Goals - my undoing?

Le Sigh. It seems to happen every time. I can tell myself that I'm going to be strict paleo for the next xxx number of days, or stop doing this or stop eating that. But the minute numbers come into play, in terms of my 'goals'....well, I go a bit mental.

Lately I've been pretty strict during the weekdays, more relaxed on the weekends. And it hasn't caused me much thought or stress. But then today, I made the declaration on twitter that I wanted to lose an inch off each thigh. Well, I want to lose multiple inches off my thighs....and my hips and my waist, etc etc, but I wondered how long it would take to lose an inch off each thigh.

So of course, I started thinking about my diet, about my Crossfit regime and about adding in running. And then I thought about my diet some more. I've been losing a few pounds and a half an inch here and there each week so I figured I was doing good and didn't really need to change much. You know, just a few more strict tweaks here and there.

Then this afternoon hit. The afternoons are the worst for me. I usually get up early and do Crossfit in the a.m. I hate WODing with food in my stomach so I usually work out without breakfast, and then my post WOD shake or meal is my first meal of the day. Of course, I'm starving when I'm done with Crossfit but usually my chicken & veggies or my Progenex is enough to keep me full until lunch time. But sometimes it seems no matter what I eat for Meal 1 and Meal 2....the afternoons are met with famish hunger, as if I hadn't eatten at all.

Normally, I try to do 3 on, 1 off in terms of Crossfit and running but today was Day 4 on for me and I pushed pretty hard this morning. So of course, after making these new goals today....dropping inches here, dropping pounds there....with the desire of doing it in the next week or two....when the afternoon famine hunger hit, I started to panic. Of course, I've been eating when hungry and not depriving myself. I've tried protein, I've tried healthy fats. Nothing is keeping me full today.

Enter - distress! Panic! Oh no, how do I plan to lose inches when I can't stop eating?????

I think really the question I need to ask myself is, how do I plan to lose inches when I can't stop stressing????

WODs Gone Crazy in 2 Weeks!!!

Happy Friday!! Not only does today rock because it's Friday and I'm alive and healthy, but because it's also the official 2 week countdown to WODs Gone Crazy!!




What is WODs Gone Crazy? At the end of 2010, I was running my mouth on twitter as I always do, and I said something to my buddy Travis Schefcik (@uncmnwellness) about visiting him one day soon in SoCal to throw down some WODs together. From there, people started chiming in that they wanted to as well, and a big tweet up was born!

Thanks to Jarret Streiner (@jarret23), we started organizing who was going to attend and what dates would work best for everyone, since the group consists of people from coast to coast, north to south. He started this awesome blog and got the ball rolling! (Link to awesome blog)

The official plan!

Thursday 4/28 PM WOD at Crossfit East County with Mr. FuncThat himself! (@FuncThat)

Friday 4/29 is a triple whammy day! We are starting the morning off at Crossfit Counter Culture at 8am.....possibily the last Games Sectionals WOD, maybe? And of course, since this is the headquarters of the awesome brand Life As RX, I'm sure there will be a lot of post WOD shoppin goin on!

Our 2nd WOD of the day will be thrown down at the awesome facilities of Crossfit Invictus. Many thanks to both of these places for graciously hosting us!

For our last WOD of the day, we have been toying around with the idea of a ladies vs guys beach WOD.....should be interesting!

Between the nine of us, I'm sure lots of video and photos will be captured during this wild weekend. Stay tuned for blog posts and tweets before, during and after the craziness that will be WODs Gone Crazy.



Not only have we secured kick ass venues to show off our Crossfit skills, but we've also picked up some sponsors along the way! Many thanks to Progenex, Fashletics and RxJumpRopes for their support in making this Coast to Coast Crossfit TweetUp an experience any Crossfitter would enjoy.

Also a huge thanks to Life As RX for designing special shirts just for this trip.

Progenex Recovery and More Muscle

I was making protein shakes part of my daily diet before I even started Crossfit. However, I made the common mistake of just going with what everyone else was taking or whatever was commercially recommended; usually Muscle Milk. I really didn’t know what I was taking or why I was taking it (other than the ‘protein’ aspect). I didn’t even know how to correctly pronounce ‘whey’.

When I started Crossfit, I also started down the path of the Paleo diet, and I started examining more closely what I was putting into my body. A buddy of mine who could be described as one of the ‘firebreathers’ of Crossfit recommended Beverly protein powder, so for a while, that’s what I used. Then I embarked on a Whole 30 challenge, and gave up protein powder all together.

I’m a huge believer in eating real whole foods post WOD, even when I’m on a work trip, so even when I’m not doing Whole 30, I wasn’t adding protein shakes back into my diet. Another buddy of mine, Diego Centeno, convinced me to give Progenex a try. Progenex has two kinds of protein powder; Recovery for immediate post WOD and More Muscle for a mid-day shake. (Although I’m told you can really take either of them whenever). As of today, Progenex Recovery comes in a full canister or in a 10 individual pack, so I decided to give it a 2 week try and ordered the 10 pack.

Of course, in true Jaimie fashion, I tweeted about my new experiment and lots of people have been asking me my opinion and experience on Progenex. So here’s my opinion :)

Taste: Belgian Chocolate – yum! Normally I like to mix my shakes with whey powder, unsweetened almond milk, frozen banana and instant espresso powder, so even some of the not-so-tasty powders out there aren’t so bad in the end. But for the purpose of this review, I made a shake with just Progenex recovery, water and ice. And it was still tasty! I do recommend, however, that if you don’t have a special shaker (which I don’t), use a blender if you want it mixed well.

Digestion: Progenex Recovery was pretty easy on my stomach; however, my stomach is like an iron case for pretty much all foods so I don’t know if I’m the best subject for this experiment. I started back on paleo and the first couple of servings of Progenex, I noticed minor gas a few hours later. At first I thought it might have been the protein powder but I noticed it even on the two straight days that I didn’t have a shake. Thank you, paleo. I blame this one on you.

During Workout Recovery: I am really bad at gauging this factor, as I believe there are many factors that can play into this; how much sleep did I get the night before, what I ate the days leading up to the work out, what is my overall mental mood, etc. And since I normally WOD in the a.m. and don’t drink shakes before that, I really don’t know if I’m the best person to give my opinion on this.

Post Workout Recovery: This is where I noticed the biggest gain. My diet is usually pretty clean, I take my daily fish oil, and I like to do a nice warm up/cool down/roll out every time I work out, so I don’t normally get sore from my Crossfit WODs, whether it’s a strength or a MetCon. However, as lots of people have asked me about this, I’ve started pushing even harder and heavier on some of my work outs, or going for 2 – a –days (Crossfit in the a.m., running or ballet in the p.m.) to see if I could make myself sore. Impressively, it took a lot to make my muscles sore.



Sooooo…..long story short; did I like Progenex? Will I continue to use it? Hell yeah. When my 10 pack of Recovery ran out, I bought a big bag of More Muscle. I’ve had some folks on twitter message me and say that yes, Progenex does have a superior blend of protein, but you can buy a lesser known name of the same blend for cheaper. This may be true, but I can say that the customer service I get from Progenex is well worth what I pay for their superior blend.

My only suggestions to Progenex is my wish that they would make all of their products available in the 10 individual pack orders, which would make it a lot easier for when I travel. (Which, for me, is all of the time). Also, drinking the same ol’ shake every day could get old. If they were to make More Muscle in a Vanilla flavor, I’d be a happy camper! I’ve recently experimented with adding a few drops of different flavored extracts (ie…mint, cinnamon, etc) to my shakes to change up the flavor, which would be easier with a Vanilla flavored powder.

Fighting sickness with soup!

As a Crossfit'er, my number one fear is injury; anything that could permanently prohibit me from doing some to all of Crossfit would just really really suck. I wouldn't say that I have a 'fear' of getting sick but getting sick when you Crossfit is a real pain in the ass. And as any stubborn Crossfit'er would do, instead of going to the grocery store this morning to stock up on soup and medicine, I was found at my box, sweating away to the daily WOD. Which left me with no soup.

Thankfully, I had a whole stock of healthy foods already in my kitchen and I was able to throw together this Chicken and Veggie Paleo soup on the fly, all from leftovers.

- Purple Cauliflower
- Tomato
- Spinach
- Mushrooms
- Red Bell Pepper

Sauteed up in a pan while I baked two large chicken breasts.

After the veggies are sauteed and the chicken cooked and diced, throw everything into a pot, mix well, and add as much chicken broth as you desire. Season with pepper, garlic powder and thyme and then cook on medium heat until a boil for about 15-20 minutes.

Turned out great and one less thing to worry about when I'm sick.

Chili for when it's Chilly!

In the spirit of yet another round of snow hitting the Chicago area tonight, I decided to give this paleo chili recipe a try. I definitely give it 5 out of 5; it was definitely yummy!

Paleo Chili

Serves 4

1 pound ground meat; bison, turkey, grassfed beef, your choice
1 medium onion, chopped
1 celery heart, chopped
3 medium carrot, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons ground chipotle powder or cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes (no-salt added variety)
1 28-ounce can tomato puree
olive oil


Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the chopped onion, celery and carrot and sauté until onion is translucent. Add the spices and allow to toast a bit before stirring into the veggies. (Feel free to adjust quantities of spices to suit your tastes.) Add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant.

In a separate pan, cook the meat until browned throughout and then drain. Add to the sautéd veggies and stir in the diced tomatoes and tomato puree, add water to thin the mixture if necessary.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer to bring together flavors – approximately 20-30 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

I have to give credit where credit is due; I originally found this recipe from the Crossfit Chicago Bison Chili recipe blog.

Crossfit Sweat Springfield - at last, we meet....!

I've dropped into alot of boxes over the past 9 months and I'm pretty sure they've all been welcoming of this Chicago Crossfit'er just droppin in to get her WOD on. Usually I'll send an email, tweet or Facebook message ahead of time so atleast someone knows I'm stopping by and of course, it's never an issue. I always end up meeting great people and having an awesome, sweaty time.

Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I get the opportunity to drop into box where I already know someone; last weekend it was Cris in Pittsburgh and then on Saturday, it was Diane at CF RVA. But the opportunity to drop into a box where you know not just one person but all four owners? Priceless. Awesome x 100.

I know I'm always saying "this box or that box is definitely one of my favorites", and I'm not lying when I say it, but I can honestly say I've never been more excited to drop into any box before than when I visited Crossfit Sweat Springfield (#37) on Sunday.



As most of you know, I'm a busy bee in the twitter world. I tweet...alot. But in the process of running my yap, I've met so many awesome people, especially Crossfitters, who I now talk to almost every day. When I found out I was going to be in VA, I knew this was one of the boxes I had to make sure to go out of my way to drop into....especially since J.L., one of the owners, is constantly kicking my rear in WordFeud. I was hoping to return the favor by kicking his rear in a WOD :)

As soon as I walked in the door, I was greeted right away by the crew, including the box's guard dog, Grace. Yes, the dog is named after one of my favorite WODs - pretty sweet. I swear she was ThisClose to being dognapped! (Kidding, Alicia ;P)



1000 on Sundays is open gym; the crew decided to do CFT from the main site while I did OH Squats. Then everyone regrouped for a painfully awesome MetCon:

5 RFT

- 20 Wall Balls (20/14)
- 10 Hang Power Snatches (75/55)

Such a deceiving WOD. 55# Hang Power Snatch? Sure! No problem.....if I wasn't doing 20 Wall Balls first! This WOD was a total shoulder smoker.



I'm still wondering if George did his birthday burpees or if he found a way out of them! I also got introduced for the first time to 'Battling Ropes'; hilarious to watch, super hard to try! But either way, it was a lot of fun.

(sorry for the crappy photo quality)

I want to wish the crew at Crossfit Sweat Springfield the best of luck at the Superfit Games this weekend - I have no doubt that you guys will bring the Beast Mode.

If the Crossfit Gods grant me my wish, I'm hoping for Round 2 at CFSS the weekend of February 5th with Devin and Stef!

Crossfit RVA - when two cults collide!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there was once a time when I didn't Crossfit. (Yeah, hard to imagine, right?) Instead, I was part of another cult called The Hash House Harriers. H3 was started in 1938 in Malaysia by British soldiers and has become an international club - a drinking club with a running problem. So before I would travel to Crossfit, I would travel to "Hash". One thing lead to another and last year when I was in St Louis for their Green Dress Run, I met a guy who turned me on to an even better 'cult' known as Crossfitting. Now a days, I rarely hash anymore but I do find it awesome when I get to Crossfit with Hashers.

Which is what happened on Saturday. I've never met Diane/"Hoot" before but we became Facebook friends not too long ago because we both have a lot of mutual hash/crossfitter friends. When I found out I was going to be in VA for work and not very far from where she lives, I knew I had to drop in and finally meet her!

Enter Crossfit RVA, box #36.



This is really an awesome box; apparently the owner is as OCD about organization as I am because everything was so nice, clean and organized. Pretty bad ass, I loved it. When I first saw the WOD, however, I was a little worried. "Team Fran". Brandon assured us it wasn't as bad as it looks....

"Team Fran"

2 groups; 4 girls, 4 guys

10 burpees each to start
200 Thrusters (95/65)*
200 Pull Ups
10 burpees each to end

*The Thrusters bar cannot touch the ground or it's a burpees penalty. Someone stands at each end, when the CFer is done with their Thrusters, the bar is held up while the next person gets under it.

I really enjoyed this WOD; we split everything into sets of 10. I was able to quickly bust out 10 Thrusters and then rest while the three ladies did their sets.

Afterwards, WOD #2 was 45 min AMRAP of paleo breakfast and women gossip at the Urban Farm Eatery. I hope to drop into this box again the next time I'm in the area.