The foundation of your health and fitness begins with good nutrition. You can’t out train a poor diet. The pyramid below expresses the CrossFit view on the hierarchy of fitness and health.
Whether you consider yourself an athlete or not, we all need to eat quality foods to remain healthy. In terms of athletic performance and fitness, you cannot hope to achieve your goals on a poor diet.
We advocate either a Paleo or Zone diet or a combination of both. Personally I follow a mostly Paleo formula as it is a little easier to follow. People taking up the Zone diet may find it harder to get started with weighing and measuring things but once that period is mastered it’s not too hard either.
The Paleo or Zone diets should be seen more as a way of eating that you can sustain for your life. They both include a wide variety of foods and combinations that make meals interesting and desirable. These are not fad diets you can’t sustain or get bored with.
Paleo Diet
The Paleo diet is based on what our Paleolithic (caveman) ancestors ate. If you look at the CrossFit formula – eat meat, vegetable, fruit, seeds, little starch and no sugar; this pretty much sums it up. Basically don’t eat processed stuff, stick to fresh with a balanced intake; refer to the Paleo pyramid shown below.
How different is this to the USDA prescribed pyramid with a lot of bread, pasta and starchy foods at the bottom that is largely responsible for obesity & diabetic epidemic we see today.
We evolved eating a diet based on meats, green leafy vegetables, fruits in season and seeds.
Zone Diet
The zone diet is also based on good quality healthy foods. It is a little less restrictive than Paleo but asks us to weigh and measure our portions. The Zone measure “Blocks” of nutrients and equates one gram of fats to two grams of protein and three grams of carbohydrates. Meals are measured in blocks of food so weighting and measuring is important. Initially you will need to do this but after a few months you will get used to being able to assess this visually so it gets easier to prepare meals this way. Zone deals with the control of three important hormones (insulin, glucagon & eicosanoids) through diet.
Paleo or Zone?
They are both effective and although a little different can both be considered from the same stable. Both deal with effective hormone control. They are not fad diets and do not rely on calorie restrictions, in fact meals can be interesting and quite different when you start to play with possibilities. There are a number of specialist articles and cookbooks available with recipes to suit both. In general a formula of Carbs, Fats & Protein of 40-30-30 works well.
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about these diets, particularly the Paleo Diet. Neither of these are low carb diets or unbalanced diets.
The most useful dietary tip I’ve heard is “to shop around the perimeter of the store”. Think about it. This is where the fresh stuff is mostly located.
We all know the chips, chocolate and coke are in the centre isles but have you really checked out the other packaged stuff to see what’s in it. Look at frozen crumbed fish – 48% fish; the rest is crumbs, oils, added fats, preservatives, colour etc. A lot different to a piece of fish isn’t it. Now how much per kg are you paying for stale bread on your fish?
There are numerous articles in the CrossFit Journal on Nutrition and Diet. We’ve also added some links on the right to both Paleo and Zone diet pages for more information. Another useful resource for this and other advise is Marks Daily Apple and there’s a link for that as well.
