MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: ISSE ISSA

I can emphatically say that changing my diet and attending CrossFit has improved my life considerably. My success has been in losing 35lbs and counting and adding muscle mass since joining CFC back in June this year.

I was 20 years old when I immigrated to the US 2 years ago from Nairobi,Kenya where I was born and raised but am ethnically Somali. CrossFit was an alien term for me as we don’t have “fitness craze” in my native home. Natural food is cheap, obesity is unheard and people are always active through walking (cars are used only for long travels) and this was a hindrance to commercial gyms that tried to open up but failed.

My weakness was and is Chapati (Kenyan meal that is made from processed flour) and I was addicted to it. The school system in Kenya is very rigorous, classes start from 6:45 am to 5:20 pm and I used to go for religious classes from 6 pm to 9 pm and by the time I arrived home it was sleep time. We had no PE classes and I wasn’t involved in any sport. Chapati, lack of exercise combined with my busy schedule resulted my weight gain.

On May this year by good luck, I was scrolling through Reddit and found a CrossFit page and everybody was talking how it changed their life. I searched online to understand what CrossFit is all about and it was sounded too good to be true.