But they said it was Paleo.....

So let me start this post by saying I love all of you dearly and that I am so proud of the changes you are making to eat healthier.   Alright so here we go..... I have noticed a huge trend of recipes that tout a "paleo or Paleo Friendly" title.  While they may be bit and pieces of a paleo based diet the end result is often something completely out of whack in terms of what your nutrition should look like.  We really need to stop and take a look to see ..am I making the right choice with this??  First and foremost please understand that paleo friendly foods do not constitute quality foods!! Things like protein pancakes, almond flour muffins, chocolate pumpkin yummy treats (yes I made that one up) ARE NOT PALEO FOODS!  I SAY AGAIN..ARE NOT PALEO FOODS!!! Paleo foods are whole foods, not some concoction thrown together to meet our need for comfort foods.  If the recipe says 1 1/2 cups of almond flour... stop and think... holy crap how many almonds is that?  I can tell you it's a lot more than you should probably be eating on a regular basis!!  If the ingredients are some sort of protein powder.... run!!!! Whole foods people... whole foods.... do you even know what whey is made from? Milk isolate, Which means it brings all the dirty laundry with it that dairy products do... Milk promotes growth, which in itself is not a bad thing.. UNLESS YOU ARE TRYING TO LEAN OUT or even just reduce body fat.  Milk also spikes insulin production in the body.....oh wait we are supposed to not be doing that so we can regain insulin sensitivity that we have beat down over the majority of our lives.   If you are eating these foods regularly I would bet your blood glucose is high and your insulin resistance is pretty damn high.  So what am I saying that all these paleo friendly recipes are bad?  Nope, but they sure as hell aren't good.... Here is the way I see it .. these recipes are a healthier way to enjoy a cheat meal... thats all they are..... I am sure someone is thinking right now " but so and so posted this recipe and they are ripped and lean"... Yep and they were probably a lot stricter with their diet to get where they are and can afford the "occasional" cheat.  I bet they have pretty decent insulin sensitivity and or they are genetically disposition-ed to metabolize these foods better.  All that being said I would still love to see what their A1c levels looked like.  If you are not where you want to be (body composition wise) all I am saying is that finding ways to substitute all your comfort foods may not be the right answer.  One other thing I would like to address here before I close... Sweeteners no matter where they are coming from are not acceptable!  Stevia and agave (have you seen the carb load on the back of the container) are both natural sweeteners which is great but while they carry a label that says they don't increase insulin production more and more studies are saying the opposite.  I also love it when I see a recipe that says 6 packs of splenda.. I then try to picture a caveman pulling his Splenda packs out of his leaf string (ok that was just disturbing).... your body is a complex machine, but like any machine it can be fooled and insulin production can be sparked by both smell and taste... it can even be set off by something as simple as a picture (the notorious food porn).  If you are going to cheat then cheat but don't try to hide behind a paleo friendly label. If you are going to cheat do it right, why put agave, throw some honey in there instead.  Why ruin a perfectly good cafe latte with splenda put some pure cane sugar in there... and then call it what it is ...A CHEAT MEAL!!  So here is my litmus test for you... if you look @ your food log and you can find 3 or more paleo friendly food consumptions in it within a 7 day period you might want to rethink what your goals are.  Is it more important for you to have that paleo protein carrot cake or to fit into those pants you bought 2 sizes too small.   It's your choice as always I have just had it with the paleo friendly propaganda that has people thinking they areeating right..... FFS just because simple green is "Eco Friendly" doesn't mean it won't kill a plant if you poor too much of it in the soil.....It doesn't belong in the Ecosystem and paleo pizza doesn't belong in your diet........... I can sum it up with this... have you ever heard some call CrossFit dangerous because of some silly video someone posted on YouTube... and you say "that's not CrossFit!!  Well dammit "Thats not Paleo"!!

If you have to though here is one of the better recipes I have found (but you still shouldn't eat them every day) and no they are not paleo!!!

Primal Coconut Blueberry  (Holy Crap that's a lot of fat) Muffins

½ cup coconut flour
½ tsp baking soda
1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
few shakes of salt
4 eggs
1/3 cup coconut milk (not light)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 medium bananas, mashed ( starchy carbs but better than natural sweeteners)
1 cup (or more) blueberries
flaked coconut for sprinkling, if desired
Mix coconut flour, baking soda, shredded coconut and salt in a large bowl, set aside.  Beat eggs in a separate bowl and add mix in the coconut milk, vanilla extract, and mashed bananas.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mix until well combines.  Fold in blueberries.  Divide into 12 muffins.   Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

The long road.......

So the Lean up Challenge is over, but that doesn't mean you should be reversing your fortunes. So many of you have done so much work to get where you are and I see it starting to slip away. If you only did the lean up challenge to see how much weight you could lose in 8 short weeks you totally missed the boat. We have all done a lifetime of damage to our stomach's, hormonal systems, liver, pancreas, adrenal glands... the list goes on. 8 weeks of good eating is not a miracle cure, only a introduction to what is possible. For those who have fallen off the wagon, gotten lax with how much is ok, made lots of exceptions or excuses for its just this one time. GET YOUR ASSES BACK ON THE WAGON!

First and foremost while I am all about short term goals, they are not a means to an end. They should be a hurdle on the long road to health. The truth is all of us should have a extreme long term goal that we can make progress towards but may never attain. An extreme long term goal is that goal that is so far down the road that for most us its not in sight... matter a fact it may be so far off that you might think..I might get there in the next life time. So what's the point of even having it then? All the steps in between!!!! Having this super long term goal always gives us something to bring everything back into perspective. What if your only goal was to have a 32" waist or to be able to do a muscle up or even have a sub 4 minute Fran? What happens when you achieve these goals? Most lose focus and drive. I know that when I was in the military a lot of the guys I went through selection with had only the goal of attaining a coveted SOF beret (choose your color and service). So what happened when they got it? They became mediocre operators with no sense of drive. While others who had aspirations of going to Tier 1 units or becoming the best at their craft seemed to excel in all aspects of their career. I guess the point I am trying to make is that while most didn't reach that tier 1 unit or weren't praised as the best at their craft, they were ever improving and even through all their accomplishments were still reaching for the stars.

Short term goals- Everyone should have these and it shouldn't be just one. Picking a goal in each category will not only give you more to focus on but it won't be so devastating if you don't happen to make it. The other thing is that they should be attainable! If you are still working on 10 consecutive pull ups, having a goal of a muscle up might not only be not the best idea for a goal, honestly it would be a pretty poor choice.

Intermediate Goals- This should be made up of several short term goals. Think of your goals like a series of funnels, with the big (short term)funnel @ the top, getting smaller as the goal lengthens. These goals should still be attainable but not without reaching the short term goals in the interim. For instance, you had a couple short term goals of doing 10 consecutive handstand push ups, and 15 1.5x body weight dead lifts, your intermediate goal was do Diane Rx'd. Without reaching those short term the intermediate is probably not going to happen.

Long term Goals- This should be a 2-5 year goal that is attainable but not without the short and intermediate goals and not without consistency over the majority of those 2-5 years. Maybe its all WOD's Rx'd or possibly 6% body fat or hey maybe it's both( it doesn't have to be CrossFit related it's just easy for me to use those examples)!!
Whatever it may be it should be something that is going to keep you in the fight for those 2-5 years.

Extreme long term goal- This is going to be the hardest to choose .. Because so many of the goals we have in mind usually can be accomplished within the other stages of goal setting. For me setting a goal in the specialization I hold dear, Olympic Weightlifting, is my Extreme long term goal. For me the idea of having a 125kg Snatch and 160kg Clean and Jerk, while not currently even close to being in sight, are attainable goals with lots of training and dedication. Will I ever reach that goal? Who knows, but it doesn't mean I will stop trying.

Lastly, if you have a goal you need to write it down and keep it in front of you, especially the short term ones. If I were to erase the goals board, which not nearly enough of you are using .. and you can't remember what your short term goal is, or even your intermediate for that matter, then you were never really trying to achieve it!! I mentioned Darin on the main page the other day because I know this guy sets goals regularly and goes after them without fear of failing. Here is a before and after pic of Darin over the last 6 months of training .. I would post his WOD stats too but honestly I would say the pics speak for themselves and all you have to do is watch the guy WOD and you can see a fire-breather in the making.

The Lean Up Challenge comes to an end.. but it's just the beginning!!

The Lean Up Challenge comes to an end.. but it's just the beginning!!


Alrighty so as I said on the mainpage we are going to keep this page going as
it's not only beneficial for the Lean Up Challenge but for all the athletes @ the gym!
Hopefully it will develop a following and I can justify adding a dedicated nutrition page
that gets daily updates by our awesome crew here!

So let me start by saying congrats to everyone who stepped up to the challenge and tried
to change the direction their health was going with their old nutrition regimen. The change
has only begun!! Just because the challenge is over doesn't mean the challenge is over if you get what I'm saying....

Lessons Learned:
- First and foremost it doesn't matter how many tricks you have in your hat or how hard or much you exercise, you are not going to get the results you are looking for until you clean up your diet... Are there some genetically freakish people that can eat whatever they want and not show the visible effects of it? Absolutely but whats going on inside of their body may be a completely different story.
- Once you get the diet cleaned up the one gram of protein for every pound of body weight has shown to be a sure winner in shedding the pounds... Protein sparks metabolic compliance and causes a thermogenic effect in the body... an effect most people in the fitness industry try to duplicate with supplements.... all you really have to do is eats lots of protein from good lean animal sources.
-Fat is an important factor in sparking weight loss but here is what I can say without question if you are overdoing it you will have body composition changes but won't see it on the scale. Don't over think this, If you are eating a good hunk of animal protein it probably has a pretty good ratio of healthy fats right there with it. What I saw too much of was a rib eye or t bone coupled with an avocado or or nuts or coconut milk. This caused a lot of people to end up around 55% fat intake 35-40% protein with the rest made up in carbs.... Once we got the protein and fat flipped around we saw dramatic weight loss in the athletes. At higher levels of athletic prowess I definitely encourage high high doses of fat but if you haven't gotten to the point of leanness you have your eye set on (or the weight; which in my opinion is irrelevant if you look, feel and perform well) then back the fat off to about 40 % of your caloric intake and you should see it on the scale as well. End run on sentence!!!

-Carb intake..... here is the deal... Get your carbs from green leafy veggies... Period! There is nothing wrong with fruit as a whole, but fructose tends to cause glycogen uptake in the liver first and muscles second.... We want this to be the other way around to optimize performance while still "leaning up". If you have to have fruit try to get it from berries as they tend to be lower in fructose but you should definitely limit it to about 20% of your entire carbohydrate intake for the day. This is also important because we are trying to increase insulin sensitivity and anyone who tells you that you are better off eating an apple than a plate full of spinach is full of shit. Do we even need to talk about grains and legumes? I think this horse has been beaten enough....So what should your shoot for? Honestly I have found for most people running on between 40-70g usable carbs a day works great (thats is a shit load of green leafy veggies folks).

Got Milk? Man this is a tough one for me... I love milk and dairy products but honestly unless you are ultra lean and trying to gain muscle mass you should stay away from the stuff.... Milk is wonderful and I can drink it literally a gallon @ a time. The truth is though "processed" milk has alot of sugar in it, and the more refined you make it(Low-Fat, Skim Milk) the higher it climbs on the Glycemic index. The other reason you might want to stay away from them is they have incredible growth stimulus factors, which is pretty damn counter-productive when you are trying to lean up. I will not deny it is a great and easy source of protein but on a cellular level what is milk but a bi-product of what a cow eats... best case scenario would be that the dairy cows were grass fed... guess what... it's pretty hard to find grass fed raw milk here in Okinawa. So the alternative is grain fed dairy cattle which means all those mean little lectins, and even gluten may be (I say "may be" to give the cows 7 stomachs the benefit of the doubt) making their way into your lucky charms.

Supplements- I will keep this short
Omega-3 from fish oil .. spend the cash and get it from a good reputable source (stay away from Cod Liver oils though as they tend to be problematic for females)
Vitamin D- Get in the sun!!!! If not get a gelcap form of Vit-D 5000 iu's should do the trick
Magnesium- It will help you get better quality rest. You can kill two birds with one stone (zinc) by getting a ZMA supplement.

What's left? Well the last thing I am going to tell you is get some rest... turn off the TV an hour earlier and get some good quality sleep! If you are not resting chances are your cortisol levels are elevated. Low cortisol and insulin sensitivity are the two most important factors in weight loss. Get them under control ..I cannot express how important it is to get adequate rest. One other note on that .. If you have not taken a break from CrossFit and have been going 3 on 1 off for a substantial amount of time ... you might want to give your body a chance to recover .. take a week and just stretch, get a massage allow your adrenal system to recover.

Key notes:
-1 gram of protein for each pound of body weight (50% of your caloric intake)
-Good medium and long chain tryglycerides from animal fats, nuts and pseudo nuts (40% of your caloric intake)
-Lots of green leafy veggies to the tune of 40-70 grams a day (10% of your caloric intake)
-Supplements that are essential for health not corny supplements that are supposed give you magical performance
-Rest, Rest,Rest!!!!!
I would not expect your numbers to work out to be like this every single day this is just a ball park percentage of what we have seen work time and time again! We prescribe to paleolithic eating and that means some times we feast some time its famine our bodies are amazing machine build for this type of adaptation, don't get sucked into a monochromatic menu that always fits these percentages... the body thrives on diversity!