Here’s is one of my favorite breakfast smoothies.
Morning smoothie:
1 cup goat milk
1 banana
Some ice
2 spoonfuls flax seed
2 spoonufls peanut butter
Mix in blender.
I don’t use goat milk straight from the can, I mix it in a pitcher 1 can goat milk and 4 cans water. I’ll sometimes add protein powder. But I have been getting enough protein from my regular meals lately.
Here is a recipe for Yeastless, gluten free pizza crust. The original recipe is really a Yeastless Focaccia bread that I modified slightly to use as a gluten free, yeast free pizza crust. All I did was substitute some gluten free all purpose flour with Xanthum gum in place of the 2 cups of regular flour. I think next time I will use baking soda instead for the baking powder, as I prefer a more thin and crispy crust.
For the toppings I used some organic pizza sauce (sometimes I will just run a couple of tomatoes over a cheese grater), turkey pepperoni, chopped artichoke hearts, chopped olives, chopped red peppers, chopped zucchini, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. That’s about it, a pretty simple pizza.
No, not the decade. A couple weeks ago I was wanting to come up with a workout that was simple, easy to remember, doesn’t need a lot of equipment but would still be challenging and effective. I came up with what I called The 50′s. Basically it’s doing 50 of each exercise and using a 50lb barbell when needed. I have been mixing up the order but I always try and follow the push-pull method. The push-pull is alternating between a pushing exercise and a pulling one. Here’s an example of one of my 50′s. The 50 reps do not have to be done at once, either something like a 30rep -rest- 20rep, 15rep -rest- 15rep -rest- 10rep -rest- 10rep, or what ever works for you. Just finish all 50 before moving on to the next exercise.
I’m sure there are lot more to add to the mix, so be creative, and have a good workout. Yes that is a photo of my workout room. When the weather is nice I do try and workout outside though.
I made some really good gluten free peanut butter cookies on Saturday. Here is the recipe.
INGREDIENTS
* 2 cups peanut butter
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 4 eggs, beaten
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp vanilla
* 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
* 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (optional)
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheet.
2. Combine peanut butter, eggs, sugar, baking soda, and vanilla then mix until smooth. Mix in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Spoon dough by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets for 5 to 10 minutes before removing.
Fifteen years ago on November 30, I lost my mom to cancer. This was her fourth and last time battling the disease. I was an only child of a single, working mom. She meant everything to me, although I didn’t realize it at the time. The holidays have been bad time for me the past years, I kinda knew why, but I also didn’t deal with it like I should have. I never really talk about her, if i think about her too much I start to tear up so I make myself stop. I finally realized that I need to just write about her and get it all out. No one reads this thing anyway, so I might as well write it here on this blog. I am not a very good writer so don’t expect much.
My parents divorced when I was about 7 years old, I really don’t have any memories of living with my father. I would only get to visit him one or twice a year, he and my step mom lived far away. It was always just me and Mom. She struggled at first trying to support us, being a working woman in the 70s was difficult, especially for a divorced woman with a kid. But she was a strong woman, I do remember that about her, she stood up for herself, and spoke her mind. I was a pain in the neck son. I don’t really have too many memories from when I was a kid, other than I had a bad temper, very picky eater, and general devil child. But my mom put up with me and was apparently a good enough influence. I have never really been in serious trouble, never been arrested, and I feel grew up to be a half-way decent person.
I was in 8th grade the first time she was diagnosed with cancer. She tried her best to play it down and of course I was too into what ever I was doing to really understand it all. She had friends take her to doctor appointments and for treatments. She never really let on how bad it was on her, at least to me. After a year of treatments she went into remission. Then about a year later, they found more cancer. Another year of treatments, another year of remission. This pattern happened 2 more times. That’s 8 years of battling cancer for her. I was never around for her as much as I should have been.
I remember the night I got back to my apartment and my roommate said that someone had called and said my mom was in the hospital in Topeka. I had a friend drive me there and I stayed and talked with my mom for a long time. We both knew it was the last time we would be able to talk.
I wanted to post last night’s workout on here, mainly for my own reference, but also for anyone that happens to read this. My workout and fitness goals are not to have big “fluffy” muscles, I’m not out to look like a ballooned bodybuilder. I like to be able to scratch my own back. My goals are to have over all strength, endurance, speed, and agility. I have been into Mixed Martial Arts from way back before it was even called that. But in recent years it has been honed to a science and the fitness levels and workouts pro fighters use are, in my opinion, the best out there. What good are over sized biceps in a fight? Why spend 30 minutes doing an “isolated” exercise, when the 30 minutes could be spent doing over all conditioning and complex movements that work several large muscle groups that develop a more conditioned and stronger body?
I rarely ever do the same workouts twice. Since my workout space is limited, I have couple rooms in my basement that I workout in. I have my heavybag and 50lb barbell set up in the laundry room and in the other room I have 2 30lbs dumbbells, a 30lb barbell, kettlebell, stability ball and some tension bands. Weather permitting I go out side for some wind sprints up and down the block, jump rope in the driveway, overhead squats, or use the pull up tower. Three times a week I try to get some training in with the Grinnell College MMA club.
Here is just an example of a typical workout for me:
I don’t like to take too much rest between sets or exercises, maybe 30 to 60 seconds. I will take more if I think I need it, but I like to keep moving. I also don’t do all of those each time, but I try to do most of those exercises. I only do that work out a couple times a week. The other days I’ll do either 30 min of Muay Thai on the heavy bag, Randy Couture’s, grappler’s set using the 50lb barbell, or I’m training with the Grinnell MMA club.
Most of those exercises are taken from Matt Furey’s Combat Conditioning book. Some are from other books or web sites such as Crossfit.com or even just from watching pro fighters train. The workouts I do work for me and I have lost almost 20 lbs in the past year, I’m about 185lb now, and I feel great. Another thing is that I have made some big changes in my diet. I have drastically cut out gluten foods, dairy, and sugar. I still sometimes cheat and have pizza or a cookie, but for the most part I eat lots of salads, lean meats, fish, fruit and vegetables.
(photo by Zink Photography)
I had a Myspace profile for a couple years before I deleted it about a month or so ago. It just got too annoying with all the stupid bulletins, spammers and my own personal drama, which I don’t need to go into. So I had heard about Facebook and read that it was supposed to be the “smart persons” Myspace. So I created a profile there. But for me it seems to be too hard to find friends on there. I never graduated from a college, I don’t really have much of a social life within my network (Des Moines, IA). I tried adding some people from my gmail address book, which found a few people I knew, I even tried adding some people from work. I think I’m up to 13 friends? Most everyone I know is only on Myspace, sure Facebook has lots of third party add-ons that you can add to your page to interact with your Facebook friends, but if you don’t have many friends what good are they? I don’t want to just go around adding random people, that seems rather stalker-ish to me. I’ve always been in to music, movies and in the past few years MMA, and all that stuff and more is on Myspace.
Maybe I’m just not one of the “smart persons” that Facebook is made for.
On my 25min drive to work this morning on the heavily traveled I-80, I saw at least 10 deer in the fields. It’s not uncommon to see deer, I’ve on occasion seen so many deer gathered in fields along I-80 that it almost look like cattle. Iowa has a big problem with deer overpopulation. I’m certain that over the next few months I’ll see many deer that have been hit by cars or trucks. Which is sad both for the deer and the danger for the people driving. Iowans cannot hunt deer with high power rifles, only bow, shotgun, or black powder. There are lots of so called animal rights activists that cry over deer hunting, but I wonder how many of them have seen the death and damage caused by a vehicle hitting a deer? If they want to take all the deer and keep them in their backyard go ahead.
On a completely different topic, at work we have been looking at some P2P caching server stuff that looks pretty cool. Especially with online broadcasting getting bigger and bigger. I use Joost sometimes and it doesn’t do to bad. There is a 24 hour MMA channel which is pretty cool.
Anyway, I keep telling myself I want to learn to write better, and cook better. To do that I just need to do both more.
“An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long it took you to catch them?” The American asked.
“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked.
“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.
“But,” The American then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”
“Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”
“But what then, senor?”
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
“Millions, senor? Then what?”
The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…” Heinrich Böll
I forgot to post about the cookies I made the other day. Well, they were edible… my dumb ass forgot to add in the whole wheat flour. But they weren’t as bad as the first ones I tried to make. I’m going to get some more ingredients and try again.
I also want to mention that I am back to a regular workout schedule and am going to be tracking my workouts and keeping a daily food log. In the mornings I have been doing 15 min on the elliptical, 50 push-ups and 100 rotating bicycles. In the evenings I have been mixing in some heavy bag work with some strength training. Either Randy Couture’s barbell circuit or several variations of dumbbell snatches, cleans or presses.
