Nutrition

Introduction - Food as Fuel

CF Hierarchy of Development

Nutritional science is a complex field, and there are countless (and often contradictory) views and expert opinions on what constitutes an ideal or healthy diet. However, the purpose of many of these "diets" -- to lose weight -- is both misguided and insular in scope. The CrossFit approach to nutrition is to view food as fuel for athletic performance. Properly address nutrition in your pursuit of overall fitness and the rest will fall in line.  

As the figure to the right depicts, nutrition provides the basis for fitness and health in the CrossFit Method. Fitness happens at the cellular and hormonal level, and the way that you fuel your body greatly affects the way it performs. Deficiencies at this foundational level will limit your capacity and growth at other levels of the pyramid. Or, in other words, "you can't out-PT a crappy diet."  

So if - like a lot of folks at the gym - you exercise to mitigate the effects of your diet, you've got to reassess your priorities. The idea is to adopt a diet that makes exercise enjoyable and supports your fitness goals. There are no magic answers...refining the role of nutrition in your lifestyle requires some dedication and experimentation with your body. However, there are some general principles to follow that will get you started in the right direction.  Read on!

The Basics

What Should I Eat?

In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables (especially greens), lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.

That's about as simple as it can get. Another rule to live by: "eat real food."  If it's got a food label on it, it's probably not real food. You shouldn't need a list of hard-to pronounce ingredients to identify what you're ingesting. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the interior aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect.

What Foods Should I Avoid?

Excessive consumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates is the primary culprit in nutritionally caused health problems. High-glycemic carbohydrates are those that raise blood sugar too rapidly. They include rice, bread, candy, potato, sweets, sodas, and most processed carbohydrates. Processing can include bleaching, baking, grinding, and refining. Processing of carbohydrates greatly increases their glycemic index, a measure of their propensity to elevate blood sugar.

The problem with high-glycemic carbohydrates is that they induce a strong insulin response. Insulin is an essential hormone for life, yet acute, chronic elevation of insulin leads to hyperinsulinism, which has been positively linked to obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, blood pressure, mood dysfunction...you name it. Research "hyperinsulinism" on the Internet. There's a gold mine of information pertinent to your health available there. The CrossFit prescription is a low-glycemic diet that greatly reduces the insulin response.

The majority of the information presented here is collated from the CrossFit main site and its many nutritional forums and archived resources.  This layout was taken from our friends at Iron Major CrossFit.