B.A.M.F Athletics

Hey kids,

Welcome to the B.A.M.F Athletics B.A.M.F 30.

What is it? It’s a 30-day strict Paleo intervention to strip out all the nonsense you eat, based on the Whole9 Whole30, which is based on Robb Wolf’s 30 day challenge, which is based on pure common sense.

First off, check out the Whole30 rules.

Here’s an excerpt:

More importantly, here’s what NOT to eat during the duration of your Whole30 program. Omitting all of these foods and beverages will help you regain your healthy metabolism, reduce systemic inflammation, and help you discover how these foods are truly impacting your health, fitness and quality of life.

• Do not consume added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Read your labels, because companies sneak sugar into products in all kinds of ways.

• Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, pre-packaged snacks/meals, protein bars, milk substitutes, etc.

• Do not drink alcohol, in any form.

• Do not eat grains. This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, millet, oats, corn, rice, sprouted grains and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa. (Yes, we said corn!) This also includes all the ways we add wheat, corn and rice into our foods in the form of bran, germ, starch and so on. Again, read your labels.

• Do not eat legumes. This includes beans (black, kidney, lima, etc.), peas, lentils, and peanuts or peanut butter. This also includes all forms of soy – soy sauce, miso, tofu, tempeh, edamame, and all the ways we sneak soy into foods (like lecithin).

• Do not eat dairy. This includes all cow, goat or sheep’s milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt, whey, ice cream, etc.

• Do not eat white potatoes. It’s arbitrary, but they are carbohydrate-dense and nutrient poor, and also a nightshade.

• Most importantly… do not try to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold. This means no “Paleo-fying” less-than-healthy recipes – no “Paleo” pancakes, “Paleo” pizza, “Paleo” fudge or “Paleo” ice cream. Don’t mimic poor food choices during your Whole30 program!

One last and final rule. You are not allowed to step on the scale for the duration of your Whole30 program. This is about so much more than just weight loss, and to focus only on your body composition means you’ll miss out on the most dramatic (and lifelong) benefits this plan has to offer. Give yourself a well-deserved, long overdue break from fixating on that number on the scale! Absolutely NO weighing yourself or taking comparative measurements during your Whole30.

Read the full document and get your head around it. Or, if you’re a pervert, download the PDF.

Next, here’s some little extras for the B.A.M.F 30 (#BAMF30 on Twitter)

The way I feel, the Whole30 doesn’t go quite far enough, so let’s see how hard you can test yourself with the following:

• Completely avoid eating nuts of any kind. Need fat? Enjoy the fat on the meat you eat, the fat you cook in and AVOCADOS. Here’s an awesome breakdown from Diane at Balance Bites (danger it’s a PDF) – Fats & Oils.

• Completely avoid caffeinated drinks. Everything should be decaf. Knock that stupid habit on the head. If you must drink coffee (like me) find some tasty decaf. It exists. Hell, I can’t tell the difference in Starbucks any more. You can get green tea, black tea, white tea and coffee all decaffeinated. It’s awesome.

• Avoid chicken and pork as much as possible. Now, this might sound MENTAL, but there is a very large quantity of N-6 (Omega 6) in chicken (especially chicken skin) and pork (especially pork fat). Grass eating animals are a much better way to go. Now, we’re on a budget, I realise that. When in the supermarket just try to aim for meats that are *more likely* to be eating grass than grain. Lamb is a great one. Beef is next in line. If you must eat chicken, discard that skin. Pork? Trim off all the fat you can see and bolster it with some healthy fats if need be.

• Mix it up. Don’t just fucking buy broccoli. Get adventurous. Oven bake some kale with olive oil and salt. Fry brussels sprouts in coconut oil after part-steaming them so they are crunchy and interesting rather that soggy and sulphuric. Google your ass off when you buy a new cut of meat or some crazy type of veg and create an interesting meal.

• Completely avoid fruit juices of any kind. You may as well drink coke. Check out Dr. Robert Lustig’s 89 minute talk on fructose.

• Avoid fruit. You don’t need to eat fruit. There are all the vitamins you need in meat and vegetables (see below for carbs).

• Stop taking stupid supplements. With the exception of:
  • Vitamin D
  • Fermented Cod Liver Oil
  • Fish Oil
  • Magnesium
  • Iodine
  • BCAA’s

I may have missed some out, but you get the idea. Nobody needs protein shakes.

Questions and caveats:

• Need more carbs? (metconoholics and endurance athletes) – eat more ROOT tubers. Not stem tubers. ROOT TUBERS. Yams. Sweet potatoes. That kind of thing.

• Have a strength meet / competition coming up and need to gain / maintain large mass? Have some post workout (PWO) goat’s milk, raw if possible. Shit’s ANABOLIC. You’re supposed to have no dairy whatsoever. This is the only allowable window and reason to do so – if you are prepping for a comp or on a mass gain cycle ONLY. I call this The Power Athlete Caveat.

• Got kids / family / no time? Oh grow up. So does Sarah Fragoso, and she manages to write a blog, run a podcast and WRITE A BOOK over at Every Day Paleo.

That about wraps it up I think. Any questions, get them asked on the site. Let’s DO THIS.

Craig.

So,

For the past few months I’ve been formulating the idea of having a kind of pilot scheme for those of us wanting to alter their diet for the better, or at least get a better understanding of the withertos and the whyfors that may convince us to make change.

I’ve said previously that I have been working with Robb Wolf‘s help on getting some information together that would be slightly more relevant to us UK-dwellers. This information is split into theoretical and practical, and should be available before too long (I hope).  When I say I’ve been formulating this idea for the past few months, I mean it. The fact that I haven’t actually written anything down is a mere bagatelle.  I am still in what can only be described as the planning stage.  It’s all diagrams and words with circles round them – in my head.

Once I get everything figured out, there will be some kind of newsletter – much like this one – that you can subscribe to.  It’ll probably last a month to six weeks and be a kind of linear progression through the elementary to the hardcore of Paleo.  Note that this will be Neo-Paleo not trad Paleo.  What I mean by that is, you are allowed to use toilets, wear clothes and buy food rather than hunt it down or gather it.  There are people out there that before looking at the recommendations cast it aside due to their misconception that we are throwing out any kind of neolithic foods. Not so. Olive oil we use, for example.

Anyway, this is just a heads up to see if anyone is interested. I’ll probably be rolling it out at my place of work too. If you’d like to be a guinea pig by sticking to the plan, writing an account of the experience and providing before / after shots & bodyweight measurements, you may get a nice free thing, dependent on how skint I am at the time of writing. Just email BAMF@BAMFathletics.com to show me you’re up for it.

Stay Badassed.

Craig.

So,

It’s quite obviously been a while.  There is a fairly sensible reason for this.  Having a full-time job, an actual life, my own training and part-time other jobs, means that I am not afforded the luxury of giving CFG / B.A.M.F Athletics the attention it deserves. Here are some questions you may be asking, and hopefully some answers:

Q: Why the name change?

A: Well, there are a number of reasons…

1. It seemed unfair to completely land-grab all of Glasgow for anyone who would be hoping to make a legit business out of it.  I realise that this shouldn’t really matter, but CrossFit isn’t (likely) going to disappear, so for anyone wishing to open a gym or start training people, those looking for CrossFit in Glasgow would likely hit Davie or my  site first. Were it all a big competitive business, this would be fair enough, but right now, I have no premises or time.  This precludes BAMF Athletics from being ‘a business’, and I don’t want to hobble anyone with a box right out of the gate.
2. I am a free thinker.  The CrossFit methodology has opened the flood gates for thousands of like-minded coaches and trainees to get busy in small boxes all over the world, but this methodology isn’t perhaps the best for everyone.  To that end, all of my Omega-3 Enriched eggs are not in the CrossFit basket.  There is too much to be said for Strength & Olympic Lifting training, periodisation, recovery and eating an unrestricted Paleo diet rather than weighing and measuring in a Zone Diet style. To this end, the CrossFit name gets to play second fiddle to being a BAMF.

Q: What’s your plan for BAMF Athletics?

A: The aim is to create some kind of training hub for us all.  Somewhere to check in or get advice without having to pay for it*. Here’s how it breaks down:

1. Coaching: Either by phone (you call me), email or in a gym (see below).
2. Training together: This could work if you’re a member of Fitness First on the South Side (of Glasgow) or can pay / sign me in to your local gym. That way you can receive coaching or we can train together and all it costs you is the price of my getting, and access to, the place itself.
3. Nutrition advice / support: I’m working closely with Robb Wolf to put together a nice bit of UK relevant information on how to start, maintain and thrive on a Paleo Diet. Note that I have no official qualifications regarding dietary advice (if I did, they would be useless anyway), so my recommendations come without cost.
4. Store: There will be a store at some point that will sell books & clothing that will help you become more of a Bad-Assed-Mo-Fo.  Sound good?

Q: I’ve been trying to contact you and have heard nothing back.  What’s with that?

A: Aye, sorry about that.  Basically, having a full time job, along with moving servers means I have either got limited time to answer, then forget, or your emails were lost in the move.  Over the next couple of weeks email will be back up and running, but until that point, I’m going to be in a somewhat ‘dark’ period in terms of comms. Bear with it.

Q: What’s your timeline for getting all this sorted?

A: When I get around to it.  The project is ongoing and will be unfolding slowly this year.

*Q: And you’re not going to charge for anything?

A: To clarify, if you want me to train (/with) you, I reckon it would be fair to only reimburse money for travelling expenses and any gym fees etc.  It would also be very kind – but not necessary – were you to donate some money to the BAMF Athletics PayPal / Flattr (if Flattr ever gets going) account, it would be very much appreciated.

Q: How do I get in contact with you while you’re doing all this stuff?

A: Simple. Just holler BAMF@bamfathletics.com. You’ll get an auto-response to let you know it’s landed and I’ll get to you when possible. You can also both follow me, and BAMF Athletics on Twitter.

Hope that is enough for you guys to go on.  Go eat, train and stay Bad Assed.

Craig – BAMF Athletics.