Days 2 and 3 - You want me to do what?

So I was going to wait until later tonight so I could make a full posting about today but I got too excited.

Yesterday was rough. I had a day off from CrossFit so I focused on creating a food regimen. Apparently my body is in full winter mode and refuses to get up before 11 or 12, so I'll just adjust for that depending on whether I need to work an overnight or if I'll just start my day at lunch and end with a dinner around 8 pm. Regardless, started the day with a protein shake, water, a cleanse drink and some tea along with the metabolism accelerator capsule. Sounds like a lot but that's just generally the "starter" meal for the day. The other meal is just a shake and then one real meal that I usually save for dinner. Been trying to keep my water intake up, both because I know I don't drink enough and because my workouts are very dynamic and have me going from the floor to standing in short periods of time and really don't feel good if I'm dehydrated. Meant I also spent yesterday peeing my brains out. Had a mid-afternoon snack of a salad with a boiled egg and a couple slices of tomato with balsamic and went off to class. Was feeling pretty good until the headache started. I tried ignoring it by just drinking more water but it became persistent. Couple hours later, I went to dinner on campus since I was on-duty all night and had another salad with chicken, tomatoes, boiled eggs and edamame, thinking the extra dose of protein may help, and I also got a cup of sliced pineapple. That didn't work. So I finally cracked a little while later after spending an entire EMS call looking for a chair to sit down on and cheated with some fries. I know, I felt awful about it, but I had to get through the shift somehow.

So I moved on and today was a new day. Woke up at base entirely unmotivated (I blame the couches). I spent a good hour trying to find excuses not to go to the gym. I realized that I was stooping to a new low when I got off the couch just to show myself how sore I must be. After proving myself horribly wrong, I told the devil on my shoulder to go take a hike. Came home, had a boiled egg and the cleanse to hold myself over, grabbed a water bottle and got in my car (score 1 for me!). I will admit I took a quick detour to the scale and found out that I was 3 pounds up from yesterday (how does that even happen??), so that was my downer point for the day. I'm thinking it's from all the protein and water all at once but I can't really afford to dwell currently. I will no longer check the scale more than once a week!

Got to the box and stretched out a little bit. I'm usually ok when I just do the warm-ups but my legs have been really sore from Monday and Wednesday so I took a little extra time. The warm-up was 3 rounds of 10 pull-ups, 10 burpees and 10 lunges (each leg). The rule with the pull-ups today was that if we can't do an unassisted pull-up, we were supposed to work on kipping pull-ups. Kipping pull-ups are essentially your standard pull-up, except you're using a little extra momentum to help you. So our task was to do 10 reps of the first portion of a kipping pull-up, which is hanging from the bar and getting used to swinging your upper body and shoulders, with no help from your legs. Bizarre, but we got through it. Next was 5 sets of 5 back squats. I have to say I was apprehensive about squats. My legs were already shot from 2 days of squats this week and I wasn't sure how much I was going to be able to do. Well, I broke my PR! 95 pounds! Probably could have gone higher, but to put things in perspective, my former PR was 73. Holy crap! After that we did 2 rope climbs, 15 ring push-ups and 10 pistol squats. Those damn ropes! I could not climb that damn thing to save my life so I just ended up hanging on for dear life. There was definitely some amusement to be had in that one ("just hang on with your arms, jump and pull your legs up to the next knot!" "oh sure, let me get right on that!"). The push-ups and squats weren't too bad after that. Finally we got to the AMRAP (eesh) - 5 minutes to complete as many rounds of 15 power cleans and 10 burpees, but these weren't just any burpees, these were "do a burpee, jump over the barbell, do a burpee on the other side and then jump back over." I got through 1 round, finished the power cleans of the next round and got through 3 burpees, so not too bad. Then we finally got to leave!

So I'm just super excited today because I actually feel great! Today was the first time that I've actually gotten to the gym more than twice in one week. Usually after the second time my body is screaming at me, but I think it's actually starting to get through the recovery phase a little easier. I found out my shakes aren't exactly paleo since there are plenty of carbs to be had but since those are currently my only source of carbs, I think it'll be ok. Biggest thing is that I feel like I have energy, and no headache! Dinner is going to be grilled chicken in a salad. I need to go to the store since that'll be the last bit of "paleo friendly" food I got in here. Otherwise, I think I've finally got this in the bag, and I'm just so excited I can't hold it in. I'll be relearning how to walk tomorrow and making the trainees carry everything tonight, but I've never felt so strong before. I didn't do things perfectly but I could feel my body getting into a groove and finding that extra energy wherever it stored it. Pretty empowering.

Thanks for following!