Hey, everybody look at me!  I'm blogging and it has only been eight months since my last blog!  And by everybody I mean me since this blog is mostly for my own sake. And by mostly I mean entirely.

So here's my weight check in- I hit 130 pounds on a cleanse right before I turned 30.  And then... well, it all came back.  I weighed in at my gym (with all my clothes after a night of eating bad and two margaritas) at 137.  137 is like my arch nemisis of weight.  My body has been going back to this weight since high school, maybe even middle school.  And it's my heavy weight.

The thing is I don't feel heavy right now.  I feel strong.  Yesterday I strung together four kipping pullups.  I can do handstand pushups with three stacked abmats.  I can box jump on and off.  I can do twenty something double unders in a row.  I'm rxing about 90% of the WODS at my Crossfit gym.  And if I stay off gluten and eat clean for 2-3 days, I can see little lines in my mostly flat stomach.

Maybe I need to learn to accept that my weight will be in the 130s.  It's not considered overweight even though I'm 5'2 and my body fat registers in at a healthy range (using multiple and all unreliable methods).  But something always pulls me back to that 120-125 goal.  It's not even a thin goal.  It's a healthy goal, just on the better side of healthy.  Right now I feel like I'm on the lesser side of the healthy scale with my weight.  I'll try and check in again soon.  Maybe blogging= accountability. I know it's worked for many of my friends.  But who has time for that?  Answer, unemployed me.  I don't want to blog on that though because even I don't want to read about that when I go back and look at this in eight months to a year.

Right now we're doing a Living Primal Challenge at Heroes Crossfit.  My goal is to come back on here in two weeks when the challenge is up (for us anyway, we're ending a week early) and update you (this site and my future self) on my progress.  Let's hope for a 132 pound weight- that's the prebaby aim.

Maybe I should blog more than once a year...

I just read my last post. Wow, things really have changed! I lost all that baby weight! I went back into the 120s for a brief moment in time before settling back at 130-132 (depending on if I've had gluten lately).  The most exciting news (fitness wise) is that I'm back into Crossfit!

I love Crossfit. I drank the kook-aid and I'm not ashamed.  I actually love the blisters on my hands and the feeling of accomplishment that goes with finishing a WOD.  I started back up in Crossfit in April or May and by the end of the August, I'm now about 75% RX.

And baby makes three! Now back to the beginning...

So I just read last years goals and instead of being upset that I didn't meet them, I'm redetermined. I have a pretty good reason for not meeting those goals and that reason is being rocked in my arms as I type this one handed. I love being a mommy and it has changed my personality completely, but it has also changed my body. I gained 33 pounds during my 41 weeks of pregnancy. I did Crossfit twice a week and yoga once a week and ran my 2 mile run all the way to week 39. I could have continued but Geoff wanted me to stop so I wouldn't cause an early labor before he came home on mid tour leave. I had a healthy pregnancy and a perfect baby boy and named him William James.

William is 12 weeks old today. During the 1st six weeks, I only walked as I recovered from my emergency c-section. At 6 weeks exactly, I took the military fitness test and have been running, crossfitting and practicing yoga ever since. The first 20 pounds came off okay but these last 13 refuse to drop! So I am 13 pounds away from my prepregnancy weight. But that weight is 8 pounds away from my regular/goal weight (see last years blog). Getting pregnant right after a cruise means I wasn't starting at my prime. So now I'm about 20 pounds away from my goal weight (yikes!). I have never been this heavy before and I can't really diet because I am nursing. So I'm going to work on my new (and old) goals and this blog is now my postpartum weight loss blog. Starting Weight: 145, Prepregnancy Weight 132, Goal Weight 120-125.

Today's WOD- Moon (Hero WOD modified)

7 rounds ( I did 5 and then will got fussy)- 29:14

10 left arm snatches

5 pull ups

10 right arm snatches

5 pull ups

Later, I went for an hour long walk with the BOB stroller.

The Jasmine Challenge

So the Spartan Challenge has ended and I didn't really do it because of how crazy life has been lately. On Thursday, after Crossfit everybody was stretching, and somebody asked me about the Spartan Challenge and Crystal replied for me, "Jas is doing her own challenge."

She's right. This challenge lasts my whole life but is particularly important for the next year while I wait for Geoff to come home. Today's blog post is going to focus on the Jasmine Challenge for the next 6 weeks.

I am going to Arizona on August 8. That will mark then end of my challenge. Crystal will do my measurements and I will report my successes. Now for the goals!

1. 120-125

This is a weight goal. I know weight isn't everything. Fitness and health are more important and weight can be an inaccurate measurement if you are strong etc. That being said, a person who is only 5'2 even with muscle and curves should weigh between 115-125 (without muscle and curves, a 5'2 girl could easily be 100-110 and not look sickly). My current weight is 129. The weight I was before Geoff got home in May 2009 was 116. The weight I was when I got married in August 2009 (when this picture was taken) was about 122. As you can see, my weight slowly crept up over the year. In 6 weeks, I would like to lose 5-10 pounds. So when I leave for Arizona, I would like to be 120-125. I think this is reasonable but it's going to take discipline (which leads to the next goal).

2. 90% Paleo

More blogs on Paleo later. This means one cheat meal a week. I read the Paleo Diet book and the best idea it gave me was to try to stay at 100% and say no to temptation whenever possible. But if that 10% time is unavoidable, do it and don't hate yourself over it. This happened this week. I have been 90% Paleo for one week. Yesterday we were tubing all day and the group of people I was with wanted to stop at Taco Bueno. Although it's the opposite of Paleo, I had tortilla soup and a beef taco. I didn't even finish the soup though because I am not in a cheating mentality. But after a whole day of tubing (of which I was the one pulling the tubes and getting the exercise), I needed some sustenance.

3. Run, Yoga, and Crossfit at least once a week

I'm happy doing 4 days a week of Crossfit but I need balance in my life. I used to love running and be a lot better at it. I want to get there again. I also enjoy the challenge of yoga and the personal strength it gives you. Fitness, in my opinion, is being able to do a variety of activities well. This is my variety.

I have so many other goals. I would like to do a handstand push up (first I need to be able to get up on the wall unassisted), I would like to run a sub 8 minute mile again (first I need to set up a plan for this), I would like to be able to do Angie unassisted in sub 20 minutes (100 pushups, 100 squats, 100 pullups, 100 situps). I can do Angie RX but my hands tear too soon at the pull ups and the whole thing is thrown off. And I have a million personal goals (mostly to get a school law job and graduate with honors). Also, I'd like to become more proficient in Spanish. I bought Rosetta Stone Levels 1-5 and my goal is to complete it by the end of the year.

But this blog and my main focus for the next 6 weeks will be to complete the 3 big goals above. They all go hand in hand and they are all part of my "Jasmine Challenge."

No More Excuses

So I had some really good reasons to not be Paleo/Crossfitrific the past couple months. I had finals then a cruise in Europe then Geoff's family came to visit and finally the last few days with Geoff before he left for Afghanistan. I let my diet go and I prepared myself for the worst, telling myself that it was worth it. And it was....

But the reality is that I feel and function better when my diet and fitness is on track. It feels pretty ick to have gained 8 pounds in a month and a half. And it would feel amazing to drop those again. But right now I am just enjoying how good it fuels to put good food into my body.

This summer should be the summer of fitness. I have no more excuses. I live alone and have complete control over the contents of the fridge and pantry. I even did a "kitchen cleanse" with Crystal and we got rid of all the bad food. The only way to have bad food in my house now is if I actively go out and buy it. So the "Geoff excuse" is gone... I can't nibble pasta off his plate or end up eating huge unhealthy restaurant portions just because Geoff wanted to go out. Now it's all on me.

I also have an abundance of free time now to work on my fitness. No more missed classes! Okay, I don't necessarily have an abundance. I'm working 30 hours a week this summer, learning Spanish through Rosetta stone, and have some summer duties as Editor in Chief of The Texas Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy. But those hours are flexible and can be worked around my fitness schedule. I've also signed up for yoga and I intend on running 1-2 times a week in addition to the 4 days a week of Crossfit.

My next post will be my goals. This post is about the no excuses attitude I'm taking on this summer. I've jump started this all with a 10 day herbal cleanse of which I am on day 3. So far so good. I feel good! I feel confident I can whip my body back into premarital shape. More on all this later.

A Present to My Body

So since February I have been doing Crossfit intense WODs at Crossfit Central 5 days a week (M, W, TH,F, Sat). I've been "resting" on Tuesdays and Sundays. But usually one of those days I try to do yoga or running so it's not even really resting. Well, the past two weeks by the fourth day in a row of working out my body has been screaming at me to rest. On Thursday of this week we did cleans and then Friday morning I did more cleans, and by Friday night, my shoulders hurt so bad that Geoff tried to massage them and I was literally screaming in pain. I've decided to stop doing Saturday workouts. This means my new workout schedule is Crossfit Women's on M, W, Th and then Crossfit Co-ed on Fridays.

So it's Saturday right now and I didn't workout and mentally, I was feeling lazy and want to beat myself up. But I'm sitting outside right now on my back porch and I took a moment to stop and listen to my body and I feel like my body is saying thank you. I need to learn balance and recovery. So it starts today. I am going to take Saturdays off completely. No yoga, no running. Sundays I am going to run. And on Tuesdays I will do very gentle yoga in my garage. I'm going to test this out for April and May and take some Advocare Night Time recovery. You're welcome, body.

Eh is a Thing of the Past

My last post was rather uninspiring which is funny because I've had a few inspiring moments since then. The first was last week when I discovered on my first attempt that I could do two kipping pull ups in a row. Next up 3-5. The second was Friday morning's workout where I knocked out 18 pull ups (2 rounds in the WOD included 9 pull ups- actually there was a third round but I didn't get to it). Then yesterday we did Angie and I did my first attempt at an RX Angie. Crystal capped the pull ups at 10 minutes, but I stopped at about 9 minutes when I realized my hands were too cut up to go any further. Even though I only did 35 out of the 100 pull ups, it still set a new record and I'm still counting it as RX. My total time was 23:47. The 100 squats and situps are like nothing to me now but I still get a little caught up on my pushups. I don't feel sore from them today so I think that was mental and part exhaustion and leftover pain from the pull ups. Anyhow, I feel pretty inspired that I can RX almost any Crossfit WOD (still some weights are too heavy) but I also know there's A LOT of room to grow especially with my speed and endurance and definitely some of my lifts (hello, flat back deadlifts).

So my most inspiring workout moment of the week is that I decided to do the Spartan 300 Challenge. This is my third year doing it (crazy!). The first year I did it was August of 2008. I had just joined Crossfit and I didn't do the whole challenge, but got to do the end workout anyway. Box jumps were step ups, the weight was just the barbell, the pull ups were jumping, the pushups were on my knees, and my kettlebell was the light silver one. Fastforward to the 2009 Challenge and the pushups were on my toes, the weight was intermediate, the pull ups were still jumping, but the box jumps almost all jumps with maybe a few step ups. Now for 2010, my goal is to do it RX. I'm pretty sure I can RX the weight but I know I can do 25 pull ups without stopping. The pushup and box jumps are going to be hard but more than doable.

The hardest part of the challenge will be self-discipline and nutrition since it begins in Geoff's final months before he leaves for Afghanistan. But he is a very supportive husband and I know he is proud of me. This challenge will make stronger on a personal level and strength is something I am going to need to get through this next deployment.