Wildcatter Member Success Story - Bill

It was around this time three years ago that I decided I needed to make some changes in my lifestyle. I was the most unhealthy I had ever been in my life. I weighed over 300lbs (bodyweight PR), had frequent migraines, and I could barely bend over to tie my shoes without getting out of breath because my belly was so big. I knew that I needed to turn things around while I was still young, because reversing the course I was on was going to get more difficult with each passing year and have more serious impacts on my health. I started off with an aggressive caloric deficit, which resulted in me mostly eating black beans for lunch and dinner. I paid zero attention to food quality and just counted calories. I almost immediately stopped getting migraines and I initially lost about 5lbs per week for the first month. By four months, I was down about 40lbs and hit a wall and my weight stayed the same the next four months. During that plateau, I researched ways to get the weight to fall off again, and a common thread was strength training, because muscle mass increases resting metabolism. I had very little experience with weight lifting, and I knew that if left to my own devices I would not do effective workouts at a gym, so I needed something that was guided and expensive enough to incentivize me to show up to get my money's worth. A coworker recommended CrossFit to me, and it ended up being exactly what I needed.

In June 2023, I went straight from the couch to CrossFit. The warmups felt like workouts. I could barely do any of the movements and had to reduce the reps on everything. It took me a couple months before I could consistently do the prescribed volume of box jumps in a workout instead of substituting with box step-ups. I knew before I even showed up for the first day that I was going to stick with it, because I needed to do something to improve my quality of life, but I was surprised by how easy it was to become committed to the process. What really inspired me was seeing "normal" people with normal day jobs do incredible feats in the gym, not by being exceptionally gifted athletes but by consistently showing up and putting in the work. I knew I could do those things too if I stayed committed. 

I first became aware of how effective the CrossFit methodology was about 2 months after I started. We did a hero WOD called "Jerry", which involved running 1 mile, rowing 2k, and running another mile. It had been years since I had run a mile, and we never ran entire miles during a typical class WOD, so my goal was to at least get through the first mile without walking and then to just be able to finish the rest of the workout. I ended up being able to run both miles and finish under the time cap, which shocked me.  By that time, I was pretty well committed to coming to five classes a week, and I started coming in before class to work on skill development. Once I was able to consistently get through the workouts, I became more interested in the competitive side of Crossfit. I used to always say that if they could just make a game out of working out, I would be all in. For me, the competitive side of Crossfit is what keeps me excited about working out and pushes me to continue to improve. I can only push myself so far on my own, but racing against another athlete helps me tap into that extra level of intensity I need to improve my performance and increase my fitness. I have a mental list of athletes I strive to beat in particular types of workouts depending on their strengths, and I find that really helps me track my progress and motivates me to improve my weaknesses.

After about 8 months of CrossFit, I slimmed down a little bit and was putting on muscle mass; however, my weight remained largely the same. I knew several coaches and some members tracked macros and a lot of CrossFit content I consumed really emphasized the importance of nutrition in CrossFit. I started working with a nutrition coach and tracking macros. The results were immediate. I was getting to eat about 1,000 calories more per day than when I was just doing a caloric deficit, and for the first time in a year, my weight started rapidly dropping again. I quickly noticed improvements in workout performance due to not having to move as much body weight, and I noticeably had more energy to power through the workouts. Since I was closely monitoring the foods I ate and my weight on the scale, I learned a lot about how my body responds to certain foods, particularly how easy it was to get inflammation from junk food. I cannot say that I enjoy tracking macros, but I know that for me it is a necessity, and I will probably have to stay on top of it for the rest of my life, because I easily revert to poor eating behaviors.

I have now been doing CrossFit for a little more than 2 years and tracking macros for about 1.5 years. I am currently in the best shape of my life, and I can do most of the CrossFit movements, continue to gain new PR's across various lifts, and sometimes when the stars align with a machine + running workout I make it to the top of the leaderboard! We haven't done the Jerry WOD since I first started, but I would destroy that workout now. Commitment * (Crossfit+Nutrition) = the most confident I've felt in my body in decades. My only regret is not having started sooner.