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Another Good Robb Wolf Post
Loren in the middle of one of his twenty slosh-pipe overhead squats
For those of you who aren't yet regular readers of Robb Wolf's blog, you should be!
After Barry Sears gave a recent seminar to a bunch of CFHQ trainers (the videos of his talk are free on the CrossFit Journal site here), Robb offered up his own thoughts on the Zone diet and how close it is to Paleo eating. In fact, he thinks it is Paleo eating. And lest you get bogged down in useless terminology, he's basically saying food quality trumps food quantity.
Here's the article: http://robbwolf.com/?p=685
Read the article yourself and post your Zone, Paleo, or do-whatever diet ramblings in comments. Do you agree with Robb? Disagree?
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Sorry for the downtime earlier this evening, folks. I'm still trying to sort out what exactly happened, but hopefully such interrupts will become few and far between as we get the kinks worked out.
I feel like I lack the context to really understand Robb's article. He seems to be complaining about something that is taught in Level I seminars with regard to nutrition, but he doesn't do a very good job of laying out what exactly happened. He just launches into a rant about it, assuming that his audience knows the background story. Robb Wolff, despite his many charms, is not one of the greatest writers I have come across.
If I remember correctly, Sears mentions that his diet is designed to mimic Paleolithic nutritional profiles in the first Zone book. While Sears does not completely eschew grains or dairy, as do the Paleo contingent, I'm surprised that the idea that Zone and Paleo diets are complimentary should be a controversial point. Once again, I lack the context to really understand why Robb is so charged up about this.
TomC, I agree that Robb seems overly defensive. I don't think those who say paleo is pseudo-science are maligning the diet. They're just questioning the legitimacy of ascribing its benefits to our genetic relationship to paleolithic man, which seems a rather speculative theory. Perhaps Robb's certification seminars should include a survey of what is known about paleolithic man's diet, his 5K time, and his performance in the olympic lifts.
I just want to say kudos to Loren for his slosh pipe handling. He made it look so easy, which as anybody who has tried to handle the slosh pipe knows, it's not. He used this totally smooth ground-to-overhead-in-one-fluid-motion move that was clearly some sort of magic. Plus he did something like 8 more OHS than the next contender at the party. Nice work, Loren!
I also found this article (rant) a bit odd for the same reasons as TomC. I think maybe you have to already be familiar with the canon from CrossFit HQ regarding zone vs. paleo to have it resonate properly. Plenty of people on the CF boards seem to go with the Paleo+Zone theory, possibly throwing in gallons of milk if they worship Rippetoe, so I don't get the same "CrossFit is anti-Paleo" feeling that Robb seems to feel exists.
What I actually think is a more interesting article on the subject is this one http://robbwolf.com/?p=710 in which Laura DeMarco (14th female overall at 2009 CF Games) tells the story of switching from vegetarian zone to paleo, and what happened.
Thanks for the link.
B, being in your presence has not only have you raised my level of physical fitness, but I believe all of lydia's gains can be directly attributed to you as well. Thanks Buddy!