Month: April 2018

Categories
Reviews

Review of the Softstar Shoes Moc3 RunAmoc

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These are my 4th pair of different Softstar Shoes, whilst I could not pick a favorite. These are definitely on par with my other shoes from them.

I ordered these as I wanted a multi purpose minimalist shoe, that could be used for all my summer training needs. Over the summer I am looking to improve my lean body mass in the Gym, compete in the Concept2 indoor rowing rankings, and keep my running going over shorter distances of 1 mile, 5k and 10k.

These are perfect for my training. They are extremely lightweight, almost like a second skin. They are also extremely minimalist, with an ultra thin vibram sole of only 2mm. However don’t worry you get a lot of grip out of them 2mm, without ever feeling like your foot is being forced into unnatural positions. They weigh a measly 5oz, so you barely feel like you are wearing anything at all. The outer shoe is handmade from very soft leather, which I have found from my other shoes is still very long lasting. Whilst the leather isn’t water resistant, you can wipe the shoe clean really easily when needed and they end up looking like new.

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My other shoes are all lace shoes. This one is different, it is a pull on. My shoe size is right between a 9 and a 10 on their size guide. So I went with the 9, due to it being a slip on. This was the correct choice as they fit perfectly. What makes them an excellent slip on shoe, is that there is a built in Breathe-O-Prene® interior. Which provides a moisture-wicking and odour preventing aspect to the shoe. With this in mind it makes the usage of socks redundant, although you can wear them if you want to. 

I have been wearing and running in minimalist shoes for 2 years now, and even I found these to have very thin soles and I have ran a marathon in sandals. So if you are thinking of buying these, you will need to have some experience in minimalist shoes or be prepared to use them sparingly until your feet get used to having less support.

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They have proved to be very useful in the Gym. When you are Squatting and Deadlifting, it is important in my opinion to wear a zero drop shoe like these. You want to have your feet in natural angles so you are recruiting the correct muscles. This will lessen the chances of being injured. The same applies to my concept2 rowing. By wearing zero drop shoes, my feet lay flat against the foot paddle. Ensuring the best possible foot position. This again will lessen the chances of injury in my opinion.

I have been wearing them on the running track at the gym, and I do enjoy running in them on the track. However when I run off track, I prefer to wear the Primal’s as they provide a bit more protection and peace of mind for me.

All in all I highly recommend these shoes.

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If you enjoyed this post, I would love it if you took the time to make a small donation to help keep this blog going, you can make a donation for any amount you would like here.

You can also add a little fat to my pan by looking into my offers on Ambassadorships/Sponsorship’s, Product Reviews, Paid Promotions or buy one of my Keto & Carnivore inspired Apparel items.

You can catch me on:

 

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Page, Reddit sub, Strava Club, Ketogenic Endurance Clothing

Softstar Shoes provided me these shoes in exchange for an honest review.

Categories
Reviews

SKINS review: Activewear Men’s Linear Tech Fleece Hoodie & Pants

You can buy the SKINS hoodie and trousers separately, or buy and wear them as one tracksuit.

Firstly I do wear hoodies a lot, this could be walking to the gym, walking the dogs, or camping. I rarely wear tracksuit trousers to be fair. After all I am a 38 (nearly) year old man, and I am not sure how often I should be seen in public in a full tracksuit haha.

However I have fallen in love with the full tracksuit. It has especially been useful for my Camping trips. Once you are in the tent for the night, the tracksuit is perfect for chilling in the tent. Yet it is smart enough so you do not feel like a clip walking to the toilets.

I live in the North East of England, so even on hot summer days. The nights can get quite cool. Even at home I like to sit outside with the BBQ on. As a result the tracksuit has become a staple for my garden chilling time.

The reason for this is that the tracksuit does have a noticeable fleece lining, made from “moisture-wicking” cotton. So it is warm and snug, but the fleece isn’t over the top hot. So whilst it keeps you warm, you never feel sweaty. Or at least I haven’t yet. The fleece and thickness of the tracksuit also provides nice protection against the wind. I am not sure how it would feel if you got caught out in the rain though. It might become a bit heavy.

This tracksuit is perfect for spring and autumn days, and summer nights. I love it. It is very comfortable, and well made. As are all the SKINS products I own. This tracksuit would also be ideal for pre and post exercise. For example if you are walking to the 5 a side court, or if you are warming up for a tennis match. I also believe it would be perfect for walking around before and after a running race.

In terms of normal clothes. I would describe the hoodie to be a Slim Fit, and the pants would be a Skinny Fit in relation to Chinos or Jeans. This is ideal for me as this is often how I dress in other clothes. Both the hoodie and pants have quite large elasticated cuffs. This may sound a bit weird, but the are very comfortable and seem to keep the cold out and keep the warm in. It also makes them stand out a bit from normal tracksuits I think. The online size guide is very good. I was actually right on the borderline of Large and Medium, as I prefer tighter fits so I went with the medium size for both. This turned out to be a good choice for me.

All in all for anyone who is active or just loves chilling out, you could make good use of either the hoodie, pants or both. I have found all SKINS products to wear well, even after multiple washes. So I have no reason to believe these will not be to the same standard.

SKINS provided these items in exchange for an honest review.

Categories
Ketogenic Diet

Guest Post from Keto Summit: Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms

A Simple Keto Recipe – Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms

This recipe is from Louise Hendon of the Keto Summit who’s the author of The Keto Snacks Cookbook and creator of the 3-2-1 Keto Meal Plans.

Please note that I am not a doctor or registered dietitian.  Before starting any new diet and exercise program please check with your doctor and clear any exercise and/or diet changes with them before beginning.

Bacon Stuffed MushroomsThis recipe is one that I always come back to.

It’s so easy to make.

It only has 1g of net carbs per serving.

And it has bacon… Who doesn’t love bacon!?

Low Carb & Keto Oils

If you’re new to low carb and Keto cooking, I’ll also explain the benefits, differences, and drawbacks to some of the most common keto cooking oils.

This recipe calls for either olive oil or avocado oil.

But you could really use any keto-friendly oil that you’d like. For example, you could substitute and use ghee, coconut oil, lard, etc.

The oil that you use will influence the flavor of the dish, so keep that in mind.

I’ll give some brief advantages and disadvantages of the main keto oils below.

Olive Oil:

Olive oil is an anti-inflammatory oil that has been shown to protect heart health. It’s got lots of antioxidants and has a rich, nutty flavor.

Besides cooking with it, it’s also used for drizzling on vegetables or salads.

Olive oil has a smoking point of 350F.

The smoking point of an oil is the temperature when an oil starts to burn and smoke. When this happens, the oil may lose some of its beneficial properties, so it’s important to avoid overheating the oil beyond its smoking point.

Coconut Oil:

Recently, coconut oil has been labeled by a superfood by some experts (and for good reason). It’s got antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties.

But beware: coconut oil can bring coconut flavors to your meal. So if you aren’t too fond of the flavor of coconut, then I’d recommend going with another keto-friendly oil.

Avocado Oil:

 Until a couple of years ago, I didn’t even know that avocado oil existed!

One great thing about avocado oil is that it has a smoking point of at least 425F. So if you’re ever cooking foods at a high temperature, then avocado oil is one of your best options.

One thing to note:

While avocado oil has gotten cheaper, I still find that it’s much more expensive than some of the other keto-friendly oils out there.

Ghee:

Think of ghee as butter’s better self.

In our version of keto, we don’t recommend dairy products, including butter, but we are totally gung-ho on using ghee as it has most of the casein and lactose removed.

And unlike butter, which has a smoking point of under 350F, ghee has a smoking point of over 450F, making it very versatile to use when cooking or frying your favorite foods at high temperatures.

Ok, let’s get to the food…

I hope you enjoy these bacon stuffed mushrooms and for more Keto recipes, please check out my Keto Snacks Cookbook and Keto meal plans.

BaconStuffedMushrooms

Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

  • 20 medium white button mushrooms
  • 4 slices of bacon, raw
  • 1/4 onion
  • 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil or avocado oil

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C).
  2. Clean the mushrooms (remove the stems carefully with your hands – they should pop and then come out cleanly after you wriggle it a bit).
  3. In the food processor, food process the bacon, onion, and mushroom stems to form a mince.
  4. Heat up a frying pan, add in the oil and fry the mince until slightly browned.
  5. Using your hands and a small spoon, stuff the bacon mixture into the mushrooms.
  6. Place mushrooms onto a baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes until slightly browned.

Nutritional Data (estimates) – per serving:

Calories: 200

Fat: 20 g

Total Carbs: 2 g

Fiber: 1 g

Sugar: 1 g

Net Carbs: 1 g

Protein: 5 g

By buying anything on Amazon through this link, and I will receive a commission to help keep the blog running, at no extra cost to you.

https://rcm-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=2&p=48&l=ez&f=ifr&linkID=11b869702ff5d21c8164874e6d094002&t=ketogenicendurance-21&tracking_id=ketogenicendurance-21

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If you enjoyed this post, I would love it if you took the time to make a small donation to help keep this blog going, you can make a donation for any amount you would like here. You can also add a little fat to my pan by looking into my offers on Ambassadorships/Sponsorship’s, Product Reviews, Paid Promotions or buy one of my Keto & Carnivore inspired Apparel items.

I also offer Diet and/or Running Coaching:

 

You can catch me on:

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Page, Reddit sub, Strava Club, Ketogenic Endurance Clothing

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Categories
Older Yet.....

Manchester Marathon – DNS

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Sadly I had to pull out of the Manchester Marathon. I really wanted to do it, plus I begrudged wasting all the money on entry and parking etc. However I had to make the smart choice for my body. I injured my knee 4 weeks prior to the race, so I could not do any running in this period. My knee was OK walking about, but there was no way of knowing if I could get around a marathon course. If it was a hamstring injury, then I could have strapped it up and took the chance. However knees are not something you want to mess around with, I have lots of things I want to do this summer and hobbling around on crutches is not one of them. So the head ruled the heart on this occasion.
 

There are of course twinges of regret. In November  2017 when I started my training, I wanted to knock 15 minutes off my marathon PB. Which was a tough but achievable target. I would have missed out on this target anyway in all honestly, for the following reasons:
1) Winter Training – I discovered I do not like Marathon training in the winter. The night runs are boring, as I had to train around the streets of my small town. Then the long weekend runs were often inhibited by snow and ice. It is a much nicer experience training in the summer, for an autumn Marathon. I ll probably do another Marathon when I am 40 in 2020, however it will most certainly be after a summer training block. I actually only did 25 runs in the 24 week training period. This is insufficient. You cannot cheat a marathon, you have to put the training miles in.
2) Knee Injury – the aforementioned injury; 4 weeks out I hurt my Knee in a long training run. Therefore I did zero miles of running in the 4 weeks before the Marathon. That is a pretty excessive taper! Some people may lay the blame of this injury on my barefoot/minimalist running. However I do not believe this was the case. If my running style or shoes were to blame, I would have had varying levels of discomfort throughout the training period. This was not the case, I was totally injury free then I felt my knee go on one specific run. There were no constant niggles or pains, that I was dealing with.
3) Dietary change – When I was on a Traditional Ketogenic Diet, my body seemed to really enjoy long slow training runs and I responded to that. However once I changed to a Paleolithic Ketogenic Diet, my body started to want to lift stuff and do more explosive training. You might think this sounds stupid, but when your diet is giving your body all the building blocks it needs. It will tell you to exercise and how. I almost don’t have an option now, I have to exercise regularly. Even on top of the 2-4 miles of daily dog walks, which still isn’t enough to scratch the exercise itch.
 

So this now marks the end of what I classed as my winter training. It is now time for my summer training block. I am going to spend this time building muscle, cutting body fat and doing sprint events on the Concept2 Rower. This will be a good experiment, as a lot of people will presume you cannot build muscle or do sprints without Carbs. Yet I will be attempting this on Zero Carbs. I will start my strength training immediatley. However I will have to go through a technique and conditioning phase on the rower, before I start doing the sprint races. I also need to get my weight under 75kg or 11st11, so that I can compete in the Lightweight category. I am currently 78kg or 12st3. I am a natural sprinter, so if I can get under the lightweight limit I should be able to do some damage in the sprint events. The sprint events are the 100m, 1 minute for distance and the 500m.
 

All my training is done in SKINS and Softstar Shoes.

I am also an Ambassador for a Ketogenic Sports Drink called #KETONEIO by Limited Labs – use coupon STEVEN for 10% off storewide. Check out their product range here https://ltdlabs.com/team/steven/ – I also contribute to their weekly newsletter “The Ketogenic Playbook” at https://ltdlabs.com/newsletter/
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By buying anything on Amazon through this link, and I will receive a commission to help keep the blog running, at no extra cost to you.

https://rcm-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=2&p=48&l=ez&f=ifr&linkID=11b869702ff5d21c8164874e6d094002&t=ketogenicendurance-21&tracking_id=ketogenicendurance-21

ketocarnivore offer twitter header

If you enjoyed this post, I would love it if you took the time to make a small donation to help keep this blog going, you can make a donation for any amount you would like here. You can also add a little fat to my pan by looking into my offers onAmbassadorships/Sponsorship’s, Product Reviews, Paid Promotions or buy one of my Keto & Carnivore inspired Apparel items.

I also offer Diet and/or Running Coaching:

Diet – Adopting a Low Carb diet was the best thing I ever did for my own health, weight and mental well being. If you are not happy with where you are at now, I can help you make a positive change.

Running – If you are interested in running fat adapted, I can steer you through the obstacles for any running goals you may have. There are separate Diet and Running plans, or you can combine them.

You can catch me on:

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Page, Reddit sub, Strava Club, Ketogenic Endurance Clothing

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