Life is Crazy.

hello friends! happy monday! i hope you all had wonderful weekends :)

life has been quite crazy over here. ever since i got back from home a little over a week ago, i've been catching up on all the work i failed to do over thanksgiving (a girl's gotta get a break sometime!), catching up with all my friends, and most importantly, catching up on sleep.

recently i've been getting headaches a LOT more frequently than i used to. as in, every day kinda deal. i knew something had to be wrong and i started keeping a journal of possible triggers that could be causing the problem - workouts, food, caffeine (aka coffee), stress, sleep. i tried to fix the first three in the beginning, but when it came down to it, i discovered that i just needed more sleep. period. my body was used to having anywhere from 8-10 hours of sleep a night before i came to college and i just expected it to adapt to only having 6 or 7 without any problems.

i think it's crazy that it took me until 9th week to figure out the cause of the problem, but hey, at least i did eventually! ever since i've started going to bed earlier (i made a rule of 8 hours sleep minimum. don't care how much work needs to be done, going to bed is more important) i haven't had a single headache in over a week. big stuff, people!

in trying to figure out the cause of my headaches i've also tried to clean up my diet a little and eat more foods that energize me, and don't leave me in that post-meal slump. most of these eats are comin' your way tomorrow for a WIAW food dump post. haha :)






















on the workout side of things, last week i took things easy because i was nervous that doing high intensity workouts might have been part of what was causing my headaches. i went on quite a few runs with girls in my bible study, did the elliptical, and took a few rest days.

**just wanted to throw in a note here that if i wasn't able to figure out the cause of my headaches on my own, i was going to go to a doctor to make sure there wasn't a bigger problem**


but today i went back to my IFT class and did a totally kickass workout that i wanted to share with you guys! it was probably one of the hardest workouts i've done so far and it. was. awesome.

Source: Uploaded by user via Julianna on Pinterest

i used a 60# bar for my cleans, 2 15# dumbells for the thrusters, and the thickest resistance band for help on the pull-ups.

you could easily do this workout at home if you have a jumprope and kettlebells or dumbbells - just leave off the first exercise (cleans) and last exercise (pull-ups).

after the workout one of my instructors came over and told me that my cleans were looking really good (YAYYYY! i've been working on my form for so long now!) and asked if i was going to the competition tomorrow. IFT is very similar to CrossFit (not speaking from my own experience here, just what i've heard) and they have competitions here at UCLA at the end of every quarter to see how much you've improved since the beginning. if i'm not too sore from today's killer workout, then i think that i'll go tomorrow and see what i can do! i'm really excited for that.

post-workout fuel today: chicken caesar salad, milk, and a fruit cup. you gotta make do with the food to-go and this lunch was pretty good!

on that note i better get off to studying. 10th week = death week. quarter system peeps, ya feel me? i'm drowning in work over here and studying for finals is scary and overwhelming. i'm doing my best to not stress like crazy, focus, and get things done. but if i don't resurface until i'm home for christmas break, you'll know why! 11 more days of busting my butt and then i will be home and truly enjoying the christmas season. until then, michael buble will have to do ;)

what's the best workout you've done lately?

Weekly Workout Recap

Since I've started taking IFT barbell classes, I've started making notes of the workouts we do on my phone, so I thought it would be fun to share them in weekly recaps! This week has been an awesome week for me personally - I love this mix of running, IFT, and rest days.

Sunday: 4-mile run with one of my girls in my bible study!

Monday: Rest day

Tuesday: IFT Barbell Class

• Strength: 5 x 3 push press
• I maxed at 75lbs - I'm still trying to master the form on a lot of the lifts we do.
• WOD was 5 rounds of:
• 5 clapping push-ups (I did regular push-ups since I can't do them properly and clap)
• 10 slam balls (I used a 16lb ball)
• 20 second bar hold overhead (I used 65lbs)

Wednesday: 3.5 mile run - killed it! :)

(^^see that bruise on my left collarbone in the photo? that's from doing cleans!!)

Thursday: IFT Barbell

• Strength: 5 x 2 power cleans (I got up to 80#)
• WOD was 8 rounds of:
• 1-5 pull ups or 1 negative
• I did negatives instead of pull-ups since I can't do a pull-up without a resistance band yet. Negatives are where you start at the top of a pull-up position and lower yourself as slowly as you can, which builds strength in the muscles that you need to do a pull-up. 
• 10 box jumps 
• I *think* my box was 20" but I could be wrong on that one
• After the WOD I did two planks (2 min & 1 min) and some stretching. I'm trying to do planks and stretching a lot more because I know both are really good for me and will help me to get stronger.

Friday: Rest day - my upper body and abs are so sore!! I never have focused much on ab work because it's just not my favorite, and I really want to build up my upper body strength so that I can do a pull-up. 

Which leads me to two new goals I set for the end of the quarter:

1. 3 minute plank
2. 1 pull-up

Random overall thoughts:

• I am LOVING my IFT classes. Although I'm not lifting really heavy weight yet in comparison to most people and I still need to work on form, I look forward to the classes every week because they're so challenging. 
• I'm getting calluses on my hands!! Proof of hard work ;-)

• I realized that my arm muscles are finally looking more defined because I am doing less reps with heavy (for me) weight. I did BodyPump for an entire year and never was able to get my biceps to show and now they finally are a little bit! I can't wait to see how much progress I make this year. 

what was your favorite workout you did this week?

My First IFT Class!

Hey guys!

Since I finished up my Intro to Barbell class last week, which was a prerequisite to the IFT (Intense Functional Training) classes offered here, I decided to go to IFT tonight. And let's just say I completely had my butt kicked in that super awesome I'm not gonna be able to walk tomorrow kinda way.

I've been told that these IFT classes are very similar to CrossFit - and if they are, let's just say that I will be hitting up CrossFit in my hometown this summer! There's two types of IFT classes here - just plain IFT and IFT barbell. Tonight I took the plain IFT class but I'm planning on hitting up the IFT barbell class on Thursday.

Anyway, back to today's workout! We started out with a few laps around the gym, and then we used these little balls and did some myofascial release exercises. After that we did some jumping jacks, hip thrusters, bodyweight squats, and pushups, before starting the actual workout.

Today's warmup:
1. TRX Rows
2. Vertical Jumps (sideways next to a wall, trying to hit higher each time)
3. Push-ups*
4. Flutter kicks

*side note: it is SO HARD to do push-ups with proper form. it's crazy that i've been doing them wrong for my whole life, but doing them so you actually work your chest is so hard. i could only get through 3-4 at a time before having to take a break. 

Once we finished the warmup, I was already a little out of breath and sweaty! And then came the killer WOD.

We did 4 stations of 3 minute AMRAPs
1. Sit-ups and slamballs (alternate 10 reps each until time is up)
2. Pull ups and jumping lunges (7 reps each)
3. Burpee Broad Jump w/ wall ball
4. Medicine ball side tosses and agility square (which was just 4 cones set up that you had to go around once, changing direction quickly)

The killers were the burpee broad jumps and the pull-ups. I did my pull-ups with the Level 2 resistance band and my arms were shaking so much by the end. I can't imagine doing pull-ups without a band right now - but that is one of my goals for the end of the year!

After the WOD we did a round of tabata abs (v-ups, superman, cherry pickers, and something else that I can't remember) and by the time we finished that I was laying on my mat completely wiped. Whoever said that short workouts aren't effective is lying. This one hurt more than any workout I've done in quite awhile!

And you can bet I'll be there next class ready for more. This girl can't turn down a challenge!

Even though my butt really, really hurts.

have you ever taken an IFT class or something similar?

Highlights of the Week

happy saturday everyone! i am so happy it's the weekend!! it has definitely been a long week to say the least. but here's some of the highlights! 

finally getting to put on jeans because it's been a little chillier this week! 

making a trip into westwood in the middle of the week solely for a ginourmous cup of coconut froyo (with strawberries, brownie bits, almonds, coconut, sprinkles, chocolate sauce, and shredded coconut). it was SO good.

getting to wake up to this sunrise. talk about beautiful! 

a reese's pumpkin. no explanation necessary. 

going for an awesome 7-mile run with my running club on wednesday. we ran straight uphill for the first half of the run but it was so worth it - check out this view!!

getting care package from home with BARNEY BUTTER. (and other snackage, a mug, a bowl, pajama shorts, and hair bows. my mom rocks.) i was running around like crazy freaking out and all of my friends were cracking up at me. 

going to my second barbell class on Thursday night - we actually used the barbells this time and learned deadlifts and cleans. i deadlifted 100 lbs (and i'm finding my 1-rep max next tuesday!) and was SO PROUD of myself! and i felt so badass doing cleans with such a huge bar.

getting to drink tea in my room! i am so glad that my mom sent the mug because i've been drinking tea like crazy after coming down with a cold this week. 

seeing a gorgeous double rainbow after a thunderstorm on thursday afternoon!! 

trying my first ever pumpkin smash smoothie from jamba juice. it was pretty good but i definitely prefer fruity smoothies. 

unfortunately the lowlights of the week were getting sick and having a bedbug scare. long story short my roomies and i had to move out for a night to a different building because we thought we got bedbugs, but luckily we didn't get them! but it was definitely really stressful (not to mention i didn't get any sleep thursday night) and that on top of being sick did not make for a fun friday at all. i'm just happy to be back in my own room again!

this morning i woke up and was feeling like crap, but after texting my mom (who suggested that i get out and move a bit to clear my sinuses) i ended up going for a short run a little less than 3 miles. 

i ended my run at starbucks and got an iced coffee with 1 pump pumpkin spice. i sucked it down in like 5 minutes and went back for my free refill (yep the barista definitely thought i was crazy haha), and somehow ended up buying an egg wrap because any non dining hall food sounded delicious. and it tasted SO FREAKING GOOD! i am definitely sick of oatmeal, salad bar, peanut butter toast, and turkey sandwiches. i cannot wait to make my own food when i go home for thanksgiving and christmas!

i've spent most of the rest of today in my room trying to get some work done.. but it's so hard to be productive when i have a huge list of stuff i want to finish this weekend. it's like it's so daunting that i didn't even want to start! haha. and then tonight i'm going out with some friends to celebrate one of their birthdays! 

what was a highlight of your week?

tips on productivity?