Weekly Weigh-in (Week 96)

Sunday once again and time for my weekly update.

Missed last weeks update, was busy with life and didn't get around to it. So this week here we are.

Finally back to running in my Vibrams after the toenail procedure. I'm definitely down a bit in terms of my overall fitness but I seem to be regaining it steadily. Hopefully within another week or two I should be back to full and working on increasing my fitness beyond it's recent peak. My sleep has been improving of late as well which is always a bonus. Hoping to increase the rate at which I'm complying with my planned resistance workouts by moving them from Monday and Friday to Sunday and Thursday, so that in coincides with as few other recurring events in my life as possible.

So what else have I been up to? Today it was cookery. Trying to find some replacement options for the smoothies we've been doing for breakfasts. Made up a batch of the Primal Energy Bars I've done a couple times before, playing around with things trying to find a good match. Also tried out two new recipes, some Primal sausage balls and some hash brown omelette "muffins". Both of them seem pretty decent so we'll have to see how things pan out. For the sweet tooth we whipped up something a bit odd, cookie stuffed brownies, chocolate chip cookies contained within fudge brownies. Those were indeed rather delicious.

So what does the scale have to say? 210, up a pound from last time. Gonna cut back a little and try to get that back down a bit. Bodyfat holding pretty steady. So until next time, keep being the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 89)

Sunday once again and time for an update.

Been a really busy week this week. Due to careful planning we actually cooked most of our meals at home this week which is an improvement over recent weeks, and also a trend I hope to continue.

Didn't end up doing quite as much running this week as I'd planned, but I got a few good quality runs in. I also managed to get in a bodyweight routine every night for the last week, pushups, squats, vertical pulls (a precursor to pullups), and knee tucks (a precursor to hanging leg raises). Soon I'm hoping to add some bridging and handstand work to that routine as well. Making good progress so far on these workouts and hoping to continue doing so. Honestly not a lot of new developments this week otherwise.

So, what the scale got to say today? 208, same as last week. Even with that being the case I look better in a mirror now than I did two weeks ago, and that's worth more than any change on the scale right now as I'm fine with my weight, and to the stage of working on my Looking Good Naked factor. So far so good. Until next week, be the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 86)

It's that time again, time for another update.

Short one this week, not much going on. Got a dehydrator and put it to some apples so now I have delicious homemade apple rings. Have to see if they go bad or get eaten first, I'm betting on get eaten. Probably try and get up a post this week with pictures of the dehydrator and the process of making the rings, and possibly fruit leather if I end up making any of that this week as well.

Well, that's about all I've got for this week, so what about the numbers? 210, up a pound from last week. Body fat is down, and I'm feeling good. Need to get back on the wagon with my workouts though, both the runs and the weights. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.

Sunday Sludge the 6th

Alright, after today's more serious post it's now time for a more humorous post. It's once again time for a link dump. It's been a while since I've done one of these so some of the links in my dump folder are probably a little old, and you may have seen them already. If so, feel free to send me better links to share with everyone next time.

On the Origin of Circuits - A story about how a circuit that could learn taught itself to do amazing things.
Gaping Plotholes - An article from Cracked about movies.
Culinary Kurios - A strange story of stranger food.
Fusion Reactor - A story of a homemade fusion reactor.
Built a Time Machine - Watch out for the plutonium.

And there you have another Sunday of Links. See you next time.

Playing with Biscuits

    Being a fairly busy college student I don't always have time to make everything I'd like to make from scratch when cooking dinner. As a result I was often finding myself buying and making biscuits from a tube, something I was hoping to avoid out of a desire to be more aware of what's in some of the things I eat.
    One solution to the tube problem is frozen ready made biscuits, you just buy a bag, throw as many or as few as you want on a baking sheet and bake them up. This is a great idea. Saves me a lot of time and is closer to what I wanted, but they still came from the store, and biscuits are pretty simple. All you need to make a good biscuit is some fat, some flour, and some liquid; and sometimes those ingredients get merged together to make it even simpler. I decided that I'd duplicate these freeze and bake biscuits so that I could make them at home and have them whenever I wanted a hot homemade biscuit.
    They really ended up being pretty simple after some tinkering with the recipe, and a lot of batches of tasty biscuits that just weren't quite up to snuff.

• 2 1/4 cups "Pancake and Baking mix" - comes in a yellow box, you've probably got it lying around
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda - you can leave this out if you really want, but if you do they won't rise well
• 1/3 cup (5 1/3 Tbs.) Butter
• 2/3 cup Milk - I suppose you could use buttermilk or something like that but I find the "mix" above does a pretty good job of that

1. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly
2. Cut in butter
3. Mix in the milk
4. Mix by hand until the dough comes together, you may need to add more "mix" by spoonfuls until it stops sticking to the bowl and your hands
5. Roll out to 1/4-1/2 inch thickness and cut into rounds; you want to try and get as many rounds out of each rolling as the more you roll it the more melted the butter gets and the tougher the biscuits will get
6. Bake any that you want to bake immediately at 450° for 8-10 minutes
7. Any that you don't want to bake immediately, put on a plate and place in the freezer. Leave them in the freezer until they are frozen solid, then put them in a plastic zip-top bag; if you through then into the bag before they freeze completely they will turn into a big lump which is just a mess.

    When you want to bake any of the frozen ones, just take the ones you want out and put them on a baking sheet while you preheat the oven. Once the oven is preheated you can bake as per the normal directions. Hope that someone else out there finds this useful.

The Bacon Explosion

    In June I got bored with just working and going to class all the time and decided that an experiment in food was well called for. Really it wasn't so much "experimental" since I was following a method, not really a recipe, but it was new for me and everyone else involved.

    We decided to make an event of it and had the Heart Attack Dinner. Served would be one whole bacon explosion, a double batch of my grandmother's Sour Cream Biscuit recipe, personal-size macaroni and cheese casseroles, and Chocolate Peanut-Butter Brownies.

    First the simple things: the Mac and Cheese and the Brownies were just like normal recipes for the same thing except I split them into a muffin pan so that all of the dishes for the night would come out around the same size. The brownie recipe was modified by adding peanut-butter chips, like chocolate chips only peanut-butter flavored.

    Next, the Bacon Explosion. The method of making a bacon explosion can be found multiple places around the internet, so I'll be brief here and include pictures as I have them.

1. Take your raw bacon and weave it, like a basket, into a tight lattice around 5 strips in each direction. It's very important that you get a tight weave or you'll run into problems later.
2. Apply to the top of this your sausage in a fairly flat layer, making sure to leave some space around the edges for when you roll it.
3. The first deviation that I had was now. I added a pound of shredded cheese, because cheese is delicious.  I also added some dried minced garlic, a little bit of salt, and some ground black pepper.
4. After that I crumbled some previously cooked bacon on top of it. Shown here with a handy T-Square provided by one of my friends, and dinner attendees, Julie.
5. After that it was a complicated matter of rolling it. When I said earlier to make a tight weave and leave room around the edges, this was why. If you didn't do those things it's gonna be really big, bursting at the seams, and just not very nice looking.
6. After you manage to get it rolled up into a nice log shape, you bake it. Most recipes call for adding BBQ sauce inside before you roll it and brushing it on the outside before smoking it. I didn't have any BBQ sauce, don't really care for the stuff, or a smoker, so I used what I did have: the oven.
7. Once it's finished baking let it cool some to set the grease juices before slicing it into rings and serving. 

In that last picture you can see the Macaroni and Cheese bites on their plate, and the bowl containing the biscuits.

    The results of this dinner were amazingly delicious, if horribly unhealthy. This is not a food for the faint of heart. I may make this again in the future using what I've learned, but probably not for a while.