Monday, September 30, 2013

WHOLE DAY
 introduction

whole day

Okay so, this basically says the same thing, I think, as my weekly slate, which I told you as pictured is sort of a kayfabe slate, the real slate has specific appointments that vary a bit week by week. This and that are model slates, in fact this is my real model slate that lives in my timetracker and is color-coded by activity intensity: grey is no intensity a.k.a. rest, purple is very low intensity, blue is low intensity, and orange is high intensity, and as you know I do the high-low, so I don't really do moderate intensity.

One thing that I wrestled with when I was working out my high-low was, for example, commuting. I commuted by bike to work for about a year or so? And the ride from my house to my work was a really decent ride, I think about thirty minutes with a series of hills. And I think I've told you, I used to count that as "commuting" and other workouts as "working out," but hello, that bike ride five times a week was a workout for me, result, I was exhausted and overtrained. So then I swung way in the other direction, which frankly I probably needed, so I was balancing my three high/two low/two rest on a day by day basis, as in, if I had a high intensity workout in a day, that was all I did for that day. Result, I mean, not directly a result of this decision, I was already uber-sedentary at work, which meant I was sitting for eight hours by day and then playing roller derby for two hours by night. Spoiler: that is a problem.

SO THEN, I started to sit for less prolonged periods, and I'll tell you what, when I started, it wiped me out. Mad respect for my friends who work on their feet all day. And it gave me doubt, I was like, what about my high-low, am I overtraining?

And I finally concluded, dude, if you don't have the steel to engage your upper back, abs, and glutes to keep your pelvis in its proper position, welp, suck it up until you do. Sleep more, if you have to. Fuel better. Ditto to if you don't have the gas to just get up twice an hour. Because what you are now is a Wile E Coyote cartoon of a giant boulder teetering on a teeny pointy rock; prolonged sitting is not good for your metabolism or your muscles, and then you play an explosive contact sport on top of that? Meep!

So, I widened my base for better support. It didn't take that much time or effort to build up the steel and gas to change those boxes from gray to purple. And I started to develop an idea of fitness that I'm actually actively working on with a couple of my clients, and the more we work with it, the more it makes tons of sense and is really paying off, an idea that I'm calling WHOLE DAY, which if you're WCR you know where that comes from and what that means, and if you don't you're probably thinking that I'm the worst product-namer there is, I keep coming up with names like BAMF! and SNIKT! that I think Marvel has trademarked, and there's already Whole Foods and Whole 30 sitting on the idea of whole, oh well.

Anyway the idea is, fitness is about your whole day. And that doesn't, emphatically does not, mean that the goal is to turn this whole chart orange, no more than hyponatremia is a goal for hydration. Not the goal, if that sentence was too windy. Be straightforward, Munt! The goal is, remember I said morning, afternoon, and evening? Morning and afternoon, you at least want to be active at a very low intensity, and I am defining that as you get up at least once and adequately twice an hour. Now some things you do are naturally more than that, say, cooking and cleaning, which I have coded as low intensity activity and defined this as you are up and moving continuously for, say, at least an hour. Which means that some folks, their mornings and afternoons are above very low intensity, and that doesn't mean they're overtrained—they have a stronger base, I'd say. Though I'd also look at the quality of their movement throughout the day, just like anybody else, with an eye to improving anything that's imbalanced or dysfunctional.

Because, because, because whatever little things you're doing for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week add up like nothing else. The way you stand, the way you walk, the way you climb stairs, the way you sit down, stuff that you have to do anyway just, as Prince would say, 2 get through this thing called life... but wait there's more, big glissando... electric word, life, it means forever and that's a mighty long time, why wouldn't you want that to work for you and not against you.

My experience has been limited so far to grey/purple/blue-based folks, really more to the grey and purple side; so consider my remarks in that context. But basically, mornings and afternoons at least purple and up to blue, and then on that base lay out the high-low in the evenings: three orange, two blue, two grey.

(Yes, I totally know that there are people whose mornings and afternoons are straight up orange. Like I said I don't work with those folks, so I can't say much. My feeling, though, is that they're fitter than I'll ever be and I'd just be interested in seeing how they do. Crossfit on top of being a bike messenger, or straight chilling on WoW, both entirely justifiable to my mind.)

So if you followed all that, you can see how my chart is laid out. You can see that I'm still working on my base, I have a few blocks not up to purple yet, and I'm thinking about that. When I'm planning or writing, I'm on the couch for the count, I feel like to get up would disrupt my flow, I mean I really feel that, but then again I went bananas for the first couple months trying to get myself up at work, and now it seems like a natural thing to do. So. TBD. And if I do say so myself, my high-low looks great, I always felt a little like I was cheating and squeezing in four orange in the week, but this new way of looking at things, just considering evenings, and considering how mornings and afternoons are balanced in themselves, it looks just right.

Now, you may not work out in the evening. You might be one of those people who get up at 5:00AM to run. You can still use this basic idea, just turn it upside down. And you are a very good person. I am not the trainer for you, though. And that's okay! There's lots of trainers who are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at dawn, lots and lots of them; this is what's great about the marketplace, you don't have to be all things to all people. Because there are ...other people! So you can just be yourself. If you think that the proper thing to do at 5:00AM is be asleep and you've got a little gas to burn evenings or better yet weekends, I'm your gal and inquire within.

If you don't know, "whole" in this trope comes from I think Bork who started the Manics saying "Whole Team" and that turned into "Whole League," which is really nice. I also say "Whole Can," for how I always use up a whole can of something.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Sunday Breakfast

parmesan broiled eggs with leftover rice, beans, tofu, and spinach, coffee with a spoonful of pumpkin butter and a splash of half and half left over from making furious russians for the fury draft party, and my usual glass of water

Parmesan broiled eggs in this leftover rice, beans, tofu, and spinach thingy that the sweetie man made for Friday dinner, coffee with a spoonful of pumpkin butter and a splash of half and half left over from making Furious Russians for the Fury draft party, and my usual glass of water.

So basically reheat the leftovers in a pat of butter and a swirl of olive oil in a skillet, there were tofu pieces that I squished to make crumbles, make wells for the eggs and fry them a bit, and I think I have settled on the broiler for finishing the tops of my eggs, so in that case they get a little protective sprinkle of parmesan, just a couple minutes under the broiler and it's nommer time.

The coffee is just coffee with a spoonful of Trader Joe's pumpkin butter stirred in, and a little bit of half and half. It's freaking delicious but very very sweet, good thing I only have one more spoonful and one more splash of half and half left; then I can go back to just butter coffee. Ha ha, "just" butter coffee.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Egression #84

Do you think this is her, standing by this goat?

84. Rant 69: 80 Thoughts on 40. Via Stumptuous.

I absolutely love this woman, I would like to quote the bits that I especially agree with but that would only result in her entire list being reproduced below so just click through.

I will normally never read a list past, say, twelve, but I read all EIGHTY and I think I agreed with all of them. Which is also unusual, I generally disagree with half of the lists that I do like; that does not invalidate a list for me.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

State of the Biz
 fall 2013

Siiigh, my darling client Heidi is moving to Hartford. When Heidi asked me if I would work with her last November, she was my second client: it was like how two points form a line. Up to that point I had been gleefully experimenting on my first clients, Chuck and Kris, but really from that moment on, I had a direction. We've done so much good work in this past year, and for the record Heidi's the only one who's been consistently using that heavy bag that's been hanging in the space, and also the one who's been underwriting these 6pm open skates every Thursday if you didn't know. Godspeed and go kick some Connecticut ass, Heidi!

So starting mid-October, there will be three clients. I will be petting them insanely. And there will be my six-week squat bootcamp starting October 3, that will fill the gap for six weeks at least. My life, lol, I totally love my life, but my life is like this plane trying to get off the ground, it's like bzzzzz, woo, we have liftoff, where any small amount of fuel added is equally matched by a small hole punched in the fuel tank, and to be fair, where any small hole punched in the fuel tank is equally matched by a small amount of fuel added, so it's like this plane pretty consistently flying two feet off the ground. Like my parents were serious about buying me these thirty-year savings bonds all when I was a kid, and whoa, it's been thirty years now, so I've been redeeming and partly living on them for the past few years, and all of a sudden last year, there was no bond for that month in the envelope, just a note from my dad saying that there had been an emergency and they'd cashed in the next four years of bonds, and that exact month is when I got my first clients Chuck and Kris, who picked up paying me just about the same amount I'd been getting for the bonds. Anyway so now Heidi is leaving, and I just picked up two extra days at work, so it evens out. Bzzzzz.

I feel like this is a good way to go. I may have said already. Working at my job part-time and as a trainer part-time, I mean. I do better with stability, so that's definitely working for now. And I might do better with balance, maybe that's how it's going to work from now on?

I mean, I have wishes. I have a dream. I have a dream that we rehab the downstairs apartment in lieu of rent and turn the front room into a little gym where I can work with folks. How much do you have to work, though, to pay for all that, on top of your living expenses, and health insurance? I really have no idea, I figure the first thing to do is to ask the question, not to anybody in particular, just ask it out loud, I guess to the universe. Then after the universe I guess to myself, who can actually figure it out.

I just got a letter from Fitness Formula Club, where I interviewed right after I got certified and was rightfully dinged, inviting me to update my resume with them. I don't think this is what I want. Is this what I want? I sure as hell would interview better with a year of experience under my belt, omg some of the things I said. Aah.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Chicken, Hearts of Palm, and Red Bell Salad
 over sliced peaches with pepitas

chicken, hearts of palm, red pepper, and pepita salad on sliced peaches

I feel like there are two basic kinds of chicken jars: the juicy kind that uses canned vegetables like artichoke hearts and hearts of palm, and the crunchy kind that uses raw vegetables like asparagus, brussels sprouts, fennel, and if I could find it at the Jewel, I would be making this with kohlrabi too. I feel like the juicy ones are best plated with fruit and the crunchy ones are really good with raisins, walnuts, and parmesan, but as always, your mileage may vary and you are the arbiter of your own food.

This peach that I photographed was on the crunchy side, still good, but the one I brought to work the next day was just perfectly ripe, and it was AMAZING.

a can of hearts of palm
a red bell pepper
three-quarters of 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
kosher salt
black pepper
a rotisserie chicken

For plating:
four peaches
pepitas

Slice the hearts of palm and pepper, and divide between four jars.

Eyeball three-quarters of a third cup vinegar and then measure a third cup olive oil into the cup of a rocket blender, add a pinch of salt and some grinds of black pepper, and whirr it all together. Divide the vinaigrette between the jars.

Divide the breast and thigh meat of the chicken between the jars, saving the rest for snacks and soup.

To serve, empty a chicken jar on a plate over a sliced peach. And throw some pepitas on top, why not.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Zucchini and Jalapeno Scrambled Eggs

zucchini and jalapeno scrambled eggs

I was planning to eat avocado vegetable hash for my late summer home breakfasts, but for about a week or two actual summer came back like blazes and it was too hot to turn on the oven. And I had come across these zucchini scramble breakfast tacos but I don't eat starch for breakfast and anyway am not organized enough to organize tacos for breakfast, but could definitely dig into that zucchini scramble on a plate. So that's what I did.

a pat of butter
a swirl of olive oil
a jalapeno
a zucchini
3 eggs
a couple tablespoons grated parmesan

Melt the butter with the olive oil in a skillet over low heat while you dice the jalapeno. Toss the diced jalapeno in the butter, turn up the heat to medium low, and let that soften while you dice the zucchini. Toss the diced zucchini into the jalapeno, turn up the heat to medium, push it around a bit with a heatproof rubber spatula but otherwise "let it work," as Rachael Ray says. The point of all this is to gently cook the veggies so they're tender—not raw-crunchy and not browned-crunchy—so they melt nicely, texture-wise, into the scrambled eggs. Now actually is a good time to do a few dishes, so you don't bother the veggies too much while they do their thing.

Beat the eggs and pour them over the softened veggies, and shake a little grated parmesan over the eggs. Push everything around with your rubber spatula until the eggs are scrambled and cooked, maybe a little longer so the scramble isn't watery but still moist. I said it, MOIST.

And that's it, scrape onto a plate and eat! It is a plate of awesome.

Monday, September 23, 2013

You DO Know Squat!
 six week bootcamp starting 10/3

For any and all skater folks who live in the Chicago area:

The next time you're in a pace line or hanging out in the scrum waiting for the jam whistle, look down and see if you're: a) kinda high up, b) hinged forward at the waist, c) knock-kneed, or d) kinda easy to knock down, and if yes to any of these, I sort of beg you to attend my October bootcamp.

Or for that matter, for any and all folks who sit down or occasionally pick up things!

The focus is going to be on squats, not RAWR SQUATS but more like huh, squats! Where we're going to really learn great squat form, and learn some things that you may not realize are actually super important for that. We're not going to be breathing fire for strength or conditioning, but you're going to feel it in muscles that maybe you're not using so much for this movement. Also: make sure that your movement is perfect before breathing fire, good safety tip.

The funny thing is, you were born knowing this. Look at any kid picking anything up off the floor, I practically guarantee that you will be looking at a perfect squat. And kids do things over and over so if you see it once, you'll see it like a hundred times. And you'll be like, that kid just did a hundred squats just to be annoying. We're going to get back to that: the squat that you knew and did over and over when you were a kid, the easiest and safest way to sit down and pick up things, and also the way to get strongest and fastest. And also the way to get the best buns.

This will be a four to six week one-hour session from 7:30-8:30pm starting Thursday, October 3 through November 7 at Tsubo. Four to six weeks means, you purchase a four week session for $40. Use all four, and you get your fifth session free. Use all five in a row, and your sixth session is also free, boom.

Holla at me at allapoppy (at) gmail (dot) com for signup details—first come, first serve up to twelve.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Sunday Breakfast

fried eggs and chiles desrellenos, summer squash, and yellow bell, orange juice, and water

Fried eggs and chiles desrellenos, summer squash, and yellow bell, orange juice, and water.

So I was saying, welp, being a genius at using up leftovers is a dumb thing to be a genius at, but I am the Charlie Eppes of using up leftovers, and Tami said no, using up leftovers is a great thing to be a genius at, in fact, it is a lost art in our single serve society. So yay, I'm sorry I didn't post that breakast, it was baked eggs in leftover tofu, red bell, and pineapple stir fry that I stretched out with summer squash and jalapeno.

My basic formula for stretching leftovers into breakfast is to saute a zucchini or summer squash and a sweet or hot pepper in a pat of butter and a swirl of olive oil, then add in the leftovers and a couple eggs. Today's breakfast is summer squash and yellow bell with an unusually hot chile relleno, the added veg did very well to mellow out the hot. I fry-basted the eggs right in the hash.

The sweetie man has been making Friday night dinners because my week is long and I am tired, and in addition to me not having to cook, it adds an lively element of randomosity to my orderliness, sort of our relationship in a nutshell.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Egression #83

p: do elephants breathe through their trunks?

m: i'm sure they can.

p: it just seems like such a long way for the air to go.

m: it is a long way.

p: ...

m: ...

m: but then giraffes breathe through their necks.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Persillade Cubes

persillade for salmon

Hey, look what I did!

So like, Friday evenings—the first evening at home I get all week, so I really like to stay in—I've been stopping by the Jewel on the way home and picking up a piece of salmon to make salmon and broccoli for dinner. I had been keeping a container of chopped parsley in the freezer, which I'll probably go back to when I go back to making egg bites for breakfast, but last week I had no parsley, so I bought a bunch, washed, trimmed, and whizzed it in the food processor with a smashed and peeled head of garlic and just enough olive oil to get it moving. I used some for that night's salmon, and spooned the rest into a spare ice cube tray, not one that I use for making ice cubes, into the freezer and voila, persillade cubes. So now I have enough cubes to use for five more salmon dinners, two per dinner.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Weekly Slate

weekly slate

So you know, I've been squishing my weekly chart into shape for years, I've been loading in back entries from this blog's earlier version and you can see its early formation in the archives if you want. It's pretty well massaged by now, I have it down to three major time blocks: morning, afternoon, and evening. I know, it took me four years to invent morning, afternoon, and evening. What makes it work for me, though, is finally having it in my head that each block is, like, one gesture, like each block is about one idea. Which really simplifies and clarifies my week.

I developed this over the years in index cards, spreadsheets, lots of different systems, and now it's finally boiled down to this small dry erase board permanently marked with three blocks in a day and seven days in the week. Which I fill in every week with the week's actual appointments, here a slightly kayfabe version to protect the innocent.

I really only bring this up because I'm about to unveil a new training skeleton where this revolutionary morning-afternoon-evening idea pretty strongly comes into play, and also a little bit to sell the idea of simplicity, so much has been trimmed out of my life so that it can be expressed in a 3 x 7 grid, euhh, for everything there is a season. I think there's a time when you want to live a jam-packed life, try all the things, and then there's a time for cherry-picking and plenty of white space around what you've picked, and this is what that looks like.

At some point I should zoom out to show you my display wall! You can see the corner of one of the picture rails that the sweetie man found in the alley, he is a genius at finding things in the alley. You can almost tell him, I need x, and like the next week he finds it in the alley. With the picture rails and the dominion habitat and my nephew's portrait of Obama, the wall is filling in pretty nicely like actual home decoration.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Fried Eggs with Avocado Brussels Hash

fried eggs with brussels sprout, jalapeno, and avocado hash

Remember the formula for this hash is avocado + whatever vegetable + a pepper, hot or sweet.

however many brussels sprouts are leftover from making chicken jars
a jalapeno pepper
olive oil
salt
an avocado

Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Trim and quarter the brussels sprouts lengthwise, and seed and sliver the pepper. Toss them in a baking pan with a little olive oil and salt, and put them in the oven for fifteen minutes.

Cut up the avocado into hash-size pieces and stir them into the roasted vegetables.

For the rest of this breakfast

Fry some eggs in a bit of olive oil or butter in a skillet over medium high heat. I crack my eggs in the oil, let them set a bit, then dribble in a little water from the kettle and cover the skillet for a couple minutes.

Plate the eggs with the hash.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Chicken, Brussel Sprouts, and Yellow Bell Salad
 with golden raisins, walnuts, and parmesan

chicken, brussels sprouts, and yellow bell pepper with raisins, walnuts, and parmesan

I'm generally a stickler for using up a whole vegetable in a recipe, so half-used vegetables don't collect in the fridge; but I'm making avocado vegetable hash for breakfast these days and for that you can throw whatever bits and nubs in the baking pan. So for this I get a little net bag of brussels sprouts, use about three sprouts per chicken jar, and use up the rest in hash.

say a dozen brussels sprouts
a yellow bell pepper
three-quarters of 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
kosher salt
black pepper
a rotisserie chicken
golden raisins
walnuts
shaved or shredded parmesan

Trim and very thinly slice the brussels sprouts, slice the pepper, and divide between four jars.

Eyeball three-quarters of a third cup vinegar and then measure a third cup olive oil into the cup of a rocket blender, add a pinch of salt and some grinds of black pepper, and whirr it all together. Divide the vinaigrette between the jars.

Divide the breast and thigh meat of the chicken between the jars, saving the rest for snacks and soup.

To serve, empty a chicken jar on a plate, and top with golden raisins, walnuts, and parmesan.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Sunday Breakfast

hardboiled egg, leftover tilapia and tomato, avocado, and sweet onion salsa from fish tacos, and cantaloupe

Hardboiled egg, leftover tilapia and tomato, avocado, and sweet onion salsa from fish tacos, and cantaloupe.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

I Know I Know You're Not Telling The Truth

odie on his air mattress

It does make a nice air mattress for Odie.

p: omg.

m: what.

p: look at this sheet of bubble wrap.

p: see how it looks so juicy?

p: when you try to pop it... it's pop resistant.

m: what!

p: see, there are channels between the bubbles.

p: so when you squish one bubble, the air is distributed to the other bubbles through the channel.

m: that's so wrong.

p: it's diabolical!

p: this is like a sheet of evil.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Chicken, Asparagus, and Pepperoncini Salad
  with golden raisins, walnuts, and parmesan

So the basic formula for chicken jars, which you then make into chicken salads, is vegetable + sweet pepper + vinaigrette + rotisserie chicken:

a bunch of asparagus
some pepperoncini peppers that you happen to have in the fridge
   or say, the red bell pepper that I spaced out and forgot to put on the grocery list
three-quarters of 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
kosher salt
black pepper
a rotisserie chicken

Thinly slice the asparagus on the diagonal, slice the pepper, and divide between four jars.

I've been feeling like a little bit more vinaigrette and my basic vinegar to oil ratio is 3:4, I eyeball three-quarters of a third cup vinegar and then actually measure a third cup olive oil—like in the 1/3 cup measuring cup, I use it twice— add a pinch of salt and some grinds of black pepper, whirr it all together in the small cup of the rocket blender, and divide the vinaigrette between the jars.

Divide the breast and thigh meat of the chicken between the jars, saving the rest for snacks and soup.

Then I have three variations for plating this as a salad: on salad greens, on sliced fruit like thinly sliced granny smith apples alla Mya, or my current obsession, pictured here, topped with golden raisins, walnuts, and parmesan:

chicken, asparagus, and pepperoncini with golden raisins, walnuts, and parmesan

a chicken jar
golden raisins
walnuts
shaved or shredded parmesan

Empty your jar of chicken and fennel pepper vinaigrette on a plate, and top with golden raisins, walnuts, and parmesan. I pack raisins, walnuts, and parmesan for work in a little snack bag.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

The Owner's Guide to Replacing Your Hockey Helmet Strap

replacing your helmet strap

So hey, a thing that can happen with your hockey helmet is, you can hit your head on the floor—and your helmet protects your head from that impact, so I'm totally fine—but then the snap on the strap pops open and the helmet flies off your head and rolls away, what a weird sight that was, it was like seeing my head roll away. Anyway, I got my helmet just about three years ago, and I remember the snap was actually hard to fasten and the guy at Gunzo's said that it would loosen up and be easier to fasten, and eventually it would not stay fastened, in which case I could replace just the strap. So, that happened. Funk very nicely got me a new strap from Gunzo's and I'm back in business and telling you this because your helmet may be about the same age as mine, you may want to check how good your snap is and maybe get a new strap for a few bucks.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Late Summer Cooking Practices
 tuesday

Lemon, eggs, and watermelon all done on Sunday leaves chicken jars, greens, and meat for Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I wake up, drink my green tea and lemon, do my 750 words, tidy the bedroom, and tidy the kitchen. I'm having fried eggs and avocado vegetable hash for home breakfasts, so it's a good use to time to put the dishes in the sink to soak, mostly to clear off my tiny workspace, which is the top of the kitchen cart that I refinished when I was baked on vicodin, cut up the vegetables for my hash and get them in the oven, and let them roast while I wash the dishes. Then I finish up making the hash and a couple fried eggs, and eat my breakfast in the living room.

After breakfast, I go back to the kitchen. The cutting board is still out from making breakfast, I cut up my vegetable and my pepper for my chicken jars, whirr up some vinaigrette in the rocket blender and pour it over the vegetables in the jars, and then divide up the chicken into the jars.

chicken jars

This is chicken with thinly sliced brussels sprouts and yellow bell pepper, with my go-to red wine vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette.

Drumsticks and wings get saved for other lunches, I usually eat those with a cut up nectarine. I used to save the carcass in the freezer to make stock, but it was getting to be like the sorcerer's apprentice in there, except with frozen chicken carcasses and frozen stock instead of mops and buckets. I honestly don't eat soup that much, it's not enough food. I only eat soup when I'm sick. So regretfully, I've been throwing out the carcasses.

Then I put a pot of water on to blanch the greens, I say greens instead of kale because Glory also makes bags of collard and turnip greens, so I've been mixing them up. I blanch the greens and saute them, and then they go into a takealong container. I don't know why not a mason jar, but this container works.

Then in the same pan that I sauteed the greens in, I make either Korean ground beef or Chinese ground pork. Did you know, turmeric grows in roots like ginger? If I could get fresh turmeric at the Jewel, and also ground mutton, which did you know you can get that at the supermarket in London, I could make a something or other ground mutton. Indian or Persian. But Jewel does not have fresh turmeric or mutton or even ground lamb, oh well. Also Food In My Beard has an an intriguing recipe for sloppy tofu, which I could could turn into something or other ground tofu. That I can do.

greens meat

I wonder why I didn't think to cook up a pot of quinoa and toss it into a container for quinoa bowls, instead of rice bowls with the Trader Joe's rice. I think I'm going to eat up my stock of rice and then try that, doesn't that sound good? Quinoa with kale and meat? Then when it gets cold enough, I'm going to go back to baking sweet potatoes and keeping a container of sweet potatoes in the fridge for sweet potato bowls.

Anyway. This here fridge. Is stocked with a jar of cut lemons, green tea in the pantry, a half carton of six hardboiled eggs, three jars of cut watermelon, more eggs, zucchini, jalapenos, and avocados for hash, four chicken jars, a container of shaved parmesan, raisins and walnuts in the pantry, also cashews in the pantry, nectarines, a container of kale, a container of meat, microwaveable rice in the freezer, a container of greek yogurt, a jar of applesauce, a jar of natural peanut butter that I'm trying out that has to be kept in the fridge, frozen apple juice cubes in the freezer, almond milk, and also club soda, coconut water, and tart cherry juice for workout drinks and sometimes I like tart cherry soda. I have all these things written out on a list, of course I do.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Late Summer Cooking Practices
 sunday

This late summer cooking plan is a teeny bit more work because I have to cut up the watermelon. But I have settled into Sunday morning for this part and as long as I'm doing that, I also cut up my lemon and I boil my eggs so they're ready for the week.

lemon eggs

Lemon and eggs, you've seen these before. I only make six eggs now though, just for work. I'm transitioning to different eggs for fall.

So I wake up whenever on Sunday morning, sometimes at my normal wakeup time, which is eight, sometimes I sleep past nine, in which the sweetie man pokes his head back in the bedroom to make sure I don't have SIDS, so far so good. It's sort of a rule, probably to be saved for posterity as an official habit, that I stick to my morning routine whenever I wake up, since I generally don't have anywhere to be until afternoon. I drink my green tea and lemon, I write my 750 words, then I get up and tidy the bedroom and the kitchen—and actually, three out of those four are already officially habits. I don't think I've told you about 750 Words yet, though.

Anyway after the kitchen is tidied, I set about making breakfast. Which on Sunday is scrambled eggs and watermelon, which is how the watermelon gets done. First, I cut up the lemon on the fruit cutting board. Then I cut up the watermelon, it's that mini volleyball-sized watermelon. I top and tail the ends and slice out any fruit and bring that to the sweetie man. Ha ha I know, a whole watermelon and he gets the ends. I'm mean. Then I halve the watermelon lengthwise, and halve it again lengthwise. Then I quarter the quarters crosswise, I use the tip of the knife to slice the fruit out of the rinds, and quarter the slices into bite-size pieces. A quarter of the whole watermelon goes on my plate for Sunday breakfast, and the other three quarters goes into three jars for MWF work breakfasts.

watermelon jars

And that's Sunday, I scramble some eggs and plate them with the watermelon.

scrambled eggs and watermelon

Watermelon with salt is so perfect, I thought sprinkling a little cayenne pepper would wreck its perfection. But. It doesn't.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Late Summer Food Chart

Same basic plan as summer so far, just freshening things up a bit:

  • Morning Drink - green tea and lemon
  • Breakfast - eggs and vegetable - Hard boiled eggs are sooo easy to set up, I want to keep eating them as long as humanly possible, so I'm freshening them up with watermelon instead of tomato and avocado for Sunday and work breakfasts. In addition to being SO DELICIOUS, watermelon is also supposed to be good for muscle recovery, nom nom nom! For home breakfasts, I'm eating fried eggs with avocado vegetable hash so I'm sticking with vegetables for at least part of the week.
  • Lunch - chicken and vegetable - I'm widening the variety of my chicken jars, more TK. These also are so easy, I'm also going to stretch them as far as I can. The basic formula is vegetable and pepper plus vinaigrette, plus chicken, and then you can plate a jar either on lettuce or on sliced fruit or topped with raisins, walnuts, and parmesan, I am obsessed with the latter.
  • Afternoon Snack - nuts and fruit - Do you want to hear something weird, only almonds seem right for snacking to me, definitely not walnuts or pecans, and then recently I accepted cashews, and it turns out that almonds and cashews are seeds, not nuts. So like I have an unconscious preference for seeds? Anyway. I did a reality check about the calories in almonds and cashews, it's like 200 for a palmful and I was eating ...way more than a palmful. So I'm keeping it to a palmful and getting the rest of my nibbles from fruit. This is the extent to which I interface with calories: I mostly stick to whole foods and I eat what I want, with the occasional reality check. Nectarines are lovely this time of year. I don't think I've detailed my afternoon snacks in previous food charts, but earlier in the summer I was snacking on dark chocolate and nuts, but I burnt out on chocolate. Which I didn't know was a thing that could happen, but it did.
  • Dinner - meat, veg, and rice, or fish and veg - I have settled into a happy routine of korean ground beef or chinese ground pork, sauteed kale, and half a packet of Trader Joe's microwaveable rice. I tried cauliflower and cauliflower rice, but it just didn't give me enough gas for practice and at the same time gave me gas, excuse me for saying so. Adding in kale, a) is tasty, and b) adds a little but not too much veg, and c) lets me cut the rice in half. I empty half the packet into my bowl and save the rest for tomorrow's dinner, it keeps fine in the fridge. On nights I don't work out, which for late summer is Friday and Saturday night, Friday night I make salmon and broccoli, idk, I used to not be able to tolerate cooking at the end of the day, let alone the end of the week, but lately I really like stopping by the Jewel, picking out a piece of salmon, cleaning up the kitchen, and making a little salmon dinner for me and the sweetie man. The most satisfying thing about the way I cook is, I wash dishes as I go. Dinner's ready and the kitchen's so clean, it looks like I got takeout. And I think, I am goood. Which is great to be able to think about yourself, you know? Saturdays we've been going to the movies and having popcorn and coke for dinner, which is great is a different way.
  • Workout Drink - tart cherry coconut water
  • Post Workout Snack - greek yogurt and fruit - greek yogurt pie smoothies

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Late Summer Fitness Chart

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP
morning morning morning morning morning morning morning
HOME
Systems
WORK
 
HOME
Cooking
WORK
 
HOME
Cleaning
WORK
 
HOME
Laundry
Grocery
PLAY
practice
WORK
 
PASTIME
 
WORK
 
PASTIME
 
WORK
 
PLAY^^
 
PLAY
referee
PLAY
practice
PLAY
practice
PLAY^
volume
PLAY^
scrimmage
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
evening evening evening evening evening evening evening
SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP

The big idea I'm working on now, actually have been working on for most of this year, is setting a baseline of activity all day, every day. On this chart, grey is no activity; purple is very low intensity activity; blue is low intensity activity, the matte blue being "daily living" activity and the bright blue being "fitness" activity; and orange is high intensity activity. So the bright part of the chart is the same as it ever was, threeish high intensity workouts, twoish low intensity workouts, and two rests, and the big idea is that the matte part of the chart should be all filled in. Which it mostly is, except for those four PASTIME blocks. Two of those are my two rest evenings and the other two are my Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, which at the moment I feel like I need between doing household chores in the morning and being up for fairly hard practices in the evening. I'm fine with that for now, I've mostly been focused on recognizing daily activity like cooking and cleaning as activity and switching on just a little activity at times when I'm mostly sedentary like at work, which is what BAMF was all about.

This may look unbalanced and not very restful. First of all, when I say very low activity, I really do mean very low, like a 1 on a scale of 1 to 5. But on the other hand, switching from 0 to 1 is a significant uptick. If you're used to sitting relaxed and slouched for eight hours, sitting up and engaged actually tires you out. Now here's the thing, if you don't have the endurance to sit up and engaged when you're awake, you will almost never hear me say "should," but: you should. Set yourself to it, start small by all means and build up to it, but get there. Anything else that you do for fitness is laid out on this base, it could be nothing else and you'd be covered. Or it could be a hella lot and you'll be properly supported.

Where I am at the moment is four blocks away from there, and it's taken eight months of "training" to get here. This was my offskates workout all home season. I feel like people think I'm always lifting chunks of iron with my teeth in my spare time, but not this year. This year was brushing my teeth standing on one foot with my eyes closed, walking to the train with my glutes, abs, and upper back engaged, waiting for the train balanced up on the ball of one foot, riding handsfree, taking the stairs two at a time without wobbling, and last but not least, sitting fully engaged on a stability ball and standing up twice an hour stretch it all out and reset. A lot of silly tiny habits that don't seem like they take enough to do, really nothing to write home about. Except that my balance and core strength are noticeably improved: I can take a hit, I can push through a pack, I can hang four around a turn, and I didn't do anything that made me breathe hard or break a sweat.

I mean, nothing against breathing hard or breaking a sweat. Just saying, there's this big easy box in your fitness plan that would behoove you to fill out. Then you can get back to the little sweaty boxes to your heart's content, and you'll be better at them.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Late Summer Chart

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP
morning morning morning morning morning morning morning
HOME
Systems
WORK
 
HOME
Cooking
WORK
 
HOME
Cleaning
WORK
 
HOME
Laundry
Grocery
PLAY
practice
WORK
 
PASTIME
 
WORK
 
PASTIME
 
WORK
 
PLAY^^
 
PLAY
referee
PLAY
practice
PLAY
practice
PLAY^
volume
PLAY^
scrimmage
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
evening evening evening evening evening evening evening
SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP

It was a smart thing to switch my work days to Monday and Wednesday ahead of Jackie going back to school at the end of August, I was able to develop a solid routine and then pretty seamlessly pick up her two days when she went back. I had a long philosophical debate for a lot of the summer about going back to working every Friday instead of every other, but that was decided for me because, hello, more work to do. So now I work three days a week and don't have a business development day; but truthfully I spent the two that I had scheduled on the couch watching CSI. Philosophically I was debating is business development something that I have to do or something that I think I have to do, I know that sounds crazy, or possibly lazy, but I have sincere thoughts about this that I might get to later.

2. Home teams start back up after Labor Day, which basically means Fury instead of Third Coast practice on Sunday. Also Third Coast has rotating Monday night practices with the other two travel teams, ninety minute practices to fit them all in, and I kinda love them.

Result: I'm out of the house Sunday through Thursday, which is a long row to hoe. It's the row that all this ::waves hands:: has been leading up to, though, so. I've been taking my breaks Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, those are my evenings off. Sometimes I'm alert enough to write; so when I am, I do that.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Eat Greek Yogurt and Fruit for Post-Workout Snack

i am going to eat greek yogurt and fruit for post-workout snack

This finishes my food habits. I haven't written up spacefood as a habit, I guess I could do that. Also afternoon snacks, though that's just fruit or nuts. I have enough things to think about and there are enough things that can be eaten as is that I don't have to be prepping every last thing that goes into my mouth. Writing all these up was a little kobayashi maru, being that I already had most of these well in hand. Though there was a time that I didn't, and to a large extent I've worked them out in these very friendly confines. Anyway what I've worked out is that the way I do, which works for me, your mileage may vary, is to make habits out of what I eat when. It saves on decision fatigue, I've been doing this for so long I can't imagine debating what to eat at every mealtime. It's not that I put less thought into what I eat, obviously not, circumspicere. It's more that I put more thought into fewer decisions, I sort of globally decided that it would be eggs for breakfast, chicken for lunch, nuts for afternoon snack, meat or fish for dinner, and greek yogurt for post-workout snack year round, and then I decide quarterly what particular egg, chicken, nuts, meat and fish, and greek yogurt recipes it's going to be for the next thirteen weeks, and I'm getting to be able to repeat previous years' recipes, so even less thinking going forward.

I mean, things fall apart, the center doesn't always hold. And it's almost never a smooth transition, it's always that squealing brakes sound when all of a sudden I'm sick of everything that I've been happily chowing down for twelve weeks, and then usually there's a week in there of coke and chex mix for lunch and a pint of cherry garcia in bed. No worries, I chalk it up to part of the process.

The Cue

The cue for greek yogurt and fruit is getting home from practice, obviously. Sometimes I don't go straight home, sometimes I go out with my team and then I try to have something of a protein and vegetable nature—like fish tacos on lettuce at The Beetle, but you know sometimes it's wings and tecate at Five Star. But anyway I do pretty much always refuel within 45 minutes of working out, I go way back with that—you can poke around for more info about that.

The Routine

It was the pumpkin smoothie that clicked everything into place, everything greek yogurt anyway. So it's going to be pie smoothies for fall, which includes pumpkin, apple, key lime, and Mimi just invented a SWEET POTATO smoothie that I want to play around with, woah. Winter is going to be greek yogurt with baked fruit, spring is going to be greek yogurt with fruit compote, and summer is going to be greek yogurt fruit smoothies.

Fruit smoothies don't require any prep apart from getting groceries, pie smoothies take a little bit, and baked fruit and fruit compote have to be made ahead of time, but the point is that everything is ready to be grabbed out of the refrigerator or freezer as soon as I get home. Now that I'm thinking, this is true about most of my meals, my refrigerator is jam-packed with mason jars. So really the routine is in the prep, which you can read about in my cooking practices. At the point of sale, so to speak, eighty to ninety percent of the time I'm grabbing a jar and eating what's in it.

The Reward

So really the cooking practice is the habit, and having everything ready to eat is the reward. I do also put thought into everything being delicious, eating for fuel and eating for pleasure aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Status: ACTIVE