Eating Zone: Postponed!

{Photo courtesy of Alaska From Scratch}

As much as I want to continue eating Zone right now, and show you all the progress that can be made from week to week, I’ve come to the realization that I chose the wrong time to start. I had to be honest with myself before I failed at what I set out to prove. The thing is, I’m just too busy! I know this sounds like an excuse, but let me explain. Of course I’m not too busy to eat healthy (that goes without saying), but I am too busy (right now) to measure out the food. Sometimes I’m even too busy to grocery shop, and worse: too busy to eat every meal I’ve planned out. My sleep has suffered due to studying for finals, preparing for a move, taking on extra side jobs in addition to my full-time job, and other various things happening in my life that suck up every minute of my day. So the time I would have spent in the kitchen measuring everything out, is now used for whatever sleep I can squeeze in, which has been around 6 hours or less each night, and believe me when I say, it’s showing (on my face, and in my WODs).  I’m an 8 hour kind of girl, so this (temporary) adjustment has severely altered my life, and so basically I’m in survival mode at this point.

The good news is, I will pick it back up in a couple of weeks, and resume where I left off with photos, meal break downs etc. But I wanted to say thank you for following along, and being supportive. In the meantime, I hope I can inspire & motivate in other ways.

xoxo,
Rebecca The Red

Live Fit Challenge: Week 1

We’ve started a “Live Fit” challenge at our box (CrossFit 310) yesterday, which I’m really pumped about! And in my overwhelming excitement, I’ve become sort of an ambassador for the challenge, partially due to the fact that I started a week early and have gone 99% strict, with the exception of my protein shake in the morning. The challenge previous to this one mainly just involved nutrition, which is still a huge part of it because of the 80/20 rule. But what I like about this particular challenge, is how all-encompassing it is. It involves not only nutrition and CrossFit, but hydration and sleep as well, which are obviously equally as important.

The challenge is based on a point system for a total of 30 days. For example: If you get 7.5 hours of sleep or more a night, you gain points per week. As you lose hours of sleep, you lose points. The same applies to nutrition – You lose points for consuming grains, wheat, gluten, refined sugar and alcohol. The fitness and hydration portion is my favorite though because it’s pass or fail for the week. You accumulate points, but if you fall short of your fitness goal or hydration (half of your body weight in ounces per day, minimum), you lose all possible hydration / fitness points for that week, which is a pretty huge incentive to keep up with the committment – especially because there was an option to “buy in” for some awesome prizes at the end, one of which is rumoured to be Lululemon related. Squeeeeeeeeee!!!

I’ve created an album on Facebook documenting in photos some of the foods I’ve been preparing / eating each week (week 1 pictured below) to help inspire others who are feeling a bit lost or unmotivated, as well as holding myself accountable publically. Up until I began this challenge last week, I had never (not one. single. time. in my life) followed through with a nutrition committment. Just like a WOD, the challenge is scalable, because the idea is to make changes (big or small) that work for you. I happen to be going big because I’ve seen huge progress in my CrossFit performance lately and I know to get where I intend to go, I have to go for the more drastic side of this challenge. That’s what works for me.

I have to say though….I really miss the red wine. Stay tuned.