Serving size: 1T on 1/2 cup (dry measured) brown rice Cals
C: 304 P:28 F:48, Total - 380
Grams
C:76 P:7 F:6
Ratio C/P/F
80/7/13
Garlic relish has changed my life at 40 calories per T. If there is something I haven't put it on it's simply because I just haven't made it yet. There was a disturbing absence of it at Kroger for the last two weeks. I was hoping that I was the only person in Houston that ate it and it wouldn't surprise me. I love this city but there is a depressing lack of people with sophisticated palettes. I gave my coworker a taste of Daifuku the other day and from the get-go I could tell it was going to be eventful.
There are foodies here, but they are rare. We found some at the Asian market (of course) and stocked up for any emergency. I don't care about hurricanes, zombies or H1N1. I have my AR-15, 40 gallons of gas, 20 lbs of brown rice and 5 jars of garlic relish. No gas mask yet, but I think that's when people start talking about you and I'm not trying to out-red the rednecks, I just want to be ready.
If anything fixes brown rice up enough to make me actually crave it, and be low calorie, it is this.
Mixing a teaspoon of this with a quarter cup of yogurt makes a great marinade or sauce. Last night I did exactly this with a rotisserie chicken breast. The tart vinegar taste really makes the saliva glands work in overdrive and for all the extra flavor a little yogurt won't blow up my diet for the day.
I am interested in hearing other uses for this stuff. I have been a big fan of relish and chutneys for years. Most of them are really sweet though and I don't want to dump 20 grams of extra sugar on my bowl of rice so the garlic relish is a great find.
There are some honorable mentions that I use less frequently. Kim chee is great as a side to brown rice, plenty of spice and flavor and depending on where you get it, minimal caloric impact. Seaweed itself can be used in a few ways. I will get into a post on how to make spicy chicken hand rolls in the near future.
Pho, pronounced “fa”, is a Vietnamese beef noodle soup. So far I have had about a 95% success rate with changing peoples lives when introducing them to it. I had one coworker who wanted to get it for lunch almost everyday for several weeks after I first convinced him to try it!
It makes a great pre or post workout meal, as well as a good carb-up meal at the end of a week of low carb or ketogenic dieting. This is a very high (simple) carb meal, but it is very low in fat and customizable. Usually I can get the restaurant to give extra meat for another dollar.
Pho Beef Noodle Soup (with extra meat) Cals
C: 288 P:184 F:48, Total -520
Grams
C:72 P:46 F:6
Ratio C/P/F
55/35/10
At its simplest this is a lean beef soup, and you can always ask to have the waiter bring the beef slices on the side for inspection before you add them to the soup. The quality is quite high, and you will see the beef is very lean. Most pho restaurants have the same menu, so you can expect to see the soup served with several different styles of beef including fattier cuts or meatballs.
For the adventurous, try the beef tendon. It looks like a big lump of fat, but is actually protein! It has a very subtle flavor almost like marrow. It is scary to look at though but this is a time to be adventurous if there ever is one.
Find it all over Chinatown, or anywhere you see a restaurant name that starts "Pho ______" is pretty typical.
Whats your favorite pho?
Mine is N24. Eye round steak with tendon.
Try www.Yelp.com to help you find a local pho spot in the USA or UK.
Asia is king when it comes to snacks and the pure variety of different options. It may be sold off the street wrapped in newspaper or banana leaf, have dried sea creatures adorning it, and cost $2, but I can assure you there are some of the most intense flavors and textures in the world to be found out there. Don't even get me started on the beaches and rain forests. Check out some of my links to other blogs to see what I am dreaming about most of the time.
I have made Asian food about 50% of my diet. Partly because its what makes me nostalgic, but also because of the cost. Ingredients that originate from intense spice pastes matched well with bulk meat and grain products make Asian cooking a logical choice for nutrient dense meals that an athlete can enjoy.
I went to the Asian Grocery this past weekend. This is like going to a Vegas casino for me. I was ping-ponging around from aisle-to-aisle finding some amazing treats, but also trying to route out a few healthy additions to help me get through my daily helpings of brown rice. I found two but there are sure to be more.
Both are a little out there, but this is a blog for people who can handle far out food....so read on.
Brown rice is a staple of most diet plans. Former Olympian Jay Cutler eats it multiple times per day. I challenge you to find any fitness or bodybuilding competitor who hasn't at one time had it as a major part of their diet or list it on their website as such.
My wife however has been holding back on me. When we were over at the store, she casually picks up the most amazing topping ever and it finds its way back home and in the cupboard without me hardly noticing it. My wife grew up in Hawaii and has exposed me to some great things that are popular over there, many with a Japanese influence that I otherwise would not have discovered. I grew up in south east Asia, so anytime someone from the US shows me anything Asian that I have never heard of, I am delighted, humbled, and pissed off I have been missing out on the good stuff!
Furikake
No, not a new genre of Japanese adult entertainment. This is an incredibly robust 28 calorie per serving, Japanese seasoning mixture for rice. Depending on which of the 20 or so blends available at my local Asian market you get, it will contain things like seaweed, barley, dried yolk, shaved bonito, sesame etc...
I take about a tablespoon or so and mix it in the cooked rice. There are so many flavors it really just sends me to walkabout trying to figure out which flavor is coming out in each bite.
It is extremely savory and also goes great on popcorn. I am told on good authority its typical in Hawaii to get it in the movie theater.
Serving size: 1T on 1/2 cup (dry measured) brown rice
So being a foodie I put a lot of thought into every meal I eat and do everything within my power to make sure my meals are as good as possible. Not expensive, just exceptionally good. In fact the less money I have to spend the better.
As a general athlete and fitness enthusiast I need to consider the macro/micro-nutrient profile of my food as well as the cost to keep things under control. Including a substantial protein source in every meal can quickly drive up costs.
Not long ago I was a svelte 225lbs and so far gone from 20% bodyfat (not my picture but amazing nipples) that I was scared to have it measured. I followed a great fat loss diet called the Cyclic Ketogenic Diet (CKD) and I have settled in somewhere between 180-185lbs for now at 12% BF (Abdominator from Bodybuilding.com). I'll discuss that process in future posts.
I have to enjoy eating the healthy food that I used to loathe for its blandness and boring textures. It is no longer torture, and it is a work of progress I have chosen to write about it here partly because I enjoy writing and documenting recipes for myself, and also for anyone else whose pain I can alleviate.
What I have settled on works for my goals of maintaining and growing lean muscle. I aim for a high protein and medium carbohydrate, medium fat macro nutrient ratio. Those carbs must come primarily from low Glycemic Index (GI) sources. I believe this is similar or the same as the South Beach Diet, but I don't know because I don't read fad diet books. One book wouldn't fit every person anyway since many people respond differently. For some reason I can eat more fat than most people and not gain any. This is not true for when I eat too many carbs though.
So all this means I try to eat predominantly carbs which cause the least amount of insulin response. The major problem with this is that low GI carbs usually are less sweeter with more fibrous textures. The opposite of the normal American diet. Graham Crackers and Gatorade for instance have a high GI, sending your insulin levels up and instantly shutting down any fat burning, turning on the fat storage mechanism for excess calories. Black beans have a low GI allowing fat to continue to be burned, or at least used as fuel and not stored in the body.
Here is a great table for more examples of where common foods fall on this index: Glycemic Index Table. Note the appeal of most of these things drops rapidly with the GI number.
I hope to reduce my BF% by keeping the same amount of fat while increasing muscle. Its not out of vanity. Or maybe it is and I don't realize it. I don't care. I love to be in the gym, I love to be on my bike, or on a field, I love to eat right, and if I was the last man on earth I would still do it all.
The best source of information I have for that has been various bodybuilding websites. Guys and especially women who can get their BF% down to under 5% while keeping well over 220+ lbs of lean muscle didn't get that way by doing the wrong thing. They follow hunches, they do what works for them, they take everything with a grain of salt...and they eat a lot of flavorless....brown....rice.
Brown rice has been a curse for me. It's so cheap and comes so highly recommended by serious fitness competitors, but I just can't eat the stuff (apparently I am a great big food snob) and the lack of flavor makes me gag for some reason. There are a few things I have been doing with it recently, and I will make a long winded post about it soon.
Lets kick this off with breakfast:
POACHED EGGS ON TOAST WITH CAVIAR
10 minutes - $2.50
2 slices of whole grain wheat bread (toasted)
3 whole eggs + 4 whites (omega-3 + liquid egg whites)
2 teaspoon dollops of caviar (how much do you want to spend?) Alternatives to caviar: Hot sauce, any style chutney
Grams
C:43 P:46 F:22
Calories
C:172 P:184 F:198 = 554
Ratio
31/33/36
Poach the eggs in an egg poacher (get one of these, it will make your life awesome) via steam for exactly 05:30 minutes. Spray each egg pot lightly with Pam first. This will leave the yolks runny and the whites just barely cooked if a little gooey.
Add another 30-45 seconds if you aren't ok with runny eggs. What you want to avoid is completely cooking the yolks making them chalky and sulphuric tasting. Slap them on your toast and heap on a good teaspoon or two of caviar.
More protein: Turn it into eggs Benedict by using whole wheat english muffins, and adding a couple slices of deli turkey then add on your eggs and caviar. You could also just add a couple poached steamed egg whites on the side.
More carbs: Grapefruit juice is low GI.
More fats: Use whole eggs instead of whites.
My Dad brought me some amazing Sevruga (Sturgeon) caviar from the Republic of Georgia about 8 years ago. He had been there on a business trip and knows what a sucker for unique and notorious cuisine I am. He picked me up a 2 oz jar of the stuff freshly sliced from the uterus of some unfortunate fish for $50. From my local gourmet foods market, Central Market, it is in the range of $150/oz so this was a great opportunity at this price. I ate it with a warm baguet in my $1000/month apartment under the final approach flight path in San Diego. If you could eat pearls, this is what they would taste like.
Its worth $150/oz just for the experience. I've carelessly spent more than this on strip club cover charges in a night with Super Pup. If you ever find yourself on the way to a casino with a bunch of friends talking about their imminent big baller millionaire status, stop the car, get out, and go buy some $150/oz caviar instead. Skip the 20 minutes of humilation and 3 hours of nickel slots and pass on the embarrassing automoated phone calls from your bank.
"At 9:15 you withdrew $400. Is this correct? Say, yes, or press 1."
"At 9:29, you withdrew $400. Is this correct? Say, yes, or press 1."
"At 9:40, you withdrew $20. Is this correct? Say, yes, or press 1."
"At 11:30, your best friend, Super Pup, won $1,800 and the cocktail waitress asked him if he was that guy from Fenix TX. She just broke up with her boyfriend, so she was wondering."
Anyway, I found myself at Central Market earlier this week when I was contemplating this post, mouth watering at the little jars they had locked up behind the refrigerated case, daring myself to do it and wondering if I would feel guilty for blowing that sort of cash. I mean all around me, literally, people are losing their jobs! It was that excited anticipation mixed with fear like when you are climbing the bungee tower.
OooOoh boy, is this it? Would the wife notice $256 on the credit card? Can I remove the price tag? Shit, I could be out of a job tomorrow. Gaaaaarrrrrrr!
Fitness is about self-control - to a point. I'll detail one of my cheat days soon enough. Get yourself some regular caviar at Kroger for $5/oz. It's a quarter as good, but 1/30th the price. This blog is about eating healthy on the same budget as everyone else so if I could afford meals with $50 a serving caviar more than once a lifetime I would not be writing this. I believe in long term financial planning by prudent short term sacrifices. No name brand crap in my house (except a couple sick Nike track suits). By the way, please click the ads on your right, that's Cindy, she's horny and lives near you. I should also mention Obama took my bonus this year. True story.
