Tacos and Self-Control

The last month has been … eye opening. I can’t even explain the difference in the amount of energy I have every day and how amazing I feel. I blame tacos. Well, I know it’s deeper than that, but tacos can solve a lot of problems. We’ll come back to this in a moment.

DeAnna left to teach in Germany about a month ago. Just before she left, we had both noticed that my energy was down and I was getting annoyed at little things that would happen and being a little too quick to overreact. That’s really weird for me. She mentioned that I needed to get back to my meditation practice, something I know brings great benefit to my overall ability to be present and accept things as they come without snap reactions. Work was getting stressful and I was pressuring myself to keep cooking as much as possible. I was so tired at the end of the day there was no space for making music or reading without falling asleep. I admit that I haven’t always had the best coping mechanisms, so my alcohol intake was also on the rise, something I had done an OK job of getting back down after the shut-in binge that we called COVID. On the plus side, my workouts were going great, although I couldn’t go more than about 3-4 days before I needed a rest day to recover. 

Something needed to change and this month of being by myself was the perfect opportunity to go for it. A retreat of sorts. For the last month, I’ve been meditating regularly, have all but quit drinking alcohol (other than a couple of drinks while hanging out with some great friends on a video call), and cleaned up my diet considerably. It kind of started when I decided to make tacos the first week after D left. I started with carnitas and a few sauces. 

I used an heirloom masa from Masienda. Honestly, I liked corn tortillas before this, but this was next level. I have a full on love for them now. Since I had made 10 that first weekend, I used a few for breakfast and made huevos rancheros. Pro tip, their masa is expensive direct and even on Amazon, but you can buy it in-store at Whole Foods for about $3 less per bag.

OK, here’s where things get interesting. I thought this was pretty clean and I was feeling pretty good, but it didn’t take long for the fattiness of the carnitas to become too much. I’ve struggled with eating fatty foods since having my gall bladder out a few years ago and my ability to cope with the pork was overriding my ability to appreciate the amazing flavor they had. I just couldn’t stomach it — literally — by a few days in. I wasn’t done with tacos and D had also bought me the white corn masa from Masienda, so I decided to keep going the next week but focus on leaner meats. I made lamb barbacoa and grilled 5 pounds of pollo asado. I marinated the chicken for two days in a homemade sauce. Sadly I don’t have pictures of the pollo asado, but here’s the lamb. The chicken I ended up eating mostly with fresh veggies, rice, or on some huge salads.

The difference in how I felt that week was unmistakable. I was able to do my full 5-day routine at the gym with no breaks and my energy was up. What was happening? I suspected it was the focus on completely fresh food  and lean meats. Just as D was leaving, I had also decided no alcohol during the week, if at all. So everything was coming together as my diet cleaned up. The second week had me feeling great. I wanted to test my hypothesis and see if really changing the foods I ate would make as big of a difference as it felt like was happening.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been grilling chicken and other lean meats and eating a ton of vegetables and salads. I’ve also been closely tracking my calories to shoot for getting somewhere between 170 and 200 grams of protein in around 2000 calories a day, shy of my maintenance by about 500 calories.. In the last two weeks, not only have I been able to maintain my M-F lifting schedule, I’ve added a long walk/run session on Saturday mornings. Yesterday I did 6 miles on the treadmill while watching the USA women’s soccer team bring home the gold. This morning I woke up, had coffee, and did a million little things around the house, including meal prepping a pot of beans, green beans, 3 pounds of chicken breasts, and 2 pounds of pork chops. I seriously debated going for another long walk, but decided I need to ease into it before I burn myself out. 

Thankfully, the last couple of years of lifting have helped me lean out quite a bit, but I’m still not quite there enough for me to feel comfortable starting a small bulk to try to put on much more muscle. My newbie gains are done, so now I have to be very intentional. Regardless, I did the InBody scan a little over a week ago and I was down to 15.8% body fat. That’s incredible, for me. My goal is somewhere around 12%, then I’ll try to slow gain as to avoid adding too much body fat back on. As I’ve kept exercising and bringing that down, and as I’ve changed my eating habits to focus on lean proteins and vegetables and no eating out, my energy levels have skyrocketed. My gym performance has been incredible. My ability to think clearly and focus is improving rapidly.

I’ve never really understood people who think of food only as fuel. While I still don’t quite get it, I have a far better understanding of it now. The last few weeks have truly opened my eyes to how good I can feel and how much my nutrition plays a role in that. I don’t think I realized the difference because I didn’t have anything to compare it to. 

In a way, all of this actually served to bring me back out of a funk I was finding myself in with cooking. So, I’m not going to stress myself about getting a newsletter out each week and I’m not going to worry about what country I may be cooking from. I will try to write from the heart and show you some fun, global dishes that you can make at home. My focus is shifting to making sure those foods are as equally good for my body and mind as they are for soul. I’ve mentioned this before, but I hope to see how I can take some of the insanely delicious unhealthy dishes and make healthy versions of them (I will figure out healthy Dan Dan noodles). I know myself enough to say that healthy can’t be boring if it is something I intend to maintain long term, so hopefully hopefully those of you who were here for the world tour may still have an interest in sticking around. 

Huge shoutout to my sister who sent me a copy of The Science of Spice, last week. I’ve been flipping through it this past week and can’t wait to dive in in earnest. This is going to help tremendously as I look to use spices and herbs to take my cooking to a different place.

I will leave this week with an admission that I do look forward to when I can up my calories again. I have a beautiful book on Eastern European baking and can’t wait to try something from it. Hey, everyone needs a cheat day occasionally! Maybe I should stop following all those pastry shops on Instagram!