on eating by spreadsheet

When I first started thinking on what I wanted to write about and communicate here, I was very much focused on The Zone. Every CrossFitter is likely to know about The Zone thanks mainly to the now infamous CrossFit Journal Issue #21 from way back in May 2004 (our copy is covered in who knows what, the ink is smeared, it’s in bad shape from being used so much). On day two of my training regiment I was introduced to this new way of thinking about food. At first, I was drawn to the regimen and the counting and the weighing, but I burnt out on it quickly because food is and always has been more about the emotions for me. The math was ruining it! However, earlier this year I decided to hit it hard again and read up on Dr. Sears’ Top 100 Zone Foods. It worked and I began to see results again.

Even just a week ago I was deep in the spreadsheet mindset and I was working on a spreadsheet that calculated the carbohydrate food blocks by weight. It just kinda hit me like a lightning bolt: “What in the world are you doing? This is dumb. I shouldn’t have to crack open a spreadsheet every time I want to eat!” That same day I came across Mark Sisson’s website, Mark’s Daily Apple. His approach to the whole paleo/CrossFit subculture just seemed to fit me better than others. I love his approach to balance on both the food and the fitness. It just all goes together easier for me – and there’s not a single spreadsheet for download on his website. Before Mark, “going paleo” seemed to be extreme to me with no balance for living life.

I’m still plugging through his book and I plan to finish it this week, but I’ve already started to put his basic principles into practice and I feel better, I have more energy, and I’m losing weight without really trying. In just 4 days I’ve lost about 2 pounds while eating what I like! I know this is just a microcosm, but this feels very sustainable to me.

As we head into Spring Break this week we’re actually planning ahead by bringing our own food. We don’t want to be ostracized by the rest of the family or be seen as pariahs, but at the same time we don’t want to go backwards either. Just something simple like replacing the daily morning donut regimen with some eggs, berries, and nuts. Also, instead of snacking like we normally would on vacation, we’ll just grab some pre-cut vegetables from our cooler. Then for lunch and dinner we’ll eat what everybody else eats, just in moderation.

I’ll report back in and let you know how we did.  As of yesterday, my weight was 265. Posting that here will keep me honest and accountable!

on progress

In the past 5 days I have been In the Zone for about 95% of my food intake (I had Indian food for lunch one day with a friend). I have concentrated more on ensuring that the food I am eating is of a higher nutritional value thanks to The Top 100 Zone Foods guidelines by Dr. Sears. I’ve completed 3 CrossFit WOD’s with mixed results (still carrying around 75-ish extra pounds or so and struggling with a nagging shoulder injury), and I’m starting to do more and more research on Paleo (not quite there, yet). The results? I’ve lost 2.5 pounds in the last week.  Make that 72.5-ish extra pounds. 🙂

on block conversions

One of the more frustrating thing for me about how Dr. Sears presents The Zone is that it’s not really designed for people who are trying to make recipes. What good does knowing that 4 cups of cooked cauliflower is 1 block when I need to add cauliflower as part of a recipe before it’s cooked?  Also, something like cauliflower is irregular in shape, so the idea of trying to measure a “cup’s” worth is neither easy nor exact.

Most of us In the Zone already know how to read labels and determine how many blocks are presented using the following calculations provided by Dr. Sears:

• 1 block of protein = 7 g
• 1 block of carbohydrate = 9 g
• 1 block of fat = 1.5 g

For example, if we pick up a Snicker’s bar, this is what we’ll see:

Snicker's bar Nutrition Facts, courtesy of calorieking.com

By applying the block calculation amounts above, I can deduce that a Snicker’s bar is a) not a significant source of protein, b) has 9 blocks of fat and c) 4 blocks of carbs. Yikes! Not a very zone-friendly snack, but then, you already knew that.

But what about something like green beans? Where’s the nutrition facts label for that? If I’m going to prepare a side dish to feed five people, knowing that 1 1/2 cups of cooked green beans doesn’t really help me know how much to throw into the wok for, say, the stir-fry recipe from earlier today. By using a site like calorieking.com, I can look up raw green beans, enter a serving size of 1 oz. and see the following displayed:

Raw green beans Nutrition Facts, courtesy of calorieking.com

According to this, 1 oz. of raw green beans is 2 g or carbs. Because we know that it takes 9 g of carbs to form a single block, the math is simple: 9 g / 2 g = 4.5 oz. of raw green beans.  For a family of five, that’s 22.5 oz., which is much easier to calculate when you’re at the store buying fresh ingredients for recipes. When eating In the Zone, you don’t have to settle for “a cup and a half of cooked green beans” if you don’t want to. The idea of eating that for dinner does not make me a happy gastronomer.