There is just something about coming home from a long, long bicycle ride and totally stuffing your face with something that:

1. Tastes fantastic
2. Is stuffed with calories
3. Is accompanied by a fresh smoothie
4. Is ready for you to eat

We can do all those, boys & girls. You are just going to have to make the bread the night before, or get your significant other to make it while you are out riding. I make a variation on the standard version, upping the decadence just a little, because let’s face it, after 5 hours in the saddle, no calories are even going to touch sides. Here we go:

Ingredients

• 1 cup light or dark rye flour
• 2/3 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/3 cup soft butter
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup mashed banana (ripe)
• Nutella (liberal)

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees (Celsius). Lightly spray or grease a bread pan.

In a bowl combine the flour, cornstarch, flour, honey, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

Mix together with a wire whisk.

In another bowl combine the soft butter and the brown sugar, slowly add the egg substitute and beat till fluffy.

Add in the vanilla and mashed banana and some chunks (yes, chunks) of Nutella. Mix well. Add in the flour mixture till smooth.

Pour into the prepared bread pan and bake for 50 – 55 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing and cool on a wire rack.

+++

Nice. When you get home, merely slice, spread more nutella, heat for 20seconds in the microwave and eat as much as you want while you are lying with your feet pointed towards the sky.

It’s a pleasure. No really.

You`ll thank me later.

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…have a plate of gnocchi or two, won’t you please?

The perils of power to weight ratio are showing here for the masses.

Would you want to look like this, to be the best in the world? I think his elbows freak me out more than his legs, or face.

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I believe I am going to be talking to my legs many a moment in the next few weeks as I absolutely do my best to obliterate them into being the strongest, leanest most economically endurance sports orientated pins in the world. Well, my world at least. The aim is to build a bit more strength for the purposes of going up the volcano in Maui on the mountain bike, but for me the greatest gain I wish to make is more economy at slightly faster speeds.

In true style, I am even going to tell you how I plan on doing it. Then you will sit back and watch and if it works, follow the rules, but if I crash and burn, laugh and point… right? You with me sunshine?

Swim:

I am going back to squad as of 1 August 2010. 8 weeks with squad should sort me out 1 shot in terms of open water swimming (by open water I mean in the sea with the turtles in Kona) for the Ironman swim. No wetsuits allowed, even if I will have an Orca RS1 Swimskin to help me along.

Last Kona I neglected my swim a little and I missed a key pack early on. 8 weeks of hopefully chasing the White Rabbit in the pool will make me a better man.

Bike:

So apart from having what will be the most tricked out Ceepo Katana in Kona, as well as the most tricked out Morewood Zula for Maui, I actually need to work on the bike, as I will have to do for the next 5-60 years of my life. Work on the bike never stops, contrary to popular belief.

Some of the key components to building a faster bike (Maui):

a. Threshold training (AT)
b. Weight Loss
c. Mental coaching (the pain means its good, right?)
d. Bike skills (learn to bomb down a volcano in the big ring like a Caveman or a Gollywog (when he doesn’t shave for 2 days))
e. More ME work (endurance power)

They key components for the Kona bike are different to the one in PE, by virtue that the course has about triple the climbing in. So here are my focus points:

a. ME work (sustained power) for the rollers, of which there are MANY in Kona.
b. Aero climbing, so staying aero over the rollers by teaching the body to remain aero and get the extra power to be as economical as possible.
c. Pack riding. I will more than likely be in a group of 40 guys in Kona, not on my own like PE, so I have to practise a bit of pace variance as the advantage of the pack is huge.
d. Economy. The run in Kona is freaking brutal. I need to bike as easy as possible, but want to ride under 5 hours again. This means I have to be stronger than in PE, but also that it has to be sustainable for 3 hours after the ride.

Run:

I have enrolled in a testing program at the Sport Science Institute here to learn a little more about my running. I outran best hopes in PE by 5 minutes, and almost outran it by 15minutes if I had just known a little more about my running. I am hoping the lactate testing, VO2max etc will give me a better insight into how I need to be training to achieve what I want to on the run in Kona. I will continue to use all the things which have taken me from 3:52 to 3:15 on the marathon at PE but I wanted to try something new, so according to the smartest people around, we are going to work on my ability to run more economically, not necessarily faster. The speed will come as a byproduct. More than anything, I want to be able to run stronger over the last 10km than I did in PE. Not by much, all I am looking for is a 10% extra at the end of the race. I faltered in PE due to a bloated stomach (too much sugar) and ill preparation (Sani2c and Cape Epic limited running in the last 8 weeks before Ironman) and this time around there are no excuses to NOT have that 10%.

Maui – realistically, I am going to be hanging on for dear life at that point, running a super tough 11km beach/rock/road/mud run 2 weeks after Kona, but I am going to try and remain calm and rip the legs off it.

In the middle, during this big block of training, however, my legs will come and go. Today, for instance, it hurts when I sit still (mean new gym set on Monday being the major culprit). I have hurt them this week already, but now need to manage the recovery process to the weekend where 10 hours of training await the poor pins. There is planned massage and floatation planned, so I should be ok. If I do blow up, you will be first to know, saying “I told you so”.

If I don’t push the limits out, I will never know how good I could possibly be. I am willing to risk the occasional blow out to know how far the rabbit hole goes, if you know what I mean?

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Right, it’s cold out there. Our celeb chef has launched a new project called Aficionado with some other smart peeps and I wanted to do some homely, natural food this week. After getting through endless pages of great food on his old blog I got stuck at this one. No wheat, free range and yum yum yum! Enjoy

I had a good giraffe (laugh) the other night, watching TV. There’s a show on BBC Food which is all about how some people are scared of food. Like, properly terrified of it. The particular episode I watched had a dude who freaked out every time you brought fruit or vegetables anywhere near him. I’m not kidding. He started sweating, shut his eyes and blocked his ears. It was truly bizarre and I laughed unashamedly. As the programme went on I realised it wasn’t supposed to be funny. Not that this made me stop laughing. What was interesting to me was the reason the guy was so scared of the fruit and vegetables. You see..he didn’t know what they were. He was scared of the unknown. Once I had figured this out the show became a lot more interesting to me. I say this because I am constantly trying to explain to people not to be scared of food. You can’t learn unless you try things. Use ingredients you aren’t familiar with. Buy whole foods and unusual cuts of meat. Get inventive. You’ll find out soon enough the recipes you can come up with are limitless.

A good example of a strange looking ingredient is celeriac. I spotted some in Woolies the other day and used it to take a pretty standard dish to a level that made it interesting. Here’s how:

Stuff you’ll need to feed 2:

* 400g stewing beef, cut into chunks (I used free-range)
* 1 tin of tomatoes
* Half an onion, sliced
* A red chilli, roughly chopped
* A handful of mixed wild mushrooms, roughly chopped
* Half a cup of red wine (The Ninja would recommend Kleinhoekkloof 2007 Shiraz. Use whatever you like but I do like the way a shiraz has the spiciness to support this dish)
* Half a cup of water
* 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
* A handful of parsley, roughly chopped
* 1 celeriac bulb, skin removed and cut into cubes
* 1 butternut, skin removed and cut into cubes
* 2 teaspoons of paprika
* A pinch of cayenne pepper
* A handful of parsley, roughly chopped with extra for garnish

Okay, what to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 20o degrees celsius. In a deep pot fry your beef in olive oil until browned. Remove meat and set aside.

2. Add onion and the mushrooms to the pot along with the red wine. Cook for a minute and add the garlic and chilli. Cook for another minute and add the tomatoes and the water.

3. Return meat to pot, bring liquid to the boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook on a medium to low heat with the lid on for as long as you can. (3 hours or more is ideal. If you don’t have time make sure it is at least 1 hour. Anything less and the meat will be tough). About 45 minutes before serving remove lid to allow liquid to reduce and thicken. Add the parsley at this stage.

4. Place the butternut and celeriac in a roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil and add the paprika and cayenne pepper. Season with sea salt and black pepper and shake to make sure vegetables are covered. Cook for 20 minutes, remove and shake. Cook for 25 minutes more, remove and mash.

5. To serve spoon celeriac/butternut mash into deep bowls and pour over some of the stew. Garnish with parsley.

The celeriac is a funny-looking thing but it adds a great depth of flavour when combined with butternut. Together they work as a beautiful alternative to mashed potato and visually the dish is more attractive. How smooth you make the mash is up to you. Personally I like to leave it looking a bit rustic – I think the extra texture is a bonus. Of course, it’s also a lot healthier than mashed potatoes which is another plus.

There you have it. A nice little winter dish with an ingredient that you really have no right to be afraid to use. Give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?

Cheers,
Jamie Who

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Click the image into a new page, you won’t regret it. YUUUM!

So we spoke about real food right, and that I was going to send you a list of where you can buy real food at markets and where to get real meat that hasn’t been force fed with corn & tubes. I asked the honorable Jamie Who? to help me out with this, considering the lengthy discussions we have had about real food. It will generally accompany a RealBeer or a glass of RealWine and possibly a prego at &Union but hey, who are we to judge, right?

Real Food goes beyond buying “Organic”. It’s the approach you take to food. It’s how you buy it, how you cook it and the preparation you take when it comes to being healthy. I compete in a sport more prone to Athlete Anorexia than most. Triathletes are obsessed with their bodies. Gordo wrote a great piece on the Nutrition of Performance here that you should read as well.

Jamie Who and the Ninja wanted to take it above and beyond for you and do some Real Meals as well. Something realistic and easy to make that looks freaking awesome, tastes incredible and doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg either. Also, locally available options for meals is always a concern.

So when approaching food (even at Pick n Pay, Woolies) make sure you do at least some of the following:

1. Make sure you walk slowly getting there. Breathe. Being in a rush is going to make you buy the wrong stuff. I guarantee it.

2. Buy what you can in raw bunches that have to be weighed. No pre-packed already chopped nonsense. Skins are good for you, people!

3. Opt for the organic version where possible. With meat – it’s not even an option. Go with something that you trust from the source.

4. Avoid plastic wrapping and long lists of stuff you can’t pronounce in the ingredients list.

5. Avoid concentrates.

6. Try something different while you are at it. You never know what you may discover out there.

I realise you are expecting a list of places to shop, eat, browse etc. There are various lists up. To start, why don’t you try this one. It’s quite comprehensive.

Give it a go, won’t you. Try it for a while.

Jamie Who and myself are going to do a series of recipes & suggestions on how to cook and what to avoid using when cooking, all those things. In essence, he is my first contributor to the site on a more formal basis and I am quite excited about taking the food thing more seriously going forwards.

Keep it real out there.

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Excuse some of the language in the clip, but the point is right there. You have an audience. They care. Be patient. Great virtues by Gary Vaynerchuck.

Preflection is something I am only getting to grips with in the last few weeks. We are taught to visualize all the time, to imagine how strong and powerful we are going to be on the sports field before it happens, to imagine winning that big contract at work. That’s all great but that’s merely focusing on the goal. How about looking beyond the goal and how we could reflect on achieving that goal.

How would reaching the goal make you feel, not at the moment of achieving it, but a week after achieving it. So often we are lost to the big success but often the success is merely a moment of success that leads to a passage of time where work is doubled, commitments tripled and we are left tired and beaten down. I am coining is preflection because I have no other way to call it out loud.

Looking forward to the moment where you can visualize looking back a little sounds like a load of mumbo jumbo, even to me, but I am trying to see the value in it. I think it could be a powerful way to analyze what is actually important post goal achievement.

Coming back to the video. I clearly have an audience. You are here, reading this. YOU, are my audience.

I care about you immensely. I love writing these articles and sharing other peoples articles because you MATTER to me, beyond having product associations because of how many of you come here to read. In the end, you all come here to read, to learn something. Some, to be entertained. We love you too.

I was brought acutely aware of audience this past weekend with some people’s behavior and how that may affect my personal relationships with others. I am someone who doesn’t take things personally but I realize that in the manic depressive world we live in, protection of your personal brand, especially online, can be vital. I imagined not the various ways to deal with the problem, but the scenarios that the ways to deal with that problem would leave me in. In the end, manic depressive society won and I know in just a few days everyone will have other rubbish to fill their minds with.

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~Eckhart Tolle (via The Mindfulist)

This came about today as well. Had me considering a few things.

The way I used to be years ago, as a person, and the effects that it has years on. Sometimes we don’t get treated for how we treat people today, but for how we used to treat them a long time ago. I recently had the absolute pleasure of meeting someone people had amazingly bad reviews on. Turned out it was all based on a person he/she was in the past.

Concerning the quote, we have to accept that people may treat us based on the decisions we made a long time ago. This is always uncomfortable for me, as I truly believe I have come a long way in just a few short years, even if its not always evident to those who knew me then, and might still treat me as they did then.

“When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.”
~Lao Tzu

Its been a fun few days since Ironman and essentially, my season, have been over. Ice cream for breakfast, pizza at 4am after parties and general bad eating, late nights, etc. This also popped up unexpectedly..

Go out and buy it for me, won’t you. Hide it for 10 years and then we can laugh about it when we are old and wrinkled. Nice job from the “photoshop” experts there. The photo was taken in September last year already, amazing that it came out now, perfect timing. C’est la vie!

Enjoy your afternoons. I am back. Expect more…

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As you know, I am a lover of coffee. A big lover. Almost as big as Rob used to be, before he shed the kilo’s and changed his life on Way of the Warrior.

There are a couple of things Port Elizabeth does well.

1. Host Ironman – sterling job done by Triangle Sports.
2. French Crepes – post race Nutella/Banana/Coconut/Peanut Butter crepes in the Boardwalk are legendary.

One of the things it does very poorly, in my opinion, is coffee.

I was so concerned about this, I actually went out and did something about it. Whilst being hosted so nicely by James I thought it would only be orderly if I was able to make the best coffee for morning consumption. This means unburnt, Ethiopias best, with steamed milk, not Mugg-and-Bean froth so big it looks like a Lady Gaga hairdo.

So I went out and got a Bialetti gift set. Looks like so…

Frother. Check. Coffee pot. Check. Next was the beans. Oh the beans. The flavors, the aroma, the taste of a fresh espresso on the back of the throat as it warms your soul. I wanted the best beans.

We are spoilt in Cape Town with coffee. Deluxe, Truth, Espresso Works are all here. I love all their coffee, but I wanted to try something different. I called on the head coffee snob, herd bull and otherwise known as my Dad. He has a habit of sniffing out these tiny little artisans who make fantastic product.

Dad: “Oojah.”

Son: “Kom weer?”

Dad: “Oojah.”

The conversation was going nowhere. I asked for a contact, and it came. I had a bit of a conversation with Louis from Oojah about why I should be buying coffee from him. Turns out they fresh roast it as you need it after having a mule cart it down through Africa to remain carbon neutral.

True story.

Not.

Oojah get only the best beans from only the best suppliers in the world. Louis was passionate and knew more about coffee beans than I know about, well… I should really pick up new skills after Ironman. Can’t seem to think of any right now.

So I ordered some beans to try, to combine with my Bialetti obsession. I was so excited that I made the first cup straight away, ignoring the fact that it was far too late in the day for more caffeine.

My Harrar was smooth and laced with a trace of chocolate. Ethiopian Harrar coffee beans are grown on small farms in the eastern part of the country. They are dry-processed and are labeled as longberry (large), shortberry (smaller), or Mocha (peaberry). Ethiopian Harrar coffee can have a strong dry edge, winy to fruit like acidity, rich aroma, and a heavy body. In the best Harrar coffees, one can observe an intense aroma of blueberries or blackberries. Ethiopian Harrar coffee is often used in espresso blends to capture the fine aromatics in the crema.

After the espresso I made one into a Flat White and that was magic. I didn’t have any of the tell-tale signs of caffeine overdose later and that dry, burnt taste (that is now commonplace in my ex favorite chain of coffee stores) was just not there. Fantastic.

I have no affiliation to Oojah, at all. I just think their product rocks, and its going to make my trip to PE this week that much easier. If you wanted to speak to them, they have a website, at Oojah.co.za and just click the contact page for some details.

So take that Port Elizabeth. Your lack of great coffee has been abolished. I urge all Ironman athletes to make sure they take their own coffee with them. Life is too short for bad coffee.

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We all know I am a little obsessive about health and fitness. I get asked more about weight, diet and optimal performance than I do about my happiness and what makes me smile, and I came across some amazing information today. I wanted to share, as I always do.

Human health and physical fitness are important, crucial things to consider, and millions find them fascinating subjects to discuss, analyze, and optimize. I’m one of them. Millions more overanalyze; they make things harder than they need to be, and they generally get poorer results in the long run. Or, they may get objectively good results, but their lives are consumed by the minutiae of calories, miles, reps, and nutrient counting. I’d say there’s got to be an easier way to do things. There has to be a path that utilizes our big brains without them getting in the way. There’s got to be a balanced, rational method to obtain optimal health and fitness that successfully marries our tendency to think with our animal instincts. Getting fit and being healthy should be simplistic, intuitive, and, most importantly, enjoyable.

Does wildlife obsess over calories eaten or reps performed? How do deer maintain their trim figures and impressive athleticism without a dietitian and weekly personal training sessions? Conversely, why does the house cat grow obese and lethargic, while a bobcat with nearly identical genes stays fit? It isn’t just the simplistic calories in/calories out model. It couldn’t be. Wild animals don’t count calories. They don’t worry about eating before bed, or getting enough exercise to burn off that squirrel they had for breakfast. They just are. They simply exist in an ecosystem hundreds of thousands of years in the making. Evolution has made sure, by its impartial, unconscious hand, that the flora and fauna live in harmony with each other and internally. The bobcat thrives on rodents and small birds because its digestive system and metabolism evolved eating these things; the house cat gets fat because its digestive system and metabolism aren’t suited for grain-based kibble. If the balance is upset in a given environment, organisms die out or move on, but things always reset. This is simply how nature works. When thinking about how to optimize our health and physical fitness, perhaps we should consider how animals do it – and how our ancestors did it.

We’re animals – no one disputes that. We are subject to evolution and natural selection – that one’s a bit more controversial, but it’s true nonetheless. If you keep those two facts in mind while noting the lesson of the fit, lean bobcat, a thread begins to emerge. Shouldn’t the same concept hold true for us? Isn’t there an evolutionarily suitable, effortless lifestyle for us humans, too?

There is, and I call it the Primal Blueprint. It eschews complicated workout regimens, tedious calorie counting, and weight loss gimmicks. My Primal laws are based on a rock solid foundation: evolutionary biology and anthropology mixed with modern human ingenuity. I take what worked for tens of thousands of years throughout human prehistory and incorporate contemporary science to confirm its veracity. When you go back and look at the fossil records of our hunter-gatherer, pre-agricultural ancestors, you find that they were healthy, strong, and largely free of degenerative diseases – especially compared to the health of post-agricultural and even modern humans.

The result is an incredibly simple, incredibly effective way to live, move, and eat: eat the things our ancestors ate, get the amount of sleep our ancestors used to get, and make the same movements our ancestors used to make before agriculture.

Take Action

If you take anything from this post remember these two action items:

1. The ideal human diet should consist of only whole, unprocessed foods – meat, fish, fowl, plants, fruits, and nuts. Whatever you can kill, pick, or dig up and eat on the spot. This is what your ancestors ate and what your body is meant to consume.

2. By the same token, the best exercise consists of natural, full-body movements – lifting heavy things, sprinting, walking, swimming, hiking, climbing, crawling. This is how your ancestors moved and how your body is meant to function.

Amazing Results

The results of following these simple rules are numerous and almost immediate:

• The weight melts off, if you have some to lose, or added muscle appears, if you could stand to gain a few pounds.
• You reset your taste buds. Sugar becomes cloying; processed industrial vegetable oil tastes unnatural.
• You realize you don’t need grains, beans, and potatoes to feel full.
• You crave real food, and you realize that real food tastes good – better than anything you could find on a convenience store shelf and more satisfying than anything in a fast food restaurant. Hunger no longer dictates that you eat every few hours.
• You get stronger and faster, sure, but you learn to move again. You regain lost mobility.
• You get sick less often as your immune system begins to function more effectively.
• You take pleasure in real movement and become more confident in your own skin.
• Eating and moving becomes intuitive, easy and fun.
• The world becomes your gym. Can’t make it to the weight room? Pick up a rock, toss it a couple times, pull your own body weight, then go running in the park. As long as you can manipulate your own body weight, you’re strong enough.

Man is an opportunist above anything else. We love the easy way out, but we tend to make fitness and nutrition so incredibly complicated. Just cut out the foods we’ve only been eating for a few hundred generations (and do eat the things we’ve been eating for thousands of generations), drop the ridiculous fitness contraptions to focus on natural movements, and streamline your health. And don’t be afraid to turn off that big brain every once in awhile.

I am currently in over my head with endurance sports, but something I wanted to try for this winter is to do some really PRIMAL things. I want to forgo cooked meat for a while, not cook my veggies, put a lock on my microwave, go rock climbing and climb in trees. I have been going forward on a bicycle or running down the road for so long lately that I may have forgotten how to go sideways, how to climb and most importantly, how to rebuild normal strength after getting all leaned out for what I have embarked on. I am not saying I am going to go all in like this, but I am going to try and get close.

So many people do not know how to get healthy and fit. The gym will never give you what the outdoors can, and Woolies pre-made meals will never help you gain optimal movement or weight. Its just that simple.

Go on… be great. Be primal. Be what you are supposed to be, you animal!

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Glaceau Vitamin Water

Glaceau Vitamin Water is about to be launched into South Africa.

Here is a cool story about the fires in Cape Town with Glaceau stepping up to provide great nourishment to the fire fighters. I believe a certain chocolate brand did the same thing. Very naughty and very very smart.

Are you coming to the launch party?

Didn’t crack the nod?

shame

What do you mean you are unaware of the awesomeness of this product?

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Have a laugh… its fersday after all.

Zoe the lab...

Jack - the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. Gangsta.

Baxter - the English Bulldog. Full retard.

Now go on with the rest of your day. I`ll find something “meaningful” to add later…

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