I randomly decided to check my twitter feed this morning. I'm not big on twitter but I'm trying, follow me @c29javier. I came across some tweets that provided some good and bad news. The bad news first, I got the chills when I read that our coach at Canyon Crossfit decided to program a workout named Fight Gone Bad. Wait, it got worse, there's burpees! Today's workout is officially re-named to "Fight Got Worse".
The good news, and there's a couple. My older sister decided to take on this whole & natural way of eating. She's buying the book, It Starts With Food, and is gonna start the whole30 program. Like they say, it's not hard, overcoming cancer is hard?, but drinking coffee black or not eating bread, is not hard. The Mrs. and I have essentially converted all of our family to eating this way. They may not all comply 100%, but it's a thousand times better than the we way we used to eat. So today is a win in my book.
The second good news came from someone I respect, Robb Wolf, the author of "The Paleo Solution". I admire his work simply because I can relate. He's a biochemist and I'm a biologist and we're both researchers, so I can tolerate and understand most of the journal references that he uses. He responded to a tweet that came from @karlskarman about a study done with N-3 fatty acids. For those that don't know it's omega-3 fat or simply, fish oil.
The study was done on over 12,000 people, which is statistically relevant. But, lets be objective with the results, not subjective like rest of the media when they stated eating eggs is as bad as smoking. Come on people are you kidding me! The results stated that there is no major benefit or significance to your cardiovascular health or probability for an event to occur, i.e. heart attack. Again, when the media catches wind of this, they will blatantly say, "fish oil does nothing for you!", please realize they're not telling the whole story.
Let's analyze this a little. The study did not give the medical history, background, or specific diet of each individual. That comes into question so it's a tad biased. We know fish oil consist of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which aids in your energy source instead of using refined sugar. (If you still think eating fat is bad for you, please read a couple post back about the fat and cholesterol debacle) If we decide to supplement our meals with fish oil while eating whole & natural food that is grain and refined-sugar free, we're sure to see a benefit, I did. Now if you think supplementing fish oil with a diet that consist of fast food and large soft drinks will help, I think you're being naive and dishonest with yourself. Robb Wolf said, "bad diet + N-3 fatty acids is not a win." I couldn't agree more. Heart attacks can and will happen with poor decisions, so fish oil and a big mac is not a winning combo. However, this study does show that there's not one thing to cure all. Our bodies need to encompass a bigger and wider range of nutrients and less of the bad stuff that taste oh so good, i.e. doughnuts and doritos. Be sure to educate yourself and know what you put in your body, but you can enjoy life's sweet things, just not often.
Oh ya the bad news workout, here's how Fight Got Worse works...
3 rounds for total reps
1 min of wall balls (20#)
1 min of Sumo Deadlift High pulls (75#)
1 min of box jumps (24")
1 min of Push Presses (75#)
1 min of BURPEES!!!!
1 min Rest (the best part of the workout)
It's a total of 17 min of what will flat out suck balls, but I love it. Why? What's wrong with me?! BTW, i scored 292 total reps, 8 shy of the 300 I was going for. Next time I'll hit it and hopefully I'll look like one of the characters from the movie.
Disclaimer: My family is not perfect in our eating habits, sure we have chocolate
covered almonds and other treats, but we're aware of that and we try our
best to be as healthy as possible. You still have to enjoy life. Awareness is key. So here's what we had for dinner, Paleo chili. YUM!
