Nutrition Article « Crossfit 509

Archive for the ‘Nutrition Article’ Category

WOD 07-03-10

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

In teams of two

Run 400m
5 Squat Snatches
GHDSU

One person runs while the other does the 5 snatches, and as many ghdsu as possible before your partner gets back from the run, then switch.

SUGAR AND YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

How often do you get sick? How strong do you think your immune system is? If you are getting sick every few months I’m betting that it is not that great. Have you ever thought about how your diet affects the illnesses that you are subject to, and how long it takes to recover?

In fact sugar plays a large roll in the efficiancy (or lack of) of your immune system. It is common knowledge that vitamin C helps to fight off the common cold and virusus. White blood cells need a high does of Vitamin C, and will aborb the vitamin C into its cell. It just so happens that glucose and vitamin C have similar chemical structures. So what happens when you have a high sugar intake? They compete for one other upon entering the cells. If there is more sugar around, then there is less vitamin C enterying the cells, which means few effective white blood cells.

So when you eat sugar, think that your immune system is slowing down to a crawl.

Here is a list of ways sugar can affect your health:

Sugar can suppress the immune system
Sugar can upset the body’s mineral balance.
Sugar can contribute to hyperactivity, anxiety, depression, concentration difficulties, and crankiness in children.
Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.
Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.
Sugar can reduce helpful high density cholesterol (HDLs).
Sugar can promote an elevation of harmful cholesterol (LDLs).
Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.
Sugar contributes to a weakened defense against bacterial infection.
Sugar can cause kidney damage.
Sugar can increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
Sugar may lead to chromium deficiency.
Sugar can cause copper deficiency.
Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
Sugar can increase fasting levels of blood glucose.
Sugar can promote tooth decay.
Sugar can produce an acidic stomach.
Sugar can raise adrenaline levels in children.
Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.
Sugar can speed the aging process, causing wrinkles and grey hair.
Sugar can increase total cholesterol.
Sugar can contribute to weight gain and obesity.
High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Sugar can contribute to diabetes.
Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.
Sugar leads to decreased glucose tolerance.
Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.
Sugar can increase systolic blood pressure.
Sugar causes food allergies.
Sugar can cause free radical formation in the bloodstream.
Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.
Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.
Sugar can overstress the pancreas, causing damage.
Sugar can cause atherosclerosis.
Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.
Sugar can cause liver cells to divide, increasing the size of the liver.
Sugar can increase the amount of fat in the liver.
Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.
Sugar can cause depression.
Sugar can increase the body’s fluid retention.
Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance.
Sugar can cause hypertension.
Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.
Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha and theta brain waves, which can alter the mind’s ability to think clearly.
Sugar can increase blood platelet adhesiveness which increases risk of blood clots and strokes.
Sugar can increase insulin responses in those consuming high-sugar diets compared to low sugar diets.
Sugar increases bacterial fermentation in the colon.

Posted in Nutrition Article, WOD | No Comments »

The Truth about your food

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

The Truth About Your Food By David Zinczenko

Simpler is always better.

Think about it: Would you rather have your job made simpler, or more complicated? How about your relationship? Your finances? Those instructions to assembling your new IKEA bookshelf?

Simpler, right?

Okay, how about your diet? Wouldn’t you prefer to make your diet simpler as well? Especially if you knew that simpler was also healthier? Then why do so many of us insist on choosing the most complicated foods we can find, when the simplest foods are always better?

Case in point: Let’s say you had a choice between two seemingly similar products. Both had about the same number of calories, and had similar tastes. Based on these ingredient lists, which would you choose?

Beverage #1: Water; high fructose corn syrup; concentrated juices of orange, tangerine, apple, lime and/or grapefruit; citric acid; ascorbic acid; beta-carotene; thiamin hydrochloride; natural flavors; modified food starch; canola oil; cellulose gum; xanthan gum; sodium hexametaphosphate; sodium benzoate; yellow dyes #5 and 6.

Beverage #2: Fresh-squeezed orange juice.

If you picked beverage #2, you’d be getting three times the vitamin C and about one-eighth the sodium, as well as a nice hit of calcium. But if you picked #1, then you’d be getting a nutritional cocktail made up primarily of water and high fructose corn syrup, with a variety of scary surprises. (Canola oil?!)

Yet many of us pick #1 on a regular basis—those are the ingredients for Sunny Delight original, by the way—because we seem dead-set on complicating our diets. And complicated is always bad. Simpler is always better. (Speaking of nutritionally empty drinks, watch out for these gut-busters with ingredients most of us could never, ever pronounce—this shocking list of the 20 Worst Drinks in America. Take them in even as a weekly treat and you could be adding an extra pound or two of belly fat a month.)

to continue reading click here

Posted in Nutrition Article | No Comments »

wod 03-21-10

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Rest Day

Are you as healthy as you would like to be? Would you like to be sick less? Get rid of whatever illness that never seems to go away? Would you like to feel better and perform better? Here is another straightforwardly honest and entertaining video by Sean Croxton where he prescribes what you need to do for optimal health. Watch this video and then ask yourself where you are now. . . what kind of lifestyle do you live? Are are making healthy choices and trucking down the road to optimal health and a better life? Or do you have a more destructive lifestyle? If so, think about where you want to end up later on in life. When we are young it is difficult to imagine ourselves as becoming sick, diseased, broken and incapable in the future. How you live today, as in how you eat, sleep, stress, and exercise is building on the foundation which is making your future self. So again, how solid is your foundation? What excuses have you made today?

Posted in Article, Nutrition Article, Video Links, WOD | No Comments »

wod 03-07-10

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Rest Day

Do you think a calorie is just a calorie?

Is one type of sugar the same as another type of sugar?

Posted in Article, Nutrition Article | No Comments »

wod 01.24.10

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Rest Day

Here is a article on alcohol from our friends at CrossFit Spokane

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT AND DRINK

So, let me start off by first asking you all a question: are you doing absolutely everything possible to become stronger? I know I’m not. I want to state that clearly before I go on to explain how you can improve your strength outside the gym. I don’t want to appear as a hypocrite. But instead I want to uncloak a “silent” muscle killer that will hinder your progress to build yourself into an unstoppable CrossFit machine. So what am I speaking of? Alcohol Now at this time I am wondering how many of our CrossFit rugby players, hockey players, fire breathers….well, actually quite a bit of you just clicked off the website:) I know, I know, anyone who enjoys a good beer from time to time just hates being told how bad it is in the fight to gain muscle and strength; heck, I’m one of them! I am cringing even as I write this! I think a good pale ale after a hard WOD is just heaven! But it is an enemy that we all have to be aware of. Perhaps I should have posted this way back before November; right before the holidays and vacations seem to come week after week until

right after the New Year. But it’s now 2010 and many of us (hopefully all of us) have started making CrossFit goals. To reach these goals we must look at all the ways that will lead us to victory. Obviously there are the methods within the gym. And we can never forget how excruciatingly important nutrition is, but something that I find among all the CrossFit boxes and people I talk with (once again, I’m including myself) is that I am always hearing this same little speech: “Well, I still have a few drinks here and there. I mean, come on! I still need to have fun in life, right?” True, we can indulge here and there, but something that I want everyone to reevaluate is just how much you may be “periodically indulging”. We’re always told that everything in moderation is okay, but when it comes to doing your best to become stronger and you feel you aren’t, maybe even more alcohol moderation needs to take place?

So if you are serious about truly getting another 35 pounds onto your DL, or breaking that 550 mark on the CrossFit Total (basically becoming an even leaner, meaner, and spartan-ish CrossFitter) then I urge you to read the following and keep my “Alcohol Kills Progress” rambling in mind. Once again, I don’t want to come off as a hypocrite. I love to have a few suds from time to time, but since starting CrossFit years ago, I have reduced the intake continuously. And I know that if I have a certain goal that I am having a hard time reaching, an event that I will be competing in, or just feel like I have hit a plateau, alcohol is one of the areas that I immediately eliminate. Here’s why:

First, alcohol does limit your growth hormones and along with that the ability for you to build protein which is needed for building muscle and getting stronger. It’s a general consensus that this ability to gain muscle is reduced by as much as 20%! Now that low number may not seem like very much now, but the next time you are fighting to get that 1 Rep Max DL off the ground or struggling as you are coming out of the bottom of a Back Squat, that extra 20% might have come in useful:)

Second, alcohol will start to lower your testosterone levels (while increasing estrogen levels). Testosterone is a major player in the muscle-building hormones that your body produces. After some research, I found that this level of testosterone can be lowered up to 25%!!! (If you are a frequent drinker, remember that number, 25%, next time you are struggling with a Shoulder Press)

Third, dehydration. Water is sooooo important for muscle growth but gets stripped from the body because the kidneys have to use lots of water to break down alcohol. Dehydration also will play a major role in your recovery. Depending on the amount that you drink, your training can suffer for days (which again means that more muscle building is reduced once again). Remember that your body is made up of about 70% water. That is obviously an indicator of how extremely important water is in every bodily function; it’s only natural that if it’s that important and we then take it away, bad things are about to happen (or you could say that GOOD things won’t).

Fourth is your sleep. We all know how important sleep is for your body to build itself back up and recover properly. But lets face it, if you decide to go out late and fill your body with alcohol, your sleep suffers (one way is your Krebs cycle; the process your body goes through to turn nutrients into energy). And lets not forget that once again your training the next day(s) will suffer as you begin yawning in the middle of a second pull:)

And finally we have to look at the habits that you tend to have depending on how much you actually consume. Lets face it, if you get a little tipsy you tend to get a little hungry and really don’t care as much what kind of food will satisfy that hunger:) Great! Now you’re eating crap, late at night, and possibly the next morning! This, as anyone can see, is a recipe for disaster (I haven’t even mentioned all the gluten in your average beer; in case you are a Paleo person).

So, like I mentioned before, many of us like to have a cold one from time to time, and I don’t believe that this will kill your training. But if you tend to have “more than a few” every weekend and you really want to get serious when it comes to moving more weight, then I strongly urge you to either cut back or accept the fact that your efforts will not be as productive as they could be.

Posted in Nutrition Article | No Comments »

WOD 12.06.09

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Rest Day

Americans Eat 175lb of Sugar per person per year!?!?

“Silence is the true friend that never betrays”

-Confucius

Posted in Nutrition Article, Video Links | No Comments »

WOD 11.08.09

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Rest Day

What Soft Drinks are Doing to Your Body

By Dr. Maoshing Ni

Soda, pop, cola, soft drink — whatever you call it, it is one of the worst beverages that you could be drinking for your health. As the debate for whether to put a tax on the sale of soft drinks continues, you should know how they affect your body so that you can make an informed choice on your own.

Soft drinks are hard on your health
Soft drinks contain little to no vitamins or other essential nutrients. However, it is what they do contain that is the problem: caffeine, carbonation, simple sugars — or worse, sugar substitutes — and often food additives such as artificial coloring, flavoring, and preservatives.

A lot of research has found that consumption of soft drinks in high quantity, especially by children, is responsible for many health problems that include tooth decay, nutritional depletion, obesity, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease.

Why the sugar in soft drinks isn’t so sweet
Most soft drinks contain a high amount of simple sugars. The USDA recommendation of sugar consumption for a 2,000-calorie diet is a daily allotment of 10 teaspoons of added sugars. Many soft drinks contain more than this amount!

To continue reading, click here. . .

Posted in Nutrition Article | No Comments »

WOD 08.09.09

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Rest Day

Thank you to all who made BRING A FRIEND SATURDAY a success. The team workout was fun, and it was the largest group WOD we have had since early summer. Lets plan on doing it again within the next few months.

Type 1 Diabetes and CrossFit

By Robb Wolf

For those unfamiliar with Type 1 diabetes, it is an autoimmune disease in which the beta cells of the pancreases are damaged or destroyed and the individual looses the ability to produce insulin. Without exogenous (outside) insulin (or very smart nutrition and exercise) the Type 1 diabetic will die. As it is the Type 1 has a hell of a time managing blood sugar levels. There is simply no replacement for the immediate feedback mechanisms which govern normal pancreatic function. This is true not only with regards to monitoring blood glucose highs and lows from food, but also from odd inputs such as exercise and stress…..

Common nutritional wisdom posits that we need to run exclusively off carbohydrate for our preferred fuel. The problem with that is people eat too many carbs, get insulin resistant and have a whole slew of health problems. Several of the Chico State Nutrition professors are remarkably overweight and are die-hard (die-soon?) proponents of the high carb, low fat catastrophe. Anyway, in this example we can shift the body from one primary fuel source (Glucose) to another (fat). Fat is better….

TO CONTINUE READING, CLICK HERE..

“If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to posses him.”

-Sir Francis Bacon

Posted in Article, Nutrition Article | No Comments »

WOD 08.02.09

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Rest Day

I came across this article, check it out..

Eat Paleo NOW! – For your health’s sake!

Paleo. Paleo Diet. Short for Paleo-lithic, meaning the era from millions of years ago to maybe 10,000 B.C. (depending on your philosophical timeline, I won’t argue that today). We’re talking about folks living before any existence of modern agriculture. The Paleolithic diet is considered by many to be a diet consisting of foods our bodies were designed to eat. When our bodies are fueled by the foods that our DNA expects to consume, we find ourselves in a place of health and efficiency few have known during our generations.

Kerry and I recently dove full-on, head-first into the Paleo (www.thepaleodiet.com) way of eating. We’ve known the merits of this way of eating from early on in our CrossFit days, but like many, baby steps were important. We started our CrossFit journey by simply Zoning. (www.zonediet.com) We got rid of a lot of crap from our diet, but still kept a lot of it in our diet. But we saw fat-loss and muscle growth as we were eating more protein, more fats, better carbs and certainly less food altogether. Slowly we deleted most sugars, then most grains. Ultimately, we hung on too tight to our “cheat weekends” so the cycle never really broke completely.

to read the whole thing, click here

“Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect”

-Henry Brooks Adams

Posted in Article, Nutrition Article, WOD | No Comments »

WOD 07.19.09

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Rest Day.

Get outside and play!!

Here is another video by Sean Coxton of UndergroundWellness. In this video Sean talks about some of the health issues that may come from what some people would believe as “healthier” fast food. A lot of people are making better conscious choices as to what they eat, especially when eating out. But how healthy are the choicesyou make? As you will find out from this video, chicken may not be just chicken. When was the last time you looked at the ingredience label of the food you eat? More importantly, when was the last time you researched all those ingredients that you can’t pronounce, to find out what they really are?

Note: This video is vary “political” against something that was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s web site. I don’t care about the argument and are not hosting this video to deface Oprah.