Challenge...

 Over the course of the last 4 weeks I've been participating in a 30 day Paleo Challenge through CrossFit. What this means is you are on a team of 2 with a $100 buy-in. Baseline measurements are recorded: results in initial team WOD (workout), weight taken, measurements taken (hips, abs, waist) and body fat %. And that's the easy part...the challenging part is changing your diet to a Paleolithic lifestyle. Basically it's eating like a caveman: meat, fruit, veggies. No beans. No dairy. No grains. It's called clean eating because you're allowed no processed foods. Nothing from a package.

If you know me and my eating habits, you're probably laughing out loud right about now. I know. I didn't think I could do it, either. So I did what I do best: plan. I wrote out a long grocery list and set out to find all of the food I would need to make it through each week (gasp! Kelly went grocery shopping!). Each Sunday night I'd prepare my fruits, veggies and Mike would grill up a bunch of meat. Meal planning made it much easier to not "cheat"...who knew?

My breakfasts were usually a hard boiled egg and 1/2 an avocado. Sometimes bacon but not often.

My dinners often looked like this: salmon, sweet potato and steamed veggies.

My lunches were always spinach topped with everything but the kitchen sink: avocado, egg, chicken and a plethora of veggies. Was very filling and satisfying. The weekends I skipped salads and made chicken salad (grapes, walnuts, celery, avocado). Delish.

A co-worker of mine actually harvests bees and honey and gave me some "raw" honey so I could make granola. This became my go-to snack, especially since it was easy to make. Coconut oil became my best friend.

And my vices were red wine and dark chocolate (these are actually allowed in moderation). So this is what my evenings looked like in front of my DVR.

Besides the diet I had to keep working on my fitness. Of course I continued running, albeit once a week for my long run, but still. My legs keep moving and I continue to log miles. An occasional speed workout during the week and that's all she wrote.

 Wasn't able to make it to many Perfect Stranger runs, so most were done with Jaime in the wee hours of the morning or by myself. Once I even ran for 2 hours around the track where 8 laps = a mile. Yawn.

 Last weekend I ran in the Monumental Half Marathon with all the PS girls. Four of us ran the half and four of us ran the full. Many of us PR'd (myself not included). Was fun to lace up with my girls, as it had been far too long.

 Half girls...Jaime, Bri & Kristi

But where I invested most of my time in this challenge was the CrossFit gym. Five days a week for four weeks. There were 6 of us total participating in the challenge at work and we kept each other going. Holding ourselves accountable for our diets (and our cheats) and our workouts. Speaking of workouts, our initial/baseline WOD was insane in the membrane. I'll spare you the details but trust me when I tell you it was a doozy. Since we're partnered, it was a partner WOD. Each team is scored on how they ranked from the baseline WOD and then again the WOD is performed at the end of the 30 days and scored on rank again. There is also a score for improvement from the initial to the final WOD. In order to ensure my partner (Marcus) and I improved we had to put in some serious time at the gym. Think we averaged 10ish hours a week.

I was even lucky enough to workout at Jaime's gym with her a few weeks ago. Her gym does some pretty fun things that are women only. This was called a Wod-n-Wine and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed working out with Jaime. Wish we could do it more often.

Some amazing things happen when you change your diet and increase your workouts...not only does your body start to transform but so does your strength. We saw new PRs every week. Here is Kristi with a new PR on her deadlift of #195. Just a few short months ago Kristi and I struggled to lift #205 together on the same bar during the BracketBuster competition. And now she's all grown up. Lifting this weight with ease. So proud of her.

 Our coach put together special WOD for Kristi's birthday last week. Four rounds for time and weight of .25 mile sprint, 25 1-arm ground to overhead with kettle bell, 25 1-arm overhead squat. Think the team will be a little upset on my next birthday, as I'm a lot older than Kristi and therefore the reps will increase significantly on whatever workout we do.

The days leading up to our final workout were like the days leading up to a marathon. Self doubt sets in; did I eat right the entire time? Did I workout enough? Am I ready? Nerves. We all took before and after pics and I can't see much difference in my pics. But I will tell you that I lost almost 7 pounds, an inch in my waist, an inch in my hips and 2.5 inches in my abs. My body fat % also dropped by 5%. I'd call that a success. Granted I did binge eat a bit before the initial weigh-in so my baseline may have been a bit inflated. Regardless, I'm happy with the results.

 My partner lost 15 pounds and many inches. Proud of him. And of us. We powered through the final WOD and had a significant improvement over our baseline results, which we were thrilled with. 

 Pretty sure we won't win but that's not why we entered this. Rather, we wanted to see what we were capable of. Could we eat a strict diet? Could we push our bodies to the limits? And we did just that. We persevered and I'm happy to say I tried it. All of the hunger pangs, tears, rips on our hands, sore muscles and sweating were definitely worth it.

Now I'm going to eat a donut and diet Coke.