Workout of the Day

DEADLIFTS

5 X 80 kg (176 lbs)
5 X 90 kg (198 lbs)
5 X 95 kg (209 lbs)
5 X 100 kg (220 lbs)
5 X 105 kg (231 lbs)

Fasting Day. Broke fast at 19:00.

Today's (and yesterday's) workout

Oct. 30

Run 2400 Meters (16:26)
Then,
3 rounds, 1 minute each round:
pull-ups: 20-16-13
push-ups: 20-14-11
sit-ups: 23-15-13
squats: 21-20-23



Oct. 29
(Fasting Day)

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
Dumbbell clean thrusters (65 pounds)
L sit-ups
Ring Rows

Finished on 3s at 20:00

A big IF

I ended a 20 hour fast this evening at 7:00PM. I worked out, empty stomach and all, at 5:00PM. I picked today to try this because we had a pretty intense workout, and I wanted to see if and how my performance was going to suffer. Truth is, I don’t think it did – in fact, I had TONS of energy all day. I wasn’t that hungry, either. Funny thing is, I was sitting at my computer, trying to finish this story about the UM Native American Center and must have gotten up and opened the fridge or pantry a dozen times, before I remembered, ‘hey, I’m not eating today.’

I realized I went for food, not really because I was hungry initially, but because I was bored, and it was a distraction. Of course, having to consciously NOT eat at those trips to the kitchen made me think about food, which triggered hunger. But it was not an intense, cranky, achy, low blood-sugar kind of hunger.

It was kind of pleasant, actually. Like a nostalgia for food.

When I woke up this morning, my first instinct was to make myself some breakfast – not so much because I was hungry, but because of habit. Later, those trips to the fridge? Habit, more than hunger again. It reminded me of quitting smoking. Even after you get over the worst of the craving, you still want a cigarette at those certain times you would habitually light one up. That always ramped up the hankering for a smoke, and it was the only thing you could think about for a while.

Anyway, when I got home from CrossFit, I took my time in the kitchen preparing food, and did not eat for an hour after getting home. Still no painful craving for food. I had some sautéd cabbage with smoked salmon (which I smoked last fall), a curried chicken salad, made from the chicken I roasted last night and using a homemade mayonnaise of blended walnut and olive oils, and a sauté of spinach, onion and garlic. For dessert, and tomorrow's breakfast, I made a beautiful fruit salad of apple, pomegranate, pineapple and Kiwi (which has, like, TONS of fiber. Who knew?). A little lemon juice and cinnamon in there and Bob's your uncle.

Anyway, the plan, as it stands now, is that I will eat as much as I want UNTIL 7:00PM tomorrow – then fast again until 7:00PM the next day. This way, I get to eat every day, but I am still observing a 24 hour eat/24 hour fast schedule.

The idea behind this limited calorie restriction is that it seems to burn excess fat, increase lean muscle mass, combat insulin resistance, lower blood pressure and increase longevity, among other things.

Here are some links to articles that explain the benefits of Intermittent Fasting and calorie restriction better than I can - read them all - I'll wait...

Science News
Dr. Michael Eades
Art De Vany
American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine (originally printed in The Economist, March 31, 2005)

Ciao

This was origianlly a response to your Email, but what better subject to resurrect the blog...

Well, I was thinking this morning that with Wally gone, you have the opportunity to retune your eating habits. I would be honored to help design an eating plan for you – but with the caveat that I haven’t been eating like this for long enough to know if it’s benefiting ME or not. My seat-of-the-pants impression is that I FEEL better, but who knows how much of that is placebo effect – or “paleo-cebo” effect... (Sorry, you know I have no will power against bad puns).

As far as the ‘no grains’ thing goes, consider that grains, which are tough little critters, have to be found (or cultivated) in quantity, sown, husked, ground or milled and finally cooked in order to be rendered digestible to humans. (Otherwise the hard grains pass through the digestive tract intact). Our hunter gatherer ancestors did not do this, based on archaeological evidence of human diet and studies of the few hunter gatherers that still exist. (I.e. Africa’s !Kung tribe, Australian aboriginals, etc.) They ate wild lean meats, vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts. These ancient and modern hunter gatherers had virtually no incidence of the diet-related health problems we have now, like heart disease and diabetes, and most cancers - for 400,000 years, or so.

For them, grains were “starvation foods,” eaten in really lean times. A mere 10,000ish years ago, came the agricultural revolution. Grains became a staple, as did dairy (hunter gatherers probably had little luck milking mastodons, or giant tusked deer). So guess when heart disease, cancers and other diet related ailments start showing up in the archaeological record?

This is all more eloquently put in “The Paleo Diet” by Loren Cordain, PhD. Cordain is an expert on stone age nutrition, and I’ll bring you the book, when I come – It is, of course, backed with tons of science. Over all, it’s like Atkins, except that it's not, because you eat (most of) those veggies with carbs as well as fruit, which we always suspected we should be eating, even while losing weight on Atkins. Cordain is very much in favor of eating meats, though he recommends game meat, grass fed beef and free-range chicken. Corn-fed beef is not only higher in fat than grass-fed cows, but has a much higher Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio, which is not ideal. Not to mention, the hormones, the antibiotics, the petro-chemicals.

Anyway, I’m happy to do your shopping for you when I come – between Haggen and the new Trader Joe’s, finding quality food will be easy. Oh, and that Food Pyramid? Mostly driven by politics, and the economy of farm subsidies. Big surprise.