Following up on what Max emailed about nutrition I thought I would share my eating habits and what works or not for me.
I have been following zone & paleo since I started CF and been fairly strict paleo for just over 3 months. I used the zone initially to help me with quantity of food, I've never been very good with portion control - although with paleo you can eat large quantities of food as it is mainly veggies and fruit.
With going paleo I initially found giving up bread quite tough, but managed it and my biggest weakness was yoghurt - then at my CF Gym we did a 30 day paleo challenge so I took the plunge and went strict paleo for 30 days and I've not looked back.
I have had body composition scans and my last one after starting CF & going paleo showed that I weighed exactly the same as the previous scan but I was 3.4kg (7.5lbs) less fat and more muscle!
I have days where I have non-paleo foods, but these are very few and far between. I feel good, I don't lack any energy and I have had massive improvements in my body composition and therefore strength and power.
I am still experimenting with what works for me during racing as due to my injuries I have yet to race long since I've been eating paleo.
I also don't have a strong stomach, especially when it comes to running and eating. I am currently experimenting with coconut water rather than a normal energy drink and I'm not really able to take any solid type food if I have to do any running - what I ate before the races that I did at the end of last year was sweet potato & pumpkin with egg white and apple sauce - this seemed to work really well, provided I left enough time from eating to racing - I think part of what I need to do is to eat smaller amounts more frequently - that is something that I need to practise.
If you are not eating paleo, I suggest you give it a try there are some excellent resources around - a couple of the best ones I know of are:
Rob Wolff, probably one of the best and he understands CF
http://robbwolf.com/
This is what prompted our CF Gym Paleo Challenge this is from a crossfitter:
http://whole9life.com/2009/07/the-w30/
This site is by the author of The Paleo Diet & The Paleo Diet for Athletes books
http://www.thepaleodiet.com/
I have both these books and the Paleo Diet for Athletes is really useful as it takes into account the needs of athletes for dense carbs such as sweet potato and pumpkin and also has a great recipe for a recovery drink and it details what types of food to eat before, during and after exercise.
I hope you find some of this useful - a number of my CF gym buddies eat paleo and have also had great results.
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Hi Jane,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the info. Outside of planned cheat meals, I eat in the zone only. I am now going to investigate the Paleo diet. Also, my wife Nancy has been working with Max since August 09 to improve her running (half marathons). She completely changed her diet to the zone. She has lost only about 2-3 pounds, but her body composition has changed dramatically. She is much leaner and definitely stronger.
Max has mentioned Paleo to me. I've considered it but have yet to invest the time to research. Thanks for sharing your results.
ReplyDeleteDan and I spoke about this once before - training and eating in the zone. We both agreed that performance is what really drives us - but a nice side affect of the combination of Crossfit and the Zone is a nice physique.
I knew that Paleo sounded familiar to me - for some reason I recently started getting some free copies of Outdoor Magazine. There was a good article called Man vs. Food in this months issue - check it out - Paleo was not one of the favorite diets the author athlete liked.
ReplyDeletehttp://outside.away.com/outside/bodywork/201001/diets-fitness-nutrition-wellness-intro.html
If the link does not work, just google Outdoor Magazine and type Man vs. Food in the search bar once on the site.