I am reallllly feeling life right now…
…and it is SOOOO good!!!
Have a great weekend guys; enjoy the video! Also, check out the post I wrote on Santa Barbara Family Chiropractic’s website today; go to www.sbfamilychiropractic.com and click on “Our Blog”, it’ll take you right there!
Love,
Jen
Good morning lovelies!!! At this time tomorrow I will be flying high above the clouds on United Airlines heading to the west coast 
Heck YES! For those of you who don’t know what I’m doing, I will fill you in!
Tomorrow we’re flying into Reno, Nevada where I will have the opportunity to redeem myself in the gambling department (when I went to Vegas, I clung tighter to my money than I think I EVER have…and just happened to take home seven whole dollars from a game of WAR), meet Nick’s Aunt Edna (you have NO idea how excited I am to meet her!!), then head up to Carson City to spend some time with his parents (and hopefully get his mama to show me some baby pictures!! :-p). Then Nick’s friend Sonia is getting married in Folsom on Saturday (I LOVE weddings!!) and then back to Carson City we go on Sunday to spend the rest of our time with his friends and family (Chuck and Erin, I FINALLY get to meet you guys!!! and I can’t wait! ). There will be hiking, dancing (I don’t take dancing lightly :-p) and a visit to Battleborn Crossfit in Reno. So, my point in telling you every little detail of what I’m planning to do on the trip, is basically just to let you know that I will be MIA for a week, haha. I will, however, come back with a full review of the trip, with pictures of COURSE!
Your brain on exercise = happy brain!
On another note: A week ago I made a pack with Nick, and I’ve decided I want to share that with all of you. I have come to the realization (in all actuality I realized it a long time ago, I’ve just recently ACCEPTED it) that I am completely intolerable without exercise. How did I function before Crossfit?!! I am fine for a day without it, but on day two I start to feel it, and by day three, it’s completely unavoidable. The part that KILLS me, is that when I’m being a big grumper, Nick is always so patient and good to say, let’s exercise…but it totttttalllly drives me up a wall at the moment. I get all grumpy and think, why is it that I can’t be a functioning human being WITHOUT exercise? Like I have no control? Well, as Nick likes to say, and I think it’s so true,
“That is like someone saying, ‘I get super hungry when I don’t eat…I just dont’ understand why I can’t function like a normal human being without having to eat!!” He likes to point out that we are MADE to move; movement IS functioning like a normal human being. The sooner I learn this (and trust me, I’m getting there) the better off I will be. Doc Franson has said that we need to use exercise as a SUPPLEMENT for a healthy lifestyle. 40,000 years ago, you had to move to eat, or you were eaten. Now, we can drive through a drive-thru and have a bag of “food” thrown through our window…not exactly the same situation. So, just like we would take a whole food supplement to fill in the cracks in our diet, we need to exercise to function as a human. If ONLY I could remember this when I’m grumpy! :-p
You know what though? Usually (there has never been one time that I haven’t) I take Nick’s advice and do something to move, and sure enough, like magic, I am a new woman. It’s like night and day. Now I’m a relatively super happy person…and a lack of exercise affects me THAT MUCH! So, back to my original point to this story (can you tell I’m leaving for vacation tomorrow, my head is not on straight!); I made a pact with Nick that I would do SOMETHING every single day to move my body. I’m not talking about Crossfit level of activity every single day, just SOMETHING. Last night I went for a leisurely bike ride, I’ve done 50 double unders one night, etc etc. Doc Franson always says, “You only need to move on the days you eat.” Well folks, I plan on eating everyday, so I SHOULD be MOVING everyday! I put this in writing, and for the last week have held strong to my promise; and guess what? I feel GREAT! Am I saying that exercise is a cure-all and that I’ll never be upset by anything again in my life? Ha..no. What I AM saying though is that by exercising everyday, eating clean, getting adjusted and attempting to think the purest thoughts, I have the best CHANCE at being upset as little as possible…and even things that upset me will not upset me to the caliber it would if I had NOT done those things.
Try it out! When you’re feeling like the world is not looking right, go out for a jog, and assess how you feel when you get back! I guarantee there will be a dramatically positive change
Seeing the world through a much clearer lense,
Jen
A year ago today, my life changed quite a lot…for the BEST.
For the first time, of many to come, I sat in the audience of a Franson Family Chiropractic workshop. That day I shared a room with my future boyfriend/love of my life, my future friends… my future community/tribe/family. And even my future boyfriend’s MOM was there!
The workshop was “Eat Well” in the series of “Eat Well-Move Well-Think Well”. There are many things I vividly remember about that workshop. I remember vividly seeing Nick for the first time (:-p hopeless romantic, what can I say…but I DO remember!), I remember the time line that Doc Franson wrote on the white board illustrating to us that we only started eating grains and dairy 10,000 years ago…and that our genes have not changed hardly at ALL in the last 40,000 years and that we’re not designed to eat dairy and grains (and therefore OBVIOUSLY not designed to eat processed food that comes in a cardboard box); but most of all, I remember the way I felt when I left. I literally started making changes from that workshop on. It doesn’t hurt that a month later I met Nick for the first time, making my way into the Franson Family world, learning more about chiropractic, and taking home my first dvd from their learning library. I remember laying on my sunshine yellow couch, the night of my first adjustment, icing my back, soaking in every single word that Doc Franson was saying on that dvd. THEN, a month after that, I went on my first date with Nick, and from there, there was no turning back. It was in my head, it was in my blood, it was in my heart. I believed in, and lived all this information, that was so “upside down” from everything I had learned my whole life about health just two short months before.
For fun: words that were NEVER in my vocabulary before that are used in my household/in my life on a daily basis
Physiology
Allostatic load
Kale
Innate
Double-unders
Bear-Crawls
Burpees
Wall-balls
Kipping pullups
Beautifully Strong Project
Santa Barbara
Grass-fed beef
Almond milk/Coconut milk
…and the list goes on!!
My life has grown so much, in such an amazing way in the last year that I can’t even BEGIN to convey how grateful I am for all the people, knowledge and experiences that have come into my life! When I started this blog, I wanted to be held accountable for Crossfit because I had a MAJOR history of not being able to commit to ANYTHING. I would start something, guns a’ blazin’, and in less than a month it is a far off distant memory. Well, I am not that lady anymore I have been in Crossfit for 10 months in just a couple of weeks, I have been writing in this blog for 7 months, my diet changed, and has been consistent now for a year this coming month…SOOOOO different for me! I know that these numbers aren’t THAT remarkable to some of you maybe, but for me, that small amount of time is a HUGE leap forward for me! 
So thank you to everyone at Franson Family Chiropractic…ALL of you have changed my life for the BEST! Without you, I may never have figured out how to eat, hahaha, I would never have met my forever love, I would never have found Crossfit, and in return, would never have found all the amazing, INCREDIBLE people I love at Crossfit…Overall, I would not feel as AMAZING as I do today!
Thank you so much!!! I can’t wait to see what this NEXT year will bring!
Most companies will train you hard to memorize their 20 second elevator marketing pitch so that in the chance that you are in an elevator with a potential client, you can efficiently “sell” your product/business to them, while their attention is all yours.
WELL, the same works with anything else. Today I was riding from the 5th floor of my building, down to the 1st. In the time that it took to go those few floors, I changed one mans view on one sweet LITTLE product, in a BIG way!
20 seconds...and GO!
The doors open on the 4th floor, I wait to see who will walk in. There stands a man, mouth wide open, mid yawn.
“Sorry about that! Didn’t mean to throw something that contagious around at you!” he says.
“Yeah! You have to be careful with those things! What were you thinking? The rainy day is bad enough!” I say, smirking.
Then he says it, “Does redbull work for you?”
Without any sort of hesitation or thought, I immediately said, “No, Redbull is terrible for me…and let me tell you about aspartame…Aspartame was actually developed when looking to make an ant poison” (Of course it was put a little more eloquently than this, with a lot of smiling!)
“Are you serious?…That’s disgusting!”
So we bantered back and forth about it for a few, and then he turned and looked at me,
“I’m really glad we had this conversation…thanks” with a smile. That was it, less than a few minutes of time, and I HOPEFULLY convinced one person to never use sweet n’ slow or splenda ever again!
I read this article about ant poison and aspartame after that conversation…I really want to share it with you! Let me know what you think!
Aspartame – The World’s Best Ant Poison
… contributed by Jan Jensen of WELLthy ChoicesWe live in the woods and carpenter ants are a huge problem. We
have spent thousands of dollars with Orkin and on ant poisons
trying to keep them under control but nothing has helped.So when I read somewhere that Aspartame (Nutrasweet) was
actually developed as an ant poison and only changed to being
considered non-poisonous after it was realized thata lot more money could be made on it as a sweetener than as an
ant poison, I decided to give it a try. I opened two packets of
aspartame sweetener, and dumped one in a corner of each of our
bathrooms. That was about 2 years ago and I have not seen any
carpenter ants for about 9 to
12 months. It works better than the most deadly poisons I have
tried. Any time they show up again, I simply dump another
package of Nutrasweet in a corner, and they will be gone for a
year or so again. Since posting this information I have had many
people tell me of their success solving ant problems with this
substance, when nothing else worked.We found later that small black ants would not eat the
aspartame. It was determined that if you mixed it with apple
juice, they would quickly take it back to the nest, and all
would be dead within 24 hours, usually. I have found that
sometimes it will kill them, and sometimes it does not. Not sure
why, may be slightly different species of ants or something.Fire Ants: We got our first fire ant hill about 2 weeks ago.
Poison did not work. We tried aspartame and the ants ignored it
until we got a light rain. It was just a sprinkle, enough to
moisten the Nutrasweet and ground, but not enough to wash it
away. They went crazy, hundreds of them grabbing it and taking
it back into the mound.
When I checked the mound 2 days later, there was no sign of the
fire ants. I even dug the mound up some, and still saw none of
them.How it works:
Aspartame is a neuropoison. It most likely kills the ants by
interfering with their nervous system. It could be direct, like
stopping their heart, or something more subtle, like killing
their sense of taste so they can’t figure out what is edible, or
smell, so they can’t follow their trails, or mis-identify their
colonies members, so they start fighting each other.Not sure what causes them to end up dying; just know that for
many species of ants, it will kill them quickly and effectively.
As with any poison I recommend wearing gloves and washing any
skin areas that come in contact with this poison, and avoid
getting it in your mouth, despite anything the labeling may
indicate. I suspect it will work for other insects such as
yellow jackets as well, but have not tested that yet.
Pretty messed up huh?? It was developed to KILL ants and other bugs…its a PESTICIDE! Just better marketed as a sweetener…If that doesn’t make you want to quit it now…what exactly WILL it take?
How CUTE are Badgers?
SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPER cute?
Here’s a question for you, however…if you knew that Badgers were donned the “most fearless animal on the planet” by the Guinness Book of World Records, would you still think it was so cute?
There are urban legends based around Honey Badgers that they are man-eating vicious animals. They will stop at nothing to protect their babies, AND, have been seen hunting (in cooperation) with coyotes on many accounts!
Why am I telling you this?!
Last night’s workout was: Badger. This was my second time doing Badger, and this time around, I had a little bit of a better idea of what to expect. However, it has been two months since the last time I did it, which is JUST enough time to REALLY forget how much pain you were in.
The workout:
3 rounds-
30 squat cleans (prescribed for women is with 65#, but I used 55# which is ten pounds more than when I did it in April.)
30 pull-ups (I used the green band in April, last night I kipped with the blue band)
800m run (1/2 mile)
To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t LOOK like it would be a killer. After the first round, though, I was ready to pull the chute. The cleans were KILLING me, major gruntage coming from me (or at least WAY more than I typically do). The pull-ups were tough, and the run was brutal! During the run on the second round, I was so freakin’ dehydrated, I decided to take a drink of water after my first 400m. Once I started the second half of that 800m, I felt it: the first near-puking moment.
Finally, I’m on my last 400m of the WHOLE thing, I get to the end, check my time and turn RIGHT back around. I could feel it coming, and I was TERRIFIED. Here comes Evan, going to slap me five, and (sorry Evan!) all I could do was wave him away and yell “BOOT BOOT BOOT!” I took a few moments sitting down between some cars, and pulled myself together. Close call :-p
So how did I do?? 42:32! What was my time the LAST time I did it? 42:22. I did it 10 seconds slower this time. Do you think I’m sad about that? HECK NO!!! I did it MUCH harder this time (more weight, less help on the pull-ups), and I didn’t give up, even though I wanted to sooooooooooooooo bad!!! And really…10 seconds! Pssh
“I don’t have TIME to make a healthy breakfast…I only have about enough time to throw a pop tart in my purse and run out the door!”
Sound like you, or someone you know? I hear this a lot, and I know all about it because I used to say the same thing! All I had time for in the morning was cereal! However, if you think about it, it takes time to pour the cereal, pour the milk, and sit there and eat the thing!
What if I told you that in 5-10 minutes you could make a meal that is PACKED with nutrients AND suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper tasty!!? Would that make you hit your snooze one LESS time in the morning so that you could start your day with a full tank of gas? If you car was running on empty, you wouldn’t have any option but to stop and take 5 minutes to fill it up, correct? Why do we think that we have the OPTION to run on empty with our BODIES? Take the 5 minutes to fill er up!
I saw this recipe on Doctor Franson’s blog a while back; they make this delicious-ness for the kids in the morning. Immediately, I wanted to try it out. Sure enough, its AMAZING!
Blend an avocado with all-natural apple sauce (organic if you can!) in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth and creamy! I sprinkled shredded coconut flakes on top of mine, and Nick wanted assorted nuts. The result?
Nutrient packed SUPER FOOD!
So what we have learned is that at every meal we should ask ourselves the following questions:
Where’s the protein?
Where’s the fat?
Where are the plants?
In the avo-apple goodness we have lots of healthy fat (avocado and coconut flakes or raw nuts), and carbs/plants (apple sauce), but what about the protein?
To make this breakfast a health promoting powerhouse, we made a tasty scramble with pork, black beans, asparagus and spinach!
"Fill er up please!"
This all took about 10 minutes to make, and honestly, it could be even less if prepped the night before. You could DEFINITELY make the avo-apple goodness the night before, which would give you a few precious moments more of sleep
Treat your body like it’s the only one you’ll ever get (because let’s face it, it IS the only one you’ll ever get!). Fill up that gas tank every morning before you hit the road!
Have a fantastic Tuesday guys
XOXO,
Jen
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!!!
Good Morning! Today, you're going to have a GREAT day!
I love my relationship. I know, I know, you’ve heard this a million times…but its true! Part of the reason I think its so great, though, is that we have such a yin and yang balance between the two of us. When one is a little weaker at one thing, the other is a little stronger. For instance, I tend to aire on the side of a little stressed out at times, while he is typically cool, calm and consistantly collected…
…Which is why he was the PERFECT person to be teaching last nights workshop: Master Your Stress, Spark Your Health.
Now I feel like I have heard the majority of the content of the workshop about a million times (which is a great thing! Keep pounding the info in, eventually it will be second nature!), but every time I hear it, it completely refreshes me; giving me just that little extra bit of information I need. So, I thought I would recap what I took away from it for those who were not there!
Master Your Mornings!!
The first thing Nick emphasized last night, to master you MORNING, is to GO TO BED ON TIME! I put this in all caps because he made sure to say “GO TO BED ON TIME!” about 10 times last night! haha. So, first, go to bed on time. We try really hard to get to bed at 9:30pm. For a while, I was definitely the culprit as to why we were NOT getting to bed at that time. I used to go to bed at 11-12pm, so it took everything I had to not call him an old man for wanting to be heading to bed by 9pm :-p While we still don’t always get to bed right at 9:30pm, we set a goal for that time, and due to that goal, we typically are definitely in bed by quarter of 10! Not too shabby!
So, once you start getting to bed on time, it gets easier to get up early! I used to wake up to the sound of a siren (if you were at the workshop last night, and had the pleasure of HEARING that terrible alarm, yes, I woke up to that every morning, and yes, I had it about 5 inches from my head. In my defense however, it was the only way I could wake up!), now I wake up to kisses and whispered “good mornings”, “You’re going to have a great day”, “You’re beautiful”. Can you SEE how that very difference could make a change in your day?! Now, if that is not available to you in the morning, Nick talked about some great alarm clocks that gradually wake you up to soothing sounds. I didn’t see anything wrong with this before, it was really all I knew. Not to call my dad out, but my dad used to find it humorous to come into my room in the morning and find the most obnoxiously loud chords he could on my piano and POUND them out to wake me up…quickly followed by a “GOOD MORNING!!!!!”. Typically when this happened, I woke up VERY grumpy, to say the least I love you dad :-p
So now, I wake up at 6am typically, sometimes 5:30. I wake up, peacefully, head into the kitchen to have breakfast with Nick before he goes to work, and then once he leaves at 6:30, I have an hour and a half before I need to be out the door. What do I DO with all that TIME?! I sip coffee, read, journal, sometimes watch “the office”, chat with my mom…whatever I WANT to do! Then once 7 hits, I have an hour to get ready, listen to the radio, and walk to the train This is getting much easier, and less stressful every single day!!! On Fridays, I head to Franson Chiropractic at 5:40am for morning rituals! There we meditate, journal, say daily affirmations, and, my favorite part, attitude of gratitude. This is when you would just say out loud all that you are thankful for in your life now, and what is to come (here is where you can get creative and start being thankful for the things you WANT to happen. Want a raise at work? “I’m so thankful for the raise I have received in my job” Just try it.. ). I LOVE the way my day starts when I am “on track” with this! Not to COMPLETELY expose my nerdiness to you all, but this morning on my walk to the train, I was so freakin’ happy that I couldn’t stop SMILING! I didn’t even care if people thought I was weird. I went to the 6am workout this morning with my friend Jen, walked home and got ready, ate an amazing breakfast that I made for Nick and I this morning (eggs, chard and avocado), stopped and got a coffee at Atomic Cafe, and had spring in my step as Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September” played in my ear There really was nothing better at that very moment!
Master Your Response
So, now that your morning has started off on the right foot, you’re ready to take on the world!!! Right?! Oh crap..is that my train?! What!?! It’s early!!! And its..pulling….away….
Okay, well there are two ways you could handle this. You could a) freak out, cry, start swearing, get yourself REALLY worked up…OR! You could take a deep breath, count to ten, and go to your happy place. Don’t have a happy place? Think about a time that you were super, suuuuuuuuuuuuuper happy..and start practicing going to that place often, so that when you need it stat, it’s easy to pull up. As Nick said last night, “You don’t start practicing game day..”. Another thing that will help, is thinking “will I remember this tomorrow, next week, next month?”…etc. Chances are you won’t. So, chances are, you shouldn’t let it affect your physiology (or my NEW favorite way for Nick to say that to me is, “Check your Phys”. I had heard “Don’t let it affect your physiology” so often that I needed a new take on it ). As Nick reminded us all last night, our body creates the same chemicals, and physiological response, when we are sprinting for a train, or when someone cuts you off in traffic, or you catch your child writing on that gorgeous new Pottery Barn (white) couch you just bought, with her favorite new Crayola marker, in red…that your body would make if you were being chased by a ridiculously hungry Bengal Tiger! This physiological response is great when running away from you death! Your blood pressure goes up (pumps nutrients out to your whole body, faster!), your immune system shuts down (because you have bigger things to be worrying about at the time than fighting off a common cold, and your immune function is a HIGH energy expense, so it’s one of the first to go), reproductive system shuts down (you’re not thinking of making babies at that moment), digestion shuts down (high, high, high energy expense, don’t need it right then), blood clots quicker (perfect if you are bitten…you want that to seal up STAT!) …etc etc etc. Do you SEE how brilliant your body is!? The problem, however, is that we, as a nation, are in this state of stress, CHRONICALLY! This is what is causing heart disease, cancers, diabetes, etc.
Deep breath….1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. How do you feel? Still not that great? Will you remember this next week? Yeah? How about this..next year? MAYBE you’ll even think this very moment is really cute and funny when your child is 25 years old…there ya go…feel better now right? It’s just not worth it to do that to your body over something that is not life threatening/altering.
Master Your Thoughts
This is one of the ones I still struggle with the most, but at the same time, have had the most development in. I’m not going to go SUPER into this, but basically, we have controls over our thoughts. We have the choice to think positive or negative thoughts. Instead of standing there, watching the train pull away, and thinking “Seriously, do I EVER get a break???”, you COULD think “Alright, there is nothing I can do at this point…I’ll have to take the next train. Until then, I have 15 extra minutes to stop and get a coffee!” Find SOMETHING about the situation to be thankful for. Life is awesome, and it’s NOT out to get you. I’m also not going to get TOO hokey on you, but “the universe” or God, or whoever/whatever it is that you believe in, DOES want to help! If you’re constantly saying “PLEASE don’t let me get fired today!! Please!!!” The Universe hears “fired” and does everything it can to help you out in some way. Try remembering that every thought and word you put out there is like placing an order. So this is where that “Thank you so much for the raise I’m about to receive at work” comes in beautifully 
This is something that I HAVE been a lot more conscious of. Instead of thinking, I’m not going to be late today!!! (which is still sending the ‘late’ out there) I think, “I’m going to get to work EARLY today!!” Woot, give it a shot!
Trying to RETRAIN your negatively driven thoughts? Remember, and I LOVE this analogy that Nick made up:
Thoughts are like carving a path through a heavy forest. The first time you want to go through, you need to hack your way through, working your bum off with every step. It’s NOT easy! The second time, still not easy! You may even have a hard time finding your path! However, the more often you visit that path, and walk through it, the easier and clearer it gets!!! That old path (the negative thought) does not disappear though guys…at least not right away. You can’t just pretend that old thought is not there. Instead, you work your butt off on the new path, and eventually, with time, that old path grows over Thank GOODNESS Now you can, leisurely, stroll down your new path and enjoy every step!
A friend of mine that I brought with me to the talk last night texted me this morning:
“I tried all the things Nick was talking about in the morning, and it really made a difference.”
Try it out tomorrow morning Let me know how it feels
For more on this subject, check out Nick’s Blog!
Have an AMAZING day guys XOXO!
Jen
“WELCOME BACK JEN!!!” was basically what I read when I saw the white board last night when I arrived at the 7pm workout. In reality, the board really made me question why I came at all. With my back feeling EXPONENTIALLY better than it had been feeling, I really felt it still wasn’t good enough to be doing front rolls and burpees on a box jump course. Nor, did I think it was good enough to be doing 450 squats. So instead, I rolled out my back for a little bit, and then did some jump roping for the warmup, and got myself mentally prepped for:
Chelsea
1Round Every Minute for 30 Minutes-
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats
Continue until you cannot complete a round in 1 minute, then just begin going through the round (not thinking about the clock) until the 30 minutes is over.
Well let me say this…Chelsea is one tough broad… (incase you’re thinking this looks easy…let me add that up for you…150 pullups, 300 pushups and 450 squats in 30 minutes…yeah…)
We were given a modification, 3 pullups, 7 pushups, 10 squats…and I started with that from the get go. Now, do you remember back in the day when I HATED pullups…and I STRUGGLED with the GREEN band? Well those days are (dare I say?) OFFICIALLY over! Last night, I was rockin’ the blue band…SERIOUSLY ROCKIN’ IT! I was shooting myself up over that bar so well that I came down HARD on my chin after one…and bit my tongue…that did NOT feel good. At LEAST, however, I KNOW I cleared the bar!!
All in all, I would say I did somewhere around 100 pullups (the last ten rounds I upped it to 5 pullups and dropped the squats, they were bothering my back too much) and probably around 200 pushups. Oddly enough, the PULLUPS were the easiest thing IN that workout!! Crazy how things can change…
TONIGHT I am pumped for TOO!! Check this baby OUT!!
- 70 Burpees
- 60 Sit-ups
- 50 Kettle Bell Swings
- 40 Pull-ups
- 30 Handstand Push-ups
- 20 Squats
CAAARRRRAAAAZZZYY :) Maybe I’ll attempt the red band tonight :-p
Get outside today guys and soak up some of that fabulous vitamin D that the sun is pouring on us today!!! Love you guys!
~Jen
Guess what guys?? Today is my 100th post!! VERY exciting stuff While I was thinking this morning what I would want to write about today, Nick said JUST the right thing…
“Now THIS is a BREAKFAST!”
Sprawled across the table in front of us was:
~a greek salad (not the kind with feta…just cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado, lots of pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar)
~apple chicken sausage
~eggs
~cantelope slices
Now, why am I telling you this? Well, I feel a lot of people seem to think I eat lettuce all day, everyday. It couldnt’ be further from the truth.
Truth:
~I have NEVER eaten so much food in my LIFE!
~I have NEVER eaten so much MEAT in my life!
*Now keep in mind that the meat I eat is healthy, grass-fed/free range meat…there are no grains in these meats, no antibiotics, and no artificial growth hormones…just had to get that in there.
~I have never been this LEAN in my life!
~I have never eaten this much FAT in my life!
*Only healthy, good-for-you fats like avocado, olive oil, coconut oils and raw nuts.
~I have lost about roughly 25lbs of fat, and gained 10-15lbs of muscle.
Healthy fat is GOOD, healthy meat is GOOD!
When you eat the right stuff, you can never overeat…you just can’t eat too much of the good stuff!
Last night for dinner, I got a little crazy and just started dumping things in a soup pot…and you know what? Turned out pretty dang good! So, since I think you guys are super amazing, I thought I would share it with you! Enjoy!
That's a' spicy lentil SOUP!
Spicy Lentil Soup
1 quart of organic creamy tomato soup
2 cans Annie’s Lentil Soup (from Trader Joes)
4 glasses of water
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 links of spicy jalapeno chicken sausage (TJ’s)
1/2 onion
LOTS of pepper
swig of olive oil
As MANY veggies as you WANT! I put in: brussels, asparagus, string beans, and carrots!
Nick LOVED this..and I’m not going to lie…I LOVED it too!!
Have a fantastic Tuesday!
Love,
Jen
