Sunday, March 31, 2013

Sunday Breakfast

fried eggs, carne asada, roasted zucchini, and roasted tomato guacamole

Fried eggs, carne asada, roasted zucchini, and roasted tomato guacamole.

I'm in my hospital room with blackout curtains and the lights turned down, having a little anxiety because I think I heard the doctor say that she's going to take away my laptop. YES when the nurse asked me if I needed anything, I said WiFi. WHAT, I'M A BLOGGER. Also it says on this paper that they're going to feed me dinner. Just dinner? I don't think they know about second dinner. I'm calming myself by looking at this morning's breakfast. Now that I'm thinking, I should have thought that I don't like to not be in control of my environment before I signed up for a scientific experiment. Welp. I guess what they're measuring is my melatonin and that only goes up when the lights are down. Is what she said. I've been falling asleep with my laptop on probably for the past seven years. I know it's bad but between ambient light and lying awake with my thoughts, pssh. Though lately I have been trying to just go the fuck to sleep, and that's been going all right. It's funny that I keep getting called in for these sleep studies, I'm actually interested in sleep as a trainer and will have more to say about that soon.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Five Days Into Seven Day Sleep Study

a: bzzp bzzp!

p: what do you want, armband.

p: oh, you want a fresh battery so you can keep burning my arm.

p: okay.

p: for science.

a: deedle dee dee!

p: you're welcome.

Egressions #37-38

Sarge told me about this greek yogurt, apple, fig, lentil, and olive oil snack, and now I can't stop thinking about savory greek yogurt. New formula: greek yogurt + greens + beans?

37. Greek yogurt with apples, figs, lentils, and olive oil. Via Men's Fitness.
38. Greek yogurt with quinoa and cabbage. Via FitSugar.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Spring Food Chart

So I've been working on my ultimate food chart for realz and might even expand it from four quarterly/seasonal to twelve monthly menus, which already sort of happens with my food planners, always in a state of flux, the ultimate goal of which being, I dunno, maybe a cookbook?

For reference, perhaps not as relevantly now that I'm eating starchy carbs less and less and it's more protein + vegetables across the board:

BEFORE
light protein &
complex carbs

IMMEDIATELY BEFORE & DURING WORKOUT
simple carbs
 
IMMEDIATELY AFTER
light protein &
simple carbs
AFTER
heavy protein &
complex carbs
BETWEEN
heavy protein &
complex carbs

Immediately before/after means within 45 minutes of, before/after means within 1-3 hours of, and between means more than 3 hours before or after workouts.

I'm picturing spring food like this:

  • Before - Dinner - light protein & complex carbs - veganly beans - I'd been thinking this would be veganly beans and quinoa, but I was dragging my feet for some reason and I finally figured out that the idea of quinoa was making me feel too full. Beans is enough food. So anyway, I'm still saving my starchiest proteins to eat before I work out—this might change, though.
  • Immediately Before & During - Workout Drink - simple carbs - CocoCherry2O
  • Immediately After - Post Workout Snack - light protein & simple carbs - greek yogurt and, right now, honey and sliced almonds or honey and peanut butter. Nooo cooking. Sooo easy. Sooo delicious.
  • After - Breakfast - heavy protein & complex carbs - vegetable egg bites, recipes TK
  • Between - Lunch - heavy protein & complex carbs - chicken and vegetable stew, recipes TK - This was supposed to be baked chicken and vegetable stew, but then SQUIRREL! I got interested in chicken stew for some reason. I do like baked chicken and I have some new ideas for vegetable stews, so those might come up later in the season.

If you're following the opera about the bagel, I think I was eating bagels for work breakfasts for a couple months this winter. And for a couple really bad weeks, coke and chex mix for, um, lunch. I think the coke and chex mix happened because of how hectic the first half of home season was, funny that, you're too busy to cook, there's no food. But also, sometimes you just need a break from cooking. I believe in ebb and flow for everything. I sort of believe in being good most of the time, so you build up a comfortable margin to fit in being unequivocally bad now and again. I mean, I don't believe in this for behaviors that affect, like, people. Really my idea of heaven is that you get points for ice cream by being honest and straightforward. NO ICE CREAM FOR FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS. Ha ha, I'm mean.

Of course every time I think things like that, I think if my consciousness was false, would I know? Maybe I don't get ice cream.

Well no, and I'm not just saying this so I can get ice cream, I think you do know when you have false consciousness, i.e., you feel bad. Your head might be doing fantastic tricks, but look down: if you're riding on a wave of anger or sadness or fear, or bagels, or ice cream, all the fish is not happy under the sea.

ETA: Actually, here is a decent article about all that.

But anyway, by the end of February I was done with starch again. So I've tuned it back up, I have a longer piece on nutrition in the works and will have a lot more to say then. In short though, alcohol, sugar, and processed starch—i.e., pasta and bread—limited to once per week, starchy proteins (grains, legumes) and starchy vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes) limited to once per day. I should say I don't sweat a spoonful of flour or breadcrumbs here or there, just not front and center on my plate. Actually also cheese, okay as a condiment, but not as a cheese pizza.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Spring Fitness Chart

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
HOME
 
HOME
 
WORK
 
HOME
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
PLAY^
strength
HOME
 
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
Leag/Ref
PLAY
Fury
PASTIME
 
PLAY^
volume
PLAY^
Scrimmage
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

Second verse of home season, same as the first. Man, the first half of this home season has been a trip. Four bouts in six weeks! Then six weeks, which we're about in the middle of, until the next home bout. We keep practicing obviously, but we do get a little break from the hullabaloo that always surrounds bouts. I actually like the contrast, I like that the season started off hot and then this lull. I mean not if you're on travel team, the All-Stars had a bout against Naptown and this weekend Second Wind plays Toronto and the All-Stars play Montreal.

I'm doing a great job managing my high-low, and staying in season. By which I mean there's things I could do that would be a higher high than what I'm doing now, but this is partly due to my fitness being improved. So I'm pretty much equal to the practices that I'm in right now, and I'm good with that for now. I am here. I'm doing here, if that makes sense. My problem has always been doing here and there, which means not being as here as I should. Even if you can do more, you should always do here. When I'm there, I'll do there.

What's really going on with me fitnesswise doesn't show on the chart, it hasn't been about the three key practices and two recovery practices so much as all the rest of the time that I have to be active. I will have a lot more to say about this in a minute, so stay tuned—

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

He Always Knows What To Say

p: ...

p: i want chickens!

p: can we have chickens?

m: you mean to eat?

m: or as pets?

p: as pets who would lay us eggs.

m: ...

m: i don't think that's a very good idea.

p: oh.

m: they might be mean to odie.

Classic Chicken Stew with Carrots and Peas

classic chicken stew with carrots and peas

I was supposed to segue into baked chicken and veg stews for spring and was planning in fact to overhaul my vegetable stew collection, but all of a sudden found myself making chicken stews, more or less real chicken stews, by which I mean not slow chicken stews in the crockpot.

This works, though, because now I sit up front at the reception desk at work and I like to eat at my desk, which my bosses are very nice about. So I think I can be nice back by nicely eating my bite-size pieces of chicken with a spoon, so I'm not receiving visitors gnawing the meat off a thigh bone.

Carrots come frozen, but I think their texture is weird so only eat frozen carrots pureed. So I actually am using fresh carrots for this, but still frozen peas.

an onion
two stalks celery
4-5 chicken thighs
2 cups water
olive oil or butter
1 lb carrots
1/2 lb frozen peas
1 Tbsp flour
1 tsp dried thyme

Peel and chop the onion, and trim and chop the celery including the leaves if they look nice. Put the onion, celery, chicken, and water in a soup pot and bring to a strong simmer over high heat. Then turn the heat to low and let simmer partially covered for an hour.

Scrub, trim, and slice the carrots.

Remove the chicken to a cutting board and set aside, and—I'm super proud of this part, I thought of it myself—puree the remaining broth and vegetables with an immersion blender until smooth. Pour the pureed broth into a prep bowl and set aside.

Heat olive oil or butter in the soup pot over high heat and saute the carrots for about 10 minutes until crisp-tender. Stir in the flour and thyme and cook for a couple minutes, then add the pureed broth back to the pot. Stir until the broth starts to thicken and simmer, then add the peas. Simmer for ten minutes until carrots and peas are tender.

Separate the chicken meat from the skin and bone, and cut the meat into bite-size pieces.

Add the chicken meat back to the stew and simmer a few more minutes until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.



Monday, March 25, 2013

Spring Chart

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
HOME
Systems
HOME
Cleaning
Cooking
WORK
 
HOME
Laundry
Grocery
WORK
 
PLAY
 
PLAY^
strength
HOME
Systems
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
Leag/Ref
PLAY
Fury
PASTIME
 
PLAY^
volume
PLAY^
Scrimmage
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

Just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, except the Titanic is sailing serenely in a warm ocean. No whammies!

For fans of my work/play taxonomy, I renamed work that is play from HOBBY to HOME, because housework was what was falling into this category and even though I don't mind housework—per definition, it's something that I do as a means to an end that's an end in itself, I just read this great advice to add "meditation" to every boring task, which I totally already do—and as much as I see words as cracked containers, they still basically contain meaning and saying that cleaning and cooking is your "hobby" is just so dire. Still though, if you're also following along with sorting balanced between sleep, practice, and recovery, I'm counting WORK work as practice (pink), where you're casting yourself out into the world, and HOME work as recovery (blue), where you're winding yourself back in, and similarly PLAY is pink, expending, and PASTIME is blue, replenishing. Though should you adopt these systems, you should adapt them to how things feel to you. You are the arbiter of your own everything!

You may have gleaned that behind this chart is another, bigger ...chart! That is, my timetracker. Think you're ready for timetracker? Okay, stay tuned!

(Really this is amazingly balanced, there's four WORK to four HOME and ten PLAY to ten PASTIME. You know what I hope I can get started, actual pastimey pastimes, like sewing stuff or book binding which I've wanted to do forever, not just watching movies and television.)

A new thing that is happening chez Spock or Munt, whatever, is that we're on hiatus from Sunday Hollywood breakfasts. I think I got sick for a week or two and just fell out of the habit, which I had been thinking about giving up, but didn't think I could because it's been just about the favorite part of my week for the past half year at least. But costs twenty-five dollars a week, which is a hundred dollars a month, and between Thanksgiving and MLK Day I've gotten two new crowns to the tune of $1200, haha have you seen this:

wicker tooth

That came out of my mouth at scrimmage when I took out my mouthguard. Yeeeah.

So happily enough it was painless to quit Hollywood breakfasts, and now we have Sunday breakfasts at home with a tablecloth and everything, and we can even talk over breakfast because it's quieter. We can get right started with our weekly team meeting, did I tell you about team meetings? We are getting serious about building this business, and we're doing it together! So now we meet every week, more TK.

I guess the other thing is that I'm picking up another Friday at the office, every other week. That squeezed my Friday housework, laundry and grocery, into Wednesday, so that still gets done every week, and on alternate Fridays when I'm home, I'm already done with housework and have a whole morning to write.

Ma femme Helliot shared Google Poetics on her timeline a couple weeks ago, and right away I found my favorite line, "yesterday was dramatic today is okay," which is my whole approach to anxiety and drama, I only want to talk about my anxieties after they're over. Anyway I bring this up because I was a little bit anxious that I wasn't feeling like writing and was needing to rest between cleaning and cooking and going out to practice or train. But that was because I was on break, and I was on break because I needed to rest! Now that I'm rested, I can write in the afternoons and at bedtime again.

I must write these things down, so I can remember them.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Egression #36
 butter pan-fried steak

what's the best way to cook a steak

36. What's the best way to cook a steak? Via The Paupered Chef.

OMG you guys, I never say "This." But. THIS.

I think I know best and I'm pretty terrible at following recipes, and this time I was turning up my nose at cooking a piece of garlic next to something. I guess I have a go big or go home attitude about garlic, which is kind of dumb. And I said to myself, self, I said, I always want steak and am always disappointed by steak, so why don't I actually follow the instructions for the best way to cook a steak and see what happen. See what happen is from my favorite book of all time, Mating. No wait, my favorite book is Howards End. Or maybe it's Watership Down. Or maybe the Iliad. I think maybe technically the Iliad is not a book, though.

It turns out if you gently cook a garlic next to a piece of steak in a lot of butter, and constantly baste the steak with the garlic butter, it doesn't taste garlicky, it just tastes... it's hard to say, it doesn't really taste like anything. It just tastes like delicious.

I followed the instructions pretty exactly, except my steak was not quite as thick so I took it off the heat a bit sooner than instructed. When I could feel it was getting more cooked than I generally order, definitely much closer to medium well. And I let the steak rest, which I usually wave my hands impatiently at. And oh man even though this was more cooked, this—THIS—was the texture that I'm always trying to get at with steak.

Do you know, Friday nights we were eating Little Caesar's $5 pepperoni pizzas for probably four years. I think I needed that much time to get the basics down, the meals I'm going to eat four or five times a week. So eighty percent of what I eat is pretty much on autopilot, and solid. So now I can finally rehab Friday nights, actually I do this trout but pan-fried and now this steak.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Spring Outtakes
 crash hot potatoes

Okay so, I initially had this idea—no wait, first I had this idea that the way I write this blog is like a magazine, you know, where every season is like an issue? Which made me think that I should start every season with, like, a magazine cover. Sometimes, though, when you can't get started on something it's because your undermind doesn't like the idea. Because Samantha Irby's Cosmopolitan covers are already out there and hilarious, and yes, I was imagining myself on the cover a la Oprah Magazine and not so much a beautiful dish a la Bon Appetit, which I don't know why I wasn't thinking that, but anyway, my self-esteem is honestly okay but I just don't want a giant picture of my face, you know, in my face. Analyze this all you want, but I spend a lot of time in my head and not a lot looking at my face. So I know the former a lot better than the latter, and am as comfortable as a pile of puppies with you with me in my head. Whereas looking at some art exhibit of my face, the quote that comes to mind is:

and suddenly, under the weight of her regard and of Arthur's overintroduction, I felt compelled to impress but no longer wanted to—I wanted to back up the hallway, put on a pair of black horn-rims and a heavy coat, and come out again, this time farting and seized with grotesque tics

--Michael Chabon, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Which I located in three and a half seconds by googling "mysteries of pittsburgh farting tics," by the way. Truly we live in a golden age.

It's funny, though. My mind really is a lot weirder than my face.

Look, potatoes!

crash hot potatoes

These are The Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes that I pinned last month. They're really good, but they are not going to be in the spring issue. I mean, they're here now. I was thinking that my style is already so five point essay, this is what I'm going to say, this is what I'm saying, this is what I said—you know what my dad used to say all the time, preview, review, treeview, augh, worst earworm ever—so why don't I show you something that you're not going to see three versions of coming up.

I did spend a lot of time with these potatoes, too. The basic recipe is pretty simple: boil some potatoes, smash them on a baking sheet, and bake them. But unless I'm Making Dinner, which I almost never do, that's not how I'm gonna do.

A long story about potatoes is imminent, be warned.

So first of all, I was annoyed that potatoes that had boiled for half an hour now needed another half hour in the oven. Did I ever tell you, I used to walk on the treadmill and watch Rachael Ray at the gym, I have walked miles toward that woman, thirty minute meals has been drilled well into my head. Thirty minutes, really, is fancy for me. Most of my jars I can heat up and eat in five.

"I'm never making these again," I said, putting a tray of smashed potatoes in the oven and grumpily mashing the rest of the potatoes into mashed potatoes.

"Holy shit," I said when the potatoes came out of the oven, "these are unbelievably good."

"Fuck. Now I have to boil more potatoes."

This is a three-pound bag of small red potatoes, by the way. I wanted to find out if they would smash nicely out of the fridge or only freshly boiled, I'm happy to report that you can totally keep them in the fridge and smash them at will. Like you could come home from practice, smash and bake a couple potatoes, and eat them with greek yogurt and applesauce like crash hot latkes for a post-workout snack. I had a picture of that, but I didn't like the composition.

Or for their last five minutes in the oven, you could top them with sundried tomatoes and cheddar cheese, and then plate them with sour cream and green onions, crash hot potato skins!

crash hot potato skins

Those lacy pools of melted and crisped cheddar cheese, man, pick every last one of them off the sheet and eat them up.

I only substitute sundried tomatoes for bacon because I am not about to fuss with some bacon. Also, the green onions in this picture? Totally frozen. Lately I've been chopping up the whole bunch of green onions and throwing them in a box in the freezer, along with my parsley and bread crumbs. Though I think the sweetie man stopped eating bread, ahhh it was such a good system. I'm happy that he's not eating bread, though. He was eating A LOT of bread. I guess I'm going to have to buy bread crumbs? Anyway back to the green onions, I thought the picture could use a little color and styled it with a few chopped frozen green onions; but if I'm not going to fuss with frying bacon I'm also not going to fuss with chopping fresh green onions, and frozen green onions are, you know, frozen. Maybe sprinkle them on with the cheese? They do thaw quick, and they do taste good. After the photo shoot I was shoving them under the potatoes to melt them so I could eat them.

Hark, I said, you could also pour gravy over them and melt cheese curds on top for crash hot poutine! But it would look prettier in a pretty casserole, and then you should reshoot the latkes and the skins.

And at about this point, I did not want to eat any more potatoes. It's okay on my eating plan to eat potatoes for a post-workout snack, but I've screwed my starches down to the point that greek yogurt feels better to eat than potatoes. This to me is more of a fancy dinner or party dish, something that I'm only going to make once in a while, and this blog is more about things that I'm going to make over and over? Or in any case, I'm not up for making something over and over that I'm only going to make once in a while.

Sometimes I do post the occasional party dish, so I still might post this. If there's a party, and if I get a pretty casserole.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Sunday Breakfast

scrambled eggs, broiled tomatoes and hotdogs, and chicago style guacamole

Scrambled eggs, broiled tomatoes and hotdogs, chicago style guacamole, coffee, and water.

Probably the world didn't need a Chicago-style guacamole, but I had leftovers from making Chicago-style bloody marys last night. So avocado mashed with minced tomato, onion, sport pepper, and pickle relish. I forgot the celery salt, though. Oh and I meant to serve the hotdogs with mustard, oh well.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Drink Water

drink water

The Cue

I think the salient cues for this habit are time and emotional state:

  • time: meal time
  • emotional state: thirsty
...insofar as you "feel" thirsty, anyway. Oh what is language for, if not to be stretched.

The Routine

When you fix yourself your breakfast or lunch or dinner or snack plate, you also get yourself—or if you're in a restaurant, you order—a glass of water. Also acceptable, a glass of unsweetened iced tea or a cup of hot tea without milk or sugar. Hot or iced black coffee also okay if you don't overdo, let's say once a day. Fruit juice counts as food. I also count unsweetened milk drinks—e.g., coffee with milk—as food. Coke and all sugary drinks, and also all alcoholic drinks, all cheats, less than once a week, so maybe twice a month or ideally once a month.

Okay so, somebody wants to know what it means that something counts as food. Does it not count as drink—no, it does. Koalas get their moisture from eucalyptus leaves, after all. Water that's in anything that has water counts as water, of course. Obviously though, anything that has more than water doesn't count just as water. So for example if I need a fruit serving for breakfast, I may have a glass of orange juice and then may not have water if the juice quenches my thirst, or I may have not have water if I'm eating watermelon that quenches my thirst. If I have a full plate and I'm thirsty, then I have water. Simple?

Simple enough, but this is one of those easy things that seems hard. And a thing that seems hard is, for all intents and purposes, hard. All I can tell you is that it's like a switch that you flip in your head and then it's not so hard, and maybe also I can tell you that how you flip the switch is in a situation where you would normally crack open a can of soda to pour yourself a glass of water instead. Or where you would normally order a Coke to say, "Do you have unsweetened iced tea?" and take it from there. A habit is simply something that you do, once, and then over and over. I just told you the something that you do, that's all figured out for you, so that leaves 2) once, and if that's hard for you, it's up to you to figure what that's about, and if you get past once and 3) over and over is hard for you, then you figure that out.

A thing that I deeply believe is that language is a fragment, which is a very groovy thing to bring up in the middle of a blog post, but a blog post, geez if anything, is a fragment, and a blog post about diet or fitness is even more of a fragment. A screen and a half's worth of information necessarily comes from a select perspective and excludes a lot, it is not universally applicable. So for example, this post comes from the perspective of a person who doesn't drink water or drinks sugary sodas instead of water; this person needs to drink some water for the love of god and if you haven't figured it out, this person used to be me and now I do drink water and "more water" isn't necessarily going to be my mantra going forward. Don't take anything that I write as a whole! The most that I can do for you from this blog is write you a starting point and then it's up to you to figure things out. Or you know, you can hire me as a trainer to help you figure things out; but you should know before you buy that I'm annoying like Gandalf and it's still up to you.

The Reward

You don't need me to tell you the benefits of hydration, do you? You know that you're mostly water, so you're not quite yourself if you're dehydrated. Every system that is you—cardiorespiratory, neuromuscular, musculoskeletal, hormonal, your feelings, your thoughts—runs on water, and runs better when you are properly hydrated. Not to mention when you're not overfed with sugar or alcohol, but that is a discussion for later. I really do think that at the heart of every habit, the cue is the routine is the reward. I especially think in this case that the reward is the cue in that you relearn what thirsty feels like, which means that you also relearn what quenching your thirst feels like, and being that you are water, is for all intents and purposes bringing yourself back to life.

Status: ACTIVE

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Yeah Yeah, Only Boring People Get Bored, Whatev--

p: i'm all thrown off.

m: why are you thrown off?

p: because i didn't have ref practice.

p: usually i come home from ref practice, then i eat, then i get things done, and then it's time for bed.

p: i've eaten and i've gotten things done, but it's only nine o'clock.

p: but i'm out of things to do.

m: you can't be out of things to do.

p: i am too.

m: you are literate, are you not?

p: ...

m: awww.

m: reading is retro.

p: yeah.

m: that's for old people.

m: you can't even tag it.