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.”