Hearts of Lions

Hearts of Lions - CrossFit Women from SICFIT on Vimeo.

Progress

After attending the Form3 Women's World Tour, I got to work on my new goals. This really isn't anything new. I've set goals for myself twice before and guess what....I didn't accomplish any of them and after the Form3 Event I finally knew why. I never developed a plan on how to achieve my goals. I had them written out in 3, 6 and 12 month increments but I never broke down my 3 month goals into anything beyond that, 3 month goals, which means I had no road-map, no plan, no checklist with which to accomplish them. All that has changed! I now have a weekly checklist on my refrigerator which tells me exactly what I need to do each week to accomplish my 3 month goals.

Last week was the first week that I implemented this new plan and I found out some interesting things. One, having the list is FANTASTIC. The other night I was looking at my list before bed and realized that I had forgotten to do something, so I hopped on the internet and did it and checked it off my list! Two, even with a list, I was unable to accomplish everything that I had set my mind to last week. I did not complete my mandatory 3 mobility WOD's or work on Handstand Push Ups enough among other things. I don't consider this a failure though. Having the list makes me realize which items I tend to put off...hello mobility!....and makes me even more focused this week to check everything off! I've got my to-do list...where's yours? What are you going to accomplish this week?

The Fittest Games

Wow, what a weekend! I actually don't think I've had that much fun at a competition in a long time. Not that there was anything wrong with any of the other big competitions I've gone to recently. I just think that before this weekend, I was in a different place. I've been taking care of my body, getting in proper nutrition and training, and I've had a few big physical accomplishments in the gym recently. That all adds up to a weekend of excitement and anticipation instead of regret and anxiety. I've got to say, I think attending the Form3 program a week ago had a lot to do with my attitude going into this weekend. Ever since I've taken the time to actually write down my goals and evolve a plan to accomplish them, I've felt a renewed sense of control over my life....so thank you Form3!

Now back to the competition! When the workouts first came out on Thursday, all I could think of was "Damn! Look at all that running.......AND there's muscle ups! I am screwed!" But the more I thought about it, the more excited I actually became. I mean, the running workouts were tamed by a bit of weightlifting, they had one Max Lift event which I am usually great at and I had been practicing muscle ups for months....not all of those practice sessions had been successful but I had a feeling the atmosphere was going to give me just the boost that I would need. The other great thing about this event was that it was going down in the ATX and I was going to get to compete with (thanks Lisa) some of the best athletes in the state.

Anyway, Saturday was beautiful and Neal, Ziggy and I packed up the Tahoe after the morning class at CrossFit Katy. The drive was smooth and we cruised right into Austin over to CrossFit Central to pick up our packets and say hey to some of the crew over there. The rest of the day was filled with lunch at Whole Foods with my mom and step-dad and relaxing at the hotel. For dinner we met up with the rest of the crew from CrossFit Katy at a funky mexican joint where the manager was giving out free tequila shots after the meal! No, No I didn't have one....but it was tempting! :)

Sunday morning was freezing! Haha! I definitely was under-dressed for the first workout. I wore my speed shorts thinking it was going to be warmer....which it was later in the day. But I definitely couldn't feel my legs during that first workout. The first workout did not play to my strengths! First of all it had a 30 lateral burpee "buy-in".....30 burpees! Put a fork in me, cause I'm done! I believe that I was on burpee number 23 when the rest of my heat took off for the sprint across the football field.....Note to self, work on burpees! Needless to say, I did not fair very well and ended up 17th in that workout. Boooooo! Just a little side note, for this competition I was put into a heat with Lisa Thiel, Carey Kepler, Crystal Nelson, Emily Baker, Chardonnay Poole, Ingrid Kantola, Whitney Welsche-Reese.....You get the picture. It was an intimidating group. I may have let my brain internally shout out "You don't belong in this heat" a few times after that first WOD. But I quickly pushed it aside because the 3 Rep Max Bear Complex was up next and I was determined to make up for my poor performance in WOD #1 with a killer weight on that one!

Now I haven't done the Bear Complex ever I don't think. But I knew my max power clean and I figured I could get about 20lbs less than that. I was a little worried about the push jerk out of the back squat position because my shoulder mobility is so limited but I was determined to put up a good number. I warmed up with #115 and decided my first attempt would be #125. Easy peasy! I hit that one, took a couple minutes break and put #135 on the bar. That one was tougher but I got it and was pretty confident that I could do more. The clock was against me though because I needed at least another 2 1/2 minute break to be ready for another set and I didn't have that much time. I took a minute and put #140 on the bar but going up to it, I knew I wasn't recovered enough. I got the first rep but failed in the push jerk out of the back squat on the second. My #135 Bear Complex was enough to tie for second place though! Definitely made up for WOD#1 with that one!

WOD #3 was the dreaded muscle-up WOD! Like I said in a previous post, before Sunday I had only gotten 3 muscle ups ever and I was expected to do 8 in a single WOD! Needless to say, I was nervous, but I was also excited. I mean I was in a heat with some of the best athletes in the state, it was the kind of atmosphere that you dream about. If there was ever a time to amaze myself, this was it! 3..2..1...GO and I was up on the rings. I got that first muscle up immediately! What what?!!?!?! Unfortunately when I was up there, my arm hit the latch on the rings and dropped one of them about 5 inches meaning I had to come off the rings and get my judge to help me get them even again. Talk about a time killer. Oh well, I struggled through another muscle up and made my way over for toe-2-bar and double unders. Back to the rings and I was tired already! After failing for what seemed like an hour, I struggled back up onto those rings! Ha! 3 muscle ups...the most I'd ever gotten before...all in one WOD! The clock was ticking away and I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to finish this WOD, so my next goal was to just get through another round. That was it...one more muscle up, 15 toe-2-bar, and 30 double unders and I'd be happy! It didn't seem like it was going to happen for a while, but miraculously I fought through another muscle-up! That was it! 4 muscle ups! I finished the round and took my DNF. I don't think I've ever been happier about a DNF. All I could think about was..... I just got FOUR muscle-ups! Hell yeah!!!! Who cares about anything else??!!

There was a looooong wait between WOD 3 and WOD 4 and at that point I didn't think that I had any chance of placing top ten (which was my goal going into this competition) But when they wrote out the top ten on the whiteboard at the track, there I was sitting in 8th place! So the only thing I had to do was not completely blow the last workout and I had my top ten finish......easier said then done!

I was tired! The sheer volume of workouts had gotten to me and I didn't know how the last workout was going to go. In the middle of WOD #4 stood 15 #95 snatches. Yes, my max snatch is #115 so I knew I was capable of doing the 95 pounders but 15 was a lot of them and my form is pretty abysmal. My shoulder mobility means I have a hard time squat snatching heavy weight. When I drop under the bar quickly I can't keep the weight far enough back above my head and therefore my choices are either power snatch, get set, and then squat.....or fail at the weight. It takes a lot longer to power snatch and overhead squat 15 times but that's what I had to do. The rest of that workout was a blur...all I could think about was how bad I wanted it to be over! That last 200 meter run was brutal...and SicFit got the pics to prove it. Luckily I had my biggest fan and best friend, Neal Kay running beside me pushing me to the finish. Without his support and encouragement, I might have just walked to the finish....ok probably not but you have no idea how much it helps to have support like that! I was pretty confident that I had just knocked myself out of the top ten....the winner of WOD#4, Karen Pierce, beat me by a full 4 minutes! That's like a lifetime in a CrossFit competition. Amazingly enough though, my finish in WOD #2 and the fact that I got half-way through the muscle-up WOD was enough to keep me in eighth place! YES! Top ten finish for me! The icing on the cake for the weekend was the fact that one of our CrossFit Katy athletes Mike Scott, a relative newbie to the CrossFit world won the intermediate men's division! It's so awesome to watch one of your own athletes do so well! I expect big things from him in the future.

So there it is. Amazing weekend with amazing people. I can't stress enough how incredible the entire CrossFit community is and I had as much fun competing as I did visiting with all my CrossFit friends. Big thanks to Karen, Lisa, Carey, Crystal, Adrian, Laura, Ingrid, Chardonnay, Adrien, Meg and all the other CrossFit ladies! Can't wait to do it again!

Push Your Limits!

Yesterday The Fittest Games WOD's were posted.....Yikes! Looks like WOD #3 is going to have muscle ups in it! For the record I have gotten a total of 3...count 'em 3 muscle ups EVER! The first muscle up I ever got was at CrossFit Beaumont after their competition. It was kind of a joke. I had been playing on the rings at CrossFit Katy for weeks but had never gotten an actual muscle-up. I think one of the reasons I got that first muscle up at Beaumont was that I approached it with no pressure, just got on the rings and did it! I definitely surprised myself. Since then I have gotten two more on different days, weeks apart. I have yet to be able to get one on my first attempt and I have never gotten more than one at any single practice session. So what does that mean for me this weekend?? I don't really know. I guess you could say the odds are stacked against me, BUT I can't help but remember a little conversation I had with Lisa Thiel before the final WOD at Regionals last year. That WOD had a 10 Muscle Up buy in. At that point, Lisa had only ever gotten one muscle up, but when we talked about it before the WOD she said, "Well, if I can do ONE then I can do TEN!" And that's the attitude that I am going to try and embody this weekend. I know that I am not going to win this competition but this competition is an opportunity to get better. I am going to end this post with a little quote I stole from my good friend and fellow CrossFitter Katie Russell....ok so she stole it from a movie...but you get the point! :)

"If you are trying to be better than someone else....you are doing it wrong! Being the best is not about beating everyone else. It is about beating who you were yesterday."--The Rookie

Form 3--Renewed Passion and Drive

Saturday I had the privilege of attending the Form3 Women's World Tour at CrossFit Central and I can't remember the last time I have felt this excited about my future. The program was led by Carey Kepler, Jessica Sharratt, and Crystal Nelson...all amazing ladies!

To be perfectly honest, I didn't really know what to expect from the program when I first got into my car to make the 2 hr drive from Katy to Austin. I anticipated a lot of discussion on nutrition and fitness and how to reach out to the needs and wants of the women of my community. I did not expect to take such an in-depth look into my needs, my wants, my purpose.

As a whole I think many women find themselves constantly saying to themselves, "When I have more time I will ___.", "When I have more money I will____." I know because that is something that I am always saying, but I learned this weekend that that kind of thinking is poisoning our potential. How are we ever going to accomplish anything if we keep putting ourselves in that box?? This weekend was all about "Now, Now, Now" We even went so far as to write down everything that we could think of that was holding us back....and we burned it! It was liberating!

The rest of the day was filled with goal setting, vision boards/books, and an intimate look at what we can do today to get where we want to be tomorrow. There is so much more that I wish I could say about this program but words fail me. It is just a feeling. A feeling of limitlessness, a feeling of hope and determination, a feeling that nothing can hold me back if I make a plan to get there! I love quotes and one of the quotes that resonated most with me is from Og Mandino

"I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person."

This weekend has given me a new purpose, a new drive, a new passion.....

Today Is My Someday!

Whole 30 Round Two Results!

Well, it's over! My second round of the Whole 30 is finally over and the results are in! As I was saying in a previous post, I really don't think my first go-round with the Whole 30 did much for me. Instead of really focusing on changing my relationship with food, I concentrated on just cutting out all the technically inappropriate foods. This resulted in a severe over-consumption of fruit, almond butter, and other paleo treats. I never kicked my late-night snack habit and, as a result, did not conquer my sugar demons meaning when my first Whole 30 was over, I was right back on the sugar train. Paleo sugars of course (that's what I told myself).....but really there is no difference.

About half-way through this Whole 30, I read a great post on the Whole 9 Blog about conquering your sugar demons and it finally clicked. I think I made more progress in the last 2 1/2 weeks on then I did during my entire previous Whole 30. So without further ado.....

My Results:

Weight Before: 158.2

Weight After: 152.8

I have lost a total of 4.75 inches from my waist, hips, thighs, and arms.

I was pretty excited about the results especially the inches. Weight is a very deceptive beast and it really doesn't mean that much to me, but inches really say something.

Ok So I know you are all dying to know if I went completely nuts today on junk food and the answer is....sort of. :) I had a normal breakfast, got in a great 5:30AM WOD at CrossFit Katy and then went to lunch at Ruggles Green. I got the Blackened Shrimp Salad and a side of Butternut Squash. It was delicious but MAN there was a lot of sugar in that lunch. The salad had about 5 different kinds of fruit/dried fruit on it and was tossed in a poppyseed dressing and the butternut squash was full of brown sugar. It was good but it is not something I think I will order again because it's just too dang sweet....not really worth the cheat! And even though I was already in a sugar coma, I followed up the lunch by sharing a piece of Ruggles Green warm carrot cake with Christie.....now THAT was sweet but definitely worth the cheat! They have the most amazing carrot cake. As was expected, after lunch I felt like a zombie and was in a full-on sugar coma within an hour. I took about an hour and half long nap to sleep it off! I have never had that kind of reaction to food before. You'd think I would have learned my lesson after lunch but this was cheat day...I had to keep going! Dinner was salmon and homemade macaroni and cheese. The mac and cheese was tasty and I didn't feel quite as lethargic....just very puffy and bloated and to finish it all off I tried to eat a brownie for dessert but I couldn't finish it.

Looking back at the day, I'm not all that thrilled with my cheats. Some were good, some were ok, and some were just not worth it....and I have felt pretty terrible all day. I really think I have finally changed the way that I feel about food. My tastes have truly changed this time and I hope to never go back to eating grains, extra sugars, and processed foods on a regular basis again. I will still enjoy the occasional non-paleo treat and I definitely plan on adding certain non-Whole 30 foods back into my diet...like pastured butter (YUM!)....but as a whole, I really don't plan on deviating much. I have felt great, I am setting new PR's in the gym, and I am just a much happier more energized person when I eat this way.

There's some really exciting things happening this month. February 5th I will be attending the Form3 Women's World Tour and February 13th I am competing in the Fittest Games at CrossFit Central. Hopefully all my hard work, clean eating, and training will pay off. I feel much more prepared for this competition than I was for the All-Cities Open in Dallas. This should be a great indicator for the upcoming Open Sectionals Competitions. CrossFit Katy has some great athletes going to compete and I am looking forward to having a great weekend with some great people!

*Just for clarification, the first pic is from July after my first Whole 30 and the second pic is me now after my second Whole 30*

Are Princesses the Enemy?

I read an article today discussing the rapidly changing, often warped culture that we have created with regards to beauty and what it means to be a girl. It seems like everywhere you turn these days, women are bombarded with images of not only what is considered beautiful, but what they can buy to make themselves beautiful whether that be blue jeans or botox. Sex and the sexualization of women is used to sell everything these days! And the unfortunate thing is that this image is trickling down in watered down versions (and sometimes blatantly NOT watered down i.e. Bratz dolls) to our teen and pre-teen girls. But from where did this culture evolve? According to this article, or rather according to author Peggy Orenstein, it all begins with Princesses.

Orenstein is the author of the new book, Cinderella Ate My Daugher: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. In Orenstein's opinion it is societies obsession with this "every girl is a Princess" attitude that is setting up our young women to view themselves as worthy only as long as "they are the fairest of them all". According to Orenstein, the more a girl is exposed to this ridiculous ideal, the more apt she is to develop eating disorders, low self-esteem, distorted body image, and depression.

Another article I read on ABC News.com said that Walmart is introducing a new line of cosmetics......for 8-12 year old girls! While I personally don't see anything wrong with little girls having fun dressing up and putting on play make-up or collecting fruity-flavored chap stix alla Bonne Belle or even getting their toes done, it's something quite different for a company to market make-up to tweens for day to day wear. What kind of message are we sending these girls? That they already aren't good enough without enhancements? What if we could give our girls a different kind of beautiful?

Every day, whether I like it or not, I am a role model. I have an 8 year old step-sister. I am a part-time coach at CrossFit Katy, a gym where half of all our clients are women. I live in a neighborhood with over 10 school-age girls on my block alone, and just this year, I became an aunt to a beautiful little girl. And I take this job very seriously. Because it's my desire to change the image of beauty for all of these women and I am not alone.

I CrossFit. I run laps, lift weights, jump boxes, flip tires, do pull ups, push ups, squats, drag sleds. I use my body in all its capacity to accomplish amazing athletic feats and because of this I have thighs that don't fit into skinny jeans and shoulders that can't be contained in cute little blouses but I am beautiful. I am beautiful in a way that doesn't require Prince Charming to come and rescue me and this is the kind of beauty that I want to share with the other women in my life. Does that mean that I intend to de-sexualize the culture that envelopes us or our girls? Well, not really. Anybody who has seen me workout or compete or even sees me in day- to-day life can't miss the fact that I don't mind showing off my body. I am an avid Lululemon Addict and love nothing more than rocking out a workout in a brand-new pair of Speed Shorts or Wunder Under tights and a matching sports bra. I am proud of the muscles that cut across my back and the definition that I have in my stomach. I think it's sexy. I think muscles are sexy. I think women that lift weights are sexy. I think prescribed pull ups are sexy and handstands and muscle-ups. CrossFit has not and does not intend to eliminate the sexualization of women. I believe CrossFit aims to change the very definition of sexy into something positive and empowering and that is something that I am proud to represent. I want the women in the gym to be proud of their hard-earned muscles and feel sexy when they lift a barbell above their heads. I want my little step-sister to think that being beautiful is directly correlated to what your body can accomplish. I want women to feel empowered as I feel empowered.

I recently got a very much appreciated invitation to attend the Form3 Women's World Tour in Austin, Texas on February 5th. As taken from their website, the purpose of the Women's World Tour is to bring women of the community together, provide them with space to become inspired, motivate women to dream big, to become their most powerful dynamic selves, explore, create, and take on new territories of their life, and re excite life where staleness has moved in. It's a full day of motivation and inspiration and I hope to learn even more ways to inspire the women of my community by attending this event.