200 CONTINUED

Friday was my 200th Post which for me was an accomplishment but this morning I FINALLY broke through my Deadlift plateau of 185lbs! If you follow me on the twitter (77txgrl) or are a friend of mine on FB then you know that I hit the MAGICAL (for me) 200lb MARK! Bittersweet – because I feel like I should have hit that number months ago but still stoked that I finally made some gains!

As far as the rest of the BOOM Box morning. Here goes it:
Skill/Strength: 2, 2, 2 @ 95% of 1RM Back Squat
I’ve been feeling pretty strong lately, which is a GOOD thing because normally I feel weak. After last weeks accidental PR on Back Squat, I made sure I did my math right using the CORRECT 1RM! This put me at 137lbs. So I decided I would work up to 135lbs and do 1 set of 2 at that weight, then move up to 140lbs and finish out with that. My second set was the most difficult but I really fought for it. My last set was a little easier but my form started giving out. I have a hard time keeping my chest up, I suppose that it’s not hard, I just don’t REALIZE I’m letting my chest fall forward. Breath, knees out, etc, etc. CHEST UP! Some days I’m on it, some days I lack. Overall I felt good.

11/5/12 WOD

More Strength: 1,1,1,1,1 Press (15 minutes) and 1,1,1,1,1 Deadlift (15 minutes)
The goal here is to start heavy, after warming up of course. So ideally Coach wanted us to start our first rep at 90% of our 1RM and work past our 1RM in hopes of a PR. My shoulders have been my weakness lately and I wasn’t sure where I would go. I only have a 70lb Press so I started at 60lbs and decided I would work up 5lbs at a time. Got to 70lbs and felt good, moved to 75lbs and failed. Coach had me try to move more quick like when approaching bar and I did for my last set but a big NO GO for 75lbs. Next time I will get that PR!

Moving on to DL I was hesitant. I knew I had to start heavy but I always hit 185lbs and don’t ever go up from there. So I started at 165, moved on to 175, made another jump to 185, then got gun shy. I baby stepped to 190 and I did it! Now where do I go? Coach saw me debating and said let’s go for it, jump up to 200lbs. Well HOLY CRAPOLA I pulled it off the ground and it was ALMOST EASY! It wasn’t really EASY but it wasn’t as hard as I though it was going to be!!! That being my 5th rep I stopped but looking back I wish I had been more aggressive. But who doesn’t wish for more looking back, I just didn’t want to be disappointed AGAIN. I would have been perfectly happy at 190lbs but 200lbs was the icing on the cake for a Monday!

A great day at the BOOM Box after a weekend of laziness and poor eating. And I wasted a Pefectly Cooked Pumpkin as well by doing NOTHING. Ah well, it was nice to get some sleep, naps and comfort foods. Seriously time to kick myself in the ASS and get serious about the clean eating.

On a different personal note… Does anyone have good fundraising ideas or contributions to help support my kids football team getting to the National Championships? I’ve never been good at fundraising but the team is doing well in playoffs. They need money to travel. It’s not cheap and I’m not rich. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great MONDAY folks! Be Awesome!!!!

200!

I’ve made it to 200 posts. It’s not monumental I know but for me it’s pretty cool. I started blogging almost a year ago and with my track record of starting things and not following through I wasn’t certain I’d keep it up. But alas I have! I started out pretty much doing it for me and documenting my workouts, food, etc. Also hoping some friends, acquaintances or even random strangers would be inspired to find the Healthy Balance in their life. As time went on and people, REAL people, started reading and giving me some blog love and feedback. It was great and this blog became more than just my public diary.

I’m a small speck of dust in the grand scheme of life but I’m not unlike thousands of other folks out there who just live an ordinary life that’s chock full of kids, events, work, struggling, etc. I have nothing unique to offer the world. I’m not saving lives, starting non profits, writing books, or even traveling the world trying to bring water to 3rd world countries. I don’t have a serious life threatening disease or sickness. I don’t have a special story. I’m a mom, who has struggled with weight loss and single parenting. After I used every excuse (no money, no babysitter, no time, plus whatever else you can imagine) in the book as to why I couldn’t work out or eat healthy I finally said enough is enough. It’s sad that it took my mother’s funeral to put me in that place. I wasn’t morbidly obese or on the verge of homelessness but I wasn’t in a good place. Having to shop for “funeral” clothes and not finding anything that fits just flat out made me cry. Is that petty and ridiculous? Probably so but that’s sparked a change in me. It’d be nice if people didn’t have to get to a “low” to realize they need change. It took me 9 months after I chose to change to realize I should be writing down my journey. Again, I’m not changing the world I KNOW this. Just hoping to be relatable. I always used to get so angry at shows like the BIGGEST LOSER or EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER. Not that I didn’t like them or that they weren’t tear jerking but why can’t there be the “I’m 30-50 lbs overweight and I need help” show? Why can’t there be a “I do the right thing, I’m employed, I pay my bills but I can’t afford to fix my car/house/etc, so can you help me fix the hole in my roof” show. Well because that’s BORING, it doesn’t make good TV. So there’s no one to help you but you. Drop the excuses and just do something, anything to take that step towards getting physically active and towards eating healthy.

Hopefully in this blog you have found inspiration, comic relief and understanding that we all have great characteristics that makes us AWESOME, that we all have faults, we all have success and we all failure. I hope you stick around for the next year and I hope that I can step up this blog somehow. Not sure how I plan to do that, but that is a goal. Cause truthfully I would like to be doing more to motivate and help people. But at this point my kids are my priority!

In other news, I chose to take today as my REST day because I was tired. Believe you me, I needed sleep. I was passed out before 10 and slept through alarms that went off later than my normal BOOM Box alarm. Good news is that I got a FULL 8 hours of sleep! Amazing! There isn’t a Community WOD tomorrow but I may take the time to get some sprints in, make the kids do them with me too! We’ll see!

And I’ve put this off but not any longer. A couple of weeks ago I was given the “Very Inspiring Blogger Award” by Sam over at Life is Bangin’. This award entails giving your readers some insight into you, and nominating others to do the same. While this award is ever-changing, depending on whose site you are nominated from, I have been presented with the task of listing 7 things about myself, then nominating 15 fellow blogs to do the same. Sam thought 15 was a bit excessive, and it is to me too, so I went with less.

7 things about me

1. If you know me you know this. I have 3 BOYS. They are my world. They keep me insane, happy, crazed, young, and happy.

2. I have a boyfriend who chooses to stay involved in our insane world and does his best to be there for all of us. Although right now his best is **coughcough–eating junk foods_coughcough* which doesn’t help me! Jokes, it’s not his fault just not helping!

3. I have an insane addiction to CrossFit but you should gather that already. I’ve worked out to many programs, dvds, classes, etc. CrossFit is my crack!

4. I’m a graphic designer in the real world.

5. I love animals and would own a zoo if I could.

6. I wish I could be a Rock Star. I love to rock out to RockBand but would never take my non singing skills public.

7. I miss my mom.

I was supposed to pay it forward and give the award to blogs I love. Well I’ve kept my blog world to a minimum and always give them shout outs… such as Martha, Jenn, Sam, CultFit, and Christen. I’ve delayed the pay it forwad to give me time to find new people to include in my blogosphere. I’ve essentially been stalking other blogs, not really “following” them officially but taking peeks here and there and liking what their up to. So check these folks out:

http://ieatdrinkwod.com/

http://crossfitathomeblog.wordpress.com/

http://logoffandgorun.wordpress.com/

http://imperfectreason.wordpress.com/

http://squatsandstilettos.wordpress.com/

http://findmymotivation.com/
Have a great weekend y’all! And here’s a little PSA: It’s time for a CHANGE. TIME CHANGE that is – FALL BACK! Don’t forget to be AWESOME!

Struggling Today

Having Halloween in the middle of the week is tough on the brain. So much to do and it’s only the middle of the week! Now I feel like it’s FRIDAY or even Saturday and it’s only Thursday. Sorry Thursday for giving you the bad rap today but it’s true. And to top it off it’s NOVEMBER! So not ready for the year to be over. The countdown is on! At least I got up on time for the BOOM Box, my shoulders were trying to keep me in bed but I just had to say NO to sleeping in and YES to getting my ass kicked.

11/1/12 WOD
Sorry for the blurriness, it was light ink, bad lighting, etc.

MetCon:There was no Skill/Strength portion to today just an extra long warm up and mobility work. But there was a 16 minute AMRAP of 20 lunges and 20 Knee Hugs with a 100 Double Under buy in. I got those DU just fine or so I thought! My rope went bezerko. Only one handle was spinning properly and the other one would turn but felt like it was building up tension because it was all jacked up. It was bad. I was only knocking out 10-15 in a row. Took me almost 3 minutes maybe more to finish. I was not happy. Move on to lunges. I went as fast as I could for each round I did but I felt like that wasn’t going to cut it for the whiteboard standings. Knee Hugs are what dragged me down most. My right hip was on fire and every time I extended my legs out it was super uncomfortable. I’d start out with 6-10 reps each go and then drag way down to 1-2 reps at a time. Just an overall crappy performance. Final: 7 rounds, 20 Lunges, 11 Knee Hugs

Definitely not me and my abs but this was the best image sequence I could find visually describing Knee Hugs.

FOOD REPORT: Instead of making something with the PUMPKIN that is now 3 days old in my fridge I ended up helping one of my kiddos with his school project. So I still got NOTHIN’!

Another short post, who have I become? I hope everyone doesn’t stuff their face on Halloween candy for the next few days. MODERATION folks. Thanks all of you for the Costume love, I did win BEST Costume at work! Woooo! I guess that’s it for today. Be AWESOME!