ch-EAT-ting Strategies

Ring Dips ROCK...squats do NOT!

As we journey on to ELITE FITness, we can never expect perfection. We can demand chasing perfection tho;-) Here is some strategies to help when you want get off track for a bit and go off roading but not crazy.

Developing a routine and healthy habits at home is not usually the problem, it's we we go out to eat that is the problem. I love to go out to eat and hang with friends just as much as anyone. Here are some ch-EAT-ing strategies to help:


-Limiting portion in advance: My weakness is chips and salsa. Every time I go to a Mexican joint, those are my kryptonite, and like with any indulge it is best to moderate. When I'm a good boy, I grab a desired, yet deceit, amount of chips and make sure that's all I grab. Limiting portions in advance does not allow you to 'have an out', brain fart, or have great conversation and not notice and you have just eaten 387 chips!


-The more good food you eat, the less bad food you eat: This one is as simple as it sounds. If you still want fries, chips, other bad sides, or desserts; load up on your meal with the goods (meat/protein and veggies) until you are full. Then you are more likely to not have as much bad stuff. We usually go crazy with over eating the bad stuff when we are hungry. When you are not hungry it helps a ton to curb your sweet/salty cravings.


-If you Booze (too much) you will lose: Blah, blah, blah..."I'm not giving up my wine!". "There is no way I'm not drinking this weekend!!". Fine! I get it. Alcohol is fun and makes you and others waaay more good lookin':-) Here is a great rule of thumb from the Paleo Solution book:


...For our clients the lifestyle piece is tougher to nail down than the exercise for sure, and it is even tougher than the food.  People will gladly pay to be beaten senseless in workouts, but they are ready to bolt when we suggest they get a few zzz's and curtail their boozing for the sake of their health and a better-looking fanny...

...What you need to know is that alcohol does not just blunt growth hormone release, it just turns it off.  This is not good for your health, recovery, or body composition.  Solution?...Drink earlier.  You need to get your booze in as far away from bedtime as you can...
...Much of the problem with drinking is not the booze itself but all the crap, usually sugar, that comes along with it.  Ditch your frou frou drinks with the umbrellas and go for clear liquor.  My favorite is Tequila (gold), prepared with the following ingredients:

The Infamous NorCal Margarita!
2 shots of gold tequila
Juice of 1 lime (the whole damn thing)
Splash of soda water

Drink one or two of these on an empty stomach early in your evening.  Wrap up the night with some protein and fat, and you are set....There is also some chemistry behind the recommendations.  The lime juice blunts insulin release and the carbon dioxide bubbles in the soda water act as what's called a "nonpolar solvent."  This actually extracts the alcohol from the drink and delivers it to your system faster...

...Beer is generally loaded with gluten.  If you can find a gluten-free variety, give it a shot, but keep in mind it does have significant sugar content...If you go for wine, opt for dry varieties, as they have less sugar...

-When you do something bad...make it up with something good: I read this phrase a few years ago and it has always stuck with me. Typical Americans would eat a bad meal and swear off food of any kind for days, because they had 'too many bad carbs/calories and they need to make up for it. When I go overboard with eating the wrong kinds of food. I usually try to rectify with. My idea of rectifying the bad for the good is cancel out the bad food you recently ate with some good food. If I ate some fried food, indulged in alcohol/desserts, I will immediately follow that up with eating some lean protein, fruit/veggies and supplement with some fish oil from SHF to balance everything back on track.

For more tips we recently have wrote about: Restaurant Rules

What are your ch-EAT-ing strategies you have developed?

Post to comments.

My Kinda Goal Setting

Last night we had our 1st 818 Paleo Posse Meeting and we discussed the most important thing regarding our 7 Week Paleo Challenge...GOALS!

Yeah, yeah, yeah we all have goals. "I want to lose 30 lbs", "My doctor said I have to get my cholesterol down", "I want to run faster".

Goals are a funny thing. People want a lot of things. But as the old saying goes, Actions speak louder than words!

For us to actually accomplish our goals wanting them, saying them, or even writing them down, is not going to get them done. We have to change how we think, change what we do, and make it a long term pattern of behavior.

The problem is we are conditioned. Where we are today (career, financially, romantically and of course FITness wise) is a product of what we have done. We have thought the way we thought. Made decision after decision. And acted the way we've acted over and over and over again. And the result is who we are today. For us to actually even think about changing our behaviors we have to do a lot more than write down some superficial goals on a piece of paper.

It's time to get down and dirty with our Goal Setting and 'ACTION' plan.

The way I see it, is we have 3 layers to effect goal setting:
-The actual goal, and it must be specific.
-The reasons why, aka SUPER WHY!
-Old Pattern vs. New Habit

Specific goal setting: This is an easiest of them. Wishy-washy goals will get your wishy-washy results. We need to know exactly want we want to accomplish or we have no real measure of progress or purpose to our goal. I find there are 3 different categories of goals.

Physical = Look better naked vs. I want to lose 30lbs.
Health = I have to kick my meds vs. I have get off my medication in 6 months.
Performance = I want to run faster vs. I want to run a sub 6:00 minute mile.

SUPER Why: This is where you make things happen. When you make a decision to change and you know your reasons, you will harness the force that comes from the desire to make something happen. For example:

Goal: You see, it's one thing to say you've decided to lose 30 pounds and get in shape.
SUPER Why: It's a whole other thing to have your doctor tell you that you'll be dead in a year and never see you children's children if you don't lose 30 pounds, pronto.

I know that you know deep down inside you have a number of reasons for deciding to change. I can't tell you exactly what they are, but I can tell you they are there. If you are having trouble finding your reasons here's a question that will begin to help you:

WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOURSELF, DO YOU HONESTLY LIKE WHAT YOU SEE?
HOW DO YOU FEEL DEEP DOWN INSIDE?
HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL ABOUT YOURSELF?

It's important to really look. Since we all "see" ourselves every day, we often don't notice if we're slipping. If we're not careful, the image we have of ourselves in our minds will not be in sync with reality.

Old Patterns vs. New Habits: Whether a pattern of action is good or bad depends upon whether it takes us closer to or pushes us further away from our goals. -Identify three "unauthorized" patterns of action that may hold you back and write them down.

-Identify three new patterns of action that will help you reach your goals and write them down.

Action Plan: "What the heck am I going to do with these goals now???" Like I said earlier, saying or writing down your goals is not going to make them happen. Here is a checklist for success:

-Write down your reasons to change on a piece of paper. Read it first thing in the morning and again at night before going to sleep. Do this every day. These reasons will remain your guiding light, your beacon, during the journey you have now decided to begin.

-Make a daily plan This harnesses the power of intention and decision-making. Every day, plan what you will do in advance (meals, workout time), and record it. The idea is not just to look at where you've been, but also to plan where you are going. You can plan, record and analyze your progress. Through your records, you can clearly see the path you're on. If you're not transforming as rapidly as you would like, you can go back and troubleshoot, with precision.

-Remember that everything you do in the real world is merely an external manifestation of what has already happened in your mind "If your mind can conceive it, you can achieve it." Anything that you want to happen in your life -- that you really want to achieve -- you have to rehearse in your mind.

-When you overcome resistance, you create the power to continually reach higher. As you become more experienced, as your level of expertise in whatever it is you're doing advances, the objective is to continually reach higher and become even more efficient. Once you learn that skill, once you develop higher and higher high points, you will not only experience continual progress, you'll be downright unstoppable. That's what keeps you growing. It's what keeps you excited. It's what keeps you feeling alive. These moments create momentum, and once you get this process started, you'll start making breakthroughs you never imagined.

Here's the deal...It is easy to stick to a diet, or a workout program in the beginning. We are excited, motivated, everything is new we just started. Then your old patterns WILL creep back into your life, and it is going to do everything in it's power to take you back to your old ways. You will get tired...You will get unmotivated...You will NOT want to go to the gym...Your husband or spouse will want your time...You WILL have to work late...You old patterns will be calling you back! And it won't happen once. Setting the proper goals, with the SUPER WHY's and knowing your old patterns and new habits is going to give you the confidence and tools you will need in the the heat of the moment. And when you WIN, it makes it sooooo worth it!

Question of the Week...

Happy, Sad, Nervous - All At The Same Time

"How you respond to the challenge in the 2nd half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser." - Lou Holtz

It's hump day and the week is almost half over! What are you going to do to make sure you finish STRONG?!

Unlocking YOUR Potential...

In Santa Barbara:-)

“Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking your potential.”
– Winston Churchill



What stops YOU from hitting your FULL potential???

Mental WOD 18: To Legit to QUIT...

Vote for the best Animal shirt in the comments!

“When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical."  - Emil Zatopek


Is it raining? That doesn’t matter. 
Am I tired? That doesn’t matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem.”

When you’re new to training/ramping up your training/waking up earlier/pushing yourself to the next level mid-WOD, it’s shocking to your body.  Your body tells you to quit, to give up and do something easier– like sit down and catch your breath, or just go slower.  It’s easy to eat garbage or just not go to the gym.

But after you force yourself to workout a hundred or a thousand times, after you ignore the desire give up every workout, you get to a point where you forget that quitting is an option.  It’s not that you’re ignoring the voice in your head that tells you slow down, it’s not that you are resisting the urge to quit.  It’s that you’ve ignored that voice and resisted that urge so many times that you have completely forgotten that stopping is even possible.  You’ve temporarily forgotten what it means to quit.

If you know what I mean, then good for you.  If you doubt, don’t worry, you’ll get there.  Just be persistent, come to the gym when you’re supposed to and make yourself finish every workout– even if you’re the last one done.  

Don’t let yourself be a quitter and before you know it, you’ll forget that quitting was ever possible. 

Found from CrossFit Marin

Mental WOD 17: Sweat the Small Stuff...Sometimes

Never neglect the little things.
Never skimp on that extra effort, that additional few minutes, that soft word of praise or thanks, that delivery of the very best that you can do. It does not matter what others think; it is of prime importance, however, what you think about you. You can never do your best, which should always be your trademark, if you are cutting corners and shirking responsibilities.

You are special. Act it. Never neglect the little things.
—Og Mandino

Small, seemingly insignificant acts are powerful agents of change and growth. Contrary to the phrase, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” small actions do add up, say Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, authors of The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference. In fact, small actions can change careers, relationships, well-being and the impact people have on the world.

I have taken the principles and recco'd them. For the original reasons why go to THIS POST on successmagazine.com

⇒ ADD VALUE.

You are what you repeatidly do. Before you start your day, think about how you can add or do more for you, your family, health, savings, personal growth, etc..., learn something new, or improve your skills and performance. Repeat the process daily and you will reap rewards.

⇒ TAKE ONE EXTRA MINUTE.

  Whisper words of encouragement to a friend or co-worker. CALL OUT someone who is slacking. Don't leave something unfinished.

⇒ TEACH, DON’T PREACH.

  It is often said that, "More is caught then taught". Be the example by your actions, not your words.

⇒ BE 4 AGAIN.

Ask small questions. Don’t be afraid to ask why and why not. If you admire someone’s success, be nosy about why they achieved it. Ask for the specific steps they took and how they reached their goals.

⇒ ENLIST A FRIENDLY CRITIC.

  Sometimes we are so hard on ourselves that we can't truly see who we are in reality. Recruit a friend to give you an honest look at YOU. Most times you know who you really are and just need a PEP TALK.

⇒ OFFER TO DO SOMETHING EXTRA REGULARLY.

It can be as modest as giving your spouse a break by offering to walk the dog or helping a coworker get a rush project to FedEx. Once is good, often is much better. The effects can last longer than you think.

⇒ MAKE A HUMAN CONNECTION.

Whether it’s chatting with the bank teller, the woman behind you in the movie line or the person at the coffee counter, small talk is a lost art, especially when everyone is communicating by BlackBerry or Facebook. Small personal exchanges can brighten the day, help change your perspective, even spark a business deal or great love story.

⇒ MAKE SMALL IMPRESSIONS.

Look for ways to insert a positive impression, no matter how small, into every encounter. Pay a compliment, bring extra treats to the dog park, hold the elevator for the straggler in the lobby, or keep and share an extra umbrella in your office. Something I have learned through my wife is, writing thank you cards. It is such a small and POWERFUL form of GRADITUTE.

P.T.S!!!

How BAD Do YOU Want It???

Impressive B

Some video's just speak to me. They shake something loose inside of me and really wake me up.

People say that want to be successful. The cool thing about life is YOU have to prove it!

My favorite line of this video: "If you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful."