Exercise Dilemma: Solved. + Meal Plan!

So I was super stressed out about this crazy dilemma. I’m ridiculous, I know.

I ended up actually liking the other CF box — but they only offer an unlimited membership which means wasted money because I know I won’t make it in more than 2ish times a week at most.  I still hope to drop in every once in a while at the other place if my schedule allows — I’m excited for their expansion and I’m curious to see how they grow. And besides, they do have a really cute puppy.

What ended up making the most sense (financially, mentally, physically, etc.) was to drop down to 2x per week at FCCF (or maybe a punch card if I can’t make it 2x) and then just supplement on my own whenever I can fit it in, whether it be CrossFit Endurance or a long run to clear my mind or 30 minutes of Jillian Michaels’ Ripped in 30 DVD.  Hey, you do what you gotta do, even if that means getting yelled at from your TV.

I went back Friday morning and even though I was the VERY LAST ONE (10 rounds of 5 snatches and 30 double unders… and the DUs were NOT my friend), half the class gathered around me to encourage me to finish. I love CrossFit for that very reason.  I definitely wouldn’t get a crowd of people encouraging me to finish my workout at the local globo-gym, that’s for sure.

Playing dodgeball — photo by Laura Davis Rice (FCCF)

Then Friday night, Bob and I headed back to the box for the dodgeball Halloween party. It was a much needed evening of good food, new & old CF friends, and lots of balls.

Our 3rd place winning team, Team H. 🙂 (with Rachael & Eric, great dodgeball teammates)

This is only temporary. It’s 16 months, and it’ll go fast. And I’m not going to stress myself out about getting in exercise. I’ll do what I can, when I can, and I won’t beat myself up if I need to choose sleep, or Bob, or homework, over exercise. I also won’t beat myself up if I choose exercise over sleep or homework if I really need it, either. I’ll find a balance, but it just may take some time to figure it out. And that’s ok.

I don’t have to have everything figured out now. I just need to take one day at a time. One workout at a time. And one paper at a time. 🙂

Oh, and here’s the meal plan for the week:

Monday:  Chicken enchilada stew. Because I have to finish a paper and don’t want to waste time cooking. Also, it’s delicious. (I usually top with avocado & green onions & cilantro).

Tuesday: Salads! With bacon. Because every salad is better with bacon. And maybe even hardboiled eggs and avocado.

Wednesday: Some kind of crockpot pork with roasted broccoli and cauliflower

Thursday: Breakfast for dinner!! Eggs, sweet potatoes, bacon. You really can’t go wrong with this meal choice.

Friday: Some kind of meat (chicken, sausage, etc.?) with sauteed cabbage and Paleo slaw.

Someday I’ll be able to cook more elaborate meals again. But until then, it’s all about finding the simplest food to prepare without a lot of extra ingredients.

Do you have any simple meals that are favorites I could add to my lineup?

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Exercise Dilemma. (and a short & sweet meal plan)

Okay friends, I am in a full-on exercise dilemma. (#FirstWorldProblems)

Here’s the issue:

I’ve only made it to CrossFit 1x per week the last two weeks. That is sad news and also a complete waste of money.  (I did, however, manage to fit in a run and a WOD during lunch last week).

Here are my options:

• Quit CrossFit altogether. Join the local globo-gym that’s 5 minutes from my house and take classes like body pump and yoga.
• Switch CrossFit boxes to one that’s closer. There’s one 2 minutes from our house, but I’ve heard mixed things. I visited it & am uneasy. Pros: It’s close. Small class sizes. Expanding soon into a bigger space.  I’ll probably make it there a few more times a week because it’s so convenient. They have a super cute puppy gym dog. Cons: It’s not Flower City CrossFit. I have to make new friends. And leave my current friends. They’re new and have a small space and lack of equipment until the space is expanded. And I’ve heard people who have had issues with getting along with the owner.  And I’ve heard the programming isn’t awesome.
• Drop down to 2x per week at FCCF and go once during the week and once on the weekend. And supplement with running/WODs on my own. Because as much as I’d LIKE to be able to make it out to Henrietta more than once a week, I know it’s just not going to happen.
• Drop down to 3x per week at FCCF and make CrossFitting more of a priority than sleep or homework.
• Stop exercising. Eat pizza and drink wine. Gain back 30 pounds. (I do have to consider ALL options here!)

I like the last option, personally, but I’m pretty sure I’d be miserable.

I’m pretty sure I don’t want to switch CrossFit gyms. The cons list is way longer than the pros.  I WANT it to be awesome AND close, but that doesn’t mean it will be.

And I don’t think realistically I’m going to give up sleep or homework to make it in more often.

So that leaves me with dropping down to 2x per week or quitting altogether and spending way less money on classes that are not nearly as challenging or fun.

I’m not sure I want to quit CrossFit altogether. I mean, what else would I talk about on Facebook? And I would never feel sore anymore. And I would never be able to complain/brag about how sore my shoulders are from doing 100 push ups and how my pants are too tight in the butt because I’ve squatted too much. But 2x per week seems like so little.

If you were me, what would you do? 

Also, here’s our meal plan this week. Super simple.

Monday: Baked chicken breast with cauliflower rice and roasted broccoli. (Also baking chicken for salad night)

Tuesday: Salad night!

Wednesday:  Simple Paleo stuffed peppers.

Thursday: Venison steak with roasted vegetable medley of squash, onion, and brussels sprouts.

Friday: “Spaghetti” (spaghetti squash) and Paleo meatballs in red sauce. I’ve been craving spaghetti and meatballs.

Are these meal plans helpful for you? I feel like since we’re cooking very simply lately, there’s not much that’s exciting about our food. I might stop posting these unless they’re being used?

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Bob’s Sunday Meal Plan

I’m doing the meal plan this week! I think Meg and I will probably still cook together, but as we start to transition into Meg’s new schedule over the next few weeks, we’ll have to feel out how we split up some of our household tasks – most importantly: the food!

We were busy yesterday between going to the gym, a wedding for some long time friends of ours, and celebrating a birthday for a very close friend. So we didn’t make it to our normal farmer’s market in Greece. This morning we found that there is one farmer’s market on Sunday in Rochester though – the Brighton Farmer’s Market!

So we were still able to get lots of vegetables for our weekly meal plan. I’ll be sad when squash isn’t in season anymore. Spaghetti squash, delicata squash, and all other varieties are so cheap right now and we love using them in all sorts of recipes. This week we also bought a variety of squash that we haven’t cooked with before: the buttercup squash.

Anyway, without any further delay, the real reason you’re probably here is to see our weekly meal plan. Here it is:

Sunday: Chicken Bacon Alfredo – I think we’re going to make this every single week until spaghetti and delicata squash are out of season. This is one of my favorite recipes ever! It is so creamy and delicious. It completely makes you forget that you’re eating paleo. We are making this during a weekend day though, because it does take a while to prepare and make, so it’s not really practical to make on a weeknight.

Monday: Stuffed peppers – This is an easy one to do every week, especially when we can get peppers cheap at the market. We usually do this later in the week to clean out the fridge, but we actually have some veggies from last week that we didn’t use, so we’re moving it up this week so we can try to not let some zucchini go bad that we didn’t use.

Tuesday: Leftovers – Meg is going to pack some hard-boiled eggs and some leftover peppers or chicken bacon alfredo for her very first class after work for her graduate program. I might just make some fried eggs at home and eat them with any leftover veggies we have since Stanley and I will be hanging out by ourselves.

Wednesday: Crockpot chili – It is going to be close to this recipe, but we are going to add in one buttercup squash because someone at the market just told us that she added buttercup squash to her chili last week and it was awesome. We love talking to strangers at the market to get new ideas for recipes!

Thursday: Paleo Pad Thai – We made this last week and it was, no exaggeration, the best thing I ate this last week. It tasted just like a real Thai dish. We modified the dish though, we didn’t use any peas or rice vinegar since they’re not Lurong approved. Also – we have a hard time finding sunflower seed butter without sugar, so we used almond butter in our version. And we had a great idea to enhance the dish too: I love bean sprouts in real pad thai, but since any type of bean is not Lurong approved, we used our new spiral cutter to make cucumber noodles that we put across the top of the dish. That extra crunch and fresh taste from the cucumber was tremendous. We also used shrimp as our meat. As you can tell by my lengthy write-up of this meal – I am VERY excited about this dish!

Friday: Fish and veggies – I’m not sure exactly how we’ll prepare the fish yet, but we’ll probably either do fish packets or some type of pan sear. Then we’ll roast the acorn squash we bought this week and saute some spinach to go with it.

Saturday: Burgers – I’ve been craving a burger lately (even though I ate one yesterday at the wedding – the only Lurong approved food I could find except for the veggie/fruit tray they had out during cocktail hour). So we’ll make burgers (without the bun of course), with lots of good toppings! Probably onion, bacon, guacamole, and tomato. We’ll also roast some more squash to go with it (did I mention we bought a lot of squash??), and we’ll make some sweet potato fries and parsnip fries.

So there you have it! The first of probably many of the meal plans done by me. I hope these helped some of you with some of your ideas for this week! Let us know what some of your favorite go-to fall meals are in the comments.

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Sunday Meal Plan!

So today Bob and I ran in a relay for the Rochester MVP Marathon which is why this is a little late. Well, that and I had a meeting this afternoon with students for a non-profit I am helping with their marketing. The relay is the reason I’ve bumped up my running over the last few months. Originally I had thought about doing the half but then Bob tore his glute and all of a sudden it was July and I hadn’t run more than 3 miles. Turns out, doing the relay was a great decision.

6.5 miles was enough to make me feel accomplished and proud of myself, but not too much of a distance that I had to train a lot. It helped that one of my teammates is out of his mind and decided to run the entire marathon so he ran with Bob and I (he missed the hand off with our 4th team member for the last leg so he ran alone). He kept me running faster than I had expected and pushed me harder than I would have pushed myself. I ended up running the first 5 miles around 10 minute miles and the last 1.5 at 10:35. If I had been by myself I probably would have been closer to 10:30 or even 11 the entire time. Hooray for a good teammate!

Jake (my teammate who ran the whole thing), Chris, Bob, and I after we all ran across the finish line together

So anyways, it was an eventful morning 🙂 And it made me want to sign up for the 10k Turkey Trot when we’re in Syracuse w/ Bob’s family for Thanksgiving — it was the first 10k I ran and it would be fun to run again!

But I know you’re REALLY reading this for the meal plan, so here it is:

Monday: Pan-seared venison steaks with roasted brussels sprouts and acorn squash.

Tuesday: Bob’s on his own because I’m going out with my girls for pizza on my last free Tuesday night (before classes start).

Wednesday: Fish packets with cauliflower rice on the side.

Thursday: A new recipe! Paleo pad thai (using shrimp instead of chicken, cucumber instead of peas, and skipping the rice vinegar).

Friday: Stuffed peppers (to clean out the rest of the veggies in the fridge) with roasted carnival squash (discovered this at the market this weekend and can’t wait to try it!)

Saturday: We’re at a wedding for two longtime friends of ours. Bob is going to probably load up on leftovers before the wedding. I will be indulging in wedding food and CAKE!
Trying any new recipes this week?

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