Cube Steak with Wild Mushrooms, Week 1 Update 30 Day Paleo Total Transformation, and RKC update

Paleo Friendly Cube Steak with Wild Mushrooms (Recipe below)

First things first. I wanted to report back after my first full week of eating Paleo, following Robb Wolf's 30 Day Total Transformation.
I've reported a couple times what I have been eating. If you've read those posts you can see that I've been eating very well. That's my first observation following the Paleo diet: you eat well, you eat clean and it's expensive. Buying local meats, including grass fed beef and wild salmon and other fish costs money. For me, it's ok, I can afford it. Not sure how someone who is financially challenged might navigate the price tag though.
Overall, I am feeling great.
I have more energy.
I'm sleeping better.
When I eat a meal, I get filled up faster.
I'm less hungry in between meals.
I feel strong during my workouts.
Food tastes amazing to me, better than ever.
Lots of pluses and not too many minuses, other than how expensive the diet can be. For me, it's worth it. I put food as the highest priority, in line with fitness, for my good health.
For this to work for me, I also need to ensure that the meat I am eating is meat that comes from a local farm, with ethical practices or else I can't eat it.
I'm looking forward to Week 2!

RKC Update
This Saturday, I had a 1:1 with RKC 2 Michael Perry, from Skill of Strength. It was an excellent session. He worked on my Get Up and taught me the Get Up Dance! I need to work on getting the bottom half of my Get Up seamless.
Next we worked on my swing. While doing my swing, right off the bat, Mike noticed my right knee was buckling a bit but the left one wasn't. He filmed me so I could see what he was talking about. So, we worked on correcting that.
He also thought my swing was too squatty and didn't have enough hip hinge. We worked on some drills to get my hips hinging deeper.
Lastly with the swing, Mike made the observation that I need to go heavier. Swinging the 16kg bell isn't enough for me anymore and in order to get better, I need to go heavier.
We then worked on the snatch. Bottom line, I need to use my hips more. I have so much power and I'm not tapping in to it.
To finish, Mike worked on opening up my shoulders/lats a bit as well.
To train for RKC, I'm having Mike write me a program to follow. He is currently training his wife Amanda, from Sistas of Strength for her RKC, and she is doing great!
Updates to follow for sure!!

Now, onto the food!
Here's a Paleo friendly recipe for Cube Steak with Mushrooms - done in pressure cooker, but you could easily cook this in the slow cooker or on the stove.
Cube steak comes from the round part of the beef, which is the rump. It's a thin steak that is usually pounded out to tenderize.

Ingredients
1-2 lbs Cube steak
1/4 cup coconut flour
S+P to taste
1 onion, diced
3-4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 lbs wild mushrooms (I used a mix of trumpet, chanterelles, and oyster)
1 cup beef broth (or more if your pressure cooker or crock pot needs more liquid)
Fresh herbs of choice (I used thyme, savory and rosemary)
Parsley, chopped

Technique
1. Season the coconut flour with S+P, then dredge the cube steaks in it.
2. Brown the cube steaks in coconut oil until brown; set aside.

3. Start to brown onions and garlic, seasoning w.S+P. To the aromatics, add the mushrooms and cook down until they start to release their moisture. Add fresh herbs and stir.

4. (If using a slow cooker, transfer the aromatics and mushrooms to the pot now and proceed as directed.) Add back the cube steak and add beef broth. Put cover on pressure cooker, bring up to pressure (15 psi) and cook for 6 minutes with a natural release. If using a slow cooker, cover and cook for 3-4 hrs on high. If using the stove, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes; check to see if steak is done, it should be very tender. Let it cook longer if it's not quite tender enough.

5. After the pressure has dropped for 10 minutes, release any pressure that might remain and open up the pot. The beef should be quite tender.

6. Test for seasoning, adjusting with S+P if necessary. Top with fresh, chopped parsley.

Coming up next in the blog, a Paleo friendly root veggie pancake and a review of Improveat's Coconut Wraps!
Enjoy!

Robb Wolf's 30 Day Paleo Transformation and Stuffed Squash

As I talked about in my last post, there are some fun and exciting changes going on with Thyme To Cook. I'm training for the next level of kettlebell certification, RKC. It's a rigorous and physically demanding cert. I'm in great physical shape overall, however, I don't feel strong enough to proceed w.my training, so I'm making some major changes to my diet.

I've been about 75-80% plant based, only eating meat on special occasions. I thought I had been thriving on this diet, but in reality, I think I haven't been getting enough protein. After doing Josh Hillis's 21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge, I knew I had to switch it up. So over the next 30 days I am following the 30 Day Total Transformation, by author, trainer and Paleo nutrition guru Robb Wolf.
What's it all about?

Well, the program is based on a Paleo diet, which consists of grass fed beef and other animal proteins (lean pork, chicken, lamb), wild fish, eggs, fruits, veggies, nuts/seeds and healthy fats (coconut oil, coconut milk, avocado, olive oil). Grass fed meats and wild fish are high in essential fatty acids, the Omega fatty acids; the body can't manufacture the essential fatty acids, so they must be eaten.
What the diet doesn't consist of is: grains, beans and other legumes, sugar, processed foods, alcohol, dairy.
It's clean eating, something that I have prided myself on doing in the past (maybe not so much in the recent present, until now).
So for the next 30 days I'll be eating some lean protein, carbs and healthy fats at each meal and trying to have 3-4 meals a day.

The downloadable program came with a great manual, which includes the ins and outs of the diet, a detailed exercise program, a great food matrix, a month's worth of meals w.links to recipes, shopping lists and as an extra bonus, there are links in the manual to extra reading, videos and audio to learn more about certain aspects of the Paleo diet. I'm on day 3, just finishing it up, and doing great.

Here's what I've been eating:

Day 1 Sunday January 8, 2012 - This is my day off for the week from exercise

B: Scrambled eggs (eggs from Stillman's Farm) with smoked whitefish (eggs scrambled in coconut oil), roasted veggies and cherries

L: Baked sweet potato, salad w.sardines and beets, Satsuma mandarin

D: Grass fed cube steak also from Stillman's Farm w.wild mushrooms and roasted veggies

Snack: 2 satsuma mandarins
Evening: Tea w.lemon and small bit of honey

Day 2 Monday January 9, 2012
B: Scrambled eggs in coconut oil w. Canadian bacon and roasted veggies. I had decaf w.homemade almond milk (almonds, dates, vanilla)

Did an intense kettlebell workout mid morning. Shortly after was pretty hungry so I had a smoothie made from coconut milk, raw cacao, raw cacao nibs, almond butter, banana, a tiny bit of raw honey and maca powder. This will be my go to smoothie on this program and from this point will just be called CoCa smoothie.

L: Salad with sardines, beets, pepper, avocado and hemp seeds

D: Baked sweet potato, small salad w.mesclun greens, pepper and canned, wild salmon

Snack: 3 Satsuma mandarins and some blueberries
Evening: Tea, straight up

Day 3 Tuesday January 10, 2012
Early morning - intense functional movement based workout: intervals including treadmill, body weight, Keiser Functional Movement machine, kettlebells and core slide

B: Scrambled eggs w.whitefish and small piece baked sweet potato. Decaf w.almond milk.

Mid morning snack: CoCa smoothie

L: Salad with sardines, roasted veggies and fermented, pickled red cabbage

D: Baked sweet potato and Ropa Vieja (shredded beef and peppers)

Snacks: 3 Satsuma mandarins and a mix of blueberries and raspberries

That's it so far! I'm doing well, my workouts have been intense and I'm on program. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of weeks w.my kettlebell training.

Now if you're still with me, on to the food! To ramp up for this program, I slowly added in meats to my diet for a couple weeks. One of the meals I made was a delicious stuffed squash. I still have veggies from my winter CSA and lots of great grass fed beef and other meats from Stillman's Farm.
I roasted up some acorn squash until tender and made a filling for them from diced sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, garlic, onions, ground beef and kale, all from Stillman's...I also added in fresh thyme, rosemary and savory, all earthy, delicious herbs.

Here's the beef, browning up with some garlic and onions in coconut oil.
I added in the root veggies to cook for a bit, then added in kale and fresh herbs.

I stuffed the squash and put them back in the oven to heat up.
The finished product was delicious and the leftover filling was great to eat on it's own, with salad.

Who knows where this 30 days will bring me. Do I really think I'm going to have a diet void of grains and beans/legumes? I don't think so, but you never know. I'm an "Everything in moderation" type of gal...it might be that I'll add them back and dislike the way that I feel....or maybe I'll feel great....we'll just have to wait and see. In the mean time, I'm hoping that my training continues to progress.
Enjoy!