Investing in...my teeth

So this is probably going to be the grossest and weirdest blog post of all time.

Remember back in January when I wrote my Make an Investment yearly goals post? Well it's September, and while I've made a decent amount of progress on some of those goals, some were left in the dust. Particularly, "focus on diminishing one bad habit"...ahem, pen chewing.

Or more like, pen chomping. Embarrassing story time! At some point in my life I switched from nail biting to pen chewing. No idea when or why that happened, but I've been chewing pens for quite some time now. The chewing turns to chomping when I'm in stressful situations and sometimes gets down right out of control. Example: back in high school during my AP Government exam the proctor (who was also my track coach) suddenly tapped me on my shoulder. I had been so into my DBQ (document based question for those non-nerds) that I almost jumped out of my seat. He proceeded to tell me that I was chomping on my pen so loudly it was distracting the other students and I had to stop. Eek.

Seriously this gets so bad that sometimes after a day of work my jaw and teeth will be killing me. I take pretty good care of my teeth, but I imagine all this pen chewing has to be doing something negative to my teeth or gums. I'm actually really surprised my dentist has never asked me about it.

So last week I decided to do some reading up on pen chewing to see if I could scare myself into stopping. Did you know chewing on plastic pens can lead to lead poisoning, which can lead to various neurological and behavioral problems, organ damage and blood toxicity?! I ended up reading about some easy strategies to break the habit and have incorporated a few of them.

1. Remove all pens you are not using. This seems obvious but I usually have 5-10 pens out on my desk at all times. When I'm feeling really stressed/anxious at work sometimes I notice I go from one pen to the other replacing each one in my mouth for no reason. Sometimes I am writing with one and chewing on another. This is so gross, I know. I now have all of my pens but one in my desk!

2. Tape up the end of pens.

This has really worked!! I haven't chewed on a pen in a week! Every time I go to put the pen in my mouth I feel the tape, then immediately put it back down. I try to make sure not to bring these into meetings as to avoid any awkward questions.

So this post was probably not necessary but it's my blog and I'll do what I want! It's important for me to make sure I'm making progress on things, even the disgusting things.

In other news, I took home almost THIRTY tomatoes from our garden last night. I didn't take a picture, I don't know what I was thinking! Tom and I decided to whip up a quick awesome sauce using a few tomatoes, garlic, basil from our plant, salt & pepper, herbs de provence, grapeseed oil, red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese. It was delish!!

This afternoon I am off to eastern Long Island for my cousin's wedding. I can't wait for some family time and some relaxing time!! If I write here that I packed my workout clothes, will I hold myself more accountable to do something? Only time will tell.

A Crossfit Trial

I've been pretty off my regular updating schedule lately. Truthfully I feel like too much is going on! I had a really great long weekend with friends, but that's not what I'm here to write about today.

Last night I tried crossfit! I have been thinking about trying crossfit since I heard about it maybe two years ago, but have been too intimated to try. I was close last year but ended up taking gymnastics classes instead. One of my good friend's boyfriends recently opened a box in Dorchester and I felt like this was a good opportunity to finally try it out.

We got there for a 6:30 class and jumped right into a warm-up:

Two times:
100m run
10 toe to bar (holding onto a chinup bar, lift feet to the bar -- I could only lift my knees)
100m run
10 pushups
100m run
10 squats
100m run
10 ring dips (tricep dips on rings)

The warmup was tough! I was sweating and breathing heavy before we even started the workout. Uh oh. The hardest things for me to do were definitely the toe to bars and the ring dips. I felt like my arms were going to come out of their sockets on the toe to bars and I was having major gymnastics flashbacks because my hands hurt. The second round of ring dips was really tough because I was tired at the end of the warmup. Somehow I finished it and was able to get right into the dynamic stretching. We did a number of walking stretches/lunges before the actual workout. Some of them were actually tough and really tested my balance.

After the stretches we spent a few minutes with the trainer going over the two moves and the proper form, then got started. Here was the workout:

Max rep pushups - 1 minute (I did 33 modified pushups while holding onto a bar)

15 EMOM (every minute on the minute)
15 double unders or 45 singles (double or single jumpropes -- I did singles and attempted some doubles)
5 wall ball shots

Here's what a wall ball shot is:

I was happy to see the workout was more cardio based because I was a little nervous about having to attempt to lift heavy weights on my first time. The workout was tough and I was sweating like a monster by the time we were finished. The trick with "every minute on the minute" workouts is that the faster you complete it, the more rest you get. At the start I was finishing a round in about 30 seconds, so I'd have 30 seconds to rest before the next round started. By the end I was finishing with only 15 or 10 seconds to rest.

The whole warmup + stretch + workout took exactly an hour. As soon as we were done my arms started hurting. I don't know if I have ever felt soreness that quickly! Besides my arms/upper back, the rest of me is fine today. I think all those squats from 30 day shred really helped prepare me for this.

So, does it live up to the hype? I'm not really sure. I think so. One of the things I expected to feel from a crossfit box was a sense of community and I really didn't feel that at all. Everyone was very into their own individual workout (which was a good thing), but nobody seemed to really want to talk/meet each other/cheer each other on. I think there are a few different factors that contributed to this (the box is VERY new, there were only about 8-10 of us, we were with my friend/the owner's girlfriend so people assumed we knew everyone, etc.). I also didn't feel like the trainer was THAT involved in what we were doing. If I am going to be paying that much for a workout, I do want to feel like the trainer is paying attention to my form and correcting my mistakes. Again, I think there are a few factors contributing to this and know that if I went alone I likely would have had a different experience.

Despite these things, I had a really great time and am feeling an urge to join for a month. As with any decision I need to make a pros/cons list:

Pros:
- AWESOME workout
- more attention/training than with regular workouts
- would be with friend(s)
- meet new people?
- learn new skills

Cons:
- expensive (at least $150 for the month)
- bad location (it's not in a safe part of Dorchester so I would need to depend on a friend to drive me)
- time commitment - I have a lot of upcoming travel/stuff going on and worry that I won't fit it into my schedule
- lots of opportunity for comparisons

I'm going to spend a few days thinking about it. I would be willing to spend the money for just a month, but want to make sure the timing is right!

Tale of the Hairy Gourd

Doesn't that sound like a horror story? This is actually a happy story but unfortunately includes that gross name.
I might have mentioned at some point that our garden neighbor's plants have been growing like crazy over our fence. He wrote a nice apologetic email and said that we could either cut back the vines or keep anything that grew on our side. We decided to keep the vines around and see what they produced.

It produced this:

Having no clue what it was, we decided to let it grow. And grow it did...

It grew to this:

And then to this:

It weighed about 20 lbs and we had no clue what it was. After a lot of google searching, we learned this mysterious Asian vegetable goes by many names: moa qua, mo gua, hairy gourd, fuzzy gourd, winter melon, fuzzy cucumber...who the F knows.

We decided to go to to Whole Foods and buy some ingredients to stiry fry it up with.

Peppers sizzlin'

Squid cooking up

Mise en place (top chef joke)

Oodles of noodles

More veggies (the greenish white squares are the hairy gourd chopped up)

Bay Scallops cooking in butter

The final product! All mixed together.

This was an awesome dinner and everything came out really well. Unfortunately my least favorite part of the stir fry was the gourd. I actually liked how it tasted raw better than cooked. Surprise surprise. Luckily we have about 18 lbs left of it and 20 more growing in the garden. Anyone want a gourd? Anyone?

So what else have I been up to since last week?

Hanging out with friends in Harvard Square [Russel House Tavern]:

Charcuterie

Oystahs

Steak tartare

Burger & fries

Free Friday Flicks at the Hatch Shell. Tom and I made a picnic and saw "The Great and Powerful Oz"...it was so fun!

Kayaking down the Charles River:

Turtles!

There's a tiny baby turtle in here somewhere

Eating seafood in Newburyport:

And really just trying to enjoy the summer as it winds down. Winter comes way too fast here in New England and I'm doing my best to keep a smile on my face!!

What I've Been Eating Wednesday

I don't have too much to say these days. 30DS is still going fairly strong and my eating has been in the 60:40 ratio (healthy:less healthy). I figured today was a good opportunity for a good ole food photo dump. Enjoy!

Breakfast, yum.

The famous burger from JM Curley. I could only get through half of this.

Tapas at Estragon

Paprika fried chickpeas

Mussels

Lamb shank and cauliflower mash

Mushrooms (that look like worms, but were delicious)

The perfect workday lunch: sushi, snapple, kindle & sun

Tasting for my September event! Salad #1

Salad #2

Entree #1

Entree #2

Dessert #1

Dessert #2

Chicken fried steak and biscuit at M3 -- I am the only one who thought chicken fried steak was chicken??

Monochromatic side dishes

Catfish & sides

1/2 chicken & sides

The ingredients for my Italian-style turkey meatballs

All rolled up!

Simmering in sauce

Dinner! Not pretty

Frozen edamame, steamed in the microwave. Just like the real version!

Seared tuna at trivia last night. So yum.