parents that want to invest in activities I’m interested in. (It also helps that my mom sews a tremendous amount). It had to be serviced so we didn’t pick it up until Friday morning.

Lunch was at BRGR which has a great gluten-free hamburger bun. Mom was in heaven, see picture below…

My mom helped me hang pictures and art all around our house Wednesday afternoon. She has such a good eye for where and how to hang things (my parents have a tremendous amount of art in their house). She’s also really good at being helpful while hanging things. My Dad wants to make sure everything is exactly square and measured but my Mom wants it to look correct to the eye when the ceilings and walls aren’t straight. It feels amazing to have things hung on the walls again!

My friend Melanie stopped by the house for a couple glasses of wine. She and my mom were telling all kinds of crazy funny stories. It made my heart incredibly happy to have them both at my house.

Thursday – I went into the office for a half day and Mom worked on cleaning my house. She ended up finding the dryer line to the outside was full of lent (from previous renteres/owners) so she stood on her head to clean it out. (She’s also pretty ingenuitive since she duct-taped straws to the end of my vaccumn cleaner to suck it up instead of spending money to call an industrial cleaner). Apparently we were pretty close to having a house fire…

Post dryer rescue was a tour of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Mom is an artist (photography and fiber/quilting/sewing) so she loved it! The sculpture garden is also a top-of-the-list KC attraction.

Dinner was at Cooper’s Hawk Winery on the Plaza which has an amazing GF menu!! They have several locations across the country but it was absolutely, hands-down, the best GF menu I’ve ever ordered off of! Dessert was great, as was the Malbec…

Friday – dinner was so good we went back for lunch after picking up my new sewing machine. Then we got down to business – Mom taught me how to make dresses for Haiti (blog post coming soon with instructions).

First Fridays is the first Friday of every month so Mom and I met up with several of my friends for drinks at Snow & Co before walking around looking at art. I really enjoyed her getting to know my friends. I’ve never listened to her opinion of my friends in the past (little bit rebellous) but I am listening this time around…she’s always been right in the past.

Saturday – we got up early, swung thru Starbucks for coffee and made a bee line for the River Market’s City Market Farmer’s Market (how many markets are really needed in a title? haha). We bought flowers, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, spices, garlic, kale, and green beans. I must have made a statement about wanting to learn to can green beans or how much I loved the canned green beans my grandmother used to make because we brought home enough green beans for 10 pint cans worth and 2 quarts for dinner!! It was awesome for Mom to teach me how to can (post coming later on that one too). See picture below of the start of the process.

We shopped in West Bottoms antique dealers since Mom is such a fan of that too. It was a great time and I ended up with a great couple of buys. I can’t tell you what they are yet since I’m giving them as gifts 🙂

Saturday afternoon my friend Lee came over to learn to sew (with a free lesson of how to can green beans) which was a lot of fun! Mom then made chili and cornbread for my roomate, my friend Brad, her and I to eat for dinner. By the time we had cleaned up the kitchen and finished sewing I was completely exhausted! I hope I have as much energy as my mom when I’m her age.

We did can the leftover chili as well (which I’m eating while writing this):

Sunday – we ate breakfast at eggtc and then went to 9am service at Redeemer Fellowship. The preaching was good but the people sitting around us talked too much for my preference which was frusterating. Mom showed me her pictures from all her international travels this summer (Ireland, London, and Norway) before I took her to the airport to fly home.

It was a crazy busy week but I loved it! We’ve already got a list going of what she wants to do the next time she comes 🙂

Almond Shortbread Cookies

See the original recipe at Brittany Angell’s blog

CrossFit Matters had a fall paleo BBQ/family hangout at the box Friday night. We all signed up to bring food items on facebook. I was at work and quickly trying to decide what I was going to bring when I notice that no one had signed up for dessert. I figured I had lucked out so I signed up for it – then I read all of the instructions. No dairy, no gluten, no grain (including corn), no sugar (artificial/processed but not at all is preferred), no eggs, no legums (soy and peanuts). How in the world do you make dessert without all of those things?!?

I eat a gluten-free diet and have no dairy issues but still stay away from cow’s milk (I like almond milk) but this was going to be a challenge – no wonder no one else had signed up for dessert! After several hours of internet scouring, I ran across this recipe and I am so happy that I did! It’s quick and easy and was a huge hit at the party! There were zero cookies left to take home (much to my roomate’s disappointment).

Recipe Adaptations: I used honey for my sweetener and vanilla for the extract but I left out the salt, food coloring, and the liquid stevia. Although I attempted the pinwheel, I found that it used too much dough for the quantities I was trying to achieve so I just rolled them out and used a couple of cookie cutters. My cook time was about 9 minutes.

Tip: the thicker cookies taste more like shortbread (which is what I was going for) 🙂

Bruschetta

This is just about the easiest recipe ever – it’s an open, dump, and eat variety – but it’s amazing so here it is!

Ingredients:

• Trader Joe’s Lentils (in the refrigerator case by salad)
• Trader Joe’s Bruschetta Sauce (in the refrigerator case by salsa)
• Feta Cheese Crumbles (or any cheese of your choice – my friend uses goat cheese crumbles)

Directions:

• Combine ingredients in a bowl and enjoy!

This recipe actually tastes better after it’s been in the refrigerator for 24 hours or more. You can enjoy it on french rolls to have the “true” bruschetta experience but I am gluten-free so I just eat it with a spoon. This is a great recipe to take to a party or function to share with a crowd because it literally takes less than 20 minutes (including standing in line to check out Trader Joe’s) and it’s great for the masses with all kinds of dietary needs.

Food for Thought

http://loneprairie.net/diet-coke/

“The undeniable facts about the safety of Diet Coke.

I sat down at the table with friends, enjoying our get-together at the diner. The waitress took my order for a Diet Coke. She left. A friend spoke up.

“They say that Diet Coke increases your chance of getting diabetes by a factor of seven.”

“I heard people were getting seizures from the aspartame in it.”

“Today the news said a lady died after drinking 10 liters of Coke.”

“That’s nice. Enjoy your glass of city water filled with chemicals like fluoride,” I replied.

Are you kidding me?

Not much for alcohol. Never smoked. Don’t do drugs, and barely take aspirin. I exercise at the gym three times a week. I walk to work briskly every day, which comes to around 3/4 of a mile daily. When I get home, I try to avoid sitting and work at a standing desk. I go for walks when weather allows. I don’t eat much red meat at all, mainly poultry if any. I drink plenty of water, and often it is in the form of green, white, or herbal teas. I don’t drink coffee. In other words, I’m not health-obsessed, but I do alright.

My two vices?

An occasional Diet Coke as a treat a couple of times a week (and not even full cans!) and chocolate.

There are two important facts about life:

• I am going to die.
• You are going to die.

Let’s just be honest: people who point out the inadequacies in my eating and health regimen are merely quibbling over the bet they’re placing that I’ll die first. You’re telling me I’m killing myself and it’s my fault. You almost hint that I can take the blame for any physical ailment coming my way. I propose that cellular degeneration and the natural order of things might get some blame, and not just that Snickers I ate yesterday.

Snow White’s poisoned apple is a metaphor for supermarkets.

“Oh, but it’s a quality of life thing.”

The fact that I’m not fixating on the perfect purity of my food and not doing it to those around me means I have a pretty good quality of life.

When I eat a burger, I am thankful I have food, and that I don’t have to go out and gut the cow myself.

As I’m standing in the grocery store, I think of some of the poorest people in Nicaragua I’ve seen living and scrounging for food near the garbage dump. I get a bit upset at the arrogance that says the strawberries or apples or oranges stacked in heaping piles before me are “not good enough” because they are not organic.

I am repulsed by the idolatry that my body is so precious that I must find something more healthy and pure, that these non-organic fruits lack enough nutritional value for the little god that is me.

How does it work, that having a bountiful supply of food before me is seen as the enemy instead of a blessing?

Do I think I’m better than those people in poverty, so I deserve optimal “natural” food? Or, do I think that everyone deserves it, but because not everyone is in a place to access it, rice and corn mash are good enough for their kids but definitely not mine? When you donate food to the food pantry, do you donate the expensive organic carefully-sourced food that you insist is the only acceptable thing to put in your body and that you feed yourself and your family, or do you get the cheapest canned and boxed food at the store?

If your diet requires it, great. If you prefer it, fine. If you think it’s the only way to go, have at it. But don’t lecture me especially while we’re in the process of eating. I shouldn’t have to defend my digestive history.

The fear industry is the strongest industry at work today.

Out of the fear industry, many things have developed. Like being afraid of our food.

It ends up being an us-against-them battle waged against supermarkets, farmers, and anyone not making that gross runny organic yogurt that makes me throw up in my mouth (true story). It says the hell with “everything in moderation.” It implies that moms who let their kids eat Lucky Charms are basically evil beings inserting a Pixie Stix IV in their arm and laughing maniacally.

It creates Perfect Parent Food Guardian whose kids must not have a drop of corn syrup in their body, ever, until they’re 18. No hint of chemical or artificial anything must touch their lips. The child will glow with good health and surely be a better citizen and thinker because no malnourished human in the history of mankind has ever achieved greatness.

Go ahead. Create a different kind of eating disorder which associates food with fear and danger, and disease solely with choices people make so when someone gets sick they can gently suggest they deserved it because they’d eaten Oreos that one time four years ago.

The jogger still dies young of the heart attack. The vegetarian still gets cancer. The butter-eater and wine-drinker and cigar-smoker lives to be 98. You can’t predict.

Typhus wasn’t much fun.

We had a discussion about a similar topic at work, while on break, and a coworker came up with probably the best summation I could say in response to those who are hardcore anti-any kind of modern food, anti-vaccine, back-to-the-pioneer-times ideology: Typhus wasn’t fun.

Here’s a list of other things that aren’t fun:

• Diptheria
• Whooping Cough
• Polio
• Measles
• Tetanus
• Malaria
• E. coli and other gut ripping illnesses
• Hand-washing clothes and hanging them on the line even in the dead of winter
• Living on the northern plains without fruits like oranges and bananas (among other delicious foods) technically not being in the “locally sourced” category
• Killing a buffalo and using its guts for string, making pemmican, and creating a house out of its hide
• Starvation
• Trichinosis
• Using ice-boxes instead of modern chemical-supported refrigeration
• Non-electric sewing machines for all of your clothing needs
• Butcher a pig, cure the meat, make your own lard
• Chinking your cabin walls with animal dung and mud, and twisting prairie grass for heat because hey, let’s be honest, your home has a lot of toxicity built into it.

It’s easy to decry technology and its evils from your comfortable perch in the midst of it.

FYI: Honeybees were introduced to North America by Europeans, and tomatoes introduced to Europe by explorers. Do you really wish the Italians hadn’t gotten their hands on tomatoes? I love marinara. I love honey. I’m glad food hasn’t remained locally sourced only.

Pretty glad I can just go to the store and buy butter instead of doing this.

I don’t know if you’ve ever bothered to talk to someone who’s really old and had to do some of that live-off-the-land stuff, but you ask them if they want to go back to doing things by hand and they, like my grandma told me once when I asked if she missed the “good old days”, are probably going to come out in favor of automatic dishwashers, cake mixes, and Crisco. It wasn’t an alt-lifestyle option, but the only option, and given modernity, they leapt for it.

It’s called progress, because it is.

Yes, we have some diseases that are a result of the excess of our modern diet low exercise levels — that’s not the argument I’m making here — but the lack of progress had its own diseases and they were really ugly, too, with shortened lifespans overall.

Is it possible that I might make small choices and choose some chemical-free home products and eat more vegetables and try to buy locally and avoid GMO here and there when viable and still dig into a bowl of mac and cheese or douse the bathroom with Febreze when times call for it? That I might enjoy making my own bread but once in a while, buy a loaf from the store or order a pizza? That having a Diet Coke once in a while when I go out is a treat? Or is this just an all-or-nothing proposition? It seems that every moment is a lecture moment for the food police, whose forgiveness and grace policies are non-existent.

What goes in your head?

Maybe people ought to be more concerned about what they’re allowing in their head, rather than just their mouth. Shall I get after you for what you do and don’t read? Shall I lecture you on the shallow life of pursuing bodily health and not a robust mental existence?

Turn the TV off, unplug the internet, and shut out the voices convincing you that a world of unimaginable plenty isn’t good enough, isn’t healthy enough. Eat the food you have in moderation. The quality of my life, and my health, is fine. Someday it might not be. The same is true for you. Whether I drop over dead tomorrow or live to be 104, I’m not going to enjoy it any more by skipping the Diet Coke or excessive chocolate consumption. Keep your own guilt.

If I’m not in need of a drug-abuse intervention or confined to my bed because I weigh 900 pounds, it’s not necessary to say something about what I should or should not be eating, unless I ask you. Just about anyone eating overtly unhealthily isn’t doing so from a lack of knowledge, but other reasons. You’re not helping with those other reasons, I promise you. You might even be making them very much worse.

Enjoy the food you enjoy. Don’t enforce that on anyone else but yourself, especially when you’re sitting down to eat with them

Sans Sugar

My trip to Haiti has impacted my world view and I’m thankful to God for that. But I am even more thankful for all the thoughts and questions that have arisen since I’ve been back as a result of traveling to Haiti. Most of them have very little to do with that island in fact.

One of these thoughts started with Jami (www.thenatos.com) while in Haiti. She mentioned that she gave up sugar for Lent and it boosted her energy level. The interesting part to me what that she called it a heart issue. I had never thought of what I ate being a heart issue but it is. She needs God’s help to eat what she should and she was originally afraid of trying to cut it out.

So – here goes!

Today was Day 1 without sugar for me too.

I have thyroid disease and go thru seasons of struggle with it. I was doing pretty good but around the first of the year I started gaining weight again (typical first symptom). Now I’m consistently tired and my hair is falling out again. I know my thyroid is the root problem but I’m hoping that if I cut out the sugar then my body will adjust to my thyroid a little better too.

I’ve prayed to God for healing but that’s not in His plan right now. I need my thyroid to remind me to rely on Him. Without Him, I’m not going to be able to get out of the bed in the morning and go about my day (and there are definitely days even with Him that I can’t get out of bed).

God please show me the next step in my treatment.

I’m in a routine of going to my endocrinologist every 2.5 to 3 weeks for shots of hormones and B vitamins which helps for awhile. My daily thyroid medication hasn’t changed since December of 2010. I love my doctor but I’m getting frustrated not having control. This frustration is my biggest need of change from God. I don’t rely on Him to control things when I should.

My mom and I had an emotional conversation about this while I was home this weekend. She and my dad have offered to help pay for my thyroid treatments (right now I pay full price for everything because my doctor doesn’t take insurance). My mom also asked what I want to do about it all. I want to find the root problem. If it is my thyroid, I want it removed. Thyroid surgery is tricky and has a long recovery time.

Lord, please show me the next step in my treatment.

In addition to sugar, I am going to start tracking my gluten intake. I do not consume very much (I don’t think) since my mom and brother are celiacs but I am going to start writing down when I knowingly consume it to see if it impacts my overall health. I am not going to go to the extremes my family has to, but I am going to cut out bread, cookies, snack items, and pasta and see what happens.

Lord, please give me strength and resolution to follow thru with this.

Stay tuned…

St. Pat’s

I am Texan. I was born in Dallas and have lived in the great state for 20 of my 25 years of life. I have never celebrated St. Patrick’s Day beyond wearing green and pinching my brother for not doing so.

That being said, I do not understand the ridiculous obsession people in the midwest have with the holiday. It is a symbol of Christianity spreading to Ireland. I am Christian so I appreciate the effort it took for people to believe. The shamrock was first introduced as a way to explain the Holy Trinity to pagens. However, people in Kansas City Missouri (and other places in the midwest) celebrate the holiday all month!! I’m all about a good reason to drink but really? Shamrocks? Leprecauns? Saints?

My roomate is also from Texas so we decided to embrace the holiday with our Sunday Family Dinner. We typically invite our friends over for a family-style meal that we all help prepare either before or after church on Sunday. We decided everything was either going to be green or Irish or both! The menu included potatoe soup, corned beef, cabbage, soda bread, green butter, pesto sauce & pasta, and applesauce crumb cake. It was all delicious!!

People came and went all afternoon and we powered thru two movies since it was gloomy outside. Around 7pm there was just my roomate, her boyfriend (as of yesterday afternoon :)), and a new friend of mine from church. My friend suggested we brave Westport (a bar district in KC) for a green beer, so we did. I had a great time talking, people watching, and sharing appetizers. Since it was pretty late, and a Sunday, the festivities were winding down but everyone was wearing green and having fun.

Overall it was the perfect way to celebrate this non-holiday/major midwestern holiday. 🙂 Next year I want to brave the parade or maybe go to Chicago to see their huge celebration but we’ll see. It’s not big enough of a desire to make my bucket list quite yet…

Recipe: Paleo Pancakes

Picture from http://www.sterlingstyle.net/2010/11/paleo-pancakes.html

1 banana

2 eggs

Blend and make pancakes.

That’s it! They taste great. I would probably recommend adding cinnamon or honey if you don’t like the taste of bananas. I just drowned them in syrup and butter (defeats the paleo part I know but I eat paleo to limit the carbs because my body doesn’t process them very well).

Restaurant Week: Bristol

Last night was our trip to Bristol Seafood Restaurant in P&L downtown KC. Traffic was miserable to get up there (crazy wreck on highway 71) but the experience was superb. I will definitely be going back!

We sat at a very large table in a room divided by the wine racks. The architecture was very interesting as it provided a limited view to the rest of the restaurant as well as a view of the wine selection. They have Frog’s Leap Zinfindel which is probably my number one favorite wine to drink. You can’t buy it as an individual, you just have to go to a restaurant that serves it. It’s about $50 a bottle so not terribly expensive and entirely worth it.

I checked into foursquare so we ended up with a free order of calamari to share while we drank wine. Dinner was lobster bisque (best bisque I’ve ever had), crab cakes with grilled asparagus and mashed potatoes, and chocolate lava cake with raspberries and hazelnut ice cream. Needless to say, I was in heaven! Everything tasted superb and the service could not have been any better. Our waitress got a great tip and I will be going back to eat many more times in the future!!

Restaurant Week: BRGR Burgers

Tuesday we went to BRGR Burgers for lunch and it was amazing!! BRGR is one of my top 3 favorite restaurants in KC and is definitely in my top 5 favorite places to eat in the world. It’s a gourmet burger joint that gives you a lot of food that all tastes great for a good value.

The lunch special for restaurant week was a soup/salad (I had beer cheese soup which was to die for), hamburger (pretty much anything off their entire menu) with fries or sweet potatoes fries, and dessert (chocolate pie). Not the chocolate pie was not the best but it was more than decent. I was also almost full to the point of being sick by the time the pie landed on the table so that may have had some effect on my judgement of the pie…

The Tex-Az burger is my favorite – it has blue corn chips, queso, jalapeno and an egg bun and beef patty. I ate every crumb of all of that food for lunch. I was so full I was almost falling asleep driving back to the office! But it was so worth it 🙂

Overall – 9 out of 10 (since the chocolate pie was not quite up to par).