Category: Health

Whole30: Day 1 – 3

Meals Day 1 – 8/19/13

  • Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs, 2 sausage patties & mushrooms, unsweet ice’d tea.
  • Lunch: Broiled chicken thigh, roasted acorn squash, grilled peaches, unsweet ice’d tea
  • Dinner: Chicken, sausage, celery, peppers, onions, tomato “stoupt” with fried egg, water
  • Snack: Hard boiled egg, summer sausage

Meals Day 2 – 8/20/13

  • Breakfast: Banana, unsweet ice’d tea
  • *Lunch: Sweet potato hash, 2 egg omelette, 4 strips of bacon, coffee with coconut creamer
    * This was actually eaten at like 11 and was supposed to be my breakfast. My schedule was thrown off this day.
  • Dinner: Meatloaf, sweet potatoes, sautéed okra, unsweet ice’d tea
  • Snack: Apple with almond butter

Meals Day 3 – 8/21/13

  • Breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs, roasted poblano sausage, unsweet ice’d tea
  • Lunch: Bison pattie, avocado, bacon, side of tomatoes and asparagus, unsweet ce’d tea
  • Dinner: 2x Grilled chicken breast from Chick-fil-a, avocado, water
  • Snacks: Banana, almond butter, almond milk, coconut milk – smoothie, Larabar

The breakdown

All in all I’ve felt pretty good. Well, during the day I feel good, but once night rolls around I’ve been starting to get cranky. Lack of food, crazy kids, being tired… who knows. Either way, nights have been the hardest.

Monday started off well and I didn’t really notice any adverse affects. Since Jess and I had ramped up into this thing it wasn’t like jumping off a cliff. We pretty much went about our normal routines and ate what we had been for the previous week. Again, the grumpiness set in fairly hard at night around dinner time. We went into dinner thinking we were going to make some sort of gumbo, but instead ended up with this sausage, chicken, onion, pepper soup kinda deal. It needed something extra, so Jess fried up an egg and threw on top. That’s the beauty of this detox, when in doubt, put an egg on it!

Tuesday morning I had my first workout since starting this thing. I couldn’t do my usual pre-workout (C4 and a piece of peanut butter toast… on second thought I SHOULDN’T do that usual pre-workout), so I just went with a banana. This proved to be not nearly enough as I was running on fumes by the time I got home. I hadn’t fully thought things through and so I had to try to figure out what to eat/fix while also being dizzy and light headed. Not a fantastic combo. Typically that leads to impulse eating which would consist of cheese, bread or some sort, cereal, and generally not things I should use to re-fuel after a strenuous workout. This time however, I stayed strong and didn’t blow my whole day on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The rest of the day I was kinda in a daze as I wasn’t sure if I was hungry or just out of energy from the workout.

Our gym had graciously signed us up for a visit from the Dunk Truck on Tuesday afternoon and I was really eager to see what my numbers were. When the data came in, I was right at where I thought I was. Well, maybe a tad higher on my body fat than I thought, but still in the general area. The good news, I don’t have much to lose to be at my target weight/BMI. Hopefully by the end of this 30 day program I’ll be there!

Dinner on night two was much better than night one. I made a paleo meatloaf that was better than most non-paleo meatloafs I’ve had! Served that with a side of sautéed okra and roasted sweet potatoes and I actually felt like I was eating a real meal that I would cook on a non-Whole30 day!

This is pretty much spot on so far.

Wednesday was the dreaded day 3. The day when most of the toxins are out of the body and you start to really adjust. I guess that’s what happens. It really just felt like I wanted to murder some pandas and then eat a plate of nachos. I was ready to throw in the towel, or at least eat the towel, cause it had to taste better than what I had eaten for the past few days, right?! Fortunately, I stuck to it and pressed on through. Wednesday night rolled around and things just went to the shitter. Lane was a hot mess and everything made him whine or angry or yell or what ever it is he’s doing these days. Jess was at the gym so it was just Chase, he, and I at the house. I made some taco meat for taco salads, but the more I smelled it the less I wanted it. I mean, the last thing I wanted was plate of lettuce with some gross ass taco meat and nothing else. I knew that it would be even more off-putting for Jess. Have you ever gone to the gym, given everything you had, then come home and and wanted to nom on some lettuce and now old taco meat.

Our “solution” for dinner was for me to go to Chick-fil-a and order 4 grilled chicken breasts. Yep, that’s it. I went into a CFA and got 4 grilled chicken breasts (and a #1 for Chase). Ugh, this was a feeling of total defeat. The drive home was infuriating with the smell of delicious french fries getting into every crevasse of my car. For dinner we ended up splitting an avocado and eating with with our dry ass CFA chicken. I wanted to slit my wrists.

We thought the night had given us its worst, but Lane proved otherwise. Around 9:30 he started in on a night terror. It was a long time coming since he hadn’t had one in a while. He had also been getting less and less sleep and had been over stimulated for the past few days. I kinda figured it would happen, but it would be nice to have had it on ANY other day. This night terror was especially bad and lasted for at least 30 mins. We had gotten a handle on them and they were only lasting 10-15 mins. In the end, he calmed down and we got him back to sleep. I believe he actually slept better last night than he had in weeks.

So that was that. The first three days of the Whole30 in the bag. We got a point for the chicken breasts from CFA due to the seasoning they put on it, and the fact that it was a fast food option rather than eating something healthy. Now that we’re through the third day we have a good few days of easier battles. I think most of the bad stuff is out of our system so here’s hoping it all goes well.

Oh, and there’s a wedding this weekend where I already know we will be racking up some points. Stay tuned for the next update!

Whole30: Shop-a-thon

Yesterday was the binge and purge of all the food in our kitchen. Well, not entirely, our boys still have to eat. But for the most part, our kitchen has been cleansed of all the starchy, creamy, stuff we can’t eat over the next 30 days. And boy did it send me on a tizzy.

It's the size of my head!!
It’s the size of my head!!

The day started off with a tip to the Marietta City Farmer’s Market, where I loaded us up on some fresh veggies. There’s nothing quite as good as local produce. Its crazy the difference home grown/organic makes. I mean, check out this friggin’ sweet potato! It’s the size of my head! It was a good haul of sweet potatoes, avocados, okra, green beans, peaches, tomatoes, kale, red and green peppers, some sausage, and almond butter. We will definitely be going back here for future produce purchases.

We knew we needed a lot more stuff so a trip to our local grocery store was up for the afternoon. As this Whole30 thing continues, I find it both easier and more difficult to shop at places like Publix and Kroger. The Kroger near us has a fairly good “natural” food section and some decent produce, but I really just dislike the store in general. It feels dirty and the service there is awful. I don’t shop there often enough to know where everything is and I don’t like the layout. The deli counter is meh at best, and the seafood was something I’d rather not see. Publix on the other hand is like a magical wonderland full of helpful employees, samples, fresher looking produce, free cookies for the kids, and occasional free samples for the adults! We can walk around in our racecar shopping carts, up and down the aisles loading up our cart with all the tasty treats we’ve come to enjoy and love! Wait… not any more we can’t.

That’s the thing. We once were able to make a list, go to the store, and 30 mins later be out the door with a full cart, cookies for the baby, and we’d be stocked up for the week. Now we have to stop and read the labels. Every. Single. Label. Granted if we stayed to the outside perimeter of the store and only went into the innards of the store for stuff like coconut milk and frozen items, we should be fine. But even then, its not that easy. Want some bacon? Nope, its sugar cured. Forget about the dairy section. Almond/Coconut milk, nah, sugar or some other added chemicals for “flavor”. The label checking is hard enough, but throw 2 kids in the mix and difficulty increases tenfold.

I was having a mini anxiety attack after leaving the store, but despite a grocery store that was lackluster in what we REALLY needed we still managed to load up with all manner of things that we can eat over the next 30 days. The label looking will get easier and we’ll soon know what’s on/off limits. I have a few butchers I need to visit so we can find some more choice meat, and I’m gonna look online for some other items to stock up on.

Fruits and veggies galore!

Next level salad!

4 meat salad
Four meat salad!

We are constantly looking for ways to eat cleaner and stick to our Whole30 Challenge. Well last night we went out for some BBQ and I ordered the 4 meat + 2 side combo (Sausage, Brisket, Chicken, Turkey + Salad and Collards). There was no way I was going to be able to eat all of it so I brought the meats home with me. Today rather than have a simple pile of meat on a plate I made an epic salad. What made it doubly epic wasn’t just the fact that it had 4 different animals on it, but I got creative and “hard boiled” an egg in the break room microwave! For dressing I had simple oil, vinegar, and seasonings. It ’twas a yummy salad to say the least. I felt satisfied and good after!

Typically I would have had some sort of bread or starch with this meat pile. I would have also had a soda or something with it. Then a few hour later I would have most likely went into a slump at work and wanted to just fall asleep. That would have made going to the gym tonight even more difficult. Instead I felt pretty good and decided to take a walk and enjoy the afternoon weather that’s finally cooperating in Georgia. The rest of my afternoon I’ve felt productive and can’t wait to go to the gym and crush some PRs!

All this from a “simple” salad! Who knew that eating clean had so many benefits. I can’t wait to see what deliciousness I bring for tomorrow’s lunch.

Microwaved poached/hard boiled egg
– Add roughly 1/3 cup water to a coffee cup, or other microwave safe container.
– Crack the egg and add the yolk and whites to the water
– Microwave for 40-60 secs on 80% power
– Check your egg for doneness
– Enjoy
I’ve found that if I use the hot water from the coffee maker I can poach the egg leaving a velvety center in roughly 40 seconds. If I cook the egg for 60 seconds the egg comes out closer to hard boiled.

 

PaleO Snap!

So over the weekend Jess and I started our adventure into this Whole30/Paleo deal. I think we were a bit confused. Now I think I’ve got it sorted out. The Whole30 is essentially a 30 day cleanse/challenge which is a more strict and streamlined version of Paleo. Paleo itself is already pretty rigid in terms of what you should/shouldn’t eat, but the Whole30 is on another level.

From what we can ascertain we went Paleo. We didn’t contract “polio” as Chase would have everyone believe, instead we began a journey into a cleaner and healthier way of eating. So far it’s been a bit taxing, but not impossible. Heck, I’ve lost like 3lbs since Saturday so we must be doing something right! But today, one of the owners of our gym posted that on August 19th they would be starting the Whole30 challenge. At first I was VERY intimidated by the challenge, but then the more I got to chatting with the gym folks the more I became intimidated by them for me to NOT do the challenge. And so I inadvertently signed Jess and I up for this thing. The good news, we will have had like a 6 day head start to get our bodies adjusted to the change.

I posted the other day about this whole change, but since then some new information has come out and I’d like to make some updates. For starters, I will be giving up sugar of all forms. Yes, this means my morning coffee(s). I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my brain on how to accomplish this no sugar thing and still have my coffee, but I just can’t drink straight black coffee. It doesn’t work for me. What I can drink, and really enjoy is unsweet tea. That is something I can live with. Other things that I’ll be giving up are all forms of grains, which means pastas, breads, oatmeal, etc. Also, there will be no beans of any type. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to be living off water and grass for the next 30 days. I have a whole list of vegetables, fruits, fats, and meats that I can load our kitchen with. Jess and I are like Mr. Wizard and a female version of Bill Nye in the kitchen when it comes to making delicious meals, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

What IS a problem is the shock that my body is currently going through. Like I said I’ve lost anywhere between 3 and 5 pounds since Saturday, and it’s only Tuesday! Right now I am laying in bed feeling hollow and hungry. I feel like I’m just empty and need to eat something. But a) there’s nothing here to eat that meets the criteria or our new diet and b) I refuse to gorge myself of food at 11 at night. I know this is temporary, but it still sucks. I just don’t think we were initially prepared so we didn’t stock out kitchen with enough proper foods to sustain us for the week. Yeah we got through the first few days, but now we’re scrambling and everything feels like we’re giving something up and not like we are making a smart choice. I don’t think I’m replacing the stuff I’ve given up with anything that’s providing me with the fullness I had before. Again, this will take some time to adjust, but tonight… It sucks. I’m restless and want a damn plate of nachos.

So that’s my rant. I figured if I can’t have any food, I can at least make a post about it. This feels like a good outlet. I feel better about the choice we’ve made and hope to keep up with the rigor. Stay tuned for more updates and progress reports!

Oh, the cover photo for this post is my sausage, spinach, and egg frittata. It wa amazeballs. I plan on having a lot of that over the next 30+ days.

The Whole30, or at least the Half30… or maybe Half15

Over the past few months Jess and I have been doing fantastic at going to the gym. We’ve also done really well with our eating. That’s not to say that there’s no room for improvement, but in general we’re doing pretty good. On the flip side however we’ve kinda stalled out.

This happens with virtually any fitness/health routine. You do great the first week, maybe a month, but eventually you hit a wall or plateau and just come to a halt. Your body becomes use to the way things are, the level of effort required to do your WODs and most of the toxins have been sweated out in the gym. Slowly but surely, things slow down. Something has to change. With Jess and I its our diet. Like I said, we’re not making bacon cheeseburger pizzas for dinner or loading up on double decker tacos, but we are making choices that could be improved upon. That’s where the Whole30 comes in. Most of the people we talk to at the gym are on Paleo or some form. The owners have touted about Whole30 for quite a while now so we decided to tip-toe into the arena.

The Paleo Diet

We did our research, looked over the can/can’t have lists and decided it was going to be a lot tougher than we anticipated. With 2 kids (11 and 19 months), it was going to be even tougher. So we decided to do a modified version. I’m deeming it the Half15! Mainly because we’re still consuming SOME of what we did before, and we’re going to start off with 15 days rather than the full 30.

So here’s the rundown. Our biggest hurdle is alcohol. We’ve decided to not have any alcohol, with the exception of a wedding we’re going to in 2 weeks, for 30 days. This is pretty big for us. We added it up and on any given week, we would go through a 12 pack for beer or 1-2 bottles of wine. I know, we might as well join AA… but not really. This seems like a small amount, but over the course of a month it adds up, both in calories and on the wallet. We don’t NEED that beer while cooking dinner then another with our dinner, so we might as well cut it out of our diet. And yes, wine does pair nicely with red meat or fish (or tacos, or burgers, or hummus, etc). But again, we don’t need it. So why not eliminate it completely from our diet. Only good can come of that, right? We’ve already established that we will most likely be grumpy at each other or pout about not having our whiskey drink while watching TV, but we’re gonna stay strong and stick to it.

The next part of our plan is to eliminate as many grains, starches, sugars, and such as we can from our diet. This is a big part of Paleo and the Whole30. Much of the breads, pastas, rice, flour, etc that we eat on a daily basis is so processed that it has virtually no nutritional value, and what value is there actually does more harm than good. I’m not going to preach about what other’s should/shouldn’t eat, I’m just going to know what we’re doing. Now there will be some exceptions and I’m not going to rush out and buy a tiny bag of almond flour for $12, but for the most part we’re cutting things out. Another big change is the fats which we use to cook our foods in. We don’t go Paula Deen style and use a stick of butter when scrambling an egg, but watching what you cook your food in, is just as important as the food that’s being cooked. So we’ll look for coconut oil and what ever other approved fats we can.

There are things however, that we will not be giving up just yet. For example our morning coffee is something that is needed. We probably won’t die if we don’t have it, but other’s around us might. We will continue to use the Truvia and fat free creamer. After all, most of the “paleo creamers” have coconut milk and raw eggs. Nope. That’s not gonna happen. In addition, there will be some occasions when we’ll have some bread or peanut butter. We have to stay realistic. If we go cold turkey and eliminate all these things off the bat then we’ll be setting ourselves up for failure. This is something we’re going to have to ease into. Over time we may find it easier to eliminate these types of things, but for now, we’ll just do our best.

As I mentioned before, we have 2 kids. One is a picky eater and the other is a pickier eater (I’ll let you decide which is which). They live off things that are processed and laden with sugars. I’m not going to make my kids go through the change with us. I mean, Chase started middle school last week and I’m fairly confident they don’t have a Whole30/Paleo option on the lunch menu. And when he gets home in the afternoon, its been a good 5+ hours since he’s eaten, so if he goes for a bag of chips or Pop-tart, I’m ok with that. We can certainly cut out some of the bad options that we provide in the house. Sugary drinks will be replaced with less sugary drinks, we’ll have more fruits and vegetables available on the off chance that he goes for some carrots instead of Funions.

Its going to be a process. It won’t simply happen over night, and we will stumble along the way. But we will also be there to help each other along. We will do our best to chronicle this adventure and see how things progress over the next 30 days (or 15 for now).

This is why we CrossFit

This is Rich Froning, this is not me.
This is Rich Froning, this is not me.

This past weekend was the Reebok CrossFit Games, and man were they exciting! Well, they were exciting for me, my wife and those of us who really enjoy doing CrossFit. I don’t think I can call it a sport, but that doesn’t make it or the athletes any less spectacular. 

Lets go back one year. I had been doing P90x steadily for roughly 75 days. Its a 90 day program (hence the name), and was determined to finish. On day 78 I had a car accident… how did I not post about that?! An accident that left me with a Grade 3 AC Joint Separation in my left shoulder. My arm, and my car, and my workout routine was out of commission. I had surgery to repair my shoulder and a month or so later I was back to my trainer working out. This however meant that I did not complete my P90x. I was 12 days short of finishing the program. By this point I was rather frustrated with my shoulder and working out in general. I wasn’t able to get the progress I wanted, lifting things was not as easy as I would have liked and it was just painful at times. You would be surprised at how much you actually depend on your shoulders for day to day activities. Overall, I was slowly creeping back towards how things were before I started the program. This did not sit well with me.

In November we bought a house, and as anyone who has ever bought a house can tell you, that pretty much consumes all your time. Packing, moving, paperwork, planning, schedules, days off, etc., its all you can do. Couple that with the holidays, Jess commuting 100+ miles a day, <1 year old baby and there just isn’t much time in the day for working out.

January rolls around and I’m getting the itch to start working out again. I start looking around at various gyms, since I know that I would a) need a trainer that could tailor routines to a recuperating shoulder and b) push me to excel beyond the wall I had in my head. My previous trainer did a great job at this, but we now lived 60+ miles away and that was just not going to cut it. Eventually I found CrossFit on the Square. Since working out with my previous trainer I had been introduced to the notion of CrossFit and the types of workouts. I knew it was growing steadily in the fitness world and wanted to give it a shot. I like the intensity of the workouts so this should be something right up my alley. The good thing about CFSQ is that its not your typical CrossFit gym. Rather than be all Bros and CrossFit For Life or super douchey, they are super down to earth and “real”. The workouts aren’t strictly CrossFit, rather they are a combination of strength, agility, mobility, cardio, and mental. The classes weren’t 30 people watching 2 instructors go through the motions, and doing the same workouts every time. We have small classes, very personable and knowledgable trainers. It just felt like a second home. A home that makes you lift weights, sweat, and want to puke from time to time.

Well, the first few weeks was ROUGH. I was hurting badly pretty much every time I went. It sucked… a lot. But I pressed on. Weeks turned into months and eventually I was breaking through walls. Not literally, though I’m sure that could be considered a workout. I saw a transformation in myself. Finally my shoulder was getting back to 100%, I was lifting heavier weights, had more stamina overall, my spirit was higher (especially on gym days), and overall… I just felt good.

Eventually, Jess caught the fever and started drinking the Kool-Aid! She was very hesitant at first, but once she got in there and started seeing her own successes, she was hooked! That’s the thing, you are either going to not like it at all, or you’re going to love it. With both Jess and I, we love it! We love most everything about CrossFit, the intensity, the various workouts, the challenge, the endorphins, its just a natural high for both of us. Its something we can do separately and come home and talk about, or we can go together (when the stars align) and push each other while at the gym. We share in our successes, talk about our failed reps, our new PRs, and as of this past weekend, stay up too late just so we can watch the CrossFit games.

Its our new addiction and I couldn’t be happier. I feel healthy and capable of doing most anything these days. CrossFit for me is about bettering myself, pushing beyond my personal walls, and ensuring that I am as healthy as I can be for my family. It gives me a break each week to recharge my batteries and clear my mind. When I’m squatting 200lbs that’s all I’m thinking about. When I’m standing there, looking at a kettlebell, or pull-up bar, or a medicine ball. I can’t be thinking about work or poopy diapers. I have to focus on that one task, clear my head, push through it and get the job done. When I walk out the door I feel refreshed and more alive. I, at time fail at the goal I set for myself, but those failures make me stronger the next time I walk through those doors.

Speaking of walking through the doors, its time for me to change into my gym clothes. I got some pull-ups to do!

 

Tough Mudder!

We are tough mudders!!

Around Christmas time I was in need of some serious exercise motivation. Baby weight plus holiday eating was a bad combination. Ben mentioned “tough mudder” and while I never really thought I’d survive it, I said “Sure, why not”. If this doesn’t motivate me to do something then I don’t know what will. We were pumped about it. I watched YouTube videos, winced at some of the obstacles, and printed out the training suggestions to start right after the new year.

….I think you can probably guess where I’m going next. Not to the basement to train. We ran a few 5K’s, did a few small things on the equipment we have at home, and even did an “obstacle course” style 5K (which ended up being the PreK version of Tough Mudder). The event that was once 12 weeks away was suddenly around the corner. Um. What? No way I can do that. But we signed up, and were going to make the best of it. I preface our TM experience with this story to help you understand that training and preparation were NOT what got me through the 11 mile/21 obstacle course. Not by a long shot. What got me through was my husband, the other mudders I was running with, my fierce stubbornness, and the sheer will to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Next year, the training (I’ve already started) will pay off and I will shave hours off of my 6 hour total from this year.

Other than the intensely sore muscles, the cuts and bruises, the ruined clothes/shoes, and the sunburn, the event itself was one of the most painfully rewarding experiences of my life. Despite the debilitating difficult physical challenges, this was equally a test of mental strength. I am my worst critic. I approached every single obstacle and the voice in my head repeated “There is no way I can do that. Are you kidding me with that? I can’t do THAT. These people are crazy. There is no way”. This voice continued for eleven straight miles. After every obstacle (and Yes, we attempted every.single.obstacle; only failing to complete three), I was in a state of disbelief. I looked behind me to the pool of ice water, or the dark underground tunnel, to the barbed wire, or fire, to the 10-12 foot walls or the cords of electric current I’d crawled through, and my voice always said “I can NOT believe I just did that!”. I shocked myself (ha) through the entire 11 miles. Every marker that showed another mile down was a glance between Ben and I that said “I’m not sure how, but we are doing this!”. There are few better accomplishments I’ve had in this life than the one I felt crossing the finish line with my husband. Limping and bleeding and running on fumes, we did it together. It wasn’t always pretty, but we DID IT!

Despite going into TM intimidated, I have never been a part of something so physical with people who were SO awesome. You cannot do this challenge alone. Even with my partner, we took on every obstacle with the help of another mudder (or several mudders). Every fall in the mud was followed by three hands to help me up, pat me on the back, and encourage me to keep going. I was pushed over walls, pulled over ledges, and cheered on by strangers around me the whole time. I “Hoorah’d” that day more than I ever have in my life, and was filled with such gratitude and appreciation for the communities of mudders that I am now so thankful to be a part of with my husband. This event changed how I think. I have an untapped strength that has been discovered and for that alone I am so thankful that Ben signed us up. Not only did my husband keep me motivated and push me to my potential for 11 miles, I failed to mention he held a GoPro mounted to a piece of PVC pipe the whole time. He got some great footage that he’s ‘doing his thing’ with and will post the footage we have soon. Some more permanent memorabilia is in the works as well. 😉

We will certainly do this again next year, and I want to put together a huge team for it. It’s an experience everyone should have once in their lives…if not once a year. We are Tough Mudders!

UPDATE:
Here’s our video! Well, this is the short one. For the longer version, see the link at the end. Enjoy!

The week that never ended

Well, I mean eventually it ended, but damn this week was a pain in the ass.

When I say “pain in the ass” I literally mean it when it comes to what we’ve had to deal with this past week. Lane, Chase, Jess, and I all have had the doom stomach sickness. It started with BLT puking in his bed last Thursday night and rolling around in it all night. He proceeded to throw up again all over himself and highchair Friday morning. Then Saturday, it hit me like a ton of bricks, or a ton of feathers, either way, I was down for the count. JT was a trooper and took care of Lane and I… that is until she got smacked with the black death around 3am on Sunday. Now we had a baby that was recovering from being sick, Jess feeling the effects, and me doing my best to hold it together. We thought our lil’ guy was on the mend, that was until he lost the contents of his stomach all over again.

We went into the weekend with such high hopes, even visited the local farmers market in search of fresh produce and such. But it quickly turned into a festering pool of dispair and unmentionables. Surely come Monday we could kick it into over drive and plow through the week.

Oh, my bad… I must have been thinking of some other week. Jess was still writing on Monday and had to stay out of work. Since she was mobile for the most part she stayed with BLT and Chase and trucked on through the day. Got the sheets clean and windows open. Things were looking up and by Tuesday we were all back to work/school!

BAM! In your face good mood! Tuesday afternoon turned out to be probably the worst, or at least second worst day of the week. For starters Lane is getting to the point where he just LOVES to hear him self babble and yell and blow raspberries and spit out his food and… well, here lemme show you.
Lane in the car:

Lane “eating” dinner:

This is what Jess has to put up with for upwards of 3 hours a day JUST in the car. She gets home before me and has to try and get him fed too. That’s just insane. Anyone else’s kid and they would be out back with the coyote. Yeah, we have those now apparently too. I mean bajeeze this kid is loud. Any way, she puts up with this and has a splitting headache on Tuesday only to find out that she does not have a key to get in the house. So now she’s suck outside of her safe haven with a fussy baby, a hungry 10 year old, and a migrane. Damn you Tuesday, you suck worse than the whole weekend combined.

So Wednesday rolls around and its rainy and we’re running late in the morning and this weeks in the shitter, but we’re gonna push on, right? Well Wednesday is my usual work from home day and I am usually able to get work done because the fam is off at school/work. Well Jess has asked me to keep Lane home with me. Admittedly I was somewhat of a turd and didn’t want to keep him. I wanted my peace. ME ME ME!! That’s totally not fair to her at all, do you remember the videos? So stomped my feet, pouted like a little girl, but kept BLT home with me. We made the best of it, I put on my big boy pants and I got the majority of the work I needed to do done. By the time Jess got home I was needing a break just as bad as she did on Monday.

Whew, time for a breather. We had dinner, watched Survivor, and did our best to just be calm for the remainder of the night Chase had to go to the bathroom a few times, but honestly that was nothing new since he really chew his food as much as he inhales it. What we didn’t realize was that it was the precursor to the mudbutt.

Thursday morning and we’re getting ready to head in as if it were any other day and SLAP! Reality hits us in the face. JT calls me to come to Chases room where we are greeted with a delightful crime scene art project. This kid has some how rolled over in the middle of the night, and blew chunks from the top bunk down to the white carpet below and went back to sleep. I mean, hot dog bits mixed with ketchup and vegetable soup. It was literally a 4 foot splatter radius. I don’t think he ever even knew he did it. Earlier when I said that Tuesday was the second worst day, it was second to this. There was simply no way that JT or I would be able to handle this day alone so we both elected to stay home. She watched BLT while I went to the store to rent a RugDoctor.

The rest of the day was spent tending to a sick Chase and a fussy Lane. Oh and working and cleaning the house and doing other chores and you know… living. The afternoon wasn’t that bad and we even managed to squeeze in a family walk, which is good considering we’re doing Tough Mudder in like 4 months.

So we made it to Friday and just as we’re on our way out the door Lane’s baby sitter texts and says that her grandson has the stomach bug. WTF?! Can we not escape this damn thing?! Now we have OTHER people’s kids preventing us from simply having a normal day. Well, we decided to take Lane to the sitter and she would just quarantine the sick child in another room. Whether or not that work remains to be seen and I’m sure if anything comes of it we’ll be cleaning it up in the morning.

At this point the house is pretty much sterile, the carpet is pearly white, the family is happy and resting and we have a game plan of attack on the leaves and duties of the house tomorrow. Grammy is gonna watch Lane while we move stuff to the attic and deal with the leaves outside and then its shopping and decorate-fest 2k12 all over again!

This week has been a bitch, but we pulled through so far. There’s still two days to go, but I feel like we can make it. It’s not the worst this family has ever been through and I’m sure we’ll deal with this sort of thing again. We’re better than little things like puke and yelling babies. We can pull through the strife. We’re the Snipers! Its what we do.

Oh, and in case you were curious how our Friday night went, this should give you a good indication.

Tough Mudder – The Beginning

First off, what is Tough Mudder. Watch this video to find out!

Now that you have an idea of what Tough Mudder is, you can appreciate why its going to take at LEAST five months to get prepared for it. Jess has done several 5Ks and I have like 2 “obstacle” runs under my belt, but nothing of this caliber. This thing is 10-12 miles and 25 military grade obstacles! Are you freakin’ kidding me?

Well today we signed up for it and if all goes well, we’ll be in shape and running that beast in April. In the meantime we’re looking for donations to support the Wounded Warrior Project. If we can raise at least $150 then we’ll get a discount on our submissions. And regardless, its a great cause to donate to.

So wish us luck, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Stay tuned for updates on the progress.
Tough Mudder

P90x: 40+ days

This post is about 10 days over due. Here’s my 30 day pic for P90x.

P90x - Day 30

As you can see, I have achieved results! On day 30 I had more definition in my arms, legs, back, shoulders, stomach, and smile. I was feeling fantastic and wanted more. This however was short lived. Shortly after my day 30 awesomeness I departed for a 3 day field trip for Chase’s PC class. It’s hard enough doing P90x at home, but it’s impossible to do any sort of exercise while tending to a gaggle of 4th/5th graders and walking around learning about maritime forests and such. So when I got home I was feeling rather bleh. Three days of cafeteria food and sand in my ass had taken it’s toll. However, I was ready to jump back to it on Thursday! I crushed another workout and was back in the swing of things. That is, until the next day when we were invited to hang with some friends at a beach house for the weekend! How could we possibly turn this down?! The beach trip in general is for another post and I’ll let Jess handle that one. I had great intentions and  packed my DVDs and some gear for a few workouts at the beach. Well as anyone who’s ever been to the beach will tell you, that is pretty much a wash and workouts are most likely not going to happen. Tack on a few kids, some wicked sunburn, and a few drinks and I can kiss those days goodbye.

Ouch!

By Tuesday I was feeling dreadful and wanted to either exercise the toxins out of my body or die. Well, I have a family to look after so I decided to exercise. Again, there were obstacles all over the place. From a sunburn that left me itching all of my skin off to a hand that looked like a zombie attack (an injury suffered while digging a trench from our sand castle to the ocean), it looked as if it was going to be another battle to get my routines in. I would do my best to exercise here and there, but it just wasn’t the same. I felt like I had lost my drive. I could feel myself slipping further and further from my goal and the scale was certainly reflecting this.

Then came the wall. The 215lb wall that I was either going to bust through or let stop me. Some how I had gained 3 more pounds that my starting weight. Luckily I didn’t let it stop me. It took some time and a lot of internal struggle, but as of this morning I feel like I’m back in the driver’s seat. I am now at 209lbs and am ready for my next exercise.

Last nights workout was probably one of the toughest ones I’ve done in the past 40+ days. I did not eat well yesterday and certainly did not provide the right fuel for my body to do a great workout. But with the encouragement of my wife (who is also doing daily exercise routines btw) I got out there and did some Plyo X. It wasn’t easy, and I threw up before finishing, but I finished. I got over that hurdle and am so happy I did. I’m not ready to finish the second half of this program and get to that goal fitness level that I have set for myself. I feel great and I can’t wait for my next routine. I know the next 45 days will bring struggles, hurdles, and all manner of things to slow me down, but I am determined to see this thing through. I may be exactly where I am today in terms of weight and muscle or I may be “fit as a fiddle”, as Tony Horton would say. Only time will tell.

Oh, and as I mentioned earlier my wife is now doing her own daily workouts. She’s stuck to it so far and I am exceedingly proud of her and can’t wait to see her awesome results. I have faith in her and know she will bust through it. Stay tuned for more!