Paleo diet & the Austrian diet

Eating paleo, yeah, I'm gonna talk about my goals and food. If that doesn't interest you skip the next few paragraphs. Or the entire post. I don't care. Why would you read something that doesn't interest you? Anyway, moving to a country known for beer, bread, and sausage might make it difficult to stick with a crossfitters eating habits. So a good writeup on the subject is in order. The paleo/crossfit RX is "meat, veggies, nuts & seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar." Basically habits that emphasize eating food we are naturally used to - potato chips and cookies are not "real" food! So trying to maintain this has proven to be a bit of a challenge.

I have learned some awesome things about Austria's culinary landscape. For instance, people here consume mass amounts of tubed meat - hot dogs, bacon wrapped dogs, actual dogs (kidding), chicken, duck, veal lots of other tastey animal meat and fried fillets, i.e. the schnitzel. But to be blunt I think schnitzel sucks. You don't need to fry a good piece of meat to make it taste better, and beating it with a hammer makes no sense at all, your only ruining a good piece of meat. Why the schnitzel is so famous or why everyone says you need to "try the schnitzel" is something I'll never understand - you can experience the same thing at KFC. But I digress, the point I'm trying to make is that meat is abundant. Chock one up for Austria in the meat department.

From what I've seen at restaurants the veggies are lacking here. It is a very "meat & potatoes" diet. In saying that I mean I haven't seen steamed veggies or spinach anywhere! Salads aren't that special, but its worth mentioning they do exist, and better yet, no one serves garbage like ranch or croutons with it. It's always a olive oil or vinaigrette dressing (yumm). Nuts and seeds are good, and fruit is more abundant than veggies markets. As mentioned potatoes are everywhere, they practically come with every meal, either in baked/fried/ or dumpling form - but I have yet to find a sweet potato. Still searching for that one, and doing a decent job of not eating too many 'taters. Speaking of sweets, Austrians consume massive amounts of sugar. It's just part of the culture. I've only indulged in one cheat, and it's something every visitor has to do here: eat a slice of sacher torte cake. You can't visit Vienna and not try it. Well, unless your diabetic which only makes sense. But for everyone else - try it, it's actually a law here, anyone staying over 24 hours must eat a slice.

Grains are huge here. Beer & bread can be found everywhere. So I haven't been as stringent about that (especially the beer) as I should be. I don't want to be the weird American who doesn't eat the bread. For instance - eating from one of the hot dog stands and throwing the bun away earned me a few weird looks. Maybe I should learn to say "I'm allergic to gluten" in German. And since the beer here isn't all it's cracked up to be (it's all pilsner and lager) I'm gonna ween myself off that and stick with the wine Vienna is better known for. Since I'm on the topic of drinks, the coffee here is amazing! They brew it perfectly! No need to add sugar. Sure, you could visit a Starbucks here and get your "triple mocha chino carmel espresso with soy milk" crap but you'd really be missing out. Come to think of it, I'm kinda perplexed how Starbucks even exists out here? Just order a cappuccino at one of the cafes - you'll be more than happy you did.

Anyway, I do eat better than I did in the states. Mass quantities of veggies are still needed, and I need to cut back on a few things. So why the write up on food? 1) to help you understand what the food is like here and 2) to help myself understand the obstacles in the way of my eating habits. And I say"eating habits" because It's not a "diet" - its just the way I eat!

Dont ask.....ok, ask - sachertorte and coffee

Pork, wine, and potato dumplings

Falaffel, looks alot like a burrito to me

WOD:
"Cindy"
AMRAP in 20 minutes
5 pull ups
10 pushups
15 air squats
Jon: 14+5 (prescribed)
Heidi: 19+9, ring rows in stead of pull ups
Skill: 253lb back squat

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Leidesdorfgasse,Vienna,Austria

Schoenbrunn Palace

We visited the Schoenbrunn Palace yesterday, I think it was used in the 1978 movie Patton. Awesome movie. This place is HUGE and is packed with a ton of Austro-Hungarian History. Aside from it's "older" history with the Hapsburgs it was also the location of summit talks between JFK and Nikita Khrushchev in 1961, something a little more recent!






WOD:
Tabata
20 sec. on 10 sec. off
8 rounds of:
Front Squats
Hollow-Rocks
Push Jerks
Hollow Rocks
Yeah, that one sucked.

Vienna

Just a quick update with some pictures from around town:

 Just a cool alley in the 1st quarter

Early Roman Ruins from Vindobona

Old Hofburg Palace, we did the tour, would post pics of the interior but no cameras were allowed. 

Looking towards the Spanish Riding school, interesting history note here 

Looking towards Stephensdom from the Sky Bar

Goulash (not paleo) but still good!

So many candy stores!

WOD:

12 minute AMRAP

100 M sprint

5 ring push-ups

10 box jumps (20")

Jon - 9

Heidi - 7

After Party:

Max L-Sit holds

H: 14.79/22.53/31.39

J: 15.05/31.39/37.70

Tortillas!

"CrossFit has the potential to change the popular cultural perception of what exercise actually means over the next decade, and I will watch with delight as selectorized leg machines are melted down into more useful items like re-bar and manhole covers." 

- Mark Rippetoe

Ok, enough about CrossFit, I'll post up the WOD at the end of the blog like I usually do but I'll focus the majority of this blog on Vienna and what we've been up to. I should have posted these updates in the last few blogs so I'll jump right in. We've got our cell phone situation sorted out. iPhones from the states dont work here since they are locked, so if I were to use mine I'd just be billed by AT&T for the international rate of $1.39/minute. It's not as simple as dropping in a new SIM card. So we bought some cheap-o prepaid phones from the local billa store for $20, with it you get 100 minutes and you can recharge it when it runs out. Easy way to go since you need an address to buy a contract phone, and a bank account, both of which are still things we need! We also got data plans on our iPads so we can text and skype everyone. Cell/Data plans are cheap here! Plus they work everywhere, coverage is much better than in the states, it even works in the subway! AT&T needs to step their game up!

One of my biggest concerns moving here was missing out on some good mexican food and watching movies in german. To my relief there is a english theatre here as well as a good mexican market (Casa Mexico)! The mexican food they sold was ok, not as spicy as what I'm used to and it reminds me a little of tex-mex, but it's not bad. They sell mexican beer, hot sauce, tortillas, etc. I was bummed over their salsa. Their "hot" salsa should really be re-labeled as mild. I suppose they do this to market everything to a broader market. I was sold on the place, at least mexicans work there! We have yet to try the mexican restaurant that is on the same corner, we will soon, and I'll be sure to post an update on how the food was. The english movie theatre was a relief! We watched The Dictator when it was probably 90 degrees out so the AC felt awesome. It's actually been in operation since the twenty's and has 3 screens. Plus they serve beer there, why can't american theatres serve beer!?!?!?!

Since the pool in the 19th district is one of the nicest in the city we decided to check it out on Wednesday. I'll explain the "districts" in a later blog. But the pool had awesome views overlooking the city. It cost about 5 euros to get in, beer was expensive there, and limited to three types: Heinekin, Corona, and Budweiser. No not the "king of beers" but the czech budvisar. Still, it was lame - I need something more than pilsners! The pool itself was pretty cool, actually it was three pools and a few ice cream shops, beer stands, etc. 

So far as the booze in the city is concerned, I can say that it got the best of us Wednesday night. We hit up a the Fuhrgassl-Huber wine tavern on the fringes of the 19th district. Four of us went out and three were left at the end of the night, after a few hours we solved all the worlds problems ;-) In total we went through about 6 bottles of wine, split three ways, we were pretty drunk after a few hours. By the time we left we got drenched, it just started pouring rain! Thunder, lightening, rain, something we see in SoCal once every few years.

Speaking of bars, we hit up a cool "beach bar" the other afternoon at the schweidenplatz subway stop, right along the danube canal. Every summer the city trucks in sand and builds areas for outside beach bars. It's a cool spot people run/bike/skateboard along. They had a much better beer selection than the pools did. I'll have to start updating the blog with beer reviews!

WOD:
Rest!!!

Mobility

Not much on Vienna in this post. But I've got to start by saying "Kelly" I hate you! I'm referring to Monday's workout here. Our hamstrings still feel like rubber bands! Simply put, stairs suck after that WOD. And it seems like they are everywhere in the city. Kinda funny really, walking up and down stairs at the pace of an senior citizen. You get a few funny looks, even from the seniors. But I dont see this as an opportunity to gripe. Instead, I see it as a issue I need to learn more about, I need to really put some focus on mobility. 

Since I'm on the topic of soreness, we are still without our Progenex - ordered some from the Euro site yesterday, hopefully it ships soon! We ordered the more muscle, apparently its backordered in the states, not sure about Europe. In the meantime we've been taking some protein shake I found at the local stop & rob. It tastes like garbage! I'm sure there's a supplement store around here since the stuff at Apotheke's lack in selection and just aren't what we are looking for.  

WOD 

-From the CF Vienna Site:
Warm-up WOD:

3 rounds of 10 pull ups/10 push ups/10 OHS/Samson stretch
Then 
5 Rounds of the following: 
(2 teams of 3 people) partner 1: suicide sprints/ Partner 2: KB Swings 32/24kg,/ Partner 3: rest
rotate movements when athlete is done running. 
Cool down with skill work.

Total time was 5:46

Around Town

Our jet lag is almost gone so we've been doing the tourist bit the last few days. Lots of cool landmarks and history! Found some good food but most of what I've seen so far is pretty bland. Vienna sausages taste exactly like a normal hot dog. If it's all like that (I still have hope) then I do have a plan "B" I intend to use anyway: I found a mexican food market here that sells EVERYTHING! So I'm not without my tortillas!

 Lamb chops in the Naschmarkt - these were tastey but not as good as some I had in Como!

Pinot!

State Opera

RingstraBe "streets" built where the city walls once stood

Stephansplatz

Strudel (me) and some sort of cupcake for Heidi

Taking a picture of someone taking a picture of a statue 

Volksgarten

Rathaus (city hall)

WOD:
First time dropping into Crossfit Vienna today and we had a benchmark WOD.....yeesh!
"Kelly"
Five rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
30 Box jumps, 24"
30 Wall ball shots, 20lb ball

This WOD was fun! I finished in a time of 29:46 scaled with a 17.10 lb medicine ball (8 kilo), not too bad considering I'm not feeling 100%, I still feel a little fatigued both mentally and physically. Heidi completed it in 29:28, with a 13 lb/6 kilo ball.It was done in a park and against the wall of an apartment building, for box jumps we used some concrete blocks in the park. Oh, and it was 90 degrees (31) with 67% humidity - during a heat advisory! HAHA! We got some funny looks from the locals during the workout.

We made it!

We are in Vienna! We had a smooth flight. Well, as smooth as one could ask for when traveling this far. After 17 hours we got a little goofy. For instance: we managed to explode a bag of hazelnuts all over first class between Istanbul and Vienna (We were behaving like idiots). We ran across Ataturk airport because I forgot to adjust my watch to the Istanbul time zone. Thinking we had twenty minutes to connect when we really had an hour twenty. My mistake. Things that were beyond our control include me being sat next to the only dude sawing' logs in first class. Needless to say I didn't sleep. It was a bumpy flight, and a delayed flight from LAX! So yes, we had a smooth trip in comparison to other flights we've done (Heathrow knife incident '08). Anyway, we made it without too many issues.
Today we will just try and adjust to the jet lag, get our phones/Skype working and settle in.

Mullet kid in Istanbul

Istanbul

Home for the next several months

Today's WOD:

Run a 5k

We didn't time ourselves since we were jet lagged, fatigued, and hadn't been eating the best food. We had no intent of setting a PR - we just needed to run! Getting out into the sun really helps adjust to the time zone faster. Vitamin D has a correlation with melatonin production, something we really dont need at 2pm. Solution? Get more sun!

The sound of ...

WOD: 

"Nancy"

5 rounds for time

400m run

15 OHS 95/65

7:54 @ 45lbs - I focused on intensity. I'm not as flexible in the shoulders as most (something I need to work on) so I scaled it lighter and dropped it down to 3 rounds. Lame I know but I'm not feeling as healthy as normal.

Doyer Baseball!

I guess I could consider myself in the "eye of the storm" right now. It's been a nice lull in the chaos of the last few weeks. But it hasn't been without it's hiccups: iMac issues, canceling health insurance, car insurance, phones, etc. - small stuff. Yup, I leave tomorrow! So stoked! Oh and a last minute Dodger game tonight! Pre-game at the Short Stop! Stoked on that! Which reminds me I gotta figure out how to watch the Dodgers in Vienna. Not stoked on that!

Skill: 

Clean, focus on form. 155lb Max

WOD:
AMRAP with a 12:00 Cap

10 Push Jerks

10 Ring push-ups

10 Situps

Score: 5 rounds, I made this one up. It seemed easier on paper!

Blog Of the Day

Crossfit Frenzy

I will use a lot of Crossfit terminology I'll start you out with the most basic: WOD = Workout Of the Day. Hope was a WOD done by Crossfit gym's around the country to raise money for St. Judes Children's Hospital cancer research. Heidi and I did it at Crossfit Bakersfield.

Power snatches

WOD: "Hope"
Three rounds for reps -
Burpees
75 pound Power snatch
Box jump, 24" box
75 pound Thruster
Chest to bar Pull-ups

Jon - 179 reps RX
Heidi - 169 reps scaled

"Hope" has the same format as Fight Gone Bad. In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On the call of "rotate," the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep.