DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, nutritionist or any type of health expert. What I’m describing is what worked for me. Always seek professional advice before embarking on health journeys.
Today, I woke up, fed the kids, walked the dog and then weighed myself. I am 175lbs. I want to hover around 170lbs. I have some work to do.
When I want to lose a bit of weight, the first thing I do is stop drinking beer. Within a week, I will lose 5lbs. I know this because, over the years of trying to lose weight, I’ve learned a bit about my body. The first thing I learned is that I gain weight easily. I believe even looking at a Big Mac causes me to gain weight.
Let me put it into perspective. As a general rule you times the body weight you want to be by ten and that will give you your calorie bank for the day. So, if I want to be 170lbs, I shouldn’t eat more than 1700 calories. Remember, this is a general rule and does not take into account physical activity. If you’re active, you should eat more depending on the activity.
Without working out (and I tested this), in order for me to stay at 170lbs, I couldn’t eat more than 1600 calories without gaining weight. I had to eat at a DEFICIT in order to maintain my weight. Not everyone is like this and to me, it’s not good or bad. It is just the way it is.
Now, I have tried KETO, CARNIVORE, and the 4-HOUR BODY diet (Tim Ferris) and can give you an idea of how I felt about each one.
KETO– After a week, I felt good. I was more alert and had more energy BUT, in order to stay in ketosis, for me, felt like a scientific endeavour. Had to buy pee strips to test my ketones, had to cut and cut and cut my carbs to stay in ketosis and blah-blah-blah. It just wasn’t for me. Other people can do it and I’m sure if I stuck with it for more than a year, it’d get easier, but really, no thanks.
CARNIVORE– For this, it was pretty simple. All animal products were a go, and fruit (this is the Paul Saladino version). On this, I felt the best. Everything felt great. My alertness, my joints, my energy levels, my digestion, all of it, felt perfect. This is the diet I will return to once it becomes less difficult to follow at home. I have four kids, and we are foster parents and making different meals for such a large group is too much. BUT this is the diet I love.
4-HOUR BODY– This is a fun diet and it works. Pretty much each beans, veggies, and meat for six days of the week. On day seven though? All hell breaks loose! In a good way! It is a vital part of the diet to let loose. Eat chips, candy, ice cream, beer, or whatever your cravings have been calling for. Now, I don’t think this helps in any way with developing a healthy relationship with food (it encourages binging like a maniac) but it does work and it is fun.
The above diets are all fine. Pick one or don’t. The only thing that truly matters for weight loss and maintenance is CICO (Calories In, Calories Out). You cannot beat the laws of thermodynamics. It is pretty simple. If you want to lose weight, be in a caloric deficit. If you want to maintain your weight, eat for caloric maintenance. You just need to find out what your specific caloric needs are. Everyone is different. We all have that friend who looks ripped, doesn’t work out, and seems to eat whatever they want without consequences, right? Well, I’m not that person, and if you’re reading this, you’re probably not that person either. So, follow the CICO and you can’t go wrong. Science says you can’t.
RUNNING
How did my week go? Good. Great even. I got some new shoes (Awww yeah!) and aren’t they perty?
Nothing much to say about this week. It is the first one, starting off light, and I expect it will become more brutal as I get closer to race day.
I will say, the 12km run I did in 31-degree weather was rough! I try to keep my pace to under a 5-minute kilometre and didn’t quite make it.
I went through two water bottles on this run. Should I have waited until it got cooler? Now, I have two thoughts on this. The first one is no, I am going to run in an ultramarathon. I’m going to suffer and might as well get used to it. The second thought is I am running an ultramarathon in November, in Canada, so I won’t encounter this heat on race day unless something goes terribly wrong (like the end of the world) and then the race won’t even matter will it?
Next Sunday, I’ll discuss the importance of form and the benefit of keeping your form even though you might be exhausted. And I’ll also go into why I run in Altra shoes and walk in Xero shoes.
Resources to check out on YouTube for health and fitness: Will Tennyson, Greg Doucette, Joni Shreve, and More Plates More Dates.
Resources to check out on YouTube for running: Aravaipa Running, Confidence in Chaos, Dr. Mark Cucuzzella (for form), and Billy Yang for inspirational ultra videos.
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