In the interest of preventing any of us from developing "dietary OCD". I feel that I would like to present a few base rules to make things pretty well fool proof when it comes to what you should eat, how much, and when.
After making the decision to fully commit ones self to truly healthy eating, one may become vexed with how much they should actually eat in order to loose weight and perform optimally.
The other problem people sometimes develop (which plagues me regularly) is the inability to actually stop eating, so without some outside factor telling them when to stop, they will just eat until they can't fit any more in. Now I have personally seen people still loose weight and come pretty darn close to their weight loss and fitness goals while eating massive amounts of food in each sitting (myself included) as long as they pay close attention to the quality of those foods they eat. But eventually one needs to realize how much they should be eating in order to perform optimally and not carry excess weight.
So here I'd like to present a few basic rules to keep things simple and guarantee you success.
1. Quality always comes first. - Always put the quality of your food as top priority. If you drove a $100,000 sports car you would only put the very best fuel in it. Treat your body the same to get optimal performance
2. Quantity comes next. If you use top fuel you will get top performance but eventually you need to realize how much you need to fill the tank without flooding the engine (sorry about all the bad car analogies). Here is an easy fool proof way to do this. Assuming you eat three meals a day, take your plate and divide it into thirds. Fill one third of that plate with protein and the other two thirds with veggies. Splash on a healthy fat source such as olive oil and you have a very well balanced meal. This is an extremely easy method that gives a very good ratio of all the macro nutrients.
3. Meal timing. - Meal timing is something more of a compliment to the other two. This mainly refers to intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is a tool that is used to fine tune the other two but should not take precedence. I love fasting, it makes me feel great but if I get truly hungry, I eat no matter how long I have been fasting. Think of intermittent fasting as a means of tweaking the other two rules. When used properly, it makes the first two rules work more efficiently. But if you don't pay attention to quality and quantity IF will only get you so far. Use it when it is convenient to do so, but don't flog yourself if you break a fast it's not the end of the world and you have to listen to your body. It will tell you if you need to eat.
So there you have it. My hierarchy of nutrition. Quality, comes before quantity, which comes before timing. follow these simple rules and you can't fail. You'll feel great, look great and perform great in life and sport.
My next post will be on Omega three Fish oil and why I feel that everybody should be using it. It is part two to my post on supplements. Be sure to check in regularly and provide feedback. I always appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.
Yours in health and fitness
Joey
Friday, May 7, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Fuzz
Please, I implore you to watch this video.
As we sit sedentary our muscle fiber build up a fuzz. This fuzz results in stiffness and difficulty moving. That's why we may feel stiffer in the morning because we have an entire nights fuzz built up in our muscle fibers.
YOU HAVE TO MOVE AND STRETCH TO BREAK UP THIS FUZZ!
Here at CaveMan2.0 we are all about movement. If you follow any of the principles outlined in my blog it is because you value your movement and want to move with ease well into your golden years.
So I think you owe it to yourself to watch this video. Better yet you owe it to the ones you love to show it to them!
Due to some technical difficulty, if you can only see half of the picture, Click here to watch it on you tube
I love you Megz and I can't wait to be back home with you
As we sit sedentary our muscle fiber build up a fuzz. This fuzz results in stiffness and difficulty moving. That's why we may feel stiffer in the morning because we have an entire nights fuzz built up in our muscle fibers.
YOU HAVE TO MOVE AND STRETCH TO BREAK UP THIS FUZZ!
Here at CaveMan2.0 we are all about movement. If you follow any of the principles outlined in my blog it is because you value your movement and want to move with ease well into your golden years.
So I think you owe it to yourself to watch this video. Better yet you owe it to the ones you love to show it to them!
Due to some technical difficulty, if you can only see half of the picture, Click here to watch it on you tube
I love you Megz and I can't wait to be back home with you
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Vitamin D
As many of my friends know, I am fairly outspoken against the use of workout supplements. I just believe that there is no need for 90% of the products out there. There are however a couple of supplements that I think are indispensable and should be a part of everybody's solid nutrition plan.
These are Vitamin D and Omega 3 fish oil.
Today I'd like to talk a little bit about Vitamin D and it's MANY benefits.
It turns out that 80 - 90% of us are moderately to severely deficient in Vitamin D. The best source of vitamin D is from direct contact with ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Unfortunately, most of us work inside out of the sun and when we do go outside we are either clothed or wearing sunblock so our ability to absorb sunlight is severely restricted.
This leaves our food as the only other option. Mainly this consists of seafood or vitamin D enriched dairy (not generally caveman friendly) and the amount within these sources is fairly negligible compared to the amount we should be taking in on a daily basis. Therefore I recommend daily supplementation with Vitamin D3 as it's the most readily absorbed form.
How Much?
Today, in North America, the recommended amount of supplementation 400 iu daily and this is nowhere near enough. Many other countries, Russia for example, are well aware of the need for Vitamin D supplementation and take much better measures to make sure their people get enough, Recommending as much as 10 000 iu daily.
In America there is much talk about raising the upper limit of the recommended dosage to 10 000iu daily as Vitamin D is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves.
Depending on your size I would recommend supplementing with 4000 to 6000 iu daily with 5000 being a safe average for most of us which would provide us with a whole host of benefits.
Lets talk about the benefits of Vitamin D
Vitamin D and osteoporosis.
Vitamin D plays a key Role in bone formation, increasing the rate at which bone tissue is grown. This speeds up the rate of bone healing after fracturing. Vitamin D prevents the softening of bones (rickets) and greatly reduces the risk of osteoporosis.
Cancer
Studies have shown Vitamin D to be beneficial in reducing the risk of some cancers especially colorectal, colon and bowel cancers.
Athletic Performance
There is an abundance of evidence that Vitamin D supplementation has a profound effect on athletic performance. These include:
Supplementation with vitamin can have positive effects on seasonal depression. Vitamin D improves your mood and sense of well being and gives you more energy to deal with issues which may come up.
Other benefits include:
I am including links to some more in depth explorations here. I strongly feel you should take some time out to review these articles and they get more into the science and chemistry of how Vitamin D benefits our health.
This is a great article from eatmoveimprove
Here is another very important article
Finally this one from Weston Price
These are Vitamin D and Omega 3 fish oil.
Today I'd like to talk a little bit about Vitamin D and it's MANY benefits.
It turns out that 80 - 90% of us are moderately to severely deficient in Vitamin D. The best source of vitamin D is from direct contact with ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Unfortunately, most of us work inside out of the sun and when we do go outside we are either clothed or wearing sunblock so our ability to absorb sunlight is severely restricted.
This leaves our food as the only other option. Mainly this consists of seafood or vitamin D enriched dairy (not generally caveman friendly) and the amount within these sources is fairly negligible compared to the amount we should be taking in on a daily basis. Therefore I recommend daily supplementation with Vitamin D3 as it's the most readily absorbed form.
How Much?
Today, in North America, the recommended amount of supplementation 400 iu daily and this is nowhere near enough. Many other countries, Russia for example, are well aware of the need for Vitamin D supplementation and take much better measures to make sure their people get enough, Recommending as much as 10 000 iu daily.
In America there is much talk about raising the upper limit of the recommended dosage to 10 000iu daily as Vitamin D is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves.
Depending on your size I would recommend supplementing with 4000 to 6000 iu daily with 5000 being a safe average for most of us which would provide us with a whole host of benefits.
Lets talk about the benefits of Vitamin D
Vitamin D and osteoporosis.
Vitamin D plays a key Role in bone formation, increasing the rate at which bone tissue is grown. This speeds up the rate of bone healing after fracturing. Vitamin D prevents the softening of bones (rickets) and greatly reduces the risk of osteoporosis.
Cancer
Studies have shown Vitamin D to be beneficial in reducing the risk of some cancers especially colorectal, colon and bowel cancers.
Athletic Performance
There is an abundance of evidence that Vitamin D supplementation has a profound effect on athletic performance. These include:
- Increased Fast twitch muscle cells
- Increased Explosiveness
- Improved reaction time
- Improved coordination
- Improved balance
- More stamina
- Quicker recovery
- Improved body composition.
Supplementation with vitamin can have positive effects on seasonal depression. Vitamin D improves your mood and sense of well being and gives you more energy to deal with issues which may come up.
Other benefits include:
- Improved quality of sleep
- Decreased imflammation
- Better Gut health
- Drastically improved immune function
I am including links to some more in depth explorations here. I strongly feel you should take some time out to review these articles and they get more into the science and chemistry of how Vitamin D benefits our health.
This is a great article from eatmoveimprove
Here is another very important article
Finally this one from Weston Price
Saturday, April 24, 2010
A Little Ramble About the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle - What makes it different
Why is the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle different?
Well first of all, let me admit that I have had a few glasses of wine and I have spent the better part of the evening bouncing from fitness blog to fitness blog. Many of which were CrossFit based and all are pretty amazing in their own accord.
When I designed the CaveMan2.0 diet, I did it with one thing in mind. Overall health and well being. But diet is only part of the equation. CaveMan2.0 is a lifestyle. As human beings, we were designed to lives of hardship. We were not made to sit on our bums all day in front of the computer or television. This sedentary lifestyle is causing us just as much harm as many of the other "banes of humanity".
Think about it for just a minute. We evolved for lifetimes of hunting and foraging for food. Working all day to build and maintain shelters. Running for survival from predators and fighting for survival from attack from enemies. Rarely did our ancestors ever get a day to sit around and enjoy a leisurely drink around the watering hole.
This is the basis upon which I conduct my life and the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle. True, many of us have jobs that involve countless hours on our butts in front of computer screens or even in cars driving long hours. That's why I design my workouts to, as closely as possible, reenact the activities that would have been required for survival. Running fast, running far, jumping, lifting heavy things, climbing obstacles, throwing, and controlling your body.
These movements not only make you fitter, harder and faster, they also elicit a physiological response resulting in a body type which says, "I am a survivor" which, consequently, tends to be the body type most desirable to the opposite sex. Weather you are male and female you will not develop the large, bulging, rippling muscles associate with "Flex" magazine cover models. Not only is this not possible without the use of hormonal aids but our programming doesn't create that type of build. True functional fitness programming builds a lean physique with the hard, well toned muscles of an athlete. It builds a physique indicative of one who is a master of all the fitness domains. Strong yet agile, explosive yet having the endurance to complete any task.
Now let's talk a little bit about the diet. It's no secret that I based my nutritional plan off of the Paleo diet. I followed the Paleo diet for quite a while with moderate success. What got in the way was Dr. Cordain's disdain for dietary fat. If you want to drop fat very quickly the paleo diet is amazing. Likewise, if you are a runner or endurance athelete "The Paleo Diet" and the "Paleo Diet for Athletes" are perfect. However, as an athelete in the fields of strength, endurance, power, speed, agility, balance, our nutritional needs are a little bit different.
We have to put a MUCH greater emphasis on dietary fat. True that protein is definitely important, with our balance of strength, metcon and gymnastics work, we should strive for between 0.8 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. The importance of protein is well known to most of us and I hope you attempt to get a moderate amount of animal protein with each meal. But I highly recommend an emphasis put on dietary fat. We need a certain amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in order to produce the hormones required to recover and build muscle from our workouts. Fat is the most efficiently used source of fuel we can intake. It yields four times more punch that carbohydrate and is much less likely to promote fat gain.
Carbohydrate definitely does have it's place, mostly for recovery in an immediate post workout meal. This doesn't mean you should avoid fruits and veggies all together, but if you are working out hard I recommend you keep the majority of your carbohydrate intake to directly after your workout. The rest of the time concentrate mostly on protein and fat intake and watch your bodyfat melt away and your workout results soar.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post, sorry if I ramble. I blame the wine.
My name Is Joey Lajoie and I approve this message.
Well first of all, let me admit that I have had a few glasses of wine and I have spent the better part of the evening bouncing from fitness blog to fitness blog. Many of which were CrossFit based and all are pretty amazing in their own accord.
When I designed the CaveMan2.0 diet, I did it with one thing in mind. Overall health and well being. But diet is only part of the equation. CaveMan2.0 is a lifestyle. As human beings, we were designed to lives of hardship. We were not made to sit on our bums all day in front of the computer or television. This sedentary lifestyle is causing us just as much harm as many of the other "banes of humanity".
Think about it for just a minute. We evolved for lifetimes of hunting and foraging for food. Working all day to build and maintain shelters. Running for survival from predators and fighting for survival from attack from enemies. Rarely did our ancestors ever get a day to sit around and enjoy a leisurely drink around the watering hole.
This is the basis upon which I conduct my life and the CaveMan2.0 lifestyle. True, many of us have jobs that involve countless hours on our butts in front of computer screens or even in cars driving long hours. That's why I design my workouts to, as closely as possible, reenact the activities that would have been required for survival. Running fast, running far, jumping, lifting heavy things, climbing obstacles, throwing, and controlling your body.
These movements not only make you fitter, harder and faster, they also elicit a physiological response resulting in a body type which says, "I am a survivor" which, consequently, tends to be the body type most desirable to the opposite sex. Weather you are male and female you will not develop the large, bulging, rippling muscles associate with "Flex" magazine cover models. Not only is this not possible without the use of hormonal aids but our programming doesn't create that type of build. True functional fitness programming builds a lean physique with the hard, well toned muscles of an athlete. It builds a physique indicative of one who is a master of all the fitness domains. Strong yet agile, explosive yet having the endurance to complete any task.
Now let's talk a little bit about the diet. It's no secret that I based my nutritional plan off of the Paleo diet. I followed the Paleo diet for quite a while with moderate success. What got in the way was Dr. Cordain's disdain for dietary fat. If you want to drop fat very quickly the paleo diet is amazing. Likewise, if you are a runner or endurance athelete "The Paleo Diet" and the "Paleo Diet for Athletes" are perfect. However, as an athelete in the fields of strength, endurance, power, speed, agility, balance, our nutritional needs are a little bit different.
We have to put a MUCH greater emphasis on dietary fat. True that protein is definitely important, with our balance of strength, metcon and gymnastics work, we should strive for between 0.8 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. The importance of protein is well known to most of us and I hope you attempt to get a moderate amount of animal protein with each meal. But I highly recommend an emphasis put on dietary fat. We need a certain amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in order to produce the hormones required to recover and build muscle from our workouts. Fat is the most efficiently used source of fuel we can intake. It yields four times more punch that carbohydrate and is much less likely to promote fat gain.
Carbohydrate definitely does have it's place, mostly for recovery in an immediate post workout meal. This doesn't mean you should avoid fruits and veggies all together, but if you are working out hard I recommend you keep the majority of your carbohydrate intake to directly after your workout. The rest of the time concentrate mostly on protein and fat intake and watch your bodyfat melt away and your workout results soar.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post, sorry if I ramble. I blame the wine.
My name Is Joey Lajoie and I approve this message.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Intermittent Fasting Part Two- Hormones, tissue repair and your brain
In Intermittent Fasting part one we covered The basics of how to get stared with IF, Fight or Flight/Rest and Digest states and fat loss.
Today I'd like to cover your body's hormonal responses to IF along with tissue regeneration and repair.
There are a few beneficial hormones which are proven to increase production during fasting. This is where it gets a little bit tricky for me because I want to educate you about hormonal response without making this into a chemistry lesson so bare with me while I attempt to break it down into laymen terms (considering I myself am a layman).
Ther first homone I'm going to talk about is called Beta-hydroxy butyrate, or BHB. BHB is a hormone which is created during fat metabolism. In part one I told you that during a fast your body switches from burning glucose for fuel (gluconeogenesis), to burning fat instead. I also told you that fat metabolism is much more at producing energy than glucose. Also, according to Scott Kustes From Fitnessspotlight.com, BHB is also also has a hand in preventing Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, hypoxia (low oxygen levels), insulin resistance, and free radical damage. there appears to be a direct link to brain repair and fasting as well. When someone experiences a head trauma such as a concussion, one of the body's first responses is to loose it's appetite I seriously doubt this is coincidence.
Two other hormones known to increase during a fast are Human Growth Hormone (hgh) and Insulinlike Growth Factor (IGF-1) These are two powerful hormones that are key players in muscle growth, fat burning, tissue repair and strength. It tuns out that exercise recovery is increased during a fast and exercise while fasting can produce a hormonal double whammy. The two things known to increase production of these hormones are fasting and intense exercise. So it turns out that your body is primed to exercise during a fast and recovery is accelerated when pairing the two together. I know that when I am lucky enough to be able to exercise regularly while fasting I have more energy during the fast, can work out harder and experience less muscle soreness afterward.
HGH and IGF-1 are also known to drastically decrease from aging. This interferes with the body's ability to regenerate itself as we get older. Since IF is known to increase these hormones then it is reasonable to believe that IF can have positive effects on overall longevity and the body's ability to regenerate itself as we get older.
Studies done on two groups of rats, one group fed on a regular schedule, the other group fed with an alternate day caloric restriction diet, have shown that the calorie restricted diet lived longer and remained healthy much longer than the other group. And this was done on an alternate day Caloric restriction where one day they ate approximately half as much and on the other day, they ate as much as the other group. IF has been shown to have the same or more benefits than caloric restriction but without the potential negative effects because there is no calorie restriction. You still eat overall the same amount of calories, just in a condensed window.
In conclusion, I strongly feel that IF can have positive effects on energy production, exercise recovery, tissue repair, longevity, maintaining cognitive function, overall health and wellness and maintaining a good body composition. Please give it a try, it is a lifestyle that once you start, for most, you won't want o go back to your old eating ways again.
Today I'd like to cover your body's hormonal responses to IF along with tissue regeneration and repair.
There are a few beneficial hormones which are proven to increase production during fasting. This is where it gets a little bit tricky for me because I want to educate you about hormonal response without making this into a chemistry lesson so bare with me while I attempt to break it down into laymen terms (considering I myself am a layman).
Ther first homone I'm going to talk about is called Beta-hydroxy butyrate, or BHB. BHB is a hormone which is created during fat metabolism. In part one I told you that during a fast your body switches from burning glucose for fuel (gluconeogenesis), to burning fat instead. I also told you that fat metabolism is much more at producing energy than glucose. Also, according to Scott Kustes From Fitnessspotlight.com, BHB is also also has a hand in preventing Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, hypoxia (low oxygen levels), insulin resistance, and free radical damage. there appears to be a direct link to brain repair and fasting as well. When someone experiences a head trauma such as a concussion, one of the body's first responses is to loose it's appetite I seriously doubt this is coincidence.
Two other hormones known to increase during a fast are Human Growth Hormone (hgh) and Insulinlike Growth Factor (IGF-1) These are two powerful hormones that are key players in muscle growth, fat burning, tissue repair and strength. It tuns out that exercise recovery is increased during a fast and exercise while fasting can produce a hormonal double whammy. The two things known to increase production of these hormones are fasting and intense exercise. So it turns out that your body is primed to exercise during a fast and recovery is accelerated when pairing the two together. I know that when I am lucky enough to be able to exercise regularly while fasting I have more energy during the fast, can work out harder and experience less muscle soreness afterward.
HGH and IGF-1 are also known to drastically decrease from aging. This interferes with the body's ability to regenerate itself as we get older. Since IF is known to increase these hormones then it is reasonable to believe that IF can have positive effects on overall longevity and the body's ability to regenerate itself as we get older.
Studies done on two groups of rats, one group fed on a regular schedule, the other group fed with an alternate day caloric restriction diet, have shown that the calorie restricted diet lived longer and remained healthy much longer than the other group. And this was done on an alternate day Caloric restriction where one day they ate approximately half as much and on the other day, they ate as much as the other group. IF has been shown to have the same or more benefits than caloric restriction but without the potential negative effects because there is no calorie restriction. You still eat overall the same amount of calories, just in a condensed window.
In conclusion, I strongly feel that IF can have positive effects on energy production, exercise recovery, tissue repair, longevity, maintaining cognitive function, overall health and wellness and maintaining a good body composition. Please give it a try, it is a lifestyle that once you start, for most, you won't want o go back to your old eating ways again.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Are you Breathing Correctly?
Right now, put one hand over your navel and one hand on your chest. Now take a deep breath. Which hand moves? For at least 85% of us it will be the hand on our chest. Unfortunately this is wrong.
I am now going to give you a simple bit of information which will change your life forever.
Place your hands back on your chest and abdomen. Now this time take a deep breath but concentrate on making the hand over your navel move out first. This is the proper way to breathe.
Take a moment to watch a toddler breathe. Babies are born with perfect body mechanics and we can learn so much from watching how they move. When a baby stands, they stand with perfect posture. When a baby runs they run perfectly on the balls of their feet. When a baby breathes you can see their abdomen expand fully before their chest. We should do our best to emulate these behaviors.
When we breathe into our chest, as we have been conditioned to do for so long, we only utilize a small amount of the usable space in our lungs. This leads to an oxygen debt leaving us tense and anxious.
By practicing breathing into our abdomen we utilize all of the space intended to be filled with oxygen making much more efficient use of our oxygen. This will relax you, relieving tension and calming you emotionally.
Breathing with the mouth and lungs is associated with tension anxiety. Breathing through the nose and abdomen is associated with calm and relaxation. Practicing this breathing technique will change your life forever and lead to a calmer more peaceful you.
If you spend 15 minutes a day practicing proper breathing techniques your body will adapt and you will turn it into an unconscious act.
Here is one method to begin practicing:
Learn to breathe correctly and you will change your life.
I am now going to give you a simple bit of information which will change your life forever.
Take a moment to watch a toddler breathe. Babies are born with perfect body mechanics and we can learn so much from watching how they move. When a baby stands, they stand with perfect posture. When a baby runs they run perfectly on the balls of their feet. When a baby breathes you can see their abdomen expand fully before their chest. We should do our best to emulate these behaviors.
When we breathe into our chest, as we have been conditioned to do for so long, we only utilize a small amount of the usable space in our lungs. This leads to an oxygen debt leaving us tense and anxious.
By practicing breathing into our abdomen we utilize all of the space intended to be filled with oxygen making much more efficient use of our oxygen. This will relax you, relieving tension and calming you emotionally.
Breathing with the mouth and lungs is associated with tension anxiety. Breathing through the nose and abdomen is associated with calm and relaxation. Practicing this breathing technique will change your life forever and lead to a calmer more peaceful you.
If you spend 15 minutes a day practicing proper breathing techniques your body will adapt and you will turn it into an unconscious act.
Here is one method to begin practicing:
- Lie on your back on a firm surface
- Place your hands together in an upside down triangle with your middle finger tips touching just below your navel and the heels of your hands and your thumbs running along the margins of your ribs.
- Take a deep breath through your nose expanding your abdomen so that your fingertips come apart first followed by the raising of your thumbs.
- When you exhale feel you thumbs lower first and finish with your middle fingers coming back together.
Learn to breathe correctly and you will change your life.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Intermittent Fasting Part one - the overview
I'd like to let you in on a little secret that I use to keep slim and perform well all day. It's called intermittent fasting.
The whole concept is very simple. Thinking back to our paleolithic ancestors, they had to eat what they could when they could. Food wasn't always available. For this reason our bodies have developed a host of defense mechanisms designed to deal with times of food scarcity and we function extremely well during those times.
Now before I go on, I have to point out that I am in no way advocating starving yourself. You still need to get enough total calories, but you can adjust when you take those calories in in order to give yourself a helping hand with weight control and performance.
Our Central Nervous systems tend to exist in one of two main states. Most have heard of fight or flight. The other state, which is the opposite of fight or flight, is commonly known as rest and digest. Approximately eight hours after you eat your last meal, your body is in full on fight or flight mode. Your muscles and brain are receiving ample blood and oxygen to operate at peak capacity, your senses are tuned and, on a primal level, you are ready to go hunting.
As soon as you eat, you enter rest and digest mode. All of a sudden, most of that blood which was carrying oxygen and nutrients to your brain and muscles, gets diverted to your digestive tract. Your digestive tract is a large system of organs requiring lots of blood in order to function properly. That's why you tend to want a nap immediately after a large meal. Your body literally wants to rest and digest. That's why I try to wait a minimum of four hours after a meal to work out and I prefer to work out in a fasted state. I find that if I work out 12 - 14 hours after my last meal I can work out harder and tend to get an overall better workout.
Aside from workout performance there are a great many benefits to intermittent fasting. The first one I'll outline here is weight control. Approximately four hours after you eat your body enters a "Pre fasted" state. Around this point, your body has broken down all the food from the last time you ate into amino acids, glucose and glycogen. These are stored in your body, amino acids for building and repair, glucose for immediate energy. Glycogen gets stored in your muscles and liver for energy to be used a little bit further down the road.
Around eight to twelve hours after eating, your body has pretty much used up all it's glucose and glycogen and now must look to other sources for fuel. Now it taps into a pretty much unlimited source of energy stored in all of us.... Bum Ba Da BUUUMMM! Body Fat Stores! Our bodies are amazing machines which are designed to survive and thrive in a vast array of conditions and we are incredibly efficient at utilizing out adipose tissue as fuel. After all what is our fat stored for in the first place? To protect us during times of food scarcity.
Unfortunately for us, this has almost become a redundant survival mechanism because civilization has developed to the point that food scarcity doesn't really exist for most people in the developed world. This means that we can store and store and store in preparation for a famine that doesn't ever arrive. This is bad news for our waistlines. The good news though is that, with a little practice and discipline, we can utilize that survival mechanism to free us from food addiction and once again begin to eat to live as opposed to live to eat.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love to eat. Eating is one of my favorite activities. That's a big part of why I love intermittent fasting so much. By eating less during the day I can now enjoy a feast every evening with no guilt. I still am very careful to make good caveman food choices, but I can now eat until my heart's content every night and not feel guilty about it.
Let's talk about how to go about intermittent fasting.
There are two main ways that people go about it.
1) Brad Pilon, author of Eat, Stop, Eat recommends alternate day fasting. Once or twice a week, you just go the whole day without eating. You eat supper the night before, wake up the next morning and don't eat until you wake up the day after. This generally equates to a 36 hour fast. This method can be quite convenient for many people, as you just wake up and forget about food for the day. The next day you get up and go about your business as usual eat as you wish. People generally consume about twice as many calories the day after a fast but I have heard of people finding much success with this method.
2) The other method is the method I use. Instead of alternate day fasting, I do a daily fast of 16 - 18 hours. I stop eating every night at 6 - 8 pm and I don't eat until around noon the next day. I have found great success with this method because I don't really feel like eating breakfast most days. This is generally because we wake up in a pre fasted state and our bodies are primed to fast for the day and not eat until the work needed for survival is done.
I recommend giving each method a try and see which you prefer. If you do alternate day fasting, start with one fast a week of 24 hours to see how you cope.
If doing the daily fasting method start with a 12 hour fast. it's not too complicated, just move breakfast back a few hours. As you find success, start pushing breakfast back more and more until you are fasting from 16 - 18 hours daily.
With both these methods the trick is to stars slow. Listen to your body and as you learn to tune in to your hunger reflex, you will be able to recognize when you truly are hungry. When this happens eat.
Use Intermittent fasting as a tool not the rule. Play around with it and and out how it works for you. When I first started, I did daily fasts of about 15 hours and this was a challenge for me every day. Now I do 18 hour fasts daily and it's second nature.
If you fast, one thing I have to stress to you is to EAT! It can be very easy to get carried away and take it too far. As I stated before use IF as a tool and make it work for you. Make sure your food intake is still enough to maintain a healthy weight and stick to good healthy food. Many People try to IF on crap and it just retards their progress.
To sum everything up.... Fast for improved health and weight loss. Don't fast every day and if you are truly hungry than break your fast. Stick to healthy foods except for your weekly cheat meal. If you find you are losing performance in the gym you have gotten carried away and increase your intake.
Good luck. Give IF a try. If you have any difficulty please feel free to ask questions in the comments section. I am going to further cover the other health benefits in the following series of articles.
Yours in Optimal health
Joey
CaveMan2.0
The whole concept is very simple. Thinking back to our paleolithic ancestors, they had to eat what they could when they could. Food wasn't always available. For this reason our bodies have developed a host of defense mechanisms designed to deal with times of food scarcity and we function extremely well during those times.
Now before I go on, I have to point out that I am in no way advocating starving yourself. You still need to get enough total calories, but you can adjust when you take those calories in in order to give yourself a helping hand with weight control and performance.
Our Central Nervous systems tend to exist in one of two main states. Most have heard of fight or flight. The other state, which is the opposite of fight or flight, is commonly known as rest and digest. Approximately eight hours after you eat your last meal, your body is in full on fight or flight mode. Your muscles and brain are receiving ample blood and oxygen to operate at peak capacity, your senses are tuned and, on a primal level, you are ready to go hunting.
As soon as you eat, you enter rest and digest mode. All of a sudden, most of that blood which was carrying oxygen and nutrients to your brain and muscles, gets diverted to your digestive tract. Your digestive tract is a large system of organs requiring lots of blood in order to function properly. That's why you tend to want a nap immediately after a large meal. Your body literally wants to rest and digest. That's why I try to wait a minimum of four hours after a meal to work out and I prefer to work out in a fasted state. I find that if I work out 12 - 14 hours after my last meal I can work out harder and tend to get an overall better workout.
Aside from workout performance there are a great many benefits to intermittent fasting. The first one I'll outline here is weight control. Approximately four hours after you eat your body enters a "Pre fasted" state. Around this point, your body has broken down all the food from the last time you ate into amino acids, glucose and glycogen. These are stored in your body, amino acids for building and repair, glucose for immediate energy. Glycogen gets stored in your muscles and liver for energy to be used a little bit further down the road.
Around eight to twelve hours after eating, your body has pretty much used up all it's glucose and glycogen and now must look to other sources for fuel. Now it taps into a pretty much unlimited source of energy stored in all of us.... Bum Ba Da BUUUMMM! Body Fat Stores! Our bodies are amazing machines which are designed to survive and thrive in a vast array of conditions and we are incredibly efficient at utilizing out adipose tissue as fuel. After all what is our fat stored for in the first place? To protect us during times of food scarcity.
Unfortunately for us, this has almost become a redundant survival mechanism because civilization has developed to the point that food scarcity doesn't really exist for most people in the developed world. This means that we can store and store and store in preparation for a famine that doesn't ever arrive. This is bad news for our waistlines. The good news though is that, with a little practice and discipline, we can utilize that survival mechanism to free us from food addiction and once again begin to eat to live as opposed to live to eat.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love to eat. Eating is one of my favorite activities. That's a big part of why I love intermittent fasting so much. By eating less during the day I can now enjoy a feast every evening with no guilt. I still am very careful to make good caveman food choices, but I can now eat until my heart's content every night and not feel guilty about it.
Let's talk about how to go about intermittent fasting.
There are two main ways that people go about it.
1) Brad Pilon, author of Eat, Stop, Eat recommends alternate day fasting. Once or twice a week, you just go the whole day without eating. You eat supper the night before, wake up the next morning and don't eat until you wake up the day after. This generally equates to a 36 hour fast. This method can be quite convenient for many people, as you just wake up and forget about food for the day. The next day you get up and go about your business as usual eat as you wish. People generally consume about twice as many calories the day after a fast but I have heard of people finding much success with this method.
2) The other method is the method I use. Instead of alternate day fasting, I do a daily fast of 16 - 18 hours. I stop eating every night at 6 - 8 pm and I don't eat until around noon the next day. I have found great success with this method because I don't really feel like eating breakfast most days. This is generally because we wake up in a pre fasted state and our bodies are primed to fast for the day and not eat until the work needed for survival is done.
I recommend giving each method a try and see which you prefer. If you do alternate day fasting, start with one fast a week of 24 hours to see how you cope.
If doing the daily fasting method start with a 12 hour fast. it's not too complicated, just move breakfast back a few hours. As you find success, start pushing breakfast back more and more until you are fasting from 16 - 18 hours daily.
With both these methods the trick is to stars slow. Listen to your body and as you learn to tune in to your hunger reflex, you will be able to recognize when you truly are hungry. When this happens eat.
Use Intermittent fasting as a tool not the rule. Play around with it and and out how it works for you. When I first started, I did daily fasts of about 15 hours and this was a challenge for me every day. Now I do 18 hour fasts daily and it's second nature.
If you fast, one thing I have to stress to you is to EAT! It can be very easy to get carried away and take it too far. As I stated before use IF as a tool and make it work for you. Make sure your food intake is still enough to maintain a healthy weight and stick to good healthy food. Many People try to IF on crap and it just retards their progress.
To sum everything up.... Fast for improved health and weight loss. Don't fast every day and if you are truly hungry than break your fast. Stick to healthy foods except for your weekly cheat meal. If you find you are losing performance in the gym you have gotten carried away and increase your intake.
Good luck. Give IF a try. If you have any difficulty please feel free to ask questions in the comments section. I am going to further cover the other health benefits in the following series of articles.
Yours in Optimal health
Joey
CaveMan2.0
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