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| 02 February 2010
Thirty-something and thirty-something pounds overweight. That is where I found myself sometime in 2008. I felt fat, pathetic and embarrassed. It was particularly bad when I found myself at the pool or the lake with my family. Remember that scene from the third Die Hard movie where Bruce Willis had to walk down the street with that sign strapped to him? That is what I felt like except my sign would have said “I LOVE Beer, McDonalds, candy, and Anything Deep Fried in Fat!” Not that I do not love those things now, who doesn’t? It is just that I had decided that I wanted to be in shape. I was John McClain, and my body fat was my German villain that was leaving me stupid riddles all over town in the form of $0.99 menu items. So, I started looking for ways to get in shape.
I decided to start running. It worked out o.k., but I found myself in a lot of pain after running. I would do 1-2 miles every morning before work, and the next day my feet would be killing me. I would ignore the pain, and hit the streets again the next morning. The pain just kept getting worse, and I decided I needed to do something else. We joined the local YMCA. This worked out pretty good for a while. I was going to the gym after work and doing 30 minutes on the treadmill and then using the weight machines for thirty minutes. I wasn’t making any real progress on the treadmill though. I could barely get to 2.5 miles in thirty minutes. I decided to sign up for a 5K. I thought that signing up for a race would motivate me to push myself further and get to 3 miles in my 30 minute time. It worked for a while. I ran a handful of 5K’s, and even finished them in 28 minutes or less. Although I had made progress, I wasn’t losing any weight, and that discouraged me. Eventually I just fell right back into my old routine. Looking back now, I realize that I hadn’t changed my diet at all, and that was probably a big problem. As my trainers say now, “You can’t out train a shitty diet!”
Enter Crossfit Memphis. Knowing that just a gym membership wasn’t going to work, I hit the internet looking for something better. I had started listening to the Jason Ellis show on XM radio, and he talks a lot about MMA fighters, training, and being in shape. So I started searching for MMA fight training in the Memphis area. I wasn’t interested in fighting, but all those guys are in really good shape so I figured that was a good place to start. I came across this business called Crossfit Memphis. It looked pretty crazy for someone so out of shape like myself, but I thought I would give it a shot anyway. I sent them an email, and started my free two week trial in the middle of October 2009.
I was blown away. After the first couple of training sessions, I thought I was going to die. I thought I had no business being in this place. I hadn’t felt like I was going to puke like this since I was in seventh grade and my basketball coach made us run ladders for 45 minutes every morning at 5 a.m. It was nuts, and I thought these people were crazy.
Here I am, about 3.5 months later, and I am weighing in at 179 pounds. That’s 21 pounds less than I was when I met the great people at Crossfit Memphis. I’m eating good food thanks to the advice of my trainers, and training really hard. On the days that I can’t make it to the gym, I’m running 5-6 miles (further than I’ve ever ran in my life) at about a 6 mph pace. At the gym, I’m learning a lot about myself, weightlifting, endurance, nutrition, and making some great friends. It’s really awesome! I don’t know of any other gym where you can gain so much knowledge and have such a great support system as you can at Crossfit Memphis. I’m very happy with my success so far, and I can’t wait to see what the future brings. So, to Mike, Doug, Ashley and Rob at Crossfit Memphis: You are awesome, and I can’t thank you enough for what you are helping me do. I appreciate how you push me to do things that I never thought I could do, and I appreciate the attitude you have while you do it. Thanks a lot ya’ll! Can’t wait to get to the gym tomorrow! I’m making my shake now, and can’t wait to see how I do with “Elizabeth”…. More to come!
