Coach Sarah on "The Game Changers"
“The Game Changers” keeps hitting my feed in real life and on the interwebs, so Rob and I watched it in order to form our own opinion.
You might be surprised, but I didn’t actually hate it. Despite the producer being heavily invested in plant-based protein powder (making me question his motives), and taking some liberties with the way the “scientific evidence” is presented, I thought it made some great points about the advantages of a “primarily” plant-based diet.
As a brief background, providing my own personal anecdote, after a lifetime of being 10-20 pounds heavier than I wanted to be, I started eating Paleo in 2010 and essentially never looked back, although I’ve been varying degrees of compliant as my priorities have shifted in the years since. Removing added sugars, dairy, grains (especially those containing gluten) and seed oils from my diet resulted in the “body and performance I’d always wanted” without feeling like I was on a diet. I had found a lifestyle that for me was enjoyable, effective and practically effortless. This is the type of eating plan I think everyone should be striving to find: something that works and feels good to them.
I credit these results with shifting to a primarily plant-based diet, honestly. I replaced the majority of the junk calories I was eating with much more nutrient-dense, bioavailable fruits and vegetables, and much higher-quality (unprocessed) meats, and as a result looked, felt, and performed much better.
I believe nutrition boils most simply down to two things: food quality and food quantity.
We’ll get to meat in a moment, but as it relates to quality, shifting to a primarily plant-based diet which is composed of a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, tubers, nuts, seeds, and even legumes and minimally processed (possibly gluten-free) grains is arguably a very high quality diet. This is quite different from a diet of chips & french fries, vegan “cheese”, plant-based cookies, etc. Both diets could be plant-based, but the results from each would be likely to vary widely.
As it relates to quantity, people should eat enough, but not too much (which is a subject all its own). However much you eat in total, the distribution of calories should be fairly even between protein, fat, and carbohydrates. The ideal ratios vary by individual, and depend on body type and activity level, but in general they don’t vary THAT much. People should consume roughly 25-55% Carb, 25-35% Protein, and 20-40% Fat. As anyone who has tracked macros knows, this is a very wide range, and I think macro tracking is a pretty intense lifestyle commitment, and one that I wouldn’t recommend for the vast majority of people hoping to just get healthier.
That said, I think being aware of roughly how much food is needed daily to get the minimum amount of each macronutrient is a helpful exercise:
Eating less than 25% of your calories from carbohydrates (think 150g of carbs, or 600 calories from carbs in a 2400 cal diet), is likely to result in feeling a lack of stamina and energy in workouts. This is roughly 6 bananas, roughly 3 cups of oatmeal or rice, or 6 cups of sweet potato per day. An athlete on a fast food, processed diet is likely getting too much fat, so an increase in carbs could result in notably improved performance.
Athletes need at the very least 0.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight, and most will benefit from 0.75g per pound. Those who work out quite a bit, especially at high intensity, may even need up to 1g per pound of bodyweight (although I don’t believe that amount is often necessary for the average CrossFitter). For a 150 pound person, this would be between 75 and 112g of protein, which would be roughly 12-18 oz of cooked chicken breast (370-600 calories, including a minimal amount of fat), 4-6 cups of lentils (920-1380 calories, including roughly 70% carbs), or 30-45 cups of broccoli (who cares how many calories….). Again here, an athlete on a modern American diet is likely not getting enough protein to support lean mass and muscle recovery, so supplementing with protein of any source (necessary, I would argue for a plant-based athlete) would likely improve recovery and ability to sustain high training volume.
For most of us, eating enough fat requires less focus than the above two, but for completeness, eating at least 20% of your calories from fat in a 2400 calorie diet would be 480 fat calories, or 53 grams of fat. This is equivalent to just over 6 tablespoons of almond or peanut butter, roughly two avocados, one ribeye steak, or 4 tablespoons of olive oil. A fast-food athlete is likely consuming far too much processed oil, resulting in increased systemic inflammation and less ability to recover. Shifting to a Paleo or unprocessed plant-based diet would have material impact here as well.
Striving to get at least 70-80% of your calories (carbohydrates and fat) from plants is a very reasonable goal, and that’s generally the target for fat and carbohydrates for most people, including for athletes. With this type of diet, based primarily on plants, a person will have eaten some protein, but a drawback of entirely plant-based eating is that without being fairly disciplined (or supplementing with protein), the carb ratio can easily shift well upwards of 55%, or, in the case of protein from broccoli, physical stomach capacity can become a real issue. To be fair, a drawback of Paleo is that it can be easy for the fat ratio to shift upwards of 50%. In both cases, getting enough protein to support lean body mass, especially for athletes, can require focus.
Thus, thoughtful protein selection, both for Paleo and plant-based eaters, is a necessary component of optimizing performance and health. For plant-based eaters, this often means supplementing with plant-based protein powders, but attention is needed here regarding possible chemical additives, sweeteners, pesticide contamination and the potential health effects of GMO foods. For Paleo eaters, as a starting point this means humanely raised, organic, grass-fed, pasture raised beef, free range chicken, and wild-caught fish. The problem in our modern society is that these words, once meaningful, are often used incorrectly for marketing, and that the market for these products is too small to support affordable pricing (especially in the face of government grain subsidies). Many athletes also supplement with Whey protein, which is neither plant-based, nor Paleo, however it is a cost-effective source of concentrated protein. Whey protein supplements face the same challenges as plant-proteins as far as sweeteners and additives, and animal proteins as far as sustainability in agricultural methods and quality of life for the animal.
So, to me this basically boils down to being as thoughtful as possible about your food choices, and doing what seems right to you. If it feels right to take vitamins (B12 and Iron would be the most likely deficiencies on an entirely plant-based diet) and supplement with protein powder, and if your health markers and performance improve, that seems like a great choice to me. If it feels right to eat a lot of plants and also some high quality, unprocessed protein, and if your health markers and performance improves, that also seems like a great choice to me. Choosing an eating pattern that feels right, meets your health and performance needs, and is sustainable for you is great. But, don’t blindly buy into the hype of a movie that’s a thinly veiled commercial for the producer’s investment in plant-based protein powder.
WOD For 11-25-19:
3-Position Squat Clean (hip/high hang, knees, floor):
1-1-1-1-1
-then-
For Time:
15-12-9
Squat Cleans @ 185/125 lbs
100-75-50
Double Unders