Layers vs Spill

Be Careful with Diet Changes and Training

It is that time of year when many of you have been cleaning up your diet.

The Issue: When you drastically drop your total calorie intake (more than 10-15% generally) and/or you reduce your protein intake while upping your training volume. Dropping your total calories too much WILL affect your energy and your training. It may not be noticeable the first couple of weeks, but it will catch up with you eventually.

You will be more sore than usual.
You will have less motivation.
Little ‘tweaks’ will start to accrue.
Performances on metcons will go down.
Your lifts will be more difficult and you may fail more often.

If leaning out is your goal (while maintaining performance), it is important that you:

Focus on a gradual reduction in calories, 10% or less every 2 to 3 weeks
Emphasize good sleep (duration and quality)
Make sure you are getting enough protein (0.5-1.0 grams of protein per pound bodyweight each day on average)
Increase your ‘non-workout activity levels (standing workstations, walking, hiking, easy bike riding, or laid-back games of tennis, basketball, etc.)

The last thing most of you want to do right now is cut 400-500 calories out of your diet and try to maintain a high volume of training before going into something like the Open. This will wear you down and set you up for injury.

This is also good info for beginners to CrossFit and other HIIT programs!

Too many people try to drastically drop calories and then add 3-4 days a week of training on top of a body adapted to a sedentary lifestyle.

It is a recipe for burn-out and injury.

It is also a double whammy for our willpower reserves.

Make smaller changes incrementally, then wait before adding more.

Think about it like painting something. You start with a base coat then you do thin layers, letting each layer dry before adding the next coat.

Trying to radically change your diet while adding a lot of physical activity is like trying to pour the paint on and do it in one coat.

It never works (even if it says so on the paint can).

Thrive on.

-jj

Just This Once

We’ve all said it...

I’ll have another piece of candy, just this once.

I’ll skip going to the gym, just this once.

I’ll watch another episode, just this once.

If it really were just this once it wouldn’t be an issue. The problem arises when all of the ‘onces’ start adding up and we become frustrated with our lack of progress or wonder why we can never seem to change.

A lot of this has to do with human psychology.

We are wired to dismiss or ignore small slips. We minimize the seemingly insi…

5 Things You Can Do in the next Hour to Get Started on Your next Big Accomplishment

The problem with goals or resolutions is that they can be intimidating to start and demotivating to maintain

After choosing a goal/outcome and an end date, it is best to focus on the daily/weekly habits and routines that you need to do to get you there. Here are some ideas on how to get started and stay consistent...

1. Determine the smallest, easiest, thing you need to start to make progress

The smaller & easier, the better. The goal is to make it so easy, you there is no reason NOT …