The above graphic was developed by CrossFit founder Greg Glassman. The three components sandwiched in the middle are interchangeable based upon a person’s goals/abilities. The graphic does however portray the importance of nutrition in the development of a person’s fitness. The importance of having a solid nutritional base can never be overstated.

crap in = crap out

What you put in your body as “fuel” for these workouts can either severely hamper your efforts or give you a significant boost when it comes to energy level. Someone once said, “You wouldn’t put diesel in a jet engine, would you?” What equates to jet fuel will vary slightly from person to person, but it most certainly is not pizza and dr. pepper. When in doubt revert to the old…Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Most times, this summation of a “paleo diet” provides enough good wood for the fire.

Likewise, the speed and totality of your recovery from these workouts is also heavily dependent on what you eat. The movements and intensity in these workouts provide a very potent stimulus. The building blocks with which you repair the damage your body is incurring need to be of adequate quality and volume. Eat the good stuff and eat a bunch of it.

Oh, and please drink lots of water.

TC on one of his hunting trips.

Robb Wolf, one of the more famous purveyors and researchers of The Paleo Diet, has a podcast. Robb is also engrained in the exercise community which makes him particularly interesting to listen to, as he often relates the diet info he gives to increased athletic performance as well as all-around health. The podcasts are about an hour long and chalk full of useful knowledge laced with good humor.

Directions:

Under our Nutrition Links to your right, click on “Robb Wolf’s Blog”. Once on Robb’s blog, click on “The Paleolithic Solution” podcast link. Or just as easily, access it on iTunes, where you can even subscribe to receive each new episode.

Enjoy.

Please note that we will be closed Saturday, March 27th. We’re headed to the NorCal Sectional Qualifiers for the 2010 CrossFit Games! Check that link for updates over the weekend, and also check the CrossFit main page over the next several days, as there’s likely to be some video from the NorCal qualifiers posted there.

Thomas already posted A thought, or two, on sleep, but Mark Sisson over at Mark’s Daily Apple recently posted a new Definitive Guide to Sleep. This is a must read, people. Seriously. Read it. And go ahead a follow any of the dozens of links he’s provided, ’cause there’s some good stuff there too.

Lastly, you know how Thomas and I tell you to take fish oil? We give you a formula -1 gram for every 10 pounds of lean body mass- but that means you need to calculate your lean body mass, then see how many grams there are per dose of your fish oil and, well, even I just end up taking a few handfuls every day, not really paying good attention to the quantity. Well the good folks at Whole Nine have come up with an online calculator to figure out just how much of your brand of fish oil you need to be taking, based on your current diet and lifestyle. It’s the Robb Wolf Fish Oil Calculator, named after NorCal’s own nutrition guru Robb Wolf (whose website is linked in our right column). I’m supposed to take between 14 and 20 pills a day, depending on how beat up I am. And I thought my couple handfuls was a lot!

Cheer us on from afar over the weekend! Or if you’re feeling up for an adventure, come on down to the qualifiers in San Jose. Spectator tickets are now only $15 a person for Saturday – check here for more info. If we don’t see you there, see you next week at the box!

We don’t usually think of slow-cooking vegetables. And frankly, this dish doesn’t win points in the presentation category. But it sure is tasty, and a great way to get some good extra fat in your meal if you need that. It’s definitely got that warming, hearty feel that you want on a cold night. Winter isn’t over yet, so file this away for the next cold spell.

Slow Cooked Cauliflower and Greens

Choose some hearty vegetables that can stand up to the cooking. Here I used cauliflower and baby leaves of collards, chard, and kale that I got at the farmers market today.

Chop the vegetables any way you need to fit them into your pan. This is one reason I love this dish - no need to carefully create florettes!

Put the chopped vegetables into a saute pan. Pour a generous amount of olive oil into the pan. We're talking half a cup to a cup, no joke. It should come up about an inch from the bottom of the pan. Pour about a cup of water in after that.

Add some smashed garlic and red pepper flakes (if you'd like). Cover the pan and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are crumbly and can be broken apart with a fork.

Last step: make a little hole in the mixture and add some sardines. Cook a minute or so until they disintegrate, then stir the whole mixture and serve with a squeeze of lemon over the top. (If you turn your head in disgust at the sardines, then try a few tablespoons of chopped cured olives and/or capers. Last resort: just use salt.)

This would go best with a simply cooked cut of meat, but here it's served with harissa meatballs. Like I said, it ain't so pretty - but it's plenty tasty!

Most people come to CFSR with a goal of “losing weight”. Yes, there are you skinny folks who state that you want to get stronger and add more muscle mass. But mostly, people say they want to shed a few pounds. Nothing wrong with that.

You want to lose that spare tire, that muffin top, that pooch. You want to fit your skinny jeans. So you start training. CrossFitting. You’re working hard, and you want to see results. You step on the scale regularly – maybe even daily – to measure your results. And although your pants are feeling looser, the scale tells you you’re not losing much weight. Far less than you think you should be, anyway, for how hard you’re working and how well you’ve been eating. What’s going on?

You see, CrossFit helps you lose fat and gain lean muscle. That means that the scale, which measures your overall weight, won’t show you that you’re actually losing fat, losing inches around the waist, or gaining muscle. We’ve been so conditioned to think that our body weight, or even worse, the BMI, are important measures of health. The fact is that for CrossFitters, they’re not. So step away from the scale.

And then let’s reassess the situation. Instead of weighing yourself, pay attention to how you look, feel, and perform. Let’s say that again, all together now: pay attention to how you look, feel, and perform, in whatever order of importance you wish. These are the things that matter.

Try to forget the scale, or even our bioelectrical impedence thingy at the box that measures your body fat. Yes, those are objective measures that can be very helpful to track long term change, and especially to help those who are at high risk for obesity-related diseases. I’m not saying we should never use these tools; they wouldn’t be kept at the box if I thought they were useless. But relying on those numbers can sometimes end up being unhealthy and obsessive.

If you’ve got a scale at home, shove it in the closet or have a yard sale. Yes, we will still measure and record your weight and body fat every so often at the box. But if you’re feeling great, you’re getting PRs on the major lifts and benchmark WODS, and your clothes fit the way you like, those other numbers shouldn’t matter.

Comments?

We all know that olive oil is great for us. The problem is that it doesn’t hold up at high temperatures. So what to use for high heat cooking? There are a few good choices, but today we welcome: ghee!

Ok, so ghee is made from butter, and butter is dairy, and dairy is…well, it’s definitely not paleo. Primal Blueprint guru Mark Sisson calls dairy a gray zone. Some people (myself included) get clear signals from our bodies that dairy is a no-no. Others tolerate it just fine. To figure out where you are on that spectrum, eliminate all forms of dairy for at least a month. Then reintroduce it and pay careful attention to how you look, feel, and perform.

But here’s the thing: ghee is butter minus the solids – lactose and casein – which are dairy’s main irritants. So someone like me who is very sensitive to dairy does just fine with ghee.

Ghee (also referred to as ‘clarified butter’) has a nutty flavor, and stands up to high heat. It’s great for stir frying, pan-frying meats, and especially well suited for curries. Furthermore, ghee is stable at room temperature and can keep on the countertop unrefrigerated for months, so if you want to drop a dollop of it on something just before eating (like some steamed veggies), it’s all soft and ready. Can you tell I love it?

It’s really easy to make. Here’s the basics, but know that you can make flavored batches too- garlic ghee, cinnamon, you choose. I use a pound of pastured (grass-fed) organic butter at a time.

Butter goes in the saucepan. Medium heat is fine until the butter melts, then turn it down a little.

The butter will sizzle loudly as the solids begin separating from the fat.

Soon the solids will start to sink to the bottom of the pan, and you'll see the clarified butter through the dissipating top layer of bubbles. Now's the time to use your ears! Don't play any music or talk on the phone, because you need to listen for the sizzling to stop. That's when to turn the heat off.

After letting the pan cool a little a little, pour the liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a glass container. Let that sit until it cools and solidifies.

End result: a nice little pot of ghee, ready for eating. This can keep a home on your counter to use on anything, no refrigeration necessary. (Note: the white stuff in the this picture is remaining solids that will get skimmed off before using.)

Enjoy!

A clip from the documentary, Fat Head:

Ready to start eating a diet rich in protein, vegetables, and good fat, but don’t know how you’re going to give up that bread, pasta, and dessert? The Food Renegade has an excellent post on taking the leap. Read up.

For those of you in our midst that have gone “primal” or “paleo,” what advice do you have for those who are thinking about doing so? And what changes to your body, feelings, or training have you noticed as a result?

If you shudder in horror when you think of brussels sprouts, then you were probably served them boiled. They had an olive-colored tone to them, right? That’s a shame.

Brussels sprouts are actually delicious when not boiled. Members of the brassica family, they’re related to broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and collards. Even though we can grow these uber-healthy greens year round, right now during winter is their high time when they’re sweetest.

Here’s two super simple ways to cook up some brussels:

Sliced and Sauteed Brussels with Bacon
Easy-peasy: Cut up some bacon and start cooking it in a pan. Meanwhile, cut the little brussels into slices, maybe 3-4 slices per head. Before the bacon gets crispy, toss the brussels slices in the pan and saute on medium heat until the brussels are caramelized. They should be a nice vibrant green with plenty of browned sweet spots. Serve immediately.

The variations are endless: You could throw some shallots into the pan before the brussels. Or toss in a handful of dried cranberries and walnuts. A splash of a nice vinegar? Do whachyalike.

Roasted Brussels
Roasting has to be the easiest way ever to make vegetables yummy. So little labor, and so much flavor. Roasting is a particularly good method for winter veggies: cauliflower, carrots, winter squashes (pumpkin, butternut, acorn, etc.), beets, and of course, brussels.

All you have to do is cut up your vegetable into bite-sized pieces. Put in a bowl and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Lay out on baking sheet and roast at about 400-450 degrees until browned and caramelized. Yum. The only trick to this is to spread the bites out on the baking pan, because if they’re too close they’ll just steam instead of brown. If you’re making a lot, do it in batches so you have enough room.

Remove and discard the hard base of each brussels sprout, then slice the heads in half.

Place in a bowl and toss brussels halves with olive oil, salt, and pepper. You could add any other herbs or spices you want here. Red pepper flakes?

Spread out on a baking sheet, flat side down. Don't crowd them.

Roast at about 450 degrees until browned on the flat side. Won't take long.

Serve with meat and more veggies. Or just snack on them alone! Yum.