Spinelli's nutrition log and random questions thread

Well last night wasn't so good, ended up drinking quite a lot and then getting a burger and then a donner kebab, so all in all not the best. I'm taking the long view approach in that this is most definitely not good but I'm not going to beat myself up about it, just get straight back on the horse so to speak.
I have started on putting on a bit of muscle and lost a little weight so all is good in terms of numbers.

I'm planning on making my own sourdough, I've found some advice on making the culture and such and will start that in a week or two then get making the bread

After the sourdough is in steady production I plan on sprouting beans

I'm starting to tire a little of just eating roast vegetables, steamed vegetables or rice for carb sources. Any other suggestions as to things I can throw in to mix things up? 

I've started thinking of food in terms of components, you have carb components (veg, rice etc), proetin (meat, fish, eggs etc) and fat components (butter, cheese etc) and I just combine different ones for different meals so that I get "varied" dishes. So if I make a curry one day and have it with rice, carrots, peas and broccoli then the next day I will have it with roasted Mediterranean veg, the next day I might blend the veg with some stock to make a nice soup with some chicken for the curry thrown in or fry the ingredients into an omelette. Really breaks the monotonicity without making lots of cooking work and planning (roasted veg keeps quite well for a few days). Hope this way of thinking helps somebody else

I have tons of sweet potatoes...white would be good for faster absorbing. There's so many different veggies it's hard to get tired of them...especially when they are slathered in butter and coconut oil . Sometimes I find it easier not to get tired of something by having it for like a week, then moving on to something else instead of mixing things all together all the time.

On the topic of veggie variety, try to find a local CSA. I get a 10lb box of assorted veggies delivered to my door every other week for $25. I would probably spend as much at the farmers market. The contents are seasonal, so they change often, and they are sourced from local farmers. You really can't beat it...the highest quality, freshest, local produce, with zero effort, and not very expensive.

I also found a local farmer that sells grass-feed ground beef for $6.99/lb (and liver, and heart, and pork, and bacon, and lamb, etc.). My wife gave me a garage freezer for Father's Day, so I'm set up nicely.

Robert Frase said:

On the topic of veggie variety, try to find a local CSA. I get a 10lb box of assorted veggies delivered to my door every other week for $25. I would probably spend as much at the farmers market. The contents are seasonal, so they change often, and they are sourced from local farmers. You really can't beat it...the highest quality, freshest, local produce, with zero effort, and not very expensive.

I also found a local farmer that sells grass-feed ground beef for $6.99/lb (and liver, and heart, and pork, and bacon, and lamb, etc.). My wife gave me a garage freezer for Father's Day, so I'm set up nicely.

Nice deal. Basement freezer is in the works so we can just buy half a cow and be done with it for a year . CSA's are a little more expensive around these parts, but will hopefully get on board with one soon.

Getting one of those veg boxes sounds like a great idea. Will have to look into it! 
I think I've got my head around Josh's recommendations for pre and post workout nutrition and will be giving it a go tomorrow so that's very exciting at the moment.

Freezer space at the minute is limited as I'm lodging with a family but another month or so and I should have my own place and I already have a freezer in storage so all is good there

I do need to find the farmers market around here as it's mostly supermarkets but again maybe that can wait until I move.
Cheers for the help guys 

spinelli said:

(...) a huge craving for chocolate without knowing why (...). What is going on here? (...)

You are pregnant?

FredInChina said:

You are pregnant?

     !!! If I have a boy I'm naming it after you Fred... and naming you as the father on the birth certificate

Tried following the perfect nutrition plan yesterday, didn't really make any noticeable impact on my recovery but my diet i pretty good anyway now, it was also a lot of work to try to do so I don't know how long I'll be able to stick with it.

Heading back home now for a few days which will mean I have much less control over what I eat (cannot resist home cooking) but I will have access to my rings again yay!

Went to see some friends over the weekend back in Wales so sleep and nutrition were not the best but still not completely awful, still I managed to show master on 6 of the 7 elements and am moving onto PE2 woop woop!

Had a quick weigh of myself also and I'm now about 175lbs and fairly lean, not entirely sure about the bf% but it's reducing and that's what I care about. So I'm nearly at the heaviest and strongest I've ever been, certainly am at the most well balanced and flexible I've ever been.

I've noticed that since changing diet I'm drink a lot more water but then I am also living in a new place which is a lot warmer than the old one. 

Sadly I don't have access to rings and there's no where suitable nearby so I'm going to have to substitute Dumbbell rows for the RC progressions. Hopefully when I move again in a month or so there will be somewhere more suitable. 

Still in the same place so still no rings

Body re-composition is going amazingly well. Without trying at all, in fact I'm attempting to eat more than I need but find it nearly impossible to do so. This is my fault as I underestimate the amount of food that I need and rarely buy enough for more than a day or two. This isn't to say that I'm starving, I'm not I think I've actually gained overall mass whilst dropping to 11-13% bf (based on me comparing what I look like to other people with known bf) so I'm exceptionally pleased

Sleep hasn't been going so well but It's slowly getting into an acceptable rhythm. Kefir is also going well, sometimes I wake to find it's separated but only once every few weeks. Made my own sourdough which is delicious, I just keep forgetting to stock up on flour.

Has anyone ever eaten a vegetable called kerala? I tried one today having bought it in a supermarket and it is THE most foul vegetable I have ever tasted. I have one in the bin and one left, any tips as to what to do with it apart from get rid?

spinelli said:

 

Has anyone ever eaten a vegetable called kerala? I tried one today having bought it in a supermarket and it is THE most foul vegetable I have ever tasted. I have one in the bin and one left, any tips as to what to do with it apart from get rid?

No, but eat the crap outa that. The higher on the nasty scale, the more packed full of health...unless you just got some bad batch with Ebola or something on it.

I feel like I'm being lied to... but you're advice has always been sound so far... If you're having me on here I'm going to develop some serious trust issues :/
Nothing I've tasted comes close to this stuff its a weird almost chemically bitter taste that sits acridly on the tongue for a good while after you've eaten it. I'll give it another go but what's meant to be so special about this?

Edit: Just done some searching and found some info on it, apparently it is full of nutrients and such hmmm, but it tastes sooo bad

Yeah, I have never heard of it, nor looked anything up. I just go by the vegetable logic: Worse tasting, better for ya. This seems to always be the case barring bad, disease bearing food.

TANSTAAFL said:

Yeah, I have never heard of it, nor looked anything up. I just go by the vegetable logic: Worse tasting, better for ya. This seems to always be the case barring bad, disease bearing food.

Really? To be completeley honest I don't think I have ever eaten a vegetable that taste bad. But there are probably many out there I haven't tried.

Haha, karela is an indian plant that is known for it's bitter taste.  My grandma makes a curry dish of it, and I can tell you the taste doesn't improve much.  It is healthy, but I usually opt out of this dish 

Oooh, kerala = what they call "goya" in Japanese. In English, it's usually "bitter melon/cucumber/gourd". It really is bitter. Like, VERY.

Properly prepared, I can eat it, but I'm not a huge fan.

I'm not really a fan of kale either, to be honest... bring me the spinach, but keep the kale!

Yeah nasty stuff, goes off very quickly also. 

Have discovered something a bit odd on my current deload week. I for the past two days have been utterly exhausted, sleeping almost 11 hours a day.My thinking is that this is either a response to me being on deload and my body has just taken the opportunity to voice how tired it is or it is because I'm doing a lot of studying at the minute and the physical restructuring of my brain is taking a lot of effort or thirdly that if I eat a large/poor quality meal and a have a beer (just 1) before bed then my body can't cope. 

Of course it's more likely to be a combination of the above. Anyone else find that they are exahusted on their deload week?

Started week 9 of training and man does it feel good to be back in the higher rep range, never thought I'd say that but the progress I've made since working through the first set of progressions at this level is huge, even though it's only been 4 weeks! 
I think I'm going to have to drop to 3 days/week for a while as my back and shoulders need more recovery time due to the mobility work really making them work in unfamiliar ROMs, on the plus side my shoulders now nearly fully open and the flexibility disparity between the two is becoming less and less.

spinelli said:

Of course it's more likely to be a combination of the above. Anyone else find that they are exahusted on their deload week?

I get this until about Wednesday, when I really earn my deload weeks. After that I'm restless as anything! A whole week even feels like a bit too long to go so light, but I can't argue the progress

So after being ill for quite a while I'm back at training and going to make full use of this log to record my progress again. 
I've cleaned up my diet a lot and have dropped some weight that I've gained whilst I've been idle. 
Plan is as follows:

Next 4 weeks 26 Jan - 23 Feb

2 x per week: Short 1 mile run with some sprint bursts put in to do some anaerobic work.

1 x per week: longer steady 3-4 mile run to increase aerobic capacity

1 x session of H1 starting from week 5 plus ims for which I am weak. 

23 Feb - 16 March

1 x per week: short 1 mile run with some anaerobic bursts and H1 session

1 x per week: longer steady 3-4 mile run to increase aerobic capacity

2 x per week: F1 session starting from PE1 on all elements doing each element once per week.

I also play around with elements, I've been rehabing for a month or so now and am slowly increasing in strength just by doing some unstructured work with some higher level elements. I will continue to do this throughout my training. 

Week 1:
First week of this cycle did not go particularly well, been far too busy with work and life commitments to find the time to train properly, I've also had a very mild illness but that appears to have gone now and it snowed so everything was against me! I do feel like I've lost some progress but not much and I'm sure I'll pick it up again very quickly, I think I will set my schedule back by a week though.

I went for a run tonight but halfway around realised that I was in trouble due to the cold, cue very mild hypothermia. Got myself home pronto and warmed up as quickly as I could. I don't think I'll need to have my toes removed. Going to try another short run on wednesday but will try and make this one a little sooner in the day before it gets dark and cold.

Training is going ok, I've made a further decision that there's not much point in me starting foundation proper until I fully recover my shoulder, strengthen my lower back, loosen up my hips and improve my pike.

I'm finding a lot of the Handstand work is really hitting my shoulder and upper back in a  good way and exposing some very old weaknesses. Progress is very rapid and feels good. Currently my main exercises are

Dead hangs

Deep squat sits

skier squats (these really hit the stiff area in my glutes)

Handstand PE1 im

Handstand PE2 im

xiapoeng forward and backward.

SL PE1 

seated pike stretch

handstands with feet on box

I feel like I should include some backbending movments and some headstand work as well.

I'm hoping to work through most of these deficiencies in a month or two.

I'm playing around with pressups and pullups a fair bit and my running is improving. I appear to be clearing a lot of fluid which has been sitting at the bottom of my lungs for a very long time. 

Been very busy with work and social commitments butt I surprisingly feel quite good

So it's my deaload week and I can say that I really really need it haha. Been sleeping lots, getting plenty of fluids and food. I'm feeling really really good today, not quite sure why but it's great.

Think I may have had a little bit of an epiphany, I need to proritise my weaknesses and work through them one by one. At the moment my body isn't capable of improving everything so I must work on improving my weakest parts.

My back has now strengthened a little and when I try a pike stretch I can actually feel the stretch in my leg and not in my back which is quite nice but it's gonna take a lot of work for me to get where I want. 
I'm really not too worried about getting there quickly though, I'm very busy in everyday life and my physique is coming back to what it was nearly 10 years ago now very rapidly. Just got to remain consistent

Progress is coming along, feel quite tired today and I haven't felt particularly strong when running but overall still feeling really good. Mobility is progressing slowly. Would really like to purchase the stretch series but at the moment I don't have any spare cash, hopefully in a month or two I'll be able to splash out. 
Had a look at the revised PEs for the SL progression and holly molly PE2 is really hitting my shoulder in all manner of good ways so I have plenty of progress to be making there. It is causing my neck to loosen and then click in quite a painful manner but it feels good, I'll just have to be aware that something is very weak in there for a while I think. This weakness in my left shoulder is now presenting itself in pullups, so I'm going to back off them for a little while as well
I can now xiapoeng backwards with 5lbs of weight but it isn't as smooth a movment as I'd like and the forward still causes a pop in shoulder unless I really bend into the move. However I'm sure as I continue to improve on PE2 it'll work itself out.

Another 4 weeks and I should be good to start handstand work on top of what I'm doing. My workouts are  slowly becoming more and more structured and matching up with foundation and I have to keep reminding myself that I am recovering from something and it'll take time to build my work capacity back up to what it was

Training is going well, my shoulder and neck are adapting to the new stresses being placed upon them and I'm feeling pretty good. My sleep is excellent at the moment and I'm eating everything in site, I'm also making sure that I take some vitamin D supplements and get into the sun whenever possible, it's been really helping with my mood. 

I've started foundation again properly. May have jumped into it a little quickly but I think I'll be fine, luckily work isn't being too taxing this week so if I manage this one I should be fine.

My car has just broken down a little so I may be forced to walk places for a while so I'll ease off on the running slightly.

Overall everything is going really well

Had two really good training sessions so far this week. Was a little bit stiff yesterday but that past after my warmup. Today I went for a run and was feeling pretty powerful although my breathing doesn't quite feel like it's cleared yet. There still appears to be a lot of phelgm in the very lower part of my throat that kind of catches, might be to do with it being cold out. Handstand practice was also very good, really starting to get to grips with the mobility.

Nutrition has just been lots and lots of everything but most of it good fresh stuff.