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Sunday thoughts (August 7th)
This weekend was filled with intense training sessions. Definitely far more than I’ve been doing up until now. 10 – 3 minute rounds (with 30 second rest) was definitely the biggest physical challenge I’ve ever had until the next day with 30/40 minutes of conditioning drills. After each round I kept thinking “Ok, that must be the end… it couldn’t possibly keep going” and yet it did. I couldn’t help, but laugh through most of it (when I wasn’t desperately trying to gasp for air- my breathing could stand some work). I’m not complaining by the way. I’m no huge fan of sprints or anything (a giant understatement), but take my word for it… Sprints will become my favorite activity before this is all over.
On another note, I have to cut some weight to make it to my 105lb weight class. Today I weighed myself in at 113.
Monday (Day 1)
AM: 30 minute Yoga practice at home focusing on stretching & opening hip flexors (here’s one of my favorite youtube videos that I sometimes use when I’m in a hurry)
PM: 1.0 hour Muay Thai training
First time working with personal trainer. Feels good to get real picky on form. Foundation is everything.
The food I made happen & subsequently ate:
(breakfast) Plain Kefir with fresh blueberries, dried goji berries, and tiny bit of apricot & pistachio granola (by Bread Alone). My favorite granola on the planet.
(lunch) Fresh garden salad with baked chicken with a homemade zesty avocado and greek yogurt dressing. I make enough food to last for at least 2 days of lunch.
(dessert) Kiwi. My new favorite fruit… I don’t know where it’s been all my life. It’s so sweet and refreshing and totally satisfies my sugar cravings (for a short while anyway). They’re also crazy good for you! Who knew these little bad boys had Potassium!?!
(snack 1) raw crunchy carrots.
(snack 2) handful of pistachios.
(dinner) 1 boiled egg, apple Sauerkraut, and tatsoi (Asian spinach). By the time I make it home from the gym I’m trying to decide what I want more – food or sleep. My bed typically sounds more appealing.
Monday wasn’t too rough. I thought I would be in much worse shape, but I was pretty peppy most of the day. The GreatistYou challenge officially kicked off so you can go vote for me now.
Tuesday (Day 2)
AM: 30 minute lap sprint swimming (my silly knees won’t let me run so I’ve found swimming to be the next best thing).
PM: 2.5 hours of Boxing & Muay Thai
The food I made happen & subsequently ate:
(breakfast) Plain Kefir + fresh strawberries and blueberries + muesli
(lunch) Fresh garden salad with baked chicken with a homemade zesty avocado and greek yogurt dressing. I bring the dressing in a teeny tiny separate container so my greens don’t get soggy.
(dessert) strawberries. Letting go of sugar is really hard. All I want is a pint (or two) of creamy Talenti roasted almond gelato.
(snack 1) raw pistachios. At approximately 3pm, my body does thing where it totally freaks out unless I feed it sugar. I admit, I haven’t had the best habits when it comes to the S word, but damn this not having sugar at all thing sucks. I was hoping eating some yummy nuts would do the trick. I was wrong.
(snack 2) crunchy raw carrots.
(dinner) 1 boiled egg, apple Sauerkraut, and tatsoi (Asian spinach). I boil several eggs at once and just keep them ready to eat in the fridge to save time.
I’m feeling worn down. Not as much physically as mentally. I was feeling pretty good about the prospects of this whole thing and my ability to make this happen just a couple days ago… And Whoosh… Just like that, I’m not so sure. I feel extremely discouraged and my damn anxiety is peaking it’s ugly stupid head. I haven’t meditated in a while and I knew (I just knew!) this was coming. Tomorrow is a rest day, I can’t wait to meditate the hell out of this funk.
Wednesday (Day 3)
Recovery day. Hair cut. Meditation. Gilmore Girls. More Meditation. Oh & I finally got some head gear 🙂
I haven’t meditated in weeks. Possibly even a month. This scares me a bit. I used to meditate every day for 15 minutes and absolutely relied on it for my day-to-day sanity… I’ve felt pretty damn grumpy lately and this explains it.
The food I made happen & subsequently ate:
(breakfast) Plain Kefir + 1/2 peach + muesli
(lunch) Sautéed Kale, browned onions, white beans, fresh scallions, carrot greens, and quinoa — All in one lovely medley. I use browned onions + garlic + cayenne pepper to season almost everything I eat. The scallions and carrot greens make this dish a bit different… I also used a wee bit of Soy sauce.
(dessert) Half a fresh peach
(dinner) Tuna salad (tuna + plain greek yogurt + tatsoi + cayenne pepper) & About a pound (I don’t actually know, but it was a lot) of watermelon.
I’m feeling a whole lot better than this time last night. I don’t know what I was thinking letting my daily meditation go away. Re-evaluating the situation with a much less mucky mind, it’s easier to get myself a little perspective. My perspective. My endurance sucks. Yup. Good. There’s a great opportunity for me to make it suck less. The only way I know to make conditioning suck less is to do it over and over and over again until I like doing it.
Thursday (Day 4)
AM: Acupuncture. My knees suck so I’m hoping a weekly regiment will keep the inflammation at bay. I also use it to release super tight muscles (like tension in my shoulders and neck).
PM: 3 hours of Boxing & Muay Thai
The food I made happen & subsequently ate:
(breakfast) Plain Kefir with raspberries.
(lunch) We went out for Mexican. Lunch on Thursdays is our company’s day to eat out as a team. I knew this was going to be one of the toughest days of the week seeing as how we typically choose ah-mazing places for our mid-day delight. Most of said places tend to have a low selection of spinach and a much higher selection of beef rang-dang (seriously YUM). I had a Peblano pepper stuffed with some sort of quinoa medley. It was good. I make quinoa better though.
(dessert) peach.
(dinner) Boiled egg + apple Sauerkraut + bean sprouts (spicy truffle oil) + fresh kiwi.
Not going to lie… I’m still hungry, but I’m also crazy tired. I woke up at 4.30am this morning to work at the food coop and it’s almost midnight. Sleepy time. So far, I’d say this one week has felt more like 3 weeks.
Friday (day 5)
AM: 30 minutes of swim sprints. These suckers defeated me again this morning, but by golly I will make them my bitch by the end of this thing.
PM: 1.5 hour conditioning & sparring
The food I made happen & subsequently ate:
(breakfast) Plain Kefir with fresh peaches.
(snack 1) I gave into temptation and ate a delicious half loaf of bread and cheese.
(snack 2) pistachios & walnuts
(lunch) giant bowl of muesli & Apricot & pistachio granola
(dessert) peach
(dinner) fruit from an edible arrangement bouquet (from the lovely team at Greatist)… I wasn’t hungry much.
Ok so I’m feeling pretty low on energy and brain power the last couple of days. Tuesday I thought it was just because I was training more, but no it’s definitely something else. I’m having trouble connecting the dots, like my brain is moving 10 times slower than normal. SO weird. It’s not great for daily life (and work, duh), but also training is way hard when you can’t repeat combos because I can’t follow along. I’m thinking it may be that I’m not eating enough carbs or something. I’m barely eating any actually (except for today when I ate a giant bowl before training). I’m taking this as a sign to maybe eat a bit more carbs, perhaps for lunch. Definitely a good thing. Who doesn’t love carbs (the good kind, of course)?!?
Saturday (Day 6)
AM: 45 minutes conditioning; 1 hour footwork/form drills ; 15 minute yoga stretch
Being social and eating extremely clean (and very closely monitored) is not always conducive to one another. With a little discipline it can be done… sort of. This weekend was one of my close friend’s birthday and we celebrated with a whole lotta pool time out in Long Island. I didn’t eat quite as well as I know I should have what with all the chips and salsa and chips and guac, but I did monitor my weight for most of the day. Not the most fun, but it did the deed.
The food I made happen & subsequently ate (I didn’t really make all this stuff):
(breakfast) Museli + almond milk
(lunch) Sautéed Kale, browned onions, white beans, fresh scallions, carrot greens, and quinoa — All in one lovely medley. (leftovers)
(snack 1, 2, 3) Ok, so here’s where things went down hill… corn chips, salsa & guac… a LITTLE bit of brie and white crackers (my will power didn’t stand a chance).
(dinner) cucumber gespacho (spelling?) and cold poached salmon… I knew I had made some mistakes at this point so I pretty much stuck away from eating the rest of dinner. Not the healthiest, sure… but I definitely ate enough calories for the day and not eating anymore isn’t going to kill me once.
*The hardest thing I’ve had to do up until now… avoid a gelato tasting and delicious birthday cakes. Whoa. I mean a GELATO tasting. I had to just go into another room and wait things out. It was over before I knew it… If you know me and understand my love for all things cold, sugary, and creamy you’d understand what kind of an accomplishment this was. I’m still aching for my loss. I am SO looking forward to eating my first cup of ice cream after this fight!!
No alcohol for me this weekend, instead I sipped on a delicious watermelon, seltzer water, and mint mocktail. It really was quite tasty!
Sunday (Day 7)
Feeling a little (by which I mean a lot) guilty about not being home to train. So I did a really small sweat session before hitting the pool. 3 sets of 3 minute burpees. I go as fast as I can without passing out with 30 seconds in between each set. It sucks, but they are getting easier (or is that just wishful thinking?).
The food I made happen & subsequently ate (again, didn’t really make all this):
(breakfast) Half of an everything flagel with chive cream cheese, lox, red onion, and capers… and mangoes. Ok… so this was too much even for my epic will power. I LOVE LOVE LOVE bagels with lox. Like the kind of love you develop over time and grow to cherish… it’s really really hard to let go. And they were right in front of me. I couldn’t not. So I did. It was fucking glorious. Seriously. YUM.
(lunch) burger patty (just the meat) and a bowl of cantaloupe, watermelon, & mango
(dinner) Salad: fresh heirloom tomatoes, green pepper, bean sprouts, and pistachios – with a zesty garlic dressing I made (garlic, avocado, plain greek yogurt, lemon, olive oil).
(dessert) Homemade popsicle. Unsweetened Almond milk, cashew butter, fresh strawberries, raspberries.
I’m looking at my schedule next week and I’m not really seeing any rest days… not great, but I’m also not seeing how I could possibly have one. I have so much to drill into my muscle memory and make my heart stop jumping like a freaking monster after 6 minutes of intensity. I can’t make that happen by resting. I’m also quite certain my body will simply fail me if I try to keep training up for 7 days straight… I’m hoping if I keep a couple days uber light it will be ok.
2nd weigh in: 111.4 lbs (that damn flagel!) It’s cool, I’ll make up for it. Lost 1.6 of 2 lbs.
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Funk Meets A Lady 