I Am Sensitive

After completing the Adonis 12 week challenge, I went on a pretty good feeding frenzy. The fact that Thanksgiving happened to coincide with the end of the challenge didn't hurt either. One thing I noticed during my feeding frenzy was that I have two major triggers for my I.B.S (Irritable Bowel Syndrome).  The first one I knew already but the feeds just confirmed it: dairy or lactose to be more specific. The second trigger was one I actually took out of my diet a few years back but put back in after a endoscope confirmed I wasn't intolerant. That trigger is gluten.

Lucky for me, gluten isn't a major trigger and I seem to tolerate small amounts of it OK but during times of high consumption, (like sandwiches or carb refeeds) it really seems to effect me.  Both triggers leave me with a severe pain in my left side that almost feels like an ulcer. I also get very bloated.

For these reasons, I am going to start limiting my intake of both dairy and gluten. I wouldn't call it Primal Revival but I definitely am going to head back in that general direction. Time will tell if find other triggers but I think its a safe bet that these two are my major players.

Adonis Index Transformation

It's over. The last 12 weeks went by fast. Too fast. I started and finished strong but had way to many "off" days in between. Such is life I guess. My fault and I realize that. On the bright side of things, no one has to worry about me taking a spot in the top 10. 

All kidding aside, I realize what my downfalls were this last 12 weeks. My workouts were strong but my diet was weak. That has always been my downfall. Lifting weights is not an excuse to eat like crap. I can do 6 days of clean eating but all it takes is one day to derail it all. I had too many of those "one days".

I am going to take this learning opportunity to come back stronger, bigger, and leaner. You just wait and see! 

I have two different sets of pictures. My official photo shoot, which was my wife taking pics with our SLR, didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. Blame it on the carb-load, water cut, poor lighting, oil, whatever. I didn't like most of the pictures. The second set of photo's I actually had my wife take with her iphone right before bed. I had a good pump going from a full day of activities and I actually like the photo's more.

My starting stats were:
Waist - 34"
Shoulders - 48"
Weight - 180 lbs

And my final stats were:
Waist - 32.5
Shoulders - 48.5
Weight - 175.2

So in summary, I lost an 1.5" on my waist, gained a 1/2" on my shoulders and lost almost 5lbs. So it wasn't a total loss and my diet didn't suck that bad. It just wasn't good enough to show my abs more.



 

 

My New Favorite Coffee Concoction

I have a love/hate relationship with coffee. I love to hate it and hate to love it. Many times I have tried to quit and once even got to the point where I packed up our coffee maker and put it into storage. A few months later it called back out to me and I started drinking it again.

My biggest issue with coffee is what I put in it. I can't stand black coffee.  Call me a wuss if you must. I don't care. I like my coffee sweet and full of flavor.  My typical flavoring consists of 1 teaspoon of sugar free vanilla Coffee Mate creamer along with 1-3 teaspoons of Spenda.  Nothing too damaging as far as calories or sugar and even though I drink this during my fast, I don't really consider the calories enough to break my fast.

After reading a new fitness book (to be reviewed soon) there was a recommendation in there to add coconut oil and whey isolate to my morning coffee to drink during my fast with no ill effect on my metabolism.

This sounded eerily familiar to me so I set out to see if this was in fact true. I remember reading on the leangains.com site that if someone chose not to consume BCAA's during their fast, they could substitute with a small amount of whey protein.

I won't go into the details on why this is a good thing because you need to buy the book for that stuff but after doing some further research on my own, I discovered this to be a solid recommendation.

It's believed that coconut oil can boost energy and is known to stimulate metabolism, improve digestion, and release fat cells. The bonus is that you don't need to count calories in coconut oil because it is used for energy and not stored as fat!

So now this is the site of my counter top every morning.

[caption id="attachment_2858" align="aligncenter" width="208"] Morning Coffee Mix[/caption]

Fitness Photo Shoot Prep - Update 1

I am now officially on Day 7 of my 10 day water cut and carb depletion so I thought I would give a bit of an update on how things are going.

Before I get into details though, I want to clear the air on something. I am not doing an official Carb Nite Solution. I got lambasted last time I said I was doing this protocol without actually reading the book. I still don't have the Carb Nite Solution book but what I do have is the Carb Back Loading book (or CBL for short). In that book, there is talk about a 10 day preparation phase that prepares you for the CBL phase. I am following that (mostly) but from what I can tell, its similar to Carb Nite Solution.  And as stated before, I did some further research on water cutting. Everything that I am finding is pretty much the same and that is what I outlined in my last post.

Carbs are hard to give up

So far the prep phase has been rough. Trying to only consume 30 grams of carbs or less has been tough. There have been lots of things I have had to avoid that I normally wouldn't on my 100-150gram days. My energy level is very low and my muscle recovery is pretty much non-existent at this point.  I would normally recover in a day from a hard workout and now it seems like it takes 2-3 days.  By the end of the day I am worn out and find myself falling asleep on the couch around 7pm.

My calories have been around 1750 with almost equal amounts of fat and protein. That was a point I missed last time around as well.

2 gallons is a lot

Drinking 2 gallons of water a day has gotten old really fast. Yesterday I volunteered at my kid's school for the day and the constant drink/pee got really tiring for me and for anyone that saw me head from the bathroom to the break room 10 times that day. I am also really tired of waking up 4 times a night to use the bathroom. I can barely choke down water anymore.

Sodium is awesome

My sodium intake has fluctuated a ton. Like carbs, there is sodium in everything. Even my eggs!  I might be forced to eat nothing but chicken breast the next two days just to avoid it.  Now that is going to be boring.

Light at the end of the tunnel

But tomorrow is day 8 and on day 8 I start reducing my water intake to either 1 gallon or .5 gallon depending on what program I choose to listen too.  The day I am looking forward to the most is Friday though. Friday is my carb day.  I have been looking forward to this day since day 1. It's going to be epic. There may or may not be some smores in my future for that day.

One thing I am still unsure on though is my carb refeed start time and length. CBL states that I should start the refeed sometime late afternoon and run it for about 4-6 hours. Most photo/contest prep programs I have found state the carb refeed should start somewhere 1-2 days before the event and go all day. I am also not sure if I should workout on Friday or take the day off to refeed.  I guess I need to figure this out soon.

Fitness Photo Shoot Prep

I am now 9 days away from the end of the Adonis Index Transformation contest. This was a 12 week contest that is meant to showcase the hard work and dedication of those that decided to participate. I am one of those people. The 12 weeks has been a bit of a mixed bag for me. There were days I didn't eat (fasting), days I ate on target, days I ate a bit higher than maintenance, and days I don't ever want to think about again. I took carb loading to a new level a few times. I really need to do a better job on avoiding those days.

My weight has fluctuated almost daily and I finally got to the point where I stopped weighing myself. My clothes continued to loosen and I do notice a difference when looking in the mirror. At last check, I have lost an inch off of my waist and added an inch to my shoulders.  This morning my weight is 176lbs which is about where I have been sitting for the last 12 weeks.

Now that I am a mere 9 days away from taking pictures and sending them in for all to see, I figured I needed to get really serious. So I did some more research on cutting water weight and now I am drinking roughly 2 gallons of water a day. No easy task mind you!

I am also cutting my carb intake down to 30 grams a day. This will deplete my glycogen reserves and help me to get even leaner and meaner. It's a bit of the Carb Nite Protocol that I attempted here. As you can read in that post, that attempt at cutting saw a 9lb weight loss. I was heavier then and didnt see much difference in body composition though. I am hoping this time will be better. I now have clearly defined upper abs and hopefully this cut will help to show the lower half.

I am still contemplating a spray tan.  I know that getting one will help to show off the definition that I have but I don't know if I want to go through the hassle of getting one and everyone knowing that I got one. It would be different if I was doing an actual fitness competition on stage but most people don't understand the whole 12 week transformation contest.

Below is a simple calendar that I came up with to track what I should be drinking and eating as I prepare for the photo shoot.

Make it Paleo Cookbook Review

Just one of the many perks of being a fitness blogger is that I get to review new and exciting products. Recently I had the pleasure of receiving a new cookbook entitled Make it Paleo courtesy of the fine folks over at Primal Palate.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I first received this cookbook. After all, I have quite a few Paleo cookbooks in my library already and it seems like everyone and their daughter is putting together their own cookbooks  How could this one possibly compare to the others?

Overall I am very pleased with this book. One of the first things I noticed when I opened the package was the quality of the book. It felt very sturdy in my hands and I could tell that it was a book that was meant to last in the kitchen.  Each page was printed on glossy paper and it had a large "format" feel to it with each recipe taking up two pages; one for the recipe and one for a picture of what you were to make. For me personally, pictures are important. I want to see with great detail, what it is I am going to be preparing and how it is "suppose" to look.

The second thing I liked about Make it Paleo was the actual recipes. The recipes are simple and easy to make. For the most part, there are no "fancy" ingredients that I need to go out and purchase in order to make something. Most of the stuff I already have on hand. No arrow root or rice flour here!

The book is arranged very well with over 400 pages of categories like entrees, salads, appetizers, desserts, etc. There are also subcategories within some of the main categories for further breakdown and ease of use. With a book of this size, having such organization is a must.

Now lets talk about the recipes themselves. I have already made quite a few items from within the pages of Make it Paleo and so far I have not found one that has disappointed. One recipe in particular has become a household favorite. I won't say it by name but let's just say it includes pineapple, chicken, and skewers. :)

If you are looking for a solid and well planned Paleo cookbook, you definitely cannot go wrong with Make it Paleo. I highly recommend it.

Here is a pic of a dish that I have made recently.

[caption id="attachment_2838" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Chicken Pineapple Skewers with a side of carrots[/caption]