Sometimes I think back to 2010 and how “into” the Paleo diet we got at Roots.

Per the Mayo Clinic, “A paleo diet typically includes lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds — foods that in the past could be obtained by hunting and gathering. A paleo diet limits foods that became common when farming emerged about 10,000 years ago. These foods include dairy products, legumes and grains.“

It was another decade, CrossFit was just getting “cool” and CrossFit was the first program to put nutrition at the base of its fitness protocol. We read the CrossFit Journal articles and dove in. Good riddance to dairy, grains, and legumes!

Tracy (5:30 am Tracy) led the charge keeping the shop up to date on the ins and outs of tortilla chips, Paleo packed lunches and other tips. Eric and I made our own beef jerky (with a fan, for another blog post), bought a grass-fed/grass-finished cow, and removed all grains from our diet.

We were in it.

The benefits were tremendous. I learned to rid myself of my daily 3pm ClifBar addiction. I found that just like the standard American Diet prescribes, I was eating over 300 grams of carbohydrate per day! I read about nutrition and learned about chronic disease. My relationship with food became one that was rooted in long term health and performance and not calories in/calories out.

Softening

Somewhere along the way, we softened our “extreme” habits. We ate some toast, we cooked some rice and put cheese on our burgers. Maybe not all the time but some, and then more.

As I look back at our progression over the past 10 years, I am reminded of the slow slide. The small slips backward that incrementally don’t seem like a big deal. We reason them as ok, tack them up to “balance”, and move on.

Or maybe we just don’t think there’s much more to learn. This is a dangerous place to be in any environment.

It Doesn’t Work That Way

Unfortunately, the world of fitness and health does not work this way – we can’t “ride the slide.” It’s a constant uphill battle and one that we have to keep pouring resources into. In short, there’s no, “I’ve made it.”

Whether you haven’t done a food challenge in 8 years or did the last one with mediocre success, there’s always something new to learn and value in spending a designated period of time upping the ante. There’s no better environment than Roots to do this.

You can learn more about the upcoming food challenge here.

Talk to your coaches in a group class to learn more. It’s going to be a good time!