Lead a Fit and Healthy Life
Paleo
Bacon Flowchart
1Refer to this flowchart next time you are faced with a Bacon decision and are unsure of what to do…
Paleo Chicken Wings
1I made these for a Paleo Potluck we had at the box last night. They were a big hit!
Paleo Chicken Wings
from crossfitpaleo.com
Ingredients:
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika powder
- 1/2 teaspoon sage
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons lemon pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 package of fresh chicken wings- found with the other fresh chicken at your local grocer
- olive oil (or grape seed oil) spray
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 220°C and line 2 baking trays with foil.
2) Combine flour, onion powder, garlic powder ,paprika powder, peppers and herbs in a large plastic bag- I found that using the bag didn’t really coat the wings evenly. My suggestion would be to combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
3) Spray the chicken wings with the oil, and dip each wing in the almond flour mixture until evenly coated (or if you opted for the bag, place wings in the bag and shake evenly to coat).
4) Place onto prepared baking trays. Repeat with remaining ingredients.
5) Spray chicken with oil again. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until crisp and cooked through.
6) Add your *optional* hot sauce of choice and serve with a salad. Enjoy!
Becoming a Kitchen Ninja
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I shared this post on the CrossFit Impavidus Whole Life Challenge Blog for the 40+ athletes now entering week 4 of their 8 week transformation…
Let’s talk about the Kitchen and cooking! You may be a ninja in preparing foods. Notice I didn’t say creating or mastering the kitchen. I hope that this challenge will help you expand your culinary skills so that when it’s over we can call you a true Ninja in the Kitchen, earning your black belt.
You can’t earn a black belt without having Confidence! There is no greater tool that a chef has in the kitchen than knowing they know how. Not knowing how can stop you from doing a lot of things. Being comfortable with not knowing opens door after door after door.
More than having a stockpile of recipes, mastering the basics, being able to handle ingredients, knowing what tastes good with what, how long things take, what food should sound like, smell like and look like when it is cooking are the secrets to mastering the kitchen.
How do you get there? Practice. And getting comfortable with taking a chance, being Innovative and willing to experiment! Use cookbooks to get started, practice recipes you like, get in the kitchen as much as you can! You have to be willing to make mistakes.
Once you gain the confidence you will have your favorite recipes, but more than that, you will have the ability to open any refrigerator and turn what is inside into a masterpiece.
There are so many websites out there that offer ideas, videos and full on recipes to help you learn your way. Here are a few of my favorites – feel free to share yours!
- The Clothes Make the Girl - my friend Melissa’s site who is also the author of Well Fed
- Fellow Challenger Andrea shared this site last nite: Easy Paleo
- Feed Me Paleo
- Everyday Paleo
- Sweet Cheeks HQ
- PaleOMG
- Nom Nom Paleo - offers a 30 day meal plan based on her own experience doing a Whole30 challenge.
Today’s workout was a good one! We spent 10 minutes finding our 1 rep max shoulder press. Just a strict press, no help from the hips. I was able to lift 90#s but ran out of time to try any heavier. I may go in later if I can and see what I can press. We had a lot of people at the gym this morning so it took a bit longer than normal.
Warmup
Relay Drills
Mobility
Skill
press
WOD
10m 1 RM Press
10m AMRAP
- 5 Push Press (50% Of 1RM) 45#s
- 7 Bar-Hop Burpees
- 9 Sit Ups
total: 6+5 Presses+5 Burpees
Recipe: Paleo Chocolate Coconut Doughnuts
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This recipe was shared by my friend Lori. She left off the dark chocolate icing. They look delicious don’t they?
Chocolate Coconut Doughnuts
10 medjool dates, pitted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
6 eggs
½ cup coconut flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup cacao powder
½ cup coconut oil, melted
Dark Chocolate, melted (optional)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a doughnut pan with coconut oil.
Place the pitted dates with 1 tablespoon of water in a heat resistant bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Remove and add an additional tablespoon of water and mash the dates into a paste.
In the bowl of a food processor add date paste, vanilla extract, and eggs. Process mixture to combine. Add coconut flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, cacao powder, and melted coconut oil to the bowl of the food processor and mix until all ingredients are well incorporated. Stop to scrape down sides of bowl.
Fill the doughnut pan circles about 2-3 of the way full with batter. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
Carefully remove doughnuts from the pan and continue to cool.
If topping them with dark chocolate, place chocolate in a double broiler or microwave safe bowl and heat until melted. Carefully place the top of the doughnut face down in the chocolate to evenly coat the top. Lift and turn over carefully and place the doughnut chocolate side up on a wire rack or piece of waxed paper to dry. If you would like you can also add dark chocolate shavings to the tops of the doughnuts.
Five Ways Gluten Makes You Sick and Fat
03 months ago
Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat
Five Ways Gluten Makes You Sick and Fat
Gluten can trigger inflammation, obesity and chronic disease in five major ways.
- Full-blown celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that triggers body-wide inflammation triggering insulin resistance, which causes weight gain and diabetes, as well as over 55 conditions including autoimmune diseases, irritable bowel, reflux, cancer, depression, osteoporosis and more.
- Low-level inflammation reactions to gluten trigger the same problems even if you don’t have full-blown celiac disease but just have elevated antibodies (7 percent of the population, or 21 million Americans).
- There is also striking new research showing that adverse immune reactions to gluten may result from problems in very different parts of the immune system than those implicated in celiac disease. Most doctors dismiss gluten sensitivity if you don’t have a diagnosis of celiac disease, but this new research proves them wrong. Celiac disease results when the body creates antibodies against the wheat (adaptive immunity), but another kind of gluten sensitivity results from a generalized activated immune system (innate immunity). This means that people can be gluten-sensitive without having celiac disease or gluten antibodies and still have inflammation and many other symptoms.
- A NON-gluten glycoprotein or lectin (combination of sugar and protein) in wheat called wheat germ agglutinin (WGA)[1] found in highest concentrations in whole wheat increases whole body inflammation as well. This is not an autoimmune reaction, but can be just as dangerous and cause heart attacks.[2]
- Eating too much gluten-free food (what I call gluten-free junk food) like gluten-free cookies, cakes and processed food. Processed food has a high glycemic load. Just because it is gluten-free, doesn’t mean it is healthy. Gluten-free cakes and cookies are still cakes and cookies! Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds and lean animal protein are all gluten free — stick with those.
Let’s look at this a little more closely. Gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, spelt and oats, can cause celiac disease, which triggers severe inflammation throughout the body and has been linked to autoimmune diseases, mood disorders, autism, schizophrenia, dementia, digestive disorders, nutritional deficiencies, diabetes, cancer and more.
Kitchen Window: Baking Without Flour Brings Sweet Results : NPR
1It’s estimated that 1 out of 133 people in the U.S. must cut out gluten because of celiac disease, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation. Other people might prevent different health conditions by avoiding gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. But they can continue to enjoy a myriad of favorite treats by substituting gluten-free flours made from nuts, seeds, legumes and rice (technically these would be called “meal” but are usually referred to as “flour”) such as brown or white rice flour, amaranth, corn, millet and quinoa flours, among others. A combination of gluten-free flours substituted in recipes that call for all-purpose flour produces the best results. There are many commercially produced gluten-free blends, but many bakers prefer to develop their own recipe through trial and error to meet their specific tastes.
For gluten-free folk, it’s best to look for oats and cornmeal that are labeled gluten-free on the package. Oats, for example, do not contain any gluten but may be manufactured on equipment that also is used to process wheat flours that could trigger an allergic reaction. An issue to keep in mind if you don’t keep a strictly gluten-free kitchen but are baking for someone who is gluten-free is cross-contamination from regular flour. Make sure to carefully clean all utensils and equipment so as to avoid inadvertently including gluten.
via Kitchen Window: Baking Without Flour Brings Sweet Results : NPR.
Super Easy Paleo Meatballs
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Last night I made some Paleo meatballs — super easy recipe:
- Package of 80% lean ground beef
- Package of spicy all natural sausage
–
In Food Processor blend 1 onion, a bunch of parsley, a few cloves of garlic
–
Blend well with your hands the following ingredients:
- meat
- the parsley, onion, garlic mix
- variety of spices (Penzey’s Pizza Spice, Red Pepper Flakes, Garlic Salt)
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of Almond Meal
Once all blended, with your hands create meatballs
Place in shallow baking dish
Bake in oven at 425 for 20m or until cooked
Add cooked meat balls to a all natural sauce and simmer until sauce is warmed through
Eat meatballs with a side salad and you have a meal!
Gluten is NOT good for your health!
0All grains, including other non-gluten containing grains like oats and corn, are bad because they contain gut irritating lectins and mineral binding phytates, but you’ll learn here why gluten-containing grains and wheat especially can not only cause the same problems as other grains, but also cause much more trouble down the road.
11 Ways Gluten & Wheat Can Damage Your Health
Three main constituents are of interest here: gluten, WGA (wheat germ agglutinin) and opioid peptides found in wheat. Gluten is a compound protein that composes about 80% of the protein found in wheat, barley and rye and WGA is a lectin found in wheat that can be particularly damaging. Opioid peptides are psychoactive chemicals and those found in wheat are similar to those found in other well known psychoactive drugs like opium or morphine.
Contrary to what is believed by many, wheat is not to be avoided only by those who suffer Celiac disease, the autoimmune disease caused by a reaction of the immune system against gliadin, a gluten protein. Those with Celiac disease only react more strongly to wheat and gluten than those without the disease, but most people have a reaction in some way or another to wheat consumption, often in insidious ways.
Are you Well Fed & Healthy?
7
When I was first exploring actual CrossFit and then later, Paleo eating, one of the first athletes I found blogging about it was Melicious from Clothes Make the Girl. I felt so special when she would respond to my comments I left on her blog and then later – when I got really into blogging – found out she read my blog — Rockstar! She’s someone who changed her life years ago but is not such a vigilante that she can go on a trip and indulge. That’s what I look for in people to follow — they balance their lives with healthy living. Living is about trying that special dessert that your friend made, and having that Carvel ice cream cake on your birthday (oh, wait that;s me)– but overall you live healthy and get right back on the track the next hour or day. It’s a journey!
I seriously credit Mel with inspiring me throughout the years to continue with my own journey despite challenges and self-doubt. She is one of those souls that even though I have never met her in person, I know she’s as awesome as she comes across online. One day our paths will cross —
Melissa just wrote a book about healthy eating with recipes. I have gotten so many recipes from her blog over the years. Her sharing them in a book is awesome.
Also make sure to take note – when you find your passion for something, it leads you — I bet she didn’t know she was going to publish her recipes when she first headed down this healthy and fit path.
The collection of recipes is called Well Fed and it’s a labor of love which you can instantly tell when you take a look at it. For those that follow Melissa and Dallas Hartwig of Whole9, all of the recipes in Well Fed (except one dessert) are approved for Whole30 compliance – so that means they are good and healthy.
The book includes 115 recipes and you can get a sneak peek with the free 30-page PDF sampler. You will of course want to buy the book and it’s available in a printed, softcover version (175 pages) and an ebook (PDF) version.
I also love that she is giving back with this project. When people buy the printed book, they get a code to download the PDF version for just $1, which is being donated to Common Threads, a non-profit that teaches low-income kids how to cook in a free after-school program, and she is donating $1 from every PDF sale to Common Threads.
So, what are you waiting for — visit her Well Fed site, get info and then buy her book so you can start the new year off eating healthy but not deprived!
