Broba Fett crawls out of the Sarlacc.

[Broba Fett]

Way to Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women!

If I was Conan on the wheel yesterday I'm Conan on the tree of woe today. Slightly sore.

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[Broba Fett]

Just think about how good you will be by the time the next competition roles around - you will definitely be ready! 

Oh yeah, for sure. I'm still thinking that comp in Iowa in July will be appropriate. If I'm going to compete in want to be competitive.

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[Broba Fett]

Hafthor eat your heart out.

Suck it Mountain.

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[Broba Fett]

Went out for sushi last night after workout. Even with that and Saturdays drinks the scale hasn't spiked.

Day off working at the farm today followed by deadlift day this evening.

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[Why not?]

Sounds like you're doing great! I second the tracking body fat vs. tracking weight. It's not at all unusual for weight to remain the same, or even increase initially, as you get back into working out. Keep it up!

[WorldSparrow]

Oh yeah, for sure. I'm still thinking that comp in Iowa in July will be appropriate. If I'm going to compete in want to be competitive.

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Where in Iowa, if I may ask?

[Broba Fett]

There was one in the quad cities and one in Fairfield. Quad cities is likely if I do either as its much closer.

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[RedStone]

 

Went out for sushi last night after workout. Even with that and Saturdays drinks the scale hasn't spiked.

Day off working at the farm today followed by deadlift day this evening.

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YEAH!!! Nice!!!

 

Jeez, this whole - people I'm following not showing up in my feed thing - it's really starting to catch up on me!! 

 

I'm so excited to hear about the strongman stuff. I have to admit I'm kind of obsessed when the comps are on tv. (And I spend a surprising amount of time in Iowa LOL, but mostly west of Des Moines.) And that you found such a warm group of training partners. That's the best!! ROCK ON!

[Broba Fett]

Went to do a recap of the first couple weeks and realized my challenge kind of got all kinds of backwards since my coach messaged me and talked me into checking out the gym.  That was supposed to be my reward for completing this challenge.  :l

 

Oh well.  I'm doing great with eating regular portions, not drinking caloric drinks (with the exception of saturday night thru sunday night), and lifting 3x per week.  And actually I feel much more motivated to get in and lift at the new gym as I can feel results every time I go.

 

Didn't feel that way for a bit last night though.  It was a rough workout. 

 

Started with cleans to warm up.  10 sets of 2 powercleans followed by 2 hang cleans.  They started me at 95lbs.

 

Deadlift day and they started us with paused reps.  We put 50% of our established max (350 for me if you remember last week's DL day) on the bar, then pulled it to just below our knees and stopped and waited for the command to finish the lift.  After each set we supersetted a 60 second plank.  This is where my day started to go bad.  It took me a little bit longer than the others to put all my weight on the bar, partially because I had more weight and partially because I'm a natural dawdler.  Coach called me out on it.  Something half-ribbing/half-serious like "If you're gonna lift here you're gonna have to hustle.  This isn't Gold's gym.  If you're stronger than the others you gotta move twice as fast."  So I ran my last trip to the weight rack and back and got my reps done.

 

Pause rep DL: 170x6x5

Plank: 60secx5 (Didn't finish any but held the first one for probably 40 secs or so)

 

The ribbing was well-deserved and I know he's just pushing me to hustle and also making sure the rest of the class isn't waiting but it really bothered me.  It is totally irrational that it bothered me but it did.  Never enjoyed being singled out like that.  So that was on my mind the rest of the night in addition to working all day at the farm/being sore from strongman events sunday/etc.

 

We moved on to conditioning.  It was a circuit of:

 

15 Wall-balls

15 Kettlebell sumo DL (They gave me a 53lb bell)

15 burpees (which I did inclined on a box.  Can't hold myself up well on an actual burpee yet so I bang my knees doing standard.)

15 twenty inch box jumps (I did step-ups)

 

We had to do as many as we could in 8 minutes followed by 3 min wait, followed by as many in 5 mins followed by 2 min wait, followed by one full circuit in 5 mins at full effort.

 

Midway through the first round I just broke.  Blown out completely, taking fast shallow breaths.  Just wondering what I was doing there, that this kind of crossfit-type workout isn't for fat people, I wasn't good enough, etc.  I didn't finish a full circuit.  Same with the second.  Girlfriend noticed something was up after the second and talked me down quite  a bit.  I went back in and finished the last circuit completely.

 

We left and talked about things a lot and girlfriend gave me a "do you want me to just listen or do you want tough love?"  moments.  Says that as I stick with it and gain confidence and physical strength I will also gain mental and emotional strength.  Which is true, being a fat kid all my life and never having been in a serious sports program/the military/ any really demanding job has left me pretty sensitive.  I can't stress how happy I am to have her in my life.  If she weren't there, there's a good chance I would have just given up and dwelled on it every time I went past the gym in the future, stomach dropping out at the memories.  She is very good at talking me down and keeping me motivated.

 

So there you have it.   A lot of analysis of a shitty day.  On the bright side I've moved on, didn't succumb to depression eating, and will be back in there tomorrow morning.  Hope everyone had a better monday than I did.

 

 

[Broba Fett]

 

 

Jeez, this whole - people I'm following not showing up in my feed thing - it's really starting to catch up on me!! 

 

I'm so excited to hear about the strongman stuff. I have to admit I'm kind of obsessed when the comps are on tv. (And I spend a surprising amount of time in Iowa LOL, but mostly west of Des Moines.) And that you found such a warm group of training partners. That's the best!! ROCK ON!

I'm really pissed at it too.  Seems like half the threads I follow aren't being emailed to me.  Is this a new thing for the forums?  I don't remember it being that messed up before.

 

And I've always loved watching them, just never gave myself a chance at competing in one until recently.    I'm over in  Cedar Rapids every month as I have remote employees I have to coach over there but that's as far west as I go.  Quad Cities one would only be a couple hours' drive for me and I think I could smash their novice division come the end of July so we shall see.

[RedStone]

 

I'm really pissed at it too.  Seems like half the threads I follow aren't being emailed to me.  Is this a new thing for the forums?  I don't remember it being that messed up before.

 

 

I think I could smash their novice division come the end of July so we shall see.

 

 

YAESSSS!!!!

(To the smashing, not the sucky glitches since the update )

[Jord]

RE: Your day at the gym, I think yesterday?

 

It can be really hard to compare ourselves to just ourselves. We see other people who are in much better shape and think, I'm not cut out for this and I'll never be cut out for this. But if we are honest with ourselves we are making progress and one day we can be more "in shape", but what shape we will be satisfied in is up to us. I'm glad you had your girlfriend there to pump you up, she sounds awesome!

 

It's been a (adult) life-long battle for me to be satisfied with progress rather than comparing myself to other people. First I was morbidly obese but very strong, biked everywhere, pretty good endurance, etc. but not really athletic. Then I lost a ton of weight but then was in a traumatic life altering accident. Now I'll truly never have the full athletic ability of a healthy person. But can I make progress and impress the hell out of my doctors? Hell yes! But it's a battle to accept that I'm not going to wake up one day and look like a crossfit champion. I won't give up though!

[WorldSparrow]

That is great that you have a supportive woman in your life! Women can be the best and the worse influence on us silly males. Way to push through a tough day. You just keep being, "A simple man, trying to make his way in the galaxy."

[Why not?]

 

Midway through the first round I just broke.  Blown out completely, taking fast shallow breaths.  Just wondering what I was doing there, that this kind of crossfit-type workout isn't for fat people, I wasn't good enough, etc.  I didn't finish a full circuit.  Same with the second.  Girlfriend noticed something was up after the second and talked me down quite  a bit.  I went back in and finished the last circuit completely.

 

We left and talked about things a lot and girlfriend gave me a "do you want me to just listen or do you want tough love?"  moments.  Says that as I stick with it and gain confidence and physical strength I will also gain mental and emotional strength.  Which is true, being a fat kid all my life and never having been in a serious sports program/the military/ any really demanding job has left me pretty sensitive.  I can't stress how happy I am to have her in my life.  If she weren't there, there's a good chance I would have just given up and dwelled on it every time I went past the gym in the future, stomach dropping out at the memories.  She is very good at talking me down and keeping me motivated.

This is a video I've posted in a few threads around here over the last couple of years. It's the first part in a mini docu-series on a guy who starts doing CrossFit when he's incredibly out of shape and pretty overweight. You can then see the progress he makes over the course of the series.

 

 

Bottom line, you CAN do it. Showing up is the hardest part. All you have to do is stick with it and don't ever quit, you'll see the progress you want and more.

[Broba Fett]

You guys are awesome.  I thank you sincerely for your support.

 

 

 

RE: Your day at the gym, I think yesterday?

 

It can be really hard to compare ourselves to just ourselves. We see other people who are in much better shape and think, I'm not cut out for this and I'll never be cut out for this.

This might be both the hardest and most irrational thing for me.  That's the biggest thing the girlfriend pointed out that helped me calm down a bit.  Several of the people in that particular class compete in crossfit or endurance competitions and she (gf) went through a sports enhancement conditioning program for years when she was a softball ace in highschool and works a physical job.  Of course it's silly to think that a 430lb man who hasn't been particularly active in the past year and a half could keep up with these people.  Once she snapped me out of it I was mostly ok.  Finishing the full circuit in the last round really helped me out and (spoiler alert) finishing a modified version today really helped.

 

She also pointed out that there's a good reason they give us a tracker spreadsheet with all our rep/time maxes on it to update every time we hit a new PR.  You should be competing against yourself first and foremost.

 

 

 

That is great that you have a supportive woman in your life! Women can be the best and the worse influence on us silly males. Way to push through a tough day. You just keep being, "A simple man, trying to make his way in the galaxy."

If only I could clone myself, that would make the self-comparison pretty damn easy.

 

 

 

This is a video I've posted in a few threads around here over the last couple of years. It's the first part in a mini docu-series on a guy who starts doing CrossFit when he's incredibly out of shape and pretty overweight. You can then see the progress he makes over the course of the series.

 

 

Bottom line, you CAN do it. Showing up is the hardest part. All you have to do is stick with it and don't ever quit, you'll see the progress you want and more.

That video is phenomenal, thank you for posting it.  I watched that episode and the second.  Excited to see how much he accomplishes in the four months.  I can relate to him a lot.  I'm excited for the day when I'm rocking pullups at 325 and able to blow through a whole class.  Just gotta stay with it like you said.

 

Things went much better at this morning's class.  Bench day combined with a warmup fitness test and 20 min conditioning section.

 

Fitness test was to find max reps of  hand release pushups you could get in 2 mins, followed by 2 min rest, followed by max reps of butterfly situps.  I got 20 pushups and 27 situps.  Keeping in mind that up to a couple weeks ago I've only done one or two real pushups on a couple of occasions, let alone 20 in 2 mins.    Big boost of confidence there.  That said their benchmarks say that if you're 40 or less you should be working on them at home so I'm going to start working them on off days if those muscle groups weren't worked the day before/ fridays when I usually won't be lifting.

 

After that was bench strength.  We partnered up with someone around our max (we got up to 180 for me last time before running out of time), put 60% of that on the bar and then did a set of floor presses and bent over rows back to back.  Then partner did the same thing while we rested momentarily.  Rinse and repeat.  The guy I was with was a little under my max so we split the difference at 85lbs.  I believe both of us got about 10 total sets for both movements.  First 7 or 8 sets were no problem.  Last set or 2 were when I started to break my form a bit on bench.  Row was good.

 

Finished with 20 min of conditioning.  It is wednesday so they have a workout challenge.  They set up a circuit and you record how many times you finish it plus the reps you finished on the last one you were on.  They put that on the board so people can compete against others and see how they did the next day.  Today's circuit was:

 

8 lunges with the bar in the "rack" position of a clean

12 burpees, jumping over the bar between each

8 lunges, as above

8 V-ups

 

We started and I realized I wasn't going to finish a full set of lunges holding that bar.  I'm also not able to do burpees yet.  Just too much bodyweight at the moment.  So rather than freak out like Monday I ran over the coach and asked her for alternatives.  She had me do walking bodyweight lunges and "burpees" on a 20" box.  I lost track a bit but I know I got at least 4 full circuits done and then some.  I think the alternative movements were just what I needed.  I was able to finished the whole 20 minute workout but was still absolutely wiped at the end.  Walked away feeling pretty good about life.

 

Thanks again for the encouragement everyone.  It means a lot.

[Broba Fett]

Oh!  Forgot.

 

Girlfriend talked to the gym owner about nutrition.  He suggested Whole 30.  Says that's what he follows. So basically Paleo.  The plan I found on NF over 3 years ago...

 

With these achievements and physique, if it's good enough for him it's good enough for me.  (Top left)  EDIT: Link button isn't working so here is direct URL:  https://be-strong.squarespace.com/instructors/

 

So I've decided to work towards a Paleo-ish (as Steve says) diet soon.  Working on slowly cutting out sweeteners and grains first.  In the meantime this past week I've been tracking and the only real restrictions I put on myself were to try to get around 200g of PRO and less than/equal to 100g of CHO per day.   Fill the rest in with fat and only eat when I'm hungry so as to avoid starving/hating myself as someone mentioned prior. 

 

Today's food as an example:

 

5 jumbo eggs and 5 pieces of cheese on a single piece of wheat bread.

 

Protein shake with 2 cups of whole milk

 

Can of cream of mushroom soup.

 

2 8oz round of eye steaks.

 

Surprisingly it's come out between 2000-2500 calories per day and I haven't been horribly hungry.  Sunday was the only day off-track as we got the sushi after strongman.  Still couldn't have been much more calories overall.

 

We shall see what kind of results I'll get via scale, BF%, and measurements tomorrow. 

[RedStone]

 

 

We left and talked about things a lot and girlfriend gave me a "do you want me to just listen or do you want tough love?"  moments.  Says that as I stick with it and gain confidence and physical strength I will also gain mental and emotional strength. 

 

THIS. so much this! I love hearing stories like this. For a long time I surrounded myself with very negative and toxic people. Having good, loving support is so tremendous for building emotional support. My life turned on a dime when I found positive people in my life! And bad days happen, great to hear today was better!  

[Emerald_Dragonfly]

So. Awesome.

 

Way to power through.  You = amazing.  Nicely done.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

So happy for you man. Keep up all the good work and keep surrounding yourself with those awesome people!

[Broba Fett]

 

THIS. so much this! I love hearing stories like this. For a long time I surrounded myself with very negative and toxic people. Having good, loving support is so tremendous for building emotional support. My life turned on a dime when I found positive people in my life! And bad days happen, great to hear today was better! [emoji3] 

It really is amazing. It's crazy that someone can have a such a profound effect on my life after so little time. She and I will have been together a year on Tuesday. I've got some pretty cool surprises in store for her for our one year date.

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[Broba Fett]

So. Awesome.

 

Way to power through.  You = amazing.  Nicely done.

Thanks! [emoji16]

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[Broba Fett]

So happy for you man. Keep up all the good work and keep surrounding yourself with those awesome people!

Thank you sir! I think being surrounded with good people is huge. My first big weight loss felt like me vs the world. Ex would get fast food and ask if I wanted anything, didn't have anyone to work out with to push me through tough spots. It's night and day.

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[Broba Fett]

Weekly measurements:

Weight: 431-> 423.8

BF%: 44.8 -> 44.0

Waist: 67 -> 66.5

Everything's coming up Broba.

Feeling good about life.

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[Jord]

 

Weekly measurements:

Weight: 431-> 423.8

BF%: 44.8 -> 44.0

Waist: 67 -> 66.5

Everything's coming up Broba.

Feeling good about life.

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I'm really excited for you and excited to watch your progress! Your workouts are impressive and would surely knock me on my feet. I'm glad you are going to stick with it. 

 

Good luck with the paleo diet, I haven't been brave enough to give it a whirl. I don't think it's for me, I'm addicted to vanilla greek yogurt!

[Why not?]

 

He suggested Whole 30.  Says that's what he follows. So basically Paleo. 

Paleo, except even more strict. It allows a couple of things that paleo doesn't, but it also eliminates natural sweeteners that paleo allows, such as honey, coconut palm sugar, etc. It works though, it will definitely make you healthier.

 

Keep up the awesome work!