Focus....hey! what is that over there!!

Nutrition and working out are big areas of interest and passion in my life. I spend a good portion of my time reading about various exercises, workouts, food plans and as you know I crossfit so that gives me tons of different things to want to get better at.  I am constantly inundated with information on nutrition and fitness. My lesson recently has been around learning to reign in my work out and nutrition plan attention deficits.

Because of the constant nutrition and workout information flow, I am always discovering tons of exciting workout ideas and think I often think "Oh! I totally need to be doing that!!" So then I switch things up.  Same with food.  I have been mainly eating paleo style for the past 7 months (and then paleo plus sugar and wine over the holidays (oops!)). I see articles about intermittent fasting and meal timing and macro nutrient ratios and my head starts to spin.  Mid-January I made a commitment to myself to go back to a plan I received from Jillfit.com which brought me some great results previously.  One week into it and I find myself talking to a friend who is troubleshooting some issues with coritsol/adrenal fatigue which I am also working on. She has been advised to just eat 2 larger meals a day and she is loving it and feels better. So my head starts in "Oh!! I should try that too!!!"

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! Hang on a second!!

What do I want to be accomplishing?
What am I working on?
Where am I headed?
How do I know what I am doing now is not working?

I do not believe that there is one plan that fits every one. You need to find out what works best for you personally. One way to do this is to run little experiments and then check in how you look, feel and perform.  However, you need to give workout programs and diet plans a chance to work and show results (or not!) before you can evaluate them. If you are changing every Monday or every other week it is going to make it hard to really assess how things are working.  Typically I advise giving changes a month to see how they are working out.. From here you can decide if you need to proceed forward with the same plan, make some tweaks or try something completely different.  It is important to note here that expectations on change need to be reasonable too. If you are looking to drop 30lbs of fat or add 15 lbs of muscle in 1 month that is not going to happen for many people on ANY plan.

For myself, I have set some fitness goals around increasing my max for deadlifts, backsquat and shoulder press as well as working on handstands.

For food, I need to find balance again and be comfortable with my body. I am committed to sticking on my current plan for a month - checking in with pictures and measurements and then assess if I need to make any changes.

Focus is helpful. I am liking having it again. It helps me know that I am heading in the direction that I want to be going.

There are a ton of great workout programs and nutrition plans out there. Pick something and try it. Give it some time and see how you look, feel and perform. Focus.

Some great starting points:
http://www.metaboliceffect.com/
http://whole9life.com/
http://www.crossfit.com/

Here Comes the Sun

Little darling
It's been a long, cold, lonely winter
Little darling
It feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's alright


For months, I have been a deep pit. I was engaging in activities that were taking me further and further from where I am happy with myself.  Yes eating what ever you want when ever you feel like it can feel like "fun" but it comes at a price. Then pile on heavy fatigue and depression and you can kind of get the jist of the space I was in.  I knew I was there. No amount of cajoling, begging, pleading or beating the crap out of myself was going to make me move. 


And then it shifted. 


I am ready. 


I am ready to take care of my brain and body again.  I am ready to do the work.  To plan and prepare. To breathe deep. To sweat and lift heavy weights. To focus. To choose more often than not the steps that will get me to where I am going rather than the instant gratification. To nourish my body and my mind. To tap in to what I am passionate about. 


I am ready.

How Do you Know?

How do you know if you need to give up on a goal?

I have dubbed each of the last 3 years "The Year of the Abs".   I was sure in each of those years I would have abs worthy of showing off.  Those of you who see me in person can attest to the fact that I have never come close to meeting that goal. I am planning for another year ahead and wanting it to be big as I turn 40 in September.  I am desperately afraid of it being too late for me to be super fit.  I am also desperately afraid of failing again.

I have heard people say you have to want it bad enough.  I feel like I do. I dream about it.  Touching my stomach is the first thing I do in the morning - in case it has gotten flatter or to remind me where I am in relation to where I want to be. I feel like it is always at the top of what I want and what I am missing in my life.
But maybe I don't want it bad enough to pursue it to the detriment of other things that I want in my life. I am not one of those fiercely competitive, win at all costs people. As a matter of fact, I tend to feel bad when I win. In telling my husband about sprints we were running at CrossFit one day. I was like "yeah I felt bad I totally beat this girl on the first heat".  He asked me why in the world I would feel bad about that. I didn't know. I am also not one of those people who can sacrifice it all to meet a goal.  I like to be comfy. I don't do well with strict guidelines. I tend to crash and burn. But is not that I don't like putting in the hard work. I crossfit for pete's sake. I have run 2 marathons and 6 halfs and completed 'probably the world's toughest race' the Tough Mudder.  I can get the hard stuff done.

I work to be knowledgeable. I hired a nutrition coach for 6 months. I had very good success here and probably the best abs I have ever had but they were no where near  "working out in a sports bra only" worthy.  I read what ever I can get my hands out about working out and nutrition. I don't eat gluten and I am probably 85% paleo compliant (cream in my tea and a glass of wine are my last hold outs).

I have let the goals come and go. If there is no consequence for not meeting it then who cares if I miss it? If I continually disappoint myself, why does it matter if there is one more disappointment?

Am I sounding whiny yet?  Yeah - I am probably a bit in my pity pot.

In examining this particular area for goals this year I am wondering what I should do.  How do you know if a goal you set is not something you are really capable of? Maybe mentally I just don't have the grit to get it done.  How do I get peace around that?  In thinking about why this goal is important to me - what would it mean if I accomplished this? My sister asked me - what would it mean if I didn't have the beautiful ripped abs that I want? I don't know.

One of my goals for the year is to better hear the stories that I tell myself. You know those insidious messages that echo in our head telling us things we think are true about ourselves but really are just tenacious patterns that can be changed.

• Maybe there is a story here that I need to hear and to change.
• Maybe I need a date goal that really matters (stepping on stage, a CF competition, wearing a bikini on the beach on my 40th bday and having to take a pic to be shared on facebook - regardless of how it looks).  
• Maybe I just need to appreciate the strong healthy body that I have and stop wishing that it looked like something else. 

How do you know?

2011 in Review

Yes,  I want to jump on the year in review and new year resolution band wagon. I get that I am already late on this post but I just have to put in my thoughts.  You see, New Years is my favorite holiday. I love the chance to look back at the year that was and plan ahead for the coming year.  I am not a big planner but I also want to make sure I do the things I want to do in my life and be the best version of me I can be. To do that I need reminders. But I am jumping the gun a bit here....first the year that was 2011.

This year was full: concerts, big life milestones, highs and lows, friends, new friends, reconnection with friends I thought I lost, new experiences, a regular mediation practice, paleo/primal community and ideas and just SO much learning.

Not to bore you with all the details here are my big 3 stand outs for 2011:

CrossFit: I started in March and it is now one of my favorite things. Finally something that shapes my body in ways that I have been wanting. It doesn't require hours and hours in the gym. I get to lift heavy things on a regular basis - which is a great cure for depression, btw. Plus the people are amazing. I have never had a community around working out before (see the girl in the gym with the head phones on and the "go away" look - yeah, that was me). CrossFit makes you better. Do yourself a favor in 2012 and try it out.

Adventures: Holy cow! I had some amazing adventures in 2012.  Glamping (Glamourous Camping!) with my daughter in Montana, seeing Peter Gabriel at Red Rocks in CO with my bf and a trip to South Beach with an amazing friend to get tattooed by Chris Garver.  There are many more things I could mention here but these were probably at the top.  I think this year really solidified for me that I don't want things. I want experiences. I want shared time with people. It can be something huge like an amazing trip or just a lunch or a quiet walk in the park but shared, present, connected time. That is what I value most.

Progress and crash and burn: Those who know me already know that I am in a constant struggle to find a place where I am happy with my body. (ok - who isn't) This year I had some amazing progress with an all time low weight and fitting into a size 4 pair of jeans for the first time ever.  Paired with that those was some big crashing and burning - binging, depression, complete loss of motivation.  It happened 2 times this year where every thing was going great and I was holding steady on progress and then boom! I fell hard. My task for 2012 is to understand that better and figure out how to avoid it.  I put on 20lbs since my lowest weight this year.  Some of that is muscle, most of it is not. I can't lie it bums me out. It scares me. But I will continue to pick myself up, dust myself off and keep going, hopefully learning all the while.

I was surprised to hear how many people thought 2011 was a bad year. I feel like every year brings amazing things and really hard things. That is life right?

Coming soon - the plan for 2012.

Looking back at my 39th year on the planet....

I recently celebrated my 39th birthday. Most people who know me know I love to take time to reflect and appreciate.  Quietly in the early morning hours of September 3rd, I sat at my computer and looked over the past year with the help of my google calendar and made a list. I made a list of wonderful things that I had done over the past year, people that I had encountered and experiences shared.  I was blown away by the completed list.  In the back of my mind, I knew this past year to be a transformational one but the list confirmed it for me beyond a shadow of a doubt.  I have been gluten free for 1 year. I completely changed the way I was eating and learned more about how to exercise than I ever thought possible.  I started doing CrossFit.  It makes me happy and I am having fun. I have had more amazing experiences with family and friends this year than perhaps ever before. I am grateful for all the new people that have come into my life over the past 365 days... some new folks and some reconnections with people I have known along time.

Now I am sure most of you don't want to read a blog post on how much I love my life and how I am thankful for every part of it. :)   My intention in sharing it is that I challenge you to sit back, reflect on the past week, month, or year and take stock of what you have. What do you have that you need to value more? What is making you happy? Do you have enough of that? What is stressing you out ? Can you reduce that? What is working? What is not working? What do I need to be doing differently?

Would love to hear from any one who does the exercise and what you learned from it.

A different way of working out

I posted a blog entry last week from Jillfit's Tara Ballard on her journey from an exercise addict finding a new way to workout that provided better results in less time. I had a friend comment that he thought her article was crap and clearly trying to sell something. Admittedly, I didn't believe it either when I first heard about it. Tara actually started me down this new way of exercising. (For more details, see here.)

I had just spent the last 18 years doing as much cardio as I could log and lifting 3 sets of 10 for every body part possible. I have run 2 marathons and 6 half marathons. I started distance running because I wanted to get in shape and lose weight. At the end of the 2006 marathon season, I was more flabby and injured. At the end of 2007, I ran two marathons but was not lean and eventually my body (and my mind) started breaking down on me when I tried to continue the long distance running.

It was 3 more years of complaining about how unfair it was and being really unhappy with myself. Working hard but not getting any where near what I wanted for myself body composition wise. I had convinced myself that I was lazy and worthless.

Finally, I stumbled across Metabolic Effect and Jillfit. These groups got me thinking about workouts in a a whole new way. The theme: heavy weights and high intensity. Get to where you are breathless and burning.

I remember thinking:

1) I hope this works as I know there is this woman on facebook who brags about spending about 2 - 2.5 hours a day working out and if I can do it in 15 -30 and get the same results then THAT is friggin' awesome!

2) I am PISSED I didn't learn about this earlier so much time and energy wasted.

Now I CrossFit 3x a week and do yoga and I am so much closer to the body I have always wanted. I am comfortable in my own skin. It has taken a while for me to get my head around this short but more intense working out. I often say to people I will never distance run again. Now that may or may not be true. I will never distance run again to get in shape (You don't run to get in shape, you must be in shape to run!). I might decide to do it for the solitude, for a challenge, for the companionship.

I see so many people out there running to lose weight, to reduce body fat and I wanted so badly to tell them... there is a different way!!

Addicted to CrossFit?

CrossFit. You may or may not have heard of it. Chances are if you have heard of it you are probably aware of how divided it can make the fitness community. I avoided it for years due to 1) not believing I could do it and 2) it has a nasty reputation of being unsafe. In a nutshell, CrossFit is all about constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement. This means a workout format that changes daily. You never know what you are going to get each day. The repertoire of moves includes Olympic lifts (clean, snatch, overhead squat, etc), body weight movements (pushups, pull ups, sit ups) gymnastic type moves (handstands, muscle ups), rowing and sprinting among other things. The workouts are short in duration - some times as little as 4 minutes, some times as much as 30 and at the end of each you are completely wrung out.

Back in February I ventured to a CrossFit class at CrossFit Midlo thanks to an invitation from my friend Kathy. I came back 1 x a week for the next few weeks. CrossFit Midlo opened in its official place at the beginning of April. I moved to going 2x a week. Finally in May, I established a 3x a week cadence.

I was extremely cautious at first, going in eyes wide open looking for all the unsafe movements I was expecting to see. Kevin Knight,who heads up CrossFit Midlo, showed me how to do moves in the CrossFit style. The various squats, push ups, pull ups, burpees and swings are done a little differently than what you would normally see in a typical gym. I watched as he took care of all his members making sure that each was working with modifications and scale that worked for them. At the same time, he doesn't let you off the hook and let you coast when he knows you can be safely pushing harder. (This particular trait of his makes me mutter bad things to him under my breath while I am working out.) I was seeking out unsafe moves that would have be saying "Ah-ha! I knew it!" Instead, I found challenge and intensity under guidance and instruction.

After several months of going regularly, despite being at a CrossFit box that is pretty far away from my house, I LOVE going. I love the intensity. I love the short duration of the workout. I love that on several occasions I have teared up with pride in myself for having accomplished something that I didn't think I could do. I really enjoy the other women who workout with me that have always been so friendly and welcoming and are completely bad ass in their workouts. I love that my body is responding in ways I never thought it would. I am more muscley (not a real word, using it any how). I am leaner and I love it. With my clean diet and CrossFit, I finally feel like I am on the right path.

On my last trip and on the next 3 trips I am taking, I have located other CrossFit gyms to go and visit so that I can get a workout while I am away.

Am I addicted to it? Yeah - I think I am. I am not so blinded to think it is THE way every one needs to workout but I feel like I am lucky that I have found what works for me. No more: hours being miserable on cardio machines, distance running, wasting my time doing 3 sets of 10 exercises 3 times for every possible muscle group in my body.

I have not found anything at my CrossFit box to be unsafe. Kevin and Ryan are careful to watch form and to learn what their folks can and can't do and support accordingly. I know this is not the experience every one has with CrossFit. I am glad this one is mine.