Can you say Power Omelette?

Wanted something besides a salad based meal tonight so I turned to a breakfast favorite with a twist for supper.

Get a cast iron skillet heating.

Start with 3 eggs heavily seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne and Tabasco.

Dice up a good portion of Holmes Pork and Venison sausage and dump in the dry cast iron skillet with the vegetable medley from Sunday night on standby.

Get a good grill on the sausage then dump in the veggies to heat them up.

Once the sausage is cooked and the veggies are hot, reduce the heat and add the scrambled seasoned eggs.

Turn a couple of times and cover and cook on low heat till the eggs are done.

Plate and add fresh radishes and cilantro, grapes and strawberries!

Add a mixer of Body Fortress Fruit Punch Creatine Mix, Fresca and Red Wine...

And you've got a protein-packed, high volume, high energy, low fat, low calorie, beautiful body building meal with crazy good taste and texture....

And I made it in 10 minutes.

Beat that.

And the meals keep coming... WINNER WINNER CHICKEN LUNCH!

No rhyme but lots of reason and season!

First meal of the day...

Colorful and nutritious bed of spring mix, tomato, cilantro, radishes drizzled with olive oil and red balsamic vinegar and a dust of salt, pepper and cayenne and topped with a fruit layer of strawberries, banana, raspberries and grapes and a soft boiled egg on top.

And if that's not enough, let's do a fast cast iron skillet no oil added 1-1/2 mins per side grilling of a jalapeño seasoned thin cut chicken breast.

So what's that all look like?

And what's that all taste like?

Imagine sweet, salty, savory, moist with lots of textures perfectly seasoned - fresh and cooked....

Yep.... It tastes as good as it looks.

And here's the kicker -

IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!!!

Another WOD.... Another Monster Paleo Meal!!!

Spring mix bed with tomatoes, radishes, cilantro, squash, zucchini, poblano and jalapeño peppers, sweet onions and a blackened pork chop.

Decided that wasn't enough protein so added a patty of ground turkey breast mix

That's over 50 g of protein in 1 meal!

That'll rebuild the body.

Another WOD bites the dust!!

10th WOD at CrossFit!!

Yeah. That's right. I was 2nd to last and felt fortunate to finish. The Turkish Get-ups kicked my ass.

But I am getting lighter and leaner.

Hit a new low weight.

With a blown up back!!

Not bad for 51.

If You Are What You Eat.... Then I Am.....

Now let's break this food collage down a little bit and then add some detail - from left to right:

• Back Row is Oils and Vinegars, Spices, Creatine and Drinks
• Middle Row is Supplements and Proteins - There's a couple of meats missing from this pic which I'll fill in later.
• Front Row is Veggies, Fruit & Nuts and Coffee

Now for a little more detail:

• Back Row - from left to right - EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil), 2 types of Balsamic Vinegar, Salt, Black Pepper, Cayenne Pepper, Body Fortress Fruit Punch flavored Creatine (available for cheap at Walmart), Fresca, 2 types of HEB Cul-de-Sac Red Wines (Sangria and Cabernet) $3.34 / bottle and tastes great!

• Supplements: Ultra Man Sport Multivitamin / Multimineral (sold at Vitamin World at Brazos Mall), Osteo Bi-Flex (Walmart), Fish Oil (this one's from Kroger but I usually buy the Walmart brand), Magnesium (all the rest of these are from Walmart)...

• More Supplements: L-Argisine, L-Glutamine, L-Lysine - 3 essential Amino Acids that facilitate better cardiovascular health and muscle recovery, regeneration and strengthening.

• Drinks - Body Fortress Fruit Punch flavored Creatine (top right in pic above; barely shown to left in pic below), Fresca (Yes - I know it's a soft drink but I drink it sparingly as a mixer with my Creatine drink), HEB Cul-de-sac Cabernet and Sangria red wines

• Protein 1 - Cage Free Brown Eggs - 90% of the time, I soft boil my eggs for 4 minutes in salted water.

•  Protein 2 - Pre Seasoned Boneless Pork Ribeye Chops - depending on thickness (some are as thick as 1"; some as thin as 1/2" - cooking time is 2-1/2 - 5 minutes per side in a hot cast iron skillet with 3 - 5 minutes of rest time to follow.

•  Protein 3: Pre-seasoned Thin Cut Chicken Breast (There's 3 varieties of seasoning - Lemon Pepper, Adobo and Jalapeno) depending on thickness, it's 1 - 2 minutes per side in a hot cast iron skillet so quick and easy.

•  Protein 4: Holmes Pork and Venison Sausage (not shown in overall pic) - Dice in 1/2" cubes and saute in a hot cast iron skillet for 3 - 5 minutes.

•  Protein 4: Holmes Pork and Venison Sausage - this is the leanest commercially produced link sausage I can find w/ a 2 oz serving at 110 calories with only 40 calories of fat and 15 g of protein..

• Protein 5:  Jennie-O Ground Turkey Breast 99% lean - one of the leanest proteins I have found with only 120 calories per 4 oz serving with 26 grams of protein - 
• http://www.jennieo.com/products/3-Extra-Lean-Ground-Turkey-Breast

• Protein 5:  Jennie-O Ground Turkey Breast - this stuff has only 1% fat so you have to do something to moisten it and add flavor without adding calories so I make a "meat loaf" type mix as follows:

1. Season the ground turkey breast liberally with salt, pepper and cayenne.
2. Make a wet mix of 1 egg, several glug glugs each of mustard, Kikkoman Soy Sauce, Worcetshire Sauce, Tabasco sauce and add to mix
3. Fine dice (1/4")  1/2 a sweet onion, 1 Poblano Pepper, 1 Jalapeno Pepper and mince 2 cloves of garlic and add to mix and you get what you see below.
4. A 1/2" thick patty of this mix will cook real fast - like 1 - 2 minutes per side in a hot cast iron skillet.

• Veggies galore - Zucchini, Squash, Cilantro, Tomatoes, Sweet Onions, Radishes, Spring Mix salad, Mustard Greens (I try to mix in a new veggie every week - last week it was Asparagus), Poblano Pepper, Red Bell Pepper, Jalapeno Pepper

•  Fruits & Nuts - Strawberries, Nut / Fruit Mix, Red Grapes, Apples, Blackberries, Bananas, Mangos, Raspberries

• And finally- the most important Food Element of all - COFFEE!!!! - I do add a teaspoon of brown sugar and a little CreamMate (not shown) to every cup of coffee I drink - which is about 3 - 5 cups per day depending on how much I slept the night before and how much work I have to do!  My favorite is still Millstone Foglifter.

So that's about it... that's my Food World... and it's who I am.... because I want to be the best I can be and this food helps me do it.

A few related thoughts:

This is basically the Paleo (Caveman) diet. For more information on the Paleolithic diet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

Several people have told me they just don't have time to cook and prepare healthy food and let's face it - we all have busy lives.

That's one of the reasons several of the proteins - meats shown above are pre-seasoned or something you can throw in a hot skillet and have ready in 2 - 4 minutes.  90% of my meals are in the plate ready to eat in less than 10 minutes..... it's like anything else -  you have to practice at it and make it a priority - but it can be done.

Another thing is cook a large batch of vegetables or meat ahead of time if you know you're gonna be really busy for the next couple of days and prepackage properly portioned meals - see my prior post on what I did earlier this evening.

Another concern is that this fresh Paleo diet food will cost a lot more.  I haven't found that to be true - in fact it's the opposite based on the data I have.  I've tracked my grocery expenses for the last 2 years and have found that buying the items listed above is about 20% cheaper than buying a typical non-Paleo carb-ridden, junk food heavy menu.  So there's that.

Anyway  - several people have asked me what I eat and that about sums it up.

Give it a try and see if it works for you.

What is your addiction?

She's like cocaine, heroin, alcohol, vicadin.
She's my addiction. (my addiction)

Many people are addicted to food....

Which is not so bad IF -

You're addicted to the RIGHT FOOD!!!!

Is that possible??

Absolutely.... But...

Just like any drug addiction, if your body is hooked on processed food, sweets, soft drinks, fruit drinks, dairy, rice, potatoes, bread, pasta....

All those things that make your blood sugar and insulin go haywire, your body is gonna fight you when you start taking it away.

Yes - you will go through withdrawal symptoms - headaches, irritability, nervousness, lethargy, insomnia....

But the good news is it will usually only last a few days, while in the meantime, you can be reprogramming your mind and your body for a new food addiction....

A good food addiction!!

Fresh vegetables simply prepared, fresh fruit, nuts and seeds, eggs and lean meat.

And as you eat more of these good foods, your body will crave the vitamins and nutrients they provide, you will feel better, think better, sleep better, have more energy to work out, work out harder which will make your body want more good food which will make you feel better.....

See where this is going?

A vicious cycle of Health and Lifestyle Improvement.

Now that's an addiction we should all have.

Cooking for the future...

The long term future - my health....

And the next couple of days!!!

So let's get at it.

I like to change up my veggies weekly based on the School of What's Happening Now, i.e. what's fresh and available...

And being a Southern Boy I grew up on fresh greens so when I saw them at HEB, I latched onto a bunch of mustard greens.

So let's get these dark green beauties chopped up and seasoned...

And in a hot cast iron pot!

I don't like to cook'em to death so roll 'em a couple of times, cook for 10, add some balsamic vinegar and call it good.

On to round 2....

More veggies - YAY!!

Cut up the "hard" veggies - onions and peppers, season with S&P

And into the cast iron pot for 5 and then repeat with the zucchini and squash so you get to here after about 10 mins

Beautiful!!

Round 3 - MEAT!!!

Dice up some Holmes Pork and Venison Sausage

Throw that in a cast iron skillet and put a half a dozen eggs on to boil in slightly salted water.

Get a good crust on the sausage, put 4 mins on the eggs once the water starts boiling and add some ground turkey breast mix to the skillet.

Flip the turkey and grill till done, dump the eggs at the 4 minute mark for soft boiled - 5 for hard boiled and let's put this meal together

Add some fresh cilantro and radishes for a little pizazz and some red grapes for sweetness and top it with that hot, soft boiled egg and feast your eyes upon a beauty of a meal from every angle.

And I got veggies and eggs enough for at least 3 more meals.

A little planning and work on Sunday evening will set you up for a good start on a week of sticking to your diet and nutrition plan.

Here's to you and a healthy, strong and ripped future!!

"The Feel" performing on the Corner at the WurstHaus in Lake Jackson Tx - Friday 05/02/14

In an earlier post, I referenced listening to a guitar player performing at a local restaurant that brought back the memories of times when music was more about incredible performances by musically talented people that had spent the 10000+ hours of deliberate practice to get where they are.

Here are YouTube links to some short video clips of this guy's guitar playing..... I hope you appreciate him as much as I did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhGRP-IRXaw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYxpIZ9dXjs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPmhJTESxpQ

Unseasonably Cool Temps and Low Humidity on the Texas Gulf Coast

This has been a beautiful spring. Unseasonably cool. Very atypical. In fact, if the last 10 winters and springs were like this last one, I wouldn't leave but this is a fluke....

A fluke I am enjoying immensely.

The Eagle has landed!

On Surfside Beach!!!

She ain't pretty but she's mine!!