Elizabeth Rodriguez

10k Is Ok With Her

Like the vast majority of us, Elizabeth Rodriguez suffered from the freshman 20 (and then some) during her first year of college. "I snacked all day and pretty much ate all my dinners at fast food restaurants," she admits.

With her crazy-hectic schedule, she found it hard to lose the weight and the bad eating habits. Over time, a little extra college chub turned into a 100-plus pounds of excess weight Elizabeth didn't want to live with anymore. So she did something about it.

She started by changing her eating habits. Then she tried exercising. "I bought a gym membership which I hardly ever used," she recalls. "I would get tired and just quit. I wasn't motivated."

Knowing that she had to get her body moving, Elizabeth started running. "My friend pushed me to jog, and I mean literally jogged behind me and pushed me forward with his hand," she explains. "I started with a third of a mile then slowly worked my way up."

By the time Elizabeth walked through the doors of her first On-Ramp class at CFLB, she had already dropped triple-digit pounds. But after five years of working to losing weight, she had hit a wall. She hoped CrossFit would help her reach her ultimate body composition goal and improve her running. And that it certainly has.

"Wow!" says Elizabeth when you ask her about the results seen since joining CFLB. "I never had a waist and I have one now. My family took a trip to Cabo and for the first time in my 40 years of life, I felt confident enough to wear a bikini." We bet she rocked it, too.

Elizabeth has lost a total of 25 pounds and about 5 inches since her On-Ramp days. Eight of those pounds she lost in our recent 8-week Summer Leaning Challenge. Now she's doing her own Rodriguez-style leaning challenge with 11 members of her family. "I work out with them three times a week, using what I've learned at CFLB," she says. "One of them has already lost over 17 pounds."

We're happy to hear that Elizabeth's spreading the CrossFit love to help others live healthier. She's got a lot of skills to share, too: rope climbs, double-unders, kipping pull-ups, and up next, toes-to-bar. She's also killing it with the weights. Take her impressive 95 pound bench press, for starters. And don't forget: she's doing all this in the pre-dawn darkness of the 5:30AM group class.

A long-distance runner, Elizabeth is a great example of an athlete who uses CrossFit to supplement her sport. And she has seen improvements not only in her stamina but her speed and time. When the 5K and 10K runs come up, Elizabeth may be one of the few CFLB athletes who's actually eager to hit the WOD - and easily blows the rest of us away. She's up to half-marathons now, and has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.

Of all her awesomeness, one of the things we admire most about Elizabeth is her humility. She never boasts or brags about the amazing things she's done to turn her life and health around. Yet she always celebrates her fellow athlete's accomplishments as if they were her own. So we're thrilled to hear Elizabeth say, "I can lift weights, I'm strong, I have muscles." And say it with pride.

"Elizabeth is a dedicated athlete," says Coach Carlos. "She was one of the original early morning class attendees, and has been very faithful. She'll stand there looking at the clock, and as soon as it turns 5:30AM, she gives it her all."