Strength. Passion. Dedication.

Body Fat, Eating Paleo & Thoughts on Motivation

Many of our clients at Function 5 Fitness made some big commitments to themselves this Holiday season. We started offering a new service to our members, Hydrostatic weighing. It’s a very accurate test of lean mass and body fat & that is done by “dunking” you in water and blowing out all the air from your lungs. Good times!

Our brave clients did the test in December knowing that the truck would be coming back in February. We thought that this might at least help people not back slide over the holidays, and maybe some would even get positive results. Some really daring folks decided to sign up for our BF Challenge where the winner losing the most % of body fat got a cash prize and 2 free personal training sessions.

After we all came back from the Holidays having indulged a little, traveled more and exercised less, we decided to step up our game in January with a Real Food Paleo Challenge. The guidelines where simple: No grains, no dairy, no legumes, no sugar (added), no fake sugar, no alcohol, and avoiding anything packaged or processed. Some really shined in the Challenge, other took some of the suggested guidelines to heart and some decided to stick to their ways.

Here’s a confession. I think nutrition challenges are good because they offer people a chance to “reset” and focus on their food. People need some rules and structure to create new habits and reset their taste buds. I’ll continue to have challenges at my gym, but personally I find myself going crazy with challenges, and much prefer a step by step approach, creating one good habit and making it a part of my life, then adding another. That’s pretty much how I evolved in this Paleo nutrition thing over the years.

On a strict challenge I’m 100% good for maybe 2 weeks and then find myself going a bit “stir crazy”. Instead in daily life I prefer the 80/20 rule. I eat “clean” Paleo 18 out of my 21 meals a week and about 3 meals a week I’m kicking back having a little white rice, corn, cheese or ice cream….mmmm ice cream. The one rule I always follow though is being gluten free 100%. I also never eat/drink corn syrup or partial hydrogenated veggie oils. Yuck! I also don’t eat shit just because it’s there and I am “due” a “cheat”. I kick back when the opportunity presents it’s self I don’t plan binges like a junkie. Then I just go back to business as usual the next meal.

Anyway, enough about me. I just want you guys to know I’m human too and although I may educate and lecture about nutrition I want to offer realistic options to build these habits into you life in a way that is positive and healthy. There is some truth to the saying, “I’d rather you eat the wrong foods with good feelings than the right foods with bad feelings.” Although I don’t entirely agree with that the take away is that quality food is important and understanding real food nutrition is important, knowing what you put in your body and what it’s doing is crucial… but don’t get all friggin’ neurotic on me and start weighing and measuring and over analyzing and guilt driving your ass like a moron. That behavior will get you sick and/or fat in no time.

Okay, I know some of you just want to know who the winner is, but before I announce the hard working winner I wanted to offer some thoughts on motivation. I noticed that our clients that made the biggest jumps in body composition were clients who had very clear athletic goals. One new fighter-in-training made an astounding leap. Other non-fighter clients who I see as very physically goal oriented hit great BF goals to. The lesson here is make physical performance your priority, dial in your food and the results will skyrocket!

Fighting may be a weight dominated sport, but the emphasis is obviously on performance. Train like and athlete and you might make some progress, but THINK like an athlete and you’ll make even better progress.

I also noticed that in most cases, class attendance had a lot to do with hitting BF goals… BIG surprise, right? Just show up, eat well and magical things happen ;)

Okay, I know you’ve waited long enough, so the contest winner for the Winter Body Fat Challenge is…

Ryan Stafford! Congrats Ryan - He lost the highest percentage of his body fat from his December test to this month’s test - 14% difference overall. We won’t be disclosing actual numbers, for privacy. (Thanks!) Ryan come pick up your cash prize and make sure to schedule your sessions with me soon :)

I’d also like to give props to Eric Powell 2nd place, and Stefanie Budiman 3rd place. There were no 2nd and 3rd place prizes, but be proud anyways, you guys worked hard!

Thanks for everyone’s hard work, the BF truck will be back the 1st week of May, and yes we’ll have another challenge! :)

Hugs & Punches,

Roxy

P.S. Please excuse any typos. I have a million things to do today, thanks!

9 February 2012 ·