This summer will mark one year since I have done CrossFit in the traditional sense. I still do the occasional metcon but wouldn’t necessarily consider that CrossFit. Though I miss the community I hit a wall hard last year. I had to stop and ask myself is this really serving me anymore?

Why am I EXHAUSTED in the afternoon?

Why am I not seeing the body comp I want to see considering I am busting my ass?

Why do I have a dozen nagging little injuries?

Why am I not getting stronger anymore?

Why is my hunger through the roof at all times?

The list could go on and on, the point is I finally sat down and took stock of my bio feedback and physical feedback as well.  I wasn’t feeling good and I didn’t love how my body looked either. So, what the actual hell was I doing?

After cutting back to 3 days this time last year and seeing no change, I finally pulled the plug and cancelled my membership. Walking away from the community that helped me grow my nutrition coaching business was a difficult one. I am forever grateful to the membership at CF1620 for trusting me when I had literally only an education behind me and no real-life experience. I also wondered, would my business survive without those members?

Indeed it would, and many of them still trust me today to help them with nutrition and even training. The transition was tough, I found myself constantly questioning it and feeling the urge to go back and join a new CF gym in Norwell where we recently moved. I pushed through that feeling and focused on strictly body building with a functional twist, done mostly at the Ymca and now strictly my home gym. For cardio, I went back to my love of indoor cycling, finding the community feeling I had loved about CF in the spinning studio. Finally getting certified to teach, a long overdue certification I had wanted even before I started CrossFit.

August will be a full year and I have no regrets. I have never in my life felt so healthy, so strong, and so incredibly confident in my body. I found a system that works for me, I recognize my output and how that will affect my daily energy balance, and I feel energized and healthy each day. 

This is not to bash CF, I will be forever grateful to CrossFit for putting a barbell in my hands. I am not sure I would have had the confidence to do that in a typical globo gym weight room. I don’t have a single regret about the 5+ years I spent doing CrossFit. I have made some incredible lifelong friends and gained confidence in my fitness ability (as a former NON-athlete this was key!)

All I ask is take note of how ANY choice of workout is making you feel, our chosen method of exercise is supposed to make us feel better. Not exhausted and riddled with injuries.