You are a sugar zombie and your addicted body has taken over your mind.

You are a sugar zombie and your addicted body has taken over your mind.  Quite literally, if you consume sugar in any quantity, your body has actually taken control of your mind.

If you eat sugar, your mind is not your own.  If you eat sugar, your physical needs for this drug outweigh ALL mental requirements.  So if you know you need to go to the gym and you need to eat clean and you need to avoid certain foods and you need to 'think more positively', until sugar is completely out of your system, your body will not allow your mind to succeed. 

When I started my CrossFit journey, I was eating strict paleo.  I'm not talking 80%/20%, I mean strict 100% all the time.  I ate meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, seeds and nuts.  No sugar.  No dairy.  No grains (no rice, wheat, pasta, cakes, pastry or bread). No legumes (pulses, beans.lentils etc.). I didn't drink alcohol.

I felt amazing.  All the time.  Genuinely.  I didn't ever feel like I was depriving myself.  I was full of energy, I didn't have that 2pm slump, I felt well, alert, clear-minded and happy.  Genuinely felt great all the time.

After 2 years of eating like this, I slipped into adding sugar back into my diet.  It was a gradual decline over 2 years.

I have some perspective now on those two years.  I was way more tired.  Workouts in the gym felt hard - I was sluggish, I felt heavy.  My cardio suffered.  I struggled to think clearly about things.  I genuinely couldn't think straight.  My mind felt foggy and I found it difficult to make good decisions, especially when it came to food choices but also as far as emotional responses to situations.  Things that I could have handled before then became insurmountably hard.  I wasn't depressed but I was frustrated and angry and incredibly negative a lot of the time.

I know it sounds extreme to suggest food was responsible for my state of mind but going on the evidence I have, it's the only variable that changed.

Just before Christmas 2017, I started feeling exhausted, especially after I ate something heavy on starchy carbs or sugar.  It got to the point where, if I ate some chocolate (and I'm not talking your 95% single origin Ecuadorian stuff, I'm talking cheap nasty, vegelate with double the sugar required) I would be asleep inside 10 minutes.

So, having made myself reactively hypoglycemic, 2 weeks before Christmas, I decided enough was enough.  Gave up sugar again, cold turkey, gave up most starchy carbs.  Back on the paleo.

What have I noticed?

Everything is better!  I am more alert, less foggy-minded, less tired, no more crashing on the sofa after meals.  While my performance in the gym does reflect the fact that I am 46 years old and a bit lazy, I feel so much stronger, my cardio has improved massively in that I don't feel half as out of breath mid-workout as I used to and bodyweight movements like pullups and burpees feel way, way easier. But more than that, I feel positive!

I feel mentally more cheerful about everything!

What has changed since Christmas?  My job is the same, my family is the same, the weather is the same, my nutrition is different.

Sugar is to blame for how you feel mentally.  
Sugar is to blame for how you feel physically.

You think you don't eat much sugar because you don't add spoonfulls of table sugar to your tea or cereal?  You're wrong. Starchy carbs (like cereal and bread) are converted to sugar and anyway, most cereals have added sugar!

If you eat a lot of rice, pasta, bread, pastry, beans, processed food - albeit savoury - you are addicted to sugar.

Addicts lack the ability to think clearly because their bodies are on a constant mission to stay normal (homeostasis) by getting more of what they crave, be that heroin or sugar.  

If your body has a purpose higher than yours (homeostasis) it will take control of your mind to force you onto its own path so it can get what it needs.  
Sugar makes your brain into a zombie controlled by your body.

For example - while my diet was bad, I would drive to the gym to train (my mental pathway that was good for me) and on the way stop at a petrol station to get something to eat - it was a compulsion (my body controlling my zombified mind).  I couldn't not stop at the petrol station.  It genuinely was as if I had no control over my actions and when I got to the petrol station, they didn't sell paleo things there and as my brain was literally sabotaging my efforts in order to satisfy it's physical requirement for sugar, I would get a sandwich and a sugary snack.  
I literally could not stop myself.  I could not think straight.

Now that the sugar is out of my system (it literally only takes a few days) I am quite happy to have breakfast, go and coach then drive to where I train without eating again.  It just isn't an issue.  I have control over my brain again.

Try quitting sugar for 30 days and keep a record of how you feel and what you notice.  You need to stop eating processed foods and take-aways, you need to read all the ingredients on every label (although non-processed food has no ingredients list!) and you need to eat a lot of vegetables - like triple what you think.

If you cannot do this for just 30 days but still complain about feeling down, tired, stressed, out of control etc, then you need to seriously rethink your life!


Free your mind and the rest will follow!

How to really leave your ego at the door.

We hear it all the time in CrossFit.  Leave your ego at the door. Don't let arrogance get in the way of good form. You're only in competition with yourself!

Why is then that some of the biggest proponents of this ideal actually have the greatest difficulty adhering to its principles?  And what does it really mean to leave your ego at the door?

In order to answer that, we need to have a look at why we do CrossFit.  What is it that motivates us?

In the ideal world, we do CrossFit to become better versions of ourselves.  To get fitter, faster, stronger (both physically and mentally) and learn and hone new skills and generally become pretty bad-ass along the way.

In a lot of people there is an element of vanity - which is perfectly OK - if you eat right and train hard and regularly, CrossFit will deliver an awesome body.


For most people the community is a huge aspect of doing CrossFit.  It's what keeps us coming back but it's also a vital part of the whole thing - we make friends who understand what we are going through.  We make pretty serious bonds with people we have sweated, sobbed, screamed and laughed with.

For many, CrossFit is about health; improving or maintaining health for some, life-saving for others.

If we take all that together, CrossFit is just about making us better.  Better athletes, better people, or just making us more well.

So with that in mind, how does ego get in the way of that?

Choosing a weight that is inappropriately heavy for the wod because someone you are chasing went heavier.  Miscounting reps deliberately to get a better score.  Not going through the full range of motion because it's harder and takes longer. Picking a weight that is inappropriately light for the task in order to get more rounds and reps.  Faking or exaggerating an injury to get out of a wod or movement you hate. Working only on your strengths so you don't look rubbish at something in front of other people.

But mostly....worrying about the numbers on the board.

Let's take a look at the numbers on the board...You know what? They genuinely don't matter!

The sooner we can get that into our heads the better. They just don't matter.  Sure, it's nice to see that you went heavier than a rival or that you beat your score last time you did this wod but you just aren't ever comparing apples with apples. You are not the same as anyone else in the gym and you never will be. Someone else has more or less experience than you, weighs more or less than you, trains more often or less than you, has better or worse coordination than you, has more or fewer injuries than you, eats better or worse than you, slept better or worse than you....You are never going to ever look like or train like Rich Froning because, do you know what? You aren't Rich Froning.  All you have is you!

When you know the guy or girl who is always pretty strong in workouts didn't do as well as you expected in a wod, you don't think any less of them.  You might, for a fleeting moment, wonder if they were having a bad day or hadn't slept or eaten well or had a sore shoulder or were just taking it easy that day but you certainly don't consign them to the rubbish heap.  So why would you feel that way about yourself?  One bad workout does not make you shit.  Even a month or year of bad workouts doesn't make you shit.

Sometimes life gets in the way. 

Now let's start looking at the purpose of your workout.  Every day cannot be a test day, which means that the vast majority of the workouts you do are just a workout - just...
your training! 

Remember that!  The workouts you do on a daily basis are your training!


That means deviating to poor form just to get the reps in is idiotic because it won't make you stronger or fitter or faster - it will just hone your skills at being a bit shit.

The way to leave your ego at the door is to stop comparing and stop testing and 
start training!

How to go paleo.

So, it's been a year since we decided to go paleo and I thought I would give you a brief overview of my personal findings and my guide for how to go about it if you are thinking of making some changes.

Firstly, a disclaimer.

What I am advocating ultimately is not paleo – it is a version of paleo that is based on our own response to foods and common sense.

I have not chosen for my family and I to eat like this because I necessarily buy into the idea that this is how our ancestors ate and that we are not evolved to eat modern food.  In fact, people wishing to debunk paleo often cite the fact that there are many people who have extra copies of genes for digesting the starch in grains (which does suggest that there are also those who don't) and populations of people have independently developed the ability to digest lactose, found in milk, as an adult (again this means there are those who are therefore lactose intolerant.)  

I like my version of paleo because it makes sense. 

No processed foods.  No sugar.  Maintaining blood glucose and therefore moods by eliminating starchy carbs and not eating the foods I never liked anyway all seems like bloody good common sense to me!

Why did we choose to follow paleo?

We initially chose for our family to follow the paleo way because it is a great set of rules that stops us eating processed food, sugar and wheat, which are all, as far as the research I have done, reckoned to be major causes of many modern ills, from high blood pressure and coronary heart disease to diabetes and joint problems etc.  I am also happy to cut out most of the other things paleo prescribes, like the other starchy carbs that are left once wheat cuts out pasta, bread, cakes and pastry: like potatoes, rice, oats, quinoa etc., and beans and dairy, which I never liked anyway.

So basically, I like paleo because it enables us to eat as much as we like, pretty much when we like and not really put on weight as long as it’s within the confines of paleo.  It gives me structure and control and the benefits so easily outweigh any treats I might miss.

By the way, at the beginning of our journey into paleo, obviously I did really miss the sweet treats and felt like I didn’t want to deny the kids, so I spent a lot of time developing paleo alternatives to cakes and pies and bread.  We have relied on these less and less as the year has progressed.  We still make the odd batch of paleo cakes and we still like paleo pancakes at the weekend. 

I also like paleo becasue it's not just about the nutrition - it's about the lifestyle.  it's about getting out more, it's about being active and doing exercise.  I am not sporty - I'm not a team player (!) so I like to go to the gym - obviously hiking, climbing, playing netball and football etc are more sociable and meaningful ways of keeping fit but personally, I like to lift weights.  My kids go to CrossFit and we like to do CrossFit type workouts at home in my garage gym.

So how did we start?

The impetus to our whole fitness journey came a few months before my 40^th birthday, 2 years ago, when my husband asked me what I would like for a present.  My husband was about 30lb heavier then than he is now.  I said, ‘I’d like a buff husband.’

             He laughed.

            I said, ‘No, really.  One way or another, I shall have my buff husband!  It could be you or…’

            So, he started watching what he ate, he did some exercise and lost 30lb for me!  I watched what he was doing with the weights and listened to what he said about nutrition and caught the bug myself, within 6 months I had ditched the desire to go back to primary school teaching and I was retraining to be a Personal Trainer, had cut out wheat and sugar and we both felt better than we ever had!

After a while, my husband came home and said he thought we should go paleo.  We read a couple of books and did a load of research online and at the beginning of the summer holidays last year, we changed everything.

How did we make the initial change?

We had already cut out wheat and sugar and all starchy carbs, apart from oats, for about a year by the time we decided to cut the rest so it wasn’t an enormous step to go the whole hog (bacon jokes may follow.) 

The hardest issue to overcome was breakfasts (have a look here for some ideas) and lunches (have a look here for some ideas).  We have been programmed to think that breakfast should come in a bowl with milk and lunch between 2 slices of bread.  With no grains or dairy, that cut breakfast cereals and no bread meant no sandwiches.

 

 We decided to take the plunge at the beginning of the summer holidays to make it easier on me to come up with new breakfasts and lunches, 6 weeks was also a long enough time, I figured, to see any benefits before we made a decision to keep it up or not once the kids went back to school in September.

Here are the steps I would recommend – move onto the next step once the previous step is secure, this way, you don’t bite off more than you can chew, as it were.

1               Cut sugar and sugar substitutes

Check packaging on savoury products as well as sweet!

2               Cut wheat

Bread, cakes, pies, pasties, pasta, pastry, biscuits, some sauces

3               Cut starchy carbs

Potatoes, rice, oats, quinoa, corn

4               Cut dairy

Milk, cheese, yoghurt

5               Cut alcohol

A little red wine and tequila occasionally, apparently….

6               Cut legumes

Beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas

Basically, this is what you are encouraged to eat:

Meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds.

This is what you are discouraged from eating:

1               Sugar and sugar substitutes

Because it causes a spike in blood glucose and can eventually lead to insulin resistance and diabetes

2               Grains (wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn etc.)

Because potentially we are not properly evolved to digest them but also because they are inflammatory and can contribute to aching joints and also cause a spike in blood glucose making it harder to regulate moods.

3               Nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers (capsicums) aubergine (eggplant)

Because they can cause an alkaline sensitive response, with some problems arising with digestive function, nerve-muscle function and joint function. 

4               Alcohol

Because it is very high in calories with zero nutritional content and is often mixed with less than optimal drinks.  It also triggers a hormonal response that has a knock-on effect to other hormone functions.

5               Legumes (beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas etc)

Because legumes are a modern creation and therefore we are potentially not evolved to digest them properly – people often have difficulty digesting these foods, leading to bloating and, well, farting and they can lead to autoimmune problems

6               Dairy

Because no mammal consumes milk once they are weaned and rarely consumes the milk of another animal.  Causes blood glucose spikes.

Cutting legumes, grains and dairy makes it very hard for vegetarians and vegans to follow paleo as their only remaining source of protein is meat, fish and eggs.

Have we stuck to these rules rigidly?

The basic answer is no.  Most paleo people say they 80% paleo 100% of the time.  As an adult, in charge of the shopping, I aim to be 100% paleo, 90% of the time and pretty much achieve that on the whole – but I am not a saint – I do eat the odd snickers bar and I have been know to inhale cupcakes whole!  I would say my kids are 80% paleo 80% of the time, which is a good compromise, I think.

How have we have changed these prescriptions to fit our family?

The kids do eat a little dairy every so often – some hard cheese and a little milk occasionally but definitely not daily.

We have reintroduced green beans and sugar snap peas occasionally but still stay clear of tinned beans, kidney beans, lentils and chickpeas. 

The kids begged me to reintroduce porridge as they miss it so much so once a week I give them porridge made with milk and sometimes my husband makes Daddy pancakes, which are made with cottage cheese, eggs and oats.

What was the hardest part?

Breakfasts, without a doubt.  It was made easier by not having to rush in the mornings by starting the new lifestyle in the holidays. 

Before, I would make porridge for the kids or they would have sugar free Alpen or Raisin Wheats in the mornings – all lovely, quick meals and pretty good as they didn’t contain sugar or artificial sweeteners.  Going from a 5 minute meal to cooking eggs or pork or lamb chops or salmon for breakfast was a big step.  It meant leaving half an hour to prepare the protein and chop the veggies and fruit that went with it, along with making the packed lunches. 

So generally mornings consist of me cooking two forms of protein, one for breakfast for 4 of us (husband has already left for work – he has a great subsidised restaurant at work where he can ask for eggs or steak etc!) and enough carbohydrates in the form of raw vegetables, generally, but sometimes cooked broccoli or asparagus or something and similar for lunch for three kids.

As I shop once every two weeks for meat from Paleo Wales - a grass fed meat supplier, I have to keep my meat in the freezer, which means I have to make sure I’ve got tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch and dinner out the night before.  This is why I plan my meals and snacks so carefully.  It takes the panic away.  I look on the chart and take it out the freezer before I go to bed and cook it the next day.

It’s a lot more work than we were doing previously but my kids are really helpful and totally on board and they really love the breakfasts, which range from piri piri chicken and veg or Thai spiced salmon and veg to home made beef burgers in lettuce wraps or paleo banana pancakes with dark chocolate sauce!  That’s got to be better than cocoa pops, no?

They initially received some comments from the other kids at school about their packed lunches, which really worried me as I was not a strong child and that sort of thing would have crushed me. When I asked my kids if it bothered them, they said no, they liked their lunches and they knew what they were eating was healthier than what the kids making the comments were eating anyway.  They also seemed to appreciate that the comments were half made in a teasing way but that also the other kids seemed genuinely interested in what they were eating.  I often get mums coming up to me saying their kids go home and say, ‘Guess what Liv had in her packed lunch today!’  I don’t take this as a bad thing…

There are loads of online resources to help you, Mark's Daily Apple is a great website with loads of info and his book, The Primal Blueprint, is a good place to start.

There is a subtle difference between paleo and primal, in that primal folk eat a little dairy – butter and hard cheese.

What are my kitchen staples?

Coconut oil, creamed coconut

Eggs

Vegetables

Meat and fish

Fruit

Honey

I keep some nuts and ground almonds and some seeds and dried fruit

Piri piri spice jar

Thai spice jar

Salt and pepper

By the way – I am NOT a great cook, ask anyone who knows me but after a while, the true flavours of real food shine through and once you are over your carb and sugar addiction raw veg and basically cooked meats and fish are so much nicer than they used to be!

This summer,  a number of my clients who have given up sugar and myself noticed how lovely and sweet the strawberries were this year.  Normally they would be inedible unless smothered in sugar!

Give it two or three weeks and your sugar craving will go and you will begin to really taste the foods you used to think bland, tasteless or sour.

Try my Plan-K to kickstart you into action – 1 workout, 2 changes, for 3 weeks should get you in the right place to give paleo a go – then make it your own because everyone is different.

Want toned arms?

Want Sarah Connor-from-terminator toned arms?  Do these exercises 3 times a week and see a noticeable difference within weeks!

These exercise are equally good for men and women so long as you use weights heavy enough for you to do 3 sets of between 6 and 8 reps and no more.  If you can do more, the weights aren't heavy enough!

The reason I am going for high weights and low reps - hypertrophy (muscle gain) is because you get much better, much quicker results than if you go for low weights and high reps - endurance.  

Women - it's virtually impossible to bulk up and get great, big muscly arms unless you are on steroids.  These exercises will tone up your arms, giving you long, lean muscles without those bingo wings!

Men, so long as you are using heavy enough weights, your muscles will bulk up more as the men's muscles are shorter and rounder than women's.

So, these are my top exercise for awesome arms, beginning with body-weight exercises that need no weights, moving onto free weight exercises.

Workout 1

1     military press ups (body weight)

2     Triceps dips (body weight)

3     Front shoulder raises 

4     Bicep curls

5     Kickbacks

Workout 2

1     Diamond press ups (body weight)

2     Overhead triceps extension

3     Bent over reverse flys

4     Hammer curls

5     Lateral shoulder raises

Make sure that you mix it up each time you do an arm workout.  So alternate workout one and two so you work the same muscles in a different way each time.

If you have no weights, you can still tone up but the results won't be as noticeable.  Focus on a variety of pressups and triceps dips and if you can find somewhere to do it (a pull up bar at home or monkey bars in the park) do some pull ups and chin ups.  i really recommend investing in a set of weights, you can get them pretty cheaply online.

One last quick bonus exercise - a favourite of mine:

Dragan presses - (curl to press) look online to see how to do them.  Do as many as you can with no rest!  keep count and see if you can beat your score each time.

Krish x

It may not be easy but it really is simple.

If you are determined to make a change for the better, then this is what you need to do:

Eat clean, do more, sleep well, get outside.  


It's so simple, right?  I didn't say it was necessarily easy but it is simple.


And the good news is you don't need to join a gym or run anywhere to get fit!

You can do a great body-weight workout at home and if you want to up it a bit, you can get an inexpensive resistance band for around a tenner or invest in a set of free weights.

If you want to burn fat, body-weight workouts need to focus on major muscle groups, so if you want to trim down, tone up and improve your strength, endurance and balance, you can't do better than squats, lunges, planks and press ups.  You get a full body workout with these exercises.  If you can chuck in some pull ups, all the better.  You can also isolate your triceps (bingo-wings, ladies) by doing triceps dips on the edge of your stairs, bed or sofa - the longer the lever you make with your legs, the harder they will be.

If you have access to a resistance band, you can include all sorts of other exercises, like rows, bicep curls, triceps pull downs, lateral hip extensions etc.

If you have a set of free weights, you can do endless exercises and increase the intensity much more easily!

Along with resistance work, you need to include some cardio, for a number of reasons.  It improves your cardiovascular health, meaning reduced risk of coronary heart disease; lowers blood pressure and improves performance.  It also releases masses of endorphins so makes you feel really good.   The good news is that going for a long, brisk walk, fast enough to get you hot and sweaty, can raise your heart rate enough to burn fat and improve lung capacity and resting heart rate.

If you like to run, swim or cycle, they are excellent cardio too, but walking can be enough!

Of course, if you lack the motivation, a personal trainer is a great way to make sure you stay focused and on-track and they can design a program specifically to fit your lifestyle and goals but simply getting a friend along with you can be enough to keep you motivated.

Getting fit and healthy isn't rocket science.  It might not be easy but it is simple.  Anyone can do it if they have the determination to do so.  So change your priorities and push your health and wellbeing further up that list!

And remember: eat clean, do more, sleep well and get outside!


Krish x