the challenge,Competition, Success

At the end of the the performance based Nutrition challenge there area number of things I hope we all take away from the experience. The first is the impact that eating for performance can have on your training. All to often we focus on what we want to lose instead of what we hope to gain. There were a number of you who focused on weight loss as your primary goal in the challenge. Your final placings are for the most part middle of the pack over all, all though the general improvement in quality of the food you ate helped you finish towards the top when it came to improving your scores. Those of you who focused on eating in such a way to fuel performance found that while weight loss may not have been huge. your performance in the gym in both metcon and strength was accelerated, You will also find this weekend that Body comp changes have occurred as well. The goal of this challenge was not a crash diet, the goal was to get you eating in such a way that you performed even better in the gym. Now that the challenge is over I suspect that some of you will revert back to your old habits, I want to encourage you not to do so. Even if you have only made small changes they have made a difference, and you can build upon those successes and continue to improve. Because after all the challenge( just the like the WoD's ) was not really about winning but about improving your health and fitness, and that does not stop with the end of the challenge. 6 weeks was plenty of time to create new habits, but you have to continue with them in order to avoid a backslide.

This brings me to another point. Yes the challenge was a competition, and yes we use Wodify and the whiteboard so that you can see and compare your score to others. But if you wrap your success up in how you compare to others, you are in for a boat load of disappointment. CrossFit is about making yourself better, and everything I do here is directed at that one goal. If your success is only based on who you bet or who beats you then You are in for a real rough ride.  It is ok, and even beneficial to use others as a motivator in our workouts, but the only winning and losing that happens is between you and you ( and maybe Fran). Compare yourself to a year ago, or even 6 month, heck even 6 weeks, and I guarantee you are all able to do more than you were before. You are Stronger and faster can jump higher, and just in general perform better. But that all gets hidden when you care only about beating someone in the gym. It is time to Focus on you and what You want to accomplish. In that vein here are two very good articles written by others much more eloquent than I.

Compare _ Again Faster

Your Own Purpose

Figure out your goals and then get to work meeting them. Measure your success by your accomplishments not by others. And finally realize that your success is 100% up to you, I cant do the work for you and when you commit to it nothing in life can stop you. Keep up the Good work guys.