We are mind-blown with these results..

8 Weeks ago we started a challenge that we have refined over the years, but to see these incredible results now at the end of the Challenge is way past what we could've expected - the "CCF 8 Weeks to Summer 2018 Challenge" was by far the most successful one we've ever put together!

As always we had a Performance part of the Challenge where the members did a Strength test, 1RM Cluster, and a Fitness test, Fran. We'll present the winners in that Challenge tomorrow, but first the big talk around the block was the massive added Prize Pool where we at Cape CrossFit simply guaranteed a R30,000 prize pool to the top 3 Female & Male winners. 
We did this as we wanted to motivate people to really take part, and we were very happy to have more than 60 members take part in the challenge, but we're even more happy with how our approach to get these results worked out..

How did the challenge actually work?

Basically we had the entrants do measurements for Body Composition and Before pictures at the start, and then new measurements and After pictures at the end of the 8 weeks. We then measured "best percentage wise improvement in body composition" and let the CCF Coaches vote for "best visual improved Before/After pictures".

We then structured the challenge to be quite "open minded" in the sense that we created our CCF Nutrition e-Book which presents 5 well used ways of eating healthily, from paleo to intermittent fasting or simply the "CrossFit prescription" to not eat any added sugar or processed food. We then let the participants chose their path themselves, and the cool thing is that the podium finishers basically all had different ways of getting there. 

We didn't let weight loss be a criteria to find the winners, but as you can see below many of the participants lost incredible amounts of weight, but probably even more important lots of cm's around the waist, but it seems that eating healthily also does indeed help with weight loss:

Overall we had 17 participants lose over 5kg, and 4 participants lost +10kg - in just 8 weeks!

Enough, let's talk winners!

In the end we had SO many members that did great in this challenge that we have decided to list the top 6 here, with the top 3 and their winning prizes next to them on top.
Now what's even more interesting is that after all variables were double and triple checked we realised that we had a split win in BOTH the Female and Male division..!
We then simply put the top two prizes together (R10,000 + R3,500) and split them evenly between the top 2 male and females as per below.

NB: We usually avoid posting "Before & After"-pics but this time around we wanted to celebrate our winners epic achievements - and of course we asked for permission from them before putting these out there.

FEMALE WINNERS:

1st place: Barbara Lambert (CCF Gardens) First in Coaches Votes and Second in Body Composition - R6.750!

• Weight: 88.8kg to 75.8 (-13.0kg!)
• Waist: 98cm to 84 (-14cm)
• Body Fat%: 24.3 to 18.3 (-25%!)

1st place: Anne Vermaak (CCF Newlands) First in Body Composition and Second in Coaches Votes - R6.750!

• Weight: 68.3kg to 64.5 (-3.8kg)
• Waist: 90cm to 82 (-8cm)
• Body Fat%: 31.5 to 21.3 (-32%!)

3rd place: Morgan Mocke (CCF Newlands) Third in Body Composition and 4th in Coaches Votes - R1.500!

• Weight: 86.1kg to 81.5 (-4.6kg)
• Waist: 101cm to 91 (-10cm!)
• Body Fat%: 36.2 to 31.4 (-13%)

4th Place: Mel Swarts (CCF Gardens)

• Weight: 77.9kg to 69.3 (-8.6kg)
• Waist: 88.5cm to 81.5 (-7cm)
• Body Fat%: 32.3 to 30.8 (-5%)

5th Place: Nadia Habenga (CCF Century City)

• Weight: 100.0kg to 94.7 (-5.3kg)
• Waist: 113cm to 99 (-14cm)
• Body Fat%: 37.3 to 34.4 (-8%)

6th Place: Alana Heynes (CCF Gardens)

• Weight: 72.6kg to 67.6 (-5.0kg)
• Waist: 91.3cm to 82.5 (-8.8cm)
• Body Fat%: 32.8 to 31.2 (-5%)

MALE WINNERS:

1st place: Avron Goodman (CCF Gardens) First in Body Composition and Second in Coaches' Votes - R6.750!

• Weight: 77.6kg to 69.2 (-8.4kg!)
• Waist: 95cm to 84 (-11cm)
• Body Fat%: 31.7 to 24.8 (-22%!)

1st place: Roland Evans (CCF Gardens) First in Coaches Votes and Second in Body Composition - R6.750!

• Weight: 122.1kg to 111.1 (-11.0kg!)
• Waist: 90cm to 82 (-8cm)
• Body Fat%: 16.5 to 13.9 (-16%!)

3rd place: Colin Reed (CCF Newlands) Third in Body Composition and 4th in Coaches Votes - R1.500!

• Weight: 90.4kg to 80.8 (-9.6kg)
• Waist: 99.5cm to 85 (-14.5cm)
• Body Fat%: 15.6 to 13.5 (-13%)

4th Place: Philip Botha (CCF Newlands)

• Weight: 116.0kg to 105.0 (-11.0kg)
• Waist: 110cm to 97 (-13cm)
• Body Fat%: 22.8 to 20.7 (-9%)

5th Place: Courtney Dick (CCF Gardens) - TIED WITH BRAD.

• Weight: 80.9kg to 75.1 (-5.8kg)
• Waist: 81.5cm to 77.4 (-4.1cm)
• Body Fat%: 17.5 to 15.8 (-10%)

5th Place: Brad Slinger (CCF Gardens) - TIED WITH COURTNEY.

• Weight: 83.2kg to 79.4 (-3.8kg)
• Waist: 89.3cm to 84.5 (-4.8cm)
• Body Fat%: 20.4 to 17.8 (-13%)

Quick analyse.

It's very cool to see that so many different body shapes and experience levels are represented among this challenge's winners. Some of the athletes weren't carrying a lot of weight in the beginning and still managed to do a great transformation, and one of the coolest things of it all is that ALL these participants have logged multiple PB's in both strength, gymnastics (Phil getting his first pull ups as an example), and conditioning workouts!

Another fun side note is that Courtney and Alana are married to each others, so they are definitely the most improved couple at FiCT during these challenges. :)

Also, what we are really excited about is that we have interviewed most of the winners above and when asking them "was it hard?" an overwhelmingly "No, not really..." have been the response. In combination with all of them actually telling us they've now found a lifestyle they truly believe they can keep forever makes us very optimistic of this format being exactly the right one for future challenges for us.

Lastly, we also had a part of the challenge where we gave "points" for attendance and we are not surprised, but very pleased, to see that basically all of the above winners were extremely consistent with their CrossFit training with us at CCF. Training hard & consistently while eating well gives you results, who knew..

By the way, do I need a Food Coach to do well?

Not necessarily, but it may not be a bad idea!
Many of the participants in the challenge for instance worked with Coach Di as their CCF Nutrition Coach. Avron, Anne, Phil and a few more had bimonthly check ups and eating plans prepared for them and it helped them tremendously. For some of us it's enough to just "decide to really be strict on my self" and for some the accountability of a skilled coach can be all the difference in the world - you just have to decide for yourself which approach you want to take. 

Our CCF Nutrition Coaches do still have spots available however so if you are interested in finding out more just drop us an email to [email protected] and we'll set you up for an initial consultation!

What do we do now?

Firstly the silly season is almost upon us and it's easy to fall in to old/bad habits with all the festivities around us. Here is what we recommend: PLAN AHEAD!
By knowing what's on the menu at the restaurant you are going to, and by maybe choosing a few of the parties you'll be attending as "sober and healthy" you can easier make the right choices. 

Remember that there is absolutely nothing wrong with "living life" and enjoying the social times with friends and family during this season, just make sure you make the right choice more often than not and you'll still be rocking an epic beach body for the Beach WOD's for the rest of the season... 

PS. The next CCF Nutrition Challenge will start in the middle of January, try to sustain what you now have achieved and let's take you one step even further then.