What are the 5 Best CrossFit Diet Plans of the Year?

CrossFit is currently one of the most popular fitness trends. People are addicted to the way they feel during and after the work out sessions. CrossFit uses high-intensity interval training, weightlifting, powerlifting, gymnastics, calisthenics and other types of high-intensity exercises. Its followers use dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells, pull up bars, jump ropes and even other equipment like tractor tires and ropes to tone and create a strong physique.

Injury can happen if you are not careful and you do not have a good CrossFit diet plan. There are special diets out there to help obtain your peak performance. Here is what I came up with.

1. The Zone Diet

Many have heard of the Zone Diet, but not everyone knows exactly how to use it. On the CrossFit Impulse web page, you can read in detail more about this diet (http://crossfitimpulse.com/the-zone-diet-explained-edited/). First, look at the quality of the food, then balance your portions of carbs/protein/fat intake. It has a PDF on the site to help you figure out which Zone you should be in and it is all color-coded to make it simpler for you to follow.

The Zone Diet also keeps your hormones under control by balancing them which helps with your body composition, energy utilization, blood chemistry and so much more. This all has to do with the food you feed your body. Your body is a temple and the Zone Diet believes it feeds your temple properly.

The meals are designed in blocks. On this site Pink is for Protein, Blue is for Carbohydrate and Green is Fat. One block meal is one from each category, the two-block meal is two items from each category and so on. Depending on your body type, there is a chart that tells you how many blocks you should be eating for your meals and snacks. With this diet, you are eating 5 times a day!

It is also important to know that for every block you must have 7 grams of protein. Here is what a 2 block meal looks like:

Not exactly very appetizing, but the diet is designed for good food for your body.

2. Paleo Diet

Nerd Fitness is a site designed for people who know zilch about fitness and healthy living. Steve, the man who runs the site nfitnesss.com, states that basically the Paleo Diet and CrossFit go together like peanut butter and jelly.

The Paleo Diet is also called the Caveman Diet. Simply put you eat what the cavemen had during their existence. On thepaleodiet.com, there is a list of do’s and don’ts when it comes to foods.

We also have an infographic about what to eat on the Paleo diet. If you are just getting started with this plan, this will help you along.

Eat

Don’t Eat

This is probably the simplest diet to follow since there are no blocks, just yes and no foods. Some foods are easy to swap, and you may already do them. Personally, I always use spaghetti squash over pasta. It’s lighter and has more flavor and it does not bloat you. That’s just one of the recommendations from Dr. Cordain who has come up with simple meals to make with the diet.

Free-range egg scramble with olive oil and chopped parsley. Fresh fruit and herbal tea. (Stay away from coffee and other caffeinated beverages)
For a snack have sliced lean beef, fresh fruit.
Lunch is a salad with chicken in an olive oil and lemon dressing.
Your second snack can be something like apple slices with raw, unsalted walnuts.
Dinner can be tomato and avocado, skinless turkey that has been grilled, steamed vegetables, a bowl of fresh fruit and almonds, water.

You probably noticed that this is a very strict diet. You are allowed to have 3 non-Paleo meals a week that include alcohol.

3. Danielle Sidell’s Diet

Danielle Sidell was interviewed for the site theathleticbuild.com since she is a popular CrossFit athlete. She wanted to be thin rather than healthy looking because she was so involved in track and field. She has a much more healthy appetite.

You can find a video of her on YouTube showing her weekly grocery shopping trip:

Vegetables are just fillers and she said she stays away from spinach because of her stomach.

Her coach came up with a formula to make her think about what she puts in her diet; even just one cookie or a twizzle. She sticks to lean meats, plenty of bananas and lots of eggs.

On her CrossFit informational page, she states that “it’s all about the science! I eat what has been proven to fuel my body the best”. She is an athlete who knows to listen to her body rather than listen to a diet program or a lifestyle change. Danielle eats for fuel, so she can do her passion for CrossFit.

4. Brook Ence’s Diet

Brook Ence is a CrossFit athlete and her videos are amazing. In this video below, she shows us her day to day diet routine.

This goes against some of the other diet plans. She is eating processed mean and cereal grains. She states the other diets just did not work for her. She counts her macro and met her needs and that was how she saw results.

She does not skip the caffeine. She has a protein shake a day and stays hydrated with plenty of water. She listens to her body and not what other diet plans say she should be eating.

5. Ketogenic Diet

Yet another low carb, high protein diet. It is supposed to help with a metabolic change going from burning carbs to burning fat fuels. The site http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/ketogenic-diet-plan.html explains it best.

The diet actually comes with a list of medical conditions that may not be suitable for the diet. For instance, those with a history of kidney failure or gastric bypass surgery should not go on the diet. You should also be healthy prior to start a low carb diet. It is not a fit for everyone, but this diet plan works for some.

Unlike with the Paleo Diet, Ketogenic Diet plan is similar to the Zone Diet where you use percentages to figure out how much of something you are allowed. The plan allows 70-75% of the calories from fat, 20-25% from protein and 5-10% from carbohydrates. You do not need to count actual calories, but where the calories came from.

This is a recipe for one of the Ketogenic Diet recipes from http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/chicken-salad-recipes.html:

It’s simple and basic and probably has more flavor than food found in the Paleo and zone diet. This diet seems to allow more foods but is strict on the way the carbohydrates are counted.

Conclusion

There are numerous diet plans out there, but I included two people to show that you can modify the diets to make them work for you.

The Paleo Diet is the strictest with foods that you are allowed to eat while the Zone Diet and the Ketogenic Diet require their users to look at nutritional labels to see the carbohydrate ratio with fat and protein.

Then the Zone Diet requires you to stick to a certain amount of calories or blocks, and the Ketogenic Diet allows unlimited calories so long as you are following the plan.

With all the plans foods like pasta, rice and bread are all off-limits. The Paleo Diet does allow a cheat meal, but a glass of wine counts as that.

Pick and choose from the above diets to see which fits you and your lifestyle. Some allow dairy while others do not. It is difficult to be vegetarian or vegan with these diets. That is not to say they would not be found while participating in CrossFit.