As you surmise, I think this is probably the only way to really know. There’s not specific research we could reference, although we could all speculate mechanistically. Even then, however, there’s so much normal variance between us that I think a case this nuanced is not likely to have universal observable impact.
On the other hand, let’s say you do 2x 12-week experiments, which itself would require some real dedication. Whatever we see in those time spans may not tell us what would really happen over years and years (or even the impact). There’s also enough normal fluctuation on any given day I think it will be hard to wholly attribute to your diet: maybe that extra point of blood pressure is because she talked to you while taking it or your small change in your lipid panel is actually because you were a little less hydrated this time.
So, super long way of saying, I personally think this is pretty on point:
EDIT: I should note I’m still a fan of the diet experimentations/ reducing variables. Trying out the carnivore diet (thanks @T3hPwnisher amd @QuadQueen) was eye-opening to me for things that actually upset my stomach (peppers and onions being most disappointing). Those are natural foods we’ve eaten for a long time, and weren’t something that’s obviously impacting my bloodwork, so I wouldn’t really have considered them an issue if I hadn’t gone full elimination before reintroduction.
@alex_uk a lot of people on here have done a lot more research than I have (and are way more jacked) but I’ll give my two cents. Awesome conversation in here though.
Keep in mind I have had two heart surgeries by 28 (albeit minor surgeries), so that has made me relatively paranoid about anything heart related. I got bloodwork done last spring and had pretty high cholesterol, which I am pretty young for. I don’t have the numbers on-hand but all markers were high.
After that I started to skew towards chicken/turkey/fish now much more than beef. My doctor is a guy that lifts, told me he has some patients that are carnivore and manage things very well. The way he described it to me is that at my age with high cholesterol, it’s unlikely I’d handle that well. Is that totally true? I have no idea but we agreed that getting the cholesterol down was the priority and I can reassess diet afterwards.
I’ve found I perform well and feel really good on higher carbs and higher protein. But as @T3hPwnisher has said, you’re not initially “fat-adapted,” I’d imagine there is a time component to going more meat-based. I really think nutrition is similar to lifting, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat and what works for everyone is individual.
This is basically what I do, besides the omega 3 supplements (which I should be taking). Anecdotally, I feel great even while cutting calories back lately. I do eat fish 2-3x per week though.
If you’re interested in macros there has been some good discussion in my log from @s.gentz and @Andrewgen_Receptors who have a more typical bodybuilding approach to eating which has resonated with me more.
Sorry to ramble but wanted to get all my thoughts on the topic in!
In my professional opinion and based on what I’ve seen in practice, no. Switching to beef, will not make things better and if you choose fattier cuts, even grass fed, it may make things worse. I’m not saying don’t eat beef, but don’t completely toss chicken out the window. As long as you’re not eating the skin (that’s where the omega-6s are in the highest quantity) and you’re trimming the fat, chicken is fine. Lean cuts of beef are great too, but I recommend trimming the fat (again, that’s where most if the omega-6s are). I am a firm believer in variety - too much of anything isn’t a good thing.
My recs would be to just not overdo any one thing. For protein, mix it up: lean beef, skinless poultry, fish, eggs, venison, cottage cheese, plain Greek yogurt, etc. Increase your veggie and fiber intake (fiber helps clear cholesterol and can decrease LDL). Take your omega-3 fish oil. Avoid processed foods and any sugar/starch non-optimal fat combinations (French fries, chips, desserts, etc), these are major LDL uppers.
If you’ve got a genetic disadvantage, keep a close eye on things and if you’re triglycerides start getting high, revisit everything. If you can, have your physician run an LDL sub particle test to see if the LDL subclass you have. If you have a higher amount of LDL subclass A (large fluffy LDL), this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you’ve got more of subclass B (small dense LDL), it’s a different story. Knowing where your numbers are can go a long way in determining what you need to do with your diet.
I will say that there are VERY few cases that I’ve seen where switching to a carnivore diet has helped improve LDL and/or triglycerides. More often than not, it makes them worse in the long run. So, like your physician, I would discourage that approach.
I’m sorry I didn’t weigh in on this sooner - I was hit with the plague on Tuesday and I’ve finally found the energy and will to type more than three words. So, if any of this doesn’t make sense or if I missed something let me know and I will clarify. I blame any nonsensical rambling on my feverish state. lol
Will reply to the above nutrition conversation again soon.
Brief notes:
Had a chinese last night round the in-laws, not going to worry about things like that, it’s a rare occasion, did resist the ice-cream afterwards though. Woke up weighing 211 good old salt/msg.
Was going to train today but ended up doing a lot of submax strongman work (labouring in my garden with a few ton of rubble, sand, gravel and a skips worth of rubbish).
Came in hungry at lunch and couldn’t see much around apart from a pack of sausages, so air fried them and ate 6 (just under a lb worth of sausage), not the best quality thing to eat but not just junk carbs either.
Didn’t finish working till late and then running Christmas errands, ran into the shop with the Mrs, she wanted quick and easy for dinner so picked up pizza, I thought to myself I reckon I can cook a steak in about the same time…
Great decision! And isn’t this wild? “Fast food” is often neither of those two things. In the time it takes to get it, you can most definitely make a better product. And if your a real kitchen ninja, you can even clean it up in the time it takes.
I had a similar moment once. Mrs and kiddo wanted pizza. I threw some ribs into the air fryer, drove, picked up the pizza, came home and my ribs were ready.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you post a pic with more than a half dozen potatoes on your plate. Checks out with your username though haha. Are you doing anything to them to make them more palatable? Butter, perhaps?
Coming back to the discussion (sorry for delays everyone, I’m generally pretty busy, and type all of my posts on my phone so longer replies are something I need to make a little time to do).
Good point, the biggest issue for me isn’t the compliance or testing it’s actually getting the blood drawn, so with that faff in mind I’ll just keep my regular blood tests and not worry too much about the experiment, it’ll be interesting to see how things are once I’ve had a good few months of cleaner eating, less caffeine and no nicotine.
I also dropped my TRT dose slightly, about 3/4 months ago now (to try and keep haematocrit lower, in case that was negatively impacting BP) so a massive mix of confounding factors, the data would be meaningless on an experiment, but as long as markers are improving or static where already good I’m happy.
Did you have any symptoms of this prior to elimination? I’ve got a few things that if I overdo them cause some gas, primarily garlic and particularly powdered garlic, fresh seems to cause less issues. Not keen to eliminate garlic, cause it’s awesome. Wondering if the elimination diet might actually reduce your tolerance to foods where you’ve got an intolerance but built up some resistance (much like the newish clinical treatment for peanut allergy sufferers - microdosed peanut supplement built up over time allowing them to withstand small amounts of peanuts in daily life, but I believe once they stop they lose that Immunity).
Wasn’t aware of that, was it congenital?
This sounds sensible, how’s the dietary change impacted the markers? Did you ever have more in-depth cholesterol tests?
Tends to be me, but more recently skewing towards slightly lower carbs, out of convenience, once you make a conscious effort to reduce down to single ingredient foods, it’s interesting how few “quick and easy” decent carb sources there are. It’s about as much effort to scramble eggs and eat them as it is to make a bowl of porridge, so eggs to mend to win out. Steak/pizza from the other night is another example. Peanut butter & casein at night is another quick easy eat that’s again pretty low carbs.
I have been keeping track! Good stuff and you’re looking great.
Apologies not accepted - because they’re unnecessary, rambling welcome, on topic and useful even better, but not mandatory!
This is where I thought you’d probably land, and where I probably land too, Pwn did highlight something I hadn’t really thought about in this regard, I was/am eating a significant amount of chicken, with very little variety.
Honestly most of the meat in the supermarkets over here are fairly lean cut. Drumsticks being the exception in my diet and I have been eating the skin, because it’s delicious. I’m generally eating less bacon these days (mostly because I over did it and am a little sick of it). Unfortunately I’m not a fan of fish, eat tinned tuna most for convenience sake.
This is about where I am, minus the cottage cheese, fish and venison - I’d love to take up hunting but the UK sucks for gun laws and general hunting scene.
Don’t think so, parents are around 70s and no issues and mines never been too alarming despite my general bodily abuse.
Will get one done next blood draw.
NHS - wouldn’t have a clue who “my” Dr is (I love the NHS but it’s in a crappy state).
Again apologies not accepted! No need to, hope you’re starting to feel better?
100% that’s a meal that got me closer to my goals and likely contributed to keeping my health in check, setting me up for long term success, it took slightly more effort, but not much, and no longer time wise, and whilst it cost a bit more it wouldn’t have if I hadn’t eaten both steaks.
Unashamedly British - so nope! I’d normally smother them in butter, but trying to avoid mixing carbs and fats unnecessarily.
Haha don’t tempt me! If steak makes too many more appearances in my diet I might have to invest in a decent cast iron griddle, the crappy non-stick frying pan wasn’t ideal.
And this was really more where I was wanting to go with it. I feel like things got a little muddied as I went off on some tirades, but it was less about “eat beef, not chicken” and more “eat meat beyond just chicken”, with an explanation of where chickens can cause issues. Similar to what you phrase here
Wondering if the elimination diet might actually reduce your tolerance to foods where you’ve got an intolerance but built up some resistance (much like the newish clinical treatment for peanut allergy sufferers - microdosed peanut supplement built up over time allowing them to withstand small amounts of peanuts in daily life, but I believe once they stop they lose that Immunity).
I feel there is something of a fine line between tolerance building and toxicity accumulation. Bringing up fish is a great example. With mercury in large fish, eating a little bit of fish every day won’t really help us develop a mercury tolerance, but instead slowly accumulate the toxin until it reaches critical mass. For me, with these foods, I’ll eventually accumulate too much and have to back off to reset the load: the opposite of “build up a tolerance or risk losing it” presented here with peanuts. Too much almond butter for too long and I lose the ability to breathe. I was running into this issue a little while back with some cinnamon honey: was eating it too frequently, and eventually my throat closed up.
Bodies are fascinating.
And on the comment on steaks and price: it’s honestly at the point where it costs the same for me to get my kid a steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse vs a meal at McDonalds here in the states…so my kid is eating a lot of steak, haha.
Not really, but who knows. You make good points about exposure, but I think there’s also something to the idea that you don’t know you were feeling bad until you feel better.
Strength
Banded squat - red bands: 60, 100, 120, 140kg x 4, 160kg x 2+f (then a bottom up to rack it with 100kg).
S/s
Ab roll out: 5 x 5 sets
Volume
Banded squat - red bands: 100kg x 4 x 10 sets EMOM
Finisher:
Constant tension Ez curl: 18kg x 17, 17, 18
S/s
Dips: 10 x 3 sets
140kg:
160kg:
The fail was purely psychological - on rep 3 it got a little out of place and slowed, but then that got in my head on the descent and I collapsed forward, probably could have fought that even, but I didn’t try hard enough.
The EMOM confirmed the fail was in my head, felt fine on the legs, not so much the lungs, need to knuckle down and do some conditioning.
Volume - changed it up, elbows are slightly cranky, I’m thinking that’s the weighted chins unfortunately. Going to keep the direct arm work in but just flush blood and get a pump for a week or two, light but to failure on the curls (leaning back and sticking arms out to keep tension at the bottom position) tried 28kg but elbow wasn’t loving it, no need to to martyr the thing with no upside.
I go back for further testing in February so we will see how the markers look. I’ll update, maybe if there is no movement I’ll be back to beef more consistently!
This is a big change I’ve had to make too. I used to eat easy things like bread, bagels with peanut butter, etc. I’ve just switched out for whey.
Regardless of which direction you go with the food, you’re jacked and train hard, so I think any nutritional approach can be successful.
I think the training hard portion is so much more important than people realize and is the crux of this whole hobby. The amount of guys I know in the gym that are worried about brand of protein, keto, protein leveraging etc. while they can’t even get to the gym consistently is nuts. On the flipside, I know some jacked guys that eat whatever they want and have never even changed from their bro-split they started at 16.
Finisher:
Inc bench: 60kg x 10 x 3 set
S/s
Cable row: 80kg x 12 x 3 sets
Strength wasn’t bad, despite feeling slightly under the weather and having very poor sleep (late to bed, call out, early start). Joints were aching slightly coming in, elbows still a bit cranky and still got DOMs in my legs, all things considered this was a great showing, probably a default PR by virtue of never really using the slingshot.
Volume was probably unwise for joint aching - I went for max rx on both weight and reps, made it though.
Finisher went for a sensible choice and just went light, slower cadence get a stretch and putting a little blood in the area.
The point was well made and received, the muddy stuff is always fun to discuss but I’m pretty good enjoying the discussion but not sweating the minors.
On the subject of variety, I just cooked 2kg of chicken…but:
That’s good, hopefully there’s improvements - look forward to the update!
Yup that’s a fairly easy go to for me as well, that and nuts makes getting cals in, in-between meals, easy(ish).
Thanks, and right back at you!
100% - I always find CrossFit (from a completely uneducated no real experience perspective) a solid example of this, from what I’ve seen anyone who takes it seriously is in great shape, almost regardless of diet.
We’ve got some great examples on this forum, two people who come to mind immediately for me, for having almost opposite approaches to nutrition Pwn and Kleinhound, but both work relentlessly in the gym (probably quite differing methods here too) and are both very active outside the gym, and they both walk about jacked and lean year round.
Hard work, effort, discipline, consistency etc. trumps the little stuff every time. Funny the older I get the less of a student I’ve become in the lifting realm, I’m more interested in just getting some work done than I am reading about the latest and greatest methods for hypertrophy or increasing rate of force production. I’ve not suffered for it it - there’s something to be said for brute force and ignorance.
Appreciate that nod there! I love this forum for the reason you stated: we can see opposite approaches all coming together because the common variables that matter are in play.
And I’d say you’re a MUCH better student of the game now BECAUSE you know how to ignore the noise and focus on the signal. I always like to point out that, in 1967, we had 2 humans that could bench over 600lbs. When we factor in that the bench press itself was a new lift at that point, and that benches themselves were flimsy products compared to today’s benches, that puts things into an even greater perspective. In the 57 years since that time, a 600lb raw bench is STILL ridiculous, and we’ve only seen a handful of dudes get into the 700s from there. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that, in those 57 years, we got a LOT better about how to use drugs…
We learned a LONG time ago how to get big and strong. It still works today. Everything else we’ve “learned” after that has just been fine tuning.
Me too, so much collective experience and wisdom, and it’s a mature space, particularly considering most of the infantile crap that passes for lifting infotainment these days.
Appreciate that perspective, the joy here is twofold - firstly and most importantly, I’m as big, strong and lean as I’ve ever been (and continuing to grow) and secondly it takes up far less bandwidth. I enjoy the discussion and experimentation/side quests but have no interest in reading endless studies and worrying about the minutiae.
My experience caught me off guard. I get my blood work done every year and for years my total cholesterol was 170. I think I was in a cutting phase and eating the usual 5-6 lb pack of chicken breasts each week. I decided to start buying two since it’s so low calorie for the amount of food you get (in grams).
I think that was the first half of the year and my blood work was in the summer (June?). Well, I was shocked to see my total cholesterol at 220. Doc said I could only change it by about 10-15% through diet. The only change was the chicken, so I cut it. I replaced it with red meat and swapped egg whites for whole eggs. I think I’d still have whole eggs, but it was like 2 plus egg whites instead of 6 whole eggs.
I think I waited till December to get back in to the doc. Low and behold my cholesterol was 170.
My total cholesterol this summer was 230. My doc didn’t say anything but I don’t like seeing the spike so I’m off chicken as my main source of protein again. I just think the added junk in the US is tough to avoid. If you’ve seen chickens on a farm (or at my grandma’s house), you know it’s not normal for them to have two pounds of meat on their breast. I’m not sure if those chickens can even walk right.
There’s a local company here that sells locally raised meats. I used to buy 40 lbs of chicken breast at a time from them. It cost about $130 but that was like six years ago. Those were much smaller breasts and I felt like they were a little more natural.
