Had to share

It's been a long while since I posted, yes I know. Let me share this with you all but expect to see the family holiday photos soon, like really soon! other than that have fun watching. 

Canyon Crossift Holiday Photoshoot

Hey Canyon members, ready to make your holiday season picture perfect? I will be offering to take your holiday pictures, studio style at Canyon Crossfit or on location at Yorba Regional Park. Sign up sheets and information will be available at the box. The discounted rates are a one-time special offer for Canyon members and any of your family and friends. Spots are limited so sign up today! 

  • Sitting fee includes multiple poses for your time slot
  • $15 for 25 min studio shots @ Canyon Crossfit
  • $40 for 50 min on location @ Yorba Regional Park
  • Basic photo editing and re-touching
  • Receive high-res digital files
  • Full rights for the digital photo ($200 value)
  • Print anywhere at your choice ie. Costco, VistaPrint.com, Kinkos
  • Photos kept on file for 6 months
  • Bring your own props
  • Future and referral discounts

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​Here's a sample of my family at the pumpkin patch. 

​Here's a sample of my family at the pumpkin patch. 

Fully charged!

It's been 1 whole week on the whole30 program and I'm back to being fully charged. The only thing I don't like is the fact that I have to wake up at 5:30 am every morning for work. So I'm really only getting 7 hours of sleep instead of the ideal 8. It's alright, I'm still fresh and ready to go with my cup of Joe.

We spent this past weekend without any special events and the only thing scheduled was a photo shoot with my brother-in-law on Sunday. Since we knew that was happening we knocked out our grocery and food prep for this week on Saturday instead of Sunday. We did our Crossfit thing in the morning, which was a tough "Deck of Cards" workout. Soon after we did our infamous Costco & Sprouts run. We loaded up on a lot of produce and some meat, only because we stocked up on grassfed beef and chicken when they went on sale. We bought some dates and are gonna try to make a magical concoction of bacon wrapped dates that we stumbled upon during Crossfit RXD's grand opening. It's meat candy from the heavens! Speaking of the heavens, the angles sure helped the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for winning their overtime game of Stanford. I was elated for the rest of the day and slept soundly!​

Sunday was cooking day. So a little insight on my wifey. Never did I think she'd know how to cook, yet alone love cooking, but converting to paleo changed all that. She's making meals that I used to only read and hear about. Now I get to eat and enjoy them all. She's super efficient, able to cook 3 whole meals at a time in our tiny kitchen. ​What were they? Chili, sweet potato hash, and roasted pork loin. Not to shabby. By the way, that roasted pork was so succulent and tender, it will become a staple in our household menu. In addition we had some chicken and shrimp marinating for the grill. What an abundance of food?! We honestly can say we eat darn good tasting healthy food and we're proud of it. I never thought it would be this good and this easy with a little bit of effort. 

By late afternoon/early evening we had a family photo shoot. Since I'm usually behind the camera we don't have many pictures of just us. Thanks to my brother-in-law he took some time out of his day to capture some moments of the 3 of us. We can't thank him enough, so we grilled and fed them dinner, grilled chicken & shrimp with roasted broccoli and cauliflower. HAHA! Here's what he got and we can't be any happier with them. ​

​Here's my WOD (always reads easier than it actually is)

5 rounds for max reps​

115# Shoulder Press for 30 seconds​

Rest 1 min​

Toes to bar for 30 seconds​

Rest 1 min​

​My score = 105 reps Rx (24 shoulder presses + 81 toes to bar)....need to work on shoulder press!

Back on track...

It's been quite a while since the last whole30. Ideally though, I shouldn't ever need to do the whole30 program for the rest of my life since I do preach and believe in it wholly, but I'm human and have decision making problems sometimes. So please don't put a beer in my face because I'll gladly take it. Gosh darnit football why must you be so exciting and entertaining. That's to blame for my food indiscretions. Ok so there's my rant and it ultimately led to starting another whole30. Six months ago it changed my life and I'm ready to do it again. This time the wifey and I will be doing it together at the same time. It should go much more smoothly, especially with the experience and everything we know now. ​

OK, let me back up a bit since today is day 2 and I've failed to write about day 1. I'll skip day 1 entirely since nothing was really entertaining and fill you in with what went down over the weekend. I blew it over the weekend. I psychologically screwed myself. Since I knew we were going to start the whole30 on Monday the 8th, I decided to go buck wild style on everything and anything. This entire mental game of choosing to start the whole30 on a specific date was detrimental to the mind, it erupted the binge devil inside and with him brought the vice of good ole alcohol and sugar. It was almost 90% sugary goodness, my Achilles heal, I could care less for bread and chips, ​I'm talking about donuts, cookies, cake, and even some sour patch kids candy! ARGH, but oh so yummy!!!! What in the world led up to this?! Well, I can't blame it on anyone but myself, so I made my own excuses. It was our good friends wedding and that's all I needed to tell myself to let it all hang out. I like drinking, especially socially and during football season. Those two reasons fell in line perfectly this past weekend and I had a blast with no regrets. The wedding was amazing but now it's time to see pass that and get back to where I need and want to be, healthy and conscious living.

So with day 1 in the books and day 2 about to be completed, I must say I already feel great and my workouts have been going well. The wifey has been putting together some amazing dinners. Feel free to follow her on instagram, @Allypie and see all the great creations we chow down on. Today we had some grassfed burgers that were off the hook, take a peak below. By the way, I had two of those!

Here's​ my workout for today.

5 rounds for time​

Run 400m + 15 Thursters (95#) + 15 pull ups​

My time = 22:01 as Rx'd​

Homemade grassfed beef burgers​

Homemade grassfed beef burgers​

Congratulations Jon & Renee!!!​

Congratulations Jon & Renee!!!​

Monkey see, Monkey do

The first of the month came and went, but not without some good food, workouts, and entertainment. Monday's are always tough, I'm hoping it's not just me that feels this way. I wake up before the sun rises and that's always hard but at least I get home before the sun sets. ​Today, Tuesday, I woke up with the repercussions of yesterday, a sore left shoulder and elbow, but it was all worth it.

Yesterday was summer's final stand before conceding to fall. The temperature hit a high 105 degrees in Anaheim Hills and was 99 degrees by the time I got to Canyon Crossfit to workout. I knew what I was getting into when I got there and because I read the workout earlier in the day, I was already intimidated. I have to stop doing that and just show up, but gosh, I'm only an eager beaver when it comes to this crossfit addiction. Anyway, the workout was brutal, but I finished. It was 5 rounds of running 400m and 7 muscle ups. If you're unfamiliar with muscle ups (MU), then all you have to think about are the gymnastic rings and in one fluid movement you've got to get from hanging on the rings to fully suspended pressed out position  at the top with the rings at the side of your hips. Yes, it sounds confusing, but it's one of the most technical body movements for any athlete and this time I did a total of 35 reps, which is a personal best!

I got home and walked into aromatic wall of foodie heaven. ​The mrs. went on a cooking spree and prepared some flavor-bomb treats, kale chips and morning glory muffins. I don't ask how or what anymore, I just taste and enjoy. To top it off we had paleo spaghetti for dinner and if you've been following allypie on instagram or read some old posts, it's her homemade spaghetti sauce with ground grassfed beef over some spaghetti squash. Once again, it's a winner and has become a staple on our menu. Oh and about those kale chips, I ate them so fast she had to remind me to slow down and savor them first since it was the first go around. It reminded me of nori, japanese salted seaweed. Next up were the muffins, yum yum yum yum yum. They are not sweet like you would think a regular muffin would be, but they're just right. Sorry I can't even explain what they taste like, check it out on her instagram and let me know what you think it looks like, but trust me they are tasty.

As with all Monday's in the fall season, there's MNF, Monday Night Football. Since football is my favorite sport, I make sure to get my fix no matter what team is playing. I also make sure to include my little girl on this ritual. She likes the sport, she even knows the hand signal for "touchdown." ​I think she'll be able to talk about football better than most boys as she gets older, she'll be well prepared for those conversations for sure.  We wrestle and run around after dinner, it's her way of efficient digestion. She's at a point where she's a sponge and taking in everything that surrounds her. So I took the opportunity to teach her the push up. She watches her mom and dad workout all the time, so why not let her at it. See her version of the push up below, it made my day, nothing better than to start the month off with great memories.

messing around before we started wrestling.
messing around before we started wrestling.
Monday Night Football still catches her attention as much as mine.
Monday Night Football still catches her attention as much as mine.

One size does not fit all

I randomly decided to check my twitter feed this morning. I'm not big on twitter but I'm trying, follow me @c29javier. I came across some tweets that provided some good and bad news. The bad news first, I got the chills when I read that our coach at Canyon Crossfit decided to program a workout named Fight Gone Bad. Wait, it got worse, there's burpees! Today's workout is officially re-named to "Fight Got Worse".

The good news, and there's a couple. My older sister decided to take on this whole & natural way of eating. She's buying the book, It Starts With Food, and is gonna start the whole30 program. Like they say, it's not hard, overcoming cancer is hard?, but drinking coffee black or not eating bread, is not hard. The Mrs. and I have essentially converted all of our family to eating this way. They may not all comply 100%, but it's a thousand times better than the we way we used to eat. So today is a win in my book.

The second good news came from someone I respect, Robb Wolf, the author of "The Paleo Solution". I admire his work simply because I can relate. He's a biochemist and I'm a biologist and we're both researchers, so I can tolerate and understand most of the journal references that he uses. He responded to a tweet that came from @karlskarman about a study done with N-3 fatty acids. For those that don't know it's omega-3 fat or simply, fish oil.

The study was done on over 12,000 people, which is statistically relevant. But, lets be objective with the results, not subjective like rest of the media when they stated eating eggs is as bad as smoking. Come on people are you kidding me! The results stated that there is no major benefit or significance to your cardiovascular health or probability for an event to occur, i.e. heart attack. Again, when the media catches wind of this, they will blatantly say, "fish oil does nothing for you!", please realize they're not telling the whole story.

Let's analyze this a little. The study did not give the medical history, background, or specific diet of each individual. That comes into question so it's a tad biased. We know fish oil consist of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which aids in your energy source instead of using refined sugar. (If you still think eating fat is bad for you, please read a couple post back about the fat and cholesterol debacle) If we decide to supplement our meals with fish oil while eating whole & natural food that is grain and refined-sugar free, we're sure to see a benefit, I did. Now if you think supplementing fish oil with a diet that consist of fast food and large soft drinks will help, I think you're being naive and dishonest with yourself. Robb Wolf said, "bad diet + N-3 fatty acids is not a win." I couldn't agree more. Heart attacks can and will happen with poor decisions, so fish oil and a big mac is not a winning combo. However, this study does show that there's not one thing to cure all. Our bodies need to encompass a bigger and wider range of nutrients and less of the bad stuff that taste oh so good, i.e. doughnuts and doritos. Be sure to educate yourself and know what you put in your body, but you can enjoy life's sweet things, just not often. 

Oh ya the bad news workout, here's how Fight Got Worse works...

3 rounds for total reps

1 min of wall balls (20#)

1 min of Sumo Deadlift High pulls (75#)

1 min of box jumps (24")

1 min of Push Presses (75#)

1 min of BURPEES!!!!

1 min Rest (the best part of the workout)

It's a total of 17 min of what will flat out suck balls, but I love it. Why? What's wrong with me?! BTW, i scored 292 total reps, 8 shy of the 300 I was going for. Next time I'll hit it and hopefully I'll look like one of the characters from the movie.




Disclaimer: My family is not perfect in our eating habits, sure we have chocolate
covered almonds and other treats, but we're aware of that and we try our
best to be as healthy as possible. You still have to enjoy life. Awareness is key. So here's what we had for dinner, Paleo chili. YUM!

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Officially Fall season...

...but you wouldn't think so in southern California where it hit a high temp of 97 degrees. We had no scheduled plans today, which comes few and far between, so we took advantage of our workout rest day and took a leisure bike ride at Yorba Regional Park with our little girl on a bike trailer. We decided to make a pit stop at one of the playgrounds and let her burn off our big breakfast. She had a blast going down the slides and being a good citizen and picking up the trash.

The remaining day consisted of the normal NFL on T.V. and food prep for the week by the Mrs. There are some good meals scheduled so follow "allypie" on instagram to get the fix. You can see what we had for dinner below. It's a baked hake filet with roasted broccoli and cauliflower and fried plantains in coconut oil. Delish!

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Saturday WOD Fun at Crossfit RXD

We spent the day on a whim by going to Crossfit RXD's grand opening at their new site. They moved to Anaheim, CA on La Palma Ave. This street is now the Crossfit hub of north orange county. In about an 8 mile span there 5 Crossfit boxes, talk about spreading like wildfire and being popular. This new box is very accommodating with plenty of amenities including a childrens area, which Cailey loved (see below). The entire day was long but very fun. Five members including Canyon's coach Andrew signed up for their wod and he went beast mode doing the fire breather division while the rest of us did advanced and intermediate. I chose to do advance, which was asking for pain. Heres what we did

1 min power cleans 185#
1 min rest
1 min overhead squat 95#
3 min rest
10 min increasing AMRAP
5,10,15,20,25........
Row for calories
Pull ups
Hands release push ups

This workout was brutal and as usual, I was put in my place by completing only 12 power cleans, 17 OHS, and a total of 182 reps during the AMRAP.

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Happy 3yr Anniversary to my one and only!

Wow, three amazing years! So much has happened and I can't be happier. I married the most beautiful, loving, caring, understanding, best friend, partner-in-crime, athlete, milf (yes i said it), crossfitter, cook that anyone could ask for. To many more lifetimes together with my wife, I love you Ally!​ Here are some throwback pics.

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No workout at the box today, we'll just be working out our mandibles, gnawing into some prime cut steaks. We will be missing one hell of a workout to complete the 45-30-15 series that coach Andrew has programmed. So here's what we're missing:​

45-30-15​

Power cleans 115#/80#​

Wall Balls 20#/16#​

The fat and cholesterol debacle

I ended up sending an email to all my family members about this topic. The Mrs. and I always get asked about our diet. Why we eat this way? How do we like it? How do we feel? You eat what? etc. Many posts ago I wrote something about coconut oil and why it's beneficial. During labor day weekend our family went to a block party. My wife's friend had brought up the topic of coconut oil and said she couldn't get herself to buy it. I immediately thought it was because of the price. Yes, it can get pricey and if you get on a cooking binge like my wife, you can go through it in blink of an eye. The cost was not the case, she said it had too much saturated fat and there's no way she can eat that much fat. So I'll say it now and I'll keep saying it, eating fat does NOT make you fat. In this day and age of digital technology we should be consuming ourselves with boatloads of​ health and wellness information. It's up to you to make the right judgements. By the way, did you know how good tasting fat is when you add it to your meals? It's damn good, so try adding avocados.

So if you're still reading and you ask how in the world does eating fat not make you fat? Well for one, your own body can't even absorb all the fat you try to eat. You'll either be too full to finish or if you do finish your time in the bathroom would not be very pleasing. Your body will make more cholesterol from eating poorly than eating foods that are considered high in cholesterol. Without writing a novel you can read this  link below.

Eating loaves of bread, cups of rice, and plates of pasta can sure do the trick for increasing your body's triglycerides, cholesterol, and weight. Wait, I don't want to forget about sugar, but for conserving my own breathe and space, refined carbohydrates, like I just mentioned, are forms of sugar. How, you ask? Well if you're not going to read the book "It Starts With Food", then my quick response would be, "your body's systems, specifically digestive and endocrine, interact on overdrive when you eat this food (sugar and refined carbs) resulting in hoarding everything it can that you put in. In the end you get big, round, and lazy. "​

I know we all listen to our doctors and believe everything we were told growing up, but realize doctors treat disease and diagnose problems they are not dietitians and/or nutritionist, that was not a main part of their education to get an MD. They are also human, can make mistakes and don't know everything, which means it's also up to us to educate ourselves.​

If you're reading this and are doing the Whole Life Challenge or your from Canyon crossfit then you've already been informed about the benefits of fat. Spread the word, not the butter on the roll. Help educate the people around you. ​

For today's workout, our Canyon trainer gave us a great WOD.

Push for your Life

45-30-15​

  • Hands release push ups​
  • push press @ 95#​

I ended up finishing with a respectable 13:04 but I should kick up my strength training to hang with the big boys at my gym. ​

​Determined...

​Determined...

Summer Vacations are always fun!

My summer is complete although there's still a month left. I haven't posted much because I haven't had anything interesting to share, until now. This past weekend we went on a family trip to the eastern Sierras, Mammoth Lakes, CA. Our plan was to go fishing and hangout, while I included mountain biking. This trip was rekindled from the Eshita tradition that my wife's family grew up on. This was my first time here and I'm glad my family and little girl are able to keep on with this amazing trip.

We headed out for the 6.5 hour drive on Thursday morning​ and arrived right in time to check-in at our condo. Soon after unloading our crap-load of gear, we set off to Von's grocery store to stock up for our meals for the weekend. Since the wifey, grandma, and grandpa started the Whole30, it was by default that the entire weekend would be clean and fresh food, even for the two non-paleo eaters. I think our weekend of good food may have just converted the bro and sis-in-law to try out the whole30. The revolution has begun and it will be successful.

We went fishing at Rock Creek Lake on Friday. One thing they sure made me aware of was that we had to be there early and that means before the sun rises early. So there we were up at 4am, out the door by 4:45am, and at the lake at 5:15am. I was starving and this is way beyond my normal day of living so I try my luck and request for some breakfast and at the very least, coffee! But NO! The response was, "GET YOUR LINE IN THE WATER!" Good thing I listened because within 5 minutes I caught my first trout and that just started the onslaught of fish we caught. In total we caught 18 rainbow trouts. We were in for an amazing dinner that night. All in all it was a great experience and a notch above fun, whatever that may be.

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​Saturday was here and I was like a kid going to Disneyland. I've gotten addicted to mountain biking and a lot of bikers that I talk to always rave about Mammoth Mountain Bike Park. The ski resort is converted during the summer months to accommodate us risk takes. ​I know the resort is amazing during the winter, as it is my favorite place to go snowboarding, but now I have to include it as the best place to go mountain biking. I took my brother-in-law with me and it was his first time ever mountain biking. My gut feeling was just on point, he took it in stride and rode as if he's been doing it all his life. What a great experience I had and I'm glad I shared it with him. During our third run we even caught a glimpse of a brown bear. I did, by the way , lie to him. He had asked me the day before if the trails were narrow and ride along the a steep cliff face. I reluctantly said "no", because i did know what to expect. We ended the day by coming down from the peak and straight to the condo. On that last run down I felt like a pro-rider and figured I could haul ass down the twisty single track. That was a bad idea because I lost control, got parallel to the ground while in the air, landed hard on my shoulder, and somersaulted a couple times. It was my first hard fall on the bike but well deserved, my ride is complete and thank goodness all i got were scrapes and bruises. 

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After an amazing weekend of fishing and riding it all had to come to an end. Sunday we took the 6.5 hour drive back home. I will say one thing, I will be back Mammoth and it won't just be for the winter. ​Thank you Grandpa, Grandma, Kris, Sonia, Avery, Nolan, Ally and Cailey for an amazing family trip that will continue in the future.

Improve on your weaknesses

​I'll be the first to admit I have many weaknesses, from dried chili mango to overhead squats and everything in between. But, I did realize I have to work on all of them but I couldn't do it in a shotgun approach. There's no way I could succeed to be better tomorrow than today if I load my weapon with all my weaknesses and pulled the trigger. Let me just talk about my fitness weaknesses, because any more info is just Too Much Information.

This ​past weekend I shot the Next Level Invitational:Warrior Soul competition that had three members from our crossfit box competing. Many of you know, I've gotten quite addicted to crossfit and all that it encompasses. So after supporting my fellow crossfitters, I was re-motivated to get back into the gym and get better at crossfit. So a big general weakness I have to work on is my endurance. I flat suck at long workouts because I rest too much even when I think I'm pacing myself. Specifically I have to work on my olympic lifting technique because if I want to lift big weight like the guys on the competition my form has to be superb and that's something I don't have. So here it is again, I have to dedicate myself to my training because all I want to do is get better. That isn't too much to ask for right? RIGHT! But I have to work for it to earn it and that's what I plan to do.

Oh by the way, here's the video of our guys doing the floater wod at the competition and a few pics. ​

Influence

I've managed to get quite a few people to give the "whole&natural" lifestyle a try after completing the Performance Nutrition Experience (PNE), which consisted of the whole30, at the end of June​. My brother-in-law did it and got so involved, he decided to invest in a road bike to supplement his other fitness activities, boxing and running. He said, "I'm on a mission!" and I can't agree anymore. We now have a 3-brothers roadie squad instead of 2. We're going to have some fun rides.

My wife also started the whole30. She's on day 2 and I know she's gonna do great. We both read the book and are trying to influence the people around us by example. So I'll make sure to give updates as this new whole30 session progresses. Check out below, here's what we had for dinner and it was "da BOMB!"​

​Today's WOD: Cindy

20 min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible)​

5 pull ups​

10 push ups (hands-release)​

15 air squats​

​My score = 18 rounds + 10 reps

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New Design

Welcome to my newly designed website. This blog and photo thing is definitely hard to keep up with, but I got more pics and blogs of random stuff to come. I'm hoping the very little of you that visit my site like it, so whether or not you do I'd appreciate some feedback or any comments.

​So here's what I did today. Hope you all have a good weekend.

San Diego Zoo

I'm a little busy and I got way behind on posting, sorry. Anyhow, when we got back from Yosemite, we spontaneously went down to the San Diego Zoo. It was our little one's first time at the zoo and we had a lot of fun. Here's some pics.

Summer Vacation

I had scheduled a summer vacation outing for my birthday weekend and it so happened to start at the end of the PNE. We spent 4 days/3nights camping out in Yosemite. It was the first time back since I was a kid and the first camping experience for my little girl. No need to explain much the pictures can do that.

All great things don't have to come to an end.

What I am about to share with you is immeasurable. Ok not really, but that is truly how I feel because the last 60 days have taken me further in my health and fitness than ever before. Today I complete the Performance Nutrition Experience (PNE) that was hosted by my affiliate crossfit gym, Canyon Crossfit. I can confidently say I'm healthier than I have ever been in life. I learned so much about nutrition, fitness, and more importantly myself.

Everyone is always asking about weight loss, so let me get that out of the way quickly. Since it's not the only indicator of health, I never really saw it as priority but here's how it broke down. Before I started the PNE I had already made some decent progress for the 6 months of doing crossfit, I lost 25 lbs. I began the PNE on April 27th, 2012 and I weighed 172.5 pounds. Today, as of June 27, 2012, I weigh 167 pounds. I lost a total of 5.5 pounds in 60 days, who cares. What I do care about is my body composition, the internals. If you recall a few posts back, I had my blood work done and I was dumbfounded by the results. My levels of total cholesterol and LDL (the bad stuff) was undetectable by the sensitivity levels of the machine. Meaning...my blood composition was pretty darn immaculate and everything else was well beyond optimal ranges such as HDL (good stuff), glucose, and triglycerides. Don't forget about the infamous body fat percentage. Back when I started crossfit in October 2011 I was probably well above 23% body fat. In the beginning of the PNE I successfully dropped down to 16% based on caliper measurements and today I'm about 14.2%. I haven't reached my goal of 12% but I knew that wasn't going to happen in 60 days. Patience is key to all things, including health.

Back when the PNE was first introduced, I was very skeptical. Why? Because I loved science and studied science, biology to be exact. So I figured I had a leg up on the understandings of nutrition and how the body works. That was not the case, I was humbled by my own ignorance and denial. I loved pizza, burgers, fries, and beer. I loved candy, chips, and soda. So if I ate this all in moderation, although it was more like often and too much, then I can justify that by doing a long bike ride, run, and some weight lifting. Worse of all, I would eat less during the week to make up for what I over consumed on the weekends and then rinse and repeat this process. I was hurting myself in the worse possible ways. Without getting into too much details, or this would become a scientific article, I was confusing my brain and putting my body system out of sync. The nutrition education I received in college became void, this PNE went against everything I ever learned.

Throughout the 60 days I gave up all forms of processed sugars and processed foods. I gave up grains and the typical simple carbohydrates, like rice and pasta. I avoided legumes and dairy. I supplemented with high quality fish oil. I ate all kinds of meat, including bacon. I squandered boatloads of fat from avocados. I introduced coconut oil to our cooking and consumed pounds of sweet potatoes. I devoured a plethora of vegetables and introduced some new ones like eggplant and spaghetti squash. I always had berries and other fruits throughout the day. I ate a lot and often never counting calories just being aware of ingredients. I can't pinpoint when but at one point in the 60 days the magic hit. I absolutely felt awesome, on a freaking daily basis!

I became energetic throughout the days. I slept as good as my 1 year old daughter. I was making good decisions outside of my comfort zone. Like what you ask? Like I said before I love beer and I was able to avoid it for at least the first 30 days into the experience, especially when going to Yardhouse. I wasn't 100% perfect in my nutrition but that's not expected of anyone. So Yes, I had some Mexican candy, fries, churros, bites of cake, and beer. But I never consumed them in amounts I once did. I never wanted more than the sample bites I took and I wasn't beating myself over the head with those decisions. Fitness wise, I was getting stronger and faster. My workouts weren't killing me as much as I was killing it, or so I'd like to believe. I hit multiple personal records and I made myself have rest days for my body to recover and that took a lot of discipline.

The point is, I change my life in ways I didn't think possible. I want to keep rambling more and talk about some details but that can only bore a reader. First and foremost none of this would have ever been possible without the support of my loving wife and daughter. My wife was there to put me in my place and make sure I succeeded. My daughter was there to brighten my days and even scream at me during the workouts. Also, the community at Canyon Crossfit, you all are amazing, cheering me on when I'm dying during a workout and can't breathe. Of course I can't forget about everyone sharing their impressive recipes and meals. If you want change your relationship with food and hop on this whole&natural healthy bandwagon, then come on, there's plenty of space, no judgements made here. I was able to get my brother and brother-in-law to give it a shot. You can start here with the whole30 and then for better detailed information grab this book "It Starts with Food."

My final PNE workout will be the PNE WOD. It's a good overall crossfit assessment and when I did it in the beginning, my time was 15:10. Let's see how it pans out today.

PNE WOD for time:

Run 400m

1 round of "Cindy" (5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 Air squats)

21 Deadlifts, 155#

Run 400m

1 - Cindy

15 Front squats, 155#

Run 400m

1 - Cindy

9 Clean & Jerks

MY TIME = 12:32 (today I smashed it!)

Here's what I had for lunch today

Finally, the reveal. It's quite embarassing, but here's my before and after shot of the PNE.

and then here's the progress shot from when I started Crossfit.

 

 

the home stretch...

Here's how 95% of my days start. Coconut oil, diced onions, diced peppers, and shredded chicken in an omelette. (Yes I know there's no pic of the eggs)

It's the day before last and the finish line is well within reach. Health-wise I've accomplished more than I ever thought possible. Fitness-wise, I've done a lot as well but today is a particularly challenging test, Overhead Squats (OHS)!! A top 3 nemesis of mine that includes wall balls and handstand pushups. I've gotten through the wall ball and HSPU rx'd workouts but today is the day I shoot for personal record OHS. They say if you can do your body weight then that's good, I don't think I can hit that today but I am shooting for 135 lbs. See results below.

Today's WOD: Overhead Squats

Work towards a 1 rep max

3-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1

My Results = 155# (another PR baby!!!...95#-105-115-125-135-145(F)-145-155(F)-155)