I began experimenting with my diet at age 18 (18 years ago). From growing up on a fast food/processed food typical North American diet I endured a seven day fast before beginning a “Way of the Peaceful Warrior” style vegetarian diet. Quality of life improved as I made more careful food choices but I cannot say performance changed.

For 15 years I tweaked the vegetarian diet, adding or subtracting eggs, dairy, fish, etc. None of these tweaks yielded any results significant enough to warrant permanent adherence.

In 2005 when I first came across the CrossFit site and began experimenting with it I gradually re-introduced meat into my diet. The phenomenal performance gains I experienced could be attributable to the diet change, the WOD’s or the combination of the two.

From April 2008 when I started training with you I began experimenting with zone/paleo concepts and here is where I first encountered significant changes directly attributable to diet.

A zone diet with grains included yielded little change for me but eliminating the grains saw my body lean out very rapidly. Except for the dairy and oats my food choices resembled a plaeo-diet.

After one all-I-could-eat week long vacation, a return to zone proportions saw me drop from 85kgs to 82kgs inside of two weeks with no hunger.

Eating this way I seemed to catch fewer colds and those I caught were less severe and shorter in duration than usual. At 82kgs however I was beginning to feel weak and tired and my recovery seemed slow. Judo training partners mentioned that I felt weaker in training and I was fatiguing quickly.

Setting aside measuring tools I continued to guesstimate proportions to reflect zone ratios but I stopped measuring and ate as much as I needed whenever I was hungry so long as the macro ratios were close and the food choice was paleo compatible (excepting my oats and dairy of course).

Following this style of eating my weight remained at or near the zone low of a lean 82kgs but I felt stronger and more energetic and my muscle soreness seemed to almost disappear. Additionally, since making this change I have seemed immune to the various pathogens that sweep through our household and Judo dojo.

On the cheat days or holidays I have suffered significant gastro-intestinal discomfort and a major drop in energy level. I am beginning to suspect that wheat products may be the culprit and my system seems to want to reject them almost immediately. Eating poorly feels much like pouring a few cups of sugar into someone’s gas tank – a recipe for disaster.

Since April my body weight has seen an increase, my training weight is around 82kgs while it has usually been 79kgs for the past 16 years. At 82kgs however, my pants are loose and my belt doesn’t go tight enough and my sweatshirts are feeling too tight so I suspect that most of the gains are lean muscle.

Perhaps these observations are not scientifically useful but since I have spent a couple decades monitoring my own sport performance, body weight and such I thought it might be interesting.

Corey