Hello. (again.)

Posted on by
Reply

Hello.

My name is Jen.

I am a thesis away from a Masters Degree in English literature, even though I do database management, IT and networking for a living. I work at a hoity toity New York City private school and I live in Nyack, NY, a lovely little town north of New York City. I go to a Crossfit Gym at the bottom of my street called Crossfit Nyack.

I started this blog because I wanted to track my progress from being a relatively out-of-shape, over-weight, over-worked, anxious, depressed, unhealthy literature obsessive back to a person more recognizable to myself and my then-boyfriend as, well, me.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve ended up single, but no longer out-of-shape, anxious or depressed – although without an MA or even anything remotely resembling the beginnings of a thesis.

You can’t win them all.

And sometimes (and only sometimes), winning is not the point.

I’m starting in on what I think will be a little bit of a ridiculous spring/summer, so I wanted to spruce this blog up a bit and head back into writing. I’ve already spent an epic week in Dallas with one Eileen Kiza for cowboys, whiskey, honky tonk, bull riding, megachurches and JFK assassination memorabilia. I signed up for a boatload of crossfit and endurance competitions (well, a boatload for me…) and I’m planning trips to southern Cali, Oregon and one epic trip to southeast asia. I’ll be in Asia for most of July to visit one of my most favoritest people in the world, Richard. So, I think there will be less cooking here, and more pictures of me trying desperately to acquire a Crossfit Bangkok t-shirt. I hope you’re OK with that.

No Witty Title, Just the CFN Paleo Challenge

Posted on by
Reply

Sorry I haven’t posted lately – I have a backlog of posts, but I’ve also been trying to stay really really busy so I don’t end up spending my days in my bed, eating frozen Lean Cuisine Eclairs, listening to Death Cab for Cutie and feeling sorry for myself.

CFN is doing a 40-day paleo challenge starting on Monday, March 19. I’m in and I’m so stoked.

This also means that I’ll probably finish out the photos and recipes of paleo-ish desserts (PALEO MARSHMALLOWS ANYONE??) that I have waiting for publication and spend most of the next 40 days being as strict as possible, including the content I post. This means no more concentrated sweeteners (honey, agave, maple syrup, coconut sugar, SPLENDA, stevia), no more sorghum beer or red wine (Sorry, Tim Ferris!), no more deep fried foods (which is OK. The ex left with his fryer anyway, and I won’t be buying a replacement for at least 40 days), no more mixed peas & corn from the school lunch, no more restaurant buffalo sauce or any of the other little sins that have gotten me through two months of mostly paleo.

This is not to say I don’t understand the candy cigarettes I’ve been pushing. I’ve added the canonical Paleo texts to my already pretty ridiculous diet & nutrition reading library (Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan meet Robb Wolf & Loren Cordain!). I’ve sweated blood over baking powder ingredients, worried about the starch in peas and really questioned the dietary issues with alcohol. I can do this with my eyes closed. It’s just a matter of keeping my mouth closed, too.

So, you’ll come with me. 40 days. In fact, I’ll tell you what: I’ll make a new category on a new page and post my progress there (also: hopefully figuring out how to keep it off the main page…although folks on the feed will get the whole kit & caboodle). I might even take fitness blackmail pictures.

Because I’m the shyest exhibitionist you know.

Girl Push-ups No More!

Posted on by
Reply

I’m not afraid to gender these things. They’re girl push-ups. And, as far as I’m concerned, they’re very last season.

This is lame. Even if it's happening in a lace body suit.

CROSSFIT SPEAK LESSON:

RX: PRESCRIBED. I.E., “TODAY, WE HAVE TO DO 21 KETTLEBELL SWINGS. THE R-XED WEIGHT IS 35 POUNDS, BUT YOU CAN SCALE IT DOWN TO 8 POUNDS IF YOU CAN’T DO 35 POUNDS.”

Recently, I passed my CFN board goal of the Bear Complex at 70 lbs. Awesome! Go me! Self-high-five!  However, that means I needed a new goal. Since I’m obviously terrified of the CMC and, despite this, considering the Spartan Race, I decided I needed to up my game a little and start doing as much of the CFN WODs Rxed as I was physically capable without making the coaches sit around til midnight waiting for me to finish.

Cos that’s just silly.

So, my new goal on the CFN Goals board was: “Three days in a row, WODing Rxed”

This goal was short-lived because I quickly realized that my idea of Rxed and my coaches idea of Rxed was different. Bless their hearts, I know they know way more about strength and conditioning than I do because they’re professionals, smart and constantly working on learning more about what they do. My feelings on this are under-informed and possibly incorrect.

That being said, if I do a WOD with a pull-up band or on my knees doing push-ups, I don’t consider that Rxed, even if they give me a nice, fat Rx on the board that day. I feel a little like I’m cheating myself the entire box to have that Rx up there – I’m usually at the 6AM class and the rest of the day, folks are looking at what I did at 6AM. I want that score to be as absolutely honest as possible – and I also don’t want the satisfaction of an Rx until I feel like I’ve really earned it.

The band and the knees are simply saying to me: you need to be stronger because you can’t deal with your body on your own. Despite all the alarmist health media about how being overweight is linked to all sorts of horrific diseases, that has more to do with the habits that lead to the weight than the weight itself. My PCP will reluctantly confirm that despite her preconceptions of me based on my size, I’m one of her healthiest patients and I’ll be OK if I”m 173 pounds for the rest of my life. What I’m not OK with is if I’m doing push-ups on my knees for my entire career at CFN.

Mr. White Shorts rocks the legit push-up

While I’d love to look like Miss Lace Body Suit up at the top, I’d rather look like Mr White Shorts if it means I’m doing my workouts properly and as my coaches intended.

So, I erased my Rxed goal and replaced it with a list of very specific goals…200lb Deadlift, Plyos on a 24″ box, etc. I now also have a private home-gym goal too: rid myself of the girl pushup.

I found plenty of resources online for achieving my goal. I particularly liked Military.com’s Getting Past Girl Push-Ups and Livestrong had a nice little article. Lastly, I looked for the social media fitness darling, onehundredpushups.com. I think I’ll combine these and see if I can’t make this work – kind of excited to get my nose, or at least my bra cups, on the floor, and then back up in the air again.

Tracking! Part III – beyondthewhiteboard.com

Posted on by
1

OK, so, full disclaimer, I was going back and forth about reviewing beyondthewhiteboard.com because it costs something and my whole thing was that this tracking thing shouldn’t cost that much – or anything at all. Fitocracy is free, WODClub is free, Logsitall.com is free…Beyondthewhiteboard is $33/year.

But then, I signed up for a trial and they make you put in your credit card info. I put it in, intending to cancel, and then didn’t use it for however many days it takes them to charge your credit card. Rather than calling, cancelling, and asking for a prorated refund, I decided I should get my ass in gear and review this bad boy, because beyondthewhiteboard.com keeps coming up in the Crossfit boards posts I read when I’m looking for other things. Folks think it’s solid, so it’s worth a look, even if I had to accidentally shell out for it.

Now, if you’re already paying for a box membership, $33/year is kind of a drop in the bucket The big question, is it worth the cost and does it provide something that the free trackers don’t?

Some major comparison points based on my minimal usage:

  • Waaaay easier to use than WODClub
  • Waaaay more fully featured for Crossfitting than Fitocracy.
  • Very basic nutrition tracking (!!)
  • User-friendly interface – things are generally easy to find and intuitive.
  • AJAX-y interface
  • Lots of drilldown on pre-programmed and custom workouts – if you want to track it, you can probably track it with beyondthewhiteboard.
  • Less Fitocracy-style instant gratification racking up points
  • More long-term gratification comparing workout results with other crossfitters. i.e., search the Workouts for “12.1″, post your Crossfit Open 12.1 results and immediately compare yourself to the other btwb crossfitters who posted 12.1 results. Kind of fun.
  • You have to make your own goals – Fitocracy sets values on things for you. It’s built like a game or social network. Beyondthewhiteboard is dead serious – you set the value, you set the goals, you set the “points”. Fitocracy’s appeal to game theory is sweet and fun, but beyondthewhiteboard wants you to train to be an athlete.

So far, of the two other logging websites I’ve tried, Beyondthewhiteboard is definitely the most comprehensive site for a Crossfit Athlete. It has the girls, the boys and other named workouts,   easily clickable and easy to break down, re-configure, customize and add to. There are main Site WODs, but it also lets you track custom workouts down to details that WODClub simply can’t. It has functionality for affiliates to post daily workouts and allow members to compete against eachother, but it costs for affiliates that expect 10+ members to use the site (although affiliate fees also pay for member fees – so no $33/year for folks at an affiliate gym that pays affiliate fees). It doesn’t try to be member billing or anything else like that – it’s  simply a place to aggregate all your nerdy crossfit data. And let’s be clear: this is definitely a sport for nerds.

Beyondthewhiteboard also has a “garage gym” functionality. I setup a garage gym called “Cedar Hill Ave.” just to play with some of the basic affiliate features. Not like I’m ever going to be on the management end of an affiliate, but I thought it would be worth peeking.

Nutrition - This is the first site I’m reviewing that has nutrition tracking. Given, it’s not on par with something like CalorieKing or TheSpark, but you can track your personal goals as they relate to paleo, zone or other crossfit-friendly eating plans. No calorie or nutrient counting, but it does the job if you need a basic food journal.

Exercise Searching - My box doesn’t post workouts on Sundays. Now, while I try to stick to 3-on-1-off, my schedule often demands I workout on Sundays to keep to that regimine. I usually have a collection of sites I look to for WOD ideas and it takes me some time on Sunday mornings to look at the prior week and try to assign myself something that meshes with the historical pattern of muscle groups and skill work (without knowing what the upcoming week’s programming is…a slight problem). Beyondthewhiteboard has a really nice exercise/workout search and tagging functionality that easily lets you search for workouts and exercises based on skill and a number of other things – so if I want something that includes box jumps and rowing today, I can search for something that meets my criteria and then log it pretty quickly. Less scouring Crossfit Outlaw for WOD ideas for me!

Tracking Non-Crossfit Exercise - You could do it, but beyondthewhiteboard isn’t really built for that – it’s built for tracking one-rep maxes and WODs. I tried to think of how I’d setup tracking cycling or swimming – you could do it, and you could get your data back out, but it’d be a little weird. That being said, affiliates have posted workouts for swimming, cycling, and all that good stuff, so you can still use this to compare yourself to other fit folks. This is definitely a site for Crossfitters who do other stuff, and not folks who do other stuff – I don’t think I’d use beyondthewhiteboard JUST for cycling training if I weren’t also Crossfitting.

Mobile - There is no app for beyondthewhiteboard, but there is a pretty zippy mobile site at http://btwb.com

Overall, I really liked beyondthewhiteboard, and I think I’ll use it with Fitocracy this week to track my workouts. Although it doesn’t have the pizzaz and active social functionality that Fitocracy has, it may lend itself better to my surprisingly serious Crossfit habit over time. $33/year…not bad.

Next time…logsitall.com

Housekeeping

Posted on by
1

1) Mostly, I hate themes and WordPress. The theme I had for a while was good, but in no way perfect and I found it difficult to read – the font size was all wrong and the colors were too earth-toney. The theme will continue to change until everything is perfect. I swear, I need a test server.

2) I plan on strong-arming Katie B. into making paleo muffins with me – which may be difficult because I think she can generally lift more than I can. However the strong-arming goes, this will involve a long post discussing baking binders. Sorry. On the bright side, if you go to CFN or live near or work with me, you’re welcome to taste the results.

2A) During my baking binders research this morning, my amazing boss came up with the idea of paleo marshmallows and apparently it can be done (although given the amount of sugar it will require, it will probably be paleo only as far as ingredients goes…not philosophically). OH MY GOD. Also: this may be a baking binder option.

3) Walter let me know that I need to make this all more personal and less cooking-bloggy if I want to be an international blogging superstar. I don’t really like the idea of being intimate with a piece of blogging software right now, and I don’t really want to be an international blogging superstar, but I think he’s right. UGH. This means I have a post about music that I’ve been re-editing for the last 9 million years.  Will publish soon.

4) I made a chicken/cauliflower thing for the wonderful CFN coaches. I took no pictures when I made it, which means I have to make it again.  I also got no pictures of them all lying on my floor using my home exercise equipment. This will be more difficult to re-create.

5) I owe you a review of beyondthewhiteboard.com. I also owe it to myself since I shelled out for it.  I also added Logsitall.com to my list of tracking softwares to review. I still mostly use Fitocracy, though. It’s a little bit awesome.

6) I need to fix the Fauxnuts post so that the picture of Matt’s eye is the same size as the other pictures. This bothers me everyday, but I’m too lazy/busy to fix it.

Three on, One off

Posted on by
Reply

Civillian Military Combine, anyone?

I had a dream last night about the Civillian Military Combine. It was a little nuts, involved the ocean, submerged houses, piles of sneakers, the Wet Bandits from Home Alone, and Morgan Spurlock. I have a friend who really loves dream analysis and I imagine he would say that this dream meant something like I was drowning under the pressure to train, or felt exposed and alone doing something new. I dunno. I mostly think dream analysis is a little bullshit. I’ve been training and competing at things for years. Why can’t I spend one little day trying to run up a mountain?

Well, I did pay $100 to register for this CMC thing, along with the Crossfit Open and a Throwdown in June. I’d like to register for the Spartan Race, but I’m afraid my knees or my overweight body will betray me. I’m not afraid of working hard, I’m just afraid of finding out that I have a body that won’t let me work as hard or harder than everyone else. That was kind of the case yesterday when, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get three consecutive pull-ups in on my regular pull-up band – a band I can usually bang out 5 on. In my after-WOD shower, I was thinking about my crappy-ass performance and realized something: I don’t remember the last day I took off from Crossfit.

Now, while it is a little bit inexcusable that I don’t track simple things like training and recovery days, especially when I’m terrified of my body failing my mind in the spring, there are very good reasons for this. The primary one is that, in December, my relationship with the man I thought I was going to marry, buy a house and have kids with kind of totally broke. This is a little bit funny because if you asked me six years ago, or even three, if I wanted to get married, buy a house or have children, I would have told you to buzz off. But, it turns out, even girls like me can be converted. So, this break was a bit of a blow.

As the confusion, frustration and total apathy of my living situation increased, my enthusiasm for Crossfit increased proportionally. No-one at my box knew much about me, and I felt a whole lot like Jen when I was there. As opposed to a confused, frustrated and somewhat apathetic girlfriend – which is not really how I saw or see myself.

This all came to a head this weekend when we decided that we would end a weird period of platonic co-habitation, that I would get the apartment, and that he would move out. It was at that time that I hugged him, went upstairs, put on my gym clothes, walked to CFN and did 7 minutes of burpees. HARD. I’d already lost count of my days “on” at this point.

Me, post-burpees. This is a metaphor for something.

That brings us to three on, one off. Crossfit prescribes that an athlete trains for three consecutive days and “rests” for one (and by rest, they mean play tennis, go for a hike, run a 5k at a gentle pace, go indoor rock climbing, whitewater kayaking, bare-knuckle boxing, rappelling the Empire State Building…you know, easy stuff). My rest days usually look a little more like me, on the couch, watching King of the Hill, answering tech support tickets and eating coconut milk out of a can. I guess this is fine for now because I was in such shitty shape in October, even me sitting on the couch after three days of working out leads to comparatively ridiculous gains in strength and endurance. But I digress.

As far as I can tell from the Crossfit discussion forums, this prescription isn’t necessarily based in any sort of science – more based in anecdotal proof from the folks who make Crossfit Crossfit. I’m OK with that. They’ve watched a lot more athletes train and recover than I have, and have probably played with a lot of recovery programs. I’ve been sticking to this blindly as much as possible since January. That is, until the last two weeks, when I’ve unconsciously/consciously tried so hard to be out of my apartment doing positive things and being a positive person that I forgot to take a damned rest day. So, that’s what I’m doing today. ? Days on, 1 day off.

There’s a reason I’m being unusually forthcoming in this post: recovery is key to running up mountains and growing up. I’ll bang out 5-10 pullups on my band again (or even go up a band!), just like I might, at some point, again feel like a relationship, or even a house and kids. For today, though, the couch is awfully comfortable, the rain outside sounds awfully nice, and the coconut milk can is waiting, open, in the fridge.

Adventures in Fauxnuts

Posted on by
Reply

Unfortunately for you, I was a whole huge drama queen about making paleo donuts, and so you’ll have to scroll through all my rantings and ravings before you get to the technical details that most people actually care about.

All of this started because of my enthusiasm for the gypsy donut shop & espresso bar that will be opening in Nyack soon. Yes, we Nyackers have Art Cafe (my long-time favorite latte vendor) and Didier Dumas (oh. my. god. pasteries. andsomuchbutter!) and even a Starbucks in town, but I’m greedy and I’d like a different awesome coffee shoppe for each day of the week. There’s room for all of them in my heart.

I brought up the donut shop to Coach Matt & Coach Pete last Friday in I-forget-what-context. What ensued is open to interpretation.

As I said, I’ve been a whole huge drama queen about all this, so as I’ve been telling the story of why I wanted to make paleo donuts, it’s become increasingly dramatic until my most recent iteration went something like this:

What probably actually happened:

It’s up to you to decide which version you believe, but either way, I saw this as a challenge. Matt can’t eat donuts either due to diet or secret Incredible-Hulk-level rage issues and I was determined to help him overcome. Even if he had no idea that he needed or wanted helping. I’m good/intrusive like that.

So, I did some research on teh intarwebs and came up with The Theory of Paleo Donuts (from here-on-out, fauxnuts!) and ran the ingredients by the man himself. I decided I would be baking these fauxnuts instead of deep frying because I’m pretty sure my Bacon Fat Buffalo Wings used up my heart’s grease/deep frying quota for the remainder of eternity. Although I’m sure one could deep fry the following recipe at 400 in Coconut Oil with great success.

“Baking?” You say. Yes, baking. And so, I debated between a mini-donut maker and a donut pan. The donut pan won because I live in an apartment and kitchen storage is at a premium, although the girl at Paleo Spirit gushed non-stop about her donut maker, so if you’re really serious about this donut thing, you may want a single-use appliance. I dunno.

So, without further adieu, the items that aided my borderline-creepy obsession with making my Crossfit Coaches (and my fellow crossfitters, my landlords and my co-workers) paleo fauxnuts. These ingredients will fill two donut pans (12 donuts) with level mold tops (so, they’ll be round on the bottom and flat on the top).

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cup coconut flour (from Old World Market)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (I chose this over baking powder because it is, literally, just sodium bicarbonate. Baking Powder had some other stuff in it that I was just too damn lazy to look up)
  • 3/8 teaspoon kosher salt (most recipes called for sea salt, I think because it’s more paleo….but it’s what I had)
  • 6 eggs (room temperature)
  • 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) honey (I chose Clover Honey from Old World Market because I went through a thing about a year ago where I was obsessed with high-end gourmet honey and I found honey from clover pollen was my favorite type. I’m a nerd.)
  • 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) coconut oil (liquid). I’ll explain this in a second.
  • 1 1/2 cup warm apple cider. LOCAL – from Dr. Davie’s farm in Congers. Purchased at Old World Market. Even though it’s waaaay off-season for apples.

Cinnamon Sugar

  • 2 tablespoons ghee/clarified butter (or coconut oil), melted – for coating cooked donuts. Bought this in the butter section at Old World Market
  • 1/2 cup granulated coconut sugar (again, Old World Market…I bought the Blonde type)
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon

 

Order of Operations

 

For the batter, I required one small mixing bowl, one medium mixing bowl, two pyrex custard cups (or one that you wash), a food scale (I grew up on Weight Watchers, what do you want?), a hand-whisk, a set of measuring spoons, a 2 c. liquid measuring cup and a 1/4 c. dry measuring cup. The cinnamon/sugar/butter topping required one small mixing bowl and one cereal bowl. I’m advanced like that.

1 1/2 cup coconut flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 3/8 teaspoon kosher salt in a small mixing bowl

 

Now, we use half a carton of eggs!

The recipe above calls for 6 eggs. This is 4 eggs. Use subtraction or addition as needed to get to the right number. Note that this bowl is different than the dry ingredients bowl.

Then, add the honey to the eggs (the “wet” bowl). I love clover honey, but there is also elderflower honey and alfalfa honey and eucalyptus honey and tupelo honey and sage honey and even something called fireweed honey. That’s for when you want your donuts to have that special little kick

In this case, to maximize the amount of honey that actually makes it into the batter instead of sticking to the measuring spoon, I used my food scale to measure the ounce equivalent of 6 tablespoons into a pyrex custard dish.  This turns out to be 3 ounces. Then poured from the custard dish into the egg mixing bowl.  Below is a picture of a tablespoon of honey since I used the word “tablespoon” in the ingredients list. Be confused.

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) of honey into the egg bowl.

So, whisk that together – the eggs and the honey, that is.

3 ounces of Coconut Oil! It looks like Crisco!

Next, let’s talk about liquid coconut oil. Coconut oil, at room temperature, is not liquid, and, if you’re like me, if a recipe says “coconut oil (liquid)”, you will go to three supermarkets before realizing that what has to happen is you have to heat 3 ounces of solid coconut oil (again, ounces are easier than trying to figure out the tablespoon stuff, especially if you’re like me and you fridged your coconut oil beforehand) in the microwave for about 2 minutes, you will have a clear oil that you can easily pour into the egg/honey concoction you’ve made while you whisk away. Whee!

Microwave 3 ounces (6 tblsp) for 2 minutes and this is waaaay easier to whisk into your egg and honey mixture.

 

Honey, Coconut Oil and Eggs, 2gether 4eva!

Once that’s sufficiently whisked, you dump that whole other bowl of dry stuff in and stir some more. It will become sticky and gross looking. Don’t worry.

BEFORE pouring 1.5 cups of warm Apple Cider in.

AFTER pouring 1.5 cups of warm Apple Cider in

So, now you’ve got a boat load of batter. You should either grease a cookie sheet or use parchment paper. DO NOT under any circumstance, use ungreased aluminum foil. Things will stick, you will cry.

These were finished on ungreased aluminum foil. You can't see it, but I'm crying behind the lens.

You can either take your hands and fashion it into little mounds and, afterwards, poke holes into the mounds either with your index finger, or with the cap to your seltzer bottle:

Mounds of dough! Yum!

I have an old timey seltzer bottle. The cap made a very good donut hole maker.

Lastly, the donut pan. These are a little bit awesome and make one side of your donuts look PROFESSIONAL.  PRO TIP: That’s the side you have face up when you serve it.

The finished donuts look awesome. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the exposed edges are a little bit brown. Let it cool for a while (trust me, they’ll look a little raw when they’re first out), then turn the pan upside down on a large flat surface like a cutting board.

Melt some ghee in a cereal bowl, throw together the cinnamon & sugar in a mixing bowl. Dip the pretty side of the donuts into the ghee, then into the sugar. Place flat side down on a plate. Marvel at your amazingness.

THE VERDICT: If you’re eating paleo, these are awesome.  Steph says so:

Coach Steph!

My non-paleo friends had mixed reactions to them, the best of which was “Delicick!” (you know, like, delicious, plus ick). These are dense, cakey and not donuts, except for the holes. However, if you’ve been paleo-ing for 35 days and are just about dying for a little bit of sin, these might pass the mustard for your food log while still satisfying that primal urge to eat Entemanns.

And now, I never want to say or hear the word donut. Ever again.

Tracking! Part II – WODClub

Posted on by
Reply

I both understand and mis-understand WODClub.com. And not just because they’re THE THE member management solution for CrossFit Gyms (does that make it superior to or more official than THE member management solution?).

I included it in my considerations for tracking because the super-great coaches down at Crossfit Nyack are all tracking their workouts on it – they even pimped it a little on a blog/WOD post one day.

Where Fitocracy very specifically tracks individual exercises (Jump rope, box jumps, wall balls), WODClub tracks entire WODs and asks for little detail beyond that (although you’re welcome to free-associate in the Notes field), unless it’s one of the girls. As an individual who is not running a box, or part of a box that manages members thought wodclub.com, I was really not all that impressed, to be honest. I think where WODClub’s real strengths lie in marketing itself as a CMS to Crossfit affiliates who are in need of an integrated CMS/Blogging/Workout Tracking/Membership Tracking solution. Now, I’ve worked in IT for more than 10 years and I’ve rarely seen a product that promises to cover such a diverse set of features and excels at any one task – it wants to be a fitness diary, member billing, blog and pamphlet website all at once, as far as I can tell. I can’t say anything about the memberbilling, the blog or the pamphlet capabilities of the software, but as someone who, apparently, is mildly obsessive when it comes to tracking things like food an exercise, the tracking just doesn’t cut the mustard unless I’m exclusively doing the workouts Rxed by WodClub.com or official crossfit workouts.

Given, WodClub *is* free and it’s the only solution folks at my gym are using, so there is a positive community aspect there, however, I also found the interface confusing – which is somewhat rare for me – and I kept looking for features that I’m beginning to think just aren’t there. I would hope that if my box opted to use their premium box management features that they could publish workouts on my WODs calendar alongside the main website’s so I could quickly track my WODs and compare, in a standardized way, with the other members of my gym. While that would be great, it would also leave me a bit lacking in tracking non-standard workouts – like, say, when I opt not to WOD and instead go for a run, go skiing, go biking, go swimming, or go do many of the other things I do occasionally where metrics are important to me. How many MPH did I average on that particular ride this week and last week? How many pool lengths did I get in during my 45 minute swim? Was I using fins?

While I think this is a great website to track the particulars of CrossFit as a sport, it’s not as great as a general workout tracking tool.

Spaghetti Squash!

Posted on by
Reply

Let’s be clear on one thing before we start this: spaghetti squash does not taste like spaghetti, nor does it quite have the mouthfeel.

Cut, then Microwave. 8 Minutes did the job on this baby.

That being said, It’s no reason why any person, paleo or not, should be avoiding it. It’s yummy, and I’m happy that my strangeish diet plan has introduced me to it.

Least attractive picture of me ever. However, it was very important I spoon out the seeds.

Bunches of paleo forums and cooking sites suggested trying this in place of spaghetti, and one night, when I had a yearning for lasagne, I thought I’d give it a try.  After a bit of searching, I found this page to be most helpful for the basic cooking of spaghetti squash. I chose the cut-and-microwave method, which turned out really well. Cut in half, stick in the microwave for 8 minutes, let it cool and then spoon out the seeds!  You’re now ready to make “spaghetti”

Use a fork to scrape out the strands of squash. This is pretty fun and looks pretty cool as you do it. Just don't burn your fingers!

 

It actually looks pretty convincing!

Of course, eating spaghetti squash alone or with a little CLARIFIED butter would probably be pretty good. However, I’ve decided to go all the way. Meatballs and sauce, it is!

Meatballs made with egg, rosemary, a clove of garlic, 90/10 ground beef, pepper and Lawry's

Sauce made from our leftover crushed tomatoes from our shrimp tacos - plus onions, garlic, salt, pepper and a smidge of red wine.

When it was all put together, we had something that looked pretty convincingly like spaghetti and meatballs in sauce. The big question was, what would it taste like?

Looks like it!

The Verdict: So, this tasted a little bit like a nice italian red sauce and meatballs on squash. The experience was enjoyable and somewhat like eating spaghetti – and the red sauce went really well with the vegetable-matter squash flavor that the spaghetti squash had.  Maybe I was doing it wrong to achieve a spaghetti substitute, but it was pretty darn tasty as it was and I’ll be definitely making this again.

Progress (someone has to make it)

Posted on by
Reply

I’ll be honest – although it’s probably pretty evident – that I’m still not quite sure what I’m doing with this blog thing, except organizing myself a little. The other night, Coach Pete asked me why I started doing this – this, meaning CrossFit, as opposed to just joining another gym. But it’s a bigger question for me.

It’s been…well, let’s check my e-mail….It’s been 104 days (according to Wolfram Alpha) since I ran a brand-new personal slowness record of a 12 minute mile (thanks, RunKeeper…) and proceeded from the end of my regular running trail straight into Nyack Fitness and gasped like a crazy person at Coach Matt about scheduling an on-ramp. Since then, I’ve finished my last required graduate class with an A and lost 10 of the 30 pounds I’ve found on myself since moving to Nyack. I’ve also officially put off my thesis until the fall – we’ll call this a wellness semester. I needed saving, it was sorely needed, and I couldn’t have done this myself. That’s the big stuff. Here are the little things I’m even more proud of:

  • Going up two pull-up bands
  • Increasing my deadlift
  • Staying paleo for almost all of the days in January. Will continue on into February save for a beer and nacho binge yesterday.
  • Being able to lift down heavy cable boxes from above my head at work (yeah…I wasn’t so good at that before…)
  • Running a 9:30 mile on this past Saturday. Nowhere near my best, but so much improvement!
  • Writing something. Creative-ish. (hint: that’s a big one, no matter how untidy this thing is)
  • Expanding my position at work from databases and administrative computing to networking as well (this is thanks to the wellness semester, trust me)

It’s been kind of hard – I’ve had two minor injuries (one very unattractive swollen knee now very much better and, now, a really strange feeling in my lower back that I’ll be seeing my GP about this week), a lot of missed Lattes and even more missed cheese. I’ve thrown up, been unable to reach my spice rack, and made myself figure out how to make even my comfort food paleo when I was probably a bit too sick to be puttering around with cans of coconut milk. I had to give up heels for a week and I fell in love with one very sad looking bag of edamame (now disposed). A marathon stick, an ice pack, a heating pad and a foam roller have become my sometimes nighttime companions and I’ve watched a lot of Downton Abbey doing downward dog. I’ve also spent a lot of time in the systems room at work, on the floor, while my ever-loving, ever-tolerant, ever-amazing co-workers watched me try to stretch the ever increasing numbers of muscles I didn’t know I had.

However, all that is small stuff. I signed up for my first Crossfit thing – competition? I dunno. And I’m excited about it. It’s in June. I’m trying to decide if I should wear a pair of my fencing socks or buy new ones. It makes me think about cold mornings in front of the Drew Forum waiting for Coach to drive up in the 12 passenger van so we could travel to a meet. All of that anticipation, the ritual of suiting up, weight checks, salutes and buzzing. None of that will be at the Crossfit thing, but I’m enjoying the anticipation of something new along with comfortable memories of things that are old.

Now, I’m going to rest myself this week so I’m ready for a weekend of really great skiing – made possible by the last 104 days.

The three coaches at Crossfit Nyack are pretty awesome, as are all the folks I’ve met and sweated with there – a really, thoroughly, totally bitchin’ group of individuals who’ve made me re-appreciate both the town I live in and the general act of maintaining physical fitness. Thanks, guys.