When the Switch Gets Flipped

The Paleo challenge is officially over, and the results are in! For the first time since starting CrossFit 10 months ago, the scale has moved...UP...and I couldn't be happier!

That's right.  After 6 weeks of the strictest Paleo diet I could manage, and 10 months of workouts more grueling than my former Wendy's-for-every-meal-eating, couch-dent-making, 250-pound-self could imagine, I gained 1.5 pounds - and I'm PROUD of every ounce.

Are you confused?  Are you convinced that I'm doomed to be a rolly-polly forever, because I can't clean up my foolishness?   Well, whip out your calculator, and run this math, homeskillet.  That net gain of 1.5 pounds on the scale is coupled with a loss of 15 inches over 10 months.  5 of those inches were lost during the last 6 weeks alone (read: Paleo challenge).  So, I will proudly wear those 1.5 pounds, because it's obviously not fat - it's plain old Cock Diesel bitches.  It's 1.5 more pounds of badassness.  It's 1.5 more pounds of awesome that I will use to move heavier things around on a big, long, beautiful, and tubular...steel bar (your minds are always in the gutter).

 

This has been the most enlightening and liberating 6 weeks.  I told you your scale is a douchebag, and I was serious.  I told you I don't care about being skinny anymore, and I ain't even tryin' to bullshit you.

Let me tell you what I do care about now...RXing.  For those readers unfamiliar with RXing, it's doing the workout as prescribed.  Of course, as I've said before, in CrossFit, everything is scalable, which makes it an awesome workout for folks of every size, age, and fitness level.  If the workouts weren't scalable,  it wouldn't have been possible for me to do CrossFit AT ALL 10 months ago, being that I was the poster girl for the UNfit.  With that being said, every workout is designed for elite athletes, to be performed in a certain way, and at a suggested weight (depending on if you're male or female).

I started CrossFit in the hopes of not dying at an early age (or before the workouts ended) but that's not enough anymore. The switch has flipped.  I don't care how long it takes, or how hard I have to work, but I want to start seeing big, fat, "RX"s next to my name on the whiteboard.

I FINALLY got my double-unders.  I'm running on my  non-WOD nights.  My hands are covered in blisters,  but I'm popping out a jumping chin-up or two every time I walk past the Iron Gym we recently hung over our bedroom door. I'm making plans to conquer the 20" box jump during a WOD.  I'm making steady strength gains.  I'm slowly getting faster.  I'm taking less breaks.  I'm getting more comfortable working through  moments of pain.  I'm getting out of my own head.  And apparently, I've got "the walk" now, when I stroll around the gym (or so I was told).  I think that must be confidence.  I've never had that before.

That's the thing about CrossFit, you are constantly being dared to do things you either don't want to do, or things don't think you can do.  BUT, once you do these things (because you can basically do anything with enough hard work), you want to do them harder, faster, AGAIN!  The minute you blast past a physical or mental barrier, you get an itch.  You have to move on to something else that you haven't quite mastered.  You have to move onto something else that has been intimidating you.    It's a vicious cycle of bettering yourself, and it starts to positively infect every other aspect of your life.  So if you are reading this, and you are STILL thinking that you can't do these things, you are missing the point, and you are, beyond the shadow of a doubt, wrong.  I went from a blubbery sack of jelly to someone who has the potential to be an OK CrossFitter in less than a year.

Maybe CrossFit doesn't interest you, and that's cool baby.  Think about something else you can do that's going to push you to your limits, and just start doing it.  Do it for a minute.  Do it for 5 seconds.  Just do it with passion.

You'll thank yourself for it...years from now when you're enjoying your great, great grandchildren (in ways the other geezers on your block won't be able to).  What are you waiting for?  Flip the switch!