I started CF in January 2009 and weighed 215 pounds. I started paleo April 20th and weighed 211 pounds. After 60 days of paleo/zone, I've lost ~20 pounds and about 4 inches off my waist. Not only have i lost a bunch of weight but I feel stronger than I ever have before. When they say that nutrition is the key to losing weight, that's not just a bunch of bullshit. (I also increased my CF sessions from twice a week to 3-4 times a week)
Give this a try for 30 days. At the end of those 30 days, your body will crave healthy foods and will feel like crap when you eat junk. This is a lot of information, so let me know if you have any questions. Grace and Tristan are great resources and I asked them a bunch of questions when I started. There are a few other people at ACF that are Crossfit Nutrition Certified so I'm sure they could help too.
- Enter weight, body fat percentage and activity level to calculate number of blocks needed I sum up paleo and zone as:
Paleo - what to eat
Zone - how much to eat
Do eat:
Lean Meat - chicken, turkey, wild game, beef (grass fed) Seafood - (wild caught, not farm raised) Vegetables Fruit Fats - omega 3 fats...avacados, macadamia nuts, olive oil (not peanuts)
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
All flour products (bread/cake/cookies/scones/tortillas/pastries etc.) All sugars (including corn syrup) No Dairy (cheese/milk/butter/cottage cheese, etc) No Artificial Sweeteners No potatoes, corn beans or other starchy vegetables
Shopping-food.doc list prepared by Robb Wolf that tells you what to stock up on at the grocery store. The takeaways from this article for me were:
-what to eat and what not to eat
-eat protein with EVERY meal
-stock up on groceries and be prepared (not being prepared leads to bad food choices) -give this an honest effort for 30 days and you will see results My Nutrition Food Log.doc print this out and carry it with you everywhere. If you eat/drink it... write it down. What I did was, if i ate something that wasn't paleo, i would highlight it in red. Today is my 60th day of strict paleo and i have no red on my food log. Use whatever method works for you. Don't beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon, just don't make things worse by staying off the wagon.
A free CrossFit Journal #21 (Nutrtion) explains how to break down a meal into blocks. there's a list of common foods and how much to eat of each food. for example, if you need 4 blocks of protein, you can do:
4 ounces of chicken breast
6 ounces of salmon
2 eggs and 3 ounces of ground beef.
You'll notice when you get to carbs that you will have to consume a truck load of vegetables and fruit to get the number of carbs recommended. I followed these guidelines for the first 2 weeks and then read the Robb Wolf article "42 Ways to Skin the Zone".
This article explains how to decrease carb and increase fat intake to optimize your results. Also, you'll want to pick up a food scale to measure your blocks. I got a scale from Krogers that cost less than $10 that works fine From my experience, I was never hungry eating paleo/zone. I break down my blocks into 4 meals a day. That works best for me with my work schedule. I think the key is if you're fueling your body every 3-4 hours, you never have a chance to be hungry. If you're never hungry, you're never likely to overeat.
