Little Changes

Two weeks in...13 pounds and 2.5 inches. I haven't had much inclination to write much about my experiences, but I think it is important for me to at least put up the numbers.

A friend of mine, a long time ago, got a fortune cookie with the message: speak less of your plans, you'll get more of them done. Hopefully I may get some writing inspiration, but right now I just feel like going down stairs and making some coffee.

I will discuss the physical changes later: 13 lbs, 2 1/2 inches. I will say that seeing these numbers give me reassurance that I'm on the right path. Off to the coffee maker.

Checkin' In

Today is day 9. Nine days ago, I challenged myself to clean eating. No flour, sugar or dairy. I've been weighing, zoning and blocking my food. I missed the flour products the first couple of days, but I really don't miss them all that much right now.

My goal, 30 days. There must be something to this though, because I'm feeling better. The joints aren't hurting as much, I'm loosing weight (about 7 lbs to date) and my workouts are getting to be fun.

We were working on the hang power cleans and according to Lis, I had pretty good form on this one. My elbows are breaking as I come off the ground to throw myself under the weight.

Today's workout, was 49 minutes of torture called "Grindy". This is where the Cindy workout (5 pull ups, 10 push ups and 15 squats) is combined with Grace (30 Clean and Jerks for time). What this looks like is 10 Clean and Jerks followed by 5 rounds of 5 pull ups (I'm still on the bands, but damn close to a pullup), 10 push ups and 15 Squats, repeat then finish with 10 more Clean and Jerks. This is done for time. The rx'd weight for the clean and jerk is 135 lbs, but after dumping the second one (fell right on my arse) I ratcheted down to 115. I wanted to make sure that I could get all 30. By the 50th push up I couldn't imagine my arms allowing me any more so for the second "Cindy" round I had to drop to knee push ups. My time through this challenge was 49:24.

Back in the Zone

Another commitment to myself...I lasted 5 days the last time and fell off the wagon, well today is another day 1. Here is a post I left at http://cfscceat.blogspot.com/:

Hi Jon V, I too have really struggled nutritionally too. I've made and have broken many many commitments to myself about changing how I'm going to eat, amount of exercise etc. It always seems as though life gets in the way. In a couple of your posts, I see that you have to go out for work too. I'm a consultant that spends many nights on the road, many "working" lunches etc. My problem is that I don't really have a good sense of portion control etc, so what I'm doing (started yesterday) committing to 30 days of clean eating. I got Robb Wolf's shopping list (you can find it off of the link to Robb Wolf website mentioned on this blog)and staying strict. I am planning out my shopping list after I'm done with this post and am going to buy and pre prep my food. I'll be taking my lunch to work and taking it to the restaurants if I have to. 30 days won't kill me. I do however, have a planned cheat day, Thanksgiving, but other than that, I'm gonna clean my diet up. After that, I will be stealing as many of Michele's recipes as I can and start cooking away. The Robb Wolf thing advocates NO dairy and No flower products (I miss beer already). For me, it's just 30 days. I'm reminded of Nicole Carol's (I apologize in advance if I mis spell names, right now too lazy to look them up)article about getting off the CRACK. She mentioned that two weeks was tough, but I'm gonna take this one day at a time and then may start adding back some of the RobbWolf's Absolutely Not's because, I am human. :-) In addition, I've got a few coworkers who are trying to get better about their diet and we are going to support each other with our respective goals. I find that to be a great motivator when I get an email from someone that says, I've checked off all the fitness/nutrition goals for the day, how about you?

Michelle, I haven't posted in a while, but I'm still here and have tried a few of your recipes which are great! Thank you for hosting this site and creating this virtual community that is small enough that one can feel as though they have support.

I look forward to checking back at the end of my experiment to see what's changed. Starting stats: M/39/278lb/33%BF using zone method of calculation. I'm a relatively fit (by non crossfit standards) play social rugby, until I found crossfit, would run 3 - 5 miles 5 days a week but didn't find my body comp changing much. Clothes felt better, but the scale didn't move much. Looking at those numbers and being honest with myself shocked me. I'm no longer in denial. If I want to get better crossfit times and play better rugby, my nutrition has to change. It sucks carrying around 91lbs of FAT. It's as if I'm carrying around another human being. Enough for now. I'm focusing on today.

Again, Jon thanks for posting and Michelle, thanks for providing this forum.
David

Today is the first step on the thousand mile journey, again.

Cheers,
David

Life in the Zone

Three days ago I under took a challenge. To live strictly in the Zone for at least 2 weeks with maybe a 2 week extension after I complete the first 2 weeks. I do this because of an article I recently read in the Crossfit Journal entitled, "Getting Off the Crack"

I'm on day 3. In fact, I'll be going to bed in about an hour and will wake up to day 4. Nicole set herself up on a 2 week experiment and what the article indicated is that she hasn't looked back. I'm not saying that I'm going to become a Zone evangelist or anything of the like. I just want to see if by changing my eating behavior, I can reap some benefits

As an aside, how can one reconcile the never ending pasta bowl at The Olive Garden with the Zone...

Anyway, why the zone? Well the folks at Crossfit advocate the Zone. They have amazing results. I've been doing Crossfit workouts for a while and have experienced great results relative to where I was, but Nutrition is the base, the foundation, from which one's fitness is built. Now, I'm not saying that I'm going to be getting ready for London in 2012, but I would like to undertake the same experiment that Nicole had undertaken.

I found a great blog that has some tasty sounding Zone recipes. The site is affiliated with Crossfit Santa Cruz where I think the Crossfit phenomenon started (actually, according to the Wikipedia article on Crossfit, Coach Glassman started out in Los Angeles and moved up to Santa Cruz to train the SCPD. Don't you just love the Internet?) I've been commenting/sharing on that site for the last 3 days. I am going to try to comment each day just to check in and keep myself honest. (I've also made some extra changes in my life and will share them in subsequent posts).

I am going to make it a point to post more often as I work to move towards the healthy side of the continuum. I want to avoid Metabolic Syndrome and all of the other nasty chronic diseases that can creep on one who isn't careful and eats lots of pizzas.

I am going to Crossfit Watertown on Sunday for the first of three intro to Crossfit classes that are prerequisites to joining the group. This will be day 6 which comes after day 5 which is a rugby day.

Until then...below is my latest post to the Crossfit Santa Cruz Zone blog

Thanks Michele for the reply. Today is day 3! I love the idea of the Turkey Melt. I plan on that for the weekend. I am taking this one day at a time. I may get healthy yet. I remember that nutrition is the base of the pyramid and that with junky food, I will get non optimal results. I do remember a time when my body craved the good food (that was back around 1994) and I am hoping to get back to that point. Again, I appreciate your time and effort maintaining this blog and hope you don't mind me checking in to keep me honest.
I have been writing down everything I eat and weighing and measuring most things. I've been erring on the conservative side, which I think is ok in the short term; I liken it to "Hell" week.
Cheers,
David
Starting stats by the way are 278 lbs, 34%BF. According to the Zone I'm an 18 blocker (exercise 3 times per week).

The Race, Health and Run Report

It has been some weeks now since I finished my 1st marathon. The marathon was on January 13 and today is February 10th. I was able to actually able to run 3 miles today relatively pain free. (I did have some trouble breathing since I've not run in almost a month.)

First the race report. As I mentioned in my last post, my family and I flew down to Disney the Tuesday before the race. This gave me a good 5 days to acclimatize myself to the conditions in Florida. This also gave me the opportunity to walk around all of the parks with my family, ride some great rides, wait in line for some not so great rides, swim, eat, sleep and eat some more. The first 3 days I pushed myself through and hour on the elliptical too because as I've written about before, I'd been plagued with injuries on both my left and right ankle. I was extremely concerned that I wouldn't be able to go the distance because I hadn't done a long run that was greater than 16 or 17 miles. In fact, on or about October 12th, I thought I'd sprained my ankle. I took it easy that week and then resumed training.

Running was tough. I slogged through my weekly jogs, but on the long slow days, I couldn't make it past 16 miles; my left ankle would freeze up. It was so f'n painful, like a nail being driven into the joint. I figured my ankle was still sprained and needed a bit more rest.

Fast forward to the race week. I'm in Florida with my family and am having a hard time walking around the parks. I am having lots of pain and figured I should just stay off my ankle. The day of the race, I figured I would try to "Galloway" it so I can go as far as possible. I started with a 10 minute jog with a 1 minute walk. I cycled through this a few times and then went to a 4 and 1 and then a 1 and 1 and then a walk. Along the way, I met a great lady with whom I was able to chat for the last 13 miles. She had a bum ACL, so together we had one set of working legs.

My mantra throughout was to finish what I started. I trained for a Marathon, I was going to complete the distance. As the finish line came into site, I saw that I could break 6 hrs. The clock was ticking. So I said, "see you at the finish line" to my new friend, Susan, and took off on a "sprint".

I did it. 26.2 miles. Sure it was 1 hr slower than my goal time, but I finished what I started.

When I got home, I went to the Orthopedist. Turns out, I didn't sprain my ankle, I broke a piece of my Tallus bone. By getting my ankle drained, a shot of Cortisone and staying off it, I was able to use it again.

My next race is the Hartford half marathon...

Stay tuned

I did it!

26.2 miles. I finished the race. I finished what I started. I learned a lot about myself through out the process and most incredibly during the race. I experienced the gamut of emotions from despondency to elation. I met some great people. I got a finishers medal.

My family and me flew into to Orlando the Tuesday before the race. My ankles had been questionable since October when I sprained the left one. I did a couple of sessions on the elliptical because running wasn't working.