Restless Rest Day

Today was initially supposed to be a run day, but I swapped today's run for tomorrow's rest day (so that tomorrow I would run and today I would rest). This was a great idea for the first few hours after I got off work. It allowed me to get a good solid nap in. But once I woke up, I was grumpy and restless. I asked Cory if he would go on a skate with me, but he was too busy watching basketball. I sat and watched with him for a bit…but couldn't sit still. I really struggle with the concept of relaxing. 

I decided to buck up and go on a night skate alone. And you know what? It was fun! Relaxing and meditative. I'm glad I did it. When I got home I did my 30 push ups and 60 sit ups. I also made my coworkers drop and do 10 pushups with me earlier today!

Now I'm tired, and am ready to dream of skating. I'll most likely skate to work tomorrow instead of ride…who knows.

follow up to last night's update

Felt like this was very fitting after my update from last night:)

Sweet Tooth

I think maybe my sweet tooth is getting a little out of hand. Hell my whole appetite is! But that's to be expected when you workout a lot. I'm all for maintaining my weight. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for eating food and and not falling into fad diet traps. But weeks like this? They really make me want to go back to my paleo days from last summer.

I've been dealing with getting an upset stomach and bloating from the things I mean hell, yesterdays doughnut, 5 slices of pizza, chocolate bar, and post scrimmage beers and fries with my team did me NO good. Tasty, but it certainly didn't help my mood and made me very sleepy today. I fall into these trends where when I eat dairy, or lots of carbs…I crave more (surprise). These are the days where I really start to recall the reasons why I went paleo (for the short stint).

It started with creepin' on an old acquaintances blog, Kathleen Shannon. I was fascinated with her aesthetic, her world travels, and her house! I started living vicariously through her posts about trekking Mount Everest and dreaming of having a cool and crisp style like hers. In fact, she inspired me to simplify my wardrobe and to embrace a good challenge. I was also jealous that she visited Vienna, the motherland (my Dad is Austrian)!  Then she started posting about doing a Whole30 paleo detox.  I thought she was crazy. I mean, this woman is toothpick tiny. This woman has perfect bone structure and a waist that I sure as hell will never see on myself. After following her paleo journey for a while, I realized that she wasn't doing it for weight loss. She did it to be healthier. She did it to be happier. That's when I jumped on the paleo bandwagon. I didn't do a Whole30 detox, I just cut out anything that wasn't paleo. The paleo diet really changed my mood. I was happier, brighter, not as sluggish. I felt like I was getting more out of my workouts and my bloating? Non existent! I felt hydrated and whole. I just felt all around healthy. You can read about Kathleen's paleo diet and her Whole30 on her blog, Jeremy & Kathleen.

So why did I stop paleo? Well, there are a number of reasons. After I completed my first 6 week running plan (6 weeks to 5k, the same plan I'm working on again right now), I kind of lost sight of my goals. My goals seemed to be scattered and abundant. I wanted to swim 1000 yards in a certain amount of time, I wanted to run a 10K, I wanted to do a new ZWOW every single day. All this on top of derby. So I started training for all sorts of stuff with no clear guidelines or focus I got discouraged. The weather started getting colder, my diet wasn't changing. I was eating everything paleo that I would eat during the summer, but I started feeling sick. I was dropping weight rapidly and feeling dizzy. In hindsight, I realize I wasn't eating seasonally or eating the proper portions for an athlete. With all this stuff going on, I started going out more and partying more…and well…one thing leads to another and I pretty much spiraled out of control (by my standards).

My derby wife, Betty Bout It was very helpful during this time though. She started talking to me about the importance of eating carbs and even taught me how to cook vegan meals. I started feeling happy and healthy again. I was eating HEALTHY carbs, and eating plenty of vegetables and not as much meat. Fast forward to now. This week has been the extreme. All junk food. I can't stop. All cheese and fried stuff and beer and soda and candy. I just can't put it down. It's got me thinking a lot though. The weather is getting nicer, I'm now a bike and bus commuter (due to trying to sell my car in an attempt to be car free…a whole other blog update!) And, well, I think I'm at a that point in my running plan where I can go back to MOSTLY paleo. I'm not ready to give up certain beans and grains yet. I am ready for more veggies, more fruits, more healthy fats and proteins. And Dammit, I want a steak!

So with that said, Friday is pay day and I plan on putting together a mostly paleo menu and doing some paleo grocery shopping. Sunday I will be marathon cooking and freezing meals for the week. I think this will be very helpful since I'm on such a tight schedule.  I feel confident about this idea and can't wait to really grab my nutrition by the balls.

Last Night's workout
Was supposed to be a rest day, but I scrimmaged, rode my bike 12.6 miles, did 60 crunches and 30 push ups.

Tonights  workout
2 scrimmages
60 crunches and 30 pushups
and by the end of it all I will have riden 12.6 miles today.

On tonight's menu? Vegi shishkabobs with Acorn squash, zucchini, black olives, onion, tomato, and maybe some brown rice or quinoa.


AND *sorry for the long update* I think I'll start taking more photos to add to my blog:) Not enough pictures happening these days.

Backlog

Meant to post this last night but I was SO BEAT.

Yesterday's workout:

20 min interval run (2 min run 2 min walk) on hill

60 crunches
35 pushups

7 Miles of bike riding

I also skated with my juniors from 6-7:30 and then my furious sisters from 7:30-10. Great practice. My legs are jello.

Tonight is scrimmage. It's supposed to be a rest day for me...*sigh* such is life.

Practicing the Art of Chillism

I think people are mistaking my wanting to be alone and zen for being depressed. I'm not. I'm not depressed. I'm just TIRED. I just want to chill! Today I practiced the art of chillism. I rearranged my living room a little, cooked a delicious breakfast (or…brunch for that matter) and washed some bed sheets. It felt great. Tonight I'm going to cook something delicious, enjoy a glass of pinot, and watch Ghost Busters (or something of that nature). It feels good to just relax.

I also did a boxing workout! It was super fun! I followed this video on youtube: 

Beginner Boxing Workout

It consisted of 8 rounds of 20 second uppercut tabatas (10 seconds rest in between each set), 3 sets of 20 burbees on the minute, 3 rounds of combo punching sets, and one 4 min simulation round followed by 100 bicycle crunches, 60 regular crunches, and 30 push ups. 

I want to learn the punching combos. They were hard (especially since I don't really quite have the grasp on what a proper uppercut looks like). I like what he says at the end about sparring, and how 3 times a week isn't enough when you're competing. This holds true for any sport that you're competing in. 3 times a week isn't good for derby. I can do better. I need to stay sharp on my derby skills too. I can easily do this at home too if I just take at least 30 minutes on the days I don't have practice to fine tune my skills. 

I think more boxing workouts are in order though. This one was fun and challenging! 

As far as my food intake today, I did pretty well (for the most part). I have a sweet tooth so fighting against chocolate and soda is really hard. But for breakfast I had 2 scrambled eggs with spinach, onion, tomato and peppers with 3 pieces of bacon and an orange. For lunch I had a smoothie with two handfuls of spinach, 1 banana, 1 kiwi, and a handful of frozen blueberries and a couple tbsp of coconut milk, and then I went a little off on the deep end and ate half a toblerone and had a glass of soda. I still have dinner though. I think I'm going to look up a carrot soup recipe. Last night I had chili lime miso glazed collard greens and beets with chili lime miso glazed sockeye salmon. DELISH.

Today I feel good. I feel strong and positive. I feel relaxed and happy. I hope I can keep the feeling up tomorrow...

Trying to get back on the horse

Well, my intension was to post more frequently about my preparation for Wild West Showdown, but that didn't happen. I'm not even going to write much of a recap either. We lost against Jet and Sac but beat Slaughterhouse. The Jet and Sac bouts were extremely fun to play. I got ejected right before the half in the Jet bout though. I was a little bummed. Okay, really bummed. It was for a hit gone wrong (totally hit the jammer straight in the face with my shoulder…hard. It stopped game play.) I felt awful… *sigh*

My endurance is definitely not where I want it to be at all (the above photo is certainly me out of breath), and I've been awful to my body. I didn't really do any partying at Wild West Showdown, because we were there for business. Ever since we got back, though, it's been a different story. Work events, meetings, more work events. Booze just flows like water at these things and let me tell you, my will power isn't very strong.

I would like to take a more active interest in my health. I need to. I can't handle the emotional hangovers (or physical ones for that matter). I can't handle not feeling strong and confident, and I certainly cannot be running around like a wild banschee all over the damn place. It's just not cool.

In order to grab my health by the horns, I've decided to shift my priorities around a bit.

I was in the best shape of my life when I was focused on my 6 week 5k running plan (over the summer). I'm going back to that. I started today. I'm hoping to use this blog to help keep myself on track by posting my workouts and runs. Nutrition will follow, but I've got to focus on one thing at a time right now.

Today I went on a 5 mile leisure bike ride. It felt good to soak in the sun. After that I walked my dogs and then I completed day 1 of the running plan:

2 minutes walk, 1 min run for 20 minutes (I did mine on a small hill)

After that I did 60 crunches and 30 push ups. I read somewhere that one of my derby fitness idols does 60 crunches and 30 push ups a day. I'm going to give that a shot. It doesn't take very long.

I feel good about how active I was today, but I would like to feel better. I have a problem of comparing my body to others and not feeling good enough. I don't feel lean enough, healthy enough, or yes, even some cases "hot" enough. I feel like a chubby kid sometimes. It's strange because I didn't really start to have these emotions until this season really. I can think of a few things that have influenced this but I'm not ready to share them yet. This brings me to my other priority:

Loving myself.

It's really hard to learn to love yourself. I thought I loved myself, but with all these body image issues, I guess I don't love myself as much as I thought. Especially when I go out and wear out my body by drinking or eating things that I shouldn't. I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, but god damn it's hard to turn down a Makers neat.

I'm going to learn to love myself and feel confident. It's going to be very difficult but I'm hoping that writing about this stuff will help me. I don't have a counselor, I don't really want to run to my friends about it, and well…I don't feel like I have a major problem. I can control this myself. I know I can. I'm strong.

Derby and life…what a journey. Every journey has it's ups and downs.

I must have been thinking a lot about this stuff during game play because even my game face looks a little contemplative:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/masonite-burn/8542785413/in/set-72157632960453072