Some people feel justified in cheating on their rest day, i.e. eating an entire cheesecake or the like. I'm not sure why but if were a betting man I would associate it with fallacious reasoning. I've done it myself, not only telling but believing the lies that the cheesecake is somehow making me stronger or that I have a refined sugar deficiency and it's necessary to shock the system in order to get it to work better or my favorite is that my system isn't used to this type of food and will discard it almost immediately. I invite you to search the scholarly journals and find corroborating evidence. There is none.
By giving your body the time to rest it is more important than ever to give it the tools it needs to take advantage of the rest and repair itself. This is why nutrition is just as, if not more, important on the rest day. Some times 48 hours between training sessions isn't enough even if you do eat right but by eating wrong you might as well not rest. There is a vast difference between pure rest and relative rest. Pure rest should be therapeutic and serve a purpose whereas relative rest is generally a default to bad planning or uncertainty. If you are pushing yourself to the limit then playing a sport like jiu-jitsu or similar is not a rest day. It's a day you didn't do crossfit but rest assured your body is still in alert. You should be so in tune with your body that you know when to rest and when to go. A three on/one off or any other configuration is only a guide. Nothing says that exercise programming can be so exactly synchronized. Sometimes two on/one off is better yet four on/one off may be even better. Rest depends on many different factors such as rest, nutrition, hormonal levels, mood, and level of fitness among others. The best practice is to, as Socrates so poignantly stated, "know thyself." More importantly, however, is that you don't believe the soft and fuzzy lies that lead to the dietary sabotage that make the difference between success and failure.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Amen! Been Zoning for 33 days, 2block meals, one block snacks, feel amazing and performing 100% better. I have been eating the same types of food, but the portions and the timing are crucial. Honestly I have cheated and used the exact same rationale you just described "well if Im craving it, my body must need it." I cheated big time after the first week and had a few slices of pizza... I thought I was going to slip into a diabetic coma... my blood sugar spiked and then dropped... carb crash! I felt terrible... and since then it has definitely been a lot easier to avoid delicious/evil food remembering how awful it made me feel... Sugar Busters has also served as a useful tool to help keep me from trying to legitimize straying over to the dark side.
ReplyDeleteGood post, especially considering the gluttonous holidays that are right around the corner...
Sherry
It doesn't make it any easier to live in a society where submission to the litany of degenerative subliminal suggestions is almost a prerequisite. Then again, if it was easy it wouldn't be worth the effort. The truth behind the smoke and mirrors that has everyone hypnotized will never make headlines and if it does then it's too watered down. The real deal is too much for people to digest, literally and figuratively. If everyone endeavored to do things "right" then we would experience economic collapse. The agro industry would turn upside down, doctors would be out of work, pharmaceutical companies would go under, people would lose so much weight that the earth would possibly spin out of orbit, moods would be elevated from the mire, and the environment would regain its lost health. This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. What does all this mean? In a world blinded by the rich luster of the almighty sugar crystal (now in the form of corn syrup) it provides ample opportunity for hard-hitting knuckle draggers to get ahead.
ReplyDelete