Brie Fit

It amazes me…now that we have a house, our weekends are so much busier!

Yesterday morning’s WOD:

And the decidedly “bleh” result:

Jump roping just isn’t my thing.  I feel like I’d maybe be better at it if I found/purchased a rope that worked well with my height, but then again, maybe I just suck at it.  Hard to say.

I had another stellar acupuncture session on Friday night.  Even if nothing comes of this, the hour long naps to soothing music are allllmost enough to justify the cost.  Almost.

This morning’s WOD was decidedly better.

All things I’m reasonably good at and can crank out quickly (minus burpees).   Especially push presses and box jumps. 

I did the push-ups on my knees, though, and in hindsight I wish I hadn’t.  I can definitely DO toe push-ups, but I always default to knees because I know I can do them fast and well.  I need to not be a puss and just do the damn things.

(Last time we did a FGB-style WOD, I did 210 reps!)

In other CrossFit news, this video is hilarious.

It’s funny because it’s true. 

Anyway, like I said about weekends and having a house…I’m not sure if it’s having four times as much space to clean, or the home improvement projects, or what, but it seems like we have a lot more to do these days!  Not complaining—I love this place and putting our own stamp on it.

This weekend, the de-beiging continued with our master bath, which went from this…

…to this!

Way better.  Way, way better.  It looks great with our bedroom makeover we did last weekend!

Tomorrow’s plan includes early morning church and a trip to the casino to celebrate Uncle Mike’s birthday.  Fun stuff!

What color should we paint our laundry room?  I think that’s our next project.  Obviously I gravitate towards blues, but…I should probably not paint the entire house blue.

Today’s WOD was named Javier.

Instead of a sexy Latin lover, it was a total dickbag.  But isn’t that how a lot of relationships wind up?

The WOD was AMRAP, 20 minutes:

• 2 wall climbs
• 4 one-legged box jumps
• 8 SDHPs (55# Rx for women)

I completed 12 rounds plus one wall climb.

(I hate wall climbs, FYI.)

I wish I had something more interesting to say, but it’s been pretty uneventful around here.  Just…January doldrums, I guess.  It’s not excitingly snowy here or anything; we’re lingering in the 40s and 50s every day.  This weekend will entail painting our master bath and going out to breakfast with Tim’s uncle. I’m just kind of on autopilot right now and going with it.  After an overly exciting end to 2011, I’m happy to just kind of chill and enjoy the boredom.  Exciting stuff, huh?

Anyone else have the January blues?

One of my favorite food bloggers, Branny, is hosting her second ever Souper Bowl to benefit the ASPCA.  I make no claims of being one of those fancy pants, perfectly lit food photo bloggers, but I did, in fact, make soup this weekend, and God knows I love our animals, so here goes..

This post is dedicated to our three sweet shelter pets, without whom our lives would be very, very boring.

Buckley (formerly known as Jacob) was our first acquisition. 

When we went to the shelter to pick out a cat, it came down to Buckley and another white cat with black spots, named Solar.  Buckley promptly bit Tim, to which I said, “Solar sounds great.”  Tim, however, was charmed by his…spunk, and Buckley came home with us on New Year’s Day 2008.  (And he still bites.  I periodically remind Tim that I wanted the non-biting cat, but we admire his old, cantankerous soul, for the most part.  Maybe the shelter named him after a vampire for a reason.)

Our second acquisition was Southpaw, formerly known as Sylvia.

After we got Buckley, we started volunteering at the shelter.  Southie came into the shelter in January, frostbitten and pathetic.  She was missing some hair on her ears and nose.  Someone adopted her, but returned her because she pooped on the floor once.  As time went by, we both couldn’t resist the sweet little cat who jumped in our laps the minute we arrived in the cat room.  And so we brought her home in July.

Our final acquisition was Milhouse, formerly known as Jimeny, in October 2009.

There’s not much to say about Milhouse.  He’s a quintessential beagle—sweet, loving, and loyal.  Nose driven.  Not entirely bright.  You can pick him up and carry him around the house like a baby without a protest.  It breaks my heart that that guy was likely the result of a puppy mill bust.  Now, clearly…he walks all over us.

So.  Soup.

Not the most gorgeous, not the most healthy, but quite delicious!  It’s also an easy meal to make with leftover chicken, and comes together quite quickly.

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

• 3 T. butter
• 1 c. chopped carrots
• 1 c. chopped celery
• 1/2 c. chopped onion
• 2 T. flour
• 1/2 lb. cooked shredded chicken
• 1 package microwaveable pre-cooked wild rice
• 6 c. chicken broth
• 1/2 c. half and half
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large pot and add the carrots, celery, and onion.  Cook until the onion is clear.  Stir in the flour, then add the broth.  Bring the broth to a simmer and add the shredded chicken and rice.  Let simmer for about half an hour; stir in half and half.  Do not let the soup boil after this point!   Turn the heat down to low and heat until warm.  Season with salt and pepper as needed.

The leftovers only get better every day.  I promise.

What’s your favorite soup?

I can’t believe the weekend is almost over!  It’s seriously flown by.  I can’t believe it.

Saturday was one of my favorite WODs ever at CrossFit.  We split into three groups and each group drew a different 20 minute WOD out of a cup.  My group did 20 minutes AMRAP of:

• 4 shoulder presses
• 8 sumo deadlift high pulls
• 20 sit-ups
• 20 air squats

All things I like, and am good at.  I wanted to finish ten rounds, but made it through nine plus 44 reps…I was just a few squats short!  Boo.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to phase one of our bedroom makeover.

The previous owners of our house painted the entire thing a dreadful color called “practical beige.”  I kid you not.  The only rooms that were not “practical beige” are our kitchen and upstairs bathroom (both painted a very pale blue), and the downstairs bathroom and laundry room (festooned with awful wallpaper).

So, here’s what our bedroom looked like before we moved in.  Note the wall color, and the awful mirrored headboard.  (Which, by the way, they did not paint behind.  We had to take it down because Milhouse was afraid of it, which left us with a big white rectangle on the wall.)

Brown carpet, brown walls.

This was our built-in in the master bedroom—white with white behind it.

After a good coat of paint, and our new West Elm bedding…

…and the built-in.

We still have a ways to go before it looks like what we REALLY want, but the paint color is a vast improvement.  We’ve picked out a nice blue that’s lighter than the built-in for the master bathroom, and will probably tackle that project next weekend.

Other things we need: a HEADBOARD, wall art, more knick-knacks for the built-in.  Eventually I’d love to replace the carpet, and change out the bathroom vanity and shower, but they’re pretty much brand new so we can’t really justify that for the moment.

Anyway, it was surprisingly fun to do this this weekend!  Here’s hoping we still like the paint colors in a few weeks!

Sorry I’ve been missing!  I needed a little break for a few days.

It was back to CrossFit after a two-day hiatus.  I’m taking it easier this week and let myself sleep in a few extra times…I’ve been having some residual soreness from last week, so taking it easy sounded like a good plan.

I didn’t even notice I left out the reps in the picture.  But that’s what happens when you work out at 5:30 am on a Friday.

Anyway, it was:

• 50 air squats
• 40 pull-ups
• 30 hand release burpees
• 20 box jumps
• 10 knees to elbows
• 10 wall climbs
• 20 medicine ball box jumps
• 30 plated burpees
• 40 barbell presses
• 50 barbell jumping squats

And the result:

I felt a bit creaky this morning still, so not my best performance ever.

Milhouse had a rough morning, too:

He really likes to burrow.  Sometimes he goes too far. 

Tonight, we’re preparing for our big master bedroom remodel weekend!  Tomorrow, I think we’ll be taping and picking out paint colors and such, and I think we plan to actually paint on Sunday.  Our new bedding came today, and we really like it!  I’m excited to see how it all turns out, and I’ll be sure to post pictures.

Off to hang with Tim!

Today I FINALLY did a double under.

I confess, I didn’t really take today’s WOD seriously.

Since that’s light, it was a 20 minute AMRAP of:

• 50 double unders (or 25 attempts)
• Max reps pull-ups (without coming off the bar)
• 6 burpees

Your “score” was your total number of pull-ups in 20 minutes.

I kind of saw this and was like, “Today, I will get one double under, and eff the rest of the workout.”  I mean, I did it, but I was not super awesome at it.

I have been doing CrossFit for five months now and have NEVER done a double under.  Part of the problem is that I’m short and I think the ropes are too long, but the other part of the problem is I am not great at hand-eye coordination. 

Anyway.  During the WOD, I successfully did not one, but two double unders!  They weren’t consecutive, of course, but I did them and that’s what matters.

After the WOD, we did one minute each of sit-ups, push-ups, and squats.

My final totals were 22 pull-ups during the WOD, 40 sit-ups in a minute, 36 push-ups (knees), and 43 air squats.  Not too bad!

Anyway, I’m glad I proved to myself  that I can, in fact, do them.  Now I need to work on stringing them together, which I’m sure is a whole different battle.

I’m still working on the whole fertility diet thing as prescribed my my acupuncturist.  I’m not used to saying no altogether to certain foods, since I’m more of an “everything in moderation” person.  It kind of sucks, but if we get a healthy baby out of the deal, bring it on!

Is it Friday yet?

Saturday’s workout was a team effort.

Since that in and of itself makes very little sense, let me break it down.

We worked in groups of three.  For each exercise, we had to do 1 through 10 reps each, of each exercise.

So, say, I did 1 box jump, then another person in my group did 1 box jump, then the third person did 1 box jump…then repeat, except with 2 box jumps, then 3 box jumps, and so on until we were doing 10 each.

Then we did that with everything else on that list—push presses, squats, sit-ups, plated push-ups, and burpees.

Let me tell you, by the time the burpees came around…we were sweating.  That stuff was hard.

We were representing “Team The Three Girls that come in the Morning,” clocking in at 34:55.

(We finished the whole WOD—I don’t think every group did.)

The rest of the weekend has been fairly uneventful.  We’re scraping the awful striped wallpaper off the walls of our laundry room.  On Saturday night, we had a delightful dinner with friends at Grunauer, which we love, and last night, we watched The Help and chilled at home.

Today, we both had the day off work, which meant more scraping (I actually kind of like it) and general relaxation.  I skipped CrossFit because I was disgustingly sore from Saturday’s beating.

What’s your favorite home improvement task?

I’ve decided the nice part of working out at 5:30 is that by noon it just seems like a dream.  Or a nightmare.  By the time I get around to blogging about these WODs, they seem like they were a week ago!

Today we did…

Clapping push-ups make me feel like a walrus.

Pistol squats are really freaking hard. 

I did the deads at 95#.  My time was slower than it should have been because I shared a bar and had to wait for awhile mid-WOD.

I like KB swings.

After work, I went to acupuncture.  I seriously love it.  It is so relaxing and I’m usually asleep by the time she puts the last needle in.  I always feel very sleepy and relaxed afterwards.  And my acupuncturist says she is seeing progress in my pulses, which makes me happy!

After acupuncture, I went home and had dinner and then did my usual Friday night grocery shopping at my friendly neighborhood HyVee.  I like to go late on Friday nights because the store is usually empty.  Whilst I was pondering whether to get roasted garlic or lemon hummus, I noticed a bunch of managers and official-looking people with cameras in the bakery.  I asked what was going on, and they said Curtis Stone was filming a commercial!

Of course, I took my sweet ass time grocery shopping, hoping to catch a glimpse.  Just as I was finishing up, I saw an exceptionally cute butt striding towards the bakery, so I popped a wheelie with my cart and headed him off.  There were a few other female fans waiting for him behind the scenes, and he was happy to sign autographs and take pictures!

So I did!  He was super nice and said he was going to check my cart for preservatives.

(He didn’t, but it would have been mostly okay, save for the Ramen and ice cream Tim requested.)

Totally random, right?  I just wish I hadn’t been wearing my giant sweats and messy acupuncture hair.

In other random news, I just ordered new bedding.  We have the worst luck with bedding.  The fancy stuff we got for our wedding was crap, so we replaced it with Target bedding, which tore in the washer, which I replaced with crappy Macy’s bedding, which I hated to begin with but we needed and is now all snagged.

We picked out this set from West Elm.  I hope it doesn’t suck.

Our master bedroom needs a coat of paint—we’re thinking maybe a light slate grey?  We also need to get an actual bed frame that isn’t metal rails, or at least a headboard.

Any decorating suggestions for our room?  Have you ever met a random celebrity?

You guys, I did something uncharacteristic yesterday.

I totally forgot how I did in the WOD at CrossFit.  We did Cindy, which is AMRAP for 20 minutes of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats.  I THINK I did 14 rounds and change, but I don’t really remember.  My apologies.

Today, though, I took pictures.

I rocked out some awesome 52# squat cleans instead of the Rxed 72# and those suckers were hard enough!   Toes to bar were more like knees to elbows, and handstand push-ups were modified.  But it was a fun one!  I really like chippers like this.

Finished in 14:28.  Good times.  We finished up with 100 sit-ups, which I did in 3:55.

Issue of the day: CALLUSES.  I’m getting them all over my hands and those suckers hurt!  They really killed me on the knees-to-elbows today—I could only do 2 or 3 at a time before the stinging was killing me.  I know that wraps and gloves aren’t necessarily great, but…ow.   Maybe I need a Ped-Egg for my hands?

Last week I asked for questions about CrossFit and got a few, but not enough for a full post, so here goes!

Mareika asks:

K, I have a question about CF: It looks like a fairly ‘total body workout’ based on the exercises you do…how do you five workouts in a row? When I do a really go weights session I can’t work those muscle groups again the next day (by lifting I mean – I can do other things) because my muscle is generally exhausted and just ‘done’. Sometimes when I read your blog it feels like you do CF every day. The most I have ever done weights (when it involves the same muscle groups) is every other day. I think there is a question in there somewhere.

The answer is that I don’t do five days in a row!  I tend to do three days on, one day off, two days on, one day off.  In a given week, I go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.  I couldn’t do five days in a row—by Wednesday I can tell my body needs to recover!

Also, our workouts in CrossFit (I think, anyway) are designed so we’re not really repeating heavy lifts.  If we do heavy deadlifts on Monday, we won’t do any for another week, most likely. We DO repeat exercises (like, say, air squats) more than once a week, but they are usually at either body weight or a comfortable weight.  I’m not sure if that’s the scientific answer, but I will say I never feel completely spent in any one muscle group.  Sore, yes, but if we work something to the point of being sore…we won’t touch that area for a few WODs, most likely.

Also…is there lots of pressure to follow the Paleo diet at your box? Do you think your box is stricter/less strict in that regard. I don’t know how well I could handle pressure to eat a certain way.

Absolutely not!  There are Paleo eaters at my box, but I’ve never felt pressured to eat that way.  Part of the reason I love where I go is because we are not super hardcore.  We don’t have t-shirts with Ed Hardy designs and skulls on them.  There are often children coloring in the corner.  You get my drift.

Certainly there are people who follow that diet and love it, and we had a Paleo Thanksgiving, but…we also had a poker tournament with beer and Doritos.  I like the balanced outlook and I generally side-eye the more strict boxes. 

Nikki asks…

How do you feel about doing these exercises in a group? Do you feel like everyone is friendly and there’s no awkwardness if you can’t keep up with everyone else?

I am probably not the best barometer for this because I have a very high threshold for embarrassment, but I’ve never felt anything but great working out with these people.  99% of the time, everyone is so wrapped up in pushing themselves that nobody is paying attention to other people anyway. 

As far as not keeping up with anyone else…I’ve never felt like that was even a consideration.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and we all know that we suck at some things but are awesome at others, and that’s that.  We cheer on the people who are still working after you’re done at the end.

Have you noticed changes to your fitness and body? Do you think its worth the investment?

Yes, yes, and yes.  I haven’t really been paying attention to weight or measurements because frankly, I don’t really care much about those as long as my pants fit (and they do).  But my fitness has DEFINITELY improved.  When I first started, I could barely do 50 sit-ups, and now I can do 200 without stopping.  Same goes for push-ups.  I can now do 65# thrusters, up from 30# when I first started.  I don’t flail about trying to do pull-ups anymore (I still can’t DO one, but…I’m closer, and more controlled, anyway).  I feel confidently that I am in the best physical shape I’ve ever been in in my life, and I love that it only takes an hour a day, five days a week, as opposed to the time-suck that was distance running.

How do you protect your hands when you lift?  Any more CrossFit questions?

Today was a birthday WOD!  Jason’s birthday was on Sunday, so he picked the Air Force WOD with a special twist for us.

(Instead of doing 4 burpees every minute, we did them every 2 minutes.  Otherwise we probably wouldn’t have gotten done.)

I failed to read the note below the burpees and scaled by load instead of reps.  Oops.  Everyone was talking up how tough this WOD would be, so I went low on the weight, and it really wasn’t bad.  I wish I’d gone a little heavier.  Oh well.

In other news…I have a case of the Mondays.

(Fertility acupuncture diet stuff is going well—still dairy-free, cold-stuff-free, mostly-sweets-free.)

How do you perk yourself up on Mondays?