This week's topic on dread is Eating for Health and Fitness. Let me start off by saying anyone over 15% bodyfat who isn't competing in some kind of heavy lifting meet, this post is geared toward your fat ass. There is absolutely no reason any of ya'll should be above 15% bodyfat. In fact anyone over 20% that's looking at this right now, I expressly forbid you to read it unless you are doing some type of light cardio: treadmill, stair stepper, bike, or head out into the neighborhood and go for a walk.

I cannot tell you the number of OYSs I see posted on a regular basis where guys' numbers are over 15%, up at 18%, or even over 20% consistently. It is not hard to lose weight. Really. That's not a locker room mentality aimed at convincing you that something that's complicated isn't with the "right mindset". It's truly not hard.

 

Who am I to give this advice? Here's my qualifications. My yearly bod pod test I got at the end of March, where the nurse tech was nearly creaming her pants when I stripped to compression shorts and was literally (yes I used the word right) short of breath post-test. I gained 4lbs of muscle, lost 9 lbs of straight fat from a BF% of 12. And the best part? I'm currently enjoying Cadbury Creme eggs. I gorged myself on about 12 dozen Christmas cookies over the month of December. I eat ice cream at least twice a week. I get my veggies in. I get my protein in. And I'm satisfied and satiated with what I eat. I've tried a bunch of different methods experimenting here and there and kept a multitude of ideas. My notes are below. I've organized them in succession from the very basics, to more advanced tips and tricks you can dig into as you get your shit together.

 

Starting Off

How do we get this gravy train rolling? Dieting isn't an exact science. There will be intelligent guessing on top of intelligent guessing. So the more sure you can be of all these variables, the better you're going to be able to figure out what you need to do to make progress. First, you need to figure out where you are and where you want to get to. That's called a goal.

 

Gamechanger: Nail down your starting point. Figure out a way you can get your Body Fat and Resting Metabolic Rate measured accurately. I know the OYSs are filled with guys who have calipers, are using a "mirror test", or a Navy formula. These are basic (re: lazy) and inaccurate and inconsistent measures of testing. Even bioelectric impedance is garbage. Especially on those cheap bathroom scales. And it's highly variable based on what you've eaten for the day and current hydration levels.

As a comparison:

My bod pod measurement says 7%.

My scale says 16.6%

Calipers, 6%

Navy, 13%

Pictures, depending on which set you choose, anywhere from 7 to 13%. You can tell me though. Here's a nice site to compare. https://rippedbody.com/body-fat-guide/ Considering past experience and all the above, I truly believe I'm closer to 9% than 7. Back on topic though.

 

Where/How?

I've heard of mobile Dexa scans stopping at gyms and offering scans for $50. I've heard of colleges/universities having Bod Pod available. If you can find a place that does hydrostatic weighing, you're set. Pick up the phone and call around. Call university health centers. Call gyms. Call hospitals. Call physical therapy centers. What's the worst they can say, no? Call the local business in your area that's trying to cash in on the next wave of fatties trying to lose weight with their "revolutionary technique". Yeah the technique is garbage. But if you can get a Dexa scan out of it for cheap, do it and then ghost them.

 

BF measurement is inaccurate

I am aware that because of the inaccuracies of nearly all body fat measurements, we wont be 100% sure of where our starting point is. That doesnt mean we dont try to find one. A trend line requires 2 points at least. If you get 6 months down the road and take your "end" point but dont have a start, you do not have a trend. You are literally as lost as you can be. I used to work with a guy who said that because the error in the overall measurement I was trying to make was greater than the error of the tool I'm using to measure one data point, that there was no point in trying to minimize the error of that data point. That's retarded. Get your first data point.

 

Once you do that you'll need one more thing.

Facts: You breathe out 85% of the fat you lose. Your RMR is how many calories your body needs to simply lie down for 24 hours. Short of directly measuring it via heat production, it can be indirectly measured by fitting you with a mask, and measuring the oxygen you consume and CO2 you breathe out for a minute or two. A device that measures this will be harder to find, but in those calls youre making, ask if anyone does it. If you have these two numbers measured you'll be much better off than someone using an online formula.

Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure is how many calories you need in a day accounting for activity. These are the formulas you'll find online telling you where you can set that calorie level to break even. Often calculators for this number ask you a very vague question concerning your activity level (desk job, light aerobic, moderate exercise, etc). None of you are athletes over 15%. Dont even try it. For anyone with an office job, put in that you're sedentary. And unless you're digging ditches all day, you're more than likely not going to get above "light activity". We arent counting any kind of working out in this number. You'll see why later.

 

For Comparison

6 years ago at 170lbs and 0 prior lifting I was 5%BF at 5'11'' and my RMR was 1900 calories. That means if I eat 1900 calories in a day...I'm guaranteed to lose weight. Because at the very least I will be up and moving about...and burning more than 1900 doing so. A pound of fat burns 2-3 calories a day. And a pound of muscle 6-7. So if you must use a calculator to find your RMR, do so. Then add in those fat and muscle numbers. You will refine that number over the next 6 months - year. But I would still expect it to be close to the 2000 calorie mark unless you are drastically taller, fatter, or more muscular.

 

The formula.

Once you find these two numbers, then we're just plugging them in and getting ourselves moving. How many % are you off your desired body fat? Multiply your current weight by 0.01. Multiply that number by that number of % you're off. That's how many pounds you need to lose.

 

Facts: A pound of fat is about 3600 calories. Want to lose 10 lbs? That's 36,000 calories. Want to do it in 6 months? That's about 200 a day deficit from your TDEE. Be prepared for the bounce. In the first week you will lose weight. A lot of it will be water weight which fluctuates wildly for the amount of sugar, salt, and carbs you consume. It likely will happen week 2 and 3 as well. And then you will likely level off and potentially bounce. Dont even put this weight loss on your OYS. It's nothing to be proud of. It's just the bounce. The real work is coming.

 

Strategy: Subtract 2-300 more. Your body isn't going to continue burning calories all happily as you slowly drop fat. There's a certain "tolerance zone" within which the body will automatically try and adjust to this by subconsciously slowing you down, making you more tired, making you do less reps and take more breaks. There's also that factor of inaccuracy. If you wanted to lose 1 pound and you ate at a deficit of 10 calories for 360 days...you'd likely stay the same weight. So that TDEE minus 200 calories? Subtract 2-300 more.

 

Summary.

Once you have the limit of the number of calories you need to stop at to lose weight, get a diet tracking app that can scan barcodes and easily input calories. Use it with EVERY item of food you put in your mouth. Get a food scale. Actually weigh, log, and track your weight and calories eaten and burned on that app. If you ate a pretzel stick, it goes in the app. This shit adds up really fast. It's easy during the day to set aside that tablespoon of jelly, that extra bite of cheese, and handful of peas, scoop of potatoes, but in the app at the end of the day it all adds up to hundreds of calories. Weigh yourself first thing every morning naked, after taking a piss. And log it on the app. This will be the trend from which you will see how your body responds to losing weight.

This is the bare bones basics for achieving a starting point for dieting. If you have this locked down and mapped out, and are making it a habit to log and track your weight and food, proceed.

 

What You Eat

Before MRP my consistent diet was waking up and eating a bowl of suger cereal and milk, with suger orange juice. At noon I would eat 1/4 bag of doritos, a PB&J, and a can of sugar soda and likely sugar candy as a snack. I'd eat a "normal" dinner of protein and carbs, likely no veggies, and then have about 4-5 sugar cookies at night before bed. How I didn't become a diabetic I dont know.

I had these three meals a day, and my body would really crave these meals as meal time got closer to the point that within an hour of the time to eat, I couldn't really focus on anything but food.

 

Facts: Ghrelin. Ghrelin is a hunger hormone produced by the stomach. It is responsible for the short-term cycle of feeding (over 24 hours) and habitually rises right before a meal as conditioned by your normal feeding time. It operates directly on "hedonic and reinforcing aspects" of the "Ventral Tegmental Area and mesolimbic pathway (IE, Nucleus Accumbens)" For those who aren't neuroscientists, whenever you see VTA and NA think "Pavlovian response." So it's not the food that makes you hungry, it's the habitual time that you normally eat. Expect this. It's not your body saying "you should eat". It's your body saying "we usually eat now".

 

Gamechanger: Drop the shit YOU KNOW is bad for you. The very first thing I did to change my diet was drop the doritos, coke, and sugar juices. And what I noticed from that is that on my drive home at 4:30 I wasn't literally falling asleep while driving because of a sugar crash. I'm not talking yawn "I'm tired". I'm talking "were my eyes just closed for the last 10 seconds? Am I even awake now or talking to myself in my sleep?"

 

Get it out of the house.

What kind of absolute garbage are you putting in your body. I know it tastes addictive good. That's why those foods are so prevalent. How can you cut those things out? First and foremost Stop Buying Them. If that kind of food is in my house I will eat it. If it is not, I'm too much of a lazy fuck to get up, drive to the store to get it, then sit down and eat it. If any of you tell me "But my wife keeps buying it", start buying your own food. If she brings it home anyway and it's not for her, as soon as she gets it out of the shopping bag, throw it out.

Is there butter in your house? Throw it out. You literally do not need it for anything. Soda? Throw it out. Buy near-zero calorie drinks like fresca, and the fake-sugar drink mixes (caveat for their unstudied impact on gut health and dopamine training). Frozen-foods? Not only are they ridiculously overpriced, but they taste like shit and are full of salt and calories. Many frozen meals and pizzas contain 40% of the salt and I've seen up to 80% of the saturated fat you need for a day in one serving. It's absurd. Throw that shit out.

 

Alright blarg I've thrown everything out and have nothing in my house but cardboard. What do I eat?

Protein

You need at least 1g/lb of protein in your diet. Your meals will be centered around getting that. Put the protein powder on the shelf. You can get your daily amount from food. And that food will fill you up more than the powder will. Chicken, fish, beef, pork, turkey, crabs, shellfish, and eggs are all great choices. Eggs can be made in several ways and are a good source of cholesterol.

But I thought cholesterol was bad?

You want to know what the molecular precursor to testosterone is in the body? Cholesterol.

 

Facts: Testosterone. Testosterone is of course the major androgen in the body. "Androgens inhibit the ability of some fat cells to store lipids." More testosterone, less fat. "Androgens promote the enlargement of skeletal muscle cells". More testosterone, more muscle. "The majority of the daily testosterone release in men occurs during sleep." Since this is a post on health as well...how's your sleep? Shitty? You've heard it before, the bedroom is for sleeping and fucking.

 

Gamechanger: Sleep. Let's sidebar real quick into some sleep tips. Orexin is a hormone that has a lot to do with metabolism and sleep regulation and the urge to eat (rather than the physical sensation). Lack of sleep fucks with your hormones. You ever pull an all nighter for work or school and then find yourself helplessly binging on food the next day? There you go. If your sleep habits are poor, stop fucking yourself over. Some things to look into are:

-Consistent bedtime

-Consistent wake time, preferably by natural light.

-Try to not eat or drink too close to bed

-Alcohol will fuck with your deep sleep

-Blackout curtains

-White noise or fan humming (sorry Asians)

-Tape over light sources in the room (power standby LEDs)

-Buy quality sheets with high thread count

-Check out weighted blankets

-Buy more pillows

-Buy extra king size pillows to spoon with and for back support for side sleepers.

-Put a pillow between your knees

-Get animals/children off your bed and out of your room.

-Foam ear plugs to muffle sound.

-Keep your room on the cooler side.

-Three words: Vibrating bed frame

End sidebar.

 

A graph for the spergs.

Protein is a staple in every meal. You need it. It has a controlled digestion. It doesnt slam down the drive to eat, it gradually slows it and gradually raises it over hours. And it can be very low in calories for its volume.

For me, chicken is the leanest and cheapest protein. I'm not talking about rotisserie chicken that they cook with butter all over it. I'm not talking about frozen chicken tenders. I'm talking about raw chicken breasts that you cook. It won't have the savory taste that some of the other meats have. But here, spices are your friend.

 

Gamechanger: Spices and seasonings. You want bland food to taste good? Start buying a variety of dry spices to put on it. The staples for me are salt and garlic. I air fry my chicken and with just salt and garlic I can eat it just like that and it's delicious. Followed closely by pepper, lemon pepper, red pepper (no heat), and red pepper flakes (heat). Then you can start to introduce near-zero calorie sauces like vinegar based hot sauce, and soy sauce. Not creative? Buy the pre-mixed seasonings like japanese 7 spice or monterey chicken or brown sugar and bourbon. oOr if you're into mexican, the generic dry taco seasoning. Want a touch more? Look for the asian sauces in your grocery aisle for ones that are only 20-40 calories per 2 2tbsp. Even some cheap queso's are 20 calories per tbsp. Lots of flavor, low calories.

 

Carbs

Sugars get lumped in to carbs when talking about macronutrients but the distinction needs to be made: You should be trying to eliminate sugars from your diet when losing weight. They have one great utility, and we'll get to that in the more advanced section later. But most men know sugars for their ability to rapidly spike insulin levels.

 

Facts: Insulin. Insulin is "the main anabolic hormone of the body". It's produced by the pancreas in response to glucose in the blood. Anabolic, the opposite of catabolic, means building up. And in short, insulin will stuff energy into your muscles for use and grow those same muscles. When they are full however (and unless you are burning that storage in the muscle + the 400 or so calories of storage in the liver...then you can assume they are always full), insulin will stuff that energy into fat cells. When you are fat, you develop insulin resistance. If you have insulin resistance, insulin does not signal well in your body. If insulin does not signal, you have trouble supplying and building muscle. Among many other problems.

 

What's a burger without a bun?

Sugar aside, when I talk about carbs I'm talking about rice, pasta, bread. You know...the things you usually only eat because they act as a vehicle to get food into your mouth. Which is really kinda stupid when you think about it. Let's talk about carbs and volume then. It's likely that you staring down at 3 ounces of baked, shredded chicken with some spices on it isnt going to satisfy you. You'd usually fill that bowl with carbs like rice, pasta, or bread in order to make it more of a "meal".

Going green.

And not because we're hippies. It's practical and it works. Try putting in about the same volume of frozen peas or fresh spinach. Then see how you are. Same volume. Same purpose. Low calorie. Veggies taste like shit to you? Yeah me too. In fact I hated everything but corn as a veggie years ago. But then I asked "What can I stand? What can the spices hide so that it tastes good, and still replaces carbs." I found that there's actually a lot of different veggies I can put with my protein that fill me up and after a while, start to actually taste good.

Experiment with different veggies. Shred them up into your meals so that you can't really taste them and/or find one that doesnt necessarily taste bad. Broccoli tastes like shit. But the florets at the tip, when fresh (not frozen...oh god frozen broccoli tastes terrible and smells like baby puke), can be shaved off and add no taste. That's where most of the nutrients are anyway. Other things like eggplant, spaghetti squash, celery, carrots, cauliflower...all these things can replace carbs really easily.

Want more empty volume? How about tofu. It really has no taste and little calories but is big on volume. They even make it now in the form of pasta. Shred it up and add it to your proteins.

 

Fats

Short section on fats. They aren't useless. In fact they are very useful in combination with enabling uptake and use of vitamins, and the regulation and creation of neurotransmitters and hormones.

Every gram of protein and carb contains 4 calories. Every gram of fat contains 9. Not to say fat is evil. But by the time anything you eat with it makes you feel somewhat full? You've likely eaten too much. So beware. And do not look at fats as a source of energy. But healthy ways to go about getting this are low sugar spreadable peanut butter / almond butter / etc., the nuts themselves, and fattier fish and cuts of meat.

Alcohol

You want to know what is evil? Well, at least in terms of diet: Alcohol. Alcohol contains about 7 calories per gram. So when you drink that beer, imagine that you're drinking slightly less caloric FAT. In addition, if you think you can simply "fit" alcohol into your calories for the day, understand that alcohol as a substitution for calories results in a short term (<24hours) reduction of available energy in your muscles by up to 50%. Put down the alcohol until you get your diet well under control.

 

Summary

It's going to require a revamping of your grocery list and reconditioning of your palette. And potentially a little tracking to make sure your grocery bill doesnt skyrocket from fresh veggies. But I guarantee if you put some effort into it, you will find meals you can make that taste good, are filling, and are low calorie. I'll give you just a few of my go-to low calorie meals:

-Chicken and fries. Chicken breast with lemon pepper and cut baking potatoes in my airfryer (have I talked about buying an airfryer in here anywhere? Go buy one. Why are you heating up your entire stove to bake two tiny chicken breasts when you can do it in the air fryer, get that crispiness, with none of the oil needed). And even if you do want that oil taste? You can even coat the cut up potatoes in 1tbsp of peanut oil which is STILL much healthier than dunking and frying them in it. Tastes just like boardwalk fries.

-Stir fry light. Cubed chicken breasts in a wok with celery, peas, carrots, peppers, onion, broccoli crowns, and soy sauce and red pepper flakes. No rice needed. The veggies are the vehicle.

-Boiled Shrimp. That's it. Boiled shrimp coated in hot spices. About as low calorie as you can get.

-Salad with vinaigrette and shredded chicken breast

-Chicken pasta, with the pasta substituted by spaghetti squash.

-Chicken and peas. Shredded chicken and peas with garlic, salt, pepper, lime juice, and sriracha sauce.

 

Eating Less Versus Burning More

So we've tackled different kinds of foods to eat. Now let's talk about the difference between simply eating less calories than we need, or burning more calories than we ate. Every single one of you is going to have a problem with eating less. When going on a diet, hunger teams up with hormone cycles and habit to knock your ass back into fat-ville within the first few weeks after the dopamine high and rush of doing something different wears off. Just in time for your weight bounce on the scale. What's worse, as you do lose weight, things get harder.

 

Facts: Leptin. Leptin is a satiety hormone released by fat cells to cause you to feel full. It acts more as a long term regulator with a more stable 24-hour cycle not necessarily centered on meal time. As you diet and lose fat, leptin decreases, and you feel less full. Expect this.

 

Well duh.

In addition, eating less is eventually going to deplete you of energy you need to function. We had an OYS by a flared member a few years ago that was wondering why on his 1400 calorie a day plan he had to drop his squat by 60lbs because he couldn't lift it and was almost blacking out. If you do not fuel, your body is going to start shutting down. Plain and simple.

 

In my personal opinion, if you are so god damn fat that working out in itself is dangerous to your joints or heart, then eating less calories than you need to lose weight is the way to go. At least to get down to a point where you can start to add some cardio into the plan.

Otherwise it's going to be much easier to eat enough to satiate you throughout the day, while also exercising enough to burn more than that excess. In this way, your body is technically full while dieting. And all we're tackling is the natural feelings we get from losing weight rather than the 1-2 combo of those PLUS all the feelings of being hungry. An easy way to do this is to set the number of calories you want in a day equal to your RMR (say 2000) and eating above your RMR (2400), but burning the difference between the two (400-600).

 

Strategy: Be real about how much you burn through exercise. Online estimations are pretty good about giving a value for the number of calories burned for an hour of a workout. But you need to be honest about how much you're exerting yourself as well. I'm going to give some examples I've used for the last 6 years:

-One hour of lifting at high intensity (I will start to fail on set 3 or 4): 210 calories an hour (1 minute break between sets).

-Running: 125 calories a mile.

-Swimming: 125 calories every 15 minutes (of constant freestyle)

-Biking: 125 calories every 15 minutes (at a resistance at the edge of comfort)

-Climbing: 200 calories for 2 hours

Most other machines like stair steppers, assault bike, or rowing machine will calculate calories burned for you.

 

I dont do cardio.

Many of you dont really subscribe to cardio and only do that hour of lifting...maybe even only 3-4 times a week. It really is worth it to put a couple miles of cardio in so you can eat and feel FULL for the day, than to not do cardio. Even Arnold was doing 3 miles of cardio before workouts in his glory days. What do you hate worse? Doing 15-30 minutes of cardio? Or feeling that empty/starving sensation and knowing you have 3 hours until your next meal?

 

Gamechanger: Browse youtube while walking. I was sitting on my couch one day a few years ago watching a football game. I wasn't really interested in it, I was just killing time. But I thought..."why dont I just stream this on my phone while walking leisurely on the treadmill?" What's the difference?

And so the majority of the time if I'm not dead tired and really need to decompress, if I'm about to sit on the couch and browse youtube or check my stocks or read a book, I'll go downstairs and walk the treadmill or leisurely bike while doing it. I burn calories, i dont break a sweat, and then I get to eat those back later so I'm not starving. Win-win.

 

Summary

That's about all that's needed for the intermediate diet. Figuring out how to tweak the plan so you still get the volume you want, the fullness you want, while eating at a deficit, getting light cardio in when you'd usually just sit, and getting your sleep on track. Now for some more advanced tricks.

 

Advanced Tips

In this section in particular I'm going to talk about specific diets and ways of eating/exercising. The jury is still out on a lot of this and there's entire cults following some of them. I'm not preaching what's right. Just try what you want and take what works.

 

When you eat

As I said before, your body will adapt to eating cycles and start "expecting" food at certain times. But there are methods to control your hunger. The first being when you break-fast. My brother is on the larger side and once told me "Dude for some reason as long as I dont eat anything after I wake up, I can go until lunch time or after without feeling hungry." And after trying it, it seemed that the same worked for me too. The further into the day you push your first meal, the less hours in the day you have to stuff your face. The less time you give your body to go through its cycle and say "Hey we're hungry" again. Try it, and see how far into the day you can push your first meal.

Also, for about 4-5 years now I've been on my own plan which consists of eating 5 times a day. Once in the morning consisting of a homemade breakfast of a sausage, egg, and cheese on an english muffin. Then at noon is a few handfuls of cashews (which...find your nut...but cashews are absolutely delicious). Both 1330 and 1530 are shredded chicken with some veggies. And that entire lunch time span is easy to get through because it's a meal every 1.5-2 hours. And then dinner is around 1800 and honestly by that point, is usually a 1200 calorie meal of whatever i want. I found eating more meals to be much easier for me. If you're having trouble getting through long durations between meals, try it.

 

Strategy: Intermittent Fasting. This goes along with the above strategy of when you break your fast. Intermittent fasting is setting aside a window of typically 4-6 hours of the day in which you try to get the entirety of calories you need for the day in. It's especially helpful, when trying to lose weight, when you are not able to get those calories in because you're up against the limits of how much food you can actually put in your body in that time. And may even have you searching for more calorie dense foods to help you reach that number.

A downside to this method is that it doesnt allow you to experiment with the strategic eating I talk about below unless your workouts are also centered around this time.

 

Strategy: Fasting. One of the tools that I've most recently been adding to my toolkit is that of fasting. This is different from IF because I'm fasting for a time period of at least 24 hours (and looking to extend it further).

I'm not doing it for weight loss although you easily could. I'm doing it because studies are showing that after a certain duration of fasting, the body actually increases the rate it starts to clear out old cells, plaques, and in addition I think it primes the body to be more used to accessing and releasing those fat stores. In addition, the gorging myself before and after the fast is marvelous. I've particularly found a place within my workout routine to do one day of fasting. I'll talk about this below:

 

Strategically Eating

In going with the above when you eat, with respect to the macronutrients, we can start to experiment with when to eat what to help us both make it through the day, and maximize what our food is doing for us.

For instance, whatever you eat in the morning, after sleeping (fasting) for 10-12 hours, would likely benefit from some carbs in order to give your body energy it needs for both the day, and for any exercise you plan on doing in the future. Except for...

 

Strategy: Fasted cardio. The idea behind fasted cardio is that in going directly into cardio before breakfast, your glucose stores are likely at a minimum and so your body will likely burn more fat than usual for that energy. In my mind, and my reply to keto diets as well is: "Yes. But it's also likely going to burn more protein than usual as well."

A computer or observer?

Again I'm not a biologist or neuroscientist, but I have done some extensive reading into the way the body uses hormones and neurotransmitters both inside and outside the brain and have come to the opinion that the body is more like a machine that is setup on and acts based on the ODDS of certain pathways being triggered, than it is a machine based on an intelligently observing itself. As an analogy, when playing poker, the body is more like a program which calculates the pot odds and chances of winning based on its current hand and number of players...and does not consider the fact that the chip leader has been bullying the table with high bets for the last half-hour and the other guy at the table has been on tilt for the last 15 minutes.

Ratios

So with respect to keto, if the body has energy sources that are derived from carbs, fats, and proteins...and has evolutionarily grown to use them at a ratio of 5:2:1 respectively, then if you take away carbs, instead of your protein being used as 1/8th of the calories burned...it will be used for 1/3rd. And that's why for keto in particular, I personally believe it's absolutely a great method of dieting for those that are WAY overweight...because it'll allow you to get down to a point where you can lift and do cardio safely by burning that fat faster (at the expense of also burning muscle faster). But for those that dont need to lose weight that fast, it may not be as advantageous.

Now going along with that, and this is also my belief, what we supply to our bodies is also factored in with what it uses. So for instance if we take that same ratio of 5:2:1, and the body is wired to use energy currently circulating and energy stored at a ratio of 10:1 respectively...then if we were to eat protein and fat but no carbs to power our run, we might be able to reduce the amount of protein catabolized for existing muscle by supplying the body with already (and preferentially usable) protein.

 

Gamechanger: Sugar. Regardless of if any of that is true, I said above we'd get to the one thing that sugar is good for: Supplying the body with a readily usable form of energy. And I will tell you from experience that if I eat about 20-30% of the calories I'm about to burn in a hard cardio session before I begin the cardio, I will have a ridiculously easier cardio session than if I dont.

I lied. There's another thing sugar is good for. Strategically feeding and building those muscle cells. Because insulin is the primary anabolic hormone in the body, eating sugar directly after a workout along with protein may push the body more aggressively into building that muscle right then and there. You're bouncing from a catabolic to anabolic state quickly. If you eat protein at the same time, that's readily there to push into those muscles as well.

 

A quick overview of my experience fasting so far

With respect to fasting, I've plugged my fasting day into my routine in a specific way in order to maximize results I see from it. The day before the fast is my first high cardio day. Which works well because I frontload half a days worth of food (the first 12 hours of the fast), plus that days food, plus the 1000 calories I burn through cardio means I'm eating about 4000 calories that day.

The day of the fast, I'll eat 600 for breakfast, then do another 1000 calories of cardio. This second round of cardio is literally THE easiest cardio I've ever done. And it feels that way consistently. I understand carb-loading is a thing runners do before marathons. But the extent of it within my routine really hasnt shown benefits until now.

With the 1000 calories of cardio, I should be completely depleting my liver stores (about 400) and whatever I have stored in my muscles, plus the glucose from breakfast. Afterwards I'll eat about 650 calories, about 90% protein 10% fat with <10g carbs total. And immediately following that I'll begin my 24 hour fast.

Then the following day, the 24 hours usually ends around lunch, and I'll have that day's calories, plus half a day's worth or calories (the latter 12 hours of the fast), and the 1000 calories I burned the day before all crammed into about 10 hours before bed. So it's a fast which kind of rolls into an IF day. If I wanted to lose weight, it would be easy to do within those two windows of 3000-4000 calories.

 

Strategy: For fasting, Stay busy. During your fast stay busy. Line up a shit load of chores to do. Just keep your mind occupied with something other than what time it is and the fact that you aren't eating. I find it's MUCH easier to get through a period of not eating if I'm not even in the house around food to do it. I can use that time to go ahead and look into other "forms of dread" like picking out new clothes, getting my hair cut, visiting friends, being social, or even working out. The few articles I've read said that fasting doesnt seem to impact anaerobic workouts. I haven't tested this. But maybe you should?

 

A few extras

A few things additional things i'll say (checks watch...God how long have you been reading this?)

-You should never place yourself in exercise debt. It will be very tempting to go "Well I plan on running 6 miles later, so I'm going to eat 750 calories of junk food now." No. Do the exercise first, then reward yourself for it. If you know you're going to be partying, drinking, or treating yourself later, you pay for it now.

-A lot of guys will look at the amount of cardio I do (talking about 10 miles of running or an hour of swimming) and completely reject that for themselves. That's fine. First I'd say try a variety of cardio and see if you can stand one form more than another. I LOVE running. I HATE swimming. You might be different. Also, see if you can kill time or entertain yourself while doing that cardio. I will put on podcasts or audiobooks when going for a run. So I'm listening to rational male while out running. Which is great because running also usually allows my brain to think deeply about topics. So I'll often go into lengthy debates with myself about topics on runs. I'll also run with my dogs to get their exercise. So I'm doing three positive tasks at once. In addition, if you cant do 6 miles all at once, break it up. I will absolutely go downstairs 8 times in one day and bike 15 minutes on the bike for a combined 1000 calories of cardio for what's only 15 minutes at a time.

-Cheat meals arent bad. Snacks and cookies aren't bad. They're just like alcohol. Just like porn. Just like any kind of vice that can interfere with your gains...IF YOU LET IT. If you do not have control of yourself and cannot stop eating cookies when you're trying to diet, then get rid of cookies. Just like if you aren't able to get it up or last long with your wife if you watch porn, then stop watching it.

-Ask yourself: "Am I really hungry right now?" Because in the very same way you've been asking yourself "Do I really want to fuck right now?" (You are doing that right?) and figuring out that sometimes sex is tied to a myriad of validation or mental states that have nothing to do with sex...hunger is sometimes tied to a myriad of validation or mental states that have nothing to do with food.

-Drink water. Your body is already pre-programmed to crave food when it starts to get dehydrated...because there is usually water in food. This is an easy trap to avoid. Drink water throughout the day.

 

Closing: Put down the damn fork.

I told you above that I still eat ice cream, candy, and cakes. Though the ramifications of such a throughput on my body remain to be seen, the fact of the matter is in the same way the point has been argued that "With enough alpha, you can sprinkle beta on and still come out ahead", "with enough diligence and discipline in your diet, you can go ahead and sprinkle on various amounts of donuts and pie and still come out ahead." The results you see are not because I have a "high metabolism" or because "I'm lucky." It's because when I need to, I put the damn fork down and do what needs to be done. Every year for the past 6 I've been absolutely ripped for my beach vacation in Summer. And this year doesnt look like it's going to be any different.

It's not too late to get started either. Summer is 3 months away. Anyone over 20% can absolutely get down to 20% before summer and not look disgusting in a bathing suit. Anyone 15-20% can absolutely get to a point where abs are starting to peek through. And anyone 10-15% can absolutely be shredded by that time. The decision is simply if you are going to OYS or not. One thing's for sure, if you do choose to make it a goal, and for the next year you continuously are trying to "get to 15%" and continuously failing, you wont be the first guy I ban from this place for value leeching. Do the work.

 

Sound off.

What are you doing for this week's DoD to carry into your life?