What does Dan do, part V

3 Rounds for time
     Run 400m
     50 Walking Lunges
     15 Push-ups

Your coach is a cheater. This weekend I ate ice cream and had a couple beers. Oh no! There goes all my credibility, right?

I hope not.

I think it’s important to keep your new and better dietary choices in context. I don’t want to lose weight, if anything I could do with a few extra pounds but I really am less concerned with what the scale tells me than how I feel. Before I started CrossFit I weighed in at about 190lbs. For the average 5’10” guy that’s a little large. After going to a strict Zone and then adding the Paleo aspect of food quality I ended up at 167lbs, where I have seemed to have landed.

What I’m saying is that I have found and maintained what I think is a healthy weight that affords me plenty of energy to CrossFit at a level I am happy with while running the gym and having a family. I would say that >90% of my meals are easily in my planned Paleo Zone plan and my most frequent cheat is a glass of wine in the evening. So sometimes, maybe a couple times a month, I decide to have a big dessert. I know that my next days will be back on my plan and I will continue to feel good.

Be careful with your cheats. If you are focused on losing a large amount of body weight you may be happier to skip the indulgence and keep losing weight. If you know you have a predisposition to a carb binge then don’t start one with a cheat meal or dessert that will only drive cravings. According to Gary Taubes in Good Calories Bad Calories, it takes 12-18 months for the body to adjust fat/sugar metabolism to normalize if you have an insulin sensitivity/resistance.

Once you attain your goal weight or are happy with how you feel then gauge your tolerance to go off your plan knowing you will get right back on it. A bowl of ice cream on July 4th was fun and I was with good friends and was able to do it with a plan and no guilt.