Focus

I realized the other day I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the things I need to stop doing.  After lunch I would think about not eating chocolate... but then I would.  Stopping in the grocery store, I would think about not buying something that would get me off track... but then I would.  I'd plan on not staying up too late... and in a blink of an eye I was going to bed 2 hours later than I wanted to.  These are the things that frustrate me and I couldn't figure out how to stop the trend.  The next day, I would do the exact same thing.  The more I repeated, the more focused I got to NOT do something.
It's amazing when you focus on something it tends to come true.  Whether you meant to do them or not.  I began to think back to January when I was starting my journey out.  Kendra empathized that I should focus on adding certain foods.  Slowly, I focused on making sure to get lots of proteins, healthy fats, and even more of the dreaded veggies.  I would plan out what I was eating for the week and have everything cooked on Sunday for the first half of the week and Wednesday for the second half.  I focused on journaling what and when I was eating and how I was feeling.  With all my focus on the positive changes I was successful!

Somewhere my focus shifted to the negative, but now I'm aware of the change.  I've already laid out of plan to get back on track by focusing on the positive changes.  :)

This past weekend I competed in my very first Crossfit competition.  It was the Northeast Garage Games hosted by Crossfit Southie.  It was a crazy weekend!  There were 6 Crossfit Route 1 athletes competing and I was pumped to be one of them.  The competition was a total of 5 workouts over 2 days.  Saturday's WODs kicked off with Snatchballs, followed by WhiteBulger, and finally Spiderman to wrap up the day.  I was excited for Snatchballs because it consisted of snatches and wall balls at a light weight for me.  I finished in 30th place out of 58! 

Heading into the last workout of the day I was nervous.  It involved 4 rounds of 20 reps of 20" box jumps, 15 pull ups, and 10 push ups.  Eleven months ago, I was barely jumping on a 12" box, couldn't even do 1 pull up with the thickest band, and I definitely couldn't do "real" push ups.  With the support of my family, friends, and CFRT1 family I worked hard for 15 minutes...  Took a major spill in my 4th round of box jumps... just got back up and continued.  Struggled getting my pull ups... I was lucky enough to have Kendra and Coach J there to push me talk me through them efficiently.  It was the hardest 15 minutes I've pushed myself through and it felt amazing... when I finished :)  I hit the 15 minute time cap with just 18 reps left.  I couldn't have asked for anything better!  In less then a year I focused on learning to do pull ups, getting my push ups strong, and building my mental strength for box jumps.  I never wavered on that focus and it paid off! 

Day 2 I knew I just had to complete the GI Joe WOD to finish up my first competition!  I was excited for this workout because it involved running.  The one thing I knew how to do before starting crossfit.  It turns out when you add a 25lb sandbag to running it's not easy!!!  I actually found the running to be harder than the overhead squats, situps, jump roping and then more situps and overhead squats.  I had a lot of fun doing it though and even had a great judge to make it fun :)

After an awesome weekend of seeing the positive results of staying crossfit focused, I'm excited to refocus my nutrition to get the same results!