Cut the Crap: My Crossfit Mantra

By Melissa Mulligan, Crossfit Performance, Fairfield, CT

I will never welcome another new year with ten extra pounds and ten excuses as to why I haven’t been to the training studio in three weeks. Or four weeks. Or six. I have spent years eating “more or less the right way” and working out regularly while harboring slight dissatisfaction with my results. But this year, with the help of long-time trainer and friend Ben Kelly, Andrew (Spiderman) Yaun, and some Crossfit hurricanes, I have discovered the MENTALITY required to do more than white-knuckle my way through a reduced calorie diet and show up for my training sessions. For me, that mentality is summed up in three words: CUT. THE. CRAP. Cut the crap out of your diet, cut the crap out of your mind, and all that you have left are healthy choices for your essential self.

Our brains are very tricky and love to confuse the idea of healthy eating with emotional eating. Our brains tell us, two days into a healthy diet plan, that we deserve a piece of cake, or pizza, or in my case, an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies. Then our brains try to reason with us. Mine tells me that deprivation dieting never works, as if denying myself 48 cookies counts as criminal starvation. I finally got sick of the struggle and just cut the crap out of my diet. No exceptions. No excuses. I kicked off this new lifestyle by deciding to eat nothing but fresh, organic (when possible) whole foods for three months. No high fructose corn syrup, no sodium-laden condiments and sauces, no sugar, no alcohol, no caffeine, and definitely no Chips Ahoy. If I needed to eat my salad without dressing because the restaurant didn’t offer oil and vinegar, so be it. Nothing from a package was allowed, and it has changed my eating habits for good. More than eight months later I am still eating clean. I am still the jerk at the restaurant with the complicated order; the one who makes the waiter make sure the spinach isn’t salted. The mental clarity I have gained from removing the clutter of self-doubt is just as rewarding as the fact that I busted through a four year plateau and lost fifteen pounds this year!

I didn’t realize how much mental crap was comprimising my fitness results until Ben started doing Crossfit workouts with us this year. Crossfit doesn’t alter its expectations to fit your limitations. It also doesn’t give you time to wonder what the heck you’ve gotten yourself into. Anyone who has ever lived through Fran or Cindy knows what I’m talking about! Within a few months I could bang out some pull-ups (a skill that had always eluded me) and started sprinting 800 meters as if my life depended upon it. Now, when something seems impossible and it’s really pissing me off, I try to let that inspire a laser-like focus on the challenge. It wasn’t long ago that I overheard someone ask Ben if he could do muscle-ups. He smiled and said “Not as of yet, mate.” What an awesome response! Now, Ben is nailing muscle-ups (along with Spiderman and Jason Leydon of Crossfit Milford), and I can do squats on the physio ball. Hallelujah! The Crossfit mentality leaves nothing to chance, and that’s a good thing. That means it comes down to me.

So, in order to be succesful at this new training regimen, I had to rid myself of a lot of crap that I had mistaken for the truth:

“They say some people were born to have more body fat than others. I guess I’m one of those people.”
Cut the crap! Are you really doing everything you can, consistently, to change your results?

“I will never, ever, ever be able to do pull-ups.”
Cut the crap, ask for help and practice.

“I’m not a natural sprinter so I can’t run very fast.”
Cut the crap and get out there!

We’re not always aware of it, but we tend to think accepting our “limitations” keeps us safe from the sting of failure. Of course that fails us before we have a chance to try. I don’t know if a mantra of cut the crap will inspire anyone else to greater achievement and fulfillment. All I know is that very little changed for me until I got real about what I truly wanted and embraced the work involved to manifest success. There are so many things worth experiencing in this lifetime, many of which we find impractical to desire, let alone seek. If there is something you are afraid to want, to ask for, to demand and work toward, reject your limitations and watch yourself go!