Coach J's Diet and Nutrition Advice

The Primal Blueprint Cookbook hasn’t let me down.  Every recipe I have made from this book has been exceptional in all areas – from the ingredients to the cooking directions and the amazing flavor.  The actual recipe is for roasted turkey breast, but I found organic whole roasting chickens at Kroger…so I improvised.  

The first thought that came to my mind when I had my first bite of this chicken was,”The colonel has nothing on me!”  The skin is soooo crispy and flavorful!

Ingredients:

• 4-5 pound roaster chicken or bone-in turkey breast
• 3 T unsalted butter
• 1T finely chopped fresh sage ( I used dried)
• 1 T fresh or 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 1 cup chicken or turkey broth

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Gently melt the butter with the herbs, salt, and pepper.  Remove from heat and add the garlic.  Gently pull the skin away from the meat and drizzle a little bit of butter under the skin.  Drizzle or brush the rest of the butter over the top and sides of the meat.

Roast uncovered in a roasting pan for 45 minutes.  Then, add the broth to the pan and continue to roast until the temperature reaches 165-170 (approx. another 45 minutes).  If the skin on the top of the turkey begins to get too dark, lightly cover it with foil.

Remove the meat from the oven and pour any liquid into a saute’ pan.  Simmer the liquid on the stove for several minutes to reduce the liquid slightly.  Slice the meat off the bone, drizzle juices on top and serve.

Let us know how you like this recipe. And as always, let us know what you are eating: post your meals to Comments.

Contributed by Coach Lis.

This is a short, follow-up post to our previous article on sleep. As noted, sleep is a vital part of any fitness or wellness program. For athletes, it enables your body to repair muscles, triggers the production of human growth hormone and helps to balance the body’s neuro-muscular response system (which affects things like timing and explosiveness). So, in short, sleep is vital to athletic performance.

Let’s hear from those who have been journaling / posting their nightly hours of sleep. What have you observed? Have you noticed any changes in your performance at the box? What about outside the box? Any effects on hunger / eating?

And for those who aren’t posting their sleep (or their daily eating) … what’s holding you back?

The Firebreather coaching staff just posted a new 8-week challenge to all of us. I strongly recommend that in addition to journaling your daily workouts and meals,  you also make one additional journal entry each and every day. Log the number of hours of sleep you got the previous night. Get the most out of your challenge–make it a true learning experience! When it gets right down to it, don’t you really want every advantage you can get to help you (and your team) win?!!!

Contributed by Tin Man Skip

As always, please post your observations, questions, suggestions–and most importantly, your meals–to comments.

No, not that kind of bar.

We’re talking instead about the meal replacement bar. You know the type: Zone bars, Oh Yeah! bars, EAS Myoplex bars, Clif bars, Labrada bars, Power bars, Met Rx. The athlete’s best friend, right?

As a guy who used to eat one or two “protein bars” every day, I am writing from experience. Serously, I would crave my afternoon bar with a cup of coffee. When I made the switch to  a mostly-Paleo diet, I was afraid to give up bars. I had no idea what I would use to fill those slots in my daily diet.

Consuming all those bars was not good for me–at all. And I want to share some insights (okay, warnings really) with those Firebreathers and others who have made the commitment to begin to eat a healthy diet. You could be doing all the right things at the box (in the gym) and consuming the recommended volume of calories and protein. But if you’re eating a couple meal replacement bars a day (like I was), you could be signalling your body to retain extra bodyfat by slowing its metabolism and contaminating it with unwanted toxins. 

Beyond the health conscious crossfitter, mainstream America has fallen victim to the lure of meal replacement bars manufactured by the Big Food companies. Some are cleverly disguised and some are emotionally linked to beloved breakfast cereal brands. Have you seen those Special K bars, Snickers energy bars with protein, Dr. Atkins bars and any number of granola bars with some protein added.  The trouble with bars becomes quickly evident when you take a look at what’s inside.

Let’s break down one of my old faves:

Big Colossal Super Cookie Crunch Bar

Trouble Sign #1 -way too much sugar – 26g to be exact. (That’s almost 7 teaspoons of sugar.)

Trouble Sign #2 – soy protein (Nobody needs to eat soy, especially not men. It is an estrogen mimicker.)

Trouble Sign #3 – too much high fructose corn syrup (Causes insulin to spike, which causes us to store fat. It also interferes with the production of collagen and elastin.  Think soft, loose skin.)

Trouble Sign #4 – lecithin – an emulsifier / preservative which helps to keep the bar moist (Genetically-engineered additive that contains plant toxins. Our bodies don’t know how to process lecithin.) This is just one of many artificial additives and preservatives commonly found in meal replacement bars.

The job of a meal replacement bar is to, simply, replace a meal … to serve as a substitute for a meal. Any bar can cure your hunger for an hour. But what are you consuming in that “meal?” Are you getting a healthy balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat? Are you getting a reasonable amount of sugar–or way too much? And what about chemical additives and preservatives? You wouldn’t add those to your home-cooked meal; so don’t accept them in a meal replacement. The bottom line is that you have to read the label on any bar. Be smart and be aware of how much sugar you’re consuming … and how many additives.

Do any bars out there deserve to be consumed by a Firebreather? We’ll examine this question next time. Until then, please continue to post your meals to Comments, as part of your healthy dietary routine.

This post contributed in collaboration by Coach Lis and Tin Man Skip.

Growing up in an Italian household, my mom used to make fried eggplant that was dusted with white flour and Italian spices.  My sisters and I used to stand at the stove and wait for them to come out of the frying pan.   They were delicious!   Have any of you shared a similar experience? 

Well, it seems that eggplant had become non-existent in my current household until I discovered this recipe on the Sweet Cheeks website (yes, it’s totally G-rated). 

 The first time I made the recipe I followed the instructions exactly, but we found it to be a little dry.   After a few modifications, the end result is a combination of eggplant, tomatoes and cayenne pepper that provides a welcome  burst of flavor for your tastebuds!  Below is the “doctored up” Coach Lis version of this recipe:

Here’s a great recipe for July 4th weekend. These brownies are a healthier alternative for a sweet splurge (apologies to Betty Crocker). Coach Lis has made walnut-meal brownies once before (they were delicious!), and I’m trying to talk her into whipping up a batch on Saturday.

Walnut meal is available in many grocery stores, but it’s also easy to make at home in a food processor. Simply use the “pulse” function to grind the walnuts into a fine crumb consistency.

Because the walnut meal replaces the flour that would typically be used in brownies, this recipe is Paleo/Primal-friendly. Plus, it’s gluten-free, so it might be a welcome treat for those with Celiac Disease or other intestinal disorders. Give it a try! Note: this recipe is courtesy of Primal Blueprint Cookbook by Mark Sisson.

 Ingredients

1 3/4 cups walnut meal

3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

2 large eggs (room temp)

1 cup coconut milk (room temp)

1/2 cup honey or maple syrup

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup extra virgin coconut oil (gently melted)

1/4 cup chopped walnuts for topping

Butter for greasing pan

Servings: 18 2″x3″ brownies

Instructions:

Adjust oven rack to middle position. Preheat oven to 350deg F. Butter a 13×9x2″ baking pan. In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients until well blended. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk eggs for one minute, then add coconut milk, honey or maple syrup and whisk again. Add melted coconut oil and whisk until wet ingredients are completely blended.

Add wet mixture to dry ingredients and whisk well; be sure to scrape sides and bowl bottom so no pockets of dry ingredient remain. Batter will be thinner consistency than conventional brownies. Pour batter into prepared pan. If desired, sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of batter. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Allow brownies to cool completely before cutting.

If give this recipe a try, let us know how you like it.

As always, post your meals to comments.

My energetic, ambitious wife once introduced me to the following idea:

“I’ll sleep when I die. For now, I’m going to get shit done.”

Some of you are nodding; some are groaning. How many of you have ever come to the box at Firebreather Fitness after a short night…on minimal sleep? What was your workout  that day? I’ll bet your timing was off. I’ll bet your endurance wasn’t what it should have been. I’ll also bet that if you were attempting an Olympic lift, your 1RM wasn’t as high as it should have been.

I confess: I used to come to the box in a sleep-deprived state two to three times a week. Hey, I’m a chronic night-owl (and a parent, business owner, author, blogger, entrepreneur). Like many of you, I wear several hats, and I do some of my best work after 11:30 p.m. For me, I’d stay up late Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday night… catching 4-6 hours of sleep, only to crash at 9:30 on Thursday night. I would chronically head into the weekend “tuckered out” and hoping for a couple of naps. What I’ve learned now is that I was really penalizing myself!

Robb Wolf says that sleep is incredibly important, only exceeded in importance by oxygen and water. He holds sleep as important or slightly more important than food!

The Washington Post hits the nail on the head, in my opinion, about sleep deprivation:

The newest study on obesity, from Columbia University, is just the latest to find that adults who sleep the least appear to be the most likely to gain weight and to become obese.

Other researchers have found that even mild sleep deprivation quickly disrupts normal levels of the recently discovered hormones ghrelin and leptin, which regulate appetite. In addition, studies show sleep-deprived people tend to develop problems regulating their blood sugar, which may put them at increased risk for diabetes.

Physiologic studies suggest that a sleep deficit may put the body into a state of high alert, increasing the production of stress hormones and driving up blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. Moreover, people who are sleep-deprived have elevated levels of substances in the blood that indicate a heightened state of inflammation in the body, which has also recently emerged as a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

Did you hear that? Sleep deprivation = inflammation and dispruption of proper maintenance of blood sugar = weight gain and disease.

As if that weren’t enough to send you sprinting to the mattress for a solid 8 to 10 hours of sleep, here’s what researchers at Stanford University found with regard to sleep and athletic performance:

The amount of sleep an athlete gets appears to have a large impact on sports performance. Cheri Mah of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory has been following the sleep patterns and athletic performance of Stanford athletes for years. Her research continues to show that getting more sleep leads to better sports performance for all types of athletes.

One study she authored, published in 2009, followed the Stanford University women’s tennis team for five weeks as they attempted to get 10 hours of sleep each night. Those who increased their sleep time ran faster sprints and hit more accurate tennis shots than while getting their usual amount of sleep. Mah’s research is some of the first to specifically look at the impact of extra hours of sleep on athletic performance and suggests that sleep is a significant factor in achieving peak athletic performance. This is particularly important for collegiate and professional athletes who have full schedules and often travel for games and competitions. Athletes can easily fail to get regular, consistent hours of sleep. This lack of sleep, or “sleep debt,” appears to have a negative effect on sports performance, as well as cognitive function, mood, and reaction time. Much of this can be avoided by making regular sleep as much of a priority for athletes as practicing their sport and eating right.

According to Mah, many of the athletes have set new personal bests and broken long-standing records while participating in these studies. Researchers speculate that deep sleep helps improve athletic performance because this is the time when growth hormone is released. Growth hormone stimulates muscle growth and repair, bone building and fat burning, and helps athletes recover. Studies show that sleep deprivation slows the release of growth hormone. Sleep is also necessary for learning a new skill, so this phase of sleep may be critical for some athletes. The amount of sleep an athlete gets appears to have a large impact on sports performance.

A quick summary:  sleep = growth hormone = muscle repair + recovery + growth!

So get your sleep.  And start logging your sleep here on the CoachJDietRx site–along with posting your meals daily!

Contributed by the Once-Sleep-Deprived Tin Man Skip

They say it takes 60 to 90 days to break a bad habit. (Good thing my wife didn’t read that! ) On a more serious note, they also say there’s strength in numbers … like the support groups many attend to help them break bad habits. But what if your support group wasn’t a bunch of strangers telling you their troubles, but a close-knit group of family or close friends? Well for me, the only way I would talk in front of a group of strangers was if it was ordered by a judge. On the flip side, if all your family and  friends know… is that really any better?

I could see it now … going to In and Out Burger, and the cashier tells you, “Your cousin came by and warned us that the only thing you can have is a protein burger.”

What if you stop by your local convenience store, and the clerk tells you, “Your mom called. That Snickers(tm) in your hand–sorry, it’s not going to happen.”

Taking this scenario one step further… kind of like a terrorist watchlist. You swipe your Rewards Card at the local supermarket, and the nice young lady tells you, “You’re on the government fat big backside watch list. That frozen pizza is not leaving the store.”

Even with all the good people feel from a support group (like your CrossFit community) or getting family involved in improving your nutrition, these mechanisms are not going to stop you from feeding your face. Here’s the reality of it: you are an “Army of One” when it comes to improving your nutrition or breaking any type of bad habits.

Contributed by Jerry Summers – CrossFit Ranch, Calif.

Ingredients: whey protein, almond milk, berries, sun butter, ice

Let’s face it: mornings are crazy. Getting from the bed to the shower and out the door in time to beat traffic or make the bus stop in time is usually a frenetic sprint. It leaves little time for breakfast. Yet, we all know we need to start the day right with a good nutritious meal. So what’s a Firebreather to do? Most of the grab-and-go solutions are bad choices: either too many carbs, lacking in the protein department, too much sugar or overloaded with trans-fats.
This home-blended whey protein shake has been a great solution for us. And if you’re interested in a breakfast that is delicious, fast, easy to make, loaded with flavor and stays with you up until lunch time, this shake will rock your world! Plus, it has the optimal balance of macro-nutrients (protein, carbs, fat). The fact that it is all natural and homemade, makes it an even better choice than any of the store-bought RTD shakes.
Okay, it’s time to get started. Go fetch that blender from your bar or liquor cabinet and place it on your kitchen counter. Wash it really good to scrub out the margarita residue. You’re going to use the heck out of it, since you’ll probably make more than 100 of these shakes over the next year. In a blender, combine the following ingredients (in sequential order for best results):

• 8 – 10 oz. almond milk (you can substitute milk or water)
• 6 ice cubes
• 1- 2 scoops whey protein (if you weigh more than 150 lbs, go with 2 scoops)
• 1 Tbsp almond butter or sunflower seed butter
• ¾ cup fruit (whatever you have, is in season, go with your favorites. Lis uses blueberries, strawberries, peaches, mangoes and the kitchen-sink-berries)
• Optional: cocoa powder – 1 Tbsp.

Blend on high (or use the smoothie setting if your machine has one) for 45 seconds to one minute, or until it reaches desired consistency. Lis always stops the blender to scrape the sides about midway through to ensure optimal mixing of ingredients. After blending, pour your shake into a tall plastic tumbler and get your butt out the door. Chug liberally. Rest shake in cup holder between sets. Watch out for brain freeze.

Expect to arrive at work on time, alert and well nourished. Let us know if you notice that you have a little extra zip in your step.

Nutritional Summary * – Coach Lis’ Famous Whey Protein Shake
Total calories:  350 (approx.)
Protein: 30 grams
Carbs: 25 grams
Fat: 13 grams

* – based on 1 scoop protein powder, 8 oz. almond milk; nutritional info will differ if you use two scoops of protein powder or the type and amount of liquid base you use.

Post your recipe critiques and your shakeology suggestions to comments–along with your daily meals.

Contributed by Tin Man Skip and Coach Lis

We all fall off the wagon once in a while. It is incredibly hard to maintain an elite level of fitness or nutrition all the time. We strive … and we do our best. But hey, we are only human, after all.

Recently, I hit a slump. I want to share the story of this experience with you, in the hope that it provides a learning point. I’m not quite sure how or when the slump began exactly. It was around Memorial Day. I missed a few WODs during a busy time at work with an unusually high level of travel. Plus, with the holiday weekend, I was at several family gatherings with good food, desserts, cold beer, etc. I’ll bet you know the scenario. (Remember the “Trigger Foods” post?) Then, that all rolled into my son’s birthday weekend with more celebrations, cake & ice cream and special meals.

Cut to the chase. After nine days, I had fallen off the nutrition and fitness bandwagon. My meals had devolved from Pale/Primal into a carb-fest. I did not work out for eight days. Oh, and along the way, I got sick. My sleeping pattern went to crap and my energy level plummeted.

After a nine-day slump, I returned to the box for a FF WOD. I have begun to tighten-up my eating. Though I am still not back to where I need to be, I have turned the corner and have begun to “right the ship.”

So what’s the lesson? First, we all hit slumps. They are inevitable. But the good thing is that this slump only lasted 9 days. A couple years ago (pre-Crossfit), my slump would have continued for who knows how many days, weeks or months. Heck, I probably would have continued on my sorry path until I could no longer button my pants comfortably. (I’m not exaggerating.)

Champions (and those who aspire to be one) know how to shorten their slumps. Do you have warning systems that tell you when you’re in a slump? Do you have red-flag warnings that trigger your mind to say, “Hey, snap out of it?” Do you weigh yourself? Do you keep track of your food? Do you journal your workouts?

Post your warning signs and health-maintenance tips and share them with the tribe. And as always, post your meals to comments.

Contributed by Tin Man Skip

I don’t know about you firebreathers but I am excited to start summer grilling.  Actually I’m ready for Tin Man to start earning his keep at the Lineberg household and put his grilling talents to good use!!  The kitchen is comfortable for me,  the grill – not so much.  I think men have a grilling gene that replaced the “ability to find anything” gene!! 

Ok, so enough about the inferior sex, let’s get down to food.  Continuing  my journey through the Primal Blueprint Cookbook, I discovered primal BBQ sauce.  I threw some together on Memorial Day and brought it to a family get-together (along with walnut-meal brownies which I will post at a later date).  My brother-in-law slathered it on some Harvestland chicken and grilled it to perfection.

This recipe is quick, easy and will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

Ingredients

• 1 cup homemade ketchup (see recipe under Grandma’s BBQ pork post) 
• 3 Tbsp minced onion (or 3 tsp onion powder)
• 2-3 Tbsp butter
• 1-2 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
• Scant 1/4 cup dark maple syrup, or to taste
• 1-2 Tbsp HFCS -free Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp blackstrap molasses (optional.  I didn’t have any)

Mix all ingredients together in a small pan and simmer over low heat 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Store in an airtight glass in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.