That covert yogurt: When food gets sneaky

Today’s Whole30 check-in topic comes from a reader’s post. Heather wrote:

“I am currently in the testing part of Whole30 (completed 30 days, and am now reinserting certain foods back in to see how they affect me). One thing I gave up during the Whole30 was my morning organic, sugar-free yogurt with salt-free almonds and sugar free granola. I am now eating Paleo except for this breakfast so I can test the way I feel and my performance during WODs.

I had my first one yesterday and another one today. Physically, I feel good, and I performed well and felt good during yesterday's WOD... so I would like to know when I can declare my yogurt breakfast okay?”

Heather brings up an important question. You’ve followed the Whole30, and you’re reintroducing foods in a smart, scientific manner, one food group at a time. (Heather skipped the “one food group at a time” part of the reintroduction guidelines – but that’s not the point.) Pretend you’ve chosen dairy as your first test food group. You eat a small bowl of all-natural ice cream two days in a row, and feel no side effects. Your stomach isn't puffy, you still feel good and you PR'd your deadlift an hour after your second bowl. The dairy hasn’t appeared to impact how you look, feel or perform… so why can’t you just start working a Paleo + Ice Cream diet?

Warning: I’m about to burst your Breyer’s bubble.

First, and most importantly, because some foods are sneaky. Say you’re practicing temperance while eating off the reservation (limiting consumption to once every week or two, and eating “bad” foods in moderate quantities). After eating those foods, you may not notice an immediate reaction in any of your body's systems. However, your body is still experiencing some, if not all, of the negative internal effects associated with those foods, such as inflammation, gut irritation, and insulin spikes.

Dallas explains, “"Even infrequent consumption of foods (or food products) that contribute to elevated levels of insulin, cortisol, or the pro-inflammatory eicosanoids will set you up for inflammation-driven disease processes. Most of us already know the effect that chronic consumption of processed carbohydrates has on the development of Type II Diabetes, but this is only one example of how a previously asymptomatic ("silent") inflammatory process can manifest itself as overt disease. Unfortunately, just eating a bagel and a yogurt for breakfast once a week is enough to trigger grain- and dairy-related inflammation, causing an uptick in all the inflammatory processes in your body for days or even weeks afterward. You might not be able to feel a bagel and yogurt invading your system, but you cannot avoid the pro-inflammatory effects of those foods."

So Heather’s multi-cheat meal of dairy, grains AND artificial sweeteners (strike one) are each silently attacking her bodily systems from all angles... without her awareness. Sneaky, sneaky, in a very disconcerting manner, right? It gets worse. See, on top of the sneaky factor, the effects of these incidents are cumulative, especially if your “cheats” occur on a frequent basis. (Strike two for Heather’s breakfast routine.) Even if you're not noticing the negative effects of your dietary transgressions now, there's a good chance you'll start feeling the effects after a two or three weeks of regular "cheat food" intake. That old knee or shoulder pain may start acting up again, your skin doesn't look as clear, your digestive tract is less than happy, and your energy levels aren’t as consistent as they used to be. At that point, however, it's too late to put an immediate halt to the negative effects - your body is already hurt, and in distress mode. The fix? Spend another 30-60 days going cold turkey Whole30 to reverse the effects – reduce the inflammation, allow your digestive tract to heal, restore insulin sensitivity. Essentially, start over.

Finally, a potential strike three for Heather’s breakfast: Eating off the reservation on a regular basis, especially if incorporating multiple “cheat” food groups, may begin to trigger those old thought processes and behaviors that led you to crave sugars or sweets, over-eat, under-eat or artificially prop up your energy levels with carbs and caffeine. Remember, a primary goal of the Whole30 is to break old habits and overcome mental hurdles as related to food, eating and satisfaction. Now that you’ve graduated, don’t get too lax in your habits – those old thoughts and patterns are persistent, and may be just as sneaky in their invasion as the cheat foods you’re eating.

In summary, if Heather is digging her breakfast, I am all for her partaking of that particular combination once in a while. But making that a daily occurrence is a bad idea, for all of the above reasons. The good news is that there is nothing in that meal – no nutrients, vitamins, minerals or energy sources - that she can’t get from eating other, better, healthier foods. So put that meal on your F-Off list, Heather, but for the sake of your health and performance, base the majority of your breakfasts on quality food choices.

My recommendation to all of you is to follow these Cheat Smart guidelines when coming off the Whole30, and eat off the reservation only when you need to, to satisfy those mental cravings and quality of life requirements. Dallas wraps it up nicely, saying, "Don't be fooled if you don't have immediate, obvious symptoms when you reintroduce one or more of these 'non-Paleo' foods after completing the Whole30. Minimizing the intake of inflammatory food groups like grains, dairy, and legumes is always the smartest and safest way to maximize your performance and minimize the risk of chronic disease."

Post thoughts, observations, and recent cheat experiences to comments.

Back to gymnastics... come play at CrossFit LIC!

Feedback on the Whole30 rocks, and I LOVE how you've all adopted the title so quickly. Thanks for jumping on the bus with that one - I'm glad it caught on. We've been hard at work on the web site redesign, and we've got some local nutrition stuff in the works, so stay tuned for more developments.

This weekend, however, I'll be doing nothing but PLAYING. I'm heading to CrossFit USA in Berlin, CT, to help at Tucker's sold-out gymnastics cert. This is my fourth cert with Tucker, and they just keep getting better. He's constantly refining his material, adding new and innovative techniques to make you a better athlete. And his perspective on CrossFit, gymnastics and the role of strength and technique should not be missed. (Warning: don't you dare mention a kipping ring dip in his presence. Shudder.) You'll hear "build the strength, learn the movement" so often, you'll start repeating it in your sleep - as you should be - and he'll teach you how to incorporate that mantra into your daily training in a safe and effective manner.

I'll also be heading to my friend Vadim's box - CrossFit Long Island City in New York - on November 14th and 15th to help Tucker at another cert. That one is not yet sold out... and there's another reason that weekend will be a special one. Gillian Mounsey is staging a charity event that evening at CrossFit LIC, hosted by Tucker and attended by all the CrossFit superstars. (There's a rumor that Coach Glassman himself will be up in the spot.) So sign up for the cert, donate $25 to "Hope for the Warriors" and spectate the charity event on Saturday night - it's a double-fun weekend. (Triple, if you count the fact that I'll be there.) Register through the Main Site, and if you're heading to either cert, drop me a comment and let me know you're coming.

This week's upcoming Whole30 check-in (to be posted on Friday at noon) comes from a reader's comment on the site earlier this week. I love pulling your questions and comments into my posts, so keep them coming.

The Whole30

I am super happy to announce that the "Change your life in 30 days" program now has an official name! The 30 day program will hereafter be known as the "Whole30".

When I wrote that original post back in July, I never dreamed the program would take off the way it did. With hundreds of participants (and even entire gyms!) joining up every month since, I've realized that this thing has a real place in our affiliate future, and Dallas and I are happy to promote and support it on a permanent, go-forward basis. I'm also especially excited because this ties in beautifully with the training, coaching and consulting practice that we are developing. While those changes are still under wraps, our concepts, business practices, list of services and "manifesto" have been finalized... and the Whole30 program is an integral part of everything we are trying to do for our community.

The "whole" concept also tie in with many of the recent posts from veteran 30 day'ers. For example:

Oh, what have I done? wrote, "I did the 30 day thing and at the end of 30 days went to a 80% paleo daily effort. I continue to feel pretty good, and continue to do well in my WODs... The 30 days was easy to follow and I was super dedicated, but after that length of time and no weight loss, I decided the effort was not worth it. What kind of advice do you give to people like me who want to optimize health, but don't really see or feel any big changes when being really strict with diet? It is a confusing position to be in when the advantages are not glaringly obvious."

And Angie wrote, "It (the 30 day program) has changed me for the better. I have stuck with the Paleo lifestyle of eating since July. I felt better, more energetic, etc... I had a lot of inflammation in my back and that has greatly improved. I will say though that I haven't really noticed a weight or fat loss. Its just that I would have expected to see some sort of change after giving up all the junk and I haven't."

And this is where the "Whole" part of the Whole30 comes in. See, optimal health and fitness requires more than just a perfect diet. Sure, most people experience positive changes in how they look, feel and perform just by following the plan as outlined. But there are a whole host of other factors that contribute, and often compete with one another. As I've mentioned before, it doesn't matter how hard you train if you're not getting adequate sleep, and as some of you have recently commented on "Derailed", even a 100% Paleo diet isn't powerful enough to overcome the negative physical and mental effects of high stress.

These factors must be evaluated and triaged as a WHOLE. They all relate, and they're all an integral part of your current level of health and fitness. Which is exactly where we're taking our CrossFit training and coaching program - with the Whole30 acting as the foundation of the nutritional piece of the puzzle. Start there and you'll experience the same positive results that others posting here have seen. But when cleaning up your food quality isn't enough to get you where you want to be - looking, feeling and performing your best - that's where we come in.

Stay tuned for more details, but in the meantime... the Friday afternoon Whole30 check-in is live and direct, so let's hear what you've got to say.

Special thanks to Adam Kayce, web designer and creative genius, who actually came up with the new "30 day" name.

An (administrative) word from your sponsor

Here's a little bit about what's been going on behind the scenes, why the 603 has been quiet these last few weeks, and some follow-up on the "Derailed" post.

CrossFit 603/30 Day News:

• First, we are in the process of creating a permanent home for our 30 day program. Which needs a real name, because (a) every time someone calls it a "challenge", I swear under my breath, and (b) calling it "Urban Gets Diesel Change Your Life in 30 Days" is kinda long, and (c) "That 30 Day Thingy" isn't exactly snappy. We're working on it. Until the 603 site gets a redesign and the whole 30 moves over there, every Friday on UGD will be dedicated to 30 day'ers. Welcome back, kids.


• We are H.A.R.D. at work redesigning the 603 to better reflect the broader scope of training-related services we now offer. Until we're ready to relaunch, the 603 will be on hiatus. We're hoping to have things wrapped up in another few weeks, but that depends on how much time Dallas and I can devote to the effort. We're moving as fast as we can.

• In the meantime, keep an eye here for the usual posts - training, nutrition and random musings.

Derailed follow-up:

Thanks to all of you who posted and emailed about your own "derailment", and how you are coping. That's the kind of thing we're going for with our new consulting and training program... fitness is more than just your training PRs, perfectly measured diet or zinc-and-magnesium induced sleep regimen. There are so many factors that play into health and fitness, and you need to treat them all as a WHOLE to keep moving forward. Sounds like you are all back on a good track as well - and if you're not, it's not too late to 'fess up, ask for help and state your case here. You've got plenty of support from me and the readers.

My PTP program is off to a good start -deadlifts and presses are light, but that's the whole point. (If you haven't read Dallas' intro to the program, you really should. It explains everything, including why he's a genius for programming this under our official CrossFit umbrella. In my opinion, CrossFit needs way more of this and way fewer map-and-a-flashlight met-cons*.)

*Map-and-a-flashlight met-cons are those excessively detailed, multi-round, multi-exercise, convoluted rep scheme chippers that require a map and a flashlight to follow along. It's a disturbing affiliate programming trend... more on that in a future post (that's probably going to get us in trouble).

I'm eating squeaky clean until Thanksgiving (my own 30-plus day program), and taking extra rest days when I need them, which is often, because (a) I'm still a little stressed out, and (b) my body can't take a serious beating more than two days in a row just yet. But as my Dad said in an email to me yesterday:

"You can’t fix it all at once, but you can fix one small part. You succeed. Success feeds on itself and you begin to climb out of the hole you were in. So here it is again: ‘Adversity is the forge that character is built on’.

Right on, Captain Tom. Need a kick in the pants to start changing your own life, one small part at a time? Recommit to the 30 day program. Do it tomorrow. We'll all be there, waiting for you.

Derailed

I am 100% ready to return to my regularly scheduled blog-writing here at UGD, but first, a little insight as to why my personal posts have been few and far between lately. See, up until recently, my life has been pretty steady. My days looked a lot the same – I do enjoy a bit of the Groundhog Day, so I tend to find a routine and stick with it. Wake, gym, my 9-5 job, coaching or writing for the blog or 603 site, early to bed, get up again the next morning and do it all over again. I liked my routine, and it afforded me the ability to eat well, sleep as much as I needed to and train five days a week, without fail.

This summer, my Fitness Train derailed when Life Stuff hurled itself across my tracks. I found myself skipping meals, missing workouts, sleeping nowhere near enough. Once I realized my tracks weren’t going to clear anytime soon, I did the best I could to run my own Health and Fitness trauma center. I triaged Life factors carefully, knowing most would survive, but accepting there would be some casualties along the way. Sleep and food came first. If I didn’t eat enough, I at least ate well. If I didn’t sleep enough, I at least took naps. Training only happened when I was well fed and well rested. Those days were sparse, but if I didn’t train at all, I at least kept moving.

As of today, my casualties are high. I haven’t trained consistently since July. I’ve lost a ridiculous amount of hard-earned strength, a ton of met-con capacity and, based on yesterday’s snatch grip deadlifts, most of my kinesthetic awareness for movements that I used to be able to perform in my sleep. My deadlift is down by almost 30#, my front squat is back where it was at the beginning of the year and I’ve lost a couple of dead hang pull-ups.

It was a Fitness train derailment of the most spectacular fashion, and there’s not a damn thing I could have done about it.

If you’re like me, health and fitness is one of the most important efforts in your life. You’ll do anything for the sake of your diet, exercise and sleep - working out while on vacation, bringing your own food to business meetings, cutting out of social occasions early because you’re training the next morning. But no matter how bad you want it, no matter how hard you try… sometimes Life Stuff hurls itself across your tracks. You get sick, your kid gets sick, work blows up, school blows up, families have crises and friends need help. It happens, and the only thing you can do is ride it out as best as you can, generating as few casualties as possible.

So how do you manage around a Fitness Train derailment, and how do you get moving again when your tracks are finally clear? Here’s my best advice, based on my own recent experience. First, when Life Stuff comes up, do your best to maintain your normal routine for as long as you can. You can juggle a lot for short periods of time, so if you can already see light at the end of the tunnel, suck it up, abandon extraneous activities and just stick to the basics. Deal with Life, eat well, sleep well and train. Narrow your scope for a few days to preserve what's important until the crisis passes.

In it for the long haul? Here’s where you have to triage – and listen to me carefully. Eating well and sleeping enough come first. Just focus on that, and if that’s all you can do, that’s okay. Eat only Good Food, sleep as much as you can, and supplement for cortisol management. Those are your top priorities, and if you can keep those up, you’ll maintain an awful lot of your general “health”.

If you’re eating and sleeping well, get to the gym when you can. Here, you’ve got two options. If you’re feeling good and up for training with some intensity, then get to it… but make those workouts count. Screw the Filthy Fifty – your only priority is maintaining strength. Met-con capacity is cheap and dirty – it goes fast and comes back faster, so save your "cardio" for better days. Instead, deadlift. Press. Squat. Do some clean and jerks. Hit the big stuff hard and heavy. But what if you're not feeling up for deadlifts? Mat Lalonde reminded me of a very important point a few weeks ago. Exercise, even at a slow and easy pace, is extremely effective in helping to manage stress and cortisol. So if you’re not able to train with your normal intensity, just do something. Walk your dog, swing a kettlebell or play with your kids. If nothing else, keep moving, because in terms of triage it’s better than nothing.

Once you put the Life Stuff behind you, now it’s time to get back into your routine. I am just this week ready and able to start fresh – and I’ll be the first to tell you it’s not easy. I did the best I could with what I was working with, but I hate that I had to let so much go in the process. I feel weak, uncoordinated, more tired than I should. And I’m so far off my routine that I’m having a hard time climbing back on board. So here’s what I’m doing to get back on the train to Dieselville.

First, I spent my first ten minutes in the gym yesterday doing nothing but complaining. “My deadlift feels awful. I’ve pulled way more than that with better form. I can’t remember how to snatch at all. My pull-ups are way too hard. Everything is sore, and I’m breathing too hard, and this totally sucks.” As unproductive as that might sound, I needed to get that out. I mean, come on… it DOES suck. Being as fit as you were and then having to start even a little bit over SHOULD make you want to pitch a tantrum of exit-gate-at-Disney-at-6PM proportions. So it's okay to complain. Take a few minutes and let it all out, because once you’re done - you’re DONE. Not one more word out of you on the subject of “used to” or “should be” or any other brand of self-pity, anger or bitterness. You simply leave all that behind and GET GOING.

Find your routine again. Make fitness your top priority for a few weeks. Get to the gym at all costs, eat good food no matter what it takes, kill your TV to get that nine hours of sleep. Get yourself back to that place where this is just what you do, where it doesn’t feel forced (even if you have to force it at first).

In terms of training bang for your buck, get your muscles back. I can't afford to care about my met-con just yet – what I need right now is STRENGTH. Dallas is starting me back on Day One of the 603 PTP program, deadlifting and pressing four days a week for the next eight weeks. Follow along if you like – there are hybrid met-cons, skill days and the occasional track day to break up the programming, but if you’re just starting out again and want to get stronger faster, this is the way to do it.

Don’t try to do everything all at once, either. The temptation may be to pile strength day upon skill day upon met-con upon “extra” cardio to get back in shape even faster. Uh, that won’t work. You’re probably still over-stressed, your body isn’t in peak physical condition as it is and if you push it too hard, too fast, you’ll end up over-trained, or worse, injured. Don’t be greedy – remember that it will take time to get back to previously enjoyed levels of health and fitness. Be patient, choose a program (whether it’s the 603 PTP, Catalyst Athletics workouts or the CrossFit Main Page) and just stick with it. Make each workout count, but make each rest and recovery period count just as much.

Finally, take your ego out of the picture. Yesterday, part of my complaining included the low deadlift numbers on my whiteboard. Dallas responded, “I don’t care what the number is, I just want them to be HARD. Are they hard?” Uh, yeah. They were hard. And we moved on. The lesson is, don’t spend any time thinking about where you SHOULD be, because that doesn’t make a lick of difference. This is where you ARE, so suck it up, stay in the moment, make your training sessions hard and stick with it. Rewards will come fast, and provide their own motivation to continue.

I’ll keep you posted here as to how my own training is progressing. I’m not a total lost cause – I’ve still got a bunch of dead hangs, my back squats are coming back fast and I pulled a 100# hang clean last weekend that practically flew up. But I’m checking my ego at this very public door in an effort to remind you that you are more than the sum of your one rep maxes… and that no matter how long Life Stuff gets in the way, it’s never too late to start fresh.

Are you stuck in Life Stuff right now, just coming back from a training hiatus or “fully recovered” from your last health and fitness break? Post thoughts and your best tips to comments.

Blog maintenance

The blog may be up and down a little over the next few days. I'm attempting to change the web address from "Byers" to "Urban" without losing any of my back-links, and that involves a lot of tech-y stuff with numbers and letters and settings that I don't understand. Which is why I've hired Adam Kayce, Web ninja, CrossFitter, and 30 Day participant, to do all our internerd work. You can check out Adam's stuff over at Bright Coconut - he's got mad coding skills AND the keen ability to translate tech-talk to English so us normal people can keep our sites updated all by ourselves. (He also specializes in Wordpress themes for CrossFit affiliates... very cool.)

Anyway, once we're done, you shouldn't notice any interruption in service or lose any of your links. I'll keep you posted as to our progress.

Community sound-off

This is another administrative-ish post - I'll return to actual content soon. But first, our "no box box" concept generated a lot of positive feedback. Thanks to everyone who contributed, and who sent me your thoughts via email. I was especially happy to receive encouragement from other affiliate owners - I think there's a whole lot of referral potential in both directions, considering our nutritional clients live all over the country, and a huge part of our program will involve getting their training in line. There are still a whole lot of kinks to work out, but we're excited and moving forward with the new concept. Which brings me to today's administrative topic.

I've been thinking about the big-picture direction of the blog, specifically as it relates to my "30 Day" program. To rewind for a moment, I first posted the '30 day' idea in July, and kept up a month-plus of posts exclusively tailored to that concept. After about six weeks, however, I decided to move on and write about other topics. To my surprise, however, (a) people continue to use whatever topic I post as a mechanism for their 30 day efforts, (b) there are still people jumping on the 30 day bus for the first time (hello, CrossFit Austin!), and (c) as Jake commented this weekend, some of you original 30 day'ers are coming back for rounds two and three.

So clearly, there still people out there following along. And that got me thinking about the program in general, and all the participants. What happened when you got through your first cycle? Did you abandon, re-up for another 30, learn from the experience and settle somewhere in the middle? Are you missing the community here, missing the support, wanting to ask more questions or get more advice but feel like you no longer have a venue? And THOSE questions got me thinking about what to do here on the blog, and/or over at the 603 site.

First and foremost, does this 30 day thing need a permanent (or long-term, at least) home, with weekly posts dedicated solely to the program? I can do that (and moderate, offering advice and answering questions), as long as I leave room for other good posts relating to nutritional, training, etc. On that note, what else do you want to see around here? Maybe you'd like to read more random, fun posts like "The Maureen Martone Rule" (coming this week!), or maybe I include some Q&A where I answer emails on the main page, or maybe you want more behind the scenes stories of affiliate ownership, or any combination of ideas.

In summary, I'd like to tailor the blog (and the 603 site) to what the community needs, and what it's currently missing. I want to make ALL of our stuff easy to follow, easy to keep up with and easy for readers to contribute and interact. So help me figure out where to take this, because things are moving quickly and I don't want to miss any opportunities here. I know, I know... you're used to ME telling YOU what to do. But I'm HAPPY to take some direction from the only people who matter - the people who read my stuff. So sound off. I'm listening. And thanks, because without you, it would just be me and my Dad reading this post. (And he has a genetic obligation to read whatever I write.)