First of all, thank you to everyone who sent me encouraging notes after Wednesday’s post! I am happy to report that though I did not PR my strict press last night as I was hoping to, I did finally break the 90-pound PR I’ve been stuck at since July with my Clean & Jerk, bringing my PR up to 95 lbs! I can practically taste the 100-pound Clean & Jerk… I also walked into the box last night with a renewed determination to get my strict pull-up. I let my focus drag a little once I got my kipping pull-up, but last night I was back at it with 2 sets of 10 negative pull-ups and 10 jumping pull-ups! Tonight we are maxing out our back squats, and I’m cautiously optimistic about moving up in weight but I also know that my legs are not exactly fresh after a lot of cleaning and jerking in the past 2 days… Between “Grace” on Wednesday and a 15-minute set of heavy C&J’s last night, my hammies are more than a little tight, so we’ll see how it goes.
Another big thing that has been going on over here is that on Tuesday we officially kicked off 8 weeks of strict zone/paleo eating. The goal is to do this 6 days a week and then on the 7th day we can take a break from measuring and weighing, but still try to not go crazy with pancakes and beer. (But maybe just a few pancakes and a little beer.)
A big reaction I’ve been getting when telling people I’m doing Zone is that I must not be getting enough food, but actually I am having the opposite problem–I feel like I am constantly eating! After playing with Zone for a few days in December, I decided on the block structure 3-3-1-3-1. Here is what a typical day of food for me looks like right now:
Breakfast: 3 eggs cooked in 1 tsp (a small pad) butter (or 2 eggs cooked without oil or butter and 1 slice of bacon), 1 apple, 1/2 grapefruit
Lunch: 3 oz. chicken (about 1/3 of a large chicken breast), 2 cups spaghetti squash (2 large scoops) with 1 tsp melted butter, 1/2 cup grapes (about 15-20 grapes or 2 handfuls)
Snack: 1 oz (about 1.5 slices) turkey lunch meat, 1/2 cup grapes or 1/2 apple, 3 cashews (ok that part is a little ridiculous)
Dinner: 3 oz. salmon (about 1/3 of a large filet), 3/5 cup mashed sweet potatoes (about 1.5 large scoops) with 1 tsp melted butter
Snack: ~3/4 scoop Progenex and 1/3 banana blended with 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk
Not too shabby, right? I have no idea how many calories this equals because I am not really the calorie counting type, but I do know that at the end of each meal I feel satisfied, and by the time I start feeling hungry again it is time to eat my next meal or snack.
After having done Whole30 and other various Paleo challenges, and especially after eating crap for the last few weeks over the holidays, making the switch to strict paleo has actually been a welcome change–but the weighing and measuring is taking some getting used to. However, I’m surprised that after only 4 days I am already really getting the hang of it. I tried pre-making every single meal but have found that it’s actually much easier to just have a variety of things pre-cooked that I can measure out each time I need a meal or snack.
After 4 days I am already sleeping better and feeling more energized–although really I could only improve after my Monkey Bread-filled Christmas morning. Unfortunately my system has been totally flooded with Cortisol all week as a result of a particular project at work, but hopefully that will be coming to an end soon so I can give my body a rest from the fight or flight feeling I’ve been subjected to for the past 4 days! I am already super susceptible to anxiety and stress, and in fact I turned down date night tonight because the thought of seeing a new movie where I don’t know what’s going to happen is just more stress than I think I could handle. That’s normal, right?
