What A Difference A Year Can Make

One week ago today, I turned 26. Just a few days before that, I'd found the photo that was taken at my 25th birthday party. I hate the photo. Seeing myself when the server handed it over was truly embarrassing. It was one of those moments when you realize how much weight you've gained. I remember how I felt getting ready for that dinner, not even knowing that all of my friends were planning on surprising me. I'd practically been in tears. I felt like I had nothing nice to wear that fit my body. My confidence was close to an all time low.

Left: January 20, 2013
Right: January 20, 2014

Circle back, 365 days later and I am 100% healthier. I've been CrossFitting for almost 7 months and eat a much more clean and whole diet than any other time in my life. I've repaired friendships that I'd been damaging due to my own insecurity. I'm on the road to being financially free and my relationship with my significant other is built on love, trust, and respect. 

While I'm not looking forward to being another year closer to 30, I am excited for the progress I know I can make between now and my next birthday. 

2014 Goals

2013 has held loads of change for me. While it has been the only year since high school that I haven't had multiple jobs (hooray for only one W-2!), much has changed in my personal life. After breaking free from a terrible relationship, I found myself growing and changing in ways that I find amazing. I found CrossFit not too long after that breakup, which catapulted my life down a new and healthy path. I'd always been interested in healthy food and being fit, but my commitment to those interests had been a roller coaster of highs and lows. Finding my physical strength gave me the confidence to make improvements in other areas of my life, which I talk a little bit about below. Goals 1-5 are areas that I want to begin/continue improving on that relate to the way I treat myself, others, and my future, behavioral goals, if you will. Goals 6-10 are fitness goals that I can work towards in the gym.

1. Eliminate debt: because, duh. So many doors would be open to me if I didn't have those extra bills hanging over my head each month. With the exception of a car payment, I'm going to attempt to pay off as much debt as I can this year.
2. Fill out the FAFSA: If I'm even considering going back to school, which I very well may be, I'll need to have this done.
3. Get more sleep: at least 7 hours a night. This means I'm going to have to go to bed earlier, and if I want to start working out in the mornings as well as in the evenings, I'll have to go to be even earlier! 
4. Cut out negative self-talk and negative thoughts towards others: How awesome would the world be if we quit thinking the worst of ourselves and others? I'm starting with myself on this one and making a big effort to stop harsh and judgmental thoughts.
5. Volunteer: In 2013, I was given $100 by my company to donate to a charity of my choice. I chose Girls on the Run because I really get their purpose.  As a girl that often felt inferior growing up, I would have loved the chance to have encouraging female coaches and friends who were all working towards a goal (and achieving it!). I want to do more with Girls on the Run in 2014.
6. Run a half-marathon
7. Muscle-up
8. 150lb Front Squat/175lb Back Squat
9. 150lb Clean & Jerk
10. 115lb Snatch

Here's to a Healthy and Happy 2014!

Awesome Gadget

I recently admitted to my boss that being able to shop from my phone is deadly to me after I bought a yogurt maker from Groupon on the way back to the office from a client visit. I should not have shopping apps on my phone! But I do, and I occasionally find some really good deals on fun/useful/unique items, like this one:

3M Filtrete 4-Bottle Water Station

It's basically a water filter that filters tap water directly into four 16.9 oz BPA free bottles so that you can reach into your fridge, grab a water bottle, and go. This is great for all the times I'm running out the door and don't have time to fill up my Nalgene bottle from my Brita pitcher, or if I need a water bottle and the pitcher is out (often). The bottle size is also much easier to use with Nuun tablets or Crystal Light type flavor packets which are meant for 16.9 oz of water. Rarely am I ever without a water bottle of some sort. I feel incomplete without one! It's been so long since I've been a soda drinker that I don't crave sweet drinks, but I do notice myself wanting to snack more when my real issue is thirst. Anything that curbs the snack attacks is a good thing in my book!

The filter is really fast. It's a disk that sits in the top section. When the bottles are connected, they each push up on an individual valve that allows water to filter through, but stops it from leaking out when the bottle is removed. It's seriously neat. I can't stress enough how much I love grab-and-go items that help keep me on the right track.

The Holidays: Making Spirits and Scales Soar

It starts with Thanksgiving, sometimes several rounds of eating, depending on your group of family and friends. The Christmas parties come next: work, clients, gym, book club, to name a few. Christmas itself is usually multiple occurrences of cookies and comfort food, too. New Year's Eve is next, with surefire snacking until the wee hours of the New Year. Of course, between all of these celebrations, your schedule is probably so packed that the drive-through seems like a sensible solution to the state of "hangry" you find yourself in.

Come January 2nd, you look in the mirror and hardly recognize the person staring back at you who looks at least 20lbs heavier than you know you are. You become one of the thousands of people joining a gym to fight off the bulge for another 1-11 months, until the holidays come again.

Sound familiar? This year, I'm bound and determined to NOT have that as my story. My job is in it's second year of "The Holiday Weight Maintenance Challenge", from which you win a prize if you can maintain your weight from before Thanksgiving through the New Year within a 2 lb window. I admit that last year, I barely made it into the window, for shame.

To help avoid the danger zone this year, I'm participating in the gym's "Holiday Nutrition Challenge", which has laid out five nutritional stages that CrossFit encourages (Eating Clean, Gluten Free, Zone, Paleo, Eat to Perform), and challenges you to pick one that is one step above where you currently are and stick to it for 20 days in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The idea is that you will be building good habits and encouraging good food choices at holiday events which will offset any weight gain brought on by holiday indulgences.

Nick and I picked the Eating Clean phase to try to stick to, with a smattering of the Gluten Free stage. We already ate pretty clean, but I knew that I definitely wanted to push myself to eliminate more processed foods and added sugar and salt from my diet. The Monday night after Thanksgiving, we went on a huge shopping trip and collected a serious stock of veggies, sweet potatoes, chicken and fish.

It makes sense, right? Sure, we have to get up a little earlier or take a little more time out of our evenings to prepare healthy dinners and brown bag lunches, but living a long and healthy life while getting a boost towards our fitness goals is certainly worth it. 

Sunday Morning Sweat

Image via CARLINE JEAN / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS*No, those are not my abs. Someday...*

On Sunday morning, I met up with some of my fellow CrossFitters to try something new. I've always been interested in yoga and found the idea of hot yoga intriguing and terrifying. There's a new hot yoga studio in town that a few girls have gone too, so we decided to give it a try, since our box hasn't come up with a way to offer yoga classes yet.

I'm glad I went with a group for many reasons. I was seriously intimidated by the idea of a 75-minute long hot yoga class. I would probably have been intimidated by a 75-minute long regular yoga class, to be honest, since I had only ever been to one actual yoga class before Sunday. I'd always practiced on my own, which is nice, because you can't see how weird you look. Knowing that I had friends in the group and that at least one of them was pretty experienced seriously eased my nerves.

The room was definitely hot. I started sweating as soon as we did anything other than lay there in Child's Pose  Nick was nice enough to tell me I was "glistening" when he looked over at me during class. (That's right, my boyfriend does yoga, hehe.) At one point, in Downward Dog, sweat dripped off of my chin and up my nose. "Glistening" may have been an understatement. There was definitely a ton of water chugged throughout the rest of that day. Overall, it was an incredible workout, especially for my arms and abs (my weak spots) and wasn't nearly as scary as I thought. I'd definitely recommend it, but be prepared to want to nap afterwards until you get used to the practice.

I can't wait to go again!

On Becoming A Morning Person/Adult

I've been feeling guilty lately about how often I am late for things: WODs, work, church, etc. A friend posted this article from the Huffington Post on Facebook last week and I really felt like it was aimed at me, although I'm sure it wasn't.  Regardless, I knew I was getting out of control with my fashionable lateness. Not to mention, I've always felt like there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything I want to do done.

This past weekend, I hopped out of bed a little earlier than my weekend usual time and used those bits of time (less than an hour each day) to do something productive, like throw laundry in the washer or wash a few dishes. I noticed that it set the tone for the whole day and I ended up feeling really accomplished.

This weekend also brought on Daylight Savings Time, meaning that it is now starting to get dark by the time I leave work. Since the marathon relay that I ran in, I've really wanted to keep up with running a few times a week. I'm not really comfortable running in the dark, so I really can't run during the week unless I plan to go straight from work or in the mornings. But there's not enough hours in the day to plan ahead and pack running clothes or go before work, remember?

All this let me to the conclusion that I need to start getting up earlier. As in, when my alarm goes off the first time and not after a million "snoozes". Yesterday, a friend at work told me about this app that makes you walk around in order to turn it off and doesn't let you hit snooze. I downloaded it right away and couldn't wait to try it this morning.

At 6am, the alarm started ringing. The first time it rang, I was so disoriented that I pulled the phone off its charger and dropped it, which seemed to silence it for a moment. Then the ringing started again, so I started walking the prescribed number of steps to try to shut it off. I realized that I needed to unlock the phone to activate the step counter, or something...my brain wasn't quite all the way on.  Once I did that, the counter counted down my steps for two or three rounds I'm guessing the number of step sets coincided with the number of alarms that went off.  It's going to take a few more days before I truly get the hang of how to turn the alarm off. 

It's also going to take a few more days to get the hang of staying out of bed and not crawling back under the covers because my apartment is cold. Baby steps...

Struggle Much?

This week has been tough. Its hard to put a finger on why, but I think I may just be tired. I pushed myself hard in my training last week, doing double WODs a few days plus comp work. Even though I took the weekend (Sat/Sun) off from working out, I still feel sluggish this week.

I'm trying to push to using higher weights in my WODs. I Rx'd cleans in a WOD this week and would've Rx'd the whole workout if I had my HSPU down. But I don't. There's so many little things that I modify that frustrate me. I'm impatient with my strength, mostly in my arms. I want to be able to Rx pull ups and HSPU so badly. And double-unders: didn't I used to be good at jumping rope? Haha, I would've been awesome at CrossFit as a kid.

I have to remind myself that it's only been 2.5 months. No one gets to the Games after 2.5 months, or ever, really. I'm not saying I ever will, but why not shoot for the top?

My list of aspirations seems to grow daily, much quicker than my actual progression towards those goals, it seems. Patience is a struggle for me. It always has been. I like goals that I can achieve quickly since my attention span isn't the greatest. This set of goals that is forming in my mind will be a true test of determination and resolve.

I have to keep reminding myself that health and fitness are what I always come back to when whatever job I have isn't fulfilling or I am unhappy in some other area of life. It is my passion and I'm not only hurting myself by not following it, I'm hurting all the people I could be helping along the way.