I’m moving on

Today, a few hours after my gym workout, I decided to try doing a handstand for the first time since I was a child. I had done no practice, no warm-up, no anything. And I was able to do a handstand against a wall after about half a dozen tries to get the right speed of leg kick. And I held it. And held it. I came back down and couldn’t believe what I’d just done. And only hours after my “thrash my arms and shoulders” workout. Just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke, I tried it again. Once again, my arm and shoulder strength were sufficient.

Inspired, I quickly ran over to the gym and loaded up the bench press barbell with 185lbs–my current bodyweight. And I pressed the bar up and down four times. And then I knocked out 7 dead-hang chinups with excellent form.

And so I realized today that this blog has reached the end of its natural life. Obviously, the dwindling posts over the last year are a testament to this, but there is an important additional consideration. I am fit. I am healthy. I am happy. I am stronger than I ever have been. I look better naked than I ever have. And it’s time to focus on new challenges. I started this blog because writing about my weight loss and fitness journey was motivating to me. That is no longer the case. My body is sound. It’s time to refocus on my mind. I don’t know where/when I’ll pop back up as a blogger, but I do know that my focus will be creative, academic, intellectual. Because the whole point of a sound body is to house a sound mind.

Feelin’ Fine

Hey peeps. It’s been an awfully long time since my last post. I’ve gained weight and lost weight. I’ve gained muscle and lost muscle. But I’m in a terrific place right now, and I wanted to share a little bit about it.

I have been doing beautifully with my nutrition. Very strict paleo/primal eating and drinking. I need to qualify that by saying that I occasionally have cheese and have red wine regularly, but those are primal approved, so I call myself strict. I’ve had one day where I ate chinese food (I shouldn’t have gotten baked, but primal man got high, too), and had one beer this Monday, but otherwise have been perfect since the end of April.

I have given up all soda/soft drinks as of April 26th, as well. I only drink water, coffee (max 2 cups per day), tea, and red wine. This process was EASY. I can’t stress this enough. I drank Coke Zero in disgusting amounts up until the 26th. 3-6 cans per day disgusting. I experienced no side effects, no headaches, no cravings. I spent a week at a client’s office where there was free, cold, and plentiful Coke Zero, and experienced no desire to consume any. Do yourself the favor of giving this stuff up!

My body composition is better than ever, my obliques are visible, my lovehandles are shrinking, and my arms are popping! I feel better about where I am now than I ever have. So what am I doing, other than eating lots of nutritious vegetables, meat, and eggs (and smaller amounts of fruit and nuts)?

Well, after quite a lot of tinkering that led to some serious adrenal fatigue, here’s what I’ve settled on.

• Kettlebell swings twice per week. 40lb bell, 75 swings broken into two sets.
• Daily chinups. Multiple sets throughout the day ranging from 3-5 reps.
• Daily pushups. Only 1 set of 20. I’d like this to be more, but I don’t want to stop doing them, so I stick with 20 for now.
• Simple gym workout twice per week. Each exercise is 1 set to failure, shooting for between 7-12 reps. 3 minutes of rest between exercises: Bench Press, Lat Pulldowns, Leg Press, Dips, Yates Bent Rows, Leg Extensions, Overhead Press, Slow DB shrugs, Myotatic Crunch, Cat Vomit.
• Shovelglove 3-5 times per week.
• Bicycling 32km three times per week. This I do as part of my commute.
• Soccer and slo-pitch twice per week. This gives me my sprinting workout and some brieft, intense cardio.

On occasion, I will go out for a 5k run, but I’m being careful not to overdo things. I feel like this is a manageable workload for me right now, and I’m getting great results.

I’m also taking the following supplements daily:

• 6g of Omega-3
• 4000 IU Vitamin D
• 40 Minim Cod Liver Oil

I’ve been doing this for over a month now, and am feeling terrific and looking better than ever. I now see a body like the one in my header as a real possibility.

PSB4WC Day 1

Day 1 is in the books and I ate clean all day. After the ridiculous pork-out during the Superbowl, I decided to do a little intermittent fasting and so skipped breakfast and had a Starbucks Grande Americano with steamed whipped cream. For lunch, I had leftovers: 1 1/2 chicken burger patties. Afternoon snack was a small handful of almonds. Supper was a plain double quarter pounder with cheese from McDonald’s sans bun and another 1 1/2 chicken burger patties. Evening snack was my one indulgence: a small piece of dark chocolate with some almonds. All in all, a very successful day.

Post-Superbowl 4-week challenge

I totally overindulged yesterday while watching the Packers stomp the Steelers. I also have 4 weeks left in my Superhero workout program. I am thus starting a 4-week “eat clean” challenge where I will adhere to my paleo/primal nutrition principles (the exception being Coke Zero, which I am not ready to kick just yet).

I will eat no grains, no legumes, no vegetable fats, and no milk, and I will severely limit my sugar intake. Four weeks is an incredibly short amount of time, so I foresee no stressors in this commitment. But it is also plenty of time to make a real difference in my body composition (specifically in losing fat).

UVB Tanning for Health

I’ve started UVB tanning this past week. Living in Edmonton during the winter means both very few daylight hours and freezing temperatures. This leaves no opportunities to get my vitamin D from the glorious ball of fire that we orbit.

I’ll be honest–artificial tanning scares me. The cancer campaign against them has been very effective. This kind of tanning uses UVA rays to get your skin tanned without burning. The sun has both UVA and UVB, and only the latter stimulates vitamin D production. Plus, there is overwhelming evidence that vitamin D deficiency leads to all kinds of health problems, including cancer. So for me, living where I do in the winter, my options are limited.

Fortunately, there are some UVB only tanning salons here. I’ve had two sessions so far, and I’ll be going for a third session on Monday. I’ve noticed some redness in my skin the day after tanning, but nothing else so far.

Quick Winter Update

When winter came, my fancy plan became much harder to follow. I didn’t exactly fall off the wagon, but there were a few multiple-day periods where I really put nothing towards my plan either nutritionally or fitness-wise.

Fortunately, I did keep going to the gym fairly regularly. I finished up the Stronglifts program I was doing and have moved on to Christian Thibaudeau’s Superhero Program. I’m in the middle of week 6 and I’ve been getting incredible body composition results from this program and a renewed nutritional focus (sticking with paleo/primal). I’m a G-D stud! Sweet traps and nice definition in my shoulders and arms, plus my pecs look like pecs instead of boobs! It’s pretty sweet.

Right now the only real thorn in my side is football Sunday. I’ve been localizing the damage to one day, so my eating right now looks a lot like Timothy Ferriss’s Slow-carb diet. But the Football season is nearly over, and my excuses and my opportunities will be fewer.

That said, I did have a moment of weakness, but I was saved by the Chinese place being closed early. Instead, I had Edo Japan with extra vegetables instead of rice. I’m glad, but annoyed that I was willing to eat crap and suffer the consequences of eating it too. Better days!

A new plan!

I haven’t fallen off the wagon, exactly. Well, clearly, I have from a blogging standpoint. From a fitness standpoint, I’ve kind of been in stasis, giving lip-service to Primal Blueprint Fitness (mostly that has just meant I stopped running and made excuses for not doing pushups), and letting bad eating habits creep back in.

As a result, I’ve felt like crap, looked like crap (in particular, the racoon-bags under my eyes have returned–I hadn’t even noticed they’d disappeared!) and it’s time to get my act together again.

Fitness

The new plan is simple: a manageable amount of body weight exercise and shovelglove every weekday, a bicycle commute to work or 5k run every weekday, and then a bit of moving around on Saturday (e.g. 10k jog or a BodyRock bodyweight workout).

To that end, I’ve split up the Primal Blueprint Fitness 5 essential movements (pushups, pull-ups, planks, overhead press, and squats) into twice-per week chunks spread over the five weekdays. Instead of following the PBF guidelines for pushups and pull-ups, I’m going to be working off of the 100 pushups and 20 pull-ups workout plans (the former with a goal of hitting 50 pushups in two consecutive sets and the latter with a goal of hitting first 20 chin-ups and then 20 pull-ups). I’m hoping that this will get me into the “Advanced” sections of Primal Blueprint Fitness and break through this plateau that I’m currently stuck in.

On the cardio front, the running and cycling are going to be “take it easy” type work, making sure I stay in the 75% max heart-rate range. The one exception will be Thursdays, where I’m going to run a 5k on a treadmill and try to get myself, over the course of months, into a sub-20 minute 5k.

This plan also involved winter cycling, for which I am trying to prepare myself.

Nutrition

My plan in this area is pretty simple. On every day but Sunday I will be strict IF Paleo/Primal with the following general guidelines/exceptions:

• All eating occurs in an 8 hour window
• Cheese is okay
• So are diet sodas (this remains a “someday I’ll kick it” proposition)
• Small amount of dark chocolate or sugar-free ice cream twice a week
• Minimize fruit, maximize vegetables

My partner has become quite adept at preparing beets, sweet potatoes, squash and other paleo-friendly starches, which is part of the reason I want to make sure I’m doing some kind of workout every day. Otherwise those would just be empty carbs.

Sundays are “cheat” days. For now, I’ve realized that I need that outlet day to look forward to–in essence, that treat is easier to resist now when I know I can have it later. Eventually, I want my eating habits to be perfect all of the time, but right now that seems unattainable.

The Closest to Perfect Paleo Pancake yet!

This is quickly turning into a blog about pancakes!

This morning I tried a modified version of Elana’s Gluten-free flapjacks, but with some paleo-friendly changes. I threw in some Stevia after the first four pancakes when my partner pronounced them G-R-O-S-S. After that, she pronounced them “much better”, and I agreed. As always, I top my paleo pancakes with xylitol syrup–though I’m sure whipped cream and berries or almond butter would do nicely as well.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 Tbl vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups almond flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 Tbl stevia (this is a guess–next time I make them I’ll refine the amount)

Directions:

1. In a blender, blend eggs, applesausce, vanilla and water until smooth.
2. Add almond flour, salt, baking soda, and stevia and blend again until all ingredients are mixed.
3. Let the mix stand for 10-15 minutes.
4. Melt coconut oil on your skillet over medium to high heat.
5. Pour pancake batter into 2-inch diameter pancakes.
6. When bubbles begin to form and the edge of the pancakes start to harden, flip. Be careful–they aren’t as sticky as normal (a.k.a. sick-making) pancakes.

I’m really excited about this one. They’re the first paleo pancakes I’ve made that actually rise and are fluffy! I’m also thinking that adding some cinnamon might add another nice element.

Closing in on the perfect paleo pancake

I tried another paleo pancake recipe this morning, this time with a focus on applesauce as an ingredient. After my last batch, which I made from the recipe over at MarksDailyApple, I felt like I was getting really close with the taste. Those pancakes have been the best tasting so far, but I had opined to my partner that they needed more moisture, and that applesauce might do the trick. Today’s recipe was:

2 eggs
1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
1/2 C nut butter (not peanut butter! – almond/macadamia nut butter works well)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

I cooked them on the griddle with coconut oil, and they made 10 pancakes, of which I only ate 4 at this sitting. The taste wasn’t as good as the prior batch, but the consistency and texture was much better. My bet is that if I modify Mark’s recipe to reduce by one egg and add in 1/4 cup or so of applesauce, I’ll really have something (maybe increase the cinnamon and vanilla a bit, too).

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Another quick note: In my current situation, I’ve found the intermittent fasting far too difficult to maintain. While I definitely didn’t find the “not eating for 16 hours” hard, I did find the placement of the 8-hour feeding window very difficult to manage, especially the part about needing to make myself two lunches to bring to work. I have a feeling that this will be easier to return to once I’m back teaching in September, so I will revisit it then.

Intermittent Fasting and Weight Lifting

It has been a while since I lasted posted, so some updates are in order. First, the paleo diet continues apace. I spent a week in Winnipeg visiting family and was able to be quite strict, with the exception of one evening where I had two bags of theatre popcorn, a small bag of peanut butter m&ms, a peanut buster parfait, and bag of doritos (not the 99¢ one, the regular one). Just writing that out makes me realise what a shocking excess that was. I could never have eaten that much if it wasn’t all just empty calories.

Second, I have begun to lift weights according to the Primal Blueprint living plan. I haven’t given up shovelglove, no fear of that, but three times a week I go to the gym and lift heavy things. I’ve also taken to sprinting irregularly, again according to the Primal Blueprint. While in Winnipeg, I was able to maintain this schedule by going to a public fitness centre run by the city in a Junior High basement. Less than $5 a session, compared to $15 at the private gyms. The program I am following is the StrongLifts 5×5 Beginner program, a standard get-strong weight lifting program based on 5 sets of 5 reps for key lifts: squats, overhead presses, bench presses, pullups, deadlifts and a few others. I’ve modified the program slightly in two ways: 1) I do dips instead of pushups and 2) I don’t alternate pullups and chinups, I just do chinups (there’s never a time in your life where you need to do a chinup, whereas a pullup has many, many real-life corollaries–plus they’re harder). I should be finished the beginner program sometime in September. I selected this program because I can bang it out in about 30 minutes and because it aligns nicely with my goals of strength and body composition.

Third, on the body composition front, I’m holding pretty steady at 171 pounds, but my muscles are getting (slowly) bigger and more defined. I don’t think it will be long before I start to see some real definition in my abs. You can already see some definition in my obliques and my “two-pack”, which is nice, but I still have quite a bit of fat to lose before my muscles are obvious without flexing.

Fourth, I’ve begun intermittent fasting this week according to the Leangains protocol. In essence, the protocol is a daily 16-hour fast followed by an 8-hour feeding window. The typical schedule is noon-eight pm for the feeding, as it is easier to skip breakfast than any other meal of the day. This is something that Steve over at LogMyLoss.com had originally got me thinking about, and is a protocol that both Robb Wolf and Mark Sisson have recommended. I’ve been skipping breakfast (a huge time-saver, by the way) and eating lunch at noon, snack in the afternoon, supper, and then a second supper by 8pm. I truly have had no trouble sticking to the system. I don’t get hungry any earlier than I used to, but I am more hungry (i.e. actually hungry, not just psychologically hungry). However, it hasn’t gone well from a logistics standpoint.

In fact, it was making my partner quite upset. She felt like my eating less than two hours after supper was an insult, she also found it hard to watch me eat another meal while she couldn’t eat anything, and I was also finding it difficult to actually eat that 8pm meal. Last night, we talked about it, and I decided I’d switch my schedule to 10am-6pm feeding window. This will be a bit harder for a couple of reasons: 1) I’ll have to prepare two meals for work and 2) not eating in the evening will be harder than not eating in the morning. It is, however, a small sacrifice for harmony in the home. Today is sort of a transition day–I’ll be feeding between noon and 6pm. I’m going out for lunch today and brought a salad, so my two meals will be covered.

Anyway, I have a couple of posts in the queue about some of the things I’m trying, and I’ll get to those as soon as I can.