We will be closed this upcoming Sunday for Open Gym. Some of our members are heading to CrossFit Tri-Cities to do Murph For Miller on Friday and Saturday.  Jyllianne has posted on Facebook group page.  We will be having a 9:00 am WOD on Monday for Memorial Day.  All other classes will be cancelled. All are welcome.  We will be back to our normal class schedule on Tuesday May 28th.

05/20/13 – 05/26/13:

Yep .. it’s week 7 already and we’re moving right along. This past week was tough for me .. for some reason my legs just felt heavy and I just couldn’t get moving as fast as I wanted on my Long Interval and Stamina days. Looking back, I can say that my nutrition and rest were off on those days and I payed the price. As the old saying goes .. “the devil is in the details”. Let that be a lesson for everyone. On a brighter note .. if you haven’t heard yet, today was a big day for the CFHE (CrossFit Huntley Endurance Team .. just made that up). Leivy Greco PR’d her 1/2 marathon by 4 min!!! AND .. based on a Facebook photo I just saw, it looks like Becky Lesniewski finished her 1/2 marathon as well (don’t know the details but the photo was of her and hubby with medals and pretty cool bibs .. LADY BEAST and BEAST MODE). I’m super proud and excited for these outstanding athletes. And for us endurance athletes, these are pretty big deals .. so give em a big hi-five next time you see them.  Finally, I will be doing the Long Intervals on Wednesday at 9 am but I will NOt be available this weekend (going out of town). Okay .. keep up the great work everyone and here are your week 7 E-WODs .. it’s a tough stamina run ..GET AFTER IT!

Short Interval Day:

-6 rnds of: 400m run with 90 sec rest

Long Interval Day:

-4 rnds of: 1000m run with 90 sec rest

Stamina Day:

-10M (mile) Time Trial

As a reminder we will not be having our normal Team Workout at 9:00 am this Saturday, May 18th. Many of of us will be heading to CrossFit PreVail for our Team Jeremy Fundraiser and WOD.  All are welcome to come and support. Bring a Paleo friendly treat if you would like.  The free Introduction Class at 10:00 am is also cancelled.

05/13/13 – 05/19/13:

Quick post this week! I will be doing the Short Interval Day on Wednesday (5/15/13) at 4:30pm and the Stamina Day on Sunday (5/19/13) during open gym hours from 10am – 12pm.

Short Interval Day:

-6 rounds of: 400m run with 90 sec rest

Long Interval Day:

-2 rounds 200m run with 90 sec rest, then..

-2 rounds 400m run with 2 min rest, then..

-2 rounds 1000m run with 3 min rest

Stamina Day:

-7 mile run at 95% of your 10k Time Trial  pace

Just a quick update! I will be doing the Long Interval Day this Sunday from 10am -12pm since most of us were able to get our Stamina Day run complete on Tuesday since the WOD was 5k for time. Great work to everyone that killed it on Tuesday .. and I mean EVERYONE .. all the times on the board were amazing and those that doubted themselves slew those demons that day. Solid! Have a great weekend and I hope to see you on Sunday.

05/06/13 – 05/12/13:

Hey everyone! It was yet another GREAT weekend for the Stamina Run. I hope you were able to take advantage of the good weather  and really get after it.  Great job to those that have been sticking with it and working hard .. as a result from your efforts we will be “de-loading” a little bit this week. We will still have 3 E-WODs as usual but the stamina run will be significantly shorter. Remember that rest and recovery are essential for growth. I ask you to please rest this week and don’t be tempted to tack on excess miles so that you can come back faster and stronger for the remainder of the cycle. As always, if you have any concerns please contact me.

This week I will be doing the Long Interval Day on Thursday 05/09/13 at 9 am. I have to confirm with Jyllianne if the gym will be open on Sunday, if it is, I will be there during open gym hours. I will keep you posted on that. Without further adieu, here are the E-WODs:

Short Interval Day:

6 rounds of: 400m run with a 2 min rest

Long Interval Day:

3 rounds of: 800m Time Trial with 5 min rest (these efforts will be MAXIMAL for each round .. normally I want you to stay within a 5-10 sec difference between each round for pacing .. this time, though, you may have your times decreasing a fair amount between rounds)

Stamina Day:

5k run at last weeks 10k TT (Time Trial) run

One of the most common questions I get about eating Paleo is without a doubt “What do I eat? Where do you get all of these ideas for recipes?” Just as I hate to tell you guys the Tooth Fairy isn’t real or Santa doesn’t really squeeze his ass down every chimney in the world in one night, I also hate to reveal to you that I am not THAT great of a chef.  I’m not the kind of person that can make up a recipe on a whim, or just “taste” ingredients that go together well.  That’s where my friend Kate comes in lol… I’m just a really solid recipe follower.

That said, I thought I would piece together for you all my favorite nutrition resources, along with highlighting a few of my favorite recipes from each.  These are my “go-to’s” when planning out my meals for the week. Don’t be intimidated by checking out a few recipes! It’s easy to find recipes that are simple and don’t require a million ingredients.

WEBSITES

1) PALEOMG.COM – Juli Bauer, is great about putting up really simple recipes that don’t require a lot of odd ingredients that you’ll feel like you can’t find.  And her writing is hilarious and will always brighten your day.

Favorites: Rutabega Egg Nests, Coffee Marinated Steak Fajitas, and Cilantro Chicken Nuggets.

2) HEALTH-BENT.COM – Health Bent is written by a couple whose specialty is in simplicity.  Their website is really well organized. With a tagline of “Recipes that don’t taste or look like dog food,” how can you not give them a try?

Favorites: Unrolled Cabbage Casserole, Chocolate Cupcakes, and Ropa Vieja.

3) NOMNOMPALEO.COM – In my opinion, Michelle’s recipes can get a little bit complicated for the beginner Paleo chef, but all of her stuff is great. You can definitely find simpler recipes amongst her archives, which are conveniently categorized by protein source. Bonus: she has an OUTSTANDING Ipad app.

Favorites: Cauliflower Fried Rice, Garlic Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes, and Khalua Pig.

COOK BOOKS

To me, although following a recipe online is convenient, there’s nothing better than physically having a cookbook, flipping through the pages, and actually getting to choose and make a recipe.  Call me a dork. I’ve been called worse.  Here’s a few I’d recommend:

1) Make It Paleo – This cook book has over 200 recipes.   The pictures are outstanding, and they also offer a lot of advice for beginners on setting your kitchen up, stocking your pantry, etc.

2) Everyday Paleo –  Along with her website, everydaypaleo.com, she put out this awesome cookbook, and a second one with  Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook.  As a mom of three, she’s the master on fast recipes that will please both Paleo & Non Paleo family members!

3) WellFed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat - If you click on the website, you can even get a free 30 page sampler of this awesome cookbook, written by The Clothes Make the Girl’s author (which is another great website).

image from Tabata Times

Okay .. so a lot of you HATE running .. I get it .. really, I do. For some it may feel unnatural and painful. For others it is a lung burning, side stitch inducing nightmare. And yet others still .. all of thee above. Runners high? Psssst! How can anyone in their right mind be in a state of euphoria while torturing themselves by running! But how many of you haters (and you know who you are) have looked at running as a skill? I mean, like really approached it as a skill where you drill on technique with regular frequency so that you can be more efficient at that movement. For example … just about all of us know the olympic lifts and have performed a clean or snatch at some point or another while doing a WOD. And before we do these lifts we ALWAYS go through our warm up drills (or Burgener drills as we sometimes call them) to get our bodies dialed into the proper form. But we don’t do this for running .. why? We know that with proper form the olympic lifts can be performed more efficiently and, some would argue, more easily. This is also why we have our own Olympic lifting class that specializes in dialing in our technique to even the smallest millimeter just to get it right! This concept can and should be applied to running as well. Even those that currently enjoy running and are quite fast can still benefit greatly from learning and practicing the POSE technique. Going back to my Olympic lifting comparison .. we know that there are a lot of strong athletes at our box that can clean and snatch quite a bit of weight on their own accord even without the most perfect form, but we also know that these same strong athletes could perform even heavier lifts if they cleaned up their technique a bit .. same goes for running.

Okay .. so what is POSE running? In a nutshell it is a method of teaching us how to get into a more “natural” form of running. This is a similar concept to the whole barefoot running craze that is popular right now .. however ..understand though, that I’m not actually asking you to run barefoot or unshod but rather run in the same natural form as IF you were running barefoot. If done properly, this method will make running easier (to a certain extent); it will make you more efficient so that you can run longer and faster; and it will help you avoid some common overuse running injuries. Proper running form is so important that it is actually priority number 1 in CrossFit Endurance programming.

So to avoid redundancy and for the sake of saving me a little time I will link you to a GREAT article on the Tabata Times website that also has some excellent videos. It’s actually such a good intro and article that it’s much better than anything I could do myself and I would definitely call it “bookmark” worthy. But before you go to the link, I want you know that during the e-wods I have been running at the box  .. I do perform several POSE drills as part of our warm-up to get our bodies dialed into the proper technique (and will continue to do this) … just like we do for our olympic lifts. So if you would like to get better at running .. or maybe even get to a point where you enjoy running .. just hop on into any of my e-wods and go through my drills and start applying it to ALL your running WODs (either CrossFit Endurance or otherwise regular WODs). Alright, gotta run .. happy running everyone .. and here’s the link: http://www.tabatatimes.com/easy-as-pose-fall-pull-pose-running-101/

Thanks for reading,

Rodney

04/29/13 – 05/05/13:

Today was another great Sunday for the 5 mile stamina run and I hope you all were able to get that in and enjoying your time outside. This week, we continue to ramp up the volume .. and our stamina run should be a great challenge. We have a 10k time trial to do and just like our 5k time trial, this is to be done at race pace or as fast as you can finish it. We will be taking percentages off of this finishing time so think of it as a 1 rep max lift.  For those of you new to the 10k be very aware of your pacing. I do not expect your pace to be as fast as your 5k time trial. Do not go out too fast and be reduced to walking by mile 4 (I want you to be able to maintain a run even if it’s a slow jog). However, I do not want you to finish and feel you had plenty more to give. I DO expect you to go out at a pace that you can maintain throughout but by the last mile or so this same pace should be very difficult to hold. For some of you this might be the event where you find what your pacing is. My tip for you is to go out a little on the easy side and if by the half way mark you feel as though you’ve got plenty in the tank, turn up the heat. If your off a little bit either way (you went out too hard or too easy) do not be too discouraged and just get as close as you can to finding that right pace. Learning your pacing and how your body feels at the different points of an event is all a part of endurance training. Finally, make sure you are well rested, recovered and hydrated before going after this one. Okay folks, have fun this week and hit me up if you have any questions. I’m going to change up my availability this week so that some others have a chance at doing some e-wods with me. This week I will be doing the short interval day on Wednesday 05/01/13 @ 4:30pm (same time as kids class) and on Saturday 05/04/13 @ 10:00 am for the 10k TT (if you plan on doing the 10k don’t plan on the team WOD .. also come prepared with water and nutrition if you need it). Here are this weeks e-wods:

Short Interval Day:

4 rounds of: 400m run w/ 2min rest

Long Interval Day:

3 rounds of: 1000m run w/ 3min rest

Stamina Day:

10k Time Trial

 *(Continue this until you reach 55 front squats)

04/22/13 – 04/28/13:

Okay folks, were gonna start ramping up this week with a 5 mile stamina run .. I hope your excited (especially since the weather should be turning for the better). On that note, I hope you all have been able to get out there and enjoy some of the nice days we’ve had (although few in number). Today turned out to be another GREAT day for a 5k tempo run and I took full advantage of it .. how convenient.  Anyhoo, If you are following the program and are wondering when things are gonna really start to pick up .. next week we will have a 10K time trial run (@ race pace). That should be a good challenge for everyone. And in about a month or so, we’ll be tackling a 10 Miler. Speaking of 10k’s .. don’t forget to sign up for HYSO’s Run Thru the Sun Event on Sunday 06/02/13. There’s a 5k and 10k run as well as a post run WOD. Get all the details here: http://huntleyyouthsports.org/run_thru_the_sun … and for goodness sakes, use these E-WODs to get ready for it .. it’s just around the corner!

On a different note, If you are a runner and are finding this programming not challenging enough ,I ask you to please be patient. This first cycle is a “ramp up” and is designed to get our bodies accustomed to the higher intensities and different style programming. I want to remind you that these are HARD effort runs with CrossFit as your “base”. You should feel challenged in every workout .. except much differently than that slow Sunday run with the “group”. The short, hard efforts will make you a faster runner and the stamina run + CrossFit strength will make you last the long distances .. that is our equation. If you are wondering why your running so much less than in the past, just embrace your new found free time and enjoy it by doing something other than trudging along for 2-3 hours at “conversation” pace.  Quality  over quantity is our mantra. Please don’t make the mistake of adding in junk miles .. you will only increase the chances of overtraining or injury. If you absolutely need to add in more miles, please talk to me and we can work on scaling up the E-WODs in a safe manner. Okay, getting off the soap box. Here are the this weeks E-WODs .. enjoy! I will be doing the Short Interval Day on Wednesday at 9 am and I will be available on Sunday Funday for the Stamina run .. I hope to see you there!

Short Interval Day:

12 rounds of: 200m run with 90 sec rest (we’re starting to shorten the rest intervals)

Long Interval Day:

5 rounds of: 800m run with 2:30 min rest

Stamina Day:

5M run at last weeks 5k pace

04/15/2013 – 04/21/2013:

What a beautiful day it was for a run! I hope you got your 5K in today .. I got mine in this  afternoon when the weather was perfect (lucked out!) Well this week  will still be fairly easy, so we’re still at a good point to jump into the cycle. I will be doing the Long Interval WOD this Tuesday @ 9 am so please join me if you’d like. I will also be doing this weeks Stamina WOD on Sunday Funday (3pm – 5pm). Just as a reminder, I will do a run specific warm-up which will include POSE running drills (great opportunity to review your POSE technique), then we’ll do the WOD.

Short Interval Day:

10 rounds of: 200m run with 2 min rest

Long Interval Day:

4 rounds of: 800m run with 3 min rest

Stamina Day:

5K tempo run at 85% of last weeks 5K pace

Here is a way to find the percentage of last weeks 5K pace. It looks worse than it actually is .. don’t be turned off by the equation. If you need help or have questions, I will be happy to help out.

P + (P x (1 – E)) = G

P = fastest time for the distance. Convert to seconds.

E = Desired effort level in decimal form (90% = .90)

G = Goal time in seconds

Example: 85% of 5k TT Pace

So, if my fastest 5K is 25 minutes and my desired effort is 85% then my goal time should be:

1500 + (1500 x .15) = G

G = 1752 seconds= 29:12 minute 10K

04/08/2013 – 04/14/2013:

Spring is upon us! The warm weather is here (kinda) and the Open is finally over! Let’s get this endurance program going so we’re ready for it by the summer and fall racing seasons. I know I’ve stepped away from posting the E-WODs last month and I apologize for that but I figured we’d all be a little wrapped up in doing the Open anyways. Well, let’s get things rolling with a 12 week cycle that should be accessible for just about all of us at the box (all WODs are scalable as well .. hit me up if you need ideas for scaling). As always, there’s 3 E-WODs a week that supplement your normal CrossFit WODs. Those are the: short interval day, long interval day, and stamina day. This week’s E-WODs are:

Short Interval Day:

8 rounds of: 200m run with 2 min rest between rounds

Long Interval Day:

2 rounds of: 800m run with 3 min rest between rounds

Stamina Day:

5K time trial (race pace)

ALERT! I will be doing the short interval WOD on Wednesday morning at 9am. Join me if you’d like .. all are welcome. I will do an E-WOD specific warm-up, including, POSE (natural) running drills and then the WOD itself. If you are currently doing extra running workouts, here is a great link to some of the running specific warm-up exercises I will be incorporating: http://www.tabatatimes.com/getting-ready-to-run-the-warm-up/

Alright everyone, have fun and see you at the box!

Workout 13.5

MEN – includes Masters Men up to 54 years old
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 4 minutes of:
100 pound Thruster, 15 reps
15 Chest to bar Pull-ups

If 90 reps (3 rounds) are completed in under 4 minutes, time extends to 8 minutes.
If 180 reps (6 rounds) are completed in under 8 minutes, time extends to 12 minutes.
If 270 reps (9 rounds) are completed in under 12 minutes, time extends to 16 minutes.
Etc.

WOMEN – includes Masters Women up to 54 years old
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 4 minutes of:
65 pound Thruster, 15 reps
15 Chest to bar Pull-ups

If 90 reps (3 rounds) are completed in under 4 minutes, time extends to 8 minutes.
If 180 reps (6 rounds) are completed in under 8 minutes, time extends to 12 minutes.
If 270 reps (9 rounds) are completed in under 12 minutes, time extends to 16 minutes.
Etc.

MASTERS MEN – includes Masters Men 55+
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 4 minutes of:
65 pound Thruster, 15 reps
15 Chin over bar Pull-ups

If 90 reps (3 rounds) are completed in under 4 minutes, time extends to 8 minutes.
If 180 reps (6 rounds) are completed in under 8 minutes, time extends to 12 minutes.
If 270 reps (9 rounds) are completed in under 12 minutes, time extends to 16 minutes.
Etc.

MASTERS WOMEN – includes Masters Women 55+
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 4 minutes of:
45 pound Thruster, 15 reps
15 Jumping chest to bar Pull-ups

If 90 reps (3 rounds) are completed in under 4 minutes, time extends to 8 minutes.
If 180 reps (6 rounds) are completed in under 8 minutes, time extends to 12 minutes.
If 270 reps (9 rounds) are completed in under 12 minutes, time extends to 16 minutes.
Etc.

The Gut-Brain Axis

From the warm security of “comfort food” to the grouchiness and irritability of a sugar crash, most people know that what you eat affects how you feel. This isn’t just “common sense:” scientists are increasingly discovering that a healthy gut is crucial to mental well-being, going so far as to describe the roughly 100 million neurons embedded in your gut as a “second brain.” This “second brain” has local control over digestion, but that’s not its only role. Like all good partners, it communicates extensively with the brain in your cranium, through a neural pathway called the vagus nerve. Researchers are slowly uncovering the enormous impact of this communication on our emotions: one successful treatment for depression, for example, involves stimulating the vagus nerve to mimic the action of a healthy gut.

The communication between the two brains runs both ways. Stress (as felt by the upper brain) can prevent healthy digestion and set off a vicious cycle of physical health problems. But gut dysfunction (due to chronic disease, poor gut flora, or any other reason) also has negative consequences for your mental health. This makes gut healing invaluable for overall well-being: clean, nourishing food benefits your mind as well as your body. A Paleo diet can support your mental health in two essential ways: first, it avoids damaging your brain tissue (both above and below your shoulders) with harmful inflammation; second, it provides all the micronutrients and helpful bacteria that your brain needs to thrive.

Gut Inflammation

Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury. If you’ve ever gotten a splinter, you’ve seen inflammation in action: the body rushes blood to the site of the wound, carrying immune cells to prevent infection and heal the wound quickly. The large amount of fluid crowding into the small area of the wound causes it to swell up and become tender. Your splinter site is now inflamed.

An inflamed splinter wound heals fairly quickly, because the injury is a one-time event: if you irritated the site by continually poking it with splinters, the inflammation would never go down. This is what happens in your gut when you base your diet on foods that irritate the lining of your intestinal walls. Gluten, for example, causes gut inflammation in almost everyone; lectins, such as those found in non-gluten grains, pseudograins, and legumes, are also often problematic. These elements irritate the digestive tract, and can even pass through the gut walls into the bloodstream (a problem known as leaky gut syndrome). Other unhealthy factors of the modern diet (for example, an imbalance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 PUFAs) can also contribute to this. The constant gut irritation is like a constant splinter poking into your intestines, and provokes an inflammatory response in the “gut brain.”

Whatever the cause of the inflammation, it triggers the release of harmful molecules called cytokines. These cytokines are one of the reasons why gut inflammation is so harmful to your mental health. Unlike most molecules, cytokines can pass through the blood-brain barrier, the separation that keeps your brain safe from most common bacterial infections. Once in the brain, cytokines continue to cause inflammation in your neural cells: in addition to an inflamed gut, you now have an inflamed brain.

Gut and brain inflammation can unfortunately form a vicious cycle. Since the brain and the gut depend so heavily on constant communication through the vagus nerve, inflammation in the brain can disrupt important signals to the gut, causing poor digestion, which in turn increases gut inflammation, sparking the production of even more cytokines.

This inflammatory cycle contributes to a whole host of problems, especially depression. The precise mechanisms that cause this are still being studied, but the correlation is clear – in an extreme example, patients taking a proinflammatory drug (interferon) for hepatitis suffer from severe depression and higher suicide rates than patients on any other drug.

Inflammation, therefore, is a key cause of depression. However, it’s important to note that inflammation itself is not the problem; the problem is the toxic diet of modern processed foods that caused the inflammation in the first place. Anti-inflammatory drugs are increasingly used to treat depression, but eating a gut-healing, non-inflammatory diet in the first place is much more beneficial than filling your body with gut irritants and washing them down with a dose of chemicals to reduce their effects.

A Paleo diet forestalls the need for anti-inflammatories by preventing inflammation in the first place. People with severe digestive problems may see benefits from following a slightly stricter version of Paleo until their gut health improves, but a basic Paleo diet is inherently non-inflammatory because it excludes the food toxins that cause inflammation in the first place. When your gut is no longer being irritated by gluten, lectins, and other food toxins, it can recover just like your skin can heal from a one-time splinter wound.

Micronutrients and Brain Health

As well as not harming your gut, a Paleo diet also provides the micronutrients that a healthy, digestive system can absorb and use to support proper brain function. One of the most important of these is cholesterol. Cholesterol is a vitally important nutrient for humans because of the way our brains work. Humans only have a limited number of brain cells. We’re born with a finite number, and they begin to die immediately. Unlike muscle cells, we can’t make more of them. We can, however, maintain our cognitive abilities by making connections between the remaining brain cells. Cholesterol is the key to this process.

Under normal circumstances, the brain can synthesize its own cholesterol, but in some cases, it needs to get additional cholesterol from the blood. Since the only way for cholesterol to get into your bloodstream is if you eat it, this makes cholesterol a vital nutrient for maintaining brain health. As you grow older (and lose more brain cells, requiring your neurons to make more connections), cholesterol is increasingly important: one of the causes of Alzheimer’s disease may actually be a cholesterol deficiency.

Cholesterol is also extremely important for mental health because it allows you to synthesize Vitamin D from sunlight. Vitamin D supports mental performance and helps reduce harmful inflammation. Without cholesterol, you would only be able to get Vitamin D through foods – and while a few foods do contain it (especially wild-caught fatty fish), most people can’t get enough through diet alone.

Another extremely important group of micronutrients for mental health are the B vitamins. B vitamins include choline, which supports proper neurological function in a variety of ways. Choline even naturally occurs in cholesterol-rich foods like eggs and liver, giving you twice the benefit from that omelet. Thiamine, or Vitamin B1, is also crucial: your brain needs it to turn glucose into energy. Although scientists have not yet definitely determined the role of each one, two other B vitamins, folate and Vitamin B12, help prevent depression and maintain memory function especially in older adults. Vitamin B6 joins these two in lowering the levels of a neurotoxic amino acid called homocysteine.

Iron, which fills many of the same roles as the B vitamins, is also essential for mental health. Without iron, your brain can’t break down protein to make neurotransmitters, so iron deficiency can cause confusion, depression, and “brain fog.” Other crucial micronutrients for healthy brain function include selenium and magnesium.

A diet of nutrient-dense whole foods, therefore, can go a long way in supporting healthy brain function. A healthy Paleo diet will also include probiotics or probiotic foods to maintain the health of your gut flora. As well as helping you absorb the nutrients in your diet, several studies have shown that these beneficial bacteria help protect you from depression and anxiety. In mice, probiotic supplements reduced anxiety and depression, while introducing harmful bacteria caused anxious behavior. This does not necessarily indicate a straightforward cause-and-effect relationship (especially since so many factors influence gut health), but does point to gut flora as one of the many important elements in mental, as well as physical, well-being.

Food Reward and the Insulin Rollercoaster

Another way that a Paleo diet can support mental well-health is by eliminating two different high/crash cycles of stimulation that accompany the modern diet. The first is the food reward cycle of hyperpalatable processed foods. The food reward hypothesis of obesity argues that the human brain is only equipped to handle a certain finite amount of stimulation from food. Modern processed food overwhelms our pleasure receptors with stimuli too intense for them to handle, causing our regulatory pathways to become completely overwhelmed. This creates a kind of food addiction (gluten and opioid drugs like morphine are actually addictive in the same way), with the same mental highs and crashes that accompany any other addictive behavior.

Eating a diet of whole, unprocessed foods ends this cycle of highs and lows, because it doesn’t contain any artificial foods to overwhelm your neural processing centers. A diet based on fat and protein also avoids another unhealthy pattern: sugar-driven mood swings from too many refined carbohydrates. Although the Paleo diet isn’t necessarily zero-carb (safe starches can be perfectly healthy, especially for active young people), Paleo carbohydrates come from whole foods and do not make up the bulk of dietary calories. Safe starches in the context of a diet rich in protein and fats do not cause the same metabolic problems and blood sugar spikes as toxic refined grain products in a nutrient-poor, low-fat diet.

By including only whole, nutrient-dense foods and plenty of healthy fats and protein to accompany unprocessed carbohydrates, the Paleo diet avoids food-driven patterns of highs and crashes, leaving you operating on a much more even keel.

Paleo Lifestyle and Mental Health

Food is an important part of the Paleo lifestyle, but it’s not the only one – exercise is one of the most important ways that you can keep your brain in top condition. In the short term, exercise releases endorphins, special neurotransmitters that give you a boost of energy and motivation even after your workout ends. Exercise can also help reduce stress, which throws off several important hormonal balances in the brain, and leads to systemic inflammation even on a flawless Paleo diet.

In the long term, regular exercise can help prevent and treat depression: a study done on depressed adults found that even walking 20-40 minutes three times a week helped reduce symptoms. Resistance training (such as heavy weightlifting) and cardio exercise were both equally effective. Exercise also helps older adults, and people suffering from age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s, maintain mental function and keep making connections between neurons.

Exercise also supports your brain by helping you stay at a healthy body weight. Obesity puts a heavy stress on your internal organs, throwing you back into the vicious cycle of brain-gut inflammation. Maintaining a fit body can also help you feel better about yourself – who doesn’t get a confidence boost from looking in the mirror and liking what they see?

The Myth of the “Brain-Boosting Superfood”

One way that you won’t help your brain – even on a Paleo diet – is by relying on “superfoods.” Whether it’s blueberries, cinnamon, or green tea, each new issue of every popular diet magazine has another supposedly miraculous “superfood” that will raise you to new heights of mental acuity. The problem with these foods isn’t that they’re unhealthy in and of themselves. It’s that you can’t make up for an unhealthy, nutrient-poor diet by eating more of one particular “superfood.” A whole-foods, nutrient-dense diet will provide your brain with everything it needs even if you never touch a blueberry in your life; a steady stream of chemically processed junk food will leave your brain inflamed and unhealthy even if drink a gallon of green tea with every meal. There isn’t anything wrong with these foods if you enjoy them, but don’t rely on them to make up for the rest of your diet.

Conclusion

The mind and the body are not separate systems. The way you treat one will affect the other – chronic mental stress harms your body, and chronic physical stress harms your mind. This is not to say that the Paleo diet is a magic bullet for depression, Alzheimer’s, or any other illness: if you have a serious mental disorder, the Paleo diet is no substitute for a mental health professional. Instead, think of it as just one part of your efforts to maintain mental health. Consistently nourishing both your both your body and your mind with non-toxic, nutrient-dense foods will benefit your health in every respect.

P.S. Be sure to check out the Paleo Recipe Book. It’s a cookbook I’ve created to help you cook the best food for your health. It contains over 370 Paleo recipes and covers absolutely everything you’ll ever need.

Source:  http://paleodietlifestyle.com/brain-on-paleo/

Workout 13.4

MEN – includes Masters Men up to 54 years old
Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes following the rep scheme below:
135 pound Clean and jerk, 3 reps
3 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 6 reps
6 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 9 reps
9 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 12 reps
12 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 15 reps
15 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 18 reps
18 Toes-to-bar…
This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

WOMEN - includes Masters Women up to 54 years old
Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes following the rep scheme below:
95 pound Clean and jerk, 3 reps
3 Toes-to-bar
95 pound Clean and jerk, 6 reps
6 Toes-to-bar
95 pound Clean and jerk, 9 reps
9 Toes-to-bar
95 pound Clean and jerk, 12 reps
12 Toes-to-bar
95 pound Clean and jerk, 15 reps
15 Toes-to-bar
95 pound Clean and jerk, 18 reps
18 Toes-to-bar…
This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

MASTERS MEN – includes Masters Men 55+
Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes following the rep scheme below:
115 pound Clean and jerk, 3 reps
3 Toes-to-bar
115 pound Clean and jerk, 6 reps
6 Toes-to-bar
115 pound Clean and jerk, 9 reps
9 Toes-to-bar
115 pound Clean and jerk, 12 reps
12 Toes-to-bar
115 pound Clean and jerk, 15 reps
15 Toes-to-bar
115 pound Clean and jerk, 18 reps
18 Toes-to-bar…
This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

MASTERS WOMEN – includes Masters Women 55+
Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes following the rep scheme below:
65 pound Clean and jerk, 3 reps
3 Toes-to-bar
65 pound Clean and jerk, 6 reps
6 Toes-to-bar
65 pound Clean and jerk, 9 reps
9 Toes-to-bar
65 pound Clean and jerk, 12 reps
12 Toes-to-bar
65 pound Clean and jerk, 15 reps
15 Toes-to-bar
65 pound Clean and jerk, 18 reps
18 Toes-to-bar…
This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

Workout 13.3

MEN – includes Masters Men up to 54 years old
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
150 Wall balls (20 lbs to 10′ target)
90 Double-unders
30 Muscle-ups

WOMEN – includes Masters Women up to 54 years old
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
150 Wall balls (14 lbs to 9′ target)
90 Double-unders
30 Muscle-ups

MASTERS MEN - includes Masters Men 55+
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
150 Wall balls (20 lbs to 9′ target)
90 Double-unders
30 Muscle-ups

MASTERS WOMEN - includes Masters Women 55+
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
150 Wall balls (10 lbs to 9′ target)
90 Double-unders
30 Muscle-ups

*All wall ball must be unbroken or 5 burpee penalty. 

MEN – includes Masters Men up to 54 years old
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
115 pound Shoulder to overhead, 5 reps
115 pound Deadlift, 10 reps
15 Box jumps, 24″ box

WOMEN – includes Masters Women up to 54 years old
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
75 pound Shoulder to overhead, 5 reps
75 pound Deadlift, 10 reps
15 Box jumps, 20″ box

MASTERS MEN – includes Masters Men 55+
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
95 pound Shoulder to overhead, 5 reps
95 pound Deadlift, 10 reps
15 Box jumps, 20″ box

MASTERS WOMEN – includes Masters Women 55+
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
55 pound Shoulder to overhead, 5 reps
55 pound Deadlift, 10 reps
15 Box jumps, 20″ box