Kelly Frankson DOT COM

Due to the number of emails I have been receiving, it appears as if a large portion of the crossfit community has begun setting new year resolutions. Now that my diet is pretty dialed, my resolution was to get more sleep (Id been living off about 6hrs a night) and so far I started off the year with 11hrs Jan 1, 10hrs Jan 2 and 12 hrs Jan 3!

To help answer everyones nutrition questions at once I have created a guide summarizing various resources relevant to the populations we cater to and will be hosting two nutrition seminars in January. One on Saturday January 25th from 1-3 and one on Thursday January 29th from 7-9pm.

The following prologue (borrowed from Robb Wolf) acts as a great introduction: “We can infer that we indeed want a complete “fitness”, and since nutrition-the molecular basis of health-is the foundation of an optimized fitness regime, we should want the very best nutritional strategy we can find, especially if our definition of fitness includes all parameters of health. If that is the case, then before we start slicing and dicing our food into exacting proportions, we need to have the right stuff on the plate. We can be apologist and try to be all things to all people but much like the argument that too much power lifting or long distance running will hamper your overall fitness so too will consumption of foods that are at odds with health.”

The guide and seminar will cover:
Do’s and don’ts and the reasons Why
-Protein-how much is too much and how to tailor intake to meet your goals
-Fat-Why we need it and facts about cholesterol
-Carbs-Importance of stabilizing insulin levels, the low down on grains, danger of artificial sweeteners, making use of the post workout window…
Tweaking the Zone (how to tailor it to meat your goals-mass gain and fat loss strategies
Other potential options-Intermittent Fasting, the Whole Milk Debate. Cost of the seminar will be $25 (which will include the consolidated resource package) for crossfit Vancouver members and $50 for non members.

The next Snatch Clinic will be Saturday January 17th from 1-4. People of all skill levels are welcome, email me in advance (Machine@crossfit.ca) so I can get an idea of numbers. Cost of the three hour clinic is $50 for Crossfit Vancouver members, $70 for non members.

How it started…For the last 3 years Crossfit Vancouver has had a “Flab Challenge” where individuals measure their body composition at the beginning of September and then again 3 months later.  Prizes go to the individuals who loose the greatest % body fat and gain the most lean muscle mass (based on % change).  This year, when Craig Patterson, owner of Crossfit Vancouver, posted the launch of the flab challenge on crossfit.ca he commented that as long as people follow Zone proportions (40%carbs, 30%protein, 30%fat) they will see results no matter what they are eating within those proportion.  He gave an example of drinking scotch and eating wings.  Despite losing 20lbs while following the zone a couple years back, I voiced my concern with the comment made and argued that from a health and performance perspective WHAT you eat is more imporatant than HOW you eat it.  Over the next 48 hours over 100 comments were made on the site and before I knew it, we had entered into a micro/macro nutrient war.

The Rules…It was decided that we would each take a team of individuals willing to make changes in their diets.  Pattys team-”Team Shaggers”- would eat what ever they wanted as long as it was in zone proportions.  My team-”Team Machine”-would eat as much as they wanted as long as they followed “Clean Eating” principles as defined by a document published on kellyfrankson.com.  To ensure that affects on performance were considered, benchmark workouts were added to the mix:

• Fran (21/15/9 thrusters & pull-ups) to test the effect on metabolic conditioning,
• Murph (1 mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, 1 mile run) to test the effect on endurance and
• Max front squat to test the effect on strength. (See In Retrospect Note 1)

Selecting the Teams…Initially we were going to select 4 individuals.  As we began to choose our players we realized that a number of outside variables come into play.  For example, I had two new guys who were willing to fully commit to changing their diet but it was determined that anybody who has been doing crossfit for less than 6 months is going to see gains regardless of diet and therefore could only be a “supporting” member.  I was also accused of “cherry picking” as some of the top performers in the gym asked to join “Team Machine”.  To me the fact top performers wanted to follow what I was recommending was encouraging.  Plus gains are harder to come by by people who are already at the top (although commitment levels tend to be higher as well).  16 people played along with Team Machine in some shape or form.  Ten participated to the full extent; Six others lived cleanly for the 3 month period but did not do the scans; and then there were several other “armchair” players. 

Patty went on a recruiting mission for “Team Shaggers” but ran into compliance issues of people not wanting to measure everything they ate and dropping out.  Some of “Team Shaggers” final team members reported 60-70%compliance making the afffects of diet changes hard to compare. (See In Retrospect Note 2)

The Process…A section was added to kellyfrankson.com where Team Machine posted comments about how they were feeling, the challenges they were having, any questions that they had as well as recipes and tricks to make clean eating easier (many of the comments are included in the raw data appendix).  In typical Crossfit Vancouver fashion, friendly trash talking between the teams started to occur as people on both sides began to see improvement in performance numbers.  More and more nutritional articles started to be posted on both kellyfrankson.com as well as Crossfit.ca and the community unknowingly underwent a 3 month crash course in nutrition.  People who had never paid much attention to what they ate all a sudden began to follow along at home.  I knew that it was all worth it when one long term member of Crossfit Vancouver who was not part of either team made the following comment:

“I  learned more about nutrition in the last three months than he has learned over the last 20years of participating in sports.”

We made it a game and people took interest.  Other quotes from non participants included:

“I accepted the fact that I’m not a top performer, but until recently I didnt realize the commitment that it took to be a top performer. I see Max drinking his gallon of milk, sack walking around with his green jars, Joy cutting out rice, Machine backing up what she preaches with her actions…”

“At the end of the day, everyone who participated in the flab challenge and/or the micronutrient challenge showed serious dedication to their health. It was really inspiring to see people working so hard towards positive change.”

Results…Some huge performance gains were made on both sides (results are attached in the raw data appendix), but this could have to do with several factors other than nutrition alone.  It’s interesting to note that while both teams were successful in lowering their body fat %, most of Team Shaggers (following the zone) lost lean muscle mass while all of Team Machine (Clean eating relying on a significant amount of Protein) increased their percentage of lean muscle mass. (See In Retrospect Note 3)

In addition to the great gains made by those who participated, the quotes above reflect that the benefits of this challenge reached much farther than just the participants.  The numbers do not even come to close to justifying what this challenge did for Crossfit Vancouver the community.  After publicizing the Micro/Macro Nutrient war throughout the Flab Challenge, we saw more drastic improvements as a whole (from individuals who were not on either team) than we have seen in any of the previous flab challenge offerings.

Congratulations to everyone who made some pretty big lifestyle changes.  The day I’ll never forget is when one of my new guys got his results.  He joined the flab challenge a bit late but went from living off of bread and pasta to following my guidelines by the book and was left speechless after the last week of testing.  He came into the gym while I was doing personal training and couldn’t even talk.  It was like a little kid on Christmas with his eyes wide open and the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on his face.  He just showed me his results and commented that :

” I’ve been trying to follow everything that you said, but didn’t really think it would actually work.” 

It’s pretty cool to watch people transform. 

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According to OPT:

The few types of soy that ARE healthy are all fermented varieties. After a long fermentation process, the phytic acid and antinutrient levels of the soybeans are reduced, and their beneficial properties — such as the creation of natural probiotics — become available to your digestive system. The fermentation process also greatly reduces the levels of dangerous isoflavones, which are similar to estrogen in their chemical structure, and can interfere with the action of your own estrogen production. So if you want to eat soy that is actually good for you, following are all healthy options:

Natto, fermented soybeans with a sticky texture and strong, cheese-like flavor. It’s loaded with nattokinase, a very powerful blood thinner. Natto is the highest source of vitamin K2 on the planet and has a very powerful beneficial bacteria, bacillus subtilis. It can usually be found in any Asian grocery store.

Tempeh, a fermented soybean cake with a firm texture and nutty, mushroom-like flavor.

Miso, a fermented soybean paste with a salty, buttery texture (commonly used in miso soup).

Soy sauce: traditionally, soy sauce is made by fermenting soybeans, salt and enzymes, however be wary because many varieties on the market are made artificially using a chemical process.