Food

I am super weird about food. I will LOVE a food and want to eat it all of the time and then I turn a corner and I don't want to look at it. I'm going through that with some of my food plan. I don't want the food that's on it. I'm trying to get creative but it's kind of bumming me out.

It's not that I want crap either. I've had three pints of coconut milk ice cream just waiting for a sweets craving. They haven't been touched. I made cookies for my man and I only ate one. No dough. Just one cookie. I didn't really even want it but I had to do quality control. I cannot feed my man sub par baked goods. Right?! LOL!

I am forcing myself to eat protein, veggies, and fruit (grapes taste super good right now). Sometimes, I'm allowing myself to eat what I want because I really don't want much. It is very strange for me. After years of food being such a crazy and controlling force in my life, it has no hold on me. I could take it or leave it. That's how I know I've gone through a heck of a lot of healing.

I had one moment this weekend when I started to power through a bowl of popcorn. It was sitting there after friends went home. I stopped and thought, "What am I doing? Something is off. What is off?" Within about 5 minutes I knew exactly what was wrong and I was able to address it without food. I just had to stop and connect with my feelings rather than numbing them with food.

All this to say that I am not 100% Paleo. I am about 80% and I'm not really worried about it. I feel really good about where I am with my food choices. I continue to train, my body continues to change, and the scale continues to drop. This is probably something that I will need to address at some point but I don't really feel the need to at this point. I feel at peace and it feels good.

If you have spent years battling food demons, please know that healing is available. There is light at the end of the tunnel. There can be a change. I know because I am living proof!

Effortless

As you know, I have been row, row, rowing my boat for about three months now. There are days, like today, when I hop on the rower and start rowing and it feels effortless. Well, not totally effortless but enjoyable effort. My times are getting squarely around 2:18-2:20...and it's getting easier to stay there. It won't be long until I'm close to 2:00. The physical improvements are crazy. It almost feels effortless...although it is far from effortless. I guess, again, it's enjoyable effort. Shoot, even burpees can feel ok when I'm able to hop back up without a lot of pain. Someday, I'll be the fool in the gym who is smiling throughout the WOD. It'll still be hard but it will never be as hard as when I toted 100 extra pounds around..that is for sure!

Everyday, it gets a little more doable. Wherever you are right now, don't give up. You will see results if you don't give up. Never Give up!

Holy Cow

Fridays have been kicking my BUTT! I can't even describe today's workout but I will tell you a Holy Cow moment. First, I hit TWENTY pounds gone today. Praise the Lord and pass my protein shake. There was one task on the board that I blogged about here. We had to drag a 90 pound sled around the parking lot.

Last time that was an 'AHA' moment. I had two other women with me and we could barely get it around the lot. That is when I realized the load my body was laboring under everyday. That cemented the whole thing in my heart and mind. This change IS happening. I am NOT giving up.

This morning, there it was but the goal was to have 2 women drag it around the lot. Say what!? I grabbed one of the girls I did it with the first time and off we went. It wasn't effortless but it wasn't super hard and there were TWO OF US! Do you want to talk about joy?

Sure, I see little things every day that make me happy I Crossfit. Smaller clothes. Tighter arms. Ease of movement Ingrained health choices. However, the moments that make you want to grab and bear hug your Crossfit trainer are the ones where you do something with relative ease that once was almost impossible.

Yea, come on. Today is a very good Crossfit day.

You Can Fall in Love and Crossfit

I feel like Will Farrell in Elf, "I'm in love, I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!" After a couple of false starts, the man of my dreams is here, locked-in, and we are IN LOVE.

You may be asking, "Why is she sharing her love life with us?" Because people keep saying to me, "Make sure you don't quit Crossfit."

Why are falling in love and Crossfitting mutually exclusive? I Crossfit early in the morning when he's not around. I do it for me. Why would I quit just because I'm in love? Shoot, if anything, the thought of getting married and someday being naked in front of someone makes me want to Crossfit 10x as hard. After all that waiting, you do not want the great unveiling to be a let down moment.

I guess there's a precedent of people gettting happy in relationships and quitting healthy habits. I do struggle with eating well around him. I would rather be with him than go to the store, prepare my food or even have the conversation about why I eat the way I do. I tend to not eat enough because we're focusing on each other and not meal time and then my training is suffering a little from it. However, I am not quitting..it is just going to take some adjustment time.

Dating, love, engagement, marriage, parenthood, whatever and Crossfit are not mutually exclusive. The work you do at Crossfit improves every area of life. It gives you the strength to push through can't to can.

One more note - don't plant that idea in other people's minds...instead of saying, "Are you going to keep Crossfitting?" ask, "Are you going to get your guy into Crossfit with you?" My answer is, "Yes, if we get married, this man will Crossfit."

Constantly Sore

I feel my muscles all of the time. I am constantly sore. I have not slowly lowered myself to the toilet seat in 3 months. Yes, that was a visual you wanted. You know what I'm talking about - you literally fall down because you have lost your ability to stabilize yourself mid squat.



I feel new muscles in my body. I can FEEL the muscles in my arms. When the chub finally flees, they will be fierce. My legs, too. However, my body fat test said I had not gained a single pound of muscle. I have maintained my muscle. For reals?! The body fat guy said that was totally normal for people who need to lose a large amount of weight. In fact, he said most people lose muscle along with fat until they get close to their goal weight when they begin increasing muscle, again. I'm not sure I understand why that would happen. I need a really good resource to explain this all to me. I may go post a question to one of the boards.



The problem is that there are so many armchair quarterbacks out there. They are definitely fit people but their knowledge of anatomy and physiology is based on what people have told them and not scientific fact. I want to know WHAT is going on in my body specifically and WHAT I need to do to increase muscle while I lose the fat. You cannot tell me that fat people have to wait until they are thin people to grow muscle. Give me a stinkin' break.



Ok, as you can tell, I am not excited about this news. One day at a time.

How Did You Get Fat?

Do you ever wonder why fat people get fat? Yes, they eat too much. Do you ever wonder why they eat so much or so poorly? Some fat people don't eat outrageous amounts - just enough extra without movement. The reasons why people get fat are probably as varied as the people.

I know a lot of my 'triggers'. I know some of the things that drive me to carb rich, sugar and salt laden fare. Some are emotional and some are physiological. However, as I proceed on this new path, I am discovering even more triggers. I am posting this because most of us don't pursue fitness in a vacumn. We have lives. We experience triggers. If we don't recognize them, we will revert to auto-pilot and before long, we will be absent from Crossfit for months with a cookie hanging out of our mouths.

Lately, I have discovered how stress is a trigger for me. My plate quickly becomes too full, but I keep piling it high. My job is insane right now. I log-on at 7:30 a.m. and log-off at 10:30 p.m. I rarely stop. In addition, I want my friendships to continue to grow. That requires time, too. For me, the time available to socialize is usually around a meal (and you know how hard it is to eat well when you eat out). I am in a relationship with a man that I adore. He isn't overly demanding of my time but he is a high feeler - requiring a lot of emotional energy from me. I exercise four-six times a week - Crossfit and walking. Somewhere in there, I need to find time to run my life. Laundry. Groceries. Meal preparation. Cleaning. Bill payment.

I don't even have a family. I do not know how working moms do it. I really don't. What keeps getting ditched for me is eating. I either don't eat and get so hungry that I shove food in to get my blood sugar back up to a normal level OR I just eat what is around when meal time hits because I haven't had time to go to the store and I don't have time to hit it at meal time. That's been me these past five days. I just don't have time to get it all together so I have been eating whatever is around. It hasn't been good food. I need to get back on track but it feels overwhelming.

Amazingly, I am still losing. I suspect it is because I'm not eating enough. I am hungry a lot of the time. I just know I'm not being healthy and I don't like it. This is how I got fat. I just didn't make eating well a priority. It goes deeper though. I didn't establish boundaries. I am scared to say to work, "I can't work all these hours. You need to hire someone to help me." I am scared to say to my friends, "I can't hang out because I need to go home and get my meals set up."

I need to set these boundaries but they are scary boundaries to set. Until I do, my eating will suffer. Even as I write this, I think it's ridiculous to let my food push my boundary setting...but I suspect that is just the symptom that is identifying the bigger problem.

Well, people-pleasing and poor boundaries, those are my triggers right now that will keep me fat unless I deal with them.

Sludge

Today, I felt like my body was sludge. The workout was SO hard. Yesterday, great. Today, pain. The human body is so interesting.

I haven't been on the scale in a few days. It was stuck for a few days and I got frustrated and started eating crazy stuff so I have stayed off of it. You would think a stuck scale would make me eat right. Unfortunately, years of dieting and disordered thinking have created insanely illogical patterns in my mind. If I lose weight, I eat better. If I gain weight, I want to give up and eat what I want. Why should I eat well if I am going to stay the same or gain weight? I should just eat whatever I want. Surely you can see the breakdown of logic here, right?

I am going to stay off the scale until August 11th when I get my bodyfat tested, again. Oh how I hope I see some good numbers. I honestly don't see the changes. Other people say they do. I feel them in the gym. I have lost three pants sizes and one cup size on my bra. I can feel the muscle in my arms, but my arms just look pudgy - not a lot of fat has budged there. I am melting in really weird places. My wrists. My rib cage. My butt. This is the first time I have lost like this. Here's to hoping it hits the belly, arms, hips, and legs soon!

I feel like I have been doing this for years but it hasn't even been three months yet. I have to be patient. One day at a time.

Tiny Little Victories

I had a tiny little victory at Crossfit this morning. It was with military sit ups. When I joined in late May, I could barely do 10 abmat sit ups. Within a month, I was pretty solid on those (they aren't all that challenging - I was just super out of shape).

One day about six weeks in, the WOD called for military sit ups. I thought, "No problem, I am rocking the abmat sit ups." Holy cow was I wrong. I could barely get 2 or 3 out. I was laid back on the mat praying for the workout to be done or for my body to be teleported back home.

This morning's workout called for military sit ups. I thought, "Oh no. Here we go." When I landed on that floor and stuck my feet under those dumbbells, I was expecting to hit about five before I died. Much to my own surprise, I kept going...10, 15, 16. I stopped for a few seconds and then I finished my 25. It was challenging but nothing like it was 6 weeks ago. I did four rounds of 25 - 100 total. I definitely started to lose it in the middle of the third round but each time I was able to get out at least 10 before stopping. YES!!!!

It is the tiny little victories that keep me going back. I haven't been working on military situps but whatever else I have been working has prepared me for them. What a GREAT feeling.

I get knocked down...

...but I get up, again. I was back on the deadlifts this morning. After 2 weeks of letting the ole' back heal, I was back at it....at a super light weight but still back at it.

One day at a time people. One day at a time.

I liked this morning's workout. I actually wish we had 15 minutes to do AMRAP. I almost did 3 rounds - I hate it when I almost get the next set out and miss it.

I wonder if our morning class would do better if we couldn't see the clock with AMRAPs. It seems that people stop when they realize they can't complete their set. I think it's valuable for the competitive sorts (and those who are more fit) to see the clock but we seem to give up too soon. I think a fun test would be to do the same workout two weeks in a row. One week let people see the clock and another week don't let people see it. I'd be interested to see how the results vary.

I try to remind myself that the only person I am cheating by stopping is me. I should work at maximum capacity the whole time for me. The hardest part for me is my breathing. My lungs feel like they will explode after I do the cardio components and then I need to rest for a second to get my air back. It is getting better but I look forward to the day I can get a few rounds in before I hit that sucking wind stage.

Another day, another WOD. Off I go to trounce the rest of the day.

Almost a perfect 10

There is a Circle K next to Crossfit and every blue moon I have to stop there to grab a bottle of water before my workout. I try to avoid it all costs because the clerk is a little too enamored with me. It isn't the flattering, sweet checker propreitor type of thing - it is the lusty "if my body is found in a ditch look for this guy" kind of thing. He makes comments and sighs in ways women just prefer not to hear. The very first time I stopped in, he said, "I see you over there working out." If you want to send chills up a girl's spine - lead with that kind of comment.

I haven't been to this store in about 8 weeks. However, I had to stop this morning. I prayed he wasn't there. He was. Sitting outside, blaring the music in his car, smoking a cigarette. I get out and he says, "Hey. You look like you have lost weight." I said, "Yea, thanks." I keep walking. No eye contact. He follows me in. With my back turned to him, he said, "Girlllll, ummm, you can really tell. You are almost a perfect 10 now." I said, "Wow, that's a huge statement. Have a good day." He follows me out, adjusts his pants in the way creepy guys do and stands at the door and watches me drive away. IGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!

While I would like to take a compliment well, that just made me want to beg Jason and Chris to move the gym as far from the Circle K as humanly possible. Icckk....