Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 Cups Almond Flour
1 Cup Coconut Flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter
50g dark chocolate, roughly chopped (half of a bar, the less sugar the better)

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 375 F

2) Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl

3) In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla and beat with a hand mixer

4) Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until dough begins to form

5) melt the butter and add to the batter

6) Fold in the chocolate chunks

7) Form dough balls into cookie shape and place on a well greased cookie sheet or use non stick foil. The cookies don't rise or spread so form them into the shape you want and line them up as close together as you like.

8) Bake for 15 minutes until slightly browned at the edges.

Banana Mac Sorbet

Smooth, sweet, and creamy this dessert is perfect for summer! The closer the fruits are to peak ripeness, the more flavorful it will be.


1 large banana
1 pear
1 avocado
1 TB raw honey
1 TB pineapple juice
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts


Blend all the ingredients, except the nuts, in a blender or food processor until smooth. Fold in the mac nuts and freeze the mixture. Scoop and enjoy like sorbet! It turns out quite green, but don't be afraid. Just think of it like pistachio ice cream.


This recipe is higher in carbs, so save it for special occasions. It makes a great way to enjoy a dessert while keeping yourself both grain and dairy free though!

Rehab Day 28

Weight 125.6

Food

Not much in the way of appetite today, as is usually case after a cheat day. Funny how it all evens out, isn't it? Mid-morning I ate one egg and the final italian sausage scrambled together with salsa and some avocado. Mid day I ate some trail mix and some left over meat.

For dinner I made grilled bacon wrapped pork tenderloin medallions and sweet potato and apple mash. David thrives on a little more carb than I do, on a day to day basis. So while he tucked into a big pile of starchy vitamin A, I filled my plate with spinach salad.

Pork wrapped in another kind of pork. Could there be anything better?

On the right, little pork yummies. On their sides on the grill to get the bacon extra crispy!

On the left, 1 Sweet potato with 1 apple, dusted with cinnamon. Baked at 350 F for 30 mins before being pureed in the food processor.

Cavegirl In The Kitchen

This blog is called just that because I eat and move as much like a cavegirl as I can but I love being in the modern oasis that is my kitchen. The paleo or primal lifestyle does not mean forsaking all neolithic amenities, donning a loin cloth, and spear hunting your dinner. With the seemingly endless options we have in terms of what to eat and do from minute to minute, being a cavegirl gives me a framework to navigate this world and helps to shape the choices I make. I keep my food "genetically congruent" with what my physiology is most supremely adapted to eat, while at the same time enjoying the fact that I don't have to risk life and limb to get it. A trip to Sobeys is all it takes. I exercise using functional movements at high intensity because those too are the physical remnants of a long-ago life built around sprinting, jumping, climbing, throwing, walking, lifting, and carrying. No need to sleep in a cave to actually get the benefit though. I'll keep my running water, comfy bed, and Nintendo Wii, thank you very much.

Some interesting things are coming out of my test kitchen these days and I'm looking forward to sharing the successful results in the coming weeks. I'll keep the disasters to myself though! Bison jerky, cavegirl bread, banana mac sorbet, and many other recipes will appear here in the future.

CrossFit

Today's WOD

Shoulder Press 1-1-1-1-1

Push Press 3-3-3-3-3

Push Jerk 5-5-5-5-5

This is the first time I have ever hacked out this entire WOD as Rx'd. I usually end up forgoing the sets of 3s and 5s, hitting only singles and then getting tired and quitting before I'm really done. So today...

Press: 86 Fail, 76, 81 Fail, 76, 76

Push Press: 86, 91(1PJ), 96, 101 Fail

Push Jerk: 101, 106f, 96, 96, 101x3

I love a good shoulder day...

Rehab Day 20

Weight - 124.2

The blogger world

Melissa Byers is a girl I like, even though I've never even met her. She's witty, real, and an awesome CrossFitter - my 3 favorite qualities in a lady. She writes a great blog called Byers Gets Diesel that I check in with often. This week she had a wonderful two part series on cheat days (how timely, see below...). You're never going to go your whole life without eating a cookie again and no one expects you to, so she addresses a few points on how you might work cheat days into an other wise health and performance oriented lifestyle. I accidentally got up on my soapbox with regard to Part 1, however, and ranted a little about how we think about supposedly "clean" carbs like sweet potatoes vs obvious junk food like ice cream. Read it here. 

Food

I ate my regular breakfast, although somewhat later in the morning than usual. After the workout I made a strawberry, mango, blueberry, banana, and spinach smoothie. Seriously, you can't even taste the spinach. It's a good way to hide some extra greens in your diet. 

We planned for a cheat day today, and cheat we did. It didn't start until about 3 in the afternoon. So in total the crap food intake only lasts about 6-7 hours. It is remarkable what can be demolished in that amount of time. I've threatened to post what I am actually capable of consuming on a cheat day before, so here it goes in all its disgusting, carb'o'rific glory:

• 1 regular size Quizno's turkey sub with guacamole and a cookie
• Several chocolate cake donuts
• 2 pieces of Delicio oven pizza
• Blue Cheese/Hot Wing Doritos
• 1/2 pistrami sandwich (one piece of bread, lotsa meat)
• A few winegums
• Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream

Sometime I will actually FitDay a cheat day just to see what it all adds up to. I suspect it is easily 5000-7000 calories. The worst part is this is nowhere near the most I've eaten on a cheat day. While wandering through sobeys looking for inspiration, I found myself mostly wanting meaty things. I bought some deli meats, and chicken fingers, which I never even ate. They're still in the freezer for next time. 

CrossFit

Today was an odd workout that has not come up since 2003... 

2 rounds for time:

1 arm barbell push press, 12 reps right arm

1 arm barbell deadlift, 12 reps left arm

run 800m

1 arm barbell push press, 12 reps left arm

1 arm barbell deadlift, 12 reps right arm

run 800m

This WOD has no Rx'd weight, only saying "go heavy, run fast". I used 46lbs for the push press and 96lbs for the deadlift. As expected, the left arm, and especially the grip in the left hand were the weak parts. My foot is still not happy from yesterday and so the runs were slow and kinda gimpy. Total time 40:53. David severely owned me in this one, finishing in 27-something. Ouch. This was a fun one though! 

Rehab Day 16

Weight: 124.6

Food

Another reasonably good day, although by the time I write this I almost forget what was eaten today. Breakfast was the same as always - eggs and nuts. I munched on some nuts and beef jerky through the morning. After my workout, I had a Booster Juice, again with no yogurt and added my own dried egg whites. That's a lot of carbs and it set me up to feel quite munchy through the rest of the day. At some point I ate a Larabar. Thank goodness the box of those things is almost gone because they are addicting! Dinner was some chicken eaten later at night and too close to bed time.

Water Weight

So lets talk about water weight. Between yesterday and today I dropped nearly 4lbs. Clearly this is not "bodyfat". You can't gain or lose 4lbs of fat in a day. What it is, is mostly water. 1 litre of water weights 1kg or 2.2 lbs. My drop in weight from yesterday to today represents aprx 1.5L of water.

Salt, hormones, and different foods can all influence water retention. Large fluctuations in salt (and water) intake can cause big changes in water retention or loss. Female hormones definitely have that lovely monthly effect of making girls bloated and cranky. Other hormones, like insulin, stimulate the kidneys to retain fluid rather than excrete it. A by-product of the chemical equation for metabolizing glucose is water. Some foods, like cucumbers and grapefruits, can have a diuretic effect making you shed water weight. Remember the grapefruit diet? Well that's basically a dehydration plan and it works to dump a lot of weight in a short period of time. It's not fat though. Just weight. Caffeine and alcohol are also both strong diuretics.

Low carb diets are well known to cause a huge weight loss in the first few weeks. "But it's mostly just water weight!" the critics will always whine. Excuse me, but when was the last time anybody wanted to retain fluid? In fact fluid retention is one of the major elements of hypertension. Why are we supposed to be disappointed when we 'just lose water weight'? I don't wanted to be bloated any more than I want to be fat, so if a diet is causing me to shed excess fluid along with the fat that's just peachy as far as I'm concerned.

CrossFit

3-3-3-3-3 Front Squat

121 lbs x 3

126 lbs x 3

136 lbs x 2

Previous 3 rep max was 125lbs with 0 reps on an attempt at 135lbs. The two reps I eeked out at 136 completely finished me off and back was was having no more of making any further attempts!

Later in the day I did the CrossFit Endurance workout on the rower which was 6x3min sprints with alternating rest periods. It goes like this:

3 min on, 1 min off

3 on, 3 off

3 on, 1 off

3 on, 3 off

3 on, 1 off

3 on, DONE!

Distances (in meters) were: 655, 666. 666, 647, 640, 662

Rehab Day 12

Weight: 123.2 (finally...)

Food
Breakfast - 1/2 larabar (before I biked to the gym), 2 eggs, nuts
Snack - Lemon chicken, more nuts, beef jerky
Post Workout - A large Tropical Tornado Booster Juice smoothie, minus the yogurt. Added my own fried egg white protein rather than the soy protein powder they use because soy isn't food.
Late Lunch - 2 sirloin beef patties, with all the bunless-fixins and a plate of veggies
Dinner - here's where it all goes wrong...

So we went to a party at a friend's house and managed to successsfully avoid all the non-paleo items like lasagna, bean salad, crackers, cheese, and even all the booze. On the way home, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up eggs for tomorrow's breakfast. And here's where the fatal mistake was made: we went to the grocery store hungry! Our quick stop for eggs turned into a cheat night involving Delisio pizza, a sausage roll, and some cookies. SH*T!!!

Damn you pizza and your grainy cheesy deliciousness!

CrossFit
Today's WOD

AMRAP in 20 mins of:
5 Handstand Pushups
10 Bench Press, 56lbs
15 Push Press, 56lbs
20 Dips

Finished 4 rounds + 10 bench press + 6 push press. This was a killer since all 4 exercises use the same "pushing" muscles, but it felt great. I love a good shoulder day!

Rehab Day 5

Weight: 123.0 (that's a 5.2lb drop in 4 days)

I woke up today to the pleasant sound of David tossing his cookies. Oh dear... Food poisoning? The Flu? A rebellious gallbladder purging the toxins accumulated in the last few months of crappy eating? Who knows... Poor guy.

This afternoon we are driving to Edmonton for the CrossFit Endurance Running Cert this weekend. Road trips always present special challenges and temptations. I will take pics and post how we navigate gas stations, buffets, lunch breaks, and restaurants.

Food Log
2 eggs
4oz Chicken
4oz chicken with olive oil mayo, mustard, and celery
Almonds/Walnuts
Pecan Lara Bar
Pepperoni Stick
Almonds and raisins
Too many sips of David's booster juice
Trail mix (nuts, seeds, and cranberries)
Beef Jerky

2 squares dark chocolate

Today was a lot higher in carbs that I would like. Between the larabar, the dried fruit, and the booster juice I would guess today came in well over 100g. I am aiming for carbs during this rehab phase. I could also still use a LOT more veggies.

CrossFit
Rest day!