New Website

Hey guys! I've moved my blog to a new home, please join me there!

Go Kaleo!

Kaleo! It's the Magic Pill!

Did you hear? I'm starting a new fad diet! It's called Kaleo. Kale + Paleo = Kaleo. It's a plant based Paleo diet. Genius, no? I'm going to write a diet book and exercise program, hawk them on my blog, badmouth everyone else's way of eating, cherry pick and post a few outlying studies that support my philosophy, get lots of advertisers to pay me to pimp out their products, and make a million dollars. No one has EVER done anything like that before, after all.

Food:
B: green smoothie (watermelon, blueberries, spinach, kale, cucumber, avocado, raw protein)
L: 2 rice cakes with natural peanut butter, cubed tofu with olive oil and salt and pepper, small peach/strawberry/cucumber/kale smoothie
S: 2 rice cakes with avocado, apple, peach
D: 2 Praegers' california burgers (speaking of pimping out products, I gotta plug these guys, they're pretty decent for convenience food. They're made almost entirely of vegetables, vegetables that still look like vegetables. Other than some 'soy flakes' pretty far down the list, there's no franken-food in them. They're FAR better than the standard boca/morningstar meat substitute offerings, although still inferior to homemade), 2 whole wheat tortillas, sliced heirloom tomato, mustard.

Cal: 2629
Carb:334
Protein: 135
Fat: 104

Workout:
AM: 30 minute bodyweight circuit
PM: worked on OHS, freestanding handstand, and clean and jerk. Got up to 115, only 5 pounds off my PR. I'm almost back, guys!

Just Stopping in to Say Hi

Hi! Been too busy to blog the last couple days. I know I forgot to post my body fat percentage on Saturday when I posted my weigh in, it was 12.4%. That's lower than this device has ever measured me at.

Sweet.

Still staying on program with MyPlate, it's getting easier to get my grains in. I'd forgotten how comforting a big bowl of warm brown rice with a little olive oil and salt and pepper can be. Today's calorie count was right about 2700.

Today's workout:
squat: worked up to a 1 rep max, 155. That's only 5 pounds off my PR, and I've been sidelined from heavy squatting for a month by this darn tailbone injury. That felt good! Then 5 x 5 @ 95. For the record, I squat well below parallel, as close to ATG as my stiff arthritic knees can go.
Several sets of pullups
Assisted dips: 15 w/ assist @ 120, 12 @ 100, 10 @ 80, 6 @ 60, 3 full bodyweight

9/17 Log

First things first, I know you are all DYING to know what happened with my weigh in today? 1 week in to my MyPlate experiment and my weight this morning...

drumroll please...

153.5

What's that you say? I lost 4 pounds? I LOST 4 POUNDS?!?!?!

I lost 4 pounds.

I'm going to explain why now. Paleo/primal readers, feel free to skip this part. You won't believe it anyway.

See, I burn 3000-3500 calories on a normal day. I know this because I've been tracking my diet daily for over three years and I know how many calories it takes to start gaining weight, and how many it takes to lose weight. So when MyPlate gave me a daily allotment of 2600 calories I knew I would lose weight. No matter how many carbs I ate, or how many servings of grain, or how much fructose I consumed. Even if I ate 2600 calories a day of cupcakes, I knew I would lose weight. Some of the 4 pounds I lost was water weight, as depleting my glycogen stores via a calorie deficit also depletes the water that is bound to glycogen molecules. Over the next 3 weeks I will continue to lose weight, but not at as fast a pace. If I stay on a 2600 calorie diet indefinitely, I will continue to lose weight until I reach a body weight and activity level that requires 2600 calories a day to maintain. Even if all I eat is twinkies, I will lose weight until I reach that weight. And then I will maintain that weight until I die of malnutrition from eating only twinkies.

So there ya go.

Today's log:

B: green smoothie
L: salad with chopped veggies, a bit of salmon, and an apple
S: cucumber/kale/honeydew juice
D: veg sushi with a ton of white rice. Needed to get those grain servings in.
S: honeydew. A whole honeydew.

Cal: 2769
Carb: 434
Protein: 127
Fat: 74

workout:

3 mile run, followed by
15 round of: 15 jumping pullups/15 box jumps/15 second handstand

9/16 Log

Not too much to report today, got my grain servings in in the form of 4 whole wheat tortillas and a cupcake. Yep, a cupcake. With frosting and everything. Weigh in tomorrow morning, 1 week in. Who wants to make a wager? Will I have gained weight? I have been eating an awful lot of grains after all. 9 whole ounces a day.

B: green smoothie
S: 2 cashew larabars
L: 2 praegers' california burgers in 2 whole wheat tortillas
D: same as lunch, plus an apple
S: green smoothie

Cal: 2402
Carb: 289
Protein: 116
Fat: 106

Workout:
1.7 mile run
3 max hold handstand
deadlift: 3 x 15 @ 115, 5 @ 165, 5 @ 185, 10 @ 115
a bunch of clean and jerks and overhead squats, didn't keep track
1.3 miles on stairclimber

Wasn't really feeling it today. Not one of my best workouts.

9/15 Log

Back to troublemaking in the blogoshpere. Today was day 6 of my MyPlate experiment. I haven't been blogging every day, but I have been tracking. I am sticking pretty close to my 2600 calorie allotment, maybe a hair over one day, a hair under another. Except for one day, I've met my requirements for all food groups every day. Today I went whole hog and ate a HUGE plate of white pasta. I'm estimating it was 6-8 1 oz grain servings. See what I do, in the name of scientific discovery?

B: green smoothie (kale, cuke, honeydew, blueberries, avocado, protein, unsweetened soy milk)
S: apple and cashew larabar
L: pasta w/ chopped raw veggies and a bit of tuna salad
S: 2 rice cakes with peanut butter
D: green smoothie (see breakfast), this was also my post workout recovery meal

Cals: 2263 (will eat a bit more before bed)
Carb: 300g
Protein: 114g
Fat: 80g

Workout:
10 minutes on stairclimber
3 sets max rep deadhang pullups
bench press: worked up to 3 rep max (105), then 3 x 10 @ 70#
squats: 3 x 10 @ 85, 3 x 8 @ 105
assisted dips: 15 w/ assist @ 120, 10 @ 100, 8 @ 80, 5 @ 60, 3 bodyweight

After the Voting: Reflections on the Fittest Friends Contest

The voting is over, the judges have weighed in, and public announcements have been made. I would like to extend my sincerest congratulations to Regina Gunn on winning the Women's Health Fittest Friends contest. You are beautiful, truly fit, and a wonderful role model. I am honored to have competed with (yes, WITH, not against) you, and I hope this is only the first of many, many amazing opportunities for you! I also want to thank Women's Health and Men's Health for running this contest. It was a great opportunity for many aspiring models and performers to get their faces in front of the public, and though I am neither of those things, I met many extraordinary and inspirational women as a result of my participation. Anowa Adjah you are beautiful and strong and such a brilliant and supportive leader. Sarah Laursen, you have overcome so much and are a gentle yet amazingly strong spirit and I know you will go far. Amber Hayes, I am in awe of your power and strength, truly inspired. Lee Lance, although I never connected with you personally, I voted for you over and over, because, well, you're the badass I aspire to be!

I would like to use this platform to speak to the many of you that have contacted me privately to express your frustration, disappointment and even anger about the judges final ruling. I hear you. I acknowledge your feelings. What I want you to know is that I do not consider myself a loser. Don't forget that I encouraged you to vote for other exceptional women, Regina Gunn included! I wanted to see someone extraordinary win this, and that is exactly what happened! I went into this contest with low expectations. I doubted I would get many votes at all! Lets face it, I'm hardly fitness model material, and the main 'prize' of this competition was a chance to model in Women's Health magazine. My muscles are too big, my boobs are WAY too small (and I have no intention of changing them), my hair is too short, my face is too wrinkled. And like many of you, I have stretch marks and veins from pregnancy, and saggy skin from losing so much weight, and as one of the other finalists so eagerly and publicly tweeted, the picture I entered made me look like a man. The judges were looking for a model, and I'm not it! I'm ok with that. I was humbled by the response my entry got. I didn't expect it, and I am so honored. In the end, I AM a winner, because I didn't go into this for the 'prize', I went in to it to get my message out. And friends, you helped me do that! You voted day after day, you posted my profile on your walls and shared my message with your friends, and they shared it with their friends. I have had so many people contact me privately to thank me for inspiring them to make lifestyle changes, and THAT is the only prize that means anything to me. That is the very best prize in the world, to know that because my story was shared, someone out there is taking control of their health. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me do that. I know that many of you were hoping that your votes would send a message to 'the media' that we want to see more diversity in body size, shape and age on the pages of magazines, and like you, I do hope that message was heard.

As for 'my message': I said it during the contest and I will continue to say it until I die. Fitness is not about being sexy to find or please a mate, it is not about looks or money and success or youth or professional athleticism or competing to have the biggest biceps or heaviest deadlift or fastest 5k time. Fitness is about YOU, taking control of your OWN health, improving the quality of your OWN life, finding joy in moving and pride in accomplishing things you never thought you could do because you'd been told, by someone in your life or by societal pressures, that you were too old, or too fat, or too clumsy, or too slow or too weak. It is about valuing yourself enough to dedicate time every day to your own health and well being. It is about setting examples for our children, so they will grow up valuing and respecting us, and THEMSELVES, enough to take pride in their bodies and their accomplishments and their health. Women, it is about feeding and nourishing your bodies with plenty of healthy food, it is about rejecting society's mandate that you must be small and weak in order to be desirable. It is about rejoicing in our bodies' STRENGTH and power, supporting and building each other up, valuing and appreciating our bodies, and those of other women, for what they can DO, not how they look.

Please join me in this 'movement'. Stop dieting. Stop trying to look good for someone else. Start nourishing yourselves with food and movement and love and friendships. If you posted my profile on your wall during the contest, please post this blog post on your wall now so that my gratitude can also reach your friends who took the time to vote for me.

I love you all, and am so grateful for your support, we are all winners.