Using CrossFit’s Methodology to Change your Nutrition Mindset

How we can use CrossFit’s definition of “health” to expand our mindset surrounding food.

Every day I see people in the gym who are trying to make the best choices to best support their fitness and health. In our world of aggressive marketing and noise that influencers create, it is nearly impossible to sort out the BS from the reality. Nutrition as a science is incredibly complex and confusing which makes it incredibly easy to manipulate data and show that any product works. But eating is incredibly simple.

CrossFit has provided a definition of health that can act as a simple guide to any questions you might have. CrossFit’s Level 1 Manual defines “ fitness “ as work capacity across broad time and modal domains. Or simply, the ability to do work in various forms and across any time frame. CrossFit expands on this topic by stating that “health” is fitness across your lifespan. Thus the idea of health and being healthy is about making decisions that will increase your ability to do work.

So, why does this apply to nutrition? 

Well, the way we fuel our bodies should be determined by what will most increase work capacity. For some, eating to lose weight will aid them on their path of gaining capacity in gymnastics movements. Where others will need to fuel in a way to gain muscle to improve their strength movements. Still, others will need to eat to allow themselves to complete longer time domains and others short time domains.

When looking at the foods you want to eat, it is less important to ask “Is this food healthy?” than it is to ask “How does this food contribute to my goals?”.

I find that this shift can free mental space to experience food, without the overwhelming fear of being “unhealthy”.