Struggle #23: Valentine's Day

So Valentine's Day isn't a struggle for me because my Facebook status is "single." I have become much more confident in myself and that is not something that I must have anymore. Although I admit I do like having someone to snuggle up with during a movie. It's more of a struggle because of all of the sweets that accompany it, tempting me in every way possible.

I definitely wasn't successful in overcoming all of the temptations... We had so many sweets at the house that friends had made for Valentine's day or my host mom's birthday. There were heart shaped cookies, kiss cookies, chocolate, and my downfall a chocolate chip cookie cake. I was pretty contained for the most part but that darn cookie cake will do me in. Thankfully they are taking it to work tomorrow so I don't have to look at the darn thing anymore!

But reflecting upon Valentine's Day and all of the sweets really made me look at how I have been eating the past few weeks. Surprisingly, it has been pretty darn good. I would say I am about 70/30 on the whole Paleo thing. For the most part I eat non-processed food that keeps my body fueled well. It has been great that the family I am living with has sort of adapted this lifestyle as well and really helped me stay on track in my eating. It is nice not having bad temptations in front of me all the time. And it has been great having leftovers for lunch the next day.

My 30% of not Paleo consists of a little dairy... The first thing is I have a glass of milk every night for dinner. We have Oberweis milk and according to my brother it is the best milk around. I feel like I need to take advantage of this opportunity while I have it haha. But in all honesty, I have always been a huge milk drinker and just something about it makes me very happy at night. Also, the calcium in it is an added bonus! So milk (and my once a week ice cream) may account for about 7% of my non-Paleo. The other 23% is probably in carbohydrates. With how much I have been training, and how much I am on my feet throughout the day, I feel like I need a dew more of these than I used to. I find if I don't eat any carbs really my body gets very tired and that is never a good thing. My biggest thing with carbs is just making sure I eat them in moderation. If I stuff myself I can tell and my body doesn't like that either... It is a delicate balance but something that I am learning to balance out.

Ok, ok. So 6% of my non-Paleo is definitely sweets. I have found that if I allow myself something small everyday it keeps my sweet craving to a minimum which is always good because I could gorge myself if I wanted to. Besides Saturday, I really have been eating them in moderation.  I have never been a huge packaged sweet individual, but those baked goods will get me every time. Usually,  I allow myself one little sweet a day. Sometimes I don't need it, but sometimes it helps me curb my cravings. I figure if I work out hard and well then this is acceptable. I know it is not perfect, but it works for me and helps me stay controlled.

The one thing I have noticed about diet which I never really thought I would say is how much it affects me if I eat poorly for a few days. My body rejects the food and I feel sluggish. I used to eat whatever I wanted and not know any better, but now that I have been eating well, I can really notice a difference if I do not. More motivation to keep me on track for sure.

So in other big news, I officially signed up for the 2015 CrossFit Open. I am excited, nervous, and ready all at once. I hate the anticipation they put into it every week. I wish they just put all of the workouts out there and we had to do them in one weekend. But alas it doesn't work like this and I will have to patiently await the announcement every week. I am ready for this to get underway though so I can see how my hard work this past year has paid off. I have retested a few of the workouts from last year these past few weeks and have seen huge improvements. I know everyone else in the world is improving as well but I am hoping I have done a little bit more than some of them. But who knows. I am just trying to go into it with an open mind and get ready to attack whatever is thrown at me.

Also, just an FYI. I am studying for my PT boards right now. So blogging may not be at the top of my list to do these next few months. I will keep trying to post about once a week, but after I get done studying at night, all I want to do is turn my mind off. Hopefully on my off day from studying I can find the power to blog but no promises are being made! And sorry for no pictures in this blog. For some reason my phone isn't connecting to my computer. When I get it figured out I will upload a few!

SuperWOD Sunday Throwdown!

This past weekend I hosted a competition at my gym, CrossFit St. Louis! It was called SuperWOD Sunday Throwdown and it came together with the help of the individuals at my gym. It was such a success that we are making it an annual competition and I could not be more excited! But in all reality it could not have happened without the help of the members of my gym and all the individuals that came out to participate.

My partner in crime planning this!

I originally had this idea about 2 months ago and I approached one of the owners of the gym, JoAnna, with my idea. When I sent her all of the information I expected her to either say "no" or to take the reigns and plan this event. However, she emailed me back and said that if I wanted to put this together and run it, then go for it. I was a little hesitant at first because I knew there would be a lot of work to go into this and with me out of town I wasn't sure how I was going to get it all done. However, one of my good friends at the gym, Jacob, stepped up and said he would help me plan this and Matt another friend said he would help in anyway possible as well. These two gave me the confidence that we could pull this competition off.

The calm before the storm. WOD debriefing!

When we gave JoAnna the heads up that we wanted to do this, she immediately helped us start marketing for the competition because we had about four weeks until our competition date. We were going to open up 60 spots for two person teams and see how it went. I was just praying that teams were going to sign up and this wasn't going to be a flop but within a week all the spots had sold out! After the first person signed up, Jacob and I were bouncing off the wall and when we sold out we were ecstatic. But soon after that, I realized we had 120 people competing at our gym, plus all the spectators and other personnel there and that this was going to be huge! There was no room for error.

Planning out all of the details was intense. The biggest thing we had to do was test the workouts and make sure they were going to be alright. This required MANY trial runs, tweaking of the WOD components, and overall just a lot of effort! To make sure we had workouts that everyone could successfully do was a challenge, but in the end, I think we succeeded pretty well. We had a strength WOD, a row/AMRAP workout, and of course a chipper to finish it off. 3 WODs, 5 scores we were ready to go...

Ha that's funny. There were so many details we had to work out that between 4 people we had 16 email threads (with an average of 20 emails on each). That is a lot of communication... Thankfully the four of us worked together and we were able to think of everything that we needed to get done. The week leading up to the competition was super busy working out the details, I had so many lists of things to do, but when I got to St. Louis on Friday night, we were ready to go and get everything ready for Sunday.

The amazing volunteers!

Really this competition would have not have been possible without all of the volunteers from out gym that stepped up to help us out. We had the entire CrossFit St. Louis competitors class plus a few more members help us run this competition. On Saturday after our fun team workout, everyone stayed afterwards to help tape the lanes, rearrange the gym, and move all the weights and bars to where they needed to be. Sunday they were incredible judges that held everyone to the standards but were kind about it and cheered for each team in every workout. We got a lot of compliments on how fair and great they were and I could not be more proud to hear this!

Throughout the entire competition, the volunteers' help with registration, scoring, and resetting for every workout to keep the competition running smoothly and on time. At the end, the volunteers helped us take everything down and it was all cleaned up 30 minutes after we were done. Talk about amazing teamwork right there. Everyone did this without complaint and it really made me appreciate even more the great family I have here.

I was so nervous for Sunday and the competition that it almost made me sick, but looking back on it, it was totally worth it. I got to see so many people compete that were all from different backgrounds. For many people it was their first competition and for others they had competed multiple times. But everyone was there giving it their all the entire day. It was so awesome to see many people who have never been "athletes" in their life so passionate about fitness. While walking around and announcing the competition I had a strange sense of pride for everyone that was competing. It takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there and compete in front of so many people and in doing it, it makes you a stronger person. People may think we are crazy, but the community that has been built around this premise is incredible and makes you love CrossFit even more.

Most of the athletes!

So in conclusion of this weekend, I fell in love with CrossFit St. Louis and the community within it even more. I am so thankful for the amazing friends I have met through this sport and I don't know what I would do without it. I cannot express enough gratitude to Jacob, Matt, and JoAnna for all of their hard work to help me complete this. The countless hours, emails, and planning that went into this was all worth it and I am proud of us! The members of the gym are incredible, both in volunteering and competing! I was so excited to see the CrossFit St. Louis logo all over the gym! The competitors, no matter what level, are amazing! How many people put themselves out there like that? Not many. And the spectators that came to watch were an amazing crowd. At one point Jacob and I looked at each other and just said "wow" because the crowd was so great.

We did it! Thank you boys!

JoAnna and I! Thank you so much for helping
me plan this! You also did an amazing job
competing for your first time! 

So thank you to everyone that was a part of this experience. It is something I will never forget! And hopefully I will see you all in the years to come either at the gym, other CrossFit competitions, or just life.