Featured Athlete – Toben Squires

My name is Toben Squires and if you are pressed for time I will just get to the point- CrossFit changed my life.

It was a little more than one year ago when I decided that I had had enough. I was on the verge of turning 30, I was significantly overweight, and I had recently been laid off from my job as a commercial diver. My days were filled with a whole lot of nothing and I spent most of my time in a haze of Jameson and gravy. One day as I was driving down the road I saw a grey vinyl banner that had a kettle bell on it and the fateful words “CrossFit Beaumont” were written in big bold letters.

Up to this time I had always had a very casual relationship with health and fitness. When I first started working as a commercial diver I was actually medically disqualified to do my job because of my excessive weight. The average sane person would take this as a good sign to not let themselves get too fat- but not me. I would starve myself, gobble down thermogenics and diuretics, and just barely make the cut every year and then I would go about my corpulent ways.

This went on for about 5 years.

(I don’t recommend it)

Now, a kettle bell is something you don’t see every day on a sign in South East Texas so my curiosity was certainly piqued. I went home and I did a little research about this “CrossFit” and I was even more curious. I stopped in one day and observed a class and I decided I had to give it a try.

My first logged work out was the day before my 30th birthday and from the words “3…2…1…GO!” I was hooked. It made sense and it hurt.

It hurt a lot.

But it made sense and what’s more, it works.

The weight started coming off and my strength started to increase. My clothes began to fit differently and then not at all. The strangers that were working out next to me became like a family and we shared each other’s triumphs.

I felt like I was home.

Today, after a bit more than a year of CrossFit I can honestly say that I am in the best shape of my life and that tomorrow I will be a little bit better than today. I can’t thank Neal Riley and the rest of the coaches enough for pushing me to always dig a little deeper when things start to suck. I hold them and the rest of my CrossFit family in the highest esteem and I am proud to be a part of such an amazing group of people. I look forward to utilizing my recent Level 1 Certification and I hope that I can in some way give back to the community at least a fraction of what I have been given and learned.

It is an honor to have been chosen as a Featured Athlete and would urge anyone who may be considering getting their toes wet with CrossFit Beaumont or Midcounty to stop thinking about it and dive in… it just might change your life.