01/24/2012 Paleo Challenge Day 18

In going into my third week, I am finally seeing the scale move again.  My mind is so set on breaking the 250 lbs barrier.  I have been tempted almost everyday to go to Washington Sports Club, or the gym in my building to do some Cardio.

I don’t know how much of it is a direct result of Pavlovian Conditioning, and how much of it is this idea that I can work myself thin, but I can’t help feel that I need to sweat.  I actually miss the feeling of being soaked in a shirt with sweat, because I’ve given everything that I can in a workout.

It’s how I felt after the 2 round version of the filthy fifty today.  In an attempt to breakdown the emotional weight of 500 reps of work Aaron and Erika decided we would do the Filthy Fifty in two rounds of 25 instead of 50 rounds of each straight through. 

In any case after I finished I was soaked, and it felt good, I'm sure it's some strange fat guy conditioning.

A combination of this deep desire to reach 250 lbs, and a desire to push my cardiovascular endurance is making it tough to just stick to my 5 week plan.  I’m sure to some degree this compulsive behavior was either part, or a result of my previous food life. 

In reading Gary Taubes’ “Why We Get Fat” a second time, I find myself trying to shift my paradigm in a way that looks as obesity as a symptom of some biological functions and not the cause of a physics equation.  It’s hard to truly accept after 30 years of programming that I’m fat because I ate too much, and was lazy.

The more I think about it, a big portion of my youth was spent working for my parents, summers were I worked 50 hours a week on my feet all day long, in an environment that wasn’t a factory but clearly blue collar, yet with all of those calories expended I couldn’t lose weight.

I also look at how I lost weight the first time in high school, starvation, and steady state cardiovascular exercise.  The funny thing is in retrospect the meals I would eat were very low in carbs, and high in protein and fat.  When you eat next to nothing, I’m sure your body has no sugar left to burn, and some innate drive is created that seeks and craves foods which not only give it what it needs but satiates hunger.

If anyone reading this sees an almost mind numbing pattern, to be obese is to be broken, and obsessively focused on food, physical comfort directly related to mobility, and depressive unhappy thoughts.  Anyone who is morbidly obese who appears to be happy is full of shit, and the more gregarious they appear to be the more inwardly unhappy they are…

I think I know what I want to do with the next phase of my life…

WoD

Today’s WoD involved doing the Filthy Fifty broken into 2 rounds of 25.  So the work was as follows:

• 2 Rounds
• 25 Box Jumps 24” Box
• 25 Jumping Pull Ups
• 25 kb swings 35 lbs kb
• 25 walking lunges
• 25 knees to elbows
• 25 push press 45 lbs
• 25 back extensions or 95 lbs straight leg deadlift
• 25 wall balls 20 lbs 10’ target
• 25 burpees
• 25 double unders

I found that after the first round I was gassed.  Trying to do the box jumps took a great deal of concentration, especially since this is the first WoD I’ve used the 24” box.  I had to scale the knees to elbows to knees to gut, and did 50 running mans instead of double unders. 

Burpees during this WoD sucked ass.  My wrists hurt so I couldn’t get down fast enough, and then my legs decided it was move like an old man day.

In the end I finished 2.5 minutes faster than when I did it in December with a higher box.  Going to the 24” box changed the difficulty for sure.  I think it would have taken me longer to the same WoD with 50 box jumps at 24”, only because my mind would not have been able to handle it.

25:26.

Meals

Read my Day 18 Meals here.