Out of the box and back into boxing

So yesterday was my birthday... (pause for requisite cheer, respond with polite nod etc etc).

It's been sweaty-balls 40-degrees hot over here in Perth for the last few days.  And I have no airconditioning in my living room. So I decided to bake! Genius, I know.  But it was worth it! For one of my bake-offs I decided to go all 70s retro and make devils on horseback. Yummo. Just slice up some bacon (streaky bacon, cut each piece in half) and wrap it around some pitted prunes, stick a toothpick in, bake on 180C 20-30 mins until bacon is crispy and voila! Remember that prunes used be plums so you shouldn't eat more than about three of them at once....

And I took my first ever boxing class at 6am on my birthday.  It was pretty fun and less overwhelming than I expected.  I'll be taking more from this weekend and getting some official qualifications on Friday so I guess you can say I'm a boxing instructor now?!

I'm glad I'm boxing again (a pastime I've enjoyed for over a decade) because a couple of weeks ago I had to give up my CrossFit gym membership and 'leave the box' for now.  Yep, I blog about CrossFit and I live for the stuff but the real world has collided with the ideal and I've come out a bit battered and bruised.  I have a lot to say about 'forging elit(ist) fitness' but this is not the forum.  However, I will say that I feel CrossFit should be more accessible (but then I'll be arguing against a very logical point about the cost of having a bunch of coaches looking out for your physical interests versus being left to your own devices and getting injured etc and I'm way too tired for that talk).

At first I was really gutted, but now I am determined to work around this challenge.  I bought a 16kg kettlebell and joined a gym the 1970s forgot to take with them when they ended... But it has a lot of barbells, dumbells, space for skipping and rowers. It also costs $10 per week and has a free creche Monday to Saturday mornings. And spin bikes on which to hurt my bum and gyney for hours... aaahhhh... the spin bike.....

Anyway - I'm very nervous about 'being out on my own' and not having someone tell me what to do with my workouts every day.  It will be challenging to stay motivated and keep myself on track, as it has been for my diet since I moved here.  I have still been cooking a lot of Paleo meals, but when my financial situation started getting very bleak very quickly I started to comfort-eat a LOT of dairy and sugar....

My philosophy is one of acceptance.  If I have made some poor choices I need to acknowledge it and move on... I don't believe there is anything to be gained from wallowing in guilt, panic and anxiety.  So I'm just going to take it one meal at a time and get back in the saddle, even though I'm certain that everything really does taste better with icecream.....

Which brings me to the point of 'special occasions'.  For Valentine's Day, aka 'the day after my birthday', my son brought home a couple of the least-Paleo biscuits on Earth. But he made them - and bless, there was a little note attached.  I'd be a psycho if I didn't give him the satisfaction of trying to eat his half-melted, slightly burnt little pink pieces of floury hell.... Do the world a favour and don't be a food psycho... have a little something 'unhealthy' on special occasions (unless it literally gives you the shits... then PLEASE do not eat it FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!).

Gassius Maximus

Back to the CrossFit obsession soon.... time for a foodie post.

So I've been fermenting my own foods a bit these days.  And I've also been tooting my own horn, if ya know what I mean... The kids are finding that pretty hilarious. Might take me a week to get used to all the fizz in mah belly methinks.

Home-made Apple Kefir - the fizzy gettin' bizzy in mah belly

I got into the idea of fermentation not long after I started on the path of eating Paleo.  I became pretty obsessed with the idea of having nothing processed in my diet and that meant considering things like packaged vitamins and probiotics.

There's a lot of information about the benefits of probiotics available these days. But it makes sense to me to try and access these valuable organisms in the most natural way possible, rather than blindly trusting some company that shoves my little critters into capsules at a factory somewhere.

A friend told me, in secret, that she fermented her own food. She's pretty bloody 'normal' so that encouraged me to explore the idea.  Ivy from Paleo in Melbourne often featured fermented products in her blog and, again, I was intrigued.

But then I saw pictures of crazy looking jars and detailed and lengthy instructions and caveats and too much friggin' hard work frankly.

Well last week I gave it a go. I made sauerkraut.  I followed my own version of my friend's recipe (see below) and left the single jar of goodness on a shelf for 5 days, patiently waiting for something magical to happen. And guess what? It did! Bloody deliciousness.  My next project is pickled carrot and daikon - just trying to get the sugar balance right (sugar is mostly eliminated through the fermentation process but not entirely).

The other thing I tried was apple kefir (see above).  I added one sachet of kefir to a bottle with a stopper ($1.50 at Ikea), along with approximately 300ml of organic cloudy apple juice and topped up the bottle with water. I left this mix on the kitchen bench for 24hrs then refridgerated.  The result tastes like apple cider without the buzz.  I have managed to make another four batches by retaining half a glass of the mixture in the bottom of the bottle and re-doing the other three steps.  This mix is cheaper than buying a bottle of organic fizzy and a half a dozen probiotic capsules and it took less than 10 seconds to make. 

Here's my version of Sarah's Sauerkraut.....

1 large green cabbage - thoroughly washed and dried

2 x Granny smith apples - peeled and shredded in grater

1 teaspoon of raw honey

Himalayan Crystal Salt 1 teaspoon

1 sachet Body Ecology starter culture

1. Sterilise a mason jar ($4 at Ikea) in boiling water for ten minutes

2. To make starter mix: mix honey, culture starter, ½ cup filtered water

3. Set aside some big clean cabbage leaves. You will leave these as seals for the jar

4. Get a large bowl. Slice cabbages and add to the bowl. Scrunch the cabbage to try to bruise it (did this a couple of times)

5. Mix in all the ingredients together, scrunching. You may need to do a few batches depending on the size of your bowl. Don’t forget the salt.

6. Pack it tightly in the jar. Pour in starter culture mix.  DO NOT GO HIGHER THAN 3CM FROM TOP OF JAR.

7. Push it all down and pack it in as much as you can.  Make sure liquid covers all ingredients. Add filtered water if required.

8. Place cabbage leaf on top to ‘seal’ the veggies in

9. Firmly secure lid of jar and place on tray to catch any overflowing juices. Put in a dark place – i.e. in the cupboard with a towel on it.

10. Leave 3-5 days for crunchy, 10 days for softer texture.  DON’T OPEN WHEN FERMENTING.

Once fermented place in fridge. After opening jar, keep ingredients moist.  Stored correctly unopened cultured veges last 5 months in fridge and opened for 6 weeks.   

The 'C' word

So I watched this video. 

And I thought to myself ‘OMG that is soooo amazing, I could NEVER do that.... but I wish I could.... but WHO AM I KIDDING?!?!... and that looks so COOOOOOL and oooh that would be really hard but IMAGINE HAVING THOSE ABS and WHAT THE HELL IS THAT CHICK DOING!?!?!'....

And I started to obsess. And I started to ponder. And I started to research.

I learnt that I could train smarter in less time.  I learnt that throwing a heavy bar around would make me fitter and stronger, but also leaner. Besides that, it looked really badass.  I learnt that CrossFit had this thing called 'scaling' which meant that even my granny could give it a go. I learnt that one day I might possibly be able to get my body to do something cool like this:

Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet being awesome - courtesy of games.crossfit.com

 

At this point in time I'd been so disappointed by the trainers at my gym that I decided I could do a much better job myself. I also thought that maybe I could be of use to other women who had been where I was - overweight, dead tired, depressed and overwhelmed.  Besides, I was really sick of my office job anyway.

So I decided to enrol in night school and do my Certificate IV in Fitness.

The very same week I contacted a CrossFit gym in Melbourne and, with my heart pounding a million miles an hour, I climbed up that endless flight of stairs for my first session.