CrossFit | garagegym107

Posts Tagged ‘CrossFit

Oct

Mmmmm…Eating Humble Pie

Categories: Morphing of a Fit Woman
Tags: BodyBuilding, change, Clean Eating, CrossFit, exercise, fitness, gaining self confidence, Inspiration, Long term weight loss, lunch meals, Motivation, nutrition, Weight Lifting, Working out, Workout, Worry

I love my life and I love my friends and family even more.

Friday I wrote about my little adventure with the magazine in my chair. Pay close attention because here is where the humble pie comes in.

Bright and early this morning one of my most favorite people from work came in to my office and closed the door behind himself. And don’t miss that…He is one of my favorite people!

He said “I left the magazine in your chair so you would READ THE ARTICLES in it”. Talk about taking a huge bite of humble pie!! HE READS MY BLOG!! 🙂

You see the insecurity of “what if they think I have too much muscle” came floating across my brain at the moment I picked up that magazine. Not once did I think that there was an ounce of good intention associated with the magazine being left in my chair.

Shame on me. Jumping to negative conclusions is an old habit that I’m obviously still trying to break free from. I have to say that 99% of the time I believe in the positive. In that 1% of negative I always find a lesson.

I thought about the “too much muscle” topic over the weekend. Working through my own mindset to see if some how my goals would change. My goals haven’t changed and now that this contemplation has worked through the process I’m even more convinced that I’m on the right path for me.

This is a perfect example of morphing. Ever changing, ever-growing.

Thanks to my friend for not opening the door and walking out. He is really great at helping me to see the forest beyond the trees.

Oct

Haters Gonna Hate

By garagegym107 6 Comments

Categories: Morphing of a Fit Woman
Tags: BodyBuilding, Bright Spots, Clean Eating, Community, CrossFit, exercise, fitness, gaining self confidence, Goal Setting, Long term weight loss, Motivation, nutrition, Weight Lifting, weight loss, Well-Being

I think too much. Yes I do.

Strange things happen that poke at me. They also make me go hmmm.

Today while out on the parking deck working out with the crew someone left an anabolic steroid catalog in my desk chair. I’m sure they were just being funny because that what’s people do when they think they will get your goat.

I’ve got my own goats, I don’t need their help with them.

I posted that little quote “I’m not strong for my age. I’m just strong” evidently there’s a bit of truth to that. 🙂

Good for me.

Over the course of changing my life from being just a total train wreck to being a fit woman, there have been many haters along the way.

The funny thing about that is I didn’t realize that those haters could come in the form of people who I thought really mattered in my life. So keep this in mind if your journey is just beginning.

It wasn’t until I began saying no to the buffet lunches, the weekly happy hours, the business lunches of pizza and the monthly birthday cake club did the original haters first appear. I don’t hesitate to take my own food in to any training session now. Once people got used to me being different, it became a non-issue. This goes back many years and even a past job. I am not the food police, I don’t criticize what others are doing. That is not my place.

It took me a very long time to realize that choosing to be healthy has a tendency to make those who choose not to feel guilty. Whether they ever admit it or not. At first it bothered me but not any more. Let ’em hate.

I eat clean food, I work out 5-6 six times per week and I’m perfectly happy with it. Not to mention that I am a much better wife, mother and employee. Does that mean I hate on peeps who choose not to? Absolutely not. Remember I’m married to the Junk Food King. He was that way when I married him, I changed. I don’t expect him to, if he wants to he will. He’s a grown man.

Back to the catalog left in my chair. What most people I work with don’t realize is that I get up at 4:30am Monday thru Friday and I march myself in to the gym and I devote time to working hard on my body. Whether it is Olympic lifting, body building or metabolic condition, I’m working HARD while most of my peers are sleeping, both male and female.

That’s a choice. I’ve made mine and my choice is clean eating and working my butt off. Literally.

Oct

State Of Mind

By garagegym107 Leave a Comment

Categories: Morphing of a Fit Woman
Tags: BodyBuilding, Community, CrossFit, exercise, fitness, gaining self confidence, Inspiration, Motivation, Training, Weight Lifting, Workout

I have no idea who said that. At this point, I like it so much it doesn’t really matter. I believe I’ll be painting that on the wall of Garagegym107.

I’ve noticed a pattern among my peers. At least among the ones willing to give working out a try. It takes a good month or two for a middle-aged female to get off the cardio equipment and past the strong mental desire to lift no more than 5# dumbbells. I understand, I used to be intimated by strength training too.

The average woman spends hundreds if not thousands of dollars chasing youth through creams, clothing, and accessories. Try investing in strength training for your body instead. It will respond and not only will you look younger and more firm, you will feel younger too.

Is it off the shelf quick like a pair of spanx? Well no. In time your jeans will be way more comfy without the spanx.

Perhaps we will be one of the last couple of generations of women that have been lead to believe that women shouldn’t lift weights and be strong.

I choose to set the example for my boys. It’s quite acceptable to be strong even fiercely strong. Not for a mom (a girl, an old lady), but strong in general.

Age is mind over matter. If you don’t mind; it just doesn’t matter.

Oct

Let’s Do Some Sprints

By garagegym107 2 Comments

Categories: Nutritional Cleanse Experiment
Tags: Body-for-Life, BodyBuilding, change, Clean Eating, Community, CrossFit, exercise, fat loss, fitness, food, gaining self confidence, Goal Setting, goals, Insecurity, Inspiration, Motivation, nutrition, weight loss, Working out, Workout

Want to see a group of people visibly get better before your eyes? Have them run sprints together. Not just a couple of rounds of sprints but instead 6-10 rounds of 100 meter sprints. It’s suckage to say the least. It forces each person to work hard through the pain. It creates personal growth. Ages range from 28-54 and yes, they all ran together.

After you’ve finished the timing for them, have them do the timing for you. Little makes people feel better than to see the trainer suffer the same fate they have just endured.

Nothing makes them feel better than to realize what they’ve accomplished when they finish.

Struggling together creates an unspoken bond. You know as a trainer, deep down inside they are pushing each other to run just a tad faster than if they were running alone.

Lucky for me today, two additional people came up and ran with me. Humbling and motivating that I didn’t have to run by myself, instead I GOT TO run with them.

Healthy competition is great as long as you are grounded in improving yourself more than anything. I don’t believe that every workout has to be a competition. Some would say that makes me soft, I disagree. I believe that its me vs. me. Not me vs. you.

If I focus all of my efforts on beating someone else, the person I’m not watching is going to pass me.

You vs. you, always.

Oct

Just Keep Going

By garagegym107 Leave a Comment

Categories: Morphing of a Fit Woman
Tags: BodyBuilding, Bright Spots, change, Clean Eating, Community, CrossFit, exercise, Inspiration, Motivation, Weight Lifting, Well-Being, Working out, Workout

I have such a hard time when confronted with a client or friend that gets emotionally upset by her performance.

You see, the sweet and kind me wants to coddle them and say “it’s ok, really it is”. And that isn’t a lie. It is ok because if you get emotional it just means what you are doing is very important to you.

But then the hard-nosed woman who came from that same place starts wanting me to blurt out things that could scare the bee-jeezus out of her instead. Yes, I always choose to inhibit my inner Jillian.

You see, I can be that person. I wish someone had been that person to me 12 years ago when I was shoving chili-cheese smothered tator-tots in my face just a little too often. But then, if they had, maybe just maybe I wouldn’t be here writing to you.

You see each person is different, each journey is for the person travelling it. It’s not for any outsider to change but instead to impact that journey in a positive or negative way. Each person has to change themselves. The lucky ones have others to poke and prod them.

That being said when I step back and think about my own journey, my most dramatic changes always followed some type of negative interaction with another person. Like a catalyst. And not in a good way.

It’s healthy to receive constructive criticism, not so on destructive criticism.

I’m my clients biggest fan and choose to remain that way.

Oct

Progress Report 1 of 18

By garagegym107 1 Comment

Categories: Precision Nutrition Certification
Tags: BodyBuilding, Book Review, change, Clean Eating, CrossFit, exercise, gaining self confidence, Goal Setting, healthy-living, Long term weight loss, Motivation, Precision Nutrition, Training, Weight Lifting, Well-Being, Working out, Workout

I started the process of obtaining my Precision Nutrition Certification about a month ago. I received all of my study material and slowly dove in.

After completing the required tasks of the introduction and chapter one, I settled down to complete the questions in the work book.

At my age, things tend to stand out more than they used to, perhaps because I’m a bit more open-minded about myself. I’m definitely one who retains more information if I write it down. And I’m much more eager to learn at this point in my life than ever before.

I realized that I had been sitting at the table for almost two hours answering the introduction and chapter 1 questions when it hit me. TWO hours will be the time limit cutoff for taking the full exam which covers 18 chapters.

When I voiced my concern to my spousal unit his response was simply “It’s not supposed to be easy”.

He’s right. The more difficult this process is for me, the more I will learn.

Oct

Fantastic Friday!

By garagegym107 10 Comments

Categories: Living Fit Daily
Tags: BodyBuilding, Bright Spots, change, Clean Eating, Community, CrossFit, exercise, fat loss, fitness, gaining self confidence, Goal Setting, Motivation, nutrition, Training, Weight Lifting, Well-Being, Working out, Workout

Lets just start the day off here. Old School style.

If this doesn’t make you wiggle a little this fine Friday morning not much will.

This week has been a week of success for myself and quite a few of my friends.

My friend Melanie is seeing progress for the first time in a while, it’s given her hope and the belief that she can make changes… Here’s to you Melanie!

My friend Tami went to the doctor for a check-up and was told she is ridiculously healthy.

My friend Melissa is over her funky cold Medina crud she picked up after the Warrior Dash.

My client Sheena has made amazing progress since coming back after giving birth to her healthy baby girl 3 months ago.

My friend Mary who works out in our parking deck group has made amazing progress on her air squat ability.

My friend Jamelia, also of the parking deck club is shrinking before our very eyes.

Joanna sent the sweetest email of how much she enjoys the parking deck workouts.

My friend Carol came through her shoulder surgery and even though she knows there are months of struggle ahead, she’s up for it.

My friend’s son Jackson in Washington State was overjoyed with a simple box of freshly grown cotton that I sent from the deep south.

Let me tell you folks, it’s the smallest things in this life that matter most. Being healthy, having the ability to move your behind, even if not exactly to the movement you’d like.

But biggest of all is having the ability to stop and be reminded of all there is that is going right in this life more so than complaining about what is wrong.

And on a final note, high-five to the Madison, AL police officer that pulled over the driver that flew past a school bus that had its stop sign out this morning. Happy Friday peeps!! Make it a fantastic voyage!

Oct

Fear

By garagegym107 1 Comment

Categories: Morphing of a Fit Woman
Tags: Body-for-Life, BodyBuilding, Bright Spots, Clean Eating, Community, CrossFit, exercise, fat loss, gaining self confidence, Goal Setting, Inspiration, Long term weight loss, Motivation, nutrition, Weight Lifting, weight loss, Working out, Workout

I had a conversation with someone yesterday and unbeknownst to her I could detect a strong vibe of fear radiating from her. Self-doubt. As soon as the conversation started the list of health issues came tumbling out. As if in some way that list lessened the importance of her overall goals. She said “I just want to be healthy”.

Being healthy is a great goal. In the beginning using the term “I just want to be healthy” is ok.

Fear of thinking too far ahead is very natural in the beginning, especially if you have significant weight to lose. I understand that fear. I’m absolutely certain I emanated that fear myself 12 years ago when I started my journey.

But I learned the hard way that you shouldn’t allow yourself to stay in that zone for very long. If so, you become reliant on your excuses. I remember the big one… “my knees hurt”…yes, when you carry 168# of excess weight everything tends to hurt.

At some point that vague statement of “I just want to be healthy” must transition to a plan. The plan must transition to action. The actions them must provide measurable results. If you can’t measure your success, you are subject to relapse into old behaviors, often.

See yourself as you want to be, not who are today, but as the fit and healthy person you want to be.

Sep

Encouragement for Newbs

By garagegym107 8 Comments

Categories: Nutritional Cleanse Experiment
Tags: BodyBuilding, Clean Eating, Community, CrossFit, exercise, fitness, gaining self confidence, Goal Setting, goals, Inspiration, Motivation, Weight Lifting, Working out, Workout

About a month ago I started helping a girl from another floor with some workouts. We go up on the top of our parking deck at work and we workout. We laugh, we play and we work.

I live by the philosophy of “each one reach one” because in my own little naïve way I believe that it can be done.

We started with just the two of us. As of this week, there are now 6 of us. All shapes, sizes, ages and fitness levels.

I want to talk to the newbies out there. All of you new to fitness and getting healthy.

Taking that first step and sometimes that second step is really hard! You might be last when you finish, you might be embarrassed because you don’t yet have a range of motion that you need and you might just have very little belief in your own ability to prevail.

Well let me tell you this, if you really want to make changes in your life, you really gotta work at it. You can’t just say “oh that was hard, I’m going to lunch with my friends instead”. You can’t just say “well, I was last so why bother?”. You can’t just say “I’ll start next Monday”.

You get to go through all of the growing pains of the process for a multitude of reasons.

First off you must prove to yourself that you are willing to change. So get up day in and day out and get busy. There is no quick fix fat fixer.

Secondly, you must get over yourself and any need you have to feel sorry for yourself. You are now making changes and some of them might hurt. Suck it up Buttercup!

Third and probably the most important of all, no negative self-talk EVER. You may not be perfect, you may have caught a bad deal in this life, but beating yourself down day in and day out fixes absolutely nothing.

Everyday find something in yourself to be positive about. If you look past all of the hurt, anger and loneliness, you’ll find the beautiful worthiness. It is in each of us.

Sep

Scales and What Not

By garagegym107 8 Comments

Categories: Morphing of a Fit Woman
Tags: BodyBuilding, Bright Spots, Clean Eating, Community, CrossFit, exercise, fat loss, fitness, gaining self confidence, goals, Inspiration, Motivation, Weight Lifting, Weightloss, Well-Being

No, not fish scales. Weight scales.

I work with so many women regarding weight-loss and fitness. I’ve talked about scale weight before and how it fits in the big scheme of things.

If I could somehow be Glenda the Good Witch for just one day, I swear I’d love to banish all scales from the land!

Have I ever told you guys the story of going to our company “health-fair”? I consider myself pretty fit in the big scheme of averages so the health fair didn’t deter me. They checked both my good and bad cholesterol and both were impeccable. My blood pressure was also in the very good category.

So off I go the new super-duper body mass index machine. To use the machine you must be in your sock feet. I took off my shoes and when it was my turn, I jumped up on that bad boy only to receive this little ticker tape print out showing that I was by American standards “obese”. I literally laughed out loud.

One of the guys I workout with was right behind me. He 26 years old, six feet tall and has six-pack abs. Yes, I saw them during a workout class. You know what? His BMI put him in the obese category as well. I was already skeptical about our BMI standards anyway, but that pushed it over the top. The number one reason is that the technician never bothered to ask either of us if we work out on a regular basis. There is a different selection for athletes. Either way bad data.

Anyway, back to where I was going with all of this. Data is just data. It’s not a sign of success or failure, it’s a number. It is what we do with that number that matters.

If you struggle with getting on the scale to gather data then it’s time to ask yourself “why does this number matter so much to me?”.

What should really matter to you is if you are doing better today than you did yesterday. If you strive every single day to be a better person, whether it’s in your workouts, your finances, your savings, keeping your kids clothes clean and helping someone else out in some small way. You are moving forward.

Progress isn’t about what’s happening on the outside. It’s about what’s happening on the inside. When you figure out why you wrap success or failure around a number, changes begin to happen. You stop paying so much attention to the scale and to your appearance and start focusing on your workouts, how consistent you are, and if you are doing them correctly from a technical standpoint. Suddenly your body image starts to improve as does your ability.

One of the most refreshing things I’ve read lately was Lifting My Spirits about page and reading that she went on stage to compete in her first bodybuilding show without even caring what her BF% was. She just new by looking in the mirror and by doing the right things with her workouts and food that results were there. And that’s how this should be.

Do the right things and results will come.

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