4/28/2012

We are at the end of the 2nd week of the Spring Clean-up.  I am doing good.  I believe that I am 100% Paleo - it is possible that some of what I am eating when I go to a restaurant may have hidden ingredients that are not Paleo, but I try to order what I understand to be Paleo.  Since my weight is not dropping, as I want, I must have an issue with portion control.  I haven't found anything in the Paleo books that address portion size so am winging it.

This past week was amazing to me for the following reasons.

1.      PR with dead lifts by 20lbs  255lbs

2.      PR with push press by 15lbs (I forget what the weight was)

3.      PR on squat cleans by 10lbs 83lbs

4.      Actually attended a team work out where what I did affected the team.

I feel really great about all of these things, but doing a team workout was hard to show up for.  It is one of those fears that are left over from childhood; remembering being the last chosen for a team, being laughed at (ridiculed) for being uncoordinated and slow.  I am ok with having the lowest weight, slowest time, being last when it is just me, but I don't want my performance to affect the results of others.  So just showing up for the WOD was a win, my team finished 2nd.

Day 2 - Spring Clean-up

Old habits die hard and new "good" habits take a while to form and gel.  Today, day two is the 2nd day in a row that I was up and ate breakfast at 5:30 A.M.  I seldom ate breakfast that soon after waking and I am amazed at what I am eating for breakfast and that I am eating so much. 


Our culture has trained us to eat sugary cold cereals or grain based cereals like oatmeal, cream of wheat or others along with dairy.  Bacon, eggs, toast, and potatoes are another breakfast that is prevalent in our culture.  Then we get the breakfasts that taste Oh So Good, but I think we all would admit, if we were honest with ourselves, that they were bad for us; doughnuts, toaster strudel, pop tarts.  I have eaten them all even though I knew they were bad for me and not that long ago.


With this Spring Clean-up, I have committed to eating Paleo, with no cheating for 6 weeks.  That means no dairy, no grains and no sugars other than what naturally occurs in fruits and vegetables, honey or pure maple syrup.  It sounds harsh, but it is not there are lots of choices and tasty recipes, and I am expected to eat a lot.


Here is something else that is counter intuitive to what we accept as the proper way to eat.

1. I need to eat fat because fat is needed to help me feel full and our bodies need fat to help prevent the absorption of fat into our bodies and to help the body burn other fat.  Low Fat and No Fat options are not an option as they actually help make me overweight.

2. Instead of chewing food into small pieces before swallowing, I am supposed to swallow larger pieces because it slows down digestion. 


I mentioned earlier that I ate a lot for breakfast; I am going to post my meals for today here:

 5:30 AM - Breakfast - 1 chicken breast and 1 cup of veg. soup.

7:00 AM - Drink - black coffee.

9:30 AM - Snack - 1 cup greens1/2 cup cubed turkey & bacon1/2 cup mushrooms & lemon juice

1:15 PM - Lunch - grilled veggies and chicken in lemon vinaigrette.1 orange

7:45 PM - Dinner - 3 eggs, mushrooms, 1/3 cup sausage, artichoke hearts, sun dried tomato, asparagus, over wild greens. (salad) & 5 pieces of bacon. 1/4 cup dried cherries.

The Metcom that we will be using to test our performance increase in 6 weeks consisted of:

6 min AMRAP
20 Hand release push-ups
10 Calorie row
10 Sprints (10m each)

I had 2 complete rounds and 36 reps, which means I was only 4 10 meter sprints from 3 complete rounds.

Not bad.

The Spring Clean-up started today.

The Spring Clean-up started today.  I clean jerked 113 lbs and weighed in at 225.6 lbs.  42" at belly button.

I started this morning with breakfast at 5:30 A.M. - 1/2 a chicken breast and a cup of vegetable soup.
I wasn't hungry at 8:30 when it was time for 2nd breakfast, so I only ate 20 almonds and 8 walnut halves.  Lunch with a friend at 11:30 salad - spring mix, olive oil, mushrooms, cabbage and 2 meat balls.

2:30 and I had 1 cup of parsnip and sausage soup and an apple.

Worked out at 6 and had a protein drink and then a salad with eggs and veggies and 5 pieces of bacon.

The clean jerk was used as the strength test for the clean-up.  PR at 113 lbs.  I was kind of shaky on it.  This is the kind of competition I like, I am competing against myself.

Spring Clean-up challenge 2012

I am entering into a competition.  It is through my Cross Fit Box.  Box = gym:  It is called the "Spring Clean-up Challenge, see below:

The Spring Clean-up Challenge 2012 will be a multi-faceted challenge lasting 6 weeks. The starting date is Monday, April 16th and the final day is Sunday, May 27th. Participants in the challenge will be able to earn points in several different categories. At the end of the challenge, the top male and top female competitors will take home the grand prizes. The buy-in for the Spring Clean-up Challenge 2012 will be $25. The categories are as follows:

• Compliance: Points awarded for how well you comply with the diet. Food logs will be mandatory.
• Body measurements: Points awarded for decrease in body measurements. Chest and waist measurements for ladies, waist measurements for the fellas.
• Body weight: Points awarded for every lb. of weight lost.
• Strength/Power: Points awarded for every lb. of weight increased on a Clean & Jerk.
• Met-con: Points awarded for every rep increased on a 6 min AMRAP.

Bodyweight and circumference measurements need to be completed no later than Wednesday, April 18th. We will be performing the Clean & Jerk on Monday, April 16th and the AMRAP on Tuesday,  (http://www.kitsapcrossfit.com/ )

I have noticed an improvement in my general fitness as I expressed in this e-mail to the owners of Kitsap Crossfit. 

"While many in the box are geared up for the Cross-fit Games and it seems the WODs are focused on preparation for the games, I would like to relate how the KCF workouts have affected one area of my life. I am a volunteer for Washington Trails Association and for each of the past four years have taken one week for a Volunteer Vacation to work on/repair trails at various locations throughout Washington State.

Working on trails consists of tasks such as digging trenches, shoveling or carrying buckets of gravel, using crosscut saws to cut tress that have fallen across trials, moving boulders out of the way or to a location where it would be used in building a retainer wall using shovels as lever and skid, building bridges, puncheons, and turnpikes. In the past, after a day of this work I would gobble “hiker’s candy” (ibuprofen) for the rest of the week. Each morning it would be hard to get moving because of stiff sore muscles.

This past week was filled with digging trenches, moving driftwood logs, rerouting streams, digging out ditches, carrying 12′X4″x4″ water logged pieces of lumber and filling hundreds of five gallon buckets with stones (35-50lbs) on the beach and (sumo dead) lifting over logs, crawling over these logs and repeating process, then carrying the loaded buckets 50 yards or further to the work area, I found that I was working my muscles to the point of fatigue; but, a few hours after stopping work for the day, I had recovered AND I did not need to use “hiker candy” to relieve the pain or to get moving the next morning. I credit this with the improved fitness since joining KCF."

But then I also go through the workouts and am not seeing the big improvements that I want to see and then right now I don't think that I can do 10 push-ups, when a month ago I was able to do about 30.  Part of that is from the arm injury, or bicep tendonitis which caused me to lose two weeks at the box.  But, onward and upwards.

I have returned from my week long volunteer vacation that is mentioned above with a new fire and enthusiasm for working out.  I will push myself to do a little more each time. 

Now it is time to focus on the Clean-up challenge.