Deload Week And Not-So-Great Food Pics
Posted: June 19, 2013 Filed under: cardio, crossfit, daily, fitness, strength, workouts | Tags: cardio, crossfit, daily, fitness, strength, workouts Leave a comment »When I woke up feeling like absolute junk on Monday, I decided it would be the perfect deload week. A deload week is basically a week where you take it easy, and I’m in serious need of one. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been go-go-go, working out at least once or twice a day, and I think it’s finally catching up with me. I’ve been sore all over, my knees have felt absolutely terrible (I’ve never even had knee problems before), and I don’t feel nearly as mobile or light on my feet as normal.
I have to travel for two of the days this week and I won’t be able to make it to the gym on those mornings anyway, so I’ve decided I’ll probably take them off completely. I need a little bit of a recharge, and I’m sure it’s going to make a world of difference!
I almost didn’t make it to the gym on Monday or Tuesday either, but in the end, I decided to go and just take it easier than normal before a couple of days off altogether.
Monday’s workout was two quick WODs with some light back squats in between:
- Warm-up and stretch
- 10 min AMRAP (I got 9):
- 5 pull-ups
- 10 push-ups
- 15 air squats
- 7×7 Back squats @ 85#
- 5 rounds:
- Run 3 laps
- 15 OH squats @ 35#
And Tuesday’s workout started out fun and ended with light deadlifts and another quick WOD:
- Prowler pushes: Short distance, add a plate every time until failure: I did 12x and got up to 117#
- RDLs
- 12 @ 35#
- 12 @ 55#
- 12 @ 75# x2
- 12 @ 55#
- 12 @ 35#
- 21-15-9 plus Run 1 lap in between:
- Thrusters @ 55#
- Pull-ups
- Hollow rocks
This morning I had to leave at 5am for work travel, so it’s not like I get to sleep in or anything instead of going to the gym, but I still think my body will be thanking me after a couple of easy days!
In other news… I wish I could bring my camera to work and take really good pictures of my food all day long. I love my iPhone and all, but the not-so-great camera combined with the fluorescent lights over my desk and the less-than-appealing plastic containers I eat 75% of my meals out of just does not do my food justice.
Take Monday’s breakfast, for example:
Those berries are supposed to be bright and flavorful looking, but yeah… not so much. Instead, it kind of looks like the Chobani container threw up a little. (Sorry.)
But it gets worse.
Monday’s lunch was actually really delicious – I had a green salad with spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers, chicken, and balsamic vinegar, plus some of my aunt’s leftover watermelon, basil, and feta cheese salad, but again, the taste far outweighed the quality of the images.
(I have to get the recipe from her for that watermelon salad to share. Don’t be swayed by the picture; it was really awesome.)
Unfortunately, I don’t get paid to photograph my food all day, so I have to make due with snapping a picture as fast as I can in between projects during the day. But at night, I’m free to snap 1,000 pictures of my food until I get it just right… and that’s often what I do. Last night for dinner, I baked a chicken breast, butternut squash, and green beans in the oven, and then topped the chicken with a little bit of honey afterwards.
Much more appealing, no?
And for dessert: a delicious bowl of wonderful.
Otherwise known as a sliced Fuji apple with Teddie’s crunchy peanut butter and Enjoy Life chocolate chips. Perfect.
Breakfast and dinner were repeats yesterday, but for dinner last night, I made jerk chicken lettuce wraps.
I cooked a chicken breast in a pan on the stovetop with jerk seasoning and chili powder and then rolled it up with a sliced tomato in a piece of lettuce. Quick, easy, and delicious! (And much better looking than the other meal pictures from the day that I didn’t share…)
Have a great Wednesday!
Graduation Season
Posted: June 17, 2013 Filed under: cardio, daily, strength, workouts | Tags: cardio, daily, strength, workouts 1 Comment »Sometimes I love weekends where I have absolutely nothing to, and sometimes I love when I’ve got a schedule packed with fun things. This weekend was definitely the second kind.
After a great dinner Friday and a relaxing, sunny Saturday, Sunday was packed with more family – and lots more good food.
I was up early and decided to make breakfast for my mom and I. I brought a couple of near-death bananas with me just for this purpose, so banana pancakes it was! (Every time I say banana pancakes, I think of this song. Anyone else?)
Into the food processor went 2.5 bananas, 4 eggs, 3 tablespoons almond flour, and 1 tablespoon coconut flour, and after passing through the hot griddle, out came three little stacks of silver dollars.
I also brought all kinds of berries with me (my mom’s fridge is always fully stocked with food but I always end up bringing the whole grocery store with me anyway) so we had quite a few toppings to choose from.
There’s not much better than a stack of hot, healthy, sweet, syrupy pancakes and bacon on a sunny Sunday morning!
After breakfast, I was feeling a little restless, so I decided to head to the Y for a workout to burn a little energy. Since I am a member of my local YMCA, I can go to any Y in New England for free, and I take advantage of that every time I’m home. But right before I got there, I decided it was way too nice to be inside, so I made a detour to my old junior high school instead. (I tried the high school first but there was a track meet going on.)
When I got there, I pretty much made a workout up as I went, but it ended up being a pretty good one. After a little running warm-up, I would do something halfway down the football field, drop for 25 crunches, run to the end, and then do something else on the way back.
Here’s what it looked like:
- Walk .25 mile
- Run .5 mile
- 50 yds Walking lunges + 25 Crunches + 50 yds Run
- 50 yds Side low shuffles + 25 Crunches + 50 yds Run
- 50 yds Bear crawl + 25 Crunches + 50 yds Run
- 50 yds Crab walk + 25 Crunches + 50 yds Run
- 50 yds Grapevines + 25 Crunches + 50 yds Run
- 50 yds Broad jumps + 25 Crunches + 50 yds Run
- Run .5 mile
- Walk .25 mile
I’ve always wanted to be able to do handstands (but never could) so at the end, I practiced them for a little while, and let me tell you, that may have been the hardest part of the entire workout!
After a shower and a quick trip to the grocery store, my mom and I headed over to my ant and uncle’s house to help set up for my cousin’s high school graduation party. My aunt is an awesome cook and she had so much food for everyone to enjoy.
I filled my plate up (a few times) with chicken, buffalo chicken, pulled pork, a delicious watermelon/basil/feta cheese salad, green salad, and those amazing sweet and spicy meatballs.
After we were all stuffed with good food, of course out came dessert.
My Oreo truffles seemed to be a hit, and as usual, people were shocked at how easy the recipe is.
I had my fill of truffles… and the huge slice of the amazingly sweet chocolate cake that I was apparently too excited about to even take a picture about… so I was just hoping not to slip into a sugar coma as we all chatted the afternoon away.
It’s hard to come back to work after a weekend like that, but I guess it has to be done… Have a great Monday!
PS – Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, but especially mine, the best one of all… Love you, Dad!!
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Posted: June 15, 2013 Filed under: cardio, crossfit, daily, strength, workouts | Tags: cardio, crossfit, daily, strength, workouts Leave a comment »I did not want to get out of bed yesterday. In fact, I was really close to just sleeping in. My friend had a Lia Sophia jewelry party Thursday night and I had a long week anyway, so by the time Friday rolled around, I was beat. I felt like one second I was closing my eyes to go to bed, and the next second, my alarm was going off. I guess that means I slept good, at least?
I did drag myself up and out the door in the end, but I’m honestly surprised I didn’t fall asleep on the bench at the gym. Wouldn’t that have been interesting for everyone?
I didn’t really have a plan for my workout (plus, I doubt I would’ve wanted to do it anyway) and every muscle in my body was sore, so I kept things pretty short and sweet. It always feels good to break a sweat, but it wasn’t anything to write home about yesterday:
- Warm-up and stretch
- Row 1000M
- 12 Bent-over rows @ 45# + 12 Bench presses @ 45#
- 12 Behind the head, wide grip shoulder presses @ 35# + 12 Close-grip chest presses @ 25#
- 12 Bent-over front raises @ 35# + 12 Chest flies @ 20#
- Workout (4x):
- 75 yard (1/2 lap) farmer’s carry @ 50#
- 25 Air squats
- 75 yard (1/2 lap) farmer’s carry @ 50#
- 25 Crunches
- 10 Box jumps
- 25 Pull-ups assisted at 40#
Sometimes I don’t get a chance to eat my breakfast right away because I’m so busy in the mornings at my new job, but I always bring it anyway. Friday, I brought the rest of the plain Chobani (who has time to wash extra dishes these days?), added a little bit of cinnamon, and topped it with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and apricots. It doesn’t look that glamorous but it was like fruity heaven, with a surprise in every bite.
For lunch on Friday, I had leftover steak and asparagus with carrots on the side:
Plus the last of my first batch of Larabars:
(I bought seven on Tuesday and they’re all gone. More on that tomorrow…)
After work, I headed home to my mom’s house for the weekend. It was her birthday yesterday, so I asked to take her out for dinner to celebrate, but what she didn’t know is that I also asked my aunts to join us. It’s not often that all the ladies in my family can get together, and even though my cousins and sister couldn’t make it, it was still great to be able to get my mom and all her sisters in one place.
We sat out on the deck at the restaurant, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I scoped out the menu ahead of time so I already knew what I was going to order, but I guess I should’ve planned a little better because it ended up being pretty much the same thing I had for lunch. I got the NY sirloin (probably my favorite cut of steak) with the garlic green beans and asparagus, and it’s a good thing I love steak and green veggies because there was certainly a lot of it going on yesterday!
Two of my aunts each got flatbread pizzas, and I had a slice of each. One had olive oil, garlic, mozzarella cheese, sundried tomatoes, black olives, spinach, and feta cheese, and the other had grilled chicken, basil pesto, tomatoes, and mozzarella. I really liked both of them, but my hatred of olives probably gave the non-olive one the edge, even though the first one was still good after I picked them off.
We sat around chatting for quite a while and at some point it got dark, but once everything digested, we all seemed to find room for dessert. (I always have room for dessert, let’s face it.) As a dessert-loving family, it took us all of about three seconds to decide on some options, and we ordered two different things:
A slice of the Kentucky Pie, which was a cookie dough pie in a flaky crust topped with chocolate sauce, ice cream, and whipped cream…
And a slice of mud pie, which was an Oreo, coffee ice cream, and chocolate layered frozen pie that was about as big as my head.
No really – I even made my aunt hold up her hand to show just how big that “slice” was. The five of us ate from it, and she still had a huge chunk to take home to my cousin.
I’m not a big coffee fan, so even though the Oreo crust was awesome, the cookie dough pie stole the show for me. Basically anytime you combine cookie dough flavored anything and chocolate, I’ll be sold. My aunt and I were supposed to share that one, but I’m pretty sure she had a hard time getting her spoon past me to get a bite. As for anyone else at the table – well they just didn’t move fast enough to get a bite. Sorry, guys!
This morning,, my mom and I are off for birthday massages. She gave me a gift certificate for a massage for my college graduation and I’m just using it now… womp womp… but at least it means we get to go together!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!
Push Your Limits
Posted: June 14, 2013 Filed under: cardio, crossfit, daily, nutrition, strength, workouts | Tags: cardio, crossfit, daily, nutrition, strength, workouts 3 Comments »This week has been really tough, yet really rewarding in the gym. Monday and Tuesday’s workouts were serious business right from the get-go – with burpee box jumps and push press PRs – and things have continued that way through the week. I’m definitely sore and a little tired from it all, but it’s also really awesome to challenge myself and see what I can do.
So often, I’ll see a tough workout and start out thinking ‘there’s no way I can get through that.’ But then, somewhere, that transitions into ‘that wasn’t so bad…’ (Sometimes it’s more like ‘holy crap, thank gosh I didn’t just die.’) But it’s such a mental game of finding, pushing, and passing your own limits, and even though I sometimes work out with other people, the only competition I ever really have is myself. Every time I hit a new benchmark or do something a little better/faster/stronger than I did last time, it’s a great feeling.
During Wednesday’s workout, there were two things I was proud of myself for:
- Not putting the bar down between the front squats and push presses
- Using almost the prescribed weight for women
Before we started, I tried to come up with a game plan for how I’d attack the workout. Knowing that I could put the bar down to rest between the front squats and push presses kind of gave me peace of mind that I’d be able to get through it. But once I got going, I didn’t stop to put the bar down once, and that felt awesome. With that said, the prescribed weight for women was 95# and I was a little nervous about that number at first, so I used 75# instead. Looking back though, I felt pretty comfortable with 75, so I think I definitely could’ve gotten through it with 95. Next time!
- Warm-up and stretch
- 1 prowler push lap – 1 Burpee and 10 push-ups every time you stop (I stopped once)
- Workout 1 (5x):
- Run 3 laps
- 10 Front squats @ 75#
- 5 Push presses @ 75#
- Workout 2 (5x):
- 10 Deadlifts @ 85#
- 5 Power cleans @ 85#
- 25 Pull-ups assisted at 40#
- Cool down
On Thursday, I was feeling pretty sore and tired, so when I heard the workout, I just about died. It was already a scaled back version of the original, but there once was a day (not too long ago) when I couldn’t wouldn’t even do 5 burpees… let alone 30 in a row. But regardless of how I felt about it mentally, I flipped the switch and off we went, and before I knew it, it was over. It definitely wasn’t easy, but I made it! And going from absolutely hating burpees (and running, for that matter) to completing this WOD was pretty cool.
- Warm-up and stretch
- Front squats:
- 15 @ 45#
- 10 @ 55#
- 8 @ 95#
- 4×5 @ 135#
- Workout 1 (10x @ 85#):
- 3 Deadlifts
- 3 Power cleans
- 3 Front squats
- Workout 2:
- Run 1/2 mile (6 laps) with med ball
- 30 burpees
- Run 1/4 mile (3 laps) with med ball
- 15 burpees
- Run 1/12 mile (1 lap) with med ball
- 8 burpees
- 10×5 Hanging knee lifts
- 25 Pull-ups assisted at 40#
- Cool down
My meals over the past couple of days have felt a little sporadic. But when I really think about it, I wonder if what “sporadic” means to me is what it would mean to other people. For me, it basically means I haven’t eaten what I planned, when I planned, how I planned… But I’m pretty sure it’s not that serious for most people. Oh well.
Wednesday meant eggs, peppers, and spinach for breakfast…
And the last serving of turkey meatballs, peppers, spinach, and carrots for lunch.
For dinner, I remembered I’d bought some vegetable soup that they made at the grocery store, and since it was cold and rainy, I figured it was the perfect night for it. I heated it up along with a toasted gluten-free Trader Joe’s English muffin – which was surprisingly good. I guess when you don’t eat bread very often, even the g-free stuff tastes pretty delicious!
And dessert was one of my favorites: g-free ginger snaps, dark chocolate, and grapes. Perfect!
Questions:
When/how do you push yourself?
What’s something you thought you’d never be able to do that you do now?
I Am A Dark Chocolate Addict
Posted: June 12, 2013 Filed under: cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, recipes, strength, workouts | Tags: cardio, crossfit, daily, dinners, recipes, strength, workouts 2 Comments »You know what’s dangerous? Hiding chocolate from yourself.
I think I could go without any and all junk food for the rest of my life and feel perfectly fulfilled… except dark chocolate. Seriously. I think I have a problem.
The other day, I remembered that I’d bought a dark chocolate pound plus bar from Trader Joe’s and stashed it in my freezer, and it was like remembering you’d buried gold in your backyard. I’m not kidding; I was so excited.
The problem was that a couple of days ago, I ate way too much sugar before bed and didn’t sleep a wink. When you don’t have sugar or caffeine very often, a little goes a long way. Especially when you’re already sensitive to it. (My mom didn’t let me drink Mountain Dew as a kid because I’d be up for days after just one can.) Anyways, after that happened, I swore to myself I wouldn’t go eating a bunch of sugary crap before bed again. But wouldn’t you know, that promise just so happened to coincide with my dark chocolate discovery. So there went that!
Hopefully I’ll remember the feeling of caffeine and sugar pumping through my veins when I’m trying to go to sleep next time I get the urge to break off a chunk. (Or maybe I’ll just have to start eating it for breakfast instead.) We’ll see…
Luckily, the rest of my meals this week have been quite healthy and substantial. They’ve also been quite repetitive; I had almost exactly the same meals Monday and Tuesday and didn’t even realize it until I got to dinner.
Breakfast: Roasted chicken and broccoli
Lunch: Turkey meatballs with peppers, spinach, and carrots
Afternoon snack: Pear slices and homemade almond butter (recipe coming soon!)
For dinner, I did get a little wild and switch things up a bit. Monday was steak with asparagus (yummy but boring) and Tuesday was leftover bacon meatloaf and green beans.
Evening snack: Banana bread muffins toasted with butter and berries
Dessert: A little too much of the aforementioned dark chocolate…
Workouts this week have been much more variable than food has been… which is pretty much the norm. I don’t mind eating the same thing every day, but if I have to do the same thing in the gym everyday, I get bored really fast.
Monday’s workout looked like this:
- Warm-Up + Stretch
- Back squats:
- 15 @ 45#
- 12 @ 95#
- 10 @ 135 #
- 8 @ 155#
- 5 @ 175#
- 3 @ 195#
- 1 @ 205#
- 5×5 @ 155#
- 10×10 Overhead squats @ 35#
- Workout (21-15-9, run 1 lap before and after each round):
- Push presses @ 55#
- Step-ups @ 25#
- Burpee box jumps
- 5x:
- 10 Hanging knee lifts
- 5 Handstand push-ups
- Cool-down walk
Those burpee box jumps? Killer!
And Tuesday’s workout looked like this:
- Warm-up & stretch
- Push presses:
- 15 @ 35#
- 10 @ 55#
- 8 @ 85#
- 5×5 @ 105# > New PR!
- 5×5 @ 85#
- Workout (8 20-second tabata intervals (as many reps as you can) of each exercise with 10 seconds of rest in between each one):
- Wall balls
- Hollow rocks
- Push-ups
- Run one mile
- Cool down
Push press day continues to be my favorite day in the gym, and I cleaned and pressed more weight this week than I ever have before. It’s definitely not all I can do though, so I’m already looking forward to working on them again.
This week is flying by, and I’ve got quite a few fun things scheduled over the next few days, so I’m looking forward to it. I hope your week is going well also!
Questions:
What one food could you not live without?
What thing could you never do the same very single day? What don’t you mind doing the same every day?
