I got my fix. I had cookies and muffins and wine and candies.
Last night my body rebelled with stomach cramping and inflammation.
Ugh.
Time to eat clean again starts NOW.
Ugh… my tummy
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Tag Archives: Health
Your own personal victory garden
(This post is the third in a series on eating, inspired by the movie Food Inc. You can read “The Way We Eat” here. Read “Meet your Farmers” here.)
My son checks out a tomato from our 2009 garden. It was quickly devoured.
OK, I’ll admit it took me a long time to write this post on growing a garden. Part of the reason is that it’s been so cold and wet, I haven’t wanted or even been able to get out in my own garden.
Trailing winecup, a native, next to Texas Sage, blooms in spring.
I always find the urge to grow my own food is strongest around early spring when the trees begin leafing out, the flowers are bursting with color, and the fruit and vegetables that have been long missing from the farmers’ markets are just now starting to reappear.
Spring is my absolute favorite time in Austin. Admittedly, it doesn’t last very long, meteorologically-speaking. And this spring took even longer to show up. What’s up with 40 degree weather on the first day, huh? One reason I love it so much is that it’s time to plant most of my favorite garden vegetables.
Nashville gerden -- 2003 or 2004
I’ve been gardening… well, forever. My grandad had a garden, my mom had a garden, and when I rented my first house — you bet! — I dug a plot for a garden. Check out that lovely image to the right. That was my Nashville garden, complete with sunflowers, tomatoes, beans, peas, soybeans, peppers and others.
These are hot peppers from the Fall 2009 garden.
Gardening in Texas is different. Way different.
We moved back to Austin 5 years ago, bought a house, and immediately I wanted to grow a garden. While I can grow shrubs, flowers and trees like an experts, my veggie garden continues to be a challenge. Unfortunately, Central Texas poses a number of challenges for aspiring vegetable gardeners, and that can be daunting for first-timers.
That sucks! Because the best food you’ll ever eat will come out of your own efforts — from the sweat of your body and work of your hands! When we talk about eating REAL FOOD — you can’t get any better than food from a garden.
And if you have kids, I’ve discovered that children are more likely to eat vegetables if they grew them themselves. Heck! Most of the stuff we grow doesn’t make it in the house! Luke usually eats the broccoli, cauliflower and tomatoes straight from the plant!
I’ve written extensively about the challenges I’ve faced, and I’ve learned a lot — so tomorrow, I’m going to share some of the things I’ve learned, share a bunch of pictures, and hopefully you’ll find a way to start your own garden — because there’s no one right way to do it!
Stay tuned.
This is huge: My big announcement to the world
Have you ever had amazing news that you’ve been dying to tell everyone about but just couldn’t?
Yes, readers — I have been holding back on you. Although I have alluded to it on a number of occasions.
I have been carrying a secret for the past three months that only a few people have been privy to — mostly on a need-to-know basis.
I am having a baby!
Pretty huge in my world. This will be child numero dos — a younger sibling to my precious Luke.
And of course, if you remember some of my posts in January, it should all make sense now. All of a sudden, I was sucking air during those runs. I figured out why a few days after it started happening. Actually, I figured it out the day after the Crossfit Challenge began.
Duh – my body was changing! It was tired!
I didn’t want to tell the world, though—not yet at least. I wanted to wait to make sure everything turned out just fine. The chances of miscarriage can be very high in the first three months. At first, only my husband, doctor, Crossfit coaches, and Kung Fu sifu knew, because they all NEEDED to.
Later, I let it slip to a few friends and family. And in the past few weeks, it’s been much harder to hide. My belly is starting to pop out! And some of my friends — particularly my Crossfit friends — have noticed.
So here we are – 6 months away. I hope you will bear with me because my pregnancy will undoubtedly become a part of this blog. I’ll spare you the boring details.
As time progresses, my coach and I will begin scaling my workouts, focusing on maintaining strength throughout the term. How I feel will play a huge part in that. And Andy and I plan on adding a couple extra workouts a week from the Crossfit Mom site, which send outs scaled versions of the Crossfit.com workouts.
Thank you everyone for your support! And don’t worry – the blogging and workouts will continue!
Grimaces and ice
This evening I took on the last challenge workout for the week. I was sore from Thursday’s and Friday’s WODs, but it’s Saturday, and it’s got to get done.
4 rounds
25 double unders or bell hops
25 swings
10 burpees
25 situps
25 walking lunges
I didn’t have the intermediate weight of 20# for the swings, so I went with the 15# dumbbell. I would have used Andy’s homemade “kettlebell,” but the swings were supposed to be American — over the head — and the homemade rig isn’t safe above eye level.
I also chose bell hops, because I can’t do more than 1 or 2 double unders.
I finished in 17:51.
Sitting on the deck next to Andy after the workout, I attempted to pull the mulch out of my Lulu pants — not fun. But it was even less fun standing up. That glute muscle, which has been bothering me for weeks, screamed out in PAIN. I immediately went inside to change and get an ice pack.
I alternated ice on and off every 15 or 20 minutes or so. The inflammation is better.
Dammit — I wish I could take something other than Tylenol for the pain. I’m not allowed to take anything else right now, and Tylenol doesn’t do a darn thing for muscle pain.
Sigh.
I hope this starts to heal soon. My test is this week, and I need to feel strong before doing some of those moves. Cartwheels? Drops? Rolls? Low stances?
This is going to hurt.
Going organic
Eating is hard-wired into us, and as adults, we tend to follow the same eating patterns we learned as kids.
Changing habits can be hard. Seeing through the veil of industrialized agriculture and advertising can be even more difficult without actively seeking out the information. I mentioned seeing Food, Inc., and the film’s suggestions for changing our culture and the food industry for the better.
One of the first food changes we made in my family was buying organic.
We started gradually. First, we started exclusively buying organic dairy.
This was back in 2004 in Nashville, and the organic selection was pretty slim. There was only Horizon in our nearby Kroger. There were a few more options at the Wild Oats, but it was still kind of sticker shock for us. We weren’t used to spending so much on a single gallon of milk.
And I didn’t even taste the difference, until… we tried to drink regular milk again. All I could taste was a metallic flavor. It was disgusting. We never bought conventional milk again.
Soon after we made the decision to go organic, Andy and I moved to Austin and I became vegetarian after watching this.
Organic produce and meat (for Andy) were luxuries for us, and it wasn’t until Luke was born that we took another major step in buying organically. Andy and I decided to try to feed Luke as much organic as we could afford — exclusively, if possible. We tried to remember the list of the “Dirty Dozen” — the fruits and vegetables that are sprayed with the most pesticides and avoid the worst offenders.
Buying organic can be very expensive, especially when you add meat into the mix, and “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always good for you — especially when we’re talking processed foods.
My family tries to buy at farmers markets and grow our own vegetables to reduce the added costs. (More on that in future posts.) But I’ve also figured out some ways to navigate the grocery store. Here are a few things that I do:
- Shop at a grocery store that has lots of variety — multiple brands mean choices and competition, which brings down prices.
(I know you can go to multiple grocery stores, like Wheatsville, Sprouts, Natural Grocers and compare prices and all that. Do that if you want, but I don’t have time for that. I work and I have a small child. Our grocery store of choice is Central Market — it’s close and I know it like the back of my hand.)
- Buy vegetables and fruit that are in season. Have you noticed that organic apples are cheaper in the winter? And berries are really expensive? Cheap means they’re in season. Learn the seasons. Adjust your menus. We buy tons of summer squash in the spring, summer and fall, and tons of greens in the winter. We eat lots of apples and oranges in the winter and melon and berries in the summer.
- Buy bulk, rather than boxed. I save money by buying in the bulk section, because I only get what I need, and there’s less chance it will go bad. We used to buy oatmeal like this, because it was so cheap. Now we buy nuts, dried fruit, spices and chocolate. Just make sure there’s a quick turnover — you don’t want food that’s been sitting there for months.
- Check out the frozen vegetables. Sometimes these are the better deal. The produce has been pick at its peak and flash frozen right there in the field, so it’s really fresh. We tend to buy out-of-season veggies and fruit like this a lot, because the prices are lower and it’s easy to heat up for snacks, soups, and other meals.
- Avoid processed foods. These are the most expensive items in the grocery store much of the time because of their convenience. Do you really need a frozen dinner? With a little planning, you can cook up tasty meals — made with whole, organic ingredients and less salt — in about 30 minutes.
It’s always a victory for us to spend less at the grocery store than our budget. I’ll admit, one of my favorite things is to walk through the grocery store with my son on a Saturday and let him try the samples. Sometimes we don’t worry about the budget, and we try things just for the experience — like when we brought home a coconut, because Luke had never seen or tasted a fresh one.
But I absolutely love taking Luke to the farmer’s market, where many of the vendors know him by name now — he’s been going just about every week since I had to carry him in my arms. I’ll write about that next time.
Viruses suck
This sickness is playing havoc with both my appetite and my nutrition.
A recap. Yes, cedar is at its worst this week in Austin, but I don’t have allergies. I’m one of those lucky people who just don’t have to deal with them… yet. Of course, I started to wonder on Friday when my throat got sore, my nose clogged and I started to cough.
Um, no. The symptoms now appear to be more like what my son came down with earlier in the week. The doctor told us it was viral bronchial-pneumonia. I really hope I am just suffering from some other virus, because that sounds NASTY. My icky virus sucked all the energy right out of my body and destroyed my appetite. And by destroyed, I mean it made me crave bread, muffins, pasta, donuts… all of the carbs I’m not supposed to eat, and especially during the challenge.
Fortunately, I managed to overcome the urges, and instead I ate fruit. Lots and lots of fruit. We’re not supposed to eat a lot of fruit either, but when the choice is between bread, hurling up a salad or feeling satisfied with a tasty blood orange, you can bet I’m choosing the orange. Fruit became my comfort food, and it was so welcome.
The other thing that happened was my body asked to sleep… and I let it. Boy did I let it! I slept for 12 hours on Friday night and 13 hours on Saturday! That doesn’t happen very often to this working mamma! Thanks to Andy, my incredibly patient husband, I had no chores to take care of and I was allowed to sleep.
I’ll probably sleep long and hard again tonight, as I’m just not feeling myself yet. Just walking around the house wears me out.
The good news is, I am finally starting to feel better. The bad news — today just has to be another rest day, which means cramming Week 3 WODs into Monday-Friday. SIGH.
I will not surrender to de-feet
I ran just over 4 miles Sunday morning. It was a cool, foggy morning, and I went alone.
Thanks to my iPod, I was able to tune out the sound of my heavy breathing and keep a good pace. I don’t know why, but when I hear my own heavy breathing, it slows me down. Talking to my running buddy helps — but when I’m alone… ugh. It’s like my brain says — “Oh no! I’m breathing heavy! Slow down!” But the music drowns it out.
Later, Andy commented how incredible it is that I can run 4 miles now, when just a couple of years ago I couldn’t hike more than a mile without feeling some of the most intense pain in my life.
I was diagnosed with a Morton’s neuroma in 2007 after years of increasing pain in my left foot. It started with inline skating and gradually caused me to drop away from skating, biking and hiking. It threatened Kung Fu, and that’s when I finally saw a podiatrist. Over the course of a year and a half, I received cortisone injections, was fitted for orthotics, and finally went through a very painful series of sclerosing injections designed to kill the nerve that was causing me pain. I was told that I should never go barefoot and that orthotics would be with me for the rest of my life.
Ha. Talk about conventional wisdom.
I wore the orthotics, stopped wearing high heels, but I never stopped going barefoot on the mat at Kung Fu. My foot would often remind me about the neuroma by going numb and eventually tingling with some pain.
But you know what? It’s gone away since I started Crossfit. I stopped wearing my orthotics in my running shoes and to Crossfit — and my foot’s fine. Something happened. Something awesome.
I might actually be able to go on long hikes again. And I’m plotting a strategy to begin running in my Vibrams (I need to strengthen my feet). And I really want to read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. (He was just at my gym to speak and sign books, but I had to work. Darn it!)
Anyway, I guess not all of my doctor’s advice was right for me. While I agree that high heels are horrible for your feet… Never go barefoot again? Really? Even in the house?
I’m going to keep working at it. I never want to feel pain again, but I’m sure as hell not going to baby my feet and let then turn into globby little wimps. I need my feet to be strong, too!
An AMRAP
The rain crashed into Austin Friday morning with a bang, startling me awake around 5:30 a.m. That’s about when a huge branch fell right on the roof, and despite my urge to stay in bed, I decided to get up.
My motivation ended there. I just wasn’t feeling much motivation for Friday morning conditioning. The rain, as much as it’s needed, seemed to have dampened my enthusiasm.
AMRAP 20 minutes
10 burpees
10 bicycles
10 squats
10 pushups
There were only 3 of us there for class — not an unusual event if you look back over the years at class attendance. Frustrating, yes, but odd? Not at all. We’re coming up one holidays, people want a break. They’ll all be back — with gusto — in January. It’s like a traditional gym. I wish it wasn’t that way, but it seems like it is.
I don’t really feel up to getting any deeper into class attendance in this forum. My friend Bryan and I spoke at length about it Friday, after class, and he wrote his thoughts here, which are very interesting.
Needless to say, it would be nice to not be the only one invested in this class — after all, I’m just a volunteer. Bryan graciously agreed to sit down with me to plan about classes on a quarterly basis, implementing a conditioning focus as well as a skill focus that will build week to week. We want to make it feel accessible (which is already is, but people don’t see it that way), but there’s a fine line to walk, because I still want there to be accountability, too. One of the biggest problems I see with traditional exercise (i.e. gyms and the like) is accessibility without accountability. Anyone can join a gym and do exercises that promote muscle imbalance or that do little to build any of the 10 physical skills that define Crossfit (endurance, strength, stamina, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, accuracy). And many people want to do their thing at a gym without someone — even themselves — holding them accountable for performing each move accurately. Ever seen someone do a pushup where their neck was moving more than their arms? I used to be that person. It took a long time for me to swallow my pride and accept that 1) I needed guidance and 2) I do have the ability to do it right and improve.
Hmmmm…. I guess I did get into the whole class attendance issue.
Anyway, It will be really good to have another person that cares as much as I do about the class, and I’m looking forward to getting started.
It will be FRANTASTIC!
This morning is Fran! My shoulders, arms, hands, lats and neck are still sore. But I’m not concerned. The only thing that worries me is actually checking in. You see, the chest congestion I had yesterday has moved up into my voice box today, and I have little voice left. I sound WAAAAAYYYY worse than I feel. I feel great! Bring on Fran!
Bring on the band!
This morning’s WOD was a major milestone for me. It was the first time I used a band to do pullups, rather than jumping pullups.
For me, this is HUGE. And I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Here’s the WOD:
1) 1 pullup in 1st min
2) 2 pullups in 2nd min
3) 3 pullups in 3rd min
… FAIL
Zach started the clock and counted us through the minutes. You do 1 pullup in the first minute, 2 in the 2nd, 3 in the 3rd, and on and on until you fail. I grabbed the thickest band, and it took some getting used to. The thing was so strong that, at first, I had trouble getting my arms to straighten at the bottom — it just kept pushing me up! But as I got used it it, it felt much more natural.
I also worried that the band was too strong, because the first 5 minutes seemed like cake. But as time wore on, my arms fatigued, and I had trouble pulling myself up. I failed in the 13th minute on my 10th pullup. Ugh! It was hard. So the number I wrote down was 12 — the last complete round. Those of us who were done were instructed to do 10 jumping pullups on the minute until the last person failed.
Our followup involved tabatas.
1) 4 rounds of situps
2) 4 rounds of pushups, with plank during rest
3) 4 rounds of bottom to bottom squats
4) Run 400m
I’m also improving in my running. My endurance has improved — I’m faster and I don’t get as winded as quickly. It’s something I noticed Tuesday when I passed a few people in my class during the warmup run and was the first back for the WOD. This morning, one of the girls in my class noticed — she smiled and said, “What the hell?”
I’m off to a new doctor to have a look at my elbow and hopefully give me better directions on how to help it heal. I also want her too look at the skin on my arms and legs — I have a growing suspicion that I may have picked up some poison ivy on my last run. Argh! So uncomfortable!
Squat and jump
Miraculously I was able to get enough sleep last night so that when I woke up at 5 a.m. for my workout, I wasn’t completely exhausted.
I’m glad I went. Today’s WOD was a great one:
5 rounds
15 Overhead squats
20 box jumps
Overhead squats are really hard. It’s hard enough for me to hold so much weight over my head when I’m not injured, let alone trying to rest my elbow. I decided to take it easy and go as light as possible without dropping to a PVC pipe. I grabbed the women’s bar — 35 pounds — and did not load it with any extra weight.
A number of the girls attempted to do the prescribed women’s weight — 75 pounds. But during the workout, some of them kept grabbing my bar because 75 pounds was too heavy for them. At one point I was slowed down while waiting to get back to my bar. I also attempted to do all the box jumps, but on round three my legs were toast. I kept going by stepping up. I’ve fallen off the box before when I’ve been tired, and I’m still trying to overcome my fear of that happening again.
I finished the WOD in 15:45. And there was no residual tweaking in my elbow, so I consider the workout a success — as well as my healing process. It’s a good sign that My elbow hasn’t tweaked in days.
We followed up the WOD with a partner exercise. One of us hung on the pullup bar in an L-sit for 20 seconds while the partner helped us (minimally) hold our ankles up. We did that three times — great core workout.
I’m thinking about going to the free UTB workout this Saturday at 8 am. Anyone want to go with me?