Strength:

Rest Day

Skill:

Kipping Toes to Bar

Level Skills Testing:

L-Sit/ Any Gymnastics Left

3 Rounds for Time:

7 DB Burpee Squat Clean Thrusters

15 GHD Sit-ups

7 DB Burpee Squat Clean Thrusters

15 Toes to Bar

THEN WE GOT TO BE KIDS AGAIN… BUILDING A MASSIVE PUZZLE AND PLAYING WITH SILLY PUDDY!

THE 3 S’s YOU MUST GET RIGHT…

By Mark Sisson, Marks Daily Apple

You hear it all the time: “It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change!” or “Fitness is something you live!” It seems like every health guru out there with a diet and/or workout plan says something to that effect. Unfortunately, if you fully subscribe to their prescriptions and do so for life, you’re still only changing what you eat or how you work out.

While that’s most of the battle, it’s not enough. Diet and exercise are simply vital components of a lifestyle. If you make a permanent modification to your diet and exercise without addressing the other things that encompass a “lifestyle,” you’re selling yourself short.

Which is why I believe it is necessary to focus on the other stuff, too. I’m convinced that good health, longevity, happiness, and weight management come down to far more than just diet and exercise.

To start, you have to pay attention to the Three S’s: sleep, stress, and sunlight.

Sleep

Sleep is not the cousin of death, and no, you shouldn’t hold off on sleeping until you’re dead. Sleep is restoration time. It’s when your body repairs itself. And, chances are, you’re not getting nearly enough of it.

Are you? How often do you get a “good night’s sleep?” Do you regularly wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day?

If you are like most people you are not getting good, regular sleep. You’re hitting the snooze button several times, fumbling for your coffee fix, and yawning at work. You’re staying up late with the TV going or you’re taking your laptop into bed.

It wasn’t always like this. For millions of years, up until about a hundred twenty years ago, humans all over the world enjoyed restorative, refreshing, regular sleep. When the sun went down, they either went to sleep or started getting ready for it. Life would wind down. Candles and fire were too costly to burn all night, every night, so nighttime meant bedtime.

Our genes evolved amongst bountiful sleep. Our genes aren’t used to artificial lights and television and Internet keeping us awake and disrupting our natural sleep patterns.

And so, when we get poor sleep or not enough of it, bad things happen:

• Our insulin sensitivity decreases even more than it already is, reducing our ability to tolerate carbs and burn fat, and making it harder to lose weight.
• We get an increased risk of depression.
• The normal secretion of hormones like testosterone (important for general health) and growth hormone (burns fat and promotes cellular restoration), which usually takes place while we sleep, is interrupted.
• It raises blood pressure and boosts the risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

On the flip side, when we get enough sleep, good things happen:

• Fat melts off. Carbohydrate tolerance increases.
• Exercise performance improves. Speed, strength, recovery and response times increase.
• Your immune system does its best work during sleep, improving your resistance to viruses and infections.
• Your brain works better. Memory and problem-solving abilities improve.

To name just a few.

As you see, sleep is anything but a waste of time. It’s actually essential. So get adequate amounts (around 8 hours for most people) of quality sleep.

Stress

What about the next “S” – what about stress?

Ah, stress. You might say that we’re built to handle a certain type of stress. After all, we’ve all experienced those heart-pounding moments where time slows down, the adrenaline surges, and you make your move. Twenty thousand years ago, it would have been a stare down with a mountain lion or a rival tribesman that caused the stress response. Or maybe a branch breaks while climbing a tall tree to gather some eggs or steal some honey. Either way, the stress response system was built to deal with infrequent, acute, highly stressful situations.

Nowadays? Stress comes in the form of the daily commute through rush hour traffic. Stress hits when you and your spouse fight about bills for the umpteenth time, or maybe during the tenth straight week of overtime at the office.

Stress in the modern world has become chronic, rather than acute. It’s ongoing, rather than infrequent.

But we’re still equipped with these Stone Age stress response systems that can’t distinguish between chronic and acute stress. To our adrenal system, being stuck in traffic is the same as a sabre-tooth tiger bearing down on you. They both elicit the same response: adrenaline surge, pounding heart, sweaty palms, heightened senses, hyper awareness of everything around you.

In a life-or-death situation that’s resolved in a minute or two, the stress response is helpful. It will literally save your life.

Prolonged over the course of a two-hour commute, however, the stress response will harm you.

Unfortunately, that type of stress can’t always be avoided, but it can be managed. Avoiding the obvious, easy sources of stress helps, as will consuming the foods outlined in previous lessons (i.e. meat, fish, foul, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts/seeds), getting adequate sleep (see above), adhering to a smart workout routine (see Primal Blueprint Fitness), and engaging in some smart supplementation (see Primal Calm).

For some other info on stress management, check out my fifteen specific tips for avoiding, managing, and beating stress.

And now, perhaps the most controversial one of all: sunlight.

Sunlight

For years, we’ve been told to avoid the sun at all costs. To stay indoors or under shade. To draw the blinds and turn vampire between the hours of ten AM and four PM. To slather ourselves with the highest-grade sunblock money can buy if, perish the thought, we ever have to expose an inch of skin to those evil UV rays.

Now – does that make any sense, at all?

What did our ancestors do without sunscreen? What did they do without office buildings and curtains and jobs that kept them indoors all day and out of the sun?

It’s silly. We evolved outdoors. Sun exposure – regular sun exposure, even – was an important aspect of life. As such, we evolved to require a minimum dose of sunlight to ensure optimal health.

How’s that work?

Well, UVB rays (you know, the super-evil ones) from the sun interact with cholesterol in our skin to produce something called vitamin D. Vitamin D isn’t actually a vitamin; it acts more like a hormone in your body, affecting a whole host of organs, tissues, and functions.

What does vitamin D do, exactly?

• It’s essential for bone mineralization. Without vitamin D, your body won’t be able to do anything with the raw building blocks of bone, like calcium and magnesium.
• It improves insulin sensitivity and increases fat loss.
• It’s required for the production of testosterone.
• It prevents tooth decay.
• Our immune systems need vitamin D to function.
• It reduces systemic inflammation.
• It plays a role in protection against many (if not all) cancers.

And all you need is a little bit of sunlight.

So, folks, take off most your clothes and get your sun exposure. Go easy at first, since we haven’t been living outdoors and we probably aren’t ready for a full session, yet. Gradually increase your exposure by a few minutes at a time until you’re getting thirty minutes of full sun each day.

Oh, and sunblock prevents the creation of vitamin D, so go easy on it. If you’re going to use sunblock, apply it after you’ve already gotten your 20-30 minutes of sun exposure.

If you can’t find time to get sun, or you live in a place that gets very little, pop some vitamin D3. It’s almost as good as just getting it from the sun, and it’s a hundred times better than getting none at all.

Diet and exercise aren’t everything.

You can’t eat your way out of a sleep deficit. You can’t exercise your way out of a lack of sunlight. And if you try to eat and exercise your way out of too much stress, you’ll just add to the problem.

All that “other stuff” that most people consider optional actually isn’t optional at all; it’s vital, it’s invaluable, and it cannot be ignored or forgotten. Without getting your sleep, stress, and sun exposure in check, you will never be as healthy as you could be.

If you want a true lifestyle change, you have to look beyond diet and exercise.

Strength:

Press 5-5-5

40%, 50%, 60% of 90% 1RM

Level Skills Testing:

4oom Run/ Sit-ups

3 Rounds for Time:

Run 400m

15 Thrusters (95/65)

25 MB Sit-ups (20/14)

THEN THE WALL WAS TORN DOWN, THE CEILING AND WALLS PAINTED, AND THE MOVING TRUCK CAME IN…

THANK YOU TO CHAD, BILLY, KRISTY, AND SHANNON FOR HELPING ME MOVE MATS IN NASTY COLD WEATHER!!!

WHAT TO EAT AND WHAT TO AVOID FOR LIFELONG HEALTH…

By Mark Sisson, Marks Daily Apple

You’re on board with avoiding grains, sugar, and vegetable oils, yes? You get that, owing to their recent introduction into the human diet, people aren’t adapted to eating these foods. You see that contrary to being health-giving, grains, vegetable oils, and sugar are actually destroying our health and making us fat and sick.

You’re interested in switching from the sugar-burning Carb Paradigm to the Fat Paradigm, and you understand that you should be eating more animals and fewer carbs to lose weight, right?

Awesome…but what’s next? I’ve given you a few basic tools to identify what foods might be preventing fat loss and promoting poor health, so you generally know what not to do, but now you want the details on what you should be doing. Specifically, what you should and should not be eating. Let’s bring it all together and spell it out. And because when we’re talking about our health and happiness, we don’t want to beat around the bush, or get things half-right. We want to be sure.

Start by eliminating all the offensive processed food, grains, sugar and industrial oils.

Ditch grains: refined grains, whole grains, bread, pasta, muffins, biscuits, bagels, cereal, baked goods, pancakes. Anything made from flour, really.

Ditch sugar: white sugar, candy, cake, cookies, pastries, milk chocolate bars, high fructose corn syrup, soda, milkshakes masquerading as coffee drinks. If it’s made in a bakery or a factory or a restaurant and it’s sweet, just avoid it.

Ditch vegetable oils and trans fats: corn oil, soybean oil, canola, sunflower/safflower, margarine, shortening, anything with “partially hydrogenated” in the ingredients list.

Ditch all other junk foods, most of which encompass the previous three “food” categories: potato chips, crackers, “crisps,” Cheez-its.

Ditch fast food: Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, etc. don’t eat McDonald’s and think just because you removed the bun that it’s all good. Just say no to fast food.

Don’t eat that stuff. For one, it’s junk food that simply doesn’t taste very good when you get down to it. Instead, it’s food that’s designed to target the reward centers in your brain and get you to stuff your face – and then go out and buy some more. “Betcha can’t eat just one” isn’t just an innocent slogan; it’s the literal truth!

Two, it’s high in calories but low in nutrition. You can eat that bag of Lay’s and get hundreds of calories of carbs andrancid fats, but you’ll still be deficient in vitamins and minerals, and you’ll still be hungry!

I’ll be honest – you could stop here and reap most of the benefits. Because the aforementioned “food” groups are so heavily overrepresented in the modern food supply, avoiding them and just eating everything left over will make you healthier and help you lose weight. But we can do better than that.

Eat the animals, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds our bodies are adapted to thrive on.

Eat animals: beef, lamb, bison, pork, poultry (and their eggs). Favor grass-fed and pastured animals, which have better fatty acids and contain more vitamins and minerals (and taste better!).

Eat animals from the sea: salmon, sardines, trout, mackerel, crab, shrimp, oysters, mussels, clams. Wild-caught fish are best, though farmed shellfish are usually raised exactly like wild shellfish and thus are fine.

Eat unlimited produce: leafy greens of all kinds, colorful plants, berries, cruciferous vegetables, assorted fruits, roots, and tubers.

Eat some nuts and seeds: macadamias, walnuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, brazil nuts, pistachios, hazelnuts; pumpkin, squash, and sunflower seeds.

Use healthy cooking fats: butter (especially grass-fed), coconut oil, olive oil, red palm and regular palm oil, ghee, andanimal fats (lard, tallow, duck fat, etc.).

Stock spices: keep plenty of herbs and spices on hand. Cumin, coriander, thyme, rosemary, sage, chili powder, mint,turmeric, and cayenne are a few of my favorites, but you can use anything else you like. Spices and herbs add flavor to dishes and prevent the breakdown of vital nutrients during cooking so that when you add spices or herbs, your food tastes better and is actually healthier for you.

All of this and then some is nicely summarized in The Primal Blueprint Food Pyramid (click to enlarge).

Follow those basic guidelines and avoid the foods I’ve already mentioned, and you’re good to go.

If you want some concrete recipe ideas, check out the resources I introduced in lesson 2: the online recipe guide on Mark’s Daily Apple, the reader-created cookbooks, The Primal Blueprint Cookbook and The Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals.

Or, if you want to make something a little quicker and easier, I’ve got you covered. I realize that not everyone always has time to prepare a proper meal. I certainly don’t, which is why I created Primal Fuel, a whole foods-based meal replacement shake. Coconut fat, whey isolate protein (the gold standard of protein powders), natural sweeteners, real cocoa or vanilla, and prebiotic fiber for good gut health… I have a Primal Fuel shake nearly every day and it’s perfectly Primal (and tasty, too!).

So – what do you think? A “diet” composed of fresh meat, all the veggies you want, plenty of fruit, a few nuts, somedelicious fat, and a diverse arsenal of spices and herbs doesn’t sound so restrictive, does it?

Strength:

Back Squat 5-5-5

40%, 50%, 60% of 90% 1RM

Level Skills Testing:

Row 500m

“CHRISTINE”

3 Rounds for time…

Row 500m

12 Deadlifts

21 Box Jumps

WE ARE GOING TO TAKE YOU THROUGH THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE NEW BOX THIS WEEK…HERE IS WHERE WE STARTED.  THIS IS THE FIRST ROOM AS YOU WALK INTO THE MAIN DOORS.  THERE WAS A LOT OF KNOCKING DOWN IN THIS ROOM TO OPEN THINGS UP!

WHY EATING ANIMALS MAKES EVERYTHING EASIER…

By Mark Sisson, “Mark’s Daily Apple”

Last time, I broke down the faulty Carb Paradigm we live in.

In case you need one, here’s a quick refresher:

Overweight people with faulty carbohydrate metabolisms are told (by doctors, by government officials, by dietitians) to eat more carbohydrates and less fat.

They do it (carb consumption as a percentage of total caloric intake has increased in line with the obesity epidemic, moreso than either fat or protein). They eat carbs and reduce fat intake.

Because their insulin-resistant bodies can’t handle carbs well, they produce lots of insulin to get over the hump. Only problem? Those carbs aren’t sequestered into insulin-sensitive muscle glycogen stores as energy, because the muscle is insulin-resistant. Meanwhile, the excessive insulin prevents the burning of fat, and any extra fat and carbs from the meal are instead sequestered into fat cells. People get fatter.

Since the food isn’t being used and is instead being stored away for later use, the body thinks it’s starving and gets hungrier as a result. People eat more carbs.

The cycle continues uninterrupted.

But no more. It stops here. I think it’s time we shift toward a new paradigm. It’s actually a rather old, classic paradigm that’s been forgotten – but it’s still as valid as ever.

It’s time for the Fat Paradigm. It’s time to start burning fat as fuel. It’s time to move away from sugar burning.

You see, fat is the perfect fuel for us. It’s efficient. It burns clean. And it’s the type of fuel our bodies like to burn. Otherwise, why else would we store it on our bodies for lean times?

That’s what people miss about body fat. It’s not just “there” because we messed up and our body has nowhere to put it. Body fat, or adipose tissue, is stored energy. Sure, the obese have way too much body fat, but the fact is that our bodies evolved the ability to put fat into fat cells because it is effective fuel.

The problem is that many of us are broken. Sedentary living, modern food toxins, too much stress, not enough sleep, and a distinct lack of play for play’s sake (more on this later, if you’re confused about why I’d rank “play” with all the other stuff) have fundamentally changed the way we process fuel. Many of us can’t even access the stored fat, instead running on sugar (and poorly at that). All that stored energy – body fat – is going to waste.

So, if you’re overweight or obese, chances are you’re broken. And – at least for the time being until you’re healed – excess carbohydrates are making the problem worse.

But you can be fixed. You don’t need doctors or medication or expensive treatments. You just need to start accessing your body fat and burning fat for fuel.

By converting to an animal fat-based metabolism, you are returning to the ancestral human fuel source. And the best way to switch to fat burning is to start eating more animals and whatever fat comes with them.

Animal fat, especially from ruminants like beef, lamb, and bison, comes with roughly equal proportions of saturated and monounsaturated fats, with a little bit of omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats. Interestingly, your own animal fat – the fat deposited on your body and the fat that your body is designed to burn for energy in lean times – comes with very similar ratios. It’s almost as if animal fat is good for us!

Which brings me to my main point of today’s article: eating animals simply makes everything easier.

With animals, you get healthy animal fat. You get protein, important for building muscles and keeping you full. You get all the micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals that the animal ate, in a form that your body can absorb. It’s the perfect package of nutrition for a fat burner.

Now, I don’t hate carbohydrate. They can be useful and even beneficial in certain cases. Eat carbs when you need fuel for endurance activities. Don’t eat carbs just because; eat them because you need the energy. Because you’re actually active and they won’t go to waste.

Otherwise?

Fat is your friend.

Fat will fuel your everyday activities, your walking, your shopping, your working and reading. Fat can even provide the bulk of the energy required by your brain. Your brain still needs glucose, mind you, but becoming metabolically healthy will allow you to access both glucose and fat for energy.

Bottom line: if you’re overweight, you’re not utilizing the energy stored on your body. Switching over to the Fat Paradigm and a fat-based diet will unlock that stored body fat and allow you to use what you’ve already got (plus carbohydrates, when and if you eat them). But if you remain entrenched in the Carb Paradigm, your body never gets the message to start accessing body fat for energy.

If you need to lose weight, start by cutting back on carbs and eating more animals (and their fat). That’s all it takes to enter the Fat Paradigm and start burning fat, and it’s as easy (and delicious) as it sounds.

Next time, I’ll give more details on what and how much to eat, but for now, stick with eating animals.

Strength:

Rest Day

Level Skills Testing:

Snatch (% of BW)

Mobility:

Hip Work

“ISABEL”

For time…

30 Snatches (135/95)

1ST BURPEES AT THE NEW BOX!  MOVIN’ UP AND DOWN SO FAST WE ONLY GOT BLURRY PICTURES!

PALEO COOKIE SWAP…

One week from today, we will swapping our Paleo cookies at Margaret Jordan’s house at 11:30am.  We would love to have your children join you on this fun holiday event!  Get them involved and into the kitchen to cook healthy cookies.  Make cooking and eating healthy fun for your kids and you will set habits in them that will change their life!

Sign up under CFH Events on the blackboard so we all know how many cookies to bring!

Click HERE to read an article from Whole 30 on how your kids are developing bad eating habits and how YOU as parents can control this!!!  And check out the commercial that came out a few years ago teaching kids Fruit Loops are healthy!  REALLY???

Strength:

Press 5-3-1+

75%, 85%, 95% of 90% 1RM

Skills Level Testing:

Max Height Box Jump

Push Press x 15

AMRAP in 15 minutes…

7 Push Press (135/95)

7 Box Jumps (32/24)

CONGRATS TO OUR TOP 2 FINISHERS OF THE “LEAN OUT” WHOLE LIFE CHALLENGE THAT FINISHED JUST 3 POINTS APART.

WHAT DRIVES YOU…

What motivates you to be better?  Is it your family, your spouse, your kids?  Is it something inside you, you just can’t control?  Is it knowing that God wants us to treat our bodies as his temple?

The ladies pictured above are driven.  It is as simple as that.  They had a goal to win the challenge and they were not getting sidetracked by anything that life threw at them.

Life always throws stuff at you.  You’ve got to have the ability to not let the rocks in your path trip you up.  You have to keep your focus and know that you CAN accomplish your goals.  It is simply a question of “How bad do you want it?”

CONGRATS to these Ranie and Donna.  They averaged about 105 points per week during the challenge.  For those that did the challenge, you know how hard it was to get 100 points week after week.  They did not let up for 19 weeks and I guarantee you they won’t next year.  Just because they finished 1st and 2nd and have seen incredible changes in the last year they are NOT letting up one bit!

What will it take you to get to the point where nothing that life throws at you will slow you down in your chase for optimal health?

Check out Zach Miller’s story…