Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Food, Team Industrious and 14.5

A few awesome things I want to touch on right away. I have been doing really good at eating clean food at home. Since my 30 day challenge has been up I thought I'd go on this crazy binge of crap food, but I just haven't. I did make nachos but loaded it veggies and meat, used very light cheese and gluten free chips. And they were dang tasty. I will confess, I did eat two cookies and a ton of coconut macaroons one night at a birthday party (after my challenge was over of course) and the funny thing about that, I lost a pound and it stayed off. Not saying that is normal but for some reason I was doing enough to have it not affect me much, other than maybe feeling like crap during my next workout. The biggest thing for me is really not drinking my "calories" I'm not a calorie counter but what I mean really is that I'm not drinking crap. It's water, coffee and protein shakes. Thats really a big win and it's something I will continue to do. With the occasional drink *cough* I love Guinness *cough* and maybe some whiskey or wine.

Ok on to week 5 of CrossFit, huge week for me as far as personal records go and one intense crazy workout. I'll start with pull-ups,  pull-ups suck and make me feel weak. When I started I never thought I'd be able to do one, well...that changed in week 5. Class started and one of the workouts included pull-ups. In the past I've had to use one of those bands to help me get above the bar. So I went and got and band got it set up and saw people doing the swing pull up. Kipping is what is called. Honestly it just looked kind of fun and I thought I'd give it a shot with out the band. Jumped up grabbed the bar, started swinging...then bang. Done. I let go of the bar, thought about it for a second, jumped back up and did it again. Whoa, I did it, two in a row. So just wanting to make sure I was doing it right, I called Molly over and asked her to make sure I was doing it right. Jumped up and did it again. She just smiles walks away and says "you got it." She grabs the cowbell and rings it, yells "PR for Robbie" Stephen comes over and says "told you it'd be less than 6 weeks." Previously we had talked about it and Stephen bet me he'd get me doing pull-ups without a band in less than 6 weeks. I'm glad I didn't put any money on that, a nice gentleman's bet. He won, he was right. I'm curious to see where I can go with strict weight pull ups. No swinging but for now I'll take that as a major win. I also PR'd in Snatches, Thrusters, Front Squat, dead lift and back squat. Now, thats not saying a ton considering i'm only 5 weeks in but the amount of reps at more weight is what I'm enjoying.

When I started CrossFit it was the first week of the CrossFit open. I had no clue what that was but it's a big deal in the CrossFit world. I don't know who makes up the workouts but they get released on Thursday night and then whomever is competing has the weekend to complete whatever work out it is. Lots of people do the workout with out expecting to make regionals but they do it to finish and get a this big sense of accomplishment. So I've been hearing about this the whole time I've been at CrossFit and never checked it out or anything because honestly it really didn't apply to me. I'm new, can't do half the workouts they would do and I'd be embarrassed to make a fool out of myself. Well, as time has gone on I've gotten a little interested to see some of the people compete in the workouts that I've come to know. So I went on Friday after work to check it out. The workout had no time limit, which was a CrossFit first I guess. It also included two things I'm not huge fans of, over the bar burpees and thrusters. You start by doing 21 Thrusters, then 21 over the bar burpees. After each set you drop 3. So 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3. Finished. It was fun to see people push themselves but what honestly really got me, the people on the sides watching. They cheer, they encourage, they go nuts when you finish. The highest of fives, hugs, fist bumps and tears. It was insane. I'm starting to get it. I'm starting to see it. This isn't just an individual sport. It's a team sport. If someone succeeds, you succeed. No you didn't do the work for them or anything like that but you succeed in watching them accomplish something that quite honestly sucks. You cheer them on like you would a sports team. When the Seahawks won the super bowl it wasn't just them that won, heck I won too! That's MY team! Well the people that attend this box...thats MY team. And when they win, I win. I love it. I couldn't get enough, I wanted to be apart of it, I wanted to do the work out, but fear creeped in and told me I couldn't. So I left and went home.

Saturday, I went to my normal Saturday a.m class. Tired as usual but happy to be working out. I get started and the whole time during warmup I'm thinking about open workout. Thinking about actually doing it and seeing if I can. But again fear creeps in and I think "nah, there is no way" Honestly that was all my Saturday and Sunday, back and forth, back and forth, do it, don't do it, do it, don't do it. And I really hate when things eat at me. More on that in a second, back to the work out on Saturday. I got to workout with Mark another trainer. He schooled me in the bench press haha, but he was able to give me some really great advice on what I should do to maximize my lifts. Took that to heart and it really helped me get a few more reps in than the previous week.  The actual work out of the day was the rowing machine, row for calories 21-15-9 and hand stand pushups that I really like for some reason even though I'm not super great at them. I was pumped when I finished my row because I was neck in neck with Molly and Mark (not that its a race but it made me feel cool) then I got smoked on hand stand pushups. Saw that coming though haha. Finished the workout and went home. Like I said, all day I was like "do it, don't do it" to the open workout.

Sunday, the final day of the open. The box open starts at 1pm and I'm thinking to myself, should be a light day, not a lot of people there. Maybe I'll throw on my work out gear and head down to just check it out. I leave the house around 1:15 thinking I'd have plenty of time to sign up if I want, with plenty of time to talk myself into doing it. That turned out to not be the case. Everyone signed up Sunday and the only spot left was the last heat at 3:30, two spots open. I decided to wait to sign up because I was not 100% sure I wanted to do it yet. I texted a few people to tell them I was going to do it almost to talk myself into signing up. I talked to both Stephen and Molly and both told me to do it but I still was not really confident that I could. I watched some really awesome moments happen during this day and inside I wanted too do it but my head was telling me I couldn't.  I watched all the heats, until finally...3:20 roles around. I'm standing in the back and I think I talked myself out of it. I'm not going to say anything, I'm just going to continue to watch since there are so many people here and I'm just not feeling super confident that I can do it. Then I made eye contact with Molly who comes over and says "yeah, I was looking for you. One spot open, come on you're going to do it." Easily talked into it I went and got set up. Warmed up for like a minute, said a little prayer and tried not to let the nerves get the best of me. Stephen volunteers to judge me which is helpful. He gives me tons of pointers before starting. Molly puts the time on the clock....3.....2.....1...go.

I start doing the thrusters, 7 at a time. By the time I'm done with that I move quickly to the burpees. Half way threw I'm already questioning why in the world I did this lol. So tired already, I start repeating to myself, "just keep moving, just keep moving" I can hear people cheering and encouraging but I have no clue if thats for me or other people. Every once in a while I hear my name. But i've zoned out, completely focused on trying not to quit. Stephen between breaks keeps encouraging me to do a certain # at a time. If I go past it that number he says "yeah push it, why not you got this" if I don't get to that number he says "no worries, deep breath you got this you are doing good" it helps. I keep moving.
Then my worst fear with this came true, the box was packed with people and I was the last person to finish and all eyes were on me. I get to my set of 6 and everyone is now done. Honestly at this point I just said "screw it finish when you finish" then I heard cheers and encouragement after every thruster and I knew those were for me, I power through all 6 in a row, drop the bar, and move on to the burpees. Slowly moving but still going. Then 3 straight thrusters and 3 final burpees. On my final jump over the bar everyone is cheering. Open is finished. I didn't get to experience all the open workouts with everyone but I still felt apart of the team and apart of 14.5. I wasn't the fastest, have the prettiest lifts, or quickest burpees, but I accomplished it with the help from the people there who motivated me to do something I would have quit doing or not even tried.

This was a great weak of stuff. I'm sure paying for it though. Knees, shoulder and quads are soooooo sore. Week 5 had a ton of ups for me. I have a feeling week 6 is going to be rough because of how sore I am. But I'll continue to push it, eat clean and get stronger.



Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The road to a healthy life starts with a single burpee :)

Ok so maybe my title isn't true and might be a little bit misleading but I will say this, I don't love burpees but don't dislike them as much as some of the other workouts that go on at Crossfit. Horrible way to start off my new blog but I just had to throw that out there. I started this life change a little over a month ago and during this time I've been keeping a weekly write up of how I feel and whats been happening. It started off as a 30 day challenge, one that involves a complete transformation of who I was. I started going to Crossfit, eating clean and being obsessive about what I put into my body and did to my body. I did a complete life transformation in a one day. I went from my exercise being football once a week to intense workouts 4 days a week. From eating crap to eating clean.  I get that you might be asking yourself, what the heck eating clean is? In my 4 weeks below I hope that it will explain a little about my life change. I'm careful not to call this a diet anymore because thats not really what it is. It's a change of lifestyle, a change of who I was to who I want to become. So enjoy my first month in text, hopefully if you do this too you'll get to enjoy all this with me and experience the good the bad and the for sure ugly.

Week 1: What can I say about this that will help people understand what I'm going through. I'm SO F'ING SORE!!!! How am I this out of shape? How is it physically possible to be this sore? My first day at crossfit was interesting. I was one of two people in the onramp class, me and this (had to be in her 60's) woman. I was a little nervous going in even though I've been trying to get into a onramp class for a few months now! I was trying to go to this CrossFit gym who had a cheaper monthly fee, but a more expensive onramp. Well they suck at getting back to people so I finally got frustrated and called Crossfit Industrious. Literally within an hour of me calling Stephen (who I think is the owner) called me back. Sold, I'll pay a little more a month for better customer service. At least they seem to know how to run a business. Sorry, little rant there, I appreciate good customer service.

Back to day one...on ramp. I walk into the gym (aka box incase you were wondering, thats what its called) My first thought is this, "it stinks in here" Stephen runs out cheerfully saying "whats up guys, hey you must be Rob" then gives me a high five. I fill out some paperwork, get a quick tour (if you can call it a tour, two bathrooms a small sitting area with a desk and a workout area) We start by learning some fundamental movements and doing some warm ups. I felt silly using just a stick and a bar while all these other people are doing all this weight. I wanted to jump right in, I felt like I didn't need it, like I was above it. HA! I'm way too prideful and I had no idea what was coming. We did a 7 minute workout. SEVEN! I can do anything in 7 minutes I thought to myself. The work out, 7 wall balls, 7 burpees, as many rounds you can do in 7 minutes. NO PROBLEM, give me a challenge, make me work for this and let me join the regular class, I was a college athlete. Well jokes on this freckled guy. Molly (the other trainer, whom I also believe is a owner) says "ok guys 3 minutes in" THREE minutes!!!! Thats it a lousy 3 minutes....that felt like 20. I look over and this 60 year old woman is not keeping up with me but is still moving, I'm actually impressed. I wanted to fall over and quit and I might have if it wasn't for her AND the fact we were facing the class doing whatever is they were doing. Super embarrassing. They are being awesome while I was a fat kid but seeing the older woman motivated me to keep moving. It also helped that Molly keeps complementing me on my walls balls cause I'm getting low with my squats, hey I'll take that, I needed the encouragement. After its all said and done I grab my stuff, high five Molly and leave. (FYI I love the high 5, so I really like that they high 5 here) As I'm walking to my car my legs feel like jello and unstable. I get home and realize I hate stairs, eat and go to bed. HORRIBLE night of sleep, so sore every movement hurts as I try to turn and get comfortable. Is this really how it's going to be? I'm totally questioning my decision making process about this whole 30 day challenge and that was just day one.

I get Tuesday off which is obviously needed cause I'm walking like I have a stick up my butt. Wednesday roles around and I really really really didn't want to go. I want to get fit but I think I forgot how much work it actually is. Wednesday it's just me since the 60 year old woman would not be joining us. So I warm up with the rest of the group. Which by the way I felt super awkward for some reason. I don't really know why but skipping and butt kickers seems silly. Though I'm not the one who should be judging here, I'm a little chubby guy. We did this leg stretch thing to stretch out your inner thigh and I thought I might snap something. It hurt so bad but after I was done stretching it, it felt so good. So i'm a little excited thats it's just me in the onramp, it's like having a personal trainer for an hour. So we do some more fundamental workout stuff. (side note, I'm NEVER going to remember what the heck these movements are called) and get then get to the workout. A little easier this time around because it was more upper body work but everything seems to be squat based, what is that about? I'm questioning if I'm going to lose any weight - little did I know. Thursday was more of the same, just me again and I'm starting to realize the older lady isn't going to be attending anymore. More fundamental movements with a workout and Molly is making me feel like i'm doing a good job with learning them even though I don't remember what they are called. That is helping my confidence and I'm starting to think I can do this. Tough first week but I'm eating good, it hasn't been as hard as I thought. I'm drinking straight black coffee and lots of meats and veggies with more water than I can imagine. I'm getting creative at work for breakfast and i'm attempting berry smoothies as well. Those however are not as good. Need to work on them. Started the week at 188, I'm 179 :) Guess it's working haha.

Week 2: I had the weekend off and a week off from my work, that felt so good not to do anything. I was really needing that cause I thought my body was going to explode from soreness. This week is a lot of the same, new movements to learn while practicing some of the older ones. So I thought I'd be discussing mostly about my CrossFit journey and how I was doing with that. Not so much. I think I jinxed myself by saying "oh eating clean isn't so hard" yeah freaking right! This week has been hard, really hard. I bought a Keurig though to help with the coffee fix but it's nachos I miss. And cheese...oh how I miss cheese. Pizza and nachos, I love them and miss them. I struggled badly this week with food, I still ate clean but my mind was consumed with what I can and can not eat. It's was helpful having the week off so I could go to the store and buy food but did you know that sugar is in EVERYTHING. And I mean EVERYTHING. I can't eat sugar, wheat or dairy on this challenge. I don't have a problem not eating sugar but the fact that it's in everything I want to eat makes me want to punch a kitten. What is that?? I didn't think I had such a sweet tooth but I'm guessing I do. Food has over taken my mind and I'm hungry ALL the time.

CrossFit on Wednesday was cool because Molly and I discussed eating habits and the pyramid of getting healthy. So no new movements just learning the proper way to eat and whats good for the body. The workout was a 7 minute row, which was pretty nice considering all the other things we've done. So the triangle or pyramid is this, the top is being as fit as you can be, the second layer is lifting weights, the 3rd is metabolical conditioning and gymnastics, and the last "secret layer" as Molly put it is nutrition. You can't get fit without the last one. I liked it because it confirmed I was doing everything right. I wasn't going to get fit without doing the first layer, which is watching my nutrition. Doesn't help with the cravings but I really appreciated it anyhow. Thursday was my final day in On Ramp. A little bitter sweet but I found out I get a free week of classes as well. Score! I started looking at the schedule to figure out what days would work best and I think I'll keep Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.  One side note, I'm feeling stronger this week so I'm going to go to class tomorrow (Saturday), my first real one! I'm nervous but excited too because i'm feeling more confident in my ability to actually do it and not die haha. So I've added Saturday mornings to my workout routine. 4 DAYS a week, wonder if I can handle that. I started the week at 179 and say hello to 174. My weight fluctuates a lot though.

Week 3: I did it...I completed my first real week of CrossFit. I'm still really out of shape but i'm starting to feel stronger physically but mentally I'm a train wreck! I think about food all the time, I can't stop thinking about it. Sweets, nachos, pizza and a variety of other unhealthy foods. This week I was back to work so it was tougher on me with food. I'd go out to lunch with the team and I was literally THAT guy who ordered a freaking salad. Or that guy who ordered a burger, no bun, no sauces, no cheese. The lady seriously said, "so a no fun burger" hahaha, yep thats pretty much it. A no fun burger with bacon please :) yes I can eat bacon and I love that. Everything else is really difficult. I'm struggling to find my way with the food thing, it's stupid cravings that are pointless. Sugar is so addicting, I had no idea. Trader Joe's has been a lifesaver though and I'm really happy it's close to my house.

I've started looking up motivational things to keep me inspired to keep it up and to keep going. I've found a lot of good ones that have really helped set my mind right and keep me on track for a healthy lifestyle of living. The thing I'm starting to realize is that it's not just a 30 day challenge. It's about changing my life. I feel good after my workouts, even if they are hard I feel good that I did it. I like seeing the small results I'm seeing. One of the motivational things said something about even slow progress is still progress. Thats great for me to remember, even if it's slow progress, it's progress none the less and I should own that, be proud of that and keep going.

The people at my gym seem nice too. Stephen and Molly are awesome, but I've only kind of met a few other people. I mean I see all the same people for the most part, just part of being the new guy. Seems like everyone knows each other pretty well. Sucks being paired up with people though for workouts because they all seem to be able to lift more than I can so I feel bad slowing them down. I need to work harder so I can increase my performance quicker with out getting injured though. We also rowed a 5k this week. We had 25 minutes to complete it, I made it in 24:11. Sucked but was so awesome at the same time! This week, 174 to 171.2....been stuck on this # for 4 days straight. Not sure why, I want to break into the 160's :)

Week 4: I signed up to attend full time at CrossFit Industrious. I'm pretty excited about it. I finally hit 169, but that only lasted two days. 170.6 now. Stephen talked me into getting Progenex Recovery, and I sure wish I would have had this stuff during my first two weeks at CrossFit :) it's chocolate flavor which really helps me with cravings and my smoothies are now actually good!! I take it right after class and then I'll eat a nice dinner. Food is not as bad, I'm craving less and less but I have my moments for sure. Someone brought in Top Pot donuts to work and put them in the desk right behind me. That was a tough day for me watching everyone enjoy a delicious treat. It's hard to say no sometimes but in the end I always do and I'm showing much better self control than I have in a long time. I know it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it. This is what I keep telling myself.

I had one tough work out this week because my knees were hurting. Due to my knees hurting I was getting my feet to wide on my squats and I couldn't adjust it. Reminds me of when I used to run. Some days you just have a bad run and other days you have a good run. Well I had a bad work out, I was slow and not able to get the movement right. I need to remember to ice after workouts!

Results after this week 171.2 to 170.6. I think I'm stuck here for a while and I think i'm ok with that. I had a good conversation with Stephen about it. He told me to stop looking at the scale and just measure other things, body fat, and take pictures. Solid advice, I'm still getting on the scale every morning but I'm not stressing about it now. Just letting it come as I eat clean food and work out.  The progression is a long progress that I'm starting to enjoy. I love how I feel right now, I love the that I feel stronger. People have been complementing me on looking different, though it is hard for me to see I can feel it by the clothes I wear and just the way I feel.

So thats it, those are my first 4 weeks of writing. I do have before and after pictures but I don't know if I'm ready to show those off yet. Lets give it 3 months of this and see where I'm at then! In the mean time, I enjoyed this one.

No more I'll do it tomorrow
No more buts...
No more I can't
No more It's too hard
No more I'm too tired
No more waiting for it to get easier
No more putting it off
No more I dont have enough money
No more I'm not good enough
No more I would if I....
No more excuses!