There was a post on Facebook yesterday about a training method, designed by a dancer, that would help women to be long and lean and slender and ‘teeny tiny’ and…?  What?

According to the post, women shouldn’t lift more than 3 lbs or eat more than 800 calories/day.  Ok.  I don’t know this woman’s life or her financial situation but her ideas about the capabilities and capacities and demands on women are just a skosh off the mark.  My purse weighs more than 3 lbs!  And the focus on being a particular body type (lean dancer body) is off the mark.  I understand the desire to look a certain way, I do, but you can only do what you can with the frame, genetics and basic structure that you were born with.  Your height is what it is.  Shoulder width, too.  Where you easily put on fat or muscle (these are different cells and not interchangeable!) as well.  For all those tall, naturally slender women this is a maybe goal…looking tall, slender and like a dancer.  For the rest of the population, you are a chance to make some excellent money trying to morph your body into something it is incapable of.  WHAT!?  I know…I know…in this everyone gets a participation trophy world we think that there are no limitations to our desires and dreams but that’s wrong.  Get over it.  Instead of trying to be the next Gweneth Paltrow, how about trying to be the healthiest, most fit you?

Btw, healthy and fit are not accomplished by eating just 800 calories per day.  That kind of “dieting” will only set you up for failure as that is no where near a survivable amount of calories.   Maybe if you just sit all day and don’t move…one…little…bit.  Eat clean and only enough to support lean muscle but eat!   The blanket prescription for a person to eat no more than such and such calories with no accounting for types or quality of foods much less ratios of fats, protein or carbs is ignorant at best.  The quality of what you eat is more important than the quantity.  If you wanted to waste your daily 800 caloric allotment on potato chips you would lose weight and be woefully worse off for it health-wise.  I’ll give the diet the benefit of the doubt and say that it probably is very controlled in its sources of those calories.  Still.  800 calories.  Really.

Speaking of Gweneth Paltrow and this particular diet and exercise program, her name was dropped as a previous or current follower.  I can tell you that the girl lifts more than 3 lbs daily.  She has kids.  Little ones.  There is NO WAY she isn’t picking them up when they extend those little arms and ask to be held.  Forget it!   And there’s the funniest thing of this whole thought process.  Anyone who has ever walked into a traditional big box gym has seen this before.  Women hovering around the end of the light weights on the dumbbell racks.  5 lb, please.  No, I don’t lift 15s.  They make your muscles too bulky.  Same for the light barbells if they use them at all.  Worse still are the ones who never venture into the free weights but stay on the machines that mimic human movement poorly and on one plane only at one time only and with light weight only.  Whew!  No heavy weights for me.  I want to stay looking feminine.  (We’ll leave out the female body’s lack of testosterone for the sake of confused logic here)  Once they’ve finished up that last movement they head to the nursery where they pick up their 35 lb. kid with their delicate arms and sling that 10 lb. diaper bag over their shoulder and head out to their car.  Thank goodness they didn’t lift heavy and risk getting bulky.  If anyone needs to be strong and lift heavy its women.  Every day.

3 lbs and 800 calories.  Craziness!

My dentist, friend, client, CFChampions athlete and neighbor Nancy stopped by two weekends ago for a short visit.  (Nancy is a wonderful person and if you get the opportunity to hang out with her you should jump on it.  She’s also a wonderful dentist!  Did I mention that before? )  After the little niceties back and forth (how are the kids, dogs, cats, work on the house…?) and info on an organic restaurant that opened up on FM 1960, Franks and The Toppings,  she got down to why she was stopping over.

During a Continuing Education course that Nancy had recently finished, the instructors had gone over the antibiotic Levaquin (levofloxacin).  It is primarily used for the treatment of bronchitis, sinusitis, urinary tract infections and more.  Bacterial infections, basically.  The reason that she was bringing this particular drug to mine and Matt’s attention is that Levaquin is this response that is prominently noted on any and all websites related to this product…

Fluoroquinolones, including LEVAQUIN®, are associated with an increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture in all ages. This risk is further increased in older patients usually over 60 years of age, in patients taking corticosteroid drugs, and in patients with kidney, heart, or lung transplants.

Nancy’s advice straight away was to have some other, any other antibiotic, prescribed for whatever infection one would be prescribed this drug.  There are other drugs out there that do this same job without risk of a tendon rupture.  And this is just one of the warnings associated with this antibiotic!

This blog post isn’t going to cover all of the joys associated with this FDA approved and supported drug as it is a long list.  That list and the lists of warnings/side effects/residual effects/etc that go along with so many of the chemicals that we ingest on a daily basis (Tylenol, aspirin, oral contraceptives, antacids, etc ) with little to no thought or concern stood out is such stark contrast to the alarm and concern from our government in regards to the consumption of raw milk products.  For example, an organic grocery store in Venice, CA was raided by officers from the LA County District Attorney’s office, with guns drawn, enforcing safety laws and protecting us from raw milk.  Interestingly enough, the story linked in the LATimes above is slanted against raw food – ” despite research outlining the dangers of consuming raw milk and other unprocessed foods…” – and is written more from the perspective that folks who would be so ignorant as to consume unprocessed food should be allowed to do crazy things without government intervention.  Thanks.  I think.

The point of this post, again, is that the FDA happily supports drug companies and puts their stamp of approval on products that cause spontaneous tendon ruptures, bleeding ulcers, liver damage, Reyes syndrome, indigestion, vomiting, tinnitus, severe head aches, blurred vision, diarrhea, nausea to name a few listed, known and approved side effects…  I am not in any way saying that there is not a place for medications or drugs.  However, the furor over raw milk and raw food in general by the government makes one wonder what the REAL cause of their concern is.

The government protests too much about the dangers of raw milk for the true reason to be our safety when they support so many other much more wildly dangerous things.

Tying in to the previous post about the craziness in Wisconsin…this is an excellent blog relating to the raw milk debate.

Why Does Our Government Hate Raw Milk?

On the note of paleo food choices being better for you…a paleo approved video.  Funny.

I’ve been getting Google alerts about raw milk for just a little over a week now and every day has the vast majority of the articles, blogs and posts being about the decision of Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle earlier this year to veto a bill that would have allowed on-farm sales of raw milk. The dairy industry got to him and the news machine pumped out the very scary info that 8 people had been sickened in Minnesota. I swear I’m not making light of 8 people getting sick but I think the reaction of the media and Wisconsin’s governor are out of line with what actually constitutes real danger that the public should be protected from. So I looked up some statistics provided by the CDC and others noted below. Keep in mind that I do believe in the statement “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” So here goes -

Statistics from the NY Times 2009 Almanac [2006 Statistics.] This information was obtained from Get Fit Through Gardening

Rank Causes of death                                                                                     All persons

1. Diseases of heart                                                                                              629,191
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer)                                                                  560,102
3. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)                                                           137,265
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases                                                          124,614
5. Unintentional injuries (Accidents)                                                            117,748
6. Alzheimer’s disease                                                                                           72,507
7. Diabetes Mellitus                                                                                               72,507
8. Influenza and pneumonia                                                                              56,247
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis (Kidney Disease)44,791
10. Septicemia, Sepsis (blood poisoning)                                                     34,031
11. Suicide                                                                                                                  32,185
12 Chronic Liver Disease                                                                                     27,299
13 HTN and hypertension                                                                                    23,985
14 Parkinson’s Disease                                                                                           19,660
15 Homicide                                                                                                               18,029
16 All Other Causes                                                                                              455,333
Total:                                                                                                                      2,425,901

Again, I am NOT making light of folks getting sick from drinking raw milk but I am saying that given how much more dangerous the rest of life is I think that the worry and concern from the governor may be a touch out of touch.

Lots of changes.  Lots of challenges.  Lots of fun!

These past couple of months have been crazy busy in both business and family life.

Business-wise, we were very busy with prep work building up to the 2010 CrossFit South Central Regional Qualifier held at GSX Athletics in Ft. Worth, TX.   Jeff Tucker, owner of GSX, had called many months ago to see if we’d be interested in managing the volunteers, judges and judging standards.  That sounded easy enough.  WOW!!   There were loads of emails, data lists of who could help out, who wanted to judge, who wanted to volunteer, who was qualified for either, who had registered with me, who had registered via the Games website and then all the way up to the day of the event who couldn’t pitch in any longer.  What we ended up with on game day was an outstanding crew of judges and volunteers.  A volunteer or two or three got pushed into judging and they did fantastic (they each had the required experience and certs but had requested to be volunteers instead)!  Jerry Hobbes of County Line CrossFit was pulling in fresh recruits for volunteering all weekend long and I love him for it!  The energy, tenacity and endurance of the judges and volunteers was amazing!  I was maybe a little overzealous in my defense of them at the event but really they were doing so much for CrossFit and us that it was necessary and I’d do it again.  Some really great feedback came about from these folks that, I hope, will be used in future events to make them flow better and allow for a better experience for everyone from the athletes and spectators to the judges and volunteers.

In our gym, we had the Legion of Max Effort going on and MUCH was learned running this event as well.  Running these challenges is, well, challenging.  There are so many areas in which to judge improvement and each person’s improvement will be so different.  I was disappointed that the spirit of the challenge was not the primary driver for all teams and that there were outright and whispered criticisms of movement standards not being adhered to by all of the competitors.  Some major changes and improvements have already been made for the next event.  Overall, though, the gym as a whole pulled together and became even more of a community through this thing and that’s what’s most important.  We’ll do it again soon but not in this format.  Lots of folks made huge progress towards their goals in health and performance.  They met new people that they had never had the opportunity or reason to meet due to working out at different times during the day.  Can’t wait for the next CFChampions get together!

Speaking of having to type out Champions…that’s because we’re joining forces with our long time friends and trainers Darlene Thomas and Mike and Tami Thomas in opening CFCypress in the 290 area!!  The second CFC location will have the same programming and training options but the feel and personality of the Thomas crew will definitely be out there en force!  They are three passionate crossfitters and it will show in their gym and in everything that they do.  Good times all around starting with Controlled Chaos II on Saturday July 10th from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at CFCypress’ new location – 14216 Cypress N. Houston, Cypress, TX 77429!

ALSO…Yonder Way Farm has added another delivery day for us at CFChampions!  They ROCK!

We’re still settling in at the gym.  Adding equipment, putting up the flags and banners and signs, keeping chihuahuas out and generally having a great time of it!  Our team of trainers couldn’t be stronger and more unified.  Its about danged time.  Naysayers, doubters and rabble-rousers need not apply.

Life is good at CFChampions.  Very busy.  But good.

Travis sent me an article from the CF Journal today that talks about how exercise and fitness affect emotional health.  The article’s point being that the healthier you get physically, the healthier you get mentally is a no brainer, however, it was good to see the theory backed up empirically.  That’s not actually the point to this post.  The point to this post is another item that jumped out at me regarding the challenge that Alamo CrossFit (the test gym) ran.  Like we’ve seen in 2 previous challenges, folks fall out of the challenge.  Quickly.

There were multiple thoughts and goals going into our current challenge.
- Come up with a challenge that was truly a challenge to all skill levels, beginner to advanced athlete.
- Come up with something that we could measure accurately vs. body fat percentage measured by calipers or weight on a scale.
- Come up with a way to keep the athletes/competitors engaged.
- Come up with an accountability tool that is better than just encouraging words, reminder emails and informational posts.

Like they saw at Alamo CF, we’ve always lost right at 50% of our participants in a challenge.  That sucks.  What it showed to me was that the desire was there to make a change, to improve performance and health and appearance but life gets in the way.  What we did instead this time was limit the registrants, divide them into groups that should be pretty evenly balanced in regards to athletic ability levels and with an eye on how long participants have been at the gym, training, eating clean, etc. added a group coach and peer pressure.   It was time consuming and, I hope, very worth while in the end.  As far as I know we’ve only lost one athlete and that is due to injury.  How exciting!  So 45 people signed up.  44 will finish and even the one that is out still lost weight and if he were to do the workouts tomorrow he’d show improvement because he did continue to work out all the way up until this week when he was told there would have to be surgery to fix it.  (Way to go, Mark!!)

The athletes that started this challenge are all inspirations!  8 weeks is a long time to train, a long time to push yourself.

I hope that better than half stick with the nutrition that they’ve hopefully made a habit in these 8 weeks.

I hope that skill levels reached are maintained.

I hope that folks are healthier in body and in mind.

I truly hope that lives have been changed.

Various folks have said in the past months that they are struggling to find out who they are and where they are going.  What does that have to do with CrossFit?  Nothing, directly.  But they do have things in common in that what we are doing at CrossFit Champions is more than just providing a place to work out.  At CrossFit Champions we are working toward helping you be healthy and fit in body.  They really all do tie in together.  Nothing in life is perfect and the best of intentions do not ensure a happy ending.  Cliche’s could easily fill in the remainder of this post but I’ll go with what has thus far helped me.

  • Forgive yourself.  We are so quick to beat ourselves up for every little transgression and so slow to let them go.  Treat yourself like you would treat someone else. If you’re an unforgiving turd to other people maybe you need to make some serious changes in your thinking.
  • Focus on today and make it the best you can.  I don’t mean mother or father of the year type of over blown expectations and accomplishments.  If you can’t possibly maintain that energy all the time then you’re over doing today.
  • Have your list of things to do, but pare it back to reasonable and realistic accomplishments. You are not going to finish your degree today but you could sign up to take a class.  A single class.
  • Ignore that over achiever that you’re always comparing yourself to.  You don’t know how they’re really doing what they’re doing and what they’re giving up in order to be that person.  You also don’t know who is looking at your life and feeling that they are falling short.  You can’t control anything or anyone but yourself.  That’s the beginning and the end of it.
  • Decide who you are and be that person.  It is as simple as that.  Decide what you believe, what your morals are, what kind of person you want your child to have in their life as a role model and then be that person.  No excuses.  No justifications.  Know who you are and what you stand for and then live it.  Seriously.  That’s it.
  • You do not live in a vacuum.  What you do has repercussions on other people.  Be a positive.  If you’re a negative, you need to fix it.
  • Cut your losses on negative relationships.  You can’t be healthy if you are stuck in a negative relationship whether that relationship is with a neighbor, friend or family member.

Psychology and counseling heads in two general directions in dealing with life’s issues.  One direction is where you delve into every past problem, failure and wrong you’ve done and that have been done to you.  Lots of things you can’t control.  The other, in general, focuses just on moving forward with not much looking backward.  To each their own but you can’t move forward by constantly looking backward.  Who you are today, however, is a result of experiences and decisions you’ve made in the past so it can’t be ignored.   Again, with the experiences and lessons from your past guiding your decisions today, decide the person you want to be and then just do it as the stress of indecision is exhausting mentally and physically and can only hurt your overall health.   And if you need help making heads or tails of your life then get help from a qualified person.  In the end, though, it is only you who have to live with the decisions.  Make them livable and go forward.  You can do it!

    The girls and I got Sock Monkeys and decided to name them after fruits that match their color schemes (I didn’t realize Sock Monkeys came in different colors but they do.)  My monkey is pink, red and brown striped.  I’m stumped as a name for her.  If I had gotten the green themed one I could have called her Apple a la Ms. Paltrow but I didn’t.  I suppose I could go with Apple but when I picture an apple I picture a green one.  In my quest for a fruit inspired name I googled purple fruits (Mia’s monkey is purple) and came across this website —> producepedia.com It’s awesome!  There are several ways to search out info on the various fruits and vegetables…with pictures!  I’m visual and tactile and long lists of names of things mean nothing to me.  I need some type of sensation to go with that word.  This website is perfect except that it’s built for California.

    Anyway, we narrowed the list down (off of a wikipedia list) to the berry family and she’s now named Olallie.  I like odd.  Obviously.

    Okay…I follow Norcal’s blog as well as Robb Wolf’s blog for the excellent, entertaining and informative articles but this one totally cracked me up due to the picture.

    I originally read the post on Google Reader where there was no pic.  Wow!  Look what I’d have missed.  Again…wow.

    Sandy sent a link to a youtube video from our very first ever free workout.  Oh the memories.  He commented on how far we’ve come regarding holding folks to movement standards and in our defense I have to respond…it was a free workout.  A try us and this CrossFit stuff out.  We did end up getting 2 folks who were willing to drive from downtown Houston out to our house in Spring for Elements but that was the end of that event’s effectiveness.

    For me, that video was more of a snapshot of where CrossFit in Houston was in 2006.  At that time, there was only us in the entire Houston area as an affiliate.  When we had gone out for our first level 1 cert. in San Diego, CA in July of ’06 we fully intended on utilizing crossfit training as a conditioning program for our martial arts.  We knew of Coach Glassman and had seen Nicole Carrol in a video or two, but really had no idea of who most of those folks were.  Looking back on the weekend there are lots of names that had their hand in the running of the cert or were there attending for the first time like we were.  Jeff Martin of BrandX Martial Arts/CFBrandX/CFKids (this is pre-CFKids) was there as an instructor.  Tony Budding of CFHQ staff and the man behind the media of CrossFit was there gently prodding us into an affiliation.  Nicole Carrol, of course, was there steering Coach and keeping him on track as well as being the demo person.  Dr. Mike and Lisa Ray, owners of CFFlagstaff,  Rob Miller, big time free climber, and Eddie and Lisa Lugo, owners of CF San Diego were all there on the instructing end. Coach Burgener stopped in (we had no idea who he was).  Freddie Camacho of CrossFit One World , Kelley and Steve Rakow of CrossFit Ocean City, and Skip Miller of Front Range CrossFit were all there on their first level 1 like us.  There are several other gym owners there that I can’t place with their faces at this moment.  It’s been a little while.  When you’re looking at the list of affiliates on cf.com’s front page you see the group in the order of affiliation over on the right side under upcoming certs.  Check out where we are on that list.  In relation to the length of the list, we’re close to the top.

    If you know who you’re looking at, you will see Carlos and Lisa Ibarra in that video.  They are the owners of CFHouston.  Most of the people that day were their clients pre-crossfit.  We’ve all grown as trainers since then.

    David Cogswell with Houston’s Kettlebell Club was there doing a free demo after our workout.  He, his wife Miriam and a handful of clients participated.  They did well.  It was a beginning for us.

    Two other attendees came for the kettlebell demo, having never heard of CrossFit, and ended up being the first folks who went through our Elements program.  If you follow the CFEndurance forum or cf.com’s forum you might have seen the name Shawn McDonald.  He works with athletes in and around Houston and was one of those two adventurous souls.  I ran into him again last year at the Endurance Cert at GSX in June and he judged at our Oktoberfest Obliteration event in October.  He also was kind enough to hold the recent William paintball fundraiser.

    It was our first shot at holding an event and I have to say we didn’t sleep much the night before and quite literally made ourselves sick with nerves before starting it.  It’s one of those things that you look back on after and say that wasn’t so bad but at the time you wonder how you’ll get through it. Good stuff overall.

    Thanks for finding it, Sandy!

    © 2010 p. e. munson Suffusion WordPress theme by Sayontan Sinha