zenpawn

That’s where I was yesterday as I contended a couple rated chess games. At least until my blunder under pressure of the clock in game two. LOL. The battle was a tactical slugfest and far too complex to be done justice by the accelerated time control of Game/60. (Each side gets an hour to allocate as s/he sees fit for the entire game, making for a maximum session of two hours. Overstepping the time limit also counts as a loss.)

My opponent, Braden Bournival, is a titled master, officially recognized by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). He is a three-time, repeat champion of New Hampshire, the first of which we shared, and is more than 400 rating points above my “Class A” rank. Ratings are statistical measures, and this kind of disparity predicts a 99% win ratio for the higher. So, if we were to play 100 games, the odds are I would only manage one win. This was almost it! Quite literally, “The one that got away.” All in all a fun afternoon of chess in the wilds of NH. (Replay games)

Could the healthy fuel with which I provided my body and mind be responsible for such clear thinking? Perhaps…

From a kitchen table loaded with goodies:

Here’s what I packed for the day:

• 16 ounces watermelon
• one big papaya
• one orange
• 1/3 avocado
• six ounces romaine lettuce
• 2.5 ounces red cabbage
• three ounces broccoli
• three ounces chicory
• brown rice protein
• 32 ounces coffee (black)

On another note, what’s this about Edwards not knowing of PETA?!

“I can honestly say I have never heard of PETA,” said Edwards. “They don’t want people to eat meat? Well I am not in favor of that.”

Yikes. Go Kucinich!

I recently received correspondence from Paul McGlothin, Vice President of Research for the Board of the Calorie Restriction Society. He knows I’m a competitive chessplayer and fellow practitioner and thought the following might interest me and others in the chess community.

Paul and his wife Meredith are inveterate self-experimenters and, via extremely diligent testing and record-keeping, they have devised an eating strategy (more accurately, a lifestyle) that maintains optimal (i.e., low) glucose levels for mental clarity and energy. They accomplish this using a combination of calorie restriction, meal and exercise timing, and a ketogenic diet. If high fat plans, like Atkins, just came to mind, you are not alone. What I find intriguing is they purport it can actually be done with consumption of complex carbohydrates!

Here, in his own words, is the concept and goals from the perspective of those desiring improved cognition, such as chessplayers. He has also documented therein several references supporting his position.

This second document is the press release for the workshop they are facilitating in NY from August 10-12 and a description of the research it helps benefit.

Finally, I should mention this lovely couple has a new book due out in October entitled The CR Way: Using the Secrets of Calorie Restriction for a Longer, Healthier Life. You can bet I’ve pre-ordered mine.

If anyone ends up attending the hands-on workshop, please let them know you heard about it here, and more importantly, report back. Seeing as I’m not much for travel (just ask my family in NC), I’ll have to live it vicariously.

Get your mind out of the gutter!

On Saturday, I competed in a one-day chess tournament in the pleasant, small town of Bow, NH. Here is what I packed for raw sustenance.

A bag of lettuce and collard greens, a veggie spread, a banana, half a cantaloupe divided into two servings, pineapple, dates, and (ok, this isn’t raw…) soynuts.

So, how’d I do? I won my first game in a satisfying reversal before being duly punished for some inaccuracies in the second round. Then, even though placing was not yet out of the realm of possibility, with the weather so nice (finally!), I decided to head out. Still, I had a good time, and it was great catching up with everyone in our little chess community.

It seems this has become something of a pattern with me. As concentrated as I can be at the board, my attention span for sticking out an entire event often wanes, unless I’m really doing well. The craving for a serious game or two quenched, it just feels like there are other things I could be doing. <shrug>

I have been without a kitchen scale for a while now, but a new one is on the way, having just been shipped yesterday. I got the same model again, hoping it was just a fluke. This time, I’ll be sure to keep the warranty card though!

It’s been a challenge. The temptation to purposeful sloppiness in measurement is even greater, and certainly easier, than when there is a digital readout indicting your indiscretion. Furthermore, even with due diligence, studies show we tend to underestimate our caloric intake. For example, this one from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. I do, however, have a lot of practice and a fairly consistent meal plan, so that helps.

Having been relegated to measure by volume and count alone, I had to devise ingenious tricks and somewhat shift my usual foods to those more easily quantified. One favorable creation emerging from these tactics was these bean muffins.

Each muffin represents 1/4 cup of cooked beans. I left them relatively plain in order to vary their flavors with spreads or to simply add water and make into a soup. One of my favorite toppings was the dessert-like addition of sliced banana and peanut butter. (I’m categorizing this post under chess as well because this idea could be a useful addition to my travel and snacking repertoire for tournaments.)

Speaking of doing things by volume, I wanted to mention the excellent book The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan: Feel Full on Fewer Calories, which I have added to my recommendations page. Like CRON and E2L, it also espouses high nutrient - low calorie dense foods and explains how, by volume, they are a much better bargain than nutrient poor - energy dense foods. You can eat so much more and feel fuller on the former. The author, a researcher at the Food Lab at Penn State, has also written an accompanying cookbook, The Volumetrics Eating Plan: Techniques and Recipes for Feeling Full on Fewer Calories, but I caution, it is definitely not vegan.

The following pictorial brings home the point of her books by answering the question, What does 200 calories look like?

It somehow feels like the holiday season has not ended here yet, as far as food is concerned. For example, last weekend, I hosted another UFC fight night (actually afternoon, as we now watch it the next day via the internet). Lots of our standards: hummus, homemade tortilla chips and salsa, veggies, and baba ganoush. Of course, we made them all healthy and low-fat (no tahini in the hummus and no olive oil in the baba), but it sure wasn’t a CR day. I finished off the salsa in a “pasta” dish the next day, adding roasted vegetables and porcini mushrooms.

Oh yeah, I also offered up a plate of my still-under-development chocolate fudge brownies. (Scott, no giving away the secrets.) They were so good everyone had seconds, and one even had thirds! To top it all off, they’re gluten free.

Speaking of which, that experiment continues. I was so pleased to receive confirmation from Lewis Labs that their Brewer’s Yeast, which I use daily, is gluten free. And Anheuser-Busch has introduced a sorghum beer, Redbridge, across the country. Of course, GF beers already existed, but availability is limited.

This weekend I competed in a chess tournament. I’ve mentioned before how I always allow myself several hundred extra calories in snacks to provide additional fuel for the demands of the games. Lunch and dinner during the tourney consisted of a yellow split pea soup made the night before in the slow cooker with half an onion, a habanero pepper, and an ounce of Just Hot Veggies. I don’t gain weight from these indulgences; it turns out chess burns a lot of calories! Well, my nutrition software says it’s only 33 calories per hour, but I don’t believe it. Besides, each game is at least two to four hours long. So, if you’re ever laid up in bed and unable to exercise, just grab a book of mate-in-three problems. LOL.

When will the gluttony end? Give me until after Valentine’s Day. I don’t have a special someone with whom to share chocolate decadence, but that won’t stop me. Coworkers beware!

Sorry, no food content to this post, but I’m just so happy to have developed my first WordPress plugin that I had to announce it here.

It creates a diagram from a standard notation in chess known as FEN. Documentation, examples, and download can be found here.

I just got back from a four-day chess tournament in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. (Notice the Maple Days event, apropos my last post.) As children, Mom took my sister and me to Old Sturbridge Village down the road a bit from the hotel at which I was competing.

For two-day events, I usually make up a large batch of chili and pack fresh fruit. The four servings of chili, container of berries, and some yogurt, just fit in my cooler. See food for thought.

However, for a longer competition such as this, it didn’t make sense to bring food requiring refrigeration. Also, my staple bananas are constantly getting crushed when traveling.

So, I employed a different strategy. I stocked up on dried fruits and vegetables from Just Tomatoes. That and several cans of beans, a can opener, oatmeal, and a hot plate, and I was good to go. If there was not enough time to heat up a meal between rounds, I could always just throw it all together as a cold dish.

I portioned everything out into 1 ounce servings in ziplock bags. And, of course, I brought along some spices too: hot pepper flakes, lemon-pepper seasoning, pizza herbs, and cinnamon. The cooler still made the trip, but this time only with beer.

This was a very successful way to pack and will definitely be repeated.

Competitive chess can be extremely grueling, not only mentally, but physically as well. The amount of energy required to maintain concentration for hours on end, to handle the emotional ups and downs and the concomitant adrenaline surges and exhaustion, is amazing. There are tales of World Championship combatants losing tens of pounds during their one to two month battles over the board.

To a lesser extent, I have noticed I can consume more in a weekend of chess, with little or no exercise, than in my typical days programming computers and working out, with no resulting weight change. So, although a practitioner of CRON (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition), I often allow myself a few hundred additional calories a day while playing in a tournament. Of course, we’re still talking high-quality nutrition here. The extras come in the form of snacks for each game to keep the brain fueled and a celebratory (or consolatory, as the case may be) beer for the evening.

I pack all my food for such events in order to avoid the junk in restaurants and to allow for the odd and sometimes rushed meal windows in between games. Here is what it looked like this weekend as I prepared for the NH Open Chess Championship.

This provides for a breakfast of homemade soy yogurt (the little container) with dry cereal (not shown), blueberries and strawberries, and lunches and dinners of chili. The bags, one for each day, contain raw broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, and romaine lettuce for dunking in the chili (eaten cold at lunch and heated up at my friend’s in the evening). The beers (here Harpoon Oatmeal Stout) are one for me and one for my friend, who so kindly let’s me crash at his place, to end each day. Then there’s a banana (or apple) and homemade seitan jerky for each game (2 per day). I usually include a little dark chocolate as well, but left it out this time for no particular reason.