Check out our New Paleo Meal of the Day blog listed on the left side of our daily blog!  Now there is NO excuse for not having any ideas on what to eat!!  Enjoy!

My thanks to Matt Lucas of CrossFit Southwest for setting this up!

courtesy of Health-Bent

Paleo Seafood Balls with Homemade Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb cod
• 1/2 lb shrimp
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 3 T fresh parsley
• 2 T Old Bay
• 2 eggs
• 2 T tartar sauce
• 1/2 c almond flour

Breading Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 1/2 c water
• 1 c almond flour
• 1 t salt

Tartar Sauce Ingredients

• 2 recipes mayo (or use 3/4 c store-bought)
• 3 T pickle relish
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1/4 t garlic powder
• salt

Method

For the tartar sauce:

In the smallest bowl of your food processor, blend all ingredients and stick in the fridge to chill while you make the seafood balls.

For the seafood balls:

In the largest bowl of your food processor, add all the ingredients (except the breading ingredients) and mix until everything has turned into a fine paste.

Heat a non-stick or cast iron saute pan with a few tablespoons of fat over medium-high heat.

In one soup bowl, mix together the egg and water. In another soup bowl, toss together the almond flour and salt. Scoop the seafood mixture into small balls. Drop and roll the seafood balls in the almond flour mixture, the egg mixture then in the almond flour again.

In batches, place the seafood balls in the saute pan and saute, until the balls are brown and crispy on all sides–about 3-4 minutes on each side.

courtesy of Health-Bent

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 10 oz. package of frozen spinach, thawed
• 5 Portobello mushrooms
• 1 cup canned artichoke hearts
• 1/2 c parmesan cheese + extra for sprinkling on top
• 1/2 c mayo
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Method

Get your oven to 400ºF.

Brown the ground beef in a saute pan.

While the beef is browning: hold the thawed spinach in your hands and over a soup bowl, squeeze the living daylights out of the spinach. You want to squeeze out as much water as possible. Add to your food processor along with the mayo, artichokes, lemon and parmesan. Pulse it to combine. When the beef is browned, add that too. Pulse a couple times to combine it.

Now it’s time to prep the mushrooms. Remove the stem and discard (or save and make mushroom stock!). Over a bowl, or your sink, use a spoon to scrape out the black gills on the underside of the mushroom. You’re going to need to use a gentle force with the mushrooms–if you’re too rough, you’ll tear the mushroom.

Place the mushroom caps on a baking sheet, top side down. Stuff those babies with as much spinach, artichoke mixture as you can. Sprinkle some parm on top and bake until the mushrooms have cooked, about 8 minutes. Place the oven on broil and get the top nice and bubbly hot. Serve immediately.

Pad Thai from Health-Bent

Pad Thai

Ingredients

• 1 lb duck breast (chicken thighs, shrimp, sirloin would all work well)
• 1/4 c fat (butter, coconut oil, or bacon fat)
• 2 zucchinis
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 T apple cider vinegar
• 2 T fresh ginger, minced
• 3 T almond butter
• 1 T chili garlic sauce
• 1 T fish sauce (optional)
• 1 lime, juiced
• sliced green onions
• s&p

Method

For the duck, melt the fat in a large saute pan over medium high heat. Salt and pepper the duck. Add to the pan and sear, skin side down, until you get a nice, crispy crust, about 8 minutes. Flip it over and sear on the other side, about another 7 minutes. Remove the duck from the pan, let it rest and drain the rendered fat from the pan, until you have about 1/2 cup in the pan–just a rough measure.

While the duck is going…

If you have a mandoline, get it out and start slicing the zuchinnis lengthwise. If you don’t have one, you can get one on the cheap at TJ Maxx or you can get it from Amazon (check out our ‘Must Haves’ on the right)…or you can use a knife to slice the zukes as thinly as you can (lengthwise). Then slice them into thin strips, just like a noodle. Another option, for speed, lack of the proper tools or sheer laziness, you can just chop the zukes into chunks. Not quite the same effect, but same flavor.

In the reserved fat, saute the onion, garlic and ginger, until soft. Add the fish sauce, chili sauce, vinegar, lime juice and almond butter. Stir to combine.

Add the zuke noodles to the saute pan. Stir them around to get the sauce incoporated onto the “zoodles”. The point here is get the “zoodles” hot and very slightly cooked through (just like an al dente noodle!), about 10 minutes.

Serve hot and topped with a squeeze of lime juice and some chopped green onions.

If you plan on hanging in tonight and watching Earl from your living room, this could be a fun meal to prepare with your family/friends.

I found this recipe from the Everyday Paleo website!  Sarah is a mom, a wife and a CF coach and her website is AMAZING!  Lots to check out…www.everydaypaleo.com

Everyday Paleo Pizza

Crust:

2 cups almond meal

2 eggs

3 tbsp olive oil

¼ tsp baking soda

1 tsp garlic powder

1 ½ tbsp fresh rosemary chopped

Toppings:

1 cup organic marinara sauce from Trader Joe’s

1 lb Italian pork sausage nitrate free

2 crook neck yellow summer squash diced

3 green onions chopped

Handful of torn basil leaves

2 small tomatoes diced

1/2 cup roasted red peppers diced

Handful of sliced black olives

Preheat your oven to 350. Using a spoon mix all crust ingredients together until it becomes very thick. Using your hands, form the dough into a ball. Lightly grease a pizza pan or a cookie sheet with olive oil. Place the ball of dough in the center of your cookie sheet or pizza pan and using your hands, push and pat the dough down into the shape of a circle (or an oval in my case…). You want to make the dough as thin as possible. Your pizza will be about 12 inches across. Bake JUST the crust in your pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. While your crust is cooking, prepare your toppings. If you use sausage like we did, this is when you should crumble it into a large saute pan and brown. After the crust if done, remove from the oven and evenly spread the marinara sauce over the crust. Add the sausage and all remaining toppings evenly over the sauce and bake again for an additional 25-30 minutes. Get creative and use whatever toppings you might like – ours was great but I also suggest trying chicken, artichoke hearts, and even broccoli!!  Go wild with it and as always: Enjoy!

I drove up to Albany CrossFit with my best friend, Kelly, this past weekend to attend Whole9’s workshop. Melissa Urban and Dallas Hartwig are the founders of Whole9. They recently ditched their day jobs and took on Whole9 as a full time business. They have a killer website ~ www.whole9life.com and I recommend you guys check out their stuff.

I have been in dire need of a RE-SET on my nutrition. It has been one year since I was in Chicago for Robb Wolf’s Nutrition Certification, which completely changed my views on food and health. Oh, I’m Paleo, for sure, but my “treats” have become more and more prevalent over the past few months. “I’m Paleo, but it’s Saturday, so I’ll have the pizza and wine. I’m Paleo, but I did good all day so I’ll have some chocolate (whatever, it’s dark chocolate, with almonds!). I’m Paleo, but this cookie is gluten-free).” I still won’t touch dairy, beans and grains (minus the pizza), so clearly my problem lies with sugar.

I wanted to share with you my goal. Check in with me, ask how it’s going. The next month holds my boyfriend’s birthday, a Sugarland concert (Corona?! No) and other commitments with friends and family. That’s life. I need to re-train my body on real foods, change my taste-buds again and feel good.

I am also using the next 30 days, plus, as a little experiment. Strict, clean eating 30 days. Once 30 days is up, I’m not going to go on a food bender, but keep my eating clean and “test” out certain “less than healthy” foods, one at a time, and see how it affects MY body and MY performance. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. This is a lifestyle. Maybe I have 3 pieces of cheese and my stomach is destroyed for 2 days, or I indulge in a pancake at breakfast (one pancake, not 3 ginormous pancakes), feel a little sluggish, but okay.

A little refresher:

No, No!

1. Sugar (dense carb = increased insulin response. No natural sweeteners)
2. Processed foods/preserved foods (in a can, box, etc.)
3. Artificial sweetener
4. Alcohol (much to my dismay, this includes no tequila – damn it! It’s all the same; alcohol, any and all are neurotoxins)
5. Grains (contain lectins, a plant protein with defense compounds and are acid resistant, think acid in your stomach. They arrive in the small intestine intact and do not break down, causing damage in the gut lining. This allows other particles to cross undigested, which sends your immune response into overdrive, attacking some things that should actually be there. Hmm, Autoimmune Disease, yes?  Yes.  Lots of info on lectins, sorry.  Let me know if anyone wants further info.  Interesting stuff. Grains = bad; wheat, quinoa, rice, buckwheat, oats, rye, barley, millet, corn, legumes, dairy (in grain-fed cows)).

“If part of your immune response is always allocated to repairing gut irritation, you are essentially sick all the time.” -Robb Wolf

6. Legumes (see above re: lectins. This includes soy and peanuts)
7. Dairy.

Yes!

1. Meat, fish, eggs, poultry (look for your best possible choice; grass-fed beef, locally farmed eggs, wild-caught fish)
2. Veggies (okay, this involves multiple grocery store trips per week, I will survive.)
3. Fruit, some
4. Fat (mix it up, not the same ole’ almonds day in and day out.)

Coffee, black, in moderation is okay, too. Thank the good LORD!

As far as macronutrient combinations, your goal should be carb, protein and fat with each meal and snack.  From my Zone days, I was TOTALLY hung up on having all 3 at the same exact time.  If you are out and about and all you have on you is an apple and almonds ~ flippin’ eat it!

Sorry this is so long! Thanks for allowing me to enroll you guys in my goal. This may have been a refresher for most of you, but maybe it inspires some of you to re-set your nutrition button.

Lastly, keep up with your fish oil. How much? Grab your bottle and use Robb Wolf/Whole9 fish oil calculator:
http://whole9life.com/fish-oil/

In the words of Melissa Urban:
“It’s not that effing hard…Don’t you dare tell me this is hard. Giving up heroin is hard. Drinking your coffee black is. Not. Hard.”

Scott was the hands down winner of the journal part of the contest with just about perfect Paleo eating for the 12 weeks.  His performance results were also impressive.  While going down from a 165 lb clean and jerk to a 155 lb clean and jerk he was able to go from 19 to 30 pull ups and lower his mile time from 8: 37 to a time of 7:34. But most impressive was that Scott lost 3.6% body fat, 21 lbs. and 2.5 inches on his hips and .5 inches on his waist!

Great job Scott!

In second place there was a tie between Terri Pistorino and B Wadsworth!

Both Terri and B were impressive with their diligence to the Paleo diet. Terri lost 1.75 inches on her hips and 3 inches on her waist while losing 4.1% body fat and 11 lbs. Teri performances were also impressive. B lost 3.25 inches on her waist and 1.25 on her hips.  She went down 1% body composition and lost 11 lbs. B’s mile went from 11:16 to 10:35.  She finally topped out her max effort clean and jerk with an impressive 155 lbs which was up from 140 lbs.  Finally, her pull ups went from 6 to 13 consecutively!

Great Job Terri and B!

Rounding out the top 10 of the contenders were:

The New and Improved Food Pyramid!

As you all know we are having a Paleo Diet contest. For those of you that are interested in what the Paleo Diet is here is a little video that describes it. We are having some great success even in this short first 2 weeks. If anyone wants to talk more about it let me know and I will gladly do so!