So I started this get in shape crap at 278 lbs (I know, how did I ever let myself get that way?).  I'm currently around 256.  When I got back from Lake Powell, I was really excited because I was actually around 254 but apparently I was just dehydrated because I gained a couple of lbs back after I drank a bunch of water.  So I've still got a ways to go but I'm happy with the results. Although I'm getting a little bit back into shape, I'm still very out of shape.  I realized this when everyone was hopping in and out of boats whereas I had to kind of crawl on and off so I wouldn't lose my balance.  Even the 65 year old guy was getting around better than I was.  Basically I have become the old guy that everyone has to help out with.
One of the most frustrating things is that I don't think I'm really getting much stronger because I'm still not able to do much of the heavy lifting.  I remember how well I did when I was doing Crossfit full time even though I wasn't really eating that great.  Now I'm eating good but not exercising great.  Hopefully one day I will be able to do both so I can truly measure what my results would be. 
In our WOD yesterday we did crap load of pull-ups and push presses (It was supposed to be hand stand push ups instead of push presses, but I don't quite trust my back or my equilibrium at this time).  Today I can definitely feeling some pain in my shoulders.  But that is an awesome feeling because I know it's pain from working out and building muscle, not just the pain from my spine grinding.  So it's the proverbial "Good Kinda Pain".

I'm at Lake Powell this week so I won't be posting.  I brought a book with me to read.  I know I'm only on page one but so far this "50 Shades of Gray" book is pretty boring.

Tried turkey bacon.  Didn't care for it very much.  I'm thinking that's one where we'll stick with the real thing.  If you ask me, Turkey Bacon is 6 degrees of separation from Real Bacon.  We did have turkey burgers, with REAL bacon on them, with Guacamole and wrapped in lettuce wraps.  Those weren't bad at all.  I think we'll be adding those a few times into our summer menu.
I also had a piece of whole wheat toast for my first time in over a month.  It had been so long that I almost felt guilty about it.  But it was nice to have a grain back in my life. 
I am getting to where I can do more parts of the WOD's but I am still having to stop several times and try to stretch my back out so that I don't get the shocking pinching feeling.  The stretching breaks aren't really helping my times but at least I'm finishing them.  Once again, although I'm not very patient, I think I am going in the right direction and starting to hopefully build some strength back in my core.

7/13

Am I skinny yet?  Nope?........Dang it!

I ran today!  Ok so it's not that exciting.  It was only for 200 meters and it's only because someone was on the rower that I had been using and I was too lazy to walk all the way back to the other ones. I also don't think I blew anyone away by my amazing speed.  But, that's the first time I've tried to attempt to run the track in about 10 months.  So I'll take that as a little bit of a victory because my back didn't explode.  One thing it made me realize is that no matter how good I get at the rowers and the bikes, I'm not getting a full cardio workout because I just that little run had me pretty winded and I was glad that we had to walk the rest of the track back to the Crossfit area.
We are officially done with our month of pure paleo.  I lost about 15 lbs.  Yeah, now that I'm not taking daily pictures, the weight is starting to come off.  Maybe it's like the watched pot not boiling thing.  The problem is, now that Katie has gotten so good at cooking paleo, she doesn't want to just quit.  My whole goal was to finish the 30 days in time to have a regular birthday dinner and dessert but I'm more scared of Katie than I am tempted to eat junk foods.  So on my birthday dinner Katie and I went to The Union Grill and I wanted I had the Pecan Crusted Chicken and my two sides were broccoli and broccoli.  (Ok, so one thing this diet has NOT done for me is make me more tolerant of many cooked vegetables.)  For my birthday cake, Katie made paleo blueberry muffins with a whipped blueberry topping.  So although, not exactly like any of my past bday dinners, it was still pretty good. 
So we are going to try to keep on it but maybe add some dairy back in and some of the better grains.  I'm not sure what would be the best foods to add in slowly but we're thinking things like oatmeal and Greek Yogurt maybe?  We did try plain Greek Yogurt yesterday and let me just warn you, make sure you get a piece of fruit with each bite because eating a bite of plain yogurt is not a pleasant experience.  I thought maybe I had just bitten into some week old milk that had been left in my car.  But, it's nice to be able to add some other foods in.  Any suggestions would be great on what healthy non paleo foods are the best thing to add back into the diet.  I guess we'll try different things and see what happens.
I have noticed that my workouts are starting to get a little better and my callouses are starting to come back.  I know that callouses are nothing to get real excited about but they always gave me a little bit of pride in some warped way.  Although I'm not able to do pullups like I did in the past, I can at least now do 2 or 3 at a time.  So I'm going to take that as a victory although another newer member of the class told me I was doing a good job and asked how long I've been doing Crossfit.  I think they were a little shocked/disappointed when I told them just over 3 years.  Oh well, I found it humorous. 

Breakfast of Greek yogurt with strawberries and blueberries.  The strawberries weren't quite sweet enough to make up for the funkiness of the yogurt but the blueberries did alright.  Also a left over bday blueberry muffin.  The picture doesn't do it justice cause it was actually really good.

July 9th

July 9th.  A little over the month on the paleo diet and apparently not very happy about it from the looks of things.  But down 15 lbs.

So one of the things that I try to do after the WODs to help loosen my back is to take one of the bands and lay on my back and try to stretch my legs with them.  It helps take some of the tightness off of my lower back.  So I thought that it would be good to get one for home that I could do in the evening or even sometimes when I first wake if I can't even make it out the door because of the pain.  So I explained to Katie what the bands look like that we use in class.  I told her that it's like a huge rubber band I need one of the green or blue ones because they are the strongest.  She found some yoga bands on the internet but they weren't like the ones that we have in class.  So I explained again what they look like and she didn't find any.  She said I should just get a yoga one but I patiently explained to her that those weren't the ones that we use in Crossfit and so we should keep looking.  The yoga ones weren't a full circle like the ones in class and so I didn't want them.  She said I was being stupid but I told her that those ones work and so I need the full circle ones.  She said I didn't.  I said I did.  She asked what we used them for in class and I explained how they help people learn pull ups and how they tie them to the bar.  She asked if I needed it to stretch my legs or if we had some pull up bar in our house that she was unaware of.  So I said, "shut up", and ran upstairs crying. (Just kidding, I don't "run" anywhere)

So here's my yoga stretching band that Katie bought me.  It works pretty good.  I'll use it while I'm watching tv to take some pressure off of the lower back.  I've mentioned that I feel like my lower vertebrae seems to be grinding and as I use this, it seems to take a little pressure off of them. I also still try to go to the chiropractor a couple times a week and that helps but I still need something else because some days, I can't even stand up straight.
As for the diet, we've been in our clean eating mode for almost a month now.  It's been frustrating in the fact that I can't really measure my progress in if it's making me stronger or faster because I don't really know from day to day, which of the WODs I can actually do at full strength.  If I were to do it again, I would have done something like do the Airdyne for as far as I can for 10 minutes and then do it again at the end of the month.  I also don't know how much my body fat was a month ago because I didn't get measured because I'm not part of the official contest.  I do know that the diet is working though as far as plain weight loss because I've lost 12 lbs.  So as for now, I'm sticking with my goal of losing weight and continue to try to build strength in my core.  I would love to be able one day again do hang cleans and push presses at my regular weight.  I'm getting sick of saying this but....patience.  It will come one day.  Right? Maybe? I hope?

June 1st- 275 lbs

<--- June 1st. (My idea of taking a picture a day, has quickly fizzled out. How about a picture a month?)

July 1st-263 lbs

<---July 1st.

Cauliflower "Rice" Pilaf

Since I'm not officially part of the clean eating challenge, I didn't get to do all of the body fat and measurements that the rest of them did so I decided that my goal weight is "getting something out of my pants pockets without having to stand up" weight.
We're getting better with the Paleo thing.  I'm not saying that the food is amazing and that I don't miss a good bean burrito but we able to make foods that don't leave you hungry for more.  Katie's still a perfectionist in the kitchen so that definitely helps.  She has a ton of paleo cooking blogs that she takes ideas from and then makes them even better.  She has a pilaf made of shredded cauliflower that was about as good as a good rice pilaf.  I would actually eat that even off of the diet.




This is  basically what I thought that I'd be eating for the entire week.  Boiled eggs for breakfast and some lunch meat and lettuce for lunch and dinner.  We actually do have a lot of eggs for breakfast but we do break up the monotony of the smoothies by adding different fruits.  We also try to see how much spinach we can put in it without changing the taste.  We've pushed the boundaries a little too much a couple of times but mostly we've had some pretty tasty smoothies.

Jimmy Johns Unwich

Another thing that has saved us is the Jimmy Johns Unwich.  Basically their sandwiches in a lettuce wrap and their avocado spread .  Katie's been spending a ton of time worrying about every meal so it's nice to occasionally stop and pick something up.











We've gotten very good at making "one minute almond muffins" too.  That's helped when all I've wanted was a sandwich.  We found some sweet potato chips that aren't too bad.  I'm sure they aren't the best things for you since they are still fried in oil, but they're better for you than Doritos.

The other thing that we've gotten good at is making our own mayonnaise.  We tried it a couple of times at the beginning but it took way too long and was a pain because you had to slowly mix in the oil.  If any of my (one reader) makes their own paleo mayonnaise, let me know and I will tell you an very easy and simple way to do it and it makes some great mayo. When I say it has changed our life, I'm not exaggerating.  We might actually continue to make our own even after the challenge is over. 

We used the mayo to make this broccoli slaw.  The bacon wrapped chicken is pretty tasty too.

So I will quit complaining about the bland paleo food and get back to complaining about the WODs.  

It's been a long time since I've written in this and I have done a horrible job of exercising this week.  I no longer work for Google. I started a new job this week with Cardlytics and I have been training at their headquarters in Atlanta.  I was actually pleased that I was able to handle my back pain while walking and standing in a lot of lines in the airports.  The doctor also told me that I had to wear compression socks on the plane because she was concerned that my leg is still swollen and I am at a higher risk for blood clots on a 4 hr flight. 

I did get a couple of complements on them from old ladies but most people just stared because they were speechless, probably overcome by my awesomeness and amazing style.  I could have worn pants but I like to be comfortable when I travel.  Plus, I didn't really care cause I new I'd never see these people again.



The bigger issue was trying to stay paleo while eating at great places.  I was able to eat salads during our lunches but we were taken out to great places for dinner and that's where it got tough. 
One night we went to a famous burger joint called The Vortex.  I thought I would be good and so I didn't touch any of the appetizers.  Like the deep fried Zucchini:        Or the chips and Salsa:

I also skipped the Elvis burger which I really wanted to try.  (It had peanut butter and fried bananas on it.)


Another tempting one was the double heart attack burger.  It had fried eggs on it and instead of the bun, it had grilled cheese sandwiches on the top and the bottom.



I decided to get the Carnivorgasm Burger which had a lot of different types of meat on it and just not eat the bun. 

The Carnivorgasm

 It had a sirloin patty, a turkey patty, pulled barbecued chicken, bacon, sliced ham, turkey, I thought that if I just didn't eat the bun, I would still be sticking pretty much to paleo but who am I kidding, this thing was not healthy and still probably 3000 calories and I couldn't scrape all of the cheese off.  It was delicious, but I think occasionally, we can over justify what we are eating just because we didn't eat the bread.  It probably would have been healthier to eat a loaf of bread but man was it tasty.

After that, I decided that if Katie and Megan were still sticking to strictly paleo, that I would have to try to harder. Another night we went to a cajun restaurant and everything, even the chicken and steak were breaded or deep fried. I ended up getting a grilled chicken salad. On the menu it was a crispy chicken strip salad. (But me being the amazing health food nut, asked them to change it to grilled chicken).  After my experience at these places, this is what the rest of my meals ended up looking like:

Pineapples and Berries. I wouldn't really trying to go strictly paleo while you're traveling but Overall, although I missed out on some great smelling food, I was happy with my food choices. 

I packed gym clothes but I was so tired every night, I didn't even get them out of the suitcase.  I'm not happy about that but I'm home and not really looking forward to getting back at the gym cause it's going to hurt.  I wonder if the Airdyne missed me while I was gone?

The Vortex

 My new work mates.