“The simplest decisions made with consistency and determination can have the greatest effect on our lives”

If you want something, go get it.  Don’t kind of get it, don’t  kind of try .  You must go after it with all your will and effort.  This is a life lesson but today I am talking about Jiu Jitsu.  About ten years ago,  I found Brazillian Jiu Jitsu and it genuinely saved my life.  I didn’t use it to fight off hoards of gang bangers or bullies; I used it to fight off my personal demons.  I replaced daily drinking with daily mat work.  When I felt down, I found endorphins and confidence on the mats.  When my first son was born, I knew I had a gift to give him that my parents never gave me.  I felt blessed beyond measure and vowed to cultivate this gift and incorporate this into my existence.  Then, I had an unfortunate incident with my coach and had to leave his school.  I was mortified.  I had no place to train, no coach, no team.  Then I realized that Jiu Jitsu was mine.  It didn’t belong to my ex-coach , it wasn’t only possible on his mats and he hadn’t taught me everything.  It wasn’t going to be easy; nothing worth doing ever is, but I also knew that if I wanted it and, I did, that it was going to happen.  I was going to get my brown belt, then my black belt.  I was going to teach my sons those lessons that I was lucky enough to survive as long as I had without.  I refused to allow circumstances, ego and pride to keep me from achieving those goals.

Ben Sandoval

Ok, so this post is long overdue.  I apologize for my tardiness but I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of something to write about.  Credit goes to Heather for giving me the topic that was finally settled upon.  She brought up the fact that I’m getting ready to drop about 20lbs for a Jiu Jitsu tournament next month.  Yes.  Nutrition.  I want to talk about nutrition.  Specifically, my story with nutrition.

A little bit of a back story; I spent the first 21 years of my life in extremely small towns in the midwest where nutrition is not really something anybody ever thinks about. This is a place where every single person has a Fry Daddy sitting on their counter tops.  I had a nightly routine of going to Gas N’ Shop at 2am to get nachos, a bag of Doritos, a pepperoni stick and a Reese’s Snack Bar. The meals I ate during the daylight hours were not any better.  To say I was anything close to healthy would be like saying Juarez is a great destination spot for your family vacation.  In August of 2006, I moved to Santa Fe. Now, I’d be lying if I said I arrived in the City Different and immediately became health conscious and fit.  A few months after living here, I finally worked up the courage to walk into Undisputed Fitness (then in the southside location in Bisbee Court) and start lifting weights and going to Chacho’s KO Boxing class.  My diet definitely improved (no more Fry Daddy being used at every meal) but was still very far from perfect.  I was getting in decent shape. Definitely the best I had been in up to that point in my life.  I kept with that trend for quite a few months.

Cue a new job and graveyard hours that conflicted with the classes I was going to.  So not only had I stopped working out, but you know what’s readily available (and extremely delicious) at 5am?  Egg McMuffins.  Yep, back to the fast food diet I went.  And back to the good ole fat me along with it.  Fast forward a couple years to 2008 and the opening of the current location of Undisputed in the Solana Center.  With this new location came a new schedule of classes.  But again, if I said that I immediately jumped right back into the swing of things, I would be a liar.  No, it was about 2 months after the opening that I was at work, standing outside, smoking a cigarette (Oh yeah, there was that, too.  About a pack a day at that time.) when I looked over to see the reflection of my profile in some glass and I saw a gut that was sticking out far enough for me to sit my tray of fast food on it, not to mention at least 2-3 chins.  That was my moment of realization.  The next day, I started going to the KO Boxing classes again, stopped eating fast food and quit smoking.  About a month later, I was convinced to give jiu jitsu a try.  That was the beginning of my passion for the world of fitness and martial arts.  So, again, I was getting in better shape and eating “ok”. Sure, I wasn’t eating fast food or mac & cheese but lots of bread and ramen noodles are far from an ideal meal plan.  I could use the excuse that I didn’t know better but I also didn’t care to do any research.  I LOVE food and as long as my output is high enough (I was averaging 3 classes a day at that point; strength & conditioning, jiu jitsu and kickboxing), my diet can afford to be a little lax, right?  Also, here’s a fun fact about me: food is my coping mechanism.  A lot of people, when they have a bad day, will go in search of a stiff drink. Me?  I immediately reach for the phone book and turn to the pizza section.  Some bad news is all it takes for me to dial up Dominos or head to Albertson’s to grab a couple boxes of Mac&Cheese and hot dogs.  I’m a glutton to the very definition of the word.  (You should see me at a buffet.)  But that was ok, I made up for it by training really hard.

Fast forward several months and I’m at the point where I feel confidant enough in my jiu jitsu that I want to start competing in tournaments. Here’s the thing with competition wrestling, jiu jitsu and/or mma: there are weight classes that you are put in so that you don’t have to go up against somebody 3 times your size.  Obviously, everybody wants to be the bigger guy.  So, in order to be the bigger guy, they will lose a lot of weight so that they weigh way less than they normally do and can compete in a lower weight class.  Coming up on my first tournament, I was weighing about 185.  The closest weight class was 170-179.  I ate mostly chicken and tuna and ran more and made weight easily.  The next several tournaments had more common weight classes of 155-170 and 170-185.  Now, the guys who compete in the 185 weight class usually weigh about 200lbs normally.  There is no way I’m going to fight those guys.  Down to 170 I go.  So about a month before each tournament I go about eating extremely plain chicken, tuna, broccoli and other things I find to be absolutely horrid tasting.  Weigh ins come, I make weight and Hey! It’s time to eat good stuff now!  So now I’m in the mindset of, “Hey, I just tortured myself for 4-6 weeks, I can treat myself for a few days and then start eating right (or what I thought was right at the time) again.”  But therein lies the problem, once I gave myself those “few days” to eat whatever I wanted, I got in a routine of eating whatever I wanted which eventually got to the point of eating really lean stuff before tournaments just to make weight and really horrible the rest of the time.  But whatever, I train really hard.

Fast forward again.  This time it’s the year 2010.  By this time, Tait has given me the opportunity to get out of working crappy 9-5′s and graveyard shifts and be a part of the institution that changed my life and give it purpose.  (That’s a whole blog post in itself.)  We got ourselves a CrossFit affiliation and a tidal wave of new information with it.  There was this thing called “The Paleo Diet” that everybody was talking about.  Hmmm, what’s this all about?  Lean meats, fruits & vegetables and nuts & seeds.  Wow.  **** that.  I refuse to give up bread and cheese.  My life wouldn’t be worth living without that kind of deliciousness.  Then we (the gym) start up a gym wide paleo challenge.  Ok, I’m down to try it and see what’s it about.  Besides, I’m a certified CrossFit instructor; I want to be able to talk to the athletes about it and have answers for them so I read the book by Dr. Loren Cordain and sign up for the challenge.  I decide that I’ll go crazy going 100% paleo right off the bat and that I’m going to give myself 3 cheat meals a week.  Here’s another fun fact about me: I have a really hard time with moderation.  Once I give myself an excuse to cheat, it opens the flood gates.  It basically became that those 3 meals were the paleo meals and the rest were the “cheats”.  Ok, I can’t eat paleo.  I’m too much of a glutton and it’s too hard.  I just can’t do it.  But whatever, I train really hard.

Spring of 2011; I’ve now seen my good friends and the majority of our athletes eating a strict paleo diet and having phenomenal results.  I’m genuinely jealous. I WANT that.  I have a conversation with myself.  What is more powerful: my gluttony or my desire to be the best athlete I can be?  **** this.  The past 3 years have been filled me doing things I never thought I would be able to do.  I CAN do this.  I AM going to do this.  I finally get around to reading ‘The Paleo Solution’ by Robb Wolf.  (A MUST read for anybody interested in paleo.)  The beginning of April, we start a paleo challenge for the jiu jitsu guys.   This time around, I decide that I’m going with no cheats, so I don’t open those flood gates again.  Two weeks in I notice that I am waking up long before my alarm is set to go off and I’m feeling way more rested.  3rd week in, I notice that I haven’t had an anxiety attack (which I usually got at least a couple times a week) in about 3 weeks.  I’ve now been on a (mostly) strict paleo diet for 2 months and can honestly say, they have been the best 2 months of my life (not counting a weekend in LA, but that’s another story).  It’s been such a tremendous eye opening experience for me.  I came to realize that the whole idea of “it’s ok to eat crappy because I train hard” is flawed on so many levels.  The analogy I like to use when talking to people is that our bodies are like a high performance sports car.  If we take care of it like we’re supposed to, it will run extraordinarily well, like it’s supposed to.  But if you put in the lowest grade gasoline and the cheapest oil and parts, it’s going to run horribly.

So going back to the beginning and my upcoming drop in weight.  Remember how I said I usually compete at 170lbs and have to diet for about a month to get there?  Well, since eating paleo, I’ve found myself naturally weighing about 172lbs and deciding that the best decision for this next tournament would be to drop down to the 155lb weight class.  Which also ties into something else we are discussing a lot: goal setting.  My goal is to make 155lbs for this tournament on July 30th, as well as succeed at a 50in box jump by August 1st.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS???? WRITE THEM HERE IN THE COMMENTS OR GRAB A COACH!!!! OR BOTH!!!!

Nate Harris