Sous Vide = The Best Meat You’ll Ever Make

Posted on February 3, 2015May 18, 2026 by Sandy

I do a lot of cooking.

Luckily, I quite like to cook. I even like the prep work. Granted, I do it while listening to a book on Audible or watching an old TV show (Magnum P.I., anyone? #GuiltyPleasures), but it’s a sort of Zen thing for me.

My biggest issue usually revolves around timing and meats. I have a lot of meat in the freezer and – usually at Crossfit that morning – I figure out what fresh veg I have in the fridge and what will go with what … et voila, that’s What’s For Dinner.

And therein lies the problem.

I usually haven’t defrosted anything – and am often going from Crossfit to errands to clients … and once I get home, it’s too late to defrost the meat other than in the evil microwave. (NOTE: I’ve been trying to avoid the microwave after listening to Dave Asprey’s interview on Fat Burning Man and how microwave cooking denatures food. I haven’t quite thrown the machine out the window, but I’m trying to pay more attention.)

If I actually do get the meat out of the freezer in the morning, I often get home and am tearing my hair out trying to “time” the cooking of the different pieces of the meal. I often wind up with one or the other thing over/underdone.

I’m a big supporter of pressure cookers for “what they do well” – I asked for one for my last birthday present, in fact.

But a pressure cooker (or a slow cooker/Crockpot) still applies heat directly to the food that you’re cooking. So you can find yourself burning whatever you’re cooking, because you didn’t put in enough liquid, or with something too watery, because you put in too much, or with something that’s mush/too dense/etc.

Because cooking with applied heat changes the food, and liquid evaporates.

Besides, you aren’t going to Crockpot or pressure cook a steak, or a pork tenderloin, or a flaky piece of perfect fish.

Enter the sous vide.

Sous vide (pronounced soo-veed) means “under vacuum” in French. The sous vide cooking technique involves cooking food in pouches that all the air has been squeezed out of. The fancy ones have vacuum sealers for the pouches – I just use Ziplocs. (NOTE: Don’t throw the hate on me about Ziplocs – pick your toxin. THIS ARTICLE made me feel that using BPFA-free Ziplocs wasn’t going to kill me.)

To cook sous vide, you submerge the pouch in a water bath that is held at a precisely controlled temperature with an immersion circulator/heater.

The end result? Perfectly cooked food.

Beneficial nutrients found in food are retained in the pouches, compared to traditional cooking methods where nutrients either evaporate or are left in the pan. The natural flavor and juices of the food – as well as any marinade, etc. that you add – are infused into the food while in the cooking pouch.

9034c2106571cb644ba616c6d3ca607e_large — Sous vide on left, traditional on right. Sous vide retains all the liquid, plus avoids the grey bands of over done meat under the surface.

I supported Anova on Kickstarter a while back, after taking a one day cooking course that included “gadgets” – a smoke infuser, sous vide, etc.

Anova makes a sous vide for home use that is basically a stick that you place into a pot of water (you can see it in the photo above).

Use your phone or the top of the machine to dial in the temperature that you want the “stick” to get the water to and hold it at. It has a pump that circulates the water, and once the water is up to the temperature you set, it holds the water at that temperature.

You just have to figure out what temperature you want, to get the optimal result for the food you are cooking… and dial in that water temperature. Plop in the baggie’d food – the sous vide does the rest.

As an example, a perfect rare steak is 120 degrees. The sous vide will bring the meat to 120 all the way through, and hold it there all day long. If you were to cook that steak the usual way, you would have 120 degrees somewhere near the middle (if you use a cooking thermometer). But since the steak cooks from the pan “in,” the outside will be a higher temperature than the inside, in a gradient that goes from the char outside to about 120 near the middle, and sometimes the middle is underdone. You will also lose volume, as some of the liquid in the steak will evaporate while you cook it.

If you don’t use a cooking thermometer, who knows what you’ll get?

And what if your attention is diverted for a minute or two, in either case? (“Honey, are you sure you don’t like it medium-well?”)

So let’s say that I am going to cook that same steak in the sous vide. I take it out of the freezer, where either it’s in a vacuum pack from the “half a cow” I purchased, or it’s in a Ziploc I put it in from the grocery store, with the air pushed totally out of it. I plop the bag into the pot of water, crank the Anova up to 120 degrees, and head out to Crossfit and work.

Oh sure, some chefs are cringing in horror – I’m sure that defrosting it slowly is the way to go – but what can I tell you? That’s honestly how I do it.

I get home, and make everything else that is for din-din that day. After all the sides are done, I put them into the oven on warm with the two dinner plates. Last, I heat up a cast iron pan smokin’ hot with some coconut oil and pink Himalayan salt in it. I take the steak out of the Ziploc, maybe put some oregano on it (I’m eschewing black pepper since I’m doing the Bulletproof Diet), and throw it into the hot pan for a minute-ish to get a good brown on the outside. Flip it over, another minute, done. Get out the veg and hot dinner plates, plop on the steak (sprig of parsley, anyone?), serve. #NomNomNom.

The steak is perfect all the way through at 120 degrees, with the char on the outside.

If you want the easiest way to cook fish perfectly, it’s the sous vide. Put some herbs in the baggie, some lemon and some oil (the fish will stick to the plastic if you don’t put some oil in) and throw it in there at the desired temperature when you leave in the morning. Come home, it’s been perfect, waiting for you, all day long. (And, no, it doesn’t “overcook” – since it’s not touching anything hot like in a crock pot, oven, pressure cooker, etc. It just reaches the temperature of the water that is circulating around it – and stops.)

What else? Last night I made short ribs. Nom nom nom! I took beef short ribs from the freezer, and put them into the sous vide at 130. I had read that it takes 130 degrees to melt the collagen in the ribs. Then I went to Crossfit, etc. I came home, and the ribs were defrosted and held at 130 degrees.

Then, I added a marinade made of coconut aminos, ginger, garlic, pumpkin seed oil, etc. to the baggie, sucked the air out of the Ziploc again, and threw it back in the water. Went about my business for a few hours. When it was time to get cooking, I made some broccoli, sweet potatoes, etc.

At about 45 minutes from wanting to get supper on the table, I pulled out the pressure cooker, sauteed some onions and bacon in the bottom using the “Saute” setting, then took them out, pulled the short ribs out of the sous vide, and seared the fat side in the pressure cooker. Once they had a nice crust (a couple of minutes), I put the onions/bacon back in, added the marinade from the Ziploc, sealed up the pressure cooker, and 30 minutes later – voila! Perfect, fork tender short ribs.

Oh, and – back at the bacon part – I discovered that I’d forgotten to take the bacon out of the freezer – so I actually took the vacuum-sealed pouch the bacon comes in, and just put it into the 130 degree water (with the packet of ribs) while I was chopping the onions. When it was time to do the bacon in the oven, it was defrosted and already par-cooked. The par-cooking kept the bacon flat and the fat from curling (who knew?)

When I took the cooking class I mentioned above, we actually even made dessert in the sous vide (cooked peaches were the base of the dessert). It’s also the way to get perfect corn on the cob if that’s something you eat. You just put the ears into a Ziploc big enough for them, add butter, salt, a little tequila (smile), squeeze out all the air, and throw them into the water bath. They come out perfectly cooked, and the butter/salt/tequila has “marinated into” the corn.

What you can cook with it is basically only limited by your imagination.

For those of you who are pushed for time and want something ridiculously easy – but are tired of crock pot meals – you might want to check this out.

Tonight? Bacon wrapped filet, anyone?

In case you’re curious, HERE is a link to an Anova. I personally do not set the time on mine (mine is a previous generation – you can see it in the photo above, in the pot). I just let it run, then when I take the meat or meal out, I unplug it. If you watch the video that is on the left of the linked page, it shows the cook first using a fancy vacuum sealer (for the meat) but then shows her doing the zucchini in a Ziploc. She puts the Ziploc into water, and then pushes the veg under the water and seals the Ziploc outside the water, using displacement to be sure she gets all the air out. You don’t want the baggies to float, and you want to be sure that the water touches the food (via the plastic). Otherwise, you won’t get the perfect temperature in the food because the air will act as an insulator. (NOTE: Do I ALWAYS get all the air out? Nope. If the baggie floats, I put a weight on it. And even if there is a little air in the bag, I figure that it’s going to get close to the temperature that I’ve set. Haven’t had a bad result yet.)

EVEN IF you have insurance…

Posted on January 31, 2015January 15, 2026 by Sandy

A week or so ago, I blogged about a new company that’s of interest to me (that blog is HERE).

I have a friend who asked a few questions, and then signed up because, even though she has ‘platinum level insurance’, she thought it was a great idea, at an affordable price.

I’d like to share an email I just got from her:

FYI, I had an ultrasound scheduled yesterday and thought it might be interesting to see what it would cost if I went through MDGlobal.com.
MDGlobal member price: $302

Through my regular health care price: $840

That’s a significant savings, wouldn’t you agree?

Wow!

The thing that I also really like about MDGlobal is that you can get prescriptions anywhere, any time. It also covers “pet meds,” if those medications are something that a “person” would take.

I have two friends with diabetic cats and I personally had a cat that needed to be on an I.V. daily (for years) and another one that I gave a “kitty AIDS” drug to for his entire life (hashtag our pets are our children LOL). Those situations would have been covered. I can’t tell you how much money this would have saved me. Quite honestly thousands of dollars, even net of the MDGlobal monthly member fee.

Now remember – the above email was from a friend who has insurance (and “good” insurance, to boot!).

As most of us know, if you do not have health insurance in the U.S., you now pay a penalty on your Federal Income Tax return. The penalty wasn’t horrific last year, but it goes up steeply this year and next. (HERE is an article – albeit from last year – talking about the penalty that you’ll pay if you’re in this situation). Moreover, if you or a loved one is on Medicare and take prescriptions – wow – that can get pricey fast.

I am blessed to live in a wealthy part of the country. A lot of folks around here have a “concierge” doctor. What does that mean? They pay a boatload of money a month to have a doctor “on call” for them – whether they use him/her or not. (I remember all the times that my doctor father would zoom out at 4 a.m. to see a patient at their home when I was a kid – for free – yeah, feelin’ old about now LOL).

The beauty of a concierge doc – if you can afford one – is that you don’t have to wait in line, you can contact them from home where there are no other sick folks around you (except perhaps your kids, who brought the Evil WMD Germs home from their daycare), etc.

MDGlobal.com gives you that “concierge style” medicine for a fraction of the cost, especially as most of the “regular [read: expensive] concierge doctor” issues that come up are ones that are answered with a call from the doctor to you, in the comfort of your own home, where the only sick person that you’re near is . . . you! Oh – and your kids who gave you the bug. 😉

I’ve been discussing MDGlobal with a business acquaintance who is also a super accomplished doctor. We went back and forth about how “awful” it is that this seems to be “the way that medicine is going.” But in actuality, the idea here is not to replace your “real” doctor with RoboDoc. (NOTE: Show of hands if you – insured or not – actually have a “real doctor” that you see semi-annually for checkups, call/email with health questions, etc. – ??)

No. It’s to replace the #PITA (you look it up LOL) visits where you’d rather not go in – where you have a nagging question – or – as indicated above – just to save you $$ on prescriptions/procedures.

It’s for the situations where (this just happened to us) you realize – once abroad or on vacation – that you don’t have enough of a prescription med in the bottle to last the whole trip. It’s for when you get sick abroad/on vacation, and need help. Basically, it’s for peace of mind, and for ease of access.

Anyway, I thought you just might be interested in an update that actually shows the $ a real person (with great insurance) saved by being a MDGlobal user. And if you have a deductible on your insurance that you have to “meet” to get your meds at a discount, etc., then why not use MDGlobal to “fill up” that amount (spending less out-of-pocket on the procedures/prescriptions all the while)?

Having access like this, especially if you go the cheapest “Obamacare” route that you can find (so you don’t have to pay the tax penalties), is likely to make you contact a doctor when you have an issue, don’t you think?

If this isn’t interesting to you, I’m really grateful that you read this far. But if it brought someone to mind, I’d really appreciate it if you would forward this information on to them. I only want to offer an option that might “pencil out” for folks like the email did above.

Thanks in advance!

I feel better now…(really, a shout out for BeyondTheWhiteboard.com & the “Spirit of” Crossfit)

Posted on January 29, 2015January 30, 2015 by Sandy

I feel better now.

Yesterday, I had a good, long rant about what an idiot I was to have signed up for a Crossfit Competition this weekend. However, today, I am feeling more philosophical about it.

Why?

Well, because of course the gal who is putting the Throwdown together is lovely, and talked me down from the ledge. But also, because This Crossfit Thing is really just so cool . . . and sometimes I forget that.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, I went into the box to meet with the gal putting the Throwdown together. As my blog yesterday stated, I signed up for a Crossfit competition this weekend in which there are three divisions, Rx (doing the full workout the way it’s supposed to be), Scaled (doing the full workout with lighter weights or some other tweaks), and “I want to participate but even Scaled is too daunting for me” (my division). When the events list came out, I had thought that this last category would be basically show up, lift a dumb bell the weight of a pom-pom, and get cheered for doing it. Nope. It is still the Scaled division, but if you can’t do one of the specific things in a workout, you get to swap it out.

But you’re “presumed” to do the Scaled unless you have to swap something out.

Just so you don’t have to click back and forth, here are the Rx WODs:

Workout 1:
Part A
5 minutes to build to 1 RM Clean and Jerk
Rest 1 minute to reset your bar.

Part B: 7 min AMRAP of
5 Handstand Pushups
7 Toes to Bar
5 Hang Power Cleans (40 kg)

Workout 2: For Time (8 Minute Time Cap):
100 meter run around a cone with sandbag (45#)
15 thruster (30 kg)
30 box jump (20″)
15 thruster
100 m run around a cone with sandbag

Workout 3:
2 min AMRAP/15 sec rest
3 min AMRAP/15 sec rest
4 min AMRAP
Row 10 Cal
15 pull up
20 wall ball (14 lbs)
25 double unders
30 burpee over rower
with any remaining time, row for Calories

Here are the substitutions for “Scaled”:
● Sub Hand Release Pushups (Games style) for Handstand pushups
● 7 toes to bar or 14 knees to chest (must be declared prior to the start of competition)
● Hang Power Clean 25 kg.
● Thruster 20KG.
● Run with 20 lb. wall ball versus 45# sandbag
● 15 jumping pull ups or 5 pull ups (selection must be declared prior to start of competition) – reverse/alternating grip permitted
● 25 double unders or 75 single unders (selection must be declared prior to start of competition)

Now, here’s where How Great Crossfit is, and ditto how great BeyondTheWhiteboard.com is, comes into play.

The idea of Crossfit is that you want to be able to do whatever the movement is at “Rx” (“as prescribed”). But Crossfit also believes that you should (1) get the movement exactly right, THEN (2) be able to do the movement exactly right, multiple times in a row and ONLY THEN (3) do the movement exactly right, multiple times in a row, at “intensity.” If you don’t have the movement exactly right (#1), then you “scale.” You do not move on to doing multiple movements, or adding weights, until you get the foundation down. “Scaling” means doing something that uses the same muscles as the Rx movement, but takes into account where you’re weak.

So, for example, let’s say that the Rx (taken from the above) is handstand pushups (HSPU). What that means is you do a handstand against the wall, then you dip your arms down until the top of your head hits the floor, and then you push back up until your arms are straight (one done…)

There are a LOT of ways to scale this movement. You could do it with your legs on a box. That would mean that you are basically lying on a box, bent over at the stomach, with your arms are straight and your head down the side of the box. You push up and down from there. (This means that the “leg part” of your body is supported/you’re not lifting it…plus, you don’t have to balance on your hands.)

A bit harder would be kneeling on the box, and then going over the side to do the HSPU. (Less stable, more “leg weight.”)

Or maybe you have trouble being upside down, so you do a “regular” pushup. Or maybe you don’t have a pushup at all, so you do a kneeling pushup. Or perhaps, because you want to actually work on the handstand portion v. the pushup portion, you do a “wall walk up” which means that you kick your feet up on the wall (facing the wall), and then walk your hands in toward the wall as far as you are comfortable going, then hold it for a certain amount of time.

Get the idea?

Well, so let’s look at the Rx above, and the Scale. It’s HSPU, with a Scale of “hand release pushups.” That means that you lie in a plank position (balanced on hands and toes, body straight), then bring your body all the way down until your chest touches the ground, then release your hands off the ground (basically you’re lying with your chest on the ground and you just pick your hands up off the ground), then put them back down, and push your body up until your arms are straight again (one done…)

Well, I can’t do that.

And kneeling (also known as “girls”) pushups are not the same sort of “movement” as a regular “plank pushup” – so that’s not a very good scale. So I was given two choices:

1. A “ring row.” What this means is that you’re lying basically under a set of rings hanging off a horizontal stanchion, and you “row” yourself up and then back down on the rings, arms locked out, chest “proud,” body straight (no “butt sag”).

2. A “banded” pushup. In a “banded” pushup, you take what is basically a super duper strong elastic band, and you string it between two vertical stanchions. Then you lie over it, so the band is basically under your abdomen. You then do the regular hand release pushup, but part of your weight is supported by the band that you’re lying on.

So, what did we do? I was timed to see “how long it took me” to do the pushups – it’s supposed to take everyone the same time. Then, we chose the elasticity of the band based on giving me enough “support” to do those pushups in the time that it should take me.

See? How great is that? This is why I love Crossfit. In a way, it’s like having a “handicap” in golf. Golf is one of the few sports where a true professional and a novice could play together, and there could be some prayer that the novice could beat (or at least come close to) the professional’s score. Your “handicap” is how many strokes you get to “take off of” your score (“strokes” meaning how many hits it took you to get the ball into the hole). So if you have handicap of, say, 42, and you’re playing a pro golfer (with a handicap of zero), and he goes around the course and gets a score of 60, and you go around and get a score of 100, you win, because 100-42 is 58.

Similarly, in this Competition, they want the divisions to be giving the same “perceived exertion.” That means that (again, by way of example) if the Rx is a barbell move that is supposed to be at about 50% of that athlete’s one rep max, then you scale it at about 50% of YOUR one rep max. (e.g., if the Rx Crossfitter is lifting 100 pounds – which is 1/2 of 200 pounds, which is what she could lift only one time off the floor – and you can only lift 30 pounds one time off the floor because it’s so heavy, you do the move at 15 pounds – and each of your “perceived exertions” is the same.)

Or if, say, a bodyweight move is supposed to take about 30 seconds, then you scale the movement however you need to, so that you take 30 seconds.

Yesterday, I was doing all sorts of moves, trying to get moves that would be the same “perceived exertion” level as the Rx moves. So, where do you even start?

Our gym subscribes to Beyond The Whiteboard for us. It’s an online journal, where you log whatever you do that day and (this is the awesome part), it then keeps track of it all for you, and even shows you where you need some extra work. So, for example, if you’re doing back squats, you can pull up all the back squats you have done before, and they are all there for you. Moreover, it will show you all your squats together, and if you are doing a lot lower weight than someone “generally would” in the squat “family” it recommends you add more to that part of your programming.

Beyond The Whiteboard logs every move, and also every one of the “Girls” or “Heroes” or “other known” workouts (e.g., Nasty Girls). (Never mind all that, if you’re not a Crossfitter.)

The founder of Crossfit very strongly believes that you can’t get better at something you can’t measure. And the owner of our gym has given us this tool to do so. Before Beyond The Whiteboard, I kept track of my workouts in a journal and an Excel sheet. But the problem with that is (a) it’s time consuming, and (b) it’s not easy to “go back to the last time” you did a move, and figure out how you’re going to approach that move this time. It also doesn’t show you a “movement family” and where you might want to concentrate your future workouts.

And – because you not only track every movement, but you can also write yourself personal notes, etc. – you can immediately go back and see what you said to do “next time you did that move.” Genius. Pure Genius. It allows you to tell your “future self,” for example, that when you did the 5 sets of 5 repetitions of the back squat this time, you started at 15kg, and it was too light. So you won’t start that light again, you’ll start with some weight on that 15k bar.

Otherwise, you’re just guessing.

So, what did we figure out for my “Scales of the Scales”? Here you go:

Workout 1:
Part A
5 minutes to build to 1 RM Clean and Jerk – Rest 1 minute to reset your bar.

I am doing this as is. I can do a Clean and Jerk – Sure, I can’t do it particularly well, but that’s not the issue. I can do it. So we went through Beyond The Whiteboard on my previous Clean and Jerks, to discuss where I would start at, to be sure I had the right weights on the day. (In case you care, I’m starting at 20 kg.)

Part B: 7 min AMRAP of
5 Handstand Pushups – As I mentioned above, I’ll be doing 5 banded pushups, using the black band for support.
7 Toes to Bar – I am doing the 14 “knees up” scale – turns out you don’t need to get your knees all the way up TO your chest, only “break parallel” with your knees. It’s hard, but I can do that. Hello, abs…
5 Hang Power Cleans (40 kg) – I can do a hang power clean. I most assuredly can’t do it at 40kg, but the Scaled is 25kg. That’s a good bit of weight, but I can do it, so I will do it. The only issue here is that I will want to do Part A with a 20kg bar (my hands are huge), but that makes it difficult to put the “extra 5 kg” on it for Part B. As such, there will need to be 2 bars there for me, which was noted, so that when they are setting up for me it will all be there (cool, huh?).

Workout 2: For Time (8 Minute Time Cap):
100 meter run around a cone with sandbag (45#) – Scaled is a 20lb. wall ball. Tell you the truth, I’d rather run not quite so far, and use the sandbag. Carrying a wall ball is SO MUCH HARDER than carrying a sandbag! A sandbag you can just drape over your shoulder – I practiced yesterday, and for goodness’ sakes . . . the wall ball is a lot harder! Ah well, so it goes 😉 I am not supposed to run (doctor’s orders because of all the metabolic issues I’ve blogged about ad nauseum), but I’ll walk fast. Or trot. I asked if I could do it with the 45# sandbag, but part of the issue is that we don’t have enough of them. So – wall ball it is.
15 thruster (30 kg) – a “thruster” is the crazy-*ss movement shown in the image with three photos. I can’t do a squat, much less get the whole “dip under the bar” thing going. This was another one where we had to work on what I would “Scale to” for quite a while. I will be doing a sumo deadlift high pull with a 1.5 pood (54 pound) kettlebell. That’s the image with the four photos showing the four judging points.
30 box jump (20″) – 20″ is not supposed to be a “high” box jump. So once again, we went to Beyond The Whiteboard to see what my “best” box jump ever was (18″) and what my “standard” box jump is (15″) and she said that it should be about 70% of my standard box jump. So I’m jumping up on two 25k plates with a 10k plate sandwiched in between (we literally measured it with a tape measure).
15 thruster – as above.
100 m run around a cone with sandbag – as above.

Workout 3:
2 min AMRAP/15 sec rest
3 min AMRAP/15 sec rest
4 min AMRAP
Row 10 Cal – this is the same.
15 pull up – We decided I should do 5 banded pullups. I had to do banded pullups again and again until I could do the pullups in the time frame that an Rx athlete would generally do 15 kipping/butterfly/regular ones. This is going to be a pullup with a blue and red band for me. Though jumping pullups is an option (where you start with the pull up bar at about wrist level and use your legs to “jump” your chin over the bar), they really hurt my elbows on the way down. With banded pullups, I still have “support” on the “downstroke.”
20 wall ball (14 lbs) – I can do wall balls so long as I have another wall ball to squat down to. This is a huge improvement for me. So I am doing this “Rx” but with another wall ball on the floor. Shame there is jumping rope afterwards, or I’d wear my (shiny newish) lifters to give me more “help” on the squat. 14 pounds is hard (I’ve never done wall balls with more than 10 pounds). But when I was doing it, she said I should do the 14. So I’m doing the 14.
25 double unders – I’ll be doing the scale, which is 75 single unders (A “single under” is jumping rope. A “double under” is jumping rope but the rope passes twice under your feet for each one jump. I am getting better at them – but if I have a single under Scale available, I’ll take it!)
30 burpee over rower – I can’t jump over the rower (I talked about this in the blog yesterday), but the gal putting the Throwdown together just laughed at me. She said, “Do you realize that basically if anyone gets any burpees in, they’re going to be a rock star?” I then looked at the workout, which is “as many rounds as possible” of these moves in the time cap of 2, then 3, then 4 minutes (but with only a 15 second rest), and I had to laugh too. We decided though that “in case” I get to the burpees, I can just do burpees. Since my burpees involve kneeling down, throwing myself onto the floor, then walking my feet back up, she dutifully noted I would need an Ab Mat for my knees.
with any remaining time, row for Calories – ha, ha, ha 😉

So that’s my scales, folks. I feel a lot better now than I did yesterday. You know why I feel better, too? Because I saw one of the scaled male athletes today at the gym – he has a “frozen shoulder” so there is just no way he can do overhead movements correctly. (Stephanie, our WOD Recovery Yoga leader from Endure Yoga, talked about him today on the Girls Gone WOD Podcast, in fact.) And whereas his girlfriend, who is doing the Throwdown too, said she would be “laughing all day” at the whole thing, he and I can’t sleep. At least there is someone else out there feeling a little stressed out about this. (Made me feel better – what’s that saying, “Misery Loves Company”? 😉 )

SO RELIEVED how this worked out! Now, of course, we’ll see what happens on Saturday. Heck, I might not be able to lift the bar at all in the Clean & Jerk, etc. – but that’s just how Competition goes.

When I was training for the Ironman, someone said that you might, or you might not, make it over the finish line on actual race day, but you are ready to. You are “prepared” to do it. Whether or not you do your “best” or cross that finish line on that “particular day” is somewhat a matter of luck (or, as us lawyers say, “force majeure”).

I’m going to try to keep that thought in my head. 😉

Competition. WHAT was I THINKING?

Posted on January 28, 2015March 17, 2026 by Sandy

Yep. That's me the last time I tried burpees over a bar. — Yep. That’s me the last time I tried burpees over a bar.

You know what? I WAS NOT thinking.

Our Crossfit box is having a “Throwdown” this weekend. I, being friendly with the coach who is constructing this competition, said “oh, sure” I would do it. My efriend Jennifer recently did an Olympic weightlifting competition, and she also was very inspiring to watch – ESPECIALLY as she missed her first lift. (HERE is her blog.)

Jennifer and I went back and forth last year about the Open, which I joined because I didn’t really know what I was doing. I had been doing Crossfit for about three months, and I somehow thought that you “had to” join – then I stressed out in a big way about it. I’m unlikely to join the Open this year (even as Scaled), unless, like last year, our box provides nice tank tops and special snacks for competitors. (Anything for snacks.)

me visiting Crossfit Pohaku on the Big Island of Hawaii

Jennifer pointed out that you’re a lot more likely to “surprise yourself” with doing something you “didn’t know you could do” if you’re in a competition situation, and she was right – I got my first double unders, and my best deadlift (to that date) during the Open. But what I hadn’t realized was that “whether or not you were registered,” the box would do the Open workout together on the Friday. So it’s likely I would have gotten those “PRs” anyway.

Maybe.

I did 14.1 in Hawaii and NEVER would have sought out a sanctioned box if I hadn’t actually been registered – my main issue was that if you got a zero on any particular week, Crossfit HQ said you would be “locked off the leaderboard.” This actually did not happen, but it was upsetting to me, especially as I would be out of town for the very first workout! The experience was amazing though, as it truly made me realize the strength of the “Crossfit Community.”

Interestingly, I wrote a letter to Crossfit HQ about all this (and that they should have a scaled division) – and this year, they made it clear you can enter a zero and still be “in it,” and there is a Scaled division. (Yeah, you can thank me for that. Ha ha ha.)

So, back to this “Throwdown.” There are three “divisions.” They are Rx, Scaled, and what was formerly known as “I am broken/medically cannot do Scaled but I want to compete.” My friend Jessica and I wanted to join in, but both of us felt that, while Scaled is generally “too much for us,” we could not in good conscience join the “medically unable” group. Because we don’t have anything “medically” wrong with us. We just no can do it.

When I discussed this with the gal who was designing it, she said she’d change the third group to a different name so that we could do it 😉 So it became Rx, Scaled, and “I want to participate,” basically.

Now, silly me, I thought that the “I want to participate” WODs would be basically for show. Like – hey, I want to be part of the community, watch me lift a 10 pound dumb bell. Yay, me!

The WODs came out yesterday, and in actuality, it’s “just” Rx and Scaled. THEN, if you’re in my group (I think there are only 3 of us in this group – hey, guaranteed Show for me LOL), you read through the Scaled and figure out what you cannot physically do, and then sub something in, instead, ahead of time, sanctioned by the coaches.

Here are the WODs:

Workout 1:
Part A
5 minutes to build to 1 RM Clean and Jerk
Rest 1 minute to reset your bar.

Part B: 7 min AMRAP of
5 Handstand Pushups
7 Toes to Bar
5 Hang Power Cleans (40 kg)

Workout 2: For Time (8 Minute Time Cap):
100 meter run around a cone with sandbag (45#)
15 thruster (30 kg)
30 box jump (20″)
15 thruster
100 m run around a cone with sandbag

Workout 3:
2 min AMRAP/15 sec rest
3 min AMRAP/15 sec rest
4 min AMRAP
Row 10 Cal
15 pull up
20 wall ball (14 lbs)
25 double unders
30 burpee over rower
with any remaining time, row for Calories

And, so, I’ve been up since 3 a.m. beside myself that I said I would do this. I know, I know, “it’s supposed to be fun.” The thing is, I’m not a competitor. I’m not sure if it comes from the spirit of the USMC (“no one left behind”) or what, but I have absolutely no desire to be the first. I’d rather that we all crossed the line together. I do, however, have a desire not to be the last. I also have a good habit of pitying and getting down on myself.

In my first book I discuss coming up with a “Bond Girl” name that characterizes who you “want to be.” As an example, one woman who took my coaching wanted to be perceived as less serious, so she took the name of “Bubbles.” Another woman wanted to be seen as more serious and sexy, so she took the name “Vixen.” (To visualize this, basically a girl who “was” a “Bubbles” wanted to be a “Vixen,” and vice versa.) My Bond Girl name? Solitaire. Why? Because I always do things for other people, and don’t particularly “think about myself.” (You play the game of solitaire “for yourself.”) I’m the one who is forever stopping on a marathon to help a fellow runner who’s having a rough time; helping a cyclist change a tire; etc. I do what are basically solitary sports (running, triathlon, cycling, swimming), but I do them in the context of a group (like Team In Training). This way, I’m not holding someone “back” (like if I was part of a triathlon team), but I’m also part of something bigger.

I do really hate being last though. Even when I was a kid, I was always this way. I really don’t have to win, and don’t have the killer instinct to do it. But if I’m holding people back – if I’m the worst – I will just quit. Some day I’ll tell you the story of when – as a ten year old – I convinced a ski instructor to “leave me on the hill” because I was “holding the class back.” (Now you know how long ago that is, since he actually did it.)

My husband – who, by the way, says that doing this competition is one of the Top Five Stupidest Things that I have done in our 15ish years together (yeah, the Ironman’s on there too) – is very against me doing this. He won’t attend, and he doesn’t want to hear anything about it when I get home. He believes there is a high likelihood that I will get hurt, and he also knows that this is literally 180 degrees from what I have been told to do by my doctor (no metcons, period).

Um, yeah, I know…

Of the “scales” above:

● I can do Hand Release Pushups if I put a black band around the vertical stanchions to support my midsection.
● I can do “knees up” but not to chest. One of the movement standards says your heels have to go behind your body on the “down” too – can’t do that either because my shoulders won’t take a kip.
● Hang Power Clean 25 kg. I can do that. (HPC is the one WITHOUT the squat, right?)
● No can do a Thruster. (She said I can sub kettlebell swings – that I can do.)
● Run with 20 lb. wall ball versus 45# sandbag (I can do that, though I am not supposed to be running. I suppose I can walk – it’s not like I’m going to WIN anything).
● 15 jumping pull ups or 5 pull ups – jumping pullups are REALLY hard for me. My question to her is “how hard” is this supposed to be? I can do banded pullups, which give me support on the ‘way down,’ but jumping do not. 15 is a LOT, like a WHOLE lot.
● I can do single unders. (I actually am getting better at double unders, but not under stress.)
● My 1RM in a box jump is 18″ – and that was about 5 months ago. 15″ is SUPER hard for me, as in, I have to really think about it. Presuming that this is supposed to NOT be “scary” at 20 inches, I suppose …what, I jump up to like a plate on the ground? I’m just frustrated and embarrassed, typing this.
● Burpees: I have to walk back, flop down, walk back up. It counts, it’s just not very pretty. If I really concentrate, I can jump over the PVC stands, though I haven’t done it in a while. Again, is this supposed to be hard, or easy? I guess today I have to see whether I can jump over anything at all any more. (White Girl Don’t Jump…and especially recently since I’ve been nursing a glute/hip issue.)

I actually think that part of my problem is that I’m going to know so many of the people there. I was discussing this with the wife of one of our box athletes, who competed in a Masters competition this weekend. I was telling her how ambivalent I was about having agreed to do the Throwdown. What she said was interesting. She said that the “growth” that I was going to get out of this was not that I might get some amazing PR. It was actually just that I would realize that I could stomach doing it – get in and get it done – though it’s way out of my comfort zone.

So, I’m going to go with that. Today I’ll meet with the coach, discuss the scaling, and see if I can actually do a clean and jerk and maybe jump over a PVC stanchion. And hopefully, I can get some more sleep between then and now.

Pushing your envelope is good, at least, people tell me it is. I just wish it didn’t make me feel like I’m gunna barf.

Catabolism (a/k/a “Cannibalism”) & Inflammation

Posted on January 21, 2015May 18, 2026 by Sandy

I am not an expert on this (but I play one on TV – ha!)

As those of you who have been keeping up on this blog know (all 4 of you 😉 ), I have been having a SERIOUS struggle with hormones, weight, and “all that jazz” that women over 50 talk about incessantly and those of you who are not in this bracket try to nod patiently and wait us out about . . .

A month or so ago, I went on a new “dramatic” plan. Why? Because I had had a nearly ten pound muscle loss (and also four pounds of fat gained) in the period of a few months (HERE is the blog post about that). After the body testing “wake up call,” I had my hormones tested, and though my cortisol marker was normal (more on that in a second), my DHEA was through the roof. Both are made by the adrenals.

My doctor took seven vials of blood in that test – my doc is nothing if not thorough. Thyroid hormones – for which I take meds – were normal FINALLY (for the first time in what seems like forever). Cortisol also registered as normal, but (as I have been reading a LOT about all this) that doesn’t mean it IS normal.

Cortisol is a sneaky thing, and can register as normal in the morning (I gave the blood, as instructed, between 8-9 a.m.), but then spike LATER (which it’s not supposed to do, so isn’t normally tested for), etc. My doctor is away for the bulk of January, and we need to address the strastospheric DHEA, but I also want to try to get him to “allow” me to do a saliva test for cortisol – which is taken throughout the day to make a graph. If he doesn’t “sanction” it (a/k/a cover it on insurance), then I’m going to order my own test kit and do it anyway.

That said, my DHEA being 900 instead of like 40 (where it’s supposed to be) would generally indicate a person that is over-the-top anabolic. My Crossfit coach teased that I could sell my blood as “juice” (steroids) since basically I was testing higher than your standard major league baseball player . . . (joke! joke!)

Just in case you don’t know, your body is “anabolic” all by itself (in other words, without taking steroids) at parts of the day, and “catabolic” at others. “Anabolic” at the very base level means building cells. “Catabolic” at the very base level means tearing down cells. You’d think that catabolism would be BAD – who wants their muscles torn down?? – but in actuality, if your body never goes into a catabolic state, you never tear out the “broken down” muscle to replace it with new. Cortisol is catabolic – DHEA is anabolic. Both are made by the adrenals, which sit on top of your kidneys.

Usually, you’re anabolic at night. Makes sense, right? That you’d be “building up” your muscle while you’re sleeping. And “catabolic” during the day – where your cells are opened up and flushing out the bad stuff that’s in there. What you have eaten, and what you have done, during the day dictates how well you’re able to regulate the building up and tearing down.

Many people think that they “build muscle” when they are working out. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. You tear down muscle when you exercise – you “hurt” it – and then it is built up stronger afterwards when you are anabolic. That’s why rest days and good sleep are so important – if you don’t rest, or have a good amount of sleep, you’ll never actually build up the muscle that you are breaking down by exercising.

There is a great book with a stupid name called Kick Your Fat in the Nuts that I strongly recommend. I got this book on the Kindle a while back, and though I have (honestly) dozens and dozens of books on nutrition, the body, etc., it laid out everything in an easy-to-understand, fun fashion. (The author is a comedian who had a hormone crash.) I’d suggest you pick it up, especially if you can catch it when it’s offered for free on Kindle, which happens fairly often. If you’re more that sort of person, there’s an Audible version. That, or go to half.com and pick up the book version – I’m sure it’s cheap there. HERE is a definition from their website about anabolism v. catabolism. You’ll see how easy it is to understand.

As I said, in August (ah, full disclosure here) I tested as having 29.9% body fat, which meant 53.6 pounds of fat and 125.8 pounds of lean body mass. In December, I tested as having 33% body fat, which meant that my fat weight had gone up to 57.9 pounds, and my lean body mass down to 116 pounds. What had happened in between those dates? Something had made my body become seriously catabolic.

Remember what “catabolic” means? My body testing technician gave me a sound-alike: “Canni-bolic.” Your body is “cannibalizing” itself, trying to get at nutrition that it needs. Namely, your body is breaking down its own muscle – eating it like the old PacMan video games. Nom Nom Nom.

Why does it do this? Because something that you are doing in your life – whether it’s stress, bad food choices, too much hard exercise, not enough sleep, not enough rest, etc. – is causing your body not to be able to “access” what it needs in what you are giving it for fuel . . . so it gets what it needs where it can (e.g., your own muscles). This is also where “inflammation” comes in – Inflammation is your body surrounding things it perceives as toxic so that they don’t hurt it. The toxins “inflame” your body by setting off its “intruder alert” functions.

Worse – your body knows that it’s not getting what it needs to run itself, so while it’s trying to deal with the perceived toxins, it starts packing away fat, which is the only thing your body knows to do in a “starvation” scenario. Which is what it thinks it’s in. Regardless of how much of a glutton you are.

So while waiting on my doctor to tell me what to do, my trainer told me that somehow this had to do with inflammation and adrenal fatigue “even though” my cortisol tested as “normal.” So it was time for me to “get with the program” and decrease stress, eat super clean, up my rest days, and see what happened.

So my husband and I went on the Bulletproof Rapid Fat Loss Protocol for a week to “kick start” our bodies into burning fat for fuel instead of glucose. It makes sense that other “diets” (“juice” diets, “detox” diets, etc.) that are based on carbohydrates don’t do a thing to help your body actually burn fat – they give it glucose and fructose as an energy source instead. How would this help your body learn to go to fat for fuel . . . ?

Now mind you, a week was all we could stand – man, eating about 1500-1600 calories of just butter/MCT oil (Bulletproof coffee, tea, and “butter soup” anyone?) is not easy.

After that week, we did one day of a carb re-feed, then went to the Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting protocol, which means Bulletproof Coffee in the morning, and then lunch and dinner within a six hour window, made up of basically a ton of veggies and some pastured protein. This means that your body is fasting for 18 hours – part of which is of course while you’re sleeping. (As an aside, if you’re a Bulletproof Coffee aficionado and aren’t doing the intermittent fasting – so you don’t care if you’re kicked into metabolizing in the morning – HERE are some recipes that look pretty sweet.)

Under the intermittent fasting protocol, you still have a carb re-feed day once a week, where (per Asprey’s book) your body goes into its cells for protein, and grabs toxins as well on its way out. HERE is the diet “infographic” of what foods are more Bulletproof, and which are more toward the “Kryptonite” range. HERE is a downloadable shopping guide.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed in eating according to the diet “infographic” is that my rosacea has really cleared up. Moreover, I’m not waking up with plugged up sinuses. Though I’m sleeping as well as I always do, I am having a Hell of a time getting up to work out at 7:00 a.m. like I was before (so, I’m not. I’m working out in the afternoon). I’m to keep my exercise very “non-cardio” (I’ve talked about this), and after going through some testing using the C.H.E.K. Institute Zone program, my trainer has put me on a de-stress/vitality build program using their exercises. You can check out the exercises: they include getting outside (one of my New Year’s Resolutions!) for walks and breathing (no iPod), using a ball instead of a chair at my desk, more breathing, etc.

So why am I writing?

Because I was re-tested yesterday.

And get this.

My body fat is down to 50 pounds. In a month. (That’s 7.9 pounds lost.) And my muscle is up to 121 pounds (that’s 5 pounds gained).

WHAT???

Yes, indeed.

WHY???

Because I’ve stopped being catabolic. I have stopped “cannibalizing” my own muscles for fuel, and my inflammation has gone way down because I have cut just about everything toxic out of our eating. (Sigh.) My waist is down 2 inches in a month; my neck has even lost 1/4 of an inch.

The guy doing the test was as impressed as I was (laugh). He said that he thinks that during my August test, I probably wasn’t in adrenal fatigue, but I reached it in December, which is why my numbers went so far in the other direction. Now, he said, I seem to be backing off of it.

If you compare the numbers, August was 53.6 pounds of fat, December was 57.9, and yesterday was 50. August was 125.8 pounds of lean body mass, December was 116, and yesterday was 121.

I haven‘t quite gained the muscle back that my body cannibalized, but my fat has dropped dramatically.

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?

By eating clean and teaching my body to go use my body fat for fuel – plus staying with food/exercise that doesn’t throw my body into a catabolic state 24/7 – I’m equalizing. I’m building muscle when I’m supposed to be, and burning fat.

After the body fat test, the guy and I discussed this whole thing in detail. He said that “obviously” I had done “exactly what I had been told to do” and (more importantly) that it was working. Sure, having 29.3% body fat is still super high – even my doctor has weighed in (ha ha) on this. Given my bone structure, I should lose about 20 pounds of fat, which will put me in a good zone and, in fact, would put me at the “scale weight” I feel the most comfortable at, even though we know that “scale weight” isn’t as important as “body composition” weight.

Anyway – the test yesterday made me feel great. Look, I don’t like staying off “Kryptonite” foods, and neither does my husband. We love our fruit, wine, whisky, chicken (no chicken on this eating protocol, believe it or not! It’s Omega-6 fats which are inflammatory), etc. But when I talked to him about all this the other day, he said that he’s having similar results on the eating plan, and in fact is close to reaching his first goal – being under 200 pounds with his body fat down to some percentage . . . he wouldn’t tell me that part! He told me he’s gained about 10 pounds every decade since the ’70s – and after going on this eating protocol he’s almost “two decades down.”

Crossfit in 100 Words by Greg Glassman (founder of Crossfit)

So that’s my check-in. The interesting thing is that we’ve all gone on “diets” throughout our lives (right?) Some work better than others. But this time around, because of the August-December numbers, I’ve gotten serious. And with these new numbers a month later, I’m staying serious.

Oh . . . and by the way . . . I also passed my Crossfit Level 1 Trainer certification course. I can talk about that in a separate blog post if you like (let me know). It was hard, but wow was it worth it. I don’t plan to “be a trainer,” I just wanted to “understand” Crossfit better. And it was a FANTASTIC (and demoralizing/frustrating) experience. Leave me a comment if you want to know more 😉

TeleMedicine: I’d really like your opinion

Posted on January 9, 2015March 17, 2026 by Sandy

I’m considering getting involved in a company, and I’d like you to take a look at the following, and give me your opinion.

Yeah yeah, I know, it’s “evil network marketing.” Look – I’m still making a monthly passive cashflow income (doing nothing) with the last network marketing company I joined . . . it’s just that this new venture strikes me as being really “important.” I personally like network marketing. In fact, if you’ve read my book Passive Income 101 you know (I hope!) that – as long as you are referring folks to something that you honestly believe in – network marketing is basically just getting paid for something you already do (like referring someone to a great restaurant or movie because you really like it – but in this case, you also get paid for helping people find that movie or restaurant).

Anyway – that’s beside the point. Because it’s a new company, right now to be a “consultant” is very inexpensive – that’s why I personally signed up.

I’ve been interested in Health for a long, long time now. In fact, I’m sort of an unlicensed expert on it. You should see my walls – I have bookshelves upon bookshelves of mainly nutrition-related information.

A number of colleagues have tried to involve me in Health-related network marketing for some time, because they know this is my “hot button” area. The thing is, I have never found one that fits what I believe in. I don’t believe in ingesting soy (ahoy, Monsanto!), vitamin pills, manufactured “food,” etc. I eat vegetables and organic, pastured meats. I’m not going to take a potion, and you can’t scare me into doing it, because I biohack myself, and if I need something, I add it organically and naturally.

What started me down this road? I like to be on the “forefront” of things (and usually I’m not!). Recently I read THIS ARTICLE, and it got me thinking.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, let me just give you a quote:

“The number of doctor-patient video consultations will nearly triple from this year to the next, from 5.7 million in 2014 to over 16 million in 2015, and will exceed 130 million in 2018,” said Harry Wang, Director, Health & Mobile Product Research, Parks Associates.

Yup, then I went down the rabbit hole of a TED playlist called “Take Charge Of Your Healthcare” (especially the TED Talk by ePatient Dave).

When it comes to doctors, I happen to be “one of those lucky people” with fantastic insurance. However, more and more of my friends – and especially my entrepreneurial law clients – are not so lucky. So what happens if they get sick, or need a prescription? If they have to go to an emergency room, it’s so expensive it’s nauseating. Also under Obamacare, if you are not insured and you go to try to get help, you’re going to pay a penalty.

I am a Kaiser patient, and all my interactions with my doctors in the past two years – except my once-a-year GYN visit – have been via email. Questions and tweaks to my thyroid meds, questions about things going on with me, getting an antibiotic prescription, etc. So right now, I feel like I kinda have the sort of health care that MDGlobal is offering. You know what? I love it!

We all know that hospitals and doctors’ offices are immensely “germy” places. (Hey! There are sick people there! 😉 ) So not having to go to one sounds like a great idea. MDGlobal lists lots of common conditions treated, including weight management, erectile dysfunction, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. Prescriptions include the whole gamut – from Antibiotics through Viagra to Zithromax. All the doctors are licensed in the United States.

If you’re in a car accident and have to go to an emergency room to get sewn up, it’s not gunna help you. Obviously. But that’s not what most of us use our doctors for – or wish we could use doctors for. It’s your child’s fever at 3 a.m. Or a cough that won’t go away. Or a cut that won’t heal. Or a prescription you had when you were insured that’s run out – and there’s no way to re-fill it.

As I understand it, this is how it works: Your family (the whole family, including kids in college, etc.) pays $19.95 per month to have access to the system. If you need to receive any of the concierge medical services/speak to a doctor, you can do it 24/7/365 via an app or on your computer – in audio or video teleconference – and that “visit” is $35. (Since my current co-pay to see a doctor is now $20 and I’d have to drive to the doctor’s office and sit there with all the other folks suffering from God knows what, I think this is pretty affordable. What do YOU think?) A “triage” person takes your call or email, and then a doctor calls you back within three hours.

So, here’s my questions to you:

*Would you be willing to look at THIS LINK and tell me what you think about it? What are your reservations?

*Who do you think this service could be helpful for?

*What questions do you think people would ask about this service?

Yes, I really do want to know 😉

Last Supper Syndrome…and the New Year’s Day Epic Bridge WOD

Posted on January 5, 2015March 17, 2026 by Sandy

Last Supper Syndrome.

So, today, my husband and I started the Bulletproof Rapid Fat Loss Protocol.

Basically, it’s “eat butter for 5 days, carbo load on the 6th, go back to eating butter until you’re at your desired body fat percentage . . . oh and take a bunch of supplements, too.”

As described by Dave Asprey:

The best way to lose weight on the Bulletproof® Diet is with Bulletproof® Intermittent Fasting. But if waiting for results just isn’t your thing, you can use this Bulletproof® Rapid Fat Loss Protocol . . . . However, you need to understand that your body stores toxins in fat that your liver couldn’t excrete, so when you lose weight very rapidly, those toxins are released and can make you very sick. This Bulletproof® Rapid Fat Loss Protocol helps you avoid any side effects from this toxin release, so it’s important to follow the plan carefully.

In a nutshell: the plan uses 6 days of ketosis – when your body burns fats for energy – followed by 1 day of carbohydrate loading along with constant toxin binding supplements to help your body get rid of the released toxins. This protocol isn’t low-calorie, and you don’t run the same risk of causing metabolic problems that you do when you follow a low-calorie diet.

H and I both decided that we have gone way-hay-hay down the road of gluttony. I think it’s ‘cos his job is stressful, which makes him want to counterbalance by eating “good food and drink” – and of course, I am the perfect enabler in that respect. 😉

We have tried more “moderate” starts to eating plans, but we always fall off. Back in the day when the Master Cleanse “maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne” thing was all the rage, we actually did that for a couple of weeks – and doing something so dramatic really helped us to break out of the habits that we had fallen into. Even though I know nutritionally that the Master Cleanse is NOT the way to teach your body to burn body fat, we actually felt okay doing it, which is important. If we feel crappy, we’re going to quit.

I’ve tried just about all the “eating plans” that you can think of – since I’m over 50, I’ve lived through and tried South Beach, The Zone, Dukan, high carb/no fat, high protein/no carb, Atkins, Perricone, Rosedale, Suzanne Sommers, David Hirsch, etc. I’m sure there are others I am forgetting. I never went for the “grapefruit” diet or the “cabbage soup” diet, but I’ve tried all the others.

The problem? It gets boring, and it often doesn’t work that fast.

I finished Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof Diet book over the holiday, and found it very inspiring. His podcast always has really great information and guests, though he seems a bit “full of himself” on them. I generally use the podcasts as springboards to find new experts to read. The book, thankfully, doesn’t have any “self-promotion” feel to it. The one thing I do wish that it had was a “Supplies” index – he talks about “finding purveyors online” for some of the things that he recommends, but it would have been helpful to have had them listed. (My guess is they are on his website, but there wasn’t a “quick and easy” link in the back of the book to tell me that, either.)

Hubby and I discussed going on the protocol in the book, but we’re both way over the mark on our body fat now (as I posted previously). My husband has been doing a “head in the sand” thing about this for some time now, but when I got my body fat/lean muscle tested, he saw that it galvanized me into action (after some frustrated tears, mind you) – and that helped him decide to change, too. As everyone knows, it’s a lot easier to start a diet when everyone in the house is doing it.

We have a super-duper “electrical impedance scale“, that measures your lean body mass, body fat percentage, etc. My husband won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. 😉 But this morning, I set it up for him (you need to input age, sex, height, etc.) and told him I didn’t care what it said – I didn’t have to know – but he had to know, because if this protocol isn’t working (if either of us loses lean body weight instead of body fat), then we have to stop. I weighed and “body fat-ized” myself this morning, and our couple weeks of gluttony have pushed me up on the scale, but as my body fat is about the same, I think I’ve likely retained water because of salt and junk in my system (as in, about 5 pounds’ worth).

When I got home from Crossfit, hubby was super grumpy, and the scale is in a different part of the bathroom, so I’m guessing he now “actually knows” his weight, and his body fat percentage.

We have been living the Last Supper Syndrome for this holiday season in “anticipation” of going on this protocol. You know what that means – eating and drinking everything in sight, because you “know” that you “won’t be able to” as soon as you “start.” It’s such a stupid thing to do, but amusing, too. Like, last night, we were eating everything in the house that is going to be “forbidden” for the next few weeks (months?). Anything we didn’t eat, I was going to throw away.

Oh for goodness sake! We chowed through a bottle and a half of champagne, “faux” gras (foie gras is illegal in California, this is a goose liver pate), brie, Stilton, guacamole, crackers (yes, GLUTEN crackers), bacon-wrapped pork roast with melted blue cheese and MORE guacamole on it, palak paneer . . . And that was just dinner. The whole day was a “clean out the fridge and eat garbage” Last Supper Day. Brandy-filled dark chocolates, chips left over from our New Year’s party, ranch dip, more chocolate, chilis rellenos with mole, poached eggs and bacon, grey-mosas (champagne with grapefruit juice) . . . Oy!

: our team

After a dessert of yogurt with mixed in coconut flakes, chocolate chips and granola topped off by three huge dark chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons, I went through the fridge and dumped out everything that is no longer “allowed.” Soy sauce, A-1 steak sauce, honey mustard, jams, jellies – you know the drill. Even (sigh!) big jars of bacon fat, which are no-go until we “reach the body fat percentage that we want” – which is going to be a long, long time from now.

Learnings From The Epic Bridge WOD.

On New Year’s Day, our Crossfit gym does the “Epic [Golden Gate] Bridge WOD” at 9:00 a.m. Last year, I had been at the gym for only a couple of months, but I did it anyway though I didn’t really know anyone – this year, I knew most of the folks who did it. Last year was pretty straightforward – a hero WOD on our side of the Bridge, run across, another hero WOD on the San Francisco side, run back, then a final hero WOD. You do it with teams – last year, it was 2 per team, and even though our team had 3, we came in dead last. (It was fun though.)

tree pullups on the far side (you had to "figure out where to do" the moves - extra points for creativity) — tree pullups on the far side (you had to “figure out where to do” the moves – extra points for creativity)

This year, they gave “points” for doing various things – and you could choose what your team wanted to do. Teams were made up of 4 people. If you got “bystanders” to join you in whatever you were doing (and took a video of it), you got extra points. (My favorite was convincing a guy to do cartwheels with us on the Bridge – or maybe it was the Christian gal standing all dressed up by her Be Saved sign, who we convinced to do a kettlebell swing in her long skirt! I will say that the ridiculous amount of walking lunges Claire and I have been doing in the KMC protocol made the walking lunges on the Bridge a piece of cake!)

Julian gets "extra points for creativity" by stripping down and doing his burpees in the surf! BRRRR!!!!! — Julian gets “extra points for creativity” by stripping down and doing his burpees in the surf! BRRRR!!!!!

The whole experience was a blast, especially as you had no idea “where you were” in the WOD vis-a-vis other teams. HERE is a write-up of the day from our gym’s blog, if you’re curious, and it contains a link to what we did, for how many points. As you’ll see if you read the blog link, our team came in first (though we were the last ones to finish), because you got 5 points per kettlebell/dumb bell if you carted them back across the Bridge (1.7 miles), and we brought 6 across. We had 4 dumb bells at 30 pounds, and 2 kettlebells at a “pood” each (36.11 pounds).

We realized half way across the Bridge that this was way too ambitious, which lead to good teamwork and strategy. Mikaela carried the 2 1-pood kettlebells most of the length of the bridge, then Kevin, Jessica and I traded off the 4 30-pound dumbbells for at least half the Bridge because of a miscommunication with Suzanne. (She ran ahead because we said that we should do a “trade off” with one person staying fresh, but we meant between light standards not half way on the Bridge!)

Kevin and I basically had to trade off carrying 1 or 2 dumb bells each for the first half of the Bridge, and Jessica carried one. Sometimes Kevin and I would each carry 2 to let Jessica rest (There were a lot of rests in there.) Once we caught up to Suzanne mid-span though (meaning there were now 5 people instead of 4), I took off with one of the 30 pound dumbbells, leaving the 4 of them with the 2 1-pood kettlebells and the 3 other dumb bells to trade off. I walked straight without resting to the other end of the Bridge, up the stairs to the parking lot, down the LONG set of stairs under the Bridge, crossed under the Bridge, then back up the LONG set of stairs to where the cars and the other teams were waiting.

I dropped the first 30 pound dumbbell in the parking lot, then went back, carried Mikaela’s two kettlebells a portion of the way for her (I did mention the LONG flights of stairs to get down under the Bridge, then back up the other side, right??), then ran back and took one of Kevin’s 30-pounders under the Bridge and up the stairs, then finally got Jessica/Suzanne’s 30-pounder down the stairs, under the Bridge, and up the other side. (Must be my Marine background – No Dumbbell Left Behind!)

The most instructive part of the whole thing for me was actually when I carried that first 30 pounder by myself from the middle of the Bridge to the cars (about a mile). I had been carrying one, two, trading off, etc. from the San Francisco end to the middle, but usually that meant that Kevin and I were walking together. Once we had re-found Suzanne, I took off alone, because I knew that I could walk faster and get more done that way. I also knew it would go faster if I dropped that initial weight off, then go back to help “ferry” the other weights in for the team v. trading off and resting along the way.

Thirty pounds is about the weight that I have to lose right now. Carrying that doggone dumbbell was like something out of The Biggest Loser. It made me realize just how much I’m asking my body to cart around. When I’d get to the parking lot and heave that thirty pounds down onto the ground each time, my body felt like it was floating.

I need to remember that feeling. I wish I’d thought to have a member of my team take a photo of me while I was doing that carry – I’d print it out and put it on the refrigerator!

To all of you who are starting something – an eating plan, a workout plan, or any other “Resolution” today – I wish you well! Leave me a comment if you like, and let me know what is on your goal list for 2015, so I can cheer you on!

TEN pounds of MUSCLE lost…???

Posted on December 23, 2014December 23, 2014 by Sandy

Wow, I’m REALLY unhappy as I type this post. I actually don’t know the last time I was so unhappy.

Just returned from getting “re-assessed” on my “numbers.” As those of you who read this blog know (all 4 of you LOL), I was told about the middle of last year that I had to dramatically change what I was doing eating/exercise-wise, because it was wreaking havoc with my body chemistry.

I had “everything” tested last August – then the “chemistry part” was re-tested fairly recently (October). Per the way the chemistry was going, I was taken off doing “met cons” and endurance-type exercise, and told to concentrate on strength, and then non-“metabolic” training, like walking.

So today, I had my numbers re-assessed. As all 4 of you (smile) know, my coach at our Crossfit box has “un-metcon’d” the workouts for me, so I can still train basically “with” the class. As you also know, I’ve added other strength/conditioning training from Krissy Mae Cagney’s program, as blessed by my mobility guy.

I feel pretty good these days. I’ve noticed a lot better tone in both my arms and in my legs. But I’ve felt “heavy.” Now I know why . . .

My body composition came back that actually my body fat has gone from 29.9% (in August) to 33%. My actual body fat (in pounds) went from 53.6 pounds to 57.9 pounds. My lean muscle weight went from 125.8 pounds, to 116 pounds.

2014 04 17 muffin — yup – that’s me and my muffin.

That’s just 0.2 pounds shy of a loss of TEN POUNDS of muscle.

(Imagine if I hadn’t picked up my strength training…??)

And before you ask – it’s not some half-assed test. It’s not only the same test as in August, but it’s also the “2nd best, only to a body fat dunk tank” test.

Beside. Myself.

So, I’ve been instructed to go back to logging on MyFitnessPal with a vengeance. Yeah, so, I hate logging. I have said before how great and semi-painless MyFitnessPal is, but I still hate it. I’ve been doing logging for two weeks, but in a desultory fashion – meaning, for example, that weekends (when I’m away from the computer and my phone), I haven’t kept track.

As my pal Claire (who I’m doing the Krissy Mae Cagney program with) said – it’s time to ix-nay the ine-way and eese-chay.

So there’s the thing. I HATE having to change what I eat. I love what we eat. I HATE feeling that my body has “betrayed” me by getting older.

The scary part is that if I’d put on body fat – if my body fat had just “gone up” – that would be one thing. But what up with the significant muscle loss?

He said that one possibility is that what I’m eating just isn’t getting in to “feed” my muscles. Instead, I’m “stuck” saving calories as fat because of something wonky with my chemistry. And, since I have now added strength, stopped met cons, and all the rest of that jazz from the exercise side – it’s time to hit it hard from the eating side.

I wish I wasn’t such a great cook (brag, brag, brag, but it’s actually true). I wish my husband didn’t think I was the best cook in the world, which makes me cook even more. I cook “primal” – veg, meats, some starch (but, like, sweet potatoes and squash now and again) . . . but the portions are large, very large. I also eat way too fast. Also my husband likes to eat pretty late at night (he’s European).

My husband has a habit of throwing little “spanners” in the “works” of course – like, “Hey honey, let’s go drink champagne and eat dark single-sourced Amazonian chocolate out on the deck.” But it irks me to no end that NO, we are not eating Twinkies. Or bread. Or croissants. Or McDonald’s. Or KFC. Or fruit, even. And also NO, I’m not starving myself – in fact, I’ve kicked up my caloric intake by a bit, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts.

9.8 pounds. Nearly TEN POUNDS of muscle lost. In five months?? That’s nearly two pounds a month!

I know that what I’ve been told has to be right – that what I’m eating is being stored as fat and not “feeding” the muscles, so they are breaking themselves down to “get at” what my body needs. I’ve read about this ad nauseum. I just never thought it would apply to me.

vacationing in Florida when I was about 10.

I hate being surprised. I guess the part I hate the most is that I very rarely “look forward” to things. It’s been a habit since I was a little kid. Folks would ask if I was “looking forward” to a vacation, my birthday, etc. The answer was always No. Because if you “look forward” to something, you build all sorts of great things around that event in the future – and if it doesn’t meet your imaginings, you’re bummed out. So instead, I always stay neutral when it comes to holidays, vacation, birthdays, etc. – so everything that happens is an awesome surprise.

Walking into that office today for the re-test, I was “looking forward to” the “delighted” look when my numbers would be “so much better.” It’s my own fault that I was “looking forward” – I know better. The fall from what you expected to happen to what “really” happens is so much farther if you have pumped yourself up from not expecting anything at all. In fact, it’s kinda a shock.

Well, we’ll see where I’m at in another six months. Until then, my new JournalMenu.com journal has a section for goals. I blithely put as my first goal to have an 18% body fat percentage by a date next year. I don’t care about weight – in fact, I actually “lost weight” between my last test and now – but we know what it was “made up of” (muscle)! So now, I have to add another goal, and it has to be to re-up my muscle percentage in a BIG way.

quotes I chose for my new JournalMenu.com journal. now time to pay attention to them... — quotes I chose for my new JournalMenu.com journal. now time to pay attention to them…

Bummed. Just bummed.

{…pause…}

I have just spent the better part of an hour figuring out what I can do S.M.A.R.T. Goal-wise to attack this problem. Not to beat up on myself but wow am I bad at Math. As a side story, remember “story problems” back in grade school? (You know the ones: “If a train leaves New York at 3:00 p.m. going to Chicago and another leaves Chicago at 4:30 p.m. for New York and they are going x miles an hour, when and where will they crash into each other if someone doesn’t throw the switch?” – oh oops that’s the Addams Family version…) Well, back in math class, I used to move the trains forward by an hour at a time, until I got “close” to where they were meeting, then move them forward in minute increments, until I got them to smash – um – I mean pass. Stop laughing.

So that’s what I’ve been doing, trying to figure out what’s “attainable” (the “A” in S.M.A.R.T. goals) and in what time (the “T” of S.M.A.R.T. goals).

After moving my muscle and fat “trains” forward and back by a pound at a time, I’ve decided that, by my husband’s birthday (when we’re likely to be in Hawaii, and I’m likely to be doing Crossfit Open Workout #1 at a box there) I would like to gain three pounds of muscle, and lose eight pounds of body fat. That would be a “total” weight loss (as in “scale weight”) of five pounds – or less than a pound a week. Now, mind you, I know that putting on that much muscle is not going to be easy. But I am going to crack open my nutrition books (I only have 10,000 of them), and figure out what has gone haywire, and how to signal my fat cells to release their stuffed little faces, and how to signal my muscle cells to fill up their starved little selves.

So there you have it.

crossFIXE Muscle Paste – unicorn horn dust in a jar

Posted on December 9, 2014January 17, 2026 by Sandy

I’m not easily impressed.

Well, that’s not totally true – I’m super easily impressed by the awesomeness that always surrounds me daily at Crossfit – but when it comes to products . . .

I’m not easily impressed.

Over “Black Friday/Cyber Monday,” WOD Superstore was having a sale, and so I decided it was high time to get me some voodoo floss bands. I threw a little tub of CrossFIXE muscle paste into the package, because with the new Crossfit/Krissy Mae Cagney “Sexy Sculpt” routine, muscles I didn’t even know existed are hurting.

I used the Muscle Paste last night after a particularly punishing morning “Upper Push” session that took nearly 2 hours and left me unable to even do Child’s Pose with my arms (truth). Push Press, Bench Press, Plate Raises, Cleans, Tricep isolations, Pushups, Dips . . . you know the drill. My elbows, triceps and shoulders were killing me when I went to bed, so I slathered on some of this stuff and went to sleep. Didn’t smell too bad – a little herbal – and this is important because my husband can’t stand sleeping next to me if I have on a “smelly” balm of any kind. (Poor guy lived through enough of that when I did the Ironman to last several lifetimes.)

My elbows seem to always be hurting. I am fairly “loose limbed” (uncharitably referred to as “gangly” in my youth), and though I really watch my form in Crossfit, some of the lifts just seem to push that particular joint to the limit.

I woke up this morning and . . .

I got nothin’.

As in – for the first time in what seems like forever, my elbows don’t hurt in the slightest. I even did a couple of Billy Blanks-esque boxing moves (remember him??) and . . .

I got nothin’.

The product contains blueberry extract (antioxidant), coffee extract (stimulant), sea buckthorne oil (skin repair), coconut oil and the like. The antioxidants and stimulants supposedly help support blood flow and promote healing to sore skin, muscle, and connective tissue.

All the ingredients are “food-grade” and natural, which I suppose means that you can eat this stuff (though I wouldn’t recommend it). When compared to something like your usual Ben Gay-ish product with a fistful of unpronounceable chemicals, this is a bonus . . . especially because the product seems to work.

I’ve tried arnica-related products with limited success – I have also used Traumeel – which has a number of actual medical studies pointing out that its homeopathy often works better than NSAIDs, without the NSAID issues. Traumeel is, however, homeopathic – meaning it uses diluted botanical/mineral extracts to address inflammation – so while it has been medically shown to have actual long-term anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties, it’s not an “overnight” thing.

Interestingly enough, the company that makes CrossFIXE also has a product line called RIDICULOUS! – which even includes a “pain spray” and a bath soak. The ingredients on that one (I don’t have it – I’m looking at it online) say:

Coconut oil, organic sesame oil, green tea oil, blended with a special sauce of organic ingredients to soothe tension, soreness, tightness, etc. caused by lifting weights, running, cycling, Cross Fit, mad strength trainers, crazy marathon runners, etc.

Gotta tell you, if you are getting something from WOD SuperStore and you want to tuck a little extra in, I would certainly give the Muscle Fixe a try, given my own experience with it.

I might even give the RIDICULOUS! line a try – especially as (from the advertising on their site, mind you) it seems like this is an amped up version of Muscle Fixe.

Oh, and . . .

. . . NOPE, I did not get paid to write this review. And who knows, maybe the unicorn horn dust will wear off ten minutes from now – but until that time, I am blissfully unaware of my poor overused muscles and constantly aching elbows – and for that, I am immensely thankful!

Ya gots any products that contain “unicorn horn dust” for you? Let me know! I’d love to try them!

Awe and the Austrian

Posted on December 7, 2014December 7, 2014 by Sandy

My husband is Austrian, not American. He has been here since he was like 20, but English is not his first language.

Today at lunch, he mentioned that he’d gotten something done that has been on our List for a long, long time. My response was “Awesome!”

He thought about that (what was there to think about, you ask?)

And he thought some more.

(Now I’m curious what’s going on in his brain.)

And he says, “So, ‘awe’ is something that it’s good to have a little, but not so good to have a lot?”

Now I’m really puzzled. Obviously, it showed in my face, because he said earnestly:

“Well, ‘Awe-some’ is good, but “Awe-full” is bad, no? So it’s good to have some, but not a lot?”

I just love my husband’s mind. It’s