Intrepid fam at the NLP Invitational

Robb Wolf recently had posted a super quick recipe for a meal made out of beef and tomatoes. In the article, his first sentence particularly resonated with me. This is mainly because I think many of you may have this same issue, especially when foraying into new territory such as the paleo/primal scene.

Folks tend to over complicate cooking.

The main exhibit I see of this is when people get too caught up in creating their overarching idea of a “meal” as opposed to just making. some. food. Sure, many of us were raised with having dinners with specific names like beef stroganoff, veal parmesan or chicken cordon bleu. But really, what is food other than a fuel source to keep you going?  If you’ve ever gone camping and cooked for yourself, you likely threw together a few food items and called it a day. You didn’t worry about fitting some grander idea of a fancy recipe because you were hungry and you needed to eat, period.

I think those of us that had success with the Zone diet and then migrated to paleo may have a slight leg up in this regard. With the Zone diet, you’re encouraged to reach a particular balance of protein, carbs and fat in each meal. To this end, you break foods down into “blocks” and do the quick math to figure out how much intake you will eat for a meal. Doing this math over time, you get used to mixing and matching the desired blocks of each macro-nutrient to form a meal instead of trying to replicate an exact recipe. In fact, going out to eat became more of a pain because you’d wonder how many ounces of chicken you were getting. Some (*cough* Ruth *cough*) were even OCD enough to bring a food scale with them!

Thankfully, people find success with paleo/primal eating without weighing and measuring each meal. When you keep the food sources clean and eat to your own contentment, things just fall into place. So I am not recommending people go neurotic trying to calculate Zone blocks, but rather take the lesson learned from the Zone diet. Sure, you can make a tasty meal, but just make sure you’re getting some solid protein, good fats and carbs from vegetables and/or fruit. For more ideas on how to make your meals tastier, see Ruth’s post on the Food Matrix.

And before I get accused of being too unrealistic, I’m not glossing over the fact that food can be quite enjoyable. Anyone that knows me would be well aware that I do appreciate a wide variety of foods. I frequently take recipes that I enjoy and find ways to make them paleo. However, if you find yourself standing at the refrigerator absolutely stumped at what to eat, this post is directed at you. Don’t fall victim to paralysis by analysis and instead mix and match the foods you have on hand to satisfy your hunger.

WOD 08.16.10

Back Squat 3×5

“NLP Invitational WOD #3″

3 rounds for time:

• 200m run
• 12 KB Snatches
• 12 Toes to Bar

For NLP competitors:

• 400m run
• 25 Sit ups
• 200m run
• 25 Squats
• 200m run
• 25 Sit ups