Floundering

I haven't posted in almost a year and a half. No real reason why, except I guess lack of motivation. This general lack of motivation has also slipped into my regular life, and into my health and fitness. Let's catch up a bit.

Last time I posted I was training with some strongmen as well as doing a traditional strength program (squats, deadlifts, bench, etc.). I was enjoying the strongman training, even though it was pretty brutal, but in the end the guy who was running the show was interested in building a strong competitive team, which I was not interested in. So we parted ways, amicably. Our goals just weren't on the same page, and I respect that. The sport is also pretty hard on the body, and I was having a hard time recovering between each week's training.

Since then I've tried a few things to get myself back into a good training regimen. I started doing Crossfit again for a while, and I did an 8-week cycle of Starting Strength, but nothing's really gotten the old fire back, and I would end up burning out and just not really working out for weeks at a time. I would maybe go once or twice a week and just do something, but nothing particularly intense or heavy.

To add on to that, I pretty much stopped watching what I was eating, and my home cooking became less and less a part of my daily diet. There were more nights spent drinking and partying than going to bed early or cooking healthy food than I even care to admit. Basically just slid back into what I used to do before I ever tried to get healthy.

Today I'm back up at 239 pounds. I haven't gained any weight since before Thanksgiving, but also haven't lost any. I'm kind of floundering here, and I'm not really certain what I need to do to find my way again. All the things that motivated me in the past just don't work any more. I know I need to lose weight to get my blood pressure within healthy levels, I know I'm in a lot more pain from sitting so much and being generally heavier and weaker. I'm just frustrated that I can't seem to get my ass in gear. But this blog post is an attempt to do just that. I don't even know if anyone is reading it, and to be honest it doesn't matter. Just writing out these words and really seeing the big picture makes me at least feel a bit better, like I'm not giving up. Because I'm not. I still teach Crossfit, I'm still at the gym all the time, and I still know how to cook and eat healthy food. I have all the tools in the toolbelt, I just need to pull them out and use them.

I think the trick here is to start slowly. I think that much of the knowledge that I have is almost detrimental, because I always want to come up with the perfect routine, diet, meal plan, schedule, etc. When all that's really necessary is something better than what I'm currently doing. So I think if I can just start by focusing on how much food is going into my face that's the first step. That's the biggest determiner of bodyweight, and all it requires is a bit of writing down what I eat. So I've started with that, trying to get back in the routine. I'll still try to make it to the gym, but if I can just start losing some weight by controlling my intake then that will get the ball rolling, and it gives me only one thing to worry about. Everything on top of that is gravy.

Once that's dialed in I can build on it by determining what my athletic goals actually are and start (slowly) working towards them. I know from experience that trying to go balls-out from the starting line is a surefire way of getting injured and frustrated. I will need to start slow, both in terms of the workouts/weights themselves and also with regards to number of times a week I'm in the gym and how long those sessions are. Crippling soreness/achiness is not a great way to stay motivated.

And then I'll move on bit by bit. I'm rebuilding myself from fundamentals. It won't be as fast as I would like, but at least it's movement in the right direction again. I'll try to post here at least once a week, just to keep myself accountable. Today's goal is to just eat a reasonable amount of food (instead of the ~4000 calories I've been putting away on a daily basis for the past year).