To those that are days into your Whole30, New Year’s resolutions, or diet & lifestyle experiments, congratulations. If you haven’t started yet, pick a day (I recommend Monday at the latest) and get going. Whether you are trying to shed weight, get your gymnastics skills dialed in, or take your training to a much higher level, your nutrition must be on point. If you are new to the CrossFit, strength & conditioning, kettlebell, powerlifting world, the Whole30 is a good place to start. It will help you understand how food impacts your body. Afterwards, we can start to formulate lasting eating habits that cause you to lose, maintain or gain and coincide with your athletic prowess. If you are even thinking about making a run at the Open, have a PL meet or any competition coming up, it’s time to close up the liquor cabinet, toss out all those baked goods and go green.

What is the Whole30?

Established by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig (of Whole9) in April 2009, the Whole30® is our original nutritional program designed to change your life in 30 days. Think of it as a short-term nutritional reset, designed to help you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system.

Certain food groups (like sugar, grains, dairy and legumes) could be having a negative impact on your health and fitness without you even realizing it. Are your energy levels inconsistent or non-existent? Do you have aches and pains that can’t be explained by over-use or injury? Are you having a hard time losing weight no matter how hard you try? Do you have some sort of condition (like skin issues, digestive ailments, seasonal allergies or fertility issues) that medication hasn’t helped? These symptoms may be directly related to the foods you eat—even the “healthy” stuff.

So how do you know if (and how) these foods are affecting you? Strip them from your diet completely. Cut out all the psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health.

Whole30 Benefits

The most important reason to keep reading? This will change your life.

We cannot possibly put enough emphasis on this simple fact—the next 30 days will change your life. It will change the way you think about food, it will change your tastes, it will change your habits and your cravings. It could, quite possibly, change the emotional relationship you have with food, and with your body. It has the potential to change the way you eat for the rest of your life. We know this because we did it, and tens of thousands of people have done it since, and it changed our lives (and their lives) in a very permanent fashion.

The physical benefits of the Whole30 are profound. More than 95% of participants lose weight and improve their body composition, without counting or restricting calories. Also commonly reported: consistently high energy levels, improved athletic performance, better sleep, improved focus and mental clarity, and a sunnier disposition. (Yes, more than a few Whole30 graduates said they felt “strangely happy” during and after their program.)

The psychological benefits of the Whole30 may be even more dramatic. Through the program, participants report effectively changing long-standing, unhealthy habits related to food, developing a healthier body image, and a dramatic reduction or elimination of cravings, particularly for sugar and carbohydrates. The words so many Whole30 participants use to describe this place? “Food freedom.”

– See more at: whole30.com

Warmup
Jump Rope 3 Minutes

5 Turkish Getups R/L
20 Down Dog Push-ups

Skill
5-10 Minutes
Double Under Practice
Foam Roll/stretch calves

Conditioning
Start the timer:
First,
Burpee Challenge
100 Burpees AFAP
7 Minute Limit

Then,
At 10:00 on the timer:
10 minute AMRAP
5 Pull-ups
10 Ball Slams
15 Double Unders (substitute 60 singles)

Record time(or reps if DNF) for Burpees and number of rounds/reps for AMRAP.

Reflect on your lifts yesterday. Are you jumping too soon? Most likely, yes. “When you think it’s time to jump, you wait that much longer.”