Saturday, April 24, 2010

A Little Ramble About the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle - What makes it different

Why is the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle different?

Well first of all, let me admit that I have had a few glasses of wine and I have spent the better part of the evening bouncing from fitness blog to fitness blog. Many of which were CrossFit based and all are pretty amazing in their own accord.

When I designed the CaveMan2.0 diet, I did it with one thing in mind. Overall health and well being. But diet is only part of the equation. CaveMan2.0 is a lifestyle. As human beings, we were designed to lives of hardship. We were not made to sit on our bums all day in front of the computer or television. This sedentary lifestyle is causing us just as much harm as many of the other "banes of humanity".

Think about it for just a minute. We evolved for lifetimes of hunting and foraging for food. Working all day to build and maintain shelters. Running for survival from predators and fighting for survival from attack from enemies. Rarely did our ancestors ever get a day to sit around and enjoy a leisurely drink around the watering hole.

This is the basis upon which I conduct my life and the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle. True, many of us have jobs that involve countless hours on our butts in front of computer screens or even in cars driving long hours. That's why I design my workouts to, as closely as possible, reenact the  activities that would have been required for survival. Running fast, running far, jumping, lifting heavy things, climbing obstacles, throwing, and controlling your body.

These movements not only make you fitter, harder and faster, they also elicit a physiological response resulting in a body type which says, "I am a survivor" which, consequently, tends to be the body type most desirable to the opposite sex. Weather you are male and female you will not develop the large, bulging, rippling muscles associate with "Flex" magazine cover models. Not only is this not possible without the use of hormonal aids but our programming doesn't create that type of build. True functional fitness programming builds a lean physique with the hard, well toned muscles of an athlete. It builds a physique indicative of one who is a master of all the fitness domains. Strong yet agile, explosive yet having the endurance to complete any task.

Now let's talk a little bit about the diet. It's no secret that I based my nutritional plan off of the Paleo diet. I followed the Paleo diet for quite a while with moderate success. What got in the way was Dr. Cordain's  disdain for dietary fat. If you want to drop fat very quickly the paleo diet is amazing. Likewise, if you are a runner or endurance athelete "The Paleo Diet" and the "Paleo Diet for Athletes" are perfect. However, as an athelete in the fields of strength, endurance, power, speed, agility, balance, our nutritional needs are a little bit different.

We have to put a MUCH greater emphasis on dietary fat. True that protein is definitely important, with our balance of strength, metcon and gymnastics work, we should strive for  between 0.8 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. The importance of protein is well known to most of us and I hope you attempt to get a moderate amount of animal protein with each meal. But I highly recommend an emphasis put on dietary fat. We need a certain amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in order to produce the hormones required to recover and build muscle from our workouts. Fat is the most efficiently used source of fuel we can intake. It yields four times more punch that carbohydrate and is much less likely to promote fat gain.

Carbohydrate definitely does have it's place, mostly for recovery in an immediate post workout meal. This doesn't mean you should avoid fruits and veggies all together, but if you are working out hard I recommend you keep the majority of your carbohydrate intake to directly after your workout. The rest of the time concentrate mostly on protein and fat intake and watch your bodyfat melt away and your workout results soar.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, sorry if I ramble. I blame the wine.

My name Is Joey Lajoie and I approve this message.

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