Squishy

You guys. I'm going to try to keep this short, and to the point. And take it back to my roots of writing about health and fitness.

We - as a world -  including myself - can be incredibly lazy. We like it when things are easy; our lives are constantly being simplified by advancements in technology.

Example: There are buttons, little clicker things, that you can now order on Amazon and keep in your pocket/purse whatever. When you click the button, it will re-order the product that you are out of.

What.

"Honey, can you click the Tide button - we are almost out!"

6 hours later a bucket of Tide is sitting on your doorstep courtesy of Jeff Bezos.

That's cool and all, get yourselves as many clicky re-order buttons as you want. Here's what really irritates me when it comes to trying to make things easier/cutting corners.

Fitness.

Exhibit A, on the left:

When I open Pinterest and see pins like that I want to bash my head into the wall.

Now - I've literally written about this on here before, but the fact that I still see crap like this splattered all over social media makes me feel like I need to reiterate.

There are not six exercises to BANISH SQUISHY BACK FAT. You will not simply just do six exercises over and over for 20 days - and suddenly have a back that looks like that.  Also what in the F@%K is squishy back fat? Why is that even a phrase? Do some people have hardened back fat?

If you want to lose weight, if you want to build muscle, if you want to lose fat, you have to put in work and you have to sweat. If you want to "tone up your butt" - you can't just focus on your butt - that's not how it works. That's called spot targeting/spot reduction and it's a garbage catchphrase. It doesn't work.

This article here sums the statistics up well if you're interested.

I'll wrap up, because honestly I'm kind of fired up and could angrily type about this for the next hour. If you are trying to get in shape - if you're looking for some kind of fitness results - there are plenty of great workout regimens out there that can help you do that. The amount of 'boutique' style gyms in this world is now mind-blowing, you have unlimited options to find something that you like that will make you sweat and help you see results.

You also have the outdoors, and a pair of running shoes. And sit-ups, and air squats, and push-ups, and burpees - the lists goes on - and all those things are free.

Lastly and also importantly, I will copy and paste exactly what I said over two years ago. Remember, the phrase 'you can't out-exercise a bad diet' is more true than you want it to be. Pizza and beer for dinner five days a week will catch up with you - no matter how often you may be working out. Abs are made in the kitchen - Google will 100% back me up.

Last but not least, drink your water. 

I rant, because I care. And because I've made all these mistakes myself.

Cheers -

Kait

Investments

I like the kind of questions that make me stop me in my tracks. The kind that get down under my skin and really make me think, forcing me to repeatedly revisit it.

April has been nothing short of a whirlwind, with two fantastic weeks of back to back visitors. First we had the honor of hosting Andrew's brother and wife, who then went on from here to Greece. Two days after I headed back to the airport to scoop up three of Andrew's high school/middle school/elementary school (IDK these guys have been friends forever) buddies, who we had a blast running around Israel with.

Andrew's friend count of visitors: 5

Kait: 0

(not including family)

Where ma' girls at?

Since the dust settled this past Monday and the boys went on to their next connections - including Andrew who had a work trip - the apartment has been eerily quiet. Too quiet. So quiet that I made a point to hardly be in it at all, jumping from working in coffee shops to dog walking to visiting new babies to the gym, etc.

But it was the quietness and loneliness of this week that made me revisit the question that one of Andrew's friends asked me last week - What would I even be doing with my time in Israel if I didn't have an interest in fitness.

The question honestly left me without an answer, and my response at the time was to laugh and shrug, admitting that I had never even thought about that.

Think about it though. Think of the most prominent interest/passion that you have in your life, whatever you are most invested in and love, and then pretend you actually don't like it at all. Wipe it off the map. What do you think your fall back would be?

I'm still scrapping my brain. I would say my runner up is writing - but how do you make friends through writing? Attend slam poetry contests? Maybe a local writers workshop hosted in Hebrew?

Perhaps I would get heavily invested in dogs. I mean I already am - and genuinely, heavily miss being a dog mom every single day. I've always had in the back of my mind to volunteer at one of the local shelters - and have even looked up courses as to how you can become a dog trainer. Dogs are probably my second passion tied with writing.

I don't know why, but the question shook me and simultaneously made me step back and really appreciate what this passion has done for me - actually for both of us as a couple - in regards to the life that we have built here in TLV.

Outside of the fact that fitness-related activities take up a lot of my time and are slowly but surely intertwining with my career, it's also how we have made roughly half of our friendships in Tel Aviv. So to imagine removing that entire portion of my life actually makes me wince a little.

It's an odd thought to have, but I found it to be an equally productive brainstorming session. At any moment passions/loves/interests can quickly be extracted from our lives, and perhaps it's smart to know what you can fall back on when it comes to dedicating your time and energy.

Just felt the need to share, and let the general realm of health and fitness know that I'm appreciative of it. On that note - I'm off to swim. Have a great weekend!

Cheers - 

Kait

L1

I'm the worst at self-development.  Literally.  It stems from being lazy about reading, and if there are too many big words or large paragraphs or the topic doesn't fully hold my attention, I ditch it.  So when I sat down at the beginning of this year, I tried to be reasonable about goals.

One goal that has been creeping around my mind for the past few months has been ways to develop my fitness background, professionally.  Then, through a series of cool events, that goal got fast-tracked - and this past weekend in Athens (which was a crazy story in itself) I went through the Crossfit Level 1 Training Course.

Yep, I was in a gym for most of my weekend in Greece.

A massive, beautiful gym for the record.

Crossfit North Zone

I learned way more than I anticipated - covering aspects of nutrition, how to calculate work and power, details around movements, etc. I could go on all day.

But what I really loved, is that I was the only American there (besides the instructors). I got to spend the weekend next to 7 Greeks, 2 Turks, 2 Egyptians, and 1 Cypriot, learning about constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movements.

While the course was in English - it was a second language for everyone but me.  Which wildly impressed me (there was a translator on hand who helped with some of the technical concepts - I really can't imagine learning about 'food blocks' in another language).

Stories were shared - crazy cool stories.  I sat next to a guy who had been doing Crossfit for three months, and loved it so much he decided to MOVE across Cyprus to live closer to an actual gym.  Then two months after that decided to take the L1 course.

Something else that really resonated with me is that we only had 4 females out of 13.  Compare that to the numbers I found for the 2016 Crossfit Open  - 42% female participation - to 31% females in my course.

I don't have numbers to back it up, but I'm pretty confident in suggesting that the female participation rate in Crossfit at an international level drops off big time if compared to just the US. It's more normal than not to find myself as the only female during classes in Tel Aviv.

Yet that doesn't really  discourage me.  It encourages me, because that shows potential for growth.

It also - for some reason - puts a chip on my shoulder to go harder.  Because it's not just that I'm a female in Crossfit - I'm also 5'11'', and I love running - two things that existentially go against Crossfit stereotypes.  I can't even tell you how many times I had to be corrected over the course of the training because I have these long ass femurs that refuse to track over my toes - my body is nowhere near compact - therefore I have a larger margin of error to f*ck up a movement.

Excuse my french.

It's my grind though. I might not "look" like I should be doing Crossfit but man do I love it, and how it's changed my outlook on both fitness and life.  Mentally it's made me stronger than being a Division 1 athlete did.  And I'm convinced I can be good at it, get down all the movements, and eventually coach it.  As a tall, gangly female.

But why?  Why Crossfit - why don't you just stick with running Kait?

Because Crossfit is running.  And rowing, and swimming.  And slamming balls around and swinging around on bars, walking upside - it's everything.  It's being able to move the bookshelf across the room without having to wait for your husband to get home to help, and it's being able to throw your 6 year old over your shoulder when they're having a temper tantrum in public.

It's cliche but it truly is training for life, and

I dig that.

But I think even more - I dig the camaraderie.  When you're grinding through crapiness together day in and day out, you realize that you actually have a team to help you get through.

And at the end of  Day 1 last Saturday, when the instructors (who were rockstars) threw a golden workout of thrusters and burpees at us, we had one classmate teammate struggling through the last set.  So you know what we did?

The rest of us - the 12 who had already finished - started hitting the floor with him.  The words 'I can't' left his mouth and we were like oh hell no, and we were up and down with him, grueling through, until he finished those freaking burpees.

And that's why I wanted a Level 1.

I've seen it change people's lives, I've seen people lose massive amounts of weight, kick habits, take on new hobbies because of it. But it's the knowing that you have people who believe in you - really truly - that's why it works.

Anyways, if you're reading this and rolling your eyes and thinking I'm brainwashed, I promise I'm not.  Or maybe I am, but I also know the facts. I've loved health and fitness for pretty much as long as it's been on my radar.  I jumped from globo gyms to niche gyms, consistently ran my face off through stress fractures and broken toes.  I've bought passes to hot yoga and cycling studios, and it's all great, I've enjoyed it all and still do.  But I've never seen or felt changes like Crossfit - and I've never seen fitness transfer into my other passions like this has.

Anyways, thanks for reading if you got through this whole thing.  I'm excited about what's to come, if you can't already tell.  And huge thanks to my husband & my "boss" -  who both enthusiastically got behind me to pay for the training - that sh*t ain't cheap - and it was one heck of a bday gift/work perk.

Signing off, just in time for the Crossfit Open to kick off.  Oh, and to drag my butt 13.1 miles (21.1 km) tomorrow morning.

Cheers - 

Kait

Sweat (part I)

I won't lie, I've been putting off this fitness post for... roughly two months now?  Funny too, since this blog originally started out as a running/health blog back in the day.

I've been putting it off because my general emotions towards fitness - running, crossfit, swimming, sometimes yoga, etc - have been super bumpy as of late.  And I think that's somewhat normal right? We all get really into certain things at certain times of life, get turned off by certain things, decide to try new things etc.  We get hurt, we get burnt out, whatever it is; relationships with fitness can fluctuate a ton (as all relationships can).

I love taking care of my body, and challenging it - this has always remained a constant.  But the months throughout this past summer had me in a weird spot.  A slump, if you will. A conversation I had right before the move actually had me saying, "Actually to be honest, I'm in the worst shape I've been in a LONG time right now."

Now let's pause and define: "Being in shape" means something different for every single person. Everyone has different expectations and visions for the words "I'm in shape" - and for me, it's not just about being able to fit into my pants.  I'm kind of strict with the standards I hold myself to (sometimes it's too much, I'll admit) and so what I mean by saying this is, my running mileage was VERY low, and super slow.  Normal activities were just a *little* harder than they should have been, and when we found ourselves running the stairs outside our new gym week two of arriving out here, it was WAY harder than how I ever remember running stairs in the past.

How equally convenient and awful that these stairs are next to our gym

I love fitness, I believe I always will.  I so enjoy pushing my lungs and my muscles and my mental willpower to its limits; I love the challenge of hard things. One of my favorite motivational quotes has always been, "Anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing" and therefore, I hate the fact that this summer I found myself half-assing it through workouts and runs.

There are plenty of excuses I could rattle off - sure.  Injuries, dealing with a new puppy, preparing for an international move.  But the fact of the matter is, people do incredible things, every day, with much bigger things on their plates.

So there's no excuse.

Anyways - the point of this post - there should always be a point, right?  The point is, I'm finally re-grasping once again what's important to me in the health & fitness realm, and slowly crafting some goals.

Last year on Halloween, I was able to run a 10 mile race at a 7 min. pace. This year, current state, I'm really not sure I could hold that for 5 miles.  However, we have a 10k night run coming up here in a few weeks, so I guess that will be a good chance to see where I stand.  And then base running training off of that - as the Mr. and I both recently signed up for the Tel Aviv Half Marathon in February.

except we are doing 13.1

Eek.

Time to start upping that mileage.

Yet I would be remiss if I didn't talk crossfit; it's what allows me to run the distances I want to. If I've learned nothing the past two years when it comes to working out and my body, it's that healthy running doesn't happen with this 5'11'' frame unless I've got the muscles to keep it going strong. And man, am I believer in the importance of strength training (specifically crossfit style) - and how well it pairs with endurance races.

So of course, we became members of Crossfit Tel Aviv day 2 out here, and as motivation and comfort-levels increase (and I go more consistently) I am slowly seeing progress. Even if a workout of snatches and burpees over the bar knocked me on my butt last night - quite literally.

Wrapping up; back to those goals.  They're not quite 'Hang on the fridge' worthy yet, but they're in the making, and I'm excited about it.  I identify as a lot of things, but as far back as I can remember an athlete has always been one of them.  I lost that a little bit recently, but am pumped to feel it starting to come back.

So there you have it, way too long of a post babbling about things you might not necessarily care about.  But if you do, keep your eyes open, I'm hoping to starting talking sweat a little more consistently on here.  I'm huge on tackling new things, setting lofty goals, and talking about stuff that inspires us all to be a little bit more badass.

Cheers -

Kait

May Challenge - DA ABS

Tuesday. I hope you all had an excellent Cinco de Mayo, and didn’t load up on too many sugary drinks. My Cinco was personally uneventful, outside of a Trader Joes run, and about eight miles total after work.

I wore a scarf and my glasses to work yesterday and a few people told me I looked like a librarian. Is that a compliment? You guys tell me.

skeptical selfie. it's been awhile.

Anyways, it's linkup time, as I'm cohosting a May fitness challenge with Rebecca and Chelsea and today the challenge is to share your favorite ab workout. 

Now this is hard, because I love abs... and do all different kinds, 5-6 days a week. I’ve been doing 100 sit-ups every day for about … five years now? When it comes to favorite complete ab workouts as a whole, I feel like p90x full ab ripper x is always a killer. And, as mentioned last week, I’m following the Strong like Susan challenge throughout the month of May, which never fails to leave me sore.

Susan is Strong.

But, when it comes to my favorite singular ab move, it would have to be side bends with a dumbbell or kettlebell. See below.

Runner-up is planks, duh  J   #planksohard

Link up and tell us your favorite ab move – a sista can never have too many, especially with those bikinis screaming out names

Drink that water, and have a stellar Tuesday.

Cheers –

K8

An InLinkz Link-up

Five for August

Ohhhh August, you snuck up on me like a creepy, semi-aggressive cat.

via

Currently, I’m feeling a little brain dead. It’s Friday so that’s awesome of course. But I have a lot going on in my head as well as my heart and haven’t quite been able to force it out of my fingers into written words yet. So that will have to wait, but I would expect something a little heavy coming soon.

Lucky for you all, my Portland blogger friend over at Babbling Brookelyn tagged me in a fun post, so I’m going to play along.

But first, things you should know about August:

I’m going to be following this ab routine on a daily basis for the month of August; I found it in an email that Active.com sent me. It's simple enough, and the plank will be progressive, so hopefully I can have my time back up near the 4-5 minute mark by the end of the month.

 

via

I’m going to be following the 21-day sugar detox starting this Monday, August 5^th. The detox is appealing to me for a variety of different reasons, but the bottom-line is that I’m looking to feel better, and sleep better

On to the main event....

FIVE things I have a passion for:

•  Mornings. 2 years ago I wouldn’t have said this. But mornings are growing on me so hard – I     love getting up, being productive, soaking in a sunrise, with a cup of coffee in hand.
•  Health. This is a broad category, and as I continue to get older the definition continues to       change for me. It goes far beyond bettering your body, and getting that cardio/weights in. What are you fueling your precious body with? What are you doing to recover after you tear your muscles to shreds? And are you taking the time off physically, mentally, and emotionally; something you sometimes need more than anything else?
• Joy. It’s a beautiful word, and a beautiful emotion. Again, it has a broad range of what it may mean to other people. Yet one of my ‘mid-year’ self goals is to speak more of joy than darkness. There’s also a strong chance the word will end up tattooed on my foot at some point this year…sorry mom.
•  My friends. I like to encompass my family in this category, because of course my family are my friends. I want to clarify something… the song ‘I get by with a little help from my friends’ couldn’t ring truer. I would NOT get by without my friends – now, more than ever. I have amazing, beautiful, gracious, patient, loving friends all over the country, and it brings me so much joy.
• Music. I think the below picture pretty much sums it up. Music has the ability to bring me to tears, or put a stupid ass smile on my face, within minutes. It’s more than just music.

FIVE things I want to do before I die:

• Start a family, and raise them well.
• Own a dog. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.
• Have a home gym. I’m not talking like a gaudy, over the top gym, but just something reasonable.
• Travel more. This is vague, and I don’t have specific countries nailed down, but I will admit that the only time I’ve left the country is to do the typical Cancun trip. I really want to eat gelato in Italy.
• Run the Chicago marathon.

FIVE books or magazines I’ve read lately:

This is bad guys. I’m not sure I can come up with five. I read a lot of blogs, and online articles, but as far as books/magazines…

•     I’m prety sure I’ve read Andrew’s most recent copy of the ESPN magazine.
•     I’m still reading the Happiness Project. AKA I have barely been reading at all.
•     I WANT to read a Million Miles in a Thousand Years
•     I’m starting to read the book Strengths Finder 2.0 for work….
•     OK OK I promise I will read more. Gosh I’m a sucky English Major.

FIVE Favorite Movies:

I’ll save you all from having to read some thrown together, horrific list. I’m not a movie guru – I hardly ever watch movies due to my severe inability to sit still. I know this is probably breaking my movie buff friend’s (Kyle) heart, but I don’t have five favorite movies. I’ll leave you with this – I’m still obsessed with the movie Silver Linings Playbook. It will probably be a forever favorite.

FIVE Places I would Love to travel to:

-Ireland

-Italy

-Brazil

-Greece

-South Africa

I just pulled those countries out of my butt.

I think this is the part where I’m supposed to tag other bloggers to play… but sadly I’m not sure what bloggers consistently read my blog, so I will hold off on that. However, if you feel like playing along and writing a post about this, then tag you’re it!

Hope you enjoyed these fun little facts. I also hope you enjoy your weekend. Mine will be full of swimming, biking, running, and hopefully a little bit of sunshine.

Just how I like it.

Cheers!

Fireworks

I have a serious question.

How in the crap is it already july?? Slow your roll summer, I still have gallons of precious memories to make with you. Like a few more of these:

Summer staple right there. Snagged one of those bad boys on Sunday after some Frisbee golfing.

There’s been an abundance of July goals and ambitions put out there on the blogosphere, and it caused me a bit of a panic attack at first. My orderly type-A life has been a bit upturned lately due to travel, moving, etc., and I hadn’t really thought ahead to July. AKA I don’t reallllyyyy have a July goal, except to begin bettering my life in a couple different ways. And to fulfill the below request:

But for real, WHY are there no firework emoticons for the iPhone??

I realize that 'bettering my life' is an incredibly loose, broad statement. Normally broad undefined statements stress me out a lot. This one doesn't... I kind of am looking at it as a challenge. I’m excited to define it with you guys a little further. Not today though. Today’s a Tuesday that’s basically my Thursday and that’s way too deep of a post for a Thursday, wouldn’t you agree?

I actually did define one small July goal…. Well that’s kind of a lie, I adopted another blog’s goal for her BodyLove July challenge – no weighing myself in the month of July. This actually shouldn’t be toooo difficult as I haven’t weighed myself for awhile anyways. Yet June was definitely a strange, off-track month for me when it came to eating and working out, and if I had to guess right now the scale would reflect that. And that’s ok, because life happens. And so on par with the whole ‘better my life’ challenge this month, eating and training better will definitely be part of this.

Speaking of training, I knocked out a sweat-tayyyyy 7 miles yesterday after work. I followed the path/piers all along the harbor, and am not even joking a little bit when I say that I passed AT LEAST 20 other girls in my age range, running solo

But seriously, I need to join a running group when I’m feeling 100% better. It’s on my better me list. I got home from the run extra drenched and man oh man it felt good.

I’ve been gym searching/hopping lately. It’s necessary for now, until I figure out what I like in Baltimore and what I’m willing to pay. And if we are being honest I kind of dislike gym hopping. I was going to a tiny little guy near my work two weeks ago, and it was fine, but let’s be real I’m kind of a gym brat and love my pool/hot tub/yoga classes etc.

I will keep you updated on my search. I’m trying out the Canton Merritt Gym starting this week….

Answer me this, before I go… what’s your favorite, go-to emoji? Mine is for sure the skull, followed by the lips.

Example. Skull is always applicable.

Cheers!

Catchup

Good Morning from Crystal Lake, IL! The past two days have been extremely rainy, so much so that our street turned into a small lake for awhile yesterday...

Note my mailbox where the street is suppose to be...

Needless to say, although it was a hassle to get out of the driveway, Jane definitely enjoyed some splashing around in the street. She even managed to find a floating beer bottle and retrieve it from the newly-made river. She was psyched. But even more psyched to spend the evening with me last night.

pre-bedtime kisses

I have a very special, literal Throwback Thursday picture for you:

This gem lives in my parent's basement, and I hopped on it for a little bit of interval work last night after my run. It's incredibly uncomfortable and sounds like a jet taking off, but hey it got me sweating. What would you guess, 40 years old?

I've missed you guys, it's been an insane non-stop five days. Friday-Sunday was Delaware, which was way too much fun and music. Firefly definitely did an impressive job of putting on the second year music festival, and I'm surprised to say that my favorite artist of the week was the Avett Brothers. Their live performance was honestly moving.

Our home for 3 days

The roomies & me

Rain coming in during Matt & Kim - stolen from here

Monday morning we were on the road out of Baltimore by 6:30 AM, and drove all day to arrive into Chicago on Monday evening. We actually got in right in time to skip down to Wrigleyville and watch our beloved Blackhawks clinch the Stanley Cup. The streets quickly transformed into one big party, and I was one tired lady at work on Tuesday.

Tuesday evening I hopped on a train to my hometown of Crystal Lake to see the fam and the pup. And here we are. 

I actually ended up taking a 4 day break from working out, Friday - Monday, which is pretty rare for me. My body was probably appreciative of the extended break, but it felt good to pull my running shoes on again yesterday.

The plan is to do some crossfit this evening after work with my friend Greg, and then assuming that I wake up sore tomorrow morning - which I always do after crossfit - perhaps a yoga video before work. My grandma has also offered up her pool for the week, so some swimming may be in the cards. Who knows, it's nice to have options even when I don't have a real gym while I'm at home.

I try.

Currently I'm behind on all areas of life - as you can see from my lack of blogging - so my hope is to write again tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Hope your Thursday is swell. It would be awesome if the storms steer clear today, I would love to catch some rays on my lunch.

Cheers!

A different kind of 13.1

I woke up this morning and felt like I had been assaulted with a baseball bat, specifically in my shoulder area.

Why? From the 13.1 WOD (workout of the day) that my friend Greg dragged me to yesterday.

Right now, if you are a crossfitter you already know, it's currently the CrossFit Open.

The first Open workout, the 13.1, was the following:

17 minutes, AMRAP (as many reps as possible)

40 burpees
30 snatch 75/45/15 lbs
30 burpees
30 snatch 135/75/35 lbs
20 burpees
30 snatch 165/100/45 lbs
10 burpees
Max rep snatch 210/120 lbs

The first weight listed for snatch is what was prescribed for men, second women, third... me. Because I'm weak and not too well-versed when it comes to olympic-style lifts. And because I'm not participating in the Open, I just wanted a good workout.

And that I got.

photo credits to Lance Steagall

My final score? 151 reps, ending with 1 snatch at 45 lbs. I was tired. My lungs were burning. I kind of wanted to throw up. I also really loved it.

photo credits to Lance Steagall

Greg killed it with 156 total reps.

photo credits to me.

Am I joining a crossfit gym? Not right now. Mainly because I can’t afford it, and I still will take long periods of cardio any day over a WOD. Did yesterday open my eyes to why people LOVE crossfit?

photo credits to Lance Steagall

Yes, it totally did. I loved the atmosphere, the workout was quick and super efficient. I’m not sure if joining a crossfit box/gym is in my future, but I do know that this style of workout is one that I really, REALLY need to start implementing more often.

ESPECIALLY when it comes to getting stronger in my running game. Not to mention, beach season is right around the corner.

That's right folks, next Wednesday, March 20th is officially the first day of spring. I don't know about you, but that's super encouraging to me! Also a little intimidating, because my beach body is still very much under construction.

That's why, with running still on the DL, I'm in the process of throwing together a new 'spring workout plan', sans running. Obviously as the foot heals, the mileage will SLOWLY start increasing, but until then, I see a lot more swimming, spinning, yoga-ing, and lifting/cross fitting in my future.

And I'm kind of excited about it.

I head back to the Land of Mary early tomorrow morning, so the rest of today will most likely involve something like this.

Gosh I'll miss her. And all of my IL peeps, of course.

Enjoy the rest of your Monday - set yourself up for success for the week and do something awesome.

Cheers!