Front squat 3-3-3-3-3 reps
then: free standing handstand and parallette work

On Saturday, we posted an article titled 5 Foods You Should Never Ditch When on a Diet.  We first responded to this article by stating that dieting is a gimmick and that it does not yield an eating style that delivers on long term health, fitness, or performance.

We promised to break down foods 1-5.  We’ll start with #1: Bread.  Let’s expand that to grains in general and tackle some of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of grain consumption.

1. “I need grains, they make me feel good.”
The article claims that “grains curb overeating.”  This could not be further from the truth.  When you eat grains (toast, cookies, bagels, for example) you get a quick boost of energy, your body produces insulin to take care of the massive influx of sugar (grains break down into sugar), but then it’s left in the dust.  No energy and low blood sugar.  So your body and your brain crave more grains and the cycle feeds itself, literally.

2. Grains are high in fiber (or, insert another nutrient).
It’s a common occurrence to hear someone defend grain consumption with the statement that they eat grains because they are high in fiber.  Compared to what?  The fact is that there are a tremendous number of vegetables that deliver way more fiber than a comparable serving of grains.  Take brown rice for example, 100 grams of brown rice delivers 1.8 grams of dietary fiber; however, 100 grams of broccoli contains 2.6 grams of dietary fiber.

3. Humans eat grains, that’s just what they do.
Well, no actually.  Up until the advent of agriculture (10-12,000 years ago) humans did not consume grains, they ate meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds.  With the invention of agriculture, grains became a staple in the human diet, and more recently in evolution, processed grains became the main component of western diets.  Consumption of grains is linked to the development of chronic diseases such as arthritis, Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and osteoporosis.

It’s your body so you get to choose what you put in it.  If it were me, I’d choose the best fuel available.