This is the end…
If I was Jim Morrison I’d drop some LSD and fly to Vietnam to wax poetic about the Paleo Challenge finishing up and what it means to you, to me, to us, to the world and greater civilization.
I am not Jim Morrison, however, and I actually dislike the Doors for the overrated nostalgia driven fame that they have, and I have a hard enough time recovering from drinking nights like Saturday so LSD is just out of the question. Therefore instead of the intro to this blog being started off with cryptic helicopter rotors spinning to gloomy/creepy twinklings of another college bro over hyped Doors song, you get this. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, go watch Apocalypse Now. Alone. At 3am. Naked.
What is a Paleo Challenge? Stripped down from all the emotional build up that occurs with a time of personal sacrifice and introspection, a Paleo Challenge is a time for change. Everyone takes this period of time differently. I know some people who have incredible transformations both physical and emotional. I know others who look at it as simply a time to challenge and sacrifice as a break from a usual lack of direction. Some people take it literally as a challenge, a “let me see what I can do” sort of period that otherwise doesn’t exist in their life. And for people like myself it is a time of reckoning, a wake-up call from a previous period where self control lacked along with any sense of pride.
Whatever the Paleo Challenge means to you, it is over now, so go eat pizza and drink every night. That’s the point right?
In reality it is sad that we even have to have a Paleo Challenge. I don’t mean this as a personal attack on any of us but rather a reflection on us, the world, the distance and time it would take to travel to Neptune. It has always struck me as interesting, even odd, that a place where health and wellness are the focal point, sometimes even the ONLY point, that there has to be a contest like period of time where food is restricted to get people to actually eat well. The thing with the Paleo Challenge is that the way of eating laid out in the rules is really the way we should be eating. It isn’t just a Lent like penance period where we can immediately just shut the book on “clean eating” for a few months. This is for real, but unfortunately none of us understand that it is in fact how we need to be treating ourselves year round with maybe a 6 week period where we can eat whatever we want. Clean is the new sexy. Actually it should just be, be not in the sense of eat this way to get wicked jacked but be in the sense of eat this way to not die fat and alone at an early age.
The truth of the matter is every time I gorge myself on pizza, booze, and ice cream (which is often) I am taking hours off my life. It is sad to think with all the amazing things the advancements of human intelligence have brought us it hasn’t brought us the understanding, or I guess self control, to not consume things that directly inflict damage upon the only thing that really matters; our body. It is like smoking. I never understood how anyone under the age of 40 smokes. If you do you are an idiot. Yet again here I am criticizing someone for the choices they make on consumption when I am still feeling the effects from what I drank on Saturday night. If that isn’t a clear indication of negatively affecting your life expectancy I don’t know what is. Truthfully if sugar and gluten and booze had the same negative press on smoking imagine where we could all be? I almost wish I was brought up knowing I would face incredible amounts of disdain, anger, and neglect from my parents if I ate cookies the same way it was pushed on me about smoking.
The even sadder thing with all of this is it won’t change. I probably will eat pizza tonight (I owe it to myself because I didn’t really eat anything bad all weekend). Everyone who did the Challenge will reverse much of the positive it had (if you even made it that far) in a matter of 2 weeks with all the “make up” eating and drinking we will do. This all just in time for the Holidays where pounds go on like winter sweaters but come off wayyyyyyy harder. Come January 1 the FB blog will have the posts and prayers for another Challenge because we are so off the wagon we don’t even know where we parked it last time we used it. Somewhere behind the pizza boxes. God I love pizza.
Or what about this. How about we can not let any of this happen. Imagine that. Really think about it. I shared my struggles on the couple of posts I made, the struggles I have had my entire life with my image and my desire to change it, yet having a weird inability to really do it to the extent I want because I essentially can’t stop myself from eating shit. So imagine if we took everything we learned, informationally and about ourselves, and actually kept using it? Like on Tuesdays from now until 2050, and on Saturdays until he same time, and everyday without a Challenge to force us. If you made it through the entire Challenge you showed a lot of strength, for many of you probably a strength you have never shown.
I’m not even saying continuing on Challenge like strictness, but maybe like 90% of the way. Think of the amazing realizations you made the first week or so, how bad your habits were and how amazed you were with how bad you actually were treating yourself. Now think of how far you have come (Rob Thomas style) and how your daily routine is nothing like it used to be from a consumption standpoint.
Why let yourself fall back into that?
The hardest thing to change is a habit. The Paleo Challenge is about breaking bad habits. If you survived then you broke scores of bad habits, ones that weren’t just hindering your daily happiness but ones that were hindering your earthly longevity. Now we all have the power to change, not to change but to remain changed. The hard work has been done. We are all on easy street now. If you ever feel weak you can indulge, or you can remember these words: Eating badly kills you just like smoking.
If you didn’t take the Challenge, or didn’t stay the course, you are doomed to an early death and probably a stint in hell.
I’m kidding again (or maybe it’s the LSD) but for all of us I ask, “what are we waiting for?”. We are part of an amazing community that focuses on health, on longevity, on always being better than we were the day before. The power is here for us all to make lasting changes every single day. Use it.
This is the final touch to my talk on Community that started last week, as what went on this past weekend is THE example of this community. We had 40+ people go through weeks of sacrifice, 40+ people compete with over half of them doing so for the first time, and just as many meet out in public to celebrate accomplishments that extend beyond PRs of pounds or seconds. What you all bring to this place every time you step in is what community is, the individual efforts, sacrifices, trials and tribulations that amount to something much greater but nearly immeasurable until times like this past weekend.
CrossFit Lando specifically is a place where you get from it what you put in. If you are looking for something in your life to help guide you, motivate you, change you, then I urge you to use this community. Partake in everything we have, sacrifice daily beyond what you ever have or ever dreamed you would, and give yourself to the community that has formed here. What you get from it, and better what you become from it, will be great thousands of times beyond any amount of money you spend on a membership or any time you can spend anywhere else.
That’s all I have for now. I’m going to enjoy my pizza tonight not because I deserve it but because I got married 6 months ago and feel I need to remind her of what I could become every now and then.
TUESDAY
BASE
Strength: Snatch Work
1 Hang Squat Snatch + 2 OHS: find a max in 15-20 minutes
WOD: 3 Rounds
50 Double Unders
25 Pull-ups
12 Handstand Push-ups
PLUS
Strength: Snatch Work
1 Hang Squat Snatch + 2 OHS: find a max in 15-20 minutes
WOD: 3 Rounds
50 Double Unders
25 Pull-ups
12 Handstand Push-ups
SkWAT Team: 4×3 Bench Press, heaviest possible
THE PROGRAM
1. Handstand Work
– work for 10m on FSHSPU
– EMOM 3m, 50’ HS walk
2. Snatch
Hang Squat Snatch + 2 OHS
3. WOD
3 Rounds
50 Double Unders
25 Pull-Ups
12 Handstand Push-ups*
*HSPU to 35# plates deficit
4a: 4×3 weighted pull-up, rest :60
4b: 4×3 bench press, rest :60
*when something is written like this, “a” and “b”, it means perform a set of “a”, rest the allotted time, then perform a set of “b” and so on.
5. EMOM 8m, ME banded pushup
– Men use green bands, women use blue. Perform 1 ME UB set, then try to maintain 75% of that number EMOM.
