Hey, have I mentioned that I’m super excited to be back at CrossFit? Well, I am! A lot!
Workout
Last night’s WOD was a fun one because it was quick and intense, but also because I used a 45-pound kettlebell for it— my first time ever using this weight in a workout!
WOD:
3 rounds for time of:
8 BB Front Lunges
16 BB Roll-outs
24 Russian KB swingsRx: (135, 95) (70, 53)
L2: (115, 75) (53, 45)
L1: (95, 65) (45, 35)
Beg: (75, 45) (35, 25)
I’m telling ya, these rest days are really paying off! I also used 75 pounds for the lunges, which might not seem like a lot of weight for 8 (total) front lunges, but my legs were screaming for mercy on the final round!
Action shot! (I think I’m leaning back too far; I need to work on that!)
* Post edited to add a similar photo with better form. Still not great, but better.
And here’s a workout for you inspired by yesterday’s WOD:
For this workout, you’ll complete 3 rounds of the following exercises for time: 8 alternating front lunges (be sure to pick a challenging weight), 16 Jackknife Sit-ups, and 24 Russian Kettlebell Swings. If you don’t know how to do Jackknife Sit-ups and/or Russian Kettlebell Swings, click on the links for a video, which demonstrates how to do them. Russian Kettlebell Swings are different than “traditional” kettlebell swings because you only swing the kettlebell to chest height.
Dinner
Last night’s dinner was Pad Thai from Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat, and it was so, so, so tasty! Really awesome recipe—it only took about 20 minutes to make (once the spaghetti squash and chicken were cooked), and it was super filling. I also loved the flavors!
As you know, I’m working with the PR people who are helping spread the word about Well Fed, so I asked them if I could share the Pad Thai recipe on CNC and they agreed, so ENJOY! It’s a good one!
Ingredients:
- 1 batch Sunshine Sauce (recipe follows)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons coconut aminos
- 2 teaspoons plus 1 teaspoon coconut oil
- 1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced (about 1/2 cup)
- 1 cup snap peas, thinly sliced lengthwise
- 2 cups roasted spaghetti squash
- 6-8 ounces grilled chicken, diced
Directions:
Crack the eggs into a small bowl, and use a fork to scrambled them with the coconut aminos. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, about 3 minutes. Add 2 teaspoons coconut oil to the skillet, and when it’s melted, pour in the eggs and let them spread like a pancake. Reduce the heat to medium and over with a lid, letting the eggs cook until they’re set and beginning to brown on the bottom, about 3-4 minutes. Flip and lightly brown on the other side. Remove the eggs from the pan and cut into strips with a sharp knife.
Using the same pan, increase heat to medium-high and add 1 teaspoon coconut oil to the pan. Saute the onion and snap peas, stirring with a wooden spoon, until they’re crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Add the spaghetti squash, chicken, and cooked egg to the pan and, stirring with a wooden spoon, cook until heated through, about 3 minutes.
Add the Sunshine Sauce to the pan and stir-fry until everything is well-blended and hot. Divide among two places, sprinkle with (optional) garnishes (chopped toasted cashews or almonds, sunflower seeds, sliced scallions, minced cilantro, a squeeze of lime juice), and dig in.
Serves 2
Sunshine Sauce
Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 clove garlic, minced (about 1 teaspoon)
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tablespoon coconut aminos
- 1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar
- 1/4 cup sunflower butter (no sugar added)
- dash of cayenne pepper (optional)
- 1/4 cup coconut milk
—
Speaking of Well Fed, be sure to enter my giveaway to win 1 of 3 copies up for grabs!
Boston 13.1 Marathon Giveaway
Thanks to everyone who entered to win an entry to the Boston 13.1 Marathon! Here are your winners:
Nikki
I was thinking about signing up for this race as training for my first marathon in October, the price was a little steep so this would be a great opportunity to run it! I also have a few pairs of sneakers to bring to donate.
Lisa
Pick me! Pick me!! This is the perfect race to kick off my half-marathon season! Scheduled to run 2 others in October and have been searching for a half-mary to run in Sept! This is perfect timing! Would love to run this one!
Congrats, Nikki and Lisa! Please email me at tina@carrotsncake.com to claim your race entries!
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Holy moly woman (yup I just said that), you look awesome! I have such a love/hate relationship with kettle bells. And that pad thai looks awesome.. I must admit I had the “real” version this weekend for the first time in years, and it tasted great but my stomach hated it.. boo. I just probably go do some lunges :p
Try the Paleo version! It was really good!
@Tina: Fine.. I guess I’ll pin that too!
Haha!
Congrats to the marathon winners!
I can’t fathom using a 45 lb kettlebell for anything … maybe last resort self-defense against someone, but certainly not Russian kettlebell swings!
The paleo pad thai looks delicious!
Hi! What is coconut aminos and where do you buy it? I’d love to try the recipe. It looks very good. Thank you!
jack knife sit-ups make me want to jack knife people in the face. Alas, I only imagine it.
Haha!
The pad thai looks amazing!! Definitely going to be giving it a shot soon — I have a spaghetti sqash that needs eating ASAP. I especially love the recipe for the Sunshine Sauce.
Ps. You look fab rocking that Kettlebell — intense but still super pretty and totally fit!!
Pad Thai looks awesome!! Awesome action shot Tina!
Thanks for that recipe Tina!
I’m goin to make it next week!
I just started crossfit (I think I’ve been to 8 classes)
I freaking love it! And we did kbs the other day, I used 36lbs and felt it for daaaays!
Ps- [creeper alert] your arms look so jacked!!!
Haha! Thanks!
Hey Tina,
Does the Well Fed book have calorie counts for each recipe too?
No, it doesn’t.
Boo!
Just a quick heads up, Paleo is not about counting calories. Instead, it’s about eating whole foods that satisfy and nourish your body.
Great workout and even better recipe!!
Um, 75lbs sounds like a TON of weight to me! Good for you!
I love spaghetti squash and am always looking for new ways to use it! I will have to give this a try!!!
Do you have a replacement recommendation of we don’t have access to a kettlebell? Lol I may put a big law book in a bag…
Haha! I think that would work!
That Paleo pad thai looks and sounds amazing! I have almost every Paleo cookbook, EXCEPT Well Fed…and I think it needs to be next on my list! I remember seeing on Twitter that you just got the Balanced Bites cookbook Practical Paleo…I love that one too
Cooking a new meal from one of my Paleo cookbooks each night really keeps me on track with Paleo because it gives me something to look forward to every night!
My husband loves pad thai so I’m excited to make this for him. Hopefully he’ll enjoy it as much as regular pad thai. I know I’ll enjoy it…I love spaghetti squash as a pasta replacement.
your arms look great!
Spaghetti squash pad thai is one of my very favorite things to make! The whole point of pad thai is about the sauce anyway, at least for me. Yours looks great!
That workout sounds great! I think I am going to have to get a kettle bell now so that I can try it out.
I have still never triend spaghetti squash. Can you compare it to something in taste and texture? I’ve always been curious about it but never taken the plunge.
It’s like no other squash I’ve tried. It’s stringy like spaghetti.
Congrats on the 45lbs! Im working on getting up there, teetering at 35lbs right now! That Pad Thai looks amazing! Do you have the Balanced Bites cookbook yet? What is your favorite? I have just been printing recipes offline and piling them into a recipe holder.
Yep, I ordered it last week from Amazon. I’m surprised it’s not here yet. I heard it’s awesome!
Coconut aminos! Excited to try that. I saw coconut butter in the store yesterday and was so tempted to by it! Thanks for the recipe.
@Amy Thoms, RD, CDE: Do not buy the coconut butter! Unless you are ok with sitting on your couch and shoving it straight in your face by the massive spoonful. I bought this once and could not eat enough of it. So dangerous. I won’t allow myself to buy it again. I think it took 4 days to consume the whole jar or something ridiculous like that.
I was just wondering the other day how to make Paleo Thai food. HA! I didn’t even think to use Spaghetti Squash. Silly me.
~Ang
i tried spaghetti squash for the first time last week. SO NOT squashy! I love it. And I love kb swings. Your arms are ripped! I love it.
Thanks for sharing the recipe! I can’t wait to try it!
Hi Tina
I’ve never commented on your blog before, but I feel I really have to now. I’m an RKC, and I am delighted to see you enthusiastic about kettlebells. They are an amazing and versatile tool, and I’m glad to see them get more mainstream exposure. That said, the picture you posted shows a number of serious issues with form (notably: leaning back, and arm use). The kettlebell swing is a powerful lower body movement. You should not be pulling on the bell with your arms, as you appear to be in this photo (why the bell is flopping around), but using momentum from a strong backwards hike and hip snap up. You should be going front to back, not up and down, in other words, hinging from your hip. The bell should be an extension of your arm, with straight wrists and no flopping. You should keep your glutes and abs as tight as possible (think of the way you might tense if someone were about to punch you in the stomach) to generate tension and to prevent yourself from leaning back and straining your lower back. At the top of the swing, your arms should look relaxed, shoulders back with lats engaged, and your back should be straight (as if you are standing up with perfect posture). Butt and Abs should be held in and tight. On the downswing, you can use your arms to aggressively hike back and generate momentum for the next swing. Check out the Queen of Kettlebells, Tracyrif, and her YouTube channel, where she has MANY amazing tutorials (for instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy0zCgTc5l8).
I’m really surprised your coaches did not correct this. A lot of Crossfit coaches are also RKCs and I would highly recommend finding one of them to get the basics.
I realize you are almost definitely going to moderate this comment, but I hope you at least read it and consider it friendly advice. I would hate to see anyone get hurt using a tool that I love, and if you fix up your form you will get much faster gains. At your fitness level, I would say the 24kg should be your go to with the relatively low reps that Crossfit prescribes.
Noticed that you mentioned Russian kettlebell swings being different than the “traditional” swing, which is not actually true. They are named “Russian” swing as such since kettlebells originated in Russia. Those guys have been swinging kettlebells to shoulder height for decades. Crossfitters are the ones that added the “American” swing, which is the one you’re probably most familiar with since you do Crossfit — this would be the swing until you’re overhead, your arms are near your ears movement. People in the kettlebell world most often employ the Russian swing — as sort of purists take.
Here’s an article from 2004 that talks a little bit about the Crossfit theory on why they employe “American” style swings: http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/25_04_kettlebell_swing.pdf
Congrats on moving up in weight for kettlebells. That’s awesome!
And thanks for sharing that recipe – it looks so good! I’m a big fan of mixing sunflower seed butter + lime + tamari together for a stir fry sauce, so I know I’d love this one. I bet the coconut milk makes it even more delicious!
The only sunflower butter I have bought was from Trader Joe’s. I noticed that is where you bought yours from too. That one does contain a little bit of sugar I believe, but is it still ok to use in that pad thai recipe? I noticed the recipe called for unsweetened sunflower butter. Thanks!
I used the TJs brand in this recipe!
I’m a vegetarian, so I’d probably sub chickpeas or tofu for the chicken, but this sounds SO good. That sunshine sauce looks dreamy! Thanks for sharing.
YUM! That recipe looks amazing…minus the chicken
Can you use Bragg’s liquid aminos in place of the coconut aminos in the paleo pad thai?
Recipie looks really good.
Thanks!
Sophia
I made a Paleo Pad Thai on my blog the other day that looks EXACTLY like yours- but so weird- the ingredients are pretty different! I used cashews, lime juice, soy sauce, and red pepper flakes for my sauce. Still used spaghetti squash and snap peas though! YUMM!!! Yours looks amazing too, so I will have to try it!
Yum! Can’t wait to try this recipe
I am experimenting with paleo recipes so I can do the diet for a few weeks! Thank you for sharing.
Hey! Pad Thai recipe looks great! Did you use canned coconut milk (my guess…) or an unsweetend coconut milk like so delicious (in the carton). Cant wait to try! Thanks
Canned coconut milk, but I think both would work.
I know I’ve asked before but which shorts are those you’re wearing in the kettlebell picture? I’ve looked on the Reebok website but I can’t find it..
They’re the Reebok CrossFit Board Shorts. I don’t think they’re on the Reebok website anymore, but I’ve seen them sold on other websites.
I like the butternut squash pad thai recipe! I think you could add dulse flakes to replace the fish sauce normally in thai food and maybe some sesame seeds for ‘crunch’ where the crushed peanuts would be. I’m trying it soon!!
I just made this very recipe tonight for dinner! I ordered Well Fed from Amazon a couple of days ago and it arrived today. When I saw that recipe, and remembered the spaghetti squash I picked up from the farmers market the other day, I thought…. win-win.
And yes it was… this recipe is amazing!! Even my hubby RAVED about it (who is not totally fond of super healthy food and has been very unsure about this whole paleo diet I’ve been telling him about)!! Just a tip to other readers: You can buy the coconut aminos from Wholefoods. Luckily, I happened to have it in the fridge because I randomly picked it up about a month ago when I first saw it. Also, you can use unsweetened almond butter in place of the sunflower butter. I did and it tasted perfect. 
This is amazing! We just had it for dinner and subbed shrimp for the chicken, definitely will be repeating this!
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