2014: The Year of Transformation

The year two thousand, fourteen will forever hold a place in my heart.  It's the year things really changed for me, it's the year I found myself again.

According to Merriam Webster, the Word of the Year is Culture.  The Washington Post says it's not a word at all, but a heart-shaped emoji that was used most for society to show their happiness.  But for me, there is, without a doubt, no other word to describe my year than "Transformation."

Not that my transformation is complete-- I still have such a long way to go, but I'm going to spend this New Year's Eve celebrating just how far I've come with this countdown of 7 accomplishments that have made my year.

#7:  Making it through Lapband Surgery and the awful three-week liquid diet 

This consisted of ten day of clear liquids and two weeks of full liquids while healing from surgery.  It was pretty painful the first few days after surgery, but all of that is really a distant memory now.  Last time I was at the doctor's office, I took a picture of a lapband so you can see just what I had put inside of me this year.  

#6: On my 90th day of exercise in a row, I got first in the scaled division in my first ever Crossfit Competition.

This was a very unexpected moment.  I tagged along with some girls at the gym because I thought it would be a great way to celebrate my 90 day mark.  I had no expectations of winning, even though my division only had six people in it.  This was a turning point for me-- realizing that I was an athlete again, after a six year hiatus. 

#5:  146 Days of exercise in a row!

I originally set a goal of working out 90 days in a row, but I couldn't stop there.  I made it 146 days of literal blood, sweat and tears before taking my first rest day.   I have worked out no less than 5 days a week since then.  After years of yo-yo workout programs and diets, I have finally found something that works for me at 573Fitness in Bonne Terre!

#4: SKINNY JEANS!!!

For six years, I have not bought a new pair of jeans because I thought they made me look even bigger than I was.  They were also not comfortable because they would always cut into my stomach.  Even on Casual Friday at work, I would just wear my work clothes because they were more comfortable for me than jeans.  

I recently went shopping and thought, what the heck, I'll try some out.  I was able to fit into size 16 skinny jeans.  That's progress! 

#3:  Not just skinny jeans, I was able to wear clothes I hadn't worn in years!!!

My wardrobe definitely expanded as I started to fit into things I haven't been able to wear in several years.  There were also many dresses and outfits that I had bought but never worn because I didn't look good in them.  I'm finally getting to a point now where there are things in my closet that actually are too big on me-- it's almost time to let some of them go! 

This picture is of a dress that I only wore once for engagement pictures in early 2013, but that I was very comfortably wearing in October for a wedding.  Now that dress is on the verge of being too big.

#2: The Tag Team Throwdown

I covered this in my last post, and this was really the best moment of 2014 for me in this weightloss, health-gain journey.  I have had so much fun training with my 573 family and can't wait to see what the new year brings.   At the Tag Team Throwdown, I beat my Clean and Jerk max from the first competition in Union by 15 pounds, I finished every workout with my partner and friend, Alexia, and I went total Beastmode on the last workout for one epic crossfit moment.    It was a weekend I won't soon forget.

       (Comparision pic of my first competition on the left and the Tag Team Throwdown on the right.)

#1: My TRANSFORMATION

Now that BEST thing I am celebrating on the last day of 2014 is my Transformation that has already happened and that continues every day.    Here are some pics that show just how far I've come.

Thank You!

It's been quite the ride these past nine months.  I have made some important changes in my life, but still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do.  

For my last post of 2014, I'd like to thank each of you reading this blog as you have helped me more than you know.  The comments, likes, private messages-- they all keep me going, remind me why I'm doing this and fill my heart with so much love and excitement.  This is what life should be-- people supporting other people, no matter their differences, opinions, beliefs.  We all can use a little encouragement, and my heart is full because of you. 

Emergency Doctor's Appointment & the Tag Team Throwdown

It's been an interesting past week, that is for sure.  Over the past few months, I have been training for my first "real" Crossfit Competition with my WOD- partner, Alexia, that took place on Saturday, December 13th.  Though I almost didn't make it there.

Emergency Doctor's Appointment:

On Thursday morning, I woke with an extremely uncomfortable feeling where my band sits at the bottom of my esophagus.  I can't really explain it, but it felt like my stomach was going in and out of my band.  By the afternoon, I decided it was time to call the doctor to see what they thought I should do.  They asked me to come in on Friday to get checked out.  The whole time I was worried they would tell me I couldn't exercise for a while, and that all the hard work Alexia and I put in over the past few months would have been for nothing. 

I showed up at the doctor's office and waited for two hours before I finally saw my surgeon's assistant, who is the one who usually does my adjustments.  After talking about what was going on, she told me I could be experiencing one of two things:  I either had something stuck and obstructing my band or I had a prolapse, which means part of my stomach actually came out above my band.  Both could be caused by my band being too tight so we decided the best thing to do would be take out one full milliliter of saline from my band.  

I immediately felt better, but she told me I could come back in on Monday to get an x-ray if the pain came back.  I've actually been SO much better since she took out the saline from my band.  I can actually eat a meal in 20-30 minutes again instead of taking almost an hour to get just a small amount down.  I'm able to get full and stay full for longer and hopefully that means I'll start to see the numbers fall on the scale again.  (I again haven't lost anything in almost two months.)

I decided to cancel my x-ray since I'm feeling better and will just wait until my January appointment to see if I need to get any saline added back in or if I'm in the "green zone" where I currently am. 

Tag Team Throwdown:

For those of you that haven't attended a crossfit competition before, this one was a pretty big one.  Alexia and I were one of 44 teams in the Women's Scaled Division and took 25th overall.  That's pretty good considering some of these women have been doing this crossfit thing for years.   

There were three workouts throughout the day, and what was awesome is each team from our gym went at different times so we all got to cheer for and support each other throughout the day.  It really was so much fun!

Here's a pic of our 573Fitness Crew!

WOD 1:

The first WOD was one partner finding their one-rep max on the Snatch lift and the second partner finding their one-rep max on the Clean & Jerk.  Yes, I'm aware theses lifts sound a bit perverted. :-)

Alexia got 95lbs on her snatch and I got 140lbs on my clean & jerk for a team total of 235lbs placing us 17th in the competition after the first WOD. 

Here's a video of my Clean & Jerk Max:

 

WOD2:

This was our most difficult WOD, for sure.  We had to do the following with a time cap of 10 minutes:

150 meter run

21 synchronized burpees

63 jumping pull-ups

150 meter run

15 synchronized burpees

45 jumping pull-ups

150 meter run

9 synchronized burpees

27 jumping pull-ups

Once you completed all of that, if you had time left, you did as many 65lb snatches as you could and that would be your score.  We completed the workout in 9 minutes and ended up doing 11 snatches in the last minute.   We really could not have done that WOD any faster, and it moved us to 28th place out of 44 teams.

Here's a video of some of those jumping pull-ups and snatches.  You can tell we are absolutely dead. 

WOD 3:

This was our favorite WOD and turned out to be one of my favorite moments of the year.  This workout also had a time cap,  this time of 11 minutes. 

20 Toes to Bar

30 Wall Balls

60 Dead lifts at 115lbs

20 Toes to Bar

30 Wall Balls

50 Power Cleans at 85lbs

20 Toes to Bar

30 Wall Balls

40 Shoulder to Overhead at 65 lbs.

It was a perfect example of Alexia and I coming through in different areas that were our strengths.  I did the toes to bars while Alexia did the majority of the Wall Balls, we split the deadlifts, and Alexia knew I was dying during the power cleans so took over the last ten while I got ready for the last set of toes to bars.  

As I posted on Facebook, the really amazing moment of the day came at the very end of this workout.  We knew going in that we wanted nothing more than to finish.  We didn't care what place we got in the competition, we just wanted to finish all three workouts and the day could be considered a success.  

Because Alexia was able to finish out the power cleans and the wall balls, I took a few breaths before picking up the bar for the last 40 shoulder to overheads of the workout.  With less than a minute left, I needed to do all 40 as quickly as possible.  There just wasn't time to switch off back and forth between Alexia and me so in my head I told myself that I had go until the clock stopped.  

Before I knew it, I had 12 more to go at the ten second mark.  At that point, I wasn't really even feeling myself lifting the bar, just thinking "there's no way I'm going to make it."  But my arms kept moving and Alexia kept screaming the number of reps I had left.  Before I knew it I had done all forty and the clock hadn't stopped yet. We finished it with two seconds remaining.  

It was crazy.  Our gym-mates were cheering, strangers were clapping and I dropped to the ground!  Brandi, from the gym, even asked me if I wanted water and my response was, "I don't know."  Needless to say, I needed a minute to recover.  Later on as I was watching another heat do the workout, I heard a couple who I didn't know sitting next to me talk about what I had done-- it was pretty cool.  

It really was all possible because Alexia and I played up our strengths and she carried us through the power cleans and wall balls.  If she would have been just two seconds slower on any of them, we wouldn't have been able to complete our workout.  

It was the perfect ending to our very first crossfit competition together.  I couldn't have asked for a day or partner!

Here's a video of the end:

 

Some additional pictures of our day: