By Jeff Edwards

June 5, 2010

Alright, that title might sound a little daunting but the intention is to make your life simpler and shed a little more light on a topic that often confuses and frustrates people. We're all familiar with the importance of food quality and appropriate quantity, but what often kills the best of intentions is applying that to your life.

First things first, we have to figure out how much food you need to eat during the course of a normal day then we can start dealing with post workout stuff and all that jazz. Dr. Sears has a very useful Zone Block calculator that will solve that dilemma for you in a jiff (use Moderate activity level). Once you've figured your daily block allotment, let's talk about what that means. Let's say you have a 165lb athlete who's 5'7" and does Crossfit and trains fairly regularly (where would we find such a specimen...). This person would get 16 blocks of Protein, Carbohydrate, and Fat each day. What are these block thingys? Well a block of protein has 7g of protein, carbohydrate is 9g per block, and fat is 1.5g per block. It's just a shortcut to measuring out consistently sized portions. So, this fictitious athlete could eat a 4 block breakfast, have a 1 block snack, eat a 4 block lunch, have a 1 block snack, have a 4 block dinner, and a 2 block snack to round out the 16 block recommendation for their day. Or could have 4, 4 block meals, or even 3 5 block meals and a 1 block snack. The number of meals and size isn't really important, find what works for you.

Alright, we've got our daily blocks and how we're going to fit them in during the day, now what to do about each meal? Well use that nifty Journal 21 article or this quick start guide to look at common foods and how they breakdown into blocks. For ex 4oz of chicken is 4 blocks of protein, 2 apples are 4 blocks of carbs, and 12 almonds are 4 blocks of fat. Throw that together and you have a perfectly portioned meal. Simple. Plan out a few meals, get used to measuring for a week or two and once you know the right portion sizes for your favorite foods you can easily eyeball it for the following months.

All that should be review, now we're going to talk about how to make changes and fine tune things. Yes you can, and should, make adjustments and the Zone god's wont smite thee. We're athletes, and we need to make adjustments to the zone so we don't starve to death and aren't eating 2 plates worth of food every 3 hours. The first thing we're going to do, is change the magic ratio of blocks at every meal. Specifically we're going to take 1/2 of the daily requirement of carbs and put that in our post workout meal. One suggestion here is if you're going to be away from home for 20 minutes or more after your workout, drink a glass of chocolate milk (16oz, a tall glass). This will give you about 60g (6 blocks) of carbs and 18g of protein which fills that window where your body can handle (and needs) more carbohydrate to fuel recovery. Wait about an hour and then have a meal. This will leave you 2 blocks of carbs at 4 meals throughout the day instead of 4 blocks at each. This is a much more manageable level to consume the better quality low GI vegetables and will leave you feeling full and simplify meal planning.

Hopefully I haven't lost anyone. All we did there was take in a large portion of your daily carb recommendation and put it in one post workout meal and cut back the carbs for the remaining meals. Now we're going to deal with feeling hungry throughout the day. Some of you are going to be Carb Crash Zombies, before you go biting your neighbor let me explain. Most people are used to high GI carbs, things like bread and processed foods. You will probably crave these foods simply from becoming addicted to them, not because you are starving. Eat 2 blocks of broccoli and tell me you're starving. You're not, you'll be fine. You can make it a little easier by cutting out a carb block and adding 3 fat blocks. Feeling groggy or sleepy throughout the day? Cut out some carb blocks and add fat blocks (1 carb block, 3 fat blocks). Having trouble eating all the food you need each meal? Eat some more energy dense carbs sources like yams or apples, or cut out some carb blocks in your day and add fat blocks. Get the picture? You have a lot of wiggle room with the zone, really.

You shouldn't be super restricted. Yes we want you to avoid some of the more energy dense foods, but we don't want you taking a shot of wheat grass and then only drinking water all day. That's dumb. Certainly not good advice for athletes. Now you will lean out if you stick with these recommendations and train. Once you lean out to your desired level, we're going to have to make changes again. Now we're going to up your fat intake for the day. In fact we're going to double it, for starters. Still loosing weight? Triple it. Still getting lean and we'll take it up as high as 5x the normal daily recommendation. This will take a normal 16 block person up to 80 blocks of fat in the day, an increase of 800 calories a day. This only happens once you've leaned out.

There's a lot we can do to make zone and paleo less of a "diet" that is cumbersome and more of a lifestyle that is satisfying and sustainable. Obviously most of the protein will need to be cooked, instead of cooking every meal cook in batches and use tupperware to store. Simplify your life. Keep a journal of your meals and portion sizes for the next week, bring it in and I'll evaluate it and make suggestions. I want everyone to be successful in their goals, and nothing is more important than nutrition in making those goals attainable.

Any questions?

by Jeff Edwards  

     Body composition, the amount of fat to lean body mass, is not an accurate measure for health and fitness. Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. Sorted? Good. That being said, most people who exercise do so not only for improving their performance, but for improving aesthetics. Great! One of the best benefits of exercise is improved self confidence in addition to making you a beast among men or a babe among women. While we at ForgedFit focus largely on performance, I am aware that many people want to lose a little weight, especially during the holiday season as New Year resolution time rolls around. I've said it many times train like an athlete and you'll start to look like an athlete, but how many of you realized nutrition is a big part of training for any real athlete? So today, I'm going to talk a bit about shedding the weight, because achieving goals is what it's all about.

     Everyone has gotten the lecture on nutrition. Without proper nutrition in adequate amounts, progress towards performance cannot be made, in fact if your nutrition is really bad you will lose performance. You can't run a Formula 1 car on a cup of regular unleaded and expect to win any races, especially when the other drivers are using a full tank of high octane. Well, you're body is a heck of a lot more complicated than any Formula 1 car. Remember Paleo? That's your high octane fuel. Zone, that's how you know your tank is full. Without the right type of fuel and just enough to get the job done, you'll be lucky to finish the race at all. I could have used the analogy on Nascar, but I want athletes who can turn left AND right...

     Nothing new so far, I know, but the point needs to be driven home again and again. Here's the problem, most people don't Zone and I can't blame them. It's annoying and difficult to look up every food you eat and find out how much equals one block, then measure out however many blocks you need for every meal. In addition to the annoyance, it's hard to see the carryover into how doing all this extra work is going to help you lose the weight, other than the obvious benefit of all that extra work = increase in calories burned. This is where the nutrition journal comes in.

     Remember that bit in your journals about keeping track not only of your workouts but your nutrition as well? One of the most effective strategies, not an opinion ask any dietician, for weight loss and performance enhancement is KEEPING TRACK OF EVERYTHING you eat. Why does this work? I'll answer that question with a barrage of questions... How often do you snack? How much protein, carbohydrate, and fat do you eat in a day? How many calories does that add up to? How does that compare to your daily requirement based on your basal metabolic rate and your activity level in addition to your needs in training? Get the picture?

     You can't keep track of all that in your head, at least with ANY degree of accuracy. So what do you do? Write it down. Simply writing down what you eat at every meal will help you be more aware of what you're actually eating, and make you more aware of snacking and the inevitable "I earned this extra glass of wine/blueberry muffin/piece of pie (mmmm pie)" that comes with training. In addition to increased awareness of what you actually eat, this journal will allow you to see exactly how close you are to reaching your goals, and how you need to adjust things to finally get there.

     Writing everything down is a very important first step. What's the next step? Make that journal work for you. Paying it 9 dollars an hour won't get it to do your laundry, I tried. What it will do is allow you to transfer that information into FitDay. This is an online journal that keeps track of everything. Seriously awesome and incredibly useful, with this FREE tool you can enter what you ate in roughly what amount (much easier than it sounds, only takes a couple of minutes to fill out an entire day's worth of meals), and in return it will show you how many calories you're getting from carbs, protein, and fat, your total caloric intake in relationship to your basal metabolic rate and activity level, as well as calculating the additional calories burned from exercise and other "activities" (seriously, this journal will keep track of everything).

     In addition to that useful information, it goes a step further. If you have a weight loss goal, it will show you how many calories per day under your activity level you should consume in order to reach your goal. Or, the reverse, how much extra activity you must put forth in order to burn the calories. It will show you graphs of progress, and even allow you to keep track of your mood (useful as a gauge for recovery/overtraining), and an additional journal for your eyes only where you can complain about how long winded, preachy, and irritatingly demanding that trainer guy at the gym is...

     You work your asses off in the gym, and everyone is MUCH more fit now than before they started training. FitDay and your nutrition log is the silver bullet (or bullets just in case there's a werewolf apocalypse instead of a zombie apocalypse, Crossfitters are prepared for anything and everything) to get you to that next level of fitness, or to that smaller pant size.

 

 

by Jeff Edwards    

     I want to talk about something that's not often discussed that has as much impact on the success of your training as nutrition or the programming. Attitude. Often overlooked, or not adequately addressed, attitude is one of the most important tools in your belt. Think about it. How do you approach your training? Do you attack each workout like you would if a gold medal were up for grabs? Do you push yourself past the point the little voice inside your head says "Can't go any further, gotta stop"? Or do you put in enough effort to get through it, giving about 85%?

     Ultimately the goal of your training is for you to successfully achieve your goals. You know, those goals you set for yourself in your success journal... Alright. Open up the journal and actually right down your goals. Seriously. Ok, moving on. You must have goals to judge success. Success is personal. Not everyone wants a sub 3 minute Fran or a 700lb deadlift. That's ok. But you can't have a goal to "get in better shape". How about improved body composition? Better flexibility? The more specific the better, such as shaving 1 minute off your Baseline time, doing all ten real pull ups, or losing 10lbs. These are goals you can achieve, regardless of how long it takes you can see progress or lack thereof.

     Now, we've got goals. Great! What do you do now? ATTACK THEM! Figure out what it will take to reach these goals. Fancy that, here's the universal answer! Nutrition, training, rest, and attitude. That's it. Well lets assume you've got the first three down by now. Your diet is impeccable (reread paleo information and go grocery shopping!),you train at least 3 days a week, and sleep 8 hours uninterrupted. Great! Now we gotta hit that third part. Attitude. Alright, egos aside for this one...

     When I talk about attitude I'm not thinking of whether you show up everyday smiling (though that does make life a lot more fun:). I'm talking about the mental aspect of training. I'm going to break it up into little chunks. Attitude is persistence, effort, and ambition. Can it really be that simple? Yup.  was cheating, I had the answer already.

     Persistence. Training is hard, at least effective training is hard. You're going to find things you just plain suck at. Everyone does. I suck at double unders, have for a long time. How do I fix that? More double unders. Every day. A couple of times a day even. Double unders past the point where I no longer just hate them, I despise them, loath the thought of them. But guess what, I'm better at them now. Persistence is pursuing headlong the things that are hardest for you, the things you suck at. Don't get frustrated and give up, be persistent! Some peoples shoulder flexibility sucks. Guess what. Stretch! Every day! Several times a day. Get the picture?

     Effort. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Training is hard. Ok you knew that already, but this you probably didn't know, your body only adapts to stresses that disrupt homeostasis. Guess what that means. Half assed won't get you anywhere. Even worse, 80% won't get you anywhere. Yup, you heard that right. The only reason I push you to go harder, or to give your best is because you MUST give your best to make improvement. I'd be perfectly happy with giving 60% if that was going to make you better. It's not. That sucks, but it's the truth whether we like it or not. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Go deeper in your squats and push ups, pull harder on the erg, don't rest during the last 9 reps of deadlifts in Diane.

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

     That quote has been on the website since day 1, and there's a reason for that. You've got to give 100% to make any progress. Here's another little secret. What you think is your 100% is really your 90%. You can almost always give a little more, you can always do 1 more rep before you rest, you can always run just a little bit faster even just for a second. I'll bet on that every day of the week.

     Ambition. This one should be obvious. You have to always want more. Lift heavier, go faster, rest less. If you don't passionately pursue progress (the alliteration ends there folks) you will not make progress. You will get stuck in the comfortable, boring, sameness of where you are now. I didn't want to deadlift 355 for the rest of my life, so I buckled down, ate better, worked on weaknesses, chalked up and pulled a PR. Want your first pull up? If you don't have one you should be chomping at the bit to get it. Working on your kip every day, using bands, eating better, getting plenty of rest (dreaming of finally pulling your chin over that bar, obviously, what else is there to dream about), and pursuing it with a passion! You've got to want to be in the best shape of your life, everyday, and work hard so that you are more fit today than yesterday.

     All you have to do is have a winner's attitude, eat well, sleep well, and train hard. After that, nothing is impossible.