Hey Y’all! After the Reno Nutrition Cert tomorrow I will be on vacation until the 22nd. going to Little Corn Island in Nicaragua…we MAY come back. Maybe not. Happy Holidays and if you havea question in the comments I’ll do my best to get to it before we leave tomorrow. 
Robb Wolf is a former research biochemist and 2X New York Times/Wall Street Journal Best-selling author of The Paleo Solution and Wired To Eat. Along with Diana Rodgers, he co-authored the book, Sacred Cow, which explains why well-raised meat is good for us and good for the planet. Robb has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world via his top-ranked iTunes podcast, books, and seminars. He also co-founded the 1st and 4th CrossFit affiliate gyms in the world, The Healthy Rebellion community platform, and is the co-founder of DrinkLMNT Electrolytes.
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Just googled Little Corn Island. SO COOL!(and reasonably priced) You’re probably having a great time right now. I might have to pay little corn a visit sometime. Where did you stay on the island?
Stayed at “Farm Peach Love”. Sounds hippy, but it was phenomenal. Just keep in mind that his is NOT a pampered resort location. It is beautiful, remote and still a little wild. It is a fairly involved process to get there and NOT for the faint of heart! That said, I’m already planning a return trip.
Hey Robb, love the site and I’m learning a ton. I just have one question for you and if you can’t get to it before your vacation then no worries. Anyway, I do my WODs in the early morning (6:30am class). My question is: should I eat something before then? And if so, what? Based on your advice, I’m going with the yams/sweet potatoes after the WOD, which seems to be working great. I definitely get hungry during the workout if I don’t eat anything.
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Rob-
Really depends on how you currently feel and perform. I find I can not eat a thing before a Met-con…I do fine with food prior to strength work. Really depends on what you are up to (goals) and how you are wired. Always err on the side of feeling good and better performance.
Wow…is this where you are going? Enjoy and post some more pics. It looks like I’ll have to put this on the list of places to go.
I had a question about low carb and sleeping. I know you advocate sleeping plenty, however when I consume carbs in the form of whole grains during the day I tend to sleep 9-10 hours, but when I consume paleo style I tend to sleep 5-7 hours. Sometimes on paleo I have horrible insomnia not being able to sleep until 5 am, but on whole grains this never happens. However, I have never stuck with paleo longer than three days due to this reason. Is it possible that I would adjust to sleeping well on paleo if I just stuck it out for a couple weeks? Also, would you recommend I right off the bat use fruit and sweet potato to help me since I seem to sleep better with the carbs? I am a high level athlete who trains 10+ hours a week (gymnast and weights primarily, with some cardio). I also have Lupus (SLE) if that is a factor. My main complaints are sluggish GI tract, skin rashes, joint pain, and fatigue. Thanks for all that you do.
Gina!
Paleo need not mean low carb! Many people get a very potent glucagon response from low carb…this can be stimulating and could certainly disturb sleep. Drop in the yams/SP’s as you would your grains…you should see an improvement in the Lupus…I’d be shocked if you did not.
Let me know how it goes!
Robb,
I just wanted to send you a note saying thanks from Lynnwood CrossFit, 5 people out of our gym came down to your nutrition cert in Reno and they all came back raving! Motivated to try new things, got new ideas for their clients and themselves, and personally after reading the fasting article I’m excited to stop my chronic glycolysis and self-select more stress resistant cells 🙂
Thanks
Jesse and Crew
Jesse!
Thanks for the kind words! I think you guys were just jazzed from winning big in the casinos! 😉
Hey Robb,
I have a question about sleep/performance studies. Long story short as possible. I’m a medical student in the Air Force and the question is about another Sergeant that I crossfit with. This guy is a big guy who started SS in august and has seen great gains in the last 4 months. He eats strict Paleo, but added milk for the program and gained 21 lbs. He did all this while working a permanent night shift and going to school at the same time. He is 75″ and now weighs 256 lbs. The problem is that on the first of December, his commander had him do the AF Pt test three months ahead of schedule. He failed his run time and said it was do to the fact that one he hadn’t been running/body wasn’t used to carrying all that weight and he has been complaining lately(1.5 months) that do to his lack of sleep, he feel like crap all the time and even his SS numbers plateau in November. His unit is mad at him because it obviously doesn’t look good to have a failure and because they think he isn’t trying hard enough or something like that, because he looks like he’s in good shape. He is requesting to go back to a regular day shift because he feels “sick” and that when he retests in 42 days, he would do fine. Well, his leadership went to the flight surgeon and asked him if working nights would effect him like he said. The Doc said “No it would not”, and there are no studies to support that working night shifts affects physical/aerobic performance. This guy isn’t looking to challenge anything and just wants to feel better, but I was just wondering about any specific studies do that refute this ridiculous stand these doc share. He said he really didn’t feel that much negative effects until about 8 months of the night schedule. thanks for your time and have a great vacation.
Nic
Nic-
One thing I think is clear: gaining weight without some continuation of aerobic/anaerobic activity is a tough way to ace o0r pass the PFT. If your friend had simply done 5x200m sprints one day per week and 3x400m on another dya he would have been fine on the PFT and it would not have dramatically impacted his mass gain/strength efforts.
The sleep piece is certainly a factor. I tracked a few things down with a quick search:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/n545665j444l610j/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0P-4M69JR7-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=75aef6a4f2bdcca310ff5fa70eff594f
It’s going to be tough to “prove” the sleep is an issue, but it’s obviously a factor. Growth requires rest…you friend may need to consider a maintenance program (crossfit) and shift focus so he can have as much of ALL the attributes he needs/wants.
Hey Robb! I’m back for more insight and information!
So I’ve been low carbing by the seat of my pants for a while, and i feel great, but I’m wondering if I should start having a carb up day every 3-5 days, so I have a couple questions about it.
If I am feeling great with low carb all the time, is a carb up day still a good idea?
And on carb up days, how little/much protein should I eat if I normally have between 150-200gs?
Thanks for the continual nutritional help.
Hunter-
I honestly do not know. I tend to feel great on low carb, shitty after my carb up’s but I do it so I can have the glycolytic based activity I need (crossfit, jits etc). I tend to just go by feel and put these carbs at the end of a WO. As to protein cycling: I think it’s a great idea to mix that up but I really do not have a set formula for that. Cut it in half some days…but 3x other days. See how you feel. I remember Shaf posted a study looking at putting most of your days protein in the PWO meal… interesting idea that but I’ve not messed with it much.
Keep me posted!
Enjoy the break man. You’ve earned it.
Sounds like you had a great vacation Robb. Your weather there looks alot better than what we have been having up here in Portland.
Anton