Food: Prawn and pork paella (50g protein)

This makes enough for two portions.  Cooking time approx 45 mins. Protein (50g per serving).

250g cooked frozen jumbo prawns (40g protein)
1 x red pepper
1 x yellow pepper
1 x Courgette
1 x aubergine
1 x red onion
400g chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup of peas
1 cup brown rice
1/2 bag of fresh spinach
2 x pork loin steaks (30g protein each, 60g total)
Smoked paprika
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
Extra virgin olive oil
Olive oil

Put the brown rice on to boil.

Chop all of the veg into fairly big chunks and place it into a very large saucepan or frying pan, along with the spinach.  Add enough extra virgin olive oil to coat, cover in lots of paprika (to taste) and cook on a medium heat.  Stir frequently.

Dice the pork into small cubes. Put a couple of good glugs of olive oil into a small frying pan with 2 to 3 teaspoons of smoked paprika and a pinch of ground fennel seeds.  As the pork and coat well before placing on a medium to high heat.  Cook until brown, then spoon the pork pieces into the pan containing the veg, leaving the oil behind.  Add the chopped tomatoes to the mix and stir well.

When the rice is done, drain and add to the pan containing the veg and pork.  Mix well.

Add the frozen prawns. These should be pre cooked, do the just need to be heated, so will not require much coming time.

Once the prawns are fully defrosted and hot throughout, remove from heat and serve.

If you want more protein per serving, add another pork loin steak.  Pork loins are extremely high in protein, low in fat and are fairly inexpensive.  You can usually pick up a pack of 6 loins for under £5 or $8.

The ingredients listed above are half the amounts purchased.  The veg usually comes in packs that mean you can get 4 servings out of the purchase, making the cost per meal about £3 or $4.50 thereabouts.

Food: New quick quark recipe (55g protein)

1 x sweet potato
250g quark
1 x red onion chopped
120g salmon trimmings
1 x teaspoon of horse radish
Crushed black pepper
Microwave the sweet potato on full power for 10 mins. While that is cooking, chop the onion. Put the onion, horse radish, quark, salmon and black pepper into a bowl and mix until even. When the sweet potato is done, arrange everything on a plate and eat. Viola!
I had half eaten the dish in the photo.
There's roughly 55g protein in this dish.

Nutrition: Insulin sensitivity

I recently came across the following video on YouTube, from one of the many fitness guru's that post their videos on YouTube.  In the video, the presenter talks about the effects of high intake of carbohydrates versus low intake of carbohydrates.  While much of what is discussed is factually correct and is actually a useful source of information on the topic, there is an element of untruth surrounding the topic of insulin sensitivity at around the 2 minute mark.  The presenter describes insulin sensitivity with relation to consumption of carbohydrates as follows:

The gentleman that eats the pasta and feels very energetic, most likely has good insulin sensitivity.  The gentleman that eats the pasta and feels like he has to go to sleep, most likely does not.

Video in question

While true, that you can use sugar consumption and the body's reaction as a benchmark for insulin sensitivity, the untruth is in the order of the statements.  Since the vast majority of healthy people exhibit tiredness after eating carbohydrates, this statement suggests that it is abnormal or those healthy people are exhibiting signs of insulin insensitivity; or type II diabetes as described by our presenter.  Don't fear, feeling tired after eating "a big bowl of pasta" is a perfectly normal hormonal response to an increase in blood sugar.  Let me explain why...

Tryptophan
This is an essential amino-acid that cannot be synthesised by the body and thus must be obtained through food. The significance of this amino-acid in relation to this topic, is that this particular amino-acid is used by the brain in order to produce the neurotransmitter, serotonin.  If you are thinking that serotonin sounds familiar, then that's because you may have heard it used to describe tiredness; we will discuss this in a moment.  tryptophan has to compete against a whole array of other amino-acids in the blood stream, in order to get absorbed by the brain.  Under normal circumstances, these other amino-acids act like a barrier and prevent absorption.  However, if other amino-acid levels are reduced, then concentration of tryptophan increases and thus more tryptophan is able to enter the brain, with the effect of an increase in serotonin production.  Generally, foods rich in carbohydrates are also a primary source of tryptophan.

Serotonin
This is a neurotransmitter that is used by the pineal gland, just below the brain, to secrete a endocrine hormone called melatonin.  The more serotonin released by the brain, the more melatonin that is secreted from the pineal gland.  Let's see what melatonin does...

Melatonin
This is an endocrine hormone that is released into the blood stream to regulate the body's sleep-wake cycle, among a whole host of other antioxidant properties.  It lowers body temperature and causes drowsiness, by suppressing nervous activity to the brain.

Insulin
Insulin, another hormone secreted by the pancreas, has many functions.  One of its primary functions is to allow liver, muscles and fat-cells to absorb glucose from the blood stream.  It also allows these cells, if required, to absorb amino acids, excluding tryptophan, from the blood and has various anabolic effects.  So what?

The missing links
So how does insulin, tryptophan, serotonin and melatonin relate to this topic?  Well, the answer lies in the effects of insulin on amino acid levels in the blood as opposed to glucose levels.  When the amino acid levels in the blood are reduced, tryptophan is left behind in higher concentration.  This allows tryptophan to enter the brains blood barrier and thus results in the production of serotonin and thus melatonin.  Good insulin sensitivity is in fact indicative of high levels of melatonin and thus lethargy and tiredness after uptake of carbohydrates.  If you feel more energetic having just eaten "a big bowl of pasta", then this would indicate blood glucose saturation and low levels of insulin in the blood: insulin insensitivity.  The density of tryptophan would actually be reduced, even though there is an uptake of tryptophan from the carbohydrates, since the glucose molecules are larger and more prominent than most other molecules in the blood stream.

So lets correct that original statement:

The gentleman that eats the pasta and feels like he has to go to sleep, most likely has good insulin sensitivity.  The gentleman that eats the pasta and feels very energetic, most likely does not.

WOD: Jump rope side swings/switches

Been practising this technique for a while, maybe a couple of months or so, and finally cracked it yesterday.  Before then, every attempt seemed to look messy or I would end up lashing myself up in the jump rope, whipping myself in the face or throwing the rope across the gym - accidentally of course!  The thing that seemed to help with practising this routine, was to practice the manoeuvre without the rope, visualising foot placement and timing in my head.  This approach seemed to pay off and it all came together very quickly within the past couple of weeks.  I have only been using the rope once or twice a week lately, figuring that less is more when it comes to allowing your brain time to memorise the routine.  Anyway, here's a video of yesterdays session, including some of the less desirable instances, of which includes the rope throwing incident.

Food: Post workout lunch

My usual concoction of kale, veg, beans, sweet potato and eggs had a slight twist today with the addition of some quark!  Quark is a "virtually" fat free cream cheese, which seems to behave like cream cheese in the sense that, when you add it to hot food, it melts.  Awesome!  So I added a whole tub of this to my lunch today, which when you consider that 100g has 13g of protein and 4g of carbs (that's it!), it is a really easy and cheap way to boost the protein content of the meal.  I dropped an egg (6g protein) and added this, giving a combined protein content of approximately 77g.  That is a bit excessive I know, but this is one of two meals I eat in a day, given the intermittent fasting protocol I choose to follow.

Here is a picture of the eggs, veg mix and quark before I combined them.

Here is a picture after I combined the veg and quark; notice the creamy Carbonara look to the whole thing.

If you are wondering how I made it all, I used two microwaves at work to cook the sweet potato, veg and eggs before mixing the quark in straight out of the fridge.  The sweet potato is buried beneath the veg, whole.  Here are the ingredients:

5 x whole eggs [organic] (30g protein, vitamins)

3 x tomatoes (carotene lycopene - a REALLY powerful anti-oxidant)

1 x red onion (sulphur, quercetin - another REALLY powerful anti-oxidant)

1 x yellow bell pepper [organic] (vitamin C, carotene lycopene)

1 x medium sweet potato (complex carbs, vitamins, fibre)

400g Haricot beans [organic in water, drained] (15g protein, fibre, folate)

Kale (Vitamin C)

1 x 250g tub of quark (32 g protein)

This is what I call super-food!!

PB: 40kg (88lb) Bench Press for 14 reps

New personal best for repetitions on this age old simple routine.  I went on to complete another three sets, though progressively fewer reps on each.  I go to failure on everything at the moment, with the regime I am following, so it's fairly difficult to maintain the same repetitions for each set, unless I want to rest for longer and potentially be in the gym for in excess of an hour!

My last effort was 12 repetitions at this weight, so 14 is a good step up.  Though 14 is now too many and I need to grab something heavier.  Unfortunately, dumbbells only go up to 40kg here, so will be looking to find a new gym in coming weeks.  However, I am offloading next week, so there isn't any immediate rush.

Today's workout was as follows:
Dumbbell bench press:
    Set 1:    40kg x 14
    Set 2:    40kg x 9
    Set 3:    40kg x 8
    Set 4:    40kg x 7

Dumbbell Shoulder Press:
    Set 1:    24kg x 11
    Set 2:    24kg x 8
    Set 3:    24kg x 7
    Set 4:    24kg x 6
   
Weighted Dips:

    Set 1:    40kg x 9
    Set 2:    40kg x 5 + 2 eccentric
    Set 3:    40kg x 4 + 1 eccentric

Push-ups to failure: 30 repetitions

Summary:

Disappointed with the Dips, had pushed 40kg for 12 a couple of weeks ago, so not sure what's going on there.  Similarly, the shoulder press seems down, so the offloading week next week hasn't arrived too soon.  Up on finisher push-ups though, so pleased with that; this shows chest endurance is improving, despite endurance going into decline with triceps and shoulders.

IF: Post 22 hour fasting meal

Finally!  22 hours on from my last meal and I made it through to the next.  Despite tempting dry roasted peanuts on offer in the cupboard when I got home, I persevered and waited until 6:30.  My meal was a liver, bacon and onion dish with asparagus, courgette and sweet potato; my wife had hers with peas.

So, has it actually done anything?  Well, it's really too early to tell.  I am back to my usual 16/8 rota today, until next Thursday when I may try this 22 hour fast again.  So, as usual, I stopped eating at 8:30 last night and I won't be eating until at least 12:30 today.  Coffee is brewing and gym beckons, so I'll sign out shortly.  But first, I thought I'd video cooking the meal, just so you can see what the portion size is, etc.  Oh, it tasted great by the way!