The following was written over 2 months ago. My CrossFit journey continues to evolve. Every day I’m developing greater strength and greater friendships. It truly has been a blessing.
I’ve been CrossFitting for over 4 months now. It’s CRAZY when I think about it! I’ve imagined writing about my experience here many times and I just totally dropped the medicine ball. (That’s CrossFit humor) I wanted to take some time to express the many feelings I’ve had as I’ve progressed on this particular journey.
The first day I walked in that door was terrifying! Honestly I’m not sure how I actually got there. The day before I was feeling especially down about my health issues. I was feeling so tired of feeling tired and sick and like I was a physically broken person who had huge limits on what she could do physically. I was tired all day everyday. I constantly felt like I was failing because I spent so much time laying down accomplishing nothing other than survival. I was tired of surviving.
I knew I had to do something to get myself moving more. I knew I wouldn’t commit to anything on my own. I needed to be accountable to someone. In the past I had never stuck to any type of exercise routine for very long. When it got hard I would just stop and tell myself it wasn’t really making any difference any way. I told myself I wasn’t a physically fit type of person that could do any kind of intense exercise. My body was too weak.
I sent a text message to the one person I knew had knowledge about exercise and working out. She told me I could meet her at the gym one day and try out a CrossFit class for free. She said she’d help guide me through it and it would be fun. I told her I would meet her there the next morning because I knew if I waited I would change my mind and decide I couldn’t do it.
So that’s how I ended up at the CrossFit gym.
My first day walking through the door was so far out of my comfort zone. The only thing that got me through the door was repeating to myself that I was brave and could do hard things. I had to focus on my reason for going and not on whether I thought I could actually do it. I really had no idea what to expect. I had never been to a class like this.
It turned out that the class I showed up for was not a typical CrossFit class. It was a posterior chain class meant to focus on building strength in the posterior of your body. It involved a lot of different exercises and moving to different stations. Wait, let me back up… the class actually started with a warm-up. Apparently it was important to stretch and warm up your body before doing the actual workout. I had heard of this before. I could hardly do the “warm-up” exercises. After ten minutes of warming up and stretching I thought my workout for the day should be done. I was breathing hard and my body felt tired. I couldn’t do “simple” things like go down into a squat and stand back up or do a lunge. I was weak and my balance sucked. I was shaky. I was behind the group on every move we did.
Now onto the actual workout of the day, otherwise known as the WOD. Every move I did felt foreign and weird. My friend guided me every step of the way and I was thankful for that. By the end of class, I felt like the weakest person in the room and like I didn’t belong there at all. I was completely out of my element.
That morning was the beginning step of what would become something amazing and beautiful in my life. Four months later I’m still the weakest person in the room, but I’m a physically and mentally stronger me. I consider every day I walk through the door a victory.
Here’s what I’ve found for myself in CrossFit…
It’s hard work! By the end of a workout I feel like I couldn’t possibly do one more rep of anything. During the workout it takes every fiber within me to push myself to keep going and not just stop because I’m tired and feel like I have no fuel or energy left. It’s strictly my mind just telling myself that I will keep going. I tell myself all that matters is that I keep moving. It doesn’t matter how fast I go, I just have to keep going.
The days that I go to CrossFit I feel better overall. My mental state is in a better place because I feel like I’ve accomplished something for the day no matter what else I do that day. My energy level is better in the sense that I feel more motivated to keep going and get other things done. I’m still tired everyday, and most days I do end up taking a nap if I can find the time, but I don’t feel nearly as guilty about taking that time to rest my body when I know I’ve worked it hard and done my best.
There have been moments when I’ve felt frustrated about the fact I can’t look in the mirror and measure my progress or accomplishment. I wasn’t overweight when I started, so losing weight hasn’t been a goal and I don’t see my body shrinking. I’ve actually put weight on and that has been hard to get my mind around. Especially since I feel a difference specifically in how my pants fit. My thighs have definitely grown and probably my butt as well. Everything is tighter in the thigh. My whole life I believed my butt and thighs were too big, they were my “problem area” that I wished I could change. I remember being called a bubble butt when I was younger and I always felt like my butt was something I needed to hide because it was too big. Now I’m learning to embrace that part of my body and accept it how it is and the fact that it’s probably going to get bigger and not smaller by doing these workouts. I actually find quite a bit of humor in it.
Because I tend to hyper focus on one specific thing at a time, my writing has suffered. My focus has been more on CrossFit. But, looking at what I’ve accomplished and seeing how consistent I’ve been has given me a new sense of well-being and that I am capable of things that I’ve thought I wasn’t. It’s making me look at limitations I put on myself to evaluate them. I’m looking at my writing and telling myself that if I can make the time to CrossFit 5 days a week, then I can also make the commitment to myself to write at least 5 days a week as well. This is my new goal. It doesn’t matter what I write, all that matters is that I sit down on those days and take the time to write something. I know that the more I write, the better I will get at expressing myself and sharing things in a way that people can understand and have a desire to read. It’s a process. Yes, I already feel like I am good at expressing myself through words, but I can always get better. Writing everyday is what I need to do to get closer to achieving my ultimate goal of writing and publishing my life stories and having the world accept them and appreciate them. To have the world be moved in some way by the things I share. To have an individual that I don’t know be affected by my story. That is my dream and goal. It’s time to stop avoiding what I really want and know I’m meant to do just because I’m scared that I might not accomplish it. I will start taking more and more steps to make my dream a reality and I will not give up on it. I’ve known for most of my life that I was supposed to do this. I will not deny myself the fulfillment of what I know God planned for me to do and gave me the gift to do.