...into The Zone. Not a big deal, really. We're simply going to add portion awareness to the food selections you're already making.
As a quick refresher, The Zone divides the macro nutrients (fat, protein and carbohydrates) into Blocks. Protein is 7 grams per Block, Fat 1.5 grams and Carbs 9 gms. You can refer to the CFJ #21, this handy calculator with lots of cool pictures and graphs and stuff or an even cooler source sent to us by our own Ann-imal that figures actual Zone Blocks.
If you're out on your own just look at the label of the package of food you're eating and do the math. As examples, a Block of Protein is about an ounce of meat, a block of Fat is 3-5 nuts, a Block of Carbs is 1/2 an apple.
The next thing to do is figure your Block needs per day. Again, CFJ #21 is the place to go. Roughly speaking, men up to about 5'9" are in the 14-16 area, 5'10" and up 16-18 blocks. Women up to 5'5" are looking at 10-13 blocks, 5'6" and taller 13-15. These are approximate and should be adjusted for your bone size and activity level. Divide into the convenient number of meals and snacks for you. Stick with these for a couple weeks and see how you feel, look and perform. If you're hungry, tired or fat/skinny then eat more/less. Add or delete 1-2 blocks and see how you're doing in another week or so. This is customizing your intake. If you want help or advise, please ask but know that in the end you are the expert of yourself. It's not that hard. You memorize the TV schedule and know the score of every 'Bama/Georgia game back to 1957, you can pay a little attention to what goes in your pie-hole.
A quick word on meal timing; as athletes we need to pay some attention to this and as CF'ers even more so because of the intensity level we work at. Consume about 50% of your carb load 30-60 minutes Post Workout (PWO) and spread the balance over your other meals during the day. Your PWO foods should be starchy and fairly high GI (glycemic index) foods: sweet potato, fruit including bananas and other tropical stuff, apples, grapes and the like. Here's the why of it. Fat at this meal should be baseline Zone levels or, simply put, not very much.
This will get you going. There are some other tweeks that you can make that we'll talk about in future posts. Any questions please ask Tony, Casey or Travis.
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