Well howdy ho.

It’s wonderful to sit down and have a bit of time to relax (AKA blog). While I’m realllllllly glad to be back at work, jumping into three straight days with teaching bootcamps and spins at night after a busy weekend away at my Crossfit trainers course was a lot. I’ve got one more early morning–6 for some tri club spinning–and then I’ve got a day to decompress. My plans? Laundry, errands, cleaning, a visit to Crossfit, and maybe some yoga. I have a tendency to overbook my off days…

Anyways, work’s been great. I’m re-learning and I feel like it’s coming back quickly. I love love love getting to be with people all day, even if my feetsies are tired by the end of it all.

I did a better job snapping photos of yesterday’s eats…my day started at 6am with a shift. I had an apple while I was still half asleep and then a few hours later snarfed some nuts. Then I had my bacon for the day…

By the time I got home mid-afternon, I was pretty hungry again. I threw together a plate with a potato with some butter, ground turkey, cheese, and kale. Om nom nom.

I went to Crossfit before I taught my own bootcamp. We had a pretty simple day — handstand work and a 12 min AMRAP workout (8 kb swings, 8 burpees, row 250m – I did 6 rounds and was surprised at how tired I was) — but I left feeling stronger. I was sad that I missed Tuesday–deadlifting!–but I’m in this for the long run so I’ll pick something heavy up soon enough. The bootcamp was fun–even with a small group most weeks (last night there were 4). The repeat offenders as I like to call them are good sports and will try anything–and push themselves! Thank god for motivated participants!

Afterwards, I went to Kiwi Kraze for the first time in over a month to celebrate Angela’s birthday. It was bittersweet cuz she moved away to Waterloo (which is luckily within an easy drive’s distance) today…boo hoo. I’m blocking this detail out of my memory. The 30 day challenge wrapped up (kind of anti-climactic since I intend on living by design for the rest of my days, not just for 30 days) so it was fair game. I was a little hesitant to fill my bowl but there was a butter pecan and a pumpkin pie flavour so I did dive in. I glutened myself–sort of to see what happened–with the graham crackers. I didn’t have any immediate reaction to the grains. The dairy is one thing that I will admit I didn’t really go without on the 30 days — cream in my coffee every day, milk here and there, cheese every once in a while. I have some yogurt in my fridge but it’s untouched. If anything, the challenge helped me put food more in it’s place–and realize that things like froyo are fine, but they’re not “food” and they’re not really moving me in the healthy direction. That being said, if most of my choices are, there’s room for that! And certainly more of my choices are leaning towards real, whole foods now versus even a month ago. So WIN!

I should have crashed earlier but I got fired up and excited about some articles I was reading (mostly crossfit ones) last night so I ended up staying up past my bedtime. I worked at 8am this morning so I’m jonesing for a good night’s sleep. I started today off with a salad–alfalfa sprouts, turkey, grapes, and some mayo. Weird but it hit the spot. 

At my break, I had a pack of almonds from Starbucks and a nanner.

And I took an awko taco selfie for your viewing pleasure.

When I got home I was ravenous again so I threw together some collard wraps filled with chicken, sprouts, shredded carrots, and some more mayo. Delish! If you haven’t wrapped your old sandwich contents in a big ol’ leaf yet, you’ve got to try it! Romaine, chard, collard greens…they’re all awesome.

After thattttttt snack, I taught bootcamp to one lonely participant at Campus Rec. I think lots of people went home early for Thanksgiving so I will not be taking it personally! The gal powered through the workout (I did it with her –> situps, pushups, burpees, squats, shuttle runs, love!) so it was another win. Spin was next–it was a small but mighty group. I’ve given up the class after this week because I’m finding myself burnt out. My legs aren’t fired up and neither is my mind–I want to be the instructor who is passionate and who looks forward to teaching the class–and I’m not getting that. I’m also time managing with a full time job now and I’ve realized that it’s just not feasible to teach 8 classes a week…but it was a hard hard thing to come to and to admit and I dealt with some “commitment” guilt.

Something good that came out of all that was that I realized that I am committed to myself and to my health, happiness, and well-being. So I act in my own best interest. And I do things that serve me. And not the one’s that don’t. If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no. Etc. etc.

After spin I was lucky enough to get my power turned on at Gainsborough Family Chiropractic. It’s been since Monday and I certainly was glad I made it before the long weekend! A short and sweet visit with some smiling faces always makes me happy.

So do nuts.

I think I ate approximately 150 almonds today. The ones in my snack this morning, a shit ton (for lack of a better word) after my visit to the chiropractor as a snack, and then in almond butter form on my sweet potato with dinner and in a paleo truffle that I probably didn’t need–but wanted real bad. Maybe 250. The hollow leg syndrome is back–or mentally I assume that I’m hangry after teaching albeit a 45 minute spin class. Anyways…

It is what it is. I’ve read some things suggesting that nuts should be more sparingly used. Like a condiment. Or suggesting that maybe you should eat a small handful–the amount you’d be willing to crack and shell yourself. Last month I bought nuts in their shell so I have an experiment to do. But I’ve been distracted by the roasted almonds lure…

So far, my copious consumption of nuts (even though I don’t normally eat 6oz a day, I do eat them on a pretty frequent basis in kind of large quantities) hasn’t really hurt me — I don’t think. Body composition wise, I think I’m at the same weight. Jeans are fitting about the same–maybe a little snugger but I am not nuts enough to blame nuts when I’ve been squatting with a bar on my back for the first time in over a year.

This is one of those examples where I get to see how far I’ve come and where I can look at myself as an experiment. Fun! For now, I’m just going to go with it. I did remind myself that even if I ate the entire jar of almond butter, it wouldn’t kill me. It wouldn’t make me fat. It would make me a little weird, but whatever. So I’m moving on to bigger and better things.

Like flannel pajamas, light reading (;)!), and bedtime.

How was your week?
Have you ever had to readjust your commitments mid-semester/year? How did you deal?
What are you reading right now?
What’s your fav nut butter?