Tag Archives: weight loss

It’s Time For Another WEIGH IN!!!!!

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts, Eat Well, Move Well and tagged with , , , ,

September 2009

Before: 160 lbs, not an ounce of muscle and about 36% body fat (eek…doing those calculations literally made me a little sick to my stomach…)

 

TODAY!! Just about exactly 2 years later!!! This is a lifestyle folks!

Today: 143 lbs, mostly muscle baby!!!! and about 21% body fat!

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Happy Birthday to my wonderful “big little” brother, Justin!!! I love the person you’re becoming and I am so excited to see you grow more and more everyday in your life :) I love you little bro :) :)

 

 

 

 

Compare and Contrast

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts and tagged with , , , , , , ,

I often get caught “comparing” myself to others. “She has been doing Crossfit the same amount of time as me, and she can KIP!” “She did that workout 3 minutes faster than me”, etc etc. Often times, okay every time, Nick tells me to stop comparing myself to others. The only person that I should ever compare myself to…is ME! Well, last night I was writing in my Crossfit journal and Nick found a napkin that had fallen out of my journal. It was a workout I had done in April, Helen. Remember Helen? I just spoke to you about her recently (Helen). I had forgotten that I had already done Helen at one point, and I believe this is the first benchmark workout I have ever done TWICE! So! That means I get to compare and contrast, which I tend to do pretty well :-p

In April, “Helen” was the first time EVER that I did a pull-up on the BLUE BAND! It was a huge day for me! To refresh your memory:

Helen

3 rounds-

400m run

21 KB swings

12 pullups

So the first time I did this was April 7, 2010. I used the blue band for my pullups, 25# for the kettlebell swings and finished in 16:23! Fast forward roughly two months: I use the blue band still (but way easier!), 35# for my kettlebell swings (!!), and I finish in…14:35!!! That is almost 2 minutes FASTER!!!! IN 2 MONTHS!!! Super excited about that :)

My measurements haven’t really changed, and my weight is the same its been for the last few months. HOWEVER, I know that my composition has changed. My measurements are still 34-26-38 (like they were in December; down from 34-28-40 in October), however, I can SEE the changes. My arms have gotten more defined, and bigger (but in a way I’m QUITE fond of :) ), my abdomen has gotten more defined, and my butt has gotten bigger, hahaha, in a good way! I have also noticed a change in my back. When I started losing weight from Crossfit last fall, I just lost a lot of fat off my back and it looked like you could play the xylophone on my ribs. Now, I can’t see my ribs are much, instead, I see muscle! Yippee!! So, take THAT 2009 Jen :-p :)

Last nights workout:

3×3 front squats to start off with. Last time I did front squats was the same day I did Helen last (April 7, 2010). On 04/07/2010, I front squatted 65# three times on my first try, 75# (3x’s) on my second try, and 85# on my third and fourth try. LAST night: 95# on my first try (3x’s), 100# on try two and three, and 105# on my fourth try. That is a 20# gain in TWO MONTHS! Last night, I did three in a row of, what used to be, my 1 rep max!…the day AFTER doing 300 squats!!!! Who AM I?! :)

Rest of the workout:

30 reps of: box jump, kettle bell swings, wall balls

20 reps of: “

10 reps of: “

I used the 20″ box last night, which is what used to terrify me! I just decided I was going to do it (up my game!). I used the 35# kettle bell, and still the 8# wall ball. So that means that everything but the wall balls were prescribed weight last night. Let me tell you, I thought I MAY die last night. I pushed myself to the max, and it felt GOOD! That is where the best gains are made, right Nick? :)

So excited, so proud, and SOOOOO inspired to keep going with this!!! LOVE CROSSFIT!!!!

Happy Hump Day!!!

Today On Yahoo.com!

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts and tagged with , , , , ,

Today on Yahoo.com they had a headlining article about couples who have lost weight together as a couple. One of these success stories was about a couple who found Crossfit…check it out!

Timothy, 43, and Eileen, 45, from Chicago

Weight Lost: Timothy, 36 pounds; Eileen, 18 pounds

How We Did It: We started working out at CrossFit Chicago, a total-body fitness program that focuses on functional movements (i.e., moves you would do in everyday life, such as squats or lifting heavy objects) performed at a high intensity (as quickly as possible). Then, we cut out all processed food and ate only “real food.” We felt so energetic right away and that made us want to continue exercising and eating right.
Top Tip: Make the commitment to yourself and your spouse that you will do at least one activity-such as exercise or eating healthy-together. Your spouse can give you that extra support you need to make sure you continue.
Relationship Bonus: When you feel good and look good, you absolutely reap the benefits of a better sex life!

Once again…Crossfit pulls through :) Bringing you better health, better abs, and better sex lives all around the world :)

Read the rest of the article here!

That Was Then, This Is Now!

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts and tagged with , , , , , ,

 

The Dangers of Double Unders

May 2010

So, just about every single time I do double-unders, I end up looking like someone took a whip to me… You can’t even see HALF of the lashings in this picture..but the majority of them were on my forearms. I had some of the back of my thighs, calves, and on my triceps. Does it hurt? No, not really…I was more pissed off that I didn’t land that particular double under than I was concerned about the whip lashing.

Don’t worry, they go away a day later :-p

While I have this picture up…

Someone recently told me that if you want to change the body you have, you should BRAVELY, may I add, keep putting up pictures of the one you DON’T want…that way you work a lot harder to move yourself toward the body you DO want! Well, I came upon some pictures from summer of 2008, and literally had a hard time looking at the pictures. I think I was at my heaviest…and it was physically uncomfortable for me to look at these. It’s not a GREAT picture as far as being indicative of how much weight I was carrying…but I think you can gather a PRETTY good idea by just looking at me (I’ll give you a hint, I was sitting in that position to hide my belly!).

 Then compare to the above picture…wow!

May 2008. Far right...yes, I was blond! :-o

 Crossfit, you rock my world :)

Thanks for letting me be vulnerable guys, you TOO rock my world!

Love,

Jen

Is There Another Option?

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts and tagged with , , , , , ,

A plant is great at communicating, almost immediately, when it is missing something it needs to THRIVE. It is not always so obvious with us. It could take us YEARS to start "wilting"

Yesterday, being Saturday, was the PERFECT day. Got a good night’s sleep and woke up early with the sun streaming into the bedroom. By 8:50am we were out the door, dressed in gym gear and Chucks. The weekend Crossfit classes are typically MUCH more intense than during the week, and usually accomplished in a group. Living up to this promise, we were to accomplish as a team the following:

Together as a team we are to run 400m

200 45# thrusters (remember this is as a team of 4 before you have a heart attack)

400 situps

150 kettlebell swings

300 box jumps

150 ring rows

400m run

NUTS huh? Thanks Crosbie :) HOWEVER, it get’s better!! All the while, one of the teammates is to be holding a 45# plate. It CAN NOT touch the ground…and someone had to be holding it when we ran as well.

Let me tell you, after it took us 45 minutes to complete, we were DEAD! What better way to freakin’ start a Saturday morning though!! How many people can say they did all that before 10am!?

After the workout, Nick and I went home to make a HUGE breakfast. Nick made almond pancakes (almond flour, gluten free), we had mango chicken sausage, and I made “paleo” ceral (nut, raisins, fruits, almond milk). The sun was warm and bright, so it was the perfect morning to sit out on our deck and eat :) Which led to the conversation that inspired this blog.

I started talking about how once you really know something, there is no other option any longer. By this I mean: now that I know what eating processed foods will do to my body, I could NEVER go back to a life of eating those on a regular basis, EVER! Does that mean that I don’t occasionally indulge in a cupcake (my kryptonite), or that I’ll NEVER dig into a piece of lasagna..heck no. You know why? Because they’re freakin’ delicious. I do, however, know that my body was NOT designed to eat that sort of food, and that there may or may not be consequences later. I do know that eating that sort of thing sends my body into shock and sounds the alarms. Is this the sort of thing I want to be doing to my body on the regular? NO! It’s just NOT an option! I could NEVER just say, you know what? I want to eat pizza whenever I want…I deserve it! I work hard, I have been a good person. Doesn’t a GOOD person deserve to eat what they want? Sorrrrrry guys, your body doesn’t look at it that way. Pizza moves you AWAY from health, cupcakes move you away from health, those “healthy” breads, milks and lean cuisines MOVE YOU AWAY FROM HEALTH! I just couldn’t all of a sudden start deciding..eh, I don’t feel like working out anymore, I just want to start staying home, eating pasta in front of the TV every night and PRETEND like I don’t know that I’m SCREWING UP MY BODY!

People talk about how hard it is to get healthy. On the wall of the office where Nick works, there is a quote that says, “Health is simple. It’s just not easy.” How true is that? We all know what we need to do, but for some reason it seems so hard to accomplish. Don’t you think, however, that if you REALLLLLLY knew…if you really OWNED the consequences of your actions, that it would be a whole lot easier?

If you reallllly want to change your life for the good, permanently; find a community (I have always been interested in health and wellness, but it was amazing the growth and sustainability that occurred when I had a community of people in my life that made all this the “norm”), read some books (Nick is reading “Spark ” by John Ratey right now and swears everyone should read it. It’s next on my PILE of books I’m reading. “The Innate Diet and Natural Hygiene”, “Innate Physical Fitness and Spinal Hygiene”, “Innate State of Mind and Emotional Hygiene” all by Dr. James Chestnut), and think of your body as a temple (feed your body only nourishing foods; before you put something in your mouth, as Nick says, think “will this move me TOWARD health, or AWAY from health? If it is going to move you AWAY from health, step AWAY from the food! It’s not worth it guys…trust me.) Move your body the way it was designed to move. We need to exert our bodies every day; not always at max intensity, but we need to move in some way. As Dr. Franson says, “You only have to exercise on the days you eat”. Think about it, back in the day, the ONLY way you ate was if you CAUGHT that food, or picked it yourself. We didn’t have the luxury of sitting on our asses, on our couch, and ordering our groceries off of PeaPod and having them delivered to our door (does anyone else think this is HILARIOUS?!?! in a really terrible way? Seriously, it was at one point that we HAD to get SOME ”exercise” to at least go get our groceries, but now we can order them online…) 

Now I’m not going to pretend like I’m perfect in any way, or that I have this ALLLLL FIGURED OUT! I don’t! There are DEFINITELY days when all I want is a dang cupcake (red velvet with cream cheese frosting perhaps?! :) ). There are DEFINITELY days when I have NO interest in going to Crossfit. You know what though? I NEVER regret going to Crossfit, and I ALWAYS regret eating that damn cupcake..always. So, my questions for you are:

Is it really worth it?

Are you willing to take control of your health and learn more about what your body needs to THRIVE?

Are you willing to ignore the truth once you have it?

This is the biggest and most important. I promise you, once you really know, once you reallllly understand; you will NOT be able to ignore it. You will know the truth, and guys, THAT is the secret to everlasting health and wellness; to an everlasting sexy body; to the END of that yo-yo dieting; the end of that New Years resolution push to go to the gym and then quitting. Once you know the truth, you will NEVER have a problem sticking to the commitment of optimal health for yourself…

…there will be no other option.

Feelin’ the BURNNNNNNN

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts and tagged with , , , , ,

I think I'll have to do a WHOLE lot of THIS today!

Whoa MAMA! Bruuuuuuuutal workout last night!! It’s one of those days where Alexis would say “The sidewalk curbs are looking high today”. It was not so fun going down stairs. My quads are KILLING me, my hamstrings are crying and my abs are feeling the burnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Obviously Nick is pretty sore too since I literally had to flip him into his spot in the bed last night at about 1:30, hahaha, it was pretty hilarious. 

The workout: 

4 rounds of: 50 squats, 30 sit-ups, 20 pushups. I got through 3 FULL rounds, did the 50 squats and got through 15 sit-ups on the 4th round before the 15 minute time limit was up. So total: 200 squats, 105 sit-ups, 60 pushups…in 15 minutes. I love when we do a workout that is so tough, that as soon as the time limit is up, everyone claps and cheers. You KNOW you just did a good workout when that happens :)  

Before we actually did that workout, however, we did 3 rounds of five reps of deadlifts. There were three of us in my group, and two of us did all our rounds at 105 (so that means lifting 105 pounds 15 times! NOT an easy task may I add!). One of my group members wanted to up it, so she boosted it to 125. Of course I wanted to try! So I did three of those!) Now here’s what BAFFLES me! The other night when we did Crossfit Total, I could BARELY STRUGGLE to get 130 off the ground ONCE! Does anyone find this odd??? I did 125 THREE times last night…I could BARELY do 130 ONCE the OTHER night…. yeah…doesn’t match up. Also, on Monday night we did 3 rounds of 5 reps of presses. I did 45#’s for those….but I struggled to do one max rep at 50 pounds the other night….weird. I guess I was just having a weak night, OR, like Nick said…I had not found my max before, so it was psychological. I didn’t think I could do as much as I could. 

Croître l'amour, avec du café

It’s Wednesday! So that means I’m in a fantastic mood because I had my weekly morning date with Nicholas :) I LOVE Wednesdays!! Talking in bed, having coffee and breakfast made while I get ready (oh MAN was breakfast amazing today! and I get the rest for LUNCH!!). Today was great because we slept in a little longer than usual, but we still made the time to just sit, drink coffee and talk. I love my life :)  

Keeping it short and sweet this morning. I hope you have a FANTASTIC Wednesday!! The weekend is RIGHT around the corner :)  

Thanks for listening xoxo :)

Paleo is delicious: Recipes for YOU!

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I had some requests for the actual recipe for the Raw Chocolate Mousse, not just a list of the ingredients…so here goes :)

This makes enough for 2 people!

-2 avocados

-1 cup carob powder

-1 teaspoon sea salt

-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I actually FORGOT this when I made it, and it was STILL delicious!)

-6 dates, soaked for 2-3 hours and then pitted.

THEN! You put all the ingredients into a food processor (using the S blade), and blend till smooth (you can add some water to the mix for the consistency you so desire!). I chilled it for the afternoon and thought it tasted even better after a few hours of being in the fridge! Then top with assorted fruits (bananas and blueberries are what I used, but I bet raspberries or strawberries would rock my world!) then serve! Yum!

Also, the other night, Nicholas made a huge batch of soup for us (that we’re STILL eating :) ) It’s completely Paleo, and ridiculously delicious! He does a full tutorial here for you. “Chicken Soup for the Paleo Soul”.

Also, you can get the full write-up here.

 Bon appetite!

For Crossfit last night:

Did 80 overhead squats with 35#. I know I have done overhead squats with 55# before, and I started with 45# but struggled to get down into squat position even once! I think I’m still super sore from doing 4 days in a row this week..yikes. Need to remember to give my body some time to rest! However, I did 80 reps of that, so WOOT!! Then, after all that work to my shoulders holding that #35 up, we had to do max consecutive pushups. Now, let me just fill you in on a little nugget of information right now. When I started Crossfit on October 5 (almost 4 months ago now!!!), I STRUGGLED to do 10 pushups on my knees, and I could get about HALF way down (was not anywhere near full extension). Flash forward 3-4 months, and guess how many I did last night!!..WITH full extension!!!…….40!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 40 FREAKIN’ PUSHUPS! So, needless to say, my shoulders are pretty sore today, and they will be all the more sore tomorrow!!

Woke up this morning and had a beautiful bowl of “Paleo Cereal” (some pecans, crushed walnuts, blueberries, bananas, flax seed all swimming in almond milk!!! so amazing!!), ate with my amazing BF, then headed to Franson Family Chiropractic at 6:45am to have my POWER turned on!!! (adjusted :-p). I’m feeling AMAZING this morning!!! Could be in part that its Friday too :-p HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paleo Diet: 1/3 done!

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts and tagged with , , ,

I Love Wednesdays!!!!

I get to wake up, hang out with my favorite man, have an amazing breakfast, and then he drops me off at the train station :) It’s a great start to the day!!

 

Well, we have OFFICIALLY made it a third of the way through this challenge! 10 DAYS! Have there been any slip ups? No…however, I did dream about eating a rather gigantic bowl of whole wheat spaghetti heaping with a thick, meaty red sauce. Yes…I think I just slipped into a craving coma…might have drooled a little… I’ll be fine.

This morning for breakfast Nick made a huge skillet of potatoes, and another huge skillet of cage free organic eggs (loaded with omega 3′s), scrambled with green peppers and yellow squash. Breakfast was freakin’ fantastic! I got to have my coffee…but with almond butter (I would typically erase this faux pas when rereading what I just wrote…but this is an example of my possible need for help when it comes to almond butter…its ALWAYS on the brain!! I meant almond milk…) and honey. Maryjane told me about a sweet (as in cool..not sugary) replacement for creamer. Its called mimic creme. They supposedly sell it in Whole Foods Market. I think I will at least look into this more. The main ingredients seem to be cashews and almonds, so maybe I’ll try blending up some cashews with almond milk and see how that goes!

For lunch I’m going to have the rest of that crazy salad I had yesterday from Sebastian’s. Also, another reason I love Wednesdays…Nick made me a snack pack :) haha. Love life :)

So last night I decided I was going to go to Crossfit…the workout looked SUPER fun! I got there, met up with Bethany, and quickly discovered it was a Level 1 class instead of the “regular” level 2&3 class. This meant, no fun workout. Instead though, I got to work on my KIPPING PULLUPS!! And guess what?!!?!?! I didn’t get a whole one…I know you just got a litttttle too excited….but I DID bend my arms about half way…which is about (i dont’ know the percent it would be) A LOTTTT more than I had done before!!! AHHHHHHH!!!! Soon I will be pounding out kipping pullup after kipping pullup!! It’s like double unders…now I can do them quite often (still with singles in between, but hey! thats still awesome!). Maybe it will just click one day.

So anyway, (I digress) I walked into the Level 1 all disappointed because I really wanted to do the other workout…and I was afraid I wouldn’t get as good of a workout in Level 1. This was my fourth day in a row, by the way, of doing a workout (I have never even done 4 days in a WEEK yet..let alone 4 in a row!!). So the workout is as follows: 3 rounds of: 200m row, 30 ft of walking lunges, 10 jumping pullups. Seems easy right? Ha! I worked hard during that workout, and during our stretching…in the middle of a sentence that I was saying to Bethany, I looked at her and said, “I think I’m going to get sick.” Yes…I almost puked from a workout…a Level 1 workout. It’s as HARD as you MAKE IT!

Tonight is going to be my rest night, and I will be attending a workshop on “Your Ideal Weight NOW!” put on by Dr. Jesse Davis this evening!! If you’re on the northshore, come check it out!! All the info is in the link! :-D

Oh! and Happy Birthday to my MOM!!!!! Love you mom :)

Have a fantastic day!! I know that mine started off perfectly :) Talk to you soon :)

Paleo Challenge: day 9!

Posted by beautifullystrong in Crossfit Workouts and tagged with , , , , , , ,

“If I could fit my face in here, I would lick this bowl clean…”

 

I had a taste yesterday of what it might be like to be either a work from home woman, or a stay at home gf/wife/mother….and oddly, I loved it! I got a lot done yesterday, and cooked all three meals (usually its much more shared than that). My favorite part, though, of the day? When Nick said if he could drink/lick his plate clean, he would :) Yes! I have never felt very advanced in the culinary skill area of my life, but yesterday I felt PRETTY damn good :) Which was only helped along when Nick told me how impressed he was of me later on in the evening. :)

For dinner I made a mexicali chicken. What you need: skinless chicken breasts (preferably free range chicken), organic (all natural, meaning you know what all the ingredients are!) Dijon mustard, all natural salsa (again, do you know what every single ingredient is?), and a lime. I put some olive oil in our cast iron skillet and turned the heat up to medium-high until the oil was good and hot. While that was heating up, I slathered mustard on one side of the chicken, smoothed it out. Once the oil is hot, put the chicken, face down in the pan. Cook for about 4 minutes, while thats cooking, slather mustard on upward side, and flip after 4 minutes. At this point, I juiced a lime into the salsa, mixed it up, and poured it all over the chicken. Cook on medium now until sauce starts to thicken, about 6-8 minutes. When you serve it on a plate, cube some cold, creamy avocado on top of the chicken….seriously…amazing.

Also made the mousse like I said I would. It was like eating FROSTING!!! Nick had a hard time believing that there was NO sugar at all in there, just avocado, dates, carob powder and sea salt (I was supposed to put in all natural vanilla extract, but I forgot…can’t imagine how good it would have been if I hadn’t forgot!). Then I sliced some banana on top (after chilling the mousse all day) and some blueberries. Felt like I was being SERIOUSLY sinful :) However…all good stuff in there! There was NOTHING about this meal that made me feel like I was on a diet of any kind…nothing.

Did a small workout at home last night. I was SUPER sore from the two previous days still. So I did 30 pushups, 30 pullups (modified on a bar in my attic), lunges across one length of the house, 20 squats and tabata situps (with my lowest number of situps in the 20 second period being 9). Broke a good sweat, but I may have killed myself at crossfit last night.

Is anyone reading this doing 100% Paleo by any chance? I would love some imput. I would love if you have already finished the 30 days, and to know whether you have noticed a huge difference. I’m still struggling with the lack of oatmeal in my life, LOL! I literally woke up this morning and said, “I could really go for a bowl of oatmeal right now.” While I enjoy the meals we’re having, I like that bowl of warm something in the morning….and I miss the almond butter in it, hahaha. I think I have a problem…Nick actually put my bottle of probiotics in FRONT of the almond butter in the fridge so I would remember to take it for once. Guess what? I remembered today…I have almond butter on the brain!

I hope you have a fantastic Tuesday everyone :) Thanks for reading :)

XOXO

I LOVE healthy eating! Paleo days 6-8

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I HEART HEALTHY EATING!

Happy Monday everyone!! As a warning, this is going to be a long one!! I have to catch you up on the last 3 days!! :)

Whew! The weekend sure proved to be a challenge with staying Paleo!! We stayed true to it though, and we even went out to eat a couple times!!! Friday night Nick picked me up in Cambridge where I had an appointment after work. We decided to go grab something to eat at UNO’s in Harvard Sq (mainly because we both really wanted a burger, and that was the only place I knew for sure that had some off the top of my head). So, we sit down, the waitress comes over, and immediately we become “those” people. “Hi! I’d like a burger please, no bun, with lettuce, tomato and onion on it, and some guacamole. Then I would like some mashed potatoes instead of french fries (this may not be allowed either, but I neeeeeeded those potatoes, I was HUNGRY!!). Nick got the same thing with two extra sides of vegetables. Yes, we were those people…and NO alcohol!

The next morning, Nick was going to the Saturday crossfit, which I had never been to. He had asked me more than once to go before, but I always said no…why? Because I was scared… Yes. I was scared. I had seen the whiteboard from Saturday morning workouts before, and it looked a lot like 100 pushups, 100 squats, 100 pullup, 100 this, 100 that….scarrrrrreeeedddd! Then Nick told me that you do it in pairs…well I didn’t want to do that either! I didn’t feel I was in good enough shape to have someone else depending on me to get my ass in gear. So I just didn’t go (weak…I know, I know!!!). However, this weekend I had it in my head that I would go…and even though right before I got out of the car I mumbled something grumpy and stomped my feet a little going in…I got through the doors. The workout was as follows: You can pick anything from the list of 20 squats, 20 lunges, 20 broad jumps, 12 pushups, 12 pullups, 150 m row, 1 rope climb, 2 muscle ups, 3 handstand pushups…and for each of those you do, you get one point. So to clarify, 20 squats equals 1 point. Then we were put into teams of 3, in which I didn’t know ANYONE on my team (both of them were really cool though :) ), and we had to, as a team, accumulate as many points as possible in 10 minutes…then we have a 3 minute break, and then we do it again for 10 minutes. So as soon as the buzzer went off, I started flying into 20 squats…then 12 pushups…2 points! We were running around like crazy people marking each tally as we went. When the 10 minutes were through, we had marked down 59 points! Woot!!! When Danny was putting them up on the board, we noticed we had a few more than everyone else, and I was a little concerned…wait a second…why do we have so many??? Then Danny said, “Alright, 3 minutes then we do it again!” in which I heard an immediate reaction from my teammates…”WHAT?! I thought we only did it ONCE!! I killed myself on that one!” Oh boy..haha. So we sucked it up, and did as well as we could on the second round..and did really really well! :) 105 points total between the 3 of us…that is a LOT of squats :)   After the workout, we had a little crossfit party. Watched footage from the Crossfit International games last year, ate some Paleo friendly food, and DUHN DUHN DUHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN….someone brought beer. Yes, the one time that free beer falls into our laps, we cannot have a single sip. “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” We survived though folks, and it really wasn’t that hard :-p

After the party, we head to Trader Joe’s, where we buy nuts and almond butter (guys, almond butter anywhere else is like $12, here is only $4, if you have access to TJ’s, that is definitely the place to get your nut butter, haha). Then we stock up on produce at Market Basket. Now, let me tell you…we bought a LOT of produce…TONS!! How much do you think it came up to for 2 people for an entire week? You are probably thinking, $100-120. A TON of produce for two people? That seems like a fair guess. No…$65 for the two of us. Nuts huh? It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg for groceries to eat healthy (if you’re shopping at the right place.)…promise.I’m not saying it’s going to be cheap, but its an investment in your health!! I think it balances out too…you eat out less, and cook home more…

Saturday night we had some awesome people over for dinner and went to see Sherlock (which I fell asleep on…not because I was tired, but it could have been from the Paleo adjustment still, or it could have been that I wanted to escape consciousness due to the large man next to me that kept leaning into my chair and breathing really really hard, haha…). Dinner was AWESOME! Stir fry (all veggies, plantains, apples, and nitrate-free kilbasa), and a delicious salad that Bethany and Jesse made (field greens, tomatoes, avocado, some nuts, raisins, etc. with Brianna’s (you WANT to get some of this dressing… I have referred to my “crack sauce” in the past, and this is Brianna’s Real French dressing…it is AMAZING! It’s all natural and gluten-free. There are tons of other amazing flavors as well..you really can’t go wrong with this line!))

Sunday morning we got up and walked to Craving’s Cafe for breakfast. We asked if they had anything Paleo, and ended up going with large omelette’s with meat and LOTS of veggies in them. It was DELICIOUS!!! (ps: the owners of Craving’s are SUPER friendly, and the food is AMAZING!! If you live on the north shore, you should DEFINITELY check it out!) Then we ended up going for a long walk to the beach, and later did our own workouts (7-8 hill sprints in the cemetary).

So we made it through the weekend…completely Paleo still :) I’ll tell you the good, and the bad. I started breaking out BAD (well bad for me I guess) on my face. I don’t get pimples very often at ALL, but I have like 6 on my face right now (which if you’re used to not having any, thats A LOT!). I found this comment from Dr. Janet Hull about breaking out during detox:

“Whenever you begin a detox and you have a reaction like this, it means that you indeed had toxins within you and that they are coming out. This also means that the detox is working, and that is affirmation for the program you are using and that you needed to do a detox.

One of the keys with detoxing is to stay consistent, and once toxins begin to flush from your body, allow them to all flush out – don’t stop them before they are finished. I call this “retoxing.” Yuck!

Toxins will exit your body one of 3 major ways: through the skin, the urine or the fecal waste. It appears your toxins were just under the skin and/or in your bloodstream and found the quickest exit via the capillaries and out the pores of your skin.

Congrats! You’re cleaning up your insides – don’t stop until all the toxins are out. You should stop breaking out after a few days. If toxins are deeply seeded, it may be a few weeks, but they will show up as long as they are inside of you!”

So I guess that’s a good sign!! Also, I have already lost 3 pounds since we started this 8 days ago! Whoa… As of three days ago Nick had lost 3, so he’s probably lost more by now. I know it’s not just water weight either, because I’m eating A TON of food!!! Seriously, a lot! Yesterday for lunch we ate left overs from the dinner party the night before, and each made almond pancakes (almond meal, almond milk, baking soda, an egg, olive oil), slathered in almond butter with sliced bananas on top; these are hardly meals that we’re starving ourselves with..).

So I’m going to try my hand at my first raw dessert tonight!! Chocolate mousse :) How??? you say! Well let me tell you :) I got this recipe out of Carol Alts “Eating in the Raw”.

You’ll need:

2 avocados, 1 cup raw carob powder, 1 tablespoon alcohol-free vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 5 dates, soaked for 2-3 hours.

I have the dates soaking right now :)

Then in a food processor (I’m going to try this in the blender since I don’t have a food processor), use the S blade to blend all the ingredients until creamy. Add water as needed if a lighter consistency is desired, then divide into dishes and chill if you would like!! Sounds super easy huh??? I’ll let you know how it goes!

Okay here goes: stats. I HATE that I’m going to post my weight on here, and my measurements, but I’m hoping that I’ll see a lot of changes :)

Height: 5’9″

Weight: as of day 1 on the paleo I was 148…down to 145.

Bust: 33.5″

Waist: 25.5″

Hips: (widest part of hips) 38.5″

If you have had some awesome success, and have some good pointers, I would more than LOVE to hear them!!!

Okay! Well have an AWESOME day whether you’re working or have this day off :) xoxo!