I was grocery shopping the other day and one of the aisles had a little speaker in it that was playing an ad for Beefaroni. The point of the ad was to let moms know that it is made with whole grains making it a healthy choice for kids. Serious? That is so ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Beefaroni. Personally, I prefer the Mini Raviolis but it’s basically the same stuff.

I just found it kinda funny that Beefaroni was being marketed as health food for kids. In the frozen foods section I was waiting for a voice to tell me that ice cream is a great choice for breakfast because it contains milk. Call it what it is. When you eat ice cream it is not because you want to nourish your body its cause you like the taste. It feeds your soul. When you eat a lot of unhealthy food you are simply choosing to satisfy an urge and not to optimize your health. If I decide to have macaroni and cheese for dinner I am not going to kid myself that the whole grains in the noodles are going to counter the pool of melted processed cheese powder and butter they are swimming in. I think it is better to know exactly why you eat something and not get the purpose mixed up like that.

We did a good job of this yesterday. We came across a couple recipes on our meal plan that we did not really enjoy. They satisfied the hunger and the nutrition but definitely not the desire for yummy food. But our priority right now is eating better. So at the moment its just fuel. That mindset made it easier to just go ahead and eat it instead of heading to Smash burger. We’ll get our flex day soon enough. No need to spend it on Day 3.

Day 4
Todd: 169
Karen: 139

One of the hardest parts of following any kind of diet plan for me is social events. For our challenge we were tempted to simply avoid them for the next couple weeks. That is not desirable and not even practical. On the very first night we were invited to a barbecue at my dad’s for some family in town for just a few days. Don’t want to miss that. Somehow even though the little ones liked showing me different flavors of Jelly Bellies we still both made it through without a hitch. So it is possible. Difficult but possible. There are birthdays coming up, more barbecues, grandma wants to have me come over. We can’t just hole up for 3 weeks, especially with the weather so nice. So we’ll have to figure out a way to make it work.

Day 2
Todd’s weight: 169
Karen’s weight: 141

Not caring much about what I eat for the past month has been pretty nice. The first couple weeks while the scale was out of the bathroom actually went really well. I cooked a lot, ate well, and I didn’t really miss weighing myself. I even dropped a pound. The past couple weeks wasn’t quite so good. I have had a lot more chocolate than a person really needs. Mentally, though, it has been really nice to just forget about it for awhile. However, I don’t want to let loose for too long. It is easy for me to start backsliding to the point where it starts doing real damage.

Todd has been thinking about trying a Paleo-sih diet for awhile now to see how it might affect his performance, energy levels, and the last inch or two around his waist. He found ThePaleoPlan.com and decided he kinda wants to try it. That could not have come at a more perfect time. We have 22 days left before we leave on vacation so between now and then, starting today, we have challenged ourselves to follow the meal plans at ThePaleoPlan.com. (We will be adding supplemental protein shakes and possibly a little dairy). We have very low discipline when it comes to consistently eating healthy so it will really help to do it together. Wish us luck!

Karen’s starting weight: 142
Todd’s starting weight: 171.5

I have been glued to the news about the raid that brought down Osama bin Laden. It has been very exciting but also very aggravating. I am wondering how Al Qaeda feels about their founder and  former commander preaching ‘violent jihad’ and glorified suicide in the name of religion and then cowering behind a woman to avoid a bullet. I am not sure what makes my blood boil more. That or the idea that he probably did it because the woman was just another disposable object in the room. Who knows. The woman may have been just as evil or worse. Or maybe there was no woman at all. I am sure we will never know what it was really like when things went down. But it doesn’t matter. I will always have a vision in my head of him trembling like a little girl and throwing a woman into the line of fire. What a [fill in expletive here].

Event 6:
7:00 to increase reps by 3 ea round for total reps as follows:
3 thrusters @ 65 (100)
3 chest to bar pull ups
6 thrusters
6 chest to bar pull ups
9 thrusters
9 chest to bar pull ups…. (and so on for 7 min)

Well first of all, Saturday I did not improve my score for Event 6. The chest to bar pull ups got sloppy and as a result I was down to one at a time much sooner than Wednesday. Scored 101 in the event though. Certainly can’t complain about that. They are still a little awkward but obviously getting better. Without the couple extra reps I was hoping for it was anybody’s guess where I would end up. You can’t totally trust the leader board but as it stands right now, my finish is 56th in the Region. Whew!

It is not official but according to the scoreboards I am now 2nd place in the world for the title of the girl from any region to have the worst score in an individual workout but still qualify for Regionals. Hahaha! One girl from the US Southeast region managed to do even worse on overhead squats than I did and still grabbed 57th in her region. Nice! 

MBS CrossFit is now 3rd in the region. Incredibly talented and hardworking group of people. 3 of our guys landed in the top 10 with Event 6 scores of 126, 123, and 134! Another qualified in 19th scoring 130 in the last event! 3 of our girls also qualified and a 4th just barely missed. Up through about two weeks ago she could hardly do a single chest to bar pull up but suddenly pulled out 30 of them! What a stud!

It was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. It was also a little more stress than it should have been but totally worth doing. Regionals, here we come…

Looking at the CrossFit Games site this morning, I realized I will be fighting for a record tomorrow. If I work hard enough I have a chance of being the person with the worst score in a single event to still qualify for Regionals. I already made a pretty good run at it on Wednesday. But I have a lot of ground to make up and I am not convinced the job is done. Event 4 killed me. But someone reminded me this week I am not defined by my weaknesses. Tomorrow is an opportunity for me to prove it..

Only 1 event left and so close to the top 60. So close. Sometimes when you are in the middle of competing for something it is easy to take it so seriously that your own stress becomes an impediment to success. It is always good, for so many reasons, to step back once in awhile and remember why you are there. In many cases (not all but many) the reason is because you want to be. On some level for whatever reason – you like it. What a shame it would be to get to the end and realize you worried so much that you didn’t do what you really set out to do – to enjoy yourself. For example, if you have a hard time with push ups like I do, its nice when someone comes up with a way to make them more interesting…

Event 5 Results: 
20:00 for as many rounds/reps of:
5 Power cleans 100 (145)
10 Toes to bar
15 Wall balls 14 lbs to 9′ target

I was looking forward to getting through this workout. For one thing, having it out there was pretty daunting so I was excited to get it over with. But I also knew this could be a decent event for me. No push ups or overhead squats to trip me up. Of the Olympic lifts, power cleans are my favorite. I like wall balls and the target is lower than normal. And after toes 2 bars tripped me up in the first Throw Down Series workout I have been working on them regularly.

Another advantage was that it was 20 minutes. I am sure there are plenty of girls that can go faster but not quite as many that can go faster for that long. 20 minutes is a long time. A really long time. But I was able to keep a pretty steady pace. I can thank Todd for that for dragging me uphill steep hills hours at a time on our mountain bikes.

In the end I did 11 rounds plus 10 reps. A 4th place finish in that event of 470 in our region. My lungs are still burning. I was really excited until I realized it only bumped me up a couple places. It wasn’t nearly enough to recover from the overhead squats. That “chink in my armor” cost me 217 points (lower is better) while the other 4 events combined only cost me a TOTAL of 195. It is possible I won’t recover.

Possible but not inevitable. One event left. There are a lot of girls better than me at chest 2 bar pull ups but I have been working on them so there is a chance. And maybe the endurance will give me an advantage again. Todd showed me a video that was posted on CrossFit Verve’s website that will be going through my mind this week. Will Smith was talking about how successes in life come from unrelenting hard work. He said basically, “you might be faster or better than me but are you willing to die on a treadmill? Cause I am.”

MBS is still holding firm in 3rd place in the region. 16th overall.

Event 5: 
20:00 for as many rounds/reps of:
5 Power cleans 100 (145)
10 Toes to bar
15 Wall balls 14 lbs to 9′ target

Event 6:
7:00 to increase reps by 3 ea round for total reps as follows:
3 thrusters @ 65 (100)
3 chest to bar pull ups
6 thrusters
6 chest to bar pull ups
9 thrusters
9 chest to bar pull ups…. (and so on for 7 min)

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Last year I participated in a before and after photo challenge and lost more than 20 pounds. This year I have another before and after photo challenge to attack. I have been having some mild pains in my neck and my range of motion is getting limited. I can’t tilt my head sideways (like holding a phone to your ear). Everything back there is really tense. So I decided to suck it up and go see a chiropractor last week. Check out these xrays! On the left is a normal healthy neck. That is the after photo I am aiming for. Notice how vertebrae are lined up to form a nice curved C-shaped platform for the head, similar to how you would bend your wrist back to support bowling ball that rests on your hand.

On the right hand side is my neck. Notice how if you traced the vertebrae on the left side you would end up with a squiggly line instead of a ‘C’. Not only is it straight (which I guess is a pretty typical problem) but it is actually starting to curve forward. I am no kind of expert but that doesn’t seem good. She said it looks like I have been in a car accident. Check out the view from the front:

First of all it is S-shaped. At the very top around my jaw line it veers off to the left (to the right in the pic). My head tilts to the right (left in the pic) to compensate. So my head sits on it like a crooked lamp shade. When the chiropractor cracked my neck it sounded like a firing squad. Startled the crap out of me. She said it felt like it’s been a long time since that stuff moved the way it is supposed to. I am really hoping these appointments help with stuff. At least maybe they can get my head screwed on straight. 🙂