CrossFit South Bay | Hermosa Beach, CA

Turkey marinara atop a broccoli-mushroom omelete (FitRat Paleo Food!)

Dear CFSB: we’re well on our way to being lean mean, paleo-eating-in-Zone-portion-WOD-crushing machines. Not because the holidays are almost over, but because you’ve started the process! By reading the posts and hopefully the links and sites, the nutrition ball is rolling for you.

There’s been much nutrition talk around the gym and I’m excited to start offering some education and food services here soon. Check out the exciting Nutrition/Food announcements here (Updated)!

• Paleo Food @ the Holiday Party on Friday – First-come first-served — if you haven’t (or have) tried FitRat Paleo Food yet, I’ll be supplying some mind-expanding holiday dishes. No, they will not be laced with THC — they will be mind-expanding by expanding your horizons and steer you further toward paleo land. The dessert foods won’t be Zone, but any entree I make (it will probably be chili) will be. Also look forward to possibly chicken kafta & baba, paleo versions of pumpkin pie, lemon bars, and peanut butter M&Ms (psych! no peanut butter M&Ms)
• Paleo Treats laugh at your ‘sweet tooth’ – In response to all the chatter and comments about people having too big a ‘sweet tooth’ to do paleo, some rebuttals: 1) if you eat paleo, you sugar cravings will subside (especially if you do Zone paleo) over time, 2) your sweet tooth will transform into a cacao/coconut/nut-tooth over time 3) you will have a cheat meal/day 4) you can satisfy these cravings with possibly the best-tasting cookie ever made: the Paleo Treat. There is a 10% off sale until 12/17 at midnight. They’re pricey but worth every crumb. Check out their awesome website: http://paleotreats.com. If you’re interested in doing a bulk order, contact me ASAP! remy@crossfitsouthbay.com
• Paleo Zone Cooking 101 – I’ve heard of some interest in a basic cooking class. I think this would be very doable if it could be hosted in someone’s house who has a big enough kitchen. I think this could be really fun with a dinner involved at the end. Let me know if anyone has a large kitchen/space they’d be open to using for this. remy@crossfitsouthbay.com

Onward!…

You have come a long way if you read the last post and began implementing suggested changes or even planning to implement changes. I’m going to recap the messages from the last post and move on to the “how much” food topic. I’ll cover the basics of Zone eating and compile a good set of resources for you to watch/read that will impart to you the gift of portion control.

The information I presented last post covered a whole lot about diet & inflammation, mostly related to what you eat. I made a case for why paleo diet foods are what you should be eating for every good reason out there. I presented that you could reduce your risk for a whole host of common diseases (live longer and healthier) and improve your athletic performance by eating paleo, with the biggest changes coming through making changes in 3 major ways: getting off the crack and substituting crack with quality vegetables, getting on top of your omega-3′s, and getting enough quality protein (review the post!).

But chronic inflammation wouldn’t be completely abated and your performance would suffer by eating paleo foods in messed up proportions. For example, you could eat minimal relatively nutrient-poor vegetables or with little variety (iceberg lettuce, romaine, celery, cucumbers) and too much of high glycemic-load fruit (tropical ones) or root vegetables (sweet potatoes, beets) eliciting repeated, dramatic insulin spikes; you could fail to get enough quality fats from the right nuts and seeds, and quality protein to support your basic nutritional needs, and beyond that, sufficiently control your insulin response (and therefore inflammation), let alone your relatively demanding fitness goals (your always improving and measured CrossFit goals).

Granted, this would be far, far better than the alternative: a diet high in refined carbohydrate, omega-6 and saturated fats like the large majority of your compatriots (the Standard American Diet or SAD — I didn’t make that up). But we’re not

CrossFit on Wii in 2074: elderly woman gets a sub-4 Fran

concerned with ‘better’ or ‘better than’, or with just not dying early or getting heart disease/overweight/diabetes to which you’re all hopefully responding to in your head with a resounding ‘Hell no! I want to be murdering Fran into my 80′s!” or some variation involving being able to play sports, and roughhouse with your kids/grandkids.

The “what to eat” part of performance nutrition is ________ important (as/than) the “how much to eat” topic.

There is a less subtle battle these days in the CrossFit world that brews over the blank spot in that sentence.

If I had to summarize the tenor of nutrition recommendations published in the CrossFit journal and characterize their Zone/Paleo position, it would sound something like this (keep in mind I haven’t been around all that long, but I have read a heck of a lot of CFJ nutrition):

“To maximize your performance your #1 priority should be eating your food in Zone proportions, trying to follow the CF Nutrition prescription. Eating paleo food is best and would optimize performance even further if eaten in Zone quantities.” And then they might trail off at the end and say “Well, you should really eat paleo, but this is asking a lot because it’s really hard to give up convenience and processed foods.” The last part I say because of what I perceive to be the selected standard that prevails by way of the amount of focus given to how much food (conceding by way of non-paleo Zone suggestions/topics/recipes) with less focus given to what food.

Before I get into an overview of what the Zone prescribes, I’d be doing most of you an injustice without a little nutrients primer.

Nutrients are chemical substances found in food that provide energy, building materials, regulate chemical reactions,

Mmmm, carbs.

growth, development, and maintenance in body structures and substances. Nutrients fall into two classes: macronutrients and micronutrients. They are equally important: macronutrients provide potential energy which is only harnessed thanks to the systems that require both macro and micronutrients to operate.

Macronutrients are carbohydrate (CHO), protein (Pro) and fat (Fat). There are many types of each macronutrient. Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals and water. Macronutrients are required daily, they’re big and complex and you get energy when your body’s systems (which run on macronutrients and require micronutrients) breaks their many molecular bonds, or uses specific ones recombinations of them to build structures. Micronutrients are best if acquired daily (especially for athletes) and are found in almost all real foods found in nature such as animals, plants, nuts, seeds (and their products). When foods are processed they lose much of their micronutrients. To sell more effectively, often macro or micronutrients are artificially added back in (such as in cereals, breads, juices, some dairy). Not only are most processed foods more nutrient-poor than unprocessed, but also much of their content or additives are among the most inflammatory of foods.

The science behind Zone focuses on the role of food in eliciting hormonal responses that result in improved indicators of health and fitness by increasing your insulin sensitivity and allowing your body to use more eaten and stored fat as energy (this is the highly simplified summary). Dr. Sears’ food prescription is literally a prescription of food as a drug to normalize your body’s hormone response to food, and consequently the way your body uses (or stores/releases) macronutrients for work. The results are (surprise!) marked reduction in inflammation, positive body composition change (for those who have change to make) and marked performance improvements. As a prescription, it’s relatively specific and for good reason. Food is a drug, and from our body’s systems’ perspective, most of us are abusers. As you’ll understand as you better understand the important roles of insulin and glucagon, the most potent of the macronutrient drug cocktail is the carbohydrate (particularly the refined ones).

Start now: make friends with containers and save your glass jars (photo from crossfittribeeats.blogspot.com)

Crossfitters are big (really big) promoters of the Zone and ‘quantity is paramount’ because based on many of their consistent results after starting a Zone diet in providing significant performance results. Also, its measurable, testable, and usually results in significant body composition changes (particularly for fat loss). All of these reward different goals while rewarding the overall fitness goals. While switching to a paleo diet may bring you to a level of sick or a future of sickness to ‘well’ (on the fitness-wellness continuum) that will keep you from getting sick, beginner and elite crossfitters across the board attribute their biggest gains in performance to controlling their quantity.

The Zone diet prescribes macronutrients at every meal (at least 3 meals per day!) should be consumed in the following proportions: 40% CHO, 30% Pro, 30% Fat. Equally important is your total food for a day should be based your lean mass, body fat and activity level. The units of measure are broken out into ‘blocks’ where you get a total number of blocks per day. One block is equal to 9g CHO, 7g Pro and 1.5g Fat. Often each of these is referred to as a ‘block of CHO/Pro/Fat’. So if you were prescribed 12 blocks per day and you ate 3 meals and 2 snacks per day, you’d probably have 3 blocks at each meal and 1-2 blocks for snacks. There are so many tools out there to help you do this.

Please start by reading this Zone Meal Plans CFJ article (one of the few free ones). Then, here are some free resources to check out. I particularly love Robb Wolf’s shopping list and rant (here). He also put up a paleo version of a sample 10 (average female) and 16 (large male) Zone block meal plans on that page. This gives you a good glimpse into what eating Zone might look like. Robb Wolf is an advocate of ‘quality is paramount’ but I’m not sure these documents represent his ideal situation (in the “shopping guide/rant”); it appears to be a ‘leave it up to the free market’/rough and dirty paleo guide for beginners. I cringe at the frozen vegetables recommendation, but, I do recognize that learning to make the extra ~1hr available per week for 2-3 quick fresh produce stops takes time. However, these plans also radically underwhelm the palate when you read them, so just remember it’s up to you how creative you get with herbs/spices. Also there’s a paleo/zone food log on that page which is very important your first two weeks of weighing and measuring. Also, check out the CFSB Nutrition Resources page I’m compiling (suggestions welcome for the FAQ as well).

There’s a couple parts of a nutrition lecture by Nicole Caroll (here) captured in the CFJournal that I’d like to quote. She’s analogizing trying living by a strict paleo/Zone diet to the big ‘must do’s’ in life: “It’s like if somebody tells you about the Grand Canyon or if someone tells you what it’s like to climb Mt. Ranier, and you hear about it and hear about it but you never go there, and they keep telling you ‘I swear to god man, you’ve gotta go, it’s gonna change your life’, and you think ‘I’ve gotta do these things before I die.’ It’s just like this — you guys have gotta f*** with your diets before you die!!”

There is no question that a paleo diet will save/majorly improve your life, probably make you look and feel better, and definitely improve your performance. “Meats, vegetables, some fruit, little starch, no sugar” will probably keep you from metabolic derangement, and therefore from many illnesses, but alone with no portion control, it won’t optimize your performance.

There is also no question that eating a paleo diet in Zone proportions will make you a lean mean WOD machine (or you won’t have much to question after you give it 100% yourself for 6 weeks). You know what paleo food looks like now, so what exactly would Zone portions of paleo food look like? Extremely simplified. Here’s why: paleo foods are relatively simple because they aren’t processed: meats are primarily protein (with an easy way to estimate grams fat per ounce of a given meat), oils are all fat (not all are ‘good’ or tip the omega-3 scale in your favor though), vegetables and fruit for the most part are carbohydrate, and nuts/seeds are mostly fat with a little protein (it’s much more complicated math with dairy products, grains, packaged/convenience foods, and beans).

Paleo Treats and I laugh at your 'rice crispies'. Let Paleo Treats transform your sweet tooth... contact me about bulk orders before 12/17!

It’s repeated again and again by crossfitters: just two weeks of weighing and measuring your food to memorize what the proper quantities of foods look like, of feeling the metabolic change (often uncomfortable), and you will have it down pat. In two weeks you see performance increases, and after that the body composition (fat loss usually) starts to take effect. By the fourth to sixth week the sugar cravings are mostly gone. There are so many great CF Journal-published articles and lectures I’d love to share but they’re under lock and key unless you subscribe (if you ask me after class I’ll put a few up).

Quoting Nicole again, “To live here [in the Zone eating paleo foods], you’ve gotta f***ing want it.”  You have to want to see change to eat this way. There is a reason that nutrition is called the “real battle”. It’s a battle because of how much misinformation and enculturation exists to keep you eating some version of the SAD. It’s a battle because although many a Globo gym and beach bootcamp would have you believe otherwise, you can’t out-train a bad diet. It’s a battle until you can see and are willing to break down the many barriers and challenges you’ve erected mentally or literally that have made it difficult for you to imagine life without your SAD diet.

Your recipe this week is for “Jamaican Baby Back Ribs”. I took this straight from Caveman Food Blog which has some gems. This goes great with steamed asparagus, roasted brussels, sauteed baby bok choy (in ginger/garlic), or  artichoke (with a flax oil/garlic/basil dip).

Feeds two.

ingredients:
1.5 lbs pork baby back ribs (go for grass-fed @ Whole Foods)
1 T dried thyme
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground or crushed coriander
1/2 cup water
2 T extra virgin olive oil

Combine all the ingredients and marinate for at least 1 hour, but 3 hours is better. I grilled mine, but oven works fine. Preheat the oven to 290 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly oil it with some extra olive oil. Lay the ribs on the baking sheet and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 2 hours. Remove from the oven and drain any liquid. Heat up the broiler. Broil ribs meaty side up for 5 minutes to crisp up.

Photo from Caveman Food:

Jamaican Baby Back Ribs

WOD 12.16.2009

Deadlift 3-3-3-3

21-15-9:

Deadlift
Burpees