Creating Your Cave Environment

Pre-game speech:Approaching the deep dark scary cave!

It’s one thing to say things are going to be different. It's another thing completely to have them BE different. On day 1 of this challenge you are going to wake up the same person you were the day before. Don't go out there and just expect it to be different. The world will not have organized itself around your choices about your life! Make your circumstances different and you will make YOU different. Prepare yourself for the situation as you know it exists out there and you won’t be disappointed.

Creating your Cave Environment

Sweep!You must change your surroundings to make them different than they have been up until now. Throw away all food items that don’t support your success - cookies, pasta, bread, crackers, etc. They should not be there when the craving strikes. You’ll also want to look for things that have sugar that you weren’t even aware of! This isn’t magic,it’spure practicality.

Decorate!Buy your food on a regular basis and know what you’re shopping for. We’ve talked about this already but of course were going to remind you, STAY AWAY FROM THE MIDDLE AISLES! The only things that you should need for this challenge are on the perimeter- meat, produce, nuts and seeds, etc. The closest you should get to anaisle is to buy olive oil. Also, don’t forget; never go shopping when you’re hungry. Once you’ve cleared out your cave don’t put any junk back in!

Plan your Hunt!You shouldn’t have to plan your shopping more than once during the challenge. You can basically use the same list every time.Take a few minutes to look at how much food you will need over the course of a day, and then a week. What do you eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks?

Protein is important, here’s an easy way to determine your intake:

(Bodyweight in pounds) x .5 to 1.0 = grams of protein required per day (the more you exercise, the more vigorous the exercise, the more protein you’ll need).

Grams of protein per day / 6 = oz. of protein required per day Oz.

1oz of meat = approx 6 grams of Protein

Remember to READ LABELS - there are sugars where you don’t expect them, especially in marinades and cures for meats.

Caveman with class! Prepare like you are a restaurant chef. When you leave for work or come home at night, it will make a big difference if you can open your fridge and have what you need at your fingertips.

Season and Cook: (roast, grill, sauté, poach) all meats

If you won’t be able to cook a hot dinner, don’t season or cook your meals, potion out your meat and then toss it in the freezer for another day.

While meat is cooking, chop and prepare all vegetables. Save as much raw as you want to make salads or cook at dinner. You can cook lots of stuff now- asparagus, peppers and onions, sweet potatoes, roasted tomatoes, etc. Make putting a meal together as quick and painless as possible. There will be a learning curve here. Don’t expect that your first try will take an hour or two. It will get better over the course of weeks.

SUNDAY FUNDAY! Tip: a good way to prepare for the week is to do all of your shopping, cooking, and cutting in a two to three hour block. Pre-cut your vegetables so when you get home from a long day you can pull them out of a bag and throw it in a skillet. Put meals in Tupperware for lunch and dinner during the week.

Outside of the cave-Eat something before you go out to take the edge off. This applies to going to a restaurant OR a party -- ESPECIALLY a party. Don’t go out hungry.

Ask questions at the restaurant. Be that guy. You want to ask about sugar, soy, grains, etc. This is about ownership and clarity. If you can start being clear for yourself about the choices you are making, you can start seeing real results. Order a “doggie bag” with your meal and put half of it aside for another time.

Moving Boulders with Ease

Create a neighborhood-Don’t go in alone! Form partnerships or teams to support each other.

For those who have Facebook log onto our Paleo Challenge fan page to vent, share recipes, read posted articles and links. It’s a great way to get advice and guidance from others.

About half way through the challenge CFLI will be having a Paleo Pot luck where you can share recipes and take home some of the delicious meals others made. (Of course if it’s not all gone) Date: TBA

Working Out- Daily workouts are about consistency, not intensity. You should continue to do your CrossFit workouts as usual, but find some time every day, 10 minutes at least, to be active - jog, bike, hike, yoga, sit ups, whatever. Do it to instill that health and fitness is a daily commitment and that it doesn't come down to going to the gym 2-3 times per week to fix everything that you did wrong in your life.

Goals- Set milestones for yourself. Create short term goals so that you can have victories all along the way. There will be weekly challenges for you to take on, but you can create any kind of marker for yourself that you choose. Where do you want to be 2 weeks in? What can you do each week to celebrate victory? What do you want to have halfway through? The more you have to look forward to on a short term basis, the quicker the long term will arrive.

Make a promise. What is success in this challenge going to look like? Make a promise to yourself and share it with someone else. Keep that as your motto, mission statement, mantra, whatever. And make it something that you are excited about.

Ex.When this is over I will have the energy to ______! When I complete this, I am going to treat myself to ______. And do it! It doesn’t just have to be food. This is a big deal, reward yourself.

How it Works

The Paleo Challenge IV is a 9 weeknutrition, workout, mobility, and accountability challenge designed to create habits that last a lifetime.

Entry fee: $50 ($35 for Gold members)

All participants will receive:

▪1 extra class per week for the duration of the challenge

▪Paleo Pep Rally– how to set yourself up: preparing your home and kitchen, shopping, preparing food, strategies

▪Paleo Pot luck dinner

▪Access to the CFLI Paleo Challenge Facebook fan page

▪Before and after photos to document your transformation

▪Chance to win big time CASH and PRIZES!

There will be 3 parts to the challenge

Body composition-All participants will be measured during the week prior to the challenge. We will be performing girth measurements of arms, hips, waist, and thighs and adding them up to get a 1-number girth measurement. The measurements will be repeated on Finals Day and scored for percentage improvement.

Performance- Everyone will participate in 3 baseline workouts as a performance measurement. The workouts will be repeated again in the final week and scored for percentage improvement.

Accountability- You will receive a total of 7 points at the beginning of each day. They are yours to lose. You can lose 1 point for any violation of the nutrition guidelines, up

to 3 points. The remaining 3 points you may keep for working out, mobilizing, and taking supplements. The lowest score you can get on any day is 0.

For the nutrition portion of this challenge, you may not consume:

▪grains/starches (corn, soy products, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, fries, etc.)

▪sugar (refined, artificial, or “natural”)

▪dairy (cheese, yogurt, milk)

▪alcohol, soda, juice

▪diet or processed food or drinks

You will score yourself 3 points if you avoid all of these foods in a day. Subtract 1 point for each time you consume an item from any of these categories.

Workout- for this challenge is a minimum of 10 minutes of “active” recovery – running, cycling, rollerblading, hiking, yoga, etc. You will score yourself 1 point for each day you work out.

Mobilization is a minimum of 10 cumulative minutes of stretching. You will score yourself 1 point for each day you stretch for at least 10 cumulative minutes.

Supplements -There is no minimum dose forfish oil/ Vitamin D/ LuRong Velvet Antler in this challenge. For fish oil, the recommended minimum dose is 100mg of EPA and DHA combined for every 10lbs of bodyweight. For example, a 150lbs person would take 1500mg of combined EPA and DHA. For Vitamin D 5,000-10,000 IU daily is suggested, and for LuRong, 2 capsules per day is recommended. As long as you take at least 2 out of 3 recommended supplements, you can keep your point.

H2O – you must consume a ½ ounce of water per pound of body weight a day.

Ex. 150lbs person must drink 75 ounces a day to reach quota. That’s about 4 ½ bottles.

Your final score for the challenge will be a combination of your change in measurements (25%), your improvement in performance (25%), and your accountability score (50%)

There will be other Mini Challenges along the way that will allow you to gain Bonus points!

**THE RULES**

Reporting your Score-

Register: email your full name to if you are male, or if you are a female. You will then receive a reply email with your score sheet which you must fill out each day during the challenge.

• You MUST report by 12 noonthelatestfor the previous day or you will receive a score of 0 for that day.

When sending in your score sheet you must reply to the email which is labeled for that week. Ex. Reply to email subject: WEEK ONE during the first week. By the end of the week the entire score sheet should be filled out.

Logging starts Monday September 17th. First score is recorded by 12pm Tuesday.

Not Caveman Friendly

What to avoid

Grains/starches (corn, soy, bread, rice, pasta, potatoes) - Quinoa and wild rice are grains. Quinoa contains saponins, a concentrated source of anti-nutrients which increase intestinal permeability and lead to "leaky gut" which in turn may promote low level, chronic inflammation. Quinoa also contains phytates which inhibit the absorption of nutrients such as iron and zinc. Wild rice also has similar gut irritating qualities. It comes down to whether or not you can OWN it. If you are not sure, the best answer is always avoid it until you are clear.

Sugar - ANY caloric, natural (honey, agave, cane juice, evaporated cane juice, maple syrup, Truvia, etc) or non-caloric artificial sweetener (aspartame, nutrasweet, sucralose, etc.). Stevia is fine for this challenge, just be sure you are not preserving a sweet tooth you’d be better off without. Unwire your palate from sweet! There is also some research that says that there is an insulin response just from the taste of sweet. Gum and mints are not OK - artificially sweetened or not, they are a violation. There is a reason that people dip and chew tobacco. The mouth and gums are a highly permeable entranceway to the bloodstream. Whatever you chew in your mouth ends up in your system.

Alcohol, soda, juice -. No soda - it's either sugar or artificial sweetener, so lay off. No alcohol. No juice allowed. It's just liquid sugar, people. If you choose to drink any of these, you will lose 1 nutrition point immediately.

Dairy - Only butter is permitted (Not permitted for LuRong Challenge). No milk, raw or not, yogurt, cheese, kefir, etc. If it is made from the milk of any animal and is not butter, it is not allowed. That's the rule.

Diet or processed foods - nothing artificial, nothing processed in anything besides traditional cooking or preserving methods (curing, cooking, drying). If it required a lab, it's not OK.

Food points - multiple violations in 1 item

Combo items such as coffee with milk and sugar, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, baked goods and pastries, pasta with sauce and cheese, etc count as 1 point even though there are technically multiple violations contained within. It is the item, not the combination of parts.

A single instance of the item is 1 point, repeated instances are additional points (a single cafe mocha, a single piece of pizza, one piece of cake, pie, bread, etc, 1 drink). Size? Can you own it? Is half a cake one piece? Can you say with a straight face to yourself that you only had one piece of cake?

Workout

Minimum of 10 minutes active recovery DAILY. It's about focus and habits, not killing yourself. Work out, active recovery, yoga, hiking, jogging, etc.

Mobilization

Any kind of stretching whatsoever.10 minutes minimum. Routines from MobilityWOD.blogspot.com are highly recommended.

Winning

Winner will be determined by ranking in accountability (50%), workout improvement (25%), and measurement improvement (25%). The default for measurements will be loss. If you are planning to build muscle or gain size, you must declare that prior to the start of the challenge.

This is actually very simple - there are four rules. Eat right, exercise, stretch, take supplements. You have 7 points each day. You can lose up to 3 points for food rule violations. You can keep 1 point for working out, 1 point for stretching, and 1 point for takingsupplements. Maximum each day is 7, minimum is 0. Report your score by 12noon or you will automatically receive a 0 for the preceding day.

If you blow 3 food points one day, you cannot lose any more no matter what you do. You can eat as much fruit and nuts as you want, but keep in mind that this challenge is about going for a particular result. You can figure out how to cheat yourself inside of the rules, or you can take it on and see what is really possible.

On the final day, each participant will receive a ranking in each area based on their accountability score, percentage improvement in their workout score, and percentage improvement on their measurements. The winners will be determined by the lowest cumulative ranking of all three scores.

Each day you MUST report your score by 12 noonfor the previous day. Failure to enter your score by 12pm will result in a score of 0 for the day being entered automatically.

For the mini challenges, you will have the opportunity every Monday by 12 noon to report whether or not you completed the previous week’s challenge successfully. That will be your only chance to enter your score for the bonus points! These will be announced week by week.

Prizes

GrandPrize
$250 Cold Hard Cash
-Reebok Olympic Weightlifting Shoes of your choice ($150 value)
-Progenex Combo Pack - 1 Recovery, 1 More Muscle ($110 Value)
-PurePharma Combo Pack - 1 Fish Oil, 1 Vitamin D ($50 value) / 1 Male / 1 Female/ 1 Master
Over $550 in total Cash and Prizes!!
2ndPlace:
-Reebok Nano 2.0s of your choice ($110 value)
-Progenex Combo Pack - 1 Recovery, 1 More Muscle ($110 Value)
-PurePharma Combo Pack - 1 Fish Oil, 1 Vitamin D ($50 value) / 1 Male / 1 Female/ 1 Master
$270 in total Cash and Prizes
3rdPlace
-CFLI Pro-Shop Gift Pack ($75 value)
-Progenex Combo Pack - 1 Recovery, 1 More Muscle ($110 Value)
-PurePharma Combo Pack - 1 Fish Oil, 1 Vitamin D ($50 value) / 1 Male / 1 Female
Over $200 in total Cash and Prizes