Well, yesterday Dave and I went down to South Florida to celebrate his grandfather’s 92nd birthday. Since he’s a leap year baby, his actual birthdays only happen every 4 years. Pretty cool! It was great to see him as well as the rest of Dave’s family.

Because we wanted to be on the road by noon, I wasn’t able to make my 11a Crossfit class. 🙁 I was totally bummed, but I made up my own little workout so at least I got something done!  It was pretty simple:

3 RFT
10 KB SDLHP
10 push ups
10 sit ups
10 squats

6 min even was my time.

As far as Paleo goes, I was able to stick to my plan all day yesterday and today.  I had some trail mix as a snack on the road, and a burger (no bun) with broccoli, and salad with balsamic vinegar for dinner.

This morning, well, this afternoon, I had a burger (no bun) with bacon and mushrooms, and some sweet potato fries. And then a banana on the road home. Dinner was a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. Not a lot of food today, probably not enough, but we weren’t really that hungry after our late meal this afternoon.

This morning was also Dali Kids part 2 at Crossfit Inertia. I really wanted to be there! But thankfully, Erin and Erin made sure to post photos of the work they did. This one’s my favorite!

Looking forward to my 11a workout tomorrow. Missing my people! <3

First of all, Paleo has been good, and I’ve had no problems sticking with it. I need to cut back a bit on the fruit though, and just have a little bit here and there, instead of trying to make a meal out of it.  Eating chicken and veggies has been fairly simple, and good, and I’m not sick of it yet. 21 more days and we’ll see how I feel about it then..

Crossfit has been awesome, as usual, but I have found that (like I said last night) if I don’t push myself has hard as I can, and really challenge myself during the workouts, I feel like I’m cheating myself or like I’m missing out on something. I can’t describe it. (I keep encountering shit that I can’t describe. It’s unsettling to me to try and express how I feel in a way that doesn’t make sense, so.. I apologize if a lot of this info has already been partially described before..) 

This is the first whole week where I haven’t gone to spin, and I thought last week that I’d be replacing spin class with Crossfit and attempting to do it 5 days a week, but maybe it’s a good idea to have the mix of workouts. Without spin, I don’t get nearly the cardio workout, and is 5 days of Crossfit too much for my body to handle? At least right now?

I completely pushed myself this morning with my Dali kids (nice job, you all!!) but now that I’m sitting here 14 hours later (Jesus, has it been 14 hours since I worked out??? That’s insane..) I feel like I should be doing something else. Tonight would have normally been the night I went to spin, but because I went to CF this morning with some of our employees, I didn’t spin. Should I have? Lots of questions…

This week will be all changed up too, as Dave and I are going out of town Wednesday and Thursday, which means I won’t be working out til Thursday evening at the earliest. Another weird feeling to me, since this past weekend was the first time I went 2 whole days without a workout in over a month, and my body is already like, wtf, we aren’t doing anything, what’s the deal? I almost want to put a little workout together for the morning to do before we leave, just so I’ve done SOMETHING good for myself.

My knees both feel amazing. I am not sure why… considering that we ran even ran a little today! (I didn’t even flinch at the one lap around the building.. I got this!) They’re sore from the squats and whatnot, not painful sore, but more like, I’m aware that they’re there kind of sore.. but they definitely don’t hurt, even my left one! Which is just super awesome.

It feels selfish to be concerned with my workouts while we’re out of town, and I’m hoping we’re back early enough for me to make one of the NEW 7p classes on Thursday!! Or maybe I should go for the 5:30p, so that I’m ready for the 11a one on Friday, haha Either way, I’m ready to get back into a routine, which will be difficult, since we’ve got the Home and Patio Show coming up at the end of next week, and then one week of normalcy, and then we’ll be down in Miami for Ultra Music Fest.  Luckily, the month of April should be smooth sailing, and I’ll finally be able to lock down a solid routine again. By then, who knows where I’ll be?

Anyway, before I get too carried away, our workout today was:

15 min AMRAP
10 cal row
10 SDLHP (35lbs)
10 burpees

Mitch (our Creative Director at Dali) and I both finished 4 rounds, yes!! I’m going to go ahead and put my workout together tonight so that in the morning, it’s all planned out and I just have to DO it. Kind of excited about this. Obviously not the same at home, but it’s better than nothing. 🙂

Paleo Day 8! Crossfit Day 17. Exciting stuff.

Today was a good day, but tonight on my way home, I thought to myself, I could’ve done more, I should’ve pushed myself harder.. Not sure why, since my knees are sore, and my left one has this weird ache that’s coming and going now. It was okay earlier, but now this is creeping up on me. Meh. I hope I’m resting it enough, and I’m hoping that as my body gets stronger as time goes on, that it’s able to cope with the strain and stress I’m putting it through.

Moving along. Our workout today was great. Had the usual boys there, Kyle, Will and Charlie. Erin C was training us today. Our warm ups were 2 rounds of
10 good mornings
10 power cleans
10 back squats
250m row

The 2nd round we added weight to the bars, I had 55lbs on mine. Good stuff.

Our workout today was 10 rounds of the following, for time per round:

5 dead lifts
5 power cleans
5 push jerks
5 back squats
1 min rest

I finished my first round in 44 sec I think, and it was pretty consistent thereafter, although I’m not 100% sure on that. Erin C kept our times for us.

I had 55lbs again on my bar. I probably could’ve pushed it with more, but seeing how my knee feels now after today I’m glad I didn’t add any. I just feel like I cheated myself though by not pushing myself to my limits, it’s weird. Most people would be glad they got away with not doing as much as they possibly could, I’m disappointed that I didn’t bother trying.

Not sure what my time was, but I finished before all the guys did! (They also had a lot more weight on their bars than I did! 95lbs, 135lbs..)

That’s about it, not very exciting. I AM taking any of my employees who want to try it to Crossfit tomorrow though.. That should be fun. I’ll be getting my workout bright and early! And it’ll be great, because Dave and I will be out of town Wed/Thurs.. Had we not made plans to leave, this would’ve been my first 5 days in a row. 🙂 Ah well, next week!

I didn’t post too much about Paleo Day 5, 6 or 7.. and well, I didn’t work out yesterday or today because I wanted to give my knee a good rest. It’s feeling SO much better, and I know that tomorrow, I’ll totally overwork it again and be like, wtf. Oh well. I need to learn to take it easy, but once I get into my workouts, I don’t want to retract or slow down.

Paleo has been good to me!! I love it. It’s limiting, yes, but I don’t find myself hungry either. I’ve been getting creative with our meals and it’s nice because we both look forward to cooking and eating at home together. I’ve been so strict on what I can and cannot eat, too. It’s motivating to know that I’m still losing weight (I’m BEYOND 7 lbs now!) and I just don’t have any urge to cheat or stray from my diet.

Now, I have always been an Atkins advocate, so moving into Paleo was so simple to me! BUT I’ve gotten lots of questions about Paleo, and I’m not sure why, but I’m always surprised when people don’t know what the Paleo Diet is. I’ve had friends do it, I’ve read and heard about it, that I just assumed more people were familiar with it, but that’s just not the case.

So.. What IS Paleo? First of all, it’s not named after anyone. The word Paleo is derived from the term Paleolithic, as in era, as in caveman. I had someone ask me the other day if Paleo was that guy from France… It blew me away, because even if I didn’t have any idea what the Paleo Diet was, I know enough history to say that the word Paleo sure sounds a lot like a shortened version of Paleolithic, but hey, that’s just me.

Anyway, Paleo in simple terms is this: It’s comprised of our modern day foods that we have available to us, used to emulate (recreate, in a sense) food that was available to our pre-agricultural ancestors. That is, before farmers who grew grains, wheat, corn, etc. It’s foods such as meat, vegetables, fruits, roots, and nuts. Eliminating grains, dairy, beans, starches, sugars, processed foods. (Not even like, deli meat..! You don’t really want to know how that stuff is made anyway..)

But what do you mean, processed foods? Basically, if you look at the ingredients of something, and you don’t recognize any of them, there’s probably a good chance it’s not all that healthy and we shouldn’t be ingesting it.

Does this mean I will never eat a York Peppermint Pattie again? Hell no. BUT if you look at the ingredients, it will read:

York Peppermint Patties are made using sugar, corn syrup, semi- sweet chocolate (chocolate, sugar, cocoa, milk fat, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, PGPR, emulsifier, vanillian, artificial flavor), invert sugar, egg whites, and oil of peppermint.
Okay so wtf is soy lecithin, PGPR, emulsifier, and invert sugar? No idea. I love those things, but they are definitely NOT a part of my Paleo 30 Day Challenge.

Anyway, hopefully you get the idea. That’s Paleo! Earlier, Dave made skirt steaks on the grill and I had chimichurri on mine! It was so good!  And then tonight I made a fruit smoothie for my dessert. I usually crave the sweet stuff at night, so I save my fruit intake for then. I made it with a little OJ, some coconut milk, strawberries, blueberries and a banana, and some ice of course! It was pretty awesome. I feel guilty for eating fruit, crazy right?

Today I went out to watch my girls (and Scott) compete in the first part of the Crossfit Games! It was up at Crossfit Jax, and yeah.. THAT place is intimidating!! First, let me just say that had I walked into a place like Crossfit Jax instead of my awesome little gym, I probably wouldn’t have stayed.

I walked in yesterday knowing what everything was, but the place was huge and all industrial and really, not very welcoming. It was NICE, don’t get me wrong! But man, I’m so glad I go to Crossfit Inertia.. much happier place. I know Inertia will get bigger, and the Erins will get to a point where they’ll have to expand, but I’ll already have been a part of it, so yeah, it’ll just be super awesome at that point. 

It could’ve been the gobs of REALLY insanely fit and muscular people too, but honestly, that’s the part that didn’t bother me. Maybe before it would have, but I know what they do, and I do the same stuff, and it was more of like, going into a distant family member’s house that you don’t know that well, but you’re still sort of related. I don’t know how to describe it. They’re nice, and you fit right in, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a little awkward, and you’re glad you don’t live there. haha

The girls and Scott did AWESOME, first of all. The workout was 7 minutes of burpees. What’s a burpee? Let me describe it, and then I’ll show you (not personally, but with a nice video demonstration that I’ll have to google..)

A Burpee is where you pretty much throw yourself from a standing position into a push up position, and then while on the ground, jump your back legs up to your hands (like a frog jumping motion sort of) so that you’re squatting, and then straighten your body up so you’re standing again, and then jump up again with your hands over your head. And then repeat.. Sounds stupid. Here’s how it looks:

So my poor trainers had to do 7 minutes of these horrible, awful things. I despise burpees. I’ll do them, but I’d rather run, if that says anything to you. Erin C did 105, Erin M did 88, and Scott did 76. The judges were really particular and DQ’ed a bunch of their reps, which SUCKS because they did such an awesome job!! I would’ve done like, 30, maybe. I suppose if they really wanted to, tomorrow we’ll get to see for ourselves what we can do in 7 minutes. Let’s hope not.

Here are a couple pictures from the event:

Waiting for the countdown..

Beginning of 7 minutes!

Mid jump

Erin and Erin, DONE.

She moved from inside to outside, and collapsed again. Not sure how they do it!

Scott (guy with orange shoes) mid burpee.

Scott, DONE.

And, a little group shot after all was said and done. 🙂

Luke, Erin C, Anne, Erin M, Scott, me.

Today is a pretty important day for me!! Today marks my one month of Crossfit! Of course, today was REALLY hard, and I didn’t even come close to finishing my WOD, which sucks!! But it was quite the workout.

Today I got to share the day with Anne, Kyle, Luke, Diesel and the Erins. 🙂 Of course, I’m an idiot and totally forgot that it was my one month anniversary, even though I’ve been dying to post about it for a couple days now! Go figure.

Today also marks a new PR for me! Our warm ups were quick, and included some romanian dead lifts, good mornings, and squat cleans. From there, we moved right into the Strength training of our workout.  Front squats, 5, 5, 3, 3, 1.

I started with 85lbs and worked my way up to 135lbs. The only thing that really keeps me from pushing harder with the weight is how much holding the bar like that hurts my left wrist.

Moving along, our WOD was the following:

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Squat Cleans (65lbs for me)
Pull Ups (jumping pull ups)

We had 16 minutes to do this, but I was still sore from Wednesday’s crazy 1/2 Murph WOD, and then the warm ups and strength stuff we did had worn my quads out! I got through 5 sets, which I’m not too crazy about. Would’ve liked to have finished more! But.. I’m definitely going to be sore tomorrow! Haha It’ll be good though, because tomorrow I’m going to go watch Crossfit Inertia compete in the regionals.

I’d also like to mention that, even though I wasn’t supposed to weigh myself, I did, (sorry Erin!!) and I’m down 7 lbs since I started Paleo on Sunday night. I’m pretty amped up to see how much more I’ll progress by the end of my 30 day Paleo challenge!

Well, the 4 of us (Dave, me, Marisa and Dave T) decided we needed to sit down together, but away from the office, to finally knock a bunch of shit out that we’d been neglecting. Well, not neglecting, but we just weren’t making the time to do it otherwise, and it had to be done ALL in one sitting.. Today was that day! After an AMAZING breakfast from First Watch (my giant omelet with all sorts of good stuff, but no cheese or sour cream, a cup of fruit, and a side of bacon..) we got some stuff done at the office and headed for home.

We basically sat and talked for the next 5 hours, trying to work through our Employee Handbook, something we’ve been trying to get done for months (years) now. By the time we had finished, it was 5:15p, and there was no chance I was going to make my spin class. Sucks, but it’s also a good thing too. It allowed for my knee to rest a bit, and it feels better, although I can still feel the soreness and I know if I do anything stupid, it’ll come right back. It’s just a dull feeling right now that comes and goes, sort of going through to the underside of my knee, and also around the outside of my kneecap. It almost feels like it’s bruised, but I can squat and kneel down without any issues. It’s the hard impact that aggravates it.

Anyway, I just took some pictures of myself, something I’ve always done for no reason other than to see how many cute faces I can make. And in doing so, I realized that I now take less pictures of myself before I’m happy with a shot, which means, I’VE LOST WEIGHT ALREADY. I went through my pictures from earlier this month as well as from last month, and I found one that was at a similar angle.  I did what so many people do and put together a quick Before and Current photo.  I suppose I’ll start doing this to document my progress.  It’s so much easier to compare photos than to try and see the changes as they happen (hard to do since I’m always with myself.)

The differences are subtle, (they are just face shots) but I can see it in my jawline, chin, and my cheeks.  You can also sort of tell up by my eyes (more so on my left side) as well as around my mouth/nose (those sort of vertical cheek lines, whatever they’re called). My cheeks aren’t as pronounced in those areas now, and the shadows aren’t as dark, which means there’s less CHEEK to cast a shadow! It’s a pretty consistent environment here in my home office, as I have one single light on behind my monitors. The only other light that’s on my face is coming from my monitors, which is why the color sucks. (I must have had different websites open from the first picture, as the color is darker.. The blogger screen is bright white..)

Let me know if you can tell a difference, or if I’m just imagining things! This is 21 days’ worth of Crossfit, and 4 1/2 days of Paleo.

Before and During – Progress Photos – Crossfit and Paleo

Tomorrow is my 1 month of Crossfit day!! Day 16. Seems like I’ve been so many more times than 16, so when I say 16 days, it’s like, ugh that’s it?? But, that equates to 4 days a week since I started on January 24th. Exciting!!!

How could it NOT be a good day on 2/22/12? Come on, those are some good numbers, there.

Anyway, Day 15 of crossfit for meee!! How awesome! Friday will be my one month anniversary of starting, and I’ve already gotten stronger, more confident, and have better stamina in my workouts. Today, because my left knee has been bugging me when I do any sort of impact stuff (jumping, running, hopping, which happens all throughout crossfit warm ups, especially when you’re practicing pull ups) Erin put me on the rowing machine instead of running the 800m run in our WOD today.  Point being, I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to even attempt to run.

Let’s make one thing clear here.. I HAVE NEVER FELT BADLY ABOUT NOT RUNNING, EVER.

But, to prevent or minimize any further damage to my poor knee, which up until now, has never really hurt a day in my life, I rowed 1000m instead.

Our warm ups were different today, and it was cool! I liked it. It was Kyle, Charlie, Will and myself. Core group, really, since Elskin and Scott can’t always make it. We did some side to side jumping, front to back, and this X hopscotch sort of move. We also jump roped for a few minutes as well.  I can’t help but laugh at the boys’ commentary throughout the warm ups, and when I laugh, I get all sorts of uncoordinated. Let’s just say I have welts on my arms and legs from hitting myself by mistake with the damn jump rope because I was laughing at them. 😀  Then we did some rotator cuff exercises, which, usually I’m pretty flexible all around, but not in my shoulders!! We’ll have to work on those.

Moving along, we had the WOD of all WODs today. It wasn’t the hardest, but it was definitely the most um, demanding, I guess? I’m not sure how else to describe it, but I also didn’t finish it, so that may play a role in how I felt when time was called.

Today was the 1/2 Murph. It consisted of the following:

800m run (I rowed 1000m instead)
50 pull ups (jumping pull ups here, getting better at them!)
50 push ups
50 sit ups
50 squats
800m run

In 20 min, I finished everything but the last 3 squats and and the 800m run/row.  Pretty awesome, but I wish I could’ve done better. My forearms were NOT happy with the pull ups followed by push ups, that’s for sure! With time, I’ll have better endurance with my arm muscles. At least that’s the idea, right?

Paleo Day 3 is going quite well.. I had Wasabi again today, same thing, clear soup, chicken and steak cooked in oil, no teriyaki sauce, same with veggies. Rice on the side.

snacked on walnuts again, thank god for those.

Dinner was 1 chicken breast cut into smaller pieces, and then sauteed (pan fried?) in olive oil with a little Adobo seasoning.  I heated a little bit of olive oil in the pan and cooked the chicken on both sides, whatever that’s called. Then I mixed the chicken in with my mixed greens, blueberries and walnuts salad, and added some balsalmic vinaigrette dressing. Good shit.

Today was ALSO the day I went and got my bloodwork done! I want to compare my numbers from my early times with starting Paleo, and then I’ll go and get my bloodwork done again in 28 days or whatever it ends up being. March 20th-ish. It’s for sheer curiosity, really. I want to see how it affects my cholesterol and other levels, as well. EXCITING.

I’ll leave you with this awesome, motivational picture of a very fit and toned female killing it with the kettlebell. A little fitness inspiration.

Kettlebell training – fitness inspiration

Lame, slacker I know. I didn’t post this earlier because I was too busy trying to diagnose some stupid issue on my home computer. SORRY. Then I went to bed at 1a, frustrated because I can usually find the solutions with these things, especially with Dave’s help, but not last night. Maybe tonight will provide better luck.

Anyway, spin class, same old awesomeness, but with new music. Pretty exciting stuff. Even had some LMFAO incorporated with the routine, and of course, everyone went nuts when it came on.

Paleo Day 2 was a success. I missed breakfast, and ended up trying out Wasabi, Paleo style. Hah It was amazing. I spoke to my server and let her know I couldn’t have any gluten or sugar, so she hooked it up. I had clear soup, chicken and steak made with oil, same with the veggies (zucchini and onions, and a few mushrooms here and there.)  I brought the rice back to Mitch at the office, which he had no issues consuming.

Mom and John made dinner last night. I had a spinach salad with a citrus dressing they made just for me. 🙂 Then, lemon pepper grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, sugar snap peas. It was awesome. I’ve been snacking on raspberries/blueberries, and walnuts at the office. And really, I just haven’t been that hungry. Totally new to me. It’s like I really am just fueling my body and giving it what it needs, instead of just what I think tastes good.

The pressure’s on!!  Everyone’s counting on me to make the perfect metal workout playlist… I know, it’s tough, but someone’s gotta do it. I think by Wednesday we should have Inertia Metal vol. 1 ready to go, though. Kind of excited about this. (hint: Cowboys from Hell has just passed the “What would I like to listen to if I had to do 30 burpees” test and made it through to the finals..)

Aside from all that.. Day 1 of Paleo is about an hour away from being successfully completed!! The only offenders today were the 6 tiny cup things of half and half that made their way into my anxiety-provoking coffee.. HOW’D THAT HAPPEN?!?! Weird.. (and the sweet & low.. GEEZ…) I had to fess up about the S&L because honestly, I didn’t feel like photoshopping the pink packets out of the picture below. As my friend Bryce said, write it all down cause it keeps you honest! Well, there. I wrote it down.

For my workout today, we killed it, as always. Today it was the Boys and Alicia class, which I promptly abbreviated to the B&A class.

Here was our warm up. (I’m so grateful that this picture was taken, because I’m not sure I could’ve remembered everything..)