Hello DCL! This will be the first of an ongoing series of posts regarding nutrition… nutritional information… nutrinformation. We will seek to explore foundational concepts of the human diet, highlight burgeoning trends, dispel some myths, and share recipes for simple and healthy meals that facilitate our shared fitness and wellness goals. Our goal here is not to dictate what is “right” or “wrong” eating, because let’s (we humans, that is) be honest… we’re still figuring that out; nutritional advice and trends seem to be as constantly varied as our CrossFit programming, which doesn’t exactly provide a clear picture of what is helpful for health. Instead, we simply aim to share ideas and motivate eachother to seek what works best for us in our mutual pursuit of elite fitness.
Our first topic revolves around one that is near and (not so) dear to our hearts… SUGAR. If you read nothing further, just take away now that you should stop eating refined sugar. That’s it. Cut refined sugar (the processed, man-refined stuff, that is), and watch your life change inside and outside the gym. Increased focus and attention, energy, and much faster recovery from WODs. Seriously.
If you’d like to know a bit more of the why (but still don’t want to continue reading), just watch “That Sugar Film,” found on movie platforms such as Amazon Video. It will (should) adequately educate, and therefore persuade you, to immediately halt all sugar consumption… easier said than done, but so worth the (temporary) discomfort, as the documentary elaborates on quite extensively, and with a funny Aussie doing the persuading.
So here’s the deal with sugar, and why you should cut it out of your human diet (btw, we mean “diet” as in the stuff we, as human beings, eat… not the forced, 2-week starvation/juice/cleanse-thing some do to somehow “cleanse” their bodies… which can be rephrased as just “doing something weird for a bit to get a short-term reaction”). Studies are finding (as CrossFit founder Greg Glassman is spreading the news on) that sugar consumption is perhaps a leading cause for inflammation and insulin-resistant disease, and the cause of a lot of our daily ailments like decreased energy and a “foggy” mentality. Sugar disrupts your physical functions, your mental clarity, your emotional stability, and your spiritual wellness (making you depressed and unhappy with your choices, perhaps).
Withdrawal from sugar is legit. You think pushing through a grueling WOD tempts you to quit?… try not having sugar for 2 straight weeks. The good news is that fruit has sugar, but is also full of filling fiber and vitamins/minerals that are essential (and truly natural) for your wellbeing… so don’t cut that out of your diet. We’ll discuss this more later, but fruit and vegetables are your only healthy source of carbohydrate, but you should be having more veggies than sugary fruit since… they have less sugar!
So, accept the challenge and revitalize your life… cut the sugar!
Resources:
The CrossFit Level 1 Training Guide includes some great info on recommended nutrition (Paleo/Zone) for CrossFit athletes (pp. 45-70):

http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_English_Level1_TrainingGuide.pdf

A fellow CrossFit box shares some down and dirty-sugary info:

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