Order your Friday Night Throwdown Dinner HERE.
Special Mary
For time, all strict:
5 handstand push-ups
10 one-legged squats, alternating
15 pull-ups
10 handstand push-ups
20 one-legged squats, alternating
30 pull-ups
15 handstand push-ups
30 one-legged squats, alternating
45 pull-ups
10 handstand push-ups
20 one-legged squats, alternating
30 pull-ups
5 handstand push-ups
10 one-legged squats, alternating
15 pull-ups
It Starts With Breakfast
Way back in the day, I used to eat cereal for breakfast. Every morning during college I would come home from swim practice and pour myself a nice big bowl of GoLean Crunch and fill the bowl with soy milk. If you’ve ever had GoLean Crunch it’s like eating crunchy cardboard encased in honey, but it tasted really good to me back then.
Fast forward to today and you’re lucky to find a gluten-free grain on my plate ever (except for weekends when I go to the South Side Walnut Cafe because it has the best gluten-free pancakes ever invented and no one should go there without having one).
It wasn’t an overnight transition but over the past ten years I have moved from a processed food, laregly vegetarian based (not 100%), grain and soy filled diet to a 95% of the time Paleo Diet. I’m stronger, leaner, and my blood work tells me I’m way healthier.
At Roots, we promote and encourage athletes to try a Paleo Diet. Those that have look like badass ninjas walking around the streets of Boulder and through the shop. The Paleo Diet is the way our modern ancestors ate before the advent of modern agriculture and it eliminates grains, dairy, legumes, and sugar from the diet (more on that in another post). In short, we encourage you to eat meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. But, we know it doesn’t happen overnight and for many athletes – it started with breakfast!
Do you eat a Paleo Diet for the most part? What did your breakfast look like five years ago and what does it look like now? Post to comments.
Five years ago, I was a die hard cereal cruncher. My diet was relatively healthy but breakfast was absolutely my worst meal. Now I start the day with a bulletproof coffee and an egg scramble. I’ve noticed I have more energy throughout the day, not just in the mornings. For two years I have been adjusting my diet to improve recovery, energy levels, and overall will being. The Paleolithic diet has helped me get closer to that goal.
I pretty strictly follow the Zone diet now. Five years ago I lived on huge fruit smoothies – 2 every morning. Now I have 2 eggs with avocado, a little oatmeal and some berries. Super yum, and helps me feel great. 🙂
Well, ten years ago I ate GoLean Crunch. Sometimes a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich (with lots of jelly). Now, I have one of a few zone breakfasts…3 eggs/15 sweet potato tater tots/butter or in the summer a smoothie and with eggs on the side.
I know that if I start the day with a solid breakfast, I have a much better chance of eating well throughout the day.
If I’m on the road and in a pinch, I’ll have a Perfect Foods Bar with an extra block of protein. It’s high on the fat for zone but works really well. Unfortunately, they’ve added a ton of honey since rebranding the bars so they seem REALLY sweet now.
Five years ago my standard breakfast was a piece of whole wheat bread with peanut butter and jelly, coffee and a glass of orange juice. I was always hungry 1-2 hours later and couldn’t figure out why. Now my go-to breakfast is a cheese omelette, bacon and coffee with a large dose of heavy whipping cream. It sustains me through the morning and into the early afternoon.
I’ll have some bacon or sausage for breakfast, or nothing at all. I like being hungry in the morning. It keeps my mind sharp. Now that my blood sugar is stabilized (by cutting sugar), I find hunger to be a motivator, not a crisis.
I’ve always done better if my breakfast included protein and fat. I used to often just eat leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. Lowfat yogurt and homemade granola (or sometimes GoLean cereal) was an alternate staple and homemade pancakes or waffles were weekend treats.
I can’t seem to fully stick with the paleo commitment, but since last year’s zone challenge my breakfast staple has become a scramble of shredded sweet potato, shredded broccoli, shredded coconut, salmon (smoked or baked) and an egg. On Sundays I shred the potato and broccoli and prepare the salmon, and then during the week I have breakfast that cooks up in 5-10 minutes, is delicious, and keeps me satisfied until lunch.
Oh man – cereal / granola ALL THE WAY. Not gonna lie, I still love it but I don’t eat it. In college, I ate tons of Kashi GoLean then I moved on to Kashi Go Lean Crunch. About then I was paying attention to portion sizes and noticed that the Go Lean Crunch didn’t pack much volume, so then I would add Kashi Puffs to bulk it up for “less calories” but more food. Eeek, My how times of changed! I eventually started eating plain oatmeal w/ eggs, nut butter & fruit – some balance. After a Zone challenge about 3 years ago, ditched the bfast cereals all together. Now I eat 3 eggs, fat (bacon or avocado or butter) and fruit for carbs (grapefruit is my favorite when it’s in season). GF bread or waffles as a treat, not a staple.
I have to go back about 10 years for the really bad habits. I used to have an egg white omelet and a low fat pop tart! Oh the horror! I figured it out eventually. I now have eggs and greens every morning with bacon or sausage on the weekends. Fat is good for you, who knew?
Five years ago I ate two or three eggs over easy, a piece of buttered whole wheat toast, a big glass of orange juice, and coffee. Then I joined Roots and Nicole ruined my breakfast. After a few months of hearing about the paleo diet I decided I could stop eating bread, something I’d have said was kooky to even think about just a short while before. Then Nicole convinced me to give up the OJ, too. Now I scramble the eggs (so I don’t leave all that yolk on the plate since I can’t sop it up with the toast) and either sauteed or steamed spinach and maybe some bacon or sausage. And coffee. And I feel great (thanks, Nicole!).
I find it fascinating to read everyone’s responses…
I was a Kashi GoLean Crunch person too….and I remember having a bowl and thinking that I wanted more, and I was never satisfied.
Now everyone in our family has eggs for breakfast. Sometimes eggs with bacon, sometimes eggs with banana (Lila on 5 out of 7 mornings) and most often eggs with avo. On the go we grab bananas and almond butter packets. Coffee with almond milk is a must…except for Lila – she likes hers black.
Treats are paleo pancakes (Josh makes killer almond butter/banana/egg pancakes..who would have thought!?).
Smores poptarts and sweet tea! Or cheesy grits and sweet tea. OR chocolate chip granola bars and sweet tea. Really just anything with sweet tea.
now it’s whatever amazing blend of veggies, eggs and bacon casserole that I can dream up.
When I was first served my son-in-law Charlie Merrill’s Super Green Smoothie, I had to close my eyes and pray. Now this is my staple! Who could imagine combining frozen fruit, fresh greens and almond milk and adding probiotics, prebiotics, flax seed, chia seed and other “stuff” my generation has never even heard of! It’s nutritious and delicious and so easy. I have bacon on the side on days I am not heading to Womens Only at l0:30! A year ago I really turned to a mostly Paleo diet, with occasional additions of goat chess and kefir and paleo muffins. Now if they could come up with a delicious Paleo wine…..!
Two eggs, every single morning. Never gets boring. No more bread, no pasta, some beer (but not for breakfast 🙂 Not true Paleo (still eat Kind bars here and there, salad dressings, etc) but very conscious of it. Energy levels are high and body runs real clean. I went to Europe last week for work where bread is still a major food group, it was hard to eat clean.
Well, I am just now seeing this photo…. Hoping hurtles don’t come up tomorrow night! So I always leaned towards a higher protein diet while a competitive gymnast. But, when introduced to endurance sports in college, was also given the impression that carb loading for every meal was essential. Let’s just say, that packed on the lbs.! In the past few years I switched over to eggs but due to an egg “sensitivity” I now love making up scrambles (veggies, meats and sweet potatoes). Walnut Cafe’s Boulder scram (sub that tofu for meat and nix the cheese) is my current go to!!
My old dirty breakfast staple was a sausage egg and cheese sandwich from Salvaggio’s on the Mall.
I don’t eat breakfast too often but I do drink a good amount of coffee with heavy whipping cream every morning. I usually have a couple/few eggs later on in the day with some leftovers of whatever we had the night before.
I eat dairy and some white rice and potatoes on top of a paleo base. No sugar, no fake sugar.
6 or 7 years ago I would eat 6 or 7 eggs, some yogurt, whatever bread was around, a couple cartons of milk, and throw cheese on just about everything for good measure. Fruit if it was available.
Now my favorite is to throw some fat in a pan, get it hot, put a WHOLE bunch of kale and spinach in there until it cooks down, then crack 5 eggs on top. I put guac on it when it’s all done. It’s delicious.
Thanks to our 7 hens, we eat LOTS of eggs at our house…. and I love Nicole’s ninja comment, I feel like a ninja sometimes 🙂 I was doing crossfit for quite awhile before I went paleo, with the addition of paleo, I feel a lot stronger and understand the beauty of a well oiled machine. It’s obvious when I don’t eat paleo because my body tells me. I also love throwing some big handful of greens in my pan with coconut oil and cooking 2 or 3 eggs over it. I get it now, that high cholesterol is not due to too many eggs, but to unbalanced blood sugar…. my cholesterol dropped when I started eating this way. Really, thanks Roots, I wouldn’t have done it without you. I just wish I had been doing this when I was pregnant, too… missed that year of no sugar while pregnant challenge… bummer. Weird that that would even be a bummer. Although, not weird at all anymore.
I think I’m one of the only people that eats before the morning workout. A couple of eggs fried or scrambled. I’ll lick the plate for the left over yolk. 2 cups of tea with a dash of cream–can’t quite let go of the dairy. Then after the workout I sit at my desk and eat nuts and a couple of carrots. I used to go on breakfast ruts–peanut butter and banana on bread with the banana like a hot dog, large slice of home made bread, eggs on toast. I never thought I would quit bread. Actually it turned out it was fairly easy, must be that feeling good helps. I don’t bonk in the mornings anymore around 10:30.