Certification Week!

{avocado}

In one week, I'll be taking the CrossFit Level I certification - a two-day seminar that lays the foundations of CrossFit training and instruction. There will be lots of preparation this week - including reading the 117-page training manual (yikes) and getting in a daily WOD between now and Thursday. But the focus of this post will be a breakdown of the food I'll be fueling myself with over the next seven days in order to maximize my performance next weekend.

Though one of the hallmarks of the Paleo Diet is not having to count grams, calories or meals; I still prefer to do some tracking to ensure that my intake is substantive (I'm lucky that I don't have to worry about eating too much, but rather not getting enough). For those of you familiar with The Zone (books written by Dr. Barry Sears), I prefer to use the blocking system for tracking my food intake. Though Paleo and The Zone do have stark differences, they both spring from the belief that we should be fueling our bodies with the food they are engineered to eat (where Paleo says, "don't eat that," Zone says, "eat less of that"). Zone blocking is built around the three macronutrients and essentially works like this:

1 block of protein = 7 grams
1 block of carbs = 9 grams
1 block of fat = 1.5 grams

A typical guy my size (6'2'', 174lbs), doing a standard workout routine (think running and crunches a few times per week) would eat 16 or so blocks of all macronutrients each day. Since my training regimen is relatively intense (CrossFit workouts 5-6 times per week, usually with a heavy lifting emphasis), and since my metabolism works relatively efficiently, I'll eat somewhere between 25-28 blocks of protein per day. My carb block count usually matches that. However, my fat intake is much higher - somewhere in the 50 block range. This is primarily to provide additional energy on top of what the carbs give me.

Protein examples: ground turkey or lean ground beef (JF and I prefer to season w/ garlic powder, paprika, cumin, chili powder and sometimes cinnamon - we typically throw this on some mixed greens w/ salsa and guacamole), lean chicken breasts, beef or turkey patties, salmon, tuna, tilapia, etc.

Carb examples: sweet potatoes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, salsa, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, apples, cantaloupe, banana.

Fat examples: avacados, olives, coconut and olive oil, nuts (almonds, walnuts and pecans), almond butter, and LOTS of sunflower-seed butter.

Lots and lots per day. I usually eat every 2.5-3 hours, w/ "big" meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Okay, time to go. It's now been 3 hours post-workout and I'm starting to smell. [DF]