CrossFit South Bend

Today we are going to talk about bone broth. So some of you may have heard of bone broth, some of you may have not, but it’s all the rage these days, and for good reason … it’s super, super, super healthy for you.

So first of all, let’s start with a little explanation of what is bone broth? So bone broth is basically just, it’s very similar to chicken stock, or beef stock that you might be familiar with. It’s basically where you take a series of bones with some meat on it, throw in some veggies, typically carrots, celery and onion, but it could be peppers, garlic, any sort of spices that you like and you put it in a crock pot or a pressure cooker or something on the stove top and you let it cook down and what you’re left with is some sort of drink or base for soups and stews that can be used to do a lot to improve your health.

So I actually happen to have a cup of it right here, that I’ve been sipping out of. That’s what bone broth typically looks like, that’s chicken bone broth and that’s just a melted version of this bonified bone broth that I’m going to talk about in just a second.

A lot of people wonder, what’s the difference between stock and broth? Well, typically stock, in a culinary context, is going to be something that you want to have really clear, and typically, it’s just usually made from meat and veggies and you just cook it for about three to four hours. With bone broth, however, the goal is not necessarily clarity as you saw with that cup I have right here, it’s pretty cloudy. It’s extracting all the nutrients. So typically, you’ll cook it for anywhere from 12 to 24 hours, if it’s in a crock pot or the stove top, and you might put in some apple cider vinegar to help extract the nutrients from the bones. And typically with bone broth, while there might be some meat, there’s usually a lot of bone.

What is bone broth helpful for from a health context? It has a lot of collagen and gelatin. It contains a lot of amino acids that we don’t necessarily get from the muscle meats that we typically eat, things like steak and pork chop and chicken breast. You don’t get a lot of collagen and gelatin from those things. So collagen and gelatin is really helpful for hair, skin, nails. It’s really helpful for repairing the gut. It’s really helpful for immunity. Believe it or not, when people talk about how chicken soup is the remedy for all that ails you, what’s healthy about chicken soup, or chicken noodle soup, isn’t the noodles, it’s the actual chicken stock, or chicken broth. That’s the part that’s really healthy for you.

Bone broth is healthy for immunity, helpful for healing the gut lining, and helpful for hair, skin and nails. So how do you make the stuff? Well, like I said earlier, you can literally take the bones and meat from a chicken that you’ve just finished eating, throw it in a crock pot with some carrots, celery and onions, some apple cider vinegar, cook it down for 24 hours, strain it and then store it in some jars. You can do the same thing on the stove top. You can do it super quick in a pressure cooker, maybe in like an hour or two. But, what a lot of people realize is that they just don’t like taking the time to do that. I’m one where I’ve said I was going to make it a number of times, and I’ve made it once or twice, but it hasn’t really turned out the way I wanted. So there are a lot of great options now that will allow you to just buy it and have it ready made.

Now, something to keep in mind is that if you want it as cheaply as possible, the best way to do it is to make it at home, but there are these more convenient options. So I’m going to talk about my three favorites. Number one, the one that I use all the time is Bonafide Bone Broth. These guys, I love their brand, I love their ingredients. This is real deal stuff, so in a lot of other stuff, you’re not going to get that gelatinous aspect that you see in here. That goes away obviously once you melt it down. But that’s how you can tell you have real legitimate bone broth. And you can use that for soups, stocks, what have you.

The same company that makes Epic Bars, that a lot of you guys have seen, Epic Provisions, they also make bone broth. Now this is going to be more drinkable straight, they’re not going to have as much collagen and gelatin in there. But this is also the legit, real deal. There’s a lot of stuff that claims to be the real deal that is not. This is the real deal. But think of it more as something that you can sip on. And they’ve got chicken, they’ve got turkey, they’ve got a bison apple cider one, that I’ve tasted recently that’s very good.

Now the new player on the field is Kettle and Fire. These are the only guys out there that are making a bone broth that is shelf stable. That’s actually drinkable, like if you actually bought bone broth, like from a standard stock brand on the shelf and you tried to drink it straight, it would taste disgusting. I’ve tasted this and it tastes really good. They’re the only ones with a proprietary process, where they’re able to get it shelf stable. They’ve got a beef broth and a chicken broth as well.

No one’s really better than the other, just really depends on what you want. This comes frozen and you’ve got to defrost it. This is shelf stable and ready. This needs to be refrigerated. It just depends on what you’re looking for in terms of portability. Another place you can get bone broth? Shout out to Primal Kitchen, that’ll be opening up here soon in our neck of the woods. They’ve got fantastic bone broth.

I just wanted to introduce you to what bone broth is today, explain how it can benefit your health, and show you my top three options for bone broth that you can get in the store. All right, guys, thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.

Today we are going to try to give you some tools to figure out how committed are you really, truly and deeply to your goals? This is something that we deal with a lot here at Crossfit South Bend. Whether it’s fitness goals or health goals or mobility goals. Whatever goals you might have. One of the things we always talk to people about is their commitment level. What is that commitment level and what does that really mean? Okay. First of all, why is commitment level so important? Commitment level is going to dictate the appropriate protocol for that particular goal. I’ll give you an example. If someone says, “Hey I want to lose 20 pounds.” Right? “But I don’t care whether it’s in the next two months or in the next two years or in the next 10 years.” Their commitment level is maybe a one, in the sense that they just don’t really care when it happens. Then that’s going to dictate what we do. We don’t really have to do anything majorly invasive or severe at that point because they don’t really care.

On the other hand, if someone comes to you and says, “Well, I want to lose 30 pounds in three months.” Which is a decently aggressive goal if they want to do it sustainably and in a healthy fashion. Then we have to have a talk about how committed are you? How committed are you to that goal, because lots of people want to do something like that but not everyone is willing to put in the effort. One of my favorite all time quotes comes in the form of the following saying which is, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die to get there.” We see this over and over and over again with fitness, nutrition and mobility goals. If someone says their commitment level is a 10 to me. When we’re meeting I will always check to see if that’s really true. The way I’ll check, and it isn’t a perfect method by any means, but the way I’ll check is I’ll ask, “Well what are you willing to sacrifice?” Because if your commitment level is a 10, that doesn’t just mean, “Oh I really really want this thing.”

That means that you’re willing to sacrifice to get it. Just like lots of people want to be rich but they still want to spend a lot of money or people want to have a good relationship but they don’t want to put in the work to get there. Similarly with nutrition. People say, “Oh well, I want to achieve this thing. I want to have a six pack and I want to lose 30 pounds in three months.” But what are you really willing to do? Are you, for example, willing to stop going out on the weekends as frequently? Are you willing to stop drinking for a period of time? Are you willing to go to bed at 10 p.m. every single night and get eight hours of sleep? Are you willing to do a mindfulness practice where you’re de-stressing constantly on a daily basis? Are you willing to cook for yourself 80 to 90% of the time? It’s okay if you’re not willing to do those things. That’s fine. If someone says, “Hey, upon realizing that this is what I would need to do to get to those goals, I’m not willing to put in that effort.”

That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. If people come to us and say, “Hey look man, I just want to eat pizza and chocolate chip cookies.” Or whatever it is they want to eat and they don’t care about the consequences. We don’t see anything wrong with that. What we see a problem with and what is most problematic for us is when someone says, “I want to do X, but I don’t want to do the things required to do X.” “I want to lose 30 pounds in three months, but I don’t want to change my diet.” Or, “I do want to change my diet but I only want to cook 40% of the time.” Or, “I do want to get better sleep habits but I still want to go to bed past midnight. I still want to go out for drinks.” We can’t do anything for you in that case. There really isn’t much to do. Your commitment level dictates what we are able to do. It dictates how we’re able to help you. You need to get very very clear for yourself about what your commitment level is and whatever the level is, it’s fine.

If your commitment to achieving financial peace or what have you is a five, that’s okay. If your commitment to achieving health and wellness is a 10, well then that’s going to require a certain sacrifice. Ask yourself the following question, if your commitment level is a nine or a 10 to achieve a particular goal. Let’s say it’s a health and wellness goal. Ask yourself the following question, “What wouldn’t I do to get there?” Not just, “What would I do, but what wouldn’t I do? What wouldn’t I do to get there?” That would be very telling for you because if you say, “Well there’s really nothing I wouldn’t do.” Then you’re very committed. If you’re someone who says, “Well I don’t know about giving up chocolate chip cookies. Well I don’t know about giving up my beer on the weekends or hanging out with my friends.” Again, that’s okay, but you’re not truly committed as you say you are. That’s something that you need to get very very clear on. Because there’s no way to help you achieve your goal unless you get very clear on that.

Depending on your commitment level, we can give you more or less intensive protocols to help you get there. The people who say, “I’m willing to do this.” And we give them the protocol and they do it, they succeed. The people who say, “Well I want to do this but I don’t really want to put in the effort.” They don’t succeed and it’s because they’re just not willing to do what’s required to get them there. In order to get a real sense of whether you are going to be able to achieve your goals, you need to know what your commitment level is. If you think you’re really committed, ask yourself, “What wouldn’t I do to get to this point and what am I willing to sacrifice to get there?” That will give you a lot of insight to how committed you are. All right guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. I’ll see you next time.

In this video we talk about gray-area foods. What are gray-area foods? They are foods where:

Which foods are the gray-area foods?
-Gluten free grains (rice, non-GMO corn, gf oats)
-Grass Fed, Full Fat, Dairy from a Local Family Farm
-Beans, Peas, and Lentils
-Dark Chocolate and Red Wine
-Natural Sweetners (honey, maple syrup, molasses, stevia, etc.)

Should you eat these things or avoid them? In general
-They should NOT form the vast majority of what you eat
-You should try eliminating them all for 30 days and then reintroducing them to see if you tolerate them
-Once you reintroduce them it’s up to you to determine if the symptoms you experience when eating these foods (if any) are worth eating the food.

Lastly, keep in mind that whether you tolerate or don’t tolerate these foods is a very individual thing. It’s not the same for everyone. That’s precisely why they are gray-area foods because they’re neither a clear green light in terms of having them or a clear red light in terms of avoiding them.