Rest Day
Even though we rest our bodies from intense exercise, there still should never be a day you didn’t do something to better yourself. In the name of no days off, how ’bout a little nutritional education for dat ass. Read the post, print the articles, then read them while you stretch out your hips and shoulders.
Shannon, Michelle, and Julia went in on a private session to learn the basics of the Zone diet with Aaron last week. This was a great usage of private coaching, as nutrition is paramount to those of you who want to see increased results.
For those of you unfamiliar, The Zone is a nutrition system of accounting for caloric intake and balancing your macro-nutrients. By learning correct portion sizes, it becomes easier to lose weight, and by learning to balance your nutrients, you reduce inflammation in your body which helps you recover faster and greatly reduces all types of health problems. By arranging foods into blocks of protein, fat and carbohydrates it becomes much easier to balance meals and learn portion sizes than just trying to count and balance calories based on information found on nutrition labels.
For some people the idea of using food scales and counting almonds is much too tedious for success in a nutrition program. This is one of the main arguments that the Paleo crowd uses against the Zone method. I for one have done the Zone strictly in the past and used it on and off for years now. I believe the Zone is a great drill for learning to balance and proportion your meals correctly. You quickly learn new habits as far as what foods and food combinations are healthy, and you learn sustainable habits for shopping and eating that will stick with you for years. You will also quickly start learning to spot the habits you have that are ruining your body composition and hampering your fitness results. Most people that I have seen use the Zone have developed lasting habits that help them remain successful long after the food scale disappears to the back of the cupboards.
If you have never tried The Zone, I highly recommend you give it a shot for a month. You can read the book, or you can get the info from AO. Also, here are a bunch of free resources from the CrossFit Journal Regarding The Zone. Everything you need is right here.
Glycemic Index (Start here by eliminating bad foods from your habits)
Avoiding Metabolic Derangement (Why low carb high fat?)
Getting off the Crack (Shifting to a fat based diet from carbohydrates)
Zone Meal Plans (Block charts and using the Zone)
Caveman vs. Zone (Should you choose Paleo or Zone? or both?)
Please add any opinions, experiences, resources etc to the comment section today. Give me a little nutrition fodder to discuss.
