Is It Mental?

Collin does Helen as one of her workouts to measure her progress with the zone diet.

Today is day seven for most of you who are doing the Zone Challenge at CrossFit Santa Cruz! How many people think that some of the difficulties we face on the Zone are mental blocks? I think about half of them are! Once I create a realistic goal, a plan to get it accomplished and I give in to the kinds of changes I have to make, half of my battle is won. Not to say that it is easy to do. It simply makes it more realistic when dealing with some of the physical battles such as cravings.

Personally, I am having a new experience with the Zone diet. Usually I am a big sugar craver and that never goes away. I have to admit that the last thing I ate the night before I started the Zone last Monday, was two old fashioned donuts and a glass of milk! Although I like to justify my indulgences by telling myself that I eat fairly healthy to balance out these carb binges, my performance goes down the toilet and I don't feel too hot after I fall off the Zone. Now, after sticking to the zone strictly for a week, I am starting to crave protein rather than carbs, which is a first! I now enjoy a healthy salad, a piece of salmon or a hard boiled egg as much as my last donut! Hard to believe, but true. The effects of the zone will sneak up on you without you noticing. It's not usually until I fall off the Zone that I realize that I must have been feeling really good on it because all of a sudden, I feel sick, sluggish and I get sore when I workout. I'm not renouncing sugar forever and I don't even know if this will last. I'm simply saying that right now, today, I feel like my body is becoming more balanced.

Hang in there everyone, you are doing great!

Meal Plan for Today (while on the road):

Breakfast: 3 blocks
3/4 cup low fat cottage cheese with a whole banana cut into it and 9 almonds

Lunch: 3 blocks
1 piece of Ezekiel bread with the crusts cut off (1 block) with 1/4 cup hummus spread on it and 4 1/2 oz of deli cut chicken on top
1/2 apple
A few almonds (the hummus I bought has a good amount of fat in it, so I don't add too much fat to this meal)

Snack: 2 blocks
2 oz of string cheese
1 apple
coffee with 1 tbls of 1/2 & 1/2

Dinner: 3 blocks
1 cup of celery sticks with 1/4 cup of hummus to dip it in
3 oz of grilled chicken breast
1 1/2 cups of strawberries

Snack: 1 block
1 oz string cheese
1/2 cup of blueberries
3 almonds

When you are on the road, you can either eyeball your food proportions, or bring a measuring cup for the food you put together yourself. I get a few different kinds of meats from the deli in 1/4 pound (4 oz) measurements.

-M

Workout:

Four rounds of:
400 meter sprints with a two minute rest between each round

Practice your handstand holds

Comments

[DebS]

Day 7 is upon us kids! How's everyone doing? As "diets" go, I stayed pretty darn faithful to the plan this week. Two minor detours then right back on track. I don't know that I feel any stronger yet, but time will tell on that.

Anyone else notice any differences yet?

[DebS]

'nother question: I'm going to order some Zone books from Amazon. Anyone have a suggestion for their favorite or most helpful of the bunch?
Thanks! Deb

[Gloria Jean]

Here's my udate: I ate a chocolate turtle at work Saturday night(eek). Every so often I pop a couple (or 3) extra almonds when I'm making a meal. Otherwise, I'm sticking to the diet part really well. I'v lost 6 pounds (we'll see what your scale says). I haven't really exercised sinc Wednesday. I got my butt kicked Fri and Sat at work to the point that I had to physically recover (i.e. completely veg out)Sat and today. I'm getting laundry, etc. done but a CrossFit workout would kill me right now. Maybe I'll run a mile (we'll call it 'run') and get back to class on Thursday. My original goal this year was 3 pull ups by my birthday which is Sunday, June 1st so that's not looking so good but I'll continue to try. This zone challenge is the first thing that I can remember being competative about for a long, long time but I think that I'm too far behind on the signature workouts to score properly. I still plan to participate and quite frankly, I don't see why I can't just eat like this all of the time. It feels good. I'm taking a blowout cheat day at my party on Sunday and then back on track June 2nd. That reminds me... you all are invited! If you know me, you're invited. If you're interested, send me your email address and I'll get info to you. It's an all day (noon -7p) thing at one of my girlfriend's house. A pool/patio party. I'm really quite the hermit normally but you only turn 50 once so I'm going all out! My next party will be when I turn 100 so keep that in mind. There won't be another one anytime soon!

[Gloria Jean]

oops...meant to say that I got my butt kicked at work thur and fri. Anywho...

[DebS]

Gloria, impressive weightloss numbers! I wouldn't beat yourself up about the turtle. Everything else must be pretty spot on since you're losing so much AND feeling so good. That is the important part I think.

We missed you today, but understand why you couldn't make it. Keep up the great work and we'll see you soon.
Deb

[DebS]

Ok, NOW I feel it! I'm just slower than everyone else in this too I guess.

I am energized! Been at work since 6am and now leaving at almost 6pm and feel like I could keep going. Long as I don't crash and burn tomorrow, I'm LOVING being in the Zone!

Good luck to everyone doing the Trevor memorial workout tomorrow!!!!!

[Mallee]

Happy Early Birthday Gloria! Don't worry about the benchmark workouts you didn't do. Just write down the scores of any workouts you did this past week, or even the week before and we will use those as your markers! Make sure to note the weights and other details of those workouts.