First Nerd Fitness Challenge of 2012

Being a nerd, I was trying to find a cleverly nerdy title to kick off the year. This one really works for me. And then, when searching for an image that would be awesome to put with it I found this one. (which is too big for the forum).

It states:

Just 3 steps to enjoy your life - Ctrl + Alt + Del...

1. Control Yourself
2. Look for Alternative Solutions
3. Delete the situation which gives you trouble

Main Challenge Goal!
My main goal of this first challenge of 2012 is to restart my journey within this awesome community so I can lean on y’all for support and count on you to kick my ass when I’m being a dufas. My weight loss goal for this 7 weeks is aim for 30 pounds. Yes, that is quite a lot and if I fail, that is OK, but that is my goal. I think, given that most of my weight is from steroids and eating wrong... as I'm getting weaned off the 'roids and eating super clean, the weight will melt off pretty quickly.

Food

• 100% Paleo, Autoimmune protocol
  • Eliminate: Grains, Nuts, Seeds, Eggs, Tomatoes, Peppers, Dairy, Potatoes, Legumes (inc green beans). I’ll still cook with butter.
  • In Feb, reintroduce one at a time for 1 week, see if any reaction. Reintroduction will be in this order: Eggs, Green Beans, Peppers, Tomatoes, Nuts/Seeds. Leave out grains, diary, all other legumes and potatoes.
  • I’ll be gauging reaction by not only how I feel but if I notice any difference in my skin and the effects of the vasculitis.
  • Side Note: Fruit, I’ll limit to at max, one serving a day, but aiming to stay away for the most part. Fruit for me is usually either apples or berries.
• Because my main goal is weight loss, I do need to pay attention to maintaining a calorie deficit. Due to this, I will be logging my food into MyFitnessPal as well playing with DietSnaps and PaleoTrack to see if once I get the hang of things, I can stop keeping such a close eye on things (calories), and more just do a general knowledge check.

Fitness

• Strength Training via Primal Blueprint Fitness 2x a week.
  • Starting Levels:
    • Push-Ups - Level 1 (Wall Push-Ups)
    • Overhead Press - Level 1 (Elevated Jackknife Press)
    • Pull-Ups - Level 1 (Chair-Assisted 2 Leg)
    • Squats - Level 4 (Full Squat)
    • Plank/Side Plank - Level 1 (Hand/Knee Plank/Side Plank)
• Active/Play 3x a week for at least 30 minutes per day. This can be in the form of walks, playing Kinect with mini-me or anything else that gets me off my butt and sweating.

Life

• Come up with design for basement renovation. This includes finding a free drafting/drawing thingy to “blueprint” the design (which covers my learn a new thing every month goal)
• Complete two Art/Crafts Projects.
• Read two books.

Possible Challenges Foreseen

• Mini-me’s 10th birthday is on the 12th. He wants Chinese food and a donut cake... Working on this! Wonder if I can everything myself and make it paleo... That could be a challenge goal!
• Because my mom is ill and currently very restricted on what she can do, and that she is/was the primary caregiver of mini-me as well as my sister’s mini-mes, we’re needing to switch things up and change who cares for the minis. It seems I’ll be having the three minis every weekend or a combination thereof... This could become interesting.

Liquid Awesome

So, it's a new year and I've decided that I'm changing things up with my diet and my blogging.  I'm going to aim to post some recipes of things I make at home.  Since I have a ton of kale at home, I decided to make some soup.  After thinking a bit, I thought "Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana!"  Only... it's made with cream and tomatoes... both of which I'm not eating right now.  So, I give you my version!

Trisha's Sausage Kale Spinach Soup aka "Liquid Awesome"

I started off making the broth using pork neck bones.  I pan-fried them up in some olive oil, dusted with a couple pinches of salt.

Neck Bones inna Pan!

Neck Bones all browned and yummy.

One all nice and brown I added them to the stock pot and filled it with water.  I let the water come to a boil and scrapped off all the scummy white stuff.  That is pretty much just nasties from the bones floating to the top.  Skim it off, let boil for about 10 minutes until no more nasties surface.

Nasties!

Once it was good and clear I threw in a bunch of veggies.  In my case it was mushrooms, sugar snap peas, carrots, onion and green beans.  Oooh!  And some garlic.

Floating veggies in stock!

I let this boil for 1.5 hours then strained the stock and split it in half. (I was making two soups)

Stock is ready for straining!

Now, time to get the Liquid Awesome making.  To start, I cut up and cooked 4 slices of bacon.

Bacon!

Added about 10 baby carrots cut up.

Bacon and carrots!

Then a pound of Sage Pork Sausage and cooked until no longer pink.

Sausage, bacon and carrots.

I dumped the meat and carrots into the stock and got the veggies.  For this I used a head of purple flowering kale and a bunch of spinach.  I roughly chopped them up and added them to the soup.

Purple food is so pretty..

This is one colorful soup!

Mixed everything all up and let it cook for a few hours in the crockpot.

I love the colors!

 The kale lost it's color, but the flavor of this soup is spot on.  It was so delicious the kids were eating it and loving every bite.

My bowl of "Liquid Awesome"