Sorry, it has been some time since my last blog. As race directing is quickly replacing racing in my life, free time has been hard to come by.  But I am continually impressed by the readers of this blog. If this is your first visit, I high recommend you start by clicking "My Personal Weight Loss Journey" at the top of the page. This year at our Destin Ultra Runs, a familiar face crossed the finish line and gave me a firm handshake. His face was familiar but there was something different about him. This gentleman proceeded to tell me that he cut 2 hours off of his 50K time from last year. A 50K is only 31 miles, so to cut 2 hours is taking almost 4 MIN PER mile off of his time! That would mean instead of your 5K being 30 min, it would be 19 min. Obviously my surprised face gave me away and he proceeded to tell me that losing 50lbs since last year probably had something to do with it. He then thanked me for introducing him to OFM through this blog and this blog having a very positive impact on his life. Just like I have been, he was a back of the pack runner in 2015 but he is moving up quickly.  Will he ever be an elite athlete, probably not, but I can promise you- if his huge smile was any indication- his quality of life is better now than it has been in a long time. And he made me promise to post more on this blog....I'm trying! 

This is a long intro, but it just proves that OFM is making a real difference in people's lives. Whether you are cruising to second overall and the first female in a 100+ mile race at age 46 (nice job, Christy!), working on your feet from 9am to 11pm each day, or trying to run your first 5K- it's pretty tough to do if you are carrying extra weight and not fueling your body properly. Everyone's body is different, but if you are on a high carb diet and overweight or working out/running a lot and not hitting your goal weight or worse yet, increasing your training and gaining weight- then you need to try a different approach. Now let's talk about my defenseless friend.

This friend gets accused of so much by so many. "Killing people", "The downfall of America", "Disgusting", and much, much worse. (You totally thought I was going to talk politics, didn't you?) But the fact of the matter is- he is not killing anyone. My friend is like a tall bridge where you can choose to walk over, admire the view and get to where you are going without getting your shoes wet -or- you can jump off it and end your life. Is it the bridge's fault some people choose to jump off it? I think not! 

Now I'm not saying he is my BEST friend, but we probably hang out once a week here and there. Some places I have found him, he has been pretty good to me. Other places, not so much....but we will get to that. All in all, although I have never said so in public, he is my friend and I'll stand by him against the wave of criticism. Since he doesn't have a voice to defend himself- today we are going to talk about why my friend, the buffet, does not have to be the enemy and can actually help you achieve your OFM goals. I'm not here to debate the sanitary conditions of buffets, as that is dependent on the establishment. Nor am I going to debate food quality, as just like a sit down restaurant, it depends on the establishment. I'm here to give you my totally biased opinion.

#1, #2, and #3 reasons we are friends. Buffets have so many choices. Now if your will power is similar to that of Charlie Sheen with a pile of coke, then this could also be your downfall.  You need to have mastered the art of staying on the bridge. Don't jump in just because the water, or chocolate fountain, looks refreshing. Previously in this blog we have covered how to successfully navigate dining out at sit down restaurants and still hold true to your OFM plan, but the buffet can eliminate some of those obstacles. First, choose your buffet wisely.  For instance, the pizza/pasta buffet is probably not going to offer you a lot of OFM options. You should do a little research and ensure your target buffet has several options from our previously discussed food areas. As with grocery shopping, look for a place that has things you can tell are only one step (cooking) away from the outside wall of the grocery store. A nice salad bar, several meat choices not covered in mystery sauces, and I have to admit I really look for one that has a vat of sour cream and bacon. If you choose wisely, your buffet will have a ton of OFM options and you don't have to annoy the waiter asking them to leave off the bun/salad instead of fries/is that breaded?/what exactly comes on that?/can you substitute...? You just go up and use your well honed OFM eyes to scope out your eating options and avoid the endless piles of sugar loaded sh*t that is intermixed. 

I know I'm supposed to eat slower. Stop yelling at me! I'm a busy guy! But I can probably be in and out of a buffet as fast as I can go into a normal fast food restaurant, order my meal with the above mentioned changes, get it from the back 'specially made for me', and sit down and eat it. I also think guys like buffet a little because they still bring out a tiny bit of that animal instinct that you might have to fight someone else for your food. If you sit just right, you can see when the fresh steaks are brought out and then beat all the other animals to the feast! But I digress...  Bottom line, you can get in and out quickly and still choose what you are putting in your body. 

Fun fact of the day: Camel's humps are actually fat deposits, not water, so that they can go long times without eating. It also concentrates the fat in one area, so it doesn't act as insulation (like in a whale) so that they can better shed heat in a hot environment. Although that has very little to do with this blog, at least you can walk away from an otherwise wasted 10 minutes having learned something. 

People have often referred to me as a camel. While I mostly lack a huge hump on my back, I can (thanks to OFM) go for an oddly long time without eating anything and not suffer any ill effects. This is especially helpful since some of my work duties require me to go for all day and part of the night without a good chance to eat a meal. No problem! I can just hit the breakfast buffet at the hotel in the morning, store up on eggs, bacon, butter, and other delicious fats and be all set for 24hrs or more without food. While I was not around thousands of years ago, I'm guessing this is how our nomadic ancestors survived. They would kill an animal or find a food source, eat it quickly before it went bad, and then travel for days to the next food source. It too bad they lacked hotels and breakfast buffets, but I don't feel guilty. We don't choose what evolutionary period we are born in. 

It is also quite fun to break a few day's  fast at a buffet. The look on people's faces when an otherwise thin person, consumes an amount of food they never thought possible, is priceless. I'm not saying you should eat like a blue whale every day (8000lbs of food per day- fun fact #2), but if you love to eat...it's pretty damn fun every once in a while. And your cost per calorie consumed will be about as low as you can possibly get.

Some people are killing themselves at the buffet. They are choosing to jump off the bridge, instead of just walking over it. Sure, body type isn't always an indicator of overall health...but there are few body types that 99% of the time indicate bad health. It is highly likely you are going to see a few of these at the buffet. Use these folks as some motivation.  First, observe what they are eating. I'm willing to bet a large sum of money ($10), that the majority of the food they consume is packed with carbs/sugar and/or fried. I know I'm really going out on a limb here, so do you own research. And then, if you do have self control issues around those types of food, imagine yourself 50, 100, or 150 lbs heavier before you take your next trip to the buffet. This is a little depressing, so I like to think how awesome it would be to get those folks on OFM and see them in one year, at the buffet, eating fats/avoiding the sh*t and 50, 100, or 150lbs lighter! 

That was a whole crap load of words, just to say that it doesn't matter where you like to eat. It doesn't matter what economic status is. It doesn't matter where your friends like to eat. It doesn't even matter if you only eat at a buffet. The choices you make will decide the future of your health. You can get healthier. You can improve your quality of life. You can be the next person who loses 50lbs in a year.

My sister-in-law really nailed my Christmas gifts this year with a couple of great items for my OFM lifestyle.  The first was this awesome cookbook.  It has about 150 recipes in the book and is broke into the following sections: Bacon & Breakfast, Smooties & Shakes, Snacks, Keto Classics, Fish, Poultry, Meaty Mains, and Desserts.  They also offer a great into to the ketogenic lifestyle to start the book off and wrap it up with some a section on condiments, sauces, and dressings. 

If you are new to the OFM lifestyle, you will find this book a rich resource of meal ideas. One awesome thing they do is list, right next to each item, the ratio of fat to protein/carbs. Another pretty cool part I have seen with a lot of the recipes is that they make a little smaller servings than I have seen with some cookbooks. Perhaps targeted more toward the two person household instead of the 4-5 person household. 
If you have been eating OFM for a while, you will see a lot of your favorites in here but possibly with a twist or two. You may have your go-to items when you visit the grocery store. They will help you use these items, like cauliflower, in a lot of ways you might not have imagined.

The book lists at around $15 for the paperback and less than $5 for the digital version. Overall I would recommend this book as a strong idea generator for your meals. I'm not good at following specific recipes to the letter, but it really lead me down the road to some great meals. It also lead me down the road to use another gift in a unique way- Cheesy Pork Rind Nachos. 

Like I said, I really made out well at Christmas.  While not everyone would be excited to see form of pork in their stocking, I was very interested.  The only problem being that I had tried traditional pork rinds several times before and found them heavy, greasy, and/or just nasty tasting. As Bacon's Heir founder, Brett, pointed out when I emailed him, "It seems that most people assumed that these were just fat fried in fat, so I wanted to change that perception by making a ground up better version." I'm all for fat but sometimes fat fried in fat doesn't sound so pleasant.  Well Brett really did reinvent this product in a pleasant way I had not tasted before.

Growing up on an Alabama cattle farm, Brett had always heard pork rinds were unhealthy.  But as he learned more about Paleo type diets, he was surprised to find that these could be a great healthy compliment to a low carb diet if they were made correctly. Not only did he make the basic concept light, crispy and clean tasting but he also puts just the right amount of spice on each one. These spices range from the very simple rosemary and sea salt to the pleasantly spicy habanero. I'd highly recommend these if you are looking for something to replace chips for use with the great high-fat dips you can make. They also have pork dust, which can replace breadcrumbs or breading for all of your cooking. 

So now you have a great cookbook expanding your food ideas and some great pork clouds. Let's make them work together with the Cheesy Pork Rind Nachos (page 89).  It is really too easy. Spread out your Pork Clouds (I recommend Habanero) on a cookie sheet or pizza tin. Cover this with your favorite shredded cheese. Then throw this on the top shelf of you oven and turn on the broiler (cookbook recommends the microwave, but nachos cooked in the over are better- I have done years of research on this subject).  Watch them closely as you just want to melt the cheese, not really cook anything. Once you take them out, top them with your favorite toppings. Maybe some sour cream, guac, onions, olives, tomatoes...the possibilities are endless. The Pork Clouds stay nice and crispy, leaving you a sturdy and tasty platform for your nachos. Hope you enjoyed that- I need to go make some of these nachos now.