Moderating (or not)

I eat cleaner than the vast majority of Americans. And I understand that eating clean can mean different things to different people. Many people would look at a Yumm bowl and think, “Rice, avocado, olives, tomatoes, edamame...that looks pretty healthy!” Sure...but not for me. Grains are probably not the best choice all around (although I don’t think that a little rice now and then can hurt). I don’t want to admit it or believe it, but I think there’s something in Yumm sauce (like crack) that makes me congested. Because that’s how I feel now when I eat something I’m not supposed to - congested. Thanks Whole 30. Now I’m acutely aware of how food makes me feel.

It seems like I’ll go through phases where I’ll eat pretty clean, then I’ll allow myself some treats, then I’ll just go off the deep end and I can’t button my jeans anymore. Then I’ll realize I need to clean it up, I’ll stay that way for a few weeks, then I’m back to the sweatpants. I remember reading something in a magazine a while back...a word I hear people say once in a while that I don’t really understand...something like...moderation?

Of course! Moderation! Duh! This could mean eating 90% paleo and allowing a cheat meal once a week. That sounds great! That sounds easy! That sounds...COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY UNDOABLE!!!   

I am not a moderator. I can’t eat two Thin Mints. Is there anyone in the world who could eat two Thin Mints? Once that box is open, they’re gone in a matter of minutes. And this isn't just about food! If I like something, I want a lot of it. Baseball just started. You think I can check scores and standings once a week or once a day? Forget it. My time is occupied from now until the end of October (since the Tigers will win it all this year). Moderation is not in my vocabulary.

CrossFit workouts are “fun.” They make you feel like your body is actually doing something. They push you to work harder. Beat the clock. Beat your last time. Get one more rep. Do it! Sometimes we’ll plan on a rest day, then see what the workout is that day and think, ‘I have to do this one! I’ll take a rest day eventually. Maybe the next day.’ And it never happens and we get burnt out and injured. OK, this doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it can. I think I’ve almost figured out a way to find ‘moderation’ in CrossFit.

Rest (sometimes)
Don’t go crazy RX superhard beastmode every day
Listen to your body
Let your coaches scale you
Stop comparing yourself to other people*

*A special word on this last one. During the CrossFit Open, of course we compare ourselves to others. We’re all doing the same workout with the same weights. I was disappointed in a lot of my workouts, but I need to factor in the rest of my life. My stress level this past year has been a lot higher than in the past. I don’t want to mention how many times I’ve moved in the past year, and how different my life is now than how it used to be. These are important factors that the leaderboards don’t measure.

I need to think of food this way, too. I think dairy makes me break out. Sugar turns me into a monster. Ordering a Yumm bowl a few times a week is just lazy. Do I want to be this way? No. So I need to be mindful of the choices I make and what behaviors and side effects they will cause. I need to be accountable for how I act and how I present myself to the world. Food is a big part of that. Food is just the first step. Time to reset, yet again.

12.1 ...7 Minutes in Heaven (or not)

The first WOD of the 2012 CrossFit Games Open is now OVER!!! Woo-hoo!!!! What's the worst way you can spend 7 minutes? Probably doing wall climbs. But HQ would never do that to us. Instead, they give us a 7 minute AMRAP of burpees. Seriously. Who thinks of these?


What I love about the Open and about the Games in general is that so many people did so much better than they thought they would. We had an amazing turnout for the WOD on Saturday morning. It almost made me sad that I wasn't trying it for a second time (more on that below). 


I am so proud of my affiliate. We have 120 athletes registered for the Open! I'm so excited for everyone who is competing this year and who was able to submit a score for this first WOD. And of course, I'm looking forward to our team and individual athletes kicking ass at Regionals!


How did I do? Eh. I got 78. I kept moving the whole time, but I was moving slower than I should have been. Also, I'm injured. I strained something in my ribs last week and it feels like a horse (or a whore, depending on who you talk to) kicked me in the back. So I am trying my best to not do anything and let it heal. This is not easy.


It's especially not easy since I have felt not-so-great about my overall condition lately. So, as of right now and until the end of the Open, I will not have anymore desserts and I will limit my sugar intake. No more cake (that's right). No more chocolaty Larabars. No more fro yo. More veggies, for real this time. I need to get back into the shape I was in last spring. If I'm going to be telling people what they should and shouldn't be eating, I should also follow that advice. 


So what am I hoping for this upcoming week? I'm hoping that they don't go too heavy right away. Because if they do, I will try, and I could hurt myself even more. I'm hoping for another met-con with some reasonable weight thrown in. I'm guessing they'll give us a 15 minute AMRAP with 3 different moves. And there better be double unders. Please, for the love of all things CrossFit, let there be double unders!!!

Then We Came to the End

Yesterday I attended the Whole 9 Foundations workshop. I learned all sorts of good stuff. I finally learned why grains are bad (they contain phytic acid, which prevents minerals from other foods from absorbing into your body, right?) I learned that milk is the ideal food for a rapidly growing baby mammal (good thing I don't drink a lot of milk). I also learned that I will do the Whole 30 differently when I do it again in January.


I may have a tendency to get obsessive about certain things (LOST, baseball, my eyebrows). So when I'm part of a very strict program where I have to think about what I'm eating ALL THE TIME, I may get a little, uh, obsessive. Or paranoid. Or resentful of people enjoying food I can't eat. Or all of the above.


I have not eaten a lot of processed foods in the last month. I've pretty much only eaten what I've bought (I can't trust anyone!). So when my travelling companion, who is like the most awesome person ever, offered me plantain chips from Trader Joe's and showed me the ingredients, including sunflower oil, which was verified by other people sitting there, I ate some. And I felt bad about it. Then, a couple hours later in the workshop, our fearless leader lumped sunflower oils in with other vegetable oils in the 'avoid' list. OK, it said 'minimal' or something. I get scared. I scribble on the back of some paper, "Did you just sabotage me with the plantain chips?" I worry. Day 27 and I have failed. 


But I didn't fail. We asked at the break. And I think Melissa, who runs the Whole 30, was a little freaked out with our obsessiveness. I'm fine. And so are the people who've had salsa with citric acid. Geez. She doesn't want us to be hermits for a month (like me). Deep breath. I'm fine.


So many people are fine. Seriously, this Whole 30 thing has brought together so many people at our box. I hope to post their awesome stories of success soon, because, unfortunately, I don't know how much I'll have to report about myself. 


Positives:

• OK, I think my skin is a little clearer.
• I was told that I look thinner (although I don't feel thinner)
• I proved to myself that I can make my own food for a month.
• I did not cave and get take out or have a drink.
• I saved money (I'll share more this week)

Not Quite Negatives, but Certainly Not Positive:

• I've seriously sucked at workouts lately. We had one this morning that I should have flown through. I felt really out of shape and irritated with myself.
• I haven't changed certain habits (I'll plow through a bunch of dates in no time)
• I don't really feel any different.

And maybe that's because of a few factors. I didn't eat terrible before. I haven't eaten a lot of processed foods in the past couple years, so I may not need to reset so much. I have been stressed out big time lately. I didn't really follow the guidelines as much as I should have. In that regard, I mean eating pre- and post-WOD and having enough veggies or protein at each meal. I will change a lot of things next time I do Whole 30.


And holy cow, after we hit the road after the workshop yesterday, I felt my blood sugar drop (I realized I hadn't eaten in a while) and I made my wonderful travelling companion pull over so I could eat. We avoided a pretty ugly situation. A lady's gotta eat.


Going Forward, For Us All
There is some fear among the Whole 30ers, who will wake up Wednesday morning free to eat whatever we want. We fear we might fall back into old habits pretty quickly. Here are my thoughts.


We don't always have to say no, but we don't always have to say yes. If you're faced with something that you know has been a food reward in the past, know that you've lived without it for 30 days. You don't have to live without it forever. Why do you want it this time? 


More to come later in the week.

Reset

The idea of this Whole 30 challenge is to reset your system. Get all the sugar and gunk out. I think many of us are taking this a few ways.


Yeah, we've been getting away with thinking we're all that because we show up at the box and we do our workouts and we PR sometimes and we're awesome. But some of us are not making the progress we'd like to make. So to those of us embarking on this, I suggest reading this classic Crossfit Journal article, "Getting off the Crack." I like what she says towards the end:

"I had never experienced so directly and consistently the practice of not giving up when it gets hard. Every time I entered my kitchen I had the opportunity to fail. It would have been so easy. But I didn’t, and I cannot describe emphatically enough the rewards—both physical and mental— that getting through that has brought to my life."

It's a good read. 


I'm not going to use this blog to chronicle what I'm eating, as I'm guessing what you're eating will look and probably taste better. Instead, I'm going to chronicle what I spend on food this next month. Americans use the excuse of cost to not eat healthy. I understand. I may have to look at what I've spent this past month to compare. I don't like doing that and I may guesstimate, but I'll try to figure it out. I do shop at Market of Choice. I don't even know what to do in a Safeway anymore. But you'll see what I spend, and hopefully, it will be about equal to what I spend on the junk.


And good luck to all of us - next week. Until then, the frozen yogurt shops will know me by name. 

Losers

I admit it: I watch The Biggest Loser. It's a terrible show. At its heart, it means well. Actually, the more I think about it, it doesn't. Its goal is for really obese people to lose weight. Good! This needs to happen in epic proportions here in the US. Unfortunately it's like every other reality show in that it kicks someone off every week, even before they're ready to do it on their own. Not great. 


But we really know what the show is, right? (shh....it's a 2 hour commercial disguised as an inspirational weight loss program) I didn't watch the first few seasons, but I'd like to imagine a time when trainers recommended whole foods and a healthy lifestyle with less stress. Not anymore. This show is full of product placement. I hope the contestants get paid for all the advertising they do. If they don't, they should start a union.


A few weeks back, I realized that The Biggest Loser could never hire a Crossfit coach to whip their contestants into shape. A Crossfit coach would never say, "Wow, you've had a tough workout! You should replenish those calories with this yogurt whose second ingredient is High Fructose Corn Syrup" or "That was a tough workout! Why don't you chew this gum so you don't feel so hungry!"


I've seen a couple articles today about healthy eating and fitness, one in which addressed Bob Harper personally. My favorite quote comes from Rob Wolff, who speaks the Paleo gospel.

"Does anyone remember the product for which Wilford Brimley was the spokesperson years ago? Right, Quaker Oats. Does anyone know what Wilford Brimley now promotes? Diabetes testing supplies."

The Biggest Loser is all about promoting products: water filters, storage supplies, processed foods, their own fitness line. They really have an empire now! I just tried searching for nutritional information on their own food line, but got incredibly frustrated and I have things to do today. In other words - I have no idea what goes into their products. But they are making a lot of money. My hope is that they're not pumping their consumers full of more sugar, which leads to more sugar, which leads to...


I came across another blog post today that talks about the C word - Cardio. I used to do a lot of Cardio too. Now I can't say the word without laughing. Women's magazines are terribly misleading in regards to weight loss. Do more cardio - lose more weight! Do "strength" training twice a week! (with what, 8 pound weights?) This blog post isn't perfect, but it does address a lot of the misconceptions women have, i.e., more cardio will help you lose weight. You need to lift weights to lose weight! It's that simple! It's scary but it has to be done! 


I know I've become a snob since joining Crossfit. I know I try to push it on people. Why? It works! I see it every day. I've seen it in myself and everyone around me. I used to be that person reading a magazine on an elliptical machine, just an endless cycle of magazines and ellipticals and wearing the same pants size for years. It doesn't have to be that way. 

Wagons

So much of Crossfit is nutrition, which is why this lifestyle is so difficult. I fell off the wagon. For most of May, I was eating a lot of sugar. It was stress or boredom or ... something. But a funny thing happened. So a couple weeks ago, we did the workout Cindy, which is a pretty grueling workout (20 minutes of pull-ups, push-ups, and squatting). The next day I ran a 5K. Then a rest day. Then the Filthy Fifty, which I completed (not quite RX, but I'm getting there). I can't believe I completed it. Yes, there was a time limit, but I was close enough and I kept going. Anyway, the next day was the first day of Crossfit Endurance, and I had to run another 5K. I got a horrible time (for me) - it was 1:30 slower than my 5K earlier that week. My knee hurt. I was mad at myself. My calves were super sore. So I had every intention of going back to Crossfit later that week (taking some rest first, of course). But I was sitting in my office on Friday and I just felt awful. I felt like allergies were coming on and I could barely keep my eyes open, even after taking something. I went home and drank a cup of coffee, and I slept all afternoon. I guess I needed it.


But then I slept in on Saturday. I didn't go to Crossfit Saturday morning. I never sleep in unintentionally. It was like my body had just had it. I still ate poorly on Saturday (we went to a casino, which had a buffet), but then decided that I needed to get back on track, both with workouts and with eating. I just didn't want my body to feel awful anymore.


So I've cut the artificial sugar and gluten. I'm definitely not full-on paleo, but I'm certainly better than I was earlier this month. I've done some tough workouts and I'm going back tomorrow. As much as it irritates the hell out of me, there's something to this nutrition thing.


There was an article on Crossfit Journal this week about a study done about emotional fitness and Crossfit. It was a small study - done in one gym. The participants were supposed to stick to the diet and workout regimen for 7 weeks. That's a long time. The ones who finished certainly scored higher on their emotional scales, but I'm more interested in the ones who didn't finish. What made them go back? Was it keeping up with workouts? I doubt that. I think people can be pretty consistent when they're having fun and seeing results. But the eating part - I'm guessing that's where they fell off the wagon. Eating is, for many of us, emotional. It shouldn't be, but it is. So what can Crossfit do about that?

There's No Crying in Crossfit!

Instead of dealing with my emotions in a normal, healthy manor, I like to bottle them up and let them go at inappropriate times, like sitting in a meeting, standing in line at a grocery store, or trying to do an overhead squat. This happened last week. In order to do some things well, you need to focus. An overhead squat is one of those things. It doesn't feel natural to hold a 35 pound bar over your head while you squat. It takes some balance and coordination. During a workout last week, we had to run 400 meters, do 10 overhead squats, 20 pull-ups, and 30 kettlebell swings (3 rounds), then run 400 m again. After the run, I was the last one in. I was distracted because my car needed to be moved, which someone volunteered to do for me. By the time I got to my bar, I felt like I was in a hurry and I wasn't even thinking about what I was doing. I stumbled a little, lost my balance. I couldn't hold that weight over my head. I got upset and finished that set, deciding to do a lesser weight. No, not 25, but 15. I was a mess. I lost focus. It's scary to have something fall and to not be ready for it. Next time, I'll take a deep breath and think about what I'm doing.

I'm also an emotional eater. I am. I always have been. This paleo thing helped me in the summer and I cut out all the binge eating. Winter is different. I rarely see daylight. I get bored. If no one's at my end of the office, I'll get into the candy jar. I know that it makes me feel bad, but it still sounds like a good idea. It's not. It never is. When I eat bad things, I don't just eat a little, I eat a lot. Last night during the Super Bowl, we picked up a couple slices of pizza, potato wedges, and chicken tenders. None of that is good for you. But I didn't just eat a slice of pizza. I went after it all. You know how I felt after.

So before all that happened yesterday, I made a breakthrough in my running. I ran the Truffle Shuffle 4 mile race. I ran the whole thing (no walking) and had a goal of coming in under 42 minutes. I actually, to my shock, came in just under 40 minutes. I kept a steady pace the whole way. I managed to run under 10 minutes a mile. It's a miracle. But while I was walking back to my car, I couldn't think about anything but pizza. I hardly ever crave pizza, but man, a nice hot slice with pineapple sounded soooo good. And I ended up having it. I can't imagine how I would feel if I ran a half-marathon. I think I'd have to warn the Chinese Buffet ahead of time.

Rest Days

The biggest accomplishment of the week came on Thanksgiving morning. Although I was unsure about running a 5K because of my shins, it was the workout so I did it. And for the first time ever, I ran the whole thing. I did not make my goal of running it in under 30 minutes, but I will soon. I know this. My shins hurt for the first mile but after that, I focused on running. I wouldn't let myself walk. I didn't have to. After eating things I'm not used to eating on Thanksgiving, I decided to go Paleo again - or as Paleo as possible. I don't eat a lot of dairy, but I think I should eat some. If I can stick to a good eating plan for 3 weeks, I'll be happy. I've been eating too much sugar lately. I know this and I'm not doing anything about it. I may have a glass of wine or two - it is the holiday season and I can do this without feeling guilty. But I will cut out wheat and processed foods. I've done it before and I can certainly do it again. The workouts on Monday and Tuesday were pretty difficult. Monday's involved a lot of different exercises - each for one minute. I tried to be strategic and failed. I did all right in retrospect, but I felt like I could have done better. I also had some health matters on my mind, so that held me back a little. (I should have a better idea of these issues this week). Tuesday's workout included snatches and push-ups. The first time I had a workout with snatches, it was a disaster. This time, I could handle it. Earleir that day, we had chair massages at work. It felt good at the time, but after that workout I was so sore. I decided to not do the Filthy Fifty on Wednesday - mostly because I was sore, partly because I wanted to work out Thursday morning. Saturday was the Civil War workout. I'm feeling that in my lower back - too many deadlifts too quickly. My upper back is also bothering me, but that could be for multiple reasons (damn, expensive sports bras). I need to start being more active in my regular life. I'm not an athlete and I never will be, but I still need to be active. I wanted to hike up either Mt. Pisgah or Spencer's Butte today, but I let myself have the excuse that it's cloudy. That's ridiculous. It's always cloudy here. It's Oregon. At least it's not raining! It's my 4th day off in a row and I've gotten accustomed to being lazy. Lazy's not always the best option. While I have my goals for fitness, I need to work on goals in other areas of my life. My background is in writing - that's where I feel most comfortable and most frustrated. I haven't done anything creative in a few years. Sitting down and writing a story that you know you should write is sometimes much, much more difficult than making it through a tough crossfit workout. I need to change this. If I can make it through 4 hours of crossfit a week, I can sit down and write for a few hours a week. That's my biggest goal.