Monday, September 20, 2010

Fat Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through life, So I'm trying to lose weight

I am fat and out of shape. I know this, anyone who knows me knows this. It was only Seven short years ago that I was a gym rat and working my body fat down towards 10%. I was in the gym up to 6 days a week, and loved every minute of it.

I moved, I got married, my gym partner relocated to Texas and I started finding excuses not to hit the gym, rather than finding excuses to get there.

It has gotten bad. My brother has expressed to me his concern about my health. My wife noted how I physically looked like my Father, almost 30 years my senior, in a recent photo. At least once a month my mother asks if I had started to work out again…yet.

So here it goes. I am going to document my attempts to get back into some sort of shape.

I am 6’2”, 250 lbs, the majority of which resides around my midsection. If I had to guess I would peg my bodyfat at close to 28% (I will find a way to get this measured to make this more accurate).

About a year ago I first heard of CrossFit. I saw a post about their yearly fundraiser called Fight Gone Bad and was intrigued. Where most people I know looked at the combination of box jumps, rowing, wall ball, sumo high pulls and push press and want to vomit, I looked at them and said, Damn, those are the things I used to love to do, because they make me want to vomit.

Of course I quickly fell into my excuse making habits. I wasn’t in good enough shape to do that program, so I did start going to the gym for a little while. Until I found my next excuse, the nearest Crossfit gym would require me to double my daily commute. And so I slowly stopped going to the gym.

Well last week I finally had enough. I had told myself that I would start running, doing push-ups and sit-ups and using the chin-up bar in the garage once I moved to Wilmington to get ready to go to the CrossFit gym that is less than a mile from my house. And after a month, none of that had happened.

So, pissed at myself, I made the call to CrossFit Coastal and signed up for their Saturday open gym. And I got my ass kicked.

Sure I was pleasantly surprised that I could put together 2 pull-ups in a row. Too bad the warm-up called for 3 sets of 5. Forget the sit-ups, my gut just gets in the way. Run 200 yards once, OK, three times. I am a pathetic excuse for a man.

Then there was the actual workout. I felt pretty good about my chances with the push press, some modified pull-ups might get me through that, then a 200 yard run/jog. Well there was a rest period while my teammate went through the same progression. I can do this.

No I couldn’t, the press was fine, the pull ups, not so great, then I set out at a run and completely gassed myself within the 1st 100 yards. There was no coming back for me. I dropped the weight on the press and did my best not to puke for the next 15 minutes.

I knew I was in bad shape, but I had no idea how bad. Everything from the stretching to the breaking down of the weights at the end was torture. But a funny thing happened.

Others doing the workout, who had never met me before encouraged me as they ran past my stumbling mass. My workout partner cheered me through each transition (sorry about truncating your workout Gabs.) And once I finally caught my breath I felt good about myself.

Not in a, yeah you are in shape way, but in a you finally are addressing the problem way. My entire body was trashed, I felt like I had just gone through the 1st padded practice of 2-a-days. And I found that I had missed that feeling.

So, despite the fact that I am still sore from what is called a light workout on Saturday, I am headed back tonight. And I am looking forward to getting my ass kicked again.

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