Last night I had shrimp tacos wrapped in lettuce instead of tortillas.  I had some chipotle pepper sour cream, cheese and avocado to top them.
Morning meal: Coconut milk, half and half, 3 eggs, cocoa powder and 2 tbs local honey.
I had some stomach issues a couple hours after drinking this.  I have not had that before.  My guess is it is due to the half and half I used instead of whole milk.  I wonder what the underlying cause was?  I will have to investigate.
For Lunch I had an avocado and some leftover roasted chicken, probably 6 oz.  I also munched on a few macadamia nuts and some deli turkey for snacks throughout the day.
Dinner consisted of some chicken I made in a pot.  I seared the skinless breasts in butter then added chicken broth, onion, shallots, garlic carrots celery and cabbage and prunes with some various spices.  It turned out pretty good but could have been better, it was missing something and I think I know what, potatoes.  So potatoes are a nightshade and apparently ok to eat sans skin but the yam tends to be a better starch of choice whenever I listen to the Robb Wolf podcast he recommends them over potatoes though I don't know why.  Perhaps they have more vitamins? Anyhow next time I will put some purple yams in the mix to give it a bit more mmmmph!

I have been logging my meals on FitDay and it looks like I am maintaining a rough average of 60/20/20 fat/protein/carb.

I cheated over the weekend and had some Chinese food with the GF but have remained Paleo friendly since then.  This morning was another Coconut Milk shake with 3 raw eggs this time, cocoa powder and 2 tbs of local honey.  The honey made it even tastier!  I find this High Fat shake to satiate me through late morning much better than the breakfast burrito I used to eat did.  The burrito consisted of a flour tortilla, 3 eggs scrambled in butter and some cheese.  It was zone enough for me but I like the shake better.  I have also been eating bacon and eggs and find that good too.  The "carb angst" as I will call it is dwindling.  I was feeling "hungry" for bread even though I was getting plenty of calories but that seems to be subsiding as I get more used to running on Fat.

Hello running buddies.  I wanted to point you to a great website for Paleo Info.  I'm sure you have heard of Robb Wolf, if not check out his site and listen to his podcasts.  They are fun informative and free.  http://robbwolf.com/category/podcasts/
Also have a look at http://www.archevore.com/ and google Paleo 2.0.  That is Kurt Harris' take and explanation of the Paleo diet. 

When I heard about eating paleo it jived with me right off the bat.  It was like when I read the "What is Fitness" article, it made sense.  I think I heard about it in the Crossfit Journal.  Eating minimally processed foods that we were evolved to eat just made sense. I was an easy sell.  Archevore gives the scientific details that prove it is a better way to eat and that should help most skeptics.  It's not about eating like a cave man, it's about eating a more well rounded nutritionally dense fashion.  Anyhow, I am no scientist so go to those sites if you want more details about the hows and whys.  This blog is about my experience.  I have decided to give the Paleo Plus Dairy thing a try and today is day 2.  I may eventually get off the dairy but the #1 thing to do to improve health and performance is to get rid of the gluten (bye bye bread).

Yesterday I had a headache for about 6 hours.  It could have been because I was overtired or because I had not eaten bread.  I lean towards the former as I have not been getting enough sleep the past few days (that will be fixed tonite).  For breakfast I had a shake that consisted of coconut milk, 2 raw eggs, cocoa and cinnamon.  It was pretty tasty and filling.  For lunch I am going to have deli meat and hummus and some olives and an apple and dinner will be a roast chicken and broccoli.  I must say I fell a bit sluggish and though I am not hungry, I have certainly been getting enough calories, I do feel like a pastry would really hit the spot :). I can't really explain it but I certainly miss the bread and notice a difference in eating more fat and less carbs.

Posture is very important when running.  I see a lot of people running that are leaning forward from the waist.  Midline stability is important in everything we do.  You should be able to draw a straight line from your ankles up to your hips up to your shoulders and through the top of your head.  The lean (and a very slight, hardly noticeable lean at that) starts at the ankles.  One thing that has helped me practice this whole body, "global" lean is to remember to push my hips forward.  I am not talking about hyper extension or tilting the pelvis forward I am just talking about a light push forward in the hips.  Drill:  Tie a rope around your waist and have someone/something pull you fast enough so you start running and you will understand what I am talking about.  The time I catch myself breaking at the waist is when going uphills so keep that in mind.  You may think you are really leaning into that hill but that lean is not helping you if it is coming from the waist.

Til next time rebel runners

A study done by the University of Alabama at Birmingham last year showed that eating a high protein, high fat breakfast increased the body's ability to burn protein and fat throughout the day.  The trend of low fat diets is certainly dying out but the high carb endurance athlete is running at full speed.  Training for a marathon does not give you the right to eat a bunch of pasta.  Over doing the carbs jacks up your insulin levels and throws your system out of whack.  The Paleo for Athlete's book recommends eating a ratio of 4:1 carbs to protein post workout.  Aside from post workout and sometimes preworkout the best diet to eat is a Zone diet.  That means you should be eating a Carb:Protein:Fat ratio of 40:30:30.  This ratio gives you more energy and makes you leaner.  Dr. Barry Sears came up with it and introduced it in his book The Zone Diet.  If you follow the Zone diet you will feel better and become leaner guaranteed. 

But I digress.  This post is about breakfast.  What is a better breakfast?  One with more protein and fat!!  Think of a typical breakfast and you think of what?  Bagels?  Cereal?  Carboriffic!!   Waking in the fasted state that we all do, the last thing we want to be doing is eating a bunch of carbs and boosting our insulin levels (storage hormone) which tells the body to store the carbs as fat so add some meat or eggs to it!  Here are a few ideas:

Bacon and Egg Breakfast Burrito (eggs cooked in grassfed butter)
Cottage cheese and fruit and almonds
Sausage and Oatmeal and almonds
Leftover Dinner from the night before...yes that's right, dinner for breakfast.  A lot of people have a hard time with this but eating a more "lunch-like" meal for breakfast gives you a lot more choices.  Most of us are going to have a hard time eating a tuna sandwich for breakfast though :).

Check out the CF Journal Issue 21 for some great meal ideas.

Summary:  Eat protein at every meal and eat more than you are eating.  If you are not thinking about your protein intake I can almost guarantee you are not eating enough of it.  Get rid of the carb-centric breakfast and add some Fat (think butter, yeah I said it...more on why you shouldn't worry about  saturated fat and cholesterol later) and Protein and you will get leaner and more proficient at burning fat while gaining muscle.

As some of you know I have been doing CrossFit Endurance for a while now, over a year and it has really changed by outlook on fitness and what an endurance athlete should look like. The changes I have made to my program are many but one that I feel has helped a lot is lifting heavy.  I am talking about doubles and triples with lots of rest between sets.  I never realized or bothered to think about the core strength that is involved in lifting heavy weights.  I think the deadlift is an outstanding exercise and ANY ATHLETE WORTH HIS/HER SALT SHOULD BE DEADLIFTING.  It really helps develop that posterior chain (back side of your body) that is so important and often neglected in endurance athletes.  It gets your core involved which helps you from having poor posture whilst running as well.  Ever have low back pain/general back pain after running.  Chance are you are breaking at the hips or just running with poor posture.  When I started deadlifting I immediately felt my posture change, IMMEDIATELY.  I could really feel that inner corset developing and gaining strength.  I remember something Tim Thompson of Monkey Yoga Shala once said.  It was in reference to pullups but applies to deadlifting too.  At the beginning of the yoga class he teaches he has everyone do pullups, most beginners can't muscle through more than 1 or 2. FOR MOST AVERAGE FOLKS PULLUPS ARE HARD and you are pulling a heavy load.  Anyway, the reason this yoga instructor had his students do pullups is because of just that...it's a heavy pull.  Lifting heavy, he explained, RELEASES GROWTH HORMONE and growth hormone does some amazing things for your health.  It makes you leaner and stronger and speeds recovery.  I do the workouts as Rx'd on crossfitendurance.com and that has me lifting heavy every week. Take my advice and toss the low RPE arobic stuff every now and again and lift some heavy shit off the ground.  It will help your running and overall health, I guarantee it. Checkout this video for some clips of people deadlifting and Coach Glassman talking about it's benefits------------------>How to Deadlift