How Crossfit, and beyond the whiteboard, are saving my life
31 Mar
It’s me again, your friendly neighborhood Ruby code and customer support monkey. Sorry, but I’m not writing about any awesome new features today, or anything like that; this is an online meeting of Fatasses Anonymous.
My name is Bill, and I’m a fatass. I will die an early death due to complications arising from obesity.
Well, I used to be. Or, depending on your scale, I still am, but not for much longer. Some backstory:
Throughout high school and college, I was fat. Horribly so. In California you only take 2 years of physical education in high school, and once those were done I didn’t work out at all. I ate too much, I ate the wrong things, and after I reached about 200 pounds I stopped watching and stopped caring, hoping it would just go away someday, wishing for a magic reset button I could hit.
I finished my bachelor’s degree in computer science in 2005, and shortly after got a job working in IT. Not, as I had been hoping, in programming, but sysadmin work, close enough. I worked for a credit reporting agency, and when the crunch really hit in summer 2008, I was cut loose. While looking for a new job, I hung out with some of my former coworkers, who had started their own small business: Badpopcorn, Inc. After a few weeks, they had gotten a new contract, and I had two offers on the table: a six-month contract with Western Digital, or work for Badpopcorn on this “beyond the whiteboard” idea. Of course, I had no idea what this Crossfit thing was; I had gone to a globo gym for a few months, even paid for a personal trainer, but the trainer had no idea what to do with someone as far gone as me. But, if I was going to work on this project, I would have to know what the potential users were dealing with: I would have to meet Helen.
I warmed up, and weighed in before my first WOD: 265 pounds, 5’5″. Not good. This was not going to go well. The trainers at Crossfit Kinnick scaled it back for me: I would run 200 meters, swing a 1/2 pood kettlebell (what the heck was a pood?), and do ring rows instead of pullups. Three times. So, I jogged, mostly walked, 200 meters, swung a kettlebell, and did ring rows, pausing often to catch my breath. Then I walked, nearly crawled, another 200 meters. By the time I got back to the gym, I was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, signs of almost passing out. I stopped and did not finish the workout. Jake, one of the trainers and a Badpopcorn employee, didn’t think I’d be back. He was wrong.
It’s now been 19 months since I started doing Crossfit. I have lost 6 inches from my waistline, 80 pounds of total weight, and gone from wearing size XL and XXL shirts to medium. I went from eating garbage to eating right. I went from being unable to jog 200 meters to finishing a 5k in about half an hour. I went from doing ring-rows to unassisted pull-ups, kipping or strict. Unfortunately no amount of Crossfitting can make me taller; I’ve tried hanging from the pull-up bars, hanging kettlebells from my feet; no dice. I’m not done yet: I still need to drop about 30 pounds, and then I can really start aiming for that 3-minute Fran. In fact, I never will be done: Crossfit is not a habit one breaks easily.
My name is Bill, and I’m a Crossfitter. I will be fitter, stronger, and live longer than any of the 30% of the USA who now live with obesity.
This is me: On the left, December 2008, a couple months after starting. 5’5″, 265 pounds. On the right, March 2010; 185 pounds. not the “after” shot yet, but we’re getting there.
December 2008/March 2010
Recent Comments