And you are...??

So I guess I should start with a bit of an introduction. After all, it's not everyday you meet a kitchen ninja...we're a pretty rare breed.

I'm Lana. I'm a 31 year-old female, living in New Zealand, and currently trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Boring, boring, boring. Here's the good stuff...

I like to workout. And by workout, I mean really workout. I do this thing called CrossFit...you may have heard of it...

What is CrossFit?

I only started CrossFit in October 2010, but although I'm still pretty new to it, I'm well and truly addicted. As well as CrossFit, I like to kick and punch things...or people...I don't discriminate. Although I do try to channel those aggressive tendencies for sole use in taekwon-do...or when something goes wrong in the kitchen.

I also love food. A lot. You know those people who say they forgot to eat? Yeah...I'll never be one of them. I mean seriously, you forgot to eat? Did your brain block out the smells of other people's lunches wafting down the corridor, or the sounds of your stomach growling louder than a bear suffering from honey withdrawal? WHO FORGETS TO EAT??

Ok sorry, rant over. Now the thing with loving food but also loving training, is that you need to figure it out so that your nutrition supports (or even better, optimises) your training. Which is where paleo/primal eating comes in...

A little bit of an intro to the caveman diet

This kind of eating is new(ish) to me. 'New' in that I've only been following it closely for a few months, but 'ish' in that I've been mostly wheat free for over a year (food intolerance) and didn't have a huge amount of other grains or sugars in my diet before CrossFit. But it's still new. And it's still fun. And it's made a huge difference to my body composition, to my energy levels, and to my training. So I'm going with it. Luckily, I also like to experiment in the kitchen, which is why I've been encouraged (persuaded/coerced/whatever you want to call it) to start this blog.

Anyway,  speaking of bears (we were, remember?)...I have this amazing boyfriend (yes I know, the connection is seeming tenuous at best right now), who we will refer to as Bear because he's big, he's hairy, he sleeps a lot and he eats a lot (seeing the connection now?!). He also has a fiendish sweet tooth, so yesterday we embarked on a fortnight of sugar-free eating. That is, no refined sugars, and fruit limited to post work-out nutrition. As of today, we're also going 'Zone' to see if it provides us with additional training benefits.

I'm excited about this! I usually 'freestyle' in the kitchen, adding stuff until it tastes good. Measuring is new for me...I've always kind of felt that it interferes with my creative processes! But freestyling doesn't help you guys much, it won't help us with our 'zoning', and it annoys the hell out of my mum when she asks for the recipe for something! So I'm going to give it a shot.

Bear (excuse the pun) with me as I experiment with primal, with zone, with blogging, and with measuring…