It’s high time for an update on our chickens, or “the girls” as we like to call them around here.
Things I Learned By Taking a Break
Continuing my weekly installment in the Strong is the New Skinny Body Transformation Challenge. Click here to see all posts on this topic.
I’m a couple days late with this week’s post, I was distracted first by my birthday, and then yesterday afternoon I was having trouble concentrating because a scratch on my eye was preventing me from wearing my contacts, and I just can’t see well in glasses. It seems to be healing today, and I have my contacts back in and can see the world properly again, so here we go.
First off, I hit one of my goals for this challenge: To run the Santa Cruz 10k in under an hour! It was Sunday morning, and my official chip time came in at 55:57.
I’m thrilled and I give CrossFit all the credit for taking about 1:30 off my per mile pace in less than three months. Six years ago I got my previous PR on this same course at about 59 minutes, which was about the fastest I had ever been. Hurrah for functional fitness! Continue reading
Filed under Health and Fitness
Keep On Keepin’ On
Continuing my weekly installment in the Strong is the New Skinny Body Transformation Challenge. Click here to see all posts on this topic.
I really don’t have much to report this week. I’m out of my funk from last weekend. I’m still feeling good, having great workouts, and eating Paleo.
I realized after last week that of course in the end there really is no magic bullet to losing weight, there’s just eating less. (Duh.) However I do think there are better and worse ways to eat less, and while I’m not a great example of eating less right now (see below), I still believe that cutting carbs is overall a much easier and healthier way to eat less than cutting fat or protein.
Continue reading
Filed under Health and Fitness
The Chickens’ Day Out
It finally warmed up and dried out enough this weekend to give the chickens a test run in their coop. We pulled it over a row of garden that we haven’t planted yet, after confirming that the young fava bean plants are safe for them to eat. Continue reading
Filed under Suburban Homestead
One Month Down, The Rest of My Life To Go
Continuing my weekly installment in the Strong is the New Skinny Body Transformation Challenge. Click here to see all posts on this topic.
Today is day 30 of my low-carb-Paleo eating plan. I have had one glass of wine, no grains, and very little sugar in the last 30 days.
I feel great. I think I’ve finally hit upon a way of eating that matches my principles, tastes delicious, doesn’t makes me feel hungry or crave sugar, and gives me even energy throughout the day. I think I’ll stick with this for a good long time, maybe the rest of my life. Continue reading
Filed under Health and Fitness
Rendering Lard
Lard in different stages of cooling. It will all turn as pure white as the big jar on the left.
Lard is awesome stuff.
Unfortunately it’s been wrongly demonized to the point that the word lard connotes something gross, but the rational-minded fat lovers are slowly making a case for it.
An article by Regina Schrambling about lard on Slate in 2009 tells me that it’s truly becoming more mainstream. She says “Lard has clearly won the health debate.” Continue reading
Filed under All Recipes, Suburban Homestead
Eggs in a Nest
I’ve always thought of Eggs in a Nest as the dish where you cut a hole in a piece of bread and fry an egg in the center of it, but a while ago I found this version, which is a family dish of delicious leafy greens, with poached eggs nested in them.
I found it in Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which chronicles her family’s year of growing and eating local food. It’s a fabulous, poignant, funny, and informative book, and if you haven’t read it, you should grab a copy. It includes recipes appropriate to every season’s harvest, and this one is for the spring when roots and seeds and beans are not yet mature, but leafy greens are popping up all over. Continue reading
Filed under All Recipes
