Thursday 10 December 2009
Update: Steady bodyweight at 135# 
My body is happy at this weight. No longer need to justify tons of garbage eating to gain weight, nor will I starve myself on a severely calorically restricted paleo-type diet or follow strict rules of any diet or mad calorie/macronutrient ratio counting. I will, to the best of my living-in-a-normal-society ability, follow traditional food principles: protein, fat, and some carbs at every meal, using good dairy fats (real butter, real cream, and real cheese) and make my own preserves (salsa, etc) to maximize nutrient availability and absorption, and get my carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables in season as much as possible. Since I’m doing intensive strength training, I’ll need more carbs than the average Joe, so I will have a bowl of oatmeal, some beans & rice, or slice of sprouted grain bread with meals on training days. I’ll post my meals and rationale in hopes of helping others adopt real food principles.
REST DAY.
This week I made:
Oatmeal from steel cut oats, soaked overnight in water with a tablespoon of Astro Plain Balkan Yogurt. Cooks up quickly, add a tablespoon of honey after it’s cooled and serve with Organic Meadows whipping cream. That’s right, all natural 35% fat whipping cream. Mmmmm! Great breakfast with eggs for training days!
Tex Mex Beans & Rice:
Long Grain Brown Rice: Heat up 2 tbsp each butter and olive oil. Sautee 2 cups dry rice for about 5 minutes, until it starts to turn milky. Add 4 cups of water, or substitute some water for chicken broth or coconut milk, and bring to a boil. Let it boil until the water is reduced to the level of the rice, then cover and simmer on the lowest heat for 1.5 hours.
Beans: You could soak beans overnight and cook for 2+ hours the next day. I’ve been buying canned beans by Eden Organics, available at Metro. They have black and kidney beans, take your pick!
Mix the rice with a can of beans, add another tbsp olive oil and some chili flakes, salt, and pepper.
Carrot Salad:
Type 1: Grated carrots, pineapple, yogurt, and raisins
Type 2: Grated carrots, grated apple, raisins
Nachos: ground beef, red pepper, green onions, tex mex cheese, full fat sour cream. Found corn tostadas that seem pretty good at Metro.
Chicken:
Legs for chicken salad with mayo/avocado and veggies
Breasts with coconut oil and pineapple OR butter and lemon juice and veggies
Update!
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what diet I’m on and what training I’m doing. I’ve been eating Zone-Paleo-ish, super low-carb, for a long time now, and have often gone to extremes. Now, I need to just focus on eating good food, even if its not the 100% best super food, and not fear all carbs. I’m trying to put on muscle and do strictly strength training for a couple of months. I saw a lot of great progress with eating clean and CrossFit workouts, I was lean and fast and strong, and I highly recommend the program to anyone looking for fitness improvements. However, after more than a year, I wanted to really see how strong I can get, and that requires a lot more food and carbs than I was eating, and a lot more heavy back squats. There are countless ideas of “the best foods/diet” out there, and my stance has been dynamic on a number of issues. I can’t pretend to know all the answers, so I’ll just tell you what I’m doing and why and you can use my ideas to help you make your own decisions.
I’m certified in CrossFit Nutrition, which is Robb Wolf and Paleo-Zone, for eating super clean, gluten/dairy-free (more than 1/4 of the American population is sensitive to these 2 foods) and dropping weight fast. Mark’s Daily Apple has hundreds of articles and recipes along the same lines. In the near future I’ll be looking in to the Precision Nutrition plan for fueling athletic performance, which lets you “earn your carbs” by eating high quality grains etc after your workout. I’ve also taken an interest in the Weston A Price Foundations’ dietary guidelines, which show that the modernized versions of real food like grains and dairy are not as healthy as they are when prepared traditionally. I’m using the recipe book Nourishing Traditions to help with making more of my own foods and doing things like soaking oatmeal overnight before cooking. I think that a healthy, individualized balance between these theories will lead to happy and nutritious sustainable eating. I’m just going to write down what I’m doing and learning and see what happens. I welcome you to post your own experiences, questions and constructive comments. It’s all one big long experiment so let’s enjoy the ride!
Healthy Living Challenge at Element CrossFit
Coach Greg Glassman has said : “A theoretical hierarchy exists for the development of an athlete. It starts with nutrition and moves to metabolic conditioning, gymnastics, weightlifting, and finally sport. This hierarchy largely reflects foundational dependence, skill, and to some degree, time ordering of development. The logical flow is from molecular foundations, cardiovascular sufficiency, body control, external object control, and ultimately mastery and application. This model has greatest utility in analyzing athletes’ shortcomings or difficulties. We don’t deliberately order these components but nature will. If you have a deficiency at any level of “the pyramid” the components above will suffer.”
In short, your metabolic conditioning and performance in gymnastics, weightlifting, and sport are directly impacted by and dependent on your diet. Even small changes in your eating habits can make a big difference in your health and fitness.
Starting November 1st, we’re doing a Healthy Living Challenge at Element CrossFit. Members of www.elementcrossfit.com can access recipes and other resources in the Member Resources Section to help you. It might seem like a hassle to track and measure your meals, but you get accustomed to eyeballing correct proportions of foods quickly, and it’s worth it in the end. If you don’t want to participate in the challenge, you don’t have to be hardcore about it, but if you’re taking the time and effort to improve your fitness by CrossFitting, you should at least try to incorporate some of the things we have learned from the Zone Diet and the Paleo Diet into your eating habits to improve your health. Many people CrossFit with good results and have terrible eating habits. But they don’t see results as great as those who eat well, and don’t enjoy the mental and physical benefits of good nutrition.
I’ve been reading a lot on the optimal nutrition for peak mental and physical performance as outlined by Dr Barry Sears of the Zone Diet and similar dietary prescriptions such as Protein Power. I plan to write a short summary and review on each book as I go. So far Top 100 Zone Foods by Dr. Barry Sears was the most applicable, as it gives a good introduction to the Zone Diet and interesting facts and recipes for each food. I highly recommend it for those interested in improving their nutrition, especially those concerned about diabetes and heart disease (which we all should be). More to follow, but to start, read my earlier posts on the Zone Diet and the Paleo Diet, check out the links, and read CrossFit Journal #21for the official CrossFit prescription for the Zone Diet.
I like using www.fitday.com to keep track of meals, it’s free and easy to use. Also, http://www.nutritiondata.com/ provides nutrition facts, caloric ratio, estimated glycemic load, and inflammation factor for most foods.
Keith at CrossFit Virtuosity has a great article with more guidance: http://www.crossfitvirtuosity.com/blogs/articles/18-articles/135-how-to-start-your-meal-plan
