I AM ENOUGH

Name: Melissa Guitron
Age: 25
Occupation: Coach at CrossFit San Mateo - Certified in: Level 1 CrossFit, CF Gymnastics, CF Football, CF Kids and MobilityYou know what you know and you don’t know what do you don’t know. Four years ago if you asked me to define beauty, I probably would have told you it involved weighing 120 pounds, wearing a size four and looking “lean and toned.”  Today, though I wear a size 4, I am proud to weigh a strong 150 pounds.  Before Crossfit I simply did not know.  In a world that tells us who we are is not enough, not thin enough, not pretty enough, not tan enough, not strong enough, it is hard to believe that you are enough.

When did strong become the new skinny?

I discovered CrossFit three years ago through my ex-husband.  When he returned from his deployment to Afghanistan he introduced me to CrossFit and a completely new world of, you are not enough.  While CrossFit motivates most people to want to better for themselves, I embraced CrossFit to make my husband happy.  For 12 months I had spent hours on the elliptical, counting calories and skipping meals, starving myself in an attempt turn my body into what I thought was desirable.  I thought exposed hip and collar bones was beauty, yet now I find myself envious of girls with muscles and strength because that is what my husband suddenly found attractive.  All my hard work was now, once again, not enough. It was no longer, you are not skinny enough but instead you are not strong enough.  I was now expected to learn to row fast, jump high and clean massive amounts of weight all while wearing booty shorts if I wanted to be enough for him.

It is hard to openly admit that I fell in love with CrossFit for all the wrong reasons, but it’s the truth.  I thought that embracing CrossFit would save my marriage, that it would turn me into what my husband wanted me to be.  What I didn’t expect was that it would turn out to be the saving grace that gave me the strength to walk away from an abusive marriage.  CrossFit for the first time taught me to embrace who I am today, not who I want to be tomorrow, as enough.

The transformation from I am too fat, to I am too skinny to, hey I am Melissa.

The transition from cardioaholic to CrossFitter was not an easy one.  It’s one thing to be told you don’t need to do hours of cardio in order to maintain your figure.  It is another to be told that you should drink whole milk instead of soy, eat bacon instead oatmeal, and yolks with your whites.  I think I simply went into a state of shock and didn’t wake up until I found myself stuck in the middle of a WOD with my coach screaming at me to jump up on the god damn box.  Believe me, I jumped, I jumped head first into my future right in that moment.  I was hooked on the personal competitive nature of every WOD, fascinated by the nutritional science behind Paleo and mesmerized by this world of women who didn’t spend all their time complaining about how unhappy they were with their bodies.  I wanted to be a part of their world and they openly let me in.  Muscle quickly replaced bone protrusions and I found myself caring less about the approval of my husband and more about how amazing I felt. For the first time his approval of my body stopped being what I yearned for.  The final straw was when we were out at dinner with friends.  I had hit a good PR that day and was feeling good.  His response to my success was an hour-long tirade of how CrossFit had changed me too much.  I now ate too much, was bulking up too much, and stupidly cared too much about it.  In that moment I realized that maybe all along I had been too much for him, that maybe I had been enough for myself and just didn’t know it.

Wow, her story is amazing. My inspiration

10lbs from Rx hang power cleans today. Sooooooooo close!

Now my mom thinks I have to much muscle. WTF is wrong with this world?!

I love crossfit. I don’t even lift RX. It makes me happy. Never going to stop.