Dietetic Internship Update & CrossFit Fun

Good morning, friends!

I can’t believe we’re wrapping up another week — only one more week to go at my second mini dietetic internship this fall before I take a short break for our wedding! If you’re just checking in, I’m currently interning full time with Wellness Corporate Solutions as part of my grad school program internship hours. I’m getting pretty antsy to be finished with school, but it’s been fun so far! Here’s what I’ve been up to while there:

• Writing nutrition/welness and exercise related handouts and articles for client web portals
• Working on a webinar about food and lifestyle tips to boost immunity
• Helped Heather give a presentation on the benefits of blogging as an RD/RD to be to a group of dietetic interns at an office where she used to work
• Gave a lunch & learn session on strength training (also with Heather) to one of their company clients — my part of the session was demonstrating (with audience participation, of course!) some exercises that people can do while at their desks (e.g. leg lifts, chair dips, leg raises, pushups, arm circles, moves with stretchy bands) — it was a lot of fun and the group got really into it, which was great! We ended with a mini 4 minute workout that everyone had a blast with, too.
• Worked at one of Wellness Corporate Solutions’ health screenings earlier this week as a screener, which meant I did a finger prick test on people, took a small sample of blood, used a machine to check their cholesterol, glucose, and triglyceride levels, and then also took measurements like height, weight, waist circumference, body fat %, blood pressure, etc. It was a long day but cool to do! I’m glad I’m not scared of blood. ;)

Anyway! With the rest of my days filled with blog work, grad school related stuff, and wedding planning, I’ve been continuing to enjoy exercise as big time stress relief during this busy time, especially in the form of walking or running dates with friends and going to Crossfit Dupont with Matt! I’ve had a few nights where I really wasn’t feeling it because I was tired, or stressed, or whatever, but the second we got there and started moving I felt a million times better. Isn’t it weird how exercising actually gives you MORE energy when you’re tired instead of vice versa? :)

The workouts at Crossfit Dupont (disclaimer FYI — we’re still getting free membership) been really fun lately, too — very high energy and lots of different moves. Last week, after working on some strength stuff, we did five rounds of the following workout:

• Kettlebell Power Swings, 15 seconds
• Rest 45 Seconds
• Balls Slams, 15 seconds
• Rest 45 Seconds
• Double Butt Kick Jumps, 15 seconds
• Rest 45 Seconds

I love this photo of me during one of the butt kick jumps — it looks like I’m levitating ;)

This week’s Crossfit workout involved practice with bench pressing:

Lol here’s Matt “spotting” me aka flexing his muscles for the camera. (Don’t worry, this was my first rep and it wasn’t my heaviest weight, so I was fine!)

Here he is really spotting me. :) I made it up to 60 pounds as my 5 rep max! Crossfit is fun because you’re always setting new records against yourself. My previous max was 40 pounds, but that was after a hard workout so I was already a little tired. :) Either way, I made some major progress!

After the bench presses, we moved into the final workout of the night, which was 1 power clean every 30 seconds, followed by ball slams that increased every round. So for the first round, we simply did 1 power clean and 1 ball slam, then waited until the 30 seconds was over. The next round, we did 1 power clean and 2 ball slams… and so forth. You were done when you couldn’t finish the amount of ball slams you needed to do in the allotted time. I was randomly the only girl there this night (apparently all my usual girl buddies went to the earlier class!), and I made it to 11 ball slams and beat all the boys! Nevermind the fact that I had way lighter weights on the bar for the cleans and my ball was lighter for the ball slams… pshhh. ;) I may not have super strength, but I have speed, dangit!

I was using the lightest bar (15 lb) with one 10 lb weight on each side, for 35 total. I realized later I could definitely have done more but wasn’t sure at first since I haven’t done a lot of cleans, so I decided to be conservative. I love these 10 lb weights on the sides because they look huge and hardcore, though! ;)

Sidenote — how cute is this tank top that Reebok sent me to test out?!

It’s the Women’s Play Dry Long Bra Top — I’m obsessed with the straps!

I also just wanted to give a shout out for my Crossfit gym about an upcoming fundraising event they’re hosting called Barbells for Boobs! (Love that name.) On Friday, October 26th, Crossfit Dupont will be teaming up with Mammograms in Action (MIA), a Southern California based non-profit, to host a unique athletic competition to raise funds in the fight against breast cancer. The competition, called ‘Amazing Grace’, will consist of 30 Clean and Jerks for time. The event is open to people of all levels of fitness and athletic ability, and CrossFit Dupont invites athletes, their families and friends and the surrounding community to join in this fundraiser. The registration and donation page for my gym can be found here. Last year, they raised over $1,500 in a collective effort from all of their athletes. This year the goal is $2,000. Please join our team or donate to the cause, if you’re interested! Thank you! Matt and I are thinking of joining the team and just need to make sure our schedules will work with the event.

Happy Friday, everyone!