Physically, I’ve undergone some good changes in the last few months. Probably the most outward change — at least to the people who know me best — is that I lost 15 pounds. That’s 15 pounds of needless, pointless, ridiculous flab. Right now I’m weighing in at 170 pounds, and I’ve never felt better…and I’ve never been stronger.
Of course, when I weighed 185 I didn’t really think that I needed to lose that much — maybe a couple pounds — and I wasn’t “fat” by anyone’s definition. When I started down this road I wasn’t aiming to lose weight, necessarily.
It was really just a crazy dietary and exercise experiment…with me as the guinea pig. An overall life wellness kind of deal.
The strength and weight loss factors have really been two distinct efforts for me. Most of the weight loss is due to dietary changes. All the strength is, of course, due to changes I’ve made to my workout routines. What’s great is that the strength increases have come despite the loss in overall bodyweight.
With that said, this is going to be a two-post deal: the first (this one) will deal with the diet changes. The second will deal with the workouts.
So let’s get after it…
Around April of this year I got turned on to one particular blog that caused a seismic shift in my thinking about eating. That blog? Mark’s Daily Apple. This blog clued me into the “primal” (many times referred to as “paleo”) way of eating. In a nutshell, this consists of eating whole cuts of meat, including beef, fowl & fish, “good” fats (olive oil, for one), vegetables, fruit, and some nuts/seeds.
The idea with paleo is that we’re eating more in line with what our ancestors ate, not the processed stuff that’s available in mass quantity today. The grain-heavy processed food is relatively new on the scene — historically speaking — and our bodies haven’t adapted to be able to process it. Obesity and all the bad stuff that accompany it is the unhappy result of this kind of consumption. Paleo gets back to basics — back to eating what our bodies have been consuming for many thousands of years.
Grains = Bad. Make sense?
If you spend any time at all reading about this topic, you’ll notice that there are an infinite number of ways to “skin” (pun intended) the paleo deal. Everyone and their mother has their own particular brand of primal/paleo: there’s the super-strict, dogmatic version that eschews all lentils and dairy on one end of the spectrum…and then there are the folks that take a more pragmatic and lenient stance. Mark’s Daily Apple trends toward the latter…as do I, and many others that I follow.
However, all primal/paleo advocates agree on one thing: grains and cereals are a giant no-no. And this is the reason — the secret, I guess — to the bulk of my weight loss over the past three months. I cut down my grain consumption by 90 percent and the pounds just…fell…off.
I won’t get into the mechanics of why grains are so rough and tumble on the body (others can do the topic far more justice) but if you eliminate the bulk (90 plus percent) of the grains/sugars/cereals from your diet…you will be floored how easily the weight comes off.
I’m not a doctor, of course, so I’m sure there are genetic (freak?) exceptions to this rule out there — but it works for me, and I’ve seen it work for others, too.
I used to eat oatmeal for breakfast. No more. I’ve been eating organic eggs and bacon — and usually some boiled broccoli, peas or spinach to satisfy the vegetable angle. Lots of meat, lots of veggies, and some fruit.
Do I cheat? Hell yes…but only on weekends, and only a bit here and there. Come Monday I’m back on the paleo wagon.
Dust off the pots and pans…because paleo doesn’t come in a can.
If you decide to give the paleo deal a shot, you’ll find that you’ll need to do some more cooking. Tough to find paleo boxed up nice and neat in the local supermarket, after all.
I’m not a real picky eater, so throwing some ground beef, yams, peppers and onions in a pot…adding some curry…then boiling for half an hour, is a great way to have some meals handy for a few days. (Let me know if you want the exact ingredient proportions I use.)
Having the right food ready to go is important. Without it, temptation may set in and you’ll be face deep in a bag of Doritos in no time. I know I’m definitely guilty of this. As above, the solution is cooking a bunch of food ahead of time and freezing or refrigerating. Bacon and eggs is a quick solution, as is a handful of almonds. Frozen vegetables are great to have around as well.
OK…this is starting to get wordy, and I think you get the idea. Let me know if you have comments/questions.
Next up….we’ll dive head first into the arena of “percentage of max” training. And boosting your strength will be the result.
-Mike
Photo: michael.cortina
Tags: life wellness, lose weight, nutrition, vital wellness, weight loss
