Weekend and begin again...again.

This past weekend was spent at my in laws cabin. We were getting the fire wood supply ready for hunting season. My father in law, brother in law and I had the task of chopping down a few trees, transporting the felled logs up to the cabin, then chopping them into pieces to fit into the woods stove. We all took turns doing every part of the tasks, however my brother in law and I were primarily responsible for the transport and then chopping. When all the pieces were moved up to the cabin, my bro in law and I would take turns chopping the wood. This was a great workout. First, picking up the logs in 32 inch sections was a great back and leg workout. I moved approx 20 pieces at about 100lbs a piece. My brother did most of the chopping, but I definitly feel it in my back and shoulders today.
I am pleasently surprised that I have been able to maintain a mind set of health and fitness. I try to turn regular activities into fitness. I try to challenge myself in a lot more areas than I have before. I am taking the stairs instead of the elevator, I take the long way. I have been trying to do a hundred pushups throughout the day. So far so good.
Tonight we begin the 16 day workout again. I'm excited to compare it with the last time we did it. I feel good. As we continue...

Completion

We have official completed the 16 day crossfit beginner workout. It's a great sense of accomplishment. There were a few days that I didn't want to continue. In the past I would have stopped. Thanks to Carla's encouragement I was able to continue. I'm so glad I did. I feel terrific! I look better! I have more energy. I randomly do push ups. Carla and I make eachother do burpees. Its fun. We taking a few days off to move into our new place. We plan on doing the 16 days again but adjust it to make it a little more challenging. I feel this is just the beginning.

Stomach Issues and Blood Pressure

Its been a few days. I haven't been training as hard as I should be recently. Hopefully we can remedy that tonight. I went to the doc on Monday for my blood pressure. Apparently 150/110 isn't a good thing. The frustrating thing is that it only happens when I exercise. She put me on some meds and I'm taking half. So we are on the last day of the 16 day workout. After tonight we'll probably take the weekend and then resume on Monday. I think we're gonna do the 16 days again but just switch it up a bit. My stomach is feeling a lot better so that shouldn't be a prob for tonight. All in all I'm happy how this has turned out. This workout is definitely worth it.

Fat Fuck

I'm disgusted with myself. I'm so angry right now its not funny. All I want to do it beat the shit out of myself. Tonight's workout was to run a 5k. That's about 3 miles. I decided to still do it even though it was storming outside. I only did half. Let me re-phrase that, I was only able to do half. I realise that I need to work at it that its not going to come easy. I get that. I'm just starting to realize that I let myself get like this. Being lazy and fat was more important to me than my health and my family and my pride. It was much easier to grab for the bag of chips or the triple stacker from Burger King, when I should have just gotten my fat ass up and been active.
I used to love to run. I was good at it. I averaged a 7.5 minute mile. I could run 3 miles in just under 23 minutes. Now look at me. I can't even run a 400m without feeling like I'm gonna die. I'm so angry. I feel like the lies I have been telling myself these past 10 yrs are starting to come to the surface. The truth is coming out. I hate what I have let myself become. I didn't say I hate myself, just the fat tire that smacks my thighs when I do tuck jumps. This IS a journey, and this realization is part of that. I can not lie to myself anymore. I can't excuse the laziness, I can't excuse the sloth, the over eating. If anything this has just fueled my fire to become who I am meant to be. My body doesn't deserve it. My family doesn't deserve it. My beautiful wife doesn't deserve to have this mass of a man instead of the man she married.
If your offended by the title of this post you can do 1 of 2 things, stop reading it or realize I'm just calling a spade a spade. Tonight was wake up call to me. This isn't a game. No more jokes. I need to be responsible and stop with the excuses. I became a fat fuck because I am selfish and lazy. I WILL change that.
By the way, this isn't a pity party. This isn't a cry out for encouragement. I know you guys love me. This is just a part of my journey. Me, finally dropping the bullshit and being honest with myself.

Rocks!!

A welcomed side effect to being more active is the wanting to... be even more active. I have been doing things recently that I haven't done in a while, for instance, offering to help a friend with manual labor. Its been so long since I've offered to give a hand to a friend if it meant sweat was involved.
A friend of ours is moving the rubble of his barn foundation from one spot to the other. This mainly consists of large rocks(basketball size) and some big cement slabs. I offered to help him out. He was going to use a tractor and just scoop up the rubble but I asked if I could do a bunch of wheel barrel loads for exercise. An exercise it was. I ended up doing about 10 wheel barrel loads. The distance from the old pile to the new pile was about 100 yds. It ended up being a great workout. I'm not sure how much each load weighed but they got heavier and heavier with each one. I remember smiling to myself as I was talking myself into doing a few more loads, it felt right. I felt like this is were I liked being. I liked being active and feeling like I was contributing to my training. I look forward to taking more opportunities to switch up my training and keep it interesting.

Rain Check

Last night was...fun? It actually was great to finish. We had to sprint 50m then 10 burpees, sprint 50m then  10 sit ups then sprint 50m and do 10 squats, and do it all 3 times, trying not to take too much time in between the sprints... The first round wasn't horrible, the rest that followed...wasn't my best work. Carla, again, was a champ!
The nice thing about last night was the grass was pretty wet, which made for good relief when doing the sit ups.
As far as the rain check, I owe Carla 15 burpees for losing a bet. We'll see how that goes!

Oops on the Burpees

So, I made a mistake tonight as we did day 11 instead of day 9. We did 100 burpees. Burpees are squat thrusts for everyone else. Carla was a champ! She kicked my butt, I tried keeping up with her, didn't work out so well. She did really well. I took longer than I wanted but as I began I quickly realized that my expectations were ridiculous! I finished. I'll be happy with that for now. Great job Carla!

Burpees and a Rest Day

So last night was fun. It was a little more challenging than the past few days. 15 burpees, 25 squats and 35 situps, 4 rounds. Again, I am always amazed at how beat I am after its done. This is the second time we have had to do these exercises. Day 1 it was only for 3 rounds. In the short amount of time that I have been doing this, it was only Day 7, I can see the difference. I can see the difference, I can feel the difference. I feel great. I really do, soreness aside of course. I can't believe a few short days can have such an impact. I was so out of shape, still am, but am a lot better than I've been in a while.
So today is another rest day. I am thinking about running on off days. I was also thinking of trying to get up and run in the mornings before work. I'm up early, or can be, anyway. its something I'd like to do, we'll see.
Moving forward.

Running and Push ups and other stuff

So, last night was 100 push up for time. I didn't even try to keep time. I haven't done a solid push up in years and last night was no exception. I did well, I started out with my knees down and my body in the plank position. That lasted for about 20, then it was the hand and knees on and off for the rest. I'm glad I finished it out. My arms were on fire when I was finished.
The other day we had to run 400m then do 50 lunges, then do it again. This was probably the toughest on the legs so far. 50 lunges doesn't seem like a lot but followed by running 400m is a different story. We went to the track for this one since its easier to measure distance. Again, I can't say enough how grateful I am for Carlas support and her participating with me. It gives me the extra push I need sometimes.
Carla and I were talking, in general, about this particular cycle that we are doing. I am impressed how well its sets up and how well its seems to work with my body and proper healing. They exercises are set up so you aren't putting too much on any particular muscle group. As soon as that body part seems to be over worked, it switches and focuses on another body part. The rest days are set up well enough and are timed just right so you feel that you had a proper amount of rest before you start the next cycle. Over all I couldn't be happier with this workout and crossfit in general.
Today is 4 rounds for time for 15burpees, 25 squats, 35 situps. Giddy up!

Tuck Jumps

Tuck jumps suck. Plain and simple. They especially suck when your belly keeps getting in the way. I may learn to like these once the belly gets smaller but not so much now.
I was talking to Carla last night about crossfit. The thing that amazes me is that on paper these workouts don't look that difficult or like they will do much to make me sweat. However, it become very clear to me that i was wrong, right around the last few sets of what ever they have me doing.
Today is my rest day. I'm told to try doing something that I suck at, cartwheels, handstands... we'll see.

Let us begin

So far so good. I'm a bit sore but thats to be expected. Carla has joined me in the initial training. I love having her do this with me. Her encouragment is necessary.
I have started out doing a 16 day beginner cycle of crossfit. I'm on day 3. I'm not paying too much attention to my weight loss at this point. My main concern is that I get into a habit before my usual (give up) takes over. Its going to be hard. Its going to be painful. I'm going to want to give up but I have to remain strong. I'll get some pics up soon. My weight at the start was 343. So, if you happen upon my blog, any encouraging words are... encouraged.