My Whole Life Challenge Experience

This weekend ends the Whole Life Challenge, an 8 week challenge to help make some positive lifestyle changes and provide a framework for some accountability. My CrossFit box, Cascade CrossFit, along with many others started this shortly after the beginning of the year and pushed our way through until now.

All in all, it was a good experience. I stick to a pretty clean, paleo lifestyle and do CrossFit regularly, so the workout and mobility daily challenge wasn't that tough. I played by the advanced nutrition rules, which were really, really strict - no sweetener other than Stevia and the anti-caking agents in lots of spices were excluded, too.

But the things I liked the best from this challenge were the Life Style Challenges.  The early ones were slam dunks, too: drink half your body weight in ounces in water and  get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I know what it takes for me to be effective and stick to a pretty good schedule; in fact, my kids poke fun of me for having a bed time. After starting CrossFit, I carry a water bottle with me everywhere I go, so that was easy.

But then it started changing up a bit.  We had to practice mindfulness for 10 minutes a day. I had meditated as part of a Hapkido class when I was a kid, but never had done it as an adult.  And it was awesome.  Ten minutes of time to clear my mind just wasn't enough. It helped me deal with a bunch of external stresses in my life.

The challenge changed to 10 minutes of meaningful reading. I would regularly read before going to bed to help draw my day to a close, but nothing that I would call meaningful. A good friend of mine had given me Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties , by Ajahn Brahm a few years ago and after the meditation, reading his Buddhist tales seemed to follow well. And again, it was well timed. Several of the parables had direct connection to my life right now.

The challenge started with a benchmark workout. You can do any workout as long as you can score it. We did Rankel at the start and after the challenge, 20 minutes As Many Rounds As Possible 6 225 pound dead lifts, 7 burpee pullups, 10 53 pound kettlebell swings and a 200 meter run. After the challenge, I got 17 more reps, almost a full round more.

At the beginning of the challenge, I would eat Lara Bars before and after working out. To help control costs, I started making my own Awesome Bars. This is something that I know I'll keep up with, I enjoy cooking and making my own food. I also have made almond milk from raw almonds, twice (more to come on my blog for that later).

It was a good experience. I can make a commitment to some pretty strict rules and live with them. I learned more about meditating and its something I want to continue. I learned how much I have going through my head and recognize the benefits of the clarity that mindfulness provides.  I learned how to make some nutritious and clean snacks.

Would I do it again? I don't think so. I'm coming from a pretty good starting point and have been making great progress with my strength and fitness. In the last 8 days, I've had 3 PRs (CrossFit Open 14.2, Overhead Squat max weight and the re-test of Rankel). Some of that is due to the challenge and some of that is due to the lifestyle I've already implemented.

If you're a person who likes to compete against others, do things for points and need to implement some healthy lifestyle changes, the Whole Life Challenge is a really good thing. The community is helpful and supportive and the guys that run it are involved. What really matters is what you take from the challenge and how you go on living your life.

Did you compete in the Whole Life Challenge? What did you think? What habits are going to stick?

I did not receive compensation for this post; however, I was given a free entry into the challenge. I wasn't actually even asked to write this post, but its all my honest opinion. Get out there, challenge yourself and see what happens.

Making Sunday Breakfasts Special

Five days a week, I eat breakfast at my office. I do prepare my food in advance, so I've got something good to eat, but almost everyday, its at my desk. And by doing my food prep, I eat the same thing all week long.  So, on the weekends, and especially Sunday, because I have more time, I try to make those breakfasts special.

Typically, on Sunday, I'll read a cookbook as I eat my breakfast and enjoy my espresso.  Today, while there was no reading, I still found a way to make breakfast special.  As a crossfitter, I eat a lot of sweet potatoes and most of the breakfasts I make include them in some form.  And today, I found a new way to eat them.  I made paleo biscuits!

I split my biscuits in two and served them with some sauteed spinach and poached eggs. I've really gotten into poached eggs of late, but that is a topic for another post.

PaleoOMG's recipe for Shrimp and Jalapeno Sweet Potato biscuits was my inspiration. I had neither shrimp nor jalapenos, so I just left them out, and to fill the gap, I added some onion powder.  And to top it all off, they're Whole Life Challenge compliant (even for the Advanced nutrition challenge).  What, you thought I was going to top it with jam? Maybe bacon jam, once I figure out the right way to make that paleo.

The recipe is pretty quick and easy to make, they don't really take longer than making baking powder biscuits. I did microwave my sweet potato instead of cooking it in the oven, that sped things along.

I'll definitely be making these again and want to try the original recipe, but it was great to have biscuits in the morning with breakfast.

Ingredients
1 largish sweet potato, mashed
3 eggs, beaten
3 T bacon fat
3 T coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 375.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix the eggs into the sweet potato and then mix in the fat.
3. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
4. Use an ice cream scoop and drop the batter on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.
5. Bake for 22-25 minutes and then eat them.

Makes about 8 drop biscuits.  Which probably isn't enough.

Dates Warmed in Olive Oil with Sea Salt

I'm participating in the Whole Life Challenge and because I chose the advanced nutrition rules, my occasional dark chocolate for dessert is out.  But dates are a wonderful, wholesome, sweet snack and can make a delightful dessert.

A co-worker mentioned that he ate this at a Seattle restaurant and he and his wife made them when they were on a Whole 30 challenge.  I had a 2 pound box of dates from Costco and a sampler of Oregon Olive Mill oil, so I decided to make them myself.  Its not hard, only takes a few minutes and really showcases the ingredients. For this recipe, use the best quality oil and salt that you have, it will really make everything pop.

Oregon Olive Mill grows olives in the Willamette Valley on a fourth generation farm.  They harvest their own olives and them mill them in their own mill.  They have 13,000 trees that grow 3 varieties of olives making a top quality extra virgin olive oil.  Each variety yields an oil with a different taste, mouth feel and importantly, an after taste.   For this recipe, I used the Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive oil, because it had the most robust taste.

I used San Juan Island Sea Salt, a local Pacific North-West manufacturer of sea salt from our very own Salish Sea.  I got a sample of this salt at the International Food Blogger's Conference and it is a favorite of mine.   The salt has a brighter, crisper flavor than the french sea salts and is in much finer crystals than the Tibetan pink salt.  When I'm finishing something and want to taste the salt, this is the one I use.

I think that having a tasting party of olive oils, salts, wine, whisky or chocolate would be a pretty cool thing to do. Not all at once, but maybe a series of parties. Hmm, ideas...

Dates Warmed in Olive Oil with Sea Salt
less than 10 minutes

Ingredients

1-1/2 Tablespoon of your best olive oil
3 - 4 dates, pitted
Sea salt, fine grained, best quality

1. Warm the olive oil in a small pan, over medium heat. You don't want the oil to get warm like you'd cook meat with it, but just warm.
2. Put the pitted dates in the olive oil and gently roll them in the olive oil.  Do this until the dates are warmed through, 3 or 4 minutes.
3. Once the dates are warmed, put them on a plate and give them a generous sprinkle of sea salt.
4. Serve and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Other than the sampler of the Oregon Mill Olive Oil, I was not compensated for this post. The opinion and recipe are my own.  And if I wasn't paleo, I'd be dipping bread in this oil and just eating it that way. It's that good.

Make Your Own Lara Bars

Because I'm participating in the Whole Life Challenge, I bought a package of dates earlier this week.  Dates are a handy quick snack and great if you want something sweet. I enjoy eating the dates straight, wrapped in prosciutto, or as an ingredient in my paleo protein shakes. I also picked up a box of Lara Bars which I enjoy as well.

Having a bounty of dates, I decided to try making my own Lara Bars.  And because I can never find the Cappuccino Lara Bar, that was the flavor I decided to take on.

They were pretty simple to make and this way you can make your own flavor combinations.  I could have used some cocoa to make this a mocha Lara Bar.  Another alternative I'd like to try would be with some unsweetened coconut and maybe chocolate (once the WLC is done).

What flavors do you think would be good to try?

Ingredients
12 dates, seeded
about 1/2 cup pecans and roasted almonds - about equal in quantity to the dates
1 tablespoon of finely ground coffee beans

1. Cut the dates into small pieces and pulse in the small bowl of a food processor until they are smaller. Yes, I know how silly of an instruction that sounds.
2. Add the nuts and continue to pulse the dates and nuts.   The dates will become stickier and pickup the nuts and the nuts will get to a chopped consistency.
3. Add the ground coffee and pulse it a little more.  It will probably form some balls in the food processor bowl.
4. Dump the mixture into another bowl and further mix it with your hands.  When its well mixed, roll it into a ball.
   
5. Place the ball between two sheets of parchment paper and press into a bar like shape.  I used my hands to form a rectangle and then used a rolling pin to help flatten it (Thanks to Nom Nom Paleo for that set of instructions).
   
6. Cut the bar into individual serving pieces.
7. Wrap in your parchment paper so they don't stick together and store in the refrigerator.

Starting the Whole Life Challenge

My CrossFit box is doing the Whole Life Challenge, an 8 week challenge in making life style changes. It started Saturday and I'm now heading into the first work week. I don't think that this is going to be a big deal, because my strict paleo challenge (posts here, here and here) at the beginning of last year helped cement some good practices.

I eat pretty clean and cheat rarely.  My only exceptions to paleo eating on a regular basis are all to support working out - a Clif Bar before 6AM CrossFit and a protein shake afterwards.

Unfortunately, these two exceptions don't fly in the Whole Life Challenge.  I can eat a date or two on the way to CrossFit, but I've got to work on some substitute for the protein shake.  I'm pretty lean and need to build muscle mass.  So, for these first few days, I'm just going to take the hit and lose the nutrition points.

Heather and I went to the store today and really, really looked at labels.  There is added sugar in so many things!  Almost all of the dried fruit had added sugar, which seems kind of silly, given how sweet fruit is to start.  Even the uncured bacon, no nitrates used, has sugar in it.  Without bacon, this challenge might get a little harder.  Not.

I've made bacon before in my smoker, and given that its winter time and cooler here, my smoker might stay cool enough for making bacon and not cooking the pork belly.  I'll take a stab at making WLC compliant sriracha sauce during this challenge.  I'll try making some Lara bars too, since I found a big box of dates at Costco.

So, stay tuned and watch this blog for updates.  I'll cook some good food and see how this challenge goes!

Did you make any fitness resolutions or are you participating in some kind of challenge?


Note:  Because my wife Heather has a pretty big blog, she convinced the Whole Life Challenge people to give her 2 entries to the Challenge.  I got one of them and though they didn't ask me to write anything, I'll be sharing my experiences in my words.