A 'Pink Slime' Taste Test

I think we've talked about the mysterious pink slime that's added to cheap ground beef. It's normally inedible fatty bits found near the hide that are spun in a centrifuge to separate out the lean protein. Then it's sprayed with ammonia to kill bacteria (because it probably comes into contact with the dirty hide). Then they can put that in your ground beef as a filler and not tell you because technically it's all beef. Yum, right?!

I had a big weird conversation with my butcher this morning. He assures me that he grinds up chuck roasts to make ground chuck, sirloin to make ground sirloin, etc. The fresh ground beef behind the counter is high quality, nothing funky going on, and the prices reflect it. The prices of the grass fed and organic beef really reflect it. However if you buy generic "ground beef" you're living on the edge, or at least living on bland tasting burger. 

This fearless man conducted a pink slime taste test. Blah! 

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/pink-slime-taste-test/

I agree about the juice thing. I cooked 4 grass fed burgers today and at one point was trying to figure out how to pour some of the liquid off of them because it was getting ridiculous. Real beef is super juicy.

Do you eat ground beef? Do you eat whatever or are you kind of a freak about getting the best? I'm a freak unless I'm in a fast food restaurant. At that point, you're already taking your life into your hands, so why not just go for it. :-)

Back to Strength Training

I'm working out again! Yay! Today I started the System Six 20-rep endurance phase. After a week off I was concerned that jumping back into this might be too much, that I wouldn't be able to do pull-ups any more, and that my shoulder would hurt. Not a problem! I did a dynamic warm up with lots of shoulder mobility stuff and then:

Pull-ups, 10-20 reps

Kettlebell swings, 10-20 reps

Bulgarian split squats, 10-20 reps

Push-ups, 10-20 reps

Repeat twice

I did 20 of everything because that's how I roll. :-D I got one pull-up from a dead hang on each set and then knocked out the other 19 by doing a mix of partials, negatives, and assisted. I used my 26lb kettlebell for the swings. The split squats were body weight and my quads turned into flaming Jell-O. I guess I haven't done those in a while, or not that many reps. I normally do tricky pull-up variations but I kept it simple today and just knocked them out. That was the only exercise I felt in my shoulder but it didn't hurt, it was just tight.

I'm back!

Now, I've injured the dog though. :-( We walked over half a mile at a good clip yesterday morning and when she got up from her nap she was limping again. It seemed to go away as she moved around though. Last night she was weight bearing, playful, and happy as ever. Today it's not noticeable but I'll give her a few easy days before we start increasing distance again. She's now at 6 months from her CCL rupture and it's a 6-12 month healing process. So, she's right at that "I feel great but I'm not to be trusted" stage. We're both dying to go for miles. Maybe by summer.

Rest Days 5, 6, and 7

Rest Day 5 - Nothing to see here. :-) I'm having a very fine rest day. I walked the dog .37 miles this morning in 11 minutes and 20 seconds. That's the farthest she's been since her knee rehab started. She pranced the whole way, which was pretty cute. This would normally be a cardio day for me but I'm good with slacking. My abs hurt from Pilates yesterday. I love that feeling!

Food is normal. Weight is normal. I'm mostly unaware of the shoulder. It feels a little stiff if I twist it around, otherwise no pain. I'm thinking this resting thing was pretty clever. 

Rest Day 6 - Today is the day I walk the dog, pay the bills, go to the grocery store, the bank, the gas station, the car wash, the Pet Smart, the drugstore, and run all random errands. Then when I get home from the store, I do all of my food prep for the week like making a giant salad, making 5 little bags of vegetables for my work lunches, cooking 4 turkey burgers, and putting frozen cherries in individual containers to thaw for breakfasts. I do all of this before work. So, it doesn't really feel like a rest day. I run my ass off. Whew!

Rest Day 7 - I walked the dog this morning and I have a long work day ahead, so no stress about not working out. Anyway, I'm done now! This is the last rest day. Tomorrow I'll do some cardio or Pilates and Monday it's back to strength training. The only question is what kind of strength training. I was going to start the System Six 20-rep endurance phase but now I'm a little concerned about jumping right back in to high-rep military presses, push-ups, and pull-ups with the shoulder. I guess I'll try day one and see if it bothers me. If it does, I may switch to Valerie Waters workouts for a week or two because they're very leg and ab intensive and would give the shoulder more of a break. We'll see. It may be fine. I slept on the injured side last night and didn't wake up screaming, so that's good.

My food has been the same as always this week. My weight has too. I'm 5'8" (unless I shrank from not working out). I started the week weighing 137.2 and ended at 135.6, so that's a loss of 1.6 pounds. It's normal for my weight to bounce around in that range, so nothing radical happened.

 

Rest Day 4

Rest Day 4 - Pilates happens. I had to move, breathe, stretch, and flex a little bit for mood-boosting purposes. I don't feel like myself if I don't move at all. Walking the dog every day in the fresh air and sunshine would normally be enough, but right now the walks are too short to deliver the full effect. I did an hour of Pilates mat work. My favorite DVD is Pilates for Beginners with Kristin McGee. It's slow, precise, and nicely cued, plus she's a great instructor. I sat out the push-up part. Well, technically, I did one, felt it in my shoulder, and thought, oh yeah, duh...

It's the day after Pizza Day and my weight is either the same or down .2 pounds depending on how I stand on the scale. That always amazes me. I remember when I used to have shockingly huge water fluctuations of 5-6 pounds or more. Like after a Body for Life free day, remember that horror? That happened whenever I would go on some squeaky clean, low-sodium, and low-carb, pre-contest, lunatic diet. If would so much as eat a cracker I'd turn into a water balloon overnight. HATED THAT! The solution of course is to eat dirty. :-) If I don't walk around in some fake, temporary, depleted, dieter state, my weight won't do anything crazy. It was Leigh Peele's "get lean enough to like yourself bloated" comment that made me see the insanity of a false lean. Any diet kickstart, induction, rapid weight loss, whooshing phase is bad news. If you're lean because you've flushed all the water, glycogen, and salt out of your system, well, hello, the fat is still there and the water will be right back. It's a lot of drama for nothing.

Rest Day 3

Rest Day 3 - Gooooood morning!!!! I am in a crazily good mood today because it's my weekend and it's PIZZA DAY. Tuesday is always a rest day so it feels completely normal to be a slacker. I walked Ripley barely a block, took a shower, and now I'm preheating the oven. I generally have pizza and ice cream for breakfast on Tuesday while watching some fine reality television. Today will be the Dog Whisperer episode with that dog who is obsessed with pinecones.

My pizza today will be a Palermo's Primo Thin Margherita (780 calories) and a pint of chocolate peanut butter Haagen-Dazs (1190 calories), for a delicious 1970 calorie meal. I'll wait 10-12 hours and then I'll have dinner with my husband. Tonight it will likely be a salad, 2 tacos, and 2 Joe-Joes cookies. That's a completely normal Tuesday for me. I know I can do it and not gain weight because every week I do it and don't gain weight. So, that's how I know. :-)

Based on the last year or two of tinkering with my eating, I'm sure that the way I eat all the time is exactly what I need to maintain my weight or gradually get a little leaner, without any exercise. When I add exercise, that just means I get to be even more flexible and have even bigger portions, or I suppose lose more fat if I weren't inclined to eat up the difference. I think John Barban's Anything Goes Diet took that to the extreme with the idea that you should eat around your BMR for fat loss and let all daily activity be bonus. I don't think food intake needs to be quite that low every day (unless you're trying to win a bikini contest), but you definitely don't want to get into a situation where you have to exercise, maybe excessively, in order to maintain weight. That points to a food problem. Addressing the food is a lot easier (for me) than fear-based calorie burning. Although I may have some big eating on my weekends (NOT overeating or out of control eating), my weekdays are pretty light and tight. Happily! I love my weekday food and I know those days are what keep me lean. 

Last night I was extra careful not to roll over and sleep on my bad shoulder. It totally worked because the shoulder only felt a little stiff this morning, not like someone had stuck a flaming steak knife in it.

Taking a Week Off Exercise

This is a discussion from my Happy Eaters site, but it reminded me of when I used to blog about my life and my workouts and stuff, so I'm posting it here too. 

 

I have a twinge in my right shoulder. I like to think that it's the result of weeks of heavy military presses, but I have a sneaking suspicion I did it lying in bed pulling on the comforters at a weird angle (the dreaded loaded external rotation). I can't bring myself to say I hurt myself making the bed though. It was the heavy military presses, yeah, that's it! 

Anyway, shoulders are not to be trifled with. A little twinge turns into a nagging pain, turns into a screaming impingement, turns into surgery before you can say, ow. So, I'm going to do the prudent thing and give it a break for a week before I make anymore beds or press anymore kettlebells. 

I'm excited about this! Both because I feel like I actually need a break (my left foot has been a little tricky lately too) and because I always lose weight when I stop exercising. Always. I think it must be a muscle pump, glycogen, appetite thing. Plus, whenever I've managed to take some time off, I always come back rested and strong with newfound enthusiasm. A week from tomorrow I'll start a System Six 20 rep endurance phase with much lighter weights than I've been using, assuming I feel nothing twingy in my shoulder. I'll still walk the dog every day but that's about it. 

- Do you willingly take a break from exercising once in a while? Or does it have to be forced?

- Does it feel good to take a break or does it make you panicky? 

- If you panic, what are you afraid of?

- Have your feelings about "time off" changed over the years?

I used to be a total lunatic, gobbling pain killers and training with broken bones. I honestly don't know what I was so afraid of or trying to prove. I just would not could not quit, even though I could tell other people to do it and list all the benefits! I could even use myself as a cautionary tale. I think what cured me is breaking my leg, tearing my ACL, and not being able to walk for 8 weeks. Nothing bad happened! I didn't gain weight, my muscle came right back. It was totally fine.

I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on taking time off.

 

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Rest Day 1- I'm down a pound and a half (for mysterious reasons I can never understand), feeling good, eating cookies. Trader Joe's Pinachios are like crack. I've been having 5-6 per day, every day. I should probably knock it off but you would not want to try to take the container from me right now. MINE!!! They're MINE!!!

My shoulder feels better already. I experienced a minor twinge all day yesterday. Today I don't feel it at all unless I move it the wrong way. This is the kind of niggling little injury that I previously would have ignored and made worse until they had to amputate my arm or something. 

I'm geeked about my rest week and know it's the right thing to do. Although the devil on my left shoulder just said, "See, it's better. You can lift tomorrow." I fed him a cookie. :-)

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Rest day 2 - I woke up this morning and my shoulder felt like it was on fire. It really hurt, which terrified me, but I think maybe I just slept on it wrong because it feels ok now. The pain was a good little reality check though. It removed any temptation to lift heavy things today. I walked the dog. Picture the scene. Both of us injured and wearing matching hot pink workout gear, she in her hot pink no-pull harness and me in my hot pink and black Nike Free shoes and running tights. We look like we're ready for business, but we stroll along at 1.89 MPH, for exactly .15 miles, and then we have to turn around because .30 miles is her safety zone. That gets us a little over a block down the street and back. LOL I use a GPS so I don't accidentally take her too far. What a dork fest. 

Normally, I workout right after the walk so I felt a little displaced today. I decided that I would spend some time on the internets and then watch The Walking Dead before lunch. I used to watch it during lunch but I was eating the day the bloated water zombie broke in half and his intestines sprang out. That pretty much cured me of eating during zombie shows. 

Speaking of eating, my weight is the same today, which is good because I kept going on the white chocolate pistachio butter cookies yesterday. They're gone now. They're in ma bellllay! Not a problem because I am a master of dietary displacement. If I want a bunch of cookies, I'll cut back on real food to make it happen. I sacrificed 2 eggs, a tablespoon of peanut butter, a piece of cheese, and 2 dark chocolate squares for a few more cookies. I imagine that if I did that every day, I wouldn't look or feel very good, but once in awhile when I need sugar, that's how I do it. All the treats, no overeats. 

 

I See Skinny People

Yes, I'm still reading "skinny girl" fluff. Is She Naturally Thin or Disciplined? profiles 101 fit women of all ages. It includes a color photo, height, weight, age, clothing size, and details about what they do to stay fit. Spoiler alert: they're all disciplined. As the author points out, "Maintaining one's weight is very similar to money management--building wealth does not happen by accident, and people who are 'born rich' will become poor if they are careless."

This book was actually mind-numbingly boring because they all do the same thing. They exercise regularly, eat real food, control portions, avoid processed food, fast food, sugar, white flour, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and industrial oils. Most of them eat 5-6 meals per day but they don't know why. One woman said, "To keep my body from storing fat cells, I eat every two and a half hours." That made me LOL. There were a few amusing anecdotes. One woman tries on her prom dress every 3 months to make sure it still fits. A model points out that measurements are everything, a low number on the scale doesn't necessarily eliminate bulges. Another woman, struggling with weight gain for the first time in her life, came to the horrifying realization that her daily Starbucks "snack" was over 900 calories.

There were a couple of vegans and at least one paleo person, but the profiles are almost indistinguishable. The author seems to have weeded out or gently modified the words of any meal-skippers or non-snackers to support her "lots of small meals" belief. Certainly that approach can work but nobody questions it. The book would have been more interesting if she'd included some rebels and outliers instead of only those who read Shape and Oxygen.

I liked the photos and stats. I loved that it included women in their 50s and 60s. I didn't like that all the profiles blurred into one generic narrative. However, maybe that's because what it takes to be lean and fit is pretty universal--exercise, real food, and portion control.

Be warned that if you're getting the Kindle version (which was only $1.99!!!), the 101 color photographs make this an enormous freaking file. I had to jump on WiFi and it still took quite a few minutes to download. It's not the normal zippy-zip and have your new book in a couple of seconds experience. Also, there are some comically bad typos. Like mixing up "fat" and "flat." One of the women says, "I like a fat stomach so I avoid wheat." I don't think that's what she meant. The Kindle version could have used some proofreading. 

This book has some real flaws but if you're a sucker for photos, stats, and success stories (as I am), it's still moderately entertaining in a fluffy sort of way. It's also mega-reinforcement that there are no shortcuts. Whether these women claim they are naturally thin or working really hard, they're all engaged in the same behaviors with the same level of discipline. Nobody is lounging around eating junk food, not exercising, and somehow still a size 2. So, it's a bit of a motivating reality check.

The Secrets of Skinny Chicks
Here's another fascinating book that Amazon recommended for me, The Secrets of Skinny Chicks by Karen Bridson. Sometimes I find it hilariously perfect that all of my recommendations are like kettlebells, chocolate chips, and books about weight. A couple of months ago, my main page was filled with suggestions for cardio DVDs and ice cream machines. Do they know me or what?! :-D

I have mixed feelings about this one because it goes back and forth between brilliant examples of naturally thin  happy-eatering, and straight up diet ninny lore. Here is the premise. The author, a personal trainer and health journalist, interviews 21 thin women, not naturally thin women, but women who work at it. In most cases, they need to stay lean professionally - athletes, runway models, actresses, fitness competitors, dancers, showgirls, and body doubles. For each of the 21 women, she lists:

- a full sample day of food with calorie totals

- an overview of their weekly exercise routine with calorie expenditures

- their height, weight, body fat percentage, BMI, measurements, and clothing size

- an interview about their food and workout philosophy

- an evaluation of their approach by a Ph.D from a health and weight loss research center, a personal trainer, and a dietitian

(At this point in the description, I'm buying the book. I don't even care what the rest of it is, I just want to know what body doubles eat and how big they are!)

So, that's the first part of the book. Throughout these interviews she highlights "Skinny Secrets" that the women use, such as - lift weights, stop dieting, work in the yummy stuff, get a portion size wake-up call, learn what your metabolic rate will allow. The second part of the book explains each one of these 50 secrets in more detail and then gives you suggestions and examples for making them happen in your own life. The third part is an action plan that I haven't even looked at yet.

All of this sounds good right? But just because you're thin doesn't mean you have any clue what you're doing! One of the models had a granola bar and a Dr Pepper for breakfast every morning. One didn't drink any water, only tea and Gatorade. One spent 40 minutes a day, 7 days per week on the elliptical trainer. The author talked about running 10 miles on Christmas Eve and another 10 on Christmas Day as a preemptive measure?!?!? Or calculating how many minutes of cardio you would have to do to burn off various foods. In the part about lifting weights, she suggests you start by putting 2, 5, and 10 pound "hand weights" near the television. She didn't even use the word dumbbells.

I'm sure some of my facial expressions as I read were fascinating. I'd be nodding in agreement one minute and rolling my eyeballs all the way out of my head the next. However, I still recommend this book because it is fascinating, I mean, FASCINATING! If you're carrying any delusions about what it takes to be a size 2 swimsuit model - how little you have to eat and how much you have to move - this book will cure you of your delusions. Most of these women eat between 1200 and 1600 calories per day and exercise as much as 2-3 hours per day 6-7 days per week. Not all of them. Some exercise much less and eat 2,000+ calories. Some of the women who exercise the most actually do eat the cookies in the break room at work every day, drink sugared soda, and eat bread with dinner. They're all different and they're all human with cravings that must be satisfied. What they have in common is the consistency. Nobody diets in the sense that they do something crazy for a few weeks and then go "back to normal." What they do every day IS normal. They all talk about how you can be dedicated and work hard, but it has to be in a way that you genuinely enjoy and can live with. You need your treats, your favorite foods, your holiday meals, your restaurant outings. They all have various ways of accomplishing that.

The Secrets of Skinny Chicks is an incredibly interesting book. You just have to read it with your brain on, collect all the ideas that resonate with you, and disregard everything that seems cuckoo. The reviews on Amazon seem to be split between 5 stars from people who loved the skinny chick interviews and got something out of it they could use, and 1 stars from the sour grapes crowd who aren't interested in eating that little or moving that much. I don't think blindly imitating a runway model's routine was the point though. It was more like, what could I learn from the way she does things and how could I apply it to my own situation and goals?

Once again, I am hopping up and down waiting for someone else to read this and comment. Let me know what you think!

Romanticizing Food

I've been reading a book called Skinny Thinking: Five Revolutionary Steps to Heal Your Relationship with Food, Weight, and Your Body by Laura Katleman-Prue. There is a section in the book called Letting Go of Romanticizing Food. This part really stood out:

"Part of our healing requires us to stop glamorizing food by withdrawing some of our false projections onto it and false meanings we've given to it. A balanced relationship with food would be more like your own relationship with toilet paper. Okay, I admit this is a crude analogy, but with both food and toilet paper, quality is important. They both fill a need (when you need it, you need it!), the experience of using them is quick, and most importantly, there's no need to think about them when you're not using them. It's not like you're going to create an overblown fantasy anticipating the velvety softness of two-ply Cottonelle!"

What do you think of that? I agree that food problems often spring from romanticizing it. It's great to enjoy good food when you're hungry and it's time to eat. It's probably not great to fantasize about food constantly. When you turn it into your friend, your enemy, your comfort, your partner in crime, your Friday night, your emotional boost, the highlight of your week, that's when the relationship starts getting dysfunctional. Actually, just entertaining the idea that you have a "relationship" with food is probably dysfunctional, but a lot of us have treated it that way. You turn to it in hard times. You sneak and "cheat" to spend time with it. You feel guilty afterward. You break up. "Never again," you say and you kick the cookies to the curb. But then next thing you know, you're back together! And it's a blissful reunion, perhaps because it's forbidden. LOL

I mean, wow! That's a role that food was never meant to play. Imagine projecting all of that importance onto any other inanimate object? It's weird, right?!  Like that woman on TLC's "My Strange Addiction" with the Teddy bear babies. :-) Thinking about a random object in such an overblown, almost romantic way, giving it that much significance, can only cause problems and suffering.

I know that food is more than food. It has cultural and social significance. I don't think it has to be completely utilitarian, like toilet paper. But I think it's really important to keep it in context. There's a time and a place to celebrate with food. If it's not that time or place, your mind should be elsewhere. I guess that's sort of what I've done with creating a routine with my meals and a schedule for certain treats. When it's time to eat pizza and ice cream, I totally enjoy the experience. When it's not time, I don't even think about it. That has been insanely freeing. I used to battle every day with food decisions, temptation, excitement, guilt, anticipation, remorse, vows to change,  all these strong emotions that shouldn't have a single thing to do with lunch.

It's much easier when everything has a time and a place, "I'll eat that on Tuesday." Or, "I'll have two bites." Then my thoughts are onto something else. I don't like to spend all day every day dwelling on what I will or won't eat. I've put food back into a proper context. Only, I hadn't realized I'd done that until I read the toilet paper analogy.

What do you think? Have there been times in your life when you've romanticized food? Do you still do it? Do you think you could or should stop? If  you have stopped, how? 

I also have a sneaking suspicion that processed, engineered, highly-palatable, "too-good" junk/snack/fast/convenience/restaurant foods have played a part in people's brains forming inappropriate romantic relationships with fatty, crispy, sugar-coated type things. The more I've reduced my consumption of those, the saner the whole thing has become!

This is one of my recent posts from Happy Eaters. If you haven't been over there lately, check it out! That's where I am these days. 

Daily Weighing...Or Not

Here is one of my recent posts from Happy Eaters. If you haven't been over there lately, check it out! That's where I am these days.

 

Ok, so you know those words I said about how I was only going to weigh myself once a week? Those were silly words.

I made it 5 days and I've weighed myself 3 times since. Here's the deal. (I'm sure you can hardly wait for this logic.) Until I stopped doing it, I hadn't realized how much I was using my daily weigh-in to determine what and how much to eat. And it wasn't the weight I was looking at necessarily. That little ritual of shedding my layers of winter clothes, seeing my condition in the mirror, and stepping up for weight, body fat, and hydration readings gave me all kinds of information to work with. If I were: 

bloated - more protein and plants

dehydrated - more water

muscles flat - more carbs

abs gone - less carbs

light and lean - more food

heavy and fluffy - less food

Trying to be a carefree "I don't weigh myself" person blew up my finely tuned feedback loop...that I didn't know existed. It's not so much about the scale weight. It's about looking at myself and the data and saying - I need crackers today, or I need salt, or noooo more salt, or lowish carb, or a bigger lunch, or no lunch, or definitely a steak tonight. Those little adjustments each day keep me looking and feeling great. There can be zero denial going on, but if I hid in my baggy sweats and avoided the scale all week, I might be in for a surprise or have something that actually needed fixing. 

Do you know what I'm saying? Am I nuts? No, don't answer. LOL

Anyway, so here is my latest thought. There are certain days when it's ridiculous to weigh myself. On my weekends it's not like I'm going to consider weight, sodium and hydration and say, "No, I'm sorry, I can't go to the Italian buffet tonight." I may be a little weird but I'm not an alien life form. I need bread. But there's no real reason to weigh myself on my weekend, or the day after. So, perhaps I will go from mirror / weight / body fat / hydration check-ins 7 days per week to 4. We'll see. Maybe.

Love, 

The Crazy Person