Cup of Paleo Bread

 

 

Well, yes indeedy that is some good lookin' toasty bread, if I do say so myself.  It is completely Paleo, made from almond and coconut flour, and I keep coming up with ways to eat it.  And you make it in a cup in the microwave.  Srsly.

There could be some controversy that arises over this recipe, however, and I will attempt to defend some of it here:

 1) It is a treat. Hubs and I generally cringe a bit when someone is chatting to us about Paleo stuff and the first thing they ask is 'what kind of treats can you eat.' The eating of treats is what has most folks sick and inflamed. Temptation is out to get us, that is for sure. Although this bread is totally Paleo, it is pretty loaded with calories and they still do matter.  It is as my Super Hero, Robb Wolf, likes to say, "your mouth is not a vacuum cleaner."  On the plus side, it is very filling so usually one 'cup' is enough to share. Just don't eat it every single day. In fact, if you are still in your first month of making the switch to Paleo, you may want to save the recipe as a celebration thing. I am reading Chris Kresser's book, Your Personal Paleo Code, on my Kindle now and it reminded me about how important what he calls the 'reset' month is. You really owe it to yourself to be super strict for this month. You can do it, trust me please.

2) Some folks may not want to use their microwave ovens and I can't say that I disagree since I am kind of afraid of radiation, magnetrons, and stuff I just don't understand. But, I don't use it very often and in general, key in the time, hit the start button, and run. (In this case it's a minute and a half plus a few seconds for melting the coconut oil.)

3) This recipe uses palm shortening which is not sustainably harvested in many parts of the world. This has caused orangutans and other beautiful animals to perish through clear cutting and loss of habitat.  I did some research and the Spetrum brand says that it harvests its palm oils from small farms that do practice sustainability. I will just have to take them at their word.  Palm oils are really good fats and Mark Sisson's blog has a good post on it.  I have tried to use coconut oil in the bread recipe, but with the coconut flour...well it tastes a little too much like coconut for me.

All that aside, it is actually fun to make. It comes out looking like this: 
 

                                                 

 

It isn't very pretty at that point, but you can toast it for about four minutes and make stuff like this:

 

Open faced BLT with avocado or...



breakfast and some bacon, butter, and strawberries with  yummy fig balsamic*
  


    









Not bad.  And see the bacon?  Hubs is away on a business trip, so I made up this fancy breakfast just for me this morning using the bacon cooker his sister gave him for Christmas.  It also goes in the microwave, one minute per slice.  (Guess I am living a bit dangerously today.)  But this cooker is a very cool gadget AND it goes in the dishwasher.  OMG I do so hate to wash dishes.  So it's a total keeper.  I did eat the entire loaf by myself with the bacon this morning at 7:00 and it is now almost 2:00 in the afternoon.  No hungries at all.
 


 

I've also cut the bread into wedges and served it as strawberry shortcake or with soup like it is cornbread.  Saturday night we had  my new precious friend, Noha, over for a spur of the moment lamb dish.  I didn't have an appetizer planned, so I made a cup of bread for the three of us to share and used it as pretend bruschetta with just some good olive oil, fig balsamic*, and tomatoes.  Oh and yep, Noha has been eating Paleo for about three months now. I did share my treat theory with her and she agrees.  She's doing great and even had to get some size smaller pants.  YAY!  I am so super proud of my Paleo workout/shopping/cooking buddy.  She loved the bread.  She even liked the lamb, which Hubs and I took as a great compliment since she is from Egypt.  (Please Dear Noha, ignore the bacon pictures.)  And we're still gonna collaborate on a recipe for the tahini sauce that I mentioned here.

Well, it's time for the recipe I've been babbling on about.


Cup of Paleo Bread
 
Some notes on this recipe:
 
• You'll need a one or two cup glass measuring cup or something like the biggish ramekin in the first picture...I think it's a Corning Ware thing.
• Use between 1/8 and 1/4 teaspoon of salt; 1/4 tastes a bit too salty to me and 1/8 isn't enough.
 
 Ingredients: 

1/3 cup almond flour
1 tablespoon coconut flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder**
1/8 -1/4 teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons palm shortening
1 egg
1 tablespoon water, if needed

Method:

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl.


• Use your microwave to melt the palm shortening in the cup or ramekin; it takes only about 20-30 seconds in my microwave, but yours could be different. 


• Carefully swish the melted oil all around the sides of the cup or ramekin to grease it.


• Add the egg to the oil and mix with a fork.


• Stir in the dry ingredients; it will usually need a tablespoon of water to loosen the batter a bit.


• Place the mixture in the microwave; mine takes 1 minute 30 seconds, yours could be different, but no worries...add 15 seconds or so if needed.


• Let you cup of bread cool for a bit; invert the cup or ramekin and give it a tap to release the bread.  Toast the entire loaf and cut into eight wedges to use as an appetizer or for soups.  Slice the entire round to half thickness and toast them if you want to use it as a sandwich.

Take good care and enjoy!   k.


PS  *  I am in love with these specialty balsamic vinegars and olive oils from  little specialty stores that are popping up everywhere.  We visited recently discovered one near us.  Thank you, Mount Dora Olive Oil Company!  No berry is safe from my bottle of dark mission fig balsamic.  If you get a chance to stop in, please do and support a small business.

       **  Remember to get baking powder that is gluten and aluminum free.  This brand, Rumford, is what my mom and Grandmama used and it's still the right stuff.

                                                                                                                        

Lower Carb Sorta Pastelon Slow Cooker Thing

 

 

 

Imagine this...it is completely OK to post two entries in one day.  I just wanted to share this with my Friend, Junior 'cos we were talking about it today at our January event, The Color Run, down at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.  We had such a blast!  (Yep, a color blast.)

Here we are after the run...well we didn't actually run very much, because I don't think we CrossFitters like running. We did manage to get pretty colorful and have a fun time hanging out with each other outside of the gym. It is the greatest thing to be surrounded with like-minded people. Talk about keeping yourself grounded!  We work out super hard at our box and we love it; this is the most encouraging group of folks you could ever sweat with; heck we get really ugly and still love one another.  Even though not all of us eat Paleo, we are concerned with eating whole foods and understand the benefits of eating well in every aspect of our lives.  We all even hand lunch after the race today at our local Burger FI restarurant. They feature grass-fed beef and will even wrap it in lettuce for you, sans the bun! YUM. Paleo burgers all around!

I do not think, however, that the colors we were doused in were Paleo...but it all washed off pretty easily in the shower and I tried hard not to breathe any of it in.

Getting back to my pal, Junior.  He is such a great sport!  Prior to our Color Run adventure, we had a running tutu making party.  The girls did, that is.

 

The guys just headed upstairs here at the little towncasa and shared some beverages. But, Junior had no problem modeling my running, though. He looks quite dashing and gangster-ish, don't you think? 

 So for being such a swell model and great guy, I dedicate this recipe to you, Junior!  And thanks for always being there to help me at the gym.  You never miss an opportunity to recognize the successes I've had and the encouragement really helps keep me going.  I am so proud to call you Friend.  And not to leave out that precious wife of yours, Melissa.  It is special to see couples work out together and share so much love.  You both just really rock.
 

 

And now for the recipe and a little background.  I've been looking for more ways to use a slow cooker.  It's way more versatile that I ever imagined back in my vegetarian years when all I used it for was to cook dried beans!  This made kind of a casserole and we really liked it more than the pastelon that I made a few weeks ago.  I used sweet potatoes, which have a few less carbs than plantains.  (Next time, I am going to try it with butternut squash for an even lower carb option.)  Anyways, it turned out super delish and made a lot of food.  Junior and Melissa have two awesome boys, so I hope they will enjoy this dish and fill their bellies!

   

Lower Carb Sorta Pastelon Slow Cooker Thing

with sweet potatoes

 

1 sweet onion, chopped





4-6 cloves garlic, minced

2 pounds grass-fed ground beef

 

2 teaspoons turmeric

1 tablespoon cumin

salt and pepper to taste

 

1 cup red wine

1 six ounce can tomato paste

 

 

4 large sweet potatoes, peeled

 

8 eggs, beaten

 

Coconut oil for cooking onions and to grease your slow cooker.

 

Saute the chopped onion over medium/low heat in a couple tablespoons of coconut oil.  While the onion is cooking, prepare the peeled sweet potatoes by popping them in the microwave for about 4 minutes, just to soften them a little.  Slice them either into rounds or lengthwise, making sure they are about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thinck...you don't have to be exact.

Return to your onions and add in the chopped garlic; when you smell it, it's ready  (quick quick!); add the ground beef and brown it, just until it loses that red, raw color.  Add in your spices and let them hang out together for about five minutes.

Stir in the wine and let it reduce a bit.  Add in the tomato paste and mix well...it sort of melts into the sauce.

Grease the crock of your slow cooker and place a layer of the sweet potato slices on the bottom.  Add a layer of the meat sauce, and alternate for another layer each of sweet potatoes and meat sauce; make sure you end with a layer of sweet potatoes on top.  Add about a teaspoon of salt to the beaten eggs and pour them evenly over the mixture in your slow cooker.  Set the temperature to low and cook for 4 hours.  Let the dish cool for a while and slice into 8 portions.

 

Enjoy and take good care, k.

 

noGRAINola Recipe and Why I Don't Make New Year's Resolutions

Yes, I'll make a resolution
That I'll never make another one
Just enjoy this ride on my trip around the sun.
Just enjoy this ride ...
Until it's done- Jimmy Buffett

 

 

 

 

But that doesn't mean that I don't look forward to the New Year and Fresh Starts and whatever is next on the horizon.  I just don't automatically set myself up to fail by making promises on January 1st.  I wait until, um I dunno, later.  Like last year, on October 24th, I promised to write in my blog for 30 consecutive days.  That didn't happen, so I won't promise to write any number of times per week, month, year, or decade ever again.  I have a habit of taking on more than I can handle.  That and being plain stubborn are my two worst habits.  I also hate failure, but I am good at it. 

I am making an effort to take on smaller projects.  And I always learn from failing.  I have no idea what to do about being stubborn.

 

 

I do want to keep doing lots of the good stuff that Hubs and I started last year and the year before.  Like CrossFit and eating Paleo.  The rewards just keep adding up and it has just become a good habit.  (Oy, to think of all the bad habits I've had...now I am stuck with actual good ones!)  We both keep getting leaner and that is just so awesome.  Here's an example...I have a nasty scar on my lower abdomen.  It's a five inch long (yes I measured it), really ugly thing from the hysterectomy that I had back in 1998.  There's always been pudge above and below it, I assumed because of lymphatic drainage or just 'cos it's a big wonkin' scar.  Well, the pudge is going away; lo and behold, I have pelvic bones that are actully poking out.  How freakin' cool is that?

 

(Probably TMI, I know. Sorry.) (More TMI, that's not actually the ugliest scar, it was just the one with the most fat around it; there are about six more bad ones from biopsies, skin cancer, etc. but what the heck.  I am here, alive and very, very well.)

 

Being well is really the name of the game and I really have to hand it to this Paleo stuff for getting me there.  So if I did make a resolution, er...well I won't.  But I will make a solemn vow to try and spread the word and help folks in any way I can.  How 'bout that?  I believe that will be an easy follow through because I am living what I believe.  We are lucky to belong to a circle of friends who are genuinely curious about better health.  We get lots of questions about the Paleo Lifestyle and it is fun and gratifying to be able to answer them or at least point to the direction on how to find out.

 

And I will never fake perfection.  (Just hope not to make so many mistakes.)

 

 

So, Happy New Year.  I think it's off to a great start!

 

And to start a morning off...here's a fun recipe for a noGRAINola thing for breakfast.  I can't believe that we ever get tired of all the things you can do with eggs and bacon, but we had this the other moring and it was very filling.  I had been looking at some Paleo granola bags and thought I'd just try to figure it out from scratch...and it tasted really good.  (Hubs added an avocado on the side, though, just 'cos he loves 'em so much.)

noGRAINola

 

Thoughts on this recipe...

 

I used raw almonds, pecans, and walnuts...then we decided that cashews might have been a better choice than the walnuts.

 

*I think one of my handfuls is about 1/3 cup...this recipe makes enough for 2 servings.

 

Ingredients:

 

3 handfuls* of your favorite nuts

 

1 handful* unsweetened coconut flakes

 

6 dates

 

1 tablespoon coconut oil

 

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

 

pinch of salt

 

berries of your choice (optional)

 

1/4 cup full fat coconut milk (optional)

 

Use your toaster oven (if you have one) preheated to 350 degrees.

 

• Mix the nuts and coconut flakes together on a parchment lined baking sheet; toast them together in the oven for about 5 or 6 minutes, watching carefully that nothing burns.
• Pour the toasty mixture onto your cutting board and combine with the dates by chopping them altogether.
• Scrape the dates and nuts into a mixing bowl and stir together with the coconut oil, cinnamon and salt.
• Spoon into bowls, top with some berries,and drizzle on some coconut milk.

Enjoy and take good care, k.




Paleo Pot Luck and Pastelon

Back in late October, before Thanksgiving and the craziness that can be the Christmas Season, Hubs and our fellow CrossFitter, Junior F., came up with an idea to have a Paleo Pot Luck. 


our esteemed Savage Race team from Seminole CrossFit

The plan hatched during the weekend we spent in Tampa while they participated in something muddy and scary called the Savage Race.  (No, I didn't sign up because 1) I don't like to get dirty and 2) they did some crazy stuff that involved fire and barbed wire.  I did, however, tag along.  I stayed clean and took some pictures.  And had lots of fun staying clean.)  Have I mentioned how much I love our CrossFit Family?
 
The rules for the Pot Luck were easy.  The food had to be Paleo and had to be homemade.  It was really pretty awesome because not one person brought grocery store cupcakes or a cheese tray.  Many of us shared our recipes and I  hope to feature them and their chefs here on the blog  because we really made some outstanding dishes. And I hope that we will have many more Paleo Pot Lucks in the future.  It was a huge success and so much fun.

First up is Jose's (aka HispanikPanic) version of Pastelon which is a Puerto Rican sort of lasagna made with sweet plantains instead of pasta.  I made this on Sunday...it took a while but it was well worth the time.  Yep, that's him in the picture on the right.  It's hard to miss him in a crowd, especially when he's wearing his mask and cape.  It is very appropriate since he is a super hero at the gym and is always super helpful to me when I'm confuddled about a lift or lose count during a WOD.  He even made me an honorary Hispanic one night; dubbed with a PVC pipe that we use for warming up.  What a guy!  Here we go....

Pastelon

Some notes on my first experience with this dish...

You can certainly use any regular meat sauce recipe that you like...this one is great and was super easy though.

Jose's recipe called for 1 cup each of chopped red bell pepper and chopped green bell pepper sauteed with the onion.  Hubs and I are trying to avoid most night shades, so I roasted some carrots as a substitute.  I know tomatoes are night shades too, but I can't think of a substitute for tomato paste.

I researched a few versions of the classic version of Pastelon (which has cheese; promise you will not miss it!) but could not find another one that uses eggs as the bottom layer.  I may leave it out the next time and see how it does.

Ingredients:

6 ripe plantains

8 eggs

1 sweet onion, chopped

6-8 carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 pounds grass-fed ground beef
1 six ounce can tomato paste
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup dry wine (red or white)
4-6 tablespoons coconut oil (maybe more)
salt/pepper to taste

Cookware needed:   saute pan for sauce
                                     larger skillet for cooking plantains
                                     glass casserole dish for baking Pastelon
                                     roasting dish, if you roast the carrots

Method:
Your oven will need to be heated to 350 degrees.

Heat 2 tablespoons of coconut oil in your saute pan and add the onions.  I like to cook them on low for around half an hour so that they become golden and caramelized.  In the meantime, you can roast the carrots at 400 degrees with a little coconut oil for about the same amount of time.  (You will need to stir the carrots and onions every ten minutes or so.  Don't worry too much about them, but don't go out for a run either...)  Roasting and caramelizing just adds a depth of sweetness and flavor that is great.  You can just saute them both until they are all soft; it's a little quicker.
While the onions and carrots are cooking, peel your plantains.  You will need to slice them lengthwise into long strips, about a half inch thick which is usually 4 slices per plantain.  Heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil in your skillet to about medium low temperature.  Add the plantain strips and cook for 3-4 minutes per side; they will need to be lightly browned and soft.   Drain them on paper toweling and sprinkle with a little salt while they are still hot.   You will most likely need to cook the plantains in several bathes and add more oil as you go.  (Go ahead and sneak a taste of one...so good!)
Beat four of the eggs with a little salt and pepper.  Grease the bottom of your glass casserole dish with some coconut oil and pour in the eggs.  Bake in your oven for 6-7 minutes until they are set, but not done.  Put the dish aside and finish the meat sauce.
Stir  the carrots  into the onion if you didn't cook them together; add the minced garlic.  When you smell the garlic, it's ready.  Add the ground beef and cook it with the veggies, until it has lost its red, raw color. Stir in the tomato paste, then add the chicken stock and wine.  Let this simmer for about 20 minutes.  Taste your sauce when it's done and season with salt and pepper to your liking.
Place a layer of cooked plantain slices on top of the partially cooked egg in your casserole dish.  Spoon all of the meat sauce over the plantains.  Layer the rest of the plantains over the meat sauce.  Beat the remaining four eggs with a little more salt and pepper and pour over the casserole.  Let the eggs soak in for a few minutes and then bake your Pastelon in the oven for 40-45 minutes.  Let it rest for five minutes before serving.  Enjoy 'cos this is yummy...
I am sure that you will want to give Jose a big THANK YOU for this recipe when you see him!  (He's always easy to recognize in that mask and cape.)

Take good care, k.

PS Our friend from the gym, Noha, came over for dinner when we had our Pastelon the other night.  She is a fabulous cook, originally from Egypt.  She is teaching me all kinds of Arabic recipes and I am teaching her how to shop.  (grin)  Hopefully, she'll let me share her recipe for tahini sauce in a future post.  In the meantime, she really loved the roasted asparagus that we served with dinner and asked how to make it...here goes, nothing to it:

1 bunch of asparagus spears
2-3 tablespoons of coconut oil
salt to taste

I love my little convection oven and use it every day, but you can sure roast in a big one as well.  Heat the oven to 400 degrees.  I usually use a stoneware baking dish, but any ceramic dish or even a shallow pan will do.  Rinse your asparagus and snap off and discard the hard ends.  Place the spears in the dish with a couple of spoons of coconut oil on top.  Place it in the oven and stir to coat the asparagus after about five minutes, when the oil has melted.  Toss them again in about 10 minutes, then let them cook for another 10 or so minutes after that.  Don't get too far away,  because these guys will burn.  When they are done to your preferred amount of crunchiness, take them out and away from the heat.  (I did say that they will burn, right?  And that would be a shame.)  Sprinkle the roasted asparagus with a little salt while it is still hot.  Easy as anything.

Noha and me cooking in the towncasa kitchen

Enjoy!    









Collective Consciousness

I've had a bit of a struggle keeping my promise to myself to write in this blog everyday for a month.  Clearly, I just haven't done it.  Lesson learned, time and time again...I am one who takes on more than she can do.  Sometimes a post takes me more than a day to write.  Sometimes my words won't come. Sometimes there's a bridge run in Key Largo and I just gotta go.  (That means that Hubs and I just got back from a seriously fun time that involved goofing off and running.)

Being ashamed of myself for a promise not kept, I was wondering where to start again when Hubs sent me this post by James Clear: Announcing the Become a Writer Challenge.  Now James is a guy who seems infinitely wise to me...he is always seeking to become better; at his health, at his writing and at his photography.  And it was just perfect that he made this challenge for November, right after I had challenged myself to start writing. (What a coincidence.)  In reading his challenge, I realized what I should have done is what many of his devotees did realize; daily blogging is a lot,  They committed to write only on Fridays or maybe a couple times per week. So everyone is smarter than I am.  No problem.  I am totally cool with that. I will write when I can since the purpose is to share experiences, not to fret  that what I say won't be good enough.

I scrolled back in the Blog of James Clear and found another post: Do Painful Things First. Now oddly enough, a few days before, Hubs had made up a workout of all the stuff we hate to do; you know the painful stuff.   Well, these kinds of coincidences often send me into fits of Google searches.  And I ponder life, the universe and everything for quite a long time.  I wonder about these threads that seem to weave us all together. And then I run across a bunch of stuff by Carl Jung which almost explodes my brain.

So then I get out the Pottery Barn catalog and take a little trip through Decor Land.  It's so lovely there and I am really just that shallow sometimes.  

Now I am a bit fearful of going back through James Clear's blog.  He could just have the number to my little corner of universal coincidence. That means thinking and reading about hard things which I am really, actually pretty cool with doing.  It's just that I freak out a little bit when I think big. Or run into a quote like this one by Carl Jung...

In my case, Pilgrim's Progress consisted of my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

Yep.  Life, the universe and everything.  And the analysis of Dr. Jung.

I will be back on track with my Paleo blogging; just had to think a bit and regroup.  James also inspired me to get my own domain name through Word Press...so I did.  Hopefully, I will have this Blogger blog redirect to my site very soon!

I am excited to take this writing challenge.  I hope to collect some ideas (and readers) along the way.

Take good care, k. 

Why I Crossfit*

                                                                 Hubs and me courtesy Crossfit Pushbox

* This post is dedicated to Coach Matt Cannavino and Coach Eddie MacDougall at Seminole Crossfit along with heartfelt thanks to all of the members there.

 Workouts that are like play are pretty darned addictive.

That's kinda the same thing for number four on the list of twenty-five Paleo-ish things that I wrote a couple weeks ago.  Upon further thought, I have a tendency to embellish a little.

The first time I walked into Seminole Crossfit, I was pretty nervous and pretty sure Coach Matt would tell me that Crossfit was not a thing I should do.  Now I knew Hubs would shine at it, but my back pain was at an all time high.  We had  just started eating strictly Paleo a few days before, so the anti-inflammatory magic had not yet taken effect.  

But thank goodness, I was wrong.  Coach took us through a private workout and explained a few things to me.  I had treated my back too gently and had helped to make it weak.  The scoliosis, herniated/torn discs, cyst on my sacrum and bone dams seemed like a good excuse to me to avoid certain movements like squats.  But not to Coach.

"Miss Kim.  Get your ass back and drop as low as you can go.  No, lower than that.  Lower."

I've heard that quite a few times over the last thirteen months.  Our workouts are hard.  Srsly hard. 

I've been sure that deadlifts would certainly cause me to perish, but our other trainer, Coach Eddie, always says, 'You got this all day long."  He once made me follow his eyes as he knelt down beside me during a deadlift session and wouldn't take no for my answer.  I pulled a boat load of weight off the ground.  And now I can lift even more.

Who wouldn't keep going when someone is that confident in you?

I have a hard time understanding some of the lifts.  I don't like to jump and I sure don't like to be upside in a handstand-up-against-the wall position.  I haven't mastered a strict pull up yet, but I am close.  (ARRGHHH!)  In spite of all that, I love Crossfit because of what I can do and what I will do.  (Just maybe not handstand.)  ('Cos I don't like to be literally upside down.)  

I was working on cleans one night during open gym while some of the tougher guys were yucking it up to see how much they could press overhead.  They laughed and screamed and failed and threw their barbells down like school children playing those games where they're the only ones who know the rules.  A few times they came and helped me with some tips...I am terrible at cleans, but the encouragement was (and always is) there.  Something came to me that night...most of us stopped playing at some point in our lives and our fitness suffered for it.



So I Crossfit because I can.  I can move and play and lift heavy stuff.  The workouts are so varied and so flexible that at every level, I've been able to kick my own hiney.  When I don't think I can do one more rep, I take a deep breath and keep going.  Some folks compete against each other in our box, but I am good to just compete against myself and that is fine with everyone.  It is truly the only place I have ever worked out where the loudest cheers are for the last one to finish.  It always makes me weep with joy when that happens.

And I am hardly ever the last to finish these days so I always cheer loudly because I remember.

With everything that is hard or new or different, there are detractors or 'haters.  Crossfit gets a fair amount of this.  I am pretty sure that there are some Crossfit boxes out there that don't have the same energy, and caring as ours.  Hubs and I have visited a few other boxes when we've been traveling and have had great experiences.   Greg Glassman, the founder of Crossfit, seems to like a free enterprise system, where the best of his affiliates will rise to the top.  That is the spirit of free enterprise.  I don't see anything wrong with it myself and if you don't feel safe or think the instruction is good at a particular box, I really don't think that's the norm.  We have to take that responsibility. I know I could get hurt.  (I am a biggo klutz, so it could sure happen.)  It hasn't yet because I am careful and I listen well.  (Bruises don't really count.)  My responsibility, right?  

I would much rather get a little bump up than look back on my life and know that I wasted the opportunity to be fit, healthy, and strong.  I can do this; it is a blessing.

Whenever I feel like I might whine, I think about the guy in this photo on the left, and then I know:

Some day, I'm gonna do that pull up.

Take good care, k. 

Sleepy Time

I am just gonna have to zoom down to Number Twenty-One on my list of Twenty-Five Paleo-ish Things:

Getting the right amount of the right kind of sleep is crucial to being healthy.  This is an on-going struggle at our house.

Sleep is right near the top of every Paleo expert's hit parade of finding your way to optimal health.  Just check out this article.  Trust me, it is only one of many.  I do keep getting the bejeebers scared right out of me when I read some of this stuff.  I srsly think I need all of my bejeebers, but in the interest of optimal health, I read this stuff a lot.  Well, not as much as Hubs, but he shares everything he reads.  (Side note, my new Kindle Paperwhite should arrive today, so I can conveniently read up a storm on one lightweight device, but more on that later.)

Oh yes, indeedy.  I believe I was whining a bit on Friday about how yucky allergy season has been treating both Hubs and me.  In spite of that, I have been sleeping like a baby.  Just not last night.

I couldn't fall asleep for anything.  Could have been the time change.  Could have been because we'd worked out six days in row and yesterday's Garage WOD showed just what a klutz I can be since I can't dump to the barbell off to bail out of a back squat.  (Come to think of it, Klutz was my name on Friday when I hit my head trying to squat with my feet together.  Talented, eh?) So I was a little achy.  And still sort of sniffing because seasonal allergies just love me.  Or maybe sleep wouldn't come because I started drinking wine at a local art festivus and continued with our my very own bottle at home.

I did get to sleep, finally, only to awaken a few times with a slight headache.  It could have been an allergy headache but I am guessing it was the wine.  It progressed from slight to pretty bad.  I hate to take stuff, but the headache had to go.  I got up and noted the time...four-fifteen in the morning....and popped two Excedrin.  Worked like a charm, so I was back to sleep in no time when the fancy new clock/light thing that Hubs got last week popped on at six o'clock, flooding the room with blue light.

I might have to kill that fancy new clock/thing.

I got up, half groggy, but happy to be headache/other ache free, leaving Hubs to bask in the blue glow for a few minutes.  I made our bullet proof coffee which took care of the groggies, so the day is going amazingly well so far.  It just leaves me to ponder why it is that sleep can be so hard to come by.  Even when there isn't a bottle of wine involved. 

Yeah, I know alcohol is not good.  It isn't on anybody's 'do list' of Paleo things.  I know it wrecks your sleep, so we usually limit ourselves to one glass per day while cooking dinner.  (Sometimes a NorCal Margarita or four get(s) made at the towncasa because we I think the weekend should be party-time.)  This is honestly the only cheat we have, but I know it isn't good.

Now on days we are well behaved, a good night's sleep can still be tough.  I wish I knew why.  We've actually done quite a bit to remedy the sleep situation around here (including getting the clock/light thing to bathe us in early morning blue light).  Here's some other stuff:

• We have dimmers on all of our lights and stage them down between dark and bedtime.
• We sleep in a very cool room.
• We have this thing call f.lux on our laptops so that the screen light is more warm.
• We mostly stick to a ten o'clock in the evening bedtime and wake up time of six o'cock in the morning.
• We drink chamomile tea and have a small piece of dark chocolate (85% cacao) a few minutes before bedtime because having rituals helps your body know when to start staging down too.  And we really like tea and chocolate.
• We mostly limit alcohol throughout the week.  Srsly.
• We've eliminated all of the stray light we can and sleep in a room that is as dark as we can get it.  (The CappiDog generally stays in her bed in the corner, but she has been stumbled over a couple times since we both get up and wonder around in the pitch dark sometimes.)
• We have a two cup of coffee limit per early morning.  But they are doozies in the caffeine department.

We've experimented with taking melatonin, but it is a hormone.  'Nuff said...no messing that much with Mother Nature around here.  Besides, I have strange dreams when I take the stuff.  (I can conjure up strange enough dreams on my own, thank you.)  We've also tried some of the fizzy magnesium drinks.  For the sake of my easy-to-upset tummy, I will forgo those and stick to a chocolate bedtime snack.

I wish I had an answer to the sleep thing.  I sleep better than I used to and so does Hubs, but it would be nice to be among those who just fall asleep quickly and stay asleep.  Luckily, neither of us drag around all day when we haven't slept well.  It just is that whole optimal health thing...we want it.

Do you have some good ideas on how you get better sleep?  I would sure love to hear them!

Take good care, k.