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!

If you have kids, you should be making them do CrossFit!

My kids - 1BC (one year before CrossFit)

I have three children, aged 16, 14 and 12 and while the other kids who come to Teens' CrossFit enjoy it, I have to force mine to do it twice a week. I imagine this is partly due to the fact that their mum runs the class and also to do with in intrinsic streak of laziness that (honestly) comes from me.

In this series of blog posts (starting with the previous one about why feminists should do CrossFit) I want to explain how different types of people benefit from CrossFit.


Firstly, you need to understand a little about my children; they are unique, of course, just like everyone else, but I'm hoping you might see similarities in yourself or your own kids.

My eldest son is, at his own admission, a bit of a nerd.  He really likes computer games and science.  He relates strongly to the characters in The Big Bang Theory and he doesn't go out much. He has recently discovered the joys of Dungeons and Dragons... He likes routine and he isn't hugely adventurous though I wouldn't say he was a nervous kid.  He suffered a little from anxiety in his transition from junior school to secondary school but more of that later.




My daughter is the middle child and, on the whole, delightful.  She is very competitive and though not vocal about it, very feminist. She flip-flops between worrying terribly about what others think of her and not caring in the slightest.  While, like a lot of teenage girls, she likes makeup and clothes, she has a very positive body image and once weighed herself, which had me recoiling in horror until I realised it was to discover what percentage of her body weight her deadlift was.  (It was 1.5x bw!) #proudmummoment




My youngest son is a free spirit.  He has been left to drag himself up a bit so knows his own mind, has strong opinions and at the same time is the least competitive and least adventurous of the three.  He is not a fussy eater and will eat almost anything just very, very little of it.  He seems never to be hungry so is pretty thin and when he lifts weights, you worry he might snap.  He has struggled in the past to back squat 6kg...

Each of my kids gets something different from their experiences at CrossFit. 


This video of my youngest, sums up one of the reasons I make him do CrossFit.  He did not believe he could do even one rep at this weight, he put it on his shoulders and said it felt heavy.  I repeated what my coach says to me when I say exactly that: 'Yes, it feels heavy but that doesn't mean you can't do it!' and he did 3.  Even though his knees are wider than his thighs when he squats, he has got stronger - he couldn't squat 6 kg a year ago and now he can squat 22.5kg for 3 reps.  This allows him to see the big picture.  It shows him that even though he might not see the results immediately, consistent behaviour yields results further down the line.





Jake is learning that it all takes effort and commitment and showing up and doing the work.  And in an age where everything is available to our kids via a screen in their pocket, 24/7/365, this is a powerful tool to give them some perspective on their lives.




My eldest son struggled a little with anxiety for a while and CrossFit helped him control it.  Mid way through a workout, you feel hot, sweaty and out of breath.  If you aren't used to this feeling, it can be a bit scary at first.  If these feelings mimic anxiety attacks, they can be even more scary.  So initially, we had to give Zack the get-out clause that he didn't have to do the hard fast bit of the workout but he had to do some strength work instead.  Gradually over time, he became less uncomfortable with being uncomfortable and in finding ways to manage how he felt in a workout, he was able to use these strategies when he felt anxious outside of the gym.  He no longer gets anxiety attacks.



My daughter (and my boys) are growing up in a dynamic time for feminism.  There is a lot of talk in the media about what is and isn't acceptable for women to expect.  Hopefully this generation of women will have a much more equal footing in the world but it is still set amongst a backdrop of institutionalised sexism and old-fashioned ideals.  I talked about implicit bias in the previous blogpost so I won't go into it again but CrossFit goes some way to mitigating residual inequalities.

My daughter gets to be regularly surrounded by men and women whose expectations of equality are very high.  The women she spends time with are strong, competent and confident and the men treat the women with respect.  There are no mirrors in our gym.  We never talk about diets or weight loss or body image.  We talk about what your body is capable of doing.  We talk about a positive mindset, commitment and hard work.

In an age where our children have it easy, where a lot of their aspirations end at 'being famous' or 'being rich' I think that forcing my kids to do something twice a week that gives them a sense of pride in their achievements, that makes them work hard to reach a goal, that is difficult and sometimes mentally and physically painful to do, that encourages them to be supportive and work as a team, that makes them have to dig deep to get through it is an incredibly valuable thing.

This is why I force my kids to do CrossFit twice a week.

If you're a feminist, you should be doing CrossFit!

If you're a feminist, you really should be doing CrossFit and so should everyone you know!
If you listened to radio 4 last night, you would have heard a program about implicit bias.  This is where your unconscious brain is bombarded with images and scenarios that it links together with neural pathways to create a subconscious picture of the world.  You may be the most liberal-minded of people but if you are constantly shown images and news reports that paint the world or groups of people in a certain way, your unconscious brain makes links according to those images that then affect the choices you make and the behaviours you exhibit.


The media shows us regularly that men are leaders and women need rescuing.  It often portrays women as image-obsessed cleaners, cooks and child carers. The media tell us that while we should aspire to having everything: a career, children, a sparkling social life, a beautiful, organsied home, delicious, healthy meals, perfect hair and flawless skin we are never quite going to measure up.  While men can skip through life only having to worry about which beer goes with their facial hair before buying a new strimmer.

However emancipated be believe we are, we cannot help therefore but have implicit bias implanted in our brains. Assumptions are made subconsciously that women are less able to do certain tasks, they are to be less trusted in positions of power or rank. The world may be changing but we are a generation whose brains already have a neural network deeply embedded that says women are not as good as men.

And this is where CrossFit comes in!

In any CrossFit gym in any country around the world, you will find strong, single-minded, confident, competent women, easily out-performing some men, deftly demonstrating movements and lifts and techniques that, to everyone in that CrossFit gym, just seem normal.


People who do CrossFit are regularly exposed to these powerfully positive images and scenarios where women are respected as strong, independent and competent - equal to men.  

These versions of the world are creating neural pathways where we have a chance to even out our subconscious bias and genuinely become more broad minded and open to new ideas.  These are the images I want my kids to be bombarded with!

CrossFit delivers a positive image of everyone who takes part - be they thin or fat, tall or short, old or young, black or white, male or female.

If you are a feminist, you should be doing CrossFit and so should everyone you know! 

Building on what to eat and how to be successful...
do this for life-changing results:

Eat clean:
No sugar, check all ingredients. No alcohol. No wheat - pasta, bread, cakes, pastry and biscuits. No fizzy drinks or squash.
Each meal (3 a day) made up of:
Eat a palm sized amount of protein.
Eat two or three fingers of fat.
Rest of your plate a rainbow of veg and a little fruit.

Move more.
Build towards CrossFit between 3 and 6 times a week
Walk more - fast
Sit less.

Sleep well.
7 hours at least - 8 hour preferable. Dark room. 

Get outside.
Spend time with trees to feel better about everything.

The Ultimate Secret to Success!

What if I could tell you the secret to unlocking success in everything you do? What would you do with this secret?

Would you use it to be more productive at work?  Would you use it to get more out of your time in the gym?  Would you use it to develop stronger relationships with family, friends and colleagues?  

The secret is really simple.  

The secret is you.

'But that's not fair,' you say. 'There are loads of things in my life that are out of my control!  I cannot be the secret to my own success while that success relies on the opportunities offered me by others or while my success relies on the competence or incompetence of others... The universe just conspires against me.  I'm too unfit, I'm too scared, I'm not qualified, I'm too busy, I have too many other responsibilities to focus on my own success!'

And breathe!

While there may be many elements in the universe over which you exercise no control, you are 100% in control of how you respond to them!

YOU are in control of every thought you allow to manifest in your mind so be careful what you think, because you are listening!  Take control of that inner voice!   

I'm not suggesting this is an instant fix.  You may be the sort of person who is able to quiet the negative thoughts almost overnight. It may take you weeks, months or even years; it may be a constant battle in your life until the very end but battle it you must!

The secret to your success is YOU.

Try these 5 tips to help turn around a less than positive mindset and start becoming more successful in all that you do.

1 - Smile  - as often as you can, even if you have to fake it.  Smiling releases endorphins and genuinely makes you feel better and instantly makes others feel better too!

2 - Nod - in the face of adversity. Don't sigh and shake your head; nod and tell yourself you can do it!  You don't even have to believe this, you just have to do it to create more positive pathways in your brain.

3 - Imagine you are 90 years old and have been allowed to come back for the day - list the things you would appreciate.

4 - Imagine you have been told you have 2 months to live - what small stuff would suddenly cease to be important? That stuff right there is not important!  That doesn't mean you have to stop doing or acknowledging whatever it is, just stop placing so much value on it.

5 - Allow yourself to feel afraid.  It's OK to feel anxious and nervous and even terrified about things.  It's not OK to allow these perfectly normal and rational feelings to stop you doing things!  Feel afraid - acknowledge the fear and push through anyway! 

Be careful what you think - because YOU are listening.

Live life like you mean it! 

Help - what should I eat?

At this time of year, there are a lot of coaches, trainers and nutritionists out there vying for your attention.  They want you to believe that what they have to say on the matter makes them more knowledgeable than the next guy.  You'll hear all kinds of phrases bandied around that make it sound like their particular method is THE method that will finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together and get you the body you want.

I'm not suggesting I am more qualified or knowledgeable than the next guy on matters of nutrition but as with everyone else, I have my own personal take on all things nutrition related. 

Here are my thoughts on nutrition.

Calories

Of course, it goes without saying (although, funnily, still needs to be reiterated often)
if you consume more calories than you expend, you will get fatter!

That being said, not all calories are created equal.

It must also go without saying that 1000 calories of McDonalds cannot possibly be as good for you as 1000 calories of ethically raised, grass-fed beef and vegetables. 

For an elite athlete (probably not you, definitely not me) you are going to need to keep right on top of your calorie intake in order to ensure you stay lean enough to make gymnastics easier, muscly enough to lift the heavy loads and to ensure you have sufficient energy to fuel your workouts. 

For a lot of people this is unnecessary bollocks that clouds the real issues (you are eating the wrong stuff and probably too much of it, you eat too much sugar and you drink too much alcohol).

Macros

You will hear all about macros form the 'health professionals'.

Your body does have an optimal requirement of unprocessed fat, protein and carbohydrate: macros.

An elite athlete (remember, that's probably not you, however awesome at CrossFit you are and it's definitely not me) is going to need to make sure that their macros are on track to make sure that they are optimising how their bodies use the nutrients they ingest.

For the average Joe, this close control is superfluous fluff that clouds the real issues (see above).

Supplements

If you are eating a wide variety of unprocessed food and you don't have a medical issue that requires you to take supplements, you are unlikely to need them. 

I understand that as a CrossFit 'athlete' it looks kind of cool to have a special shaker filled with the latest protein powder, a pre-workout and a post workout and supplement this and supplement that but it's much easier (and cheaper) to eat well.  Supplements are not a replacement for a nutritious diet.

There's a lot of other stuff out there, intermittent fasting, low carb diets (these annoy me as they aren't low carb per se, they are low starch....all vegetables are carbohydrate!) etc etc.  I'm not going to go into all that as I want this to be simple.

So what should you do?

This advice is for everyone but if you need to lose a considerable amount of fat, you are going to need to be way, way stricter than someone who just wants to maintain or be more healthy or lose a little bit of Christmas tub. 

• Do some research, take responsibility for achieving your goals and make this a learning opportunity.  

• Eat a palm sized amount of protein with each meal (3 meals a day)
• Have a 2-3 fingers of fat (healthy fat - avocado, nuts, home-made mayonnaise, cream, butter, olive oil, coconut oil etc) with each meal
• Fill the rest of your plate with a colourful mixture of vegetables and fruit
• drink a glass of water with each meal

• Do not eat anything with a list of ingredients - this cuts out all things with added sugar
• Limit or avoid (play around with this to see how it makes you feel) white potatoes and white rice
• Eliminate completely (and this is harder, I know) bread, pasta, pastry, cakes and biscuits
• Limit or avoid alcohol (this could also be hard but you may be genuinely surprised by the long list of benefits) 

• If you feel hungry between meals, either you aren't eating enough at meal times or you are still eating sugar and wheat.  If you need snacks in between, try mixing a small amount of protein with carbs - one egg and an apple or a handful of nuts and a banana or a tablespoon or two of full fat Greek yoghurt and a squirt of honey, a tablespoonful of cooked chicken and a rice cake....etc....
• If you genuinely want to lose fat and feel better, this isn't going to happen by getting your calories and macros from ice-cream and burgers.  It isn't going to be achieved through saving up your calories and macros for a Saturday evening binge of Budweiser and chips!  Don't be a dick about it.

• If you find your workouts suffer (or you are more tired or lack energy) because this way of eating has drastically cut your caloric intake, make sure you add in a little starchy carbs to the meal you eat before you train - so if you train in the evening before dinner, have a sweet potato for lunch, if you train in the morning before breakfast, have some rice perhaps with your evening meal etc.

• If you aren't losing weight and you think you are eating well, this might be why: 

1. you are lying or mistaken about what you are actually consuming - try keeping a private and brutally honest food diary for a week).
2. you are eating too much - think more carefully about your portion sizes - are you having too much in each meal or too many meals?
3. Your meals aren't balanced enough so you are eating more snacks between meals.
4. you haven't stopped drinking alcohol.
5. you haven't stopped eating sugar.

• Realise it might be hard work.  But do it anyway.

Avoid like the plague everything that allows you to still eat crap and lose weight - you will learn nothing and just end up miserable.  Do not use anything that claims to get you slim and healthy through soups, shakes, bars, pills, powders or other such bollocks.


#livelifelikeyoumeanit

Take this quiz to discover if CrossFit is for you.

1: Do you consider yourself:
a - overweight
b - about right
c - underweight

2: Do you consider yourself to be:
a - incredibly unfit
b - an elite athlete
c - in reasonable shape

3: Are you:
a - tired all the time
b - full of beans
c - have peaks and troughs of energy throughout the day

4 - Do you have:
a - none of your legs
b - some your legs
c - all of your legs

5 - Do you have:
a - a small window of opportunity
b - all day to train
c - some windows of opportunity

6 - Do you spend money each week on:
a - alcohol, chocolate and/or crisps
b - protein shakes
c- fresh fruit and veg

7 - Do you:
a - hate physical exercise
b - turn everything you do into a competitive training opportunity
c - like a bit of a brisk walk every so often

8 - Are you looking for:
a - a change in your life that makes it better
b - a competitive outlet that makes you an even more badass version of you
c - a new challenge

Mostly As
CrossFit is perfect for you!  You need to make some serious changes in your life but you need a guiding hand.  The great news is CrossFit Uckfield is there with you every step of the way, walking and talking you through everything.  Everyone at CrossFit Uckfield has been a beginner - many still are - so they all understand what it feels like to walk through those doors for the first time. CrossFit Uckfield prides itself on being a non-judgmental, safe, friendly and supportive space that encourages everyone to get the most from every session, at your own pace! If CrossFit sounds a bit too intense to start with, why not give FitClub a try?
Contact us now to arrange membership or to book a free FitClub taster session!

Mostly Bs
You are perfect for CrossFit.  This is what you have always been searching for in all the sports and gyms you have explored over the years.  At CrossFit Uckfield, you will find a competitive environment that challenges you every session.  We will build on every aspect of your physical capabilities, from strength, power and speed to balance, coordination and accuracy. Our strength and conditioning programming can be supplemented with our CompClass or MasterClass programming and Olympic Weightlifting Classes making you a more well-rounded athlete than you already are, with regular opportunities to compete in local, National and international competitions.
Contact us now to arrange membership!

Mostly Cs
You and CrossFit are a match made in heaven! CrossFit will help you tone those muscles, keep on top of bodyfat and increase your fitness levels.  You'll learn cool new tricks and skills and build strength you didn't think was possible.  You'll mix with a great bunch of like-minded people in a fun, inspiring and supportive environment.  CrossFit is as competitive as you want it to be; so whether you are happy focusing on being better than you were yesterday or you want to compete within the gym or at a national or international level, CrossFit Uckfield is the place for you.
Contact us now to arrange membership!