Every Home Needs a Coffee Faucet

Am I right or am I right?

Also? It can be controlled with an iPhone or iPad.



I'm having a coffeegasm over here.

[Source: Buzzfeed]

Link Dump

I was going to post about my workout today, but that would require that I actually work out.



Instead, I've just been hanging out with the family and eating insane amounts of meat while on vacation here in Cabo (and plugging along on some extracurricular homework for Nom Nom Paleo). I did, however, gather a bunch of interesting reads for you to chew on:

• This op-ed piece in The Atlantic's been making the rounds. Three longtime vegetarians and vegans discuss how they came to understand that eating meat and other animal products is not only healthful, but also ethically and environmentally sound. Read it here.

• According to the New York Times, coffee can boost your athletic performance by "enabl[ing] more forceful muscular contractions and delay[ing] fatigue.” CoffeeWOD, anyone?

• You should already be reading all of the sites featured in Outside Magazine's list of the blogosphere's top ten fitness blogs -- especially MobilityWOD, Conditioning Research, and RunBlogger.

• Is Bob Harper really going to be putting his "Biggest Loser" team on a CrossFit-focused training regimen next season? I might actually have to start watching the show again.

• Serious Eats recently posted Pat LaFrieda's video responses to readers' meat-related questions. Good stuff -- especially if you're interested in butchery.

• I enjoyed the crap out of this post on Lift Big Eat Big: "10 Excuses For Not Exercising & Why They Are Horsesh*t."

• Health Tip of the Day: Do not eat cocaine out of your brother's butt.

Bye for now.

Caffeinated Beef Jerky

Yes, please.

According to The Week, a U.S. Army lab is "infusing beef jerky with a coffee cup's worth of caffeine to give soldiers a jolt with their protein."

Why? To "make portable meals more appealing and nutritious" for soldiers.

And, I suppose, to keep 'em awake.

[Source]

Common Ground

We are all caffeine junkies.

I love you, coffee. (But only before noon.)

Caffeine, Twitter & Community

My recent guest post over at the CrossFit Elevate blog (a.k.a. the "Hustle Press") is about using social media and adult beverages to make your gym a little more like Cheers.

The next logical step: Building a coffee joint inside your CrossFit gym.

Here It Comes: Reebok CrossFit Gear -- and Affiliates?

A picture's worth a thousand words, right? Well, these might be worth a bit more:

After Tim showed us these photos at this morning's post-workout CoffeeWOD™, we (along with the Terminator) spent the better part of the next hour chugging caffeinated beverages and geeking out over the information crammed into these images.

First things first: The guy pictured above is actor Ricky Kim (a.k.a., Kansas State University alum Ricky Lee Neely), Reebok's "official model" in Korea. He tweeted these pictures out on Monday.

(By the way, it's not clear to me what Ricky was attempting to do with those kettlebells. Was he doing biceps curls? Handing a kettlebell to small child? I just hope he didn't hurt himself.)

Ricky's sporting some brand-spankin'-new Reebok CrossFit gear, including a pair of "X-Functional Board Shorts." Haven't seen the new Reebok CrossFit apparel and accessories that CrossFit HQ recently made available for sale on its online store? Go take a gander.

Haters gonna hate, but I think some of the stuff looks sweet. I'm ordering myself a beanie or two, and maybe some shorts and a shirt, too.

No sign of the shoes yet, though.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Ricky's glamor shots, though, is his Reebok CrossFit Seoul t-shirt. We know that Reebok has a CrossFit box in Seoul, Korea -- on SICFIT, you can find a video clip of folks doing Fran there, and people have written about visiting the place. (There are plenty of photos on this blog, too.)

The physical space looks super-slick -- look at all those treadmills! -- and very similar in aesthetic to Reebok CrossFit One, the affiliate located at the company's Canton, Massachusetts headquarters.

But does this mean Reebok's launching more company-branded boxes? Check out this question-and-answer that's popped up on the FAQ section of Reebok CrossFit One's website: 

Is Reebok opening CrossFit boxes?

No. Reebok is not opening Boxes. We’re offering our brand name to affiliates that meet certain qualifications. 

In Global markets, Affiliates will leverage both brands to scale CrossFit across the globe. These dual-affiliated boxes will run like any other CrossFit (affiliate owned and operated) and will become educational hubs for Cross Fit Certifications and Specialty Seminars.

So it looks like Reebok CrossFit Seoul is one of the world's first "dual-affiliated" boxes (outside of Reebok CrossFit One). It may not be owned and operated by the company, but from the looks of the place, Reebok's poured a good amount of resources into it. And that's not such a bad thing. In places where CrossFit gyms are few and far between, I think that -- on the whole -- Reebok's investment in new gyms around the world signals its commitment to spreading the CrossFit gospel (along with its own brand, naturally). As Tim puts it, "getting the masses to do CrossFit will take massive efforts" -- and it looks like Reebok's ready to put in that effort.

For me, the bigger question involves North America. I believe Reebok when it says it isn't opening boxes of its own to compete against established CrossFit gyms. There's no reason for the company to steal market share from existing affiliates who can help them sell shoes, shirts and shorts. But what happens when Reebok starts lending its brand name to boxes that "meet certain qualifications"? (And just what are those qualifications?) 

In the years to come, will Reebok-branded affiliates be viewed as the gold standard in CrossFit boxes because they'll have the backing of a big company? Will they be seen as higher-quality gyms than other affiliates because they've met Reebok's standards and received its official stamp of approval? Or will they be disdained as overly corporate, restrictive, and generic? And how will non-Reebok-branded gyms be perceived?

Will affiliate owners beat a path to Reebok's door to obtain the company's blessing and permission to use its logo? Or will the majority of 'em steer clear in an effort to stay wholly independent of Reebok?

I have SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. Thankfully, there's only nine more days 'til we all congregate in Carson, California to endlessly yammer about this stuff.

***

UPDATED: Philipp Imbusch pointed me to this photo of a shirt from Reebok CrossFit Nürnberg (Nuremberg) on the Facebook page of Drake Sladky (formerly of Landstuhl CrossFit). Looks like this Reebok-branded affiliate's been in the works since at least March. Interesting!

Real Men Go To Sleep

I have a ton of photos from the NorCal Regionals to edit and upload to the Interwebs, but:

1. I've been up since 3:50 a.m.,
2. The effects of my 36 ounces of morning coffee (not kidding) have finally started to wear off, and
3. I'm not particularly interested in getting fat, aging faster and drastically lowering my testosterone levels.

From WBEZ in Chicago (dammit, I want to be Ira Glass):

Losing sleep might sap men’s testosterone, according to new research by Chicago scientists. Men release most of their testosterone during sleep, so University of Chicago professor Eve Van Cauter wanted to see if less sleep meant less of the hormone.

She recruited volunteers and restricted their sleep to just five hours per night for eight days. At the end of that stretch, her team took blood samples to test for hormone levels. They found an average 15 percent drop in testosterone.

“And 15 percent is not an insignificant amount, since it is about the amount that occurs with normal aging by 10 to 15 years,” Van Cauten said.

So in one respect, a week of bad sleep is like aging a decade or more.

Hell to the no. The photos will have to wait. Sorry, folks.

This is a great reminder that sleeplessness is not a sign of virility. It is, in fact, the very opposite. So go to bed.

'Night, y'all.

Check-In

I'm a Paleo stickler, and my food choices are fairly clean. My "cheats" are increasingly rare. But there'a always room for improvement.

After attending a Whole9 seminar in early March, I outlined 9 things I was going to do to modify my food choices. Two-and-a-half months later, how am I doing with these dietary tweaks? Let's run it down.

TWEAK NO. 1: Get more sleep -- especially the night before a 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto. (Whole9's rule: Didn't get at least 6 hours of sleep? THEN NO EXERCISE FOR YOU. Use that time instead to get more Z's or prep some food.)

STATUS: Miserable failure. I'm still staying up too late. Plus, I've violated the no-exercise-without-six-hours-of-sleep rule several times. (But I'm working on it. Really.)

TWEAK NO. 2: Stop pounding caffeine after noon. And if all goes well, I'll try to eliminate caffeine altogether from my diet.

STATUS: I cheated on this one for a while. Every day, I'd buy coffee right before the clock struck noon and then nurse my precious cup for another hour to prolong the caffeine intake. But over the past month or so, I've done a better job of keeping my caffeine intake restricted to the morning hours. I'm nowhere near ready to rid myself of coffee altogether, though.

TWEAK NO. 3: Reduce my intake of nuts and seeds -- and when I do indulge, I'm going to reach for macadamia nuts and hazelnuts over all others.

STATUS: I'm still struggling with this one. I love nuts, and Costco sells Mauna Loa mac nuts in bulk. Also: Oren's Kitchen sells some insanely good spiced nuts (and a couple of varieties contain only Paleo ingredients!), and I'm addicted to 'em. I have, however, cut back significantly on my nut intake -- and have even managed to go a few days without eating nuts at all. (I know: Shocking!)

TWEAK NO. 4: Cut the cheese. (HAR HAR! I meant cutting it from my diet.)

STATUS: Done. This one was surprisingly easy to do. I realize now that despite my love for the taste of certain cheeses, none of 'em are worth the gut irritation and other associated problems.

TWEAK NO. 5: Eat something starchy/carby (but no fruit or fat) immediately post-workout.

STATUS: I'm all over this one. Since the Whole9 seminar, I've made it a point to bring a baked sweet potato and/or a bag of peeled roasted chestnuts with me to class so that I can chow down s soon as the WOD's done. It's done wonders for my recovery time and energy levels. Plus, sweet potatoes and chestnuts are tasty as hell.

TWEAK NO. 6: Try to get over my aversion to olives, because they're awesome sources of fat (assuming no preservatives or other additives are in the mix).

STATUS: I still don't like olives. Sorry.

TWEAK NO. 7: Seriously cut back on fruit, and stop drinking juice altogether.

STATUS: Done. Sure, I'll still chomp on a couple of strawberries when M buys a flat at the Farmer's Market, and I'll occasionally have a nibble of whatever fruit I'm cutting up for the kids. But I've never had a sweet tooth, and now, even small bites of fruit taste overly sweet and cloying to me. I pretty much steer clear of the stuff.

TWEAK NO. 8: Never cook with olive oil again.

STATUS: Not a problem. To me, food tastes better when it's cooked in ghee or coconut oil anyway.

TWEAK NO. 9: Break open the vat of duck fat we have sitting in the freezer.

STATUS: Done. And it was good.

Breakfast of Champions

Two chains in the neighborhood I don't mind having around -- especially when I'm in the mood for a quick, cheap hit of caffeine and beef: Philz Coffee and In-N-Out.

That there's a protein-style, mustard-fried double-meat burger with onions, chopped chili peppers and pickles -- hold the spread -- plus some awesome single-cup drip coffee.

Sadly, not everyone in our family's a fan of Philz' dark-roasted Turkish blend.

No accounting for taste, I guess.

Friday's Workout: Burpees or Sleep?

I pry open my eyes and peer over at the clock. 4:05 a.m. Fifteen minutes 'til the alarm goes off. It's still pitch black. No sense in abandoning my warm bed just yet. I close my eyes.

I roll over and look at the clock again. 5:13 a.m.

SHIT. I'd dozed off, and I hadn't set the alarm. Class had already started.

I weighed my options. The penalty for arriving more than 5 minutes late for class at CrossFit Palo Alto is 20 burpees. I wouldn't have to do any of 'em -- or whatever crazy metcon Tim had up his sleeve -- if I just pulled the covers up over my head. Plus, I knew we were scheduled to practice ring dips today -- something I could always do later in my garage. Most tempting of all: If I skipped class, I'd get another hour-and-a-half of sleep before having to rouse the kids for school.

On the other hand, I hate missing class. HATE. IT. Missing class means I go into withdrawal and pretty much turn into a raging butthole.

My decision -- after the jump.

Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream

One of my five food rules: Only cheat when it's absolutely worth it.

I rarely deviate from strict Paleo eating. (Example: In the past several months, I've eaten only one sugary dessert. And THAT one was totally worth it.) It hasn't been all that hard for me to pass up grains, legumes and sugar; I've never been a huge fan of any of the above. I don't have a sweet tooth.

BUT: If -- after careful consideration -- I'm absolutely certain that the pleasure of downing a non-Paleo food item is going to totally eclipse any resulting intestinal distress, I'll have zero qualms about eating it. And once the decision's made, I don't go about it half-assed. I go all out.

Case in point: I drove by Humphry Slocombe today (after picking up rabbit from 4505 Meats -- yes, we're cooking and eating Easter bunny flesh this weekend) -- and as luck would have it, there was a parking space right up front. Visions of Chris Cosentino's Boccalone Prosciutto ice cream danced in my head. I parked the car and hustled inside.



Sadly, there was no prosciutto ice cream on the menu today. But my mind was made up: I wanted to taste every flavor on hand. I tried spoonfuls of Salt & Pepper, Jesus Juice, Ancho Chocolate, Salted Licorice, and whatever else looked sufficiently weird and tasty.

After priming my palate with a sufficiently large bolus of sugar, I ordered a scoop of Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee ice cream (because I love me some Blue Bottle coffee), with a scoop of Secret Breakfast ice cream on top. Secret Breakfast is, of course, "ice cream with bourbon and toasted cornflakes, including so much Jim Beam that the scoops always run soft."

My very first cup of ice cream in 2011, in all its glory:

Booze. Coffee. Cornflakes. Dairy. Sugar. Total faileo, and my gut is going to hate me for it.

But it was delicious.

Every CrossFit Gym Needs One

The Primal Grind -- a sugar- and dairy-free espresso bar -- has set up shop inside the CrossFit Academy of Lions gym in Toronto.

This almost brings tears to my eyes.

[Source]

Because.

Okay: I've got some explaining to do. Below, I listed (again) the dietary tweaks I intend to implement, along with my reasons. I may mangle some of this stuff up, as I'm just regurgitating what we heard yesterday at the Whole9 Foundations of Nutrition workshop.

THE TWEAK:

Get more sleep -- especially the night before a 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto. (Whole9's rule: Didn't get at least 6 hours of sleep? THEN NO EXERCISE FOR YOU. Use that time instead to get more Z's or prep some food.)

THE REASON:

This goes without saying, right? We all know by now that we ought to be getting at least nine -- yes, nine -- hours of sleep per night, or else risk all sorts of health issues, including obesity and diabetes. These and other disorders are all linked to chronic, systemic inflammation; your body's immune system is constantly pushed to work harder than it should to repair and maintain your body in response to the added stress you're placing on it.

Another point that hit home with me at yesterday's presentation: Sleep should take priority over training. Your body doesn't get fitter while you're training. Your body gets fitter when it's recovering and re-building itself. (Some -- including Robb Wolf -- say it's even more important than food.)

Plus, lack of sleep makes you look like crap. No need to crow about functioning on just four hours of sleep; after all, sleeplessness not a sign of virility. 

THE TWEAK:

Stop pounding caffeine after noon.

THE REASON:

I've wavered on this point before, and I sure love me a good cuppa coffee (the cold-brewed stuff is like crack to me). But in the end, I'm kinda-sorta coming around to the Whole9's way of thinking. Caffeine's a potent stressor, and promotes a stress response that I don't need. Plus, if I keep chugging it in the P.M., it's going to keep wreaking havoc on my sleep patterns. Not good.

So starting now: No more coffee after noon. (Read the Whole9's Coffee Manifesto here.)

THE TWEAK:

Reduce my intake of nuts and seeds -- and when I do indulge, I'm going to reach for macadamia nuts and hazelnuts over all others.

THE REASON:

Nuts and seeds are incredibly nutrient-dense foods, which makes 'em a great addition to any diet.

But the concern is that the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content in all nuts and seeds have a pro-inflammatory profile, with higher ratios of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids. By now, we all know why it's important to reduce the markers of systemic inflammation by maintaining a ratio closer to 2:1 or 1:1 than the standard American diet's ratio of upwards of 30:1, right? Besides, there's the whole Chris Masterjohn line of thought about the connection between PUFA degeneration and atherosclerosis.

Of course, some nuts have very low PUFA content (only 2% of the fats in mac nuts are PUFAs, for example), and in the end, they're a net nutritional plus. Others, though, are pretty damned high in PUFAs. (For instance, 72% of the fats in walnuts are pro-inflammatory PUFAs.) So going forward, I'm going to be a more discriminating nut eater -- and favor mac nuts in particular, which studies suggest offer a host of other health benefits as well.

Yes, there's some debate over this stuff (isn't there always?), but even beyond the whole systemic inflammation argument, I've found that it's just way too easy for me to mindlessly binge on nuts. Nuts are super dense in calories. (Just one cup of macadamia nuts, for example, contain almost 1,000 calories.) I'm not a calorie counter at all, but I'm addicted to nuts. If left unchecked, my nut consumption would grow to the point that weight maintenance would surely become an issue. And while nuts are certainly "Paleo" (excepting those "nuts" that aren't actually nuts at all, like peanuts) 'cause cavepeople could eat 'em, that doesn't mean they're the optimal source of dietary fat for modern humans. I think I'm going to try to mindlessly binge on eggs and avocados instead.

THE TWEAK:

Cut the cheese. (HAR HAR! I meant cutting it from my diet.)

THE REASON:

I've already cut most dairy out of my diet, save pastured butter/ghee, the cheese on my burgers/in my salads, and a little Greek yogurt when it's cooked in a few of the dishes that M makes. But after listening to the Whole9 folks lay out their case against dairy, I'm considering eliminating cheese from my diet entirely. In particular, cheeses have an acidifying effect on the body, and an "acid-producing diet promotes bone de-mineralization (i.e. osteopenia and osteoporosis), and also contributes to the following maladies and illnesses: kidney stones, age-related muscle wasting, hypertension, stroke and asthma." Yeesh.

Plus, the beta-casomorphins that are created in the cheese-making process are literally addictive. That's right: When milk is turned into cheese, it becomes dairy crack. And crack is wack.

THE TWEAK:

Eat something starchy/carby immediately post-workout.

THE REASON: 

I'm still doing the intermittent fasting gig (and am enjoying its benefits), so this will require some re-jiggering of my early-morning fasted training routine.

It won't hurt me if I fail to refuel my muscles with some carbs and protein after a long, intense metcon. But the body's uptake of nutrients is most efficient in the half-hour after intense exercise. During this short window, our muscles are particularly insulin-sensitive, so we take advantage of a mechanism called “non-insulin mediated glucose transport” to shove some nutritious carbs into our systems. Protein can also help with refilling our glycogen stores and decreasing the inflammation caused by intense exercise. In other words, we recover faster.

So I'm now considering downing some sweet potato, beets, parsnips, chestnuts or winter squash after hard WODs. (But I'm also considering staying the course and not eating anything, per my current practice and Mat Lalonde's words of wisdom.) [UPDATE: See notes by The Lazy Caveman and The Nutty Kitchen below -- I am now officially off the fence!]

By the way, the Whole9 warns against eating fat or fruit as part of the post-workout meal -- fat'll slow down the body's ability to replenish your muscle glycogen, and the fructose in fruit will prioritize the replenishment of your liver glycogen -- not your muscle glycogen.

THE TWEAK:

Try to get over my aversion to olives, because they're awesome sources of fat (assuming no preservatives or other additives are in the mix).

THE REASON:

The best monounsaturated fats recommended by the Whole9 are avocados, avocado oil, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, olives and olive oil. I already eat copious amounts of everything on the list except olives. And I am nothing if not a completist.

THE TWEAK:

Seriously cut back on fruit, and stop drinking juice altogether.

THE REASON: 

Honestly, I stopped drinking juice eons ago, and I don't go crazy with fruit. I just stuck this one in here just for those of you who still haven't gotten the memo that eating fruit is fine -- but in moderation. (We're talking one to two servings a day.) I get the feeling there are those of you out there who think that going Paleo is a license to go to town on smoothies, juice, and berries in everything. If you're out there, here's why you should watch your fruit intake:

Fruit is not as nutritionally dense as most vegetables. The top ten vegetables on the ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) scale range from kale (score: 1000 -- perfect!) to arugula (559). But the most nutrient-dense fruit -- strawberries -- gets a score of just 212.

Fruit is too often used as a crutch by perfectly well-meaning Paleo adherents who rely on fruit to satisfy their lingering sugar cravings. Do you find yourself piling your plate high with fruit for breakfast? Snacking on bananas and grapes all day? Constantly adding fruit to meals just to add some (totally unnecessary) sweetness? Juicing fruit -- thereby removing all the good stuff in order to concentrate the liquid sugar into drinkable form? STOP IT. 

THE TWEAK: 

Never cook with olive oil again.

THE REASON:

"Never" is probably too strong a word. And I should have qualified that statement further by saying "high-heat cooking." Still:

From what we learned yesterday, olive oil -- while mostly comprised of good monounsaturated fat -- still contains proportionally greater amounts of unstable PUFAs than other cooking fats that are available to us (like coconut oil, ghee, etc.)

PUFAs happen to have a low smoke point (the temperature at which the fat begins to smoke and break down chemically). And they're also the most susceptible to oxidation. And oxidation is bad news.

As Inhuman Experiment put it:

What about olive oil then? Even though everyone seems to love olive oil in general, there's something of a debate going on over whether it should be used for cooking purposes. My opinion is that ... it's not the worst choice but it's not the best either. The smoking point of extra virgin olive oil seems to vary from 160 to 190 °C, depending on the free fatty acid content. Virgin olive oil, however, has some properties that make it more heat-tolerant than most other oils...

So which oils should you use for cooking? For sautéing and cooking at light to medium temperatures, my choice would be the ones on the left of the graph: coconut oil, ghee, butter, palm oil, and lard. If you stay below 170 °C, you're in pretty safe waters in terms of oxidation regardless of which one of them you choose. Virgin olive oil seems like a viable choice, too; just make sure the particular olive oil you're using it doesn't start smoking.

But why even bother cooking with olive oil when I can just use the humongous vats of coconut oil and ghee in my pantry for all my cooking needs? I'll just save the EVOO for non-heated applications (e.g., in dressings, etc.)

THE TWEAK:

Break open the vat of duck fat we have sitting in the freezer.

THE REASON:

Note that I didn't say I was going to cook exclusively with duck fat, or that duck fat is superior to all other forms of cooking fats. I just said I was going to break it out.

Still, duck fat (along with beef tallow and goat fat) is -- according to Whole9 -- preferable to cooking with lard. Why? Because lard (and all pork products) generally come from pigs that eat at least some shitty stuff. There's no such thing as a "grass-fed" pig, because pigs aren't ruminants like cows. They're natural omnivores like you and me. So even pastured pigs who are given freedom to root around and eat whatever they can find in the wild nonetheless are provided with supplemental food -- often in the form of cheap grains and corn. (One exception: The pastured pigs at Full of Life Farm, from which we just bought half a pig.)

Besides, duck fat tastes good.

CaveGirlCheats

Over at the excellent CaveGirlEats blog, Liz posted a list of foods she knows she ain't supposed to eat under a Primal diet, but does anyway. As she puts it, these are "the things I incorporate into my regimen frequently that were *prooobably* not available to your typical Cave Person. They’re my Primal Fudge-ems."

I have a list, too, but some of mine aren't just fudges -- to a strict Paleo eater, they're just out-and-out, off-the-rails cheats:

• Insane amounts of Omega-6-heavy nuts;
• Obscene quantities of black coffee (preferably cold-brewed);
• BCAA powder;
• Vinegar;
• Tasty things I stick in my jerky marinades: tamari, Worchestershire sauce, canned chipotles in adobo sauce (which has added sugar);
• Dairy -- including yogurt, (pastured, grass-fed) butter, ghee, and cheese. Glorious, glorious cheese;
• Consistent with my Rule No. 5, I'll eat anything else that looks too awesome to pass up.

Lastly, I'm not all that careful about my bacon sources. If it's bacon, it's going in my mouth, dammit.

Le WTF

Over the past couple of years, Harvard professor David Edwards has invented two new tools for dieters: "Le Whif" -- a small cylinder that puffs a cloud of vaporized chocolate or coffee into people's mouths -- and "Le Whaf" -- a humidifier that allows people to literally inhale their food instead of eating it.



"It's good for dieters," Edwards says.

Right.

Doing Stupid Things Faster, With More Energy

I'm not exactly a coffee fiend, but I do enjoy a cup or two a day. (You know how much I like cold-brewed coffee.)

And although I tried quitting a while back, it didn't take. So now, I'm on a mission to justify my daily caffeine intake.

So here's a non-exhaustive list of the benefits of caffeine:

• It eases asthma symptoms.
• It may protect against dementia.
• It's associated with lowered risk of Parkinson's.
• It may reduce the risk of certain cancers and diabetes.
• It boosts short-term recall.
• It's tasty.
• It keeps you awake.
• And most importantly for athletic performance: It's ergogenic, it soothes the pain of intense exercise, and taken post-workout, it can enhance subsequent physical performance.

The drawbacks?

Well, among other things, it can make you kill people. (Allegedly.)

Don't overdo it and murder your spouse, but some reasonable coffee consumption appears to be A-OK (though my two favorite Paleo gurus, Robb Wolf and Mat Lalonde, seem to be at odds on this point).

Wednesday's Workout

Two of us showed up for the 5 a.m. class this morning, expecting to pull out the racks for overhead squats. Our coach, however, had a proposition for us. "Want to go grab coffee instead?" he asked. "I'm buying."

We shrugged. "Okay."

The three of us trudged a couple of blocks to the neighborhood Starbucks, guzzled black coffee, shot the shit for a half hour, walked back to the gym, and drove home.

Best workout ever.

But...


I'd already had my rest day. I spent all of yesterday doing a whole lot of NOTHING, and I still had some rust to shake off. So before leaving the box, I asked my coach what we would have done had we not been loitering outside Starbucks.

I don't use my garage gym as often as I'd like, but it's nice to have some equipment at home on days like this. Upon arriving home, I grabbed my jumprope, set up my barbell and bumpers, and got to work.

Strength Skill:

• Overhead Squats (2 sets of 3, 3 sets of 1)

I'm still dumping the bar as I increase the weight on the bar. When my balance shifts forward even slightly, everything goes to hell. I need to work on keeping my chest up and my arms locked out and up. But I swear I'll get better at this -- one day.

Metcon:

5 rounds for time:

• 7 deadlifts (RX'ed is 315 pounds, but my max deadlift weight is only 255, so I scaled this down to 215 pounds)
• 21 double-unders

Result: 9:16. Double-unders are always a time suck for me. The only way I can string 'em together is to do a single-under between each double-under. Yet another thing I need to work on, I suppose. Otherwise, this was a nice, fast metcon. I'm a fan of anything that takes less than ten minutes (with the exception of rowing, which I still hate with an unbridled, fiery passion).

Cold Brewed Coffee

Although I've tried curbing my caffeine intake, I can't stop guzzling cold-brewed coffee. It's different from just regular old hot coffee that's been cooled, you know. As Cindy Price of the New York Times wrote a while back:

Though it pains me to admit, the difference was considerable. Without the bitterness produced by hot water, the cold-brewed coffee had hints of chocolate, even caramel. I dropped my sugar packet — no need for it. The best brews hardly need cream. It really is the kind of thing a gentleman might spend five days in hot-coffee solitary confinement for.

Most days I’m too lazy to hunt down the elusive cold-brewed cup. But recently I discovered an interesting little fact. Cold-brewed coffee is actually dirt simple to make at home. Online, you’ll find a wealth of forums arguing for this bean or that, bottled water over tap, the 24-hour versus the 12-hour soak. You can even buy the Toddy cold-brew coffee system for about $30.

CHOW recently posted a short video teaching you to cold-brew your coffee using a Toddy. But if you already have a French press at home, you can cold brew your coffee the way my sister-in-law taught me. (And even if you don't, a 4-cup Bodum Chambord is the same price as a Toddy, and it's more versatile.)

Cold-brewing with a French press is super-simple:

Step One: Pull out your French press and a 1/2 cup measuring cup.

Step Two: Put a 1/2 cup of coarse-ground coffee into your French press.

Step Three: Fill it up with cold water. Leave an inch of space at the top, dummy.

Step Four: Put the top on. Let it sit overnight (or around 12 hours). Then depress the plunger to filter out the grounds.

Step Five: Pour some out and drink it -- with or without ice. You can also dilute it with water, but I like my coffee concentrated. It's not harsh or bitter. I used to take my coffee with several packets of sweetener to counter the bitterness, but no more -- there's no need. If you're a coffee junkie but looking to wean yourself off sugar or artificial sweeteners, you might want to give cold-brewed coffee a shot.

The Sheer Awesomeness of Sugar, Soda, Coffee, Cigarettes & Guns

Ah, advertising. Don Draper would be proud.

But one of the ads below is fake. (Yes, just one.) Post your guesses in the comments!

[UPDATE: The answer is after the jump...]