The Real Food Challenge

by lisa | 31 October 2012 16:10

Swiss Paleo is putting together a “Real Food Challenge” in partnership with Fit2Day. If you are in the Zurich area and would like to participate you need to contact Lisa (leave a comment in the comment section below or email me at lisa@swisspaleo.ch) or contact Julie over at Fit2Day (info@fit2day.ch). We’ll give you the details about an upcoming information session and how to get signed up. If you are one of our readers who is not from our corner of the globe (still amazed that thousands of people from all over are visiting our blog!), you are more than welcome to join in the challenge. You can keep us posted on your progress through the comments section of the blog or you can leave comments on our facebook page. Local participants will pay an entry fee of 50 chf and the local winner gets all the cash.

The 30 Day Real Food Challenge: Starts November 10th

Why we are doing this & what to expect

We believe that nutrition is the foundation of good health. You can train hard, sleep well and eliminate stress, but if you’re not incorporating good nutritional practices into your daily life, you will never reach an optimal level of health. This could 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.

The first few days will be tough as your body adjusts to this new way of eating. Stick with it, and be patient with yourself. At some point, your energy levels will increase and stabilize. Your body composition will start to change, your performance in the gym and your recovery time will improve. You will feel better. Plain and simple.

If you need tough love, a kick in the pants or ideas for how and what to eat…come to us. We are here to support you and want to see you succeed.

Goals

To improve body composition (fat loss)
To improve athletic performance
To have a longer, healthier more active life
To reduce or eliminate your risk of diseases (heart disease, diabetes)
To improve autoimmune conditions and digestive conditions

What is your personal goal?

Rules

50 chf entry fee-the challenge winner gets all the cash!
You must take before and after pictures and measurements (with Julie or Lisa).
You must keep a food journal. If you bite it, write it.
You must write your personal goals down in your journal.
You must track your daily points in your food journal.
Be honest with yourself.

Point System

Keep track of your daily points. The better you eat, the easier this is! This is simply to help you see where the problem might be if you are not seeing progress. Everybody starts with zero.

Minus Points	Plus Points
-5 for grains (including bread, pasta, rice, oatmeal, corn, cereal or processed gluten-free products)	+ 3 for every workout done at Fit2Day (or at home or another gym as long as it is equivalent to a crossfit bootcamp class)
-5 for processed food	+2 for a one hour pilates or yoga class
-5 for refined sugar and artificial sweeteners (includes soft drinks)	+2 for a daily omega 3 supplement
-4 beer and white wine	+1 for one hour of jogging, cycling or walking
-3 for legumes (soy, peanuts, beans, chickpeas, lentils)	+2 for an hour long cardio workout (jogging, walking, cycling)
-2 for tequila, gin, vodka, red wine
-2 for dairy
-1 for a tsp of honey or maple syrup or 25 gms dark chocolate
-1 for milk in your coffee

How to get started

Before the first day of the challenge, go to our home page. You will find a blue box in the sidebar on the right called ‘Balanced Bites Nutrition Guide’. Click on it to download a 25 page easy to understand guide to eating real food. This is a MUST for understanding what you should and should not be eating.
Clean out your pantry of the things you shouldn’t eat. If you keep it in your house, you’ll eventually be tempted to eat it.
Stock your pantry and fridge with healthy real food and plan what you will eat for the first few days.
If you want to have a “food friend” for support, ask Julie or Lisa to pair you with a challenge partner.

Tips

Prepare for meals ahead of time. Don’t wait until you are starving because you will be more likely to make poor choices if you do.
Have a default meal that is easy to prepare (10 minutes). This could be as simple as scrambled eggs.
Pre-cook food. Prepare a few meals ahead and put them in the fridge/freezer for days when you might be not have time for cooking.
Cook more than you need. Left overs are fabulous, even for breakfast.
Read your labels on everything! Seriously. Sugar is even in most brands of bacon.
If you aren’t sure about a food or aren’t sure how to make substitutions for old favorites, let us know because we can help you.

Resources

Swiss Paleo :We’ve got tips on where to get certain healthy ingredients in the Zurich area. We’ve also got some great recipes and interesting articles. Don’t forget to download the Balanced Bites Nutritional Guidelines from our home page. This is your food bible for the challenge.
www.nomnompaleo.com We love Michelle and her blog is full of recipes and pictures to make you drool.
http://beta.primal-palate.com/ Super excellent site with tons of recipes, shopping list tools, menu ideas etc….and it’s just beautiful to look at. They also have a wonderful cookbook available through Amazon called ‘Make it Paleo’.
www.theclothesmakethegirl.com This is the site of another cookbook (‘Well Fed’) author that we really like. There are many great recipes.
www.whole9life.com This is the site of Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, authors of the book ‘It Starts With Food’. They have excellent articles on the ‘how and why’ of healthy eating.
www.paleoparents.com another great recipe resource and a site that shows you how to incorporate healthy eating with kids.
www.robbwolf.com everything you ever wanted to know about this way of eating and why it’s the right way to eat.
www.marksdailyapple.com great source of health information related to nutrition .