This is just a quick post because the Mayans said the world is supposed to end today and so I don't want to put much into it if no one is going to read it. (Who am I kidding, no one reads it anymore anyway.) I went to the do the workout today just in case the world doesn't end. The main part  was 4 minutes of burpee box jumps, then 2 minutes of the bear complex (Clean,Front squat, thruster, back squat, thruster) as many of those as you could in the two minutes. Then we had to do 2 more minutes of burpees. Although this was a short workout, I now can't reach above my head or squat down on the ground at the moment. That's going to be kind of inconvenient because rumor has it that Santa might be bringing us a TV he's going to need to be able to reach above his head to mount on the wall.
Anyway, I am going to be very ticked if the world ends and the evening classes got to get out of all of those burpees.  Even if we all die in some horrible painful death, when we all get to heaven, I'm going to be holding a grudge for my evening class friends and the grudge will be so bad that I'll probably end up going to hell, assuming I wasn't sent there in the first place. So I'm kind of hoping that the world doesn't end today.
The other reason that I don't want it to end right now is because the last song that I just heard was that Diamonds song by Rhianna and it's stuck in my head and I'd rather not have it stuck in my head for eternity......Shines bright like a diamond....Shines bright like a diamond....Shines bright............

So I'm continuing to get stronger and able to do more things but there's one thing that I still loathe and probably always will.  That's running.  I still hate it. I'm used to coming in last still but on days where there's running involved, I'm usually finishing around when the next class is finishing. I have decided though, that it takes me that long because I'm more efficient. Kind of like one of my heroes, "Cliff Young".
If you've never heard of Cliff Young, I'll give you some background. First off, I think running a marathon sounds like an absolutely horrible idea.  An "Ultra" marathon is anything from a double marathon to just running for weeks.  Well in Australia, they used to have one that was 875 K. (I one time in my life ran a 10 k and thought I was going to die.) 875 K is basically 543 FREAKIN MILES!  So when I say an "Ultra" marathon, this was an ULTRA marathon, that took the runners a week to run.  These were the top endurance athletes in the world that would try these and most of them couldn't finish.  So anyway, in 1983 they had the inaugural Westfield Australian 875 K Ultra-marathon. It would basically be like running from Salt Lake city to Denver Colorado. The competitors run for 18 hours a day and only rest for about 6 hours.  There was a $10,000 prize so the best Ultra Marathoners in the world showed up for this race. Amongst them was a 61 year old potato farmer, who was in rain boots and coveralls, named Cliff Young.  The other runners realized that he was actually part of the race and obviously didn't think anything about it.
Most people thought he was crazy and tried to talk him out of it because they said he would die. He said that it wasn't a big deal because when he was a kid he used to herd sheep and run around the mountain for two or three days at a time with little sleep. So obviously, at the first of the race, all of the younger runners left him in there dust and he started with a slow steady shuffle.  Because of this, he was not even close by the time they all stopped 18 hours later for their 6 hours of sleep.  The only thing was, he didn't know about that the standard protocol was to sleep for 6 hours so he slept for about 2 hours and then just kept going.  When he said that he used to chase sheep around for 2 or 3 days, HE LITERALLY CHASED THEM AROUND FOR 2 OR 3 DAYS STRAIGHT!
So you have probably figured out where this is headed. This really is a tortoise and hare scenario.  These elite young athletes in the state of the art running gear were so far ahead by that first night but little by little, he got closer as they were sleeping until he finally passed up the others and kept going. He shuffled along for five days, fifteen hours, and four minutes.  By the last day he had basically become a celebrity. Not only did he pass up the rest of the field and win the race but he broke the record pace by ALMOST 2 DAYS! Here's a clip about the dude.

The cool thing is that 5 other runners finally finished the race and he decided to split the winnings and gave $2000 to each of the other finishers and didn't keep anything for himself.
Later when he was 76 years old, he tried to run raise money for orphans by running the entire circumference of Australia but had to drop out after he ran 6,520 K of the 16,000-K run because his only crew member (who was following along in a car) became sick so they had to quit.
Anyway, back to one of the many reasons that he's my hero, sports scientist have studied the "Young Shuffle" and found out that it's one of the most efficient ways to run an endurance race.  Several of the winners of that race in follow up years, won the same race by using the "Young Shuffle".
So I've decided that I'm really the most efficient runner in our class with my shuffling around the track.  The only problem is that the WODs are too short.  If they were to go for 5 days straight, I'd be the best one in class for sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_%28athlete%29

Quick update. So I had finally started to resolve myself to the fact that I was becoming a regular Bro and getting used to the weight room workouts.  Then last week, I got a message from Lindsay that said that my Crossfit membership was actually paid until the end of the year.  So I'm not exactly what is happening there cause I'm pretty sure I haven't been paying extra. I've got it narrowed down to a few choices:
1-The lady in the cardio room got fed up with me taking her stationary bike so she paid my membership?
2- Some people in Crossfit were not liking the fact that they were coming in last place on the daily workouts so they paid Lindsay to have me in there so that I could take my place again on the bottom of the board.
3- Some of my Bros were afraid that their girlfriends were starting to fall in love with me.

I'm not sure what but I'm glad that I have another month to try to continue to hit my goals. It's too bad that I probably gained 10 lbs yesterday at Thanksgiving. So, I now have kind of a count down till January to continue to try to get healthy. Too bad it's also during the holidays but maybe that will motivate me to stay strong on the eating plan.

There are a couple of things that I learned in the Bro weight room. First is, the pull up bars are not made for kipping. Although I was never very good at that anyway, I keep feeling the bars rocking back and forth so I just did regular types of pull-ups.  The other thing I learned while doing pull ups in front of the mirror is that my belly was falling out of my shirt and probably grossing everyone out with my stretch marks and everything.  So I apologize for not having known that.  I know it grossed me out.  So now that I'm back in class, I make sure to try to tuck in my shirt if we are doing anything on the bars. I also notice that even though I was only away for a couple of weeks, I am paying for it because I'm sore all over again.  But, it is good to be back even though I question why I'm back the whole time I'm dying through the WOD.  (Today's was 60 freaking minutes!!!!).  But it really is good to be back. My callouses are coming back nicely and it was good to be able to write my name as the last place guy again. I hope my Bros can survive without me till January.  I'm going to try to do all I can to get a decent "after" picture for the before/after page.  5 weeks........

Ok, so it's been about a week since I have started to hang out with the Bros in the regular weight room. Some things are the same as the Crossfit area. They do supersets of exercises in the Bro room too but just a little differently.  For instance, in Crossfit you might do something like sets of thrusters while interspersing it with running a lap or rowing and then the next exercise and then run again.  In the weight room, you do something like a set of bench press (I've noticed that and curls are the favorite exercises) and then you intersperse it with flexing in front of the mirror. Then you do your next set and then flex some more.  Another good superset in the Bro room is to bench press and then check text my Bromies and then do some curls and then check your FB.  So really it's not all that much different.
I'm still in that in between awkward stage where I'm no longer a Crossfitter but I'm not quite a Bro yet. I'm in the Faux Braux part of my transition.  But, I'm going to go buy some white sunglasses that I can wear on the back of my head and maybe a Tapout tshirt so that will help a little.  I still don't have the proper all of the proper Brotocol down yet.  Like, I notice that a lot of the Brofessionals, take pictures of themselves in the restroom mirror so that they can text it to their girlfriends*. (*other Bros).  I'm still under the old school idea that it's kind of creepy to have a camera in a bathroom.
There are a couple of downsides into my transition into a Brochacho. Just like any type of exercise, there are some bumps in the road with my new found I thought it would be great to get back into Saved By the Bell but instead they are now playing Home Improvement?!!!  So don't tell me that I don't know about suffering and pain. I live it every morning having to watch Tim the Toolman Taylor. 
I must be insecure because I've adjusted my schedule by 10 minutes so that I get there after Cfit has started.  I realize I shouldn't feel this way but in a way and I need to swallow my pride, but I feel like I've let down my friends by not finishing what I had set out to do.  So for now, I kind of set my time so I don't have to keep explaining to them why I'm no longer in class. I'm guessing that nobody really cares but it's still a little uncomfortable being caught in the weight room instead of with my old homies.
One thing that I do find is interesting is that several people in the weight room, that I don't even know, come up and ask why I'm not doing Crossfit anymore.  These are seriously people that I don't know that I've never really seen before.  So apparently, the regular crowd is aware of the Crossfit crowd even if I wasn't aware of them. I kind of get the impression that they want me to tell them give them some type of horror story about how it's bad or causes injury or something.  They are almost disappointed when it's done a lot of good for me and that I'm making it a goal to afford it again. Then they go back to checking themselves in the mirror again. They don't really talk a whole lot to me yet but give me another week and a gallon of Axe body spray and I'll start to fit right in.  My goal is that soon, they'll be calling me Brobi Wan Kenobi. 
(On a more serious note, I am starting to stiffen back up I'm starting to get more inflammation in my back.  I don't think it's because I've changed exercise routine as much as it's the weather affecting my arthritis or because I've added more foods back into my diet. But I will have to monitor that because I really don't want to be headed back down that road again.)

Progress

Welcome back to the worst blog in the world! Remember when it was my goal to update this regularly so that I could keep tabs on my progress?  Those sure were some great intentions that I had. 

I wanted to make this blog to show that it would not be easy but that getting into shape could be accomplished.  I figured I would have a couple setbacks (I could have done without the almost losing a leg part. I have come to another bump in the road. My beautiful 8 year old, non-verbal, autistic son has hit a couple of milestones of his own. We are spending more on his learning tools and health care. (Also, most people also don’t have 8 year olds in diapers). Well, he has gotten bigger than the toddler diapers and so we are moving into specialty diapers and that will cost us twice as much. We have looked at our budget and the easiest way to cover that is to put Crossfit on hold for a while.  I just look at it as another slight set back but I hope with the skills and habits that I’ve learned; I’ll be able to keep up on the progress that I’ve made.

Although I’m not where I thought I would be after this much time, I have definitely made progress.  When I started this in the spring it was very difficult for me to walk from the parking lot to the back of the gym because of the pain.  Over the months I have been able to transfer the pain of walking in, to the pain of working out.  I still have a long way to go but I have hit some important milestones. Here is some of the progress that I have made:

April                                                                November
Weight/ 278                                                    Weight / 235 (Need another 20 at least)
Waist 42                                                          Waist 38 (Yeah, I'm still big)
No walking or jogging during WODs             Still hate running but I can jog for the warm ups
26 lb Kettle bells                                             53 lbs Kettle Bells
Hang clean 75 lbs                                            Hang Clean 135 lbs
Push Press 95 lbs                                             Push Press 155 lbs
Bench Press     275 lbs                                     Bench Press 295 lbs
135 lb raised dead lifts                                   225 lb raised dead lifts
-What’s a raised dead lift you ask? Something Lindsay made up for me. I still can’t lift if from the ground so I have to put it on 8 inch boxes to start. I am pretty sure that you are supposed to be able to dead lift a lot more than bench press but I guess I will always be weak in some areas.

Burpees down to a 20 inch box                      Burpees down to an 8 inch box
-Still some room for improvement on the burpees although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do them all the way to the ground.

Jumping Pull Ups one at a time                      I can now do 10 pull ups in a row
Toes to bar (No way)                                      Toes to bar (pretty ugly but I can do them)
40 lb sand bag carries                                      80 lb sand bag carries.
So although I don’t think I would be winning any contest very soon, I have seen some great improvement.  My weight loss has slowed a lot but it’s still going down. My road to being semi fit, has taken a lot longer than I had hoped.  Those infomercials about 30 day abs or P90X are a bunch of crap.  Those results were from people who were already in shape or something because I don’t think you can be completely transformed in 3 months.  It took me a long time to get that out of shape, it will take a lot longer to get back into shape.
I think the biggest change between then/now; when I started Crossfit, I knew two people in the class. My friend Darce is the one that talked me into trying it and my friend Maurizio is the one that I made take the class with me. Since that time, I have met so many great, awesome people that have been a great support to me and who have become great friends. (They probably don't think the same about me, but I still feel very lucky to have met them.)
I don’t know what I am going to do with this blog yet.  It’s already pretty awful but I will probably keep it and just track my efforts to continue to eat good and get regular exercise. Maybe I can just use it to complain about people cause I’m a crotchety old man?  It’s not all bad news though. I’ll finally be able to catch back up on the Saved By the Bell reruns that are on every morning.  You never know what kind of crazy hijinks those zany kids are going get themselves into.  

278 lbs

235 lbs

I really do think that I'm a fairly easy going person (don't ask my wife) and that I can get along with most people. One of the great things about Crossfit is the friendships that I have made with a lot of different people. Even with those friendships and my easy going personality, there are 8 people that go to Crossfit that I just can't stand. Some are guys some are girls. I know I shouldn't feel like that. I'm not going to name any names because they may not know that I dislike them, and some of them I don't even know their names. (Ok maybe I am a shallow person).

As I said, I'm not going to name any names but I think a lot of other people don't like them very much either. Just because I won't name any names doesn't mean that I won't give you a clue. Here it is:

I HATE THE EIGHT OTHER PEOPLE THAT FREAKIN FINISHED AHEAD OF ME BUT WERE TOO TIRED TO FILL THE BACK ROW SLOT!!! Ok, so maybe I only hate 7 of you because one of the first bars would have been a corner slot but seriously, are you all really so tired that you couldn't put your bar away in the back middle slot.  I mean, I realize it does take a little bit of extra effort to have to put it back there but it takes a whole lot more effort when I have to put my bar away around these other ones. 
So here's a couple of slogans for a few of my Crossfit "Friends".
-Crossfit: Your warmup is our workout, but our cool down.....meh.
-Crossfit: Giving it 110%.....but just during the WOD
-Crossfit:  Really cool people except for 7 or 8 chumps, probably the same ones that do Steroids.

(Ok, so that last one was a stretch)

Anyway, thank you for letting me make fun of some select people.  I'm excited to say that I have been making some improvements on several exercises so I'll go back to reporting on that cools stuff next time.

I think that to stay healthy in Crossfit, you definitely need to take advantage of the rest days.  Not even the regular rest days every week, but I occasionally, your body just needs a break.  For some reason, between the normal WODs and some that I've had to modify, I had to do hang cleans last Friday and Saturday and then we did them again on Monday and the back of my neck and shoulders were pretty beat up.  I finally decided to not even look at Tuesdays WOD and just take a day off.
I thought I'd be able to not even think about it but the Facebook community wouldn't let me go without thinking about it.  People started posting how horrible Tuesdays WOD was and how they had wished they had stayed home and how they barely even finished the WOD.  An average person would read these comments and be happy that they had missed out but because I'm crazy, I was actually a little envious that they had all got to go through this terrible torture together and that I wasn't there to partake in this painful experience.  I've apparently become a masochist maybe? I do see people that don't take rest days and I've even been tempted at times to skip the rest days.  I mean, when you feel good, keep it going right?  This along with skipping the warmups/cool downs has made Crossfit the best thing to ever happen to Physical Therapists and Orthopedic Surgeons.
Maybe I just need to stay off of Facebook on my days off too. Crossfit Facebookers are straight up crazy but I could fill up a whole other page going off on that.

So my goal for when I started this blog was to lose the 40 lbs that I had gained since I got injured last year.  The good news is I'm finally down 40 lbs from when I started this blog! The bad news is that I'm still obese so I apparently thought I was more in shape than I really was back then.  But that's a good milestone to hit and I'm happy with it even if it took longer than I had planned.  We are still sticking to Paleo most of the time although we allow ourselves one cheat meal a weak and we probably go overboard.  For instance, on Sunday we had Costco mac and cheese with french bread and butter and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  We did throw in some cut up fruit just to pretend like it was semi healthy but that meal was about as unpaleo as you could get.  It was the Bizzaro Paleo meal.  Although that fits because sometimes I'm pretty sure that I'm the Bizarro version of me and somewhere out there is the regular version of me that's fit and can do box jumps and is nice to people (My exact opposite).

I did have a setback last Monday.  As I've discussed, the muscles in my legs are always "flexed" at all times.  In the regular human, when one side of a muscle is flexed, the other side is relaxed.  In my legs, both sides of the muscle are flexed at all times. It's why I suck at doing box jumps and double unders (That and I'm apparently still obese.) A couple of times a year the pressure on my back will just "give up" and I'll feel a pop and it's bad news.  I know that when it happens, I have about a half hour before it's swells up so badly that it's pinching the nerves up and down my spine so that I basically can't move for a few days and even after that, I'm walking with a cane for another week.  I mean, I am always complaining on here about a sore back but during these episodes, I literally can't roll over. Well this time, it happened while I was in Crossfit.  I have seen several people injure themselves there because they don't warm up properly or they don't do an movement like they were taught.  I don't think I warmed up as I should have but I don't actually know if it was Crossfit that caused my back to pop. (The last time it happened, I was just bending over to make our bed.) So I can't really say if it would have happened or not because this happens to me a couple of times a year.  What I can say is that I hurt it on Monday and I was able to stand again by Tuesday with the help of a cane. By Thursday I was able to walk without the cane and by Friday I was back at Crossfit. So I was pretty happy about that.  Unfortunately, I'm in for a lifetime of pain but I can definitely say that I healed a lot faster from this episode, than I have done in the past and I truly believe it is because of workouts that we do that is helping to strengthen my core.  I imagine eating better has helped keep the inflammation down too.  A couple of sports rehab guys tell me that there business is better than ever because of injured Crossfitters.  I believe that to be true but I think a major reason for that is as I stated, they don't warm up properly. They show up late and go straight into the workout. Or they sacrifice good form for heavier weight. 

So although I had the setback, I am very sure that I healed faster and am still better off because of the eating plan and workouts that have been set up at Crossfit The Club. (Although, I think I'm better off, I still reserve the right to complain and hate being there every morning.)

10-8-12 Down 40 lbs but still obese.

The beginning April 11

Hello?  Is this blog still even a working blog?  I haven't given up on my quest to be healthy, it just hasn't quite gone as well as I had hoped.  When I first made the decision to try to get back in to shape, I figured I would be down 60lbs in after 6 months.  Well, it's been almost 6 months and I'm down 30lbs. Obviously there was a couple of setbacks, like almost losing a leg and such, but the journey has been too boring for me to record every day. 

People keep asking me if I feel a lot better because I'm down 30 lbs but sadly, I don't.  My whole goal was to not be in a wheelchair anytime soon. Unfortunately, we've kind of gotten to the realization that the pain is here to stay and now it's constant, even when I'm sitting down. So now my goal is to try to do whatever I can to at least lessen the pain and postpone being in a wheelchair. So that's what I'm striving to do now. 
(These are my beginning and halfway point pictures. Apparently I'm so much more healthy now that even the whole room looks brighter)

April 11

Sep 24

Sep 24

I am still trying to show up to Crossfit at least 3 times a week and try to do the WODs even if I have to modify parts of the workout.  The problem is, it seems like I am starting to modify more and more of the WOD. About the only thing I can do correctly is bench press but that's not in very many WODs. I did find a really cool/painful sports massage that helped to stretch the fibers that surround the muscles so that the muscles in my legs and back could lengthen out to where they should be.  That worked great and I was actually able to stand up straight afterwards. That was great but by morning everything had constricted back into the tight knots that I'm used to.  Yeah, it worked great but they want almost $200 bucks a month to keep doing it.  (I'm trying to see if I can get a job as a school-bus monitor and get video'd being bullied.  That lady made almost $900K from people sending her donations after that happened to her.  If I can get video'd and rake in money like that, I'll definitely go back and do more massage sessions). Until then, I'll keep with my stretching routines and see what else I can do. 

I don't want this whole thing to sound like I'm complaining or making excuses, I'm not.  I still have goals to meet and I will.  We are still eating Paleo most of the week although we allow ourselves one cheat meal a week because I'd go crazy if I didn't.  We did find a cool trick to making your own paleo mayonnaise.  One of the biggest problems with the paleo diet that I had seen was making mayo was a pain because you had to mix everything in the blender while pouring in the oil a little at a time.  If you did it wrong, it all clumped up it was too runny.  Well, we learned a little trick that if you put all of the ingredients, with the oil on the top,  and then use a hand/wand mixer it works perfectly.  You basically, put the wand at the bottom of the cup and turn it on and pull it to the top. Repeat once or twice more and it's the same consistency of store bought mayo.  It's awesome.  It seriously takes less than a minute. It's basically made our lives a lot easier because now we can make sandwiches, or broccoli slaw, etc and not be a big pain in the backside. I even made a video of it but then I decided that it was probably the most boring video ever made so I decided not to post it. 

So anyway, my new goal is to still lose another 30 lbs before Christmas if I stay out of the hospital for any unforeseen crazy leg infections, etc.  My other goal is to try to report on here more than once a month.  Trust me, you don't want me to post everyday because it would be so boring that you would feel that you were getting bullied.

Paleo Bread

One of the things that I won't deny is that I'm addicted to bad carbs (crackers, chips, breads etc.) So while we've been eating paleo for the past 3 months, Katie's been able to make things that are great and I haven't been hungry but I have been craving bread.  So I was excited when I read that there was a product named Paleo Bread.
 

I had been searching for a couple of months now and I saw that Good Earth was selling it.  So I went and bought a loaf.  The loaves are actually pretty small, like the little loaves of banana bread.  They are also pretty expensive for the size, almost $7, but I figured I'd give it a try because I was craving bread.  They have it in almond or coconut so I chose the almond.

I got it home and tried a piece plain but it was actually really chewy, almost like chewing wet paper, and didn't have much of a taste to it.  So I decided to try toasting it and putting honey on it.  So I toasted a piece but it didn't turn brown, so I toasted the same piece 2 more time (I'm seriously not kidding) and it didn't burn, it didn't even turn brown.  That's kind of strange but whatever, I put on a little bit of butter and honey and tried to eat it. I don't know how to explain the taste other than kind of chalky.  I'm hoping someone I know buys some and tells me if I'm being over dramatic because I'm not.  So to compare it with something else, I made a one minute almond muffin and still love the one minute muffins whereas the Paleo bread....not so much.  Finally to do a more comparable taste test, I wanted to test it against something that it was more similar to.  So, I went and cut out a piece of sheetrock, toasted it and put some butter and honey on it.  

Here's where they compare:

-Nutrition: Obviously the Paleo Bread is more nutritious

- Taste: The sheetrock was slightly better in taste

-Consistency: That's a tie, if you were to wet down the sheetrock a little you couldn't really tell a difference.

-Cost: The Sheetrock was definitely a better deal.  $9 for a 4ft by 8ft sheet compared to $7 for a tiny loaf of Paleo Bread.

In my opinion, after waiting so long I was sorely disappointed by the Paleo Bread in almost every way.  I'm hoping someone else buys some and tells me that I just got a bad loaf.  Until that time, I'll stick with making my own one minute muffins and eating the occasional piece of drywall.

 

 

Since it's been another long time since I wrote anything I'll just post a couple of quick thoughts about the WODs last week.

 On Monday, it was:

12 Dead lifts-155 Lbs

9 Hang Power Cleans-155 lbs

6 Push Jerk-155 lbs

repeat for 5 rounds.  

That is set up with what is supposed to be the easiest doing the most reps down to the hardest thing doing the least amount of reps.  But, because I still can't bend, it was the opposite for me.  The deadlifts were definitely the hardest part and the push jerks were the easiest.  I actually had to modify the dead lifts so that I just basically did a "hang" deadlift instead of one off of the ground.  Needless to say, I was the last one done.

Tuesday was

50-35-20 reps of:

Wall Ball- 20 lbs

Pull-ups

Double Unders

The wall balls were bad but that's 105 Freakin pull ups.  My hands almost tore on that one.  I still need to lose a bunch more weight.

Wednesday was

10 Wall Walks

Row 500 m

40 Slapping Push-ups

30 KB OH Walking Lunge- I did 35 lbs in each arm.  You're supposed to do 55

20 Sandbag Cleans-80 lbs

30 Clapping Push-ups

20 KB OH Walking Lunge

10 Sandbag Cleans

Row 500 m

10 Wall Walks

The worst part of this for me was definitely the wall walks. You are supposed to be in push up position with your feet against the wall and then slowly push yourself backwards and walk up the wall till your doing a hand stand.  My shoulders were shot for the next two days.

Thursday was

Run 465m (3 laps)

4 Tabata Intervals of Double Unders

Run 465

3 Tabata Intervals of Double Unders

Run 465

2 Tabata Intervals of Double Unders

Run 465

1 Tabata Interval of Double Unders

 I rowed instead of ran and I still can't jump high enough for double unders.  Still the last one done.

Friday.

Rest day (Thank goodness)

Saturday

1-5 CTB Pull-ups Ladder x 6

1-5 Burpee Ladder x 6

10/15/20 AD Ladder x 6

10/15/20 Squat Ladder x 6

 This was in teams of two and so the first person would do 1 Chest to Bar pull up and then the second person would do one.  Then 2 and 2, 3 and 3 etc until you each did 5 and then you'd start over at one and do it for 6 rounds.  It really doesn't sound that bad until you realize that you and your partner each did 90 of them and then you move to the burpees and do the same thing.  By the time I was done with burpees I had to crawl over to the Airdyne but I didn't think it would be that bad because I only saw the 10/15/20 calories.  I didn't realize that you each had to do that amount of calories and then repeat 6 MORE FREAKIN times.  Doing 10 or even 20 calories on the airdyne really isn't that bad and goes fairly quickly until you realize that your partner actually goes fairly quick with each one so you don't really get a very long rest.  This thing took for ever.  By the time we finished with the bikes, my arms and legs were jello and then we had to do the same thing with squats.  This WOD took us an hour.  The next class was already starting before we finished.  My legs and arms are still pretty much useless today.  Good thing today was rest day.  You know what's horrible about all of this?  It looks like I'll be back again tomorrow for more abuse.  I'm an idiot, what can I say.

 

So tomorrow is the Crossfit the Club summer games.  It's kind of bitter sweet for me.  It's bitter because I can't run that hill even if I wanted to but yet sweet because I don't have to run up that nasty hill.  It's kind of cool to look back at this video and see that I actually participated in these game and it gives me some motivation to keep on trying.  Although I have been horrible at keeping this blog up to date, I am still continuing on my plan to get better.  

Our eating has stayed good and we've lost over 50 lbs as a family.  I also ran the track during today's WOD.  Keep in mind that it was only 2.5 laps around the track but it's at least encouraging that I'm doing things. The airdyne bicycles are still my mortal enemies.  We also did a WOD this week where we had to do our body weight in bench presses as many times as you could and then as many pull ups as you could and then repeat those 5 times.  That day alone gave made me realize that I still need to lose a crap load of weight.  I had to do the heaviest bench press in the class.  So my new goal, is to get down to where I'm not having to do the heaviest bench press of the day by either losing a lot more weight or talking someone heavier than me to join the class.  I'm still deciding which would be the better way to go.

Cheat Meal

I'm pretty sure the local police are getting tired of me turning myself in every weekend for the crime of being '"too sexy."  Ok, so I still have a long ways to go but I'm at least down 25 lbs.  Although I'm frustrated that I'm not gaining any muscle back, it is nice to have less weight and pressure on my back and knees.
We are still going strong on the paleo thing but I'm apparently still not doing it right.  Everybody tells me that if you're doing it right, your tastes and cravings change to where you actually desire fruits and vegetables.  I've also read that when you junk food again, then you'll be sick.  Well, like I said, I must be doing it wrong because I still crave junk foods and they haven't made me sick.  We have incorporated into our diet a "cheat meal" once a week.  We had Pizza one week and on Saturday we had Club sandwiches and Fries.  These meals have seriously been some of the highlights of my week.  I'm definitely doing something wrong, aren't I?  The way I look at it, if you don't have a cheat meal, you'd go nuts until you break your diet.  This way, we're still on it the majority of the time but don't go crazy.

Cheat day at the pool, match made in heaven.  We've been trying to swim a couple of times a week because it's one of the only activities we can do that Adam enjoys and we don't have to worry about him running off.  I love it too because when you're in the pool, the pressure is off of my back.  I actually think, that's one of the things that's helping with my recovery, the most.  Saturdays at the pool is one of my favorite summer activities. I know a lot of people love fall but I'd be happy to have summer all year.  I'm not looking forward to Labor day cause that's the end of our summer lazy Saturday's at the pool tradition.

Still Fat

They've changed the Thursday morning schedule to where there's only one teacher at 6 am and they combine both the regular class and the Crossfit Lite Class and we all just do the same WOD.  Guess who came in last out of both classes?  I bet you'll never get it.
 Today's WOD was:

AD 1600 m

50 Sit-ups

50 Back Ext.

Run 800 m (I rowed this)

40 Med Ball Sit-ups- 20lbs

40 Russian KBS-70lbs (Still can't do it.)

Row 400 m

30 Med Ball Russian Twist- 15 lbs

30 Banded Good Mornings- green/blue

Have you guessed who came in last place yet?  I mean I'm used to coming in last in the regular class but to have all the Lite people pass me up, seriously blows.  The good news is I was able to do most of this.   I still can't do Kettlebells. I even tried it at 53 lbs but it was still too painful so I had to do 35lbs (less than the girls weight.)  But to be able to do all of the other things, even at my snail like pace, was a great feeling for me. 

 It's been almost 4 months since I started my "quest."  I remember back then thinking that by August, I should be back into shape and be able to RX the WODs by now.  I thought that by August, I'd be able to focus more on improving my times and results.  I thought I'd look back at those months and figure that all of that had sucked but it was worth it because I would have lost at least 40 lbs and my back would be all better.  Well I was right on part of my thinking.  It has SUCKED.  Well there were a couple of hiccups and I'm not quite where I thought I would be.  It hasn't been all bad though, I'm down 20 lbs but I'm not quite there physically, where I had planned.  Still, I'm happy with the progress that I'm making and I'm going to keep seeing what else I can add to help with the back pain.

8/1 Really happy?

So I started this get in shape crap at 278 lbs (I know, how did I ever let myself get that way?).  I'm currently around 256.  When I got back from Lake Powell, I was really excited because I was actually around 254 but apparently I was just dehydrated because I gained a couple of lbs back after I drank a bunch of water.  So I've still got a ways to go but I'm happy with the results. Although I'm getting a little bit back into shape, I'm still very out of shape.  I realized this when everyone was hopping in and out of boats whereas I had to kind of crawl on and off so I wouldn't lose my balance.  Even the 65 year old guy was getting around better than I was.  Basically I have become the old guy that everyone has to help out with.
One of the most frustrating things is that I don't think I'm really getting much stronger because I'm still not able to do much of the heavy lifting.  I remember how well I did when I was doing Crossfit full time even though I wasn't really eating that great.  Now I'm eating good but not exercising great.  Hopefully one day I will be able to do both so I can truly measure what my results would be. 
In our WOD yesterday we did crap load of pull-ups and push presses (It was supposed to be hand stand push ups instead of push presses, but I don't quite trust my back or my equilibrium at this time).  Today I can definitely feeling some pain in my shoulders.  But that is an awesome feeling because I know it's pain from working out and building muscle, not just the pain from my spine grinding.  So it's the proverbial "Good Kinda Pain".

I'm at Lake Powell this week so I won't be posting.  I brought a book with me to read.  I know I'm only on page one but so far this "50 Shades of Gray" book is pretty boring.

Tried turkey bacon.  Didn't care for it very much.  I'm thinking that's one where we'll stick with the real thing.  If you ask me, Turkey Bacon is 6 degrees of separation from Real Bacon.  We did have turkey burgers, with REAL bacon on them, with Guacamole and wrapped in lettuce wraps.  Those weren't bad at all.  I think we'll be adding those a few times into our summer menu.
I also had a piece of whole wheat toast for my first time in over a month.  It had been so long that I almost felt guilty about it.  But it was nice to have a grain back in my life. 
I am getting to where I can do more parts of the WOD's but I am still having to stop several times and try to stretch my back out so that I don't get the shocking pinching feeling.  The stretching breaks aren't really helping my times but at least I'm finishing them.  Once again, although I'm not very patient, I think I am going in the right direction and starting to hopefully build some strength back in my core.

7/13

Am I skinny yet?  Nope?........Dang it!

I ran today!  Ok so it's not that exciting.  It was only for 200 meters and it's only because someone was on the rower that I had been using and I was too lazy to walk all the way back to the other ones. I also don't think I blew anyone away by my amazing speed.  But, that's the first time I've tried to attempt to run the track in about 10 months.  So I'll take that as a little bit of a victory because my back didn't explode.  One thing it made me realize is that no matter how good I get at the rowers and the bikes, I'm not getting a full cardio workout because I just that little run had me pretty winded and I was glad that we had to walk the rest of the track back to the Crossfit area.
We are officially done with our month of pure paleo.  I lost about 15 lbs.  Yeah, now that I'm not taking daily pictures, the weight is starting to come off.  Maybe it's like the watched pot not boiling thing.  The problem is, now that Katie has gotten so good at cooking paleo, she doesn't want to just quit.  My whole goal was to finish the 30 days in time to have a regular birthday dinner and dessert but I'm more scared of Katie than I am tempted to eat junk foods.  So on my birthday dinner Katie and I went to The Union Grill and I wanted I had the Pecan Crusted Chicken and my two sides were broccoli and broccoli.  (Ok, so one thing this diet has NOT done for me is make me more tolerant of many cooked vegetables.)  For my birthday cake, Katie made paleo blueberry muffins with a whipped blueberry topping.  So although, not exactly like any of my past bday dinners, it was still pretty good. 
So we are going to try to keep on it but maybe add some dairy back in and some of the better grains.  I'm not sure what would be the best foods to add in slowly but we're thinking things like oatmeal and Greek Yogurt maybe?  We did try plain Greek Yogurt yesterday and let me just warn you, make sure you get a piece of fruit with each bite because eating a bite of plain yogurt is not a pleasant experience.  I thought maybe I had just bitten into some week old milk that had been left in my car.  But, it's nice to be able to add some other foods in.  Any suggestions would be great on what healthy non paleo foods are the best thing to add back into the diet.  I guess we'll try different things and see what happens.
I have noticed that my workouts are starting to get a little better and my callouses are starting to come back.  I know that callouses are nothing to get real excited about but they always gave me a little bit of pride in some warped way.  Although I'm not able to do pullups like I did in the past, I can at least now do 2 or 3 at a time.  So I'm going to take that as a victory although another newer member of the class told me I was doing a good job and asked how long I've been doing Crossfit.  I think they were a little shocked/disappointed when I told them just over 3 years.  Oh well, I found it humorous. 

Breakfast of Greek yogurt with strawberries and blueberries.  The strawberries weren't quite sweet enough to make up for the funkiness of the yogurt but the blueberries did alright.  Also a left over bday blueberry muffin.  The picture doesn't do it justice cause it was actually really good.

July 9th

July 9th.  A little over the month on the paleo diet and apparently not very happy about it from the looks of things.  But down 15 lbs.