Eating sucks…on paleo…at least for now

So get this.  I am trying to work this Paleo thing in to my eating habits.  Not easy.  As a really quick summary, assume you can not eat grains, beans or rice….Mexican food is almost completely on the no-no list.   No bread…no pasta.   Now I can agree with much of this, but other parts … not so much.   For example, I really don’t feel the need for a whole lot of bread.  Ok.  Scratch that off the list.  Beans…hmm. Well that is tougher.  They have been minimized but not eliminated.  Rice, this is another one that I could probably go without.  So I put it on the no-no list.  Not too much of a problem there either.  So the only one, in general, which is a little tough is beans.  I am working on it though.

Now I have one exception to this paleo thing and one funny story.  First the exception…Breakfast.  I have a hard time losing my grain at breakfast.  This doesn’t mean donuts or cinnamon toast.  No.  It means oatmeal or my granola bar.  I do have more fruit in the morning to compensate, but a Zone bar of granola bar is still on the list. I saw a “sample menu” for breakfast.  Here were a couple of suggestions:

A pork chop

Beef stew (without potatoes)

Seriously?  Beef stew for breakfast?  Yeah… I don’t think so. I am definitely not there yet.

Now for the funny story.  On Friday my company had an all hands employee meeting.  Now as I was walking in, I could have sworn I smelled bacon.  That would mean that there were probably eggs as well.. Score!  As I reach the table, I find out that my nose played a mean trick on me.  There weren’t any eggs or bacon.  There was coffee (paleo acceptable), tea (paleo acceptable), donuts (not acceptable) Danish (not acceptable) and muffins (not acceptable).  Please note, not a fruit to be found.  So after a couple cups of coffee, I considered that breakfast. (kinda, sorta).

But I figured I could make that up at the company lunch.  So here was the lunch spread:

Pulled pork sandwich

BBQ beef sandwich

Veggie sandwich made with a black bean patty

Eggplant sandwich

Rice

Mashed potatoes

Salad

Lots and lots of dessert. – seriously – there were two plates

Ok now you need to add on one additional item here.  It was Friday and on Friday during lent (which goes from Mardi Gras to Easter) you should refrain from eating meat.  So now look at the menu.

Pulled pork sandwich (on the no-no list 2x)

BBQ beef sandwich (on the no-no list 2x)

Veggie sandwich made with a black bean patty (on the no-no list 2x)

Eggplant sandwich (the eggplant would be ok but only without the bread)

Rice (on the no-no list)

Mashed potatoes (technically on the no-no list, but I did not restrict that… yet)

Salad (ok – I now have one legit item on the lunch menu)

Lots and lots of dessert. – seriously – there were two plates (on the no-no list)

So what did my lunch consist of?  Salad, mashed potatoes, and the eggplant out of the sandwich (I threw away the bread and such).  My salad mounded over my plate.   Sigh…This gets easier…right?

I run like an out of shape old man….oh wait….

Ok – i have to admit it (not like it is a real surprise). I wanted to run on saturday, but 9am piano lessons said otherwise. So I ran on Sunday. Beautiful day to run. A little crisp in the air. Nice and sunny. Awesome. I stretch, and then I start. Then (and here is the bad part) I start thinking about how I am running. Short steps. Belly first (not hard to do though… it does come first). I feel like I am shuffling my feet more than I am running. I was surprised I didn’t trip over the sidewalk. So to prevent that I ran on the street. Not sure if that was any better. I tried to get a better range on my steps but after a short while, I was back to shuffling.

Oi…

Not sure if there is a class on how to pick up your feet, so I might be SOL

Clubber Lang’s prediction….”Pain”

remember that from Rocky III?  Well I forgot to mention that I also did jumping pull-ups yesterday.  I didn’t think that would be so bad, but…..when I woke up this morning my arms were VERY stiff and sore.  First I thought, “what the heck? How do back squats effect my arms?’  You see, even I forgot about the jumping pull ups.   Unfortunately my arms did not forget. They are screaming at me today.  LOUDLY!

This is going to be a lllllooooooonnnnnnnngggggggg day.

-Cheers!

www.teamcrossfit.com

back squats today

Had back squats today.  My prior record was 205.  Tonight I did 235# not bad given that I took off 2 full months.  After the work out I did more work on the rower.  I did 3000 meters in 13:27.  Not bad given that I was tired. By the way, 235# is pretty heavy….

Now I have been giving my eating habits a lot of thought.  I clearly am not eating correctly.  There has been a lot of talk about paleo.  I would like to  explore this more and get a better understanding of it.  On the surface, it is interesting but since i am only scratching the surface, i would like to know more before i go forward.

-cheers

Monday’s work out

First, let me state that they announced the winners to the Paleo contest today.  The challenge was to go on the paleo plan for 30 days and test the results.  The winners lost 23 and 20 pounds, one for the men’s category and one for the women’s category.  That is awesome.  I was not aware that a dietary change could make that much change in such a short time.   Perhaps I should look in to that.

Monday was a exercise in technique and stamina.

WOD: 6 Rounds for time

- 10 DB Snatchs (right and left)

- 100 Meter sprint

- 10 Mtn. climbers

- 100 Meter sprint

The snatchs weren’t so bad, although as I got more tired, I broke my form.  That made it harder to lift.  When that happened, I stopped for a couple of seconds, regrouped, refocused and did it again…this time properly.

The killer for me was the sprints, if you could call what I did sprinting.  As I sucked in massive amounts of air (btw witch’s butt cold outside) I think the suction action pulled me forward a bit.  Seriously I need to work on that.  The stamina / endurance.  Really bad.

The mountain climbers were ok but somewhat embarrassing.  As I did them my shirt would run up and my belly would be a bit exposed.  Nice kodak moment for the lap band.

Overall time was 20:50.  I definitely felt as though I pushed myself though.  That’s the key.

-Cheers

www.teamcrossfit.com

Isabel

Back at teamcrossfit.  Did Isabel yesterday…and I can tell today.  Shoulders hurt, legs hurt, although if I stay still in a chair I only feel tired, not sore.

I guess this is crossfits way of saying, “welcome back… now drop and give me 20!”.

Time wasn’t great but I did 90 pounds for the snatch.  OK… Given that I haven’t been at the gym in almost 2 months, this was my prior high weight.  I figure that is pretty good.  My time was 9:24

what happens when life overruns…. your life

well, that is what has happened.  I got sick in December with a cough (yeah, I know… a cough).  It would be so violent that I would get dizzy and needed to sit down to finish coughing.  At times it was so bad that I started to dry heave.  YIKES!  On top of that this is my busiest time of the year at my job. And we had a person leave (so I am taking up the slack) and…and…and….you get the picture.  Time just left me.  So yeah, I have been away from Crossfit for a while.

I went back yesterday.  Geez am I out of shape.  Not as bad as when I started but no where near I think I am in my head.  Of course I am still 22 in my head, but that is a separate issue.   Here was today’s WOD.

WOD: 1 Round for time

- 400 Meter run

- 50 Crab crunches

- 400 Meter run

- 200ft Walking lunges

- 400 Meter run

- 100ft Burpee broadjump

- 400 Meter run

I struggled with this. Lots of out of breathlessness.  They adjusted the WOD for me, probably because I was looking my cooling jello.  Not even going to detail how I did, but clearly running would help me a bit.

Sorry – been a long time

Its been at least a week since I last posted.  I guess you could figure that I have not done much to post about, and you would be right.  Over the past 2 weeks, I have worked out 3, that’s right 3, times.  On the very cool side, 2 of the 3 were with my family.  One day my 7 and 4 ran with me to the park and we did exercises. One other day my wife joined me.  Major cool!

Last night however it was my first repeated girl, Cindy.  I wanted to do better than what I did before which was 5 2/3.  I know…pathetic.  Anyway, I had my target.  Now one thing to remember, during the first Cindy, I used a green band (and maybe a second band) for the pull-ups.  This time I only used a blue band.  That is a pretty big stretch from where I was.  I did get a new record, 7 1/3, but I really wanted to do 10 rounds.  So I was disappointed in my results although given everything, I shouldn’t be.  But still…  The pull-ups just killed me.  Again.  There was a space limitation too, so 2 ladies and I shared 2 bands.  One of these ladies did 21 rounds during Cindy.   (or at least that what I remember).  Geez she was good.  The other lady was not far behind her.  I think she got 17+.  And then there was me…..

So knowing that I want to improve what I am doing, I was watching Erica (the 21 lady) do her pull-ups.  She was doing an excellent kipping pull-up.  I was learning just by watching her.  After class I commented that about how well she did pull-ups and she took me aside and showed me how to start getting the rhythm for going fo ra kipping pull-up.  She gave me some great tips and I really appreciate the time she took to help me get to where I want to go.

So a new record on Cindy and today was weigh in…243.  Another new record.

I don’t know why, but even with all the positives, I still feel like I underperformed.

www.teamcrossfit.com

why the heck do my arms hurt so much

So after the workout on Wednesday I started working on my pull ups.  I started out by jumping up so my head was over the bar and hanging as long as possible.  I did not stay up there long but geez that is tiring.  I need serious work on my arms and supporting my weight.  I see these pictures of guys who are just ripped.  Man I would love that type of body.  I don’t know how possible it is. I don’t know if age or scheduling would prevent me.  Yes I would like that bod, but not at the expense of missing my kids.

So I know why my arms hurt but it seems like something on me is sore every day.  I think that is  a good thing.  It tells me I am doing the right things to get in better shape.

Until next time,

Never, ever give up!

www.teamcrossfit.com

new record

Weigh in ws 244.  Nice progress.

Oh – I forgot to mention Wednesday’s workout.  It was back squats at the max weight possible.  I still working up when we ran out of time.  However I made it to 205.  Not bad, but I know I could do more.  Just not enough time.  The other part of the work out on Wednesday was medicine ball throws and 20 box jumps.  3 rounds.  It was probably for time but I didn’t get my time. I learned that we have 2 size boxes for the box jumps!  One is about 4-6″ shorter than the other.  I took the bigger one…by accident.  BAD IDEA.  I had to step up on them.  Not quite there yet.  Still did the exercise as best I could, but that height was a little much for me.

Now there was an incident on Wednesday.  During the medicine ball through, we were really packed together, especially when we started.  Well, when I threw my ball, there was a guy to my right.  So I threw the ball to my left, thinking that would be enough room so we wouldn’t hit.  Well, I was wrong and it hit him from behind.  He fell and got a bit scraped up.  I felt REALLY awful about that.  Unfortunately he left before I could apologize, which made me feel even worse!  I got his email address on Thursday and immediately wrote him and apologized.  I realize that accidents happen but how you react and take responsibility is also important.  I am glad that I approached him and apologized for the incident.

Until next time,

Never, ever give up!

www.teamcrossfit.com