A lot of people ask me what I eat for a paleo breakfast, so I took some pictures of recent breakfasts and thought I would just put them up here.

My favorite: Scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, and broccoli topped with avocado and pico de gallo

Sauteed collard greens, spinach, and onion, eggs over-medium, frozen blueberries

Fritatta (big hit with my family over Christmas!)

Basic Fritatta Recipe:

1. Saute veggies (and meat if you like) in coconut oil in an oven-safe pan.
2. In a separate bowl, beat eggs (I usually estimate 2-3 eggs per person). Add a little bit of water, and pepper and seasonings (my favorite is a salt-free Italian blend).
3. Turn burner to low and pour eggs over the veggie/meat mix. Do not stir!
4. Cover pan, let it sit on low for 6-8 minutes, or until you can see the edges starting to set.
5. Transfer to 375 degree oven. Bake for 10-15 additional minutes. You can test to see if it is done by sticking a toothpick in it.

The frittata pictured is made from Christmas dinner leftovers: roasted red peppers, artichokes, red onions, ham, and spinach. In addition to the Italian spice blend, I also added red pepper flakes. Full disclosure: I lightly sprinkled the top with parmesan cheese. If you’re doing dairy, this is a nice touch, but definitely not crucial.

My on-the-go breakfast: hard boiled eggs. I usually boil a bunch of eggs on Sunday so I have a quick protein option for mornings when I don’t hop out of bed early enough to cook breakfast (aka most mornings!)

Not pictured: my other on-the-go option: leftovers from dinner. For example, a few days ago I ate meatballs and collard greens for breakfast. Sounds strange, I know- but it was good, and I felt good- and that’s what matters.

*A word (or few words…) on eggs:

We’ve touched on this before, and I think you can expect to hear more from us about the importance of buying and consuming grass-fed, free range meats. The same holds true for eggs. If you can buy eggs from a local farmer, that is best. I encourage you to go to the farmer’s market (or a farm!)- find out how the hens are raised. What do they eat? How do they live? Free-range eggs offer far more nutrition, without the addition of nasty antibiotics and hormones. Plus, (bonus!) they taste better. You’ll notice as soon as you crack it open- the yolk is a bright, bold yellow.

If you absolutely can’t find locally farmed eggs, the best substitute is organic and fortified with omega-3. Cage-free is not a regulated term, so although I feel better eggs that at least claim to be cage-free, I also think it’s also important to realize that the people selling the eggs are the ones who get to define “cage-free” for their product.

Austinites: My very favorite eggs come from H&J Ranch in Austin, and are sold at Wheatsville Co-op in the white styrofoam package. I dare you to try them and recommend a better egg.

Post a comment with your favorite breakfast ideas!

No, not Paleo. Well, not technically. He recommends a diet he named after himself (or his wife): the Hauser Diet. What does it involve?

General Hauser Diet Principles for healing:
• Consume whole, unprocessed foods, such as fresh meat and produce.
• Learn how to cook from scratch!
• Eliminate fast foods, frozen, processed or pre-made canned/boxed food products.
• Consume multiple servings of deeply colored vegetables every day!
• Fruit is NOT equal to vegetables. For Lions and Otters it is too high in sugar.
• Consume “good” fats such as olive oil, nuts/nut butter, avocado, fish oil.
• Eliminate “bad” fats such as margarine, fried foods, shortening/ trans fats.
• Eliminate sweets and excessive sugar, including beverages like soda, diet soda, and alcohol.
• Stay hydrated with purified water. Drink before you start to feel thirsty.

The whole Lion  & Otter thing is basically a marketing tool to help people understand or identify what their protein/carb/fat ratios should be for optimal health. Another Crossfit-approved diet, called The Zone, is all about protein/carb/fat ratios.

Why is any of this worth mentioning? Because no matter what you call it or what portions you eat it in, eating lean protein, veggies, some fruit, nuts & seeds is the best diet for your overall health and improved quality of life.

Start your the next decade out right. Clean your kitchens of all those poisons and get yourself to the grocery store to stock up on the good stuff. You’ll eat what you have. Make sure it’s Paleo-friendly!

mmm... sweet potatoes

So we’ve been doing this Paleo diet thing, and mixing with CrossFit, and if you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve seen some reports of feeling a little weaker at first.  There are a number of factors that dictate how bad you feel during/after a workout, especially when you’re drastically changing the way you eat.  One of the ways to help this is to make sure you’re recovering.  So today, I’m going to talk about the post-workout meal.  First of all, I’m not Robb Wolf or Mark Sisson.  So one thing you could do is just skip my summarization of the whole thing and go straight to the source.

Robb’s post on post-workout nutrition

Mark’s post on post-workout fasting

The post-workout meal is important for everyone, regardless of whether you’re an athlete or just trying to lean out.  There are several strategies to this, and you’ve got to pick one that works best for you.

In general:

• Try to stick to lower carb post-workout meals, but you need to scale the carb intake to the intensity of the workout.  So if your workout was a super high metcon workout, then get more carbs than you normally would.  Check out this blog post from OPT on one recommendation for matching the post-workout meal with your body fat measurement.
• If you’ve got a high activity level… like you’re training for an event or you’re a multisport athlete and you train more than once a day, it’s probably best to make sure you get some carbs post-workout, especially on days where the workout was particularly intense, or you’re doing more than one.  It’s hard to say this is a “high carb” meal, but this meal in particular can be used to deliver protein and carbs to refuel your muscles with a blunted insulin response, if done basically immediately after your workout. Folks on the Zone who have trouble consuming enough carbs throughout the day can use this strategy effectively with a higher carb food, like sweet potatoes.
• Another option is to simply not eat.  Mark Sisson has a post about fasting for a couple hours post-workout to maximize gene expression.

This post is a huge simplification of what to do with your meal post-workout; it’s meant to be taken as a series of guidelines.  What works for you is going to be different and may very well end up being a combination of things.

Lemon Merengue Pie from Living Paleo

The team got together for dinner at my place tonight.  The menu:

• Pecan-crusted chicken breast: sub out the salt in Emeril’s essence, and use almond meal instead of bread crumbs for the crust.
• Collard greens with bacon (see Veronica’s post)
• Paleo lemon merengue pie: make the crust with almond meal, cinnamon, organic vegetable shortening, and some vanilla extract (although it didn’t get crispy, so I need to figure out a new crust)

As usual, dinner was awesome (I’m a little slanted, because I made the chicken and the pie, although thanks go out to Andy for beating the shit out of the egg whites)!

Everyone is doing very well with their diets… and intend to keep going, even after some pretty bad cheating over the weekend.  Personally, I’m starting to make gains on my workouts again, which is a great feeling.

The TLSP support structure is awesome, and it’s only getting better, as we get more people at dinner and more time to get creative on what we’re eating.

Food should be enjoyed, and eating paleo allows you to really take an interest in your food and have fun with it!

We had a great week of Thanksgiving and some much-needed vacation.  I know at least 2 of those days were solid paleo days.

I was stoked to see the great turnout for our Paleo Thanksgiving feast.  It was a great meal, and some great times.

My personal experience with this is starting to work better… I’m less hungry all the time, I’m more apt to choose better things when I’m at the store.  After meals, I’m wide awake.  I feel better when I’m working out, and I think I’m recovering better as well.  The experience in general is that this is not very hard to do, and I think we’ve come up with a model that will allow us to sustain this over the long haul, which is where I failed the last time I tried it.

In our last week of the “challenge,” let’s think about how we can keep it going… hopefully this blog stays running, maybe we can host others in the forum.

What’s your plan for day 31?  Go crazy?  Just have that one thing you haven’t been able to shake?

Many of you may be familiar with the R.I.C.E—an acronym for rest, ice, compression, and elevation.  To date, RICE has been the conventional treatment for sports injuries.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve utilized this therapy under the advisement of doctors and athletic trainers.  It wasn’t until later that I discovered that my efforts were completely counterproductive.  Rather than aid my body’s natural healing process, I was inhibiting it!

How?  Well, like most athletes, the majority of my injuries were due to sprains and strains—stretching or tearing of ligaments and tendons.   While RICE therapy may be useful in the treatment of muscle injuries (as it can theoretically prevent Compartment Syndrome), it is actually detrimental when applied to ligaments/tendons.  Unlike muscles, ligaments and tendons have poor blood supply.  Their ability to heal following injury is therefore dependent upon the inflammatory process and its resultant vasodilation and increase in bloodflow.  Every component of RICE, however, works to DECREASE bloodflow to the site of injury.  The result? Injuries that do not heal, and a chronic weakened condition in the area that is susceptible to re-injury.

Instead of RICE, try MEAT:

• Movement and Exercise: While immobility is detrimental to an injured ligament or tendon, movement is beneficial.  Movement via gentle range of motion and even isometric exercises (if the injury is too painful initially) increases bloodflow to the site of injury.  Increased bloodflow equates to better healing.
• Natural Analgesics: promote healing by increasing nutrient delivery to the injured site, while also removing debris from damaged tissues and reducing edema (aka—swelling).
  • MSM
  • Bromelaine
  • Trypsin
  • Papain
• Treatment: Beneficial treatments include those that increase bloodflow and immune cell migration to the damaged area, such as:
  • Physical therapy
  • Massage
  • Ultrasound
  • Chiropractic care
  • Prolotherapy

Happy training!

• Mashed Cauliflower with Roasted Garlic
• Prosciutto Asparagus Bundles
• Cranberry “Jelly” (very tart due to lack of sugar…we’ll see how the reviews on this come out)
• Apple Crisp (baking right now and smells amazing!)

Pictures, recipes, and reviews coming soon!

If you brought (or enjoyed) something paleo for Thanksgiving, we’d love to hear about it!

I realized – I don’t want a cupcake. At all. It was silly to be annoyed about the cupcakes because they really didn’t bother me. I just wasn’t going to eat them, and I wasn’t all that sad about it.

Maybe my stomach was still a little twisted from the kettlebell/burpee fun that Crossfit Central served up this morning. Or maybe it was the fact that a good workout in the morning motivates me to stay healthy throughout the day. Or, maybe after 16 days of saying no to cupcakes, the sugar-addicted part of my brain is starting to learn its lesson. And if kicking the sugar (crack) habit is all I get out of this 30 day challenge, I think that will be worth it.

Week 2 was tough.  I traveled to San Diego for work and did the best I could with eating out and living out of a hotel for a few days.  Breakfasts and lunches weren’t too bad (although In-n-Out Burger is just not the same without the cheese), but dinners proved a little more challenging.  Lots of menu substitutions and meals that were not ideal.  I also discovered the Larabar (amazing!), and while they’re a little high in sugars, if you need something quick and you can’t be a traveling pantry, they’re a solid option.

I was pretty good on the alcohol throughout the week.  I found out that even after just 2 weeks of eating clean, alcohol affects me much more.  Hangovers are much easier to come by, which is both a blessing and curse.  I know, alcohol is not technically allowed in the challenge, but I’ll post on why we’re allowing it another day.  It is nice to remember everything and have much cheaper bar tabs.

My last 2 issues have to do with the macronutrient composition of what I’m eating.  I don’t think I’m eating enough fat, because I’m STARVING throughout the day and just looking for the next meal.  That leads into a dangerous situation where I go to the grocery store and want to buy the entire dessert section (try to stay out of the store when hungry, btw, it’s bad news bears).

Overall, I’m starting to feel much better throughout the day (other than the hunger thing), and I’m also starting to believe that the paleo lifestyle can be sustainable, with a little modification (i.e. bourbon, please).

I always justified it by ensuring myself I’d “get back on it” when I got back to Austin.  But even that failed more often than not; with no food in the house due to traveling, I couldn’t make a meal, so it was whatever restaurant in Austin I could find on the way home.  Not a good plan for a lifestyle change, and not a good plan if you happen to be mid-season of your chosen sport.

Enter Paleo Challenge.  I can’t very well go off the wagon just to go back on when I get back in town.  So I’ve made it a point to try to eat paleo during my trip to San Diego.

Quick verdict if you don’t feel like reading the rest of this: it’s kind of easy, but you have to be careful.

Some experiences that I’d like to share:

• All three mornings I’ve been here, I’ve had breakfast at the hotel buffet.  Eggs with vegetables, breakfast sausage, blackberries and strawberries.  Some black coffee.  Great meal.  There was not a single menu option that was acceptable without modification.
• Monday, dinner.  I met up with some friends at the Stone Brewery.  I love this place, I always have.  They have great food and of course awesome beer.  But… can’t drink beer.  So instead, I had some red wine, a buffalo steak, and subbed the mashed potatoes for vegetables.  As an appetizer (I was hungry), I ordered some artisan sausages and gave the cheese-filled one to my friends.  No dessert.  It was great.  The next morning, I rolled into CrossFit Invictus (awesome box, btw) and PR’d on Helen.  Even better.
• Tuesday, lunch.  Luckily, the customer I was visiting informed me the day before that they planned on getting some sandwiches from Subway for lunch.  And, I’m not eating Subway (challenge or no, I’m simply not eating Subway).  Solution?  I stopped by Trader Joe’s on the way into the office and picked up a salad and some berries.  When I rolled into the office, the person picking up the sandwiches asked me why I had a bag of food, to which I replied, “I’ve got some dietary restrictions and need to be picky about what I eat… I didn’t want to give you a long list or make it painful to get food for me, so I figured I’d just bring something myself.  Thanks for the offer though!”  No issue.
• Tuesday dinner.  Again with another friend, who when he lived in Austin, was a drinking buddy of mine.  Uh oh.  We were texting each other throughout the day making plans, so when it came down to it, I asked if he wanted to eat, and then dropped that I can only eat meat and vegetables, and I can only drink bourbon and not much of it.  He laughed and said I’d need to explain myself, but it was cool.  I ended up having some mahi-mahi, vegetables, and a salad.  Some bourbon.  I rolled into CrossFit Invictus the next morning and PR’s on heavy thrusters.  Rock!
• Wednesday lunch.  The Yardhouse.  Turns out they can print out the nutrition contents of anything on the menu.  When the waitress told me this, I had a huge geek moment in my head and almost asked her to do it.  But instead, I opted for the seared Ahi steak with vegetables instead of potatoes.  Winner.

I’m not quite back to Austin yet… in fact, I have to get to the airport soon.  But here’s the final problem… the airplane.  You say, “airlines don’t serve food anymore, Eric!”  I say, “well, my flight’s upgraded and they serve dinner.”  Yeah, airplane food sucks.  That’s going to be the inner mantra for the next few hours — no airplane food.

This segues well into what I think is the beginning of my list of travel tips for paleo eaters… here we go.

• If you can, get a hotel near a grocery store.  This was invaluable, because I was able to roll in and grab some almonds and Larabars (wait for the Larabar bullet), and a friendly late-night snack.
• Most restaurants will sub stuff out.  If they don’t, don’t make a big deal of it, just don’t eat that part of your plate.  One good way to navigate restaurants is to tell them you’re allergic to gluten, and therefore need some gluten-free options.  That’s a good place to start, and you’ll have to modify from there.
• Eating in the airport is a problem.  Robb Wolf has a post on this.  My opinion is that if you’re into intermittent fasting, this is a good time to be fasting.  Grok simply didn’t catch and kill his dinner this time.  Unless you’re on a long flight (like more than 3 or 4 hours), consider just eating when you get to your destination. Or…
• BRING SOME FOOD.  There are great options for portable food that we can eat on the go.  Paleokits, jerky, nuts, or my new favorite… Larabars (I’m a big fan of the Cashew Cookie and Cherry Pie).

There you have it… long post, but I wanted to share my experience traveling.  Any other tips for taveling Paleoites?  Let us know!

Cheers!