Tuesday

I'll lead with my semi-exciting news.  I weighed myself this morning - with pj's on - and I was 141.4.  That's good for having been back on a clean diet again for 4 or 5 days.  I'm sure I will be all sorts of excited when I'm under 140.  I think one of the things that is most exciting is being able to shop for new clothes.  I want to rid my closet of all of the things that are too big and just not go back there.  It makes me unhappy just to think about wearing those clothes. 

If you remember, one of those goals was to have white jeans for the summer.  That'll be happening once I figure out what store makes the best ones for me.  On a side shopping note...what the heck is up with Target's clothes?!  I hate them.  They are my usual favorite place to shop for things for cheap.  (I have a clothing problem.)  Lately, I want to go back to the outlet mall in Aurora and cause some trouble there.  If I had my way I'd just own everything from J Crew and be done with it. 

Occasionally, I find that I get once peice of clothing that I want in my mind and I'm honed in on it until I get it.  Right now, its a long sleeved Lululemon shirt.  Yeah, yeah, I know, its ridiculously over priced yoga stuff - BUT, its hella comfortable, made well, and all of the pants make my butt look good. (Which is obviously most important.)  I drug Mark to the store the other night in Lincoln Park, only to find out that they closed at 7.  WTH?!  I thought I'd outsmart Lulu and find one on Ebay, but they really weren't any more inexpensive there. 

I went to CF last night even though I wasn't very excited about it.  I'm not sure if I'm getting bored or what.  I'm still making gains on my lifts so I'm not really sure of the reason.  We've done similar workouts before...snatch, hang clean, and, and front squat.  The percentage scheme was similiar for all 3: 60, 70, 75, 80, 85, 80 - all x's 2.  My front squats were the worst and I broke form and it was stressful on my back.  In my defense, this was like 45 kg's...so almost 100 lbs...and that's a lot for me.  I've noticed that I'm not making gains on the bigger squat movements like I am on the clean and jerk, snatch, ohs, etc.  I wonder why that is?  I've been around 100 lbs now for a while. 

• 85% of my snatch is 24 kgs
• 85% of my hang clean is 37 kgs
• 85% of my front squat is 45 kgs

Today is a rest day and an "I don't understand the WCCF workout" day.  It's 7 cycle thing with a minute of work and a minute of rest after each thing.  I just don't understand it. 

Food has been back in check as I mentioned above.  This morning I had egg "cupcakes" as I call them.  They were little quiches made in a muffin tin.  For lunch I had....wait for it.....wait for it.......a BURGER and some avocado. Not sure what we're having tonight for dinner. 

Sheepish Blog Post

Okay, so I am a big, fat liar.  It's not on purpose, though.  Blogging falls off my list of things to do when I'm not excited about my blog topics.  :(  I really don't know what to do to get it back. On the bright side, I did eat paleo this weekend - finally - I strung together several days in a row without cheats. 

Food doesn't taste as good and I'm not sleeping very well.  I find myself thinking that only a few things sound good when Mark asks me what I want for dinner ...usually this is a burger.  I can't even begin to tell you how many burgers we've eaten in the past few weeks.  Both times we've eaten out its been...DMK or Burger Bar (I'll review below).  I've been on this burger thing since before I went to China.  Don't read this like the only thing I'm eating is burgers and nothing else.  I'm eating other things.  Its just the only thing that really tastes good is a burger.  Yesterday, we looked through a paleo cookbook and found a few things.  Mark made mahi mahi fish tacos last night and they were pretty good.  I can't remember all of the other things we picked out, but the pictures peaked my interest.  Let's hope they're good. 

The past couple of weeks I've had horrible sleep.  Partially, this is my fault because I'm not winding down to go to bed until 11:30 pm.  Sleeping 6 hours on the regular is not working for me.  I am having to down huge cups of coffee.  Even 7 hours last night did not make my body happy.  I'm convinced that we need a new mattress. 

I went to CF on Thursday night.  The workout was light.  It was OHS, which I PR'd on and then a strict press.  Strict press was much tougher for some reason.  After that I did pull-ups and box jumps.  I didn't go to CF on Saturday.  I wanted to go to the lake to run/walk, but that didn't end up happening.  Sunday's plan was to go to open gym at CF, but again, it didn't happen.  Back to the grind this week, I guess.

I keep thinking that I need to take my pictures again, but it just seems like whenever I'm thinking about it I can't do anything at that moment. Then, I forget.  At this point, maybe we'll wait until the beginning of next month.  I doubt my measurements have changed much as my weight's been back up and back down again.  I haven't weighed myself since the other day and I was 144.  I would assume that since I was good over the weekend that its probably the same or maybe a little less.  I haven't attempted my "skinny, 143lb" pants lately.  I should do that.  I have noticed that it is infinitely easier to get dressed in the morning when I don't have to worry about what fits me.  Everything I own fits me and lots of things are big.

As I mentioned above we've eaten out twice recently - at 2 burger places.  Last week we went to Burger Bar.  I had the forgeddaboutit' burger.  It's a grass fed patty, then tomatoes, procuitto, and some amazing sauce (probably not paleo exactly).  I didn't have the bun, but added sweet potato fries.  As you can imagine, its not hard to eat paleo at a burger place.  On Saturday night we ate dinner at DMK, which is one of my favorite places.  I had my usual, bison burger with onions and goat cheese.  We shared some sweet potato fries.  Two thumbs up for both places for taste and ease of paleo ordering.  We will definitely go back, especially while I'm addicted to burgers.  

Recommitment

After much discussion, Mark and I both agree that we need to recommit to our resolutions. We've leaked and strayed enough that we're unhappy with how things are going. Without planning for the week, we often cheat. One of us *cough* Mark *cough* eats candy at work even!!! ;) Nevertheless, we'll blog again and hold each other accountable.

We drug ourselves to oly tonight after a quick nap. For it being hot and me being tired I lifted pretty well. It was a light workout with us only getting to our 90% of clean and jerk and back squat. We worked up to the 80% on hang snatch. Mark can let you know how his went. :)

Tomorrow I'll blog about food and get back into my posts.

Setback

I started this post on Friday and never got a chance to post it....

FRIDAY - 3/16
I've been debating whether or not to share this information with the blog for a couple of reasons.  I've been doing so well and I don't want to have to admit publicly that something has gone wrong this week.  But since I've tried to be brutally honest on here I've decided that I'll its only right that I do.

I'm sure there's a number of things playing into this, but I weighed myself this morning and I was 145.8.  I freaked.  I nearly cried.  I complained and I didn't listen to a word Mark had to say when he was calming me down.  That's a MONTH's worth of progress gone this week - if that's true.  Now that I'm slightly calmer I'm trying to figure out what's going on.  I had some cheat foods this week - pad thai, pizza, and wings + fries.  However, to legitimately gain that much weight I'd have to have eaten like 15,000 extra calories, which I did not.  I have been very stressed.  Yesterday, I was very thirsty.  Maybe some of it is water weight?  Either way, I feel terrible about it.  I feel like I've totally failed at this right now.  I'm completely embarassed and frustrated.  I've worked so hard and it confuses me that I went on vacation and had cheat foods and didn't work out much and I didn't fluxuate, but here I've been working out and this happens?  How is this possible?

I'm sure you know where this is going....I'm going back to paleo without cheats.  I cannot have come this far to only to slip back to where I was.  It's just not happening.

MONDAY - 3/19
Okay, so to update my weight first yesterday I was 141.8.  I felt relieved that it was back down and Mark was more convinced that it was just an outlier.  Maybe it was because of some salty food and water weight? I have no idea.  I'm just glad I'm going in the right direction again.  We're definitely going back to paleo still though. 

Saturday was an OLY "meet" at the gym.  I was insanely nervous about doing this and almost skipped going to the gym all together.  Even though I didn't do my lifts in front of the entire group (nor did I want to) I got PR's on snatch and clean and jerk. 

• Snatch: My previous PR was 26 kg and Saturday I put up 28 kgs.  That's 61.6 lbs. 
• Clean and Jerk: My previous PR was 37 kg and Saturday I put up 41 kg.  That's 90.2 lbs. 

I was really excited when I finished that I'd put up good numbers!!

Just to wrap things up I'll just say that things have been so busy that its been really hard to update.  I think part of my issue this weekend was the weight thing, but I've relaxed a bit.  We also hit up Burger Bar this weekend and I ate paleo so I'll review that asap. :)

80's Music

I love 80's.  Mark and I are currently rocking out to Def Leppard.  We are horrible singers, but we try really hard.  :) 

Food was not too good today.  We didn't wake up in time to make breakfast and by 10:30 am I was STARVING.  I microwaved my chili left overs around 12.  In the afternoon, I needed a coffee and so I made a run to the gas station to get that and some nuts to snack on.  For dinner, which we just finished, I had a buffalo burger and some nuts.  I passed on my broccoli because it just didn't look good.  To be honest, nothing really sounded good nor looks good.  I'm in a food funk. 

The gym went well today.  There is a mock meet on Saturday so we're gearing up to peak then.  Tonight's workout seemed short, but it was heavy.

Clean and Jerk -  %'s - 60 x 2, 65 x 2, 70 x 2, 75 x 2, 85 x 1, 90 x 1, 95 x 1

• My original 1RM was 33kg, but tonight I put up 37 kg pretty easy.  That's 81.4 lbs.
• Other lifts: 20kg, 28kg, 30kg, 35kg, 37kg (x 2)
• No shoulder pain at all!!!

Backsquat - %'s - 60 x 3, 65 x 3, 70 x 3, 75 x 3, 85 x 3, 90 x 3, 95 x 3

• Not sure what my 1RM is exactly, but I based my %'s off of 110.
• Squats were are follows: 35kg, 35 kg, 40 kg, 45kg, 47kg, 48kg
• 48 kg is approximately 105 lbs so probably on target with my 110 max

Clean Pulls - %'s - 95 x 2, 105 x 2, 105 x 2, 95 x 2

• 26kg, 35kg, 35kg, 26 kg
• This was ok.  It's a funny movement so I'm not the greatest at it yet.

Neglect

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog the past few days.  I'm not really sure why that's been happening.  I guess I haven't felt like anything I've been doing has been exciting enough to share??  In no way is my next statement a criticism of Mark, merely an observation:  When he's less serious about this stuff its easier for me to be the same way.  Mark's not eating a paleo diet, nor is he as motivated about the gym.  It's definitely infectious, but by no means an excuse for me.  I still have goals.  I need to remember that.


I promised myself that I was going to go back to strict paleo this past weekend and that hasn't totally happened.  Sunday I had several desserts at Becca's shower and today I had pizza.  Starting tomorrow, I am committed to being back on track and not cheating.  I'm guessing my weight won't change too much this week if my metabolism is up, but it won't be a week of progress.  


I couldn't believe it the other day when I got on the scale and it said 140.  I think I said, "oh my god, no way!" about 80 times in a row.  I can only imagine my excitement when its under 140 for the first time in years. :)


Monday's CF workout was good:


Snatch: 60% x 2, 65%x 2, 70% x 2, 75% x 2, 80% x 2, 85% x 2, 75% x 2

• I started at 15kg and worked my way up to 26kg for my 80%, which if you stalk me and my percentages you would know is my 1RM.  I put it up easy, but when I told Cori it was a tie for my PR she said to stop.  I didn't do my 85% or 75% again.

Front Squat:  60% x 2, 70% x 2, 80% x 2, 85% x 1, 90% x 1, 95% x 1

• My FS 1RM is 101 lbs.  For my 85% I did 99lbs 3x.  My legs were spent after that so I finished up there.  But, 99lbs 3x probably means my 1RM is 110?

Snatch Pull:  95% x 2, 105% x 2, 105% x 2, 95% x 2

• I warmed up with 24kg because I had never done the movement before.
• Then, I did 30kg, 34kg, 34kg, and 30kg again.

I'm noticing that usually when I post I'm really excited to share my accomplishments, but not so much today.  I'm not writing as much, nor checking my notebook.  :(  

Results

The results from February:


My initial reaction to my following stats was that of disappointment.  I didn't do as well this month as I had last.  But, then Mark and I were talking about the month and realizing that I missed a lot of days of training.  I was out of town for work in the middle of the month and then a week or so later I was in China.  My diet was not strict at all.  Keeping that in mind, I'd say I did ok.  I'll post pictures tomorrow.

• Upper Arms (at bicep, relaxed):
• Left: 11"     /     10.75" /        10.75"
• Right: 11"     /     11" /        10.75"
• Waist (at belly button):
• 33"      /      28.5"   /          28"
• Waist (at narrowest point):
• 28"     /     26.25"/    26" 
• Hips:
• 41.5"     /     39" /   39"
• Legs (mid-thigh, relaxed):
• Left:   23"     /     21.75"/      21"
• Right:  23"     /     21.75"/     20.25"
• Waist to Hip Ratio:
• .67      /      .67     /    .66
• Weight:
• 152.4     /   145/  140.2   <---- Umm, what?!  I was completely shocked.