7/20 Foodie Friday

Your wallballs will be synchronous with your partner today:-)
​We are half-way through our Mid-Year Check-Ins and we love meeting with all of you and looking at your 3-day food logs. All of us Coaches agreed that these Mid-Year Check-Ins should focus on nutrition since that is THE ONE lifestyle practice that will have the most profound impact on your body composition, health and fitness performance. 
For the past several months I have written extensively about food quality vis a vis the Paleo diet. I define the Paleo diet as eating meat, vegetables, nuts & seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. I have introduced using your hand as a portion control guide as seen here:

However, many of us, including several of our coaches, weigh and measure our food according to it's macronutrient content. This is known as counting macros. 
Counting Macros has supplanted counting calories as a way to control portions for CrossFitters, Olympic Weightlifters, powerlifters, and many other competitive athletes. 
There are 3 macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates and fat. Protein is the building blocks of muscle, carbohydrates fuel our activities and fat is vital for brain functions, energy storage and it protects our internal organs. All three macronutrients contain calories which our bodies use to fuel our metabolism and activities. 
Counting macros means to consume a precise amount of each macronutrient according to your macro plan. Through counting macros, calories are controlled for weight loss or weight gain. (There are 4 calories per 1 gram of protein and 1 gram carbohydrate and 9 calories per 1 gram of fat.)
There are several popular macro plans, e.g. the Zone, Keto, RP, WAG, etc. All of these plans prioritize weighing and measuring your food so that you get a particular macro ratio. 
Counting macros can be super confusing to start because of the use of both ounces and grams in some programs. It's important to understand that ounces is a measurement of weight (or amount for liquids) and grams is the content of macro in your food. For instance, 4 ounces of cooked boneless skinless chicken breast contains 25 grams of protein. One cup of cooked sweet potato contains 27 grams of carbohydrates. One tablespoon of olive oil contains 14 grams of fat. Lucky for us macro content of just about any food can be found on several reliable nutrition websites. Sometimes just a quick Google search can give you the info you need. 

By law, processed food, or food that comes in a bag, box, bottle or can has a nutrition label. You can get macro content from the label as long as you weigh or measure the suggested serving size. For example, lots of us like to drink Fit-Aid after a CrossFit workout. ​One can (one serving) of Fit-Aid contains 11 grams of carbohydrates, and does not contain any protein or fat. 

Next week I will explore some of the more popular macro plans. For now, enjoy this Macro-Friendly Hamburger recipe courtesy of Working Against Gravity. Enjoy! 

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