Potential Posting Hiatus

CrossFit Friday 8/5
Strength:
Weighted Pull-ups 5, 5, 5
Weighted Push-ups 5, 5, 5 (at the end I successfully completed 5 with a 10lb weight)
Partner WOD:
6 Rounds
75ft Sled Drag
10 Burpees
150ft Sprint
6 Rounds Each. Rest while partner works.

 CrossFit Saturday 8/6
Strength:
Push Press 2, 2, 2 (75lb barbell)
Conditioning:
“Jack”
AMRAP in 20 (I completed 12 rounds plus the 10 push presses)
10 DB Push Presses (started with 20lb, hit failure after about 4 rounds, changed to 15lb)
10 KB Swings (1 pood)
10 Box Jumps (step ups)

CrossFit Tuesday 8/9
Strength:
Press 5, 5, 5 (45lb barbell)
Conditioning:
“Push Press Lynne”
5 Rounds (24/6 --> 9/4)
Max Reps Push Press
Max Reps Pull-ups

CrossFit Wednesday 8/10 
Strength:
Front Squat 3, 3, 3 (80lb barbell)
Conditioning:
3 Rounds (completed in 8:20)
10 Toes to Bar (cannot hang from bar due to my bad shoulder, so Justin set me up with an alternate exercise)
20 Box Jumps (did NOT do step ups! My knees and I decided I'm ready to face my fears and start jumping... I jumped onto two 45's plus one 25)
30 KB Swings (1 pood)

I'm really starting to feel the pressure of the upcoming school year. I've been a busy bee creating, typing, cleaning, cutting, and laminating.

However, the fact that Monday is seriously halfway through August makes me feel nauseous. I know I didn't get nearly as much done this summer in terms of organizing and developing my curriculum as I had planned, and now I really need to kick it into overdrive over the next couple of weeks! To make things more stressful... in the span of just a couple weeks this is what I have on the table:
- two weddings yayy! (8/26 and 9/10)
- Sean's surgery (8/29)
- staff orientation/teacher in-service (9/1-9/2)
- first day of school (9/6)
- "School Law" grad class starts (9/7)
- moving into the new house! (9/16)
- half marathon (9/18)
- my birthday and Sean's birthday (9/11 and 9/20)

Needless to say, in order to prepare myself to get through September alive you may not be hearing from me. Maybe if I cook up an awesome recipe or achieve a great success I'll drop in, but no promises :) 

I tried preparing kale a different way and I'm still not a fan. Oh well, I still have my brussels sprouts! Here's my attempt at making a hot salad with kale, baby broccoli, zucchini, and grape tomatoes. The veggies were good, I just couldn't get over the taste of the kale :/

*I thought it was necessary to edit to add that I am SO happy with my Paleo/CrossFit experience this summer, I know it has positively changed my life. In a two month span I have gotten stronger in unimaginable amounts, increased my daily energy, gained confidence, learned how to cook and truly enjoy clean foods, and had a blast while doing it. I can't wait to continue this lifestyle through the school year, I have a feeling that being busy and having a structured schedule again will really help me attain bigger and better goals.

Broadening My Paleo Horizons

CrossFit Monday 8/1
Strength:
Hang Power Snatch 3, 3, 3 (45lb barbell)
Conditioning:
4 Rounds (completed in 11:09)
5 Hang Power Snatches (35lb barbell)
10 Thrusters (35lb barbell)
15 Pull-Ups (Even with the black band, on my last set of 15 I was only busting out 2 pull-ups at a time! These slowed me down big time)

CrossFit Wednesday 8/3
Strength:
5 Rounds
Back Squat x 5 reps (65lb barbell - keeping it light while I work on my squats. I am amazed at how much better they have gotten. Every single time I go down, I have to concentrate hard on pushing my knees out and butt back, but my form and mobility are really starting to improve drastically.. yay :) )
Rest 30 seconds
Max reps Pull-Ups
Rest 2-3 minutes
Conditioning:
10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 (completed in 7:46 using 1 pood)
Goblet Squats
KB Swings
Push-ups

Okay, I have some potentially shocking news for you all. In an effort to add variety and more healthy fats to my diet, I have officially started eating (grass-fed) red meat! Yes, it's really me, Kate Eckert, non-red meat eater for about 13 years.

My first meat recipe was for Lasagna with Zucchini Noodles.

To elaborate on my editing in red:

• I thought beef AND sausage would be a little overkill, so I just used the beef. As you could imagine, 2lbs of beef is a lot of meat, so I now have leftovers for days! It's been good mixed in with some eggs for breakfast.
• I only used 1T of each of the seasonings, that seemed to be enough. 
• Omitted the olives because I don't really like them.
• 5 zucchinis was plenty.. I even have a quart size bag of leftover sliced zucchini.

My only complaint is that it definitely did not resemble lasagna. It was more-so just a pan of meat, tomatoes, and zucchini.  I had a bit of trouble cutting the zucchini into the thin, noodle-like strips, so maybe if my zucchini weren't so thick it would have held together a bit more. Nonetheless, it was extremely tasty and I've been enjoying the leftovers!

In addition to cutting out the sugars and upping my good fats, I've also started eating a lot more leafy greens. A month ago (hell, even a week ago) I would have never guessed that my new favorite snack would be brussels sprouts and bacon! Thanks to Alycia and Justin's recipe, I'm enjoying my fats and greens. Brussels sprouts are delicious, filling, and easy to keep/snack on as leftovers. Give them a try, you won't regret it!

simmering away

with the crunchy, bacon-y goodness!

I also tried making some kale chips (rinse the kale, chop length-wise cutting out the middle stem, toss in olive oil, bake at 350 for 12 minutes, salt if desired). These were okay, I definitely do not get the hoopla people on the interweb seem to be making about them. I'll try another method of cooking kale next time.

In other news: 

Sean and I are this close to having our offer accepted on a house we're in love with that's 8 minutes away from CrossFit, right across the street from Whole Foods, and has a super nice kitchen for me to cook in ... it does not get much more perfect than that :) We're both very excited that we will, in all probability, soon be homeowners!

Finally, Eddy wanted you to know that he helped with this post: 

My little boy is getting big - he will be 10 weeks old on Sunday!