Transitioning from 4HB to Paleo/Crossfit

I'm now 8 months and 30 pounds into my journey of fitness, kicked off last Christmas after having read Tim Ferriss' Four-Hour Body and Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat. Through 2011, I've been continuously studying fitness and nutrition, and have recently been ingesting many books, blogs, podcasts, movies, and websites, several of which lean toward the Paleo flavor of the low-carb diet. The first thing I noticed when reading The Paleo Diet is that I'd actually been eating this way for awhile, since I'd started with 4HB and had pretty much dropped all of the beans out of the diet other than Chipotle salads, and I'd added in a lot of fruit (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, in addition to juicing an apple or two into my "green lemonade".

There's a bit of controversy around Paleo or other low-carb diets (or any diet in existence for that matter), and I still regularly discuss the pros and cons of the diets with friends and family, but all I can say is what I'm personally experiencing, especially after having transitioned into a Paleo Diet more fully:

• I'm still continuing to lose weight at the rate of 1-2 pounds per week
• My energy is still sky high
• My allergies, hives, and asthma have gone away
• I sleep soundly through every night, and wake up ready to jump out of bed on most days
• My blood pressure has continued to drop into more optimal numbers
• My strength numbers have continued to increase (from two pull-ups to six, and now jogging an 11:00 minute-mile when I previously couldn't jog a full mile without stopping mid-way to catch my breath)

I'll be going back in for another round of blood work soon to ensure that all the numbers still look great, and in the mean time, I'm actively seeking out local grass-fed beef and dairy, omega-3 eggs, wild-caught fish, et cetera.

As for my latest stats, since I haven't been in for blood work again yet, I just have the following to report:

• Weight: 163 (down from 191 in December, and 172 in June)
• Waist Size: 34" (down from 41" in December, and 36" in June)
• Body fat: 15% (down from 26% in December and 17% in June)
• Pull-ups: 6 (up from 0 in December and 2-3 in June)
• Blood Pressure: 115/70 (down from 130/85 in December, and 122/74 in June)

My main focus over the next few months will be bringing down body fat from 15% to 10%, and increasing strength. It's been a very interesting year, and I feel like I've learned a lot. I still don't have scientific proof that this diet/lifestyle is the best over the long haul, but it has definitely worked wonders for me over the past year.

I thought this might be a good time to summarize the things I've implemented over the past year, ranging from what I believe had the most impact and I'd most strongly recommend, to those things which may have had less impact or are more controversial.

Diet

Other than on rare special occasions, I generally stick to the following rules:

1. Cut out all soft drinks, both naturally and artificially sweetened.
2. Cut out general sugar and artificial sweeteners from everywhere in the diet.
3. Cut out all sugary or processed snacks (this does not include berries or other low GL fruit).
4. Cut out all potato chips, french fries, and potatoes.
5. Cut out white bread and anything made with white flour.
6. Seek out grass-fed beef, pastured pork/poultry, and wild-caught fish.
7. Eat whole foods whenever possible.
8. Eat something green with every meal (salad, kale, broccoli, spinach, et cetera). 9.Cut out all bread and wheat products.
9. Cut out or limit dairy products (unless you have access to grass-fed/raw dairy, which is rare).
10. Supplement "green intake" by drinking "green juice"

Exercise

1. BFL Interval Training
2. Kettlebell swings
3. P90X
4. Cross-fit (starting this week)

As for what I've recently been reading/watching/listening to:

Books:

• The Paleo Diet
• Nourishing Traditions
• Why We Get Fat
• Body for Life (coming back to the book that originally got me started after about 10 years)

Podcasts:

• The Paleo Solution Podcast

Blogs:

• Non Nom Paleo
• The Paleo Solution
• Whole Health Source

Videos:

• Fat Head
• Farmageddon
• Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead
• Food, Inc.

The New Fit Lifestyle Part 4 - Measuring with Blood Work

One interesting thing I've always found when doing something a bit different than the norm or going against the flow of the general populace is that it's generally met with skepticism, doubters, scoffers, cynicism, and more. When I find myself going down that path, I take solace in one of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain: "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect".

A few weeks ago, I posted a screenshot of the measurements from my Withings Wifi Scale, but that doesn't address the concerns others have stressed about "eating too much meat and eggs", and "not enough fruit". To go a bit further in addressing these concerns, I'd like to post the results of my two latest physicals and corresponding lab work. The first was taken 3 months before starting the "low-carb/slow-carb" lifestyle (The 4-Hour Body), and the second was taken after somewhat consistently following the program for six months (taking a cumulative few weeks off during conferences and vacations). Some highlights from the before and after are that after six months of changing my diet, I:

1. Lost 21 pounds
2. Lowered my total cholesterol by 11 points
3. Lowered my triglycerides by 70 points)
4. Raised my HDL (the "good" cholesterol) by 7 points (taking me out of the "risk factor range"
5. Lowered my LDL (the "bad" cholesterol) by 4 points (though still slightly above the desired range)
6. Lowered my Cholesterol/HDL ratio from 5 to 3.8, taking me out of the "risk factor range"
7. Lowered my systolic blood pressure by 10 points points bringing me to the border of the "optimal range"
8. Lowered my diastolic blood pressure by 12 points points bringing me into the "optimal range"

The actual numbers

Measurement	September10	June11	Ideal
Weight	193	172	<174
Glucose	78	89	70-99
Cholesterol	181	170	<200
Triglycerides	135	65	<150
HDL	38	45	>=40
LDL	116	112	0-100
Total/HDL	5	3.8	<=5
Blood Pressure	132/86	122/74	<120/80

I realize that these numbers can vary over time, and I don't contend that this is 100% proof that it all works, but I do contend that this is very good evidence that it likely works. I'll continue to do full lab work every 6 months or so, and keep comparing the numbers. Since this is a lifetime goal, and not a short-term goal, this is simply the start of documenting and measuring how these changes affect all my numbers. Anecdotally, I'll also say that I have more energy throughout the day and I don't find myself needing to snack throughout the day like I used to. In time, I'll soon post more measurements, but wanted to get this much up as another form of documentation of the changes and effects I've been going through with the low-carb/slow-carb lifestyle.

**Update: I meant to post the original post a week or two ago, but didn't get around to it. I thought it would be beneficial to go ahead and post my latest numbers, now that a bit more time has passed. According to my Withings Wifi Scale, I'm now 169 at 17% body fat (I started at 193 with 26% body fat), and my latest blood pressure results are 114/69. I'm continuing P90X workouts 3 days a week (the weights days, but not the cardio days). Still truckin' toward 160/10%!

The New Fit Lifestyle - Part 2 - Diet

I'd like to start the deep dive in this series with discussing the biggest change I've made (and likely what has created the biggest impact to date), my change in diet. I would not say that I've "gone on a diet", as that generally implies a short term change made in an effort to lose weight. Instead, I'd say I've permanently changed the way I eat, as well as the way I plan to eat in the future. I firmly believe that if I went back to eating the way I ate in 2010, it would only be a matter of time before I came back to previous health, weight, cholesterol level, blood pressure (all to be documented in a future post), et cetera. So what's the big change?

Low-carb/Slow-Carb

Over the years, I've heard of many people discussing low-carb diets, Atkins diets, et cetera, and never game them much credence. I had subscribed to the principles taught by my Junior High and High School Health teachers (who I don't remember in hindsight being particularly healthy, but I digress), which basically stated that you should eat lots of grain, lots of fruit, lots of vegetables, and a little bit of fat - the traditional food pyramid. I had assumed this was all science which had been tested and proven true over the years, and was generally inarguable.

In hindsight, many years later, I realize that a lot of the things I was taught in school weren't necessarily true, and in time, I finally came around to realizing there's more to diet than the food pyramid, and that the food pyramid could indeed be fundamentally flawed to the point that it's a significant cause of a lot of the health problems today (along with fast food, soft drinks, energy drinks and such).

Though I've read a lot about food over the past year (Michael Pollan, Andrew Weil, Bill Phillips, and others), the majority of the information I've taken to heart and implemented has primarily come from two authors: Tim Ferriss (The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman) and Gary Taubes (Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It and Good Calories, Bad Calories ). Their overall ideas are similar, but their end implementation is a bit different. Both propose that the cause of weight gain, and hundreds of related health problems, is generally rooted in insulin spikes causing, to possibly oversimplify to the point of making too simple, the body's fat cell gates to open in one direction, causing calories to be stored rather than burned, leading to a weight gain loop. The theory is that by eating foods that don't trigger insulin spikes, the gates open in the other direction, leading to a weight loss loop.

The recommended things to eat vary a bit between the authors, and I won't go into deep details here (you can always follow the links above and pick up the Kindle books), but I've combined them a bit into a great level of success, dropping about 20 pounds since Christmas (charts to come soon in a later post in the series). I've also found that when switching back to eating the way I used to eat (which I've done while travelling, going to conferences, vacationing, et cetera), and I can put on weight at a rapid pace. So without further ado, here's my general diet of 2011:

Breakfast (most every day)

• Uncured bacon - 3 slices
• Scrambled eggs - 3eggs or 2 eggs+egg whites
• Coffee

Lunch (when at work)

• Chipotle - Salad with black beans, pinto beans, chicken, mild salsa, medium green salsa, and guacamole (no cheese, no sour cream, and no rice)
• Cracker Barrel low-carb menu, with turnip greens, green beans, and salad

Lunch (when at home)

• Grilled chicken or hamburger (no bun, no cheese), broccoli or salad, cottage cheese or beans (kidney, black, pinto etc)

Dinner

• Grilled salmon, grilled chicken or steak, salad, kale or spinach or mustard Greens, beans

When eating out

• Steak, chicken, or fish, a salad and greens or mixed vegetables (no potatoes)

Post workout

• Protein shake (no sweeteners) with Green Drink powder

Drinks

• Sodastream carbonated water with lemon/lime essence
• When traveling, mineral water or soda water
• Coffee
• Kombucha

There's some variety here and there, and I do usually take a day off once per week (or at least one meal off per week), and still have cake or ice cream when celebrating birthdays and such, but those types of foods are the exception rather than the rule. The big thing is that I rarely eat bread, rice, pasta, sugar, cookies, crackers, any sweetened soft drinks (with sugars or with fake sweeteners, so no Diet Coke). I try to eat greens with every meal other than breakfast (which I just haven't been able to get into the habit of yet).

With this basic change in diet, and the addition of some supplements, I've dropped almost 20 pounds this year, and am back in the "normal weight range" for the first time in a really long time, and that's almost without working out at all. One important thing to note is that with eating three eggs or more a day and a lot of meat, multiple people have told me they were sure I'd be sending my cholesterol through the roof. Taubes and Ferriss refute this in their books, but I decided to prove the results for myself by getting a physical and blood work done both before I started eating this way as well as 6 months after I started eating this way. And I have proof from the lab work that after 6 months of eating lots of steaks, bacon, and eggs, not only have I lost 20 pounds, but my cholesterol and triglyceride levels have improved. Since I'm also taking some supplements, I can't say the percentage of what's related to supplements and what's related to diet, but I can say that all of my numbers have improved, and I have more energy than I did before I started. The actual numbers will be coming shortly, along with the charts from my Withings Wifi Body Scale.

Until then, I'd encourage doubters to check out any the books above and decide for themselves.

4HB + P90X = 24" Pythons (or at least improved fitness)

Contrary to what I've historically written about, I don't spend all of my time sitting in front of a computer. Today I decided to step away from my normal tech writing and discuss one of my resolutions for 2011 - improving my level of physical fitness, as well as my general energy level.

After college, I've cycled through a few of the popular fitness programs, including Body for Life , and P90X, and have generally done very well in getting back on track, but usually after somewhere between 3 and 6 months, drifted back off the program, sometimes triggered by an injury, a vacation, a busy work schedule, or some other distraction.

When my son was born in March 2009, I was in pretty good shape, coming off of a P90X cycle at the time, but in the following two years, due to lack of sleep, lack of exercise, and general exhaustion, I managed to gain about 25 pounds and push my way back toward my all-time high weight of 195 pounds. Then around Christmas 2010 I discovered Tim Ferriss' new book, The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman. Tim makes some pretty radical claims at times (which is actually why I like his books so much), and the weight loss stuff made sense, and I decided to give it a try, while also researching further. I came across a similar book by Gary Taubes, titled Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It . Since Christmas, following guidance from those two books, I've dropped back down to 173 with fairly minimal exercise (three or four pull-ups a day, 10 push-ups or so, and some air squats), and have dropped a few inches off of my waste.

Now I'm ready to push things to the next level, as I start a new P90X cycle in better shape than I was at the beginning of my last P90X cycle in 2008. I plan to document the changes as I go, and also post shots from my Withings Wifi Body Scale along the way. My end goal is to settle at 160 pounds at 10% body fat, which I hope to achieve by November.

In the coming posts, I plan to document what I'm eating, which supplements I'm taking, which exercises I'm doing, and what tools I'm using to measure my progress. I just wanted to get this post out as a stake in the ground, partly to motivate myself, and partly to motivate anyone else that's looking to get back in shape after "taking some time off".