Day 5 of 2nd Whole30/Strict Paleo Challenge

Started the day with a great WOD. I knew we'd be doing the 4th week of the Wendler Strength cycle for deadlifts, but I didn't know what else we'd do. The coach told us to keep it a secret, but we did biceps curls and triceps overhead extensions with a barbell (CrossFit doesn't usually encourage those isolated movements!). My 35# barbell got heavy toward the end! Then we did some bent-over rows (did 5th set of 5 at 95#) before the deadlifts, which were pretty light since it was a deload week. I actually did 10# more on each set than I was supposed to since I forgot that 2 of the plates were 15s, not 10s, when I was doing my math. Ooops. Then the really crappy part happened - should have known when the board said "HOLY S**T"! Had to do 1 min apiece for max calories on the AirDyne, Air Assault, and rower. Would have much preferred to do all rower! Ended up with 26 cals on AirDyne, 24 cals on rower, and 7 cals on Air Assault. Ugh, exhausted after each minute. Hate the Air Assault the most since it barely gives up any calories!

Brought the kids to Panera for dinner after swimming lessons. I got my favorite Cobb Salad with Chicken & Avocado, but I do miss the cheese crumbles in it (not to mention the baguette!). I also miss the Greek dressing that comes with it - I found out that it has MSG, of all things! Shame on Panera for doing that! I don't know why they don't focus on making good dressings with EVOO as a base instead of crappy seed oils...

Food: 1670 calories  18% carbs (74g)/ 31% (131g) protein/ 51% fat

• Breakfast: 
• Frittata -  Basically 12-16 oz sausage, brown that. then i did the veggies (red peppers, onions).  Put the sausage back, a little fat if needed, then 10-12 eggs scrambled. Cook on the stove top until the edges start to firm then into the oven until almost firm then broil 1-2 minutes 
• 1/2 grapefruit
• Lunch:
• pulled pork with Cajun seasoning
• sugar snap peas & broccoli
• Dinner:
• Panera Cobb Salad w/o cheese
• Snacks:
• post cardio shake with just 3oz rice milk
• mandarin orange
• a few slices of Boar's Head Cajun turkey

Exercise: 

• WOD

Sleep:

• Probably around 6 hours. Woke up for a while around 3 and couldn't get back to sleep (but did not pick up a book or anything - just went to the bathroom). Dozed off for a while eventually.

Day 4 of 2nd Whole30/Strict Paleo Challenge

Well, all things must come to an end: the miraculous weight loss stopped this morning. But feeling so much better already. Just for hahas, I took a ketosis test this morning and was definitely in ketosis. Burn that fat!!!

Brian is heading off for a boys' weekend on Friday, so I gave him my Thursday WOD this morning so he could fit in one more WOD before leaving. So I hopped on the elliptical and did some lightish-intensity cardio for 40 mins, keeping my heart rate around 135bpm. I watched the second-to-last episode of Biggest Loser - I'm so mad that I saw a spoiler on Facebook and know why the winner is! And does she look waaaaaaay too skinny - she definitely went too far. Like to the point of looking anorexic. I hope she puts some weight back on now that she's won the prize. 

Had another disappointing visit with the chiropractor. Ugh. My cholesterol dropped even lower - only 137! Although my HDL is decent at 62. And my triglycerides were REALLY low at 38 (should be 75-100). So, again, signs of malabsorption. He thinks the round of antibiotics I did in November might have really knocked things out of whack (like killing off some of the good bacteria) and undone some of the progress of my first RepairVite, leading toward leaky gut all over again. So, he suggested another month of RepairVite, which I had planned to ask him about doing anyway. My T3 only increased the slightest bit, so he wants me to try combining the Thyro-CNV ( which is supposed to increase T3 conversion) with Thyroxal (which is supposed to support T4 and T3 production). He also wants me to back off the fish oil because he thinks it may be thinning my blood, leading to the low triglycerides. So, more trial and error... Getting another thyroid panel done at the end of February. 

I also mentioned that my knee has been bugging me to the point where I'm taking anti-inflammatories and PT, so he did a little analysis. He confirmed that my right thigh is 3 centimeters smaller than my left, so there's definitely some muscle atrophy on that side for some reason. He had me abduct my legs into his hand while having me touch various pressure points on my body. Then he did some kind of adjustment where I bent my right leg while laying on a table, and he pretty much tried to jam it upwards into my pelvis. Who knows! He's like to investigate it from a neurological standpoint, but it's just too inconvenient to go to his office - it's 45 minutes away. Maybe I'll think about finally visiting my chiropractor friends' office.

In more exciting news, the WODs for the spring Festivus were released today! Woo hoo!!! Can't wait for another competition!! Gotta get me knee back in shape by then though... 


Food: 1900 calories  15% carbs (72g)/ 28% (134g) protein/ 57% fat

• Breakfast: 
• homemade turkey sausage
• 1/2 grapefruit
• Lunch:
• big salad with chicken & avocado & homemade dressing (with red peppers)
• Dinner:
• pulled pork with Cajun seasoning
• sugar snap peas (fresh)
• Snacks:
• post cardio shake w/ coconut cream and a couple frozen banana pieces
• mandarin orange
• a few slices of Boar's Head Cajun turkey - spicy!
• strawberries & blueberries

Exercise: 

• 40 mins on the elliptical

Sleep:

• Just shy of 7 hours - sleepy on my drive into work this morning until 11ish, but felt good the rest of the day

Supplements: My prescribed supplements for the next month:

• RepairVite: 1 scoop 2x/day
• Strengtia (probiotics): 2 pills 2x/day
• Vitamin B12: 1000mg 2x/day
• Vitamin D3: 3 drops 2x/day
• Thyro-CNV (increase T3 conversion): 2 pills 2/x day
• Thyroxal (increase T4): 2 pill 2x/day
• MagneGel (magnesium): apply 1/4 tsp 2x/day applied to skin
• Lecithin (increase cholesterol): 1000g 2x/day
• HemeVite (increase iron): only 1-2 pills/week 
• EPA-DHA (Omega 3 fish oil): 2 pills 2/x day after stopping for 1 week

Day 3 of 2nd Whole30/Strict Paleo Challenge

THIS SNOW IS KILLING ME!!!

Enough with the snow. My daughter's school was cancelled twice this week. Worse, CrossFit classes were cancelled this morning! Hate that. Of course, I got to do my own home WOD of shoveling before bringing the kids over to Grammy's so I could telecommute to work for my half day. That worked up a sweat!

Pleased that the scale showed another 2.5 lb loss though - this is some serious water weight I'm shedding! That's 4.5 pounds in 2 days - over 1/2 a gallon of water! My appetite is definitely waning - I didn't feel as hungry for snacks and stuff today. Forgot to have a post-WOD shake though.

CrossFit opened at 4pm, so I did the 5pm WOD after telecommuting for a few hours. That was my first evening workout since I started there. Didn't really notice a difference in energy though. Pretty easy class today: 10 minute rowing warm-up, then the Wendler deload phase of strict presses (very light weight), and then a 10 minute EMOM of power cleans then 2 jerks, but only at 65% max 1RM. So, not a terribly challenging day, but still glad I went, of course!

Food: 1575 calories  10% carbs (42g)/ 34% (127g) protein/ 56% fat

• Breakfast: 
• 3 links Jones Natural Sausage (yes, negligible about of sugar - but only 1 carb for all 3!)
• 2 eggs scrambled with a cup of stir fry veggies & spinach sauteed in coconut oil and a little Frank's Buffalo sauce on top (ugh, that had a little Conola oil - just full of little cheats today)
• Lunch:

• pulled pork with Cajun seasoning
• sugar snap peas (frozen)
• Dinner:
• Slow cooker Korean Short Ribs with short ribs from Vermont Grass-Fed Beef
• mashed cauliflower with onion gravy
• sugar snap peas (fresh)
• Snacks:
• mandarin orange
• a couple slices of Boar's Head Cajun turkey - spicy!

Exercise: 

• shoveling snow (only a couple inches - Brian had already done the majority)
• CrossFit WOD - mostly strength after 10 minute row warm-up

Sleep:

• Good 8 hours last night! Tried to read It Starts With Food for a while after doing my stretches, but too sleepy. And got to sleep in due to the snow day. Aaaah...

Day 2 of 2nd Whole30/Strict Paleo Challenge

Pleased this morning since 2 of the 8 pounds of bloat were gone. Hope the rest goes that easily... But I could already see that my midsection looked less bloated And I felt so much better today too - my stomach barely grumbled at all. I can't believe how sensitive I am to gluten now. 

After my salad today, I couldn't get the taste of onion out of my mouth. So, I ate my orange and pepperoni almost immediately after lunch instead of saving it for a snack. When that still didn't get the flavor out, I found a couple old sugar-free Life Savers in my drawer and sucked on those. But at least I wasn't really hungry throughout the afternoon like I have been lately - I think all the extra sugar in my diet was leading to cravings.


Food: 1980 calories  17% carbs (79g)/ 28% (116g) protein/ 55% fat

• Breakfast: 
• homemade turkey sausage
• a couple chunks of chicken while prepping my salad
• 1/2 grapefruit
• Lunch:
• big salad with chicken & avocado & homemade dressing (with red peppers)
• Dinner:
• zoodles (actually, 1/2 zucchini and 1/2 squash) with meatballs with Simply Enjoy Tomato Basil Sauce (no sugar!)
• Snacks:
• post-WOD protein shake (last of vanilla egg-based mixed with last of chocolate soy shake and 1/2 c rice milk)
• mandarin orange
• some nitrate-free pepperoni (contained sugar, but we were out of deli meat...)
• 2 sugar-free life savers
• baby carrots while making dinner

Exercise: 

• Partner WOD "Tailpipe"- took turns rowing 250m while the other partner held 2 kettle bells in the clean position (I held 35#ers). After doing 3 rounds of that, we got to rest for 3 minutes, and then alternated 30 seconds of burpees. Whew. Apparently, we were also supposed to do alternating sets of kettle bell swings too, but the coach forgot. Oops!

Sleep:

• Only 6 hours or so. Didn't get to sleep until 10 or so, and my son woke me up just after 4 because he wet the bed. Ugh. Was having trouble sleeping anyway because I had to pee, myself...damn bloat!

Day 1 of 2nd Whole30/Strict Paleo Challenge

Back at the beginning of January, I resolved to do another round of Whole30 to get a little weight loss jump start for the year (I really want to hit the 170s this year). I decided to wait until 2/3/14 to start since I had a lot of social events throughout January - something every weekend (if not a couple things). So, I let myself enjoy the gatherings, indulging in few sugar-laden drinks and tasty snacks at each one (still staying gluten- and dairy free, but plenty of tortilla chips and other less desirable foods). I've also been a lot more lenient about the amount of sugar that's been creeping into my diet (bbq sauce, ketchup, etc). But I figured that it's only one more month - enjoy - can't have too bad an effect on me, even if my weight loss stops... And I upgraded my CrossFit membership to unlimited, so I've been doing 5 WODs/week now - that should keep things in check, right?

But then I started getting a little less vigilant about watching out for gluten too. A few weeks ago, I forgot to ask how a restaurant prepared their buffalo wings when I ordered, and was served some buffalo wings that definitely looked like they were battered. And I ate them anyway because I was hungry and in too much of a rush to order something else. And my stomach has not been the same ever since - all rumbly and gassy, like the olden days (is that really how I felt ALL THE TIME???). And in the last week, I had some sweet potato fries from a couple restaurants, and although it wasn't obvious to the naked eye, I think they must have been slightly battered as well because I stomach has really been going crazy lately. SO MUCH GAS. And I can see that my stomach is all bloated. NOT GOOD. 

Well, 2/3/14 has finally arrived, and I have to say that I'm very grateful that it's here!!! I'm ready to get back to being strict and feeling better again. I figured I should hop on the scale to get a baseline, and HOLY CRAP!!!! I was back up to 199!!! I vowed NEVER to leave ONEderland, and that is WAY too close for comfort! Over the last month, 8 pounds have crept back on from when I hit my new low of 191, which is CRAZY. I'm confident that majority of it is just bloat from the gluten exposure, and hope that will come off very quickly again once my body starts to heal itself again. But there may be a little regained fat to lose too. However, I think I have made some strength gains this month too (not 8 pounds though!).

I also started a little support group on Facebook for a bunch of my CrossFit Relentless peeps who also want to buckle down. I'm looking forward to getting some good recipes and support through that!

This morning, I just felt like fasting, but decided that I really should saute up all the turkey sausage that I prepped last night. So I finally did that around 10:45. So I did end up having a ~15 hour fast after a nice Paleo dinner that Brian cooked last night. Stomach feels better already.

I finally went to see a specialist about my right knee since it's been bothering me since 1/7 and wasn't getting better. He said it's very tight around my patella, so everything around it needs to be loosened up a bit, which translates to more PT (just like when I had an issue with my left knee last year). So, I went to my PT eval session, and the therapist confirmed that my patella wasn't tracking correctly due to the tightness, so she taped me up to try to make the patella track better. Now I really feel like an actual athlete! I was prescribed 2 sessions/week, but she kept remarking how strong my legs are and that it's not a strength issue, it's a stretching issue. So we agreed on 1 session/week and a daily ritual of 3 sets/leg of 3 stretches (quad, hammy, and calf), and lots of foam rolling down my IT bands from my hips down to the knees. Ooof, that hurts.

This time around, I've decided to track my sleep too each night too. I really need to focus on getting more sleep. I'm also going to track my food in MyFitnessPal so I can see the carb/protein/fat ratios to ensure they're where they should be. My daily goals are:

• less than 80 grams of carbs (closer to 50)
• ~190 grams of protein
• ratio of 15% carbs/ 60% fat / 25% protein

Food: 1300 calories  12% carbs (30g)/ 35% (87g) protein/ 53% fat

• Breakfast: 
• homemade turkey sausage
• 1/2 grapefruit
• Lunch:
• a couple slices of leftover roast 
• Dinner:
• big salad with chicken & avocado & homemade dressing (with red peppers)
• Snacks:
• mandarin orange
• some pulled pork (no bbq sauce)

Exercise: 

• Rest day. Hammies are sore from lots of good mornings on Saturday. And left knee is still bugging me - finally getting a PT eval done today. Although the anti-inflammatories I've been taking for the last 10 days have made a HUGE difference. Looking forward to getting back to squatting in WODs though!

Sleep:

• Got a solid 8 hours until the phone rang at 5:45 to announce that school was cancelled due to snow. Snoozed a little bit after the call though.

My AMAZING Relentless CrossFit community & what they did for my sister

As summarized by one of the Relentess owners - I'll elaborate later...

http://www.crossfitrelentless.com/blog/138/our-community

New Year, new goals, new "after" pics!

The new year is off to a great start! I finally broke through the weight loss plateau that started around Halloween (not that I was eating much candy with chocolate off limits!). I can't believe I actually LOST weight during the holidays though - that is certainly a first. I can't see too much of a change between the most recent 2 sets of pics, but I can definitely see changes in the mirror. I see a lot more muscle definition in my arms, shoulders, chest, and back, so I've definitely still be leaning out and maybe putting on a little more muscle. And I have ribs! Although the rate of weight loss has definitely slowed down, so long as I'm still on the right path, I'm ok with that. They say that the more slowly it comes off, the more likely it is to stay off, and I like the sound of that.



 





This month, I'm trying to get back to cleaner Paleo eating, and stop eating quite as much fruit and processed foods/baked goods. I've begun adding an egg protein-based shake directly after my WODs to help with recovery since it's often a couple hours before I have breakfast. I just mix it with 7 oz of rice milk and a little coconut milk in a shaker cup, and it's very tasty! When I want a treat, I'll add some frozen bananas, chocolate baking powder, a little coconut sugar, and ice, and throw it in the blender.

I'm planning to do another Whole30 Challenge starting 2/2 (have 4 social events before then that I'd like to enjoy, including our CrossFit holiday party!). Another member of CrossFit box is interested in doing it too, so we might make a group for other people who want to participate with us so we can chat about it. I have a feeling my functional practitioner is going to want me to make it the strict RepairVite again. Ugh. Don't want to lose my nightshades again.

I was so excited to welcome my sister to CrossFit! I'd given her a 30-day Groupon deal for her birthday in November, but at that time, she was still participating in the Lost to Win group training program at the YMCA. It wrapped up in December, so now she's joining me at CrossFit for a month. The other day, Brian, Amy, and I all got to do a little family WOD all together, which was so fun!


I was also super psyched to reach one of my goals already - climbing to the top of the rope! The rope climb has been haunting me ever since elementary school gym class. I could never do it there, and always felt inferior because of it. Well, it took 30 years, but I did it!





My goals for 2014:

• Lose 20 pounds of fat
• Gain muscle
• Do my first strict pull-up (and maybe even try kipping)
• Climb rope - check!

Making this recipe for dinner tonight. Looks DELICIOUS.

http://paleomg.com/almost-5-ingredient-pizza-spaghetti-pie/

Also making some more roasted seeds. I've found that pretty much any seed is tasty - been roasting spaghetti squash butternut squash lately since we've been eating so much of it. Great salty/crunchy snack!

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/roasted-winter-squash-seeds/