January 25, 2009

REST DAY
 
As promised, a summary of the various nutrition plans you can use to better your health.
 
 
The Zone
Think of The Zone as properly apportioning the ‘amount’ of food you eat. The Zone tries to balance the amount of carbohydrate, protein and fat you eat with the goal of maintaining consistent hormone (especially insulin) levels throughout the day. A typical Zone plan for your day will include 3 meals and a couple snacks, each being balanced between carbs, protein and fat.
 
The Zone looks at food quantities in terms of “blocks” and while it takes some time to get used to the measurements of a block, once you have a the general idea it is quite easy to eyeball the food on your plate and estimate your blocks.
 
 
The Athlete Zone
CrossFit athletes across the world have been using the Zone as the basis for nutrition management and testing how changes in the block combinations affect performance. It’s been found that extra fat is a benefit to those that are asking as much from their bodies as the consistent CrossFitter does. When I am focused on Zone proportions I eat AT LEAST 5 times the fat blocks that the “normal” Zone diet calls for. I bet that last statement freaks you out a bit.
 
 
The Paleolithic Diet
Also called the caveman diet. The Paleo Diet focuses on the quality of the food you eat. The basic idea behind this nutrition plan is that people living before the agricultural revolution ate an extremely low carb diet and were free from many of the food related problems (diabetes, hypertension, obesity…) that we see so much of today. Meals for those on the Paleo Diet revolve around lean meats, lots of colorful vegetables, nuts and seeds. What did the caveman eat? Whatever he could kill and grill.
 
 
Primal Diet
Primal also focuses on the quality of the food we eat. The “Primal Blueprint” is best described by Mark Sisson at Mark’s Daily Apple. I find myself drawn to the Primal Plan. Like the Paleo diet, Primal Eating embraces meats, veggies and nuts. It also adds dairy to the mix. I’m not a huge milk lover but I enjoy a cold glass of moo from time to time and I eat lots of cheese. 
 
 
The Natural State Diet
I made the name up, though you can find plenty of writers advocating the principle. The idea here is to eat food in its natural state. This would include consideration of how that food was grown. A cow that is fed grain and pumped full of growth hormones isn’t a normal cow, it’s a domesticated, mass produced meat source. Plants that have to be processed in order to be eaten aren’t as natural as something you pick and eat straight from your garden. Focus on eating things that rot or spoil quickly and avoid food ‘products’ as much as possible. Don’t worry too much about the quantity of food you eat. Be reasonable, eat lean or grass fed meats, colorful veggies and nuts; cook with a little olive oil or grass fed butter. This system is self regulating. Eating lots of vegetables fills you up and the fat will help regulate the return of hunger.
 
So what to do? I recommend trying it all at some point and experimenting with how you feel during the day, how you perform in your workouts and mostly, find a plan that you can enjoy. Eating well isn’t just about quality and quantity, it’s about enjoying your food. Healthy, natural food is full of tastes (not just HFCS or excessive salt) has great variety (not just marginal cuts of meat cooked in too much garlic) and looks beautiful on your plate. Why not try it for a week or two and see what you can do with it?