I recently went to the dentist for a regular cleaning and while there, I glanced over at their display of different products. They ranged from toothpastes to electronic brushes to Invisalign trays and as I tend to do, thought about how they related to CrossFit.
Many of us have had braces or the more modern Invisalign trays to straighten out teeth. But none of us expect to have perfectly straight teeth the next day or even month. If we grew up for years with crooked teeth, it’s going to take a good deal of time to straighten them out.
The same can be said about our health and body composition. If we’ve lived an unhealthy lifestyle for years, how can we expect perfect health or six pack abs in a month or even a year? If you’ve worn braces, you have them on all day and night for up to two years to straighten out your teeth. Shouldn’t we have the patience for at LEAST that long to fix our health and body composition if we workout one hour a day for three days a week?
And just like you were told to wear a retainer after the braces came off, we also need to maintain our fitness by being consistent when it comes to both working out and nutrition. Doing a seven-day juice cleanse is not the path to long-term health. A month of CrossFit, while tough, is not going to get you jacked; it’s only the beginning.
We’re not saying that you have to workout multiple hours in a row, seven days a week, but we ARE saying you should think about the long-term changes you want to make. Most especially, you should have the patience for those changes to take shape. If you’ve spent 20 years in poor health, let’s think about the NEXT 20 years and how you’re going to spend them.
-Coach Chris