Skill: Power Clean
Workout: The Elizabeth Twins
21-15-9 of:
Power Clean
Ring Dips
One partner performs 21 power cleans and 21 ring dips, then rests while the other partner does 21 power cleans and 21 ring dips. The first partner performs 15 each while the second partner is resting, etc.
Mike's coaching at 9am! Ray's fighting tonight at Kewadin!
Meanwhile…..Anna's been trying Precision Nutrition for a few months! Read about it here:
It
seems to me that the diet of choice for most Crossfitters right now is Paleo
(or Primal if you still want dairy and a few other perks…say wine!). For those
that don’t want to get that extreme, The Zone diet seems to fit the bill. Well
let me throw another one out to you that you may not be familiar with….the PN
diet. Last summer, I was chatting with
Chris one day and he mentioned the name John Berardi and Precision
Nutrition. I “googled” him and noted
that he was a
of
Canadian!) that has worked with many professional athletes on different
Canadian National teams etc. He has also been involved in body-building
competitions as well as track and field.
Chris and other trainers recognize his
name as a contributor of many articles on the t-nation website. His company is
Precision Nutrition Inc. and he has co-authored a couple of cookbooks called
Gourmet Nutrition. What the heck…I’m a book-worm so I ordered the cookbook and
the Precision Nutrition (PN) Binder that outlined the program.
Over
the next few months…I “sort of” followed PN (By the way, all the recipes in the
cookbook that I tried were excellent!). Meanwhile, the Catalyst gang had the
100 mile challenge for one month, the zone diet for another month, the
grain-free challenge for yet another month and I jumped into all of them. They
were okay for a month, but not a life-long endeavour, at least for me anyway.
In the fall, PN sent out an ad for the next Lean Eating Coaching session to
start in January. What this involved was essentially signing a contract for 6
months to eat the PN way. You would be assigned to a coach that would monitor
your progress. You had a new habit to work on for two weeks at a time. You had
an exercise program and every day received an email. You were obligated to reply
and state whether you completed i) your habit (i.e. drank 2 litres of water),
whether you ii) exercised, and whether you (iii) completed your task (i.e. read
a specific article, listened to an interview, answered some questions etc). In
the coaching program, a lot of the tasks are aimed at developing self-esteem
and changing your way of thinking about exercise and nutrition. (With regards
to the exercise part, you follow their program but 2 times a week can be your
own thing and that’s where I fit in my crossfit!) By the way, you were NOT
allowed to quit. You had to finish all 6 months and then if you were not happy,
they would refund your money. The “carrot” of the challenge was that the top
male and female with the best body transformation would get $10,000. 2nd
and 3rd place for each gender would get $5000. It was not strictly
weight loss but muscle gain as well!
Well,
needless to say, I decided to go for it and am currently four months in. So
far, I’m really enjoying it and find that it is a lifestyle change I think I
can live with. The PN guidelines include eating every 2-3 hours, ingesting a
protein and veggie at every meal (you can substitute a fruit for the veggie
sometimes) as well as getting good fats especially fish oil and nuts every day.
You don’t calorie-count, keep journals or have strict portion control
restrictions. The focus is to strive for 90% compliance making sure to eat a
variety of whole foods. The major difference in PN eating versus say zone or
paleo is that carbohydrates (other than fruits and veggies), things such as
pasta, rice, or oatmeal are only allowed up to 3 hours after you exercise. With the zone, you can basically have them
any time in moderation and with paleo you give up grains forever. It’s actually
quite easy to adhere too! Keep in mind that this is just the general overview
of PN eating for someone who is overweight and wants to lose fat. As you get
further into the program you learn about yourself and “tweaking” the program.
Things such as the use of recovery drinks, whether your system can handle more
or less starchy carbs, whether you can eat a lot of fruit or whether too much
fruit stalls muscle gain/fat loss. When starting the coaching program, you
introduce yourself to the other women in your group. There are women from all
over
Austrailia. It’s amazing how many of our issues are the same. At the beginning,
everyone was motivated, excited and asking….”Tell us what to eat and we’re
going to change everything all at once!” Our coach Krista Scott-Dickson
(stumptuous.com) basically said “whoa….slow down, we have 6 months…lots of time.”
Our 1st 2 weeks involved taking fish oil and that was it. Now four
months in, the motivation and novelty are gone. You just plug away and you’re
okay with it. They still never did spell out what to eat exactly…..that is up
to you! I’m now in the home stretch of finishing. I don’t know if I have a
chance to win the big money or anything, but I would definitely say that the
experience has taught me a few things. Being down just shy of 20 pounds hasn’t
hurt either. So for all you crossfitters out there….Paleo, Primal, Zone?….I
now throw out PN as an option!