Squat, Squat, Squat (Repeat)

Dinner

Worked on finding my front squat 1 rep max. 125 didn't feel too bad, but then failed horribly at 135. My max back squat is 145, so I feel like there's still some room for improvement.

Metcon: Jeremy - 21-15-9 Overhead Squats and Burpees

53# bar - finished at 7:11. Was shooting for under 7 minutes, so slightly disappointed, but I do recognize that overhead squats are a very weak movement for me and these felt better than usual tonight (still not good, but better), so I'm pleased with that.

Nutrition:

Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts with a sliced banana and coconut milk. Coffee with coconut milk.

Snack: 2 pieces of dark chocolate

Lunch: Italian beef over fresh spinach, mushrooms, hard boiled egg and bacon. Topped with giardinera (sp?)

Pre-WOD snack: 1 "Apple Pie" Larabar

Dinner: (shown above) 1 bison burger topped with a fried egg. Celery root and cauliflower puree on the side. 1/2 avocado. 2 glasses of red wine (Zack wouldn't help me finish the bottle, so I will blame that on him).

Paleo Blueberry Muffins

Nutrition Today

Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts with coconut milk, banana, coffee with coconut milk

Lunch: ground beef (with onions and bell pepper) over fresh spinach. 1/2 avocado. 1 paleo blueberry muffin.

Snack: 3 pieces of deli ham

Dinner: 1 pork chop, broccoli, 1 piece of dark chocolate, 1 glass of red wine.

Dinner

Snatch work with the 33# bar today. Snatches are high on my suck list, so it was good to go back to basics on these. Still need a lot of work.

Metcon: 4 rounds of 300m row, 15 33# thrusters, 10 PUs - 12:51 this one was rough, very rough.

Nutrition:

Breakfast: 1/4cup walnuts with coconut milk, banana, coffee with coconut milk.

Lunch: 1 large piece of leftover paleo lasagna. 1 paleo blueberry muffin (side note: I made these over the weekend and they're pretty light and moist, but the flavor profile is off. I'll re-work and hopefully have a recipe to post soon). 1 piece of dark chocolate.

Snack: 3 pieces of deli ham.

Dinner: Tilapia with mango salsa (mangos, onion, jalapeno, cilantro and lime juice), brussel sprouts and avocado. Shown above.

Zack's Paleo Lasagna

Weekend laziness and a work related trip to Detroit (yes, I'm sure you're all surprised that it wasn't a recreational trip) led me to slack on my blogging. Back in the saddle.

Deadlift: 123-140-158(10) Bryce watched my form and made me feel a lot better. I had been under the impression that my butt was lifting before the rest of my body. Turns out that it looks like I'm just starting with it too low, so raising it to get into ready position. I obviously still need to work on this, as that's pretty inefficient...but I feel better nonetheless.

Metcon: 6:15 (I think?) with 65#

Nutrition:

Breakfast: 2 eggs over easy with sausage links, orange juice and coffee (at hotel)

Snack: 1 "Cherry Pie" Larabar

Lunch: Pecan crusted chicken breast over romaine with mandarin oranges, cranberries and celery. Balsamic vinaigrette (Fridays at the airport)

Pre-WOD snack: 3 pieces of deli ham

Dinner: Zack's paleo lasagna (shown above). Made with zucchini for the noodles. Filling was grass fed ground beef, onions, mushrooms, avocado, spinach, and marinara sauce. This was a big hit! Brown the beef and lightly saute the mushrooms and onions as well as the zucchini "noodles." Assemble and bake in oven at 350 for 20 minutes or so.

Bacon Soup!

Dinner Tonight

Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts, 1/2 blood orange, 1 cup coffee with coconut milk

Lunch: leftover spaghetti squash with ground turkey and marinara, sauteed spinach with garlic and tomato

Snack: 3 pieces of deli ham, 1 piece of dark chocolate

Dinner: Bacon soup. Yes, BACON Soup. I know that it's a little naughty, but it's Friday night, so what the heck. This was very delicious and even better than I imagined. Zack was skeptical, but ended up eating three bowls...recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

6 slices of bacon

One bunch of watercress (wash and separate leaves from stems, chop stems finely)

1/2 large red onion, finely chopped

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

4 cups of beef stock

Inner stalks of celery (with the leaves)

1 cup of sliced mushrooms

Avocado (optional)

Directions

Fry the bacon in a large, deep frying pan. Then remove the bacon, chop it up and set aside.

Use the bacon grease to saute the onion and garlic. When soft and slightly brown, add finely chopped watercress stems, beef stock and celery leaves.

Simmer for at least 30 minutes with a lid on.

Add watercress leaves, mushrooms and crumbled bacon.

Simmer for another 10 minutes.

Pluck out celery leaves and top with avocado. Enjoy!

Food Diary: January 21, 2010

Lunch
Dinner

Zack has been out of town for three days now. This normally means that I get to eat things like mac n' cheese and other dishes that he won't touch. I stayed paleo this time though and it actually wasn't that difficult. Yay!

Breakfast; 1/4 cup walnuts with light coconut milk, banana, coffee with light coconut milk.

Lunch: (shown above) leftover spaghetti squash with ground turkey and marinara, half an avocado and red grapes. 1 half slice of paleo pineapple upside down cake.

Dinner: almond crusted chicken breast over sauteed spinach with garlic and tomatoes.

Dinner

Today's WOD was super fun. The snatches didn't go as well as I would have liked, but the Metcon was great. Cleans felt really good.

Snatch: Worked on finding 1 rep max and form. Could only do 63#. ugh....

Metcon: 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 hang power cleans and ring dips(with purple band) 7:17

Food Diary:

Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts with coconut milk, banana, coffee with coconut milk.

Lunch: leftover spaghetti squash with ground turkey and marinara. One half slice of paleo pineapple upside down cake.

Pre-WOD Snack: 1 "cherry pie" Larabar.

Dinner: (shown above) two eggs over easy, over leftover shredded pork and fresh spinach. Topped with 1/2 avocado.

Cake Day at the Office

Paleo Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Erin O's famous spaghetti squash and meat sauce

Today was Cake Day in our office. This is a monthly event that I NEVER miss! Luckily I planned ahead and brought a paleo friendly snack...still had to avoid the kitchen at all costs, but I made it!

Breakfast: 1/4cup walnuts, banana, coffee with coconut milk

Lunch: shredded pork (with bell pepper, onion, celery, dry mustard) over a bed of spinach

Cake Day Snack: paleo friendly pineapple upside down cake (shown above). As you can see, the cake falls apart just a little bit, but it is really moist. And most importantly, delicious!

Dinner: Erin O's spaghetti squash with ground turkey and marinara sauce (shown above). 1 gluten free 12oz beer.

A Case of the Mondays

Dinner Tonight

Feeling just a bit blah today, but managed to pick myself up for the WOD. And it was a good one.

Press: 43(5)-50(5)-56.5(9)
15 negative HS
Metcon: 7:07. Regular kipping PUs (tried to CTB, but failed on most) 73# FS

Nutrition:
Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts, banana, coffee with coconut milk
Lunch: 3/4cup shredded pork over fresh spinach, half avocado
Snack: 1/2 slice of paleo pineapple upside down cake
Post-WOD Snack: 1 "apple pie" Larabar
Dinner: (pictured above) Sockeye salmon fillet, spinach, cauliflower

Food Diary: January 17, 2010

Lunch Today

Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts with coconut milk, banana, coffee with coconut milk

Lunch: (pictured above) grass fed ground beef mixed with pork sausage, bell pepper, onion and mushrooms. Topped with two eggs over easy and half an avocado

Snack: 1 slice of paleo pineapple upside down cake

Snack #2: 5 pitted prunes, 1 12oz gluten free beer

Dinner: 1/2 of a grass fed NY strip steak, sauteed mushrooms and brussel sprouts. 1 glass of red wine.

Zack and I hit up Whole Foods (coconut flour for the pineapple upside down cake), Stanley's and Dominick's this morning. Love grocery shopping early in the morning! Oh yeah, and Binny's for the gluten free beer... :)

Big Test Day: Food Log

Today was the official start of "busy season" at our firm, so I had to go into work and be surrounded by delicious pastries, and the like. I survived, phew. Test #2 was dinner out with four of our friends...I always cave with the appetizers, but also survived this test - whoo hoo!

Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts with coconut milk, 1/2 banana, 3 strawberries, 6 raspberries, coffee with coconut milk.
Lunch: small piece of yesterday's mushroom quiche, lettuce, tomato on top of a ground beef pattie, 1 piece of dark chocolate.
Snack: 3 pieces of deli meat ham.
Dinner: shared a bib lettuce salad with Zack (red wine vinaigrette). Sea bass, mussel, fennel and mandarin orange "stew". It was really more of a broth that it was all sitting in and I'm pretty sure they may have snuck some butter in there (ugh, hate not having control of the ingredients). Also had one glass of a meritage red wine. Yum.
Post-Dinner Snack: Zack and I were still hungry after our dinner out, so we sauteed a couple of shrimp.

1st Photo Opp!

Photo inspired by JJ

WOD:

Press: 5x3x1: 58, 65, 73(2) The form on the last set was horrendous. Anything to get the bar up...but also probably the reason that I only got two.

Metcon: KB Swings (heavy), box jumps, wall ball (14#) sets of 25-20-15-10-5 Time: 15:08

This one was awful. Lots of casualties at the box today, but I really love the brutal Friday WODs. Friday nights are really my favorites. Great stuff tonight!

Nutrition:

Breakfast: 1/4cup walnuts with coconut milk, banana, coffee with coconut milk

Lunch: roughly a quarter of the mushroom quiche pictured above (made with eggs, pork sausage, mushrooms, shallots, chives. Crust is almond meal, olive oil and baking soda). Also had 1/2 cup of red grapes and a half avocado. BTW, this quiche got rave reviews at work today. I didn't actually hand out samples, but there were a bunch of people that followed their noses into the kitchen. Good stuff.

Pre-WOD snack: 3 pieces of deli meat ham

Post-WOD snack: banana

Dinner: Paleo chicken pot pie - roasted chicken breast, celery, carrot, cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms. Crust made with almond meal, baking soda and olive oil.

Food Diary: January 14, 2009

Breakfast: 1/4c walnuts with coconut milk, banana, coffee w/ coconut milk. Working on finding new breakfast options. I'm going to try some of the ideas from the CFC paleo blog, starting with the mushroom quiche - yum!
Lunch: 2 grilled chicken breasts, spinach salad with cucumber, tomato and red wine vinaigrette, 1 piece dark chocolate
Snack: 3 pieces of deli meat ham (I know, I know. I'm going to finish it and hopefully cut back).
Dinner: 1/4 chicken (cooked in slow cooker with water and seasonings), sauteed celery, carrots, onions and mushrooms.

Zack and I went on a marathon grocery shopping trip tonight: Costco, Dominicks and Trader Joe's. So much fun and I discovered almond meal, which I can't wait to try! Whole Foods tomorrow.

Feeling Rejuvenated

I am so excited to see how many people are taking the Paleo Challenge! It is so great to know that through every struggle, there will be dozens of CFCers there to support me. I'm feeling a little rejuvenated after our meeting meeting tonight...yay Paleo (let's hope this feeling lasts)!

Snatch Balance: Worked up to 53# and they felt great! Would have kept going, but Alex shut us down for the Metcon. Will work on these some more on my own because I feel like something may have clicked tonight.

Metcon: 3 rounds of 20 Pull-ups, 30 Push-ups, 40 Sit-ups, 50 Squats (3 minutes rest in between each round).
Round 1: 3:51
Round 2: 11:31
Round 3: 19:17

Food Log:
Breakfast: 1/4c walnuts with coconut milk, banana, coffee with coconut milk
Lunch: 1cup shredded beef (with onion, celery, bell pepper) over 1 1/2 cups spinach, topped with half avocado
Pre-Wod Snack: 3 pieces of deli meat ham. I am very upset to hear that deli meat is a no-no, but not all that surprised. Time to find some new snacks...although deli meat was one of my all-time favorites. :( This is almost as sad as when Zack told me I need to take it easy on the fruit because "fruit is just candy from a tree". Boooooooo Zack!
Dinner: 1 grilled tilapia fillet, 1 cup brussel sprouts, 1/4 avocado

Food Diary: January 12, 2009

Had a hard time putting the dark chocolate out of my mind today...need to get it out of my desk at work. Overall, not bad though.

Breakfast: 1/4 cup walnuts with coconut milk, banana, 1 cup coffee with coconut milk
Lunch: 1/2lb roasted turkey breast, 1 bunch of red grapes, 3 pieces dark chocolate
Dinner: shredded beef with bell pepper, celery and onion, steamed broccoli, spinach salad, 1 piece dark chocolate

Strength: My Weakness

I don't know what my deal was today - mentally shaky throughout my CrossFit Total effort. I generally don't let the weight defeat me, but I just couldn't pull myself together tonight. I did manage to set a couple of PRs though, so I've got some good starting points to work on over the next several weeks. Also, ended the night on a positive note with my 2k row. I think it was one of my better performances on the rower and got a chance to work with Rudy further after my row. I can see that I have a lot of room for improvement and can tweak my technigue quite a bit. Should be fun to see where I end up.

Back Squat: 145 (PR)
Press: 75 (5# under PR, failed twice at 85#)
Deadlift: 195 (PR)
Total: 415

2k row: 8:28

Nutrition Today:
Breakfast: 1/4cup walnuts with coconut milk, banana, 1 cup coffee w/ coconut milk
Lunch: Corned beef, carrots, brussel sprouts and onions
Dinner: 1 bison burger with guacamole topping, spinach salad, 1 piece dark chocolate

Don't Be Afraid of OHS

Overhead Squats are extremely difficult for me. Definitley way high up on the suck list. Needless to say, I was nervous about finding my OHS max today. What a surprise though - I got 95# which is WAY more than I thought. So excited and definitely a good number to work from. I should mention that I failed to jerk the bar over my head the first time I tried 95, but came back and got it on the second try.

Metcon: 42 Overhead Lunges (25# plate), 21 Pull-ups, 30 OH Lunges, 15 PUs, 18 OH Lunges, 9 PUs
Time: 8:06. 6 seconds over the cap...grrr. I did feel good about sticking with unassisted pull-ups even though I was only stringing a few together at a time.

Also, I'm starting to feel a little bit more "normal" after a week of paleo eating. Phew...I never thought the hunger would subside!

Back at it!

Back in the box today after four days off. Felt SO good to sweat! Worked on finding my 1 rep max power clean. (110 lbs). Bryce mentioned that this is a 20# increase from what I thought was my 1 rep max. Whoo hoo - 20# PR! j/k.

Metcon: 10 minutes AMRAP: 3 back squat at 65% of 1 rep max, 6 burpees and 9 KB swings. Went with 93# on the back squat and 44# on the KBs. 7 rounds plus 1 back squat.

Still doing pretty good with my crossover to paleo. I'm looking for more snack ideas and dinner recipes. I feel like I'm on meat overload right now...

Rough Weekend

The combination of switching to Paleo and battling a wicked head cold made for a lousy weekend, and I didn't make it into the box. Unfortunately, this combo also caused my mom to stage some sort of paleo intervention (obviously my diet had made me sick). She actually told me "you need to stop this and get back to eating healthier." Haha, Zack got a big kick out of that one.
Anyway, I'm giving myself one more day of rest. Back in the box tomorrow!

New Plan for a New Year

I am so excited to have my training blog up and running for 2010! I'm excited to see how this training blog morphs throughout the year, but for now I plan to include information on my training progress and my nutrition. I've officially made the switch to paleo and I need to be accountable for it somewhere.

I made it into the box for the 4:30. Worked on finding my back squat max with Mandie, which turned out to be 135lbs. 135!? I'm sure that I've done at least 165 in the past, but apparently without perfect form and depth. Since 135 was all I could do with said form and depth, I'm going to go with it for now. It's something to work from and now that I have my fancy weight load spreadsheet I'll be able to monitor my progress. At least I know that when I do get back up to 165, it will be a legit back squat!

Also did the 5k row yesterday as I missed it on Wednesday, and I've been wanting to establish some rowing baselines. I kept my pace at 2:teens for most of the first 4000m. I thought this would allow me to finish around 21:something...sadly, my math was off. I would have had to row the last 500m in less than 1:30 to get under 22 minutes...grrrr. I sprinted the last 500m around 2:02-2:05, so I was happy about that. I didn't feel like I had any gas left in the tank at the end. Also happy about that. Finished at 22:34.

Lastly, worked on some ring dips, box jumps and had Mandie introduce me to butterfly pull ups. I think I'm going to work on these with a PVC for a while before I move to the actual pull up bar. This is going to be a really tough movement for me as my upper body strength is not where it should be, but I'm determined to get them, mainly because they look so much more bad ass than my current kipping version. Obviously my main training goal is one of performance and strength, but I don't think that vanity is an entirely evil motivator. So yeah, butterfly PUs would be awesome.