How are you doing on week 2?  I know the point thing is a little tedious but it'll be worth it in the end!  I'll be starting a new Beginner Class next week on Tuesday night.  It will be a twice a week class (Tues/Thurs) and run from 7:30 PM to approximately 8:30 PM for four weeks.  The cost is $60.  I've re-vamped the curriculum and I think it will be better than ever.  

Saturdays team workout will be at Benjamin Franklin park again. We'll get going at 7:45 AM.  It should be a bit warmer than last time!

On Tuesday I watched Luca Paris film his tv show 'Culinary Journey'.  He had a Paleo Chef named Cindy Anschutz on with him, and they put together a great paleo dish.  I got to talk with Cindy for a few minutes and she's been advocating and living a paleo lifestyle for a few years now.  Her website www.cindystable.com has a whole bunch of great paleo recipes.  I have a feeling I'll be on that site ALOT!  Here's one for the grill, I plan on doing this sometime this week! 

Shrimp Kabobs

You can also check out and 'Like' her Facebook page Entertaining Paleo
Entertaining Paleo

Week 2 here we come!  I hope all you Moms out there had a great Mothers day and are ready to keep eating awesome Paleo food!  If you're comfortable with it, it would be awesome if some of you shared your point totals so far.  You can post them on the Facebook Paleo Challenge page or on the Granite State Kettlebells blog and if you're not in that group let me know and I'll add you.  

Kates Mothers Day meal - the simplest of Paleo meals…Meat and Veggies!  I simply grilled some steak tips and asparagus and it was awesome, grilled asparagus with some garlic and onion salt are wicked good!!

The first few folks to do the Benchmark workout did a great job!  Weather permitting we'll do it on Monday for everyone so if you haven't gotten a chance to do it then come in on Monday and you can have a turn at crushing it!  If the weather isn't permitting, we'll do it another day (I love stating the obvious). 

How's are the point totals so far?  If you'd like to share send me an email or if you don't mind going public go ahead and put them on the Facebook Page.  I got 6 points on Mon and Tues and I'm on track for 7 today, the day is young yet though!  

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember that Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day, so I figured I'd pop up a good alternative to the tradition.

Tomato Sauce and Spaghetti Squash

I usually get a decent sized spaghetti squash then cut it in 1/2 long ways.  Then I lay them open side down on a cookie sheet for about an hour at around 400, my oven is a little goofy so it can take a little longer.  When it's done take it out of the oven (duh)  and scrape out the spaghetti squash goodness.

For the sauce (my wife usually takes care of this part, cause she's awesome!) make as much of it from scratch as you're able, most of us don't have time to do that so find the sauces/purees that have just tomatoes.  I think Pome is one of those brands, but remember to check your labels.  The sauce my wife makes usually takes all day to cook.  For more details on the sauce just send me an email and I can get them to you.

If you're going to do meatballs then remember to use almond flour instead of regular flour to hold them together.  If you're going to use sausage look for a nitrate free brand.  

So tomorrow we get to start our next Paleo nutrition challenge, and I'm excited to get going!  Remember to keep track of your daily points.  If you are on Facebook and have not yet been added to the Paleo Challenge Page then let me know and I'll get it taken care of.

Resources:
A couple of folks have asked about where to get recipes etc. so here are the cookbooks I currently own for paleo recipes, they have some awesome stuff! There are a bunch of others as well.       

   * Paleo  Comfort  Foods
   * Well Fed
   * Everyday Paleo 
 
You can get a couple of these books at Toadstool Books.   
 
There are also tons of websites with great paleo recipes for free.  

The Benchmark Workout:

"A little bit of Kelly", if you want to take part in the before and after benchmark workout be sure to show up this Saturday at 7:45 AM. 

Todays workout was lots of fun, we did a 5 exercise circuit. We worked for 1 minute at each exercise, at the end of the minute we moved to the next exercise.  The exercises were pull ups, wall ball shots, double kettlebell push press, broad jumps, and ab wheel roll outs.  We broke up into 2 groups of 3 and proceeded to kick butt!  The teams were, Beth, Forrest and Cheryl were one team and then Joe, Tyler and Dan were on the other.  Beth, Forrest and Cheryl soundly kicked Joe, Tyler and Dan's butt!  Way to go everyone that came in to workout today, the more people that show up on our team workout days the more fun we have!  So if you have Saturday at 7:45 AM open then we'd love to see you there!

6 Week Paleo Challenge

We’re going to do a 6 week Paleo Challenge starting Monday, May 7th.  This is two weeks longer than our usual challenge and by doing that we’ll be able to better engrain good nutritional habits. We’ll be measuring our success over the 6 weeks of the challenge using a system of points. And no, these aren’t the Weight Watchers kind of ‘points’.

If you feel like 6 weeks is a little too long, then feel free to keep it at 30 days. 

During this 6 weeks, don’t worry about portion size, eat when you are hungry and eat until your satisfied (obviously this doesn’t mean ‘unlimited’).  The goal is changing what foods your eating for 6 weeks not the amount, portion size can be tweaked later if necessary.

There are 2 ways that we’ll earn points for the challenge.

1.Daily points for eating Paleo, along with bonus points for maintaining healthy sleep and exercise habits

2.Benchmark workout — performed at start and end

Daily Points & Bonus Points

We will start each day with 7 points. These points represent 7 aspects of the Paleo diet.  We will

1.Eat real food. Meat, eggs, vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruit, oils (like Extra Virgin Olive Oil or coconut oil). Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re fresh and natural.

2.Do not eat dairy. This includes butter, cheese, yogurt and milk (including cream in your coffee) there is one exception ‘ghee butter’.

3.Do not eat grains. This includes bread, rice, pasta, corn, oatmeal, and also any gluten-free pseudo-grains (quinoa, etc).

4.Do not eat legumes. This includes beans of all kinds, soy, lentils, and peanuts. No peanut butter!

5.Do not eat sugars of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Truvia, Stevia, etc.

6.Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, processed bars like Zone and Balance bars, dairy-free creamers, etc.

7.Do not drink alcohol, in any form.

So, if you follow points 1-7, but have a beer with your dinner, you get 6 points for the day.  Subtract a point for the day if you have cream in your coffee.  Eat a bagel – subtract a point.  If you have a beer, cream in your coffee and a bagel in one day, you’re down to 4 points for that day. If you have a question about whether something counts as a point or not, ask and we’ll figure out an answer.

Earn one bonus point per day that you get 8.5+ hours of sleep.

Earn one bonus point per day (maximum of 6 per week) for each training session you do at Granite State Kettlebells.

Points are awarded on the honor system, a spreadsheet to keep track of your points electronically will be available for download. We will also provide some hard copies at the box for those who prefer to track their points on paper.

Benchmark WOD

To measure performance gains, we’ll be doing a benchmark WOD at the start and end of the challenge.
“A lil’ bit of Kelly”:
3 rounds, for time:
400m run
30 box jumps, 20”
30 wall ball

Points awarded for improvement on the benchmark WOD — still TBD.

Prize
What’s a challenge without sweet prizes? 
The top scoring male and female participants will each earn a wonderful prize:  A free month of membership!

We will be doing this in conjunction with CrossFit Keene and at the end we’re planning a get together to re-do the “lil’ bit of Kelly” workout. 

Body composition

Wondering why this challenge doesn’t include points for pounds / inches / percent body fat lost?

This challenge is designed to reward those who stay dedicated to maintaining healthy eating, sleep and exercise habits over 8 weeks. The reason it is set up that way is because eating Paleo isn’t a weight loss diet. The concept of Paleo is to provide your body with the optimal fuel that it was designed to run on.

Eating Paleo is primarily about feeling and performing your absolute best, mentally and physically. Looking better in your swimsuit will just be a side effect.

That said, even though changes in body composition (weight/inches/body fat lost) will not be factored into the scores for the challenge, you can do your own before and after weigh-ins, measurements, pictures and if possible blood work. These will just be for you, so you have a record of your success. Even for those who aren’t looking to lose pounds, changing how you eat is going to help your body build muscle, and those changes will be measurable.

If you’d like a hand with pictures and measurements, just let us know next time you’re at the gym.

Please let me know if you’re going to take part.  If you’re on Facebook, then I’ll add you to a private group for the Paleo Challenge.

I hope you are all having a great week!  I am purchasing a whole bunch of floor mats on Saturday and I'll be storing them behind American School of Gymnastics.  They are about 4'x6' mats and they're moderately heavy!  I'll be bringing them into Keene around 4 to 4:30 I imagine, so if you're available I'd love some help unloading them.

The Good/Bad Game

When I was at the Training for Warriors certification we played a little game to test our knowledge regarding nutrition and recovery.  It was called 'The Good/Bad Game'.  It went like this; the coach would say a word and we'd have to say if it was good or bad.  Here's a sample of how the game was played.

Coach: Twinkies
Us: Bad
Coach: Broccoli
Us: Good
Coach: Get plenty of sleep
Us: Good
Coach: Live on coffee
Us: Bad
Coach: Workout at GSKB
Us: Wicked good!

So, it turns out that we were extremely knowledgeable about nutrition and recovery.  We know what is good for us and what is bad for us.  So the moral of the story is lack of knowledge isn't the problem for us, but we've got to change our behaviors to move forward toward the goals we've set for ourselves.

So if we know how to eat right and we know that we should get enough sleep and we should workout and by doing that we'll improve a ton of things in our life, then hey that's pretty simple we'll start tomorrow.  Yeah, right!  Even though the formula is fairly simple there are tons of things that keep us from doing the few simple things that would make our lives better.  Let's use food shopping as an example, it is truly just as easy to pick up one pound of veggies and put it in your cart as it is to pick up one pound of candy and put it in your cart, but when we walk by that candy aisle, there's always something calling our name (at least there is mine!), but there's never an eggplant calling my name, not sure why.  

So even though getting better is simple, it's usually far from easy.  But that's not to say that we've got to have a seemingly monastic life of self deprivation.  It's usually only hard for a short period of time, then it gets easier, much easier to walk by the candy aisle and not even hear whatever it is that's calling out to us.  We get in the habit of feeling good because we're consistently doing the few simple things that make us better and that's a fun place to be!

Here's to keeping it simple (even though it isn't necessarily easy)