What I Ate Wednesday: Pumpkin Edition
Good morning!!!!!!!!
Holy shit, are things slowing down all around me. Summer is decidedly gone, and I’m sad about it, not gonna lie- but the fall produce is POPPING up here in Portland, and it’s absolutely soothing the burn of no more warmth. Today I want to give you a sneak peak into all the good stuff I’ve been eating! 
This bowl of oats was positively fantastic. In addition to oatmeal, it included home made walnut milk, cinnamon seared apples, a hint of maple extract, pureed pumpkin, and peanut butter.
Let me tell you a little something about Pumpkin: right now, I absolutely have more than I even know what to do with. Let me explain:
By some amazing stroke of luck, one of the first new people I met in Portland happens to be a farmer. Not just any farmer, but one with an overabundance of produce and an under-abundance of time to cook up said produce. As soon as I figured out that this was this guy’s deal, I knew I had a trade in mind. He gives me veggies, I make him some servings of food from said veggies. I asked him what he might think of such a trade and when he responded by saying “This is perfect!” I nearly flipped my shit. Was I really about to be getting a fuckton of free vegetables just for portioning aside some of what I already made? Yes. Yes I was.
So this week, in addition to all the greens and onions and beets and carrots and the last of the summer corn, I got pumpkins. Not one pumpkin, or two pumpkins, or even three. I got five pumpkins.
I figured I better get to cooking.
These pumpkin pie chocolate thumbprint cookies were kind of a perfect pre-workout treat. I had formulated the recipe for KeVita (the post should go up sometime in November!) and I was struck by how tasty and wholesome they were, and how well they held together for something that was both vegan and gluten-free (Pumpkin makes an excellent binder, y’all). I ate one before my workout (with my new maybe-workout buddy! I am still seeking more of these if you like to olympic lift, powerlift, and get all around sweaty and stoked)
Post cookie, here was my workout:
5 sets of 2: snatch grip deadlifts + power snatch
5 sets of 1 complex: 2 military presses + 3 push presses
4 sets of 2: front squats with a three second pause at the bottom
2 supersets
10 seated box jumps
10 dumbell split squats (10 on each leg)
then the cardio!
400 meter row
4 sets of 5 front squats and 10 pull-ups
400 meter row
The whole thing took us about an hour and a half and when I was done I was truly READY for this recovery smoothie.
This mix included more walnut milk, Vega Sport vanilla protein powder, 1/2 a banana, ice, and- you guessed it- pumpkin.
After I threw the smoothie down my hatch it was time to do a little work. My main point of focus these days is putting the finishing touches on formulating my Reset and Restore program, which is a three week group class with a focus on vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free eating, mindfulness and meditation, movement, and feeling fucking awesome. In between recording some of the meditations I am sending people, formulating meal plans, making shopping lists, and researching mindfulness, I ate this soup (a french onion one, the recipe of which was actually formulated for Reset and Restore!) along with a slice of the best vegan gluten-free bread ever topped with a slice of melted Daiya swiss (vegan) cheese. It was p-re-tttt-y damn satisfying. (there are a couple of spots left in the Reset and Restore, too! Just sign up before Halloween)
For dinner, I made some seared purple cabbage, smoky tempeh crumbles, and a side of mashed pumpkin. I am kind of embarrassed by the constant occurance of pumpkin at this point, but fuck it- let me tell you what I capped my day off with.
A creamy, cinnamony pumpkin pudding. Another Reset and Restore recipe, and this one is a serious keeper.
By shaping my meals around the produce I am getting, I feel like I am both extremely well fed, and saving a TON of cash. That’s a recipe for one happy lady!
What have you been eating lately?
On nutrient timing
Good Morning!
I am writing from the warmth of my porch to show you a typical day of Lacy Davis eats and talk to you about nutrient timing.
As a person who is excessively interested in all things health and wellness related, I am constantly presented with different (and opposing!) theories of how to eat for best health and “best” body composition. (I don’t think there is a best body composition, but I am going to use the phrase for ease of communication.) Nutrient timing is a theory that has been around for quite some time- so long, in fact that people are actually starting to produce studies against it, which is when you know a theory really has clout.
SO, here is the nitty-gritty: nutrient timing is a nutritional strategy that involves eating certain macronutrients at certain times for maximized muscle growth and fuel usage. Certain combinations of nutrients–primarily protein and carbohydrate–are to be consumed primarily around workouts and limited elsewhere.
There’s flaws in this theory (vegetables are carbohydrates, and those clearly should be consumed whenever), but many people that I know have used this strategy and liked the results. When there is a lot of back and forth around a subject, and it doesn’t seem particularly damaging, I think it makes most sense to try it out for myself, which is what I have been doing for the past 6 or 7 months.
For me, nutrient timing is essentially this:
Complex carbs for breakfast, fast digesting carbs and protein post workout, veggies with protein and a little carbs for lunch, protein and veggies for snack, protein and veggies for dinner, fat and protein for snack. Basically, my day is like a wave: carbs, then protein, then fat. (which is not to say that any of my meals lack ANY of these macronutrients. The wave simply illustrates what macronutrient is FAVORED at what time.)
The nutrient timing story says that post exercise is the most critical part of the theory, and that proper nutrients around exercise both rebuild damaged muscle tissue and restore energy reserves. As you can see, carbs are favored around my workouts, which might be surprising to some. For many years, I had a post workout protein shake with Vega Sport Protein Powder and unsweetened almond milk. Now I know that the lack of carbs may mean that I wasn’t giving my body ALL of what it needed after a workout. Adding a banana to that mix makes the shake much more optimal.
Now that you know the logistics, I will show you my food.
Breakfast: unsweetened almond milk, blueberries, oats, cha seeds and puffed kamut. After this I took a 90 minute olympic lifting class which involved hang snatches, front squats, stifflegged deadlifts, a superset of plate crunches, russian twists, and planks and a metcon of 200 Double Unders, 20 Back Squats at 105 lbs, 20 V-ups, 20 Ring Dips and a 200 meter Sandbag Run.
Post workout I had a smoothie with a banana, some strawberries, one scoop True Nutrition Pea Protein Powder in cake batter flavor (!!!) and some almond milk. It is worth noting that I used to love avocado in smoothies, but these days I know that fat inhibits protein absorption, so I keep my post-workout versions fat-free-ish.
Lunch: I have been LOVING challenging myself to make 99% of my lunch and dinners with ingredients from my local farmers market. This giant salad bowl was Beyond Meat grilled chicken strips, black beans, steamed potatoes, romaine, carrot top pesto, cauliflower, salsa, lemon juice, broccoli, salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast.
This snack was romaine lettuce leaves filled with salsa and Gardein Beefless ground.
My dinner salad was more romaine, cauliflower, broccoli, pesto, and beyond meat chicken, with the edition of ginger turmeric fermented cauliflower, grilled green onions, and cucumber.
My last (and favorite) meal of the day was a protein waffle (made from scratch and extremely low carb) with peanut butter on top. The best time of the day is peanut butter time, and I don’t care who knows it.
So what are the results of nutrient timing for me so far? Well, I am definitely leaner. My metabolism feels like its totally revved, I have a ton of energy, and my muscles are popping. But is this BECAUSE of the nutrient timing? Or is it the switch up of workouts I’ve had in the past few months? Maybe its the increased raw food intake, or my emphasis on veggies? The problem with taking results of self-regulated experiments as fact is simply that there are so many individual variables that it is honestly impossible to certainly come to a conclusion. I will say I am loving my body, my fitness, and my routine as of late, so I am going to keep doing what I’m doing until its no longer palatable.
Have you tried nutrient timing? Do you think it’s a worthwhile protocol?
What I Ate Wednesday #5
Good Morning!
I am excited to tell you about this day of food, mostly because of my brunch. I have an ongoing, ever-present brunch date with one of my closest friends on Sundays, and I managed to document it this week for the first time ever.
But first, my smoothie: This baby is made of romaine lettuce, avocado, banana, cucumber, and raspberry. It is topped with Tasty Makes granola, because texture- it rules. A sprinkle of granola makes me feel a litttttttle less like I eat baby food on a daily basis. COOL.
After this I went to the gym and busted out five heavy sets of five back squats and a quick Tabata sprint. Do you do Tabatas? I absolutely love them, and I love the way doing them has changed the way I work out and my body. I used to run for probably an hour a day and never felt like I was looking any more toned or lean. Lifting heavy + four of the worst minutes of cardio possible changed everything.
Post Workout I had an almond milk and Vega Sport shake followed by this food at Grease Box (An All-gluten free diner!) This meal was green juice, avocado toast, salad, sauteed collard greens with gratuitous amounts of coffee and hot sauce. YUM.
Can we talk about the importance of social health? I live with my partner and also with some super tight homies, but beyond that, I work so much that my social health is often the first thing to go. If you’re having an event past 7PM, pretty much no matter how much I want to go to it, I am going to be too tired. HOW SAD IS THAT? Also, how often does that keep me from seeing my friends? Answer: a lot. And that is some bullshit, because my friends happen to be some of the most real, reflective and cool people I know. Things like this Sunday brunch date help keep me in check. Both my friend and I have super busy lives, so each week we skip the small talk and dive right in to the real deep down stuff that is happening in our lives. Basically, when I’m done I feel like I’ve had a therapy session, and that’s just about the free-est coolest and most fun way to do it. BRUNCH DATES FOR LIFE.
Dinner was tacos with kale and Beyond Meat Meatless Crumbles, plus home made heirloom tomato salsa, corn chips, and a bunch of carrots and peanut butter. This is no different from most days of life, because I’m on a taco kick lately, and I don’t expect it to go anywhere anytime soon.
Tell me about your life, your food, and your favorite taco recipe!
