Food

I’ll Take What I Can Get/Earn!

Saw this on Facebook yesterday... Fits me perfectly for the week!

So I had the big ol FAIL yesterday with the Dead Lift 1RM. It was only a fail cause I didn’t PR which what I was hoping for but it wasn’t a fail in general. At least I’m not getting worse right?

4/24/12 WOD

Well today was 1RM for Strict Press. And I PR’d today at 70lbs! It’s a small victory but I’ve earned it and I’ll take it. Mentally I get disappointed because I want bigger gains but that’s something I have to come to terms with…. Growth is growth and I’m just growing slowly. Let me tell you that 70lb press was UGLY! My poor right shoulder just doesn’t want to work for me. My left shoulder did all the work and at the last umph the right arm got up there. I felt like I had a broken wing or something. I’m happy that I managed to muscle it up, THANK GOODNESS or I might have cried right then and there! If I have to baby step my PRs by 5’s then so be it. That’s the way I’ll have to roll and one day I’ll be okay with it 🙂 But for now I WANT MORE! But I also need new body parts with that more!

The MetCon was a 10minute AMRAP of PISTOLS and SUMO DEAD LIFT HIGH PULLS (SDLHP). The goal was to add 2 to each round and do as many as possible. We started with 2 pistols, 2 SDLHP, 4 pistols, 4 SDLHP, etc… With the pistols it was an overall so when we get to 6 pistols… it’s 3 on each leg, 8 pistols – 4 on each leg. Make sense? Well it did to me until I started…hahaha. So I managed to do 1 pistol on each leg, then 2 pistols on each leg then I just got dumb or something and did 6 pistols on each leg, 8 pistols on each leg and 10 pistols on each leg. DOH! WOW who does that? This girl… right here! I did double the work on one of my least favorite movements. So in 10 minutes I got through the 10’s and 8 extra pistols. It was only last round that I realized what I had done. Ah well. It is what it is….at least I got some good work in on those pistols. And I did get a little better as the time went on. I was on the box so it wasn’t RX but I did get my right leg working a bit better than it has been. My left leg and super painful IT band were a little more well behaved than they have been in the past. I never got a really GREAT pistol on the left side but I got some decent ones.

Tomorrow will be a nice day of rest although parts of me wants to go into the box just to get in another attempt at my 1RM Dead Lift!

In other news I’ve decided I’m going to do the The 21-Day Sugar Detox. I’ve been honest with y’all when I’ve had bad foods and it’s crazy how much I have been craving those “bad” foods! So I try to make “healthy” sweet treats and that’s SOOOO NOT THE WAY to go!  I know this and always have but I have had good restraint up until about the last 2 months and I’m just a big ol slacker. I’ve still been eating pretty good but I think I’m sabotaging myself lately. Really, I’m a fat kid on the inside and I like my sweeties! Hopefully going on the sugar detox will get me back on the straight and narrow. Don’t get me wrong I’ll still make the treats but eat them as they are intended…. every now and then TREATS, not a daily/nightly all the time snack :/ I plan on starting May 1. I’ll keep you posted on if I stick to this goal and how it goes. Check it out. Let me know if you want to start with me. I need some buddies!

Alright y’all have a great Tuesday. GO RANGERS! I know they lost last night but I’m confident they’ll come right back and take the series! I got this neato sight as I was driving home. It’s like digital sky writing. I’ve never seen such in person. Very cool and I’m a nerd I know 🙂

 

Food Friday – Paleo-liscious Brownies!

GLUTEN FREE EASY TO BAKE GOODNESS!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve tried a new recipe but I finally made some brownies that I found on Elana’s Pantry and I HEART THEM! As do the kids and some co-workers. Well I don’t know if the co-workers LOVE them but I’ve heard they do like them. The kids were like oooh you can definitely send these for school treats 🙂

I don’t have preparation pics because I was doing a gazillion other things and forgot! But it’s not a lot of steps and it takes very few ingredients. http://www.elanaspantry.com/brownies/

  1. In a large bowl, blend almond butter until smooth with a hand blender
  2. Blend in eggs, then blend in agave and vanilla
  3. Blend in cacao, salt and baking soda, then fold in chocolate chips
  4. Grease a 9×13 inch Pyrex baking dish
  5. Pour batter into dish
  6. Bake at 325° for 35-40 minutes

Makes about 24 brownies

It was a good treat for sure and I’m thinking I’ll make more this weekend and maybe share with the BOOM Box Beasts. Everyone loves treats 🙂 I have two WOD wrap-ups for y’all and they were not fun at all!

Yesterdays WOD didn’t seem to intimidating. I didn’t doubt it would be HARD but I surely didn’t expect it to nearly KILL ME! The skill/strength was 3 rounds of MAX REP KETTLEBELL PRESS! I’m a wuss I know this so bare with me. The KB’s bruise my forearms, bruise my deltoids and are awkward to hold! I managed to get 17 reps my first round on each arm at 25lbs and then 15 reps for a second round. I moved up to the 1 POOD KB for the last round and got 13 reps each arm. I should have moved up on the 2nd round but I was slightly SCARED of the 1 POOD (Russian for about 35lbs).

4/12/12 WOD OF DEATH!

Next was KB swings and Wall Walks. 10-1, so 10 KB swings, 10 Wall Walks, 9 KB Swings, 9 Wall Walks, etc. I did fairly well with the KB swings being 1 POOD swings. And the wall walks, although they look easy, they quickly tax your shoulders and for me personally brought on DIZZINESS fast! Not to mention my core is about as sore as ever. It hurts to take deep breaths. :/ Coach set a standard of getting your nose to the wall and to come down with restraint and not flailing around. I managed to get my nose to the wall each time and keep control but it was not easy. There was a 20 minute cap and I only managed to work my way down to 4 KB swings. With 20 seconds left there was no way I was getting 4 wall walks. It was disappointing and I was dying but I never thought it would hurt so bad! Hahaha. I lived and when I meet those beasts again, I’ll cry! Jokes, sorta. Hopefully I’ll be better at them!

Not our Box but as you can see you gotta get vertical on the wall AND touch your nose to the wall! WoOOOWEeeEEE! It's not easy!

Today’s happy day o’ fun was Skill/Strength: Dead Lifts, 3, 3, 3+1. Coach has been making us do math in the mornings. I don’t know if for punishment or his own amusement but I had to take 95% of my Max add 20lbs then take 80%, 85% and 90% of that. This results in what weight I should do each round of lifts. This equaled to 155lbs, 165lbs and 175lbs. I managed to bust out 8 reps on my last go. Not bad! At least to me not bad 🙂

4/13/12 WOD

The MetCon was a joy all in itself: RUN 800m, do 40 burpees (don’t die), RUN 400m, do 20 burpees (don’t puke) and RUN 200m, do 10 burpees (pray for survival). I totally killed this 800m RUN compared to Tuesdays run by a whole 3 seconds! LOL. It’s true. Then the 40 burpees came. I did 20 fairly well. I just paced them out nicely but the last 20 sucked. I didn’t stop, just didn’t go fast enough I suppose. Who knows. I couldn’t get a good deep breath to save my life! The 400 had to of been slow. I stopped looking at the clock. The set of 20 burpees was much better than the 40 but I was spent from the running. Fortunately by the time you get to the 200m run you know it’s almost done. I couldn’t breathe very well at all this morning but I was real happy to finish the last round of 10 burpees! Time: 13:42. I’m dead for the weekend. My body hates me!So hopefully I’ll get some nice recovery. Another weekend full of baseball for us with a forecast of rain 😦 Lets hope it waits till Sunday!

Have a FABULOUS FRIDAY the 13th! Make some brownies, they are good!

 

WHY YES IT IS FRIDAY!


It’s Good Friday, Opening Day, Resurrection Sunday Weekend & Kids Baseball Weekend! So much going on! We will be busy bees indeed 🙂

So I may be blogging but I fell off course by forgetting to take a picture of the whiteboard today! DARN IT! I was so beat down I literally forgot.

Skill/Strength was RING ROWS, 3 sets of max reps. Key to a successful rep is having your hands touch your chest. This is not easy. My max reps were weak! In the picture below you will notice this guy has his feet on a step ladder thing. We just had our feet fully extended but on the ground. If you couldn’t execute the movement with your legs straight then you brought your feet under you.

And for the oh so wonderful MetCon – DEATH BY CLEAN AND JERK! The RXd weight was 95lbs. I tried that and it didn’t work out so well. So I went with 75 lbs. I felt so sad about not finishing my week off RXd! Mon/Tue and Thurs were all RX workouts for me. Ah well I think the 7789707 pushups I did yesterday did me in. I managed to complete 7 full rounds before the death got me. I’m definitely feeling the hurt from yesterday and this morning!

Also I finally got those lamb riblets cooked up. They were alright I suppose. The flavor was there but they were still a little tough to eat. Overall it wasn’t a FAIL just not great success.


Hope y’all have a super duper weekend!

123 Deficit Pushups! I am tired!

Hello Hello, Welcome back to hopefully your regularly scheduled programming of I DRANK THE CROSSFIT KOOLAID Blog. hehehe. I hope I’m not MIA for a week again anytime soon with the exception of vacations or whatever 🙂 I say VACATIONS (plural) as if that ever happens!

Today’s WOD was a long killer AMRAP. 18 minutes of 15 Deficit Pushups and a 200m run. EIGHTEEN MINUTES! Argh!!! PushUPs! Double Argh!!! I was struggling after about 3 rounds. Thank goodness for the RUN! Hahhaha, YES I was grateful for the running. My arms didn’t know what to do cause they were dying but they didn’t have to carry me for 200m so it was A-OK! It was about round 5 where I was catching up to a couple of the guys. Coach was like “SOMEBODY BETTER PULL AHEAD on this run”. I was told during the run he was talking to me! Hehehe, so I did pull ahead for a hot minute but I did not keep the lead when it came back down to pushups. I kept trying to do 5 pushups at a time, which worked till rounds 7 and 8. Final Count 8 rounds 3 pushups for a total of 123 Pushups and 1 mile of running… wooooooo. I don’t know how I stood up against the rest of the day. Tomorrow the whiteboard will tell. I hope I’m at least mid to upper pack. It was not easy!

Our Skill Strength was Back Squats. 5, 5, 5+ My hip was killing me and the weight felt SUPER heavy today. I only got 3 on my 5+. That’s not supposed to happen but it did. I bottomed out. 😦 Poor Poor Petri I know. Ah well.

Also, last night I prepped some Lamb Riblets … HOPEFULLY they will come out good tonight. They’ve been marinating all night and all day today. I’ll let you know. I failed to take pics of me prepping the food but hopefully I’ll have a good finished meal shot! Wish me luck.

Hope everyone has been enjoying their day. See ya.

Holy Tornadoes Batman! And other stuff!

So I know I’ve been Slack Action Jackson as of late and I’m sorry. Life has consumed me and I’ve neglected my blogging. Please still love me, Please! Heheheh. K or don’t. It’s fine by me.

Let me first tell you, North Texas got hit pretty hard with some crazy weather … tornadoes, hail, and rain – oh my! All jokes aside, I can report from my end that we are all safe and I pray that all those affected will come out of this craziness just fine. My home was narrowly missed as were the kid’s schools, thank GOD! I don’t know what I’d do without my family!!! There was so much damage in my neck of the woods. It makes my heart sad for all those that have to deal with this tragedy. Fortunately there were not any fatalities.

So now that my unofficial news reporting is over I just have a little rant for y’all and then I’ll kinda sorta recap the past several days of the BOOM BOX.

Listen up y’all – This is not a new rant, just extended from previous ones …. QUIT saying you need to start working out or eating healthy and then just go right on and eat junk and not move at all!

Seriously?!? WTH is wrong in your noggin? Does it feel good to SAY that you need to get on top of it? Does it really? Do you feel better after you say that then eat a double cheeseburger or a lean cuisine and soda (maybe even diet soda). I see and hear it everyday. It’s not good, I want to help you all, but I know I can’t. It has to come from within you. NO matter how bad I want good health for folks I can’t make you do it. I’m not perfect. I had my junkfilled haze just recently and it took a few days to get back on the straight and narrow.

But I will tell you, just that little bit of insanity from my end ruined my world. Ruined my stomach, ruined my head, ruined my overall self. I’m still recovering. It’s not good folks. I can’t imagine feeling like that day in and day out. I know I was like that a year ago and I seriously can’t recall feeling physically out of wack but I’m sure I did and I just didn’t realize it was a direct result of my everyday food intake. CRAP! mixed with healthy stuff but in general CRAP none the less! So please if y’all really want to do something then DO IT! Just give it a go for 30 days, then plan yourself a cheat day. But at least give it a go for more than 7 days before you treat yourself. Yes some of you may go bonkers without a “cheat” day but don’t try and convince yourself 2 days in that you need that office cookie or that handful of M&M’s. It’s not helping you at all! And get moving, even if it’s walking up and down your street. You don’t have to be a die hard worker outer bee. You need to eat right, eat clean…. that’s 80% of it folks. Not 10% or 20%. Nutrition is 80%!!!!! Thanks for listening. And sorry for the ramble. I just see it day in and day out and it just infuriates me. I want to shake people sometimes … but I can’t without fear of getting smacked or yelled at, hehehe!

ANYWAYS!!! So the last time I shared my WODs with you was Tuesday last week!!! Wow I am a slacker 😀

So here goes my wrap up. It will be short and sweet I hope.

3/29/2012

Skill/Strength – Band Dead Lifts 12 sets of 3. I can’t recall the weight but it was fairly light maybe 75lbs. Not 100% sure. But what you do is drape a mobility band over the top of the bar and let it rest on the ground. You then step on the band to add resistance and knock out 3 reps quicklike.

It took a couple of sets before I felt somewhat comfortable doing them. It is definitely a unique feeling and takes some core strength to stabilize yourself. After the 12 sets, we did one set without the bands. HOLY MOLY it was sooo weird and you feel crazy strong and really feel like you execute the lift properly no questions asked.

MetCon – Yes COACH brought up Toes to Bar. Even though he knows we had enough from the Open, he still had to bust those bad boys out. Well I could only manage to get 3 TTB in so I switched to Knees to Elbows for a workout instead of just struggling. All week had been upper body and I think this day I was just tired. I only managed to get 4 full rounds in and almost got 5 round completed. I know I worked, I just hate that bar! On a side note, Box Jumps at 20″ felt really nice. I finally feel like I have some spring in my legs, NOT MUCH mind you, but some 🙂

3/30/2012

Skill/Strength – Back Squat Deload. This is something I like to see. We aren’t trying to go for max weight here or crazy progressions. We are putting in work but it’s a nice “rest” if you will.

MetCon – TEAM WOD. Sometimes I dread these and sometimes I enjoy them. This was one that I was happy to share the workload. We had the option of doing 5 Muscle UPs (hhahahha), 15 Chest to Bar (hahahahhahah) or 30 Chin Ups. Well our team consisted of 3 of us who can not do pullups at all. So we used bands to help us and had no choice but to pick chin ups. After Chin Ups we could do 5 Handstand PushUps (hahahah), 15 Box HSPU OR 30 Hand Release Pushups. Well one of team mates had neck issues that prevented her to do the BOX HSPUs so we went with the 30 pushups. And we finish off the round with 90 Air Squats. So us ladies just split the load up evenly and we finished in 16:43! Go US! It was fun and a beating all at the same time.

4/2/2012

Skill/Strength – Snatch Practice. It’s always good to practice SNATCH! It’s just such a complicated movement. We only worked with PVC and the bar. We did not add any weight but just going through the motions and working up to a full snatch is work.

MetCon – RUNNING! UGH! I almost stayed in bed after I checked the website. I despise running and this was designed to “sprint” the distances. I mean I can’t SPRINT 800m, but it’s the idea of pushing hard right? Our distance is unofficial so don’t think I’m super BEAST for getting a time of 2:32. The :24 was for the “200”, which was probably less. I think I can sprint a 100 yds in 17/18 seconds so ya. There ya have it. We rested 1 minute after each run. I hate running!

4/3/2012

Skill Strength – Deadlifts 5, 5, 5+ We had to do math and it’s hard to do at 5am. I can’t recall our weights, but I don know on my last round I just went 5. I didn’t mean to put the bar down, I just wasn’t using my brain. I had at least 2 more in me. So we’ll just go with I would have done 7 reps on my last round! Sound good? OK GREAT!

MetCon – 5 rounds of 30 sec plank, 1:00 of Thrusters and 1:00 rest. The idea was to match your max thruster count each round. Add up your rounds and voila that’s your score for the day. I managed a 10, 10, 11, 8, and 10 giving me a total of 49 @ 65lbs. Thrusters are not easy. I seriously pushed my butt off. I know I did what appeared to be a lot of standing around but I just was so out of breath and believe me .. just out of it. I don’t think I could have done more in a minute. I did know I had to push but when my push was out I dropped the bar. It’s hard to WANT to get it back up. It’s hard to breathe too! I feel I finished strong. Good MetCon!

And that’s a wrap for the WODs. I’ll close with some food shots.

If you want a quick meal that  you can partially prep over the weekend then try some sweet potato hash. I just shred up 2-3 sweet potatoes and put them in a storage container and keep in fridge. Each morning I take a handful of my shredded yumminess and saute it in one teaspoon of coconut oil. Top it with 2 fried eggs. I might add some bacon or fruit. Easy breezy and delicious!

Sweet Potato Hash topped with Fried Eggs!

And this was my lunch today. Sauteed shredded zucchini with meat sauce, 3 oz of steak and some steamed broccoli. It was  great filling lunch 🙂

Steak, Broccoli and Shredded Zucchinni topped with meat sauce 🙂

Happy Hump Day Folks! Make it great!

WTH was I thinking? PiZza?!?!?!

I will begin with my Paleo FAIL-EO first then bounce all around from that point! It all began Saturday after the Boom Beasts finished the 12.5 WOD. We all go to Texas Roadhouse for a celebratory CrossFit Games Open IS OVER lunch. I know Ernie and Coach are going to partake in badness and I truly thought I would hold strong.

That lasted 2 minutes maybe 3 minutes. As soon as HOT ROLLS hit the table I was out for the count. Kudos to Jess and Annette for holding strong! But that wasn’t the end of my indulgences. I went on to have pizza at BJs Brewhouse later that day.

And even later had chips and ranch dip as well… and er uhmmm cookies! I was indeed trying to put myself into a food induced coma. It was bad, all sorts of bad and it all left me with an upset stomach and took me out cold. It was like passing out from drinking too much. And let me tell you alcohol did cross our mind but we held back. Over a year of no booze, we didn’t cross that line! Besides having a stomach ache, I was extra bloated and heavy feeling even up till today. It’s not worth it people. I don’t know why I even tried. I thought I learned my lesson on Christmas, apparently I did not. Was it good? Ya it was good. Was it GREAT? Not really. Do I regret? At first I didn’t but today I really do. But I feel better getting it out there. It’s done, It’s over and it’s time to eat clean and start over!

Now that confession time is over I want to talk about Hunger Games. After days of deciding if I should take my 12 year old to the midnight premiere of Hunger Games I finally bit the bullet and bought the tickets. We arrived at 9pm to an already seated theater with all the good seat disappearing. Good thing we got there at 9 (thanks Ernie). I had planned on going at 10 and we would have had crappy seats. I’m not going to give a movie review because well I’m not a movie critic. I read the books and I thought the movie did the books justice. I’ve read and heard mixed reviews. If anyone thinks a movie can catch all the detail of a book they will surely always be disappointed. There’s not enough time to explain the details the book will have to offer. I thought they did great and I enjoyed every minute of the movie! Go watch it! But first read the books.

With me being an old maid and not getting home till 3am I wasn’t about to pretend to go to my 5 am workout or even go to work. So I took kids to school, came back home, and took a nap. I arranged to get my WOD in at 1pm which was GREAT! I wish I could hit up the box at 1 in the afternoon all the time. I forgot to take a picture of the board because I wasn’t in my normal routine. I just plain ol forgot. We weren’t putting our efforts on the board anyways so maybe that’s why I really forgot! Hehe. It was TABATA of craziness though. So we had to do 4 rounds of burpees. What does that mean? 20 seconds of burpees, 10 sec rest, 20 seconds on, 10 sec rest. Then we moved on to 4 rounds on the AIRDYNE bike. If you’ve never had the privilege of working on this little GEM of equipment let me tell you IT SUCKS! It burns, it hurts, I had not very nice names for the airdyne. And in the 2 minutes I had to endure it I barely burned 31 calories. That was the goal 30 calories in the 2 minutes. It sucked! We then moved onto ROWING… as if my body isn’t dead already. I missed out on the calorie mark we were supposed to hit till after I did my turn. I missed it by 1 calorie! I’ll take it in my extra calorie on the bike. And then it was onto to 4 rounds of DU’s. My first go was 28 and it was downhill from there. My legs had no bounce. So in our little 8 minutes of hell we got a lot of work in. It was good and hell I had the rest of the day off. Can’t really be complaining now can I? 😀

That evening it was baseball time for us. Two kids playing at the same time – Different fields. We had one team lose and the other team win to move on in the tournament. So instead of hitting my Saturday morning workouts I was at the baseball fields. Our first year hodge podge team pulled off a win and they now play in the championship game tomorrow night! WOOOHOOOO, GO CUBS! I have to boast a little bit about Justice as he held his composure Friday night and lasted 4 innings pitching allowing only 2 runs. It was awesomeness. I’m a proud mama for sure!

So with all the busy and all the bad eating that leaves me to today. MONDAY morning WOD at the BOOM BOX! Front Squat 1 RM and 5 rounds of 12 Deadlifts and 6 Front Squats with weight that is 50% of our Front Squat 1 RM. Make sense? I hope so!

3/26/12 WOD

If we’ve done a front squat max then I failed to record it and/or I have forgotten. So we started from scratch. Worked my way up to 135lbs. I failed at 140 and I feel that somewhere inside of me I may have been able to get that weight up I just sat at the bottom instead of exploding up. I didn’t try again as we get pressed for time, maybe with some oly shoes I would have pulled it off! Hehe, who knows. I truly do think I got to 135 due to the fact that I finally ordered STRENGTH WRAPS as suggested by a wonderful CrossFit buddy. Thanks Sally! THESE BAD BOYS are awesome and NOT ONCE did I feel pain in my wrists! I suggest if you have any wrist issues that you get some ASAP! I have yet to test them out with OHS or snatch but just helping in the front squat changed my world. I do really hope that they help in my other lifts. It’s such a simple idea using those wraps and makes a world of difference. LOVE THEM! HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM! www.strengthwraps.com

Onto the MetCon. Using half the weight of our Front Squat seemed fairly doable. I have learned that it will never be easy but 70lbs at DL and front squat is doable, right? The catch was DON’T drop the bar or you owe 3 burpees right then and there. SO now added pressure! ARGH! Dropping the bar between lifts can’t happen, will I survive? WHY YES, YES I WILL! I didn’t drop that bar once! I held onto it even though I badly wanted to let go. By the 5th round noises were coming out of me that would scare babies and the elderly. But I finished, NO BURPEES – Time 5:11! It felt good to not have sore wrists and to finish strongly!

Post MetCon I worked on pull ups and DUs. I’m bound and determined to get that damn pull up! I will get it and I will get it soon.

Happy Happy Monday! Hope you have a great start to your week! And thanks for sticking with me to till the end of this long and random post 🙂

Fun Friday and TREATS!

So I half lied because not all of this morning was a “fun” Friday at the BOOM Box in regards to working out. Today my body was just exhausted and the COLD weather decided to remind us it’s not spring just yet!

3/9/12 WOD

Back Squats and TABATA were on the whiteboard menu today. I was all fine and dandy to take it all on but my damn IT BAND on my left leg which has been pretty quiet and pain free was being WONKY this morning. I blame it on the cold because I haven’t had any problems in a few months. So I couldn’t pull of the weights I need to with Back Squats. I was kind of sad because I know I’ve gotten stronger and today I felt so weak. In the MetCon we had to do jumping lunges and well I could only half ass do those as well. My left knee wasn’t gonna make it to the ground each time. I still worked and TABATAs are always a beating so have no fear, I still got a workout! We did a round of jumping lunges, a round of flutter kicks and the round that counted was DEFICIT Pushups. Both hands are on plates and you go down till your chest hits the ground before you come back up. NO FUN my friends, NO FUN AT ALL. My arms are DEAD from yesterday and now we have to kill them with pushups. I opted out of RX and went to my knees because I’m lame like that. I struggled with those as well 😦 We had to take the lowest amount we completed in the 8 ROUNDs that we completed! Come on NOW. How sucky! My count dropped, and dropped and dropped some more. So after starting out with 13 in 20 seconds, I finished with 8 in 20 seconds. Today was a WEAKSAUCE DAY. Hopefully tomorrow and next week are better 🙂

It's kind of sad looking because 1. I'm no photographer and 2. I'm no frosting professional but it is TASTY!

Now for the FUN part of Friday! Today was Coach’s birthday so I decided to try out a new recipe that I found on Elana’s Pantry website. I test baked and tasted on Wednesday. My first round were a little overcooked. Not bad but not super great. Last nights batches were right on target! These are gluten free and paleo (well if you don’t eat dairy, don’t eat the whipped cream and if you do eat dairy it’s ORGANIC VALLEY so it’s good stuff).

I tripled the recipe for 2 dozen, YUMMO! Coconut Flour, Eggs, Agave, Celtic Sea Salt, Arrowroot Starch, Vanilla, Baking Soda and STRAWBERRIES!

I'm sure if you don't care for strawberries, any berry would do just fine 🙂

Adding the strawberries into the mix.

I'd be happy eating them raw! Hehe, I'm a weirdo, I know.

Voila, Ready to go to the BOOM Box!

The recipe makes 8 cupcakes so I tripled the ingredients to get a whopping 2 dozen to share with the BOOM Box BEASTS! These are kid approved and NON HEALTHY/PALEO eating people approved! One of our 5am guys doesn’t eat anything remotely healthy (or so he claims) enjoyed them so it was great to see that he wanted a dozen for himself! They are tasty and quick to make. The only thing to me was they were more “muffiny” than cupcakey. Which is fine by me. I enjoyed them very much but I just want to be clear so if you make them you can let me know if you felt the same way or if I just plain ol suck at baking them.

You can find the recipe here: http://www.elanaspantry.com/strawberry-cupcakes/

Mine weren’t as BEAUTIFUL as hers are on her site but ah well. I’m a work in progress!

I also made (as suggested) Whipped Cream Frosting. I’m not much of a baker so I have never made my own whipped cream. AND I WISH I HAD KNOWN/LEARNED SOONER on how easy it is to make! To frost 8 cupcakes all you need is 2 TBS of Agave Nectar and 1/2 Cup of Heavy Whipping Cream! I used Organic Valley Heavy Whipping Cream. I’m new to this so to me it was amazing how simple and easy it is to make. You put it in a deep bowl and get a hand mixer and mix away until you get whipped cream. Voila! Done SON! I was quite happy. My kids noted it wasn’t necessary to add whip cream to the cupcakes, they were good as is. I was really surprised. They did like the whipped cream but that’s how great they are, they don’t need the added sweetness 🙂

Anyhow. Hope your Friday turns out to be fun! Even if you have to do something crazy and obnoxious to make someone smile. Make someone else’s day fun too and yours is bound to be super FUN! I know enough with the word FUN! Have a great weekend folks!

ROCKIN IT OUT 1 YEAR LATER!

I’ve only been blogging for a couple of months but I’ve been on my fitness and good health journey for a year now! It was this week ONE YEAR ago that AJ Tucker from iChooseFit bootcamps called me up and told me I had no more excuses! There was a location practically in my backyard and it was my time to get moving.

iChooseFit

That phone call couldn’t have come at a better time. I had lost my mother a few weeks before that phone call. I was a hot mess of overeating and drinking a few too many alcoholic beverages. I was a round butterball standing at 5’2″ tall and about 160lbs. I know I wasn’t 250lbs but I was on my way there. I’ve had my roller coaster with eating right and getting fit since I had my first child almost 13 years ago. But I was in a bad spot getting worse at this point in my life. I was supposed to start Feb 7th but there was a ton of ice that week and I had other “excuses” pop up. It was actually Feb 14th that I started working out but it was this week a year ago I prepared myself to kick my own ass!

A year ago! Look at those chubby cheeks!

I’ll be honest the first two weeks of bootcamp were tough but I was still coming home and eating too much and having the occasional cocktail. After that first two weeks I had not lost a pound (even gained a pound if I remember correctly) and I was furious with myself. Why put in all the hard work at 5:30 am and NO RESULTS. I knew I had to change it ALL up at once. Jump in the DEEP END of the pool and get to work. And so I did. iChooseFit wasn’t only about getting your butt beat down it was about nutrition. There was a FoodCamp program included and I got all the info I could and I got to work. I got serious. I went shopping for good stuff, jumped in with Advocare and got my head on right and my tail into gear. In the first week of the program “shakedown” I lost 7lbs! HOLY SHIT! Are you kidding me? Who is this girl? I didn’t know her but I was already liking her. I’ll never forget I could barely do a pushup without falling to my knees and after that week I had lost 7lbs I was doing KNEE PUSH UPs. AJ was going on with some cadence about how you grew so it’s up to you to move it, in regards to weight. Then all of a sudden I hear “Stephanie, Get OFF your knees!” It was all nice and sweet in the cadence but it was serious. I surely thought that couldn’t be me he’s referring to (there’s at least 5 Stephanie’s enrolled) and sure enough he was talking about THIS STEPHANIE… he says you’re 7 lbs lighter get off your knees and do regular pushups and SO I DID and from there on out I did regular pushups to the point where I HAD to drop to my knees.

I never stopped pushing myself from that point! In 3 months I lost 20lbs! I was stoked! And maybe I was a little too stoked! I started eating a little more, indulging a little more and even though I was working out like a crazy person I started to feel like poo again. I would gain some lose some, gain some more, lose some more but just hovering. I had got myself into a funk of sorts. I needed another kick in the butt and I just wasn’t able to do it myself.

This was about the time I started CrossFit in August. CrossFit Boom to be more exact. I had met my coach, Grant Coomes, at a CrossFit challenge in Dallas. It was soon after that he opened his box and Ernie signed up. It was only a couple of weeks after that and I was “trying” it out. I was excited for something new and the competitive aspects of it all but I was hesitant because it involved a lot of NEW movements and a lot of learning and I wasn’t sure how competent I would be! I can’t even begin to tell how silly I was in thinking such things. As with anything you train, you learn and you practice. Baby steps! Before I knew it I was doing olympic lifting, slinging around kettlebells and doing “dirty girl” WODs. I even entered my first “competition” (for beginners that is) only 2 months after my start date! I didn’t KILL it but I came in 26th out of 50 women.

2 months in.... FIRST Competition... WODAPALOOZA

I was feeling better than ever, stronger than ever and started dabbling in the PALEO world. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve changed in the past year. And thus my blogging commenced. I should have started a year ago but I knew myself and I was a mess. I would try something for a few weeks then quit. I was a binge worker outer. But a year later I feel confident I am no longer that person. I’m an ATHLETE, in progress still, but an ATHLETE none the less!

I can’t say that I didn’t know this was in me because once upon a time in a land far far away I was a tiny little athletic thing. But I hadn’t been there in such a long time. I’m a different person now for certain with goals and long term thoughts of good health. Back then it was just who I was, a kid, ignorant to what laid ahead of me in life. I can’t say that I’m that much more knowledgeable now, haha,  but I have 3 kids I want to LIVE for and that I want to lay the foundation for them. I want to be around for their kids and be the baddest grandma in town!

So now I’m a good 30lbs lighter. I still fluctuate and probably always will. Right now it’s between 30-35lbs lighter. But I’ve truly learned to not let the scale lead the way. Sure mentally I’d like to lose a few more lbs. I’m only 5’2. And sure I’d like everything to be rockin but the fact and truth is that I’ve had 3 boys and I didn’t take care of myself like I should have but I’m on the right path now. It doesn’t happen overnight. I do know I feel strong. I don’t weigh everyday, not even weekly. I know I’m putting good things in me and I’m taking time to work on my physical self. With that comes confidence that helps me work on my mental and emotional self! It’s a WIN/WIN!

I know this wasn’t a workout update or a food update…. just a personal one to let you know, YOU CAN DO IT TOO! I wasn’t already skinny, getting skinnier. I wasn’t healthy and just dialing in on better health. I was and still am a regular girl, lady, woman….whatever, hahaha, I still call myself a GIRL. Life hits me hard sometimes but I know I can take it on. I have a great family. I have great support systems in both iChooseFit and CrossFit Boom. I’ve met a lot of like minded folks who inspire me. I FEEL GREAT. It’s a good feeling. Find your path. Find buddies. Find HEALTH! Live life. Don’t sit on the sidelines watching it go by. Don’t just WATCH the reality weight loss shows or READ the blogs. DO SOMETHING. MOVE YOUR BUTT! I promise you’ll feel better. You can see on my About Page my befores and afters. I don’t take many pics cause I’m still critical of myself in picture form! I’m working on it. But I did snap a shot of me today.

2/8/12 ME TODAY!

Have a super great Wednesday. Half way through the week. Start NOW, not later. Move NOW not tomorrow. Live TODAY!

Busy Busy and What I Think is a Better Attitude!

ARRGGHHH!!! That’s what I want to do, like in Garden State where they all just yell. I’ve been swamped with work, busy at home, cranking out some freelance work and just going bonkers. I NEED a vacation! STAT! I need Ford Escape Routes to CALL me and Ernie up and say HEY YOU’RE ON! Let’s go… pack your bags. But until that happens I need to play catch up on this ol (errr, still relatively new) blog of mine.

Oh the weekend. I finally slept in till a whopping 8:30 am on Saturday and Sunday! Woooooo! Go ME! And I finally finished The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo. Took me longer than I had hoped but I finally finished. For those of you who don’t care I’m sorry. Just doing a recap! Hahah, Get OVER it! We trekked out to Grandview again because our PORK BELLY order was ready and decided it was a good day for a field trip. We picked up some more meats as well. We were saddened that they were out of eggs, but I suppose that will happen. I didn’t take any pictures because frankly when I have 3 boys, Ernie and my Dad I just forget to do anything. We ordered burgers (sans bread) and they were delicious. We had a little fiasco where I thought I lost my debit card but I won’t get into those details. It was a big OL THANK GOODNESS my dad was there to pay for our order! We also made a stop at Rosey Ridge Farm to pick up more milk as well as some butter I ordered at the last minute. The boys had hoped there was a pig on the loose but he was where he belonged. They did however get to see a GINORMOUS turkey! He was big and very curious about us but he kept his distance. I bet he would be a tasty dinner! Again no pictures. I should have taken a picture of that beautiful turkey!

The rest of the weekend was just busy. Nothing else exciting to report :/

2/6/12 WOD

I do believe that I started this week out with the better attitude like I had talked about last week. I Showed up to the box yesterday morning tired as all get out but physically rested nonetheless. Worked the OHS (overhead squat) and hit my 5, 5, and 5+ which ended at 10 reps! Woooo. Granted the weight isn’t amazingly heavy. Worked up to 55lbs. My shoulder flexibility has greatly improved. My only downfall now is the flexibility on the insides of my wrists. The wide grip on the bar combined with the weight really puts a strain on the insides of my wrists. But I did get a little better overall.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the MetCon at first glance. Holding a pullup for 1 minute! YOWSERS! That was not easy. So every time you drop you get a point. The idea is to have the least points. I didn’t do so horrible. Just on the PULLUPS. I didn’t drop once on the pushup hold and I only dropped a few times on the LSits. There was a collective sigh of relief at the end of the last round. It was a painful morning!

Nothing fancy for dinner. Roast chicken, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. I did however take note from my co-worker on what to do with the broccoli stems.

Broccoli Stems Marinating

It’s not entirely PALEO but pretty darn close. So you take your stems and clean them up, Peel them like you would a carrot the get rid of the hard exterior. Chop them up, put them in a bowl, pour a little bit of sesame oil, vinegar, minced garlic, salt and a lil sugar. Toss it all around. Seal it up and put it in fridge. I used Apple Cider Vinegar because that’s what I had to use. This morning we opened it up, I let my 12 yr old try it out and he was very receptive to it. He said it tasted very Asian and it was good! My 9 yr old… eh not so much the same reaction. Ah well! Can’t get them to like everything!

Could have been a little more "RED" Velvet Whoopie Pies

But they were excited to try the Red Velvet Whoopie Pies I found over from the good folks at Health-Bent. They have some pretty awesome recipes kickin over there. Check them out! These sweet treats are Gluten Free but not entirely on the Paleo list of things to eat! If you’ve been following along I’ve been testing out recipes for the kids Valentine’s parties. Although my children appreciated the little snack and gobbled them up like there was no tomorrow, they came to a census that kids at school may not be so excited. They told me “we’re used” to not eating so much sugar, so it’s good to us! LOL, it’s true. If you are a sugar junkie…it may not be as delicious as it is to us. It was a fail for Ernie however. Too dry he says. Like I said, I can’t win everyone over. So 4 out of 5 enjoyed them. That’s pretty good in my eyes. I have one more “treat” to test before I just throw in the towel and make cake pops or something! LOL!

2/7/12 WOD

Finally I’m to this morning. Almost caught up now! Skill Strength consisted of Pistols. Damn YOU PISTOLS! One legged squats are what we call pistols and I do not like them. I have nothing else to say on the matter. Moving on the the MetCon…I wussed out and didn’t do the RX of 1.5 pood. I feel I could have Goblet Squatted fine (at a much slower pace) but I had more trouble just picking that darn Kettlebell up … UPSIDE DOWN. So I went for the lesser weight. 400m run, 20 Goblet Squats, 400m run, 15 Goblet Squats, 400m run, 10 Goblet Squats, 400m run, 5 Goblet Squats = 11:08. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th runs were HARD and I’m a wussbag! Go figure.

There ya have it. Missed a day but all caught up now. It’s Tuesday. Come on FRIDAY where ya at? Come on Ford Escape Routes, Give me a CALL! See ya’ll tomorrow!

Snooze + Infinity!

Holy cow I did not want to get up this morning. Knowing Wednesday has become my rest day, I still wanted to get up and get the kids some almond flour pancakes going. I however slept in till the last possible minute I could possibly sleep and still get ready and get to work on time. I really could have slept a few more hours. I wanted to badly, so much I was ready to call in sick or something! LOL. I didn’t though and I rushed around like a maniac! Fortunately my kids are old enough to fend for themselves and even help their slacker mom out.

Obviously not my kids but I'm sure they feel like this when I'm running late!

Speaking of slacker and since I don’t have much to report, here are some interweb stumblings I thought I’d share 🙂 And then I have treats to share as well!

With that said, I found some before and afters of random strangers to hopefully motivate anyone into pushing themselves outsided their comfort zones!

N0w that you have inspiration to LOSE weight I will tempt you with PALEO-ish goodies! Ha, I’m cruel like that. It’s true I have a sweet tooth and I have kids that I like to share my sweet tooth with. Now I can be really good and just go without but I like to provide some sort of treat during Christmas and Valentines and maybe even a little bit at the end of the school year. I’ve always provided some homemade treat and I’m trying to cut out the glutens, processed crap and whatever else there is to making desserts. It’s hard, as we aren’t meant to consume junk, but it’s so easy to make and buy. But I am trying and that is why I have treats on the brain. Earlier I made those yummo NO BAKE treats and they were a hit. So I found these PALEO-ish treats from Paleo Parents. And I was hesitant at first because I’m a choco-junkie but they are DELICIOUS! And definitely fall under the DON’T MAKE EVERYDAY list! Only cause I’ll eat them till I explode.

SNICKERDOODLE WHOOPIE PIES

Ready to Mix and Bake 🙂

Ready to Bake

Finished Snickerdoodle Cookie

Snickerdoodle Whoopie Pie

There ya have it… A good treat but not an everyday treat. I have a couple more recipes to try out before Valentine’s Day then I’ll probably go on a sweet treat hiatus. I need to get back to eating with less sugar in my life 🙂 But I’ll definitely be trying to whip up some good savory meals!

Happy Wednesday Folks! I’m glad it’s my rest day today… I NEED IT. I hope you are getting your rest in as well!