Week 1. Day 6-7.

Saturday. Big breakfast with S around the corner, scrambled eggs on wheatfree toast, coffees.  Coffee with P.  Sushi. Remains of monster salad w/S.

Very tired and sore pretty much all over.

Sunday. An extra 40min walk and then moved S's sister into the house. Lots of moving, lifting, sore back.  Breakfast was eggs and wheat free bread and coffee. Worked through lunch, carrots and hummus and doritos after we got everything in. Indian for dinner. This is what we call a cheat day. Still not too outrageous and worked out asses off during the day.

Update -- after hovering between 139 and 141, I was an absurd 143 at the end of the day. Wine, no water, bloaty food. Down to around 140 later Monday but still a bit of a shocker first stepping on the scale. :)

Yey, crossfit tomorrow!

Week 1. Day 5. Feb 26 2010

Third crossfit day went great til we got to the WOD and I fell apart on energy.  We ran back through deadlifts, added sumo deadlifts, learned burpees.  I was feeling MUCH more confident on deadlift form which was a relief, despite not having practiced in the week.  Sumo deadlifts I'm a bit less settled on but will figure it out.

Warm ups - catch with 4kg and 10kg ball. 10 squats, 10 pullups, 10 deadlifts.
Running (was late, ran the last 1.5 miles to class!)
WOD - 10 deadlifts, 20 burpees, 3 sets for time.

I only got through about a set and a half because the burpees killed me - muscles just gave out. This was a big wakeup call for me on how out of shape I am and how much I partly just need some good old aerobic cardio conditioning.  In a week or so I'll try to add some running in on the off days to make up for it. This was just a mess.

Second round of burpees I pulled a muscle in the groin -- turned out it was fine, just 'tweaked.' My usual problem is to go balls to the wall before my muscles are ready.  So when I felt it go ping on a burpee, decided to just chill out. Brian showed me a few stretches to do and that helped it get better, stayed for a bit and then got home to S.

Made some monster salad. Didn't fitday (I don't think I will on the weekends for the moment, often not on the computer) but had yogurt for breakfast, tuna and veggies for lunch, and monster salad with quinoa, broccoli, carrots, avocado, linseeds, other seed I've forgotten, and tahini dressing. Awesome stuff. 

Week 1. Day 4. Feb 25 2010

Thursday was a bit of a sad sedentary day. Came home from work early frustrated with work and some hours that got cancelled, thus leaving me a bit worried about cash for the month.  Got some walking in as otherwise would have done NOTHING, but that's it. 

Food not so hot, too much carbs.  Yogurt for breakfast, tuna and bulger for lunch, S made a beautiful (clean) veggie curry with rice for dinner after we tried and failed to order sushi.

One of those days. On edge, bit frustrated, S still ill and both of us tired of winter.

Oh, and I drank three glasses of old box wine.  Pish.

On the upside:
Drank loads of water
Avoided much wanted sugar
Low protein, but forced myself to at least get some tuna in, and lots of veggies.
Finished Volume 2 of the Zombies book.
Read lots of my How Children Fail book by John Holt.

Food Goals, Weight Goals

I spent a lot of time yesterday looking at nutrition plans again. (I wrote 'diet plans' and deleted it -- as much as I'd like to lose some weight this is about eating for strength, for immune system function, and for energy too.)  I think for the moment, I need to simply focus on eating relatively clean, no booze, and keeping the calories low enough that the weight starts to shift.  For me 'eating clean' still means sticking to what I would do if on an old JSF style weights program - lots of protein, relatively minimal carbs and extremely minimal processed carbs, lots of veggies and some fruit, some fat.  In practice, I don't tend to eat loads of fat and what I eat I'm fine with (some olive oil, or what's in my food, not much sweets or processed snacky type stuff) as long as I keep it reasonable; minimizing the carbs is the tricky part and what I have to watch. So I'm just going to get my veggies up again and keep the protein as high as I can. I know from experience that a week or so of that will leave me feeling good with better energy, sleeping better, all the rest.

Crossfit loves the zone and also paleo, but I think it's likely to be quite a while before I do real paleo, if ever, due to the restriction on pulses/all carbs/diary.  A more zone-y diet has worked well for me in the past, and while I'm gettting back to exercise I want to get those habits formed first instead of throwing myself full throttle into a diet/exercise overhaul.   I'm also toying with the idea of doing a proper detox and slow reintroduction of foods to check for any RA triggers before doing any strict zone/paleo stuff.   Point being, I'll give it a month and evaluate whether generally keeping clean is working or I need to be a bit stricter. If after two months I'm not making real gains at crossfit and dropping some weight I'll consider changing things up more seriously. For now, it's more important for me to just be CONSISTENT with training and eating generally well.

A note on weight. Starting weight between 138-140 (139 today but has been lower previously in the week, wondering if this is due to Mon/Tues carb overload!).  I know but will be frustrated anyway that in the first month little weight will come off.  In the past, it's during the second month I can actually see changes. I'll be taking starting pics this week.

And despite the fact that we all know the scale doesn't matter, here's the current plan. Relatively modest and attainable over a 20 week period.
End of Feb: 138
End of March: 134
End of April: 129* evaluation point on diet.
End of May: 124
End of June: 118-120
July 24th: 116-120

Of course, if I'm noticing differences in the pictures and in the mirror and my belt loops, I won't really care about the scale. But progress has to continue or I make changes to the routine.

Why deadlifts?

After I got back from crossfit last night, when Wonder asked me how it went I said something along the lines of, "Really good. A bit frustrated because I can't get the deadlift form down, so I stayed and jumped rope til I wasn't mad about it anymore. I'll just have to practice a bit."  To which he replied, "Why deadlifts? Why do you have to do deadlifts?"  Tired and hungry and trying to figure out a quick answer so I could go make food, I realized I couldn't. Why deadlifts means a lot. Why are you focusing on weights instead of cardio? Why deadlifts instead of other weights? Why are they important? Why'd you choose it? I couldn't do a quick answer, replied, "I think this is a longer question and I need to get some food inside me" and disappeared into the kitchen. But I need an answer for it.

So, I'm trying to pull up the two years of reading I did about fitness and nutrition.  Aerobic v anarobic exercise. Aerobic is activity that pulls energy mostly from oxygen stores -- running, swimming, etc -- and tends to be longer, steady-state activity. Great for improving cardiovascular performance and for helping to decrease bodyfat simply through some extra calorie burning.

Problems? You need a LOT of it to contribute to any significant fat loss and can do a lot more for yourself simply not taking in the calories in the first place than by trying to burn them off. And not only does aerobic exercise not do much for muscle building (which is key if you're trying to get your metabolism going), if you do loads of it without the proper nutrition you're much more likely to actually eat into your muscle reserves, thereby actually lowering your fitness and lowering your metabolism.  Think of marathon runners and their relatively wasted bodies.  Granted, I'm not likely to get anywhere close to muscle wasting through aerobic activity like running any time soon without some serious training -- but I ain't going to try to, as being a wasted marathon runner isn't my goal, dropping fat, putting on muscle, and increasing my strength and speed is.

Anaerobic activity, including most team sports (football, basketball, etc) and also full body weight lifting (deadlifts, squats, etc) uses fast-twitch muscles for high intensity output.  Good stuff because you also burn the calories (shite is intense), with elevated metabolism for an extended time after the activity ends, but you also build muscle at the same time. So we get calorie loss, metabolism boost, and muscle building (also a metabolism boost). Get stronger and leaner at the same time.

So if we like anaerobic activity, why deadlifts? You hit the whole back and surrounding muscles, for one -- much better than isolation weight exercises that are likely to lead to imbalances or places of weakness, a sure kicker for injury. Plus the core (lower back, abdominals, glutes). It works more muscles simultaneously than any other lift. It's really safe. It helps with grip. And, they're exhausting and give you an aerobic workout.  Highly effective anaerobic workout focused on a key strength area that helps ward off injury (and makes your ass look great) while giving you an aerobic workout so you can skip the running?

Fucking A.  Got my answer.

--
lower back and lats, glutes, pretty much rock ALL the leg muscles, forearms, shoulders, traps.

Week 1. Day 3. Wed 24 2010

Second time at crossfit, slightly less sparkly than the first as I was still massively sore from Monday's workout, shite at deadlifts, and generally a lot lower on confidence and energy. Still the right place for me for sure. I think I was partly affected by having a new kick ass girl join the group - crazy or not, think I got a bit intimidated. Got over it, and got through the workout --- the thighs even loosened up eventually.  Also, the workout was a big heads up about my really low strength levels and reminded me I'm starting from scratch here. Better to go a bit easier and take longer to work up than to overdo it and hurt myself, especially as I'm figuring out my limits.

Slept like the dead, woke next morning still fairly tired. Body getting used to being asked to actually do stuff again!

I win because:
Ate well-ish. Breakfast - yogurt and honey and fruit. Lunch - tuna and yogurt and a bit of curry paste. Snack. cabbage.  Fuckup - some banana bread at BIOS.  Dinner. tiny sushi, prawns and stir fry (abt 400 cals total on dinner). Daily Burn calculates at about 1400 which is fine, not great and will need to drop more, but will get there and trying not to make all the changes at once.

No booze!

Wanted and avoided: chocolate, sandwich, something sweet. At various points of the day.
Upped my water intake.

Woke up looking forward to crossfit.

Stayed to skip rope and burn some extra calories. Brian triedto show me how to do the double skips and I don't have anything close to the hang of it.
Got in extra walking (took bus to Regent Street and then walked to work from there. Added 25 minutes of walking to get to work then an extra 15 in the evening = at extra 40min from my usual routine.

WOD:
15 pullups w/bands
10 squats
5 pump push (black band)
Only got three rounds in, most of the time spent trying to get squat form right as I was so sore I was just toppling over. Ridiculous.

Need to:
Practice squat and deadlift form.
Come to class w/macros, micros, and food group you can live without. (I assume protein, fat, carbs; micros nutrients; bread/grains?)
----
update. Indeed, macronutrients are protein, carbs and fats. micronutrients are all the vitamins.

Week 1. Day 2. Feb 23 2010

No crossfit today, but spent far too much time on the sofa looking up more crossfit testimonials, before and afters, all the rest. I know this is mostly silly; crossfit is great and everything, but I need to get my diet locked in before I see any major changes regardless, and all of the people who did well will have nailed this. But fine. Inspiration.

I ought be charting my food even if the moment I'm not explicitly calorie tracking, as part of the ongoing effort to figure out what foods make me feel good/bad/deadly.  I've really been in stupidly good shape the last few months, no colds, no joint problems. Looks like largely a stress issue; RA is the direct consequence of over a year of serious daily stress, and a year of awesome seems to have mostly knocked it out of the water.

I was a wee bit worried that crossfit Day 1, even though it was a short day, would overwhelm my exercise deprived body and send me into a funk.  It looks like non-stress, good sleep, good food, and my boy's pheremones are stronger than a workout session. Slept like the dead, woke up in the morning feeling a bit deep and fevery, but then it totally burned off.  Left work early and did a few hours of trekking around and grocery shopping with an obscene amount of canned goods in the backpack and all fine, so I think I'm in the clear.

NUTRITION, not my favorite nutrition day:
Breakfast- oatmeal
Lunch - Tofu
Afternoon - spinach wrap
Dinner - Sausage (one and a half), masses of red cabbage, bit of mash.

Whoohoo, carb overload!

EXERCISE:
2 hours tromping around with my backpack, at least 400 cals.

In other news, woke up feeling totally hungover without any booze.

To the showers.

Week 1. Day 1. Feb 22 2010

Day 1 at Crossfit. First impressions: this is exactly what I've been looking for.  Some advice and training to get the Olympic lifts in form, which is what I always missed when lifting on my own and got intimidated by lest I break my bones or head; community instead of slogging it out in the neighborhood or in a gym alone; fucking PUSH and running til you drop; a bit of industrial chic in place of purty lighting and shite music; bit of bare bones.

Brian was great, walked me and Adam through, the right mix of human and no-nonsense, and knowledgable. The number of times I've tried to go to gym trainers and gotten bullocks back from them, wasted time, wanted to hand them some training literature - what a change!

We trained on rings, squats, pushups... squat form is good but my right knee keeps kicking out on the way back up. Something to work on. All the rest fine. I am a weak motherfucker at the moment, can't wait to change that.

WOD:
run 200
15,12,9 rings, squats, pushups.
run 200

I finished a good five minutes behind Andre (who told me a bit about himself the first night, and who rocks) but I finished, and I know I'm only going to get better and faster and stronger. Am so excited and wish I'd started two months ago as planned, but I'm here now.

YEEEEEEEHHHHAAWW!