30 Days to Go!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Road to Regionals Nutrition Challenge starts today!  Read below for more details!

Mobility:
15 PVC Dislocates
Sampson Stretch, 30 seconds each
15 PVC Good Mornings
Rack Mobility with Band, 90 seconds each

Warmup:
Junkyard Dog Warmup

Skill:
Practice your squat clean and jerk.  Work up to a heavy single that is higher than your workout weight.  Practice both a split and push jerk and determine what you will be doing for the workout.  Focus on consistent footwork for both the clean and jerk.

Workout of the Day:

155 pound Squat Clean and Jerk, 30 reps

The barbell goes from ground to overhead, passing through a front squat in which the crease of the hip passes below the height of the kneecap. The finish position is with the arms, hips and knees fully extended, arms overhead, with at least a portion of the ear visible in front of the arm.  For those that cannot get into a quality front squat position a power clean will be acceptable.

Cool Down:
Row 1k
Sampson Stretch, 30 seconds each
Rack Stretch with PVC, 60 seconds (video below)
Seated Pike Stretch, 90 seconds

The next 30 days is called a challenge, because its not going to be easy for most of you.  There are varying levels of commitment to things of this nature, but the main point I will continue to emphasize is that this is not just about completing the 30 days.  We are hoping to kickstart a long term change in your relationship with food and like all long journeys, you have to start sometime.  Today is that day!  If you are planning on participating, you don’t need to sign up or pay any registration fees.  We are simply hoping you will participate and share your experiences with the rest of the gym through our comments section.  I have posted my meals for the past few days to give you an example of what I eat and what to post.  There is no right or wrong with what you post about in comments, just share your personal experiences and ask questions along the way.

As I stated above, there will be varying levels of commitment to this challenge, but I wanted to post a few clips from a group called the Whole 9.  They are a group that is committed to helping people change their diet, and it all starts with a strict 30 day challenge.  Their recommendations are slightly different than mine, but they don’t fuck around.  Check out the following excerpts from their version of a a 30 Day Paleo Challenge called the Whole 30:

Strip them from your diet completely. Cut out all the psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health. The most important reason to keep reading?  This will change your life.

Here’s what you can expect.  The first week or two will be tough, as your body heals and adjusts to this new way of eating and your brain wraps itself around going without all those sweet tastes and sugar-driven energy spikes. And while you may start to feel better after a week or two… the healing process takes significantly longer. In addition, the mental addiction and emotional connections to sugary foods, large amounts of processed carbohydrates and over-the-top, chemically-altered flavors is going to take a lot longer to overcome.

Stick with it, and be patient with yourself. You cannot reasonably expect to completely reverse decades of poor eating habits in just 30 days. The good news, however, is that improvements are front-loaded, and you will start to see significant benefits within the month.

Click HERE to read their entire Whole 30 guide.

I wanted to finish off by explaining a little more about some of the common questions I have been receiving since my Monday post:

1.  Do you really only eat 2-3 times a day?  Yes.  I don’t snack at all between meals and typically the only thing I drink is water and an Americano (black, typically one in the morning).  The trick to this is the fat.  High fat meals are calorically dense, and very satiating due to their slower digestion.  If you have ever had the pleasure of eating a Pemmican bar for breakfast, you are good to go for hours.  When I wanted to gain weight and eat more food, all I had to do was lower the fat, increase the carbohydrate (veggies) and I was hungry and able to eat more often.  Let me be clear, this doesn’t mean that you cannot lean out or perform well eating more times a day, I just find that this is a better path to success.  With the grazing style of eating more meals a day, you have to plan ahead to have access to quality foods more often, which creates more opportunities for bad choices.

2.  I don’t really know how to cook.  You have to start sometime!  This is an essential life skill and integral to this process.  We aren’t asking you to whip up a 5 course meal, just make something that tastes good for you!  Here are a few basics you absolutely must know how to do:  cook meat on the grill or stove, heat oil in a pan, chop vegetables, apply salt and pepper to taste.  With these skills I can prepare a meal from scratch, eat it and clean up within 30 minutes.  On a personal note, I love to cook, there are few things as satisfying as preparing and eating your own food.  Get into it.

3.  You seem to eat a lot more than me!  Since I eat all of my food in two or three meals a day, it may seem like that, but I am actually eating a normal amount.  When I go out to eat, I don’t leave hungry because it is so much less than my home cooked meals (although I will have extra fat by way of avocado or olive oil typically).  I try to eat about a gram of protein per pound of my bodyweight on most days (about a pound and 3/4 of meat) and other than that I eat a heaping pile of whatever veggies I can get.  My fat is the only thing that is above normal, but that doesn’t really make my overall portions look larger.

4.  But I just LOVE (fill in the blank)!  I’ll venture to say that the most common answer to this fill in the blank would be BEER.  For those that don’t know my past, I actually have some legitimate ground to stand on here, so this is my pitch.  I spent a good portion of my youth and young adulthood drinking beer.  I loved it and the good times it brought into my life.  My youth was filled with watered down, macro-brewed, cheap-as-can-be beers like Keystone, Coors and Bud.  As I matured, I eventually found the beauty of microbreweries like Stone and New Belgium.  As time passed, I was forced to eventually tackle my digestive issues that plagued me during these years.  I found that reducing my gluten grain intake made me feel a lot better and so beer went bye-bye.  The truth is that is wasn’t even hard.  As much as I loved beer and the taste of the beer, I was much more in love with feeling good all the time.  The good times that came with drinking beer were easily replaced with a good tequila or cider beer.  Go out and drink only tequila all night and tell me how you feel the next day when compared to a long night of beer drinking.  I am not advocating abstinence, but don’t be fooled that you can’t live your life without beer or whatever you want to fill in that blank above.  I am Italian, for god sakes, and I don’t eat bread or pasta anymore!  Give it a try and then make your decision.

5.  Gum is bad?  Even 0 calorie, no sugar gum?  Yup!  Sorry to say.  Your brain and body don’t know the difference between 0 calorie and real sugar, so when we pop gum in our mouths, our brain begins the digestive process.  This is called the Cephalic phase of digestion, where our stomach turns up the production of gastric juices to prepare for the arrival of food, our blood sugar levels go up and we release insulin.  This is how people can gain weight on 0 calorie artificial sweeteners.  In other words, its a confusing state of affairs for your mind and body.

Congrats to Nick Cobb for passing his Level 1 CrossFit certification this past weekend!

Also this past weekend, Zeb continued is training mastery at the Coaches’ Prep Course!