^officially 1/4 of a vet!

In the past week and a half I: went to a wedding in DC. Spent time at home in the Bay Area. Moved to Nashville. Whaaat? It’s been a crazy couple of weeks to say the least. So before I start with the Nashville posts, I wanted to recap my DC trip! It was a whirlwind for sure, but so fun!

I basically went straight from my final to the airport. I was traveling alone, but my friend had a flight out around the same time as I did so we got celebratory beers.

I didn’t get to DC until midnight thanks to the time change. I slept in Saturday morning (does it count as sleeping in if you’re on the wrong time zone?) and then headed out for a few of my favorite DC things: monument run and Sweetgreen. Can you believe it’s been 4 years already since I lived there?

I mostly stayed at a hotel nearish the airport, on the blue line of the metro (which was under construction all weekend so the delays were crazyyy). For my run, I took the metro to Arlington Cemetery, and then ran from there.

^ducklings!

It was really crowded so I definitely had to walk in some sections because of all the people.

It was also quite warm and humid! I definitely missed these sights though! I ended my run at the Sweetgreen in Foggy Bottom (the area I lived). I got a beet and goat cheese salad with chicken and wild rice, and balsamic dressing. SO good.

When I got back, I picked up a rental car to drive to Maryland for the wedding. It was held about 30 minutes outside of DC, and the drive was terrifying. Look, I’m a good driver. I’ve driven in Southern California. I’ve driven in San Francisco. But this drive….not fun. The roads were confusing and the drivers were so unpredictable! I had a terrifying moment when another car swerved into my lane, nearly into me, out of nowhere. Thankfully, I arrived at the hotel safe and sound, and got myself ready to go to the black tie wedding!

It was held at a beautiful mansion. It was supposed to be outside, but minutes before we were supposed to be seated, the skies fell and it started POURING. They had a wonderful back up indoor area, and it was a beautiful, intimate ceremony!

Congratulations Jenni! We went to undergrad together and I knew this couple from the very start!

Sunday morning, I packed everything into my backpack (yes, including my floor length dress), checked out of my hotel, and dropped off my car. I decided that Sunday afternoon would be my Georgetown time (read: cupcake time), so I took the metro into Rosslyn and had a quick lunch at The Little Beet. It’s similar to Sweetgreen, but different flavors. I got a bowl with chicken, brussels sprouts with cranberries,  pickled onions, avocado white bean spread, and chimichurri sauce. It was one of their suggested bowls, and while there were a lot of flavors going in, they worked together!

I then walked across the bridge into Georgetown, straight to Baked and Wired! The Georgetown Cupcake line wasn’t too long either, and I honestly probably should have stopped there too…

I got the one gluten free cupcake option, which was vanilla with chocolate chips!

So good!

Then, I walked along the waterfront and settled on some big steps to read my book for a little bit.

At this point, the sky was getting DARK and I thought for sure I would get poured on. Somehow though, it held out. I checked back into my original hotel and relaxed for a few hours before heading out into the drizzly weather to go to Alexandria. Old Town Alexandria is super cute, and wasn’t too long of a metro ride from where I was staying. I went to Le Pain Quotidien for dinner, another place on my “must gos” for my trip. I got a chicken and mozzarella tartine on their delicious seedy GF bread.

When i saw there was a Kilwin’s in Alexandria, I knew I needed to stop. I went to one in St Charles (near St. Louis) for ice cream and it left an impression! I got the salted caramel, which comes with chocolate covered pieces of caramel! I actually ate this outside in the rain because there wasn’t anywhere inside to sit. Worth it!

After dinner and dessert, I had a relaxing night in at the hotel. When planning this trip, it was tempting to try and fit in 101 things into the short 2.5 days, but I eventually decided that I was going to be exhausted post-finals so I decided to try and make it a little more relaxing.

Monday, my flight left in the afternoon so I didn’t have a ton of time to do things. Since it was Memorial Day and Murph is legitimately one of my favorite Crossfit workouts, I decided to drop back into Crossfit Foggy Bottom to do it. That was my box when I lived in DC, and although I don’t think any of the same people were there, it was good to be back! The interesting part of this Crossfit is that it’s in the basement of a fancy hotel! That made the running of Murph a little more interesting…we had to run through the locker room and then the hotel lobby, and up stairs to go outside! I wasn’t super concerned about my time, I just wanted to do the workout, so the time difference as a result was fine. This workout is a great reminder to remember those who have served and lost their lives.

The workout went well for me. it just doesn’t crush me in the same way it used to. Plus, my pull ups just get better every year. I maintained sets of 5 until the very last round. And my legs didn’t feel quite as heavy on the second run as they have in the past! I think one of the worst Murphs I had was when I did it with a semi-broken foot (the boot came off later that week)….I hadn’t squatted at all in a month or so, and 300 squats after all that time off….ouch.

Thanks to the humidity and 100 pull ups, I was a sweaty chalk monster at the end!

This Crossfit is part of a gym with fancy showers, so I was able to get cleaned up there before traveling!

I made a couple more stops before arriving at the airport. First off, Sweetgreen one more time! I got the Guacamole Greens and subbed sweet potatoes for the onions.

And the final stop? Shake Shack. Their frozen custard is SO good. When I was in Philadelphia in the middle of winter, I ventured into sub-freezing temperatures at night just to get some! I got the vanilla concrete with hot fudge.

Then, it was back home for 4 short days!

Nashville recap coming soon!

Thursday before spring break, my parents came to school to take Chloe to a behavior appointment (she has anxiety) so we went out for pizza afterwards. My mom and I shared a salad and a GF pizza with garlic and ricotta.

Here’s a meal from Friday: salad with balsamic, turkey, goat cheese, and butternut squash seasoned with garlic, salt, and pepper.

Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day.

That morning, I did 18.4 and then drove home for break!

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with food. See’s has mint scotchmallows (mint marshmallow+ caramel) and they are amazing.

We had an Irish meal. I skipped the corned beef and focused on sides!

Cabbage, glazed carrots, potatoes with truffle salt, and a GF biscuit with dried cranberries (AKA a better version of Irish soda bread).

…silly.

I have to share some animal pictures.

Now food!

We tried a Chicken and Dill spring soup that was really good. Side of Brazilian cheese bites.

I also picked up a GF berry and peach pie from Whole Foods, since I missed pi day!

Breakfast basically every day has been GF bread with sunbutter and a mango.

On Monday, I decided this week should be like a “stay-cation,” so we had happy hour with Longboard Lager (my favorite Hawaiian beer). For dinner, we stayed with the theme and had a salad with grilled teriyaki chicken, papaya, parmesan, and poppyseed dressing. I also had a passion-guava juice drink mixed with sparking water.

A Sweetgreen, my favorite DC place, just opened up super close to here so one night after spin (it’s right across the street from the spin studio I like), we went to dinner. I had the winter squash salad, but I added chicken and chose goat cheese instead of bleu cheese, so my salad has roasted winter squash, apples, raisins, chicken, goat cheese, and a balsamic vinaigrette. YUM.

Wednesday, we had our big outing of the week. One of my best friends from back home works at a high quality chocolate company, so we went on a tour and visited her! The tour was great, and I learned a lot about both the chocolate making process, and tasting chocolate!

SO MUCH good chocolate!

Afterwards, we went to Gilman brewing, which turned out to be a really awesome brewery.

They had like 15 beers on tap, and they were much more aligned with the style I like. I love saisons, and they had 4 types of saison, including a nectarine saison and a dark saison! Everything was fantastic!

Thursday night, we celebrated my sister’s birthday…1 month late…with pineapple upside down cake. I made a little mini GF oat flour based one, and it was actually really delicious! Not quite good enough to share the recipe though. It was oat flour and applesauce based, and then I used vanilla pudding mix to flavor it.

For lunch on Friday, I made a wrap with garlic and herb laughing cow, turkey, lettuce, and avocado sprinkled with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. On the side, I had a sale with aged blackberry balsamic and goat cheese.

That evening was the final workout of the Crossfit Open, 18.5, for me! It was really fun to be able to do it at my home Crossfit.

18.5:

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes of:
3 thrusters
3 chest-to-bar pull-ups
6 thrusters
6 chest-to-bar pull-ups
9 thrusters
9 chest-to-bar pull-ups
12 thrusters
12 chest-to-bar pull-ups
15 thrusters
15 chest-to-bar pull-ups
18 thrusters
18 chest-to-bar pull-ups

This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

Women use 65 lb.

So this in theory would be super cardio heavy, however, I had never been able to do a chest to bar pull up. I spent like 15 minutes before the workout trying everything to get a chest to bar, and nothing was working. I got advice from all the coaches but i couldn’t get it. Despite that, I got talked into Rxing the workout, and just planning on spending 6:45 attempting to do chest to bar. Well, I tried literally everything. Over 5 minutes in, I FINALLY GOT ONE! It wasn’t the prettiest. I knew I was getting high enough, but wasn’t able to touch my chest to the bar. My chest to bar ends dup being a reverse grip (like a chin up) and involved me pulling all the way up and pausing, confused, at the top, and then pulling into the bar. Once I had that technique figured out, I got another. And then another. And then I sprinted over and did 6 thrusters, and back for one more pull up. So I got a whopping 13, but I GOT CHEST TO BAR PULL UPS FINALLY! I think I could have redone this and gotten a lot more reps now that I figured that out!

This is how you celebrate. Apparently that’s what I thought last year, check out what came up on my time hop:

I hung around watching and judging the next heat, and then for a bit for the post-Open party. Then, I went home for Sweetgreen again, and got the same salad because it was so good.

I also made flour less brownies again.

I was up early on Saturday for a dog walk with friends, followed by a spin class. Check out this view!

Also:

I spent the rest of Saturday working on engineering a cat toy for a vet school contest. An engineer I am not, but it turned out really well!

Sunday morning, I did a 5k that I’ve done the past 4ish years. I am still coming back from my ankle injury and have hardly run in the past 6 months, but the good news is that my ankle felt really good! It’s a little sore today, but it was fine during the race! Thanks to the small race, I managed to snag first in my age group.

Sunday afternoon, I went to tea with my high school friends. It was so nice to see everyone! Also, their GF scones <3

And now it’s back to reality!

Let’s start off with a Crossfit Open recap: 18.3 and 18.4. These were the first workouts featuring movements I couldn’t do. Sidenote: 18.5 is announced tonight and apparently there will be voting; I’m really hoping it is movements I can do though! Chest to bar pull ups would be very questionable for me…

18.3:

Workout 18.3

2 rounds for time of:
100 double-unders
20 overhead squats
100 double-unders
12 ring muscle-ups
100 double-unders
20 dumbbell snatches
100 double-unders
12 bar muscle-ups

Women perform 80-lb. OHS, 35-lb. DB snatches

Time cap: 14 minutes

80# overhead squats are definitely not trivial. I was excited for the doubles because mine have been really strong lately. And ring muscle ups? Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

My first set of doubles was really strong. I think I managed to stringy together the first 50? The overhead squats were better than expected. I believe I did them in 2 sets, partly because sometimes it’s harder to put it down and have to get it up again! 80# snatches definitely felt harder after 100 doubles! I got through my second set of doubles in I think 6:21? So I had about 8 more minutes to play around on the rings. Suffice to say, I didn’t get my first muscle up. I did get closer than I was expecting though, so that’s something!

Workout 18.4

For time:
21 deadlifts, 155 lb.
21 handstand push-ups
15 deadlifts, 155 lb.
15 handstand push-ups
9 deadlifts, 155 lb.
9 handstand push-ups
21 deadlifts, 205 lb.
50-ft. handstand walk
15 deadlifts, 205 lb.
50-ft. handstand walk
9 deadlifts, 205 lb.
50-ft. handstand walk

Time cap: 9 min.

Now, I can’t do handstand push ups. I actually really don’t like handstands in general, so I haven’t ever had much desire to work on them. However, I was pretty confident I could bust out 21 deadlifts pretty fast, so I opted to Rx this workout and just do 21 deadlifts for time. I busted out my set of 21 in 45 seconds. I have to say, I have my powerlifting prep to thank for that. I never really do 155# deadlifts in workouts other than the Open because historically it is on the heavier side for a lot of reps for me. After deadlifting a lot, heavy, for my powerlifting prep, the 155# felt really easy. I ended up continuing on, with 155# and just doing the workout as the scaled, which was with hand release push ups. So I basically did 21-15-9 155# deadlifts and hand release push ups, plus 21 deadlifts, so I would actually get a workout in!

Now, for the powerlifting meet! Since I haven’t blogged a ton lately, I haven’t talked about it too much on here. My school hosted a friendly powerlifting competition, which I did about an 8 week prep for. Again, I’ll go into full details on the prep in another post. I do want to include food a bit here, because that was an interesting challenge. The competition was 6-9pm, and I am definitely a morning workout person so that was different.

I got super lucky with my schedule that day, in that I had the whole morning off and just had classes in the afternoon, so it was a restful day. I made myself my normal lunch: salad with grilled chicken, goat cheese, and pear, plus some GF crackers on the side.

I had a granola bar mid-afternoon, per my usual routine. I had to be at an athlete’s meeting at 5, so in the 30 minutes between arriving home from class and leaving for the meeting, I whipped up a protein-and-carb-rich light dinner. I had egg whites with half a sweet potato (that I roasted earlier in the day—so fancy) and some reduced fat cheddar.

Then, it was time to head over and hear about the rules!

Powerlifting has certain commands you have to follow about when you can lift and rack the bar. I tried to practice these a little bit in training, but the command I was most nervous about is a command that tells you to lift, when you are at the bottom on a bench press. Basically, it means you have to pause at the bottom of a bench press until you get the command to lift. We were told we had to make our first attempts, so I actually dropped down my bench press initial attempt by a few pounds after that warning.

I actually ended up eating another protein bar before the event started. I really didn’t want to go in hungry because I needed all of the strength!

Another challenge was warming up for the event. I was in the competitive division, which was the 2nd of 3 to go. The recreational/beginner division was the first to go, and it was the largest by far. When they started their squat attempts, I started warming up my squat. My initial attempt was 185, a slightly aggressive first attempt but also a number I was very confidant in. I actually warmed up to 195, which was my second attempt. I had a feeling I would be nervous, especially on squats, so it made me feel better knowing I hit those numbers. Then, before I knew it, it was go time!

My first attempt went smoothly, although I do feel like I had waited a little long since warming up before I lifted. It was fine after the first attempt though. After each attempt, we had to tell the people in charge what our next attempt would be.

Then, I went for 195.

It felt pretty easy, but I did get a warning about depth, meaning I had to make sure I went deep enough on the next rep (but my 195 was still accepted). I hit 200 in training on Friday, and my squat PR (from 2014….) was 205, so I went for 205 as my third attempt. I think I was a little overly concerned about going deep enough, and I got stuck at the bottom and failed the lift. As soon as you lose your core in squatting, the lift is just not going to happen. I think I had it in me though! I refueled with chocolate milk post-squats and then watched the heavy lifters go…someone squatted 500# which is so crazy to me.

Next up was bench. I warmed up to my initial attempt of 95#. Bench is by far my worst lift, and one I’ve hardly worked on in my many years of lifting. Actually, for that reason it was fun to train because I saw improvements and PRs. Again, I was nervous about the pause at the bottom.

95 went up easily. My all time max was 115, from a few weeks ago, and it was UGLY. I went for an aggressive second attempt at 110 and didn’t know what to expect, but it also went up well. I went for 115# for my final attempt, and again, it went up super easily. Unfortunately, I missed the command to rack the bar after I successfully lifted it, so the lift didn’t count. Ah well. Annoying, but in the scheme of my total score it was only 5#, and for my own personal records, I know I hit it.

Last up was deadlift. It was around 8:30pm by this time and I was fading. Super tired. But I told myself, I literally only had to lift the bar 3 more times! Again, I warmed up to my first attempt of 225#. At this competition, we were not allowed to use powdered chalk, only liquid chalk. I’ve never used liquid chalk before. Honestly I don’t normally use chalk for deadlifting, but the bars at school are super slippery so that was always a problem. Luckily, I made friends with someone who had liquid chalk, and it seriously made all the difference! 225 was easy. My second attempt was 235, and that also went as planned. My PR (also from 2014…) was 245, so I decided to shoot for 250 for my final attempt….It went up fairly easily, and was my far the prettiest heavy deadlift I’ve done! Normally at near-max weights, the form breaks down (and the back rounds..), but that didn’t happen, I felt it completely in my hamstrings and not in my back. I was SUPER happy to finish with that lift and with a PR! Especially because when I started my powerlifting prep, I initially couldn’t get heavier than 225!

Overall, the meet was an amazing experience. It was so much fun, and everyone was so nice! I also LOVE lifting, especially powerlifting. I love getting stronger and watching things change. It was also fun to have a goal to work towards. 10/10 would do it again. I also had amazing friends who came out to support me!

I got home around 9:30 and ate the same egg/sweet potato meal I had prior to the competition, as well as a brownie with ice cream. I made these super amazing GF/vegan brownies and can’t say enough good things about them. They’re MOSTLY applesauce and chocolate, and the texture coming out of the oven was like the best fudgy brownie. They’r definitely best served hot, and I appreciate that the recipe makes a smaller batch.

Look out for more posts coming soon!

]]> http://fitnessissweet.com/2017/08/22/wiaw-in-vet-school/ Wed, 23 Aug 2017 01:56:53 +0000 http://fitnessissweet.com/?p=27023 Read More]]> Hello from vet school! Here we have a rare mid-week post. That being said, it’s going to be a quick one. So why not do a WIAW for what I ate in a day, during my second week of vet school?

My morning started EARLY. My alarm went off at 5am, and Rina didn’t look like she was any more interested in getting up than I did. Often times she’s roaming around during the early hours, but I guess this was too early for my sleepy (loud) kitty!

Before running out the door, I grabbed a handful of berry Cheerios.

I went to 5:45am Crossfit and it was a really tough one. We worked on some core strength, and then did a surprisingly difficult WOD. It was 5 rounds of a 3 minute AMRAP of power cleans, push jerks, and over the bar burpees, with a minute rest between rounds. I was DONE.

After quickly showering, I put a GF pumpkin spice waffle in the toaster, and then ate that while making the rest of my breakfast. That workout called for some serious post-workout carbs,

Part 2 was a yogurt bowl with plain Greek yogurt, a nectarine, and sunbutter. Plus TONS of fluids. It’s been warm here for sure!

For lunch, I packed a salad with nectarine, creamy goat cheese, and Trader Joe’s grilled lemon pepper chicken. Plus Quest chips, and a couple chocolates from a classmate.

Today was 8-5 of sitting in lectures all day. For mid-lecture snack, I had a bar.

As I’ve been mentioning before, I have a massive amount of zucchini. I took a couple of large zucchinis and spiralized them, and then sautéed them with garlic, salt, and pepper. I topped all that with marinara, more of the grilled chicken, and mozzarella. I munched on some snap pea crisps and dried mango while cooking.

For dessert, I had fresh mango, one honey mint (I changed my mint about the other one), and half a piece of peppermint bark bread from the freezer.

That’s probably it for food for the night. I might have kombucha later. Now I have to go do some research to prep for another full day tomorrow!

Wow. I can’t believe I leave in less than a week. How crazy is that? I have one more adventure to share with you all, as well as an awesome new recipe from Cooking Light that we tried out last night!

So….what do I meant by the title??

Monday night, my friends and I went to the Giants-A’s game up in Oakland. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the Coliseum.

For those that aren’t familiar with the sports culture here in the Bay Area, I would call the Bay rivalry more of a fun one. There’s no hatred between sides, and I always root for the A’s as my second team. I think the rivalry is best summed up by the twitter burns being exchanged between both sides’ news teams. Fun-hearted.

Our seats were far better than I realized, so that was a nice treat!

We walked the entire way around the ballpark in search of the food trucks that come out, but couldn’t find them and gave up, so I settled on an easy salad for dinner.

I appreciated the ballpark’s beer selection. I got a Kona Longboard Lager.

The A’s had what I thought was a hilarious promotion where they would exchange any old Giants hat for a brand new A’s hat. I actually felt pretty conflicted this game, and decided to bring my worst Giants hat (I had 3 at the time, and one was brand new!) and just go for it.

I bought this one in St. Louis to wear to the playoff games in Wrigley. It’s not the nicest hat, but it was the only one I could find in STL. It also didn’t have any wins in it; we didn’t do so hot when I wore it in Chicago! I think it was bad luck anyways.

So i sent off a tweet, and sure enough….

I felt like a little bit of a traitor, but I have become more of an A’s fan this year. They don’t lose quite as frequently as we have been.

Just temporary dark side. The Giants were ahead until our notorious bullpen came in. I decided to switch loyalties and put the hat on, and literally the second I did, the A’s hit a grand slam (ouch).

Later in the game, I got my sodium and carbs in in the form of cheddar and caramel corn, which was delicious.

The Giants lost, but it was a really fun game. And, I can’t say I minded the weather! I only left wearing one jacket, which would be unheard of for the icy games in San Francisco.

In other life happenings, after staying up until midnight on Monday, I decided I really hated myself and went to 6am Crossfit for a really stupid workout. It was this:

100 pull ups

80 sit ups

60 pistols

40 calorie row

20 push press

I did Murph for the first time with unbounded pull-ups this year. This was far, far worse. I spent 15 straight minutes doing nothing but pull ups. I started with sets of 5, and lasted decently far, nearly halfway with that. Then I lost my sets of 5, then my sets of 4, and quickly I lost my sets of 3 and was doing doubles for probably the last 20 reps. This was miserable, and I was the last by far to get off the bar. To make matters worse, around rep 92, I could feel my hands start to rip. I was going to be SUPER mad if I ripped on the LAST couple reps, but thankfully I just finished with hands on fire and a few minor blisters.

We had a time limit for this one, so I figured I wouldn’t have to do the last parts. Well, the coach oh so kindly extended it. Honestly, everything post-pull ups was fine though. I did the sit-ups straight through, and assisted pistols. I was very happy, however, when I made it to the push presses and blasted through them because I chose a pretty wimpy weight. No regrets. Let’s not even talk about how my arms feel today.

In the evening, I had my LAST softball game before I move! It was a tough loss, and I did get totally slammed into while I was playing first, but I did hit a home run my last at-bat after being hitless earlier in the game. It felt so, so good off the bat. It’s hard to explain the sweet feeling of a ball hitting the meat of the bat like that.

For dinner, I searched through August Cooking Light and found a delicious looking recipe that I had bookmarked. Zucchini-Ribbon Pizza with chicken! We actually found the Mama Mary’s brand crust it called for in gluten free! I actually loved the crust; it was soft and chewy, and reminded me of the crust in the flatbread at the ballpark. I honestly think I prefer the gluten free for the texture.

The pizza came out awesome; the tomato-less pizza had strong coriander notes, and had lots of rotisserie chicken, topped with zucchini ribbons and feta.

One modification I made that I would highly recommend is that I added salt and lemon juice to the zucchini ribbons before putting them on the pizza.

We served it with garlic and lemon roasted green beans.

And that’s all I’ve got for you guys today!

For breakfast, I pulled out some buzzfeed lemon poppyseed bread from the freezer and was reminded of how delicious it is! On the side, I had the last of our cherries and an apricot.

Yesterday ended up being a really active day for me. I went to a short interval based spin class in the morning, and then came home and immediately took Chloe for a walk (I’m the only one who can do it right now, and she really needs the exercise.)

We got back right around lunchtime, and I made my current favorite sandwich: GF bread, garlic and herb laughing cow, lettuce, turkey, avocado, and garlic powder. Garlic powder is key. On the side, I had some watermelon.

For dessert, I tried a new protein bar that my mom found at costco. It’s salted caramel chocolate.

This was actually really good. Great taste, and it comes in a half bar size which is kind of fun, and sometimes exactly what I want.

My afternoon snack was a Nugo mint chocolate bar. Again, these taste like a chocolate bar.

Yesterday, I found that today I have a slow-pitch softball game. Cue slight panic. I realized I hadn’t touched a softball in 2 years. How is that even possible? The past year totally flew by. I missed last season thanks to a broken foot, but I thought I’d have a little more time to prepare! I spent some time yesterday afternoon throwing the ball around with my sister, and taking a few swings. Thankfully, it seems like muscle memory is strong. I guess when you do a motion few million times, it tends to stick with you! Today will be the true test though! It was interesting through; I’m definitely fitter than I was 2 years ago, which translated into my game a little different than I was expecting. I felt quicker and more agile, but I also felt less like I was going to pull something. I kind of expected the first throws to feel like my arms was ripping out of the socket, but throwing felt really good!

That evening, I went to Crossfit. I really need to take a better look at the workouts beforehand to know what to expect, because this one was a doozy. I guess I sort of glance at the movements without actually looking at the rep scheme and how long it will actually take. We did heavy back squats first, and then this joy of a WOD:

3 rounds

50 calorie row

150 double unders

50 walking lunges

My double unders are in the twilight zone; they’re good enough that I really shouldn’t scale to singles in a workout, but they’re bad enough that they can take for.ever. if they’re not on that day. I decided if I wasn’t averaging sets of 10 at least, I would switch to singles. I did all doubles….and this workout took me just over 30 minutes. It was LOTS of cardio, and I was tired, sweaty, and super thirsty when I got home! While I waited for dinner, I chugged water and pulled out the watermelon.

For dinner, we had Brazilian cheese bread and one of our all time favorite soups: leftover roast chicken with roasted vegetables.

After dinner, I had a few bites of ice cream while I threw together another batch of my maple blueberry bread.

Of course, I had to have a slice of that when it came out.

For my nighttime snack, I had a rice cake with chive whipped cream cheese. And then half a glass of champagne when the Warriors won!

Ok. Now, let’s talk about the full week of eating a little bit. The goal for the week was to dial in my nutrition, be consistent, make some progress, but also enjoy life. If you look back at the posts from this past week, every day is different. There’s plenty of protein and veggie rich meals, but I was still easily able to fit in ice cream sundaes, doughnuts, and beer into my diet. It really is all about balance. It’s about choices. For example, on Sunday, I went to a baseball game so I enjoyed beer and an ice cream sundae, but for lunch I split a flatbread and a salad, and then had a lighter dinner. You can make the choice to be healthy sometimes, and not so healthy others, and this balance is in itself healthy. I actually ate the same amount of calories each day this week, and what I filled those calories with each day varied a ton! By setting a calorie number each day, I forced myself to be more creative and to fuel my body with better things. Right around Thursday or Friday last year, I felt like a rockstar! It’s amazing what protein and produce do for your body. I wasn’t nearly as energized after beer and ice cream sundaes, but that was a sacrifice I was happy to make. This week was a fun way to experiment with what works for me, but it was also to show you that you can still make progress with fun foods in there as well. I went out to eat some, I cooked myself some. But I made it all work. And I’m pretty sure I ate ice cream every single day.

I also love how colorful my meals were this past week. Again, that summer produce!

I hope you enjoyed this past week of posts. It was a lot of fun to write, but I don’t think I’m going to continue to do full days of eating, every day. Especially on work days, I’m often just ready to SLEEP at the end of the day. I will try to incorporate more full days of eating because I think it gives a more complete picture, and I personally love reading them!

What are your food philosophies?

I began my day with a greenish smoothie. I added spinach to my typical smoothie with banana, salted caramel protein, milk, and just a touch of cocoa powder (so as not to ruin the green too much).

On the side, I had half a packet of maple brown sugar oatmeal with some extra plain oats thrown in to cut the sugar.

For lunch, I made a wrap that I’ve been loving lately. I’m planning on doing a full post on it for my quick and easy series, but basically it’s a tortilla stuffed with white cheddar laughing cow cheese, turkey, spinach, and red pepper.

I actually rarely like red pepper, but I do in this context! I had that with a very simple salad: just high quality blueberry balsamic vinegar!

For a little lunch dessert, I had the remaining bite of a leftover Rule Breaker brownie. I think the brownies taste better than the blondies, but they would be improved with chocolate chips.

Friday was all about preparing for the death that was 17.4. I made sure to carefully fuel myself. In the afternoon, I had some tea (the house was cold!) with a Luna bar and a ginger chew.

Cat nap:

And then about an hour before leaving, I had a few crackers and another ginger chew.

Then, it was time to get pumped up to go!

17.4 was 16.4.

13 minute AMRAP:

55 deadlifts (155# women’s RX)

55 wallballs (14#)

55 calorie row

55 handstand push ups

First of all, I remember last year being awful well enough, but I also have blog documentation. I was super happy and proud of how I did last year. I finished the row in 12:59, which was perfect since I don’t have handstand push ups. The problem with that is that I felt like I needed to improve upon last year, and I was happy with last year, so anything less than last year’s performance would be disappointing. On the other hand, I knew this workout played to my strengths a lot more than some of the other ones.

I actually looked to last year’s post for how to do my deadlifts. I started with 2 sets of 10, then moved to sets of 5, and smaller at the end. (In retrospect, one method I heard was good was going 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1). I was actually in theory far better trained in deadlifts this year, because we did weekly 20 rep sets at a fairly heavy weight. I definitely regretted 1. not going as heavy as I probably could have during those workouts and 2. missing so many due to travel!

I think the deadlifts crushed me roughly equally this year vs. last year, but maybe I was a little stronger. It’s really amazing how much you just lose all core strength! After the deadlifts, I did the all too familiar 16.4 waddle from the bar to the wall. Last year, the wall balls absolutely destroyed me. This year, interestingly, not so much. I feel like with the workouts that have been repeated, it always surprises me what has been improved. Last year in 16.5 which was a redo of 14.5, I was shocked by how much “easier” (it’s all relative) the burpees felt. This year, the wall balls were shockingly fine. I did my first set as 15, and then did sets of 10 the rest of the way. Last year, I was getting no repped (or coming very close to it) and couldn’t do more than sets of 5 or less. I only got no repped once this time. Maybe all the long, heavy sets of squats and presses helped this? I got off the wall maybe 45 seconds earlier than last time?

The row was not fun. I don’t think I had as much grit in me here as I did last time, because I was pretty sure at that point I could make the time cap. It was not fun. I wanted to die. I didn’t actually die though, so that’s good. I finished my 55 calories on the row at 12:43, sliding in 16 seconds faster than last year. Hey, I’ll take it!

Last year, I was immobile for probably a week after, so I immediately refueled with chocolate milk to try and ward off some of the impending soreness.

I repped South City Crossfit (St. Louis) green for the workout!

After watching a few other heats (I went first. Always.), I returned home to an Irish feast and my dad’s green pants.

I of course had to have a taster glass of Guiness. I actually didn’t really like it. The flavor is good but it needs some fizz!

And the meal: cabbage, roasted carrots and potatoes, rotisserie chicken, ketchup (necessary for chicken and potatoes), and Irish Soda Bread. For the soda bread, we basically just added dried cranberries and raisins to biscuit mix.

For a little something green for dessert, I made a single serve sugar cookie with green sprinkles.

That evening, I went out with a high school friend. We went to a British-style brewery, which was definitely a first for me! The beer I got wasn’t very fizzy, but it was full of (non-bitter) flavor. Interesting!

How was your St. Paddy’s Day? Anyone do 17.4?

My St. Louis friend was snap chatting me snow in St. Louis the other day…meanwhile, spring has arrived here in CA. The weather has been absurdly nice. I’ve been trying to take advantage as much as possible!

Friday morning, I took Chloe for a walk after my own 3 mile run while listening to a podcast.

For lunch, I made a ridiculously simple yet delicious salad. Garlic hummus, herb goat cheese, and an egg over easy. With a side of sweet potatoes.

For snack, I tried the Vanilla Flapjacked Smoothie mix, but I blended it up with half milk and half ice for a frosty treat. It was a little bit watery in flavor (too much liquid), but I liked it at that texture!

Afterwards, my mom and I went with my sister for her wedding dress fitting! The big day is coming, and the dress is nearly finished! She looks amazing in it! After the fitting, we still had some wedding details to discuss so we headed to Pete’s for some honey macchiatos.

We stayed pretty late, but thankfully dinner came together in a jiffy! We made hummus sandwiches with cheese, tomato, spinach, and avocado. Simple, but delicious. On the side was a simple herb salad with mint, basil, and dill, and a dressing of aged white balsamic vinegar and lemon olive oil.

Saturday morning, I did 17.3!

It. Was. Epic.

I currently live about 30 minute away from my college Crossfit, the place I called home for 3 years. I haven’t really been back there since I left for Tennessee in June, so I decided the Open would be a fun time to see everyone. I have to say, a lot has changed. Apparently they moved (to a super nice new facility!), which I figured out 10 minutes before I left to drive there!

17.3:

Prior to 8:00, complete:
3 rounds of:
6 chest-to-bar pull-ups
6 squat snatches, 95 lb.
Then, 3 rounds of:
7 chest-to-bar pull-ups
5 squat snatches, 135 lb.
*Prior to 12:00, complete 3 rounds of:
8 chest-to-bar pull-ups
4 squat snatches, 185 lb.
*Prior to 16:00, complete 3 rounds of:
9 chest-to-bar pull-ups
3 squat snatches, 225 lb.
*Prior to 20:00, complete 3 rounds of:
10 chest-to-bar pull-ups
2 squat snatches, 245 lb.
Prior to 24:00, complete 3 rounds of:
11 chest-to-bar pull-ups
1 squat snatch 265 lb.

*If all reps are completed, time cap extends by 4 minutes. (These weights are for men.)

Going in, I had no idea if I could do a chest to bar pull up. I felt like I SHOULD be able to, and I knew it would be close.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I was a few inches away, but knew that even if I got ONE, I’d never get a full round’s worth! I decided to do scaled, which was jumping pull ups.

For the scaled, the weight progression was 35, 55, 65, 75, 95. I knew I was good up to 75. My PR on the snatch is `108, but it wasn’t from the ground (I’m worse from the ground because I have trouble getting into the proper position), and it was right before my senior year of college where I was working hard on my olympic lifts and was super strong, and right before I dislocated my shoulder. The heaviest I’d gotten since my injury has been 75#!

In my warm up, I loaded up to 85, and didn’t even try it because it felt so heavy off the ground.

I went in the second heat, and had a pretty solid pace going through the first 8 minutes, easily making the time cap. By easily, I mean in terms of time, not effort! This felt harder than expected; jumping pull ups actually start to get hard with that many, plus with snatches!

A lot of people around me didn’t scale, so they finished much earlier than I did because they didn’t make the time cap. I was just kind of in the corner, doing my thing. I’m not sure a lot of people realized I was still going, and I was worried they would stop the clock before I finished, until my coach (who knows me) stole the clicker so that couldn’t happen!

Finally, I found myself staring down a 95# bar with 30 people looking on. I honestly didn’t think I would be able to make the lift. I just wanted one, so I took some time to rest and catch my breath, and my coach definitely helped talk to me. I missed the first attempt, but after another minute or so of rest, with 30 people cheering me on, I hit 95#! I knew once it was overhead, I could overhead squat 95#, so catching it up there was the best feeling! I’m so proud of how I did, and was definitely not expecting to get that!

I helped judge other heats, and helped my coach change weights during his attempt at the workout. He was pretty amazing to watch. He hit 1 rep at 245# with no time to spare, and it was epic.

It was so nice to return, and I’m glad I did. Things are changing, my coach is actually about to move away! It left me with both a warm and a weird feeling.

The new location is in downtown Palo Alto, so I walked around a little bit to grab food. I got a delicious iced latte from Zombie Runner (interestingly, Zombie Runner is both a running store and an amazing coffeeshop).

I also picked up a Subway salad to go and took it to campus to hang out with my sister while she watched her fiancé play quidditch.

Plus a chocolate chip cookie!

After a little time in the sun, I drove home and was greeted with a delivery!

These blondies are chickpea based! I haven’t had any chickpea based baked goods before, and I must say, based on how they looked in pictures, they weren’t exactly what I was expecting! They’re really moist and kind of spongy, definitely bean based, but still tasty!

For dinner, we ordered take out from The Counter. I whipped up a side salad and split a custom chicken burger with my mom: gruyere, avocado, garlic aioli, tomato, greens, scallions.

And later that night, I was back to Palo Alto to celebrate a birthday (see above).

I woke up Sunday morning SO tired. Go figure. We drove down to Palo Alto again so I could run and my parents could walk the pup.

We grabbed lunch outside on campus, and on the way, Chloe met another dog and went fountain hopping!

For lunch, my mom and I shared an iced latte, a breakfast arepa (with scrambled eggs), and a salad with goat cheese, dried cranberries, and honey vinaigrette.

Then, we went to Tin Pot for ice cream. The TCHO chocolate is my favorite ice cream ever. But look how tiny the scoop was!

On the drive home:

Thanks to the beautiful weather, we had happy hour before making a summery dinner.

On the menu was grilled pineapple and grilled chicken, roasted cauliflower with parmesan, and a side salad with blueberry balsamic and blueberries.

We didn’t have any teriyaki sauce to marinate the chicken, so I made a marinade blend of liquid aminos, honey, garlic, rice vinegar, ginger salad dressing, and sesame seeds.

It truly feels like spring in CA now!

I wanted to recap a little food and a little fitness before I take a little trip tomorrow. Blogmas Day 1 and 2 posts are all typed up, scheduled, and ready to go!

All I’ve done fitness-wise this week is Crossfit. I was really excited for Monday’s workout. We are preparing for the open. It’s always interesting to see how different boxes prepare in terms of their programming. At my box last year, we did a ton of longer workouts, like 3 10 minute AMRAPS with a few minutes of rest in between. Where I am now, we’re working on endurance in the form of disgustingly long sets. We’re doing a set of 20 back squats, and a set of 20 presses. This week I did 120 lbs for the squat. It’s crazy how I can be sore from just one set. I was not excited for that. The thing I WAS excited for? We redid 16.2. I was really happy with my performance when I did it the first time. I had just gotten my toes to bar literally the week before, and was so proud of myself for getting through them. 16.2 was 25 toes to bar, 50 double unders, 15 cleans at 95 lbs. If you finish that in 4 minutes, you move on to do that again in 4 minutes, with the weight on the cleans increasing and the reps decreasing. Last time I got majorly tripped up on my doubles (LOL pun sort of intended), and finished with 46 doubles in the first round. My doubles are MILES better than in March, so I was really excited to tackle this again. Not a lot of people Rxed this so they definitely did more rounds than I did, but I really wanted to see what I could do. The doubles were cake. I finished the toes to bar and doubles in 3 minutes, and got through 5 of the cleans before running out of time. That’s 9 reps better than last time, but it’s a big 9 reps because the cleans are time consuming. I was panting and shaky at the 4 minute mark, and not entirely sad to be done with the workout.

This morning I went to 6am Crossfit because I woke up at 4am and could not fall back asleep. When it was 5:15 and I wasn’t even tired, I figured I should just get up and get it done, especially since I had plans to have a more interesting and large lunch than normal. We worked on snatches, and then the WOD was 3 rounds of 15 wall balls, 15 pull ups, and 15 deadlifts (I used 135#). I knew the pull ups would be a little challenging, but I’m not going to baby myself anymore with pull ups in workouts. Unless it’s a crazy number of reps, I just have to suck it up and do it. I’m at a place now with Crossfit where I feel like I’ve made a ton of progress over the past year, and I’ve started to finally get a lot of the movements, so to progress I need to suck it up and Rx the workouts, as slow as it may be, because the speed will come. Honestly, it’s a little bit of a pride issue. At my box, a lot of people don’t Rx the workouts, which is totally cool with me. But it means when I do Rx them, I’m often one of the last people working. But I need to get over that, because it’s the only way I’ll get better.

In terms of food…

Breakfasts:

Flapjacked muffin with blueberries.

Going strong with cranberry here. Yogurt with cocoa powder and maple syrup stirred in, topped with cranberry sauce. Eaten in about 5 minutes between Crossfit and taking my dog for a walk with a friend.

We got talked into signing up for a CSA box while picking up my bib at the turkey trot. It’s cool in that it’s delivered to your door, and you get to pick what you get in your box. I don’t always like Gala apples, but this was delicious. I had it with my typical breakfast (at least for the past 3 months) of yogurt, sunbutter, and cinnamon KIND granola.

Lunches:

Leftover Whole Foods Chicken Lemon Artichoke soup with avocado toast.

Chinese food! I think everyone has that one Chinese restaurant that they’ve been going to forever. My sister just got back from 3 months in Europe, 2 of which were spent in Florence, Italy, and she was craving Chinese food like crazy. I haven’t had it in quite some time as well because I was worried soy sauce (it has a little gluten) would cause me to flare. Now, I feel pretty safe that it won’t, so I was excited as well! I started with egg drop soup, and then got chicken and vegetables with fried rice. And always extra sweet and sour sauce. To put on rice, to put on veggies, to put on chicken. Why not?

Dinners:

My mom and I have been on our own for dinner this week, and we both are fans of simple. We made open faced turkey and havarti sandwiches. Normally we do these with apples on top, but I wanted to try them with cranberry sauce. The verdict? Delicious. We also happened to buy some turkey that was more like carved turkey than deli turkey on accident, so it was perfect with the cranberry sauce! On the side, we sautéed up some zucchini noodles, one day with garlic, and another with smokey salt seasoning blend.

Etc.

After 16.2, I was sort of shaky and light headed, so I needed sugar and protein ASAP. I tried this flavor for the first time while cooking dinner. I saw it in St. Louis but never made the leap. It’s good! Who can complain with chocolate though, right? The cinnamon chocolate works with yogurt.

Trader Joe’s has really delicious peppermint bark. It’s SUPER thick and really hard to break up though! My sister also hadn’t been to Trader Joe’s in 3 months, so she was just a bit excited to go. I was really excited to see GF peppermint jo-jos. I got them, took a bite out of one, and then thought to check the label. They have coconut oil :/ I decided “screw it” and finished the cookie, but thanks to a coconut allergy I can’t eat them since I’m going to react. Darn. Why is coconut oil in everything these days?? At least I have peppermint bark to ease the pain though, right?

My first coffee back in CA! This was good. Search for the best coffee round 2?

Also, note: I am wearing jeans. It’s been at least 10 months since I wore jeans. Mark your calendars.

This dessert right here is part of why I firmly believe there is space for a dessert every day. That bowl is only 140 calories. 120 without whipped cream. A serving of Halo Top, a spoonful of delicious gourmet salted rum caramel sauce from St. Helena (in Napa Valley), what could be better?

And with that, I’m signing off. Check back in tomorrow for Blogmas Day 1!

Breakfast:

I woke up 6am after 6 hours of sleep, thanks to a touch of jet lag. My stomach is still on central time!

I ordered a whole bunch of Flapjacked muffins and they actually beat me home! They arrived within like 3 days of shipping. Double chocolate is my favorite. I swear it’s like lava cake if you uncool it a little (and there are no eggs so no worries about that!)

I spent the morning running errands with my mom (which included a trip 2 Old Navy and 2 groceries). My grandma is coming into town today so there was lots to prepare!

Lunch:

My mom made crockpot lemon chicken rice soup a little while ago and thawed some out. I ate that with added spinach and feta. Avocado toast on the side, with Trader Joe’s Everyday seasoning blend.

Snack:

I saw someone on Instagram post about this company’s new sunbutter, so I checked them out. When I saw they had GF nut free bars, of course I had to try them out. The base of these bars is a seed blend of pumpkin, sunflower, and flax seeds. I ordered 2 flavors: chocolate and sea salt and apple ginger. It’s a smaller company, and I actually got a handwritten note which I thought was a really nice touch.

This was really, really good. It was chewy and had the perfect amount of salty. I will definitely order these again. It’s always nice finding new bar options other than just Luna bars!

I also had a couple of pieces of crystallized ginger.

Workout:

I went to my home Crossfit, the one where I first started Crossfit. I haven’t been too much lately, but this time I’m here for the long haul! For strength, apparently we’re doing endurance in preparation for the Crossfit Open, so we did one set of 20 back squats at 60%. Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck. I hate long sets. I used to think 10 was long…I was panting by the end of the set. We then did strict press for a set of 20.

I’m really proud of how I did during the WOD. I Rxed it, and it’s not one I could have Rxed a few months ago.

50 double unders

30 pull ups

30 wall balls

50 double unders

I knew right away that the pull ups would be my slow point here. I started doing sets of 5 kipping but ended up breaking it up even smaller as I went through. The pull up bars here were sort of hard to hold on to, so that made things more difficult.

One of my biggest downfalls for double unders is having tired arms. When my arms are tired, my double unders go. So coming off pull ups and wall balls wasn’t fun. I finished in 7:28. I was the last one to finish, but not by a lot, which I’m proud of!

Dinner:

My mom and I were on our own tonight, so we made one of our favorites, an open faced turkey and havarti sandwich.

This sandwich was from a cookbook that we first made years ago. It’s mayo+dijon, grated Havarti cheese, red onion, arugula (we used spinach though), turkey, apple, and ground pepper. The whole thing is put in to broil until the cheese is bubbly. We got the Havarti from Trader Joe’s and it was actually pretty different. It was softer and creamier. It was good! On the side, we roasted shaved brussels sprouts with a touch of oil, garlic, and pepper, and then added truffle salt when it came out of the oven. SO good.

For dessert, I had a piece of gluten free orange cranberry bread. It’s not “healthy” bread, but it’s delicious and that’s good enough for me, especially for dessert!

Here’s the recipe.

Plus a few milk chocolate chips.

I hope everyone is having a great short week leading up to the big holiday!