30 Day Challenge - still Day 28

STILL Day 28:

Why am I blogging again today?  Well, my earlier post really should have been for Day 27 as I blogged all about yesterday... yesterday's food, my teen's homecoming dance, and how I was feeling earlier today.  How about TODAY???  :) 

I'm always amazed at how many excuses I can come up with to put off my exercise... "I gotta check email/facebook/blog"... "I'm tired"... "I'm hungry"... "I just ate and can't exercise on a full stomach"... "I don't have time"... "It's too late in the day/I can't exercise this close to bedtime"... and the list goes on and on.  So... it took me two weeks to do the first two days of Week 9 with my last run Friday.  I was lazy today... was going to just wait until tomorrow (Monday) to do the last run... until I started watching the exercise videos sent in to Mark's Daily Apple Primal Blueprint Workout Video challenge!!  How motivating!!  I wanted to start doing burpees and sprints and... HOLD IT!!!  I still had my 'last' run to do!!!  But... suddenly it was 6pm and I should be making dinner... OK... how about do the run while dinner's in the oven?  GREAT idea!!  So, while it was cooking, I ran on the treadmill.  I had to jump off at the 15 minute mark of the run to remove the squash from the oven, then after the last 20 mins (remember, there's a 5 min cool down after the run is done!) I stuck it in the broiler while frying the dog's liver treat.

DINNER:  Baked Acorn Squash posted by 'catlyng2' on the FastPaleo recipe sharing site:

Since there was just little ole' me, I cut the recipe in half.  I'll post the original recipe though (the numbers in parentheses are the inflammatory factor numbers, we'll talk about them later on).

Cooking time:  50 minutes
Serves 4  Heat oven to 350deg F

2 Acorn Squash (-78)
1 apple (-21)
2 ozs walnuts - chopped  (-78)
3 thick-cut slices low sodium bacon (-18)
Cinnamon (-1)
Coconut oil (I used extra bacon grease)
Organic, unfiltered honey (-10)
Crumbled blue cheese (-7)

Cut acorn squash in half and scoop seeds out.  Place squash, cut side up, in a ceramic/glass backing dish.  Sprinkle interior with cinnamon and drizzle with honey. 

Chop bacon and saute over medium heat.  The 'goal' is to render the fat, not crisp the bacon.  While that is cooking, core and slice and apple into small pieces, then chop the walnuts.  After the bacon fat has mostly rendered out, stir in the apples and walnuts in and coat with bacon grease (this is where I had to add just a little more from my stock I keep in the fridge).  Do not cook, this is just for coating the apples and walnuts in the bacon grease.  Pour this mixture into the acorn squash hollows.  Pour 1/2 cup water into the bottom of the glass dish and cover entire pan loosely with aluminum foil or use the glass lid that comes with the dish.  Bake for 45 mins, remove and sprinkle blue cheese over the tops and put back in to broil 3-5 minutes until cheese is melted. 

Since the squash shell was HOT... I put it in a rice bowl and attacked it with my fork.   Man, that was good!!  I even sent the photo to my teen's cellphone to show him what he was missing!  (Not like he responded or even likes acorn squash!!)


So, what's the Inflammatory factor??  I had to do the math for the parts and pieces... those numbers are in ( ) in the ingredient list... so, one serving is:  IF = -53  BOOO!!!!  HISSSSS!!!!  Errrr.... Here ya think you're doing well eating a veggie and fruit, yeah, it has bacon... but sheesh!  The freakin' APPLE, SQUASH and WALNUTS are more inflammatory than the freakin' bacon!!  WTF???  (when I say that, it's "What the Freak/Fudge/fill in the blank with an F word that's NOT that one!!")  *SIGH*  Can I eat some broccoli and make it OK?  How about a fish oil capsule?  Hee hee... I found it!!  The fish oil capsule should work!!  Though the ingredient list says "sardine, anchovy and mackerel", I can only find sardine oil at IF=356 for 1 tsp or 4 grams.  Though the bottle says 1000mg fish oil... we're not given the breakdown fully (these are from Costco and their brand).  OR I could take a flaxseed oil supplement, which is still in the anti-inflammatory levels (1 tbsp/14g is IF=142), however I get less bang for my buck... so, fish oil capsule it is.  Take THAT you inflammatory meal!!  (I am thinking this will get me nowhere in the long run, so vowed to myself not to get in this predicament as often over the next 2 weeks while testing out this anti-inflammatory way of Primal eating.)

Anyhow... no matter how the numbers came out, that squash was delish!!  I'll keep going to FastPaleo.com for more recipes in the future.  As you can tell from the last photo... I literally ate it ALL gone!  :)   

Of course, since my run was late in the day... I can honestly say I have beaucoup energy now and really don't want to go to bed even though it's almost 10pm!!  Gotta stay true to the Primal Blueprint and get my 8-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  G'night!!