"Hey Charlie should I add in extra ab work if I want a 6 pack by september?"
"Nope, change your diet."
Before you anti-anti-gluten people use this as your "ah ha!" moment against me, he didn't know I've been strict paleo (which I told him I was immediately following that response, to which he changed it to "then keep it up"). The basic premise behind his answer was that the key to revealing your abs is to essentially uncover them, and that any additional work I put in on top of the workouts wouldn't hurt, but have very little tangible effect until I've lost all the weight. I was hoping to speed the process up and "meet in the middle", but apparently it doesn't work that weigh. So to people who spend thousands of dollars on ab toys or toiling away hours and hours doing those extra crunches, while that "can't hurt" the real thing elephant in the room that you should be spending your energy on is your diet.
Also today was yet another opportunity (different group of friends) to be instantly interrogated, which I of course love. Though I'm not quite sure what to say when people say "hey nice blog" or something to that effect, it's still a treat because it usually inspires many questions as if I'm some sort of expert (believe me, if I was some sort of expert you'd be reading my books and paying top dollar to come to my motivational conferences... or at least you'd listen to me on late night infomercials hopefully paying middle dollar for my latest scam invention (like the shake-weight)). So please feel free to ask me all about crossfit, paleo, whatever because its all interesting to me, even though my roommate today made the "are you talking about working out again??", to which my only reply can be "they asked". I promise I have other interests that you can talk to me about too.
So I will reiterate to people the purpose of this blog as I'm sure (hopeful) there's going to be some new readers: I decided that I was tired of being average (for lack of a better word), tired of being a little chubby, tired of starting and stopping exercise plans and decided to dive headfirst into crossfit / paleo diet and document everything. The unique perspective is, whereas most blogs / workout videos / motivational things are from the viewpoint of someone who is already "accomplished", or "ripped" or already where the intended audience wants to be, mine is from the opposite, its from the viewpoint of me (aka "the audience") trying to get to that point.
Yes I know, I need a better mission statement for this thing which will hopefully evolve over time, for now that's the best I got.
Oh I also did a WOD today, the last free saturday. Apparently the coaches don't like working for free, or they've grown the gym to a size they feel comfortable with, or they just count on schmucks like me to blog about it and build word of mouth advertising (even though they don't know about or read this yet... all in good time), either way the free saturdays are coming to an end. There will be one free saturday per month, which is good and bad in my opinion. Good because it will be easy for people to plan around, bad because I was using it as my 4th workout per week and now thats not an option.
Once again, Hart joined me for this killer partner WOD:
Warmup:
15 lunges (per leg)
15 squats
15 pushups
2x
WOD
AMRAP 25 minutes:
30 Jump Squats
20 Push Press (75 lbs)
30 Pushups
The "partner" part of this WOD was, partner A completes their reps then rests as partner B completes their reps, but both must complete the prescribed reps (i.e A does 30 B does 30). In a word: Brutal. I would challenge anyone reading this to just casually complete 30 jumpsquats without resting, my legs were on FIRE during the first set (and I did in fact complete without resting). Hart is quite a bit stronger than me (one of the annoying things in life is bringing friends who are immediately better than you at something you've been practicing for weeks) so he was able to handle the 75lbs much easier than I was, as that would be considered "moving up" from my usual weight that I workout with AND 20 reps! Yikes. I managed to complete 2 rounds at 75lbs then dropped weight all the way down to a 35lb kettlebell, I attempted the 53lb kettlebell but decided looking strong wasn't as important as NOT dropping the kettlebell on my face. Finally the pushups I did the first set as full pushups, but the next 2 sets I definitely scaled down to my knees, and am not ashamed.
All in all we powered through and gave a strong effort completing 3 rounds + 63. Afterwards I've never felt so exhausted in my life, I was absolutely dead. I think the alcohol from last night (just a few drinks, I definitely was not hung over trying to do this) was affecting me, as this was the first workout where I nearly pulled over on the way home to vomit. In fact this afternoon I laid down and was in a coma type sleep as my entire body shut down, so at least they ended the saturday morning sessions with a bang.
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