Paleo/Primal/Locavore/Zone Challenge

Our feast of gratitude was a smashing success! Lot's of yummy local vegetables and meat.
Now I want to try something else. A month long paleo/zone/primal/locavore experiment. Many CrossFit boxes have been doing the paleo or zone challenge as a way to increase awareness of the food we consume. I would like to take that a step further by not only applying the paleo/zone principles but also considering where the food is coming from. I do not see the point of advocating a paleo diet without also stressing the importance of quality meat. Even if we bracket off the ethical and political concerns of eating meat from CAFOs (industrially grown concentrated animal feeding operations) we are still left with the question of healthy meat. Our ancestors did not eat meat that was saturated in corn, wheat, hormones and antiobiotics. The paleo diet must give consideration to the diet of the animal. Whatever the animal eats you eat too.

Remember that the word diet simply means "way of life." If we keep this in mind we can stop thinking about diet as a gimmick or as the latest fad. Zone and paleo as a way of life is really as simple as eating meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, no sugar, little starch, etc.

Please, please check out the link below to Robb Wolf's blog. Here you will learn all about the paleo and zone way of eating. There is so much valuable information including links to other health related matters. Also, lot's of delicious recipes. http://robbwolf.com/

Here is a link to a fair assessment of the differences between grass fed and finished beef and CAFO factory farmed beef.
http://www.livinggreenmag.com/february/food.html

So what is the challenge? One month of a heightened consciousness and a re-evaluation of our most naturalized assumptions regarding food.

There is oodles of info on the zone and paleo diet on the CrossFit online journal. If you do not already subscribe, consider doing so. At $20.00/year it is a steal of a deal.

The Evils of Sugar


Please take the time to watch the above lecture. Here Robert H. Lustig, MD and UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology tells a story that fully captures the entanglement of politics, economics, science, American history and food. You will get a historical sense of why the US and Canada moved towards the low fat and high carb diet as well a thorough explanation of the differences between fructose, glucose, sucrose and lactose. Particularly scary is the US food program directed towards inner city kids where kids are served up ridiculous levels of high fructose corn syrup in their fruit drinks.

Gymnastics Certification in Vancouver




Jane, Ryan, Rochelle, Charity and I are all very excited to share out gymnastics knowledge with everyone. One of the most compelling points that Coach Tucker made was his reference to strength as the foundation of athleticism. Tucker's comment really echoed Mark Rippetoe's assertion that strength is the key to improving the 9 other recognized domains of physical fitness: cardiovascular respiratory endurance, power, speed, balance, coordination, stamina, flexibility, agility and accuracy. In other words, if you improve your strength all the other areas of fitness will also improve. To develop competence in the gymnastics movements athletes must develop a strong core. We can go back to our wheel analogy, with our trunk and torso being the hub of the wheel and our limbs the spokes. Strengthen the hub and you get a tighter unit as a whole. The olympic lifts and the slow power lifts are impossible without a strong core and core strength is the absolute foundation of gymnastics.

flux CrossFit Kids update

Here is an update for all the flux CrossFit kids, parents, and fans ...
Our flux CrossFit Kids are loving the new climbing rope - there are some great competitions going on between parents and kids to see who can get to the top faster. We also have a ton more pull-up stations, and an entire area just for flux CrossFit Kids.


Here are some photos to check out of the kids climbing the rope even out little wee Sam!