Their secret: Work out hard, and eat like a cave man (Crossfit and Paleo Diet)

DenverPost ^ | 3/22/2010 | Douglas Brown

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Fat. Sedentary. In love with fried cheese.

That's how Blakely Graham, 36, described herself before she started an intense exercise regimen and tapped her inner cave woman.

Now, she's trim and athletic. She still bats her eyes at deep-fried dairy, but finds the strength to reject the stuff.

In September, Graham, a Boulder marketing executive, joined a gym called CrossFit Roots, one of more than 1,700 CrossFit gyms around the world. The program emphasizes intense, simple workouts in bare-bones gyms, where people perform squats, throw heavy balls against walls, perform countless pull-ups and push-ups, and nearly (or do) collapse by the end of the workouts. The workouts first were popular with police academies, military units, martial artists and firefighters but have spread to fitness enthusiasts in general.

Shortly after joining the gym, Graham, like a lot of CrossFitters, also began eating "paleo" (short for paleolithic), an approach to diet that in some regards mirrors CrossFit's minimalist, no-nonsense training ethic: the diet eliminates dairy products, legumes, all grains, refined sugar and most salt. It is a diet, in other words, similar to what people ate during the Stone Age.

The paleo-CrossFit combo- platter has transformed Blakely's life. Her husband, who followed her into CrossFit and the diet, is a changed man, too.

"I didn't even know he was good-looking," said Graham, with a wink, just before starting a session recently in CrossFit Roots' tiny Boulder gym — really, more like a big garage — just off Pearl Street. "By week three, the weight was coming off so quickly, and I was getting so many compliments, I said, 'OK. I'll stick with this.' "

The book on paleo eats

CrossFit's embrace of the paleo way, also called the "cave man" diet, also has thrilled Colorado State University professor Loren Cordain...

[Chasaway]

Thanks...

Interesting thing (at least to me): I didn’t start this with weight loss as the primary goal. I just hadn’t seen the changes, health-wise, I wanted to see with anything else.

I exercised...a lot. I tried all kinds of dietary regimens. I just didn’t see the health benefits. I was strong; I was conditioned...But I still felt crummy after eating and felt like something was way out of whack for me, metabolically. I was carrying a lot of excess weight, but carried it easily. I didn’t LOOK fat; I was just a “big guy”.

I finally figured I was just WAY insulin-sensitive. I wanted to feel better; be healthier.

And I’m a little crazy in that when I get into something, I’ll get in all the way. This way of living/eating made sense to me...and it fit with what I see all around me.

It ain’t the carbs...it’s the insulin.

The weight loss was an added benny...

Thanks for your comments.

C

[Peace Is Coming]

bttt