Fix Friday

When I started CrossFit, I had never heard of Paleo. I remember my sister telling me how some people at the box ate that way, and when I asked her what it was, so she told me how they don't eat bread, and potatoes, and basically ate only meat, fruit, veggies and nuts. Nuts?! They sure were! I was like, "uhh...that's dumb. I'll never eat that way." Buuuut...the more I CrossFitted, the more I heard about it, and then I started following bloggers like PaleOMG, and Balanced Bites and started to learn why people ate that way. I started to learn more about food, and how it affects your body, and then I started to pay more attention.

Now, the point of this blog is not to go into Paleo, or any of that. The point is to talk about the influences I have had, that changed my thinking about food. Coz lemme tell you...when you hit 30, your body starts reacting different to food. Like me...never had to worry much, then I hit 30, and the pounds came, and never left! I HAD to change the way I handled food.

Ok...back to my thoughts. So then after 3 years of CrossFitting...it seemed to me the tides were turning. Paleo peeps started to say that actually....you DO need carbs. You cannot do workout as intense as CrossFit and NOT fuel your body with carbs. People that had tried it, eventually found they got sick and/or their performance changed. But...they had to be GOOD carbs. Then I started hearing about macros...counting them, and balancing them, and eating them at certain times of the day, to make them work for you. I did a challenge through my CF box with the purpose of leaning out (yes, please), and learned about some new websites that helped me calculate how many calories I should eat, and how many grams of protein/carb/fat I should consume a day. Problem? The calculators were confusing...I have never been the math whiz. Like with any task, teach me and I'll learn, and math takes a lot of brain power. ESPECIALLY when I need to keep converting grams and whatever the opposite of a gram is....it confused me more than anything, and I did not find it particularly helpful. A coach was nice and offered to calculate for me. I took her calculations, and tried to plug them into My Fitness Pal. Yeaaa....that wasn't happening either! MFP would not let me customize my calculations to the exact numbers I needed...so throughout the day, I had to keep looking at the post-it note on my desk at work and say "OK...how many grams of protein am I suppose to eat again? As you can imagine...it did not work, and I was finding myself spending WAY too much time the night before,  planning out my meals, and entering it all into MFP to make sure it evened out, and I was set for my meals for the day. This just all seemed way too hard.

Then...I discovered The 21 Day Fix. It was a food system created by a fitness figure competitor and model, as well as a trainer at The Equinox in LA, named Autumn Calabrese. She is the cutest little firecracker, and I was drawn in. She had these cute rainbow colored containers that did exactly what I was looking for...they balanced out my macros EXACTLY to the same % as what I was told by my CF coach, but the science and the work was already done for me. When I bought the kit, there was a simple calculation I had to do, to figure out what calorie range I fell in, then I just had to eat that many of each food group for the day. SO EASY!!!! I did not need to play around with MFP, I did not need to do any fancy math calculations (the one I did have to do was so easy, my first graders could do it), and I also did not need to measure. The portion control piece was built in. This was a no brainer, and I could tell...a game changer. BONUS: chocolate and wine were allowed....as well as eating out. Um...winner!!!!

So...this post is getting quite long. I am told I am long winded. I blame it on being Italian. We love to talk! I'll hurry it up... my first Fix Friday will be on Chipotle. Why there? Because they just opened a brand new one seconds from my house, and because, like so many other people, I thought...oh it's healthy! They have salads to cut back on the carbs, I can get beans (protein) meat (protein) brown rice (healthy carb) and lettuce (veggies). That's a good meal choice. Right? Right?????? I could even add some guac for a healthy fat. OK...so watch:

In my currently calorie range (which is low b/c I am injured and not doing any intense working out) I can eat 4 servings of protein (red), 3 servings of vegetables (green), 2 servings of fruit (purple), 1 serving of carbs (yellow), 1 serving of a healthy fat (blue), and 2 servings of an extra (orange) for the day. Now...here is the salad I ordered from Chipotle.

Barbacoa salad with brown rice, black beans, grilled veggies, cheese and pico de gallo.

I made it easier for my experiment and got the cheese, beans and rice on the side, so who knows if that is the actual portion they give you when they free serve, but they stopped at the size of the container. Here is what I found when I put the items into my containers:

The meat was a little short in my portion allotment and the grilled veggies were half a serving.

In total, the lettuce was 2 servings of veggies. So, in eating this salad, with the grilled veggies, I only had 1/2 a serving of veggies left for the day.

The rice and the beans were both 1 serving of carb. So, this was OVER my daily allotment. Yes, beans are not counted as a protein (learning curve) but as a carb.

And the cheese fit my portion size, but since I get one a day, I cannot have a healthy fat for the rest of the day (good thing I did not get guac.)

This is an example of what I have learned about eating through becoming more into fitness, and it is what I have learned in using the 21 Day Fix. Is this a new concept? Nope! But Autumn made what I was trying to do EASY by setting a system up for me that was user friendly and error proof. So, while I can eat out and make it fit my lifestyle, I have to be aware of things....next time I go to Chipotle, I can't have both beans and brown rice...I have to choose one, and know that is my carb for the day. I'll skip the grilled veggies because I will still want to have veggies for another meal. I will want to have half the cheese, so that I can have a healthy fat with another meal. Balancing out food like this, is what you have to do if you want to be healthy, and lose what you have. Portion control and food balance is hard, but this system make it easy. #justmytwocents