Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Beat Rommel Day 2

Day 1 was yesterday. I didn't eat like crap. Rommel Nobleza, I can't let you beat me. I need that $500 badly! That means I have to get back to rethink my nutritional intake and ramp up my workouts. And I've got to at least try to blog to try and keep my nutritional intake in check.

Nutrition
-0800: 1 package of Fred Meyer deli chicken; 1 package of Fred Meyer deli turkey; 1 cup Tillamook peach yogurt; 16 oz nonfat milk
-0830: 1 pan-fried porkchop
-1230: 1 pan-fried porkchop (again)
-1630: mcdonald's double cheeseburger (no bun)
-1930: 1 package of Fred Meyer deli turkey; string cheese; 1 cup Tillamook huckleberry yogurt
-2100: brocolli and fish balls in an oyster sauce reduction; 3 slices of cantaloupe; 8 oz nonfat milk

WOD
-0600: [21-15-9, for time] 35-kg overhead squats + modified ring dips: time=9:56
-1730: [21-15-9, for time] 40-kg hanging power cleans + pushups (half of them were modified): time=6:03

5-rep max. notes
-Hanging Power Snatch: 20 kg is the only one i've tried during any workout truly involving HPS (6.22.2009).
-Front Squat: 80 kg (kills my shoulders in rack position, and i can't keep my heels down sometimes. gotta work on those) (6.22.2009)
-Push Press: 50 kg (6.22.2009)
-Press: 52 kg (6.29.2009)
-Back Squat: 100 kg (gotta keep the heels down, elbows up) (6.29.2009)
-Overhead Squat: 35 kg (6.30.2009)

Other notes
-Half-Cindy PR: 7 rounds + 5 [rows, honest pushups, squats] (6.11.2009)
-Tabata This PR: 45 [push-ups, sit-ups, ring rows, squats, sumo deadlift high-pulls] I'll look up the details (lowest) for each. (6.29.2009)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Look what I can do!

3 months ago, my push-up capacity was 4 in 60 seconds. Today, (even after 4 rds for time: 5 burpees + 10 push-ups + 15 squats + 400m run = 16:09), I did 30 pushups in 1 minute. For the BLD Biggest Loser competition, that's 5 over my goal. I think by August 15, I'll be able to do at least 40 in a minute.

I think my sister clocked my 40-yard dash time is around 6.4 seconds. That's down from Memorial Day... way down from almost 9 seconds way back in the day the first time I ever timed myself.

And talking about moving heavy objects through distances quickly, I helped my dad clear out stuff from the garage. My dad would ask, "Can you help Jason move that?" I wound up doing all of the lifting because things just felt fine. And... and (despite usually being injury-prone,) I didn't hurt myself! Haha that was a proud moment.

My CrossFit Lifestyle

To my knowledge, the most I’ve ever weighed was 275 pounds. I spent two years of my life completely avoiding the scale because I didn’t want to know. For two years, very unhealthy eating habits and sporadic exercise (at best) had taken over my life. But on March 10, 2009 I participated in my first CrossFit workout. That was the day working out became fun again.

My first day of CrossFit, two friends and I did a workout called “Half-Cindy”. We had 10 minutes to perform as many rounds as possible of 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats. In those couple of minutes I had managed just over three rounds. I felt the incredible burn of this short workout for the next 10 days. I had never felt so good after a workout in my life and the only equipment I used was a bar to perform pull-ups and my own body weight. What really hooked me was how we worked out. “Half-Cindy” quickly became a race, not just against the clock, but against the friends who were with me. Yet despite the competition we cheered each other on until the very end. The competitive nature made for a very intense workout.

As time passed my trainer, Andrew Bueno, started giving me tips on how to improve my eating habits. He taught me that healthy eating wasn’t about crash diets, but about balancing what kinds of foods I eat and how much. He guaranteed that if the one area I improved upon was my nutrition, I would lose weight and have much more energy during the day.

It’s been exactly three months since I started making changes to my exercise and nutritional habits. Those changes have become the way I live. CrossFit isn’t a passing fad; anything that can keep my attention this long is not a passing fad. Anything that would make my once stagnant (but blessed with an amazing metabolic rate) sister love working out is not a passing fad. The “highly-varied, functional movements at high intensity” workouts of CrossFit have shown their benefits every day since I started. Removing junk and eating healthier has made me more energetic, more confident and even happier. Best of all, I’ve lost 23 pounds.

Before my first workout Andrew asked me, “How do you define fitness?” I had never thought enough about it to establish my own definition, but after 90 days my honest answer is “CrossFit.”