a little curry-osity

Who doesn’t love Asian cuisine? I decided to search for a paleo curry sauce recipe and found one that was Jac-friendly (read: fairly simple to find the ingredients and follow) from Bi-Polar Paleo and made a few of my own little tweaks. Let me tell you...I wanted to either just drink this stuff or take a bath in it, it was that good! *Toot toot*...that’s me...tooting my own horn. Now I don’t even know if this tasted how it’s supposed to taste, but I really don’t care. Before I get to the recipe, I used Massaman curry paste bought from the grocery store. The brand I buy is paleo-friendly so make sure you read the ingredients. You can use any type of curry paste you desire with this recipe (http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/education/thai-curries-a-guide/c27601.aspx). Oh, and my measurements were give and take some so this is more just guidelines than actual rules (where are my movie buffs?!):

- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 2 tsp curry paste of choice
- 1 can coconut milk (I used a small can)
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- 3 tsp lime juice
- 4 chopped garlic cloves
- Sprinkle of chilli flakes
- Sprinkle of mixed herbs seasoning (basil, oregano, parsley etc)

Heat the coconut oil over medium-high heat in a wok or pan then add the curry paste and let it cook for a few mins. Add in 1/3 of the can of coconut milk and garlic, mix and let cook another 5-10 mins. Add the remaining coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice and seasonings and cook another couple of mins. Do some taste testing and adjust to your liking, you may want to add more paste or seasoning or whatever, and then try not to drink it.

Enjoy!

just one

Please just let me get one chest to bar pull-up.

and to close the open

Last week of the open and I have a major challenge ahead of me. 13.5 4 min AMRAP of 15 thrusters and 15 chest to bar pull-ups. Seeing as though this one random time I managed to do one regular unassisted pull-up, my score for this workout will most likely be 15. I’m going to try my darndest to get one C2B unassisted though so stay tuned for results tomorrow!

My eating habits are slowly getting back to where I’d like them to be after our trip to Fiji. I got my meal prep in for the week but all this leftover Easter chocolate is hard to resist! Meh I try not to get bent outta shape over it though; one bad meal isn’t going to make you fat and one good meal isn’t going to make you skinny. I think one of the worst things you can do is get down on yourself if you make a bad nutritional choice here and there. This feeling of guilt will lead to another bad choice which is the start of an unwanted cycle. It’s important to acknowledge that, ok maybe that 12” deep dish pizza washed down with dairy queen probably wasn’t the best idea but it’s not going to change anything if you leave it and move on.

Now I have to forget about those 6 mini chocolate eggs I ate after lunch....

pure shores

Back from paradise. Fiji was absolutely stunning. The weather was perfect, food was delicious, drinks were abundant and the wedding was beautiful. For five days we were off the grid. We didn’t want to leave but we also missed Lily a while big bunch. I took a boat load (pun totally intended) of pics so I’ll add a few when I get them on the computer at home.

Back to reality.

And back to Crossfit last night. I don’t know if it was the sun coming out of my skin or what but I was so incredibly hot last night during the WOD I had to take my shoes off and finish in my bare feet. After finishing, I proceed to stick my head in the freezer and rub a cold pack on my skin to cool me down. Tonight’s 5RM back squat is much more along the lines of vacation recovery than last night’s 7 rounds for time, 7 push jerk, 7 CTB and 7 burpees. Barf.

this is how I math

13.2 is in the books. I had a math fail at the end of my workout. My goal was 180 (6 rounds). Here it is:

10 min AMRAP
5 shoulder to overhead 34kgs
10 dead lifts 34kgs
15 box jumps

So silly me, I got my 6 rounds in with about 1 min left and thought to myself ‘ok, I’ll squeeze in the shoulder to overheads and dead lift and that’ll give me a nice 200 to finish on’. Boy I suck. I ended up with a final score of 199. I’m happy though. I still met my goal. Let’s hope I can bring a calculator to 13.4.

Yes, I’m going to miss 13.3. I’ll be away in Fiji doing as many reps as possible of drink to mouth.

decked out

My first piece of Crossfit clothing! It’s nice and simple, comfy and fits great. Let’s face it, I don’t have the issue of boobs hitting me in the chin when I workout so support isn’t really on the radar when I pick out a sports bra. Time to christen this baby with a little sweat I say! Maybe I’ll save it for 13.2 on Friday. I have another shirt coming in the mail from WOD Addiction too!

One more week till Fiji!

Last night we did 1RM clean and jerk. I managed to get 55kgs cleaned but not jerked...next time for sure. I’m amazed at how quickly I’m increasing the weight. When I first started Crossfit I thought ‘there is no way I’m going to be able to lift that much ever’. When I started to see the light a little, my thoughts changed to ‘ok I might be able to do that but it’ll probably take me a year’. Now my thoughts are ‘holy crap I can do that already?!?’. It’s almost as if I had it in me all along but just needed the right medium to bring it out. Crossfit is proving to be that medium.

me·di·um (md-m)
n. pl. me·di·a (-d-) or me·di·ums
1. An intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on.
2. An agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred.
3. pl. media
a. A surrounding environment in which something functions and thrives.

one down, four to go

I did the Open 13.1 WOD on Friday. It was intense but I thought I did pretty well. I had a goal of 130 reps and I managed to squeeze out 125. I’m happy with that for my first time and only being with Crossfit for about 3 months. I hit a new snatch PR on Thursday night of 40kgs so I was a little more confident going in to the workout. It was such a great experience and I’m looking forward to 13.2 already. There was so much energy at the box and everyone cheering each other on...pretty awesome! Here’s what went down in 17 mins:

40 burpees
30 snatch 20kgs
30 burpees
30 snatch 35kgs
20 burpees
30 snatch 45kgs
10 burpees
Snatch at 55kgs, as many as possible

We won’t find out what 13.2 is until Thursday morning. As long as it’s nothing to do with rope climbs, double-unders or hand stand push-ups, I’ll be happy.

I put another recipe to the test last night. I wanted something different in the morning and something that would save a bit of time since we all know it’s a hard choice between a few extra minutes of sleeping or straightening our hair. Sleeping in usually wins the toss for me since I’m usually seen with my hair in a bun at work. I found a recipe for vegetable and tuna quiche from My Clean Plate on Instagram and tweaked it a bit since I’m picky when it comes to veggies.

· 2 full eggs plus at least 2-3 egg whites, beaten
· ¼ cup grated zucchini with water squeezed out
· ¼ cup grated carrots
· ¼ cup chopped baby spinach
· ¼ cup chopped mushrooms
· 1 small tin of tuna in spring water, drained
· 1 tbsp fresh chives, chopped

Mix all the veggies and tuna in a bowl and then add the beaten eggs and egg whites. You may need to add more egg whites depending on the amount of veggies you have. Grease a small casserole dish with coconut oil or olive oil and pour the mixture in. I sprinkled a small amount of cheese on top. Bake for about 20-25 mins at 180C and set your alarm five mins later for the next morning. You’re welcome.

 

cooking with Sweet Brown

I whipped up something new last night. I’ve seen a few recipes for Sweet Potato Latkes floating around the realms of facebook and instagram lately to which my mouth would water at the sight, I could probably give Lily a run for her money....nah I retract that...she’s a drool machine. Anytime Ryan and I try to eat, you can feel her eyes burning a hole in you, so you look over at her to find two long fang-like strings of drool hanging out of her jowls. She’s so lady like.

Ok, back on topic. The chosen recipe for my experiment was from fastpaleo.com:

- 2 cups of grated, peeled sweet potato (about one small potato)
- 1 cup of grated zucchini, skin on
- ½ cup chopped green onion
- 1 egg, beaten (add at the end)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Any other spices you wanna add (I used Moroccan spice)

First, grate the sweet potato and zucchini and squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible. The recipe suggests setting it in the fridge for 15-20 mins but....AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR DAT! I just used good old elbow grease to get out all the juice. Mix in the green onion and spices and finally the beaten egg. Heat up a frying pan to medium heat with 1-2 tbsps coconut oil (or other healthy oil). Form a small amount of the mixture into a ball and place in the pan. Press with the spatula to make them nice and pancakey-shaped. Flip after about 10 mins or when they are golden brown (or closer to black when I cook). They should hold together nicely at this point. Finally, try not to eat them all....I skipped this step. You should get around 6 latkes.

I hate double unders

That is all.

ok Canada, I guess you can have her back

The house is a little emptier now; Jen has arrived safe and sound back in Canada. Ryan caught Lily sleeping on Jen’s bed yesterday evening...she misses her too. Jen was my little piece of home for three and a half weeks and I loved every minute of it, and not just because we ate a butt load of ice cream (at least it wasn’t beaver tails and ice cream this time).

My eating habits were definitely slack over the past three weeks so it’s time to pull up my socks again. I’m almost 12 weeks out from the competition and honestly the competition has been the last thing on my mind. Crossfit has taken over that space in my head (hey I didn’t say empty space). I’m currently signed up for three sessions per week but I’m going to change my membership so I can train five days per week starting next week. The strength I now have from just doing three days is something I never thought I’d achieve and I’m excited to see what five days will do. I also signed up for the Crossfit Open which begins on March 5th and goes for 5 weeks. I know I’m not going to be able to Rx every workout but I’m going to give it my best and I’ll for sure learn a thing or two. A whole group of us newbs at my box have signed up so the support is going to be phenomenal.

Snatch and double unders tonight. Bring on the giggles as CMCraig critiques our snatches.