Let's take a journey to the land of your imagination.....

You've been coming to the Fort for about a year now, and you're doing AMAZING. You have been consistently losing weight, and getting stronger and faster. Your technique is solid, and your attendance at class is fairly consistent.

AND THEN IT HAPPENS.

Suddenly, you stop setting PR's at the Fort. The scale stops making its beautiful downward progress. You start to feel frustrated and you wonder why CrossFit "isn't working anymore". Immediately you start to wonder if busting your ass in the heat and humidity 3-4 times a week is really worth it. After all, if you're not going to keep seeing progress, why should you keep going, right?

WHOA. Back that train up.

This is the part where I wrap my loving coach arms around you and tell you that this happens to everyone. At some point, you are going to have to take that dial, and turn it up a notch in order for you to continue seeing results. Bill and I have seen this quite a few times and I want to be the first person to tell you that this does not mean the end of the road for your progress, it just means that you've reached the point where you need to put in a little more effort. Expecting to put in the same amount of effort, and to continuously get results would be like expecting to take 6th grade over and over, hoping to get your PhD.

Think of your fitness journey as going in phases. Here is what the experience is like for a lot of people:

1. Phase I - during this initial phase, you are going to be losing weight like a maniac. With minimal effort at the gym, and some tweaks to your nutrition, you'll see weekly weight loss of a couple pounds a week. Your first 4 weeks you might even see more dramatic results from the initial water weight you will be shedding by eliminating all the inflammatory foods you've been ingesting. Life is good in phase I.
2. Phase II - we'll nickname phase II the "honeymoon phase". Now your progress is visibly noticeable to the people around you. People comment all the time how good your butt looks in your jeans, and other such inappropriate (but flattering) comments. You'll be making strength gains in the gym, and you'll be building endurance. You're still madly in love with all the meat you get to eat, so you are losing weight at the rate of about 1.5-2.5lbs per week.Life is REALLY good in phase II.
3. Phase III - Hmm....a name. Phase III needs a name. Let's call it the "just a little won't hurt" phase. During this phase, you are playing around with not being quite so strict with your nutrition anymore. You still come to class regularly, but you've picked up your liquid grains 2-3 nights a week again, and you regularly sneak a cookie from your co-worker's desk. After all, you've done so well, so you should be rewarded, right? Unfortunately, in phase III, you won't be losing weight anymore. The scale will have leveled off. It's not climbing again, but it certainly isn't going down anymore. Life ISN'T so amazing in phase III, but you still put on a happy face.
4. Phase IV - This will be the "I'll start again next week" phase. This is NOT a happy phase. You actually start gaining weight. You skip your regular workouts, and decide to "take some time off". You keep telling yourself that you will get back on the wagon next week. But then next week becomes next month, and next month becomes "after so-and-so's-wedding" which turns into "after so-and-so's-something-or-other". You'll use ANYTHING as an excuse to put off starting to get strict with your nutrition again. Phase IV is almost a complete abandonment of everything you worked so hard for. You stay away from Paleo and CrossFit for so long that you find it daunting to have to go back again. Life is sad and lonely in phase IV. Suri Cruise cries in Phase IV.

That sounds awful, doesn't it? Remember that in order to continuously see results, you have to continuously put in effort. There is an ever increasing scale of effort that you'll have to commit to in order to keep progressing onward and upward. If you stop losing weight and leaning out, let's examine what you're eating. You might actually have to weigh and measure your food for a few weeks just to get an idea of how much you're eating. Let's also look at how much sleep you're getting and how often you're working out.

The moral of the story is to never allow yourself to get comfortable, and start adding more and more cheats back into your diet. Stay as far away from Phase IV as possible! Remember that the amazing CrossFitters you see at the Fort and online all have to work VERY HARD to be where they're at. These amazingly strong and lean people never make it past phase II. They just continuously put in more effort to make themselves more amazing. You can get there too, but you have to be willing to work for it. You have to want it more than ANYTHING. More than Oreos, or Sam Adams. It's THAT serious.

This entire post can be summed up with this simple graph of the ratio of Badass-ness to amount of effort:

As you can see, the more of a badass you want to be, the more effort you have to put in. You could go your entire life without weighing and measuring your food, or getting real precise with your nutrition....but that will only work if you are not an aspiring Games contender.

If you, or someone you know has reached a plateau, talk to your coach. We are here to help you through these rough and frustrating times. Email me. Call me. Send me a message on Facebook. Just for the love of all things Holy, let's not reach a point where you feel so frustrated that you cry any time you look in your fridge. Mkay?