Posts from — February 2010

We don’t usually think of slow-cooking vegetables. And frankly, this dish doesn’t win points in the presentation category. But it sure is tasty, and a great way to get some good extra fat in your meal if you need that. It’s definitely got that warming, hearty feel that you want on a cold night. Winter isn’t over yet, so file this away for the next cold spell.

Slow Cooked Cauliflower and Greens

Choose some hearty vegetables that can stand up to the cooking. Here I used cauliflower and baby leaves of collards, chard, and kale that I got at the farmers market today.

Chop the vegetables any way you need to fit them into your pan. This is one reason I love this dish - no need to carefully create florettes!

Put the chopped vegetables into a saute pan. Pour a generous amount of olive oil into the pan. We're talking half a cup to a cup, no joke. It should come up about an inch from the bottom of the pan. Pour about a cup of water in after that.

Add some smashed garlic and red pepper flakes (if you'd like). Cover the pan and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are crumbly and can be broken apart with a fork.

Last step: make a little hole in the mixture and add some sardines. Cook a minute or so until they disintegrate, then stir the whole mixture and serve with a squeeze of lemon over the top. (If you turn your head in disgust at the sardines, then try a few tablespoons of chopped cured olives and/or capers. Last resort: just use salt.)

This would go best with a simply cooked cut of meat, but here it's served with harissa meatballs. Like I said, it ain't so pretty - but it's plenty tasty!

Lots of questions have been brought up recently at the box regarding sleep. The most common of these is, how much sleep should I get?

If your waking up to an alarm clock your not getting enough sleep. Yes, that sounds ridiculous, but so did eating a side of broccoli when you were 12. The people who are telling you to get 8 hours of sleep are the same ones who say “eat 10 servings of bread a day”, these are not words of wisdom. Ideally you would sleep when its dark out, and further, coordinate with the seasonal changes and day/night ratio. You would be sleeping much more, some 10-12 hours a day, in the winter. And when it came time for summer, you’d put your party hat on. Now, I know people will stop listening to me if I tell them to get 12 hours of sleep, so let’s split the difference. Get 9.5 hours of sleep.

Why?

Before man invented artificial light (the light bulb and before that, fire) humans were sheltered in their cozy caves by nightfall, and if they weren’t then they were getting mauled by lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!). Man followed a circadian rythm like every other living entity on the planet. By introducing artificial light we have extended our awake time some 30-50% beyond what we were designed to handle, depending of course on how late you stay up. For more reasons than I care to write about, going rogue and running your engine 50% longer than it’s supposed to be run is going to lead to problems. Instead of more oil changes, you get things like radiation therapy and stents.

If you are getting less than 8 hours of sleep, your killing yourself. If your getting 8 hours of sleep, you can do better. Go to bed earlier!

Questions?

Most people come to CFSR with a goal of “losing weight”. Yes, there are you skinny folks who state that you want to get stronger and add more muscle mass. But mostly, people say they want to shed a few pounds. Nothing wrong with that.

You want to lose that spare tire, that muffin top, that pooch. You want to fit your skinny jeans. So you start training. CrossFitting. You’re working hard, and you want to see results. You step on the scale regularly – maybe even daily – to measure your results. And although your pants are feeling looser, the scale tells you you’re not losing much weight. Far less than you think you should be, anyway, for how hard you’re working and how well you’ve been eating. What’s going on?

You see, CrossFit helps you lose fat and gain lean muscle. That means that the scale, which measures your overall weight, won’t show you that you’re actually losing fat, losing inches around the waist, or gaining muscle. We’ve been so conditioned to think that our body weight, or even worse, the BMI, are important measures of health. The fact is that for CrossFitters, they’re not. So step away from the scale.

And then let’s reassess the situation. Instead of weighing yourself, pay attention to how you look, feel, and perform. Let’s say that again, all together now: pay attention to how you look, feel, and perform, in whatever order of importance you wish. These are the things that matter.

Try to forget the scale, or even our bioelectrical impedence thingy at the box that measures your body fat. Yes, those are objective measures that can be very helpful to track long term change, and especially to help those who are at high risk for obesity-related diseases. I’m not saying we should never use these tools; they wouldn’t be kept at the box if I thought they were useless. But relying on those numbers can sometimes end up being unhealthy and obsessive.

If you’ve got a scale at home, shove it in the closet or have a yard sale. Yes, we will still measure and record your weight and body fat every so often at the box. But if you’re feeling great, you’re getting PRs on the major lifts and benchmark WODS, and your clothes fit the way you like, those other numbers shouldn’t matter.

Comments?

I want to check in and make sure everyone is eating enough food to support the intense, demanding workouts you all love so much. I have not observed one person in our circle who has brought some sort of food to the gym (I have seen beer). Worse yet, I have not had a post-workout nutrition question posed to me ONCE inside or outside the gym.

The workouts you guys are doing put an inordinate amount of stress on the musclulature and metabolic engines that move you. For this reason you should be putting an inordinate amount of fuel and building material back into your body after such efforts.

If I have 10 nailpounders (carpenters) standing around on a job site waiting for the necessary wood to frame the house I am trying to build, is anything getting done? No, I am waisting precious time and money. Likewise, the more you neglect adequate nutrition the further you lengthen your recovery time and the more susceptible you leave yourself to things like overtraining and injury.

There was a time when I would CrossFit without adequate nutrition. I was light, fast and thought nothing of my nutrition.  I overtrained, got burnt out, and almost quit CrossFit entirely. Burn out is one of the scariest things I have faced, I hope you never feel it. Take nutrition as seriously as you do your workouts and you will be rewarded. Focus not only on quality, but quantity as well.

Questions?

Yes, it is 6lbs of hamburger sandwiched in between 2 pizzas. Something is better than nothing.

PRs for Leah FF, Majid, and the Siborg. Right on people!

We all know that olive oil is great for us. The problem is that it doesn’t hold up at high temperatures. So what to use for high heat cooking? There are a few good choices, but today we welcome: ghee!

Ok, so ghee is made from butter, and butter is dairy, and dairy is…well, it’s definitely not paleo. Primal Blueprint guru Mark Sisson calls dairy a gray zone. Some people (myself included) get clear signals from our bodies that dairy is a no-no. Others tolerate it just fine. To figure out where you are on that spectrum, eliminate all forms of dairy for at least a month. Then reintroduce it and pay careful attention to how you look, feel, and perform.

But here’s the thing: ghee is butter minus the solids – lactose and casein – which are dairy’s main irritants. So someone like me who is very sensitive to dairy does just fine with ghee.

Ghee (also referred to as ‘clarified butter’) has a nutty flavor, and stands up to high heat. It’s great for stir frying, pan-frying meats, and especially well suited for curries. Furthermore, ghee is stable at room temperature and can keep on the countertop unrefrigerated for months, so if you want to drop a dollop of it on something just before eating (like some steamed veggies), it’s all soft and ready. Can you tell I love it?

It’s really easy to make. Here’s the basics, but know that you can make flavored batches too- garlic ghee, cinnamon, you choose. I use a pound of pastured (grass-fed) organic butter at a time.

Butter goes in the saucepan. Medium heat is fine until the butter melts, then turn it down a little.

The butter will sizzle loudly as the solids begin separating from the fat.

Soon the solids will start to sink to the bottom of the pan, and you'll see the clarified butter through the dissipating top layer of bubbles. Now's the time to use your ears! Don't play any music or talk on the phone, because you need to listen for the sizzling to stop. That's when to turn the heat off.

After letting the pan cool a little a little, pour the liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a glass container. Let that sit until it cools and solidifies.

End result: a nice little pot of ghee, ready for eating. This can keep a home on your counter to use on anything, no refrigeration necessary. (Note: the white stuff in the this picture is remaining solids that will get skimmed off before using.)

Enjoy!