PaulG Respawns: Taking Care of Sheet

[PaulG]

Guys! Good to see you. It’s been a while.

 

After being active, on and off, in the community from 2012 through late 2017, I dropped off the face of the map. I left mainly because of an ankle sprain that laid me out on and off until September 2018. The injury forced me to set aside my dreams of recovering my old parkour skills for a few months... and then a few more.

 

Since then... it’s been tough to come back, and I’ve suffered physically as a result. I’m no longer as lean as I used to be. What’s more, although I’ve tried to re-implement my old exercise and diet routine, I’ve proven to be a little less... sticky with them than I used to be. It turns out, habits are hard!

 

And then, this last November... I turned 30.

 

 

So folks, now that I’m a Real Life Adult, it’s time to take care of my sheet.

 

 

All right, let’s dig in. No fanfare, no theme.

 

1. Work out 3 days per week, all four weeks.
I use a bodyweight progressive strength routine, as is pretty standard among well-informed fitness nerds (you guys!).

 

Usually I make more specific goals for strength, and I do have several goals for the next few weeks. But for this challenge, I’m trying to solve the problem of habit-building and consistency, not just improving performance. So I’m going back to the very basics. Work can get crazy and mess up my schedule, so I won’t hold myself to a particular daily schedule for this challenge goal (although I do plan to work out MWF). I don’t care if I do it on odd days or even if i just eff around and do handstand practice rather than my whole routine; as long as I get a workout in three days per week, I’m winning.

 

2. Track food intake EVERY DAY. No excuses!
Again, I’m going dead simple to focus on habit-building rather than getting too ambitious.

 

However... I’m going through a cut cycle to lose bodyfat. My typical routine is to cut fast, at a 1k calorie deficit, and track my bodyfat with tape measurements and pictures over time. So I’ll be tracking that process here!

 

3. Build a set of parallettes, and a balance trainer.
I dipped my toes into the waters of DIY a few months back when I built my doorway pull-up bar. From scratch! Out of galvanized pipe! That I cut and threaded myself (mostly)!

 

Since I work out with bodyweight, I work out at home, in my apartment. That means I need to provide my own equipment. Since I plan to start training L-sits and get back to parkour training within the next few weeks, that means I’ll need a set of parallettes and a balance/precision trainer, probably something like the railings featured here. This is a bit of a blend of an exercise goal and life goal. But it’ll be fun!

 

4. Implement my budget.
I want to be good at budgeting, but I’m kind of not. I have a very nice, super-reasonable budget laid out in an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop... and I have done exactly NOTHING to put it into action.

 

I win at this goal if by the end of the challenge, my bank accounts are automatically withdrawing money for spending, savings, and retirement; and if I’ve updated my 401k and IRA investments, which I’ve been putting off for about six months.

 

Bonus Achievements:

Attain 3x5 Pistol Squats. I used to be great at these. I was no Waldo-esque pistol monster, but I could hold my own! Unfortunately, at 30 my knees are significantly weaker and creakier than they were at 25. Right now I’m doing partial negatives and ancillary exercises to build strength. But I plan to get them back, and if I can manage them within the next month I’ll be ecstatic.

 

3x5 chest-to-bar Pull-ups. My eventual goal is a bar muscle-up, but these will be a necessary first (baby) step. These used to be easy, but haven’t been easy in a while. Currently I can do 2-3 in a set.

 

3x3 Wall Headstand Push-ups. I did this once upon a time! I won’t get this one during this challenge, but I want it here to remind myself I WILL GET IT BACK.

 

Hit 14% Bodyfat. If you think this makes me sound vain, you’d be correct. But I want it back. 14% is near the top of my ideal bodyfat range for myself. I perform better and I just feel more attractive. Eventually I wouldn’t mind hitting 10%... I was within a whisper of it only once, back in the days of my training log... but I know it will take a couple of cuts to get myself there, and I’m not ready for that just yet.

 

Post (or repost) 2-4 recipes here during the challenge. You are talking to a man who loves cooking to the point that it’s driven him insane. How insane, you ask? Allow me to cite a short list of things I make from scratch on a semi-regular basis: chicken stock, fresh pork sausage, pasta, most kinds of rice noodles, bagels, sour cream, Sichuan chili oil, lacto-fermented pickles, duck prosciutto, and slabs (SLABS!) of pancetta. Still not convinced? Allow me to show you the carbon dioxide tank I keep under my sink for DIY seltzer water, sparkling wine and cocktails; my 20-pound, eight-inch wide granite mortar and pestle; my pantry collection of food-grade acids; and the fact that my next big planned cooking gadget purchase is a centrifuge.

 

All this is to say... I like to cook, and I take great pains to experiment in the kitchen so that when I’m cutting fat, I’m still eating meals that taste great. However, I haven’t done a great job writing down recipes or techniques that work, so I have a tough time planning good meals in advance.

 

To that end, I’d like to use this challenge to post a couple of recipes that I’m having good success with. They can be things I’ve put my own twist on, or they can be straight-up reposted from a resource I use a lot, like Serious Eats (but I’ll try to give my own take on those too). It’s a lot to bite off for one challenge, so it’s a bonus goal... but one I’d like to have some fun with.

 

And that’s it! For now at least, this will replace the old training log I kept from 2013 to 2017. That log holds a lot of records from when I actually used to be good at this stuff, so feel free to take a look! But it’s time for me to focus on Future Paul.

[Hazard]

 

Welcome back.

 

[WhiteGhost]

Hey, great to see you back!  I think of your old profile pick every time I check out my back in the mirror  

 

Looking forward to seeing how this challenge goes for you, especially the recipes!  

 

 

[raptron]

WELCOME BACK.  

 

And pshhh at having to be a real grown up at age 30.  

 

[PaulG]

On 4/18/2019 at 3:25 PM, Hazard said:

 

Welcome back.

 

 

On 4/19/2019 at 6:25 AM, WhiteGhost said:

Hey, great to see you back!  I think of your old profile pick every time I check out my back in the mirror  

 

Looking forward to seeing how this challenge goes for you, especially the recipes!  

 

 

 

Thanks! I’m looking forward to it too. I have to admit, I’ve got some anxiety about the idea of not managing everything I’ve laid out for myself.  Hopefully once I get back into the swing of measuring my progress, it will feel easier.

 

Hopefully any of my cooking notes will be entertaining, if nothing else!

 

On 4/19/2019 at 8:19 AM, raptron said:

WELCOME BACK.  

 

And pshhh at having to be a real grown up at age 30.  

 

 

Thanks! And boo to being an adult. Being 30 is great, except for everyone expecting you to act your age.

[PaulG]

Exercise notes: 

 

I did some exercises! All my workout logs are now handwritten in a journal, so rather than go through the tedious formatting of retyping them I’ll just post photos.

 

4/18/19:

 

 

 

 

 

4/19/19: Forgot to take a photo. Oops! Will upload later.

 

4/22/19: 

 

 

Forgot to write in my German Hangs and Wall Slides for my warmup. I did 3 German Hangs, and 10 total wall slides.


 

 

 

As you can see, my workouts have been somewhat truncated. Last Friday I had a day off, so I went on a 5-mile hike in Deception Pass State Park and did a mini-workout after. By Friday night, though, a sore throat and congestion had set in, and by Saturday it was clear: I caught myself a cold for the spring.

 

I’d been previously cutting pretty hard, but since I got sick I’ve raised my calories to my TDEE (2450/day). My workouts are just a set or two of each movement right now, just enough to keep me from backsliding without pushing myself too hard — I’m particularly prone to pulling and straining muscles when I’m sick.

 

Strangely, despite doing my best to eat my TDEE the last few days, this morning I seem to have lost a quarter inch off my waist — I’m down to 31.25in and 18.13% bodyfat. Is this just an illusion, some weird fluke caused by the illness? Only time will tell.

[@mu]

Following for HS and custom parallettes plans

 

What does a-x / a-y mean on your notes?

[PaulG]

1 hour ago, @mu said:

Following for HS and custom parallettes plans

 

What does a-x / a-y mean on your notes?

 

Good question. Although I really like my workout notation, it’s a bit nonstandard in its level of detail. Here’s my workout notation legend, reworked from my old training log.

 

Legend

Since my training is primarily bodyweight, I use a notation that allows me to log a lot of variables. I log weight (if used), sets, reps, my Form quality, and my rate of perceived exertion.

Form:

a: high-quality form maintained throughout the set. No issues or very minor issues

b: one form flaw, which I was able to notice and correct during the set.

c: one or more form flaws which I noticed but was not able to correct during the set.

d: crappity crap. Ended the set because form broke beyond margin of safety or my quality standards.

I have certain form standards for each exercise I do. It's not always "perfect" form, it's a matter of what I know I need to work on or what I consider a minimum for safety. I'll try to note them down for posterity.

RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion):

I shamelessly stole Waldo's system for grading his RPEs, which he outlined in a blog post on StrengthUnbound.com (which sadly, no longer exists). Since it’s tough to find a good explanation on this anymore, here’s mine.

 

My rating is based on Borg’s Rating of Perceived Exertion system, which is used sometimes in the sports training world. The idea is to track how close to failure I get in each set of an exercise.

 

Why do this? Well, bodyweight training is often at a disadvantage compared to weight training in that the jumps in difficulty are tougher. The difference between a tuck front lever and an advanced tuck front lever, for example, is a much bigger increase in strength than throwing an extra five pounds on a barbell for a barbell row. Tracking my form and exertion give me another way of measuring my progress, in case I start to feel like I’m stalling in reps or hanging on an exercise longer than I’d like.

 

The original system is a 1-10 scale, but I chucked that out the window. My philosophy is that strength workout sets should always go close to failure, if not to failure itself, so I have no interest in the first 6 numbers on the scale.

 

E: Easy work. Two or more reps left in the tank. This covers pretty much any number from 1-7. My goal is to only see this letter when I’m doing rehab/prehab exercises, or remedial work to build up joint strength, balance or form, like pistol prep work. Otherwise, I should be pushing harder.

 

X: Got close to failure, but held one rep in the tank. This is where I try to keep most of my work, especially early in the workout.

 

Y: Hit failure or very close when I’m working out calm, may have stopped right before physically crapping out, but couldn’t have performed another rep without really amping myself up. Final rep was grinding and slow.

 

Z: Hit true failure and needed to pump myself up to do it — jumping, making noises, etc. Very slow, grinding final rep.

/: denotes left/right reps in a set of a single-limb exercise. For example, 5/3 reps on a pistol squat means 5 reps on my left leg, 3 reps on my right.

(): used for my eccentric exercises where I need to note both reps and time under tension. For example, a set of pull-up negatives shown as 3(6s) is 3 reps of 6 seconds each.

[PaulG]

Dieting notes:

Still aiming for my goal of 2450 kcal/day. I came in yesterday just 208 under my goal. Turns out those cals go a long way when you’re clocking in almost 1k cals of exercise on your workout days. I probably shouldn’t have felt so free to hit that goal — I won’t be able to snack quite as much today.

 

Dieting Philosophy

I suppose I should mention, for the purpose of my food talk here, I don’t follow any strict diet. I did a two-year stint doing Paleo back in my early twenties, but I dropped it when it was no longer helpful for me. These days I count calories on MyFitnessPal and follow an IIFYM diet philosophy. As such, I have no problem with gluten, soy, dairy or anything of the like. In contrast, I believe bread-baking is awesome, and the recipe below calls for not one but two soy sauces. I don’t believe fat is the enemy or unhealthy; however, when I’m cutting, I have to stay conscious of it because it carries so many calories.

 

Anyway, on to dinner!

 

Dinner Last Night: Phat Kaprao.

 

 

Phat Kaprao isn’t just an oddball go-to meal for me. In fact, in cooking it, I was jumping on the bandwagon of an extremely popular street meal in Thailand. It’s a stir-fry of ground meat, chiles, and seasoning sauce, all mixed in with a  handful of the herb called holy basil (kaprao) that gives the dish its name. Like any Thai stir fry, it’s highly seasoned and thus always served with rice. Sometimes it’s topped with a fried egg.

 

Last night, I didn’t bother with the egg, but aside from that I like to think I was faithful to the spirit of the dish. I used ground pork, but if I were cutting I might have used ground chicken thigh or breast. The dish has the advantage that the sauce is pretty low-calorie — it adds about 50 cals per serving. The one danger: since it’s a stir fry, it’s easy for more calories to sneak onboard in the form of extra cooking oil. If I keep track of how much oil I add, it’s not a problem. 

 

I’m lucky enough to live close to an international market with a steady stock of holy basil (it’s sold in the produce section as hot basil). This is, unfortunately, fairly unusual in the US. The herb’s not very popular except for its use in a few Thai and Indian dishes.

 

You may be wondering if holy basil isn’t basically  the same thing as regular supermarket Italian basil. Allow me to show you the plant itself, uncooked:

 

 

The curly/serrated leaves and fuzzy stems show it to be a very different cultivar. The flavor is different too: it still has a slight anise flavor, but that’s balanced by a peppery bite, with a backbone of a cooling, tingly sensation reminiscent of a Sichuan peppercorn.

 

You may also be wondering if there are any clever substitutes you can use. The answer, though, depends on who you ask. Plenty of people who have grown up with the dish would likely tell you there’s no true substitute. And they wouldn’t be wrong: I know of no other herb that mimics holy basil’s flavor and tingle all on its own.

 

If you replace the holy basil with Thai sweet basil (the purple-stemmed Thai basil you see increasingly at supermarkets), you’ll get a different dish with a different flavor and a different name (phat bai horapha), but a dish that’s no less delicious.

 

I’ve never tested it, but if I were truly hell-bent on reproducing that peppery basil flavor without holy basil itself, I might stir fry the dish with a half teaspoon of toasted, ground Sichuan peppercorns added along with a smaller handful of Italian basil leaves.

 

If you want a recipe for the holy basil version (instead of the Thai sweet basil one), I’m a fan of Andy Ricker’s Recipe from his cookbook Pok Pok. You can find it reposted for free, straight from his cookbook, on The Splendid Table.

 

Workout Log: 4/24/19

 

 

 

 

A few notes on last night's workout:

- Going in: feeling sick, headache. Strangely, everything improved once I warmed up and started working.

- Still going easy on the chair pistols. I'm worried about a balance issue that ends in an injured knee. It's frustrating watching myself progress so slowly, though.

- Today I don't feel much in the way of soreness either. Hopefully this means I'm on the mend and my cold is starting to break.

[raptron]

OOoh, yes thai stir fries. Love. Sometimes warm-ups really turn it around. Glad you felt a bit better once you got moving. 

[PaulG]

4 hours ago, raptron said:

OOoh, yes thai stir fries. Love. Sometimes warm-ups really turn it around. Glad you felt a bit better once you got moving. 

 

Agreed. When I’m under the weather it seems to go either way: sometimes I feel great once I’m warm, and sometimes I want to die. I think I’m still getting used to feeling out what I can actually do.

 

Dieting Notes

Another day, another complete calorie count in the bank. Still clocking in just under my TDEE, but I seem to be doing well on protein thanks to last night’s dinner of leftover fried mackerel and another ground pork stir fry.

 

This morning my waist clocked in at 31 1/8in. Still slowly creeping down for some reason! I can’t say I’m complaining.

 

And finally... I had forgotten to post a before pic, but to keep me accountable, here it is. I took this on Wednesday, at 18.13% bodyfat.

 

 

[@mu]

I take similar training notes, I like your notation. I got into the habit via GMB Parallettes workouts where you have to track technique and exertion (RPT/RPE). I'm not as systematic these days, but if I see in my notes that form has been 'so so' for a while and exertion is still high, I will revert to a lower progression etc...

 

[Mad Hatter]

Parkour and tasty food, two of my favourite things! Good thing you're back!  

[PaulG]

On 4/26/2019 at 11:52 AM, @mu said:

I take similar training notes, I like your notation. I got into the habit via GMB Parallettes workouts where you have to track technique and exertion (RPT/RPE). I'm not as systematic these days, but if I see in my notes that form has been 'so so' for a while and exertion is still high, I will revert to a lower progression etc...

 

 

Nice. I like GMB’s stuff in general, nice to hear they encourage similar tracking. That’s a good way of using it too.

 

I’m used to doing strength work so I generally go as hard as I can without letting my form get unacceptably poor. I like to keep exertion high and I’m okay with form slipping a notch or two at times. I’ll soon be in the same boat as you though: I’ve got my eye on starting pike and straddle compression work soon. And ring supports. And handstands that I actually do for time. I guess there’s never any shortage of skills to work on. 

 

On 4/27/2019 at 12:40 PM, Mad Hatter said:

Parkour and tasty food, two of my favourite things! Good thing you're back!  

 

Thanks! Glad to see you! Hopefully the parkour will come soon. Until then it’s all tasty food, all the time.

 

Diet Notes: Week 1 + Present

 

Not a bad week 1!

 

 

 

For the first half of the week I was sick and maintaining. The goal line is my goal now that I’m cutting again (as of last Friday). It’s a slightly more relaxed goal than I’ve set in the past — just a 700kcal deficit. I’m playing it safe, but I’d like to exceed the goal and lose 1% bodyfat per week, which means a 950kcal deficit average. We’ll see how it goes.

 

Saturday I had my first attack of real hunger, and I didn’t have any easy snacks that fit my macros around. And ignoring it was TOUGH — it shocked me a little bit how much I felt the empty stomach. It used to be no big deal in the days of my bulking/cutting cycles, but every once in a while, I get slapped with a nice little reminder of how I’m not that person anymore. I grumped my way through a home repair project for a couple hours before I could start on a proper dinner. 

 

Sunday was a big day for calories as I had both a brunch date and a dinner date due to a friend showing up from out of town. Not worried about the huge spike, but seeing the bar that far in the red reminds me that’s why I used to undershoot my daily goal habitually when I was cutting in my twenties.

 

This week I’m steadily plugging away on my cut. I’m starting to get that rumbly-tumbly feeling between some meals that’s indicating I’m in the first phase of cutting symptoms, but no other problems as long as I eat regularly.

[PaulG]

Diet notes above.

 

Workout Notes

 

Log 4/26:

 

 

 

 

 

Log 4/29:

 

 

 

 

 

Notes for 4/29:

- Had to cut the workout slightly short due to a dinner date. Worked until 5:56. 

- Volume is still truncated as I try to get over this cold. It’s frustrating to know I could be progressing so much faster.

- After making myself very annoying to WhiteGhost with a very nerdy post on pistol squat progression, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and take the next step with my pistols also. I switched up my assistance in the bottom from a chair to a short laundry hamper with a book on it (Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques, cuz I’m keepin’ it fancy). It’s just over 12 inches high, much lower than the chair, and doesn’t actually support my weight, forcing me to stop under my own power. These are much harder than on the chair. I’m excited to see how these will progress.

[PaulG]

Workout Notes

 

Did my workout on Wednesday... sort of. I was exhausted from a rough three days at work — my job functions on rolling monthly deadlines, workload is heavy at the best of times, and a workday often involves at least a couple of very difficult conversations per day.

 

So I warmed up,  but I was feeling pretty sore and both arms had twinges that felt like accumulated rotator cuff stress. In the end, I decided not to do the strength work. Instead I did about 20 minutes of skill work — handstands, skin the cats, and ring supports. I could have done my leg exercises as they weren’t particularly sore, but it seemed like a better idea to take some time, eat some good food, and give myself an early bedtime. Especially given that I was so recently sick.

 

Thursday I was glad I had, because I battled nausea and stomach issues all day.

 

Today, though, I am a tad sore but recovered, so hopefully the workout goes well.

 

Dieting Notes

 

This front has been much more encouraging this week! My weight’s hovering around 187, and today my waist clocked in at 30 5/8”. That brings me to 17.02% bodyfat. I’m on schedule to drop below 15% by the end of the challenge.

[@mu]

12 hours ago, PaulG said:

So I warmed up,  but I was feeling pretty sore and both arms had twinges that felt like accumulated rotator cuff stress. In the end, I decided not to do the strength work. Instead I did about 20 minutes of skill work — handstands, skin the cats, and ring supports.

 

Good reaction imo. Seems you caught a nasty bug.

I try to still move about - depending on how under I am of course. But I find that it can actually help a bit with bug recovery or at least with the symptoms to keep some moderate action. In particular getting inverted. Although it's not exactly nice with a runny nose or feeling nauseous! But if I'm really under, there is not much I can do anyway.

I hope you recover soon!

[PaulG]

On 5/3/2019 at 11:32 PM, @mu said:

 

Good reaction imo. Seems you caught a nasty bug.

I try to still move about - depending on how under I am of course. But I find that it can actually help a bit with bug recovery or at least with the symptoms to keep some moderate action. In particular getting inverted. Although it's not exactly nice with a runny nose or feeling nauseous! But if I'm really under, there is not much I can do anyway.

I hope you recover soon!

Yeah, it definitely took longer than I'd expected to shake. But I've definitely found the same, I always feel lightyears more recovered if I do some light exercise and then allow myself to rest. It's tough sometimes, though... I find I overdo it or get injured way easier when I'm sick. I have to be super careful to make sure I'm in that good, light work/recovery zone.

[PaulG]

Making Tacos While You Cut

 

Well before I started my cut, I was obsessed with street food.

 

Not buying it, you understand — food trucks in Seattle are expensive. Granted, if I had been spending all my fun money on food trucks I wouldn’t be ashamed, because for the West Coast, we have a decent street food scene. But my obsession has been with creating street food in my kitchen.

 

Day-to-day, nearly all my dinners are something you can find off a street cart in some country or another. When I’m feeling some Chinese, I can make a half-decent bowl of Dan Dan Noodles. The famous Phat Kaprao and Phat Si Ew are on a multiple-times-weekly rotation around the house. But recently, my heart’s been pining for one street staple more than any others — one that’s remarkably hard to find in the Northwest. Tacos.

 

Lately I’ve been obsessed with these things. They never fail to impress me with just how much variety you can find in them. Humble chicken, fried shrimp or fish, deliciously fatty pork belly — they can all find a good home in the embrace of a little masa blanket and a good salsa. That makes them an awesome blueprint for a quick weeknight meal.

 

I made Tex-Mex fajita-style tacos for a long time using some recipe or another from Cook’s Illustrated: think chicken roasted with an American taco-style spice rub, flour tortillas, and rajas con crema (poblano peppers and onions cooked with a cream sauce). For a long time, that was the extent of my Mexican food knowledge. But in the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about those tacos in the context of cutting, figuring out how to make them higher-protein and lower-calorie. And that’s led to some tweaks in the ways I cook and eat tacos.

 

I started by picking up a new book — which presented its own challenges. It turns out it’s surprisingly hard to find a highly-lauded book in English on tacos, or Mexican food in general, that’s not written by a white guy. I’m not sure whether the market isn’t there (though I think it is), or whether I just don’t know enough about acclaimed Mexican chefs who have done writing in English, but I wasn’t able to turn up many good titles. As much as I’d like to support and learn from a chef actually in Mexico, after some searching I finally settled (for now) on Tacos: Recipes and Provocations by Alex Stupak and Jordana Rothman. At least the book is by someone with good technical chops, and someone with a modernist bent to their food (which is always a good thing in my book).

 

So, tacos. Let’s start with some general pointers.

 

Corn tortillas are awesome. I’m a white guy from California. When I ate Mexican-ish, corn tortillas were always around as an option. The thing is, they were mostly the electric-yellow numbers stacked on supermarket shelves. I never liked those tortillas much. And I still stand by that: to me, the corn tortillas that fill the supermarkets hit my tongue like old, crumbling cardboard — and that’s on the rare occasion they even make it to my mouth without cracking and spilling their filling on my lap.

 

Flash-forward to my first taste of a fresh corn tortilla at a restaurant: I fell in love. Tortillas in their first day of life are a totally different animal: moist, stretchy, and tasting a bit like cornbread without any sweetness. They’re wonderful things. And unlike flour tortillas (which are made by kneading fat into flour like a biscuit dough), they don’t carry any fat, making them relatively low-calorie for a grain product. One taco-size corn tortilla carries something in the neighborhood of 50 calories, about a third as much as its storebought flour counterpart. I make my tortillas at home these days, and I don’t see myself going back anytime soon.

 

Fillings don’t have to be grilled. We all love carne asada, carnitas, and the like. Hell, my current out-of-my-calorie-budget meal obsession is a taco filled with slab bacon that’s been grilled with Oaxacan string cheese until the cheese gets all melty and stringy and crispy... where were we?

 

In any case, taco fillings can be cooked without fat too. In fact, my current favorite low-effort taco filling is just chicken poached in salsa on the stovetop. You don’t get grilled flavor, but you do get super-tender meat in a highly flavorful sauce.

 

And if grilled flavor is totally non-negotiable for you? Add it with the veg or the chiles. The tacos I made below are simply poached and shredded chicken, but that chicken has been tossed in chilmole, a paste made from chiles that have been burnt and blackened almost to the point of ignition, then rehydrated and ground with a few spices. The result is smoky, warm, and almost coffee-like, with plenty of heat.

 

 

Choose the fat you do use wisely. I have developed the opinion over the past few weeks that sour cream on a taco is non-negotiable. You may or may not feel the same, but whatever high-calorie fat you add to your tacos, try to make it as flavorful as you can. I’m a fan of sour cream because it adds not only fat but acidity as well, and it helps to cool the bite of any chiles in your taco. But you could also, say, dress your taco with a little chile oil if it needs a little more punch.

 

Aside from sour cream, most of my tacos are dressed with a minimum of calories in mind: a little salsa, maybe some pickled onions, lime, cilantro, and a light dusting of cheese. When I’m cutting, I’d rather have the tacos be as low-cal as possible, so I can eat more — if I’m going to be forcing 50-70 grams of protein down my throat, I’d rather enjoy the process.

 

Here’s sort of a proto-recipe for the easiest taco I enjoy making while cutting.

 

Tacos with Salsa-Poached Chicken

 

Ingredients
8-12 ounces chicken breast, sliced into strips about 1/3 inch thick
3-4 tomatillos (about 6 ounces), diced
1 garlic clove, peeled
2-4 canned chipotles en adobo, depending on the heat you like, with 1/2 Tbsp of the adobo sauce
1 tsp honey
1/2 medium white onion, diced
Salt

For the tacos: corn or flour tortillas, warmed

 

Steps

 

1. Optional: Toss the chicken in 1.5 Tbsp of the salt, lay it on a wire rack set in an aluminum baking sheet, and put in the fridge to cure for at least 45 minutes. This step is optional, but it will result in more moist chicken down the road.

 

2. Blend the tomatillos, garlic, chipotles and sauce, and honey with 1/4 cup water. You now have a fairly thick, super-easy salsa.

 

3. Pour the salsa into a 3-quart saucepan, add the onion, and set over medium heat. Pull the chicken out of the fridge and put it into the saucepan, stir to disperse the chicken, and let it sit.

 

4. (If you have an instant-read thermometer:) let the chicken-salsa mixture come up to 155 degrees F, stirring occasionally and checking the mixture every couple of minutes. Your goal is to keep everything at 155 degrees for 1 minute. Once you have done that, the chicken is pasteurized (but will not be overcooked). Spoon the chicken from the saucepan into a bowl and set aside, leaving the pot of salsa on the heat.

 

4. (If you don’t have a thermometer:) poach the chicken until they’re visibly cooked through when broken in half with a spoon. They won’t be as tender, but if you don’t have a thermometer, them’s the breaks. Spoon the chicken from the saucepan into a bowl and set aside, leaving the pot of salsa on the heat.

 

5. Turn the heat to medium-high and start cooking down the salsa. The chicken likely released some liquid into the salsa, and it’s time to boil that water off. Boil until the salsa’s a consistency you want for your tacos. I like it thick enough to coat a spoon, because no one likes a soggy taco.

 

6. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it sit for at least 3 minutes. You want it well below boiling so it doesn’t overcook that chicken you so carefully poached. Once your time has passed, throw the chicken back in and toss to coat with the salsa. Season to taste with more salt.

 

7. Serve. You just made yourself the easiest cutting tacos in history.

 

[raptron]

I use greek yogurt instead of sour cream preeeeetty often! It's not the same by any means, but it fills a similar role.  I'm with you on GOOD corn tortillas too. <3 

[PaulG]

11 minutes ago, raptron said:

I use greek yogurt instead of sour cream preeeeetty often! It's not the same by any means, but it fills a similar role.  I'm with you on GOOD corn tortillas too. <3 

 

110%. Before my cut started, I was making my own crema / crème fraîche type concoction by fermenting cream with a little buttermilk at room temp. It starts off as a crème fraîche, but goes into sour cream territory if you let it go long enough. It is super high-fat though. I was considering trying Greek yogurt the other night when I ran out of sour cream (gasp), but didn’t quite get around to it before I found myself in the dairy aisle of my local Latin grocery.  I’ll have to try it sometime and see if it spreads flavors around in quite the same way!

 

Speaking of good corn tortillas... I finally got my hands on some good, freshly-nixtamalized masa the other night. And holy crap, those tortillas are some of the best I’ve ever had. The masa is tough to work with though, much tougher than the dehydrated maseca stuff. I can see why it takes people so much practice to make tortillas by hand.

[PaulG]

Dieting Notes

 

It’s been a few days since my last update — I confess I was delaying updates while I worked on my taco recipe and post for three days straight.  But it’s time for an update!

 

It’s been two weeks (and one day) since I took my first progress photo. Happily, the fat loss has been steady since, even seeming to have sped up the last few days. At my last progress photo I was  190.4 lbs, 18.13% bodyfat, with a 31.25-inch waist. 

 

As of today, I’m 186.2 lbs, approximately 16.28% bodyfat, with a 30.25-inch waist. That’s a loss of an inch in the waist and 3.2 lbs of fat overall. And by the way, 2 lbs of that fat was lost  just in the last week. 

[PaulG]

Workout Notes

 

A late post of the rest of Week 2’s workouts.

 

5/1:

 

 

 

 

 

5/3:

 

 

 

 

 

You can see during week 2 I was continuing to add volume quickly in the form of more exercises. With my joints somewhat deconditioned after such a long break from serious strength training, it’s been easy to overstress them a little — hence my break day on 5/1. I wrote about it in an earlier post, but it’s continued to be an issue.

 

I am still continuing to stick to my training schedule, though!  I’m just behind on posts. I’ll post the rest of my workout logs tonight.

[Mad Hatter]

Those tacos look beautiful.

 

Kudos for making your tortillas, ( along all the other things!) I tried to make them once but it turned out a complete disaster haha. Can't remember exactly what went wrong but somewhere along the process I ran out of patience and when it does things go bad.