Wednesday 10/14/18

WOD

Box Squats
4 Sets of 6 Reps.
Then
AMRAP in 8 Minutes:
Abmat sit-ups,
On the minute starting with 0:00
25 double unders.

Tuesday Night Musings by Coach Ben.

Diets are stupid and superficial 🙂

Tonight I would like to talk to you about how dumb “dieting” is but how maintaining a well balanced diet of meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar isn’t dumb.

If all these different diet fads were so awesome then why the hell do you have to keep coming back to it. Repeating diets over and over again doesn’t make you look healthy, it makes you look like a junky at Pioneer Park. 

In the CrossFit Journal “Restricted Success” by Hilary Achaauer it talks about a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota  named Traci Mann who shares in her book “Secrets From the Eating Lab: The Science of Weight Loss, the Myth of Willpower, and Why You Should Never Diet Again,” that has shown in her 20 years of research that studies show diets start with people losing around 5-15lbs in the first four to six months no matter what the diet is, but 50% of the dieters will end up weighing more in four to five years after the diet ended. 

In the time I have lived on this planet there is one thing I have learned for sure, extremes never seem to work out in the end. Everyone’s goal should be long term. What can I do to live the longest and best life as possible while I can. Ask yourself one simple question, “can I do this forever?” If the answer is no then it’s not worth your time. 

I can already hear some people screaming at me “What about Challenges?” and my response is calm down, a diet is not the same thing as a Challenge. Every now and then doing a little reset like that, or like intermittent fasting (as Coach Jess mentioned) can be a great tool, but if those resets start popping up more and more and you are using them as punishment for every holiday or hard month you go through, then you are starting to have more things in common with a heroine junky again. 

One thing I worry a lot about for some people is when they put the way they look in a mirror as the most important priority in their life. When this happens so many other parts of our life that aren’t superficial get left behind and can put us in a dark, scary place. One thing I’ve always loved that the founder of CrossFit Greg Glassman talks about is that is that  CrossFitter body everyone wants so desperately is a side effect. You heard me right, a side effect. Obviously, not a bad side effect and a good side effect when you have your priorities in the right order. Priorities like eating cleaner, sleeping right and focusing on better technique so you can start upping your intensity in WODs and as a result you are healthier and then as a result of all that you will finally earn that body you deserve without doing all these boneheaded diets that only give you short term pleasure. 

In closing I would just like to talk about one more thing, body image. This affects us all and can really hit close to home. When I first started having the itch for coaching I kept putting up a mental road block about the way I looked was not what a typical coach in my own head looked like. So, instead of putting my time and effort into things that could help me help people I was looking up a 1000 different programs that would make me look like a CrossFit coach. I lost a lot of time I wish I wouldn’t have and now can’t get back. One of the defining things about being human is how different we are and how different we look. There is no such thing as one size fits all. The goal is not about how you look, it’s about how you feel!  Now I say to you all block out all that noise. Who gives a crap what people look like in magazines and movies or what superficial people say even if they think what they are telling you is well intentioned. 

If you are reading this then you are already winning because that means you are a member at CrossFit Helo and are putting in the hard work and are headed on the right path. Forgot all the stupid dieting fads, forget the negative thoughts and forget anyone who thinks they have a right to talk about the way you look. The focus should be on the process and I get to see you guys and gals busting ass all the time and it’s awesome. If you ever feel lost, confused or overwhelmed I can confidently say all the coaches at Helo want nothing more than to help you guys and gals along the way in any way we can with the process of becoming a long term healthy bad ass. 

Congrats you made it through my rant, good night and sleep tight! 

Thanks for reading! 

Coach Ben