I had the opportunity this past weekend to head up to CrossFit NorCal (nee Norcal Strength and Conditioning) to attend a dry run for Robb Wolf’s CrossFit Nutrition Level 1 Seminar.
Thanks to my trainer and mentor, Jaime Llopis for extending the invite to tag along as his guest.
It was a full day seminar, jam packed with information useful to trainers and every type of CF’er and athlete out there. There’s no way I could really cover it all but I’d like to hit on some big takeaway points.
First, Robb is the man. A self described food geek, Robb knows his stuff and presents the information he wants to convey very well and has no agenda outside trying to get people to improve their health.
Secondly, this seminar / certification is going to be invaluable to everyone who attends. Even if you have things pretty well dialed in Zone-wise and paleo-wise, you’ll walk away with useful info you did not know before and concepts you did know about staunchly reinforced.
Anyhoo here’s the obligatory Robb & The Kitch shot followed by some of those take-away points.
Paleo Diet
Haven’t heard of it? Want to learn more? Google it or just go RobbWolf.com and check out his resources links. Basically it boils down to eating like a caveman. Meats, nuts, berries, veggies and spices. Nothing with a food label, nothing we invented in a lab or create.
Pretty simple.
The results are dramatic.
For example, one Robb had two athletes that had been training CF for three months but hadn’t addressed their diet. He got them to go paleo for 45 days and keep doing their CF training. They ate to satisfaction and did not geek out and weigh and measure their food. That said, the before and after pictures are astounding. HUGE body composition changes. I don’t have the pics, but I do have their blood work results from before and after this simple dietary intervention…
Client A Before (12/12/06):
Blood Pressure – 140/90
Triglycerides – 279
White Blood Cell Count – 7.7
Client A After:
Blood Pressure – 112/64
Triglycerides – 83
White Blood Cell Count – 4.6
Big drops in BP, TAG and WBC. Pretty amazing. LDL’s stayed the same but lipid particle profile changed from small high density particles to low density large particles that don’t play a role in atherosclerosis. Why this switch? Well, it turns out that gluten seems to be the enemy and is a root source of all sorts of problems relating to chronic systemic inflammation and the bigger problems that follow like rheumatoid arthritis. Grass fed critters produce longer branch saturated fat molecules that have a steric effect and produce the larger, low density lipo-proteins.
The take away — gluten bad.
Why? Well, the gist is that it causes systemic inflammation and always triggers a low level autoimmune response when ingested.
Robb spoke at length about this response. Long term, it’s been tied to rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, MS, Raynauds’ and even my condition – ulcerative colitis.
Side note – guess who’d been eating tons of oat meal and cream of wheat and other shit like that before he got UC?
So much crap ties back to this systemic inflammation. Oy.
Some people are more sensitive than others – and just a teeny exposure once a month can be enough to effect you.
Choose grass fed critters and wild game / fish over farmed / grain fed critters.
There’s so much more to get into, but I’m just the messenger here, so go do your research and decide if a paleo sounds good to you. The cost / benefit is huge. I’m starting my 30 day trial run today. Let’s see what happens! Here’s the before shot:
As for the blood work, I’m calling in a bit to get the lab appointment done.
And yeah – I said I was going to talk about What Robb said about the Zone but that’s a lot more writing at this point. Suffice it to say that if you are training and sensitive to carbs, you can shuttle 1/2 your days carbs into your post workout meal during a golden hour where you don’t need insulin to get the glucose into your cells.
