Photographed in Gulf Breeze, FL: CrossFit Gulf Breeze
Squats. Power cleans. Puppies.
Just another night at CrossFit Gulf Breeze.
If you follow me on social media, chances are that you have seen my growing involvement/fascination with CrossFit over the last five months.
I've always enjoyed physical activity. After ten years of training in Yoshukai karate and weightlifting for the past five years, giving CrossFit a shot was the next logical step in my ongoing search for novelty and fitness.
I joined CrossFit Gulf Breeze because of its reputation for the safest and most technically sound coaching in the area. I also knew a few people who trained there. Within two training sessions, I was addicted.
CrossFit is extreme by most standards, but that's why I'm there; I love the challenge. It's why people talk about it so much. Intense training self-selects participants who are naturally competitive and ambitious, which is one reason I think people label it as a cult. CrossFit doesn't instill that in people, it simply brings out and amplifies driven personalities.
Coach Jarrett Venn purchased CFGB from founding owner Andrew Tucker over the summer, just before I joined in June. In addition to intensifying the programming to a heavy emphasis on competition-style conditioning, JV has been gradually upgrading the equipment and marketing ever since. He didn't have a large library of content on hand for flyers and social media, so I offered to step in and lend a hand.
I chose to go with a gritty, Spartan style of imagery for the class that I shot. I came in on a Friday afternoon that was positively serendipitous with its very visual and intense workout, good crowd and presence of an adorable husky pup who I am fairly certain will become the resident Box Dog.
CrossFit Gulf Breeze
3106 Gulf Breeze Pkwy
Gulf Breeze, FL 32563
www.crossfitgulfbreeze.com
850-203-1798
Eating paleo and shopping in my sleep: "Free the Animal" reviewed.
Writer, blogger and entrepreneur Richard Nikoley is one of the more colorful and unique characters in the paleo blogosphere. He and I are very different people and I don't agree with him on everything by a long shot. The posts on his blog, Free the Animal, are blunt, confrontational, often delivered with unabashed profanity...but they are also downright entertaining. His take-no-prisoners attitude, especially pronounced when met with stupidity or bad reasoning, often provides much-needed doses of reality for the paleo community, whose information-cycling bloggers often seem to exist in a grass-fed and organically-pastured netherworld of online pontification.
The past year saw my own transition into a paleo-style diet and lifestyle. What began as a gradual series of minor lifestyle changes in an effort to lose weight, (portion control, cutting out soda, etcetera), led to deeper study that went beyond weight loss and into the ideas surrounding “ancestral” health. By the time Nikoley released the printed version of his take on paleo living, Free the Animal: How to Lose Weight and Fat on the Paleo Diet, I was already a grain-free, fifty pounds lighter, Vibram-wearing stereotype and I doubted the book would contain information that I hadn’t heard before from one source or another. However, I enjoy the blog and respect the man enough that a purchase of the print edition of Free the Animal was justified.
At least, I think I purchased it.
The exact event of my ordering the book remains a little hazy in my mind. I remember adding it to my Amazon.com wish list, then waking up one morning to an email confirming an order for it. There were extenuating circumstances--it was late in the semester and school was keeping me up at odd hours; I’ve come to expect occasional blackouts during such periods. However, in this case I suspect that a larger game might have been afoot, for upon my telling the 140-character version of this story on Twitter, I received a response from the man himself:
Hmm...well played, sir.
The apparent dubiousness of the purchase aside, I would like to share my opinion on Richard’s book, and how it measured up to my expectations.
The book is quite literally a printed compilation of Nikoley’s blog entries about the paleo lifestyle; compiled and printed by the ebook publishing company, HyperInk. In the interest of reaching a broader audience, Nikoley’s trademark colorful vocabulary has been toned down considerably, but his personality remains strong, as does the communication of his ideas without the extra saltiness.
The book has fourteen major sections, each of them easy to read and digest:
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Paleo, Primal, Ancestral Lifestyle
- Chapter 2: Your Inner Animal
- Chapter 3: The Standard American Diet And Other Diet Health Disasters
- Chapter 4: Fat Is King
- Chapter 5: The Cholesterol Con
- Chapter 6: Natural Disease Prevention
- Chapter 7: Eat Like A Caveman
- Chapter 8: The Power of Fasting
- Chapter 9: Evolutionary Exercise And Fitness
- Chapter 10: A Primal Weight Loss Plan
- Chapter 11: Recipes And Supplements
- Chapter 12: Success Stories
- About The Blog
The information in the book is solid and presented cohesively, as can be expected. But instead of giving away all of the information it contains, I would like to hone in what I felt set it apart from most literature about ancestral living. Unlike the path taken by most paleo nutritionists, Free the Animal does more than provide yet another treatise on insulin spikes, omega-3s and fat-protein-carbohydrate ratios; Free the Animal presents the paleo lifestyle as common sense.
Yes, Nikoley discusses nutrition and biology; yes, he discusses the psychology of food and intermittent fasting. But unlike the professional gurus who go to great pains to overawe readers with a doctoral dissertation’s worth of facts, statistics and observational studies, Nikoley’s book lays out the paleo lifestyle and its guiding philosophies in a refreshingly relatable way.
For paleo newcomers, I would honestly recommend Free the Animal as the starting point before moving on to the lengthier works of gurus like Robb Wolf or Mark Sisson. It isn’t that Richard Nikoley or Free the Animal are a “better” choice; to the contrary, most other paleo nutritionists provide much more detailed information, and longer and more colorful books to boot. But the main reason I loved Free the Animal was its no-frills, straightforward presentation. Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint changed my life last year, but I have to admit that its sheer amount of information scared me to death when I first picked it up.
By comparison, Free the Animal is both more and less of an assault to those readers who are just beginning to be interested in paleo nutrition. It is more of an assault because Nikoley does not suffer fools lightly and pulls few punches as a communicator. But Free the Animal nevertheless remains extremely relatable. Ever chapter presents its subject(s) through more than just the interpretation of impersonal data; Nikoley relates the impact of ancestral health, nutrition and fitness to everyday life. By attaching it to concrete ideas like personal appearance, productivity and a healthy sex life, the impact of the paleo diet takes on a significance beyond buzzwords like “burning fat” or “building muscle.”
So, is Free the Animal worth purchasing?
If you are already eating like a caveman, chances are you won’t learn anything new. However, if you want good introductory material in your lending library, this is a great book to keep around. And if you need a gift for “one of those friends” who complain ceaselessly about their weight while stubbornly continuing to fill up on empty and processed food products, Richard Nikoley’s Free the Animal might provide the necessary shot in the arm.
Free the Animal (Blog)
Purchase “Free the Animal: Lose Weight and Fat on the Paleo Dietl” on Amazon
The Superhuman50!
If you haven't done so yet, now is the time to head over to LivingSuperhuman and get started with the first Superhuman50 Challenge! Run by Andrew and Anthony Frezza, the Superhuman50 Challenge is a chance to jumpstart your fitness and health goals alongside many others, under the constructive and encouraging coaching provided by the Frezza brothers. I've been following their site for a while now, and I can vouch for them without reservation. I'm looking forward to getting started.
I went through a very dramatic personal transformation over the past year. Last summer was when it hit me that I had let myself go. I could feel my stomach moving at odds with the rest of my body when I walked. Running was impossible. I could still crank out a decent number of calisthenics, but I would be out of breathe for several minutes after each set.
I made the decision to overhaul my entire life via the Primal Blueprint, and have been transitioning toward a stricter, paleo approach to eating. I eat heartily of real, whole foods (including plenty of red meat and butter!), and exercise a few times a week. This is the transformation:
I'm actually reluctant to post the transformation photo; I've enjoyed some relief in the anonymity provided by my change in appearance...
The status quo I mentioned above has been enough to maintain my new, healthy weight. Another plus has been that by eliminating grains from my diet, I no longer have seasonal allergies to boot.
But it's time to take it to the next level. I look damn scrawny in the latest photo. I can do pushups all day and run a 5k any time, but I want better body composition. It is my goal, with the encouragement of the Superhuman50, to burn through that last bit of subcutaneous fat around my middle and build up my upper body's lean mass. I want to have well-defined musculature. I want to be Captain America, goshdarnit!
In fifty days, I will post another photo and we'll see what I will accomplish.
Everyone who participates in the Superhuman50 fills out their own personal goal sheet, including their goals, foods to avoid, and foods to include more of in daily intake. Mine looks like this:
The note about sitting might seem odd, but now that I'm about of school and catching up on a lot of personal written projects, I can easily get lost in a train of thought (seewhatididthere?) and go hours at a time without budging from my desk. Sitting isn't good for the body, and I need to spend more time working upright when possible. And yes, that is what she said.
What I love about LivingSuperhuman, and why I encourage everyone to check out their website, is that the Frezzas are incredibly encouraging in their advice and approach to overall health. They espouse paleo nutrition 99% of the time, but they also freely acknowledge that indulgences are not something to be criticized and posted on some sort of scorecard. A "cheat day" now and again is necessary to stay sane, and on that point alone they rise high above some of the more dogmatic health and nutrition writers. They want all their readers to embrace life to the fullest at every level of existence, from the physical to the emotional. I'm excited to participate in this latest project.
So, will you join the Superhuman50? Don't wait another second!
External Links:
The Superhuman50 Goal Sheet - LivingSuperhuman
Standing Desk: Its Benefits and History - Art of Manliness
Warrior Dash and the joy of common purpose.
In retrospect, I regret having spent so much of my life in solitary pursuits. It's simply my personality that I do my best work and think most clearly when I work alone, but I regret having allowed the desire to "work better" to infiltrate everything that I do. I don't believe in doing anything halfway, so it just never made sense to allow myself to be hindered or distracted. I love to meet with people for lunch, coffees or dinner, just to pass the time and enjoy simple conversations, but environments where my work is dependent on another person's involvement have always been frustrating to me. As such, I've always been one to drive alone, work alone, and often play alone. It's not good to spend so much time inside your own head. Over the past few years, I've been reminded of how wonderful it can be to spend time with people for a common purpose. India, certainly has given me multiple experiences of pure, unadulterated joy at what I have seen and assisted in accomplishing when working with a group of people for a common purpose. I also experienced it more recently in my excursion with my friend Jeff to Warrior Dash.
Warrior Dash is a 5K obstacle course. It has whetted my appetite for bigger things...like Tough Mudder. I can't wait.