Your wallballs will be synchronous with your partner today:-) We are half-way through our Mid-Year Check-Ins and we love meeting with all of you and looking at your 3-day food logs. All of us Coaches agreed that these Mid-Year Check-Ins should focus on nutrition since that is THE ONE lifestyle practice that will have the most profound impact on your body composition, health and fitness performance. For the past several months I have written extensively about food quality vis a vis the Paleo diet. I define the Paleo diet as eating meat, vegetables, nuts & seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. I have introduced using your hand as a portion control guide as seen here: However, many of us, including several of our coaches, weigh and measure our food according to it's macronutrient content. This is known as counting macros. Counting Macros has supplanted counting calories as a way to control portions for CrossFitters, Olympic Weightlifters, powerlifters, and many other competitive athletes. There are 3 macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates and fat. Protein is the building blocks of muscle, carbohydrates fuel our activities and fat is vital for brain functions, energy storage and it protects our internal organs. All three macronutrients contain calories which our bodies use to fuel our metabolism and activities. Counting macros means to consume a precise amount of each macronutrient according to your macro plan. Through counting macros, calories are controlled for weight loss or weight gain. (There are 4 calories per 1 gram of protein and 1 gram carbohydrate and 9 calories per 1 gram of fat.) There are several popular macro plans, e.g. the Zone, Keto, RP, WAG, etc. All of these plans prioritize weighing and measuring your food so that you get a particular macro ratio. Counting macros can be super confusing to start because of the use of both ounces and grams in some programs. It's important to understand that ounces is a measurement of weight (or amount for liquids) and grams is the content of macro in your food. For instance, 4 ounces of cooked boneless skinless chicken breast contains 25 grams of protein. One cup of cooked sweet potato contains 27 grams of carbohydrates. One tablespoon of olive oil contains 14 grams of fat. Lucky for us macro content of just about any food can be found on several reliable nutrition websites. Sometimes just a quick Google search can give you the info you need.
Next week I will explore some of the more popular macro plans. For now, enjoy this Macro-Friendly Hamburger recipe courtesy of Working Against Gravity. Enjoy!
1 Comment
Coach Leslie works on hang power cleans to fix an issue with her turnover in the clean. Even though she won a Silver Medal at the 2018 National Masters Championships in April, she knows she needs to master the basics of the clean in order to lift heavy.
All too often I see athletes race toward heavier when they have not yet mastered the basics. If it takes you 20 mins to do a workout that should take 10 then you need to scale. If your form goes to crap when you're lifting heavy, then you should go lighter. If you spend more time looking at bar than lifting the bar, you need to take weight off the bar. It takes mental strength to see and acknowledge our weaknesses. It takes character to be willing to put in the work. It takes humility to admit you have some technique flaws and it takes strength to be willing to work on those flaws. CrossFit is the SPORT of fitness. This means we are learning new skills and techniques all the time. It also means you can spend your entire CrossFit career honing and developing those skills and techniques. In fact, the better you move, the better your skills, the better your technique, the better fitness development you will have. Rushing into weights, volume, distances, before you're ready will retard your rate of improvement. It will blunt the adaptation to the training. In short, you will not get as fit as FAST as you could if you RUSH into something you're not ready for. Imagine that, to get fitter faster you need to be smoother, better, and develop your skills and technique. Just because you CAN go heavy, longer, or further doesn't mean you always SHOULD. Sometimes going lighter or shorter can make you go FASTER. Faster is aim of the sport of fitness. Remember the CrossFit progression: Mechanics, Consistency, then Intensity. Are you strong enough to master the basics? Two of our CrossFit Teens do dumbbell plank rows. Homegrown Paleo |
Special EventsRecord your WOD on Beyond the Whiteboard.
Do you need CrossFit or yoga gear? Click on the links below to buy through our GORUCK, Reebok, Rogue or Affiliate share sale programs. These are affiliate links and our gym will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links.
Check out our Flickr page!
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|