Well, it looked ok, but may I introduce you to a bit of tasteless beef.
Looked great before it went in the oven
So, its 4 block of tasteless beef ( lovingly slow roasted for 3 hours: that was a waste of electricity), 3 blocks of potatoes at 150g, and some nice cabbage with a block of extra butter (between the 2 of us) chucked in, otherwise Kate won’t eat it.
looked ok, tasted of nothing.
looked ok, totally tasteless
TODAYS WORKOUT
This mornings workout was 20 box jumps (or step ups) 20 push ups, 400m run . As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes.
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Today is a rest day. We have trained the previous 3 days, so day 4 is rest. You get stronger by resting and recovering from training, not training all the time. You only get stronger during the rest!
I had struggled to knock up the evening meal, as I’d run out of most things. I ended up with an onion, a pepper some garlic , some ginger a spoon of coconut milk, 200g of lamb from last night, gravy from last nights lamb, a tin of tomatoes , some curry powder and some bits of frozen chilli, some powdered coriander, and 3 frozen bits of spinach.
This blog isn’t meant to be a detailed cooking blog, just one that nudges you into the possibility of health eating by doing some basic cooking and following zone diet principle and trying to balance 40% carbs, with 30% protein and 30% fat.
But as a rough guide, fry the onions and pepper, garlic and ginger fry them, add a little bit of water add the curry powder, fry it all, throw in everything else and simmer
I have an ongoing battle with heat in curry so after last times “no heat curry” I thought I’d add a bit of chilli in a game of Chilli Roulette. A game that I had lost, so I had to hunt about to drag these bits out!
Now for future recipes I need a vegetarian to send me in some veggie meals that balance carb, protein and fat ( think 7g protein, 9g carb, 1.5g fat x 4). Email me your ideas to andrew@andrewstemler.com and I’ll post them with a big credit to you. See if you can send me photo of it and you .
In fact any good, healthy meals will be welcome !!!
If you crave something physical, it will probably be a good time to remind yourself that even on a rest day, you need 10,000 steps
The meal I’ll analyse today is my lovely Kate’s favourite meat which is roast lamb.
Voila
4 blocks of lamb, or 112g ( that’s the protein) , 3 blocks of potato (150g) and my hope that the odd bit of fat that I rubbed over the meat before roasting was about 4 x 1.5g . The zone diet assumes that all meat has some fat in it.
You’ll notice I’ve slung peas and green beans on my plate, but without really measuring them. I think “pile on the ( non starchy) veg”, but don’t let this take you away from measuring the more carb dense food!
POINTS TO NOTE: when you start to properly manage your weight 1) don’t hunt out weird exotic meals to make. Try and stick with stuff you know and can cook. 2) learn to portion control the important stuff. Dont obsess if you had too much spinach or 3 more fork fulls of cabbage! Learn to recognise the high calorie food. still include it! But manage it.
Todays car park workout was an ‘up down ladder”
Mark out a 10m shuttle run, get a suitably nice, or nasty dumbbell to snatch
On the way up dumbbell snatches 2-20 (2, 4, 6) , on the way down shuttle runs 10-1(10, 9, 8)
Today, it looks like I’m in the gym in the morning, so I’ll probably do a basic deadlift, squat and press strength workout. Kate (my beloved) will either join me or go for a jog. Your choice, go to the gym, or go for a run ( or a mono structural cardio activity like a row, or a bike, or a Cross-trainer). btw, do go to the bottom of this post as there is a free kettlebell guide
The food I want to analyse is this spaghetti bolognese .
As a general point, when you decide to blend protein with other stuff ( be it a sauce or tomatoes or whatever), you’ll need to make judgement as how you divide the end product. So this is 255g of protein to be divided among 3 people( the zone block is 28g of beef , so Im slightly over allocating the required 84g to make 3 blocks). I’ve added a pepper, some garlic, some herbs, an onion, a glass of wine. I threw in a block of kidney beans (sorry, I had them, and I accidentally defrosted them). Ive not really counted in, but it is among 3 people. If I start obsessing about a pepper or onion, I think I’m screwed!
When I came to serve, i just divided it into 3 portions!
Here is the killer. Spaghetti is pure carb. To make 3 blocks I put in 36g of dried spaghetti, that I think gives me three blocks of carb.
Knowing how sparse this would be, Ive added some green beans ( and ignored the minimal carb content)
It was a nice meal, although kate demanded a sprinkle of cheese.
Back to the exercise component
I constantly use kettlebells in my morning workouts. This old guide I wrote years ago may be useful. Have it for free!!
As I’m 60, it means I was brought up when freezers came in and changed our world.
However, even today, I hear people talk against using frozen vegetables. I use frozen vegetable extensively as they are cost effective, keep well and convenient. I ask my weight management clients to have stock in too!
I recently noticed a comment where someone suggested that the cheapie frozen veg available in the supermarkets that supply common folk like you and me, was inferior and to be avoided.
Just incase you have this doubt, check out “Mineral, fiber, and total phenolic retention in eight fruits and vegetables: a comparison of refrigerated and frozen storage” available here
What the report said was “Minerals, total phenolics, and fiber were analyzed in several fruit and vegetable commodities to evaluate the differences between fresh and frozen produce. Magnesium, calcium, iron, zinc, and copper were evaluated in corn, carrots, broccoli, spinach, peas, green beans, strawberries, and blueberries. Each commodity was harvested fresh and split into two batches. Half of each commodity was kept fresh, and the other half was frozen. The nutrient content was analyzed over three storage times per treatment. The retention of nutrients was highly dependent on the commodity, but the majority of the commodities showed no significant difference between fresh and frozen for all analytes (p ≤ 0.05)”
This report does imply that some vegetables are not as good as others as holding onto their frozen nutrients, but, when I get home in a rush, it’s great to reach into the freezer and know you have a portion of veg for the evening meal.
For those who want to dive into the exact difference between fresh food and frozen, I offer you Nutritional comparison of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables. Part 1. Vitamins C and B and phenolic compounds is an interesting report
To be even handed , if you can go and live in a farm or you have a fantastic garden, it must be great to reach out of the kitchen window and pluck some veg. Thats very rare, and to be honest, I remember my mother “blanching” our garden veg back in the 70’s when that lovely chest freezer arrived.
Outside in the vegetable patch , you can stagger your vegetable crops a bit, but the reality is that you’ll get a glut at sometime. So the freezer is your number one call. As a reflection, we went blackberry picking recently and loved it. We went again, then one more time, and now we cannot face the prospect of another blackberry. We should have frozen those later batches.
As a novel experience, blackberry picking is great. After a while, thank god for freezing!
On this basic regime, its work for 3 days, rest on the 4th: ( btw DWF means “daily workout and food”)
Repeat.
I set the workouts based on the assumption that you have some dumbbells, a kettlebell and a slipping rope. Ideally you need to add dedicated strength workouts and gymnastics to your regime, but this workout aims to sling together enough elements to do a high intensity session. Often it’s the intensity of the session that will drive fitness results.
To be obvious , this regime doesn’t include pull ups, dips , olympic or power lifts, so it’s not a complete regime, but it gives your lower half, heart and lungs a time.
Each day, I try and give you some eating guidance based on the zone diet. Today, its some general information, a lazy cut and paste, about the zone diet (from the Crossfit Journal, issue 21)
“A block is a unit of measure used to simplify the process of making balanced meals.
7 grams of protein = 1block of protein 9 grams of carbohydrate = 1 block of carbohydrate 1.5 grams of fat = 1 block of fat (There is an assumption that there is about 1.5 grams of fat in each block of protein, so the total amount of fat needed per 1 block meal is 3 grams.)
When a meal is composed of equal blocks of protein, carbohydrate, and fat, it is 40 % carbohydrate, 30 % protein and 30% fat.
lists common foods, their macronutrient category (protein, carbohydrate or fat), along with a conversion of measurements to blocks.
This “block chart” is a convenient tool for making balanced meals. Simply choose 1 item from the protein list, 1 item from the carbohydrate list, and 1 item from the fat list to compose a 1 block meal. Or choose 2 items from each column to compose a 2 block meal, etc.
Here is a sample 4 block meal:
4 oz. chicken breast 1 artichoke 1 cup of steamed vegetables w/ 24 crushed peanuts 1 sliced apple
This meals contains 28 grams of protein, 36 grams of carbohydrate, and 12 grams of fat. It is simpler, though, to think of it as 4 blocks of protein, 4 blocks of carbohydrate, and 4 blocks of fat.“
Even if you are going to slop on the couch, see if you can sneak in a bit of better movement.
From bad to bridge: most positions can be tweaked so you can sneak in a bit of exercise.
Here we have 112g of roast chicken, (4 blocks) 150g of boiled potato (3 blocks) . I rubbed 2 blocks of butter onto the chicken ( kate loves her crispy skin) and put about 2 blocks of butter onto the vegetables. I boiled up a “mess” of courgettes, broccoli and cabbage, served with an ” as much as you can eat” mentality. Any diet that restricts non starchy carb should be avoided. As many veggies as you can get down I say!!
Use the veggie stock to make gravy (with the juice from the chicken)
The sneaky “bad” things I did were: 1) slung a glass of wine into the baking pan, to support the juice from the chicken and the trivet ( thats the bed of onion, celery and carrot) hoping that most of the alcohol had boiled away ( check if I”m delusional, by following this thread) and 2) stirred in 2 tea spoons of gravy powder which had a bit of carb in. I’ve ignored that as it minor and life is too short.
Delicious and filling!
Straight after diner, when the chicken is cold, rip it off the bone, with your hands. Put the trivet and the bones and any remainder gravy/juice into a pot to make a stock ( you’ll need this for tomorrows curry)
THE WORKOUT
Today, kate and I are off to the gym ( at the amazing Crossfit London) to do a strength workout 3 sets of 5’s of deadlift, squat and press.
If you are stuck at home can I suggest 3 sets of 10 kettlebell deadlift (holding whatever weight kettlebell you have), 3 sets of 10 goblet squats, ( with a weight you can cope with) and 3 sets of 10 dumbbell press. Do these with rest periods as a strength session, not a mad workout!
Not every workout should be a near death intense workout, you need to sprinkle in strength ( and you’ll see the odd run now and then)
If you want more hints and tips do join the mailing list. Ill be launching a free Zone course and I’ll email when it’s ready.
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To see if I have time to help you personally in an around the city and the East End of london, do drop me an email Andrew@andrewstemler.com
Most days I’ll post a workout you can do with minimal equipment and no gym access. It be will be on a 3 day on, 1 days off rota
The “gym-less” workouts only assume you has access to 1) some dumbbells 2) a kettlebell 3) a skipping rope 4) a car park and some benches.
Obviously a full Crossfit or exercise regime requires more stuff and more variation, and ill encourage you to practice and train in weightlifting and gymnastics and other forms of cardio, but doing these workouts as bits of intensity (hard and fast) should help most people
So todays workout is
With a running clock set for 15 minutes as many rounds as possible of
20 lunges, 20 double under’s, 100m run.
Feel free to tweak everything: 10 lunges, 10 single skips, walk 50m for 7 minutes 10, or 12 minutes. If there is an exercise you cannot do or tweak, feel free to switch it with one you can do, or just leave it out and practice it later if you can.
If you are in chronic pain take it easy, feel free to limit the range of motion, feel free to rest if you must, but it’s simply about pushing you on a bit or a lot, depending on where you are
For food, ill be recommending the Zone diet . For now this is a TWO BLOCK snack, or “brunch” if you prefer.
This snack had 2 blocks of carb in the form of a slice of bread, 2 blocks of avocado (In the form of 2 (overly generous) teaspoons ) 42g of ham (as one block of protein) and 28g of cheese (as another block of protein).
I sneaked in a tea spoonful of chia seeds for extra fibre and a mini scrap of butter as an old habit
and ended up on toast like this
I’ll be explaining in great details how the zone block system works, but its intention is to ensure that each meal or snack has a balance of the main 3 macro nutrients: carbs protein and fat.
Ill be a launching a free ” how to zone course” some time in the next few months so do join my mailing list and ill tell you when you can get it
The recently release film (documentary) the Game Changers has brought “meat free” protein sources back to the top of the nutritional agenda. It seems you no longer need to be a tree hugging hippy to see if you can get your protein from none meat sources.
For years there has been a grumble of bad PR about red meat and processed meat, although some dispute that meat has any down side.
That said, its now worth while noting the growth of this concern about the constant consumption of meat both from a health and environmental cost perspective . So it’s as well to experiment with plant protein and at the very least, least mix it up a bit.
The fact that James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan all got together to support a film that promotes ” more veggie” is in itself worth noting.
So here is an outline of some useful veggie sources of protein. (BTW a CUP is a specific measure)
Green Peas. One cup is about 8 grams of protein. I love peas.
Quinoa. 8 gm a cup! Includes all nine essential amino acids . Ive never tried it. I must!
Beans. Two cups of kidney beans, for example, contain about 26 grams. But buying them and soaking them is a bit of bind, so buy them in can form!
Tempeh and Tofu. Ive never liked these. I always though soya was a genetically modified alien that stuck to your face, laid eggs in your tummy that exploded through your abdomen. I could be wrong. Allegedly contains about 15 and 20 grams of protein per half cup. But, I must try again.
Edamame: Soya as god intended. Boiled edamame contains 8.4 grams of protein per half cup. Must try it. Having written that, Im already anxious.
Leafy greens cabbage and stuff. I love these, but Ive never really thought of them as a protein source. Allegedly two cups of raw spinach contain 2.1 grams of protein, and one cup of chopped broccoli contains 8.1 grams.
Hemp seeds. If you can resist planting them out under high pressure sodium lights to make drugs,10 grams of protein in 3 tablespoons.
Chia seeds. 4.7 grams in 2 tablespoons. But really ” TWO TABLESPOONS”. Thats a lot to hide
Sesame, sunflower and poppy seeds. Throw these in your earth saving muesli volume, sunflower seed 7.3 grams of protein per quarter cups. Sesame seeds and poppy seeds ( per 1/4 cup) at 5.4 grams each.
Seitan. Never tried it, seen it, or heard about it until now ( 2019 really is my year)!!. But basically, it’s a wheat gluten. So whilst middle class folk are swooning from gluten intolerance, the hippies are chowing down on it. 75gms of protein in 100 gms.
Chick peas 7.3 grams of protein in just half a cup, and are also high in fiber and low in calories.
Andrew Stemler 