I'm sorry... artificial sweeteners WHAT?

A guy has celery sticking out of one ear, lettuce out of the other, and a zucchini up his nose. He goes to the doctor and asks him what's wrong. The doctor tells him, "Well, for one thing, you're not eating right."

The CrossFit Nutrition Cert with Robb Wolf and Matt Lalonde was eight hours of science-y diet goodness. And the best part was that I learned nothing new. Okay, that's not true at all. I learned LOTS of new stuff, like why artificial sweeteners are bad (because they cockblock fat loss - that's a quote, people), what high triglycerides indicate (insulin resistance) and how to translate Zone blocks to calories (you don't, actually, which is kind of the point). But I didn't learn any brand new concepts. Nothing jumped out at me as startling information, and there was no point where I thought, "Holy shit, I have not been doing that." Which is a very good thing, for both me and the people who pay me to tell them what to do.

I did manage to ask a few of your questions directly. The "cheat day" question actually deserves its own post - I'm drafting one up now. I am picking Matt's brain about the scientific value of incorporating "cheats" into your diet, and I'm going to lay my own theories and concepts out there to help give you a better strategy to maximize the effective of your nutritional plan while still maintaining a happy balance.

As for Karen's question: "I seem to remember in Mathieu's Science is Hot post, he recommended that some people should NOT have a post workout (PWO) meal to maximize insulin sensitivity. When would he recommend to a client to NOT have a PWO meal, and what would be the criteria for determining this?" Karen, you're right. Matt did say during our first interview that a PWO meal isn't necessarily for everyone. And I got the chance to ask him this question in the middle of his Zone lecture. I'm responding below with the information he presented to the group.

If your client is pretty dialed in with their diet - they've been eating Paleo or Paleo-Zone for a while, their quality is good and they have, for the most part, regained insulin sensitivity, then a PWO meal is a great way to put their carbs to work for them and maximize performance and recovery. But not everyone is a great candidate for shoving that many carbs into one meal. For clients with a long history of insulin resistance due to a high carbohydrate, low fat diet, restoring insulin sensitivity is priority number one. You want to focus on food quality (eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar) first, and minimize any potential for insulin spikes. For these people, you'd want to do everything possible to get their insulin response back in line... and a post workout meal (where you're sticking half your carbohydrate intake for the whole day) is not the best way to accomplish that goal. In addition, a PWO meal is designed to help you perform and recover better. These clients - overweight, undernourished, carb-addicted and unhealthy based on scientific biomarkers of health - aren't going to be able to perform at ALL until you get their metabolism running again.

So, Karen, it depends on where you or your client is in the process. If regaining insulin sensitivity is priority number one - then skip the PWO meal, for now, and focus on minimizing the insulin response with good food quality and managing proportions and quantity. Once that sensitivity has been regained and new dietary habits have been firmly established (meaning, the person could potentially eat a cup or two of sweet potato and not want to jack a Dunkin' Donuts), then you can start to introduce the concept of a PWO meal. Make sense? Feel free to post follow-up questions, if you've got them.

Penty and Sean, I was not able to ask questions on leptin or hormones (like estrogen or progesterone) that bugger up fat loss. There was so much material to cover, and I couldn't go too far off the rails with 70 people in the room all waiting to get their questions in.

Renee, as far as the acid/base balance goes... I'm not sure if my response helped, and we didn't really delve into the topic at the cert. Send me an email if you have more questions and I can try to sort out the information for you. Dallas is really good with this subject, actually, so I can tap him to help.

So there you have it - I've got a piece of paper that says all the stuff I've been doing - and telling you to do - is, in fact, pretty good stuff. Obviously, they couldn't fit all that on the certificate, of course. Which is a shame. Actually, what I wish it would say is, "Melissa Byers, CrossFit Nutrition Certified. Just do what she tells you." Maybe I'll send Kelly Moore a note about that...