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28 thoughts on “Tue, Jan 6th”

1. Right I might as well start the ball rolling.

   Some staple of my diet when zoning.

   Breakfast:
   3 eggs, be they fried or scrambled (3P)
   Glass Innocent Smoothie, 150ml (3C)
   9 almonds (3F)
   7.5ml Fish Oil

   Pretty much this. Occasionally I’ll sub the eggs for salmon or prawns. Or, if I’m particularly devilish, I’ll do sausages as well. I take 1 sausage = 1P/1F but I haven’t confirmed that.

2. Breakfast is a challange, before zone I would have museli or nothing (most days breakfast was a cup of tea) so everything seems to take ages to prepare.

   This morning for a larf I had porridge + milk and some bacon. thought I could put some almonds through the oats for 4F. Didn’t work, was nasty.

   I think eggs are the way to go

3. I’m out of eggs today, so I’m presently eating a bowl of salmon, onions and olive oil with an apple.

   Slice up an onion (takes 8 to 12 seconds with a v-slicer), fry it, add the salmon, stir, place in a bowl. Prep time of about 5 minutes, eating time of about 6 if you linger over it.

4. not food related at all, but nice t-shirts you got there colm. I particularly like the strong, funny, drunk one!

5. Thanks Colm. SFD is generally our most popular t-shirt, inspired by gmail chat with Will actually.

   Righteo, for my lunch, later lunch, and evening meal today I’ll be having.

   3oz turkey, fried in coconut oil (3P, prob some residual fat)
   Banana/Apple/(3/2C)
   9 almonds (3F)
   I find that I can get away with slightly lower carb blocks. This could be as Robb Wolf points out that for a lot of people even the zone is too carb intense, or the fact that I lapse and then take copious amounts of Coke, hence some spare Colm around the midriff. Gonna buy some figs if I note I need more carbs, 1 fig = 1C.

   Generally find it easier to veg it up Wed-Sun, when I’m not working a 9-5. Also, I need to purchase a v-slicer.

   Apologies for the stacato,stream of consciousness syntax of this mail.

6. I’m Zone, but not paleo-zone: I still eat a fair bit of milk and cheese.

   The first couple of days of zoning are the ones where you’re probably going to be using your scales and measuring cup a fair bit. After a day or two, though, you’ll be able to very accurately guess how much protein or what have you is in a given portion. When I started I aimed to do the two weeks that Nicole suggests, and after about a week I found I was pretty well adjusted to it, I thought.

   Different breakdowns of your blocks work for different people. I started on 4 blocks, 2 blocks, 4 blocks, 2 blocks and 4 blocks, but the 4 block meals were just too much (especially breakfast and supper). Now I go 3, 3, 3, 4, 3. By the time I’m getting hungry its usually time for another meal.

   If you feel like you want to eat a lot of food, I find that you can make food choices that let you feel like you’re doing that. For example, you might eat broccolli for your carb blocks… You’ll obviously have a lot more of that on your plate than if you chose apple or banana or figs. Conversely if you’re in a rush or don’t feel like eating (say, breakfast) then you could pick the figs, for example.

   When it comes to breakfast time I guess eggs are the gold-standard choice, and I eat alot of omlettes. Occassionally if I’m really in a rush I’ll use protein powder and make a smoothie of some kind. For what its worth if you’re a vegetarian or vegan and are trying to zone then I don’t see a way of doing it without using protein powder.

   A sample of what I might eat in a given day-

   -1 Banana, 1.5 teaspoon peanut butter, protein powder, water (3 blocks)
   -Sliced Ham, cup of grapes, 1 plum, 3 brazil nuts (3 blocks)
   -1 large Chicken breast, 2 blocks worth broccolli, 1 slice cheddar, -1 apple, 9 almonds (4 blocks)
   -1 bowl beef chilli, 1 slice cheddar, 2 dried figs (3 blocks)
   -Sliced Turkey, cup of grapes, 1 dried fig, 3 brazil nuts (3 blocks)

   Looks like a lot of food when its written down like that, but actually seems to work out OK.

7. Hmmm, this mornin:

   3 eggs fried in coconut oil 3p ?f
   lump o’ red salmon 2p
   Banana 3c
   apple 2c
   handful of cashews: ~5+f
   lump o’ butter: ?f
   lump o’ brie: ?f
   tbsp fish oil
   cayenne pepper

   It’ll continue to be like this till I get sick of the above

8. I lack what I lack in creativity and drive I more than make up for in apathy and acceptance in my diet. When I’m eating zone (which turns out to be far less often than I thought—Damn you Elite 400 food log!) I eat pretty much the same thing every day. A typical day would be:

   3 eggs, banana, 1 tsp olive oil

   2c milk

   Whatever non-carb laden protein they have at my canteen (usually chicken, sometimes fish), plus whatever veg they have

   3 oz turkey (pre-sliced seasoned stuff from Superquinn), various fruit (e.g. apple + cup strawberries or orange plus cup of cherry tomatoes), plus nuts (9 almonds, 4-5 pecans)

   Burger (in the loosest sense of the word—patty shaped mince with mustard or ketchup), green beans/brussel sprouts or other veg

   3 oz cheese, more fruit, maybe glass or two of wine, 1 tsp fish oil

   And by ‘typical day’ I mean in the same way your typical day involves volunteering at the orphanage and helping nuns across the street.

9. Ruairi,

   You’re making me that chilli, it sounds nice.

   Burgers
   1lb mince
   1 egg/2 egg whites
   Sprinkle of ground almond
   tabasco
   Paprika

   Mix up ingredients. Heat pan to pretty damned hot with minimal oil (coconut or olive). 5 minutes one side, 5 the other.
   You’ve 15-17 blocks in there(check the packaging), so it’s a 5 compact 3 block burgers.

10. I second the burgers, also worth throwing some onion and/or carrot shavings in there too. haven’t counted the blocks on those tho

11. hey does anyone know if a protein shake can be subbed for a Zone snack??

    Dinner
    large chicken breast (5P)
    fillet it an stuff with veggies, tomatoes, onions, peppers… etc (?C)
    put in oven at 200 C for 30 min
    have with almonds and side side salad or broccoli (3C)
    1 apple or 1 pear (2 C)
    15 almodes (5f)

    delish

12. I’ve posted this before a few times, but the greatest 5 block salad the world has ever known is created by combining the following in a bowl:

    7.5 oz Wild Red Salmon – 5P
    1 Cucumber (sliced) – 1C
    2/3 cup Red Onion (shredded) – 1C
    1 cup Carrot (shredded) – 1C
    Big handful of baby spinach – negligible
    Random amount of shredded Broccoli Stem – negligible
    ~3 stalks of Celery (sliced)- negligible
    1 clove Garlic
    Whole bunch of balsamic vinegar
    Free pour of Extra Virgin Olive Oil – loads of F

    To be consumed with 2 block of fruit of your choosing. You could also fire some cherry tomatoes in there if you do nighshades (and unless you’re as demonstratably insane as myself, there’s very few reasons not to).

    I dare anyone to make this a regular lunch feature and then say “I get so hungry on the zone”.

13. re today’s photo…Was it actually warmer training outside the gym than inside!

14. Does Wolverine zone?
    http://www.breakingnews.ie/entertainment/mhsnmhcwgbql/

15. Ah, excellent. I understand now: eating healthily is supposed to be some sort of grim, temporary deprivation that should only be flirted with for the sake of obtaining fleeting, unsustainable asthetic goals.

    I’ve been getting it all wrong.

16. Damn you Will and your getting it wrong antics!

    But yeah two thumbs up for Will’s salad, that was my staple lunch for about 2 months before I fell off the clean eating bandwagon into study/christmas messiness. Twas easy to prepare the night before and just grab it from the fridge and go in the morning! Those burgers sound good as well, gonna give those a try. And Colm I’m shocked – no meatball recipe or do you think Will would scowl at it in non-appreciative ways!

    Anybody have any thought on Quinoa, was reading about it on paleocookbook.com , as a side thing she has some pretty good paleo recipes in there. How I see it I’m gonna give Paleo a try and make that a habit and then move into Zone. Roll on Friday for exam finishing!!

    So yeah I should be back to CrossFit next week, full of energy (?), minus the smoking and ready to get my ass kicked again!

17. Minus the smoking? Really?

18. Drat, said I was gonna get scores up on the day for 09 and already I’ve slipped. Forgot to take a photo of the scores.

    Anyway, John has made a return, and Jeff has a nice tan.

19. I was paleo for about as long as I’ve been on the zone now, and at the time I thought it was ‘easier’ than going on the zone. Actually, I think in a way it’s the opposite: It’s a specialised enough diet that you have to make accomodations but it doesn’t go far enough that you really see the immediate benefits that you do after a couple of weeks zoning.

    When I was paleo, in hindsight, few of the meals were hormonally balanced- still too many carbs and rarely enough protein or fats. And it would vary from day to day- some days too much, others too little. In contrast, on the zone you know exactly what you’re eating and there’s built in portion control.

20. Here’s the meatball recipe Pixie’s talking about

    http://southernfood.about.com/od/meatballs/r/r80118c.htm

    I sub ground almond for the breadcrumbs, and add italian seasoning.

    Let’s see now, 2lbs of ground beef, 1lb sausage meat, 1 egg, some ground almond makes about 32 balls, which I would guess puts each ball at 1-1.5P & 1F.

21. Mah legs Charlie Murphy!!

    The only meal I could consistently eat while Zoning was something roughly like the following, I can’t remember the exact weights unfortunately.

    ~110g Minced Beef (4P)
    3 Spoons of Olive oil for frying (2-3F?)
    Cover the plate in salad and add a copious handful of green grapes (4C)
    Tablespoon of Guacamole (1F)

    Make a patty out of the beef, fry it up in the olive oil. Throw it all on a plate and make a go of it. Add more guacamole if worried about fats.

    I’m not really into eating either early in the morning or the evening time so I’ll eat almost anything for Breakfast or Dinner. Lunch is where I like to have nice things and so is usually my hardest meal.

22. Howdy Amro, your comment was in the moderation queue up until moments ago…

    There’s nothing much wrong with protein shakes as long as they don’t make up the majority of what you eat or anything. It’s preferable to sort things out so that you’re eating real food most of the time, but reality being what it is, having a shake is probably better than missing breakfast.

    Throw some frozen berries and coconut milk in there for carb and fat blocks you’re away.

    Dinner looks nice, I’d be very impressed if you were really eating 3 whole blocks of brocolli with it though (that’s about 6 cups!). I used to do that sort of thing, but it took 2 plates to fit my entire dinner onto the table back then…

23. Kyle – Yep, by next week I hope to be an ex-smoker, no longer shall I shiver in fear at the mere mention of a run!

    Will – Any thought on Quinoa? Good or bad?

24. Like all grains it’s fundamentally crap unless you’re doing something esoteric that requires more carbs/calories than fruit and veg can realistically provide. Avoid or relagate to condiment status.

25. Pixie,
    Quinoa is good. has a nutty taste. had with salmon and veggies the other day. good sub for rice and its pure protein

26. cheers for the advice Will. Im gona have to show up to your gym soon

27. No problem dude, drop down on Saturday and we can see about this muscle-up business!

    I’ve got some bad news on quinoa as a source of protein though: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/what-are-good-sources-of-protein-digestibility.html

28. So Ruairi came in and erased the scores for the metcon, the dastard!

    I’ll try remember scores I can

    Bobby: 45-50-52.5-55-57.5(f); 11:00
    Damien: 32.5-35-37.5(f)-36-36(f); 12 something according to Bobby
    Jeff: 40-45-50-52.5-?=?; 12:00
    John: 40-45-50-60(f)-55: 15:50ish iirc
    Shane 1.0: 35-37.5-40-42.5(f)-41; 13:00
    Tom: 40-45-50-52.5-52.5; ????
    Paul: 45-50-55-57.5(f)-57.5(f); 10:12