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.

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]

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]

Update Week Ending 05-11-2012

It's been a little while since I have thrown an update out here. My wife and I recently purchased a home and we have been pretty busy painting, cleaning, and doing all of the little things that come with moving. Because of the move, I took about 2 weeks off from the gym and my diet took a dive. I found it hard to prepare good and healthy meals while moving between two houses. I know some people will say where there is a will there is a way but I just didnt have the will to do that. :)

To make up for the bad eating I continued to do my daily 16 hour fasts. I also tried to make sure that the first meal I ate was very low carb.  Then for dinner, I pretty much ate whatever I wanted to (pizza, hot dogs, etc). The next day I started over with the 16 hour fast and "reset" my body. The first week of doing this saw my body weight go down a few pounds. The second week, I feel like my night time "cheats" increased a bit more and my weight stayed the same.

Now that this week is just about over and we are getting settled into our new home, I will be able to get back to the way things should be. I am going to continue to experiment with carb back loading though. I really like the freedom it has given me with the ability to eat the wonderful things my wife prepares. Going really low carb at lunch allow me some wiggle room with dinner and as long as I don't go over my allotted carbs for the day, I see nothing wrong with this approach.  If it fits your macros, eat it!

Like I stated earlier, this is an experiment and time will tell how my body reacts. So far so good though. I challenge you to find what works for you and then let me know in the comments!

I Dont Always Eat Food

Weekly Wrap Up 3.02.12

Personal Records

Overall this week was pretty successful for me in the gym and on the scale. I am down another 2.5 lbs this week for a grand total of 5lbs lost since I went back to doing a low carb leangains cycle. I know last week I had mentioned that I thought my strength was going down since I switched to low carb but this week pretty much shot that theory to dust when I exceeded all of my PR's in almost all major lifts! I set new PR's in deadlift, squat, bench, and pullups/chinups!

Scale

Someone hit me up on twitter this week commenting on the fact that I am weighing myself again. He found it funny since I have been against not getting on a scale for awhile now. I am doing it for two reasons. Reason number one is for the contest that I got talked into doing at work. I really don't want to be the guy that gains weight so I am doing the best I can to not. The second reason is this bodybuilding show coming up in May. I really want to enter and the deadline is approaching fast. I felt that if I can get my weight down a little bit, I might actually have a chance at getting on stage. I am currently at 185 and I feel I need to be at 175 in order to make a run at it.

Workout Changes

I am tweaking my Reverse Pyramid routine a bit to allow for some muscle growth in areas I feel that I could use it. For now that means my shoulders and arms. I am still doing RPT but with high reps/lower weight and taking it to failure on those body parts. I should know in a few weeks if I was a good idea to make that change.

Diet

My diet has remained pretty constant the last 2 weeks. I did have a pretty big cheat day last Sunday caused by some friends pushing a 2 lb bag of M&M's on me. I cannot resist those stupid candies and ended up having quite a few handfuls. My body didn't seem to mind too much and I still was able to drop that aforementioned 2.5lbs this week.  I seem to do pretty well if I can go low carb all week followed by a 4 hour high carb feeding window.

Injuries

I have been fighting a sore neck and back for a week now. It hasn't really affected my workouts too much but does make it a pain to turn my head to the left. My toe is also recovering (slowly) from its run in with the wall during racquetball 4 weeks ago. I feel that I am finally at a point with it that I can start playing again.

Wrap-Up

That about wraps up my week. I am looking forward to another 2 weeks of hard lifting followed by a week of casual cardio and maybe some disc golf.

Weekly Wrap Up 2.25.12

I am late getting this out and therefore it will be an abbreviated post of my week. I had family in town for the week for my son's 1st birthday. My diet took a break for the occasion and I actually put on a few pounds because of it.  As of Friday morning, I was back down to my starting weight pre-party so that was nice.

I have lowered my carb intake significantly in order to speed up my fat loss. In doing so, I feel that my strength has also taken a bit of a hit. I will discuss this in a future post along with what I plan on doing to rectify the situation.

I had a moment last week were I thought about transitioning to a 5x5 program for a few weeks in order to overcome some personal plateaus that I have been stuck at. Instead though I am going to make some modifications to my pyramid routine with some additional emphasis put on the body parts that I want to increase size on vs just strength. I will discuss this in a future post as well.

I hope everyone else's week was productive. Peace out.

Weekly Wrap Up 2.17.12

I had a pretty awesome week so far and I thought I would share. Monday's gym time didn't happen because of the weather. I ended up working from home and as much as I would love it, I don't have the weight needed to really pull off a good workout. So I skipped it and instead worked out on Tuesday.

Since it's been roughly 6 weeks since I got back from the holidays, I decided I needed a break from the RPT setup that I have been doing. I, instead, made this week a deload week and went with the P90x lifting schedule (minus the moves that I feel no human being should ever do).  Needless to say, the high reps/low weight routines were a good change up from my usual low rep/high weight routine and I felt pretty spent after all three days of lifting.  Next cycle will have me doing a load workout for 4 weeks with the 5th week being a deload. If you don't currently do a deload and you feel like you have hit a plateue with your routine or if you just want a quick change of pace, I highly suggest doing one. It doesnt have to be time spent in the gym. It can be anything from a new routine to no workouts at all.  I enjoy the gym so I opted for a new routine for the week.

This last week also found me altering my eating habits a bit.  I am still doing my modified leangains approach but I have reduced my carb intake quite a bit.  I am now doing less than 50/grams on non-workout days and around 100/grams on lifting days.  This weekend will find me doing a "slight" carb load while I enjoy my son's first birthday along with my family being in from out of town.  I hope to restrict this load to health(ier) type foods and on Saturday only. Sunday I should be back to my 50/grams a day schedule.

I decided to go back to restricted low carb because I know it works for me. I think I happen to be one of those people that suffers from extreme insulin sensitivity and low carb seems to be the only way that I have been able to achieve leanness.  I have tried other things but LC seems to be tried and true for me. I am sticking to the Primal eating plan as close as I can but I find myself a bit more lenient with dairy. that is something I am working on reducing though.

This week I was invited by a co-worker to join his team on our work sponsored weight loss challenge. I hesitated because I haven't been on a scale in months and I really don't care to know what I weigh but I eventually caved and signed up.  Yesterday found me on an official proctored weigh in scale sitting at 190.5lbs.  That is 21lbs heavier than I was here while sponsoring my own P90x Primal challenge. All my clothes still fit the same (if not better) so I can only assume that most of it is muscle.  Since my p90x challenge ended, I have started back on training my legs which before were pretty skinny. My wife has also commented that my "guns" are huge.  Still, 21lbs isnt exactly where I want to be and I know in my mind, that it wasnt a 21lb muscle gain. That is part of the reason why I am back to LC Primal.  That and May 1st is the Kansas City WBFF deadline should I choose to compete this year. That gives me roughly 8 weeks to shed the excess fat.  It's going to be tough.

Not a lot of new gym antics to report this week. I did see a guy doing tricep extensions and shoulder presses while riding the recumbent bike.  Saw another guy trying as hard as he could to do the same Crossfit workouts that he must see on the website.  Try as he might, doing Crossfit in a 24 Hour Fitness just doesn't seem to be the same!

So there you have it. This has been my week in review. I am looking forward to getting back to some heavy RPT next week and to see if I cannot drop a few pounds by then. My weight at the home scale is 187 and that is the scale that I will be using to report my weekly weigh in for my blog.

Peace out and have a great weekend.

Tyson

Power Lunch - 11/11/11

Just polished off the rest of my power lunch.  This lunch follows a 17 hour leangains type fast and a heavy squat, pullup, bicep day. Here is what I ate (in no particular order)

• Chocolate covered donut


• Chocolate chip cookie dough pop-tart (2)


• 2 potatoes


• 12oz of chicken breast


• 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese


• 5T of ketchup (give or take)


• 1/3 cup Ocean Spray Craisins

I think that is about it.  I have a protein shake in my lunch box for later and then I will chow down on a small protein enriched salad tonight. Should be epic.

Carb Nite Wrap Up

I officially finished my carb nite protocol experiment last Friday, 2 days short of a month.  My overall experience with the protocol was mediocre at best.  I stuck to the plan 100% but overall lost nearly no weight. My appearance did seem to change a bit which makes me think I was doing more of a body re-composition than weight loss.  But that wasnt my goal. My goal was weight loss, pure and simple.

I chose to end it on Friday because that was the day I did my weigh out for my company's weight loss competition. Leading up to that day, I did a water cut in which I drank 2 gallons of water a day starting on Monday and continuing that through Thursday at noon. Then I cut the water off completely until my weigh in Friday at noon. Over the week, I dropped 9lbs of water weight which put me 2lbs below my starting weight 1 year ago.

I mention the water cut because I was hoping that, it, combined with the carb nite protocol would have helped me cut about 15lbs in that last month.  Heck, I even stopped lifting serious amount of weights in order to cut weight. Nothing seemed to work.

I think the carb nite protocol might work great for someone that's quite overweight and wants to lose weight fast. But for someone like me who has at best 10lbs of excess fat, it might not have been the best way to go. I am starting to get frustrated with my quest to be a lean mean fighting machine.

 

Got Sick?

The day after my Carb Nite feast, I started to not feel well. Then it hit me. Tuesday night, I awoke with a fever so I decided to stay home from work and skip that days workout. Two four hour naps later and I started to feel a bit better. Today I was back at the gym doing a nice short but high intensity shoulder and arm workout. In and out in 30 minutes. Now that's the way to get stuff done!

My diet has continued to be spot on and I am learning the tips and tricks to get well below 30 grams of carbs a day without feeling like I am sacrificing anything.

On the downside, the weight on the scale has crept back up to 187.2. That is up from the 186 that I weighed in at a few days ago. I am starting to think that even though my carb count is low, my calorie count might be a bit too high. I was continueling hitting over 2000 calories a day with some days being at 2500. That is causing my body to go into a re-composition state rather than a weight loss state. A recomp state isnt a bad thing though. I am effectively replacing body fat with muscle. I know this to be true because I can see it in the mirror and I can feel it in my clothes. But for the sake of this weight loss competition, I really need to lose weight.

Therefore, today is going to be my last weight training day for about a week and a half. Next week I am going to concentrate on some intermittent fasting combined with some low levels of cardio. The days leading up to the official weigh out will see me doing some excessive water drinking combined with a quick taper at the end. I am also planning on switching up my diet with some low sodium, high protein meats with only low to moderate levels of fats. could be interesting!

Carb Nite Progress – Day 12

I am roughly 30 minutes away from starting my carb refeed on the Carb Nite protocol and I thought I would give an overview of what has transpired since my last post update at Day 5. (just a note. The original article stated to do a refeed at day 10 but that for me was on a Saturday and not a workout day. Therefore, I decided to push it a couple of extra days until today when I do a great chest and back workout)

NutritionI have continued to be low carb with my max intake being right around 30/grams a day.  Calories continue to remain around 2000 but I have gone as far as 2500. Fat intake has been around 100-150 and protein has been around 150-200.  Below is a typical eating day for me.

Breakfast

• 4 egg omelet


• diced ham


• shredded bacon


• 2T of salsa


• 2T of sour cream


• 1/4C of cheese


• Coffee with 1T of creamer

Lunch

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

Snack

• 2 scoops of protein powder


• 1/2C coconut milk

Supper

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

I have also done a few 16/24 hour fasts to help supplement my days.

Workouts

My lifting workouts currently consist of P90x Phase I. I am doing the M-W-F workouts and have done 1 day of plyometrics.  I continue to take walks with my family and have done some light shooting around at the basketball courts. I also did one 40 minute session on the exercise bike. I am trying to keep the cardio limited because 1) I hate cardio and 2) the original article stated that weight loss could be obtained even without exercise. I will not give up my weight lifting though.

Up until today, my workouts have been intense and my energy levels have been high. Today, though, my energy level was down and my enthusiasm to be there was low. I also noticed a decrease in the amount of reps I could perform on certain exercises. I left the gym feeling run down. I should point out that I entered the workout on a 16 hour fast but this is something I have done many times before with great results and high energy levels.

Weight

My weight was stuck at exactly 187.8 for about a week into this test. As of this morning though, I officially dropped to 186.  I do have a sneaking suspicion that some of that could be water weight though.   My wife has continued to notice an increase in muscle definition and I swear I saw my upper abs in the mirror yesterday.

Day to Day Operations

My day to day life pretty much stayed the same. My energy levels were always high and my sleep at night was always good. I never lost focus on the tasks at hand and I never felt hungry or like I was being deprived of anything. In fact, as time went on, my cravings for carbs diminished to the point where I wasn't really looking forward to tonight's refeed.

One thing I noticed was my recovery time from workouts. I constantly was feeling sore. It seemed like I could never recover from a workout and I always felt like I pulled something.

**Post Refeed Update**

I more than likely I officially done with my refeed for the night. At least I had better be. I cannot imagine eating any more carbs this evening. I feel sick to my stomach. My head aches, my body aches, I have zero energy, and all I want to do is go to bed.  What's crazy is that I didn't have anything that I would consider out of the ordinary from a "normal" persons day. Over the course of 3 hours, I ate a few sandwiches, some rice cakes, a few cookies, a few handfuls of candy corn, and a latte. Compared to what I normally eat in a day calorie wise, that is nothing. It's just what is in that food that is really getting to me right now. This had all better be worth it in the end. One would think that a free pass to eat whatever you wanted would be awesome.  Let me tell you...that is not the case right now.  Once you have cleaned up your diet, doing these refeeds suck big time.

Carb Nite Progress - Day 5

I am just about to finish up Day 5 of the Carb Nite protocol outlined in my last post and I thought I would give a bit of an update on how things are going.

For the first few days I suffered a bit of a stomach ache. I don't know if it was caused directly by the reduction in carbs or if it was something else entirely but it has since gone away and not returned. The second thing to happen in the last 5 days is a few canker sores in my mouth. It's been quite a while since I have had any of those. My energy levels have been great and any excessive hunger has been at bay. My carb intake has been at or below 30 grams for the last 5 days with no cheats. My protein intake has been around 150 grams and my fat intake has been around 120 grams. My calories have been close to 2000.

My food choices have been pretty consistent.  I eat a 4 egg omelet every morning with all natural bacon bits, diced ham, small amount of cheese, and some salsa. It comes out to about 10/grams of carbs. My lunch is either some sort of slow cooked beef or chicken on a bed of spinach with some olive oil and Caesar dressing.  Supper time is usually something quite similar.  This week I am going to introduce some protein shakes with either coconut milk, almond milk, or water. On occasion, I will take a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter.

At Day 2 I weighed myself and was down about a pound. I have not weighed myself since then. Visually I can see that I have tightened up quite a bit. I am seeing more definition in my stomach, shoulders, and arms.  My wife has even commented that my face appears to have thinned out a bit.

So there you have it. I am at Day 5 and am suppose to take it to Day 10 although that would land on a Saturday for me. So instead I am either going to take it to Day 9 or Day 12, both of which are heavy lifting days.

I am already planning my carb nite refeed. It could be epic!

 

Wordless Wednesday - KFC Cake

No good could come of this.

(courtesy of  thisiswhyyourefat.tumblr.com)

Dairy Hates Me

I have a love/hate relationship with dairy.

I love it but it hates me.

At least I think it does.

It seems that every time I eat cheese or protein powder, I get really bloated and gassy. (TMI I know). A few months ago I did a Whole30 challenge and gave up dairy completely and felt great. No pressure. No gas. After the challenge was over I slowly started to add the protein powder and cheese back and slowly the bloating returned. I know its the dairy but its just too hard to give up!

For awhile I bought some low lactose protein powder and it seemed to help. I have also thought about getting egg protein instead but like the low lactose version, its a bit pricey. Some might say to give up the protein powder but when you need that quick fix of protein, nothing fits the bill quite like a protein shake. Plus I make the best smoothies with my protein powder!

This post is random and has no true direction. It's Friday and I don't care. Have a great weekend everyone! I will try and stay away from the dairy this weekend!

 

Program Jumping

Admitting you have a problem is usually the first step towards recovery. I hope that is true because I am about to admit something big.

I have a problem sticking with a workout program for any extended period of time. Phew! I said it.

Strange.

I don't feel any different.

Background

If you are new to this blog, you may not have a real good understanding of what I am talking about so let me enlighten you a bit. In the past year I have done P90x, Primal eating, Visual Impact, Whole30, Leangains, homebrew workouts, etc. Of all of those, I am currently only still doing the Primal eating.

Problem

It's really two-fold. First off. I get bored with workouts easily. By about the 3rd phase of P90x I am ready to call it quits. Even though P90x has you switch it up with their "muscle confusion" tactics, going back and doing old exercises in that third phase really bored me.

Second - I read too much. I have a blogroll of about 200 fitness blogs that I scroll through on a daily basis. Combine that with about 500 fitness "experts" that I follow on twitter and one can easily see how I get bombarded with the latest and greatest in workouts and nutritional advice. Combine boredom with new ideas on eating and workouts and you can easily see why I end up switching workouts so often. I always think what someone else is doing is better than what I am doing and I need to try it ASAP. At least my diet has stayed consistent!

The biggest problem with going through life this way is that I never really achieve the fitness goals that I originally set out for. I need to settle down and give a workout time to really develop. If I don't, I will continue to just stroll through life. I don't want to stroll...I want to sprint!

Resolution

I didn't start writing this post with a real resolution in mind. I have a few things that I am tossing around in my head that I will discuss in further detail later.  But as of right now, I am just sort of mulling along at the gym while I wait for that next big thing to come along. Hopefully that is soon because even mulling has me bored.

Comments?

I would love to hear from you on some of the workout programs that you are currently involved in. Who knows, I may join ya!

Protein Shake Cleanse

I took an experience from The Healthier Me and his latest post on a 3-day Shakeology Cleanse and decided to do my own 3 day cleanse to jump start my weight loss. I changed it up a bit from his cleanse since I don't have Shakeology (that stuff is expensive!) and instead opted to use some of my own protein powder that I had around the house.

Details

The premise of the cleanse is this. You start your day with a protein shake and some fruit. You have the same thing for lunch and then a healthy dinner. Sounds simple enough and it reminded me of those old SlimFast commercials from the 80's.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBVhQOG6ip0

What I Did

I started the cleanse on Tuesday by making a shake that consisted of almond milk, protein powder, sunbutter, banana's, and strawberries. I made it a double so that I had some for lunch. For supper that night we had family over and they brought Chipotle. I am not one to resist Chipotle and mine consisted of a bowl (no rice) fajita veggies, double chicken, guac, lettuce, and salsa. Pretty healthy by my standards.

Wednesday saw me making the same shake as Tuesday. For supper my wife made up some chicken breast and right before bed I made up a protein shake with some casein protein powder.

On Thursday I wanted to keep my carbs low for the day since I was not working out so I decided to cut out the fruit. The shake then consisted of almond milk and a few tablespoons of Sunbutter. For supper my wife had cooked up some ground beef with onions and cabbage. She also made up some cinnamon apples to which I did have a few pieces. I also splurged and had a piece of string cheese right before bed.

Conclusion

Friday morning is now here and I have decided to continue on with the cleanse if even just through the day. I did manage some time to hop on the scale this morning and my weight is down to 179. So in total I lost 2lbs while doing this challenge. It's hard to say if that weight loss was a results of the cardio I did this week, the low calories consumed (1500 a day) or the shake cleanse itself. All I know is it's not quite the 5lbs that Mike from The Healthier Me lost but it also might be the difference in the shakes we made. I have heard that Shakeology is the bomb. Would love it if someone could send me some samples to try. Maybe 6 samples so I could try the cleanse for real this time? :)

So there you have it. Down 2lbs and hoping to be down 2 more by next week.

P.S. I have joined another weight loss challenge with some friends. Nothing like a challenge to help keep me motivated.

New Challenge

Overview

After a weekend of peanut butter popcorn balls (6), chocolate chip cookies (who knows how many), dairy, carbs, and very little sleep (about 3 hours at a time), I am ready to begin anew. Today marks day 1 of a challenge put on by members of my team at work. The rules are simple. Lose the most weight out of everyone in the 30 days and beat any one of the three managers and win $25 for each one you beat. Seems simple enough right?  There are currently about 12 people signed up for the contest so it could be a challenge. Oh yeah, this is challenge number 1 of three. The opportunity to win some money is great.  I like winning money.

In honor of this challenge and as a way to help me win this thing (to help pay for my new ipad) I have decided to start a somewhat strict paleo diet. I thought about doing the Whole30 challenge again but there are some items I just do not want to give up this time (protein shakes for one). Since I couldn't do the whole30 challenge in its entirety I decided to just call this one a Paleo challenge. It's simpler that way and I don't have to worry about copyright infringement.  Here is what I will try not to eat over the next 30 days:

Diet

• Sugar of any kind, real or artificial. (I am going to allow myself to add some sugar free coffee creamer to my morning coffee. With a newborn at home and very limited sleep, I am in need of some coffee in the morning and try as I might, I just cannot drink the crap straight up black.)


• Processed foods. (I will allow myself to drink protein shakes on this challenge. With my lack of time right now, I need to be able to grab something quick to fuel my workouts.)


• Alcohol, in any form. (I don't even know the last time I had alcohol so I don't think this one is going to be a problem.)


• Grains.(Already had some rice tonight. Whoops. It looked good and I was hungry)


• Legumes.


• Dairy. (Dairy hurts my stomach anyway so I have been trying to cut this out as much as possible.)


• White potatoes. (It's cool. I am a sweet potato fan anyway.)

I am also trying something new calorie wise this time around.  I have been doing the Leangains approach to intermittent fasting the last few months but with very limited success. I am going to attempt to do that same approach this time but may limit the capacity on it a bit. I am also going to reduce my calorie intake to around 15oo calories a day. When I try and do the recommended daily intake based on my fitness levels, I never seem to lose weight. In fact, I usually feel like I gain some. So I am hoping that by cutting my calories down, if even just for the next 30 days, I can really shed some of the fat that has built up around my midsection. I will also do carb cycling. Lifting days will see a higher amount of carbs while cardio days will see a lower amount of carbs. Today I consumed just about 150grams so I was right on track of where I want to be.

Workouts

This week my workouts are going to be a bit different. Next week I might start my Visual Impact workout again or I may try to find something new. For this week though, I am doing some density training. Basically I work a set of muscles in a push/pull fashion for 7 minutes straight with limited rest. This weeks workouts are as follows.

• Monday - Biceps/Triceps/Abs


• Tuesday - Cardio (5k combined with some hill sprints)


• Wednesday - Legs/Shoulders/Abs


• Thursday - Cardio (not sure what its going to be yet)


• Friday - Chest/Back


• Saturday - Cardio (again, not sure)

I like this format for now. It works for me, doesn't take a lot of my lunch break and I don't feel the burnout from going everyday that I was feeling a few months back. I am hoping the next workout program that I find will allow me to weight train on 3 days a week with light to no cardio on the other days. Any suggestions out there on what I could do?  I have heard great things about the Adonis Index and I listen to their pod-casts quite a bit. If anyone knows them and would be willing to put a good word in for me so I could obtain some free training or be a case study on new programs, that would be swell!

That is all I have for now. Later.

Paleo Diet Discussed on Nightline

I thought this video was pretty good at explaining the Paleo diet in a very generic sense. It didn't go into specifics as much as some would probably like but in the time allowed, I think it could really help people get interested in it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoE2X1_Kd0U

Diet and Workout Programs

I recently emailed a co-worked with some advice on various workout programs and diets. After I finished it, I realized that it would also make a great post. So here you have it. Enjoy.

*********************

When I first started at my job 5 ½ years ago, I was tipping the scales at around 230lbs.  Being someone that has always had an interest in working out and eating “right”, that was a tough weight for me to swallow.  I knew I had to change.  What I started to do was pretty simple. I joined the 24 Hour Fitness up the street from my office and I would go workout 3 times a week before work. It took some dedication and a few hours of missed sleep but I knew that I had to do it. For the first month, I only did cardio (elliptical mainly). I then gradually added in some weight training and altered my diet by eating less food at each meal and adopting the philosophy of eating 6 small meals a day. I ate mainly fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains. I think portion control was my biggest benefactor and the weight slowly started to come off.  What I did back then may have worked for me, but I now have a lot more knowledge about different programs out there and I think I could have taken what then took me almost  year to accomplish and could now do it in months.  Below I have outlined some programs that I consider to be very effective. Some are hardcore and others, not so much. Just remember that the best diet is one that you can stick with long term. It needs to be more of a lifestyle change than a diet.

Leangains – this is the program I am doing right now. It involves fasting daily for 16 hours and then an 8 hour feed window. I work out fasted not including the ingestion of 10grams of BCAA. It allows some freedoms in eating habits to a certain extent but it does take some planning. On workout days (lifting), you would make carbs your primary macronutrient followed by protein and then fat. On non-workout days, you eat more protein, then fat, and then carbs. It’s a method of carb cycling. It works very well for a lot of people and is growing quite a bit in popularity.  This would be a great program if you plan on doing some heavy lifting and want to stay away from the intense cardio.

Primal/Paleo – All my Primal/Paleo peers would shoot me if I didn’t recommend this. I do this program along with Leangains.  This is about low carb eating  via all natural foods.  I have never felt better then when I eat like this. Some good reading material on this would be MarkDailyApple.com and a book called Primal BluePrint. Both are excellent resources and I highly recommend them both. Mark Sisson advocates eating like our primitive ancestors and doing basic exercises in moderation. You wont find any grueling 5 day a week workouts here. I think this is a great program for people that have busier lifestyles but it does take some commitment in the eating aspect.  Meat, fruit and vegetables are the primary staple of the Primal/Paleo diets. Can’t go wrong with that!  If you like carbs and sugar, it will be a hard one to follow but if you can stick with it, you will feel much better. I can attest to that.

Visual Impact – I am currently doing this workout program. It’s a great program to get that Hollywood look instead of the over bulked look of body builders. All though this program is mainly exercise based, Rusty does offer some solid advice on eating with his primary dietary focus being on calories consumed vs calories burned. He also just released a female version of his program that looks to be equally as promising.

Low Glycemic – Low Glycemic diets are what you see a lot of on TV where they ship you the food:  Medifast, South Beach, etc. The idea behind them is that certain foods have a great effect on blood sugar levels and thus insulin secretion. The more insulin that gets created and secreted, the more fat that will get stored. If you can eat foods that have low glycemic indexes, you can keep your insulin levels low and lose body fat.  I have never tried any of these (with the exception of a small stint with South Beach) but I am guessing they are a lot like low carb diets but with a little bit more freedom in some of the foods you can eat.  Go to the book store and you will find countless books on the GI diet as well as many recipe books. Might be the easiest one to follow. Something like this would work good with the Visual Impact program above or even P90x below.

Weight Watchers – Up until a few months ago, I didn’t know anyone that had tried Weight Watchers.  Recently, however, I have had a few family members try it and all have had great success with it. All three have lost double digit weights in a very short amount of time. From what I can tell, none of them had to really give up the foods that they enjoyed, just limit the quantities and frequencies a bit. The new Weight Watchers Plus allows zero point deductions for the consumption of fruits and vegetables. How awesome is that! Weight Watchers also has some great apps for the mobile market so you can always stay accountable regardless of where you are.

P90x – I have done this program about 6 times and its one of the best exercise programs out there in my opinion. One thing that many people don’t realize is that the workout program is only half of it. They also have a very extensive dietary program included and without it, the results you see on TV, would not have been achieved.  It’s pricey but if you can make it through the entire thing and follow the diet exactly, there is no reason why you wont be in the best shape of your life. This fall Tony Horton and Beachbody are releasing a follow up series called P90x MC2. You can bet that I will be purchasing that as soon as it comes out!

I hope some of this helps. If you have any questions about any of the stuff I listed above or if you have found other diets/programs that you want to ask me about or suggest for my list, please feel free to send me an email or leave a comment below.