Wow, how did I get from Day 25 to Day 30? Applekale Crossfit, the Quantum Leap edition.

I am a pastor of a church, and sometimes pastors just have those days...or clumps of days...which are packed full of activity. It makes it tough for me to plan a regular schedule. I don't work 9-5. I work when I'm needed, when there's work to do. This past few days have just been that way. Somehow, I haven't been able to squeeze blogging in. Oh well, falling down on that blog-every-day thing.

So I'm pretty happy to say that even though I've had lots of work to do, and even though I am still struggling with a painful, stiff back and hip (thank you very much, Deadlifts from two weeks ago), I still managed to make it in to Crossfit three of those days, AND I took a restorative yoga class at The Yoga Loft  with the wonderful crossfitter yoga teacher Laura Garrison. That class was awesome, y'all. You should try restorative yoga sometime.

So, I will combine all my stats about food and exercise into one big boring post. I'll begin with today and then work backwards.


Monday January 30


What I exercised:

• Met with Albany Crossfit coach extraordinaire Kevin for a training session, to work on my deadlifts. We came to the conclusion that I have trouble activating my hamstrings--they are too flexible--so I am lifting with my back (and injuring myself.) We worked on my noticing when my hamstrings are engaged, and Kevin basically told me to only deadlift sumo-style until I get stronger. He had me practice deadlifting this heavy kettlebell--did you all even know we have 100 pound kettlebells at Albany Crossfit? I need to focus attention on keeping the bar as close as possible to my legs, and on activating the hamstrings as I put the bar down, so that when I am doing multiple reps I don't need to re-set and re-engage them every time.
• Kevin also had me work on back extensions, and told me to work on them every time I'm in the gym, using successively heavier weights, again, to strengthen the hamstrings.
• After we were done training, I did some volume training on pull-ups, this time doing two per minute for twenty minutes on the blue+purple bands. This is to get me closer to my goal of being able to do 5 unbroken pull-ups on the blue band by the end of the challenge.

What I ate:

• 9 AM: breakfast quinoa
• 12:30 PM: giant salad: spinach, greens, 2 hard eggs, 1 c fresh lentil and broccoli sprouts, 1 big carrot, and dressing of olive oil, lemon juice and capers
• 3:30 PM: small cashew cookie 
• 5:30 PM: post-WOD shake (almond milk, spinach, 1/2 banana, 1/2 c frozen berries, 1/3 c protein powder)
• 6:30 PM: I had a meeting scheduled at the Olive Garden tonight. I wasn't too excited about eating one of their wilty salads for dinner, so I was almost glad when I was stood up. I went over to Chipotle and ordered a vegetarian bowl (small amount of rice, black beans, all the salsas, veggies, cheese, sour cream, lettuce and guacamole). Ate half of it.
• 9:30 PM: ate the other half of the Chipotle bowl.

Sunday January 29

Rest day, though I did dance through most of the Jazz Vespers church service :) This was a very busy day for me, working from 7 AM til about 11 PM.

What I ate:

• 7:30 AM: 2 hardboil eggs
• 8:30 AM: 1/2 of a Larabar brand cashew cookie
• 1 PM: the other half of that Larabar and another whole one (Key Lime Pie, and it was tasty. Never tried that flavor before.)
• 3 PM: so starving. Went to Panera and almost without thinking ordered tomato soup and macaroni and cheese. 
• 6 PM: post-Vespers, went to the church chili cookoff, and had a bowl of chili with 1/4 c cheese and a small piece of cornbread.
• 11 PM: (after returning from an emergency hospital visit) ate 1/2 c paleo granola and 1/2 c almond milk.

Funny, a few months ago, I wouldn't have considered this such a bad food day. Now I think it's a train wreck. I didn't pack food before I left the house so I was stuck eating Larabars because I was so hungry. No good carbs at breakfast. No big salad (even though I could have had one at Panera). Mac and Cheese! yikes. 

Saturday January 28

What I exercised: That wonderful restorative yoga class I mentioned earlier. Surprisingly challenging.

What I ate: 

• 9 AM: small protein plus cashew cookie bar
• 12:30 PM: post-yoga protein shake and a coconut cream pie Larabar
• 3 PM: 1 cup cooked quinoa and raisins. No almond milk :(
• 6 PM: vegetarian bowl from Chipotle

Friday January 27

What I exercised:

• 9 AM WOD
• "Filthy Fifties" (scaled to 35's)
  scaled also by using the ballistic box turned the tall way--what is that, 12 inches?--a 25# KB, 25# push press, 10# WB, step-back burpees (hip too stiff to jump back), and tuck jumps instead of double-unders
  29:10

It was the burpees that slowed me way down. I scooted through most everything else.

What I ate:

• 7:30 AM: breakfast quinoa
• 10 AM: post-WOD protein shake
• 12:30 PM: 2 eggs fried in coconut oil, and a big salad of raw spinach with Olive Oil, lemon juice and capers
• 2:30 PM: small apple, string cheese, "granola" bar
• 5:30 PM: 2 more granola bars
• 7:30 PM: dinner out at "Tranquil" restaurant in Binghamton.  Few bites of hummus and olive tapanade on pita, baked brie, green salad, stuffed eggplant. Glass of white wine.

Thursday January 26

What I exercised:

• 9 AM WOD
• I. Split Jerk practice
  6 @ 35#, 4 @55, 2 @ 75, 1 @ 95, 1@105, 1@115!
• II. 6 sets:
  5 tough push-presses
  AMRAP pull-ups (subbed ring-rows)
  1st set: 35# and 14 ring-rows
  2nd: 55 and 12
  3rd: 60 and 10
  4th: 60 and 10
  5th: 65 and 10
  6th: 70 and 10
  I was pretty pleased with this.
• III. 500 meter row. 2:05

What I ate:

• 7 AM: paleo granola bar
• 7:30 AM: 1 c cooked collard greens and lentils.
• 10:00 AM: post-WOD shake (avocado, banana, protein powder, almond milk, ice and water)
• 11:30: another paleo granola bar
• 1:30 PM: salad of greens, 1/2 avocado, 2 hard eggs
• 6:30 PM: cooked dinner for my little nephews. Compromised: raviolis with vodka sauce and some cooked peas.

Okay, so how am I feeling, after all these really hard days of working long hours? Pretty good. I am especially susceptible to depression when I work like this, and somehow it is under control. The house is a mess, but at least I am continuing to exercise and (mostly) eat well. I ate out too much these past few days, I know, but it's tough when my work is so busy, and time with family and friends feels more importantly that sticking too strictly to the diet.

Day 25, January 25: Boring food post

Well, I am posting this because I am committed to posting every day. However, I don't have much that's interesting to say. I took a rest day today simply because I had tons of work to do. I'll be back at ACF tomorrow.

What I ate:

• 7:30 AM: 2 hardboil eggs and 1 slice of multigrain bread with raw almond butter. Since I don't eat much bread, I have to say, this tastes almost like cake. Yum.
• 12:00 PM: I was moving a friend into her assisted living today, and they insisted I eat lunch in the dining room with all the seniors. Who were hilarious. Lunch wasn't fantastic: 2 slices of bread with some lettuce, tomato, and a single slice of american cheese. Really. Who makes a sandwich with only a single slice of cheese? It came with a side of boiled, flavorless cabbage. If this is how the seniors there eat every day, I feel really sorry for them.
• 2:30 PM: one of my amazingly wonderful paleo granola bars
• 4 PM: small apple and a piece of mozzarella string cheese 
• 8 PM: 1/2 c brown rice, 1/2 c cooked lentils, and 1 c cooked collards (with onions and garlic). 

Made some almond milk for tomorrow. Also did the final rinse on some lentil sprouts, and some broccoli sprouts. Sprouting is so fun and easy and tasty. I can't believe I never sprouted before in my life...one more thing I can be grateful to Crossfit for--giving me the push to grow my own so I can add superfresh sprouts into my diet!

Day 24, January 24: Real-life application of Crossfit skillz

Hey y'all, hoping to make this a brief post because I got to get to bed!

I spent a lot of my day today helping a friend move from her senior-living apartment into an assisted living. Just the kind of job that, years ago, would have worn me out. Today, it didn't seem like much. Throwing around some boxes, lifting a TV in and out of the car, no biggie compared to the heavy loads I lift regularly at Albany Crossfit.

This morning I woke up so sore from "Karen" yesterday, my back stiff and my psoas spasming. I decided I'd be better off in the long run if I spent time today stretching and foam rolling, rather than WODing.

So, what I exercised:

• 10 minutes of foam rolling
• 1000 meter row (slow and deliberate)
• 20 minutes of pull-up volume training. Since I did so poorly with the blue band last time, this time I used the blue and the purple band, and hit one rep per minute for twenty minutes. Felt good.
• in between pull-up reps, did lots more stretching and myofascial release with the lacrosse ball.

What I ate:

• 9 AM: 1 cup breakfast quinoa (flaxseeds, flax oil, raisins, 6 oz cashew milk)
• 11 AM: protein shake (spinach, blueberries, banana, protein powder, 1/4 c coconut milk, 8 oz cashew milk)
• 1 PM: out to lunch with the church ladies to the Normanside country club, ate a spinach, artichoke, cheese quesadilla with some guacamole and salsa. And a few potato chips off the plate of the church lady sitting next to me :)
• 6 PM: Fantastic salad: lots of spinach and lettuce, 1/2 avocado, 2 large carrots cut up, 1/2 cup lentil sprouts, 2 hardboil eggs, and dressing (1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and a dozen capers)

Day 23, January 23: "paleo" granola bars

For the past few weeks, I have been making my own nut milk. I posted about it here. Usually I use almonds, but today I decided to try cashews since I had a whole lot of them. Followed the same process I use for almonds. It came out really wonderful.  Tastes...like cashews. If you don't like cashews, you won't like cashew milk.

This meant I had leftover cashew nut solids. What to do with it? I already had plenty of what I've taken to calling Airquotes Granola. (because it has no oats in it. The recipe for that is here.) Didn't need to make any more of that.

I decided to experiment with making granola bars. Here's how I did it.

Turn the oven on to 300. I spread the nut solids in my trusty 9x12 pyrex dish. I baked it for fifty minutes at 300, stirring every once in a while, to dry it out. It wasn't completely dried by the time the 50 minutes was up, but it had a mealy consistency going on.

Turn the heat up to 325.

Then I mixed in a bowl:

• 1/2 c roughly chopped almonds
• 1/4 c roasted flax seeds
• 1/4 c sunflower seeds
• 1/4 c unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 c raisins
• pinch of salt

I stirred in the dried cashew solids, and spread the mixture out in my pyrex dish and baked for 10 minutes.

While the dry items were in the oven, I heated a small saucepan over low heat. I warmed and stirred together:

• 1/3 c honey
• 1/3 c almond butter
• generous shake of cinnamon
• bit of vanilla extract
• a couple tablespoons of water.

This produced a stiff mixture that held the bars together.

I removed the dry items from the oven and dumped them back into the big bowl. I took this moment to grease the pyrex dish with butter.

Then I used my clean hands to knead the honey/almond butter mixture into the dry items. I put the gooey ball into the greased pyrex and pressed it down into all the corners of the dish as firmly as I could. Baked it for 20 minutes, pulled it out and let it cool on a rack in the pan. When it was cool, I used a knife to cut it into bars. They were a bit crumbly but I cannot tell you how good they tasted. Given that my husband and I have sworn off sweets for the past three months, these tasted like heaven. I ate one, gave one to him, and then quick wrapped up the rest because I knew I could just keep eating them, all night long.

Okay, now here's the boring stuff:

What I exercised:

• Noon WOD. First time back in a week.
• Warmed up with agility ladder and climbing the cargo net. I made it almost all the way to the top. Smoked my biceps and forearms, wow.
• "Karen"
  150 Wallballs
  scaled to 10# ball
  11:50

Ugh. Its always tough going back after a break. Felt wheezy the whole WOD.

What I ate:

• 8:30 AM: breakfast quinoa (with flaxseeds, flax oil, raisins, and 8 oz cashew milk)
• 10:30: Cashew Cookie bar
• 11:30: Another Cashew Cookie bar (cashews: the theme of the day)
• 1 PM: post-WOD shake (banana, handful of spinach, 1/2 c blueberries, 1/4 c protein, 1/4 c coconut milk, 1/2 c cashew milk, ice)
• 4 PM: giant salad of spinach and lettuce, 1/2 avocado, 2 chopped up carrots, 2 hardboil eggs, and a wonderful dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, and capers
• 7 PM: protein loading--a Vega shake
• 8:30: "granola" bar
• 10 PM: 1 c cooked collards with a few lentils

My back and whole body are so tired...this WOD today wasted me. I hope I can make it through another WOD tomorrow.

Day 22, January 22: Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest

First, a church experience:

That's Sufjan Stevens singing the Bob Dylan song, "Ring Them Bells."

I am getting tired of these food-only posts! Back to Crossfit tomorrow.

What I ate:

• 8:30 AM: smoothie made of a small banana, 1/2 c frozen blueberries, 1/4 c protein powder, 1/2 c greek yogurt, 1/4 c coconut milk, big handful of spinach and 8 oz almond milk
• 12:30 PM: small cashew cookie
• 3 PM: I was starving when I got home from work. Ate 1/2 c brown rice, 1 c cooked kale, 2 oz tempeh, 1/2 an avocado, 1/4 c almond sauce
• 7 PM: after Vespers service, went out to Mr. Wasabi (Japanese food) with friends. 1/2 c seaweed salad, small green salad. Ordered the tofu curry and picked most of the breading off the tofu, ate the veggies and only about 1/4 c white rice. totally stuffed.

Day 21, January 21: This rest thing is getting boring

I've been resting for a week now. I meant to go and hit a WOD at Albany Crossfit this morning, but the combination of WAAAAY too much work to do and a pile of new snow on our steep driveway meant that I stayed home. For certain I'll be back next week as early as possible. This rest week was definitely called for but I am getting antsy.

What I ate today:

• 9 AM: quinoa with raisins, flaxseed, flax oil and almond milk (made the quinoa in the pressure cooker, which worked fantastically)
• 1:30 PM: 1/2 c cooked kale, 1/2 c brown rice, 2 oz tempeh, 1/2 c sprouts, and 3 tbsp almond sauce
• 4 PM: 1/2 cup paleo granola and 1/2 c almond milk
• 8:30 PM: went to a birthday party for a friend. Avoided the ice cream cake, but enjoyed the guacamole, the crudite with yogurt dip, the olive tapanade on crackers, the cheese, and the fruit salad. Could have been worse.

Day 20, January 20: Ball Jars

I don't think I have ever opened a can of coconut milk and managed to use part of it without spilling it all over the counter. You know how hard it is to stir natural peanut butter. Stirring coconut milk is even more difficult to do without making a mess. Even if you shake the can well before you open it, the coconut water and fat just don't like to mix.

I have a new strategy to deal with this problem. And it involves one of my new favorite things: Ball jars! Here's what I do when I open a new can of coconut milk. I pour the coconut water into a quart jar, and then scoop the fat in. I use a spatula to break the fat into smaller chunks, put a lid on the jar (I prefer the plastic jar lids to the metal ones), and then I shake it up!  Shake shake shake! When you're shaking, the extra air in the jar helps the fat to get distributed throughout the milk.

Once you're done, you can pour off the milk you are using for your recipe, and then store the rest of it in the fridge in your Ball jar. Coconut milk is a wonderful ingredient in sauces, curries, and smoothies. Only be sure to use it all within a week, or it'll grow nasty mold.

I do love Ball jars. They are so handy. I love that even though they come in different sizes, the lids are interchangeable, so that problem of "where's the damn lid for this tupperware" no longer exists. The glass jars don't absorb odors like plastic does. I use them for storing food in the fridge, dried foods, nuts, grains, even cat food.

From left to right: coconut milk, sprouts sprouting , cooked kale, almond milk, paleo granola, raw cashews.

What I ate today:

• 7:30 AM: 1 c cooked quinoa with 2 tbsp flaxseeds, 1 tbsp flax oil and 6 oz almond milk
• 12 PM: 1 c cooked kale with garlic and oil, 2 slices multigrain toast with egg salad, made of 2 hardboil eggs, 1/2 avocado and 1 tbsp vegenaise. This is outrageously good. I can't believe I've never experienced this tastiness before in life.
• 3 PM: 1/2 c paleo granola, 1/2 c almond milk
• 7 PM: 1/2 c brown rice, 1/2 c cooked kale, 1 c raw spinach, 3 oz panfried tempeh, 1/2 c sprouts, 3 tbsp "no-peanut" almond sauce sooooooooooo good.
• We're going out to a movie shortly. Will bring some trailmix to keep from eating popcorn.

Day 19, January 19

Hey y'all. I've been gone away for a bit--went on retreat and since I've been back, working hard to catch up.

Interesting link: Michael Gregory, coach from Crossfit Central, posted about his recent experiments with going vegan. There are other valid ways of eating besides paleo, people.

I decided to take a longer period of rest and recovery this week. I have been going strong (crossfitting 4-5 times per week) for about two months now, and a combination of factors made me decide that some time away would do my body good. So while I was on retreat at Camp Fowler, I did a lot of stretching and foam rolling, took a long walk in the cold, and tried to sleep (not so easy when I'm not in my own bed!) Then yesterday and today I rested some more.

Tomorrow I'll spend some time at the gym doing some active recovery, rowing, and some volume training, and then Saturday hit a WOD.

At Camp Fowler, I did manage to stick pretty closely to my diet--even though there were pancakes or french toast at every breakfast, and cookies and cake served at every lunch and dinner!--I steered clear of all the simple carbs and sugar. I stuck to the eggs and salads and bean soups etc., healthy stuff, with one gross exception: "Crack Sauce."  It's called that because it's addictive. So good!  A friend brought this on the retreat, and I couldn't stop myself from eating it, late into the evening, every evening...on crackers, on chips, etc.

Today's meals, more or less, I am back on board:

• 7:30 AM: 1 c. cooked quinoa, with raisins, 2 tbsp flax seeds and 1 tbsp flax seed oil, and 6 oz almond milk
• 10 AM: 1 Larabar brand cashew cookie
• 12 PM: 1 c cooked kale with garlic and oil, 1/2 c cooked buckwheat, 1/2 c greek yogurt
• 4 PM: 1 c vegetarian chili, 1 tiny spinach-stuffed bun from the Loving Cafe
• 6 PM: big spinach salad with 2 eggs, 1/2 c sprouts and tahini dressing
• so stuffed I can't imagine eating again. But if I do, it'll probably be a small bowl of my paleo granola with almond milk

I'm on my way up to Camp Fowler, shortly, but I wanted to post a video--a church experience for today.

I am a big fan of Shane Claiborne, and I thought this was a good summary of his message.

Shane Claiborne is coming to speak in the Capital Region in June; message me if you want to more about it.

Day 14, Jan. 14: Deads Redux

One lesson I need to keep learning over and over again at Albany Crossfit is: make no excuses.

Another lesson I need to keep learning over and over again at Albany Crossfit: leave your ego at the door.

Sometimes these lessons get in conflict with one another, and makes for a mixed-up kind of lifting experience.

It's Saturday, we're two weeks into the challenge, and I still hadn't hit my 1 Rep Max Deadlift. I was out of town the day it was the scheduled WOD. So like a good 90-day challenger I came in today at 8 AM to do it on my own.

I was feeling pretty terrified. As I wrote a few days earlier, me and Deads, we go way back, and Deads has hurt me more than once. So I am justifiably cautious. It has something to do with the way my body is built, and ancient injuries, and my body's stubborn lack of understanding of how, exactly, I'm supposed to translate deadlift theory into deadlift reality. All these factors play a part in my problems with lifting heavy. Are these excuses? Maybe. It's hard to figure out when analyzing failure is an excuse, and when it's an earnest attempt to learn from mistakes.

Thank goodness Becca W. was there and though she could have been relaxing and foam rolling while she waited for the Gymnasty Class, she wonderfully offered to help me, and she cheered me on and talked me through my nervousness. AND she helped me load my bar. She deserves extra points in the 90-day challenge for showing good sportsmanship! Thank you Becca!

So, what I exercised:

• mobility and stretching
• Deadlifts:
  5x55
  5x75
  3x95
  3x135
  1x165
  1x185
  3 attempts at 195--FAIL :(
• finished with more mobility and stretching

195 was my old 1 Rep Max. I was hoping I would at least match it today, but it wasn't going to happen. Here's where the whole zen, no-ego thing comes into play. This is the state my body is in today. It's not able to lift 195 pounds, and I need to do some deep breathing and let that ambition go.

I know I worked hard today anyway, because my body is feeling it. I am really glad tomorrow is a rest day, and I am heading up to Camp Fowler for a mini arts retreat. I will be spending two days making Ukrainian eggs. 

A few Ukrainian eggs, just so you can see what they look like.
Some of these I made, and some my daughter-in-law Terrill made.

I'm thinking, maybe my body wants a longer break than a day or two. I've been pushing pretty hard for the past couple months, and maybe my body is saying I need some extra recovery time. In any case, I'm not going to be back to Albany Crossfit til next Wednesday at the earliest, and I also won't be updating this blog. No internet access. Trust me, it's a good thing. I'll be bringing my foam roller and my yoga mat to Camp Fowler, and I'm looking forward to some luxurious stretching time.

What I ate:

• 7 AM: 2 cashew cookies
• 9 AM: Post-WOD protein shake
• 1 PM: 1/4 c cooked buckwheat, 1/2 c steamed kale, 1/2 c tofu salad
• 4:30 PM: STARVING picked up a bag of cashews in Walmarts and ate a couple handfuls
• 6 PM: playing around with the pressure cooker again, it worked great:
  garlic, ginger, onion, sauteed in olive oil;
  add 1 lb tofu cut into chunks, saute that for 3 minutes;
  add 1/4 c vegetable broth and 2 tbsp tamari sauce
  fill the rest of the pressure cooker (8 quart size) with greens--I used spinach and mesclun.
  Cook at high pressure for 1 minute (if you're using tougher greens like kale, you might want to go 2 or 3 minutes).
  Once you release the pressure, season with spicy sesame oil and extra tamari if desired.
  This whole meal took me only about 10 minutes to prepare, start to finish.
  I ate about a third of what was in the pressure cooker, mixed with about 1/2 c cooked buckwheat :)
• I expect that by 9 PM I'll want a snack, and I'll eat a handful of trail mix.

Day 13, January 13: Friday the 13th

Aren't we cute? This is a picture of Bill and me on our honeymoon in Costa Rica. 10 years ago!

Last night, Bill and I had a lovely dinner at Cella Bistro in Schenectady, to celebrate our anniversary. I had never been to Cella Bistro before, but they had some interesting stuff on the menu, and quite a few veg options. Suffice it to say I ate too much. Some crazy potato-feta egg rolls, stuffed poblano peppers (lots of beans and rice and something that approximated the kind of cheese sauce you put on mac-and-cheese), and of course, several slices of bread with olive oil. As I anticipated, this meal fell into cheat meal territory, not because of any particular item I consumed, but simply because of the quantity of food that entered my belly. Oh, and the glass of wine and the shot of Godiva liqueur didn't help.

Ordinarily, I don't think I would have felt too many ill effects from a night like that. But now that I am focusing on eating healthily, a night like this threw me off my game. Woke up this morning, Friday the 13th, feeling bleh. Didn't stop me from getting dressed and heading out to Albany Crossfit for the 7 AM class. But I continued to feel bleh--just tired, nauseous, crabby, unmotivated. Nevertheless, I stuck it out.

What I exercised:

• I. Tall cleans: 5x5
  55, 55, 60, 65, 70
  (kind of lame, I could have gone heavier, but I was feeling so yucky)
• II. a WOD I've nicknamed "Horrible"
  3 rounds:
  50 front squats at 45# (scaled to 30 front squats at 35#)
  20 pull-ups (scaled to ring-rows)
  20 ring dips (scaled to ring push-ups)
  18:55

What I ate:

• 6 AM: small Cashew Cookie, 1/2 c applesauce and 2 tsp almond butter
• 8 AM: post-WOD smoothie (6 oz almond milk, frozen banana, frozen blueberries, 1/2 avocado, big handful of spinach, 1/4 c protein powder)
• 10:30 AM: 1/2 c cooked kale, 1/4 c buckwheat, 1/2 c tofu salad, 1/2 avocado
• 12:30 PM: small bowl of white bean soup and a slice of terrific bread (prepared by a friend)
• 5:30 PM: 1/2 c tofu salad
• 7 PM:  1/2 c cooked kale, 1/4 c buckwheat, 1/2 c tofu salad, 1/2 avocado
• 9 PM: handful of nuts and raisins

I am noticing that the last couple of days, though I've been eating cooked greens, I've been missing my daily big salad...need to work that back into the food schedule. 

Day 12, January 12: Cashew Cookies!

I took some time today to do some cooking in order to prepare for the next few days (which will undoubtedly be busy). I broke out the food processor and gave it a workout, the only workout happening around here today since I am taking a rest day from Albany Crossfit.

I used some chickpea sprouts to make some raw hummus, which tastes…interesting. I made it once before, and the flavor improved after it sat in the fridge for a while. I prepared some tofu salad (ingredients: pressed tofu, vegenaise, lemon juice, grated carrots and beets, chopped spinach and scallions, a bit of garlic and cilantro, salt and pepper). And I made a whole pile of one of my favorite things, from scratch: energy bars!

I LOVE Lunabars, specifically, the “Cashew Cookie” variety. If you read the label, you’ll see there are two ingredients: dates and cashews. That's one of the reasons why I love these bars so much: there's not a lot of processed crap in them. However, they're a bit pricey, and I decided that since the ingredients are so simple, I ought to be able to reverse engineer them and make some homemade ones!

Here's what you need:

• 1 1/2 cups raw cashews 
• 30 medjool dates
• food processor
• 9x12 pan
• wax paper

Step 1: removed the pits from your dates. I do it using a chef knife. I keep all the pits on the cutting board and count them, since I lose track of how many I've pitted otherwise. Once you've got your thirty dates pitted, you can throw those pits away.

Did you hear, Trader Joes is coming to the Capital Region!
This particular package of dates traveled all the way from New Jersey.

Next, break out your food processor. I think you really need a food processor for this recipe, by the way. Chopping all these nuts and dates by hand would take forever, and a blender would just make a mess of it. Everybody needs a food processor. If you don't have one, steal your mother's or buy one from a garage sale, or spend the money on a new one. I bought this one when I was 22, and it gave me heart palpitations to spend all that money. It's still running great though! Can't imagine cooking without it!

Put 1/2 cup of cashews in the processor. Process until the nuts are a fine powder that is beginning to stick together into tiny balls.

Then pull out your pitted dates. Add them to your processor. Add another 1/2 cup of cashews too.

Today when I made this recipe, all those dates were too much for my food processor's motor. After I tried to do them all at once, I had to take about half of them back out and process them in smaller batches. But you end up with a ground mixture that looks like this:

To your last batch of ground dates and cashews, add your final 1/2 cup of cashews. You want these to be only roughly chopped, so that you'll have some bigger pieces in your Cashew Cookies. So only pulse the processor a few times.

Line a 9x12 pan with waxed paper. Put your crumbly, pasty date-cashew mixture in, spread it out evenly, and then cover with another sheet of waxed paper. Here's where you use your crossfit muscles: press down smooth out the mixture into one, giant, evenly-thick bar.

What I do at this point is stick the whole pan into the freezer for a half hour. Once it's all firmed up, remove it, take the top layer of waxed paper off, and cut your giant bar into a bunch of little bars.

I wrap my Cashew Cookie bars individually in waxed paper and store them in the freezer. This keeps them fresh for weeks. Don't worry, they are edible straight from the freezer. They are great as a quick pre-WOD snack for quick energy. 

Not only did I make plain Cashew Cookies, I also made some protein powered ones, for those times I want a little extra protein. I followed the same process outlined above, using the following ingredients:

• 15 dates
• ¾ c cashews
• ½ cup + 1 tbsp hemp protein powder
• Juice of ½ a lemon
• Zest of ¼ lemon (make sure you use an organic lemon!)

This recipe made 12 bars, and each contains roughly 7 grams of protein. The lemon juice and zest kind of counterbalances the flavor of the hemp protein. Hemp, by the way, is probably the best protein powder for vegetarians, nutritionally speaking, but it does have a flavor that takes some getting used to. I like it now, but I've been working on developing a taste for it for months.

Really, dates and cashews is such a magical combination: yum!

Now for the boring stuff. What I ate today:

• 9:30 AM: 1/2 c paleo granola and 6 oz almond milk
• 11:30 AM: 1 cashew cookie bar, 2 eggs fried in olive oil, and a piece of whole-grain toast with 1/2 avocado
• 3:30 PM: 1 slice whole grain bread with 1/2 cup of tofu salad (so good!)

My husband and I are celebrating our 10 YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY today!  Wow! 10 years! So we're celebrating by going out to the Cella Bistro in Schenectady for dinner. Dunno yet what I'll be eating for dinner, but it may range into cheat meal territory...nevertheless, I'm pretty certain we won't eat dessert, since Bill and I have been competing to see who can go the longest without eating sugar, and we've been going strong for over 2 months now! 

January 11, Day 11: the dread bodyweight movement, the push-up

Ah, push-ups. Lots of push-ups in the WOD today.

I spent about half of 2011 coming to Albany Crossfit, and the other half feeling too busy to crossfit or just making excuses to stay home.  So by the time I recommitted myself to crossfitting about six weeks ago, after Thanksgiving, I was pretty out of shape.

Nevertheless, I was determined to focus and stick to a schedule. I knew that if I crossfitted even just three times a week, my whole emotional wellbeing improved. I wanted to be not-depressed this winter. Back to crossfit I went.

And...it sucked. Everything was hard. I felt like I had little strength and no stamina. And every time I finished a WOD breathing like a fish out of water, blinking up at the florescent lights, I would say to myself, "at least you didn't stay home."

I love this picture:

It was the best of WODs, it was the worst of WODs

Coach Kim took this picture on Dec. 23 during the last round of the "Twelve Days of Christmas," a horrible workout that takes forever (well, it took me about 29 minutes, but that felt like forever). You can see Albany Crossfit's version of this WOD here. When I began the round, I felt like I had nothing left. I was nauseous, dizzy, and because I was one of the few who had not finished, I felt like everybody was watching me. I did the twelve thrusters that began the round, one at a time. After I did that last thruster, I felt for a moment that dying was preferable to finishing the round.

I turned to Kim, who was cheering me on in that wonderfully maniacal way she has of cheering, and I said, "I'm done, Kim. I'm done." I meant it. I really did. I was quitting.

And then I said some expletives to myself, and I picked up my kettlebell, and I hit the 11 swings, and then did the wall balls...and kept on going, even though I wasn't sure if I was still alive or in Crossfit Hell. (you know how it feels when you're singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and you're like, "this must be the song they sing all the time in Hell," --well, that's how this workout felt, only about a hundred times worse.)

By the time I was doing the push-ups, Coach Brett and the inspirational Rachel B. were doing them with me.    I felt like I wasn't doing anything on my own power any longer. Brett and Rachel were pulling me along, the way a cruise ship might pull a dinghy. And I finished. 

I love this picture because it shows what is hands down, the best thing about Albany Crossfit: the support and love athletes give to one another. Brett didn't need to do push-ups with me. He was coaching--he could have just stood there and told me what I was doing wrong. Instead he motivated me by getting into the fray with me. Rachel didn't need to do any more push-ups or burpees. She'd already finished the WOD. But she did them with me and somehow, through some mysterious process, transferred her energy to me. 

However, when I look at this picture, I am also chagrined by my push-up form. I knew my push-ups were bad...but that is bad. This picture helped me make the decision to participate in the 90-day challenge. I want to do good push-ups. But it's more than just wanting to look good in pictures. It's wanting a strong core that can support my body, and strong arms that can push me back up again, whenever I should find myself on the floor.

So, I had a great opportunity, to work on push-ups today. What I exercised:

• Warm-up: air squats and gassers (formerly known as suicides)
• WOD:
  I. 50 push-ups (did them on my knees, slowly, trying to keep my core tight)
  ~rest 2 minutes
  II. 20 box jumps (used an 18 inch box, but jumped, not stepped, them all)
       20 pull-ups (subbed ring rows)
       15 box jumps, 15 pull-ups, then 10 of each, then 5 of each
  ~rest 2 minutes
  III. 50 push-ups (this time followed Kevin's prescription to do them on the rings)
  18:11 (those push-ups really slowed me down!)
• Then did a lot of mobility work as a class

 What I ate:

• 9 AM: 1 c quinoa with 2 tbsp flax seeds and 1 tbsp flax oil, and a 6 oz glass of almond milk
• 11 AM: 1 medjool date and a bite of protein cashew cookie
• 1 PM: post-WOD shake: 2 handfuls spinach, 1/2 an avocado, 1 frozen banana, 1/2 c frozen blueberries, 1/4 c protein powder, 6 oz almond milk
• 2:30 PM: 1/2 c cooked kale (from yesterday's pressure-cooking experiment, which went great!) and 1/2 c cooked buckwheat--not enough protein for a post-WOD meal, but I was eating in the car and felt funny about peeling and then eating the hard-boiled eggs I had with me
• 5 PM: 2 eggs, 1/2 avocado, 1 tbsp of vegan mayo, mashed together with and spread thickly on one divine piece of toast. This, I have to say, tasted like Heaven.
• 7:30 PM: at a music party, ate 1/2 piece gluten-free bread, 1/2 turnip, 1 c cooked kale, 1/2 c barley, 1/2 c dal, 1/2 c greek yogurt, a couple handfuls of my paleo granola. Ate most of this with my fingers, since there wasn't enough silverware to go around :) SOO stuffed.

Jan 10, Day 10: the fear of death (deadlifts)

Just a brief entry tonight. No fancy stuff.

What I ate:

• 9 AM: breakfast quinoa (1 c cooked quinoa, raisins, 2 tbsp flax seeds and 1 tbsp flax oil), I am having trouble eating anything else for breakfast these days since this is so good, easy, filling, and energizing
• 11 AM: the most perfect persimmon in the universe, six almonds, and a medjool date
• 1:30 PM: post-WOD protein shake (banana, 1/2 c blueberries, 6 oz almond milk, 4 oz coconut milk, scoop of protein powder)
• 3:30 PM: BIG salad. This took me, like, an hour to eat, and it filled a big bowl: greens, two eggs, 8 baby carrots, 1 cup of lentil sprouts, 1/4 c tahini dressing
• 7 PM: 1 small apple and 2 oz amazing goat cheese from the co-op
• Going home from work at 9 PM. I plan to cook up some kale in the pressure cooker tonight, trying that for the first time...I'll likely eat some just to see how it tastes :)

What I exercised:

• I. Deadlifts, work up to 7 rep max
  85x7, 115x3, 135x2, 155x2, 155x7
• II. 3 rounds, as many reps as possible in a minute:
  KB swings--35#
  box jumps--used the 18 inch box
  toes to bar--subbed knees to elbows
  jumping lunges--and I eliminated the jump
  rest 1 minute between rounds
  round 1=80 reps; round 2=70 reps; round 3=72 reps
• III. (after class was over) made up the benchmark WOD, "Grace"
  30 Clean and Jerks for time--scaled to 75#
  finished in 4:51

How I felt: "Grace" was so fun, even though I was beat by the time we hit it today. And all that stuff I wrote yesterday about remembering to pull back my knees? All went right out the window as soon as the timer beeped. The only thing I was thinking about was getting that bar above my head, somehow, some way. 4:51 isn't terribly fast but it's respectable, so I'm happy. I think I scaled appropriately. Looking forward to hitting it again in the beginning of April.

As for the deadlifts:  well, I am pretty terrified of them, ever since I injured myself doing deads a couple years ago. I am super conservative with the weights, and concentrate most on form. So I was happy that I hit 7 reps at 155. It felt challenging but not beyond my boundaries--it still felt quite safe. 

I have been known to cry during deadlifts before. Maybe it's something about the name. It brings up memories of working for hospice. Maybe it's that deadlifts are the least mental of all the lifts--so my brain, which is pretty hyperkinetic, really gets in the way. 

I dunno. Crossfit is so much about a person's state of mind. The crossfitting is going well for me right now, and I think that has a lot to do with my generally positive and peaceful state of mind these past few weeks. Conversely, when my life feels out of control and difficult, it spills over into my crossfit world and I find myself tired, prone to injury and making excuses.

 It's all about balance, right? Both inside and outside of the box.

January 9, Day 9: pulling my knees back!

When I was a child learning to play the violin, I noticed something funny: when I was trying to master a new element, I would go through a period where my playing seemed to get worse for a while, and not better. 

So for example, I always had a good sense of intonation. I think I was born with that—it comes from having gifted, musical parents. They were always singing and making music, and I just breathed music in as I breathed the air. So after I learned the mechanics of putting my fingers in the right places on the fingerboard, playing in tune wasn’t so tough. I learned to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Twinkle, Twinkle” and lots of other songs out of the Suzuki books.

I thought I was pretty hot stuff until my teacher told me that there was this new thing I needed to learn to do. As a beginner, I only knew how to play in first position—my left hand stayed in one place, and I played only by moving my fingers up and down. In order for me to improve, I would need to learn to shift my hand up and down the fingerboard—playing in different positions, it’s called—so that I could play higher notes and with greater facility.

Learning this was hard. Really hard. I had to change everything about how I thought about my left hand worked. And my intonation, which I was so proud of, completely went to pot. Even when I played easy songs, they sounded terrible. For a while, anyway. After lots and lots of practicing, I got the hang of it and my intonation was better than before.

All this is to say that I have seen how this same concept applies in so many other aspects of life. Sometimes you get worse before you get better. For sure it applies to Crossfit!  

Today at ACF I was talking to a woman who was clearly new to crossfit. We were working on power cleans, and she was having trouble with that whole shrugging-and-then-getting-under-the-bar thing. She was looking pretty discouraged. I pointed out that I had been doing power cleans for almost four years and I still need a lot of coaching--there is always more room for fine-tuning! 

Today, Kevin was telling us as we were practicing lifting the barbell from the ground to above the knees--"pull your knees back!" I have been doing this for how long and I've never thought about that in just that way before, it kind of blew my mind. And then it's just like the experience of learning to shift into third position on the violin--everything else gets out of tune, for a little while at least. My power cleans (and I love the Oly lifts, by the way) felt awkward and hard because I was concentrating on this new idea. I walked away feeling like I needed to practice that exact thing--pulling my knees back--every day, until it became second nature. Maybe if I practice more, the way I *used* to practice the violin, I might actually improve my cleans one day. I guess practicing more is part of what this whole 90 day challenge is about.

Anyway, enough music--I mean, musing--on to the persnickety stuff.

What I ate: 

• 9 AM: 1 c cooked quinoa with a few raisins, 2 tbsp flaxseeds and 2 tbsp flax oil. I just love this for breakfast. digests easily, sustains a long time, contains protein and complex carbs and omega-3's and is tasty.
• 12 PM: post-WOD protein shake. 1 small banana, 1/2 c blueberries, 1/4 cup protein powder, 1/4 c coconut milk, 6 oz almond milk
• 1 PM: work meeting at Panera. Ordered a greek salad with 2x feta.
• 5:45 PM: broke out the awesome salad I prepped for myself this morning: greens, 2 hardboiled eggs, 8 baby carrots, 1 c lentil and chickpea sprouts, 1/2 avocado, 1/4 cup homemade tahini dressing. 
• 6 PM: a friend showed up for a meeting with a casserole she'd made just for me...so I put my salad away and took a scoop. Tasty comfort food: vegetarian shepherd's pie: mexican corn, cheese, and mashed potatoes on top.
• 9 PM: after my meeting was over, ate the rest of my salad.

What I exercised:

• 11 AM WOD.
• dynamic group warmup tossing medicine balls with a partner. Actually, fun.
• WOD: 10 rounds
  10 burpee pullups (I subbed 7 burpees + 10 ringrows)
  1 minute rest
  finished in 19 minutes even.
• 5x3 power cleans
  45, 55, 75, 75, 85

How I felt: good all day. Appetite under control, productive. During the WOD I felt great--energized and strong--and my last round of burpees + ringrows was as fast as my first. And as I said, I love working on power cleans!

Jan. 8, Day 8: Choich

Since it's Sunday, I thought I'd include a church experience in this blog post. This video shows Team Hoyt, a father-son triathlon team. So beautiful.

Now for the prosaic stuff.

What I ate: 

• 7:30 AM: Lunabar Cashew Cookie
• 2 PM: 1/4 c rice, 1 c stirfry veg (mostly collards and sprouts), 1 c fresh lentil sprouts, 2 oz tempeh, 3 tbsp almond "no peanut" sauce. This sauce never gets boring. I still love it.
• 4:45 PM: 1 oz cheddar prior to Vespers service
• 7 PM: dinner out at Aperativo restaurant. 1 piece of bread and sundried tomato pesto/oil, big arugula, greens, carrots salad, 1/2 the green been appetizer (could have been a lot worse)
• 9:30 PM: since my day lacked in protein, ate two hard boiled eggs.

7:30 to 2 is way too long to go without eating, especially since I didn't eat much of a breakfast. Still I felt energetic and happy, though I was voraciously hungry by the time I ate at 2. Lets just call this a bit of intermittent fasting.

What I exercised: other than running up and down the stairs at church, nothing, another rest day. I can't wait to get back to ACF tomorrow. Too much resting, not enough WODing the past few days. Believe it or not, I am looking forward to burpee pullups!

Days 6 and 7: Camp Fowler

I'll try to keep this boring post short, since I need to get to bed! Gotta get some sleep before I'm up early to go to church! (Yes, for those of you who don't know me, I am the pastor of a church just outside of Albany, NY, so I never get the opportunity to hit a WOD on Sundays.)

First off, Day 6:

What I ate:

• 9 AM: 1/2 c yogurt and 1/4 cup "granola" (see yesterday's post) and 1 banana
• 11 AM: Cashew Cookie (larabar brand)
• 12 PM: 2 eggs fried in olive oil and 1 apple
• 2 PM: pre-WOD 1 date (not enough--I was pretty hungry by 3)
• 4 PM: post-WOD protein shake. (2 dates, 1/4 c protein powder, 1/2 avocado, 1 tbsp flax oil, 6 oz almond milk. forgot the berries, and it didn't taste right without them.)
• 6 PM. starving. Ate a couple handfuls of trailmix
• 7 PM. still hungry. Ate 2 oz cheddar, 4 crackers, a little hummus, and an apple.
• 8 PM. still starving! Ate 1/2 c stir fry veggies, 1/4 c rice, 2 oz tempeh and 3 tbsp "no peanut" sauce

Not a good food day. I just didn't feel satisfied all day. On the upside, I felt great hitting the WOD at Albany Crossfit, though I was hungry. I had a lot of energy and stamina.

What I exercised:

• 2:30 PM came in early to work on some sucks. Practiced 20 inch box jumps. By the end of practice was able to string 5 or 6 together without losing my balance. Also did volume training on pullups with the blue band. This did not go well. I was able to hit 6 singles on the minute, and then I couldn't do any more. They felt so hard. I wonder if next week I should try the blue band + the purple or red? There is a big gap between the green band and the blue one...
• Warmup with pushups and squats
• WOD:
  30 wall balls (scaled to 10# WB)
  21 pullups (scaled to ring rows)
  30 WB
  15 ring rows
  30 WB
  9 ring rows
  30 WB
  10:55
• Then worked on medicine ball cleans

Ran home after the WOD and my husband and I packed the car and ran off for a 24 hour campout with the boy scouts. This made Day 7 a bit more challenging. Even though we were in a lovely cabin, I didn't have a kitchen to cook in. I tried to be prepared...but didn't succeed all that well with the eating plan.

Day 7, What I ate:

• 9 AM coffee. Actually, I have coffee every day, I just don't bother to note it here :)
• 10 AM: 2 handfuls of trail mix. (that included some chocolate)
• 11 AM: 1/4 c rice, 1/2 c veg, 1/2 c fresh lentil sprouts and 2 tbsp almond sauce
• 1 PM: more trail mix, and a small cashew cookie bar
• 3 PM: 2 oz cheese
• 6 PM: dinner out at the Raindancer Restaurant in Amsterdam. I got a huge salad from the salad bar. Mostly vegetables with cottage cheese and a few cheddar shreds. That's the good side. Ranch dressing and two slices of bread (one of them pumpkin bread)--that's the bad side. Oh well, could have been worse.
• 9 PM:  1/2 c granola and almond milk.

What I exercised: Absolutely NOTHING. Rest day. Sat around the cabin at Camp Fowler and loved it.

This is a pretty boring post...sorry about that. I am posting all these persnickety details not to entertain anybody, simply to be accountable to the ether. So far it seems to be working. I am definitely eating more cleanly than I was, and sticking to my guidelines, for the most part.

Jan. 5, Day 5: Almond "No Peanut" Sauce

No exercise to report for today (other than some stretching and foam rolling). I took a rest day because I felt so busted after yesterday's "Fran". But I'll be back to Albany Crossfit tomorrow, and happy to be there!

What I ate:

• 9 AM: 2 eggs fried in olive oil, 1 small apple, 1 medjool date, and 6 oz fresh almond milk
• 12 PM: 1 c quinoa + raisins + 2 tbsp. toasted flax seeds + 1 tbsp flax oil (workin' in those omega-3's)
• 4:30 PM: 8 baby carrots + 1/4 cup sprouted raw chick-pea hummus
• 7 PM: 1/2 c brown rice, 4 oz steamed, then fried tempeh, 1 c stir fry veggies (mostly collards and fresh sprouts, with carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, olive oil and white wine), and "No Peanut" Sauce. 

Okay, so this "No Peanut" Sauce is made with equal parts almond butter, coconut milk, and applesauce, plus a few other things. It's from the blog Everyday Paleo, and I got the recipe recommendation from a paleo person at my box. This sauce was SO GOOD. And this compliment from me means something, as I have eaten--and prepared--quite a bit of peanut sauce in my day. This almond sauce was simple and lovely. You can find the recipe here.

I had no applesauce in my closet, so I had to make some out of apples that were sitting on my counter. I like to think that made the final sauce even tastier. I also replaced the fish sauce with plain old soy sauce. Best thing about this recipe? I have lots left over, so I'll be eating this lovely "No Peanut" sauce on lots of things over the next few days.

In other news, I experimented this evening with making "granola" out of the ground almond solids left over from my almond milk-making this morning. It worked really well! So I need to add one more thing to my list of foods for today, since I can't just go to bed without eating some:

• 1/2 c wheat-free, oat-free "granola" (only lightly sweetened with a little maple syrup) and 1/2  c almond milk. Yum!

Here's the recipe:

• 1 tbsp butter, melted (you could substitute coconut oil) to grease the pan
• Ground almond solids left over from making almond milk (see yesterday's post--that recipe left me with about 1/2 cup of almond solids)
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup toasted flax seeds
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup cranberries
• pinch of salt
• pinch of nutmeg
• 2 or three pinches of cinnamon 
• 1/8 cup dried unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (you paleo people could probably substitute honey or agave for a more paleo option)

Preheat the oven to 300. Grease your pan. I used a 8x12 Pyrex (see picture).

Spread the almond solids out evenly in the pan. Bake them for 20 minutes in the 300 degree oven. This step is to remove some moisture.

While the almond solids are drying out in the oven, combine in a separate bowl: sunflower seeds, flax seeds, raisins, cranberries, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and coconut. Stir.

Remove almond solids from the oven. They won't be completely dry, and that's okay. Add them and the maple syrup to your bowl. Mix well. Dump this whole mixture back into your pan and spread it evenly. Bake for 20 minutes more at 300.

Remove pan from oven, turn the heat up to 350. Stir your granola. Return to the oven and bake another 20 or 30 minutes, but take it out every once in a while to stir it and check it.

It's done when the granola is browning evenly. It won't feel completely "dry" when it's hot, but it will be crunchy after it cools. This recipe didn't do that stick-together thing that oat granola does, but I'm okay with that. I like it in small pieces.

Jan. 4, Day 4: Making Almond Milk

A few weeks ago I started making my own almond milk on a regular basis. It is about as easy as making coffee. Just as my homebrewed coffee tastes much better to me than the stuff I buy at the 7-11, so too does the almond milk I make taste much better than store-bought.

If you want to try it, here's what you need:

• some kind of a blender
• some kind of strainer (like a fine mesh colander, mesh [not paper] coffee filter, paint strainer, cheesecloth or nut bag)
• 1 cup raw (read: unroasted, unsalted) almonds. I prefer to use the blanched ones, but it works just fine to use ordinary almonds with their skins on. The skins just add a little bit of bitterness to the flavor of the finished product.
• 2 cups of water for soaking 
• 4 cups of water to blend with the almonds (less if you like your milk thick and creamy)
• 2 medjool dates (to sweeten it--optional)
• pinch of salt (optional)

Begin by soaking your almonds in 2 cups of water 6-8 hours. I do it overnight and make my milk in the morning. Then drain them and rinse them.

Draining almonds.

For this process, I use my hand blender, since that's all I've got. It works fine, though I am thinking of saving my pennies to purchase a Vitamix. I ashed my husband the other day, "how long do I have to desire a Vitamix blender before I can buy one?" He didn't answer.

Into your blender, put: the almonds, about 2 cups of water, and the dates and salt if you want them. 

Blend like mad. For like a whole minute, maybe longer. You want those almonds as pulverized as possible.

I only stopped blending like mad long enough to take this picture.

 Once you've got your almonds in tiny bits, add 2 more cups of water, or less if you like your milk thick. Blend that in too. Now comes the fun part.

I poured my nut and water mixture into an old-fashioned milk jug
just to look pretty in this picture.

Strain the nut solids out of the milk, using whatever method you like best. I personally found that using this old "gold filter" (from a Cuisanart coffee maker that broke years ago) works really great! I have also used the cheesecloth method--rubberbanding several layers of cheescloth to the top of a container and then pouring the nut/water mix through. I even used a coffee press a couple times, and that worked okay, but not as good as this wire mesh filter.

You may need to stir the nut/water mix and press it a bit to get it to go through your filter. You also may need to scoop some nut solids out of the filter periodically, to make room for more.

What comes through the filter is lovely, delicious fresh almond milk! I use it for smoothies and drink small glasses of it as a treat. It will keep in the fridge for only 2-3 days, so use it quickly. It doesn't have preservatives in it like the supermarket stuff does.

I have read on the interweb that it is possible to transform the leftover nut solids into almond flour, but I haven't tried that. Google it if you're interested, and be sure to tell me about it if you manage to make some.

Okay! Now onto the boring part of this blog.

What I ate:

• 7:45 AM: 1 c cooked quinoa + a few raisins + 2 tbsp toasted flax seeds + 1/2 c almond milk (that I made when I took all those pictures above!!!)
• 11 AM: pre-WOD: 1 small banana + 2 tsp raw almond butter
• 1 PM: post-WOD:  protein shake (1/2 avocado, 2 dates, handful of blueberries, 1/4 c protein powder, 6 oz almond milk)
• 3:30 PM: big salad of greens, sprouts, olives, about 8 baby carrots, 1 hardboiled egg, raw sprouted hummus and olive oil. I was still hungry, so I also ate a Larabar, the peanutbutter chocolate variety...yum.
• 6:30 PM: arrive home from work completely famished and grumpy. Craving COOKED food. Ate 1.5 c butternut squash soup (leftover from the other day, totally delicious), 1 slice whole wheat bread + 1/2 avocado, and 1/2 cup cottage cheese.  Ahhhhh.....comfort food.

I was feeling pretty busted today, like I should take a rest day. I thought I would go to Crossfit Clifton Park and do some active recovery, some stretching, and maybe hit "Fran" if I felt like it. When the time came, I didn't really feel like it, but I did it anyway. So, what I exercised:

• CF warmup x 2
• Row 500 meters (2:20--slow and steady)
• "Fran"
  21-15-9
  65# thrusters (scaled to 55#)
  pullups (scaled to ring-rows)
  7:20

As usual, Fran turned me into an asthmatic puddle on the floor. Can puddles be asthmatic? I surely thought so today.  7:20 is an abysmal time. I probably should have used 45# or even lighter, especially given how I was feeling, but sometimes it's good to push myself. I guess. I'll look on the bright side: I am certain to beat 7:20 when I hit Fran again in 3 months!

Day 3: sprouting

My dish drainer. 

What kind of person takes pictures of their dish drainer? Well, I guess I have become that kind of person.

Pictured here are a blend of seeds--alfalfa, clover, and mustard--sprouting. They're in the jar on the top rack with the yellow lid. In the lower left of the picture is some blanched almonds soaking so I can make fresh almond milk tomorrow morning. And in the lower right jar with the green lid are some lentils soaking. Tomorrow I'll drain the water, and they'll take their place on the top rack of the dish drainer. It will take them 3 or four days to grow full sprouts that are much yummier and fresher than the ones you buy in the store.

Sprouting is really surprisingly easy. Soak about a 1/4 cup of seeds or beans in a jar for eight hours. Then drain the rinse water. Using one of these sprouting lids or some cheesecloth, rinse and then drain them 2 or more times a day. This keeps the little sprouties hydrated and clean. Always leave the jars up-side-down and at an angle so the sprouts aren't sitting in water--that makes them decay and get yucky. 3-5 days after you begin, you'll have delicious fresh sprouts!

Why eat sprouts? They are some of the most nutritionally-packed foods on the planet, and have their own enzymes that make them easy to digest. Plus it's fun. It's like I have a little tiny farm in my kitchen.

I'll post about making my own almond milk tomorrow.

What I ate:

• 9:30 AM: 1 c quinoa with a few raisins, 2 tbsp toasted flax seeds and 1/2 c almond milk
• 11:30 AM: (pre-WOD) small homemade cashew cookie bar (about the equivalent of 1 date and 1 tbsp cashews)
• 1 PM: post-WOD protein shake (1/2 an avocado, 2 dates, 1/3 c frozen blueberries, 1/4 c protein powder, 1 c almond milk and some ice). Really surprisingly good.
• 2:30 PM: I am starving! ate 1/4 c brown rice, a whole cup of steamed kale, 1 cup of lentil sprouts, 1/2 avocado and 2 tbsp tahini dressing. YUM
• 6:30 PM: 2 hardboiled eggs, 1/2 avocado, 1 apple
• 9 PM: 2 handfuls of nuts and raisins fixed my grumpy.

A lot of avocado today...the four I bought the other day all ripened at once, so I need to eat them!

2 benchmark items today!  What I exercised:

• I. Max pullups (and we weren't allowed to use bands, so I subbed ring-rows with my feet a plate's distance from the wall) = 10 reps
• II. Cindy
  5 pullups (scale to ring-rows)
  10 pushups (scale to 5 good knee pushups per round)
  15 airsquats (no scaling necessary)
  completed 13 rounds + 3 
• III. AMRAP box jumps in 2 minutes
  used a 12 inch box. completed 69 reps.

How I feel: pretty darn good. It seems to me that my stamina is improving over the past few weeks. Though the box jumps at the end brought on an asthma attack. Ain't nothin' like box jumps to make me wheeze.

Day 1 AND Day 2, combined

Since I got a slow start in getting this blog together, I am posting about yesterday (New Years Day) and today in one post.

First: New Years Day!
Day 1...got off to a rough start. I found myself wondering if I could just start the challenge the next day...but deadlines are deadlines, sometimes a person just has to deal.
I didn't get much sleep (maybe 2 or three hours) the night before since we had family visiting, and grandbaby Calvin did quite a bit of crying in the middle of the night. Add to that I was feeling some stress about being ready for church New Years morning, and well...I woke up early, pretty zonked. Some days are gonna be like that.
No time to hit a WOD.

What I ate:

• breakfast: protein shake. Some day soon I'll write a whole post about what I put in these.
• 1 PM: lunch at the Indian buffet in Delmar with a friend. Stayed away from the creamy stuff, and ate only one plateful of the vegan-looking stuff. No dessert, of course.
• 5 PM: party at my church to celebrate the New Year. grilled cheese sandwich, bowl of butternut squash soup, and 2 devilled eggs. Ate none of the hundreds of delicious-looking desserts (the cupcake tower was beautiful, but I resisted it's power.
• Arrived home around 7 PM. Snacked with the family as we opened Christmas presents.  A few corn chips with hummus, two more devilled eggs, 2 handfuls of nuts and raisins, 1/2 a persimmon (so yummy!)

How I felt: happy, contented (once church on Sunday morning was over).

Day 2: my husband's birthday, and house still full of family


What I ate:

• 8:30 AM: 1 hard-boiled egg
• 10 AM: out to breakfast with the family at the Blue Ribbon diner. Ate a greek salad (lettuce, one hard-boiled egg, a few olives and cukes and some feta cheese, small amount of dressing)
• 11:30: 1/3 cup muesli and 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1 PM: bowl with 1/4 c brown rice, 1/2 c steamed kale, 1/2 c home-grown lentil sprouts, and 2 tsp. tahini dressing--really tasty!
• 3:45 PM: pre-WOD protein-plus cashew cookie bar
• 7 PM: post-WOD protein shake (tried a new recipe: 2 dates, 6 oz almond milk, 1/4 c protein powder, some crushed ice--a simpler recipe, and it was really surprisingly good!)
• 8 PM: 1/2 c spinach sauteed in olive oil and fresh garlic, cup of black bean soup, 1/2 c greek yogurt, and half an avocado.

All day long my left shoulder felt knotted up and painful. Stretched and did trigger-point release, a lot. Nevertheless, what I exercised:

• 5 PM WOD:  
• I. "Grux"
  21-18-15-12-9-6 unbroken sets of HSPU (scaled to knees on box)
• II. 5 rounds
  3 sets of 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 squats
  We did this in partners: while one partner worked, the other rested between rounds.
  scaled to ring rows and knee pushups
  1st round was 5-10-15. 2nd-5th rounds were 3-6-9. Finished with Angie in about 24 minutes :)
• III. Tabata flutter kicks. ugh. sort of did this, though I probably worked 10 seconds and rested 20 of every round.

How I felt:  despite the shoulder stiffness, I felt good today. Long nap this afternoon which I think I needed, given the stress and sleeplessness of the day before. Lots of energy during the WOD, able to keep up with Angie, though I did get a bit asthmatic at the end of part II and decided to take another hit of the inhaler.

Now I am publishing this post, even though it's only 9 PM, because that way I can't have any more snacks tonight!

Ground Rules

This is the first post. But it's so important I am copying it to a separate page and putting a special tab at the top of the page, so that I can easily find my ground rules, and re-read them every day.

So this is how I am working this challenge.

As per the instructions from the coaches, on Jan. 1 I weighed myself, took some measurements, and set some goals for the next ninety days. I won't share my weights and measurements with anybody but the coaches, but I will share my goals (see below). 


This first week of the challenge, all of us challengers will be doing some benchmark workouts and then we'll do them again at the end, to see how much we've improved. I'll be posting updates to this website most every day. I will include my workouts and everything I eat, mostly to keep track and for accountability purposes. (I'm less likely to eat that cookie if I know I'll have to tell the world--and specifically, my crossfit coaches!)

Here are my personal ground rules for this challenge:

• whole foods are best
• vegan is best (though I will continue eating some free-range eggs, greek yogurt, and small amounts of fancy cheese)
• raw is best (I will be using some recipes and advice from Brendan Brazier's book on the Thrive Diet)
• eat a big salad every day
• sleep 8 hours (or more) each night
• crossfit at least 3, better 4 or 5 times per week
• when in doubt, cook something
• write down: what I eat, what I exercise, and how I feel
• always bring food and water with me when I leave the house

Here are my crossfit goals. By the end of 90 days I will:

• be consistently using the 20 inch box and 14 lb wall ball
• have 5 unbroken pullups on the blue band
• run a 5k without walking

I also have a personal goal: to arrive 15 minutes early, everywhere I go. This will be a huge challenge for me that will require some fundamental changes in how I think about time management. I am pretty scared of failure with this goal but I keep telling myself I just need to plan each day, and take it one day at a time.