Deborah's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu & Arnis-Eskrima Training

This is a wonderful Paleo recipe for Stuffed Bell Peppers.  I found it in a book, but I have gave it my own twist. 8 Bell Peppers 2 pounds lean ground beef or any other lean ground protein source 1/2 of one large Maui onion 1/2 of one large Sweet potato 1 tablespoon chopped garlic Chipotle chile powder (or any other spice you like! Curry?) to taste 2 tablespoons Olive oil Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake the Sweet potato until soft enough to smash easily with your hands. (I usually keep a few pre-baked on hand) Cut the tops off of the Bell peppers and remove the seeds.  A grapefruit spoon works well for this. Save the tops. Rub the outside of the Bell peppers with Olive oil and place in a casserole dish or other cooking pan. Saute the onion (I like to saute them in a tiny bit of Olive oil) until soft and clear. Combine the ground beef, Sweet potato, chopped garlic, Chipotle powder, and cooked onion in a large bowl. Mix and knead the meat mixture together with your

I have a free hour before I need to pretty up for work so I thought I would throw some thoughts out there. I recently purchased two pairs of board shorts for practice, and one for competition, and I need to give you all short chronicle of the hilarity that ensues when shopping for women's apparel. I walked into Hanger 94 in La Mesa (here in SD County), which is an outdoor/ski/surf/etc warehouse store.  The perfect place to find WOMEN'S apparel right? I walked over to their women's department.  I kid you not, they had , FIVE, five, pairs of board shorts.  Because...?  why?  why only five?  And one pair in my size.  Despite the fact I am down to a lean machine 135-138, the size 8 board shorts were as usual, tooooo tight in the hips and butt, and literally 3-4 inches too big in the waist.  To add insult to injury, even if they fit perefctly, these shorts were teeeeny tiny short, like I would be laughed off the mat teeny tiny.  The whole experience was so annoying and I t

My husband often counsels me to give the gray a chance.  Gray area.  I tend to be extremely black and white in certain parts of my life.  I like definition, clarity.  My approach serves me well when I am, for instance, dropping to a lower weight class.  Setting a clearly defined caloric boundary is beneficial. Equally as beneficial is allowing oneself a caloric cheat day.  So my devoted, but probably in-cahoots with the devil husband made Mac and Cheese CASSEROLE for dinner.  Because Mac and Cheese was not enough, he had to go to the bad place and bake it.  And this was not your mother's budget-minded Mac, this was a recipe he pulled from the Epicurious website.  The long and short of it was 2 pounds of Sharp chedder, butter, eggs, Penne pasta, leeks,  breadcrumbs.  You get the picture.  Bad place.  I am there.  No gray in sight.  I have been assaulted and beaten into submission by my own taste buds and my complete INability to conduct myself with decorum at the sight of dairy an

I think I am going to quit my job so I have 40 more hours a week to train.  Okay, not really, but...sigh...I can only train more and refine for competition   at this point.  Training harder would be detrimental my game. The good: I successfully dropped to a lower weight class.  I have not lost strength, stamina, or agility.  In fact, I have improved in those areas, especially stamina.  I was worried about gassing out in the first 2 seconds of my fight because I have cut back on my caloric intake so much, but my wind was top notch. Ana WENT (she is very strong) for a guillotine off the bat and I defended it.  She got me in side control and I not only defended it with a simple frame and rock solid leg positioning, bit I reversed it by sweeping her up toward her head and over, thus scoring 2 points. Mentally....delicious.  I felt relaxed and confident. The bad: She got me in a arm lock from guard.  I lost.  I'm so tired of losing.  I'm so tired of writing about losing.

Well, not really. I am beginning to notice a pattern, when I start training for a tournament my writing falls to the wayside.  And it's not because I don't have the time. There is an internal wall in my brain that becomes very stingy and unable to play well with others.  Like a petulant child the wall stands, not sharing. So here I sit, like a couple months ago, in the Rodeway Inn in Cypress (very economical hotel choice BTW), wonderful husband at the table across from me, contemplating tomorrow's Mundial No-Gi event.  This will be my first time competing as a brown belt, which is a brown/black division.  This will also be the first time I compete in the lightweight division.  Dropping to light has been a back-burner goal for a couple of years that I thought about, then promptly discarded time and time again.  However, since becoming more and more of a Paleo eater, I dropped from my usual 150-147 to 142-145 without much heartache.  I thought, well, what if I put a littl