Kurt emailed us a testimonial. I thought I would share it.

"CrossFit has brought about a dramatic change in me. When I started I was a wreck. I couldn’t do anything. Growing up with asthma followed by a severe knee injury in my 20s had led me to a very sedentary lifestyle. With lots of great coaching and hard work, I have lost over 30lbs, increased VO2 max from 24 to 44 and turned very poor cholesterol numbers into great numbers all the while having a good time. Previously, I had never stuck with any program from more than six months. My wife is amazed that I can keep the dedication to hit the workouts five times a week. I attribute my consistency to the constant variation in the daily exercises combined with the added challenge of the Olympic lifts which require developing technical proficiency on top of strength and conditioning (and are just plain fun). Not only am I doing things in the gym I thought I would never do but my life outside the gym is much better. Whether it is moving heavy objects (honey do’s), pushing a fully overloaded double stroller up a hill or running along my son as he  learns to ride a bike, most things are just easier. I think that is the message here, while it never gets easier in the gym, that one hour a day makes the other 23 hours much easier."

It seems that Agave is not the miracle sweetner it has been billed to be. When someone discuses the glycemic index, this relates to how blood sugar is effected when ingesting food and ultimately how insulin reacts to blood sugar. There are more than a few ways to spike insulin, one of them is through taste. Insulin spikes in response to a taste of something sweet. While agave might be low on the gylcemic index it is still sweet and composed of Fructose that has been linked to many other problems.

"Agave...most especially, that it has a relatively low glycemic index. A large body of research shows that foods with low glycemic indexes, such as vegetables, beans and high-fiber foods in general, tend to be healthier for us than foods that quickly raise our blood sugar. But in the case of agave nectar, you have to ask, why does this sugar have a low-glycemic index? And the answer is that agave nectar is made largely of fructose, which, even though it has a low glycemic index, is being implicated in many long-term health problems. With the exception of pure liquid fructose, agave nectar has the highest fructose content of any commercial sweetener. It’s worth knowing that all sugars, from white table sugar to high-fructose corn syrup and even honey, include some mixture of fructose and glucose. For example, table sugar is 50% fructose/50% glucose and HFCS is 55/45. Agave nectar is a whopping 70% to 90% fructose..."

Agave Health Claim Doesn't Match It's Hype - Bottom Line Secrets

How is everyone doing on the Paleo Challenge? 

Any changes yet? Let us know by posting your progress.

These are his previous PRs at a weight of 220:

Meet squat: 611, (622 got 2 reds, one depth and one politics)

Gym squat: 600 x 3 Both done in a single-ply Frantz suit.

Meet bench: 396 on an easy 3rd attempt after his foot slipped on the 2nd with that weight.

Meet deadlift: 633 on two separate occasions.

PR Total: 1643

Won the Greater Texas Classic at 198 in 1981.

Retired from PL competition in 1988.

"Weight lifting makes you big and bulky"

Are you familiar with this misconception?

This is a belief that unfortunately so many of us still have.

Millions of people automatically associate weight lifting to big, bulky and muscular bodies. Millions of people believe that you should only lift weights if you want to "get bigger."

Not only is this completely false, but if you ignore weight training (or strength training) then you're missing out on one of the single most effective fat loss methods in existence.

In fact, you should immediately begin associating weight lifting (or any type of strength training) to living life lean.

Yes, weight lifting can certainly be a part of a weight gaining program as well, but lifting weights alone is not what makes you bulky. Do you want to hear the real reason why people get bigger?

They eat lots of food!

In fact, it's virtually impossible for someone to gain a significant amount of weight if they don't increase the amount of calories they take in.

Take heavy-weight body builders for example. I'm talking about the ones that most people associate with body building.

Now let's be clear: they ARE huge. But this is mainly because they take in a very large amount of calories on most (or all) days of the week.

The simple fact is that muscles are essential to a lean and toned body that burns fat on autopilot 24/7, yet muscles continue to be one of the most overlooked components to losing fat effectively and permanently.

Trust me, if you're serious about losing fat quickly and permanently, then this is not something you want to ignore...

Paleo Brand’s ready to eat frozen meals were created to help athletes committed to health and performance an easy way to stick to the Paleolithic diet.

Sticking to the Paleo Diet seems easy, right?

Not so much. It is damn hard to stick to a Paleolithic diet in today’s society. For those you that have watched “Food Inc” or gone to local supermarket know what you see is not what you are getting. The food that we get is tainted. From fruits and veggies grown with pesticides to meat that is raised on harmful grains. How can a busy athlete looking to increase performance and stay healthy feed him or herself?

What is the Paleo Diet?

Paleo is a simple dietary lifestyle that is based on foods we are genetically designed to eat. What does that mean? This means that we evolved for 2 million years eating a certain way and these foods work better with our system. Foods that we did not evolve eating wreak havoc on your body. These foods include meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, tree nuts, vegetables, roots, fruit, berries, mushrooms, etc. The foods we are not supposed to eat are a result of agriculture like grains, dairy, beans/legumes, potatoes, sugar and fake foods.

I have a unique perspective as I have travelled the globe teaching training and lecturing on nutrition. After lecturing on the benefits of the Paleo Diet, I have received countless questions about how to stick to this diet, where a person should shop and how they should eat. After hearing the same questions asked over and over again we decided to do something about it and we created Paleo Brands to help with this need

So, what is Paleo Brands?

Paleo Brands is a company that provides ready to eat meals that are free of the crap that is harming us. By offering easy, convenient and good tasting meals we can help in the fight against bad nutrition and poor performance. So we took the task of creating meals that not only taste good but can meet the nutritional needs of today’s hunter/gatherers.

Where do I order the meals?

You can order the meals at www.paleobrands.com