Where was I?

Tuesday - Got my daughter off to school and then did my first workout prior to breakfast it went like this:

10 sets:
1 min skipping easy
1 min (30 sec R bridge/30 sec L bridge)
1 min - 6 point burpees
(keep all @ easy pace)

So a half hour of "easy" cardio.

Breakfast: egg scramble - no I never get sick of this!

Workout number 2:
3 rounds for time:
15 Dead Lift -135#
15 Ring Dips
20 Box Jumps - 20"

Did this in 5:38. So this would equate to a lift heavy things workout that you could easily modify with either single leg dumbbell deadlifts which i will show you, dips on a table or chair or box jumps to anything you feel comfortable jumping up onto and back down. By doing it for "time" it forces you to keep moving as "fast" as you can and therefore incorporates a cardio component into the lift heavy things component - it's brilliant!!

Lunch - shrimp cold with homemade cocktail sauce (ketchup and horseradish and lemon) roasted red peppers, carrots, acorn squash

Dinner - turkey pepperoni, and some veggies when I got home from the talk. Wasn't really that hungry

Wednesday

Breakfast: 3 eggs scrambled with salsa, 5 macademia nuts, handful of coconut flakes

Workout: for time
50 HSPU (handstand pushups)
100 pistols (one legged squats)
150 sit ups
200 double unders
time 28:38

handstand pushups are one of my huge weaknesses and especially because I am heavier than normal it just adds that much more weight to lift - yuck! One legged squats are very challenging as well but you can do a modified version and they will definitely contribute to developing a great looking ass.

My legs and butt are absolutely fried right now and I have to go play two hours of competitive volleyball tonight, should be interesting.

Lunch: bison sausage, onions, acorn squash, curried roasted cauliflower and rutabega.

As you can see I am trying to increase my carb intake and adding root veggies and squash.

The curried roasted cauliflower and rutabega was really good and super easy to make.

1 head of organic cauliflower one or two rutabegas
generous portion of avocado oil (or whatever oil you would like)
generous portion of curry powder
salt and pepper to taste

Directions: preheat oven to 450
1. Cut cauliflower into equalish florets, and peel and quarter rutabega
2. Coat them with avocado oil
3. Place on cookie sheet lined with foil
4. Spinkle with curry powder, and salt and pepper
5. Cover with another piece of foil
6. Cook covered at 450 for about 15 minutes
7. Uncover and cook for another 15-20 minutes turning them after 8 or so minutes

Yummmy.

Dinner: Went straight from work to volleyball so ate some beef jerky, an apple and some carrots on my way there. After the team always goes for beers and I hadn't seen many of these people for a long time so I joined them. I drank water and had a chicken salad for my "second" dinner as I was completely starving. It was delicious but I am sure not the most paleo friendly but did the best I could it was Boston Pizza after all.

My legs are now officially killing me and I hope that I will be able to walk tomorrow. See even "fit" people get sore!

The Weekend

I don't remember where I left off so I will just include what i remember :)

Friday we had tickets to go see the "baby Flames" but first went out for dinner at Mercado on 4th St with some friends. I have never been there and it was Italian so that meant pasta! It was a very different restaurant where they advised you to order as a table and share dishes kind of like chinese food. Our friends are not Paleo and they don't eat fish so that severely limited my choices. We started with a tomotoe, pesto, arugala, and bufalo cheese appetizer which was pretty good. Then two pasta dishes - I had two very small scoops one of each (I didn't want them to feel bad by not having any) and I must say one of them was delicious - but i will also say I SEVERELY paid for it within one hour and all the next day! For our main course we had a very large steak that was extremely raw. It was good but not cooked enough for me. Then there was desert - yup really blew the wad this night. We split a cheesecake and a tiramasu between the four of us I had one small bite of each. Oh and I also had a very small glass of red wine, I don't really like wine so this again was more of a social thing than anything. The company was great the food was not what I would have ordered obviously but it was good albeit quite salty and i had the worst stomach cramps within an hour and had severe diarrhea the next day. So my exploration into having pasta again did not go well which is fine with me because i truly don't miss it.

Saturday was the usual egg scramble.
Lunch: we were our car shopping and then hit Ikea so we ate at the cafeteria there i had a quarter chicken and some veggies - I am sure it wasn't grass fed or free range but it wasn't too bad and I skipped the fries and just had veggies although they were mushy and gross
Dinner:homemade burgers no bun

No workout because I seriously felt sick most of the day and very very low on energy

Sunday
I skipped breakfast just didn't feel like it
Lunch: leftover ground beef with veggies and two eggs scrambled in to it.
Dinner: braised cabbage, elk sausage, butternut squash. This elk sausage I find quite salty so i don't think I will buy it again.

Cleaned house, did laundry, and still had no energy for a workout. Tomorrow I will have to make up for some lost time and get back on track with my workouts.

Family day plans are to go swimming and maybe some bowling or skating.

Enjoy your day off.

Thursday Feb 17

Had a glorious day of sleeping in until 7:30 awesome. Kids are off school so no need to get up and do the whole make lunch, get the kids breakfast to the bus etc. stuff.

Breakfast: scrambled eggs as usual

Workout:
part 1:
A. Split Jerk - 3 x 3 @ 80%; rest 90 sec 120#
B. Split Jerk - 3 x 3 @ 90%; rest 3 min 125#
C. Press @ 12X2; 3,2,3,2; rest 3 min 90/95/95/100
D1. 75 knees to elbows for time; rest 1 min only did 50 because of shoulder
D2. 50 GHD sit ups for time; rest 1 min 2:01

There was a part two to this but I ran out of time.

Lunch : elk sausage sauteed with spinach, grape tomatoes,kale, bacon

Dinner: leftover roast beef, ceasar salad, red pepper, carrots

I didn't have any root veggies prepared so I have to do that this weekend so that I can increase my carb intake.

Played 2 hours of competitive volleyball - i hate late games because we don't start until 9pm and I usually don't get home until 11:30 then can't sleep because i am wired from playing so didn't get to sleep until about 1am yuck that is too late for me. Maybe a nap today after work.

Making a trip out to DV farms on sunday I think to stock up on some chicken, beef, lamb, and eggs.

Have a great family day weekend everybody!

Fitness 101

Unfortunately tuesday was not a good night for a couple of people so I made the executive decision to postpone the fitness talk until next week. I will email you the notes so you can look them over and get a good idea for your fitness options and then we can go over it on tuesday.

This week I have been bad at posting obviously so I will just catch up yesterday and today because that is as far back as I can remember - ha ha.

Yesterday was running late in the morning and didn't have any pre-made egg muffins so i just quickly scrambled some eggs through some salsa on them grabbed 5 macadmia nuts and a handful of cocunut chips and out the door.

Over the last couple of days I have had some discussion with my coach about my body composition and what I need to do to get down to competition weight. After looking over my diet he was shocked at how little carbs I eat. He said they are way too low and that I need to significantly increase them! I looked over the days that I kept track of food intake on my iPhone and sure enough my average intake looks like this 50-60% fat 20-30% carbs and 30-40% protein. Based on this i really should be burning mostly fat when I exercise because I am operating in ketotic state because the carbs are so low - however he said that because of the type of exercise that I do - very high intensity short duration, and strength work i will just be burning my glycogen stores and possibly breaking down muscle tissue - not good!! So I have to up my carb intake, since i don't want to accomplish that with grains obviously apparently I need to add more root vegetables and tubers? need to figure out what those are I am thinking squash, beet, rutabaga, sweet potatoe etc. I still find this weird because I actually feel like I eat a ton of vegetables and actually can't imagine eating more volume of them. I guess the problem is that most of them are so low in carbs that it just isn't enough - like cauliflower or brocolli 1 cup is only about 3.7 g of carbs compared to a slice of bread that averages around 20g of carbs! I see that one cup of butternut squash is 21g of carbs, similar with beets - woohoo that is good.

I don't think in most of your situations that you are going to have the same problem and in fact operating a little on the ketogenic side and doing the workouts that I am going to recommend to you should help you drop fat more quickly. However if you find yourself low on energy or feeling weak like Elaine experienced the other day then I would recommend adding some higher glycemic vegetables to your diet.

Lunch Tues: ground beef and braised cabbage
Lunch Wed: large salad with romaine, kale, grape tomatoes, carrots, 4 oz of real crab meat and homemade vinegrette.

Dinner Tues: Left over curry chicken made for Monday but had crab instead
Dinner Wed: Eye of round roast 5oz big salad homemade ceasar dressing, carrots

Workout: Tues
Did an easy 5km row in the morning before breakfast took about 22:00
for time:
5 muscle ups
10 HSPU
15 clean and jerk - 105#
25 wall balls - 16# to 10 ft
30 burpee jumping pull ups
35 row cals
this took me 14:38 it was hard!

Wednesday was not in the mood for a workout so skipped it.

Weekend Away

Hi gang,

Sorry for not posting for the last couple of days but my husband took me on a ski trip to Whitefish this weekend so I was away from the computer and away from "normal" eating. It was a weekend of bad food and alcohol so needless to say not something I want to promote. I tried to make it work with in my options but it was very difficult. Burgers with no buns, there was no restaurant in our hotel so it was "continental" breakfast which = bagels, toast, Lucky Charms (holy crap!!) oh yeah donuts, eggo waffles and the list goes on. Wow what a way to start your day. I stuck to the fruit so I had an apple, an orange, and a banana but no protein because there was none available. Crazy. Lunch on the hill was a prime rib sandwich minus the bread and some veggies and dip. Dinner - pizza and booze! I tried to keep the booze to vodka and water as it is easier on the calorie front and the hangover front. Only had a few and they just made me feel sick so then I just watched every body else make complete asses of themselves and it was a great reminder why booze is not your friend!! Sunday was much the same. Quick reminder do NOT get on the scale after a weekend like this it will ruin you forever - ha ha. Or do and it is a reminder of how bad this kind of weekend is for you! Anyways I need to get back on track. Oh yeah on Sunday I did a workout in my hotel room - accumulate 500 reps of pushups, squats, sit ups, handstand pushups, and plank position. So basically i just did a bit of each of movement until I had accumulated 500 reps. It took me about 15 minutes and felt good just to do something. So as you can see you can make do very easily with just your bodyweight no matter where you are.

This morning had my usual breaksfast scramble

Lunch - made braised cabbage and had some leftover ground beef with it

Dinner - my husband cooked crab legs and broccolini for dinner - yum yum

No workout today as time got away on me. Tomorrow I am going to try a new experiment where I get up at 6:30 am and do an easy cardio workout for 30 minutes on the rower before breakfast. I am going to try and do this three times per week along with my regular workouts as this has been proven to help increase you loss of body fat - something I will be talking about tomorrow.

Everyone should have one of these - LOL

Ok so I got home last night and was tired and starving, this is where I used to make the mistake of grabbing something quick and unheatlhy. Now that thougth doesn't even cross my mind I always know that there is something in my fridge that I can whip up in a few minutes that will be sufficient. So I had defrosted some elk sausages that I had bought at Planet Organic. I just squeeze the meat out of the casing into a pan with some oinion, spinach and left over roasted butternut squash heat and eat - ready in about 10 minutes and the sausage was delicious.


Today Breakfast same as always - scrambled eggs and veggies and coffee - mmmm


Workout was 1 min on at 85 -90% and 1 min at 50% for 15 reps on this thing
This is the most unpleasant piece of equipement ever. Our coach is a big fan of it because it involves the upper and lower body and you can't "beat" it because it is basically the harder you go the harder it is. It totally sucks and is very hard. I am sure some of your grandmothers have one collecting dust in their basement it would be worth dusting off and maybe using if you have access to one. I spent over a year on kijiji looking for one and believe it or not used ones usually go for around $300 bucks still. I got a smokin deal on mine for $100 it is 20 years old and works like a charm.

Lunch - about 5 ounces of leftover ham, some celery, organic grape tomatoes, artichoke hearts.

Dinner - ground grass fed beef taco salad minus the taco. I just use romaine lettuce and some swiss chard, tomatoes, onions, guacamole, salsa, mushrooms, and homemade ranch dressing. It is delicious and a staple for me. I always try and keep some cooked ground beef around because this salad is so easy to make and is very satisfying..

Now time to watch some hockey!

Was woken up by my son this morning at 6am saying his blankets were too hot?? So he climbs into bed with me and I discover that it is him that is hot not his blankets! This part of parenting is always interesting as you have to make a decision about how "sick" they really are. So we played it by ear for the morning and I thought he was good to go to school by lunch but then as he came up the stairs he said he was going to be sick. Didn't happen thankfully but he is not one to be dramatic that is all my daughters department- lol. So I kept him home from school and in retrospect should have sent him but it is kindergarten and we got to hang out and play snakes and ladders and watch a movie so I think that was just as important as going to school.

Breakfast: the usual 3 scrambled eggs, asparagus, spinach and salsa this morning

Workout:
part 1:
Run 30 min @ 65% max running HR for this I decided the hour and a half I spent shovelling our darn huge driveway was sufficient!
rest 6+ hours - I only rested maybe 3 hours but that is ok

part 2:
5 sets @ 85-90%:
15 KBS - 1.5pd/1pd - kettle bell swings
15 GHD sit ups - sit ups in a roman chair
15 burpees
30 double unders
walk rest 2.5 min actively
(make last set raise closer to 97-100%)
Each set took me just under 2:30 minutes

REST 10 MINUTES - made roasted butternut squash during this rest period, it is best to maximize your time - lol

5 sets @ 85-90%:
Row 600 m
walk rest same time as work time b/t sets actively
(make last set of 600 harder than first 4 sets)
Each set took about 2:30 and only had time for 4

Lunch: leftover wild salmon filet and roasted butternut squash

Dinner: baked bone in ham, butternut squash, leftover cauliflower mash, and salad with homemade balsamic vinigrette.

Flames are in a playoff spot!! All is right with the world again. See everyone tomorrow, get ready to put your thinking caps on.