Weekly Wrap Up 10/14 - 10/20

 Review of Octobers goals: 

• No alcoholic beverages during the weekdays = Not so successful, but not terrible. Sunday I went out with my mother in law and some of her friends and had a glass of wine. Tuesday was Supper club and had two glasses of wine. Thursday I had 2 Shipyard Pumpkin beer with Jordan and Friday was a couple of glasses of wine with Jordan with dinner... so yea, definitely failed at drinking on day a week, but I did not really go in excess any days so I am ok-ish with it. 

• Eat more mindfully: better than last week! 
• I did a pretty good job eating the small, frequent meals. 
• I have been eating breakfast- or at least drinking smoothies, which seems to be a good start to the day. 
• Candy has still be an issue... Halloween candy is everywhere and I love candy... but I have not bought any so I only have a little treat every now and again. 

• Working out at least 4 days a week:
• Yep- I kicked this weeks butt! I worked out 6 days this week, some days more than once. I will tell you though, I am so sore. 



• Walking at least 4 miles. 
• This gets fuzzy... but I think I accomplished this. Again, I wasn't mapping everything, and I hadn't been counting what I ran during WODs which was sometimes 2 or so miles. Its also a lot harder on the days I work at Newton Wellesley, since I walk around the hospital a lot, but I drive to and from work and do minimal walking outside. I decided to order a fitbit one- and excited to see how much I actually move throughout the day - not just outside! I also hope it helps with my sleep issues. It doesn't come out until next week - but excited to give it a try! Hopefully it is worth it. 


Unrelated, but Leo looks evil in this picture... 





And a sweety 





And cute... 





So, on to a new week! 

Good Bye Crossfit

Friday was my last day at Crossfit with my livingsocial deal. It was an awesome 7 weeks, and one of the best Groupon/ Livingsocial like deals I have ever bought. I really hope to be able to join a Crossfit type of gym again soon, but right now it is unfortunately not in the cards. 

I hope to keep up with my work outs, though I will not have the coaching or equipment, and most importantly, I will not have the motivation of other fitness focused people around me.

Since I knew this day was coming, I decided on Thursday to try to make Jordan work out with me in a WOD fashion. I set up this workout:  

3 rounds of: 

60 second plank

40 squats

30 butterfly sit ups 

1000 meter run. 

For time. 

Jordan was agreeable to joining me, but it was not the same as being at crossfit. He gave up after the first round and complained the whole time. I had to be the motivator. It was still better than doing it alone, but not ideal. Hoping we can both get better at making the most of our at home workouts. 

Friday's WOD at Ironspider was

Strength: Pull Up 5x2^  -- I still cannot do pull ups on my own, so I got up to 2 pull ups with a thin red band (2nd to least amount of assistance). 

Skill: Hip Flexor Mobility and Flexibility

WOD: 12 Minute AMRAP
7 Burpees
21 Double Unders (or double under attempts).
7 Handstand Push Ups (I modified, I did ~ half handstand pushups and used 3-10# plates as a marker of how far to go down)
21 Double Unders (I suck at double unders, so I pretty much did 63 single jump ropes)

Mobility: Stretch and Roll lower legs

I just made it through 5 rounds in 12 minutes! Great workout. 

Weekly WODs

One of the hard parts about fitting these workouts in is then having the time to write about them! So I am a bit behind!
Monday’s WOD included:

Strength: Thruster 5x3^  I think my max was 65 pounds.

5 sets of (3 Minutes of work/1 Minute of rest)
200-meter run
20 double-unders
15 wall ball shots, 20#/14# (I used a 12# medicine ball instead)
10 V-Ups

I made it through 4.75 of rounds (aka I did 4 complete rounds, but ran out of time to finish the last 10 V-Ups. The wall balls killed me… I actually smacked myself in the face/ mouth with the ball at one point and tasted it. It was disgusting.

Wednesday’s WOD:
Skill: Power Clean/ Squat Clean

WOD #1
5x5 Power Clean^
My max was 65#

5x3 Squat Clean^
My max was 45# (supposedly you are supposed to be able to lift more for this one than for the power cleans, but it involves my nemesis, the front squat.)

5x1 Dead Lift^
My max was 135#! I was pretty happy with myself there. I can at least dead lift my own weight!

WOD #2

Run 800m (No clock, but bring a med-ball)
I brought a 12# medicine ball... can I tell you how awkward it is to run carrying a medicine ball?!
In other exciting news and accomplishments – I FINALLY climbed the stupid rope at the gym! That was one of the skills we were supposed to do in the introduction course- but I missed that class due to getting married. Consequently, I have never been able to do it. Mandy, one of the coaches cheer-leaded me through it when I told her it was my goal to do it by the end of the week.

that's Coach Mandy doing the Rope Climb!

In sad news, this is my last week of my livingsocial/ amazondeal for the crossfit gym :( I have LOVED it and wish I could continue, but unfortunately the cost is just too much for me right now. I tried to convince them that they needed a dietitian and workout a nutritionist for crossfit deal, but I haven’t heard anything since out initial conversation so I guess it is a no go.

I have been looking at various WODs to do at home, it is just the issue of staying motivated and actually working out when I get home! I will be looking in to other gyms options, but $200 a month isn’t going to work out.

How do you stay motivated? Or do you require the group atmosphere to workout?

Starting the week out right!

Sunday started off slow and rainy, and so my walking buddy would not budge from bed.


I swear I take the same picture every morning. When I get up Leo moves from our bed to the couch and shivers until I wrap him up. I think I will need to start using different blankets to differentiate the pictures!

 Jordan had a late night shot, and didn’t get home until 4 am, so he was of no entertainment to me either.
Since I had just recapped my week and I was not too impressed with my accomplishments I was set on being productive!
I did a thorough cleaning of the house and 2 loads of laundry. How do we produce so much filth in so little time??
I decided to do an at home Crossfit workout, and was inspired by Tina’s Pug WOD. I completed it in about 12 minutes. - as she said "short and sweet like a pug!"

  I first broke it up into sets of 20 of each exercise, but the push ups became too much so I did sets of 10 between the other 2 exercises.   I really want to do a Boston Terrier WOD for Leo now! But I was trying to incorporate in things Leo loves which include:

• Tug of war
• Running
• jumping
• dog yoga

so I am thinking some running, maybe tuck jumps, and if I had a rope a rope pull...
 any suggestions on an equivelant to do at home??
Well stay tuned for an upcoming Terrier WOD!

After the WOD the sleepy boys finally decided to get out of bed.

Jordan was agreeable to doing a little yoga with me, so I used one of my handy dandy Yogadownload.com sessions.  We did the 60 minute "Anusara Inspired Flow" - though as usual Jordan only lasted 20 minutes- but some yoga is better than no yoga!

I was happy he joined me, I do so much better when I have some one doing it with me.

How was the start to your week?

Weekly Wrap Up 10/07-10/13

Yesterday I was planning on going to Crossfit for the Community WOD but it seemed kind of silly to drive so far on my day off just to go workout, when technically I can workout anywhere. 

Instead I started my day going for a walk/jog (wog) with Leo. It was freezing! Literally- there was ice on the ground. I thought it was going to be a short jaunt since at first Leo wouldn't even move from the doorway because he was shivering so much (even with his sweatshirt on).  With a bit of encouragement he started to run with me to warm up. 

I let him lead the way and we wound up going on a 4 mile wog. Likely partially due to movement, and the very sunny skies - the walk warmed up quite a bit! 

In the end, the jog was not anywhere as intense as crossfit would have been, and I kept telling myself I was going to do at least a little workout at home.. but it never happened, so maybe it would have been worth it to drive to Salem! / I need to find a way to motivate myself to workout from home. 

Review of my goals:

• No alcoholic beverages during the weekdays = success. No drinking since Sunday the 7^th (Monday was a holiday). I had one beer (Shipyard Pumpkin Ale) with Jordan on Friday night.
• Eat more mindfully: This week was a bit of a struggle.
• I have been reading “The Paleo Solution” which I thought would give me god motivation to eat healthier, but it has thus far had the opposite effect of making me angry and eating worse than usual.
• With Halloween approaching, candy and treats are running rampant! I cannot enter a office without a candy dish. I have shown more restraint than usual, but I do have a huge sweet tooth. On Friday we had a work party and I gave in and had a cookie AND a piece of cake.
• Scheduling has not led to the most mindful eating. There have been some days where the only time I really have to eat I have not been hungry- so I just eat because I have a chance.

• Working out at least 4 days a
• I only got in 3 ‘formal’ workouts but I did go hiking and went on a 4 mile jog so I will still consider it mostly successful.

• Walking at least 4 miles.
• I haven’t been using the mapmyrun app on my phone as much because it kills my phones battery. I am on a quest for some kind of pedometer/ distance calculator that actually works but isn’t too expensive.

Any suggestions??  

While looking for a free clipart for crossfit I came across this image, which completely embodies how I feel while attempting any jump rope workout! 

How was your week??

Sleepy Squats

 I have been sleeping terribly lately and have not quite figured out what the issue is. Some possible problems I have hypothesized have been:

•  New Bed?: We did get a new bed – it is an Olympic Queen versus a regular Queen, but the mattress is much harder than what I have been used to so I thought that might be part of the issue, but it has been a month with the new bed. I did change the comforter to our old comforter which was down and fluffy versus the thin hard one we had originally on the new bed.

• Wet Head? I have reverted back to showering at night. I normally shower at night, but over the summer I tried showering in the morning which was working out well, until the mornings became frigid again and trying to deal with being that wet and cold is just not tolerable. Plus, with evening workouts it is just gross to go to bed without showering. I have thick hair so it takes forever to dry. I have been blow drying it but once I lay down I inevitably find a wet spot and lay on it all night and get cold. So I have been working on drying my hair even better. Thus far, it has mildly improved me sleep.

• Timing of eating?: Since working out after work, I usually do not get home until at least 8 pm. I then usually shower immediately (in order to get the hair drying process going) and by then I usually eat a bit of dinner. Since I am not eating until 8:30 pm, and I like to try to go to bed by 9 pm… its not a great scenario. So I decided to try eating before going to the gym yesterday. BAD idea. I had half a sandwich one hour before Crossfit, and felt like I was going to throw up the whole time. So, maybe just tiny meals before and after OR skipping dinner (which I do not think I will be able to do.)

• Peeing: Tuesday nights issue obviously was having to get up and pee a million times. Not really sure the solution there other than not drinking as much water at yoga, but alas, that may lead to passing out.




• I already try to use my bed only for sleeping, not over sleeping, and trying to relax before bed etc. which leads me to the final issue: 
  Loud Husband: Jordan always complains that I am “only home for half an hour a day” since I usually get home at 8 and try to go to bed by 9 pm. (Which, hey honey, that’s an hour!) So the time I am home, he likes to tell me about everything. Which is all well and good, but he has trouble with volume control. There is no difference between when he is talking at a loud party to a group of people than just talking to me in bed while I am trying to go to sleep. We (read: I) have been trying to work on “bed time” voices, but it has not been working very well thus far.
  

the loud husband (Jordan) on a recent hike

 In conclusion, I will continue to play around with factors involved in my sleep and see how it goes. Any suggestions on ways to improve sleep?

On the plus side, Leo does not seem to be losing any sleep over the matter!

On another note:

Wednesdays WOD this week was just mean. MEAN!

100 front squats. With 3 burpees between every time you drop the bar.
That was it.

100 squats… that would be tough.
100 back squats – that would be tougher.
100 front squats- UGH!

It is the most awkward hand grip ever. I feel like I did not been get a leg/ butt workout – it was just wrist torture. I was doing like sets of 2 squats because I couldn’t keep my wrist in that position. In conclusion, I did A LOT of burpees!


awkward front squat hand position


I honestly stopped counting at some point (I am a really bad counter—I tend to get up to 10 and start over). I stopped after 20 minutes of squatting and burpee-ing which was about 2 minutes after everyone else finished.

I felt a bit like a failure since I didn’t know if I actually completed the workout. My wrists are killing me today, whereas my legs feel fine… which indicates my form was not very good. . Gives me something to improve upon anyway- Front squat position!

New Identity

I love having Fridays off- its magnificent to have a week day off to get all of the random stuff done that cannot be done during the week.

Jordan was also off, so he and Leo accompanied me to Salem where I went to cross fit and they went on a walk.


Friday's Crossfit Class:

Strength: Power Cleans 5 sets of 3 reps at 45#

WOD
10, 9, 8 .... 3, 2, 1
dead lifts (95#)
ring dips (with band assist)
2 burpees every minute on the minute

AKA - started with 2 burpees, then did 10 dead lifts, followed by 10 ring dips, (stopped where ever I was at the minute mark to bust out 2 burpees) continue with 9 deadlifts, 9 ring dips... and so forth.

10:26 was my time. And it felt good!

We then headed to the Liberty Tree Mall where Jordan bought a shirt, and I waited at the DMV for an hour for a new license.

It is official. I am now Jamie Lynn Garry. Now I just have to get used to it. Every time someone has asked me my last name lately I have sounded like an idiot because I always start saying the wrong one.

The name change process has been a pain in the butt, including the weeks waiting for a new social security card, hour at the DMV for a new license, and the huge hassle of making a new email account for home and work.

I still have to go to the bank to change my name there, and change my passport etc etc but the main stuff is done!

I am also proud to say that Jordan and I completed the burpee challenge mentioned in the last post. We each did about 17 in 1 minute (quite a bit fewer than Miss Lindsay! We need to step up our game!)

I was just looking through Lindsay's October Challenge and it looks like there are some fun and challenging things on the list -- I now must go google what a tabata workout is...

Do you have any goals or challenges planned for October? 

Wednesday's WOD

For our strength we did bench presses, I managed 55 pounds in sets of 3. I also unintentionally discovered that my one rep max (1-RM) for the bench press is about  70 pounds when I got it stuck on my chest after one lift (thank god for spotters!)

The WOD was not  AS bad as I thought it was going to be. I managed to get through 6 rounds of 400 meter runs and maximum pull-ups. Of  course, that is partially related to my inability to do pull-ups. I did get 51 pull ups total (with a medium black band).

I am planning on heading into Crossfit today for another exciting WOD of

WOD: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Deadlift 225/185
Ring Dip
* Every Minute on the minute the athlete must stop what they are doing (Deads or Dips) and complete 2 Burpees. The workout will start with 2 Burpees.

Deadlifts, and ring dips… ok… the burpees will kill me though!

Yesterday I was planning on trying out Lindsay’s #LiveLeanEatGreen challenge of as many burpees as possible in one minute, but my doctor who always cancels on me, called and canceled my appointment for the end of the month.

(Note: my doctor is actually super awesome, its just her schedule that sucks, and she never even knows that her receptionists have rescheduled my appointments 20 times… its probably not their fault either… I blame the system, but at any rate- it sucks!)

Anyway- I got kind of sassy with them on the phone since this was the 5^th time they rescheduled this appointment, that I was supposed to go to in June, so they magically found a spot for me that day so I went in yesterday. 
Unfortunately I needed a biopsy while there and felt crappy afterwards so – in conclusion – I skipped the burpee challenge. I will have to reschedule with myself. 

Hot Core Yoga

Check out the gorgeous sunrise I caught yesterday! I see two dogs chasing each other in the clouds...

Yesterday I tried out Hot yoga for the first time. It was not officially “Bikram” but from my friend that does Bikram, the poses and series seemed similar – and it was definitely HOT! I have done yoga at several places, and have done styles including: vinyasa, power, ananda, anusara, forrest, hatha, ashtanga, and pilates fusions. I am no yoga expert, but I would consider myself at least semi-knowledgeable about the general practices.

I have been wanting to try Bikram/ Hot yoga for a while, but I know I generally do not deal very well with extreme heat/ I have been known to pass out, so I kept putting off trying it.


There was recently a Livingsocial/ Amazon Deal for “Hotcore” in Beverly, which is where I take the train from, so I figured I would give it a try.

My initial thoughts: It was awful!  (I told the teacher so at the end and everything when he asked me how I liked it...)


• My own fault/ the train running late’s fault – I made it just in time- so I did not get to talk to the teacher before hand/ sign in/ sign any kind of a waiver or emergency contact info, so I was really afraid I would pass out without anyone knowing who I was or what to do with me!

• The place was in the basement of some house, and the teacher seemed a bit bizarre. He was in a speedo and the beginning of class involved a lot of swaying.

• The beginning of class also involved some very weird breathing exercise, but upon discussion with my friend who does Bikram- this is normal. There are even videos on youtube!

• There were no clocks in the room – which I pretty typical for a yoga studio in my experience, but since it was my first class and I had no idea what to expect the class felt like it was forever and I thought I was going to die.

• I never knew I could sweat so much (which is what everyone I know who tries it says). I did not try nearly as hard as I usually do in a yoga class- and a lot of the poses I normally can do, I could not do because I was just trying to not pass out or throw up.


All that being said—I am definitely planning on going again. Now that I have heard that a lot of what I thought was “weird” is typical, makes me feel a lot better. Also, everyone else in the class seemed pretty normal and did not appear to be dying, so that makes me think that I too will be able to adapt. I look forward to giving you the update on how I progress!

Closing thoughts: Can’t wait to try it again and go in with a bit more of an idea of what to expect and drink WAY more water before hand.

What I am not looking forward to is tonight’s Crossfit WOD:


Strength: Bench Press 5x3 @ 80%

WOD: "Nicole"
20 Minute AMRAP (As many reps as possible)
400m Run
Max Pull Ups

I HATE running and I HATE pull ups… (Ok.. I actually go through phases with running, sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it… but with pull ups?! Geez Louise!)


As an update: I have not drank alcohol for the past 2 days (I sound a bit like an alcoholic, but I am proud) and I turned down delicious looking cookies and cake the past 2 days a work. I have also been pretty good about only eating when hungry and trying to not over indulge.

As for my activity goals: I think I have been getting about 4 miles a day in. I use Mapmyrun.com for tracking walking outside, but it doesn’t work inside, so I have been trying to get more walks in outside.

I have not felt comfortable taking pictures/ I am not sure I am allowed to take pictures at Crossfit or Yoga- so in lieu of that, here are some updates on the babies:

Ghreylin has a new love affair with a green towel in the bathroom. He can often be found sneaking into the bathroom and dancing underneath said towel.

 While he is not woo-ing the towel, he is generally keeping out of trouble. He was up bright and early with me this morning just hanging out.

 

Leo, on the other hand, remains to not be a morning dog. He got out of bed with me and then quickly snuggled in between the pillows and blankets on the couch.

And with that- I bid you adieu!

Goal setting for October

Last night I went to crossfit at Ironspider Crossfit in Salem. We did:

Strength:
Deadlifts: 115# 5 sets of 3 reps
Skill:
Handstand wall walk ups
WOD:
5 rounds of:
15 hand release push ups
10 kettlebell swings (20#)
5 back squats (45#)
Time: 12:27 minutes
Tonight my plan is to try out hot yoga for the first time… I am not sure if it is actually Bikram or not- but we shall see! I am hoping I will make it- it is variable if I will make it based on which train I can get on after work and if it actually runs on time.
In a quest to be more healthy I am setting a few goals.
Nutrition:

• Only drink alcoholic beverages 1 time a week (bye, bye wine with dinner…)

• Practice more mindful eating. Think, “Am I hungry?”
Activity:

• Goal to walk at least 4 miles a day

• Work out at least 4 days a week.

Do you have any goals you are working on? What keeps you motivated?

This weeks planned activities include:
Crossfit Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and Yoga on Tuesday.