Use it in a sentence....

My two girls, ages 9 and almost 12, love to ask me questions. They especially love to ask questions when I'm working on the laptop trying to create a literary masterpiece for my blog. Lately, the favorite questions are of the "what does this word mean, Daddy" variety. Mind you, I have taught them how to use the computer to look words up and have even gone so far as to show them how to use a real, physical dictionary (oh, the horror) but for some reason they persist in quizzing me.

"I don't know, use it in a sentence." is one of my favorite replies. I tell them that to better serve their homework needs I need to know what they're talking about, I need some CONTEXT. When I'm talking about my experiences living a Primal lifestyle, context is a big deal as well.

One of my neighbors asked what I had for breakfast and I told her I greatly enjoyed a Grok Dino egg. Confused face (on her, not me). So I told her it's a hard-boiled egg covered with a layer of sausage and then wrapped with bacon, cooked until done and eaten piping hot. It's based on the Scotch egg you can find in the UK but I use BIG eggs and a THICK coating of sausage for a truly Primal treat.

"You should have a bowl of cereal. It's healthy for you."

Kraken from Clash of the Titans 1981- Wikipedia

Release the Context!! (Clash of the Titans viewers feel free to giggle).

The job of insulin in our body is to regulate our blood sugar level. This sugar is necessary to power our muscles and organs and any extra sugar not stored is converted to fat (by insulin) and stuffed in our fat cells. But if you bombard your body with high levels of carbohydrates after awhile your cells begins to become resistant to that insulin. It takes more insulin to get the job of regulating your blood sugar done so your pancreas squirts out more and more. The excess insulin in your blood now causes an enzyme (lipase) to be released and that stores some of that excess blood sugar as fat. If you're insulin resistant the fat cells are now hanging onto the stored fat tightly, not wanting to release it when needed.

When your muscles and organs need energy they will take any stored sugar (which we only have a limited ability to store) and if there's not enough they will try to pull it from the fat cells. Problem is these fat cells don't want to let the fat go very easily, so your body tells your brain you need to eat since the cells aren't getting fed. Great. Now you're hungry (again) so you have something else to eat. Welcome to the viscous cycle of high-carb eating. And it doesn't matter if your carbs are from a soda, white bread or whole-wheat crackers as they all basically break down in your digestive tract into sugar.

This was my eating-cycle for years and why I ended up the way I am.

So no; in the grand scheme of things I think I'll pass on the "healthy" bowl of cereal (whole grain or not and that's a whole other rant for another day). And my reply to my all-knowing neighbor? The ever-present non-committal head nod. I even threw in a sly little eyebrow raising for good measure.

Running Playlist 8FEB2012

A Different Kind of Truth by Van Halen

Great new album especially if you're an old-school rocker like myself.

Running Playlist 6FEB2012

Running Playlist 6FEB2012

Could easily be subtitled WTH?!?!?!?!?!

Started week 4 of the Couch to 5K program tonight and figured I would have 3 segments as there's only so much running you can do in 30 minutes with a 5-minute warm-up/cool-down. Gave the third segment a pretty epic effort and then... SURPRISE..... that cute little voice says running. GAH!!!!!!! So session four was pretty ugly but it's done and dusted.

Colorado Bulldog (live)- Mr. Big
Don't Tell Me You Love Me (acoustic)- Nightranger
Hanani- O.C Supertones
Turn It Up- Pillar
For the Love of the Game- Pillar
Neon Nights- Queensryche
Death of Me- Red

Running Playlist 3FEB

Lay Down My Pride- Jeremy Camp
Wildest Dream- Journey
Any Way You Want It- Journey
Separate Ways- Journey
Fight with Fire- Kansas
Beyond the Surface- Kutless
Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy- Mr. Big

34F, no wind, some stars, someone finally turned on the streetlights on the back stretch.

Hey, Conventional Wisdom: Eat It!

I used to have a doctor with the bedside manner of a seedy roadside-bar comedian.

"Silk or satin?" he says to me one day.

"What????"

"It's the question your wife is going to have to answer about your coffin if you don't get things together soon."

Shortly thereafter I left the office with a high-blood pressure medication and a high cholesterol drug. Well crap.

Fast-forward to yesterday. My blood cholesterol panel never got really good despite some pitiful efforts at CW eating (but I must admit no exercise). I began a Primal eating regimen and exercise program in the first week of December. So yesterday morning, Feb 2nd, I got my latest blood work results:

                                      25JUN10         24FEB11           1FEB12
Total Cholesterol                252                   206 (-46)         162 (-44)
HDL                                   33                      34  (+1)            34
LDL                                   176                   138  (-38)        113 (-25)
Triglycerides                       243                   191  (-52)        102 (-89)
Fasting glucose                    --                     116                    88 (-28)

I changed what I had been doing for years 7 weeks before this test

Oh, and it gets better. You may remember that I entered Yokota's Biggest Loser event since I was already making these sweeping changes to my life. Well I had my first weigh-in today:

                                    2NOV11     5JAN12*          3FEB12                     
Waist @ hip crest, inches      --              50.6               49.5 (-1.1)
Weight, pounds                  272          267.4 (-4.6)    254.8 (-12.6) <~~~~~ DUDE!!!!!
Body fat, %                        --               37.3               36.4 (-0.9)
BMI                                   --               40.1               38.6 (-1.5)

*Yokota's Biggest Loser Challenge starting weight

Again, I changed what I had been doing for years 7 weeks before this weigh-in. So what am I doing?

I eat BACON and make my REAL EGG omelets with BUTTER and on occasion I have a cup of WHOLE MILK and I use COCONUT OIL which is super-high in SATURATED FAT. I drizzle MACADAMIA OIL on my salads and have regular handfuls of MACADAMIA, ALMOND, SUNFLOWER, PUMPKIN, WALNUT and CASHEW nuts. I eat HARD BOILED EGGS wrapped in PORK SAUSAGE and BACON for breakfast. I have THAI CHICKEN SOUP made with COCONUT MILK for supper. I've eaten more BROCCOLI, BELL PEPPERS, CAULIFLOWER, BRUSSELS SPROUTS, ROMAIN LETTUCE, SPINACH, KALE, MUSHROOMS, SHALLOTS, ONIONS, GARLIC, CABBAGE and AVOCADOS in 7 weeks than I have in my entire life. I make my own GUACAMOLE every week. I put real freaking CREAM in my occasional cup of coffee!

I do SIT-UPS (I originally could not do a single one, now I do them in sets). I do PUSH-UPS (not regulation yet, but have gone from leaning on a wall to leaning on a couch and I make gains every week). I do SQUATS (and no longer hold onto a chair for support). I do KNEE-PLANKS (and have gone from seconds just barely into the double-digits to closing in on two minutes). I do this three times a week.

I run. Let me repeat that: I RUN! 7 weeks ago I ran for less than 30 seconds before I was gasping for air. Now I'm on week 3 of the Couch to 5K app. It's not pretty and I took 3 weeks to confidently perform the first week and I take 2 weeks to do each new milestone. But I can now run for over 3 minutes at a time and do that multiple times in a row. I don't LIKE running, but I like OWNING each segment. Hell, I spent money on running shoes. I do this three times a week.

I do hard things. And when those things get easy, I do something harder.

What DON'T I do?

I don't eat SUGAR, FLOUR, GRAINS, NOODLES, BREAD, MARGARINE, ICE CREAM, VEGETABLE OILS, BEANS/LEGUMES including PEANUTS or THINGS THAT CONTAIN THEM! I don't drink FRUIT JUICE, BEER, SODA or DIET SODA. I don't eat PROCESSED FOODS if I can help it. I don't eat FAST FOOD if I can help it (but still follow my guidelines as closely as I can when I have to). I DON'T SHOP FROM THE AISLES in the middle of the grocery store except for those items that promote my lifestyle (I shop around the edges mostly). I don't think of buying a new item WITHOUT READING THE LABEL. I ignore the standard FOOD PYRAMID, MY PLATE and RDA %.  I pretty much don't eat crap food anymore.

That's how I feel about Conventional Wisdom.

I don't blindly follow CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. I don't attend a social function WITHOUT EATING "MY WAY" before leaving the house. I have learned to liberally use the phrase NO THANK YOU. I don't spend HOURS working some CARDIO program to "burn calories". I don't take CRAZY SUPPLEMENTS or outlandish FAT BURNING PILLS. I don't put FUNNY DROPS in my water. I don't exercise because I HAVE TO or because someone TOLD ME TO. I exercise because I UNDERSTAND that it will BENEFIT ME and allow me a longer time to yell at kids who walk on my lawn. I eat the way I do because I understand that CONTROLLING MY INSULIN LEVEL is a VERY BIG DEAL and A DIRECT RESULT OF THE CHOICES I MAKE EVERY TIME SOMETHING GOES INTO MY GAPING MAW.

I EXERCISE RADICAL RESTRAINT on a daily basis (thanks for that Dean!). It is a LEARNED SKILL. I FAILED at many early attempts but I KEPT TRYING. I can now walk past plates of hors-d'vours or jalapeno poppers or petit fours or <gasp> glazed doughnuts unscathed. I'll say it again:  

EXERCISING RADICAL RESTRAINT is a LEARNED SKILL. Which means you can learn it!

If you don't try to figure that out, you'll never figure it out. I also learned that if I do eat something decadent that a) I'll feel like a steamy pile of poo later on, and b) the world will keep right on spinning. Meaning that I didn't BECOME A FAILURE, it means that I HAD (past tense) a failure. Get back on the flipping horse and continue the race!

Stepping off my soap box...

Running playlist 1FEB

Last Man Standing- Bon Jovi
Last Cigarette- Bon Jovi
Clock Strikes Ten- Cheap Trick
Get It Up- Chickenfoot
Core of My Addiction- Fireflight
Serenity- Fireflight
The Hunger- Fireflight

Someone forgot to hit the shuffle button.

Couch to 5k week three (doing two weeks for each scheduled one since I'm not a runner).

37 degrees when I left the house, no wind, stars are out, almost all of the snow's gone.

Thai Cabbage Rolls

I have the most amazing network of friends from my years of living around the world. I'm sitting here one day hungry for something but not sure what and then it hit me: LARP. It's actually pronounced laap kind of like the sound a sheep makes and it comes from Thailand. We have a bit of property in Wasilla, Alaska that we will build a log home on (if I can ever get my wife to stop getting promoted and retire) and our neighbors are super cool. Dave's an airline pilot and Helen just happens to have grown up as a missionary kid in Thailand where she learned how to cook. Put these situations together and you can guess where it's going. Helen makes the most amazing, flavorful Thai food in the universe and when she combines it with the food available in Alaska you often get unique creations like Thai larp made with moose meat instead of hamburger.

So when I realize that this is what I want I shoot an e-mail to Helen begging for the recipe and asking how much snow they have (because food and snow are both very important to me) and a few minutes later I have the secret in my sweaty little hands. Larp is usually eaten with Thai sticky rice using your hands but I didn't have any, nor do I have my Thai rice steamer thingy anymore but the meat alone was a great comfort. A few weeks later I decided to adapt it to my now-Primal lifestyle (I omitted the roasted rice flour) and my family loved it. So here, written from my computer outside of Tokyo is my adapted Thai larp recipe made possible by my good friends in Alaska.

Thai Cabbage Rolls with Cabbage Salad

THAI CABBAGE ROLLS and CABBAGE SALAD

2 pounds hamburger (for those days when you're all out of moose meat)
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp. chili powder
2 T. fish sauce
1 lime
4-6 green onions, sliced
1/2 C. fresh cilantro, chopped

2-3 slices fresh ginger

1 cabbage (Napa is my preference but work with what you have)
1 hot red pepper, dried, chopped
pinch each of kosher salt/ fresh cracked black pepper
sesame oil
rice vinegar
slivered almonds

Thai cabbage rolls starting point

Brown your hamburger with the garlic, drain. Add chili powder, fish sauce, cilantro and the white part of your green onions to the hamburger. Squeeze the juice/pulp from your lime over mixture while stirring. I chop and save the green part of the onion for use in other foods or as a garnish.

While your meat is browning pick the outer leaves from your cabbage and wash. I soften mine by putting them in the microwave for 3-5 minutes. Err on the firm side as they'll soften up when you steam them. Now's a good time to get your steaming setup going as well. Place your fresh ginger in the water of your steamer to infuse the cabbage leaves with a bit of flavor.

Cabbage cup before

Hold one cabbage leaf in your hand and place a scoop of the larp in the middle (2-3 spoonfuls is what I used with my leaves) fold the sides of the leaf back over the larp, then roll the tip back towards the stem making a nice little cabbage roll. Place on the steamer pan and when it's full put the rack over the ginger water and cover. Steam anywhere from 5-8 minutes depending on the size/number of rolls. I made 12 of them and had larp leftover to eat the next day at lunch.

 

Completed cabbage roll

For the salad, chop the remainder of your cabbage into very thin slices, the thinner the better, and into a mixing bowl. I buy these little red peppers at the local farmer's market about 1-1/2 inches long. No idea what they're called but they're mildly hot and I usually cut up one into tiny pieces to give a little kick to the otherwise bland cabbage. Add a pinch of salt/pepper to the mix. Sesame oil and rice vinegar to taste (I never measure) and mix. Top with slivered almonds and you're done!

Ready for the steamer

Serves 3-4 or maybe 2 really hungry folks.