Sunnyvale Catalyst Athletics Nutrition Seminar

I went to a nutrition seminar last Saturday presented by Robb Wolf. Check out his website much good info on nutrition. (www.robbwolf.com) He has a PHD, in biochemistry specializing in fat metabolism.  The seminar focused on nutrition for crossfitters and the main objectives were to enhance health, performance, and longevity.  Some main points to take home from the seminar were to follow a zone paleolithic diet and stay away from gluten, legumes, and dairy.  A zone diet is one that is in proper proportions to keep your hormone at proper levels and a paleolithic diet is a "caveman" diet where all your foods come from whole natural foods that our ancient ancestors could have eaten.  These foods are lean meats (chicken, eggs, steak) for protein, most vegetable and fruits (broccoli, apples) and fat in the form of nuts and seeds (almonds, avocado, olive oil).  Here is a simple nutrition plan; eat meats, veggies, nuts, seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar.  In a paleo diet, carbohydrates come from no starchy or refined carbs because these raise your insulin levels dramatically.  With consistently high levels of insulin, this has been shown to be the cause of many diseases form diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.  Insulin is the culprit of many of the American diseases and not FAT intake.  Eating all your carbs from veggies and fruits will significantly improve your health.  For all of you worried about saturated fat and cholesterol check out the article titled Meat, Global Warming an Markets in the meat consumption link under nutrition in the right side bar. This shows you do not need to worry when you eat grassfed meat in the paleo diet. Which brings me to the next "do not eat" item; gluten.  Gluten is mainly in wheat, spelt, rye, oats, and millet.  These are such things as oatmeal, pasta, bread, and pastries.  Robb wolf claims he has seen much improvement in health, performance and longevity in individuals who follow a gluten free diet which is also why you want to eat grassfed meat and not meat that is fed from grains.  Also abstaining from legumes could improve your health because both gluten and legumes can be toxic that brings about an immune response that affects sleep and recovery.  The last item in your diet is dairy.  Again it is something you should stay away from because of the linkage to raising insulin levels.

Now these are all things that you may want to try to incorporate into your diet and each affect everybody differently.  So see how it affects how you feel and your performance on workouts. I am going to not eat gluten for the month.  I will let you all know how it goes.