Photographed in Gulf Breeze, FL: CrossFit Gulf Breeze

If you follow me on social media, chances are that you have seen my growing involvement/fascination with CrossFit over the last five months.

I've always enjoyed physical activity. After ten years of training in Yoshukai karate and weightlifting for the past five years, giving CrossFit a shot was the next logical step in my ongoing search for novelty and fitness.

I joined CrossFit Gulf Breeze because of its reputation for the safest and most technically sound coaching in the area. I also knew a few people who trained there. Within two training sessions, I was addicted.

CrossFit is extreme by most standards, but that's why I'm there; I love the challenge. It's why people talk about it so much. Intense training self-selects participants who are naturally competitive and ambitious, which is one reason I think people label it as a cult. CrossFit doesn't instill that in people, it simply brings out and amplifies driven personalities.

Coach Jarrett Venn purchased CFGB from founding owner Andrew Tucker over the summer, just before I joined in June. In addition to intensifying the programming to a heavy emphasis on competition-style conditioning, JV has been gradually upgrading the equipment and marketing ever since. He didn't have a large library of content on hand for flyers and social media, so I offered to step in and lend a hand.

I chose to go with a gritty, Spartan style of imagery for the class that I shot. I came in on a Friday afternoon that was positively serendipitous with its very visual and intense workout, good crowd and presence of an adorable husky pup who I am fairly certain will become the resident Box Dog.

 

CrossFit Gulf Breeze

3106 Gulf Breeze Pkwy

Gulf Breeze, FL 32563

www.crossfitgulfbreeze.com

850-203-1798

Favorite Blogs: Food!

Among my friends and relations (and anyone who follows me on Instagram), it's no secret that I love food and that I love to cook.  I follow a low-carb, grain-free diet, (primal style), and rather than feel restricted by it, those slight limitations inspire me to stay creative with meats, vegetables and spices in the kitchen.  Food is meant to be enjoyed. I am also extremely interested in food culture and culinary history.  To be entirely honest; my obsession with health has created a bit of a monster--I always want to find out why people eat what they eat, especially in America, where choice reigns supreme and cuisines from around world are represented in all their splendor.

In my mission to stay open minded, inspired and creative, I subscribe to a few blogs which keep my palate and my mind working tandem.  Today's blogroll includes a list of a few of my favorite food and cooking-related blogs:

• Anthony Bourdain - Did you know that the cynical host of "No Reservations" has a tumblr account?  Well, he does.  He posts his thoughts on shooting the show, as well as his own ideas about world foods and food culture.  Personally, I'm a big fan of Tony Bourdain.  We share a love of meat in tube form, and I appreciate the fact that he differentiates between the image of a culture's advertised cuisine versus the reality of what people actually eat, while still acknowledging the significance of of both styles of food.
• The Foodie and the Family - In line with my own primal/paleo lifestyle, this blog is a great inspiration for gourmet cooking with the family in mind.  The paleo diet is based on a wheat-free diet that is generally low in starch and high in protein, and TF&tF is great for ideas that are not only extremely creative in their ingredient combinations, but appetizing enough to appeal to the whole family.
• The Food Lover's Kitchen - Another paleo recipe sharing hub.  Much like The Foodie and the Family, this site offers many extremely creative recipes, constant reminders of how truly delicious it is to eat healthily.  But the true hallmark of Food Lover's Kitchen is that it is an interactive web site, with new recent additions of user-made meal plans, recipe books and kitchen profiles.  If you don't need or want to spend a lot of time logging your kitchen into a web site and all you're looking for is a good recipe, don't run off, because Food Lover's Kitchen boasts one of the cleanest and most comprehensive databases available.
• Happy to Serve You - Life is too short to waste time on sub-par coffee, and although this web site is Australian, its sensibilities concerning coffee are on par with anything one might expect from Portland itself.  Happy to Serve You is hopelessly devoted to artisanal coffee and the people and equipment who bring it from the bean to cup.  The team behind HtSY doesn't update the page very often, but their site's uniqueness, the quality of the photography and reviews (covering shops, beans and equipment) have it firmly anchored in my bookmarked RSS feeds.  In case you haven't guessed it; I, love, coffee.
• Paleo Spirit - Like most of my favorite blogs, I enjoy this one for the author's personality as much as its content.  Lea is a great writer who includes her family in her blog as much as possible.  She is also a vocal Christian, which is hard to find in the paleo community.  She goes the extra mile to review some awesome restaurants, letting the rest of us know where the best places to find good, real foods are in major cities.  She also includes her kids in many of the posts, not only as taste-testers and photogenic kitchen subjects, but as contributors, such as a recipe her son posted, based on the lamb stew in Suzanne Collins' bestselling novel The Hunger Games.
• The Primal Kitchen: A Family Grokumentary - One more family-oriented, Christian primal eating site.  This one I followed to first show my mother that it was possible to maintain a grain-free diet and still make family meals, but I continued to follow it because I found the voice behind the blog engaging.  "Mrs. Grok" is just like you and me, but she uncompromisingly follows through in her conviction to feed her family healthily (and feed them extremely well) in a way that makes the rest of us very jealous.  And, somehow, she and her husband find time to raise a family and actively participate in CrossFit.