Focus

I realized the other day I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the things I need to stop doing.  After lunch I would think about not eating chocolate... but then I would.  Stopping in the grocery store, I would think about not buying something that would get me off track... but then I would.  I'd plan on not staying up too late... and in a blink of an eye I was going to bed 2 hours later than I wanted to.  These are the things that frustrate me and I couldn't figure out how to stop the trend.  The next day, I would do the exact same thing.  The more I repeated, the more focused I got to NOT do something.
It's amazing when you focus on something it tends to come true.  Whether you meant to do them or not.  I began to think back to January when I was starting my journey out.  Kendra empathized that I should focus on adding certain foods.  Slowly, I focused on making sure to get lots of proteins, healthy fats, and even more of the dreaded veggies.  I would plan out what I was eating for the week and have everything cooked on Sunday for the first half of the week and Wednesday for the second half.  I focused on journaling what and when I was eating and how I was feeling.  With all my focus on the positive changes I was successful!

Somewhere my focus shifted to the negative, but now I'm aware of the change.  I've already laid out of plan to get back on track by focusing on the positive changes.  :)

This past weekend I competed in my very first Crossfit competition.  It was the Northeast Garage Games hosted by Crossfit Southie.  It was a crazy weekend!  There were 6 Crossfit Route 1 athletes competing and I was pumped to be one of them.  The competition was a total of 5 workouts over 2 days.  Saturday's WODs kicked off with Snatchballs, followed by WhiteBulger, and finally Spiderman to wrap up the day.  I was excited for Snatchballs because it consisted of snatches and wall balls at a light weight for me.  I finished in 30th place out of 58! 

Heading into the last workout of the day I was nervous.  It involved 4 rounds of 20 reps of 20" box jumps, 15 pull ups, and 10 push ups.  Eleven months ago, I was barely jumping on a 12" box, couldn't even do 1 pull up with the thickest band, and I definitely couldn't do "real" push ups.  With the support of my family, friends, and CFRT1 family I worked hard for 15 minutes...  Took a major spill in my 4th round of box jumps... just got back up and continued.  Struggled getting my pull ups... I was lucky enough to have Kendra and Coach J there to push me talk me through them efficiently.  It was the hardest 15 minutes I've pushed myself through and it felt amazing... when I finished :)  I hit the 15 minute time cap with just 18 reps left.  I couldn't have asked for anything better!  In less then a year I focused on learning to do pull ups, getting my push ups strong, and building my mental strength for box jumps.  I never wavered on that focus and it paid off! 

Day 2 I knew I just had to complete the GI Joe WOD to finish up my first competition!  I was excited for this workout because it involved running.  The one thing I knew how to do before starting crossfit.  It turns out when you add a 25lb sandbag to running it's not easy!!!  I actually found the running to be harder than the overhead squats, situps, jump roping and then more situps and overhead squats.  I had a lot of fun doing it though and even had a great judge to make it fun :)

After an awesome weekend of seeing the positive results of staying crossfit focused, I'm excited to refocus my nutrition to get the same results!

Crossfit Family

It's been awhile since my last post... Sorry about that, but life has been nuts. I've really been struggling the past couple months to make my journey of health a priority. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has happened to. Sometimes it's easier to eat the chocolate outside your office, stop and grab pizza on the way home, or have one too many pudding shots ;). With that said, none of these things give me the results I want, make me feel good, or make me happy. So why have I and so many other people who struggle with nutrition give in? That's a great question, if you have the answer I would love to hear it.

The one thing that I do know is that I can make excuses all day long, but in the end it's up to me to change it. A part of me is scared that if I do get back on track, I won't have the results I want. Or if I do get down to the weight I want, I still won't feel like I've accomplished anything. Logically I realize this doesn't make sense, but emotionally I've been there. In 2003, I lost 45lbs and was the "skinniest" I've ever been at 144lbs. I was wearing a size 8 and was on top of the world. I even started to train for my first marathon. Yet, I still felt I had weight to lose and obsessed over WW points. I began to sabotage myself.  When I felt I was having a "bad day," I would eat every high point food I could find all while thinking "I'll start again tomorrow." I honestly believe my emotions of still feeling overweight, was what caused me to over eat to catch my body up with where I saw myself. Not healthy, I know.

Flash forward to today... I've finally found a lifestyle that has changed the way I look at food and understand what my body needs to perform at its best. But yet for the past few months, I haven't allowed myself to benefit from this lifestyle. The same habits have come back... Oh I already had chocolate today, so I can have some more and start over tomorrow. Or I had a crappy day at work and I need a piece of pizza to make me feel better. I actually caught myself thinking these things. The scary thing is that pizza doesn't make me feel better; it makes me feel like crap and then makes me mad that I couldn't say no.

At this point you must be thinking... "What does this have to do with Crossfit Family?" Well over this past year, even though my nutrition has faltered my new family has not. Three to four times a week I go to Crossfit Route 1 to give every last ounce of effort I have to that day's WOD (work out of the day). But that's not the only thing I get from my box. I have developed a second family. It's a place where you are instantly friends with everyone there whether you've meet them before or not.  After awhile, you begin to learn people's strengths, weaknesses, and goals.  You want them to succeed as much as you want yourself to succeed.  How many of you hug the people you work out with when leaving an event?  It's now a normal occurrence for me when leaving my new family.

I often forget that my fellow crossfitters have their own struggles as well. I've gotten so wrapped up in trying to succeed with my weight loss goal that I was missing the bigger picture. I forgot the feeling of "I can do anything" I had at the beginning of the year when I was on track with nutrition. The thing is I'm still improving even now when I'm not losing weight. I also forgot that not everyone's goal is to lose weight. They focus on nutrition just for better health and better results with their Crossfit performance. I forgot that not everyone event wants to eat Paleo. Some are fighting injuries, some are trying to break through plateaus, and some are brand new and learning they can do things they never thought possible.

The thing is if we were all the same, we would never grow. We need the weird people that attend 6am classes... We need the people who want to do competitions and those who want nothing to do with them. We need the people focused on nutrition and those who are focused on just surviving the WOD. People have good days and bad days, but there is always someone there to support you and cheer you on. I can always rely on my Crossfit Route 1 family to keep me motivated and bring things into prospective. For that, I am forever thankful.

So even though I seem to have started to repeat history, I do firmly believe my fate will be different. I now have my family, my friends, and my Crossfit Route 1 family to help me succeed!

Ending the Vicious Cycle

For the past 7 years, I've considered myself a distance runner.  I completed 5 marathons, many half marathons, and countless 10K & 5K races.  Constant running lead to different injuries and frustration lead to poor nutrition.  The combination always leads to weight gain.  Every year I recovered and set my eyes on a new race thinking I would lose the weight while training.  Well... I trained and completed new races, but never lost the weight.  With each race completion a new injury would pop up starting the cycle all over again.

Last fall I found myself at my heaviest weight and starting to make excuses why not to work out that day.  IT WAS REALLY HARD!  I started making excuses not to run with my friends.  I just couldn't bring myself to move all that weight.  This plays a big toll on someone who thinks of themselves as an athlete who runs distances.  I did manage to get out and run a few 5Ks, but I wasn't comfortable (or happy) with the run.

October 2010

Fast forward to now.  With the combination of Crossift and the Paleo Lifestyle, I'm doing more than I ever thought I would.  Exploring new exercises, old ones, and definitely more intense combinations of those.  I've finally gotten back out running with my friends, but this weekend was the first real test of "Am I back?"  Sunday morning I completed the Run Gloucester 7 mile race.  Not only did I complete it, but I did it in an under 12 minute pace :)  Last October I struggled to keep a 13 minute pace in the 5K.  My friends were impressed (especially considering I haven't been doing a ton of running).  It felt great to be back on pace! 

August 2011

I have officially turned the tables on the vicious circle.  I know I'll continue to lose weight, gain speed, and feel confident.  Running races is becoming fun again and that's the whole point!

Exciting news!!!

In my last post about goals I mentioned I wanted to do a pull-up using the blue resistance band.  Wanted to give an update on that statement...

Last night a blue band was hanging from the bar, so I figured, why not try and see how I do.  I got my foot laced in and BAM, up I went!  I couldn't believe it.  With the suggestion of Emily... I moved on to the red band which is less resistance.  UP I WENT!!!

I skipped over a whole band of trying!  It's amazing the results you get when you focus on the steps to get there and not the outcome.  I would have never thought I'd be using a red band right now.

New goal.  Work towards the Purple band and build strength to start using the red band during WODs. :)

Goals and how to get there...

I've always known it was important to have short and long term goals.  This goes for all aspects of life... GE work, Pampered Chef work, health, financial, physical, and the list goes on.  I've always been very good at achieving "short" term goals, but somehow get lost in the long term without realizing it.  This past 8 months, I've grown in this area, with a lot of help from Kendra (my wellness coach), the awesome people (both coaches and members) at Crossfit Route 1, and believe it or not some of my Pampered Chef training.

The old Jenny would set goals... I am going to run the Boston Marathon and then I would do it.  The problem with that, is I wasn't looking past the marathon.  What happens when you over train and you injure your knees?  What is your plan once the race is over, is there another race?  Why did I want to run to begin with?  These are all questions that I would ignore and then when couple months had past after the marathon, I would start the cycle all over again.  Pick a new race to run and start from scratch.  Eventually I thought I could outsmart the break after a race and before I ran the Marine Corps marathon, I committed to running Marathon de Paris.  Turns out that was silly because I didn't address any of my other behaviors and I was injured by the time Paris came around.  Of course I still ran it :)

After five marathons, countless attempts to "start" eating healthy, and a rigorous gym schedule, I found myself at my heaviest weight and starting to slow down because everything was too hard. 

It's amazing how life gets you to where you need to be.  I was working a fair with my Pampered Chef table in Danvers and it was really slow.  I was bummed that I had spent a good amount of effort to get there and set up, for a small turn out.  I made the best of it and made friends with my neighboring booths.  The woman to the left of my booked a show and the woman to the right of me changed my life... It was Kendra.  I talked in my first post about how I got from trying out Merrimack Valley Family Chiropractic to Crossfit and Paleo, so I won't bore you with that story again.  Bottom line is, this is where I started learning the tools I needed to be successful!

At the beginning of the year, Kendra had me write down my goals.  She asked me to be as specific as possible with measurable results.  Then she took it a step farther and asked me to write down 3 actions I would do to achieve these goals and 3 actions I will stop doing that prevents me from achieving them.  This is where things clicked for me.  By focusing on my behaviors, I achieved my goals!!!  It was no longer about I have to complete X and I just need to push through to get there.  Now it was, I need to make my meals at the beginning of the week, so I'm not eating the first thing I see when I get home.  By focusing on the behaviors, I have achieved many goals already and I'm not done.  I don't feel the let down I used to after completing something.

Goals Achieved and New Ones Set!

I set goals at Crossfit Route 1 to focus on things I really wanted to achieve.  The first being a pull-up.  I know it's going to be awhile to get one without a resistance band, so I set my eyes on using the green band by my birthday.  I also decided I wanted to do a handstand and be able to hold it.  I had no idea if I would ever reach these goals (both seemed impossible before crossfit).  I did know that if I worked the skills my coaches and fellow members helped me with one day I would get there.  So I did.  Every day I would practice getting into a handstand before the workout started.  I would work my swings on the bar to increase my pull-up strength.  The best was when I realized I wrote "green band by June 1st" and it was June 1st.  I got the green band out and did a pull-up first try!!!  IT WAS THE BEST FEELING!!!  Same with the handstand... pretty sure I screamed and scared a few people in my excitement.

Now it's time to set new goals.  I now have my eyes on the blue band for pull-ups and after tonight's workout I need to focus on Double Unders (jump rope, rope passes under feet twice before landing).  It's taken me awhile to do 1, but I have that down now.  My goal is start doing them continuously and not double, single, double, single.  I want to be comfortable doing them in a WOD.  Today's workout was in memory of the military men and women who gave their lives this weekend to protect their country. 

6 Rounds

30 Dead Lifts 95#

30 Double Unders

30 Sit-ups

I had to do 30 Single Unders because I haven't gotten my DU to the point where I can do them in a WOD.  It really bothered me tonight because I was all over the DL and sit-ups, but felt I should honor these lives the best I could, and I know I can do better.  Every time I pick up a jump rope now, I will be thinking of that WOD to motivate me to work toward my next goal!

My final way to set goals is CLOTHES!  Gotta love fitting into something you haven't been able to wear in years.  I have a goal wall in my bedroom...

The pink shirt is a bit snug, so I'm hoping to be rocking it soon.  The dress is for a wedding at the end of September.  The shorts... those were a gift from Kendra.  They are from the Crossfit Games in California where Crossfit Route 1 took 17th place in the world!!!  Our team's number was 131 and they were awesome.  Those shorts will take me a bit to get into, but you need both the short term and the long term goals to keep you focused on behaviors. 

I'm really excited to have finally figured out it doesn't have to be all or nothing.  Take one challenge at a time and focus on the skills (or behaviors) to achieve your goal, not the goal itself.

Pampered Chef goes Paleo

The start of July brought two great things into my life... Pampered Chef National Conference in Chicago and Crossfit Route 1 30 Day Paleo Challenge!!! 

The Paleo Challenge, is just that... a challenge to eat Paleo.  The people at the gym who are participating start the day with 4 points.  If they eat something not Paleo they loose a point, eat another thing, that's another point and so on.  You can get 1 bonus point for getting 8 hours of sleep and another for attending a crossfit class.  You tally your points at the end of the week and track them on the board at Crossfit Route 1.   The person with the highest points at the end of the 30 days wins!  People can win in two other categories as well.  The first is the most weight lost and the second is most improved WOD (workout of the day) performance. 

Good news is that I'm a competitive person so these challenges really motivate me to stick to the program!  The toughest part of this challenge was heading to Chicago for a week for Pampered Chef National Conference.  This is my favorite time of year with PC because I get to hang out with all the great consultants I talk to through email year round.  The Pampered Chef also makes you feel so loved and that your potential is endless!  Along with the amazing friends and recognition comes many opportunities to stray from the Paleo Life Style, but I was prepared!

The first thing I did was bring food with me.  I made my Carrot Banana Muffins and froze them so they would keep for the whole week.  I packed protein powder, nuts, and almond butter as well.  When I arrived in Chicago, I hit up a store to get some blue berries and raspberries.  I was now ready for the week.  Every day I knew that I would be able to have Paleo friendly snacks throughout the day, so I wouldn't get starving and make bad choices.  I opted for the Gluten Free buffet option which was perfect.  I was able to get plenty of meat and veggies for breakfast and lunch.  Lunch time was hard because they leave a plate of desserts in front of you... in comes my Paleo muffins!  I got my dessert fix in and didn't mind not eating what was provided.

There are some amazing restaurants in Chicago.  I did allow myself to have some Chicago Pizza... felt gross after.  The rest of the time I enjoyed Fillet Minion & broccoli... Apricot Glazed Pork... a bacon burger with lettuce as the bun :)  My biggest down fall was coming back to the room where there was sweets.  I definitely need to tackle my sweet addiction because I gave in a couple times when I wasn't even hungry.  All in all though I was mighty proud of myself :)

I did make time to go to Atlas Crossfit the first day I was there.  It was cool checking out a different box and getting a great workout in before joining my PC ladies.  I was super pumped to PR (personal record) my max Press by 10lbs!!! 

My most favorite thing about this year, is not only getting motivated to grow my Pampered Chef business, but also to return to conference next year even healthier.  I received many compliments on my weight loss from other consultants and even friends on facebook after posting my pictures.  Thank you so much for your support and kind words!

Birthday Wishes & Things you NEVER regret

I feel like one of the most loved people in the world right now :)  After a solid month of birthday celebrations, I can honestly say I've never been happier.  Here's what happened...

May 21st... most amazing birthday surprise party ever thrown by my loving family and friends.
June 13... TS/TP Performance threw me a surprise party at work!
June 15... CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN!!! this was more a celebration of my last day in TS/TP Performance, but it brought a lot of people together at work and with my awesome balloons from Monday meant lots more bday wishes :)
June 16... Last of the 12 week Weight Loss Sessions at Merrimack Valley Chiropractice.  they had glutten free brownie muffins for me with the book the Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf!
June 17... Night out in boston with fun sunglasses and great friends!
June 19... Actual birthday, spent the first half cheering on Crossfit Route 1 at the Regionals and afternoon bbq & movie with my family (also celebrated fathers day :))
June 20... New group (Advanced TS/TP Performance) welcomed me in with a birthday cake!

At each one of these events I was told to make a wish.  There are lots of things that I could have wished for, but each time all that I could think was to enjoy the moment!  Somewhere in the past 6 months, I've stopped wishing for things and started making things happen.  I feel that I'm in a very honest place in my life where everything makes sense.  I know what to do to get what I want, and I'm doing it!  Plus after a month of people showing me soooo much love, I feel on top of the world!

Thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this awesome frame of mind and helped me celebrate the start of a new decade in my life!

Ever notice that there are certain things you never regret doing... but usually regret not doing?  There are many things that come to mind like...
- Showering... always feel better clean
- Going to bed early... your body thanks you for the extra rest
- Laundry... nothing like not having to dig through the basket to find something decent enough to wear
- Doing the dishes right away, or picking up at the end of a party... The next day is just so much worse
- Cleaning in general
- Stretching before AND after a workout
- EATING PALEO