Dan!!
They are a good option for folks that need a dense carb source for post WO recovery. If you are still trying to lean out you might go easy on those and stick more with veggies.

Chris-
Folks do tend to adapt to increased levels of fat in the diet over time but that does vary from person to person…with that in mind here’s a few potential approaches:
1-add digestive enzymes to very meal. Make sure these have betaine HCL, lipases, and proteases. Almost any good company will have one like this but Now foods has one called “Super Enzymes” and it kicks ass. Inexpensive and great quality. Start with 1 per meal, slowly increase the number you take with a meal…likely in the 2-3 caps for a large meal area you will feel “warm” in the stomach. That’s your dose for that size and composition of meal. Snacks may only require 1 cap. This should improve your digestion and absorption and you can play with slowly increasing fat in the meals. Add like 1 block per meal/week and see how it goes.

You may still need to add a bit more carb than fat to make significant gains but this should help. I almost forgot: Go gluten free. Gluten can wreak havoc on the digestion and may cock-block all efforts to improve digestion.
Keep me posted.

Bummer. Well, hopefully we can see you guys before next year. If my training does not get more consistent It’s going to be a VERY ugly games for me next year.

I’ve been interchanging EF and Crossfit for about a year now, and since I really hate weighing and measuring (my gf and I would actually get pissy with each other while we tried the strict zone), I’ve been trying to liberally use oils and nuts and save most of my dense carbs 1 or 2 hours post workout (don’t want to quell the GH response). I wanted to get back on the crossfit wagon however, would you reccomend I tweak my current EF diet to compensate? I realized that Art doesn’t really eat that much, then again, his power law training doesn’t leave me gasping for air, like say…..Fran?

Roelant-
I’d try what you have been doing and go from there. The CF stuff is generally WAY more volume than the standard EF workout. FRan, Diane, Grace or the wod’s that take less than 5 min might be exceptions. Just play with that and if need be, add in more carbs to allow for better training. It’s summer! Kick your heels up!

Robb, great stuff you’ve been posting lately – inspires me to get my act together!

Anthony-
Little does Dutch know but once he is in Chico we are going to drum up some spurious charges to force him to stay here. We will have some kind of Lo-Jack on his ankle to know when he is trying to sneak off the compound. Then we will figure out what makes him “tick”. Then…maybe, I will not suck at this stuff once I can steal his secrets!

Inspire you! Sorry man, it’s the other way around. You have set the bar WAY high. I talked to Rip yesterday. I told him Kelly Starrett guilted me into doing next years games. Rip wants me at 185 lbs for that gig…I it’s eat and lift like Anthony to be like Anthony! Looks like I may be in Calgary Sept 13…not sure if you guys will be in the vicinity but it’d be good to catch up.

I had to let this Spam through…Dutch, looks like the Norwegian chicks are into hand ball. You are onto something Amigo!

I’ll be trying the 1.5 g and see what happens. If my weight gain will stall I’ll bump it to 40 blocks @ 1.5g per fat block to average around 40/20/100.

Monique is figuring out the details and we’ll be signing up for Oct 4th in Ft. Worth Nutrition cert.
That’s going to be good times!

Awesome! Keep me posted on how the 1.5 tweak changes things. Looking forward to seeing you guys at Tuckers place!!

Let me know if you want any information for your front page post about my recent Atkins experience. Mostly it’s on my blog http://crossfitzonediet.blogspot.com/

After doing this (and reading Good Calories, Bad Calories, one of, if not THE, most amazing book(s) I have ever read)I have settled on a “Zone-Like” diet as follows:

18 Matched protein carb blocks (7/7)
Whatever X fat
Carbs not to exceed 130 g per day
Low GI sources only

Example is here:

http://crossfitzonediet.blogspot.com/2008/02/stellar-4-blocker-via-trader-joes.html

I regret not coming to your nutrition seminar, Connie M told me it was great, and I’m an admirer of yours. I do some nutritional consultation, and following your lead, I don’t work with vegans. I did not quite have the balls to say I would not work with veggies at all.

Maximus!
Looks good, write up your plan to date and lets do a post on it. It mirrors what I’ve seen in a lot of people: Zone is too many carbs too often. On the Vegetarina thing…I did make a “Chip Conrad Addendum” to the vegetarian thing…I need to get that uploaded as an update to the old shopping guide thingy. If the individual agrees to be gluten free AND get adequate protein (via whatever source) then I’ll work with them. Someone need to help those people I guess…other vegetarins are certainly not going to affect the necessary changes.

Your posts are great, can’t wait for your book!
I read “42 ways to skin the zone” and I had a question about the skinny guy who is trying to get heeeeyyyuugge. I am about to embark on this journey, and you say that once every seven days to go back to base zone at the original (16 blocks in the article) base zone. Does this also mean go back to 1XFat or should I stay at 5X for that day also?

Thanks Robb!

Stone-
Yep, take that to 1x fat and you can play with going either to the 16 block level or just base Zone…say you have worked your way up to 22 blocks @ 5x fat, you could also just go to 22blocks, 1x fat. Play with both and wee how you feel. It is interesting, the cal restricted day does seem to help digestion and energy level. Wacky stuff.

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2

Max found this and posted it on his blog, I thought it was an interesting study looking at performance while in ketosis (very low carb intake).

Great link…I think i threw that up on the ketosis piece I did about a year ago.

As an aside, I wished I’d listened to you a while back on the “Zone has too many carbs” point. I slaved away on strict 18 block zone for months. Lost a little weight, saw performance improve somewhat, but was still heavy (6’1, 215, approx 14-16 BF%).

I’m actually doing Atkins Induction right now just because I finished “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Taubes and decided to give it a try since Zone wasn’t working for me.

I’m down 7 pounds in 10 days to 208. What’s weird is that my performance really hasn’t suffered much at all. I party chalk this up to substituting a minimum of one Oly Lift WOD per week.

I sent my experience to Max Lewin, CF Eastbay. He’s got a great blog (crossfitzonediet.blogspot.com) that I’ve been following for a while and he seemed to be having the same issues I was, doing Zone, not losing BF. So he gave it a try as well and had a big decrease in BF% but also a decrease in performance.

Sorry for the long post, but wanted to let folks know about me and Max’s experience. I’m going to go buy “42 Ways” rigt now.

Brian-
I’m going to do a front page post on this.

Keep up the great work!!

Sande Collins

Hey Sande!
All the credit goes to you and folks like you who will just give this wacky stuff a shot. It’s amazing what our bodies can do when we feed and water it the way it needs!

Congrats on the new first Nutrition Cert, sounds like a roaring success. RP

RP-
Protein Power:Life Plan is absolutely phenomenal. This is a great article on how on CAN run without any carb intake:
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2

It’s inspiring to see Dutch’s times and see how diligent he is with food and training despite everything he has on…

I’ve been CrossFitting for a while now, and am eating pseudo-Zone – got breakfast and snacks down pat, but haven’t been strict enough to work out lunches and dinners yet.

Reading posts like this pumps me up to go strict Zone, get to bed early and train harder.

Look forward to the next post.

I’ve been on 35 blocks religiously for the last several weeks as you suggested only having 3 cheat meals spread over the weekend.

My weight is up to 231 as of this morning from 217 on June 1st. Strength is going up, metcon somewhat too – bodyweight stuff getting a bit harder.

I had a question on fat -
for the last 3 weeks I’ve been swapping 10-15 blocks of carbs with 3x Fat for each carb block.
Do I count 1.5 gram of fat as a block or 3 grams?
I’ve been doing 3 grams/block.

And what’s your opinion on CreamCheese as far as fat substitute?
I found that it’s something that I don’t really get sick or bored of. Been eating a bunch of it with my sweet potatoes, cucumbers and peppers.
80 blocks of fat a day is no joke.

One thing I’ve noticed with swapping fat – just like you mentioned to Dutch – my energy has been more consistant, since I eat my yams and veggies after training for lunch.

I’ve been on 35 blocks religiously for the last several weeks as you suggested only having 3 cheat meals spread over the weekend.

My weight is up to 231 as of this morning from 217 on June 1st. Strength is going up, metcon somewhat too – bodyweight stuff getting a bit harder.

I had a question on fat -
for the last 3 weeks I’ve been swapping 10-15 blocks of carbs with 3x Fat for each carb block.
Do I count 1.5 gram of fat as a block or 3 grams?
I’ve been doing 3 grams/block.

Leo!!
I usually use the 1.5g of fat in that scenario! You are defenitely getting enough grub! I think the cheese/cream is fine…at this point it’s get it down the hatch and that can be hard as hell. Once you stabilize the weight we can lean you out an bit and the BW stuff will catch up. Great work amigo!
Regarding the energy: The Zone is TOO MANY carbs too often for many people. Some simple tweaks can fix that however.

Hey Sarah-
You definitely need to up the fat to compensate for the missing carbs…have you read the 42 ways to skin the Zone article from the PM? Give that a read and it should clarify things a bit. The low GI carbs are great but one can spend HOURS/day eating…tough to do. Putting the carbs into the PWO meal can fix some of this as can simply deleting carbs and adding fat as per the article. Looks like I need to have a flow chart thingy in the FAQ covering this as it’s a common theme!

As for the shakes, very interesting. I recently bought one of the Atkins shake packs. It seems like a good ‘snack’ for midmorning or around 3pm.

But I look forward to your discussion on the shakes.

I think one just needs to tinker with those. Most find they set up blood sugar high’s and low’s…not sure that they end up being worthwhile.

I think that is fine and like all this stuff, you just need to tinker and see if the protocol works for YOUR goals.
Keep me posted on your progress.

I am thinking late august still as my arrival time. I am willing to help with anything you need. I’ll let you know when i decided on a date for sure.

Right on dutch! Looking forward to the visit!

Couple of quick questions (which I’m sure fit into the “Godamn, I should make a FAQ” category), as far as Paleo goes, I’m assuming in your opinion it’s fine to include yams/sweet potatoes PWO for an active athlete? Do you not advise PWO shakes?

Hey Mike!
Yams and sweet potatoes rock. I’m not a huge fan of PWO shakes…tinker with them if you want but I find they get people FAT. Pedro Bastos forwarded a study to me that compared breakfast cereal and a shake as PWO nutrition (not the best in either case but both had similar protein and high glycemic index carbs). The cereal worked better to replenish glycogen and reverse catabolism than did the shake…I’ll try to track it down but you might google on that topic.