Making Progress

I'll start with the two main highlights of my day --

First of all, our warm-up at CrossFit was either 150 regular jump rope skips or 100 double-unders. I felt like I needed to get warmed-up with my skipping before starting the double-unders so I went ahead and did the 150 skips (I'm definitely improving) ... and then slowly but surely I worked up to 100 double-unders!! The maximum number of unbroken double-unders I could do was 8, but nonetheless, I'm so proud of myself for actually completing 100 in a session. I just gotta keep working at it!

The second highlight of my day was buying UFC tickets for UFC 162 in Las Vegas for this summer!!

I'm so excited!! :)


I spent some time trying to figure out my routine for the upcoming few weeks. I've got a lot of stuff going on (as usual). I'm going to try to take advantage of my time in Kuwait during my summer vacation to really workout hard. When I first did my schedule I calculated that I was working out for almost 5 hours a day ... that didn't seem reasonable or sustainable, so I've had to modify the plan a little.

Wednesdays are going to be my easy days. I'll use the mornings to get stuff done around the house, catch up on blogging, and maybe do some of my Personal Training studies. Then I'll head to Body Balance class and get a good stretch in. It's been 2 weeks since I did a balance or yoga class so it felt good to get back into the studio.

A shadowed snapshot of me in class today (before class started) 

Since I stayed home, my eating was a bit off in terms of timing. I only had my date and peanut butter in the morning, along with a cup of green tea, before heading to the gym. I had my banana before I went to CrossFit in the afternoon.

Breakfast/Pre-CrossFit snack - broken up through the day

After getting home at around noon, I was starving. I had a bigger lunch than usual - but still leftovers from yesterday - the last bit of fish soup (though a much larger serving because I wanted to finish it) plus the last bit of vegetables from Monday night's veggie mix.

Lunch: Fish soup and a Side of Vegetables

I had my banana and another cup of green tea just before heading to CrossFit.

Our CrossFit WOD sounded simple enough (they always do) ... and then you get started and you think, how in the world will I survive? Today's WOD: 15 minutes AMRAP -- 10 deadlifts (50 kg/110 lb), 15 box jumps, 20 burpees. I only managed to complete 4 rounds, and let me tell you, it was exhausting! [The strength portion for the day was push presses - 10, 8, 6, 6, 6 @ 20 kg, 30 kg, 40 kg x 3 ... I tried 45 and 50 but I couldn't complete the reps of 6 -- max I did was 3 reps at 45 ... disappointing!]


After I got home from CrossFit I was starving! My stomach was growling like crazy. I hadn't planned on that and I wasn't sure what to eat. I ended up grabbing 1/2 cup of raw cashews and 1/4 cup of raisins. It finished all too quickly, and it didn't really satisfy my hunger. I may need to work on coming up with a better small protein snack for times like that. It's tricky because dinner time is close, but a light snack just doesn't cut it in terms of taking care of my hunger!

Snack: Mix of cashews and raisins

I've come to realize that once Wednesday comes around, I'm feeling tired and I'm not really in the mood to cook. I need to prepare for this in advance and have stuff ready either from the day before or pull something out of the freezer. Luckily I had frozen a batch of shrimp and vegetables that I had cooked from a previous dinner. I know that frozen is not as good as fresh, but home cooked meals (even after being defrosted) are definitely a better option than order in or other types of packaged frozen dinners. The dinner tasted ok, though by the time I had heated it up, the shrimp were kind of overdone so they were a bit rubbery. The vegetables, however, were yummy.

Dinner: Shrimp with sweet potato, red bell pepper, peas, mushrooms, and some pine nuts

I'm definitely going to have some emergency meals handy so that I can at least have 1 cooking break during the week.

Dessert: 10 grapes

Today:
- Workouts:

• Body Balance at the gym (1 hour)
• CrossFit at CrossFit Q8 (1 hour)
• Burpees: 80 {total: 3,610/20,130}
• Squats Day 4: Rest

- Food:

• Breakfast: date + 1 tablespoon all natural peanut butter, 1 cup of green tea
• Lunch: big bowl of fish soup (2 1/2 cups); mixed vegetables (leftovers) about 1 1/2 cups
• Dinner: shrimp and vegetables
• Snacks: banana, green tea, 10 grapes

- Other: I made some progress on bookings for this summer. Still lots to book and schedules to coordinate!