Are CSAs worth it?

In a CSA program, a local farm delivers boxes of fresh organic fruits and vegetables to your door once every week or two.  I’ve always been curious about CSA programs, and thanks to Groupon I got a box of produce from Full Circle Farm for only $17 — 1/2 off the normal price.

I got a pretty incredible array of fruits and vegetables, all of which were organic, locally grown, and in season.  Delivered to my door on a Sunday night.  Sunchokes, beets, and turnips aren’t foods I usually cook, which forced me to try something new.  As it turns out, roasted beets are AWESOME, same with sunchokes.  Beets are sweet, with a slightly earthy flavor, and sunchokes taste kind of like potatoes, but with more flavor.

The table below shows the different fruits and vegetables and the volume that were included in my box.  For comparison, I went out to PCC (the local, organic grocery store) for prices.

Is it worth it?

It depends.  The CSA box was roughly $6 more expensive than the grocery store.  But there are a few other perks that may be worthwhile for you:

• Saves time –  Delivered directly to your door
• Forces you to eat vegetables — If they’re already in your fridge, you might as well eat em!
• Supports local farmers –As Michael Pollan says “vote with your dollar”
• Healthier — One word: organic
• In season — Fruits and vegetables that are in season and locally grown taste better than the alternatives from Mexico
• Lets you try new things — I’ll be the first to admit I don’t go to PCC looking for sunchokes.  They were a pleasant surprise
• Customizable — Allows you to select items you want to include or exclude for each delivery

But there are also some downsides to take into consideration:

• Volume of food — One box is a lot of food for one person to eat in a week
• Food storage — You’ve got to be able to store all those fruits and veggies
• Limited selection — Some produce isn’t always local and in season, like avocados!
• Not flexible — Deliveries once a week, to your door if you’re in the delivery area, or at a pick-up site
• Pick-up sites — If you live far from a pick-up site, you might as well be going to the grocery store instead

All in all, I’m going to stick with going to the grocery store.  I live so close to Fremont, PCC and Fred Meyer that it doesn’t make sense to get food delivered.  I’ve got enough time to shop a few times a week, and I only cook for myself.  Plus I like visiting my sister at PCC on occasion.  But if I had a family to feed and no free time, a CSA would easily be worth it.

But is it worth it to you?

The Best Broccoli You Will Ever Eat

Blasted Broccoli.  Sounds cool, right?  It’s AMAZING.  I first tried blasted broccoli at Black Bottle in Belltown, and it was phenomenal.  Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, with a little kick of garlic, pepper and a splash of olive oil.  What’s not to love?  Well, I heard it was made with a blowtorch, which lead me to believe I could never make it at home.  Right?  WRONG!

I found the recipe at dana treat’s blog, and it was suprisingly easy to make.  You need broccoli, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.  That’s it.

Cut the broccoli into florets, sprinkle with salt and pepper, mix it up with 3 Tablespoons of olive oil then bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.  Mix together 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and 2 cloves of garlic.  Sprinkle this mixture over your broccoli, and shake the pan to spread it out.  Then roast for another 8 minutes or so — I turned it up to 500 so the broccoli would get extra crispy, and it was good.

It’s like a vegetable candy.

Blasted Broccoli

Injuries are hard

The last time I took a week off from working out by choice was when I was in mexico last year on vacation.  And even then I snuck in a 2 mile run around around the resort.  Until a few weeks ago.

I injured my knee (bone bruise & a sprained PCL) while doing clean and jerks, then went back into the gym the next day.  That was a bad idea.  I took a few days off then went back again.  Also a bad idea.  My knee didn’t feel better after two workouts, so I decided to take some time off from exercise completely.  That was tough.

If you work out at least 4 days a week on a consistent basis, you’ll understand how difficult it is to just stop.  If you don’t, let me explain.  Exercise is like a drug.  I’ll have a crappy day at work, then go to the gym, and feel 100x better.  Call it dopamine, a runner’s high, whatever you want — exercising makes me a happier person.  Take away the exercise and it’s not as automatic as you would think.

I’ve been struggling with the prospect of exercising less frequently and I’m not happy about it.  I need to exercise every day so that I can maintain my health and well being.  It’s that simple.  Except now I can’t do any weight bearing activities or bend my knee beyond 90 degrees.  But what can I possibly do without my knees?  EVERYTHING uses my knees!

As it turns out, swimming is just what I needed.  It’s not weight bearing, it’s a REALLY good workout, and there’s always room to improve my technique.  I really enjoy swimming because I can push myself as hard as I want, and at the end I can tell that I worked really hard (kinda like running).  I’ve already conquered running and biking, so taking on swimming next makes perfect sense.  Maybe by the time my knee heals i’ll be ready for a triathlon!

Check back in 6 months!

Quantifying Crossfit

Crossfit has changed my life.  In the past 8 months I’ve gotten stronger, more flexible, and re-learned all the exercises I used to do wrong.  Push-ups are pretty simple and straight forward right?  Wrong.  Pull-ups?  Wrong.  Squats?  Wrong.

There’s very specific technique to every exercise you do — with or without weight.  Take squats for example.  Before squatting you should:

• Push your hips back
• Lift your chest up
• Tighten your abs
• Take a small breath and hold it in (this helps keep your back straight)
• Then squat, keeping your back and core tight, otherwise you’ll get injured

I never knew.  I did squats for years in the gym and my hips always hurt afterwards.  Turns out I had terrible form…and Crossfit has corrected that.

But how can I quantify how much Crossfit has helped me?  What can I measure?

• How much I can deadlift?
• How much I can squat?
• How many dead hang pull-ups I can do?
• How fast I run a 5k?
• Finishing the STP (200 mile bike ride)?
• How my body has changed?
• How fast I recover from injuries?

Progress is much easier to measure at a typical gym.  If I do bench press, I can track how much weight or reps I did.  Same thing with running — how fast or long I run is easy to measure.  Compared to more common exercise regimens which are easy to track, Crossfit is an outlier.

At my gym, we track weight for specific exercises, which is good for measuring progress, but that doesn’t gauge overall fitness.

• I don’t run on the treadmill for hours at the gym like I used to, but I can run faster and longer than before.
• The STP felt like a cake walk; a really really long cake walk.
• My resting heart rate (54) and blood pressure (90/66) are both crazy low.
• I set personal records for the 500m row and mile run.
• Hiking Mount Si sounds like a fun weekend activity to me — I look forward to the challenge.

In short, I believe that Crossfit makes everything easier.  It feels like the metabolic conditioning and strength training provides a little cardiovascular bonus.  It makes a long hill climb on my bike that much easier, or the last sprint in a 5k that much faster.  And afterward I’ll turn around and say “that wasn’t so bad.”

But how can I quantify that?

Here’s a picture of my dad and I on the STP:

Before and After

It’s like night and day.

Before — in February of 2004, when I weighed more than 280lbs

Now — in April 2010, weighing in at 218lbs

Salads…for Breakfast?

The idea of eating a salad for breakfast is hard to comprehend.  When you think of breakfast, you probably think of pancakes, waffles, bacon, eggs, sausage hash browns, bagels, and french toast.  I used to think that what I ate in the morning had to fall into the realm of “breakfast” food, but in an effort to cut calories and eat healthier, my perception slowly changed.

For years, I would have a  bagel with peanut butter, a banana, and a glass of orange juice every morning for breakfast.  Then, in an effort to consume less calories, I cut it to half a bagel with peanut butter.  Taking it a step further, I discovered Greek yogurt with granola and fresh fruit (AMAZING), but the dairy didn’t work for me.  Next was eggs.  Scrambled eggs with peppers, onions, mushrooms, and salsa on top (also AMAZING).  But then I realized that my stomach hurt every time I ate eggs.  What’s got more nutrients and less calories than all of these breakfast options?  Enter salads.

Sometime last year, I would occasionally have a spinach salad  in place of a normal meal (even breakfast) and they really started to grow on me.  I kept the ingredients pretty simple at first:

• smoked salmon, sliced turkey, chicken, shrimp, or any other meat
• spinach
• cherry tomatoes
• avocado
• bell pepper
• olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and lime juice

Even now, I still keep the ingredients pretty simple, just with a few occasional additions.  I like to add strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries when they’re in season; apples, oranges, carrots, sliced nuts, and raisins are also good.  I REALLY like using arugula instead of spinach, and I’ve been adding walnuts a lot lately too.  Even now, my favorite part about eating salads is getting to the bottom,  where all the small pieces of avocado and walnut always stick together.  My perceptions have definitely changed, and so have my taste buds along with them.

spinach chicken and strawberry salad

Try rethinking breakfast and make a salad instead of your normal routine.  You might even like it.

Yes Man vs. Cave Man

The paleo diet is simple: Eat like a cave man.

Being a yes man is also simple; Say yes to everything.

Put the two together and it’s not nearly as simple;  eat healthy and say yes to everything??

Sometimes saying yes conflicts with eating healthy, and sometimes eating healthy conflicts with saying yes.  Here’s how I compromise:

• When I cook for myself I usually eat lots of vegetables, fruits, meat, and occasional whole grains
• When I eat out, I’ll try whatever the waiter recommends, even if it’s not paleo (Sliced Cod in Black Bean Sauce at Judy Fu’s was the best mistake ever)
• I eat healthy snacks like almonds, carrot sticks, apples and oranges between meals at work
• I will never turn down homemade treats my coworkers offer me (fried rice, bagels, cookies, peanut butter cups, YUM!)
• I’ll work out most days after work, even though a happy hour is tempting
• I’ll go to happy hour after work with friends I haven’t seen in a while, even if it means a few beers, greasy bar food, and skipping the gym
• I’ll skip a bar night so that I’m rested for a hike the next morning
• I’ll go to the bars with people I’ve never met before instead of staying in and watching a movie

My goal is to be as healthy as possible, which I believe is a direct result of eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and lean meat and exercising frequently.  Sometimes saying yes gets in the way of this goal, but it’s worth it because I might try something new that I really enjoy, meet a new friend, or maybe even learn something.

A diet, by definition, limits what you can eat and how much.  A yes man is the exact opposite — it opens you up to new things you never would have tried otherwise.  I ride my unicycle somewhere in the gray area between the two.  Here are my guidelines:

• Eat food that loosely follows the paleo diet, as long as I still enjoy what I eat.
• Say yes most of the time, try new things and meet new people, as long as it’s not too unhealthy or uncomfortable.

This is the constant struggle I face in eating paleo and being a yes man.  But it’s worth it.

Crossfit Day 1

After thinking about it for a very long time, I joined a crossfit gym. Yesterday was my first day, and instead of just signing up for a month to month deal, I prepaid for 6 months; I made a commitment. I have already been eating healthy and working out religiously for the past 2 years, but this is a little different. I’ve got a friend who started doing crossfit about a year ago and his whole life has changed. He’s in the best shape of his life, his back pain is gone, and he has changed his diet up so that his chron’s disease is no longer an issue. Crossfit is THAT big of a deal. This is a commitment to functional body movements, hard workouts, a friendly community of other crossfitters, and living a healthy life.

My first workout yesterday involved a lot of stretching, a lot of deadlifts, and even more burpees. If you don’t know what a burpee is, you probably don’t want to know. It’s one movement where you do a push-up, jump to a squat position, do a squat, then repeat. But you do 10 of them. Fast. For time. Then after that you do 5 deadlifts with fairly heavy weight. Then repeat the 10 burpees and 5 deadlifts over and over again. In 12 minutes, I did 5 or 6 rounds, but the goal was 10. And I cheated a lot because these motions are completely foreign to me.

After my first crossfit workout yesterday morning I was tired and sore, but it was a good tired and sore feeling, kinda like I had accomplished something. My lower back, my butt, and legs were all screaming at me. And that was just day 1.

Naturally, I want to document how much of a change crossfit really makes, and I’ll try to provide somewhat consistant updates on the workouts, my weight, and how i’m feeling.

12/30/2009 stats:

• Weight: 223.8lbs
• Body Fat Percentage: 18.8%

Pics to come later!

The Best Salsa Ever

Dilemma time.

I love chips and salsa but I hate cilantro.  And I also love spicy foods.  So naturally, finding a quality salsa that’s spicy but doesn’t have cilantro is a difficult task.  Problem SOLVED.

Trader Joe’s Hot Chipotle Salsa is the best salsa I’ve ever had.  It’s got a slight smokey flavor, it’s got a decent bit of spice, and the cilantro flavor is MIA.  I got a jar from Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago and I’m a changed man.  I like to put it on scrambled eggs and vegetables for breakfast, but it’s also excellent with chips.  This is seriously the best salsa I’ve ever tasted — so good in fact that it’s hard to describe what sets it apart from other salsas.  If you’re like me and you hate cilantro but love spicy foods, you NEED to try it.  If you are nothing like me, you still should try it.

I’m excited for breakfast tomorrow!

UPDATE:

This is what my AMAZING breakfast looked like this morning; scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions, and peppers, with the best salsa ever on top:

Gym Reviews: Allstar Fitness

I’ve been going to Allstar Fitness for 10 months now and it’s been my favorite gym in the Seattle area so far.  Prior to joining Allstar I went to Epicenter because it was convenient and cheap ($25/month) through a corporate membership at my company.  However, Epicenter was small, dirty, busy, and the management were jerks.  There were many factors which played into my decision to switch from Epicenter to Allstar, but I will focus mainly on the Pros and Cons of Allstar.

Pros:

• Price: I pay $30/month and I paid a $25 activation fee back in January (at peak new years resolution season)
• Convenient Location: 511 Olive Way, a block away from Westlake Center in the heart of downtown Seattle.
• Not too busy: Mondays and Wednesdays @ 5pm are busy but not unbearable.  All other times are less busy.  I’ve never had to wait for a treadmill, but the weight area is sometimes slightly crowded at peak times.
• Lots of space:  There’s plenty of room to spread out without bumping into other people.  There is also a Women’s only workout area.
• Equipment Quality: Cardio equipment and weights are all fairly new and in good condition
• Cardio Options:  There are plenty of treadmills, elliptical machines, and exercise bikes which are almost always available
• Weight Options:  Lots of free weights, 2 bench presses, 2 squat racks, smith machine, plus all the standard benches, machines, circuit training, and other equipment
• Cleanliness: The facilities and locker rooms are well maintained and generally very clean
• Locker Rooms: Very big with tons of amenities.  Steam room, sauna, iron and steamer.  Note that you need your own lock
• Parking: They validate parking for up to 2 hours (limited time windows) in the garage underneath the building
• Hours: They’re open 5am to 11pm on weekdays with limited hours on the weekends
• Towels: Unlimited large and small towels are provided free of charge
• Rock Climbing Wall: I haven’t used it yet, but I believe it’s free
• Classes: I’ve never taken a yoga, spin or other class but I believe those are free as well
• Trainers: The trainers seem very friendly, although I’ve never scheduled a session with one of them before
• Management: The management seems respectful, but I haven’t had any issues or tried to cancel my membership yet
• Trial Memberships: Ask them for a month free to try the facilities out.  This will give you time to really get a feel for the gym and also negotiate the rates.

Cons:

• Only 1 real pull-up bar and 1 assisted pull-up/dip machine
• No rowing machines as far as I can tell
• No Basketball Court or Swimming Pool (downtown is very limited on space)
• Stretching area has many small mats but only a few large ones

Overall I like Allstar most because it’s a great value, the location is convenient and the equipment and amenities are high quality.  When I originally came in for a tour in January 2009, I was quoted at $50/month with a $200 activation fee.  Over the course of the free month trial, I managed to get the rates down to $30/month plus a $25 activation fee.  Also, I’ve got coworkers who have since signed up for $25 and $30 a month respectively in the past month or two.  If you have the time and do your research, you can negotiate lower rates with them, especially if you have a large group or if it’s near the end of the month.

I would recommend Allstar fitness if you’re looking for a convenient and inexpensive gym downtown.