07.27
CrossFit embraces nutrition as one of the three fundamental building blocks of fitness. Coach Glassman has defined nutrition as lean as it can: Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. This is excellent starting point, and often creates hunger for more information about nutrition.
When you want more information, you are usually pointed to the direction of Zone or Paleo. Zone is suitable for those willing to focus more on the quantity of food, and Paleo for those willing to focus more on the quality of the food. Both directions recommend you to eat less carbohydrates, and more good fat.
When you run into the nutrition forest, you soon realize that you have entered a maze. How much fat should I eat? What kind of fat? Why do I have to eat fat, when I want to get leaner? Why do I feel weak, when I’m on Paleo? I don’t want to give up bread! What should my kids eat? I can’t make anything good without potatoes, pasta and bread! Is juice ok for drinking, or what?
All sort of questions come to your mind, and you just feel weak thinking about them. You are not alone.
We are now starting a new nutrition blog on our pages to support fellow CrossFitters on their struggle with nutrition. We share our ideas, and want just yours in return. We talk about cooking, organic stuff, carbs, fat, protein, supplements, recovery, superfoods, water, and even DNA along the way. Stay posted! We don’t post regularly, instead we post when you least expect it.
As our blogging platform is WordPress, it’s not so easy to have several blogs running on the same site. As this nutrition subject differs from normal daily WOD posting, we’ll add new nutrition “posts” as sub-pages below Nutrition main-page. Please bare with us, and keep checking our wild thoughts :p. So just take the mouse over Nutrition link, and related sub-pages will appear, if there are any. Just choose the category that interests you. And don’t forget to comment.
JuhaP
Hi guys,
I might aswell type in english in case of someone else might have same issues with me conserning the diet. I’ve been trying to get into the Paleo slowly. It hasn’t been easy. One of the biggest thing I faile is the organig food part. Fricken expensive (!).
But mainly my diet has become more healthy. I’m eating more green. I’ve never been eating nuts and seeds. Now they are in my everyday meal plan. I’ve learned that food is so much more for than gaining or loosing weight. It’s what makes us healthy and energetic.
Anyway I would love to see a one day paleo meal plan for athletes with enough protein in it. Other thing which I would love to hear some advices about is my struggle with getting rid of cheese and my one relaxing beer during the night after a long day at the gym. Any ideas guys?
Thanks !!!
Hi Jouni,
I agree with the organic part of your comment. It’s very expensive to have even 80% organic diet in Finland. And it narrows down your options about stores and selection in general. I must say that North California is like heaven for Paleo eaters. At least compared to Finland. As recent writings about Atria tell us, there is much to improve in finnish food industry.
What comes to Paleo menu for a whole day, I can say that it’s coming. We are planning to make live samples of our daily cookings, and make that available for everyone to see. It’s not what you say, but what you do, kind-of-thing.
The cheese part is easy. You said that you are adapting to this Paleo world slowly. You can have your cheese, but change it to something less of-the-course. I recommend Raclette cheese made out of raw, un-pastorized cow milk. It’s good, and screws up your Paleo less than “regular” finnish cheese.
Beer has almost same glycemic index as straight glucose (normal sugar). Glycemic index (GI) measures the effects of carbs on your blood sugar levels, and therefore the amount on insulin that is required to stabilize your rised blood sugar level.
One big reason why one would be on Paleo, is to stabilize your blood sugar levels. The less variance in blood sugar, the less insuling production. Less insulin, less inflammation in blood vains. One beer is not enough to give you relaxed feeling from alcohol, but the amount of sugar in beer makes you feel good. You might as well drink one Fanta, and feel the same way. Or just skip both, and have a glass of red vine or a bite of dark chocolate
JuhaP
Thanks Juha for your answer. I guess it all comes down to discipline with it all. First learn pattern, stick with it for a while and then it will become a habbit. Sometimes it’s just hard to create the pattern. Better just get down to work and leave the beer to someone else and eat more green during my evenings. Let’s do it together!
Hi guys,
I am very new to Crossfit but I am a nutritionist so I might be able to help with this if needed. What comes to organic food in Finland. Most of the organic farms in Finland will sell their products straight to the end user. So if you live conveniently this might be an option for organic products that are grown here.
At least eggs and organic meat is the cheapest when bought straight from the farm. The only problem with meat (most of the time anyway) is that you need to have a huge freezer. =) Also is if you really want to go organic talk to your local hunters they might sell you one moose or what ever they hunt. Better meat straight from our forests!
Here are some links if you are not aware of them already:
Luomutuottajat: http://www.luomu-liitto.fi/saimaa/tuott7.htm
ja
http://www.luomulaituri.net/luomutilat.htm
Pork meat: http://www.luomupossu.fi/
Beef and lamb: http://www.tenhontila.net/hinta.html (at teast their prize per kilo is quite acceptable for minced meat that is)
Beef: http://www.savokarjalanliha.fi/?page=3
In Helsinki at least these will sell bigger amounths of organic meat:
Chef Wotkins, Vanha talvitie 8 P.09-77433477
Mikado
Reinin liha
Stadin luomu
These with just a quick search on internet.
Also we live in a land of berries and mushrooms! All these you can buy from someone who is totally addicted to picking them (sometimes with ridigilously low prizes) or go pick them yourself. Frozen berries and mushrooms will keep most of the nutrients.
So hope this will help. =)
Thank you AnuK!
This is very good information!
Us finns use about 2% (this was estimated number in 2000) of the berries and mushrooms that our forests produce annually. Considering the popularity of for example “superfoods” at the moment this number is just scary low. We are importing goji-berries etc from all around the world, without using our own “superfoods” properly. Blueberries for example fight side-by-side with goji-berries in nutrition values.
Wild game in our forests (elk, moose, rabbit, etc) hold in their meat something that more and more finns are taking as supplements: Omega-3! Omega-3 and omega-6 ratio in wild game is at least 1:2 or even 1:1, when in normal supermarket average meat it’s 1:20. Omega-3 helps our body to fight against inflammation, and that is why it’s important to get EPA and DHA (Omega-3) more from our food than current average is.
Organic meat is better in omega-3:omega-6 ration that average supermarket stuff, and also lacks some nasty additions, like growth hormones and antibiotics. The only downside in organic meat is its price. But like Anu said, it can be bought straight from the source to keep the price down.
Thank you again Anu for your comments!
JuhaP
No probs. Will be here commenting more if needed. =)
Oh almost forgot. =) Omega-3 helps your brain function and eases off depression if doses are high enough. So anyone who feels that bit low / tired feeling during the winter months should think about fixing their Omega-3 and -6 ratio. It also effects on your memory and mental disorders. Other effects are related to skin, eyes and neurons. Of which we are most likely most interested on the effect on neurons since the better the neurons fire the better we can become in our training. =) So keep those omega-3 in your diets!
Would love to see a sample day in the life of Mikko’s diet. Anyway that this could happen? Any tips from the legend are always appreciated. Also, what about posting some more videos of Mikko training. Seeing him train always inspires me!