Whole Life Challenge Update; Thoughts on Body Comp Goals vs. Lifting/Crossfit

I thought I’d give an update on how the Whole Life Challenge is going.  As a reminder, it’s a challenge in name only, with a paid entry and logging of points each day for nutrition, working out and so forth.  My wife and I went into this with goals mostly to encourage us to eat cleaner and cut down on recreational alcohol consumption so we’d look good naked (LGN) in advance of summer. If you aren’t already making some progress to lose that winter bulk with the intention of looking good at the pool in June, you’re already behind.

So far, we’ve both leaned out, even though we’ve both been losing points primarily for social drinking at work events or work travel and on the weekends.  However, we’ve both been eating pretty well, and the nutrition points I’m “losing” have been for things like protein shakes after wicked workouts and bar-b-que sauce (that has sugar in it) on homemade pulled pork butt roast.  I can live with that.  I can tell I’m slowly losing the little fat that had accumulated on my midsection over the last couple of years and Holly is seeing the same as well.  While our weights fluctuate a little due to water intake, time of day, etc., I’ve seen about a 5 lb drop from my previous recent pre-WLC high to the low I saw late last week.  Not sure it will stick, and weight loss isn’t my goal really, but interesting to see.

If anything, I’m probably not eating enough for my other goals.  After recently competing in a two-day Crossfit competition, I’ve been struggling a little bit with what other goals I’d like to accomplish this year besides body composition improvement.  I’m not a top level competitor, and it isn’t my goal to try to qualify for the Crossfit Regionals or anything, so crushing myself on daily metcons isn’t really what I’m into right now.  I’m heavily leaning towards a more strength focus again, which is somewhat contrary to leaning out other goal.  I’m inadvertently following Martin Berkhans LeanGains from time to time with Intermittent Fasting, but don’t think I’m taking in enough protein or food to really fuel strength or muscle growth to a large degree.  So I’m generally continuing to follow The Outlaw Way programming for general strength growth, while adding more bench work so my man-boobs (moobs, chesticles, or pecs; whatever you want to call them) are solid for pool season.  I’ve made some decent progress following this program over the last 5 months, not sure if I’ll be hitting a plateau soon, but will keep plugging away.

My motivation for the high-intensity metcons has gone down tremendously since that Crossfit competition.  I still will do them a few days a week, but I’m much more likely to do a hard, heavy workout at the end of a lifting session that doesn’t leave me lying on the ground in a puddle.  Again, I’m sort of in that weird middle area of trying to get stronger, trying to lean out and not trying to lose too much of my conditioning because I am doing some other one-day fitness competitions later this spring and summer, and like to do other fun recreational activities like running, hiking and biking.  I have a feeling I’m going to not make the great progress in any of the three areas because I’m too spread out with my goals, but we’ll see.  Right now it’s mainly a problem of finding proper motivation.

To brag up a little on my wife.  Holly is continuing to crush on the Crossfit side of things.  She did great in the “scaled” division of the same competition I did (and she would have done well at the regular division, but she can’t yet do a muscle-up).  Crossfit also has their annual Open competition, where many just step up to see how they do compared to their world-wide peers, and the best of the best qualify for regionals then The Games where the winners take home $250k.  She finished in the top 15% of all the women for the first workout for our region and she’s a just few years away from the first Masters division (40-44). She’s like wine – getting better with age.  It’s a little humbling for me, as she’s more competitive in her division than I am, but what can I say, she’s just a really fit person (former D1 athlete) with a competitive desire to do her best.