Rowing Interval “Nancy”

Perform 5 Rounds For Time of:
400m Row
15 Overhead Squats 95/65

Work with a partner alternating each round until you both complete 5 rounds.

Post total time, Rx and partner to comments.

Laura M feels the power of the Dumbbell

Body Recomposition Templates

We hope what you read below will provide you with jumping off points for weight loss, weight gain and weight maintenance goals during the LF&PB challenge. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and do a little of your own research. Whatever your goals during this challenge, keep in mind that it’s a work in progress. Be a good scientist by keeping your variables to a minimum, and allowing time for change to happen before you begin manipulating.

Good luck!!

Weight Loss

Losing weight can be a hand-wringing process for many, or simply a matter of paying attention for others. Whether you fall into the former or the latter category, we encourage you to keep your strategy simple and consistent. It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of tweaking this or that, and searching for the “perfect” approach, but if you start out basic and ride that for as long as you can, you’ll likely get pretty darn close to your goal while avoiding all sorts of weird, anti-social behavior.

Here are 6 tips to keep in mind:

1)       Reduce Calorie Intake
You can start tracking your caloric intake via The Daily Plate, FitDay or Nutrition Data, but unless you have a scale, OCD and the ability to refrain from driving yourself batty, there is a simpler way to go.
         Slow Down: take your time when you eat. At lunch and dinner, try taking a full 20 minutes to complete your meal. This gives your body a chance to communicate with your brain about your actual satiety level. You’ll also find you enjoy your food more and require less.
        80% Rule: stop eating when you feel just about full. You should no longer feel hungry, but have called it quits long before feeling stuffed. If you still feel uncomfortably hungry 20 minutes later, drink water first, and then have a snack if need be.
        Eat when you are hungry and limit snacks: Just because it’s 1pm, doesn’t mean you have to eat. Check in with yourself to see if you are actually hungry (stomach growling, mental fogginess, drop in energy), or just accustomed to eating at that time. If you are, great, have lunch. But if it’s not time to eat, wait until you are ready. Try to eat meals large enough to satisfy you until the next one.

2)     Keep Protein High
Protein is satiating and less caloric than other macronutrients. It also prevents muscle loss and promotes muscle growth. In the scenario of weight loss, about 1 gram/lb of bodyweight should work well if you are exercising consistently (3 plus times/week). One ounce of animal protein is equal to 6-8 grams of protein (fattier cuts at 6, leaner cuts at 8). So a 150 lb person eating about 150 grams of protein/day might be taking in about 21 ounces of protein.

4)    Target Your Carbohydrate Intake:  Carbohydrates encompass all veggies, fruits, and starches. Some foods are more carb dense than others, and some are primarily sugar carbs vs starch carbs. All carbs can promote fat accumulation IF you have a significant metabolic issue. Since we are active folks, some carbohydrate intake is helpful to assist with recovery. The best thing to do is target your carb intake around your workouts. If you get yourself good and sweaty at the gym, your post workout meal should have one or more of the following: sweet potato, winter squash, parsnip, beets, yucca, a piece of fruit, coconut water, plantain, etc, as well as lean protein. Don’t add too much fat to the post workout meal, again focusing on a big whack of protein and some carbs.

The rest of your meals should also contain high protein, but now replace those carb calories with fat sources. Feel free to eat as many low starch veggies as you want, whenever you want.

5)     Fat Rounds It Out
As stated above, your fat intake counterbalances your carb intake. Don’t be afraid to eat fat. When you reduce your carb intake, you take a significant source of calories away. While some caloric reduction is good, too much could result in muscle loss as well as fat loss. Not something we are going for. Keep your fat sources high quality, such as from avocado, coconut (oil and meat), macadamia nuts, animal fats, olive oil, etc. A handful of walnuts/almonds/cashews a day is fine, but don’t go overboard on nuts. Avoid vegetable oils from soy, safflower, sunflower, canola.

6)       Occasionally Kick Up Your Heels
Once a week or so, go ahead and have a day of extra calories. This does NOT mean binge on crap. This simply means eat the same food you normally do, just more of it. Having a high calorie day every once in a while helps to keep your metabolism from slowing down too much.

Weight Gain

While lots of people dream of having the “problem” of needing to gain weight, it can actually be very hard work. Especially if you want it to be mostly “good” weight, ie not all fat. But, there are some tried and true ways to gain mass and get stronger. Keep in mind that some fat gain is inevitable and ok. You can always lose that later.

1)        Keep Calories Up
Depending on how aggressive you want to be with your mass gain, you may need to push your caloric intake pretty far. If you are looking to make big gains, you’ll be best served by eating enough that you are rarely hungry. In fact, you may feel uncomfortable by how full you are, but it will be worth it in the end. This kind of heavy eating is usually accompanied by some very heavy lifting (ie, you might want to sign up for a Strength Cycle). If you don’t want to go that hardcore, then just make sure you eat large meals and ample recovery snacks.

2)        Keep Protein High
For mass gain, get your protein up to about 1.5 grams/lb of bodyweight. This may not be achieved through whole foods alone; protein shakes will come in handy.

3)       Dairy is Ok
Recovery protein shakes from whey or egg protein and/or whole milk is an excellent way to promote muscle growth and recovery. If you don’t tolerate dairy, then make sure you always have 3-6 ounces (depending on your size) of protein post workout plus a good bit of carbs.

Make sure your whey protein doesn’t contain a lot of crappy artificial sweeteners and additives. Here are some good brands to consider:

• Bluebonnet, from grassfed cows

• Jay Robb, from grassfed cows

• Tera’s Whey, from small organic dairy farmers in Wisconsin

• NOW Foods (more affordable)

4)       Moderate Carb Intake Helps
Carbs will promote growth. While a fruit or two a day is fine, focus on starchy veg like sweet potato, yucca and plantain. Post workout is best, but if they sneak in other places, that’s ok. Play with this to find enough to keep you recovered and gaining, but not so much that your fat exceeds your muscle.

5)       Consider Supplementing
There are a bajillion suppelments out there, but you really only need to focus on two: creatine and BCAAs. Creatine is formed from amino acids (which come from protein). You will get lots of creatine naturally, but in order to promote growth and recovery, you may want a little extra. It’s quite safe and really the only thing to be aware of is that is causes water retention.
BCAA stands for Branched Chain Amino Acids. Again, these naturally occur in protein, but extra BCAAs can be great for muscle growth/recovery. If you take whey protein, you’ll find plenty of BCAAs in that, but if you don’t and you want to add those in, take them post workout.

6)         Lift Heavy And Bias Strength over conditioning
Focus your workouts on the barbell and slow gymnastics that promote strength  (Chin-Ups, Push-Ups etc). Keep conditioning short and periodic.  This might mean you scale a workout to be a little heavier and shorter when you modify for yourself.  For example:

3 Rounds for time of:
30 Deadlifts, 135/95
30 Box Jumps
30 Kipping Pull-Ups

could become:

3 Rounds NFT of:
10 Deadlifts, 225/155
15 Box Jumps
10 Strict Pull-Ups

Always ask your class coach for help scaling and let them know what you’re goal is and why you’re scaling. Also make sure you can properly handle the heavier loads, you’ll need to gradually ramp up to them.

Weight Maintenance

If you are pretty happy where you’re at, great! Trust that you already know what you’re doing.
Focus on the positive health benefits you’ll and see how much better you can feel. There is one important thing to keep in mind, which is to make sure you eat enough. Most folks doing “paleo/primal/clean” for the first time, or after a long hiatus, tend to lose weight pretty quickly because they don’t take into account the drop in calories. Be mindful of that and of how your energy is during your workouts. Don’t be afraid to eat more, even if you already feel like you’re eating more than you are used to.

There are only 10 days left to get all your registration info in for the challenge and 5 days until it officially begins! To upload your pre challenge goals and “before”(or “Jan 2013”) pictures, click here.
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