CrossFit dietary prescription is as follows

• 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 natural protein sources (lean meats, poultry, fish) garden vegetables, especially greens, nuts (not peanuts – they are a legume) 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.

Simplified, nutrition should be approached from two perspectives, one of quality and one of quantity. Our quality is Paleo: meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, a little starch and zero sugar. Our quantity is Dr. Barry Sears’ Zone prescription. Quality is the most important for health and longevity, quantity becomes increasingly important as one’s emphasis on performance increases.

The NO list

• grains, (including breads, cereals, oatmeal, rice, pasta and anything else with gluten, flour tortillas, etc.)
• legumes, (peanuts, beans of any sort, chick peas, etc.)
• sugar
• dairy, (unless your goal is weight gain, and then grassfed sources)

Cheat Days/Meals
New Species promotes the 80/20 rule, eat clean and healthy 80% of the time, give yourself a break 20% of the time.

Taken from the CrossFit Nutrition page and New Species CrossFit’s Nutrition page.

CrossFit Morristown has put together a two-sheet downloadable PDF that is an excellent description of the Paleo Diet, where to buy food items, and the benefits of Fish Oil, among a number of other things. Click here to download the PDF.

For those looking to lose weight, we suggest FitDay.com or TheDailyPlate.com to calculate your macro nutrient amounts

The excerpt below is copied from CFC’s August 18th, 2009 blog post, Exercise = Weight Gain? – Part II.

In a recent Time magazine cover story, a theory was floated about vigorous exercise causing people to eat more, resulting in weight gain. Ironically, I was reading this in the waiting room of my doctor’s office before my annual physical examination. The author and article made several poorly reasoned assumptions, to the extent that I was surprised I was reading this in a national news magazine; I would have expected something like this in a supermarket tabloid, but not Time magazine…

The excerpt below is copied from CFC’s September 29th, 2009 blog post, “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit…”: Recommended Reading.

I have just finished “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and would urge anyone who is middle aged or older to read this from cover to cover; in fact, anyone at any age will benefit from reading this.

If there is any one book you will read in your lifetime, this would be it. It is life transforming, especially if you are not taking your exercise program and diet seriously…