2018 Performance Challenge Wrap up
The 2018 Performance Challenge has concluded and your winners are Beth Romero and Bert Callicoatt! These two, along with everyone else absolutely crushed it and have some amazing results to show for it!
The Performance Challenge is for people who already understand what good quality food means - the difference between whole foods, and cheap and easy processed foods. Our goal is to find ways to maximise performance, but ultimately our results are leading to longer, healthier, and active lives. Not only are our challenge participants focusing on quality foods, but we are now asking them to pay attention to the quantity of food and the balance of macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat). We use the Zone diet to prescribe the exact amount of protein our bodies need to support our lean body mass and balance that with the properly amount of carbohydrate and dietary fat to obtain optimal insulin control.
Along with the Zone diet, participants need to meet and track a specific amount of water, sleep, fish oil, mobility, and exercise each week; this challenge is designed to dial in your performance and we have some awesome results to share!
Everyone who completed the before and after testing scored significantly better on our challenge workout. The workout “Hope,” is a “Fight Gone Bad” style WOD with Burpees, Snatch, Box Jumps, Thrusters, and C2B Pull ups; our average improvement was almost +28 reps. Our biggest improvement came from Sharon Wetherall, who add 39 reps to her original score!
In the past 28 days lost an average of 6 lbs per person and even though this doesn’t seem like much, realize that weight loss in the Performance Challenge is not everyone’s goal; for instance, challenge winner, Bert, maintained his weight and actually gained lean body mass (muscle), and lost body fat. We also have results like Nick Kofahl who has stuck with the plan and is currently down more than 15 lbs.
When you have a group of people who’ve done a Clean Challenge and already eat fairly clean, it’s definitely harder to move the needle and weight loss is not the best indicator of success. This is why we believe it is so important to include body fat tests; a decrease in body fat percentage not only helps to increase performance, but more importantly, it allows all health markers to score better, thus allowing us a longer, healthier lifestyle. Our average percentage of body fat lost during our 28 day challenge was 2.5%. This means that a person weighing 200 lbs with 15% body has 30 lbs of fat on them; if that same person were to lose 2.5% of their body fat, that would be 5 lbs of fat lost! Another one of our challenge winners, Beth, had the best body fat percentage improvement, dropping 4.9% body fat and Elsa McDowell was a close second with a loss of 4.5%.
Here are a few other impressive results from our challenge…
Tamra Carter’s resting heart rate was lowered 28 beats per minute from 87 to 59.
Elsa McDowell gained 4.1 lbs of lean body mass, which is all of the muscle that atrophied from her foot surgery last fall.
Not only did Nick Colgin improve his WOD score by 32 reps, but dialing in his nutrtion helped reduce the number of headaches he gets from his TBI injuries overseas, and allowed him to make our Commitment Club for the first time.
Shad Mika, Nick Colgin, and Bert Callicoatt were the only 3 out of 20 participants to score perfect points.
Frank Chavez proved that this challenge can be done while traveling for work every week. With some extra food prep and a little discipline, Frank scored 517 points out of the possible 550. Through his busy travel schedule, Frank prepped up to 20 meals each trip and carried them through TSA to make sure he had what he needed to perform his best.
Performance Challenge Winners:
Beth Romero:
Like every workout at the gym, Beth crushed this challenge! She was consistent the whole way through scoring 531 points out of a possible 550. She lost 2.75 inches in her waist, dropped 5.4 lbs of body weight, gained 1.6 lbs of lean body mass, and lost 4.9% body fat. This means that by gaining 1.6 lbs of lean body mass, Beth lost an amazing 7 lbs of body fat!
Congratulations Beth!!!
Bert Callicoatt:
Bert had to be talked into doing this challenge and self admittedly, this was more of an experiment for him on nutrition than anything else. Since Bert was all about experimenting, we thought it would be a great opportunity to experiment on him! We increased the quantity of food we normally would give someone his size and after 28 days, he gained 1.5 lbs of lean body mass. This is great, considering how lean Bert already is and how difficult it is to increase lean body mass during a 28 day challenge (most people lose or maintain). Bert also increased his performance by adding 17 reps to the challenge WOD, he maintained bodyweight, and dropped almost 1% of his body fat. Bert’s transformation wasn’t all about the numbers, his dedication to every detail of the challenge scored him perfect points and his willingness to trust his coaches and trust the plan made us believe that he came the furthest over the 28 day challenge.
