Daily Workout 8/15: Rest day / "Your Diet vs. A Diet" / Recipe: Eggplant with Cherry tomatoes and Pancetta

This was a tough one. Some heavy Bear Complexes struck a lot of different muscle group hard for sure. Forearms ar screaming. Needed rest day tomorrow!

While not a chef or dietitian, I love to cook in the gourmet sense and am quite interested in nutrition. A good combo to try and come up with some awesome healthy athlete powering recipes. So, I'm going to occasionally post some dietary tidbits that I've picked up through my own experiences and reading and some of my personal recipes.

It was taught to me and I've experienced it first hand that no matter how hard you try, you simply CANNOT OUT TRAIN YOUR DIET. If fitness is a goal of yours, you need to start with the foundation, the fuel you'll be using to achieve that goal. It's overused but, "Garbage in, garbage out."
First the basics: Your diet vs. a diet.
"Your diet" is what you eat on a daily basis,  "a diet" is something you change to your normal diet to in an attempt to achieve a desired result, normally weight loss, over the short term. Unless you change "your diet" you will most likely be stuck in a yo-yo pattern of weight loss and gain. Fad diets that have some quirky notion may work for weight loss temporarily but are they allowing you to achieve fitness or just stave yourself into weight loss? They are unsustainable, but teaching yourself what is better for you to eat and rewiring yourself to eat it is. Leaning about things like the glycemic index, when and how often to eat and portion sizing for example are knowledge based tools rather then bunk science or silly notions like eating cabbage soup for three weeks.  So our first tip: Make your diet about fueling your body better not about losing weight; the latter will follow.

Made this last night from our "Mike and Brett's Mini-farm" gatherings this weekend. The light crispiness of the eggplant and the sweetness of the tomatoes with the light saltiness of the panchetta was wonderful and light.
Paleo Eggplant and Cherry Tomatoes w/ panchetta bits:
Dice and saute panchetta till crispy, set aside. Slice egg plant making slices no more then about 3/8th of an inch. Dip slices in a beaten egg with a tsp of water or egg whites. Then dredge them in a combination of 3/4 almond flour and 1/4 coconut flour, until lightly and evenly coated. Sauté in a good amount of olive oil until brown on both sides. You could also spray with a bit of olive oil with a mister and broil both sides but it will be less crispy.
Quarter the cherry tomatoes, toss them with a small pinch of salt, pepper, a good first press olive oil and some fresh chopped basil. top eggplant with tomatoes. To add a bit of crunch and saltiness, garnish the tomatoes with a few pancetta or uncured organic bacon bits. Add a side of greens and/or some herb grilled chicken.



Yes, I know, green beans are not "paleo" because they are beans...its a freaking green bean, get over it. Plus I grew them, they are organic and delicious.