Wine Country CrossFit

Is the house clean?

[responsive_youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWiVQ5cVBMg norel] 

Did all the kids make it safely to school this week? Are you ready for the sense of normalcy to descend upon you and your household and to be able to get back to your regular programming and attendance? During the next couple of weeks, while everyone is sorting out their schedule and trying to get to bed at a decent hour so they can get up and get out of the house on time, it’s important to remember to be consistent about at least one thing. Eat a good breakfast. A good breakfast consists of all 3 of your macro nutrients–protein, fat, and carbohydrate.

For your carbohydrates, breakfast is a great time to get in some vegetables—yes vegetables—into your diet.  You should be having close to 8 servings of vegetables in a day so it helps to get a jump start on that number.  Roasted cauliflower and 2 eggs over easy-the yolk running into the cauliflower is very delicious…incidentally, roasting is my favorite method of cooking vegetables, especially in the morning.  Cleanup is easy and it takes the least amount of involvement on my end.  The first thing I do in the morning before starting the kettle/or coffee maker as the case may be, is turn the oven on and get it up to 400°/425°.

Cooking times vary by vegetable:

Broccoli/Carrots/Cauliflower/Fennel/Sweet Potatoes (cut into chunks) all go for a total of 20 min.  I turn everything over at the 10 min. mark

Kale only needs 10 min.  It’s important that you wash and dry the leaves and lay them out in a single layer on the baking sheet, I pull the thick ribbing out too, maybe stir them a bit about 7 min. in.   My favorite variety of kale to roast is the curly kind, but all varieties work well.

In the Summer months don’t forget about raw tomatoes, they are amazing with just a little sprinkle of salt maybe a tiny bit of rosemary/basil/thyme added to it too.

Breakfast meat/proteins:  Really important to read the labels and root out any sugars added to these.  No Dextrose, honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, etc.

Eggs:  I cook these in coconut oil, olive oil/butter combo, or leftover fat from bacon.  Coconut oil has a medium smoke point*, so unlike olive oil, which has a very low smoke point, I can get the oil hot enough so that it helps keep the eggs non-stick. Leftover bacon grease, Butter and Ghee are also great options.  SO important to use pasture raised eggs.  Chickens that are pastured get to eat the insects and green plants that allow the hens to produce eggs that contain both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in the beneficial ratio of approximately one-to-one, but commercial supermarket eggs from hens fed mostly grain can contain as much as 19 times more omega-6 than omega-3!; Vital Farms, Alexandre Family Kids, Red Hill Farms/Rainbow, are all ones you can get in the supermarkets that are pastured.  Most eggs at the Farmer’s Market are pastured too, just be sure to ask.

* In cooking, the smoke point of an oil or fat is the temperature at which it begins to break down to glycerol and free fatty acids, and produce bluish smoke. The glycerol is then further broken down to acrolein which is a component of the smoke. It is the presence of the acrolein that causes the smoke to be extremely irritating to the eyes and throat. The smoke point also marks the beginning of both flavor and nutritional degradation. Therefore, it is a key consideration when selecting a fat for frying, with the smoke point of the specific oil dictating its maximum usable temperature and therefore its possible applications. For instance, since deep frying is a very high temperature process, it requires a fat with a high smoke point.

The smoke point for an oil varies widely depending on origin and refinement.  The smoke point of an oil does tend to increase as free fatty acid content decreases and degree of refinement increases. Heating oil produces free fatty acid and as heating time increases, more free fatty acids are produced, thereby decreasing smoke point. It is one reason not to use the same oil to deep fry more than twice.

Here’s another quick and easy breakfast that’s good for a snack later in the day too:

Bacon Egg Muffins

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Friday’s WOD

Sumo Deadlift

3×5
Add 5# to your previous working weight

then

AMRAP 12 minutes

2 Heavy Sled Push/ Down & Back. 45/25 (on each tower)
10 L & R Hammer Strikes. (Complete 10 on weaker side first)
12 Kipping Toes to Bar – unbroken if at all possible