You are what you eat...

Don't ya just hate it when work interferes with training? Had to go to the office today to meet clients (for the "real" job) and ended up there from 7:30 am to 6:15 pm. Factor in the train ride and there was no way to make the sprint training. Had a real good session planned too. Oh well it can wait until next week I guess when I next coach the team on speed and agility.

So anyway, I'm in the office and we have a catered lunch - sandwiches and nachos, basically nothing I can eat. Made me start to think about nutrition and how important it is to top level performance. Most of the guys and gals who follow CrossFit use Barry Sears' Zone diet, tweaked for best performance. Others go Paleo, which is basically eating only foods that we would have eaten in the pre-historic times before animal domestication and farming were created (the paleolithic period, hence the name). Many paleo eaters are zone-paleo, meaning they eat only paleo foods but in Zone ratios. Seems to work for a lot of them.

Personally I have been following the Know How lifestyle from internet nutritionist Don Lemmon (who tragically passed away in an auto accident). This is different to the Zone in many ways, yet has some similar tenets to the paleo in that it determines that we biologically cannot deal with certain foods in certain combinations. I won't go into details, but this way of living (it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle) has worked for me and I recommend it to everyone. Recently though, I have been combining the KH stuff with a paleo approach and my results are coming thick and fast - workouts are improving, body fat is dropping. I just "feel" better and that's good enough for me.

The thing about Know How, the Zone and the Paleo diet is that none of them are "easy". They all require some form of commitment to get them to work which is where a lot of people fail. Most people today want the easy fix. Eat what they want and not exercise yet lose weight. Sure, you can lose weight on a heavily calorie restricted diet but your performance for life, not just exercise, will fall. You are much more likely to lose muscle weight than fat on these things. How many people have you seen who are "skinny-fat"? Sure, their BMI might tell you they are healthy, but I bet you their other, more important, readings will show otherwise.

Where am I going with this? Eat right people. Clean up your diet and work as hard as you possibly can in all your workouts. You want to see results, you have to work for them, To paraphrase an old TV show - "You want results? Results cost, and right here's where you start paying!".

If you want more information on Don Lemmon's Know How, drop me a line and I can point you in the right direction to get it in the UK. It's worth the time to get and read his book. Some of it is a real eye opener.

Relevant Links (all work/family safe at time of posting)
Don Lemmon's Know How
Zone Diet
Paleo diet
Robb Wolf's Blog - probably THE BEST resource for paleo advice and discussion

Clean up your acts people and the results will follow - that's a guarantee.

Vires et Honestas