Cinco de mayo burgers

I try and eat completely paleo. Basically this means no grains, sugar, dairy, legumes, or proccessed foods. I did this for a full month before my birthday and felt amazing. After a few days of eating crap, I really felt it at my workout today, so I'll go back to eating that way. It's not a diet, its a lifestyle. Its really easy to follow and you get to eat incredible food. I actually am a decent cook, and like coming up with new stuff. So tonight to celebrate cinco de mayo I made some special burgers. This is how I made it, but anything can be changed according to taste or whatever you have around.

Ingredients:
1-2 lb grassfed ground beef
1 head of iceburg lettuce
3 multicolor peppers chopped
1 onion chopped
olive oil or coconut oil
spices to taste
guacamole
Sweet potatoes


First I chopped up the peppers and onions. I love the multi colors because they have different tastes and are yummy.

Then I sauted them with olive oil for about 10 minutes, until the onions are almost see through. Feel free to use a good amount of oil because this will be used for the burgers after. I took them out of the pan and put them to the side.

Next mix some spices into the ground beef (I used pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, cilantro, paprika, and almond flour) and form into burger patties. Throw those on the pan and cook till done through.

Next I simply layed down some lettuce (I use this instead of bread or wraps) and put some of the pepper mix and some guac down. I threw the burgers on top and topped with the same combo of pepper mix, guac, and lettuce.

I quickly added some sweet potato fries by frying them in the same pan.

Overall super easy to make and super delicious. There was no chance I would leave any over! (following post will have the pictures)

Birthday Recap

So technically my birthday was Monday, but who really wants to celebrate much on a Monday. So we decided to go out Saturday. Bryan wanted to go to a nice dinner but after calling places at 830 asking for a reservation for "now" we just decided to go around the corner to the tibeten place. Jake, Craig, Bryan and I had a relatively quiet dinner and grabbed some booze and headed back to the apartment.

Around 10 some people started coming over to pregame because we were going to head to the club relatively early. Infinite of course showed up at 11, because he's on a different time schedule.

<-----Infinite I mess with Infinite a lot but he's one of the coolest people ever. I've never met anyone who has such a positive outlook on life, and who makes literally everyone around him smile and laugh. (more on that later) So we got pretty drunk during pregaming, lots of Patron was had by everyone, and we headed out. From this point on everything started getting a little hazy. I do know that the group that went to Tenjune was Bryan, Joe, Farhad, Jake, Craig, Infinite, Dan, Mike, Julie, and Jessica. A decent group but we got there. On the way there Julie got a call that there was a bomb in Times Square. We didn't really know what to think about it and sort of ignored it, though looking back at it, that was really scary. I don't really know how to describe the night at the club for a couple reasons, mainly because its all hazy. I know I had a great time and everyone I talked to did also. I know there was a ton of girls and they were all smokin. I don't even want to think about how many magnums of Patron and champagne that we went through. It was really cool that they had balloons and even a cake for me! (I only remembered the cake after seeing a picture of it). There were also lots and lots of sparklers!! Yay for sparklers!!

Bryan and I... he totally hooked this up for me and is the coolest dude on earth.

My only real proof of cake.



Me with Jessica and Julie, super cool girls!


Jake and Craig, been friends with them for like 20 years.



Clearly Farhad feels that Jessica, him, Julie, and I are number 1. I can't argue.



So anyway the night was awesome and nuts. We headed back to the apartment for some late night hot tub. Unfortunately here I only remember some bits and pieces. Everyone was hammered and there were some passouts. I know Joe ended up cooking turkey burgers for at least himself Julie and Jessica. Aparently I was only supposed to invite a few people over, but there was like 15. Oops. Infinite made sure to stop at McDonalds with Craig. He proceded to give everyone high fives there and ask for a "crispy" sprite. There was some hot tub, some fun times and eventually passing out.

That morning we went to brunch and had a cool day. Craig and I came back to Hoboken for this giant street fair they had. I wasn't expecting much but it was a huge festival closing all of Washington st. There was some really neat artwork and we got some, including this caricature of us rollerblading, imagining the gayest possible scenerio. I also had Rita's, which was the first time I had sugar in over a month. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest, so I'm going to contine to avoid sugar.


Monday, my actual birthday a couple friends and I went out to dinner and for a drink at my favorite local bar (well not really but its literally around the corner which is cool).

Tuesday night, my family finally agreed to spend a little time with me for my birthday so the four of us went out to Wolfangs, which is very similar to peter lugers. I ate about 3 cows worth of steak, and it was amazing.

From 70s Big, one of the funniest and actually informative websites about getting big and strong, when asked about how to eat:

"Eating is training. Beowulf had Grendel. We have Mongolian and Chinese buffets. If you don’t have at least one dining experience every couple of weeks that resembles an epic struggle worthy of telling over beers, you’ll be putting from the rough for the foreseeable future."

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” ~ Mark Twain

A bunch of fitness quotes, taken from Fitness Spotlight

• “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.” ~ A.J.Materi

• “To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

• “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” ~ Hippocrates

• “Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

• “He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.” ~ Thomas Fuller

• “Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.” ~ Isaac Bickerstaff

• “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs.” ~ Joan Welsh

• “The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.” ~ Sir Philip Sidney

• “He who enjoys good health is rich, though he knows it not.” ~ Italian Proverb

• “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” ~ Mark Twain

• “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “The best of all medicines is resting and fasting” ~ Benjamin Franklin

• “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” ~ Edward Stanley

• “Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” ~ Plato

• “The greatest wealth is health.” ~ Virgil

• To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” ~ Buddha

• “Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “An hour of basketball feels like 15 minutes. An hour on a treadmill feels like a weekend in traffic school.” ~ David Walters

• “Many so-called spiritual people, they overeat, drink too much, they smoke and don’t exercise. But they do go to church every week and pray ‘Please help my arthritis. Please help me bring up my strength, make me young again.’” ~ Jack LaLanne

• “To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.” ~ William Londen

• “As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” ~ Buddy Hackett

• “The more you eat, the less flavor; the less you eat, the more flavor.” ~ Chinese Proverb

• “As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.” ~ Joan Gussow

• “If you are surprised at the number of our maladies, count our cooks.” ~ Seneca

• “Most diseases are the result of medication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a beneficiant and warning symptom on the part of Nature.” ~ Elbert Hubbard

• “The physically fit can enjoy their vices.” ~ Lord Percival

• “In general, mankind, since the improvement in cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

• “Most of the food allergies die under garlic and onion.” ~ Martin H. Fischer

• “I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher

• “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.” ~ Michael Pollan

• “Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing” ~ Voltaire

• “The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning “ability to,” and bics, meaning “withstand tremendous boredom” ~ Dave Barry

• “The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.” ~ Thomas Edison

• “The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of diseases” ~ Edward Jenner

• “There’s lots of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven’t the time to enjoy it. ” ~Josh Billings

• “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.” ~ Hippocrates

• “I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times.” ~ Bruce Lee

• “Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the truth, bending over backward, lying down on the job, sidestepping responsibility and pushing their luck.” ~ Author Unknown

Renat's new status message - Dan knight ist ein schuljunge-meck

ert im bunker mit kleinen hühnern. Dan παίζει παιχνίδια με τα κοτόπουλα και τα αγόρια σε αποθήκες 1:51 PM

me: what does your status mean

Sent at 1:55 PM on Wednesday

Renat: it means dan is a schoolboy bitch who lives in a bunker with little chickens

if you know anything about dan knight, then you know how true that is

Top 100 Brands

I'm not Seth Godin and will never be able to come up with amazing ideas that can be told in a small paragraph (and then sell whole books about them), but here is an interesting list, of the top 100 brands. For everyone, I wonder how they got there; was it someones ingenious leadership and vision? was it taking a risk? was it sticking by its guns and being in the right place at the right time? More importantly how can we take what they have done and apply it to our businesses and our selves?


Strong brands have the power to create business value. They impact much more than revenues and profit margins. Strong brands create competitive advantages by commanding a price premium and decrease the cost of entry into new markets and categories. They reduce business risk and help attract and retain talented staff.

Top 100 Brandz

"502" by Jon Gilson for Againfaster.com

When I signed up, I was using the word “competing” loosely. Yeah, I was going to show up, and I was going to go through the motions, but winning wasn’t on my mind. Just making a good show would do. Just participating would make me happy.

Except, it didn’t. After the first WOD, I was in sixty-something place and pissed. Pissed I’d let myself go, pissed I’d let myself down, pissed that 115 pounds felt like it weighted 15,000, pissed that six months of not running made it particularly hard to run.

I’d spent the morning laughing and joking, watching waves of CrossFitters go though the first workout of the New England Sectional, a deceptive gauntlet of running and snatching: 800, 30 snatches, 800. My hoodie up and earphones in, I stretched lightly, waiting for the call, one of the last to go.

Instantly fucked. I was last in from the first run, trudging behind a guy who looked like he’d lose a footrace to a three-legged dog. I picked up my barbell, snatches came three at a time instead of ten, and I finished the last eight hundred to the sound of one plaintive spectator, “Com’on Jon, run!” Saddest sound I ever heard.

I’d stepped into a world with nowhere to hide, and the world had handed me my ass, and now I know.

Then I got smart, I thought. I had a lot of time to watch the second WOD, the boys burning in hard doing a three-round smoker of box jumps, chest-to-bar pullups, and wall ball shots. Some were pulling to their belly buttons, seemingly trying to touch pelvis to pullup bar, and dozens were exceeding the drop-dead 15-minute cap. Easy win.

I drew a chalk line on my shirt, and confirmed with my judge that the mark was accurate; if he saw chalk, my pulls were good to go. I limped methodically through all three rounds, five reps at a time, avoiding any sort of metabolic stress, convinced that just good enough would be just good enough. Except, it never is.

My thirty-second place finish pulled me into 53^th on the day, three places outside of the magical top fifty, three places from a spot in Day Two’s second WOD, the one that really counted.

Goddamn it, I’d come for fun, and now I was all wound up. Inadequate, and all wound up. The next morning demanded a seven rep-max squat clean with a 40-second time limit, the make-or-break weight hovering around 185. I figured I’d either make 185 or go home.

Amped on iPod crack, chalked up, shoes on, I loaded 185 on the bar. I knew it was too heavy the second I pulled under the first rep. Bravado overcame sense, and I stood it up three more times before my legs gave out, trashed from the previous day. The consolation weight, 165, went up easy enough, but it was over. I deflated.

Ended in 57^th, with no shot at the last WOD.

Everyone I’d come with suited up for one more push, a nasty combination of running, stone lifting, deadlifting, overhead squatting, and burpees, and I watched, sucking on a beer I’d acquired in the parking lot, the sole failure in my squad of CrossFitters.

They were suffering, and I was watching, an athlete no longer. All my surfer dude bluster was straight gone, the “just for fun” commentary proving the shield of a man who didn’t want to face the prospect of caring and losing, of making this a matter of personal identity and then being shattered.

I smiled anyway, and cheered and coached, the number 502 printed on my arm in thick block letters, permanent marker smudged by sweat and cloth.

For whatever reason, this is what I remember, that 502, the only tangible reminder that I’d stepped into the Arena.

Monday, my training changed. No longer twice a week, wedged half-heartedly between lectures and demos and meetings and emails, I attacked. Every WOD was that last squat clean, every effort a desire to never repeat that failure.

Now, a month later, I’m thankful for that failure, one that no one but me remembers anymore. I’d stepped into a world with nowhere to hide, and the world had handed me my ass, and now I know.

It’s not enough to be a coach, a writer, a lecturer, a business owner. It’s not enough, because the rubber doesn’t meet the road in theory, in the margins of training textbooks and accounting spreadsheets. It meets the road in the Arena, where your theories are only as good as their output, where your motivation meets the hard test of athletic endeavor.

I won’t be the weak one. I will not be just good enough. I will live at the limits of my capacity, because living anywhere else is a lie. I don’t have the time, I don’t have the will, I don’t have the whatever: all lies, because the scoreboard respects only effort, only the will to win.

Now, there is a mission.