Raspberries and Radishes

To celebrate the first day of summer, I picked fresh raspberries and radishes from my garden this afternoon.

Sadly, I don't have much of a garden this year. The weather was not at all co-operative for weekend gardening, and I was too busy stressing about work. Then we took a 2 week vacation to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks right as it got really hot at home. So right now, I have a small section of corn, a few hills of yellow squash, spotty rows of bush beans, very spotty rows of beets, and just two basil sprouts. The radishes and tomatoes are volunteers from last year's seeds, which is always fun to see.

I'm happy to say that all of my fruit is doing well though - apples, asian pear, grapes, blueberries, cold hardy kiwi, and raspberries. Also ground cover strawberries, which are spreading like crazy (despite being newly transplanted and not watered at all) and are blooming, but I don't think are really intended to be edible.
The raspberries are trying to take over the entire hillside, which is a good excuse to not mow down there; if I mow the grass, the raspberries won't have any competition.

I rinsed the radishes and ate them straight out of the garden. The raspberries will be gobbled up later on top of a bowl of Greek yogurt. Small pleasures from the yard, even when I neglect it.

Rhubarb Coconut Flour Clafouti

I always intend to write more, but I'm not doing so well this month! Instead, I've been reading a lot of cooking blogs and drooling.

Spring is, of course, rhubarb season, and I have a nice big plant in my flower garden. Don't ask why someone would plant rhubarb in the flower garden (and yes, it was me that did the planting). I picked a bunch the other night and went hunting for a recipe - a quick search came up with a lot of clafouti recipes. I'd never made a clafouti, but they all looked good!
I wanted a reasonably healthy recipe, so I did a lot of tinkering with the recipes that I found. My recipe came out just a little grainy, which is the coconut flour, but very tasty, and actually even better the second day.
No picture, I tried but it was too dark in the kitchen.

Rhubarb Coconut Flour Clafouti:

About 3 cups chopped rhubarb
1/4 cup splenda
2 T sugar free vanilla syrup (or more splenda with water)
2 eggs
1.5 cups lowfat milk
4 T Greek yogurt (or regular yogurt)
1/4 cup splenda
1/2 cup coconut flour (or combination of regular flour and corn starch for thickening)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine rhubarb, 1/4 cup splenda and sugar free syrup in sauce pan; simmer on low until smaller pieces of rhubarb are just softened.
Blend eggs, milk and yogurt in blender.
Mix coconut flour, 1/4 cup splenda and spices in large bowl; add blended liquids.

Coat pie pan with non-stick spray. Using a slotted spoon, remove rhubarb from sauce pan and layer on the bottom of pie pan. Pour batter over the top.

Bake for 30 minutes; increase temperature to 400 F and bake for another 5 minutes until solid in the middle (did not brown, which I think is because of the coconut flour).

With my particular ingredients, 1/4 of the clafouti comes to:
178 calories, 6g fat, 20g carbs, 8g fiber, 12g protein

Ice cream!

It's been ice cream weather here in Seattle for the last two days, and by ice cream weather, I mean 70's. Nothing extreme, we take what sunshine we can get!

I've been reading Abby's healthy ice cream recipes this week and was inspired by her New York Cherry.

Here is my version of cherry ice cream:

Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream
1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese
1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder
2 oz unsweetened almond milk
1 T sugar free vanilla syrup
1 T cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsweetened frozen cherries

Blend all ingredients except the cherries (it does take longer than you'd think to get the cottage cheese blended up). Pour into a freezer safe bowl. Chop cherries in half or quarter and mix in. Freeze for at least 2 hours, stirring several times to avoid frozen edges.

I used almond milk because that's all I had in the fridge, but the texture could have been thicker, so I may skip the milk altogether next time. I'm sure 1/4 cup of cherries would have been enough, I was using up the last of a bag and didn't want a few left over. And - I didn't wait 2 hours, so mine wasn't frozen completely. It was yummy anyway!

Kayak Conditioning

After going kayaking last weekend for the first time in a couple of months, I decided that I need a kayak specific conditioning workout to compliment the Turbulence Training workouts that I do three days each week. In general, I was suprisingly not-sore after kayaking, but the inside of my knees were sore and my shoulders were just a touch. I'd like to work on building strength for the specific muscles used in kayaking, which are mainly shoulders, back and core, as well as flexibility for my hips and legs.

I've been browsing online and found quite a few resources, which I'm working on combining to fit my needs.

First, a pre and post kayak routine, which I am going to use for warmup and cooldown:
Sea Kayak Magazine (click on the Pre & Post Kayak Exercise Checklist and then wait forever for the PDF to download)

A detailed exercise routine for each body part:
theseakayaker.com

A five part series on strengthening your core:
paddlingtravelers.blogspot.com (the link for The Plank appears to be broken)

Plank exercises to strengthen your core:
Wavelength Magazine, Winter 2007 (starts on page 34 of the PDF)

Many of these exercises are included in my current TT workouts, so I'm primarily looking at the ones that I'm not already doing.

I haven't figured out yet what I can do to strengthen the inside of my knees. I'm not sure quite what muscle that is, but it's not being worked enough by squats, lunges, step-ups or 1-leg deadlifts. I have seen an exercise that uses a band, sitting in a chair and pulling your thighs apart. That seems a little cumbersome, plus I don't really like bands, so I'm hoping to come up with something better. Let me know if you have any ideas!

Choco-Coconut Protein Cake

I've been wishing for chocolate cake all week, and almost talked myself into trying a recipe from the new Clean Eating magazine. I'm sure one piece of cake would have been good, but it would have resulted in leftover nibbling for days.

Then I remembered that I have a healthy Choco-Berry Protein Cake recipe (which I originally found on Kek's Good Food Blog).

I dug out my printout of that recipe, and found notes where I had modified it to add coconut flour and flavoring. I think I only made this once before, but it's really good, has a nice chocolate coconut flavor, and the texture is very close to regular cake or muffins. Even better, it's healthy enough that I could snack on these muffins all week and not feel guilty!

Choco-Coconut Protein Muffins:

1/2 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup oat flour (ground oats)
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa
3 scoops Designer Whey Chocolate protein powder
1/2 cup egg whites
1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese
3/4 cup milk, with 1/2 T lemon juice (I used low carb 2% milk)
1/3 cup splenda
1.5 T coconut oil
3 T unsweetened coconut
3-4 T sugar free coconut syrup

Preheat oven to 350.
Blend (or mix well with a hand mixer) cottage cheese, egg white, milk, and splenda.
Mix remaining dry ingredients.
Fold dry ingredients into wet.
Add sugar free coconut syrup to taste.
Fold in 2 Tablespoons coconut (reserving 1 Tablespoon).

Note: if texture is too thick, add water until it is just thin enough to pour (no more than a few tablespoons).

Pour into sprayed/greased muffin tin, or 12 individual muffin cups.
Sprinkle remaining 1 Tablespoon of coconut on top of muffins.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Nutritional information, according to my particular ingredients, with 12 servings:
119 calories, 4g fat, 10g carbs, 2g fiber, 9g protein

Rest and recovery

Last week, I did well with nutrition and exercise, but I was nowhere near my best physically. I started the week with bad headaches, slept poorly all week, including a nearly sleepless night on Thursday, and was generally tired and sore all week.

I have been doing regular workouts since early October without a break, and have been under a lot of work, holiday and health (dental) stress during that time. The normal recommendation is to take a week off after 12 weeks of an exercise program. If you don't, you may start to experience extra soreness, slow recover after workouts, and other signs of stress on your body.

It's time for a rest week! This week, I'm not doing any regular workouts. I am continuing to take walks and do other activity, to whatever degree I feel like. I'm working on going to bed early, taking my multi-vitamins, ZMA, and fish oil, and doing anything I can think of to relax.

By next week, I'll be all rested up and ready to start Phase II of the Turbulence Training Bodyweight Manual!

The Body Fat Solution

My copy of The Body Fat Solution by Tom Venuto came in the mail last week, and I've been slowly working my way through it. I had an Amazon gift certificate, so it's my diet/fitness treat for the month.

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and personal trainer, best known for his ebook Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. I don't actually own that program, but I've heard that it is a very detailed, by the numbers approach to weight loss and fitness.

The Body Fat Solution is intended for a wider audience - in the first chapter, he says it was written for people who are overweight, or "for people who were previously overweight who want to maintain their ideal weight for the rest of their lives".

The main focus of this book is the five Body Fat Solution principles:

Mental training:
Setting goals and reprogramming your brain for success. This chapter has a lot of detail about how habits are developed and five steps to set goals. Then, there are eight mental training tools to program your goals into your mind.

Nutrition:
He has ten nutrition rules, starting with focusing on the calorie deficit and budgeting calories. Then the fairly standard list - protein with each meal, vegetables with each meal, omega-3 and other healthy fats with each meal, a least 2 fruits every day, natural starches and grains depending on what's left in your calorie budget, eat mostly natural foods, eat 5-6 times a day, limit liquid calories, and follow the 90/10 compliance rule.

Strength training:
Weight training 3 days per week, using supersets, and focused on the basic exercises that recruit the most muscle mass (squats, lunges, rows, etc.).

Cardio training:
Starting with 3 days per week, 30 minutes with sufficient intensity to burn at least 300 calories. He recommends high intensity interval training or high intensity steady state cardio, if you are in good enough shape to do it and can stand to do it, simply because it gets your cardio done with quickly.

Social support:
Categorizes the different types of people who influence you and how to deal with the negatives. Describes the five types of support you need, and where you can get it from.

In addition to the above five principles, there are chapters on body fat myths, how to change your attitudes and beliefs about health and fitness, and how to free yourself from emotional eating. At the end, there is a section on how to put it all together - plan, organize and implement, monitor your progress, and maintain your weight for life.

If you're like me, you may look at this summary and think "well that's nothing new". And you'd be right - the nutrition is very similar to Precision Nutrition, the strength and cardio are generic and similar to many online programs (such as Turbulence Training), and the social support aspect of weight loss has been talked about many places. The mental training has tools that are new to me, although some of it is similar to what I've read with intuitive eating. The chapter on freeing yourself from emotional eating is very much about intuitive eating.

What The Body Fat Solution does really well is pull all of these concepts together into one integrated approach to weigh loss and maintenance. You look at the whole picture at once, rather than focusing on one piece. It has good tools for creating goals, then you look at each of the five principles and see exactly what is holding you back from your goals.

Mental training (and emotional eating) is clearly what I need to work on. My strength training is great, cardio training is good, and my social support is decent. My nutrition is fine, when I don't fall into emotional eating. I'm currently re-reading the mental training and emotional eating chapters, and I need to sit down with pen and paper (or keyboard and Word) to start writing down information about my beliefs and goals.

Eat Stop Eat

I mentioned in my last post that I'm trying a new approach with my eating. I'm trying something that I never thought I would do - fasting. Specifically, intermittant fasting using the Eat Stop Eat program.

The basic theory is that you fast for 24 hours once or twice each week, in order to create an easy calorie deficit to lose weight. Then, you eat normally the rest of the time. You usually arrange the times so you are fasting from lunch to lunch or dinner to dinner, which means you never need to go through a day without eating.

Sometime last year, I had downloaded ESE as a free bonus with Turbulence Training (note that it is not a free bonus now), and had seen many people posting on ttmembers.com who really liked it. But I didn't think it would work for me. I figured it would contribute to binge eating, which I struggle with anyway, and I thought it might interfere with my workouts.

However, in early December, I realized that I was way off track with my eating. I didn't want to seriously restrict what I was eating going into the holidays, as that seemed like the sure path to an emotional breakdown. I was doing too much binge eating already, and I decided that ESE wasn't likely to make it any worse.

Surprisingly, I've found some real benefits from intermittant fasting:

• No worrying about what I'm going to eat during a fast
• Seems to reset my stomach, I'm full quicker after fasting
• Less food prep for the workweek
• Less money spent on lunches at work
• Less worry about eating small treats, because I knew fasting will create a calorie deficit
• I feel like I actually know what "hungry" is now

The only real downside is that fasting for 24 hours can be difficult. Sometimes, I'm barely hungry, and can actually focus on work better. A couple of times though, I have been starving all day. I haven't tried working out in the middle of a fast, but I have shortly after breaking a fast, and have not had any problems with strength or endurance.

There is a lot of research in Eat Stop Eat, showing that fasting: does not slow metabolism, does not negatively affect exercise (except endurance sports such as marathons), decreases insulin (which is good unless you are diabetic), and increases "fat burning". One key condition of ESE is that you must do regular weight training, which will prevent muscle loss during fasting. Any long term restricting of calories will lead to muscle loss, unless you are using those muscles.

Intermittant fasting isn't for everyone, but I like it a lot more than I thought I would, and am finding it to be an interesting experiment with my body.

In between fasts, I am continuing to roughly follow Precision Nutrition, which means eating lean protein with vegetable and/or fruit every few hours. I'm eating a little more whole grain carbs than the basic PN plan, and am not stressing if some of my snacks end up being nuts instead of a complete protein.
I'm also allowing myself some treats - PN allows for 10% cheat meals, but I'm trying to think of that as 10% of my total calories rather than actual number of meals.

New Year

I fell behind on posting this fall, which in hindsight, was another symptom of falling off track. Starting about October, I really struggled with eating. I have been keeping up with my Turbulence Training workouts, but haven't been doing enough other activity. From late fall into the holiday season is really the most difficult time of year for me - I never feel as motivated to eat well, there is so much junk food around (including all those cookies that I make!), and it's dark so I don't go for walks or get outside much. Plus the stress of holiday shopping, baking, and dealing with my own leftover childhood issues with holidays.

As I write this, I am back on track! I made it through the actual Christmas and New Years weeks fine, and I feel much more positive now than two weeks ago. I am now focused on losing whatever fat I have gained. I'm joining the latest Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge, starting on Sunday, and I'm trying a new approach with my eating. More on that later.

In the meantime, I'm wishing (and planning!) for a quiet, productive, creative, non-stressful 2009.

Happy New Year!

Protein Pumpkin Pie

While we're on the theme of pumpkin...

Protein Pumpkin Pie
2 cups pumpkin
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/3-1/2 cup splenda
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Blend cottage cheese, eggs and about 1/2 cup milk until smooth. Add remaining milk and 1 cup pumpkin and blend. Add all remaining ingredients, blend until smooth.

Pour into sprayed pie pan. Bake for 40 minutes, or until pie is solid in the middle.

Nutritional info for 1/4 of the pie (using 2% cottage cheese and milk, 1/2 cup splenda and Designer Whey Vanilla Protein):
181 calories, 6g fat, 11g carbs, 2g fiber, 22g protein

Pumpkin Yeast Bread

I've gotten behind again, so I have some catch up posts to write! First, a pumpkin yeast bread recipe, from King Arthur Flour:

1/2 cup warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
2/3 cup warm milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups puréed pumpkin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used coconut oil)
6 1/2 cups flour (approx. - I used half all purpose and half white whole wheat)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

In a large bowl, stir yeast into water to soften. Add milk, eggs, pumpkin, oil, 4 cups flour, brown sugar, salt, ginger and cardamom to yeast mixture. Beat until well mixed.

Gradually add remaining flour, a little at a time, until you have a dough stiff enough to knead. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead, adding flour as necessary, until you have a smooth, elastic dough. (Or, use the kneading hooks on an electric mixer, which is what I did).

Put dough into an oiled bowl. Turn once to coat entire ball of dough with oil. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. (Only took mine 40 minutes to more than double).

Turn dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface. Divide dough in half. Shape dough into loaves and place in well-greased 10 x 5-inch pans or, shape half into a loaf, and other half into 12 large dinner rolls. (I used a 9x5 pan, plus rolls).

Cover with a towel and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes (again, mine didn't take that long). Bake in a preheated 375°F oven. Loaves bake about 30 minutes, rolls about 20.

I usually bake with all whole wheat or white whole wheat flour, and I think I tend to not knead bread long enough. Plus, it's usually rainy when I make bread, by some strange co-incidence. All of those lead to rising problems, so it was very impressive to see how well this bread rose.

These turned out really nice and moist, with not too much pumpkin taste (although my husband the pumpkin hater said he could tell). I added cinnamon chips, dried cranberries and a few chocolate chips to the rolls, and brought them to work for a potluck. I sliced the loaf as thin as possible (not very) and made cream cheese and cranberry sauce sandwiches for a tea party.

Taking care of myself

Oops, I'm a little behind on posting here! This is a symptom of my general procrastination. I'm good at doing what I need to do in order to live my daily life. At times, I'm good at keeping in touch with friends and family, posting on a blog, and other social activities; other times, I'm just terrible. And I'm really bad at taking care of issues that aren't immediately urgent - house and yard work, doctors appointments, dental care, etc.

The dental procrastination bit me this week. I haven't been to the dentist in far too many years, and one tooth has been bothering me for quite a while. It broke on Sunday. I'll skip the gory details, but I had the root canal on Wednesday, have to go back to finish it in 3 weeks, and then will need a crown. My jaw is still sore, and I keep forgetting that until I sit down to eat. Salad is not nearly as appetizing when I have to think about each bite. Carrots and almonds are too hard, I don't want to risk chewing them. Popcorn, my oldest food love, is just a bad idea until the crown is done.

I've been working to change my eating and fitness habits for a few years now - sometimes slowly, in the background of ordinary life, other times making that an active everyday focus. It's time to put some work into taking care of my other major procrastinations too. That will help with my overall stress levels too!

Domestication

Have I mentioned that I love fruit? Oh yes, several times. I'm currently growing apples, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, kiwi, and the neighbor's plums. And I can't eat it all. Especially the apples, grapes and plums. So far, I can easily eat the blueberries and kiwi all by myself. The raspberries are going in the freezer (which is now full) to make into jam. Last year, I made plum and grape jam too, but I wasn't really looking forward to doing that this year. I also froze grapes, but didn't really eat them later.

On somewhat of a whim, I bought a dehydrator on Saturday. Not an el-cheapo $30 one, but not an expensive one either. It has 4 stacking trays and circulates the air around so you don't need to rotate the trays.

So this weekend, we made:
1) Dried apple rings (4 hours)
2) Dried plum halves (16 hours and may still not be dry enough)
3) Beef jerky, from lean ground beef (4-5 hours)

I also made:
4) Applesauce, from the wormy apples (still in the fridge awaiting canning)
5) Oat-peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies - my favorite cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking
6) Rosemary Cheese Bread - a never before tried recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

Whew... that may be enough domestication for the month. Except I still have apples and plums on the trees, raspberries in the freezer that need to be turned into jam, and I'm really curious to see if I can make my grapes into raisins.

I'm in!

I am officially joining the 3rd Turbulence Training 12 Week Challenge - with no weight loss goals! (NOTE: you have until September 22nd to join this challenge!) I could stand to lose a few more pounds, but I'm pretty happy where I'm at and I'd like to get used to it before I decide whether this is where I should be at or not.

I tend to do really well when I'm losing weight, and then fall into a pattern of eating too much junk and start gaining again. I'm really good at gaining weight quickly and losing weight slowly, I've had a lot of practice at both over the last 4 years!

Now it is time to focus on figuring out how to increase calories while continuing to eat well, push myself on TT workouts, and reduce stress in my life.

Goals:

Nutrition:
Increase calories by 250/day for 2 weeks, then re-evaluate based on average weight and high and low weights through the week. (I'd like to be no higher than 147 and no lower than 143 for now).
Keep sweets and other junk at or below current levels. Work on controlling weekend overeating of junk!
Continue to roughly follow Precision Nutrition, although I am eating more whole grain carbs, and occasionally have a snack without a complete protein.

Stress relief and recovery:
Take a bubble bath or salt bath at least once per week. I also have a couple of fizzy bombs for the shower to try.
Buy a foam roller and start using it.
Be in bed by 9:00 on weeknights.
If I am really craving chocolate, go ahead and have a small amount!

Fitness:
Complete 3 TT workouts/week, with intervals.
Increase pushups from 16? to 20.
Increase real chinups (no cheating at all) from 2-3 to 8.
Do extra chinup sets if they aren't in my regular workout to work towards this.
Increase number of burpees in 45 second intervals, currently 15.
Increase number of DB swings in 45 second intervals, currently 25. Also work on increasing weights for this exercise, currently 15 lbs.

Finally, I promised a while back to post my pictures.... here are the comparisons from December 31, 2007 to September 9, 2008. The new ones will be my starting pictures for this challenge, but I don't expect to see a physical change in the next 12 weeks.