Why my car...?

Someone rummaged through my car last night and stole stuff! STRANGER DANGER!

I am so annoyed and totally creeped out! I feel violated. I am not mad that they took stuff. Obviously they needed it more than me so whatever. What I am upset about is someone was burglarizing my house 25 feet from my front door…which happens to be a glass panel door. Awesome…one right hook to the door and you are in. Good thing I have a bat and I have been working out. You should see these guns. I am stating this right now….if anyone comes in my house they are going to get a home run swing to the skull. Ya have it coming!

Speaking of working out last night was another brutal W.O.D (Workout Of the Day) at CrossFit.

Run 800m
50 35lb kettlebell swings You take a 35lb kettlebell and bend at the knees so it is between your legs. Swing it up as high as you can and let the momentum keep it going as it swings back between your legs and you swing it up again. Do 50 of these…and keep your heels on the ground!

50 12lb “Wall Ball” You have a 12 lb soft medicine ball that you squat with. On your way up you toss it up against the wall and then catch into full squat. 50 of these…let me just say that these are NOT fun!

Run 400m
50 35lb Kettlebell swings
50 12lb “Wall Ball”
Run 800m

I finished in 22:47. Then tried not to barf…..as did everyone else in the class with me!

I think I am a wee bit masochist. Normal people would not PAY for someone to tell me to do these workouts!

Stella 6-Pack

What I eat and the amount of exercise I get and how much sleep I get at night greatly affects my brain juices and whether the chemicals get from point A to point B normally. That’s what Bipolar is…your brain juices get lost on the way to Point B (depressed). Or all the juices go to point B at one time in a big stampede (Manic). The diet the Naturopath gave to me when I was first diagnosed, at least according to what I can and cannot eat, is pretty much a carbon copy of this Paleo-Zone diet. So this is a natural way I can help myself to maintain a healthy and steady mental state. And avoid a continuous increase in man-made chemical meds.

So I am part of a group of ladies at my gym that are part of ‘Stella 6-Pack’. The trainers at the gym last night wouldn’t let me leave until I joined. HAHA thanks guys! You have to follow the Paleo-Zone diet (Athlete Version so more protein!) and go to the workouts 3x a week. We took our Before pics last night (shirts off BAH!) and our Afters will be taken on April 1. After we take the pics then we are going to have a party (after our workout, that is!!)

This is going to be really hard for me the first 2 weeks…but after that I should be ok.

What I can eat:
* Meat, Poultry and Seafood. The trainers at the gym said to eat meat like it’s going out of style. I like it already!!
* Veggies and lots of them
* Fruit but not too much (a lot of fruit will spike your insulin amounts because of the carbs/sugar in it so you can’t eat too much of it.)
* Eggs
* Nuts and Avocados (no peanuts as it is a legume.)
* Oils from nuts and fruit, like olive oil

What I cannot eat:
* Grains (so no pasta, no bread, no oatmeal, no rice…no no no none of that. This makes me very sad! But it won’t be for forever. I just need to get off refined foods!)
* Sugar
* Dairy (for first 2 weeks only. I can then have it in small doses. See below+)

* Beans and Soy products
* Processed meats
* Vegetable oils
* No alcohol. Red wine…waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Basically I eat like a caveman. If I cannot pick it, forage for it, or kill it then I can’t eat it. (All this foraging and killing will be done via Whole Food of course….)

+ I can have dairy because studies show that primitive cultures (who ate this way) also ingested a lot of milk based on where they lived. Example is the Masaii African tribe. They basically live off of Goats Milk and meat and they have no obesity or heart issues…+

I get one thing to cheat on and I choose my morning drip coffee with one packet of raw sugar and some cream. I won’t give that up and they said that was ok.

The fact that I am going to be accountable for taking after pics is very motivating!!

So why am I doing this? Well 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” My mental health is very dependant on my diet and exercise. I am grateful that I am ABLE to push my body in the gym like I do. Not everyone I know can walk or run or jump. I am grateful that I am healthy enough to do so. God has also blessed me with living in a place where I have access to very good, very healthy food. Why would I choose to put junk in my body when I can eat awesome, fresh, un-processed food for cheap? I view this as another way to worship God. All that I have and all that I am mentally, physically, spiritually is from Him and for Him. So I need to take care of it as a way to thank Him.

I love the Chuck T's....

'nuff said....

Oh Nike...

She looks good as a model, right?!

Giddy with EXCITEMENT!!!!

I was told just a few minutes ago that I am being sent out to work onboard the ms Zaandam from 5/22 to 6/4. It will be 2 7 day roundtrip Seattle cruise to Alaska!

Ohhhhh I am so excited!!!!!! WOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

These are all pics I took on my last Alaska cruise!

Just bought my plane ticket to....

Grenada!

I will head down there 4/17 for 10 amazing days spent doing nothing but getting a tan and lying on the beach with my friends Shawn and Shauna.

I am pumped. Now...time to hit the gym like a crazy woman!!

New pics of the Chunka!

Sort of a creepy doll..... :)

She looks pretty dang pumped about all those presents!

I found a Romertopf....

I love to cook and I love kitchen supplies. So Saturday afternoon was a good day for me…lemme tell ya why.

I went to Goodwill to do a little shopping. I love thrift stores. It’s an excuse to be silent and to lose myself in piles of other people’s junk…which usually ends up being my treasure! While walking through the kitchen accessories aisle I see a terra cotta pot. It was unused and the stickers were still on it. I look at the top of the pot. It’s a Romertopf. I looked twice to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me! They weren’t. So I freaked! Romertopf are the top of the line for these terra cotta pots. I have wanted one for a very long time but they are super expensive. The one I found was a medium size. Will hold about 2-5 lbs of goodies inside. I checked the price tag. $5. FIVE BUCKS!!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? Clearly someone at Goodwill has no idea what this was worth. So I put the Romertopf in a football hold and stiff-armed my way to the checkout before anyone figured out the gem I just found. WOOT! I looked it up online and the one I found is worth more than $50. Double WOOT!

So I seasoned it (baked it with salt water. Then some lard. Then it was good to go.) and then did a little happy dance around my kitchen. Yesterday after church I walked to Pike’s Place Market and picked up the goodies for dinner. I decide ‘Chicken and Roots” sounded good. I picked up 1 of each. An onion, carrot, rutabaga, parsnip, turnip and a chicken breast on the bone. Once I got home I soaked the pot in water for about 15 mins then threw it all in there with 6 cloves of garlic, 2 sprigs rosemary, chicken stock and pepper. Oh my goodness….can you say most delicious meal ever! I got my grub on for sure. And I had wonderful leftovers for lunch today!

I am so excited about my $5 purchase that I want to cook with the Romertopf every night this week.

1.1.09 WOD

When a workout is named after a Medal of Honor receiving Navy Seal one can assume it’s going to be hard.

LOL oh such an understatement.

So let me preface the story….

I do CrossFit. It’s hard to explain…here is how they briefly describe it:

“CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.”

So basically it is an in-your-face-kick-your-ass-until-you-hate-life type of workout. Not for the faint of heart….and too be honest, not really for people who don’t have much of an athletic background. I love it. I have just started (few months) but I can already see the definition in my arms returning (bat wings…sayonara!). It’s not for the faint of heart...wait, did I already mention that? If you don’t think you can (wo)man up to the challenge then you need to get the heck out of the gym.
The gym is set up so that everyone is there at a specific time of day (I usually go at 5:30 or 6:30pm). Everyone does the same workout…so there is an air of competition. For those of you who know me well…you can only imagine how much I love heading into something knowing that I can and will beat someone else’s time or reps. Suckas! Competition drives me…..probably in an unhealthy way at times. As long as I just keep the competitive edge in the gym I should be fine. Right…?
Anyways…so I walk in yesterday to the freezing gym. It’s always cold in there….like wicked cold. But it’s nice when you get done and are trying to not keel over and die and the cold air is the only thing keeping you from passing out (sounds fun, right!) It’s New Years Day and I decide “No way am I punking out of doing CF today….I need to start 2009 off right”. Then I look on the whiteboard to see the WOD. The Workout Of the Day. Two Words. “The Murph”. Hmmmmmm……ok? This could be good or this could be bad…and who the heck is “Murph”?

The “Murph” is a workout known by a previous name (of which I do not know) but was later renamed after Lt. Michael Murphy who was a Navy Seal killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Google him…it’s super interesting.
He was an avid CrossFitter (even the Navy Seals know what’s up!) and this workout was his favorite workout. He used to call it “Body Armor”.
Anyways…..so before I explain what the workout is….let me just say that this is the 1st time after reading what the WOD was, that I actually wanted to try and sneak out of the gym and go home to each some chips and salsa.

“The Murph”
1 mile run
100 Pull Ups
200 Pushups
300 Squats
1 Mile run
Completion cutoff is 45 mins

Now everyone starts with the 1 mile run (if you are new to CF you can do half of everything listed! I chose not to…) and then once you get back into the gym (you are running around the block a few times) then you just hit it hard. The reps can be done any way you want….you just need to bust out the prescribed amount. The best way is to do a set of 15 squats, 10 pushups, and 5 pull-ups. Barf. Repeat 20 times. Oh and if you thought life sucked then……now get up and run another mile. LOL it looks so ridiculous even when I type it out. 200 pushups! LOL!

Well Kids….I did it in about 40 mins. Some people beat my time….and of course I schooled some people on their time. But in the end…all you can do is laugh at how hard the WOD of the day was and express gratitude that you completed it and are still alive. Oh and the cold gym makes for some fun steam coming off of your head afterwards. We all looked like we had smoke coming off our hair!

And most importantly…..I can walk away with joy that I am physically able to push my body in this way. Lt. Murphy loved this workout and would still be busting it out at CrossFit today if it wasn’t for the ultimate sacrifice he made for our country in June 2005.