My family started The G.A.P.S. Diet, a modified approach. The kids have been doing great, and it's much easier to be mindful of my food when the whole family is invested.
I've zeroed on my portion control and being mindful of what a full portion of something should be.
I'm trying to slow down when I eat. Never easy.
I've stared another blog with a close friend of mine as an accountability measure with working out.
In three months, I'll return to the Bod Pod and get my body fat retested.
--The belief that I can be prepared for anything at any time no matter if it's physical, mental, or emotional.
--A sport where I can compete.
Just yesterday, I competed in my second Crossfit Total Competition. This involves the following foundational lifts: The Deadlift; The Strict Press; and the Back Squat. You can read about the rules here, but essentially you get three chances at each lift. Your "TOTAL" is the sum of all three of your lifts.
If you asked anyone who knew me growing up if they could see me actually lifting weights, they may keel over in an exhaustion of laughter. Nonetheless, at age 40, I love it. However, at 6'2" tall and weighing in at 252 lbs., a part of my brain states that I should be stronger than I am. Yet, the rational side says, "Chill dude. It's not about where you are. It's about where you want to go." With that being said, here's my point.
A year ago I posted the following numbers for my Crossfit Total:
Back Squat: 300 lbs.
Strict Press: 145 lbs.
Deadlift: 375 lbs.
Crossfit Total = 820
Yesterday, a year later.....
Back Squat: 330 lbs.
Strict Press: 175 lbs.
Deadlift: 420 lbs.
Crossfit Total = 925
Here is my scorecard....
So I'm 40 years old. I weigh 252 lbs. I've maintained my weight over the past year. I'm stronger than I've ever been, and my endurance is pretty good, I think, for a guy my size. But after yesterday's competition, I was able to articulate what I've been thinking about for some time:
My New Goals
--I want to decrease my body fat percentage.
--I want to keep getting stronger.
--I want to increase my endurance.
There are many byproducts that will become from these, and the above three goals are what I've come to believe will aide me in being the healthiest me possible.
How am I going to do all of that? Great question! Stay tuned for a few upcoming posts as I will share the steps I am taking.
It's been 57 days. Why the lack of posts? I think my Primary Food got the best of me. With two kids in school and a wife getting back into the work world, life at home is a bit different. Time becomes challenging, and by the time a first and second grader get to bed, I'm not too far behind.
However, I am vowing to make a change, as I enjoy the creative outlet keeping the blog provides.
In the past 57 days, I've accomplished a couple of things I'm proud of:
1. I'm officially certified as a Health and Nutrition Coach after a year studying at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I'm currently working with a few passionate clients helping them increase their energy, make smarter food choices, and attain optimal healthy habits that are sustainable. I've also had a couple of speaking engagements at a local university, and I'm looking forward to starting my first women's group with some local educators.
2. I'm officially a Crossfit Level 1 Certified Coach/Trainer. Many of you know, Crossfit has become my sport of choice. It has changed my life and my outlook on fitness and health. While many folks think Crossfit is for crazy, young people doing crazy exercises, the reality is this could not be further from the truth. Crossfit can be for everyone and anyone. I'm currently coaching a few classes per week at CrossfitCarmel where I love helping others achieve their athletic goals.
You can check out my Health Coaching page by clicking on the image below.
I'd also love it if you'd head over to my Facebook page and give my page a like.
With all that being said, I am reminded that this blog started as a creative outlet to keep myself accountable to leading a healthier lifestyle. That was almost two years ago before I knew what health coaching and Crossfit were. The blog was a way to keep me accountable to me. As a Health Coach, I am always talking to clients about accountability. So it's time to practice what I preach....
I'm going to steal, lift, pilfer if you will the idea my lovely wife has for her gem of a blog. Only I'm going to do it through the eyes of being healthy. Starting tomorrow, I will post a picture each day for the next 30 days complete with a brief caption. The rule is, it has to relate to living a healthy lifestyle. Why 30 days? Because it takes that long to establish a habit, and I hope to learn more about me though this exercise as well as keeping the blog breathing.
So I invite you to stop by daily for a peak. My hope is that it keeps me accountable to tightening up areas of my own health journey that never ends and provides others with insight, new ideas, or inspiration to do things differently.
Back in August it seemed like it was a good idea to put a challenge in front of me. Something to aim for. Some carrot to dangle to keep me motivated to maintain a sound diet and consistent workout regiment. Being a part of Crossfit Carmel means being immersed in a community of like-minded folks. So when a few fellow workout buddies signed up for the 2011 Indiana Tough Mudder, the carrot dangled. Now that the experience is behind me, several thoughts continue to swim through my mind.
Training for the Tough Mudder was simple. Crossfit. It's the perfect combination of endurance, weight training, body weight, cardio, and mental training. While I've listened to my fellow gym buddies discuss how Crossfit Endurance is all that is needed to train for longer distances, and while two fellow workout pals solely used Crossfit as their means for their first Ironman, I continued to have my doubts pinning my thoughts to my 6'2", 240 lbs. frame. "What if....." consumed me. But I trusted what I was told and my gut.
Those who know me clearly know I'm a bit consumed with planning at times. While I want to know directions, departure time, what to wear, where to park, etc., this event was different. I did not take much time to think about the course length, the crazy amount of obstacles, or the weather conditions until the week of the event. For that, I'm glad, because I may have quit before I started.
Plan and simple: The Tough Mudder is NO JOKE. But in the back of my mind I must admit I thought, "They make those videos to intimidate you. There is no way it's all that." Ha! There is not enough room in cyberspace to adequately share what was all entailed. Here's the course map. You decide.
Thirty of us all set out on this 40 degree day with a windchill in the 30's and 20's at time. The plan was that we were all to stay together in packs. No one gets left behind. Everyone finishes. When I said this was no joke, I was not kidding. This realization was never more evident than when the mood shift of all my teammates smacked me in the face harder than the wind that was whipping at my cheeks. Our group went from laughing and tossing a football while running, to a more solemn, introspective quietness. I could hear others thinking, "What have we really gotten ourselves into?" But no one dared say it. I kept thinking, "Now come on. We are not climbing Everest." I was thinking, "Maybe some of my friends were right. Maybe I am stupid. Why WOULD I want to do such a thing?" And as quickly as I asked myself, I answered. "Because it's there. Because I can learn from this. Because I want to see how far I can push myself. Because I can."
And so roughly 4 miles in and with only 25% of the course behind us, two of our most fit athletes at the gym could not warm their bodies and had to call it a day. As I became a bit scared knowing these folks are physcial specimans of fitness, I wondered, doubted, and went through some serious mental ping pong. I was scared I'd get stuck under muddy water. I was worried I might twist an ankle and not be able to make it to the end. I was fearful of hypothermia. I hate, hate, hate being cold and there was no alternative on this day. Cold was normal. At one point I found myself alone for about 30 minutes wondering how I got separated from my team, but I had to keep my body moving through the course as I felt my quads, hip flexors, and calf muscles tightening up. It was at this point where I was trying to fight off fear. I struck up a conversation with a 48 year old, grey haired guy like me for a bit. He wished me good luck and we separated as I traversed down a steep hill with mud so caked on my shoes you could not really make out that I was even wearing shoes. At the bottom of the hill I saw a pack of red shirts just like mine and had caught up to a group of my teammates. I discovered I was with a middle pack. There were a handful ahead of them and a few behind, so our plan was still intact. No one finishes alone.
I stuck with this group for about two more hours. The mood of the group fluctuated between collegial encouragement, to silent fortitude. We all knew what we were thinking, but we made the most of it. And somehow with about 3 miles left, my teammate Derek and I found ourselves alone the rest of the way. Our commitment: Attempt every obstacle. Keep moving. Be positive. Derek was great. He did not mind that I could no longer run for long periods of time. My right hip flexor was shot and my right calf was cramping. We crawled face down in mud. We got through waste deep water, and we waited 20 minutes to get across a 3 inch wood plank over a pool of freezing waste deep water. (We both made it half way until we dove in.) And when we saw the finish line, we got a bit giddy. Derek, who got separated from his wife on the course three hours earlier kicked it into another gear. We finised together.
Here's what I took from this experience:
Part of this was indeed stupid.
Being pushed to my limits only makes me stronger.
Teamwork and togetherness can make anything happen.
I now know what being uncomfortable really feels like.
I'm in the best shape of my life: I never questioned my physical condition.
Crossfit and proper eating prepared me for this.
I'm more mentally strong than I allowed myself to think.
I'm just as happy for and proud of my teammates as I am of myself for doing this. I now believe in the Tough Mudder Pledge
Chapter 2: Keeping Track of it All: A Great Tool For You
And so it continues.....
Chapter 1 introduced us to our main, uh....only character, a 39-year old, husband, father of two, School Counselor, Health and Nutrition Coach who, like anyone, has had his ups and downs with food and fitness. In the past year, he's found himself in a great place with his fitness and food and plans to never return to The Food Place That Shall Not Be Named. We learned about goals, planning, and how to find new purpose when one has had a string of success.
One of those goals involves tracking food. Now, before you give me this......
......consider this: We live in a society full instantaneous gratification i.e. cell phones, texting, laptops, iPads, fax machines, Twitter, Facebook, cloud services, and much more.
It goes without saying that most people will find at least seventeen excuses why tracking food will not work for them. Instead of wasting precious cyberspace listing a few, let's see what great tool our protagonist is using.
MyFitnessPal is more than a calorie counter. But it is a smart tool that encompasses that very "give it to me now/instant gratification" mindset into something that takes time and patience: eating well and weight loss. This tool literally has over a million food entries in it's library making it easy to find what you are logging. It provides graphical data on how much protein, how many carbs, and how many calories you have left to consume each day and allows you to set your own goals regarding what percentage of each need to consume. Even more, it has a whole social networking component for support. Remember that team our protagonist joined in Chapter One? The one that is trying to achieve new fitness goals? With this tracking tool, now he can see what and how his friends are eating. The benefits to that? You can get ideas of what to eat, when others eat certain foods, and you can offer support and encouragement by posting messages back and forth. And one more piece of that "instand gratification-give-it-to-me-now" mindset. You can enter your information from any computer and then continue from any phone with the free application. It's available for any iPhone, Android, or Blackberry device.
DISCLAIMER: This literary piece of opinion does not receive any benefits from MyFitness Pal, rather we find it to just be a very simple, easy-to-use, intuitive, and motivating tool to aid in doing something that historically takes time, persistance, and patience.
Speaking of patience....in Chapter 3 our main character will face a few evil villains. Stay tuned to see if he can ward of these calorie sucking, carb loading enemies!
Once upon a time, there was an overweight 30 year-old who lost 68 pounds using Weight Watchers. This teacher and soon-to-be-father-of-two ran his first half marathon and over the next few years ran three of them. Soon enough, the pounds found him again, all but 9 of them.
Two years, four globo-gyms, another trip to Weight Watchers, and a personal trainer later, this thirty-something said to his good friend, "I wish there was a place with a boot camp atmosphere, that was as into working out and keeping me healthy in a sustainable way." Enter: Crossfit.
Now, at age 39, this "young" man is in the physical shape of his life. He's a school counselor by day, a father, husband, and Health and Nutrition Coach as well. At the same time, this foodie/fitness junkie recently pontificated the following: "Now that I've changed my body, my strength, endurance, and relationship with food, what do I want to do? What is next? And so he came to a crossroads. Enter: The Crossfit Carmel Training Challenge.
He became part of an eight person team that trains and tracks food together with three goals in mind:
So what does this entail for this almost 40-year-old father of two/husband to a wife who has gone back to work/School Counselor/Health and Nutrition Coach? It means if he wants to lose the weight to be more competitive in the gym....if he wants to do more than five pull ups without having to drop off the bar, if he wants to run longer distances, if he wants to finally shed the last-to-go-belly fat, then he must, I repeat, he must without fail and with full focus do the following:
1. Write out his goals on paper.
2. Make those goals visible and read them every day.
3. Plan his meals in advance in a reasonable time-efficient manner.
4. Decrease weekend beer consumption.
5. Work on shoulder and hamstring mobility every day. EVERY. DAY.
6. Track food intake
7. Track workout information.
8. Be mindful of food intake while still indulging from time to time.
