I've had issues with weight since as long as I can remember. I am not fat and I don't have trouble doing any kind of strenuous physical activity, on the contrary I am extremely active, I run everyday, participate in different running events all around the city, play a lot of sports and all that. Its just that my BMI (Body Mass Index) calculated as kg/m2 where kg is a person’s weight in kilograms and m2 is their height in metres squared as per this website, falls in the obese category and I am working my ass of to get below the obese level.
When I was abroad, I got hooked on to this sport called crossfit. Its an amazing sport which combines functional movements and Olympic weight lifting which helps in overall well-being and keeps you physically prepared to do anything. It is considered to be one of the toughest things to do and being the active guy that I was, I gave it a shot. I got very good at it eventually. I was the only Indian in that group and the coach used to call me the Indian tiger. I had been going to a normal gym prior to crossfit but it wasn't helping me much to achieve my goal. I read somewhere that the body has to burn more calories to sustain muscle, so I thought crossfit would be my opportunity to build that muscle which would eventually help me burn away all the fat but for some strange reason it worked against me. I gained muscle alright, but it looked like all my muscle was being build on top or just underneath the layer of fat and because of that, instead of me looking leaner, I looked much more beefier.
I did crossfit for 3 years with hardly any weight loss. In fact I put on a lot of muscle mass which showed on the weight scale. Eventually when I came back to India I completely stopped crossfit, took some time off and then started hitting the regular gym. Crossfit involves a lot of squats (both free and weighted) and that made my legs heavy as my quads had become stronger and I started having difficulties running. I used to feel like I had something really heavy strapped on to my legs when I used to go on runs. If you didn't know already, running is my second most favorite thing to do and so I had to do something about it.
I started working out at my office gym but I was so used to crossfit that I just couldn't stop doing it. I made a few friends there who were also into crossfit and I was back at it full fledged. There was no dress code in that office, so I looked pretty normal in my jeans and T-shirts. I realized how big I had gotten only after I changed my company where I had to wear formals. I started looking like a bouncer and I couldn't stand it. I again joined the office gym and this time instead of lifting any heavy weights, I started running and doing a lot of cardio. After a couple of months I started noticing differences and now I am slowly but steadily on my way down and here I am now, visibly thinner (not leaner) but my struggle still goes on.
As the title of my blog says, its 80% diet and that's where I am faltering big time. I kept a tight reign on what I ate all of last week but today everything went down the drain again. Maybe I can consider this as my cheat day. The good thing is that I will be hitting the gym tomorrow morning and I will surely burn off all of what I ate today.
I paid a 6 months membership at this fancy gym. I hope to do the 80% of my work properly and let the other 20% actually take effect.
Wish me luck!!
x
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