Extra large pkg of chicken thighs(if you like white meat better, get chicken breasts)
1 onion cut in half
2 large stalks of celery, cut in half
Sea Salt and pepper to taste
Garlic clove or garlic powder
Parsley, a couple of sprigs, or a couple of tablespoons of dried parsley(fresh is always better if you have it)
1 carrot, cut in half(since carrots are a high glycemic Vegetable, don’t use this if you are trying to lose weight)
Crushed Red pepper(if you like things spicy) about a tablespoon

Dump all this into a BIG stock pot. Fill with water just above the stuff in the pot, cover, and let it boil for a couple of hours. (Covering the pot keeps the liquid from evaporating.)

While that is cooking, dice 2 onions, 5-6 stalks of celery, and a carrot or two(again, IF you aren’t trying to lose weight)

If you haven’t been making your own chicken stock, you just did it!!!! The liquid left in the pot IS chicken stock.

Take the celery,onion, garlic clove and parsley sprigs out and discard.Take the chicken out and let it cool a bit so you can handle it.

Take the Celery and Onion (and carrot) you diced, and put in the stock. If you used fresh parsley, dice a couple more sprigs and throw it in the pot.

Debone your chicken,and cut it into small pieces…put it back in the stock.

Let all this cook for awhile, maybe 45 minutes to an hour, so the diced veggies can cook thru.
Taste the stock and season for your liking.

You now have Chicken NO noodle paleo style soup!!!! It freezes great,too!!!!!

The reasons I’m in Richmond will soon be coming to a close (which is a good thing, because that means my dad that has been in the hospital since October will soon be coming home.) But now I know a little secret for my future visits or passing throughs… I-95, exit 64, Willis Dr.  Take it. Follow the signs to Arby’s and eat your heart out.

To learn more about Richmond area Arby’s click here

So here’s to a new year and a new challenge – one that will help me and all of you stay on track and kick-start a wonderful 2012 with good health and new personal records (in and out of the gym)!

30 Day Paleo Challenge

The Nitty Gritty

Before and After:
Photo – front, side and back view (optional) but this is a great motivator! A picture is worth 1000 words! You may not like the before pic…so work hard to be proud of the AFTER pics!
Measurements – body weight, waist circumference, and body fat
Performance – 1 mile run followed by a 3 minute rest and then Grace

The Winner:
At the end of the challenge the top 4 performers will be selected based on:
1. Measurement Improvements – weight, waist, and body fat
2. Performance Improvements – 1 mile run, 3 minute rest, then Grace
3. Scoring – points from daily nutrition log

Scoring:
You will be required to keep track of your eating in a Nutrition log. From this log, you will give a daily score of 0-10 based on your compliance with the Paleo Diet. A score of 10 would represent a day of….

10 points: eating like a true hunter gatherer; nothing but meat, chicken, fish, eggs, veggies, fruit, nuts and seeds.
~ 1 point off for every serving of: Deli meats, beans, hummus, peanuts, agave, honey, salt, peas, dried fruit, most salad dressings.
~ 2 points off for every serving of: Dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese, butter), soy products, quinoa
~ 3 points off for every serving of: Cereal, grains, wheat, oats, corn, tortilla chips, bread, rice, pasta, noodles, hot dogs.
~ 4 points off for every serving of: Soda, juice, sports drinks, potato, fried food, chicken wings, most restaurant appetizers, pizza, cookies, baked goods, ice cream, frozen yogurt, sweets, pancakes, ketchup, processed marinades, BBQ sauce, sugar added dried fruit, beer, wine and ALL alcoholic drinks.

Note: If you are going off the reservation, it’s important to know how many servings you are eating…for example, 1 can of soda is 2 servings. This means that if you drink an entire can you would have 2 remaining points for that day.

BONUS POINTS:
There is a potential for 4 extra bonus points per day.
1. You get 1 extra bonus point for everyday you participate in a CrossFit workout. The benefits of Paleo are magnified when combines with training program that combines constantly varied, high intensity, functional movements….ie. CROSSFIT. Train Hard. Eat Clean. Live Life.

2. You get 1 extra bonus point for everyday you consume at least 6 grams of Fish oil.  MAKE SURE YOU ARE CONSUMING THE 6 GRAMS. For me, that’s 6 of my 1000 mg pills per day.

3. You get 1 extra bonus point for everyday that you stretch more than 20 minutes. Mobility WOD counts, of course!

4. You get 1 extra bonus point for every night that you sleep more than 8 hours.

Post Workout:
Post workout is the one time we will allow a slight deviation from Paleo. If you are unable to stomach solid foods after training a protein drink is a great alternative. For fast and complete recovery we suggest a post workout protein shake and some sweet potatoes. You should mix the protein with water (aim for 20-45 grams), and eat 3-9 ounces of sweet potatoes. If your primary goal is to decrease body fat and get leaner skip the potatoes. If you just finished “Murph”, “Eva”, “Badger” or other 30+ minute intense workouts, go higher on the starches to replace glycogen. Your performance the next day is dependent on it.

So – Today is the workout day – go to either Winston or Decree and get it done – you’ll have to complete the post-challenge version at the same location, just remember that!  Also – at both locations there are now scales to weigh in.  I believe in Winston there is a scale that does body fat %.  At Decree there are a set of calipers to be used.  Jon knows how to use them (not sure if anyone other trainers do).  Jess & Kris can also pinch if you need help.  You’ll need to find a website (I use http://www.linear-software.com/online.html and the 4 pinch method).

Go Get It!  I’m excited for this challenge for myself and everyone participating – I’m looking forward to use building a stronger, leaner CrossFit community!  Post any questions, comments, concerns here.  As with anything, this challenge is a work in progress and we’d love to hear your opinions on how to make it better for the next one!

Jess

• How do you get enough fiber?
• But whole grains are better….
• You need a balanced diet.
• I can’t give up my oatmeal, besides, it’s “organic”!
• Complex carbs are good for you!
• The box says “Heart Healthy”…
• “Oh, I’ve tried a high protein diet before”
• “I get too cranky on low carb diets”
• “You can’t even eat wraps??…. then what do you eat?”

So, how do we answer these questions or attacks on our educated, scientifically and self proven whole foods/ real foods “Paleo” diet? (Really the quotations should be around the word diet)

I would like to first point out that this topic of “what to say in reply to…” has been on the table since before Thanksgiving. I was wanting to give us all some ammo to be ready at the family dinners. Since then, though, I learned of a top 20 diet list that was published. I was thrilled to read another CrossFitter’s take on the lack of research that went into this study. Check out the calorie to calorie nutrient values of broccoli vs whole wheat bread.

It just didn’t make sense to see Paleo rank 20, so he dug a little. This is a diet ranking by US News.

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/best-overall-diets

He wasn’t going to even look it over until he figured out how they categorized or ranked the diets and find out how they could “screw up”

So here is his take, Chris Harris from South Bay CrossFit

["If you look at the detail behind the reviews there are 7 categories by which the diets were ranked.

1. Short term weight loss
2. Long term weight loss
3. Easy to follow
4. Nutrition
5. Safety
6. For Diabetes
7. For Hearth Health.

So in general Paleo scores poorly on all categories and the typical explanation cites lack of research. Whether I agree or not (about the lack of research); I can see that as a semi valid explanation. I don’t believe it’s a valid explanation for low rankings, but more for being skeptical. If there really was such a lack of research and information perhaps they should have left Paleo off the list.

Below is the explanation from the article for Paleo nutrition ranking.

“While its focus on veggies and lean meat is admirable, experts couldn’t get past the fact that entire food groups, like dairy and grains, are excluded on Paleo diets. “The risk of nutrient deficiency is real, unless the person takes a multivitamin,” one panelist commented. Here, its rating lagged a full two or more stars behind many other diets.”

After reading this I really wondered what in the hell “nutrition” is in grains that are superior to vegetables.

I mean that really sounds like a stupid statement. I figure we can settle this pretty quickly so I went online and did a quick comparison.

So I compared calorie per calorie as I believe that’s a more relevant comparison than by serving size.

According to my quick check of the facts Broccoli blows whole wheat bread out of the water when it comes to nutrition. It has less fat and sodium, then for everything else it has far more nutritional content.

So let me wrap this up. If you want to be skeptical about Paleo because you’re unfamiliar, don’t have information, cite lack of research……then fine.

Don’t try and tell me though that wheat bread is more nutritional than broccoli and I have to take a multivitamin, cuz now you just sound stupid."]
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
That helps with an answer to the fiber question! Also note the calcium, even though we aren’t on the dairy topic. What about some one liners to shoot back? You tell me….

• You could always use “It’s an anti-nutrient”, but they have no idea what that means
• There’s the leaky gut you can threaten them with, but they wouldn’t believe you
• How about “your body turns it into sugar” vs words like high-gylcemic
• Isn’t that neat how animals aggregate nutrients for us in addition to providing ones that we CANNOT GET AT ALL from plants, like B12 and long chain N-3 fatty acids? (ok, that’s deep Dr Kurt)
• Ok, here are mine: Food isn’t supposed to hurt you. (indigestion med commercials? pah leez)
• Food isn’t supposed to make you tired. (everyone knows about afternoon drag)
• It’s about finding what foods are inflammatory in YOUR body(make it about them)
• I’m being good to my joints
• I want to get off, (or never get on) blood pressure, cholestoral meds
• It’s a choice(just kidding, the vegetarians took that one)
• Complex carbs still raise your blood glucose, and for longer periods of time
• Heart Health? Since the gov’nmts food pyramid and increased medicine science, Heart Health is down

This is where I would like to introduce a link to the Food Matrix.  http://robbwolf.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/thePaleoSolution_FoodMatrix.pdf

27-proteins, 24-veggies, 5-fats and 25-herbs & spices. If we take
one item from each column we get 27x24x5x25= 81,000 DIFFERENT meals. Divide
that by 365 (1 different meal per day) and you will not see the same meal for 221
YEARS.

There’s even an app for it! The site said FREE and is described below.
This app takes Robb Wolf’s food matrix and gives you a handy way to create a random meal. Simply click on “Create Random Meal” and the app gives you a random protein, vegetable, fat and herb from the full list of foods on the matrix. There are 81,000 possible combinations of food.

If you don’t like an ingredient or don’t have that ingredient on hand, simply tap that ingredient and a new ingredient from the list will be randomly chosen.

This app also lists the basic steps to preparing a Paleo meal….

• So then there’s ” I have 81,000 meals to choose from, why wouldn’t I eat healthy?” Then show them your app!

I leave you with a Smoothie I named Health Nut. Especially created for those not looking for any extra shock factor from their food. As in anaphylactic.

Ingredients

• Frozen fruit
• Avocado
• Motts unsweetened applesauce
• Couple Raw eggs
• Little Agave Nectar to taste

Here are a couple strawberries, peaches and probably melon and pineapple. You can pick out of this bag and choose a specific assortment to make a variety of smoothies. If you use a frozen bag of a single fruit, like a bag of blueberries or strawberries, and not this assorted fruit form Costco, you may not want to use the apple sauce, because those bags have more juice.

I used a quarter of this avocado. Depending on how large a smoothie you are looking for at the moment, or how long you want to stay full, just keep in mind this is the part of the smoothie you really don't want to taste. You may decide to use banana since it's a naturally sweeter cover up.

This batch of Motts had regular and Granny Smith. I used one regular. Here you are adding a liquid so it will mix. This is where I substitute apple sauce as my liquid instead of coconut milk from a can. I learned to make things with no eggs for Kevin since they are an inflammatory food for him, but had never experimented with no nuts. Just for you Jess G! This is one of my favorite tools in the kitchen. The hand mixer here in the picture.

It did not turn green by using avocado for my fat! Nice thick consistency, not quite ice cream thickness, but very close to yogurt!

While doing my recipe research I came across a Primal blog with a stuffing recipe touting its likeness to Stove Top.  Imagine my excitement! I have never in all my years been able to simulate Stove Top style stuffing.  While Primal and Paleo are similar, they are not the same thing. No matter, the call for dairy in this recipe did not deter me, I’ve been subbing for dairy almost all my daughter’s life. (But I will admit, my dairy free baking has been more on the side of comedic distaster than culinary masterpiece.)

The original recipe calls for sour cream or plain yogurt for the bread.  There are a few ways I thought to go about this.  I considered creating a sort of heavy cream out of unsweetened coconut or almond milk, where I would simmer it on the stove until reduced by about half.  I thought about making “buttermilk” by using unsweetened coconut or almond milk and lemon juice.  I thought about doing both things, the faux heavy cream with the lemon juice.  If my name was Martha or Julia and all I did was cook for a living I might would’ve gotten fancy; but in the end, I went with the easiest route: I bought plain coconut milk yogurt. (and then I still added lemon juice)

The wet ingredients:
3/4 c. plain coconut yogurt (mixed with 1 T fresh lemon juice and allowed to sit for 30-60 minutes)
1/2 medium onion (I used white) , grated
1 Tbsp green onion, chopped (original calls for chives, my brand spanking new grocery store by my house had no chives)
1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
3 eggs
1/4 c. water
2 cloves garlic, minced

The dry goods:
3 c. almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Spoon the flour into your measuring cup… I found almond flour to be dense and cakey, so I was careful to not “overpack” the measuring cup. I’m wondering if sifting would be good… something to try next time.  For this time though, I mixed the dry ingredients with a whisk.  With a separate whisk I thoroughly mixed the wet ingredients, poured the wet into dry, and combined until all was good and wet and to use the original recipe owner’s word, gloopy.

Scoop batter onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees.  This recipe made six, large, pancakes is the best way to describe them.

Now, the original recipe photographs show a large, airy and delightful bun that took a mere quarter hour to bake.  I did not, however, get that result. I can only attribute it to the introduction of the dairy sub. I baked these for about 30 minutes, flipping them at around the last 5 minute mark.

Allow bread to cool and cube.  If you look closely, you can see that not all of the cubes are done.  My plan was to leave the cubed bread out over night to stale, and that is exactly what I did because by this time it’s about 10:30 and I’m exhausted.

The following morning I found the cubes to not be stale enough for my liking. I toasted them on foil lined cookie sheets at 175 degrees for about 30 minutes.  The bread cubes were toasty and textured with still a hint of softness… extremely pleasing. (and my daughter thought they were the best thing since sliced bread)

I combined my cubes with sauteed celery, dried thyme, and roughly 3/4 c. homemade chicken stock.  I am already thinking of apples and nuts and sage as an addition for next year… and bacon too!   This year’s Thanksgiving stuffing was the best I’ve ever made and by far the best I’ve ever tasted.  A ginormous hit, I only wish I’d made more.

Recipe Recap
Bread
3/4 c. plain coconut yogurt (mixed with 1 T fresh lemon juice and allowed to sit for 30-60 minutes)
1/2 medium onion, grated
1 Tbsp green onion/chives, chopped
1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
3 eggs
1/4 c. water
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 c. almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Combine wet ingredients, dry ingredients, then wet into dry ingredients
Bake at 325 degree for at least 30 minutes
Cool, cube and toast in 175 degree oven until desired consistency is reached

Stuffing
Combine with stuffing accoutrements of your choice
(I used 6 ribs celery, 3/4 c. stock)
Bake in oven at 325 for 30 minutes

(note: I fed 6 adults and 4 kids with this recipe and had enough leftover for dinner for 3 the next day)

Here is the link: The Paleo Diet: Not The Way to a Healthy Future

What are your thoughts on this article?  I’m interested to hear!

Making your own stock has a lot of benefits. Benefit number one being that first you make a chicken…

And then you get to eat the chicken, and you might even have leftover chicken.

After making, eating, and cleaning my chicken, I put the carcass in the fridge overnight (and also pulled out my previously frozen chicken bones to thaw… the more bones the merrier!) The following afternoon I pulled out everything I wanted to go in the stock. Within 10 minutes I had the bones covered with water, (adding a bit of vinegar to leech the nutrients from the bones, read more about that here), and on the stove coming to a boil. While the water was heating I chopped the fresh veggies and added them in.

20 minutes in and the house was already smelling fantastic (benefit #2!) I texted Jess, so excited by my progress. (Did I mention I was excited about making stock?) As it turns out, Jess allows her bones to stew in the water and vinegar for about an hour before adding in the veggies, but like I said… this is seriously hard to mess up unless, perhaps, you added motor oil or something like that. Almost immediately you will be skimming off what can only be described as scuzz or scum or frothy ickiness. I used a fine mesh strainer on top of my pot to keep the food submerged and allowed this scum to come through.

And then.. when you are done scum skimming and it is simmering nicely on low (mine was as low as my burner would go without being in the off position), you sit back, relax, rearrange your dining room, check on stock, make mayonnaise, get OCD with your pantry, add a couple of cups of hot water to stock… in other words, you wait… for hours… but that’s how we get to benefit no. 3.

Finally, after (approximately 8 ) hours of becoming bored doing things around my house, it is time to scoop out the “guts” of the broth. I used a wire mesh ladel kinda thing that I have no idea what it is actually used for but I use it for a slotted spoon, albeit a giant one the size of a saucer (and now I’ve discovered it works great for your chicken stock.) After scooping and straining and transferring the stock into a smaller pot, I had a rich looking stock that looked better than any store bought version I’ve ever had the chance to try… even the pricey ones at Whole Foods.

After an ice bath to cool it down, I stuck it in the fridge for the night. This is what I woke up to….

Yum …. The fat wasn’t as solid as I expected but it was definitely separated and I was able to spoon it off. In the end I had about 14 cups of stock, poured into various sized containers, and deposited into my freezer. Benefit Number Three… Homemade Stock, 100% Paleo

The Chicken Stock Round-Up
2 chicken carcasses (what I happened to have on hand)
4 carrots, peeled and cut in half
4 ribs celery (I used the center light green real leafy parts)
1 whole onion, quartered
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
fresh parsley
handful of peppercorns
bay leaves
enough water to cover the chicken plus two inches
1 T cider vinegar

There will be different people contributing to this blog and we all bring different points of view to the table, proving that Paleo is not a “one size fits all” diet, but rather a loose framework that is subject to your own personal interpretations.

On the left, we’ve linked to some of our favorite paleo blogs and resources.  We encourage you to read as much as you can and come here with any questions you might have!  Most of all, enjoy the journey!