Wednesday 130710

Strength

Deficit Deadlifts

Work up to a 3RM

To reach the deficit, the options will be standing on a steel 45# or stacking the mats to reach that approximate height. If you can't get into a good setup, scale height as needed.

WOD

Complete 5 rounds for time of:

100m Plate Farmers Carry, 95#/50#

6 Snatch, 135#/95#

The walk will be out the door, to the street, and back. The same plates must be used for the walk and the snatch. That means loading and unloading the bar between movements!

Alexis hitting rings dips as RX.

You want to be inspired today? Check out these 2 pictures of Rochelle: 

Then:

Now:

Rochelle has shared her journey in a variety of ways. The below piece, The Mental Journey of Weight Loss: A Story of Acceptance, was published on Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. It's honest, raw, and touching. Thanks Rochelle for putting it all out there…both in sharing your story and in the work you put in at the gym! 

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Hello again! Rochelle here. Last time I wrote I covered most everything about my weight loss from soup to nuts.  What I didn’t really go too far into was the mind game that is weight loss before, during, and after.

I had been overweight all through my teens and adult life, and I had heard during that time that if I just lost the weight my life would be better. All rainbows and sunshine, perfect, if you just got thin. However, that wasn’t reality. I am only speaking of my own experience; I am not a trained psychologist. I just found that the line of “thin=instantly happy” didn’t happen with me. Thinking this way can also sabotage the best of intentions. The process for me was to try to find acceptance with all the things that have changed, and at the same time things that will not change.

I started my journey with a therapist. I found it very helpful to know “Why.” Why did I do the things I did with regards to food? While a relationship with food is learned, therapy isn’t all about blaming your family for your problems. I believe this is an important question to answer along your weight loss journey as it will help make the changes permanent. Answering this question allowed me to fix my relationship with food on many levels. This was my before, finding and identifying my ‘why.’ I have struggled with my disordered relationship with food all my life. I am fairly certain I am not the only person raised in the 80’s, the era when real food became the enemy. Everything needed to be free: fat free, sugar free, calorie free. Frankenfoods. Real fat, sugar, and food needed to be feared. Getting past this line of thought was really the first step in the right direction.

I also was a slave to the scale. BMI and the scale were drilled into my head as the only way to know if I was healthy or not. If your weight and BMI fell into some magical category that meant you were healthy. As my weight came off I found that I was getting happier, indeed, but there was this nagging in the back of my head. It never felt like it was enough. I also happen to have a pretty good doctor. One who understands that when you have a chart that is only based on height and weight and nothing else it really isn’t indicative of anything, let alone health. When I also considered the number of “obese” people I know with less than 10% body fat, it drives home the point. I also know a number of people who are in the “normal” weight range who have 50% body fat. As the makeup of our body composition is a better indicator of health this has lead me to shift my focus to body composition. It isn’t about a scale and it isn’t about some useless chart on your doctor’s wall. I have accepted that I will always be diagnosed as obese. I figure if my doc is OK with it I probably should be, too. Here is how I got rid of my scale…a sledgehammer. This made the break up with the $8 piece of plastic a little more final. Official, if you will. It’s not me, it’s you, scale.

Me getting ready to sledgehammer my scale.

Once I lost 100lbs, I got asked a lot about how happy I was now. Truth be told I didn’t really feel any different. Not many people will really help prepare you for the after. Most of the focus is on the before and during, not much on the after. After all, thin=blissful happiness right? I was very blessed to have my trainer, Ryan, during the big losing process. He helped me a lot with the mental aspect of weight loss. He helped me see that I can be a fit strong person. He allowed me to see the athlete that was hiding inside and helped her come to the surface. It is weird to think that in your early to mid-30’s you have to figure out who you are again. Isn’t that what your 20’s were for?  I compared my weight loss to that of a turtle that has lost its shell. I had been the fat daughter, fat sister, fat friend, and fat coworker. Fat was my shell. This, this was new. The fat was gone, so now who was I? And then the DUH moment came. I had only changed the size of my pants, I still had to create the happy myself. I am still on this part of my journey. I am happier and healthier but trying to figure out how I want to be identified is the harder part. I had to accept that some people in my life will forever act like I am the fat person I once was and that nothing had changed. They want you to be the same person you always were and will be upset when you aren’t. They may not want to be your friend anymore or will be upset with you for changing your role in the relationship. It is something I am learning to deal with. The other option is to go back, and that isn’t an option for me.

I also found I needed a community. A group who understood why on this earth would I ever want to have a 300lb deadlift. I found that in CrossFit! I love lifting weights; I am not a fan of the long drawn out cardio session and that wasn’t really a part of my training with Ryan. Weights were a part of my fitness journey from day one but I wanted more! The Rec Center I use doesn’t allow people to do things such as Olympic Lifting and you would get in trouble if you dropped the weights, they just are not set up for that. So I ventured out. I toured all of the local gyms (or boxes as they are called in CrossFit). One was a bit too intense for me. The other was nice but really small and just didn’t seem to fit for me. And then I found my home. I found a place that if I wanted to compete I could, but it wasn’t the focus, and the people were welcoming and like a family. The owners, Jon and Gene, have created an environment that allows for an individual’s success. With any gym membership, be it at a traditional gym or a gym that serves a community like CrossFit, fit and feeling comfortable are really important!

Identity crisis notwithstanding, I feel like I came to this point stronger. I would like to think that I am a strong person mentally and physically. I have had bumps and bruises along the way but all life-changing journeys do. There are some things you need to accept and move on from. Shopping is a much different process; I am still learning not to go to the 3X’s automatically. Pants are going to always be an adventure. With physical strength come clothes that fit weird. They sell pants with stretch for this very reason! I don’t get tied to a specific size; I fit my legs and bum and then buy a belt if the waist doesn’t fit. Just like the scale if you must only wear a specific size to judge your worth, it will bring you only unhappiness. Acceptance is a powerful thing. When you accept that you are in the process of changing more than just a number on a scale is when you find your greatest power!

You can follow my journey on my Instagram! @Rbraaten12