refocusing

So things haven't been great as of late. I've really been lacking in the motivation department. I am not motivated to work out, eat right and it's honestly eating at me quite a bit. I only gave a 50% effort to a workout the other day that I was actually looking forward to (10 rounds for time of the couplet: 135# Deadlift-15 reps, 15 push ups). I came up with excuses, and only did 5 rounds.

I took today to get the bad out of my system. Didn't eat very well at all. Starting tomorrow morning, I'm only going to eat food that I prepare in my own kitchen for the next 7 days. I've got a stocked freezer and have no excuse not to do so. I've felt like crap all week long and I know it's because I've not been eating right. Now it's time to fix that. If I eat right I know I'll be able to get back in the garage and kick some tail.

I. Want. To. Die.

Short one today. Here was today's WOD:

Five Rounds for time of:

Row 500 Meters

135# Thrusters, 7 reps

And of course, the Matt-is-fat-and-out-of-shape-scale-down:

Five rounds for time of:

30# Sumo-Dead lift High Pulls-50 reps

60# Thrusters-7 reps

For those of you who are curious, here is a sumo-dead lift high pull: http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_SDHP.mov (for you non-mac people: http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_SDHP.wmv).

I'm still sore from yesterday's workout, and this one pushed my cardio to the limit. I intentionally avoided heavy weights because I would have lost good form (I'm still teaching myself some of these movements). Admittedly, I could have done the SDHP's at 45#. But 30# nearly beat me to death. Again, it became all about meeting that wall and pushing through it. I hit the wall at the end of the first round. I thought to myself, "You can stop at 3 rounds, man...it'll be ok." But I didn't, I pushed through it. Granted, I took some breaks. But I figured breathing was probably OK. I ended up finishing the WOD in a little over 47 minutes. That's a really long time for a CF WOD. I'm not proud of the time, but I'm proud that I did 5 rounds. At least that was as prescribed.

An unbelievable epiphany...

I had an epiphany while working out today. I'll get to that in a minute. First, the workout that was prescribed:

225# Dead Lift--15 reps

50 Pull-ups

225# Dead Lift--12 reps

40 Pull-ups

225# Dead Lift--9 reps

30 Pull-ups

225# Dead Lift--6 reps

20 Pull-ups

225# Dead Lift--3 reps

10 Pull-ups

And here is how I modified it:

110# Dead-Lift--15 reps

25 Pull-ups

110# Dead Lift--12 reps

20 Pull-ups

110# Dead Lift--9 reps

15 Pull-ups

110# Dead Lift--6 reps

10 Pull-ups

110# Dead Lift--3 reps

5 Pull-ups

My time: 15:50. I was pretty proud of that. Albeit I didn't do a single pull up. I completed all of my pull ups on the total gym, because there's no way I can pull myself up.

And now for the epiphany. Today I realized that these workouts are insane for a reason. In any workout that you complete on this program it's all about intensity and pushing yourself through the WOD. My intensity has been lacking, which I will freely admit. I do have some limitations on myself that prevent me from doing these workouts as prescribed, but I'm just starting out. And these workouts are designed to make you hit a wall. Today, I hit the wall at the end of the first round. I had to push myself harder to get it done. My body is not used to doing this kind of work and that makes my workout much harder. And in order to keep my heart rate in a safe zone I've got to take little breaks every now and then. But as I push forward, things get easier. I had to break up the pull-ups and DLs with the higher reps. I was able to knock out 12 DLs in the first set before having to take a break. I had to take the first set of pull-ups in a 10-10-5 form.

Another part of my epiphany is...EAT MORE. I know, I'm trying to lose weight and eating less is supposed to help that. But with these workouts, I'm burning through many more calories. And in order to complete these workouts, I need to eat more. I'm not talking about eating crap foods that no one should eat, but eating good foods. So, that's my task. I've been fairly paleo today, but I haven't had nearly the amount of vegetables that I should have had today.

Tomorrow, 0500, I'll be back in the garage doing some skill work. I think I'm going to try to do two-a-days this week as well as keeping a strict food journal. We'll see how that goes.

This is for you, Uncle Steve

See, Uncle Steve, I told you I would update.

I have done a full 3-day rotation of the main site WOD this week. Very much looking forward to the rest day tomorrow. If I think about it, I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow to see if I lost any.

I kind of abandoned the diet last week due to my birthday festivities. I think that my body was really letting me know that I should not do that again until my next birthday. But that chicken fried steak was delicious!

On Wednesday the WOD was 100 burpee pull-ups. That is a burpee and then you do a pull-up. Well, I cannot do burpee pull-ups on a total gym, so I decided to just do 100 burpees. For time. I was feeling pretty good about them for the first 10 reps, then I had to take a bit of a breather. On number 11, I could really feel it. Usually burpees make me dizzy, but they didn't this time around. By 15, I decided that I would only do 50 burpees. At 25, I couldn't get up. Wow, I am out of shape.

Thursday's WOD was 3 rounds of 10 Clean & Jerks and 30 sit ups (for time). The prescribed weight on the C&J was 135. I ended up going with 60 in order to maintain proper form. I can definitely feel the stabilizer muscles on the front of my shoulders today. And my abs are really sore today...probably has something to do with the 110 situps I did (3x30+20(in warm-up)).

Today's WOD was 50 double unders and 50 back extensions, 3 rounds for time. Double unders are jump rope, but you jump once and the rope goes under your feet twice. I am very large, thus the force of gravity does not allow me to stay in the air long enough to complete this. So I just did 50 regular jump ropes. And I did 60# deadlifts for the back extensions because we don't have a proper GHD machine and back extensions hurt my neck.

Well, the plan for this week is to also start working on a skill before completing the WOD as well. By skill I mean getting my body used to doing the Olympic lifts, push-ups, double unders, and pull-ups (when the pull-up station is complete). I am also planning on sticking to paleo this week. Didn't do so well at that this week (today especially).

Anyway, it's 110 in the am, and I'm going to bed. Peace out all.

New year. New goals

Hey, I’m actually updating. Aren’t you proud? I thought so. I started Crossfit as promised on January 1. I completed “Cindy” as prescribed on Friday and did a modified version of “Barbara” yesterday. My body is definitely letting me know I worked out....

Anyway, here are my new goals.

1). Lose 40lbs by April 1.

2). Bench press 220lbs 10x (once the new bench and weights are obtained).

3). Run 1.5 miles in under 15 minutes (will work more seriously on that once it warms up).

4). Complete a sub-five minute “Fran” as RX’d by the end of the year (there are some limitations on this as I am unable to complete a single pull up at this time. But I will be building a decent pull-up station).

5). Lose a total of 100lbs minimum by December 31, 2010.

There were some more goals, but I can’t seem to think of them right now. I’m sure I’ll update the list as I move forward.

An update

OK, I'm done with P90x. Done, finished, finito....you get the idea. I completed it, and that's all you need to know. I'll be taking a few weeks off from working out and updating. But don't worry, I'll be back.

1.1.10

CROSSFIT

www.crossfit.com

A little something different

So, I'm not really going to talk about my workout today. Or for the past few days. I have been doing them and sticking to the diet and am down about 15 pounds. That's really all there is to say about that.

I would like to discuss my current job situation. I am currently in a job that I do very well, but I absolutely loathe. I hate being a cube monkey, strapped to a desk for 8 hours a day. I guess the only difference between my job and prison is that I get to leave when I'm done. But I always have to come back. Since October of last year I have applied for 11 positions with my current employer. I have interviewed for approximately 8 of those positions (2 were cancelled, one I was passed over as being "not qualified" for the position). I applied for a position that I felt like I was really qualified for in the sense that I have kind of done the job before. I say kind of because I did the job on the property side and this is the auto side. I know the demands of the job and feel like I was successful in my last post with the organization. I had a phone interview last Thursday and I felt like it went really well. I was feeling pretty pumped. I got the dreaded form email today that basically stated "thanks, but no thanks." Good thing that it came late in the day, cause I left after I received the email.

Now, I have to wonder why this has occurred. And what I can do to fix it. I feel like I interview very well for the most part. I admit that I could be wrong, but I know that I have had many strong interviews in the past. I have done everything I can to prepare for these interviews and for the most part felt like I was good enough to be moved on to the next phase of the interview process (they all start off with phone interviews initially). I haven't even been selected for a second interview. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that there is something else at work here. Maybe I have a mark against me in my employee file that I don't know about.

I'm really starting to see the connections between my new job search and my dating life. Well, what used to be my dating life. You see, I got rejected so many times by the ladies that I just gave up. I decided that since the ladies all thought they were too good for me I was too good for them. So I have taken myself out of the dating game. The bachelor life really suits me. Like an Armani. Unfortunately, I can't just abandon work and say that I don't need it because clearly I do. But I have made up my mind that I am going to look for other positions in which I can hopefully move up the chain a little more efficiently than my current employer.