Progress and poetry

Worked out again this morning at CrossFit South Bay. Which wouldn't be unusual, except that it was Forrest's first class as the instructor!
We did squat cleans -- a tough movement to teach. But he did it really well. So cool to see... So now that he's training, he's also sharing the responsibility for writing blog posts up there. To commemorate his first day, I wanted to share the post he did right after going through last weekend's level 1 certification.
Feeling super tough, he decided to blog about it ... in Haiku.
This one is my very favorite:

Functional movement
I need help off the toilet
Not so functional

You can read the rest of them here if you're interested....(And in case you're wondering, yes he did Photoshop his head on top of one of the winners of the CrossFit games. He's the one in the pink glasses...)
In Paleo news, I'm feeling like I'm at the point where I can't imagine returning to my old eating habits. Last night at AJ's going away dinner, Justin ordered onion rings and I was surprised at how surprised I was. I mean, I realize that as time goes on, I'll have a fry or a cupcake from time to time just like Justin occassionally can order onion rings. Just strange how right now, I'm really not feeling like eating any of that stuff. The results are too good to ignore... My clothes are super loose and earlier this week I hit a two-rep deadlift max of 200 pounds. A month ago, my one-rep max was 180.

Mind games

Work and life have been crazy lately.
And as explosive and exhausting and intense as CrossFit is, it has provided the calming balance in my life.
Take yesterday: Brutal day at work. I filed three blogs and a front-page story. I had a blowup with my boss and a confrontation with a woman who has been a thorn in my side my entire career. It's politics, and I'm used to it. But when there's a lot going on all at once, sometimes all I want to do is punch someone or .... shoulder press and row?
First, we worked up to our two-time max shoulder press, when Lindsay became a perfect example of the power of mental strength. I failed at 85 pounds, and she got it up. Then she added 10 pounds more -- a pretty big jump considering we were approaching our maximum capacity. She actually thought there were only 90 pounds on the bar when she started the lift. She also thought she had put up the same weight a couple weeks ago during a work out that involved picking up a load from the ground and heaving it over your head any way possible. So no sweat lifting that much again, she told me.
So she did. Twice.
It wasn't till she dropped the bar and Justin complimented her on the 95 pounds she lifted that we realized how much weight she had just put up. Then Lindsay remembered that when she did the WOD a couple weeks ago, she was using a 15 pound junior bar that was 30 pounds lighter.
If she had realized before she tried to do the press, she said she doesn't know if she would have been able to. Now she knows she can, and I think that's awesome. (In appreciation, I posted this photo so you won't be the only lifting weight with a funny face on the internet.)
Anyway, after shoulder pressing, we did three 500 meter sprints on the rowers.
I have never felt more at peace, more unburdened by life's bullshit, than laying on the ground after my third sprint. Quads and glutes were still spasming. A sweat angel growing on the ground. My friends wheezing to catch their breath by my side.
It's crazy how pushing to the point of physical exhaustion can actually clear your mind.

F*$@ Yeah!

Excuse my language, but I fucking love these girls and this gym.
Last night was box jumps and burpees. And every single one of these women dominated. Awesome.

Technical difficulties

Apparently when I added this new blog skin, I deleted the ability for people to leave comments or sign up as a follower. (I'm sure all eight of you wonderful people who read this are just dying to leave comments!). Anyway, I'll figure out how to fix it tonight ... Until then, if you want to leave a comment, you can email me at jennifer.r.muir@gmail.com, and I'll post it in a blog.
Thanks for reading, friends.

Domestic violence

I accidentally let it slip last night to my brother that I'm on a Paleo diet.
That wouldn't be a problem if I was talking to anyone but Russ, who's an athletic trainer, likes to argue and has an over-developed sense of outrage for anything he thinks is a health and fitness trend.
I said the word Paleo, and an alarm sounded in his head, blaring that Paleo eating must be ill conceived and I must be stupid for trying it out. By the time his mental rant was finished and he opened his mouth to ask a question, I'm sure he already grouped Paleo with Atkins and hippies and Prius drivers and all the other stereotypes that set him off.
So instead of continuing the discussion, I told him I'd send him some links to websites about the thinking behind Paleo. It's not the bold stand I could have taken, but I figure that given some more time, and even more positive results, he'll come to accept that this is a good lifestyle change -- one i'm definitely not giving up when the two-month Paleo challenge at our box ends.
At this point, though, he either thinks it's fucking up the nutrients in my body, or that Forrest is beating me.
About an hour after our conversation about food, he looked at my legs and noticed a line of bruises up each of my shins. If my shorts were any shorter, he would have seen them on my mid-thighs. There are some on my shoulders, too.
"Are you eating ANY red meat on this diet?"
Lots of it, I told him.
See, I did Elizabeth at CrossFit South Bay on Tuesday. And I came in early to practice because I've been struggling to get my front racked position right -- whether I'm cleaning or pressing. Justin has been working with me on making sure the bar hits on my shoulders instead of leaning back and letting it slam lower on my chest when I'm doing a push press. On Tuesday, Mariessa also helped me with the breakdown transitioning from deadlifting to the clean, where the momentum should start and how to get a full extention. (The woman in this picture isn't me -- she's from CrossFit Winnipeg. But I'll post mine as soon as it's in the gallery.)
Anyway, I was exaggerating every movement and repeating a lot, so I got a little black and blue. Honestly, looking at them makes me feel proud. So I smiled when answering his question.
"Those are from power cleans."
The look of surprise on his face was priceless.

Stocking up

This is Forrest's fridge. And I had to take a picture because it's pure Paleo heaven. I share my fridge with roommates who still have not bought into my new eating lifestyle. So our cupboards are packed with granola bars and crackers, our fridge contains all different kinds of cheese and sugary drinks, and inside our freezer, there are four different kinds of gelato and sorbet.
So I have a much deeper appreciation for how clean and nice a purely paleo-filled refrigerator can be.
He's got eggs, chicken, tons of veggies in those drawers. The OJ is freshly squeezed and used very sparingly in delicious paleo smoothies (this morning's had frozen blueberries, a splash of heavy whipping cream and a splash of OJ). There's tuna and nuts and the juice boxes on top are coconut water, which F loves but I think tastes like armpit.
In other news, after a couple days of fight gone bad dreaming, we did a slightly sideways version of the workout yesterday at CrossFit South Bay (subbed hang cleans for SDHP and double unders for rows). I know it's a different WOD with different goal marks, but I still redeemed myself by scoring 302. And at the beach on Sunday, I randomly ran into a woman who goes to CrossFit Laguna -- one of the boxes hosting the Fight Gone Bad fundraiser Justin recently wrote about. Felt sort of like it was a sign that it's going to pay off to confront head on the stuff that hurts the most. This is one, so I'm thinking I'm going to see if I can move my schedule around to attend this event. (And I already signed up for Race for a Cure. Please do the same!)
Alright, back to work. I'm in the south bay again tonight, back in my home box on Wednesday.
Until then...

Compliments

So last night I went up to Hollywood to see Point Break Live! with a group of friends, many who I haven't seen in a couple months. And before most of them even said hi, they commented on how skinny I look. None of them really knew I've been working so hard at Crossfit or following a paleo diet. But they said it so often that I thought Forrest had told them.
He swears he didn't.
Honestly, the compliments felt great. But it was also a little strange because while I've been focused on eating better and getting stronger, I haven't taken very much time to think about what I looked like before I started Crossfit. Inside, I feel the same. Outside, apparently not so much.
Some time this week, I'll find some photos from when Forrest and I went to Maui earlier this year and post them. It was just a couple weeks before I started Crossfitting. And I'll take some more this weekend to show the difference.

Crossfit dreams

Fight gone bad yesterday was brutal. It was my first time doing it, and Justin prescribed a lighter weight in hopes we'd be able to do more reps. Which worked for everyone -- but me. I scored 254 or something -- compared to all the other girls who had scores at least higher than 280. I know I shouldn't compare myself to other people, and that I should focus on my form and technique and finding ways to push myself harder. Still, I couldn't stop replaying the WOD in my mind all day, mentally telling myself I could have easily done more reps at each station, playing out how it would have looked and felt.
Apparently my subconscious likes that game because it didn't stop when I went to sleep. I woke up all night long, thinking I had just completed a one-minute station and needed to move on to the next. It was so strange. Even stranger was in the morning, Forrest said he had a similar dream.
Then he told me about the one he had a night earlier, which I think wins for best yet. In it, he was chasing after a bad guy or something, but every 400 meters he had to stop and do squats or push ups or sit ups.
Are we crazy, or does Crossfit get in anyone else's head like this too?

MIA and more

I have been such a slacker on this blog lately. And it's not because I haven't had stuff to write about.
For example, I ate dinner at the Crawfish House in Garden Grove on Wednesday, where they bring you bags full of deliciously steamed crab and crawfish and shrimp and sausage, bathed in oil and spice. Eating it was about as pretty as today's fight gone worse WOD is going to look.
Even worse was what happened later that night.
It's clear my body is loving clean, paleo eating. So much so that when I stuffed my face with the oily rich shellfish, my stomach was confused. The meal I ate technically fit within paleo guidelines. It was just a lot greasier than I'm used to eating. So I puked all night. That was fun.
Fastforward to last night. Went up to Echo Park to visit a friend who just moved and we ate Mongolian barbecue. So yum: You get to pick the meat, and all the fresh veggies you want, and they grill it all up on a gigantic circular hot plate on the spot.
A couple other things I've been meaning to mention on here all week:
1. Fish oil is awesome. I shouldn't be able to lift my arms after all the push jerks we did on Wednesday. And yeah, they're sore. But not nearly as bad as they would have been.
2. I can't thank Justin and Mike enough for their support and guidance at the gym. The other night when I was warming up, Justin noticed my squats were off. He was running a WOD and standing across the parking lot, but he still had his eye on everything that was happening -- another example of how he's a complete Cross Fit machine. Later that night, Mike stayed late -- even though he has to wake up super early Thursday mornings -- to help Pinky and me get our form right. He watched until we were done. And afterward, we talked about the beauty in failing at your heaviest weight: You know you're going to be able to do it next time.
I can't tell you how good it feels to know these people have my back every time I'm there, watching to make sure I don't get hurt and offering encouragement to push me to my highest potential. Lifting heavy weight has been scary for me lately. I think I got a little frightened after getting hurt. That fear has been subsiding this week. And it's all thanks to Justin and Mike. Thanks guys.
And finally, Punky and I were talking the other day about one of the few negatives that can be associated with Paleo eating: the cost of food. She said she's been spending $100 a week on groceries and challenged me to figure out how to reign in costs. I'm going out of town this weekend, but next week, I'll break down the cost of my eating every day. I don't know how much I spend each week on food, but I do know that it's less than that -- thanks largely in part to the Vietnamese grocery store around the corner from my house where I can load up a cart full of vegetables and pay less than $10. That's including a bag full of avocados.
SO: Stay tuned. Next week I promise I'll be more consistent. Until then, the Green Market is on Magnolia and Edinger in Fountain Valley if you want to check it out.