Almost 40 lbs gone. Keto is Amazing.

Life, , , , , , ,

So as you may or may not know, I’ve been adhering to a strictly keto diet since January 2017. I am about 1 pound away from my 40lb mark, which is fucking insane. I don’t feel different, but I do. I don’t constantly obsess over how I look or feel, or how gross my body feels, or how impossibly hard certain cardio shit is. My skin has been clear for over 6 months now.. not that I ever had a skin problem before, but now I really don’t! I can go more than a day without washing my hair (unheard of) because it’s not all gross after 5 hours of existing. I am proud of myself, I am happy to see myself in the mirror instead of immediately sucking in at a split second glimpse of my reflection. I am thrilled to fit into my clothes, and to even have some be too big! Replacing my wardrobe with smaller lululemon stuff is not really budget friendly, but it sure as shit feels awesome to go from their biggest size, a 12, to 8s and 10s! From a men’s XL to a men’s M. I even had to buy new shirts for Dali printing.. my normal, everyday mens L to mediums, and I just bought a stack of smalls to take over to the printer next week. Seriously, what the fuck. This is incredible! I’m wearing a men’s size small?!

As I sat in complete silence yesterday at my favorite pedicure place, I opted to read one of my books instead of mindlessly browse Facebook. The one I chose was Fight Cancer with a Ketogenic Diet, Third Edition: Using a Low-Carb, Fat-Burning Diet as Metabolic Therapy which is a book I bought back in April, but finally started to dive into it.

My main basis for starting keto is still to help prevent cancer. My ancestry is riddled with cancer, and when I did my DNA testing with 23andMe, and then plugged in info into a 3rd Party site, Promethease, I was floored at the number of cancer results that showed up. Seeing people all around me, loved ones, go through chemo, usually unsuccessfully, I vowed that I never wanted to do that.

After years of hearing how important food is to our survival, the nutrients, the content, what we eat, how we eat, food is medicine. It can heal us, it can kill us! And seeing how it healed my Siberian Husky, Tex, of his chronic yeast infections in his paws, I really started to realize how this shit is real. What we eat can really be our answer. How we choose to use food is up to us. What is monumentally upsetting, is the people who continue to go to their doctors, keep taking their pills for their health conditions, their high cholesterol, their diabetes, blah blah blah, and then EAT LIKE SHIT. Pizza, subs, fast food, soda full of sugar, alcohol, cigarettes. Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

And doctors’ responses are usually something along the lines of… “it’s easier to get someone take a pill than to change their lifestyle.”

It is baffling to see the amount of garbage people continually eat, and they just exist. They’re not happy, but they don’t even know. They don’t even know what life can be. This is something I cannot change. I cannot change stupidity, idiocy. I can only attempt to help those who ask me for guidance, or direction. People who see the problems and have taken a stand, made a commitment to themselves, to fucking knock this shit off and really change their life this time.

omg. Anyway.. And for those who are like, oh man, don’t you wish you could have xyz?? No, not really. The only thing I truly miss is Cuban food, and that’s because that’s deeply rooted in my blood! White rice, plantains, black beans, cuban bread. That’s about it. Sugar turns my stomach. Alcohol makes me queasy. Bread will send me reeling in the other direction. It’s poison to me! My body doesn’t want it. And it’s showing! With 40 lbs gone, and the best bloodwork results I’ve EVER had, not to mention, a solid foundation to a potentially cancer-free future, I’m pretty fucking happy with the outcome so far.

Happy with my physical keto results
Happy with my physical keto results so far!

Hoo boy, do I even lift?!

Life, , ,

The answer is yes. YES I lift! We just moved our offices, like 2 weeks ago, to a new (to us) free standing and really awesome building. But… before I tell you about that (which, let’s be honest, I’ll probably never get around to posting about it..) we had to do about 6 weeks’ worth of renovations, all while still running the business. Such fun, great pleasure.

No but really, the renovations were pretty amazing, because they are literally representative of everything I’ve said I’ve wanted to do.. buy old houses, fix them up, rent them out. Except we just did the fixing up part. We’re leasing this new space. It has a big open main room, offices for Dave and me – I basically have my own apartment, complete with living room, kitchen, a really awesome bathroom and an even more awesome office area – a huge back area for the workshop and a separate area for the UV printer, a whole side area for vehicle wraps and storage, aaand a (now) fenced in backyard for the babies. It’s really fucking awesome, you guys.

So while I have not been frequenting the gym as often as I’d like, I have still been partaking in the manual labor. Which has made dropping in super easy, and I’m just this nice, continuous, endless sore. I am so looking forward to being done at our old office area, being all organized and cleaned up and done renovating at our new office, and back to my regular routine. It’s been sporadic, but you know, I need to make an appearance once in awhile, not just for the cardio, but for my own insanity sanity.

Painting the Ceiling
Painting the Ceiling

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Keto, Weight Loss, & Old Buildings

Life, , , , , ,

First and foremost, I am down 29 pounds from Keto. I love it. The only reason I don’t love it is I’m not quite as strong as I was when I was 225 or 230, but everything else is great! I feel good, I am not self conscious, I am not hungry, I eat one and a half meals a day, I don’t care what others think or say, because this feels right and I feel good. I am so close to being under 200, for the first time in 10 years, it’s really awesome.

Dave is down 28 pounds since starting Keto back in early April! He’s been experiencing the same benefits; not hungry, we eat one big meal a day and then some snacks at night (or a small meal). The only thing that’s he’s experienced negatively from Keto is the keto cramps, which he’ll get in his hips or calves, but he’s been taking magnesium to help with that!

And continuing the Keto conversation, my Mom started Keto last week when I was up there with her and is down 8lbs already! Yes, I am quite excited and incredibly proud. 🙂

I’ve been doing a ton of exploring, or.. a little bit of exploring but really blowing it up on Social Media, which is fine, because it’s been consuming me so much that I even dream about it. The ole UrbEx. Inspired by our abandoned Ford manufacturing plant here in Jacksonville, designed by the great Albert Kahn, who is also known as The Architect of Detroit. How cool is that? Our plant here is 165,000 square feet, and was thriving in the first half of the 1900s. After Ford vacated and sold it off, it had a few other businesses and occupants, but largely has been sitting abandoned and empty since the 70s. Which is horribly sad, and it makes me cry when I’m there, because it’s this gorgeous building, beautifully designed with a purpose and now it sits and rots.

Beautiful old doors, still original, at the Albert Kahn Ford plant in Jacksonville
Beautiful old doors, still original, at the Albert Kahn Ford plant in Jacksonville

 

The current owner bought it a couple years ago and his plans for the building are unknown. I hope they don’t plan to just tear it down and start over, it’ll just be another gem destroyed like so many others. Because of fear of demolition, I feel like I’m running out of time with the building. I feel like one of these days, it’ll just be gone, and then forgotten. So when I go visit, each time is a different experience. I notice different things, pay attention to new details, and savor the old ones. The skill and the passion that went into designing this place over 100 years ago, the care for the workers, creating natural light for a better work environment, the gorgeous location right on the water (how great to come to work every day, to open those beautiful crank windows that line the ceiling the whole length of the building, and see the view of the water and the Mathews Bridge?)

View of the Mathews Bridge from inside the Albert Kahn Ford Plant in Jacksonville
View of the Mathews Bridge from inside the Albert Kahn Ford Plant in Jacksonville

 

Even as it sits without a known purpose, it’s still breathtaking. I’ll continue to visit for as long as I can get away with it.

I also need to update you about my trip to Wisconsin and Michigan from last week! My tour de abandoned Detroit, and all of its marvels.

Low Carb, High Fat. The Keto Diet and Why

Life, , , ,
I started strict keto – which means very low carb and very high fat, with moderate protein – after a weight loss challenge inspired by Dave’s uncles and stepdad (Richie, Alan, and Walt!) But it goes way beyond that.
 
Last year, I did my DNA test with 23andMe and then plugged my info into Promethease which stacked up my DNA results against this huge database, and told me the various likelihoods of developing certain diseases/cancers/etc. Or as they put it “a literature retrieval system that builds a personal DNA report based on connecting a file of DNA genotypes to the scientific findings cited in SNPedia.”
 
Right.. So anyway, I always want to know the WHYs and WHATs behind things. Why is this happening, why do I feel this way, what can I change, how is my environment influencing these things, what can I do to be proactive, how can I be better.. My results were literally ALL cancer related. Page after page after page showed increased likelihoods of cancer. So… I dove into the research. What can I do? How can I stop and prevent this from happening? Of course, the internet has been my source of knowledge and information. I found several books, and bought them all up.. 
As I posted on Facebook,

These books are my bibles. It’s not just about weight loss, and strength building, but about being proactive for my future. My whole family has been affected by cancer of various types. I’ve lost some of the most important people to me, I’ve seen what they went through to try and fight it and I don’t want to go down that same road.After doing my DNA testing with 23andMe, I downloaded my raw data and plugged it into Promethease. From there, I saw dozens of crazy results showing that based on my DNA data, I have a higher chance of developing several different forms of cancer. It sounds scary, but it motivated me to dive into the research.

Food is medicine. And poison. Food can cure and it can kill. I started searching for ways to prevent cancer by way of diet. What can I eat to lower my risk? What can I eliminate? I even searched in an incognito browser, so that my internet history didn’t skew my search results. The responses kept pointing to keto and reducing inflammation in the body.

Eliminate the sugar, the starch, the inflammation, maintain a state of ketosis, and you can theoretically starve the cancer cells. I’m hoping that by starting early, I have a better chance of preventing it before it starts. I suppose we’ll see.

The books I purchased are the following:

The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance
Keto Clarity by Jimmy Moore (who’s co-hosting KetoCon!)
Fight Cancer with a Ketogenic Diet 
Tripping over the Truth
and newly added:
I am halfway through Keto Clarity, and I just started the last one, Tripping over the Truth. I’m only a few pages in and it all clicks and makes sense to me. I am excited for my health. I am excited to see how I can solely, personally fix my future. Can I prevent my own cancer from happening?
My Keto Bibles
My Keto Bibles

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CrossFit Open 2017 Finished – RXed Every Work Out!

Events, WODs, ,

Something I never imagined doing was RXing all the WODs in the Open, but I did! Naturally there were some movements that when we got to them, I couldn’t get past them, but that’s besides the point..

It also helps that they completely overhauled the Open in my opinion, to be more accessible to the masses, and not geared towards the elite few.

BUT. One gripe with the Open this year.. The scaled workouts were like, complete sissy workouts. It’s almost as if they just came up with things to keep people busy for the last 5 weeks, like. “Oh hey guys, the scaled people are here… yeah let’s just send them over to the corner where the toys are.. they’ll keep themselves busy til we’re done!”

But maybe not, but yeah that’s how I felt, and how lots of the scaled people who I knew felt, as well.

Anyway. Using this cool site that my friend shared, I was able to see that I ranked in the

Top 28% overall IN THE WORLD.
Top 27.3% in the SouthEast Region.
Top 25.8% in Florida and
Top 26.1% in my own gym.

My CrossFit Open 2017 Results
My CrossFit Open 2017 Results

 

So while I’m not winning anything, I’m pretty proud of my results. 🙂

Me after 17.4. I was so proud of myself!
Me after 17.4. I was so proud of myself!

CrossFit Level 2 – Earned! – February 25th & 26th, 2017

Events, Life, , , ,

So, I posted earlier that I had signed up for my CF L2 in Salt Lake City at Ute CrossFit Downtown. I was nervous as all hell, didn’t know what to expect, what to do, if I would get through it, and all that nonsense. I finally got some peace of mind from Russ, and he told me to basically just enjoy it. There was no test, just go and learn some great things and have a good time. That was all well and good, til I started freaking out again the day before we were supposed to leave. Then my awesome friend Angela texted me and in short, said, get your shit together. Suck it up, it’s going to be awesome. So that’s what I did.

We had a lot of lecture time, but also a lot of group time, as well. We spent hours going over properly teaching and coaching methods, hands on training, principles, movements, scaling, writing WODs, programming in general, setting up classes. I loved it. I was completely nervous teaching my own group, where I chose to teach both Push Jerk and Push Press (separately), but in the end, I was able to smooth it out and talk through and demonstrate the transitions and steps of the movements.

I had 4 great trainers to guide me through the weekend. Eric O’Connor and Doug Zakaras, from CrossFit Park City, (fun fact, this gym was the first CF box in Utah, and is owned by Chris Spealler! Michele Mootz, one of the original CFers from CrossFit Aptos (she’s been doing CrossFit for 13 years!!) and Adrian Conway, a CF Games athlete who is interning to become a Level 2 Trainer.

All in all, a great weekend. I’m so glad I did it! Will I go on to be a trainer? Maybe someday. I do enjoy helping others. I would love to coach, and I’d love to be able to impact so many people’s lives who have already taken that first big step into the gym. Showing up is half the battle!

Anyway. Time for some photos. What a great experience!

My new soul sister. We got to bench together!!
My new soul sister. We got to bench together!!
Our awesome L2 Group!
Our awesome L2 Group!
My L2 Trainers and me!
My L2 Trainers and me!
It's so pretty!! My CrossFit Level 2 Certificate
It’s so pretty!! My CrossFit Level 2 Certificate

Hello, we are alive…

Life

So this I think is some of the worst blogging in my history.. The past year, really, past 13 months or so, have been some of the busiest, most trying months of my life. I know I’ve posted about it before, but it’s really like.. I’ve completely had to re-arrange my priorities. I am doing so much at the computer now at the office, that the only thing that happens when I come home is coffee and then gym time. After CrossFit, I come home, eat dinner, and watch TV and relax for the remainder of the evening. If work needs to get done, more work is done. The last thing I want to do is sit at the computer some more and dick around. Wasting my life away.

So.. I am here, living my life. Doing the best I can. I’ll be around. I’ll post monumental updates. Perhaps I should make more time for Starbucks and laptops. That’s where the magic happens, anyway.

 

Fun fact: Did you know? I started keto about a month ago. This is me blowing out my birthday candles.. I didn’t have one single bite of this dessert. Dave ate it. I have been solid at it for about a whole month now, with zero cheats. That’s something to be proud of.

36 Magical Years.
36 Magical Years.

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I am signed up for my CrossFit Level 2

Events, , , ,

I am a bit nervous. I don’t know what to expect. I’m worried I won’t be good enough, but it’s too late now to change my mind.

I am registered for the Level 2 course in Salt Lake City, at UTE CrossFit. We’ll be going out there Feb 24th, my course will be the 25th and 26th, and then the 27th, we’ll head to Park City, UT for some snowboarding!!!!!

I am excited about the snowboarding! I’ll be excited about my L2 when I pass the test. Singer Island Atlantic Ocean

Resolution 2017 – A Yoga, CrossFit, Health, & Wellness Event

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Our very own Dan Nevins approached me a couple months ago, and asked me to help him organize another yoga day. Our last one was such a huge success, that he wanted to try doing it again. I jumped at the chance and have been trying to get it going and make it big.

We decided it’ll be New Year’s Eve, which is a Saturday, during the day at CrossFit Total Control. We’re featuring lots of local businesses who will be offering their goods and services, and basically showing the community how easy and accessible a healthy lifestyle is. I’m organizing a silent auction, and the prizes are pretty amazing so far. I need to keep working on our donations, but right now, my fear is, as always, will anyone show up?

I had the same fears last year, and people just started pouring in. The whole gym was full, my heart was full, and they were all there to have this amazing time! This year is a little different though, as it’s more of an all day event, with two yoga classes, a CrossFit class, a personal growth workshop, and a few different speakers discussing some health topics in between.

If you would like to attend, or if you’re just curious about the event, please feel free to check out my Facebook event page here.

You can also go online and purchase tickets for the event, as well! Tomorrow is our last day for our VIP Tickets, complete with swag bags and t-shirts.

I am in the middle of designing the flyers, so as soon as those are finalized, I’ll be sharing them everywhere.