Optimum Anabolics - Day 75/Squashed

Shopping at and making meals from the fresh fare at the local farmer's markets also leads to, for the most part, seasonal buying. I definitely had my fill of lettuces in the spring, cucumbers and zucchini in the summer, and tomatoes and peppers during the late summer/early fall. Now that we are deep into fall, the hard squash and winter veggies are all the rage. Over the past couple of weeks, we've munched on or purchased:

• yellow
• spaghetti
• acorn
• butternut
• buttercup (kabocha)
  
• pumpkin
• sweet potato

Here's what we did with each so far:

Yellow - sliced up, sauteed with butter/oil and lemon pepper seasoning. Easy side dish!

Spaghetti - cut in half, roasted in 400* oven for 45 minutes. Nutritious pasta!

Acorn - still sitting on our counter awaiting consumption.

Butternut - see "Acorn". Christina bought a fry cutter the other day, tho, so this one could be gone soon! (~:

Kabocha (buttercup) - this was new to both of us. We sliced it thin (1/4" to 1/2") and roasted the pieces on parchment paper in a 400* oven for about 40 minutes (20 mins per side). Before roasting, we coated the pieces in brown sugar, chili powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, salt, and Bragg's Liquid Aminos. Sweet, spicy, and salty. This was a side dish and dessert all in one!

Pumpkin - cut in half, roasted in 400* oven for 45 minutes. Mixed up with cinnamon and nutmeg in the food processor and used as a topping on oatmeal. So good!

Sweet Potato - we'll be making pie to take to my parent's house later in the week!

As you can see, these fall and winter foods are very versatile. Head out and buy what you can (or pick your own!). The markets won't be around too much longer but squash come in their own container (their shell (: ) and can be stored for most of the winter.



WORKOUT - CHEST/ABS

2 supersets of the Week 11, Day 5 workout were chest related, followed by a superset of abs work

Superset 1: DB Flyes (on stability ball), Dips - Chest version
Superset 2: DB Pullover, Bench Press (Flat)
Superset 3: Reverse Ball Crunches, Mountain Climbers (plus 12-1/2 LBS per ankle)

Total Time => 40:29

Comments:

I made it through all the sets of dips without needing any assistance. Sweet. Creatine perhaps?

I went with 5 LB ankle weights with 7-1/2 LBS attached while doing mountain climbers.

It was good to have longer rest periods again this week.

I enjoyed changing up the exercises, also.


DIET - HIGH PROTEIN (PLUS 1)


Post workout breakfast was a homemade grass fed beef Italian sausage patty with 1 oz. of grass fed, organic mozzarella cheese and Easy Overnight Oatmeal, of course. Inspired by Polly, I mixed in some roasted pie pumpkin and maple syrup.

Mid-morning, I had a 1/2 cup of yogurt (back to the regular kind) mixed up with 4 tsp of ground flax seed and 1/3 scoop of whey protein isolate.

For lunch I once again heated up a hunk of tahini covered meatloaf and had a big ol' salad with spinach, arugula, carrots, celery, tomato, red pepper, and scallions.

Mid-afternoon I had a snack of 1/2C of cottage cheese and raw cashews, almonds, brazil nuts, and walnuts.

We repeated the pan-browned tilapia (we used mahi-mahi) recipe from our favorite cookbook, The Ultra Metabolism Cookbook for dinner tonight. As a side dish, we roasted up the buttercup (kabocha) squash (see above).
















Late snack: 20g of whey protein isolate powder in 1C of milk