Chicken Fried Steak

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“Why would anyone want to eat like that?”

I’ve always liked food. I’ll admit that I really didn’t know how to eat it, though.

Rippetoe reminds me of a medieval gentile; meat and mead are all he needs. I’ve seen him eat at least 10 different styles of meat, and every single one of them makes him say, “That’s the best shit you could ever put in your mouth!”

My buddy Chris is a grilling aficionado. It’s customary for him to grill pounds and pounds of meat, only to have them ground into satisfying bathroom visits within a day or so.

Gant is pretty serious about his eating, especially during a weight gaining phase. In fact, after the JM Blakely post, he brought in a two pound hunk of brisket to snack on while he trained. That’s dedication.

Gant invited me over for dinner last night. Some how he knew my chicken fried steak quota for the week had not been met. I walked in the kitchen to see him frying steaks, frying biscuits, and preparing mashed potatoes. It was just what I needed.

We each had about a pound of meat, quite a few fried biscuits, and generous helpings of mashed potatoes. It was easily a 2,000 calorie meal. This meal is particularly interesting for Gant, because he’s in the middle of moving back down to the 90 kilogram weight class for judo after competing in the 100 kg class. Hearty meals don’t scare this man.

chickenfriedsteak

Homemade chicken fried steak, fried biscuits, and mashed potatoes...all in gravy

Gant, Chris, and I were once eating at a local burger joint after training and we were all eating large double bacon cheeseburgers. This equals one pound of beef not counting the bacon, cheese, bun, or condiments. As we ate, Gant matter of factly said, “This is about the amount of protein your average CrossFitter would eat in a day while on the zone.” He was referencing The Zone Diet in which food is roughly weighed and measured for every meal. 16 blocks is a typical prescription, and this would equate to 16 ounces of meat. Chris, who weighed around 250 at the time, didn’t understand. He stared, horrified at Gant, and said, “Why would anyone want to live like that?”
Edit: Brent was eating with us too. Sorry, Brent.

Got any good food pictures? Gant and Chris love to document the food that they build, and you should too.

44 thoughts on “Chicken Fried Steak”

  4. Awesome… I have been eating like this daily for the past 2 months. I went from 200 to 216 and linear progression is climbing steadily.
    Gant- can you share some recipes?

  6. Anyone in the Boston area who wants a 70”s Big friendly place to eat I recommend the Eagle”s Deli in Brighton. I went there Saturday and had a solid 1lb bacon cheeseburger that is also served with 1lb of fries. One of my buddies got the “Reilly” which is a 3lb burger with 12 slices of cheese and 12 strips of bacon, plus 5lbs of fries. He stopped with probably a half pound of fries left. It was a good day.

  8. Gant Grimes is pretty much my hero. Anybody who doesn”t know this guy should google the “gant grimes hybrid” threads at CF and PMenu, it”s great stuff.

  9. bso – I think I just built a tolerance. A few years ago I got up to 220 and my diet regularly consisted of pupu platters for two and a couple tall glasses of egg nog for dinner, followed by ice cream and beer for dessert. Having that three times a week for a few months basically gave me a stomach that can handle most anything I throw at it.

  10. Awesome place by the gym that has killer burgers made from two tenderloin and brisket patties with bacon, cheese, and a fried quail egg. There is a rumor that there are chicken sandwiches and salads there, but that”s 90”s small…

  11. Mad: A recipe section might be interesting. Hell, might as well crack open a beer and do a cooking vid or two.

    Paul: The Reilly sounds awesome! 1.75 lbs. is the largest burger I”ve consumed at one time. It wasn”t hard; I just didn”t think to go bigger.

    bso: I didn”t learn much about inflammation until all this new-fangled nutrition crap came about. I guess my gut got grandfathered in because it”s not an issue with me. Quit reading Paleo blogs, and you should be fine, too.

    Paul is actually correct about training his stomach. You can get “too clean” for modern existence. Robb Wolf has to un-Paleo his military trainees to prepare them for deployment. A pristine gut is incapable of handling normal food.

    IMO, this is a glaring weakness for those who claim to train for functional readiness. It doesn”t matter if you can out metcon the Zombie horde if a packet of Ramen knocks you on your ass.

    Tescott: The fried biscuits were simply biscuits (from the tube) dropped into grease for about 40 seconds. You can do it with rolls, too. Biscuits are good with breakfast items or anything you put gravy on (which should be half the things you eat). Rolls are good with BBQ and other meats, which includes anything you put BBQ sauce on (which should be the other half of what you eat).

    If you ever travel to the South, do not refuse sweet tea, gravy, or fried bread.

    PS 2000 cals is a conservative estimate for that meal. We each had a couple of CFSs, totaling about 14 oz. (I had more because my kids didn”t finish). We had about a mashed potato each (with cheese), about 4 fried biscuits, and gravy. It was a good meal

  13. Twiced baked potatoes are another great way to do potatoes. My wife makes killer ones. I can only imagine how many calories are in them since they inculde cream cheese, cheese and bacon. If a recipe section goes up I”ll try and post it.

  15. If you don”t have gravy on your food you should have cheese on it. My favorite post workout snack is a can of tuna on bread with lots and lots of cheese. Throw that on a Foreman grill with some butter untill the cheese is melted. If I still have room after that I drink milk untill I don”t.

    The weather is starting to get cold so I”m getting the slowcooker ready to make lots and lots off beef stew.

  16. Another one of my favorites is the grilled cheese bacon cheeseburger. I make a large patty (about 10-12oz), grill it and top it with cheese and bacon, and then use two grilled cheese sandwiches as the bun.

  18. Take a picture of that, Paul. I”ve heard of it but haven”t seen it.

    Until visionaries like Paul came along, we were content to bookend our sandwiches with simple pieces of bread. Not anymore. Consider KFC”s Double Down:
    http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/08/the-kfc-double-down-sandwich-uses-chicken-patties-instead-of-buns/

    Finally, if anybody eats a quadruple bypass burger, we”ll feature you on this site.
    http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_sep2008/QuadrupleBypassBurger.jpg

  20. To get a good fast food snack order three double stacks from Wendy”s. Remove buns from two hamburgers and place the 4 hamburgers inside the other double stack. Almost 900 calories for $3 on the go isn”t bad, and you”re keeping carbs down as well. I think Rip mentioned he would buy 5 double cheeseburgers from McDonald”s and remove the buns on many occasions, so this is a proven method.

  26. Is there anything wrong with eating paleo (+ a lot of milk) as long as you eat a lot? It seems to me that the basic concepts behind paleo are pretty valid and if you transfer them to a 5000 calorie per day diet you could expect to optimize your eating. Clearly eating A LOT is the key to getting big and strong so why not eat a lot of good food? Also, I think a key ingredient for getting “70”s Big” that a lot of people are glossing over here is the use of massive amounts of steroids. Those things were pretty much in the drinking water at gyms back then. My old rugby coach told me his family doctor used to ask if he”d like some D-bol when he was in high school!

    Anyways, enough of that, here”s a cool link showing how tough really old people used to be!
    http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59D0BR20091014

  29. Justin, no! Not at all, just the opposite, I think eating should be maximized to reach full potential. I”m just saying that if you”re going to eat 4-5,000 calories a day you should try and eat as much quality food as possible and some aspects of the paleo diet are certainly worth cherry picking. For example, a gluten free diet reduces inflamation and increases recovery time which allows you to get bigger and stronger faster. Eating lots of omega 3 fatty acids makes you healthier and less likely to miss or have low power training days due to illness, also a good thing. Getting big and strong is great! Eat lots of food! All I am saying is that if I have a choice between eating item A or item B and if A is 5 pounds of smoked salmon with a side of 4 baked sweet potatoes and B is a franken burger made of 20 quarter pounders with cheese from McDonald”s I would wager that eating item A will do a better job of making you big and strong… Or you could go with option C, eat both!

    Also, as far as steroids are concerned, it seems to me that if you really want to be 70”s big you should probably use lots of them. Not my cup of tea but I”m not one to judge either, just going for period authenticity.

  31. Sorry Justin, this is Josh Hufstedler…most people call me Huff. I”m still coming to the gym when I”m in town. Have already squated and benched my old 1RMs for 3 sets of 5, other lifts progressing well and GPP as good as it ever was. The shit works.

  32. Justin,
    The plates had all kinds of stuff on them. Pepper steak, some kind of chinese chicken stuff, cauliflower, a bunch of little dessert cups, some italian food, a big pile of guacamole, and so on.

    Apologies for not emailing the pic to the media address, I”ll make sure I do that next time.

  33. Jesco, we””re aware of the Paleo prescription, and I””ll probably address that kinda stuff in a Food page update.

    We””re not just a bunch of gravy drinking meatheads at 70sBig. We””re aware of the benefits of Paleo, etc. But it is extremely difficult for a >200 lb. adult male to make significant gains on a clean diet. Unless you””re stuffing yourself with organ meats and sweet potatoes all day, you””re going to have to look elsewhere for calories. You mentioned milk, which, as you know, isn””t Paleo.

    We””re not trying to lead you down a path of gastric destruction, but 70sBig isn””t here to celebrate wellness and clean living. Sometimes you have to take half a year to make significant gains. No harm done.

    Huff: what part of town?

  34. Jesco:
    First off, paleo calls for no milk. That is BAD. Also yes most of us have heard of gluten free helping with recovery, but so does a shit load of calories. I am still getting plenty of salmon, vegis, fish oil, etc…but I”m also supplementing that with xl meat lovers pizzas, enchiladas, monstrous burgers, and of course whole milk. I don t think anyone ever got 70sBig off 4 or 5k calories a day.

  36. Typically people that need to gain a lot of muscular bodyweight will do it much faster and more efficiently while NOT eating a Paleo type diet.

    We are not suggesting you eat this way for the rest of your life. We are suggesting you eat like this to gain strength/size to meet your goals. Six months or even a year of this type of eating is not going to adversely affect your life-long health.

    Think of Paleo as a maintenance tool. It is not a mass gaining tool.

    Besides, the 4 to 5,000 calories you think is substantial to gain isn’t enough anyway.

    People can get 70’s Big without taking steroids. Many have. This issue will be discussed in the next week.

    And gluten isn’t as big of a deal than what is preached to you (unless you’re allergic to it, which many of the experts are).

    I do like your enthusiasm though, Jesco.

  37. Will you guys also cover how to eat after that six months to a year where you are eating to gain? I think that would be a good addition to the food portion of this site as well.

  39. The BEST tv show to watch in order to get in the mood to eat is Man vs. Food. Every time I watch this show I am inspired…

    Also, making a HUGE pot of chili is probably one the most cost effective, high protein, moderate fat foods you can make. Easy to store, load with cheese, heat, eat.

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