Eat more.

I’ve been talking diet and nutrition a lot lately. Now, I’m not a nutritionist. I have no background in food science (is that even real?) and I have no track record of coaching athletes to elite status. None of the above, just so we’re clear. But through trial and error, I’ve made my own diet work pretty well, and I’ve helped a few friends tweak their diets with good results.

The sum of my diet advice to almost everyone who asks for it comes down to two little words. Eat more. This is especially true of women. I don’t know how the hell some of you are up and walking around – never mind CrossFitting – on the tiny amount of food you are consuming on a daily basis. (Which is another post entirely.) But it can be hard to wrap your head around the idea that you need to eat more and train less, when all your naughty little instincts are telling you to do the exact opposite. So today, I want to tell you a story about one such CrossFitter, and what happened when she started eating more. Like, a LOT more.

Becky Strahan is a CrossFitter and yoga instructor from Plano, TX. She was training three days a week at CrossFit Richardson, and teaches five yoga classes week. She’s built a lot like me – tall, small build, leans out quickly and good at met-con, but has a hard time putting on muscle and building strength. Becky wanted to take her CrossFit performance to the next level, and gets great coaching from John Marshall (owner of CF Richardson), but she wasn't sure how to get her diet where it needed to be. She tried just plain eating more, but felt a little lost with what to eat, and exactly how much, and when.

So two weeks ago (after making sure John was okay with me helping out), I began working with Becky on her diet. We started with her food journal - she journals everything, which made my job really easy. I was able to look back through her food intake for the last few weeks and see what she’s been eating, and when, and how much. And immediately, I spotted the problem. Becky was eating pretty clean, high quality, good food. But on a good day, she was still only eating about half of what she needed to. My first official correspondence as her nutrition coach started off like this:

“Hi Becky! You are not eating enough. At all.”

Not the most scientific – or specific – response, but it got my point across. Before we started tweaking her exact proportions or making picky food choices, we needed to up her intake. Significantly. So much so that I thought she’d balk when I told her where I wanted to her to be. But I soon discovered that Becky is one determined woman. She read all four pages of my instructions, studied our new plan, wrote back with four more pages of questions… and then immediately got down to the business of eating.

I told her she’d have to be patient, because I wanted to stick with this plan for two weeks before reevaluating. I warned her that she might feel worse before she felt better, given how significantly we were shifting both her quantity of food and proportion of macronutrients. We talked about her training – John was on board with her doing more strength work and less light-weight met-con. And we had one final rule... no scales, and no body composition measurements. All I wanted were her stats from the gym, and how she was feeling during the day.

In the last two weeks, Becky has reported the following:

• A push-press PR, up 5#
• A kipping pull-up PR with the light assistance band – 10 consecutive, in the middle of “Helen”, no less
• Her first Fran, sub-7:00, with only a light assistance band
• A 40 second PR on the CF Richardson Baseline WOD
• A new 5x5 back squat max, at her previous 3 rep max
  

That's right... with excellent coaching from John, the weight that she was only able to move THREE times during her last squat workout, she moved FIVE times last week. REPEATEDLY. Holla!

On top of these measurable performance improvements, Becky also writes, “I notice this week that I’m itching to go to CrossFit today, even though it’s my rest day. In many previous weeks, by Wednesday I’m tired, about to drop, and ready for a break. So that’s really different. Also, I’m noticing my soreness is dramatically less since we’ve changed my eating. On every workout I’ve been stronger in some aspect… either lifted more weight, gotten more unbroken pull-ups, or a faster time… something was improved and nothing decreased. And I've been training CrossFit five days a week instead of three! With that, it seems I’d certainly be sore, but I’m just not. A little tight and tired in places, but definitely not the ridiculously sore, barely able to walk stuff that I’ve had the previous few weeks. Overall, I think my recovery has improved dramatically. Yay!”

Now, I can't PROVE that eating more is the direct link to these performance and recovery improvements. And two weeks doesn't make a trend. But I can say that so far, we have changed only one major thing with Becky’s diet - quantity of food. And her performance has improved. And she’s feeling better, which, although subjective, is certainly significant. I share this story, with Becky’s permission, because I’ve been telling so many of you that you need to eat MORE. And that good things – performance gains, fat loss, busting through training plateaus – are all possible, probable even, when you up your intake. Becky’s story is, I hope, an example of the good things that come when you are properly fueling your body for the tasks at hand.

Congratulations to Becky for kicking so much booty these past two weeks, and props to John and CrossFit Richardson for coaching her through some awesome PRs. Stay tuned for more on Becky's progress in the coming weeks, too. Now go eat something. Yes, you.