Thursday 30 August 2012

Winery weekend

Because I've been a lazy slack-ass busy with uni work this week and haven't actually managed to go to Crossfit (although I did do my own version of "Angie" on Tuesday, which I'm still sore from), I thought I'd post some photos from last weekend's trip to Beechworth and Rutherglen.

Never fear, boring Crossfit posts will return soon because I'm going to Crossfit tonight and will be back to my regular schedule next week.

So, last weekend a few of us stayed in Beechworth and did a winery tour of the Rutherglen area on the Saturday. We hired Grapevine Getaways to drive us around, which worked out really well. Basically they give you a mini-bus and a driver and you get to pick which wineries to go to and he drives you around all day.

We went to Rutherglen Estates, Campbell's, Cofield (Pickled Sisters restaurant for lunch) and All Saints. Which doesn't sound like much but it was a lot of wine!

Here are some pictures from the weekend, please excuse them being dreadful, the iphone 3 camera sucks ass.


Breakfast! Totally anti-paleo but delicious and free!

Manda tasting something (most likely pink and sweet) at Rutherglen Estates

Campbell's, the picture really doesn't do it justice, it was beautiful.


Nom nom nom, barrels of muscat

Glenn looking suspicious

GIANT wine at Cofields I think

Tasting platter at Pickled Sisters

Dreadful photo of All Saints

Andrew at All Saints


Glenn is happy


Bush goth

Me looking far too happy on our walk to try and see NSW at All Saints (this was the last stop)

My haul! I spent waaaaaay too much money but it was worth it!

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Crossfit 102 (Wed)

I wasn't sure if I would make it to Crossfit at all this week because I have an assignment due for uni next Monday and I'm going up to Beechworth on the weekend to do a winery trip around the Rutherglen area, so I can't imagine that I'll get a whole lot of homework done then! Which means that I only have this week to finish off the assignment and it's a LOT of reading and trying to understand whacky social science (my Dad said it's not a science, but I think that's what they call it.. social studies maybe? I won't repeat what else my Dad said about it!) terms that I've never heard of until this class. So basically, I need all the time after work I can get and Crossfit takes about 2hrs from the time I leave until the time I get home again.

I decided though, that I couldn't bear to miss a whole week of Crossfit for homework, so I got up early this morning and went to the 7am class. It almost didn't happen though, at 6:30am I turned off my alarm and decided I couldn't be bothered.. but about a minute later I was up and rushing to get out the door in time. As usual, I'm glad I went.

Warm-up

10 x tricep dips
10 x chin-ups (orange bands x2)
20 x band pull-aparts

x 5

I only got through about 4 rounds I think cuz I got there late

WOD 1

25 x hip extensions holding 2 x 8kg kettlebells (fun.. not)
225 x normal skips

x 4

19mins 54sec

Kinda like this, but holding a KB in each hand, plus I'm far more buff, obviously.


WOD 2

4 x sled pulls the length of the gym and back (20kg, 30kg, 40kg, 40kg)
2 x 1min planks
1 x 30sec plank

This is my food for the week:

Lunch - chicken and veggie red curry (soooo good)

Dinner - Chocolate chilli from Well Fed (yes chocolate, it has cocoa powder in it!), I've just been eating it with steamed veggies



Monday 20 August 2012

Crossfit session 100!!! (Thursday) and 101 (Friday)

Well, I have officially been to Crossfit 100 times! My very first class was way back in November last year and I was so scared. I have to thank Rob for making me go and also coming along when I had my first session, if it wasn't for him, there's no way I would have walked through those doors!

Now I love it and wouldn't do anything else. It's given me confidence to try things and now I can do hand-stand push-ups, chin-ups and bunch of Olympic weight lifting moves I never thought I would be able to do.. and I can deadlift above my body weight! I still have a long way to go and I haven't got the rope climb down yet, but I will get there!

So anyway, I will probably stop counting now, I just wanted to get to 100.




Thursday

WOD 1

15 x hang power clean (25kg)
15 x burpee

x 3

Not sure how long this took, it was somewhere between 7 and 9 mins.

WOD 2

15 x ball slam (15kg)
30 x kb swings (16kg)
2 x 20kg backwards sled pull

x 3

This took 13mins something. Everyone else was doing box jumps and some other exercise I can't do.. maybe squats? The 20kg sled was super easy, I should have gone heavier.

Finish

20 x band pull-apart (check out that guy's back!)
15 x ring row

x2  (was supposed to be x 3 but we ran out of time)

Friday

WOD 1

10 x power clean and jerk (25kg)
21 x KB swings (16kg)

x 3

I finished in 7 or 8mins I think. A certain evil trainer had told me that if I came last I had to do 50 burpees, so I smashed it out and then they wanted me to do an extra round because I was fast, boo to that!

I lover power clean and jerks, they're kinda fun and don't involve full squatting, which is gooood.

WOD 2

200m run (400m for everyone else)
15 x ball slams (15kg)

x 5 (everyone else only had to do 4 but the trainer is meeeeeean)

I probably shouldn't have done the running, but I do go running on the weekend.. just not for very long at a time and not fast. My knee was feeling a bit funny that evening, but it didn't go so that was okay. Can't say the same for the run the next day though, I decided to test it and got through 8mins before it went. I really need to go and get it scanned or something, but I can't afford it at the moment, so I'll just have to be careful with it and sort it out when I get back from the USA.




Tuesday 14 August 2012

Crossfit session 99 (Monday) and goals

Goals

I found this blog post the other day and the question: "Do your behaviours match your goals?" really struck something with me. If I was honest, I would have to say that a lot of the time, they don't! No wonder I haven't seen progress with anything for a while.

Sure I stick to paleo during the week pretty easily, but my portion sizes are too big (something I find really hard to work out) and even though I only eat sweet potato after Crossfit, I'm probably eating more than I really need to, given my body type. On the weekends I've generally been pretty awful all around, except for last weekend when I was far more sensible and didn't order pizza when Glenn did, I picked something that aligned more with paleo ("Mexican Chicken" and salad), sure it came with chips, but that's a whole lot better than eating half a large pizza!

So I am going to that phrase to try and stop myself from sabotaging my fat-loss goals. I've put that question and the question "Will this help my achieve my goals?" on a post-it on the fridge and the cupboard so that when I go to mindless eat stuff when I get home from work, or go to get a second helping of dinner, hopefully it'll help me to think of my goals and get out of the damn kitchen!  I'm going to be in the USA in a bit over 8 weeks and I'd like to have made some sort of fat-loss progress by then and I know I can, if I just stick with it.

It's not just useful for diet/exercise goals, I have also written the questions on a post-it on my desk and have already used them a few times to stop myself from procrastinating at work when I actually had work to do and I used it again at home to make myself do homework when really all I wanted to do was watch crap on tv and surf the net. 

So there you have it, two simple questions, a whole lot of power!

 Lets see what I can do in 8 weeks :)

Crossfit

Warm-up

500m row

Then 4 rounds of:

10 x stick roll
10 x air squat
5 x inch worm

Strength 

Deadlift to 3 x 5 rep max, I got up to 65kg and we ran out of time, I reckon I could have done 70.. maybe.

In between sets we had to do max hand-stand push-ups. The most I got for them was 8, which is pretty good I think, seeing as I only started trying them last week!

WOD

500m row
15 x heavy kettle-bell swings to shoulder-height (20kg), everyone else was doing thrusters
15 x chin-ups ( 2 x orange bands)

x 5

This was a tough one! I did it in 24mins 25 seconds.

Food

I did a big cook-up last Sunday like I used to do when I was on Whole30 and therefore have a fridge full of food, it's awesome! I made baked chicken drumsticks for snacks, Moroccan meatballs, some burgers and I also cut up a whole heap of vegetables. It's so much easier to eat well when you have a fridge-full of good food. Next week won't be so grand though, I have something this Sunday evening which means cooking won't happen and I will most likely have run out of cash by then as well, so it'll be whatever I can dig out of the freezer. Here's a couple of photos of what I've been eating this week though:

Post Crossfit dessert - Blueberries, apple and coconut milk

Lunch this week - veggies and Moroccan meatballs (from Well Fed)



Sunday 12 August 2012

Crossfit session 98 (Friday) and paleo bread

Crossfit

No idea what the warm-up was

Strength 

Power snatch to 3 x 5 rep max.

I haven't done these in ages because of my knee, so I was just on the training bar and then ended up putting 10kg in plates on it, so it was probably 16kg all up maybe.

I did feel like my technique was getting better though, usually I can't do the shrugging thing properly and just lift with my arms instead of my hips but I think I was almost getting it.

WOD

30 x Toes to bar (toes to arm-pits kind of in my case)
40 x Power clean (20kg)
50 x KB swings (16kg) - everyone else was doing wall-balls here

Not sure on my time, it was a fast workout though

Finish

500m row as fast as possible.

I did it in 1 min 57 seconds I think, which is about what I got last time, it's under 2mins though so that's good!

Because I'm a cam-whore, here's some pics of my arms, they're getting there! The right looks much better than the left but I think it was just the angle.

Left arm

Right arm

Bread

I made paleo "bread" on the weekend to satisfy my cravings for toast and vegemite. I used this recipe from Elena's Pantry, it turned out okay but it's really not the same as bread.. but as a vehicle for butter and vegemite it does the job.

Because it's mostly made from almond flour though it's really heavy and hard to eat, so you can't get through much of it. Mine was about half the height of the picture on that site too, so I'm not sure if mine was just crap or the loaf pan was too long, but it still tasted fine. Will I make it again? Hrm I think I'd rather just cheat and eat real bread! Although that does tend to lead to eating half a loaf, whereas if I don't even start them I'm okay.. so we'll see.


Thursday 9 August 2012

More diet crap and Crossfit session 97 (Thurs morning)

Diet

The other day when I was trying to think about things I've achieved in the last 10 months, I realised that transitioning to paleo is something that I've done in that time and done pretty successfully as well I think. Sure I break the rules, especially on the weekend, but generally, in my day-to-day eating I do stick to it and have done so since I started it back in November. There's been a week here and there when I haven't stuck to it at all, usually because I was away and staying with other people and it was just too hard, but fundamentally I stick to it and love it, which is awesome because I used to be firmly in the "low fat/whole-grain/food pyramid is healthy" camp and looooooved bread/pasta/noodles etc. and never thought in a million years that I could get to a point where I rarely ever eat them.

I haven't lost much weight in the last 10 months, but I have been building muscle (hello biceps!) so that's not an issue and I find this way of eating really easy to stick to and can't see myself giving it up any time soon!  So woo, I have achieved something in the last 10 months afterall!

Crossfit

Woo session 97! Almost completed 100, not sure if I should bother counting after that!

This was another morning session, the jury is still out on whether I like them or hate them.. it did mean I got to clean the house last night and do a bunch of other stuff I hadn't had time for previously, but I also had to get up early and then was really hungry all day after this workout. At least with evening workouts I eat dinner straight afterwards and then go to bed a couple of hours later, so I don't notice it.

This is breakfast, I would have just had sweet potato and eggs, but I only had one egg, so I added a can of salmon instead and it was actually good!

Breakfast - sweet potato, salmon and egg.. and coffee!


Warm-up

200m row
10 x stick roll
20 x double unders (60 normal skips for me)

WOD

In 5 mins do:

400m row (run for the others)
20 x kettle-bell swings (16kg, everyone else was on box jumps, I always want to abbreviate that as BJ.. but that's not right)
And then max chin-ups in the rest of the time

x 5, with a 2min rest in between each 5 mins

So it's a 25min work out total. My chin-up scores (2 x orange bands) were 16, 19, 21, 16, 22

My forearms and upper back are sore today!

Finisher

60 second hollow hold
60 second plank
60 second rest

x 3

I did okay with the planks today, it was the hollow holds that were a struggle. We got 10 burpees if we dropped before the 60 seconds were up though, so I just stuck with it, it's amazing what burpee punishment can do!

Sexy  bruised  legs, Crossfit is not glamorous! (And I'm clumsy)



Wednesday 8 August 2012

10 months.. and Crossfit 95 (Fri) and 96 (Mon)

Argh, so behind on posting! Usually if I know I'm not going to have time to post for a few days I at least write down my times/exercises for Crossfit so that I don't have to try and remember it days later. I'm going to put Crossfit last and start with the other stuff first though, so that'll give me some time to remember!

10 months..

Yesterday, I got a call from my brother who is currently in the Netherlands, to tell me that he's engaged! He has been travelling around the world with his girlfriend since October last year and I had a suspicion he would probably ask her while they were away and I was right! Apparently he did it the right (people will disagree with me on that I'm sure!) way and asked her father's permission when they were on the cruise in the Mediterranean and then proposed in Luxembourg and got down on one knee and everything, very romantic! I'm very happy for them, they're great together.

So, they'll be back in October... which is only 2 months away now, which means that I've been house-sitting for them for 10 whole months, which got me thinking.. what the hell have I done in that time??

NOTHING! I can't think of anything I've actually achieved in the last 10 months, other than (pretty awesome) Crossfit-related achievements (hand-stand push-ups anyone?!). Crossfit is all well and good and I am pretty proud of myself for my progress, but I really haven't done anything else worthwhile. My "to do" list is still not-done, projects which I thought I'd have plenty of time for (eg. sorting photos from my South American trip), I just haven't done. What the hell have I been doing? I always seem to be busy.. I guess busy going out, doing Crossfit, staying at Glenn's, working etc... none of which are conducive to getting shit done around the house, or really enjoying just being in the house.

I kind of feel like I've wasted my 10 months in a way and haven't  made the most of having this awesome flat to myself, but then, what would/could I have done differently? I think spending more time here would have been a start, but there also just doesn't seem to be enough recreation hours in the week, it's all spent at bloody work! If I could afford it, I'd work 4 days a week but I can't. I guess I will now try and make the most of the next 2 months and enjoy being in the flat as much as possible and getting things done or just relaxing here, instead of constantly rushing around everywhere.. easier said than done though, it's kind of what I'm used to, I'm a rusher.. and a procrastinator!




Crossfit

Friday

No idea on the warm-up. Might have been a 1km row actually.

Strength

Deadlift to 3 x 5 rep max. I got up to 65kg.

WOD 1 

10 x push-jerk (25kg)
20 x box step-up (others were doing lateral jumps over their bars)

x 4

No idea on time! It was a quick one though.

WOD 2

21, 15, 9

Dumbbell strict press (thrusters for everyone else) - 14kg
Chin-ups
400m row

So, 21 strict press, 21 chins, 400m row, 15 strict press, 15 chins, 400m row. Etc.

Monday

Warm-up

20 x double-unders
10 x stick rolls
Max hand-stand push-ups (so as many as you can do in a row, for me that is 5!)

x 5, although I think I only got through 4 before we had to start the WOD.

WOD 1

Every odd minute do 15 x push-press (20kg), every even minute do 15 x kettle-bell swings (16kg).. for 20mins. So you only get to rest if you get your reps done in the minute!

It doesn't sound like much but if you completed every single rep then you'd have done 150 of each, which is a lot!

I went way too heavy for such a long work-out and regretted it by about the 5th minute! I didn't get through the full amount of reps for the last part of it at all, my forearms were completely giving out. It was tough!

WOD 2 

In pairs do max front squats for 6mins. I can't squat though, so my poor partner had to do the front squats while I did back extensions. We got to 75 I think.





Wednesday 1 August 2012

Crossfit session 93 (Monday) and 94 (Thurs morning) and cooking

Looooong post today, but I forgot to post Monday's.. sorry!


Crossfit Monday


Warm-up


5 x push-up
10 x squats

x 5

WOD 1


5 x power clean  (25kg, I could have done 30)
5 x burpee (although girls have to do it like the boys, none of this knees business!)

5mins in pairs AMRAP

So one person did 5 power cleans then 5 burpees while the other rested and then you swapped. I think we got 4 rounds maybe.  The time went really quickly!

WOD 2


1 2 3 4 5
Hang power clean
Handstand push-up  (this is actually a really good tutorial if you want to learn, it has lots of progressions)

1km row (800 run for everyone else)

5 4 3 2 1

Hang power clean
Handstand push-up

1km row (800 run for everyone else)

So 1 hang power clean, 1 hand stand push-up, then 2 and 2, 3 and 3 etc. and then the reverse after the first row.

My time 22mins.

Woo I actually did handstand push-ups! Totally not gracefully and only barely moving, but still, progress!

Eating 


The weekend was pretty bad food wise and not at all paleo. Friday night was going to be takeaway noodles because I'd run out of my usual Friday night post-Crossfit dinner of sweet potato fries with bolognaise sauce, but the noodle place was shut, so I made my own, which did not turn out as planned but were still delicious and probably slightly better for us than the takeaway ones.

Saturday night was parma and beer at the pub.. and then more drinks at home.

Sunday pizza and beer and wine at a board games night.

Monday night - vegetable curry and rice and then ice cream and preserved pear at a friend's house. I also had a protein shake in the car on the way there from Crossfit and a banana, because I wasn't sure what I was going to be eating at their house.

Bad bad bad. Lots of people seem to be starting a Whole 30 for August.. I'm kind of tempted too, but I'm going to a wedding on Saturday, so that will not be alcohol-free or paleo by any means and there's also a friend's 30th on Friday too, so that'll be a write off.  There's always excuses. I do really need to rein it in on the weekends again though, they are definitely my downfall. Other than when eating with friends, I'm generally 100% paleo during the week and I know the 80/20 rule is okay but I think my 20 is turning into 40! I just need to convert my evil, naturally thin boyfriend to paleo.. or at least get him to rein in the junk food, because I give in very easily when I'm around other people eating it.

Posted recently on my gym's website.


Crossfit Thurs


Far out it was cold this morning when I left the house at 6:30!

Warm-up


It was supposed to be a block run, but I can't run and the rowers were full so I went on the boring old exercise bike for a few mins, no idea how I used to go on that thing every day for 40mins.. how dull! I guess I was watching tv at the same time though.

Then 3 rounds of : 10 x air squats and 10 x stick rolls.

WOD 1


10 - 1

20kg Strict press (front squat for the able legged)
Ball slams (15kg)
Sit-ups (were supposed to be GHD sit-ups but I wussed out)
200m row

So 10 presses, 10 ball slams, 10 sit-ups then 200m row, then 9 presses, 9 ball slams, 9 situps then 200m row, etc. etc. all the way down to 1 rep.

My time was about 27mins I think.

WOD 2


The others were doing back squats to 5rep max. I did:

1 x 30kg backwards sled pull (so same thing, but walking/running backwards) the length of the gym and back
20 x kettle-bell swings (16kg)

x 3

Now I want a nap.. but I have to be at work :/

Cooking


I kind of like cooking, but I don't like to do it every night when I'm usually home late or have been at Crossfit and am super hungry, so I like to cook things in batches and then keep some in the fridge and freeze the rest so that I have a variety of meals to grab and heat. Usually I do this on a Sunday arvo, but as mentioned in my last post, I have been busy the last two Sundays so my freezer was bare. So on Tuesday night I spent the whole night cooking, from 7pm until about 10:30pm. This is what I made:

Chicken casserole at the front and Bolognaise sauce in the blue containers

Cauliflower fried "rice", looks gross but is amazing

Dijon and honey chicken drumsticks

I also made lemon brussel sprouts, which were super delicious but I didn't take a photo. Now hopefully I won't need to cook anything other than breakfast for a week or so!