Ryan asked if we could present a basic nutrition seminar at Sharp, to help educate both patients and staff about the important role nutrition plays in managing inflammation and recovering from acute injury.  On the afternoon of August 24th, we talked to a group of 25 patients, physical and occupational therapists, rehab engineers and doctors about the foundations of good nutrition.  Dallas spoke from his nine years of practicing PT experience, and talked about the role food choices play in everything from energy levels, sleep quality and managing body composition – something that is of special importance for those confined to a wheelchair.  He also discussed the role diet plays in recovery from injury, both in the immediate time period after the injury and in preventing further complications in the years to come.  I discussed simple and effective ways to make better food choices in everyday meal planning, and answered questions about how to implement these changes in a way that feels sustainable and balanced.

We received great feedback from the group, and hope to follow up with those who are taking on our Whole30 program as a jump start to new eating habits.  We want to thank the Sharp patients and staff for welcoming us so warmly, and give a special thanks to my brother Ryan for all of the work he has done to change the lives of others. Visit www.wheelchairlacrosse.com to read more about their groundbreaking lacrosse program, or become a fan on Facebook here.

This simple yes-or-no request prompted a 17 hour heated debate within the Whole9 household.  We battled, we point-and-counterpointed, we took time outs so we could cool off enough to continue the discussion.  And while this actually isn’t a big deal issue for us – certainly not one worthy of an entire blog post – Dallas hates to lose, and I love to argue.  Which means this debate could rage on for months while poor Chris stands poised with a spoon full of cocoa powder over his steaming cup of coffee, pleading, “Just TELL ME, people.” So today, we thought we’d share our points of view here with our readers, and ask you to weigh in on the issue.  Just for fun.  (And the smug and shameless joy that comes with winning an argument.)  So read, share your thoughts, and then we’ll announce the final decision at which we arrived, as an addendum to this post.  Just hang in there, Chris.

Melissa’s Position:

It’s true that 100% cocoa is not the same as commercially processed chocolate.  It’s natural, unsweetened, may have some negligible health benefits (which plays no part in my thought process, but I’m sure Dallas will mention it below) and technically meets all the criteria of a Whole30-approved food.  But making a technically perfect food choice isn’t the whole story of a Whole30, and we’re not about to let something with potentially significant mental and emotional down sides slide in on a technicality.  And certainly not something that misses the bus as much as a CHOCOLATE substitute. Hell, if we let cocoa slip into our program, you might as well add red wine and label us “Primal”.  (And nobody, especially me, wants that.)

While 100% cocoa sure isn’t sweet in flavor, it’s chocolate-y enough that many will see it, use it and abuse it as a pseudo-chocolate crutch.  You know who you are -  the carb-addicted sugar-a-holics,  missing your beloved chocolate while on the Whole30.  And while you are here to change your habits, change your cravings and change your relationship with food… you are also desperate enough to get your fix by rationalizing the addition of “Whole30-approved” cocoa powder to your coffee, coconut milk and anything else that could act as a Pseudo-Chocolate Delivery Mechanism.

And that goes against everything the Whole30 stands for.

So while I have no issues with the technical properties of the food itself, I’m not okay with allowing a functioning chocolate substitute like 100% pure cocoa into our Whole30 program.  It’s not just about the food choices, it’s about breaking patterns, habits and cravings, and 100% pure cocoa is simply not contributing to that particular cause.

Dallas’ Position:

While I’m certainly not a proponent of including foods in our Whole30 program that are “iffy”, I believe that our rationale for including or excluding foods for our Whole30 program should be consistent and rational. In my opinion, 100% unsweetened cocoa (which, by the way, isn’t all that much fun to eat all by itself) is much like, say, cinnamon. It can be used to provide flavor to many delicious dishes, many of which are clearly not Good Food, but in and of itself is a innocent enough plant product.

We talk a lot about being aware of why we make the food choices we do, and that exorcising your Sugar Demon is a major goal of the Whole30.  As one example, we caution people not to overeat fruit during the Whole30, since fruit does contain sugar (and is often very sweet-tasting).  We make the point that substituting fruit for a handful of candy is not achieving the goal of freeing yourself (and your brain!) from the powerful bonds of sugar addiction. But just because fruit contains sugar doesn’t mean we categorically exclude it – only that we encourage you to be careful and thoughtful about your fruit consumption.

Melissa says the rich, intense chocolate-y flavor of 100% cocoa could be reminiscent of your (old) favorite chocolate bar.  But using cinnamon in my PWO sweet potato could remind me of the glorious taste of a Cinnabon roll… and yet cinnamon gets two thumbs up from the Whole9! It’s not just about whether cocoa can be made into something that doesn’t even remotely resemble health food – it’s about carefully considering why you are choosing to eat it. If you’re still in the midst of your Whole9 Chocoholic Rehab Program, then steer clear (just like I’d tell those of you who are still in serious sugar withdrawal to pass on dried fruit initially). If, like me, you are in complete control of your Sugar Demons, then cocoa is nothing more than a spice, added to improve the flavour of your dishes.  Let’s not scapegoat the Theobroma cacao, people.  There are no direct down sides of 100% pure cocoa, and therefore it should be allowable by Whole30 standards.

Your Turn:

Post thoughts to comments!

Thanks to Karen, Jim and the rest of the Invictus family for the Whole30-approved BBQ!

Thanks to CJ, Michele, Jim and the rest of the CrossFit Invictus team for being such great hosts.  And thanks to everyone who attended for the enthusiastic participation, smart questions and fun conversation.   Next stop – Hendersonville, TN on September 11th.  Reminder… early bird registration ends soon, Hendersonville!

Whole9 Foundations Workshop, CrossFit Invictus, 29 August 2010

A few months ago, Dallas and I had the opportunity to do some nutrition work with Dutch Lowy – competitive athlete, CrossFit trainer and host of his own Performance Development Seminar series.  We’ve long admired Dutch’s work within the community, and were stoked to be able to offer him some support on the nutritional front.  So when we booked a series of Whole9 workshops at CrossFit Denton County (right in his backyard), we happily invited Dutch to attend as our special guest.  And then we got to thinking… maybe we could bring Dutch to the front of the room, and ask him to share some of his experience and advice with our Trainer’s group?

One discussion led to another, which led to today’s awesome announcement.  We’ve got something special in store for those trainers, coaches and gym owners (both present and future) who attend our  CrossFit Denton County Trainer’s Workshop event… not one, but two presentations designed to make you a better trainer, coach and mentor.

Whole9 is teaming up with Dutch Lowy for a special one-day workshop event. Spend the first half of the day with Whole9, learning how to build good nutrition practices with your clients, gym community, friends and family members.  Then, special guest presenter Dutch Lowy will speak on goal setting, programming, scaling techniques and sustainability applicable to both a group and one-on-one setting, all designed to make you a better trainer, programmer and leader in your gym.

A full outline of Trainer’s Workshop materials (both from Whole9 and Dutch Lowy) is available on  our registration page.  Space is limited to only 20 people (and our Foundations workshop remains a pre-requisite), so register early and secure your seat for this special event.

Got a question for Whole9 or Dutch?  Drop ‘em here and we’ll tell you what to expect from your Denton County Trainer’s event.

Understand, the Whole9 doesn’t sell any supplements.  We actually don’t push supplements in any way – everything we’ve ever written about, from fish oil to Vitamin D to magnesium, has been presented as an optional addition to your daily, healthy, eat-real-food diets.  But there are a few supplements we take on a daily basis, so before we tell you about them (and why we take them) in Part II, we thought it might be helpful to let you in on our own evaluation process.

Today’s post details our Supplement Evaluation Checklist – the criteria we use when purchasing vitamins, minerals or other supplements. We run each product through this checklist, making sure it meets every single one of these criteria before continuing with our evaluation.  If a supplement fails at any point, with very few exceptions, we skip it.  If a product passes each test, we’re then left with one final question – one that we are able to answer only for ourselves.

Start at the top, and ask yourself the following questions about each and every supplement you’re being pitched, sold or pressured to take.  Does it pass the test?

1.       Does it contain garbage ingredients? Does your supplement contain, in no particular order:  added sugar (in any form), grains (wheat, corn, or other grain by-products), dairy (whey, casein, or other dairy by-products), soy (in any form) or chemical-sounding ingredients you don’t recognize or can’t pronounce?  Even worse, does the manufacturer refuse to clarify their “proprietary blend”, leaving you in the dark as to what their supplement actually contains?  If quality or full disclosure is compromised, your evaluation ends here, folks.

2.      Is the product designed to replace real, high quality, fresh food in your diet? Meal replacement shakes, vegetables-in-a-pill or breakfast bars all promise to do just as much good as real food in your everyday diet.  Foolishness.  There isn’t a powder, pill or shake in the world that can replace the vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and fiber (the stuff that actually makes you healthy) found in natural, healthy, fresh foods.

3.      Are the product’s claims too good to be true? The supplement industry is wholly unregulated – which means manufacturers can make all sorts of claims about their product’s ingredients and benefits.  Beware of inflated, unsupported claims that sound too good to be true, and have little to no peer-reviewed long-term research to back them up.  The idea that a pill can “put a protective coating around your muscle so only the fat is trimmed off” should be enough to make you both laugh out loud and run for the hills.

4.      Does the label focus on aesthetic changes? Products that are designed with the primary purpose of slimming/leaning/trimming you out miss the forest for the trees, often in a dangerous way. Most of these “slim” pills, powders and shakes contain ingredients that could be harmful to your health, like stimulants and diuretics.  And all of these supplements are asking you to focus on what’s in the mirror instead of long-term, sustainable health and body composition.  Let’s face it – if you lose a few pounds by taking a pill without effectively changing your eating habits, how likely are you to actually stay at that weight?

5.      Is there a hard and heavy sales pitch behind your consideration? If your motivation to buy is based on an aggressive, big-business marketing campaign, fear-mongering (“If you don’t take this pill, you won’t succeed!”) or generalized group-think (“All the CrossFit Games competitors use our shakes”), then think twice.  Beware of products who yell, scream and intimidate to get your attention. When was the last time you saw a You-Tube commercial for kale?

6.      Finally, is it cost-prohibitive to eating better quality food? Even if the supplement meets all of the above criteria, if the daily cost means you’ll have to cut your real-food budget just to afford it, it’s simply not worth it.  You’ll always get more benefit from improving your meat, fish and egg quality and choosing fresh, local vegetables and fruits, so skip the supplement and save your pennies for a quarter cow and a CSA share instead.

If you’ve run the supplement-in-question through our entire checklist and it still makes the cut, then it’s time for you to exercise your own judgment.  At worst, your vitamin, mineral or supplement is going to put you out a few dollars and still not provide the purported benefits – a waste of money, but no negative effects on your overall health and fitness.  At best, the supplement will provide a boost to the already high quality food you are eating, and help you fill in those small missing pieces in your daily diet and lifestyle.  Make up your own mind.  Do your own research, talk to someone you trust, or try it for yourself for 30 days and evaluate your own experience.

Next week, we’ll be sharing the list of supplements that make the cut for us.  We’ll be giving you a peek inside the Whole9 supplement cabinet, and sharing with you why we think these pills and powders add value to our already solid health and fitness plan. In the meantime, take a peek inside your own cabinets, and see which bottles would pass our Evaluation Checklist. Post your results (and your thoughts) to comments.

• We’re coming to the Phoenix, AZ area this Saturday, for our first Arizona event.  We’ll be holding Foundations Workshop at Cactus CrossFit (formerly North Scottsdale CrossFit) from 9 AM – 1 PM. Registration details are on the Cactus CrossFit site, so if you’re in the Phoenix area and eager for four hours of nutritional know-how, skip your workout for the day and exercise your brain instead.

• Next on the agenda is San Diego, CA – our first six hour event at CrossFit Invictus.  We’ll be debuting two hours of new material with CJ and crew, including our new fool-proof MealSimple™ meal planning template.   Register on the Invictus site now, because last we checked, there were only a few seats left!

Finally, check our sidebar for a whole bunch of new workshops just scheduled.  We’ll be taking our new material to Hendersonville, TN in September, and  Lewisville, TX and Vancouver, WA in October.  We’ve booked special Trainer’s workshops in both TX and WA, too.  More events are already in the works, so check our sidebar often and register early.

(Special thanks to Saint Clair Studio for the amazing photos from our CrossFit Boston event.  We’ll get them up on Facebook ASAP!)

Today’s post started with an email from April, an avid Whole9 reader and recent workshop attendee.  She’s not your average CrossFitter – April is a savvy nutrition consumer and no stranger to Paleo or the Whole30.  So when she received a questionable sales pitch from a popular supplement company, she contacted us for our thoughts. We replied to her individually, but we’re also going to share them here with our readers, because again… it’s just.  That.  Good.

April writes, in part:

“I’m an admitted Whole9 blog stalker, and attended your Nutrition workshop  at Crossfit Austin in June.  I have since stuck to high quality (real) food, fish oil and magnesium, thinking simplicity is best. But there are a lot of CrossFitters who recommend AdvoCare supplements, and I’d love to separate the truth from the hype from a Whole30 perspective.

The following items were recommended for me by an AdvoCare representative, as a supplement to my Whole30. I’m not completely savvy on all the scientific names they come up with for ingredients, but I know there’s sugar and whey protein in two of the three recommendations…which I would think is a no-no.  Can you give me your take on the below?”

Below are the actual recommendations made to April by the AdvoCare specialist (emphasis added).  We couldn’t make this up, kids.

“With the Whole30 diet restrictions, the best products for you are the following, to help you lean out and stay off of sugar.  The first product is the MNS C or MNS E.  This will be your complete dietary supplement system.  C will control your cravings for sweets, carbs and fats (!!!) and E will do the same, plus give you maximum energy if you have issues with energy.

The second product that I would recommend is Catalyst.  Catalyst is an amino acid dietary supplement (protein) that puts a protective coating around your muscle so when your body goes to get energy, it cannot go to the lean muscle tissue that you are building, instead it will have to go to the stored fat.  This is like a potato peeler.  It trims off that fat around muscle so it trims you up in all the right places.

The third product is Muscle Strength.  The key benefits are as follows:  Enhances muscle growth in conjunction with strength training, helps decrease recovery time between periods of intense workout, promotes muscle strength and endurance, aids in maintaining lean muscle mass, encourages repair of body tissues.”

Oh, boy.  Dallas straight-up grabbed the reins on this one, and immediately began crafting his response to April.  I’ll turn the post over to him in a minute, but first, I have one thing to say.  The entire point of the Whole30 is to eat real food. Avoid processed foods, avoid foods with garbage ingredients, avoid consuming anything you can’t pronounce or don’t recognize.  So for someone to recommend ARTIFICIALLY SUPPLEMENTING the Whole30 program is, in the biggest understatement of the century, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT MISSING OUR BUS.

Now that I’ve said my piece, here’s how Dallas responded to April’s question.

“April, your question on supplementation is a good one.  There is so much information out there about various supplements – the good, the bad, and the straight-up ugly. You’ve already mentioned some of the good – things like fish oil and magnesium, both things that we use regularly.  As for the bad and straight-up ugly… well, there’s far more of that.  Products with artificial sweeteners, colours, and flavours, “proprietary formulas” that contains untested or laboratory-created substances, and supplements that make unfounded claims and inflated promises (and demand plenty of your hard-earned money in exchange).

All in all, the giant supplement industry is just that – industry.  So I take claims about products with a serious grain of salt, especially if it comes from someone who sells the stuff. I’ve looked closely at the AdvoCare supplements you inquired about, and honestly, I don’t have much good to say.

For one, AdvoCare provides incomplete information about their products’ ingredients on their website. I’d all but guarantee that there are soy, corn, and/or wheat-derived ingredients in most of your recommended AdvoCare supplements… but, of course, they don’t tell you that.  They list a few “key ingredients”, but don’t tell you how much of each “key ingredient” is included, nor do they tell you what else is in there. And I have a serious problem with that lack of disclosure.  Since supplements aren’t regulated, companies can say just about anything about what their supplement does, and what it contains.  So if the company won’t tell you how much of the active ingredients it supposedly contains, or give you a 100% complete list of all ingredients before you purchase it, I say (yell!) “BUYER BEWARE.”

There are some other concerns about some of these supplements too – not the least of which is the cost.  I took a quick peek at the cost of a 30-day supply of the three recommended products, and with my rudimentary math skills,  totaled it up to $160. One-hundred-and-sixty dollars! That’s, like, a whole week’s worth of fresh, real, Whole30 food. How sustainable is this level of supplementation?  Do you plan on giving the Advocare people thousands of dollars a year… forever?

Finally, it’s obvious from the email you received that your AdvoCare salesman is only interested in selling his products – and clearly NOT educated about the Whole30′s goal and implementation. The idea of someone recommending you take pills to help you manage your Whole30 is ironic, at best.  (Plus, I can’t resist – claiming any product will “trim off that fat around muscle so it trims you up in all the right places” is straight up B.S.  It’s like a potato peeler?  For real?)

All in all, your suspicions that it’s “garbage, garbage, and more garbage” are 100% spot-on correct.  Your plan of eating 100% Whole30 food plus a few (entirely optional) supplements of compounds that are already found in your body or naturally occurring in real, fresh food remains by far your best option. Stick with that plan, and you’ll 1) save a ton of money, 2) avoid the inadvertent side effects of who-knows-what ingredients, and 3) continue to “practice” sustainable nutrition habits that will lead to optimal health for the rest of your life. Steer clear of what people sell you (unless Broccoli, Inc. comes a-knocking), and you’ll be the healthiest you you can be.”

Back to Melissa now… to our readers, please understand we’re taking a hard line on this particular topic because we’re fired up about the aggressive sales pitch and inflated claims some of these companies use in an attempt to line their pockets at the expense of your health.   I don’t need to get my amino acids from a bottle – I eat high quality meat, fish and eggs.  A pill won’t help me curb my sugar cravings – but stepping away from the candy dish for 30 days sure as heck will.  As for building muscle mass and effectively recovering from exercise…  I’ll just pick up something heavy and follow it up with some egg whites and sweet potato, thanks.  And then I’ll spend the $160 I just saved on a fall CSA share, ten pounds of frozen grass-fed ground beef or a new pair of Olympic lifting shoes.

We understand how confusing it can be to wade through the marketing campaigns of some of these popular supplements, especially when there are a lot of well known fitness names hawking products we wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.  So stay tuned next week for an additional two-part series on supplementation – the Whole9 supplement evaluation checklist, and a list of items that make the cut for our own shopping cart. But for now, an always-reliable rule of thumb… When in doubt, keep it simple and eat real food, just as our smart girl April is doing.

We hear from many Whole30 participants who are going it alone at home – their spouses, significant others, roommates or other household members simply aren’t on board with their dietary plan.  Which means that while you’re trying your hardest to curb your sugar tantrums, resist the carb cravings and ramp up your vegetable intake… your cabinets are still full of cookies and candy, your stove-tops are still cooking pasta and rice, and your post-dinner carrots with Sunbutter are looking kind of lame next to the big bowl of ice cream glistening on the coffee table.  We’ve talked about how to win friends and influence Paleo… but that’s not going to help you on Day 12 when you wake up and come face to face with a box of Krispy Kremes in your own kitchen.   Christie is offering up some seriously practical, remarkably simple, quite effective (from our experience) tips and tricks for making it through your Whole30 even if your house is full of sugar-laden land mines… and we liked them enough to share them with all of our readers.

Christie writes, “I have found it hard over the last week to be sitting at my desk in the morning, and suddenly have the heavenly smell of a toasty bagel floating through the air, tempting me! It’s equally as hard to watch him eat a popsicle after dinner, which is when my sugar cravings tend to kick into high gear.  Lastly, I found out early in the first day that opening my pantry and seeing the bread, cereal, and bagles was not a good thing for my will-power . . or my sanity!   So what can be done to make things a little less difficult, without forcing the Paleo lifestyle on those that we live with who do not want it for themselves?”

Visit Christie’s blog to read the rest of “A House Divided“, and share YOUR best tips, tricks and advice to comments.  Thank you to Christie for the inspiration and the article, and best of luck to you and your girls on your first Whole30!

We’ll be on the road again from now through sometime next week, completing our cross-country move from NH to Salt Lake City, UT.  Our on-line time will be limited, so while we’ll respond to comments and questions on posts as often as we can, expect decreased frequency this week.  (With over 700 comments on the Whole30 post, we’re having a hard time keeping up as it is!)  We’ve got new people jumping on board the Whole30 every day, so help each other out this week – motivate, encourage, share your stories and inspire!

Our next stop is Salt Lake City, where we’ll be putting on a workshop at Ferocity CrossFit. Register on our sidebar – spaces are filling up fast for our first “hometown” gig.

And finally, stay tuned for another delicious, simple, Whole30-approved “Steal This Meal” tomorrow, and a guest post on Monday about how to make it through your Whole30 without the support others in your household. So wish us (and our U-Haul trailer!) luck as we hit the road for the last 2,500 mile leg of our summer road trip.  Catch up soon!

We recently reviewed several electrolyte supplements that are currently being marketed to CrossFitters.  Their aim is to replenish essential nutrients (vitamins and minerals) they claim your body needs during exercise, and they say their drinks will help you recover faster.   They label themselves as “sugar free”, despite containing processed starches like maltodextrin and non-nutritive sweeteners like stevia.   They also claim to provide more effective hydration than plain old water.  But here’s our take:  they’re all just sweetened, flavored, unnecessary supplements that contain smaller amounts of valuable vitamins and minerals than any number of vegetables. Now, granted, a sweetened, flavored beverage is way more fun than a cup of broccoli… but that doesn’t make it healthier.

On hydration: Unless you’re doing long, nonstop competitions like triathlons or marathons (where you certainly need to rehydrate during the event), there’s simply no justification for substituting a supplement for real food and water.  Trust us on this – you do not need to provide electrolytes to your body during a typical CrossFit workout.  Shoot, during a high intensity Fran or Grace, you don’t need to stop to provide water to your body.  And your body doesn’t need minerals like molybdenum or copper during (or immediately following) your exercise session. As long as your regular, day-to-day dietary intake of essential minerals from fruits and vegetables is adequate (fill your plate!), you won’t need to jam selenium or manganese or even potassium into you in the form of fruit punch-flavoured electrolyte drinks.   Plus, the way your body assimilates and uses those minerals for their physiological functions isn’t fast enough to make any difference for “hydration” – despite the manufacturer’s claims.

On vitamins and minerals: The mineral content of one serving of your typical electrolyte replenishment drink doesn’t hold a candle to just one cup of sweet potato (our recommendation for your post-workout carbohydrate source).  In comparison with one popular “recovery” drink, one cup of sweet potato contained twice as much vitamin C and calcium, three times as much manganese and magnesium, eight  times as much phosporus and sodium, and TEN (10!) times as much potasssium, all in a phytonutrient-rich package that also supplies athletes with necessary recovery carbohydrates. (Plus, sweet potato won’t provoke those Sugar Tantrums with the intensely sweet and artificial flavors found in all of those replenishment drinks.)

To summarize, in stark contrast to what some companies say (and sell!), we don’t believe that exercising hard should preclude you from getting your nutrition – both macronutrients AND micronutrients – from real, fresh food. Resist the (sales) pressure to down processed sources of isolated nutrients that you could and should obtain from healthier sources.  This holds especially true if those supplements contain stuff that has real, significant downsides (such as non-nutritive sweeteners like stevia and super-processed corn starches like maltodextrin), and no upsides that can’t also be found in real food like vegetables and fruits.

We welcome all comments… but if you’re commenting in order to defend a product you are, in fact, selling, please make that clear.  And to our readers, remember that here at Whole9, we don’t sell any supplement.  (But if kale ever wants to sponsor our page, we’d jump at the chance.)