What's in Your Fridge

Recently my buddy Kevin over at the Fitcast did a post about what he had in his fridge. Well I decided to submit my fridge for his 100th episode show (more on that soon, but just know Dr. John Berardi will be on the show). So without further adieu here is a glimpse into my refrigerator.

NOTE: I lied, there is further adieu, sorry. Keep in mind I have a roommate so not all food in the refrigerator is my own, but I will highlight what I use regularly. Anyone that knows me would probably be freaked out by the fact that Milk is in the refrigerator knowing full well that I don't tolerate Milk well, and as for the regular trans fat peanut butter and high fructose corn syrup laiden jelly, tisk tisk Conor!

From Top To Bottom:
Greens+ Apple Flavor
Coconut Milk in a Mason Jar
Fish Oil (Biotest Flameout)
Spike Shooters (For those grueling lower body workouts)
Ground Flax Seeds via the magic bullet
Annie's Cowgirl Ranch Dressing (A great tasting Canola Oil Based salad dressing)
Gourmet Nutrition Pesto via the magic bullet
Tons of egg whites






3lb Bag of Carrots
Large Bag of Snap Peas
Natural Peanut Butter (you know the stir kind)
A couple pounds of organic spinach
Tub of Cottage Cheese
Brita Water Pitcher
A couple dozen eggs
Roasted Turkey
Defrosted Chicken Breast
Strawberries
Tomatoes



More Egg Whites
Trident Wild Salmon Burgers
Trident Wild Salmon Fillets
96% Lean Beef Burgers
Frozen Blueberries (double as ice cubes in your shakes and great for cooling down some hot oatmeal)
Organic Chicken Sausages
Guacamole
Bison Burgers (all natural they claim)
Chicken Breast




There are a few things you can't see tucked away like the giant bag of frozen mixed veggies, fresh peppers, cucumbers, avocados, feta cheese and I'm sure more things that I can't think of right now, but that's a pretty detailed tour of my refrigerator. I don't really go out of my way to buy organic so much but if it's there I'll get it. First and foremost it's important to just eat the produce, secondary to that is where it came from. Buying local from farmers market is always a good idea and better for the environment.

If you have any questions regarding the food or want to share what is in your fridge, please comment below.

Sun Burned Squats Suck

So I may have stayed in the sun a bit too long in California. I didn't realize how much stronger the Sun could be there as I've stayed out in the sun for hours in the Northeast with nothing major happening. It was a nice mid 70 degree day and I didn't think anything of it. I figured I'd have a bit of redness after but nothing like what you see below. The top picture is a few days before the trip. The bottom picture is a few days after a day at the beach.

Not Enough Vitamin D?

Too Much Vitamin D!

I don't think the pictures do it justice as the redness has a nice kool-aid man like redness that digital photography just can't fully capture. My back definitely got the worst of it.

So silly me. I decided to hit the gym and go figure the first exercise on the agenda was box squats. Imagine my surprise when loading the bar to just over 200lbs and finding it more painful than usual. To say I had a crappy workout would be an understatement.

Anyway, Cali was fun. I guess I should post a blog of acceptable sun screens in the near future as I'm not a big fan of most of the ones on the market as they contain carcinogens themselves (irony at its best, being that we use it thinking we'll help prevent skin cancer). I typically just recommend limiting sun exposure, and I guess in this instance I failed to follow my own advice.

I'll be resuming my things you are afraid of series this week, so don't worry.

A Couple Quick Thoughts

I'm about to road trip out to California and I wanted to at least post something before I left, as yesterday I had a couple of realizations.

The first realization I had is that people don't understand the value of time. Time is a resource you can't get back, once it's gone, it's gone. Yet people seem to think it's okay to have me wait for them, only to be 15 minutes late calling, to say they are going to be another 20 minutes late. I don't know about anywhere else, but where I come from, that would mean you are fired. Pick up the phone ahead of time to tell me you are going to be late. That's like coming in to work with a dunkin' donuts bag and being 15 minutes late. It's unacceptable to be late with breakfast, jeez.

Anyway I was all riled up about this and told them I wasn't going to wait and rescheduled so I could hit the gym. I had forgotten how much a good workout can relieve stress. You have to be so focused that you forget about all the stupid garbage clogging up your life path and just push through set after set. I had a great workout yesterday and the whole lateness thing stopped bothering me so much. So yet another reason not to miss a workout.

So make sure you value your time. If you don't, find something better to do with it because you are doing something wrong (something better doesn't involve watching episodes of Grey's Anatomy that you've already seen).

I'm off to Cali, have a great weekend, and to my fellow utah folk, have a good holiday. It's Pioneer Day tomorrow!

What Are You So Afraid of?

Over the past few decades we've managed to create this 'everything is bad' mentality. As a result people have began fearing virtually everything. In this introduction I'll be detailing the fear of fat. Is any of it warranted?

There is nothing to fear, but fear itself -FDR

Ever since the low fat campaign of the 80s, dietary fat has been at the forefront of things to cut out of our diet. The fact is that during the same time when we started cutting out fat our waistlines got larger, and incidences of obesity and diabetes skyrocketed. People began replacing animal fats with things like vegetable oils and margarine and strangely enough heart disease continued to rise. As this began to happen along with cutting out fats, people began to binge on carbohydrates, consuming even more overall calories.

Guilty of limiting fat intake?

So with such a blanket recommendation there must have been some good science to back up the whole 'fat is bad' theory, right? Well not so fast. A lot of the studies we relied on for nutritional guidance came from food questionnaires. People participating in these studies are asked about the number of servings of various foods they consumed on a regular basis. People can't even remember what they ate yesterday, let alone when asked to recall what they ate months ago. Needless to say the results from these studies aren't very accurate and this is what our dietary recommendations are based upon.

So there is no good science showing that a reduction in fat betters overall health. So what now? Even with all this information readily available people are still afraid of fat. With many foods claiming to be low in fat or fat free, it's easy to see why everyone might still think it is important. We see it virtually everyday as we are bombarded with mini anti-fat campaigns. Every time you see a low fat or fat-free label you are subconsciously being told fat is bad.

Well it's time to get over it. Fat is an essential nutrient and avoiding it is just plain silly. Your brain is made up of fat. The benefits of olive oil, avocado's, nuts and seeds simply can't be ignored, not to mention omega-3 fats which are receiving high praise in the media from reducing inflammation, heart disease and even metastasis of cancer.

I'm going to pass the buck on saturated fat as Men's Health has a great article where you can draw your own conclusions. Adam Campbell has recently written a great book called the TNT Diet. In it there is a startling diet plan that *gasp* doesn't exclude saturated fat.

So what are you afraid of when it comes to health? Post a comment below and it can be featured later on in the series.