Food and I did not get along for a very long time. Now, I don't think I have ever had a full blown eating disorder, but I probably had what they call disordered eating. (There is a slight difference). I think if you ask most girls who went through puberty or were a college athlete, this is a very common struggle (and that pretty much covers most girls). I didn't constantly starve myself or constantly cause myself to purge, but I would for short stints, or when I felt super guilty about something that I ate. I also would have the horrible habit of exercising only to "undo" what I had just eaten. (I ate too much dinner or dessert at a girls night out? Better go for a run in the morning! Usually this was in the middle of swim season, what was I thinking?). The worst part was, I had VERY little education on diet and nutrition, and no one I asked seemed to give me very in depth or helpful answers. I was in serious need of an education.
All in all, nothing about my relationship with food was healthy. Why? I didn't really want to be skinny, skinny was never my thing, and probably never could be with my genetics and athletic drive, but I wanted to be 1) cut, defined, low body fat. That, in my mind, meant perfection. and 2) AS EFFICIENT AS POSSIBLE. Eesh, I remember gaining weight every year as I transitioned from swimming right into track (my senior year I took 1 day off between seasons) and every year, without fail, I'd gain muscle in my legs faster than I'd lose muscle in my arms, and moving to a lower volume program (since you can't run as much as you can swim with all the gravity and impact on your joints you have to deal with), I'd inevitably gain some fat too. It was my least favorite part of the year, in terms of my own body image. Even to this day, I look at pictures of myself from the year I won the NCAA title in the 400 hurdles and the first thing I notice is how much fat I'm carrying on my legs, not how happy I was that day.
Ok, enough with that. Now you know my history. Here comes CrossFit, stumbling into my life. Now, what was so different about CrossFit was two things: not only does CrossFit take a all encompassing approach to what you do INSIDE the gym, it attempts to inform you of what you should do OUTSIDE the gym. I had never seen things that way before. The second I began treating my body like a machine, it started responding like one.
So what does the CrossFit brand basically endorse? Honestly I could care less, but one of the diets it endorses ACTUALLY WORKED. That was the Zone Diet. It wasn't that it just took care of my perfectionist need to be cut and efficient, it actually made me feel good, have more energy, etc. The other diet CrossFit, at least used to endorse, was Paleo. The difference is, Zone cares about quantity, Paleo cares about quality. I tried strict Paleo for two weeks. Couldn't do it. My energy levels were in the dumps. I was tired all the time, I couldn't lift as much as I wanted. So I stopped.
So what is zone? Zone is basically a way of getting the same proportion of protein, fat, and carbs in every meal or snack that you eat. Vegetables are considered a "carb" on this diet, but so is birthday cake. Basically, you can eat what you want, as long as you're staying in the right ratio. Obviously, the closer to paleo you eat, the better, but this diet allows for some leeway, which I like. Everything is in a block system, so if you want to eat a block, that includes 9g of carbs, 7g of protein, and 1.5g of fat. Well, none of us want to measure that, so the Zone diet does that for you. So for a 1 block snack, you could eat 1 hardboiled egg, half an apple, and three almonds. For a 4 block meal, you could eat 4x that, and so on. There's a huge resource out there in the interwebs to tell you what constitutes a block of what you're trying to eat, and then you can proportion from there.
The idea here, is to keep your blood sugar levels in the "zone" all day, as opposed to the spikes and falls of an average American diet. This is easily done by eating smaller meals throughout the day. On a perfect day, I'll eat 6 times a day. This makes your body efficient enough that it gives you energy, but doesn't allow for the storage of body fat. This is why most people see an immediate fall in body fat when they go on this diet, but at the same time, seem to have a constant amount of energy.
So here's how I approach zone, and I'm going to be incredibly honest with you guys here. MY DIET IS NOT PERFECT AT ALL. I think I get lucky sometimes because I choose to spend hours in the gym working out, so my body fat stays relatively low, but I eat basically the way I want to fuel my body, in a way that sometimes just has to be convenient. So do I try to eat zone? Yes. Do I measure all my food? Nope. I estimate a lot. Heck, before the 6am classes, do you guys honestly think I cook my own food? No way. I grab two egg McMuffins from McDonalds and a coffee. Mostly b/c I heard that egg McMuffins are like the closest you can get to zone from a fast food restaurant. I've also heard the best way to diet is to eat "clean" 80% of the time, and cheat 20% of the time. Mine's probably 70/30 or less. I could eat absolutely perfect and clean 100% of the time, but that can also turn into an obsession or eating disorder, and that's not something I want.
Now why am I telling you this? Because I am FINALLY happy with my body and happy with the way I'm eating. For probably the first time in my life. And with less stress about food, I'm producing less cortisol which also in turn helps me to keep my body fat lower.
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| Me, after about a year of CrossFit, 20 more lbs of muscle and 5% lower body fat than college. Couldn't be happier. |
CrossFit has helped me come to terms that 1) athletes come in all sorts of beautiful and muscular shapes and sizes (I'm never going to look like Julie Foucher because I'm not built like her. But honestly, there is no standard!) and 2) there actually is an educated way that works to fuel your body as an athlete. I'm no longer guessing what will work. When I start to notice a little pudge around my mid section, and I feel like a slug on the pull up bar, my first thought is "yeah I probably shouldn't have eaten all the pizza last weekend, oh well, I'll clean up for a few days and it'll go away."
Moral of the story, find a way to "diet" that works for you, and gives you the energy you need, not one that leaves you hungry and tired all the time. But most importantly, find a way that makes you happy, and the least obessive as possible. For me it's Zone. The Zone Diet finally gave my mind a rest and helped me to learn to love my body and the well oiled machine that it is.
-LB
P.S. Here's the CrossFit Journal article that kick started my zone diet almost a year ago. It explains the zone diet and how it works in a much simpler way than I ever could.
http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/cfjissue21_May04.pdf
P.P.S. Measuring your food can be a little obsessive, but I seriously recommend you trying it for two weeks to get the hang of it, then you can basically estimate.
