We will be holding another Paleo Challenge from June 3rd-July 2nd!  If you’d like to participate, please plan on attending an Information Session on Saturday, May 18th at 11:00am.  There is a sign-up list on the whiteboard at the gym.  If you’re new to paleo, or just want to brush up on the challenge, the information session will be very helpful for you.  You should also join the BrewCity CrossFit Paleo Challenge Group on Facebook.

Best part about going paleo?

Since the change to the paleo diet my overall energy has been through the roof. I feel more alert and focused throughout the day. My performance at the gym has also greatly improved. Since the last challenge I have had many PR’s along with feeling comfortable doing RX workouts.

Hardest part of going paleo?

The first week’ish! The change from grains and sugars to veggies and proteins is a big change. I would have said the food you use to eat, but when you do eat grains and sugar it just makes you feel sick and not want to eat them anymore.

Go to snacks/meals?

1. Apples and Almond Butter
2. Egg Cakes (http://paleomg.com/on-the-go-egg-bites/)
3. Grass Feed Burgers with Guacamole
4. Kale Salad with Avocado, Walnuts and Lime

Hardest thing to give up?

1. Cheeseburgers
2. Alcohol – Social (We live in WI people think you are strange if you don’t drink)
3. Warm Cookies
4. Did I say Cheeseburgers?

Biggest change noticed physically?

I have gotten LEAN! I was not a big guy when I started paleo but ended up losing 10 pounds, and wear jeans today smaller than when I was in college. I can also see those muscles I have been working so hard for.

Take a look at the change in my face alone.

How has it affected your gym performance?

Both my endurance and strength have greatly improved. In the first month of paleo I had three PR’s on lifts, and one of the PR’s was going from 180lb deadlift to 240lb deadlift. Also I have always had a hard time with running, but with this diet change I seen improvements in distance.

How has it changed your everyday life?

The biggest way paleo has changed my life is now I feel like I am living my life. I know that sounds very cliché but it is true. I always thought it was normal to feel tired after each meal, take naps when I got home from work, and have stomach aches. But just to let you know IT’S NOT NORMAL!

Advice for people “going Paleo”?

1. The first week or so is going to be hard. You will feel at times like you are in a haze, but that is normal.
2. Don’t cheat. Give it 100% because that is how you will see and feel the max results.
3. Stuck and can’t make a meal? I always look for a Chipotle or Qdoba and get a burrito bowl.
a. Lettuce for base
b. Double Chicken or Beef
c. Pico De Gallo
d. Guacamole

Outside of challenge, how paleo do you eat?

I do very well Monday through Friday and stay almost completely strict minus the warm cookies they have Wednesday afternoon at work (see question 4). On the weekends I eat paleo except when I go out or when I feel like eating myself sick (half a bag of candy corn one day).

Sunday, December 16: Olympic Weightlifting Seminar with Anna Martin, former college national champion and coach at the Olympic Training Center. The event will run from 9am-noonish. For those of you looking to improve your Olympic lifts, this seminar will be very helpful. (Note: we accidently had 12/9 written on the whiteboard. The correct date for this is 12/16).

But what about now?  What do we do now that there’s no one holding you accountable?  I beg you not to give this diet up.  If your considering reverting back to your old ways, get out a piece of paper right now (or send it to yourself in an email) and write down exactly what you enjoyed about the challenge. Whether it’s how you felt, or what you accomplished, heck even write down the compliments you received.  For me it was such things as, “I’m not trying to creep you out, but I am obsessed with your butt cheeks… they just hang over so perfectly” (from another girl, while I was in a swimsuit) as well as actually feeling comfortable in my swim suit playing beach volleyball (that’s a first).  If you don’t think your accomplishments these past 4 weeks were not related to your diet, you are so wrong.  Let me prove you wrong:

·         Renee getting her first pull up

·         David E putting #220 overhead

·         Amber S putting #100 overhead

·         Gabe, Jorge and Lauren all getting muscle ups

·         Pablo squat cleaning #195

·         Will putting 300+ overhead (right Will?) or just completely SMOKING the team competition

·         Ben I. and Jacob L. both losing over 20 pounds

·         So many of you making drastic changes in your body composition (Christine I., Carl S., Janell S., Michelle S., Flint E.)

·         So many more! Please, please, please feel free to share your accomplishments for those of you I don’t see every day at night classes!

The moral of the story: they’re all members, all paleo challenge participants, making HUGE, huge strides in Crossfit and life.  I’ve heard so many positive remarks, people are sleeping better, not suffering from heartburn or inflammation, pants are fitting way “loose”r, feeling more confident, receiving tons of compliments and support… I could go on and on.  Remember how good you feel.  Stick with the diet.  Even though it’s tough at times, aim for 80/20.  80% paleo, 20% not.  If you’re feeling ambitious, go 90/10, 95/5.  Determine a game plan and stick to it (for me I’m allowing myself a cheat meal a week, if I really really want one).  I’ve found that if you try to eat strict paleo and restrict yourself, you will end up unhappy.  You end up denying yourself somethings you really enjoy.  Like my mom’s Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes.  If you enjoy something, have it.  In moderation.  And, as always, if you fall off the wagon, get right back on at the next meal.  Or call your wagon driver (that’s me) to give you a hand to get back on.

-Lauren

The Paleo Diet mimics the original human diet, containing meats and veggies, little fruit and nuts, and healthy fats. Grains, sugars, alcohol and dairy were never meant to be consumed by humans and are the main causes of the obesity epidemic and autoimmune diseases.

Susan H. was one of our winners. As you may have noticed, Susan is lookin TRIM! She also had this to say “Not only did it change my entire view on how I treat my body but I saw real changes in my shape as well as performance. But the one thing that I really took away from this is that it has motivated me to push much harder in class and even do scaled workouts at home.” Yup, when you’re giving it the right fuel, your body wants to keep moving.

Joe T. was another winner. Many of you may have noticed that around the time of we started the paleo challenge that Joe T. stopped coming to the gym and his little brother that looks just like him but is thinner and younger and has the same name started coming. Well get this: it’s the same guy! Joe lost 11lbs during the challenge, and 19lbs since he started coming to CrossFit. But Joe’s changes in body composition go beyond the number on the scale. He told us: “From a performance standpoint, I feel like my endurance/cardio is getting better and better and I am getting stronger and able to do things new things (got my first kipping pull up as well as strict pull up during the challenge). I have slept better each night and woke up every morning feeling great. When I was slamming 4-6 sodas a day and eating crappy, every morning seemed to be a struggle getting started.” Joe is sticking with paleo, so we’ll have to wait to see his before and after pics until he’s been at it another couple months, right Joe?

David E. was our third winner. Like Joe and Susan, David ate strict paleo for the duration of the challenge. David was pretty thin before the challenge started, and he also already ate about 80% paleo. Interestingly, his biggest change was in his performance. David had this to say: “In week two I started to notice I had more energy so I could go longer during a workout without needing to gasp for air. I’ve never been focused enough to string together more than 50 double unders, but at the start of week three I did every round of double-unders unbroken! Week three, I destroyed every PR I had in my records, sometimes by a stupid crazy amount. I’m not strong by any account but the amount of time I’ve been doing Crossfit, I’ve seen big gains and I think Paleo has given me the energy I needed to close the gap on a lot of the other cross fitters that were simply just better at pretty much everything. I know Paleo played a role in allowing me to realize where my true abilities are and improve on them every time I walked into the box.” Among those PRs was an increase in his clean of 20lbs!

We also saw great results from Mike P., Natalie H., Janell S., Jorge M., Cesar C., Renee F. Lauren, Julie, Lucas, Andy and Danny, which we will tell you all about in a later post.

The Diet Challenge will last 6 weeks and consist of two stages: “The Ramp-up” and “The Challenge.”  “The Ramp-up” will start Monday, January 2nd and last for two weeks.  “The Challenge” will begin on Monday, January 16th and end on Sunday, February 12th.

During the Ramp-up period, you will be provided with an information packet on the paleo diet, which will include articles, a food guide, recipes, and other sources of information.  We will also hold an information session on Saturday, January 7th at 11:00 at BrewCity CrossFit.  We will also encourage you to attend a presentation by Dr. William Davis, author of “Wheat Belly”, on Saturday, January 14th at 10:00 at CrossFit Milwaukee.  More information here.  On the final day before The Challenge begins, Sunday, January 15th, we will have a paleo pot-luck at the gym. 

We will also use the Ramp-up period to discuss the rules of The Challenge, take “before” pictures, and make sure everyone has obtained their diet journal. 

For The Challenge, all participants must keep a diet journal.  The journal must keep track of EVERYTHING the participant eats.  This includes beer, business lunches, date nights, your sister’s wedding dinner, and other “cheat days.”  Participants should also make note in their journals of any changes in feeling, performance, body composition or anything else they want to include during The Challenge.  All journals will be turned in at the end of each week. 

Each day of the week will be graded on a scale of 0-3.  The Challenge lasts only four weeks and you will see the most significant changes if you are STRICT, so the real goal is to score a “3” every day. 

            “3” is strict paleo according to the rules.  This means the participant eats only grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, roots.  The participant does not eat any grains, refined sugar, artificial sweeteners (diet soda and stuff like that), legumes, dairy products, processed foods.  We will provide you with enough information during the Ramp-up that you should be able to answer “is this paleo?” questions. 

            “2” is one SMALL cheat.  This means that the participant eats MOSTLY paleo, but added creamy salad dressing to their lunch greens, or ate some peanuts, or had a glass of wine at dinner. This is also the highest score a participant can get if he or she self-modifies The Challenge to “paleo + dairy” or some equivalent. 

            “1” is for no sugar and no grains, but otherwise not paleo.

            “zero” is for complete cheat day. 

One bonus point can be awarded each week for coming to BrewCity CrossFit for 3 WODs or more per week. 

Anyone who breaks 75 points will get a free BrewCity CrossFit t-shirt or hat. 

An overall male and female winner will be chosen when the Challenge has concluded.  Factors that will be considered in determining the winners are point score, before/after photos, performance improvements in the gym, and diet journal.  Winners will receive 1 month of free classes, a BrewCity CrossFit t-shirt or hat, 2 tickets to the Roller Derby, and a set of rockin set of abs.

Please let one of your BrewCity trainers know if you are interested in participating.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the paleo/primal diet here, here and here.

Not this.

Step one is your diet.  The foundation of your health is what you eat.  All the exercise in the world can’t counteract a really bad diet.  So what should you eat? 

Starting in January, BrewCity CrossFit will be having a diet challenge.  Details on the specifics will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, we’d like to get some information out on what kind of diet we, and CrossFit, advocate.  There are some differences of opinions when it comes to the perfect diet, but most CrossFitters,* and a growing number of scientists, dieticians and other experts agree that the conventional wisdom (low calorie, low fat, high carb) is wrong. 

Step one is to eat “real food.”  One of the first things you probably found when you google’d “crossfit” is Greg Glassman’s description of World Class Fitness in 100 Words: “Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds.  Bike, run, swim, row, etc,  Hard and fast. Five or six days per week, mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.”  Appropriately, Coach Glassman’s description of fitness starts with diet, and the appropriate diet starts with real food: meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds.  It cuts out sugar and starch. 

Beyond this, veteran CrossFitters seem to fall into one of two categories (or sometimes both).  There’s the “paleo” crowd and the “zone” crowd.  Paleo focuses on what kinds of foods you eat (and don’t eat).  Zone focuses on proportions of macronutrients.  In both diets, insulin is key.  By keeping insulin levels in check, the body is able to reduce fat and increase muscle and performance. 

The idea behind the paleo diet (or “primal diet” or “caveman diet”) is that human beings are not designed to eat processed or agriculturally grown food.  The vast majority of human existence occurred before the agricultural revolution, and therefore our digestive systems evolved to function best on real food, not on starchy, high carbohydrate breads and grains.  It’s like the CrossFit “real food” diet in that it calls for meat, fish and poultry (specifically grass fed meat and free range poultry), vegetables, fruits, nuts and roots.  It goes a bit further by excluding not only refined sugar and grains, but also legumes, dairy, salt and processed oils.  Of course, people adhere to this ideal with varying levels of strictness.  There are a number of great sources for paleo[ish] information out there.  Start with Gary Taubes, Robb Wolf, and Mark’s Daily Apple.

The Zone Diet was created by Barry Sears and focuses on consuming calories from carbohydrates, proteins and fats in a balanced ratio.  That ratio is 40:30:30 in terms of percent of calories obtained from each macronutrient.  By doing this, your body enters the “zone”, which basically means the proper hormone balance where insulin levels are not too high or too low, and glucagon levels are not too high.  The best source for information on the Zone Diet, is Barry Sears himself.

 We will be providing more information about both diets in the upcoming weeks as we gear up for our diet challenge.  In the meantime, do some digging on your own.  It’s as good a time as any to improve your diet.

*Of course there are obvious exceptions.  Mikey D is a good example.  He’s easily one of our top performers and eats a strict vegan diet.