February 16, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 30

Holy crap, it’s been a month already…  I loved reading all the comments about your thoughts so far.

A couple of items to note:

- If you feel hungry all the time, consider eating more or eating more often or eating more fat/protein.

- If you feel like you’re not making the strength gains you should, consider whether your body-weight has an impact on this and whether you can tweak things to avoid this problem; more protein, more fat, timing your meals, etc.

- If you feel like you’re always preparing food, notice how some people put this as a pro ‘I’m rediscovering the kitchen and cooking”, while others listed it as a con.  Maybe you can shift your paradigm.

- If you feel like you’re always trying to explain this lifestyle, check out this email template for friends and family from Pay Now Live Later.

February 14, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 29

How's this for a food pyramid?

Halfway through the challenge…

Let’s start thinking about dinner.  Here’s a “breaded” chicken and cauliflower curry recipe from PaleoBrands.com to get you started.

Please post dinner and comment on the best and worst of the challenge so far. i.e. Best: I can see my abs. Worst: Ordering a piece of chocolate pecan pie and letting it sit there in front of me for an hour without eating it. Yes, you know who you are…

February 14, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 28

We are officially half-way through our Real Food Challenge.  The results so far: amazing!

Check out this blog post from Chef at CrossFit Breakaway.

Let’s hear what you’ve accomplished so far.  Did you drop a pant size?  Did you get your first pull-up?

February 11, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 26

So I’d like to address questions we’ve had on whether certain foods are “allowed” on the paleo diet, such as water chestnuts, snow peas, bamboo shoots and beets.

Snow peas: officially beans/legumes and therefore not paleo, however they are good in my books.  Anything green and “vegetabally” is better than beer and cookies.

Water chestnuts: actually an aquatic vegetable according to Wikipedia, so I think they are safe.

Bamboo shoots: I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t be paleo, high fibre, low carb vegetable…

Beets: The paleo experts seem to be divided on this one.  Probably because beets, along with other relatively sweet/starchy root vegetables are relatively high in carbs.  I say relatively because that’s in comparison to greens.  They are still great compared to bread and pasta.  In my opinion, OK in moderation and depending on goals.

But let’s get past this and get to the heart of the question.   Does it matter if it’s officially paleo?  In this post, I explain why we called this a “real food challenge”.  Paleolithic nutrition works wonders, but we don’t want it to be a “diet” and we want you to understand why it works so that you can start making your own decisions about what to eat.  This is exactly the message I tried to get across in this post.  One of the reasons paleo nutrition works is that it keeps your insulin in check.  It also improves digestion and reduces inflammation.  So when deciding on these foods, consider how much you are eating and ask yourself:

- Will this spike my insulin more than I need given my objectives?

- How does my body react to this?

- Do I digest this well?

- How do I perform on this food?

- How do I feel on this food?

February 10, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 25

Another great resource…

http://freetheanimal.com/

Please post lunch to comments and keep the discussion going.  I love how yesterday’s post extended the average comment length to that of a short story…

February 9, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 23

I just wanted to take a few minutes to congratulate everyone participating in our real food challenge.  I am so proud of all of you for making this change.  I haven’t had time to gather some concrete statistical data to support this, but the coaches have certainly noticed some huge performance gains around the gym.  We’ve run out of space on the “Chicks who do chins” board and we have more athletes rx’ing wods than ever before.  Of course, we have coach B to thank for his programming, but don’t underestimate the power of good nutrition.

Please post lunch to comments…

February 7, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 22

Recipes for you…

Paleorecipes.com

February 5, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 20

from sixwise.com

Why you want to avoid conventional processed deli meats…

http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/07/01/23/15_things_you_never_thought_you_needed_to_know_about__lunchmeat.htm

Please post lunch to comments.

February 4, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 19

Just finished the nutrition meeting.  Thanks to everyone for coming out and sharing your experiences.

Too late to post more – must go to bed….

Please post lunch to comments

February 3, 2010 in Events, Nutrition, Real Food Challenge by Turbo

Real Food Challenge Day 18

Image courtesy of realfoodchallenge.org

So I accidently came accross the other “Real Food Challenge”, which is about sustainable food sources.  They have a page with various films on food that you may want to check out…

http://realfoodchallenge.org/food_films

I haven’t seen them all but it’s worth checking out.

Nutrition meeting Thursday at 7:00PM.

Please post lunch to comments…