What is up and welcome back to the talk and nutrition podcast. Today is actually episode 114 and we're going to talk about the CrossFit Open, how to fuel for it, how to get the most out of your training and your workouts. Because this time of the year, I always get a bunch of questions related to performance because we have a bunch of people. I mean, our client base is really anything from like starting your fitness journey, right? We have people who are just, you know, getting into the gym for the first time even with us, right? We have people losing weight, building muscle, those kind of things. We have a couple of runners as well. However, we have a bunch of CrossFitters who mostly just want to perform. And I think that is amazing. And either way, right, even with people who have fat loss goals, muscle gain, those kinds of things, I do always like having someone of like a performance kind of goal every now and then at least, right? And we shouldn't just be focusing on the skill, depending on kind of like what season you're in, there should be a time. where you really wanna kinda test your fitness and it can be done in multiple ways. And I think the CrossFit Open is really cool for that because it allows you to see how you do compared to last year, how you do compared to maybe your friends. And that's really how you wanna see this to be honest with you, a friendly competition. Now, before we dive into the episode, do me a massive favor. If you like the podcast and you haven't yet, go to Spotify or Apple. drop us a quick five star rating. It takes like five seconds. You can literally do it right now. As I'm talking, you don't have to pause it, whatever. You open the app, you go to the very top, it'll say ratings. If you drop us a five star, it's, I mean, it's like a couple seconds and it actually does a whole lot for the show. And obviously we're gonna keep doing this free. There's no ads, no whatsoever, no interruptions, just helpful stuff. That being said, today we are gonna break down. a couple of mistakes to avoid during the CrossFit Open. We're also gonna get into Coca -Cola and Snickers, understanding the difference between top athletes and fueling for performance, eating for performance and health, because that's two different things. And also, again, by the way, like fat loss would again be something different. We're gonna talk about the nutrition essentials that you do wanna keep in mind. And by the way, this goes for like even, you know, not during the Open. Afterwards I keep those basics up, right? Then we will get into the CrossFit Open Fuel Plan, which is a not even download. It's just on my website. Go to my website, by the way, in our show notes. There's the link right under the description. You can go there. It's a free download. There's not even like, you know, email, whatever. I wanted this one just to be out there. So you can go to the website, go to the blog. It's linked in the description. You go there and you get a free PDF right there. you know, like I said, no email and stuff this time. I really just wanted to kind of like put this out and you know, have anyone who think they could benefit from it, you know, use it and try it. Because in my experience, a lot of crossfitters are not eating enough, they're not fueling enough. This can actually lead to some issues down the road. But okay, after the CrossFit Open Fuel Plan, we'll talk a little bit about hard work and what the actual hard work is. So let's get into it. Right? Because a lot of people think that the hard work is always just the workouts. Who can go the hardest? Who can show up to the gym as many times as possible? By the way, guys, you should probably not be training six times a week or sometimes even double days. There's a difference between you and the pro athlete who can actually get away with twice a day. But okay, I cannot assume here, but knowing my client base and our followers, there's a good chance you're not gonna make it to the CrossFit Games anyway, so see it as a test for your fitness. Because here's the thing, CrossFit Open is a very exciting time, and I've gone in and out of CrossFit myself all the way back in 2013, I think, yeah, that's what it was, 2013 to 14, I really got into it, and it's been on and off since then because I was always traveling and stuff, but either way, right? The Open is always a really fun time. It definitely comes with its highs and lows, victories, failures, hard lessons. It's a real test of character too, but it's very exciting. It's the ultimate test that shows you exactly where you're at. And it's where you can go hard and you really get to see on the leaderboard, where do I stand versus the world? Because there's so many people joining, which is really cool. It's also a test though of your nutrition and lifestyle because that's the stuff that's really actually going to unlock your performance. So you can train as hard as you want, but if your stress management, your nutrition, your sleep and those kinds of things are not taken care of, right? That's going to play into performance. So, and you know, as much as I'm currently not doing CrossFit myself, I do still kind of have that connection, you know, because I mean, first of all, we have a bunch of partners and a lot of clients who are CrossFitters. And you know, it's, it is where I started my coaching career. So I always kind of think back to those times, which I didn't really like coaching at the gym too. But that being said, that community feeling is probably the biggest part of CrossFit anyway, to be honest with you. But the same goes for the Open. It's doing hard shit together, right? That's the best part. You're testing your fitness, it's that friendly competition, but the cool thing and... This is something I haven't seen much in other sports. It's like everyone who participates is rooting for each other, is cheering each other on. And you know, everyone wants everyone to make it through that workout. And even if it's like one person left, they're all gonna be there cheering for that person. And that's something you don't see a lot. And that's really, really cool. Now here's the thing too though. It's like a 99 .9 % that you're not gonna make it to the CrossFit Games anyway. And that is okay. But it's just a hard truth and we do need to understand that. So that's actually gonna take a little bit of pressure off of you. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do your best by the way, you absolutely should. But I want you to look at the CrossFit Open as the ultimate test to see where you are currently at compared to the old you. So don't beat yourself up when you, you know, in quotes, mess up because you can either try again or you can learn from your failures because that's the lesson, right, for next time. If I notice, hey, I struggle with my bar muscle ups. Guess what I'm going to be doing after the open. Not during, after, right? Because you're not going to like rush and just master it, you know, muscle ups. It's like, okay, we then have, what is it? You know, 49 other weeks in the year where you can hone in, you know, and work on your skills basically. So that's how you want to, you know, use that feedback. I think last episode or two episodes ago, I talked about using bad days as good data. Like that's how you want to approach this stuff. Whatever you're going to feel, right? Whichever movement, workout, whatever it is, whatever weakness that pops up, use that as good data so that during the rest of the year, you're going to be able to train that, you know, because we always, this goes to, you know, this goes into people doing the class and then working out by themselves, which. Usually it's not a great idea and I made that mistake myself, right? I've been there, but a lot of times you got to choose the things that you kind of like and you're already good at, but guess what you should be doing instead? It's the stuff you kind of don't want to do. It's the stuff that you're bad at because only then can you work in your weaknesses, which just will bring your overall skill level and fitness level way up. Now that being said, like I said, I've made my mistakes too and there's definitely... You know, some frustration sometimes, you know, you see sometimes people get really heated during those workouts when you cannot get that movement, that lift or whatever it is. And it makes sense. You want to do your best. But I remember specifically when I was doing open years ago and I got annoyed, you know, I was frustrated because I just didn't feel good. You know, I couldn't get it. It just wasn't my day. And then my coach told me like, just have fun. Just go have fun. And that is exactly what the open is about. Yes to absolutely doing your best, going hard. And yes to bringing up your inner competitor. but a big fucking yes to just having a good time, putting in good work, testing your actual character, right? Being okay, sucking at some things, because hey, guess what? We all have our weaknesses, but just see it as that friendly competition that you get to do with your friends. Like how fun is it anyway, right? It is fun, it should be fun. So that being said, where's your character at? Like... How much inner work do you need to do during your off season, your pre -season to then do better during your next workouts? And I'm talking like next year, right? Now, that being said, like I said, we will be discussing some basics and stuff, the Coca -Cola thing, a couple of other things, but if you wanna see the actual CrossFit Open Fuel Plan that I created for you, it's on the website, go in the description, right? You'll see a quick. you know, episode description and right below that, you'll get the link to the blog. That's where it's in. There's no download, like I said, no email. You just go there, you grab it, click the image and you get that PDF. Instant access. So a couple mistakes to avoid because let's get very clear on what this season is for. Performance. These three weeks or, you know, upcoming three weeks during the open. it's performance season. And I'm assuming that you kind of know that already. But a lot of people also want to look the part, want to get the six pack, you know, the fat laws and whatever it is. Oh, by the way, I want to be lighter because I've heard that the body weight movements, you know, are easier, which is true. Right. And absolutely. Yeah. And some of those athletes definitely look, you know, jacked. They have like 12 packs, you know, but guess what? A lot of that is also genetics. Don't get, you know, There's definitely some people who can, when they're at a lighter body fat percentage, look way more shredded than other people. So there's a part there too. But okay, right? Guess what? This is one that people don't wanna know, right? Or wanna hear. Guess what requires the exact opposite of performance? That's fat loss. So guess what? We're absolutely not gonna be rushing last minute. right before the open, right? Fat loss. Because I've seen people try to do this like one or two weeks, real quick, oh, right, I want to lose some weight because, you know, it's going to be better. And they end up doing something super strict like keto, whatever. It's a big no go, right? This is just not the time for that. And then you're more frustrated. And now because you've been cutting calories and removing carbs and stuff, you have low energy and your performance sucks. I've even seen people and, I wrote this in the blog too, like I'm mentioning this because I got specific questions about this too. And someone asked me like, should I do a water cut? Absolutely not, right? I'm like, what are we trying to achieve here? And it makes sense because right, if you're into CrossFit, there is a good chance you're into, or you are familiar with weightlifting and those kinds of things. There are weight -based sports. So this person asked me like, okay, I want to be lighter, should I do a water cut? Like hell no. Because what's gonna happen, because with that, right, you're gonna, basically what that is, water cutting, for those who don't know, is the practice of losing weight like really fast over the course of a couple days, but it's all water weight, right? You're dehydrating the body. And some athletes would do that, you know, just to get in a lower weight class. That's what they do with Olympic weightlifting, fighting, those kind of things. Watch the arts. Now that being said, That's absolutely not what we want to do because here's the thing. What happens, you start to cut your carbs. Now you're dropping your main fuel source. Also, by the way, being dehydrated, also not great. First of all, not knowing what you're doing. And then also second, right? Increasing that risk of injury, which will happen when we're dehydrated. It's got to ruin performance. And at the end of the day, right? It's a big sacrifice that you're making for nothing. Like if you, and this is a hard one too, if you wanna look jacked by this time, moving into the CrossFit Open, or if you're like, hey, I also wanna lose fat, then you had 49 weeks to do that already, right? Now is not the right time. So we need to understand that fat loss and performance require the exact opposite. Right now during the CrossFit Open, it's gonna be fueling. And this is very important, because we're gonna talk about carbs a lot. And in the fuel plan, you'll see there's a bunch of carbs in there, right? It's not with macros, by the way. I do have a tool for that if you want to, and I can help you. But here's the thing, right? Carbs are gonna be your friend here. You need your carbs. When you do CrossFit, when you do high intensity training, you need your carbohydrates. That being said, success leaves clues, right? So that's what they say. I'm talking about Coca Cola, Snickers, Hershey's syrup, Gatorade slushies. Does that sound like fuel for champions? Actually, yes. Hear me out. So I remember watching this video, I think it was, actually I can't remember the year, it was a while ago. I saw Rich Froning, it was like a full day of eating, you know, following along to his day, you know, what he was eating, you know, his training and stuff. And he would put like Hershey's syrup in his protein shake. Why the hell would he do that, right? Four time fitness man on earth, why is he putting like syrup in his protein shake? Then years later, I wanna say this was 2020 during the pandemic, I'm not fully sure around that time. Five time fitness man on earth, right? Matt Frazier after which he went on a podcast and he was like, yeah, so I contacted an expert who works with like triathletes and you know. I wanted to know, like, what can I do to improve my performance and recovery and those kind of things, like any secrets, you know? And the answer was Coca -Cola and stinkers right after workout, right away. And get like Gatorade powder and just use a whole bunch of powder with only a little bit of water, make like thick slushes, right? And consume that. That was the advice he got. But this is like a high level person, like working with... triathletes. So, you know, like there must be some, right? Why? Because it's all sugar that we're talking about. And that's the whole point here. And I actually, by the way, like, I don't want you to like get too excited here yet, by the way, right? Cause we're not going to use this tactic. I will say that right away, but here's the thing. It's all just quickly absorbed simple sugars that you can use for direct energy or store back into the muscle. These people, right, training, you know, like Matt and Rich, training twice a day, high level, burning thousands and thousands of calories. It becomes also very difficult, by the way, to eat that many calories at some point, right? Not just that. Crossfit. During the games, for example, when you have those different workouts in between, you quickly got a fuel up. Guess what you don't want? A fatty meal with a lot of fiber. You always hear about like the spike in insulin that when you eat carbs and stuff, which is always like being demonized, which is just a normal response. But that spike in insulin also can blunt cortisol. Insulin is counter regulatory to cortisol. Guess what you want after the workout? You've just been in... fight or flight state, you now want to get into rest and digest so that you can recover, you can replenish. That's where you want to be. That's that chill state basically. When we talk about managing stress, we're really talking about balancing those two, the fight or flight and rest and digest. So why would these people consume high, high amounts of sugar? It's exactly that. It's getting in those sugars. It's getting that into the cell. It's blunting that cortisol. is making sure they even hit their calories. And if you think about those like runners, like drinks, you know, any kind of sports drink like Gatorade, or you've seen maybe those gels and those kinds of things, that's all of this. Or even like a carb powder, like a highly branched cyclic dextrin, those, like it's all just quick, you know, absorbed sugar. Carbohydrate, like any type of carbohydrate is broken down into sugar. Your body... and brain run on sugar, like that's your main fuel source. Now that being said, CrossFit is highly glycolytic, meaning that it burns sugar, right, when you do CrossFit. If it's like low intensity, like aerobic, you know, movements, then it will be burning fat, but CrossFit, you know, you're burning sugar, so you're gonna need that sugar. Here's the thing though, before we get too excited, before you run to the store and go get your Snickers and Coca -Cola, two things. First of all, that specific tactic, right? The Hershey's and the protein shake, the Coca -Cola, those kind of things, that was in between workouts. During the CrossFit Open, you're just doing the one, so that's already one reason not to do it. Is there a time and place for a little bit more processed foods? Sure, you can actually have some, it's totally fine. But try not to... over prioritize that stuff because you always want to prioritize real foods. And I feel like sometimes like I've been making too much of a case for processed foods, but I do want to be very clear here also with our clients, right? 80 to 90 % of what you eat should be whole foods. And that's the part some people kind of like skip or, you know, I don't want to hear it's like, yes, we can have some processed foods. It's absolutely cool, but 80 to 90 % should absolutely be from. whole nutritious, fiber rich, micronutrient dense foods. Like that's the stuff you wanna get, your fruits, your vegetables, your single ingredient whole foods. So that is the priority. And here's the thing. I think, and this may be weird to say as a nutrition coach, I think processed foods can be a beneficial, very helpful tool for CrossFitters. Because what I've seen, during the years I was a CrossFit coach at the gym, I would see way more people low on energy, under -fueled, not eating enough, be like, oh yeah, I didn't eat that today. Oh, just coffee today, right? Oh, I only had a banana today. Yeah, guess why your performance sucks. Guess why you're not recovering. And here's the reality, guys, and I want everyone to listen. If you do CrossFit and you've been hitting the same numbers, you've been spinning your wheels, right? Even though you do the workouts, even though you go twice a day, you add another workout, you do more skill work, whatever it is, you know? If you've been going to CrossFit and you're, for years on end, and we've all seen people like that at the gym, unfortunately, right? For years on end, you're in the exact same spot. And that is not a workout issue. You don't need more workouts. You need to recover better. You need to manage your stress better. And guess what? You need to eat more. And that is a huge one. I've seen so many people under fuel. And this could actually become problematic because here's the thing when here's what happens, right? I have clients who came to me without a menstrual cycle, right? Healthy females or otherwise healthy females that should have a menstrual cycle. disappeared. Because what happens when the body is constantly stressed and under -fueled and not getting enough calories and not getting the nutrients it needs, at some point it's going to save energy somewhere. It's going to cost you your sex hormones. This is where also men struggle with low testosterone. I've also seen people just walk around with nagging little injuries. So that being said, and even also like gut issues and even hair loss and stuff, right? So many issues. The way we fix that, because we've reversed all of that, you know, those cases that I just mentioned, like, are all real life examples. We fixed that. How? Eating more, like actually eating enough. Getting the right foods that goes back to those whole foods. Managing stress, taking more rest days, right? Sometimes I get people, they're moving, like they're training like seven days a week. It's like running and crossfit and this. First thing I do, we're gonna introduce two rest days, two full rest days, no training on those days. We need to bring that stress down. Guess what? Wonders happen. But going back to those processed foods and the calories, I would much rather see you introduce more food, maybe with in quotes, you know, less optimal food choices, whatever it is, you know, you know what I mean, more processed stuff. I'd much rather see you do that to actually get enough calories in. and your carbs to finally remove that stressor from your body or off your body, which is under eating, right? The calorie deficit is under eating on purpose. That's what you're doing. We don't want to be there. Remember, fat loss and performance require the opposite. I'd much rather see you get enough calories in with, let's call it quick fixes like that real quick, you know, with more processed foods, I should say. And then, dial in the minimally processed foods, introduce more whole foods, introduce more fruits and vegetables and those kind of things in this scenario, right? Because here's the thing, right now it's a CrossFit Open, right now we need to get those categories up, right now you wanna get your carbs in. This is again, right? Going back to eating for performance and health, actually doesn't really go hand in hand either. Like if you're looking at eating for performance specifically, You're trying to get away with as many calories as possible without like unwanted weight gain hindering your performance or of course any digestive upset. Do you think that maybe Matt Frazier was like really enjoying all the Snickers and Coca -Cola's and the thick Gatorade slushes? Like no, probably not. Maybe in the beginning, but it's like you're stuffing yourself, right? You're getting all these calories in, especially these people. 5 ,000 plus calories sometimes, right? It's like, we need to understand how serious these people took the fact that they needed to get enough carbs in, right? Cateries in general, but like especially carbs. That's why they go for those quick fixes like, you know, the Snickers and stuff. Now, on the other hand, eating for health would require maybe a bit more of a balance like carb fat ratio, a lot of healthy fats, fiber, micronutrients. We don't really want to push the calories too high or too low for that matter. Right? You see there's a difference and then fat loss, there's purposely under eating, right? Keeping protein super high, trying to, you know, play with fiber. just to stay full, just to achieve that shredded physique. So there's like, there's so many different approaches here and this is where periodization comes in. This is where we need to remember that is performance season. Now, that being said, again, I'd much rather see you right now, get those calories up, get your carbs up. Of course, within reason, like you gotta refuel though. That's the thing, you gotta refuel, you gotta replenish. Now going back to... CrossFit being glycolytic. Most of your fuel for your training, right, for your movement is going to come from glycogen, which is stored fuel in your muscles. It's stored sugar in your muscles for later use, right? And you have some in the liver. That is what's going to fuel your training. A pre -workout meal and a pre -workout snack and those kinds of things that we're going to talk about today, they will help. But most of your fuel is going to come from... that muscle glycogen, which also takes just about, you it can take up to a day to replenish, which means, right, that I just want you to keep focusing on fueling throughout the day, right? No specific tactics here other than what we're going to get into, but no like any changes with, you know, targets like that every day, just make sure we get enough in, no high, you know, high days, low days, whatever, like not same amount because glycogen takes a while to replenish. We're gonna feed you up, we're gonna get you a lot of good food and a lot of calories, a lot of carbs, and just feeling at your best. So a couple of CrossFit Open Nutrition Essentials. Now, here's the cool thing. A lot of this stuff is basic, very doable. A lot of this stuff you should probably already be doing, and if not, hey, you now know what you're gonna be able to work on during the rest of the year. So let's dive in. So first of all, eating enough calories, I mean, I've said this already a bunch of times. The number one priority is to be at maintenance even a little bit more if you can, get a bunch of carbs in to fuel your body, support your performance and your recovery. And if you need specific help, if you wanna calculate your macros or your TDEE or your calories basically, just hit me up on Instagram. You can DM me. CrossFit macros, just so I know that you listened to this episode, right? Or just CF macros, doesn't really matter. Just hit me up on Instagram and I can help you. And also my link is in the show notes. Now, eat lots of each macronutrient. You want to get your carbs and your fats and your protein, all three of them. Do not cut out any. This is not your time to do keto and Whole30 and Weight Watchers and the Zone Diet or Paleo or whatever. Like no, you want to get your carbs, starchy carbs, right? So, rice, potatoes, those kind of things, whole grains, whole grain products, lots of good proteins, right? Preferably like lean, you know, you know, meat, fish, those kinds of things, you know, your healthy fats, nuts and seeds, et cetera, avocado, and then lots of fruits and vegetables, just about five plus servings per day. You want to get all of it, right? Get all of that good stuff. And then, like I said, there is room for processed foods in moderation. But if you're super low on your calories, I'd much rather, again, see you actually get to maintenance with a little bit more processed foods. Now, getting your sleep in. I know that's not a nutrition related thing, but it's going to play into everything else. Cause sleep, right? A lack of sleep, I should say, is going to impact performance, your recovery, your overall desire to actually put in effort. Um, it's going to play into cravings either even. So that being said, like if you can sacrifice an hour of Netflix and scrolling on your phone for sleep, go for it. Like it's going to be worth it every single time. Now. Like I said already with the high load days, you don't really have to go lower on rest days. If anything, I keep our athletes at the same level because I want you to feel throughout the week. I want you feeling good. I want you to replenish that glycogen. So just keep it simple, right? I will say, feel free to do an CrossFit Open, have a little extra when you do this workout beforehand and I'll teach you that in a sec. But in general, keep it just nice and high, right? then when it's a day to do your workout, go hard, but don't think that the rest of the week, your workouts should also be like, you know, 200 % every single time. Probably not. You want to, you know, practice some techniques, maybe get familiar with the weight you're going to be lifting during that workout and those kinds of things. Work, you know, workout some kinks, maybe, you know, little techniques, whatever, but you don't want to push yourself. Think about it this way, when you go through the CrossFit Open, that one workout, that one try or maybe even two, but those are your days to go hard. The rest of the workouts, lift your weights, but don't overdo it. Make sense? Hydrate, super important. You want to get just about 35 milliliters per kilo of body weight with an additional just about 0 .5 up to one liter. per hour of training, right around, but especially before your training. So keep drinking lots of water. And if you are a big sweater, then maybe something like electrolytes could be beneficial. And that being said, some basic supplementation. I want you to notice before I even, you know, I never like talking about supplements online because here's the thing guys, if you're listening to a podcast, including mine, or you're reading a blog or, Whatever it is, there's so much stuff online where people are just throwing around supplements and you need to take this and whatever. I heard this on Joe Rogan and then you actually look into those supplements and it turns out there's like one study that barely shows anything, right? Be very critical when it comes to supplementation. That said, you shouldn't go check out a blog or a podcast or whatever and just jump on a supplement. especially with like the athletic green stuff, which is just like the next like MLM shit, right? It's all proprietary blends. They don't even like tell you exactly what's in the product, which is sketchy. I know that, you know, people, so I know people who kind of have like affiliation with them. They get a lot of kickback, right? So keep that in mind. Keep in mind why these people are promoting supplements on their... podcast, their platforms, their pages, because they get that kickback and often quite a bit. I know that with that specific brand, like they get a lot of kickback. Now that being said, of course, always consult with your doctor. This is not medical advice, whatever. And you know what? It's not even to save money, I want to ask here. It's really just, I want you to be smart about what you put in your body and not just jump on a random supplement because you hear it somewhere. So I will be naming a few. Very basic ones and nothing too crazy here, but I still want you to be smart. I still want you to go to examine .com for example, do your own research. And if you're not sure, talk to your doctor. Like I said, right? You always should consider that. Now, supplements are not essential, but they're gonna be helpful, you know? A whey protein can be great. Creatine, same type of deal. But you already wanna... Like you want to be taking that already consistently every single day, even before going into the open. Otherwise it's not going to do too much. I do also like Beta Alnene because it's actually, you know, been shown also to, you know, help with crossfit performance. And then you could also go with a highly branched cyclic dextrin, which is really just a car powder. But I like that one. It's also called cluster dextrin by the way. Cause it's very digestive friendly kind of like it. It's a gut friendly, it's not gonna really, you know, mess you up too much. It's basically, right, it's gonna be absorbed right away and you wanna get that. You know, around that time, like that could be a really nice one to kind of start sipping before your workout and even during. Make sense? What I will say though, a little side note here, this time during the CrossFit Open, I want you to really just think, okay, what foods do I normally have? Let me just kind of stick to stuff that I'm familiar with. A lot of stuff, like if we now introduce new food, we may actually risk causing some digestive upset and there's nothing as uncomfortable as doing CrossFit while you have to go to the bathroom. That being said, your CrossFit Open Fuel Plan, like I said, it's linked in the show notes. You go to the image, it's a very long kind of like infographic. You just click the image and you get the PDF instantly. You save it, no email, whatever. This one is just free for anyone. So first of all, day before, I really want you to think that muscle glycogen we talked about, that is replenishing, right? Up to 24 hours, get your proteins in, eat maintenance, right? Make sure that you're eating a lot of carbs. And if you can hydrate well and you get that eight hours of sleep in, bonus points. That's gonna be amazing. So already the day before, right? And by the way, I personally think that you should probably take a rest day. I guess the opinions here are a little bit divided, but. I think you should probably do a test run of the actual workout, maybe a couple of days beforehand. Don't go 100%, but go like 80, you know, get familiar and maybe don't even do the full workout, but you know, a couple of movements, whatever, just get the groove in. And then the day before you actually do the open workout, take a rest day so that you're fully fresh and ready to go. Then on the day of the open workout, pre-workout meal. And I'm saying pre -work, this is three to four hours before, right? You wanna have a lower fat meal consisting of like a lean protein, like chicken breast, lean ground beef, cod maybe, starchy carbs like rice, potatoes, bread, tortillas. I'm a big fan of the whole wheat tortillas, as well as the white ones, by the way. And then a little bit of fruits and veggies, right? But stick with stuff that you're familiar with, like I said. Then, so that was three to four hours beforehand. Then. I call this a pre snack. So one to two hours before the actual workout, you want to have something lighter. It doesn't have to be a full meal, but maybe something like a protein shake, protein bar, sports drink, protein milks, yogurts. I'm a big fan of yogurt with some fruit, banana, smoothies, you know, rice cakes with some protein could be like tuna, could be something like that. And again, I said this before, but We want to keep fat and fiber low. I briefly brought this up during, you know, when I was talking about, you know, the CrossFit games and you know, but fat and fiber slow down digestion. That's usually a good thing. It's going to keep your blood sugar levels pretty stable. However, in this case, you don't want to have a whole lot of that because guess what? You want to get that sugar into the bloodstream. Right now it's like that's our priority, which is why we want to keep fat and fiber low. So this is where we get a little bit more specific. Now, your pre -snack, a little bit of extra fuel, right? So we had your pre -workout, your pre-snack. Now we have some extra, like 30 to 60 minutes before you hit that workout. Now, I talked about the car powder. It could also be, I don't know, you know, Sour Patch Kids. It could be, you know, dried fruit, baby food, which is a popular one too. I like a Gatorade, those kinds of things, right? Just don't go with like high fat things. Right now you want to just get sugar. That's the goal. So don't go with like a fatty protein bar or something. That's going to be like 15 grams of fats. Probably not. I'd probably go with something very quick and easy. Like I said, you can also do the cluster dextrin and then start sipping right before and even have a little bit during. Kind of depending on how long the workout is. Now. Then once you've done a workout, you want to have your post workout meal. And I'm saying post workout, but I mean like one to two hours afterwards is considered like, you know, plenty on time. Um, you don't have to like rush it. If anything, we talked about fight or flight and rest and digest. Give yourself some time to kind of, right. Calm down first. You did that hard workout. Now it's time to kind of like slow down, breathe, sit down and have your meal. and you want to prioritize your protein with a lot of carbs. Now, if you want to get more specific, you probably want to get just about a three to one ratio of carbs to protein in terms of like your grams if you're tracking, right? Now with that, you should be good. You should be good for that day. Now the rest of the week and the next week after, et cetera, you want to apply that same strategy, but then of course, you know, any other day, keep working the basics. Because people love to share the memes or not the memes, the quotes and the hard work pays off. Yes, absolutely. Hard work pays off. But guess what? The real hard work is the sleep. Is taking your recovery serious. Is your nutrition, is the stress management, is doing that mental work that's necessary. And it's that balance, right? Finding that balance between like pushing really hard, but also recharging. And what you don't see, because we all see like the workout videos, but what you don't see is those athletes really doubling down on getting massages, getting that recovery time in, right? Matt Frazier would come home, you know, after training, Milo would be right there and he would just be on the couch, just doing nothing. That's right. Something you cannot do if you're someone like me. was a job and a lot of our listeners and crossfitters, right, have work, school, kids, etc. You cannot compare the two, makes sense. But the principles, the stuff that we got to practice still go. So we got to manage your stress, right? And this kind of brings me to, I think, I know it was Matt Frazier, I forgot. He, at some point, he was like shipping in. from his mattress company basically that where he whatever where he buys his mattresses. He actually had them ship in a mattress to look to the location so that he could actually get sleep. Just you know like at home which is kind of crazy but that's how serious he took that recovery. That's how serious he's taking that sleep etc. So now it's up to you to take all this stuff serious because again. Everything we talked about today is very basic. There's no hacks, there's no shortcuts. It's all basic stuff and a lot of stuff that you kind of knew already that you should be doing consistently, but that's the reality of it. There's work to be done and that work is never gonna be finished. Finished, right? You're never actually done. And whatever next level you reach, there's just gonna be more challenges and new stuff coming up. So don't get comfortable. And... At the end of the day, like it's just work that you, if you want to improve, you just need to get done. It just needs to get done. So let's get to it. Practice the basics, go hard during the open workout, but prioritize your sleep, your stress management, your hydration, your whole foods, and even some processed foods. Just get those calories up, get the carbs up, fuel, and then the other 49 weeks of the year, that's where you train. Make sense? Good luck. If you love this episode, make sure to... It may be shared with a friend who's also doing the open, family member. Share with anyone. Pay it forward. Because again, the fuel plan is on the website for free. No download, no email, whatever, for anyone to use. I'll talk to you soon.