Bring it!

I made the provincials team for ball hockey 🙂 woot-woot!  I’ve decided that it would be a great idea to build up my speed and endurance before the tournament which is 2 weeks away.  Not that I’m “known” for anything in ball hockey, but if there is one thing, I’m a runner.  Wish I was a goal scorer, but digging in the corners and just being a general pain in the but is kinda my “thing”.  Stick with what you’re good at, right??

Back to the speed/endurance idea… I popped in day 1 of Insanity this morning.  When Ange and I first tried the program, I remember the first month of it helping my hockey so I figured I’ll give it another shot.  Holy balls!  I was sweating so much I couldn’t even write about it!  I wanted to… cause I was all revved up by the time the DVD was done, but I didn’t want to put my computer through a sweat shower.  Probably has something to do with the temperature in my apartment, but regardless… I listened to Shawn T’s demand to BRING IT!!  Good times 🙂

Tomorrow is day 1 of my little sugar detox challenge.  Everyone needs a challenge, right?  Somewhere to channel your determination and focus so they don’t get stale.  It’s going to be tough though.  As I was sitting in traffic today on my way to work, thoroughly enjoying my all-time favourite snack of dried cranberries and walnuts, I realized I might as well, cause the walnuts will have to come without their perfectly delicious counter-parts for the next week…  but I’m not going to cave.  (I say that now, I hope I’m still saying it after a few days…)  Wish me luck!  And to anyone who’s joining me… good luck to YOU 🙂  We can do this!

Up for a challenge?

Yesterday was my 4 month Paleo anniversary 🙂  Just thinking about the changes I have made to adopt this lifestyle makes me proud, and sharing all I have learned along the way makes me happy.  If I can inspire one person to make the decission to improve their health, I have won!

Since the Paleo switch, I have cleaned up my diet a bunch and realligned my mentality about food.  I no longer OCD-style count every calorie and weigh every piece of food.  I have learned that when you are putting the right things into your body, there is less need to obsess.  I am still looking for a way to build muscle on top of my new, leaner frame, but I’m sure this is more of a exercise element than anything.  Summers a a tough time to fit in the heavy “lifting” sessions as I would like.  Back to my challenge.  Starting August 1st, interested in joining me in a clean-up-your-act Paleo style challenge?  I was thinking of starting small… just a week.  ANYONE can comit to a week.  The focus of the challenge will be eliminating sugars and sugar substitutes and limiting fruit servings to no more than 2 per day.  This means: no flavored water, no energy drinks, no gatorade, no sugar in coffee, no commercially prepared “bars” and no dried fruit.  The dried fruit will be the tough one for me, but it’s only a week right?  Since making the transition, I have become much cleaner in terms of what I put into my body but I still find myself craving sugars from time to time and I wonder if a week of detox will help.

Anyone interested?  Any suggestions?

Warrior within

I had a rough weekend last week, hence I haven’t done much in the way of writing for a bit.  Some “news” came down the line that made me realize just how fragile life can be.  Feels like I’ve been walking around in a daze for a bit, so forgive me for the lack of fun in my posts.  Life really is too short… 

Warrior Dash was yesterday!  🙂  It was awesome!  

Warrior Dash 2012

Compared to the Spartan Race I did a month ago, this one was a bit shorter in length and had less of the obstacle portion, but the hill running was pretty intense.  It was held at a ski hill and I have to say, I gained much more of an appreciation for the term “black diamond run” while battling to run both up and down it.  :-S  There was still a whole lot of mudding, I once again landed on my BUTT, AND there was a grown-up slip and slide down one of the hills!  Wicked :p  While Ange and I recently started throwing a morning run into the mix to prepare for the Warrior insanity, it didn’t really prepare us to run up ski hills…  Still completed the course in a good time with huge muddy smiles on our faces.  Definitely an experience we will repeat and one I would recommend to anyone looking for a fun way to test their athletic ability.   If you’re into the whole Crossfit thing, this kinda challenge is absolutely tailor-made.

Side note – one part of yesterday I’m not eager to repeat…  rushing to run my butt off (yes, the same butt I landed on in the first mud pit) at ball hockey last night was a bit over the top.  Wonder if that has something to do with the fact that I’m absolutely starving today… 

run along now

I realized shortly after hitting “publish” on my last post that it may cost me any or all who read my crap but aren’t a part of the Paleo life.  Trust me, before starting this whole new life, bacon was the enemy.  Now, it’s just fuel.  Fat is what my body needs to keep up with all the crazy sh*t I put it through.  So leave me to my bacon… let’s just move on 😉

So, I decided this morning that it’s sometimes not a great idea to open up the paleOMG.com emails I get to my phone when the wonderful Juli creates a new delicious masterpiece…  Who am I kidding, it’s always a good idea to open these emails… just maybe not first thing in the morning.  Today I found myself sitting at my desk, staring at pictures of Cinnamon Caramel Brownie Fruit Dip, when my stomach started growling.  No real reason, I had breakfast this morning and all.  Here’s a question I’ve always wondered about – WHY do we get “hungry days”?  You know exactly what I’m talking about.  The days that you feel as though you could eat non-stop with no relief and come seemingly out of nowhere.  I LOVE food, but I HATE hungry days.  I need to stop thinking about food now.  Seriously.

After catching up on a little blog reading yesterday, I was inspired to create my own random rant and rave.

Let’s start with the rant part.  I totally appreciate the efforts we get now from grocery stores in providing a special section of natural, organic and gluten-free food, and restaurants in providing menu options for the health-conscious customers.  However, I don’t appreciate the level of punishment and torture my bank account goes through to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  No wonder North Americans are FAT!!  I would personally take healthy and broke over rich and killing myself any day.  I’d even grow my fruits and vegetables if I had the time and space.  Somehow, my apartment balcony doesn’t quite cut it for hilly-billy vegetable farming.  Hmm…

Enough of my complaining for now, I do have some great stuff to rave about too!  Yesterday morning Ange and I got up bright and early to get a run in before work.  It was awesome!  While I understand a lot of people just can’t bring themselves to bust out a sweat before the morning coffee, Ange generally being one of them, it really is a pretty awesome way to start the day.  I found myself energized and refreshed afterwards.  I plan on making this kinda thing a regular part of the work week.  🙂 

So moral of my rambling for the day… 

– avoid pics of delicious looking desserts before lunch

– accept the extra price we pay to live a healthy lifestyle (unless you have access to a field to grow your own stuff and keep your own chickens/cows/wild salmon?) and order the salad for $10 instead of the $1.69 cheese burger from the extra value menu

– give the morning workouts a try 🙂  might find it saves the need for that 3rd cup of coffee to get you rolling out the door to start the work day

Damn it.  I’m thinking about food again.   :-p

everything’s better with bacon

Ok, so my last post was a short rant about squats and knee pain and a bit of a cry for help.  I got some great feedback (thanks!!) and spoke to a few other people as well outside of my little cyber world.  I’ve come to my own conclusion that I want to try the “build up supporting muscles” theory.  As I mentioned, I have never before had problems with my knees.  Although, I have never before been so little.  Through my Paleo adoption, I have become the lightest I’ve ever been.  Not complaining really, but the thunder-thighs I knew so well just aren’t there anymore.  This makes me happy.  This also makes my knees angry I think.  So, I’ll be busting it out to build up my quads and hammys a bit more over the next while to see if it helps.

Ok, boring.  Yesterday was my day off again.  I always think of all kinds of random stuff to write about on my days off, but never seem to fit it in!  I accomplished a lot though… cooked some bad-ass chili for the week (thank you paleomg.com!)  Got in a decent upper-body workout and some core too with p90x ab ripper.  Played tennis with Ange, which was ultimately a complete disaster since it was clearly too windy but we played anyway and found ourselves doing a whole lot of chasing the ball.  Felt like old times when I just sucked, only yesterday I was hitting the ball well and it just had a mind of its own.  Always a laugh when it changes direction 2-3 times while in the air and again when it hits the ground.  Like playing with one of those crazy reaction ball thingys…  We played ball hockey last night in Acton too in about 40 degrees.  I sweat buckets, but ran my butt off 🙂

So, let’s talk for a minute about living a Paleo lifestyle.  While I absolutely love it, it sure can be a challenge.  Every time I leave home, I have to consider how long I will be gone and how much food I need to bring with me, cause anyone who’s with me here knows that “grabbing something” along the way when your stomach starts growling isn’t an easy thing to do.  Generally speaking, I’m really good at packing my little lunch bucket, but yesterday I somehow under-calculated just how long I’d be out and found myself out of food and ready to gnaw my arm off.  This is where it gets funny, I think.  I felt like bacon and eggs.  mmm….  So I headed into Tim Horton’s to grab a coffee, and some bacon and eggs.  Sounds like a simple request, doesn’t it?  HA!!  First off, I live in an area where there is a bit of a language barrier.  I tried to explain that all I wanted was an egg patty and some bacon, but the poor people behind the counter (yes, there ended up being 3 people crowded around the little till trying to figure it out) just couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that I didn’t want a breakfast sandwich.  This dialog must have been repeated at least 8 times:

TH staff: “what kind of bread?”

ME: “no bread.  no cheese.  JUST bacon and egg.”

Thankfully, in the end we did manage to work things out, but it was one heck of a process!  Thankfully I was alone.  :-p  Ange would be embarrassed.  My friends would think I was weird.  The Tim Horton’s people found me totally confusing.  But I was happy 🙂  Left with a piping hot coffee and my bacon and eggs.

Squats suck.

Ok all you fitness fanatics, I need your help!  I’ve been sporty my whole life, an since getting into the crossfit stuff, I’m killing my knees.  I’ve run on pavement playing ball hockey for 10 years with no knee problems, now suddenly I feel like a 90-year-old at times.  😦  Granted, my Chelsea success yesterday came with 450 squats, but I’ve always been very careful to protect my knees and am a huge believer in keeping proper form in any sort of exercise I do.  Got home from work last night and parked my butt on the couch with an ice pack on the worst one, my right knee, but still have found going down the stairs at work pretty killer today.  Could be MS related, but I doubt it.  Ugh…

Any ideas?

Buckle up…

Buckle up… today is going to be a wild ride…

TAKE THAT CHELSEA!  🙂  Wednesday morning crossfit has become a regular thing the last few weeks and today I killed that sh*t!  Last week, I hit a personal record by making it to 20 sets, but not able to keep them within the 60 second target.  My goal I set for this week was to make the 20 sets again, but this time fit them in the desired time.  So I jumped on the spin bike, ready to “give ‘er”.  I blew my goal out of the water.  🙂  Other than “resting” for a minute to grab my knee strap after set 12, I made it through the full 30 sets.  ALL within the 60 second mark too!  Summary:

Chelsea       5 pull-ups x 30 sets = 150     10 push-ups x 30 sets = 300      15 squats x 30 sets = 450

I’ve been walking around on cloud nine since.  Managed to make it through 10 sets of pull-ups un-assisted and lasted 18 rounds of push-ups before dropping to my knees.  For the remainder of my sets, I did first 5 push-ups normal and last 5 on my knees.  I think the level of unhappy my knees get from doing push-ups on them helps motivate me to tough it out through as many regular ones as possible.  :p  Holy crap did I ever work up a sweat though!  It’s been crazy-hot in Ontario the last little while and today is no exception.  The weather channel tells me today will be 40+ degrees celsius with the humidity, but I’m telling you it was waaaay hotter in my apartment this morning!  The joke has always been, you could go to hot yoga at the gym and have to pay for it, or you could come get the same effect in our apartment for free.  Yes, I do have a membership at an awesome gym, complete with a/c, but I’ve decided recently that I’d rather grunt my way through my Wednesday morning workouts in the “comfort” (HA!) of my own home with only Horton to contend with for use of the desired equipment…

Ok, I have a confession to make.  I have a dirty little secret that is becoming a problem.  Got your attention?  :p  I’m addicted to Tiny Tower!  Haha (lame!)  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a cheesy little game for the iPhone/iPod/iPad complete with the worst set of graphics available in the last 20 years.  But… It’s relaxing…  I find it calming to run people up to their floor in the elevator after a long day at work.  That is, until you get a pizza delivery for a P. Sherman (or whatever) and you find yourself scanning the floors, up and down, top to bottom, 3-5 times trying to find the jerk to give him his stupid pizza only to discover he’s HIDING behind another bitizen… 😐  arg!  LOL!!!  Then it becomes not quite the relaxation tool it was intended to be :p  I’m not crazy.  I swear.  I’m just playing with ya.  It is a fun little game though, but ridiculously addictive…

Tuesday rant

Woo-hoo!!  Enjoy the short work week my Canadian friends!  Although, tomorrow is the big “4th of July” for all Americans too, so I guess we all win this week.  🙂

A bit of random irony for ya…  last night a grounp of our girl friends invited me and my girl friend to go see the movie Magic Mike.  For anyone who hasn’t seen this movie… it’s about as close as you can get to going to the strip club, but without the chance of contracting anything, or going home pregnant.  The movie itself was pretty funny, but I think our group of friends got an equally decent laugh at the idea that they took a couple of lesbians to a movie about male strippers.  Anyways…

I think I’ve somewhat come to the conclusion that it can’t be done.  At least, not the way I’ve been trying to do it.  What I’m referring to, is my attempt to cram everything into my day.  Since going Paleo, (yeah!!!  we missed the 3 month anniversary on June 24th!  don’t sweat it.  I celebrated for a minute.)  I spend a LOT more time planning meals and cooking.  Thankfully I have a wonderfully supportive girl friend who is also on the Paleo train and helps out, but it’s still a time-consuming process.  Between the food stuff (probably about 1.5 hours a day), the commute to and from work (2.5-3.5 hours a day), work (8ish hours a day), trying to enjoy some time with my chick, and SLEEP (I neeeeed at least 7 hours, MS tells me so), there really doesn’t seem to be a doable way to squeeze the gym hours in there.  So, I need to find another way.  I’ve tried getting up earlier to go for a run or hit the gym before work.  FAIL.  When I get up earlier, I just seem to spend even more time working on lunches… don’t know how that even happens!  :p  I’ve tried planning to hit the gym on the way home from work.  FAIL.  I just don’t have the motivation to bust my butt after sitting in Toronto traffic.  I’m pretty sure I’ve come to the conclusion the only way it’s going to possibly work is if I create a routine of getting lunches ready in the evening…

Ok, enough of my boring rambling…  Next post I’ll try to come up with something more fun 😉