Matthew 26:41 ...but the flesh is weak

Arrgh, I'm the worlds cutest pirate!  

We had a baby!  (I helped!)
She is great, wonderful and cuter than your kid. 
 (No, really, she is)  
Denise and I now have a complete set, a boy and a girl.  (We can stop now.)  
 So all diet experimenting has stopped, due to lack of motivation and sleep.  (More on that in a minute)
To wrap things up from the previous entry: The Warrior Diet did teach us at least one solid really important lesson: We don't need to eat every 2 hours.  (Unless you are in fact The Baby, then it's ok.)  
Otherwise, there is a growing consensus that eating less often may be the way to go.  Which is interesting, because that's how Jack Lalanne ate: two light meals and then a big dinner.
Here's a good article from a better blog than mine with another link to a free e-book that will tell you more than ever wanted to know about Intermittent Fasting.  I had planned on writing more about this, as I find it interesting.  But a funny thing happened...

Check, Check, Check, no hallucinations yet...

 

We quit sleeping.  

Babies are famous for that.  

And it's really hard to try and stay motivated to eat clean and exercise.  

So we have given ourselves 6 weeks off.  No guilt, no shame.  

Survival mode only for 6 weeks.  

The baby was 3 weeks old this week, so only a few more weeks to go till everything gets back to "normal."  

Yes, feel free to laugh at us for dreaming.  We have high hopes.  

But we do plan on getting back on track.  No, really, we do!  Quit Laughing!!  We will do it!!  You'll See!!

 

Me in 6 weeks.  

 

Excelsior!!

Cliff

This is acceptable, but eating veggies is not????

Whilst visiting my Aunt Sharon with my parents, we happened upon some pre-packaged meals from a national weight loss company, who shall remained un-named so they can't sue me. Aunt Sharon had inherited them from a friend whose family had refused to eat the pre-packaged ready to eat meals.

I became fascinated with the hamburger.  The shelf stable, sitting room temperature in the back of the pantry hamburger patty.  The shelf stable room temperature just add boiling water hamburger patty. 

So, in the interest of science, we decided to test it out:

I know, you're all salivating like the Pavlovian dogs that you are right now.

We let it sit and baste in the hot water for a little while longer, just to make sure it was as yummy as it was ever going to get. 

 

How does it taste? 

Denise asked the big question.  "How is this better than eating vegan, or vegetarian?"  Good question.
Why is eating hyper processed mostly meat more acceptable?  Besides the celebrity endorsements and ex-NFL players crowing about their weight loss.  Which is all you could get from eating this stuff, weight loss.  But weight loss is not all there is to gaining radiant health. 
We have to go, but think on these things, and please leave you comments down below. 

Excelsior!
Cliff. 

Matthew 6:16

As I talked about at the end of our vegan experiment, we were a little confused about where to go next.  And frankly, I needed to lose the extra weight I had put on eating that way.
OK, it was only a few pounds.  But I had wanted to get back to my Weight Watchers lifetime goal weight. And I was less than 10 pounds away from it, but no matter how much animal tissue I didn't eat, my scale wouldn't budge.  And we weren't having fun anymore.
So what was next?
I wanted to try another experiment.  So, sitting in a frozen yogurt bar celebrating our ability to eat whatever we wanted to devour again, I picked up a copy of The Warrior Diet.
In between chasing Noah, and stuffing my face with yogurt with far too many toppings, I read parts of the book.  And I kind of liked the author's idea.  Straight from the horses mouth:

The Warrrior Diet was created with the mission to help people better survive in today's world.
The Warrior Diet is a call for action. Based on survival science and historical evidence, the Warrior Diet proposes a radical yet proven effective solution to modern man's ailments and deteriorated physical condition.
Its premise: eat one main meal at night, avoid chemicals, combine foods adequately and challenge your body physically. The Warrior Diet shows how to nourish the body in sync with its innate circadian clock – separating between a.m. foods and p.m. foods for effective removal of toxins, increased conversion of fat for energy, increased utilization of nutrients and improved resilience to stress. The result: a leaner, stronger and healthier body. 

Well, gosh.  Who doesn't want that?  A leaner, stronger, healthier body?  That's something no one else has EVER promised before!!  But wait, there's more: 

The Evidence is Undeniable
Recent studies on intermittent fasting have shown the benefits of following eating programs similar to The Warrior Diet. Mice and rats maintained on an intermittent fasting regimen lived up to 30% longer than those fed ad libitum. Especially striking are the improved insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular risk profiles in animals maintained on diets with long inter-meal intervals.  

"Our ancestors consumed food much less frequently and often had to subsist on one large meal per day, and thus from an evolutionary perspective, human beings were adapted to intermittent feeding rather than to grazing."
(Mattson, M.P., PhD, Lancet 2005; 365:1978-80)

I've checked into the studies a bit.  And there are studies on mice that show some benefit to various types of intermittent fasting.  In mice and rats.  Not people.  Though the internet is full of folks telling you to stop eating for your health.  I think it's becoming The Next Big Thing.  

So I decided I'd try it.  

Without buying the book.  We were short on cash, and I figured I had the gist of it.  I had already read some great articles and blogs previously on the idea of fasting, and I had been intrigued then.  (Now, two weeks later, I wish I had read a bit more.)  

But The Perfect is the enemy of The Good, so I jumped in.

The Plan: "Nourish" my body throughout the day with "living foods."  Now, that doesn't mean chow down on the squirrel while he's still kicking.  That's more like The Caveman Diet.   No, I was going to eat fruits and veggies during the day, then have a big dinner.  Luckily I did manage to read the part where you can have a protein smoothie right after your workout, and if still hungry have some light protein around lunch.   Then have a big dinner.  And maybe a midnight snack?  

(I glanced through the book today again, turns out I could'a /should'a been eating more than that during the day. And no midnight snack)  

It's been two weeks, and how am I doing?  Well, even after going off plan last weekend (out of town wedding) I'm still down three pounds in two weeks.  Not stellar weight loss.  But more than I had with Vegan eating.  

And now I know why fasting is a spiritual discipline.  You get grouchy.  Even with the wimpy version of fasting I am doing, smoothie for breakfast and snacking on fruit during the day, I still find I can happily murder people for the smallest of reasons.  It requires an almost constant mindfulness of your mood, of how you react to people.  Both Monday's I have been warrior dieting have been difficult.  You have to choke down the urge to snap at people, remind yourself to smile, play nice.  

The moodiness gets easier as the week goes on.  By Wednesday I'm fine. 

Another problem is the social awkwardness of avoiding everyone at lunch so that you a) aren't tempted to eat more than you're little cup of Greek yogurt or a boiled egg and b) enjoy a fresh round of ridicule over trying yet a new diet.  It's one thing not to be eating carbs at lunch, another thing not to be eating lunch.  

The Verdict:  Too soon to tell.  What I read today says I should have been having a small salad or something similar at lunch, maybe with a bit of "light" protein.  And make sure I have morning fruit, but maybe some nuts or something substantial for an afternoon snack.  

In other words, I officially have to start eating more while I'm fasting.  And yes, I realize how stupid that sounds.  Two more weeks, then I think I'll be able to make a final verdict.  

Excelsior!
Cliff

Reboot!!!!!!

Here we go again.
So the Vegan experiment was a bust.  Or was it?
We call our little escapades into the dietary realm experiments because we want to learn something.  Either about the diet or about ourselves, often both.
And I suggest that we learned a good deal last time.  We learned why vegans are mean and we learned that you can go for days and weeks without any animal proteins with no ill effects.  That's good to know.
Why?
Well, lets see what the typical responses were when people were told we were eating vegan/vegetarian:

1. "Why?"   
2. "You guys are stupid."  
3. "I don't think I could do that."

Ignoring the two most popular responses, let's analyze #3.  Why can't people do that?  Are you going to shrivel up and die?  Obviously that didn't happen.  I think it's fear.  Fear of the new, the unknown.  You have to change just about everything when you drop animal products from the diet.  And that means leaving some really yummy food behind, mostly your favorite comfort foods.  And comfort foods are comforting.  Without them what would happen?  (You get skinnier and healthier mostly)  

Thus we are restarting our Jack and Jill blog.  

Well, despite such encouragement as: "Why?" and "You guys are stupid."  I found parts of it fun.  

And I want to keep the food experiments and fact finding up.  

So why not start a whole new blog?  A third one?  Nope, redundantly redundant.  

We are rebooting this blog with a continuing mission to be like our physical culture heroes.  

Part of that will be open scientific experimentation on ourselves with different dietary protocols, where we suffer and report back to you.  

Jack Lalanne did alot of that as a young man, most famously the cow's blood diet.  He'd drink a quart of pure cows blood every day trying to be bigger and stronger.  He did this for weeks' going down to the butcher's shop everyday to drink it fresh.  Until the morning he choked on a giant clot.  That pretty much ended that lil experiment.  

Please trust that there is no way Denise is going to let me drink cow's blood.  

And if she did, we would definitely video it.  

But this is about getting healthy, not trying to get some horrible disease in an equally horrible fashion.  

So stay tuned, we do have some bloodless videos we will be posting shortly.  

As always, your comments are welcome.  

Excelsior!

Cliff

And God writes an ending

How about this for synergy:
Jillian Michaels writing the obituary in Time magazine for Jack Lalanne.

A Quote:

I use anecdotes from his life to inspire people. One thing I use all the time is the story of LaLanne, in his 60s, swimming from Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, towing a boat behind him. He was incredible. I remember standing in San Francisco, staring out at that rock and hearing about the freezing temperatures, the current, the sharks, and just being absolutely floored and thinking, If he can do that, there's nothing that we can't accomplish when we put our mind to it.

I have an autographed poster of Jack swimming while shackled and chained, towing boats behind him. I find it, and the story and the man behind it, inspiring. It good to know that other folks do too.

Denise and I would really like to thank all of our readers here on the Jack and Jill blog. We gave it a good try, learned alot, and had some fun. But we aren't done yet.
We would like to invite all of you over to join in on our new crazy adventure.

Thanks,
Cliff and Denise

Lifting 1000 pounds

Orthorexia, pt 2

Did you know that the reason Kellogg cereals are little more than puffs of sugar and wheat is that their creators, brothers W.K. Kellogg and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, thought that protein was evil? The only hope for mankind to escape the evils of toxic gut bacteria, constipation, masturbation and a host of other evil things (all caused by protein in the diet) was clean, refined carbohydrates. And yogurt enemas every hour. The enemas were harder to market than one might think. But sugary cereals were a hit, replacing the old, un-scientific breakfast of eggs, meat and cheese.
Now carbs are the enemy, Protein is king, and Fat is becoming cool again.

Which is why Denise and I made Brownies from black beans. It requires using a blender on the highest setting, so they are manly too!
With just a smidge more chocolate, they will be excellent. By feastmeeting no one will know if the brownies they are enjoying are from a box or from beans.

Recipe: I guess we could call them Exlax brownies
1 can of black beans (we used left over dry beans from another recipe....cooked of course)
3 eggs
3 tbsp oil
4 tbsp Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Vanilla
3/4 cup sugar (we wanted to use honey, but didn't have enough)
pinch of salt (more than a pinch if using non-canned beans) ( No I don't remember how much I used)
Drain can of beans, rinse, then dump all ingredients into blender and go for it. Remember to put the lid on. It will look like vomit, then suddenly look like wonderful brownie mix.
Pour into greased 8x8 pan.
Bake @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

We are thinking of adding a few chocolate chips next time.
Enjoy!