Paleo Egg Nog “Oatmeal” and an AMWAP Challenge!
Hopefully by now you’ve heard about what a great success the President’s Day run/walk was. We walked a total of about 14 miles, and thanks to Janine’s pedometer we were able to track the 32,000 (!!) steps we took. The day couldn’t have gone better; we were really lucky to have beautiful weather that wasn’t too cold to keep us inside but was just cool enough to keep us from feeling hot and sweaty along the walk. And of course the shining sun gave us a nice dose of vitamin D as well. I had some really great conversations with people and got to know several other Old Cityzens better. And I was thoroughly impressed with the presentations people gave at the various presidential monuments, several of which seemed to be delivered from memory. It appears that Old City is in no shortage of skilled public speakers.
For those of you who weren’t able to make it, I hope it wasn’t due to feelings of intimidation or fear of the distance. I can definitely empathize with you, though, if it was. Prior to doing this walk myself I have to admit I was actually kind of intimidated by the distance. 14 miles was daunting for me because I‘ve actually never (to my knowledge) walked that far in one day.
My journey to fitness has been a relatively recent one. Although I was physically active during most of my youth in school sports, I have never considered myself an athlete until now. Throughout college and graduate school I ate a mostly vegetarian diet, became increasingly sedentary, and steadily gained an unhealthy amount of weight. By the time I was 25 I had high cholesterol, high blood sugar, was about 20 pounds overweight, and experienced moderate depression and anxiety. I will save my journey to paleo and CrossFit for another time, but basically I have only been working towards fitness for the past two years. About a year ago I had just started doing CrossFit when I decided to go on an 8-mile hike in the woods. Believe it or not this was extremely challenging for me. I wanted to give up after about the third mile and struggled throughout the rest of the walk. I completed the 8 miles but not without a considerable amount of complaining and pleading with my hiking party to leave me behind or let me cut out early. Luckily, they didn’t let me, and were extremely patient with me when I had to stop frequently to rest. When I looked at the map of the route we were to travel for the President’s Day run/walk, I thought for sure I wouldn’t be able to handle the whole thing.
Once I began to look at the challenge through the paleo lens however, I realized that walking 14 miles in a day should not be so daunting, and that our ancestors from the Paleolithic era would have probably walked that much and more on a daily basis to hunt and gather. In addition, several well-respected members of the paleo community and blogosphere advocate for as much walking as possible in our modern paleo lives. One of my favorite podcasts, Everyday Paleo, which is hosted by Jason Seib and Sarah Fragoso (http://everydaypaleo.com/podcast/) often encourages people living the paleo lifestyle to include as much walking as possible in their daily routine. With this in mind, I decided I had to do the President’s day run/walk, and that as a person living the paleo lifestyle, I should try to do much more walking in my life. And guess what? I successfully walked the entire route! You bet I was sore when it was done, and I had to stretch my hips along the way at several stopping points (my favorite is the couch stretch, my hips get particularly tight sometimes) but I did it! So hopefully next year you will too!
You should also know that there were others who joined the walk who are in different stages of their journeys to fitness and they too, were able to do it. I have been doing CrossFit for over a year now, so my fitness now compared to last year is considerably greater, but for those of you who only recently started doing CrossFit and went on the walk I am exponentially more impressed and inspired by you. Janine, who I walked with for a good portion of the day, endured the whole walk with shoes that she said weren’t great for walking, but did it with relatively no complaining and kept pace with the rest of us the whole way. Sean and Erin’s parents came along who also have been doing CrossFit for a while but were probably older than most of the members at the gym, and they had no trouble keeping up and enduring the whole distance. The Portnoy family came along and brought little Clara who is still a little baby (starting her journey to fitness as early as possible! Good job Jo and Joe!), and several members even ran to catch up with us if they missed us at meeting points and they all made it throughout the day. I was really inspired by the Old Cityzens who showed up and walked and ran with us all day. They showed me how to take on an intimidating long distance run/walk with fervor and attitude I wish I had had from the beginning. I learned a lot about positive attitude that day and really appreciate everyone who walked and talked with me for the inspiration they’ve given me. When it was all over I felt like I had start to overcome all the years of declining attitude towards my fitness and feelings of intimidation I had previously had and could finally proudly call myself an athlete. I set an intention at the end of that day to include more walking in my life from now on.
With that, I want to pose a challenge to you all. Walking is such a crucial part of the paleo lifestyle, and with our modern conveniences we probably don’t do enough of it. So why not have a gym-wide daily AMWAP “WOD”? Every day challenge yourself to do As Much Walking As Possible (AMWAP). I don’t mean for this to be an actual competition, but more of a self-exploration and improvement. What can you do in your life to include more walking? Yesterday, instead of driving to do my grocery shopping, I walked. And then I did a farmer’s carry with my grocery bags back to my house. Instead of taking the X1 bus to get to one of my jobs this week (it drops me off right in front of the building) I took the X2 and walked a mile from the farther stop to the building. When I met some friends for dinner in Eastern Market last week, I walked there instead of driving. We are really lucky to live in such an easily accessible city, where everything is relatively within walking distance. So why not walk more? I plan to try to do more AMWAP-ing in my life, so if you’re interested in being more paleo, try it with me!
And of course, there’s the recipe for this week. With all that walking we are going to need a good source of energy, right? This is an oatmeal substitute I made the day of the President’s Day walk that was inspired by…my empty refrigerator. That’s right. I had very little to work with so I threw it all together for a sweet little breakfast before we left. Since oats are not paleo, the paleo cooking and blogging community often uses chia seeds instead to mimic the consistency of oatmeal. Chia seeds are hydrophilic and will absorb between 9-12 times their volume in water. This ends up forming a jelly or pudding-like substance that closely resembles oatmeal. But the more important reason why I chose to eat chia seeds that morning was because I knew we would be taking a long walk all day and expending a lot of energy. Once known as “Indian Running Food” and originally used by the Mayan and Aztec communities in ancient Mexico, one of the many benefits of chia seeds is that they provide sustained energy throughout longer endurance energy expenditure. They are also a complete protein and a good source of omega-3 fatty acids (which helps with recovery, joint pain, and inflammation). Chia seeds have many more benefits, but for now, I’ll just leave you with the recipe. Try it out and see how you feel after you eat it! Maybe take a 14-mile hike!
Paleo Egg Nog “Oatmeal”:
Ingredients:
1 cup full-fat canned coconut milk
1 cup (carton) coconut milk (I use “So Delicious” unsweetened vanilla flavor)
1/3 cup honey
2 egg whites
2 eggs
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon
2 cinnamon sticks
5 cloves
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch of allspice, or 5 allspice berries
1 pinch of sea salt
4 TBSP black chia seeds
1 1.5-oz. bag of PaleoKrunch “Bacon Lover’s” Grainless Granola*
1 handful of your favorite berries to garnish
*PaleoKrunch is a product of Steve’s PaleoGoods, the sponsor of a 501(c)3 non-profit organization called Steve’s Club National Program, which “brings fitness, nutrition guidance and mentorship to at-risk youth”. 15% of the proceeds of PaleoGoods go to Steve’s Club. This is an awesome organization and I love Steve’s PaleoGoods myself. You can buy their products online and now Whole Foods carries some of their products as well, including these single-serving granolas. For more information go to www.stevesoriginal.com.
Directions:
- Combine the eggs and egg whites with the coconut milks and wisk until they are well-mixed
- Pour egg and coconut milk mixture and all other ingredients except for the chia seeds, granola and berries in a saucepan and heat over medium low temperature.
- Cook for 10 minutes, stirring throughout the process to prevent the eggs from over-cooking. The result will be like a thin pudding or thick creamy eggnog.
- Strain out the cinnamon sticks, whole spices or cloves
- Combine the chia seeds with the eggnog and stir together for about 3 minutes
- Once the chia seeds are well-mixed with the eggnog, place in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes.
- After the chia seeds have had some time to soak up the liquid in the eggnog, they are ready to eat. Sprinkle some PaleoKrunch granola and berries on the “oatmeal” or just eat plain.
This recipe makes about 4 servings so you can make a batch and leave it in your fridge in small containers to eat for breakfasts throughout the week, or share it with other cave-people in your paleo family! Then go for long walks and enjoy all the energy and pain-free movement you can sustain from the chia seeds!
It’s been really great hearing from all of you who’ve been reading the Neighborhood Paleo blog over the past few weeks. I’m really enjoying our conversations and am gleaning so many new inspirations for future blog posts and further research into the paleo lifestyle in the process. Thank you so much for your continued inspiration and let me know how your AMWAPs are going! Now that spring seems to be peeking around the corner maybe I’ll see some of you out in the Neighborhood walking around this week! Until then, be well and be paleo!!
