So I'm just going to do a post now since I know I'll be way too tired tonight to do it. Getting up at 530 two days in a row is rough and I'm definitely feeling it today. I don't quite feel like I've been hit by a bus, but I'm definitely sluggish and not feelin it today. It's pretty much taking all my willpower not to drink the entire pot of coffee we've got in the kitchen. I'm allowed to have coffee, but obviously I would have to drink it black or with almond milk. Yuck.
Went on another walk last night although it was shorter - probably between 1 and a half miles and 2. Got about half of the RIT loop done. I was tired, and it was cold, but it was nice to get a little exercise into the day. Had breakfast for dinner because I was way too lazy and tired to do anything else. I may as well just not even bothered since I was in bed 10 minutes later.
Today is another one of those days at work. I'm really not feeling the gym tonight but after the past two days, I get the feeling it's going to be pretty cathartic. My body's not feeling it, but we'll see what I can muster. I was seriously contemplating cancelling my reservation tonight but then I checked out the WOD and got super conflicted.
Skill:
3 rounds not for time
5-8 muscle ups or pull-ups
10-15 box jumps
8-10 Glute-ham raises
MetCon:
4 rounds
5 axle thrusters
10 burpees
Midline:
3 x 8 kettlebell windmills
So this is why I'm super conflicted - box jumps and pull-ups in one WOD and no time entered. Would be a perfect time to try and tackle that 20" box and I could really take some time to work on pull-ups. The MetCon doesn't even look that god awful. I've never done a windmill before so I can't exactly comment on that. The part that's making me hesitant right now is that: A). I'm freaking exhausted so I don't even know how well I would do. B). the Open WOD is tomorrow and it actually looks like fun so I want to do it and C). the final results are on Saturday so I don't want to tire myself out for that. By now I'm past the time that I can unregister myself for the class without having to call one of the coaches so I guess my fate has kind of been decided but I don't know what I'll do about Friday and Saturday now. Ugh! Other option is that I could suck it up, go to the gym tonight, go to sleep right after and sleep for like 12 hours or something. I feel like that is a totally doable goal right there. Ok I guess I can be ok with this gym plan. I really do need to food prep tomorrow though....eesh.
I think the plan for tomorrow will be to get up around 8-ish, which will work swimmingly if I go to bed nice and early. I'll throw the beef stew in the crockpot to cook while I'm at the gym. Then when I come home I'll get to work on the baking type stuff like some sweet potato/zucchini chips and the meat candy. I might do the stuff that needs to be fried but we'll see with that one. I still have to make my spaghetti squash dish, which I just may do quickly tonight. Was going to just mix it together in a bowl with some tomato sauce and clams. Seemed like something simple and quick to do.
Now that I've finally gotten the paleo on a budget thing down, now I have to worry about my electricity bill. My stove is electric and I never really realized how much energy that damn appliance uses. I really wish I had a gas stove. I'll just have to start paying attention to how long I have the oven running when there's nothing cooking in it, and same goes for the stove. I use my toaster oven a lot for baking small things, but I don't know how much energy that sucks up compared to the stovetop.
I know I just really need to sleep. As soon as there's a good night's sleep on board, a lot of things will start looking up. Maybe not all, but a lot. Hopefully.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
3 More Days!
So I officially have 3 more days left in the Paleo Challenge. Oof. I'm probably going to meet my original goal that I made at the beginning, but most likely not the "new" one I made. I'm ok with it. 5 pounds in a week and a half was a bit of a tall order since I'm now packing on muscle. As long as I get to my goal by the beginning of the summer I'm perfectly fine with whatever happens in between.
The weekend was rough. A friend came back into town (not due to the best circumstances), so there was alcohol had...and bad food. But I'm back in the game! Went food shopping yesterday so there's food in my house again (recipes/grocery list to follow). I just really need to make sure that I'm keeping my metabolism up this week since I think I started undereating again.
Monday was back to the gym day. They took it easy on us again which was highly confusing.
Strength:
20 rep back squat, increasing weight from last week
Midline:
3 rounds not for time
10 barbell good mornings
15 GHD sit-ups
1-2 min. front plank hold
Mobility/Recovery:
8-10 min. easy row
Last week I did 75 pounds with the back squat, so this week I did 85. It hurt a bit, but not too bad. He said we needed to be struggling by the end of it, which I was, so I guess I did it right. I almost want to do my 1 RM again just to see what it's at now, because it's definitely no longer 135.
I am so happy they've been doing more midline work lately. I used 65 pounds for the barbell good mornings. Little heavy but not bad. The GHD sit-ups were a little nerve-wracking just because you're suspending your body off this little contraption and hoping it doesn't tip over. I can't extend all the way back just yet but I'm at least able to go a little past parallel. Planks I did in two 30 second intervals just because a minute is a bit of a tall order. My midline is actually a lot stronger than I've been giving it credit for. I think having to use my abs to stabilize myself with the powerful lifts definitely helped. Abs of steel comin right up!
Spent the rest of Monday at base just chilling before Rothberg asked me if I'd like to go on a walk when he got out of work. He's gotta walk like 10,000 steps a day or something. Well I soon figured out that 7,000 steps is 3.5 miles. I was so tired by the end of it, yet Mack thought it was the best thing in the world. I swear, I'm just going to tie that dog to a sled and make him pull me around. Would save so much money on gas.
Tuesday I went back to the gym. I think Mack is getting used to these early morning routines: Get up, go out, eat food, then wait for mommy to crawl home from the gym.
Skill:
3 rounds not for time
8-10 handstand push-ups
10-15 pull ups
10-15 GHD hip extension
Metcon
30-25-20-15-10-5
Kettlebell swings
Double Unders (4x singles)
Midline
2 x 50 abmat sit-ups
Yesterday was another skill intensive day. Honestly I'm not going to complain about it because it gave me the chance to actually work on some stuff. I can't do handstand push-ups just yet because I can't do a handstand, so I worked on getting myself as vertical as possible on the wall and holding it for 20-30 seconds. I finally got it so my hands were only about 6" from the wall, which means I was just shy of fully vertical. The only problem with doing something like that is I'm facing the wall so I can't just let my legs drop. Maybe next time we do them I'll try and get a handstand the normal way. I really gotta work on those pull-ups though. Jack wagons.
The MetCon kind of sucked. Now that I've started using the 35# kettlebell, I've been trying to stick with it, so it got really tiring fast. Not to mention if you weren't doing double unders, you had to multiply by 4 for the number of singles you had to do. Didn't help that I think I used a jump rope that was too short for me. Those sit-ups were killer. I didn't realize how sore my abs were until I started getting the sit-ups done. I started out with sets of 20 and then knocked it down to sets of 10. 100 sit-ups later and I'm finally feeling it today.
I've been feeling kinda sluggish these past couple days. Getting up in the morning has been a little rough (to be fair, I've been going to bed too late), and I usually don't wake up until about halfway through the work-out. It even feels like my muscles are still asleep. Once I'm awake though, I'm up for the day beasting through work like I normally have been. It's weird.
Alright, so, my grocery shopping list. This week I'm keeping it super simple. I've really been feeling hearty "comfort-type" foods. I'll be making my favorite crockpot beef stew recipe, except instead of potato gnocchi, I'll just use cut up sweet potatoes. I'd love to figure out how to make paleo sweet potato gnocchi, but it's very ingredient/labor intensive. I love a thick creamy stew so the gnocchi usually serve to absorb any excess beef broth, so I'm hoping the sweet potatoes can accomplish that. I haven't used my crockpot in so long! I'm so excited. I'm also going to make another batch or two of the zucchini fritters. To add on to that, I'm going to make sweet potato pancakes as well. I like having foods that are versatile - meaning I can eat them with anything. They can be a quick side to a dinner entree or can be eaten with breakfast. I'm going to make shrimp cakes, which I'm very excited about. There's also a simple zucchini and ground beef recipe, which is just zucchini and ground beef sauteed together. Seems very simple and filling. I also found a bag of mixed frozen shrimp, calamari and scallops. They say you can just cook it in a pan and do whatever with it. I'll be very psyched to try it out. I'll post recipes as I'm doing them since I'm sure I've forgotten a few that I wanted to try. I also threw together a quick frittata last night to have for work this week.
I'm not going to the gym today since I've been working all day. I definitely got my exercise this morning doing CPR, so I'm not complaining. The plan is that I'll go for a walk around the RIT loop once I get out so that'll be some easy exercise. Provided the weather holds up. I'm working again tomorrow so I'll be going to the gym later in the day.
I'm still feeling pretty good overall. I know part of the sluggishness is the fact that I'm now demanding even more from my body on a weekly basis so I know it'll take a little getting used to. Especially since I was dumb and spent this entire challenge only going to the gym twice a week. Sometimes it wasn't my fault, but damn. I have to say I've totally become that awkward person that pokes myself where I can feel new muscles. My arms are seriously toning up. Like woah. My legs are a little more toned as well but I know those will take some time. My tummy area I will always be overly critical of, but I'm sure it looks different too.
I'm very thrilled about my overall experience with this challenge. I will be continuing it (although Sunday will for sure be a celebration day), but like I say to anyone who asks me, I'm not going to go crazy over it. I'm not going to go buying pounds of pasta at a time, but if I happen to go out with friends or whatever, I'm not going to stress. I'm very excited about this new lifestyle. I went from eating boxes of pasta all by myself to eating entire zucchinis. Kind of reminds me of this gem:
Anywho, I'm going home soon so I'mma go count the minutes. Seems like a worthy thing to do.
G'night all!
The weekend was rough. A friend came back into town (not due to the best circumstances), so there was alcohol had...and bad food. But I'm back in the game! Went food shopping yesterday so there's food in my house again (recipes/grocery list to follow). I just really need to make sure that I'm keeping my metabolism up this week since I think I started undereating again.
Monday was back to the gym day. They took it easy on us again which was highly confusing.
Strength:
20 rep back squat, increasing weight from last week
Midline:
3 rounds not for time
10 barbell good mornings
15 GHD sit-ups
1-2 min. front plank hold
Mobility/Recovery:
8-10 min. easy row
Last week I did 75 pounds with the back squat, so this week I did 85. It hurt a bit, but not too bad. He said we needed to be struggling by the end of it, which I was, so I guess I did it right. I almost want to do my 1 RM again just to see what it's at now, because it's definitely no longer 135.
I am so happy they've been doing more midline work lately. I used 65 pounds for the barbell good mornings. Little heavy but not bad. The GHD sit-ups were a little nerve-wracking just because you're suspending your body off this little contraption and hoping it doesn't tip over. I can't extend all the way back just yet but I'm at least able to go a little past parallel. Planks I did in two 30 second intervals just because a minute is a bit of a tall order. My midline is actually a lot stronger than I've been giving it credit for. I think having to use my abs to stabilize myself with the powerful lifts definitely helped. Abs of steel comin right up!
Spent the rest of Monday at base just chilling before Rothberg asked me if I'd like to go on a walk when he got out of work. He's gotta walk like 10,000 steps a day or something. Well I soon figured out that 7,000 steps is 3.5 miles. I was so tired by the end of it, yet Mack thought it was the best thing in the world. I swear, I'm just going to tie that dog to a sled and make him pull me around. Would save so much money on gas.
Tuesday I went back to the gym. I think Mack is getting used to these early morning routines: Get up, go out, eat food, then wait for mommy to crawl home from the gym.
Skill:
3 rounds not for time
8-10 handstand push-ups
10-15 pull ups
10-15 GHD hip extension
Metcon
30-25-20-15-10-5
Kettlebell swings
Double Unders (4x singles)
Midline
2 x 50 abmat sit-ups
Yesterday was another skill intensive day. Honestly I'm not going to complain about it because it gave me the chance to actually work on some stuff. I can't do handstand push-ups just yet because I can't do a handstand, so I worked on getting myself as vertical as possible on the wall and holding it for 20-30 seconds. I finally got it so my hands were only about 6" from the wall, which means I was just shy of fully vertical. The only problem with doing something like that is I'm facing the wall so I can't just let my legs drop. Maybe next time we do them I'll try and get a handstand the normal way. I really gotta work on those pull-ups though. Jack wagons.
The MetCon kind of sucked. Now that I've started using the 35# kettlebell, I've been trying to stick with it, so it got really tiring fast. Not to mention if you weren't doing double unders, you had to multiply by 4 for the number of singles you had to do. Didn't help that I think I used a jump rope that was too short for me. Those sit-ups were killer. I didn't realize how sore my abs were until I started getting the sit-ups done. I started out with sets of 20 and then knocked it down to sets of 10. 100 sit-ups later and I'm finally feeling it today.
I've been feeling kinda sluggish these past couple days. Getting up in the morning has been a little rough (to be fair, I've been going to bed too late), and I usually don't wake up until about halfway through the work-out. It even feels like my muscles are still asleep. Once I'm awake though, I'm up for the day beasting through work like I normally have been. It's weird.
Alright, so, my grocery shopping list. This week I'm keeping it super simple. I've really been feeling hearty "comfort-type" foods. I'll be making my favorite crockpot beef stew recipe, except instead of potato gnocchi, I'll just use cut up sweet potatoes. I'd love to figure out how to make paleo sweet potato gnocchi, but it's very ingredient/labor intensive. I love a thick creamy stew so the gnocchi usually serve to absorb any excess beef broth, so I'm hoping the sweet potatoes can accomplish that. I haven't used my crockpot in so long! I'm so excited. I'm also going to make another batch or two of the zucchini fritters. To add on to that, I'm going to make sweet potato pancakes as well. I like having foods that are versatile - meaning I can eat them with anything. They can be a quick side to a dinner entree or can be eaten with breakfast. I'm going to make shrimp cakes, which I'm very excited about. There's also a simple zucchini and ground beef recipe, which is just zucchini and ground beef sauteed together. Seems very simple and filling. I also found a bag of mixed frozen shrimp, calamari and scallops. They say you can just cook it in a pan and do whatever with it. I'll be very psyched to try it out. I'll post recipes as I'm doing them since I'm sure I've forgotten a few that I wanted to try. I also threw together a quick frittata last night to have for work this week.
I'm not going to the gym today since I've been working all day. I definitely got my exercise this morning doing CPR, so I'm not complaining. The plan is that I'll go for a walk around the RIT loop once I get out so that'll be some easy exercise. Provided the weather holds up. I'm working again tomorrow so I'll be going to the gym later in the day.
I'm still feeling pretty good overall. I know part of the sluggishness is the fact that I'm now demanding even more from my body on a weekly basis so I know it'll take a little getting used to. Especially since I was dumb and spent this entire challenge only going to the gym twice a week. Sometimes it wasn't my fault, but damn. I have to say I've totally become that awkward person that pokes myself where I can feel new muscles. My arms are seriously toning up. Like woah. My legs are a little more toned as well but I know those will take some time. My tummy area I will always be overly critical of, but I'm sure it looks different too.
I'm very thrilled about my overall experience with this challenge. I will be continuing it (although Sunday will for sure be a celebration day), but like I say to anyone who asks me, I'm not going to go crazy over it. I'm not going to go buying pounds of pasta at a time, but if I happen to go out with friends or whatever, I'm not going to stress. I'm very excited about this new lifestyle. I went from eating boxes of pasta all by myself to eating entire zucchinis. Kind of reminds me of this gem:
G'night all!
Friday, March 22, 2013
I Just Don't Even Know
Well I'm laying in bed here at base knowing I'm not getting more than 5 hours of sleep tonight. Literally I went from relaxing at home all day to becoming the angel of death.
Spent most of the day at home. I decided against going to the gym and tackling Open WOD 13.3, mostly because I plan on going tomorrow morning.
Open WOD 13.3:
12 minutes
150 wall balls (14#)
90 Double Unders
30 Muscle-Ups
If I'd actually done this one, I was going to be very impressed if I got past the wall balls. Even if I had I would have been at a loss of what to do considering I've never gotten a double under and have done minimal work on getting one. Muscle ups - forget about it. Honestly, I'm ok with not going. My legs needed the break.
Went to work the evening at Henrietta and was asked to stay an extra hour. No biggie. Left there and came to RIT for the overnight and the world blew up. Trauma everywhere. So in celebration of a job well done, I assisted in celebrating a friend's birthday with some cake. Yep, I had cake. It was chocolate too! And now I feel like a cow. Well, I don't know if it's the cake or the fact that I've managed to drink my entire body weight in fluid ounces today. I don't know what it was but I just kept refilling that water bottle. I'm back to that bloated feeling I had back when I started drinking half my weight. For some reason that water was just wonderful today. Otherwise I've been eating really well today!
Tomorrow morning is Challenge WOD #3, our last one. I didn't get to #2 because I was working that day. Don't really know what to expect other than I may feel like dying afterwards. I'm sure I can handle whatever they've got coming at us (hopefully).
One week left in the Paleo Challenge. After having that cake I don't know how those last 5 pounds are going to go, but luckily the next time I'll have to step foot in an ambulance base is next Tuesday so I'll have no excuses on why I can't be good after tonight. Nothing but clean eating. The fruit supply in my house is almost gone too so that will no longer be a temptation either, although I've been really good about that aspect lately.
I have to say, I'm nervous as shit about doing that baseline workout again. I've made huge strides as far as endurance and power, but those squat cleans into thrusters are doing a tapdance on my nerves. The burpee box jumps come in close second. Realistically, I just want to be able to finish it. I'll definitely be using a heavier kettlebell and the same height for my box jump. I will most likely also use the same weight for the clusters. I don't want to go too overboard since the end goal is to just finish it this time, but I also don't want to hold myself back and not challenge myself. It's going to be something I'll definitely put a lot of thought into this week. Just freaking out is all. I don't want to end up disappointing myself because I'm getting one measurement, but the measurements I got were pretty different than the ones they got at the gym. So I get psyched over seeing that I took an inch off my hips and arms, but then I think about what my results as far as the coaches go. I've been feeling so good that I'm not really ready for a setback just yet. Mentally I've grown a lot in these past 2 months so I'd like to keep that runner's high as long as possible. I know the changes are there. I wouldn't be wearing smaller pants if they weren't, but my anxiety will always exist regardless of how well I'm doing at any one time. Just something I need to work around.
And it's bedtime. I get a lot of my weekend off again! Can't wait to just relax!
Spent most of the day at home. I decided against going to the gym and tackling Open WOD 13.3, mostly because I plan on going tomorrow morning.
Open WOD 13.3:
12 minutes
150 wall balls (14#)
90 Double Unders
30 Muscle-Ups
If I'd actually done this one, I was going to be very impressed if I got past the wall balls. Even if I had I would have been at a loss of what to do considering I've never gotten a double under and have done minimal work on getting one. Muscle ups - forget about it. Honestly, I'm ok with not going. My legs needed the break.
Went to work the evening at Henrietta and was asked to stay an extra hour. No biggie. Left there and came to RIT for the overnight and the world blew up. Trauma everywhere. So in celebration of a job well done, I assisted in celebrating a friend's birthday with some cake. Yep, I had cake. It was chocolate too! And now I feel like a cow. Well, I don't know if it's the cake or the fact that I've managed to drink my entire body weight in fluid ounces today. I don't know what it was but I just kept refilling that water bottle. I'm back to that bloated feeling I had back when I started drinking half my weight. For some reason that water was just wonderful today. Otherwise I've been eating really well today!
Tomorrow morning is Challenge WOD #3, our last one. I didn't get to #2 because I was working that day. Don't really know what to expect other than I may feel like dying afterwards. I'm sure I can handle whatever they've got coming at us (hopefully).
One week left in the Paleo Challenge. After having that cake I don't know how those last 5 pounds are going to go, but luckily the next time I'll have to step foot in an ambulance base is next Tuesday so I'll have no excuses on why I can't be good after tonight. Nothing but clean eating. The fruit supply in my house is almost gone too so that will no longer be a temptation either, although I've been really good about that aspect lately.
I have to say, I'm nervous as shit about doing that baseline workout again. I've made huge strides as far as endurance and power, but those squat cleans into thrusters are doing a tapdance on my nerves. The burpee box jumps come in close second. Realistically, I just want to be able to finish it. I'll definitely be using a heavier kettlebell and the same height for my box jump. I will most likely also use the same weight for the clusters. I don't want to go too overboard since the end goal is to just finish it this time, but I also don't want to hold myself back and not challenge myself. It's going to be something I'll definitely put a lot of thought into this week. Just freaking out is all. I don't want to end up disappointing myself because I'm getting one measurement, but the measurements I got were pretty different than the ones they got at the gym. So I get psyched over seeing that I took an inch off my hips and arms, but then I think about what my results as far as the coaches go. I've been feeling so good that I'm not really ready for a setback just yet. Mentally I've grown a lot in these past 2 months so I'd like to keep that runner's high as long as possible. I know the changes are there. I wouldn't be wearing smaller pants if they weren't, but my anxiety will always exist regardless of how well I'm doing at any one time. Just something I need to work around.
And it's bedtime. I get a lot of my weekend off again! Can't wait to just relax!
Thursday, March 21, 2013
The Only Thing Holding You Back is You
So today I went through a temporary uplift in my mood...only to be crashed right back down to the floor.
Been feeling great these past few days. I'm fairly sore and I can tell my muscles are tired, but we're still going strong and I know I'll be acclimated to the extra workouts in no time.
Yesterday I went to the gym to find another grueling workout.
Strength
5 x 5 weighted pull-ups (or just working on strict pull-ups)
AMRAP (20 min.)
300 m row
30 box jumps
30 Kettlebell sumo deadlift high pulls
Obviously I can't do unassisted pull-ups yet so I grabbed my usual assistance band and worked on form. I noticed about the 3rd set in that I wasn't struggling nearly as horribly as usual, so on the last set I used a smaller assistance band. I couldn't do the full pull-up, but I could get myself past halfway, which is huge for me. The AMRAP...don't even get me started. The rowing and the deadlifts weren't bad, but my legs were just so tired. After Monday's workout they were shot. So truly jumping on that box was hard. Especially 30 times. I'm getting better at it though which is good. It still takes some effort considering the fatigue I was in, but I have a lot more power than I did when I first started using a 16" box. I finished 2 rounds plus 334 reps into my 3rd round. My goal was to finish 3 full rounds so I was so close! Grrr
Which leads me to my next point. I am so pissed at that box. Back when I started crossfit on my dinky little 12" box, I wasn't in any rush. The 20" box looked like freaking Mount Everest. Now I'd do anything to be able to jump my ass onto that thing. Why haven't I you say? Well because box jumps are about 70% fear. What person looks at a tall box and says Sure, I'll potentially sacrifice my shins and maybe a little blood just to say I can hop on top of that wooden box. Maybe people that aren't so gravitationally challenged, but still, just looking at that thing is terrifying. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could find the physical ability. It's the fear factor. One day (hopefully soon).
I literally spent the rest of the day in bed. I got home so exhausted. I had some lunch and crawled (literally) back into bed. It's partially because I had no motivation to sit at my desk and get a bunch of stuff done, but yeah.
Today I went back for more torture. Luckily I think they decided to take it easy on us today. This week has been a high rep/moderate weight kind of week, but since I've outgrown the weights I was originally using, it's ended up being a high rep/higher weight kind of week for me. I'm sure I could have stayed at my usual weights for things like kettlebells, but the 26 pound kettlebell is way too easy for me now, so I've almost been forced into moving up to a 35. The workouts we've been doing prescribes a 53 pound kettlebell for women so I'm definitely not overdoing it by any means.
Skill/Strength ("Snatch Bear" - working up to a max load or technique practice)
1 snatch grip deadlift
1 power snatch
1 OH squat
1 snatch balance
1 behind the neck snatch grip push press
Midline (3 rounds)
10 toes to bar
10 back extensions
20 hollow rocks
10 barbell good mornings
So grateful for the easy day. The snatch bear sequence is one of those sequences where each exercise ends in a way that segways into the next exercise. The big idea behind this sequence in particular was to use a snatch grip, which is a wide grip. I find that I have less strength in the wider grip exercises than the narrow grip ones. With this sequence, you start with your standard deadlift, put the barbell back down then do a power snatch (floor to overhead in one step), from there do an overhead squat, bring the barbell down to your shoulders and do a snatch balance (jump into a squat position while bringing the bar above your head), bring the weight back down and do a push press. Really wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the snatch grip. I think I got the hang of it though. Ended up using 65 pounds. I could feel how shot my quads were when I was trying to do the squats. Eesh. Midline didn't go too badly. I'd like to be able to get my toes to the bar but for now I'm just trying to make it so that I can pull my knees up a little further.
I'm really debating whether or not I should go tomorrow. We'll be doing WOD 13.3, which starts off with 150 wall balls. Yeah...about that. If I wasn't planning on going Saturday morning for the last WOD challenge I would totally just suck it up, but I feel like if I go tomorrow I won't make it Saturday. Such a frustrating feeling. I think the most wall balls I've done at any one time is 40 soooo 150 would be very interesting.
Just out of curiosity because I was befuddled why it feels like I've taken such a physical beating this week, I looked back on the calendar since the beginning of the challenge. This entire time, I haven't been able to get to the gym more than twice in a week. THAT explains it! Now that I know about these shenanigans it amazes me that I've even been improving at all. Well I certainly will after this week!
Today after getting home I showered really quick and relaxed the rest of the day. I eventually had to go to a meeting, which meant putting on jeans for the first time in awhile. I honestly have to say, I don't know what the hell happened. I don't know if it's because I ran them through the dryer twice or what, but those jeans just didn't want to fit me the way I wanted them to. They were just tight in all the wrong places. Now I know it's not because I'm not losing the weight because I've been wearing smaller EMT pants and all my sweatpants now look like I stole them off of my imaginary boyfriend. I just don't know what it was about those jeans today. Is it possible to have a bad-jean day?
I brought the scale out of retirement a couple days ago and now it needs to go back in because I got obsessive again. I made my goal weight finally, so I did what any human being would do and told myself to lose 5 more. Well since then I've become a little obsessive over it so the scale needs to go back into hiding. I know I've been drinking a little more water this week because of the intense workouts, on top of retaining a little bit of it. My eating hasn't been too bad, I still may be under eating Cheated a couple times, but it wasn't anything unreasonable or something that was truly a game changer. So bye bye scale. See ya in a week. Same thing with you Mr. Tape Measure. Once the weekend hits, life will slow down a little and I'll have a little break from the gym to just let things balance out again. I feel like that's really when I see the body changes. Not the middle of the week in between workouts.
It's been a crazy week so far for me in the paleo world. I guess people have started noticing that I've been toning up and then they look confused when I tell them I've lost 12 pounds. With my body, 12 pounds in itself isn't noticeable simply because I've got a lot more than 12 to lose. But the true test is going to come when we do body fat testing again. I hope to have dropped a couple percentage points, but we'll see. Other than that I'm just trying to keep this body fueled up since I'm doubling the number of times I've been going to the gym. If I'd known that sooner I would have kicked my ass 4 weeks ago...
Time for bed! G'night all!
Been feeling great these past few days. I'm fairly sore and I can tell my muscles are tired, but we're still going strong and I know I'll be acclimated to the extra workouts in no time.
Yesterday I went to the gym to find another grueling workout.
Strength
5 x 5 weighted pull-ups (or just working on strict pull-ups)
AMRAP (20 min.)
300 m row
30 box jumps
30 Kettlebell sumo deadlift high pulls
Obviously I can't do unassisted pull-ups yet so I grabbed my usual assistance band and worked on form. I noticed about the 3rd set in that I wasn't struggling nearly as horribly as usual, so on the last set I used a smaller assistance band. I couldn't do the full pull-up, but I could get myself past halfway, which is huge for me. The AMRAP...don't even get me started. The rowing and the deadlifts weren't bad, but my legs were just so tired. After Monday's workout they were shot. So truly jumping on that box was hard. Especially 30 times. I'm getting better at it though which is good. It still takes some effort considering the fatigue I was in, but I have a lot more power than I did when I first started using a 16" box. I finished 2 rounds plus 334 reps into my 3rd round. My goal was to finish 3 full rounds so I was so close! Grrr
Which leads me to my next point. I am so pissed at that box. Back when I started crossfit on my dinky little 12" box, I wasn't in any rush. The 20" box looked like freaking Mount Everest. Now I'd do anything to be able to jump my ass onto that thing. Why haven't I you say? Well because box jumps are about 70% fear. What person looks at a tall box and says Sure, I'll potentially sacrifice my shins and maybe a little blood just to say I can hop on top of that wooden box. Maybe people that aren't so gravitationally challenged, but still, just looking at that thing is terrifying. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could find the physical ability. It's the fear factor. One day (hopefully soon).
I literally spent the rest of the day in bed. I got home so exhausted. I had some lunch and crawled (literally) back into bed. It's partially because I had no motivation to sit at my desk and get a bunch of stuff done, but yeah.
Today I went back for more torture. Luckily I think they decided to take it easy on us today. This week has been a high rep/moderate weight kind of week, but since I've outgrown the weights I was originally using, it's ended up being a high rep/higher weight kind of week for me. I'm sure I could have stayed at my usual weights for things like kettlebells, but the 26 pound kettlebell is way too easy for me now, so I've almost been forced into moving up to a 35. The workouts we've been doing prescribes a 53 pound kettlebell for women so I'm definitely not overdoing it by any means.
Skill/Strength ("Snatch Bear" - working up to a max load or technique practice)
1 snatch grip deadlift
1 power snatch
1 OH squat
1 snatch balance
1 behind the neck snatch grip push press
Midline (3 rounds)
10 toes to bar
10 back extensions
20 hollow rocks
10 barbell good mornings
So grateful for the easy day. The snatch bear sequence is one of those sequences where each exercise ends in a way that segways into the next exercise. The big idea behind this sequence in particular was to use a snatch grip, which is a wide grip. I find that I have less strength in the wider grip exercises than the narrow grip ones. With this sequence, you start with your standard deadlift, put the barbell back down then do a power snatch (floor to overhead in one step), from there do an overhead squat, bring the barbell down to your shoulders and do a snatch balance (jump into a squat position while bringing the bar above your head), bring the weight back down and do a push press. Really wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the snatch grip. I think I got the hang of it though. Ended up using 65 pounds. I could feel how shot my quads were when I was trying to do the squats. Eesh. Midline didn't go too badly. I'd like to be able to get my toes to the bar but for now I'm just trying to make it so that I can pull my knees up a little further.
I'm really debating whether or not I should go tomorrow. We'll be doing WOD 13.3, which starts off with 150 wall balls. Yeah...about that. If I wasn't planning on going Saturday morning for the last WOD challenge I would totally just suck it up, but I feel like if I go tomorrow I won't make it Saturday. Such a frustrating feeling. I think the most wall balls I've done at any one time is 40 soooo 150 would be very interesting.
Just out of curiosity because I was befuddled why it feels like I've taken such a physical beating this week, I looked back on the calendar since the beginning of the challenge. This entire time, I haven't been able to get to the gym more than twice in a week. THAT explains it! Now that I know about these shenanigans it amazes me that I've even been improving at all. Well I certainly will after this week!
Today after getting home I showered really quick and relaxed the rest of the day. I eventually had to go to a meeting, which meant putting on jeans for the first time in awhile. I honestly have to say, I don't know what the hell happened. I don't know if it's because I ran them through the dryer twice or what, but those jeans just didn't want to fit me the way I wanted them to. They were just tight in all the wrong places. Now I know it's not because I'm not losing the weight because I've been wearing smaller EMT pants and all my sweatpants now look like I stole them off of my imaginary boyfriend. I just don't know what it was about those jeans today. Is it possible to have a bad-jean day?
I brought the scale out of retirement a couple days ago and now it needs to go back in because I got obsessive again. I made my goal weight finally, so I did what any human being would do and told myself to lose 5 more. Well since then I've become a little obsessive over it so the scale needs to go back into hiding. I know I've been drinking a little more water this week because of the intense workouts, on top of retaining a little bit of it. My eating hasn't been too bad, I still may be under eating Cheated a couple times, but it wasn't anything unreasonable or something that was truly a game changer. So bye bye scale. See ya in a week. Same thing with you Mr. Tape Measure. Once the weekend hits, life will slow down a little and I'll have a little break from the gym to just let things balance out again. I feel like that's really when I see the body changes. Not the middle of the week in between workouts.
It's been a crazy week so far for me in the paleo world. I guess people have started noticing that I've been toning up and then they look confused when I tell them I've lost 12 pounds. With my body, 12 pounds in itself isn't noticeable simply because I've got a lot more than 12 to lose. But the true test is going to come when we do body fat testing again. I hope to have dropped a couple percentage points, but we'll see. Other than that I'm just trying to keep this body fueled up since I'm doubling the number of times I've been going to the gym. If I'd known that sooner I would have kicked my ass 4 weeks ago...
Time for bed! G'night all!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Great Balls of Chicken!
Sometimes I just blow myself away with the wit I come up with.
So today was kind of an "eh" day. It was pretty crummy out so it kind of brought my mood down to the point that I just got back into bed after a couple hours. Breakfast was two eggs with ground beef and a couple pieces of mango. Lunch was the clam chowder with a pork chop. Dinner was turkey and squash (which was made by RIT and therefore not very good). I'd technically brought dinner with me (chicken meatballs, recipe to follow) and banana pancakes, but I wasn't very enthused by the meatballs, ergo, I went with the turkey and had the banana pancakes for dessert.
I definitely think I overdid it with the fruit a bit today. But that mango was so good! I stayed pretty clean but the sugar intake was a little higher than I expected. It's not even like I was craving it. It just was a good side with whatever I was eating. Definitely need to watch that in the upcoming days. I only have 10 days left in the challenge. I'd really like to lose at least 5 more pounds in that time.
I made a couple "life" goals today. One is to lose 5 more pounds by the end of the challenge, which is March 30th. And then I'd like to lose another 20 by the beginning of summer. With the way I've starting shedding weight, I'd like to think both of those goals are fairly attainable. To get down another 5 pounds before the end of the challenge means I gotta lose half a pound a day. Seems reasonable to me. Although after today I feel like I put another 5 pounds on. Not amused.
I'm joining the Biggest Loser challenge through Henrietta which starts on April 1st. I know I just keep going from challenge to challenge but it'll give me another thing to look forward to, especially with getting ready for the Catalyst Games and wanting to lose another 20 pounds. This challenge is essentially based on the TV show. Lose the biggest percentage of weight in whatever way you can. I forget how long it goes for. I think it's 6 or 8 weeks. I've also started getting some interest on the Hero Rush and getting people on board with coming and running with me. Definitely very excited about that.
Very excited for my new goals. I feel like they are very attainable with the way I've been feeling lately. I just hope I can keep it up. I feel like my body is starting to get in its stride with this whole thing, which is exciting to me. In the beginning I could feel the muscle coming in, but not really the fat burn. It could all still be entirely attributed to my fruit intake. But I feel like it's more than that. Losing weight has always been tough for me because of my hormones, so I really wasn't expecting to be losing pounds per day and I wasn't expecting to be winning any awards with this challenge, but it's been a good challenge for myself to see if I'm strong enough to dedicate myself fully to something like this. Turns out that I am and I'm running with it while I can!
Alright, bedtime, at work again tonight so trying to get as much sleep as I can.
G'night all!
So today was kind of an "eh" day. It was pretty crummy out so it kind of brought my mood down to the point that I just got back into bed after a couple hours. Breakfast was two eggs with ground beef and a couple pieces of mango. Lunch was the clam chowder with a pork chop. Dinner was turkey and squash (which was made by RIT and therefore not very good). I'd technically brought dinner with me (chicken meatballs, recipe to follow) and banana pancakes, but I wasn't very enthused by the meatballs, ergo, I went with the turkey and had the banana pancakes for dessert.
I definitely think I overdid it with the fruit a bit today. But that mango was so good! I stayed pretty clean but the sugar intake was a little higher than I expected. It's not even like I was craving it. It just was a good side with whatever I was eating. Definitely need to watch that in the upcoming days. I only have 10 days left in the challenge. I'd really like to lose at least 5 more pounds in that time.
I made a couple "life" goals today. One is to lose 5 more pounds by the end of the challenge, which is March 30th. And then I'd like to lose another 20 by the beginning of summer. With the way I've starting shedding weight, I'd like to think both of those goals are fairly attainable. To get down another 5 pounds before the end of the challenge means I gotta lose half a pound a day. Seems reasonable to me. Although after today I feel like I put another 5 pounds on. Not amused.
I'm joining the Biggest Loser challenge through Henrietta which starts on April 1st. I know I just keep going from challenge to challenge but it'll give me another thing to look forward to, especially with getting ready for the Catalyst Games and wanting to lose another 20 pounds. This challenge is essentially based on the TV show. Lose the biggest percentage of weight in whatever way you can. I forget how long it goes for. I think it's 6 or 8 weeks. I've also started getting some interest on the Hero Rush and getting people on board with coming and running with me. Definitely very excited about that.
Very excited for my new goals. I feel like they are very attainable with the way I've been feeling lately. I just hope I can keep it up. I feel like my body is starting to get in its stride with this whole thing, which is exciting to me. In the beginning I could feel the muscle coming in, but not really the fat burn. It could all still be entirely attributed to my fruit intake. But I feel like it's more than that. Losing weight has always been tough for me because of my hormones, so I really wasn't expecting to be losing pounds per day and I wasn't expecting to be winning any awards with this challenge, but it's been a good challenge for myself to see if I'm strong enough to dedicate myself fully to something like this. Turns out that I am and I'm running with it while I can!
Alright, bedtime, at work again tonight so trying to get as much sleep as I can.
G'night all!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Dost Thou Even Hoist?
That statement always makes me laugh...and kind of sums up today perfectly.
Worked the overnight last night and somehow managed to get a full night's sleep. I still came home and grabbed a couple more hours though. Woke up in time to get to the gym. Had a quick boiled egg as I was running out the door because I didn't want to be working out on a completely empty stomach.
Warm-Up
2 rounds: 10 kip swings, 10 toes to bar, 10 burpees
2 laps salutation lunges
1 min. Olympic wall squat stretch
Strength
20 unbroken squats (about 60% of 1 RM)
MetCon
30 kettlebell swings
90 lunges (45 each side carrying 2 kettlebells)
30 kettlebell swings
Midline
3 x 12 GH raises
I'd just like to say, that my booty did not appreciate these shenanigans in the least bit. This entire workout was pure muscle endurance. Twenty unbroken squats is tough. I finished them using about 75 pounds (I guestimated what 60% of 135 was). The MetCon was just unbelievably hard. I usually use 26 pound kettlebells and can get through things with some level of difficulty towards the end. Well, the problem with coaches knowing you so well is that they know when it's time to step it up. The prescribed weight for women in this workout was 53#, I think I used a 40-something kettlebell in the end. I was not a happy camper. The swings weren't so bad. I was going to eye level since I was using a much heavier kettlebell than what I was used to. It was those lunges. Having one kettlebell in each hand was truly killer. Not just on my quads, but my shoulders as well. I actually think my shoulders hurt more than my quads by the end of it. Lunges have never really been my strongest leg movement ever.
GH raises are just so bizarre. So people are used to back extensions at the gym, where you place your hips against a pad and just extend, sometimes holding a weight. Well GH raises happen on an apparatus similar to the one you do back extensions on, except the way it's set up is that your body is parallel to the floor. You go down as if you're doing a back extension except you don't use your back to come back up. You use your hamstrings and your butt and you end up in a kneeling position. It looks like this:
Those are just truly awful. Tack them on to the rest of the workout that we went through today and my legs are going to be shot tomorrow.
Lunch today was the clam chowder, a side salad and an apple with almond butter. I was super full after that one but I kind of needed the replenishment. The clam chowder was better than I expected it to be. It's not really a soup consistency. It's honestly as thick as baby food, but it was good.
As if I didn't already have my workout done for the day, we ran our asses off at work for a good portion of the shift. One call I just spent the whole time going back and forth to the rig and lifting everything and anything. Totally should have invested in some ibuprofen before I went around doing those shenanigans. Dinner (when I could finally have it) was shepherd's pie and a couple zucchini fritters.
I'm so not ready for the soreness that tomorrow is going to bring. I get the feeling I'll be spending a lot of time crawling around. At least I have the majority of the day off so it won't be too bad. Was going to go to the gym but I now have a sick puppy again so I'll be taking the morning off. Also doesn't help that it's currently raining snow pellets outside, so I'd like to stay in as much as possible.
Heading to bed early! G'night all!
Worked the overnight last night and somehow managed to get a full night's sleep. I still came home and grabbed a couple more hours though. Woke up in time to get to the gym. Had a quick boiled egg as I was running out the door because I didn't want to be working out on a completely empty stomach.
Warm-Up
2 rounds: 10 kip swings, 10 toes to bar, 10 burpees
2 laps salutation lunges
1 min. Olympic wall squat stretch
Strength
20 unbroken squats (about 60% of 1 RM)
MetCon
30 kettlebell swings
90 lunges (45 each side carrying 2 kettlebells)
30 kettlebell swings
Midline
3 x 12 GH raises
I'd just like to say, that my booty did not appreciate these shenanigans in the least bit. This entire workout was pure muscle endurance. Twenty unbroken squats is tough. I finished them using about 75 pounds (I guestimated what 60% of 135 was). The MetCon was just unbelievably hard. I usually use 26 pound kettlebells and can get through things with some level of difficulty towards the end. Well, the problem with coaches knowing you so well is that they know when it's time to step it up. The prescribed weight for women in this workout was 53#, I think I used a 40-something kettlebell in the end. I was not a happy camper. The swings weren't so bad. I was going to eye level since I was using a much heavier kettlebell than what I was used to. It was those lunges. Having one kettlebell in each hand was truly killer. Not just on my quads, but my shoulders as well. I actually think my shoulders hurt more than my quads by the end of it. Lunges have never really been my strongest leg movement ever.
GH raises are just so bizarre. So people are used to back extensions at the gym, where you place your hips against a pad and just extend, sometimes holding a weight. Well GH raises happen on an apparatus similar to the one you do back extensions on, except the way it's set up is that your body is parallel to the floor. You go down as if you're doing a back extension except you don't use your back to come back up. You use your hamstrings and your butt and you end up in a kneeling position. It looks like this:
Lunch today was the clam chowder, a side salad and an apple with almond butter. I was super full after that one but I kind of needed the replenishment. The clam chowder was better than I expected it to be. It's not really a soup consistency. It's honestly as thick as baby food, but it was good.
As if I didn't already have my workout done for the day, we ran our asses off at work for a good portion of the shift. One call I just spent the whole time going back and forth to the rig and lifting everything and anything. Totally should have invested in some ibuprofen before I went around doing those shenanigans. Dinner (when I could finally have it) was shepherd's pie and a couple zucchini fritters.
I'm so not ready for the soreness that tomorrow is going to bring. I get the feeling I'll be spending a lot of time crawling around. At least I have the majority of the day off so it won't be too bad. Was going to go to the gym but I now have a sick puppy again so I'll be taking the morning off. Also doesn't help that it's currently raining snow pellets outside, so I'd like to stay in as much as possible.
Heading to bed early! G'night all!
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Cook All the Food
Today was another busy day in the kitchen. Let me tell you, my house smells freaking divine right now. I probably smelled pretty good too. Found out last night that apparently when you spend a day in the kitchen, you end up smelling like it. Literally people were drooling. But anywho.
Got up this morning and had brunch since I went to bed late last night. Had a couple of the banana pancakes with unsweetened applesauce on top (delicious!), two pieces of turkey bacon and a slice of pineapple. My snacks were prosciutto chips and a boiled egg. Dinner was another pork chop with zucchini fritters and a side salad. I currently have a headache that would kill a horse that I'm trying to douse in Advil and water with no luck (<_<).
Made 3 more recipes today. Two of them were repeats: shepherd's pie and lara balls. This time around I added peas to the shepherd's pie and a little bit of almond butter to the lara balls. Can I just say, making lara balls is a pain in the ass. You get this nice grainy textured stuff after you're done processing it and then you have to form it into balls, which just gets pieces of walnut everywhere.
The new recipe I made was the Chicken and Biscuits Casserole:
6 boneless chicken breasts
1 pound of carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 onion
1 bag of green beans (I used frozen)
Salt and Pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 celery stalk, sliced
2 cups chicken broth
2 tbsp tapioca flour
Topping:
2.5 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup ghee/coconut oil/olive oil
2 eggs
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a dish and place the chicken breasts in. Season as you like (I did salt, pepper, garlic powder, poultry seasoning and onion powder). Bake for 35-40 minutes. In large frying pan place ghee (or fat of choice), add onion and start sautéing. Add carrots, and season with salt and pepper. Cook until carrots just soften. Add green beans, poultry seasoning, garlic powder and celery seed. Adjust salt and pepper.
Once chicken is done cooking remove from oven and cut into bite sized cubes. Mix veggies and chicken together in a large casserole (9x13 or so). Add chicken broth, coconut milk and tapioca flour. Now prepare topping. In large bowl mix almond flour, salt and baking soda. Add eggs and ghee and mix until forms a ball. Using two sheets of parchment to sandwich the dough, roll it flat to match the size of the casserole. Place over the top of the casserole and bake for 25-30 minutes or until biscuit topping just starts to brown. Serve and enjoy!!
I don't know if I'm impressed with this recipe or not. Everything looked great when I first put it in the oven, but when it came back out I found that the liquid was still there, hadn't really formed a "gravy" or anything. To be fair, I don't have tapioca flour but I didn't think that'd be the big game changer since there was so little of the flour compared to how much broth was in there. It smells very fragrant, but there's not really a "casserole" consistency to it. The only thing "casserole" about it was that I took a whole ton of ingredients and put them in a baking dish together. Also would have been easier to make the topping if I'd actually had some parchment paper and a rolling pin. I still think I should get brownie points for my creativity though. I also completely underestimated the sheer volume of food that this recipe generates. I should have been able to guess from the fact that it called for 6 chicken breasts but apparently I wasn't thinking ahead that far. I may just end up freezing half of it just to have it handy.
Tomorrow starts my first week of unlimited classes at the gym. Gotta say I'm kinda nervous but I'm so ready to take the next step. I'm not going to go crazy all at once but I'll definitely be starting with 4 per week and going from there.
Just for shits and giggles I dug out the scale and the measuring tape again today. According to my scale, which is probably somewhat inaccurate, I'm 1 pound away from my goal weight. The report from the tape measure is that the weight is coming right off my hips. Nothing else has really changed that much, but my hips are where you really notice it. Wish it would come off my waist a little more but I know that's going to be the hardest spot to get rid of the pudginess. Scale's going back from whence it came now.
Today started Week 5 of the challenge. Man time has flown. I'm definitely going to stay on paleo after it's done. I might not be AS crazy strict about it, but it'll be consistent. As in, adding back a guilt-free cheat day and maybe adding back some dairy like cheese or butter/cream (when needed for cooking). Other than that, I'm just gonna stick with it. Clearly coming off the crap in my life has done nothing but good for me so why go back to my evil ways? Plus I'm actually kind of used to it. It'll be a relief to not be going crazy about it 24/7 though. I'm not going to go crazy with the cheats, but I'm also not going to hate myself for cheating every once in awhile.
Well I'm going to go back to pretending I'm doing work. And by that I mean I'm heading to bed so I can get as much sleep as possible before the calls start coming in.
G'night all!
Got up this morning and had brunch since I went to bed late last night. Had a couple of the banana pancakes with unsweetened applesauce on top (delicious!), two pieces of turkey bacon and a slice of pineapple. My snacks were prosciutto chips and a boiled egg. Dinner was another pork chop with zucchini fritters and a side salad. I currently have a headache that would kill a horse that I'm trying to douse in Advil and water with no luck (<_<).
Made 3 more recipes today. Two of them were repeats: shepherd's pie and lara balls. This time around I added peas to the shepherd's pie and a little bit of almond butter to the lara balls. Can I just say, making lara balls is a pain in the ass. You get this nice grainy textured stuff after you're done processing it and then you have to form it into balls, which just gets pieces of walnut everywhere.
The new recipe I made was the Chicken and Biscuits Casserole:
6 boneless chicken breasts
1 pound of carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 onion
1 bag of green beans (I used frozen)
Salt and Pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 celery stalk, sliced
2 cups chicken broth
2 tbsp tapioca flour
Topping:
2.5 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup ghee/coconut oil/olive oil
2 eggs
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a dish and place the chicken breasts in. Season as you like (I did salt, pepper, garlic powder, poultry seasoning and onion powder). Bake for 35-40 minutes. In large frying pan place ghee (or fat of choice), add onion and start sautéing. Add carrots, and season with salt and pepper. Cook until carrots just soften. Add green beans, poultry seasoning, garlic powder and celery seed. Adjust salt and pepper.
Once chicken is done cooking remove from oven and cut into bite sized cubes. Mix veggies and chicken together in a large casserole (9x13 or so). Add chicken broth, coconut milk and tapioca flour. Now prepare topping. In large bowl mix almond flour, salt and baking soda. Add eggs and ghee and mix until forms a ball. Using two sheets of parchment to sandwich the dough, roll it flat to match the size of the casserole. Place over the top of the casserole and bake for 25-30 minutes or until biscuit topping just starts to brown. Serve and enjoy!!
I don't know if I'm impressed with this recipe or not. Everything looked great when I first put it in the oven, but when it came back out I found that the liquid was still there, hadn't really formed a "gravy" or anything. To be fair, I don't have tapioca flour but I didn't think that'd be the big game changer since there was so little of the flour compared to how much broth was in there. It smells very fragrant, but there's not really a "casserole" consistency to it. The only thing "casserole" about it was that I took a whole ton of ingredients and put them in a baking dish together. Also would have been easier to make the topping if I'd actually had some parchment paper and a rolling pin. I still think I should get brownie points for my creativity though. I also completely underestimated the sheer volume of food that this recipe generates. I should have been able to guess from the fact that it called for 6 chicken breasts but apparently I wasn't thinking ahead that far. I may just end up freezing half of it just to have it handy.
Tomorrow starts my first week of unlimited classes at the gym. Gotta say I'm kinda nervous but I'm so ready to take the next step. I'm not going to go crazy all at once but I'll definitely be starting with 4 per week and going from there.
Just for shits and giggles I dug out the scale and the measuring tape again today. According to my scale, which is probably somewhat inaccurate, I'm 1 pound away from my goal weight. The report from the tape measure is that the weight is coming right off my hips. Nothing else has really changed that much, but my hips are where you really notice it. Wish it would come off my waist a little more but I know that's going to be the hardest spot to get rid of the pudginess. Scale's going back from whence it came now.
Today started Week 5 of the challenge. Man time has flown. I'm definitely going to stay on paleo after it's done. I might not be AS crazy strict about it, but it'll be consistent. As in, adding back a guilt-free cheat day and maybe adding back some dairy like cheese or butter/cream (when needed for cooking). Other than that, I'm just gonna stick with it. Clearly coming off the crap in my life has done nothing but good for me so why go back to my evil ways? Plus I'm actually kind of used to it. It'll be a relief to not be going crazy about it 24/7 though. I'm not going to go crazy with the cheats, but I'm also not going to hate myself for cheating every once in awhile.
Well I'm going to go back to pretending I'm doing work. And by that I mean I'm heading to bed so I can get as much sleep as possible before the calls start coming in.
G'night all!
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Nothing Like the Smell of 409...
Well I've been up since 7 this morning and it's been a productive day for sure!
Got up early since we wanted to get an early breakfast so Rothberg could make it to class on time. Had a steak and eggs with the eggs over easy. Came home and got to work on cleaning up the house. Today I attacked the kitchen. I had so much food laying around, both expired and just stuff I can't eat anymore. I ended up throwing out 2 garbage bags of food. Cleaned up the counters a little, but didn't go crazy because I knew I'd be cooking. Washed and put away a lot of dishes and cleaned the inside of the fridge. Got several loads of laundry done and tidied up my bedroom/bathroom a little bit. I think I'll save those two for tomorrow.
Went food shopping and got everything I needed. I ended up grabbing some pork chops and chicken drumsticks just to have on hand if I want to go simple at any point this week. After that Baker came over so he could make some matzo ball soup. Although it's not paleo, I tried some and it was delicious!
I didn't end up beasting through food prep as much as I thought I was going to but I got some things all set. I made zucchini fritters, and I tried my hand at real pancakes! And for once they turned out ok!
Two Ingredient Pancakes
2 ripe bananas
4 eggs
Vanilla Extract
Cinnamon
Puree the bananas in a food processor. Add the eggs, vanilla and cinnamon and process until fully mixed.
They ended up very banana-y...I know, shocking since the base ingredient is bananas. But it's not so overpowering that you feel sick after eating one.
I also baked the pork chops with various seasonings.
Lastly I made a Creamy Clam Chowder:
2 cans of clams
1 head of cauliflower
1/2 cup cut up carrots
1/2 cup cut up celery
1 small onion
2 small sweet potatoes
12 oz. coconut milk
1/2 cup chicken broth
Bacon (~ 1/4 of a pound)
Garlic powder (or you can use real garlic)
Salt/pepper
Italian seasoning
Boil the cauliflower and sweet potatoes until they are tender. Set aside the sweet potatoes. After draining the cauliflower, put it back in the pot with the carrots, celery, onion, coconut milk, chicken broth and seasonings. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. While doing that, cook the bacon until crispy. Put the cauliflower mixture through a food processor until fully mixed and thick (if you like a thicker soup, add some of the sweet potato while mixing). Put the cauliflower mixture back in the pot, and add the remainder of the sweet potatoes, along with the clams and the diced up bacon. Add extra seasonings as needed.
I ended up adding in the sweet potato to the cauliflower because I like thicker soups. It kind of has the consistency and the color of baby food, but it's good I swear. I'm still getting used to these paleo soups. I'm not quite sure how I entirely feel about them just yet.
I think tomorrow I'll tackle the shepherd's pie, the meatballs, and maybe the chicken casserole. I'm also thinking of making another batch of lara balls and maybe one of the veggie sides. It'll be another busy day!
Shorter post tonight since my "exercise" today was elbowing my way through the grocery store and hauling bags to the car. I just hate how I eat like crap on days that I go food shopping. I start off well in the morning but usually a food shopping day means I'm running around on top of doing other errands so my lunch gets delayed and by then I may as well just have a snack so I don't ruin dinner. Can't wait to have more of those pancakes tomorrow though!
Have a good night all!
Got up early since we wanted to get an early breakfast so Rothberg could make it to class on time. Had a steak and eggs with the eggs over easy. Came home and got to work on cleaning up the house. Today I attacked the kitchen. I had so much food laying around, both expired and just stuff I can't eat anymore. I ended up throwing out 2 garbage bags of food. Cleaned up the counters a little, but didn't go crazy because I knew I'd be cooking. Washed and put away a lot of dishes and cleaned the inside of the fridge. Got several loads of laundry done and tidied up my bedroom/bathroom a little bit. I think I'll save those two for tomorrow.
Went food shopping and got everything I needed. I ended up grabbing some pork chops and chicken drumsticks just to have on hand if I want to go simple at any point this week. After that Baker came over so he could make some matzo ball soup. Although it's not paleo, I tried some and it was delicious!
I didn't end up beasting through food prep as much as I thought I was going to but I got some things all set. I made zucchini fritters, and I tried my hand at real pancakes! And for once they turned out ok!
Two Ingredient Pancakes
2 ripe bananas
4 eggs
Vanilla Extract
Cinnamon
Puree the bananas in a food processor. Add the eggs, vanilla and cinnamon and process until fully mixed.
They ended up very banana-y...I know, shocking since the base ingredient is bananas. But it's not so overpowering that you feel sick after eating one.
I also baked the pork chops with various seasonings.
Lastly I made a Creamy Clam Chowder:
2 cans of clams
1 head of cauliflower
1/2 cup cut up carrots
1/2 cup cut up celery
1 small onion
2 small sweet potatoes
12 oz. coconut milk
1/2 cup chicken broth
Bacon (~ 1/4 of a pound)
Garlic powder (or you can use real garlic)
Salt/pepper
Italian seasoning
Boil the cauliflower and sweet potatoes until they are tender. Set aside the sweet potatoes. After draining the cauliflower, put it back in the pot with the carrots, celery, onion, coconut milk, chicken broth and seasonings. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. While doing that, cook the bacon until crispy. Put the cauliflower mixture through a food processor until fully mixed and thick (if you like a thicker soup, add some of the sweet potato while mixing). Put the cauliflower mixture back in the pot, and add the remainder of the sweet potatoes, along with the clams and the diced up bacon. Add extra seasonings as needed.
I ended up adding in the sweet potato to the cauliflower because I like thicker soups. It kind of has the consistency and the color of baby food, but it's good I swear. I'm still getting used to these paleo soups. I'm not quite sure how I entirely feel about them just yet.
I think tomorrow I'll tackle the shepherd's pie, the meatballs, and maybe the chicken casserole. I'm also thinking of making another batch of lara balls and maybe one of the veggie sides. It'll be another busy day!
Shorter post tonight since my "exercise" today was elbowing my way through the grocery store and hauling bags to the car. I just hate how I eat like crap on days that I go food shopping. I start off well in the morning but usually a food shopping day means I'm running around on top of doing other errands so my lunch gets delayed and by then I may as well just have a snack so I don't ruin dinner. Can't wait to have more of those pancakes tomorrow though!
Have a good night all!
Friday, March 15, 2013
Open WOD 13.2
Today has been a good day back in the saddle.
Started off the morning with a breakfast of a boiled egg, 3 pieces of Trader Joe's Turkey Bacon (I will never go back to Jennie-O), and an orange.
Fridays at our gym are dedicated to performing the Open WODs, which are being performed all over the nation right now. It's for the CrossFit games. For the next few weeks, people in their gyms will perform these Open WODs and the best people in the region will compete against each other regionally, and finally the nationals. To celebrate, the gyms are just having everyone do the WOD. Our gym dedicates it as the MetCon so we still do other stuff on top of it.
Warm-Up:
15 medball squat cleans
15 wall balls
15 sit-ups
15 overhead lunges
Strength:
5 x 3 power clean (start from the floor and end at your shoulders)
MetCon (Open WOD 13.2):
10 minute AMRAP
5 shoulder to overhead (75#)
10 deadlifts (75#)
15 box jumps (20"...I had to modify to 16)
I murdered my power clean PR for 3 rep sets. The last time I did a power clean in sets of 3, I got to 73 pounds. Today I did 103 pounds. Holy shit! I kinda want to know what my 1 RM is because that means I'm really starting to get a little more upper body strength.
The MetCon was so god awful. I wanted to kill the bastard that sat at a table creating these workouts. So the thing about competitions is that they expect you to do the exercises as prescribed, meaning you use the prescribed weight. All of our workouts have a prescribed weight, but mostly it's just a guideline. When you're in competition, you do that prescribed weight. I modified the box jump because learning how to jump on a 20" box jump is not something to do in the middle of a MetCon. I did 124 reps in 10 minutes, meaning I got through the full workout 4 times, plus 4 shoulder to overheads. How does that measure up in the grand scheme of things? It's on the low side, but it's not the worst. There are women who have been doing this for awhile getting in the 240 and higher range. My partner got 134, so in the small scheme of things, I did very well, considering what my level of fitness was several months ago. That's really all I can focus on currently is how do I measure up from the person I was back in October, or even December before I really cracked down. I've been going to a crossfit gym since October...I didn't become a Crossfitter until January, so after 2 months I can't complain, especially with the huge improvements I've had these past few weeks. The shoulder to overhead was tough, but doable. My 1 RM for a push press is 93 pounds so 75 was doable in 5 rep increments. The deadlifts were the easiest part. The box jumps were what tired me out. I was really going at them because up until now I've kind of been stepping up to the box before I jump onto it. Today I tried focusing on just jumping up onto it.
Came home and had a late lunch of leftover Italian sausage and zucchini chips. I was disappointed in the zucchini chips, mostly because I tried substituting the needed ingredients so the almond flour just ended up burning. I'm going food shopping tomorrow so I'll have everything I need again.
I've already created my food shopping list and the list of recipes that I want to make tomorrow. I have essentially the entire weekend off so I will be spending it cooking and cleaning this damn house. And I'm actually going to cook interesting recipes this time. I don't work any days this week, they're all evenings and overnights so that leaves a lot more room for trying things out.
Breakfast Recipes
- Oatmeal
- Pancakes
- Banana Breakfast Pudding
Lunch/Dinner Recipes
- Clam chowder
- Shepherd's Pie
- Chicken, Basil, Artichoke Meatballs
- Spaghetti Squash with Basil Walnut Cream Sauce
- Chicken and Biscuits Casserole
Veggie Sides
- Zucchini and Eggplant Basil Pesto Roll-Ups
- Sweet Potato Tater Tots
As you can see, I'm geared up and ready to go. I really need to start making a binder for all these recipes, but that involves getting ink cartridges for my printer.
I am happy to report though, that as of today, I signed up for unlimited attendance weekly. Technically the number I was going for was 4 per week, but after 3 times per week, the option is unlimited. I am so thrilled, I'm already signed up for classes next week. Although since there's another challenge WOD next week it means I'll be going 5 times. Eesh.
ALSO, I am so thrilled to report that I finally fit into my smaller EMT pants. It's not a perfect fit by any means, but holy crap! The weight may not be coming off my belly but it's definitely coming right off my hips. I am just so over the moon. Don't get to celebrate too much though since I'm on duty tonight <_< Guess that means after all this is done I'm going to need to do some jean shopping.
Anywho...time to go to work. Tomorrow is food shopping and cleaning day!!
Have a good night all!
Started off the morning with a breakfast of a boiled egg, 3 pieces of Trader Joe's Turkey Bacon (I will never go back to Jennie-O), and an orange.
Fridays at our gym are dedicated to performing the Open WODs, which are being performed all over the nation right now. It's for the CrossFit games. For the next few weeks, people in their gyms will perform these Open WODs and the best people in the region will compete against each other regionally, and finally the nationals. To celebrate, the gyms are just having everyone do the WOD. Our gym dedicates it as the MetCon so we still do other stuff on top of it.
Warm-Up:
15 medball squat cleans
15 wall balls
15 sit-ups
15 overhead lunges
Strength:
5 x 3 power clean (start from the floor and end at your shoulders)
MetCon (Open WOD 13.2):
10 minute AMRAP
5 shoulder to overhead (75#)
10 deadlifts (75#)
15 box jumps (20"...I had to modify to 16)
I murdered my power clean PR for 3 rep sets. The last time I did a power clean in sets of 3, I got to 73 pounds. Today I did 103 pounds. Holy shit! I kinda want to know what my 1 RM is because that means I'm really starting to get a little more upper body strength.
The MetCon was so god awful. I wanted to kill the bastard that sat at a table creating these workouts. So the thing about competitions is that they expect you to do the exercises as prescribed, meaning you use the prescribed weight. All of our workouts have a prescribed weight, but mostly it's just a guideline. When you're in competition, you do that prescribed weight. I modified the box jump because learning how to jump on a 20" box jump is not something to do in the middle of a MetCon. I did 124 reps in 10 minutes, meaning I got through the full workout 4 times, plus 4 shoulder to overheads. How does that measure up in the grand scheme of things? It's on the low side, but it's not the worst. There are women who have been doing this for awhile getting in the 240 and higher range. My partner got 134, so in the small scheme of things, I did very well, considering what my level of fitness was several months ago. That's really all I can focus on currently is how do I measure up from the person I was back in October, or even December before I really cracked down. I've been going to a crossfit gym since October...I didn't become a Crossfitter until January, so after 2 months I can't complain, especially with the huge improvements I've had these past few weeks. The shoulder to overhead was tough, but doable. My 1 RM for a push press is 93 pounds so 75 was doable in 5 rep increments. The deadlifts were the easiest part. The box jumps were what tired me out. I was really going at them because up until now I've kind of been stepping up to the box before I jump onto it. Today I tried focusing on just jumping up onto it.
Came home and had a late lunch of leftover Italian sausage and zucchini chips. I was disappointed in the zucchini chips, mostly because I tried substituting the needed ingredients so the almond flour just ended up burning. I'm going food shopping tomorrow so I'll have everything I need again.
I've already created my food shopping list and the list of recipes that I want to make tomorrow. I have essentially the entire weekend off so I will be spending it cooking and cleaning this damn house. And I'm actually going to cook interesting recipes this time. I don't work any days this week, they're all evenings and overnights so that leaves a lot more room for trying things out.
Breakfast Recipes
- Oatmeal
- Pancakes
- Banana Breakfast Pudding
Lunch/Dinner Recipes
- Clam chowder
- Shepherd's Pie
- Chicken, Basil, Artichoke Meatballs
- Spaghetti Squash with Basil Walnut Cream Sauce
- Chicken and Biscuits Casserole
Veggie Sides
- Zucchini and Eggplant Basil Pesto Roll-Ups
- Sweet Potato Tater Tots
As you can see, I'm geared up and ready to go. I really need to start making a binder for all these recipes, but that involves getting ink cartridges for my printer.
I am happy to report though, that as of today, I signed up for unlimited attendance weekly. Technically the number I was going for was 4 per week, but after 3 times per week, the option is unlimited. I am so thrilled, I'm already signed up for classes next week. Although since there's another challenge WOD next week it means I'll be going 5 times. Eesh.
ALSO, I am so thrilled to report that I finally fit into my smaller EMT pants. It's not a perfect fit by any means, but holy crap! The weight may not be coming off my belly but it's definitely coming right off my hips. I am just so over the moon. Don't get to celebrate too much though since I'm on duty tonight <_< Guess that means after all this is done I'm going to need to do some jean shopping.
Anywho...time to go to work. Tomorrow is food shopping and cleaning day!!
Have a good night all!
Thursday, March 14, 2013
And I Thought February Was Bad...
Without going into the gory details again, because I'd like to put all this shit behind me, this past weekend takes the cake for the worst possible moment I could have had in 2013. If I thought being betrayed by a senior officer at an agency was bad, try getting betrayed by your own roommate whom you believed was your friend. Now that shit is no effing bueno. So between being sick all weekend and my world blowing up, I haven't been very faithful to paleo (or to my loyal readers).
The paleo thing really just hasn't been consistent so far this week from about Sunday to today. Sunday I had meetings all day so instead of prepping food, I just had the bagels from aforementioned meeting. Dinner was paleo-compliant. Monday I was good all day. Tuesday I was good until dinner, which was eaten on campus. Wednesday I was good and today was a not-so-good breakfast. The other issue too is that I've been undereating. With the stress and the fact that I'm generally running around when mealtime hits, I've been skipping meals. So not only am I not eating 100% right, I'm also just not eating at all. It's a lot different from my old days where stress eating was the norm, but both options are equally unhealthy. Secondly I have not been getting enough sleep and it's mostly because I've been going to bed too late. I'm still waking up on my own early in the morning so I'm really just screwing myself.
I think another part of it is that when I get stressed, my motivation to cook just plummets. That's part of the reason why I have major cooking days because I just know I will have at least one day where I'll be thankful to have something I'll just need to heat up. So after last Friday, I had these two heaping bowls of spaghetti squash dishes, but hadn't really prepared anything else. I really just kind of messed myself up with that one in all ways possible. I'll be starting a shopping list this weekend and hopefully next weekend will be much better.
The good thing to come out of last week was that I can actually start seeing body changes. A big thing was getting rid of the huge fruit intake. I cut it down to one per day, and if I can get rid of the shitty eating, it looks like it's making all the difference.
Got myself back to the gym yesterday. We started with tabata jump roping and various stretches.
Strength:
15 minutes to work up to a 1 RM split jerk
MetCon: (15 minute cap)
10 atlas stone to shoulder
10 box jumps
10 stone to shoulder
10 toes to bar
10 stone to shoulder
10 dumbbell presses
10 stone to shoulder
10 burpees
10 stone to shoulder
The strength wasn't bad. I really enjoy split jerks. My 1 RM is 123. The MetCon was tough. We were supposed to use atlas stones, which essentially look like balls of concrete. But I was too strong for a 30 pound one, and the next size up was a 75, so I ended up using a 50 pound slam ball. Very awkward. The movement itself is kind of fun. We were taught how to do it in two steps: (1) pick up the stone using a deadlift stance and rest it on the top of your thighs, (2) curl your upper body around the stone, push your hips back and roll it up onto your shoulder. There is a way to do it in one step but you have to be careful because people start using their biceps instead of keeping their arms locked out. My toes to bar and burpees are getting really good! I can now use a controlled swing. I'm still doing knees to chest but I could feel a lot of increased flexibility in my hips and abdominal region. It's probably just because my belly isn't getting in the way anymore. It also isn't as hard to hang from the bar anymore. My burpees keep getting more and more powerful by the day.
All in all, I'll have to say that taking a week off from the gym, although it wasn't really by choice, was just what my body needed. I came back feeling stronger and better than ever. Sometimes you just need the break, even if you don't feel like you do. It's not going to be a theory that I try out on a regular basis because it sometimes is just a fluke.
After the workout yesterday, I finally had them make me a folder. While I record my workouts here, the info they put in them is actually really useful. It tells you about the different "girl" and "hero" workouts, and it gives you baselines to give you an idea of where you stand. Before I started filling things out, I thought that I must be at least intermediate with the strength parts because I can lift so much. Yeah that's not the case. The baselines they use in the folders are based off of percentage of body weight. So based off of that I'm still in the beginning stages, but my percentages are pretty much right between the beginner and intermediate range. Can't complain too much considering I'm still getting stronger.
I can't wait for things to warm up permanently. Once they do I plan to start running outside. Just grabbing Mack and my running sneakers. I have an app on my phone called Couch to 5k. It essentially trains you to run using interval training. I'm pretty excited since I really want to do this obstacle race called Hero Rush. It's based a lot on firefighter/emergency services type stuff and will be happening at the beginning of June. It's shorter than the Tough Mudder and those races and a little more geared towards goofy obstacles. I think it'll be a good starting point for me. I also got my work schedule for April and will be increasing my class attendance to 4 per week as of tomorrow. There's no better time to git 'er done!
Week 4 is almost done. I may not be getting the body changes I want (although my clothes are starting to fit a lot better!), but the changes in the gym are definitely still there. I'm still nervous about the baseline workout just because of those stupid clusters but we'll see what happens. I'm hoping going to the gym 4 times a week now for the next 2 weeks will help a little as well as quitting with the bad days. I just need to make sure I plan better this time around.
Well, g'night all, here's to things getting better!
The paleo thing really just hasn't been consistent so far this week from about Sunday to today. Sunday I had meetings all day so instead of prepping food, I just had the bagels from aforementioned meeting. Dinner was paleo-compliant. Monday I was good all day. Tuesday I was good until dinner, which was eaten on campus. Wednesday I was good and today was a not-so-good breakfast. The other issue too is that I've been undereating. With the stress and the fact that I'm generally running around when mealtime hits, I've been skipping meals. So not only am I not eating 100% right, I'm also just not eating at all. It's a lot different from my old days where stress eating was the norm, but both options are equally unhealthy. Secondly I have not been getting enough sleep and it's mostly because I've been going to bed too late. I'm still waking up on my own early in the morning so I'm really just screwing myself.
I think another part of it is that when I get stressed, my motivation to cook just plummets. That's part of the reason why I have major cooking days because I just know I will have at least one day where I'll be thankful to have something I'll just need to heat up. So after last Friday, I had these two heaping bowls of spaghetti squash dishes, but hadn't really prepared anything else. I really just kind of messed myself up with that one in all ways possible. I'll be starting a shopping list this weekend and hopefully next weekend will be much better.
The good thing to come out of last week was that I can actually start seeing body changes. A big thing was getting rid of the huge fruit intake. I cut it down to one per day, and if I can get rid of the shitty eating, it looks like it's making all the difference.
Got myself back to the gym yesterday. We started with tabata jump roping and various stretches.
Strength:
15 minutes to work up to a 1 RM split jerk
MetCon: (15 minute cap)
10 atlas stone to shoulder
10 box jumps
10 stone to shoulder
10 toes to bar
10 stone to shoulder
10 dumbbell presses
10 stone to shoulder
10 burpees
10 stone to shoulder
The strength wasn't bad. I really enjoy split jerks. My 1 RM is 123. The MetCon was tough. We were supposed to use atlas stones, which essentially look like balls of concrete. But I was too strong for a 30 pound one, and the next size up was a 75, so I ended up using a 50 pound slam ball. Very awkward. The movement itself is kind of fun. We were taught how to do it in two steps: (1) pick up the stone using a deadlift stance and rest it on the top of your thighs, (2) curl your upper body around the stone, push your hips back and roll it up onto your shoulder. There is a way to do it in one step but you have to be careful because people start using their biceps instead of keeping their arms locked out. My toes to bar and burpees are getting really good! I can now use a controlled swing. I'm still doing knees to chest but I could feel a lot of increased flexibility in my hips and abdominal region. It's probably just because my belly isn't getting in the way anymore. It also isn't as hard to hang from the bar anymore. My burpees keep getting more and more powerful by the day.
All in all, I'll have to say that taking a week off from the gym, although it wasn't really by choice, was just what my body needed. I came back feeling stronger and better than ever. Sometimes you just need the break, even if you don't feel like you do. It's not going to be a theory that I try out on a regular basis because it sometimes is just a fluke.
After the workout yesterday, I finally had them make me a folder. While I record my workouts here, the info they put in them is actually really useful. It tells you about the different "girl" and "hero" workouts, and it gives you baselines to give you an idea of where you stand. Before I started filling things out, I thought that I must be at least intermediate with the strength parts because I can lift so much. Yeah that's not the case. The baselines they use in the folders are based off of percentage of body weight. So based off of that I'm still in the beginning stages, but my percentages are pretty much right between the beginner and intermediate range. Can't complain too much considering I'm still getting stronger.
I can't wait for things to warm up permanently. Once they do I plan to start running outside. Just grabbing Mack and my running sneakers. I have an app on my phone called Couch to 5k. It essentially trains you to run using interval training. I'm pretty excited since I really want to do this obstacle race called Hero Rush. It's based a lot on firefighter/emergency services type stuff and will be happening at the beginning of June. It's shorter than the Tough Mudder and those races and a little more geared towards goofy obstacles. I think it'll be a good starting point for me. I also got my work schedule for April and will be increasing my class attendance to 4 per week as of tomorrow. There's no better time to git 'er done!
Week 4 is almost done. I may not be getting the body changes I want (although my clothes are starting to fit a lot better!), but the changes in the gym are definitely still there. I'm still nervous about the baseline workout just because of those stupid clusters but we'll see what happens. I'm hoping going to the gym 4 times a week now for the next 2 weeks will help a little as well as quitting with the bad days. I just need to make sure I plan better this time around.
Well, g'night all, here's to things getting better!
Friday, March 8, 2013
Halfway Through!
As of tomorrow, I will be halfway done with the Paleo Challenge. While I haven't been perfect by any means, I'm still going strong, one spaghetti squash at a time!
Yesterday I didn't do much other than work. Was supposed to go to the gym and do this hellish workout that has been nicknamed "The Chief," but we got a late call and with all the paperwork to do, I wasn't going to be able to get there in time. Put myself on the waitlist for a later class but since I was 4th in line, that didn't work out. Was fairly disappointed since the workout looked almost like fun, but I'm actually kind of glad I didn't work out because I woke up with the cough from hell yesterday. No explanation, barely any build up, just woke up coughing up my right lung. Didn't even have a sore throat or a runny nose. By the time the EMS world was done blowing up, I had a couple hours to come home and chill before I went and saw a movie with some friends. Took a little time to cook a batch of zucchini fritters to go with the last of the meatloaf and I actually didn't burn them this time. Quite delicious.
This morning the cough was even worse. I was pretty voiceless for a good part of the day. I finally just gave in and went and got some cough syrup, which is super not paleo, but I think I'm allowed a concession for a cold. People suggested hot tea but the only thing that really accomplished was making me feel relaxed but didn't suppress the cough. I kind of waited it out to see how getting to the gym would go. On Friday nights, in celebration of the CrossFit Open, they're hosting free gym night where you can come in and try the workouts that the competitors will be doing. This week was a WOD of burpees and snatches. I wasn't exactly thrilled about that but it meant working out, so I played it by ear. Yeah it didn't happen since I'm now trying to keep my left lung intact.
Realized about halfway through the afternoon that I have no food prepared for the weekend and I needed to have some on hand since I'd be working all day tomorrow, the overnight tomorrow and meetings all day Sunday. So I got myself off the couch and made some recipes. I had a HUGE spaghetti squash, so I split it up into two separate recipes:
Buffalo Shrimp Scampi over Spaghetti Squash
1-2 tbsp. olive oil
Garlic
Frank's Red Hot sauce
1 pound medium shrimp
Spaghetti Squash
Roast the spaghetti squash in the oven at 350 for about 40 minutes. While that's roasting, heat up the olive oil in a skillet. Add shrimp, Red Hot, garlic, and any other seasonings you wish to use (I used salt and pepper). Sautee about 10-15 minutes. Mix with spaghetti squash. (Note: I didn't do this, but try and dry the shrimp a little before sauteeing or else the shrimpy water and olive oil mix together and make a little more sauce than you intended)
Spaghetti Squash alla Carbonara (I cut the original recipe in half)
Spaghetti Squash
6-8 oz. bacon
1/4 cup coconut milk
3 eggs
Parsley
Salt
Pepper
Roast the spaghetti squash. Cook the bacon and reserve the grease. Combine eggs, coconut milk and seasonings in a bowl, beating the eggs until they were fully scrambled. Cook the eggs in the same skillet as the bacon until fully cooked through (I poured out most of the bacon grease because there was a lot more than I thought). Cut up the bacon into small pieces and combine with the eggs and spaghetti squash. I added a few peas to make it a true carbonara recipe.
I also made Chocolate Lara Balls, which are delicious! They taste like Baci chocolates.
1 1/3 cups pitted dates
1 cup walnuts (original recipe calls for pecans)
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp. cocoa powder
Put dates, vanilla and cocoa powder in the food processor until a paste forms. Add nuts and process until fully chopped. Separate into balls and put in the refrigerator.
Last thing I made, which was equally just as a delicious was Prosciutto Chips. You just take pieces of prosciutto and bake them at 350 for like 10 minutes. So crunchy and amazing. Although it really brings out the saltiness of the prosciutto, so beware.
I also now have chicken soup in my fridge, complements of Baker, which I'm psyched about. Love soup! Also got to sit on my kitchen floor for 3 hours playing with Mack and chatting about things. Love my friends.
Well I'm cutting this short since I'm tired and have to work tomorrow. Mack and I were both sick today so we spent most of the day relaxing. I wish humans could recover as quickly as dogs do. I swear a little pumpkin and a few bathroom walks later and he's good to go. My body on the other hand is just warming up for the real finale. This is my excited face.
Anywho, g'night all!
Yesterday I didn't do much other than work. Was supposed to go to the gym and do this hellish workout that has been nicknamed "The Chief," but we got a late call and with all the paperwork to do, I wasn't going to be able to get there in time. Put myself on the waitlist for a later class but since I was 4th in line, that didn't work out. Was fairly disappointed since the workout looked almost like fun, but I'm actually kind of glad I didn't work out because I woke up with the cough from hell yesterday. No explanation, barely any build up, just woke up coughing up my right lung. Didn't even have a sore throat or a runny nose. By the time the EMS world was done blowing up, I had a couple hours to come home and chill before I went and saw a movie with some friends. Took a little time to cook a batch of zucchini fritters to go with the last of the meatloaf and I actually didn't burn them this time. Quite delicious.
This morning the cough was even worse. I was pretty voiceless for a good part of the day. I finally just gave in and went and got some cough syrup, which is super not paleo, but I think I'm allowed a concession for a cold. People suggested hot tea but the only thing that really accomplished was making me feel relaxed but didn't suppress the cough. I kind of waited it out to see how getting to the gym would go. On Friday nights, in celebration of the CrossFit Open, they're hosting free gym night where you can come in and try the workouts that the competitors will be doing. This week was a WOD of burpees and snatches. I wasn't exactly thrilled about that but it meant working out, so I played it by ear. Yeah it didn't happen since I'm now trying to keep my left lung intact.
Realized about halfway through the afternoon that I have no food prepared for the weekend and I needed to have some on hand since I'd be working all day tomorrow, the overnight tomorrow and meetings all day Sunday. So I got myself off the couch and made some recipes. I had a HUGE spaghetti squash, so I split it up into two separate recipes:
Buffalo Shrimp Scampi over Spaghetti Squash
1-2 tbsp. olive oil
Garlic
Frank's Red Hot sauce
1 pound medium shrimp
Spaghetti Squash
Roast the spaghetti squash in the oven at 350 for about 40 minutes. While that's roasting, heat up the olive oil in a skillet. Add shrimp, Red Hot, garlic, and any other seasonings you wish to use (I used salt and pepper). Sautee about 10-15 minutes. Mix with spaghetti squash. (Note: I didn't do this, but try and dry the shrimp a little before sauteeing or else the shrimpy water and olive oil mix together and make a little more sauce than you intended)
Spaghetti Squash alla Carbonara (I cut the original recipe in half)
Spaghetti Squash
6-8 oz. bacon
1/4 cup coconut milk
3 eggs
Parsley
Salt
Pepper
Roast the spaghetti squash. Cook the bacon and reserve the grease. Combine eggs, coconut milk and seasonings in a bowl, beating the eggs until they were fully scrambled. Cook the eggs in the same skillet as the bacon until fully cooked through (I poured out most of the bacon grease because there was a lot more than I thought). Cut up the bacon into small pieces and combine with the eggs and spaghetti squash. I added a few peas to make it a true carbonara recipe.
I also made Chocolate Lara Balls, which are delicious! They taste like Baci chocolates.
1 1/3 cups pitted dates
1 cup walnuts (original recipe calls for pecans)
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp. cocoa powder
Put dates, vanilla and cocoa powder in the food processor until a paste forms. Add nuts and process until fully chopped. Separate into balls and put in the refrigerator.
Last thing I made, which was equally just as a delicious was Prosciutto Chips. You just take pieces of prosciutto and bake them at 350 for like 10 minutes. So crunchy and amazing. Although it really brings out the saltiness of the prosciutto, so beware.
I also now have chicken soup in my fridge, complements of Baker, which I'm psyched about. Love soup! Also got to sit on my kitchen floor for 3 hours playing with Mack and chatting about things. Love my friends.
Well I'm cutting this short since I'm tired and have to work tomorrow. Mack and I were both sick today so we spent most of the day relaxing. I wish humans could recover as quickly as dogs do. I swear a little pumpkin and a few bathroom walks later and he's good to go. My body on the other hand is just warming up for the real finale. This is my excited face.
Anywho, g'night all!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Me and My Toned T-Rex Arms
Sorry for not posting last night. I was on the evening shift and got home exhausted so I went right to bed.
Yesterday was a productive day of working out and getting errands done. Went to the gym at 915 (it's getting a lot easier to do these early morning workouts).
Warm-Up:
15 medball squat cleans
15 wall balls
15 medball sit-ups
15 overhead lunges
Skill (not for time):
4 kartwheels
10 ring dips
50 double unders or 1 min. of practice
MetCon:
5000 m row
The warm-up didn't go as badly as I thought it would. Maybe I'm actually starting to get used to squat cleans and wall balls. The really fun part was getting to do kartwheels! There's actually a lot of gymnastic type movements that go into crossfit. Mostly because it strengthens up your shoulders and improves your coordination. They're a lot easier for me to do than handstands, that's for sure. Ring dips are tough, been doing them assisted. I never really did them until this week so I can't say I'm surprised. Still don't have double unders, only thing I accomplished was whipping myself with the jump rope. Freakin' hurts! The MetCon was rough! Our coach said it'd take us about 20 minutes to complete and that we should find a pace that works and find a happy place. Yeah, happy place my ass. The Bahamas weren't distracting me from this one. I set a pace of about 2:30 per 500 meters, which wasn't bad. It worked my muscles more instead of tiring out my cardio system first. The last 200 meters I turned up the heat and went at a pace of 1:55 per 500 meters, fastest I've ever gone. Finished in 25:16, which wasn't dead last! I was pretty convinced the whole time that I was going to be last, considering I took a break in the middle. I was happy! (and sore).
Spent the rest of the day kind of cleaning up the house and getting things put back together before the evening shift. I was exhausted but it all had to get done. Food yesterday was a breakfast of a fried egg over leftover meatloaf and a banana with almond butter. Lunch was a chicken breast with a side salad. Dinner was the last of the sausage and red pepper soup and chicken drumsticks with a cut up tomato.
Took the evening shift to put together a list of recipes that I wanted to make this week. I won't post the recipes right now but these are the ones I plan on trying:
Gluten-Free Oatmeal
Chocolate Lara Bars
Artichoke Pesto Spaghetti Squash with Grilled Shrimp
"Spaghetti" Carbonara
Creamy Clam Chowder
Buffalo Chicken Meatloaf
I've been thinking the past couple of days about which recipes I've seemed to like the most so far. Honestly, I haven't found one that I didn't love, but I did find there are a few staple foods/recipes that I plan on having in the house at all times:
Frittata (although I won't be making one this week)
Zucchini Fritters (they literally go well with anything, or just by themselves)
Sweet potatoes! (great as fries, or as chips which I will be trying this week)
Tomatoes and zucchini (the perfect lazy yet versatile vegetables)
Spaghetti squash (yes I've actually learned to like it!)
Eggs (both for breakfast and boiled as snacks)
Lettuce (makes an easy side salad or can be used as a wrap)
Deli meat (really learned to love the turkey bologna, but it's great when I need a quick side of meat with breakfast or my really lazy thing to do is to wrap it around some leftover vegetables)
Almond butter (duh!)
Today has been another day of running around. Spent a couple hours in the morning finalizing my food shopping list. Then it was gym time.
Warm-Up:
8 rounds tabata jump rope
20 PVC good mornings with a push press
20 PVC pass-throughs
Skill:
5 x 3 split jerk
AMRAP:
15 minutes
Ascending ladder: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7...
Thrusters
5 chest to bar pull-ups between each set.
Midline:
3 x 30 sit-ups
This work-out was all arms. All of it. It's one of those workouts when you walk out feel like a little T-Rex because your shoulders are just useless. Split jerks went really well. Since we had less reps to do this time, I went up in weight since last time. Finally stopped at 93 pounds. Almost broke my ankle, but it's all good. The AMRAP was awful. Thrusters are a squat with a push press. You hold the bar in front of you, squat down, and as you stand up you push the bar above your head. So with this movement you essentially use your extension muscles. Then tack on some push-ups to that, where you're using your flexion muscles, and now you understand why I felt like T-Rex. I used 73 pounds for my thrusters and finished 7 sets of thrusters + pull-ups and another 3 thrusters into my 8th set. It's starting to get annoying feeling like I'm not getting anywhere with push-ups. Today I would get through the first 3 and after that just couldn't get my chest all the way up. So frustrating.
After working out I did the food shopping. Went to Trader Joe's and got a majority of it done. Next was Target to look for a Julienne peeler again. What I found was a $20 mandoline that has a julienne slicer included. I get the feeling it's not the same as a peeler, but considering it will be very useful when I make sweet potato chips or need something sliced thinly, I won't complain. Finished up the rest of the shopping at Wegmans. Although it means I have to driver a little further, I'm completely ok with this new routine because I know if I'd bought all the things I needed at Wegmans, I would have ended up spending a lot more money than I was comfortable spending. From a college student's standpoint, the trip today was still a little pricey considering I'm trying even more recipes, but it was doable compared to the alternative. I also ended up picking up a couple extra things at Trader Joe's as alternatives if Wegmans didn't have spaghetti squash again.
Because of all the errands that had to get done, I ended up missing lunch so I'll probably just make an early dinner with whatever leftovers are still in the fridge. I was going to do some meal prepping today but I've been feeling a little sick so I'm going to take it easy before the overnight. My throat is a little tingly and I feel a little run down so I grabbed some cough drops in my travels and I'm hoping I can keep it at bay. Tomorrow will probably be a meal prep day.
Long post but I had to catch you guys up on yesterday :) Going back to the gym again tomorrow morning. I'm very conflicted because I've started liking the early morning classes, but I miss my M,W, F 12:00 class family. The Thursday 9:15 class is pretty chill too. I kind of felt like a stranger in a strange place yesterday morning with all the people I didn't know. Makes you truly realize how close you get to the people that you see often in there and how comfortable you get around them. I dunno, maybe I'm just an addict which is entirely possible.
P.S. I finally hid my goddamn scale and the tape measure in my closet yesterday. I feel like they've become an unhealthy obsession. I've been weighing myself daily, sometimes even twice daily and it's done nothing but get me down because I don't see the numbers changing. First of all, we've proven that my scale and the scale at the gym are different from each other by like a factor of 8 pounds, so weighing myself on my scale really isn't doing shit. Secondly, I feel great. Why the hell am I going to ruin that with a stupid number, or sucking it in a little bit so I can feel like I lost half an inch. I realized this morning that I made the right decision when the first thing I thought of after waking up was weighing myself. Like seriously, I amaze myself with some of the ridiculous things I do.
Yesterday was a productive day of working out and getting errands done. Went to the gym at 915 (it's getting a lot easier to do these early morning workouts).
Warm-Up:
15 medball squat cleans
15 wall balls
15 medball sit-ups
15 overhead lunges
Skill (not for time):
4 kartwheels
10 ring dips
50 double unders or 1 min. of practice
MetCon:
5000 m row
The warm-up didn't go as badly as I thought it would. Maybe I'm actually starting to get used to squat cleans and wall balls. The really fun part was getting to do kartwheels! There's actually a lot of gymnastic type movements that go into crossfit. Mostly because it strengthens up your shoulders and improves your coordination. They're a lot easier for me to do than handstands, that's for sure. Ring dips are tough, been doing them assisted. I never really did them until this week so I can't say I'm surprised. Still don't have double unders, only thing I accomplished was whipping myself with the jump rope. Freakin' hurts! The MetCon was rough! Our coach said it'd take us about 20 minutes to complete and that we should find a pace that works and find a happy place. Yeah, happy place my ass. The Bahamas weren't distracting me from this one. I set a pace of about 2:30 per 500 meters, which wasn't bad. It worked my muscles more instead of tiring out my cardio system first. The last 200 meters I turned up the heat and went at a pace of 1:55 per 500 meters, fastest I've ever gone. Finished in 25:16, which wasn't dead last! I was pretty convinced the whole time that I was going to be last, considering I took a break in the middle. I was happy! (and sore).
Spent the rest of the day kind of cleaning up the house and getting things put back together before the evening shift. I was exhausted but it all had to get done. Food yesterday was a breakfast of a fried egg over leftover meatloaf and a banana with almond butter. Lunch was a chicken breast with a side salad. Dinner was the last of the sausage and red pepper soup and chicken drumsticks with a cut up tomato.
Took the evening shift to put together a list of recipes that I wanted to make this week. I won't post the recipes right now but these are the ones I plan on trying:
Gluten-Free Oatmeal
Chocolate Lara Bars
Artichoke Pesto Spaghetti Squash with Grilled Shrimp
"Spaghetti" Carbonara
Creamy Clam Chowder
Buffalo Chicken Meatloaf
I've been thinking the past couple of days about which recipes I've seemed to like the most so far. Honestly, I haven't found one that I didn't love, but I did find there are a few staple foods/recipes that I plan on having in the house at all times:
Frittata (although I won't be making one this week)
Zucchini Fritters (they literally go well with anything, or just by themselves)
Sweet potatoes! (great as fries, or as chips which I will be trying this week)
Tomatoes and zucchini (the perfect lazy yet versatile vegetables)
Spaghetti squash (yes I've actually learned to like it!)
Eggs (both for breakfast and boiled as snacks)
Lettuce (makes an easy side salad or can be used as a wrap)
Deli meat (really learned to love the turkey bologna, but it's great when I need a quick side of meat with breakfast or my really lazy thing to do is to wrap it around some leftover vegetables)
Almond butter (duh!)
Today has been another day of running around. Spent a couple hours in the morning finalizing my food shopping list. Then it was gym time.
Warm-Up:
8 rounds tabata jump rope
20 PVC good mornings with a push press
20 PVC pass-throughs
Skill:
5 x 3 split jerk
AMRAP:
15 minutes
Ascending ladder: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7...
Thrusters
5 chest to bar pull-ups between each set.
Midline:
3 x 30 sit-ups
This work-out was all arms. All of it. It's one of those workouts when you walk out feel like a little T-Rex because your shoulders are just useless. Split jerks went really well. Since we had less reps to do this time, I went up in weight since last time. Finally stopped at 93 pounds. Almost broke my ankle, but it's all good. The AMRAP was awful. Thrusters are a squat with a push press. You hold the bar in front of you, squat down, and as you stand up you push the bar above your head. So with this movement you essentially use your extension muscles. Then tack on some push-ups to that, where you're using your flexion muscles, and now you understand why I felt like T-Rex. I used 73 pounds for my thrusters and finished 7 sets of thrusters + pull-ups and another 3 thrusters into my 8th set. It's starting to get annoying feeling like I'm not getting anywhere with push-ups. Today I would get through the first 3 and after that just couldn't get my chest all the way up. So frustrating.
After working out I did the food shopping. Went to Trader Joe's and got a majority of it done. Next was Target to look for a Julienne peeler again. What I found was a $20 mandoline that has a julienne slicer included. I get the feeling it's not the same as a peeler, but considering it will be very useful when I make sweet potato chips or need something sliced thinly, I won't complain. Finished up the rest of the shopping at Wegmans. Although it means I have to driver a little further, I'm completely ok with this new routine because I know if I'd bought all the things I needed at Wegmans, I would have ended up spending a lot more money than I was comfortable spending. From a college student's standpoint, the trip today was still a little pricey considering I'm trying even more recipes, but it was doable compared to the alternative. I also ended up picking up a couple extra things at Trader Joe's as alternatives if Wegmans didn't have spaghetti squash again.
Because of all the errands that had to get done, I ended up missing lunch so I'll probably just make an early dinner with whatever leftovers are still in the fridge. I was going to do some meal prepping today but I've been feeling a little sick so I'm going to take it easy before the overnight. My throat is a little tingly and I feel a little run down so I grabbed some cough drops in my travels and I'm hoping I can keep it at bay. Tomorrow will probably be a meal prep day.
Long post but I had to catch you guys up on yesterday :) Going back to the gym again tomorrow morning. I'm very conflicted because I've started liking the early morning classes, but I miss my M,W, F 12:00 class family. The Thursday 9:15 class is pretty chill too. I kind of felt like a stranger in a strange place yesterday morning with all the people I didn't know. Makes you truly realize how close you get to the people that you see often in there and how comfortable you get around them. I dunno, maybe I'm just an addict which is entirely possible.
P.S. I finally hid my goddamn scale and the tape measure in my closet yesterday. I feel like they've become an unhealthy obsession. I've been weighing myself daily, sometimes even twice daily and it's done nothing but get me down because I don't see the numbers changing. First of all, we've proven that my scale and the scale at the gym are different from each other by like a factor of 8 pounds, so weighing myself on my scale really isn't doing shit. Secondly, I feel great. Why the hell am I going to ruin that with a stupid number, or sucking it in a little bit so I can feel like I lost half an inch. I realized this morning that I made the right decision when the first thing I thought of after waking up was weighing myself. Like seriously, I amaze myself with some of the ridiculous things I do.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Spider Log, Spider Log, Does Whatever a Spider Log Does
So I found out on this fine evening that I have some avid readers that have been disappointed by the lack of reading material this weekend. Ergo, I shall rectify this.
The end of last week was rough. I was about ready to find the nearest brick wall to bash my head into if it meant not having to deal with the sugar cravings anymore. I can't say I came out completely strong because I may have succumbed to a brownie or two. Other than that, the meals have been going pretty well. That spaghetti squash dish I made softened up in the fridge so it actually tasted really good the next day. Maybe next time I shouldn't be such a lazy-ass and roast it the right way.
Saturday was our first Challenge WOD against Desert CrossFit....at 8:30 in the morning. Now THAT'S a bit too early, even with my newfound sleep schedule. We all got warmed up with 8 rounds of tabata jump roping and then got split up into groups of 4.
The workout was:
50 up and over box jumps (16")
40 sumo deadlift high pulls (36#)
30 toes to bar
20 ring push-ups or hand release push-ups
10 wall walks
The name of the game was that you move through the workout as a team. You don't move on to the next movement until everyone in your team has finished the one you were working on. The final time recorded was when everyone was finally done. The box jump portion was a little intimidating. I've never done that many consecutively in my life, but it really wasn't that bad. Although around my 30th, one of my teammates must have had some kind of issue because his defibrillator went off. We all stopped to help him out so the coaches decided to move on to the deadlifts and just add 4 minutes to our final time. Everything else leading up to the wall walks really wasn't that bad. Challenging...but doable. Wall walks suck! I'd never done one until that day. You start in kind of a push-up position with your feet up against the wall. Then you literally start walking up the wall, using your feet to push you up and walking your hands closer to the wall getting yourself as vertical as possible, then you walk back down. Other than pull-ups, those are probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I couldn't get completely vertical but I got as close as possible. Had to keep singing the Spider Log song to myself just because it seemed fitting at the time. I just remember being in agony after all that. I can't remember what the final time was.
My performance has definitely improved these past few weeks. Jumping in general has gotten so much easier. It's still hard work when you're doing that many box jumps in a row, but my stamina has definitely improved a lot and I think I'm getting the hang of really involving your hips instead of just trying to get all your force from your legs. Even my stamina when it comes to strength is getting better. I'm using heavier weights even with the higher reps AND I did full body push-ups. Toes to bar are still tough, not because my abs start hurting first, but because my shoulders generally give out. Still have to work on strengthening those. I'm sure those wall walks certainly helped!
Other than that, the weekend has been pretty chill. Worked Saturday and Sunday night. Saturday was dead, we just slept all night, which was amazing since it meant I didn't have to do screwy things with my sleep schedule. Last night was a completely different story. Didn't get to bed until 2:45, slept a whopping two hours and then got another call. Let me tell you, I honestly wasn't fully awake until we were back at base washing the truck. I'm not the same vampire I used to be. Came home and grabbed a cat nap before I had to be awake again. Spent the rest of today cleaning up my room, finally folding the laundry and I decided to go all out and take the evening shift at RITA. And now here I am.
I'm really glad the cravings started going away, because I was about to go batshit insane. Like it just completely killed my motivation for a good couple days. I went through a couple day period where I just felt huge and bloated. I usually go through something like that when I first start something new. I don't know what it is, but for some reason my body feels the need to make me feel worse than I did before and then one day I wake up and it'll be all gone. I've stopped trying to figure out what that's all about. Regardless, it's over and Week 2 is over and I let it take my self-doubt with it. Point wise I did much better this week than last. Still not completely cheat free, but getting there. Maybe this next weekend will be the one I can get through without slipping.
It's looking like bedtime for me! Because of the way things worked out this week, I'm going to the gym 4 days in a row, early tomorrow morning being one of them. I have the three classes I signed up for and now every Friday for the next month they're having an open gym session. It doesn't count towards the number of classes I pay for so it'll be a good month-long test of whether or not I'm ready to take the next step. I won't be able to go to this Saturday's challenge WOD because of work :( It's alright since there will be more. I'm just hoping at some point I'll be able to go to one of the potlucks.
Goodnight all, tomorrow is recipe day!
The end of last week was rough. I was about ready to find the nearest brick wall to bash my head into if it meant not having to deal with the sugar cravings anymore. I can't say I came out completely strong because I may have succumbed to a brownie or two. Other than that, the meals have been going pretty well. That spaghetti squash dish I made softened up in the fridge so it actually tasted really good the next day. Maybe next time I shouldn't be such a lazy-ass and roast it the right way.
Saturday was our first Challenge WOD against Desert CrossFit....at 8:30 in the morning. Now THAT'S a bit too early, even with my newfound sleep schedule. We all got warmed up with 8 rounds of tabata jump roping and then got split up into groups of 4.
The workout was:
50 up and over box jumps (16")
40 sumo deadlift high pulls (36#)
30 toes to bar
20 ring push-ups or hand release push-ups
10 wall walks
The name of the game was that you move through the workout as a team. You don't move on to the next movement until everyone in your team has finished the one you were working on. The final time recorded was when everyone was finally done. The box jump portion was a little intimidating. I've never done that many consecutively in my life, but it really wasn't that bad. Although around my 30th, one of my teammates must have had some kind of issue because his defibrillator went off. We all stopped to help him out so the coaches decided to move on to the deadlifts and just add 4 minutes to our final time. Everything else leading up to the wall walks really wasn't that bad. Challenging...but doable. Wall walks suck! I'd never done one until that day. You start in kind of a push-up position with your feet up against the wall. Then you literally start walking up the wall, using your feet to push you up and walking your hands closer to the wall getting yourself as vertical as possible, then you walk back down. Other than pull-ups, those are probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I couldn't get completely vertical but I got as close as possible. Had to keep singing the Spider Log song to myself just because it seemed fitting at the time. I just remember being in agony after all that. I can't remember what the final time was.
My performance has definitely improved these past few weeks. Jumping in general has gotten so much easier. It's still hard work when you're doing that many box jumps in a row, but my stamina has definitely improved a lot and I think I'm getting the hang of really involving your hips instead of just trying to get all your force from your legs. Even my stamina when it comes to strength is getting better. I'm using heavier weights even with the higher reps AND I did full body push-ups. Toes to bar are still tough, not because my abs start hurting first, but because my shoulders generally give out. Still have to work on strengthening those. I'm sure those wall walks certainly helped!
Other than that, the weekend has been pretty chill. Worked Saturday and Sunday night. Saturday was dead, we just slept all night, which was amazing since it meant I didn't have to do screwy things with my sleep schedule. Last night was a completely different story. Didn't get to bed until 2:45, slept a whopping two hours and then got another call. Let me tell you, I honestly wasn't fully awake until we were back at base washing the truck. I'm not the same vampire I used to be. Came home and grabbed a cat nap before I had to be awake again. Spent the rest of today cleaning up my room, finally folding the laundry and I decided to go all out and take the evening shift at RITA. And now here I am.
I'm really glad the cravings started going away, because I was about to go batshit insane. Like it just completely killed my motivation for a good couple days. I went through a couple day period where I just felt huge and bloated. I usually go through something like that when I first start something new. I don't know what it is, but for some reason my body feels the need to make me feel worse than I did before and then one day I wake up and it'll be all gone. I've stopped trying to figure out what that's all about. Regardless, it's over and Week 2 is over and I let it take my self-doubt with it. Point wise I did much better this week than last. Still not completely cheat free, but getting there. Maybe this next weekend will be the one I can get through without slipping.
It's looking like bedtime for me! Because of the way things worked out this week, I'm going to the gym 4 days in a row, early tomorrow morning being one of them. I have the three classes I signed up for and now every Friday for the next month they're having an open gym session. It doesn't count towards the number of classes I pay for so it'll be a good month-long test of whether or not I'm ready to take the next step. I won't be able to go to this Saturday's challenge WOD because of work :( It's alright since there will be more. I'm just hoping at some point I'll be able to go to one of the potlucks.
Goodnight all, tomorrow is recipe day!
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