Announcing the Spring Fuel Challenge!

750 burpees for time
then
max rep double-unders.  For every double-under short of 100 in a row, complete that many bodyweight deadlifts

Announcing the Spring Fuel Challenge

The moment you’ve all been waiting for – details on the spring fuel challenge.  We are so excited to announce this challenge.  In past challenges our goal has been to steer you in a new direction to better your health, performance, and longevity.  Lately, I’ve been having this crisis of faith in the way we encourage people to eat.  I just really don’t think that the food piece matters that much anymore.  Who cares if you eat grains, it’s not like you drop dead when you eat them.  And sugar, I’ve eaten it since I was born and I seem to be doing fine.  And I’m tired of carrying my tupperware to the shop everyday and I’m pretty sure Eric is tired of doing all the dishes required to prepare all of the tupperware food.

For this fuel challenge, we will test the opposite approach to the foods we eat. For the Spring Fuel Challenge, you will be required to eat the typical American diet for 4 weeks and we will test to see to what extent you can ruin your health, performance, longevity, and appearance in a 30 day period.  That’s right, for 30 days you will live on this supposed “dark side.”

The winner is determined by the individual who shows the most significant change for the worse in the following categories:
– blood work
– athletic performance
– 3 body composition measurements
– weight

The prize for this challenge is $1,500.

Here’s what you are allowed to eat:

Breakfast choices:
– 2 Pop Tarts
– Any fat free, high fiber cereal (must be consumed with low fat milk, fat free is better)
– Oatmeal with sliced bananas, skim milk, and honey, and a grapefruit on the side
– Two pieces of toast with Smuckers jam and a glass of orange juice and a glass of skim milk

Lunch choices:
– Chipotle burrito with extra rice and a Coke
– Subway sandwich, go for the footlong, no 6″ inch subs allowed
– Pizza of any kind, 2 slice minimum

Snacks:
– NutraGrain bars
– ClifBars
– Odwalla Juice
– Any 100 Calorie snack pack, must consume 3-4 of them

Dinner options:
– steak with iceberg lettuce salad and bread, consume 2-3 pieces of bread
– Hamburger helper on a whole wheat bun, add ketchup to bun
– Pasta with marinara and  garlic bread

Dessert Options:
– 1/2 pint of ice cream, must contain some yummy treat in large quantities, like marshmallows or caramel or something
– SaraLee cakes of any kind
– Any Safeway bought bakery item

To be clear, the following MAY NOT be consumed:
NO Green vegetables of any kind – excluding iceberg lettuce and roma tomatoes, they’re allowed.  VERY THIN slices of carrots on top of a salad are fine.  
NO Raw or unsweetened nuts – all nuts must be sugar coated, salted, or dipped in a sugary substance of some kind
NO natural meats – all meats must be from a source that made certain the animal had a horrible existence.  Deep fried and battered meats are preferred. 
NO fresh fruit other than apples, oranges, or bananas – you should aim to consume a product that best mimics the fruit you are trying to eat – fruit roll-ups, fruit juice, or Strawberry LifeSavers are best

In addition, you will workout like the typical American.  For the month of April, the shop will be open two days each week (Mondays and Tuesday only) and all workouts will be long, low intensity, and with light weight.  An example of a workout is power walk at a moderate pace for 30 minutes, stretch afterward and recover with a mix1 recovery drink.

22 Responses
  1. Scottwgraham

    Love it. Positive I can eat enough to put on 20 pounds after 750 burpees. Can’t wait!!!! And I can’t wait to go from slow to really slow to really really slow and erase the last year and a half of work. Awesome, I’m gonna drink beer at breakfast too. Just to go the extra mile.

  2. Royce

    Uh, I don’t Fluff on the menu! How are you supposed to really ruin your health without eating a tub of fluff every day?! Wow, you need to post people’s results on this one – this is crazy! 🙂

  3. Chad

    Now this a fuel challenge I could excel in. Just need to change the part about the programming and make it equally intense as today’s. Good experiment to see how much extra work it takes to burn off all these “fun foods.” Also agree with Scott on upping the alcohol intake. I sure the side effects of the challenge on the body will be minor…

  4. grandpamojo

    Very funny. – Nicely done…

    but seriously… apples and bananas are bad? – DAMN IT!

  5. Molly Molter

    haha I read this last night and thought it was serious at first. I forgot that it was April Fools today. You got me!

  6. Sid

    I’m unclear on a few things:
    – Instead of skim milk, can I drink soy milk?
    – Actually, instead of those, can I drink muscle milk?
    – Is eating low fat fruit snack snack packs killing two (or three) birds with one stone?
    – Is it alright if I eat all organic, natural, grass-fed, free range pasta?

    Any help would be much appreciated.

  7. Bones

    But I’ve been doing this for the past year – pop tarts are breakfast of champions! Then when I work out, I can really do a “burpee”!

  8. Emily Molter

    I believed it for a sec too until I read all the posts. Happy April Fool’s Day everyone! Have fun doing those burpees.

  9. Collin

    You got me so good. I checked the workout on my phone last night and freaked… I didn’t even finish the second sentence, so I spent all morning trying to talk myself into “a million burpees and some double-under crap”. Awesome…