The CrossFit dietary prescription:
Protein should be lean and varied and account for about 30% of your total caloric load.
Carbohydrates should be predominantly low-glycemic and account for about 40% of your total caloric load.
Fat should be predominantly monounsaturated and account for about 30% of your total caloric load.
Calories should be set at between .7 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass depending on your activity level. The .7 figure is for moderate daily workout loads and the 1.0 figure is for the hardcore athlete.
What Should I Eat?
In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar. That's about as simple as we can get. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines you will benefit from nearly all that can be achieved through nutrition.
The Caveman or Paleolithic Model for Nutrition
Modern diets are ill suited for our genetic composition. Evolution has not kept pace with advances in agriculture and food processing resulting in a plague of health problems for modern man. Coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, obesity and psychological dysfunction have all been scientifically linked to a diet too high in refined or processed carbohydrate. Search "Google" for Paleolithic nutrition, or diet. The return is extensive, compelling, and fascinating. The Caveman model is perfectly consistent with the CrossFit prescription.
What Foods Should I Avoid?
Excessive consumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates is the primary culprit in nutritionally caused health problems. High glycemic carbohydrates are those that raise blood sugar too rapidly. They include rice, bread, candy, potato, sweets, sodas, and most processed carbohydrates. Processing can include bleaching, baking, grinding, and refining. Processing of carbohydrates greatly increases their glycemic index, a measure of their propensity to elevate blood sugar.
What is the Problem with High-Glycemic Carbohydrates?
The problem with high-glycemic carbohydrates is that they give an inordinate insulin response. Insulin is an essential hormone for life, yet acute, chronic elevation of insulin leads to hyperinsulinism, which has been positively linked to obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, blood pressure, mood dysfunction and a Pandora's box of disease and disability. Research "hyperinsulinism" on the Internet. There's a gold mine of information pertinent to your health available there. The CrossFit prescription is a low-glycemic diet and consequently severely blunts the insulin response.
Caloric Restriction and Longevity
Current research strongly supports the link between caloric restriction and an increased life expectancy. The incidence of cancers and heart disease sharply decline with a diet that is carefully limited in controlling caloric intake. “Caloric Restriction” is another fruitful area for Internet search. The CrossFit prescription is consistent with this research. The CrossFit prescription allows a reduced caloric intake and yet still provides ample nutrition for rigorous activity.
Post thoughts to comments.
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| Paleo food pyramid? |
While I would agree with the nutritional science behind low carbs and the importance of vegetables and protein, I would take serious issue with some of the pseudo-science rhetoric in this article, namely the so-called caveman diet or as it has been popularly titled the Paleo-diet in other circles.
ReplyDeleteThe whole notion of Darwinian diets is problematic to me on several levels. For one, I would question the biological anthropology and microbiological evidence of the popular caveman thesis. Second, if one accepts the pop caveman thesis, one should still note that their lives were incredibly shorter than the high carb junk-food moderns the article is critiquing. Third, it is academically spurious to make knowledge claims about the content of Paleo-diets, which are typically no more than illogical arguments from silence, lacking the archaeological and chemical data necessary to support its thesis. I have a good friend who teaches nutritional science at Cal State U. She shares these concerns. Scores of nutritional scientists are concerned that this diet leads to gastro-intestinal issues. For further objections to the caveman diet, see wikipedia’s entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet . In light of the aforementioned objections and the questionability of the caveman thesis, I found the article to be lacking. As a final point, as a Christian, I have some reservations about the caveman diet thing, but I don’t want to press my theological convictions in this forum (if interested see http://creation.com/living-and-eating-like-a-caveman , http://www.gotquestions.org/cavemen.html , http://www.sciohio.org/EvolutionWeb.pdf , http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/reprints/cavemen.pdf , http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/240 , http://www.truthnet.org/Christianity/Apologetics/Evolutiontrue4/ )
Anyway, that’s my two cents. I do find the so-called paleo food pyramid to be fine (though I would increase its amount of fruit and veggies). However, I take issue with the ideological underpinnings of the paleo-caveman thesis. I find a superior epistemological approach to the paleo-pyramid to be found in nutritional data as opposed to invoking questionable anthropological data. Again, that's my two cents.
Given that "paleo" is simply defined as "old", or "early", or "primitive", I have no disputes with this notion (though I have never used the term "caveman").
ReplyDeleteSimply put, which is better for you:
1. Beef that is allowed to roam the grounds and graze on natural grass, or
2. Beef that is stuck in an enclosed container and fed a mixture of corn, growth hormone, and feces?
Vegans also don't get an out here. Which is healthier:
1. A plant that is grown naturally with fresh water and sunlight, or
2. A plant that is sprayed and artificially fertilized with chemicals and kept in an artificial atmosphere so that the vegetables or fruits are forced to ripen faster and more often?
The formers are what everyone from Adam & Eve to our grandfathers ate. The latters are what we and our children are eating.
Certainly, lifespans are longer now than before. But are they better? Medical technology and easier lives keep us alive longer, but we're more fat, more fatigued, and more sick than ever before. I just don't think we were made to sit in a chair in front of a screen, eating muffins and chips and cookies, and then filling up with stimulants to get us through the day.
For me the proof is simply in my own life experience. I adjusted my diet and cut out all of the rice and bread and other starch and sugar-laden foods back in 1997. This was mainly for performance reasons, but one of the residual outcomes was I have not gotten sick since. Before then, I would get simple colds and a flu-like virus, being bed-ridden and needing medication at least once a year. Since 1997, nothing. No meds (even OTC), no staying home. No headaches or stomaches. And that's with times when wife and both kids are full-blown sick and I'm taking care of all of them, sometimes throughout the night.
The only adjustments I made were diet and exercise program and this was the result. So I have to say that it works for me.