Every year, as the CrossFit Open approaches, something changes in the air. The Open brings out a version of us that is willing to try a bit harder than the everyday. We’re excited about the global party, but also nervous to put our fitness to the test! The Open is more than a worldwide competition; it is a shared commitment to show up, work hard, and see what we are capable of. If we consider the Open our “annual check up,” then this year we want to help you show up as the best version of you to knock it out of the park.
This six-week lead-up is the perfect time to look at how you fuel all that potential. Not in a restrictive, joyless, count-every-calorie kind of way, but in a CrossFit way. The practical way.
The focus is simple: Eat in a way that helps you perform well today while supporting long-term health. None of the quick fixes or short-term hacks that promise PRs at the expense of your health belong here. The same way we train to be capable across broad time and modal domains, we eat to be capable across a broad range of days, weeks, and years.
You do not need a radical diet overhaul or a color-coded spreadsheet to get started. You simply need to understand what helps you perform, recover, and show up with steady energy rather than wild swings between feeling invincible and feeling like you might die on the echo bike.
Let’s begin with the basics: the food itself.
Real food sits at the center of CrossFit’s nutrition recommendations for a reason. Before we talk about weighing, tracking, timing, or optimization, we discuss quality. The first line of World Class Fitness in 100 Words starts with “eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar.” The brilliance of this sentence is its simplicity. It is a filter for almost every decision you will make in the next six weeks. If you start here, most of the nutrition noise disappears.
Real food does not have ingredients. Real food is ingredients. It is beef, eggs, salmon, potatoes, apples, carrots, yogurt, rice, berries, spinach, and all the other things your grandparents would recognize without squinting at a label. These foods are naturally structured, naturally nutrient-dense, and naturally satisfying.
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs), on the other hand, are engineered for profit via shelf stability, cheap ingredients, and hyper-consumption. Your health is not part of the equation. UPFs evaporate in your mouth and vanish from your stomach, leaving you hungry, cranky, and chasing the next hit. Real food gives you the opposite, giving you the real feeling of satiety as you’ve consumed everything your body needs to perform and function at its best.
Cooking is the most powerful tool you have during this lead-up period to the Open. Cooking is not merely a means to an end; it is a form of awareness. When you cook at home, you learn what is in your food, how it was prepared, and how much you are actually eating. You see how much chicken makes up 30 grams of protein. You notice how different vegetables make you feel. You taste salt instead of guessing at sodium, and you sense the difference between a meal that fuels you and a meal that slows you down. Cooking reconnects you to the process of nourishment. It also reconnects you to people. Preparing meals with family or friends adds enjoyment, meaning, and intention to the way you fuel your body. Shared meals support connection in the same way shared workouts build community.
Protein
This foundation in real food allows us to focus on the next level of detail in CrossFit nutrition: protein. Every part of your body that contributes to performance is made from amino acids contained in the protein from your diet. Your muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, immune cells, and antioxidant systems all depend on the protein you eat. When you PR a lift, link your double-unders, sleep well, or fight off a cold, you are relying on amino acids. Protein is the building material for everything an athlete depends on.
Most people underestimate how much protein they need. Aiming for roughly 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal bodyweight helps most athletes recover more effectively, build strength, maintain lean mass, and stay fuller longer. It also supports emotional stability and sleep quality because the chemicals that regulate mood (serotonin, dopamine) and sleep (melatonin) are derived from amino acids. Protein is the closest thing nutrition has to a performance cheat code. High-quality protein sources such as beef, chicken, eggs, fish, and dairy provide the complete array of these amino acids in a form that is easiest to digest and absorb. Build meals with each one centered on a high-quality source of protein.
Fat
Alongside protein, fat plays a profound role in athletic performance, even though it often receives less attention. The fat you eat breaks down into over 100 different fatty acids that are used to both make energy and build the body. Fat provides long-lasting, steady energy throughout the day. When you are walking, working, sleeping, or grinding through a long workout, fat is the primary fuel source. A metabolically flexible athlete is able to use both fat and carbohydrates efficiently, depending on the demands of the workout. The ability to seamlessly switch between both is a performance superpower.
Fat also builds the physical structure of your body. Your brain is primarily made of fat. Every cell membrane relies on fatty acids and cholesterol to function. Your eyes, skin, and nervous system all depend on fat. Fat is also the raw material for important hormones such as testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, and cortisol. These hormones influence everything from muscle repair and power output to stress resilience and motivation. If you under-eat fat, these hormones suffer, and performance suffers with them.
Choosing high-quality fats is simple: avoid industrial oils and choose natural fats from whole foods. Egg yolks, full-fat dairy, meat, avocados, nuts, seeds, coconuts, olives, and oily fish provide high-quality fat that supports performance and health.
Carbohydrates
Once protein and fat are in place, the next piece to layer in is carbohydrates. All carbohydrates break down into one of three simple sugars: glucose, fructose, and galactose. Fructose goes to the liver, where it is mostly converted to fat. Galactose also goes to the liver but is usually converted to glucose. And glucose enters the bloodstream, where it can be distributed all throughout the body. None of these molecules is uniquely harmful in and of themselves, but the speed at which they enter our system can make or break our health. Too much carbohydrate too fast overwhelms the liver and overloads the bloodstream, leading to a host of metabolic issues and chronic disease.
From a performance perspective, glucose fuels high-intensity activities, and the body stores a small amount of it (as glycogen) in the liver and muscles to be ready for fight-or-flight situations. Glycogen is your rocket fuel, and you want to preserve it for the special occasions of performance — i.e., 1-rep-max lifts, full-send sprints, or a “kick to the finish” at the end of a workout.
For performance and health, the key with carbohydrates is stability. The bloodstream contains about a teaspoon (4 grams) of glucose. Too little (~2 grams) and performance drops, and you feel foggy, dizzy, and emotionally unstable (“hangry”). Too much (~8 grams) and widespread damage to your tissues and organs can accumulate. Refined carbohydrates are eaten quickly and digested rapidly, which creates a sharp spike followed by a steep crash in blood glucose. Not good. Whole food carbohydrates, on the other hand, take longer to eat and contain fiber and structure that slow digestion and keep blood sugar more stable. Much better.
The best carbohydrate choices for Open preparation are those that require chewing and still retain their original form. Vegetables, fruits, beans, lentils, potatoes, rice, squash, and oats can all fit into an athlete’s diet. These foods support intense workouts without the volatility of refined carbohydrates such as juice, flour, sugar, etc. Whole foods also provide the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants athletes need. Bonus.
“How Much Food Should I Eat?”
Now that we have covered the quality of the food, let us briefly discuss quantification. There are several ways we could quantify or measure our food. The caloric value of the foods we eat is one.
A calorie is a unit of energy, specifically a unit of measurement for how much energy is produced (as heat) when a substance is combusted in a device called a bomb calorimeter. The caloric value of the food we eat can provide a broad sense of scale and a big picture overview of whether we are eating a lot or a little.
But the body is not a bomb calorimeter, and the caloric value of the food we eat is general and non-specific. The body is a dynamic and responsive system, constantly signalling and adjusting based on information received from the environment, including what we eat. Calories don’t tell us anything about what the body will do in response to eating that food.
More specific metrics, such as tracking the total amounts of macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats) (usually in grams) in our diet, give us a higher-resolution picture of our nutrition.
Tracking intake over time helps athletes relate their diet to performance, health, and overall sense of well-being. It removes the guesswork. It provides data points. It teaches portion sizes. It reveals patterns. So, now is a great time to get out the kitchen scale and measuring cups, download a tracking app, and start quantifying what you eat.
Start Here: 40-30-30
A basic starting point of approximately 2,500 calories for men and 2,000 calories for women, divided into roughly 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fat, works well for many people. When it comes to tracking, you can start anywhere you like — you don’t need to get too hung up on the specifics. The point is to track inputs, observe outcomes, and adjust as needed to find what optimizes for YOU. Your nutrition is one big lifelong experiment in which you are both the subject and the scientist.
Several helpers support all of this. Water drives circulation, digestion, temperature regulation, and muscle contraction. Athletes who don’t drink enough water rarely perform well. A simple rule is to consume half your body weight in pounds as ounces of water per day. So if you weigh 140 pounds (63.5 kg), you should aim for 70 ounces (2 liters) of water. Sodium is equally important because it helps maintain blood volume and supports nerve and muscle function. If you look at your hat, shirt, or knee sleeves after a workout, you’ll see that every time you sweat, you lose sodium that must be replaced. Liberally salting your food and including naturally salty items such as pickles or olives helps prevent fatigue, cramping, and headaches during training.
Vitamins and Minerals
Vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) are the quiet but essential players behind the scenes. They support metabolism, immunity, bone health, and energy production – everything from feeling strong and fast to preventing you from getting sick or injured, leading up to the Open. The best way to obtain them is to eat a wide variety of whole foods. In terms of density and bioavailability, animal foods such as meat, organs, egg yolks, dairy, and seafood are the MVPs of almost all the micronutrients you need. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds supply the rest.
Creatine
Creatine deserves a mention because it supports how the body produces energy, especially helpful for muscles during sprinting and lifting, and for your big energy-hungry brain for cognition, focus, and coordination. It is found naturally in red meat, chicken, and fish. Anywhere you are reading about the benefits of creatine, you are reading about the benefits of eating these foods. As a supplement, creatine is one of the safest and most studied performance supplements available. Many athletes choose to supplement with creatine monohydrate, although if you center your meals around protein and regularly eat red meat, chicken, salmon, etc., supplementation is probably not necessary.
Sleep
Finally, sleep ties everything together. Sleep is the most powerful health-promoting and performance-enhancing habit available. It supports everything you care about in both performance and health.
- Stronger muscles? Sleep.
- Learn new skills? Sleep.
- Better mood? Sleep.
- Less food cravings? Sleep.
- Avoid dementia? Sleep.
You get the picture. There is no substitute for deep, consistent, high-quality sleep. Protect your eight hours as if your Open performance depends on it, because it does.
When you look at all of these pieces together, you can see the CrossFit approach in full. Eat real food. Prioritize protein. Choose natural fats. Include slow carbohydrates that match your training (and no more). Understand your intake and adjust as needed. Support your body with hydration, salt, micronutrients, and sleep. These principles are simple, sustainable, and entirely compatible with both long-term health and short-term performance.
The best part is that you do not need to reinvent your life to apply them. You simply need to begin. Start by cooking a few more meals at home. Add a little more protein to your plate. Drop snacks, especially the ultra-processed ones. Drink more water. Salt your food. Put your phone down and go to bed. Over time, these changes compound. They add up to steadier energy, better recovery, more consistent training, and a happier experience while you crush it during the Open.
The Open is not only a test of fitness, but also a celebration of effort and community. When you fuel yourself well, you show up with more to give. The leaderboard becomes less important than the feeling of doing something difficult and discovering you are capable of more than you thought.
The next six weeks are your invitation to eat like the athlete you are becoming. Fuel well, train hard, recover fully, and enjoy every rep. The Open is coming.
______________________________________________________________________
About the Author
Jocelyn Rylee (CF-L4) and her husband David founded CrossFit BRIO in 2008, starting in a modest 1,500-sq-ft space and focusing on personal training. Her dedication to excellence has also earned her a position on CrossFit’s Level 1 Seminar Staff, a role that allows her to share her passion and expertise with aspiring coaches. Jocelyn holds specialties in Endurance, Gymnastics, Competition, and Weightlifting, and is also a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. As a Level 2 Olympic Weightlifting Coach and a Level 3 referee, she has been deeply involved in the sport, even serving as a board member of the Saskatchewan Weightlifting Association for five years. Her achievements include being Saskatchewan’s top-ranked female Olympic Weightlifter from 2012 to 2015, during which she held provincial records in the Snatch, Clean & Jerk, and Total in her weight class. With an M.S. in Human Nutrition, Jocelyn loves sharing her knowledge on nutrition and performance through her blog and Instagram as “The Keto Athlete,” where she delves into the science of nutrition and its impact on athletic performance.
Comments on Fuel for the Fittest: Dialing in Your Nutrition Before the Open
0 Comments