Reading is Dangerous

Read up over the weekend on some exercise info from The Whole 30 guys and found a great article series, "If you could only perform five exercise movements for the rest of your life, which five would you do?" asking twelve of the most widely respected fitness experts and strength and conditioning coaches for their lists. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Monday's workout was drawn from the answers and some associated articles.

Part One
Three Circuits of:
Farmer's Walk x 50 yards @ 100# (2 x 50# dumbbells)
Lunge Complex x 5/5 (Lunge Forward, side-step & squat, Backward Lunge)

Part Two
Five Sets of:
Renegade Man Makers x 5 @ 10#/10#
Burpee with dumbbells, rowing each arm at bottom, and double overhead press at top

Three Sets of:
Glute Ham Developer Situps x 5

Part Three
Elliptical Trainer Tabata Sprints
8 circuits of 20 Seconds at 90rpm, 10 seconds at 55rpm (4 minutes)

The desired effect was achieved.

Paleo Curry

2 pounds meat
1 bag of frozen cauliflower
3-5 tbsp of Curry powder - we use Madras or Sweet Curry
1 can (12.5 oz?) of organic tomato sauce
2 tbsp of a paleo cooking fat
1 medium onion
2 cloves of garlic
optional carrots or parsnips
salt
black pepper

- I prepare the bag of frozen cauliflower according to the microwave directions and set aside in a separate bowl (reduces vitamin breakdown).
- Crush the cauliflower with a potato masher or large fork until it has a rice-like consistency.
- In a fryer (a steep-sided 12" frying pan) or Dutch oven I begin by heating the fat on medium heat - I have used coconut oil, olive oil, pasture-raised lard, and ghee for this (about 2 tbsp).
- I cut the meat into even chunks, about half-inch cubes. I have used chicken, pork, lamb, and beef. About 2 pounds.
- Brown the meat on all sides and remove it to a bowl.
- As the remaining liquid cooks reduces to almost only oil, I add the chopped medium onion and occasionally a few chopped carrots or parsnips (even sized pieces) and cook them for about 6 minutes, scraping the bottom and mixing it with the vegetables. Then add the 2 cloves of pressed garlic for an additional 2 minutes and stir.
- Reduce the temperature to medium-low.
- Add the cauliflower to the pan and then mix in 2 tbsp of Madras (Indian) Curry Powder, coating everything.
- Stir in one large can of organic (Muir Glen) tomato paste. Mix well.
- Stir in the meat and another tbsp of curry powder.
- Lower to a simmer and season with salt and pepper and additional curry powder to your taste.
- The longer you can let it simmer the better, but stir to avoid scorching the sauce on the bottom.

The cauliflower gives the dish the rice consistency that is otherwise missing from many paleo curry dishes. It imparts little taste, but gives you its health benefits.

We ate this at least 4 times during our Whole 30, making it a little differently each time.

The whole Whole30

We finished our Whole 30 on Thursday. It was great.

Eating so cleanly has made us both feel so much better and I lost 16 pounds (you're not supposed to check, but it is my thing). We are both even further down in clothes sizes.

I will start posting many of our dishes from this past month this week.

CRL is doing the dairy check and then the gluten check this weekend. I don't appear to have real problems with either one, but I feel so much better without them both, I'm going to stay that way!

We have become so used to eating Paleo that none of the restrictions were a hardship - cooking nearly every meal is the tough part, but we have always shared the load there (I love to cook and do most of it), so it wasn't really a problem.

If you want to see results and start changing the way you feel for the better, the Whole30 is the way to go.