It's that time of the week again and with the upcoming game against the turtles - I thought today would be a good time to discuss
UNIFORMS
I picked that color combination because those are Maryland's colors. Yes, I know. Not good.
So, I hate to start off with the best, but since I've already brought it up, I feel like I have to. There are two dueling uniform companies for the NCAA - Under Armour (we must protect this house) and Nike. In my opinion, under armour does a sub par job on unis, and nike is the OBVIOUS choice, but maybe I am biased. (USC has under armour unis - so terrible and they will not be featured today).
I'm torn. When I first saw them, I was in shock and thought NNNNNOOOOOO, but the more I look at them, the more they grow on me. I'm not a fan of the Maryland state flag anyway, but at least they're representing, right? Am I right?
These are so under armour-like that I thought they were Nike uniforms. My colleague at work, Drew, mentioned they were Under Armour so I thought I'd give them props. Whatever you're doing here UA, apply it everywhere else because these look great. I think we've got a combination of good colors with traditional stripes and it makes for a good uniform.
Ours (my ours, I mean Clemson), is a good example of a traditional uniform as well.
Nike loves to pick a couple of school and makes non traditional uniforms. They are so controversial and I love talking about it. Here are some examples -
Someone made an offer on our house!! So exciting...
Here are the things -
1 - I am nervous about negotiating and what they will pay and just the whole process
2 - I am nervous it won't happen -
3 - We have to find a house. And quickly
4 - or... we'll be living with my parents
They offered very low but I think that's the market right now, so we are obviously going to counter offer. I feel like I am in an episode of My First Place. I can feel myself getting super excited which I think is okay but I'm trying not to let my emotions fuel my decisions. So i'm just hoping that we can agree on something and it can go smoothly.
I should be used to negotiating and waiting on deals because I'm an all commission sales rep and my livelihood depends on this stuff.
We have found a couple of houses that we like, actually, we've found a TON of houses that we like. But we have to go through the whole financing process and closing and blah blah so that's always a time consumer and these people want to move fast. So...
Either way, I'm excited, I hope it works out. The idea of a bigger house, especially if we can get in the location I'm looking, is so awesome!!!!!! Maybe we can actually entertain people!!!!
Thank you Little Daisy May for doing this every Wednesday! I love reading your posts, especially because you always have the cutest dresses on there but also, because I get to see new blogs which I love!!!
What i'm loving today is Bob from the Biggest Loser. I'm dedicating this whole Wednesday to him and let me tell you why.
But that's not the only reason. Last night, he was talking to his contestants and talking about their relationships with food. He was saying that just because you're living this way of life now, doesn't mean you'll never eat another cookie again. He said that you can enjoy the food that you used to love, but there is a time and a place for it. You don't have to HIDE it. Once you take the mystery out of the food, it no long holds the power.
That is so true. When I was talking to my therapist about my relationship with food, that was a big thing that she talked about - the power food has over me. And I give it the power. By making it forbidden. Whether I'm denying myself that food because it's "evil" or bingeing (that doesn't look right but I'm not sure how else to spell it) on it, it has this mystery, this forbiddenness, this something that makes it bad. And then I feel bad. And then I feel guilty and like a terrible person who has no self control and then I go back to the food because it makes me feel better temporarily but then insights guilt again and it's one vicious circle. So the first STEP (not the only step) but the first step is to take away that mystery. If I want a cookie, I can eat it and no one can make me feel guilty about that. Not even myself. So once I give myself permission to eat something "forbidden", I gain some of that power back.
I like his hair SO much better this way, don't you source
The other thing he talked about was loving yourself. Why do we do this to ourselves? Eat garbage and then feel guilty and then eat garbage and feel guilty? There's something so much deeper going on beyond the food. That's the problem that people don't understand whether it's you that's struggling with it, or whether it's someone else. It had NOTHING to do with the food. That is but a symptom of a bigger issue that needs to be addressed and i appreciate that Bob starts talking about that. Honestly, after people leave the Biggest Loser, I think they need to continue going to therapy because it isn't about the food, so once they get back into their normal lives and they no longer have the food to distract them, they still have no way to deal with what's really going on. I think that's why a lot of people gain the weight back.
Thanks Bob for talking about the real issue last night on the Biggest Loser vs just focusing on winning. These people will have to live after the show and you've got them on the right path!
Every once in a while, if I've done a little too much of one thing, I rebel and start doing something else. So for now, because I want to continue working out but don't want to follow my running plan, I've decided to pick up some crossfit workouts on my "off" days. I used to be an avid Crossfitter, but because of running and situational stuff, I haven't been doing it as much.
First off, if you've never done crossfit, let me explain a little of what it is.
The basic premise behind Crossfit is that you combine olympic lifting, anaerobic activity, gymnastics, etc together to get the best "athlete" that you can be. You can typically function at a much higher level as a crossfitter vs other things. I know that I'm butchering the words so let me tell you from their website -
"CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program. We have designed our program to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.
The CrossFit Program was developed to enhance an individual’s competency at all physical tasks. Our athletes are trained to perform successfully at multiple, diverse, and randomized physical challenges. This fitness is demanded of military and police personnel, firefighters, and many sports requiring total or complete physical prowess. CrossFit has proven effective in these arenas.
Aside from the breadth or totality of fitness the CrossFit Program seeks, our program is distinctive, if not unique, in its focus on maximizing neuroendocrine response, developing power, cross-training with multiple training modalities, constant training and practice with functional movements, and the development of successful diet strategies.
Our athletes are trained to bike, run, swim, and row at short, middle, and long distances guaranteeing exposure and competency in each of the three main metabolic pathways.
We train our athletes in gymnastics from rudimentary to advanced movements garnering great capacity at controlling the body both dynamically and statically while maximizing strength to weight ratio and flexibility. We also place a heavy emphasis on Olympic Weightlifting having seen this sport’s unique ability to develop an athletes’ explosive power, control of external objects, and mastery of critical motor recruitment patterns. And finally we encourage and assist our athletes to explore a variety of sports as a vehicle to express and apply their fitness."
That is directly from their website, so you can find that a lot of other information there.
The website has a workout of the day listed daily, 3 days on, 1 day off. I obviously, cannot follow that in the way that it is listed as I am still running 3 days a week to train for my half marathon, but am going to try to follow it as closely as possible.
Examples of Crossfit women -
The girl on the left does programming for them, I think. And the girl on the right was an Olympic skier source
What I will say is that these women do crossfit exactly as it's intended and eat exactly as they suggest so will I look like that, probably not. If I did, would it be so bad, no. No it would not.
Crossfit has benchmark workouts that help you measure how you are improving. Some of these workouts are called "Girl" workouts. Here's an example of a girl workout -
Fran
Fran is 21, 15, 9 reps of Squat Thrusters, Pull ups
Yesterday was my first day of doing a Crossfit workout and what was the WOD, a Cindy. This is a great benchmark workout and a good place to start if you're new or just starting back.
It's an AMRAP which means As Many Rounds As Possible in a certain amount of time, Cindy being 20 minutes.
5 pull ups
10 push ups
15 squats
AMRAP 20 minutes
My best Cindy was 17 rounds. Yesterday, I got 10. So not so bad, but no where near where I used to be. I'm kind of excited to be doing some different things so we'll see how this goes!!
So mom and I started our weekend off with a little 11 mile run. Because I absolutely despise waking up early on the weekend and because we were at a football game the day before, we decided to start running at 10 am. Savannah is flat and so we don't really have to train on hills so we decided to hit up the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which I know I've discussed before.
Our goal today was 11 miles and mom wanted to start out with run 3 minute/walk 1 minute. The temperature was nice, low 60's, and it was overcast which was nice. The good news about the SRT is that it is mainly covered in trees, so even when the sun is in full force, it's not too bad.
Mom mentioned that she was struggling a little bit for a couple of reasons -
1. she has some hamstring issues. I don't know how to describe where the pain is because it's not really IT band, but not necessarily hamstring either. It's kind of on the side in the back. It gets really tight and she has to stop and stretch it a lot
2. Someone drank a little yesterday and that does not help you have a good run!! :)
this was saturday - mom's in the middle with the beer (I'm to the left beside my husband
this was us sunday - i kid, i kid
Anywhos.....
so we changed the walk/run ratio a little bit as we needed to and mom had her first really bad run. So as we're running, I'm giving her tips on what to do before a big race. Some of my suggestions -
1. Eat right - processed carbs, lots of sugar and unbalanced meals do not make for a good long run. I try to eat like I normally do which includes lean protein, veggies and fruit. I also do eat come grains but typically they are gluten free or are as pure as possible.
2. Drink lots of water - mom actually does this very well. She has one kidney (she gave the other one to my grandfather) so she has to drink a lot of water. Hydrated, she is.
3. This is one that is very very important and people do not do. STRETCH. MASSAGE. KNEAD. My muscles can tighten up so easily and since I'm not rich, I don't get a massage once a week. Instead, I use these tools -
to get the knots out and make sure my body is loose. That being said - you STILL need to
4. Take yoga - in my opinion, this is non negotiable. Take yoga. Take a yoga class. Please, go to a yoga class and take it. There are certain things you just can't do on your own. Instead of just stretching out your tendons and getting tendinitis, go to yoga.
Those things are super important if you want to have a good, long run. That's just based on experience.
The second thing I did was buy some fall things to spice up my wardrobe -
Yay for fall. I totally have on the bottom sweater and the boots. I just couldn't resist. And since it's a little below freezing in here, I'm dressed appropriately. Why do offices always have to be so friggin' cold?
