I was hoping by now that I would be able to exercise a little harder than I have been and that my back would have seen some serious improvements but it's not coming along very fast.  Some of that could be because I got derailed for a little while with the whole almost losing my leg thing.  Maybe it will never come back to full strength.  But I'm also getting stagnant with the weight loss.  So I really am looking forward to see what we'll be able to do with this whole caveman diet that we are starting on Monday.  Our Crossfit The Club group is doing a challenge starting the same day so it's perfect timing.  I went to a class with them on Wednesday but it was more advanced than I am and I felt a little lost because they all seemed to already know about the whole paleo thing, but I really don't.  So Katie and  I will be spending time this weekend researching the whole can and can not haves.  What I have noticed is that there seems to be different level of paleo eaters.  Some add some dairy, like whey powder, whereas some won't even do that.  Some say they will only eat organic and some say they don't care as much.  I probably should have done one of the earlier challenges with everybody so I know what the heck I'm doing.  But still, better late than never. 
We've enjoyed cleaning out our fridge of everything yummy this past week and each day my daughter Megan says she's really going to miss whatever meal we were having.  Today was a great summer grilled hot dog meal.  I also am going to miss them.  I'm probably going to have to go get one last Slurpee tomorrow since that's a summer favorite. 
We've been looking at all of the specialty foods like coconut milk and crap like that, that we need to buy and also realize that eating paleo is going to be really expensive too.  So this isn't really the greatest time to start it for us but we'll always have some excuse of why it's not a good time to start it.  So we're doing it and I'm glad that we'll be doing it together.
I also have to rethink how I do the whole picture thing.  I've been slacking on doing the daily picture because only a handful of people in class remember that I'm even doing this blog (heck, I've almost forgotten that I'm doing this blog) so they probably think that I'm a total tool when I ask someone to take my picture after I workout.  I tried to do the self portrait in the mirror thing but it just showed a big flash but I still want to document my daily progression so I think I'll just make Katie take a daily picture of me and we'll see how that goes.  

The whole daily picture is getting dull so I made my friend Laurie stand in this one.  I think my green socks and her pink jacket really complement each other. 

Yesterday, for memorial day, even though we didn't have an actual class, a bunch of people showed up at the gym and did a Hero WOD, named Murph.  It was named after a fallen soldier who was also a crossfitter.  It was kind of cool to see the amount of people that showed up for the unofficial tribute/incredibly hard workout. It's always been one of my "favorites" if you can say I have a favorite, because it was the first Hero WOD that I ever did.  If you were to do it correctly, you would Run 1 mile and then do 100 pullups, 200 push ups and 300 squats (splitting up those 3 exercises however you wanted) and then run another mile. I'm still not able to run so I rowed instead of running.  Even when my back is fine, I'm a much faster rower than runner so I thought that would be better. But, to row and then do that many pull ups was definitely not the greatest choice.  I split my 3 exercises into 20 rounds  of 5 pullups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats.  Most people were finishing it in around 30 to 45 minutes.  I finished it in 1 hr and 7 minutes.  I was actually pretty proud of my pace because it always takes me more than an hour for that one but in reality, I had to do jumping pullups instead of real ones so I still have a long way to go to catch up to where I've been.  I am sore all over but it's good to be sore from something that means I'm getting stronger than being sore from just being injured.  I was also happy thinking maybe my back was starting to heal up.
Then today, I realized that maybe my back still isn't healed as everything we did, was still sending shock waves into my back.  We had to do 5 rounds of 12 deadlifts, 9 hang power cleans and 6 push jerks.  RX weight was 155.  I only attempted 115.  Once again, I used to be able to do 155 with no problem but my pride was killed a long time ago so I just worked on being able to get the moves down without feeling the shock waves too much.  We also modified my deadlifts by stacking weights up and putting the bar on top of them.  This allowed me to do it without having to bend all the way to the floor.  I was able to finish the entire thing but in between each round, I had to go and try to stretch out my back as much as possible.  I was the last one to finish again but I did finish.  So hopefully that means I will be able to start doing more again without worrying about re-injuring things.
As for food, we are cleaning out the freezer of all of the foods we won't be able to eat.  Today was a chicken broccoli casserole. I'm really going to miss that one.  (Not really the broccoli or the chicken.  More the cheese that holds it all together.)

Caveman

I have never tried the paleo diet or any of the low carb diets just for the main reason that it would be a major pain for Katie to make a meal for the rest of the family and then me make my own.  So it's always been easier to just do the weight watchers counting points thing and eating what they eat and losing most of the weight by doing Crossfit along with it.  But this time, with the hurt back, I'm not really doing all of the full out WODs so I'm not losing weight very quickly.  I've tried to talk Katie into doing a caveman type of diet with me but it doesn't sound very good to her and she's already skinny, so it's always been a no.
Well, her friend has gotten toned lately and she asked what she was doing and she's doing paleo.  So now our family is going to try paleo.  I should have had her friends talk her into a long time ago.

So I finally get to experience what the rest of the class has been talking about.  The funny thing is, the rest of the class is starting some new eating challenge on June 4th with an entry fee of $50.  Because of all of the hospital bills that we've accrued during the past few months of fun and adventure, I will be trying to pay some of those instead of paying to join the contest, but we decided to start the same day.  So it looks like whenever I try to catch up with the newest, hip, eating phase that my friends go through, I'll probably always be one step behind them.  Oh well, at least we'll all be suffering together and maybe I can get their old paleo papers since they'll have something new.

The best part about this is knowing that we have a week to get rid of all of the old bad food in the house.  So at least I'll be able I'm going to be eating great for the next week.  Once again, I'm excited to start this new phase but also dreading it at the same time.  Should be interesting.

If there is still someone that reads this blog I apologize to that person. This has been a crazy week with the end of the school year and such.  So here is a quick post to show I am still alive.  I have made it to the gym every day but I'll have to update on my workouts next time.
Although this morning, I went to class and the whole WOD was running different distances with a minute break in between and starting each round with 5 burpees.  I actually rowed the whole thing instead of ran.  The rounds escalated from 155 meters up to 775meters for the highest round back to 155M for the last round.  Because I rowed, I was in the back reading off each distance on the board in the back.  When I finished, there was actually only one other person who finished before me and he is a big time runner.  So I was quite pleased with my results until I started to notice that most people still had 1 or 2 more rounds left and I knew I couldn't be that fast.  So I went and studied the board a little more and I noticed that it said "Crossfit Lite" on the workout.  So my ego was shot because the Lite WOD actually skipped 2 of the rounds that the regular class did.  Oh, well.  I'm thinking of now joining the Crossfit Lite class.

One of the worst things about my long absence from Crossfit is that my callouses on my hands are gone.  My hands are basically smooth.  In some sick way, the callouses were almost a badge of honor showing the hundreds of pull ups that I had done over those first couple of years.  So now I'm back trying to do pull ups again and not only am I feeling a little ashamed for having to do jumping pull-ups, it's also pretty painful on the hands.   
Yesterday, it was team day again since it's Saturday.  I figured I would just do the WOD by myself and just do half of it so that I didn't have to drag anyone else's score down.  But it was also the Ogden Marathon day and so only a few of us showed up to class.  So as much as I tried to hide, there were only 4 guys and so I partnered up with Spencer who is always one of the fastest ones in our class.  I apologized ahead of time for what I was about to do to his score.
The WOD was

3 Rounds for time of:

100 Double Unders

80 Partner Med Ball Sit-ups-20lbs

60 Goblet Squats-35lbs

40 Pull-ups

20 Hand Stand Push Ups (I substituted with a 95lb push press)

We each had to do half.  I can't jump high enough for double unders. He would do 50 double unders but I had to do 3x my part because I was doing singles.  So I did 150 singles each time.  He quickly went through his 50 and I thought it was great how fast he went because we would be done sooner.  The problem was, I only got to rest while he was doing his part.  So the faster he went, the less time I had to rest.  With the partner med-ball sit-ups, you were facing each other and passing the medicine ball back and forth for each person's sit-ups.  The nice thing about having him as my partner was that I didn't take any breaks because I didn't want to ruin his score.  I was actually pretty fast with the Goblet squats.  Unfortunately, it's not because I'm strong, it's because I can't squat very deep so I could go quickly.  The Pull-ups sucked.  Especially since he whizzed through his half because he weighs roughly 90lbs (I'm estimating).  Even though I was doing jumping pullups, his half was still much quicker.  With the hand stand pushups, I'm pretty sure I would fall over so I substituted my 10 with 95lb push presses.  

I was happy with how fast we were getting through but by the third round, I was cursing his name because of how little rest I got.  I did get to experience something that I've never experienced before as we were the first ones done with a time of 27:24.  Of course, there were only 4 teams and the only exercise that I did RX was the situps, but I'm counting it as a victory.  (C'mon guys, give me this one.  I don't get victories very often).   I'm definitely feeling the aches in my shoulders today but this is an ache that makes me proud, not like the ones in my back. 

5-19 My new granny knee high compressions socks.

I just realized it's been a few days since I've posted.  So much for my daily updates.  The problem is, I don't really have anything exciting to post.  I did make it to class on Wednesday and Thursday, but I'm substituting so many of the exercises, that you don't recognize the actual WOD.  I tried to do the kettle bells at a light weight but it still sends a shock down my spine on the first part of the swing.  Once I get the kettle bell or any bar bell higher than my chest I'm just fine.  But the first part of the transition from the hang position just feel like my spine is stuck together in ways it shouldn't be.  It looks like it's going to take some more time on the stupid Airdyne to continue to get the "rust" off of my spine to see if things can start moving again in full range.  The good news is that we did the bench press on Wednesday and that I can actually do that because I'm not using my back.  The bad news is it's been at least 6 months since I tried to bench anything and so I am weaker there also.  We did 225lbs and I probably over did it at that.  Once again, I need to realize that I been recommitted to the gym for that long and I had a nice little 3 week rest during that time also. 
As for my leg, it is still swollen and the Dr. wants me to wear compression socks more often so that I don't get a clot.  So at least I'll get to look really stylish with my granny knee high stockings. 
As far as the diet goes, I've lost a couple more lbs this week.  I still can't see any noticeable difference but it's a step in the right direction.  We had a going away party for a co-worker with pizza, donuts, and cake.  I had one piece of pizza and cursed in my head at everyone else for eating the donuts and cake and looking like they were really enjoying it.  I keep waiting for the right time to start moving further from weight watchers and more to a cutting more of the "white" carbs out but there's always some type of family get together or celebration so I keep postponing.  There's always going to be an excuse so I might as just bite the bullet and do it.  The biggest reason I've stayed with counting points instead of going paleo is so that I can still eat what my family eats and not have two different meals but I think I've talked to Katie into letting me try The Zone or Paleo as they seem like the next step in my effort to get fit.  I hope one of them says that Cheetos is ok.  That's probably the one I'll choose.

Sometimes a busy schedule gets in the way and you just can't make it to class.  I didn't want to miss class but I did.  I wasn't going to post anything but a couple of my friends told me that they still follow my blog and enjoy it so I thought I'd post a random memory from my childhood that will has helped shape my life.

When I was in 3rd grade, my friend Brian and I were playing during recess and my friend Chad said he had to show us something really fast but he couldn't let the teachers see.  So we went behind a bunch of bushes and looked around to make sure no grownups were watching.  When we decided the cost is clear, he pointed to different parts of his body and said "Milk, Milk, Lemonade.  Around the corner fudge is made."  We laughed and laughed and then made sure the teachers didn't see and then we went back to the playground.  That was probably one of the greatest days of my life and has helped me be the great person that I am today.  Maybe?  (There we go, I probably just lost my last two followers after that story so now I won't have to post every day)