The CrossFit Series: Part Seven - The Paleo Diet

Immersing yourself in the CrossFit lifestyle can affect more than just your exercise routine. There is a specific diet called “Paleo” that many strict athletes follow. The diet is an abbreviation for the Paleolithic time period in history where food was either hunted or gathered from the environment.

The specifics of the diet include: cutting out refined carbohydrates, legumes, dairy and other processed foods that you can usually find bagged on the shelf. The three biggest hits to an average person’s diet are the removal of bread, pasta, rice and milk. The staples of our planet seem obsolete when following the Paleo diet.

However, many of the foods you’re probably already eating a lot of are included in the Paleo diet. Meat from farm animals and wild animals, nuts, seeds, vegetables and berries are included in the diet. The specifics of the Paleo diet seem to fall right in line with CrossFit’s idea of each meal consisting of 30 percent protein, 30 percent fat and 40 percent carbohydrate. The only difference from a normal diet and Paleo is the carb sources. Your carbs would mainly come from vegetables and nuts rather than pasta and bread. This key difference reduces the amount of gluten in your system that contributes to inflammation and potential weight gain.

“It’s a way to eliminate all inflammatory foods that cause us to hold on to fat,” said Leon Uptegrove, the head coach of CrossFit Aevitas in New York.

Skeptics of the diet question the effects of the diet on their energy levels throughout the day.

“I feel like I would be so weighed down by all of the meat I would be eating,” said Cameron Long, an active CrossFitter.

The misconception that eating more meat will weigh you down more in daily life along with just nuts, vegetables, seeds and berries as a complement contradicts the science behind the diet. Paleo is a low carbohydrate diet while also being high in protein and moderate in fat. High protein levels are needed for muscle synthesis and moderate fat levels. Combining this with a low carbohydrate intake helps to increase ATP energy levels throughout the day.