Observations of the World

The title may seem deep, but I don't know that it really is. Just a couple things I've noticed within the past day or two.

1. Time and what you spend your breaks on. (Especially important for diet veterans)
Being a diet veteran myself I find this especially important because at times I can lose focus on overall health while trying to lose weight or obtain the 'perfect' physique. I say 'perfect' because what you realized once you start achieving your goals you realize there will always be something you can change, just as a car enthusiast will tell you about their project car. Anyway, back to what I was saying about losing focus (that was a perfect example). So with the new semester I am taking a hodgepodge of health classes, with health science backgrounds and kinesiology backgrounds. So as the first few days of class, of course we go over the history of what we have described health as, back in the 50-60's it was just as long as nothing is wrong with you, you are healthy, then in the 80's it changed to the triangle of health, physical, environmental, and then mental. Then added a side to the triangle (so now a diamond?) which included spiritual and social, and If you were strong in all of those you had optimum health. And now today there aren't really levels of health but more a health continuum that you place somewhere on (hopefully high) 0 is dead and 10 is optimum. With that it got me thinking, especially because yesterday I got out of school early and I had enough time to make lunch for later. After that I was confronted with two choices 1. go to work early to actually get a workout today or 2. go to get coffee with my girl friend and throw away any chance at working out that day.
For me I chose number 2, naturally. But thinking about it maybe back two years ago if I had a girlfriend and thought of diet and exercise much differently (more of how the fitness community does) I would've chose number 1. This bothers me because of How i used to think and because of how the fitness industry expresses health and fitness. Health is a jumble of all of those sides I talked about not just about being active. So they expect you to throw out social and go with physical, anyone else ever feel amazingly health when you feel lonely? I don't.

2.Again in school we talked about two different kinds of professionals, typically is regular drs (can't think of the word) and the other is holistic (they think of the problem is a sum of multiple parts). My chiropractor Dr. Thomas Sawyer, is like the latter, one of the main reasons I keep going back, also he is very good. Many people tend to be confronted with a problem physically or mentally, so they go somewhere to fix that said problem and don't even take a second to look at what may have caused that problem.

For instance lets look at a circumstance, you have a constant nagging back injury. So you go to a regular chiropractor and he adjusts you and the pain goes away for maybe a day, a week, or maybe even a month. Only for it to return.
The second example you would go to a holistic chiropractor, he may adjust you as well and you start feeling better, however, he will also help you to assess which muscle are tight and which are causing your problems, then will help to loosen those muscles through stretches and exercises you may do to help expedite the process.

Now typically the first is usually quicker and which is why people tend to gravitate more towards that way (instant gratification, this typically tends to screw us). However it is a dangerous mindset that I see more and more people fall into, its something we as a whole need to get out of. However, the government isn't a large proponent for things like this, they make far more money taxing antibiotic companies that help to treat problems. Where as if they were to help with prevention of these diseases or problems, there wouldn't be much money to be made. The sad truth is money controls pretty much anything, which is why you must be careful taking advice from others and you need to look at what the facts are and why might such an outcome occur.
My favorite example of correlation is about shoe size and math skills.
There was a study done and the correlation of bigger shoe size was tied to better math skills. Now if you looked at that blindly you would think you've got to increase you shoe size some how. But if you took a deeper look at the study you would find that the study was done at an elementary school. Now lets think at elementary schools what are the populations of people. Children usually kindergarten-6th grade. Now lets look at the Kindergarteners, they have poor math skills due to them being young and un practiced, they are also small and have small feet because they are young. Now looking at the 6th graders, the big kids on campus, they've had far more experience with math and years of practice, increasing their math skills, also they are older and have grown more increasing their foot size. Well look at that Bigger feet, better at math, that must be the correlation. Now we all know that is complete bogus, but thats how a lot of studies are setup with certain protocols especially in the fitness industry and is why its ever so important to look at why something may happen and not be so nieve and believe everything you see or read somewhere.

Swiss Cheese

Ok so my blogging has been like swiss cheese lately, so Ill give an update of what Ive been up to;

1. My diet has been pretty much the same, almost to the exact foods except, due to the low calories and low carbs and depletion workouts, I have been having crazy food cravings (crazy as in very strong and often). So the other day I whipped up some zucchini and mushrooms and steak, Ill have to write down the recipe next time I make it because they were bomb! (usually i can save half of my meal, not this time). Anyways, been on the same diet except for switching up the vegetables.

2. Haven't been doing much in the gym aside from 30-40 minutes of cardio maybe once or twice and lots of stretching, REMEMBER stretching will save you from a lot of pain later down the road trust me. Also treat stretching like exercise 3 sets of 30 seconds on each stretch. or for the more dedicated individuals for 60 seconds and still 3 sets.

3. School I have been increasing the rate at which I am balding (ok maybe stress making you bald is an old wives tale) but Im stressed nonetheless. However my stress is subsiding because there isn't anything else I can do other than what I already have this week so I can just put it aside and whatever happens, happens.

1/25/2012

Alright I know I keep missing days. However, school has just begun and yesterday I was at school from 9-6 and on my little breaks I had at school I was either breathing, or trying to find a way to add classes that I need, or cursing to an online site about how horrible our school has become. Anywho, yesterday we'll just say was all according to plan, diet wise, and even got a rep workout in, each set 30 reps and 60 seconds long, 6 sets each body part again. Totally sucked absolutely. However, it is paving the way for the rest of the diet.

The rest of the diet;
so for the next two days after the depletion workouts, you can either take the days off, or optimize the bodies ability to mobilize and utilize fat at an accelerated rate by doing some type of low intensity extended cardio, such as walking on an incline for 30-60 minutes. Then on the 3rd day, or technically the 5th day, mid day you want to do a tension workout, or a workout that will stimulate the muscles enough to increase carb storage in the muscles, so it will be less reps and more weight with only a couple of sets, more details later. Then you will begin the fun part of the diet. I would go into all this technical details but truthfully i don't think i have the time right now, so if you really want to know just let me know and I can give you details and help you out. However, you will be eating anywhere from 500-1200 grams of carbs depending on your body size, yes that is grams. 2000-4800 calories worth of carbs along with under 50 grams of fat over the next 24 hrs. This will allow your body to fully if not overcompensate your muscles with carb stores, priming your body for the next diet, which will be technically the 7th day, day 6 you will be eating the carbs, this is pretty awesome however, can be quite daunting. Then on day 7 you will do your strength workout, very heavy weight and very low reps to maximize muscular growth and increase your strength. and that will be the end of the diet.

So for me this is a very exciting time, however, I will extend this a bit further and do the refeed on sunday or so, where I can actually take the time and enjoy all these carbs.

Update 1/23/2012

Well as i sit waiting for class to begin I might as well just update you guys on the diet.
So far today, I have eaten about 5 oz of chicken that my cousin decided to cook up. Made with some parsley, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice. Was very tasty around 230 calories and 45 grams of protein. Brought an additional 6 oz of said chicken which will add 240 calories and 48 grams of protein. Totaling 93 grams of protein and 470 calories so far today. Later on depending when I get out of class and how much time I have I will try to get a workout in on break. Ill be sure to update fitocracy if I do and show a screen shot on the bottom of this post along with the rest of food and what Ill have for dinner.

Monday 1/23/2012

Well last night was a very thorough loading of carbs if I do say so myself. Had about 6 breadsticks, 4 servings of salad, and a serving a chicken parmigiana from olive garden. Then got home had about 3 pieces of some coffee cake Karla and I made from scratch then 2 pieces of another creation we found online 'tres leches' cake or how the iPhone constantly likes to call it 'tres leeches', admittedly the first sounds a bit more appetizing. 

Now we get to today, as of the last day of my diet my body fat was down to about 7% give or take .5%. So this week I will be taking fat loss much slower and by means of a different diet. The calories of said diet will be much higher and it will included higher amount of fat, and I will be ensuring the absorption of the fat soluble vitamins that the previous diet had neglected to absorb. (Vitamins A, D, E, K.)

This new diet is very similar however, the protein requirement is lowered due to the fact that the calories are higher, lowering the threshold of necessity for protein. It will be adding fat back into the diet, I would give you guys a percentage estimate on fat in the diet, but what good would that do? Does anyone really see the benefit of that? Especially for me I see things quite differently, first off math isn't necessarily my strong suit, even though I took calculus in high school, I didn't quite grasp much of it. When looking at a diet and a dieter, I look at how much fat they have, how much they weigh, and how many calories they will need to consume or not consume in order to see a beneficial amount of weight loss (beneficial in the sense of psychologically pleasing and motivating and beneficial for health markers). 

Anyways, back to the diet. For the protein instead of being 2 grams/ lbs of lean body mass. We will be going for 1 gram / lbs of LBM. Thus reducing the amount of protein greatly. Which for me is somewhere around 160-165 grams. So if we look at that for the protein that would come out to be 640-660 calories. So for me I roughly weight 170-175 so well say I roughly burn through 1700-1750 calories per day. So that will be the upper limit of what I can eat, now On a day I don't go to the gym I would suggest for myself to eat no more than 1300-1400 calories, but on a gym day I would eat 1500-1600 calories. This allows for weight loss but isn't too low where my body would feel lethargic and not be able to recover from the workout. So how am I going to reach that calorie limit, BY ADDING FAT! (few sticks of butter here and there). Ok maybe not sticks of butter, don't we wish. This allows for me to enjoy fattier cuts of meat, some peanut butter, nuts, and butter on whatever I so choose. However, I will not be consuming carbs for the same reason described in the primer on the previous diet.

Exercise portion of this diet will be miserable and completely and utterly painful (not for the unmotivated lazy people) It will consist of 6 sets on each body part. Each set will be a timed set meaning you will perform the set for time not a number of reps. Bring some motivating music or picture of what you want to look like for motivation to the gym so you don't quit halfway through, because trust me you will not want to do more than 3 sets of this if that. This will be a full body day for 2 days in a row. For the crazy wanting to torture themselves you can do 12 sets in one day and be done with it. But plan for at least two days. What i tend to do is do 2 workouts in one day and 2 the nexts. So i can do 3 sets first gym session and 3 the next or more the first and whatever I didn't do first. 

Now the reason we do this type of torture is to deplete the carbs out of our muscles, aka depletion training. What this does is voids the body of most carbs, which sends signals to the brain, which sends signals everywhere else, to switch over to more fat oxidation due to the lack of carbs. Thus, increasing fat oxidation on a global scale. For the more vain people as the week goes on you will start to see your muscles deflate and you will absolutely hate how you look, but you must have faith and continue on. This is getting kinda long, so ill update a little later on how the diet is going and any workout I may complete and then Ill finish the diet details tomorrow.

Diet Summary;

1. Protein

2. Fat

3. No Carbs

4. Low Calories

Exercise Summary;

1. It sucks

2. 6 sets

3. 30-60 seconds each set (the more the better)

4. Full body

5.For two days

Final Day

So there was no update, kinda got a little busy with everything. Needless to say the diet finished and I went out drinking last night and the diet definitely got out of control, regardless I woke up this morning looking leaner than I had all week, which is probably due to a few factors.
1. Alcohol is an actual diuretic, unlike coffee, (study showed that caffeine doesn't make you pee out more than you normally would.)
2. Didn't really eat much in the morning or afternoon
3.had carbs

1 & 3. So the alcohol and carbs likely got rid of any subcutaneous water that was still residing from the likely phenomenon i explain when I saw a weight gain in day 3 or 4. Don't take this out of context either. Drinking has excess calories so its not good for weight loss. Also don't go out and buy a huge load of bread either just because I said I ate carbs and woke up leaner. This effect really will only happen when you are on a sustained low or no carb diet, or on DNP but thats a whole other subject.
2. Well, if you can't guess why this would help after reading through my blog, I'm sorry.

anyways the diet is over, however yesterday was my mothers bday so tonight we are celebrating it at, yep you guess it, Olive garden. Reading this you guys probably think I really like this place or something. Well after a week of no carbs, unlimited breadsticks sounds like something you would find in heaven, along with bottomless mimosa's.
However, monday Will start another diet, however it is going to be a low carb diet, not a no carb, just low, depending on how much i can exercise i may make it a no carb diet, and walk you through a carb de loading and carb 'super compensation' diet. Also monday is the start of school, so my ramblings may get a little more technical just to 1. help me study (since I'm an Exercise Physiology major) 2. show off my newly learned knowledge.
Anyways,
hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Day 5 (1/20/2012)

Woke up today looked at scale 168, if you remember thats a gain of 1 lb from yesterday. Now lets look at why that may be. If we remember I still had at least a 500-600 caloric deficit. Lets look back at possible reasons.
1. Weightloss is far from an exact science and is definitely not linear (boo :/  )
2. Last nights meal was quite large and now that extra weight is in my digestive tract (along with other food that this diet tends to not flush out quite well)
3. Last nights meal was very high in sodium
4. I didn't drink very much water yesterday.
Ok now lets look at each in some kind of detail

1. Well theres not much to number 1 its more of what happen and 2,3,4 are the reasons why
2. All that extra weight of the food tends to accumulate, I have been neglecting fiber and not supplementing it so as you can guess there is still some food in my GI tract
3. Sodium can cause bloating, one of the reasons that they say not to have diets in sodium during weight loss because it can stall weight loss and causes people to fall off the bandwagon, even though you may be losing fat. Sodium causes accumulation of water thus making you heavier and not complimenting your looks.
4. Not enough water contrary to what may seem logical, if you don't drink a lot of water, your body holds on to whatever water it can. Thus storing what it can, and making you bloated as well and heavier just like sodium does.
5. Not necessarily proven but quite possible, is that when losing fat your body mobilizes the triglyceride stored which is stored with water as well, giving it the fullness, so when the body mobilized the triglyceride the water was left behind still making your fat cell enlarged. This will eventually go away, also may be the mechanism of why when you add carbs or have a cheat day to your diet you can continue to lean up even though you ate more than you burned that day.

Anyways ill update more later enjoy guys, time to go have lunch with Karla