D-Warrior

Diet and Nutrition
1

I’ve been thinking about Temporal Nutrition; Lean Eatin’; the Anabolic Diet, and Body Opus. Really, the idea of timing carbs and fat and all that just makes me sick. Every time I’ve tried any diet that attempts to control nutrient ratios I end up walking away unhappy.

I’ve done the Anabolic Diet and found that I was at my most miserable then. Sure, I put on some muscle, and my body fat didn’t go up, but the results just weren’t worth the suffering during the week. Carbs are a must and I don’t like limiting the size or nutrients of my meals, period.

So that’s out the window, as is Lean Eatin’ and anything else that works on the principle of carb manipulation. I’m only left with either a bulking diet where anything goes, or the Warrior diet; let’s just call it intermittent fasting, or IF.

I’ve always noticed that IF works well for my needs. The fat starts to come off very quickly at first, and I have never to this day ever experienced a loss of strength…ever. I feel good as hell when fasting; I seem to have a clearer head and just feel generally better about everything.

So here’s my proposal. Why not combine a Warrior/IF style diet with the Delta 1250 program? It seems like the perfect marriage to me. That’s what this thread is going to be all about; my experience as a Delta Warrior (somebody please come up with a better name).

The Delta 1250 program is pretty old. I only stumbled across it by accident. Rather than go into the details about that, here’s the link:

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=body_59abcde

So just like the Warrior Diet suggests periods of overfeeding and underfeeding within a 24 hour period, the Delta 1250 program also suggests a similar protocol with longer cycles. I like the idea of cycling, but the Delta still asks you to count your calories and keep a log and all that shit.

So my proposal is, during cycles of under eating, why not just do IF? When overeating, simply go for broke for a few days or a week. Cycle between the two extremes and see what happens.

It’s going to take some tweaking, and there’s always the chance that it won’t work, but the main issues I want to get hammered out are the little things. Like how long I should be bulking versus fasting, or should I slowly transfer from one cycle to the other or just jump between the two.

Any comments, suggestions, flamings, or semi-clothed cheerleaders will be welcome.

2

Well sounds Like a very fast yoyo or roller coaster to essentially no where, eat enough to gain fat and muscle, just to turn round and not eat enough to preserve the tiny bit of mucle which may be built during a short hypercaloric state.

At best you have a good time going Nutty on the buffet and then starving and hopefully after a long cycle of it being where ya were whne you started.

In general if you want to build muclkes you need to spend a LONG time in a hypercaloric state if losing fat long term in hypo.

You mgiht look at something lik CT’s recomedatiosn of calorie and carb cyclin having ppl looking to gain 5 days out or 7 or so in varied states of High intake followed by one or two lower at maint or just below.

Phill

3

Thanks for the comment Phill,

You make a valid point; there’s always a chance this will take me nowhere. But at over 30% body fat, I’m running out of options. It’s getting to the point where I’d be considered morbidly obese, and frankly I’m willing to lose some muscle to get back down to a healthy weight.

I figure I’ll have to be fasting from 2/3 to 3/4 of the time in order to maintain any fat loss. But I don’t see any reason why one couldn’t adjust the program to bulk as well. Maybe just remain hypo caloric for a month or so and fast for a few days or a week to help offset any fat gains but not lose too much muscle.

Everyone’s different, but I’ve had no problems with strength loss when fasting.

4

Have you tried a “Balanced” approach?

In ‘Muscle Revolution’ -Chad Waterbury lays out a 33/33/33 macro nutrient ratio that actually works quite well, whether you’re trying to gain OR trying to lose. And it’s relatively painless. You really don’t even feel like you’re cutting -but the results tell the tale.

Basically, (please forgive me Mr Waterbury if I’m ‘giving away the milk’ here) -but basically consume equal cals from carbs/pro/fat at each meal, 6x a day.

Begin by establishing your maint level and drop 250 cals off that number -assess after two weeks -repeat.

And if I may…if you utilize beans/legumes (especially early in the day) you’ll feel full longer and never really get hungry.

It works quite well.

peace

5

Maybe it’s just because I’m so fed up with anything remotely resembling a diet. Alwyn Cosgrove just posted a great sounding diet on his blog-makes it sound pretty dammed easy as well.

For some reason I have the hardest time being conscious about what I eat. If I say that I can’t have something, cereals for instance, than I instantly start craving it. If I limit the size of my meals, I’m always hungry.

Maybe I’m copping out, but it’s easier for me to just forget about food altogether knowing I can have whatever and as much as I like at the end of the day instead of having to constantly stay on top of my cravings.

And hey, you’re right about beans. I’m about to have myself a burrito here in a few minutes.

Thanks Pauli D.

6

Okay then…How’s THIS grab ya?

Eat whatever you want -as much as you want…BUT (there’s always a but, huh?) BUT …eat a protein source, carb source and fat source at each feasting -and equal amounts of each!

No counting
No measuring
No keeping track
-Just eat!

Example:
You said you were about to eat a bean burrito?
K-then…that’s a carb: -beans, tortilla, blah, blah, blah = CARB
Now you need a protein and a fat…
In Equal Proportion to that burrito!

Take that burrito and slap that hombre on a plate. Now we need a piece of meat that size too AND some fat to boot! Same size!

“Whoa!” you say…“That’s a lot of grub! -Maybe I need to cut that burrito in two!..Maybe I should cut ALLLL those portions in fact!”

Now we’re getting somewhere!

And…if after eating that plate -you’re still hungry…Go ahead and load up again! But…(there it is again)
BUT…EQUAL Proportions of Each!!

Same goes for anything really…
You want some mixed nuts? That’s a fat. Now we need to add those to a bowl of oats (carbs) and throw in a scoop of whey (protein).

Ice cream? No problem…AFTER your 4oz of beef and 2 cups of veggies. Want another bowl? Fine -AFTER another 4oz and 2 cups!

Try that on for size…err, uhmm I mean for a reduction in size!

It’s all about Equality, my man!

peace

7

So you believe that simply eating 33/33/33 ratios is all that’s needed to keep everything in check? By those standards I should be able to knock back as much whole milk as I want (it’s not spot on 33/33/33 but its pretty close) and not gain a pound. You don’t realize how MUCH I can eat…and eat…and eat. I hate to get on the calorie bandwagon, but don’t they still count for something?

The whole idea behind IF is simply cutting back the QUANTITY of food I’m ingesting. If all I do is follow the simple rule of one-meal-a-day, I CAN get away with eating ad-lib, just not all the time. Ya know?

Now I will agree that your way is better than loading up on pasta or beer and not paying attention to protein, no contention there. In fact that’s what I’m doing right now…sort of. I’m just making sure that I’m eating something every three hours, and whatever it is I’m getting some protein along with it. For instance, I had a blender drink a few hours ago with all sorts of fruit and milk and pecans, brewers yeast, the works. But I also made sure to throw in some olive oil and a few eggs to keep things rounded out and even. I’ve been eating like this for a couple of weeks for five days a week. (Weekends are tough because we’re always out doing shit.) The point is, I’ve still managed to gain back about half of what I lost on my last IF phase. No doubt some of that gain stems from a slowed down metabolism, but I doubt that counts for all of it. That’s the whole idea behind cycling between feast and famine. I’m just trying to jump-start my metabolism so I can start burning fat again during my next IF cycle.

You might ask how much cardio I’m doing and what my activity level is. I can say that that remains pretty rock solid all year long. Sure I could afford to do a little more. But part of the fun with this little experiment is seeing how the diet alone will affect my body composition.

8

Well, bottom line:
You have to do what’s right for YOU -What makes you feel good, feel healthy and fulfills you physically, mentally and emotionally.

What else matters?

peace

9

For anyone who’s interested, here are my stats since I started this whole fiasco:

9 Mar 07 Beginning of first IF phase that will last six weeks.
257.5 lbs.
BF 32.68%
84.15 lbs body fat
173.35 lbs lean body mass

20 Apr 07 I hit my leanest (if you can call it that). My weight loss had been stalling for a couple of weeks though, so I decided to end the fasting phase.
250 lbs.
BF 31.41%
78.53 lbs BF
171.47 lean body mass

During this time, I was able to maintain all of my best lifts, in some cases they even felt a little easier.  I focused on heavy weights with low reps, two or three times a week.  I also walk four or five miles, five days a week.  Occasionally I'll throw in a high intensity 9 min. mile, or 3 min. half mile.

The whole idea behind the bulking phase is to try to get my metabolism revved up again so I can start burning fat during my next IF phase. We all know that the body slows down it’s metabolism during any type of low calorie diet. Hopefully I can get it into high gear, slide into neutral, and just coast…

11 May 07 End of bulking phase (though I don’t really like to call it that). It only took three weeks to gain back about half of what I lost. I don’t want to risk gaining any more and making it all the tougher to fight my way back down; two steps forward, one step back…cha cha cha.
258 lbs
32.05% BF
82.69 lbs BF
175.31 lean body mass

During this time, I switched it up to German Volume Training.  I only practiced my heavy lifts just barely enough to maintain them.  I focused on isolation exercises and did direct arm work for the first time in a huge while.  Managed to add a little over a quarter inch to what's barely budged for the last four or five years.  I'm ecstatic.

For some of you, less than two pounds of fat loss and almost two pounds of lean mass gained in nine weeks may seem like pretty weak numbers. But for me it’s golden. I have never in eight years managed as simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain. At this rate, I’ll lose around 2% BF in a year. But it may come off faster if I continue to gain muscle.

So I’ll be starting a new IF phase on Monday. I’ll post how I did it the last time, and how I’m going to approach it a little differently this time around.

Later.

10

Well, looks like no one’s interested in this thread. That’s cool, but I’ll continue to post my progress if anything for my own records. I really feel this is a viable option and frankly far less extreme than something like the Velocity Diet. So the info will be here for anyone who stumbles upon it.

The key to surviving an IF eating plan is figuring out your optimum meal time. For many it seems like breakfast is a must. I believe a lot of that comes from hearing that it’s the most important meal of the day since you could walk. Many of our so-called beliefs stem from this, our social conditioning. I’m afraid the bodybuilding world also suffers from the same fallacies as well.

But that’s beside the point; if breakfast is for you then make that your meal, but don’t skip lunch and dinner yet! Take a few weeks before you jump headfirst into it by slowly stretching the time between you other two meals. For instance, once I found that my ideal meal was dinner, I simply started eating breakfast later, and lunch was very quickly absorbed by dinner. I kept pushing breakfast back until eventually it was basically dinner as well.

That being said, I still ate my “dinner” fairly early; something like between one and three o’clock. This was the main problem for me; not being able to eat dinner with my wife. See, I’m the cook in the family, and I like to eat what I prepare. It takes a lot of the fun out of it when I’m still full from my meal and I don’t seem to cook as well when I’m not hungry either. Hunger makes the best sauce.

So this time, I plan on pushing my meal time ever farther back, approaching between six and eight o’clock in the evening. That’s our normal dinner time. But in order to do this, I’m going to have to provide myself a cheat meal sometime during the day. This approach will sort of take away from the whole “one meal a day” idea, but I think that if it’s done correctly I’ll still be able to get away with it.

So I’ll start like this: I like eggs. I can eat up to six in one sitting, but that’s really too much; four is better. So, at two o’clock I’ll allow myself four eggs. That’s it, nothing else. This is simply so I can hold out till dinner time. It’s also going to keep my blood sugar low too. See, I’ve tried many times to eat nothing until that late, but I honestly can’t. So hopefully that will be JUST enough to get me by but not TOO much as to stop the fat loss.

I’ll monitor my weight every week like I normally do and see what happens.

That leads to my other problem-late eating. I think a lot of my initial weight loss stemmed from the fact that I was going to bed on an empty stomach. In the beginning I thought that would be ideal; I would be awake for the entire time I was digesting my meal, burning more calories. But if I go to bed full, I’m afraid that the bulk of those calories might just be stored as fat, and then I’ll have to spend the entire next day simply burning off what I stored the previous night. Not conducive to weight loss.

So we’ll see. If I see that the weight isn’t coming off like it should; at a rate of around a pound or two a week, I’ll first cut back on the eggs I’m eating in the afternoon. If that’s still not helping, than the obvious answer to me would be the late meal and I’ll simply go back to eating my meal earlier in the afternoon.

11

I think I’ll start posting my workouts on this thread as well. Might as well make this my general fitness log.

It’ll be interesting to see how my performance is effected by this Delta Warrior thing (any name suggestions?..please?)

So today was Deadlift day. My max has been 425 for quite a while. I’ve been toying with the idea of only rarely going for new PR’s. My idea is to keep working the old PR for as long as it takes until it becomes obviously easier. I’ve started using a rating system between one and five. 1: very easy. 2:moderately easy. 3: difficult. 4: very difficult. And 5: supremely difficult.

So far 425 has been hovering between a four and a five. I won’t attempt 435 until I feel that 425 is a three. But I’m not expecting any huge gains while I’m doing IF. I’ll be very pleased to maintain my strengths while I’m getting leaned out.

I’ve never actually done a full-on bulking diet before, so I’m really looking forward to throwing all this fasting business out the window and put on some serious size and strength for once. At 30 years old, I can’t help but think that my window of opportunity is beginning to close as far as getting big and gnarly.

Tomorrow I’m doing pull-ups and one armed standing strict military press.

Now before anyone decides to poke fun at my lifts, I’d like to point out that; while I’ve been lifting for quite a while, I’ve never taken a serious look at my diet before about six months ago. Sure, I thought I knew HOW to eat, but I never applied that knowledge to get huge. I never ate as frequently as I should have, but somehow managed to stay above 20% BF. From around '95ish to late '04, early '05 I pretty much used my body as a repository for massive amounts of alcohol and tobacco products. I was also very good at getting little to no sleep and not getting laid nearly as much as a twenty something would like to. Regardless, considering all this, it’s amazing that I was able to make any gains at all. But somehow I managed to stick it out throughout the painfully slow progress and plug away until I was able to add around, oh, I’d say twenty or so pounds of muscle. Pretty fricking sorry for eight years of work. But imagine the state I’d be in if I hadn’t of been lifting.

Another excuse I can think of is the fact that I have always been the weakest and/or slowest amongst any group that I’ve hung around with. Yes, blessed with good height and terrible strength. But hey, I’m working on it!

12

[quote]Pauli D wrote:
In ‘Muscle Revolution’ -Chad Waterbury lays out a 33/33/33 macro nutrient ratio that actually works quite well, whether you’re trying to gain OR trying to lose. And it’s relatively painless. You really don’t even feel like you’re cutting -but the results tell the tale.

Basically, (please forgive me Mr Waterbury if I’m ‘giving away the milk’ here) -but basically consume equal cals from carbs/pro/fat at each meal, 6x a day. [/quote]

This is called the isocaloric diet. It was popularized - if not invented - by Daniel Duchaine. Next Nutrition, over a decade ago, gave out a free booklet (you paid $5 for shipping) describing the meal plan. They also sold some stuff called ISO3. So you’re not giving away the farm, as the horse has been out of that barn for well over a decade.

13

It sounds to me like you are so fat that you will eventually die from heart disease or stroke. Getting that fat took years. Losing that fat will likewise take years.

Quit bitching about not wanting to follow programs or feeling “unhappy.” You sound like a fat disgusting pig posting at PeopleMagazine.com.

14

[quote]unheatedgarage wrote:
For some reason I have the hardest time being conscious about what I eat. If I say that I can’t have something, cereals for instance, than I instantly start craving it. If I limit the size of my meals, I’m always hungry.
[/quote]

So you crave junk food and are hungry when you diet. This surprises you?

Uh… Seriously… WTF?

15

Real helpful there CL.

I’m glad you put a lot of thought into those responses.

16

Anyway…after getting more familiar with this site, I’ve figured out that all this shit should be posted on my personal blog.

Anyone who’s interested, feel free to stop by my T-Nation and check it out. I plan on updating it often.

17

i think what California was saying, was that since you said you were boarderline “morbidly obese”…dispite not enjoying a diet, and having a capacity to eat a great deal, you might just have to take some responsibility and do something about it,

-since you said “Morbid” it might have to be more drastic than you’d like…but thats where responsibility for your own body comes in

-of course you’ll be hungry and have cravings…so does everybody else

-also, giving in to them makes it so much worse…if you stick to a well thoughtout diet plan, you’d be amazed how the cravings start to disappear if you keep yourself in check after a while

-self control is never fun, and growing, mentally or physically comes with pain sometimes, and remember how much attitude comes into play aswell

-good luck, and keep us updated

18

Thanks brian.m,

You’re right, drastic measures are required. That’s-exactly-why-I’m-doing-this-diet!

Does it take self-control? Absofuckinglutely! Will I have to control my hunger and cravings? You bet! I’m fully aware that dieting isn’t fun. The whole point of this exercise is to try to find the way; if you will. Everyone needs to find their niche in life and that includes diet and exercise routines.

Intermittent fasting is one way to lose weight, and I, despite what others may think, feel it is a perfectly valid way to go about it. For me it’s easier to drink boatloads of water, have a few cups of coffee and then enjoy one hearty meal at the end of the day. It’s not for everyone, but there you go.

Sticking to IF, like any other diet does become easier with time. Cravings absolutely do disappear after you’ve adjusted to it. So yes, this also will involve some personal growth and that is never easy, but I’m more than ready, and already have, experienced it to some extent. IT WORKS!

[quote]brian.m wrote:
i think what California was saying, was that since you said you were boarderline “morbidly obese”…dispite not enjoying a diet, and having a capacity to eat a great deal, you might just have to take some responsibility and do something about it,

-since you said “Morbid” it might have to be more drastic than you’d like…but thats where responsibility for your own body comes in

-of course you’ll be hungry and have cravings…so does everybody else

-also, giving in to them makes it so much worse…if you stick to a well thoughtout diet plan, you’d be amazed how the cravings start to disappear if you keep yourself in check after a while

-self control is never fun, and growing, mentally or physically comes with pain sometimes, and remember how much attitude comes into play aswell

-good luck, and keep us updated[/quote]

19

What I got from your posts is that you are going to try to get lose weight by doing what’s “natural”, or in other words, what you feel like.

I don’t mean to flame you personally, but people who do what they feel like are losers. Doing what you felt like is what got you fat. It’s odd how selfdestructive the body is. Doing what you feel like means not going to work, drinking too much, fucking fat chicks without a condom, and living in your moms basement well into middle age.

And how is starving yourself easier than the V-Diet? You want to start your day off with a big ole Jethro Bodine bowl of cereal? Great, do it. Then drink the shakes every three hours for the rest of the day.

20

Nothing taken personally, that was a funny post,

If you subscribe to evolutionary theory, than there’s no doubt that we evolved through feast and famine. I don’t recall any anthropology lessons that talked about how Cro-Magnon ran around the woods with Tupperware containers full of perfectly proportioned foods so he could make sure he met his daily protein requirements. Cro-Magnon probably would have fucked fat chicks though.

I think allowing a little bit of leniency on a diet is paramount for success. Satisfying one’s cravings (and I don’t mean Twinkies or ice cream, I’m talking about real food here) is a great way keep the beast quiet.

Finally, I don’t think I said that fasting is easier than the V-Diet per say, but I do think it’s less extreme. I’m not convinced that a diet based on protein shakes is going to provide all the nutrients one needs. Maybe I just like real food too much.

[quote]Uncle Gabby wrote:
What I got from your posts is that you are going to try to get lose weight by doing what’s “natural”, or in other words, what you feel like.

I don’t mean to flame you personally, but people who do what they feel like are losers. Doing what you felt like is what got you fat. It’s odd how selfdestructive the body is. Doing what you feel like means not going to work, drinking too much, fucking fat chicks without a condom, and living in your moms basement well into middle age.

And how is starving yourself easier than the V-Diet? You want to start your day off with a big ole Jethro Bodine bowl of cereal? Great, do it. Then drink the shakes every three hours for the rest of the day.[/quote]