Fiddleman

I just had a yummy beet chicken salad that my wide taught me how to make a couple weeks ago. And....I made it myself!! Joy joy. 3 oz chicken (I use canned chicken for convenience). 1 small beet sliced into cubes. 3 slices of cucumber cubes. .5 ounce blue cheese crumbles 1 tbsp Tsatziki sauce (we made a vsg friendly version) Throw in a bowl, mix and enjoy. The only thing that is missing is some farrow or quinoa to round out the nutrients. I failed to locate some to add.

He he - a challenge! I will try it this next week.

No, no nutrition. just a blast of taste in the mouth. I will try the mixing of protein powder and greenery once I get up the courage for it.

In the last week I have started a regimen of beta-alanine and creatine. My goal is to improve strength and metabolic conditioning with a dedicated supplementation program that includes these. I understand both of these take a while to load into the muscles (1 month for beta-alanine and 1 week for creatine). Both products i am using are from NOW foods. I like that the creatine is in crystallized form rather then powder form as was the last creatine I tried from AST. Ended up stopping the AST creatine after a while because it gave me terrible nausea . The NOW creatine does not do this. I am excited about the power and strength properties that will come from the use of creatine and the endurance / stamina that will come from the use of beta-alanine. Beta-alanine builds up carnosine in the muscles which acts to increase the pH levels after and during intense workouts. An increase in pH levels is a decrease in the acidic state that leads to muscle fatigue. there is very little carnosine in the muscles naturally so beta-alanine is a non essential amino acid that increases the carnosine levels safely and naturally. Sounds good to me if it translates into more pull-ups, faster. More info on beta-alanine and carnosine as it relates to exercise: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20479615 And let me not forget caffeine / theanine as an excellent supplement, as long as it is not overdone (100-300 mg a day of caffeine is good for daily work working out where 600 mg is good for competition) . The body adapts to the stimulation provided by caffeine and breaks are necessary to get the proper benefits of caffiene during a workout or competition. The theanine helps to reduce the overstimulation from caffeine and create a more pure form of energy, less jacked up jittery feeling. I have found pretty much every other pre workout supplement to be a waste of money in the type of strength training and metabolic conditioning I do from week to week. Believe me, I have tried quite a number of the last year and have given up on them. Sorry gpc and Vitamin shoppe. That is the way it is. Caffiene, beta-alanine and creatine are pretty much the only ones that have shown real evidence to Improving athletic response and are backed by a plethora of research and published scientific studies. Here is essentially my daily supplementation plan; Beta-alanine (10 g) - NOW foods Creatine monohydrate (20 g while loading)-NOW foods Fish oil (5 g in morning)- stronger faster healthier (sfh) fish oil is awesome. No comparisons. BCAA (30 g throughout the day)- xtend is the best! 100-200 g caffiene with theanine (1 hour before daily cross fit) Opti men multi vitamin - 2 a day. They recommend 3 but I am not so good about remembering the 3rd one at dinner. 1500 mg Calcium (ba chews) whey isolate (40 g, morning)- muscle milk liter Compound Protein stack ( 40 g, post workout) - BSN Syntha powder Casein (50-60 g, bed) - gold standard double chocolate is very good. My daily "treat" I eat modified paleo style and hit about 2000-2500 calories a day. More strict then traditional paleo as I focus on lean protein and veggies. I also try and hit 1 G protein per .92 * ideal body weight. This works out to be about 160 g for me at 175 lbs. most protein comes from shakes, but I do get at least 2 solid meals of some lean protein and veggies a day, sometimes 3. I eat about 7 meals a day of between 200-400 calories. I do not track, but have built up a pretty good understanding of proper measurements. Hope this info helps other post ops into fitness and nutrition.

I've start eating some kale in the form of kale chips my wife makes. They are quite tasty and it only takes 1-2 to satisfy.they provide quite a burst of intense flavor and a little crunchiness.

Is your leg swollen at all or warm to touch? I am wondering if you have symptoms of a blood clot. Hope it gets better soon.

Obsession? Doesn't seem like one. I exercise about 1 hour a day 5x a week of lifting and met con workouts, take 2 days rest every 3 days. This seems well withing a normal exercise routine, no?

Ketosis is when your body switches from using carbs as energy to using stored fat as energy. ketosis is usually triggered by eating low carb and high protein. You have to really like eating low carb (< 20 g) or it may drive you crazy. Some side effects are bad smelling breath and urine. Some say ketosis is harmful to your liver. Bad breath is not a deal breaker for me. I can do very low carb and i have no issue with it. my wife hates low carb. You probably do not want to be in ketosis as a long term strategy forever if there is a harmful impact on your liver. I stayed in ketosis for about 6 months post op and believed it helped in dropping most my excess weight from 360 to 180.

Oh yes,I have done melatonin for a few months now. I started with about 5 mg of melatonin mixed in with valerian root, hops and a few other things. I have recently switched to just 1 ml dose of liquid melatonin. It definitely helps with falling asleep, but still do not sleep through the night and always wake between 2-3 am. What I have noticed sight I can take another 1 ml dose at 3 am and it will give me another 3 hours of sleep and I feel ready to get up between 5:30a-6a. For kicks I tried taking unison instead the other night. When I woke up, I thought it was 3 am. However, it was 6 am. I had slept through the whole night. However, I had trouble waking up to do my job effectively for about 2 hours and I also needed to take coffee (have been not drinking coffee for a couple months in the morning ). So no win with unison. It drugged me too much in the morning. More suggestions?

Did I learn from yesterday?? Nnnooo.....groan...no.. No snapping though. Just really really sore in the forearms. The coaches really got stuck on arm workouts this week. I went in and did my workout today: 2 mile warmup run, 1600 m row 3 rounds: 10 push-ups, 10 pull-ups, 10 jumping squats 90-120 second handstands against wall. 30+ minutes mobility mashing this and that. 20 min of split jerk to hit 175 # 6 rounds: 9 muscle ups (these are technically hard!!) 12 handstand push-ups 15 kb swings @ 53 # Time : 11:00 min After that workout, my forearms were huge and tight. I had to do a lot of mobility cool down by rolling the barbell over em. Wow that was a serious burn in the forearms. However, I liked the pump and the vacillation. Really hoping these workouts let up on forearm stress, starting tomorrow morning.

I have been doing the October challenge, but not posting back so much any longer. This month I am going to reach new distances through both running and rowing. I am averaging about 1-3 miles of fast Sprint running outside on pavement daily and about 2000 m of rowing every other day, both for time. I want to start dong some rowing at home (we have a concept II b; it is a tank!) in the mornings to compliment the cross fit conditioning workouts I do in the afternoon. Need to get back on my treadmill at home again also to do some 5-10k running.i miss doing the longer slower runs, enjoying the less frantic conditioning of timed runs, perhaps watching tv or listening to music. Lately have not been doing at home working out at all and feel guilty about unused equipment. I am a slacker.

Thanks for the article. I will take a look at it during a break today. Rhabdo is one of those topics we kind of jokingly talk about at the cross fit sessions every once in a while, especially after there was a special on the news a couple weeks ago. Nobody takes it that seriously because we all think it won't happen to any one of us, and if it did, we would know by the dark urination symptom. No joke, I visually check every morning. No issues. I do have to say that since doing cross fit 3 days on and 1 day off a few weeks ago, I have been a lot more sore and tired all the time. And I mean all the time. My lifts overhead have gotten really disappointing lately, maybe it is overtraining. I cannot seem to lift very much overhead. Strength is way down.

Forgive me if I do not scribe this right, but here goes. Recently, as in last couple days, I have been getting a weird snapping sensation in my forearms after doing lifts, such as the clean jerk or s n a t c h and other exercises such as pull-ups. I talked to the trainer during the WOD today and they hadn't heard of it. Suggested I switch to ring rows instead of pull ups. No pain or inflammation this evening. The last 4 days have seen a lot of arm work, even back to Saturday when we did rounds of 50 pull-ups and 50 snatches. I think it is the s n a t c h sets we have done 2 x since then along with the split jerks, strict presses and front squats that are stressing out my forearms - not sure. However, doing pull-up sets almost every day this week is probably not helping. I am practicing kipping and butterfly technique on the pull-ups so that i can do 100 of them in a couple min. Have you heard of this snapping sensation in the forearms before and is this a real concern? I do not want to tear something, but do not even know if there is a danger of that.

I think most people who have known you before will struggle with their own dysmorphia issues when seeing the "new you." I know it does not excuse their ridiculous behavior, but might put your mind at ease.

Thans for your suggestion. I usually exercise at 3:30-4 pm.

This might be it.

Thy is great news!

I tried orange crush crystals last week and did not care for it. I really thought it was going to be good.

I think the poweraide zero, especially strawberry, is good. Hawaiian Punch grape also tastes good.