Want to Change my Diet, but where to start?

[Roelant Bergen]

Hi All, I've read the posts(a lot, not all), and I know the recommended diet here is the Zone. Any tips on how to start? My Zone book is still in the mail. Also, I have friends rec'ing John Berardi's Metabolism Advantage plan, which I believe reccomends eating 6-8 times/day. I think Dr. Berardi advocates increasing caloric intake vs. Dr. Sears (whom I believe leans more towards creating a calorie deficit). What do I do?

[Cory Osborne]

Riddle me this:

1) Why are you wanting to change your diet?
2) What are your goals (weight loss, weight gain, being a better xfitter, etc...)?
3) What are you stats (Ht., bwt., age, sex, gender, etc...)?
4) Be honest with yourself.

[Brandon Oto]

VERY good questions. Honestly stating what you want is CRITICAL in my opinion.

When I used to do web design, the first question I would ask the client is what they wanted their site to achieve. It was impossible to create the right thing without knowing their goal. And you still needed to do some divination to figure out what that "meant." The challenge of design is taking what people ask for and giving them what they want.

To wit, if you realize that your true and only goal is to look huge as easily as possible, CF is not the best method. And so on.

[Roelant Bergen]

Originally Posted by Cory Osborne

Riddle me this:

1) Why are you wanting to change your diet?
2) What are your goals (weight loss, weight gain, being a better xfitter, etc...)?
3) What are you stats (Ht., bwt., age, sex, gender, etc...)?
4) Be honest with yourself.

1) I feel sluggish during the day, I think I eat too many carbs/fat
2) I want to be a better x-fitter, fat loss
3) 6ft., 198lbs, 25, male
4) I am, that's why I'm here and asking.

[Roelant Bergen]

Originally Posted by Brandon Oto

To wit, if you realize that your true and only goal is to look huge as easily as possible, CF is not the best method. And so on.

Nope, although with traditional methods I can get Huge very fast albeit very slow and pathetic when subjected to X-fit. I've only been doing X-fit for a little while (don't remember the exact date I started, but it's been one or two months and some change I think), and in that time I've lost weight and gained/maintained my strength, so I figured the next step was to watch what I put in my mouth in order to further improve my performance. for example, I just increased my max overhead squat to 115 from 65 in a matter of four weeks, I believe that if I improve my nutrition, I can improve those all around stats even more.

[Garrett Bartholme]

Identify the "bad" foods and replace them with good food. Any easy snack for me at work is 6oz of yogurt, and a small handful of mixed nuts. Doesn't sound like much but it last till lunch.

Then train your body/brain that you will only eat a certain times of the day. 3 meals and 2-3 snacks, and not in between. When I get home from work I would have a snack then eat dinner then grab a a handful of something every time I went through the kitchen. I took some will power, but now I can eat only at prescribed times.

Start a fitday.com account. I don't use it every day though. I will pick a day and track my food, review it at the end of the day then make some changes. Then a week or two later I'll track a day to see where I am at.

[Robert Olajos]

While you're waiting for the book to come in, start by writing down everything you currently eat, drink, void, etc. in a journal. Don't change ANYTHING yet. Do this for a week, or 3 days at a bare minimum. If you don't do this, a year from now you will literally have no idea what you used to eat. And when you read back through what you used to eat, you'll be amazed that you were able to stay alive.

[Cory Osborne]

Originally Posted by Robert Olajos

While you're waiting for the book to come in, start by writing down everything you currently eat, drink, void, etc. in a journal. Don't change ANYTHING yet. Do this for a week, or 3 days at a bare minimum. If you don't do this, a year from now you will literally have no idea what you used to eat. And when you read back through what you used to eat, you'll be amazed that you were able to stay alive.

Ha-ha! Good advice, funny but true. I wish I did that. If you can't wait, you can get this article right now (w/f safe): Crossfit Journal #21
It covers the zone and is geared towards building better WODs and that athletic physique.
By the way, the journal is necessary because the zone book talks of calorie deficit, but no one that is training as hard as we do should do that. If you are WODing consistently, you need the 'blocks' prescribed in the journal.