ConcreteCavewoman, Back to the Land

[concretecavewoman]

Whew, it's been at least three challenges since I've participated.  Changed jobs, got married.  Guess life distracted me, in a good way.  It also distracted me from my health and fitness, which have taken a remarkable downturn since I started neglecting them (shocker).  A couple months ago I went to a naturopath because my energy levels were tanking.  Like, I got nauseated when I even thought of picking up a barbell, was waking up exhausted, etc.  Her pronouncement was burnout, pure and simple, so she's got me on some supps and has me doing things like reducing technology use in the evening (which, all told, has been good).  I recommitted myself to getting proper sleep (another Rx from naturopath) and cooking all my meals over the last 6 weeks and the changes have been awesome.  I have so much more energy than before.  I'm going to try and keep this momentum going so I can lift and get strong.  I also moved CF gyms and joined a barbell club that is within walking distance of my place (and $125/mo less!), so now I'm officially a 100% on-foot commuter. 

 

Goal 1: Strength

I've lost much of this over the last few months.  I lifted for the first time last week, and the second time this week in... a very long time.  It was painful, but worth it.  I'm making this pass/fail in order to re-habituate consistency.

Pass: 3x strength sessions per week

Fail: < 3x strength sessions

 

Goal 2: Food Quality

I've always been pretty obsessive about food quality, but in the last couple months I've recommitted myself to the locality of my food.  Every sunday I've been at the farmer's market, and the vast majority of my food has been traveling < 50 miles.  In a Seattle winter--which, let's face it, is no polar vortex--this means lots of good meat, raw, grassfed dairy, plenty of green vegetables, and even some fruit.  I was debating a few different metrics by which to measure how high quality and local my food was (mass? caloric intake?) and finally settled on dollar amount, even though that would seem to unfairly weight fats and meats.  I think this is the best measure because of the compounding impact of spending food dollars locally.  The non-local part of my budget will likely be reserved for spices, coffee, ginger for my tea, and coconut milk.  As to the food itself, a WAPF/Paleo hybrid.  Paleo plus some raw dairy and lots of fermented foods.

Target: 80% or more of food budget spent with local farms/20% or less from Whole Foods

 

Goal 3: Transportation, the Old Fashioned Way

I now walk a LOT, so this is a bit of a gimme, but I want to motivate myself into consistency. 

10000 steps per day.

 

Life Goal: Buy My Own Piece of Earth

I used to be pretty in to gardening (through a set of weird circumstances, I had my own patch of land in college where I grew tomatoes and basil and lots of stuff like that), but since becoming a chronic apartment dweller, I've had none of that.  We've been casually saving for a house for a couple years, but we now have a more earnest plan because I'd love to have my own garden space again.  I've even created a 6 week goal in Mint for this

I want to hit 100% of my savings target in the next six weeks.

[concretecavewoman]

1/6 Review

 

Strength: 1/3

2 Hour barbell class

• Work to 1RM Snatch (65, 10 under prev PR)
• Snatch 4x1 @75%
• Work to 3RM Squat (90lb)
• 3 sets of 20" box jumps
• 5x3 Clean pull @90% (90lb)
• 5x2 Rack jerk @75% (75lb)

 

Food: Shopping on Sunday was exactly 80/20

Breakfast: Locally made grassfed beef jerky, asian pear

Lunch: Bowl of curried delicata squash soup, salad of sunchokes and brussels sprouts

Dinner: 5 oz roast pork shoulder smothered in sauteed wild mushrooms (hedgehogs and trumpets), a side of collard greens braised with smoked ham hock

Dessert: 1 apple cooked in coconut milk, 1 cup raw milk

 

Walk: 11,800!

[concretecavewoman]

Pretty good day, except for the midday stomachache mentioned in the food section.  The result was somewhat uneasy sleep.  The goal for today is to get my three square and take a good long walk with the pup.  Already got breakfast down (got up early to cook), and I took some grassfed beef liver out of the freezer to thaw for dinner.

 

1/7 Review

 

Strength: Rest Day

Due to the scheduling of Barbell, my other two days this week will be Fri/Sat

 

Food: 75%

B: 1 pack of grassfed jerky, a cup of delicata squash soup, a pear

D: Wasn't feeling very good, had a super upset stomach, so I skipped lunch.  Once my stomach settled by dinner I was famished, so my SO went and grabbed some satay and sauteed green beans from a restaurant nearby.  Their chicken is raised in WA state, so I'm calling that a pass, but the origin of the green beans was unknown.

S: a cup of raw milk, homemade ginger tea

 

Walk: 14700 steps, pass!

[PrincessHeather]

I am way jealous of your access to raw dairy. I've not been able to locate a reputable source up here in AK.

 

Great goals, welcome back and congrats on your marriage!

[Brometheus]

YES! It's good to see you back! 

[musasabi]

I'm definitely new here, but one of my favorite things thus far is drawing on inspiration for others. Buying a bit of earth is far and away the most desirable goal I wouldn't have thought of on my own. =) I've aspired for the past two years or so to own a building here in Chicago, but haven't had the startup capital, plain and simple. I think I might require there to be grass, though... even if it's "ruined" soil by air pollution, having a green space to create an elevated bed for plants would be ideal. I've never grown anything before, but it's a skill I value greatly. =)

 

Best of luck on this challenge; I'll be keeping tabs for news and excitement. =D

[wildross]

Welcome back!    Raw milk means ice cream!!

[scotticus]

Good to see some other vets coming (back) out of the wood work.  Congrats on the good life stuff that has happened!

[concretecavewoman]

I am way jealous of your access to raw dairy. I've not been able to locate a reputable source up here in AK.

 

Great goals, welcome back and congrats on your marriage!

Thanks!  Raw dairy is very challenging to find, and I'd imagine definitely so in AK where (I'm guessing?) there's not a ton of pasture.  Even in WA, which is one of the most permissive states when it comes to dairy sales, it's not ubiquitous.  I know of only two raw milk farms that sell direct at the farmers market, so I feel super lucky that we happen to have a very committed grass-based dairy that is a year round presence here, and raise their cattle just 10 miles outside the city.

 

YES! It's good to see you back! 

Yay!

 

I'm definitely new here, but one of my favorite things thus far is drawing on inspiration for others. Buying a bit of earth is far and away the most desirable goal I wouldn't have thought of on my own. =) I've aspired for the past two years or so to own a building here in Chicago, but haven't had the startup capital, plain and simple. I think I might require there to be grass, though... even if it's "ruined" soil by air pollution, having a green space to create an elevated bed for plants would be ideal. I've never grown anything before, but it's a skill I value greatly. =)

 

Best of luck on this challenge; I'll be keeping tabs for news and excitement. =D

Earth is just a wondrous thing.  Are you thinking of buying a single family house? A complex?  I've heard that there's been a lot in the way of urban food production in the midwest (especially in detroit), where even tiny yards are being repurposed into vegetable gardens. 

 

We've been on the fence about buying for years, mostly because we are not big into buying and reselling, so our plan has been to save until we could buy outright or finance less than 20%, and only if it were a place we'd consider staying in for 20+ years - acreage, but close enough to continue commuting into the city.

 

Welcome back!    Raw milk means ice cream!!

Good point!  I'll have to see if they have any heavy cream at the market next Sunday...

 

Good to see some other vets coming (back) out of the wood work.  Congrats on the good life stuff that has happened!

Thank you

[concretecavewoman]

1/8 Review

 

Strength: Rest day, Pass

Ended up swinging by the apartment gym to do some dumbbell work after walking, since I won't be able to make Barbell club til Friday.

 

Food: Good!

Breakfast: 2 slices of bacon, 2 eggs, 1/2 c of sauerkraut, glass of raw milk

Lunch: roasted pork shoulder, an asian pear, a cup of squash soup

Dinner: I was a little tired of pork by dinner, so I went with my "emergency rations": There's a store in town that sells frozen, single serving meals that are very healthy, and only made with local, grassfed products (Freaking amazing, right? Heck, the place is even called Eat Local)  I have like a dozen stashed in the freezer just in case.  So dinner was a farmer's market salad (brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, apple, crisped prosciutto, chioggia beets) and a bowl of beef stew.

Dessert: 1/2 c of coconut ice cream.  This is definitely bending the rules (made in portland, so, um, kind of local?).  My mom brought it over during the holidays... I guess it didn't come out of my budget so I'm giving myself a pass.

 

Walk: 14400 steps/baud!

 

I also did some more cooking for the last half of the week.  I braised up a ham hock with smoked pigs ear, and tomorrow I'll add a bunch of collards to the broth/hock to finish cooking.  I also finished a tonkotsu pork/chicken broth so I'll have lots of soup/collagen rich stock for the next couple weeks as well.

[Brometheus]

There's a local store that sells these magical dinners?!?!?! 

 

Also, your cooking sounds amazing, as usual.

[fiOWNya]

Seeing your diet makes me motivated to look for better sources of food myself (I'm just south of Tacoma). I always forget how easy it is to get great quality of food here in the PNW and I should really take advantage of that while I'm here.

Best of luck with your goals this challenge!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Brometheus]

Seeing your diet makes me motivated to look for better sources of food myself (I'm just south of Tacoma). I always forget how easy it is to get great quality of food here in the PNW and I should really take advantage of that while I'm here.

Best of luck with your goals this challenge!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Wait wait wait. Another nerd from the seattle area?! YES! 

[AKLulu]

Hey! Good to see you back on the boards! I love your challenge and congrats on the marriage!

[concretecavewoman]

There's a local store that sells these magical dinners?!?!?! 

 

Also, your cooking sounds amazing, as usual.

Yes! It's called Eat Local and they're in Queen Anne and Burien.  I believe Amazon fresh also sells their stuff.  Very nice to have in case of emergency.

 

Seeing your diet makes me motivated to look for better sources of food myself (I'm just south of Tacoma). I always forget how easy it is to get great quality of food here in the PNW and I should really take advantage of that while I'm here.

Best of luck with your goals this challenge!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There really is a treasure trove of food here!  I believe you're reasonably close to the Olympia farmer's market as well, which is unique in that it runs year round, and during the peak season is 5 days a week.  Btw I love your forum name, it kind of reminds me of a roller derby name.

 

Hey! Good to see you back on the boards! I love your challenge and congrats on the marriage!

Why thank you!

[concretecavewoman]

Recaps

 

1/9

Oh boy, ended up having a crazy fit of insomnia the previous night.  It kinda torched my day, because then I had no appetite in the morning nor the energy to exercise.  Boo.

 

Strength: Fail

 

Food: Pass, except quantity was low

 

Walk: Fail, 4300

 

1/10

And then we get to Friday and the insomnia hangover is in full swing.  Basically came home from work, ate dinner, went to sleep

 

Strength: Fail

 

Food: Pass, low quantity

 

Walk: Fail, 3650

 

1/11

Finally, some sleep and the world is magic and unicorn tears again!  Got up early and cleaned the heck out of my closets.  Like, serious.  About 1/3 went to Goodwill, another 1/3 was set aside for consignment, and another 1/3 for Ebay (like Lulu workout gear that they likely wouldn't want to sell at the hip little consignment boutique).  I took my clothes in and they took all of them, hooray!  I get to check back in 3 months and find out what sold.  Now I just need to list the ebay items. 

 

After that, I went to a bookstore and got a book on building soil quality for growing nutrient dense foods,  did some cooking, went on a run(!)-my first in ages, played with the pooch, and read a book.

 

Strength: fail

 

Food: Pass!

Breakfast: omelet at my favorite diner, 3 eggs, lots of meat, and a side of fruit.  coffee

Snack: coconut milk-apple pudding

Dinner: big winter crunch salad with beets, brussels sprouts, prosciutto, etc.

 

Walk: Pass, 13200

 

1/12

Another productive day.  Went to the farmer's market early and got so much deliciousness, including a kombucha that is fully fermented (read: minimal sugar).  Very dry.  It goes quite well with the unsweetened cranberry juice I got last weekend, making something that tastes like a kriekenbier.  Came home and took down all the christmas decorations, tree, etc, cleaned up, and then cooked a bunch for the week.

 

Food: Pass!

Breakfast: sunday treat, a gluten free cranberry bread.  a glass of chameleon cold brew coffee mixed with raw milk

Dinner: 1 pork rib chop in a red wine sauce.  a heap of ham hock-braised collard grees, a glass of kombucha. a square of dark chocolate

 

Walk: Pass! 10000

[concretecavewoman]

Week 1 Recap

 

Strength: 1/3 FAIL

Disappointed on this one.  I'll grant that I had lots of evening stuff planned for the week, but really, this should've gone better.

Lesson learned: Sleep is SO SO SO important, because if that doesn't happen, nothing happens.

 

Food: PASS

Totally made this work.  My food budget was exactly 80/20 on direct-from-farm vs grocery store food, and the few things I bought at Whole Foods were along the lines of supplements and coconut milk. I was able to get my cooking oils (grass fed tallow and lard) from one of the farmer's market butchers.  The best part? I had so much energy and I cooked almost all of my meals.

 

Walk: 5/7 71%

Getting in a lot of time on foot is pretty great.  Shooting for 6/7 this week.

 

Savings: 46% of the way to my goal PASS

Very happy about this one.  Kept discretionary spending to a minimum (I bought one pair of snow boots, but in my defense, I'm going to Wisconsin next month).  I'm going to start very tentatively looking--internet window shopping for pretty houses--though I still think we're about a year and a half out from buying.

 

[PrincessHeather]

I window shopped for probably 6 months before we were ready to make an offer on a home. It's really important to know what you're looking for, the must-haves vs the nice-to-haves, and understanding what your money can buy you in different neighborhoods. There will probably be some you'll wish you could snatch up right now, but letting them go helps prepare you for when you have an offer fall through or something later on. I actually really enjoyed the whole process. 

[scotticus]

Good call on waiting for the right house, and making sure that you're flush as well. Don't feel too bad about the little indulgences - maintaining the home once you get it will almost certainly suck up that portion of the budget, especially for the first couple of years.

[This is Seth]

Hey... Where did you go?

[concretecavewoman]

Oh hai.  Here I am.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks.  Let's review, shall we?

 

Week 2

Well, I spent most of this week at the office.  Or working at home from my home office in the evening, which is also known as the couch.  There were um.... 3? 4? nights spent working til 2am (for context, I usually start around 730/8am).  Given the total absence of sleep, I decided not to further spin up my cortisol levels by burning myself out at the gym, choosing instead to shore up my health in what other ways I could, mostly through nutrition, which has been solid thanks to long Sundays spent at the farmer's market and cooking. 

Lifting: Total and utter fail.

Walking: 4/7 days

Food: Perfect!  1/5 of my food budget went to grocery staples like coconut oil, and 4/5 to farmers, which means almost everything I'm eating has been grown in Western WA

Savings: on point

Other notes: Finished two books, Americanah, winner of a whole bunch of this year's fiction awards, about a woman who moves from Nigeria to the US and her reflections on race, and Choose Yourself! a self-helpy book by James Altucher, who writes one of my favorite blogs.

 

Week 3

Much the same as week 2, except that I had the dentist visit from hell and ended up staying home sick one day unable to talk or eat.  Getting sleep is kind of critical right now, but also kind of challenging since staring at a laptop til the wee hours sort of shutters my ability to fall asleep easily.  So nutrition is, again, bolstering me.  Been eating lots of collagen-rich pork broths, grassfed meats, and raw milk.

Lifting: Another total and utter fail

Walking:4/7 days again

Food: Almost perfect! Saturday night I dove into platefuls of lentils (went to a friend's house for dinner and she made Dals of all sorts) and had some aquavit, which left me feeling pretty lousy the next day.  But otherwise food as been whole and delicious.  On Sunday I made a huge batch of braised pork belly in pork trotter broth, a bone-in brisket roast, and some salad fixings.

Savings: Again, on point.  This week's market correction hit me a bit (some of my house savings are in funds) but otherwise I'm definitely on track to hit my savings goal for this challenge.  Which also means that I haven't been spending on anything other than necessities.  Feels good!

Other Notes: If you happen to be curious as to what a week's worth of my shopping is looking like nowadays, here it is:

The only thing missing is the pile of green onions and ginger that I picked up at Whole Foods.

 

 

 

Lastly, the weeks have also been crazy because I just found out from my doc that I have Celiac.  That wasn't much fun to learn because even though I eat relatively gluten-free, I've always allowed myself the occassional glutinous snack on holidays or out with friends.  Apparently my Celiac is asymptomatic, so I have none of the terrible stomach trauma that most people with celiac suffer.  Instead, I have the Iron and Vitamin B levels of a vegan, which is pretty incredible given that I eat red meat almost three meals a day.... It might also explain my constant headaches and fatigue issues. I'm now debating whether to try an AI paleo protocol.  My doctor is of the mind that I need to be super strict about gluten (agreed) and consume lots of fermented foods (also agreed), but otherwise don't need to eliminate anything else from my diet.  I'm not sure.

 

So 2 week recap...

The goods: Food quality, down 6 lbs, getting much better at planning my meals based on season, savings

The bads: Celiac, sleep, workouts.

[concretecavewoman]

I window shopped for probably 6 months before we were ready to make an offer on a home. It's really important to know what you're looking for, the must-haves vs the nice-to-haves, and understanding what your money can buy you in different neighborhoods. There will probably be some you'll wish you could snatch up right now, but letting them go helps prepare you for when you have an offer fall through or something later on. I actually really enjoyed the whole process. 

 

 

Good call on waiting for the right house, and making sure that you're flush as well. Don't feel too bad about the little indulgences - maintaining the home once you get it will almost certainly suck up that portion of the budget, especially for the first couple of years.

 

Totally agree with both of you!  I'm building a list of options and trying to get a better sense of just how much more we need to save to hit our target (I'd reeeeeeally like to put 50-75% down. This means I'm not buying in Seattle city limits ) So far I've scoped my must-haves to: 20+ acres not in a flood plain/with good drainage,  < 2000 sqft (I'm a BIG fan of small homes, I'd really prefer to be in the 900-1000 range), at least a couple of outbuildings, like a greenhouse, something that can be repurposed into a chicken coop, a shop, etc., and within an hours' drive from our offices in the Seattle burbs.  I've already found several that fit that criteria, so I know it's feasible.  Now to just be patient, grasshopper...

[This is Seth]

Ah good, you're back. Though, I have to confess... I don't consider this to be your actual thread until I get dog pics. 

[concretecavewoman]

Bam.

[This is Seth]

WOOHOO!