chris lee

thoughts...

tweet me

@chrislee

All Pork Rinds Are NOT Created Equal

By Leave a Comment

pork-rindSo I’m not in a position yet to tell you who has the best pork rinds out there. That’s not what I’m saying. So far I have tried Baken-Ets & Mission brands.

Not much noticeable difference.

What I will say though is that within a bag of pork rinds, there are better pork rinds and worse pork rinds.

Why Rind?

First of all, I haven’t been on the pork rinds for many, many years.

I recently read Gary Taubes’ book Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It and it made enough sense to me to give some of his dietary recommendations a try. Now it isn’t a diet book, it’s a scientific book on why carbohydrates make us fat (along with many other points). It does touch on some dietary guidelines though.

So I’ve gone no/low carb as an experiment for a while.

It’s about a week since I started & I’m down 7+ pounds already.

I believe most of this is water so I’m not claiming success or anything yet. In the beginning, I know I’m using up the glycogen stored in my muscles. Glycogen is glucose and a bunch of water. As the glycogen is used, all of the associated water molecules get released and excreted. So that’s why everybody experiences a huge weight loss in the first week or so.

I’ll get into what I’ve actually been eating another day.

NEED PORK RINDS!

But I HAVE been eating pork rinds.

For me, one of the things I need is texture.

Pre-this diet, I’d often find myself in the cupboard looking for crackers or chips or pretzels. Something with some crunch. I think I need that.

It got particularly hard for me on the 2nd day of this program when I was at my sisters for my nephew’s birthday party. There was all kinds of great food around: crackers & amazing cheeses, chips & homemade salsas & homemade guacamoles, vegetables with hummus, etc. Anyway, seeing all that for hours on end started freaking me out. I needed something with crunch!

So I ran to the store & picked up a bunch of pork rinds & some deli ham. Those together killed my cravings & I was ok.

Since then, I’ve eaten pork rinds pretty much every day. They’re zero carb so that’s what counts.

Good Pork Rinds, Bad Pork Rinds

Well back to my original point. There are good pork rinds and there are bad pork rinds.

Or maybe I should say there are good pork rinds and better pork rinds.

Now I’m good with your standard puffy, light, crispy pork rind but the great pork rinds are those dense, super crunchy, hiding in the bottom of the bag pork rinds.

THAT’S WHAT I WANT!

My guess is that it might not be possible to make all pork rinds that way & the differences are just a byproduct of the cooking process but wouldn’t it be amazing if someone could release a version of only the dense, super crunchy, super crispy pork rinds?

Maybe there’s my million dollar idea.

The King of Pork Rinds! (I could live with that.)

Image credit: Giant Pork Rind by Marlana Shipley on flickr

Butter In My Coffee

By Leave a Comment

bulletproof-coffeeYes Butter!

My sister recently posted a link to Bulletproof Coffee on my Facebook wall.

We’d been talking about diet recently & she and my brother-in-law were embarking upon a new eating regimen similar to Paleo. As part of their plan, mention was made of Bulletproof Cofee.

So What Is It?

It’s basically coffee with butter and some MCT (medium chain triglycerides) or coconut oil.

It actually tastes pretty dang good. It is very creamy, quite satisfying cup of coffee.

When I tried it (and I’ve had it every day since), I felt full, enjoyed the taste and was very alert throughout the day. I didn’t have my typical sugar cravings early afternoon (where I’d been grabbing a blue Monster and a Score bar regularly).

The recipe is created by Dave Asprey, a biohacker who blogs as the Bulletproof Executive. He came up with the idea when he was given a creamy cup of yak butter tea at 18,000 feet near Mt. Kailash in Tibet. It completely rejuvenated him and he had to know more.

Why Do It?

Bulletproof Coffee has a number of supposed benefits.

  • It gives you lots of energy
  • Provides your body with healthy fats for your cell walls and hormones.
  • Helps reset your body’s fat digestion systems and enables you to burn more fat.
  • Programs your body to burn fat for energy all day long!
  • Enhances your cognitive abilities.

Some Concerns About the Ingredients.

Coffee: The recommendation is to use organic, mold-free, preferably single origin coffee beans.

There supposedly are toxins in cheap coffee that can steal your mental edge and make you weak where clean coffee provides antioxidants and may fight cancer.

Cheap and old coffee are thought to be bad for you because they can harbor toxic molds. The molds that form when green coffee is stored are tied to cancer, heart disease, bad cholesterol, and hormone irregularities. Roasting kills the mold but doesn’t destroy the toxins already present.

As far as specific details:

  • Avoid decaf. Caffeine protects the beans from more mold decaffeination can introduce new organic toxins or contribute to mold.
  • Don’t use robusta (cheap, instant) beans. They are moldier and higher in caffeine (a defense against mold). Use arabica beans.
  • Look for coffee that is tested to be free of histamines and mold toxins (like Asprey’s Upgraded Coffee). Wet processed beans are also than naturally processed (where beans are dried in the sun giving them time to mold). Wet process coffee uses less time and rinses the beans, resulting in lower-toxin coffee.
  • Look for Central American varieties grown at high elevation. Mold is more scarce there.
  • Single origin is better than major brands. If it is sold by a national coffee house, its mixed with many other sources and it is more likely that toxic mold has made it into the coffee.
  • If you can’t find good beans, brew or order an Americano. Steam helps to break down the toxins.

If you are ordering beans, you can ask for “the most expensive Central American, wet-process (or washed) beans.”

So far, we’re not following this super religiously (just using single origin Nespresso pods primarily because they’re so convenient) but we might look into it later.

Butter: You also want to use  unsalted grass-fed butter.

It provides the benefits of healthy milk fat with none of the damaging denatured casein proteins found in cream. Corn or soy-fed cows don’t make butter with the same fats. Those butters don’t blend well, don’t taste good, and don’t make you feel as good. Grass-fed butter is much healthier than other butter. 

Kerrygold butter works great and is very tasty. We’re using lots of Kerrygold butter (salted for cooking & unsalted) now.

Bulletproof Coffee Recipe

  • Start with 4-500 ml (2 mugs) of black coffee brewed from the cleanest beans you can find.
  • Add 2 Tbs (or more, up to 80 grams, about 2/3 of a standard stick of butter) of Kerry Gold or other UNSALTED grass-fed butter
  • Add 2 Tbs (30 ml) of Upgraded MCT oil for max energy, weight loss and brain function (this is 6 times stronger than coconut oil, your next best choice)
  • Blend with a pre-heated hand blender, shake really hard in a flask, or (best) counter top blender until there is a creamy head of foam. (It doesn’t work well if you mix it with a spoon)

It’s very fast and easy to prepare.

If it is too rich at first, use less butter and build up to the amount you like.

Our Execution

lee-bulletproof-coffeeTakes us just a couple minutes. Our steps are:

  • Pull an espresso shot in the Nespresso luongo style (just a setting on the machine allowing you to send a bit more water through the coffee pod).
  • Drop in the Kerrygold butter and the coconut oil into one of the Magic Bullet mugs.
  • (Optional: add some Stevia, vanilla and/or cocoa powder – tried both of these but prefer without)
  • Add hot water to make an Americano.
  • Screw the blender top on to the mug, give it a whirl with the Magic Bullet & we’re done.

My sister had a great tip which we’re following now too. Put out your butter & MCT/coconut oil in the cup the night before so it’s soft & warm in the morning.

We are just starting with it but enjoy the taste and are quite optimistic. I’ll let you know more once we’re a bit further down the road with it.

Image credit: Bulletproof Coffee 7 by TheFoodJunk on flickr

Food Cravings In The Real World

By Leave a Comment

blue-monsterYou need a blue Monster.

Really? I need one?

Yeah…definitely…you need one… Jump in your car & head to Circle K & grab one for yourself. Yeah…

Who Runs This Show?

I’m working late & I have these thoughts creeping into my head.

I’m working late so I need some kind of energy drink, right?

I need something other than water. Something with taste, right?

Actually…I don’t.

I just think I do. It’s crazy. I’m realizing that so many of my cravings seem to come from patterns in my brain & have nothing to do with my physiology. It’s my weak ass brain…

When I really think about it & take stock of my body, it feels pretty good. It’s not craving anything. I’m not hungry. I’m not thirsty. I’m ok. I don’t need any sugar.

But my brain wants it…

Starting The Shift

The first couple days, I was in a pretty controlled environment so it seemed pretty easy.

I drank my Bulletproof Coffee. It kept me full. I enjoyed the taste and I didn’t crave much sugar.

I was at work where I often get sugar cravings in the afternoon & go grab a Score bar & a drink (previously blue Monster, then Hubert’s Lemonade when I was trying to go a bit less artificial and sometimes Gatorade). I didn’t get any when I started down this path.

I felt good – pretty easy.

That Little Voice Started Talking

But as I continued to go through normal life, it started to get a bit harder.

When we got to Saturday night, I started thinking I needed something sweet. My wife is a dessert freak (blessed with a wonderful metabolism) so we normally have dessert after dinner. We’re all conditioned to expect it. Doesn’t have to be big but just something sweet. Something.

So as it got later in the night, my brain started thinking of sweets. In hindsight, was my body really craving it? I’m thinking not. That brain…

I avoided but it was pulling at me pretty hard.

Party Time

And then on Sunday, we went over to my sister & brother-in-law’s for my nephew’s birthday party.

There was white rice (which I freaking love), corn on the cob with melted butter, cheese & crackers (some great cheeses), chips & salsa, chips & guacamole, veggies & hummus.

I wanted it all. Bad. I definitely got the snack cravings & started jonesing. I needed something.

So I ran out for some snacks of my own. Headed down to Bashas & grabbed some pork rinds & deli ham. Started slamming those & felt a bit better.

Later in the day, there was birthday cake, Blue Bonnet vanilla ice cream, homemade brownies and homemade chocolate chip cookies. Seeing those for an extended period of time started making me yearn.

I headed into my niece’s bedroom & laid down for a bit (was pretty wiped anyway). As I was thinking, I asked myself if I really needed the sugar. Really? And my answer was no. I started to ask if that sweet taste was really something that was objectively good and desired. And I came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t. There are lots of people that don’t like sweets. Did I really need it right then? Not really when I thought about it.

It’s more something that I’ve been conditioned to love. I was asking myself was I really missing out. I realized that my body wasn’t really craving sweets when I really listened to it. They are just something I’ve been conditioned to think I want.

Made it through somehow.

Round 2

lemon-meringue-pieSo then today we had a Labor Day BBQ at my mom’s boyfriend’s house. As we got ready to head over with my mother-in-law and stepdad-in-law, they came into the house first. I knew what my mother-in-law was bringing – 2 homemade epic lemon meringue pies. She’s a wonderful baker. Saw them at the house & they were beautiful. I of course knew how good they taste.

When we got there, I went in to see what food we had of course. There was a big BBQ turkey,  some deviled eggs, some vegetable plates with dip, potato salad, macaroni salad, corn on the cob with melted butter and sweets. Lots of sweets. More birthday cake, a whole bunch of cupcakes and of course those beautiful lemon meringue pies.

I held up and surprisingly it wasn’t too hard. I was in the other room for most of the time so I didn’t actually see the sweets the whole time like I did at my sister’s the day before.

Do We Really Need It?

So tonight as I’m sitting here thinking, I’m wondering if our bodies really crave stuff. Sweets? Salt?

I am pretty sure we do sometimes get cravings that are driven by our physiology but I think that a lot of the time, it’s just the patterns and associations in our mind that make us think we need something. For me, it is often the association that we have with certain food.

The more I’m thinking as I’m head down this road, I think it’s going to be primarily an effort in paradigm shifting. I bet there will be a lot of looking at my  patterns, acknowledging the emotional attachments I have to certain foods (many of them made from when I was a kid), and realizing the things I associate with certain foods.

It may really not be the foods themselves that much!

 

 

Phase 2

By Leave a Comment

Time to make another push.

Still down 30 lbs from a high of 230 but I’ve been stuck around 200 for too long.

I started trying to work myself into shape sometime in early 2011. I focused on my diet and went on a protein sparing modified fast.

In addition to that, I started running and training for a triathlon. I worked out most every lunch hour. Did a variety of running, weight lifting (basic compound movements), swimming and biking. I was able to finish my Olympic triathlon last September and was happy with it.

The past year since the triathlon.

Since then, my diet has been pretty good and I’ve kept up with workouts. I’ve done a lot of running and have improved at a very gradual rate. I’m still slow & still have a long way to go.

I’ve been stuck around 200 lbs for a while though. I haven’t been super strict with my diet but I was never too militant about it. That being said, I’m wishing to make some more significant progress.

Recent Synchronicities.

Funny enough, a bunch of events in my life have seemed to come together to get me to commit to a concerted effort.

  • I came across a book called Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It which looked interesting & started reading it.
  • My sister posted something on my Facebook wall about Bulletproof Coffee (basically coffee with butter in it).
  • My sister & brother-in-law just started bootcamp again & are embarking upon a Paleo diet.
  • A friend added me to a Facebook group focused on weight loss.

With all of these together, I was ready to commit to taking it to another level.

The book , Why We Get Fat, basically details scientific arguments that obesity is caused by the consumption of carbohydrates. Will talk more about that at some point.

And then my wife came back with a cup of Bulletproof Coffee from my sister one morning & I tried it & actually kind of liked it. A couple days later, we made it ourselves & for some reason (I’m guessing the fat content of the coffee), I didn’t feel the pull of my typical sugar cravings in the afternoon.

Finally finished the book & decided to give the no/low carb thing a try. My wife is on board so here we go.

Starting now!

Will let you know how it goes!

Image credit: Carol Vorderman’s Sudoku red number 2 by LEOL30 on flickr

Getting Fit – Diet

By 7 Comments

proteinPSMF: Protein Sparing Modified Fast

So I guess it’s called a Protein Sparing Modified Fast or even a Modified Protein Sparing Modified Fast….

I’m specifically following the program outlined by Lyle McDonald in his eBook, “The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook -A Scientific Approach to Crash Dieting”.

This guy is someone who has been involved with bodybuilding and training for a long time. I figure that the best way to learn or accomplish something is to go to the most extreme example out there regarding whatever it is. So here I am with a bodybuilding influenced program.

The philosophy behind PSMF is that  you go super low calorie to help you lose weight but you eat enough protein so your body doesn’t break down muscle and use that.

The basics of this specific program are:

  • Protein intake set depending on bodyfat percentage and activity
  • Basically unlimited amount of vegetables (a few are off limits)
  • Either fish oil capsules or 1 tbsp of flaxseed oil per day for EFAs
  • A basic multivitamin/mineral supplement. One or two other key supplements.
  • Planned diet breaks depending on activity and bodyfat percentage
  • Length of PSMF to be set depending on bodyfat percentage and activity level

The things I’ve implemented so far are the low, low calories via protein; omega 3s in the form of fish oil capsules & lots of water. I’ve got to phase more veggies in, get a multi-vitamin and figure out the program length & breaks.

For me, I think the toughest part is going to be mental.  I’ve just started & already I’m struggling.

I’ve identified a few major influences in my life that I haven’t payed much attention to.

  • My Facebook feed is definitely not good for dieting/nutrition. I have so many friends that are way into food that I see tons & tons of amazing looking food on my wall. Not helping.
  • Circle K. Circle K is right across the street from Gangplank and not until walking in there in this new mode did I realize how much influence it was exerting on me. I wasn’t really moderating myself prior to this and now, the pull of all the crap is undeniable. Donut gems, Doritos, Cheetos Crunchy, Reeses, Yoo Hoo, Coke, etc., etc.

I’m putting a few systems into place to help cope.

  • Having enough food to stay full definitely helps. Right now, I’m going with chicken breast. Basted with Cholula & lime on the BBQ. I’ve got enough of that to last me through the day. Eating as I need to stay full.
  • Need some variety. With just the chicken, my taste buds start to get antsy. Monster is a good help. Gives me a sweet hit with very low calories. I do the blue Monster for 20 cal a can. Also IsoPure is good, especially after a workout, as it’s a sweet drink that’s mainly protein with no carbs. I also went to the beef jerky today. Pretty low carbs and switched it up a bit. Might have to explore bringing vegetables later.
  • Drinking tons of water.  It’s part of the program but I need something to pour down the gullet.
  • Getting rid of the bad food. Heather made fingerlings the other night. I grabbed a bite of one. Had her & the kids finish the rest so it wouldn’t be tempting. Much better after that. Also did the same with the cookies on the counter. Packed in lunches got them off the counter. Needed to get rid of those. Things are definitely easier once the bad food isn’t staring you in the face.
  • Going to bed earlier. So I’ve only done this a time or two but it helped. In the past, Heather & I stayed up late & inevitably with the working & background crappy reality TV, I turned to snacks. Goody Twos toffee, Twoozles, chocolate, ice cream… Needed to stop that.  I can tell I have only a certain measure of discipline after I sit down on the couch at night. So I crank work for a while & then when ease off & feel the food urges coming, I set my sleep point. Must go down so I don’t eat.

So that’s what I’ve got so far. But at least things seem to be heading in the right direction.

Image credits: valley protein by Sidereal on flickr; steaks by shaynabright on flickr

also at…

Mastodon