Baby Steps

This poster hangs in my office.  By day, I'm a school counselor, working with kids and families to help solve their problems....to get them to arrive at their own answers for themselves, and give them the motivation to do so.  

By night, I'm a dad and a husband and I try to model such a positive attitude to my kids.    

The other part of me is passionate about eating well and keeping fit.  I say PASSIONATE because I'm not obsessed about it.  While I think about it a lot, I have my ups and downs.  I ebb and flow like everyone else.  I think the difference is, I thoroughly enjoy working out.  I enjoy just about everything about it.  And who doesn't love eating?  (Those who need a counselor is the right answer.)  So because of this, I come to my point before I digress too much......

I've been injured as you may have read in prior posts.  As I fight through this injury, I have found myself craving foods I normally do not eat much of anymore:  chips, cheese, sweets, Chipotle!!!  I've also had a tough time accepting that I can not run right for now.  I've struggled with not being able to do the prescribed weights, movements, etc. of my Crossfit workouts.  For instance, yesterday.......The workout called for the following:

5K run

100 kettlebell swings.  

I can't run yet.  Grrrr!!!  So I took to a 5K row instead.  I can accept that.  But I usually swing a 50 lb. kettlebell.  Lin, the coach and owner of Crossfit Carmel says, "Dude.....swing a 35 lb. kettlebell.  You don't want to tweak that groin any more."  Stubborn me goes over the 44 lb. kettlebell and all seemed well.  Lin, being the great coach that he is says, "Dude....trust me."

And so I did this....

  

Low and behold............28 minutes later............I felt like.......

Well.....maybe not so patriotic, but it was a GREAT WORKOUT and it wasn't what was prescribed, called for or the RX for the day as is the Crossfit jargon.  But it was MY WORKOUT.  So after three weeks of an injury that isn't going away any time soon, I've learned the following:

--Focusing on eating is paramount no matter what I do for a workout.

--It's MY workout.  Focus on me and not keeping up with or beating someone else. 

--Injury is a part of life.  Letting things heal will only lead to a healthier life.  

--Good coaching is undervalued, overlooked, and not appreciated enough.  

--Listening to those I trust is very important and often taken for granted.

And the most important thing I've learned through this injury:  

Staying balanced does not just come to me.  I have to work at it and it takes baby steps!

Trying to Keep it Together

If you've haven't been reading my intermittent posts on my own health issues of late, I suffered an injury to to this playing soccer three weeks ago this weekend.....

NOT HAPPY.....I thought I'd be back in action after a couple of weeks.  I tried to run the other night and I felt like this.......

So I got on the rower instead.......Then......a week ago, I got this........

..........and this.......

At least my nose can run!!!!!

So I continue to focus on this.........

Trying to be this guy.....

Stay tuned......Monday starts my year-long path to becoming a Holistic Health Coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

Day 2 of 30

Click here to see my Day 2 Journal

So I'm glad I decided to start this over the weekend and not wait until Monday.  I guess it's a good thing I've done this before, know what to expect, cook on the fly, etc.

Made a great omelette this a.m.

  

Inflammation observation:  I will share with you that I have been going through a ton of hand/wrist discomfort during the night.  My hands ache beyond belief and I often wake up several times as my hands are asleep as if they weighed 100 lbs. each.  Not fun.  I'd say this has been going on for several weeks now.  I will also share with you that I've let my diet slide considerably from where it has been.  Having shared both points, I will tell you that last night I slept through the whole night.  No hand pain.  No hands/wrists falling asleep.  

What I'm NOT saying:  I am not concluding that this was due solely to a 100% clean Paleo day one.  I am not sure what only one day can do.  Perhaps I did not sleep on my hands as much? At the same time.......

What I AM saying:  My diet was drastically clean and different yesterday.  The only thing I changed, and the Paleo experts conclude that a lack of grains translates to a lack of inflammation in the body.  Here's a link to Robb Wolf discussing this topic.   

I'll keep you posted as things progress.  I'll also share that I'm going through the worst knee injury ever right now.  It's kept me away from Crossfit and any other intense exercise for almost ten days.  I'll be curious to see how my diet helps expedite my knee recovery (that is hoping that it's just a sprain and nothing is stretched or torn).  

Patience

So today I wake up.  I check the Crossfit Carmel WOD for the day, and I remind myself that I am crazy if I try to attend despite my injury, as minor as it is.  My chiropractor says to take a week of.  My coach at Crossfit says to take a week off.  However, I love to keep at things and not stop.  But today, I experienced a few things that reach beyond Crossfit and they all seem to fit together as if my current situation is the road I was meant to be on.

A dear friend of mine sent me a very good website concerning Crossfit.  She is an A.C.E. certified personal trainer.  In the article, which you can read in its entirety here, the author discusses one of the potential criticisms of Crossfit being the pounding of so much heavy weight leading to injury given the fatigue in energy, endurance and form.  While I have many thoughts on the article, it made me think, "How long have I been neglecting form for time?"  "How many times do I compromise form when the Crossfit coach isn't looking" (like I used to do in h.s. when my soccer or basketball coach turned his back!)  And....."How many times have I left Crossfit WITHOUT STRETCHING after a WOD?"  The answer is.....too many.  I can not thank my friend enough for sending me the article because.......

Later in the day I had a frank discussion with my colleague at work who attends Crossfit intermittently amidst her busy life:  two working parents of toddlers.  We discussed her issues with finding time to continue to attend Crossfit.  She loves how it makes her feel, but she does not love working out, which I think represents a lot of people out there.  The theme of our talk was finding the patience to let other stuff in our lives go so we can invest in our health.  Of course, easier said than done.

Lastly, I answer an email today from a Crossfit friend.  This is the same person I did the Paleo 30 day challenge with.  We emailed our food intake to one another every day for 30 days keeping one another accountable.  Part of my email to him was the fact that I was so impatient today as opposed to yesterday about not being able to work out.  I miss it.  I look forward to the challenge every day, and his reply was that he was not working out going on 5 days now to let his own body recover, and he is not injured.  Ahhhhhhhhh.......patience he has. (I heard Yoda saying this to me as I read his email.)

So today was not about food discovery, or a new PR of any sorts.  Rather, today was about a series of events that take place in all our lives:  an email, a conversation with a co-worker, and a thought provoking article to read.  All of these together made me think that this fitness road that I am on has lead me to a different street.  In order to keep making gains physically, I need to remember that a little bit of patience and "slow down" will get me further in the long run.

I'm struggling today to accept that I need to take a week off from Crossfit.  I don't say this to prove how much I exercise or gloat.  Rather, I say this because I have never been that excited to work out day in and day out before I met Crossfit.  It's what I look forward to (albeit some days with anxiety depending on the WOD of course).  


After throwing my lower back out and seeing my chiropractor who just happens to be a personal friend and after listening to my coach at Crossfit Carmel, I am accepting that I need to take at least a week off.  


One of the best resources I've come across is from Robb Wolf, who wrote the book The Paleo Solution.  He talks about recovery being mandatory and how diet is a necessary part of recovery.  As I read articles in The Crossfit Journal, I like when he says, "recovery comes down to: Eat a Zone favorable or other hormonally intelligent diet with predominantly antioxidant rich "Paleo" foods. Sleep 8–10 hrs per day in a completely dark room. Go to bed as early as possible. Laugh. Avoid excessive stress." All great things to focus on in a time of letting my body heal.  


As I struggle to accept that I can not work out in a way that I FINALLY love doing, I look to credible folks like Robb Wolf, my chiropractor, and my certified Crossfit coaches, who know what they are talking about.   

Injury, Good Form, and Finding Good from Bad

After four months of Crossfit and all the good that has come into my life because of it, I finally experienced my first injury.  While I am not celebrating this momentous milestone in my Crossfit life, I am discouraged and trying to keep as much focus in treating it as I do in a daily WOD.  Saturday's WOD was the "Deck of Death" which included box jumps, kettle bell swings, push press, and burpess.  Half way through the deck of cards I reached for the kettle bell and felt my entire lower back lock up.  I tried substituting pushup's but upon moving to the next box jumps, there was no way.  I knew to respect Crossfit enough to not push further, thus my first official DNF.  Awful feeling while others were pushing ahead.  Saturday was my 5th WOD in 6 days (probably a mistake).  I was more sore from the day before, but I'd been there before.  I'm pretty sure the picture displayed below did not represent my form at the time of my injury (it's so easy to lose that good, flat back when tiring), but you can bet that I'll be even more focused on my form the next time out.  

It's easy to take form for granted (in my opinion).  While I have never neglected form, it is now more important to me than ever.  Neglecting good form (to me) is like falling off the dietary wagon.  Do it over the course of time and catching up becomes harder than ever.  Today will be about focusing on the start of another sound dietary week, heat, and ice.