Keep it UP!

And I don't mean just working hard, I mean literally... keep it up! The barbell that is. Don't want to be dropping that stuff on your noggin. Which I almost did once. Stress the almost, but I didn't.

Here's today's good time.

I woke up ten minutes late today and saw this. Definitely didn't motivate me to get out of bed any faster. I hate OHS. Yes, there are other moves that I'm not so fond of, but OHS is the one thing that I really just don't get excited for. Not one bit. 

But.

If you want to get better, you gotta practice. And that includes the things you don't like. Like OHS.

I set up 65lbs. I knew that was going to be tough. Especially having to clean the weight from the floor. That's just more stuff to get you tired and take more time. I knew with the weight and still having some aches from earlier in the week, that I would not be blazing through this WOD at all. Not that I blaze through any WODs. I was going to focus on form and take my time to get it right. 

I stuck to that plan. Just like yesterday, the first round went unbroken. The next two rounds the OHS went by fives and the TTB went by as many as I could do at a time (usually ~4). I still have no rhythm on TTB, but I was able to steady myself faster and not take so much time between each rep. I call that improvement. 

My time: 12:09 @ 65lbs

On a side note, day three of zoning is going well. I'm going to need to explore some more things this weekend I think. I can see how this would get really monotonous after a bit. Hopefully, I'll see some results. My plan right now is to see where I stand after a whole month. 

Here was breakfast: chicken and cherries. Yum!

Mini-WOD Monday (again)

It was such a beautiful weekend here! I spent most of the weekend outside. Took Hoku to the park on Saturday, that was a lot of fun but she hates her collar and harness and just moped around most of the time at the park. Then on Sunday, got some good sun time in at the beach. It's just not the same as Hawaii though. I miss the non-kelpy beaches of home.

After all the gorgeousness, it was time to get back to work today...

At first glance, I thought it looked pretty fun. Burpee pull-ups though? What about the vertically challenged of us? Ok, fine. I'll grab a box.

The first WOD went without any major hitches. I loaded up 85# for the front squats. It was doable, but keeping them unbroken was a kick in the butt. By the last set, it took pretty much everything I had to get the last rep up. The burpee pull-ups I wasn't a fan of. I thought it was awkward to do a burpee then get on a box and do a pull-up. There was just no way that I could reach the bar from the floor. So sad, I know. Too bad there's no getting over the shortness, I'm pretty confident that I've stopped growing.

**I'm just going to add in here that while 4 minutes seems like a long rest, it goes by so FAST!** 

Before I knew it, I was having to start the next WOD. I choose the 25# kettlebell and the 15# bag. I felt like the 15# bag was a little light, but that's 75 bag slams when everything is over. I stuck with my choice. The kb push press were definitely a lot easier with my right arm than my left, I expected that. They actually turned into more push jerk by the end when I was getting tired. The OH lunges sucked as usual. The bag slams were blah. I still prefer the ball, my forearms were getting tired of gripping the bag each time that I had to pick it up. Not a favorite.

Rowing was ok. I averaged 26 seconds for each round. While I was aiming for the fastest time that I could get, I was also trying to ensure that I was using an efficient stroke. Wildly pulling at the rig is not going to help me any. I was pretty happy with my performance. It's kinda funny, the 30 seconds of rest is longer than it takes you to row 100m, I def enjoyed that rest.

My total time: 29:28

I'd say that was a good start to the week. Bring on the holiday weekend!!! Woo! 

Have you signed up for Murph yet? Get it done!

On a side note, some shots from my weekend.

Started things off with a paleo carnitas burrito. 

At the park.

Hoku practicing her tragic, moping face.

Perfect tanning weather. 

Get Ready

After a beautiful weekend here in San Diego, I was not ready for the week to start. I wanted to keep lounging around and enjoying the sunshine with Hoku. Unfortunately, at 4:45am I was reminded of reality when my alarm sounded.

Back to the grind, here we go.

Today was my first time using the bag instead of the ball and I must say... I prefer the ball. That little bounce at the end makes a huge difference. My forearms were burning by the end of the WOD. It took a lot to keep the sets unbroken and still get a decent run. I ended up digging pretty deep in the end to push for that last run up the block. 

My time: 12:55 (15# kb/20# bag)

On a side note... some shots from my weekend.

I spent Friday afternoon cuddling up to this cutie.

Paleo cheat: char siu sammy from the Asian Persuasion food truck at the Asian Cultural Fest.

Sunday breakfast: Paleo sweet potato hash.

Dinner tonight: Paleo crockpot carnitas. Mmmmm.

And... I GOT MY FIRST STRICT PULLUP EVER TODAY!!!!!! Woo!

Just Breathe

Who doesn't want to start their day off with some burpees?! I bet you do! 120 of them to be exact.

Oh and while you do them, you have to keep count... not only of the burpees, but of your recovery breaths too!

I'm good at math, just not first thing in the morning and not when I'm more focused on pulling myself off the ground for who knows how long.

I was trying to breathe as slowly and deeply as possible to catch my breath and give myself some rest time. The problem with that though is that the lack of oxygen got my a little bit dizzy and that was still the beginning. 

Midway through I ended up losing count a bit. I may have done the "13" rounds twice, not quite sure. 

By the last rounds I was just trying to breathe as deeply as possible before starting again. It was tough. I was able to keep up decent form throughout though. I didn't end up resorting to the complete peel off the ground motion. 

I still can't believe some people did more than 120 burpees in 7 minutes during 12.1, that's insane. It took me almost 12 minutes with those breaks built in and I definitely wasn't "breathing" for 5 minutes.

But then again 7 minutes of burpees is insane and I don't plan on using that as a benchmark any time soon.

Have you signed up for Memorial Day Murph yet? I have. See you out there!

On a side note, grilled tonight. I love grill night. I have a new found love of zucchini because of grill night.

My plate. Steak, pork, and veggies. Can't get any better.

Raise 'em up!

What a way to start the week off... two things that don't really tickle my fancy: overhead squats and WODs where you're constantly in the same position.

This is what was waiting for us at the box today.

So basically, you're arms are going to be in the overhead position for 20 minutes straight. Yay!!!  not really. Who gets really excited about that? You must be a freak. (No harm intended).

I went light. As in the 15kg bar. Really. I'm a little embarrassed about that, but I needed to be able to use my arms the rest of the day. Hey, at least I stuck with the 25lb plate for the lunges!

I'm thankful for staying at that weight. 15 reps is a lot for OHS and then you don't even get to rest afterwards because your arms are again over your head trying to keep the plate from bouncing off your noggin. 

Thank goodness my Rogue Wrist Wraps came in this weekend. I put those babies to good use today.

I had to really focus towards the end of the AMRAP. As I got tired, I started to go more on the balls of my feet instead pushing through my heels. I'll take less numbers for better form. No sense getting lazy in here.

In the end: 8 rounds

And that was moving until the very last second too. 

On a side note... how awesome was Chris Spealler's performance this weekend at Regionals? Freaking amazing!!!! I'm so excited that he'll again be at the Games. I'm gonna get to see him in action. Can't wait! If you haven't yet, check out the Games site and watch the videos. There are so many inspirational athletes. 

And here's some shots from my weekend.

Picked this little cutie up on Friday. She's such a darling.

It's worth it to wake up early for this face.

Celebrated Cinco de Mayo with some paleo spaghetti (and a cheat burrito earlier in the day).

Then prepped food for the week. 

Too Light... ha!

I don't know what it is... maybe that we are getting closer to the summer? Maybe that more people are moving to East Village? It's been harder to find parking in the morning in front of the box. I used to always get this one spot across the street. Nobody parked there overnight. Now, it's always taken when I show up and I'm not showing up any later. Huh... might have to start making friends with the homeless people around the corner.

Anyways, this is what we had this morning.

I was pretty excited for this one. Even though it contained running... 200m, I could do that! (I think!) There were a lot of people around this morning too. A couple of drop ins added to the usual numbers. Once we all had our barbells set up, we took up the majority of the floor place and were packed the tightest I've ever seen it. 

Still comfortable though and we got straight to work.

I had set up 63lb for the push press. I wanted to go "heavy" but not so heavy that I couldn't finish unbroken. 

The first round, the weight felt heavy, but I think I just wasn't warmed up enough in that movement because it became easier in the later rounds. About halfway through, Christa looked at me and said, "Kana, you look too strong for that weight." To which I immediately was shaking my head while finishing a press. She chuckled. I was having to push quite hard to finish out those rounds.

The runs were... okay. Sucks that it's the slightly uphill area of the block for the first 100m. Definitely worse going up for the first half. 

15min AMRAP: 6 rounds + 15

On a side note... a coworker and I went to Urban Chicken for the first time today for some lunch. It was much better than I expected from the look of things outside. Don't be discouraged by the exterior! They only use locally grown produce and free range chickens, which is good for paleo menu options. I got a 1/4 chicken with two sides. I choose the salad and grilled veggies. The food was phenomenal. The chicken was nicely seasoned and moist. The veggies! I don't remember the last time I had zucchini, but I remember that I never liked it. Today... uh... it was delicious! So tender and perfectly charred. I'll definitely be going back. Probably for a cheat meal so that I can try a Chicken Turnover, cause those things looked amazing.

Burpees, Bells, and Balls

The first thing I do in the mornings after my alarm goes off, is take a peek at the wod on the CFEV website. This morning I was having particular difficulty... then when my eyes focused a tad bit more, I realized why. They changed the website last night!!! I wasn't even clicking in the right spot on my iPhone. Check out the new site... I think it's pretty badass.

When I finally focused enough to find the wod on the site, here's what I saw.

Didn't look so horrible, but I have a particular dislike for wods that increase in reps throughout. I find it mentally more taxing to keep thinking that I have more reps to go than I completed.

The burpees in this wod were killer. I was struggling by the middle of the second round. Silly me, I also went heavy (not like Laura was gonna let me go light anyway). The kb swings weren't horrible with the 35lb bell. The ball slams sucked with the 20lb ball though. I was barely going in sets of five by the last round and a couple times almost dropped the thing on my head. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

In the end...

My time: 12:20 (35lb kb, 20lb ball)

At least I didn't have to run around anywhere!

On a side note, here's my dinner and it was super delicious!!

Homemade paleo butter chicken with cauli-rice. Mmm.

All Over The Map

Some days, I'm just not moving as fast as I'd like in the morning. Today was one of those days. Went to bed at a reasonable time, but I was just so tired when I woke up.

Good thing Laura was around this morning. That meant some good DU practice before starting the WOD, which gave me time to get myself moving. I didn't do so bad. For some reason I would always trip up when I got to 9. Every time. Maybe I'll have better luck next time. 

On to the WOD.

It was a pretty long one. 
The HSPU were the worst, I think. I was able to do them with only one mat. By the end though I was only doing them for about 15 of the 20 seconds. 
I tried to work on my speed during the box jumps. It went... eh. Not super good, but better than before. I like 20 seconds of box jumps, they are doable before I get all exhausted. I will admit that I almost face planted into the box one time though. I survived it and recovered thank goodness. 
The L-sits were not a favorite either. I could only hold the "L" for about 5 seconds and spent the rest of the time in the tuck position. Watching the clock tick by while hanging on to the bar was the longest 20 seconds of the workout.
This WOD got me moving, but it wasn't a favorite. Hopefully, I'll have a better day tomorrow.
On a side note, here's my dinner plate tonight.

Paleo leftover meal. Garlic roasted pork, sauteed spinach with bacon, and asparagus. Mmm.

Mini-WOD Monday

I'm pretty sure that I dreamed about CrossFit this weekend, so I was ready to go this morning. When I saw the WOD, I even thought, "hey, this looks like fun."

Well, that was until I woke up enough and realized that those were overhead squats... my least favorite lift. Ever. I just don't like them. Weird, because I love snatch and snatch balance and everything snatch related, but I really hate OHS. Huh, gotta 'em sometime I guess. 

The class was pretty full this morning thanks to a couple Foundations graduates (yay! congrats!) and a couple of drop ins (welcome!). I ended up starting with the row/run to alleviate overcrowding with the OHS. I felt good for the first round, but the second run, my legs just didn't want to start moving. I finally got them moving on the last half of the lap (the downhill portion). I was on the floor when that part was over. 

Next up was the OHS. I feel like I shortchanged myself a bit, because I didn't go very heavy. Once again, psyching myself out. Started too light and ended up not reaching my full potential. Didn't want to keep going though because there were still kettlebell swings to get through. Huh, are the more reason to figure out my 1RM on OHS. Sucks though, because that means I'll actually have to do them. 

The pushups/kbs were last. You could break it up any way you wanted. At first, I figured I'd break it into sets of ten. By the time I started I figured I would get as many kbs as a could and go from there. That's how it went. Not bad. I was happy with my time too and the fact that I moved up weight for the kb (1 pood! yeah!). 

Here's my WOD: 

Run/Row: 4:54 

OHS: 33#x3; 53#x3; 63#x3x3; 68#x3 

KBS/Pushup: 3:32 

Not a bad start to the week. And on a side note, some shots from my weekend.

  Primal portobello mushroom pizza! You gotta have a little cheese every now and then.

Primal burger yumminess for dinner. Recipe from Health Bent

Breakfast this morning, I love me some hash!

My sis putting up a 55# snatch at CF Waipio. So proud of you!!!

Life Goal... Accomplished!!

I have to start off this post with the most exciting news... maybe, like ever.

I did my first pullup!! And I mean, I kipped it straight up to the bar. Awesomeness. Too bad there isn't a video or anything. I'm rather low tech when actually working out.

Hells yeah! I never, ever, ever thought I would be able to do one and now... two months into CrossFit, it happened. Amazingness. And did I mention this was after this morning AMRAP? More awesomeness.

Ok. Ok. Now on to the actual workout.



For some reason, maybe tiredness... the first time I read this in the morning I thought it said only 3 kb arm presses, which I thought was weird. Why so little? Ah, because I'm an idiot and misread the board. Got it.

The AMRAP was a usual AMRAP, which means that it sucked. Three minutes into it, I couldn't believe I had to keep this up for seven more. And naysayers complain that you can't get a good workout in ten minutes. Ha! Kb presses were not the most comfortable thing for my wrists though. It just sucked to have the bottom of the kb hitting my arm the whole time. I think I have a slight bruise now :( oh well.

10 min AMRAP: 18 rnds + 10 +4

I just couldn't squeeze in those last few presses.

There weren't enough rowers for the whole class so I opted to wait and worked on some double unders and pullups. That's when I got those three glorious kips.

Double unders. They were a different story. I've already proved to myself that I can do them. The problem is once I get a little tired, my form sucks and I lose concentration... two things I need if I don't want to continually whip my toes or the back of my thigh. So what do I do? Blame the rope (which I do think is just a tad too long, made for people 5'0-5'6 and I'm maybe 5'0 on a super good day). I'm working on getting one custom fit. Just gotta make the (not too far) drive to El Cajon and pay a visit to Rx Jump Ropes.

That's it for now!


My dinner plate: spicy garlic long beans and asparagus (my recipe) and Chinese five spice slow cooker pork (from The Clothes Make The Girl). Yum!

Happy Monday!

Someone in the office this morning decided that it was a good idea to not get fat all by himself, so he dropped off a large donut tray in the "conference room," which happens to be my office. Since beginning this paleo journey, I don't think I've ever seen anything that looked so delectably good and horribly disgusting at the same time. I should have taken a picture. Not that I don't indulge in sweets every now and then, it's just I make those myself and I know exactly what goes into them. Who knows that went into those sugar babies. I got weird looks when offered one and I passed. The look of, "Really? Who passes on sugar-coated donuts on a Monday?" Um... I do. Then the looks of realization came over everyone's faces. Oh yeah, she's the crazy paleo girl. Awesome.

How about today's workout.. shall we?



That was kind of a surprise to wake up to. We usually do a longer metcon on Monday's to get out of the weekend lull. Hmmm... maybe someone feels bad for the crazy metcons from last week?

The usual Monday crowd showed up and Hillary and I decided to partner up in order to save space so we didn't have the clean up the weight before starting the squat, especially because we would be a little higher in weight.

This was more of a "pick your challenge" kind of day. It wasn't specifically for time or certain weight. We decided that we would increase the weight each round for a challenge. Some guys went heavy and did it for time. Good for them.

Here's how our rounds turned out:
1st: 75#
2nd: 80#
3rd: 85#

Each round we did 10 ring pushups. It was supposed to be "max" but 10 was where our form started to get a bit wobbly and sloppy so we cut it there. I was happy with that. The weight was challenging enough, but we were able to get all 3 rounds of 10 reps unbroken. Considering that last time I checked my 1RM for front squat was 105#, to be able to knock out 10 at 85# is fine by me.

Worked on some pullups again after the wod using my new red band. I'm getting better. The red is actually a little easier to keep the kipping rhythm with than then blue band IMO. I dared to try a couple without the band. I was able to do 3 "1.5 kip" pullups. I call them that because I have to use an extra kick about halfway up to get my chin over the bar... but, hey! it gets there!

On a side note: Friday and Saturday's weather suuuucked, but Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. Here's some shots from my weekend.


Started Saturday off with this breakfast scramble


Then ended the night with a yummy fruit and coconut cream mix


Did I mention it was beautiful Sunday?


I could have stayed outside all day

Walking funny today... go figure

As yesterday progressed, I really started to feel those squats. I definitely felt them when I woke up this morning. And then guess what?

BAM! This showed up.



I knew my legs would not appreciate this WOD, basically one long (relatively) torture session of the same motion. Great.

Last week, I had a 2RM of 90# thrusters. So to do them in a metcon, I figured out 65% of that, which equals 58.5. Ok, sounds doable... so I grab a midget bar (23#) and throw a pair of 15# bumpers on. I wussed out and didn't add the last 5# to make it an even 58#. Thank god!

I got through the first 20 thrusters okay. They were hard, but I managed to pump out all 20 unbroken. I knew, though, that would not be happening in the next sets.

The wall balls were a different story. More along the lines of do some. Do some more. Do some more. Almost there. Finished.

Then back to thrusters. I was so tired at the end of the first round that I didn't even rack the bar. So now I had to clean it off the floor. Not horrible just... blah. I did the second and third round of these in sets of five.

And let me tell you... the last set of thrusters was HARD. For reals.

My time: 8:39

I was one of the last few people to finish. Which I think sucks, except for that I was one of the only girls to use any sort of weight that pushed my limits. I'm glad I did. It's helping me grow and realize that I am stronger than I think.

Needless to say, I am now walking funny because my quads, hamstrings, and hip flexors are all sore. Oh well, at least I can say that I did something today. I lifted heavy weights. How bout you?

Since CF and Paleo are pretty much taking over my life... I don't really post a lot on my personal blog. Eh. I like this one much better. I thought I would start sharing some photos of my day with whoever (if anyone) reads this thing.

*All pics are mine and usually taken with my phone using instagram... you can tell the ones that I take with my dslr, they're much nicer looking*


Today's lunch: sweet potato hash and chicken sausage from Costco.


Sausage cooking last night in some leftover bacon fat


Last night's dinner: seafood stew from Everyday Paleo. Mmm


Also with dinner, the recipe of the week from CFEV. Bacon wrapped, almond-stuffed dates.

gettin' my squat on!

I was just thinking last night that I haven't done squats in a while.

Lo and behold, look what's on the board this morning.



SQUATS!!! Drew must be psychic or something.

After a very long, but worthwile dynamic stretching warm-up, I walked up the my racked bar and got started.

I'll admit, I am a wuss when it comes to starting off with weights, especially when it's something that I haven't worked in a bit and I'm not sure how much weight I can handle. Then I undoubtedly start over analyzing how much I think I can lift and without the watchful eye of a coach, shortchange myself.

My Rounds
1st round: 55#
2nd round: 65#
3rd round: 75#
4th round: 85#
5th round: 95#

By this time, I knew that I had only really worked on those last two rounds. I could hear Laura's voice in the back of my head,"that's too light for you!" so I decided to keep going until I had to push myself more.

6th round: 100#
7th round: 105#

I stopped there. The last set of back squats I pushed a lot and I knew at any heavier I wouldn't be able to get through the set unbroken. 105#, I'll take that.

Oddly enough, before starting this workout, I thought the limiting factor for me would be how much I could front squat. Instead, it was how much I could back squat. I felt much more stable on my front squat than my back squat. Definitely not what I thought would happen.

Over the past month I have also noticed that men seem to have a much harder time with the required shoulder and arm mobility required to do overhead and front squats. They have quite a difficult time keeping their elbows up during front squats and can't quite get the full rotation for overhead. Interesting. I'll have to look into that one.

Oh yeah and I had sweet potato hash for dinner again last night and leftovers again for lunch. I'm obsessed with the stuff.

Friday Fun and last night's dinner!

Today I completed my second week of pulling myself out of bed at 5 am everyday (except weekend, obviously) to get my butt whipped at the box. I mean that literally because with DU practice, I really am getting my butt whipped... I have the lashes to prove it!

Looking back at my workout log, I've come to the realization that we do partner WODs every other week. Cool, I like partner WODs. I think I push myself just a tiny bit harder when I know someone else is depending on my performance. Although, sometimes I feel bad. I'm just not as fast a runner and rower as others. Working on that though, but it's not instant perfection. More like slow and steady progress.

Anyways... here we are for today.



There were three girls in class this morning. Myself, Hillary, and Melissa (first time meeting! yay! I love new people.) so we all grouped together. They rowed while I did the air squats and manmakers.

If you don't know, manmakers "make a man out of you" or so they say. I've done them once before and didn't think they were entirely awful... but at that time I didn't complete a whole week of mostly shoulder work as well. It's essentially a pushup-dumbell row-dumbell thruster all put together. Christa makes it look much easier than it is during the WOD. I'm also sure I don't look as pretty as her doing it either.

Hillary and I grabbed a set of 12# db and 10# db. After this week's work, 12# was optimistic, but I would try any way and see how it felt. Yeah, that only lasted for the first round... the other two were with the lighter weight and I still had to do a little push press motion to get them up by the end.

My shoulders will definitely thank me when this week is over. On the bright side no running around the block! Ha!

3 rounds: 17:18

Not bad. That's less than 6 minutes for a total round and about 3 minutes per person for a round. Sounds about right because I timed my second bout of manmakers and those took me about 2 minutes to get through. And props to Melissa who worked hard the whole time too! She's awesome.

On to other things... dinner last night.

AMAZING. seriously. Breakfast for dinner can't get better than this.

Ok, maybe it can, but only with more bacon!

Here's a look before I devoured the whole plate.



I saw this on Nom Nom Paleo earlier this week and it looked soooo good, but I was still finishing some kinda-sorta-paleo sinigang I had. Finally, yesterday while debating what to do for dinner and realizing that I hadn't defrosted any meat, I remembered the sweet potatoes I had and this recipe popped back in my mind. Perfect.

I don't own a food processor (this recipe is reason number 5,342 that I need to get one) so I put the sweet potato in my little food chopper instead. Worked for me.

I seasoned the sweet potato with whatever was in my cupboard: garlic salt and pepper, paprika, and dried ground cilantro. Then, I chopped up some bacon (cause bacon goes with EVERYTHING) and sauteed onions. Threw in the potatoes and let them cook and fried a couple eggs.

While I was doing this I remembered the asparus that had been chillin in my fridge all week as well. Into the oven that went with some olive oil, salt, and pepper.

When it was all cooked and plated, I held back long enough to take a quick picture then stuffed my face.

I mean really... I stuffed my face. There wasn't anything left afterwards.

And it made me feel like a superstar in the kitchen... which I, most certainly, am not.

Hump Day Blues

I despise running. There was a reason that I played sports like softball and volleyball growing up. No long distance running. At one point during a summer, some coaches tried to recruit me to the high school team as a goalie (really? who wants a 5 foot nothing goalie?). I asked them how much they ran during practice... 1 mile warmup then everything else. No thanks! My short legs just don't like to go fast and I hate when people yell "stride it out!" How far to you think these things go? 5 foot nothing remember? They don't stride far at all!

I had some hump day blues this morning. I didn't want to wake up. Add to it the fact that I checked my phone and saw 600m runs in there, now I really didn't want to get up. Still, some sort of workout guilt/CF addiction pulled me up and into the car. When I got there, everyone else was feeling the hump day blues too. At least I wasn't alone.

Here's what we had:



I went a little light on the deadlifts: 75#. I wanted to be able to get through them unbroken. That weight was just right. I was tired at the end and really had to push through, but my sets were unbroken.

Then two laps around the block. This part I hate. It's uphill on the first leg. Not a ginormous hill, but enough that you can feel it. I felt like I was dragging a$$. I pushed myself, but the laps still seemed to take forever. I wanted to get in four complete rounds. I knew after the first run that wasn't going to happen. Ok, at least three and some then.

I didn't wuss out to the green band on pullups. I decided that I needed to put my kipping practice into play and would try to kip with the blue band. Success! The first round I managed to string 5 kips together and the second round 8 kips! That's a record for me. I haven't quite got the rythm down yet and I usually look like I'm doing some awkward flailing motion. The third round I got two sets of 5 kips in. Yeah, I'm still using the band but this is the best it's been for me ever. Ever. In my life. I'm pretty sure I was smiling when it happened.

Final tally for 20 min AMRAP: 3 rounds + 10 dealifts + 300m

Almost the four rounds I wanted.

On a side note... I love spaghetti. It's one of my go-to-favorite-comfort-food type meals. I was very distraught when I learned that Paleo/Primal eating doesn't support wheat. There goes spaghetti. A sad, sad day. My body feels so much better since I've begun I mostly Paleo diet that I'm not giving up on it. Then I discovered a solution: Spagetti Squash! You bake it and string it and voila! spaghetti noodles. I admit, they are a little crunchier and sweeter than pasta noodles, but they were good. I love it! Spaghetti is back in rotation!


You can't even tell those aren't pasta noodles!

the travel dilemma

I'm traveling for few days for work and while being away from my box is scary enough... how am I supposed to follow a primal lifestyle without kitchen access or spending tons on eating out? Luckily, it's only for a couple days. I packed what I thought would be helpful. Here's what went
into my bag:

Shaker bottle and four servings of protein powder
Lara bars (yes, it's processed but I figure better than grabbing a Snickers bar)
Small ziploc of almonds mixed with pistachios

Once I checked into my room and found that I had a fridge and a microwave, I stopped by the store and picked up some other things. And I know it's still not strict paleo or even primal, it's still better for my body and my wallet. You can't be perfect all the time, but doing what you can is better than doing nothing at all.

My travel paleo dinner:




Tomorrow it's another body weight WOD. Gotta keep it up!

Fuel

The day that I signed up for my foundations class, I noticed a sign next to the counter that was "advertising" Paleo snack kits. Intrigued, I googled it when I got home. The hunter-gatherer diet seemed very interesting, but at first glance it also seemed very limited. No beans, wheat, sugar, processed or dairy? What was I supposed to eat? Constant salads would surely drive me completely bonkers. So then I googled some Paleo before/after photos of people to see if this really made a difference (apparently so) and I found a couple of real people blogs about eating and living Paleo. I say real people because there are some bloggers forget about the budgets and schedules of people with jobs and families. I'm talking to you PurseBlog... how do you afford all those designer bags and nail manicures? Do you just walk around all day eating and taking pictures of your purses?

Enough ranting, sorry. Back to Paleo. My trainer friend, Lea, also suggested some blogs and that I also look in Zone. I did and at first was really excited about it. The restricted food list isn't as large. It's more of a balanced-everything-in-moderation type diet focused on macronutrition. Then I was faced with the daunting task of figuring out how to zone my meals including measuring and weighing the foods. In the end I think I just got a little too freaked out about the "if I eat an apple, I have to find some fat and protein to go with it" mentality.

So, I gave Paleo a shot. I got some great recipes from Everyday Paleo and also Pinterest.

side note: I LOVE Pinterest... I just searched "Paleo." Not a whole lot, but some good ideas.

My first Paleo meal was a warm bacon and spinach salad with avocado. I baked some porkchops too. The salad was amazing! Hmm... maybe this wasn't going to be so bad afterall. The next day I made some garlic and cinnamon sweet potato to go with the rest of the porkchops. Also very very tasty. During this time, I didn't eat any wheat (shocker for someone from Hawaii) and stopped snacking on chocolate and freezer pops. I could immediately feel a difference in my body. I didn't feel bloated all the time and I wasn't immediately exhausted after getting home from work.

I've been taking things slowly. I couldn't do the no wheat at all thing for long, I was craving it, but I did make the transition to whole wheat when I do crave it. I don't eat much of it and slowly it'll make more of a permanent exit.

For now, I'm going to keep exploring all things Paleo.