The Diner

Food For Thought

2011-08-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I havent been on here in a while. Ive been trying to adjust being back.

"But Chris, youve been back for weeks!!"

Yes, well, I dont know how many weeks I have been back but it feels like just a few days have passed. I havent been able to nail down a consistent schedule yet so I have been unable to adjust to anything thus far.

But, onwards......

I have had time to watch some movies recently ;)

I have spoken to a few of you about these documentaries but I wanted to put it out there for the masses. Each is available on demand through Netflix.

The first Doc is:

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

I do like a lot of the info presented within the doc. I do not agree with going on a 60day juice fast. I am interested myself in doing a 10 day juice fast just to see what happens. I think too long without muscle protein from other animals the muscles within the human body would break down or be underfed causing low strength levels and loss of muscle. During the 60day fast the main guy had little to do every day for regular life and was thus therefore able to maintain a low energy output/input without much negative effect. A normal person, say a mother with 3 kids, would probably not fare so well. Im interested though and thinking.....

The second doc is:

FoodMatters. There isnt much within this documentary that I can argue with. It is a great doc for people who think that the GOV has our best interest at hand. A lot of people cant contemplate how the medical industry really works; "if highly educated people knew exactly what cured cancer then we would all know." I hear this a lot. Or "why would our own government want its people to be sick."

Oh, dear, if you really knew what was going on.

If you do watch either of these hit me back in comments and let me know what you thought.

Also, just because its really good add Rango to the list of what to watch as well. Its a really good flick. Another is SourceCode. Make sure you watch the extras of SourceCode so we can get into a bright and early 6am chat about quantum physics like what happened this morning ;)

Information

2011-06-20T09:15:00.001-07:00

"You don't know, what you don't know"

Most of you should know by know that this Friday, the 24th, I will be back in town.

I am not coming back empty handed. No, in fact I am coming back with all kinds of information. Please be prepared to make some new and easy changes. Things are going to go up notches. Everything is going to change.

Most of all, be mutha-funking excited!

Links!!

2011-06-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

So I havent heard anything from any of you in quite a while.....
For anyone who still reads this, here are some very important links to browse over.

The Truth About Calories:http://health.yahoo.net/rodale/MH/the-truth-about-calories

A Fantastic interview with The Kraken: Matt LaLonde:
http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/2913/matt-lalonde-episode-419/

THE best breakdown of the Paleo Diet I have ever read (Even I learned some new things):
http://www.fitbomb.com/p/why-i-eat-paleo.html

Then read how the Paleo Diet is considered the WORST diet in terms of long term weight loss:
http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/best-overall-diets

Then read the rebuttals about how the author is an un-researched, misinformed dumbass-stupid-sonof-a-bitch. My guess, either the author is a fatty or this article was paid by one of the following 1 - 5 diet PR teams listed in the article. Oddly enough the amount of people who chimed in to say the diet WORKS for them far out numbers all the other diets. Even the Paleo diet has the LOWEST count of the "diet did not work for me" as well.

I have gathered a TON of information regarding physical transformation during my time out here. I literally have been obsessed with it and have personally experimented with it (as well as H)(results to be posted soon.) I will be bringing this back and hopefully having a day of just info sharing.
Be mutha-trucking excited because these results are mutha-trucking shocking!!!!

Tips, Tricks and Info

2011-03-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!!

So I know I haven’t posted in a while but literally the last two weeks I have been doing nothing but gathering intel and info. Most of what I have been putting effort in and even experimenting in is Insulin Management and/or Manipulation.

This is all based off of tons of articles I have come across. Unfortunately I will bounce from site to site so I haven’t saved every single link out there, so I will only be able to post links that I can actually remember.

Please NOTE: Mostly all of the info below if for leaning out. Spring and Summer are coming so I’m trying to personally cut down BF% (actually I’m trying to get it under 5% right now - which is a little difficult to say the least because I am also competing in the Crossfit Games.)

I’m going to try and break this down in to Rules to Follow in order to get lean. Explanation will be limited but available upon request. To remind y'all Insulin is a fat storage hormone - so if you seek a leaner sexier body composition - managing and controlling insulin is going to be an almost daily battle. Once you get it under control then you can start to have some fun. So here we go!!

Rules to Follow for Mastering Insulin Management:

1) 100-50g: I don’t usually recommend you guys count or track anything but now I’m going to make a suggestion. Count your carb grams. When you do you want limit your daily carb gram intake to either 100g or 50g. Which one to choose? How bad is your insulin management and how fast do you want to lean out? If you want to take this to war and go full out then 50g. If you would like to ease into this so you get the hang of it 100g. Why 100g? Because liver glycogen storage levels are only 100g - anything over that can either be stored on another organ (possibly) stored as muscle glycogen (possibly) or stored as fat (most likely).

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/one_hundred_gram_carb_cure

Want more info on insulin: http://www.tnation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_insulin_advantage_how_to_bulk_and_cut_on_the_same_day

2) Pre bed: Consume low amount of carbs and fat pre bed time. Pretty much veggies and protein are the way to go 3 or less hours before bed.

3) Morning cardio: If you can knock this out fasted cardio is a great option to strip fat off. Fasted morning cardio is you wake up grab a cup of coffee and perform what is called "Non Panting Cardio" which is you move fast enough that you aren’t losing your breath what so ever. The easiest way is to get on a treadmill, set the incline on a high grade and keep the speed moderate. How moderate? You should be able to have a complete normal conversation on the phone and they wouldn’t know you were doing cardio. You would want to perform this morning cardio for 45mins to 1 hour. Let me warn you that this could be mind numbingly boring. You have to find ways to entertain yourself. If you don’t have a treadmill you can walk quickly around the street, perform super slow ass burpees or row very lightly.
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_ultimate_cardio_solution_disclosed 4) Limit fruit: One serving daily perhaps - saved for only post workout and it would possibly probably be better to remove fruit and resort to implementing starchy carbs post workout because they are better at resorting muscle glycogen (not being converted into fat.) http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/3_tricks_for_faster_fat_loss

5) Carb Cycle: Don’t know how? This is one of the best articles I have found on the subject with a time line and what to eat: http://www.tnation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/carb_cycling_for_fat_loss

6) Lift heavy shit: Most people think they need to add in hours of more cardio or do light weight and high reps but what has the most benefit and impact seems to be lifting heavy shit several times. Take this equation into consideration: Movement (Exercise) +load (weight) +lifts (reps - in the 1-8 rep range for multiple sets) = leanness.

7) Circuit train: Pick several movements with various loads and cycle through them for either times or rep counts (meaning hit 20-35 reps for 3-6 rounds or stay at each exercise for a certain amount of time like 1-3 mins.)

8) Sweet tooth: If you are just craving to the point of causing physical harm to either yourself, someone else or small animals then try to stomp that craving with something completely paleo - unless you are gona eat the small animal. Basically if you say “I HAVE TO CHEAT!!" Then do it but pick something that is paleo like the treats below.

Speaking of insulin management - saving the best for last here are the tasty things I have been making + the recipes. Don’t go over board if you want to be lean and make sure that if you do make these you are within your carb limits.

Oatless Oatmeal:

The Stuff

1 handful of walnuts
1 handful of pecans
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1 or 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 pinch of ground nutmeg
1 pinch ground ginger
1 tablespoon almond butter (or any nut butter; I used cashew)
1 banana, mashed
3 omega-3 enriched eggs
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or more if you like it runnier)
2 teaspoons pumpkin seeds (optional)
1 handful of berries (optional)
Putting All That Stuff Together
1. A small food processor really helps here, but you could get by without one. Place walnuts, pecans, spice and flax seed into the food pro and give it a few pulses. Don't grind it into powder though; leave it coarse. No food pro? Smash the nuts as best as you can in a sandwich baggie, then add flax and spices. Mix well. Set aside.
2. Add eggs and almond milk to a bowl and whisk until it starts to thicken a little. (A shaker bottle works well here too.)3. Smash together the banana and the nut butter. Combine well with egg mixture.
4. Now add the nut/spice blend and mix well. Warm on the stove or in the microwave until it thickens to whatever consistency you like. Stir frequently. 5. Top with berries, pumpkin seeds or whatever the heck you want. Enjoy.
Yield: Two big bowls of steaming goodness.

Pumkin Pie-Cake:

The Stuff:
2 cups blanched almond flour
Half-can of pure pumpkin (7 or 8 ounces)
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) Smart Balance butter with omega-3, softened
4 whole eggs, omega-3 enriched preferred (or Egg Beaters)

1/3 cup water

Several whoppin' big dashes of pumpkin pie spice blend (or cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice)
Pam or spray coconut oil (I like the Spectrum brand)

Turning This Stuff Into Cake
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients. Mix the two together. A hand mixer works best here.
3) Pour into a Pam or coconut oil-sprayed baking dish. Toss into the oven for about 45 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Motivation

2011-03-16T07:28:00.000-07:00

Feel free to use these tidbits below to help you get through wods, temptation, the day, family dinners etc.

Got this from a bad ass.

Dont be a bitch! Read on:

- Eat lean meat, vegetables and fish oil..If you want starchy carbs, only eat them post workout... consider them a reward for doing what you should be doing anyway.

-Lift more often than you have the desire to. Lift heavier weights than you think you should. Run longer and faster than your lungs tell you you can. Do more reps when your Body says it can’t...and finally, do what you HATE the most, more than anything else.

-For your meals: Do your best to eat as much whole food as possible (as opposed to supplements) The Vitamins and minerals within them are essential to performance.

-If you are not a little nervous/anxious BEFORE your workout and didn't feel sick DURING your workout, most likely you are not training hard enough to get where you want to go.

-Do big compound movements with Barbells or dumbells for 90% of your work... even accessory work.

-Do Sprints, sledgehammer swings, tire flips, complexes, GPP, or Sled drags/prowler for energy systems work, everything else should be considered NEPA or active recovery.

-If you train hard and are planning on walking when you are 50, you better be Stretching, using a foam roller and working with a LAX ball regularly. I know it hurts and I know it sucks, but so does riding around on one of those Rascal scooter things that fat people use at the grocery store.

-Keep a log of your training- What gets measured is what gets done. If you don't know what you did last workout, how are you going to beat it this workout? NOT USING A LOG MAKES YOUR TRAINING A WASTE OF TIME! Don't ask anyone questions about training or diet unless you can show them some form of history of what you have been doing. It would be like not giving a medical history to a Doctor and then asking them to make you feel better. Don't be an idiot---people could answer 90% of their own arbitrary questions if they just compared what they are/aren't doing with their original plan…

-99% of people do not have the testicular fortitude or discipline to work hard enough and consistently enough to get the results they want...Don't be that guy. And if you are one of the 1% who will put the time and effort in, just smile because everyone thinks you are on roids and are a genetic freak- They also refer to you as such behind your back.

-F&@# 90% of Training Partners. Stupidity breeds stupidity and most partners spend more time talking about BS and screaming worthless false encouragement to each other than actually challenging one another to be better. If you need a spot, ask for one from the 90 lb Personal trainer walking around doing nothing…Otherwise grow some balls and get it done alone.

-That said, if you have found another 1%er, stick with them...heck, maybe even consider becoming "life partners". That way you can get a tax cut while splitting time cooking chicken and spinach together.

-PREPARE your meals in advance! You do not live in a cave. That big cold box in your kitchen…it should be brimming with Tupperware/Pyrex containers ---each one full of some form of lean meat and vegetables that you cooked in mass amounts on Sunday (or whatever day you are off) and stored for the week. I would be willing to bet my left sweaty baby maker that this is where 99.9999% of all diets fail. If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail…You can bake like 30 chicken breasts/steaks/fish fillets all at one time. There really isn’t any excuse for you to not be shredded other than you chose to do something lame, like watch TV as opposed to getting your food ready for the week…

-Train FOR something, a show, a meet, a fight, a beach vacation, etc. It is tough to stay motivated without a goal...Also, always train for strength…Size is a great bi-product.

-Every time you Stick food in your mouth or choose the weight for your next set ask yourself, "Will this make me better?". Then act accordingly.

-it is tough to out diet pansy training without ending up looking like Christian Bale in "The Machinist" , and it is harder to out train a bad diet without ending up on the Biggest Loser...Do both or none, it is that simple. Mediocrity is for the weak.

-Your training WILL mimic your personality and thus, your life decisions. If you work hard in the gym and stay disciplined, you can overcome just about any other endeavor outside of the gym, simply because you have chosen to take control over your environment. If you are lazy and make excuses all of the time, than I am pretty sure you will also find THOSE similar traits elsewhere in your life.

-If you are not where you want to be in or out of the gym: It is YOUR fault. Own your crap.

-I do supersets and giant sets not because it is the most advantageous way to gain muscle...I do them because things need to get done...My time is limited, and I don't like most of the idiots at the gym. So I get in, get it done, and get out. I hate walking into the gym, but love walking out soaked and spent...results aren't a bad thing either.

-People worry too much about small stuff when the big stuff is not in order. This stuff is not complicated...grow a pair, don't eat bad, and get just a little bit better each training session. Look at the 5/3/1 questions in the powerlifting forum...some of them are valid, yet some look a whole lot like, "Hey Jimbo, is it ok for me to switch out my Gallon of milk a day for a gallon of skittle flavored vodka? Will this make me HYOOOOOGGGEEEE?"

-Another note on that...Invest in knowledge. Don't ask 1,000 stupid questions that could all be answered by spending $20 bucks on a book with ALL of the answers (5/3/1, Precision nutrition, Starting Strength). If you can't afford it, send me a PM about why -- if I can't use my brain to figure out a way for you to earn $20, I'll send you the money myself! - There are no free lunches, and you will have to work hard and earn every bit you get. If it was easy-everyone would do it! A new you does not come in 6 easy installments of $19.95!

-Finally, if you are not regularly doing ATG squats and heavy deads, don't even bother asking a question about getting bigger and stronger...It’s called hard work…and you’re doing it wrong.

A New Place and Time

2011-03-05T05:16:00.001-08:00

Hey y'all!!

Oh there is much to be missed already. Some of you walked me to the door. Others......gave me a spartan kick into the abyss. I still love you though.

For those who are interested I have set up a new blog which will feature almost daily writings from yours truly. What kind of writings? Well you will kind of have to find out. Some will be poetic, creative, rant-like and cryptic. pretty much the same way I write my warm ups and WODs (Right Gary ;)

Check out the inner workings of my mind here: http://chris-fyfb.blogspot.com

Paleo/IF/LG/Cinna-Stack!!!

2011-03-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

Aw yeah peeps!! Its knowledge time. Sit back and grab a fork and dig in. Enjoy my tender morsels.

Ok well not really mine but a conglomerate of data that I have collected and wrapped up for you in what I hope is a neat little package.

So as most of you know I eat Paleo, which has now been stripped down to:
1) lean meats (mainly fish and eggs+chicken sausage+chicken)
2) Veggie (Im talking boat load, big bowls)
3) Some fruit (Mainly applesauce, apples, lara-bars, berry medleys, blueberries)
4) Some starch (sweet potatoes)
5) Fat (coconut butter (Thanks for the addiction Wendy! :) and coconut milk)

But one thing I have added to the list and something I have tinkered with before is:
Intermittent Fasting.

I base my fasting off of an hybrid approach from Martin Berkan's Lean Gains style of IF. (Check out leangains.com for yourself).

First start with the teacher:
Martin is a nutritional consultant, magazine writer and personal trainer who has developed and uses a type of fasting and eating style that can cause some serious amazing and fantastic results. He also has a bachelor’s degree in Medical Sciences and Education with a major is in Public Health Sciences.

What is IF:
IF stands for Intermittent Fasting and basically what happens if you refrain from taking in anything with calories while fasting and then consume well balanced, usually larger meals during the feeding window. LG (Lean Gains) typically runs a 16/8 which means you fast for 16hr and feed for 8hr. I got the numbers confused and so I do 18/6. (Do not do that, that is not a recommendation it is just what I do.) It also should be noted that women should fast anywhere from 12-14hr based off of mood i.e. "bitchiness." Im not kidding. From what I have been told women who fast for to long develop short fuses and tend to become more irritable, no idea why but that's just the way it is. It is recommended that most women DO NOT exceed a 14 hr fast.

What differs LG from other types of fasting diets is a focus geared more towards overall healthy foods, as where some fasting diets allow you to go complete eat-whatever-I-damn-well-want feedings and there is a greater focus on Pre&Post workout nutrition and meal timing. Leangains is specifically tailored to fitness and strength training, and for those wanting to get as lean and strong as possible. There are also specific guidelines with regards to calorie cycling, macrocomposition and meal timing.

Also, LG balances carb and fat in take in this manner:
Workout Days: Higher carb & Lower Fat.
NonWorkout Days: Lower Carb & Moderate Fat.
These are 'general' recommendations since this depends on several factors such as priorities, training volume and activity, gender, body fat % and carb tolerance. Some people get good results from 25-30% carbs on 'high' days, going keto on low days, while others go moderate/high carb on training days and never below 100 g carbs on 'low' days.

The Science and Benefits:
So most people immediately go "well you will go into starvation mode" and "that doesnt sound healthy" and "no way."Well here is the science behind it:

1)'Starvation mode' is just one of the many persistent myths in the fitness/bodybuilding community. It only becomes a possible factor to consider in the most extreme scenarios: think anorexia, prolonged and severe dieting, 'stage ready' fitness/bodybuilding competitors (4-5% body fat for men, 8-9% for women). Your metabolism certainly wont down regulate within one day.
2) Obsessive meal eating and timing no longer really applies or is used.
3) No need to worry about dodging or be scared about social gatherings.
4)Is eating every second or third hour important in order to “stoke the metabolic fire”? No, there is no scientific support for that idea and studies on the subject were carefully controlled, showing no correlation at all between meal frequency and metabolism. Perhaps a high meal frequency was needed in order to provide the body with a regular stream of nutrients, making sure that you had a constant supply of amino acids in order to stave off muscle catabolism and promote muscle growth? No, looking at how the body processes and digests meals, this isn’t the case either. Digestion of a regular meal takes about 6-7 hours and during this time amino acids are being released into the bloodstream. 30 g’s of casein takes about 7 hours to get fully assimilated. Double that amount and you will have amino acids in the bloodstream most of your waking hours. Is a high meal frequency needed in order to keep hunger at bay and not overeat? This is the only point where a high meal frequency has some empirical backing – at least when you look at how inactive test subjects in lab settings rate hunger, on different meal patterns, while being fed a high carb diet compromised of calorie dense foods. Not really something that can be applied the physique conscious crowd, or the environment most people spend their waking hours in.
5) Feeding time revolves around the goal: fat loss, muscle gain, both, body comp, performance etc.
6) Post workout meal is the largest meal (upwards of 80% of caloric in take done Post Wod). Reasons behind this are due to protein absorption and synthesis, insulin spiking and proper shuttling,since liver glycogen is beneficial to hormones involved in anabolism,
7) Do your own damn research. More info found here leangains.com
8) For more on science and myths go: http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

How To:
Really you should check out this link and do all the reading you can, possibly several times and then post any questions to the comments section under this blog post. http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html

Who shouldnt:
As its been said those who should stay away from a LG/IF diet are those who still suffer from metabolic disorders or derangement, those with horrible food choices, those with horrible sleep and most of all those who have a combination of the above. I think this is important to find out who you are in this list. If you feel your metabolism is shot down or you suffer from other metabolic disorders (google peeps)then you want to correct your issues first before starting an approach like this. Im afraid most of you will use the rational that "oh I fasted for 12-18 hours and I worked out so my body can handle anything right now so I can eat what ever I want!!"
That is NOT true nor would I recommend any such thinking. If you are not completely settled within your own skin then I suggest grabbing reality and slamming it face first into desire and move forward in getting things under control until you are in your desired skin. If you have horrible cravings or make horrible food choices then you need to change that first. If you cant stick to strict paleo for at least two weeks then you shouldnt start an IF approach nor should you be talking to me.

What I do:
I have tried to create a schedule so I fast 18hr. I like it. I stop eating at 6 or 7pm and dont start eating until 1 or 2pm the following day. I usually eat 2 large meals or 3 spread out meals. I try to shift the fruit and starch towards post workout meal. I do train fasted and I really like it. I have hit an energy crash once only in the past 3 weeks but it was probably more mental than anything. I try to keep a high protein diet and right now mix that with a moderate fat and moderate to high fruit (for carbs). The reason for the fruit is because I bought a bunch of it on my last shopping trip. I will switch over to starch and little fruit when I move. The results? I feel great, Im getting more vascular, leaning and gaining at the same time. Will this happen to you? Hell no. It can, dont get me wrong, but it depends on you. This isnt a cookie cutter approach that would work for anyone who tries it. Some people need tweeks in different areas.

Please post any questions you have to the comments and I will try and quickly get back to you. Take care and I hope this helps. Train hard-eat smart.

Whatcha know about health???

2011-02-25T00:36:00.000-08:00

Salad???!? F**K SALAD!!!!

So I found a new way to eat. Who is with me??!!??

In all serious I do not condone this type of eating style but would be totally down to recreate or create a dish. Check out there video where they make the 100,000 calorie sandwich.

No, I did not miss type a single freaking letter. 100,000 calories... You would probably have to do the same amount of burpees to work that off and then fast for 2 weeks AFTER of course we replace your heart, lungs, stomach and entire circulatory system.

That's right....carrots are for ugly people!

Coach Chris

2011-02-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

So a friend of mine emailed me this link to expain that this is what she imagined when she heard that I would be teaching high school students. Honestly I am probably going to give this same speech on my first day. Let me know if you guys think it would be a good talk to have with them.

Like lost....

2011-02-21T17:49:00.000-08:00

...in the back of the fridge....something tasty and healthy you forgot was there....

That's what this blog is like.

I'm back kids!! How you like me now?!? From what I have heard recently, not too much. But moving on.

Whats new??

Well there is new training, new eating, new sleeping, new recovery and probably some other stuff I am forgetting.

Lets get on the subject of estrogen. Estrowhat? Estrogen, that lovely hormone that can make you hold fat in special places (whole body really. And yes my whole body is a special place), act completely irrational and emotional, cry while watching episodes of the Rugrats, and even turn you on....and off. Its a bitch of a hormone (no offense ladies). There are SEVERAL things that can impact your hormones:

Things that damage your hormones -list of topics:

Pituitary damage: ref http://en.wikipedia.org/...Pituitary_gland
-blows to the head or whiplash http://en.wikipedia.org/..._%28medicine%29
-adinomas http://en.wikipedia.org/...tuitary_adenoma

Drugs and chemicals:
-Rx drugs
-OTC drugs
-hair loss drugs
-alcohol
-other chemicals, toxins, pollution
-heavy metals
-fire retardants in furniture or fire fighter's fire retardant clothes
-smoking

Effects of other reproductive and related hormones:
-Estradiol http://en.wikipedia.org/.../wiki/Estradiol
-Prolactin http://en.wikipedia.org/.../wiki/Prolactin
-Xeno estrogens http://en.wikipedia.org/...ki/Xenoestrogen
--lavender
-Xeno testosterone: http://tnation.T-Nation.com/...tase_inhibitors
--hair loss drugs 5-alpha reductase inhibitors -extremely dangerous for a few - see above
-Prohormones [PH] http://en.wikipedia.org/...wiki/Prohormone -extremely dangerous for a few
-Deca http://en.wikipedia.org/...wiki/Nandrolone - see xeno-testosterone above

Damage to the testicles [testes] ref http://en.wikipedia.org/.../wiki/Testicles
-cancer http://en.wikipedia.org/...sticular_cancer
-Varicocele [blood supply] http://en.wikipedia.org/...wiki/Varicocele
-Torsion [Physical damage] http://en.wikipedia.org/...ticular_torsion
-Trauma http://en.wikipedia.org/...sticular_trauma
-Fever: If you have a fever and your testes hurt, they may be damaged

Damage to the pituitary gland:
-head trauma, blow to the head or whip lash can scar the pituitary gland
-a pituitary adenoma http://en.wikipedia.org/...tuitary_adenoma
--can decrease LH and/or increase prolactin
--may press in optic nerves, reducing peripheral vision in one or both eyes
---could create other visual field disturbances [not vision correction issue]
--can results in other hormone problems
-watch for multiple pituitary hormone problems

Comorbidies: http://en.wikipedia.org/...iki/Comorbidity
-hypothyroidism http://en.wikipedia.org/.../Hypothyroidism
-adrenal fatigue http://en.wikipedia.org/...Adrenal_fatigue
--watch DHEA-S levels
-syndrome X aka metabolic disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/...abolic_syndrome
-insulin resistance [and diabetes] http://en.wikipedia.org/...ulin_resistance
-influences of the digestive system
-arterial disease and high blood pressure [BP]
-poor cell wall permeability

Deficiencies:
-low cholesterol, natural, diet induced, result of statin drugs
-low CoQ10, age related, induced by statin drugs
-low dietary EFA's [essential fatty acids]
-low iodine
-other low trace minerals
-sub optimal vitamin D
-anti oxidants

and truly the list goes on and on. I wont talk about why there are so many things damaging your hormones online, you would have to ask me in person.

Now there are several things within your own body that produce, extract and regulate hormones. A big one concerning estrogen is your liver. You liver detoxifies your body from excess estrogens. Like booze?!? Chances are you probably arent the leanest person or lean muscle(est?) or nicest or should seek help. Alcohol shuts down and posions the liver. Damage to the liver, like college or a bad break up, can cause problems for several years down the road basically the liver is a way to stay sexy and young BUT you have to take care of it. No (Ian) wild turkey does not take care of the liver.

After recently reading an article on liver detoxing and health (

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/liver_let_die)

I have started making this cocktail:

Morning tea: 4oz 100% cranberry juice, 1 lemon, ginkgo balboa+ginseng green tea+ 30oz warm water. (amazing!!)

What does it do?? Read the fracking article for yourself! I will walk down the road to enlightenment with you hand in hand but I aint dragging your ass/ carrying you.

Soon I will be supplement Vitamin E anyway because of its effects on circulation.

If you like this article please freaking respond.

Train hard.

She's got a healthy liver..yes she does...you can almost see it.....but you wont stop staring at her booty.....naughty you

confuse

2010-10-27T09:18:00.001-07:00

Hey you all!

Maybe I miss spoke about something or mumbled or misspelled or maybe you werent listening because I say a lot of random things and you thought this wasnt important.

If you are in the Challenge....and there is only a short time left.......you MUST email me your food log.

As wayne brady told dave.. "this is not an option *&%^!!!!"

If I dont receive a food log from you you are not in the challenge. Im sorry but rules are rules and if you dont like em speak with Officer Rios about such matters ;)

Please email me (xfitnut@yahoo.com) and let a bro know who is still in it to win it. I need a name and a food log. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I love you all, mostly with tough love, but love nonetheless and need directions to be followed in order to not cause conflict.

For those of you by the way who braved the winds and bootcamped it with me this morning big hugs and kisses.

Also a HUGE (to the not huge) Welcome back to WENDY!! Who somehow delivered child and still kicked major butt in her workout. I am upset though that the pregnancy is over because now I cannot pick on her. That means someone else must take her place. Any Takers?!?!? :)

Live the Dream..

Really??

2010-10-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

There's more than 5 people in this challenge???

Strange.....because I only receive about 5 food logs a week....on time.....at all......

HHmmmm...... That must means that those of you who attended the lecture missed out on a crucial part because everyone was trying to run off and get wasted one last time or go catch dinner....and those of you who "couldn't" make it for whatever reason obviously just don't know.

Well let me break it to you folks.

The only way in and out of this challenge isn't the initiation fee its also a weekly food log that you are all suppose to keep so I know what you're doing and know that you aren't cheating.

See things can go wrong in challenges like this; digestive issues, mood issues, hormonal issues, performance issues, results issues etc. and I cant help you figure any of that out if I don't know what the heck y'all are doing!

Some of you may be saying "this paleo thing is a joke, I haven't had any changes!" And I am unable to help those who may be thinking this because I have no idea what you're doing because you for whatever reason missed the mentioning that you MUST turn in weekly food logs.

Hopefully you've been keeping track, if not, better start.

In order to seriously be considered in this challenge you MUST turn in a food log every week. If I don't have food logs from you you WILL NOT WIN. I don't care how much you lost.

The only person who should have won last time was Nolan. Not just for leaning out like a mutha but on the technicality that he was the only one who showed up on the last day. Interesting.....

Please email all food logs to xfitnut@yahoo.com

I have really only been receiving 5 food logs a week and through passing conversation with Cat learned that there are like 15 of you in this challenge. Whoops!.........

I believe we are at the 1/2 way point which isn't bad.

Of course if you have any questions please email me at the same address.

Hope all is well y'all.

Let me know if its not....

OH! I forgot to tell you.....

2010-09-26T15:57:00.001-07:00

...You are going to suck....

This was originally brought to my attention when Gary had explained to me that the last WOD he performed he completely sucked at. He felt terrible, slow, dragging and to make matters worse his wife completed the workout faster than he did....wow....

So what happened?

Well Gary forgot to realize that his body is changing. No not puberty folks, but he is switching over to Paleo.

Everyone in the challenge should pay attention to this and I have no better way to say it: youre probably gona suck.

I know I promised you all kinds of wonderful results by switching over to Paleo but this stuff does take time. Depending on how well you were following the American Diet before switching over to Paleo could result in the progress taking longer.

So until your body adapts, in the mean time you may suck. Its just part of the process. You will fall back a little while your body gets used to what youre doing and then you will start to do nothing but PR.

So even though you might feel like the guy below, hang in there and be super excited for the benefits that are coming shortly ;)

So Slow...

2010-09-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

At least thats how I have been feeling lately.

I have completely forgot, possibly due to my own excitement, to tell all of you that Robb Wolfs book (which has just been ranked as Number 1 on the New York's Best Sellers List!!) is available for y'all to purchase.

I honestly could not express all of the kind feelings I have towards Robb and his wife Nikki and how much they both have helped me as a trainer. I have heard nothing but amazing things about the book and Robb is becoming ever more popular amongst the main stream media hitting up a few Television and Radio programs. Please go to robbwolf.com to get into the amazing podcasts he and Andy Deas do together and check out all kinds of amazing info he shares with everyone FOR FREE dammit. I believe the best place to get the book is on amazon. I have yet to get it up its on the list fo sho. Enjoy, learn, grow and be sexy!

3..2...1....

2010-09-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

Eat!!

Oh yes my friends. The big day is upon us!! The start to the 2nd Crossfit Simi Valley Paleo Challenge!! If you havent had youre measurements or pictures taken or emailed me for a food log and such please do. (Email xfitnut@yahoo.com)

There were definitely some things we were unfortunately unable to go over because most of you were trying to split to go party-hearty on a friday night which I really cant be mad at you for.

Meal construction:

Try to think of when you are hungry and youre going to make some grub in this order:

1) What animal am I going to eat?

Always try to start your meal with a good source of protein from the list. This should be the crux of your meal. Feel free to mix and match as well for meals. Animals are awesome, and they taste good. Enjoy them.

2) Fat? What kind of fat are you going to have with your meal. Avocado, olive oil, coconut milk etc etc. Fat is really important because of a lot of reasons, all of them good. One important thing it does though is makes you feel full. DONT go crazy with fat but definitely dont go light with it. You really want to take it in moderation.

3) Carbs: here is where you want to get really intimate, ok maybe not intimate, but acquainted with Veggies....and some fruit... Most of your carb sources should come from these guys. Fruits in moderation but veggies you can literally go hog wild on. I dare you to try and over eat on veggies (d0nt really you wont feel too good).

Remember to chew your food A LOT! THere is a lot of important things that happen when eating and one of them is chewing. A lot of the important stuff you need to absorb from food starts when it starts melting in your mouth. So really chew your food. You will also feel more full which helps. Everyone should be enjoying your food. So please Enjoy!

Cutting: If you are going to cut things out I suggested 2 options: Cut 1 thing and then another and then another. Basically get used to cutting 1 thing and when you are ok with it start on another and so on. OR Cut everything and run!! Basically cut everything, go hardcore paleo, and REAP the benefits. Its on you really.
I have an analogy I have been using the past few weeks. Imagine this Challenge like a trip to Vegas. Now how do you want to get there? Do you want my really fast sports car? Or do you want to walk?

But really do what you are comfortable with while being slightly uncomfortable. Im not trying to ruin anyones life, despite what some of you may think my goal is in my classes, Im really only trying to make you Look Perform and Feel better.

So Cutting Options include but are not limited to:

1) Grains---read this article--http://cfsvdiner.blogspot.com/2009/04/truth-about-grains.html

2) Dairy-- read this article--http://cfsvdiner.blogspot.com/2010/08/its-just-like-me.html

3) Sugar--common sense, no attached article

Also read these articles from last years challenge to get some more help. Its all the articles from the challenge that took place including resources for meal ideas and the food list from the lecture.

Start Eating and Starting Leaning!!!!

http://cfsvdiner.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

In the Fridge...

2010-09-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Thanks to all those who attended the lecture and amazing power point. I hope my ramblings made sense and helped to some degree. I got a lot of questions over the following 2 days so please dont be shy and just ask away.

Like I said though, I told you all that I would post a food log that I kept (or tried to keep) for a few days. Like I also said DO NOT follow this or try to replicate it in anyway. By all means take some ideas but dont start doing this and only this. Of course if you have any questions just ask.

As far as I am concerned with eating, I have certain foods that I really enjoy eating and make them frequently. Its not because I dont have a lot of options, I just have things that are cheap, healthy, and easy for me to make and consume.

Enjoy!

Food Log:

9-6-10:
Bfast: 4 eggs- sausage patties – 1 cup applesauce – coconut ice cream (shredded coconut+coconut milk+ cinnamon+splash of almond milk (chocolate))
Lunch: 1/2lb buffalo (ground) + 1 bowl of spinach+ butter (KerryGold) + handful of nuts.
Dinner: ½ lb buffalo (ground) + 1 bowl carrots/broccoli + coconut ice cream

9-7-10:
Bfast: Bfast: 4 eggs- sausage patties – 2 bananas– coconut ice cream
Snack: Cup of macadamia nuts.
Lunch: Bowl of mixed veggies – 1 can of salmon
Dinner: 1 bowl of spinach+ butter – I can salmon – 1 lara bar

9-8-10:
Bfast: 4 eggs- sausage patties – 1 cup applesauce – coconut ice cream
Lunch: 2 talapias – 1 bowl spinach+ butter
Snack: Protein Shake

9-9-10:
Bfast: Ham steak- sausage patties- 3 gluten free waffles- nuts.
Lunch: Taco meat – spinach – nuts
Dinner: taco meat – salad – applesauce+strawberries

9-10-10
Bfast: 4 eggs- taco meat- 3 sausage patties- nuts
(Forgot to write stuff down for a while)

9-15-10:
Bfast: 4 eggs – sausage patties – applesauce
Lunch: 1 can of salmon – salad.
Dinner: chicken + salad.

9-16-10:
Bfast: 4 eggs- sausage patties – 1 cup applesauce – coconut ice cream
Lunch: 2x tilapia- bowl of spinach- coconut milk.

Change, Change, Change!!

2010-09-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

Oh! Can you feel it? In the air? In your tummy??
Its coming....

The Challenge

Hey Folks,
New Paleo/Zone Challenge will be starting soon. Lecture will be given on Friday September 17th at 730pm Post WOD. If summer was a little harsh to you or you wana slim down before bulking up October thru February or have some pound-age to lose or arent preforming or as healthy as you should be then definitely stop by and Hunt/Gather some info (You like that huh? You did didnt you? Turned Hunter Gather into a pun...That's clever :) and get on the road to transforming yourself.

Come along my little caterpillars and lets become beautiful butterflies!!!!

Also: MANDATORY post lecture meeting at the closest YogurtLand!!!!!!!!!!.........Just kidding..............maybe ;)

Its just like me....

2010-08-22T17:25:00.001-07:00

.....It does a body good.....maybe??

A lot of questions I get revolve around the consumption and effects of milk. I love milk and I love most milk based products. I believe that a heavy consumption of chocolate milk, almost a gallon on Saturdays, when I was a young lad led me to have never broken a bone....EVER..my entire life. Although I did get bouts of acne and was sick a bunch I still never wore a cast and was strong as an ox...or really tough puppy. I had good teeth, damn good teeth and for the most part still do.

But, still the debate still rages as to whether or not the consumption of milk as an adult is either good or bad. As our Governor once responded at a Body Building show being asked his opinion on milk, "milk is fo babiez."

I subscribe to the Paleo Newsletter and just wanted to share with you a question and answer I recently read. Enjoy!

Question:

Hello Dr. Cordain,

I am working on an article for Men's Journal about the negative impact of dairy products on some people. Basically, can you explain why milk is problematic? My understanding is that, similar to gluten, milk is potentially inflammatory, which is why it's such a common allergen. Can you expand on this?If someone is drinking milk now, and not feeling any negative effects, does that mean he doesn't have an issue with milk?What sort of changes have you observed in people who've given up dairy?Also, are all dairy products problematic, or is milk a particularly bad one?What do you recommend in place of milk to fill that nutritional gap?

Thanks so much for your help.

Thanks,
Ben

Detailed Answer!:

Hi Ben,

I really am not a world expert when it comes to health problems associated with milk, but I will copy Pedro Bastos, a colleague who is, and who has written a few pieces on this that may help to answer your questions:

Milk has numerous properties that may adversely affect health.

Paradoxically, milk has a low glycemic response, but has an insulin response similar to eating a chocolate chip cookie or candy. In a recent study of young boys, they became insulin resistance after 7 days on a high milk diet compared to 7 days of a high meat diet.
In humans, milk drinking elevates a hormone called IGF-1 which increases growth in children, resulting in an increased adult stature, but it also increases the risk for breast, colon and most particularly prostate cancer. How milk drinking increases IGF-1 is not completely known, but two mechanisms have been proposed: 1) bovine milk contains IGF-1 which crosses the human gut barrier, and 2) IGF-1 concentrations in human blood vary with insulin -- because milk increases the insulin response so dramatically, then this response in turn may increase IGF-1.
In numerous epidemiological studies, milk drinking has been associated with an increased risk for numerous autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes. Young children are particularly at risk for type 1 diabetes if bovine milk exposure occurs before the age of 1 year. In animal models of multiple sclerosis, a particular protein found in milk (butyrophilin) when injected into rats causes the animal equivalent of MS.
In a series of epidemiological studies from the Harvard School of Public Health, milk drinking has shown to dramatically increase the risk for acne. Once again the mechanism has not been completely worked out but may once again involve milks highly insulinotropic effect and/or various hormones found in milk that bypass the gut barrier and enter circulation.
In many epidemiological studies, milk drinking increases the risk for atherosclerosis and fatal myocardial infarctions independent of its saturated fat content. Again the mechanisms are unclear, but it likely involves chronic low level inflammation, or perhaps endocrine substances found in bovine milk that adversely interact with mechanisms known to underlie cardiovascular disease.
Milk contains a hormone called betacellulin which binds a human gut receptor called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R). In many human cancers, there is massive over expression of this receptor which may be linked to chronic consumption of betacellulin in bovine milk.
There are many more health problems associated with milk drinking, but these are the ones that come immediately to mind. I'm sure Pedro can add many more.

Are all dairy products problematic, or is milk a particularly bad one?

I believe that all dairy products are problematic. Cheeses do not cause the high insulin response as does milk, yogurt and other fermented dairy products, but is one of the most acidic of all foods. Paradoxically, despite its high calcium content, its net acidic load promotes calcium loss from the bones. Betacellulin is also found in cheese, but many of the other hormones found in milk do not survive the cheese making process.

If someone is drinking milk now, and not feeling any negative effects, does that mean he doesn't have an issue with milk?

We cannot feel whether or not we are insulin resistant or if bovine hormones are entering our bloodstream, or if our arteries are becoming clogged with the atherosclerotic process, but we can notice improvements in acne and symptoms of allergy (wheezing, sneezing, rashes etc.), or autoimmune disease.

What sort of changes have you observed in people who've given up dairy?

I am not a clinician, and generally the anecdotal responses I am privy to involve people not just giving up dairy only, but rather adopting a Paleo diet in which all dairy is eliminated, along with all grains, processed foods, salt, legumes and potatoes. If you go to my website and look at the success stories section, you can read about these people.

What do you recommend in place of milk to fill that nutritional gap?

I don't view it as a nutritional gap, but rather a liability which causes our health to suffer in the long run. We have run nutritional comparisons of the following food groups (meats, seafood's, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, nuts & seeds, milk) and published our results in the highest impact nutritional journal in the world, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. We found that for these 7 food groups, milk ranked third from last for the 14 most commonly lacking nutrients in the US diet. Hence, the commonly held notion that milk is a highly nutritious food is simply untrue.

Except for calcium, milk is a lightweight for many of the vitamins and minerals needed for optimal human health. Healthy bones result from positive calcium balance. Calcium balance is like a bank account and results from how much calcium we put into our bodies minus how much we lose. The Dairy Council focuses their ads upon the input side of the calcium equation -- more, more, more. However, the calcium that we ultimately lose in our urine is just as important. If we lose more calcium in our urine than we take in, we will never be in calcium balance, no matter how much milk we drink.

The most important factor determining urinary calcium loss is acid base balance. A net acid yielding diet promotes calcium loss in the urine, whereas a net base yielding diet prevents urinary calcium loss. Foods which are base yielding are fruits and vegetables. Studies have shown that by consuming about 25-30 % of our daily energy as fruits and veggies, we can maintain calcium balance at low calcium intakes without milk consumption. Humans have existed on this planet for 2.5 million years, and only in the past 10,000 have we ever consumed milk or dairy products. Like all other mammals on the planet, we did quite well without milk (once we were weaned) for the rest of our adult lives. Have you ever thought about how an elephant can grow such large, health and strong bones without drinking the milk of another species?

I hope this helps.

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor

SPAM!!!

2010-08-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ok more like newsletters. Here is the latest one and I pretty much knew a lot of this but just wanted to pass the info onwards because I know most of you their think I am crazy, paranoid, nuts, bonkers, and evil.....or some kind of combination of those. Enjoy and Feast on Knowledge!!

3 So-Called "Healthy" Foods that You Should STOP Eating (if you want a lean healthy body)

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition SpecialistAuthor of the best-seller: The Truth About Six Pack Abs

I was reading a statistic in a nutrition book recently, and this is going to shock you...
Now before I tell you the statistic, let's keep an important fact in mind... according to well renowned nutrition author Michael Pollan, and his amazing book called In Defense of Food, humankind has historically consumed approximately 80,000 different species of edible plants, animals, and fungi, and approximately 3,000 of those have been widespread foods of the human diet.
Now get ready for a shocking and appalling statistic...
Currently, the average adult in the US consumes approximately 67% of their total caloric intake from only 3 foods -- CORN, SOY, AND WHEAT (and their derivatives).
What would be considered a reasonably healthy amount of corn, soy, and wheat in the human diet? Based on 10's of thousands of years of human history, and what the natural diet of our ancestors was (indicating what our digestive systems are still programmed to process), this would probably be in the range of about 1% to 5% MAX of our total calories from corn, soy, and wheat.
Considering that modern humans are eating 67% of their total calories from corn, soy, wheat... you can see why we have massive problems in our health, and our weight!
It's not a surprise that we have so many intolerances and allergies, specifically to soy and wheat (and gluten intolerance)... the human digestive system was simply never meant to consume these substances in such MASSIVE quantities.
Keep in mind that these massively high levels of corn, soy, and wheat in our modern human diet is a relatively new phenomenon that originated from the economics of the multi-billion dollar corn, soy, and wheat industries. It really HAS been all about the money.
By "derivatives" of corn, soy, and wheat, this means the food additives such as:
high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
corn oil
soybean oil (hydrogenated or plain refined)
soy protein
refined wheat flour
hundreds of other food additives such as maltodextrin, corn or wheat starch, soy lecithin, mono and diglycerides, etc, etc
This doesn't surprise me... consider how much soda or other sweetened drinks (with loads of HFCS) that the average person drinks daily... this is a LOT of calories from just 1 sole corn derivative. Even marinades, salad dressings, ketchup, breads, and 100's of other foods contain loads of HFCS!
Also think about how many processed foods we have that are either fried in soybean or corn oil... and even if the foods are not fried in these oils, these oils are additives to almost every processed food... chips, candies, cakes, salad dressings, tomato sauces, burrito wraps, corn chips, breaded chicken, etc, etc. This is a LOT of calories from these 2 other corn and soy derivatives... both of them EXTREMELY UNHEALTHY!
On top of that, think about how much breads, cereals, pastas, muffins, and other highly processed wheat products that most people consume each day. Again, this is LOADS of unhealthy, blood-sugar spiking, nutrient-poor calories, that more than half of the population has some degree of intolerance to anyway.
It gets even worse!
Not only are we eating 67% of our total calories from corn, soy, and wheat... but because of the economics involved (specifically with cheap corn and soy) we are also feeding most of our farm animals corn and soy now too... again amplifying the amount of corn and soy that ends up in our bodies.
Probably the 2 worst examples of this blatant mismanagement of our food supply is how our factory farmed chickens and cows are fed.
Cows are fed mostly corn in factory feedlot farms, even though their digestive systems are only meant to eat grass and other forage. This makes the cows sick (hmm... E-coli anyone?), alters the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of the fats to unhealthy levels, and also diminishes the healthy CLA fats that would occur naturally in grass-fed beef. All of these problems go away if our cows are fed what they were made to eat naturally - grass!
Our chickens are also fed a diet of mostly corn and soy and crowded in tight pens in horrendous conditions... when the fact is that a chicken was meant to roam around the outdoors eating a mixture of greens, insects, worms, seeds, etc. When chickens are kept inside in tight quarters and fed only grains, it leads to an unhealthy meat for you to eat, and less healthy eggs compared to free-roaming chickens allowed to eat an outdoors diet.
Our food supply has gotten so screwed up that we're even feeding our salmon and other farmed fish corn and soy...again because of the economics involved. How ludicrous is this, considering that fish are meant to eat a diverse diet of smaller fish, worms, bugs, etc. Again this makes farm raised fish unhealthy in terms of nutrition compared to the wild counterparts. If you want to see something even scarier about farm raised fish, watch this quick video about the toxic fish you might be buying.
So even when you're eating chicken, beef, and fish, you're still essentially getting even MORE corn and soy into your body...considering that the cows, chickens, and farmed fish ate mostly soy and corn.
So it's actually WORSE than just 67% isn't it!
Why is it so unhealthy to consume 2/3rds of our calories from corn, soy, and wheat?
Well, this section could encompass an entire book, so to keep this short, I'll just throw out a few random reasons...
Skews the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in our diet to as high as 30:1, when a ratio of 1:1 to 2:1 is considered healthy.
Problems with gluten intolerance (related to heavy wheat consumption)
Problems with weight gain, blood-sugar swings, and reduced insulin sensitivity (and progression of diabetes) due to excessive refined corn and wheat flours, as well as HFCS in our diet
Soy and corn are the most genetically modified crops (which also allows more pesticides and herbicides to be used, which are usually xenoestrogens)
Many of the pesticide and herbicide residues in these crops are xenoestrogens, which can increase "stubborn" belly fat
Soy products and derivatives contain a double-whammy of xenoestrogens as well as phyto-estrogens... again creating an environment in your body for fat storage, carcinogenic effects, and even "man boobs" in very severe cases
The feeding of corn and soy to animals reduces the health and nutritional benefits of those animal products
and the list could go on and on and on...
So how do you avoid all of this overwhelming amount of corn, soy, and wheat in our food supply, and finally take control of your weight and your health?
1. Don't purchase processed foods! It all starts with your grocery cart discipline... choose only 1-ingredient foods such as fruits, veggies, beans, eggs (free roaming), nuts, seeds, and meats from grass-fed or free roaming animals that are raised correctly. Only resort to junk foods or processed foods on a 1-day per week "cheat day" but ONLY when dining out... that way, the processed foods aren't in your house to tempt you.
2. Get most of your carbs from fruits and veggies instead of grains.
3. Avoid store bought salad dressings as they almost always contain soybean oil and HFCS (instead, try my homemade healthy salad dressing)
4. Make sure that your tomato sauces don't have HFCS and soybean oils... look for sauces made with olive oil instead. Remember to avoid unhealthy canola oils too!
5. Try veggie sticks with guacamole instead of corn chips
6. Try veggies sticks with hummus instead of pita chips or other bread
7. Reduce your cereal, bread, and pasta intake by having these foods only on "cheat days" and stick to more of the 1-ingredient foods I mentioned in #1 above. Try some of these healthy snacks as good alternatives (yes, I know that one of the 13 snacks on there has sprouted grain, which is fine on occasion).
I could go on with more examples, but I think that's good for now.
So with all of this said... Is my diet perfect? Well, no of course not! Nobody is perfect, and I can give in to temptation on occasion just like anybody else.
However, I'd estimate that my corn/soy/wheat consumption is only about 2-4% of my total caloric intake compared to 67% for the average person. The way that I achieve this is to simply not bring any corn, soy, or wheat products into my house, so I'm never tempted by it. Therefore, at least 6 days/week, I eat virtually no corn/soy/wheat, except for the occasional piece of sprouted grain toast a couple times a week (which is a better option than typical "whole grain" bread).
I do, however, give in and sometimes eat breads, pasta, and even corn chips, etc. when I'm dining out. I see these as my cheat meals and try to do this no more than once per week. I still completely eliminate sodas and deep fried foods though...they are just TOO evil!

If youre not eating them...

2010-07-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Youre not living right...
This is a great newsletter article that was emailed to me that I wanted to share with you.
Enjoy!!

The Truth About Eggs!!

Are Whole Eggs or Egg Whites Better for You?
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal TrainerAuthor - The Truth About 6-Pack Abs

I was on a weekend trip with some friends recently and one of my friends was cooking breakfast for the whole group. I went over to see what he was cooking and saw he was getting ready to make a big batch of eggs.
Well, to my shock and horror, I noticed that he was cracking the eggs open and screening the egg whites into a bowl and throwing out the egg yolks. I asked him why the heck he was throwing out the egg yolks, and he replied something like this...
"because I thought the egg yolks were terrible for you...that's where all the nasty fat and cholesterol is".
And I replied, "you mean that's where all of the nutrition is!"
This is a perfect example of how confused most people are about nutrition. In a world full of misinformation about nutrition, somehow most people now mistakenly think that the egg yolk is the worst part of the egg, when in fact, the YOLK IS THE HEALTHIEST PART OF THE EGG!
By throwing out the yolk and only eating egg whites, you're essentially throwing out the most nutrient dense, antioxidant-rich, vitamin and mineral loaded portion of the egg. The yolks contain so many B-vitamins, trace minerals, vitamin A, folate, choline, lutein, and other powerful nutrients... it's not even worth trying to list them all.
In fact, the egg whites are almost devoid of nutrition compared to the yolks.
Even the protein in egg whites isn't as powerful without the yolks to balance out the amino acid profile and make the protein more bio-available. Not to even mention that the egg yolks from free range chickens are loaded with healthy omega-3 fatty acids.
Yolks contain more than 90% of the calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, B6, folate, and B12, and panthothenic acid of the egg. In addition, the yolks contain ALL of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K in the egg, as well as ALL of the essential fatty acids (EFAs).
And now the common objection I get all the time when I say that the yolks are the most nutritious part of the egg...
"But I heard that whole eggs will skyrocket my cholesterol through the roof"
No, this is FALSE!
First of all, when you eat a food that contains a high amount of dietary cholesterol such as eggs, your body down-regulates it's internal production of cholesterol to balance things out.
On the other hand, if you don't eat enough cholesterol, your body simply produces more since cholesterol has dozens of important vital functions in the body.
And here's where it gets even more interesting...
There have been plenty of studies lately that indicate that eating whole eggs actually raises your good HDL cholesterol to a higher degree than LDL cholesterol, thereby improving your overall cholesterol ratio and blood chemistry.
And 3rd... high cholesterol is NOT a disease! Heart disease is a disease...but high cholesterol is NOT. Cholesterol is actually a VERY important substance in your body and has vitally important functions... it is DEAD WRONG to try to "lower your cholesterol" just because of pharmaceutical companies propaganda that everyone on the planet should be on statin drugs.
If you're interested in this topic of cholesterol specifically, I have another article listed at the bottom of this page about why trying to attack cholesterol is a mistake, and what the REAL deadly risk factors actually are.
In addition, the yolks contain the antioxidant lutein as well as other antioxidants which can help protect you from inflammation within your body (the REAL culprit in heart disease, not dietary cholesterol!), giving yet another reason why the yolks are actually GOOD for you, and not detrimental.
To help bring even more proof that whole eggs are better for you than egg whites, I recently read a University of Connecticut study that showed that a group of men in the study that ate 3 eggs per day for 12 weeks while on a reduced carb, higher fat diet increased their HDL good cholesterol by 20%, while their LDL bad cholesterol stayed the same during the study. However, the group that ate egg substitutes (egg whites) saw no change in either and did not see the improvement in good cholesterol (remember that higher HDL levels are associated with lower risk of heart disease) that the whole egg eaters did.
So I hope we've established that whole eggs are not some evil food that will wreck your body... instead whole eggs are FAR superior to egg whites.
But what about the extra calories in the yolks?
This is actually a non-issue and here's why... even though egg yolks contain more calories than just eating the egg whites, the yolks have such a high micro-nutrient density in those calories, that it increases your overall nutrient density per calorie you consume. Essentially, what this does is help to regulate your appetite for the remainder of the day, so you end up eating less calories overall. In addition, the healthy fats in the egg yolks help to maintain a good level of fat-burning hormones in your body.
Overall, this means that the extra fats (healthy fats) and calories from the yolk are so nutrient-dense that they actually HELP you to burn off body fat!
Also, your normal supermarket eggs coming from mass factory farming just don't compare nutritionally with organic free range eggs from healthy chickens that are allowed to roam freely and eat a more natural diet. Your typical cheap grocery store eggs will have lower nutrient levels and a higher omega-6 level and lower omega-3 level. On the other hand, the cage-free organic eggs from healthier chickens allowed to eat more natural feed and roam freely will have much higher vitamin and mineral levels and a more balanced healthier omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio.
I recently compared eggs I bought at the grocery store with a batch of eggs I got at a farm stand where the chickens were free roaming and healthy.
Most people don't realize that there's a major difference because they've never bought real eggs from healthy chickens... The eggs from the grocery store had pale yellow yolks and thin weak shells. On the other hand, the healthier free range eggs from the local farm had strong thick shells and deep orange colored yolks indicating much higher nutrition levels and carotenoids... and just a healthier egg in general.
This is due to the fact that a free-roaming hen allowed to roam on plenty of land will eat a variety of greens, insects, worms, etc transferring MUCH higher levels of nutrients to the eggs compared to an unhealthy hen that is trapped inside a dark factory farm hen house in horrible conditions and fed nothing but piles of corn and soy. It's a DRASTIC difference in the nutrition that you get from the egg.
So next time a health or fitness professional tells you that egg whites are superior (because of their "fat-phobic" mentality towards dietary fats), you can quietly ignore their advice knowing that you now understand the REAL deal about egg yolks.
And can we all please STOP with this sillyness about eating an omelete with 4-5 egg whites and only 1 egg yolk... If you want real taste and real health benefits, we'd all be better off eating ALL of our eggs with the yolks.
After all, do you REALLY think that our ancestors thousands of years ago threw out the yolks and only ate the egg whites? NOT A CHANCE! They intuitively knew that all of the nutrition was found in the yolks. But our modern society has been brainwashed with misinformation about fats and cholesterol.
Another interesting study about eggs...
I read a study recently that compared groups of people that ate egg breakfasts vs groups of people that ate cereal or bagel-based breakfasts. The results of the study showed that the egg eaters lost or maintained a healthier bodyweight, while the cereal/bagel eaters gained weight.
It was hypothesized that the egg eaters actually ate less calories during the remainder of the day because their appetite was more satisfied compared to the cereal/bagel eaters who would have been more prone to wild blood sugar swings and food cravings.
Oh, one last thing I almost forgot... I personally eat 4 whole eggs almost every day with breakfast, and I maintain single-digit bodyfat most of the year.
Enjoy your eggs and get a leaner body!

Stolen from the North!!

2010-06-18T21:58:00.001-07:00

Those awesome peeps up north in Chico at Norcal Strength and Conditioning wrote a pretty good article: check it out (if you still visit this site. And if you do please let me know)

Soda....Are you STILL drinking it?!?!

By Katie

I have watched so many people come through the gym who are completely hooked/addicted to soda. After all of the diet changes that we implement I feel soda is one of the last things that people actually ditch.

They hold onto it for dear life and even lie quite frequently about its consumption. I’ve found that the reason for this is that there is just no substitute for it! At some point most folks think they are doing fine if they choose diet over regular....but after that...they just can’t make the break because there’s nothing else as satisfying!

So here are few things to consider---if you are still having a daily dose of soda: Even if it is sugar free, it is pumped full of chemically derived artificial sweeteners, which have been proven to have the same effect on your blood glucose as regular sugar. But that’s ok, because they’re calorie free, right? Wrong! Even if they may have no calories, the artificial sweeteners still illicit a response from your body the same as you eating regular sugar. This drives your blood sugar up, creating an insulin spike, creating a blood sugar crash!

I can think of some other uppers and downers that are way more fun, then having a can of soda ! So, once your blood sugar crashes, what happens? Oh, that’s right, you crave more sugar. Your body receives a message that you are low on carbohydrate--and hungry or not--you decide to eat more carbs to fill the void. It is a vicious cycle that ultimately leads to you never getting off the sugar! This cycle is a hard one to break, so get on board and do something about the sugar attacks and ditch the soda! Cold turkey it, and substitute for mineral water, tea or black coffee! As if the constant roller coaster effect isn’t enough for you to end your soda habit...here are a few more interesting tidbits I found in the post on blisstree.com:

Below you will find what soda does to your body in the first sixty minutes of consumption.

* In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.

* 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)

* 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

* 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

* >60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

* >60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.

* >60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

This will all be followed by a caffeine crash in the next few hours. (As little as two if you’re a smoker.) But, hey, have another Coke, it’ll make you feel better.
*FYI: The Coke itself is not the enemy, here. It’s the dynamic combo of massive sugar doses combined with caffeine and phosphoric acid. Things which are found in almost all soda.

Do you know what youre eating??

2010-05-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

Pug Soup---Oh yeah! Its cute, delicious and paleo!!

Interesting list of things that are placed in our products which do nothing but harm.

Look for them in the foods you buy and enjoy the benifits! :) (<--- That is sarcasm by the way)

9 Ingredients to avoid in processed foods:

Check out the article here and get your mind blown!!

And then of course get super pissed at me because Im trying to save your life.

Go ahead, get mad.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/9-ingredients-to-avoid-in-processed-foods-1268429/

Drink More!!

2010-04-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

Water!!! YEAH!!!

<---This guy LOVES his water. This is actually the background of my desk computer. Why?

Cause its a koala bear in a bowl of water!! What?!? Cause its Awesome!!!

Guys make sure you are hydrated throughout the day. Water is like, UBER important to have in the system for all kinds of crazy reasons. Mainly before workouts you want to make sure you are coming in REALLy well hydrated. Not so much that you are peeing your pants during the workout or running to the bath room but to prevent dehydration, dizziness, passing out, feeling like trash, and getting smashed in the wods. This could explain why you are preforming sometimes the way you do.

How much H2O??

I dont know or care about the glasses per day or gallons or liters just drink the fracking water!!

A little thing that I do that helps out with making sure I get enough water for the day is to drink 1 glass before my meal and 1 glass after. This helps me feel more full and also aids in digestion. If I eat 4 times a day then I know thats 8 glasses. Thank goodness I eat more than 4 times. Also if you do use protein shakes use water with the shake instead of some other bs. I use coconut milk and water mixed with the powder.

So drink up!! And if you were really hoping I was talking about alcohol, you may want to get some other kinds of help.

CHEERS!!

Challenge Over!!

2010-04-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

Howdy!

For some reason, even before I have finished this post, I am afraid that this post is going to backfire. I fear that this is going to be THE downfall for most of you. Ill post it anyway but if I start seeing food logs with just these items on it there is going to be literal HELL to pay. BUT! If one of you wants to cook a sweet batch up for me, cause I pretty much only leave myself time for the hunting and cooking of animals, there would be hugs in it for you. Enjoy and let me know how it goes.

Paleo Muffins: Ingredients: * 2 cups almond flour (almond meal) * 2 teaspoons baking powder * 1/4 teaspoon salt * 1/4 coconut oil * 4 eggs * 1/3 cup water *Add blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, peanut butter, chopped nuts, or any other fruit as desired, cinnamon/coco and other similar ingredients can be included. Preparation: 1) Preheat oven to 350 F. 2) You can really do it with any size, but I'm basing the recipe on a 12-muffin tin. 3) Mix dry ingredients together well. 4) Add wet ingredients and mix thoroughly (You don't want strings of egg white in there and you don't have to worry about "tunnels" when you are using almond meal). 5) Put in muffin tins (about 1/2 to 2/3 full) and bake for about 15 minutes.

Paleo Doughnuts: Ingredients: * 1 cup flax meal * 1 cup almond meal * 1 T baking powder * 1/4 t salt * 1 and 1/4 t nutmeg * 1 t honey * 1 t cinnamon * 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted * 4 eggs, beaten * 1/2 cup plus 2 T water Preparation: Makes 12 regular-size muffins 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 2. Mix dry ingredients well (exclude those used for topping). 3. Add beaten eggs, melted butter, water, and sweetener to the dry mixture. Mix well. 4. Fill muffin cups a bit more than half way with the mixture. 5. Bake for about 20 minutes, until tops are golden brown. Allow muffins to cool in pan for a few minutes, then remove. 6. Mix the cinnamon and powdered sweetener for the topping in a clean bowl. 7. When the muffins are cool enough to handle, dip the tops in the melted butter you allocated for the topping, followed by the sweetener/cinnamon mixture.

Paleo Pancakes: Ingredients: * 1 cup almond flour * 2 eggs * 1/4 cup water (for puffier pancakes, you can use sparkling water) * 2 T coconut oil * 1/4 teaspoon salt * 1 T honey Preparation: Mix ingredients together and cook as you would other pancakes. I like to use a nonstick pan with a little oil. The only real difference is that they won't "bubble" on top the same way as regular pancakes. Flip them when the underside is brown.

Paleo Winners!!

2010-04-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang!
So the Paleo Winners have finally been announced. Sorry that it took so long hee hee;)
I just wanted to share the results of the winner at Bodies In Motion and verbal statements from other challengers.
The Winner of the BIM Challenge was Aline who stuck with the diet fairly well (she was very honest but did paleo probably about 87-90%) but still got banging results. She also trained her butt, almost literally, off with me, which from what I hear helps a little. She lost a total of 12 pounds-ish (from 175 down to 163). Went down 5% body fat (from 31% to 26%)Lost 3 inches in my waist (35 to 32)Lost 3 inches in my hips (39 to 36)Lost 10 pounds of body fat (from 53lbs to 43lbs).

Other results that people mentioned were:

Client 1 Results:

Hey Chris,

I cant believe I made it through these past 7 weeks haha. Im really glad i made it all the way through with messing up as little as possible. I really believe that if you can dedicate yourself to eating right and exercising, you can just about do anything else and I feel like this is the first time that i have actually reached a goal of mine with my physique. I am feeling great and am not planning on stopping the paleo lifestyle anytime soon. I am now about 172 pounds, give or take half a pound, and was originally 187 pounds when i first started the challenge. I am feeling healthy and can not wait to hit the weights now to build up a little bit. I also wanted to let you know that my dad has been very successful with his results from the diet also. Honestly, i am kind of happy he isn't in the challenge because i think he would have been some really tough competition haha. He lost a total of about 17 pounds and has gone from a size 38 pant size to about a 33 now. He is very happy with the results and wanted me to say thank you for all this great information on his behalf as well.

Client 2 Results:
Hey Chris!!
Its finally done!! I am grateful to you and Aline for introducing me to the challenge. I always kind of knew what to do but actually being determined and implementing Paleo into my life has changed my life in a positive way. I want to keep going with this Paleo lifestyle except have some chocolate here and there and some alcohol to celebrate.
I have lost a total of 15 pounds and it was basically all due from diet. I didnt really work out a lot. I wanted to but my schedule didn't really allow me to do as much as I wanted. I still worked out mostly doing my Pilates tapes at home but as for hard core gym workouts no. I didt measure my body fat or muscle content but I have been fitting almost all of my pants..even the ones from highschool. I would say I have from 2 dress sizes as well. I dont know what that is in inches. I feel great but when I took these new picture I still dont like what I see. I still want a lot more change in my body..this is just the beginning for me.

Closing Arguments

2010-03-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

Well, its a matter of days now. In just a few days some of you are going to unleash your overwhelmed, imprisoned taste buds on anything and everything you haven't had in the past few weeks. Many of you will find nothing but pain, loss of finance, possible vomit or diarrhea, the fetal position, darkness, guilt and more. Some of you may never come back. Sure you will make attempts but you wont fully come back. Im talking about those who once this challenge is over, have some bad intentions towards processed carbs and sweets. Sadder is there are some who havent even been 90% with this and still feel like they MUST cheat (you know who you are).

Anyways, its almost over.....OR is it?!!? MMuuuaaahhhahahaha....ha...ha.....

Right? Wait! Some of you lost tons of weight. Some set new PRs. Some look and feel younger. Some are just starting to make really amazing progress, so the question is; is it actually over?? For most of you Im going to assume that its not. Some of you arent going to go back to the way you ate before this challenge/intervention and that makes me happy. For some of you this hasnt just impacted you but also your families lives as well. You got stronger, faster, fitter, clothes fit better and you can think and function better. For some of you this wasnt a challenge but the right thing you need to do to see improvements in your overall health. For some that right thing was passed to others as well. Congrats to you. Great job to all.

As a trainer, coach, friend, person, seeing these positive changes in each of you and hearing about them is something that brings a true joy to me knowing that if possible I helped in some way, and for that joy I thank You.

IMPORTANT INFO:

Pictures. Final pictures must be sent in my Monday 3-29-10. If you are at the gym this weekend and dont think its getting any better you can ask us to take the pictures friday, saturday, sunday or monday. ALL PICTURES MUST BE TURNED IN MY MONDAY NIGHT. No pic no prize.

Suggestion!!: Dont take the picture after the workout, you arent going to look any leaner and depending on the wod you may look puffy. Just throwing that out there.

Simi Paleo Challengers: Trying to plan this accordingly I would like it if all of those who participated in the challenge show up to the 730pm class on tuesday (because Im also lacking attendees at that time) to find out who won. Ha! Want your money! Better show. P.s. I dont have your money, just wanted to state that for the record :) If you can not make it please email me.

BIM Paleo Challengers: You still need to email me pics by Monday night. Winner will be announced Tuesday night. Since there are only like 4 of you, we probably wont meet but I will meet with you individually. I do kindly ask that you email me all and any changes physiological changes that have taken place over the past few weeks ie total weight loss, total fat loss, muscle gain, any signs of better health or feelings etc.

Congrats to all of you! I wish you all the best!

The End Is Near!!!!

2010-03-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

2012??? Nope. End of the 1st Paleo Challenge.

First off you should be proud of yourselves for even getting involved. Then you should have even more pride that you have lasted this long, cheat meals or no cheat meals. Pride should then further be inflated if you have obtained some kind of good result.

You have to remember, gyms, fitness, diets, self help, they are all huge multi-billion dollar industries, why? Because most people fail. They set themselves up for failure, they aim for failure and then odd as it sounds "the succeed at failing." (Thats my own line you cant have it!)

So if you lost 5lbs, 20lbs, 2lbs you need to be proud that some kind of change took place. A change that most people in this country sweat, cry, depress, fight, bleed for and sometimes never even start...and one in which most cant succeed at getting. Change...everyone who got involved in this at least tried to make one. Maybe it was cutting grains, maybe it was eating more, maybe it was starting a food log but at least something changed because of you.

Speaking of change: How do I change more?!?

Some of you are flipping out about this (not in a bad way.....yet). But some are asking how do I change more (You give a mouse a cookie and it wants a glass of milk)? How do I lean out more? Its weird because this stuff (proper nutrition) doesnt really work with the applied "I taught you how to fish" philosophy. Even I require new advice and direction. So here are my suggestions:

LESS (you hear that) LESS!! than two weeks remaining. Suck it up! Sack it up! Get it done! Theres Cash involved so this is now a sprint to the end. Of course keep it real.

If you are major on fruit cut/limit it. If I really wanted to lean out I would go under 50g of carbs for the day (you would need to know how to count carbs in the 1st place and watch EVERY freaking carb you eat). So id cut fruit and go veggies only.

Id start tapering down fats. limit the nuts. Get rid of the butters (almond too), maybe switch over to solely coconut milk. In small doses.

Dont over eat. Still leave some room for hunger. Basically dont eat until stuffed but satisfied.

Drink a ton of water.

NO CHEATS!!!

You are almost there!!

Questions?? Email a brother.

IMPORTANT INFO!!

2010-02-21T00:38:00.000-08:00

Jesus! Moses! I was tired but I hope I wasnt that tired that I didnt explain this so badly. A lot of info on this blog that I try and spend time on it and then I hear...Some of you dont read it! What?!?

Anyways I need to straighten some things up:

1) This is NOT a strict 7 week challenge. This is a best you can for 7 weeks. If you have meals that arent paleo, as my bother says "my names paul and thats between y'all." If you eat non paleo meals it does NOT mean you failed or its over. It means get back on the horse and ride into the new frontier of the better you! It happens, dont get depressed or stressed about it, just go right back to eating well. Its called temptations, crappy friends, amazing advertising, and social situations. PLEASE though, note how you feel and how you react to it if you cheat. A few of you have come off and suffered badly from it. (I told you). BUT hear this...if you have NOT made it a week of strict paleo......you better be praying for great results because thats the only way I can think you are going to make it. If you didnt make it 3 days youre screwed. If you cant make it a week youre screwed. This is a challenge for cash to see who makes the greatest change. Its not a strict challenge. Ive seen people do this and still drink coke zero. Did they win....HELL No! Did they make changes, yes. Figure out your goals and live accordingly.

2) If you are having any problems, difficulties or dont feel goods please let me know.

3) EVERYONE send me where they are at right now. What weight have you lost? Is it still coming off? How do you feel? What do you like about it and dislike? I need everyones response on this, if I dont get it......we dont want to go there....especially if you show up for one of my wods.

4) EVERY single person needs to keep a food log and send it in weekly (sunday). WHY?? So I know you arent killing yourself and if anything goes wrong I have data points to reference.

5) Do not be scared....talk to me...about anything.....except white kittens....they give me the heeby jeebys!

Cool link I found for more recipes:

http://everydaypaleo.com/

Deep!

2010-02-21T00:32:00.000-08:00

Ever rip your underwear squatting?? This is the second time it happened to me. At first I thought it was a muscle or a tendon. Then I thought it was my pants, so I spent a good amount of time molesting myself hoping I didnt just rip my pants and my booty is hanging out in a populated gym that I work at. Turns out it was just the underwear. I kept squatting until it wouldnt rip anymore. Wide stance, depth.....might have to work out commando because this may get expensive. Conclusions? Need stretchier underwear, no underwear, booty getting bigger, stop squatting....... Load some weight, get your wide stance, drop deep and tear some victorias secret. (No that was not what I was wearing I just think it would make for a better story).

It does Not matter

2010-02-21T00:22:00.000-08:00

My clothes post 2 mile sprint, 8am, in the rain.

California turned into Seattle, its rained for what seemed like weeks; I still ran my miles.

My quads locked and my hamstrings got sticky; but I still lifted.

Work becomes more and more crazy; I still workout.

I had no energy; but I picked up the bar anyway.

It didnt matter. I still gained, each and everytime. I PR'd. I got faster. I got better.

Starting to see the picture. It doesnt matter. There are only a few good excuses, and you probably dont have any of them to use. All the simple BS that clogs our heads before we decide to even GO to the gym is nothing more than silly BS. Get in and get it done and get better.

Poor Bastards

2010-02-13T12:24:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. I hope you all are enjoying your warm sunshine and nice weather. Its 20 here and I cant tell where snow ends and the world starts. Its like living in a snow globe....and the devils holding it. Anyways, enough bitching.

I wanted to post this yesterday but I feel its still pretty important. The weekend is here and most of you are going to go running off playing and hanging out with friends. These "friends" probably arent eating paleo. Hell, there probably are a few significant others that arent eating paleo as well. For some of you its going to be tough hanging around these people. Its pretty much true that in a group setting, if a member tries to change the group setting, especially a change that might improve their position over the other members, the other group members may become upset or mad. They will use these emotions to say and do things that cause the other improving member to give up or not succeed. Its sad and it happens. Now not everyone is like this but some people may feel threatened or uncomfortable trying to make these changes and be around people who arent making the same changes. Melissa Byers wrote a really good article about being in such circumstances. Please read it because it makes a lot of sense for someone who may be around non-paleo peoples:

http://whole9life.com/2009/08/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-paleo/

Enjoy. PLease update me on how you guys are doing. We have almost wrapped up week 1!! Exciting. For those who are wondering, food logs will be submitted to me on Sunday (tomorrow). Email them to xfitnut@yahoo.com

You have to send in and keep accurate food logs in order to stay in the competition.

Keep up the good job everyone and take care,

ChRiS

Crystal

2010-02-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

This is a comment because there has been some slight confusion.
Under no circumstance will any of the pictures for this challenge be made public or posted publicly UNLESS permission is giving by that person in the photos. WE WILL NOT POST THE PICTURES. There is nothing but respect for privacy. We have a trust with our clients concerning several issues and this is one of those. So please understand;
THE PICTURES WILL NOT BE MADE PUBLIC.

Thank you.

2nd Day of Paleo!!

2010-02-09T23:23:00.001-08:00

Let a brother know how y'all feel!!! Write in comments!!!

Protein Powder

2010-02-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know, they are tasty, convenient and easy to use...all things I have aspired to be in life (Wait..what??) Anywho here is the deal with the quick liquid meals.

Some people use this a supplement to their diets. Others make it the only thing in their diets (yes there are diets in which people drink shakes and only shakes for a month, dont worry about these people, they wont live long and when we are a little older we will do burpees on their graves).

From words in the herd, shakes release a high insulin response causing problems for those who already have problems in that department and a lack of the actual amount of protein to be digested. As Robb Wolf put it :"Why not shakes? I’ve not found them to be superior to solid food, I have noticed they make people fat. A new paper just came out comparing milk & cereal (shitty food) to a PWO shake (also shitty food) and the milk+cereal beat the shake with regards to glycogen repletion. Go figure. I’d wager salmon and sweet potatoes would be even better…not likely to see that study!"

As I told Cat tonight I occasionally make smoothies but you can also use meats that you can quickly throw down (think finger food ie sausage patties, chunk of steak etc). In all honesty I will resort to a shake as a last ditch effort. It is not my first go to. Because most diets we have encountered restrict food, and Paleo does not, if you can eat why not eat? If I do use a shake, as I have posted in the comments I try to go with a clean version like Isopure (Unflavored..really it has no flavor, its more bland than cardboard.) If I do use them I try to add coconut milk, water and cinnamon. Why cinnamon? Because most studies show that it blunts insulin from rising quickly ie blunts insulin response. Most powders contain sucralose, not good. If you are gonna bs me with Bodybuilders use shakes and theyre fine then you have no idea what a BB eats before competition when they look as lean as the do.

So youre probably asking still ......"so...can I use em...or not" and I will give you the same look that I gave the person who asked me ""I cant believe its not butter" is that a good butter to use?" It goes like this: we are trying to tighten the belt, suck it up, make you Look-Perform-Feel better, raise your standards, make a better you.....get serious, cut it for just 7 weeks and then considering adding it back in afterwards. When it comes to your LPF you have to ask yourself how serious are you about this. All the time and effort, why risk it for a f-ing shake.

Heres my newly created motto: Screw Shakes!! Eat Steaks!!

Boom!!

She doesnt like shakes...and she lifts more than you...get the hint??

With Holding Information

2010-02-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

So as of late I have been accused of holding back tasty information. Something new to me with all of this is that I have come up with my own tricks my own tastes and certain things I add to meals that others would LOVE to know about. Ive been eating this way (85% of the time) for months now. I have made serious efforts to remove things that I know hurt my standards of LPF. The information with holding isnt intentional, it is just something I havent gone over with anyone yet.
Two days into it and some are already complaining of lack of "flavor" or "taste".......seriously?? Its called "spices." If you dont know what they are or how to use them, I dont see you making it through the challenge (sorry). There is a simple fact of when it comes to meat "EVERYTHING taste the SAME." It is only spiced to taste differently. The only difference between KFC and El Pollo Loco is spices. KFC has a "secret recipe" which they have used for years consisting of herbs and spices. EPL has there own (mainly lime). Chicken tastes like chicken. All meat has, pulled from the animal, a bland taste. You have to add spices to make it something special. To many this is a no brainer for others the are lacking the flavor. Food is food. You have to make it special you have to add things too it. As of recently you have just paying other people a lot of money to flavor it for you. How much sense does that make?

Also, try to come up with favorite meals. I was speaking with Brian about this the other night. I have certain bfast/lunch/dinner and snacks I have made that I LOVE. I replicate these meals often and Im usually excited and cant wait to eat them because I know how tasty they are. As Robb said eat Chicken for 1 week, Lamb the 2nd, Beef the 3rd, Buffalo the 4th and then cycle again, basically making it a month until you eat chicken again. Didnt sound like a bad idear.

So the things I have been with holding mainly involve condiments and information about protein powder. As far as condiments go Im a outspoken addict for ranch dressing. It was one of my things I didnt want to give up. When I use it I use Drews Ranch because it has all natural ingredients. I mainly try to use something else like CLASSICO instead of the ranch, especially when Im getting closer to or know of workouts that I need to be best for. For ketchup, Annies Natural ketchup is amazing and I like it more than than Heinz. Again, all natural and also gluten free. Whats wrong with both of these; Price and Volume. They are both more expensive and contain less volume than Hidden Valley and Heinz. But that should tell you something about the product; HV and H can make it cheaper and there for sell it cheaper because of the quality. If anyone else has more ideas or products or even products that they would like to look into let me know.
OH!!! ALso, butter....if you are gonna use it the running recommendation right now is KerryGold (I use unsalted, I liked the taste more) Its a great butter you can put on anything really. It comes from New Zealand or something (so its like $4) but comes from Real cows that are free range and grass fed. Bang!!

Enjoy.

I feel so warm inside

2010-02-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

Hey every1,

I just wanted to throw an update out there, Nolan has jumped into this full boar. He has made a blog and promises to try and keep it updated. You too can do the same. Like I said the more community involved in this the better. Im posting his link here but it will also permanently be added to the side bar (underneath my info) on the right of the screen. Just wanted to congratulate Nolan on his pursuit to raise his standards. I think its awesome and as more results pour in from others its going to be even better. Today was day one, so Please let the others know how you're feeling.

Check out Nolans Blog here: http://nolanpatterson.blogspot.com
Good job/luck/times every1

Chris

You are screwed

2010-02-07T20:24:00.000-08:00

Muuahhahahah!!! You guys asked for it!!! Some of you wanted that extra day!!! Wanted to wait till the saints won. Well for those of you that decided that today is the last day and im going to go all out....you just made it...SO...damn...hard for yourself! I said its an addiction, so if you think that tomorrow when you wake up that youre going to have the self control to drive those cravings away....we shall see. If you are one of those people that loaded up and jumped on that vicious cycle I was describing you are going to have a really rough week. LET THE CRAVINGS BEGIN!!! Its a fact, that addicts who use before entering rehab have a horrible time trying to come of. BE PREPARED!!

Now some of you think im probably just being mean...well yeah...tough love, eh, but I come bringing advice. If you have left overs, if you have temptations in your house or around you GET RID OF IT. You wont make it. You will break and the cycle begins anew. Get it out of the house dont interact with it. You have to come down and detox....YOU>>>HAVE>>TO. I can not stress this enough. This is going to be like coming down from a high...ly addictive substance. For some newly recovered addicts it takes time to be able to go to a bar or hang with friends who use, same thing will happen. BUT! the better life, the better you, the new standards are more than worth it. You have to be strong. You have to have good reasons and vision and make this a MUST. And you can. You can do this. Its 7 weeks. Dont quit. STAY STRONG.

Get the stuff out of the house. Dont be around it. Plan your meals. Cook ahead. Stay Strong.

If it helps tell yourself that you will do this 1 week. No cheating, no slips, no breaks. 1 week no matter what. At the end of that week see if you want to cheat, probably not. If you cant make it PAST 3 days, we are in serious trouble. I predict people making mistakes like "Oh! Well I thought that was paleo?" (and BTW if its a stupid mistake like "I thought tequila was ok because its a plant" you are going to be on my list, and take it from heather who is on it frequently, you dont want to be there) You can all do this, you dont have a good enough reason not to. Best of luck. 12am tonight...LET THE CHALLENGE BEGIN!!!!

STAY....STRONG!!!!

Dont be the weak one on the bottom; getting your a** kicked by cravings/sugar/carbs....

Be the Strong one on top; beating the snot of all of it....

Resources

2010-02-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

These are good websites to check out with all kinds of different info.

Tasty Meals:
http://www.performancemenu.com/recipes/index.php

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/

Tons of info:
http://paleobrands.com/

Good meals:
http://www.crossfitfootball.com/

Paleo Bfast and Dinner ideas:
http://socalsc.com/

Vitamni D info: http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/10/a-closer-look-at-vitamin-d/
more to come......

Important INFO

2010-02-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

Ok everybody, here is the info for pictures and food logs.

Pictures:

People have asked me why we don’t weigh participants and take body fat measurements, along with other vitals. There are several reasons. In regards to weighing, some people don’t actually loose that much weight but the change to their body is significant. Again, people want to look good naked and pictures don’t lie. How the participant looks is what matters to them and determines the winner. Body fat measurements can be very inconsistent and it takes more time. Other vitals take time and money as well. Its all well worth it, but it is important to consider keeping things simple. The health benefits everyone receives from eating better is a given and will be numerous. No amount of tests can sum up these benefits and changes.
It’s important to emphasize the privacy of the pictures that are taken, especially these days. We will send every participant’s Before and After pictures to them via their email address. The pictures will be kept on a private computer.

What kind of Pictures:

3 ‘Before’ pictures taken: front view, side view and back view. Men are in shorts; Women are in shorts and sports bra/bikini top

Food Logs:

The Food Logs have several great side benefits. One of them being that all those doing the Challenge can see what others are eating and get great ideas from it. Almost everyone gets stuck in a rut and seeing what someone else is eating for breakfast can often help them break out. The accountability that the Food Log offers should not be underestimated. Some folks said the Food Log was a more motivating factor for them than the pictures. Yes, some people will not write everything down or be totally honest. That’s okay. The pictures don’t lie.

If you want to be really exact in describing what you eat, you can. Or you can be fairly general. Everything you eat, though, has to be written down, including beverages. People will fall off the wagon big time. This WILL happen and it’s okay. Just get right back on again.
Several people will tell us they want to do the LEANing Challenge but that you can’t give up this or that. We DONT care. Even if our clients make just one change, such as cutting out high-fructose corn syrup, that is good enough for us. Often, once people start writing down what they eat, it’s only then that they can see for themselves the changes they need to make.
For each Challenge we’ve found that there are a few people who will jump into the Challenge by starving themselves. They come into the gym and report dizziness and that they feel awful. This is where the Food Log is really handy. We will be able to look at what you are eating and often we will let you know that they are not eating nearly enough.
Also there are few people whose body will not switch into a fat-burning mode very quickly. Hence, you may not see any results for weeks. This can be very discouraging and makes it hard for these people to stick with the Challenge. We encourage you to hang in there. The changes will come. (This is, of course, a very generalized statement. You may have other underlying factors that are keeping you from burning fat).

Food logs will be emailed to me every week (make it a sunday ritual. I will not ask for it but IF I dont get them...coughburpeescough.....)

Example Food Log:

Note this is an EXAMPLE food log...DO NOT FOLLOW

Monday (date)
-2 oz chicken breast, 1 apple, 6 almonds.
-12 almonds, 7 oz carrots, Omelet: 4 egg whites, 2 whole eggs, 1/3 of a bell
pepper, 1/4 cup mushrooms, 3/4 cup salsa
-4 oz chicken breast, 1 apple, 21 almonds, 2.5 cups steamed collard greens
-2 oz chicken breast, 24 almonds
-4 oz chicken breast, 1 apple, 12 almonds, 2.5 cups of rhutabaga
-1 peanut butter cookie

Chris's Food Log Super Bowl Sunday:

B-fast:

3 eggs/ sausage/ 1 small glass of coconut milk

Lunch: 2 Hamburger patties/ salad/ Carrots/ nuts

Dinner: Dennys Grand Slam: 2 eggs/chicken patty/turkey bacon/sausage/fruit/ coconut milk

BTW: Good ideas for switching condiments ie if you love Ketchup or something I have found that bfast with salsa is always great and easy, any kind of meat goes well with a meat sauce that you would put on pasta(I use CLASSICO). Try and find a good brand remember we are going to be eating processed free so make sure you look at the ingredients. you are looking for natural ingredients and the like.

The list you have been waiting for

2010-02-06T23:43:00.000-08:00

What To Eat:
Sorry it took so late to get this out but here it is....finally....THE LIST!!! It is pretty detailed but like I said of course if you have any questions please post them in comments or email them. Nolan had a question concerning brands of vitamins so I figured I would just respond to his question in the comments section for you all to read and that way I don't get a bunch of the same questions. Like I said I'm trying to make this simple for everyone. Details of the challenge as far as food logs/pictures/meetings will be posted Sunday at some point. To give you the heads up now everyone will pretty much have to come in Monday at some point and take pictures. If you cannot come in you can take pictures at home and send them in. CF Simi is huge with privacy. WE WILL NOT BE RELEASING THE PICTURES. So ie no one will see them. You send them in and only the coaches will review the photos. If you are embarrassed then you sure as hell better be in the challenge and HIGHLY motivated. Enough gibberish here's the list:

LEANing Challenge Guide to Eating
SUMMARY
All of the lean meat, fish, seafood, eggs you can eat
All of the non starchy vegetables you can eat
Plenty of fruit
Moderate healthy fats
Moderate nuts and seeds
No grains or cereals at all
No legumes
No dairy products (eggs are meat)
No processed foods – make it yourself!
No sugars. Agave, organic honey, molasses, pure spun golden sunshine….it doesn’t matter. They are all equally bad for you.
No artificial sweeteners. These are not food! Creepy laboratory products with sketchy safety records, artificial sweeteners have been shown to produce an insulin response.

MEAT:
“In order to get enough protein and calories you should eat animal food at almost every meal” (Cordain, Page 101)
Many different kinds of meat will work well for you. Here are some guidelines:
- Animals, including fish, raised in commercial farms are not healthy so try to get
§ Grass fed beef
§ USDA certified organic meat
§ Wild fish
§ Locally raised animals
- If unable to do any of the above, then eat the leanest cuts you can and trim visible fat.
- Eating the fat of healthy fish, birds and animals is good for you. Eating the fat of unhealthy creatures is not.
- Eggs are good. Eggs from birds allowed to forage and run around are better.
- Buffalo, elk, venison and other types of wild game are excellent choices if you can get them.

VEGETABLES:
Time to get creative. Non starchy vegetables should be a big part of each meal. Virtually all vegetables offer excellent nutritional value.
- When possible choose organic, locally grown vegetables that are in season. Each of these factors will improve nutritional value.
- Experiment with sautéing, roasting and grilling your veggies. Try different recipes and different ethnic foods. Learn to use herbs and spices. This stuff should taste good!
- Peppers, squashes, eggplant, garlic, leeks, onions broccoli, cauliflower, avocado, carrots, green, cabbage, celery, kale, dandelion (yes! dandelion) spinach, tomatoes, radish, parsnips, mushrooms….
- Avoid starchy vegetable – potatoes, etc. If you must eat starch (it happens) try yams and sweet potatoes.
- Avoid legumes. Peanuts, beans, peas, lentils and soybeans should be avoided.

FRUIT:
A paleo diet allows and encourages lots of fruit consumption. There are a few issues with fruit consumption though. We need to consider how the fruit was grown as well as the type of fruit to evaluate nutritional value. We also need to consider pesticide exposure.
- If you can grow your own fruit or pick wild fruit – go for it!
- Scavenge the local farmers market for fresh local seasonal fruit. Organic is best.
- Try to avoid fruit from far away. Flying in kiwis from New Zealand is not really helping our health.
- Avoid GMO (genetically modified organism) fruit. Period.
- A little fruit juice occasionally can be okay but, fruit juice is really candy.
- Wash fruit and vegetables thoroughly to minimize pesticides.
- Some fruits like bananas have a high glycemic load and should be avoided if you are trying to loose fat.
Berries! Eat lots of berries!

NUTS & SEEDS:
Filling and nutritious. Nuts and seeds are packed with protein, fatty acids, enzymes, antioxidants and lots of vitamins and minerals, especially potassium and magnesium. It is possible to screw up your fat profile with nuts though. Lots of nuts have an unacceptably high omega 6 / omega 3 ratio. Here are the best choices:
Walnuts
Macadamia nuts
Pecans
Nuts in moderation are very healthy but overeating them can stall weight loss. Cashews especially are delicious but surprisingly high in carbohydrate and contain too much omega 6.
Peanuts are not nuts. Do not eat peanuts or peanut butter. Peanuts contain lectins and other anti-nutrients which can cause some real health problems.
Note: Lots of packaged, shelled nuts are covered in trans fats! Read the label! Best to buy raw, unsalted nuts and spice them at home. When in doubt, buy walnuts and/or macadamia nuts.

FATS:
Fat is good for you. Fat is essential to your well being and happiness. (This is not hyperbolic writing. Having the proper fat profile makes a huge difference to your mental outlook and moods). Fat is a great source of energy. Fat triggers our sense of being full. Fat is an essential part of many of your cellular and hormonal processes. We sicken and die fairly quickly without adequate intake of essential fats.
However….there are many bad fats in our food supply.
Fat from healthy animals is good for you! Chicken, duck, goose, lamb, beef and pork fat can all be eaten and is an excellent choice for cooking because of heat stability. Lard is internal fat from around the kidneys. Lard from naturally (not grain) fed pork and beef is a very good choice. Lard from grass fed animals is hard to find though, so butter can be used instead.
Butter. Not really paleo, butter contains milk solids and water as well as fat. Butter from grass fed cows is very good for cooking and enhancing the flavor of steamed vegetables.
Making butter better! (More paleo)
Melt butter in a sauce pan over low heat. Remove butter from heat and let stand for a few minutes, allowing the milk solids to settle to the bottom. Skim the clear yellow liquid from the top and strain into a container. You have just made Ghee! Ghee stores well frozen.
Coconut oil is good for you and a good choice for cooking. Choose organic, cold processed coconut oil.
Olive oil is very healthy. Go for the extra virgin, cold pressed and use liberally. Olive oil does not have great heat stability so use something else for high heat frying.
Flaxseed oil is very good but…it should not be heated at all and oxidizes rapidly. Store flaxseed oil in the refrigerator and use quickly.

Fats to Avoid:
Trans Fats – fats damaged by heat. Trans fats can be extremely destructive to our health. Trans fats can be made at home!! Start with a healthy, unrefined oil, naturally high in beneficial omega-3 fatty acids – apply excessive heat and presto! Health wrecking trans fats. Easy!
Hydrogenated and/or partially hydrogenated oils. Terrible! Reread the last paragraph.
Canola – should be avoided. Canola has a very good omega 6/ Omega 3 ratio. However, to be used commercially it has been genetically modified, highly refined, partially hydrogenated and deodorized. Yikes!
Margarine – see trans fats.
Peanut, cottonseed, soybean and wheat germ oils…Not good!

I will also be posting links for meal ideas sunday as well including websites for other such information. I hope this info helps. Best of luck to everyone =)

UPDATES!!!

2010-01-07T17:55:00.000-08:00

Hey there strangers!!

Where the hell have y'all been??!!??

Sorry I have been away from the blog for such a long time. For a while there I wasnt sure if anyone was even reading this stuff. It turns out that a few of you started asking what the hell happened. So to update you on some awesome reading I have been doing check out the following links:

Building a Diet that Helps Lower Inflammation:

http://health.yahoo.com/featured/58/building-a-diet-that-lowers-inflammation/

Bad Diets:

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/newyear/5-bogus-diets-that-will-do-more-harm-than-good-553992/

Good Meats:

http://www.truthaboutabs.com/weird-nutrient-dense-meat.html

There were also two other articles which have expired from yahoo but I can give you a minor breakdown.

One was on Hormones and Plastics: basically what it was saying was that some group of scientist somewhere had been doing studies and came to the scientific conclusion (through testing) that plastics can effect hormones in some regards. This may have resulted in a lower amount of testosterone or an extra amount of estrogen or progesterone etc etc. This goes hand in hand in the belief in BPA and other chemicals being harmful (I know that most chemicals in baby products are constantly under scrutiny and dont usually fare too well.) One could extend this to the belief that certain electrical devices can cause problems with the body as well (I am a firm believer in that). This article I would file under the "Everything Can Kill You" section because it will eventually lead you to check whats in your tooth paste, soup, water, contacts, food, clothing, bedding etc etc.

The second article was about supplements and quality. The article was saying that there are independent research groups who go into stores and check the quality of certain products and have found out that mainly the products were actually at a lower dose than what was on the bottle. What does that mean? It means that if you are paying for something expecting to be receiving the stated dosage, of lets say vitamin C, the dosage that was actually in each pill was far less than what was stated on the bottle. I have found this to be true with a lot of things Ive taken so I usually end up taking slightly more than the recommended amount and continue to increase that dosage until I get SERIOUS effects and then back down. You can experiment with fish oil and do this, vitamin B's, C's etc. I dont do this with all drugs and supplements, cause thats stupid, but some. The company in the article found that most of the products they were testing greatly exaggerated their doses.

SO take that!

Welcome back!
Cheers!

Perspective

2009-10-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

I just thought maybe some visuals would help you all out.

Remember sugar raises INSULIN levels and INSULIN is a FAT STORAGE HORMONE.

Breakfast of Champions

2009-09-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

I get this one a lot from some of you "what the hell do I eat for Breakfast?!?" Well here again from the paleo newsletter is some really good advice. Those hitting up those 6:30am workouts or 8:30 or even 12:00 should pay attention and take notes.

NOTE!!: If weight reduction is still your goal this may no be the breakfast you need, in fact I would probably vote against it as your choice. If you want to loose weight and dont know what to eat for bfast then you need to speak with me.

Enjoy!

When converting to a Paleo lifestyle, many people find breakfast to be the most challenging meal to keep Paleo. No doubt, this is probably due to the conditioning we’ve likely all received that a healthy way to start the day is with a grain-based product (cereal, bagel, toast and so on). Many of us view certain foods as being for breakfast, others for lunch and dinner, and others for snacks.

The first step is to throw that thinking out the window! Food is food no matter what time of day, and the morning is a great time to eat vegetables! I personally, eat veggies and red meat, chicken or fish for breakfast on a typical day.

But, what should you eat if you’re an athlete preparing for a workout? I change my usual breakfast if I’ve got a big workout to do right away. Rather than the protein and veg-heavy foods I mentioned above, I’ll opt for a starchier (via yam, sweet potato or banana) and easier to digest (like egg whites) combination so that I’m not only well fueled, but I don’t have to wait too long to digest.

The amount you should consume will be determined by body weight and the intensity and duration of the workout. Experiment a bit and see how much you need to eat based on how you feel during the workout, and change the subsequent meal accordingly. Here are some great ideas for athletes looking for a great way to start the day, pre-workout, while remaining Paleo.

Baked yam, hard-boiled egg whites, olive oil, banana, and raw almond butter.

Homemade smoothie: chilled green tea, egg white protein powder, banana, raw almond butter, and flax seed.

Baked sweet potato, natural (unsweetened) applesauce, sliced lean turkey breast, and olive oil.

Stick with higher glycemic fruits right before and after a workout. Also, remember to add some table salt because athletes need to replace lost electrolytes. We athletes may need to supplement with electrolyte tabs, depending on the intensity and duration of our workouts, as well as ambient conditions and individual sweat rates.

Experiment with the above suggestions and make changes to keep it varied. Try pineapple in a smoothie instead of banana, or use baby food banana instead of applesauce.

Whatever you do, DON’T make the mistake of thinking that you have to resort to non-Paleo foods to support athletic performance. If I can stay Paleo while racing Ironman, and my husband can stick to it while racing 100-mile endurance runs, I think it’s safe to say that Paleo provides 100% of the support needed for endurance racing, or any other athletic endeavor!

Its not your fault your moody.....

2009-09-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

.....actually yes it is. This article is hot off the Paleo Press and discusses the link to diet and mental stability and mental illness. Enjoy!

Leaky Gut, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and Psychiatric Disease by Maelán Fontes and Pedro Bastos

Psychiatric disorders are common conditions among IBS patients1. Recent research suggests that the gut-brain connection plays an important role in IBS patients suffering from psychiatric diseases2, 3.

IBS and psychiatric disorders

IBS is diagnosed in patients suffering from abdominal pain/discomfort and inconsistency in stool frequency. IBS is included in functional gastrointestinal disorders because organic causes are not present. Currently, it seems to be produced by anomalies in the digestive function, especially motility and sensitivity1. However, it is associated with activation of mucosal immune cells.

IBS is a common condition affecting between 10-20 percent of the population4. It is more prevalent in women, and is exacerbated by stress5.

Less than half of IBS patients seek treatment, but of those who do, between 50-90 percent have psychiatric disorders. This includes panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, post traumatic stress disorder, and major depression2.

The root of mood disorders

Current theories suggest that impaired neurotransmitter metabolism, neuroendocrine function, and neural plasticity disrupted by inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes may be at the root of mood disorders. These processes include factors such as low-grade chronic inflammation, oxidative and nitrosative stress, and tryptophan catabolites6, 7.

One of the mechanisms leading to mood disorders in IBS patients is “bottom-up signalling” from the gut4. This signalling is mediated chiefly by the so-called vagus nerve, which directly connects the gut mucosa with mood-related brain areas4.

Another mechanism involves the central nerve system (CNS) immune activation, which is induced by peripheral inflammatory substances, namely cytokines. This leads to an inflammatory response, and oxidative and nitrosative stress in the brain6, 7.

Such immune activation could result from peripheral inflammation. The gut immune system could be the source of this inflammation since the gut associated lymphoid tissue is challenged and activated by countless antigenic and allergenic substances (bacterial and dietary antigens) every day8.

Increased gut permeability linked to psychiatric conditions

Scientific evidence shows that decreasing gut permeability improves conditions such as depression and chronic fatigue syndrome9.

One important factor that might activate “bottom-up signalling” and CNS immune activation is increased gut permeability or leaky gut (LG)3, 4, 7, 8. LG refers to the gut barrier allowing increased passage of bacterial or dietary antigens from the gut to peripheral circulation6, 8. This might increase the risk of psychiatric disease.

Lectins8, saponins10, gliadin11, capsaicin, alcohol12, and factors known to increase E. coli and gram-negative bacteria overgrowth (such as certain dietary lectins8) are common in the Western diet, and can produce LG through different mechanisms8, 10, 11.

<---Definitely has leaky gut.....:(

The Paleo Diet protects against increased gut permeability and related disorders

The Paleo Diet can help reduce gut permeability by eliminating foods known to contribute to LG. This includes lectin-containing foods, such as cereal grains and legumes (including peanuts and soybeans)8.

Gliadin11 is also associated with LG, and it is found in all wheat-derived products (such as bread, pasta, pizzas, bagels, and donuts).

When LG is a concern, we recommend that solanaceous plants (such as tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and peppers)10, 13 as well as alfalfa sprouts14, root beer15, amaranth, quinoa, alcohol12, and chilli peppers (which contain capsaicin) also be avoided.

We further recommend avoiding eggs, at least until LG symptoms subside. Egg white is a source of some membranolytic proteins, such as lysozyme16, that break cell membranes and may contribute to LG.

Following the Paleo Diet has been shown anecdotally to help IBS and other autoimmune diseases, and many autoimmune diseases present with LG. Next time, we’ll take a look at who is at high risk for vitamin D deficiency, and the risk factors for disease associated with this. We'll also share ideas on how to save with grocery store specials.

Older Words

2009-09-01T23:42:00.001-07:00

This is from an interview conducted between a T-nation reporter and Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
Some damn good sound advice. Not all of it I agree with, but thats me just being an ass and nit-picking.

Testosterone Nation: One of your books, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, is considered to be controversial because some of the info goes against what most people believe. For example, soy doesn't make your favorite list but whole eggs do. Yet most Americans think soy is a miracle food and whole eggs are bad for you.

Dr. Johnny Bowden: There are a lot of foods and ingredients that don't fall cleanly into the good and bad category. The same thing is true with exercise. Is a low-rep bench press a good exercise? Well, sure it is, but not if you're a 74-year old woman trying to get some strength to open a jar. It would be a stupid exercise for that person.
In much the same way, many foods and ingredients fall into that category. Some foods are naturally high in sugar. Not a problem if you don't have any issues with the metabolism of sugar. If you do, then you might want to stay away from bananas or mangoes. Those are great foods, lots of nutrients, but may not be a good choice for someone who's pre-diabetic.

T-Nation: Any "health foods" being touted today that, well, really aren't that healthy?

Bowden: Our huge emphasis on grains is very misplaced. A very substantial portion of the population has sensitivities to gluten. One in 133 people have full-blown celiac disease.
Grains are fairly new in human history — the last 10,000 years, which compared to 2.4 million years isn't that long. Grains cause problems for a lot of people. If you're not one of those people, it's fine food. But for a lot of people, more than you might think, a grain-free or at least gluten-free diet may be a smart idea.

T-Nation: How about saturated fat?

Bowden: Very misunderstood. I'm not convinced that saturated fat is the worst thing in a person's diet, and I'm completely convinced that heart disease is not caused by cholesterol.
Saturated fat comes in lots of "flavors." It's a whole family of fatty acids, and some of them, like the medium-chain triglycerides in coconut, are downright healthy for you. Coconut oil has been a terribly misunderstood food because people think that because it has saturated fat it's not good for you. Not so.
Saturated fat can come in the form of the crap that's in McDonald's fries or it can come in the form of some of the fat in an egg yolk. These are not the same animal, so to speak. They're very different in terms of their effects on the body. The saturated fat in coconut and yolks is extremely healthy, good for the heart and the brain. An egg-white omelet is one of the dumbest things in the world.

T-Nation: Are we talking standard eggs here or the free-range, omega-3 enriched variety?

Bowden: All animal products are only as good as the diet of the animal and living conditions of the animal. Or, as I write in my book, the quality of the food we eat comes from the quality of the food our food eats. So yes, free range is important.
If you put cows in a little stall so small that they can't turn around, feed them grain (which is not their natural diet), give them antibiotics to deal with their gut illnesses from the grains, milk them 24/7 and give them more infections and therefore more antibiotics and steroids... well, that's a whole different animal compared to the one on Grandma Jones's farm grazing in the pasture. Everything about them is different -- CLA content, everything.
With chickens it's the same thing. Unfortunately, agribusiness has co-opted the term "free range" so it doesn't really have as much meaning as we hoped it would. We picture chickens running around a farm, but the term has been downgraded to mean that the chicken simply has "access" to the range. That "access" may only mean two weeks a year. Or it may have "access" to a little gate that he doesn't even know how to use.
I'd still try to find free-range, farmers-market, omega-3 enriched eggs, though I don't even care much about omega-3 enriched. If they're truly free range and they're eating their natural diet and pecking at worms, then they'll have plenty of omega-3 anyway.

T-Nation: To go along with the corporate abuse of "free range," it seems like the word "natural" is also misused a lot.

Bowden:"Natural" doesn't mean anything — no legal meaning, no agreed-upon meaning, no meaning whatsoever! There are natural mushrooms that will kill you. Poison ivy is natural, so is gasoline, and I'm not eating either one of them.
"Natural" is a complete marketing gimmick. You're now seeing that label on foods that were never grown, hunted for, fished for, plucked or gathered. What's natural about food that comes in a plastic box? Even vitamin supplements aren't natural. They don't grow on trees.

T-Nation: I see that Lucky Charms are now proudly made with whole grains...

Bowden: That's a perfect example of how the language has become degraded.

T-Nation: And if I'm correct, the label "made with whole grains" can mean that they only threw in a sprinkle of actual whole grain.

Bowden: That's exactly what it means. It started life as a whole grain but by the time you get it there's nothing left in it. It's kind of like making yogurt with live cultures. They hope you don't notice this, but there's quite a distinction between starting with live cultures and actually having any left when you eat it. It has to contain live cultures.
And by the way, I don't think whole grains are that much better than the crappy kind. They're only marginally better. They still have about the same effect on blood sugar -- they only marginally lower glycemic load. They still affect people who are gluten-sensitive, and they still have the same effect as far as bloat goes.
Whole grains do have more vitamins and supposedly more fiber, but not much. It's like eating white sugar vs. brown sugar. Whole grains are better than regular, but not significantly.

T-Nation: Ouch. That's painful to hear. It's sometimes easy to justify a too-high carb intake if it's "healthy" whole grain. So, what other supposed "health-food" trends make you want to tear your hair out?

Bowden: Special K cereal being marketed as a healthy cereal. That's nonsense.

T-Nation: And the commercials encourage women to eat it at night! Scary. What do you think the next "super food" will be?

Bowden: That's a good question, but it needs a little parsing. What's going to be the next big super food has more to do with marketing and commercialization than it does with the inherent value of the food.
Kale, blueberries, and prunes are superstar foods on any level, but are they going to be the next big thing? If there was a new food discovered that had even half of what those foods have, everyone would be clamoring about it. You can construct an amazingly healthy diet with the foods that are already out there.
There's not one food on earth that has everything you need. Wild salmon, one of my favorites, still doesn't have any fiber. The best vegetable in the world, like kale, isn't going to have any protein. You can't get everything you need from one food, even a super food. Instead you put a wide variety of these foods into heavy rotation.
Another problem with the super food label is that it creates a false impression that you can continue to eat crap as long as you have a glass of MonaVie everyday. [Editor's note: MonaVie is a drink made from acai berries.] That, by the way, is another trend that makes me want to pull my hair out: the multi-level-marketing juices with false health claims. They actually claim it cures cancer. It's B.S.multi-level marketing at its slimiest.

T-Nation: Let's talk man-food. Are there any specific foods for men that may help boost testosterone levels, or help prevent any male-oriented diseases?

Bowden: I haven't yet found any substantial evidence that any particular food raises testosterone levels. You can raise testosterone by being at a football game and having your team win. Hormones are actually very responsive to thoughts, moods, and feelings.
Now, as far as foods go, I think there are some foods that are estrogenic. Soy, for example. Soy isn't the worst food in the world, but it has estrogenic compounds. So does beer -- that's one of the reasons people get beer bellies. So those are things you don't want when trying to build muscle and optimize the hormonal environment.
So don't think of it as raising testosterone, but moving stuff out of the way so it can do its best work. Here's an analogy: Let's say you're a swimmer and you want to go as fast as possible. You could research those titanium Speedos that might give you a slight edge, but if you're wearing weights around your ankles, fuck the Speedos; first drop the ankle weights!
I think a lot of people are in this position of walking around asking, "What's the fastest Speedo?" when they should be simply getting the weights off their ankles. With testosterone, what breaks down muscle? Cortisol, right? How about lowering your cortisol levels?
There's only so much we can do to naturally boost testosterone, but we can do a lot to get the weights off our ankles. And cortisol, as Dr. Michael Colgan once put it, is the Grinch of bodybuilding. It eats up muscle.
What bodybuilders rarely do is use some type of stress reduction technique or meditation or deep breathing. Those things, along with uninterrupted sleep in a dark room without the TV on, lower cortisol more than anything. I think that's more important than trying to boost testosterone.

T-Nation: Interesting points there. Now, you've written a couple books about low-carb diets, so what do you think of the idea that there's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate?

Bowden: That's correct. There are essential fatty acids and essential amino acids, but not essential carbohydrates.
Let's say we put all T-Nation readers on an island for a year. We give half of them nothing but protein and fats for that year. The other half gets all carbohydrates — no protein, no fat. That group, the carb-only group, would be dead in a year. The other group will do just fine.
The actual dietary requirement for carbs in the diet is zero. Now, does that mean we should eat zero carbohydrates? No. There are incredibly important things in carbohydrate-containing foods such as phytochemicals, flavonoids, vitamins, minerals, anti-inflammatories and all kinds of stuff we desperately need for optimal health.
But is there a physiological need for the metabolism to have carbohydrates in the diet? No. There is, however, a physiological need for glucose. The brain needs a certain amount of glucose per day. But, the body can make that amount of glucose just fine from fatty acids and proteins.
You know, it's kind of weird that the idiotic American Dietetic Association has us eating a 65 to 70 percent carbohydrate diet, the one thing we actually don't even need!
When you see a dietician, run the other way. Sure, talk to experts in nutrition, but avoid dieticians like the plague. It's like trying to get objective advice about religion from the Taliban. The ADA is a pathetic and irrelevant organization.
And doctors aren't much better. Doctors know dick about nutrition. They're not trained in it and they know nothing about it. Those that do know something about it got that education on their own. They didn't get it in medical school.

T-Nation: Okay, given that you've written books on the healthiest foods and healthiest meals on earth, many would expect you to be anti-supplement. Are you?

Bowden: No, I'm not at all. My next book is on supplements, in fact. I'm a big believer in supplements. I'm not a big believer in taking supplements and ignoring your diet though.
The thing is, supplements are a technology for delivering nutrients, and we need the nutrients. Now, if we all lived on organic farms, lived a stress-free life in the same village, with little exposure to pollutants and chemicals, then we'd probably do quite well with our organic food, grass-fed cows, free-range chickens, and fish from pristine waters. But that's not how we live. We really don't get optimal nutrition from our food, even when we're eating really well.

T-Nation: What would you say is the most underrated supplement on the planet?

Bowden: Vitamin D. People are finally beginning to know about fish oil, but they haven't learned yet that we're massively deficient in vitamin D. New studies have shown that people with the highest level of vitamin D had a 27 percent less chance of dying from any cause whatsoever.
Vitamin D helps prevent cancer, it increases physical performance in older adults, it's a mood enhancer, and it's a bone strengthener. It's a vitamin we just don't get enough of in our food, unless you're drinking cod liver oil. Plus since it's a vitamin made in the skin when we go into the sun, we don't get it there either since we slather on SPF 45 every time we go outside. We're sun-phobic. So, there's a case for taking Vitamin D supplements every day.

T-Nation: Okay, lightning round. I throw out some foods and you give us your thoughts on them. First, corn.

Dr. Bowden: Corn isn't a bad food. It's okay for some but not for others. Of course, corn syrup should be out of the diet. Whole corn can raise blood sugar, especially if it's eaten by itself, but there's some good stuff in corn. Just treat it as a starch and not as a vegetable. Small amounts are fine for most people. It's okay, nothing like white potatoes.

T-Nation: Milk.

Bowden: I'm not a big fan of milk. It's actually one of the top seven food allergens.
I do like raw milk however. It's just a different food than homogenized, pasteurized milk. It still has all of its healthful bacteria, its fat content is healthier, etc. It's quite safe too, in spite of what the dairy industry likes to tell you.

T-Nation: Alcoholic beverages?

Bowden: Well, they can make you fat. That's a definite. It's not just the calories, it's the fact that your body stops processing fat while it gets rid of the alcohol.
Now, there's a lot of evidence that a small to moderate amount of alcohol, one or two glasses of red wine a day, can be life-extending and healthful. But you also have this critical mass of people who don't know what "small amount" means, hence alcohol's role in car accidents, murders, and broken marriages.
For some people, alcohol is like peanuts. Peanuts are a good food, but not if you go into anaphylactic shock. If you do that, then eating peanuts "in moderation" is probably not a good idea.
So alcohol is a very personal decision. If you can manage it and drink only small amounts, you don't have an addictive personality, and you're not one of those people who craves more, then it can be a healthful compound. But so are grapes, and you can eat those without the other risks.

On the Tongue

2009-09-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

Since we are talking about possibly eatin' dirty, here is the follow up to Melissa Byers blog post on the not "so good food days."

The Byers Guide to Eating Dirty (Part II)
If you haven't read yesterday's Part I post yet, do that now. You really do need the background to understand where the below recommendations are coming from. If you're all caught up, let's continue with The Byers Guide to Eating Dirty.

1. Eat cheat meals or snacks throughout the week, instead of having a full cheat day. For one, it’s more practical and sustainable in real life. Opportunities for good food and socializing come up at different times. So allow yourself to have a drink on Tuesday night, a slice of cake on Friday afternoon and French toast with Nutella on Saturday morning. Think about this… if you eat/snack 4-5 times a day, and incorporate four cheat “meals” or “snacks” a week, you’re eating clean almost 90% of the time. Good lord, I’ll take that. In addition, your insulin sensitivity, GI tract and mental health and wellness will take far less of a hit if you eat clean, slip in a bowl of ice cream and then go back to eating clean… versus an entire day of Carb-a-Palooza. You’ll recover from your cheat faster, and you’ll feel better about yourself if you surround your cheat with good, clean eats.

2. Eat something because you want it, and because it's special... not just because it’s there. Say someone brings donuts in to the office. I look at the plate and think, donuts are here. I could eat a donut. But I can have donuts any time I want. So if I really want one in an hour, or a day, or next week… I’ll just go get one. The fact that it's sitting there does not make it special enough for me to go off-diet. But if my Mum (or anyone else, for that matter) shows up with freshly made snickerdoodles, I’m eating one. Or three. Those are SPECIAL, and I will really WANT one. So the next time you mindlessly pop a bagel, slice of pizza or piece of candy in your mouth just because it’s there... Pause. Think, do I really WANT this? If the answer is no, pass it up. If the answer is yes, proceed to numbers 3 and 4.

3 (to be performed in conjunction with 4). Eat only as much as you must to satisfy your craving. If you are dreaming about chips and salsa, break out the blue corn chips and get some. But now go back to #2, because you don't have to eat the whole bag just because it is there. In addition, if you are also properly working step #4, you should have plenty of notice that your mental fix has been achieved. When it has, stop eating. Maybe that's four peanut M&Ms. Or maybe that's an entire pint of Chubby Hubby. Both are okay, as long as you are mindful of the process.

4. When you do go off-diet, SAVOR IT. There’s nothing worse than filling up a bowl with Blue Bell chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and then hoovering it mindlessly in front of the TV. That is a shameful waste of a cheat. So when you finally get that drool-inspiring forbidden food in front of you, spend some time with it. Take small bites. Enjoy the flavor. Make it last. Since we cheat as a means of providing mental satisfaction, squeeze as much satisfaction as possible out of what you are eating.

5. Finally, a more complicated recommendation - cheat smart. There are off-diet foods you can eat with little perceived negative physical effect, and there are others that will absolutely wreck you if you eat even the tiniest amount. The catch is, these things are different for everyone. For me, French toast (grains) and syrup (sugar) in reasonable amounts (one good sized piece) are 100% okay. Last weekend, I ate my Nutella French toast, and immediately hit the gym and pulled a 10# clean PR. But had I eaten just a few bites of goat cheese (dairy) in an omelette, I would have had a stomachache for hours. Mathieu Lalonde tells a similar story. “After eating strict Paleo for two months, I cheated with a pizza for dinner. I woke up the next morning with a huge headache, blurry vision, and lethargy. I wondered if the insulin spike from the white bread and cheese was the problem or if there was something else involved. The next time I cheated, I ate a banana split and a pint of ice cream. I woke up feeling a little bit fuzzy the next day, but nothing compared to the gluten hangover from the pizza.” So, cheat smart. Figure out what foods are okay, and what are not. You will eventually figure out that the not okay foods are simply never, ever going to be worth it. Stay away from those cheats, and find other foods to satisfy those cravings.How do you figure out what foods are okay for you, and what foods are not? I’ll tell you exactly how to do that... next week. I’ll give you an easy to follow, step-by-step plan to cleaning out your dietary closet and cheating smart. But be prepared… this helpful advice comes with a healthy dose of Tough Love. You’ve been warned.So there you have it – my official and decidedly opinionated Guide to Eating Dirty.

Just for Kicks

2009-09-01T23:23:00.001-07:00

I dont suggest any of you do this, but I have noticed some pretty hard workers lately who may deserve a cheat day. So here is a list I found on line of the secret stuff offered by food joints. Notice some of the hidden items are on two opposite ends of the table; 1 side not so healthy/ 1 not so unhealthy.

Secret Menus

1. In-N-Out Burger’s “secret menu” isn’t so secret these days – in fact, they’ve posted it on their website. But in case you’re not in the habit of surfing fast food sites, here’s the skinny on the rather un-skinny items: ordering something “Animal Style” at In-N-Out means you’re going to get it with lettuce, tomato, a mustard-cooked beef patty, pickles, extra spread (it’s sort of Thousand-Islandy) and grilled onions. You can even get your fries Animal Style. “Protein Style” is a burger wrapped in a lettuce leaf instead of a bun. A Grilled Cheese is two slices of American cheese, lettuce, tomato and spread on a bun (grilled onions if you so choose). And you can get just about any combo of meat and cheese that you want if you order it like you’re ordering lumber: 3×3 gets you three beef patties and three slices of cheese, 4×4 gets you four of each, and so on. It doesn’t stop there – one gluttonous patron requested a 100×100 at an Las Vegas store a couple of years ago. One item not listed on the website secret menu: the Flying Dutchman, which is two slices of cheese sandwiched between two patties, hold the bun.

2. If you’re at Starbucks and in need of just a little caffeine, don’t worry – there’s a tiny option for you. It’s the Short size, and they don’t advertise it. It’s like a little baby cup of coffee. It also comes in handy when you’re scrounging for change and don’t have enough for a tall… not that that has ever happened to me.

3. It’s a good thing we don’t have Jamba Juice here in Iowa, because I would be all over candy-based smoothies. Because it’s considered a health-food chain, Jamba Juice doesn’t officially list these on their in-store menus, but Mighty Foods assures us that the secret flavors exist. The ones they confirmed with the company’s headquarters include Strawberry Shortcake, White Gummy Bear, PB&J, Various flavors of Starbursts, Fruity Pebbles, Push-Up Pops, and Skittles. Other tantalizing flavors that are rumored to exist: Chocolate Gummi Bear, Apple Pie, Sourpatch Kid, Tootsie Roll, Chocolate-covered strawberries, and Now and Later.

4. Chipotle has a whole secret menu that is limited only by your imagination – they have a store policy that says that if they have the item available, they will make it for you. Things that have been tested include nachos, quesadillas, taco salads and single tacos. Some stores are testing out quesadillas as a regular menu item, however, so maybe someday soon you won’t need a super-secret handshake to order one.

5. If you’re at Wendy’s and you’re really hungry – like, three-patties-just-won’t-cut-it hungry – go ahead and order the Grand Slam, which is four patties stacked on a bun. It’s also known as the Meat Cube. Gross.

6. Several places, including McDonald’s and In-N-Out, will serve you the Neapolitan milkshake. It’s just what it sounds like – chocolate, vanilla and strawberry shakes layered in a cup. This gives me a great idea… I wonder if they would make me a mint-chocolate shake when they have the Shamrock Shake in March. Hmmm. (Picture from Flickr user Mrjoro.)7. Feeling a little health-conscious at Popeye’s? If you are, you really should have gone somewhere else. But there’s a little hope for you – ordering “naked chicken” will get you breading-free poultry. The word is that this is on the menu at some Popeye’s, but not all of them, although it is an option at all of them.8. Like Chipotle, Taco Bell will make you just about anything within reason as long as they have the ingredients for it. Since most of the food at Taco Bell is made out of the same basic items, that means you can probably ask for most discontinued items and get them. One “secret,” though, is that they have a not-advertised green chili sauce at most locations, and apparently it’s excellent.

9. Some Subways will still make you the popular pizza sub from the ‘90s. Once the chain decided to make their focus healthy eating, the pizza sub disappeared from the menu in most places (the word is that Canadian and Mexican Subways still offer them on a regular basis). But if you ask, lots of places will still make it for you. Be warned, though – Jared would not approve of the nine slices of pepperoni and copious amounts of cheese slathered in marinara sauce.

10. This one might be my favorite. At Fatburger, you can order a Hypocrite – a veggie burger topped with crispy strips of bacon.

Barry Sears IS Paleo!!!

2009-08-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

This little rant-par-excellence comes straight from the fingers of Robb Wolf. Robb, to put it bluntly, is a superx26 busy man. Take it from someone who knows, you dont want to ask this man simple questions you can find answers to on google and ones that he has been asked 600,439,027 times, especially when you can do a simple search on his amazing blog and find the answer to. The last thing you want to do is say to the man that what he does and teaches "isnt real." If you do, you cause him to do this (which is unfortunate because he is a super humble guy):

Barry Sears is Paleo!!

By Robb Wolf

I receive a lot of email from folks asking a variety of questions. Two questions tend to about send me over the brink: “How many blocks should I eat?” and “should I eat Paleo or Zone?” Both questions are troubling for several reasons but it’s actually the later question that just slays me and, is in fact, the causative factor FOR question number 1. You see, Barry Sears, The Zone, everything the man and the diet represent, are steeped in evolutionary biology. That folks, (Level 1 Cert crew teaching nutrition…) is paleo. For some damn reason CrossFit HQ (or elements so of it) can not wrap their minds around the concept that the basic premise of the paleo diet, that nice bit of writing from World Class Fitness in 100 Words: “…Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds. Some fruit, little starch, no sugar…” is in fact everything that Barry Sears talks about in the Zone! Sometime ago I received confused emails from people who attended a closed to the public gig in which the HQ lecturer, when asked “What about paleo?” responded “Paleo is pseudo science and the individuals who purport it’s methods are pseudo scientists…”
WOW! Better than half of my Crossfit Nutrition Certification is pseudo science! That’s a bummer. Strike one for CrossFit Nutritional offerings. Strike two was delivered this past weekend when Dr. Barry Sears gave a seminar to a large group of avid CrossFitters. Kelly Frankson attended the seminar and was kind enough to allow me to link to her notes. What we find is that Sears is practicing Pseudo Science just like other scientists like Cordain, Eaton, Eades and, well, me. Sears talked at length about genetics that are mismatched for our current environment, the need to return carbohydrate and essential fats BACK to Paleolithic levels. It’s a pretty serious situation if myself, Loren Cordain and Barry Sears are all practicing pseudo science! How long until Dean Ornish or John McDougal will lead the vegan charge for HQ. Those guys are definitely NOT paleo, so they must be of credible scientific pedigree…
Of Weights and Measures
There is a common bit of “wisdom” that is shot around the CrossFit world that goes something like this: “No one will ever reach elite athletic performance without weighing and measuring food…”. Interestingly however, few of the top finishers the CrossFit Games weighed and measured. Would they do better WITH weighing and measuring? Sure, I think you need to keep track of your chow at some point if you are going to affect some additional changes above what a food quality (paleo) approach will provide. But THAT is not the statement, nor the sentiment. Despite defying logic AND the actual stated nutritional hierarchy within Crossfit (don’t piss in your gas tank) the order of operations out of HQ is NOT food quality first (paleo), weighing and measuring second. It’s weigh and measure, whatever you have on hand and THAT will guarantee your ultimate success. It’s an interesting proposition that is proving itself to be completely false. Laura Demarco was an ardent Zoner (weighing and measuring) using VEGAN foods. She had ass-kicking performance but she did one simple thing (always nice in science) she shifted her food from grains to paleo carbs and her proteins all became animal based (paleo). You know what happened? She saw remarkable IMPROVEMENT in her performance. For her it mainly focused on strength (former 1RM DL was 275, current 5RM DL 285!!), but the results are stunning. The only change was a shift in food quality. I have dozens of stories like this. Apparently, food quality DOES matter.
Back to the Barry Sears seminar, Dr. Sears, the developer of the Zone…DOES NOT RECOMMEND WEIGHING AND MEASURING. HE RECOMMENDS FOOD QUALITY FIRST. He makes the point that WAM may be more trouble than it’s worth. For the vast majority of folks I work with that is absolutely the case. When we shifted AWAY from weighing and measuring in our clinical practice our clients got far better and more consistent results. Wacky things like reversing autoimmune disease, something that weighing and measuring beer, Pringles and beef jerky will not accomplish. Which reminds me, I’ve received quite a number of emails about the nutrition lecture at given Level 1 cert. The gist of the lecture is that a well-known athlete weighs and measures his beer, Pringles and beef jerky. He kicks ass (he is about 23…wait till 10 more years are on the odometer), so this is what you should do too. The best spin on this I can provide is this is a method of portion control. Being less diplomatic, I’d say people paid good money to attend that cert and the nutrition portion was a failure. We can and should do a hell of a lot better than that. As a Fitness company I cannot figure out why a general policy on eating is not “Eat the best food you possibly can, as often as you can. Slice it and dice it into the proportions that help you to reach YOUR goals”.
I’m NOT trying to make a paleo cult, I am encouraging people to TRY things and then report back what works. In the mean time I’ll be developing a t-shirt that says “Paleo Diet: Pseudo Science Since 5-million BC”.

Very Sound Advice

2009-08-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

Stolen from the Fingers of Melissa Byers:

The Byers Guide to Eating Dirty (Part I)
This weekend, I discovered Nutella. Yes, Nutella – that chocolate hazelnut spread that the jar assures you can be a part of a balanced, healthy breakfast. Now, Nutella marketing people, come on. I’ve read the label. I know there is nothing about Nutella that is balanced OR healthy. But damn if it isn’t delicious between two pieces of French toast. (Put that on the label.) Yes, this weekend I “cheated” on my diet with grains, sugars and processed foods. And that’s the subject of the day – eating dirty.If you’re reading this blog, we probably have one thing in common. We all try to eat well. We eat Zone proportions or Paleo quality or some other mechanism that we would call a “clean” diet. We know the difference between Real Food and Stuff You Can Eat.

We eat real food, natural food, nutrient-dense food. We avoid foods that require additives to be “healthy”, high-tech fabrications designed to replace real food, and food-like products made from ingredients we cannot pronounce. And we do this, day in and day out, for the vast majority of our meals and snacks.But most of us don’t eat like that ALL the time. A 100% strict diet is mentally taxing, socially restrictive and just plain not fun. So, we “cheat”. We go off diet, eat things that we normally wouldn’t, indulge in things that taste good and satisfy our urges.

But on the Healthy/F Off Scale, we still want our diets to tip well to the Healthy side. Which means we need to think long and hard about how we cheat, what we choose to eat and drink during these cheat periods and how often we go off diet.Let’s first define what we mean by “cheat”. I’m going out on a limb and saying 99% of the time, cheat = high carb, processed, sugary foods and drinks. What else do we cheat with? Certainly not fat. Fat is not only allowed, it’s encouraged. No, we cheat with dirty, dirty carbs. Beer and pizza, nachos and tequila, cinnamon swirl French toast slathered with Nutella.

We cheat with insulin spiking, sugar rushing, energy crashing CARBS. (Can I get an "amen" from my Brooklyn boys?)Now that that's settled, in this next section, we’ll talk about the physiological benefits of cheating. Surely, you’ve heard that cheat meals or cheat days are a necessary part of your fitness program? They “shock the body”, “keep it guessing”, “jump start your metabolism”, right? So this next section will discuss the science-y details of how going off diet and cheating with things like pizza, pasta, cake and cookies has a positive impact on your physical health, fitness and performance.This section is short.IT DOESN’T.To be perfectly clear, a cheat day does not have a single significant, long-term positive effect on your metabolism, your body composition or any other internal science-y factors, despite what you read on the internet. Mathieu Lalonde can step into comments and explain all the reasons that a single cheat day negatively impacts how you look, feel and perform for the next two weeks... but I’ll shoot down some common arguments here.First… for those of you who eat a bowl of Breyer’s every night before bed and suddenly notice you’re looking leaner… that’s not the Breyer’s.

It is, however, a sure sign that you have not been eating enough. The ice cream is giving you a caloric boost, and has jump started your metabolism. Which is great, short term. But keep eating ice cream every night for months on end and tell me how that’s working out for you. Or, I’ll argue, how much better would your fat loss and performance be if you instead ate more almonds, chicken and/or sweet potatoes to get those extra fat and calories in? In short, the “cheat” may have helped short term, but it’s a bad long term solution, and you could do better. (Pay attention to that last part. You’ll hear it again.)Second, you may pass off your cheats as preventing metabolic slow-down. Serious calorie and carb restrictions decrease the release of the hormone called leptin. Leptin is important to keeping up your body’s metabolic rate. Increasing food intake drastically, even for a short period of time (like with a cheat day), will prevent the drop in leptin that occurs when dieting.

But most of us aren’t seriously “dieting”, are we? We’re CrossFitting, so we are at least eating enough to support performance. We may have a slight caloric deficit to prompt fat loss, but we are NOT in starvation mode. Not even close. Our metabolisms should be chugging away like a super-powered bullet train. So, if we are already eating for performance, do we really need to “mix it up” and “jolt our metabolisms” with chili cheese fries and an ice cream sundae? (That's rhetorical, kids.) And if for some reason you are on a seriously calorie-restricted diet... again, I'll say that you can pull off a better metabolic shock-and-awe with a higher volume of good, clean carbs than you can eating crap.How about the idea of “loading” or “refeeding” – essentially, replenishing glycogen stores? Glycogen (the carbs stored in the muscles and liver) is the primary fuel source for intense physical work.

When your glycogen stores are low, you won't be able to train as hard as when you're fully loaded. For that reason, it's a good idea to periodically give the body a shot of carbohydrates to keep glycogen stores at least somewhat full. (We do this in the form of a post workout meal.) But again, it comes back to this. You can “refuel” with ice cream and candy… or you can refuel with sweet potatoes and butternut squash. Ice cream supports the basic, fundamental requirement of replenishing glycogen stores… but also messes with a whole host of other body processes, like insulin sensitivity, fat stores and autoimmune responses. Again, you could do better.So there you have it – a cheat meal or a cheat day does nothing for your physical health and well being that couldn’t be done better with good, clean food. But there are a whole host of reasons to cheat that I DO support - and those are all mental. Your taste buds crave things that taste good. Your brain rebels against the rigidity of “can have” and “can’t have”.

Your emotions needs a break from the isolation and social pressures of being the weird eater, the difficult dinner party guest, the one who makes everyone else feel bad about the way they eat. You need a mental break, which means you need to stray from your diet. And I am more than okay with that.So we’ve established that we want our diets to weight in on the side of Healthy, but that there are mental and emotional reasons that mean it is absolutely necessary that we go off-diet from time to time. And as you might imagine, I have a few thoughts as to how you do that. Tomorrow, I'll publish my advice for how to strike the best balance possible while still preserving your mental sanity.

My pen is out of ink

2009-08-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

Hey there!
Where the hell have you been?!?

Well Im back!!! After a small stint in jail for stalking Jessica Alba, no no thats not true at all. I wish it was though.

Ive been going through quite a rough patch of things recently (for about a month now) and just havent been gather and posting information as quickly (last post was in june).

And I know what youre saying "chris is really dont give a Sh*t about you and your problems, I just need to know how not to get fat and how to gain muscle." And you are totally right. I always said I would never make a blog where I cry about my feelings, so let me set the tissues down and get back to business!

Note: Thanks to my girlfriend and friends who think I should live a little and party like Keith Richards long lost child I have become very out of shape. It took a solid two weeks and it will take three to get back to 60%. Bad diet+bad sleep+alcohol= a fatter, slower(mentally and physically) christopher. Ill keep you updated about cravings, cheats, and gains (good gains I hope). Current standings:
Weight: 183.5 (way less than I thought it would be).
Waist: 33"
Bodyfat: 11% WAY less than what I thought
Body fat lbs: 20#
Muscle lbs: 165#
Daily Protein Req: 99g

Post Workout Nutrition for Leaning Out

2009-06-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Summer is here!! Kind of......

In the past there have been several talks about cycling carbs towards post workout and how this can fuel performance and taste buds, but I have also lightly touched on the post workout meal being used for leaning out and balancing that bugger "insulin sensitivity."

In a recent post by Robb Wolf he discusses his way of leaning out after a mass gain experiment and how he used post workout nutrition to help burn the fat off.

"If you recall, I did a mass gain experiment about 9 months ago. Moved from 163-185. Strength was up, but I was pretty damn chubby. I have been following either CrossFit Football or Rutman’s ME-Black Box for training. For about 6 months I was still messing with some post WO carbs, typically about 50-70g depending upon the size of the WOD. Not surprisingly, my leaning out has been glacially slow. I thought back to when I just did cyclic low carb, what Poliquin had to say about leaning out (earn your carbs, be lean…) and I dropped to less than 50g of carbs per day with an occasional (once per week) larger carb meal that I just dropped in whenever. Result? Stunningly rapid fat loss. I’m about 178lbs but below 10% BF at this point. In general I’ve had 4 meals per day, large whacks of protein, just a little added fat and then loads of veggies. I have been using a post WO whey protein with coconut milk (40g protein, 20-30g fat) and I really like this.....I generally recommend against liquid food for fat-loss scenarios but as with all things, there are exceptions. Keep in mind, a low carb approach will NOT turn you into a CrossFit Super Star. It is however a nice approach to leaning out, getting healthy and not being a fat-ass for summer."

Heather and I are going through a similar process based off a different kind of carb cycling. I have already done it but she will be roughing her way through it starting today. It involves very low carbs to generate a shift in metabolism from sugar burning to fat burning. After which you cycle between high carb and low carb meals. The benefits and points that I like are that I can have massive carbs meals with variety and those meals help instead of hurt AND the only thing I really have to count is carbs rather than try to figure out ratios between carbs/pro/fat. It gives me a lot more freedom when the freedom is given. Tough part is only the beginning but really if you have been playing around with paleo or zone then its not that hard to tighten the belt. If you are a typical American on a typical American diet this could seem like coming off heroin...because...its extremely similar. So maybe for the next week or so be careful on how you approach Heather.....she may bite.... also if you see me with bruises are scars.....I fell down some stairs and I love my girlfriend very much =) *coughpleasehelpmesneeze*

Dont go SO nuts

2009-06-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

I know in the past few weeks a few of you have recently heard me say that you should start alternating healthy fats not only for variety but overall health. I finally came across an article from the paleo newsletter on the topic so I thought that I would share it.

I have said before that peanuts/almonds/cashews should not be the fat staple but included once in a while. The reasons I was being told was "because______" and then it would be something science-y that I couldn't remember. No finally I have an answer from a great source.

Newsletter:

The Debate over the Safety of Legumes by Dr. Loren Cordain.

Legumes, such as beans, lentils, peanuts, and peas are ubiquitous in modern society. Even the Mayo Clinic's website labels legumes as "among the most versatile and nutritious foods available." As many readers already know, though, the Paleo Diet does not include legumes. To explain why, we'd like to share the following thoughtful question regarding whether legumes could have been a nutritional resource for our Paleolithic ancestors that would have been incorporated into our evolutionary heritage.

"Dear Dr. Cordain,

I have read your Paleo Diet books and some interviews with you as well, but I have a question the answer to which continues to evade me. If we are to eat as our ancestors, i.e. as nature designed (with which I completely agree), would they not have eaten legumes as long as they didn't experience immediate discomfort from doing so? I understand how raw peanuts or cashews (or their evolutionary predecessors) would not have been eaten as they were poisonous until cooked and would have caused distress, but what about such things as string beans or sugar-snap peas? These can be eaten raw with no immediate ill effect, regardless of lectin content, so wouldn't the ancestral equivalent of these foods have been eaten by Paleolithic man?

What would have dissuaded him? And as such, shouldn't we now be able to handle them? (As you can tell, I miss my beans. I'm also assuming there were Paleolithic equivalents). I've been kind of going on the theory that if you can eat it raw it's okay (because they would have)."

--Holly Schmaling

Dear Holly:

My feeling is that pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers would have been opportunists and would have consumed virtually all-edible foods. However, optimal foraging theory suggests that they would have tried to hunt, gather and fish foods that supplied the greatest energy input per energy expended. They also would have preferred readily digestible carbohydrate when animal foods were lean with little fat. Because legumes are only available seasonally, they would not have provided a staple food source until the development of agriculture. This means that humans would not have evolved the ability to cope with the "dark side" of legumes.

In general, most legumes are concentrated sources of both lectins and saponins. These toxic compounds serve to prevent predation by insects, fungi, bacteria and other organisms. The problem that saponins present for people is that saponins bind cholesterol in the gut membrane to create pores in the gut (intestinal permeability). While most dietary lectins are not toxic to humans, legumes and grains are the primary exceptions because legume and grain lectins can bind to gut tissue. While the entry of dietary lectins into peripheral circulation has been sparsely examined, is quite likely that all lectins capable of binding gut epithelial tissue can also enter into lymph/circulation.1-5

Intestinal permeability allows toxins and bacteria, from which the body needs to be protected, to breach the gut barrier and gain chronic access to the immune system. This abnormal situation may stimulate the confused response seen in autoimmune diseases when the body's immune system indiscriminately attacks healthy tissues and organs. It appears that the immune system has lost the ability to distinguish between the body and foreign invaders, such as microbe or food antigens. Approximately 33% of autoimmune diseases present with a leaky gut, and most autoimmune diseases have yet to be tested.

-----

So there you have it. My advice is to alternate between nuts and other kinds of fats and even between different kinds of nuts themselves. My rotating list includes: cashews, pecans, walnuts, olives, avocado, almonds, peanuts, almond butter.

Any questions please post them in the comments page and I will get back to you.

Pre/ Post Workout Meals

2009-06-19T15:24:00.001-07:00

Here are some good Pre/Post workout meals that I found in the latest addition of the Paleo Diet Newsletter. If you are not a subscriber of it, you should be. Everytime I get one in my email there is always something useful or interesting to read. Enjoy!

"The following are some of my favorites. For a complete listing of why these are favorites, review sections on what to eat before, during and after training around the time of a training session in The Paleo Diet For Athletes.

Natural, unsweetened applesauce with plain egg white protein powder and a sprinkle of salt

Baked yam with hard-boiled egg whites (I'll give the yolks to the dogs as I prefer a light meal of protein and carbs only if workout session is going to follow immediately and I don't have time to digest the fat) and again, a touch of table salt

Bananas - either fresh or sliced, and then frozen. There's not a time I enjoy a banana more than after a workout session! (usually Robb Wolf has suggested banana and chocolate milk as a great post workout meal, as well as sweet potato and applesauce with sprinkled cinnamon.)

Pineapple - again, right after a workout is a perfect time for this fruit. Pineapple (and papaya and mango) contain bromelain, an enzyme that aids in digestion and helps to settle the stomach. That's quite handy for those hard sessions when you've pushed your limits, and ended up feeling a touch of nausea!

Dried fruit - the best time to eat this higher-in-sugar snack is right after a session when your muscles are screaming for carbohydrate to repair and refuel for your next session.

Cantaloupe - a great source of potassium, even higher than bananas!

Finally, I can't omit the essential: the recovery drink recommended in Paleo For Athletes, "Homebrew." It's superior to anything you're going to find commercially available, and it contains fruit, protein and salt. You'll never tire of it, as you can always vary which fruits you use to keep it interesting. "

Eat Your Lungs Out While Getting Leaner

2009-06-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of you don't have the time to read the amazing book Good Calories, Bad Calories, and honestly I don't blame you. But overall it is one of the most important books on our shelves today. Harry Pre-puberty and Twilight emo vampires shouldn't be on your summer reading if you know whats good for you. But there are some break downs of what it in this book. I have attached an article to break this down. The book is fracking long...I'm not gonna lie. Gary Taubes spent like 7 years doing research and went all the way back into what went wrong with the human diet. How far back? He brings up evidence of human diet before we even landed in America (we meaning....I'm not going to get into that). Many of you don't know this, but I have a BS in Creative Writing which means I like to read books, write essays and stories and I would never, EVER want to write a bibliography like this book has. But it is, like I said, probably one of the most important books you could/should read. It breaks down whats wrong with our Big Brother controlling our food, the experiments we have run on ourselves as humans, all of the myths of foods and more. It DOES NOT tell you what to eat though. You should be able to read between the lines. I will give you a hint though if you ask nicely (COUGH*meanveggiesseedsnutslittlestarchsomefruitnosugarnobread*SNEEZE).

This article was taking from a body building website that bashes CF pretty regularly and are interested more in aesthetics than performance and especially health. If you watch what the interviewer says in response to Gary says its pretty fun. He becomes completely stumped and shocked. Want to go a step further and read some more funny stuff, read the discussion page and the bottom and what some people say about eating. Its a HOOT!

Enjoy....and learn something....

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_interviews/eat_your_lungs_out_while_getting_leaner

Balance

2009-06-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

Pretty interesting article. There needs to be a balance between eating healthy like we have for/since the beginning of our creation, exercise and the newly developed, horrific, processed, chemical added, delicious, addictive, inflammation giving, disease forming, life ending food that we have made up in the past 200 years.
Basic take home point: eat like you're suppose to (healthy: lean meats/veggies: seeds/nuts: little fruit/some starch: NO SUGAR) but occasionally you can add some of the wonderful American diet to your mix and of course exercise..... some how.... some way...

Article:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/fast-food/the-dean-karnazes-diet/#more-1484

Got to love it

2009-06-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

My momma forwarded this to me....interesting....

Baby Carrots
The following is information from a farmer who grows and packages carrots for IGA, METRO, LOBLAWS, etc
The small cocktail (baby) carrots you buy in small plastic bags are made using the larger crooked or deformed carrots which are put through a machine which cuts and shapes them into cocktail carrots - most people probably know this already.
What you may not know and should know is the following:
Once the carrots are cut and shaped into cocktail carrots they are dipped in a solution of water and chlorine in order to preserve them. (this is the same chlorine used in your pool).
Since they do not have their skin or natural protective covering, they give them a higher dose of chlorine.
You will notice that once you keep these carrots in your refrigerator for a few days, a white covering will form on the carrots. This is the chlorine which resurfaces. At what cost do we put our health at risk to have esthetically pleasing vegetables?
Chlorine is a very well-known carcinogen, which causes Cancer.. I thought this was worth passing on. Pass it on to as many people as possible in hopes of informing them where these carrots come from and how they are processed.
I used to buy those baby carrots for vegetable dips.
I know that I will never buy them again!!!!
Confirmed by Snopes:
Snopes.com: Baby Carrots ..... Are baby carrots made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been soaked in chlorine? ...--> Contaminated Food --> Carrot and Shtick Carrot and Shtick Claim: Baby carrots are made from deformed full-sized carrots that have been... ....carrots that you buy in grocery stores come from deformed crooked big carrots. They are put through a machine to become small cocktail carrots. This part... ..I think after reading this we will all start making our own carrot sticks out of fresh carrots and keep them in the fridge (a few at a time), right?....
Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:22:59 GMT http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/carrots.asp

Dont Get IT Twisted

2009-05-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

So we all know that the big thing right now is food that is "sugar free." Well unfortunately most of the products saying "sugar free" are lying to you. (I know! Who would-a thunk it?) Basically the company tells people like the FDA who over see their product, that whatever they are selling is sugar free. What they are really saying, is that they removed the "table sugar" and replaced it with another kind of sugar OR are using another name for sugar. Clever little bastards....
Those of you who love your protein drinks, let me guarantee you, it has sugar in it (all most all of the time =). So we know, because I have said it a thousand times, SUGAR UPS YOUR INSULIN! INSULIN IS A FAT STORAGE HORMONE. If you dont like fat then you may want to, just a suggestion, its really based on science and not my opinion control your F**KING SUGAR AND INSULIN!! So if you are going to ask me in the next few days, "chris, how can I loose some weight?" You better be able to recite back to me about what you need to control.
So, anywho, if you think your unnatural, packaged product in your hand is sugar free, look for anything on the list below and become instantly disappointed if you see any of the names (i cant pronounce) on your product.

Here are 20 other names for sugar:

Barely Malt - Brown rice syrup - corn syrup - dextrose - evaporated cane juice invert syrup - fructose - fruit juice - galactose - glucose - granular fruit grape juice concentrate - high fructose corn syrup - honey - lactose - maltodextrin - maple syrup - molasses - organic can juice - sorghum - sucrose - turbinado.

Ah...bummer.

Good luck trying to find a clean product!......Im not being sarcastic, seriously good luck, its hard as hell even for someone like me but just remember....no one really loves love handles .......=)

Go Paleo for Summer

2009-05-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

Some of you already received this email, but I thought I would share it with the rest of you just in case. This is basically a real easy (Paleo) way to drop weight. If followed accordingly you could shed fat and fast. But! There is a catch. This is pretty much for form not function. Meaning it is only for how you look not how you will preform. If you intend on doing this and not sucking at the WODs then you are mistaken =( Though, a few of you might just perform better. This is the amazing "tinkering" process you hear so much about. Nothing works exactly the same for everyone. If I cut carbs (another article on that later) then I lean out, but I cant perform worth my power animal (and she doesn't like it. She likes the way I look but thinks I'm a bitch). If I have just the right amount of carbs, I can tear it up (like some of you saw bright and early on Saturday=) So without any more rambling; here it is.

What’s going on inside:
Ok so this whole weight loss, weight gain issue is basically determined by a fat storage hormone called insulin. If we can become masters/controllers of our insulin we will become dominate over our appearance.
The deciding factor of what goes where (i.e. energy going into muscles or things being stored as fat) concerning insulin regulation is carbohydrates. So let’s break it down:
Carbs = insulin.
Carbs have the most influence on our insulin, way above protein and fat. The more carbs you eat the higher your blood sugar and insulin rise. Insulin ultimately determines how much your fat and muscle cells grow.
So when you eat more carbs then your body can burn and the body can not use the carbs to boost muscular growth, then those remaining carbs are automatically stored as fat.
When we keep glycogen levels and insulin levels low enough, we basically are telling our bodies to build muscle and burn fat. Your body would rather work off, and will work off, of the sugar (glycogen) in your muscles first, before it gets to the fat. If we keep the insulin levels low enough, we will train the body to use stored fat as an energy source once the sugar in the muscles is tapped/used. With insulin levels low enough, and exercise in the proper form, we can force the body to store carbs in the muscles rather than covert it to fat storage.
So counting overall calories becomes less as important as being aware of the total amount and the time in which carbs are consumed. If we eat carbs at the wrong time, our body stores them as fat. Eat them as the right time and the body stores it as energy in the muscles to be used as fuel.

Warning:
For the first few days there can be some complaining because basically the body is detoxing. Having your body switch over and making it start burning stored fat as a fuel source takes time, depending on how much damage you have done to your insulin levels over time. Basically if you are addicted to carbs, because they are addicting, your body will have to adjust and learn to not be addicted; this part of the process can cause issues with the body, mainly mentally. Crankiness, irritability, fatigue and tiredness are all common. BUT THEY WILL GO AWAY. Once your body adapts, and it only takes a few days, you will operate better than you ever have in your entire life. Eventually you will have more energy, be more clear-headed, have less carb cravings and have less gastrointestinal issues.

What to eat: A majority of your eating should come strictly from protein and fat. Both will make you feel full and give you plenty of fuel to operate effectively on a day to day basis. Protein, fat and veggie will only spike insulin levels ever so slightly. Anything outside of those three can cause insulin levels to rise, possible causing your body to store the carbs as fat.
Your daily numbers should look something like this:
Protein 30-40%
Carbs: 20-30%
Fat: 40-60%

Protein: Good sources of protein in the general sense consist of:
Beef – Eggs – Poultry – Fish – Pork

Carbs: Good Sources of carbs in the general sense should consist of:
Mushrooms – onions – spinach – broccoli – celery – zucchini – cucumbers – cauliflower – tomatoes – asparagus – artichokes – brussel sprouts – apples – grapes – strawberries – blueberries.
The fruit listed about should be LIMITED. Maybe a serving a day…maybe. For now. Figure it this way; the fruit will spike insulin levels higher than veggies. So if you eat more fruit, you could potentially, store more fat. If fat loss is your goal, then you decide. Abuse this and I will step in and intervene.

Fat: Good sources of fat will consist of:
Nuts and seeds – olives – olive oil – coconut oil/ coconuts – butter (natural butter) – avocados.

Meals:
All of your meal will consist of Protein and Fat. This is a great way to start breakfast. Lunch you can add in some veggies. Snacks should consist of Protein + Fat + (up to you) Carbs.
Protein is the essential followed by fat. If you are way too hungry, way too tired and overall just not liking the diet then you aren’t eating enough fat. Fat basically becomes important for controlling how your body craves and needs calories.

Things to stay away from: Grains, sugar and starches.

How long:
It should take about two good, clean weeks for results to be very noticeable. Worst case scenario an entire month to balance out the system. What it really comes down to is your goal and how serious you are to get there. If you want to loose weight and quickly you will do everything exactly stated as above and not deviate from the plan. Any time you go off the plan you have to basically restart. This isn’t something that goes on forever. We need to get to where we want to go and then maintain, but we will be allowed room to play. It’s not hard it’s easy. Its not expensive, it’s cheap. It works and it works the best. If you have any questions, email me.

What are you really eating??

2009-05-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

One of the common ways we describe to eat healthy, especially when we try to clean up eating habits (meaning going Paleo) we talk about ingredient labels. This is often an over looked part of the food or beverage being purchased by the consumer. Usually the food label is checked for carb, protein, fat (if you don't know what you're doing) and sugar percentages. Although these are important, the ingredient label is either as or more important.
If the product says "sugar free" but contains sucralose or fructose then it contains sugar and a lot of it. In fact most of the sugar free products get away with saying they are sugar free because they remove the sugar, add a chlorine mocule to the sugar molecule, and then reintroduce it back into the product. Yes, I said chlorine, the same chemical you put in your pool to clean it. Yummy :)
When we tell people to go Paleo we usually suggest that when they are buying a product, if it has an ingredients label DONT BUY IT CAUSE ITS NOT FOOD!! If they have to tell you whats in it, which means you dont know just by looking at it, there is a problem with that. No one should not know whats in an apple, or chicken, or water, or turkey, or lettuce. Get my point. If its natural, you should already know what it is. But if you pick up a product and it says things like: hydrolyzed collagen, sodium caseinate, glycerine, polydextrose, maltodextrin, guar gum, cyanocobalamin, D-Alpha tocopherylacetate etc etc then its not food. I dont even know what the hell most of that is or how to say it. (By the ways I got SOME of those ingredients off the back of an Atkins bar) We also suggest that if it has a shelf life longer than 2 weeks, DONT BUY IT CAUSE ITS NOT FOOD. This is also a reason we dont really suggest "protein powders." We dont really know whats in them.
When it comes to foods in general, these rules can apply to everything. For instance I have posted about what to look for when buying meat. Free range, non hormonal, no additive meats. Why? Well here is a breakdown from an article in the LA Times about tasty healthy chicken:
"Overall the birds we liked best for their meats flavor and texture were generally organic or fed special diets and almost all were free range.
According to the USDA requirements, organic chickens must be fed additive-free diets, be raised under specific conditions and not be treated with antibiotics. Generally, the organic chickens we sampled were fed diets almost entirely of corn and soy. Conventional chickens can be fed diets that include animal by products and fat.
Free range chickens are allowed to roam outside of the coop (though the amount of room is not specified); because then can move around, their muscles are allowed to grow more naturally."
Want to know what else is in your foods, check this article out:
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/10-ingredients-fast-food.htm

Now I understand and am fully aware of improvements in modern foods and nutritions. But some of these are false improvements that are actually potentially harmful additives. A large portion of the things we buy will have an ingredient label on it and contain things that have been added to the product to improve quality or shelf life, I understand this. BUT it doesnt mean that we need it. If the product can be harmful, why buy it. Analogy: If the stove is red and hott, should you touch it? So, if your potential product is dangerous to your health, should you buy it? (And I know from one of you Im gonna hear the old "OH!! But its soooo tasty!!!) In this case I would agree and say yes, it is, its very tasty in fact, and a once in a blue moon induglance hopefully wont kill you, but dont go nuts and have it when ever you fracking want. Our foods are evolving and have had certain things added to them, some of which even could help our general health. Just be catious about what you are buying and what your are putting into your system. This is simply a warning. Why am I warning you? Because I dont want to hear a complaint of why you cant loose weight, stop eating a certain food because its "soooo tasty" or have recently been diagonsed with a disease. I know I may be sounding brash or even like an ass, but I have the potential to help you and you dont want it, then I dont want to waste my time, or yours.
So join my cult and eat healthy. You will look sexier, feel better, preform great, live longer, have healthier children, be smarter, etc etc. My cult is awesome. We even eat ice cream. If you have a problem with my cult, talk to my power animal. PEACE!

How to Make a Diet Effective..

2009-05-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Well, first, don't think of it as a diet. Mentality is key in almost everything we do with fitness. If you approach a lift or a workout with the mind set of failure, that's pretty much exactly what will happen. If you do the same thing with eating you will get the same result. A lot of what we hear about eating from other sources is BS but we hold it as truth. Someone says "oh man, low carb diets, you just feel like sh*t. You will have no energy" I ask you to drop carbs and what do I hear from you "oh chris this is so hard I feel like sh*t. I dont have any energy" (this is just an example.) My response is going to be a smile. I'm smiling because you arent making an original observation or statement. Some things take some getting used to, yes. Some adjusting, balancing, shifting does take place, but if you have the mind set of something negative you will usually produce, at the very least, a negative feeling. You can come to realizations that things will be easier. There is a certain meditation that takes place in fitness. If you will it..it will be.....kind of thing...Hunger, pain, fatigue they are all states of mind. States which can be overcome, challenged and perceived to elicit different feelings and results. Be positive and everything else will follow with the same positivity.
There are also some other good eating well tips. Here are some sites to look over:

Most Effective Diet:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080111210350.htm

How to Get an Effective Diet:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4453055_get-effective-diet.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art

How to Get an Effective Diet (different source)
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-the-Most-Effective-Diet

Most Effective Diets: (take this with a grain of salt, there isnt a 1 Diet cure for everyone)
http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/diets/diet-reviews/

By the way: You are now able to post comments and questions. Just fill out the comment portion and when asked to select "comment as" just choose the option at the bottom for "Name/url"
Take care!

Find your POWER ANIMAL

2009-05-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

"And you open the door and step inside;

We are inside our hearts.

Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light.

That's right your pain.

The pain itself, is a white ball of healing light.

I DONT THINK SO!"

Sometimes you can see that light. A little glimmer.

A sparkle out of the corner of your eye.

A star.

You will see it if you push yourself hard enough. If you empty the gas tank. If you burn your last carb in your stomach. As your body is sucking sugar from your muscles like a fat kid with a Jack in the Box milkshake.....you can see it.

Its healing you.

Its breaking down your muscle fibers; fast twitch, slow twitch, twitches and fibers you didnt even know you had.

That little sparkle is ripping things in your body, its flooding your legs and arms with acid. It burns.

Its healing you.

You dont know it, but it is. Its making you stronger. Its making you faster. Its making you suffer so you can become something better than you were 46 seconds ago.

Some will foolishly assume its an angel, or a dead relative looking over them.

Its not.

Its your pain.

Everyone needs to realize this. Everyone needs to accept the hurt, learn to love it, to lust after it, to be greedy for it.

But your pain can not operate by itself. It needs a companion. It needs a friend. Someone to feed off of, something for you to feed off of and use as motivation when you get to that panic breathing-stomach turning moment where you get weak and think theres no way you can lift the weight again. No way you can do another burpee. No way you can do another pull up. That you need to stop, and let go of the bar. Stop and catch your breath. Stop and let the clock keep running. In moments like these you need to find your power animal.

I dont like sharing all my information with people, because I am in some competition with a few of you, so some of my cards are tight to the chest. But this one, I will lay down. Below is a small snap shot of my power animal before a workout. I told her we were going to do Fran this week..and this is the look she gave me.

Dont F*k with my power animal. I dont and you shouldnt either.

And because Im not such a serious guy, here are some funny picture (some with inapproriate language, but I didnt write them so dont be offended.) Enjoy. Always be seriously joking; you will live longer.

Anyone every done this before? Show of hands :)

Dont worry guys, they wont make you look like that.

Yes. Round is a shape, but I dont think anyone wants to be that shape.

This could be your Power animal.

This is how some of you look at me after a workout.

Or this could be your power animal.

I dont think you want this as your power animal.

Interesting News

2009-05-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

Recently I have come across a lot of interesting articles and other important information that I will post on later. But for now here is some cool reads:

Shocking Sugar Facts:
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/user-post-sugar-8-shocking-facts-454190/

Quick Zone:
http://www.zonediet.com/tabid/130/itemid/1142/How-to-do-the-CanDo-Zone.aspx?CATAdReferrer=20090412ZLN

Want to live longer? Don't eat like an American!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103744881

Hopes and Dreams

2009-05-01T23:07:00.001-07:00

See, this is what happens. If you think that any freaking time soon we are gonna make perfect health into a pill your an idiot; plain and simple. I'm not trying to be rude but for f's sake.
If you think we are so advanced, so tech savvy, so head of our time, you are too in love with your iphone. Paleo means going natural. Eating things that we have always eaten, things that our bodies have evolved over more than several days to eat since we started this journey with the dinosaurs. Then we started making chemicals and we thought they would help, we thought that they would make things better, even easier. Well Ive got news for you; it ain't gonna happen. If you decide to read these Muscle and Fatness or Huge Guy or Sexy Girl "fitness" magazines you should notice that there are more advertisements then there is informative information. Promises by products, by companies, by "scientists", by people, that we want so badly to believe. (When you see fantastic claims — that's generally what they are.") How bad? So bad we will experiment with our bodies and foreign chemicals that can screw things up for the rest of your life. How bad? So bad we will die for it.
http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/us_med_diet_pill_recall.html

Here is another good look at it from Mark Twights perspective of not only supplements but globo gyms and hard work.
During a recent trip Maximus and I visited a supplement store to marvel at the various OTC products promising a variety of results. One assured the user of "skin-tearing muscle pumps and road-map vascularity." While I am certain I don't want my skin to tear, I know that one consequence of consistent hard work and attention to dietary detail is increased vascularity - when muscular contraction shuts down blood flow within the muscle the pipes move to the outside to maintain a constant supply of oxygen, nutrients, etc. But if one isn't willing to do the work or pay the attention he (it's usually a male that falls for this shit) could simply buy a product to "achieve" the "same" result.

---Josh V was willing, did the work, and the fat pipes are a consequence of fitness -- not the objective.

Rest Day

2009-05-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Hey Every BODY!
I got so caught up in the Cheat Day/Rest Day post talking about wonderful (terrible) delicious (unhealthy) food that I totally forgot to talk about the rest part of the day.
Usually I try to keep cheat meals on the same days as WOD days and eat clean when I rest. Why? Because thats how youre suppose to f*ing rest. Your body cant recover correctly on a rest day if you are just craming Ihop specials down your throat. The body needs proper sleep, proper exercise, proper recovery and of course proper food (duh!) So I usually workout and then have my nasty meal. Is this counter productive? Yes! Do I care? Yes!/No! Not really all the time. Its psychologically necessary and as previously explained physically necessary to a point. Now do you think cavemen spent their cheat days throwing back beers and stock piling Ben and Jerry's? Hell no! But, we have evolved (actually de-evolved)(But that is besides the point.) In todays wonderful new age we think we need this. But lets use a little of Tylers Wisdom to have a better look at this:
You are not your iced latte.
You are not your large stack of blueberry pancakes.
You are not your Jack and Coke.
You are not your Ben and Jerry's.
You are not your 5th Tequila shot.
You are not your protein shake.
Your Gatorade does not define you.
You are not your Angus Bacon and Swiss.
You are not your diabetes.

So what to do on a rest day? Well most would actually recommend that we rest; take the day off, kick back and relax, keeping physical activity to a limit. But the more "Fit" we get, the more we want to do. But the more we actually do, the more we need to consume to fuel this "doing." Do you see the cycle? Do more, you eat more. Eat properly=you do more and see improvement. Do more and eat badly=doing a little less but look and feel like nasty. So below is a link to what I do on rest days. Enjoy!
http://vimeo.com/3466413
(Its no Darren video but it was my first try.)

Eating can be Hard Work

2009-04-30T00:30:00.001-07:00

I recently came across this blog post about Melissa Byers. She struggles a lot with food and overall has a good way of looking at eating and Crossfit. She recently wrote an article for the Crossfit Journal about how its very easy to turn the Zone into an eating disorder.
Some people think The Zone and Paleo or as I like to say Proper Nutrition is hard. Its not, people just make it hard.
Here is 1st hand experience with dealing with such situations.
Easy for you to say
As you know, I've been talking about diet an awful lot lately. I'm posting my thoughts here, responding to emails and doing some nutritional coaching for a few folks. I'm in danger of becoming the "Eat More Girl", I'm afraid, as it seems like that's what I start 90% of my conversations with.
People are responding positively, especially when they take my advice and it works. But I'm also getting a little bit of the, "Easy for you to say..." too. As in, "Easy for you to say, you're already lean." Or, "Easy for you to say, you're not trying to lose weight." So I'd like to set one thing straight here, and hopefully provide a little tough love inspiration.This diet stuff was NOT easy for me to say. I did not start off with the perfect diet, I did not start off lean, and I did NOT start off strong. I started off, as Dallas puts it, "Really weak and skinny fat". My muscles were non-existent, I thought 10# dumbbells were heavy and believed bagels with light cream cheese to be a good breakfast food. Getting started on a diet that would support CrossFit was NOT easy for me, nor is it going to be easy for YOU. In general, your diet is HARD WORK. It requires constant attention, evaluation, refinement. It requires research, education, dedication. And it requires the patience of a hungry, cranky, information-overloaded saint. I started improving my diet in small steps. At Dallas' urging, I began eating vegetables, tried to get in more regular meals and upped my overall calories. I hung out there for a while, until that felt comfortable and I started to feel and see some positive effects. That motivated me to do some more research, and ask Dallas for more help. I started eating more "real" food, started cutting back on the grains and sugars and began to eat some good fat. Making those quality improvements led to fast results... but I had so much success (dropping fat and building muscle) that I became a little overzealous. I got mixed up in all that Zone Gone Bad nonsense and backslid for a few months. I was eating too little and training too hard, and I got scary skinny and lost a bunch of strength. NOT the progress we were looking for.I regrouped, and started over. Grains, sugars and dairy - gone. More vegetables. LOTS more fat. My quality was dialed in, but I was a little off in my proportions. I was eating too much fat, and after a month, I started getting soft. But my lifts were better, and I felt better, so I stayed there until I rid my brain of its "six pack" obsession. Then, I started experimenting again. I cut my fat back a little, upped my protein and started slowly cutting back on carbs. I hung out there for a while, tweaking my proportions gradually. I leaned out a little, and continued to gain strength.Then, I started bonking on some workouts, and noticed some energy flags throughout the day. So I started adding more fat (again), and implementing IF (intermittent fasting) a few days a week. I played with my meal times and fast times, made sure I got all my calories in every day and hung out there for a while. (Noticing a trend here?) IF seemed to pull it all together. My lifts kept getting better, I was happier with my new, more filled-out frame and my energy was super consistent all day. I stayed there for a LONG time.But, of course, there is no stasis. My body continued to change - more muscle, more weight - and eventually, my gym performance showed me that my food intake and macronutrient proportion were no longer "ideal". Time to rework it... again. My latest plan includes more fat, higher quality protein, a reduction of IF days, and the introduction of a higher carb post-workout meal. I'm a week into it, and will stay here for another week or two and see how things go.See where I'm going with this? None of this has been "easy". It's hard work, and an awful lot of effort. I black box on myself CONSTANTLY, to figure out what's going to work and what isn't. There are so many factors - dairy or no dairy? More fat or more carbs? More calories, or less calories? It can, and frequently does, get overwhelming, and it would be so much easier to throw up my hands and just EAT. But my diet allows me to perform, and be healthy, and be fit, so I put in the constant effort.If you CrossFit, you are no stranger to hard work and effort. A few months ago, I wrote about putting that same hard work and effort into your recovery... and today, I'm writing about putting it into your DIET. I'm not saying you have to weigh and measure, track and analyze. But I am saying you need to educate yourself, be patient and be prepared for an awful lot of trial and error before you find the exact combination that works for you. And even then, be prepared to repeat the cycle ad nauseam, because things are always changing.I'm happy to answer your questions, and REALLY happy to be able to help you skip some of the mistakes I made with my own diet by pointing you in a better direction. But as for any of this being "easy for me to say", I assure you, there's a lot of grief, frustration and more than a few mistakes behind every last piece of advice I'm dropping on you. But I'll also say this... When you get it right, and things just click, it's like you won the lottery. So stick with it. Be patient. Keep experimenting, slowly, tweaking one thing at a time. You'll get there. And when you do, for a while at least, it WILL feel easy. "

To me, this is over complicating certain issues. Yes, there is a lot of tinkering that has to be done to a diet to make it work for you, but it doesn't need to be as emotional. You have to aim for a goal and then change your eating habits for that goal. EVENTUALLY your body will turn into its own little yin-yang center and balance out. But most of you come in with the aesthetic goal: I WANT TO BE LEAN!! After getting your asskicked and having another crossfitter beat your times or you come in last during a workout, you change the goal to:I WANT TO PERFORM!! And then ensues this mental and physical tetter-totter. This is a very humbling experience, BUT, it can turn a lot of people off in a lot of different ways. Pick a goal and chase it down, trip it, and then kill it with a sharp stick. Once you've claimed your prize move on to a different goal. Honestly people I wish there was a diet or exercise that accomplished all goals (Six pac abs, crazy strength, amazing times, perfect health, sexy legs, chiseled chest, huge arms etc etc) But there isn't. The Crossfit Balance, in which we try to balance the 10 basic fitness skills applies also to EATING. We cant lift REALLY heavy and run fast. If we focus on one skill others will naturally start slacking. Same thing with eating; you can not eat to get big AND lean.
Stick to your goal, get there, and then move on, or get left behind.

Cheat Day - Rest Day

2009-04-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

Oh! Finally something fun and tasty talks about.

Lets clear some air right now. If you consider the Zone or Paleo a "diet" you are not playing to win. These are, ultimately, proper ways to eat. Proper according to who? To me dammit!! Just kidding, proper in the sense that as we know there are tons of "additives, chemicals and by products" that either end up, or worse, are placed into our foods. Such an example is HFCS or better known as High Fructose Corn Syrup. There has been study after study, case after case, proof after proof that this stuff at the end of the day is terrible for us as humans. Yet its in almost everything super tasty and everything in general. If you are interested in what this does, we can sit down and talk about it. If you are checking your ingredient labels, like you should, this HFCS should be one of the first things you are "watching out for." If the product you wish to purchase contains HFCS, just put it down and say "Sonofabi**H!!" like I do every time.

Onwards:

Cheating :)

Its not really cheating. Its actually a calculated attack, planned to consume things of which I know are unhealthy for me. Calculated how? Here is how.
One of the faults people (i.e. ignorant morons) have with the zone is that it doesn't work because technically a Snickers is zone (it contains protein, carbs and fat). Awesome! and true. But if someone really believes that that is the basis for zone or even how to eat zone then that person deserves the "diabetic-heart failing-cancer ridden-body" they will get. I'm sorry, but its called population control and we need it.

But its not a bad "cheat." (the snickers not the cancer, heart failure thingy).

So I had a cheat day planned in my head: 6 days on zone 1 day off. And boy it was a tasty day.

I had a Robeks, french toast, beer (not at the same time people) and this bad boy:

Yes the duck is back!!

BUT! Before I get a thousand comments. I had the robeks prework out (workout was: 4 Rounds
30 x 1 Arm Kettle Bell Swing (15 each arm) 53# x Wall Ball20 x Box Jump: completed in: 12:24) After which I had the wonderful, stomach aching, fetal positioning, new Snickers ice cream from Baskin Robbins.

Here is the point: "cheating" is ok. Actually in some ways its necessary. Some of you who are eating well will fall of the wagon, as they say, only to wake up the next morning and either look leaner or perform better. This will unfortunately entice you to "cheat again" soon after and that's where most people get into trouble. My next morning Bfast was:

The problem is when we start feeding the insulin monkey, he likes it and he wants more, SO in turn you crave, which means you snack, which means you snack often and with bad choices, which means you are loosing. This stuff (stuff being food) IS addictive, it IS a drug.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_he_me/med_healthbeat_overeating_5).

If you are going to cheat, plan it out, enjoy every bite, don't inhale, try not to cheat really freaking bad. When I have chocolate cravings I will make a protein shake. That's technically not even bad for me, in fact most of the fitness population does that multiple times a day because they are too busy/lazy/misinformed/special.

Cheating becomes necessary because of a lot of chemical reactions taking place in the body. A newsletter I was recently reading said the following:

There is an important hormone in the body called LEPTIN which "communicates your nutritional status to your body and brain. Leptin levels are mediated by two things. One is your level of body fat. All else being equal, people with higher levels of body fat will have higher leptin levels than those with lower levels of body fat and vice versa. Unfortunately, when you're attempting to lose fat and begin to restrict calories, conditions are anything but "normal" and the body responds accordingly by lowering leptin levels. Again, under normal conditions leptin levels are normal and the brain gets the signal loud and clear that nutrition intake is adequate. Metabolism is high and the internal environment of the body is one very conducive to fat burning.Until you start dieting.Go on a diet and leptin levels quickly plummet (by 50% or more after only one week), sending a signal to the body that you're semi-starved and not consuming enough calories. This puts the breaks on metabolism and creates a hormonal environment extremely conducive to fat storage. Thyroid hormones (hormones extremely important to metabolism) respond by taking a dive and the abdominal fat-storing stress hormone cortisol skyrockets measurably.HELLO belly fat.And if that wasn't bad enough, the appetite stimulating hormones ghrelin, neuropeptide-Y, and anandamide all hop on board to make your life even more miserable.

The solution is "more calories and more carbs.

We know that leptin levels decrease by about 50% after only one week of dieting, but fortunately, it doesn't take nearly that long for leptin to bump back up with a substantial increase in caloric intake. So, the answer to the fat loss catch-22? Strategic high-calorie, high-carb CHEATING. By strategically cheating with high calorie foods (and yes, even stuff like pizza, ice cream, wings, cookies, burgers, fries, etc), you can give leptin and metabolism a major boost mid-diet which sets you up for plenty of subsequent fat loss when you resume your reduced calorie eating regimen.This means greater net fat loss week after week, and ultimately, a much more realistic, maintainable way to bring you to the body you truly want and deserve.So what's so special about carbs?Well, leptin, carbohydrate and insulin have been shown to have very strong ties.Calories alone don’t get the job done, as research shows that overfeeding on protein and fat has little effect on leptin. THIS is why strategic cheating with your favorite foods is so powerful. THIS is why you truly can use your favorite foods to lose fat faster than you ever could with restrictive dieting. THIS is freedom.Essentially, it's everything "typical" dieting isn't.With regular dieting, come week two, you're screwed. It's important to note that although I agree with cheat meals to increase fat loss, I don't agree with cheat meals involving deep fried foods, anything with high levels of trans fats, or high fructose corn syrup laden items like sodas or candy.There are plenty of ways to strategically overeat while still avoiding horrendously processed foods. That means foods such as heaping plates of pasta and meatballs...oh yeah! but sodas, fries, donuts, and fried chicken - still a BIG NO for me!"

Really there is a lot of truth to that but some bs. There are healthy ways to cheat and their are better carb options. Want to know more? Then freaking ask me.

NOTE: Don't think I gave ya'all some privilege to go nuts and eating everything and anything you want. Stick to your goals, if you need something to satisfy a craving, do it, just don't be a glutton about it.

Its funny cause its true

2009-04-20T23:27:00.000-07:00

That's a whole lot of tastiness!!

Those are all McDonald's cheeseburgers.

Its never really funny to laugh at death. But sometimes its just ironic as hell (no pun intended).

After downing my post workout zone meal I was headed back to my room when I passed the TV and heard someone talking about McDonald's. I stopped to hear what they had to say.

It was a program on CNBC or what have you about the history of the company and where they are headed and even about nutrition. The man on the screen was talking about how in the early 2000's the company was struggling. Stock was falling, people weren't just into it. And two of the CEO's came up with some grand ideas to bring the burger king (no relation) back to life. Unfortunately one of the main CEOs and his back up suddenly DIED!! (HA!) One of a heart attack (No sh*t you say, Ill be damned you say) (please tell me that's not ironic, or funny, somehow) the other one died of cancer.

Now that one probably makes a little less sense than the heart attack but its probably in relation to the scientific fact that high carb, high sugar diets cause cancer. I know, dammit, that's the one diet we were all hoping would be the cure to all diseases, fitness and health. Nope, its actually the cause of disease, bad health and no fitness. Literally the cause to all most all diseases. What happens is a slew of problems but they mainly start in the gut (small intestine to be exact.) Eating all those yummy happy meals probably caused this man "gut irritation" (Google that and you will be amazed at what you find). This irritation led his bodies natural defense systems to shut down, slowly, and eventually could not defend him from cancer causing agents that attacked his cells. Either way to die of these two, isn't fun, nor quick, or quite.

As the show went on they talked about taste testers. You should have seen the wide ass, thick legged, big belly, triple chin, jiggly under arm women that showed up for this. Their job for the day; test 3! - 3/4 pound Angus burgers. What a job. The men, surprisingly involved in the testing, weren't as big as the women but did have some thickness around the waste.

When one of the marketing CEOs (who has 1 billion dollars to work with each year for marketing, not just what he makes, what hes allotted to use) was asked about people making healthier decisions he said that its an individual preference, that its up to the person to make the right choice. This, in Logic and rationality, is called blame shifting. When he is basically accused of causing child and adult obesity and health related issues, he shifts blame and says its not his fault he makes and sells the products, its the consumers fault for buying them. (Nice guy, nice)

speaking of the kiddy's!

GET'EM WHILE THEIR YOUNG!!!

That's basically what the marking geniuses of the company have figured out. The food is addictive. We know this as almost fact. (WHAT?! WHY?! HOW?!) Ill tell you. If you remember the grain paper written by Robb Wolf: "Grains also have a highly addictive nature beyond the carbohydrate content. They contain opiate-like substances that can be very problematic. Not surprisingly, these opioid constituents can be concentrated in dairy. Makes one look at pizza in a new and frightening way." Whats a good McDonald's meal, 3/4 pounder with cheese and a milk shake. Interesting.... So the kids eat this stuff, its addicting. The advertisements (1 billion dollars worth) is spent trying to relay the message that eating McDonald's is not only OK, BUT its what they are SUPPOSE to eat. Every time they eat it they get a toy too. Kind of a deal huh? Imagine an adult restaurant that handed out things if you ate there, like a cell phone, or money back, or a member of the opposite sex, or a car, I bet sales would be pretty high up there. One of the women interviewed in the program at a McDonald's said that she brings her kid, a small boy maybe 10ish, twice every week. (I'm sure she is lying). She said if she doesn't he gets cranky, throws a tantrum until she gives in and takes him. Sounds like a fracking drug addict if you ask me. The reason she does this, besides the kid needing a fix, is explained that its cheap, easy, and shes tired. So killing your kid because you want to save money, because its easy and because its cheap, cause you're tired are good reasons. OH my god!! Seriously?!?

Some clients tell me when trying to stay on the righteous path "I couldn't help myself."

WHAT!?

Now I understanding planning a cheat meal, but there is a designated time for that.

Giving in because you could resist the drug addicted urge, or peer pressure is a completely different. Why doesn't this parent, or you, buy and use crack. Hell you will lose weight and save money and time. You will get more done, you will feel better. Whats the down side?? Oh, yeah, eventually it will freakin kill you. Well sorry momma, so will those happy meals.

Food is a drug, don't get it twisted. That's how you should look at it. Its the most important, helpful and potential dangerous drug you do.

The program ended with it showing that they have opened chains in Korea (communism meets capitalism they said). Its going to be an interesting experiment. We now have a control group. Somewhat of a population that has been untouched by the clown has now injected this dangerous substance into the population. We will see how they do overtime. Anyone want to start a pool on this one??

Maybe this is the governments secret way of killing Koreans over time. Pretty sneaky if you ask me.

By the by, none of these people working for McDonald's have/had no problem killing you, or your kids (if you have them) or your friends, or parents, neighbors etc. They will do it for the money, they wont change their ways. They will do it because it keeps them rich. They will do it with a smile. They are doing it, "Because they're loving it!"

A Day of Zone

2009-04-19T22:53:00.001-07:00

So I zoned all day to day and I just wanted to share with those who are interested. Supposedly I require 18 blocks. 18 blocks of protein, carbs and fat. (If you don't know your block count you need to speak with me for those who are interested. I think, as do others, that the Zone requirements are too high in carb. So what is recommended is carb blocks subbed for fat blocks until the individual reaches their own zone. I went lower carb today because it was a rest day so here is the day.

Breakfast:

Egg=3, spinach=3/4 cup, salami=2oz, almonds=15.

Lunch:

Chicken=5oz, lettuce=2 cups, applesauce=3 tbs, almonds=15, peanut butter= 1 tsp.

Snack:

Talapia=2oz, applesauce=3tbs, almonds=6

Dinner:

Turkey=5oz, mushrooms=1 cup, almonds=15, peanut butter= 2 tbs.

Snack:

Crabmeat=1 1/2 oz, peanut butter= 1 tbs.

I also recently found this thing called "FitDay" in which you can use to plug in all of your food for the day and find out what you did and where you are at. Its a pretty interesting site. I don't know how often I will use it or for how long. I plugged in my food for the day and my activity. They even have an option to find out how many calories you used while performing *cough* certain activities *cough...which I thought was interesting...if you catch my drift.

So here was the daily total according to Fitday:

Calories= 1904

Carbs= 54.2

Protein= 155.5

Fat= 124.6

Percentages: 57% Fat / 32% Protein / 11% Carbs.

According to activities and calories burned during: total for the day was: 1132 calories......interesting......

Also sense we are on the topic of paleo eating, here is some good advice from nikki, a paleo master:

1) Enjoy eating paleo. Enjoy what you eat. If you are unhappy with what you are eating you are unlikely to continue to keep eating that way, and once the nutrition is gone, staying fit and healthy becomes much harder.
2) Pre-cook food. Spend a few hours at the beginning of the week and cook big batches of food. This will allow you to minimise the amount of time that you have to spend cooking during the week.
3) Cook more than you need. This is similar to the previous tip, the idea being that if you cook more than you need for one meal then you can eat it later, or the next day.
4) Rather than cutting yourself off from all of those foods which you enjoy that aren’t 100% paleo friendly, simply eat smaller amounts and be moderate.
5) Do not keep junk/unhealthy food that you know you shouldn’t eat, in the house. For most people, if it is in the house they will eventually eat it.
6) Do not run out of food. This is horrible. Do not let it happen to you.
7) Try planning out your meals for a week. This comes easily to type one personalities, for the rest of us it can be a nuisance. Though this has the benefit of ensuring you know what you need in the house for the week, and eliminates that time wasting period during which you try and figure out what you should cook for dinner.
8) Keep a handy meal replacement shake/can of tuna in your car/office/desk/bag for a paleo friendly snack in case plans change.
9) Learn to use spices; this will do wonders for you and will offer variety and different flavors to your meals.
10) Eat lots of vegetables; try and eat a good variety with many different colours.

Chris goes Caveman

2009-04-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

Hey there,

So Ive been doing pretty strict zone (pretty strict only means 1 cheat meal, and it hurt so bad I don't know if I ever want to cheat again) and the results have been interesting to say the least.

Over the past Easter vacation my mother cooked a ham. this ham damn near fed me for a week and made life so much easier. When it came time to eat, I didn't stare at the fridge trying to figure it out. I weighed it and I ate it, and damn it, it was good. Some of you would get sick of eating just ham for a week, but I don't care. It saved me time and money and gave me a chance to focus on other things than cooking. So I started thinking....like a caveman.

A complaint I commonly hear is: "I don't want to diet because I don't want to eat the same thing everyday."

My response: "Awesome!! Everything is always the same thing. Meat is meat! Its only flavored differently, it only has additives and is masked by other things that make it taste different than another type of meat. Hence the saying (if something is eaten without additives) "it tastes like chicken!!" Because everything will taste like chicken unless you flavor it.

So with my caveman mind set I thought that old hunter gather cultures didn't have too much variety when it came to food, especially meat. The Tokelau tribe used to live off a diet of solely fish and coconuts AND guess what? They were healthy, fit and disease free (until the Europeans showed up). Talk about variety "what are we gonna eat today mom?"

So I thought, if I was a native American living on the plains I would hunt and kill an animal and eat that animal until there was nothing let to eat of it and then go and repeat the process. So.....I went hunting......

Doesn't it look delicious?!? :) There's the majority of my meals for the next few days (hopefully week). BUT I did also go shopping recently and Sean, who will be zoning shortly, wanted to know what I bought. So here is the rest of my food list until it runs dry and I must hunt again:

List:

Broccoli - spinach - apple sauce - lettuce - sweet potatoes - mushrooms - butterball turkey - strip steak - turkey patties (they were buy one get one free, you cant pass the up) salami - bacon - crab = yummy in my tummy.

Great Paleo Explanation

2009-04-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

This is a great video I found explaining the Paleo diet for those of you who might need a better explanation.

Note: I just cant wrap my head around that idea that there are people out there that are willing to kill me to make a dollar. I know that there are a lot of people because of religious or political reasons that want to do the same but when it comes to food, it just amazes me. There are companies that are out there that will posion us because it makes them rich. Not just you but your friends, your family, your neighbors. They will give you cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc. They will give it to everyone you know if the price is right. Even more terrifiying is that some of these people have medical degrees. Scientists and researchers that our bought and paid for, ignorant and stubborn, worse than our current government, who will hand us potentially fatal health problems. Hand it to us because we think its healthy, because they tell us its good for us. What are we going to do about it?
On the same page: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_re_us/pharmawater_factories

Some damn good Motivation

2009-04-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

Following excerpt from John Gleason of Again Faster and former trainer of Crossfit Boston:

Dedication

You think you know pain, but you have no idea. The heart thumping, chest expanding, lactic acid burn of your last workout was a walk through the meadow.

Somewhere, there’s a guy who did it in half the time it took you. He suffered. Plasma forced its way into his lungs, causing him to hack on repeat. He choked down bile halfway through, and ended on his back, pupils dilated to the size of dimes.

While you were walking around, telling your friends how hardcore your workout was, Guy Number Two was still collapsed, the prospect of driving home as daunting as climbing K2 during a snowstorm.

When he finally stood up, he didn’t say a word.

CrossFit is a decidedly masochistic pursuit. To be any good at it, you have to enjoy the pain. You have to push back the threshold day after day, until last year’s traumas feel like an hour-long rubdown at the Canyon Ranch. One day, you find a threshold that takes the whole thing just a little too far, and you get scared to go back.

The men and women that decimate your times are not superhuman. They’re not particularly genetically gifted. Hell, most of the top CrossFitters in the world would get absolutely pummeled in your standard game of rugby, buried by larger athletes begat by larger parents.

What differentiates these individuals is not a gift, but an unreasonable desire to push self-imposed suck beyond its logical limits. What comes out the other side becomes legendary.

Like any human pursuit, we seek ways around the hard part. Limited range of motion and new techniques. Dropping the deadlift from the top, bouncing it off the floor. Squatting above parallel and not standing up all the way. Chicken-necking above the chin-up bar, and reviewing the tape to see if we made it.

We want the reward (speed) without the sacrifice (pain).

This is not conscious cowardice. It’s pure out-and-out rationalism. Atsomepoint, the next threshold is the one that takes it too far, leaving us in an exercise-induced hallucination that lasts a few moments too long. Our hearts bounce around our insides for one beat too many, and our lungs beg to explode for an unwanted extra second. Every exhalation coincides with a constriction of vision, and the cold taste of copper.

No sane human being would enjoy such a feeling.

Still, the glory beckons. Surely, with enough training and the right supplements, there’s a way around the Hard Part. Enough sleep and enough vitamin B will get you the sub-whatever time without the attendant pain. There’s no need to redline your heart rate or pop capillaries. No need to ache so badly at night that you can’t sleep. Surely, there are ways around this.

Fortunately, the steroids are a no-go, and the exercises are done correctly or not at all. The only way to legend is through ever-mounting piles of pain. The meadow has to tilt at 45-degrees, and he rubdown at the Ranch must be done with Brillo Pads. If you can talk, you’re not trying hard enough. If your nerves aren’t frayed and ready to rebel, you’ll never get there.

Do yourself a favor, and realize that there’s no technique in the world that will save you. There are no pills, no secrets, no passwords on the path to greatness. You’ve got to embrace the pain, push the threshold, and feel the suck, and then you’ve got to muster the courage to go back six times a week.

After all, the world is a lot brighter when your pupils are the size of dimes, and massaging your sternum with your heart starts to feel good after a while. The plasma finds its way out of your lungs, and eventually you’ll be able to drive.

Sometimes, lying on the floor is its own reward.

Dave Castro takes his kettlebell for a walk. Picture courtesy of CrossFit.com.

Some damn good Advice

2009-04-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

For most of us we are completely used to ending a workout, collapsing to the floor, trying to breathe, praying to something for air all the while our eyes are jammed closed and there is this enormous thumping in our ears that sounds like an Indian Pow Wow (our hearts). For most of us we believe that this is the effort we need to expend in order to get a "Result." By result I mean anything, physical, atheistic etc.

Unfortunately this is not true; Performance does not equal result. You may get a result, but only half and therefore not a complete result, ergo not a result. Most (meaning all) of the results we wish to accomplish are solely going to be accomplished by nutrition. I have to agree with Glassman in that "I wish it wasnt true." I wish a steady diet of beer, ice cream and pizza would provide me enough protein, carbs and fats to give me an 8pac, 277 clean and jerk, and a sub 3 fran. The truth is, there is no way in hell thats gonna happen.

So if you are one of our members who isnt getting the "result" you came to us to get, then you need to start focusing on "what youre putting in the tank." If youre killing yourself and not reaping the reward or not reaping it quickly enough, you need a gut check (no pun intended) and you need to make some changes to your game. The following excerpt is from Robb Wolf's amazing wife Nicki Violetti who recently posted the following on their website:

Ditching Liquid Sugar

Posted by Nicki on April 07, 2009

Last night one of our little sugar addicted On Rampers (no names necessary ☺) was asking how she could lose her little “pooch” of a belly. My response: nutrition!

I wish it wasn’t the case! I wish we could just make the workouts harder and just kick people’s fannies day in and day out and they would have perfect body composition. The truth of the matter however, is that no matter how hard you train, you won’t reach your potential with regards to performance and body composition if you don’t dial in your nutrition!

Step #1: DITCH ALL LIQUID SUGAR!
This means NO soda, NO diet soda, NO mocha’s, NO adding sugar to your coffee and tea, NO juice, NO flavored aspartame water, NO Gatorade or other sports drinks…NO LIQUID SUGAR!
Intake of dietary sugar elevates blood sugar, which in turn causes the release of insulin in the body. Insulin is a FAT STORAGE HORMONE! Therefore, the more sugary foods and drinks you consume the more you tell your body to store fat...and prevent your body from using your body fat for energy.
If on the other hand, you keep dietary sugar intake low you will improve your body’s insulin sensitivity and you will be able to access body fat for energy…i.e. YOU WILL LEAN OUT!
I know it’s not easy, the sugar habit is hard to break! But, if you can navigate Step #1 you will be well on your way to being a lean ass-kicking machine!!! You can do it!

---Very smart, true advice from a very smart woman. That and once you can pass the insulin and sugar addiction cravings, its really easy to ignore this kind of crap in your diet.

--Robb spotting Nicki with the back squat in their gym. (it looks like 185lb but i could be wrong)

Things get SERIOUS!!

2009-04-12T22:12:00.001-07:00

Oh thats right....dont think your eyes are playing tricks on you....that's a scale...and a measuring cup....things just got personal.

Andy keeps threathening me with Fran. Im way out of shape to even get sub 5. I can feel it in my gut (pun intended). How do I know. Well I took my new scale and put it to a test when I got home. I usually buy a 4 piece package of turkey patties. The back of the package says 4 servings, 4 ounces per serving. So I weigh it..1 pattie = 2 ounces. So here is some old SAT math: 4 oz recommended for 16oz day + 1 pattie = 2 ounces +16oz day / 2 = 8oz = Chris under eating.

I dont eat only turkey patties all day, but you get the point. If im off in one meal, I could possibly be off in others. Possibly though becomes probably once I start thinking more about it though.

I thought this might be happening because after finishing my meals I was still hungry. I chopped it up to my stomach adjusting to not eating as much as before. Nope, I actually wasnt eating the correct portions. Which means my protein intake was low, my fat intake on par for what it should have been anyways and my carbs low to normal depending on circumstance (how hard I performed during the WOD, another post on Post Workout Nutrition coming soon, I have to let people catch up first.) This was a harsh realization. Suffering for nothing. Being too high in carbs meant screwing with my insulin, fat storage and other important health factors. Too much fat meant too many calories not properally earned. Too little protein meant little muscle gain or replenishment and jesse getting better times than me. (Keep it up jesse, im coming :)

Well now things get serious.

So here is a familiar way to look at it:

1 diet scale from walmart: $4.97

1 measuring cup from walmart: $1.50

Better health, performance and longevity: PRICELESS.

For those of you who dont know portion sizes yet, here you go:

http://journal.crossfit.com/2004/05/zone-meal-plans-crossfit-journ.tpl#featureArticleTitle

Easter Bunny is NOT my friend

2009-04-12T21:36:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

First off..Happy Easter!! And if you were feeling guilty about your eggs....DONT!

Check it out: Eggs are GOOD for you --->http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7882850.stm

Also,

I probably should have posted this last night (because I got an oodle of text messages today with fellow CrossFitters screaming for help, saying "the temptation is becoming too much!!") but try to refrain (replace "try to" with "DO!") from turning "a cheat meal" into a "cheat day." Typically there is a downward spiral..... Cheat Meal = Cheat day = Cheat couple of days = Cheat week = just quit.

If you are starting to clean up your nutrition, preforming better, getting RESULTS, why would you want to sacrifice that for something that is literally going to hurt you (physically or mentally (physically being gut irritation, mentally being your love handles becoming less lovely and depression setting in)).

Its best to keep cheat meals portioned and quick. Sometimes the can actually be healthy. I have been able to solve chocolate cravings with protein shakes, sweets with fruits and more! (I will get into that in another post). So far, it sounds like the Easter bunny was kicking everyone in the ass today. I myself am 5 Peeps, 1 marshmallow egg and a Reese's cup into it. As of now....i dont feel good. I feel kind of like a herd of wild, angry, fat rabbits are in my stomach playing rugby. So tomorrow, low carb for me and some readjustments of my insulin levels. BUT! I did have those sweets right after a 5k row and a WOD..so I didnt take too many steps back.

By the way, if you are going to have a cheat meal, pay serious attention to how you "feel" and "act" afterwards for at least an hour or more. You should feel some interesting things you might have brushed off as accusing Taco Bell for not cooking your burrito long enough. NOTE: Taco bell actually does NOT have a kitchen, they have a microwave, in which they reheat your order. Most fast food places actually dont have kitchens. Look for one the next time you are in a fast food hole and ask yourself "do i really want to give someone money to punch me in the stomach?" (replace "punch me in the stomach" with "make me fat!?!" or "give me cancer?" replace "cancer" with "hearth disease" or "diabetes" or "Alzheimer's" etc)

I will be in charge of a few of the classes this upcoming week, SO if you were bad, I will try to provide enough ass-whopping to get some of that stuff out of your system. :)

Take that!! You tasty yellow bastards!!!

On The Go Snacks

2009-04-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

Howdy y’all!!
So one of the most common things I'm hearing at the moment is that people are finding it hard to find a quick snack or meal. Well frequenting sites that I normally do I came across a link to http://paleokits.bigcartel.com/. There it listed the ingredients used for these so called “kits” which contained natural ingredients some how crammed together for an “on-the-go-situation.” So I wrote them down and hit up the local TJ! (Trader Joes for y’all that aren’t privy). What I bought was the following:

1) Dried fruit - freeze dried - Strawberries.
2) Super Cranberry and Pomegranate blend.
3) Natural Beef Jerky - Teriyaki.
4) Blue Diamond Natural Oven Roasted almonds-no salt (I bought these buggers at Ralphs)

Here is what I did to make my own little paleo snack kits. I tired to cook it into my own kind of cookie or bar, but really didn’t have a binding element, so nothing stuck. I basically just ended up cooking it longer and it just turned out crunchier. Feel free to mix in whatever the heck you want as long as it contains the basics. (Basics= lean meat, veggies, some fruits, seeds and nuts, no sugar.) If you can think of a binding element or a better/ more creative way to put this stuff together please let me know, any advice is wanted, this was just an experiment.

NOTE: Notice the list and the pictures, nothing but natural, fresh ingredients. Hhmm, meat, fruit, nuts….pretty basic…pretty easy for all of those “i-don’t-know-what-the-hell-to-eat-people” or “IDKWHEP.”

Step 1: Bought ingredients.

Step 2: Cut the ingredients up.

Cut the ingredients up. I did this for the sake of things fitting on the fork/spoon and for possible use of just doing multiple shots of food while say driving or walking without choking or looking silly.

Step 3: Added the ingredients.

NOTE: I did not weigh or measure, I guess-ta-mated (I know, bad caveman Chris, bad!). I used 2 spoonfuls of the cran/pom berry mix – 1 handful of the dried strawberries – about 30+/- almonds and ½ small plate of cut jerky.

Step 4: Packaged and Ready to Eat on the Go!!:

Here is the final product in their containers, waiting for me to leave the house late and hungry. Why is there a duck? Because that duck is BADASS!! And I have two more just like him guarding my meals in case other “foragers” happen to roam by. Don’t f*k with the duck, trust me.
Final:
So there you have it. Again, there was no weighing or measuring involved. Rough guess-ta-mates puts this at about 2 block protein/2 block carb/3 block fat (or at least that’s what I was aiming for, for those zone Nazi’s out there). I might have come up somewhat short but this was literally my first trail. Feel free to make them out of what ever ingredients you want as long as they contain the basics. Also, feel free to make these as big or as small as you want. I picked the containers first and then just filled, next time I will probably make some what bigger ones in case I am real hungry. If you come up with snazzy and tasty ideas, please share! We are a community. Any questions please email me (xfitnut@yahoo.com) Thank you for reading, enjoy, take care and keep eating well and training hard.
Other Notes: Regarding meat: try to buy grass fed – no hormones – no preservatives – pretty much natural meat which hasn’t been screwed up by man and their little experiments they play on each other. It will be stated on the package if the meat is “clean” and with out additives. Do this for your beef, chicken, turkey etc. Also try to buy products that don’t contain WHEAT or SOY or even MILK. The products that contain those listed above could have effects on your body that are harmful and unbeknownst to you at the time. Trust me, finding products that don’t contain those additives is a tough and annoying process, but hey, sorry, that’s the way it goes. You don’t like it, write your congressman and join my cult.

The Truth About Grains

2009-04-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Anatomy of the Grain-- By Robb Wolf

You have likely heard terms like Bran, Kernel and Germ as they relate to grains, but I want to take a moment to cover what exactly these structures are and what they contain. This general diagram from the Linus Pauling Institute illustrates the normal grain constituents. Here is what we find in the grain:
Bran: The tough outer coating that contains proteins, vitamins and minerals. That’s the standard ADA position. (Eatright.org… what a damn farce. Keep your eyes open for that topic and others at our new blog… Sorry, back to bashing grains.) So the bran appears to be a bountiful harvest of nutrition. We will take that fallacy apart in greater detail later. For now just know that bran is also home to most of the antinutrients and gut-irritating protein constituents.

Kernel: This is where most of the nutritional action is, at least with regard to caloric content. This is where we find most of the carbohydrate in grains. If you have seen white rice you have seen the kernel.

Germ: This is actually the plant embryo and it contains a fairly dense source of fatty acids, mostly n-6, some protein and assorted vitamins and minerals. This is your average grain, and it is representative of grains ranging from wheat to rice to popcorn. A detailed understanding of grain taxonomy and structure is not my intent here, but it is important that you understand the components grains, as we will be talking about processing methods that may remove certain problematic fractions but inevitably leave others.

The Real Problems: Most of the problems related to grain consumption can be lumped into one of two categories: those related to hyperinsulinemia and those related to irritant/toxicant properties inherent to the grains. It is interesting to note that these properties of irritation and inflammation via hyperinsulinemia may be multiplicative with regards to deleterious health effects, i.e. one makes the other worse. Did the food pyramid make all the Dieticians Chubby or did the Chubby Dieticians make the food pyramid? Possibly the longest introduction for a paragraph you have ever seen but it is at the crux of the first problem with grains. Grains are mostly starchy carbohydrate, and starchy carbohydrate, when consumed in any amount, causes the release of a significant dose of insulin.

The starch in grains can be subdivided into two basic forms, amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is a long chain of glucose molecules and amylopectin is a highly branched, interwoven structure also comprised of glucose molecules. Think of amylose as a rope and amylopectin as a dust bunny. Grains are made up of differing amounts of amylose and amylopectin, and this variation accounts for differences in the glycemic index of various grains. Starches are digested by the enzymes salivary amylase and pancreatic amylase. Amylase acts on the last glucose molecule in the polymer, whether it is amylose (rope) or amylopectin (dust bunny). I think it’s pretty clear that the rope has far fewer locations for the amylase to attack in the digestion process than the dust bunny does. The more locations for the enzyme to attack, the faster the digestion, the quicker the rise in blood glucose levels, and typically the larger the insulin release. Any type of processing (cooking, milling) breaks up both the varieties of starch molecules, thus facilitating digestion. Easier digestion means a greater insulin response. The making of pizza crust fractures the starch grains in such a way that the body produces more insulin in response to pizza crust than raw glucose!

No one knows why, but the processing inherent in most grain products can increase the insulin response far above what would otherwise be expected. So grains can have a fairly wide-ranging glycemic index and thus insulin response and various forms of processing can greatly increase both those numbers and consequently their impact on our health. One of the fallacies that is still spewed forth by the likes of the ADA is that slow-releasing carbs (beans, whole grains) causes a flat insulin response and consequently do not pose a problem. This is true only if one is consuming grains as condiments, as in a tablespoon here and there. Eat them a cup at a time, and not only does blood glucose level rise dramatically, but it stays elevated for a long time. Research is pretty conclusive that the insulin spike is more detrimental than the lower level chronically elevated insulin, but the end results are the same: Syndrome X, AKA the Metabolic Syndrome (You always need multiple names for things in science and medicine to ensure that as few people as possible have an idea of what is going on).

Grains, both processed and unprocessed, are a major player in metabolic derangement in that they are almost entirely carbohydrate and they are typically consumed in large quantities. Now that we understand the relationship of grain consumption and the inevitable and deleterious rise in insulin levels, let’s look more closely at what Syndrome X is. The word Syndrome is defined as “A collection or group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular disease or abnormality.”

The signs and symptoms of Syndrome X include high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, high blood pressure, high risk of stroke and heart attack… and a bunch of other stuff. Professor Loren Cordain wrote a paper that sheds some light on some of that “other stuff” Called “Syndrome X: Just the Tip of the Hyperinsulinemia Iceberg”. That other stuff runs the gamut from cancer to myopia, but many diseases that have been associated with Syndrome X and hyperinsulinemia are slowly being put under the umbrella of Chronic Inflammation.

We know that we are onto something hot when Barry Sears has a new topic that allows him to re-hash his Zone offerings. The Anti-Inflammation Zone is his most recent contribution to the Zone book club. [Just a small digression here, but I think we are going to adopt Barry Sears’s approach to rehashing material and combine that with the consistent subject lines of my Spam and we will start re-releasing the P-Menu with catchy titles like “The Anti-Penile Dysfunction P-Menu” or the “Better than Cialis P-Menu”. No new content… just a new topic to hang the material from.] Anyway, inflammation has many factors, including antioxidant and essential fatty acid status, but one of the key contributors to the condition we call inflammation is insulin level. Here is a detailed look at what happens with elevated insulin levels (Scroll down to insulin dysregulation). The insulin and inflammation topic is absolutely huge and far beyond the scope of this article or publication for that matter. The main point is grains pack a potent impact with regards to insulin response and that can lead to a variety of problems. Irritant/Toxicant The next broad category I want to look at falls under the irritant/toxicant label. Let’s look first at antinutrients. Grains are essentially a reproductive structure and contain not only a dense energy source for the developing embryo, but also a number of control mechanisms that prevent both predation and abnormal germination. Sequestering away key nutrients like calcium, zinc and magnesium prevents abnormal germination.

One of the main antinutrients is a chemical called Phytic acid of which there are several varieties, all going by the general term “phytates”. Now the phytates are powerful chelators; that is they bind to metal ions very tightly. This is postulated to be the main reason why cultures that consume large portions of their diets as grains and/or legumes tend to be shorter than their westernized transplants. The Okinawan vs. Japanese story is clearly illustrative of this. Okinawans have historically been significantly taller than their Japanese counterparts. The diets of the two groups differed in that the Okinawans consumed more protein and most of their carbohydrates in the form of highly nutritious tubers and only a modicum of rice. Japanese Americans show a markedly different phenotypic expression than their rice and tofu-eating ancestors. Just look at Jeff Oji.
It is interesting to note that phytates are used in some alternative medicine circles as an anti-cancer agent. Apparently phytates exert some influence on the growth of tissues by removing metal ions such as calcium, magnesium and zinc that are important for growth. This seems like a nice closed system: feed people grains, let them get cancer from the elevated insulin levels then use grain extracts (phytates) to try to treat their condition. This antinutrient concept is found in all eggs including those of birds and reptiles. Avidin binds to biotin, which is an important growth factor for bacteria. Hide away the biotin and it’s hard for the egg to spoil. These antinutrients are so powerful that avidin has even been genetically engineered into some grains… to extend their storage. Avidin is destroyed with cooking but phytates are not. Bon appetite! Another sub category of irritants/toxicants includes items such as gluten.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat and other grains. It is also categorized under a huge family of molecules called lectins. Many of these lectins actually damage or destroy the gastrointestinal tract. In the small intestine we have structures called microvilli that interact with the food in our intestines. Microvilli are covered with enzymes that help to digest and transport food particles into the blood stream or lymph. Certain proteins such as gluten found in wheat, rye and barley cause a severe autoimmune reaction in some individuals, which is called Celiac Sprue. Celiac is a full-blown autoimmune reaction in which the microvilli of the intestines are destroyed. This condition makes it nearly impossible to absorb fats, minerals and many vitamins. Not everyone shows a full blown celiac response; however, irritation is present with virtually all grain consumption.

This lower level irritation has been broadly labeled as “leaky gut syndrome” and is emerging as a primary player in all autoimmune disorders. The theory is that once the gut lining is damaged, large food particles are able to make their way into the blood stream. Once there, the immune system mounts an attack against the foreign, undigested food particles. These particles may have elements that are similar in structure to body proteins and thus antibodies are produced that have affinity for one’s own tissues. The seed of autoimmunity has then been sown (nice grain cliché, no?). This is something that has been kicked around for many, many years, but some other very interesting disease processes have been uncovered, like schizophrenia and congestive heart failure, which appear to owe their existence, at least in part, to leaky gut. Nay Sayers (read also: The Ignorant) frequently make the point that not everyone gets celiac. That is true, but across all species tested, grains cause gut irritation. Check PubMed. This knowledge has even allowed the design of experiments looking at gut permeability and autoimmunity.

It is worth mentioning that dairy is a potent cross reactor for celiacs. It is fairly easy to assay dairy and get high concentrations of grain lectins. It has also been noted that grass-fed dairy shows little or no cross reactivity in celiacs. I’m going to look at some of the other deleterious effects of grain consumption for animals later, but this is obviously a source of grains that most people would not have considered. Just to completely beat this into the ground, let’s look at quinoa. Quinoa is similar to a grain in its carbohydrate content and layout as a reproductive structure, but quinoa is botanically a fruit, and if you remember your botany, is a dicotyledon, whereas wheat, obviously a grain, is a monocotyledon. Relevance? They differ phylogenetically at the class level. To put that in perspective, mammals are a class, as are fish, as are reptiles. This is a huge difference and denotes ages since a common ancestor. Despite that fact, quinoa still has a protein fraction that can cause problems with celiacs. What I take from this is nature found a similar answer to reproductive strategies with quinoa and grains, and not surprisingly, quinoa presents similar potential problems. I want to mention just a few more things here. Grains also have a highly addictive nature beyond the carbohydrate content. They contain opiate-like substances that can be very problematic. Not surprisingly, these opioid constituents can be concentrated in dairy. Makes one look at pizza in a new and frightening way.
Grains are not just bad for humans; they give livestock some serious problems as well, ranging from creating heat and acid resistant forms of E. Coli to completely altering the fatty acid and nutrient content of meat. Grass-fed meat should contain significant amounts of n-3 fatty acids, alpha lipoic acid, CLA, Vitamin E and loads of carotenoids. Grain fed meat is the protein version of cardboard.

You Have It! So, there you have it! Likely more than you EVER wanted to know about grains. But considering that our mission with the Performance Menu is to provide the best possible information on how to feed, water and exercise your person to optimize performance, health and longevity, avoiding such thoroughness with the topic would be a dereliction of our responsibilities. We advocate a Paleo/Zone approach to nutrition and jazz that up with some Intermittent Fasting. We feel strongly that both anecdotal and scientific research supports these positions. Grains obviously play a major dietary role for many people, but I hope this exploration helps to clarify why they may not be a wise choice for optimized health.