CrossFit at Midlife (aka Embodied Dedication as We Age)

It is good to dine well with friends. What well means amidst our industrial-complex, food-agricultural worlds of today begs some consideration, however! I’ve just finished the 8-week Health&Habits offering through Centerville CrossFit box, with a delight to be amongst new friends and back into the direction of health and fitness, with just a little help from such friends. Learnings and a shout-out to the program here, for anyone who might consider it in the future. Nutrition or fueling ‘re-education’ has become a long-term hobby and interest of mine, ever since I landed in an earlier Crossfit informed program called Dedication Health , offered in 2019 by my previous CF box in Vandalia (now complete, with kids into college and offerings well tended). I kept up the interest with a 2024 summertime dip into CBG (Consistency Breeds Growth), aimed at health/body composition changes without tracking macros . Recovering from a 2024 November back injury, I learned of CCF’s nutrition-re-e...

Into the final week of a chosen 8-week Health and Habits session offered by my local ‘ box ’–which may actually include a Week 9, for kicks–I am smiling into being back into a familiar, desired direction: toward health & easing of mind. Bemused by what I always relearn–bathroom scales are notoriously UNinformative for true processes unfolding–I am pleased to be into a seemingly more-sustainable rhythm of habits, once again . Familiar directions. I am immersing more and more into the Peloton world and a bit of beginner’s yoga, alongside my CrossFit habits. [You can find me @LateOnsetPaleo]. New directions. Time for some musings on both… Familiar Directions…Finally (Again) We were nearing time for the end-of-H&H sessions InBody scan, so I decided to tend to it yesterday, given my frustration with the slow-pace of ‘weight loss’ that was preying on my attitude, my mind. I couldn’t get to the comparative results until after the morning’s WOD, but it seemed ‘not enough’ in my curren...

The more we learn…yet…some things never change. Why is that? After a full weekend of family, friend’s hosting, house-cleaning and my day-job of professoring, Brian and I have decided a veg-day was in order. Not leaving the house, unless perhaps for a preserve walk. My body wanted to move, however, so, I figured I’d go back to the Discover Your Power Zones program on the Peloton, the two rides I’d skipped because I had found them ‘elsewhere.’ 10-min prep ride for an FTP test (Functional Threshold Power), then the FTP test itself, a 20-minute ride beginning in Zone 3-4, moving into Zone 4, then finally into Zone 5. Whatever those zones mean at the start of this journey. Which is where the rub lies for me here today.  I’ve ridden enough now to have the bike estimate my zones, my fitness-push levels. I’ve enjoyed Christine D’Ercole ’s rides a couple times–playlists, voice, presence, power, encouragement–so I tried her FTP test ride this weekend. Which I enjoyed. Which gave me a good-en...

Another CrossFit Open season ‘in the books,’ surprisingly enough. When I began in CrossFit in August 2018, I remember encountering the first Open season with a sense of dis-ease and aversion. I didn’t like how it brought a competitive energy into the gym. By the time 2021 rolled around, post-Covid and three years into my CF journey, I had begun to appreciate its annual rhythm and invitation to challenge, to perceiving one's own progress. Then the communal aspect kicked in with one particular WOD–I want to say it was 2023?--with an ascending rep-scheme. If you made it to a certain number of reps, you kept going, with increasingly higher weights for the power snatch reps at the end, time-cap 15 minutes. I did the WOD in my home gym, feeling into it fine enough. Then I went to the Friday Night Lights of the other CF gym I was frequenting, realizing there was space for me to do the WOD, that I’d have a judge, and so why not…? Not only did I better my score, I actually finished it, rig...

Always a new turn on the path, eh? This week marks the start of an eight-week Health&Habits session I signed up for at my new CrossFit box. It also marks the week of preparation before a 10-day Caribbean cruise with my beloved Brian and some good friends. I use this blog as opportunity to reflect and name intentions, so today seems a good day for that…both anticipation and a little foreboding. My choices are my own AND I don’t live amongst folks (except CF friends) who value health or clean eating. Always a struggle for me… [image at Blu, Celebrity Cruiseline restaurant] I’d told myself I’d lay off the InBody scans until the summer, given my back injury, general inactivity amidst healing, holidays, and slow-restart into CrossFit rhythms. I knew it would show me moving in the wrong direction, and for the most part, yep. Wrong direction this last year. At least my metabolic rate is consistent, so there’s that. Just didn’t quite imagine I was starting so far off my maintenance usuals ...

I thought I was done with CrossFit. Maybe I eventually will be, but for now, CrossFit with a bit more self-critique or a bit more corporate-suspicion will do for now. Or perhaps I’m simply a bit more seasoned, with less grief and more realism about what my body needs, what I’m actually looking for. My “embodied dedication at midlife” journey tarries ever onward, given I know how much my whole being thrives within it. After a foolishly distracted deadlift, leaving me with a forced-pause from November 20th til nearly the New Year, my husband has teased me: "You need to be in a coached environment," he said with a wry smile. He might be right (but for heaven's sake, don't tell him that. :)) I find myself three weeks into a new CrossFit ‘box’ rhythm– Centerville CrossFit –supplemented by a community-center gym membership (Kroc Center) and the occasional long-walk at the more local Rec-Center indoor track. The box is about the same-time-drive as my previous one, just high...