Nutrition 101 – Carbohydrates, proteins and fats

These three are often referred to as macro nutrients. All foods are made up of a combination of one, two or all three of these. You need all three to survive. All calories come from one of these three, and as we discussed last week – A calorie is a way to measure the energy in our food. So another way to state this is that all energy in food comes from proteins, carbohydrates or fats. Each of these three macro nutrients serves a critical role. Proteins are the building blocks of all cells in your body. Your body digests proteins by converting them to amino acids. Carbohydrates are converted by your body into sugars. Fats are converted into fatty acids and glycerol.

Now this is where all the controversy over diets starts, and this can be summed up by these three questions:

• What amount and proportion should we consume of these three macro nutrients for optimum health?
• What are the best sources and combinations of each of these three macro nutrients, and which sources should we avoid?
• What minerals, vitamins and other nutrients do we need and in what amounts and proportions?

In general your ratio of calorie intake and expenditure of energy (metabolism) needs to be 1:1 for maintaining weight. To lose weight your calorie absorption needs to be less than your energy expenditure. To gain weight your calories absorbed need to be more than you use. But this is where things get really challenging. There are many factors that can positively or adversely affect your body’s ability to process, store and burn energy. The truth is that all our knowledge of the human body and its systems has only begun to unravel the complexity of it all. Just counting calories can be an exercise in frustration. This is why we recommend talking with a nutritionist and/or dietitian if you are having trouble maintaining healthy weight. Even determining what is or isn’t a healthy weight isn’t simply some number. It is important to filter out unhealthy societal expectations and rather focus on true health.

But to even begin talk about nutrition we do need to have a basic understanding of the main building blocks or macro nutrients.

Next: How does our body use proteins or more specifically amino acids?

Specialty Classes This Week

FTX Gold (55+) – Wednesday 2:30pm
Family WOW! – Saturday 10am

Seven Sons Farm

You are what you eat! Exercise, nutrition and recovery are the keys to health. Workout hard, eat well and get rest. Food that is not processed and free of chemicals and pollutants is a must. We are here to help!

Our next delivery is Saturday, March 14th. Order by Tuesday, March 10th.
Delivery is to FTX CrossFit between 3:00pm – 4:00pm. You will be given a 30 minute window for pick-up. Ordering is easy.
Quality food is a must. Seven Sons is a great source for grass fed, antibiotic and hormone free meat that is ethically grown. They also offer great dairy products and more, and all of the highest quality.

Order here.

WOD Summary

Please look at Wodify for the specific daily WOD announcements. They are available a week in advance. We will no longer post full WODs here.

We will continue our current strength cycle through March. This one is a bit different and is a mix of strength training protocols. We constantly vary our workouts to hit our bodies from different angles, which prevents adaptation/plateauing and repetitive use injuries. This strength cycle does continue our focus on shoulders, legs and posterior chain development, but we’re doing it with more lifts in one day and a higher rep scheme. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday it will be fast-paced as we cover 2 movements versus doing just 1. On Mondays and Fridays we will rotate through the movements: Shoulder Press/Ft. Squats, Ft. Squats/Deadlifts, Shoulder Press/Deadlifts, Shoulder Press/Ft. Squats and so on. Our warm-ups will have you ready to go. It will be important to arrive to classes on time in order to properly go through the whole warm-up sequence. The following is an outline of our strength program this week.

• Monday: Front Squat and Deadlift.
• Tuesday: Pull-ups or wtd. pull-ups
• Wednesday: 3 Dumbbell exercises – Arnold presses, Thrusters and Straight-leg Deadlifts.
• Thursday: Olympic lifting – Snatch
• Friday: Push-press and Deadlift.
• Saturday: Skillwork – Double-unders.

The WODs on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays during this new strength cycle will be shorter WODs with a minimum amount of movements. Most of them will be under 10 minutes and involve a couplet. Tuesday and Thursdays will have longer WODs that also may involve more movements. Saturdays will tend to be longer like the Hero WODs. We know that certain combinations of attendance, like MWF or TuThS, might limit your exposure to the full variety of our programming in February and March. Keep in mind that this is for 8 weeks. We will change it back up for April. This might narrow your focus a bit for the next 8 weeks, but this can be a positive. Our programming is all about the long-term, i.e. what can we achieve in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and over a life-time. It is not about trying to achieve unrealistic goals like “Beach body in 3 weeks” or “Biggest Loser”. It is also impossible to effectively cover everything, every week. To be well-rounded for the long-term, there are weeks or even months where we focus on one thing or another.

We start this week with a 10:00 AMRAP triplet of T2B, Thrusters and Lunges. Tuesday is a longer 18:00 AMRAP with 6 different movements. On Wednesday we return to a shorter 10:00 WOD consisting of Wall Balls and dips. Thursday is interval training with Devil’s Presses, Renegade Rows and Running. Friday is a partner/team WOD of Cleans, Push-ups and Biking. Saturday is a Hero WOD – Bradshaw.

We hope you enjoy this week of functional, constantly varied workouts done at an appropriate level of intensity. As always – train smart!