Last week I was cleaning out my office at work (gearing up for an office move) and found some gems. I keep a lot of crap, with this idea like I’m going to need it some day. The following workout is from around 2005 or so. Back before kids, and that nonsense. Don’t think I followed this, I didn’t. This was a copy of what’s one of my teammates were up to. I might have joined in on occasion, but not regularly. Man, to be young again …
This one is … Interesting. It’s simple enough: pork shoulder cut Into cubes; tart apple cored and cubed; sliced water chestnuts; hard cider.
I’ve cooked with alcoholic beverages in the past: beef stroganoff, Guinness BBQ sauce, husband makes these tasty whiskey mushrooms. The alcohol burns off, right? Right? Then why, when having my leftovers at lunch today, did I feel slightly lightheaded? Almost buzzed? I didn’t notice anything yesterday as I had the remaining cider with my meal. Husband didn’t notice anything but he also has a far higher tolerance than me, and the following morning he did mention a little weirdness. And child? Good golly, did I give my kid a spiked bowl of stew? I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t want to eat what I cooked.
There could be other reasons fir that feeling. I’ve changed my diet… I was running on about 4 hours sleep. Add any other reasons here. Not sure I’ll be making this one again.
Pork loin in the SC has not always worked out for me. I tend to shy away, but I suggested this to the Husband the night prior and he gave a thumbs up so I decided to go for it. A great dish, with the majority of the spice ingredients in-house.
Pork loin, teriyaki sauce, rice vinegar, red pepper flakes. The pork needs to be in for a good 8 hours, and peanut butter is swirled into the sauce at the very end. Brilliant way to do this, which was not a method suggested in an Internet version of a similar dish.
Tonight’s dinner was South Beach Phase 2. I imagine there is some sugar in the pre-made teriyaki sauce I used, but I suppose you could develop a non-sugar version if you were so inclined. today i was not. Instead of the suggested jasmine rice, I used lettuce cups. Kiddo and husband just went without a grain. I also made a salad and stir fried some green beans (what the kid and I call crunchy style). This tasted great. Will add it to the rotation. Next time, more pork, more leftovers.
Recipe from NYMSCC.
Catching up on some food posts. Found this pic from a month or two ago. Husband generally doesn’t care for chili or soup for dinner. So I conjured up this one on a day I knew he had other plans. Pretty sure he still had some despite his plans.
Brown the beef. Kidney beans, diced tomatoes and onions. Love recipes where they call for lots of cans of stuff! That’s guac and plain Greek yogurt on the side. While Greek yogurt is a great alternative to sour cream I wish it didn’t look like sour cream, because it does and you expect that creamy sour taste. Sigh.
Salsa Chicken: File this under easy-peasy. Chicken thighs and chicken breasts. Jar of salsa (our go-to is Newman’s Own Pineapple salsa, medium). On high for a few hours, 4-ish. This was what I made when I was supposed to be juice-fasting. For family members not fasting there was guacamole, shredded cheese wrapped in a tortilla.
Chicken with Lemon and Mushrooms: Last week, I did enjoy this. Whole chicken, lemon and spices shoved into the cavity. Mushrooms covering above. 4.5 hours on high. Instead of steaming I roasted some cauliflower and broccoli. We steam our veggies 95% of the time. Sometimes you gotta change it up. I love the making the whole chicken because we have leftovers for days.
Chicken isn’t always a favorite but it usually takes less time to cook, and it could be considered “lighter” fare compared to the heavier, beefier dishes I’ve done in the past. I make extra for leftovers but sometimes certain family members overindulge then pay for it. Happens less with poultry. But, some non-chicken posts coming up.
Both of these, with more detail and ingredients, courtesy of Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook.
The last time I did a 2-a-day? Was probably the previous decade. Probably related to rowing. The term “2-a-day” infers more than just doing 2 workouts in a day, more than once a decade. But, I’m gonna use it here because it’s sort of a momentous occasion. Much like running a half-marathon in my life (once every 8 years seems pretty doable).
5:30 AM: WOD. Worked on my Wendler Deadlift (Week 3). Then,
6 Min AMRAP:
6 chin-ups
10 burpees
THEN
10 strict Toes-to-Bar
15 Russian Twists with 10 lb Plate
30 AbMat sit ups.
I’m writing this out because I forgot my phone! COuldn’t take a pic. The Strict T2B. WTF? I was like a dead weight just hanging there. I killed it in the AMRAP then took so long with the T2B I was the last one to finish. Not that I was keeping track.
So, that was the morning. In the PM, I ran the Microsoft Giving Campaign 5K for the third time in a row. I hope not my last. For some reason I like competing against nerds and geeks. Though this year I was like 30 seconds slower that previous years. The course changed, and they did away with a short flight of stairs and replaced it with a long incline.
At least, that’s my excuse.
There was one other element that may have caused the slower time. I cheated. Remember how I always complain because so many people start in heats that are faster than their actual pace. Then I get stuck spending my first mile dodging and juking around all of these slow pokes, or worse, the ones who start walking and become obstacles. Nothing against having to walk, but try to be considerate. Don’t hog the sidewalk.
So, I cheated this time. Snuck into Heat 3 when I belonged in Heat 4. It was great! Paced myself very well for the first two miles. Under 9:00 mins for miles one AND two. Then, mile 3. Woowee. I looked down at my time and was like Wha? 10:36?
Yes. 10:36. And the final time is posted up above.
So, what did cheating, what did sneaking into Heat 3 get me? A whole lotta nothing! Instead of being motivated by passing everyone left and right, I was passed left and right! That’s a blow to your motivation. So. No more cheating.
Well, except that today was cheat day. I’m on South Beach Phase 1 for the week and after the race I had a bagel. Thank you, Blazing Bagels. And a banana. Oh heavens, a banana. I might have had some chocolate. Confession time over.
Here you go, some of the WODs from the month, in no particular order (well actually they mostly are in chronological order with most recent first, but I didn’t take a photo of every class).
Liz called this “Jumping Diane” as she threw in a lot of doubleunders. Pike Push ups instead of handstands. Doubleunders. Yuck.
7 rounds made this tough. And when you’re on the ground doing Turkish Get Ups, you kind of just want to stay on the floor and take a nap.
This was a Friday, I can tell by the handwriting. Old Jess (which is silly because she is not old at all. But there is a new trainer at the “box”, and she is also Jess). Round 1, I got to 15 of the first set of Wall Balls. Round 2, I got to the end of the last set of Box Jumps. I don’t know if we were meant to actually complete this workout.
Hmm. I did this one. I see my name up there, and it looks like I was the last one to finish. Must have been a good one. 
Oh yeah, this was annoying. “You know it’s hard with the Toes to Bar is your rest” was what we said afterwards. That’s Zach.
Funny when you recognize the handwriting. Danielle. Otherwise not very memorable. Is that good or bad? 
Ah, the return of the 500M sprints. Compare my times here with the last time we did this. I didn’t have a partner, so I did a 2-minute rest in between pieces. (I’ve brought my splits down. Excelente).
This was weeks ago but I clearly remember it better than all the other ones 😐
This experiment officially went haywire at 11:00 AM PT. I had a successful morning, even went to Crossfit in the morning and completed an ‘enhanced’ version of Diane. Almond-Orange-Coconut was chugged before catching the bus. It was bottle #2, Kale-Cucumber-Apple-Lime, that did me in. I see now I accident opened #3 first, but I don’t think it would have made a difference. A few swigs in and it just wasn’t happening. Coincidentally my work spouse IM’d me to see if I wanted to go to SBUX. YES, FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY, YES!
Tall Americano, a little bit of nonfat milk. So. Good. I went back to my desk and ate my carrots. Ate my chicken. Had an energy bar. And so on and so forth. Another latte may have been imbibed. Along with a cookie. Fast? What fast?
Boss/fellow juice faster came by and I raved about the espresso. She was not as happy. Earlier in the day, as she reflected on her successful juice cleanse, she said, out loud, “the next time I do this …” And all I could say was, you’re doing this AGAIN? Inconceivable.
Dinner was halibut with salad and steamed veggies. For dessert I spread some PB on graham crackers. I tried to get into bottle #3, which was actually #4, and just couldn’t hack it. Carrot-Apple-Beet-Ginger might have tasted great on any other day. Today, while eating real food, it just wasn’t doing it for me.
Lessons learned:
There is no next time for me, however I do see this weekend as a successful precursor to South Beach Diet phase 1. Kicking out processed foods for a couple of days (longer, if you can manage) is a great refreshing change. Juice only, maybe not so much.
You should always start with good intentions, and so I attempted just that this morning. I woke up groggy, and started in with a cup of ginger green tea (hmm, I thought, this would taste great with a little honey, which I’ll skip today, ho hum), and bottle #1, Carrot-Almond-Orange-Cinnamon. I don’t know if I was supposed to have the tea with the juice, but I really need something hot in the morning. Husband and kiddo had a doughnut. Chocolate Rainbow. Boo.
The morning included a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle with the kiddo, church and a trip to the fabric store. In between tasks 2 and 3 I cracked open bottle #2 Kale-Cucumber-Apple-Lime. I think I made it until the noon hour before breaking, where I had carrot sticks and about an ounce of leftover grilled chicken, plus a slice of turkey from PCC. So, I’m not really doing great with this juice fast thing. The best I can do is limit the food, and focus on non-processed food.
Took another nap today. 2 naps, 2 days in a row…. It could be the juice to blame, I can’t be sure. I do know that this juice thing has me sleeping more than I have in weeks.
Had some shrimp-mango salad while starting my third bottle, Carrot-Pineapple-Lime. I also had more chicken breast for dinner (future slow cooker post to come), then took my last bottle, Celery-Cucumber-Kale-Spinach-Parlsey-Apple-Lemon-Ginger, upstairs to watch the Emmys. Y’know, for work. So, a weekend of nothing but juice? Fail. Two days with just enough to get by, and zero processed bad stuff? Win.
I was hungry today. Many times I felt the hunger pangs, the grumbling, that weird warm feeling in my belly, like the organs want to churn on something, but nothing’s there. I am not missing the irony that I paid a chunk of cash to do this to myself, to feel this way. There are million of people who don’t have that choice. I am so lucky. If you are reading this, you are probably lucky to. Count your blessings.
On a whim, I asked my friend C if she had ever tried a juice cleanse.
-No, but I’ve been meaning to, wanna do it?
-Sure.
We probably had this conversation weeks ago, and finally on Wednesday we did the deed and put in our order. Strawberry Moon Juice, a local Seattle business provides home delivery the day/evening before you start. So when I came home from work on Fri I had (12)16-oz bottles of juice waiting for me. They were organized and marked so I knew which bottle to drink, and when. This reduces the thinking on my part and spreads out the sugar.
This morning I got out of bed around 6:30/7, started my first juice, “Carrot-Pineapple-Lime,” around 7. My strategy was to drink slowly. I finished the bottle around 7:45, and set off for the day. Trip to Target (including a green tea from SBUX); shuffle home then back out with the kiddo for Family Swim, the back home again. By 11, we were home and I was famished. So I took out bottle #2 to sip. It was the greens juice, Celery-Cucumber-Kale-Spinach-Parsley-Lemon-Apple-Ginger. But I was tired. Husband was a little concerned, suggested I eat something. Went to the store to get some stuff for the kiddo, and also bought a half of a grilled chicken breast and organic baby carrots, just in case.
I broke my juice fast at 1 p.m. with some of those baby carrots. I had a few, while kid ate lunch then we headed to the park (could be the last sunny day in Seattle! Take advantage!). We got back and at 2ish I broke it again with that chicken breast. It was cold, with no dressing, and it was like the best tasting chicken ever. Chicken!
Soon after that I fell asleep on the couch. I had been sleepy all day. I couldn’t decide if the tiredness was due to my all-in effort to cram in 2 seasons of “Scandal” before the fall premiere next week, the stress of work, or the juice. I was up 2 hours later (yes, I took a 2-hour nap! Jealous?) and felt great.
Opened up bottle #3. Almond-Pear. I knew a ‘nut milk’ juice would be in the mix, and this was … interesting. The fam was ordering takeout Chinese for dinner. Since I had already broke the fast, I got some hot and sour soup, then also did a salad from the fridge(not dressed), and a shrimp-mango salad thing (from the store).
I’m still working on bottle #3. The taste grew on me a bit, like the vanilla-almond smoothie from Odwalla.
I didn’t expect to make it three days on juice alone. I did think I might make it past 1 in the afternoon… Well, there’s always tomorrow.