My lowest in 5 years

Just a few minutes ago I weighed myself and I'm amazed at the nice number that showed up.

61.1 kg

That is my lowest in about 5 years and a whole pound since yesterday! Okay, I know, it's probably mostly water that my body let go due to the fact that I just finished my cycle. Nevertheless, I haven't seen such a low number in years! What I think is funny, is that I always seem to get rid of more weight on days that I don't move a lot. Yesterday did nothing but surfing the net, preparing and eating gorgeous food and resting. Mmmh, maybe my cortisol was too high for getting rid of the fat on the other days? Well, I'll probably never know, so I go with the flow.

Yesterdays dinner consisted of this:


Plus 3 clementines and 1 apple

Today, I will move a bit more, I need to buy groceries and get some stuff to the post and friends. So there will be a lot of walking and listening to Robb Wolfs podcast. I don't know why, but these days I really enjoy trudging through the snow and listening to this podcast, before that I "never" listened to podcasts. I mean, I just learned of a way to get around another surgery, thanks to Robb and Mark, which is so AWESOME I can't even describe how lucky I feel to be abled to have listened to this podcast and get the solution for one of my health issues for free. Who would've thought, that it's so ridiculously easy as changing my diet?!

Okay, enough of this for today, I need to get going. Literally.

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Taste Bud Adventures - or my lunch

SALMON WITH ZUCCHINO, BELL PEPPER, TOMATOES AND COCONUT MILK

Aaaahhhhhh, I just love eating Paleo Style. This is what I came up with for todays lunch:


It's easy and fast and sooooooooooooo DELICIOUS and healthy.

Ingredients 1 person:
Salmon filet (fresh or frozen)
1 Zucchino
1/2 bell pepper
several cherry tomatoes
coconut milk (without any additives, just coconut and water should be listed)
coconut oil, freshly grounded sea salt and pepper

Method:

1. If you use frozen salmon, then thaw it (in oven at about 50°C for about 15min)
2. Clean and peel the zucchino, and cut to big dice, all should have roughly the same size.
3. Clean and cut the bell pepper and tomatoes.
4. Heat the pan with some coconut oil.
5. Cut the salmon to bite sized bits and sauté it in the coconut oil lightly and then take it out on a plate.
6. Now put the zucchino into the pan and sauté it, till it's mostly soft and then add the bell pepper pieces, again until the bell pepper is mostly soft and then add the tomatoes.
7. Sauté the mixture for 2 or 3 minutes at some coconut milk and then put the salmon back in.
8. Cook like for 2 or 3 minutes, season to taste and there you have this love meal.

Enjoy.


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Better

in several ways. I used yesterday to re-organize my kitchen and planned my last kitchen purchases, a Santoku-knife and middlesized wooden cutting board. I read more in the Primal Blueprint and rested sufficiently. I also ate very Paleo.

Yesterdays Mampf Diary:
400 ml protein shake, 1 apple, avocado cream (made of 2 avocadoes and the freshly squeezed juice of one orange), beetroot soup, 1 apple

I know this looks like nothing and it's definitely lacking in proteins, however I was sated and couldn't have eaten more yesterday. Today I will definitely eat more proteins (eggs in case you're wondering) and get some much needed exercise, as in I will take another long walk with Chris.

(Hawaii 2008, South Point on Big Island)

However, due to this low foodintake from yesterday, I've lost 1 pound and am back down to 61,8 kg. But who's counting. ;-)

Okay, time to get some shopping done and listen to another podcast from Robb. Should be quite interesting. And if you like to read something about paleolithic eating and neanderthales including a good laugh, I can recommend this article from Andrew of evolvify.com: http://evolvify.com/grain-consumption-caused-neanderthal-extinction-an-alternative-hypothesis/ I just love his humor and blog.

Have a great Tuesday.

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Yikes

I'm feeling like crap today, since I threw up this morning around 2 AM. I don't have any idea what triggered it, because when I went to bed 2.5 hours earlier I was feeling fine, except for being quite tired.

On Saturday I did two hourlong walks through the snow (to and fro my parents for lunch, we had trout), though it was more trudging since it was often 40 cm high. When I got home I had to lie down for a nap, I was totally exhausted.

Yesterday we went to grandmas and there I took a short brisk walk with my dad of about forty minutes. We had duck for lunch. Since my grandma has opinion and I don't felt like going into a fight over food on christmas with her, I ate a few christmas cookies. My stomach wasn't to happy about them. Maybe they were the first stepping stone to the 2 AM happening. Whatever...


I don't know about you, but I'm currently planning my training goals for 2011. It's all about building a sound fitness base, leaning out, getting my food and metabolism right (Solving the knee issue. Would you believe it? I have a big bruise on my knee where it was always swollen, but I didn't hit it. Mmh, this isn't good.). I might throw in a short distance race in the summer just for the atmosphere, but nothing is fixed.
Since I haven't finished the Primal Blueprint yet, I can't give you any fixed info on this, but you will read how I do over time soon enough. In any case I'll go swimming this week. The 50m pool has really good opening hours this week, so I'll have a go on Wednesday or Thursday. I wished they had these opening hours all the time. It would make it so much easier.

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A fresh start

Well, well, Christmas morning is here and a new start for me. After indulging into christmas foods the last two weeks I'm back to the Paleo lifestyle from this morning on.

I've got a whole lot of reasons. My health being the main issue.

I started a new journal (word), where I will jot down what I ate, my sleep and exercise and the way I felt. The reason is that I still haven't found the right amount to eat and to keep my diet interesting.

I've started to listen to Robb Wolfs Podcast, which you find here: http://robbwolf.com/category/podcasts/
This podcast is truly AMAZING. I've learned sooooo much just listening to edition No. 3, I didn't get the older ones via iTunes.

Anyway, I doubled my Vitamin D intake and threw out the grains, legumes and dairy products (except for the milk) I still had in my kitchen. No excuses anymore. Paleo is the way to go for me.

So, what did Santa bring me? (He comes at Christmas Eve in Germany.) An ugly but wished for pot just for boiling eggs, a big salad bowl with lid and filled with fruits (yeah), teas, some chocolate, money, a purple umbrella with polka dots, a bodyshop shower gel. And I got myself a bag from "Quer" and a japanese dictionnary. Yes, I definitely start out now with learning japanese. I even have a blog for it now. ;-)

I hope your Santa brings you all that you yearned for and have a wonderful Christmas or whatever holiday you are celebrating.

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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.

I wish all of you wonderful holidays with your loved ones. Enjoy your time off!

Interviews went well, food test not really

Hey there. Just a short update.

Interviews: Splendid. The first one led to an in person interview in January. The second was actually the second for another job in person and it went well too. I will get notice before Christmas if I made it. When I went out of this interview I was totally excited and felt great.

Food: wellllll. Mark Sisson proposes in his "Primal Blueprint" the 80-20 rule. Which means it's alright to fall of the wagon every now and then. For special occasions like the holidays or some major family parties. The last two days I experimented with this and have come to the conclusion, that I have to do 100% to keep my body happy. Wednesday I ate 2 (german not american) small potatoes and a few bites of stollen (after all once a year I "should" take a bite). Well, I got tired just a few minutes after eating it and then when I wanted to walk back home, just a few minutes afterwards my legs told me: "you aren't seriously thinking of walking now, right?" They burnt after a few steps!!!

So there you have it, carbs are BAD for me.

The only thing that is worth feeling sluggish is Starbucks chocolate truffle cake. I shared a piece with my friends yesterday and miraculously I didn't feel totally sluggish. Well, maybe it was due to the fact I was already tired. It was a loonng day, yesterday.

On the weekend, I will make all the christmas presents, that I want to make. It's quite a bit of work.

That's it for today. Have a great weekend everyone.

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Yes, yes, YEEEESSSSSSS - I beat Elliott today

In case you don't remember or are not familiar with him, Elliott is my dragon aka lazy a** alter ego. He likes to lounch on the couch all day long with some nice music, chocolate mountains, legs on the radiator and someone to cuddle. Until now most of the time he won. Today was different I won. Finally. Frankly, Elliott isn't as lazy as he used to be and I really want someone to cuddle too.

It was a hard battle today. Here is how it went. Since it was sunny outside I got Elliott following me walking the whole 5 k to the national library over snow and ice without any complaints. I think he enjoyed it quite a bit, since I had fed him with Zucchini-latkes before we left.
But as soon as we got to the library the reprieve was over and he started nagging. He wanted a candy bar, I was neither hungry nor did I have an appetite for a candy bar. A candy bar at that moment would have spoiled all my advances over the last few days. No reasoning with him, he continued with nagging for the next 2 hours. You think it's funny? Try to concentrate on preparing an important job interview with a 500 pound dragon sitting next to you and screaming "I want candy and I want to go home, not to that stupid piano concert" in your ear. At 5 PM I decided to read Marksdailyapple.com Forum with the success stories again. And that quieted Elliott down.
At 5:30 PM I gave back my books and went to the cafeteria to drink a hot tea (it was freezing in this darned reading room) and eat the rest of my zucchini-latkes. I made sure to forego the nice looking cakes and candy.
Then I walked another 4 k to the music college, Elliott was really unhappy about it and I wasn't exactly happy either. Because it seemed like I walked through a blizzard. And you know what, the big music room where the concert was, was also waayyyyyyyyy too cold. After the concert I walked another k through the blizzard to my streetcar station and went home.

Now I'm enjoying a hot peppermint tea, fish, tomatoes with feta cheese and sour cream.

You know what is also really funny, I will have another interview tomorrow, though this one is a phone interview (they called when I was at the supermarket today). We'll see how it goes with both interviews, the other one is real life on Thursday in Dresden again. Cross your fingers that I finally make it.

That's it. I finished my meal, time for a good nights sleep in my warm and comfy bed.

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Food pictures

Thank you for your concern. However I think I'm having to clear something up. I'm not eating less!! I just eat different. I eat a lot more proteins (fish, fowl, meat, eggs) and good fats (olive oil, coconut oil, creme fraiche is at the moment my favourite) and more fruits and veggies. I'm simply avoiding food that has a high insulin response. Other than that I don't have any restrictions such as the amount. I eat as much as I like and until I'm sated.

And besides, we all know that I'm lacking self discipline, I couldn't starve myself and I don't want to. Besides food is fun, why would I cut out the fun.

Since I have gone so long without pictures on this blog, here is some food porn of the last few days. And yes today and yesterday I was also 100% primal. (Okay, maybe somewhere I have some discipline stored, for occasions like this. *snicker* I also didn't buy the Snowwhitecake, which is an absolute favourite tastewise, but it leads me to feeling bloated and even asthma. Don't need that, thanks. )

Time for the food porn:

Grilled salmon with tomatoes and kiwis swimming in olive oil

selfmade tomato sauce with kiwis and creme fraiche

Dinner korean style, 2 broiled eggs, turkey hen, wakame and the tomato sauce

Todays korean style dinner, fish mix, 1 broiled egg, some grilled stripes of turkey hen, 1 apple, 2 spoons creme fraiche, wakame (not in picture because it hadn't finished soaking)

See? I'm not eating less, I'm just eating better. *grin*

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Success

I've got good news. Primal eating works really well (for me). I reached last weeks goal, even though I ate horribly on Wednesday and Thursday.

Last weeks goal was reaching the 135,? lbs on my scale and I did it!!! I could hardly believe it when I read it yesterday morning. (I started out with 138 lbs last Sunday.)
So it is certainly true, skip grains and starchy/sugary foods and you'll get rid of this darned bodyfat. This means I'm sticking with the Primal lifestyle mainly, but I'll include triathlon training (which in Primal Blueprint terms is called chronic cardio and isn't considered a good thing), because I still have my Ironman goal. Though I will do it on fat metabolism and not carbs.

After these three days I'm pretty confident, that I will be abled to finally run another halfmarathon next year and maybe even a marathon. (Less fat, less "dead" bodyweight to lug a around;-) Seeing how training goes. I certainly won't make the same mistakes again. I'll build mileage up slowly and do a lot more strength and crosstraining (swimming and bike).

For the rest of December, I'll focus on the right food (sources, recipes and amount) and staying upright on Leipzigs streets (which is currently a feat in itself). In January, I'll start with "proper" swim training and hopefully my new job.

Okay, I've got some research to do for my next interview. See you in a bit.

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Second day of 100% Primal

Good Evening everybody.

So today is the second day in a row, where I haven't eaten any sweets or grains!! I'm terribly proud on myself, if I'm allowed to say so. Since this is my blog I certainly am allowed to say so.

Funny thing is, I also did some intermittent fasting, without having planned for it. What I mean is that I skipped dinner last night entirely. When I left for the concert (Robert Schumanns "Genoveva") at 6 PM I still wasn't hungry at all and so I figured that I could skip dinner altogether since I would be home pretty late and had no intention to start cooking after 10 PM. It was a good decision since I was home at 11 PM and still full of energy even though my stomach grumbled a bit. So during the night my stomach send out some tunes (more grumbling), but my energy levels stayed the same. No sugar crash whatsoever!

Today I've had my usual proteine shake for breakfast. For lunch I had a delicious bowl of stew with turkey hen, tomatoes and golden kiwis (recipe in the next taste bud adventures). Then I went into the city by streetcar and got myself an new pan with a lid (I love this pan), two food storage boxes and a cookbook about meat it is called "meat basics" and I think I will start reading it right after I finished this post.

For dinner I had a korean style meal. The food in itself wasn't korean except maybe the wakame, but it was made up of three little side dishes (2 broiled eggs, 3 stripes of grilled turkey hen and some wakame) with a quickly made tomatosauce which contained 1 onion, 3 teaspoons of coconut oil, 3 teaspoons of heavy cream, a hand full of cherry tomatoes, the juice of a lemon and some tomato puree. This dinner was delicious, primal and served nearly no carbs. Which is fantastic for the evening since I want to have my insulin level down for the night, because I want my body to burn fats and produce the human growth hormone and repair my cells. But when you eat carbs in the evening and have an insulin peak, this whole process starts significantly later and you don't see the results you want, like a lean body, bigger muscles, clear skin or whatever else.

I also prepared some healthy snacks for me, so that when I don't eat a propper dinner (some days I'm just too lazy or uninspired) I have some healthy food choices to munch on without any effort. Those snacks are the stripes of grilled turkey hen and broiled eggs so far. However I want to make some other snacks, but I need more boxes, before I can make them. Yes, I could use bowls and alu foil, but then I don't see the food and forget about it (which happened time and again). I have to see what I have as food choices or I'll grow some special funghi in my fridge, since I'm not a friend of those funghis....

So yeah, I've enjoyed 2 lovely meals, got another pan which I love, prepared primal snacks, did the grokcrawl through my flat for exercise and have an interesting new cookbook. I'm feeling really content this evening. Now I just need someone to cuddle and I'm in heaven. Well, as it looks, it's "only" my teddybear again. But I guess this is fine for this year. Next year is whole different story. ;-)

Enjoy your weekend, eat delicious and healthy food, have fun with training and enjoy some quality time with your loved ones.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!!

Taste Bud Adventures - Salmon with tomatos and golden kiwis

After two days of eating too much bad food (christmas market and bad mood are the culprits), I'm finally back on the track. This is a quick recipe I just invented for todays lunch and it's delicious, healthy and inexpensive.

Ingredients:
1 piece of filet of salmon (150 to 250g)
a hand full of cherry tomatoes
1 golden kiwi
1 tablespoon of olive oil for the casserole

Method:
1. oil the casserole
2. put the thawed / fresh salmon in the casserole
3. dice the tomatoes and skinned kiwi, put them on the salmon
4. bake the salmon in an oven with 150°C for 15 to 20 minutes.

Enjoy.


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Figuring food out

This Saturday I enjoyed an apartment day. Means, except for going grocery shopping I stayed home, cleaned and enjoyed my apartment.

What I found out is that I obviously don't eat enough! How come, you might ask. Well, yesterday was a day when I literally ate all day. But since I didn't have any sweets and didn't buy any sweets, I had to make do with what I had to eat. And this wasn't bad food, in fact it was all very delicious, however it was low in it's fat or carb content, so I ate and ate and ate.

I ate: 4 or 6 Kiwis, 3 persimons, 8 or 9 small meatballs, 1 proteinshake, cherrytomatoes with feta cheese, 1 tin of Scomber Mix (fish with vegetables in tomatosauce), 2 clementines and 3 pieces of dark chocolate (doesn't count as a sweet, because of it's low sugar content). You know the funny thing is: looking at this all I realize that this isn't much, but when I ate it I thought I was eating tons. I think my perception of food amounts is totally off. (I really don't know how vegans do it, do they eat constantly? Mind you, I admire them, because I know I couldn't do it and wouldn't want to for that matter.)

Funny thing, even though I thought that I was binge eating yesterday evening, (binging on kiwis, persimons and the fish tin) I lost about 1 pound of weight. This morning I weighed 137,4 lbs.

So, what am I going to do? I'll have to eat more, but how much more? I know that I get sick from eating grains or too many sweets. Last sunday I ate quinoa and felt sick the whole night, and I get eczema from eating bread! I really have to figure out how much more and what to eat (recipes).

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Some training news

Oh my, you probably thought by now, I had totally given up, now did you?

Okay, so this and last week training was walking, walking, walking in the snow!!! Plus some stairs and squats. And dare I say it? My knee seems fine. Now that I said it, tomorrow will it probably misbehave. I always was this way. In any case, I can't go running with all this snow anyway, so there you have it, I'm stuck with walking and stairs for the time being.

This pic is from Sunday since then we've got about 20 cm of fresh snow.

When it comes to food I did misbehave this week, after all it's christmas market and I needed my fix with vanilla cream waffles. And I think, I've had it. We'll see how I think about it next week.;-)

Jobwise, I'm sending out application after application, thankfully Germany's recovering, so more and more interesting and fitting jobs are on offer, even though I just got another NO. Looks like I really can forget about engineering stuff, because the last two Nos were in engineering and really quick. Well, it's the loss of the german engineering in long term. China will take over in a few years, considering that their universities spit out hundred thousands of engineers every year and Germany is having trouble recruiting young people for engineering. And currently german engineering companies are still not ready to accept female engineers (what they don't say in press interviews). Well then, marketing and technology transfer here I come.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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This is how you do it!!!

Hilarious. Love it!!!