I also decided that since I did my bodpod, that I’d go ahead and knock off the snacks/extras already.  The article below jump-started me to do this, really. I subscribe to Paleo Hacks and I happened to read this one this morning.

Hey there!

Did you know that years of eating processed foods, lack of exercise, and “normal” western eating patterns can literally program your body to burn NOTHING but calories and sugars from the foods you consume each day INSTEAD of burning off body fat that’s stored on your body?

Most popular exercise programs take way too much time and use old-school methods that cause you to crave more carbs and calories – especially calories from sugar – FORCING your body to burn sugars and waste away nothing but stored energy.

This means that every time you eat and exercise your body is busy fighting a losing battle.

Fortunately, there is a way to reset your body’s fat burning switch so that your body burns fat FIRST every time you move and exercise.

It’s a super simple 3-step metabolic primer from my buddy Shaun Hadsall that turns off your body’s “addiction” to burning sugars, while making your most stubborn fat your “go to” energy source in LESS that one week’s time.

Here you go:

1: Try to consume zero starches or fruits for 3 or 4 days in a row during the week.

This will help accelerate depletion of glycogen (your stored energy) and get your body burning mostly FAT again. This should equate to a total of 25 to 50 impact carbs for the day. Consume protein in every meal to help increase satiety and keep your body in an anabolic high-energy fat-burning environment.

You’ll program your body to burn a ton more belly fat by using this approach just a few days of the week.

2: Increase your fat intake and double your servings of green cruciferous veggies on deplete days.

When you lower carbs for a few days you’ll automatically need energy from other sources. Friendly fats and cruciferous veggies should be your go to macronutrients to help provide this needed energy.

Some good examples to use are extra fish or krill oil, olive oil, coconut oil and raw nuts to increase your fat intake — And spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, arugula, green beans, Brussels sprouts and cabbage are great choices for extra veggies.

This will help provide all the fiber, vitamins, and minerals necessary to maximize fat-loss during a lower carb phase. It will also DECREASE your cravings in a big way.

3: Double your daily water intake, while depleting carbs.

Most folks simply underestimate how effective proper hydration can be for UNDOING the damage of over-eating, getting rid of excess water retention, and facilitating other metabolic processes that burn fat.

Remember, if you had high carb meals this past weekend you’ll be holding almost an extra 3 grams of water for every gram of carb you consumed. So if you carbed up over the weekend, we’re talking an extra 700 to 1000 grams of water sitting under your belly skin.

A good rule of thumb is to consume 60 – 70% of your total body weight in ounces of water on your carb deplete days. So if you weigh 150 pounds then you should be shooting for 100 to 120 ounces of water minimum.

After 3 or 4 days of using this strategy, your body and hormones will be PRIMED to burn PURE fat when you exercise.

Now you just have to make sure you’re using the RIGHT exercise strategy or all this could be nothing but a waste of your time and energy.

[…cut a bunch of other stuff out]
Dave

Now for the WOD:

We’re working on our 20 rep back squat, and I started at 115 last week, then did 145 earlier this week with Rainy, and then today I did 150. YIKES that was rough.

7 RFT
10 KB snatches (55/35)
10 goblet squats
10 box step ups

This was awful. The KB was heavy, clunky, bulky.. As I posted on Facebook,

I really struggled with today’s workout. 7 rounds of 10 kettlebell snatches, 10 goblet squats, and 10 box step ups with the kettlebell. All in all, I did 70 of each while holding a 35lb kb.

The three things that kept me going were a) the will to finish and not give up or quit b) our amazing members took the time to cheer me on and encourage me to keep going and c) the fact that 2 1/2 years ago, that 35lb kb was the excess fat I carried around with me full time. It was painful to realize that I was dragging around all that extra weight for so long.

So happy to be living life now, instead of dreading it..

And it’s true! I finished though, in 19:09.  I RXed it, I struggled through it. I realized some shit during, and I’m proud that I made it through. It wasn’t emotionally struggling, but physically. Just to push myself to keep going when it would’ve been easier to just quit. I didn’t quit. 🙂

Today was our 2nd bring a friend day of August, but I didn’t bring any friends. 🙁 They’re all at CF, or they’ve all decided they have no interest in being a part of that aspect of my life. Ah well, I’ve quit asking people.

So Dezi and I decided to do our own little partner WOD, since I missed the one from the day before.

The WOD was

15 min AMRAP
12 box jumps
8 T2B
12 slam balls

Score was number of rounds.

Dezi and I partnered up so that one person did a whole round while the other person did air squats. Then rotate. It was beautiful! I ended up getting 141 air squats in, and we completed 8 + 3 rounds collectively. WOO.

I thankfully made it back into the gym after several days of packing, moving, throwing away, sorting, organizing and setting back up. We relocated one office space to a new unit in our current building, and lucky us, we get to do it all over again with our other office space, which is also going into the same new unit! We will finally all be under one roof! That will be awesome; when it’s done. 😀

So… WOD. It felt good!! Did my 20 squats at 145. That was rough!! Whew. Thankfully I wasn’t sore the next day, at least not my butt or quads! Go figure. My butt only gets sore now from weighted lunges.. means I need to do more of them, but not like last time! Holy hell, I was miserable for DAYS after that!

Anywaaaay..
12 min climbing ladder:
2 hang power cleans (155/115)
4 C2B

Add 2 HPC/4 C2B each round.

WHOA. I did the RX weight of 115. By the end, I actually missed a rep, and jesus I never do that. Hang cleans are no joke!

I got 4 + 11 rounds, and did banded C2B. (only a green band). I wanted to try to do just RX pullups, but.. yeah. I would’ve only gotten 2-3 rounds in, and I wanted more of a workout. Of course, I just cleaned up my hands and picked all my calluses, and my hands were sore and tender as all hell. Oh well. I’m glad I went!

AND.. as I promised in my facebook post, I even ran 3/4 of a mile too. I was shooting for a mile, but I was spent. I was glad I at least followed through and did some running!

To finish it all off, here’s Rainy and me posing post squats. 🙂 and Tom’s thumb.

So let’s talk about how July is almost over. Like this week and we’re done. Time just flies by now, and I think it’s because we’re old, but I don’t feel any different! Unless I worked out for the first time in a week and then go and sit still for an hour, and then try to get up out of the chair I was sitting in; then I feel old. REALLY old.

Anyway. Today is titled slow moving agony. I was deceived by our WOD today. Easy peasy, right? Riight.

First off, we worked on back squats, finding our 5 rep max, our 20 rep max and then apparently our 5 rep max in x number of weeks will become our new 20 rep max down the road. Supposedly I am aiming for 185 but that just seems ridiculous. I did 5 reps at 185 today, and then 20 reps at 105.

Regardless, my back felt great under those squats, and I was really happy about that! I was almost chipper about the WOD, but then I realized what the numbers were and I quickly straightened up.

40 – 30 – 20 – 10
back rack forward lunges (75lbs for girls)
KB swings (70/55)

Holy shit. I got through 10 or so lunges and thought to myself, I’m never going to finish this. I’m going to die here. This is it. This is the first WOD I’ll quit.

I agonized through 40 lunges then 40 55lb KB swings, and then 30, and then I got to my set of 20s, and I was like.. I can’t do it. I’m hurting. I’m in pain and this isn’t worth it. So I skipped the 20s and went right to the 10s. Awful awful awful.

I was stopped trying to catch my breath and trying to NOT feel lightheaded more than I was moving, it seemed. Rare for me, and I tried to rationalize that this is abnormal and maybe I shouldn’t have eaten Chipotle today.

The thought of going through the 20s and then the 10s after was sheer hell. It sounds so dramatic but I was on the verge of tears, and well, that’s NOT worth it! So.. I went straight to the 10s and immediately went to the floor. What the hell.

Was it the heat? My new shoes? Lack of water? Chipotle fuel? Sheer tiredness and exhaustion? My body trying to send me a message? I don’t know, but I listened to it. I’d rather finish my own scaled version than just quit, or be injured as a result.

I should’ve scaled those lunges, but pride got the better of me. 🙁

I hadn’t done Hero Holleyman since last year, and the last time I did it, I finished in 34:54.

I did all the same weights, movements as last year, but THIS year.. I finished in 25:26. Over 9 minutes faster than last year, which was an incredibly awesome feeling!

Holleyman is:

30 RFT
5 wall balls (20/16)
3 HSPUs (this year and last year I used a 45lb plate and an ab mat)
1 power clean (last year RX was 135 according to Russ, this year it was 155 according to the real WOD weights.. I used 135 this year and last year.)

And I finished more than 9 minutes faster than last year. WTF.

By round 3 I was questioning calling this WOD one of my favorites.. I was spent, exhausted, lightheaded from holding my breath on the cleans, my back was bugging me during the wall balls, I was stressing out that I’d make my back condition worse instead of better.

and I still finished faster.

Oh. I feel amazing, btw. My back feels great, still a little tight if I move it in certain ways, but NOTHING like what it was after it happened. I’ve been stretching it out on the foam roller and hanging upside down on the GHD machine, which totally decompresses my spine and feels incredible.

WOOOO Holleyman!

I went in Sunday to work on my back squats. I NEEDED a PR! My last PR was 255, and this time I tried 275 (twice) and didn’t get low enough. I dropped the weight to 265 and nailed it. YEAH. Good enough for the board, good enough for me!

Next time we’ll get 275.

Friday was Grace. And if you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I just hit a Grace PR recently. And I was super excited about THAT!

Well, here we are again.. Grace. 30 Clean and Jerks for time at 95lbs. I was nervous about just going 5 seconds faster, in all honesty! I really wanted to hit the 3:30 or less mark. I WAS SO NERVOUS.

So… here we go.

I PRed again. At 2:45. I DID GRACE IN 2:45! A whole 50 seconds faster than what I did just one month earlier. Granted, I wasn’t really trying to beat anything last time except for my PREVIOUS time of 5+ minutes, so.. Wow. I was beaming. BEAMING. Good enough for 3rd place on the board.

The top two times above me were 2:16 (Lauren) and 2:29 (Anne). Next time!

First time working out back at home! Woooo.

WOD:

13 Minute AMRAP

5 – T-2000′s
10 – Plyo Pushups (45′s/25′s)

T-2000s suck. It’s a Chest to Bar pull up, followed by a Toes to Bar unbroken. They suck. I don’t ever want to do them again. 🙂

My last workout in Madison happened at 6a on Monday. It just seemed to be the only time that consistently worked for me when I was there, because I never knew what our days would have in store!  We went to go see The House on the Rock later that day, and I can guarantee that if I had waited to work out, it wouldn’t have happened after the House on the Rock tour.. holy crap.

Anyway, my last WOD with Connex was:

3 rounds
20 Burpee Pull Ups
20 Squat Snatch
20 Box Jumps

I started out doing burpee pull ups, but they hurt my hands significantly. I didn’t want to go the rest of my trip and then traveling home with ripped hands, so I finished my rounds just doing burpees.

Snatch weight was 75lbs, easy peasy.

Thank you Connex, for the great hospitality!!! If you are ever in Madison and want to work out, I highly suggest dropping in to see Kief and Em. They are amazing people with a great box. 🙂 

Still out of town, but that’s okay! I hit up Connex again for another great WOD. Em agreed to come workout with me if I showed up for the 6a class. OMG.. that meant waking up around 4:45a. Okay.

Workout was great! I apparently impressed people with my weight skills. People at my gym are used to my strength, so I’m not used to the attention. In any case, here was the WOD:

Clock 0:00-10:00
3 rounds
9 ring dips
12 pull ups (I did my first 10 pull ups RX, and then got up on the band because of the time)
50 Air Squats

(So this one was weird.. I didn’t finish my last set of 50 squats, because I wanted to give myself a break for the clean and jerks. I ended up doing this above part 2nd, and the 2nd part first, because of equipment availability. FWIW, I ended up going back and doing my last 50 squats AFTER I did my C&J)

Clock 10:00-20:00
5 Rounds
10 Box Jumps
10 KBS
10 Ball Slams

All RX.

Clock 20:00-30:00
15 Clean and Jerks at (205/135)

Rough workout, glad I went though!