Disaster Waiting to Happen

I am sorry that I have not posted in a while. I recently had a major change in that I changed companies and I have been adapting to my new position and company and getting everything figured out as far as my exercise schedule and all that jazz.

That above is what I was SUPPOSED to eat on Sunday. That is the wedding cake we froze for a year to celebrate our one year anniversary. It is a white cake with bavarian cream filling and fondit frosting. So pretty much it is sugar, filled with sugar and coated with sugar. Yuck. Anyways we just couldn’t eat it.

So in the trash it went and I whipped up this to substitute…

Much Better

It is my Gorilla Cake with a home made strawberry cream cheese frosting. It turned out delicious with no guilt, no sugar coma and no hospital visits!

All in all an excellent trade I would say.

The Whole Cake

Primal BBQ Sauce

My good buddy Roger De Rok and I were out doing arroyo sprints yesterday (sprints in a sandy arroyo.. they will WRECK you). It is about a 45 minute walk to and from the arroyo through the desert with the lizards and jackrabbits (100s of them)  and it makes for good talk time. Roger told me about a debate spurred recently on MDA about what the most primally acceptable BBQ sauce was.

Well it just so happens that I created a 100% primal and 100% delicious barbecue sauce last week when I made some BBQ brisket. I wanted to make bbq but I wanted it primal so I researched a bunch, made myself an expert on bbq sauce and adapted a primal recipe version. I decided to replicate the results for measurements so I could give the recipe to all of you. Here it is and wowzas is it good. I could (and did) eat this stuff by the spoonful.

SoG Zesty Barbecue Zauce

Ingredients:
- 1 6oz can tomato paste (preferable organic)
- 1 to 1.5 cups of beef stock (I made my own but if you buy, you want it without salt)
- 3 Cloves Garlic
- .5 of an onion
- 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 tablespoons chili powder

Directions:
1. Dice your onions and garlic as fine as possible. You want your BBQ sauce a little chunky but the more fine you dice these, the better the flavor will spread through the entire sauce.
2. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan. Whether you use 1 cup or 1.5 cups of beef stock will depend on how thick you want your sauce.
3. Bring sauce to heat on stove with a low setting.
4. Cover and simmer. Stir frequently and taste regularly. The longer you simmer, the more consistent your flavor will be. I simmered for 20-30 minutes.
5. Enjoy!

Extra can be stored in refrigerator.

Who said BBQ can’t be primal? I can just imagine this spread over a nice Bacon Explosion! I am using some of my sauce for rotisserie chicken tonight.

P.S. You can probably substitute garlic and onion powders for the fresh garlic and onion for a slacker sauce.

Me and Chris on an easy part of the wall

The wife and I had the pleasure of meeting up with bloggers Chris from Fitness Fail and Rayna. They were passing through to some remote part of New Mexico (lets be honest… MOST of New Mexico is remote).

We enjoyed an evening of climbing and good ol’ barbecue. Both Chris and Rayna are extremely fit, cool and friendly. We had a good time. Make sure to check out both of their sites!

Chris did a little write up on the meet here so I wont bother with redundancy… go read his:
Chris’ Write Up

I can tell you this though, when you don’t climb for a while… you lose it. I didn’t feel like we did that much climbing really but I was unbelievability sore (insert excruciating pain) for 3-4 days after!

I know. I get an "F" for presentation but it is delicious!

Recently I discovered that my brother in law, my sister and my wife are all pretty big fans of hummus. Seeing as how hummus is made from legumes (which aren’t the worst thing in the world but I recommend avoiding), I figured that I would see what I could do about finding a more primal alternative.

This is what I found. Unfortunately I cannot take credit as this is taken from several similar recipes spread across the web. Still though this is extremely easy to make and also extremely good. This is so good in fact that I am now hooked on hummus as well!

This makes a great vegetable dip or you can eat it like me and put some over fried eggs which I find delicious.

Ingredients:
-2 peeled and cut zucchini
-3/4 cup of tahini
-1/4 cup of olive oil
-1/2 cup of lemon juice
-4 cloves of garlic
-2.5 teaspoons of sea salt
-1/2 tablespoon of ground cumin

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor (or blender).
2. Blend thoroughly.
3. Enjoy!

Store in the refrigerator.

Do you like hummus? Try this one and let me know what you think!

Did a brief interview with Dave over at The Intelligent Workout. Follow the link for the post. Also check out the rest of Dave’s blog! It has some good reads.

SoG Interview at The Intelligent Workout

Dairy Free, No Sugar Added Custard

Do you miss puddings and custards in your primal world? We have a local egg custard here known as “Flan” and for some weird reason, I have been craving it. Here is a custard recipe that I have been putting together. I finally got the proportions perfectly where I like them. If you like yours sweeter, all you need to do is add more bananas! This recipe is about as simple as it gets.

Ingredients:
- 2 bananas
- 1 can coconut milk
- 3 eggs
- Cinnamon

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients except for cinnamon in a mixer and mix well.
2. Pour into custard or souffle cups (coffee cups or other oven safe containers work fine if you don’t have custard cups).
3. Sprinkle top with cinnamon.
4. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for approx 45 minutes. Custard will balloon a bit and you may see some liquid… its ok, it will work itself out.
5. Chill.
6. Serve and enjoy.

This makes a tasty treat! Careful though… it is easy to overeat lol.

The ancients knew what sexy was

“I want to look good naked”. Kevin Spacey said it in American Beauty… I love that line. Who doesn’t want to look good naked? I think most everyone can sympathize with this statement.

Unfortunately most of us just don’t look good naked. I can remember times when I could put on a set of designer cloths and look pretty “fly” (like my hip lingo?) but I would wear a shirt to the beach or swimming pool because clothes… well clothes hide a lot.

So what is the key to looking good naked? What even is looking good anyways?

Truth be told, we all have different body shapes, body styles, and features. This is a GOOD thing. Maybe everyone wants to look like Brad Pit or Carmen Electra or whoever but really, we wouldn’t want everyone to look exactly the same.

What we really want to do is to look good in OUR body… and I believe that to be 100% possible. The keys to this in my opinion are symmetry, proportion and health.

Health is probably the simplest part of this equation. Eat right avoid trauma and get some exercise. We know this from the Primal Blueprint. Symmetry and proportion are more difficult aspects. Think of the local gym. There is big chest man, big arm man, shoulders chick, good ol’ chicken legs… and any other assortment of moderately healthy and in shape but unsymmetrical people. Symmetry is one of the most coveted things a bodybuilder can possess. Arnold had it, it goes heavily judged at any competition but it proves so hard for most people to achieve. Why is that?

I think it is training methods. The emphasis in conventional wisdom on isolation exercise and training has led us down this path. I still followed the traditional isolation separations “Chest/tri day”, “Back/bi day”, “leg day” etc. even after going primal. I no longer believe this is the way to go. I am now all about full body circuits and compound movements. Train the entire body and let it do the hard work (or easy work when you think about it ) of symmetry and proportion. In my opinion, this is the ultimate way to a balanced, symmetrical, healthy physique.

Some disadvantages of isolation training:
- Sever DOMS (muscle soreness)
- Joint Strain
- Disproportionate muscle mass leading to discomfort and long term posture and pain problems
- Workouts get.. well boring

Advantages of full body exercise and compound movements:
- Athletic build
- Symmetry and proportion
- More entertaining workouts
- Body designed better to natural and functional movement

This is why I am using these types of workouts for both beginners and experts in my fitness programs that will begin to be be available for FREE download here on the site soon. Oh snap… there it is… I let the cat out of the bag. I have been working hard on putting together some SoG fitness programs. The first one I am hoping to have up here on the site within the next couple weeks. You heard right too that they will be available for FREE download.

It is my goal to build a series of programs for people starting from the simplest beginnings for those getting started and expand the collection over time to advanced programs specifically targeted at athletes and the like.

What are your thoughts on training methods? How about the SoG programs? Are you looking forward to them or are you expecting them to be crap?

Jemez Mountains. Where we went camping and I grew up.

Camping was awesome.

We had terrible weather but that almost made it more enjoyable. There were also a couple small windows of good weather where we got to do mountain biking, frisbee, football, hiking… you name it. Good Location, good campfire, good friends, good time. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures.

Anyways, a story…

My good friends brought their 7 year old son along. He is AWESOME. He is practically like a nephew to me. Anyways, I was cooking up some eggs and bacon for breakfast and he was hovering and asking questions about weather or not it was done. Then dinner came around and I was cooking up some grassfed burger patties and he was back to hovering and asking questions. He then asked my wife if he could have some of our food. My wife responded “Sorry _____, we did not bring enough. Your parents brought a bunch of food for you though. Why don’t you go ask your mom for some?”

And then his response was priceless.

“But those are snacks. I want food.”

Lol, I guess triscuits and easy cheese wasn’t doing it for him anymore.

New post tomorrow I hope that eveyone is going to want to check out!

Gone Fishing Camping

Heading into the woods this weekend to get Primal. Weather report says we are going to get wet! When I get back next week, exciting news to come!

Enjoy Memorial Day Weekend.  Remember that it isn’t just a day off, it is also a day to remember.

Yes that is a birthmark on my foot

Well. Burning calories has just gotten easier.

There are new shoes that are actually designed to make you burn more calories. No, I am not joking. That is the claim they are making. This is no small outfit either… these shoes are available even at Dillards now. I forsee masses of American rushing out to buy these so that they can forgo exercises but shed pounds while cruising the shopping mall, walking to and from their car or whatever. One important caveat… you still actually have to WALK which is a concept still lost on many Americans.

Per the website (you can check it out here Earth ExerFit Shoes), wearing these shoes simulates walking on an inclined treadmill. Now I KNOW everyone loves walking on an incline treadmill right? No? Yeah me either.

“Burn more calories with every step” is the slogan but I really wish I could kick them in the ass with every step. What an stupid stupid concept.  Whats next? Chewing gum that is harder to chew so that you can “burn more calories with very mastication? lol! I know I am going to come out with a shirt that is harder to get on so you can burn more calories just while getting dressed!

While conventional wisdom marches on, one truth remains the same. There is really no substitute for eating right and getting a little real natural exercise. If people tried that, they might actually discover it is easier (and cheaper) than shoes that simulate walking on incline treadmills (i cant get enough of that) electro tummy belts, staple surgeries and ephedrine pills (I hear that Hydroxycut is back to giving people strokes again).

Some people might point out that I am a huge fan of Vibram 5 fingers shoes. Vibram makes claims as to the health advantages of being barefoot. They encourage “Barefoot Sports” which involves people getting out and being active. They don’t claim that you are going to “burn more calories with every step” or that you are going to gain fat burning properties from wearing thier shoes lol. They say that there are benefits to being barefoot and that they make it possible to be barefoot.

So what do you think? Are you running out to buy your Earth ExerFit Shoes?