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