Early morning tire flips
I was on my way home from my 5:30 AM Crossfit workout in Winston-Salem, North Carolina when I saw a car in front of me with the license plate RUXRCZN (Are you exercising?). It felt great to be able to answer, even at that god awful hour, that, yes, I had been exercising. I left when it was dark and arrived back before the sun rose in the sky. I jumped back into bed with my youngest son, and when he woke up a couple hours later his first comment was, "Okay mom, you can go to Crossfit now." When I told him I had already been to Crossfit, he looked at me with a puzzled expression, and asked, "You went at night?" Well, not exactly, but I have learned that I need to make sure I have a "no excuses policy" when it comes to my workouts.
People often want the secret to my successful weight loss journey, and the truth is very boring--calories in, calories out. Now, it is not really this simple, but the truth is, if I eat healthy food in reasonable portions but don't exercise, I maintain but do not lose weight. If I exercise but do not eat healthy, I also maintain but do not lose. However, if I exercise on a regular basis and make sure that I am eating good food most of the time...with this mix I actually lose inches and pounds.
That is why I was up before the sun doing my Crossfit workout. I had a busy day ahead of me, and I knew there was no way to fit it in any other way. Yes, it would have been easier to just roll over when my alarm went off at 4:30 AM, but nothing can replace that feeling of knowing you did not let life get in the way of a hard, much needed workout. In the beginning it is tough to get motivated, but if you do it consistently, it really does become a habit--and what a habit to have.
In fact, on Tuesday I arrived at my 5:30 AM workout and by 5:35 it was obvious that the coach had overslept and that there would be no official workout. Several people got upset and drove off without their morning exercise. However, I noticed one guy, Mike, get out of his car and started stretching outside the gym. I had woken up at 4:30 and driven 30 minutes to get there, so I decided to get out as well and see what Mike was doing. When I moved toward the gym, John also got out of his car to see what we were up to. We decided to do our own WOD (Workout of the Day). The only equipment available to us were some huge truck tires, so we decided to do 5 rounds of 10 tire flips (squat under tire and then flip it over) and 200m sprints. 50 tire flips and 1000m of sprints later, I felt better than ever because I did not let a little thing like no coach stop me from working out.
So if you are not exercising, find something you love to do, and don't let anything get in the way of getting it done. You don't have to do Crossfit, you don't have to run half marathons, just get your body moving so that if you ever encounter the question, "RUXRCZN," you, too, can answer with an enthusiastic, "YES!"
People often want the secret to my successful weight loss journey, and the truth is very boring--calories in, calories out. Now, it is not really this simple, but the truth is, if I eat healthy food in reasonable portions but don't exercise, I maintain but do not lose weight. If I exercise but do not eat healthy, I also maintain but do not lose. However, if I exercise on a regular basis and make sure that I am eating good food most of the time...with this mix I actually lose inches and pounds.
That is why I was up before the sun doing my Crossfit workout. I had a busy day ahead of me, and I knew there was no way to fit it in any other way. Yes, it would have been easier to just roll over when my alarm went off at 4:30 AM, but nothing can replace that feeling of knowing you did not let life get in the way of a hard, much needed workout. In the beginning it is tough to get motivated, but if you do it consistently, it really does become a habit--and what a habit to have.
In fact, on Tuesday I arrived at my 5:30 AM workout and by 5:35 it was obvious that the coach had overslept and that there would be no official workout. Several people got upset and drove off without their morning exercise. However, I noticed one guy, Mike, get out of his car and started stretching outside the gym. I had woken up at 4:30 and driven 30 minutes to get there, so I decided to get out as well and see what Mike was doing. When I moved toward the gym, John also got out of his car to see what we were up to. We decided to do our own WOD (Workout of the Day). The only equipment available to us were some huge truck tires, so we decided to do 5 rounds of 10 tire flips (squat under tire and then flip it over) and 200m sprints. 50 tire flips and 1000m of sprints later, I felt better than ever because I did not let a little thing like no coach stop me from working out.
So if you are not exercising, find something you love to do, and don't let anything get in the way of getting it done. You don't have to do Crossfit, you don't have to run half marathons, just get your body moving so that if you ever encounter the question, "RUXRCZN," you, too, can answer with an enthusiastic, "YES!"
My Crossfit Buddies Mike and John
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