Dang it's cold!!!!

I sure could go for a nice warm Crossfit Valor hoodie right about now. How about you??




- Mark

Celebrating My One-Year Crossfit Anniversary

Mark E. Wallace’s One-Year Crossfit Testimonial

Warning: This is long. Grab a cup of coffee and get comfortable.

Today is October 24, 2010 and is the day that I celebrate my one-year Crossfit anniversary. Today I rejoice in a new life; a life that will not be propped-up by doctors, fad diets, magic pills, or miracle cures; a life that will be spent playing with my loved ones, engaging confidently in the world around me, and eagerly looking forward to whatever might be around the next corner. Today I get more than just a little misty-eyed with the joy of being a new me. Here is my story.

I grew up as an athlete, competing through junior-high and high school at a fairly high level in baseball, swimming, tennis, and distance running. I also ate like an athlete, consuming nearly anything that I could get my hands on in order to fuel the next swim practice or ten-mile run. Towards the end of high school, athletics went by the wayside, and partying (i.e. drinking) with my friends became a bigger priority for me. As I prepared to enter college, my athletic build began to fade and was replaced with a bit of a gut.

My college years made it even worse. I was on my own, free to indulge in all of the pizza, fast food, and alcohol that I wanted. I took advantage, and that gut grew even more. It was in college that I first felt the need to exercise for health and not just for the fun of it. In my freshman year, I lived in a dormitory that had both a swimming pool and a weight room. To fight off that gut, I used to make up my own workouts that in a single session might include running a few hilly miles, doing 15-20 minutes of swim sprints, and then lifting weights for another 30 minutes. I was just making it up as I went, but it worked, and I got into rather good shape. I moved out of that dorm the next year, and my exercise ways disappeared, replaced quickly again by that gut. The following year, I donned the running shoes briefly, lost a bit of weight, but put it back on not long thereafter. I was so fat that running just hurt my joints too much. I was only in my early 20’s, but I was already too fat to comfortably run.

After college, I got a job and got married. I remember most things from our wedding day, one of which still hurts. A group of us was standing around chatting about old days and how so many of us had changed so much. The father of one of my friends commented that he hardly recognized me because I was so heavy. That hurt enough, but then my father rubbed salt in the wound with something to the extent of, “Yeah, Mark used to be one of the best athletes around.” He didn’t add the implied, “...but not anymore. Now he’s a big fat slob.” He didn’t have to. Everyone knew what he meant, and he was right.

Life went on through my 20’s, 30’s, and into my 40’s. My desk job life grabbed hold of me, and I settled into a death spiral routine of a poor diet, overly stressful job, little-to-no exercise, and late nights spent watching whatever happened to be on TV that night. Every few years, I would get tired of my huge gut and decide to do something about it again. Over the years, this included running (again), swimming, yoga, lifting weights, table tennis, rock climbing, and cycling. The exercise would last for a few months until I either got hurt, bored out of my skull, or became satisfied that I had knocked off enough weight for the moment. My days as any sort of athlete were gone. I hated it, but what was I to do? This was how middle-aged American men with a mortgage, job, wife, and two kids lived. Right?

Thankfully, I had the guts to give it another shot. In early 2008, I was going through the motions at Lifetime Fitness. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do; chest and back on Monday, biceps and triceps on Wednesday, legs and shoulders on Friday, cardio every day. I gained a little strength and lost a little fat, but I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted, and I felt lost. That lost feeling sent me to the Internet to try to learn how to workout properly. It was then that I eventually stumbled into this thing called Crossfit, a psychotic-but-fun-as-hell-looking workout program that seemed to be very successful at building fit, healthy bodies. Between YouTube videos, workout demonstrations on the Crossfit Main Page, and the online Crossfit forums, I eventually learned enough and became confident enough to start doing some of the basic Crossfit workouts at Lifetime. They hurt like mad, and I probably did much of it incorrectly, but they were productive. I immediately started reaping physical rewards. I had found something that I loved, and it worked. For a while.

BUT, as with so many times before, I didn’t stick with it. There are reasons, but they are really excuses. Life caught hold of me again. Work and travel got hectic. A work/social life of my new golf hobby led me down the rat hole of beer, soft drinks, hot dogs, and burgers-n-fries. What I had found in Crossfit I quickly lost due to a lack of focus.

Life has a way of refocusing us though, and so it was with me one day while on business in China. I had been away from our factory for several months, enjoying my golf/burger/beer life back home. On this particular day, I walked into the lobby and heard a colleague call my name from the balcony above.

“Mark!!! Damn!! You got FAT!!”

On my previous trip to this factory (roughly three months earlier), I had been aware that I was again getting very fat. Nobody at the time mentioned it though. Having Raymond call me out like this now, in front of so many people, flipped a switch in my brain. If I was fat on my last visit and nobody mentioned it, how fat must I look now for Raymond to see fit to tell me about it in front of all of these people?

We use the term “lightswitch moment” to describe a change in direction, a change in focus, a shock to the system. This was that moment for me. Something had to be done, and it was. That very night I went back to my hotel room and did two important things; (1) a workout of 100 air squats, and (2) started looking for Crossfit gyms back home. I was excited to find several.

When I got home, I visited all of those gyms, met the owners, watched a workout at each, and quickly decided to make Crossfit Leander my new Crossfit gym. On October 24, 2009, weighing roughly 240 pounds and having a 43”-44” waistline, I did my first workout at CFL. It had the same “hurt like hell” that I remembered from my Crossfit experiment in 2008, and I loved it just as much. I was home, which was good, because I could barely get off of the floor.

Here are two pictures of me. The first is from August 2009 at my 25-year high school reunion. The second is during warmup drills at CF Leander, in early November 2009, just a couple of weeks after starting Crossfit. Not pretty.

In the year since, through a constant dedication to my goals, my diet, and my Crossfit routine, I have made changes such I never really believed I could ever make. I remember marveling at the athleticism of Coach Chad Vasquez’s kipping pullups, Coach Dale Walker’s heavy deadlifts, and Coach Mike Wright’s never-ending run endurance. I also remember how badly it hurt my shoulders to merely hang my 240 pounds from the pullup bar, how weak my meager deadlift was, and how badly I suffered in just doing the 70% effort 400 meter warmup run. I can now easily do those kipping pullups, my deadlift is (although still weak compared to Coach Walker) nothing to sneeze at, and my running is (eh...) not bad. I’m still not the fastest or strongest guy at the gym, but I am indeed strong, fast, and competitive. New people at the gym now sometimes look at me with similar amazement to how I first looked at Chad, Dale, and Mike. I don’t do this stuff for my ego, but I must admit that it feels great to have younger folks looking at formerly-fat-ol’ Mark with at least a little respect and admiration.

Of course, with the performance improvements have come physique improvements. I don’t keep measurements as some people do, but this much I know. I started at roughly 240 pounds. Today I am at 198. That’s over 40 pounds of weight loss, but bear in mind that I also gained 10-20 pounds of muscle (I guess). That means that I have actually lost 50-60 pounds of fat. I started with a 43” (probably closer to 44”) waistline. Today I am at 33” and am (now get this) actually considering changing my focus away from fat loss and over to gaining strength. ME!! Satisfied with my body composition!! Imagine that. I have had to replace all of my pants, most of my shirts, and my belts twice. Clothes are now loose where they should be loose and tight where they should be tight. I now buy clothes with an eye on how well they show my physique. I again walk with my chest up and proud, knowing that the definition there is muscle, not man boobs. When I feel tightness across my seat, I know it is from muscle, not awful jiggly fat. I get compliments on my abdominal development, and one of my friends recently said I have (and I quote) “sexy calves.”

This is me now. I still have a long way to go, but not bad for one year.

 

And then there is this.

I feel young and athletic again.

The feeling of youthful invincibility that I had in my teens and then lost through the next several decades is back again. After so many years of on-again-off-again fitness, by the time I started Crossfit I had resigned myself to the idea that athleticism was a thing of the past for me; that life going forward was to be spent being very fat but not obscenely fat, able to move but not quickly, able to lift but not strong. I had grown to accept that I was on a downhill slide, and now the idea was just not to slide too quickly or land too hard. Stop for a moment and think about that. I was in my early 40’s, and I had downright quit on my health. I was well on my way to becoming a statistic.

When I started Crossfit, I knew I was fat, but fat wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I feared the path that I was on. I feared knowing that my lifestyle could be leading me to a myriad of health issues, not the least of which could be an early death. Sure, I wanted to get rid of the fat, but what I really wanted was to live. And, I don’t mean “live” as in “live a vibrant, healthy, active life.” That wasn’t much of a consideration, although it should have been.

I wanted to live as in “don’t let my heart stop beating earlier than it should.” Mind you, it’s not that I had any warnings of a life-threatening condition, because that is certainly not the case. No doctor had told me that I was dying. I hadn’t passed out walking up the stairs. I had no tightness in my chest. Aside from being fat and hating it, I felt fine. But I was bright enough to know that I was on a dangerous path and could be paying a visit to the doc sooner than I’d like if I didn’t take better care of myself.

What I didn’t consider as a possibility was that a year later I would be writing this seeing myself as young, fit, and capable again. Because of what I have done over the last year, I can again make my way through each day feeling that I can handle anything that life may throw at me. If my friend calls and wants to go for a long bike ride, I can do it. If a golf partner wants to walk a hilly course instead of taking a cart, I can do it and carry my bag. Best of all, if my wife and kids want to do something -- anything --  I can do it. And I will be able to do it with them for many years to come. As a man in his mid-40’s (I am 44 right now), this is a hugely-important thing to be able to say, and my eyes water with pride as I consider the gift of life that I have given back to myself and to those who love me. When my youngest daughter comes up to me, wraps her arms around me (and, by the way, they can get ALL the way around now), and says, “You’re not my big fat Daddy anymore,” I gush at what she thinks of as pride for me but what I think of as a longer life getting to see her and her sister grow up. I asked you to stop earlier to consider what it was like for me to know that I had quit on my health. Stop again now to consider what it is like for me to know that -- in just one short year -- I have turned everything around.

This is running long, but I have two other important things to say. Stick with me.

First, I didn’t do this on my own. I did this with immeasurable, indescribable support from Chad Vasquez, Dale Walker, Mike Wright, and Ryan Schaefer, my coaches at Crossfit Leander. Chad and Dale had the guts and vision to start CFL in early-mid 2009, doing it because they loved it and knew that it was right for them. I don’t know how much (or even if) they ever hoped they would change lives along the way, but they are doing it. I am sure you will be reading more testimonials from other athletes at CFL, for I am certainly not alone as a CFL success story. Chad, Dale, Mike, Ryan....thank you so much.

I also did this with equally overwhelming support from my families.

Families? Yep. Families.

The first is the rest of my family at Crossfit Leander. There are too many to name, so I won’t. They all know who they are, because it is every single one of them. From the first day that I walked into the gym to my most recent workout, I have been encouraged, prodded, teased, yelled at, and congratulated every step of the way. They have lifted me up on my down days and brightened-up even my best days. They have bled with me, sweat with me, laughed with me, and even cried with me. We have shared thoughts and feelings with each other as if we have known each other all our lives. Simply put, we are family, and I love them all.

And, of course, there is my family family. Cindi (my lovely wife), and Kiara and Darcy (our two wonderful daughters) have lovingly allowed me to dive in to Crossfit headfirst, never giving any sign that it is too much for them to bear. To be quite honest, I have gone nuts with Crossfit over the past year. I talk about Crossfit, diet, and Crossfit people all the time. I spent a bunch of money on fitting-out half of our garage as a very suitable Crossfit gym. I sit around on the computer reading Crossfit forums, watching Crossfit competitions, and chatting with Crossfit friends. I factor proximity to Crossfit gyms into my decision-making process for where to work and where to live if we ever move. I check food labels and give them a “tsk tsk tsk” if I see something I don’t like. Through it all, they love and support me without question. Cindi, Kiara, Darcy....I love you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I said that there were two final things. So, here is the second.

Fitness is not about having “huge guns” or a teeny-tiny waist. Fitness is not about pullups, deadlifts, or Ironman triathlons. Fitness is not about how you appear in your muscle shirt, bikini, or in those new designer jeans. Fitness is most certainly not about hitting some socially accepted but nonetheless arbitrary number on a bathroom scale.

Fitness is you keeping your body, mind, and soul in condition to actively, passionately, and joyously live your life and let your loved ones live it with you. It is you being prepared and able to engage in the ever-so-unpredictable ups and downs of life, confident that you will not only survive but thrive. Fitness is a journey, with your ultimate destination being determined by you and your day-to-day habits.

But more than that...fitness is a gift. It is the gift of life. It is a gift that you can actually give to yourself simply through deciding to do so, finding your path, and then taking action. I cannot imagine a greater gift that you could possibly give to yourself and to the people who want to spend their lives with you.

Crossfit was my path here, and it is my path going forward. Whether this is your path or not is up to you. Whatever your path may be, find it, commit to it, and live it.

So that you may live.

Not after it for aesthetics, buuuuuuuuut....

Today I needed to go the post office to send in the funds that I raised for Fight Gone Bad V.

At one point, I needed to discard some trash, which meant briefly stepping through the middle of the long line waiting to get to the service desk.

I jokingly looked at the people towards the back of the line and said, "I'm just going to cut in line right here. Is that all right with y'all?" Of course, I was kidding; just trying to brighten the mood of these people having to stand in line.

Imagine my surprise when the lady closest to me looked at me, put a big smile on her face, and said, "I'm definitely okay with that. You're pretty cute."

Another "Thank you" to Crossfit and a healthy diet. I can't even kinda remember the last time that anybody said out loud that they thought I was cute.

Mark

Car inspection, cops, & fitness

Funny story.

I took the truck in to get inspected today. As I sit there reading my book, this conversation happens: 

Guy 1: Says to me, "You a cop?"
Me: "No. Why?"
Guy 1: "You're wearing all black and are built like a cop."
Me: "Nope. I just like black. And thanks."
Guy 2: "Built like a cop? Man, the cops around here look like sh*t. This guy looks great."
Guy 1: "Yeah, you're right. No powdered sugar on this dude."

Thank you, Crossfit.

- Mark

Nerves setting in

Fight Gone Bad V is coming up this Saturday. It's just another workout, but I'm already nervous.

It hurts.

But it's for a good cause.


3....2....1....Go!!

Woo hoo!! A Crossfit victory!!

Neat experience today. The CF Leander gang went over to CF ATX for its free Saturday workout, and Old Man Wallace came back with some "software."

Today's workout was a two-person team competition, with each team doing two rounds of Fight Gone Bad.

The format for the workout was as follows:

Two rounds of:
Team member #1 does 1 minute of box jumps, to a 24" box
Team member #2 does same
Team member #1 does 1 minute of rowing, for calories
Team member #2 does same
Both team members rest for two minutes
Team member #1 does 1 minute of push press (75lbs)
Team member #2 does same
Team member #1 does 1 minute of wall ball, to a 10' target, 14lb ball
Team member #2 does same
Team member #1 does 1 minute of 70 lb. kettlebell sumo deadlift high pull
Team member #2 does same


Largely due to having a great partner for this workout (Thanks, James Talley!!), my partner and I won the mens competition, completing a total of 496 reps. We actually got outscored by another team (I'm not sure by how much), but James and I won because we carried a heavier load throughout the workout; i.e. we pressed more, used a 24" box instead of 20", used a 70lb KB, and used a 14lb ball. The next closest team outscored us but under lesser demand.


Prior to the workout, I was really nervous about letting James down. He's younger, clearly in shape, and apparently healthy. I'm 44, still see myself as being Old Fat Mark, and have a tight right shoulder and injured right knee. Considering this, and not wanting James to be disappointed, I used all of that as my excuse for why I might hold him back.



BUT, surprise surprise...I actually held my own pretty well. I don't have our individual numbers, but I think I outrowed him, kept up with him on the press, and was probably just a little bit behind him on the wallball and KB SDHP. I'm sure he kicked my butt on the box jumps, as he just totally cranked them out like he was born doing them. I'm not so good at box jump, and this box was 4" higher than we usually use at CFL. Bottom-line is that, for a 44-year old now former fat guy, I did okay. I'm proud, not only of this win, but also of how far I have come in ten months. Total testimony to CF, CF Leander, hard work, and eating well.


This was a preparatory workout for the upcoming (Sept 25) Fight Gone Bad V, which I will blog about later. The full FGB is three rounds, which I have never done before, so I really need more of the prep work that CFL and the other local gyms are planning for us. I am nervous but very excited about taking part in FGBV.

- Mark

My dietary changes over the last ten months

Over on the Crossfit forums, someone asked me about how my diet has changed over the past ten months of doing Crossfit. Figured I should make this a blog post as well, so here we go. This is a fairly good description of the before & after. "After" really started in either late November or early December 2009.

Breakfast
- Before: Cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese. Maybe a banana as well. One mug of my fabulous home-roasted coffee. Sometimes the bagel was replaced by a bowl of granola with either milk or plain (good quality) yogurt.
- Now: Typical breakfast for me is 3-4 eggs cooked in bacon fat (usually scrambled, but whatever), maybe 4-5 pieces of bacon, veggies (usually either greens [kale, mustard, turnip, collard], zucchini/squash, broccoli, cauliflower, plus an avocado and maybe a handful of fresh berries. One mug of my coffee too. Sometimes the eggs are replaced by meat of some sort; pork chops or beef.

Lunch
- Before: Lunch with the work gang. Usually sandwiches at Firehouse Subs, burritos at Chipotle, Chinese food, BBQ at one of Austin's many joints, or something battered & fried. Common theme is that my lunches almost always had a bread component, either as part of the main dish (sandwiches) or on the side (fluffy roll with the BBQ, rice with the Chinese food). Iced tea with Sweet & Low usually.
- Now: Generally, I just look for whatever is on the menu that (1) has as few ingredients as possible, (2) has as much meat and veggies as possible, and (3) undergoes as little processing as possible to create. Grains are basically gone entirely. Every so often (maybe once every two weeks) I'll allow some rice and beans into a Tex-Mex meal if the main course is too skimpy. Big-*** salads are a big part of my lunch framework, as they usually meet all three of the above criteria.

Dinner
- Before: Whatever the wife was making, which meant (and still means, for her) pasta, pizza, burritos, tacos, ground-beef wrapups (flavored ground beef baked inside croissant dough), burgers. She's a pastaholic, so at least three meals per week had some sort of pasta component, either as main course or side. A near constant was grains. A few meals per week would have steamed frozen veggies.
- Now: Same general description as breakfast, although the eggs are almost always replaced by grilled, smoked, or baked meat of some sort. My wife still generally does her own thing for meals (see: pastaholic), but every so often she'll partake of what I have cooked if there's enough of it and she's too tired to make her own meal. Again, grains are gone. Usually just water to drink. If we eat out, I follow my lunch framework.

Other tidbits:

• The most common theme throughout my dietary change is that grains have basically been eliminated.
• I've never been much of a person for sweets or alcohol. Hence no mention of having eliminated them. I really have just about absolute zero processed sugar in my diet; can't even remember the last time that I added sugar to anything. I have a drink (usually a Bloody Mary) maybe once every 2-3 weeks.
• I don't weigh/measure any of my foods
• I don't really worry about P/F/C ratios. I don't even know what they are, nor do I care.
• My grill and steamer are my best cooking friends.
• I eat when my body tells me it wants me to. I eat until it says it's satisfied. This does not mean I pack myself full. I just eat until I don't want any more.
• It's an extraordinary rarity for me to eat anything from a package.
• With exception of stuff like spices, nearly all my foods come from the outer edges of the grocery store. I want my food to be able to spoil if I don't get to it quickly enough.
• I use some salt, but sparingly.
• I eat some fruit, but not a whole lot. Usually it's berries, peaches, nectarines, or bananas.
• Every 3-4 weeks (whenever I feel like it), I add nuts into my diet. Usually almonds and/or walnuts. These are usually just snacks.
• Some dairy, but very little and very rarely. Usually just a few swigs of milk or a cup of fresh yogurt. This even means no creamer in my coffee, which I have always taken black anyhow.
• I'm also on fish oil, Ca/Mg/Zn, Glucosamine/Chondroitin, Vitamin D, creatine monohydrate, beta alanine, and I have a PWO shake of Optimum Nutrition protein powder, mixed into plain water.
• I don't drink enough plain water and need to fix that.

Hope this is useful for some of y'all. I readily admit that not everyone is willing or able to eat this way, but it works for me.

- Mark

10-month Crossfit anniversary

Today marks my 10-month "anniversary" of starting Crossfit. When I started, I was wearing size 42 jeans that had probably been stretched out to more like 43-44. I weighed ~240lbs, a very high percentage of which was fat. I was weak, had poor endurance, and was pretty down on myself because of where I had let my health go.

Today, I am comfortably in size 34 jeans. I weigh 198 lbs. (according to my cheap scale at home), and my body composition is much more muscle now than fat. I am much stronger, have better endurance, and feel totally rejuvenated -- both physically and spiritually. I feel ready for whatever may come at me next, whether it's the set of stairs that used to leave me gasping or 21-15-9 of thrusters and pullups.

This journey is far from over. In fact, it's just getting started. This time though, I have my weightlifting shoes on and am ready for it.