What Should I Eat?
In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar. That’s about as simple as we can get. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines you will benefit from nearly all that can be achieved through nutrition.
The Caveman or Paleolithic Model for Nutrition
Modern diets are ill suited for our genetic composition. Evolution has not kept pace with advances in agriculture and food processing resulting in a plague of health problems for modern man. Coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, obesity and psychological dysfunction have all been scientifically linked to a diet too high in refined or processed carbohydrate. Search “Google” for Paleolithic nutrition, or diet. The return is extensive, compelling, and fascinating. The Caveman model is perfectly consistent with the CrossFit prescription.
What Foods Should I Avoid?
Excessive consumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates is the primary culprit in nutritionally caused health problems. High glycemic carbohydrates are those that raise blood sugar too rapidly. They include rice, bread, candy, potato, sweets, sodas, and most processed carbohydrates. Processing can include bleaching, baking, grinding, and refining. Processing of carbohydrates greatly increases their glycemic index, a measure of their propensity to elevate blood sugar.
What is the Problem with High-Glycemic Carbohydrates?
The problem with high-glycemic carbohydrates is that they give an inordinate insulin response. Insulin is an essential hormone for life, yet acute, chronic elevation of insulin leads to hyperinsulinism, which has been positively linked to obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, blood pressure, mood dysfunction and a Pandora’s box of disease and disability. Research “hyperinsulinism” on the Internet. There’s a gold mine of information pertinent to your health available there. The CrossFit prescription is a low-glycemic diet and consequently severely blunts the insulin response.
World-Class Fitness in 100 Words
Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.
Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, Clean, Squat, Presses, Clean & Jerk, and Snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc… hard and fast.
Five or six days per week, mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense.
Regularly learn and play new sports.
Courtesy of CrossFit, Inc.
Please feel free to share any recipes you have in our Comments section!
Sooo, I’m STOKED about our Paleo Challenge to begin THIS Sunday! I have done some paleo, on and off for awhile…I have some pretty good recipe’s to share, and if anyone else does, PLEASE share as well!!
I thought I would go ahead and load some of my favorite paleo meals on here so that those of you who may wanna do some shopping between now and sunday can see what to expect! This breakfast one I stole from my friend Corinne who is a blogger and paleo cooking extrodinaire
It is one of my favorites, and I have started making it every Sunday to have for the week–great for those of us who need a quick and healthy breakfast on those early weekday mornings when you are trying to get out the door!
Paleo Quiche
Crust Ingredients:
1 1/2 c blanched almond flour
1/2 t sea salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 T rosemary
1/4c grapeseed oil
1 T water
Directions:Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, baking soda and rosemary. In a medium bowl, whisk together the grapeseed oil and water. Stir the wet ingredients into the almond flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Press the dough into a 9 1/2 inch or deep-dish pie pan.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before filling.
Base Ingredients:
6 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup coconut milk, full fat
1/4 cup almond milk
Extras: Add anything you want! I added 1 diced onion, 1 diced pepper, a pound of bacon, 6 sundried tomatoes, and 2 handfuls of spinach. I sauteed the onions and peppers in the bacon grease. All of this was the perfect amount to fit in the pie pan! I was a little scared there for a minute.
Directions: Make Pie Crust. Add eggs and milks to large bowl and whisk. Add in extras, whisk until combined. Pour over crust and bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 min. ENJOY!
So, when I did my first Paleo Challenge, my husband was not too thrilled…he thought that we would be eating cardboard for the next 40 days. I was worried I would end up cooking two different meals each night, one for me and one for him! BUT I quickly realized that I could just do some tweaking to the meals that were in our regular routine, and he often wouldn’t notice the changes! This is one that I love, and I make it for company all the time–goes over great, and they don’t even know, or care, that it is paleo!
Greek-style Baked Porke Chops
1/2 cup diced roasted red bell peppers
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons minced garic
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 cup almond flour
1 teaspoon coursely ground pepper
4 center-cut pork chops
1/3 cup kalamata olives, chopped
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Stir together first 7 ingredients. Set aside.
Stir together flour and pepper. Coat both sides of pork chops evenly with flour mixture. Cook pork chops on a stovetop in a lightly greased ovenproof skillet over medium heat, about 2 minutes on each side. Spoon red bell pepper mixture over pork chops.
Bake for 8-10 minutes in oven. Pour olives over pork chops, and cook an additional 4-8 minutes or until chops are cooked all the way through.
Date and Walnut Bars, compliments of Elanas Pantry
1&1/2 cups blanched almond flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup dates, pitted and chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine almond flour, salt, and baking soda. In a seperate bowl, combine eggs, oil, agave, and vanilla. Stir in wet ingredients into dry. Add walnuts and dates to batter.
Pour batter into a greased 8X8 inch baking dish. Bake for 22-25 mintes. Cool and serve!
Ingredients:
3 Tbs olive or coconut oil
1 (3 lb) chicken, cut up
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 medium yellow onion, sliced
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (16 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
1 tsp dried oregano
1 large bell pepper, cut into 1″ pieces
Instructions:
In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat.
Season chicken with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
When pan is hot, add chicken and brown on all sides, about 10 minutes.
Remove and drain on paper towels.
Add onions and mushrooms to the hot pan and sauté until onions are slightly translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients. Stir well.
Return chicken to pan and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, reduce heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes, until chicken is tender.
Super easy! Dinner/lunch tomorrow
The most difficult thing for me is staying away from bread–I stinkin love it…so when I ran across this bread recipe on Elana’s pantry, I got excited…but was hesitant, because who knows how it would have turned out! She came up with this recipe with paleo eaters in mind–and let me tell you, it is YUMMY! But this recipe doesn’t make a large amount of bread, just one smaller than your nomal sized bread, loaf. I’m gonna double it next time!
Paleo Bread
1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour
¼ cup golden flaxseed meal
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
5 eggs
¼ cup coconut oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Place almond flour, coconut flour, flax, salt and baking soda in a food processor–(I don’t have one of these, so I just use my mixer, it turned out just fine)
Pulse ingredients together
Pulse in eggs, oil, honey and vinegar
Pour batter into a greased 7.5″ x 3.5″ loaf pan
Bake at 350° for 30 minutes
Cool and serve
Meatloaf
I don’t do recipes too much, so I made this one up and it seemed to work out okay. You can probably improve it.
1 to 1 1/2 pounds of grass fed ground beef
1/2 cup almond flour
1 cup or so of salsa
1 egg
Oregano
Basil
Salt
Pepper
Mix everything together and then pat it into a baking dish greased with some coconut oil or add some olive oil to the mixture and bake for 20-30 minutes (can’t remember exactly).