Food and Exercise. What else matters?

Scientific fact: Food tastes much, much better after a 24-hour fast, and one can fit much, much more into one’s tummy. For breakfast today:

• Three 8oz cups of fresh coffee, brewed with the “strong, stout” settings on my Capresso (I get my coffee from Anderson’s, pretty much the only place one should go). I drank the coffee about an hour and a half before I broke my fast, in order to enhance the fat burning effect of the fast before I broke it:
  • Indonesian Sulawesi
  • Guatemalan Antigua
  • Ethiopia Yergacheffe (absolutely wonderful)
• 4 eggs with lots of freshly ground black pepper, scrambled in coconut oil, in which I sauteed freshly-made garlic paste before adding the eggs.  This, my friends, is what we call “Huevos Locos”.
• 1/2 of a fairly large New York Strip steak I had previously grilled.
• 1 Large Hass avocado with plenty of cracked black pepper and some salt.
• 5 small Kiwi Fruit. Ah, how I love thee.
• A handful of raspberries. As a side note, these were just particularly wonderful. It was like biting into raspberry-flavored custard.

A few hours later I had a snack:

• A few handfuls of mixed nuts (Brazil nuts, Macadamias, Walnuts, Almonds, Pecans), all raw with no added salt.

Today was an especially challenging day at Crossfit for me. My lower back is still tight from the deadlifts on Thursday, and I just felt like I was moving a little bit slowly. Although today’s WOD wasn’t quite as vomit-inducing as this one was, it was still up there in terms of challenges I’ve had so far (You know, all five of them). As usual, Burpees were my best event!:

21 – 15 – 9 repetitions:

• Dumbbell Squat-Clean to Thruster
• Burpees
• Pullups

Completed in 16:42

The recommended weight was 40lb dumbbells for men. I used 30lb dumbbells. I also performed jumping pullups as opposed to strict kipping pullups. I did simulate the kipping motion as much as I could on the box, however. In retrospect, this was quite a bit of scaling and I think I could have done a tad better, if more than a tad slower as a consequence!

I need to decide if I’m scaling for the right reasons. Am I scaling to avoid the ego hit of a long time? I sure hope not. I don’t think in the long run those sorts of things matter. I did notice, however, that I was having quite a bit of trouble with the form on the clean with the full weight. Regardless, I think I will make an effort to at least get closer to the recommended weight.

After class, I was playing around on the pullup bar and actually got some fairly decent kipping pullups performed. I think I am once again underestimating my abilities, or otherwise giving in to an unconscious desire to not “leave it all on the mat”. This is good knowledge, it’s part of the reason I joined Crossfit. However, it’s also gotta stop!

UPDATED for Dinner:

I was a bad, bad boy tonight, and boy will I pay the price. After a few weeks of fairly clean Paleo eating, I went with a friend to a restaurant which shall remain.. Houstons. It is one of my favorite chain places because the quality and service are always consistently good. I had a rack of ribs which I ordered without the BBQ sauce (good!) and which came WITH the sauce and I ate them anyway (bad!). As sides, I got steamed brussel sprouts (good!) and for some reason a delicious concoction called “Dirty Rice”, which is rice (bad!) mixed in with sausage (good!) and other stuff (mostly bad..)

Not a great meal, but surely borderline acceptable. Up until the Apple Walnut Cobbler ala Mode, that is. I’m sure I will pay the price at Crossfit tomorrow for this transgression. I already feel sluggish and tired due to the sugar in the cobbler.

Of course all along I planned this meal in the name of science, to investigate the uhhh effects of sugarry goodness on uhhhh paleo diet participants. Yeah, that’s it…