Southern Fried Things

See that fried pork chop?  It's healthy for you.

Yep, healthy.

I used rice flour instead of regular flour and pan fried it in coconut oil.  You could use almond meal.  Make sure it's a good meal, not that Bob's Red Mill saw dust junk.

Take a pan, get it hot, add coconut oil.  Two large spoonfuls should work.

Put flour on a flat plate, crack some eggs in a bowl and beat them, then dreadge desired food item for frying through egg then flour.

Add to hot pan with hot coconut oil, cook to desired cookedness.

I highly suggest adding seasoning to the flour.  Salt, pepper, spices, meat dust, etc.

As Chris Shugart has shown in his thread here you can use this on all sorts of things.

The rest of the dish was a gluten free mac - n - cheese dish from Kroger.  Then roasted tomatoes, asparagus and brussels sprouts.

Resolutions are for losers.

You know who makes resolutions?  Losers.

That's right.  Losers.  Did you make a resolution?  Loser!

This seems harsh but in reality many of you are going to fail your resolution, and badly, like a loser.  New things are always shiny and awesome.  Then not so much.

Look it's hard to complete a change.  I know it, everyone and everything is going to be against it.

You know how to win?  Stop trying to change.  Do it.  Grit your teeth, push through and do not take no for an answer.  Nothing is going to change unless you make it happen.

So what are you waiting for?  Ohh that's right, January 1st, that's what.  So suddenly on this day you're going to change?  Give me a break.

You're not going to change, you're still going to be what ever the hell it is you are now.

Lets face it, 90% of these resolutions are probably about diet and exercise.  

Are you really going to sit here and tell me you need January 1 to make your goals a reality?  What is holding you back?

You are holding yourself back.  Not me, not the world, not even the holiday smorgasbord of food.  You.  You ate that fudge, you ate that cake, you had to have 9 holiday parties filled with shit foods.  Yeah, shit foods, because they made you look and feel like shit.

Why do I say you're going to fail? It's because you've got no willpower, you don't have the mental fortitude to deal with it.  Sure you're going to start off great, then it's going to start getting hard.  Someone will have a birthday and you'll want cake.  Then you're too busy, so you hit up the Golden Arches.  Before you know it your diet is blown to pieces, your weight has climbed back up and you've got a new gym membership you'll probably keeping paying on for the next few months.

Everyone will turn against you and your goals, you're at the gym too much, gosh why are you eating so healthy, you look fine, come-on live a little.  Without giving a giant middle finger to every inconsiderate self centered whale and guilt projecting tard burgler  you will never make it through this.

Controversy.  That's when you know you're doing something right.  If people are trying to sabotage your goals, don't worry, call them out and then keep going.  Fuel your fire.  I dare you.

Seriously, prove me and everyone else wrong, because as far as I'm concerned, you're a loser and are incapable of doing it.


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Note: this is meant to either make you or break you.  If you personally feel attacked, good, that means I did my job and hopefully you're going to excel.  If this did nothing for you, then you've already failed.

Do not be afraid to ask for help from someone if you need help reaching your goal.  You'll only appear weak if you don't ask and fail as a result.

I Sure Don't.

No one cares.

It's a cold hard truth.  In reality no one cares about you.  Not your employer, not your "friends", and chances are most of your family doesn't care.

A lot of people wont agree with me, but I'll tell you what, no one is going to look out for you but yourself.  You might be one of the fortunate people out there who really truly has some people that care about you, however at the end of the day if it comes down to you or them, they will pick themselves.

That's Okay.

Then are two classifications in the world for people.  Them and You.  At the end of the day that's how it always breaks down.

The "its me versus the world" mentality can actually take you pretty far into life or it can cripple you until you've forced out everyone and then it really is just Them versus You.

On the positive side if you acknowledge that no one cares about you and your own but yourself, you can become self sufficient.  No one is going to make sure you have a job or your kids get fed but yourself, so you will do all that you can to make sure it happens.

For a turn to the negative, taking this standpoint of life can exclude you from other people's lives.  No one wants to be around a Debby Downer.

 There needs to be a balance, you can't expect anyone else to look out for you and yours, but you should also still allow yourself to be taken care of by others.  This may leave you vulnerable to let downs, but you can't stay shielded for forever.

This is one of the benefits of having a life outside of life.  My life outside of life is training at the gym.  Yours could be cooking, hunting, fishing, playing sports, reading books, or any other activity. Getting away from it all could be the best thing to keep everyone from getting away from you.

This is an interesting concept for many, myself included.  Let more people in and maybe you'll have someone willing to pick you up in the case of a broken down car.

Or don't listen to me and keep being an asshole, because you know what, sometimes it's nice.

Play your violin some other day

The alarm clock sounds and Frank is  rolling out of bed.  He goes and cooks breakfast for the family trying not to be too loud so they can sleep in a bit longer.  Pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and oatmeal for the little one.  A few presents still need to be placed from Santa under the Christmas tree so he brings those in.

It's Christmas morning and time to wake the kids and wife.

Breakfast is done, dishes are clean, wrapping paper has been cleaned off the floor, and the kids are playing with their new toys.  Frank is packing his gym as a family friend stops over to say Merry Christmas and drop off some cookies.  The friends husband asks "Off to the Gym on Christmas?  Can't you take a day off or something?".  Frank just smiles and says "I could" .

Franks Gym is open every day of the week 24 hours a day except for Christmas, the owner feels it's nice to close the gym at least once a year.  So Frank is headed to a buddies garage, they don't have all the fancy equipment they need, but they've got a mastadon bar, a monolift and a couple hundred pounds of chains.  It'll do for some squats.  Frank just hopes the space heater is working today.

Many people who train are just like Frank.  You can substitute the holiday for any other holiday or event throughout the year.  The friends husband can be anyone as well, a friend, a family member, or a co-worker.

For those who train it's not simply an option to just skip days whenever we feel like it.  We're not some pencil necked, popped collar polo shirt wearing, two pounds of gel in our hair, over tanned douche bag, cheat curling the 50 pound dumb bells, Guido.

You wouldn't ask a violinist if they could just "take a day off from practicing" would you?  Those of us that train do it for a reason.  Whether it's the power lifter who has a meet coming up, the body builder needing to add more thickness to his lower lat tie in, the oly lifter who needs to strengthen his catch position of the snatch or just the better than average joe who is trying to beat his personal demons and make himself even better.

Yes days off are going to happen, yes sometimes we over obsess about making a training session, but you know what?  We don't stress about catching that episode of America Idol either.

This is a way of life for many people, we look to get in a session whenever  we can, early morning, late night, mid afternoon, what ever will work.  Now if you don't mind I have a family Christmas gathering this afternoon and I need to go get to the gym so I can keep my week some what on track with my training.

Yoda wears Nikes.

"Do or Do Not.  There is no Try."  Master Yoda.

The above statement is more about a mind set.  You don't "Try" to do something.  You do it.

Look at any successful person.  No matter their area of success.  You will see people who sought out to do something.  Either they did, or they did not.

"Try" is something people with the luxury to do so, do.  If you've got a paper due by 10am on Friday, you don't "try" to turn it in.  Your name's been called, you've got 2 white lights and 900lbs on the platform, you don't "try" to pull it.

Trying leads to failure, failure from trying leads to never doing.  Children have no cohesive thoughts of trying to do something.  I do not believe they even get frustrated when attempting to walk.  We as parents, grand parents and other relatives may think they are frustrated with something they are attempting but very small children can't be frustrated.  They don't know what the end goal is.

When a child falls on their butt they usually get startled then go back to working on "doing" what ever it was previous to their fall.  How many times have you seen a child fall and be fine only to cry once you say something?  It's a learned behaviour.

When a baby is trying to walk they keep getting back up over and over and over again.  Not out of willpower but because they HAVE to walk.

We could do well to steal from this mindset.

I'm not selling the secret or pretending to have it, I can say that this mindset is very important to me.  When we try to do things we fail in a cycle that just breaks us down.  If you want to do something, do it.

When you decide to do something, do yourself a big favor, pour yourself into it and do it.

Not quite perfected, Perfect Granola

2 cups minute oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
boat load of penzy's cinnamon
nutmeg
melted 80% cacao ( about a serving )
finely diced candied ginger
1 TBSP coconut oil
pinch of salt
pecan pieces
1/4 cup of splenda

Pre-heat oven to 350

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Then mix in 1/4 cup of water a little splash at a time.  The oatmeal mixture should be clumping together You might need more than 1/4 cup of water.  I just kind of winged it, maybe closer to half a cup.

Once the mixture is mixed well and clumpish, stir in melted cacao and melted coconut oil.

Spread across coconut oil greased glass baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.  Check firmness by breaking granola into pieces.  If the granola is still damp or moist, return to over in 15 minute intervals checking on it.  It should take about 1 hour total.

Variations: Add pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, other seeds/nuts as you see fit.

Serve over greek yogurt like the attached photo or perhaps in a bowl of almond milk

Notes:

A lot of granola recipes call for lots of sugar ingredients such as sugar, molasses, honey, agave and olive oil.  I wanted to make a better granola.  This recipe is the first step.  I will experiment with it a bit more.

I've also seen where you could use a nut butter as a binding agent.  I may play around with that in the future when I work on granola bars.