[quote]lil.boxer wrote:
Nope not a lard ass. Just have gotten a belly on me from too much work and laziness and not enough useful work (e.g. gym). It sucks because it is easy to convince yourself you aren’t getting fat when you can look in the mirror and still see good muscle tone/shape.
[/quote]
Progress pictures.
From Personal Experience, I have found that increasing fibre and water intake raises metabolic activity as does increasing protein, MCT’s.
P.S. I don’t know if this would be relevant, but I noticed you take BCAA’s late at night. I believe BCAA’s generate an insulin spike (less and shorter lived than carbs but still)
Also, taking L-Leucine would dramatically lower blood glucose levels and as a result you would be bouncing from hyper to hypo-glycemic states constantly.
[quote]ksommer wrote:
The last thing I would recommend for this person is a low-carbohydrate diet.
I was diagnosed with low testosterone last summer after months on a low carbohydrate diet. I added in healthy carbohydrates and I am leaner, heavier, stronger, and have a HELL of a lot more sex drive. Essentially, my life is just better. Keep in mind I decided to do this after Charles told me I was born moderately carb tolerant.
I have just been where he has been. I am more concerned with the guy’s health than anything. I am not necessarily saying his workout routine is excessive - it is just excessive for his diet, and maybe for his body type.
Insulin tends to free up bound testosterone in the blood… and it sounds like his testosterone is low. 1/2 of oatmeal or quinoa is not enough to release the SHBG. For sure, I’d recommend some PWO carbs.[/quote]
Interesting input. I pretty much thrived on high carb diet while wrestling in high school as well as when boxing. However I always chalked it up to activity levels simply making up for the deficient diet as those high carbs were usually what most consider crap (pancakes, breads, chocolate milk, krispy kreme, etc.).
I still have some of my food logs from when I was hitting the boxing gym constantly and weekend binges at Krispy Kreme were quite common. I suppose it wasn’t the healthiest approach but it suited my desires and physique just fine at the time.
In trying to be more healthy within the context of my food preferences I have been eating low carb for awhile (measured in years) - basically I just cut out the “junk” food for the most part.
I would have occasional binges with the stuff, but it was mostly two meal a day low carb food as I indicated previously. Only within the last couple of months have I added in the fruit - prior to then it was an occasional thing (maybe once a week or so).
I am definitely tempted to go back to my old ways of eating and whatever my current activity levels can take off is what it takes off.
If it will make me feel better it seems worth it. But I worry if I do, and it was my super high activity levels that were compensating, am I going to have a real problem on my hands?
[quote]Evil1 wrote:
From Personal Experience, I have found that increasing fibre and water intake raises metabolic activity as does increasing protein, MCT’s.
P.S. I don’t know if this would be relevant, but I noticed you take BCAA’s late at night. I believe BCAA’s generate an insulin spike (less and shorter lived than carbs but still)
Also, taking L-Leucine would dramatically lower blood glucose levels and as a result you would be bouncing from hyper to hypo-glycemic states constantly.[/quote]
Thanks Evil1. Interesting on the L-Leucine. It was one of my blindfolded darts. Am definitely not adverse to dropping it out. I’ll also nix the nighttime BCAAs for the time being and double up my morning dosage instead. Sound like a better plan?
[quote]NewDamage wrote:
As far as blood work I’d look into:
total testosterone
free testosterone
cortisol
estradiol
Complete Blood Cell count with differential
Comprehensive metabolic panel
Thyroid panel
Could even check for Epstein-Barr as that is often involved in fatigue, feeling lousy[/quote]
Thanks … I’ll have this list with me when I go to the doc on Tuesday.
Didn;t read the whole thread but my first observation is:
too many carbs for someone interested in recomp.
[quote]lil.boxer wrote:
If it will make me feel better it seems worth it. But I worry if I do, and it was my super high activity levels that were compensating, am I going to have a real problem on my hands?
Well, yes, if it was the activity level which allowed you to “get away” with eating all that crap, then you will have a problem on your hands now, since you are far lass active.
But additionally, you’re doing your health no favors eating crap all the time, regardless of activity levels.
I think at this point, you just need to experiment with different Calorie levels and macronutrient breakdowns until you find the right fit for what you’re trying to do.
Basically what everyone has to do. You may indeed do better on a higher carb diet. However, you still need to get your Calorie intake right for fat loss.
Good luck.
I’d like to point out that eating carbs does not mean eating crap. You still only want a large amount of insulin at certain times. Focus on ancient grains, rice, ezekiel bread, etc.
I used to be on that under 50g of carbs approach… afraid a bowl of oatmeal might make me fat… now I am using 100+ grams of carbs peri-workout and it has made a huge difference.
You also mention that your food preference is for fatty steaks. My food preference is for pizza, do you think that means I eat it at every meal if I am interested in physique, performance, etc.? You are also not willing to eat vegetables but are wondering why you are unhealthy. If you are not serious enough to do these small (yes, eating vegetables at every meal is a SMALL effort) things, then how can you expect anyone to help you?
[quote]ksommer wrote:
You also mention that your food preference is for fatty steaks. My food preference is for pizza, do you think that means I eat it at every meal if I am interested in physique, performance, etc.? You are also not willing to eat vegetables but are wondering why you are unhealthy. If you are not serious enough to do these small (yes, eating vegetables at every meal is a SMALL effort) things, then how can you expect anyone to help you?
[/quote]
My understanding was that the laws of thermodynamics were all that really mattered (calories in vs. calories out). I have adjusted portions of those steaks so that they are within the range of my target meal allotment.
No I am not wondering why I am “unhealthly”, I am wondering why monitoring my caloric level into a mild deficit and adding in exercise once again has moved my further away from my goal instead of closer towards it.
I understand what you are saying on an intellectual level, but to me a small effort is finding the time to plan what I eat - which is a PITA, but also a necessary evil and I understand that. Trying to choke down foods I don’t like is no small effort. Spending the meal gagging and dreading the next one is no small effort for me to overcome.
[quote]NewDamage wrote:
Well, yes, if it was the activity level which allowed you to “get away” with eating all that crap, then you will have a problem on your hands now, since you are far lass active.
But additionally, you’re doing your health no favors eating crap all the time, regardless of activity levels.
I think at this point, you just need to experiment with different Calorie levels and macronutrient breakdowns until you find the right fit for what you’re trying to do.
Basically what everyone has to do. You may indeed do better on a higher carb diet. However, you still need to get your Calorie intake right for fat loss.
Good luck.[/quote]
Yeah it sounds like this is just going to be a guess and check process. That sucks. In hindsight I guess I should have just added in the activity directly and skipped the diet changes as my prior diet was working fine at maintaining my weight until I started to screw with it.
Thanks for all of the advice guys. Hopefully I’ll be able to find something that allows me to reach my goals without requiring an overhaul of my entire life. Should be possible as I am not trying to get ripped, just keep the waist a few inches below where it currently is at.
[quote]tribunaldude wrote:
Didn;t read the whole thread but my first observation is:
too many carbs for someone interested in recomp.[/quote]
The only carbs I have are in the morning (after my GPP and prehab workout), at dinner (after my strength workout), and the fruit - with an occasional bit pre workout. Do you think I should just cut the fruit from the diet or the carbs at one of those other meals?
[quote]lil.boxer wrote:
Thanks Evil1. Interesting on the L-Leucine. It was one of my blindfolded darts. Am definitely not adverse to dropping it out. I’ll also nix the nighttime BCAAs for the time being and double up my morning dosage instead. Sound like a better plan?
Oh geez, I am not one to ask that question.
I can tell you that most people using BCAA’s use it in peri-workout stuff, breakfast and when in a calorie deficit.
If you are doing low-carb, there is a L-Leucine protocol that Christian Thibaudeau posted (taking it with the last meals of a carb-up to quickly re-establish ketosis.
Reading your other posts, I would say that you should try a balanced 40-30-30 plan (Berardi) and see where that takes you. Maybe the tremendous activity levels at a younger age gave you a good metabolic foundation.
Bright Side:
You’re free to experiment since there is no where to go but up!
Thanks again for the input everybody. Blood results are finally in … few abnormal ones:
Liver (ALT): 144 … normal is <36
Testosterone, Free: 37.6 … normal 35 - 155
Testosterone, Total: 165 … normal 250 - 1100
I haven’t heard back from the doc on the testosterone results yet as they just came back this morning. The doc wants to do further tests though to find out what is irritating the liver.
So it looks like something is wonky. Not sure yet exactly what, but as things are not in balance it does help explain why my body is not responding in the way it should.
The doc is pretty much useless and seemed to simply dismiss the testosterone results, although he did want to run more tests. Funny thing though, the ones he added to have done are some of the ones I first asked him to run (which I thought he was running until he gave me the run-around about only testosterone testing being important for males).
Interestingly I think I figured out my issue finally and it explains much more than just my recent weight issues. A yeast infection. I had been fighting off secondary yeast infections for quite some time now, but had never suspected or even really knew about a systemic infection. It coincides with when I started having a real problem with the waist measurement, feeling depressed, etc.
Also, eating cleanly made me feel worse because of the candida die-off, so when I added more calories per a suggestion from this thread I added a bit more carbs which happened to be things that fed the yeast and thus made me feel better. It wasn’t the extra calories but the fact that the sugars in them were feeding the yeast - even though the foods were clean and would have been fine without the yeast imbalance.
Once I figured this out I cut out everything that was feeding the yeast and started on supplements to bring it back under control. Doing so made me feel much worse … every symptom I had got worse. But knowing to expect it made the difference as I have been pushing through it. I felt better a few days into it and so upped the yeast cleansing supplements and felt worse again as more was die-ing off even faster.
I started on the V-diet last Sunday to be sure I wasn’t consuming anything for awhile that would feed the yeast and also to help retrain my palate. So far, aside from the cyclic die-off symptoms, I am feeling much better and can feel things starting to slide back on track.
This explains a crazy sweet tooth I have always had and my dislike of clean veggies and why I could blast through weight issues with crazy amounts of working out but never with moderate changes. I guess if I were a parasite it is a pretty good plan to make you like things that feed me, and make you feel worse when you feed me something I can’t live off of. I know it definitely made me fall back to old habits on many occasions.
Seems like I have a long journey in front of me, considering I have battled with this to some extent from even back in HS. That it got really out of hand this last year and made a real negative difference in my life seems to be one of those blessings in disguise. So I’m glad to have a direction, an answer for many of the things that made no sense to me, and already be feeling somewhat better.
Thanks again everybody for the support.