Filthy Fifty

I am mentally preparing myself for tonight's WOD as I write this post. The emotional spectrum is migrating between fear and "let's just skip this WOD..." every two seconds. Unfortunately I missed last night's ThrustOff and I was hoping to do that tonight, but Ray had other plans.

I attempted the Filthy Forty for Ray's birthday on my own one day at the gym last week. I didn't finish the last three rounds because I was exhausted and it just plain ol' sucked. So today will be a gigantic milestone to make it through this God awful workout and not die immediately afterwards. 50 Burpees? 50 Pull Ups? 50 Push Presses??? This is gonna suck.

However, I have a weekend full of unfriendly-Paleo habits so this could be me paying it forward on punishment.

Pray for me.

Long time no write

Since my last post I literally rose from the dead on Saturday and took one big step toward my future career. That's a lot to do in a few days time, just sayin'...

The Saturday cheat was to epic proportions and unfortunately I learned that I have ZERO self-control when it comes to gamedays. Instead of waiting until halftime to start drinking I sorta kinda started at 1pm (gametime was 4pm). Whoopsies. And I didn't stop until the bar shut down around... well... does anybody remember?

Even though it was a disaster in every sense of the word, it goes down as one of my favorite days in 2010 and even contending for the All Time Competition. I had an amazing time with my best friends from college watching the Auburn Tigers destroy the SCar Gamecocks and then I got to spend the evening with my future best friends, the CFPT family. It was definitely interesting to see everyone all dressed up and especially to see what everyone is like when they're drunk. To quote my love Jazzy, the CFPT family "takes their drinking as seriously as their gym." Yeah, understatement.

Great big apologies go out to anyone and everyone I made a hot mess of myself to, but apparently I was utterly charming and the worst thing I did was tell Matt being married ruins my life. He got a kick out of it though...

Since then I've been doing a pretty good job with the WOD's. Monday's workout was a little ridiculous with the Power Snatches and today's kinda sucked with the 90 pull-ups, but once again I somehow made it through the workouts when I wanted to give up and go home. All I keep thinking is, "you ran 2.5 miles! Get it together!" and it brings me back in to perspective that I can do it.

Paleo-friendly eating has fallen a bit off track, mostly because of the weekend. I fear for my next two weekends as well since they're filled with cocktail parties, pub crawls (yeah plural) and the unofficial Bills tailgate. But my goal is to eat as best I can all this week and have fun on the weekend. I'm not just indulging to indulge, these are events I don't want to miss out on. I'll probably regret not having the willpower to withstand drinking and eating, but I think the memories may be more worth it. I dunno, time will tell.

Other than that I am being very good on my budget even though it really, really sucks. I paid all of my bills with a little extra on the minimum credit card payments, I bought that stupid tire and I'm scrounging up all week to prepare for Round 2 that will be this weekend.

I cleaned my entire house and I did all of my laundry. The only thing I'm not doing a good job on is practicing the drums. Not to sound like I'm full of excuses, but I keep getting home super late or I have to rush off to something and I don't want to be banging away at 8pm with the neighbors. I need to get it together before my next lesson on Monday!

On a side note, I feel like things are going to be changing in my life pretty soon. I can't discuss too much yet for fear of jinxing it, but I think all of my hard work is going to pay off. Baby J owes me one and he's about to pay me in full, or so I pray.

I want to give a huge shout out to my CFPT family, especially Ray, Becca and Chelsey and super especially Khaki and Jasmine. Love you guys so much :)

My house smells like bacon and Pledge

As we speak I have roughly 3lb of chicken baking in the oven. Yes, 3lb. And I just fried a package of bacon, sliced up fresh vegetables and steamed a ton of green beans. I am ready for the paleo battle that is next week. Hence the bacon smell.

This weekend will be my first cheat day of the new challenge: SEC Championship Day and the CFPT social. I'll be damned if I don't enjoy both of these to their epic proportions, but I will also eat as much paleo as I can and I probably won't start boozing until halfway through the Auburn game. Pray that I manage to not go completely overboard...

But while keeping with my Clean House and Clean Diet regime, I cleaned the entire downstairs of my apartment, the office and my bedroom. Hence the Pledge smell.

I never realized how soothing it really is to be done with your chores around 8pm so you can enjoy the best TV has to offer. If only I had a glass of wine to go with this event... Sigh...

ALSO guess who conquered the Mexican restaurant with a taco salad and no sour cream? This girl.

Learning to Prioritize

This blog has two separate stories... My apologies it's so long...

The tsunami that just came through put a damper on my goal to kick butt at flag football yesterday, but though that door was shut an unexpected window was opened.

In place of the flag football game I decided to keep with my goal of being more social and I took up an offer that was posted on Facebook minifeed. I went to trivia to see my friend Greg who recently moved back to town and I haven't seen in forever. To my surprise another friend I haven't seen in a long time, Morgan, was there. Suffice it to say I may have gone overboard with how excited I was to see the both of them, but sometimes it's the friends you least expect to see that make the rain go away.

I am quite proud of myself for avoiding the Paleo-unfriendly chips and beer that were in abundant quantity while I participated. Being sober isn't quite so bad sometimes, I think I was actually better at trivia.

I went to bed extremely proud of myself for kicking that day's WOD, avoiding the familiar (and much missed) beer and reconnecting with friends I didn't realize I missed until I saw them.

The title of this blog, "Learning to Prioritize," is all about the events of today.

Sometimes when fate decides things are going well with your life, specifically your bank account, it decides to throw you a curve ball. BOOM you lost your cell phone and you need to buy a new one. BOOM your pet gets sick and you have to take them to the vet. BOOM you went on a shopping spree only to realize you forgot to pay your car payment that's due before your next paycheck. The usual suspects. My unwelcoming surprise came with my car and specifically the tire that's been an issue for forever. I finally took it to the shop to assess the issue and I will need a new tire. Now, I have several things on my "I need to purchase" list including vanity items like getting my hair dyed, a cute outfit for the SEC game and a new straightener. The budget doesn't allow for a new tire AND some diva shopping. So what does a big girl do when she's trying to better herself? She buys the tire and deals with wavy, mousy brown hair and clothes I've already worn. Score one for the bank account...

The other item and a significant one is my decision to leave the Atlanta Auburn Club as a Young Alumni leader. I've been grappling with this decision for several months because my heart just isn't in it anymore yet I can't stand to quit things. Today was the final straw.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am overly-committed at all times. I love being in several clubs and associations, volunteering when I can, going to CFPT and being social with club sports and trivia nights. I don't know why I insist on always being involved, but I like to think it's my passion that drives me forward. Without passion, I wouldn't be in CFPT. I would never have joined Special Olympics. I wouldn't have tried kickball. Things that changed my life came from my obnoxious habit of overly extending myself.

But sometimes, something's gotta give...

Today I planned on going to the SEC social in the later part of the evening after my WOD just to pop in and say hey. However, I get an E-Mail this afternoon that the two people in charge can't go and they want me to be the contact. Wow, that's a great opportunity, sign me up! I rush through the WOD, I don't even finish it, rush to the social... And there are maybe 15 people there, a majority of whom I see every month at the Young Alumni events. And another person was asked to be the contact as well. AND it's full of carb-friendly bar food and booze.

So here I am, I sacrificed my WOD and a potential evening off to rest and clean, all because of my naivety that the night will be a success.

It's time to get rid of the things that don't matter to me anymore and make room for the things that are so important right now. Let's make that the Supreme Goal #1 for the remainder of this challenge. If it doesn't make me go to bed feeling like I did last night after seeing Greg and Morgan, it's not worth doing.

Thanks for your patience on reading this posting, if you did.

For those keeping score, I'm three days in to Paleo and I've likely consumed a daily shipment of Tyson chicken breasts. I have worked out the last three days. My kitchen is moderately clean. Yet I have a lot of work to do on the other rooms of my apartment which is the goal for tomorrow since I randomly don't have anything planned for the evening.

Shout Out to Jasmine for still being a great support system. Also a Shout Out to Khaki for just being the amazing motivator that she is.

Bacon and Eggs

Day Two of Operation Better Myself.

This morning I woke up before the alarm went off, which is always a shocking thing to do. I hustled downstairs and made myself a Paleo-friendly breakfast while I waited for the coffee to brew. In truth, breakfast is probably my favorite Paleo meal of the day. Who doesn't love bacon and eggs? Plus, with Paleo I have the freedom to eat plain ol' fatty bacon and fried eggs when in the past Weight Watchers Tori would make turkey bacon with egg whites. Not that it's not still yummy, but there's something about grease and egg yolk that makes everything better.

I also folded the laundry, unloaded the dishwasher AND I cleaned up the kitchen. Boom.

THE DAILY GOALS:
- Go kick some booty at CFPT this afternoon, even though my calves are still dying from yesterday.
- Tonight could be our final flag football game of the season and I intend to suck like I usually do. It's not that I can't play -which really is true- but the boys on the team are pretty competitive. The biggest challenge will be avoiding the beer at the post-game party. Beer is my kryptonite. Plus, being social is one of my personal goals that I want to keep on top of. Anyone who knows me knows I cannot sit still and I always want to go out and do something, but bettering the relationships I make through the events is going to be even more important. Hopefully I don't come off like a stalker...
- Schedule myself for a Ronald McDonald House volunteer night next week. I haven't been to the house in months and I miss it.

Thanks to everyone for the support of the blog so far even though it's only day one. Special Shout Out to Austin.

And so it begins...

Back in August I made a small decision to join CrossFit Peachtree, or CFPT. Chelsey was on my kickball team and had the best Madonna arms of all time and I was jealous. I didn't realize that joining the gym would have a large impact on how I not only see myself in a physical and healthy state, but for some reason wanting to better my everyday existence.

Since then I have challenged myself and succeeded on workouts (WOD's) that I never thought possible. For example, today I ran 4,000 meters in the rain and 50 degree weather. The last time I ran more than the 400m warm up was in the summer when I was a "runner" and probably ran at most a mile-and-a-half before "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" on globo gym's TV ended and I got bored. Running 4,000m today proved that though it sucks, it's doable.

However, with these successes there has been some failure. I attempted the "Strict Paleo Challenge" through CFPT and while I can proudly say I went two weeks cheat-free, I re-kindled my love for beer and pizza and completely fell off the wagon. It was disappointing not only because I didn't achieve a goal, but I lost a ton of weight and I gained it right back.

I learned my lesson though. I learned I wasn't holding myself accountable and I wasn't using my support system. So with that information I am going to use this blog as a way of keeping on track and letting other people see what I'm doing.

This blog isn't just about Paleo of CrossFit though. Don't let the intro fool you. CrossFit was just an eye-opener that I have so much potential and if I really put my mind to it I can achieve everything. Today I didn't think I could run more than 1,600m. And I ran 4,000m.

So the challenge that I chose to accept is to start doing everything that I love to the best of my ability. I don't want to make a list right now of everything I want to achieve because a list could be daunting and it shouldn't be about putting all of my priorities in an order. It's about going to bed every night, snuggled up with a good book (at the moment it's Deathly Hallows, I need to re-read before I see the movie) and knowing that I achieved what I wanted to do and needed to do that day. Even monotonous things like not spending too much money, making sure I left the kitchen clean, or practicing the drums are the things I want to focus on. Some are big and some are small, but they all still matter to me.

So today's successes? Well, without the very obvious running 4,000m (sorry, I keep repeating it, but I'm damn proud), I had my first drum lesson with my new drum teacher today. I made myself a delicious Paleo-friendly dinner with leftovers so I don't find myself stopping at Arby's again to order three roast beef sandwiches to just each the roast beef. And I started this blog.

I don't know if anyone will read this, but really all that matters is that I write it.

(Shout out to Jasmine for inspiring me to write a blog after I read hers.)