Bart: Hey Homer, are there dogs in heaven?
Homer: Yeah! Of course there are.
Bart: Are there dogs in hell?
Homer: I guess so.
Bart: Tell me one dog that's in hell.
Homer: Um, Hitler's dog?
-- The Simpsons (from memory, not the script)
We just spent the holidays with my wife's family, like we usually do, and, once again, my in-laws' dog did a fine job of wrecking things.
But it's not the dog's fault.
See, you may own just one dog, and you may think of it as your baby, or your child or whatever, but it's a dog, and dogs need training. Because when you don't train the dog, the dog takes over. If the dog is a German shepherd or a pit bull, and it starts running the show, you are going to notice really fast, and probably do something about it. That "something" is either going to be getting rid of the dog, or training it and you. If you don't, someone is going to get hurt.
But if the dog is a ten-pound Bichon/somethingelsereallyfuckingsmall mix, and you are my in-laws, you are going to do nothing. And it turns into mess.
This dog is in charge of the house. She thinks my in-laws are subordinate to her, the pack leader, and she guards them. She even guards them from each other. On Christmas day, my mother-in-law bent down to peck my father-in-law on the cheek as a thanks for a present. But Little Mussolini was on his lap and took a snarling leap at her face, missing by inches and growling at her until she backed off. Her reaction, "Oh, Maggie [Mussolini's actual name], it's OK."
Really?
We were sitting across the room with our three dogs, all of whom had looks on their faces that seemed to say, "Hey! Dogs can't do that!" and my wife said to her mom, "You know mom, this wouldn't be cute if she were a big dog." Her mom, totally missing the point, replied, "Oh, we would never have a big dog!"
I repeat: really?
And, before any of you dog haters start, it's not that LM is a "bad" dog. She just needs, like all dogs, some discipline and guidance. She is a pack animal -- again like all dogs -- and a pack animal is either a leader or a follower. No canine should be "leading" a pack of humans. When LM is away from her owners, but still in the same house -- like when they go off to church on Christmas and leave us at their home with LM and our dogs -- you should see LM immediately get in line. Zen quietude envelopes the home. There is no snarling, growling or any bad behavior at all. When our puppy approaches LM, instead of acting like Linda Blair's stunt double in The Exorcist, LM acts like a dog -- sniffing butts, wagging tails, the whole nine yards. Or if she really just doesn't want to be bothered by the annoying puppy, she walks away.
But the moment her owners return, LM is right back to battling Hitler's dog for that número uno spot in Simpsons canine hell.
It will never change, and, in the end, I am just bitching like a a crabby motherfucker who had much of his Christmas holiday interrupted by a miserable dog's endless kvetching and snarling. But, if you are reading this, do all of us a favor that my in-laws will not: train your dog. He/she doesn't have to be perfect, but your dog has to know its place in the pack.
And that's not in the front.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Food, Life, Music -- All Perched Precariously in Balance (or Not)
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Inexplicable
If you had a disease that negatively affects your life in a significant way and someone told you that you could beat that disease and get off your meds simply by eating animal protein, vegetables and fruits and not eating grains, legumes or dairy, would you do it?
Better yet, would you at least *try* it?
I wonder.
I just had a conversation with two people recently about paleo eating. Both eat a standard American diet (SAD), full of grains, seed oils, processed foods, "low-fat" foods, etc. One has hypothyroidism, possibly Hashimoto's disease, and is having a tough time with her weight management and a host of other issues as a result. The other has an autoimmune disorder that sends him to the hospital for platelet transfusions every so often when his body, as a result of the disorder, destroys his supply of platelets. He also has pretty serious eczema, which is almost always an autoimmune-related condition.
When my wife and I suggested how paleo eating, particularly under an autoimmune protocol, might improve both of their conditions, you would have thought we suggested eating dirt and giving up indoor plumbing. We even were sure to present the whole deal as a 30-day-trial sort of idea -- you know, go on a strict 30 days of eating right and see how you feel. But I doubt, from their collective reaction, that they are going to give it more than a moment's consideration.
What the hell?
I mean....Really? You are *that* attached to pizza and beer because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when you eat it that even the prospect of beating a disease that ruining your life isn't worth giving up the crap diet and just eating meat, veggies and fruit? This isn't eating weird food, or raw food or anything unusual. It's just giving up the bad stuff. There is a world of delicious, fat-filled, wonderful food you can still eat that is waiting for you.
Better yet, you can beat a disease that is making you feel horrible and, in one instance, sending you to the hospital on a regular basis.
Even better, it's a *30-day trial* fergodsakes. At the end of 30 days, if you don't feel better, you can go back to that SAD you love so much, and you will have lost nothing in the attempt.
Really, I just don't understand.... I have a world of respect for nutritionists who deal with this nonsense on a regular basis. It is hard to imagine how they don't just say, "Look, I don't actually give a shit. Do it, or don't. If you want to feel better, stop eating the following foods and eat these ones instead. If you don't, keep on digging a grave with a fork. It's your call. But for godsakes, stop pretending that the absence of pizza in your life is a crisis."
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Better yet, would you at least *try* it?
I wonder.
I just had a conversation with two people recently about paleo eating. Both eat a standard American diet (SAD), full of grains, seed oils, processed foods, "low-fat" foods, etc. One has hypothyroidism, possibly Hashimoto's disease, and is having a tough time with her weight management and a host of other issues as a result. The other has an autoimmune disorder that sends him to the hospital for platelet transfusions every so often when his body, as a result of the disorder, destroys his supply of platelets. He also has pretty serious eczema, which is almost always an autoimmune-related condition.
When my wife and I suggested how paleo eating, particularly under an autoimmune protocol, might improve both of their conditions, you would have thought we suggested eating dirt and giving up indoor plumbing. We even were sure to present the whole deal as a 30-day-trial sort of idea -- you know, go on a strict 30 days of eating right and see how you feel. But I doubt, from their collective reaction, that they are going to give it more than a moment's consideration.
What the hell?
I mean....Really? You are *that* attached to pizza and beer because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when you eat it that even the prospect of beating a disease that ruining your life isn't worth giving up the crap diet and just eating meat, veggies and fruit? This isn't eating weird food, or raw food or anything unusual. It's just giving up the bad stuff. There is a world of delicious, fat-filled, wonderful food you can still eat that is waiting for you.
Better yet, you can beat a disease that is making you feel horrible and, in one instance, sending you to the hospital on a regular basis.
Even better, it's a *30-day trial* fergodsakes. At the end of 30 days, if you don't feel better, you can go back to that SAD you love so much, and you will have lost nothing in the attempt.
Really, I just don't understand.... I have a world of respect for nutritionists who deal with this nonsense on a regular basis. It is hard to imagine how they don't just say, "Look, I don't actually give a shit. Do it, or don't. If you want to feel better, stop eating the following foods and eat these ones instead. If you don't, keep on digging a grave with a fork. It's your call. But for godsakes, stop pretending that the absence of pizza in your life is a crisis."
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Iowa
I haven't blabbed on about politics in a while, but don't let that fool you into thinking that I haven't been following the sideshow like the hardcore junkie that I am.
I can't help but be obsessed/fascinated with the fact that most of the GOP primary/caucus field seems to hate Mitt Romney. The man has been out there campaigning for six years now, and he can't top 25%. And in Iowa, he is somewhere lower than that. His penchant for taking both sides of almost any issue has not served him well.
So, my going theory for a while now has been that the GOP nominee will likely be Anybody But Romney, despite the fact that Romney (and Jon Hunstman) easily have the best chance of any of the current crop of candidates to appeal to independent voters in the general election.
This theory means that when Rick Perry got into the race, I just kind of assumed that the GOP would jump for him, but then he couldn't debate his way out of a wet paper bag and, somewhere along the line, the bulk of that party thought, quite reasonably, that President Obama would make him look like a dope in a debate, and they ran elsewhere. But I never really believed that Bachmann, Cain or Gingrich could emerge as the new Not Romney. Bachmann can't stop saying stupid things -- like the HPV vaccine nonsense -- and Cain was never *really* running to win; it was all just a low-tech book tour for him. And I don't think Gingrich was on much more than a book tour either, a fact which has played out in recent weeks when his Iowa numbers have risen briefly only to tumble because he has neither the money nor the organization to seal the deal there.
I still think there is some ultra-remote chance of Jon Huntsman gaining a foothold in New Hampshire. Although where would he go from there, you have to wonder, but I am going to lay off the NH prediction for now. Let's wait to see what happens in Iowa, and, really, Huntsman is not even competing there at all -- an acknowledgment of his from the outset that he couldn't hope to win in such a socially conservative state. Huntsman is not even on the radar in Iowa.
So.... what will Iowa do? From here, it looks to me like Ron Paul is going to win there, or at least do very very well. The only hitch in that prediction is whether he can get his supporters to caucus for him, but if they do you can be damn sure they are not going to compromise once the "caucusing" gets going and end up throwing their support to someone else. The Paulistas are a loyal lot. Getting them to show up at a caucus -- this is no five-minute exercise in "voting"; it is a night of work -- is the only potential problem. But if his folks show up, Ron Paul will do very well in Iowa.
Where I think the candidate-switching, caucus-style, is going to occur is among the social conservatives. Right now, their votes are spread out among Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich and Santorum. When the chips are down, and none of them are pulling enough caucus support to get over the hump into credibility, alliances will change and re-shape. Given Bachmann's status as yesterday's news, Perry's inability to speak more than a few coherent sentences in a row under pressure, and Gingrich's plummeting numbers overall, I think Iowa may shock everyone and give big numbers to Rick Santorum. Big enough to beat Romney? Yeah. Big enough to beat Paul? That seems a little less clear. It depends on just how much horse-trading goes on when caucus night arrives. But, in the end, I see Paul and Santorum as the top two in Iowa, in one order or the other, with Romney struggling in third place.
And yes, I know that my thoughts on Santorum are somewhat biased. You may recall that a long time ago, I pegged him as the Repub that Dems ought to fear the most, not necessarily as the most electable, but as reasonably electable while simultaneously so far out to lunch on the crazy train of social conservatism that the prospect of his election as president ought to scare you. My only caveat at the time was his seemingly uncontrollable urge to turn *every* issue into a diatribe against abortion and/or gay marriage. If he couldn't get that nonsense under control and stress the economy over the bedroom issues, then his "electability" rating for the general election would plunge.
Put differently, Rick Santorum scares the crap out of me -- I have told you before that social conservatives freak me out -- and part of my long-ago post about him was driven by that fear. But, for whatever reason -- perhaps linked to that penchant he has for bringing up abortion and gay marriage at every turn -- he has been labeled "unelectable" in the press and has never caught on with the nationwide GOP. And, up until recently, despite making a second home out of Iowa, he has not caught on much there either. But that Iowa situation has been changing rapidly. Santorum has recently picked up social-conservative endorsements and, pretty obviously, that primary electorate is in a huge state of flux lately. The only thing they seem to be sure of is that they don't want Mitt Romney. Some of them like Ron Paul a lot, but then there is a whole block of social-conservative moralizing retrobots, eager to re-instill the "morals" of 1952 in us, whether we want it or not. It's *those* people I fear the most and who just may, on caucus night, band together, like they have in the past for Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson, and vote for the biggest moralizer of their bunch as their Not Romney of the evening-- Rick Santorum.
And now that I have said that, it puts me in a real spot when it comes to whom to root for on Iowa caucus night. Now that Gary Johnson has skipped town to run for the Libertarian Party nomination, the only one of these folks I genuinely respect is Huntsman. He has the gravitas, the smarts and the experience to be a good president, even if I disagree with him on some things (e.g., abortion rights). I would like to see him get the nomination. It would make for a fascinating/adult race with him running against the president. That is an unlikely scenario, and its only chance is if Huntsman does very well in NH. "Doing really well in NH" for Huntsman requires the winner of the Iowa caucuses to be: (a) not Mitt Romney (indeed, the worse Romney does in Iowa, the better for Huntsman's chances in NH), and (b) someone who can't carry that victory to NH and do anything with it. The "a" part of that scenario will take care of itself, I believe, and the "b" issue is well-served if Rick Santorum wins Iowa, because if there is a political candidate out there without a prayer of winning the NH primary, it is Rick Santorum. NH Republicans are famously pro-gun/pro-choice libertarians, and Santorum's moralizing-bedroom-monitor schtick simply does not sell there (file under: why I love NH).
But... gross.... That means I am not only predicting Rick Santorum to come in first or second in Iowa, but actually rooting for him to win there? Ugh. If that all comes true, you'll find me: (a) briefly spiking the football and shaking my moneymaker over my accurate prediction, and then (b) shuddering in fear. Because, really, no one in that field scares me like Rick Santorum.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I can't help but be obsessed/fascinated with the fact that most of the GOP primary/caucus field seems to hate Mitt Romney. The man has been out there campaigning for six years now, and he can't top 25%. And in Iowa, he is somewhere lower than that. His penchant for taking both sides of almost any issue has not served him well.
So, my going theory for a while now has been that the GOP nominee will likely be Anybody But Romney, despite the fact that Romney (and Jon Hunstman) easily have the best chance of any of the current crop of candidates to appeal to independent voters in the general election.
This theory means that when Rick Perry got into the race, I just kind of assumed that the GOP would jump for him, but then he couldn't debate his way out of a wet paper bag and, somewhere along the line, the bulk of that party thought, quite reasonably, that President Obama would make him look like a dope in a debate, and they ran elsewhere. But I never really believed that Bachmann, Cain or Gingrich could emerge as the new Not Romney. Bachmann can't stop saying stupid things -- like the HPV vaccine nonsense -- and Cain was never *really* running to win; it was all just a low-tech book tour for him. And I don't think Gingrich was on much more than a book tour either, a fact which has played out in recent weeks when his Iowa numbers have risen briefly only to tumble because he has neither the money nor the organization to seal the deal there.
I still think there is some ultra-remote chance of Jon Huntsman gaining a foothold in New Hampshire. Although where would he go from there, you have to wonder, but I am going to lay off the NH prediction for now. Let's wait to see what happens in Iowa, and, really, Huntsman is not even competing there at all -- an acknowledgment of his from the outset that he couldn't hope to win in such a socially conservative state. Huntsman is not even on the radar in Iowa.
So.... what will Iowa do? From here, it looks to me like Ron Paul is going to win there, or at least do very very well. The only hitch in that prediction is whether he can get his supporters to caucus for him, but if they do you can be damn sure they are not going to compromise once the "caucusing" gets going and end up throwing their support to someone else. The Paulistas are a loyal lot. Getting them to show up at a caucus -- this is no five-minute exercise in "voting"; it is a night of work -- is the only potential problem. But if his folks show up, Ron Paul will do very well in Iowa.
Where I think the candidate-switching, caucus-style, is going to occur is among the social conservatives. Right now, their votes are spread out among Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich and Santorum. When the chips are down, and none of them are pulling enough caucus support to get over the hump into credibility, alliances will change and re-shape. Given Bachmann's status as yesterday's news, Perry's inability to speak more than a few coherent sentences in a row under pressure, and Gingrich's plummeting numbers overall, I think Iowa may shock everyone and give big numbers to Rick Santorum. Big enough to beat Romney? Yeah. Big enough to beat Paul? That seems a little less clear. It depends on just how much horse-trading goes on when caucus night arrives. But, in the end, I see Paul and Santorum as the top two in Iowa, in one order or the other, with Romney struggling in third place.
And yes, I know that my thoughts on Santorum are somewhat biased. You may recall that a long time ago, I pegged him as the Repub that Dems ought to fear the most, not necessarily as the most electable, but as reasonably electable while simultaneously so far out to lunch on the crazy train of social conservatism that the prospect of his election as president ought to scare you. My only caveat at the time was his seemingly uncontrollable urge to turn *every* issue into a diatribe against abortion and/or gay marriage. If he couldn't get that nonsense under control and stress the economy over the bedroom issues, then his "electability" rating for the general election would plunge.
Put differently, Rick Santorum scares the crap out of me -- I have told you before that social conservatives freak me out -- and part of my long-ago post about him was driven by that fear. But, for whatever reason -- perhaps linked to that penchant he has for bringing up abortion and gay marriage at every turn -- he has been labeled "unelectable" in the press and has never caught on with the nationwide GOP. And, up until recently, despite making a second home out of Iowa, he has not caught on much there either. But that Iowa situation has been changing rapidly. Santorum has recently picked up social-conservative endorsements and, pretty obviously, that primary electorate is in a huge state of flux lately. The only thing they seem to be sure of is that they don't want Mitt Romney. Some of them like Ron Paul a lot, but then there is a whole block of social-conservative moralizing retrobots, eager to re-instill the "morals" of 1952 in us, whether we want it or not. It's *those* people I fear the most and who just may, on caucus night, band together, like they have in the past for Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson, and vote for the biggest moralizer of their bunch as their Not Romney of the evening-- Rick Santorum.
And now that I have said that, it puts me in a real spot when it comes to whom to root for on Iowa caucus night. Now that Gary Johnson has skipped town to run for the Libertarian Party nomination, the only one of these folks I genuinely respect is Huntsman. He has the gravitas, the smarts and the experience to be a good president, even if I disagree with him on some things (e.g., abortion rights). I would like to see him get the nomination. It would make for a fascinating/adult race with him running against the president. That is an unlikely scenario, and its only chance is if Huntsman does very well in NH. "Doing really well in NH" for Huntsman requires the winner of the Iowa caucuses to be: (a) not Mitt Romney (indeed, the worse Romney does in Iowa, the better for Huntsman's chances in NH), and (b) someone who can't carry that victory to NH and do anything with it. The "a" part of that scenario will take care of itself, I believe, and the "b" issue is well-served if Rick Santorum wins Iowa, because if there is a political candidate out there without a prayer of winning the NH primary, it is Rick Santorum. NH Republicans are famously pro-gun/pro-choice libertarians, and Santorum's moralizing-bedroom-monitor schtick simply does not sell there (file under: why I love NH).
But... gross.... That means I am not only predicting Rick Santorum to come in first or second in Iowa, but actually rooting for him to win there? Ugh. If that all comes true, you'll find me: (a) briefly spiking the football and shaking my moneymaker over my accurate prediction, and then (b) shuddering in fear. Because, really, no one in that field scares me like Rick Santorum.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Keep on moving
The recent death of Christopher Hitchens, whose writing and intellect I enjoyed very much over the years, brought up a predictable line of discussion on the interwebs that focused on two questions: (1) was he going to have a deathbed conversion from a lifetime of atheism** to belief in a higher power? and (2) depending on the answer to the first question, was he, ultimately, in some sort of afterlife where he regretted (or reveled in) his lack of faith (or newfound faith)?
Neither of those questions hold much interest for me. The first seems rather insulting -- as if to think he would change the very core of who he was at the last moment out of convenience or fear. Indeed, in an interview with Anderson Cooper, Hitchens specifically rejected the notion of a deathbed conversion, going so far as to say that the only possibility of such an event would be if his medication caused him to lose his mind. And the second question, obviously, presumes an afterlife -- an idea for which which I am not onboard, not out of any sort of militancy; I just can't wrap my brain around it, and I can't "believe" in something that simply does not compute for me.
But, despite all that, the second question got me wondering nonetheless, just in a different direction: about how belief or non-belief in an afterlife affects one's ability to "move on" when grieving the death of a loved one. Being a "here and now" sort of guy, as well as a libertarian-ish sort, I don't care whether you believe in an afterlife (or a god, for that matter, but we are focused on the afterlife question, which doesn't hinge necessarily on belief in a deity). That is your gig. Rather, I am curious how that belief, or lack thereof, affects your life in the here and now. Does it get you to a better psychic dimension in terms of coping with, and overcoming grief, or does it simply prolong the suffering?
I think the reflexive response that most believers in an afterlife would have is that it gives them great comfort to know that their dead friend/relative is "in a better place" rather than simply "gone." But I wonder. "Gone" is stark, but it is also: (a) absolutely factual in terms of your ability to interact with that person in *this* lifetime, and (2) because of its starkness, the first step toward "moving on" in the here and now. The believer treats the dead loved one not as "gone," but as living in a place where he or she cannot interact with the living and, so, one's thoughts about the deceased are not merely confined to happy memories, but rather necessarily extend to suppositions and mental machinations regarding just where the person is ("heaven" or otherwise) and what the person is currently doing. As a result, there is not merely the loss of death to deal with, but the ongoing separation of the living from those "living" in the afterlife. You haven't just lost your son/daughter/wife/husband/friend. You've lost them and they are living somewhere else where you can't see them in this life. And imagine the even greater, more awful, complications in the case of suicide; some religions do not believe in a happy afterlife for those poor souls. What then for practitioners of such a faith who have lost a loved one to suicide, and now have to cope with thoughts of so much more than just the loss in the here and now?
Ouch. What a burden. It's not one I care to bear. In fact, it seems unduly painful. When a friend of mine died a few years back, it hurt, but I can't imagine how I would have moved past that moment if I thought he were taken away to be elsewhere where I and his other friends could not see him. It would be as if he'd been shipped off to North Korea.
Instead, yeah, I miss my friend, but I have, for lack of a better term, "compartmentalized" his death. He was "then"; he is not "now." None of my "now" thoughts include him. Sure, I think about good times we had. I even occasionally think how much he might have enjoyed something-- a band, an album, whatever-- from the present, but I never think about how or what he is doing right now. He isn't doing anything. He's dead.
Harsh? Yeah. But I have moved on. I suspect I wouldn't have done so very well if I believed in an afterlife.
And I am not claiming to have all the answers on this question. I am just offering a point of view that you may not have considered. Like I said, I don't care where you are at on this issue. You might, for instance, say that it gives you great comfort and even a thrill to envision the reunion you will have in the afterlife with your dead loved one. My only answer to that is that it has little to do with the here and now, which is my concern. It strikes me as a horrible shame to spend one's days focused more on the ethereal, unknowable aspects of the future than on the issues of the present day. Life is wonderful; live it.
I keep returning to this theme, but it's a short time we have on the planet. Do your best. And that may not be possible if you get hung up too long on anything that, ultimately, you need to get past.
**A short digression: I am not an enormous fan of the word "atheist" as a label because it describes a person based on what he or she does *not* believe in -- a very odd notion, if you ask me -- but it is such common parlance at this point that I have used it here. Any "atheists" that I know believe so fervently in so many things (often so many *different* things, depending on the person, but, almost always, in science and reason) that it seems like an insult to label them in the negative based upon what they do *not* believe in, as if their core is a black hole of non-belief in anything.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Neither of those questions hold much interest for me. The first seems rather insulting -- as if to think he would change the very core of who he was at the last moment out of convenience or fear. Indeed, in an interview with Anderson Cooper, Hitchens specifically rejected the notion of a deathbed conversion, going so far as to say that the only possibility of such an event would be if his medication caused him to lose his mind. And the second question, obviously, presumes an afterlife -- an idea for which which I am not onboard, not out of any sort of militancy; I just can't wrap my brain around it, and I can't "believe" in something that simply does not compute for me.
But, despite all that, the second question got me wondering nonetheless, just in a different direction: about how belief or non-belief in an afterlife affects one's ability to "move on" when grieving the death of a loved one. Being a "here and now" sort of guy, as well as a libertarian-ish sort, I don't care whether you believe in an afterlife (or a god, for that matter, but we are focused on the afterlife question, which doesn't hinge necessarily on belief in a deity). That is your gig. Rather, I am curious how that belief, or lack thereof, affects your life in the here and now. Does it get you to a better psychic dimension in terms of coping with, and overcoming grief, or does it simply prolong the suffering?
I think the reflexive response that most believers in an afterlife would have is that it gives them great comfort to know that their dead friend/relative is "in a better place" rather than simply "gone." But I wonder. "Gone" is stark, but it is also: (a) absolutely factual in terms of your ability to interact with that person in *this* lifetime, and (2) because of its starkness, the first step toward "moving on" in the here and now. The believer treats the dead loved one not as "gone," but as living in a place where he or she cannot interact with the living and, so, one's thoughts about the deceased are not merely confined to happy memories, but rather necessarily extend to suppositions and mental machinations regarding just where the person is ("heaven" or otherwise) and what the person is currently doing. As a result, there is not merely the loss of death to deal with, but the ongoing separation of the living from those "living" in the afterlife. You haven't just lost your son/daughter/wife/husband/friend. You've lost them and they are living somewhere else where you can't see them in this life. And imagine the even greater, more awful, complications in the case of suicide; some religions do not believe in a happy afterlife for those poor souls. What then for practitioners of such a faith who have lost a loved one to suicide, and now have to cope with thoughts of so much more than just the loss in the here and now?
Ouch. What a burden. It's not one I care to bear. In fact, it seems unduly painful. When a friend of mine died a few years back, it hurt, but I can't imagine how I would have moved past that moment if I thought he were taken away to be elsewhere where I and his other friends could not see him. It would be as if he'd been shipped off to North Korea.
Instead, yeah, I miss my friend, but I have, for lack of a better term, "compartmentalized" his death. He was "then"; he is not "now." None of my "now" thoughts include him. Sure, I think about good times we had. I even occasionally think how much he might have enjoyed something-- a band, an album, whatever-- from the present, but I never think about how or what he is doing right now. He isn't doing anything. He's dead.
Harsh? Yeah. But I have moved on. I suspect I wouldn't have done so very well if I believed in an afterlife.
And I am not claiming to have all the answers on this question. I am just offering a point of view that you may not have considered. Like I said, I don't care where you are at on this issue. You might, for instance, say that it gives you great comfort and even a thrill to envision the reunion you will have in the afterlife with your dead loved one. My only answer to that is that it has little to do with the here and now, which is my concern. It strikes me as a horrible shame to spend one's days focused more on the ethereal, unknowable aspects of the future than on the issues of the present day. Life is wonderful; live it.
I keep returning to this theme, but it's a short time we have on the planet. Do your best. And that may not be possible if you get hung up too long on anything that, ultimately, you need to get past.
**A short digression: I am not an enormous fan of the word "atheist" as a label because it describes a person based on what he or she does *not* believe in -- a very odd notion, if you ask me -- but it is such common parlance at this point that I have used it here. Any "atheists" that I know believe so fervently in so many things (often so many *different* things, depending on the person, but, almost always, in science and reason) that it seems like an insult to label them in the negative based upon what they do *not* believe in, as if their core is a black hole of non-belief in anything.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, December 15, 2011
What's in a name?
This time, I didn't just change the name of the blog; I changed the URL. Sure, the old blogspot URL works too, so if that one strikes your fancy, blows up your skirt or otherwise suits you better, go right ahead and use it. It'll still get you here. But it is officially "The Paleo Drummer" from here on out.
This blog-name thing all started back in the days when this was called "More Spiel," an homage to the Minutemen, just about my favorite punk-rock band ever. But, somewhere along the line, things took a turn away from the musical and more toward the food/exercise/life angle. So, being the patient sort, I gave myself about 30 seconds to come up with a new name (NOW!), and I chose: "Hit Drums. Bang Rocks. Eat Meat," which I kind-of liked. It had the drummer and the caveman thing in there, at least.
But my wife asked a reasonable question: "How do the rocks come into it?" I had a limited number of reasonable answers to that. ("Limited" = none). So for about two hours the other day, the name was shortened to: "Hit Drums. Eat Meat." It was mercifully concise.
But eventually -- meaning two hours later -- I started to lust after my very own real/honest-to-bejeezus URL, y'know, one without the "blogspot" in there. Like a real website; y'know, like on the internets.
And, truth be told, not only does "Hit Drums. Bang Rocks. Eat Meat" look unwieldy and long when compressed into a single run-on one-word URL, but, more disturbing, whether you use that one or even the compressed/one-word version of merely "Hit Drums. Eat Meat," the resulting URL appears to have the word/phrase "seatmeat" in it.
I don't know what "seatmeat" is, but I am positive that it has nothing to do with this blog.
So that was right out.
Some other guy was already calling himself the Primal Drummer, so that was out too, even though my way of eating is technically more "primal" (i.e., includes some grassfed dairy) than strict "paleo." Plus, "primal drummer" sounds like someone you would meet at a drum circle.
You would never meet me at a drum circle.
So... "The Paleo Drummer" it is. I like it. It is short, to the point and still has the drums in there along with the food/caveman reference.
And, really, now that I have changed the URL, you and I are pretty much stuck with it. So get used to it, and look at the positive side: no seatmeat.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
This blog-name thing all started back in the days when this was called "More Spiel," an homage to the Minutemen, just about my favorite punk-rock band ever. But, somewhere along the line, things took a turn away from the musical and more toward the food/exercise/life angle. So, being the patient sort, I gave myself about 30 seconds to come up with a new name (NOW!), and I chose: "Hit Drums. Bang Rocks. Eat Meat," which I kind-of liked. It had the drummer and the caveman thing in there, at least.
But my wife asked a reasonable question: "How do the rocks come into it?" I had a limited number of reasonable answers to that. ("Limited" = none). So for about two hours the other day, the name was shortened to: "Hit Drums. Eat Meat." It was mercifully concise.
But eventually -- meaning two hours later -- I started to lust after my very own real/honest-to-bejeezus URL, y'know, one without the "blogspot" in there. Like a real website; y'know, like on the internets.
And, truth be told, not only does "Hit Drums. Bang Rocks. Eat Meat" look unwieldy and long when compressed into a single run-on one-word URL, but, more disturbing, whether you use that one or even the compressed/one-word version of merely "Hit Drums. Eat Meat," the resulting URL appears to have the word/phrase "seatmeat" in it.
I don't know what "seatmeat" is, but I am positive that it has nothing to do with this blog.
So that was right out.
Some other guy was already calling himself the Primal Drummer, so that was out too, even though my way of eating is technically more "primal" (i.e., includes some grassfed dairy) than strict "paleo." Plus, "primal drummer" sounds like someone you would meet at a drum circle.
You would never meet me at a drum circle.
So... "The Paleo Drummer" it is. I like it. It is short, to the point and still has the drums in there along with the food/caveman reference.
And, really, now that I have changed the URL, you and I are pretty much stuck with it. So get used to it, and look at the positive side: no seatmeat.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
The never-ending quest to cheat the reaper
It's kind of funny that I just recently did a short spiel on supplementation, and now I am about to launch into another one that indicates that I have, well, changed all that. But, really, information-gathering in the paleo/primal world is an ongoing process, and I have read some smart things written by smart people lately that convince me that I need to adjust my approach.
The bottom line is that I still take a One-A-Day Men's multivitamin and 1100 mg of magnesium, but.... I traded out the fish oil and the D3 for this little beauty -- the vaunted Green Pasture butter-oil/fermented-cod-liver-oil blend in capsule form. I say "vaunted" because Liz Wolfe of Cave Girl Eats speaks highly of this stuff. It is a power-packed wallop of vitamins A and D -- which work oh-so-much better in synergy with one another than separately -- plus the (double-vaunted) supremo power of K2.
(Insert dorky mountaineering joke here if you must....)
K2 is one of those super vitamins that we just seem to be learning more and more about. Not only has Ms. Wolfe given it her seal of approval, but Richard Nikoley of Free the Animal has waxed on about it as well. When you start talking about something that has positive effects on anti-aging, anti-calcification, dental health and heart health, you have a winner. Nikoley says that K2 appears to send calcium to all the places it needs to be -- like bones and teeth -- and none of the places, like arteries, where it shouldn't be. And it works synergistically with A and D, which (you might know if you have been paying attention even a little) are already doing their own little special pro-you tango with one another when taken together.
This whole switch also addresses an ongoing concern I have had for a while that the PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acid) levels in fish-oil capsules are too high, to say nothing of the fact that the fish that they, er, milked to get that oil probably were farm-raised, not wild-caught. (Mmmm, delicious pesticides). Robb Wolf even backed off the mega-fish-oil-dosing recommendations that he once made, causing the Whole9 folks to readjust their fish-oil spiel recently too by taking down their "fish-oil calculator." It's all enough make even a drummer pause a moment to think. [Pause]. I plan on compensating for the absence of fish-oil capsules in my life by adding in a can of wild-caught salmon to my lunch three times a week.
So, "Why the Green Pasture stuff, Steve-o?" you might ask. Because it's the only fermented, not heat-processed, cod-liver oil that also can be bought with the butter oil in combo, giving you the A/D/K2 whack that you didn't even know you were caring about until you read this.
And yes, it's kind of expensive. I don't know what to tell you about that. Buy the ticket; take the ride. They had me hooked at "anti-aging." I am firmly against aging.
So am going to give this stuff a whirl, a test drive, a spin around the block, so to speak. If Wolfe's and Nikoley's results (although Nikoley is actually not taking the blend, but, rather, just the GP butter-oil pills) are any key, I should be bragging about feeling even better than I already do in no time. If that sort of thing annoys you, uh, beware?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The bottom line is that I still take a One-A-Day Men's multivitamin and 1100 mg of magnesium, but.... I traded out the fish oil and the D3 for this little beauty -- the vaunted Green Pasture butter-oil/fermented-cod-liver-oil blend in capsule form. I say "vaunted" because Liz Wolfe of Cave Girl Eats speaks highly of this stuff. It is a power-packed wallop of vitamins A and D -- which work oh-so-much better in synergy with one another than separately -- plus the (double-vaunted) supremo power of K2.
(Insert dorky mountaineering joke here if you must....)
K2 is one of those super vitamins that we just seem to be learning more and more about. Not only has Ms. Wolfe given it her seal of approval, but Richard Nikoley of Free the Animal has waxed on about it as well. When you start talking about something that has positive effects on anti-aging, anti-calcification, dental health and heart health, you have a winner. Nikoley says that K2 appears to send calcium to all the places it needs to be -- like bones and teeth -- and none of the places, like arteries, where it shouldn't be. And it works synergistically with A and D, which (you might know if you have been paying attention even a little) are already doing their own little special pro-you tango with one another when taken together.
This whole switch also addresses an ongoing concern I have had for a while that the PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acid) levels in fish-oil capsules are too high, to say nothing of the fact that the fish that they, er, milked to get that oil probably were farm-raised, not wild-caught. (Mmmm, delicious pesticides). Robb Wolf even backed off the mega-fish-oil-dosing recommendations that he once made, causing the Whole9 folks to readjust their fish-oil spiel recently too by taking down their "fish-oil calculator." It's all enough make even a drummer pause a moment to think. [Pause]. I plan on compensating for the absence of fish-oil capsules in my life by adding in a can of wild-caught salmon to my lunch three times a week.
So, "Why the Green Pasture stuff, Steve-o?" you might ask. Because it's the only fermented, not heat-processed, cod-liver oil that also can be bought with the butter oil in combo, giving you the A/D/K2 whack that you didn't even know you were caring about until you read this.
And yes, it's kind of expensive. I don't know what to tell you about that. Buy the ticket; take the ride. They had me hooked at "anti-aging." I am firmly against aging.
So am going to give this stuff a whirl, a test drive, a spin around the block, so to speak. If Wolfe's and Nikoley's results (although Nikoley is actually not taking the blend, but, rather, just the GP butter-oil pills) are any key, I should be bragging about feeling even better than I already do in no time. If that sort of thing annoys you, uh, beware?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Scary, scary brain
Two (very short) stories.... Both involve the brain. Beware what is hidden in there.
My wife and I were recently in Germany. I knew that English would get us by just fine, but I was nevertheless interested in trying to kickstart my long-dormant German conversational skills. I was never a grammarian in German (which I find vaguely amusing because I am a card-carrying member of the "I think bad grammar makes you sound stupid" club in English) but my German conversational abilities were pretty boffo at one time. My high-school German teacher always stressed vocabulary and idiomatic turns of phrase over formal grammar, and so that is what I learned.
But high school was a very long time ago, and I don't think I actually learned anything in college German, so the vagaries of life's responsibilities being what they are, I hadn't thought a German thought in many years -- 27 of them to be exact. I was in Germany in 1979, 1980 and 1984. That's it.
So I bought a German-conversation CD set and put it on my iPod. That vaguely got the brain gears turning, but not to any extreme degree. I found myself striking out often when trying to remember a particular word.
It all changed on day three in Germany. It was as if a switch had been flipped and, suddenly, German words were pouring into my conscious from my subconscious. Really, it was crazy. As long as I didn't think too hard, conversation came easily. Idiomatic phrases were flowing like water. Long-dormant parts of the scary scary brain were activated.
It was fairly mindblowing. I got so damn excited about it that we will definitely be back to Deutschland in the near future. It also got me wondering what else is hidden in there. I mean this stuff was dead for 27 years, and, with just a day or two to ignite the brainy juices, I was rolling along like it was 1984, just with a better haircut.
Story two....
I was at yoga the other day -- a welcome once-a-week addition to my CrossFit life -- and I happened to exchange a quick "hey/welcome" glance with a new guy in the gym as I headed out the door. By the time I got to my car, I said to my wife, "Wait a minute.... Did you happen to hear that new guy's name?" She said she thought it was Chris, and my response was, "No fucking way.... I think I went to high school in Philly with that guy. I am going to go back in and see if that is him."
It is a bit unbelievable that I recognized him in that brief few seconds. I haven't seen this guy since, at best, about 1986, and I think it is actually a few years prior to that. He really doesn't look the same. Obviously, he looks older, but he is also significantly bigger/not the scrawny high-school kid I knew.
Which brings us back to the scary scary brain. I mean... What the hell? Something about that guy's face was still stored somewhere in my cerebral cortex that I recognized him in that sort of brief encounter?
Again, it makes you wonder what else is in there. So far, it's been pretty interesting of late rekindling the stagnant bits of el braino, but you have to wonder how many bad things are in there too, and how often are these memories *actually* triggered on a normal day and we just ignore them, or, more likely, they vaguely alter our approach/reaction to whatever is going on, and we don't even realize it.
Scary, scary brain.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
My wife and I were recently in Germany. I knew that English would get us by just fine, but I was nevertheless interested in trying to kickstart my long-dormant German conversational skills. I was never a grammarian in German (which I find vaguely amusing because I am a card-carrying member of the "I think bad grammar makes you sound stupid" club in English) but my German conversational abilities were pretty boffo at one time. My high-school German teacher always stressed vocabulary and idiomatic turns of phrase over formal grammar, and so that is what I learned.
But high school was a very long time ago, and I don't think I actually learned anything in college German, so the vagaries of life's responsibilities being what they are, I hadn't thought a German thought in many years -- 27 of them to be exact. I was in Germany in 1979, 1980 and 1984. That's it.
So I bought a German-conversation CD set and put it on my iPod. That vaguely got the brain gears turning, but not to any extreme degree. I found myself striking out often when trying to remember a particular word.
It all changed on day three in Germany. It was as if a switch had been flipped and, suddenly, German words were pouring into my conscious from my subconscious. Really, it was crazy. As long as I didn't think too hard, conversation came easily. Idiomatic phrases were flowing like water. Long-dormant parts of the scary scary brain were activated.
It was fairly mindblowing. I got so damn excited about it that we will definitely be back to Deutschland in the near future. It also got me wondering what else is hidden in there. I mean this stuff was dead for 27 years, and, with just a day or two to ignite the brainy juices, I was rolling along like it was 1984, just with a better haircut.
Story two....
I was at yoga the other day -- a welcome once-a-week addition to my CrossFit life -- and I happened to exchange a quick "hey/welcome" glance with a new guy in the gym as I headed out the door. By the time I got to my car, I said to my wife, "Wait a minute.... Did you happen to hear that new guy's name?" She said she thought it was Chris, and my response was, "No fucking way.... I think I went to high school in Philly with that guy. I am going to go back in and see if that is him."
It is a bit unbelievable that I recognized him in that brief few seconds. I haven't seen this guy since, at best, about 1986, and I think it is actually a few years prior to that. He really doesn't look the same. Obviously, he looks older, but he is also significantly bigger/not the scrawny high-school kid I knew.
Which brings us back to the scary scary brain. I mean... What the hell? Something about that guy's face was still stored somewhere in my cerebral cortex that I recognized him in that sort of brief encounter?
Again, it makes you wonder what else is in there. So far, it's been pretty interesting of late rekindling the stagnant bits of el braino, but you have to wonder how many bad things are in there too, and how often are these memories *actually* triggered on a normal day and we just ignore them, or, more likely, they vaguely alter our approach/reaction to whatever is going on, and we don't even realize it.
Scary, scary brain.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
You can really learn a lot that way....
It was 1976.
We had this second-year Latin teacher, Mr. O, in high school who was completely incompetent. A nice man, mind you, but not ready to teach high school. We knew more at the end of first-year Latin with another teacher than at any point during Mr. O's class. He was actually somehow sucking prior knowledge right out of our brains and replacing it with nothing. Yet, there were tests. Of course there were tests; it was high school. How do you do well on a test when you are not being taught anything? That was a conundrum that was solved early on in the first semester by a group of five clever individuals.
Mr. O had a funny routine on test day: he would give us 15 minutes to "review" before the test, and there was always a translation section taken right from the book. So, on test day, the Group of Clever Individuals (GCI), of which I was not a part--I was way too shy back then to pull off their stunts--would watch Mr. O come into class, and, as soon as he laid the tests on the podium at the front of the room and then walked across the room, three of them would immediately run up to him and ask him questions, blocking his view of their fourth member, who was stealing a copy of the test. GCI member #4 would then hand the test to thoroughly brilliant GCI member #5, who would not only tell us all which part of the book the translation was from, allowing us to look up all the words, but would also do a quick translation himself, and pass that around in case we needed a little extra help. The GCI were heroes--fighting The Man, getting us all good grades. They were legends.
And, for a very long time, we were all geniuses. We were scoring close to 100% on the exams, and Mr. O must have thought he was the best teacher in the world. Everyone won, well, except, I suppose, anyone who actually was planning on learning Latin that year, but we were high-school sophomores....please.
Which brings me to my point--everyone needs to know what he or she is good at, and don't show off when you don't know what you're doing. Don't play wildly out of your league.
Back to Latin class--the whole 10th grade genius Latin class was derailed when, in the spring semester, a kid named Robert, desperately trying to be cool, attempted to butt in on GCI #4's turf and be The Guy Who Actually Stole the Test. This freaked out GCI #4, who wondered why Robert was heading for the podium at the same time as he was--was he a narc, a rat, etc? And the ensuing scuffle at the front of the room caught Mr. O's attention despite the best efforts of GCI #s 1-3 to keep O engaged in conversation. Robert was out of his league, trying to get in on the glory of being a GCI member. I like to think important lessons were learned.
Latin class was really difficult the rest of the year.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
We had this second-year Latin teacher, Mr. O, in high school who was completely incompetent. A nice man, mind you, but not ready to teach high school. We knew more at the end of first-year Latin with another teacher than at any point during Mr. O's class. He was actually somehow sucking prior knowledge right out of our brains and replacing it with nothing. Yet, there were tests. Of course there were tests; it was high school. How do you do well on a test when you are not being taught anything? That was a conundrum that was solved early on in the first semester by a group of five clever individuals.
Mr. O had a funny routine on test day: he would give us 15 minutes to "review" before the test, and there was always a translation section taken right from the book. So, on test day, the Group of Clever Individuals (GCI), of which I was not a part--I was way too shy back then to pull off their stunts--would watch Mr. O come into class, and, as soon as he laid the tests on the podium at the front of the room and then walked across the room, three of them would immediately run up to him and ask him questions, blocking his view of their fourth member, who was stealing a copy of the test. GCI member #4 would then hand the test to thoroughly brilliant GCI member #5, who would not only tell us all which part of the book the translation was from, allowing us to look up all the words, but would also do a quick translation himself, and pass that around in case we needed a little extra help. The GCI were heroes--fighting The Man, getting us all good grades. They were legends.
And, for a very long time, we were all geniuses. We were scoring close to 100% on the exams, and Mr. O must have thought he was the best teacher in the world. Everyone won, well, except, I suppose, anyone who actually was planning on learning Latin that year, but we were high-school sophomores....please.
Which brings me to my point--everyone needs to know what he or she is good at, and don't show off when you don't know what you're doing. Don't play wildly out of your league.
Back to Latin class--the whole 10th grade genius Latin class was derailed when, in the spring semester, a kid named Robert, desperately trying to be cool, attempted to butt in on GCI #4's turf and be The Guy Who Actually Stole the Test. This freaked out GCI #4, who wondered why Robert was heading for the podium at the same time as he was--was he a narc, a rat, etc? And the ensuing scuffle at the front of the room caught Mr. O's attention despite the best efforts of GCI #s 1-3 to keep O engaged in conversation. Robert was out of his league, trying to get in on the glory of being a GCI member. I like to think important lessons were learned.
Latin class was really difficult the rest of the year.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
And if your confidence may be shattered, it doesn't matter....
"I try to keep myself in situations that will teach me shit. The more challenging, the better. It keeps me young, curious, and humbled. Life isn’t supposed to be figured out. It’s supposed to have twists and turns and things you can’t predict." --Mike Watt
I am not an enormous fan of limitations. I think most of them are self-imposed horseshit like: "I know I would be better off if I stopped eating _____, but that'd be *impossible*."
Those ones aren't truly a matter of "can't." They are a matter of "won't."
Then there are others that are, for the moment, firmly planted in the "can't" category, but those are temporary. Like right now I can't do a muscle-up. But I think it's possible that with a hell of a lot of work/practice, I may get there.
And generally speaking, that's how I approach everything in CrossFit: keep trying and I will get it, eventually.
I think that attitude may be a little too optimistic -- and perhaps painfully counterproductive -- when it comes to the jerk.
You have a barbell at shoulder height. There are basically three ways to get it over your head: press it, just using your arms; push-press it, using your arms assisted by a dip/drive from your legs; or jerk it, launching the bar upwards with a jump and then diving under the bar to catch it with your arms already locked-out overhead. Theoretically, the amount of weight you can get overhead goes up fairly dramatically as you move from press to push-press to jerk.
But it's the "lockout" part of the equation that I am afraid falls into the "can't" category for me when it comes to the jerk.
I have been playing drums for the last 30 years. Over time, thanks to the lack of full 180-degree extension every time I hit a cymbal (which I do 99% of the time with my right arm), I now simply cannot straighten my right arm. Well, I can't straighten my left arm either, also from drumming, but it is the right one that is especially horrifying. I would estimate that, at best, I can get it to about 165 degrees, although a protractor might give me a number slightly worse than that.
I do mobility exercises to try to straighten both arms. There is an especially painful one that involves using a giant rubber-band thingy to literally force it straighter, but, in the end, I think the best I am doing for it is preventing it from getting worse.
Which brings us to the jerk....
We did one-rep jerks today at CrossFit. For the third straight time, my jerk is no better than my push-press because when I jerk a heavier-than-i-can-push-press weight overhead I can't catch it with locked-out arms.
Try catching a flying heavy barbell with non-locked-out arms.
It hurts, a lot. It's as if someone is ripping your elbow, wrist and shoulder off in different directions.
I don't think I am doing myself any favors by trying the jerk.
This type of realization is difficult for me, but I suppose it is important to learn the difference between won't and can't whenever possible.
The learning never stops. It's just that some of it hurts more than others.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I am not an enormous fan of limitations. I think most of them are self-imposed horseshit like: "I know I would be better off if I stopped eating _____, but that'd be *impossible*."
Those ones aren't truly a matter of "can't." They are a matter of "won't."
Then there are others that are, for the moment, firmly planted in the "can't" category, but those are temporary. Like right now I can't do a muscle-up. But I think it's possible that with a hell of a lot of work/practice, I may get there.
And generally speaking, that's how I approach everything in CrossFit: keep trying and I will get it, eventually.
I think that attitude may be a little too optimistic -- and perhaps painfully counterproductive -- when it comes to the jerk.
You have a barbell at shoulder height. There are basically three ways to get it over your head: press it, just using your arms; push-press it, using your arms assisted by a dip/drive from your legs; or jerk it, launching the bar upwards with a jump and then diving under the bar to catch it with your arms already locked-out overhead. Theoretically, the amount of weight you can get overhead goes up fairly dramatically as you move from press to push-press to jerk.
But it's the "lockout" part of the equation that I am afraid falls into the "can't" category for me when it comes to the jerk.
I have been playing drums for the last 30 years. Over time, thanks to the lack of full 180-degree extension every time I hit a cymbal (which I do 99% of the time with my right arm), I now simply cannot straighten my right arm. Well, I can't straighten my left arm either, also from drumming, but it is the right one that is especially horrifying. I would estimate that, at best, I can get it to about 165 degrees, although a protractor might give me a number slightly worse than that.
I do mobility exercises to try to straighten both arms. There is an especially painful one that involves using a giant rubber-band thingy to literally force it straighter, but, in the end, I think the best I am doing for it is preventing it from getting worse.
Which brings us to the jerk....
We did one-rep jerks today at CrossFit. For the third straight time, my jerk is no better than my push-press because when I jerk a heavier-than-i-can-push-press weight overhead I can't catch it with locked-out arms.
Try catching a flying heavy barbell with non-locked-out arms.
It hurts, a lot. It's as if someone is ripping your elbow, wrist and shoulder off in different directions.
I don't think I am doing myself any favors by trying the jerk.
This type of realization is difficult for me, but I suppose it is important to learn the difference between won't and can't whenever possible.
The learning never stops. It's just that some of it hurts more than others.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, November 28, 2011
But if you try sometimes, you just might find....
If the Buddhists have a notion that pervades all their thinking, it is impermanence. And the older I get, the more I think they have that one right. Some stuff just dies on the vine, and you can't do a damn thing about it, except treasure the things that stick around a little longer.
Let the bad things (and people) go, and enjoy the ones who matter. In fact, usually it's the people that matter.
A few years back, an old friend of mine called me up and told me that he had about ten crates of albums (vinyl) to give me as long as I was willing to drive the 550 miles to his place to pick 'em up. OK, I said, not thinking too hard about it. He is an odd duck and it didn't seem too strange that he would be dumping thousands of dollars of albums on me in some kind of mad house-cleaning exercise. Little did I know that he was in the process of shedding all his friends (not a long list) in some sort of cosmic dump of all his old life. This guy was a two-pack/day smoker for years, and has, in the ensuing time, I learned, quit smoking, taken up trail running and generally started over.
Except, as far as I know, he is still a lonely bastard.
I have given up trying to figure that one out.
But I think, by and large, I have given up trying to figure *any* of it out. You cannot control people and their behavior. You can just try to pick your friends carefully.
Which brings me to the impending wonder of what we call "band camp."
Bands are funny things. They are utterly dependent on both a solid group dynamic and the foibles/oddball tendencies of the individuals. Have one disruptive character in the group who isn't riding the same train as the others and, no matter how good you sound as a group, that kind of band won't make it to its first anniversary, let alone go for the long haul.
So when the same people have gotten together once a year for the last 25 years to meet in a cabin, in the woods, sometimes in Maine, sometimes in New Hampshire, sometimes in the dead of winter, sometimes at the close of fall, but always to celebrate the wonder of life, the universe and everything through loud, cathartic music, well.... it's pretty fucking special.
Yeah, the characters rotate a little -- except for my brother who, to his unique credit, has managed to be there every year of those 25 -- but it's mostly the same guys over the long haul. And the music we bash out has morphed from some kind of Giant Sand/Neil Young/Uncle Tupelo twangy grungefest into more straight-up punk rock.
And it gets a little more important every year.
Last year took a turn toward the primal, as my and my brother's newfound primal eating led to a near-constant crockpot full of meat simmering away in the kitchen. And there's always some stomping around the woods in the snow on a hike or two. But the important thing is the people. So, while the music changes here and there, and the food gets a little meatier, while the beer gets harder and harder to drink as much of, the conversation never wanes and the value of this trip keeps growing.
Oh yeah.... We don't actually head out on this year's band-camp adventure until February. But "songs we should cover" emails have begun, and the greatest cover band you have never (and will never) hear is revving up its engine for yet another year. Oh, and I have a feeling the meat consumption will be epic.
25 years, motherfuckers. You can't place a value on that. Band camp rules.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Let the bad things (and people) go, and enjoy the ones who matter. In fact, usually it's the people that matter.
A few years back, an old friend of mine called me up and told me that he had about ten crates of albums (vinyl) to give me as long as I was willing to drive the 550 miles to his place to pick 'em up. OK, I said, not thinking too hard about it. He is an odd duck and it didn't seem too strange that he would be dumping thousands of dollars of albums on me in some kind of mad house-cleaning exercise. Little did I know that he was in the process of shedding all his friends (not a long list) in some sort of cosmic dump of all his old life. This guy was a two-pack/day smoker for years, and has, in the ensuing time, I learned, quit smoking, taken up trail running and generally started over.
Except, as far as I know, he is still a lonely bastard.
I have given up trying to figure that one out.
But I think, by and large, I have given up trying to figure *any* of it out. You cannot control people and their behavior. You can just try to pick your friends carefully.
Which brings me to the impending wonder of what we call "band camp."
Bands are funny things. They are utterly dependent on both a solid group dynamic and the foibles/oddball tendencies of the individuals. Have one disruptive character in the group who isn't riding the same train as the others and, no matter how good you sound as a group, that kind of band won't make it to its first anniversary, let alone go for the long haul.
So when the same people have gotten together once a year for the last 25 years to meet in a cabin, in the woods, sometimes in Maine, sometimes in New Hampshire, sometimes in the dead of winter, sometimes at the close of fall, but always to celebrate the wonder of life, the universe and everything through loud, cathartic music, well.... it's pretty fucking special.
Yeah, the characters rotate a little -- except for my brother who, to his unique credit, has managed to be there every year of those 25 -- but it's mostly the same guys over the long haul. And the music we bash out has morphed from some kind of Giant Sand/Neil Young/Uncle Tupelo twangy grungefest into more straight-up punk rock.
And it gets a little more important every year.
Last year took a turn toward the primal, as my and my brother's newfound primal eating led to a near-constant crockpot full of meat simmering away in the kitchen. And there's always some stomping around the woods in the snow on a hike or two. But the important thing is the people. So, while the music changes here and there, and the food gets a little meatier, while the beer gets harder and harder to drink as much of, the conversation never wanes and the value of this trip keeps growing.
Oh yeah.... We don't actually head out on this year's band-camp adventure until February. But "songs we should cover" emails have begun, and the greatest cover band you have never (and will never) hear is revving up its engine for yet another year. Oh, and I have a feeling the meat consumption will be epic.
25 years, motherfuckers. You can't place a value on that. Band camp rules.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, November 25, 2011
Clean mass gain
Yeah, you can hate me now. I am the rare 49-year-old male who is thin and annoyed about weighing *less* than I want to. Boo-fucking-hoo, eh?
CrossFit and primal eating have been really good to me, but I am 6'3" and weighed, at the end of the eating challenge that I just finished, around 172 pounds. I want to put some more weight on, specifically in the form of muscle. I am decently strong for my weight, but not spectacular: my current one-rep deadlift is 365 pounds for example. But I would be a hell of a lot stronger with ten extra pounds of muscle on me.
So it's time for what Dallas over at Whole9 calls a "clean mass gain." Translated that means: "eating primal food, but in a way that fools your satiety sensor so you eat *more* good food than you need and gain some weight."
The best time to really pile on the food is post-workout. So for the last three days, I have probably eaten 1500 calories for *breakfast* each day.
It's been awesome. Well, OK, breakfast has been awesome. I feel *amazing* after breakfast and the feeling lasts for hours....
....and hours and hours. Generally it is about six hours until I am hungry again.
Which is great, except for the weight-gain part of the deal. And since "the deal" is about weight gain, well, this is all a bit of a failure. I may never eat a snack again, though.
I think coconut milk may be the key to fooling myself. (But, oh, the line between "fine" and "where's the Imodium?" is so fine with coconut milk). So I need to dial up my coconut-milk intake, apparently. I may even have to get brave enough to try this monster, courtesy of Dallas Hartwig:
1-13.5 oz. can of coconut milk – 720 calories
2 avocado – 450 calories
1 banana – 105 calories
1 pint of frozen blackberries – 260 calories
1 bunch watercress or spinach – 12 calories
3 carrots – 120 calories
6 eggs – 360 calories
Throw it all in (feel free to mix and match your ingredients). Blend. Slurp straight from the blender.
Total estimated calories: 2,027
I think may start with a half serving. Pray for me.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
CrossFit and primal eating have been really good to me, but I am 6'3" and weighed, at the end of the eating challenge that I just finished, around 172 pounds. I want to put some more weight on, specifically in the form of muscle. I am decently strong for my weight, but not spectacular: my current one-rep deadlift is 365 pounds for example. But I would be a hell of a lot stronger with ten extra pounds of muscle on me.
So it's time for what Dallas over at Whole9 calls a "clean mass gain." Translated that means: "eating primal food, but in a way that fools your satiety sensor so you eat *more* good food than you need and gain some weight."
The best time to really pile on the food is post-workout. So for the last three days, I have probably eaten 1500 calories for *breakfast* each day.
It's been awesome. Well, OK, breakfast has been awesome. I feel *amazing* after breakfast and the feeling lasts for hours....
....and hours and hours. Generally it is about six hours until I am hungry again.
Which is great, except for the weight-gain part of the deal. And since "the deal" is about weight gain, well, this is all a bit of a failure. I may never eat a snack again, though.
I think coconut milk may be the key to fooling myself. (But, oh, the line between "fine" and "where's the Imodium?" is so fine with coconut milk). So I need to dial up my coconut-milk intake, apparently. I may even have to get brave enough to try this monster, courtesy of Dallas Hartwig:
1-13.5 oz. can of coconut milk – 720 calories
2 avocado – 450 calories
1 banana – 105 calories
1 pint of frozen blackberries – 260 calories
1 bunch watercress or spinach – 12 calories
3 carrots – 120 calories
6 eggs – 360 calories
Throw it all in (feel free to mix and match your ingredients). Blend. Slurp straight from the blender.
Total estimated calories: 2,027
I think may start with a half serving. Pray for me.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
You break it; you own it (a.k.a. Thanksgiving paleo thoughts)
It's funny... When you start eating this way and then blogging about it, more people than usual start talking to you about food. Some of those people flatter me greatly when they tell me that they're off on their own paleo or primal food journey as a result of my incessant blahblahblah on the subject. But let's keep one thing clear: if you choose to do this, it's your gig, not mine. In other words, I am more than happy to field any question a fellow paleo/primal person wants to throw my way, but what I am not here on the planet to be is your disapproving parent.
I had someone who is dabbling in paleo -- a concept I am not sure I really understand; "60% paleo" strikes me as "not very paleo at all," but I digress -- tell me the other day that she knew I would disapprove, but she ate ______ (some gluten-filled item). It was expected that I would either say something nurturing and caring like, "Oh, do your best; own your cheats and get back on the wagon," or, more harshly say, "That's awful."
Instead I said, "Whatever."
I got the impression that this went over poorly.
And then I had to explain: I don't care what you eat. I am more than happy to help steer you toward good food choices if you ask me a question, but I am not the food police and I think you ought to be responsible enough for your own actions not to complain about a choice you made to eat something bad for you.
I firmly believe that you will never successfully learn how to feed yourself until you take the position that no one is responsible for what goes down your piehole but you.
And this all plays a larger-than-normal role in my thoughts as we approach Thanksgiving and all its food-filled splendor.
Your mom didn't force you to have a piece of pie or a helping of stuffing because she made it. Yes, you can reasonably make a choice that it is politically or socially more acceptable for you to have a little bit (or a lot, for that matter) of some off-the-paleo-reservation food item, rather than declining it entirely and explaining that gluten is your personal enemy, etc. But *you* make that choice, not your mom or your grandma or whoever is making your holiday meal.
Man (or woman) up. Don't turn simple food choices into an exercise in drama. I really do not care what you eat. However, I do care if you try to blame your eating on something or someone else. It's your life; own it.
Happy Thanksgiving.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I had someone who is dabbling in paleo -- a concept I am not sure I really understand; "60% paleo" strikes me as "not very paleo at all," but I digress -- tell me the other day that she knew I would disapprove, but she ate ______ (some gluten-filled item). It was expected that I would either say something nurturing and caring like, "Oh, do your best; own your cheats and get back on the wagon," or, more harshly say, "That's awful."
Instead I said, "Whatever."
I got the impression that this went over poorly.
And then I had to explain: I don't care what you eat. I am more than happy to help steer you toward good food choices if you ask me a question, but I am not the food police and I think you ought to be responsible enough for your own actions not to complain about a choice you made to eat something bad for you.
I firmly believe that you will never successfully learn how to feed yourself until you take the position that no one is responsible for what goes down your piehole but you.
And this all plays a larger-than-normal role in my thoughts as we approach Thanksgiving and all its food-filled splendor.
Your mom didn't force you to have a piece of pie or a helping of stuffing because she made it. Yes, you can reasonably make a choice that it is politically or socially more acceptable for you to have a little bit (or a lot, for that matter) of some off-the-paleo-reservation food item, rather than declining it entirely and explaining that gluten is your personal enemy, etc. But *you* make that choice, not your mom or your grandma or whoever is making your holiday meal.
Man (or woman) up. Don't turn simple food choices into an exercise in drama. I really do not care what you eat. However, I do care if you try to blame your eating on something or someone else. It's your life; own it.
Happy Thanksgiving.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, November 20, 2011
More proof this stuff works
I had a colossal shit ton of things to do yesterday afternoon, almost all of them relating to my dad, who, you may recall, is in a nursing home for dementia. I stuffed some high-quality grub (coconut-curry crockpot beef and veggies) into myself at 1:30 pm and went off to TCB.
The next time I ate anything was 8 pm.
Trust me when I say that the former version of me -- you know, the vegetarian-ish/grain-filled/35-pounds-heavier guy that doesn't exist anymore -- would have been fucking homicidal by then. I mean really .... just an abominable human being to be near. A cranky insulin-crashing motherfucker. The ranking of Awful People in History would have been something like:
1. Hitler
2. Stalin
3. Pol Pot
4. Me
And I might have given one or two of the ones above me on the list a decent run for their money.
But yesterday? No. I was, dare I say, witty, charming and generally a joy to be around.
This may be a slight exaggeration. Maybe I was none of those things, but I was not, in any sense, cranky or miserable. And, mind you, I was dealing with my dad and/or his crazy issues much of the time, so the surrounding circumstances were not the same as, say, getting a foot massage from Anne Hathaway while being served delicious drinks on a beach and Anne, let's say, just happened to forget the food she promised to bring. No, it was crappy and vaguely stress-filled. But it was not famished-feeling.
I just was ever-so-barely beginning to feel hungry after *6 1/2* hours without food. And the hungry feeling was just a vague sort of, "Hmmm, maybe I should start to think about eating something" feeling, rather than a "Give me food or I may eat your babies and/or pets" imperative.
It was really a stunning declaration from my whole metabolism that this primal/paleo stuff works. Fill up on animal protein, good fat and veggies and you can go longer than you ever imagined possible without the demon insulin making a cameo and demanding you do your best crazed-dictator imitation.
Yup. Eat like a predator, not a prey.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The next time I ate anything was 8 pm.
Trust me when I say that the former version of me -- you know, the vegetarian-ish/grain-filled/35-pounds-heavier guy that doesn't exist anymore -- would have been fucking homicidal by then. I mean really .... just an abominable human being to be near. A cranky insulin-crashing motherfucker. The ranking of Awful People in History would have been something like:
1. Hitler
2. Stalin
3. Pol Pot
4. Me
And I might have given one or two of the ones above me on the list a decent run for their money.
But yesterday? No. I was, dare I say, witty, charming and generally a joy to be around.
This may be a slight exaggeration. Maybe I was none of those things, but I was not, in any sense, cranky or miserable. And, mind you, I was dealing with my dad and/or his crazy issues much of the time, so the surrounding circumstances were not the same as, say, getting a foot massage from Anne Hathaway while being served delicious drinks on a beach and Anne, let's say, just happened to forget the food she promised to bring. No, it was crappy and vaguely stress-filled. But it was not famished-feeling.
I just was ever-so-barely beginning to feel hungry after *6 1/2* hours without food. And the hungry feeling was just a vague sort of, "Hmmm, maybe I should start to think about eating something" feeling, rather than a "Give me food or I may eat your babies and/or pets" imperative.
It was really a stunning declaration from my whole metabolism that this primal/paleo stuff works. Fill up on animal protein, good fat and veggies and you can go longer than you ever imagined possible without the demon insulin making a cameo and demanding you do your best crazed-dictator imitation.
Yup. Eat like a predator, not a prey.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Rearrange your taste buds
"Jazz is not dead; it just smells funny."
-- Frank Zappa
Your whole relationship with food changes when you begin this primal/paleo journey, and when you go all-in, like doing a 30-day challenge, your taste buds completely reorient themselves. The simple stuff tastes complicated and full of flavor.
I stopped by a Starbucks today and got a venti (Italian for "bigass," I believe) Americano. The addition of a small amount of half and half (yeah, I know....) made it taste like dessert -- mostly in a good way, but not entirely. Later, coconut milk over blueberries reminded me more of Ben and Jerry's than a paleo snack. And coconut-curry crockpot beef tastes so rich that you'd swear the fun police are going to stop you from eating it.
Even bone broth.... for fuck's sake, I just drank a half a mug of bone broth and it tasted *delicious*. I mean, I would have had it anyway because I have just a touch of a cold and it is the mineral-rich bomb for getting rid of that sort of thing, but this tasted meaty and complex. And really, it's just broth.
It's as if the food challenge that just ended has been the total perspective vortex (note Douglas Adams reference) of eating. It is like suddenly everything is in its proper place, tasting the way it should. Nice.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
-- Frank Zappa
Your whole relationship with food changes when you begin this primal/paleo journey, and when you go all-in, like doing a 30-day challenge, your taste buds completely reorient themselves. The simple stuff tastes complicated and full of flavor.
I stopped by a Starbucks today and got a venti (Italian for "bigass," I believe) Americano. The addition of a small amount of half and half (yeah, I know....) made it taste like dessert -- mostly in a good way, but not entirely. Later, coconut milk over blueberries reminded me more of Ben and Jerry's than a paleo snack. And coconut-curry crockpot beef tastes so rich that you'd swear the fun police are going to stop you from eating it.
Even bone broth.... for fuck's sake, I just drank a half a mug of bone broth and it tasted *delicious*. I mean, I would have had it anyway because I have just a touch of a cold and it is the mineral-rich bomb for getting rid of that sort of thing, but this tasted meaty and complex. And really, it's just broth.
It's as if the food challenge that just ended has been the total perspective vortex (note Douglas Adams reference) of eating. It is like suddenly everything is in its proper place, tasting the way it should. Nice.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Weirdness abounds
For a very long time, I have had what I will call a frequent, but not excessive, relationship with alcohol. I am a pretty dependable one-or-two-drink-a-day guy. Come home from work, get dinner going, crack open a beer, or, since I have gone paleo/primal and ditched the gluten, maybe wine, whisky or hard cider (Strongbow seems to beat all the other ciders, FWIW).
But then I did this primal eating challenge. Not a drop of booze or processed crap went into my gaping maw for a month.
And now booze isn't moving me much at all.
Yeah, on Friday night when I was out with friends, celebrating the awesomeness of, well, everything, a few Magner's hard ciders went down pretty well. But at home in the week since ending the challenge, I have had a little Highland Park one night, some Laphroaig another and two glasses of red wine last night. My reaction: ppbbttffftt (an unimpressive noise, trust me on this one).
What the hell?
It really just made me sleepy and sluggish. The nights when I didn't drink, I got shit done. I was a TCB machine. The others? Not so much.
I mean.... This *should* lead to a simple reaction of: "Maybe I shouldn't drink at home on weeknights." But somehow it is more complicated than that. There are years of patterned behavior to un-learn. Apparently my taste buds -- and, particularly, my metabolism -- have unlearned booze pretty quickly, but the brain is not so smart or logical.
Brain v. taste buds. It'll be an epic throwdown, I'm sure. Updates to follow.
This is fucking bizarre.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
But then I did this primal eating challenge. Not a drop of booze or processed crap went into my gaping maw for a month.
And now booze isn't moving me much at all.
Yeah, on Friday night when I was out with friends, celebrating the awesomeness of, well, everything, a few Magner's hard ciders went down pretty well. But at home in the week since ending the challenge, I have had a little Highland Park one night, some Laphroaig another and two glasses of red wine last night. My reaction: ppbbttffftt (an unimpressive noise, trust me on this one).
What the hell?
It really just made me sleepy and sluggish. The nights when I didn't drink, I got shit done. I was a TCB machine. The others? Not so much.
I mean.... This *should* lead to a simple reaction of: "Maybe I shouldn't drink at home on weeknights." But somehow it is more complicated than that. There are years of patterned behavior to un-learn. Apparently my taste buds -- and, particularly, my metabolism -- have unlearned booze pretty quickly, but the brain is not so smart or logical.
Brain v. taste buds. It'll be an epic throwdown, I'm sure. Updates to follow.
This is fucking bizarre.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, November 14, 2011
"The Garage"
We have a workout at our CrossFit gym called "The Garage." The name is an homage to the humble residential-one-car-garage beginnings of the business, which is now in a *much* larger commercial space that the owners moved to last January. (And now, things are going so well there that a move to an even larger space is in the works).
So when the owners put together a "benchmark" workout -- one that tests movements and strength across a wide range of modalities, including bodyweight and barbell work -- and they needed a name for it, I suggested "The Garage." It seemed right, and it stuck. It goes like this:
3 rounds for time of:
10 pullups
10 front squats
10 burpees
So, right at the beginning of our 30-day primal eating challenge, we did that workout. And now that the challenge is over, we just did it again. I was a little skeptical that I would see big results on this workout. I was already eating mostly clean when I started all this. How good could it get?
Pretty good, apparently. I went in this morning, ass dragging from a brand-new (dammit) cold/cough combo and still beat my old time of 5:58 (with 115-lb front squats) with a new mark of 5:04.
Nice. Here's to clean eating.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So when the owners put together a "benchmark" workout -- one that tests movements and strength across a wide range of modalities, including bodyweight and barbell work -- and they needed a name for it, I suggested "The Garage." It seemed right, and it stuck. It goes like this:
3 rounds for time of:
10 pullups
10 front squats
10 burpees
So, right at the beginning of our 30-day primal eating challenge, we did that workout. And now that the challenge is over, we just did it again. I was a little skeptical that I would see big results on this workout. I was already eating mostly clean when I started all this. How good could it get?
Pretty good, apparently. I went in this morning, ass dragging from a brand-new (dammit) cold/cough combo and still beat my old time of 5:58 (with 115-lb front squats) with a new mark of 5:04.
Nice. Here's to clean eating.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, November 12, 2011
The Sebadoh post that isn't mostly about Sebadoh
Life is short. The New Jersey Turnpike on a Friday evening is long.
I'm glad that last night, in the end, my concern over the former won out over my fretting over the latter. I need to make sure to keep that in mind every time.
Hoboken is kind of a haul from my house. It's more of a haul if the trip begins at 5:45 p.m. on a Friday when the traffic report features up to 90 minute delays on the tunnels headed *inbound* to NYC. It's enough to make a man consider saying, "Fuck it."
But these days I really try to minimize how often I pass up opportunities to do cool things.
I'm pushing 50 years old, and as a similarly-situated friend and I recently pondered, in a mix of philosophy and simple mathematics that was, well, less complicated or stunning than the wine we were drinking at the time, but kinda whupped us both upside the head nevertheless: "So, this means, if we're really lucky, we get to be on the planet another 30-35 years or so. Any more than that and it doesn't sound like the pain-to-fun ratio is going to be a very low number; so, yeah, 30 to 35 more good years....at best."
Sorry if I just became Captain Bringdown, but it's the truth.
So when I heard that Lou and Jake from Sebadoh -- no spring chickens themselves -- were saddling up the old warhorse to take it for another spin --this time through Maxwell's in Hoboken -- *and* that this particular tour was going to focus on what are, for me, their two best records by far (go here and here) *and* that (I'm yelling in frustration here) THE EFFING TOUR CAME THROUGH PHILLY LAST SPRING AND I LEARNED TOO LATE TO JUMP ON IT THEN, I got the tickets. I was Maxwell's-bound.
Simultaneously, I realized that some friends in the general NYC area who I just don't see often enough might be interested in this show, and even a few more might want to meet up for dinner beforehand, and so I started floating a plan called: "I don't *care* whether you want to see Sebadoh with me, but you really ought to get yer ass out to dinner because life is short and with kids and houses and dogs and jobs and the general state of the turgid miasma of existence and all.... see you at 8 p.m. at Maxwell's. I'll be at the bar."
So plans were made, tickets were bought by some, and others said they'd skip the show but still be at dinner.
And then kids and houses and dogs and, yup, that raised their ugly heads and, by game time, our numbers were greatly reduced in quantity, but still oh-so-high in quality.
Kyle hit "pause" on her busy life to come across two rivers from Brooklyn, and Amy and Bill and I *finally* ended up in the same place at the same time in New Jersey where we've all lived for over two years but seem to only see each other in *other* locations across the country, and Pete and I ended something like seven years of never quite getting our shit together to hang out and rekindle what our pal Dan once called something like "the Pete/Steve vortex of punk rock that I like just hanging around to be close by."
It was awesome. Stories were told. Laughs were had. The proverbial shit was shot. I was reminded, once again, that most of my friends are so much more politically lefty than me that they make my libertarian-ish take on things appear oh-so-much more Rand-ian than it ever really is. (Amy: "You're outnumbered here, Steve. Remember that.") I was also reminded that even though, of the four of them, only Bill and Pete had ever actually met before, funny smart people *always* have something to talk about, and I dig gathering them together in heretofore unknown combinations like that.
So, this is just a small shoutout to you peeps who were there, for the good times that make me appreciate life on this manic blue orb even more than I do already, and to those of you who couldn't make it 'cause life got in the way.... well, do your best next time. It's worth it. And chances to do this sort of thing seem to happen less than they ought to.
Oh right....there was a rock show too. Sebadoh were great, albeit a tad on the sloppy side. But the song selection was, as I expected, aces. And the set length (30 songs!) was epic. Last night I'll call them a speeding truck that was big and loud, powerful and strong at its best, but simultaneously throwing off shards of debris that make you think the driver(s) -- who, true to past form, kept alternating positions behind the wheel, by the way -- ought to tie that load down just a little bit tighter. Stir a few of these together in a blender and you'll get the idea.
We'll call it "one for the fans," and that includes me. Good one, boys.
Dinner, on the other hand, was "one for the record books." Even better one, boys and girls. Let's do it again sooner than later.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Love letter to a deadlift
Dear Deadlift,
You bring me such joy that I thought I'd send you a quick note. Sometimes relationships are so one-sided, and one partner isn't telling the other what he or she thinks. And I didn't want that to be the case with us.
There's a simple joy between us when we meet -- a brute, animal sort of joy that is difficult to replicate on a more technical lift. Yet, that simplicity masks your complexity that requires adherence to some basic standards of conduct and form before embarking on an adventure with you.
You are really about the fundamental thrill of picking up something heavy and putting it down. But, as you warned me, compromise the basics with you, and only pain, suffering and regret will result. Yes, you are a little rough around the edges, and a bit demanding, but oh-so-rewarding.
Your principles are easy to comply with. Lock in and go. You are not "full of rules" like your friend The Clean -- although, truth be told, I have a bit of a thing for her too now. You don't require the extreme shoulder, elbow and wrist mobility of some others. For example, I have tried getting entangled with that nasty, technically-minded woman who goes by the name Overhead Squat and the results were decidedly unrewarding. Indeed, all of the sisters in the Overhead family bring me unwanted suffering whenever I dare go near them. Strict Press is painful and unreasonable. Push Press only slightly less so, and The Jerk? She is aptly named.
Sure, I have had my moments with our mutual friend Back Squat, especially lately. And her wacky, yet still alluring, sister Front Squat can be entertaining too, but only if I meet her strange demands of "Keep your elbows high!"
But things always come back to you, baby. Your reliability makes me feel strong even on a week when I have had chaotic and near-disastrous run-ins with likes of the Overhead sisters. Sure, the Front and Back Squats have an appealing emphasis on legs. But so do you, and with so much more simplicity.
And, unlike my time with all the others, I leave my encounters with you completely spent, every time. Sure, some days with you are heavier than others, but when I meet your requests for "just one more round before you go," and everything clicks like it did today, the brutish rewards are many. I feel simultaneously strong *and* exhausted. I eat all day long thereafter, and I sleep soundly. And when I ever-so-occasionally break our routine and meet you in the evening, rather than the morning, the benefits are even better.
So, amazing Deadlift, keep doing everything that you do, and I'll be back for more. I promise.
Xoxoxo
Steve
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
You bring me such joy that I thought I'd send you a quick note. Sometimes relationships are so one-sided, and one partner isn't telling the other what he or she thinks. And I didn't want that to be the case with us.
There's a simple joy between us when we meet -- a brute, animal sort of joy that is difficult to replicate on a more technical lift. Yet, that simplicity masks your complexity that requires adherence to some basic standards of conduct and form before embarking on an adventure with you.
You are really about the fundamental thrill of picking up something heavy and putting it down. But, as you warned me, compromise the basics with you, and only pain, suffering and regret will result. Yes, you are a little rough around the edges, and a bit demanding, but oh-so-rewarding.
Your principles are easy to comply with. Lock in and go. You are not "full of rules" like your friend The Clean -- although, truth be told, I have a bit of a thing for her too now. You don't require the extreme shoulder, elbow and wrist mobility of some others. For example, I have tried getting entangled with that nasty, technically-minded woman who goes by the name Overhead Squat and the results were decidedly unrewarding. Indeed, all of the sisters in the Overhead family bring me unwanted suffering whenever I dare go near them. Strict Press is painful and unreasonable. Push Press only slightly less so, and The Jerk? She is aptly named.
Sure, I have had my moments with our mutual friend Back Squat, especially lately. And her wacky, yet still alluring, sister Front Squat can be entertaining too, but only if I meet her strange demands of "Keep your elbows high!"
But things always come back to you, baby. Your reliability makes me feel strong even on a week when I have had chaotic and near-disastrous run-ins with likes of the Overhead sisters. Sure, the Front and Back Squats have an appealing emphasis on legs. But so do you, and with so much more simplicity.
And, unlike my time with all the others, I leave my encounters with you completely spent, every time. Sure, some days with you are heavier than others, but when I meet your requests for "just one more round before you go," and everything clicks like it did today, the brutish rewards are many. I feel simultaneously strong *and* exhausted. I eat all day long thereafter, and I sleep soundly. And when I ever-so-occasionally break our routine and meet you in the evening, rather than the morning, the benefits are even better.
So, amazing Deadlift, keep doing everything that you do, and I'll be back for more. I promise.
Xoxoxo
Steve
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Hmmmm....
It's day 31.... y'know, of a 30-day primal food challenge. In other words, I can eat whatever the hell I want today, but here I am at breakfast, post-gym, eating a meat/eggs/veggie combo that is paleo to its core. Pre-workout, I could have had a protein shake (i.e., non-paleo), but I didn't. I went for the coconut-milk/fruit combo that I started using during the challenge as a pre-workout fuel.
I mean....I am not really the kind of guy to come home and start stuffing chocolate cake in my mouth anyway, but my lack of a burning desire to jump off the challenge wagon, screaming, "Woooooooooooo!" with a beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other is kind of stunning even for me.
Yes, I would say that, if I give it any realistic thought, Vegas has the odds of me having a drink tonight at at least 75%, but, let's be serious...that means there is a one-in-four chance that I *won't*, and, really, I would have thought I would have been planning out that first post-challenge drink for days now ("Let's see.... In a hot tub, whisky, with Zooey Deschanel.... OK, I'm married, Zooey, so you have to go home, but the hot tub and whisky can stay.")
Seriously, I can't believe that other than probably, but not definitely, having a drink tonight, I can't really envision jumping off this wagon that has been so very very good to me.
And I still can't believe the "but not definitely" part of that last sentence.
25-year-old me would *so* not recognize 49-year-old me. I am stronger, faster and fitter than I was then. I do not binge on anything, not because I am not capable of it, but because...get this...I don't *want* to because it makes me feel like shit. In fact, I think the only similarity between those two versions of me is that both of 'em still dig loud punk rock.
Speaking of.... *these* boys need to get out on the road again.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I mean....I am not really the kind of guy to come home and start stuffing chocolate cake in my mouth anyway, but my lack of a burning desire to jump off the challenge wagon, screaming, "Woooooooooooo!" with a beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other is kind of stunning even for me.
Yes, I would say that, if I give it any realistic thought, Vegas has the odds of me having a drink tonight at at least 75%, but, let's be serious...that means there is a one-in-four chance that I *won't*, and, really, I would have thought I would have been planning out that first post-challenge drink for days now ("Let's see.... In a hot tub, whisky, with Zooey Deschanel.... OK, I'm married, Zooey, so you have to go home, but the hot tub and whisky can stay.")
Seriously, I can't believe that other than probably, but not definitely, having a drink tonight, I can't really envision jumping off this wagon that has been so very very good to me.
And I still can't believe the "but not definitely" part of that last sentence.
25-year-old me would *so* not recognize 49-year-old me. I am stronger, faster and fitter than I was then. I do not binge on anything, not because I am not capable of it, but because...get this...I don't *want* to because it makes me feel like shit. In fact, I think the only similarity between those two versions of me is that both of 'em still dig loud punk rock.
Speaking of.... *these* boys need to get out on the road again.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, November 7, 2011
Supplements
I realized that I never talked about supplements during this challenge. This is what I take. I have no idea whether it is the right mix for you. I play around with it pretty frequently:
One One-a-Day Men's multivitamin.
1100 mg magnesium gluconate.
2400 mg fish oil (2 capsules Costco enteric-coated)
2000 iu vitamin D3
I have taken as much as 9600 mg of fish oil back when I was trying, pre-paleo/primal, to lower triglycerides. Eating right has fixed all that. I keep reading more about how it may not be the best idea to load up on fish oil for very long. I am actually contemplating ditching it altogether and just making sure I eat wild-caught salmon at least three times per week. For now though, I am taking two of the Costco pills.
I have also taken 3000 iu of vitamin D up until recently. But my doc told me not to exceed 1000. I split the difference, and I feel great, so I am going with 2000 for now.
Magnesium is, as I understand it, impossible to take too much of from an OD standpoint, but it'll have a laxative effect if you ramp up the dosage too fast. Do *not* start with 1100 mg. Start around 250 and ramp it up slowly.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
One One-a-Day Men's multivitamin.
1100 mg magnesium gluconate.
2400 mg fish oil (2 capsules Costco enteric-coated)
2000 iu vitamin D3
I have taken as much as 9600 mg of fish oil back when I was trying, pre-paleo/primal, to lower triglycerides. Eating right has fixed all that. I keep reading more about how it may not be the best idea to load up on fish oil for very long. I am actually contemplating ditching it altogether and just making sure I eat wild-caught salmon at least three times per week. For now though, I am taking two of the Costco pills.
I have also taken 3000 iu of vitamin D up until recently. But my doc told me not to exceed 1000. I split the difference, and I feel great, so I am going with 2000 for now.
Magnesium is, as I understand it, impossible to take too much of from an OD standpoint, but it'll have a laxative effect if you ramp up the dosage too fast. Do *not* start with 1100 mg. Start around 250 and ramp it up slowly.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Primal eating challenge, day 30
5:30 a.m., pre-workout: frozen cherries, heated in microwave, plus coconut milk. Wow.
PRd my three-rep front squat at CrossFit today, even though the rep scheme was 3x3, meaning I did that weight for three sets of three. Nice. Plus we had a bodyweight-only metcon thereafter, and I love those.
Breakfast: as I noted in another post, I didn't eat eggs today for the first time in I don't know when....well over a year, and it might be more than two years. I ate curried ground beef and cauliflower that I cooked last night, plus plantains with a little more coconut milk.
Then I had more of the curried beef/cauliflower, plus a little guacamole, for lunch.
DD black coffee, medium.
Lunch was early and dinner was late, so I ate a paleokit on the way home from work. Nice. Jerky, dried fruit and nuts.
Dinner: more of the curried beef and cauliflower with the added glory of broccoli. Had a few blueberries, but not many. Trying to stay away from fruit except pre-workout.
And that, folks, is the food-filled end of a 30-day challenge.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
PRd my three-rep front squat at CrossFit today, even though the rep scheme was 3x3, meaning I did that weight for three sets of three. Nice. Plus we had a bodyweight-only metcon thereafter, and I love those.
Breakfast: as I noted in another post, I didn't eat eggs today for the first time in I don't know when....well over a year, and it might be more than two years. I ate curried ground beef and cauliflower that I cooked last night, plus plantains with a little more coconut milk.
Then I had more of the curried beef/cauliflower, plus a little guacamole, for lunch.
DD black coffee, medium.
Lunch was early and dinner was late, so I ate a paleokit on the way home from work. Nice. Jerky, dried fruit and nuts.
Dinner: more of the curried beef and cauliflower with the added glory of broccoli. Had a few blueberries, but not many. Trying to stay away from fruit except pre-workout.
And that, folks, is the food-filled end of a 30-day challenge.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
What I learned from a 30-day primal challenge that I didn't already know
As I have told you before, I eat almost entirely paleo/primal anyway. This challenge was, for me, mostly a deprivation of booze, a little dark chocolate and protein powder. I didn't go into this with hardcore grain addictions, and dessert, by and large, is not a temptation for me.
So, smart guy, why'd you bother, you might ask, or, more particularly, did you actually learn anything?
I did. I learned a lot. Here are a few of those things, in no particular order:
1. "Eat like a predator, not a prey," a line I wish I thought of, but J. Stanton wrote it first. It means, pretty simply, don't snack. Eat big meals, fill up on good fat and I won't need to snack. Barring unforeseen circumstances, like large gaps between meals, I always found that to be true. I also found that if I needed to snack, something small like a Larabar would usually do the trick. But a paleokit will always do if a Larabar is not enough.
2. Plan ahead. Yes, we all know we need to plan ahead on meals, but plan ahead about the timing of those meals too. If I know I am going to have an eight-hour span between meals because of work or whatever, I put a paleokit or a Larabar into my car. The no-snack rule is not a religion. It's a guidepost. Sometimes I am going to need to break that rule. When I do, I need to have good food around to fill the gap. I may never need to go to Wawa again, except for gas and coffee. (For you non-midatlantic readers, Wawa is a convenience-store chain that dominates our neck of the woods).
3. None of this is a religion full of absolutes. The most important thing is for me to listen to my body and chart my own course through paleo/primal in a smart way that works for me. How my food choices make me look, feel and perform is the key.
4. In complete contradiction of #3, Here is an absolute rule: I shouldn't eat gluten. Ever. But if I do, take responsibility for my own actions. Man up and admit the mistake and move on.
5. Black coffee is no big deal. At this point I may even like it, tastewise, better than with heavy cream. The caffeine-acceleration properties of heavy cream and the good diesel-fuel fat are another story, though. So I will likely go back and forth on that.
6. But watch the dairy. If I have a cold, dairy, especially heavy cream, makes things awfully snotty. Rule #3 again. Listen to the body.
7. Paleo/primal is hard if you don't make sure certain staples are well-stocked in your fridge. Jamie and I are fortunate to have a freezer that is full of meat. Not having that option doesn't mean you should copout and make Chef Boyardee one night. It is critical to keep the fridge stocked full of the stuff we eat the most.
8. Websites and podcasts have taught me that, from a healthy-vs-unhealthy-omega-content perspective, grassfed beef and lamb are better for you than the high omega 6s of chicken and pork. It doesn't mean no chicken or pork --variety is good-- but it means beef and lamb are more common on our table than chicken or pork.
9. Fortunately, I also learned that my two favorite meats are grassfed lamb and beef.
10. Bacon is a lousy protein source. It is, however, a great condiment.
11. Food rotation is a good idea, just to see a comparison point with how I feel on a particular food versus how I feel when I don't eat it for a bit. So, as mentioned earlier today, I am dialing back on eggs for the first time in a long time, just to see. For the same reason, I need to rotate even more vegetables into our lives. We eat a lot of asparagus and broccoli. But the appearance of more squash and other veggies has been a good thing that needs to continue.
12. Canned wild-caught salmon is a great easy protein source and the best way to get valuable omega 3s. It is also awesome to have around when I forget to make enough other food.
13. Coconut milk with fruit may be a permanent substitute for pre-workout protein powder. That's an ongoing experiment, however. Again, how it makes me feel and perform is the key, and, based on today, it seems pretty great.
14. Bone broth is high on my list of things to make very soon, and then keep making for its amazing nutrients and the huge boost it gives your immune system.
15. Post-workout good carbs from sweet potatoes, white rice or plantains are essential for me, especially after CrossFit. They help me maintain good weight and body composition, and they just plain make me feel better. Recovery is everything. You don't get fit at the gym. You get fit properly recovering from the gym.
16. Proper insulin management has reversed my numb fingers caused by Raynaud's. When I drink in the future, I need to drink "smart" -- making sure I don't do it on an empty stomach -- or symptoms will return. And smart drinking may keep acid reflux at bay too, because that disappeared this month as well. Actually, in terms of insulin management, the same thing goes for fruit consumption. I can handle pre-workout fruit better than fruit at any other time. So eat it then.
17. I don't ever need to have an energy drink again. Oh, I probably will sometime, but not often, and I will hate myself for it because coffee is so much better.
18. As important as nutrition is, sleep is more important than anything. Remember that line about recovery? Sleep is when you recover the most. A bad night's sleep probably means I should skip CrossFit the next day.
There are probably a few more things, but that is a pretty comprehensive list, and a hell of a lot longer one than I ever would have anticipated. I thought I knew most of what I needed to know about paleo/primal eating when this all started. But, really, there was so much more.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So, smart guy, why'd you bother, you might ask, or, more particularly, did you actually learn anything?
I did. I learned a lot. Here are a few of those things, in no particular order:
1. "Eat like a predator, not a prey," a line I wish I thought of, but J. Stanton wrote it first. It means, pretty simply, don't snack. Eat big meals, fill up on good fat and I won't need to snack. Barring unforeseen circumstances, like large gaps between meals, I always found that to be true. I also found that if I needed to snack, something small like a Larabar would usually do the trick. But a paleokit will always do if a Larabar is not enough.
2. Plan ahead. Yes, we all know we need to plan ahead on meals, but plan ahead about the timing of those meals too. If I know I am going to have an eight-hour span between meals because of work or whatever, I put a paleokit or a Larabar into my car. The no-snack rule is not a religion. It's a guidepost. Sometimes I am going to need to break that rule. When I do, I need to have good food around to fill the gap. I may never need to go to Wawa again, except for gas and coffee. (For you non-midatlantic readers, Wawa is a convenience-store chain that dominates our neck of the woods).
3. None of this is a religion full of absolutes. The most important thing is for me to listen to my body and chart my own course through paleo/primal in a smart way that works for me. How my food choices make me look, feel and perform is the key.
4. In complete contradiction of #3, Here is an absolute rule: I shouldn't eat gluten. Ever. But if I do, take responsibility for my own actions. Man up and admit the mistake and move on.
5. Black coffee is no big deal. At this point I may even like it, tastewise, better than with heavy cream. The caffeine-acceleration properties of heavy cream and the good diesel-fuel fat are another story, though. So I will likely go back and forth on that.
6. But watch the dairy. If I have a cold, dairy, especially heavy cream, makes things awfully snotty. Rule #3 again. Listen to the body.
7. Paleo/primal is hard if you don't make sure certain staples are well-stocked in your fridge. Jamie and I are fortunate to have a freezer that is full of meat. Not having that option doesn't mean you should copout and make Chef Boyardee one night. It is critical to keep the fridge stocked full of the stuff we eat the most.
8. Websites and podcasts have taught me that, from a healthy-vs-unhealthy-omega-content perspective, grassfed beef and lamb are better for you than the high omega 6s of chicken and pork. It doesn't mean no chicken or pork --variety is good-- but it means beef and lamb are more common on our table than chicken or pork.
9. Fortunately, I also learned that my two favorite meats are grassfed lamb and beef.
10. Bacon is a lousy protein source. It is, however, a great condiment.
11. Food rotation is a good idea, just to see a comparison point with how I feel on a particular food versus how I feel when I don't eat it for a bit. So, as mentioned earlier today, I am dialing back on eggs for the first time in a long time, just to see. For the same reason, I need to rotate even more vegetables into our lives. We eat a lot of asparagus and broccoli. But the appearance of more squash and other veggies has been a good thing that needs to continue.
12. Canned wild-caught salmon is a great easy protein source and the best way to get valuable omega 3s. It is also awesome to have around when I forget to make enough other food.
13. Coconut milk with fruit may be a permanent substitute for pre-workout protein powder. That's an ongoing experiment, however. Again, how it makes me feel and perform is the key, and, based on today, it seems pretty great.
14. Bone broth is high on my list of things to make very soon, and then keep making for its amazing nutrients and the huge boost it gives your immune system.
15. Post-workout good carbs from sweet potatoes, white rice or plantains are essential for me, especially after CrossFit. They help me maintain good weight and body composition, and they just plain make me feel better. Recovery is everything. You don't get fit at the gym. You get fit properly recovering from the gym.
16. Proper insulin management has reversed my numb fingers caused by Raynaud's. When I drink in the future, I need to drink "smart" -- making sure I don't do it on an empty stomach -- or symptoms will return. And smart drinking may keep acid reflux at bay too, because that disappeared this month as well. Actually, in terms of insulin management, the same thing goes for fruit consumption. I can handle pre-workout fruit better than fruit at any other time. So eat it then.
17. I don't ever need to have an energy drink again. Oh, I probably will sometime, but not often, and I will hate myself for it because coffee is so much better.
18. As important as nutrition is, sleep is more important than anything. Remember that line about recovery? Sleep is when you recover the most. A bad night's sleep probably means I should skip CrossFit the next day.
There are probably a few more things, but that is a pretty comprehensive list, and a hell of a lot longer one than I ever would have anticipated. I thought I knew most of what I needed to know about paleo/primal eating when this all started. But, really, there was so much more.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Day 30 begins....
....with a cool new pre-workout food: fruit and coconut milk, front squats (PRd my three-rep max even though we had to repeat that three times, i.e., 3x3). Then, since my wife just decided to stop eating eggs (high iodine content) until she can get her newly-diagnosed hyperthyroidism in order, I didn't have them either. I cannot tell you when the last time was that I didn't eat eggs for breakfast. Likely, it was sometime well over a year ago. But I am fairly committed to rotating my food choices more, so this is good.
Full food report will follow at the end of the day, along with, no doubt, some kind of sappy, maudlin recap of my thoughts on this whole 30-day-challenge deal as well.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Full food report will follow at the end of the day, along with, no doubt, some kind of sappy, maudlin recap of my thoughts on this whole 30-day-challenge deal as well.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Primal eating challenge, day 29
29 days in....wow.
Other than waking up to a kitchen full of amazing smells from a four-pound lamb roast that cooked overnight in the crockpot in coconut milk and red curry paste, today was not a day full of excitement. It was more of a getting-stuff-done kind of day. I was going to wake up and do some lifting in the garage gym, but then realized that the pile of mulch that I had to move from one side of the yard to another was looking like a enough of a workout, and I opted just to do that. Later, I listened to the radio broadcast while my beloved Oakland Raiders (been following this team since 1969, so stuff a sock in it) turned a 24-14 lead into a 38-24 loss. Ouch.
Food? Glad you asked. It was much better than yardwork and a horrible football game.
Breakfast: blueberries in coconut milk. I am seriously going to use this pre-workout this week and see how that goes. Then eggs, bacon, and broccoli, plus black coffee.
Lunch: some that amazing lamb roast over greens.
Some cheese, grassfed.
Dinner: more of the amazing lamb, plus asparagus.
Three of us killed a four-pound lamb roast today with ease.
Even weirder....I only had one cup of coffee.
I am about to cook some ground beef and veggies so we have lunch tomorrow.
You know...tomorrow...day 30. Not that I'm counting.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Other than waking up to a kitchen full of amazing smells from a four-pound lamb roast that cooked overnight in the crockpot in coconut milk and red curry paste, today was not a day full of excitement. It was more of a getting-stuff-done kind of day. I was going to wake up and do some lifting in the garage gym, but then realized that the pile of mulch that I had to move from one side of the yard to another was looking like a enough of a workout, and I opted just to do that. Later, I listened to the radio broadcast while my beloved Oakland Raiders (been following this team since 1969, so stuff a sock in it) turned a 24-14 lead into a 38-24 loss. Ouch.
Food? Glad you asked. It was much better than yardwork and a horrible football game.
Breakfast: blueberries in coconut milk. I am seriously going to use this pre-workout this week and see how that goes. Then eggs, bacon, and broccoli, plus black coffee.
Lunch: some that amazing lamb roast over greens.
Some cheese, grassfed.
Dinner: more of the amazing lamb, plus asparagus.
Three of us killed a four-pound lamb roast today with ease.
Even weirder....I only had one cup of coffee.
I am about to cook some ground beef and veggies so we have lunch tomorrow.
You know...tomorrow...day 30. Not that I'm counting.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Food ideas
Eating this way, and listening to all the many cool podcasts out there (Robb Wolf, Balanced Bites, etc.) has me on a constant search to add more awesome foods to my life in more incredible combinations.
So yesterday, I finally threw some coconut milk into a blender with some frozen blueberries and frozen peaches. It was amazing (although go easy on the coconut milk at first, folks, or you could find yourself with a bit of intestinal distress....the medium-chain fatty acids in there are wonderful for you, but they take just a little getting used to for some people). I cook with coconut milk all the time, but this is the first time I used it in another context.
But.... I find cleaning out a blender to be a pain in the ass, so what's the lazier way to do this?
How about just heating up the frozen fruit in the microwave and then pouring some coconut milk over it?
Tried it this morning....it is equally amazing. I am thinking this may become part of the pre-workout ritual. I will try it tomorrow and report back.
Idea #2: bone broth. I keep reading about the benefits of it. It's loaded with beneficial minerals. So I went searching for a paleo bone-broth recipe and stumbled on this one from Balanced Bites.
It even uses a crockpot. Nice. All I have to do now is figure out a way to freeze/store it so it is easily accessible in small servings. I am thinking a pile of ice-cube trays?
Hell, I even have packages from Philly Cowshare in our fridge labeled "soup bones." This is going to be easy, once I buy more ice-cube trays, that is.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So yesterday, I finally threw some coconut milk into a blender with some frozen blueberries and frozen peaches. It was amazing (although go easy on the coconut milk at first, folks, or you could find yourself with a bit of intestinal distress....the medium-chain fatty acids in there are wonderful for you, but they take just a little getting used to for some people). I cook with coconut milk all the time, but this is the first time I used it in another context.
But.... I find cleaning out a blender to be a pain in the ass, so what's the lazier way to do this?
How about just heating up the frozen fruit in the microwave and then pouring some coconut milk over it?
Tried it this morning....it is equally amazing. I am thinking this may become part of the pre-workout ritual. I will try it tomorrow and report back.
Idea #2: bone broth. I keep reading about the benefits of it. It's loaded with beneficial minerals. So I went searching for a paleo bone-broth recipe and stumbled on this one from Balanced Bites.
It even uses a crockpot. Nice. All I have to do now is figure out a way to freeze/store it so it is easily accessible in small servings. I am thinking a pile of ice-cube trays?
Hell, I even have packages from Philly Cowshare in our fridge labeled "soup bones." This is going to be easy, once I buy more ice-cube trays, that is.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Primal eating challenge, day 28
Today I drove down to CrossFit OTG to watch a competition they were holding there. Lots of impressive performances by amazing athletes. It was really inspiring stuff. It reminded me of the very first time I learned about CrossFit -- at an in-house competition at CrossFit 215 in Philly back in early 2010. That one inspired me to try CrossFit. A little less than two years later and I am a dedicated crossfitter, and have been eating paleo/primal for over a year. Cool stuff.
So what about the food?
Breakfast: eggs, andouille sausage, and broccoli, plus black coffee. Oh...some blueberries and almond butter too. In figured lunch might be a long way away, so the extra fat of the almond butter was a welcome addition to breakfast to help keep me full.
Had a Larabar at about 11:30 a.m.
Lunch, when I got home from the competition: coconut-milk/blueberry/peach smoothies made in a blender, followed by two grassfed burgers with grassfed cheese, over salad greens.
More black coffee.
Dinner: an amazing collection of paleo food at a paleo potluck dinner. I had chili, pulled pork, coconut-curry beef, homemade Larabars, pumpkin pie (no sugar/sweetener!), sausage meatballs wrapped around olives, endive and other veggies, squash....it was incredible.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So what about the food?
Breakfast: eggs, andouille sausage, and broccoli, plus black coffee. Oh...some blueberries and almond butter too. In figured lunch might be a long way away, so the extra fat of the almond butter was a welcome addition to breakfast to help keep me full.
Had a Larabar at about 11:30 a.m.
Lunch, when I got home from the competition: coconut-milk/blueberry/peach smoothies made in a blender, followed by two grassfed burgers with grassfed cheese, over salad greens.
More black coffee.
Dinner: an amazing collection of paleo food at a paleo potluck dinner. I had chili, pulled pork, coconut-curry beef, homemade Larabars, pumpkin pie (no sugar/sweetener!), sausage meatballs wrapped around olives, endive and other veggies, squash....it was incredible.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, November 4, 2011
Primal eating challenge, day 27
Woke up this morning and got excited, as I mentioned two posts ago, over the prospects of power cleans at the gym. I matched my old PR, but I was hoping for more. What I really noticed was that I must be stronger, because otherwise my form sucked after so long away from this movement. On a number of the reps,I just kinda reverse-curled it, which is awful from a form standpoint, but proof to me that it was probably strength, not form, which got the job done.
Anyway, on to the food....
Pre-workout: frozen blueberries heated in microwave, plus black coffee.
Immediate post-workout: coconut water.
Breakfast: some of the crockpot chicken plus eggs, bacon and asparagus.
More black coffee.
Lunch (on the road): Chipotle salad with onions, peppers, carnitas, guacamole and lettuce.
Some almonds and grassfed cheese.
Starbucks black coffee, grande.
Dinner: Whole Foods fresh pork andouille sausage and broccoli.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Anyway, on to the food....
Pre-workout: frozen blueberries heated in microwave, plus black coffee.
Immediate post-workout: coconut water.
Breakfast: some of the crockpot chicken plus eggs, bacon and asparagus.
More black coffee.
Lunch (on the road): Chipotle salad with onions, peppers, carnitas, guacamole and lettuce.
Some almonds and grassfed cheese.
Starbucks black coffee, grande.
Dinner: Whole Foods fresh pork andouille sausage and broccoli.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
True story
There we were, on the highway, exiting with the sole purpose of going to a nearby Chipotle restaurant to get a delicious lunch salad with carnitas, guacamole, salsa and veggies (or, in the case of my partner in crime, barbacoa instead of carnitas). A short time later, we learned that just a mile past that exit, on the highway where we had been, was a huge tractor-trailer accident that had occurred moments after we exited -- like we might have been in it if we had stayed on that road. As we contemplated our well-timed lunch, we realized the truth:
Paleo saves lives.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Paleo saves lives.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Power cleans!!!
I started CrossFit, on my own, at a globo-gym, in March 2010. Realizing quickly that I had no idea what I was doing on Olympic lifts, I went to a couple of O-lift seminars at CrossFit Tribe in Pennsauken, NJ.
Jesus, I was horrible. I still remember the feeling of dread when I became immediately aware that all the other "beginners" around me had much more experience than me and that I was far closer to a man wrestling a barbell than someone who was actually properly lifting.
But somehow -- and I have no idea how I got past my desire to leave right then -- I stuck it out, and stayed with CrossFit, eventually joining CrossFit Aspire, where I am happily coming up on 18 months of membership.
Since then, I have learned to love the complexity of the clean, but the vagaries of schedules have been such that I don't think I have actually done a clean at CrossFit Aspire in almost six months! That all changes this morning when I happen to be going there on a day when the strength component is: "Power clean 3,3,3."
Wish me luck.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Jesus, I was horrible. I still remember the feeling of dread when I became immediately aware that all the other "beginners" around me had much more experience than me and that I was far closer to a man wrestling a barbell than someone who was actually properly lifting.
But somehow -- and I have no idea how I got past my desire to leave right then -- I stuck it out, and stayed with CrossFit, eventually joining CrossFit Aspire, where I am happily coming up on 18 months of membership.
Since then, I have learned to love the complexity of the clean, but the vagaries of schedules have been such that I don't think I have actually done a clean at CrossFit Aspire in almost six months! That all changes this morning when I happen to be going there on a day when the strength component is: "Power clean 3,3,3."
Wish me luck.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Primal eating challenge, day 26
Breakfast: eggs scrambled with wild salmon, bacon, and broccoli. Black coffee.
Lunch: that apple/chicken/bacon/pecan thing from dinner over greens, with guacamole. Plus one apple.
One lemon Larabar.
DD medium coffee, black.
Almonds and grassfed cheese.
Dinner: grassfed t-bones and asparagus on the grill. Blueberries and cherries too.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Lunch: that apple/chicken/bacon/pecan thing from dinner over greens, with guacamole. Plus one apple.
One lemon Larabar.
DD medium coffee, black.
Almonds and grassfed cheese.
Dinner: grassfed t-bones and asparagus on the grill. Blueberries and cherries too.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
A name change, or not?
I am not sure if I like it, but I was getting tired of explaining that More Spiel is a song title by the Minutemen, just about my favorite punk band ever. Simultaneously, taking into account the primal-food orientation that this thing has assumed as of late, I thought I should have a title that acknowledged that angle a little more. Feel free to spout off about the name change in the comments. I'm not married to it.
And, before you ask, I don't think I can change the URL, so it seems that "more spiel" ought to end up in the name somehow.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
And, before you ask, I don't think I can change the URL, so it seems that "more spiel" ought to end up in the name somehow.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Primal eating challenge, day 25
Woke up and, fueled by a generous helping of black coffee, prepped a crockpot feast for tonight's dinner. It is basically a modification of that pork-chop recipe that I just made. If you wanna be like me (why?), do this:
Put nine boneless chicken breasts into crockpot (I used Wegmans free-range organic). Then cut up six slices of thick bacon (I used Whole Foods uncured applewood) and cook in pan. When bacon is almost cooked, add to the pan: four diced Granny Smith apples, about a cup of chopped pecans (I used more) and as much garlic as you want (I used a measuring cup labeled "metric shit ton" and filled it to the line, but we love garlic, so caveat emptor and all that). When the apples, pecans, bacon and garlic have properly rubbed themselves all over each other (OK, you helped with this, and you liked it) resulting in a beautiful chunky slurry of applebaconypecanygarlicy wonderment, transfer all that lovely goop to the crockpot right on top of the chicken, set on "low" and cook it for eight hours. Nommers (or so I hope).
On to today's food:
Breakfast: bacon, (the sad end of the) crockpot lamb, spinach and eggs, all scrambled in the bacon grease. More coffee.
Walked Ruby the pup for a couple miles before heading off to work, so I indulgently "recovered" with a Vita Coco coconut water. As a woman in a convenience store in Middle-of-Nowhere, Michigan once said to me -- albeit in reference to a stick of deer jerky, not Vita Coco -- "Them are good." (True story, I swear).
Lunch: those crockpot pork chops, organic sauerkraut and salad greens, all mixed together. Awesome, but, perhaps, not for the faint of palate. I have a sauerkraut problem. I really really do. It is rivaling my guacamole problem.
One pecan Larabar.
DD black coffee, medium.
Dinner: the (I hope) amazing crockpot chicken that I just described, plus a vegetable draft pick to be named later (probably broccoli, but I am writing this pre-dinner).
Then the plan is to drag my sorry inflexible ass to our CrossFit gym's new yoga class in order to embarrass myself toward mobility. More on that experience tomorrow. I will also update this post if I jam more food into my gaping maw.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Put nine boneless chicken breasts into crockpot (I used Wegmans free-range organic). Then cut up six slices of thick bacon (I used Whole Foods uncured applewood) and cook in pan. When bacon is almost cooked, add to the pan: four diced Granny Smith apples, about a cup of chopped pecans (I used more) and as much garlic as you want (I used a measuring cup labeled "metric shit ton" and filled it to the line, but we love garlic, so caveat emptor and all that). When the apples, pecans, bacon and garlic have properly rubbed themselves all over each other (OK, you helped with this, and you liked it) resulting in a beautiful chunky slurry of applebaconypecanygarlicy wonderment, transfer all that lovely goop to the crockpot right on top of the chicken, set on "low" and cook it for eight hours. Nommers (or so I hope).
On to today's food:
Breakfast: bacon, (the sad end of the) crockpot lamb, spinach and eggs, all scrambled in the bacon grease. More coffee.
Walked Ruby the pup for a couple miles before heading off to work, so I indulgently "recovered" with a Vita Coco coconut water. As a woman in a convenience store in Middle-of-Nowhere, Michigan once said to me -- albeit in reference to a stick of deer jerky, not Vita Coco -- "Them are good." (True story, I swear).
Lunch: those crockpot pork chops, organic sauerkraut and salad greens, all mixed together. Awesome, but, perhaps, not for the faint of palate. I have a sauerkraut problem. I really really do. It is rivaling my guacamole problem.
One pecan Larabar.
DD black coffee, medium.
Dinner: the (I hope) amazing crockpot chicken that I just described, plus a vegetable draft pick to be named later (probably broccoli, but I am writing this pre-dinner).
Then the plan is to drag my sorry inflexible ass to our CrossFit gym's new yoga class in order to embarrass myself toward mobility. More on that experience tomorrow. I will also update this post if I jam more food into my gaping maw.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Primal eating challenge, day 24
Last night, I put this recipe into the crockpot. Came out great.
5:30 a.m., pre-workout: frozen blueberries heated in microwave. Black coffee.
Breakfast: eggs scrambled with crockpot lamb, spinach. Plus bacon and coconut water to drink. Didn't bother with more coffee.
A pecan Larabar
Lunch: Crockpot lamb and sauerkraut over spinach.
DD coffee, medium, black.
Some grassfed cheese and almonds.
Dinner: crockpot stuffed pork chops (stuffing is pecans, bacon, apples and garlic) plus asparagus.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
5:30 a.m., pre-workout: frozen blueberries heated in microwave. Black coffee.
Breakfast: eggs scrambled with crockpot lamb, spinach. Plus bacon and coconut water to drink. Didn't bother with more coffee.
A pecan Larabar
Lunch: Crockpot lamb and sauerkraut over spinach.
DD coffee, medium, black.
Some grassfed cheese and almonds.
Dinner: crockpot stuffed pork chops (stuffing is pecans, bacon, apples and garlic) plus asparagus.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
This stuff works -- 24 days in.
It's day 24 of my primal eating challenge, and I don't want to say
that it has been "easy," because that makes me sound smug about it and
I really don't want to sound that way because I am fully aware of some
of the absolutely nightmarish sugar and grain addictions that some
people confront as a part of these challenges. It's not quite kicking
heroin, but it can be a very big deal.
But for me it's been, at worst, moderately annoying at times. The only
things I have repeatedly passed up on that I would normally consume
are booze, dark chocolate and pre-workout protein powder (no, not
together...heh) ; oh, and I suppose the odd black bean here and there.
In other words, I really don't eat gluten anyway. This primal-eating
journey of mine has been a long slow burn that started last year,
rather than a turn-on-a-dime reversal of long-entrenched bad habits
just for the challenge.
It was also spectaularly well-timed, coming just after I got home from
two weeks in Germany with Jamie where we ate and drank gluten-y things
that we never would otherwise.
So what have I learned? A lot, actually.
Despite spending some of the challenge battling with (and fighting
off) a sinus infection/cold that normally would have had me way down
and out, I feel really effing good being this uber-clean about my
eating. My energy levels are higher and I need less caffeine than
usual to get through a day. I think my immune system is doing really
well, because I know a lot of people who got hit pretty hard with this
cold. I didn't.
I also learned that while dairy is often a great source of good fat
for me, when it is grassfed, I need to stay away from it altogether if
trying to battle a cold. As soon as I made that switch mid-challenge,
the evil cold-induced snot began to dissipate.
My Raynaud's, as I told you already, appears to be gone. When I drink
post-challenge, I need to be smart about it and do it in ways that
don't make it a giant insulin spike, which will trigger Raynaud's
again. I also need to see how that goes, and be realistic in my future
evaluation of whether resuming alcohol intake, even through "smart"
drinking, means the return of Raynaud's anyway. If so, some tough
choices may have to be made.
Likewise -- and this is one I haven't discussed here in a while -- a
lifetime of sometimes-on/sometimes-off acid reflux (GERD) seems to
have gone completely by the wayside as well. I hadn't been taking
Prevacid for much of the time since I went primal last year, just some
occasional antacids, but, in the three months prior to the challenge,
I had re-experienced some GERD and so I restarted the Prevacid, with
little effect, so I added a nighttime Zantac. Then, when I mentioned
it to my doc at a September physical, he had suggested trying *just*
the Zantac, since it is just an antacid rather than a full-on
proton-pump inhibitor (PPI). That did the trick, even amidst the beery
goodness of Deutschland. But then, when I started this challenge, I
skipped some Zantac, and found I didn't even need that. Apparently,
all that stuff about reevaluating alcohol in regards to Raynaud's
applies to GERD too.
I also learned some super-micro/tweak-ish things about eating. I
mentioned at one point that fruit ingested immediately pre-workout
causes the glycolytic demands of the workout to kickstart your liver
to use fructose as an energy source. That's good, and it works well.
While I miss my pre-workout protein shakes, I think that if I revisit
them post-challenge, I am going to keep eating fruit pre-workout as
well. I also am not going to eat much of it otherwise. I already knew
that fruits and veggies are not interchangeable, but I learned it
again this month. If I eat too much fruit in a setting other than
immediately pre-workout, it moderately spikes my insulin. That's bad
news, and it makes me crazy.
I also learned that good carbs like sweet potatoes and even
occasionally white rice are good for me all the time. Yeah, they are a
righteous bump toward recovery if ingested in the hour post-workout,
but for a guy like me, who is lean enough and doesn't want to lose
weight. I could eat 'em at nearly every meal and feel great. In fact,
I think I feel better when I do.
Additionally, I became aware of a strong preference I have for
grassfed ruminants (beef and lamb) over other meat sources. Yeah, pork
is delicious and I definitely eat some of it, and salmon is awesome if
wild-caught, but I don't think I ate chicken once yet during the
challenge, and I haven't missed it. Sure, I'll eat it sometimes, but a
steady intake of grassfed beef and, especially, lamb has me flying
high.
In the gym, I haven't been a rockstar lately, even by my own meager
standards, but I blame that on my cold hanging around just enough to
screw with my sleep. I've been fine, just not PRing alll over the
place. Hell, but even with the beginnings of a cold, I nearly PR'd my
"Helen" time (one effing second!!) and I have come close in some other
workouts, just nothing spectacular. But let's be serious, no one ever
used the word "spectacular" to describe my typical gym performance, so
even the ability to hang on through a cold with decent workouts has
been a really good thing, and a direct result of good eating. I am
curious to see how my post-challenge time comes in on a gym-specific
benchmark workout that we are all doing on November 14.
All in all, this challenge has been a very very good thing so far. I
have a week to go and am hoping for some more positive revelations in
that time. Let's go.