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