Day 65: Color!

Whew. Took a little break from technology this weekend, and it felt great. Also took a little 3-day break from CrossFit, which also felt great. But tonight we are back at it to re-test Jackie (100-m row, 50 thrusters, and 30 pull-ups) and officially complete the Paleo challenge. I am interested to see if my time changes. TJ has already announced that everyone (most people re-tested on Sunday) improved their times, so I hope I’m not the curve breaker! I am optimistic because when we did Jackie last month I had done an 8-hour shift of ziplining the day before, leaving me with super tired shoulders. So hopefully my shoulders are ready to rock tonight. My time last month was 14:00 flat. I am hoping for a 10-second improvement or better. We’ll find out I guess.

But now that the Paleo challenge is over I am back to eating some very exciting foods that I have been missing – namely brown rice and Whatever Salad Dressing I Want. I know, I’m going wild over here. But it really was great to have some brown rice with my egg this morning and go out to lunch and order a salad with caesar dressing. I am trying to not totally undo any progress from the past month all at once. I even did pretty good this weekend with Memorial Day. I don’t think I really had any bad foods all weekend except for a beer and 2 glasses of wine (total, not all at once… I am a major lightweight, people).

Post-Color Run

The best part about this weekend was the Color Run! It’s a 5k race which takes place all over the country, but this one was held at City Park in Denver. At registration every racer is given a packet of powdered dye and a white t-shirt, and during the race at each kilometer (roughly) there is a station where volunteers throw powdered dye at you. So by the end of the race you are covered in dye, and then at the finish line there is a big party where everyone just spends about 30 minutes having a major dye fight. You don’t exactly run it for time (in fact there wasn’t even a clock) and it was so crowded that we had to do a lot of stopping and going, but it was just a super fun event.

Also I realized this weekend that the half marathon I’m supposed to do is less than 10 weeks away… so I really need to start doing some more serious running. I scheduled a 3-mile run with myself last night but ended up not exactly following through (that was where the 2 glasses of wine came in), so hopefully tomorrow I can go for an evening jog around the neighborhood and start building up my mileage. Do you run and do CrossFit? How do you balance training runs with CrossFit soreness?

Day 60: More Truths for CrossFit Beginners

I’ve definitely used this image before in this blog, but I love it, so here ya go.

2 months down, folks! I can’t believe I have been doing this for only 2 months, it feels like CrossFit has been a part of my life for way longer. I did a post like this at the end of Month 1 and I really had fun with it, so I thought I would do another one today! So here ya go, round 2 of Truths for Crossfit Beginners.

1. This was in my first post but is worth repeating because I hear about this all the time: The concept of getting in shape before starting CrossFit is ridiculous. You are going to get your butt handed to you no matter what. Just get in there and get going already.

2. Linking double-unders is a myth.

3. Despite the infinite number of ways to incorporate bacon and sweet potatoes into every meal, paleo is not for everyone.

4. If you can move all of your body parts with full range of motion the day after a WOD, you didn’t try hard enough.

5. Looking at a WOD and thinking Oh that won’t be so bad is the best way to guarantee that you are about to begin the hardest hour of your life.

6. Progenex is worth the money.

7. I am borrowing this point from the wonderful blog of another woman who goes to Crossfit Jai because I think it’s great: “If you go to a CF gym that makes you feel bad about your fitness level RUN far FAR away!” CrossFit should be a supportive community that makes you want to be a better athlete and a better person. Not a place where you feel judged by your stinky gym shorts or inability to do a single pull-up (by the way I am guilty of both of those things).

8. In many situations, putting chalk on your hands does actually make you stronger.

9. There are 2 types of CrossFit athletes: Those who have cried after a WOD, and those who haven’t cried after a WOD yet.

10. It is not about whether or not you can do something, because you can do anything. It’s about what it is going to take to get you there, and whether or not you’re willing to believe in yourself enough to get started.

Ok, your turn, you CrossFit savvy folks! What did I miss?

Day 59: A Paleo Recap

Editor’s Note: I am not a vegetarian, nor do I ever plan to be, but eating a Paleolithic amount of meat has proven to be a dilemma for me. Do you eat Paleo? I would really love some feedback on what you and those you cook for think about such a high level of meat consumption. Also, if you have any good meat-free Paleo recipes I would really like to hear about them.

Our gym is in the final week of the Paleo challenge, and I have been eating (mostly) Paleo now for almost a month. I have lost a few pounds, but it’s comparable to what I lost in my 1st month of CrossFit without eating Paleo, so it’s hard to say what role the diet has played in that. I haven’t noticed that I’ve been sleeping better or WODing harder or recovering faster. In general, I’m really not sure that Paleo has “done it” for me.

To be fair, I have not been a total Paleo purist this month. But I will say that in the past 25 days I have eaten just 1 piece of bread as a last resort to calm an upset stomach, zero cheese except for the box of mac & cheese I ate that one night, and have drastically cut back my beer intake from 5-10 beers a week down to 1-2 at the most. I haven’t had one cookie, piece of candy, or a single cup of coffee. I have, however, eaten at least 7 POUNDS of cashews. Also probably 10-15 sweet potatoes, the equivalent of several chickens, at least one pig’s worth of bacon, and dozens of eggs. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have eaten more beef in the past month than I had in the past year combined.

And I think that’s the issue. I just don’t feel good when I eat that much animal. I know I’ve said this before, but pre-Paleo I would only eat meat 2-3 times a week, and it was usually chicken. On other nights I would eat whole grain pasta, veggie stir fry with brown rice, or veggie tacos on corn tortillas. I tried this week to come up with some meals that are Paleo but don’t have any meat in them, but it’s hard to get very much protein since traditional non-meat protein options (beans and dairy) aren’t allowed. Some vegetables, like asparagus and brussel sprouts, are relatively high in protein for being a vegetable, but still only offer around 3g of protein per serving. Compare that to at least 7g of protein in a serving of beef, or 6.5g of protein in an egg, and I’m just not sure I could fit enough vegetables in my body to provide the protein that I need to adequately rebuild my muscles after CrossFit.

I also can’t really ignore the environmental impacts of eating that much meat. Even grass-fed farms, despite their desire to return to a more natural way of farming, aren’t infinitely sustainable. I understand that grass-fed is better for the animal and the meat is better for us, but I have been thinking a lot about an Op-Ed I read from the New York Times on April 12th that said, “If we raised all the cows in the United States on grass (all 100 million of them), cattle would require (using the figure of 10 acres per cow) almost half the country’s land (and this figure excludes space needed for pastured chicken and pigs).” It also talks about the fact that grazing cows and chickens release considerably more methane than those that are grain-fed. The problem, ultimately, is not the way that the animals are raised, but the sheer volume of meat that is being produced. Kind of hard to want to eat meat 3x/day when you think about even the possibility of those statistics being true. (If you are interested in these issues, I would highly recommend the article, which can be found here.)

There are a lot of things I like about Paleo. I have learned a lot about the sneaky places that sugar hides, learned that I don’t need to top everything with cheese or eat it on a bed of grains, and I have never been so hydrated in my life. I have learned a lot from just the exercise of paying close attention to what I eat. I have read and heard a lot of evidence that has convinced me to really cut back on the amount of gluten that I allow into my system.

But when I think about eating healthy, the first word that comes to my mind is “moderation.” I have never been one to believe in completely depriving or saturating your diet with any one thing, or that there is any single trick that will suddenly make you healthier and skinnier. I plan on continuing to eat meat, just not so much of it. I also plan on re-introducing brown rice, beans, goat cheese, and even some regular potatoes into my diet. And I don’t plan on eating cashews again for a while.

Day 58: Tears

I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Is it possible to get whiplash from a jerk press? Ok, how about from 49 of them?

Last night’s WOD was 7 rounds of 7 jerk presses, 200 m run, then 7 front squats. My bar weighed 65 lbs. I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t even link the first set of jerk presses, and it really only went downhill from there.

By the end I was only able to do 1, maybe 2 jerk presses at a time, and 3 or 4 squats between rests. I was running almost entirely with my eyes closed just to concentrate on moving my feet (a dangerous activity due to the constant presence of small children riding tandem on scooters at the end of the block where our 200m turnaround is). At the end of the 5th round, I dropped the bar and left for the run with tears in my eyes, and by the end of the 7th round, with TJ and the BF standing next to me coaxing me to pick the bar up just one more time, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I was at muscle failure 2 reps before the end of the set. I ended up counting a 3/4 press and a 1/2 press together to create my 5th rep. When I did finally somehow make it through the last 2 reps, I dropped the bar, walked outside, and started crying.

I am not a crier. I get a little choked up occasionally, but it usually takes a significant personal tragedy before I actually cry. But last night it just felt like my body was out of options. It was a feeling I have definitely never experienced before, where all my resources were totally exhausted and my defenses were totally gone. I have had some really hard WODs in the past few weeks, but last night’s was the first where I was staring down the final set and thinking I don’t know if I can physically do this. It was beyond pushing myself and beyond convincing myself to go for it. And it apparently took every ounce of emotional stability I had in my body to get through it.

Even though I finished feeling like I had definitely accomplished something significant, it also made me think: When do you reach a point where you have to say “This is too much”?

Day 57: Climbing

Yesterday I woke up a follower, and went to bed a leader.

Which is a very dramatic (coined by TJ) way of saying that yesterday I did my first lead climb!

For those of you unfamiliar with climbing, you can check out Wikipedia’s definition of lead climbing here. In a nutshell, lead climbing is not necessarily harder than top-rope climbing, but it’s much scarier and has higher consequences if you fall. Which is why, even though I’ve been climbing for 2 years, I had never led before. And I was pretty freaked out about it – TJ was quick to point out that my hands were shaking as his girlfriend took a photo of me right before I started the climb. The first few moves were the hardest, but once I got out of my head I found that it really was actually a great experience. As is the case with most new experiences, as soon as you stop over-thinking it there is actually room to enjoy the ride! And it was great, feeling like I was more in control of my experience and wasn’t relying on my belayer to pull me up the climb. A totally new feeling of responsibility and even independence, all from one short, easy (5.4) sport climb. Even though it was one of the easier routes in the canyon, your first lead is a big moment in your climbing career, and I’m proud to say that I can now call myself a lead climber!

Really excessive amounts of excitement

Yesterday was also the first climbing that we had done since starting CrossFit! It’s hard to say whether or not I really felt stronger because we rarely have climbed the type of routes we were on yesterday (The Boyfriend especially is mostly a desert climber, which is a very different type of rock and a very different type of climbing), but I definitely felt more confident about being able to –here’s that phrase again– push my limits. I know that if we hadn’t been doing CrossFit for the past several weeks, I definitely would not have had the confidence, physically or mentally, to get out and lead my first climb on our first real day out of the season.

Yesterday was another great example of moving toward my ultimate goal (with CrossFit but also just life in general), which is to be able to get out and be a better climber, hiker, rafter, and all-around active person. Playing outside is my passion but I felt like I had reached a plateau with my skill level and, honestly, my level of ambition and motivation. But yesterday proved that CrossFit is definitely helping me move past those limitations and push me into the next season of my life as an active person – hopefully one that will involve many more lead climbs.

Oh, and yesterday after climbing, TJ’s girlfriend Lindsay I went to an African dance class in Boulder, which was made up of equal parts flailing and sweating. I had taken African dance before, but not for several years, and it was HARD! But also super fun. I mean, what’s not to love about having a man named Maputo tell you, in a very thick Ghanaian accent, that in order to correct your dance form, you “just need to drop it like it’s hot!”

Day 56: Photos that will make you want to go outside

If this doesn’t make you want to go on an adventure, I don’t know what will

Day 53: Good Enough

There is this funny thing that happens when you start to do something that you previously thought you wouldn’t be able to do. It shifts your whole perception of yourself, turning thoughts of I can’t do this, into not just I CAN do this, but I WILL do this. But there is a lot that goes on before you even take that first step into the gym, and in a lot of ways getting yourself to the gym in the first place can be harder than the actual pain of the workout.

I have experienced this to some degree with myself, but especially with a number of my friends, who see my active lifestyle and my drive – which has always existed in some form or another- to get outside and be healthy, and immediately say, “I could never do that.” When I try to get them to come hiking, running, or even to CrossFit with me, their immediate reaction is, “You don’t want me to come with you, I won’t be able to do it.” They disregard the fact that I am an extremely slow runner, love to stop for water breaks, and am always the first person to run out of breath. They know this about me, but have still convinced themselves that it’s not worth even trying. Instead of trying to get better at something, they would rather sit at home than let another person witness them struggle. And I get it. Have I talked enough about how I am almost always last to finish a WOD? And everyone else in the gym is standing around me, and even though they are saying “You can do this! Keep going! You’ve got this!” I can’t help but sometimes think, “These people must think I am so slow.” And that feeling sucks.

Somewhere along the way, and for a lot of people I think this happens really early in life, we reach a point where we are convinced that we aren’t worth the time and effort that it takes to be healthy. Not only are we told that it’s selfish to take personal time or to advocate for ourselves, but for most of us it gets to a point where we’ve neglected ourselves for so long, we feel like it’s not worth it to even try. And the concept of putting yourself out there is terrifying. For me, this happened in the weeks leading up to my NOLS trip, a month-long canoeing and backpacking trip I took in the summer before my senior year of college. I had never canoed before, and I was (am) a ridiculously slow hiker. I had been all excited when I signed up for my trip, but in the days leading up I was so anxiety-ridden by my thoughts of how I would slow everyone down that I almost dropped out. When I got on the plane to head to the Yukon, I was so nervous that I was crying. Not scared of bears, or worried that I wouldn’t be allowed to use toilet paper for 30 days, or afraid of breaking my leg 100 miles from civilization – I was worried that people would think I was slow.

The picture at the top of this page made me start to think about people’s perceptions of what they are capable of, but also of what they are worth. “You are good enough” can mean two very different things. It can mean, stop trying, you are as good as you are going to get. But I hope that if you are reading this and thinking, This sounds like me. I want to be that healthy person, but it’s too late/hard/ridiculous to start now – I hope that “You are good enough” can mean something different. I want it to mean, You are good enough to advocate for yourself, to trust that your friends will be excited to wait for you while you sweat your way up that hill, to get up early and go to yoga even though you can’t touch your toes (I can’t!), and to start believing that you’re worth the effort.

Day 52: Confessions of a Paleo Newbie

So I have been doing this Paleo challenge for a little over 2 weeks, and I have a few confessions to make. For example, it took me several days of going about my normal routine of dousing everything in Sriracha to finally decide to take the time and read the label. And guess what the 2nd ingredient is. Sugar! Well crap. Because I really, really love Sriracha. And even though it’s only 1 gram of sugar per teaspoon (yeah OK that is kind of a lot), how much Sriracha does one person really use at any given time? Probably less than a teaspoon. But still.

But let’s talk about some less obvious things. Like vanilla extract, for example. Vanilla extract has 4g of natural sugar per ounce, which is really not that much, and it’s natural sugar like fruit has. But the bits of it that aren’t vanilla are grain alcohol. Which I think we can assume Paleolithic cavemen didn’t have access to. But, can I still count it as a spice? I mean I’m not taking shots of it or anything, I just think that this delicious blueberry pumpkin protein smoothie would be a lot better with a few drops of vanilla in it. And what about honey? I think it’s pretty safe to assume that cavemen knew what honey was, and ate it when they could find it. Yet message boards across the internet bash it for being high in sugar content. Well, that’s not really the point, is it? (To be honest, I am really asking both of these questions because if I can have just one person tell me that it’s OK to use vanilla and/or honey, I am going to make this amazing looking strawberry cake that is grain-free, gluten-free, and refined sugar-free… So close to being Paleo, yet so far!)

Also, to be honest, I have a super hard time stomaching Progenex. It is SO sweet. Everyone says that protein powder is the one big cheat that most CrossFit folks allow, and they aren’t messing around. I feel like I might as well be drinking condensed milk. And then there’s fish oil. I can’t stand it. It makes my burps taste like fish and I’m not really convinced it’s actually doing anything for me, even though I am taking a ridiculous amount of it every day in the form of I-know-this-is-the-cheap-stuff-but-it-was-on-sale gel caps.

Last but definitely not least, last week at our Paleo sushi dinner, despite having spent a lot of time and effort to come up with rice alternatives, plus having spent probably 20 minutes in the sauce aisle at Whole Foods trying to find a soy sauce alternative that didn’t have soy, guess what we served as an appetizer… Edamame! Aka soy beans. I didn’t even realize it until halfway through someone asked me, “Why can we have soybeans but not soy?” And I said, “We can’t have soybeans!” And she said, “Well, isn’t that what edamame is?” And I proceeded to feel super dumb. Which is always the best feeling.

Day 50: Halfway Progress Photos + Measurements

Today I am SORE. Yesterday’s WOD was 5 rounds of 10 deadlifts, 10 lunges holding a plate overhead, and 10 ball slams. I finished in 9:16, 3rd of 10 in the WOD, but less because I killed it and more due to the fact that I vastly underestimated the amount of weight I needed to use. But, it still felt pretty good. I used 95 lbs for the deadlift, and 15 lbs each for the squat and ball slams. I think I should have probably been using 110-115 for the deadlifts, 20 or 30 for the lunges, and 20 for the slam balls. The Boyfriend did 195 lbs deadlifts and 40 lbs for ball slams, not sure how much for the lunges, but finished at 13:00 because he was working so much harder. I was linking all 10 deadlifts through the last set – not necessarily something that I should have been able to do! But maybe this means that my max deadlift has gone up, which would be exciting. However, it will be weeks before I can test that theory because my butt is so sore today that walking is a struggle. Oh, CrossFit. I also worked that zipline course again on Saturday, so my upper back is pretty exhausted. Both of these facts made tonight’s WOD – which was 250 m run, 40 back squats, 250 m run, 40 push presses, 250 m run, 40 deadlifts – just a total party. As always.

Anyway, today I am posting my official halfway measurements and photos. I know that I just did some progress photos about 10 days ago, but  I have lost a few additional pounds thanks to this Paleo challenge, so I wanted to get the halfway photos in here too. I’m now down a total of about 5-6 lbs since starting this whole ordeal (I try to weigh myself at the same time every day like everyone says to do, but my weight still varies up to a pound on a day-to-day basis), which I think is pretty good since I really didn’t have too much weight to lose in the first place. Also because I have been trying to get rid of that 5 lbs in various ways for about 2 years (since gaining a total of about 10 lbs while traveling and eating extreme amounts of delicious food during a 2-month stay in Argentina), so it’s nice to finally say goodbye to them!

Oh! Also, I think I forgot to mention that last week we did “Helen” again – the Benchmark WOD we did the last night of our Elements class – and not only did I take 52 seconds off my time (from 14:21 to 13:29!), I also used a 30-pound kettlebell instead of a 20-pound one, and 2.5 resistance bands instead of 3 for the pull-ups! The BF added 23 seconds to his time (from 10:32 to 10:55), but went from a 35-pound kettlebell and 1 resistance band to doing the full prescribed WOD with a 55-pound kettlebell and no resistance bands on the pull-ups. What a stud.

Let’s be honest, my photos really don’t look that different. That’s what happens when you use your iPhone to take photos in a room with some pretty harsh lighting. But, my measurements are looking pretty good!

Left: April 1 –  131.5 lbs.Waist 30Hips 35Butt 40R thigh 22L thigh 22.5R calf 15 L calf 15R bicep flexing 11.5L bicep flexing 11.5

Right: May 14 – 126.5 lbs.Waist 28.5Hips 34Butt 38R thigh 21.5L thigh 21.5R calf 15L calf 15R bicep flexing 11.5L bicep flexing 11.5

Day 49: Paleo Sushi

Friday night’s Paleo Sushi dinner was a big success. Not gonna lie, it was kind of an experiment, and I am very relieved that it went as well as it did. We had a total of about 12 people crammed into our 10×16 living room – our plans to play cornhole and/or Koob and hang out in the yard were foiled when it decided to rain the entire evening. But, the sushi was great, and I think it was a successful kick-off to the weekly Paleo dinners that TJ wants to put on during the Paleo challenge!

Paleo Sushi

Ingredients (this will make enough sushi for about 10 people):

Seaweed sheets (you can find these in the Asian section of most grocery stores, and you will probably want 2-3 for each person)

5-6 large sweet potatoes (cooked and mashed)

12 avocados (raw, mashed)

2 large red peppers (raw, sliced in long slivers)

3 large cucumbers (raw, sliced in long slivers)

4 large carrots (raw, shredded)

1 large bunch asparagus (cooked)

~1 lbs. steak (sliced up fajita-style, cooked medium rare – I think we probably could have done 1.5 lbs of this and it would have gotten eaten)

~1 lbs. chicken (sliced up fajita style, cooked)

~1 lbs. shrimp (chopped, cooked)

~1 lbs. bacon (chopped, cooked)

We sliced and cooked most of the ingredients the night before and stored them in tupperware overnight in the fridge. This was especially important for the sweet potatoes, because we used the mashed sweet potato as a substitute for rice, and it seemed a lot more willing to stick together when it was chilled and, frankly, a little old.

You start out by laying the sheet of seaweed out in front of you. Spread a small scoop of mashed sweet potatoes or avocado onto the lower half of the seaweed, then fill it length-wise with whatever ingredients you want. Roll your sushi pretty tight and seal it by sprinkling a few drops of water on the top lip of the seaweed before you finish the roll. This video, starting at about 4:25, gives a pretty good tutorial for rolling your own sushi. This person spreads rice over the whole seaweed sheet, but I found that since sweet potatoes (and especially avocado) is a little mushier than rice, just doing half the roll makes it a little more manageable.

Also, this process is going to be a LOT easier if you have a nice, sharp knife. That seaweed does not go easily into the night.

Unfortunately in the hustle and bustle of trying to host 12 people, I only managed to take one picture of the entire night (the sushi photo pictured above). Oh, and then last night (after an 8 hour shift of running a zipline tour, partially in the rain, at my 2nd job) I fell way off the wagon and ate an entire box of mac & cheese for dinner. And it was way worth it.