Primally Nourished is hosting a Winter Nutrition Challenge for the athletes of Dawson CrossFit. The main objective is to fuel, nourish, and recover ahead of the Open and head into competition season with new habits and revitalized energy! The goal is to get as close to 800g (about 6 cups) of fruits and veggies each day. Yes, even on the weekends. This will set your body up for proper absorption, and digestion. When you are absorbing things your body naturally knows how to break down and utilize, you have more gas in your tank to push through hard workouts. We need to start viewing our body as a race car that needs premium gas to go. If we aren't fueling ourselves, we often find that we putter through workouts, unable to hang on for the haul.
Protein is the main building block of muscle growth, so we will also be sharing a focus with protein intake. The recommended amount of protein body weight to grams. For instance, a 130lb female would have a goal of 130g of protein each day. A good way to tackle this, is to ensure you are getting 30-40 grams of protein per meal. Snacks should have a protein focus. And every workout should end with a protein shake to get it back into the muscle immediately. If we eat 3 meals a day, plus have the shake, that is roughly 120g of protein. Close enough to our goal to call it a win!
But how do you know what 800g (or 6 cups) of fruits and veggies look like? And how do you know what 30-40g of protein looks like? This is where measuring cups or a scale can come in handy, but are absolutely not necessary. Our hands are an excellent tool for estimating what we are consuming, especially because we are all going to have different needs based on our body size and our goals. So a man's fist to represent a cup would be equivalent to a female's fist for the same thing. Not in the actual quantity when put side to side, but in the specific needs of the different body size and composition.