Compliment or Insult: Bar Edition

Today, let’s take Compliment or Insult outside of the fabled Aspen Club gym and into a little basement bar we like to call Escobar. It’s where Brooke Mueller got arrested with like five ounces of cocaine “for her friends.”

It’s a Tuesday night, and Nappy Roots has sold out Belly Up with $15 tickets. I am sad I cannot go, even after trying to get friends to leave me tickets, so I am drowning my sorrows with my Sexy Gay BF (he named himself that) and we’re just trying to dance. So we head to aforementioned basement bar.

It’s 1:30am, and suddenly Nappy Roots is straight partying with us. Spinning on the turntables, dancing with the locals, boozing at the bar. Hell. Yes. The night couldn’t get any better.

nappy roots escobar aspen

Until Sexy Gay BF ASKS A MEMBER OF THE NAPPY ROOTS IF HE THINKS I AM HOT.

Hello, middle school called, it wants its flirting back.

Mr. Nappy Roots (#1? #5? no idea) looks me up and down and says, “Fuck yeah!”  I am wearing leggings. He proceeds to say, “Look at those protruding thighs! Damn girl!”

I run away.

Protruding thighs?? Are we for real?

Compliment or Insult?

Compliment or Insult: Where’s the Bigger Weight?

Welcome to this edition of my very favorite gym game, Compliment or Insult.

Scene: Aspen Club

Strength Workout: 3-3-3 Deadlift, with the 3rd lift at 245#

Man: staring at me from the cardio deck above the weightroom floor. Possibly from a treadmill.

Burn Workout: 5 Rounds: 5 DL @ 115# / 10 pushups

Man: “Where’s the bigger weight?”

Me: blank stare, panting, three rounds in

Man: “I saw you lifting heavy weight earlier, what is this light weight?”

Me: “Higher volume.”

Man: “Oh, ok.”

Really, sir? Do I come ask you why you slowed down running on the treadmill? Or perhaps why you’re doing a “tricep row” machine when you could bust out some damn pushups and get the same effect?

Compliment or Insult?

What are those funny-colored plates?

I talked about how excited I was when the Aspen Club got bumper plates. Each plate is a different color for its weight, and I love them. Yesterday, I got a chance to love them for a different reason: humor!

A man who was previously using the leg press came up to me as I was repping out some back squats at 205#. I rack the weight and he says, “What are the funny-colored plates?”

I stare at him for a moment, baffled.

“How much is the red one?” he asks.

“45. They’re bumper weights. They bounce.” Silence. “For Olympic lifting.” Silence. “In case I have to drop it.”

He says, “Can you show me?”

Still baffled. No, I cannot show you how 205 pounds bounces when I drop it, because ideally I can squat it and it does not in fact need to be dropped. I grab a 15# weight and drop it on the floor. It bounces.

“Oh, so it bounces?”

I smile. “Yep.”

He walks away.

I cannot make these things up. The Aspen Club never gets old.

Better-lookin’ jorts

I have a pair of jorts that I’ve had for quite some time. Since my eBay buying phase, when I ordered a pair of Hollisters that were too short for these long legs. Probably early college, let’s call it. They have fit me more or less the same way since then, as my shape may have changed but my overall weight and upper thigh girth has not.

jorts

Wish I had a better pic!

This weekend I put on said jorts for a trailer trash party and was surprised to find out that they were no longer tight on my legs! (Tight here is a relative term … obviously they were tight, they are jorts!) This was puzzling to me, as I have been doing LOTS of heavy leg work with the Wendler program and in prep for ski season. But apparently as everyone promises, lifting heavy will not in fact make you heavier!

This is some serious motivation to keep working out hard and heavy: better-lookin’ jorts!!

Separate issue: is it jorts or jhorts??

SWORDS

CrossFit Central coach and all-around awesome dude Travis Holley has embarked on a year-long project called 365 Days of Strength. Travis shares his infinite knowledge and legit strength WODs on his blog (click here). His words:

The purpose of this project is to provide you all with a unique perspective into all things STRENGTH!  
I want to take you inside the strength training realm, provide you with training tips, info-packed interviews with the area’s/country’s top strength coaches, and hard hitting SWODs(Strength Workout Of the Day) that you can take on to build that physical AND mental STRENGTH!!!! 
Here’s the deal….I love this shit!!!  I am passionate about all modes of strength training.  Period.  This blog project will be a bare bones, stripped down work in progress for sure, but if you are serious about getting strong, and you’re ready to take your strength game to the next level….all you gotta do is tune in daily.  Simple.
My training lately has been very consistent—4 days of Wendler/week + under-10 min CF WODs, yoga 3-4x/wk, and swimming, sprinting, and walking mixed in—but I’ve missed out on critical elements of CF WODs that aren’t heavy lifting or quicker cardio-style. Enter SWODs!
When I tweeted about his latest SWOD, my phone autocorrected it to SWORDS, which is really how a SWOD feels. Like a sword stabbed you through the gut. It’s the second day since I completed Travis’s SPICY Barbell Complex and I haven’t been this sore in a few months … I LOVE that feeling!!
Travis’s blog has a ton of great info, sweet vids, and obviously killer workouts. Thanks for the good SWORDS and words and wods, I’m excited to keep up for the rest of the year (we’re on day 47 right now)!

Investigative Medicine: Chris Kresser

Chris Kresser is a licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of integrative medicine. From his site:

How do I work with patients?

I am primarily a “health detective”.  I help people struggling with chronic, complex illnesses that haven’t been able to find help anywhere else.

Like all detectives, I use a variety of tools in my investigations, including modern laboratory techniques (blood, urine, stool and breath testing), detailed questionnaires and a thorough medical history and examination.

I then use nutritional therapy, herbal medicine, supplements, stress management, detoxification and lifestyle changes to restore proper function.

Deep and lasting healing are only possible when the root causes of illness are addressed.  By understanding the core systems of the body, how they are related, and how their function can be restored, many chronic illnesses can be prevented and even reversed.

He’s also the only person in over ten years of trying to figure out what’s wrong with me who has somehow been able to get my fasting blood sugar down to normal levels. It’s astonishing. He told me recently, “I have no idea what’s causing it.” I tested negative for every autoimmune disease possibility there is, every thyroid issue, and so on. I have crazy levels of some things, but there’s no cause.

So neither he nor I is exactly sure what caused the change in my blood sugars. I mean, I went so far as to do that stupid HCG diet and there were no changes. But a few months of eating low carb, abstaining from almost all gluten, and taking supplements when I remember (which is rare), and my blood sugar is under control. It may be because there’s less stress in my life right now. Even better? I have a “normal” appetite. Sometimes I’m hungry, sometimes I’m not. I can eat a small portion and be full. These things NEVER used to be true for me. I can now see how my skinny minnie friends could be full after one taco. Sometimes I am.

It’s liberating.

More on the supps I’ve found to be most effective coming soon…

Surprising Success: Seafood Sausages

While searching foodily.com for a recipe for shrimp and scallops, I stumbled upon this:

Seafood Sausage with Miso Mustard Recipe

seafood sausagesAlthough it is paleo, I wasn’t looking for a paleo recipe, but it intrigued me. So I made it. Basically you food-processor a bunch of seafood, roll it into cabbage (the hardest part, and I have no words of advice for you), steam it, and eat it. With non-paleo miso mustard if you’re so inclined.

It was a surprising success! It’s also a good technique—the steaming of food inside cabbage leaves—to keep in mind for any number of other things (chicken? veggies?).

 

“I eat better than you.”

Awesome conversation overheard today after yoga:

Woman 1: “You have the most amazing back, what do you do?”

Amazing Back Woman: “This [yoga] and my diet.”

Woman 1: “What? I guarantee I eat better than you.”

Amazing Back Woman: “Nope, it’s all in the diet.”

Woman 1: “I eat better than you. You eat meat.”

Amazing Back Woman: “Get the book Paleo Solution” and walks out.

Compliment or Insult?

Let’s play a little game I like to call Compliment or Insult?

I’m at the gym yesterday doing butterfly pullups and some dude is like, “whoa! what are you doing over there?”

I explain that it’s a modification on a pullup for high volume and he looks confused. I ask if he’s ever heard of kipping pullups. Blank. I ask if he’s ever heard of CrossFit. Nope. So he asks me to demonstrate all the pullups.

In the interest of education, I oblige. Demonstrate the kip, the butterfly, and the deadhang. Dude says thanks.

Dude’s buddy has been watching and says, “Dude, you get up there and do all of those!”

Dude replies, “No way, look at her shoulders versus mine! I’m gonna go play tennis.”

Compliment or Insult?

Hiking motivation

I’m obsessed with pinterest, and there are tons of different ways to use it. I’m not super into motivational posters, but a lot of the pinners are. I was surprised to find myself chanting this in my head during my hike today…

workout motivation

I do not actually enjoy hiking. Everyone in Aspen does, so I have been trying to get into it. I enjoy some hikes, but the ohmigod-I-can’t-breathe-and-my-hammies-are-on-fire sensation of climbing mountains is just really something I’ve had a hard time adjusting to. I don’t mind not being able to breathe and having fire muscles during a CrossFit workout, what about hiking is different?

I WANT to like hiking. I WISH to like hiking. And today, I was convincing myself to work for liking hiking.

… it worked for about an hour, then I went all Texan and hit a foot of snow wearing Converse and shorts and hiked my inappropriately dressed self back down.

texan in snow

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