Hi, my name is Shaun, and I’m a coach at CrossFit Hutt Valley. I’ve been a member at CrossFit Hutt Valley for around two years, and have this year taken the not insignificant step into the coaching realm. One of the topics that interests me most, is nutrition, and the effect that it has on the average Joe, just like me. Over the next 12 weeks, I’m going to be documenting my journey to nutrition change, and I’d love you to be involved, as what I experience will hopefully help you So, here’s a little more about me, and what I hope to achieve:

The dreaded ‘D’ word.

D is for Dieting. That horrible word attached to everything from Atkins to Lemon Detox. I don’t like the word at all. Your average Joe or Joelle generally associates dieting with half staving themselves to reach a target weight for a life event like a wedding or overseas holiday.  Most people who diet fall off the wagon after a few weeks, those that make it through the full life-cycle tend to slowly gain the weight back once they revert back to their old lifestyle. Then the whole cycle begins again. This is exactly what the industry wants; diets are really all about profit making for their creators.

What are we meant to believe?

Every year a couple of new fad diets or products roll around, promising the world if you buy this or take that, eat this or restrict that. Almost weekly there are articles published in the media citing the latest “scientific” study, only for a contradicting article to be released a few of weeks later. Then there are the growing number documentaries which usually cherry pick scientific research to scare viewers towards a way of thinking or eating. My point is there is so much information out there it is incredibly challenging for those people without a health science degree to figure out what is right for them. In fact even those highly educated folks in the industry are constantly changing their opinions about what they think we should be eating. I personally know a trainer who has 15 years industry experience, 5 years ago he was telling his clients that organic oats were part of a healthy diet, now he thinks they cause gut inflammation and should be avoided.

Why Me?

So, with all the contradicting information out there I decided that I really should shift focus to me. What did I hope to achieve? I am that average Joe I mentioned earlier, although I played sports all the time growing up, I wasn’t genetically gifted with a crazy, fat burning metabolism that allowed me to maintain an 8 pack without lifting a finger. My own mother even called me “big boned” growing up. While I was living in London and after some extra cash, I applied for one of those (slightly dodgy) medical trials only to be rejected because my BMI fell into the obese category. I was 25 years old, 5’9” and 84kg, hardly what I’d call obese. 10 years later I’m about 10kg heavier, and despite taking CrossFit classes 3 times a week for the last 15 months I haven’t really lost any weight. I’m definitely stronger and fitter than when I started, my results show that. The one thing I hadn’t been monitoring was my nutrition.

Now what?

Delving a little deeper, I found there a lot of reasons why I had never really put much effort into nutrition, these varied from lifestyle, to how I was raised. There were a couple of glaringly obvious factors contributing to my lack of weight loss that I thought I could change relatively easily:

1. I don’t really control my portion sizing, I fill up my plate at meal times and almost always there is nothing left no matter how full I feel.  

2. I have a rather large (I’m talking whole packet of tim-tams to myself) sweet tooth.

3. I tend to eat subconsciously, meaning I sometimes find myself standing in front of the open fridge looking for something to eat, despite not being remotely hungry.

So with those 3 factors in mind I set out to research ways I could address each of them.

Stay tuned for the next episode coming soon. (If you have any questions or suggestions about what you read, please feel free to let me know at admin@crossfithuttvalley.com)

Cheers Shaun