WARNING: this post is mainly about my squat progression, skip on down to the menu if this isn’t your cup of tea.
Okay…I don’t think I can adequately express how excited/proud I am of myself!
I have been doing my squat program for a couple of months now. Just doing 2 sessions a week of back squats and front squats, outside of my CrossFit workouts. It is a program that Josh found that gives you a rep scheme and weights, based off of your one rep max.
I really like this kind of program because it gives me something to aim for. If I was the one setting the weights and reps, I might not go as heavy or do as many sets. Maybe that is because I am so used to our coaches programming our workouts. I can usually just put my head down and grind through anything if someone else has programmed the workout. If I have just made something up, I am not going to challenge myself as much as I should.
When I am pregnant I become super-human strong. Not really but, I PR every lift and then struggle when I am not pregnant to get back to those weights. I got back to my back squat PR weight, much quicker this time around than I did with Anderson. Nine months in, nine months out right!? For me, that saying isn’t about losing the baby weight, but about getting my strength back. Since I’ve had to have c-sections with both kids, the recovery time is a lot longer than what I would like. Obviously, if you are laid up at the house just hanging out with your baby, you are going to lose strength.
I was so proud of myself when I got back to my pregnancy back squat PR weight, but I think I was even more satisfied with myself today. Today, it really showed that I have been putting in the work. Twice a week to do a few extra squats might not sound like much, but it is hard to find the extra time (without feeling guilty).
Today we did 5 sets of 5 reps. Typically, if we repeat a workout the coaches will put up a sheet of paper with our old weights/scores to try and motivate us to do the same or better. The sheet they put up was 5 sets of 3 reps and was from sometime late this summer. On my last set I was only able to get one rep on my last set.
Y’all, I did that last weight 5 times today. The weight that I only got once last time, I did for FIVE reps today!
So. Stoked.
I felt so satisfied that the work I am doing is actually working. Some weeks I only get one set of back squats in, but I am seeing progress! That just really got me excited this morning and makes me want to keep putting in the extra work when I can. My legs were so exhausted (and it’s only Wednesday) but I was able to push through it and get the work done! That is what CrossFit can do for you. It not only makes you physically strong, but maybe more than anything else it makes you mentally strong too.
For me, that kind of high can just get you through the day. That was the extra motivation I needed to keep going and stay dedicated to my squats even though they require extra time. It is worth the effort, to feel proud of myself for a job well done. I know that my weight compared to someone else’s in the gym is light weight, but it is where I am at and I am going to be proud of myself for the progress I have made.
Go me!
M • E • N • U
Slow Cooker Herbed Chicken & Rice Pilaf
Back Strap + Roasted Pumpkin Quinoa Salad
Fall weather has arrived and I couldn’t be happier. Fall weather means soups and easy cooking. Usually this will make several meals, but that is okay because we can eat on it over the weekend or offer some supper to anyone that drops by.
The last time I made this chili the macro count was 434 calories, 39.4 grams of protein, 35.7 grams of carbs, and 14.9 grams of fat. I split my chili into 6 servings, so they were not small portions. I don’t use ground turkey, but I am sure that would up the protein count and lower the fat content as well.
When I make a recipe in my app for a one-pot dish like chili, I always weigh out the entire pot of chili first. After I weigh out the entire amount of food I can divide it up by the amount of servings I want. I like to put in the amount of servings to see what the macros will be and adjust accordingly. I don’t want to make it 6 servings, if a serving size will be too much food for me to consume or if it’s macro count is too high/low.
If you need help with this, don’t hesitate to ask! Sometimes the hardest part of tracking, is making the recipes for your food.
I have some left over zucchini and rice noodles, so I am going to make another rice noodles bowl.
This noodle bowl is different than the one that I normally make with kale. This has more vegetables than the first one I made. I like this recipe because it gave me the idea to keep the noodles separate from the sauce, vegetables, and meat. It gets difficult to calculate the macros when everything is mixed in and all the noodles are sticking together. I like to keep a more accurate check on my macros than that.
You can use a rotisserie chicken if you are just going for ease, but I like to boil chicken breast instead to make it a healthier.
Slow Cooker Herbed Chicken & Rice Pilaf
Slow cooker meals were made for meal prepping and this recipe just so happens to be healthy too! Win-win!
There is not one thing that I want to change about this recipe and that is rare. I am not going to mix together everything and make one recipe in my app. I am going to keep the chicken separate and make a recipe with everything else that will get mixed in. I being able to keep the carbs and protein separate when I am calculating my macros for the day, in case I need more or less carbs/protein/fat.
Back Strap + Roasted Pumpkin Quinoa Salad
Josh got a doe opening day! Thank goodness we can start stocking our freezer again! My favorite part of the deer is hands down the back strap. Josh cuts the back strap and tenderloin out first thing and sends the rest of the deer to be processed from ground meat and cubed steak.
The back strap will bleed out for a few days and then we will cook it. I slice it about an inch thick and cook it in the cast-iron pan. To season the meat, I use the same seasoning we would put on beef steaks. I use about 1 Tbsp of grapeseed oil in the pan to sear the steak on both sides, on medium high heat.
The first time I cooked these I would watch them cook to see how long each side needed to be cooked. It is pretty cool to see the meat changing as it cooks. I would time it until it was half way through cooking and then flip them. I like my steaks medium rare, so I cooked each side 2-2.5 minutes.
My friend Whitney sent me this recipe for the pumpkin quinoa salad. I love a good quinoa salad and the pumpkin is a bonus! I am going to use sugar free syrup and skip the walnuts in the salad.
Macro wise, this salad is the BEST. Last time I made this I used 24 ounces of cooked chicken, 1 egg, 4 tsp of dijon mustard, 6 ounces of matchstick carrots, 3 medium branches of celery, and the juice of 2 lemons. I created 6.3 servings (based off of it’s weight) and it had 126 calories, 1.9 grams of fat, 3.7 grams of carbs, and 20.8 grams of protein! This is without a wrap; the wrap adds 50 calories, 4 grams of protein, 16 carbs, and 1.5 grams of fat.
There is no yogurt and no mayonnaise. Instead, you make your own “mayo” to hold the chicken and veggies together. This “mayo” consists of 1 egg, dijon mustard, lemon juice, and olive oil. I like to add spices to my “mayo” to give it some more flavor.
The great thing about this chicken salad is you can really add in any extras that you want. I typically put matchstick carrots and finely chopped celery. Your options are limitless though; pecans, walnuts, grapes, etc. Since this “mayo” really needs a lot of seasoning and we like it to be spicy, I am going to try adding in some Thai red curry paste to really give it an extra kick. I usually add sriracha to our wrap, but with the red curry paste it might not need the extra sauce for flavor.
Don’t forget the list!
