CrossFats: A story of abject failure. (Skip to the next paragraph if you don't need context.) Three and a half years ago, I decided to change my lifestyle and become fit. I didn't know where to start, but I knew a buddy of mine who had opened a "strength and conditioning" style gym in his garage. It was basically CrossFit, and I joined not really knowing any better or anything about fitness. I was looking to pack on muscle and get jacked. There was some strength training, and I did gain some muscle (when you're starting from zero, it's bound to happen). He expanded and many more people joined the gym, and he finally moved into a bigger space. Lots and lots of fats joined. Tons. A few actually lost some weight, one considerably so, but she went from morbidly obese to just obese. No one ever fully made the transformation. After a year of doing CrossFit, I learned enough to know that it wasn't for me. I've been lifting for the past 2.5 years and have finally made the kind of transformation I'd been looking for, but I'm still friends with some of the people over at the CrossFit place, though I'll never do that again. A few weeks ago, there was a pot luck, cheer-on-the-competitors sort of get-together at the gym. Lots of old faces I hadn't seen in a couple of years. Lots of dad-bods, lots of the same, saggy, bloated, fat faces with terraced chins wobbling beneath swollen necks. Flabby guts protruded from too-tight clothing. Plates were heaped with huge portions of the foods people brought, and all of that was after the workout. Right in front of my eyes they were undoing all the work they had just done. It was unbelievable. And this was a group of people whom you could tell prided themselves on their alleged fitness. The dad-bod "men" walked around with chests puffed (but still not sticking out farther than their guts), their meaty food-retrievers hanging limply by their sides, flapping haphazardly as they strutted around. What a fucking joke these people were.  One woman stood out. I remembered her, but had forgotten her name. She was fatter than she had been two years ago. I couldn't hide the look on my face, but she didn't say anything. I did some quick mental math. CrossFat is EXPENSIVE. I think that gym charged $125 a month. So for 24 months, that burger monster paid $3,000 to stay fat. I can't even comprehend how these people think. I suspect that they believe they're fit and fat because they work up a sweat three or four times a week, which is not hard to do when you weight 280 lbs. She was at least that. I was so repulsed it made me uncomfortable. How can these people possess so little self awareness and respect? In that same time, I had undergone a drastic transformation. Mind you, I've never in my life been fat. I just used to be a skinny, twiggy guy. Not anymore, thank Brodin. "Looks like you've still been working out, FPH_Shitlord!" was how many conversations started. "Yeah, after I left here I started lifting full time. I'm finally seeing the results I was looking for," I said, trying to be polite. "What are you doing, bodybuilding now?" one dad-bod asked. "No, I just have a good lifting routine down now. I always wanted to look this way. It's hard work, but it really pays off. I will never go back to looking like I did before, it was horrible. So how have you been coming along?" I responded. Cue the hamster wheels. Ho-leeeee-shit the excuses were amazing. "Well, I took some time off for a little while, only just started getting back into it, you know..." and yada yada yada. There were no truly fit looking men there. I was the only one, and I wasn't even a member of the gym. I'm not tooting my own horn, I'm just stating empirical fact.  It was an evening of ambivalence: on one hand I was disgusted with the parade of delusion, but on the other hand it was validating.  Anyone else have experiences with the strange world of CrossFat?