The Perfect enduraFIT Day

Looking to max out your points? Here's a perfect day on the enduraFIT challenge...you can't get better than this! 

• Wake up nice and rested. This 8.5 hours of sleep feels pretty good!
• Record resting heart rate and drink 8oz of water. (You've lost that much water while sleeping)
• Eat your first Paleo/Zone meal (breakfast or snack) within an hour of waking and have some fish oil. Might as well have 16 oz of water too!
• Workout at a time that is most convenient for you. Before you start the workout, check out the whiteboard and do the pre-workout mobility exercises. Bring 100% to the workout. Grab the foam roller and roll out after the workout. Why you're rolling, grab your PWO snack and chase it down with 8 oz water.
• Eat a Paleo/Zone lunch. (Try to make each meal contain one carb block of veggies) Down 16 oz water...you're thirsty.
• Got a little extra time on your lunch break? Take a 20-30 minute nap.
• Take a little time off in the afternoon to get a massage. Crunched for time? Hop on over to the IceLAB for a cyrotherapy session. (less than 10 minutes)
• Has it been more than 4 hours since your last meal? Better grab a Zone/Paleo snack if you're not going to have dinner in the next couple of hours. Oh yeah...have another 8 oz of water. 
• Eat a Paleo/Zone dinner and 16 oz water. Yes, this is more food than you expected.
• Go for a walk with the family. (Helps with relaxation and makes sure you get a little time in the sun)
• Get to bed early. You want to make sure you get that beauty sleep!
• Smell that? That's the smell of victory!

What the Heck is a Block and How Many Do I Need?

The talk around the enduraFIT challenge is all about Zone Diet. We thought we'd take a little time to explain the in-and-outs on Zone.

The Background:

The Zone Diet was created by Dr. Barry Sears and shares some of the same principles with the Paleo Diet. For instance, that our genes haven't changed for the past 100,000 years. Our digestive systems were based on a diet of low-fat protein, low-density carbohydrate fruits and fiber-rich vegetables...not grains. The goal of the diet? To get in the Zone and reduce the cellular inflammation that makes us - gain weight, accelerate the development of chronic disease, and decrease our physical performance. This is achieved by eating equal amounts of macronutrient (protein, carbohydrate, fat) blocks to maintain the body's hormonal response.

So What the Heck is a Block?

A block is essentially a measuring tool for each of your macronutrient blocks. 

• 1 Block of Protein = 7 grams
• 1 Block of Carbs = 9 grams
• 1 Block of Fat = 1.5 grams

Some quick tips on food labels... 

• Protein: Divide by 7 and that is how many blocks you have. Easy peasy.
• Carbohydrates: Take the total carbs (on the label), subtract the fiber (soluble & insoluble), and divide by 9
• Fat: If the package includes both protein and fat, divide by 3 to get your fat blocks. Otherwise, divide by 1.5.

Here's a great resource for you: The Zone Block Calculator (with traditional & Paleo friendly foods)

How Many Blocks Do I Need?

We start with your protein requirements. We calculate this number by first determining your lean body mass. This can be done with several different methods of body composition testing: from calipers to charts on the web (not very accurate) to underwater weighing. Once we have our lean body mass we are halfway there.

Now for the activity level. (Go figure that this diet would depend on how active you are!) We're going to take our lean body mass and multiply by the appropriate activity factor from the list below.

• Sedentary - multiply lbs of lean body mass by .5
• Light activity (e.g. walking) - multiply by .6
• Moderate (30 minutes of vigorous activity 3 days per week) - .7
• Active (1 hour per day 5 days per week) - .8
• Very Active (10 hours of vigorous activity per week) - .9
• Athlete - multiply by 1.0

For all you ladies with babies or baby bumps,

• If you're pregnant increase your activity level by two. For example, from Light Activity to Active.
• If you're nursing increase your activity level by one.

Once we've taken our lean body mass and multiplied it by the activity level, we'll divide that by seven to get our daily blocks.

Now we have our daily blocks! We'll be eating equal amounts of daily macronutrient blocks.

We want to divide this up into 5 meals (2 snacks, Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner) throughout the day with the goal of less than 5 hours in between meals. If you're daily blocks are:

• Less than 14: Main meals at 3 blocks and supplement with snacks to get total daily blocks
• 14-16: Main meals at 4 blocks and supplement with snacks to get total daily blocks
• 17-25: Main meals at 5 blocks and supplement with snacks to get total daily blocks

CrossFit simplifies this a bit, but if you don't have your lean body mass this is a good resource to calculate your blocks.

 

Please let us know if you have any questions. We are here to help you through this enduraFIT challenge!

Everything in Moderation...

We've gotten a lot of questions about our enduraFIT challenge and why we're pushing the Paleo/Zone diet. Our answer to this is that we want the best results for our athletes and that "everything in moderation" applies to the Paleo Diet too. We think that the Paleo diet has gotten a little out of control lately. You often hear that you don't have to worry about what you eat or how much as long as they're "paleo-friendly" foods. While we'd rather see you loading up on lean meats, veggies, nuts, and berries instead of potato chips and candy, you can still be unhealthy on paleo...really. 

With the Zone Diet we're able to balance our body's hormonal response. This is a very important thing when we start looking at performance and overall health. We can achieve this balance by eating an equal number of macronutrient "blocks". The amount of blocks that you consume is based on your lean body mass and activity level. (Doesn't that make a little more sense than just eating as much as you want?)

But doesn't the Zone Diet allow grains, legumes, and dairy? 

That's why we're utilizing Paleo to construct our macronutrient blocks. We know that getting our carbohydrate blocks from mainly veggies will be a considerable challenge, but we're up for it!

To make sure we give our challengers the tools to succeed, we are going on an enduraFIT grocery shopping field trip. We will take you through the grocery store and answer any questions you may have. We will also have recipe books and paleo/zone portioned snacks for sale at the LAB for your convenience. We look forward to this journey with each of you!

The enduraFIT Challenge Is Coming...

This isn't going to be your run-of-the-mill challenge...this is the enduraFIT challenge. We're going to take a holistic approach to changing your health over a 10-week span. (Yes...we said 10 weeks) We're going to hit diet, recovery, stress and exercise on our way to a healthier you. We'll kick it off with a few benchmark workouts as well as a series of health tests from Baylor SportsCare (body composition, vitals, and blood tests) that we'll repeat at the end to get a complete comparison. Not only do we want you to think better, perform better, and look better...we want to give you hard numbers so you can confirm your change. This challenge will test you, push you to the limits, make you upset at times...but most of all it will get you in the best shape of your life.

How does the enduraFIT Challenge work?

We've decided to use a point system to help you track your progress over the 10 weeks (3/19-5/27). This gives you the ultimate flexibility and while a cheat meal may carry a negative value, it doesn't knock you out of the competition! See below for more detail and remember that we'll be discussing these in great detail to make sure you have the tools to succeed. 

DIET

Each meal has a positive, negative, or neutral value:

-2 Cheat meal: not Paleo quality, not Zone quantity. (-10 possible per day)

+0 Paleo meal that includes dairy

+1 Paleo meal: all Paleo rules apply (5 possible per day)

+2 Zone meal: standard Zone rules apply (10 possible per day)

+3 Paleo/Zone meal: Paleo quality in zone proportions. (15 possible per day)

“Rules of 5” points:

+1 Five meals per day (1 possible/day)

+1 Fewer than 5 hours between meals (1 possible/day)

-1 More than 5 blocks per meal (-5 possible per day)

Deductions:

-1 For each alcoholic beverage or soda. (-5 possible per day)

-1 No PWO meal (before leaving the gym)

-1 Fewer than 5 grams of fish oil/day.

Bonus points:

+1 64oz of H20 in a day

+1 When each meal per day includes one carb block of veggies (excluding PWO)

RECOVERY/STRESS

Point system:

+1 8.5+ hours of sleep, including naps

+1 If you attend PREformance and/or yoga at the LAB (3 possible per week)

+1 If you foam roll before and after workout (5 possible per week)

+1 If you record your resting HR (7 possible per week)

+2 If you receive a massage

+3 If you receive cryosauna therapy from IceLAB

EXERCISE

Point system: (workouts to be performed at enduraLAB)

-10 Fewer than 3 workouts/week

+0 Three workouts/week

+10 Four workouts/week

+20 Five or more workouts/week

Are there prizes? (You mean other than looking great naked?)

175 points possible per week for 10 weeks = 1750 total possible points

• 0-1300 points: enduraLAB sticker
• 1301+ points: enduraLAB Tech Tee
• Top 3 Point Scorers: 1st (Hot Yoga Pass and IceLAB session), 2nd (Hot Yoga Pass), 3rd (IceLAB session)
• Prize for biggest blood work change (%)
• Prize for biggest body composition change (%)
• Prize for most increased performance (%)

What does it take to sign up?

In order to compete for the prizes, you must complete the following:

• pre/post pictures
• pre/post body composition measurements
• pre/post vitals
• pre/post blood work
• pre/post benchmark workouts

We'll have a buy-in for the challenge of $25 plus the cost of the medical tests (TBD).

We are very excited about this challenge and hope you will join us. All challengers will have access to a "members-only" section of the website to record your progress, share your experiences/recipes, and gain access to special blog posts to help you succeed in the challenge. Know that you have the support of your coaches and peers and that anything is possible!

enduraFIT Challenge starts March 19th...are you ready?

Why You Might Want to Reconsider Getting Your Gait Checked on a Treadmill

While we understand that the treadmill can be a necessary tool for training when the weather gets unbearable...it's not the best way to check your running gait. We know this is a very common method, but one of the worst ways to see how your foot behaves during foot strike is videoing a runner on a treadmill from behind. Here's why:

• The treadmill changes the mechanics of running. Running on a treadmill and running outside are different. When outside you are moving your feet to keep up with your forward lean, but while on a treadmill you are trying to keep up with the belt. This can cause changes in stride length, cadence, and foot strike. A study published in the 2008 issue of "Medical and Science in Sports and Exercise" found that half of the test subjects ran with a shorter stride length and an increased number of strides per minute when they switched from outdoor running to treadmill running.
• Surface matters. We also notice a difference in surfaces as treadmills are often "springy" and during foot strike, the compression of the belt causes the belt to temporarily slow down (something we do not experience while running outside). In 2005, a foot-pronation study reported in the "Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association" showed that soft, wide treadmill belts create abnormal foot positioning and lateral rolling when compared to hard-surface foot dynamics.
• Air Resistance. When we run outside, the faster we run the more air resistance we encounter. To mimic this on the treadmill, we often increase the incline of the belt. But guess what that does? Changes your form! We increase our lean and shorten our stride.
  
• It's the shoes. Most of the places that utilize a treadmill to analyze running form also have you run in shoes. Do you think your running form is the same if you’re barefoot or wearing high heels? While this example is a bit extreme, the geometry of a shoe’s design can affect your gait. Even if the slow motion video shows that you are pronating or supinating, the excessive rotation might be caused by the shoes' heavily-cushioned and elevated heel.

How we analyze running form at enduraLAB:

One thing is for certain…you won’t be on a treadmill (we don’t have one). We’ll usually start out with a nice, easy warm up run where we are able to get to know you a little bit better; what your goals are, what you’re currently doing now and if you have any past/current injuries. After you’re nice and warm we’ll get out the camera and video you from each side, front, and back. We want to make sure we’re getting the complete picture. We’ll do this a couple of times in shoes and barefoot to make sure we know what the foot/lower leg is doing. The reason for the run form analysis is to help you run better...not sell shoes to fix you. After we’re finished with the video we’ll sit down and do a quick analysis of what we need to do to get our running form more efficient. We’ll do a few series of exercises to check your range of motion, cadence, and overall poster. Then it's time for drills, drills, drills…to get you to a more efficient form. If you have any questions about having your running form analyzed or would like to swing by the LAB, please contact us at info@enduralab.com.