Monday 23rd November 2009- Day 29 FFF (CFC Nutrition Challenge)

This is it. The last few days of our FFF. Can you believe it? Here’s where it counts. Let’s stick with those great habits you’ve been ingraining over the last month, and put in a mammoth effort for this next 2 days.

I know a couple of you have fallen off the wagon a little bit, and are vowing to start afresh tomorrow… or the day after… or next Monday.  There will always be occasions when you slip, the key is recommitting as soon as you can. Don’t wait till x-day to start again- make it better with your next meal.

This 30 days serves as a point for resetting your system- the key is that you can never fully feel the effects of a nutritional screw up until you have given your body an optimum chance to experience just how it feels to thrive on what you fuel it with. That’s part of the value of being strict, stripping away the rubbish, and getting back to real food.

Provided we’ve given ourselves full opportunity to reset, sometimes our slips are really good in helping us to rekindle our commitment. By being strict, practicing those new behaviours, and enjoying the benefits of great nutrition over time, the moment we do slip up hits us so hard and feels so terrible we can’t wait to get back on the wagon and humming again. It makes you realise how good it actually does feel to make eating right a permanent part of your lifestyle.

Lindsey Smith and Crystal McReynolds at the CrossFit Games 2009 (picture from Crossfit Games site)

I spent this past weekend away at some country picnic races- and had the privilege of watching Fashions on the Field, Miss Racegoer be awarded to a young girl with slouchy shoulders and a short, tight dress who looked like she had only narrowly missed drowning in a pool of fake tan. She was skinny fat. Really makes you appreciate the value of a lean, fit, strong woman. I can definitely tell you my outlook has changed on this immensely since I began CrossFit.

Instead of looking at these girls with envy and seeing thin, I look at them now and all I see is weak. If that’s the way these things are judged, give me shorts, a pair of lifting socks and a heavy bar over Fashions on the Field any day.

Post your thoughts and points this week to comments.

x J.

“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”

— George Horace Lorimer

Monday 16th November 2009- Day 22 FFF (CFC Nutrition Challenge)

Welcome to the final week of the FFF! I can’t believe how quickly the last few weeks have flown by with this. I feel like that’s a product of the fact this has become a lifestyle for me rather than a 30 day challenge- I am not counting down the days till its over, because this is the way I intend to eat for the long term- meat and vegetables, seeds and nuts, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Simple. (Perhaps I might ease up on the point counting though! Unfortunately they haven’t come up with a nutritional barcode scanner for Australia just yet! Maybe JP can help?!)

I hope that you are all feeling the effects of good nutrition on your performance, mental clarity and general wellbeing. If you aren’t, chances are you may have bowed to your longstanding love affair with some variety of rubbish food and haven’t put quite as much effort into this thing over the three weeks as when you first started out. Am I right? Let’s put it in for the home stretch, hey?

Pardz caught red-handed!

I was doing some study over this past week (yep, I’m a nerd, glasses and all!), and was really (though not unexpectedly) disheartened to listen to the kind of material that the up and coming fitness coaches, teachers…*insert any health related profession here* are being taught about nutrition. In particular about the role of nutrition in sport (Just sport? I hear you say… what about fitness? Wellness? Why should this be fundamentally different to nutrition for life?)

Now, I am by no means an expert (far from it), but I figure since I have been given a remit to post on here I may as well have a rant.

Please tell me how I am supposed to consume (pardon the pun) the principle that I should shy away from things like naturally occurring fats and oils, watch my intake of natural meats, and yet its perfectly ok to dose up on processed sugar-filled ‘fruit’ twists, low kJ (read: chemical) jelly, and grains that have been pounded, prodded and processed beyond any natural recognition?

All this in order to manipulate my natural physical systems in preparation for long, drawn out, supposedly “athletic” events that wreak havoc on my body. Manipulate my body systems: “to tamper with or falsify for personal gain”, exploit them. Not to enhance or improve them to work more efficiently and promote better performance far beyond that one, drawn out, sporting event.

Hmm… doesn’t sound too healthy to me.  And the rationale for this? – “You’re body is able to handle these things effectively”. Of course it can “handle” it.  Your body is the most adaptable machine you will ever find. But there is a BIG difference between handling something, and thriving on it. Your car will handle trashy ethanol-added petrol, but will it run well on it? I don’t think so. What about if you take it on a demanding journey? Would you put ethanol in it then? I don’t think so.

So given all of this seemingly nonsensical information is being farmed out to thousands of impressionable minds every year, how do we help people to get healthy, fit, well, by eating right?

You become the best athlete you can be by training smart and eating right (read: not like they tell you to!) You quietly make an example of yourself while others around you watch you improve day to day, month to month. And one day, they’ll say “man, how did you do it?”, and you can start to plant some seeds, getting the word out about proper nutrition and health to the people you care about. One at a time.

Rant over.

Would love to hear your thoughts- post to comments along with your progress this week.

J.

“I saw few die of hunger; of eating, a hundred thousand.”

- Benjamin Franklin

Monday 9th November 2009- Day 15 FFF (CFC Nutrition Challenge)

Wow! 2 whole weeks down!

How did you all go on Melbourne Cup Day? We started out so well with that fantastic morning run at Mt Ainslie- hope you all continued along the same healthy path throughout the day…

I hear some of you wavered in your commitment to the challenge? (*ahem* Slug… capping your day conservatively at 100 points tells me you might just have been on of those to leave the racecourse stumbling with your skirt around your waist and shoes in hand… hmm??) Let’s get back on the horse this week hey? (No pun intended…)

K-Train nailing an emergency meat delivery on the night of Melbourne Cup Day- see there are always ways to avoid eating trashy booze and festival food!!!

This past weekend I had the opportunity to compete at the CF Newcastle Games Day- massive props to Darren and all the organisers, judges and competitors at the event- another great gathering!

The 4 WODs in one day really demonstrated to me just how important nutrition is for both performance and recovery. We could see first hand so many of the big firebreathers flagging out as they collected WODs throughout the event. Yes, 4 WODs in one day is tough- but even tougher if you haven’t sorted out some adequate post WOD nutrition plans. This requires prior preparation (especially at an all day event away from close sources of good food)!

Most of the success or failure we have with keeping up great nutrition practices (when we want to) comes down to preparation. Failure to prepare is to prepare for failure (someone smart said that- can’t remember who!)

So this week… get yourself together, think about what you are going to eat, and when, and nail your nutrition.

Post your total points for this past week, major struggles/triumphs, rad recipe ideas and three things you want to improve with your nutrition habits in the coming week to comments.

Don’t forget to send me your diary!

x J.

“It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.” — Robert Strauss

What?! No dairy?! But where are you getting your calcium from?!

Paleo + Crossfit- it might save your life

Monday 2nd November 2009- Day 8 FFF (CFC Nutrition Challenge)

So we are a week in. How are you all feeling?

I was so excited to see everyone getting into the challenge wholeheartedly this past week… some notable mentions-

• Slug finding the goodness of free-range eggs
• Megan’s first coffee straight up… (well almost- no sugar/sweeteners at least!)
• Pardz’s refusal of a freshly baked, just-out-of-the-oven chocolate cookie (man, I am so impressed with your discipline here… I mean, it was still warm…all those gooey chocolate bits wrapped in chewy cookie dough… mmm…)

Anyway, I digress… I am happy to see that everyone seems to be on track. This was a hard week that is now over- the week about turfing your bad habits and beginning to ingrain some new ones.

A few of you would have come across a common species known as the “office scoffer” this week. *cue best David Attenborough voice… ahem…*- a creature widespread in all workplaces that has a tendency to fire daggers from the pupils when threatened by others’ steadfast ability to refuse the office birthday cake doing the rounds that day.

The office scoffer is also known to voice every intention to eat an ounce of processed carbohydrate to said colleague in a confessional manner, overlaid with a tone of slight defiance (“You know what?! Its 3pm and I am GOING to have a mars bar…”).

In case they dare ask what it is you are up to- I wanted to make sure you know the rationale behind our guidelines.

The FFF was developed based on a combination of Zone and Paleo principles. The intention of the points system is to make you more aware of what you put into your body and the effect it has on you- on a relative scale from the pretty bad (processed carbs, grains) through to nutritious goodness (vegetables, meat, nuts and seeds).

You should be aiming to have a portion of protein, fat and favourable carbohydrate in each meal to balance the way your body deals with the fuel you give it.

This is not a fad diet. This is about significantly improving your wellbeing and enhancing your performance as an athlete by changing the way you think about food.

Tell them that and watch them rethink that mars bar.

(picture courtesy of Living Paleo)

I realise tomorrow is Melbourne Cup Day (a personal favourite of mine), so I thought it aptly timed to repost some guidance about choosing your beverages wisely.

Post your past week’s triumphs, blow outs, trash talk and total weekly accumulated points to comments.

Note: No bonus points awarded this week for banter- what a lame-ass effort… I want to see some high quality sledging! Double points up for grabs next Monday.

J.

“Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have- and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up” – James Belasco/Ralph Stayer

So we are a week in. How are you all feeling?

I was so excited to see everyone getting into the challenge whole heartedly this past week… some notable mentions-

• Slug finding the goodness of free-range eggs
• Megan’s first coffee straight up… (well almost- no sugar/sweetners at least!)
• Pardz’s refusal of a freshly baked, just-out-of-the-oven chocolate cookie (man, I am so impressed with your discipline here… I mean, it was still warm…all those gooey chocolate bits wrapped in chewy cookie dough… mmm..)

MONDAY 26th October 2009- DAY 1 FFF (CFC Nutrition Challenge)

Welcome to Day 1 of the Fit-Fodder-Firty.

The interest in participation in this challenge has been absolutely overwhelming! It is so great to see so many people jumping on board to give this a go!

I have answered a couple of FAQs and amended the guidelines since Friday morning (see the CFC FFF page for a summary of changes).

The official list of CONFIRMED players is:

• Joelle
• Rosko
• Ktrain
• Pardz
• Slug
• Jono
• Surlz
• Megan
• Kylie (CF Base)
• Gail
• Emily
• Lib
• Lix
• Ben (Adapt)
• John
• Whil

How this will go down:

I will put up a nutrition blog-post every Monday- to the comments section of this, post:

• your total points accumulated for the week just past
• your food diary (a rough outline is fine!)
• struggles and/or performance effects you are experiencing
• links to rad recipes you find or places to eat around town
• trash talk… psych outs are totally allowed (as long as they are all in good fun, of course!). Trash talk can be posted any time throughout the week- I will check back most days for updates to make sure I am fairly allocating bonus points!

If you are keen to join in (or need to confirm that you’re going to play), please post your interest to comments and/or contact me by email to get a copy of the guidelines.

Game on! 3…2….1…. GO!

You think this is hard? Check out the tough love from Melissa Urban…

What happens to your body when you carb binge…