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Venison Cube Steak Salad

Venison Cube Steak Salad

Posted by on May 19, 2012 in Featured Recipe, Nutrition, Slider | 0 comments

There is no such thing as a venison salad.

That is a fact.

Salads are generally seen as hippie food or the food that food eats.

Venison is the epitome of man food. My buddy Mike killed this for me.

So this meal, which incredibly local, is a juxtaposition of two worlds.

 

This is probably the most local meal that anyone could ever eat. All of the vegetables came from my White Oaks Pastures CSA. Meaning they drove up an hour north to be delivered to me. The deer came from Fort Benning, that or in Alabama near Mike’s house. Either way that was a twenty to forty minute drive tops.

The meal was pretty easy to make.

Cube steak is incredibly lean. I seasoned them with the steak seasoning that they sell at the Fresh Market. Three minutes a side, cooked in two tablespoons of bacon fat, made this more on the well done side. I made a second batch and cooked it for a two minutes on one side and a minute and a half on the other. This left it more rare so that when I microwaved it, the meat wouldn’t turn the corner from being dry to being uneatable.

 

The salad was the mixed greens from my CSA.

I topped it with a little Olive Oil and balsamic vinegar. Adding the Olive oil was more then necessary. Cube steak is pretty lean and it needs the added fat.

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Hey Yo Matt: Cleans vs Deadlifts

Posted by on May 18, 2012 in Crossfit, Hey Yo Matt | 0 comments

Hey yo Matt:

Not a PR but I did 115 squat clean/jerk in a wod yesterday which brings me to a “yo mattmuthafuckinhoff” blog question… Why am I relatively decent almost good at cleans- power,hang,squat- but I suck sweaty balls at deadlifts?!?! Is it not essentially the same movement- dl and pc?!?!

 

 

Yes, they are both pulls. There is a lot of similarities between the two movements. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they are basically the same movement. While they share the same hip hinge movement pattern, require a great deal of hamstring recruitment and spinal erector stabilization, I wouldn’t go as far as to say they are the same.

Granted they are very similar and have more in common then different.

The biggest issue here is loading.

I haven’t seen you try to pull a heavy deadlift in a long time, but there are a few places where people tend to fail on the deadlift:

’1. Weak grip that prevents them from holding on to the bar

2. Weakness in the bottom position where you cannot even begin to start the lift

3. Weak back that rounds and mutes the contribution from the hamstrings

4. Weak hamstrings that slow the lift down (aka sputtering hamstring syndrome).

So depending on where you fail, there is a reason for it that is exposed with a heavy weight. For most people, Crossfitters especially, their clean is around half of what their deadlift is. 50% of a load should feel light.

A deadlift will always be heavier then a clean because of the distance the bar has to travel, but if you cite deadlifts as a weakness and cleans as a strength then you have to figure out exactly where the lift fails.

If grip is the issue, then the best way to fix it is with more heavy pulls and some farmers walks.

If you are weak at the bottom and strong at the top (which you can also determine if your hang clean is 90% or more of your clean) then you need to work on some positional pulls. Deficit deadlifts, tons of squats, and some unilateral work like split squats and lunges will be in order.

If you sputter at the top and struggle with the lock out (which you can also determine if your hang clean is garbage) then you need to work on that top end movement. This also where you will reap the most benefit from the low bar back squat and some direct accessory work for the hamstrings. I would recommend the good morning because it will also do a lot to strengthen your spinal erectors. Strong back sausages equals strong pulls. Romanian deadlifts are also highly appropriate.

A weak back is best fixed by pulling.

So the conclusion of this is, that you need to do more pulling. Everything will benefit from it. You will hit a point where the law of diminishing returns comes into effect. However, you need to maintain some stimulus of a super heavy pull to keep developing the musculature of your hamstrings and back straps.

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Food Log Review

Posted by on May 17, 2012 in Nutrition | 0 comments

So here’s a food log of a new client. Its a pretty good representation of what people are eating without actually realizing it.
Thursday
Breakfast:
2 fried eggs
1 sausage link
1 toast no crust with butter (Brown and Brummel)
2 vanilla oreo cookies
Lunch:
Spagetti with salad Ranch dressing.
Dinner: 2 chicken encalada’s Rice, and beans
Chips salsa and cheese dip with coke
Friday
Breakfast:
2 fried eggs with Rye bread toasted with butter
Lunch:
Hamburger patty no bread
Brocolli
Dinner:
Sausage
Macaronni & Cheese with water
Saturday
Breakfast:
Sausage & Egg biscuit from Hardee’s
Lunch:
Ramen Noodles with water
Dinner:
B Merrells
10 pc wing with Brocolli
Coke
Sunday
Breakfast:
Scramble eggs with 1 pc. toast Wheat bread
Dinner:
1/2 hamburger patty no bread with ketchup
Bratwurst with mustard
potato salad
baked beans
cucumber salad
coke
1 pc cheese cake
Monday
Breakfast:
Sausage and egg biscuit
Lunch:
Church’s 2 pc white with mashed potatos
Dinner:
No Dinner  Went to sleep at 6:30pm and slept through the night.  I must have been tired
Tuesday:
2 eggs with 1 pc of toast Wheat
Lunch: Grilled chicken breast and salad with ranch
Dinner: Pork chop with zuchini
WOW!!   I never realized how bad and how much I was eating until I started keeping up with it.  No wonder I weigh so much.
So today is the day I start eating right.
This morning I had for Breakfast
2 eggs with a banana  (I need to go grocery shopping)
You got your hands full with me. :)
Food logs are a really powerful tool. Regardless of how ignorant of diet and nutrition you think you are, simply writing things down provides you with a resource to see honestly see what exactly you are eating. Its easy to write off the occasional cheesecake or coke as an isolated treat, but once you honestly look at a few days worth of food, you’ll see how these “isolated incidents” really are part of a pattern.
If you’re helping someone with a food log, its doesn’t really do you any good to point out the obvious. You can see by the comments in line that the author realizes that the oreos for a morning snack, the cheesecake, etc are not good.
We also need to triage this and give it another week. We’ll see what they can do with a weeks worth of honest effort, but at this point in time there is not point in worrying over the gluten in the spaghetti or in the mac and cheese when we have cookies in the morning.
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Getting Started: A Case Study

Posted by on May 16, 2012 in Nutrition | 0 comments

Weight 216

(Had gotten  down to 208 before I strayed from my list of approved foods)

My Goal – to get down to a healthy weight

 

Medical Issues -

High cholesterol

Osteoporosis

 

I was seeing a personal trainer and lost 30 lbs. but I got stuck and could not seem to get past the 30 pounds.

 

I was eating for:

 

breakfast: 2 boiled eggs (1 with yolk and 1 without)

Snack – almonds

Lunch:  chicken or steak with Broccoli

Snack strawberries

Dinner – chicken or steak – (she wanted to me to limit my red meat to once a week and eat chicken and fish)

 

Her concept was

 

Breakfast- Protein and complex carb (Whole grain bread)

12:00  Protein and complex carb (sweet potatoe or Brown Rice which I don’t like either one)

4:00 Protein and Complex Carb

Dinner – protein and vegetable

 

 

Since I don’t like Fish and grew up eating potatoes and bread (very little vegetable) and everything else that was bad for you, I was limited to what I could eat and would jump off the ban wagon.

When you eat Chicken and broccoli all the time it gets old fast.

 

I have to admit, since I stopped going to her I have just about went back to my old eating habits (which is whaterever I want and gained 7 lbs. in 3 weeks)

 

Since I started crossfit and seen how hard the work outs are, I really don’t want to eat foods that will pack on the pounds, it’s to hard to get it off.  Can you Help me please?

 

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to this. I’ve had a bit of a busy last few weeks.

 

Here is the general plan that we are going to go with.

 

  1. We are going to try to eat a diet that is as high in micronutrients and as low in food toxins as possible. To do this we will stick with the basic construct of: Eat meat (fish, beef, pork, chicken, eggs, and all other animals), vegetables, some fruit, a few nuts and seeds. We will not eat any processed foods (anything that comes in a wrapper), grains, legumes, dairy, or sugars.
  2. This is probably a pretty big departure from what you are used to, so we’ll keep the changes manageable.
  3. To track progress, you’ll send me a food log with everything you ate (good and bad) and approximate quantities every Wednesday. It is also important to note how you look, feel, and perform (at Crossfit, work, life, etc) compared to normal or last Wednesday.

 

Below are some links that may be helpful

 

The Whole30® Program

 

What About Calcium?

 

The Grain Manifesto

 

I think you’ve got a decent understanding of a strategy that works for you based on your previous experience.

 

To start with, let’s focus on ensuring that we start adding some protein to your breakfast every morning.

 

Hopefully this will be enough to get you started before Wednesday.

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#4#

#4#

Posted by on May 14, 2012 in Crossfit, Slider | 0 comments

This last weekend was the #4# (Pound for Pound, get it) Crossfit competition as part of the Garage Games Series. It was hosted in Montgomery, Al by Crossfit Montgomery. I went down to the competition with three other dudes from the gym, plus our cheerleader Gigi, and our ex-pat Jamie.

First of all, Montgomery is way nicer than anticipated. For whatever reason, I assumed it would be kind of a dump, but it was actually really nice. I was very impressed with the downtown area and even more impressed with the Bar-B-Que at Dreamland.

The event started off great. In the morning, the weather was perfect, the event was well organized, and there was perfect time spent among Crossfriends.

Then the rain came. While it didn’t ruin the event, the timeline quickly started to fall behind and then the event was cut a little short. We only got to do three of the four events, which was sort of a disappointment.

The first and third event were not the best ones to be, but they were actually a lot of fun. I would definitely have preferred to do the running, deadlift, and handstand push up workout.

Despite the fact that this whole competition was math based, body weight was taken into consideration and you got to choose your own loads on the bar, I still did pretty well.

I got 14th place out of 60 advanced males. Which is my best placing to date.

My best workout by far was the Murphin WOD. It was a 20min AMRAP of Cindy while wearing a 16lb weight vest, oh and you had to run a mile with the weight vest on as a buy in. To boot, you had to run a mile at the end as a separate timed event. It hurt bad, but it was also one of the cooler competition settings I’ve done.

You started at the venue, which was right on the river, then ran through downtown to the Crossfit Montgomery gym itself. Then you found a bar and went to town.

Somehow, I found myself in the cool kids heat. The heat was mixed between guys and girls. So I wound up working out a few bars down from my friends Steve, Jake, Travis, Travis, and Justin. Jamie, Crossfit Inception’s ex-pat was also in the gym. I wound up on the bar right next to Leah Polaski, who is a tremendous bad ass. The ladies didn’t have to wear a weight vest, so trying to keep up with one of the fittest women in the Southeast made the experience a lot crazier. If I wasn’t sucking so bad, I would have liked to get a mental picture of this that event.

While the rest of the day was mostly spent hiding from the rain, leaderboarding, and bull shitting.

All in all, I definitely like the smaller Crossfit competitions more. Its a much closer group and a lot less distractions. It was a good weekend, I just hope the weather cooperates next time.

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Happy Mother’s Day

Posted by on May 13, 2012 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

 

I’m spending it watching Battle Royale aka Hunger Games Plus until I have to go and grade push ups at 3am

 

Holla

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Vegetable Broth

Posted by on May 12, 2012 in Featured Recipe, Nutrition | 0 comments

So the radishes, and all of the vegetables for that matter, from my CSA come with all of the greens. I really have no idea what to do with any of these leaves and it don’t have anything that I’d like to do with any of these leaves. I briefly thought about using them in a stew or something.

Instead I just decided to make them into a broth. I forgot I didn’t have any bones or anything to make it a good broth.

I spiced the hell out of it with some ginger and turmeric. I let it boil for about two hours.

Came out tasting a lot better than I expected.

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