My Experience (So Far) with RP Strength - Part 1

Whoa! It's been a hot minute since I've posted anything on my blog, so let me see if I can quickly get everyone up to speed since I've last written a post (which was in March 2017).

But First, Let’s Talk Motos

I finished my first year as an expert AFM racer by getting third in the 250 Superstock championship. Not bad by any means, but when it comes to my personal goals I set myself for that year, I fell short. I wanted to become a better racer, but each round I kept losing the desire and determination that I had my first two years of racing. I crashed twice this past season, which didn’t help with my confidence.

On top of that, I had other things preoccupying my mind and time (fitness), so it was hard to have my cake and eat it, too. Even though this racing season wasn’t what I totally envisioned, I’m so proud of everything I’ve accomplished. I’ve decided to take a break from racing to reset my mind, time, and money (it’s really expensive to race). I hope to get back into it once I can have those things better aligned.

Disordered Eating

A few weeks after writing my last blog post, I was introduced to Renaissance Periodization (aka, RP Strength) by a thread post in the Barbella Box Facebook group page. Folks were raving about this diet as if it was the next best thing since sliced bread.

Now, when it comes to diets, I’ve done my fair share. And what I’m about to write is a bit difficult; however, I feel it’s important to share with those reading this. I used to have an eating disorder in my teens and briefly in my 20's—I struggled with anorexia and bulimia. The way I viewed my body was always disordered, and I used to think that no matter what I did to improve it, it was never good enough. Thankfully, I kicked this disordered eating out of my life, but the way I looked at myself didn’t change: I never felt I was society’s definition of thin, therefore, my body was unsatisfactory.

So, when it came to keeping my weight down, I’ve done veganism (that lasted for two weeks), clean eating, paleo, cabbage soup diet, and Whole 30. I eventually stuck with clean eating since I had more food options to choose from. This eventually turned into a high fat, low carb diet (since, you know, carbs are bad for you) and it was fine for roughly two years. I did feel a little deprived at times, but I was keeping my weight down. At one point, I hit 139 lbs., but I couldn’t maintain that, so I hovered around 142-144 lbs. for a while.

When it came to my workouts these past three years, I started off being a hardcore runner. I got into CrossFit to help me with my strength so that I could be a faster runner. Well, that turned into me picking up CrossFit, scaling back on running, and now I’m a full-time CrossFitter that also competes in local comps because they’re fun.

When I fully transitioned into CrossFit, I started gaining muscle mass, and I really liked it. I started following CrossFit Games athletes on social media, and admired both their strength and physique. I always wondered how I could get to half the level they were at? I mean, I loved being strong, but I didn’t know how to properly get stronger. Initially, I tried picking up my workout regimen to twice a day some days/doing to more days a week. But I immediately noticed that my progress was slow, and my body did not look as strong as I felt. At this point in my life—and for the first time ever in my life—I wasn’t too concerned about my appearance, but I wanted something to be done about my performance.

Getting into RP

After reading all the comments about RP Strength, I looked deeper into it. RP has two main diet templates: one for losing weight and one to put on weight to gain muscle. Of course, I researched the weight loss templates because that’s what I always felt I needed to do—lose fat. The program is designed to be done in a 12-week period, which at face value, doesn’t seem like a long time. Okay—so far, so good.

However, I didn’t immediately get on board with RP because the process looked a bit aggressive. It doesn’t require you to count calories, but you do need to eat according to the macro count they give you. Not only that, your macros are determined by your gender, current weight, time of day you work out, and your workout’s intensity. There’s a “How-to” guide and FAQ that’s given out once you purchase the templates, which is great. But what really got me questioning if I could do this was whether I could keep track of macros and weigh it out every single day. At the time, I felt that too much time was going to be spent on that, so I shelved the idea…

Then proceeded to take it off the shelf thanks to Barbella Box. This monthly subscription box for gals who like to CrossFit and lift offered a discount on the RP diet templates and a free copy of the Renaissance Woman e-book, which explains the “why” behind RP’s methodology. I figured, what the hell, and took advantage of that month’s box and RP.

Trimming Off the Ends

I started RP at the highest weight I’ve been at in a while: 151 lbs. After reading all the materials that came with the fat-loss template, joining as many RP FaceBook groups, and scouring the internet for reviews/tips, I was ready to do a trial run of it. I did a trial because I wanted to see if I could even do it before I fully committed. I kept it super simple: I just ate what they recommended on the templates.

This is the older 2.0 templates. If you want to see RP's 3.0 templates, head over to their website. 

Once I got the ball rolling, I realized that it was a bit less food than I was used to—mainly it was less fat and more carbs. Not only that, but I had to drink a protein/carb mixture during my workouts, which took a bit to get used to since I like working out on an empty stomach. Weekends were very VERY hard, I tried to adhere as closely as I could to the templates, and sometimes I did and sometimes I did not. I did have a few cheat meals (mainly wine) and hoped that I could still get results. But I was prepared if things slowed-down or didn’t change since it’s recommended that you stay strict for the whole 12 weeks.

Around week six, I started seeing results. Overall, I felt better: I slept better, I was getting stronger, and for the first time in my life, I could see abs trying to poke their way through. I started tightening up the diet by meal prepping for weekends, especially when I went to the track. Doing RP Strength when you race motorcycles is insanely hard, and even though I wasn’t 100%, I feel like I did a pretty damn good job with what I had to work with.

I only did RP for 10.5 weeks since I planned to do a 230-mile bicycle ride the following week. But honestly, that’s really all I needed. I was floored by my results.

On the left: 151 lbs. On the right: 146 lbs. 

I didn’t even lose that much weight. I ended at 146 lbs., but the body composition changes were insane! I did a BodySpec scan two weeks after this photo was taken and I clocked in at 14.9% body fat. At that moment, it was clear to me that RP Strength works and it was something that I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. Meal prepping and weighing my food became second nature, and being on maintenance on RP is not bad at all since you can have a few “cheat” meals here and there and just hop right back onto the program afterward.

I Know I Said Quickly…  

So, I unsuccessfully didn’t quickly get you up to speed, but I hope you liked reading what I focused on this past year. Oh, and by the way, I’m not finished yet because I still need to talk about doing RP’s Muscle Gain template! Stay tuned for part two…

Getting rid of "I Can't"

I say "I can't" a lot.

I usually say those two words for things that I'm completely capable of. For example, of course, "I can't" perform open heart surgery because I never had the training and practice needed to do so. When I say "I can't," it's usually when I'm trying to accomplish something that I'm totally capable of— things that I've put a lot of time and effort in like motorcycle riding/racing, or performing weight lifting/Crossfit movements.

Last night, I had a breakthrough with a complicated weight lifting movement.

Earlier this year, I decided to sign up for the Crossfit Opens, which is the first round of qualifiers for the Crossfit Games. What's so great about the Opens is that anyone can do it since they provide a prescribed (Rx) workout and a scaled version (usually comprised of lighter weight and/or simpler movements of the prescribed). The Opens lasts for five weeks, with one workout announced each week. I signed up to do the scaled versions of the exercises since there are still many movements I'm not good at (yet).

We are now on week three, or what the Crossfit Games calls 17.3. So far, the workouts have been what I like to call "spicy": They really get you nice and sweaty, challenge you, and are super fun, Seventeen point three wasn't any different from the first two; however, it did worry me since it included one of the most complicated weight lifting movements: snatches.

The workout seems confusing on paper, but it was actually simple: You goal is to finish the appropriate rounds within a certain timeframe. If you do finish, four minutes is added to each capped time. If you do not finish, the workout ends and you record that time and number of reps.

As you can see from the image above, the snatch weight goes up by 10-20 lbs. I was a bit nervous since I never snatched anything (successfully) over 65 lbs. Every time I've worked on my snatches, I wanted to keep the weight manageable because I wanted to perfect the actual movement. I couldn't help but think that by not going up in weight this whole time I potentially just shoot myself in the foot for this workout.

I headed to my gym, Crossfit Myo, a bit early yesterday because I wanted to see the 4:30 p.m. class do 17.3. After I had dressed, I went on a short run with fellow gym-mate Melina. She was in the same boat as I was; however, she never snatched 95 lbs. and wasn't sure if she was capable to go heavier. We encouraged and rooted for each another, and I told her that today was the day that we would heavier nail it... even though I still doubted myself.

Once the 4:30 class started wrapping up, I began stretching and warming up my snatch movement. I wasn't feeling all that confident—I think it was the nerves that dominated my feelings. Despite having the jitters, my warmup went okay, and I was ready to rock and roll.

The first half of the workout flew by—I was able to pound out the jumping chin over bars and the light weights on the snatches. But then, I soon had to tackle 75 lbs., and then the dreaded 95 lbs. after that. I started slowing down a bit when I did the three rounds at 75, but to my surprise, my snatch form got better with the heavier weight.

I completed my rounds, and I had a ton of time to attempt to get 95 lbs. overhead. My first attempt, I barely got it up and it felt heavy. I immediately shook my head and said:

"I can't."

From the corner of my eye I see Taylor, one of Myo's coaches, walking over. "Yes you can," he said looking me straight in the eyes. He quickly coached me through the snatch movement, reminding me that I had to pull the bar straight up and get underneath it quickly.

I tried again, and the second time looked better than the first, but I didn't get it up...I didn't get it up the third attempt either. But then, something magical happened during the fourth attempt. With chest slightly over the bar and abs tight, I pulled, I got the bar overhead, got my body underneath, and was able to push myself back up.

I was ecstatic! My heart rate kicked up a bit higher due to the adrenaline and excitement, so I needed to calm myself immediately so I could concentrate and do another one, which I successfully did. I ran back the bar to do my chin over bars and then back to the barbell. I was able to complete one more snatch at 95 lbs. before the time ran out.

                                                                     I hit 95 lbs!

I was on cloud nine and still can't believe I was able to get that weight overhead, especially since I put it in my mind that I couldn't. And looking at it now, there was no reason why I thought, "I can't." I've practiced the snatch so many times and spent a lot of time on it.

This experience has taught me to get rid of "I can't" from my vocabulary. Instead, I plan on replacing it with, "I will do it." Even if my attempts aren't successful every time, I know that eventually, I can nail it.

AFM 2016 - Last Round at Buttonwillow Raceway

This is Going to be a Short One...

The weeks between round 6 and this last round (7) was crazy busy with things that weren't moto-related (how unfortunate!). I wanted to do more dirt riding and practice my starts, but I didn't get around to that. I needed to get some riding in because I knew ahead of time that I would miss Saturday due to a family's wedding that day.

But, at times, things don't go according to plan and I decided that I still wanted to come down and race Sunday. I knew it would be rough since my competitors would have Friday, Saturday practice and Saturday races all under their belts.

Yup! This was going to be interesting, I thought.

Sunday - Novice 250 Production and Lightweight Twins

I arrived at the track Saturday evening around 10:30 pm. Luckily, Greg was ready to go to bed and the Dunlop tent stopped playing music a little after 11 pm. I got a great night's sleep and woke up excited and ready to rock and roll that Sunday.

I was the first group out for the short practice session, so the track was cold, which means I can't really push it. This didn't really matter because as soon as I picked up a bit of speed, I felt like I was going to run of the track. Even though I've been to this track and ran this configuration a handful of times, I still was having a tough time nailing down my lines and hitting my apexes.

I came off track a bit uneasy, but I wasn't feeling defeated like I at times do when I don't perform well during practice. I figured that I could figure it out while I raced, and I just had to get my hand and focus on keeping up with the rest of the guys.

As we gridded for my 250 Prod race, I was (as I always do) feeling very nervous but was super focused. I needed to not botch my start and make sure I can stay with everyone. Unfortunately, I did sort of botch it by staying on the front brake a tad too long when Phil dropped the green flag. Everyone shot ahead but I eventually caught up going into turn 2.

I saw my competitor Pao right ahead and he was sandwiched between two expert racers. For a few laps I kept all three within sight and passed one eventually. The other expert got by Pao and he was my target for the remainder of the race. I desperately wanted to pass him, but since I wasn't familiar with track, I wasn't sure where to or how.

However, on our last lap I was closing the gap and I knew I would pass him eventually. I was getting a bit nervous as we were going into The Sweeper and I was still behind. But once we got through The Esses and headed into Sunset (the last turn before the straight) I knew I could get him on the exit. Sure enough, as we exited I pulled away and crossed the start/finish right ahead.


Though I didn't get podium, it was still a fun race and I felt very proud of myself that I was able to go into this without having much practice or seat time at all. During this race, I also set a personal best and dropped five seconds from my previous PB at Buttonwillow.

As for the Novice Lightweight Twins race, well... that didn't go as well as my 250 Prod one. The good news is that I FINALLY was able to get a good launch off the line! However, when it came to going into turn one I back off since there was a whole lot of chaos around me. Again, I'm not familiar with the track so I didn't know where I needed to be in order to get around all the bikes.

I eventually stuck with previous competitor, Jak and he was my carrot for this race. Things looked good initially: I was able to, again, get a good drive coming out of sunset and almost passed him going into turn one. I, of course, backed off though going in and he stayed ahead. This definitely put some fire under his ass because he started to pull away more, all while I was making more and more mistakes. I was also having a really hard time refocusing, which was weird because I was able to be so focused in my race earlier. Anyway, this race ended up being terrible as I was left all alone to race myself. I really don't like that kind of racing...

Anywho, the good news is that I was able to race and I, overall, had such a wonderful season. There were a lot of highs and lows, and to be honest, I didn't perform the way I wanted to. But, this showed me that I am capable of getting better--I'm just a person where it takes time and a shit ton of practice to make progress. I've come to terms with that, and decided to look at it the way I look at my personal health and fitness. Did I lose weight and get fit in one month? Six months? No. That took a ton of time that I 100% dedicated myself to. I've decided I'm going to 100% dedicate myself to becoming an even better rider than I was this past season.

To help me get to where I want to be in terms of riding, I've decided to go ahead and move up to expert. This will pressure me to perform at my optimal level--I'm never going to get better if I don't ride with the fastest of the fast on these little bikes.

Now, as for the bike I want to race next year, I am leaning towards my old faithful Santiago (the Ninja 250). Even though a lot of my competitors will be moving up to 300s, I haven't ridden the 250 to its full potential, and feel that I need to before I move up. It's going to be a fun 2017 and I'm looking forward to racing with everyone again.

As always, I want to thank my sponsors who've supported me all season: Suomy Helmets, Spy Optics, RACER gloves, Sidi Boots, and Moto Guild. I also want to thank the AFM staff and turn workers for doing an amazing job--can't wait to see some of you at the banquet! Also, these always rad pictures would not exist without Max and Koi over at Oxymoron Photography. Finally, I want to thank all those who helped me so far on my racing journey: Ken Hill, Z2 track days, and my main squeeze, Greg. 

See you in 2017!