Training

I officially began training for Three's Company last week and all I can say is... I'm tired. Working out twice in the evening is definitely a bit exhausting, but in a good way. I was working on movements I'm unfamiliar with and getting more flexible.

As an added bonus I was able to get three months of unlimited yoga and pilates (free!) to help me work on my core and flexibility. Day 1 of Pilates was definitely a butt kicking and I had no idea just how out of shape my abs are. However, now I can alternate yoga and pilates daily plus running and CrossFit to ensure I'll be in top shape for the competition.

To go along with this intense work out regime I will be eating a lot, drinking a lot of water and sleeping like there's no tomorrow.

Attention world: I will be out of commission for the next three weeks until the competition is over.

Tomorrow will be a far better update, I swear... Sunday Funday got the best of me and I have an Entourage marathon calling my name.

113 Days

On I Used to Be Fat the teens have roughly 110 days to lose X amount of weight before a big life-changing event, specifically going away to college. That's three months to dedicate your life to fitness and healthy-eating habits to transform yourself in to who you want to be and what you want to look like.

Attached is a picture of me when I was 19-years old at an Auburn football tailgate. I was skinny, but skinny fat, meaning I wasn't working out at all, I just had lucky genes to carry me through the beer and fast food. However, that luck ran out during my junior year and I proceeded to go from 140lb and a Size 4 to 180lb and a Size 12 when I graduated college.

I want to look like that again. I want to fit in to the gameday dresses, designer jeans and other cute clothes I bought when I was skinny. I don't want to be self-conscious about my body and refuse to wear skins and shorts, tank tops, tighter shirts, anything. No more hiding in jeans and baggy t-shirts!

It is 113 days until June 1, the peak time for everyone to be in bathing suits and preparing for summertime festivities. If I dedicate myself to 113 days of focusing even harder on working out and eating right, maybe I'll get back to that size or will be the best size for my age. I know I may not be exactly the same size because my body has changed in the last six years and I will be gaining muscle with CrossFit.

I will not say I'm going strict paleo or giving up drinking until that day because I know I won't. Why set a goal you know you cannot obtain? In March I begin kickball season, beer festivals, St. Patty's Day and much more. I will be drinking and I don't want to set myself up to fail and feel guilty about it several times out of the month because I had something to drink. Life is short so enjoy it, but there is a fine balance too.

What can I do to battle the cravings and stick to the plan? Well, work out more and harder. I officially decided I am going to compete in "Three's Company" next month and I need to start training. I also want to run a 5k next month without stopping to catch my breath or walk a little bit. These are small goals, but goals! Great goals!

Also, I can continue to make smart decisions about drinking. Not drinking on weeknights is a lot easier than I thought it would be and as long as I'm surrounded by supportive friends it's easy. I won't drink during the week except for Kickball Thursday and if it's a big social event on the weekend. I have training to do on the weekends and if I get hammered on Friday I won't make it to the run or early morning WOD.

So here is my pledge... in 113 I will be a different girl. I will have sexytime thighs, hopefully a hint of some abs and I won't have fat face anymore. How will I achieve these goals? Sticking to the plan and putting everything I have in to it.

Or Jasmine, Lis and Kristen will kick my butt in to the ground.

Shout out to Becky for being an ever present motivator. Thank you for being such a great friend. The next 10lb are for you!

Feb. 15, 2011 - You Suck

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and it should have been the day that emotionally embodies all of my frustration, fears and pissiness because I'm single. Valentine's Day is the one day a year (if you're single) that you look at your life and go, "Crap, I need to get it together!" You weigh your successes in life against your ability to maintain a man's attention. If you don't have a boyfriend on V-Day you might as well be a cast member of Maury with an additional 100lb and a worse skin complexion. So to make yourself feel better you make terrible food decisions (my personal favorite is fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and ice cream) and you booze it up either by yourself with Bridget Jones' Diary or with a bunch of girlfriends who are bawling in to Kleenex just as much as you are.

But what did I do? I went and worked out and ate a Paleo-friendly dinner. Valentine's Day went without any crying, screaming or self-loathing. I smashed my scale in with a sledge hammer and I watched Gossip Girl. I defeated the dreaded Valentine's Day and I smashed it in to the ground.

But today...

It's bad enough I'm sitting in awkward and painful anticipation of two internships that I recently interviewed with and I haven't heard a peep from since. It's bad enough I spent another day sitting around in my pajamas and not showering until normal people were leaving work for the day. It's bad enough I'm eating Paleo and I haven't had carbs since January!

But today...

The Things That Made Me Want To Scream (in chronological order):

1.) I was denied food stamps. I actually applied for food stamps as a 25-year old college educated American. And I was DENIED. Why??? Because I have bad timing. If I had applied for food stamps two weeks ago before my unemployment benefits were approved I would have gotten food stamps, no matter what happened with unemployment benefits, for six months. I would have gotten roughly $150 a month for groceries. But because I decided to wait and be a normal human being and not work the system until my dad finally pressured me in to it, I was denied.

2.) I have unemployment insurance through my auto loan and thank goodness I was smart enough to add it to my policy last year. Well, Mr. Insurance failed to inform me when I sent in my paperwork that there was an error and it needed to be corrected before they could stop my automatic payments. I didn't find this out until I called them to make sure everything was fine and the guy said I just need to fax over a new form and it should be processed in 10 business days. Now I get to pay roughly two more car payments aka $350 before my insurance kicks in.

3.) My favorite magazine came in the mail today. Funny enough I actually got two copies of the magazine which is peculiar. I mean, why would a magazine send me two copies?? But somebody was playing a cruel joke on me... Guess what the featured food on the cover for this month is? MACARONI AND CHEESE! My favorite food on the entire planet. The reason I have thunder thighs. The reason I get out of bed sometimes. Macaroni and f'ing Cheese. And they had the audacity to put, "Hands Down, The Tastiest Version We've Ever Made and other sumptuous baked pastas." Bon Appetit is getting some fan mail this month from a disgruntled and famished reader living in Atlanta, GA...

4.) I randomly decided to open my cell phone bill that came in the mail. I am always the same amount every month and I was under the impression I have unlimited everything so I don't have to worry about surprising fees. HA! I guess I was a sucker for that one because guess who went 810 text messages over this month? Yes, 810. How in the world did I text 810 messages more than I do any other month? So now I get to pay $81 extra on this month's cell phone bill. For those who haven't been keeping up with my current events, I Am Unemployed and I Do Not Have Income.

5.) To make everything so much better... I am not allowed to drink alcohol. That's just another recap for my close friends and family.

Whoever has the Tori Allen voodoo doll, I'm begging you to please stop and leave me alone for the rest of February. I need to finish the Paleo challenge...

It's All Mental

You need to have a lot of strength and endurance to succeed in CrossFit, or to at least survive the WOD's that are scrawled on the whiteboard. You don't have to be Level 1 Certified to get through it, but you need to be physically able to endure the pain.

You also need to have the mental capability to take the WOD down as well. Today I did not have the mental strength to defeat Dead Cindy. I didn't even have the mental strength to sorta kick its ass because it kicked mine.

Today really was like any other day heading in to the gym and I even had the Scale Smash 2011 to look forward to at the end of the workout. However the minute I attempted the first deadlift I knew I was in for trouble. Everything went downhill from there with every deadlift or air squat.

I guess I let my personal struggles affect the way I was performing today. Every time I threw the 125lb of deadlift to the floor I said to the coach, "I'm just not feeling it today." With every failed attempt to lift the weight I thought about my "failed" attempts and struggles with life recently. Every airsquat I thought to myself, "you're unemployed" or "you cheated on your paleo diet" or something to the negative nature. I let myself beat myself up, Dead Cindy didn't even have to lift a finger.

Going forward I need to remember that I'm not always going to be on fire and I'm not always going to be a winner that day. Today should have been an extremely positive day for me because I have a good chance at an opportunity and I can finally begin my career. It's not exactly what I wanted, but when in life do you ever get exactly what you wanted? With every deadlift I should have remembered that statement and made that my personal mantra for the day. I need to stop beating myself up at every turn because I am kicking ass at life, no matter what the whiteboard or resume says. I guess sometimes I need to get my butt handed to me to remember that.

Patience...

I'm passionate, driven, goal-oriented and usually quite motivated.

I am also extremely impatient which tends to negate my above listed qualities. Why? Because I want success immediately. Life is too short to sit around and wait for your dreams to come true or take a big leap toward what you want in life. This is usually my life philosophy when it comes to boys, but right now I have put dating on the back burner and I'm focusing on my fitness. So this impatience is translating in to my frustration that I'm not looking the way I want to look. Yet.

After my WW expedition I weighed 150lb, a super skinny size for me and I was healthy, or so I thought. Right now I'm more at the 170lb weight and though I've got more muscle than I ever have, I'm not happy with the way that I look or what the scale tells me.

I KNOW, I KNOW, DO NOT look at the scale, I get it CrossFit, but I'm a girl and I do that. Since I started February Paleo I have lost 8lb in 10 days, but it's not enough for me. I'm still not fitting in to my Size 6 jeans and my thighs are still way too big for my liking. Khaki told me yesterday my face looks thinner, Meghan told me last week I'm thinning out on the sides and I have knocked down two notches on my belt in 10 days, but dammit I want more!

Every day is a battle to remember that it is going to be a slow process to get to my fitness peak, finally realize that I'm going to be a curvy girl and that's okay. I just don't want a Muffin Top anymore, is that so hard?

So I need someone to please talk to me, calm me down that although the results aren't immediately there, the results are coming slowly but surely.

Please tell me one day I'm going to be fit and sexy. Please?

The Right Foot Forward

They say when you're working toward a healthy lifestyle you need to give yourself everything you need to succeed. That usually means buying the correct foods to eat - which I have been doing - but today I treated myself to two new pairs of shoes to help me become a better athlete. Or at least help me look the part.

When I was in high school I ran Cross Country for one year before I moved to New Jersey. It sucked and I sucked, but I did it and I actually got to the point that I could run for more than 45 minutes on hills and terrain without stopping. (Not too bad for a couch potato with a career record of 15 years being idle.) However, I was always brought down by an incessant obstacle: my feet would become numb when I was running. That similar feeling when you cut off the circulation and your feet "fall asleep."

My entire running career revolved around my feet falling asleep at about the second mile in to the workout. It affected every time I tried to run for distance because it was either uncomfortable or I'd have to take my shoes off to let my feet "breathe" and return to normal. In short, it was a pain in the ass.

Finally, FINALLY, I went today to get a new pair of running shoes and a pair of shoes for CrossFit (they're Inov8's and they're amazing). I felt silly explaining to "Megan - The Sales Girl" that my feet fall asleep and thankfully she understood what I was saying and had a solution: I had wide feet and my shoes weren't fitting correctly.

After trying on a few pairs I found my favorite: they feel like I'm walking on Fluffernutter. They're light weight, comfortable and the best part is they don't feel tight. Hallelujah!

Tomorrow is the first tryout for the shoes so wish them luck. I've always wanted to say "I'm a runner" and really mean it. Perhaps buying myself a new pair of kicks will be the gateway to reaching my second fitness goal of running a half-marathon in the next year or so.

To Be Continued...

The Positive and The Negative

I have zero self control. I hit the snooze button so many times that I do it in my sleep and I wake up two hours after my alarm went off. I sit around and watch TV until the last possible minute to get to the gym for a run or a WOD. I will sit on dirty laundry for a week and then spend an entire day doing two week's worth of laundry. If it's not a pressing matter apparently I just don't do it.

And the self control holds true when it comes to my social life.

Perhaps I should be more specific and clarify that in the last seven days of my challenge I was in two separate social situations to eat bad food and drink beer. I avoided both, stood my ground and proved a point to myself and other people that I can do it. I felt proud, I felt like I was in control and I felt like I could do it.

However I was brought down by a close friend because of peer pressure. I went to her Super Bowl party and I was sticking to my plan of not eating carbs and not drinking beer. I ate the sandwiches sans bread, I had someone prepare pigs in a blanket sans blankets and I played beer pong with water.

But then my friend started Flip Cup. She was resilient that I play with water. She teased me, she said we only live once, she said it could be my one cheat day for the month, she said everything that eventually brought me down. And I did it. I drank beer. I played Flip Cup. Granted I kicked ass at it and showed everyone up, but I did the ONE thing I did not want to do. Drink Beer. I could have had tequila and been okay. I could have had some carbs and been fine. But I drank beer.

I know I can't let this kill my spirit nor should it make me feel guilty because that's not what challenges and Paleo are all about. We all make mistakes and the important part is to transition back to the good side and start over again. Remember your mistakes and use them to make you stronger.

It's time to remember my positive friends and my positive influences. This weekend I saw hundreds of like-minded competitors who every day fight the good fight against carbs, booze and being idle. We all get up and we are good to our bodies, we constantly push the envelope and we do it because we love it.

The Day of Rest

Not to sound like a big ol' baby, but my legs hurt, my arms hurt and I am tuckered out from this week's workouts. I don't know why I am so exhausted, but after three days of WODs and one epic run I am happy to say I am taking the day off.

Well, not really...

I realized I needed to take a day off of WODing when I was running on the treadmill and my shins felt like they were about to split open. I ran a mile and switched over to the ultra feminine and non-challenging elliptical machine and the pain didn't stop but became manageable. I moved back over to the treadmill and only made it a quarter mile before I wanted to cry "Uncle!"

When I returned home I took a bit of a breather, stalked on Facebook and decided it was gametime to head over to CFPT for a fun-filled 10 minutes of burpees and KB Swings. I debated the idea for a little bit then decided to give my 11 burpees (100 Burpee Challenge) a shot and see how I felt. At Burpee #6 I would have punched my future first born child to not have to do 7 through 11. It was at this point that I decided... Maybe I'll take a day off?

Join me tomorrow as I attempt my first noon WOD in months and head off to watch my personal SuperHeroes in the Team Challenge of the Garage Games conquer feats I will never ever attempt.

Khaki Was Right

I wasn't a super hero today and that's okay. Not every WOD is going to be the WOD when I Rx and get a new PR or any other abbreviated term you can think of in the gym. Sometimes I have to face the trickier movements and settle for doing them correctly with little to no weight than doing them wrong with a lot of weight. I'm not impressing anybody by doing that especially if Ray is running around the gym.

Squats have always been my weakness despite having an awesome set of legs. Whenever those squat WOD's pop up I know it's going to be a disastrous and frustrating day. I'll be doing OHS with a 25lb bar or I'll have to set a ball on the ground to make sure I get low enough on the wall balls. Today I had to go down in weight from 65lb to the 35lb bar on my squat cleans because I wasn't doing them right.

I remembered what Khaki told me yesterday and I thought about the blog posting on CFPT today and I said to myself, "Do It Right." So I did. It may have been a low weight, but I started doing them correctly and I figured out the proper movement with the bar.

It wasn't a victory on the white board, but it certainly was one for a life lesson.

For a little bit of encouragement and praise I will say that I kicked butt on the pull-ups because I didn't have to take a break in between them at all or get back on the box to re-position. I busted them out like I've been doing them my entire life. The callouses are coming along nicely, too.

It's Magically Delicious

When I inform non-Crossfit people that I've made the decision to eat Paleo they definitely have a look of shock and appall on their faces. Sometimes it's mixed with confusion and I have to explain the whole diet to them. (I normally lose their interest after "no booze or Diet Coke.") To be honest the idea of just meat and veggies is quite unappealing and especially limiting. How often can you eat plain ol' chicken and green beans? There's a reason evolution happened and the advancement of the culinary industry. And it has nothing to do with Pork: The Other White Meat.

However once you allow yourself to look around the farmer's market and you talk to fellow Paleo-gluttons you'll learn that it can be quite delicious and sometimes creative.

To prove my point here is my menu for this week that is both delicious and "I'm getting abs if it kills me" Paleo-friendly.

Breakfast

Bacon and Eggs

Snack

Baba Ghanoush and fresh veggies

Lunch

Pot Roast and Veggies with a salad

Snack

Protein Shake

Dinner

Spaghetti Squash with Spicy Red Sauce and a spinach salad

Dessert

Knowing that I'm getting healthy

The Frenemy

Today I was my own worst enemy at the gym and double unders were definitely The Frenemy of the night. Two vehement enemies that I hope do not cross my path again soon.

I had confidence that I was going to show those double unders who was boss and walk away with a 10 minute amrap during today's WOD. Boy was I wrong... I don't even know what time I ended exactly, but I know it was in the middle-to-high teens because I wanted to quit when I saw the clock at 14:44. Some people had already cleaned up their station and left when I entered on to my last round. Nothing gets you motivated but also deflates your confidence when people are drinking their protein shake and staring at you while you finish.

One thing I need to remember about CrossFit is that I'm not working out against anyone or anything, only myself and the goal I set entering in to the workout. All of this came right back to me when Khaki saw how upset I was and wanted to make sure I was okay. She reminded me that I'm still a CrossFit newbie and I am not going to defeat everything this early in the game. I need to stop focusing on the clock, just focus on busting my ass and getting through it, even if it takes 30 minutes to do. I'm not in a real competition so there's no reason to treat it like a race.

And most of all she reminded me that I Rx'd it. I didn't go easy on myself, I didn't take the easy way out, I didn't cheat. I have an Rx next to my name on the white board for everyone to see.

Though my Frenemy got the best of me today by taking down my spirits and kicking my butt in the workout, I know the next time it rears its ugly face I'm going to be there to tell it to suck it. If it takes me one minute for each double under I am going to do it with a great big smile on my face. As for my own worst enemy? She's grounded and won't return until I tell her she can come back out and wreak havoc again, which probably won't ever happen.

Note -- I ate all Paleo today and went for a run in the rain.