I’m Coming Back… To Keto.

I have decided after watching a very interesting 21 day keto experiment (shout out to Jason Wittrock) on YouTube that I will return to pure keto from targeted keto and see how it goes. I did do pure keto for a very long time but I have a feeling that I was going way too high on my protein intake and kind of spoiling my keto effect. So I will go with much higher fat percentages this time and not worry so much about my protein intake. I will probably not be able to start the journey until April 1 although with my stunning revelation that avocado is actually a really tasty vegetable / fruit / berry I may start as soon as we get back from Costco tomorrow.

The problem I am having is energy levels, no matter what I do I seem to be short on energy during the day and from most accounts of people who have gone LCHF they do report significant changes in their energy levels. It also seems to be true that you can overfeed (probably only slightly) on LCHF without too much concern so that kind of works with my penchant for overstating my needs…

Just thought I would give a heads up that I am back and I will probably try to do some video updates also as part of the journey. I am toying with the idea of a 1 month challenge, and since I am far closer to being a regular person, and also old, this may have a broader appeal than a Bodybuilding.com sponsored athlete does since the belief is that people like that are just alien or built from silicone and silly putty.

My Zero Carb Experience

Image result for meat and waterI do get asked very frequently about my diet. It’s common knowledge that I am not like other people, I mean not having eaten any grains or sugar since 2008 probably qualifies me as a bit odd. Since moving to a Paleo diet in 08 I have tried pretty much everything that revolves around low carb from low carb high protein to low carb high fat to keto and finally most recently to zero carb. My experiences have been varied with success coming quickly on some methods and stalling progress on others. I have found that my body changes drastically depending on how many carbs i am eating and when but I am getting ahead of myself.

I stared paleo, I gave up sugar and grains and was very happy. The resulting 70 lb weight loss that has stayed off now for 8 years (I can’t believe I just wrote that) was actually fairly easy and I wrote about my changing mindset on several occasions, most notably HERE. Once I reached what was a reasonable goal I started trying to figure out what I could change without changing the results and without allowing the carb cravings to return. I eventually ended up in the keto camp, sticking with below 25g of carbs (or so I thought) a day but not really caring when I ate them. This gave me a little latitude to eat rice or yams or potato which was fine with me. However, what I didn’t realize at the time was that I was ingesting hidden carbs that were pushing my totals out of whack. I was drinking skim milk and eating nuts both of which resulted in large undercalculations of my carbs. 1 liter of skim milk which I would drink per day (including in my coffee) has almost 50g of carbs alone and the cup of nuts I was eating was another 30g. So the 25g I was factoring in was actually closer to 100g.

I decided about six months ago enough with the nuts and milk and I switched to heavy cream in my coffee (Starbucks will actually make a latte with 35% cream if you ask and it’s awesome) because 1 cup is only 6g and a cup of whipping cream is A LOT!! I also dropped the nuts completely which was actually hard to do because I was snacking at night so I decided to switch my meal times at the same time. I was finding that I wasn’t hungry in the morning so I backed my breakfast out to lunchtime and then didn’t eat again until either after my workout or after I coached. This meant having a large meal later in the day and therefore not snacking. Since I don’t get hungry I knew my snacking was just a habit not a desire so replacing it with a meal was easy. However, on days when I worked out I was having a big meal after and then starting to miss my evening chicken. This was when I understood that I was now into Zero Carb territory. Now, ZC people will tell you that true ZC is meat and water. That is all. I wasn’t quite that extreme, I was eating eggs and cheese still since cheese is awesome. But some days I would not have the 5-6 egg omelette and cheese in the day time and end up completely ZC. What I found was that my energy in they gym was really lacking. Also, I looked flat, unimpressive and I didn’t like that, the body dysmorphia kicked in pretty hard and I needed to do something so I decided to add back some targeted carbs after my workout knowing that (thanks to NIMGU) it wouldn’t affect my insulin and I should reap some benefits strength wise. I have already written about this just before Christmas so you will already know it worked quite well and since then I have stuck with the TC Keto and things seem to be working well. My diet is currently around 70% fat, 20% protein and 10% carbs which still puts me around 250 calories of carbs a day or 60g on a carb day. I was back to my happy place, seeing some size return and having more energy in the gym. However, being happy is a problem because I stop being so careful. My weight is now 238 which is around 10lbs too heavy so I think a couple weeks of paying attention is in order.

For those of you who may be here for the first time there is a lot of information in the side bar about my journey and if you are lacking some motivation feel free to start at the beginning and relish in my struggles with P90X as a 300lb lump with delusions of fitness grandeur…

I Feel Kettlebells Returning

I have recently been bothered by my apparent lack of mobility and with the advent of really shitty weather I feel like it may be time to get back into the basement for some kettlebell work. Fact is that I bought some doc boots that require the ability to reach my feet for an extended period and it has exposed a deficiency in my abilities. Also, I am going to try to return to Tony Horton’s Fountain of Youth 1 hour yoga workout too since I can’t stomach the 90 minute nonsense from the P90X series. So what to do? I have in the past done KB work exclusively for a period and didn’t miss the gym or the machines at all. However that was way back when my workouts were haphazard and I was trying to get used to my new body. Being under 240 after being over 300 for years is an eye opener let me tell you.

So what to do now? Now I have a standard routine and no time spare to bring in the KB work? Add to that the fact that I cannot work out 3 days a week because I coach right from work and I have a real time issue to deal with. Of course, the answer would be to do a 15 minute KB workout during the 30 minutes of mostly unsupervised conditioning that the kids do those 3 days. That may be the solution that I don’t want to accept but in light of my workouts being shorter now (40 minutes) and skipping days (MWF) I may be facing an uncomfortable reality. The fact is that the workouts I am doing are not making be more capable. They may be making me stronger in certain areas and better looking but if I don’t actually feel better then it’s really not the result I am looking for. The last time I really felt like I had become “more durable in the real world” was after my KB intro back in 2011. Back then I had kind of a hybrid workout with RKC (Russian Kettlebell Challenge) and regular gym movements together. Once I was finished with that program I was a convert. I remember being amazed at my core strength and cardio by the time I was done and this on the back of what I thought were very short workouts. Truth is that most KB work is whole body especially when you end up doing lots of swings and can develop amazing back and core strength. Add some turkish get ups and you have a wonderful system.

So I think I will do a hybrid of the hybrid…

This was the workout that was:

Day 1 – RKC Minimum Swings (The RKC Minimum is 4 weeks, then transition into Rite Of Passage)
Day 2 – RKC TGU and WOD
Day 3 – Bench and dips (Chest, shoulder, tri)
Day 4 – Cardio or stretch or Yoga

Day 5 – RKC Minimum Swings
Day 6 – RKC TGU and WOD
Day 7 – Deadlifts and Squat (Legs and Back)
Day 8 – Cardio or stretch or Yoga

 

 

TKD, “Real Food” and My Zero Carb Experience

kccosquirrelSo I am over my rest month, my strength is down, when I go to the gym I imagine people sniggering as they walk by me struggling under a 250lb bench. It’s been a tough month, it always is, forcing myself to go low weight and high reps, not allowing myself to hit failure, honestly I hate it. But I have to do it, at my age I can’t keep up the same super heavy regimen all the time, plus change is what causes growth not familiarity. So it’s time for the next thing and this time I will be modifying my diet again to see what works for me.

And that was a month ago.

This always happens. I take a month to wind down which turns into 2 and I get distracted by everything else and end up 10lbs heavier wondering where my motivation went.

I did modify my diet a little. I found that true zero carb was very deflating for me not only physically but also emotionally. But then I made an interesting discovery. I started the TKD which is targeted Keto, it just means that you can have appropriate carbs but only after your workout in the NIMGU window which I talked about a while ago. I bought some Rich Piana Real Food from Bulldog and set about seeing if it was going to work. Well, I was actually very surprised. After about 3 days of using the carbs after working out I was about 10lbs heavier and looked twice the size. I was shocked that only 30-40g of carbs a day would make that much of a difference. So for a couple of weeks I used the carbs after working out however I also wasn’t paying much attention to my total caloric intake and started to gain some size again. Since this wasn’t the goal I have been wrestling with it ever since.

That’s because I have a life changing decision to apply. A decision that has been made over the last couple of years and that is to keep my weight down regardless of if I am bulking or not. I used to fluctuate (in my desirable state) between 240-260lbs. I have since decided it’s probably best if I can keep my weight in the 220-240 range. This has not proven to be easy but only because of my propensity to over feed myself not out of hunger but out of a simple overestimation of what I need. Having spent most of my adult life eating too much it’s hard to understand mentally that what I see on the plate is enough.

I have since gone between the TKD and zero card finding that the days I don’t work out I just don’t need the carbs and since it’s basically every other day that it works out fine. If I feel a bit heavy I will just take a day or two off the carbs and my weight will fall a little. That said, I am not oblivious to the fact that I have less definition than I did and so my bodyfat needs some attention.

Seeing as how October 12 was my last post I think my focus and attention to detail both at the gym and in the kitchen and how it is reflected here needs attention also.

Merry Christmas everyone, I  hope I will be back before Santa comes.

Summer Wind Down (my rest month)

restIts the time of year where I take a bit of time to heal, to let my heavy lifting of the summer get behind me and take some time to do some ancillary work and cardio. I tend to lift pretty heavily during the summer, and almost exclusively certain exercises that eventually leads me to lacking in other areas. I don’t really do it on purpose but I can’t remember the last time I did my calves or forearms… or for that matter did any time on my abs or the StairMaster.

So for the next month or so I am going to be taking 15 minutes out of my 45 min workout to do cardio and I am going to build in some ancillary work. Specifically I need to do some lower back work on the GHD and some hamstring work. I tend to do less hamstrings when I squat and leg press and I feel like that’s a problem. The last time I was at the doctor he commented on my marginally elevated blood pressure so I am hoping that some cardio (and some kettlebell HIIT) will help to bring that BP down. Speaking of KB work I think I am going to get back into doing some of that. I think that since I coach on 3 weekdays and have no time for workouts on those days that a light KB workout when I get home or even in the morning before we go to work would do wonders. I only need about 15 minutes to get some swings in and get my heart going so it’s not a big ask really. It will also help with my abs which have had ZERO work all summer with the exception of the twisting rows that I do for my back. I have been particularly tired the last week or so and I think my body is crying out for a break. It may also be time to think about moving towards mobility and gymnastics skills for the winter rather than heavy lifts. A couple of years ago I pushed really hard towards Christmas to get some of my heaviest lifts in years, but I think I would be just as proud of a 10 second handstand as I was of my 415lb bench.

So for the time being it’s increase the cardio, reduce the weights and find some variety in my workouts to give myself a break.

I would say get more sleep too but I think we all know that’s not going to happen…

It’s Fall, time for a change.

coconut-superfruitI am very predictable in that every fall I need to change what I am doing. Maybe it’s because I have usually spent the summer grinding against my weight and going to the gym but whatever it is I am getting that same old feeling again.

Before I go on, I have attached an image relating to my favourite fat, coconut oil. I use coconut oil for many things, every day with my eggs is the most obvious but also healing my cracked hands and using it on my head after a shave are unexpected benefits. the infographic (who doesn’t love a good infographic?) is from www.superfoodsliving.com so credit where credit is due.

So on to change. I am feeling like I will need to add some cardio and mobility back to my workouts, this summer has been all about gym lifting and very little in the way of compound movements or mobility / cardio. I am not sure if I really want to dive straight back into a WOD system I am thinking I can incorporate some of my compound lifts at the gym such as cleans or snatches. That said, I know I will have to be at the gym for cardio so I am thinking that moving my workouts back home isn’t the best way to go about this.

I am formulating a plan in my head for now, something to increase my cardio to about 3x a week and probably starting to work on my mobility during conditioning at gymnastics since I am there 4 days a week now.

My last post outlined my progress for the summer, I lost a bit of fat but I am still sitting around 230 and 19% which is a bit too high. I have managed to stay here for around 2 years now and I think it’s about time that I did a long term push to get to around 18%. I also want to note that the back strain that I had in the last post took around 6 weeks to clear which was not enjoyable, I think what I actually did was have a slight impingement in my back while at the same time straining one of the muscles with a slight pull. Whatever it was, it hurt like hell.

In other news the gymnastics club has had an influx of new kids, my group has expanded from 4 to 8 with some great high level athletes coming in. It’s been a challenge adapting to the new bodies and the dynamics since they all came from the same gym but all in all I think it’s been a good experience so far. It’s floor routine season and the new coach that came over with the kids is going to be doing the floor and beam routines this year, so this will be interesting.

I will update with my new program as soon as I am ready and for the time being here is the program I have been on for the summer:

  1. Chest – Bench, incline, laying pullovers, machine flys
  2. Back – Machine rows, pulldowns and assisted chinups, chinups, straight arm cable pulldowns
  3. Legs – Incline press, occasional squat (light), leg extension, hamstring curl, machine butt thing
  4. Shoulders and traps – OHP, front and side raise, machine raise, rear delt machine, shrug machine, occasional upright rows
  5. Arms – Dip machine, free dips, pushdowns or close grip bench, machine curls, DB curls, BB curls.

 

Update – 3 weeks on cut (with pictures)

So it was 3 weeks or so ago that I was going to take the 2 week challenge and try to get some weight off before coaching started again and I did OK.

I have gone from 244 @ 22% and this morning I was 235 @ 19.1% and while the % numbers may not be accurate it is a reasonable reflection of my almost 3% fat loss. I am currently suffering with a back strain that happened as I was attacked on the couch by a rambunctious 6 year old so I am having to take things really slowly and since I coach 4 days a week it is looking like no workouts this week. That’s OK because I did 23 days in a row without a rest day while trying to drop some weight. It’s funny but as usual nothing really seemed to happen for the first 2 weeks and then the last 10 days or so I have started to see some changes. I just hope that my inactivity doesn’t derail my efforts.

So here you are, without any further ado… what you can do in 3 weeks. First pictures are July 26, second are August 15. I will post more at the end of August if it’s still working 🙂 Please forgive the underwear and bathroom shots…

July26 2016-1 July26 2016-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August15 2016-1August15 2016-2

Half Way Done

stay the courseI had to laugh when I re-read my last post, my optimism about my weight was so cute… When I decided I needed to cut a bit again it was because at work I had weighed in for the Biggest Loser contest at a whopping 248lbs. Being that close to 250 was a real wake up call for me and although I had clothes on when I got home and weighed myself the next day I discovered I was up at 244lbs almost 18lbs up from my lowest last year. Granted I am a bit bigger than I was back then muscle-wise but it was not something that I am proud of. This is how messed up my head is… I didn’t want to post the actual weight that I was nor the %BF which was 22% because I didn’t want to fail. I was actually nervous that this time it may not work and I would be embarrassed at my failing. I have been doing this a long time and by now I should know that if you follow the process, then it works.

The Process:

Decide – Force yourself to be ready. Decide you are going to do what it takes, no excuses, and accept the voice in your head is a liar.
Plan – Be confident and aggressive, use your initial enthusiasm to help kick start your effort
Execute – Step by step execution. Sleep is your friend, you can’t eat when you are asleep 🙂

I was lucky in that this time off from coaching coincided with some time off work which meant that I could be active during the day, installing microwaves and waterproofing the deck etc. Since the cards were dealt in my favour I went for it. That was about a week ago. I have worked out every day, using rest days to do some cardio to give my muscles a rest. I benched 375 at the gym for the first time in a while this week so something is going right. Part of my commitment was to use my Fitbit app to track my calories and even for someone with my experience it is absolutely critical to track what I eat if I am going to succeed.

So how am I doing so far?

Yesterday I weighed in at 236 but that was after the gym, this morning I was back up to 237.8 which is almost 7lbs down in a week. My BF% has fallen from the 22% 2 weeks ago to approximately 20.5% and although the impedance scale is not necessarily a great or accurate measure, the trend is definitely in the right direction. I have taken a couple of pictures during the process but I will wait until the 2 weeks are done to post anything. The difference in how I feel is amazing though, I am starting to get that “light on my feet” feeling back again which may be due to the cardio I have been doing but may also be due to what I am seeing in the mirror.

Which brings me to another point.

I have body dysmorphia. It’s something that isn’t recognized as a disease like anorexia and I don’t think it should be so please don’t get me wrong. But it exists in a large percentage of the population who regularly go to the gym and is rampant among males who lift weights. It’s like looking at yourself through a Snapchat filter that makes you smaller. No matter what you see, you will always think that you are smaller than you are. I was looking at a guy in the gym the other day thinking that he was a pretty big guy and how I wished I was that size when it occurred to me to make a direct comparison. So I wandered over looking all casual and spent a few minutes in the same area making comparisons.

I was bigger than him in almost every way.

But still the sting of envy coursed through my veins. It’s a very odd feeling knowing that you are not seeing reality but it’s something that I have had to deal with all my life. My method of getting around my neuroses is to use the hard facts. Numbers like weight, BF% and measurements are my friend and of course pictures where you can make a direct comparison to other pictures also help. It’s a struggle to try to see things as they are but it’s something I am working on.

 

2 Weeks Of Change

IMG_1119So I got a new fitbit from Costco. It’s a Charge HR again but the big news is that it now comes with a stopwatch!!

I have also decided that since paying attention to the work I am doing isn’t really keeping me engaged I would try something else and it’s going to be a weightloss of 5lbs in 2 weeks. See I have 2 weeks off from coaching and I would like to go back to the gym afterwards looking like I did at this time last year. Of course that is because right now I don’t. I am around 238lbs right now and 19-20% fat which is too high. I figure if I can burn 5lbs of fat in the next 2 weeks I can get my percentage down to 18-19 which should give me a good shot at hitting 17% this year, something that I haven’t done since University. My lowest last year was 18% which for a guy isn’t that great to be honest.

The picture to the left is me last summer when I was at my lowest BF%. I will try to post a picture tomorrow of what I look like now so that in 2 weeks we can all marvel at the tiny changes 🙂

So for 2 weeks it will be strict Keto, very low dairy and a variable calorie deficit of somewhere between 500-1000 calories a day.

It’s going to be horrible but really it will give me something to aim for, something to focus on and I would be really happy if I went back to gym in 2 weeks and people actually noticed a difference.

But will they? I know I am super critical of myself and that I notice every little thing but will it make a difference to the casual observer, I guess time will tell.

Another One Bites The Dust.

surge-and-vivoactiveSo I have used activity tackers and HR monitors for several years now and I have come to the conclusion that basically they all suck. Not because of the tech behind them or the amazing apps or wide range of use but rather because they are not built to last. I started out with a very simple Polar F11 HR monitor with the strap which was my first gripe, knowing that if the hospital can take my heart rate with a clamp on my finger why the hell do I have to wear a chest strap? It was very basic and worked OK until the chest strap battery went, and shortly after stopped working altogether. The HR reading were not consistent, you have to have the right amount of moisture to make it work and it was, for someone who was very fat at the time, very uncomfortable and kept rolling down my barrel of a body. I traded up some time later to a Suunto T6D which was my first foray into high level HR mapping with the RMR intervals (I am sure that’s wrong btw) and lots of other bells and whistles including a foot pod a GPS pod and a cadence monitor none of which I used. I think the Suunto was the one that didn’t have a stopwatch which seemed insane to me. Again, within about a year the chest strap gave up and I was left with a very ugly watch. I did like the Suunto software though and the online tracking. I then was lucky enough to score a Polar RS800CX HR monitor for about $200 from a store that was closing down and I was really happy with it until the band broke and once again the chest strap came apart even though I was far less fat at that point.

It was at that time that the new wrist worn HR readers were coming out, I had added a Garmin Vivofit to my arsenal and was wearing it to gauge what my all day activity profile was which was really excellent until after about 8 months the strap broke. I could probably have got a new strap since it’s a modular and quite clever system but by that time the HR monitors were out and I switched to a Fitbit. The strap broke on the fitbit after a few months and I graduated up to the Fitbit Charge HR which is what I used up until yesterday when I discovered it’s not charging any more. Not only that, the clip around the charging slot at the back has broken off so the clip wont clip. The band has held up OK but the watch itself is screwed.

So I am once again without an HR monitor or step counter.

Is this a problem?

I know that I have enjoyed the Fitbit systems, I used the food tracker last year to get to my best BF% ever and love to have all my stats in the dashboard. For $180 at Costco it’s not a huge amount but if you only get a year of use it’s a bit much. I do have to say that it’s a couple of dollars cheaper at Bestbuy. I could go all out and get the Surge or the Blaze but since I use the device not as a watch but as an activity tracker and I already wear a watch maybe the Charge HR is enough for me right now. One downside I have found is that the band does irritate my wrist at times. The Garmin never did but every Fitbit I have owned has irritated my skin to a degree.

I think at this point I will just suck it up and get another Charge HR but I will be sure to keep the receipt since the warranty apparently is a year. I am doing this because I believe that the more you know about what you are doing the better equipped you are to do something about it. Just knowing that I am getting 4000 steps a day on average lets me know that I should probably be adding a 20 minute walk to my program somewhere or a short set of sprints to get my numbers up. Seeing my sleep numbers is also a big part of why I like the Fitbit. I know I don’t sleep enough but knowing how much is enough should be a step towards fixing that.