John Welbourne

Check out the new blog of John Welbourne, the creator of CrossFit football, where he answers questions about the program: http://talktomejohnnie.com/

First some good news for me! I maxed out on my deadlift, squat, and press on Monday. I set a huge PR (personal record) of 25lb with a 450lb lift. It really didn't feel heavy, and my next goal of 500 is in my sights. I hit a 10lb PR on squat with a 325lb with our coach Craig seeing the sight. It feels good after not being able to squat like a human being when I started. This again felt light. I'm still stalled on my press and can't get it going. I was told to work on handstand pushups and variations to improve that.
WOD
For time:
20 175lb overhead
40 burpees

time: 5:40
Scaled to 135 on recovery day, burpees still suck


There was a very interesting entry but one of my friends on our gym's blog (www.crossfithoboken.com) about trying to go RX (perscribed) on our workouts. For examble that would have been doing 175 today. He had a great point that to improve, you should challenge yourself even if it means not having the best score in the gym. It was excellently well written and I will repost it here hopefully. It was a very inspirational post and I agree with it mostly, except that most people especially beginners need to understand that there has to be a reasoning behind the workout. For example, we have a workout 21-15-9 of thrusters and pullups, called Fran. Fran is the most painful workout, and the record is around 2 minutes. So yes if you can complete the 95lb thrusters and real pullups in 20minutes you did it RX. You also completely missed the point of the workout, which is meant to be short and challenging. Whereas this same person could scale it to 55lb thrusters and pullups with a band, and do it in 7 minutes. Which is better? I say the second option in which you minimized breaks and maximized effort. So go for RX and if you can be in the realm of what the workout hopes to affect, go for it, but keep the WOD's goal in your mind.


I felt somewhat introspective tonight, and realized something. If you have true passions in life, true feelings, or true beleifs, that needs to be put ahead of what anybody else thinks. I have some passions, but I've realized that no matter what my reason is, I need to be into it for me and not for anything else. I love fitness and nutrition. I love to talk to people about it and if they ask me questions I'm totally game to go all night. I also realized that most people truly dont care. I'm never going to look like a calvin klein model (thank God) or a huge powerlifter, no matter how strong or fit I get, and I realized thats not at all my goal of working out, whereas that may have been the reason I started caring. My workouts are challenging mentally and physically. I get to challenge myself in strength, stamina, and power every day, and every day is different. Some days I only put in 80%. some days its the full effort. Here are some things I have learned in the past 10 months:


-It's ok to fail. Our coach Bennett just posted this about his failed attempt to climb Denali: When a critical part of your self is defined by competition, you begin to judge everything by the outcome, not the effort. I really don’t care about the preparation, the training, or anything else. I wanted the summit. Therefore, I failed. People have tried to console me on this very topic, calling it a “failed attempt” or saying “safe return” was the goal. This is simply not true…I FAILED. The question is whether it is bad to fail, and the answer is absolutely not. Through failure, you learn more about yourself, your ability to weather adversity, how strong you really are, and what you are truly made of? I like to think I am all guts, a tough guy, nothing phases me.

-You can work out on your own, but working out with others is almost always far better. If your a competitive person this can drive you way past any effort you can do on your own.

-The impressive feat is not going balls-to-the-wall in a single workout. It’s doing it the next day. And the next. And the next. Forever. It's not just workouts. It's everything you care about in life, everything you are passionate about. It's making sure every practice you coach and 8 yr old baseball team you help the worst player as much as the best. It means that at work you go out of your way to find out what will help the most and do it without being asked. Whatever it is for you, do it. And then do it again.

- Take a break. Some people are total A types, can go hard nonstop in everything and never need to slow down. I'm not like that at all. I need to rest and relax. I need to "shut off" with some relaxing at night. It's important for mental (and physical) health.

- Music makes it better. it makes your workouts go faster. And for me, it makes everything better. I love music and will hopefully adding some selections to this blog. I used to love to play music, and still play a little guitar, but have learned to really enjoy all sorts of music.

-Step outside your comfort zone. this is one of the biggest. doing 100 squats at body weight for time was really hard. I went through the entire emotional spectrum, from self doubt, to agression, to legit sadness, to actual anger. I was way out of my comfort zone and felt it. For the next couple of days i felt like i could do ANYTHING. It was awesome. Repeatedly taking yourself out of the comfort zone lets you do much better things. I have been doing well in the gym with it, and need to take it out to the rest of my life. Being out of your comfort zone is good in real life to, and I will start doing that more.

-Something unrelated. try and look in your own eyes in the mirror. you can't do it. maybe it takes looking at the people you surround yourself with to understand who you are. hopefully their eyes are what makes your happy.

Nutrition: Are we crazy?

From Robb Wolf, and Norcal Strength and Conditioning

NorCal Nutrition: Are We Crazy?

Posted by Robb on November 04, 2008 - Posted in News
There are 47 comments, Add yours!

You might have noticed that the nutrition approach we recommend at CrossFit NorCal is a bit...oh, shall I say, contrarian? Where the USDA, AMA and the rest of the Government sponsored entities recommend grains and legumes as the base of the diet, we recommend lean meat, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

That’s crazy, right? aren’t we going to die from heart disease and cancer if we eat meat? How will we ever get fiber if we don’t eat grains!? I mean, fruit and veggies...what have they got to offer?! I’m being fecetious here, I hope you get that. I do understand our recommendations fly in the face of what we are told to eat from nearly every source you can find...what’s the deal? Well...the deal is, our nutritional approach, a diet the attempts to emulate that of our paleolithic ancestors, is without a doubt the best route to optimized performance and health. Big claim? Yep, but easy to back up. Folks start with us, tweak their food, then look, feel and perform better. Every measurable bio-marker such as cholesterol, triglycerides or blood pressure improve...depression resolves. It just works, because this is the way we are wired to eat. But hey, what the hell do I know? I’m just the crazy guy in the shed telling people to do weird stuff like sleep more, take fish oil and increase their protein intake. How could I possibly be right about this? Well...here are a few interesting things for y’all to consider:

1-A Paleo diet, calorie per calorie, beats any other diet you can compare it to. Here is a nice look at this in a paper from Loren Cordain. If you notice, the basic diet presented here looks like taking a nutritional supplement. Now, if you are ambitious, you can take ANY of those listed Paleo foods, Lean meats, nuts, seeds, fruits and veggeis and compare them to the same calorie content of grains, legumes or dairy (non- fortified...just the way nature made them!) and you will decrease the relative nutritional content of the diet. Don’t believe me? You can actually do this experiment with the USDA Nutrient Database. So before you start waxing eloquent about how “nutritious whole grains are” give this a shot...build a diet the way our government recommends you do it via the food pyramid, then compare that to Paleo foods.

2-Many of the best coaches in the world recommend a Paleo diet. Granted, many also do not, but there are an ever growing number of coaches who recognize that optimized performance will not be found at the bottom of a box of cereal or served on a bagel.
Want a concrete example? How about Joel Friel, US Olympic Triathlon coach and author of The Triathletes Training Bible and Co-Author of The Paleo Diet for Athletes. I could use different examples but the endurance crowd is absolutely the most entrenched in this notion that optimized performance comes from a tube of GU or from some kind of Franken-Food like a Cliff-Bar. Here is an excerpt from The Paleo Diet for Athletes in which Joel talks about the Challenge Loren Cordain placed on him to try the Paleo diet for one month. check it out:

“I have known Dr. Cordain for many years, but I didn’t become aware of his work until 1995. That year we began to discuss nutrition for sports. As a longtime adherent to a very high-carbohydrate diet for athletes, I was skeptical of his claims that eating less starch would benefit performance. Nearly every successful endurance athlete I had known ate as I did, with a heavy emphasis on cereals, bread, rice, pasta, pancakes, and potatoes. In fact, I had done quite well on this diet, having been an All-American age-group duathlete (bike and run), and finishing in the top 10 at World Championships. I had also coached many successful athletes, both professional and amateur, who ate the same way I did.”

“Our discussions eventually led to a challenge. Dr. Cordain suggested I try eating a diet more in line with what he recommended for one month. I took the challenge, determined to show him that eating as I had for years was the way to go. I started by simply cutting back significantly on starches, and replacing those lost calories with fruits, vegetables, and very lean meats.”

“For the first two weeks I felt miserable. My recovery following workouts was slow and my workouts were sluggish. I knew that I was well on my way to proving that he was wrong. But in week three, a curious thing happened. I began to notice that I was not only feeling better, but that my recovery was speeding up significantly. In the fourth week I experimented to see how many hours I could train.

“Since my early 40s (I was 51 at the time), I had not been able to train more than about 12 hours per week. Whenever I exceeded this weekly volume, upper respiratory infections would soon set me back. In Week Four of the “experiment,” I trained 16 hours without a sign of a cold, sore throat, or ear infection. I was amazed. I hadn’t done that many hours in nearly 10 years. I decided to keep the experiment going.”

“That year I finished third at the U.S. national championship with an excellent race, and qualified for the U.S. team for the World Championships. I had a stellar season, one of my best in years. This, of course, led to more questions of Dr. Cordain and my continued refining of the diet he recommended.”

“I was soon recommending it to the athletes I coached, including Ryan Bolton, who was on the U.S. Olympic Triathlon team. Since 1995. I have written four books on training for endurance athletes and have described and recommended the Stone Age diet in each of them. Many athletes have told me a story similar to mine: They have tried eating this way, somewhat skeptically at first, and then discovered that they also recovered faster and trained better.”

So, if you missed the gist of that, Joel was able to train harder, longer and recover faster using a Paleo diet. He recommends the diet to ALL his athletes and includes this information in all his books. Oddly enough, we even have one of his staff dieticians, Kelly Cawthorn, available at CrosFit NorCal.

3-The Paleo diet describes our past, shines a light on our current situation, and provides predictive value for our future. The Nutritional “Sciences” are anything but. In theory they are a subset of Biology. The basic tenant of biology is evolution via natural selection...yet this fact absolutely buggars those in the nutritional sciences. The folks at CSU Chico Nutritional Sciences absolutely HATE the concept of the Paleo diet, yet offer no counter point or model that better describes the data at hand, nor offers the least bit of predictive value. They are awash in “paradoxes”. French Paradox, Spanish Paradox...things are only paradoxical in the nutritional sciences because they made bad assumptions and abandoned the scientific method. I get fired up about this because peoples lives are at stake here and the information we are fed is WRONG. It starts from faulty premise and worsens with every step. Here is an excerpt from The Protein Debate, a work we sponsored between Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study and Prof. Loren Cordain. Here is that excerpt which is the introduction for Prof. Cordain’s piece. The over-arching topic was the role of protein in health and disease in humans. As a side note: I’m a graduate of CSU Chico in biochemistry. When we sponsored this debate, between two of the most highly regarded researchers in the world, I thought the CSU Chico Nutritional Science department might be interested that a former student had sponsored and spear-headed this original work. I forwarded the Protein Debate to the members of the Nutritional Science department. Response? NONE. Sorry, I’m just bitter I guess, here is that introduction from Prof. Cordain:

Introduction
Although humanity has been interested in diet and health for thousands of years, the organized, scientific study of nutrition has a relatively recent past. For instance, the world’s first scientific journal devoted entirely to diet and nutrition, The Journal of Nutrition only began publication in 1928. Other well known nutrition journals have a more recent history still: The British Journal of Nutrition (1947), The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1954), and The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1988). The first vitamin was “discovered” in 1912 and the last vitamin (B12) was identified in 1948 (1). The scientific notion that omega 3 fatty acids have beneficial health effects dates back only to the late 1970’s (2), and the characterization of the glycemic index of foods only began in 1981 (3).
Nutritional science is not only a newly established discipline, but it is also a highly fractionated, contentious field with constantly changing viewpoints on both major and minor issues that impact public health. For example, in 1996 a task force of experts from the American Society for Clinical Nutrition (ASCN) and the American Institute of Nutrition (AIN) came out with an official position paper on trans fatty acids stating,
“We cannot conclude that the intake of trans fatty acids is a risk factor for coronary heart disease” (4).
Fast forward 6 short years to 2002 and the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine’s report on trans fatty acids (5) stating,
“Because there is a positive linear trend between trans fatty acid intake and total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol concentration, and therefore increased risk of cardiovascular heart disease, the Food and Nutrition Board recommends that trans fatty acid consumption be as low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet”.
These kinds of complete turnabouts and divergence of opinion regarding diet and health are commonplace in the scientific, governmental and medical communities. The official U.S. governmental recommendations for healthy eating are outlined in the “My Pyramid” program (6) which recently replaced the “Food Pyramid”, both of which have been loudly condemned for nutritional shortcomings by scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health (7). Dietary advice by the American Heart Association (AHA) to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) is to limit total fat intake to 30% of total energy, to limit saturated fat to <10% of energy and cholesterol to <300 mg/day while eating at least 2 servings of fish per week (8). Although similar recommendations are proffered in the USDA “My Pyramid”, weekly fish consumption is not recommended because the authors of these guidelines feel there is only “limited” information regarding the role of omega 3 fatty acids in preventing cardiovascular disease (6). Surprisingly, the personnel makeup of both scientific advisory boards is almost identical. At least 30 million Americans have followed Dr. Atkins advice to eat more fat and meat to lose weight (9). In utter contrast, Dean Ornish tells us fat and meat cause cancer, heart disease and obesity, and that we would all would be a lot healthier if we were strict vegetarians (10). Who’s right and who’s wrong? How in the world can anyone make any sense out of this apparent disarray of conflicting facts, opinions and ideas?
In mature and well-developed scientific disciplines there are universal paradigms that guide scientists to fruitful end points as they design their experiments and hypotheses. For instance, in cosmology (the study of the universe) the guiding paradigm is the “Big Bang” concept showing that the universe began with an enormous explosion and has been expanding ever since. In geology, the “Continental Drift” model established that all of the current continents at one time formed a continuous landmass that eventually drifted apart to form the present-day continents. These central concepts are not theories for each discipline, but rather are indisputable facts that serve as orientation points for all other inquiry within each discipline. Scientists do not know everything about the nature of the universe, but it is absolutely unquestionable that it has been and is expanding. This central knowledge then serves as a guiding template that allows scientists to make much more accurate and informed hypotheses about factors yet to be discovered.
The study of human nutrition remains an immature science because it lacks a universally acknowledged unifying paradigm (11). Without an overarching and guiding template, it is not surprising that there is such seeming chaos, disagreement and confusion in the discipline. The renowned Russian geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975) said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (12). Indeed, nothing in nutrition seems to make sense because most nutritionists have little or no formal training in evolutionary theory, much less human evolution. Nutritionists face the same problem as anyone who is not using an evolutionary model to evaluate biology: fragmented information and no coherent way to interpret the data.
All human nutritional requirements like those of all living organisms are ultimately genetically determined. Most nutritionists are aware of this basic concept; what they have little appreciation for is the process (natural selection) which uniquely shaped our species’ nutritional requirements. By carefully examining the ancient environment under which our genome arose, it is possible to gain insight into our present day nutritional requirements and the range of foods and diets to which we are genetically adapted via natural selection (13-16). This insight can then be employed as a template to organize and make sense out of experimental and epidemiological studies of human biology and nutrition (11).

This is a REALLY long post but I want to make a point. We DO NOT endorse a fad for a nutritional program. Our recommendations are based on the best of both science and the empirical evidence of the worlds best coaches. Take some time and educate yourself on the topic.

Easy Side Dishes

Spinach: Heat some olive oil in a pan, and throw in some garlic, feel free to do a lot. In this picture I also added shallots. Just as it's begining to brown, put in as much spinach as can fit in the pan.
The spinach will wilt down to about 1/10 its size when fresh so go wild with it, stack it up, put in the whole bag, it will not be nearly as much as you think.
After the spinach has wilted down, serve and enjoy!



Super Easy Guacamole

All you need for the basic guac is a couple of fresh ready avacodos (They should be halfway between soft and firm on the outside, and easy to scoop inside when ready) jalapenos or habeneros, and some lime juice.

Cut the avacados in half along the pit, and empty flesh into a bowl. Finely chop jalapenos and add to avacado. I used about 1 jalapeno per avacado, and it was slightly spicy. Add about a half-shot worth of real lime juice per 2 avacados and using the back of a spoon, mix together into a paste.

And that is ready to go guacamole.

Weekend Review

Lets see... this weekend was a lot of fun, and was just busy the whole time. I like weekends like that so much more, and really every day like that, because I don't have to worry about that feeling of just wasting time. I had a conversation with my friend the other day who says he gets that feeling whenever he sleeps past like 8am on weekends! Now I may never enjoy waking up early, but he's right, you get to be much more productive that way. Plus the afternoon naps are more enjoyable this way.

Friday night I went to "Friday Night Fights" with my friend Jesse. He is one of the funniest, and perhaps most offensive people I've ever met. He just keeps me laughing nonstop. These fights were Muay Thai Kickboxing, and were pretty entertaining. Unfortunately we didn't get there early enough to get seats so had to stand the whole time. When we got tired of standing, we headed to Bryan's and just hung out for the night.

Saturday I went to the Union Square Farmer's Market (See post below) and hung out with my friend Jake. I ran my frozen meat home, played some poker, and then headed back into the city for the night for Bryan's best friend Buddha's birthday. We went out to Bryan's club Red Velvet and hung out there. There was this group of like 50 yr olds that would not leave us alone even though we had a big group and wanted nothing to do with them. I beleive Bryan's roomate Joe may have hooked up with several of them, but he refuses to comment. He has an interesting point of view. He claims to have very high standards, just not the ability to stick to them. I also heard this weekend, "If they can get it up, they can have it."

Sunday I headed home and went to the open gym without really a plan, but just felt the need to get some aggression and sweat out the weekend. I did 2 nasty couplets, the first being 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of wallballs and pullups, but didn't time that one. Then with with Craig (owner/trainer) we did 5 rounds of 5 95lb snatch and 10 box jumps. The snatches are pretty easy, but I HATE box jumps and am really slow with them. A workout like this is really awesome beause its all mental. It's short enough that endurance won't be a factor. Its light enough that strength won't be an issue. This makes it so much worse because your lungs and heart just burn because you are able to exert maximum intensity for an extend period of time. I finished in 4 minutes exactly and he finished in 3 minutes. Later I took the giant farm tractor trailer and starting hitting it with a sledge hammer. It sounds rediculous but is one of the most gratifying experiences you can imagine. It's animalistic and aggressive all rolled into slamming a giant hammer as hard as you can into something. I then decided flipping the tire would be a good idea, much like they do on late night ESPN 4's worlds strongest man competitions. That also was incredibly rewarding and also quite fun.

After that was some FIFA with friends, which for some reason i totally love even though I hate the sport of soccer. After we headed to see Robin Hood at the new theatre in Hoboken. The place is tucked away and could easily get passed by but was actually really nice. Robin Hood was good, and can best be described as gladiator 2. It really was, down to the speach and marcus aurelious dude. I stopped by the Hoboken high school football field where our gym had a football game. After seeing that we had the game in the bag (I'm a superstar cheerleader!) I headed over to a bbq. I was sort of late but i got to see my friends Jeff and Jess who I hadn't seen for a while. By the time I headed home I was tired and ready for bed.


In other news I'm stoked that I start baseball tonight. I coach an 8 year old little league all star team with my Dad every summer. It's so much fun and I love doing it. This age is great to teach baseball because many of the kids we coach have never even played with a hard ball before, and at the end of the season are ready to play with kids 4 years older than them. So it's the gym, then figuring out how to entertain 25 kids while we do a parents meeting. Burpee contest? Perhaps.. perhaps...

Farmers Market

I stopped by the Union Square Green Market today, and it was pretty cool. Lots of in season flowers, vegetables, and grassfed/free range etc meat. There was so much I wanted to get but I tried to ration myself. These types of places are generally your best bet on local organic foods that are in season. Heres what I picked up:
Some apples, some avocados (guac!!!), spinich, shallots, grass fed ground beef, grass fed short ribs, grass fed bison bacon. I look forward to figuring out some great combos to cook up, with the short ribs definitely going in the slow cooker for a few hours.

Paleokits

“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar.” –CrossFit.com

Paleokits are tasty zone-friendly snacks and meals packaged for on-the-go lifestyles. A delicious mix of beef jerky, raw macadamias, raw almonds, raw pecans and dried fruits, our kits are the best-tasting convenient meals on the market. Paleokits are perfect for athletes striving to improve performance and those following Paleo, Zone™, low-carb and gluten-free diets. Paleokits have a six-week shelf life and are vaccum packed for freshness, making them perfect for extreme athletes including mountain climbers, bikers, skiers, snow boarders, backpackers and cross-country runners.

Endorsed by people like Robb Wolf, these are awesome to have as a to-go paleo option. They come in a variety of sizes from a snack size to a pack that contains over 450 calories for a real convenient meal. Even better,

"Proceeds from the sales of Paleokits fund Steve’s Club, a non-profit Crossfit affiliate devoted to training youth from Camden, NJ-often touted as the most dangerous crime-infested city in the country. Steve’s Club gives inner-city kids the chance to get away from the drugs and violence that plague their neighborhoods. Paleokits were originally developed to provide the children portable on-the-go nutritious meals they could eat at school and at home. Born to fuel their bodies, Paleokits now fuel the future of many kids looking for a positive place to stay safe and get strong."

So while probably not as good as a real meal, I've yet to see any thing that can compete with these. Pick them up at www.paleokits.org

wod update

Monday's workout:
Squat 5x5 275 (This started getting really heavy, and I have to watch to make sure my knees don't come in)
Press 5x5 115 (Can't get this up, getting really annoying!)
Deadlift 5x5 355 (I'm decent at these)


Tuesday:
300:
25 pullups
50 deadlifts @ 135
50 pushups
50 box jumps
50 V ups
50 kettlebell clean and jerks 24kg
25 pullups

This burned real nice until the last set of pullups where I could do 2 at a time and just reached full muscle failure. Time was somewhere around 14 and change, forget it exactly.

My Mom's paleo challenge

So I think I may have been able to convince my mom to go paleo for 30 days... so I wrote up this plan, which is basically me stealing a bunch of info and putting it together. I didn't think she would read any of it, but actually did. She said a big issue was breakfast for her, and I can totally see that (I actually intermittent fast a lot of breakfasts) especially since she doesn't like eggs. There are still amazing amounts of paleo choices including the easiest, left overs from the night before. There is no reason you can't have grilled chicken or steak for breakfast! There is also turkey bacon and chicken sausage that are good protein choices. Add some fruit, some avacado or some nuts, and you are good to go. Now all I need to do is convince her to take fish oil, and I think well within 30 days she will be convinced of the benefits.





PALEO 30 DAY CHALLENGE

I'm going to steal a whole giant blog post from someone, then I will try and explain more of the reasons behind paleo

Change your life in thirty days (The Whole30)

In Part II of my Guide to Eating Dirty, I recommend cheating smart – indulging in those foods that aren’t going to knock you out of energy, wellness and performance commission for days on end. The concept sounds pretty easy, and it is… as long as you know how various food groups like gluten, dairy and legumes affect you. So how do you figure out what foods are okay to cheat with, and what foods will never be worth it?

I can tell you where it STARTS... strip out all the crap from your diet and let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be provoking. What, exactly, does that mean? Super strict, no cheat, by-the-book Paleo for the next 30 days. Cut all the foods that could be kicking you in the crotch without you even knowing it for the next 30 days, and see how that feels. (To be clear – this is NOT a “30 Day Challenge”. This is so much bigger than that. And it's not really even about cheating. I kind of tricked you there. I'm not sorry. Read on, please.)

Why?

First and foremost, it will change your life. I cannot possibly put enough emphasis on this simple fact. This. Will. Change. Your. Life. It will change the way you think about food, it will change your tastes, it will change your habits and your cravings. It could, quite possibly, change the emotional relationship you have with food, and with your body. It has the potential to change the way you eat for the rest of your life. I know this because I did it, and it changed my life, and it changed the way I eat on a very permanent basis.

I promised you some cheat-tips, so here's how this ties in. The only way you are going to know if something is having a negative effect on how you look, feel or perform is to take it out for a while, then try it again with a fresh perspective. Think of it this way – if you’re allergic to pollen, and you are exposed to pollen every day, that means every day your nose is a little stuffy and your head is a little achy. You probably don’t even realize how crappy you feel, because a stuffy nose and achy head is just normal. Now, take a vacation somewhere pollen-free. Allow your body to experience a month without that irritant. Then… come home. Imagine how aware you would be of your allergy then. Your first few days back, you would be miserably in tune with how your allergy is affecting your everyday life.

Same concept here. Dairy, gluten, lectins and alkaloids may be provoking a similar autoimmune response in your body today – and you don’t even know it. Certain sugary foods may send you running for the nearest candy bowl, while others may satisfy you with just a small amount. So take a vacation from those food groups. Give your body a break, and then, if you so choose, come back to them with a fresh perspective. You’ll be able to immediately see if – and how – they really do impact how you look, feel and perform.

There are other reasons for doing a super strict 30 day Paleo program. For one, there’s an excellent chance that this little adventure will jump start fat loss. And I’ve seen really good results, especially in women, of body shapes changing just by eliminating these foods. Does your stomach look flat in the morning and chubby by day’s end? Try cutting dairy. You’d be surprised how an irritated digestive tract can manifest into a muffin-top over those low rider jeans in just a matter of hours.

What?

So what does strict Paleo mean? You'll get a different answer depending on who you ask, but this is the plan I followed back in April.

1. Eat real food – meat*, eggs, vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruit, oils (like EVOO or coconut). Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they're fresh and natural.


2. Do not eat dairy. This includes butter, cheese (hard and soft), yogurt (even Greek) and milk (including cream in your coffee**).


3. Do not eat grains. This includes bread, rice, pasta, corn (I count corn as a grain), oatmeal, and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains. That's not real food, right?


4. Do not eat legumes. This includes beans of all kinds, lentils, and peanuts. (No peanut butter, kids.)


5. Do not eat sugars*** of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Truvia, Stevia, etc.


6. Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, processed bars (like Zone bars), dairy-free creamers, etc.


7. Do not drink alcohol, in any form.


8. If you have serious inflammation issues like arthritis, you may want to consider avoiding nightshades for 30 days as well.
   

*I ate organic chicken sausage during my 30 day period. They are nitrate, dairy, gluten and casein-free and all natural. I did not eat bacon, but I’d be okay with bacon if it didn’t have any nitrates or other crap in it.

**I drank coffee in moderate amounts. Since I was drinking it black, I really didn’t want that much anyway. If you really want to go hard core and reset your body’s tolerance to caffeine, skip the coffee for the 30 day period as well.

***I used reason when avoiding sugars. For example, my Sunbutter includes some cane juice, which means there are 3g of sugar in each serving. Since it’s such a fantastic fat source and the only other ingredient is sunflower seeds, I was okay with that.

How?

So now that you have the basic plan, you need to know how to implement it. I’ll help you.

Start now. Today. This minute. Count out thirty days, go immediately to your grocery store and stock up on things you can eat, and begin. Cold turkey, just start. It’s the only way to do it. Give yourself excuses, reasons to put it off, and you may never begin. Do it now.

The only way this will work is if you give it the full thirty days. Anything less and you are selling yourself, and your results, short. You may start to see and feel improvements within just a few days, but according to Robb and Matt, the healing process takes significantly longer. And... no cheating. Just ONE cheat could irritate your digestive tract, promote an inflammatory response, upend your insulin sensitivity and send you running for the nearest Dunkin Donuts. It will ruin the effect of the “reset button” you are trying to push. This isn’t me being a hard-ass, or insisting that you tough it out to prove to yourself you can do it. This is a fact – the only way this will work is if you give it the full thirty days, no cheating.

Tough Love

Here comes the tough love. This is for those of you who are considering taking on this life-changing month, but aren’t sure you can actually pull it off, cheat free, for a full 30 days. This is for the people who have tried this before, but who “slipped” or “fell off the wagon” or “just HAD to eat (fill in food here) because of this (fill in event here)”. This is for you.

1. It’s not that effing hard. (Yes, I wanted to throw an f-bomb in there.) Don’t you dare tell me this is hard. Giving up heroin is hard. Drinking your coffee black is. Not. Hard. Substituting Sunday morning French toast in favor of a giant omelet and side of crispy bacon is not hard. Eating fresh, delicious fruits and vegetables every day is not hard. So I don’t want to hear one single complaint. You won’t get any coddling from me on this one, you won’t get any sympathy for your “struggles”, and you won’t get any second chances. Not in my house. It’s thirty days, and it’s for the most important cause on earth – the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime. So shut up and do it.


2. Don’t tell me you “slipped”. Unless you physically tripped and your face landed in a box of Krispy Kremes, you DID NOT SLIP. You made a choice to eat something of poor quality. It’s always a choice, so do not phrase it as if you had an accident. You make a poor choice, even once, you’re out. You don’t get to re-start, you don’t get to keep posting. Commit here, 100%, for the full 30 days, or go somewhere else.


3. Don’t lie to me. Don’t even try.


4. You never, ever, ever HAVE to eat anything you don’t want to eat. You’re all big boys and girls. Toughen up. Learn to say no. Learn to stick up for yourself. Just because it’s your Mom’s birthday, or your best friend’s wedding, or your company outing does not mean you “have” to eat crappy food. It’s always a choice, and I would hope that you stopped succumbing to peer pressure in 7th grade.


5. This does require a bit of effort, people. If you’re cutting grains and dairy for the first time, you have to replace those calories with something. You have to make sure you’re eating enough, that your vitamins and nutrients are balanced, that you’re getting enough protein, fat and carbohydrates. Don’t expect me to fill in the blanks for you. Figure it out. There are a ton of good resources out there. I’ll list some in my next post, to get you started. But take responsibility for your own plan. Improved health, fitness and performance doesn’t happen just because you’re now taking a pass on chocolate milk.

Summary

So there you have it – my thoughts on changing your life in 30 days. If just one person makes this happen – just one – this entire four page post will be well worth my time and energy. It’s that important. I believe in it that much. It changed my life, and I want it to change yours too.

Post questions to comments so I can answer them for everyone. Post your commitment, if you’re up for it. Just make sure you re-read the Tough Love portion again before you sign up. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.


- Melissa Urban




So in case your still with me....
Sound Nutrition should enable you to
1. LOOK better
2. FEEL bettter
3. PERFROM better
4. Track biomarkers of health via blood work (Probably not going to really apply, but would be very interesting to see if you want to realize how much eating this way can impact you.

For health we want good "insulin sensitivity" - that is we want the body to release the smallest amount of insulin neccessary to replace blood glucogen. Many modern pathologies are a result of insulin resistance (requiring more and more insulin to replace blood glucose levels).

4 causes of impaired tissue sensitivity to insulin
1. chronically high blood clucose levels
2. lack of sleep (2-3 days of inturrupted sleep can cause the body to act like type 2 diabetic)
3. inactivity
4. autoimmunce complications with leptin
Leptin is a hormone that tells the body it is full. Grains, legumes and dairy block this signal, so we avoid these foods!!


How else do grains etc mess with you?
They irritate the gut, allowing particles to enter the body and cause irritation, as well as allowing pathogens to enter the same way.
"Grains and legumes increase viral and bacterial adhesion to mucosal membranes, thus leading to increased rates of cold, flu, infection, and inflammation"

Dairy - high correlation with autoimmunity and hyperinsulinism


blah blah blah

7 basic tenants of paleothic nutrition (the science version, what we really care about is to eat lean meats, fruits, vegetables, good fats, no starch or sugar, grains, dairy, legumes)
1. glycemic load - how much sugar is in a food
2. fatty acid composition - omega 3 v omega 6, and saturated fat
3. macronutrient composition - carb, protein, fat
4. micronutrient density - vitamins, antioxidents for a given amount
5. acid/base balance -long term health thing, don't worry about it
6. sodium/potassium ration - dont worry
7. fiber content - suffice to say that you will get enough


Protein - Whole complete proteins that support growth, repair, and immune functions. Non-antibiotic, grass fed if possible, lean and varied 20-35% of calories
Fats - 30-60% of calories - including fish oil. We want a balanced n-3/n-6 ration. our ancestors had a 1:1 ratio. the average modern ratio is 1:20-40. We take the flish oil to bring this ration back to normality.
Carbs - 15-25% , quality more significant than quantity, although naturally quantities were rarely large.


You have a good idea of glycemic index and glycemic load so I won't go into them. They should help guide food choices towards vegetables and lean meats especially.

We are doing this mainly for health. There is significant evidence that shows that this lifestyle can help prevent cancer, ALZHEIMERS, parkinsons, depression, and more. You do a great job with the excercise of a paleo lifestyle, with the intense workouts twice a week and consistent walking for golf. You also have the basic idea of how much food to have as well.


Good links:

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/nutritional_tools/recipes.shtml
www.paleomama.com
www.everydaypaleo.com


Recipe 1 – Paleo Diet Speedy Pancake

Ingredients:

1. Coconut oil
2. 2 Large eggs
3. ½ Cup cashew nut butter
4. ¼ Teaspoon cinnamon
5. ½ Cup sugarless apple sauce
6. ½ Teaspoon Vanilla extract

Directions:

(1) Combine all ingredients in a bowl with the exception of coconut oil. Stir the mixture until they are well battered.

(2) Add a little coconut oil to a non-stick frying pan. Just enough to grease it. And then, add the batter into the frying pan and spread it properly to mould into a pancake shape.

(3) Use low or medium heat to cook it and after a minute or two, flip to fry the other side.

Call your mom!!

A powerlifting take on mothers day... from Elitefts

EFS Classic: 10 Reasons to Call Your Mom

By

Jim Wendler

Published: May 7, 2010

If you are like me, you probably forgot it was Mother’s Day this weekend. It’s not that I don’t love my mother; I love and admire her. But I had to clear the space in my head to make room for important things such as band tension, the history of Slayer and porn passwords.

Now the story behind this article is pretty funny. About two weeks ago, Dave called me up with panic in his voice.

Dave: Is Mother’s Day today?

Jim: I have no idea.

I began to panic and started searching the internet. It turns out that we had some weeks to spare, but that pretty much sums up Dave and me. So we decided to do an article about Mother’s Day and hope that this reminds you to at least call your mother. And if you are searching for reasons why, here are a few to keep you grounded.

1. All mothers’ are psychic. Several years ago, I began dating a girl that was 8 years younger than me. This wouldn’t be a big deal if I was 50 years old, but seeing as she was just barely legal, this was a little strange for many people to grasp. When my parents came to visit me in Kentucky, my mom asked me if I was dating anyone. I affirmed her suspicion and left it at that. She stopped, looked at me and said, “She’s really young, isn’t she?” I swear I looked up and saw her invoking the spirits of the underworld. This is interesting because I once saw my mother conjure Lucifuge.

So don’t think you are ever pulling the wool over your mother’s eyes. She knows. She knows all of your dirty secrets. Even the one involving your trip to Tiajuana, the monkey and the grapefruit.

2. Genetics. For whatever reason, any good genetics you possess seem to come from your mother. Looks, calves (all mom’s rock serious calf development), full head of hair, intelligence; whatever positive attributes you have come from your mother. Now if you are impatient, bald and have high cholesterol you can blame your father.

3. Cooking. As soon as you reared your head from your mother’s nether region, she instantly became a good cook. Now this doesn’t mean she is a world class chef. This means she could make some of the best Mac and Cheese known to man. Other dishes of importance include: chicken noodle soup, cut up apple with peanut butter, grilled cheese, any kind of breakfast food and Thanksgiving dinner. How anyone can stomach putting their hands into a turkey’s ass is beyond me. This is what makes mom’s so special – the ability to fist poultry.

4. Ability to stomach vomit and diarrhea. I can’t count the number of times my mom has cleaned up my vomit. And I don’t mean my vomit induced from the Cocktail Flu. I’m talking about the vomit that comes that is laced with hotdogs and baby carrots. And don’t get me started on changing diapers. I’ve wretched more times than I care to admit. But your mom can handle any kind of excrement – be it soupy or corn-filled. There is something special about someone that can be elbow deep in crap and still have a smile on their face.

5. The originator of Muscle Milk. Accept it and embrace it. Your mom has cans and there is a good chance that you sucked on them. These Lactation Stations kept you from hunger and provided you with nutrients that kept you strong and healthy. It is often referred to as the perfect food and only a mother can provide this. I have tried for many years to get the same effect from numerous women. And as a man who constantly seeks the best in health, I shall continue to try. You know…for the betterment of man.

6. The Look. I’ve stared in the eyes of fearsome linebackers. I’ve seen the intensity of elite lifters. But nothing can be more devastating as the The Look. The Look often comes after you break some fine china, write with permanent marker on the walls or come home 3 hours late with whiskey on your breath. The power of The Look can stop small armies and weaken the knees of all men. In fact, The Look can even be given over the phone or a brief e-mail message. So I highly recommend calling your mother on Mother’s Day. Or be prepared to get the Eyes of Death.

7. Love. I swear that I could be in jail after a murderous rampage and my mother would still love me. She’d find some way to still find the good in me. A good example of this is Varg Vikernes and his mother. Varg (aka Count Grishnackh) was the main man behind the black metal band Burzum and one of the most influential people in that scene. Varg was sentenced to 21 years in prison after he murdered Euronymous, guitarist of the band Mayhem. Several years after his incarceration, Varg’s mother broke him out of jail. Now most sane people would see this as stupidity. But any mother would probably do the same; or at least want to do the same thing. Now I do realize that there are better examples of love, but this one involved black metal so I had to include it.

8. The ability to gross you out. I really take pride in being a gross son of a bitch. There is something noble about being able to make someone wretch. But your mom can turn your stomach and fill your mouth with stomach acid faster than anyone I know. All they have to do is talk openly and loudly about their sex life.

Based on extensive research, I was put on this earth one of two ways:

1. Aliens
2. Hatching from egg

I refuse to believe that I am a result of carnal lust, especially between my mother and father.

9. Ability to fold clothes. I am a reasonably clean man. I put my clothes away, wash the dishes and can vacuum like an OCD demon. But I have yet figured out how to fold clothes like my mother. There is nothing better than getting a stack of clothes back from your mother, clean and folded. First, the clothes smell like they are actually clean. When I wash them, they smell like they are NOT dirty. Big difference. But the folding thing really baffles me. I tried many times to fold shirts, shorts and underwear. But they can never compare to the crisp clean cuts that mom makes.

10. She taught you everything. Sometimes my mom drives me nuts, but this is her job. She mostly drives me nuts because I know she is right. When I weighed about 4 metric tons, she told me that I looked like shit. Sure enough, I look at pictures of me when I was Fatty McGee and I did look like shit. But moms teach you a lot of things and all of them are correct. For example, she told you to shower, eat your vegetables and fruit, and do your homework. She told you to keep your penis in your pants and think with the right head. She told you to get up early and be on time. The only thing my mom is misguided on is the Led Zeppelin vs. Black Sabbath debate. She’s on Team Page and Plant and we all know that Iommi and Co. rule. But we can agree to disagree.

So there are 10 reasons why you should call your mom this Sunday. You might be like me; probably don’t call your mom as much as you should nor do you tell her how much you appreciate her. I’m not saying this is OK, but your mom knows how you really feel. But sometimes it makes her feel good to hear the words come from your mouth. And you know that when you do, you are probably going to get a killer care package from her – including a shirt that is WAY too small. But don’t blame her. No matter what age you are, you are still her baby.

"Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character." -- Heraclitus


Todays workout during open gym: 2/3 McGhee
As many rounds as possible in 20minutes
5 275lb deadlift
13 pushups
9 box jumps

Result 12rnds plus 5 deadlifts

This workout just sucked. I felt really good going into it, but it was rediculously hard. My whole body will probably hurt for a while. I did this with my friend Mike who is an absolute beast. That is one of my favorite things about CrossFit, he came in to bench press but I said lets do this suckfest and he decided it was a great idea. Working out with someone else is the biggest boost I can personally ever have. I'm very competitive and even if I can't beat someone, I want to still try.

This is the first weekend I have nothing planned at all in quite a while (My mom went to florida for mother's day) and I'm loving it. I will have some time to play some poker and catch up on my duties of CEO for B Colin Inc. Catching up on sleep will be clutch too!

good day

Today was a good day for no particular reason, just one of those days where your in a good mood. At work we had our spanish distributor come visit, it was his first time at our current factory, so I gave him a tour right when he got there. He seemed very on top of his market and had some good opinions. Most of the main office went out to a big lunch in Newark and it was awesome. Even at a place that specializes in arroz con pollo, it was easy to eat paleo. I just got some blackened tuna over arugala and had veggies on the side. The only hard part was they have these amazing potato chip type things, but I had sooooo much food I didn't need to worry. Needless to say with a nice dinner like that, the day flew buy. I did my usual and went to the gym, and did 2 workouts today.

Nicole:
As many rounds in 20min, run 400m, as many pullups in a row.

So basically you run a quarter mile then do as many pullups as you can, and as soon as you come off the bar, do it again. Your score is the total number of pullups you can do. I scored 51 over 6 rounds which is not great overall but I was happy in a workout combining 2 things I suck at.

After that I did the crossfit.com workout of the day

Complete as many rounds in seven minutes as you can of:
95 pound Squat clean, 10 reps
20 Sit-ups

The standard for the sit-up is feet anchored, back of the hands touch the ground above your head on the bottom, and hands touch the anchor at the top. No Abmat.

I got a solid 4 rounds and then my legs were just shot.

Cinco de mayo burgers

I try and eat completely paleo. Basically this means no grains, sugar, dairy, legumes, or proccessed foods. I did this for a full month before my birthday and felt amazing. After a few days of eating crap, I really felt it at my workout today, so I'll go back to eating that way. It's not a diet, its a lifestyle. Its really easy to follow and you get to eat incredible food. I actually am a decent cook, and like coming up with new stuff. So tonight to celebrate cinco de mayo I made some special burgers. This is how I made it, but anything can be changed according to taste or whatever you have around.

Ingredients:
1-2 lb grassfed ground beef
1 head of iceburg lettuce
3 multicolor peppers chopped
1 onion chopped
olive oil or coconut oil
spices to taste
guacamole
Sweet potatoes


First I chopped up the peppers and onions. I love the multi colors because they have different tastes and are yummy.

Then I sauted them with olive oil for about 10 minutes, until the onions are almost see through. Feel free to use a good amount of oil because this will be used for the burgers after. I took them out of the pan and put them to the side.

Next mix some spices into the ground beef (I used pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, cilantro, paprika, and almond flour) and form into burger patties. Throw those on the pan and cook till done through.

Next I simply layed down some lettuce (I use this instead of bread or wraps) and put some of the pepper mix and some guac down. I threw the burgers on top and topped with the same combo of pepper mix, guac, and lettuce.

I quickly added some sweet potato fries by frying them in the same pan.

Overall super easy to make and super delicious. There was no chance I would leave any over! (following post will have the pictures)

Birthday Recap

So technically my birthday was Monday, but who really wants to celebrate much on a Monday. So we decided to go out Saturday. Bryan wanted to go to a nice dinner but after calling places at 830 asking for a reservation for "now" we just decided to go around the corner to the tibeten place. Jake, Craig, Bryan and I had a relatively quiet dinner and grabbed some booze and headed back to the apartment.

Around 10 some people started coming over to pregame because we were going to head to the club relatively early. Infinite of course showed up at 11, because he's on a different time schedule.

<-----Infinite I mess with Infinite a lot but he's one of the coolest people ever. I've never met anyone who has such a positive outlook on life, and who makes literally everyone around him smile and laugh. (more on that later) So we got pretty drunk during pregaming, lots of Patron was had by everyone, and we headed out. From this point on everything started getting a little hazy. I do know that the group that went to Tenjune was Bryan, Joe, Farhad, Jake, Craig, Infinite, Dan, Mike, Julie, and Jessica. A decent group but we got there. On the way there Julie got a call that there was a bomb in Times Square. We didn't really know what to think about it and sort of ignored it, though looking back at it, that was really scary. I don't really know how to describe the night at the club for a couple reasons, mainly because its all hazy. I know I had a great time and everyone I talked to did also. I know there was a ton of girls and they were all smokin. I don't even want to think about how many magnums of Patron and champagne that we went through. It was really cool that they had balloons and even a cake for me! (I only remembered the cake after seeing a picture of it). There were also lots and lots of sparklers!! Yay for sparklers!!

Bryan and I... he totally hooked this up for me and is the coolest dude on earth.

My only real proof of cake.



Me with Jessica and Julie, super cool girls!


Jake and Craig, been friends with them for like 20 years.



Clearly Farhad feels that Jessica, him, Julie, and I are number 1. I can't argue.



So anyway the night was awesome and nuts. We headed back to the apartment for some late night hot tub. Unfortunately here I only remember some bits and pieces. Everyone was hammered and there were some passouts. I know Joe ended up cooking turkey burgers for at least himself Julie and Jessica. Aparently I was only supposed to invite a few people over, but there was like 15. Oops. Infinite made sure to stop at McDonalds with Craig. He proceded to give everyone high fives there and ask for a "crispy" sprite. There was some hot tub, some fun times and eventually passing out.

That morning we went to brunch and had a cool day. Craig and I came back to Hoboken for this giant street fair they had. I wasn't expecting much but it was a huge festival closing all of Washington st. There was some really neat artwork and we got some, including this caricature of us rollerblading, imagining the gayest possible scenerio. I also had Rita's, which was the first time I had sugar in over a month. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest, so I'm going to contine to avoid sugar.


Monday, my actual birthday a couple friends and I went out to dinner and for a drink at my favorite local bar (well not really but its literally around the corner which is cool).

Tuesday night, my family finally agreed to spend a little time with me for my birthday so the four of us went out to Wolfangs, which is very similar to peter lugers. I ate about 3 cows worth of steak, and it was amazing.