Hello, September!

I was originally planning on posting about my weekend adventure in Molalla for the All of the Above Boogie at Skydive Oregon, but decided to hold off on that until I edit some video! Since I ate so much crap and took very few pictures, there really isn’t much to show other than skydiving footage. Hopefully I’ll have time for that before the long weekend – I’m planning on going camping! YAY!

The past three days I’ve been challenging myself to be strictly paleo. I’ve already failed. It is incredibly difficult to be 100% compliant to all the paleo rules in this modern world. I actually find that striving to be 90+% paleo is much more conducive to success. That way I feel like I can eat something where less than 2% of the ingredients might contain a little evaporated cane syrup. Or I feel like it’s ok to have one tiny wedge of a pita and a couple tablespoons of hummus when the only even remotely paleo thing on the item is a hummus veggie plate – this is what happened last night at a local comedy club where my friend made her stand up debut. I hate feeling RESTRICTED. It makes me feel like I’m on a DIET. I am not on a diet, paleo is just how I prefer to eat. It’s a LIFESTYLE that I choose to live on a daily basis. So while I’ve failed at 100% paleo, I have succeeded at 90+% paleo which is much more sustainable for me! I definitely do have 100% paleo days frequently though!

August has been a very rocky month for me in so many ways. I’m really happy it’s over. A new calendar month, a new beginning, a chance to reset my life and set the tone for the rest of the month. Although August started out amazingly well with me being in the best shape of my life, other factors just got in the way of maintaining that. I’m ready for a fresh start. I went to cardio kickboxing yesterday and thought it was way too easy. It was only 45 minutes long. I need several hours of intense exercise to feel that crazy endorphin body high that I love so much. Today I plan to go to hot yoga, boxing, MMA workout, and capoeira. I’m actually excited about it and feel really motivated. It’s nice to have motivation back! Let’s hope it stays this time.

We’ve been having gorgeous sunsets lately. Here are pics that I took from our deck on Monday and Tuesday. I like thick clouds, except on the days I want to skydive.

 

After kickboxing, I went to Whole Foods for some light grocery shopping. Too bad I was hungry because it turned out to be a rather costly shopping trip! Healthy food is way too expensive.

• Grassfed NY strip steaks
• Buffalo ribeye steak
• 1lb ground buffalo
• Prosciutto
• Applegate organic thick cut uncured bacon
• Smoked wild sockeye salmon
• Pistachios
• Portabella mushrooms
• Avocados
• Merry’s Miracle Tart
• Theo 91% dark chocolate
• Coconut flour
• Coconut cooking oil

 

Wednesday is CSA bag pick up day!

• Jupiter Donut Peaches
• Snow Leopard Melons
• Yaya Carrots
• Dapple Fire Pluots
• Heirloom Tomatoes
• Nectarines
• Cucumbers
• Squash

 

Steak and a dandelion salad

I still had carrots, cucumbers, and dandelion greens left over from last week’s bag. Being away for 3 days, I didn’t get a chance to eat everything! I made myself a salad with dandelion greens, carrots, red onion, cucumbers, and peaches. I don’t use salad dressings or even balsamic vinegar if I can help it. I like to try to put together veggies and fruits that taste good together naturally. I discovered that I hate raw dandelion greens. They’re way too bitter. The natural sweetness of the other ingredients weren’t enough to counter how bitter the greens were! I still have a lot left, I’ll have to find a good recipe for them. I did very much enjoy the cukes, carrots, and peaches together though! I ate the salad with a delicious medium rare grassfed NY strip steak. I made sure to watch it very closely this time, since my last steak was a disaster, and it turned out perfect.

Food from last week

It has been a while since my last post! I’ve been tweeting, since I started using twitter again as a companion for this blog. Posting a tweet takes sooo much less work than maintaining a real blog! I went to Oregon for a boogie (skydiving event) on Friday, totally unplanned. The next post will be all about how impossible it is to stay paleo at those things! I’ll have to edit some video to share with you guys as well. I started a 30 day paleo challenge yesterday after 3 days of really crappy eating at the boogie. I feel like the entire month of August has been a struggle for me, so I think it would be great for me to commit to a month of eating fully paleo. Let’s see how long it lasts. Day 1 went great yesterday.

Before the boogie, I was doing pretty well getting back to normal and making paleo meals for myself. So these are some food pics from last week.

Grassfed ribeye with 4 different kinds of squashes and onion
I’ve decided that my greatest cooking tragedies always involve overcooking meat because I’m so easily distracted. This was the first time in a very long time that my steak didn’t come out perfectly medium rare. It was well done! Hardly any pink. What  a complete waste of meat, right? But it was tender enough that I could still enjoy it. Just not as much as if it would have been red-pink in the middle!

Beefalo bacon burger
W/grilled onion and avocado.One of my favorite meals! I could eat this every day.

Korean food without rice– bulgogi, kimchi, and banchans
So this isn’t fully paleo because there is soy sauce in the marinade for the bulgogi (Korean marinated beef), but I don’t mind having soy sauce here and there. Banchan = side dishes. Here we have kimchi, cucumber onion salad type thing, zucchini, and eggplant.

Lavender duck, turnip, blackberry and hazelnut salad – Poppy, Seattle
This was a salad from the bar at one of my absolute favorite restaurants. I don’t even know where to start with describing how delicious this salad was! I particularly enjoyed the turnips. The turnips!! Who would’ve thought! I’ve always loved their lavender duck and the hazelnuts were perfect. Definitely try this if you’re in the area.

My CSA bag from last week contained nectarines, pluots, peaches, cucumbers, squashes, cherries, apples, carrots, and melons!

Thank you, sleep!

Last night I fell asleep by 10pm like I used to before messing up my sleep schedule. I woke up naturally at 6:30 feeling gloriously awake and refreshed. My mood is 200% better than it has been the last few days!!! What a relief! I was starting to think I was stuck in some sort of inexplicably sad, lazy slump. I’m pretty excited to go to boxing, MMA, and capoeira tonight! Feeling motivated to move again. It’s a complete 180 from my last two days. It’s a great reminder of how important sleeping and waking up naturally is to me. I’m always exhausted if I use an alarm after going to sleep late. Not to mention SUPER CRANKY.

The only thing I managed to do yesterday was shop for 5 hours. I usually love shopping (even marathon shopping), but it put me in a bad mood yesterday because 1. There was nothing I liked. 2. I specifically went to find a day dress to wear to a wedding and failed. I did find a James Perse t-shirt and a reversible knit cardigan on sale! Both gray and super comfy… surprise surprise. I could happily live in James Perse, JBrands, and Lululemon. I thought this S/S season was awful for clothes, but I’m pretty excited for F/W! I need to replace so much of my wardrobe due to going down 1-2 sizes in everything.

I loooved this L’agence dress that I tried on, but it wasn’t what I needed and also way too expensive for what it is. Still, it was so simple and beautiful with the lace at the bust. I like it in the gray color too, plus the lace shows more. Maybe if it went on sale? Or if one of you wants to be super generous and get me this dress in a size 2, it would be going to a very good home! 😉

 

I was super hungry after all the unsuccessful shopping, so I stopped by Cafe Campagne for some tartare de boeuf – “raw beef, shallots, capers, raw egg yolk and Dijon mustard served with toasted baguette slices and butter lettuce salad.” No baguettes, of course. I love beef tartare and tend to order it when it’s available. I love raw beef, but making it at home seems like an awful idea to me for some reason. The last time I had it at a different cafe, I couldn’t taste egg yolk. It’s just not right without egg yolk! This one was wonderful, very classically prepared without an overabundance of capers.

 

Exhausted and frustrated, I went home and was greeted by my CSA bag! Much more fruit this time – no complaints here! Everything is super fresh and delicious, just like last week. And no potatoes this time, yay!

This Week’s Harvest

• Peaches: Sweet Scarlet and Saturn Donut
• Honey Fire Nectarines
• Lapins Cherries
• Summer Squash Mix: Costata Romanesco, Eight Ball or Floridor
• Lettuce: Jericho or Freckles
• Cucumber mix: Armenian, Satsuki Midori, Lemon, Boosby Blonde or Poona Kheera

I forgot to include the big cucumbers in the group photo. These are huge! I need to find more ways to eat cucumber so that I like them more.

 

 

So far today, I’ve played the piano and helped my brother get ready for his first backpacking trip tomorrow. Going over gear, showing him how/what to pack, etc. I think it’s about time for me to go backpacking too. Anyone wanna go in a couple weeks? I’m thinking at least 2 nights, 10-20miles a day. I need to leave soon to shop for a wedding present and maybe find something to wear. Then a 3 hour workout! I can’t believe it has been a whole week since I’ve gone! Lots of exciting things for the weekend, but what I’m really looking forward to in in 5 more days!

 

 

MMA and CSA!

I have too many hobbies… too many hobbies that involve strenuous, intense activity. I am trying to figure out how to schedule all my hobbies without getting burnt out. Which basically means that I have more hobbies that involve plenty of relaxation. I’ll let you all know how that works out! So far this week:

Monday
I started Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) on Monday! I bought a groupon for a month of unlimited classes at Axtion Club. They offer MMA workout, Muay Thai, cardio kickboxing, boxing, core-training, and Capoeira classes! So I went to the 6:30am MMA workout class on Monday. It was an hour of non-stop movement for the entire body. The warm up consisted of lots of jump roping and cardio stuff involving medicine balls. Then I got to put gloves and shin guards on to do some drills on the bags. At first I was like, “uhhh I don’t think I have enough aggression for this?” But soon I realized that the harder I punched and kicked, the better it felt and I discovered an aggressive side of myself. By the end of the hour, I felt fantastic. The instructor told me I did great for my first time and was shaking my hand when I asked if I could stay for the next class – Muay Thai. He looked at me like I was crazy.

I was fully warmed up by my second class and felt even better. More jump roping and medicine balls followed by partner work. Where we had to punch and kick while our partner held pads out. Again it was non-stop movement of the entire body. It ended with a nice core workout as well. I absolutely loved it and was just bursting with energy and happiness. Of course it came out that I have a pretty active lifestyle and one of the students said something like “ohh that’s why you’re so well conditioned for this.” It’s nice to be recognized for being fit and strong by other fit and strong people.

I loved it sooo much. Two hours of AWESOME. I recommend it to all of you to give it a try! I definitely have way more respect for fighters as athletes now, as well as for last season’s Biggest Loser contestants. It’s a pretty intense workout!

And because I’m crazy, I also skated for a little bit before coaching. I really miss skating.

I ate more of my ground elk on Monday. Instead of scrambling the egg with everything else, I just fried one and put it on top so I could have a runny yolk. Yum.

 

Tuesday
Since I missed skating so much, my friend and I went to our old rink for a short session. I forgot how cold it is there! I did some jumps and some spins, but my heart wasn’t in it. My old rink = too much nostalgia. I missed all my old skating friends and all the good times we had there. Rink rat love!!!

After volunteering, I met up with another friend for sushi at Nishino. I’m admittedly a sushi snob (fine, let’s be honest, I’m a food snob in general) and it might be my favorite out of only three sushi restaurants that I find worth going to in the greater Seattle area. I always sit at Mori-san’s sushi bar and he makes some of the prettiest, tastiest sushi ever. I started out being committed to staying paleo and got some omakase sashimi. But I could not resist ordering my favorite kind of sushi, which are nigiri that come sprinkled with ponzu sauce. I also like seared scallop nigiri, so I had to get one of those too. He also made us a special roll with freshwater eel. I usually don’t like most rolls, but this was great. I did tell Mori-san all about the paleo diet and explained that I don’t really eat rice anymore. He was actually pretty interested in the concept behind it as well as the health benefits. When I stray from the paleo way of eating, I make sure it’s the best of my favorite non-paleo foods. And Nishino has some of the best sushi around.

 

I usually don’t like to eat before I do anything active, but I went climbing on a full stomach!  I got further than ever on this V3 on the big wall that I’ve been working on for the past few visits. I was maybe 4 easy moves away from finally finishing it when I gave up for NO REASON and dropped. Then I could never get as far on the subsequent attempts because my hands were burnt out. My arms were fine, my hands just start burning. I ripped up a couple of callouses again. However, I felt great that I could still get further than I did in previous visits. So there’s definite improvement in strength and coordination there! I’ll have to post video sometime.

 

Wednesday

I had all these plans for yesterday. I was going to do the MMA workout and Muay Thai class in the morning like Monday. Then I had planned on going to hot yoga in the evening. None of this happened because I ended up staying up until past 2am become someone is out to sabotage my schedule. So I made all these back up plans to do other activities later in the day. Those never happened either. But it was good to have a rest day. I ate a lot of plain pan fried pork, 85-90% dark chocolate, and fruit from my CSA bag!! Much better than my last rest day, no? I was a lot more productive too, I played piano for 2 hours. It has been years since I’ve done that, I barely play now. It was a little depressing and quite humbling to not be able to play as well as I used to… lack of practice will do that to you. Pieces I had memorized are hard to get through even reading the music. But how I’ve missed Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, etc. etc. etc. I’m considering taking piano lessons again. As if I need more things to do!

So I bought a LivingSocial deal for 5 weeks of organic produce from Tiny’s Organic, which is a CSA (community-supported agriculture). Every Wednesday I pick up my bag of fresh, local organic fruits and veggies. I had always been intrigued by the idea of a CSA, but was worried about the quality and content since I don’t directly pick the produce. Well, I was blown away by what was in the bag! Not only was the small bag (for 1-2 people) actually pretty big and heavy, it contained so much stuff! Everything was super fresh and super tasty. I’m not even exaggerating. I am IN LOVE.

I arranged for pick up at the local YMCA. You just have to sign in and take your bag.

I love that they come in reusable bags that you have to return the following week when you pick up your new bag.

Check out what was in this week’s bag! It comes with a sheet of paper with info on what’s in the bag as well as some useful recipes. I’ll have to look to see if there are any paleo recipes!

• Lapins cherries
• Flavor Supreme Pluots
• Arctic Star Nectarines
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Walla Walla Sweet Onions
• Summer Squash Mix: Costata Romanesco, Eight Ball or Floridor (I think I only got one kind of sqauash and I don’t know what it is)
• Cucumbers: Armedian, Satsuki Midori, Lemon, Boothsby Blonde or Poona Kheera (there are at least 3 kinds of cucumbers)

“Above is the short list of what we hope to put in your bag based on what is ready when entering the fields on Monday morning.”

 

Today (Thursday)

I’m planning on going to boxing and MMA workout this evening after volunteering, maybe staying for capoeira if I have the energy for a third hour of intense workout. i originally planned on going to morning classes, but my sleep schedule is all messed up. I miss being a morning person!! I’m trying not to eat all the fruit, but it may be half gone already…:D I’ll have to figure out what to make with the cucumbers and squash! Tomorrow morning I’m going climbing outdoors! On real rock! I am beyond excited since I haven’t been out all season. I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures!