Buttery Smooth

Last month I posted about drinking your hot AM coffee after you infuse it with unsalted grass fed butter. Well coming up on a month of doing this I am SOLD on this as a great means to fuel up in the AM and feel great all morning. I thought I would update with a new post just to emphasize how great I think this is.

First steps first - find yourself a local store that sells grass fed unsalted butter. New Seasons is one. If you cannot find grass fed butter at a decent store near you, then its time to relocate.

Once you have butter in hand (I suggest buying several packages as you will find yourself going through a lot of it) then dish up several healthy pats straight into your mug.

Play with the amount. I typically do 4-5 pats for a 10 ounce cup. Perfect. I can already hear some of you - "Ugh" - don't knock it till you try it!

Now, pour your good strong brew over the top and give it a minute to melt. Now it looks a bit odd here, so the next step is critical. If you do not have one of those small handheld latte/milk frothing tools make sure you pick one up in advance. It will be seeing a lot of use I suspect so get a good one.

Give the butter a hit with the frothing tool. Let it spin close to the top as well - to get a nice buttery smooth head going on. By about now the rich smell of this is going to hit you and you are close to what I have deemed coffee nirvana.

Drink up and prepare to feel full, fired up, and GREAT all morning!

As a cyclist and Cross Fitter, I have found this combination to be excellent for long before rides and workouts. The fat is a great burning fuel and once its gone, my body seeks to continue the fat burn, rather than hitting me with the "Hey, insert more carbs in mouth!" signal.

Give it a try!!

Chocolate Covered Bacon FTW!

We Paleo eaters seem to have a love of the bacon. Indeed, it is hard to ignore the allure of a plate of just cooked just-right-crisp-yet-chewy bacon.

How to improve upon this wonderful food?

Chocolate!

After spending a long time wondering about this strange and oddly alluring combination, and reading online about its ultra-yum goodness, I decided to whip up a small batch of my own. Quick and easy baked up the bacon and melted a bit of semi-sweet chocolate to plop on top.

Sorry there are not very many pieces in the picture - a handful of the bacon slices never made it before the chocolate arrived - they were snatched by other family members and a few may have flew into my own mouth suddenly.

I got chocolate on my bacon... and bacon on my chocolate!

However, once the remaining pieces cooled - it was time for a taste test. Simply put: salty/sweet heaven here folks.

DO try!

Coffee... With Butter Please.

OK I decided I have to share this and spread the word. Want to feel incredible all morning like you have enough fuel to tackle anything? Add some BUTTER to your coffee. Yes you heard it. Simply this has been some of the best tasting coffee and as far as firing up my day - it WORKS.

At first mention the thought of mixing some unsalted butter with your morning Joe sounds a bit awful. That is until you give it a try - which I highly recommend you do. Get some grass fed unsalted butter, a small hand held blender, some strong black coffee and give it a go. I have to wonder how long it is until an enterprising coffee chain catches on to this.

Further details about this powerhouse drink can be found at the awesome BulletProof Executive site!

Fat, Fat, Fat!!!!!!

No... that is not what I have become since January when I last posted. Rather, it has been a main part of my diet and I have emerged now in the spring - stronger than ever both on the bike and off and feeling better than ever!

This is it folks - the results, as anecdotal as they are in my case, can not be refuted. For months now I have been getting just about half of my daily calories from fat. All metrics are improved: CrossFit performance UP, cycling performance UP, libido UP, sleep BETTER, metal acuity UP, weight DOWN.

Heck, even my last DENTAL cleaning appointment was the best and shortest I have ever had. The dentist commented "You must really have upped your brushing!" Negative. I have not changed my brush/floss habits. I have only changed my type of caloric intake - going Paleo nearly 85%-90% of the time and otherwise avoiding refined sugars, breads, "heathy whole grains" of any sorts and partaking in the fats, nuts, seeds, and veggies. Bam.

I have to offer up a real kudos to Tom Naughton over at FatHead for the real inspiration, as well as a bunch of books shedding the light on the USDA/ConAgra/FDA/Government/HeartHealthy baloney out there.

Before you tune out completely on this "Eat Fat" thing my last measure tells the real tale - Blood-work. Best I have ever had. Cholesterol RATIO (the important part) is the best I have ever had. Triglycerides (the real enemy) are my lowest EVER.

So, the mantra is indeed true - eat fat, get fit!

Diet and The Ride

Here is a two word sentence/saying that as a cyclist I never want to hear again: Carb Loading. As in, "hey with that big ride coming up you should be carb loading." Nor do I want to hear its similarly used, "make sure you load up on carbs before that ride." Ugh.

After my personal experiment on the 2011 Cycle Oregon and nearly six months I can and will say it: carbs (especially loading on them) is a joke and having gone (mostly) paleo, I feel better than ever, weigh less than ever, am stronger than ever, and just do not drink the "whole grains are good" kool aid any longer.

In fact, my last major episode of "carb loading" (in helping with a science experiment) made me feel so shitty the next day it was absolutely telling: Is THAT how I want to feel? NO!

If you need the proof, do it for a month or two, watch the documentary Fat Head, read the book Wheat Belly, and get informed. Pretty amazing stuff out there to be learned that will likely have the folks at CONagra crapping their grain-y pants.

Manage the CARBS!

Since embarking on the Paleo diet for over a month, one thing constantly on my mind was how to keep tabs on the amount of carbs I was eating. In the movie "Fat Head", an excel spreadsheet appears to be in use to track carbs. That's a bit too old school for me and a real hassle. Surely there must be a modern alternative - designed with a sole purpose in mind - keeping tabs on your carbohydrate intake.

Enter a brief search on the iTunes app store to discover Carb Manager. After taking a leap and using this app all I can say is this - it's the real deal. If you are doing a Paleo, Zone, Atkins, or any other sort of low carb diet this is the app you NEED today. If you are not on a low carb diet the information this app provides is still incredibly useful. If you don't have an iPhone then you need one so you can put this gem of an app to good use immediately.

Now, I have downloaded a slew of diet and exercise apps over a year - designed to keep tabs on calorie intake, calories burned, food eaten, etc, etc, etc. All of them were kind of "meh" at the end of the day. I will call these other apps "single use apps" similar to "single use kitchen gadgets" - in that after the first use to justify the expenditure you never use them again.

Carb Manager is an app that you will go to on a daily basis if you are serious about tracking your carb intake. For $3 you get an app that does just about everything in an information rich, yet simple to use interface. About the only thing it won't do is prevent you from shoving all those carbs down your gullet. Lets be honest - it's hard to avoid carbs in today's modern "we put CORN in EVERYTHING" diet. This app lets you keep tabs and make wiser decisions. Seeing the bar graph fill up to your individually determined "carb max" for the day is a real incentive. If you go over and see the green bar turn red - well you start to think ahead for tomorrow - need to make better choices. Something about keeping tabs and "writing things down" helps immensely in this regard.

Lets take a look at what your 3 bills gets:

The first step is to add your individual settings and set a carb max. Make it whatever you want depending on your goals. The app asks for some basic information and can be edited at any time.

Ready to add what you are eating, or make some choices based on the data BEFORE you put the pie in the hole? Select the "Foods" tab and either go by category as shown above, or do an individual search. There is a LOT of stuff within these individual categories and at first it takes a bit of time to sift through the information to find the right thing. Once you do and add a food item to your log, it shows up under a "recent search" menu. 

Once you find the food you ate (or will eat) you hit "Ate It Today" and are presented with a choice of what meal or as a snack. Forget to add an item yesterday? Just hit the left arrow at the bottom to change the button to "Ate It Yesterday." Keep hitting that left arrow to go back in time and add it on a specific date. Hit the right arrow to "Will Eat Tomorrow" or keep hitting that arrow to set up that food for your future. Slick. Turns out you like to eat this particular item a lot? Hit the star button near the top right to add it to your favorite food list to make finding it again easier.

The great thing about this app is the clear and graphic nature. Hmmm, should I eat this 22g Net Carb crepe? Thats a lot of "green" in that pie chart methinks... Are you close to your carb max? Hit "Log" for a quick look. Does the crepe have any redeeming nutritional qualities to justify the indulgence? Hit "Full Nutritional Info" and then decide - crepe or not to crepe? (Hint: PASS!)

Under the "Log" tab you will have a daily read of your total carb intake compared to your set maximum after you add your foods. Excellent. As a bonus, you get to see all the other important information like calorie intake, total fat, and protein.

Overshoot your max for the day and you get a red graph. Don't worry, no alarm bells go off and your iPhone wont taze you, but seeing your log go from green to red is a bit of a bummer. My May 20 was "Epic Fail" on my goal. It is actually pretty amazing what seeing the graph will do to affect your eating choices. At the top menu you can hit "Food" to be taken a level deeper:

Wonder what specifically you had for dinner? Here it is. If you want to see the deeper nutritional information for a specific item, just tap the right arrow and you will see a breakdown of that individual food. Neat.

Hitting the overall "Nutrition" tab at the top lets you see in explicit detail where you are with all of your vitamins, minerals, fat, cholesterol, etc. There are 32 nutrients here. Are you getting your Iron? Getting your daily allowance of Folate? Vitamin K? Now you will know. This information is very interesting to watch over the course of your meals.

Over time, you can track your carb intake compared to your set max via the "Graph" tab. See what days you bombed and do better next time. Most excellent.

Information freaks fear not - total carb intake isn't the only thing this app graphs. When you fist go into "Graph" you select what you want to see. Carbs is only one of a slew of choices. See also your fat intake, protein intake, fiber, sugar, cholesterol, as well as all the vitamins and minerals! If you are tracking your weight, you can graph that as well.

Three bills goes a long way for all of this information. I think I have finally found an app that is easy enough to use that I can stick with it. Carb Manager is easy to use and packs an impressive amount of information. I highly recommend checking it out.

Fat Head!!

We have been following the paleo diet now for a while with a lot of success. Add to this - I feel better now than I ever have. What follows is the documentary film "Fat Head" and it is a must watch for everyone who wishes to hear some amazing information about diet, history, politics, etc.