I decided to try doing 15 push-ups every minute on the minute for 5 rounds, with a 5 minute rest, for 4 sessions. That’s 300 push-ups in 40 minutes. Oh, and for the first 2 sessions, I threw in 10 sit-ups for fun.

I did manage to complete the workout (took me 41 minutes because of extra rest required toward the end), but my arms and chest felt absolutely destroyed afterwards. I definitely pushed myself way beyond fatigue. I had planned to take a rest day on Sunday anyways, so I figured everything was cool.

Monday rolled around and I did the prescribed WOD of 400m run + 30 Kettlebell swings (53 lb), AMRAP for 20 minutes, and while I felt fine during the WOD, once I got to work that morning, I was in pain. Specifically, my somewhere in the right side of my chest it’s quite sore. Add to this a dull pain I’ve had just to the right of my mid-lower back and I’m in need of some rest.

So I overdid it. I certainly know what kinds of behaviors to avoid and to more gradually try to test my push-up endurance. While lamenting my self-induced rest period, I remembered that this is how I used to function all the time: no exercise, no athleticism, no pushing myself to the limit. I won’t be going back there again.

Food for today

I brought home leftover petit filet of beef with horseradish aioli from lunch today and had it again for dinner. The sauce probably has some non-Paleo elements in it, but it is amazing! Also, Emily made a “pot liquor” of collard greens and bacon. Yum!

You see, I had intended to “warm up” at 95 lbs and then, because it was going to be so awful, simply do that for the workout. But I can’t do math at six in the morning and I grabbed two 45 lb bumper plates for my 45 lb bar. 45 plus 45 doesn’t even equal 95, so I’m not sure what I was going for.

Since the weight was there, I decided to give it a go, and what do you know, I was able to do it! I even did the WOD in sets of four, four, and then five. I had been planning on 3 + 2, but Coach Mikey talked me into 5 straight. Not that I was arguing (I was barely breathing), but his encouragement helped. So that was a PR on Thrusters in a WOD. Woot!

I also got my first jumping muscle-ups today. My arms hate me. A lot. But it was worth it. Now I just need to keep practicing them so I can get them off the ground!

Breakfast

• Leftover Paleo Pumpkin Chili
• Blueberries
• Almond Butter

Lunch

• Pork with bourbon mustard sauce
• Salad
• Asparagus
• Snack: 4 strawberries and some almond butter

Dinner

• Chicken with Mango Chutney
• Steamed Veggies

WOD

“Friday the 13th”
13 – Pistols, Right leg (with blue band)
13 – Muscle Ups (jumping)
13 – 135# Thrusters
13 – Burpees with 1 foot Jumps
13 – Pistols, Left Leg (with blue band)

14:17, pretty slow, but I finished!

200 push-ups, which after those muscle-ups, was quite the challenge.

Breakfast

• 4 Egg Omlet w/ bacon & mushrooms
• 10 oz Spinach

Lunch

• Lamb Korma (Paleo? Maybe?)
• Salad
• Diet Root Beer (Not Paleo)
• Almonds for Snack

Dinner

• Spiced Pumpkin Paleo Chili (Yum!)
• A few Marcona Almonds
• Post-WOD Pear (I shared with Sophia)

WOD

10 x 1 Weighted pull-ups: 20 – 25 – 30 – 32.5 … (workout) … 35 (fail) – 30 (rev) – 30 (rev) – X – X – X

5 rounds: 25 cal row + 25 sit-ups: 12:08

200 push-ups

Other than that, today was great!

Emily made a super-easy-to-make vegie for dinner tonight. It consisted of 5 pieces of fried cut-up bacon with collard greens and sliced mushrooms. Fry the bacon, sauté the mushrooms, and throw in the collard greens. Doesn’t get any easier than that, and it tastes amazing!

Breakfast

• Mixed steamed veggies
• Lemon Pepper Chicken
• Blueberries and Pineapple
• Almond Butter

Lunch

• Salad day
• Tons of different veggies
• Shrimp Salad
• Steak
• Chicken
• Cashews for Snack

Dinner

• Lemon Pepper Chicken
• Collard Greens, Mushroom, and Bacon yuminess!
• Maybe a piece of fruit later

WOD

7×3 Backsquat – 155-165-175-185-185-185-185

Going to try for 200 push-ups again today, but so far I’m only at 100.

Yep. Last summer’s Paleo challenge was great and it really got me moving in the right direction, but then December happened. No, I didn’t gain all my weight back and yes, I’m still in pretty decent shape, but I want to crank it up a notch. I want to go into 2012, eating cleaner, looking leaner, and getting meaner during the CrossFit WODs.

This Paleo Challenge is just Emily and me. There’s no prize other than a better her and a better me. But we’re looking forward to it! Also, I’ll be trying to blog regularly, but there’s won’t nearly as many pictures this time and the posts will be shorter.

Food!

Morning

• Paleo Meatloaf 
• Mixed Steamed Veggies
• Small container of organic apple sauce
• Coffee

Lunch

• Chicken
• Broccoli
• Salad

Dinner

• Egg & Veggie Frittata
• Mixed Steamed Veggies
• Broccoli
• Marcona Almonds
• Dark Cholocate

WOD (Workout of the Day)

15 minute AMRAP:
30 double-unders
15 Power Snatches

3 rounds + 5 and very sore hands. I really need to work on my double-unders.

200 Push-ups throughout the day

$ curl http://isitchristmas.com

Easy! This will download the URL as a string that can be piped into another command. In Powershell, it’s a bit more cumbersome:

PS > (New-Object net.webclient).DownloadString(
      'http://isitchristmas.com')

It will get the job done, but that’s a lot to remember just to get a string from an HTTP GET. I’ve added the following bit of code to my Powershell Profile to make this task a bit easier:

function Get-URL([string] $url){
  (New-Object net.webclient).DownloadString($url)
}
Set-Alias curl Get-URL

Those expecting the full functionality of cURL with the curl alias are going to be disappointed, but if you’re simply wanting to grab the contents of a URL, this will do the trick. Now I can get the contents of a website and pipe it into another command in Powershell, such as installing pip:

PS > curl https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py |
     python

• None of my clothes fit anymore: I’ve had to buy a new belt and t-shirts, my shorts don’t fit without the recently procured belt, and I have countless XL shirts for which I have absolutely no use. I haven’t even thought about my winter clothes and formal wear yet; this could get expensive.
• When I first started CrossFit, I could only do pull ups using the thick green band for help. Right before the Paleo Challenge, I had started using the thinner blue band, but now I use the even thinner red band when doing a high number of pull ups and can even knock out several pull ups in a row with no band at all.
• While I still can’t do it consistently, I’ve gotten up to five double-unders in a row while practicing with the jump rope.
• I’ve set personal records for almost all of the strength exercises I’ve done at CrossFit during the Paleo Challenge.
• I can run.
• Fruit is an incredible desert.
• I’ve dramatically cut down my daily coffee intake to really just half a cup or less of actual coffee (I mix it with water).
• I almost exclusively stand at my desk at work.
• I notice when I eat non-Paleo foods and how crappy it feels.
• I notice when I don’t enough sleep at night.
• Not only is eating meat and vegetables, with occasional fruit, nuts, and seeds not extreme, it’s perfectly natural and is something you can do for the rest of your life.

Now let’s look at some numbers:

Final Metrics

You can tell that my net weight loss is 12.2 pounds, but it’s hard to tell exactly how much fat I lost and how much muscle mass I gained. Of course, the waist measurement is supposed to help for understanding that breakdown and I certainly noticed improved performance at CrossFit. Either way, I’m really happy with the results.

The chart:

Pictures

You’re supposed to take after pictures with the exact same clothing as your before pictures. However, if I had done that, my shorts wouldn’t have stayed up! Hopefully you can still notice the difference.

Show before and after pictures:

What’s Next?

Needless to say, the six-week Paleo Challenge has been a resounding success. Now that the challenge is over, I plan to continue eating Paleo and enjoying its benefits.

That being said, I’m going to relax a bit, especially in regards to blogging. I’ll probably continue to post weekly numbers and possibly a follow-up post with pictures once I get to my goal weight (still not sure what that should be), but I’m definitely ready to give up the daily food-logging and blog posts.

I’m still eating Paleo for the majority of my meals,  but I’ve been relaxing in what I eat, letting myself have some yummy non-Paleo foods, especially in this first week after the challenge. I realize that to keep trimming down at the waist, I’ll probably have to resume being strict for a while, but that’s OK. The results are worth it.

What About You?

The Paleo Diet worked for me. Are you going to give it a shot? If so, I recommend picking up the Paleo Quick Start Guide, Food Matrix, and Shopping List over at RobbWolf.com. This will give you all the information you need to actually do it.

For a more detailed perspective, pick up Robb Wolf’s book, The Paleo Solution; it’s a quick read, but it goes over a lot of the science and anthropology surrounding the Paleo Diet, as well as giving you great advice for success. Finally, I recommend structuring your entrance into Paleo as a challenge similar to what I did. This gives you a set amount of time to be strict and also allows you to measure tangible results before and after your challenge.

Give the Paleo Diet a shot. If it doesn’t work, you can always have your old life back.

Stay tuned!

(and since I don’t have much content, here’s a gratuitous baby photo)

Food

Breakfast

• Shredded chicken
• Sweet potato
• hard-boiled egg
• 1/2 peach
• broccoli
• blueberries
• almonds
• (I passed on the arugula)

Lunch

• Roast Lamb
• Mixed green salad with cucumber, carrots, and tomatoes
• Pear

Dinner

• Shredded chicken with mexican squash
• Spinach salad with carrots, grape tomatoes, and dressing

Fitness

Today’s WOD totally drained me. It was supposed to be 5 RFT of 7 burpees + 15 Deadlifts @ 225 lbs (!) + 30 lunges. We stopped after 20 minutes and I had finished 2 rounds (deadlifts @ 135 lbs, 15lb each hand lunges) plus an additional 20 lunges. It was miserable.

I stood the entire day at work. Three for three so far!

Sleep

7.5 hours

Family & Faith

AM Office of Readings, Evening prayer-of-thanksgiving with Emily before dinner.

Food

Breakfast

• 4 Hard-boiled eggs
• green beans
• sweet potatoes
• blueberries
• Almonds

Lunch

• Ground Beef
• Shredded Chicken
• Arugula salad with grape tomatoes, onions, cilantro, peaches, and broccoli

Dinner

• London Broil
• Spinach salad with oily dressing, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and onions

Fitness

I learned a lot during today’s WOD, which was a 12 min AMRAP of 50 Double Unders + max dips. I cut the double unders in half and basically did attempts, but I did make progress. I also did the dips on the red band and got 14 + 14 + 10 for a total of 38. This was my first time doing dips on the red band. During the warmup, I did my pull ups on the red band, which was also a first for knocking out 10 pullups in a row. Progress!

7.4 hours  standing – Another day standing at work all day.

Sleep

8.5 hours – I got a great night’s rest!

Family & Faith

Office of readings on the train; a lot to be thankful for before dinner.