This morning I wrapped up Phase 4, Week 1 with a lower body workout that left me staggering. I spent 20 minutes stretching and cooling off and almost immediately felt better. My legs haven’t bothered me at all today. I have a feeling that’s all going to change in the morning…

…and I teach kickboxing at 9:30. Cool.

I’ve actually been spending a lot of time stretching lately because my calves (primarily my soleus and peroneus longus) have been super tight, which forces me to walk like I’m crippled most of the day even if I haven’t trained hard. I stretch twice a day and, y’all, I can’t stress enough how important that flexibility is. Even if you’re not super active, a bit of flexibility has the ability to make you instantly feel better. You’ll end up moving more efficiently over time. Maybe there’ll be a post on that soon?

Anyway, last week’s finds list was huge and I realize now it was probably designed that way to make up for the wimpy list this week. I have a few things this week — most of it is food. Either way.

High-Protein Chocolate Doughnuts and Paleo Blueberry Doughnuts from Livestrong
These both came up in my Livestrong newsletter this week and I’m not only intrigued, I’m excited about them. I need to make them and I need to make them in a hurry. Peanut butter? Chocolate? Blueberry? Raspberry? Doughnuts? AND PALEO? FFS, LET ME IN!

Slow Cooker Ginger Chicken from Slow Cooker Gourmet
I’m making this for next week’s meal prep. One word of advice, though, if you look at this and think 665 calories is high for a serving: Don’t freak out. I thought it was strange, too, because the ingredients were all light (I even looked up the blackberry preserves). Turns out, her recipe calls for 2 cups of uncooked rice, yielding merely 4 servings. When I do rice for meal prep, I start with 2 cups of uncooked rice and portion it out to 10 servings, therefore the calorie count is reduced considerably. You should do the same if this is an issue for you.

6 Things I learned Trying a Boxer’s Workout from Men’s Health
In this article, Ebinezer talks about going to a boxing gym and getting his ass kicked (not literally, the workout was just that difficult). He does a pretty good job of breaking down exactly what makes the boxing workout so effective and what you can earn/burn from it. If you’re ever interested in giving something similar a shot, I know a guy.

The Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet from NerdFitness
This isn’t a new read for me but it’s worth sharing on here because it has a lot of valuable information. Paleo can be a scary thing but let me just tell you from experience: it’s not. In my experience, it’s the easiest to follow “diet” out there in that it’s barely even a diet. Ask yourself “Is it real food?” and if the answer is yes, eat it. IF it’s no, probably don’t eat it. I say probably because I don’t follow a strict Paleo diet. It’s a baseline that I try to build my meal plans off of and it works really well. There are endless debates regarding whether or not potatoes or rice are Paleo and modified or not, bread is just amazing and you needn’t cut it from your diet completely if you like it. If you can make Paleo a guideline, not a strict set of rules with a pass/fail grade, you’ll see great success and you’ll quickly find out that you never eat shit you don’t want to eat.

Music to Lift Heavy To

This week Erin picked up a CD for me from the library. German metal band Kreator has been around since 1982 and have always been heavy. Their most recent effort, Gods of Violence delivers exactly what you’d expect from a record with such a title. They may not have been one of the “Big Four,” but even in their 50s these guys are playing faster than ever. Thrash metal is alive and well in 2017. Now go pick up something heavy.