Eat To Win!

Whole 30 - Day Eight

I’ve made it 7 days with no grains, sugars, alcohol, dairy, and legumes. I wish I could say I feel fabulous and my energy knows no bounds. Honestly? I’m a little cranky and kind of tired. But the first week is always the toughest, right? I’m thinking it is just taking me time to get used to this.

 

The first few days were great – I didn’t really miss anything. The last few days (weekends are a challenge…) were a little different. I found myself craving things I don’t even normally care that much about. Like an iced café mocha …or cinnamon rolls. I mean I like those things but I never have them, so why am I thinking about them now?

 

I’m going to push through though, and I’m thinking the cravings will subside. I do feel full and satisfied most of the time. Sparkling mineral water with lime or lemon is a good thing…and I made the chicken ‘faux’ pizza last night.  It was actually pretty good. The recipe can be found here: http://www.performancemenu.com/recipes/index.php?action=recipe&recipeID=34

 

A few other things I’ve discovered: Sweet potatoes mixed with egg whites and cinnamon is really good, and fairly portable. Spaghetti squash, eggs, broccoli, olives – a great breakfast. Strawberries with almond butter are delicious – but I need to watch the fat!

 

Although we were told to focus on quality not quantity, I still am trying to drop 5 pounds, so I’m going to have to pay attention to quantity as well.

 

Tonight I’m trying this Coconut Curry recipe: http://theclothesmakethegirl.blogspot.com/2009/07/ez-coconut-curry.html

…it smells amazing. Hopefully it tastes just as good.

Whole 30 - Day One

At the gym by 6am for training. I feel like crap…well because I ate like crap yesterday. It was my last day to cheat so I figured if you're going to do something bad you should at least do it rightJ. So today I pay.

 

I made breakfast and lunch Sunday night because I knew I had that early gym appt and then meetings in Webster. So far so good.

 

8am – breakfast at my desk. Egg whites omelet with broccoli and olives, and some strawberries.

 

10:30am – hungry but didn’t think about snacks. It will pass.

 

11:45am – time for lunch. Surprisingly I’m not really hungry now. Hmm…must still be full from the pizza and cookies and wine yesterday. J

 

I’m thinking I will need to do more cooking on this plan, for these reasons:

 

#1 – Makes it more interesting/challenging.

#2 – I need variety (and variety is a good thing) in my diet.

#3 – Cooking allows me to think about replacing former “treats” with new Whole9 treats. Like scallops and bacon replace pizza. Steak with asparagus in butter sauce (organic butter) makes me not miss bread so much.

 

I’m actually looking forward to trying some new recipes – just found one for chicken ‘no-crust/no cheese’ pizza. Sounds really, really good. If you're interested I found it at this site:

http://www.cathletics.com/recipes/index.php

 

Lunch is asparagus and avocado wrapped in organic roast beef with more strawberries. I just realized this has to last me through the 4:00 pm WOD and until I finally get home – around 6:30 pm. I’ll have to plan a bit better I think. Pre-WOD snack combinations of protein and fat are recommended. Surprisingly – not carbs. The reason behind this – we should get our bodies used to relying on fat for energy. Hmmm…that’s really different. I’m going to have to look into this more.

 

Post-WOD snack recommendation? Protein + Carbs and NO fat (fat slows the absorption of carbs and protein). My handout from the workshop included a recipe for stuffed acorn squash. This is supposedly portable. To me, portable means I can eat while working (balance bar?) or in the car. I’m thinking bringing in a whole squash stuffed with apples and turkey and cinnamon just isn’t going to work. However, maybe some sweet potatoes with egg whites and cinnamon might work. Hmm…I wonder if I could make that into cookies or bars.

 

Dinner – spinach salad with chicken, dried cranberries (use sparingly), slivered Brazil nuts, pineapple and grapes, and light balsamic vinaigrette. Yum.

 

All in all not a bad day. I’m not really hungry. I was really, really tired last night. And when I realized I couldn’t go to bed until I made my food for the next day I was a little cranky. But all in all day one was successful! Now 29 more to go….

 

Calling All Interested Zone Followers

 

OK, so just because I’m doing the Whole30 plan doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned the Zone. I still think the Zone is a reasonable and very effective (for overall health and fitness) eating plan. So although we don’t have another challenge planned (yet…), I would like to get a group of people together, some who may be just starting out on the Zone and want guidance or those who have been following it and just want a little extra support. The idea is we could meet weekly and share food logs and ideas and progress. If you’re interested shoot me an email at gwilliamson02@yahoo.com .

 

Whole 9?

On Saturday I attended a Whole 9 (http://whole9life.com/) Nutrition workshop at Albany CrossFit. Let’s just say I’m skeptically optimistic? I’m skeptical because it’s fairly restrictive. I’m optimistic because it really makes sense. Here’s my very simplistic overview:

 

Foods fall in to 2 categories: those that contribute to good health and those that contribute to bad health. Although they don’t say “good” foods and “bad” foods, it’s just easier to refer to them that way so that’s what I’ll do here.

Most of the “good” foods are those that we know are good for us – fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts. Squash, sweet potatoes, yams, and eggs (yay! Eggs are back!) are good.

The “bad” foods (not surprisingly) are sugars (including artificial sweeteners), processed foods, alcohol and grains, to name a few. Some of the “bad” foods are a bit unexpected – especially if you are now used to the Zone diet favorable / unfavorable food lists. Peanuts/Peanut Butter, all legumes, milk and cheese – bad.  Sigh.

 

Although the Whole 9 founders – Melissa Urban and Dallas Hartwig – tell us not to call this “Paleo” well…it’s basically Paleo.

 

The premise is that the ‘bad’ foods in some way contribute to poor health. Inflammation, insulin resistance, and a confused immune system are underlying causes of many chronic diseases. Blood sugar spikes caused by high-carb/high sugar foods/drinks contribute to insulin resistance. Dairy, grains, and legumes (particularly soy and peanuts) contain lectins (Gluten is a lectin) that can wreak havoc with our intestines because they are resistant to digestion.  This causes inflammation and confusion in our immune system.

 

The Whole30 plan is to remove all of the bad foods from your diet for 30 days. No cheats. The Whole 9 team believes this is the amount of time your body needs to heal – although you may start to feel benefits sooner.  Yes, it sounds kind of tough, but hey – I do CrossFit right? Am I going to whine about giving up peanut butter? Well, maybe a little.

 

Because a lot of this makes sense (no - it doesn’t sound easy and it’s going to take some discipline) I’m going to give it a try. I’ll do the 30 days and be the ‘test’ dummy. I’ll have to blog about it because I know how I am and this is very different and I’m going to need your help. But recently my performance/scores have basically sucked. And I find it takes me much longer to recover then I am used to. So why not try this? Here’s a pyramid I’ve seen on other CrossFit sites – note that nutrition is the foundation.

 

 

This isn’t to say that for the rest of my life I can’t enjoy some of the ‘bad’ foods. After the 30 days I can add in (one at a time) some of those foods – in moderation. By introducing foods individually it allows me to see which foods I may or may not be sensitive to.

 

If you want more information on Whole 9 or the Whole30 plan I recommend reviewing the following topics on this page from the Whole 9 site:

http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/

• The Grain Manifesto
• The Peanut Manifesto
• The Dairy Manifesto
• Start Here: The Whole30

 

I’d love to hear back on what your thoughts are. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going. But for tonight…I’m having pizza J

Beware the Free Pastry!

So I went to Starbucks this morning for my usual Venti Pike – black. That’s right, no sugar, no cream. They all know me there and they know most of us who CrossFit (and they think we are kind of weird, but we don’t mind because they remember what we order and it’s always ready by the time we get to the register). I love it there for that reason. Actually I might like the coffee a little better at one of those ‘other’ coffee places but I don’t go there because the people at Starbucks are nicer. And the Fairport Starbucks is the best – which is why I go out of my way to go there.

Anyway I’m off the subject a bit. The subject is the damn sugar. Today, is “Free Pastry Day” at Starbucks. Which is why the line was a bit longer than usual. I had no intention of getting any pastry even though it was free. Yes, I look at the case every time I go in there and EVERYTHING looks amazing… Yum! But I don’t indulge because it just doesn’t fit in the Zone. And I know from years of experience, indulging leads to…well…lots more indulging. I seriously went 2 years without a cookie (well, one Christmas I had 2 cookie 'halves' just so I could have a taste).  I had to do it that way because I knew I wouldn't stop at one cookie.

 

So here I am getting my black coffee (and even if I do occasionally indulge in a latte – it’s sugar free Cinnamon Dolce, soy milk) so everyone knows, I don’t really do sugar.  But Louis, who is such a sweetie, offers me the pastry. I say ‘no thanks’ with a smile. “Oh, come on, it’s low fat”…and there it is in my hand. I felt like I was at Thanksgiving dinner with relatives who say – ‘oh, come on – why do you need to watch your weight – have this piece of pie”. I mean how do you say, “no” without sounding obsessive and cranky? So I walk out with my coffee…and a piece of (a VERY LARGE piece by the way) coffee cake. Damn! I'm looking around hoping not to see any zone challengers because...  well it just wouldn't look good.  I quickly jump in my car and stuff it in my bag.

Then I go to Wegman’s and buy oatmeal which is going to help me ‘just say no’ to the pastry. Somehow I figured the oatmeal was like a counter-drug. I get back in my car and the damn cake is just calling me. I take it out of my bag and just look at it. It REALLY REALLY looks good. I put it back. I tell myself all of the reasons why I don’t want it. The evil Gina argues that just one bite won’t hurt, loosen up a bit!  I remember what the evil Gina used to look like and how she couldn't walk the stairs without getting out of breath.   ...and shove the pastry back in my purse.

When I got back home I wrapped the cake in foil and shoved it in the back of my freezer. Yes, I could have thrown it away, but that is too wasteful...  I mean we can’t waste food right?

 

I did briefly entertained the idea of giving it to someone else - someone that doesn't care what they eat.  But honestly- should friends give friends sugar?  No, that wouldn't be nice - so it sits in my freezer.

So why can’t we just have one bite?  ...and why is the world against us?  Seriously, does anyone do Free Fruit day?  ...or Free Oatmeal Day?  How about Free Extra Protein Day?

 

It’s all about changing your mindset. The zone challenge isn’t about a diet.  It’s about changing the way we think about food and nutrition.  It’s about changing our attitude and realizing we aren’t depriving ourselves but instead we are treating ourselves to healthier substance.  It’s about taking that attitude and (very gently) passing it on to our families and friends.

As the zone challenge comes to a close (see details on main blog), be thinking about how you can integrate what you have learned into your every day, for long term.

And maybe just brew your own coffee on Free Pastry Day.

Zone Challenge Standings - Week 5 

 1  Ann / Laura (Team Boob) - 149

 2  LisaP / Kylee (The Slackers) - 133

 3  Lorri / Sonnick (WOD Squad) - 129

 4  Shelly / MegN (Bedhead Redheads) - 117

 5  Rice / Bell (Team Turbo) - 116

 6  Mara / MaryC (M&Ms) - 106

 7  Laurie / StaciK - 101

 8  Beth / Alicia - 96

 9  Randy / Matt (Fat and Gooey) - 82

10  Celso - 75

11  StacyN / Downs - 68

12  MaryF / AlyssaS - 51

13  Brandon / Fliss - 23

(Kate "supersonic" says: "Yeah, when I get home, I'm gonna work on my core!") 

Why do I have to keep a food log?

According to a study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine people that regularly record their food/drink intake in a food log, lose more weight than those who don’t. The people in the study that updated their food logs at least 6 days per week lost twice as much weight than others who only recorded one day per week or less.

 

So why is it so important to record what you eat and drink on a daily basis?

 

Be accountable. It’s easy to forget the extra 150 calories in that Tall Latte if you don’t write it down. Writing it down also gives you the opportunity to look back and see what works and what doesn’t. When you are successful you can review what you were eating and figure out why it was working. Make sure you record bad days too. We have a tendency to ignore those days (“umm..let’s just forget today with that pizza, wings, and cake,  ever happened!”), Write it down, maybe jot down how you were feeling, then move on!

 

Be aware of what you are putting in your mouth. Writing down every single taste of food makes you realize how much and what you are really eating. I read somewhere that each bite, lick, and taste (those are referred to as BLTs) average out to 25 calories each! So don’t take a spoonful of your kids’ food, or a taste of your friend’s dessert. It all adds up! I also used to think it was great that when I snacked I had the 100-calorie snacks. Until I realized if I had 3 of them per day that was an extra 300 calories I didn’t need!

So you may think you are making good choices, but when you look back and review portions and the quality of food – you could find areas for improvement.

 

Leave a trail of evidence. When you have a week where you think you did everything right, but get on the scale and the number doesn’t change or even goes up – you may need to review. Having the food log will allow you to go back and check – portions and quality of choices. Maybe you had more unfavorable carbs than you thought and next week you should focus on getting in more fruits and veggies. Even if you aren’t focusing on weight-loss, but instead your goals are to increase your lean body mass, or increase your energy and improve your WODs – reviewing what you ate during the week and comparing that with how you felt, or what your scores were will help you to see the correlation between eating well and how you feel and perform.

 

So try to make some time to keep that food log up to date. If you miss a day – just get back on track with it the next day, but don’t give up!

 

Zone Challenge Standings – Week 4

Here are the standings for this latest zone challenge. No surprise that the teams on top are recording faithfully (at least that’s what the audits are proving!).

 

 Week 4 Teams Standings - Total Points
  1  Ann/Laura (Team Boob) - 119
  2  LisaP/Kylee (The Slackers) - 105
  3  Lorri/Sonnick (WOD Squad) - 101
  4  Rice/Bell (Team Turbo) - 98
  5  Mara/MaryC (M&Ms) - 94
  6  Shelly/MegN (Bedhead Redheads) - 93
  7  Laurie/StaciK - 88
  8  Beth/Alicia - 75
  9  Randy/Matt (Fat and Gooey) - 54
10 Celso - 54
11 StacyN/Downs  -53
12 MaryF/AlyssaS - 51
13 Brandon/Fliss - 23

 

Spicy Chicken Soup

 

2 Chicken Sausage Links (hot)

2 Chicken Breasts (about 5-6 oz each)

McCormick Spicy Steak Seasoning

12 oz Spinach (fresh or packaged)

32 oz Chicken Broth

1 15.5 oz can Cannellini Beans

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

 

Cut chicken into small strips. Season with McCormick Spicy Steak seasoning. Sauté in large frying pan with half-tablespoon olive oil. Cut sausage links into slices. Sauté with chicken until both are completely cooked. Add ½ tablespoon olive oil to pan and add spinach. Cook spinach until wilted (about 2 minutes). Place chicken/sausage/spinach in large soup pan. Add broth and beans. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Serves 4: 4 Protein Blocks, 2 Carb Blocks, 2 Fat Blocks.

 

 

Week 2 Standings

Week 2 results are in and for the most part - everyone did really well. Here are the standings so far:

 

1. Ann / Laura (team BOOB) – 60 points
2. Lorri / Sonnik – 58
3. Mary F / Alyssa S – 51
4. Lisa P / Kylee (the slackers) – 51
5. Rice / Bell (team turbo) – 48
6. Laurie / Staci K – 44
7. Shelly / Meg N (redhead bedheads) – 44
8. Mara / Mary C (m&m’s) – 40
9. Randy / Matt (fat and gooey) – 39
10. Beth / Alicia – 38
11. Stacy N / Downs – 20
12. SG1 / Jeanine – 20
13. Jess / Trish – 19
14. Brandon / Fliss – 15
15. Celso – 12
16. Ben / Darren - 10

There’s still lots of time to catch up…so keep at it and don’t forget – send me weekly points (for February 27 – March 5) by Sunday at 9pm! Also – please send me your points for each day, rather than just one total. It’s easier to audit J Thanks!

If you have any questions or are unsure about portions and block allocations – please write everything down and bring it in to the gym. Set up some time with me and I can review it with you.

 

Portability and Planning

One of the biggest challenges to all of us when we try to ‘eat to win’ is our schedule. Some of the questions I get asked a lot are:

“What are favorable foods that I can eat on the run?” 

“What do I do when I have to work late and don’t have a planned meal”?

“How can I stay on the zone when I travel?”

Planning ahead is key. Grocery shop early in the week and if you know you are going to have a crazy week (and aren’t they ALL crazy these days?) stock up on foods that are easy to put together.

Here are some of the more ‘portable’ zone-friendly foods:

-mozzarella cheese sticks

-turkey sausage bites

-turkey – roll up 1oz slices (or wrap turkey slices around celery, apples, asparagus for a protein -combo block)

-tuna (the ‘pouched’ variety – you can tear open and eat!)

-apples

-oranges

-grapes

-almonds

-olives

-peanuts

When you bring along zone-friendly snacks – try to package them up in ‘block’ portions. This will remove the temptation to eat the whole package/bag/etc. J  If you find you have to eat on the road - stop at grocery stores for food – it’s just as easy as a restaurant and provides much healthier options, so no excuses!

Any ideas that you may have for portable “on-the-go” zone foods are certainly welcome – it would be great if you would post them here!  I hope to have more on this topic in the near future.

 

Call for Recipes!

I would like to feature zone-friendly recipes in this forum. Please send me (gwilliamson02@yahoo.com) your recipes and include photos! I’ll pick one each week.

In the meantime, here are two recipes from the Starkist site, that I modified a bit to make them zone ‘all-favorable’ friendly:

Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients

1 (4.5 oz.) pouch StarKist Tuna Creations®, Sweet & Spicy
4 pieces of iceberg, bibb or Romaine lettuce (about 4" x 6")
1/4 cup celery (I replaced the carrots)

1/4 cup diced water chestnuts
1/4 cup chopped  peanuts or cashews
 

Directions:

Place lettuce leaves on plate. Top lettuce with celery, water chestnuts, and nuts. Place 1/4 of the Tuna Creations® on each lettuce wrap. Wrap tightly and eat.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 2   

 

Albacore Waldorf Salad

Ingredients:

1 (6.4-oz.) pouch or 2 (2.6-oz.) pouches or 2 Cans (5-oz.) StarKist Albacore Tuna (if using cans, drained and chunked)
2 Tbsp. Lemon juice
1/3 cup grapes (the recipe called for raisons – unfavorable – which is what the picture shows)
1/2 cup Light Mayonnaise
1/4 tsp. Ground cinnamon
3 Apples, medium, cored, and cubed
1 cup Celery, chopped
1/3 cup Walnuts or pecans, chopped
1/4 cup Milk

Directions:

In a large bowl, toss together apples and lemon juice. Add celery, grapes, walnuts, and tuna; toss gently. In a medium bowl, combine light mayonnaise, milk, and cinnamon; blend well. Pour dressing over apple-tuna mixture; toss gently to coat.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 6

 

Welcome!

Welcome to the new CrossFit Rochester “Eat to Win” blog.  This is the place to find information on how to optimize your eating habits. We’ll keep you up to date on the latest Zone Challenge news, provide hints, tips, recipes, and general information around good nutrition. It’s also a place for you to provide feedback, and share stuff like recipes, new ‘favorable’ or ‘best choice’ foods you may have discovered, or other things you have learned along the way that will help us all “eat to win”!

 

This first post is a bit lengthy (don’t get used to that!) – but there were lots of questions around the latest Zone Challenge so we wanted to be sure to provide as much explanation as possible.  We’ll be updating weekly – so stay tuned J!

 

Zone Challenge - Week 2 Update!

 

First off – from the questions, comments, and few food logs that I have read, it sounds like everyone is off to a great start and is really attacking this latest zone challenge, well, like CrossFitters should! Seriously and enthusiastically! So keep up that good work!

 

Please remember to email me (gwilliamson02@yahoo.com) your weekly points no later than 9pm on Sunday 2/28. This first week started on Saturday 2/20 and ends on Friday 2/26.

 

Also - use the new topic on the message board to post your tips and ideas. A few I have heard from people this week:

• CVS on Park Ave sells food scales. I believe they are less than $6 and work pretty well.
• A good deviled egg substitute – fill the egg white with hummus! Sounds yummy – with favorable and best food choices.

 

Why are carrots unfavorable?

There have been several questions this week on why certain foods are categorized as ‘unfavorable’ or ‘poor’ choices. The controversial ones seem to be whole eggs and carrots.

 

Dr. Barry Sears categorizes foods based on a variety of considerations and uses a rather complex formula to determine if they are favorable or unfavorable or a poor, fair, best choice. One of the values looked at is Glycemic Index (GI).  Glycemic Index measures the increase in blood glucose, 2-3 hours after eating. A higher GI food generally triggers a higher rise in blood sugar (higher density carbs enter the blood stream faster…) which triggers increased insulin secretion, which leads to weight gain. So the higher GI foods (carrots, parsnips, potatoes, bread, sugars) are generally categorized as unfavorable. Glycemic Load also plays a part in all of this (GI X carb content of food). So it gets even more confusing – watermelon has a high GI, but low GL thus is a favorable carb. If you are interested in learning more about Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load this web site has a lot of information:  www.mendosa.com/gi.htm

 

But what about the eggs??

I actually called the 800 number on the Zone web site to ask about eggs (I know you are all wondering if I have a life…) but I had to know. Here’s the explanation. The white is ok – but the yolk is a poor choice because it has a high content of arachidonic acid, which contributes to inflammation. Per the Enter the Zone book, an excess of arachidonic acid (AA) is the building block for bad eicosanoids, which cause all kinds of health issues (allergies, chronic pain, skin disorders). The Zone official recommendation is no more than 1 yolk per week. 

 

I know this is all fairly technical and can be confusing – but honestly, the great thing about the Zone diet is that all of this information is broken down for you – into blocks. So we don’t need to be nutritionists to follow the plan – we can just go by the book!

 

The idea of allocating the bonus point (for making favorable and best or fair food choices AND sticking to your block prescription) for the duration of this Zone Challenge is to get people thinking about making healthier selections. The Zone is an excellent long term eating plan because it fits with real people and their every day lifestyles. To achieve optimum health you will want to stick to all “favorable” and ‘best’ choices (no grains, sugars, etc.)  as often as possible. We recognize it’s difficult to fit in that many fruits and vegetables. If you are committed to removing grains and sugars from your diet you can also do a ‘double-fat’ equation – stay within 1-block of your protein prescription but your carbs + fat = double your protein. So for my 11 block prescription I could do 11 blocks of protein, 8 blocks of carbs + 14 blocks of fat. So my carbs + fat blocks = 22, or 2x my 11 blocks of proteins. This is only allowable if you get a higher number of blocks on the ‘fat’ side and a lower number on the ‘carbs’. If you have questions about this ask Joe or me.  

 

The book Zone Meals in Seconds recommends not going over 1 block unfavorable carbs for every meal. That may be too much for some people – the risk of selecting unfavorable carbs is how much you can tolerate – before being out of the ‘zone’. Other information recommends no more than 25% of your carbs are unfavorable. So if you are on a 12 block prescription – no more than 3 blocks should be unfavorable.  Again – your goal is no unfavorables, but use this guideline if you choose to make other selections occasionally.

 

 

Resources

The Zone diet does have a Facebook presence. I became a ‘fan’ – but am not yet convinced of it’s value or usefulness. There are some links and message threads that are interesting. But overall there doesn’t seem to be much more information presented on Facebook than there is on the actual zone web site – which, by the way, is: www.zonediet.com.  

 

If you are interested in the science behind the zone go to: www.drsears.com

 

Here is a page from the Zone Quick Start Guide (downloadable from www.zonediet.com):

1. Eat a Zone meal or snack within one hour after waking.
2. Eat every 4 to 6 hours after a meal or 2 to 2½  hours after a snack, whether you are hungry or not.
3. Assess your hunger level and mental focus before every meal or snack. Lack of hunger and clarity of mind are signs you are staying in the Zone.
4. Drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day.
5. Start every meal or snack with low-fat protein. Next add low glycemic-load carbohydrates (i.e. vegetables and fruits) and good fats (i.e. olive oil). Remember, a typical serving of low-fat protein fits in your palm of your hand and is no thicker than your hand (about 3 ounces for most females and 4 ounces for most males) A typical snack contains 1 ounce of protein for both women and men. At first, a kitchen scale may be helpful for measuring. Don’t worry. You’ll be able to eyeball it in no time. If your plate looks like this, you’re on the right track:

 

6. Supplement daily with a highly purified Omega-3 concentrate like OmegaRx^®.
7. Don’t beat yourself up for straying here or there. Your next meal or snack can get you right back on track.