One of the first questions I ask people when they get on the free Primal Potential VIP email list is “What are you struggling with & how can I help?”
Recently, a common answer has been, “How can I stop bingeing?”
However you define binge eating or simply eating to a point of regret & frustration, today I’m sharing 3.5 strategies (yup, there’s a half strategy in there) to help you improve your food behaviors and take more control.
Woohoo! It’s week 4 in my year of push! I thought it would be cool to share a few goals I have for this week before I do a month 1 recap next week. My goals for this week include:
Wake up without an alarm set at least 3 days
Work on double unders after my workout for a minimum of 10 minutes 2x this week
Focus on more anti-inflammatory foods to help my knee
Intentionally seek out something fun and/or joyful every day
And before we chat about today, I should share about my weekend. I ate too much. I drank too much. I’m not emotional about it. I’m not giving any of my emotional energy or time to something that’s already behind me.
One thing I find helpful is to evaluate which indulgences were worth it and which ones weren’t. This kind of analysis helps me make better choices next time.
Worth it: red wine butter on fresh bread
Not worth it: below-average sangria and half of someone else’s beer. I don’t even like beer. It’s really the Kansas Jayhawks fault if we wanna get really honest…I mean, if they had played better, I wouldn’t have been anxious. If I hadn’t have been anxious, I wouldn’t have drank beer. #blameitonthebasketball 🙂
Also on the positive side: I ate some good food, I had a great time and it gives me a special appreciation for the times when I take better care of my physical body. Another positive is that I got a day pass to a local gym on Saturday (since I was traveling) and got in a really, really awesome workout.
First I did a 21 minute EMOM (every minute on the minute):
10 cal row
10 dumbbell snatch (5 each arm with 35#)
10 burpees
It was a fantastic workout and afterwards I worked on my overhead squat mechanics and did some posterior chain work with back extensions. I could have easily justified a rest day but I was really proud of the hard workout even though I had to go out of my way to make it happen.
Today’s workout makes me happy. While I do NOT enjoy the airdyne bike, it’s a hell of a workout and I really do enjoy any type of squat and any kind of heavy overhead work.
AMRAP 12: (As many rounds as possible in 12 minutes)
40 Air Squats
25 Calorie Bike
10 Push Press (135/95#)
HOLD UP. I called an audible.
The above workout was the plan unless you were going to re-do 17.5.
I walked into the gym and decided to re-do 17.5. I absolutely loved that workout and I wanted to beat my time from Friday.
Let me tell you that I CRUSHED it. I made a massive improvement from Friday and I was already proud of how I did on Friday!!
I got my new “strong with purpose, light at heart” t-shirt and during each of the thruster reps I’d repeat over and over to myself, “strong with purpose, strong with purpose”.
Then, during the jump rope rounds I’d think, “light at heart”.
It made me feel happy, powerful & light on my feet! I left the gym feeling exhausted but like a happy camper!
For those of you who missed Friday’s post, 17.5 was 10 rounds for time of 9 thrusters and 35 double unders.
On the food front:
No surprise, after eating like a king this weekend, I wasn’t hungry until after my workout today.
I sipped on a 10 oz bottle of cold brew coffee all morning and had a couple glasses of water.
One of my food goals this week is to really focus on foods that naturally fight inflammation. While that’s a great thing in general, it’s increasingly important to me while I’m working out harder and my knee tends to get inflamed.
Some of those foods include leafy greens & salmon. Those are the focus of today.
I got a huge salad on my way home from the gym with lots of leafy greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, 3 hard boiled eggs and some nuts.
Between lunch & dinner I opened up a jar of pickled brussels sprouts. Somehow, after about 10 minutes, it looked like this…
The other night I hosted a live webinar. I focused on why most of us fail. It’s not about food. It’s not about exercise. We’re projecting our past choices, experiences & disappointments onto our present & future behavior.
We are in our own way. We are limiting our potential based on our pasts.
I want to help you overcome limiting beliefs, see doubt & fear as a lie and plow forward creating a life you love.
I also talk in today’s episode about the Spring Fat Loss Fast Track, which kicks off on Sunday April 2nd. You can register here.
If you want to watch the full webinar with pictures and slides, click here.
Happy Friday, loves! I’m headed out of town today so I didn’t have the luxury of sleeping in. Up at 4:30 to knock out some work before hitting the gym for a 7:30am workout.
It’s 17.5 day! The final workout of the CrossFit Open! It’ll be a burner!
10 RFT (rounds for time)
9 thrusters (65#)
35 double unders
I feel SO good about how this workout went down. Thrusters are a very taxing, full-body movement and my knee has been flaring up so I was a bit nervous going into it.
I got to the gym 30 minutes early and spent extra time warming up and loosening my knee.
I’m learning, albeit a bit late, that how I care for my muscles when I’m not working out has a huge impact on what I’m able to do when I am working out.
During the thrusters I focused on keeping my weight back in my heels (weight in the toes is harder on the knees) and really driving with my glutes.
I far exceeded my expectations and felt really strong & confident after the workout. What a great way to round out the week!
Oh, on the way to the gym I heard a super powerful song lyric from Run the Jewels:
“Can’t pick up no crown holding what’s holding you down”
It reminds me of something one of my Fat Loss Fast Track clients said a couple months ago:
You can’t defeat the demons you still enjoy playing with.
You can’t take advantage of what is next for you if you’re still hanging on to your past or your frustrations or your obstacles.
You can’t scale the obstacle you aren’t willing to let go of, ya know?
On the food front:
I made a half recipe of the “shamrock shake” to bring to an appointment this afternoon and sipped slowly on it. It’s not what I wanted – a little too cold for a shake today – but I needed to use up the spinach before leaving town.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to eat raw spinach in salad form – it makes my teeth squeak. It coats them or something – I don’t like the feeling. So, I had to put it into a shake.
I wanted to see how my blood sugar responded to the shake. After the workout, before the shake, it was 83 mg/dL.
One hour post-prandial (after the meal) it was still 83 mg/dL – good deal! Here’s to a meal that doesn’t move my blood sugar! I’m pretty excited about that.
Then, we want to see not only how much it rises an hour after (not at all in this case), we want to see how quickly it turns to baseline.
Two hours post-prandial my blood sugar was 92 mg/dL. Super interesting!
What this tells me is that this meal is very slow to digest due to the fat & protein. With the exception of the fiber-rich carbohydrate in the cauliflower & spinach, this is primarily fat & protein which will digest more slowly (take longer to impact blood sugar) than a moderate or higher carbohydrate meal.
I got a little hungry around 4:30p and I’m not sure what time I’ll be having dinner so I found these adorable little mini salaminis – they were so great! Think little salami bites. Yum! I probably had more of them than I needed but dang they were tasty!
I don’t yet know my dinner plans but if I had to guess, I’ll have steak or fish & veggies – maybe a few oysters as an appetizer.
I’ll also probably have a drink. My preference is to stick with either a bold red wine or a clear liquor. If the wine is average, I’ll skip it and have a shot of tequila on the rocks with lots of limes. Don’t worry, I don’t shoot it, I sip it over an hour or so.
Everybody enjoy the weekend! See you back here on Monday!
I shared that I’m determined to get more sleep and last night I nailed it. In fact, I was ready for bed before 7pm!
Don’t worry, I stayed up until 8:30pm and fell asleep around 9:30p.
I didn’t set my alarm & woke up at 5:05am today. My fasted blood sugar upon waking was the same as yesterday: 85 mg/dL.
I am headed to the gym early this morning – my workout will be around 7:30a and it’s another GOAT day. GOAT days are when we work on weaknesses in a 20 minute EMOM.
EMOM stands for every minute on the minute. Essentially, you’re working on each weakness for a minute, alternating back & forth for 20 minutes.
I’ve picked double unders (again) and kip swings or kipping.
EMOM 20
Minute 1: max double unders
Minute 2: 10 scap retractors and 10 kip swings
My grip & my back strength need some work so this was a great GOAT day for me even though it was rough on my hands. They are covered with blisters but the only way to get used to it & increase my grip strength is to keep on keeping on!
My double unders are improving so quickly! I love that!
Know what I was thinking about today? It’s so easy to look at the world class athletes in my gym and feel inferior or like they’re so much better than me. However, the great thing about having a long road ahead is how quickly I can see improvements.
When you’re at the top of your game (or the world’s game), improvements are hard fought and often minor.
When you have a long way to go, in fitness, weight loss, debt or any other pursuit, the improvements are more frequent, more noticeable and often more dramatic.
I love that! How lucky am I to see marked improvements almost daily!?
I guess the harder I work, the luckier I get! 😉
You have a choice – you can focus on lack, you can focus on how you don’t measure up, or you can bring your best effort and celebrate your opportunity to improve. There is absolutely a very sweet thing about sucking!
I was excited to see that my blood sugar did NOT increase after the workout – it was 89 mg/dL about 30 minutes post workout.
I meant to test it throughout the day today with meals but I was away from home all day and forgot the monitor. I’ll absolutely do more next week.
Know what I did when I got back home around 4pm? I took a nap! Look at me prioritizing sleep!!!
I have a webinar tonight at 8pm and that’s time of day when I’m usually winding down. I want to make sure I have tons of energy so I slept for about an hour.
I’m pretty psyched about the webinar – it’s going to be a kick in the pants for people who are hung up on their past failures & frustrations. I hope to see some of you there!
On the food front:
My workout was early this am so I didn’t eat before hand. After the workout I had to hit the road for a day trip.
I met up with my mom for lunch and I had a burger without the bun & a side of crispy brussels sprouts. We shared the brussels and I had somewhere between 5-10 sweet potato fries.
Know the best part of my lunch date? My mom brought a jar of pickled brussels AND she gave me the brilliant idea of chopping them up and mixing them with tuna! I love pickles in tuna and I bet this will be even better! (No, she didn’t make them, she bought them at a deli in NY, I think.)
I really intended to check my blood sugar one and two hours after eating but I didn’t bring the monitor! Next time for sure.
I wasn’t super hungry when I woke up from my nap but it was a “now or tomorrow” situation for dinner & I wanted to eat something.
I sautéed a bag of frozen cauliflower rice with a little grass fed butter and had it along side a half an avocado. I love cauliflower rice!
My workout tomorrow is early again as I have a couple appointments in the afternoon & then I’m heading out of town for the weekend but I’ll definitely give you a Friday recap!
My bedtime goal today is 10:30p based on the webinar & the nap.
