Friday, February 10, 2012

Do What You Love

I'm sure everyone has heard the saying "if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life".  Great advice, but if everyone only did what they loved then there would be a lot of poor painters, singers, baseball players... you get the point.  So instead....lets apply it to your exercise and diet.

Exercise

This blog is very very crossfit-centric.  I don't apologize for that, it is my blog and I'll do what I want, but I also like to talk about just being healthy and active.  Crossfit is the perfect workout for me.  I love it.  I love 95% of every second of it...and the 5% that I don't like it (mostly during hard workouts) is canceled out by the double love I feel for it when I finish the workout.

It took me a long time to find crossfit though.  I tried spin classes, just weight lifting, running, swimming...  but none of them kept me coming back.  I know lots of people who LOVE running.  They could run every day and never get bored.  I also know people who swear by spinning.  Great for them.  Then there is Zumba which I've never tried but I know people who teach and are as addicted to it as I am to crossfit.  All of these things are great, they are better than sitting on a couch playing video games all day.

So I hope no one ever takes any of my posts as saying "crossfit is the best and only workout, all the rest are stupid and pointless"  cause I don't feel that way at all.  In fact it really really annoys me when people put down an entire workout regiment and say it's unhealthy or stupid or that what they do is the best thing for everyone.  I occasionally rant about how stupid Yoga is...really I had a humdinger of a rant at a Super Bowl Party ....hippie elastic vegans who only want to feel the curvature of the earth.  Meanwhile in my head all I can think is "damn it, why can't I stretch like that"!

So the moral of this little exercise story is....

SEARCH AND FIND WHAT WORKS FOR YOU AND DO IT!

Diet

This one is also a point of contention among a lot of people.  There are people who will say that one diet is so much better than another.  Again, I don't think that is the case at all.  One diet might work for one person while a different diet works for others.
It's really not this cut and dry.  get educated and make smart choices.

Let me use my "diet" as an example.  A true classic paleo diet does not include beans, peanuts, or milk.  Well guess what I eat and drink....  I love Milk.  I love Peanut Butter.   So I eat them.  Now...I eat them in smaller proportions than I once did..but I still eat them.  Another paleo no-no is grains.  Are they healthy..well not in my mind, but Italians have been eating pasta for a long time and it works for them.
Ok...this is not a diet anyone should be on...even if you love it

Again, it is find what works best for you.  If it is balanced..meaning it contains a good proportion of nutrients and non-processed food then go for it.  I choose a semi-paleo diet..you might choose another diet.

So the moral of the diet story is...

BE SMART, CONTROL PORTION SIZES, MAKE SURE YOU GET THE VITAMINS YOU NEED FROM FOOD (not solely vitamin supplements)
Cause it does not fit your lifestyle!  Choose one that you like!
WOD

Thursday:  Much needed rest day

Friday:

Strength: 4 tries at finding total number of OHS reps @ 3/4 body weight:  7+7+6+10=30 @ 125 lbs
WOD
20 min amrap
10 pull-ups
10 DL @ 3/4 body weight
200m row

Score: 8 +10 (if i did this again I would get 10 and go at a higher pace)

3 comments:

  1. I'm not sure I agree with what you are saying entirely. Remember how I HATED Crossfit in the beginning? And then when I saw that it was the best tool for me to obtain my goals, I started to LOVE it. Same with my running kick. I hate running, and I'm not very good at it, but I'm doing it to prove something to myself.

    People that dont like their jobs still go, because it pays the bills. Yet they don't look for more enjoyable jobs.

    Do you see my angle here? Not being argumentative, just exploring more ideas on what you are saying.

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  2. Definitely see your point. I may need to find a way to clarify that in the post. Just like in crossfit if there is a move that you hate, it's likely the one you should do more to make yourself better.

    I just think that you should love what you do in your free time. I don't feel like exercising should be a second job where you go somewhere you don't want to go just to pay bills (or lose weight/stay healthy in this case).

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  3. I absolutely LOVE my workouts. I choose my lifts based on the effect they have. I try to go for the most bang for the buck. I beat my previous lifts. For me the fun is pushing myself to go heavier or more reps.

    I don't do Crossfit exactly, but I use some of the same methods for my conditioning. Tabata for instance, is a staple in my workouts. I am also going to throw in the 10min ascending squat rep at 50% 1RM business that makes my quads want to EXPLODE. This happens, after my set of heavy squats, once every 4 weeks.

    I think Crossfit is great for a lot of things, but it's certainly not the end all answer...nothing is. Like you said, do what's right for you, but just DO SOMETHING.

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