The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Kim Pedersen
On Sunday 8th April, 2013, Australia’s top CrossFitter’s Chad Mackay, Brandon Swan, Ben Garard, Brendan Clarke and Jason Haywood were invited to CrossFit Bodhi to perform 13.5 in front of about 100 spectators.
But before the big event, Chad Mackay and Brandon Swan spoke to me about their experiences at the 2012 CrossFit Games, starting with the dreaded Day 1 at Camp Pendleton!
Check out the video above.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Michael McCoy
The team from 180 Nutrition recently sat down with Nora Gedgaudas for interview/podcast. You can check out that video above or the read the transcript of the conversation below.
Eat fat to lower cholesterol… What about dairy, is it healthy? Can I run an ultra-marathon or CrossFit on a low carb/ high fat or paleo diet?
These are just some of the questions we cover in this episode of The Health Sessions as we catch up with Nora Gedgaudas, best selling author of Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet. I’ve time coded the bullet points so you jump straight to the bits that interest you most in the video. But when you’ve got the time, it’s well worth kicking back and watching the whole video as the content is invaluable!
In this episode:
1. Why we shouldn’t be taking cholesterol lowering drugs
2. Why cholesterol is a good thing [011:42]
3. Can kids eat a paleo diet [029:50]
4. From ultra-marathon & CrossFit on a low carb/ high fat diet [035:43]
5. What Nora Gedgaudas eats in a day [1:00:53]
6. Is dairy healthy? [1:06:50]
and much more…
Transcript
Hi. This is Guy Lawrence and I’m with Stuart Cooke and I’m also joined with a lovely guest today, Nora Gedgaudas. And Nora, I have to say, I met a nutritionist last week. We caught up for a cup of tea and we were chatting and I said, “Do you know of Nora? I’m interviewing her next week.” And she just got really excited and, basically, she said, “Oh, I went to see Nora two years ago when she came to Sydney and I worked with her. She blew my mind.”
Nora: Oh, really?
Guy: Yeah.
Nora: Oh, that’s great.
Guy: And I have to agree. So, honestly, it’s an honor to have you today.
Now, what we thought we’d do; we actually put out a couple of questions on Facebook to ask our audience if they have any questions for Nora and we thought we’d run through them.
Nora: OK.
Guy: But before we start that, and I’m sure you’ve been asked this a thousand times, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself. Who’s Nora Gedgaudas, and, more importantly, who you came to writing such an awesome book, “Primal Body, Primal Mind”?
Nora: Well, it all started in a little hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, June 10th, nineteen sixty… No. I’m not going to go back that far.
My interest in nutritional science really goes back a good 30 years or more now. Actually, more than that now. So, it’s been a passion, kind of from the get-go, for me. But over the years, my interests in nutrition changed from thing to thing a little bit and I never really had an underlying really, kind of, foundational way of looking at things. I mostly looked at from the standpoint of minutiae, lots of people were promoting vegetarianism is sort of the ultimate healthy diet. Which I attempted and it didn’t do well for me at all. And I was in lot of denial about that for awhile, as I think a lot of people probably are. It just seemed; I was really determined that that should be healthy for me, but it ultimately wasn’t. I developed an eating disorder. My depression deepened. And eventually. . . And I couldn’t stop thinking about eating meat. And eventually I just sort of transitioned out of that, feeling a little bit, maybe, like I’d failed at what was supposed to be the healthiest diet and then went on with things.
And the eating disorder clearer up, and eventually, with dietary changes and ultimately some neurofeedback work, the depression lifted for me and that’s been permanent for more than 15 years.
But, at any rate, I’ve led a lot of different lives in this lifetime. I’ve worn a lot of different hats. I’ve done many different things. And one of the hats that I’ve had on for awhile was work in behavioral wildlife science. And I spent a whole summer, many people know this story now, that I spent a whole summer living less than 500 miles from North Pole with a family of wild wolves. The four-legged variety.
And during that time period, you know, I was living on a frozen tundra for an entire summer, and it was still quite cold, generally below freezing, sometimes below zero, wind chills coming up off the fjords and off the Arctic Ocean. But, you know, it was relatively green but still permafrost.
And I’m sitting there looking across this vast landscape while the wolves slept and slept and kind of contemplating that landscape, it seemed so primitive, in a way. So, “primal,” if you will. And I looked at it thinking that it really was probably not dissimilar from what a lot of northern Europe might have looked like during the throes of the last ice age when Cro-Magnon humans were migrating across North America 40,000 years ago. That there may have been a lot of clarity to some of these landscapes.
And the whole time I’m sitting there, I was just craving fat-rich foods, which I had not been eating prior to going up there. But while I was sitting there on the tundra, I was kind of obsessing about it. And it wasn’t necessarily the best selection of high-fat foods. I know we had a lot of non-perishable things like, oh, I don’t know, aged cheeses and salami and things like that.
But once a week we made a pilgrimage to a weather station where there was a mess hall there. And we’d be there at 3 in the morning when everyone else was asleep, and the OIC there said that we could, if there was something laying out that we were interested in eating, that we could have at it. Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about [XXbackground noiseXX]. I . . . You have cars in Australia. I just heard a car go by.
Guy: We do.
Nora: Anyway. . . Yeah, but you drive on the wrong side of the road. You guys gotta do something about that.
Stuart: Well, be careful when you come over.
Nora: I was on the freeway one day and sitting there in the passenger side and I look over and there’s a dog sitting in what, to me, looked like the driver’s seat. It was something akin to what an LSD trip must be like. I don’t know.
Guy: Do the dogs over there not drive? Are they not allowed to drive cars?
Nora: Well, you know, dogs and cats really only get partial privileges over here. You have to let them think they’re running the show, but. . . And they think that they are.
But, anyway, with respect to the wolves and that time there, I ate; I went through quite a bit of butter while I was at that weather station. I would make a piece of toast, which I was still eating in those days, and then I would put about that much butter on there. The toast was a vehicle for the butter, you know?
And by the end of the summer I’d lost something like close to 30 pounds. And, mind you, there was very, very little physical activity. Mostly what we did was we sat near the wolves’ den and watched them do whatever it is they were doing. We tried not to move around too much, in fact, because if we got up and started walking around near the den that was sort of upsetting to them. We had certain; there were certain, sort of, standards of conduct that they expected of us when we were in their home vicinity, and so we tried to honor that. And if we messed around with that too much, it was unsetting. So we sat, generally, quietly and watched them. And the one time we were allowed to move was when they were on the move. Then we’d follow them on their hunts and whatever else. So, anyway, and when we did so, it was on a four-wheeler. So, the ground was very hummocky. And a lot of just, kind of; it was very, very bumpy ground and difficult to traverse on foot. In other words, there wasn’t a whole lot of exercise.
I certainly wasn’t eating a low-fat diet. And the only other factor, of course, was that it was fairly cold. Although it got as high as what would be 60 degrees Fahrenheit was the warmest day that we had in the dead of summer. I actually got in a pair of shorts that day just to take a couple of pictures and then put my insulated stuff back on.
But anyway, that taught me something. I looked back at that and I thought, wow, you know. Back at home I had been doing a lot of all of these vegetables and salads and I’d been juicing, and I didn’t have a single craving for any of those things while I was up there. My cravings were all for fat-rich foods. And I thought, our ancestors would have had to have been pretty similar, because fat is really the primary fuel that we use to keep warm, which helps explain, in part, why I lost so much.
But also it turns out that if you want to lose fat, it helps to eat fat. And so I never really forgot that lesson. But it really took until I ran across the work of Weston Price to start to connect the dots a little bit more and realize that it wasn’t just the Inuit that would have eaten a high-fat diet. It would have been all primitive cultures, for the most part, that would have coveted fat as a very; as a sacred foot, literally. The most sacred foods in all cultures were the most fat-rich foods.
And it suddenly started to make sense to me. And then what the Weston Price work did was it dialed me in to the idea of looking at diet and health from more an ancestral or an evolutionary perspective. So, that led me down the paleo path, so to speak.
And then I began looking at things like the hormone leptin and recognizing that that was actually a fat sensor and something that made all of the sense in the world to me. That, of course, the most critical hormone in the body would be a fat sensor, because fat, to our ice age physiology, means survival. And everything boils down to survival. There’s nothing more important than that.
So, if we don’t eat fat, your body considers that a problem. In fact, it is a problem, not just from an energetic standpoint but from the standpoint of fat-soluble nutrients, that they require the dietary fat in order to properly absorb it and be utilized correctly. And if we’re not eating fat, your body’s gonna gosh darn well become really efficient at synthesizing it from whatever else it has available. Mainly carbohydrate.
Guy: Why do you think that message has gotten lost, you know, in today’s society? I can give you a good example. I know somebody that works in the medical industry, let’s say, and is actually on cholesterol-lowering drugs and is on a very low-fat diet and is completely paranoid about eating any fat whatsoever, you know. And that blows me away, really.
Nora: Well, there was, in the term you used, “medical industry.” Statins are a $29-billion-a-year industry. And the irony is that they have absolutely no use in human medicine whatsoever. I can’t think of a single thing that statins do for anybody, other than deprive them of one of the most essential substances in their body, which is cholesterol.
And there isn’t “bad cholesterol” and “good cholesterol.” There’s only one type of cholesterol. There are different carrier mechanisms for it, like high-density lipoproteins and low-density lipoproteins, but high-density lipoprotein is a high-density lipoprotein. It’s a carrier. And so low-density lipoproteins take cholesterol, whether processed by or synthesized by your liver, and move it out to the periphery of your body where it’s used for all kinds of things. There are lists and lists of things as long as your arm of all kinds of things that your body uses cholesterol for. In fact, it’s such an important substance, every cell in your body has a means of manufacturing its own supply if it absolutely has to. Its complex, multi-step process the body doesn’t do very efficiently, but it speaks to the underlying importance of this particular substance.
And so, once the body has used up or spent that cholesterol in some form, then high-density lipoproteins come along and sweep up that cholesterol from the periphery and bring it back to the liver in order to be recycled back into, you guessed it, low-density lipoproteins again.
LDL and HDL are just carrier mechanisms. Now, what I see cholesterol as is a; it’s an indicator. It’s an intermediate indicator that can kind of give you some general ideas of certain things that may be going on. If I see cholesterol that is particularly elevated or particularly depressed, then I worry much more about somebody whose cholesterol is too low. In our terminology, that would be anything below about 150 milligrams per deciliter. In your terminology, gosh, I should have looked that up; I need to look that up before I come out there. Although it’s interesting, because the optimal is actually somewhere between 5 millimolars to, let me see here, to. . .
There was a study done in Norway called the Hunt 2. It was a meta-analysis, actually. And if your listeners don’t know what a meta-analysis study is, it’s a study that takes a whole bunch of other studies and it screens them for corroborative data to either prove or disprove a theory. It takes a whole bunch of different cholesterol studies to try to figure out, you know, is there something to this or isn’t there? What these researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found, looking at over 52,000 subjects that were part of this study (that’s a very highly, statistically significant study), between the ages and 20 and 74. And they had adjusted for factors like age, smoking, and blood pressure. What the researchers found were that women with so-called “high” cholesterol, which would be in excess of about 270 milligrams per deciliter, which here is viewed as, “Oh my God, get on statins now!” actually had a 28-percent lower mortality risk than women with so-called low cholesterol, which they called under 200.
Guy: That’s amazing.
Stuart: Crikey.
Nora: So, for women, there was literally a zero correlation between cholesterol of any number (it didn’t matter how high it got) and any elevated risk for cardiovascular disease or stroke whatsoever. So, the risk for heart disease, cardiac arrest, and stroke also declined as cholesterol levels rose.
And you have to understand, cholesterol goes about patching up lesions. It’s your body’s version of duct tape. And it’s also an antioxidant. So, if cholesterol is there, what it tells me is that there is something going on for which cholesterol is actually needed. It doesn’t tell you what’s going on. It just says, “OK. The engine light’s on.”
And by the way, in this particular study, the lowest coronary heart disease risk was actually seen between, in your language, between 5 millimolars and 6.9 millimolars. The lowest coronary heart disease risk. And that includes stroke.
Guy: I think you used the analogy of the fireman putting out the fire, wasn’t it, with the cholesterol?
Nora: With the statin, in order to get rid of cholesterol, it is really quite akin to getting rid of the firemen who are coming to put out the fire and blaming them for the fire.
And in men, by the way, there were about 24,000 or so men that were included in the Hunt 2 study, there was a whole U-shaped curve. The lowest risk for all the causes of death was seen in the 5 to 5.9 millimolar category, compared to those with serum cholesterol under 5, those in the 5 to 5.9 category enjoyed 23 percent, 20 percent, 6 percent [audio problem]. So, in other words, and in folks over 50, where cholesterol had no relationship, by the way, to cardiovascular disease or total mortality, and also other studies as well. I have so many other studies that I’ve cited. But it showed that in older people, elevated cholesterol was actually predictive of greater longevity. It’s literally a longevity marker.
But, you know, and what the researchers concluded from that meta-analysis study of over 52,000 people was, “Our study provides an updated epidemiological indication of possible errors. . .” You think? “. . . in the cardiovascular disease risk algorithms of many clinical guidelines. If our findings are generalizable, clinical and public health recommendations regarding the ‘dangers’ of cholesterol should be revised.” Yeah, I think so. “This is especially true for women, for whom moderately elevated cholesterol by current standards may prove to be not only harmless but even beneficial.
So, to me, cholesterol is an indicator. But to the medical industry, cholesterol is a $29-billion-a-year-business.
Stuart: It will never change.
Nora: You know; in the form of statin medications. And physicians are taught by the drug companies.
Guy: For anyone that’s watching this, then, that could be on statins and is worried about their cholesterol, like, what would be the best approach to go? Because obviously doing what they’re told, they think they’re doing the right thing.
Nora: Well, I don’t actually start thinking, “OK. This person’s cholesterol’s kind of getting a little edgy, you know, and I’m not worried about the cholesterol per se. I’m never worried about the cholesterol by itself, per se, at all. And I only look at HDL and LDL as indications of what kind of a diet they’re likely eating. If their HDL, and I only know my own United States terms for this; our measurements, anything below about 55 tells me that I’ve probably got a carbivore on my hands. You know, somebody who is eating a high-carbohydrate diet. They’re eating too many carbohydrates, which tends to depress high-density lipoproteins.
But if it’s in excess of 55, then I know, OK, well, there’s kind of a window there between about 55 and 75. And if it’s in that range, it’s like, OK, I’m not too; their diet is probably reasonably OK. However, if it starts climbing much over 75, unless it’s always been high, there’s some familial genetic anomaly this way where people just have naturally really high HDL. But in a person who, you know, has been seeing the HDL climb up in a range that’s sort of new, anything over 75, 80 implies to me some sort of non-specific form of inflammation someplace in the body.
Again, cholesterol is there to do a job. And so there may be many things that will elevate it. If you have somebody with depressed thyroid function, I promise you they’re gonna have elevated cholesterol. That always elevates cholesterol. And my eyes are darting around the blood chemistry all over the page to see what might be correlating with that.
And any kind of chronic infection is going to elevate your cholesterol. Inflammation elevates cholesterol. Certain things like certain forms of dysbiosis in the gut will elevate cholesterol. Even stress can elevate cholesterol; chronic stress.
So, all of these things may potentially elevate it, but be happy that it’s elevated. Cholesterol’s doing its job. Your job, at that point, is to lift the hood up on the car, look underneath and see why your body feels the need to produce more. Don’t worry about that number in and of itself. It doesn’t really mean anything by itself. You’ve got to dig a little. What it tells you is, Oh, OK, you may want to dig a little deeper and see if there’s something else that needs addressed. The point never to beat cholesterol down with a club.
Stuart: That’s right. I like the analogy of the car and the hood. It’s so much like a little warning light. You’d probably want to check the probably without taking the bulb out.
Nora: Well, exactly. And what are statins effectively doing? They’re unscrewing the bulb, you know, and saying, “See? All better.” And you have no idea; no idea what these things have done.
By the way, the risk of problems with things like food-borne illness and other infections actually increase on statin drugs. There are a lot of potentially serious side effects of statin drugs. One of the most egregious side effects is that they invariably totally deplete your CoQ10 levels. CoQ10 is the single more important nutrient for the heart. And it’s actually also known as ubiquinone because it’s ubiquitous in the body. It’s in every single organ and tissue. You can’t have normal metabolism, normal energy production, normal mitochondrial function without healthy CoQ10 levels.
And, as CoQ10 gets depleted, guess what the first organ in the body to suffer the effects of that is? The heart. So, one of the things that’s increasing as a result of statin use is heart failure. Also, dementia. Fully 25 percent of all the cholesterol is actually found up here in the brain. And we need to have it there, because it’s absolutely essential for the normal, healthy functioning of the human brain.
And people who are on statins for long periods of time start developing memory issues, may even start exhibiting symptoms of dementia. And so I see absolutely no use at all. Now, there are some people that sit up and get kind of a little hot under the collar and say, “Well, but it’s anti-inflammatory. You know, statins are anti-inflammatory.” No, they’re not. What statins are known to do is depress CRP levels. Now, that’s supposed to be good, because, you know, C-reactive protein is an acute reactivity marker. It’s an inflammation marker in the body. You want lower CRP levels.
However, CRP is manufactured in the liver. And if you’ve been on statins a good, long while, what happens is statins do damage to the liver. And after awhile, enough damage has been done to the liver that the liver cannot produce CRP anymore. Again, somebody has unscrewed the light bulb, is what is happening.
Guy: Yeah, right.
Nora: But it’s not anti-inflammatory. It may have exactly the opposite problem. You know, CoQ10 is such an important antioxidant. You deplete that, you’re at all sorts of risk for the damage that free radicals can do. And your heart is most at-risk.
You know, the TV commentator, Tim Russert; I don’t know if you guys ever knew about him. He was a political commentator here in the states. He had perfectly normal cholesterol levels but his doctors put him on statin drugs preventatively. He dropped dead of heart failure. And as far as anybody knew, he didn’t necessarily have cardiovascular disease.
And my own father, of course, was a victim. He was not on statins. But he was always extremely proud of his low cholesterol. He dropped dead of a heart attack. More than half of people who drop dead of heart attacks have normal or below-normal cholesterol levels. So, there’s almost; there’s a very poor correlation between elevated cholesterol and cardiovascular disease risk, and yet these drugs persist because the money persists.
And the public has been sort of taken in by this now over a period of; there was the whole lipid hypothesis that came along in the ’50s and ’60s, right around the time that vegetable oils were getting in vogue in margarine. And animals being vilified. And there was a hypothesis that dietary fat caused heart disease. well, there was a researcher by the name of Ancel Keys that; I call him “researcher” tongue-in-cheek because he basically cherry-picked data from the World Health Organization because something called the Seven Countries Study, and he selected a number, seven countries, where there appeared to be some epidemiological correlation or observational correlation between high-fat diets and rates of heart disease. However, he ignored data from 20-some-odd other countries that either were inconclusive that way or showed exactly the opposite. He cherry-picked data, published it in the Journal of the American Medical Association, got himself on the cover of Time, and became the father of what is known as the Lipid Hypothesis.
And there has been a concerted effort ever since to promulgate this idea that somehow animal fats, which we’ve been eating for, it turns out now, in my book I say 2.6 million years; there’s new evidence to point to 3.39 million years, you know, we’ve been eating animal fats to no apparent detriment until about 1911. You know, if you graduated medical school in 1910, you never heart of coronary thrombosis. And in 1911, the first four cases of coronary thrombosis were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association as this strange, anomalous thing called “heart disease” that seemed to be occurring. And it appeared to be isolated cases.
And there was a physician at the time named Dr. Paul Dudley White. He had been personal physician to President Eisenhower. And he took an interest in all of this. He thought, wow, what an interesting phenomenon that’s emerging. And he selected it as his area of specialty in medicine. And his colleagues thought he was nuts. They said: Why would you waste your time in a specialty area that was so unprofitable? And by the 19. . . in no time flat that ended up becoming one of the primary causes of death. But, again, dietary fat is something that we had been eating for millennia and what had actually happened was that our intake of animal fats was going down at that time, and our intake of vegetable oils, which was a very new food to us as a species, were starting to skyrocket. And particularly these hydrogenated fats like margarines. And our carbohydrate intake, of course, the food industry was rising to power at that time and we were starting to eat a lot of processed carbohydrates and things.
Guy: I mean, if you would look at what the next generation as well has been brought up on eating, it’s kind of scary. Because I know you’ve got concerns.
Stuart: I have, yeah. Absolutely. Because we’re talking about, you know, heart disease and cholesterol and lots of people think, well, I won’t worry about that till I’m old. But what about the young generation? Because I’ve got three kids and I wanted to know whether there were any special considerations for youngsters for this primal way of eating. Because I have heard that, “Oh, kids need more carbohydrates because they’re so active.” And, of course, there’s a myriad of children’s products now on the market that are so processed and offer so little nutrients but seem to be very popular.
Nora: Absolutely. And, again, you kind of have to follow the money on this. Look, you know, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s pyramid, right? USDA Department of Agriculture‘s pyramid. Oh, you know, “11 servings of grains a day.” Grains are an entirely new food to our species within the last 10,000 years. That’s less than .4 percent of our history have we been actually consuming any significant amount of grains or legumes in our diet, and yet we’ve changed; genetically, we’ve altered within that same time period perhaps .05 percent.
And what the evidence seems to be suggesting that we’re actually over time now becoming less adapted to those foods and not more. The incidence, for instance, of full-blown celiac disease, which only constitutes about 12 percent of the totality of what can be termed an immunological reactivity to gluten; only about 12 percent of those cases are actually hard-core celiac disease. The incident of celiac disease alone has risen over 400 percent in just the last 50 years. So, we’re not become more adapted to these foods; we’re becoming less adapted these foods. A carbohydrate-based diet is a new phenomenon to the human species. But children actually; there is not a living. . .
OK; of the three major macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates), the only one for which there is no human dietary requirement established anywhere in any medical text anywhere is carbohydrates. We can manufacture all the glucose that we need from a combination of protein and fat in the diet. We store little bit of glycogen, you know, in the liver and in the muscles, and we also have the capacity for something called gluconeogenesis, which is just making glucose. We can do that very efficiently. So, we’re actually designed, and have always been designed, to derive our primary; so, there are two sources of fuel that we have available to use as human beings that we can rely on for primary energy. One is either sugar or glucose and the other is fat in the form of either ketones or free fatty acids. That’s it. So, either sugar or fat. Now, what do you suppose the more efficient source of fuel is? Sugar is like kindling in the human body. It burns anaerobically. It’s fermentative and anaerobic. And it’s most efficiently used when we’re in a fight-or-flight situation when we’re either trying to run away from something that’s trying to eat us, or we are attempting to exert ourselves in some profound sort of way.
And so carbohydrates are basically our version of kindling. And you can look at brown rice and beans and whole grains and things like that as fundamentally being like twigs on that metabolic fire. If all we’re doing is looking at carbohydrates from the standpoint of the energy that they provide us with, they’re basically kindling. Now, your white rice, your bread, your pasta, your potatoes. Those are much more (nice to see you again); those are much akin to being like paper on the metabolic fire. And things like sugary drinks, sodas, and alcohol, and, I’m sorry to say, including beer, ‘eh mate; including that old Foster’s lager, is like throwing alcohol or lighter fluid on that same fire.
And if you had to heat your house using nothing but kindling, you could certainly do it. But you would be pretty much preoccupied all day long with where the next handful of fuel was coming from to stoke that fire. If, instead, you were just sort of throwing a big log, a big fat log, on that fire, you’re free to go about your business. And every once in awhile after however many hours you peer in the wood stove and, “Oh! The fire’s burning down,” well, just throw another log on the fire. And you can kind of go on with your business. You can sleep through the night, you don’t have ups and downs in that energy. It’s just even burning and long-lasting. That’s what fat is for us, and that is the most efficient fuel for everything that we do while we’re breathing oxygen and, you know, when we’re in an aerobic state.
And so that’s most of what we do. We don’t need rocket fuel just to kind of go to work every day, unless your job is, I don’t know, a fast; Olympic sprinting. But even then, you know, you may be able to get by with whatever glycogen you have stored in order to get through that race. You don’t necessarily have to eat extra fuel or store it. Or eat extra, anyway, to do that.
Stuart: Because I know, Guy, you had a question, didn’t you, on that very topic?
Guy: Yeah. I got a question from a Dan Bennett and it’s very much related. “As an ultra-endurance athlete, I’ve been curious if it’s possible to compete in such events without carbs that are traditionally used in this sport.”
Nora: You’re better-equipped to excel in that sport, especially endurance sports, because endurance sports; you’re burning oxygen. You know? Endurance sports require long-sustained energy. And carbohydrates can’t provide long-sustained energy. We can’t store more than about 2,000 calories’ worth of carbohydrate.
Now, some elite athletes may train themselves to store a bit more than that, you know, by challenging themselves and carb-loading and whatever over time. But it takes work to increase that capacity. But that’s not a natural capacity for us. Carbohydrates were not necessarily a readily-available fuel for us for most of our evolutionary history. You know, we had meat and fat and we had the above-ground types of plant foods. We didn’t have fire for cooking or we weren’t cooking our food universally instead of many more like 50,000 years ago. So, things like; and also a lot of starchy roots and tubers. Apart from the fact that we can’t process them at all when they’re raw, they just pass through us as unusable, they need to be heated. You have to cook them very thoroughly in order for the starch in them to become available to us. And that’s a lot of effort for something that doesn’t yield a fraction of the energy that fat would.
So, for endurance athletes anyway, there is nothing more efficient than being a fat-burner. But the transition from being a sugar-burner to a fat-burner can take three to six weeks to pull off. There is a process. Your body has to kind of acclimate itself to a dependence, to a primary dependence, on a different sort of fuel.
Stuart: So is that training the part of the body that burns ketones, essentially?
Nora: Yeah. Ketones and free fatty acids; the brain uses pretty exclusively ketones. When you go into very well-adapted ketogenic state, which takes a little bit to get there, but once you’re there, your brain relies almost entirely upon ketones and will only turn to glucose if there’s some, yet again, extreme thing happening that it needs the glucose for. But, again, your brain can do nearly everything it needs to do on nothing but ketones.
Guy: What about for, like, myself and Stewie, CrossFit. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with CrossFit.
Nora: Sure. It’s big in the States.
Guy: And they promote paleo as well and it’s obviously short, explosive exercise. The workouts are generally pretty short in time. Could it be the same; just become ketone-adapted exactly the same principles?
Nora: Absolutely. Absolutely. We’re designed for short bursts of exertion, and we should have more than enough glycogen stored up and more than enough ability to generate glucose if we need to for that anaerobic activity. And we should be able to replenish that pretty readily. Now, you know, where I’m still sitting on the fence a little bit is where it comes to, say, Olympic-level elite athletes, say, sprinters, who are training for extremes of exertion. Not the endurance sports. Endurance sports, fat’s got that down. Fat always should own endurance sports.
But when it comes to the sprinters that do these extremes of exertion; and it’s not just for one event. But what these people do in order to train for these events is they work out all day long. I mean, they’re doing something very unnatural in order to perform at a certain level at these events. And if one of our ancestors got up against one of these people in an Olympic event, they’d probably give them a very healthy run for their money. But our ancestors would have looked at their training regimen like they were nuts. You know: “What are you doing?” And I’m not saying they shouldn’t do that for those events, but it’s not something that we evolved doing. Our ancestors would have thought that was a ridiculous expenditure of energy and they would have thought there are better things to do with energy, you know? Hunting and gathering and spending time with family. It was; the extremes of stress that professional athletes put themselves under, you know, might demand something a little bit unnatural. But for your average weekend warrior and your CrossFitters and your people trying to excel at everyday sports, even bodybuilding, for that matter. A ketogenically well-adapted state actually spares your branched-chain amino acids. You’re not as likely to burn them for fuel. And the rate-limited factor for protein synthesis are those branched-chain amino acids, leucine. And if, after a workout, you’ve had sufficient protein to replenish that, the XXaudio problemXX isn’t going to make you any more anabolic at that point. There’s really no need.
Stuart: Well, on that subject of carbs, I’ve got a question regarding myself. So, Guy and myself recently were tested; our DNA.
Nora: Uh-oh. What was it related to?
Stuart: Well, we were intrigued as to a kind of; we’re almost living in a one-size-fits-all world and were speaking to a good friend of ours, a naturopath, who said, well, look, we’ve got some; I’ve got a crowd that I’m really interested in looking at DNA testing for your specific body type, and they might be able to give you some pointers for the rest of your life that will help you out. So, we were tested and we had radically different results. And I’ve been advised to follow a low GI diet. And, for me, conventionally would be grains, legumes, and I’m just wondering how would I do that when thinking about the Primal Diet?
Nora: Well, leave out the grains and legumes. That’s the lowest GI diet of all.
Stuart: So, really, just, again, such as meat? Fats?
Nora: Again, there is nobody; I don’t care what your DNA tells you, there’s nobody living or breathing on this planet that has a grain or legume deficiency. There is no such thing. These are new to our species. And they contain immunologically, potentially antigenic compounds. In other words, immunologically reactive compounds and lectins and things like that that in some people trigger autoimmune disorders, but can cause people a lot of grief. There’s nobody that is walking around with a starch deficiency. There just isn’t.
And I know it’s very PC to say, “Well, everybody’s different.” Well, that’s a popular viewpoint, but guess what? We’re so much more alike than we are unalike. You know? We all have the same; our body relies on the same complement of nutrients in general in order to function. We all have a necessity, a blood pH of between 7.35 and 7.45. You know, we all have certain basic, fundamental requirements. We all produce cholesterol. We all need fat-soluble nutrients in order to function. And, again, there are some people who may tolerate some of these foods better than others; starchy foods. Or things like grains and legumes. But there is nobody in my personal view for whole they are an actual health food. And I realize that’s a controversial statement. But, again, there are foreign proteins in these things that can potentially compromise us.
And one of the things that I am seeing now, as an epidemic here in where I’m at, is autoimmune processes. There are people walking around with autoimmune antibodies that are inappropriate levels of autoimmune antibodies than not. It’s literally that epidemic. And autoimmune diseases are seen as relatively rare because people don’t get diagnosed with them very often. But what people fail to recognize is that the standards of diagnosis for autoimmune disease are abysmal. That in order to be diagnosed with celiac disease, and in some countries it’s even more stringent than this, just celiac disease being the most common of the autoimmune disorders out there, there are villi; something called villi lining your small intestine. They look like these finger-like projections. And they’re basically increased surface area in which you absorb your nutrients. And what happens over the course of celiac disease is this ends up eroding down and becoming this. So, basically, until this has totally become this, until your shag carpeting has turned into Berber, you are not diagnosable with celiac disease until that has occurred.
So, if you go and you get an intestinal biopsy and your gut looks like this, you’re fine. Have some bread. That’s the standard diagnosis. Now, with, say, if you’re producing antibodies against your own adrenal tissue, and lots of people are, if you have, say, 45 percent obstruction of your adrenal tissue, I promise you you will notice it in every part of the way you feel and function in your life. But you will not be diagnosable with Addison’s Disease until you have had a minimum of 90 percent tissue destruction to your adrenals. Then you’re diagnosable.
So, autoimmune diseases. . . And, if you have; the second most common, actually, autoimmune disease in the world right now, and although it’s debatable depending on who you talk to, which is more prevalent between that and celiac disease, is autoimmune thyroid disease. Eighty percent of all low-functioning thyroid cases are autoimmune in nature. And yet it’s almost never diagnosed. People, they go to their doctors: “Oh, look. Your TSH is high, your T4 is low.” Whatever. “We’ll put you on some Thyroxin or whatever and call it good. And that makes for prettier labs but it may not change the person’s symptoms any. And it doesn’t; it is a rare thing for a physician to actually test for thyroid antibodies, and the reason it’s so rare is that whether it’s diagnosed or undiagnosed, conventional medicine has absolutely nothing to offer you. Nothing. They’ll treat it exactly the same way they’ll treat it if you’re just a primary hypothyroid case. They’ll just put you on medication.
But I’m here to tell you that if your thyroid is producing antibodies, you have an autoimmune thyroid condition. Your primary problem isn’t thyroid. It’s immune. And it has to be addressed on that level if you have any hope whatsoever of leading a reasonable symptom-free and normal life. And yet it’s completely not; they don’t care. They’re completely unimpressed with that diagnosis.
Stuart: It’s back to taking the light bulb out again, isn’t it?
Nora: It is. Well, but, you know, it’s like, “OK, so the light’s on. So what?” You know? They don’t know what to with it anyway. There are no medications with which to treat an autoimmune thyroid. But I’m here to tell you that there’s never been more that’s been understood about the mechanisms behind what drives autoimmunity. And those mechanisms are very, very easily managed in a very comfortably natural way. There are dietary things that can help manage those mechanisms that drive autoimmunity, that can help mitigate immune polarity and inflammation and things like that. And there are supplemental things that a person can do also in order to manage their immune function.
There’s no cure of an autoimmune disease once it’s taken root. Or an autoimmune process. Most of us have autoimmune processes occurring. Whether or not they ever are diagnosable as a disease down the line depends on how far they’re allowed to advance. And what we do to either perpetuate it or to bring it under control.
And there’s only one lab in the world, too, that’s doing that type of immunologic testing and I’m sorry to say it’s here in the States. I’ve actually had a couple of people from Australia fly over here just to get that testing done; to get answers to questions that nobody else was ever able to offer them.
Stuart: Amazing.
Guy: It’s scary.
Nora: The medical industry is; somewhere around World War II, medicine ceased to become a profession and became an industry. And it’s largely driven by the interests of pharmaceutical companies. That’s who funds the medical schools and that’s where medical doctors get their training. And I do not mean to sound disparaging of hard-working and very well-meaning MDs.
And there are some MDs out there that totally get this. I have a friend who’s a medical oncologist practicing at a facility; at a medical center outside Philadelphia. And he has found, actually, that the exact diet that I promote in my book, which amounts to, fundamentally, a fat-based ketogenic diet, is the single most therapeutic diet; the most preventative and the most therapeutic diet for cancers. As well as diabetes and heart disease and kidney disease and neurological problems and pretty well you-name-it. And yet because there’s no profit in just simply making a dietary change, he runs into; he’s done peer-reviewed research but it’s like pulling teeth trying to shop around for people willing to publish that work. Because it doesn’t toe the party line.
Stuart: Yeah, I can believe that.
Guy: I’ve got a Facebook question that kind of ties into what we’ve been talking about, because we’re talking about the stresses on the body of food. And so this question is from Darren Manser. And he says: “Modern-day stress is different compared to Paleolithic stress due to the fact that the stress these days is likely to end your life yet more continuous. Is there anything we need to be aware of to help accommodate continual stress of modern-day life?”
Nora: That’s a very, very great question, actually. Because our stress levels are so much worse than anything our ancestors even knew. I mean, yeah, they had droughts and floods and they had to endure the extremes of an ice age here and there or volcanic eruption. Give me that any day over what we have to put up with with our water, food supply, our depleted soils. EMF pollution. Radiation from Fukushima up here in Northern Hemisphere. That’s a huge problem up here right now. You guys are quite fortunate to be where you are. I mean, eventually you’ll be dealing with it too but you guys have a bit of a reprieve. And things. . . Give me the throes of the ice age any day to dealing with Monsanto. You know?
And what we’re dealing with are largely corporate interests running everything. And so people today have much more to worry about and we’re dying. . . Actually, today, the children are expected to live not as long as their parents did. And 30 years old is the new 45. Because people are developing diseases of aging at least 15 years earlier now. These are realities.
Guy: It seems no one dies of natural causes anymore.
Nora: Well, yeah. What’s natural causes? But yeah. So, the three top causes are death are: cardiovascular disease, cancer, and the number three cause of morbidity and mortality in the entire industrialized world is autoimmunity right now, whether people are aware of it or not. Collectively, as a whole, autoimmune diseases are the number three cause of death. And, again, morbidity, you know, problems.
And what’s also interesting, though, is the number one cause of death in a person with celiac disease is actually a cardiovascular event. The number two cause of death in a person with celiac disease is malignancy. So, there are tie-ins to the number one and two causes of mortality as well. And there’s new evidence, actually, I just stumbled across the other day to suggest that the onset of atherosclerosis is actually an autoimmune process. That was news to me. That was a little bit of a shocker. And people who have autoimmune antibodies, they’re like cockroaches. If you have one, you’re bound to have more. So, polyautoimmunity is rapidly becoming a norm.
And autoimmunity, of course, is a state in which your body is basically attacking itself. It’s destroying its own tissues in a highly inflammatory way. And, again, there’s a lot you can do. But conventional medicine, at this point, is not really equipped to do very much to help with that. They mostly put people on prednisone, which is a horrible substance, or they’re doing some interesting things now with low-dose Naltrexone.
So, anyway, to get back to your friend’s, or your Facebook question, I think his name was Dan, yes, stress is the biggest thing that we’ve got. And, you know, we’re designed to be in a calm, parasympathetic, relaxed state 99.99 percent of the time. And the other .1 percent of the time, the saber-toothed tiger jumps out from behind the bush and chases us around a little bit, hopefully we survive the ordeal, and then we get to pick up our umbrella drink again and sit back down and relax.
And what we have today is exactly the opposite of this: 99.99 percent of the time we’re being chased around by saber-toothed tigers 24-7, and the .1 percent of the time, if we’re lucky, we get a trip to Tahiti. And I don’t know who these fabled people are; I wouldn’t get that. And, you know, all people really accomplish with that is really stressing out the Tahitians. You know?
Guy: That’s right.
Stuart: And their livers with all of the alcohol that they drink while they’re on holiday.
Nora: Exactly. Exactly. We lead extraordinarily unnatural lives. And that’s one reason why I wrote the book I did. You notice that the subtitle of my book is “Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life” because we don’t live in the same world our ancestors did. There are things that; whatever it was, whatever we had available to us as food over the bulk of our evolutionary history, you know, for nearly three-point-whatever million years, certainly would have established our nutritional requirements, would have established our physiological makeup. And we have to look at that. To me, it’s an essential starting place.
There are principles to be had. I mean, there is no such thing; more is less is no such thing as a true Paleolithic diet anymore. I mean, how many wooly mammoth steaks do you find in restaurants and things? It’s the kind of thing where what we’re left with are some of the principles that our ancestors lived by. And those principles are basically that we had a diet that was largely based in animal-sourced foods that was supplemented with various types of plant material as seasonally or climatically available. And as we were able to, as we had the technology in order to process. Again, cooking would have made a lot of plant foods a lot more edible to us than a lot of wild plant foods; a lot of wild plant foods have toxic compounds in them that would have been detrimental to us in any significant quantity. And the amount of calories you would burn just simply by selectively picking and processing these plant foods would have far exceeded their caloric value and nutrient value to us.
So, I think that plant foods are probably more important to us now, in fact than they were in our evolutionary past. Because of their phytonutrient content, because of the anti-oxidant content, because we’re facing so many more pollutants in our air, water, and food supply now. And we’re facing genetically modified organisms and so many other things that we need bigger buffers. And we still need those same principles. And we still require animal-sourced foods to get certain nutrients. There are some things that can only be gotten in animal-sourced foods effectively, and some things that are best gotten in animal-sourced foods.
Plant foods, I think, are more important to us now than they ever used to be. And so, again, sugar and starch were never essential to us and they’re not essential to us now. It’s just; sugars, of course, are a known vector for free radical activity, for the production of advanced glycation end products or AGEs, appropriately enough, because that’s what ages us. Glycation is a process by which fats and proteins combine with sugars to become sort of misshapen and start to malfunction. And it’s a critical; and then you end up with proteins cross-linking and degrading in the presence of these things and it’s a key part of how we age.
But also insulin is a very, very key aging hormone as well. And the less insulin we produce, as it turns out, because part of what I base my book on, too, is really new information from modern longevity; human longevity research. And all the evidence points to the fact that the less insulin that you produce in the course of your life, the less insulin you require, I should say, in the course of your life, the longer you’re gonna live and the healthier you’re gonna be, by far.
And, of course, the primary macronutrient that seems to have an elevating effect on insulin are sugars and starches. So, what I advocate for is eating relatively sugar and starch free. You know: eat a few berries when they’re in season or something like that. But I wouldn’t be making a point of incorporating sugars and starches in my daily diet. What I would be doing is moderating my protein intake and then eating as much fat as I need to in order to satisfy my appetite while also adding the fibrous vegetables and XXfruits?XX for both.
Guy: What would a typical day of Nora’s life look like in food-wise?
Nora: Well, a lot of mornings I will either cook, scramble, say, a duck egg in a little duck fat. Duck fat’s my new butter. Oh my God, it’s delicious. Or, one of my favorite breakfasts, just because it’s so quick and easy, involves taking a small; actually, probably just half of a small bowl of skinless chicken thigh and broiling that for, like, six minutes. I know it doesn’t sound that great, but it’s actually a very quick way to cool it. It’s actually a very safe way to cook it. It tends to preserve; the fats don’t oxidize as readily. And then I’ll slather it to swimming in coconut oil and then put a bunch of curry and garlic salt and that sort of thing on it and just sort of enjoy that. The fat, of course, that I add to it is extremely satiating. Sometimes I’ll use a chimichurri sauce or something like that as well, which is marvelously satiating and delicious as well.
And if I haven’t eaten anything by; I’ll eat that at maybe 7 in the morning. If I haven’t eaten anything by 1 or 2 in the afternoon, by that point I’m starting to think, yeah, I’m kind of hungry, it would be nice to eat something. But the difference is between that dependence on carbohydrate and eating that starchy breakfast and all of the mid-morning snacks and whatever, your average person dependent on carbohydrates for their primary fuel were to go, you know, six or more hours without their next meal, they would have snakes growing out of their hair, probably. You know? There would be mental fog, there would be fatigue, there would be cravings. There would be an attitude of: “If I don’t eat something soon, somebody’s gonna die.”
And I don’t experience those things. There’s only one way that we’re supposed to feel before we eat and that’s hungry. And there’s only one way that we’re supposed to feel after we eat, and that’s not hungry. If, prior to eating, if you’ve gone a few hours without eating something and you’re feeling tired or jittery or irritable or something that rhymes with “itchy,” and, if, after eating, you feel more energized, or, if, after eating, you feel more drowsy. If any of that sounds like you in any way, shape, or form, you basically have a blood sugar problem. None of those things are normal. None of those things are supposed to happen. If you haven’t eaten in awhile, you’re supposed to feel hungry. That’s normal. And then, once you eat, you’re not hungry anymore. But you’re not supposed to be more energized or more fatigued after a meal. That’s the difference.
Guy: That’s pretty much nearly everyone I know, to a degree.
Nora: Well, it is.
Guy: Yeah.
Nora: And think about. . . So, remember that analogy with the woodstove. How, if you’re having to heat your house with nothing but kindling, you’re spending your day constantly preoccupied with where that next handful of fuel is coming from to run your metabolic fire.
Who do you suppose profits when the world is eating in that sort of fashion? You know, listen, there isn’t a single multinational corporation on Earth that I can think of that doesn’t stand to profit handsomely that isn’t heavily invested in every man, woman, and child on the planet being dependent on carbohydrates as their primary source of fuel. It’s cheap, it’s profitable, and it keeps us hungry and it also keeps us sick.
And it keeps us quite vulnerable. Now, most people aren’t more than two missed meals away from a state of total mental and physical chaos, honestly, and metabolic chaos. And that makes us sort of malleable. And it’s a very; there is nothing more destabilizing to the body and brain than sugar and starch, honestly. Because you end up with this sort of wave of rushes of glucose that are then being suppressed by insulin, and then cravings again and another meal of raising the blood sugar back up and another crash. And so many people, their energy patterns and their mental energy patterns and their cognitive functioning patterns and their moods and everything else look like this all day long. That’s the way that they’re eating.
And, again, if you’re relying on fat as your primary source of fuel, you’re free. You know? You eat as you choose to eat when it’s convenient for you to eat. You’re able to make healthier choices because you’re not sitting there craving something going half out of your mind with cravings and just trying really hard to exercise discipline and trying not to eat that dessert that you know is gonna pack the pounds on. It’s just sort of a natural thing, you know.
When I see dessert. . . I used to love desserts. I used to love bread and pasta and things like that. Now, when I see them, I look at them the way most people are looked at by their cat. I look right through it. I just don’t see that it’s there. They come by with a dessert cart after a meal in a restaurant and I look at that. It’s not like, “Oh, I shouldn’t.” It’s, “Eh.”
Guy: Fair enough. We have time for one more Facebook question, and it will tie into, you mentioned the fat. Neil Nabbefeld asks, “Is dairy truly bad for humans?” I think because of the argument within Paleo: should we eat dairy, shouldn’t we eat dairy. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Nora: Right. Well, again, I say “beyond the Paleo diet,” so. . . I don’t consider myself, you know, religiously paleo. Although I believe that those fundamental principles have a lot to teach us and that they have to be a starting place.
It’s very clear that there were human people groups traditionally, not Paleolithically, but traditionally, seemed to do quite well in Weston Price’s time on things like raw milk and also fermented products made from raw milk. Certainly the Masai drank a lot of whole-fat, raw milk and that sort of a thing and it certainly hasn’t done them any harm, at least traditionally.
That said, what most people call milk and dairy today is not something that you could even get a baby cow to drink. Right? It’s heavily processed, it’s been adulterated, it’s been homogenized, it’s been pasteurized. All of the enzyme value of it is completely gone; it’s been obliterated through the pasteurization process. The animals are being stuffed full of recombinant bovine growth hormones and things like that, which. . . One of the other hats that I wore once upon a time, I was involved in doing some veterinary work and I remember going around to some of these large dairies and other livestock facilities and seeing cows, and we’re not even talking big factory operations. Relatively moderate operations. And every single cow in these milking lines all had mastitis. All of them. And they were all on antibiotics. And you would go to milk them by hand and you would see literally pus coming out, which is obviously incredibly gross. But nobody cared about that because all of it was basically going into these huge steel vats where it was all getting boiled and sterilized. So, I guess if you don’t mind drinking sterilized pus, that’s fine, but it’s not my beverage of choice.
So, conventionally generated dairy, to me, is not food. And I have no use for that. For some people, I think raw milk, and there are certain types of components of raw milk, like early; like colostrum and whey that in some people can be highly therapeutic. Now, that said, roughly half of everybody that has a gluten intolerance also has a casein intolerance. I happen to be one of them. I can’t do dairy at all. My immune system is highly reactive to dairy products, and that includes heavy cream and butter, I am sorry to say. And I know in previous editions of my book I extolled the virtues of butter and heavy cream, and for some people I think those foods are probably fine.
But I didn’t know that I had an immunological reactivity to dairy until I tested with appropriately sensitive testing. And the moment I eliminated those foods from my diet, it’s like 20 pounds fell off of me I didn’t even know I had. There were just so much inflammation all the time that I didn’t even realize that I was struggling with something until it go removed as an issue. So, for some people, I think dairy can be fine. For some, it can even be therapeutic, from healthy, entirely pasture-fed raw dairy sources. From, again, trusted raw dairy sources; dairies that are really doing it the right way, that are sanitary and whatever else. I think that there’s a place for that, not on my dinner plate, but for some people I think that there can be a place for that.
So, it is an unnatural food for adult people, though. Animals, I mean, and you can always make that argument that we’re the only species that drinks milk past infancy and we’re drinking the milk of not human milk but cow’s milk.
Guy: Interestingly enough as well, I’m not sure what the laws are in the U.S., but here, if you want to buy real milk you have to buy bath milk because it’s illegal to sell.
Nora: What’s it called?
Guy: It’s called “Cleopatra’s Bath Milk.”
Nora: Ah, I see. You know, there are some raw dairies around the country that will call it “pet milk.”
Guy: Yeah, you always feel like a drug smuggler when you have to go and buy it.
Nora: There are also these what are called “cow share” programs. I don’t know if you have that there, where people actually go to a farmer who has a cow, be it a nice Jersey, a XXunintelligibleXX cow that is eating a nice, grass-fed diet, and they’ll buy an interest in the animal so that they’re basically considered an owner. And there are no laws against drinking the milk of your own animal. So, they kind of get around the law with that. I don’t know if Australia has these cow-share programs or not.
Stuart: I think they exist, actually. Yeah, I do think they exist.
Nora: I would say that, where dairy is concerned, if you’re drinking raw milk and you’re still symptomatic, you might want to lose the dairy. And I would actually say fly over to the States and get some Cyrex testing and figure out whether you have that kind of sensitivity or not; whether you have intolerances. But the only other way to really figure it out is by completely eliminating that food from your diet for a period of time and seeing what happens.
Guy: One last question, Nora. Do you have any books in the pipeline?
Nora: You know, that’s a great question. I’ve got a couple of e-books in the pipeline. And, of course, I’m working so hard and creating all these talks I’m getting this year it gives me precious little time outside of my very full-time practice. I see clients for eight hours hours a day during the week and it doesn’t leave a lot left over to work on new projects. I have two e-books in the pipeline. I have the outline for and some of the preliminary stages of a new book I’m working on, but it’s going to be some time unless. . . There are some projects I’m working on that might change things a little bit for me that may allow me to put much more of a full-time effort into putting out new material, which I’m really passionate about wanting to do. There’s so much more new, wonderful information and I am so very, very excited to impart it. And, again, right now I’m working seven days a week, and there’s very little time in that seven-day-a-week work to actually create new things, but I’m doing it as I can.
So, the one book is actually, that I’m hoping to get out before the others, is actually a bit of a workbook; kind of a quick-start guide to primal health, to kind of help people implement healthy dietary changes and help them understand what they need to do, kind of hand-hold them a little bit, what to expect. Give them a few more details; a little more hand-holding through that process so that they’ve got something that they can work with to help them through it.
Guy: Yeah, absolutely. I think that Gary Taubes did something similar, didn’t he? Because he released “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” which was just this monster of a book. And then he brought out a later edition which was a bit more, sort of, daily practical things that you could apply.
Nora: Right. Right. Which is, you know, it’s needed and it’s something I’m working on. Lots of things, actually, coming down the pike. There are lots of projects in the pipeline. But nothing I can give you as a, “Well, as of this date it’s gonna be released.”
Guy: As long as we know there’s something coming in the future, that’s the main thing.
So, you’re coming to Sydney to speak and it’s gonna be mid-May in Sydney. Is that the only talk you’re doing or. . .
Nora: I’m also going to be doing a talk, oh, boy, what is the date? In Dubbo.
Guy: Ah, I did see that, actually. I can put the dates up on this blog post.
Nora: Those dates are available, I believe, on my website and the Dubbo event should be a lot of fun. I’ve got some friends there and I think they are already actually selling tickets for that as well.
Guy: Fantastic.
Nora: Yeah. I’m excited. The MINDD foundation conference seems to be a marvelous event and I’ll be really happy to impart a lot of information, some of which will be familiar to people if they’ve seen me talk before, but some of it’s going to be quite new, and I think probably pretty interesting.
Guy: Well, we’re certainly looking forward to it and I’m sure there will be a lot of other people.
Well, look, Nora, thanks for today. It’s absolutely been mind-blowing again. Amazing. I look forward to meeting you again in person, in Sydney.
Nora: Absolutely. I look forward to meeting you, Stuart, and seeing you again, Guy, will be terrific. You’re really wonderful to have me on your program and it’s been really enjoyable.
Guy: Awesome.
Stuart: Safe journey and we will see you next month.
Nora: Sounds awesome.
Guy: Awesome.
Stuart: Thank you, Nora. Thank you.
Guy: Goodbye.
Nora: Goodbye.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Contributor
Travis Mayer at the 2013 South East Regional
Fresh from his second place finish at the 2013 South East Regional and qualification for the 2013 CrossFit Games, we caught up with Travis Mayer from CrossFit Silos to get an insight into his thoughts on his performance over the Regional weekend, how he trained to prepare for it, and his expectations for the upcoming CrossFit Games.
Travis, how was your week leading up to the Regionals?
Leading up to Regionals, the volume of my training was less than usual and I mainly focused on the movements that would be in the workouts. I had two rest days going in, Tuesday and Thursday, and was ready to go on Friday!
So this was your second time at Regionals, first as an individual athlete. What were your expectations?
My plan going into Regionals was to be as consistent as possible and shoot for a top 10 finish in every Event. If I could manage to do that I knew I could make it to the Games. CrossFit is a crazy sport and anything can happen; I knew if I could do well in all the workouts instead of doing awesome in just one or two, I could place in the top three.
Which of the seven events did you enjoy the most?
“Jackie” was the most enjoyable workout. I really like all those movements, so having that as the first workout was an exciting way to start the weekend.
How about the most challenging?
Burpee muscle-ups. I really enjoy muscle ups but the burpee part… not so much. That workout definitely gave me the most trouble.
What particular aspect of your performance were you most satisfied with over the three days of competition?
My mental game has come a very long way since I first started competing. I wanted to make sure I went into every workout as if it were my last and give it everything I had. If I had a bad judge or was no repped, I wanted to get that out of my head and keep looking forward. Don’t stress about the negative and focus on all the positive.
How did you find the programming for the Regional competitions?
I personally thought it was great. They threw in a common girl named WOD to start the weekend off with a bang, then were able to level the playing field with some heavy lifts combined with gymnastics skills, and then tested our mental toughness with the 100’s. CrossFit always seems to come up with some crazy workouts so I’m really looking forward to what’s in store at the Games.
It would be an amazing feeling to qualify after all that hard work. What was your first thought after qualifying for the Games?
Is this a dream? I wasn’t sure until I went back in the athlete village and my coach, Max El-Hag, said, “You did it!” I didn’t even know what to do; I was speechless, excited, and full of so much emotion.
What’s it like competing at a Regional competition compared to your regular training sessions?
The difference for me was the thousands of people watching, and going head to head with some great athletes. Other than that, it wasn’t too much different. Max kept saying, “It’s just another training session, do what you do!”
With the CrossFit Games scheduled for late July, what are your plans between now and then? Will you change your training or diet?
My plan is to have a week off to rest up before I start training for the Games. I’ll mix in longer workouts and focus more on my weaknesses. For the most part, I’ll keep doing what I have been. I just need to make sure I am ready for whatever they throw at us when we get to Carson.
As for the diet, nothing will probably change. I will eat clean, with the exception of my nightly dessert. That’s what works for me and man do I love me some sweets!
What will your expectations be at the CrossFit Games?
My expectations going into the Games are to have a blast and do the same thing I did at Regionals, be as consistent as possible. I’m just looking so forward to the experience and competition; it’s going to be so much fun.
Anyone you’d like to thank?
I would like to give big thanks to my Coach Max El-Hag, Wodlife, Blonyx, and Jump N Rope. My girlfriend, family, friends and Jesus Christ for giving me this opportunity!
Written by Andy Lee: Andy is an avid CrossFitter from Melbourne, Australia and trains out of CrossFit South Yarra. He is a contributing writer for the CrossFit Games website and a regular writer for the Blonyx website.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Guy Lawrence
This post was originally posted on 180 Nutrition on June 13, 2013.
Christine shares her journey with us, from being overweight with ill-health. Then turning to low fat vegetarianism and then vegan diet with continued poor health. And from there completely changing her diet by eliminating sugar and extra carbohydrates, and re-introduced natural healthy fats, including butter and coconut oil. She is now a picture of health!
If you have any questions for Christine, you can follow her on Facebook here.
Download or subscribe to us on iTunes here.
In this weeks episode:
Why being a vegetarian didn’t work for her [03:12}
How much fat can we actually eat? [10:12]
Can you feed your children a high fat diet? [13:36]
How 5 x olympian champion Clint Robinson turned to a high fat diet & is in the best shape of his life [15:50]
Why a high fat diet will not only improve your health but your waistline [22:28]
and much more…
Transcript
Stuart Cooke: Christine, I was scanning your book again last night and just…stunned.
Christine Cronau: Really?
Stuart Cooke: Stunned. I only wish that I could…I almost feel like I’m alienating my friends when I talk about this stuff, because it makes so much logical sense and, you know, we live and breathe it, and, you know, we look great for our ages, got boundless energy, and, you know, doing great things, and I can see all of my friends and family are kind of riddled with issues and just look tired, burnt out, and, you know, eating the way that they’re supposed to be eating, you know, according to the government, and they just look at me like I’m a lunatic when I suggest other things.
Christine Cronau: No, that’s extremely common.
Stuart Cooke: (Laughs.) So we’re probably going to be touching on questions…
Guy Lawrence: Well, guys, this is actually recording, so we might as well keep rolling with it, because that was almost the perfect introduction, so for anyone that doesn’t know who we are, I’m Guy Lawrence. This is Stuart Cooke, and we’re joined with the lovely Christine Cronau. Thanks for joining us, Christine.
Christine Cronau: You’re very welcome.
Guy Lawrence: So, we’ll keep going. Can you go back to the start for us then and how you came to the conclusions with your book promoting a high-fat diet, because I think it’s knowledge that everyone should be , absolutely, aware of, and tell us a little bit about your journey, how you came to that conclusion.
Christine Cronau: Well, basically, my story is actually very common know. I was a low-fat, vegetarian, healthy diet and, unfortunately, instead of making my health better, it made my health worse, and I ended up with chronic fatigue and a list of ailments as long as my arm, and, basically, after doing some research and going to a very knowledgeable nutritionist, I found out that it was actually my healthy diet that was making me sick.
Now that was quite frustrating, so I actually spent the next ten years researching the entire thing, and what I found was the majority of the health messages we receive are incorrect. So that’s why I actually wrote The Fat Revolution and my other books, because I actually now feel obligated to share what I know.
Guy Lawrence: When you talk about your, in quotes, “healthy diet” at the time, what was it? What were you eating?
Christine Cronau: Well, basically, I was having a high-fiber cereal in the mornings with soy milk, probably a banana as well. I was having a lot of bran, rice, lentils, all the things that they tell us are low-fat. Lots of whole grains. I reduced my butter intake. I reduced my saturated fats, and, basically, replaced them with things like avocado or peanut butter or something like that.
Guy Lawrence: Okay and how long were you eating like that for? Was that, like, over a period of years?
Christine Cronau: Yes. It was about five years, and I did spend a period of that time vegan, as well, so probably about a year-and-a-half I was vegan, so I didn’t have any dairy products at all. Also, I ate loads of vegetables, so all the things that they typically tell us are healthy for us, I was eating a lot of that.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, right, and, I guess, we asked XXNoraXX [0:03:26.2] this question a few weeks back when she was on the podcast, basically, why is the low-fat diet so pushed as…and it seems like conventional wisdom is everyone should be eating a low-fat diet for their health, I mean…
Stuart Cooke: That’s right. Even the World Health Organization, you know, the big guns out there are saying, “You must eat like this to live a long fruitful life,” and it just seems, now, that it isn’t the case at all. Why do you think this is happening?
Christine Cronau: Well, unfortunately, basically, the advice that we’re given to avoid heart disease, to avoid diabetes, all those bits of advice we receive from conventional health authorities will actually give us those very diseases that they’re telling us those diets will help us with, and, unfortunately, it’s because it’s a huge money scam. It’s a billion-dollar industry. All this low-fat dogma makes a lot of people a lot of money.
So you have everything from the food industry right through to the drug companies, so cholesterol-lowering medication is one of the, it’s THE biggest selling prescription medication in the world.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, right.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah.
Guy Lawrence: Follow the money.
Christine Cronau: That’s exactly what it is and so that’s why even though repeatedly over the years they’ve repeatedly tried to prove the diet hypothesis, but every time it’s come up the opposite, but they’ve never, besides that, they’ve never actually shown people that it’s not true because it does make a lot of money.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. I mean, when I look back on my health journey as well, you know, I remember thinking back, especially in my teens and early 20s, I would eat a low-fat diet and when I first started to hear that you should be eating, you know, a high-fat diet, that’s going against conventional wisdom, it really…my belief systems didn’t want to agree with it or think about it at all, but I guess the one thing that I’ve learned is to try these things for yourself and see how your body feels and then apply it, and that’s why we’ve come to the conclusion today and the beliefs that we have and what we do, you know, but I think it can be very difficult starting off to get your head around it at all, and the more we delve into it, the more we seem to be going, “What is everyone doing?”
Christine Cronau: Yeah, absolutely. It is hard to get your head around it. It was hard for me to get my head around it, because I’d been indoctrinated all that time with the low-fat theory, so it seemed wrong. The first time I heard about it, I thought, “That’s got to be wrong. It couldn’t possibly be the case,” but I kept going back. I kept researching, and what I found was it wasn’t wrong, and, in fact, this low-fat theory is doing us a world of harm.
Guy Lawrence: Why do you think there are dieticians out there that are still promoting, you know, calories in, calories out, low-fat diet…?
Christine Cronau: Simply because that’s what they’re taught, and, fortunately, there are a few out there who are doing their own research and their own investigations and so they’re finding this out themselves, and there are many doctors, nutritionists, naturopaths, all kinds of people who are investigating this and they are educating people in the right way, but, unfortunately, the education of the dieticians and all the other health professionals receive about nutrition is incorrect, so they’re just telling people what they think is right.
Guy Lawrence: I get that. I completely get that. I keep coming back to, you know, the thoughts of what my grandparents ate. You know, that time. Things just seemed to be more simple then. It was, you know, meat and veg, they used to be dripping on toast and cream and cheese and just simple foods, and they’re living long and fruitful lives and now we just seem to be…things seem to be very different. We’re getting sick. We’re not living that long, but yet we have all the tools to tell us that this is what we should be doing. It just doesn’t seem to be working.
Christine Cronau: I think that’s why people are so open now. If we had started this movement ten years ago, we probably would have been lynched or something like that, but now people are open to it, because they can see. They’re tired of making the same mistakes over and over again. It’s not working.
They’re tired of following the conventional diet and it doesn’t work, so now they’re open to the fact, “Hang on. There must be something wrong with what we’re doing.”
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. , absolutely. , absolutely. I just want to make a note. Stewie, you’re frozen on the screen, but it’s not a bad-looking capture.
Stuart Cooke: Oh. Well as long as it’s caught me on a good side, I’m quite happy…
Guy Lawrence: You’re not smiling, but you’re not frowning. Oh, there’s a little frown there. Anyway, leading on from that, from your experience, Christine, how much fat can we eat?
Christine Cronau: Well, this is one that surprises a lot of people, because once they hear the idea that fat might be okay for them, then they think, “Well, surely, there must be some kind of limit.” Well, actually, surprisingly, there’s not, and that’s because fat is the only food that uses our fullness hormone, CCK, and so when we don’t eat fat that’s when we over eat, because we never get full. We never feel satisfied.
So, that’s why you can sit down and eat a whole box of Tim-Tans or some other sort of carbohydrate-based food and, you know, keep eating, but, when you eat fats, it’s a completely different story, and, in fact,, you can try a little experiment yourself at home by having a nice pork chop with that thick rim of fat on the top, don’t cut any of it off, all the cracklings, and, if you had plans for dessert, you’ll quickly change your mind, because you’ll feel really full, and that’s what fat does.
Guy Lawrence: It satisfies your hunger.
Stuart Cooke: You’re talking about the meat, as well, Christine. Quality of meat. Is that something we should be mindful of? Are we looking at, kind of, organic meats and, you know, kind of, fresh and local cuts? Would that be something that would affect the quality of the fat at all?
Christine Cronau: It does, and, in fact,, it’s really important to have grass-fed meat or organic meat is all grass-fed, so the best meat you can get is organic. The next best is free-range, and, of course, we store our toxins in our fat, so it is important to get a good source, and the other thing that happens is, if we’re not eating grass-fed, so we’re eating grain-fed meats, then we get far more omega-6s than we should.
So that omega-6, omega-3, you know, most people have heard about that balance, that the balance is out these days. We need to get more omega-3s, so that is something that affects that balance and, also, other nutrients, like vitamin K2 is only in grass or pasture-fed animals, including eggs, dairy, meat.
Stuart Cooke: Right. Okay. Yeah. Interesting, yeah, something to be aware of, because I know it’s a hot topic, as well. Thinking about fat, is there anybody that you wouldn’t recommend following a high-fat diet, and I say that because we have a member of our family has had his gall bladder removed, and he’s very, very wary about eating fat because he says, “Well, I need my gall bladder to help me process the fat and without it I’ll get sick,” so I just thought we’d push that one your way.
Christine Cronau: That’s a common concern, but we still need those fats, and, in fact,, we can still that fat without the gall bladder. What we need to do is eat three meals at exactly the same time every single day, because it will actually produce the bile you need to digest those fats, and as long as it knows what’s coming, so that’s why the regularity, it’s really important for people that have no gall bladder, then you can , absolutely, produce the bile.
Guy Lawrence: Wow, that’s a really good tip.
Stuart Cooke: That’s a fantastic tip. That’s going to go down well, especially with this particular member of my family.
Guy Lawrence: Talking about children, again another hot topic, children are notoriously fussy. Some don’t like eggs and butter. Some have dairy intolerances, as well. What are your thoughts around that? Any guidance, I guess, for all those out there with kids and wanting to push them into the right way of eating.
Christine Cronau: Well, the interesting thing is that the modern diet has actually made our kids fussy. It’s actually a symptom of malnutrition. If their fussy eaters, it means that they’re not getting any nutrients, and that’s one of the things that happens. So, it’s a process, so just gradually introduce those proteins and fats. Now the most important thing you can get into your children is quality protein and fat.
Even if they’re fussy about vegetables, don’t be concerned about it, because a majority of their nutrients are coming from those animal proteins and fats, and I know that that’s something that will shock you, but it’s , absolutely, the case, that the reason that modern diets are weak in nutrition is because they’re not getting the things that they need from those animal proteins and fats, so eggs and butter are, you know, kings when it comes to nutrients all the children are missing out on the vital nutrients that are helping their brains grow, their skeletons develop, all that sort of thing, so it’s essential to start getting those into them and as soon as you change their diet even a little bit, get some of those fats into them, they’ll stop being as fussy.
Stuart Cooke: Right. Okay.
Guy Lawrence: So, what would you feed the typical five-year-old for breakfast then? I don’t have kids, I’m just curious.
Christine Cronau: Well, I’d give them something like fried eggs. Now, most kids will still eat fat. They actually enjoy fat, and that’s because we crave fat. It’s part of our constitution to crave fat, and that’s because we need it. So it’s pretty easy, normally, to get fat into kids, unless they’re really, you know, sort of, haven’t had a lot of good nutrition for a long time. Fried eggs are fantastic for children.
Stuart Cooke: Okay.
Guy Lawrence: There you go. Right.
Stuart Cooke: Right. I’ll put that to the test tomorrow morning.
Christine Cronau: Okay!
Stuart Cooke: I’ve got three hungry daughters, and we’ll give that a go.
Guy Lawrence: There’s a topic I really wanted you to cover as well, Christine, after reading your book, and that was probably my favorite chapter now on Clint Robinson and his story. Can you just, you know, tell us a little bit about his story? Because we, myself and Stewie, we CrossFit, we exercise, you know, we’re pretty passionate about it, and I know a lot of people that would be listening to this do as well, and I thought Clint’s story was just fantastic. Could you just share that with us?
Christine Cronau: Yes,. He’s a fantastic example, especially if people are concerned about athletics or performance. That question comes up a lot, you know, “What about a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet with my performance? How’s that going to go?” Because there’s a huge myth out there that we need to burn sugar for energy, and that’s completely nonsense.
Clint Robinson is a fantastic example because he actually, he’s a five-time Olympian, and after his first Olympics, his health started to decline. His health started to decline, and he spent a lot of time and energy investigating it, and, like he said, most people would have given up, you know, that sort of their career. It’s over.
Because we’re used to athletes these days really only having a pretty short career, because they start getting tissue, you know, degeneration, all kinds of stuff like that, so, but he really wanted to keep going, so what he found was that he actually changed to a diet like this. He was lucky enough to end up at the same place that I did and so completely changed his diet. He detoxed and started a low-carb, high-fat diet and he, basically, was able to have the second half of his career, and he’s forty now. He’s competing at the world championship level.
Guy Lawrence: He’s a kayaker, right?
Christine Cronau: Yes,.
Guy Lawrence: Was it Kayaking?
Stuart Cooke: Yes,.
Guy Lawrence: He’s been to the Olympic five times.
Christine Cronau: Yes,.
Guy Lawrence: That’s a long span.
Christine Cronau: It is, and, in fact,, when I was struggling after I changed my diet to low-carb, high-fat and really still struggling with the whole idea, you know, “Have I done the right thing? Is this really going to work?” I actually saw him in his fifth Olympics and I knew his story, because I went to the same nutritionist that he did, and, so, when I saw him it , absolutely, inspired me to keep going, because he looked amazing. He obviously had bounds of energy, and, in fact,, his blood markers and my blood markers, you know, when I was, had my chronic fatigue, so, you know, to see that recovery in him, it really inspired me to keep going.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, absolutely, and for anything athlete that’s listening or watching this, check him out, I mean, just read that chapter in your book. It’ll make you think twice about what you’re putting into your body for peak performance as well.
Christine Cronau: I think that’d be right and, for example, he talks about not using those sugar gels and all those, you know, energy boosts that we use in athletics today, you know, carbohydrates burn off so quickly whereas fat is long-sustaining energy. It just makes all the difference. So, really, if you’re running an event, you don’t want to be carb-loading, you want to be fat-loading.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned the Kenyans I remember when I came and I watched you talk last year as well. Can you just tell us a bit about the Kenyan runners as well? That blew me away.
Christine Cronau: Yeah, well, basically, you know, in our Western society we’ve taught athletes to carb-load before a race. They do it the night before a race and they also do it just prior to the race, and the Kenyans do the opposite, which is probably what gives them the amazing endurance that they have. So, obviously, not every Kenyan is going to be following their traditional diet, but their traditional diet is milk, rice, and meat. They don’t even eat vegetables at all.
Guy Lawrence: Wow.
Christine Cronau: It’s actually a very high-fat diet. It’s around 66 to 70 percent of their calories is fat.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, right, and nobody is going to argue that they can’t run.
Christine Cronau: No, no, no.
Guy Lawrence: That’s for sure. Yeah blood as well. That’s interesting. All right, so, we’ve got some Facebook questions as well, because we put out a, on our Facebook last week, basically, and we had a heap of great questions come through, so we thought we’d start and roll out a few of them.
The first one would be from Renee Young. She asks, “When transitioning to a high-fat, high-protein diet from a high-carb diet, do you recommend gradually increasing fat or just go straight to the high-fat diet?’
Christine Cronau: Well, in most cases, it’s best to transition and take it a little bit at a time, because if most people went from where they’re at on a low-fat diet to eating the amounts of fat that I eat, they would feel sick.
Guy Lawrence: Right.
Christine Cronau: Because perhaps their gall bladder atrophied. It doesn’t have to do anything, so it’s not used to those amounts of fat coming through, so what we need to do is slowly bump up the fat and then eventually you’ll get to the point where you’re actually wanting it all the time.
Guy Lawrence: Fantastic.
Stuart Cooke: Very good point.
Guy Lawrence: Renee sure had some guidance with that. We’ve got another one from Margaret Jessinska and it’s something I’d like to know, too, “I’d like to know how many meals Christine eats each day. She often puts pictures of big meals with lots of butter on her Facebook page. I imagine she couldn’t fit in three meals like that each day, so does she only eat one or two meals a day?”
So, essentially, I guess people want to know what you eat in a day.
Christine Cronau: All right. Well, that’s a good point and probably the saying is very appropriate, the saying that says, “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and then dinner like a pauper.” What we need to do is have a nice dose of protein and fat in the morning and another good dose at lunchtime, and then a light dinner at night because then we’re not going to bed with a full load in our stomach and that’s quite hard on our digestive system and, also, for our detoxing time at night and, also, if you’re trying to lose weight, it’s not right to go to bed with a big meal in your stomach.
So, basically, I have two big meals every day and then at probably around 4:00, normally, I’ll have a snack, like a fruit salad with cream. Something like that.
Guy Lawrence: When you mentioned, because you just mentioned about losing weight as well, does any amount of fat make you fat?
Christine Cronau: No. It doesn’t. Although, I should clarify that and say that I’m talking about saturated fat. I’m talking about real fats. Polyunsaturated fat is a completely different story, but, yes,, real fats do not make you fat. It’s , basically, fats aren’t stored in the body like that. They’re used in the body, but they’re not stored in the adipose tissue. The thing that makes our body store fat is excess carbohydrates and sugar.
Guy Lawrence: And our insulin production, right?
Christine Cronau: Yes,, basically, we eat the, basically, we produce our insulin when we’ve got glucose in our blood and that insulin takes the glucose to our cells where we need it, into our brain, and also our muscles, places like that, but if we’re eating, we can only store or use a very small amount of glucose at any one time, which means if we eat more than that, we have to store the rest as fat. That’s how it works.
Now, this is a normal, you know, function for our body. It’s nothing bad and it was essential in times of famine, so when we had times of famine, of course, we used those fat stores. The problem is we have access to way too many carbohydrates these days, so we produce more and more insulin, so we store more and more fat, and, of course, eventually the body gets sick of this, because it’s a very unnatural process. It gets tired, so it stops producing insulin and then we have type II diabetes and, as an interesting side point, if we can’t get that glucose into our brain, then our brain cells die, then we have Alzheimer’s.
So, no matter what we hear in the media, this disease is completely preventable, as are most other modern chronic diseases.
Guy Lawrence: , absolutely.
Christine Cronau: It’s all about the excess sugar and carbohydrates. That’s it.
Guy Lawrence: You’ve kind of answered the next question. I’m just looking at it here from Laura Amy. She says, “What is your single biggest recommendation for people who come into this diet for weight loss and health improvement purposes? What is the best way to see results quickly?”
Christine Cronau: Well, yes,, my biggest tricks are to reduce the excess sugar and carbohydrate and to increase the natural fats, like butter and coconut oil, especially, and, also, the animal fat from grass-fed animals.
So, what was the second part of that question?
Guy Lawrence: “What is the best way to see results quickly?”
Christine Cronau: Oh, yes,, quick results. So, if you want really quick results with weight loss, I assume she’s talking about, then you want to drop the carbs as low as possible for a period. So that’s the quickest way to get your body back into a fat-burning state.
What happens is our body is naturally in a fat-burning state all the time. We burn fat for energy, but, when we’ve got too much sugar in our system, our body switches over to sugar-burning and one of the reasons it does that is because sugar, the body recognizes this is a dangerous state for the body to be in, so it’s trying to burn off that sugar as fast as possible.
The problem is we keep putting the sugar in, so it keeps staying in that sugar-burning state. So, if we reduce that sugar dramatically and go on a really low-carbohydrate diet, then we force the body to go back into fat-burning.
Guy Lawrence: So, you’re talking about ketosis, Christine. Is that a state that you’d be in with the amount of fat and the reduction in carbs that you choose?
Christine Cronau: I have actually been in that state for the last 12 years.
Guy Lawrence: Wow.
Christine Cronau: And the interesting thing about it is that I actually, because I was quite big, I actually went super low-carbohydrate for a year because I really wanted to improve my health.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Christine Cronau: And so I didn’t eat fruit. I didn’t eat starchy vegetables. I was , basically, eating protein and fat. With a few grain vegetables and I did that for a year and after I went back on to my you know a few more carbs, so I ate potato. I ate sweet potato. I ate all that sort of stuff. I don’t eat grains but I eat plenty of other carb. I stay in that fat-burning.
Guy Lawrence: Is that right?
Christine Cronau: Yeah. So.
Guy Lawrence: So your body adjusts the longer you do it.
Christine Cronau: Yeah, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do it for a year. Some people only do it for a small period. Now my daughter is an interesting example because she didn’t actually ever do that diet. She didn’t ever go low-carb, but she is always in that fat-burning stage as well and she used to have all kinds of stuff when she went to school.
She was eating sugar and wheat and all kinds of things. And she came to her own conclusion after a while of feeling thick, but she wanted to get rid of those things out of her diet and she just naturally went back into that state. So you know it is different for everyone it depends on what their health is like but that’s generally how it works.
Once you get your body back into fat-burning it will stay there unless you go back to a high-carbohydrate, high-sugar diet.
Guy Lawrence: There you go. Do you know if a glass of red wine will knock you out of ketosis?
Christine Cronau: No. Well if you are first trying to get into it. Then I would stay away from all those things, but , absolutely, now I can drink wine. I can, you know, have a tequila. I can do whatever I want.
Guy Lawrence: Good on you. Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.
Christine Cronau: As far as, as long as I am not going back to sugar eating and all that sort of stuff. You know I have my big baked potato with butter and sour cream and bacon and things like that. All of that stuff, and fruits, I love fruit. I can have desserts that are sweetened with, you know, a moderate amount of natural sweeteners, yes,, I stay in that fat-burning stage.
Guy Lawrence: So, so would the way that you eat your food keep you in that state? Talking about potatoes, you like potato and cream. If you are adding lots of fat to a carbohydrate would that change the way that your body then uses that fuel?
Christine Cronau: Yes, it absolutely does and, in fact, every time we eat carbohydrates we should eat it with fat because it actually slows down the digestion, so it spikes your glucose levels.
Guy Lawrence: Right. OK. Yeah. I guess it all makes sense. We had another question from Michelle Inns on the potato front. And she said, “My understanding is that sweet potato is considered to be a soup food, but obviously it doesn’t make the low-carb definition. Can I include it in a high-fat, low-carb diet?”
And she says that she has two five-year-olds who are addicted to bread so she is looking for other ways to fill them up.
Christine Cronau: Absolutely. That’s a perfect thing to give to children instead of bread. Load it up with butter as well. You know, make it really delicious, but, absolutely, especially for children. The only time I would avoid sweet potato or potato or any of those starchy vegetables is if you are trying to get into that fat-burning state, if you are trying to lose weight quickly, or if you have got a health condition like candida or cancer, for example. Cancer feeds on sugar. So if I had cancer I would, absolutely, be reducing, I would get rid of every sort of natural sugar from my diet and starve the cancer.
So if that is something you are trying to achieve like that then you stay away from starchy vegetables, but, for the general person, especially children they are fantastic.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah. No, absolutely. I keep thinking about my kids, you know, and how they eat and what we are trying to do in pushing new foods, but I am thinking that, you know sweet potato, butter, really fatty and make it super tasty and just kind of transitioning that way.
Guy Lawrence: Where do you source your butter and cream from, Christine?
Christine Cronau: Well, I try and get organic dairy where I can. We have a fantastic place that we buy butter. We go to the West End Markets in Princeton where theres a butter and cheese stall. Brilliant French men who make cultured butter and it is the best deep rich yellow color so you that know it’s got all those nutrients in it. And , basically, you know organic cream from somewhere like Ray Organics or any other whole foods shop like that is fantastic.
Guy Lawrence: Are any of these products available in the Woolies or Coles?
Christine Cronau: There are organic dairy options in Woolies and Coles. I would try and stick to the brands like Ivy Homes, something like that. That is a little bit more natural because they are going to be XX?XX [0:29:41.5] correct a lot less. So you know some of the bigger brands, even if they are organic, they are going to be ultra-pasteurizing that milk. So you want to kind of stick to the more natural brands if you can.
Stuart Cooke: So it is almost like a back to basics, as natural as we can get it.
Christine Cronau: As natural as you can get it, absolutely.
Guy Lawrence: That’s great. Katrina Brooks asks, well, we have kind of covered this but, “Is red meat good for us?”
Christine Cronau: Well, I assume that this question is coming from the perspective that, you know, that there is always a lot of press about how meat is acid-forming or it causes cancer, all that sort of stuff. And all that stuff is absolute nonsense. So, for example, the big study that came out last year, and it was all over the news, it was on TV, it was on radio, about how meat is cancer-causing, well, if you actually have a look at that study, what they did was they made a list of what those people were doing.
So, the people who were dying early of cancer and heart disease, they were slacking more, they were exercising less, vegetables, they were doing all these things, and one of the things that they were doing was they were eating more meat, therefore, their conclusion was, meat is cancer-causing.
You know, if I was the scientist, and I came up with that conclusion, I would be embarrassed. That is, absolutely, incredible, but the problem is that these scientists are funded to find certain things that back up certain premises, so that’s what they do.
The thing about the internet these days is we can actually look at those studies, look at their results, and then see their conclusion and see if it matches.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah, we can find out for ourselves.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, absolutely, and the other thing to consider with meat as well, obviously, is if it’s the quality, if it’s been humanely raised and slaughtered where a lot of meat isn’t.
Christine Cronau: Yes, absolutely. That’s a consideration, but natural meat is, absolutely, good for us and, in fact, it’s got amazing nutrient value.
Stuart Cooke: No, I have read that. I’ve read that there are X amount of vitamins and minerals in meat that will surpass any other food group pout there.
Christine Cronau: Absolutely.
Stuart Cooke: I’m starting to understand that more. You touched in your last comment as well, Christine, you touched on exercise, and this isn’t a Facebook question, but I am, I thought I’d throw that out there. What are your thoughts on exercise for weight loss?
Christine Cronau: Well, this is an interesting one as well, so, everyone is sort of given the idea that we have to, you know, throw ourselves in the gym to lose weight, but of you go to any gym and have a look at the people on the treadmill and then come back six months later, the ones that are still there, you have a look at them and they’ll still look the same.
That’s because, if we’re prompting our body to store fat, then no amount of exercise is going to help us. It’s that simple. What we have to do is address the diet and, you know, I love exercise for all kinds of reasons. It’s fantastic for your energy. It’s fantastic for, you know, strong bodies. It’s fantastic for all kinds of things, but, when it comes to weight loss, it’s absolutely unnecessary.
Guy Lawrence: If you fix the diet, right?
Christine Cronau: Yeah, you’ve got to fix the diet, absolutely. It will make you look muscley and toned, but here’s another example, so you might be somebody who’s doing a lot of exercise, but you’re storing fat. You won’t see those toned muscles. You’ll have all that fat there, so if you adjust the diet…there’s some people that have exercised their whole life that have always looked overweight, but as soon as they address the diet, they suddenly look amazing and you can see the results of that exercise then.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. No. I get that completely, and I’m also of the mindset that, you know, the more we exercise, we go out there and flog ourselves on the treadmill; we’re really going to work up a hunger as well.
Christine Cronau: exactly, that’s one of the reasons this is a huge XX?XX [0:33:56.4] If we exercise, we have to put more energy in, so that’s exactly right, and the people, you know, you see, you know, on weight loss shows where they advocate, you know, reducing their calories to probably 1000 a day and doing just magnificent amounts of exercise, well, they’re starving. They’ll lose weight, because they’re starving, but, you know, I think most people are aware now that if we starve to lose weight, that that weight loss comes, you know, that weight comes back with a vengeance afterwards.
Guy Lawrence: I also think as well from my experience as working as a fitness trainer, it’s very easy to misinterpret health and fitness. They’re actually two very different things and I’ve seen a lot of fit people that eat very unhealthy, and I, and the long term effects of that, my belief is that you’re just putting more stress on the body, because your nutrition is bad and you’re compounding it with a form of stress, which is exercise.
You know, stress can be, obviously, beneficial, but it can also be, if it’s not treated with care, it can affect your body as well, so the one message I’ve always sort of tried to push is let’s look at this from a health aspect and then if you bring in the exercise it complements your health, and that’s a very easy, that gets overlooked so often, you know?
Christine Cronau: And, in fact,, the other problem with these people who are exercising their body but not eating correctly, they’ll start to get injuries as well and that’s because they’re connective tissue is breaking down, so what happens if we’re in a constant acid state, which we will be if we’re eating too much sugar anyway, then the connective tissue will break down, and that’s why we see so many athletes with injuries at young ages and, also, as people get older, even if they’re not exercising, you know, their knee goes or their shoulder goes and they think it’s part of old age. It’s nothing to do with old age, it’s the fact that your connective tissue is breaking down.
Guy Lawrence: It all seems so very simple, doesn’t it? I guess it is actually very simple, but, we’re here, we’re living in such a crazy world with mixed messages.
Stuart Cooke: We tend to complicate it.
Guy Lawrence: We’re getting it wrong. How about pregnancy, Christine? Any special considerations, I mean, that’s going to be such an important time for the development of, you know, for children. What are your thoughts on that?
Christine Cronau: Well, this is another thing. With pregnancy, often people have concerns that low-carb, high-fat diet might, you know, not give them the nutrients that they need, but, in fact,, our modern diet is extremely nutrient-deficient. Low-carb, high-fat diet is perfect for a pregnancy and growing a growing baby. So, you know, for example, there are some nutrients that we just don’t get anymore, like vitamin K2. It’s only found in animal foods and, basically, vitamin K2 is essential for the development of their brains, you know, it’s just , absolutely, essential and hardly anyone has it in their diet anymore, and probably the best source of vitamin K2 is quality butter, but it’s got to be grass-fed.
Stuart Cooke: Right, yeah, and I guess thinking about things like breast-feeding versus conventional formulas, because I was having a look at some of the ingredients in some of the high street formulas versus, you know, mother’s breast milk and colostrum and stuff like that and they’re worlds apart.
Christine Cronau: Yes the commercial formulas are just an abomination, really. It’s very unfortunate, so obviously breast milk is far more nutritious, but also you’ve got to be putting the nutrients into the mothers. That breast milk is giving those babies what they need.
Stuart Cooke: The mind boggles, like, my God, but the problem is as well, I mean, if somebody’s pregnant, you’re going to be getting advice from a doctor, that’s completely going against the information we’re talking about and…
Guy Lawrence: Doctors aren’t generally, I mean, they’ll go through medical school won’t they, but they don’t, isn’t a very small facet of that is actually based upon nutrition?
Christine Cronau: Yes,. I’ve heard that they have two nutrition classes throughout their whole education, so, no, number one is they’re not schooled on nutrition at all and number two is that the stuff they are told, obviously, comes from someone with a vested interest, so…
Guy Lawrence: That’s right, yeah.
Christine Cronau: They can’t be relied on, and, fortunately, there are doctors who are open and, you know, I’ve had quite a few readers who have come to me and said, “You know, I went back to my doctor and all my blood results improved and the doctor was blown away, could not believe it,” and then they mention the book that they’ve read, they mention The Fat Revolution, and, you know, some of them are quite open to reading that book and, you know, sort of considering it, which is great.
Any of the health professionals who are open to it, after a bit of investigation, they’ll find the truth, but they just need to be open to it, but, unfortunately, you get most people, for one, they don’t have the time, you know, they’ve sort of limited to this five-minute appointment. They don’t have the time to be doing their own investigation, so they just rely on what the foundation, the health foundation, is telling them and, also, what they’ve learned in medical school.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a vicious circle, I think.
Guy Lawrence: We’ve got one more Facebook question, Christine, from a Katrina Kelly, and she says, “You’ve mentioned in previous posts about inflammation, infection, bloating. Are they related to over consumption of sugar or carbs or both?”
Christine Cronau: Absolutely.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, I was going to say.
Christine Cronau: So, I mean, there are so many things we can talk about with all of that scratch. Grains are notorious for making us bloated. One of the huge myths that we hear is that we need to eat lots of insoluble fiber but that’s, absolutely, not true. And, in fact, all those excess amounts of fiber damage our digestive system.
So, what few people know is that the way that fiber makes us regular is that it actually tears holes in our bowel which then produces a mucus. And that mucus helps push everything through. And this is something that they have studied, but, unfortunately, the scientists think, “Oh that must just be how it works.”
But it’s not really a healthy way for a digestive system to function.
So if you look at cats and dogs, they don’t need fiber to be regular. If you look at babies, they just drink milk. They don’t have to have fiber to be regular and neither do we and so the problem is we stuff all this fiber in. We actually create fiber damage within our bowel.
And then it also creates a dependency on that fiber so you need more and more of the stuff. And it also causes constipation in some people as well, even if they are having all that fiber. So, unfortunately what happens then is that people try a low-carb, high-fat diet and if they’ve got a lot of fiber damage, which unfortunately many people do, their bowels will slow down.
And of course the skeptics will jump in and say, “Well, you know, terrible diet. You are going to get bowel cancer because it doesn’t have enough fiber in it.”
But it is not actually the diet; it is actually that fiber damage. So if there is only a little bit of fiber damage the low-carb, high-fat diet will actually improve your bowel because fat is extremely nourishing for the bowel, but if there is more damage then that has to be addressed because your bowels will slow down.
And we have to keep that moving both for health and for weight loss. Now I wrote a very a simple solution in The Fat Revolution so it will be good to check that out. Because that’s something very important for health, but one of the biggest side effects to that fiber is bloating and gas. And that’s because that insoluble fiber is fermented in the bowel by bacteria and the by-product of that bacteria is gas. There is no way around it.
Guy Lawrence: Right.
Christine Cronau: So, that is the bloating question. What were the other ones? Inflammation?
Stuart Cooke: Infection.
Christine Cronau: Infection. So, the other thing that happens is that if our pH is off, which is likely to be the case if we are eating a high-sugar, high-carbohydrate diet. We are living in this acid environment and unfortunately it is a breeding ground for pathogens, bacteria, all that sort of stuff and eventually that leads, we also have less oxygen available to our cells, this leads to disease. This leads to inflammation and of course eventually it leads to all those inflammatory conditions like heart disease and cancer.
Guy Lawrence: What’s your thoughts on an alkalized diet? Because a lot of vegetarian and vegans would promote that as well.
Christine Cronau: Well, this is a very interesting point. Back to the meat question, a lot of people say, well meat is acid-forming. Well, it’s actually not. That’s a big myth. Now the problem is that they look at meat before it goes in. They don’t look at what happens to it once it’s gone in. So, for example meat is around 5.5. You know, we want our bodies to be around 7, which is neutral. So meat is around 5.5 so it is slightly acid. And of course it acid, it’s full of amino acids. So we actually, you know, eat acids. That’s a normal thing for us to do.
And even a vegetarian would tell you that we need to eat amino acids because they’re essential. We also have essential fatty acids. So we are meant to eat that kind of acid. Now if we go down the scale a little bit more to something that is a lot more acid, like a lemon, lime, apple cider vinegar. Those are all around pure, extremely acid but of course you don’t hear anybody telling that if you eat those foods you are going to become acidic.
And that’s because those foods, those acids, actually produce bicarbonate in our bodies. And that bicarbonate alkalizes us. So the other thing is that proteins, amino acids, actually act like an acid sponge in our body. Now if you go to the other side of the spectrum and you look at some foods that are not acid, of course, there are the vegetables. They are alkaline when they go in and they stay alkaline, so they’re all good.
Then you go to something like grains and sugar. They are not acid when go in, but they are very acid forming in the body. They produce acid in the body. So, basically, this whole, you know, you probably hear about the acid/alkaline balance and a lot of those diets promote no meat and all that sort of stuff for that very reason, but actually it’s like saying if you eat a tomato you will turn red. It’s not what the food is before you put it in your mouth. It’s what happens to it in the body and, obviously, the people who say that do not have an understanding of what happens to those foods in the body.
So the best way to actually get a good pH and get ourselves back to a neutral pH is to eat a low-carb, high-fat diet and include lemon, lime, and apple cider vinegar in your drink first thing in the morning and if you are extremely acid, have a times a day. And that will put you exactly perfect, unless you’ve got breathing difficulties.
Guy Lawrence: There is another great tip.
Stuart Cooke: Did you hear that, Guy? What do I drink in the morning when I come around to your place to work?
Guy Lawrence: He always brings a lemon. Always. He is very good. Christine, that was awesome. I mean, you are an absolute wealth of knowledge and if anyone wants to know more I guess your website is the best place to come to start with.
Christine Cronau: Yes. They can have a look at the website and also if they join me on the Facebook page. I put some interesting information there every day and also I answer questions on there so they have any more questions about I have said today then jump on Facebook and ask me and I will answer those questions.
Guy Lawrence: Fantastic. Good on you. And I follow those Facebook updates everyday as well. I am constantly reading them. They’re great.
Christine Cronau: Oh fantastic.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, good on you. Well look, Christine, really appreciate the time you have taken to join us today and I am sure many people are going to benefit from this when they listen to watch this and, hopefully, it will make them think about the next thing they eat on the table.
Stuart Cooke: Alright.
Guy Lawrence: Awesome.
Christine Cronau: Eat steak. It will taste great.
Guy Lawrence: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Stuart Cooke: Thank you so much, Christine. It’s been fantastic.
Christine Cronau: You’re welcome.
Guy Lawrence: Awesome. Thank you.
Stuart Cooke: Speak to you soon. Goodbye.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Contributor
Aja Barto at the 2013 South Central Regional (Image courtesy of Aryan Barto, Behemoth Photography)
26 year-old Aja Barto will compete in his third straight CrossFit Games in July, after finishing second at the 2013 South Central Regional.
We caught up with the former Major League Baseball player, 21st place finisher at the 2012 CrossFit Games, and the man behind Behemoth CrossFit in Houston, Texas this week to find out how he’s preparing for this year’s competition.
In the following Q & A, Barto shares a few thoughts on this year’s Regional competition, talks about his training and diet in the lead up to the 2013 CrossFit Games, and reveals his expectations at Carson, California in July.
Aja, Congratulations on your second place finish in the South Central Regional. How did you find the competition?
Thanks a ton, I am honoured to qualify and represent the South Central Regional once again in Carson. I thought the competition was great. Out of the past few years it has definitely been the most well rounded programming I’ve seen to allow for the best and truest “CrossFitters” to come out of each Region.
I thought for the most part there wasn’t really anything that everyone couldn’t do. Unlike last year where some were cringing at the thought of 30 225-pound hang-cleans, everything this year was do-able for all and really allowed the cream to rise to the top.
What was your first thought after qualifying? Did you savour the moment or was it all about the next step towards the CrossFit Games?
Going into the weekend I had already “seen” myself qualifying in my mind’s eye. It was truly a grind to get to that point, but the process started many weeks out. I was very excited, honoured and privileged to earn another trip to Carson.
I think this was one of the toughest set of workouts to qualify out of, regardless the Region. There were very few separating workouts and even the strength component of the competition required strategy considering the workout (Event 3 – 30 burpee muscle-ups) that followed it.
I’m proud of myself and my efforts, but that was very short lasted. The big focus is on Carson and being the best I can be come end of July. It’s all a process, but it’s about how you finish, not about how you start.
Aja Barto at the 2013 South Central Regional (Image courtesy of Aryan Barto, Behemoth Photography)
So with the Games just weeks away, how has your training changed?
Training will stay the same for the most part, but the volume will pick up. I’m taking one full recovery day and the other one will instead be a longer aerobic session. Honestly, training for the Games is a privilege and is really the most fun time of the year.
You realize you are one of the select few that are still training for the big stage and it helps fuel your training. I’m focussing more on swimming and increasing my aerobic base with unusual, longer training sessions.
Now we have seen a lot of athletes train some interesting ways to prepare for what Dave Castro might throw up. What is the craziest thing you have found yourself doing?
Water boarding and burpees on broken glass!
How about your diet? Is there anything in particular that you eat to maximise your performance and support your training volumes?
Lots of carbohydrates; tubers, sweet potatoes, potatoes, rice, glucose and maltodextrin powder to help fuel the volume and replenish glycogen stores.
What have you learnt from your previous experiences at Regional competitions and the Games that will help you this year?
I’ve learnt that the CrossFit Games are a privilege and a really fun experience. Those that do well know exactly how to manage their time throughout the Events. The veterans know when to be loose and relaxed, and they know when to focus and execute.
What are your overall expectations for the Games? Can you win it?
I hope everyone goes into the Games with the expectation and desire to win. If not, then why are they competing?
My focus is on being the most prepared I can be come competition day and performing the way I believe I can. Anyone can be beat on any day.
Who do you think are the top contenders? How about the one to watch out for?
All 47 men.
Talk me through the moments before heading out onto the floor for that first workout, Event 1, 2013. What is going through your mind?
Positivity, confidence, excitement, nervousness, and most of all the expectations to hurt a lot.
How about half way through the Games competition, your body has been through several gruelling workouts. What is your approach to making it to the final event?
Hurt more than the other guy and continue to give it my all and let all else work itself out.
With a 28th placing in 2011 and 21st in 2012, what is your ultimate goal this year at the Games?
To get better each Event, and be the best on Sunday.
Written by Andy Lee: Andy is an avid CrossFitter from Melbourne, Australia and trains out of CrossFit South Yarra. He is a contributing writer for the CrossFit Games website and a regular writer for the Blonyx website.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Contributor
28 year-old Stacie Tovar is off to her fifth straight CrossFit Games, after her second place finish in the 2013 North Central Regional.
We caught up with 12th place finisher in the 2012 CrossFit Games from CrossFit Omaha to find out just how she is preparing for this year’s competition against the world’s fittest men and women.
In the following Q&A, Tovar shares her thoughts on competing at Regionals, her training leading up to the 2013 CrossFit Games, and her expectations for July’s event in Carson, California.
Stacie, congratulations on making it to another CrossFit Games! How does it feel?
Thank you! It’s always an honor to participate in the Games. I am really excited to be heading back to California in July and I look forward to competing alongside the fittest men and women on the planet for the fifth year in a row!
Amazing weekend at the North Central Regional, how did you find the competition against Elizabeth Akinwale and Deborah Cordner-Carson?
I make it a point to give my absolute best effort anytime I CrossFit, regardless of who may be throwing down next to me. With that being said, anytime you have the opportunity to compete against the 7th and the 14th fittest females in the world, you’re naturally going to rise to the occasion. If you don’t then you’ll likely get left behind.
Considering I was battling a shoulder injury all weekend, the level of competition in the North Central Region certainly helped push me to my second place finish.
Now you have successfully qualified, how are you approaching your training? Is there anything you are specifically targeting in the build up?
I put my trust in my coach. He knows me best. Whatever he programs, I don’t question. I just do the work with 100% effort. I am dealing with a fractured scapula and a strained rotator cuff right now so that is something I have to pay close attention to. Other than that it’s business as usual and trying to keep things fun!
Stacie Tovar and John at the 2012 CrossFit Games
Have your past experiences at the Games helped you prepare for this year? Is there anything you have learned and are doing differently this time around?
Absolutely! I think having been to the Games before and having four years of experience is definitely something that helps. Preparation aside, just being familiar with the whole thing alone helps ease the stress of it all. It’s easy to get out of routine the moment you land in LA and get caught up in all of the bright lights. I really try to stay within myself and not let all of the distractions get to me.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned though, it’s to never underestimate the imagination of Dave Castro. There’s always going to be the element of surprise or the “unknown & unknowable”, and that is something that I’ve learned to expect and accept.
How about your diet and recovery? What works best for you to support your training volumes and perform at your peak?
My diet has been consistently the same for a couple of years now. I eat what I feel my body needs to perform well, recover well, and sleep well. I found out the hard way during the 2011 Games that you really have to listen to your body and sometimes eat even when you’re not hungry. That is especially true leading up to, and during, competition which is something that took me a couple of years to figure out. I also rely heavily on supplements from All-Pro Science and PurePharma to help aid in the recovery process.
What are you most looking forward to during the Games?
Who will be standing at the top of the podium this year! I think it’s going to be a fight to the finish.
What about your expectations? Are you setting any particular goals for yourself?
I’ve grown to keep my goals very personal and private. Trusting in my preparation though, I do expect to perform at a very high level while I’m there. I also expect to have a whole lotta fun throwing down with the toughest women this sport has to offer. It has to be an enjoyable experience for me. I’ve always told myself – if it’s not fun then it’s not worth doing.
Who do you think your main competitors are this year?
I personally would never make such a bold prediction considering that I’m competing against the fittest women on Earth. Do I believe in myself? Yes, without a doubt! I don’t think that one person really stands out as my main competition. Anything can happen at any point during the competition. I think it really comes down to me in the end and executing to my fullest potential.
Who do you think might surprise the field this year?
There are a lot of new names this year but I don’t think there will be any surprises. My prediction is that you’ll see a lot of familiar faces battling for a podium spot.
Stacie Tovar at the 2012 CrossFit Games
It comes down to the final day, the final workout. The winner of the event takes first place and is the 2013 CrossFit Games Champion. What would the event be?
Hmmm… based off of the last two years, I would have to say one of “The Girls”. Who can do work the fastest!?
Imagine you have taken first place and are 2013 CrossFit Games Champion. What are the top three aspects you can attribute your success to?
My husband, my coach and CrossFit Omaha community, and my belief that I have been blessed with a natural athletic ability and I was put on this Earth to use my talent to its absolute fullest for as long as God lets me.
But more importantly how would you best celebrate your success?
That’s a loaded question. Off the top of my head, I’d celebrate with a nice cold beverage and some greasy food first. Then I’d come back home and extend my passion for CrossFit to the rest of the community in Nebraska by quitting my corporate job and coaching full-time as a profession! Then CrossFit would be more than just a hobby for me… I’d get to wake up every day and do what I love!
Written by Andy Lee: Andy is an avid CrossFitter from Melbourne, Australia and trains out of CrossFit South Yarra. He is a contributing writer for the CrossFit Games website and a regular writer for the Blonyx website.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Guy Lawrence
This article was originally posted on 180 Nutrition here.
For one week only 180 Nutrition are doing a LIMITED EDITION CAP with Chad Mackays’ signature on it. All profits will go to help Chad prepare for the 2013 CrossFit Games. Click here to get one.
For those of you that CrossFit, Australian legend Chad Mackay needs no introduction. For those that don’t, I would best describe him as one of the finest athletes in the country!
It was an awesome pleasure to be able to have an in-depth interview with him. So no matter what sport or discipline you are into, there’s so much to learn from the big man.
- You can follow Chad Mackay on Facebook here.
- If you are interested in being coached at Chad’s gyms click here.
Download or subscribe to us on iTunes here.
In this weeks episode:
Who is Chad Mackay & what is CrossFit
What a typical day looks like for Chad
What he eats, including pre/post training
The hurdles people face when starting CrossFit for the first time
Why mobility is important (learn more about mobility here)
The fine line between training and over training
and much more…
Transcript
Stuart Cooke: I hope Guy hasn’t been boring you, Chad.
Chad Mackay: No. No. No, buddy. He just told me that you must have been perming your hair or something like that.
Stuart Cooke: Mate, you know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been working out on a trigger-point grid.
Chad Mackay: All right!
Stuart Cooke: Are you proud of me? I’m rolling out. That’s what I’m doing. I’m getting back to 100 percent.
Guy Lawrence: He’s getting there. I’m still in shock that he’s got a blue t-shirt on like last time. We interviewed Christine the other week and we ended up; but I got in theme today, see? I’ve got my CrossFit t-shirt on.
Stuart Cooke: All right. OK. That’s really good.
Guy Lawrence: Fair enough. All right, so, we might as well start. Anyone listening to this, I’m Guy Lawrence. We’ve got Stuart Cooke and a very special guest, Mr. Chad Mckay.
Chad, welcome. Thanks for dropping in and joining us, mate.
Chad Mackay: Cheers, guys. Very excited.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, so, what we thought we’d do was, obviously, you don’t need any introduction within CrossFit, you know, but we have a lot of listeners as well; a lot of non-CrossFitters as well. And we were kind of just chatting yesterday about how we can, because, as far as I’m concerned, you’re one of the best athletes in the country.
You know, you’re a coach as well and there’s so much more to get from you than just CrossFit. So, we thought we’d divide it up into two parts. So, we’ll chat a bit more broader first and then we’ll delve into WODs and Fran times and all that kind of stuff afterwards, because people are wondering what the hell we’re on about.
Chad Mackay: Sure. Sounds good.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, fair enough. So, mate, just to start, then, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself for the people that have no idea what CrossFit is or what you do?
Chad Mackay: Yeah, sure, sure. So, CrossFit’s basically a combination of kind of gymnastics movements, Olympic weightlifting, and strength and conditioning and also kind of hybrid movements using different kind of apparatus: kettle bells; stuff like that. And we put them in workouts and we try and use those different elements to try and pretty much become competent across a whole broad range of exercises and movements.
And yet, it first started off over in the States back in 1996 and it was basically started by a guy called Greg Glassman, and he was a gymnast and then he got a couple of serious injuries and he wanted to start his own kind of athletic performance gym and that’s how, kind of, CrossFit came about. He started training clients and athletes in his own garage back in LA and it’s kind of grown from there.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, right. I didn’t realize it went that far back: ’96.
Chad Mackay: It’s been around for a few years, and it’s slowly evolved over time and, obviously, sponsors and the like have been involved over the last couple of years and the sport’s just taken off.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, OK. Because, like, we’ve been involved probably, I think Homebush was probably our first real experience of it, which was, I think, three regionals ago.
And we’ve seen that growth unbelievable, you know, just within that time. It’s quite a; it’s a unique thing because when we turned up, like, I knew CrossFitters before that but I’d never been to a regional competition, and it’s really hard to describe for your first experience if you ever see it, you know. We kind of talked about it like being WODstock.
Chad Mackay: Yes!
Guy Lawrence: Or Woodstock, but now it’s WODstock. So, we had all these sort of interesting characters looking around that are absolute fine specimens eating whole chickens and the only thing that was missing was the music festival at the same time, you know?
Chad Mackay: Yeah, absolutely.
Guy Lawrence: So, you coach as well, don’t you, outside?
Chad Mackay: I’ve got a couple of gyms over on north shore of Sydney. One’s in Waverton and the other is in Artarmon. And there’s myself and a couple of other business partners.
And we take care of most of the coaching classes there, so, you know, the class is broken up pretty much into, like a general warm-up for the class and every round there will be either one or two coaches on in the class and we’ll have somewhere between five and 15 to 20 people. We’ll get through the general warm-up, some mobility, normally some kind of skill, and then we’ll do a strength component and then a conditioning piece as well. So, that’s what a lot of people mainly know CrossFit and kind of the generalization is we only really do a hard workout and it’s like a circuit-style training, but there’s a lot more involved than just the WOD, so to speak, or the Workout Of the Day.
So, the athletes get a little bit more exposure to a whole bunch of different movements rather than just a conditioning piece in the workout.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, fair enough. I mean, the one thing I just want to say as well is that, because you’re a competitive athlete, you know. You go into the World Games. That achievement in itself is gynormous. And so, what I’m interested in is, what does your typical day look like, because, A, you’re a professional athlete, even though it’s probably not recognized as a professional sport. You know, you’re doing all this coaching, it’s a full-time gig, like, what’s a typical day for you?
Chad Mackay: A typical day would be, let’s take yesterday, for example. I started work at 6 a.m., so the alarm was set for 18 minutes past 5. And then I’ve got 12 minutes to quickly have a shake, get out the door, get dressed, get to work by 5:45, coach two classes in the morning, and then I’ve got admin work to do until about 11 o’clock.
And then I train from 11 until about 1 o’clock, so a two-hour session. And that session goes pretty much back-to-back, going through a similar structure to our classes, kind of like general warm-ups and skill, some Olympic lifting, and some strength.
And then I had clients from 1:30 until 4:30. And then I coached three classes and then I had another client at 7:30 and then home by about 9 o’clock.
Guy Lawrence: Wow. I’m tired listening to you.
Stuart Cooke: Straight to bed.
I’m interested about your clients, Chad. Tell about their diversity, because I have seen, just within a CrossFit-type gym, youngsters to the elderly as well, which wouldn’t be your typical, kind of, gym junkie.
Chad Mackay: Absolutely. My clients that I train one-on-one range from, I’ve got a Paralympic swimmer that I train; his name’s Matt Levy. So, I train him a couple of times a week. I train Lynne Knapman. She is a master’s competitor who has competed in the last three CrossFit Games in the category of 50 to 55. So, she’s doing really well. And then I’ve got just some athletes that just want to try and improve their general strength; they may be fairly new to CrossFit.
So, there’s just a broad spectrum of, kind of, ages and abilities there. But regardless of who I’m training, everyone just really has the same kind of consensus of: Let’s try and improve and see what our body is capable of doing and you see those small little improvements and I think that’s why people kind of really find that CrossFit and the kind of strength and conditioning that we do at the gym is really beneficial to people’s bodies.
So, it’s not only the people who are training, whether it’s an elite athlete going to the Olympics or the CrossFit Games, but we have the normal Joe Blow off the street who just wants to improve their flexibility, so to speak. They might sit at a desk for eight hours a day and they’ve got really tight upper body; thoracic. So, yeah, just some general, super-general flexibility issues that we can kind of address during classes or whether they come to see one of the coaches for a one-on-one session.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, fair enough. What are the most common issues you’d see with clients when they first start training? Do they come there for, like, weight loss or muscle gain and then they’re opened up to CrossFit and their mindset will completely change around it, or. . .
Chad Mackay: Oh, there’s a whole; it’s probably more along the lines of: People hear about CrossFit and it’s normally from a friend or they’ve heard about the community and what’s involved in the community at the gym. So, it’s a lot of word-of-mouth. But the general issues that we have coming to the gym is people sit down at a desk all day and they’re in a flexed position where the hip’s closed off, the shoulders are closed off, and they’ve got a really forward head tilt. So, they’re the main issues.
So, we may get a fairly strong person that comes in that can’t overhead squat a broomstick just because their body is holding them back from being able to hold a bar overhead and do a simple movement like an overhead squat.
Guy Lawrence: We got a question here about mobility, so we’ll touch on that first while we are on it.
Chad MacKay: Sure.
Guy Lawrence: The first time I ever, because remember I mentioned I used to work with Lynne, who you know as well, and she was fabulous CrossFitter. And I’ll never forget the day about, it must have been about four years ago where she was overhead squatting in the gym I was working at. And I went down, I started chatting, and it was 60 kilos, I think.
And it was the first time I was exposed to an overhead squat and she’s like, “Yeah, go on. Let’s see you do it.” And I’m there, you know, all ego, throw the bar above my head, and I move about two inches and I couldn’t do it. And that was my first exposure to mobility, and probably CrossFit as well.
And I think mobility is something that’s overlooked by everyone, and only CrossFit seems to embrace it. Like, I remember working in a gym. You know, you traditionally warm up, you might do a bit of a stretch, and then you get into your exercise. But you walk into a CrossFit gym, you’ve got people who almost look like they’re grinding the floor because they’re rolling out in something.
Stuart Cooke: It is a bizarre sight; I’ll give you that.
Guy Lawrence: It’s amazing. And so, could you just tell us a little bit more about, I guess, mobility, the importance of it, and why so many people suffer from it? You know, I think it’s so untouched outside the. . .
Chad Mckay: Absolutely. The main issue is when people sit down, it obviously closes off the front of the hip and over time you will find yourself sitting at a computer, and, like I said before, that forward head-tilt, that decrease in kind of range of movement at the shoulder joint, everything’s pretty much facing forward and there is no real posterior chain, so. . .
Posterior chain is everything pretty much at the back of your body, so glutes, hamstrings, and kind of the rectus. And when you’re setting down on a chair, it just promotes you to sit forward and use everything in the frontal plane and, over time, eight hours sitting in that position, and then people normally go to the gym and they’ll normally train what’s at the front, so: chest, biceps.
So, how CrossFit differs from that, it pretty much tries to tell you to pretty much work everything in that posterior chain. Dead lifting, squatting, and doing things like pull-ups and overhead squats is going to develop that posterior chain, and over time, hopefully, get people into a more of an extended position; a more upright body posture and shape.
Stuart Cooke: Do you think there would be anything that we could do at home, outside of a gym environment, that would just help loosen us up? You know: stand up straight, shoulders back, anything along those kind of lines?
Chad Mackay: Well, there’s some simple things where you can lay flat on the floor and there’s just a basic movement called a glute bridge where it opens the hip up and it gets the butt and the hamstrings nice and strong. And that’s just a simple hip raise up off the floor.
Also, another very simple exercise is just stretching out in front of the sides of the neck and also possibly laying on the floor again and just pulling the chin down to the floor to kind of lengthen out the back of the neck. Just some really simple things to kind of loosen up and not let the body get in this position. So, yeah. The glute bridge, the side of the neck stretch, and then the kind of back-of-the-neck stretch on the floor.
Guy Lawrence: Do you mobilize every day, Chad?
Chad Mackay: Pretty much every day.
Stuart Cooke: Every minute, I think, Guy. Not every day.
Guy Lawrence: I still keep coming back to the fact that you can snatch 130 kilos. Mobility must have, you know, played a big part in being able to do that.
Chad Mackay: Man, absolutely. If I go to the movies with my girlfriend, I’ll take a small little golf ball and put that golf ball on the ground and I’ll just get some release on the bottom of my feet. So, I’ll spend 45 minutes on each foot and it does make a big difference. It’s like going for a massage. I had a massage this morning and my body feels like it’s already improved a little bit and I can feel the difference already. So, if I can get 45 minutes on each foot while I’m going to the movies, buddy, that’s perfect.
Stuart Cooke: That’s a top tip.
I’ve got a question about your diet. You know, you do a huge amount throughout your day. What does your typical daily look like? What are you eating and how much do you eat?
Chad Mackay: Well, in the off season I’ll tend to eat a little bit more. During the season, I try and weigh and measure most of my meals. Otherwise, I just feel like I can overeat quite easily. So, I just need to be quite strict on what I do eat and at what times.
A general day would be five meals, and those meals would be spaced about four hours apart. Breakfast will be about a quarter past 5 in the morning where I’ll have a shake, a banana, and a handful of nuts. About an hour before training in the morning I’ll have just a really small snack, kind of pre-workout, and then post-workout I’ll try and have a full meal, whether that will be chicken or lamb. So, some type of flesh. And then a big salad, sweet potato, and that will be kind of drenched in olive oil and avocado. And I’ll have a piece of fruit after I work out.
My meals are basically the same for the rest of the day, so brekkie and post-workout meal and then that post-workout meal is the same for the next three meals throughout the day.
Guy Lawrence: Where do you get your carbs from? So, mainly sweet potato and fruit and veggies?
Chad Mackay: Sweet potato and fruit and veggies.
Guy Lawrence: Do you eat any grains?
Chad Mackay: No grains at all.
Guy Lawrence: Good man.
Chad Mackay: No grains at all.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, because I only raise it as well because there’s a common myth that you need, traditionally, if you’re a high-end athlete that grains are one of the main sources of energy.
Stuart Cooke: Hmm. When did you eliminate your grains, Chad? And, I guess, why?
Chad Mackay: I personally eliminated grains, it would have been around about five years ago. I looked into, when I first started CrossFit, I looked into a diet called the Zone Diet and that’s basically portion control and how much protein, carbohydrate, and fat we should have at every meal. But with the Zone Diet, that’s structured a little bit differently where, if you want to have a Big Mac for a meal, you just need to take the top of the bun off and eat kind of the bottom layer of the bun and the ingredients through the middle and that will keep your blood sugars at a certain level so you don’t have a spike in insulin.
And that didn’t really sit well with me, so I decided to stick with the kind of favorable carbohydrates and the kind of clean meats and veggies. So I stuck to that, pretty much religiously, for about three months, and I went from being 116 kilos and I dropped down to about 105 kilos in three months.
Stuart Cooke: Wow.
Chad Mackay: The initial two weeks I lost probably three or four kilos in that initial two weeks and then I slowly tapered off after that. And then I kind of got introduced to the Paleo Diet, which is basically anything that had a face, you can eat, and anything that falls off a tree or grew in the ground you can have; it’s also known as the caveman diet. So, the last couple of years I’ve been doing that.
Guy Lawrence: When you first made your adjustments and, you know, you dropped down 10 kilos, did you performance and strength remain the same?
Chad Mackay: Well, as I transitioned between kind of bodybuilding style and kind of CrossFit movements, so I couldn’t really gauge the feeling of performance or strength. I think my strength actually dropped back a little bit initially, just because I was having that transition to a new sport.
But definitely energy levels and also a feeling of kind of being sustained throughout the day. I used to have quite large meals, so “quite large meals” would be four or five sandwiches for lunch, a liter of milk. Also, bread, rice, and pasta at pretty much every meal. And unless I felt like I was full I didn’t really feel sustained or didn’t feel like I had much energy.
So, my stomach definitely isn’t as bloated anymore and that’s probably one of the biggest things that I found is that I didn’t have that bloated feeling.
Guy Lawrence: Do you have dairy in your diet, or much, or little, or?
Chad Mackay: A little bit of dairy; not too much. Like, at the moment, I’ve cut most of the dairy out. I might have a little bit of milk in a coffee in the mornings. But when I’m trying to drop back in weight for the season, I’ll try and cut out milk. But in the off season I will add a little bit of milk occasionally.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.
And; go ahead, Stewie.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah. So, just getting back to your season and your training, how do you turn into the fine line between optimum training and overtraining?
Chad Mackay: For me? Hard question for me. Because I’ve been doing it for a few years now, I just need to listen to my body. There’s a couple of young guys that train at the gym and are kind of coming through the sport in their early 20s and. . .
Stuart Cooke: Gung-ho.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, absolutely. I think if I was in my early 20s I would probably just be going 100 percent and just going flat-out every session, trying to have the thinking that, you know, more is more. For me, at the moment, I need to listen to my body. I’m a little bit older than most of the guys. If I’m feeling tired and a little bit lethargic, I’ll make sure my nutrition and sleep is spot-on. And if I’m feeling good one day, I might train for a couple of hours and do kind of two or three conditioning pieces in a day.
But at the moment I just need to listen to the little needles and just take it nice and easy when I need to. So, overtraining for me doesn’t really come into play. I’m pretty smart when it comes to that type of thing.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah, fair enough.
Guy Lawrence: Talking about your training, I saw that little Facebook post the other day and I just glanced at it and there was something about you walking around like a Michelin Man. What was that about?
Chad Mackay: I’ve heard whispers that at the CrossFit Games there’s going to be a weighted vest run, and it could be a longer-style run. We got some new, weighted vests. They weigh 20 pounds each. So, I put all three vests on. I did a 400-meter sprint, came back into the gym, took one vest off, did another 400 sprint, took the other vest off, so I was left with a 20-pound vest on, ran 400. And I went through that three times. So then I would come back in, load the three weights back on, and then away I would go. So, by the end I was more like a power walker; a little shuffle. So. . .
Guy Lawrence: Carrying 60 pounds on you! Fair enough. Good one.
What I thought we’d do as well, because obviously we put out the Facebook questions as well, and your response was enormous, by the way. I don’t know if you’ve checked them all out. And there’s some funny ones in there, too. So, we thought we’d go through some anyway.
So, we got a question from Paul Hilton. “If you hadn’t found CrossFit, what do you think you would be doing now?”
Chad Mackay: I still think I would be training in a gym, doing some kind of strength and conditioning in the gym. Be surfing a little bit more. I grew up, kind of, surfing, and whatever sport that I did play or that I was involved in I’d pretty much engross myself in that sport and try and get as good as I can. So, whether it be training in the gym, trying to push myself in the weights room, or whether I was down at the beach surfing or running the soft sand down at Bondi, I’d kind of always be looking at the clock or. . .
Guy Lawrence: That competitive nature.
Chad Mackay: It’s always been there. I think it’s one of those things that’s in the blood and evolves over time. So, whatever it would be, I would just be trying to do it the best that I can.
Stuart Cooke: Fantastic. Harrison Matra wants to know what you think of the CrossFit drug-testing model. Should it be more frequently tested in local comps to hopefully find athletes who are cycling throughout the year?
Guy Lawrence: That’s assuming if they are, I guess.
Stuart Cooke: If they are, of course.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, sure, sure. Look, I think that, regarding the local comps, those local comps are more about people wanting to have fun and get involved in the community. Those local comps are my favorite days, just to go there and see the people that have been doing CrossFit for six months and they go to a local comp.
I remember my first local comp, and it was just the most fun I’ve ever had. Driving home, the buzz that I had, you guys have experienced the same thing, you know. And if we start to get too serious about things and drug-testing people to go in those local comps, I think that’s a little bit over the top. But when it comes to the open regionals and the CrossFit games, I think if you’re going to go into the open, you should be held responsible for, obviously, if you’ve taken any performance-enhancing drugs, because it is a worldwide contest, I think that things need to be looked at a little bit more seriously there. But regarding those local comps, just get out there and have a bit of fun.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, fair enough, mate. Yeah, we remember our first local comp very well, up in Hornsby. And it was almost like, it was bizarre, because it was almost like when we first arrived it was like a scene from Fight Club or something, because we were in this underground car park and there was no one above and as soon as you go down it was just hundreds of people screaming, you know.
Yeah, the camaraderie and the buzz from it is amazing. Like, it was a lot of fun.
Chad Mackay: I had the hill sprint; I had the hill sprint in that comp.
Stuart Cooke: Yes. I remember I did.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, it was a 600-meter run up the hill and back and there was a 10-minute time clock and whatever time you had left was burpees. I remember just thinking, “You’re kidding me.”
Chad Mackay: How many burpees did you get out?
Guy Lawrence: I got out 98, I think.
Stuart Cooke: I got 115 and that was my first exposure to burpees.
Guy Lawrence: I’m ashamed.
Stuart Cooke: Thanks for taking me back there, Guy.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, no worries, man. No worries.
All right. Next question. Katrina Stewart says, “I loved watching you come out of the water last year. Do you train in the water much at all? If so, how often does your program look like?”
So, I’m assuming she’s talking about the Pendalay, is it?
Chad Mackay: The Pendleton, yeah.
Guy Lawrence: Pendleton, sorry, yeah.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, I’ve been in and out of the water since I was 5 or 6 years old, whether it be surfing down the beach with my dad and then I had a couple of buddies that were competitive swimmers, so I would jump in on the occasional swim session with those guys and get a little bit more advice on, kind of, technical help and stuff like that.
Buy, yeah, growing up in the surf really helped with that and just being confident in the water. And kind of always competing in school events. You know, I always had a bit of help and technique advice from their coaches.
And then I worked in a leisure center up on the Central Coast as a pool lifeguard, so I’ve always kind of been around the water. And regarding how much I do it in training, because I know I can swim quite well, I kind of focus my energy on other things; more weak areas. So, I might jump in the water once a fortnight, just to do a few laps and I’ll normally go down to Bronte and swim in the ocean bars down there.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, it’s beautiful down there, isn’t it?
Just for those that are listening, can you explain what the Pendleton was? Because you crushed it like the swim. You were out and gone.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, it was; we had to firstly start off with a 700-meter soft sand run and then there was an 800-meter ocean swim. And the transition onto a bike and there was an 8-kilometer trail bike ride and then an 11-kilometer trail run. So, the trail run, for me it was more like a power walk up the hills and then sprint down the hills. And it was a two-hour event.
Stuart Cooke: I think that shook a few people up, didn’t it, as a first event? Because historically I think, you know, everyone’s thinking of heavy lifts and gym movements. But to throw in something completely out of the ordinary, almost triathlon-style, really shook the boat a little bit.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, absolutely. The event after the triathlon was an obstacle course; an army-style obstacle course. There were guys that were kind of left on the balance beams or any kind of apparatus that were cramping up, just because they either hadn’t eaten food or didn’t supplement properly throughout the event. And they were suffering pretty bad from cramps, so, yeah, it absolutely shook a lot of the athletes up. And the soreness that was going to develop from that two-hour event was felt for the rest of the Games for the next three days. So, it was good one to kick us up.
Stuart Cooke: Absolutely. You never know. Shake it up, I guess, is the way to go. It’s the true test.
Thinking about those, the very nature of training in the games, I’ve got a question from Matt Gray, who asks that, “When you’re exhausted, where does your mind go when you need to dig real deep to find that extra strength and keep pushing through the pain?”
Chad Mackay: There’s a few different things that I think about. I’ve normally got a game plan to a workout and I’ll try to stick to that game plan. And then if things start to really hurt, I’ll just take my mind back to other times that I’ve hurt much worse. There was a time in the Games in 2010 where there was a rope climb at the end and I was struggling pretty bad. It was the last event. We have probably three or four minutes to climb a rope and then move back across and jump over a wall. And it was just kind of as many rounds as you could do that in the last piece. And I climbed the rope once, came down, got back down about halfway, and my grip just went and I slid pretty much from the top of the rope to the bottom and tore every single finger pad on my hand off on both hands.
Every time I start to hurt, I take myself back to there. It was 45 degrees and I had no skin left on the pads of my fingers. I always think back to that and just tell myself nothing can kind of compare to that.
And the other thing I think about a lot is I think about my family when it starts to hurt, and rather than kind of doing it for myself and trying to block out the pain, I think about them and that’s a big motivator for me as well. Just to think about family and how much support they give me and I wouldn’t be able to do it without them. So, my mind wanders to my family when I start to hurt as well.
Guy Lawrence: That’s awesome, man. A question that just occurred: When you’re out there, do you think it’s the mindset things that differentiate a lot of the outcome? Because, like, when we looked at the open, just for the regionals, and even the regionals it was so tightly contested, it’s incredible, you know? And do you think that’s a factor about that point; being able to overcome that?
Chad Mackay: Yeah, absolutely. Like, there’s the 10 domains of fitness in CrossFit, so you need to be competent across all those 10 domains. But I think there’s definitely an element where the mental aspect of the sport is where it’s really at as well, and if you see an athlete lose it out on the floor, and they kind of lose that focus, it’s pretty hard for them to get that back. So, definitely that mental component is what kind of develops over time as well.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Wow. All right.
Well, next question. We’ve got Doug Evans. We touched on it a little bit earlier, I think: pre-workout and post-workout meals. What do they consist of? Would they be crucial meals?
So I guess; do you just generally eat the same or do you eat something specific before and after?
Chad Mackay: Normally something specific before, pre-workout will be normally banana. And I’ll probably have about a third of a banana before; exactly an hour beforehand. And then I’ll have about probably 40 grams of weighed protein, so that’ll be chicken or lamb or beef.
And then, post-workout will be a shake, a 180 shake, and then a piece of fruit as well and a whole meal. So, that’ll be straightaway. I’ll normally still be breathing pretty heavy to get that meal in.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, right, OK. Fair enough. That’s a good point, actually.
Stuart Cooke: So, another question from Lach Mac, again, on food: “When the mood hits you, what, if anything, is your go-to cheat meal?”
Chad Mackay: I think the last time I would have had a cheat meal would have been after the Games last year. And I’ll normally go for pizza or ice cream for me. Normally, when I’m at home I’m quite good. I won’t have a cheat meal every week or every month. It’ll be pretty much after the CrossFit Games I’ll go out and let my hair down.
Last year, we finished off in Vegas and they’ve got these incredible buffets in Vegas and, yeah, I went to town.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah, I think they’d be in trouble if you went to town on a buffet. It’s like I’ve seen on The Simpsons.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, they didn’t make any money off me, that’s for sure.
Stuart Cooke: Fantastic.
Guy Lawrence: How did you feel? Like, we eat pretty clean. If I eat something that’s cheap meal it knocks me for six. I mean, it’s not the easier thing, even though it sounds great, you know?
Chad Mackay: I get a; after the Games, we have a fair bit of time to relax, so I had friends send over some ice cream and the ice cream was just waiting for us in the room when we got there. And so we polished off maybe a tub of ice cream that night, or that evening. And then the next morning up I woke up and it’s like you’ve got a sugar hangover, and, you know, you’re a little bit cloudy in the morning and it takes a bit of time to get going. But, yeah. . .
It’s not something I look forward to anymore, definitely. I much more look forward to, like, it sounds quite boring, but like a chicken salad. A chicken salad for dinner every night is perfect rather than a big bowl of ice cream.
Guy Lawrence: That’s fair enough. I mean, they say 70 to 80 percent of performance is nutrition, and if you want to perform at the top, you’ve got to fuel yourself the right way. Otherwise, forget about it.
Stuart Cooke: Unless, of course, you’re in an ice cream eating competition. That would be a little different.
Chad Mackay: You’d do that, Stewie, right?
Stuart Cooke: I’d give it a go. I’d give it my best shot.
Guy Lawrence: All right. We’ve got Dean Glendall-Jones. “What is your favorite thing to do on a rest day?”
Chad Mackay: A rest day; I kind of don’t really take rest days. If I’m on a rest day, I like to go to yoga, go surfing, spend time with friends and family. Do some mobility roll-out. Still trying to improve on a rest day. Even if it’s something light, I know there will be some kind of improvement there. So, on a rest day, it’s mainly spent by still doing active. . .
Guy Lawrence: An active rest day.
Chad Mackay: Absolutely. Yeah. An active rest day, for sure.
Guy Lawrence: Does that go right through the whole year, pretty much, or would you, after the games you stop for a month or do you just keep chipping away or?
Chad Mackay: I think I took about a week off after the Games last year, and that was just total rest. And I’ll probably do that again.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, right, right. Amazing.
Stuart Cooke: So, we’ve got a couple of short questions left. This one has been getting quite a lot of press: Jared Smith is very interest in how big your calves are in centimetres.
Chad Mackay: So, Jared’s a good buddy of mine, so he calls me “Calves,” actually, so he’ll send me a text or an email and it will be, “Hey, Calves, how are you doing?” So, he’s a character. He’s a really good athlete as well. Jared, I’m not too sure how big my calves are. They’re definitely bigger than your biceps, buddy.
Guy Lawrence: And do you know who Gary Cousins is?
Chad Mackay: I know Gary Cousins.
Guy Lawrence: He said: Do you have a man-crush on him?
Chad Mackay: He’s a serial pest, Gary Cousins. He’s a lovely bloke. His son trains at our gym, and he’s actually in the team that’s gonna go over and represent Active at the games this year. So, Dean’s a really good athlete and he’s keeping goals in training at the moment. But Gary’s a really good guy.
Guy Lawrence: Fantastic. The Active support at the regionals was hilarious. Like, it was awesome to see everyone in orange jumpsuits, pretty much.
Stuart Cooke: Yeah, that’s right. The orange men in the crowd.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, that was great to see. And I think the CrossFit headquarters was calling us the “Orange Army,” which was pretty cool.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just remember walking in one day and they have the rowing competition that was going on outside for the fastest 500 meters and all I saw was this guy completely head-to-toe in orange. Even his face was covered, and he was just going for it.
Chad Mackay: Yeah, it’s great to have the support, you know? For all the gyms, even CrossFit Bay. They were getting behind; all the Active guys were out on the floor as well, which was fantastic.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, awesome. Awesome.
Well, that’s pretty much all the questions we sort of wanted to cover, you know. Just to wrap it up, I know you’re a busy guy. You run a couple of CrossFit gyms on the North Shore of Sydney, so if people are interested in coming to check out your CrossFit gym and what you guys are about, where’s the best place to go?
Chad Mackay: Just jump onto the website and you can; just jump onto info@crossfitactive.com.au. And get in touch with Patty and see how you can get started at the gym. We’ve also got a free trial class on every Saturday at our Waverton location. So, jump online, check that out, and we’ll hopefully see you around down there shortly.
Guy Lawrence: We can put the appropriate links up, anyway, on the blog.
Awesome. Chad, thank you for your time.
Stuart Cooke: Thank you, Chad. As always, fantastic, again. And for anybody out there that’s at the cinema, keep an eye on the guy wearing the Whites vest rolling a couple of golf balls. And say hi.
Chad Mackay: Awesome to see you. Thanks, guys. See you, Guy; thanks, buddy.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Kim Pedersen
We follow Brandon Swan as he prepares for the CrossFit Games 2013.
The video was filmed during his training at CrossFit Leonidas on Saturday the 22nd June 2013, about a month out from the Games. Swan follows Rudy Nielsens programming, The Outlaw Way.
His training was as follows:
Olympic Lifting:
A: Work up to a heavy Power Snatch. Then 5mins of EMOM, 3 TNG Power Snatch at 85%
B: Work up to a heavy Power Clean and Power Jerk. Then 5mins of EMOM, 3 TNG Power Clean and Power Jerk.
Strength:
C1: 4×8 Front Rack, Step Ups
C2: 4×10 strict Ring Dips, into ME Kipping Ring Dips
C3: 4xME strict Muscle Ups
Conditioning:
50 Wallballs
40 hand release Push Ups
30 hang Power Cleans
40 hand release Push Ups
50 Wallballs
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Contributor
Chris Spealler is a 6-time CrossFit Games Veteran, and the only athlete in the world to have competed at every CrossFit Games to date.
After announcing his retirement from the sport last year, Spealler surprised many by taking part in this year’s CrossFit Open, and then competing at the South West Regional in a bid to earn yet another ticket to compete on CrossFit’s biggest stage.
However, the fairy tale was not to be, with Spealler finishing in 4th place overall at the South West Regionals and missing out of automatic qualification by the smallest of margins.
We caught up with the CrossFit Park City Coach and CrossFit Seminar Staff member, to learn more about his mental mindset, how he’s dealing with the setback of missing out on the Games and what’s next for the legend of the sport.
In the following Q&A, Spealler shares his predictions for this year’s CrossFit Games, speculation of a wildcard spot at this year’s event, and just how he is helping good friend Matt Chan on achieving his dream in 2013!
Chris, three weeks have passed since you competed at the South West Regional. How did you feel going into the weekend? Physically and Mentally?
I was ready. I knew it was going to be a tough competition but [my coach] Ben Bergeron programmed extremely well for me this year. I was more fit than ever before and ready to hit up each individual workout to the best of my ability.
Last year, we all witnessed your heroic effort, against the odds on the final day to qualify for the 2012 CrossFit Games. It was no different this year with a huge final day needed to ensure qualification. What was your mindset going into the final day of competition, knowing that your back was against the wall?
It’s tough being in that position but there is a part of me that likes it. Playing the underdog role has always come naturally to me since I’ve ended up there often. Even in other sports I’ve had to work to earn spots, go against the odds, and I enjoy it in some ways. I knew I had to show up on the chipper and win the event to have an increased chance of being top 3. I also knew that some of the other athletes would have to fall back a bit there. I was prepared for the last workout and really confident in my ability. I gave it everything I possibly had, but too many guys squeaked in between Zach and I and things ended up the way they did.
Chris Spealler at the 2013 South West Regional (Image Courtesy of CrossFit Games Facebook Page)
As you have acknowledged, “any elite competitor needs to be prepared for some heartbreak. It comes with the territory”. How have you reflected on your efforts at Regionals and over the CrossFit journey?
It’s a really difficult thing to deal with. It may sound silly but it’s almost like a bit of a grieving process. I went through being emotional and just breaking down, I was angry, I was sensitive, I felt fine the next minute. I think I have a unique opportunity though to show people how this is done with grace. I don’t know of anyone else in my shoes and it’s something that is difficult but an opportunity to show the community that there is more to life than CrossFit competitions and what the community can truly be about.
Each year, the athletes continue to get stronger, faster and with increased work capacity. What is the biggest improvement of athletes since your first time at the Games?
The strength gains have gone through the roof. It really is remarkable what athletes at our level are doing when you see them out there. 225 [pounds] was 30 pounds above my 1RM for a squat clean in 2007. [At the 2013 CrossFit South West Regionals] I did it 16 times in a workout that had rope climbs and running in it in under 5 min. Some of the bigger athletes out there obviously have even more impressive numbers.
We all know you have a great relationship with fellow Level 1 Staff and CrossFit Games competitor Matt Chan. Are you on board to help Matt take first place this year?
I’m going to rub Matt’s nose in the dirt for the next 5 weeks to help him get there. It is tough being in the gym and knowing that I have the same potential, but it’s the right thing to do and Matt is incredibly supportive of me as well right now as I go through this time.
How are you going to help Matt in his quest for CrossFit Games glory?
I’m working out with him on a daily basis, helping with some programming, and trying to give him some positive mindsets that have worked for me in the past. Just going through these few weeks with him can be helpful.
Matt Chan and Chris Spealler
Other than Matt, who is your pick for the podium in Carson, California next month?
Rich [Froning] is a phenomenal athlete. I do think he will be tough to beat, but like I said for myself, it’s not going to last forever, it doesn’t matter who you are. I think Josh Bridges is a huge competitor and if Dan Bailey can keep his head in the game through the entire weekend he is also a threat. Can never leave [Jason] Khalipa out either, that guy is consistent.
We know that there is always the potential for an up and coming to push for the podium. Who do you think this will be in 2013?
I don’t follow too many up and comers to be honest. I know they are out there but what they lack is experience. In an atmosphere like the Games they have no idea what they are in for. Guys like I mentioned above know the ins and outs of the weekend and will walk in much more relaxed.
How do you respond to comments from fellow Regional competitor Zach Forrest that the CrossFit Games “will not be the same without Spealler”?
It’s an honor coming from a friend and someone that has been around the sport for longer than most. I feel the same way. Things won’t be the same for me either.
What do you say about the speculation that you will be offered a wildcard spot at the CrossFit Games?
I haven’t received one and even if I did I don’t know that I would take it. I want to earn my spot, even if I come up against some adversity that is outside of my control. If the fans wanted me there in an overwhelming response I may do it. It would be a really difficult decision for me though. It’s no different than any other sport though, you have to earn the right to be there.
Once a competitor, always a competitor. You have previously said, “What you’ve gained just doesn’t go away.” What do you have planned to continue to fulfil your competitive urge? What are the next steps for Chris Spealler?
I don’t know, I’m already talking with Ben [Bergeron] again on if I should make another run at this. Matt [Chan] keeps telling me to “shut up” when I talk like I’m done competing and says that we both know we are going to be doing this till we are old and broken. He may not be too far off the mark. The more I think about leaving the competition side the more I think about how much I love it. Even if I don’t win the Games what is the harm in me going after it again? I say it time and time again, people like seeing someone pour their heart out there. I like doing that; I have to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks and months.
- Thanks again Chris for talking the time to speak with The Rx Review. Your contribution the CrossFit Community is unmatched, all the best for what lies ahead.
Written by Andy Lee: Andy is an avid CrossFitter from Melbourne, Australia and trains out of CrossFit South Yarra. He is a contributing writer for the CrossFit Games website and a regular writer for the Blonyx website.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, John Michael Bric
Doug Katona is one of the brains behind CrossFit Endurance: a sports training program dedicated to improving performance, fitness and endurance sports potential.
Over the past few years, Katona has forged a reputation of being one of the most respected and successful CrossFit coaches in the world. He currently takes care of a number of leading CrossFitters, including last year’s 3rd place finisher at the CrossFit Games, Talayna Fortunato.
With the 2013 CrossFit Games just weeks away, Fortunato and Katona have this week ventured to Rich Froning’s gym CrossFit Mayhem, to take part in a training camp with fellow Games qualifiers Froning, Dan Bailey, Danielle Horan and Michaell Crawford.
The Rx Review caught up with Doug Katona recently to chat about this training camp and how just how he’s preparing WOD SuperStore ambassador Talayna Fortunato for her second CrossFit Games.
In the following Q&A, Katona gives us an insight into his programming for the ‘Third Fittest Woman on Earth’ and the changes he’s implementing now that the Regionals are over.
Well first of all Doug, can you tell us a bit about this training camp with Froning, Bailey and Horan? What’s the focus of the camp?
Basically, we’re still training, we haven’t started to taper yet. It’s a camp where we will still be going hard.
We still have some strength pieces we want to polish off, and some skill and movement efficiency that we want to address as well. In addition to that, it’s just about starting to make sure the body is getting ‘put together’ if you will.
In the training camp we’re going to be swimming, running, lifting, all kinds of things, because you never know what you’re going to get out of the hopper.
Noah Ohlsen, Doug Katona and Talayna Fortunato at the 2013 South East Regional
How is Talayna’s training differing now, in the lead up to the CrossFit Games, compered to her lead up to the South East Regional?
In a word, heavy. You know, you go from the Open, to the Regionals, to the Games and there is definitely a different pathway emphasis and different capacity needs.
Training for the Open is one thing; training for the Regionals is another. Now, leading up to the Games, we have to hit exposed weaknesses a little bit harder. For example, we’re working on squatting right now. It’s just trying to sure up a few things.
You’re not going to get a whole heck of a lot stronger in the few weeks leading up to the Games, but you can certainly address some movement issues if you want to.
But we’re trying to have fun. Talayna and I enjoy having fun when we train, so we’re trying to come up with some different movements and we do some off-the-wall work. We play around with cargo nets and lift up some heavy strange objects. It’s that type of thing.
The CrossFit Games always throws out a few unexpected workouts, which very few of us are able to predict. Just how do you prepare Talayna for the ‘unexpected’ and ‘unknowable’?
Well I think we’re doing that. We’re blessed in the fact the she has a high degree of athleticism and she has a pretty good ability to adapt to things I throw at her. Her pedigree allows her to adapt very quickly.
We are doing a lot of high level, high loaded, interval work right now and, again, we are making sure we are trying to keep the body as healthy and as ready as possible, recovering day to day.
We track things day to day. We make sure she’s feeling good. We watch what she’s eating a little bit closer. So everything’s under a microscope a lot more than ever.
Programming also becomes a day-to-day thing versus 5-7 days at a time. Now, I look at it almost every single day. I listen to her as well. I mean, even if I have a plan, she might have something she wants to accomplish too, so we’re a good team. We work together that way and we integrate things.
Doug and Talayna
What kind of training will you be putting Talayna through in the final week leading up to the Games?
We’re looking at doing some light training. From a central nervous system standpoint, it’s good to keep the body remembering what it’s doing. I don’t believe in a full relaxed taper.
We’re still going to doing some light work, but it’s all about energy assimilation and not energy expiration. We’re going to put some bullets in the holster and not use too much ammunition, so when she gets to Day 1, and, all the way to end of the Games, she’s firing on all cylinders and recovering well.
Finally, do you think she has the ability to win the CrossFit Games this year?
We’ wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing if we didn’t think that.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, John Michael Bric
At the age of 31, Talayna Fortunato competed at the CrossFit Games for the first time last year. By the end of the competition she was crowned the ’3rd Fittest Woman on the Planet’.
A year later, Fortunato is preparing for another appearance at Carson, California, after winning the 2013 South East Regional and qualifying for her second straight Games.
After picking up a new sponsor in WOD SuperStore, Fortunato has had more time to focus on her training over the past 12 months, and has seen solid improvements under new coach Doug Katona.
With Annie Thorisdottir withdrawing from this year’s competition with a back injury, and last year’s runner-up Julie Foucher taking a year off the sport to concentrate on her studies, Talayna Fortunato will be going into this year’s CrossFit Games as the highest ranked female performer from last year.
The Rx Review caught up with Fortunato recently to find out how she’s feeling in the lead up to the 2013 CrossFit Games and what her expectations are at this year’s competitions.
In the following Q&A, Fortunato from CrossFit Real Fitness talks about life under her new coach and new sponsor, how she got into the sport of CrossFit and who are main competitors are at this year’s CrossFit Games.
Talayna Fortunato at the 2013 South East Regional
Firstly Talayna, congratulations on qualifying for the 2013 CrossFit Games. How did you find the South East Regional?
Going in I actually felt in better shape than I did last year. But I didn’t know how I was going to stack up against the other competitors. I didn’t know how much better they were going to be.
I was actually kind of surprised to see myself leading as much as I was after the first few days, but I was happy with it, that’s for sure!
We’re now just weeks away from the 2013 CrossFit Games. How are you feeling heading into this year’s competition?
I’m feeling pretty good. But I won’t feel quite ready until I’m finished with my training and am put up against to the other athletes. It really all just comes together in the final week out from the Games.
What will you take out of last years CrossFit Games that will help you this time around in just your second time competing in Carson, California?
I kind of want to have the same approach I had last year, this year. Just trying to be consistent, you know. If you go to the Games and try to win every Event, it would probably not work out so well.
People like Rich Froning and Annie Thorisdottir just try to be consistent and come in top 10, top five in everything. I mean, if you come like 7th or 8th in every workout, you’ll probably win the Games.
Talayna Fortunato and John at the 2012 CrossFit Games
What sort of workouts/exercises are you hoping for when Dave Castro announces the Events for this year’s Games?
I like really odd stuff. Like the more awkward it is, the better it is for me. So I like the gymnastics stuff, I like a lot of snatching and things that have a lot of mobility.
What sort of exercises or movements are you not hoping for?
I don’t mind some of the strongman stuff like the yoke and things like that, but I would probably say I don’t want a bunch of heavy squatting or heavy deadlifts. Like the mono-structural, ‘as heavy as you can’ kind of thing. I’m not bad at it, but it’s not my best thing. I’m better at athletic, co-ordinated exercises.
With CrossFit becoming more professional, more and more athletes are beginning picking up sponsors. Do you have a manager that handles that stuff for you?
I have a sponsor but not so much a manager. I mean I have a sponsor and I go back and forth with them and I communicate with them frequently.
We saw during the 13.3 workout, and during the South East Regional you were wearing WOD SuperStore clothing. I’m guessing that’s your sponsor you’re talking about?
Yeah, that’s my only sponsor right now. And I’m allowed to work with other people, like other brands that are sold on WOD SuperStore, and I mean, they carry a lot of products. So I’m allowed to work with any of the products they carry. But yeah, right now I’m just working with WOD SuperStore.
Mirando Oldroyd and Talayna Fortunato at the 13.3 Workout
So how did that come about? How does a CrossFitter actually get sponsored these days?
It was kind of funny because I had a bunch of people reach out to me about sponsorship, but a lot of the deals weren’t that great. Like people were offering me free protein powder, but I was only allowed to wear their clothing and be committed to them for the next five years. They didn’t sound like the best deals.
Then Mark Chandley from WOD SuperStore contacted me on Facebook and said he actually went to my gym. At the time I thought, ‘oh, this guy’s actually local, so how serious can he be?’. But I sat down with him at my gym one evening after a workout and spoke about my goals with him. I spoke to him about how I wanted to decrease my work hours, especially around this time of the year, and still have enough money to pay my bills and train more like a professional athlete.
I just told him what I wanted and I didn’t really expect them to come up with an offer, but they did.
And how has the offer been for you?
Great! Like right now I’m actually just working around 22 hours a week, which is a huge difference from working 40. It allows me to do a lot more, and sleep more!
So it’s fair to say the partnership is going well?
Yeah I think so. I mean, I think I really helped them with the workout with Kristen Clever, in the 13.3 Open workout. I was able to wear their shirt and pretty much every CrossFitter who was doing the Open saw that, which was more than the people who would have watched me at the South East Regional.
Talayna Fortunato and coach Doug Katona
Focussing on the Games again, Annie Thorisdottir has confirmed she won’t be competing at this year’s Event. With her being out, who do you think can claim the title this year?
If you look at it, there are a few people up there at the top, and then there is a drop-off. I think there are around 10 girls, and any of them have a shot at winning it. I think a lot of it is going to come down to who comes into the weekend feeling good and what the workouts are.
In our sport you can’t ignore the importance of the workouts and how it can dictate who is going to win.
So who do you think are your main competitors this year?
Camille Leblanc (Bazinet), Rebecca Voigt, Elizabeth Akinwale. I’ve never met Danielle Horan but she did really well at Regionals. Valerie Voboril, Lindsey Valenzuela, and, I mean, I think (Kristan) Clever - her shoulder might be hurting, but she’ll be up there.
Do you think you have the ability to win this year?
Um, yeah. I do.
So what are your expectations this year?
I want to do better than last year. Last year, in the very first two events, I really went all out and I had nothing to lose. But then when I saw my standing I started to play it a little bit safer, especially towards the middle. Like, on the handstand push-up workout I probably could have gone unbroken, but just to be safe, and because I didn’t want to fail, I went ‘four-three’ on everything.
This year, I think I’m just going to go all out. I’m not going to try to game it as much and just go all out.
Talayna Fortunato Collapses After Completing ‘Fran’ (Image courtesy of CrossFit.com)
What about the mental side of the Games?
It’s good to train for the whole year, but you kind of have to mentally prepare yourself, because the volume and the ‘digging deep’ in each workout will catch up with you. You know that going 100 per cent versus 85 per cent on each workout is going to make a difference. So it’s also hard.
Before CrossFit, what was your background in sport?
I was a gymnast. My mum taught me from when I was four, and I did that all through high school and in college. I also mixed in some track and field in high school. I did hurdles, long jump, high jump, pentathlon, and that soon turned into the heptathlon. I did that for a couple of years in college and I tried some pole vault and I was OK at it. Mostly it was always gymnastics. I was really tall for a gymnast so I had to work harder than all the other girls, but I loved it.
When I got out of that, I was 23 and that was in 2003, and I didn’t really find CrossFit until 2009.
In between that time I was a bit of a gym-rat, doing a bunch of spin classes, and body pumps and step class and doing some triathlons. And then my trainer said, ‘I think you’d be good at this CrossFit thing’.
At the time I was still strong, but not as strong as I am now. It took a while for my body to get back to being like an athlete again. But I walked in and tried it and thought, yep this is it, this is what I want to do.
What are your plans once the CrossFit Games are over?
Last year I didn’t really take much time off afterwards, like maybe a few days, and I when I got home from vacation I got right back into it all. But this year I think I might take a few weeks off!
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Ruth Anderson Horrell
After flying out from a wintry New Zealand two weeks ago, Ruth Anderson Horrell has wasted no time preparing for the 2013 CrossFit Games.
Giving her body little time to overcome jetlag, she immediately teamed up with Lindsey Valenzuela and Sam Briggs to begin a gruelling training camp at DogTown CrossFit to train for this year’s competition.
But it’s been a tough first week for the Kiwi CrossFitter, having to overcome severe cases of dehydration, heat exhaustion and a few niggling injuries.
In the above video, Ruth Anderson Horrell chats about her first week training in LA, and the issues she’s been having acclimatising to the hot LA summer.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Michael McCoy
Sandy Kellin
Over the past 12 months there has been a lot of talk and hype about the fitness supplement Xendurance, particularly in the functional fitness community.
For those of who who aren’t familiar with the product, Xendurance is essentially a lactic acid buffer that claims to increase aerobic threshold and reduce lactic acid during training and workouts. Basically, it allows you to workout harder and faster by reducing muscle burn and pain during workouts, and speeding up recovery outside of training.
Members at CrossFit Affiliates from around the world are now using the supplement more than ever, especially after CrossFit Games veterans Camille Leblanc Bazinet and Josh Bridges began endorsing it.
Both athletes have been taking Xendurance every day for the past year and have posted some impressive scores and results so far this year. During the 13.5 workout in this year’s CrossFit Games Open, both Camille and Josh posting remarkable scores. Bridges scored the most reps in the world in the ‘Fran Ladder’ with 254 reps, while Leblanc Bazinet scored 244 to be ranked second best in the world.
Bridges then went on to finish 7th at the 2013 CrossFit Games, winning three Events, while Leblanc Bazinet finished top six in the final five Events to place 16th overall.
The Rx Review also put Xendurance to the test in a thorough review of the product earlier this year. We also found it had huge benefits to athletes and those aspiring to compete at the CrossFit Games.
We caught up with Sandy Kellin, the creator of Extreme Endurance and the founder of the Xendurance, recently to find out more about the supplement and why it’s become so popular in CrossFit affiliates around the world.
In the following interview Kellin talks about how Xendurance was founded, the many benefits athletes can experience from taking the supplement, some of the world class athletes who use it, and recommends some other Extreme Endurance products for aspiring and current CrossFit Games athletes.
Sandy you’re the founder of Xendurance and the creator of Extreme Endurance, can you talk to me a little about yourself and how the got started?
Growing up I was always involved in sports. After College and with my degree in exercise physiology in hand, I went on to compete internationally for the United States in the sport of bobsledding for a several of years, but throughout that period I was also a strength and condition coach.
When I was competing in Europe all those years ago, athletes starting asking me to bring back quality nutritional supplements for them. I obviously realised there was a good niche in the market, so that is when I established my nutrition company in Europe.
At the time we focused on making high quality products for the medical community. And eventually, I branched into the sports side of the business because I wanted to make amazing products for athletes.
So when did you begin Xendurance and the formula for Extreme Endurance?
The development of Extreme Endurance started in 2005/06, but we didn’t market it publicly until 2007. Athletes in Europe were the first to use it, and then we brought it to the United States in the spring of 2008, after we ran a published clinical study putting the supplement to the test.
Can you elaborate on the results of that clinical study?
There were 22 elite athletes that used Extreme Endurance over a 10-day period. At the end of the 10 days, the athletes recorded a 15% reduction in lactic acid and also saw their aerobic threshold increase by double digits.
In addition, all athletes reported less muscle soreness and a much quicker recovery. And to make sure the results could be trusted, we got a third party to run the clinical study.
So for the record, Extreme Endurance is the first acid buffering sports nutrition product in the world to have a third party, Gold standard, double blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, clinical study that is certified drug free.
No one that we have found has ever, ever done that.
Sandy Kellin with Camille Leblanc Bazinet
Why do you think Extreme Endurance is good for athletes in CrossFit affiliates?
I think it is the perfect product for the sport because if you walk into any CrossFit affiliate around the world, there are people complaining about being sore. Extreme Endurance literally takes the soreness away and allows you to recover a lot faster for your next workout.
We all know what it’s like doing a workout when you’re sore and you’re body is aching – It’s not fun! So by taking Extreme Endurance, your ‘soreness’ levels are reduced, making the WODs more enjoyable.
I think Camille Leblanc Bazinet’s demonstration in workout 13.5 during the CrossFit Open, is an example of how having lactic acid buffers allows you to blast through that wall and do more.
Josh Bridges too, I mean he was able to pull off 254 reps in that workout, so it just gives you a huge advantage.
How did Xendurance become involved with the functional fitness community?
One of the people who were involved in the manufacturing side of Extreme Endurance had mentioned the product to his son, who was a former professional baseball player and a CrossFitter. He ordered it online and experienced huge benefits while using the product.
The people at his CrossFit affiliate gave him the nickname ‘Darkhorse’ because he went from being ‘so so’ to being ‘pretty awesome’. They asked him how he did it but he didn’t want to tell anyone because it was his secret weapon!
Funnily enough, one of the guys who works for us goes to that same affiliate! He also kept quiet about the fact he was taking it. Seems like they both wanted to keep it their own little secret (laughs).
It was then we realised the only way to get the word out about Extreme Endurance was to actively get athletes to talk about their experiences using it.
So we gave the product to Camille Leblanc-Bazinet and asked she simply try the product. We also did the same thing with Josh Bridges. In the end, both of them liked it so much we decided to sponsor them.
The important thing is that our athletes believe in our products, so we don’t sponsor any athlete unless they have been on Extreme Endurance for at least a month.
Sandy and John at the 2013 CrossFit Games
We interviewed Camille Leblanc-Bazinet earlier this year. One of the things she noted about Extreme Endurance is that it helped increase her VO2max. Is that really possible?
That’s one of the great benefits of Extreme Endurance. As an athlete, if you train hard all the time over the course of the year, you could probably increase your VO2max by one, maybe two per cent.
What we found with Extreme Endurance, is because you can train hard all the time and recover quicker, you can increase your VO2max faster.
One of our athletes, Heidi Jesberger, went from 54 milliliters per kilogram in VO2max to 63.5 in just 10 months of using Extreme Endurance. She’s now been on the product for almost three years and is close to 70. Another triathlete we have in the United States, one of the top American guys, went from a VO2max of 74 to over 83 in just one year!
So that’s why Camille had that great VO2max feeling. In the year she’s been on it all of her workouts have been getting better and better. She’s been recovering quicker and quicker and as a result, her VO2max has gone up.
Other than Extreme Endurance, what supplements of yours does Camille Leblanc-Bazinet and Josh Bridges take?
With Josh’s knee injury, he’s been taking Extreme Joint 4, and he absolutely loves it! He also takes our fish oil, Extreme Omega 1000.
We supply both of them with the Extreme Immune Boost. It’s important they stay healthy so they can compete year round and train at the highest levels.
Besides Camille Leblanc Bazinet and Josh Bridges are there any other professional athletes we may know that are taking your products?
The first high-level athlete to use the product in America was an Olympic swimmer called Jason Lezak. He was given Extreme Endurance by his strength and conditioning coach of eight years, Rick Stassi. Stassi has trained around 400 pro athletes and got Jason using Extreme Endurance after hearing about all the benefits.
After using it for a while, Lezak qualified for the Olympic Games in Beijing and actually went on to shatter the World Record in the 4 x 100 metre relay. He won an Olympic Gold medal in the event and it was basically the first time people could see the effects of Extreme Endurance. The guy swam 46-seconds flat in the final leg of the relay. No one had ever swam that fast in a relay leg!
He was 32-years-old at the time and they call it one of the miracles of the Games because he was a full body length behind the leader on the final leg. Then in the last 25 metres you could see the leader, (Alain) Bernard from France, tightening up. The commentators were saying ‘he’s tightening up, the lactic acids getting to him’. And then Jason just swam right past him! It was a huge, huge, huge upset.
Did he credit you or Extreme Endurance for that win?
His coach, Rick Stassi, definitely credits us with that. And he now has everyone he trains using the product.
What other high profile athletes are using Extreme Endurance?
If you follow the endurance sporting world, you‘ll certainly know about Timo Bracht. Timo has won 8 Ironman’s and he is the three-time European Champion. Timo was on the product for about four months before the European Championships, which is the Frankfurt Ironman – the second biggest Ironman in the world.
During the event, Timo shattered that record. He completed the triathlon in less than eight hours and he finished with a 2:43 marathon split. For the next six weeks they came knocking on his door testing for drugs. People could not believe Timo could do an Ironman under 8 hours. He just blew them away.
Yvonne van Vlerken is another great female triathlete. She has won many Ironman and is another athlete many people would know. Abdi Abdirahman is a four time Olympian who was one of the favourites for the Boston Marathon this year, but he rolled his ankle. He’s one of the top long distance runners in the world.
While we are on the issue of testing, is Extreme Endurance Certified Drug Free?
Yes it is. The largest lab for Drug Free certification is called HFL and they are out of Cambridge, England. They did all the testing on the athletes during the Olympic Games in London and they are also ISO certified which means all their testing equipment is constantly monitored.
They did the testing on Extreme Endurance, so it’s certified Drug-Free by the largest sports lab in the world. You can see the logo on our packaging. There is also a logo saying ‘Informed Choice’ which is the logo for the US market, and then you’ll see another logo saying ‘Informed Sport’ which is for the European and worldwide market.
In addition, plenty of athletes were using Extreme Endurance at the recent Olympic Games in London and in Beijing, and also in Vancouver at the Winter Games.
You all sell a variety of supplements. But what specifically would you recommend for aspiring or current CrossFit Games athletes?
Extreme Endurance is a product you need to take every day like a multivitamin, and of course, fish oil is big in the world of CrossFit because of its ability to lower inflammation.
Fish Oils contain two types of key OMEGA-3 fatty acids and they are what we call EPAs and DHAs. They are the natural anti-inflammatories, and we have very high amounts of that in our product called Extreme Omega 1000. So that’s a great product too.
So Extreme Endurance, Extreme Omega 1000 and Xecute are the three products that I recommend for sure.
You have said Extreme Endurance is important for those on the Paleo diet. Can you explain why?
You know the Paleo diet is very popular right now. But the bad thing about a Paleo diet, or a meat diet, is that we become very acidic as a result. When you have an acidic diet, it’s not very healthy because many degenerative diseases, long-term diseases, like arthritis, heart disease and cancer, can flourish in an acid environment.
An extra benefit from taking Extreme Endurance is that it also helps you a lot in terms of balancing your body’s pH.
One of our triathletes, Matt Russell, has been taking Extreme Endurance for over a year and his pH is neutral, or with little alkaline, which is perfect. That’s what you want.
So from the health and performance aspect, Extreme Endurance should be part of everybody’s daily diet.
Is there a correct way to take Extreme Endurance?
You want to take it every day because it’s going to do a number of things. Unless you are a total vegetarian, you will have an acidic diet, especially if you follow the Paleo diet and eat a lot of meat. Extreme Endurance will help you maintain better pH levels.
From an athlete’s point of view, when you train hard, you obviously create more body acid, so that’s why you need to take six tablets of Extreme Endurance every day. You can take them with or without meals and before a big competition.
If you are going to be competing in a Regional competition or something like that, you want to be on eight tablets per day – four in the morning and four in the evening. You also want to be doing this for at least a week to ten days before, and you want to take it right through the competition. That’s what our endurance athletes do when preparing for, and during, their events.
So should I take it like 30-minutes before a competition?
It doesn’t matter when you take it. It’s going to take about 72 hours for it to get into your bloodstream. Once in your bloodstream, you want to keep it there to maintain the acid buffers.
So it doesn’t make a difference if you take it in the morning or at night. We recommend you take it every morning and the evening so you have a constant release and flow into your system. It also doesn’t matter if you’re taking it with food or without.
Sandy Kellin, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Michael McCoy
It was just last month Amanda Allen gave us a sneak peak inside her fridge.
So when I recently caught up with 2013 CrossFit Games Masters Champion, I decided to find out what she keeps inside her training bag.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Michael McCoy
The 2013 Australia Hero Games began on Saturday the 2nd of November. The event which runs from 2 to the 9th November hopes to increase public awareness and raise much needed funds for the Australian Commando Welfare Trust.
We caught up with event director, Jamie Zimmernann at CrossFit Marrickville while their members undertook the BAIRD workout.
Make sure you check out the interview and event above.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, Dave Chung
Over the past two years, former Division I collegiate basketball player Jamie Hagiya has become one of the top female athletes in CrossFit’s ever-competitive Southern California Region.
During the 2013 Open, Hagiya finished with the top female score in Southern California for 13.2 – ahead of former Games champion Kristan Clever, her recent competition partner Rebecca Voigt, and 2013 Games runner-up Lindsey Valenzuela.
After the Open, Hagiya finished in fifth place at SoCal Regionals. As a relative newcomer to the sport, she found herself asking in disbelief, “What am I doing in heats with Kris Clever, Becca Voigt, Lindsey Valenzuela, Val Voboril and all these other amazing women?!” Though Hagiya didn’t know what to expect from the Regionals, she “had a blast” competing with some of the world’s best athletes.
Jamie Hagiya (Image credit: jamiejoyce2 on Instagram)
As we know, there are no weight divisions at the CrossFit Games. While many strength programs prescribe weights at a percentage of your max, for most regular workouts, “Rx’ed is Rx’ed” – regardless of whether you’re jerking your bodyweight overhead, while the person behind you is happily moving 50% of his or hers.
To help give us a different lens into understanding “How much weight is a lot?”, I asked Hagiya for her current 1 rep max weights for a variety of lifts and compared them to her body weight. While moving heavy weights isn’t everything in CrossFit, it can be helpful to understand what some of CrossFit’s top athletes are doing when setting our own goals.
| Lift | Weight | % of Bodyweight |
| Snatch | 173 LB / 78.6 KG | 119% |
| Clean | 230 LB / 104.5 KG | 159% |
| Clean & Jerk | 215 LB / 97.7 KG |
148% |
| Back Squat | 315 LB / 143.2 KG | 217% |
| Front Squat | 255 LB / 115.9 KG | 176% |
Hagiya’s road from professional athlete to CrossFit competitor might be one that we’ll be seeing more often as the sport continues to grow and gain mainstream popularity. Despite being a bit hesitant about CrossFit at first, Hagiya said, “I ran a basketball clinic for the [WNBA’s Los Angeles] Sparks and my current co-owner [at Torrance CrossFit, Dan Uyemura] brought his daughter and wrote me a Facebook message after saying he owned a gym and I should come try it because he thought I’d be really good at it. So after politely declining his first few invitations, I finally gave in and went one time. The rest is history.”
Hagiya found that she loved CrossFit workouts for the variety, new gymnastics skills, the challenge of learning Olympic lifts, and how even the shortest workouts can take the most out of you. With her background in team sports, Hagiya also found that she loved the community, competition, and of course, the clock.
Kristan Clever coaching Jamie Hagiya (Image Credit: jamiejoyce2 on Instagram)
Though Hagiya is competing in a different sport today, she realizes that her disciplined training has carried over from her former career.
“Playing basketball at USC and professionally overseas, I took my training very seriously. It basically was my job and I loved every minute of it. I had to constantly work on improving and perfecting my craft and skill of ball handling, shooting and all aspects of my game. I’d spend endless hours in the gym and multiple workouts a day working on my game.”
Hagiya feels her background gave her a “good base of what I need to do with my CrossFit game”. Hagiya credits her former coach, former Lakers NBA champion Michael Cooper, for much of her training attitude and philosophy.
“[Cooper] would always talk about his philosophy of the 5 D’s: determination, dedication, desire, discipline and decision making. Whether it’s basketball or CrossFit training I feel that these are necessary, along with believing in yourself!”
Jamie Hagiya, Becca Voigt & Kristan Clever (Image Credit: jamiejoyce2 on Instagram)
Today, Hagiya operates Torrance CrossFit (formerly Fit Lab), in Torrance, California – a 6,500 square foot CrossFit and training facility that she opened with her sister Lexie and Dan Uyemura, who originally got Hagiya interested in CrossFit at LAX CrossFit. The gym offers everything from CrossFit classes to aerial silks, and of course, a professional basketball hoop. With CrossFit classes, team group training, and a CrossFit Kids class coming soon, Torrance CrossFit has been growing quickly since opening six months ago.
In addition to her CrossFit training, Hagiya continues to run basketball clinics and personal training for students and athletes looking to improve their game. Though CrossFit has become a large part of Hagiya’s own training, her love for basketball hasn’t faded. Hagiya’s next basketball clinic will be on December 21-22 in Carson, California, just three miles from the site of the Reebok CrossFit Games.
As the CrossFit Open season approaches, Hagiya is taking her Regionals experience to identify the skills she wants to work on before the 2014 Open. In addition to her overall conditioning and Olympic lifting, Hagiya has been focusing on improving on her gymnastics strength and movements – pull-ups, muscle-ups, rope climbs – in hopes of making in back to Regionals next year.
(Image Courtesy of Hagiya Basketball)
Living near many of the sport’s top athletes in Southern California, Hagiya feels “grateful and very lucky” to have gotten to train with the likes of Valley CrossFit’s Kristan Clever, Becca Voigt, Chad Melton, and Trixie Arya.
Hagiya has also trained with Lindsey Valenzuela, Kenny Leverich, and a number of her fellow SoCal Regional competitors over the past year, in addition to her regular training with members at Torrance CrossFit and her brother, who comes out to push her.
Though her current PRs and body weight to strength ratios will undoubtedly continue to reach new heights in the coming year, knowing where one of CrossFit’s top athletes strength numbers are today can help us with setting our own strength goals.
With a fast-growing community at Torrance CrossFit and a whirlwind rise to becoming one of the sport’s elite in just a couple years, Hagiya looks forward to the next Open season and is hopeful for a return to SoCal Regionals in 2014.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, John Michael Bric
The 2014 Allstar Affiliate Series wrapped up in Sydney, Australia over the weekend.
The Rx Review was on the ground covering the Event over the two days. Our reporter Kayla Banfield caught up with 2nd place finisher CrossFit Adelaide shortly after the final workout.
Check out full the interview in the video above.
2014 Allstar Affiliate Series: CrossFit Adelaide – 2nd Place
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, John Michael Bric
The 2014 Allstar Affiliate Series wrapped up in Sydney, Australia over the weekend.
The Rx Review was on the ground covering the Event over the two days. Our reporter Kayla Banfield caught up with 1st place finisher, and series champions, Southern CrossFit shortly after the final workout.
Southern CrossFit made headlines last year after one of their team members tested positive to a banned substance in the lead up to the Games. As a result the affiliate did not compete in the week long competition in Carson, California. However, with their impressive performance over the weekend the affiliate is a good chance to compete in the Australia Regional in 2014.
Check out full the interview with Southern CrossFit in the video above.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, John Michael Bric
The 2014 Allstar Affiliate Series wrapped up in Sydney, Australia over the weekend with Southern CrossFit finishing first and CrossFit Adelaide claiming second place and CrossFit Norwest rounding out the podium.
The Rx Review was on the ground covering the two-day Event. Our reporter Kayla Banfield caught up with 3rd place finisher CrossFit Norwest shortly after the final workout.
Check out full the interview in the video above.
The Rx Review: Reporting on Fitness and CrossFit News, John Michael Bric
After finishing third in the 2012 Australia Regional with a come from behind victory in the final Event, Denae Brown had qualified for the CrossFit Games for the first time ever.
A few months later, however, Brown announced she wouldn’t be competing in the competition, revealing she was pregnant! It turns out Brown was actually three weeks pregnant while competing at the Regional in what can only be described as a case of ‘bad timing’.
In 2013, with a new baby in her life, Brown decided to take a year of competing and dedicated more of her time to being a mother.
However, this year SPS Gear athlete Denae Brown has announced she’s making a return to competition, with the hopes of qualifying for the Games for a second time.
“The goal this year is not to get pregnant,” she says.
We caught up Denae Brown recently at SPS Gear Headquarters at CrossFit Brookvale to find out more about life after pregnancy and her hopes for the 2014 CrossFit season.
In the above interview Brown talks about many things including her new training regime, juggling motherhood and CrossFit, her diet and who she things will win the 2014 CrossFit Games.
