Almost-paleo thanksgiving (all but the Sam Smith Pale Ale)

Hopefully some of you were able to put my Thanksgiving tips into action, or even better, my FitRat paleo foods.

Here’s your next nutrition lecture. Some of you might be itching for me to nerd out on chronic inflammation, why CrossFit advocates Zone, the important low omega 6:3 ratio, or why gluten is ‘bad’. Others might still be coming to terms with even the thought of any dietary changes. Before any nerding-out commences, I think it’s important to ensure with one more philosophical nutrition post that I have your attention on the significance of nutrition, the benefits of reexamining the role of ‘nutrition’ in your life, what your ideas of ‘healthy’ are and where they came from and how there’s probably major room for improvement. To make a lasting change in your nutrition and therefore fitness, you have to do more than just shop and cook (and know how to fight zombies during the Apocalypse) — you have to understand why you’re choosing to do it differently from probably the majority of non-CrossFitters you know.

This post is three things:

1. A call to reexamine your understanding of your health and your future based on what’s in your cupboards, what your conceptions of nutrition are and where they came from
2. Are you really Rx? A look into CrossFit’s nutrition Rx
3. Next steps! If you could take this survey on the new nutrition website content, and FitRat nutrition services that would be very helpful!
   

Hopefully you read my primer post that gave you a background on my approach to examining nutrition. The take-homes there were:

• Nutrition is the most important variable in the fitness function; it is the foundation  for all your body can do, how you will perform and how long and enjoyably you will live life.
• Nutrition science is a very important, relatively new, and rapidly evolving science;
• Food and nutrition have important social/cultural/economic impacts (with significant present and future health care impacts with the epidemic rates of preventable diet-related causes);
• Each of these facts have been quite lucratively exploited at the cost of our collective fitness.

1) A call to reexamine…

The nutrition CrossFit prescribes for optimizing functional fitness also results in health benefits of perhaps the most significant kind: reducing (or mostly eliminating) your risk of now epidemic-rate chronic diseases found in our society. Most likely you know several people, perhaps in your own family that have or are affected by one (or eventually probably more) of these usually-related diseases of obesity, diabetes (or insulin insensitivity) and coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis (to name a few). Perhaps you think you’re safe because you ‘eat healthy’ (you most likely have developed a definition of what this means), and you exercise. Or perhaps you’re unduly fearful that you’re doomed as a result of genetics (which for these killers and related diseases is rarely the case).

There are a long list of health and performance indicators of fitness (e.g. insulin sensitivity,  inflammation, waist-to-height ratio, HDL/’good’ cholesterol, body fat, strength, power, speed, and many more) that can all be optimized with diet. When optimized by diet (rather than with drugs or when targeted in isolation) consistently over time (even without or with moderate exercise), these indicators correlate strongly with longevity in excellent health. Add exercise, or better yet, CrossFit, to that, and you could go so far as to say you’ve covered most of your bases for living a long, happy life.

It’s important to begin to take note of all these indicators of fitness and begin to look out for how you have seen them exploited. I guarantee you see these indicators appropriated on a daily basis in all media to sell you food, ‘health’ products, bars, drinks, supplements, fitness gadgets, gym memberships, pharmaceuticals, ‘food groups’ (via USDA food pyramid) such as milk, and it gets even better — lifestyles and concepts (food as ‘harmless’, foods that symbolize wealth, foods that support convenience in lifestyle, food as design/art, drugs that increase health). You should then consider the motivations and completeness of the information that has helped shape your (and most people’s) definition of what it means to eat and be ‘healthy’. Also consider the sad state most people in our country are now in from a health and fitness perspective.

Also, be alert to a strategy that is rampantly abused: you might have noticed nutrition recommendations (from TV, product labels, your friends) being made in the same breath as a citation of a health statistic that may or may not be related. It’s very useful and can be relevant when the analysis is more of an academic one. Many CF journal articles deal with scientific studies on the causes of the epidemic-level preventable diet-related diseases, the shortcomings of the most common threads in American diets and with which part(s) of their prescription addresses it. Also, CrossFit nutrition curriculum and its Journal articles usually focus separately on the specifics of performance optimization using diet, but it’s important to remember (as they also emphasize) that this same diet for performance optimization also prevents or reverses a whole host of preventable (and extremely common), diet-related diseases in all people of all activity levels and medical histories.

2) Are you truly Rx?…

FitRat paleo lemon bars

CrossFit’s nutrition prescription says: “In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar.” Check out this intro handout, too.

This prescription sounds incredibly simple, and it is. Unfortunately is a very far cry from the cultural norm or the role lifestyle plays in getting all the chemical energy we need from food. Carried out, the nutrition prescription is relatively uncomplicated. It’s a diet of ‘paleo’ foods (‘paleo’ comes from the Paleo Diet www.paleodiet.com that aligns principally with the CrossFit prescription for what to eat) in ‘zone’ proportions (from the Zone diet which aligns exactly with the CF Rx for what % of total kcal should come from carbs, fat and protein for optimal hormone response).

Coach Glassman said, “If it has [or had] a food label, it’s not a food you should eat.” A common paleo recommendation (and one echoed in all types of similar diets) is also to stay away from the aisles – shop on the grocery store perimeter. This prescription is very different than the food-lives most people now lead. That might wipe out almost everything in your kitchen for some. Keep in mind: the benefits of making changes in what you eat most meals out of the week, however different they may seem now significantly outweigh the costs in ways you’ll see in your performance, well-being, overall fitness relatively quickly, and which you’ll fully appreciate with age when sadly a larger and larger percentage of your age group independent of demographic it is predicted will be mostly either overweight, obese, diabetic, or have other diet/lifestyle-related health complications.

The most threatening health indicators correlated most strongly with diet-preventable epidemic-level diseases are 1) chronic inflammation, 2) increasing insulin resistance/insensitivity. The paleo and zone diets deal head-on with these indicators and the CrossFit Journal has done a good job of bringing its relevance into the CrossFit fitness curriculum. The related foods that address these and other related indicators will be the subject of future nutrition posts to come.

3) Next steps…

Next I hope to take the CFSB nutrition offerings to the next level. As you might have noticed, the nutrition content on the site expanded. There’s a pretty detailed description of services and others not there yet, and more I hope you’ll bring to my attention.

Next I hope you’ll do three things in the next week until my next post and until the FitRat ordering system’s in place:

1. Please take this survey to help me see where readers are really at with what you think your nutrition needs are in terms of services and blog topics.
2. Chatter up the comments on your own nutrition philosophy — what’s influenced you most (childhood food pyramid brainwashing, antioxidant claims, those alluring Kashi Lean boxes — 9 grams of protein!, Quaker Oats Go Humans genius ad campaign), what cultural nutrition battles you’re fighting (beer/cocktails, mom’s drink milk for your bones adage)
3. I’d like to add a vegetable recipe per post in light of vegetables being perhaps the most important change you’re likely to make in your diet (eating more of them, more dark green ones, replacing your glutenous carbs/soy/rice with lots of different kinds of them). I hope you’ll make it yourself and comments. They’ll definitely show up in FitRat paleo food/plans.

Chillaxed Kale (pictured in bottom of top photo)
1 large bunch kale, de-stemmed, shredded/chopped
2 T walnut oil (buy it at Sprouts cheap… trust me, you’ll never go back to canola) (or olive oil if you don’t)
1/2 t sea salt or 1t tamari
1 T minced fresh dill (or 1/2 T dried)
1 T minced fresh parsley (or 1/2 T dried)
1 T lemon juice
1/2 c walnuts crushed (or mac nuts if you don’t have walnuts)
1/4 c dried golden raisins
3/4 c chopped radishes or other crunchy leftover vegetable

Put first 5 ingredients into a big mixing bowl and massage for 5 minutes (more if you want it softer). Mix in remaining ingredients and enjoy. Best at room temp to taste the oil/nuts more. Leftovers are great in omelets or soups. Eat an orange/yellow and a purple vegetable with it or another time the same day (with another dark leafy green). What you get: calcium and vitamins D&K from the kale, all sorts of antioxidants and powerful phytochemicals from the kale and fresh herbs, vit C (radishes), healthy fats and omega-3 rich walnut oil and walnuts.

WOD 12.2.2009

Front Squat 4-4-4-4
150 KB Swings for time. Every time the KB stops moving, 20 burpees 20 Double Unders