Coach Kirstin

For the better part of the last year I have worked 9.5 hour (or more) day, taking every other Thursday partly or half off. This worked well, it also allowed me to travel without taking much time off.  As the weeks of my pregnancy have progressed, the longer days are getting more challenging.  Today I started to work shorter days, allowing me to leave work and get a workout in without rushing through my evening.    Sleep is becoming more challenging, through a combination of comfort and pondering world problems, making getting in bed earlier even more important.  I'm also starting to hit the phase where I just have less energy.  This is pretty hard for me to come to grips with.  I have always been one to sacrifice my sleep, so I can get every thing done.  I am coming to the reality, that certain things just aren't that important.  They can get done later.  Many people have told me that I do too much.  I would have agreed but just co...

This past weekend I decided to do some cleanup of my closets as we make room for baby. One of the things that was taking a lot of space in my closet was my 4 gi's. Anyone that knows me knows, I didn't really wear my gi's that much to begin with but it was still a weird thing. They have probably been sitting in my closet untouched for close to three years, yet it was still really hard to pack them up.  I actually carried all my gear (head gear, shin guards, MMA gloves) for at least a year after my last fight. Even though I knew I wasn't coming back because of the concussion. While I knew the decision and had made it on my own, it still took a while to come to reality with it. Maybe I still just wanted to be a part of that life. Even though I couldn't. Well I could but had made the decision for my long term health, I couldn't.  It was the same all over again with the Gi's. Maybe BJJ was my last thread of that life that I was holding onto.  It didn't h...

I'm writing this post about 2 weeks before I plan on publishing it.  Why?  Because I am 10 weeks pregnant and we have not announced it yet.  Things are going well (knock on wood) but I am 36 so I am just being cautious before we tell the world.  But I am struggling with accepting my body as it is.  There are a couple of factors playing into this.  First, I had a scar treatment on the old (21 years) scar on my knee.  It was supposed to break up the scar tissue and make it better.  It didn't.  It opened up the old scar in multiple places.  After one round of antibiotics, a lot of cleaning, butterfly bandaids and not bending it, it is almost closed.  11 weeks later.  Second reason, I am beyond exhausted.  I read that you will be more tired the first trimester of your pregnancy but wow.  I am struggling just to make it through the work day.  Going to the gym almost seems impossible.  On a regular, I am taking a ...

Two years ago I was about to have my first pro mma fight. I had agreed to the fight even though she came in 15 lbs heavier than the agreed to weight because I really just wanted to fight. My life changed forever that day. I finally had the fight I had wanted, I was actually tested. I had to decide how bad I wanted to win. I did win but at a high cost. I had a really bad concussion. I had trouble remembering the names of things, people's names or what I was doing. I struggled to drive because I had no depth or speed perception. I constantly had a bad headache.  Being in the sunlight was miserable and caused a headache instantly.  I had a hard time keeping a train of thought, maybe it was because of the headaches.  And my personality began to change.  I initially avoided the obvious and didn't go to the dr. I did after a few weeks but if you know anything about concussions, I had passed a very critical window. Initially,  I worked with a sports concussion specia...

So dinner tonight came about because one night I had chicken and I really didn't have a very good plan.  I decided to scan my cabinets and see what I had.  Diced tomatoes and tomato paste it was.  Here is what I ended up using 3 cans diced tomatoes (I'm a nerd and had organic) 1 can tomato sauce (because I'm paranoid its going to burn while I'm gone) 1 small can tomato paste 4 cloves garlic ~ 1 tbsp basil ~1  tbsp oregano few dash's of salt, I prefer to add this after I tossed it all in the crock pot the night before and went to bed.  Not pretty but this was my masterpiece. Plugged it in and went to work.  Of course the can of tomato sauce was completely unnecessary but I'm paranoid.  Came home and all I had to do was cook a veggie.  I was really craving Kale with Bacon and with my boyfriend out of town, I can cook it with even more apple cider vinegar than usual.  Its my favorite side to cook because its easy and quick. ...

So I might the only person on the planet that doesn't like mango. And I was trying to broaden the types of fish we eat and I decided we needed to eat mahi mahi, we every damn recipe has mango in it...horay!  So I finally found something else and it was spicy.  I have tried it a few times and I had to tone it down a bit so I could handle it.  Chris loved it, I not so much.  Here is the colors of the spices that tells you how this is about to go down. The spices above are: 1 tsp sea salt 2 tsp garlic powder 2 tsp cumin 2 tsp paprika 2 tsp cayenne pepper The original recipe only used 3 pieces of mahi mahi but I have used up to 6 and had plenty of mixture.   You will need some olive oil to cook the fish in, I tried grape seed oil and it just got soaked up too fast by the fish.  Start off with the fish  dried off and the mixture all prepped. Then add some of the dry rub to each side Go ahead and do this for all of your fillets...

So I have a recent affair to confess to...my crockpot. It has made my life exponentially simpler. I come home and he has a hot meal prepared and waiting, what's not to love? Except every recipe I google is cook this and that and then put it in the crock pot....I'm using the crock pot so I can just dump it in an forget it, why would I want to cook anything before I put it in the crock pot. I get it, you can make some pretty amazing stuff. But lets think about my life...its planned out in 15 minute increments still and I'm not even fighting anymore, the prep work involved in that is not my style. Sooo I am working on a new section of my blog of no prep crock pot recipes. I am sure to have a few fails. So this was my first experiment. We were short on time and had a lot of chicken thighs in the freezer. So into the bottom of the crock pot went 6 chicken thighs On top of that I added: 2, 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes 6 oz can tomato paste 1/2 onion coarsely chopped ...

I love fighting.  It's a drug.  Everyone told me that but I couldn't fathom that until I experienced my first fight.  It was a loss but I was still hooked.   There is no other high like stepping in that cage.  That rush.    But in April I started getting headaches.  I didn't get hit hard.  I didn't get knocked out.  They just started.  I talked to my coaches and made a conscious decision to go through with my fight anyhow.  This wasn't just any fight.  This was my first pro fight.  This was 2 years of only fighting 4 times and countless fights that had fallen through.  Fallen through as I walked the steps of the ring with my gear on after waiting for two days.  I wasn't backing out.  I was taking this fight because I wanted to fight and I love fighting.  And I was tired of missing fights.   I kept it to only a handful of people, not even all my coaches knew.  I didn't take ...

Four score and...actually it was only 7 weeks ago I had my last fight. Seems like an eternity because so much has transpired. In that 7 weeks I have been healing an injury I received before the training cycle started but it got worse after the fight. I had to cut my training down to almost nothing while my body healed after the fight. Good or bad I made the conscious decision to train and fight through it. There is a brief period after a fight where I am on cloud 9 but shortly after there is a bit of blues. There is so much leading up to a fight. Everything I do is revolving around that and when it's over, there is a huge hole in my life. For the first time in a while, I don't have a fight dictating what's next, I have to decide what's next. That's part of what makes it easy to go right into another cycle, it fills that missing void. I have always tried to attack my weaknesses if there wasn't a fight coming up. But due to my injuries, I couldn't fill that...

Earlier this week I was at my dr's and we were just catching up as part of our normal appointment. Not only is he my dr but also a dear friend. He has seen me through several ups and downs and a lot of personal transformation. I was telling him I quit bitting my nails. We joked about the significance of that since I am so neurotic. He joked that "you are the sweetest person but you are really neurotic". But he also talked about that just being a part of any high level athlete. He sees a lot of high level athlete's and they are all a little stressed out and neurotic. They are all a little neurotic and twitchy. It's what allows them to perform at the level they do. That they have to channel that into their sport. He mentioned how he as giving a talk and showed a picture of me and everyone questioned how I could I get punched in the face. He explained it as it being the very essence of me. This isn't a hobby. Or a casual activity. My whole life revolves around it...