Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Entering the Muscle and Fitness Rock Hard Challenge 2011

I’ve decided to enter the Muscle and Fitness 2011 Rock Hard Challenge. I’ve made some progress over the past few months having raised my calories but I’m not sure about the degree of the success. The issue I am seeing is that I have raised my calories out of fear I was consuming too few and I’ve gotten more muscular and my pants fit me better. I’ve probably gone down a half of a pant size. But my weight has stayed the same and while I am certain I have lost fat, I feel I should be making faster progress. What I feel I am lacking is real focus. So for the next 3 months I am going to use the RHC 2011 as a goal to focus my efforts.
My goal is based on percentage of body fat, not on weight.
Goal: 7% body fat by the end of the contest in April, 2011.
Diet Strategy: I will continue eating Paleo, of course, but I will also be using Carb Cycling to help me achieve my goals. Daily calorie intake will vary as will daily carbohydrate intake. This will be based on the type of exercises performed on any given day.
Workout Strategy: For the first month and a half I am going to continue on the current system I am using, which is FST7 on Sat, Sun, Mon, and Wed with HIIT cardio being done on Tue and Wed. I will re evaluate this based on my results after the initial month and a half.
Progress Tracking: I will document the following measurements on a weekly basis.
·         Weight
·         Waste, thighs, arms, and chest. Each day I perform the measure I will take the measure 3 times in the same area and document the average.
On a tri-weekly basis I will track my body fat measurement. I will do my best to ensure the measurements are accurate but the machine used at my local YMCA seems to have occasional issues. I will also post photos roughly every 3 weeks.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Why Grains Suck When Every Calorie Counts

I do some pretty intense training on a daily basis and I’m on a calories restricted diet. So every calorie counts for me. One of the things that aggravate me most about Paleo naysayers is how they often nearly always have mistake ideas about the nutritional make up of the foods they are urging me to eat.
“If you cut out grains, like rice, how are you going to get enough fiber?”
The fact is the calories to fiber ratio in grains compared to most veggies (leafy green veg, not fruits commonly called vegetables by many people like peppers or zucchini), is terrible. Let’s take a look at how brown rice, commonly considered a good-old whole grain, measures up to the lowly spinach.


Brown Rice – 1 Cup – Steamed
Spinach – 1 Cup – Boiled
Total Calories:
216
41
Fiber:
3.5g
4.3 g
Calcium
19.5 mg
244 mg
Potassium
83.9 mg
838.8 mg
Carbohydrate:
216 g
41 g


A cup of rice has more than 5 times the calories of the same amount of spinach and nearly a gram less fiber. Another common vegetable I eat, the Brussels sprout, has 6.8 g of fiber and 65 calories. So who’s getting more fiber in their diet and fewer calories? The guy eating from the fast-food Chinese buffet with its sugar laden sauces or the Paleo eater chowing down on 7 to 10 servings of vegetables every day?” But what about bread?” the naysayer might ask. Two slices of whole wheat bread (let’s be honest how most people eat it – sandwiches) is even worse: 148 calories but only 1.9 g of fiber. The breakdown of other nutrients like calcium is just as bad.
I guess my point here is that you need to understand the facts about a position, either side, if you are truely going to espouse said view. If not, you are just repeating things that you have heard and don't really understand. And that's setting yourself up to look foolish.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Paleo Diet: Incorrect Impressions

One thing that annoys me about the average American’s idea of the Paleo Diet is they think I live my life in an orgy of red meat and fat. Let me correct some impressions about what I am doing.
1.       Paleolithic peoples ate only wild game because that was all that existed. Animals that eat natural diets of grasses have a much better breakdown of healthy fats like Omega 3s than farm raised, feedlot, corn stuffed cows that are bread to be fatter than their wild cousins were. If you are following a truly Paleo Diet you will strive to choose the leanest cuts of meat you possibly can. I certainly have a much healthier intake of good vs. bad fat than the average American.
2.       From the available archaeological evidence it seems likely that Paleolithic peoples ate on average a diet of 60/40 vegetable to animal. This means they still got the majority of their calories from proteins and fats but these were much healthier fats than what the typical American consumes today. Additionally the 60% of their food that was vegetable is significant as it was truly high-fiber, high-nutrient vegetable matter – not processed, reconstituted, and deep fried.
At a typical meal I consume less meat than the typical American and two servings of vegetables that are neither salted nor covered in butter or margarine. On a normal day I consume at minimum 7 servings of vegetables, on days when I slack I get about 5. Most importantly I eat a large variety of veggies that are highly nutritious: broccoli, mixed greens, Brussels sprouts, artichoke hearts, spinach, asparagus, and others make several appearances on my plate during the week. This doesn’t even count the fruit (black berries, raspberries, blue berries, apples, and avocados).
So tell me:  what’s so bad about eating tons of fresh veg and fruit and not eating Wonder Bread and white rice?

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Ramblings about Paleo Diet, Weight Loss, and Weight Training

     
In addition to my professional blog for SQL Server and other related technologies I've decided to start a blog for my ramblings on diet and specifically to document the loss of my final 20 pounds and getting my percentage of body fat down to 7%.
Background
In November of 2008 I weighed 300 pounds and my percentage of body fat was probably in the high 50s. Initially I followed a typical sort of diet and made some good progress. But it wasn’t until I started eating within the guidelines of the Paleo Diet that I really started to make progress. I’m now floating just above 185 and around 15% body fat. But the last 20 pounds have been nearly impossible for me to drop. My current strategy is this:
1.       Increase both carb and protein intake so that I am eating more than 2000 calories for a two week period.
2.       Stop doing cardio but continue weight training and then…
3.       Drop the additional fruit and protein to get my calories back to less than 1800.
4.       Add back HIIT with sprints and also do occasional stair master.
I will probably have to cycle through like this a few more times before early spring to reach my goal. I hope my documenting this journey will be helpful to others.
Current Status
At the time of writing this I’m starting the second week of higher carbs and calories.



Dec, 2008 - Sept 2010

June, 2008