independence day

Day 2! I’ve made it! I tossed and turned last night eager for my next post. Now, onto business …

Happy 4^th of July! This Independence Day, I celebrated in a couple different ways.

First, I went to Elite CrossFit for a special 4^th of July WOD (Workout Of the Day). As usual, it was a humbling experience. I loved every second of it. Okay, I hated a few seconds of it, but I’m thrilled that I did it. Our WOD was as follows:

3 rounds AFAP (As Fast As Possible) of:

200 meter run

20 box jumps (24/20)

20 wall balls (20/15)

20 kettlebell swings (53/35)

20 overhead walking lunges (45/25)

20 burpees

*rest 3 min between each round

My knee has been giving me some trouble, so I did step-ups instead of the box jumps and scaled down to 10 lb overhead walking lunges during the last 2 sets. Great WOD! The holiday WODs are always so much fun – it’s great to see the CrossFit family grow and people continuously improve.

If you’d like to know more about CrossFit, stay tuned.

After CrossFit, I organized a 4^th of July poolside, sun soaked, friend-filled BBQ. We snacked on burgers, watermelon salad, baked sweet potato fries, and various refreshing beverages.

All around, it was a delicious day!

Below are the recipes for my watermelon salad and sweet potato fries. Both healthy and both dELICIous. I’m perfecting my burger and veggie dip recipes, so be on the lookout for those.

watermelon salad

serves ~8

Ingredients:

1 small/medium-sized watermelon

4 cups fresh arugula

1 cup reduced fat crumbled feta

¼ cup good balsamic vinegar

sea salt and cracked pepper to taste

a few notes:

1. make this recipe paleo by leaving out the cheese!

Directions:

Chop the watermelon into about 1” sized pieces. Toss with the arugula and feta. Mix the vinegar, salt, and pepper together in a separate bowl. Pour the dressing over top and enjoy!

Time: ~10 min

baked sweet potato fries

serves 6

Ingredients:

2 large sweet potatoes

extra virgin olive oil

sea salt and cracked pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Cover two baking sheets with aluminum foil and set aside. Thinly slice the potatoes (I leave the skin on, for the most part) then and drizzle/toss in olive oil.

Evenly distribute the potato slices on the baking sheets no more than 2 fries thick. Note that the fewer layers of potato slices, the crispier they’ll get. Finish with salt and pepper to taste.

Put in oven for approximately 90 minutes at 200 degrees. After those 90 minutes, increase the heat to 350 degrees and cook for an additional 20 minutes.

[This is the best solution I’ve found to making a nutritious sweet potato fry mimic the french fry-like crispiness we all love and know too well.]

Time: ~15 min prep  ~2 hours cook

Tomorrow, I post breakfast! Goodnight, all. Thank you for reading.

Note: This post was kept for nostalgia. The image above is the watermelon Jell-O shots featured here.