Stuck in a Food Rut?

You love CrossFit. You love the workouts, the way you feel after the metcon, you love the barbells, the people, the atmosphere, and the PR. CrossFit has given you the confidence to make you realize that you are capable of more than you thought – both in AND out of the gym. But it’s only one piece of the puzzle.  Nutrition is a key component of your health, fitness, energy levels, disease prevention, and longevity.

As you’ve read in our Nutrition Guide (if you are a member), we advocate eating only whole, real foods. These include all meats, vegetable and good sources of fat, along with some fruit and nuts. This removes all grains, sugar, legumes, and dairy from your diet.

When people make this change, they instantly see results. They usually start off great, sticking nearly 100% to the guidelines. Over time, perhaps once weight loss is no longer happening, or once the last 30 challenge is well in the past, old habits begin to creep in, and a healthy diet of 90% real foods quickly drops down to about 70%, without notice.

Why is it so easy to go to the gym, but so hard for some of us to eat well? Maybe it’s because the gym is fun, but for some people, cooking or eating this way…isn’t. Well, what if your involvement with nutrition were more like your involvement with the gym? What if you took your favorite parts of CrossFit and implemented them into your diet?

Change it up

One of the reasons that CrossFit is so fun is that it changes every day. Very rarely to you repeat a workout. If you can count your last 20 days of food on one hand, perhaps you might need to crack open ye old Paleo Cookbook and check out some more real food recipes to add it to your repertoire. (Our current favorite is Paleo Comfort Foods. Everyday Paleo is also great and beginner friendly. We’ve heard rave reviews about Make it Paleo.)

Make something new. Make something nostalgic. Make something using a vegetable you’ve never heard of before. Make something ethnic. Create a dish that’s all your own.

Make it Functional

The things you learn in CrossFit are so helpful to you because they carry over into ‘real life’. You are learning movements that make sense to you, and that have relevance in your life. When you bend down to pick something up, or reach overhead to put something away, you are (hopefully) using the techniques that you learned at the gym to most effectively get the job done.

Same goes for nutrition. You need to make nutritional choices that make sense for YOUR life.  Rather than stress over the things you can’t control (my kid won’t eat greens, I don’t have access to a microwave at work, I work overnight shifts near fast food joints),  come up with ways to make good food choices that fit your lifestyle. There’s no need to be a Paleo Gourmet if you are low on money or time. Do whatever makes the most sense for you, and it’ll be easy to stick to it!

Warm Up

Warming up might not be the most ‘intense’ or fun part of CrossFit, but it’s the part of class that trains our bodies to move properly when there is weight or speed involved. During the warmup, we repeat the basic movements over and over again, hoping to get them one step closer to perfection.

If you find that you have some dysfunction in your diet, but you can’t pinpoint what it is, go back to the basics to find out. Start off every day with a basic omelette (eggs +meat), then choose a few ‘go-to’ easy real food recipes for lunch and dinner. Do this for a week straight, eating nothing but the basics. At the end of the week, evaluate how this differed from what you were eating during the prior weeks. Had you added in a BUNCH of non-food ingredients? Had your ‘cheat’ snacks become ‘cheat meals’ or ‘cheat days’?

Warm up to find errors, and then fix them as soon as possible!

Planning

We are all busy. No one has any extra time. Except that we do. We manage to make time for the things that count. Family time, job time, gym/fun time – these things happen every day because we plan them. We could wake up every morning with 10 reasons to skip the gym – but we plan ahead, set our alarms early, or leave work on time to make sure we get our butts to the gym. Because it’s important. And you plan ahead for important things.

Good food choices don’t just appear in front of us. In fact, bad food choices are all around us, all of the time. We have to plan to get good food into our bodies. So get a pencil, a paper, and a fresh Firefox tab and start searching — search for new recipes, restaurants in your area that serve meats/veggies, sources of grassfed meat in your area, a local CSA. Then visit Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Wegmans for this week’s food. Buy a TON of vegetables and start cooking. Store them in the fridge and serve them with meats and fish throughout the week. Each night before you go to bed, put a beef roast, whole chicken, chicken thighs, pork shoulder, or meat-of-your-choice in a crockpot on low for 12 hours. When you wake up, store it in the fridge – it’s instant lunch/dinner in a snap!

As you go along, things will become second nature, and there will be almost no real planning involved. Just living.

Track Progress and Keep Score

CrossFit has an element to it that almost no other fitness class has – we keep score. We keep score to see how did well in the workout, and also to see individuals’ progress over time. CrossFit causes change in people’s bodies because we are always striving toward improvements, not just ‘maintenance’.

Without becoming neurotic (I repeat…without becoming neurotic) about your food, keeping track of your meals might help unlock some clues about your diet and how/why you are or aren’t making progress. Keeping a food log for a week or two ( and emailing it to info@crossfitaspire.com so that we can review it and give you feedback) will certainly be a quick way to shed some light onto how to make a change for the better.

Involve Other People

CrossFit is generally more effective than any ‘intense’ workout video that leaves you wiped out at the end. Why? Because of the motivation created by groups of people around you, cheering you on as you attempt to lift the heaviest weight you’ve ever lifted. In many cases, especially with the women at our gym, unrealistic limits have been removed due in part to the fact that they are standing next to someone who looks like them, used to be weaker than them, and is now lifting more. “Well, if she can do it, I might be able to as well.” I’ve seen countless instances of people lifting more weight because of who they were lifting with at their bar.

Nutrition, and any life changing shift, is infinitely easier when you surround yourself with a support group – a collective of people who are there to help you along, and to share their own stories along the way. Our last nutrition challenge was so successful because of the community that it inspired. Each weekly blog post had over 50 comments from those involved, in addition to all of the Facebook chatter, personal blog writing, in-gym conversations, emails, cooking demo’s, potluck parties, etc.

If you are looking to clean up your diet, don’t do it alone. Involve your family, friends or co-workers. If you are bored with your own recipes, get a group of people together to cook bulk portions (depending on how many people are in the group) of 1 dish each, and then create a Food Swap. Make a date/time to meet up and swap food and you’ll end up with a bunch of different meals for the week – all packed up and ready to go!

The next time you find yourself in a food rut, see if you can’t CrossFit your way out

Today is Day 30! Last day of the challenge. That wasn’t so bad, now was it? In fact, it was kinda good. Kinda really good.

Here are some of your quotes from throughout the challenge. Whenever you’re having a bad food day, or you realized that you’ve strayed a little too far from the real-food diet, come back here and read this post to remind yourself of how great you feel when you are eating real foods.

With pride and great hopes fore the future, we say congratulations and good luck! Go ahead, eat or drink something tomorrow that you’ve missed throughout the challenge. Then try to stay as close to 100% real foods as possible. Your body will thank you.

“This time I wanted to really make a lifestyle change. I wanted to come out the other side significantly different in how I viewed food and my ability to know what is good for me and make those choices regularly. And, with only a week left, I am pleased to say that it HAS become a way of life. I learned more this time (thanks to all your posts and recipes and Q and A!), and I feel equipped to face the highly processed culture out there with a lot more self control and, frankly, joy! Life is not about all the things we avoid, but all the things we enjoy. And man oh man, paleo style food is straight up enjoyable.”

“My response to “Oh, you’re on that low carb Atkins thing” is “No, I’m on that ‘Eat Only What’s Good For You’ thing.”

“I did ok with eating before but no sugar or dairy has been different. Headaches are gone and I am feeling less tired. I did notice I took an apple in my lunch today and it tasted soooooo good! Guess that would be the sweet tooth being replaced with different tastes! My 30 days are up when I am going to my friends wedding…I was really looking forward to eating and drinking whatever but I must say…I am having less of a desire to “ruin” what I have already done, even when the 30 days is up.”

“This challenge has really opened my eyes to how not Paleo I was eating over the last 6 months which probably contributed to my freak out of gaining weight. I was not understanding why I was gaining weight but when I really look back at my diet I cheated everyday and those cheats add up.”

“This challenge has really straight up just gotten me to the point where I am ready to embrace this lifestyle on a more full-time basis.”

“Since I can remember I’ve always had stomach/digestive issues since college and it has progressively gotten worse through the years. I’ve been to Dr.s and specialists who have told me that I have IBS and that I need to figure out what foods are causing my symptoms – I’ve even been given medicine to help and that didn’t work. So the last few years I”ve self diagnosed myself as lactose intolerant, I know that eating rice makes me bloated and few other things. But b/c i love all the bad stuff, I chose to deal with the pain convincing myself I’m just screwed for life b/c no one really knows what’s actually wrong.

We are on day 17 of the challenge and I have had no issues, no IBS symptoms or bloating, and my body is functioning as normal as can be. I feel great! I don’t worry anymore about how bad I will feel after every meal because I don’t have any problems anymore!!!!! The 30 day challenge was a wake up call, and made me realize that what I was putting in my body was negatively affecting my life. “

“Although I have been eating mostly paleo since January, it wasn’t until this challenge that I have adopted the concept cooking large quantities of meat in a crock pot to last me through the week. It has saved me so much time in food preparation during the week and [so far] the experiments have been tasty and successful.”

“Anyway last time I did the diet I failed from the drinking part. I couldnt do it for 30 days. But now I’m much more comfortable going to a bar and asking for a club soda with a ton of limes. As long as I have something to sip on it didn’t really phase me to much. I also think its a maturity thing as well. You grow up and realize its OK to not drink even though everyone else is.”

“Before this challenge I was cold ALL THE TIME. I used to sit at my desk and just freeze I would drink loads of hot water and my nails would still be blue from cold. That’s totally vanished in the last few weeks. Even my husband has noticed, saying that my nose and cheeks aren’t cold to the touch.”

“So because we had a wedding to go to my husband and I started early. Today is our last day (although I feel fabulous and will continue to eat this way…. plus a little liquor). Survey says….30 days Paleo…..minus 14 lbs. I am pretty freakin’ proud of myself. I did not enter to win but just felt like I wanted to share with people who know that this was a super healthy way to lose…I have been met with lots of “you are looking great but are you sure cutting all that out is healthy” comments! Keep up the great work everyone!!! It does pay off!”

“Top 11 things I thought would never happen and did during the challenge
1. I cooked.
2. I drink my coffee black
3. I gave up Splenda (yes I know that should have been gone years ago)
4. Mike ate the food I cooked
5. I went grocery shopping multiple times
6. I spend most of my day on Sunday looking at recipes
7. I didn’t cheat on the diet
8. I didnt drink
9. I now enjoy cooking
10. I now truly embrace Paleo as a lifetime way of eating.
11.Mike did the entire challenge didn’t cheat, didn’t drink, and lost mad weight!”

“I’ve definitely given up gluten for good and learned when I’m actually hungry versus when I’m just craving sugars/random foods (if extra breakfast/lunch/dinner is not appetizing, I’m not really hungry).”

“I am now feeling like it’s a lifestyle change rather than a diet. Even when I’m craving bad foods, I know I won’t go near them because of how negatively my body reacts to them.”

“I’ve cooked more in the last two weeks than I’ve cooked in my entire life. Need a vacation from this. Know of any Paleo cruises?”

“I have always been into cooking and good food so I started to change my diet slowly in preparation for the challenge and started reading all of the nutritional information that has been posted on the website. Oh boy what an eye opener! I was aware of some of the obvious stuff, but the toxic affect of gluten, the genetic modifications to food we eat and the long term affects of a wheat infused diet are really frightening. This experience is definitely a life changer for me. Not to say I will never cheat and eat ice cream or drink wine, but it will be with my eyes open and knowing that 90% of the time I am on the right track. One of the hardest things for me has been incorporating so much red meat into my diet. I am a big fish eater but now I am eating bacon – my dogs are thrilled – and all kinds of meat and I am feeling great! Some of the benefits for me are:
I am sleeping better than I have in years
I feel really rested when I wake up – but I still love my coffee
I have much more energy throughout the day
I am not hungry at night so I am not snacking after dinner
I am getting leaner and stronger – last night I increased my front squat weight by 50 lbs!
Actually I am never hungry anymore and I haven’t really been too full – except Sat night when all of the different food was so awesome!
My clothes are fitting better and I don’t feel so bloated
I also feel more clear headed and focused.”

“I used to be plagued with headaches and migraines…usually they would start at 3 in the afternoon and last until after dinner time. They would be so bad i was sensitive to light, nauseous, would have to laydown in the dark and take pills to knock me out. Once I started changing my diet a year ago I started getting fewer headaches. I got a headache the first 2 days on the challenge but that’s it. Nothing since then. I know the headaches were related to my diet. My body is very sensitive to sugar, I get really bad highs and lows from it. My crashes usually were when I would get my headache and then I would feed my headache and so the cycle continued…this last year I’ve ended that cycle and I feel better. When I occasionally eat sugar I feel like I wake up with a slight hangover, groggy, sluggish etc. “

“The other thing I’ve noticed about eating this way, it’s a mood stabilizer for me. Usually the highs and lows that I got from eating sugar also affected my mood, I got angry, tired, depressed, giddy. Now I feel I don’t have as bad of mood swings.”

“Like many in my family, I have dealt with anxiety over the past several years and was even on anti-depressants for a while there. Even before I found crossfit, I was feeling relief through my attempts at better diet and exercise and weight loss.”

“This 30-day challenge (and crossfit workout) have definitely contributed to additional improvements. I’m way more relaxed, in the moment, calm, clear headed, confident. Anxiety was also a cause of my over eating. I’m no longer likely to hunt for snacks and eat just for the sake of eating. I’m finally breaking the vicious cycle!”

If that wasn’t enough, head on over to Kate vs Food ( Kate Eckert’s blog!)  or More Spiel (Steve’s blog)…they are great real-life resources, and include recipes, too!

“Relax. It’s just food.” This is how we initially introduce nutrition to our gym members. We accentuate the positive and pack our recommendations with easy ‘how to’s’. We do that to avoid any unneeded stress about what to eat, what not to eat, how much to eat and when to eat.

Our intention is to keep things positive and light, and get people into cooking their own real foods as much as possible. Now that we’ve pretty much accomplished that, now we’re here to tell you the truth -

THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF.

Like, really serious. Lifesaving, disease curing, symptom eliminating, longevity increasing stuff.

Throughout these 30 Days, most of us are starting to feel a little leaner, and have more energy throughout the day. Because of that, we are making better progress in the gym, looking better in our clothes, and walking around with more confidence in general. That’s great, and was the intended outcome of the 30 Days. But we also noticed some other things happening as well… your symptoms that you have been dealing with for months, years or decades, have started to go away.

You already know what worked for you, and what might work for other people. Below are the scientific facts that can back up your own experiences. When you have a friend or family member who also has symptoms or a disease, it would perfect sense to first try the the easiest, least invasive, cheapest and most convenient methods of treatment. Right?

BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER, CLICK ON THE TWO LINKS IN RED IN THE PARAGRAPHS BELOW.

They are a primer for everything below. Some parts are dry, but stick it out, especially if you or a loved one has any of the diseases mentioned below.

According to Chris Kresser of The Healthy Skeptic, there are 4 toxins that we should absolutely eliminate from our diet immediately. The health of your gut can dictate the overall health of your body.

If you vaguely remember why gluten is bad, but you can’t recall everything, read this overview of “leaky gut”  from Balanced Bites. It’s is an illustrated and succinct account of what gluten and other anti-nutrients do to your body.

Below are some examples of the types of symptom reversals that we’ve seen at our gym, and have heard about through testimonials from patients of well-known holistic doctors and nutrition specialists.

If you or any of your family members have been experiencing any of the following symptoms, please do your research (starting with these links, and continuing on your own) and try the least invasive plan of action first.

GERD (Acid reflux):

An article on how to eliminate heartburn and GERD for good in 3 simple steps.

A testimonial from someone who wrote in to the author of “Wheat Belly”.

If you are eating all real foods, but still have symptoms of GERD, consider lowering your carb intake or eliminating nightshades (peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes).

IBS:

A Q&A  with a lot of great ideas in the answer section. A must read, if you are suffering, even if your symptoms have started to go away.

A great testimonial on Mark’s Daily Apple from a person who discovered, late into life, that his debilitating IBS was due to grain consumption. His suspicions were confirmed on a weekend retreat in the woods with only granola and fruit.

Migraines:

Here is a good breakdown of how/why the elimination of certain (inflammatory) foods are causing your migraines.

Depression/Anxiety:

A great, easy-to-read piece by Mark Sisson on depression and diet.

In this podcast (press play when you open the page), Dr. Chris Kresser talks about the brain-gut axis and how the health of your gut influences the health of your brain.

Type 1 Diabetes: (yes, it can be controlled)

One Whole9 client’s story about Type 1 Diabetes and her diet.

One mother’s success story with her Type 1 Diabetic child.

Another testimonial, on Robb Wolf’s blog about how Paleo has become a way of life, and a way to control his Type 1 Diabetes.

Thyroid Dysfunction:

Thyroid diseases are on the rise, big time.  Fixing your immune system via eating real foods might be the only way to cure your problem for good.

Here’s a great article about the thyroid/gluten connection.

An excellent article on why/how changing your diet should always be the first step toward dealing with Hasimoto’s Thyroid disease.

Below is a list of additional symptoms or diseases that have been  linked with chronic inflammation or that have an inflammatory component.

Remember: Eliminate the inflammatory foods (processed, wheat containing, anti-nutrient containing) as a first line of defense for dealing with any of these issues:

acid reflux/heartburn
acne
allergies and sensitivities
Alzheimer’s disease
asthma
atherosclerosis
bronchitis
cancer
carditis
celiac disease
chronic pain
Crohn’s disease
cirrhosis
colitis
dementia
dermatitis
diabetes
dry eyes
edema
emphysema
eczema
fibromyalgia
gastroenteritis
gingivitis
heart disease
hepatitis
high blood pressure
insulin resistance
interstitial cystitis
joint pain/arthritis/rheumatoid arthritis
metabolic syndrome (syndrome X)
myositis
nephritis
obesity
osteopenia
osteoporosis
Parkinson’s disease
periodontal disease
polyarteritis
polychondritis
psoriasis
raynaud’s syndrome
scleroderma
sinusitis
Sjögren’s syndrome
spastic colon
systemic candidiasis
tendonitis
UTI’s
vaginitis

If you want to know more about how diet can affect and help these diseases, just google “Paleo + name of disease”. Start there, pay attention to the sources of info, and go from there.

For more information any of these diseases, and how nutrition and diet play a part, refer to the following podcasts and videos if you learn by listening, or the following websites if you learn by reading. Good luck in taking your health into your own hands!

Podcasts:

Underground Wellness Podcast Interviews. Sean Croxton has interviewed most of the BIGGEST names at the forefront of nutrition and holistic wellness. A must-listen!

The Paleo Solution podcasts. Great Q&A from listeners to Robb Wolf, our most integral source of important information on all things nutrition. His podcast could be 5 minutes long, with the answer to each question being, “eat Paleo, ya big dummy.” But instead, he takes the time to explain the why’s and how-to’s.

The Balanced Bites podcast with Diane Sanfilippo and Cave Girl Eat’s Liz Wolfe. A great duo that brings a quirky feminine touch to the topic of nutrition and health. They also help out mom’s to be, and those who are trying to conceive.

Chris Kresser – He’s smart and his stuff can be pretty high level at times. Very informative!

Websites:

Paleo Solution

Mark’s Daily Apple

The Healthy Skeptic

Balanced Bites

Whole9

REAL LIFE SOLUTIONS:

For when you want answers and help. Now.

If you, or a loved one are dealing with symptoms or disease and think that you might benefit from some one-on-one or group nutritional therapy, please contact Liz Wolfe, NTP. She lives and works locally in Cherry Hill. After comprehensively evaluating every aspect of your current health and symptoms, she utilizes the principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation and paleo (real food) diet to help determine the exact cause of your problems, and how natural nutrition and tailored supplementation can help YOU with YOUR symptoms. Remember, nutrition is not one size fits all, especially when it comes to nutrition and healing.