Pancakes on Sunday.............

So tired of whipping up the pancakes every weekend for the kids (complete with butter, syrup and sausage on the side), to simply be a spectator. My eggs, Greek yogurt and high fiber cereal just was not cutting it this Sunday morning after a 10 mile tempo run.

While I have not jumped fully on board the Paleo way of eating, I have certainly researched it a bit, embraced some components; weaving in and out of the principles behind it. While overall it makes sense, I do believe that a target body composition and a healthy, fit lifestyle can be achieved easily with other eating choices that modify the core approach and are guided by good nutrition. For someone who LOVES food and the experience of dining as much as I do, just not ready to go Paleo completely.

A friend recently told me about some great Paleo pancakes he was treated to. Of course, a little google action yielded a bunch of recipes with all sorts of promise. However, I kept it simple and experimented on the version my friend shared. Nothing more that a banana, almond butter and and egg. Of course, I had to tinker a bit and add some vanilla extract and a little Cinnamon, but kept the core recipe in tact. Other recipes I noticed included almond flour, ground almonds and/or coconut milk....adding way too much on the calorie side for me to rationale wanting to try. For the recipe, just mix all of the ingredients together:

1 Egg
1 Banana
1 Heaping Tsp. of Almond Butter
Dash of vanilla
1/4 tsp of Cinnamon

My version was easy enough to make. They are ultra delicate though, so you need to be careful when flipping. It will feel like you are creating a globby mess, but they will flip eventually and hold their pancake shape. The result is light, airy and pretty tasty. The basic recipe makes about 6 cakes.

Kids put their noses up to my plate as they slathered their traditional cakes with the "works". Never mind them because on this Sunday morning, I had pancakes too. The protein shake will prevail tomorrow.

As far as Paleo, I will experiment here and there, but no real desire to live like the cavemen.

Born to Run...or Pull...or...

I am definitely digressing a bit this week. My friend Ed turned me on to the book "Born to Run" and I literally ran through it is just a couple of hours. The book written by Christopher McDougall was a terrific read. Unlike my friend Ed, I didn't find myself wanting to leap out of my chair and go for a run, but it did fire me up to continue my search for whatever it is I am seeking......

In the book, the author sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets. Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. The story culminates in the author's participation in the race of a lifetime: a fifty mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country putting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultra-marathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot Ted.....a barefoot running wonder.

The book was so much more than the "how to run correctly" manual that I thought I was picking up. It is an incredibly entertaining story which weaves in and out of the central theme with drama, colorful characters, suspense, mystery, science and sport. The athletic achievements featured throughout are the bonus round in this epic adventure. The "ease" with which they chronicle runs of 20, 30, 50 miles and more, is enough to make anyone feel like a lazy slacker if not passionately engaged in chasing some goal or dream.

So, while the critics, other reviewers and my friend Ed are sure to find certain key points in this read.........it is this feeling of "laziness" that I felt that compelled me to read on more than anything else. As a goal driven soul, a tale with such an incredible pursuit at hand played right into my game.

Of additional personal interest was the fact that the author is not a kid, nor were several of the athletes featured in the book. In fact, there was some science introduced at one point that actually made us 40+ fitness enthusiasts feel good about our ability to perform athletically for years and years with minimal loss of effectiveness.

A truly inspiring read featuring impressive accounts of individual fitness achievements. At the same time an inspiring story about a guy who set out on a pursuit and wouldn't give up until he found the answers.

For us, our pursuit continues: McDougall's book was the kick in the pants I needed to push on. Incidentally, I have been logging more miles the last two weeks too!!

Beliefs vs. Limiting Beliefs.....................

Sitting in a 2 day leadership meeting at the "day job" this week eventually turned to this topic; the idea of building a culture of belief and confidence vs.the oposite, where a belief of not succeeding is widely accepted and therefore, realized.

The example used to clarify the point was Roger Bannister and the under 4 minute mile he logged many years ago setting a world record. Until him, it was widely believed that no man could run a mile under 4 minutes; it was said that it "can't be done". And yet, after he shattered this milestone for the first time, many have hit this high level of performance since. Great success spawns great success and vice versa. Once it was proven that it could be done, it set a new benchmark for others to "believe" and acheive.

Belief: Beliefs are about how we think things really are, what we think is really true and what therefore we expect as likely consequences that will follow from our behavior.


Limiting Belief: Behavior is not what you want, but you think you cannot change it. Each of us carries core limiting beliefs inside of that make us believe we are not good enough. LImiting beliefs can be self imposed or imposed upon you by others.

So how does this all track back to Steelfit and our self proclaimed "Pursuit"?

I can think back to many days in the gym where I uttered the word "can't".......... "can't do a muscle up or can't do kipping pull ups", etc. These self imposed limiting beliefs created mental road blocks that required a lot of energy and influence from others to eventually overcome. In another situation that comes to mind, two friends of mine hade been hooked on Crossfit for well over a year, but when it came time for pull ups, the band free variety was elusive. In both cases, they simply said, "they can't do it". Well, with some coaching one of them broke the barrier, followed quickly by the other........funny how that works.

There are shelves and shelves of books written on the topic of Limiting Beliefs vs. Empowering Beliefs. Lessons to be learned for sure. A couple of take aways for me personally 1) Be concious of limiting beliefs that may have been imposed upon you by others.....we all have the power to make our own beds; don't let others tell you what you can't do 2) Surrounding yourself with like minded folks has and always will have benefits and will support achieving higher levels of performance.

For Steelfit, our pursuit of the perfect pull up is a belief and a passion....nothing limiting and nobody to hold us back.