Back to normalcy

Well, that whirlwind of a vacation is over. And yes, if you are counting, I did not post last night. We got back to our hotel room late from the last of the wedding festivities and I got lost in packing and getting ready for my 8am flight this morning and forgot to blog! Fail number one. Believe me folks, it won't happen again and I am even going to extend my blog to all of October (that's 31 days!) to make up for it. Anyway, if there's one thing this trip has taught me is that it is possible to have self-restraint even at wedding festivities. Pick your most important meals throughout the festivities and don't get caught up in the "but its a wedding" feeling around you. I made my choices, indulged in the not-to-be missed events (like the hand selected winery reception) and turned down the not as special (like the fancy beers at the Irish pub....that was hard!) You'll feel better about yourself for not going over the edge and it makes coming back home that much easier. Tonight Neal cooked me a delicious sirloin and I made some broiled zucchini with grass-fed butter. I am still dealing with some sugar cravings so I've got myself some different hot teas and decaf coffees to get me through those tough times. A good tip for night time cravings is to make yourself a cup of hot tea and dissolve a tsp or two of coconut oil into it. The added fat gives you some satiety and keeps you from mindlessly munching. Tomorrow I plan on making some paleo chili in the crockpot! yummo! It's finally getting cool enough that hot soups and stews are going to be coming back on the menu. I think my crock pot is going to be my new best friend since it makes prepping food soooo easy! I do have to admit that my pantry is still pretty pathetic. Since we've moved, I have not really stocked up on anything. When you keep a Paleo kitchen, your pantry generally gets neglected in favor of the fresh stuff but there are some staples that every Paleo cook should have on-hand including:
Canned Coconut Milk
Canned Tomatoes
Chicken and Beef Stock
Tomoto Paste
Spices, Spices, Spices!

A quick trip to Costco should take care of that though and they have a great selection of organic and even some grass-fed and wild caught items. I missed the Yonder Way Farms delivery this week as I was out of town. The next delivery, it will be time to stock up on some stew meats, roasts and chickens for soup.
The next few months are shaping up to be pretty ridiculously busy! My first big competition since Regionals is coming up in less than two weeks and I'm really pumped and a little nervous. I also have a half marathon coming up in November. Suffice to say, it's going to be a busy fall. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Now off to bed for a good night's sleep before the crazy week begins again.

When to say yes

Today I got to witness the legal marriage of my amazing aunt Janine to the love of her life Trish at Niagara Falls! Trish and Janine have been together for fifteen years. The first time I met Trish was when my aunt brought her to my 13th birthday dinner. I can't believe it's been that long! In that fifteen years, they have celebrated so much including the birth of my triplet cousins (who are now eleven!) and have been a family in every sense of the word but now they truly get to celebrate their marriage! Obviously weddings present their own challenges as far as nutrition is concerned. Up until this point I have been amazing at sticking to my guns. I did not partake I the casual rehearsal dinner meal of pasta and bread opting instead to have an extra large serving of salad and veggies. I drank no wine and had no dessert. But today after the beautiful wedding on the brink of the falls, we all headed into Canada to a local winery for the reception. The menu was per selected by the brides and included such delicious dishes as tomato bisque, beet salad, salmon with lobster risotto and pumpkin cheesecake. This is one of the reasons why I decided not to do a whole thirty this month opting instead for a personalized nutrition challenge. Weddings are a time for celebration especially when it's family. Because of this I celebrated with my family and indulged in delicious food and two glasses of champagne. Does this mean I have officially failed my nutrition challenge? Of course not! This is just an example of knowing when to say yes. I will never again be at my aunts wedding at a beautiful winery in Niagara Falls. Today I said yes and tomorrow I will again know when to say no. And just for your knowledge, dinner was a steak and salad. :)

Paleo on a plane

Well I made it to Niagara. I am currently blogging from my dad's iPad so forgive me if this post is short. I just wanted to talk a little about staying on track while traveling. It's easy to get caught unprepared when traveling. We spend so much time figuring out what we're bringing to wear that we forget about the actual journey. Airports are generally not very Paleo friendly so it can be really hard and really expensive to get the right kind of food. On this trip, I knew I didn't want to be caught unprepared so I made sure to include in my carry on larabars, oloves brand olives ( I talked about those in a previous post) easy squeeze applesauce and macadamia nuts. I can safely say that I made it through the trip without resorting to eating those little crackers they hand you on board. In my book, that's success!

Sugar Cravings....nobody is immune!

Oh man! It's day three of my nutrition challenge and I am having full on sugar cravings! You see, I've been doing great so far. This morning I had two scrambled eggs and some coffee. Lunch was sauteed zucchini and elk sausage with some homemade Kombucha that my dad made! Wow was that delicious!  I was pretty busy this afternoon though, and didn't make it home until 6pm. Since my lunch was at noon, I came through the door starving! That's when the sugar cravings hit. I was so hungry, that all my body was telling me to eat was sugar. You're body will frequently lead you towards the sugary stuff at times like this for two reasons. The first is that sugar is the fastest source of energy for your body. It takes much longer for proteins and fats to digest. Also sugars affect the dopamine receptors in your brain releasing "feel good" hormones when you eat them. So when you're stressed or overly hungry, your body will crave sugar!
One of the beauties of the Paleo diet is that when you remove sugars from your diet, your body craves them less and less. One of the reasons is that you become an efficient fat burner meaning your body will oxidize stored body fat when you don't have any food around and your body needs energy. Unfortunately for me, I have allowed far too many sugars into my diet lately. Now that I am back on track, I will have to fight these sugar cravings off for the next week or so until my body gets regulated again.
Needless to say, I did not give in completely to my sugar cravings. I grabbed a larabar and had some hot tea to tide me over. Ordinarily, I would have just made dinner but Wednesday nights at 7:30pm are Advanced class nights! I love advanced class because I get to get together with my other trainers and advanced athletes and work on some really fun skills and throw down on some great WOD's. Tonight's little number looked like this:

3 Rounds
18 Pistols
9 Deficit Handstand Push Ups
3 Burpee Muscle Ups
then
Teams of two complete 3000m row switching every 300 meters.

That row was a serious lung burner!

Tomorrow I am off to Niagara Falls, NY to see my lovely Aunt get married to the love of her life, Trish. I am bringing my computer with me so I can keep up the blogging. I am hoping to get in a WOD at CrossFit Niagara but we'll see how the wedding weekend festivities go. Stay tuned with tips on how to stay on track while traveling! Goodnight for now!

Staying on Track on a busy day!

Whew! What a day! Tuesdays are usually my toughest days of the week. Right now I am working two jobs. The first one being my full time coaching job. I usually coach or co-coach 23 classes a week at CrossFit Katy. My second job is as a nurse and Paleo Nutrition specialist at Specialty Healthcare and Wellness in Bellaire, TX. We are one of the only clinics on the Paleo Physicians Network in the Houston area. We specialize in wellness, women's health, hormone balancing and athletic performance.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love both of my jobs, but Tuesdays are rough!
On Tuesdays I get up at 4:50am and get ready to coach the early morning classes at CrossFit Katy. I coach 5:30am, 6:30am, 8:30am and 9:30am. Then I have two hours to come home, make and eat lunch, walk my dogs and relax for a bit until I have to get in my car and drive up to Bellaire to my second job. I usually see three or four patients (working until about 4:30pm) and then I drive back to CrossFit Katy to co-coach the 5:30pm, 6:30pm, and 7:30pm classes. Most of the time when I come home I just want to collapse but a girls gotta eat! So I usually make dinner, watch tv or surf the net and then hit the sack at around 9:30 or 10:00pm. This Tuesday has been particularly tiring but I made a commitment to blog everyday for 30 days so here I am!
The point of this post is that there really are no excuses for eating poorly just because you're tired or stressed or busy. If I can do it on this crazy schedule, then so can you! My secret to success is making sure I'm prepared. Last night, I cooked one pound of ground beef and one pound of ground elk in a pan with some spices and greens. From this two pounds, I had dinner last night, breakfast this morning and lunch today. I had a tub of pre-made guacamole in the fridge from HEB and I just topped my meat with some guac and voila! Meat, Veggies, Fat! Perfect combination. For dinner tonight, I came home and grilled some lamb shoulder chops and sauteed some zucchini. This whole dinner took me 10 minutes to cook and probably 5 minutes to prep. That's pretty good so don't tell me you don't have 15 minutes to cook cause I know you do! Priorities people, get them straight.
Anyway, my go-to's for making sure that I'm prepared and can have a decent breakfast, lunch or dinner cooked in no time flat are:

Eggs
Thawed Ribeye Steaks
Thawed Ground Beef, Bison or Elk
Some kind of Greens like Swiss Chard
Zucchini
Canned Salmon or Tuna
Frozen Broccoli

With this combo, I can pretty much make anything. Obviously, the more goodies and the more stocked your fridge and pantry are, the better off you'll be because you will have lots of choices and won't get bored. So that's my story for today. Now it's time for some sleep!

Day One!

Today is October 1st, 2012 and It's the first day of my personal nutrition challenge. I've been studying nutrition and experimenting with different ways of eating for about 3 1/2 years now. I have to date completed 3 Whole 30's and they've really taught me a lot about food and myself for that matter. I can safely say after all this time, I still don't have it all down! I think nutrition is an ongoing challenge for most of us. I'd say my diet is about 90% better than many people's but there's always room for improvement. So today I am embarking on another nutrition challenge. Just to clarify, I am not doing a Whole 30. I know that for me getting caught up in the little things (like whether or not my organic, nitrate-free lunch meat has less than 2% sugar) is not the path to success. But 30 days of shunning Starbucks Peppermint Mocha's and corn tortilla chips IS the path to success. I am carrying a few extra pounds these days and have some big competitions coming up. More importantly, I do not have as much energy and drive in my workouts as I would like to have and I think my nutrition and supplementation is a big part of that.
I was inspired recently by my friend and fellow CrossFitter, Matt Munson who has made it a goal to blog everyday for 365 days! While I don't think I can accomplish that goal right now, I am going to try and blog everyday for the next 30 days documenting my nutrition challenge and any changes that occur with it. Today started at 5am. When I coach on these early mornings, it's challenging getting a good breakfast because I am usually not hungry until about 8am. When I am "on", I will scramble some eggs and bring them with me, but this morning I decided to go the easy route and had some deli ham and olives and coffee of course with a splash of raw milk. I found these great olive snacks at HEB. They're called Oloves-the healthy olive snack. They're pre-pitted green olives in 3 different flavors ready to eat in a little package and they're only $1 per package! Olives are a great source of fat, which we all need for satiety, to produce cholesterol, to produce all our hormones. Basically fat= life! Lunch today will probably consist of grilled lamb shoulder and I think dinner will be Elk burgers sans the bun. Sounds like a pretty well rounded day today...now if I can just get enough veggies in!

You can keep your Sexy Metcons.

Ok this post has been brewing in me for a while. First of all, I want to say that I love CrossFit. I love everything about it. It makes me stronger, faster, better not just physically but mentally so this is by no means a bash on CrossFit. I'm irritated though. For anybody that doesn't know, I have been a part of the CrossFit community for a while now. I did my first ever CrossFit WOD back in 2007 at Body Armor in San Antonio. I didn't really get serious about it until 2009 and since then I have been coaching and competing continuously. Before CrossFit I was a powerlifter and collegiate volleyball player. Yeah I've been doing cleans, back squats, front squats, snatches...you name it since I was 14! For anybody whose counting that's 13 years of barbell work and 3 solid years of CrossFit. What does this have to do with me being irritated?
I just want to emphasize that I've been at this a long time and there are many new trainers, new affiliates who can't boast this kind of track record. And those are the people that are making me irritated.
In my gym we have spent the better part of our 4 years honing and evolving our programming to give our community the best combination of strength, speed, power, endurance, etc. that we can. Our programming is precise. It has purpose. It's simple and it's really effective. We have taken good athletes and made them great and we do it without any frills and with very few "sexy met-cons". Look people, I get it. Chippers like the Filthy Fifty and the WODs that got thrown out at Regionals..they're fun! They're awesome! I mean come on, which looks cooler to you? A complicated multi-bar WOD with hang cleans and push presses and HSPU and like 7 different movements....or Deadlift 3-3-3-3??? But which one is going to actually make you a better athlete? Which one are you going to be able to sustain for years and years?
When I went to my first L-1 Cert., Pat Sherwood said something about programming that has stuck with me. He said good CrossFit programming can be described in less than 20 words. "Live your life in Couplets and Triplets. Lift Heavy. Sprint once in a while." That's it. That's the heart of quality CrossFit that can last over the years and will continue to make you better. I look at some of these newer affiliates getting sucked into the Sexy Met-Con. One affiliate in the area in the last three weeks has programmed 6 days of metcons using over 3 different barbell movements just for one WOD...some of these WOD's had three different barbell weights as well. Now it is very hard to properly coach three different barbell movements, test out how much weight is appropriate for people and effectively and safely implement it into a WOD and yet they are doing this multiple times a week. Now, I am not saying that this is impossible. Maybe you are sitting there reading this and thinking, well she must not be a very good coach then if she can't do that....and you'd be wrong. We will periodically throw in a complicated multi lift met-con with say hang cleans and front squats and push press in it. But we do these WOD's maybe once every 3 months. We don't do them twice a week. Another thing that irritates me is the over abundance of 1 Rep Maxing. 1 Rep maxes don't do anything but test how much strength you've gained. When you do 5 different one rep maxes in three weeks with zero days of multi-rep strength, you get nowhere. And I'm not talking about lifting in a met-con. I'm talking tried and true 5X5, 3X3 lifts. Most of our athletes do not have 10+ years of barbell strength under their belts. They need to continue to do these simple movements to build a base of strength. CJ Martin over at CrossFit Invictus has his competition athletes doing strength sets every day that they train right now and he's arguably one of the best trainers/programmers in the country. But the thing I think that makes me the most irritated is that I don't expect new CrossFit athletes to know any of this. I expect their coaches to know it and often times, they don't! It's our job as coaches to keep our clients safe, to teach them properly, to build them up... and most importantly, to keep them CrossFitting. The fastest way to break someone down and sideline them from overuse is through the Sexy Met-Con. I want all my athletes to be in the gym CrossFitting for years to come and that's exactly what I tend to do. So you can keep your Sexy-Metcon, I've got some 5X3 Deadlifts to get to.....