30 Day Paleo Challenge - Day 4

30 Day Paleo Challenge – Day 4

Weight Loss: -3.6

I. Feel. Like. Crap.

Nauseous, shaky, grumpy, restless, weak, tired. Massive headache. 

I think this is the part known as the sugar/splenda/processed food detox.

I’m an absolute treat to be around right now. Just ask Matt. 

It hit me around noon yesterday. The hard-boiled egg whites I packed for lunch? Nope. Didn’t happen. I took one look at them and wanted to throw up. All I ended up eating for lunch was my plain grilled burger and my nectarine, and that was plenty. Plus lots of water. LOTS of water.

I don’t even like eggs, and I don’t know why I try to force it. They are officially off the menu, starting now.

Food just has no appeal at all right now. I know I have to eat to get through the day and for my workouts, but it all just seems so gross.

However, I’m craving the most ridiculous things, like Crystal Light pink lemonade. Pure chemicals, but oh so sweet and tasty. Cookies don’t sound good, neither does pizza. But man, I could go for some Crystal Light. How weird am I?

Don’t answer that.

But I'm not going to give in. Hold me to it.

My burger/nectarine lunch ended up settling well yesterday, so Matt grilled some extras for me last night to last the rest of the week. He also ate my last nectarine. Good thing he’s cute or he’d get a punch in the face.

That’s the shakes talking. I’d never punch him in the face. Maybe.

He did replace the nectarines with a watermelon the size of a toddler, so guess what’s going to be all over my menus for the next ten years?

Plan for today:

Breakfast - I don't feel like eating anything. Anything. Nothing sounds good at all. But I know I'll be hungry later, so I'm pre-making a couple slices of bacon and taking a banana to work. I have meetings this morning, and I usually get snacky in the middle of it. We'll see. Ugh. 

Lunch

• Plain grilled hamburger
• Watermelon
• Cucumber slices

Dinner

• Grilled pork or chicken, whatever thaws out first.
• Beasty BBQ Sauce for the meat – interested to see how homemade BBQ sauce turns out.
• Steamed veggies – There’s a mix in the freezer of mushrooms, water chestnuts, asparagus and carrots. Love me some asparagus and water chestnuts!

Snack

• Apple with almond butter, of course.

WOD: - If I go. Wednesdays are typically my rest day, meaning I go out and run 3-4 miles after work instead of going out and lifting heavy things. We’ll see how I feel at 5:00 tonight. 60 wall balls is intimidating. I hate wall balls!!!

5×1 power clean of box (above knee)

5×1 rack jerk (behind neck, use racks)

For time -
100 m Prowler push 90/50
60 wall balls 20/14
30 clean & jerk 135/95

Midline -
3 sets of -
10 GHD sit-ups
10 glute-ham raises

Paleo Website of the Day: http://paleomg.com/ - love this girl! She has a new cookbook out. She’s snarky and hilarious and I think we could be BFF’s if we ever meet.

CrossFit Website of the Day: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/collette-debenedetto/from-the-couch-to-crossfi_b_3460332.html - great article my box posted a couple days ago. Worth a read.

Today I love: Tylenol severe headache with caffeine. 

30 Day Paleo Challenge - Day 3

30 Day Paleo Challenge – Day 3

Weight Loss: -2.6

Welcome to Day 3 of the PC! Still going strong, still energized.

Maybe because I've already had 238 cups of coffee this morning.

Black, of course.

Thank you for all of your sweet words through Facebook, Twitter and email. I seriously need you guys to keep me going – knowing you’re looking for my next post is part of my motivation to keep at it.

I’ve had some opposition about some things already this week - and it's only Tuesday! Ugh. I’m not going to go into it just because I realize there are just those people who live to make you feel bad about yourself…and it actually worked to my advantage: I was so upset that I ended up pushing through a powerful workout last night. I left it all on the floor.

Literally. My sweat was everywhere. Even parts of my shins from the box jumps.

Ugh. I'm so short. 

Anyway, when I got home, a thought came to me as I was dragging myself through the door from almost throwing up due to the Evil that is Burpees.

I’m doing this to prove the people wrong who tell me I can’t, but more importantly, I’m doing this to prove to myself that I can.

Boom. Take that, haters.

Yes. I just said "haters."

I think I need more coffee. 

So let’s keep going. Here’s my plan for today:

Breakfast

• Black coffee, iced. It goes down faster that way. 
• Bacon
• Scrambled Eggs with diced tomato

Lunch

• Plain hamburger – my husband is amazing with the grill!
• Cucumber/tomato/green pepper salad with olive oil and vinegar
• Two hard-boiled egg whites
• Nectarine

Dinner

• Leftover Spicy Pineapple Chili – this recipe seriously made an insane amount. Just so you know, this is probably going to be dinner for awhile. Matt won’t touch it because it has (gasp!) tomatoes and (gasp!) onions. How terrible, right?

Snack

• Apple with almond butter – This will always and forever be my go-to snack. I’ve never really ever liked peanut butter, but I am a lover of almond butter, especially Justin’s Maple. To make it especially yummy, I use green apples. Tart and sweet. Kills my sweet tooth, which, believe me, is wicked. 

Tonight's WOD:

Back squat 5×5 @ 78%

Front squat 2×10 @ 50%,

3×3 Pendlay row

Three rounds for time of –

2 rope climbs (6 modified)
15 thrusters 95/65
25 double-unders (75 singles)

Paleo Website of the Day: http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/ - bare bones eating, discusses a lot of medical issues that correspond with processed foods and chemicals. The book It Starts With Food is the hard-copy version of this website. Next to my bible, this is probably the most highlighted and margins-written-in book in my house.

CrossFit Website of the Day: http://crossfitfreedom.com/what-is-crossfit/ - really good site that tells you what CrossFit really is. If you don’t want to read it all, definitely watch the Reebok CF video at the end. It’s awesome.

Today I love: Almond butter and my husband serenading me with "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on my piano at 7am then shouting, "Thank you very much! No autographs! No pictures please!" He makes me laugh, the nerd. 

30 Day Paleo Challenge - Day 2

The first day of my paleo challenge went well. Matt had a baseball tournament all day yesterday, so I was all hopped up on pre-fixing meals for the week and kept myself busy changing my blog template about a million times.

I did sneak a pear (gasp!) in yesterday between lunch and dinner. I was hungry, and the pears are going bad. I feel sorry for produce that has to get thrown away (here’s looking at you, avocados!!), so in part my snack was out of pity for overly-soft fruit.

What I’ve discovered: Black coffee isn’t as gross as I thought, especially if you use a high-quality brand like my beloved Caribou. However, strict paleo = running to the bathroom a lot. During the day, all night long. Super-fun when you’re driving around all day to your patient’s houses…I’ve now programmed every 7-Eleven in a 10-mile radius into my GPS.

I’m also preparing myself for the headache I’ll get from cutting myself off of Splenda cold-turkey. Fabulous.

30 Day Paleo Challenge – Day 2
Weight loss change: -0.8

Breakfast

• Coffee with unsweetened almond milk
• Sausage Bites from yesterday (sub raw honey in place of the sweetener in the recipe)
•  A couple slices of bacon. Cause what's paleo without bacon???

Lunch

• Sliced ham and turkey
• Cucumber/tomato/green pepper salad with olive oil and vinegar
• Two hard-boiled egg whites
• Nectarine

(My lunches might look strange during the week. I have to pretty much eat in my car as I'm driving between patient's houses, so my lunches tend to be of the finger-food variety. That's how I roll.)

Dinner

• Leftover Spicy Pineapple Chili - which, by the way, is one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. A full pound of bacon? Um, yes please. I did leave out the jalapenos and red pepper flakes because I'm a lightweight, and the chili powder was just enough seasoning for me. This recipe is awesomesauce. 

Snack

• Apple with almond butter

WOD (Workout of the Day):

5×2 Snatch off box (above knee)

5×1 Overhead squat, 3-second pause at bottom (use racks)

3 sets, each for time of -

20 calories on Airdyne (AKA “Satan’s Horse”)
15 burpee box jumps 24″
10 strict pull-ups

Paleo Website of the Day: http://civilizedcavemancooking.com/ - My favorite!

CrossFit Website of the Day: http://crossfitverobeach.com/ - My box!  (They actually just announced the 30 Day Paleo Challenge winner on the site yesterday. Pretty cool.)

Today I love: Bacon. Bacon bacon bacon. 

30 Day Paleo Challenge - Day 1

So.

It’s been approximately 500 years since my last post on Easter.

That’s embarrassing. Embarrassing to the point of almost wanting to delete the whole blog and start over fresh.

But ain’t nobody got time for that.

So here we go.

What’s new? New job is going well – I love being a hospice nurse. Matt’s baseball season finished well – made it to round two of super-regionals, and now we’re in the middle of Legion summer ball. CrossFit hasn’t killed me yet, although I have had days where it’s impossible to climb the stairs or reach up to wash my hair due to a particularly ridiculous workout.

Speaking of CrossFit, that’s kind of the reason I’m motivated to write a new post. Matt and I are leaving in roughly 30 days for our 10^th anniversary trip to St. Lucia.

We are very excited about this – we’ve never done a huge trip like this before. And yes, our anniversary isn’t until November, but being married to a teacher means you have to travel to exotic islands during the hottest part of summer, right smack in the middle of hurricane season.

Yes mom, we bought traveler’s insurance. J

So. 30 days and I’ll be living in a swimsuit for a week. That thought does wonders for my body image issues – wonders in the form of anxiety and panic attacks.

CrossFit has been helping with that. How can you hate how you look when you’re busy doing 115lb back squats? Boom.

In any case, my box (how CF people refer to their warehouse of sweat) recently completed a 30 day Paleo challenge. I didn’t register to do it – I didn’t feel mentally committed to diet changes at that point…I was more focused on getting double-unders and cleans down.

However, I did see results. People I knew who were committed to the challenge were literally melting away before my eyes, revealing their awesome CF muscles underneath. Uuugggghhhh, why didn’t I sign up?? Stink.

So I’m doing it on my own. Well, on my own with encouragement from all of you. For the next 30 days, until we leave for St. Lucia, I’m doing my own Paleo Challenge.

What is Paleo? The easiest way to explain it is this – eat how our ancestors did. No processed food, no sugar, no grains. Eat plenty of meats, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds.

Here are a couple of my favorite sites that explain it in more detail:

• http://thepaleodiet.com/ - Dr. Loren Cordain, founder of the Paleo Diet
• http://robbwolf.com/what-is-the-paleo-diet/ - Robb Wolf’s site – my favorite!!
• http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/paleo-101/ - Melissa Joulwan, author of Well Fed, one of my favorite Paleo cookbooks

This will be a challenge for two specific reasons:

1. Matt. Hands-down, my man does not want to eat things like vegetables without cheese. Or coconut flour. Or almond milk. However, he is the most super-supportive person in my entire world, and he’s ok with us cooking completely separate meals for the next month. Hamburger Helper for him, ground pork and apple sliders for me! And spicy pineapple chili. And roast with sweet potatoes and onions. Paleo is delicious, people!

2. 4^th of July Weekend. We’re going to Alabama for a Walters family reunion, of which I’ve volunteered to bring the makings for s’mores. Just so you know, s’mores are decidedly NOT paleo. I will resist! I will sip my iced coffee with almond milk and enjoy the company! I will indulge in the watermelon I’m also bringing along! I’m just excited to see family that we haven’t seen in ages.

Living in South Florida kind of cuts you off from the rest of the country family.

So to keep myself on track, I’m announcing it here: I’m going to be posting EVERY DAY for the next 30 days my menus and workouts. I generally try to use Fridays and Sundays as workout rest days – Friday can be interchanged with Wednesday, depending on how sore and tired I am. If I miss a day of posting, this is where you come in – call me out on it! My menus might start to look monotonous…I’m a big fan of cooking a lot and freezing for leftovers. I’m going to include links to the websites for my favorite recipes…a lot of my favs come from http://civilizedcavemancooking.com/

30 Day Paleo Challenge – Day 1

Breakfast

• Coffee with unsweetened almond milk
•  Sausage Bites (sub raw honey in place of the sweetener in the recipe)
•  Handful of red grapes

Lunch

• Leftover Paleo Meatloaf
• Broccoli and cauliflower sautéed with bacon
• Nectarine

Dinner

• Spicy Pineapple Chili

Snack (if hungry)

• Apple with almond butter

I’ve also taken measurements/weight/pictures…we will wait until waaaayyyy later to post those. No use scaring everyone right off the bat.

Thanks for your support and motivation!

Today I love: Caribou coffee and supportive husbands who won’t let me order pizza until after our trip.

Revised Resolutions

It's inevitable.

Every time a new year rolls around, I make promises to myself. It always, always has the same theme song of "lose weight, more willpower to lose weight, run more marathons, lose weight..." yadda yadda yadda.

I'm done. I'm tired. I'm through.

I'm tired of feeling like I let myself down. Tired of worrying what other people think of me. Tired of starting over one more time. Tomorrow. Monday. Whenever. After this last piece of chocolate.

Mmmm. Chocolate.

Anyway. Moving on.

This year, I want to do something different. I was all prepared to write a post about a numerated list of goals and objectives when a friend of mine on Twitter re-tweeted the following thought from @LisaWhelchel:

"Before God writes your new year, He imagines you twirling with joy while He watches adoringly. Step into His vision for your 2013." #letsdance

Isn't that beautiful?

So what's His vision for me in 2013?

I have no idea. But I'm open to the possibilities.

I will admit I do have my weight-loss chart printed out and hanging by the scale, my 30-day Paleo kick-start menu plan on the fridge (the Practical Paleo book is amazing, by the way), my promise to M's aunt that I will run the 2013 St. Jude's Half Marathon with her this next December.

It's good to have plans. To prepare. To set goals and reach for them.

But I'm not going to let them become my focus. With my personality, those things can easily become an obsession. I struggle with obsessions, and the result isn't healthy. It's addicting. It's all-consuming. It tears me away from what's really important.

I want to be consumed by my Savior.

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm just getting old.

But maybe, just maybe, I'm finally discovering myself in the place where I was meant to be.

Let's twirl with joy this year.