THIS IS ME

WholeMay Day 2

Pre-workout: one hard boiled egg

Post-workout: piece of chicken and half a sweet potato

Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs, rest of sweet potato and avocado, cup of coffee

Lunch: chicken, red bell pepper and avocado

Dinner: steak, cauliflower mash, roasted brussels sprouts with bacon, sauteed zucchini with mushrooms

Every Wednesday we have family dinner. Usually one of us will host dinner at our homes but this week we decided to do a pot luck. For the most part our meals have been paleo friendly! This brings me a lot of joy because my family takes into consideration my paleo diet and as a result I have them eating cleaner (or at least trying to, we still have other non-paleo options for them). My brother-in-law (who is a big Samoan guy) loved the cauliflower mash, probably because he thought it was mashed potatoes. Once he found out they weren’t, I don’t think he liked them as much hahaha!

WholeMay Ruberic:

Nutrition: B

Sleep:C

Subjective Analysis: C

WholeMay Day 1

Another month of clean eating and my goal is to blog (in its entirety) all about it!  This round of Whole30 is different than any other time I have done it before. I am participating in the WholeMay +1 challenge at CFPA. I’ll be joining a bunch of other gym members who have never attempted a Whole30 and I hope to serve as a helpful resource! At the end of my daily log, I will answer some questions that have been posted by our coaches to get us to think deeper.

Breakfast: Chicken breast, sweet potato and avocado, cup of black coffee

Lunch: Mixed green salad with grilled chicken, walnuts, oil and vinegar dressing

Dinner: Chicken, orange bell pepper, and macadamia nuts

Questions:

What surprises did you have today?  What habits did you realize you have that you mightn’t otherwise have noticed?

Having completed a Whole30 on April 17th, I tried to keep eating clean until this next challenge started. I gradually reintroduced those foods I hadn’t been eating and noticed that they didn’t taste nearly as good as 1) I remember them tasting and 2) as I thought they would taste in my head. So getting back to eating clean was easier than I thought. The food I ate kept me satisfied .

How did you overcome moments of temptation and get through them.  What helped you resist?

I ask myself: Are you hungry enough to eat chicken and broccoli? If the answer is no, than it’s probably just a craving and that giving it some time I’ll get over it. I don’t focus on the foods I can’t eat but rather the ones I can. That puts temptation into perspective.

What is your mantra to keep your focus strong this month, especially when temptation is high?

Train mean, eat clean!

What was your greatest victory today?  What are you most proud of?

Seamlessly planning my meals for the day. I know what foods to eat and how to set myself up for success!

WholeMay Ruberic (We are scoring our experience with the following):

Nutrition: B (Need to add recovery work)

Sleep - Target Hours/Night: 8, Target Bed time: 10:00pm, Target Wake time: 6:00am: C (not getting enough hours of Zzzz’s, going to bed to late)

Subjective analysis: C (feeling tired in the morning and too much energy during lights out)

Whole9 Seminar at CFPA!

After months of anticipation, Melissa and Dallas Hartwig from the Whole9 came to our box to give a nutrition seminar.

(That’s Coach Tim introducing them at the start of the Seminar)

So what is the Whole9?

Dallas and Melissa gave us information about how the foods we eat affect our bodies by the way we feel, perform and look. They explained how certain foods negatively affect our metabolism and overall health, and what foods we should be consuming so that we can be at our best.

One part of the seminar that really resonated with me was the idea of our health “account”.

You can see from the picture above that Recovery-Stress = Health “Account”, in order to be in better health we want to make sure that recovery is greater than stress. Recovery includes nutrition, sleep/rest and active recovery. Stress can be either psychological or physical (exercise).

When thinking about my own health “account”, I can safely say that I am out of the red… but a few months ago I was so deep in the red because I was eating like crap, not sleeping enough, was highly psychologically stressed and not actively recovering from anything. I was still training but my performance suffered due to these other factors.

I had an AHA! moment, it was drawn out right before my eyes. I was in the red and I knew the choices I had been making were affecting me physically, emotionally and mentally. There are certainly things in life that we can not control, like stress, but everything else we can!

I’ve already completed my first round of the Whole30, and as a result I’m sleeping better, I am not as stressed (or at least learning to better cope with it) and my performance has definitely improved. To keep the clean eating going, I am participating in another Whole30 come May!

Whole30 Complete!

I know I didn’t complete my daily blogging for this challenge but I certainly did finish it. May goal is to blog daily so stay tuned for #WholeMay!

Goals, goals.. and more goals…

I had a great conversation with Trish after the workout about my Whole30. She asked me what my goals were for the Whole30. The quickest answer I could come up with was working on planning and preparation. One of my barriers to eating healthier meals is that I work a crazy schedule and I “don’t have enough time” to cook so I would eat out A LOT! Just getting into the routine of planning what I am going to eat in advance and preparing the foods I am going to eat ahead of time has definitely been a key to success. I always stock my fridge with readily available protein and fresh veggies so when I am in a rush I can just grab and go.

Now that I have had more time to think about more Whole30 goals, I can add a few more to my list.

1) Improve body composition (more muscle and less fat)

2) Improve my performance (get back to my usual BEAST self)

Whole30 Day Eleven and Twelve

Day 11:

Breakfast: 2 hardboiled eggs, half a sweet potato

Lunch: sliced turkey meat, yellow bell pepper and avocado

Dinner: roasted chicken with lettuce, salsa and avocado

Day 12:

Breakfast: 2 hardboiled eggs, mixed green salad with balsamic

Lunch: Chicken salad with green salsa and avocado

Dinner: roast chicken with lettuce, salsa and avocao

Whole30 Day Ten

Today was awesome! I got my Wednesday morning workout in, work then got to spend time with some loved ones!

This morning’s workout was great! Today was our 3rd week of working on Zercher squats. A zercher squat is like any other squat except the barbell is held in the crease of the arm between the forearm and bicep. It is important to keep your elbows in close to your body but maintaining chest up. I partnered up with Katie and we were both ready for a PR. Here’s how our rep scheme went:

Zercher Squat 5-3-3-1-1

85-115-135-155-185

The week before we both finished with 165# Zercher. On the last rep we had decided to go for 175#. When we were gathering the plates to add more weight, Katie said “Let’s do 185#!” Of course I went along with it… I was feeling strong and confident. Once it was my turn at the barbell, I took a deep breath and hit that Zercher PR…. BOOM!

WOD:

Tabata (6x)

Ring rows

Grasshoppers

12’ Shuttle Run

DB Snatch 40/25

Total Score: 34 Rx

a Tabata workout is when you do 20 seconds of work with 10 seconds of rest. For this workout we did the same exercise six times doing as many reps as possible in 20 seconds. There were about 40 seconds of rest between each exercise. The way this workout is scored is that the lowest number of reps for each exercise is your score. So if you scored 10 one round, 9 on the next and then 8 on the last, your score would be 8. You add the totals of all 4 exercises for a final score.

Now for the fuel of the day! I was talking to my coach about my Whole30 and about fueling in the morning. I workout at 9am and I usually don’t eat anything before I workout (I find that my stomach doesn’t do well if I do). She recommended I try eating a hardboiled egg or two before my workout. So that will be my goal to do it all the time, not just sometimes!

Post WOD snack: Rotisserie chicken, half sweet potato

Breakfast: 2 Hardboiled eggs, mixed green salad with avocado

Lunch: my sister invited me over to eat and knowing I’m on paleo she made her yummy tortilla soup. (yea I know, tortillas are not paleo… I had my bowl without the tortilla chips!) I checked the recipe and it classified paleo! (I’ll share the recipe once I get a chance) Here’s the delicious Paleo version:

And this is the non-paleo version with tortilla chips and cheese:

Dinner: I met up with a friend and knowing that I was on paleo, she let me choose the restaurant. I quickly researched online a paleo friendly eatery and what pops up in my search: Nom Nom Paleo’s recommendation of The Patty Shack in Redwood City. I ordered the Midnight burger which is topped with a fried egg and bacon but without the cheese or the bun. Totally recommend this place!!

Whole30 Day Nine

Started the morning with a hearty breakfast. Egg scrambles are always a clutch meal!

Breakfast: Egg scrample with chicken apple sausage, spinach, onion, salsa and avocado

Lunch: leftover Paleo Casserole

Dinner: Duck confit and mixed greens salad with cucumber, mushroom, carrot and onion, balsamic and oil dressing

Whole30 Day Eight

Breakfast: 2 hardboiled eggs, sweet potato, 1/2 avocado

Lunch: Leftover Paleo Casserole, 1/2 avocado

Dinner: Chicken over a bed of lettuce with tomato, onion and salsa