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

New Page

So I am trying to figure out how to use all the wonderful options of blogger.

I have decided to create a standalone age for the workouts and workout related articles. This is where I will post articles and videos about workouts and movements specific to my programming. This way if you aren't interested in following caveman workouts but still want to read my articles about health and wellness you don't have to sift through a ton of info to get to the good stuff. There are links in the top right corner the pages to help direct you where you want to go.

This is just another step in the evolution of caveman2.0. I am quite excited about this. It means I am just a little bit closer to leaving the dream. Please let me know what you think about the changes I definitely appreciate any and all input.

Run fast and lift heavy stuff!

Let's start with the first part of that equation: Run Fast!

I'd like to extol the virtues of one of my favorite simple pleasures... Going Barefoot.

Have you thought that it's a cruel joke for whoever created us to make our main method of locomotion painfully sensitive? I mean think about it, why is it that we are supposed to walk around on our feet but trying to walk barefoot on any surface other than grass or sand can be a painful ordeal.  We weren't born with shoes, so what did we do before they were invented? Here's my personal take on the subject.

It turns out that our feet want to feel the ground. Our feet have a larger concentration nerve receptors than any other part of our bodies. This is supposed to form a sense of "connectedness" with out environment. It is necessary for proper balance, posture and proprioception.

Now the reason our feet have become so sensitive, is because they desperately want to connect with the earth. So they have become hypersensitive after years of being strangled by shoes in an attempt to feel the ground through our sneakers. It turns out that all we have heard about needing cushioning and support is a bunch of BS!

"We have spent four million years perfecting our feet, and the last hundred years destroying them!"

We weren't born in sneakers and no "almighty creator" would make us with the intent of us getting our own damn shoes. We were created perfect just the way we are (too bad modern medicine and diet are killing us). Our feet were designed to carry us on their own without any help. There are numerous studies done to prove this. Take for example some of the more poor indigenous people in Mexico. There are people who make a living everyday running rickshaws in their bare feet. Yet there are extremely low incidences of foot and ankle problems. However, here in North America shoe companies spend millions of dollars a year on developing shoes with more support, more cushion, motion control you name it. Yet the more we invest into shoe technology, it seems that there are greater incidences of ankle, foot and knee problems arising every year. So we buy more expensive shoes but to no avail.

Our feet have a natural arch and musculature that is designed to allow us to walk problem free.  Us wrapping them in shoes is causing these muscles to atrophy. The very muscles that we need to walk are dying from lack of use. This is what is causing so many foot problems in the rich western and European worlds where the latest and greatest sneakers are a fashion statement. Likewise, there are relatively no foot problems in third world countries where shoes are a commodity afforded by few. This is not coincidence.


Now it finally happens that some big shoe companies are finally starting to catch on with the advent of shoes like Nike Frees. New Balance now has a similar model as well. Vivo Barefoots are a great model but my personal favorites are my Vibram Five Fingers. Vibrams look like gloves for your feet so if you choose to get a pair (which I highly recommend) be prepared for lots of confused looks and many questions. I wear my Vibrams for everything. I especially love them for working out. I find that the added balance and coordination that comes from being the feel the world around me to be a great feeling and do wonders for my workouts.

If you are going to give going barefoot a try be prepared for a grand awakening. Start slow, you will need ample time to adjust to using muscles that have never really been used before. But, it won't take long and before you know it your knee and ankle problems may begin to disappear. Mine have. Once you begin to work out in a set of Vibram Five Fingers you may very well never look back.

Barefoot Running

Running barefoot involves a forefoot or midfoot strike. Eliminating heel strike. This is proper running mechanics. it happens instinctively as soon as you remove your shoes and is bio mechanically superior. Take a minute to watch a toddler run around in their barefeet. Nobody ever took the time to teach them to run properly however they instinctively run with their forefoot striking first.

Forefoot striking allows the muscles of the lower extremities to absorb and virtually eliminate the impact from running. This allows your momentum to be carried forward. When running in Spongy soles the heel strikes with the heel up to the pelvis forming a straight line. All your momentum comes to an abrupt halt sending the shock up through your whole body. Wearing absorbent heels does nothing to alleviate this because it turns out that the more padding you put under your feet, the harder your foot strikes the ground. Your feet want to feel the earth beneath them! With shoes on your feet strike with nine times the impact of running barefoot. Just sayin'

As I said before, when transitioning to barefoot running, do it slowly. Your calves are going to be sore. Start small and gradually work your way up. Withing a month you should be able to run up to 5k or more at a time.

Now for the second part of the title equation: Lift heavy Stuff!

Workout for Thursday April 8.

1 rep max for:
Back Squat
Power Clean
Push Jerk

It is a strength only day so warm up as needed. Take as long as you need between max efforts.
I recommend 5,5,3,3,1,1,1. With only enough rest between warm up sets to change plates.

Good luck.
Ain't gravity a bitch?

Rest Day!

Take it easy on yourself.
Read a good book, Learn to meditate, Take up yoga.

Above all   eat well and recover!

Cheers

workout Tuesday 060410

Shoulder Press 5/5/5

3 Rounds for time of:
Sprint 50m
dumbbell snatch 21 reps, right arm
spring 50m
dumbbell snatch 21 reps, left arm

Males use 45 lb dumbbell, women 30 lbs.

Finish with one minute aggregate work on planche.

CaveMan Treats!

Here is a recipe for delicious looking caveman treats that My wife Meghan sent me. I wish I was around to try them because they look amazing and the feedback I have heard says they taste as god as they look

Don't forget to send in your recipe ideas and Workout of the day ideas. I'm always looking for good ones to post'.

Caveman Treats

you will need
1 cup of pitted dates.
1 med/large banana
3 1/2 tble sp. of ground almond
*sprinkle of (husked) sunflower seeds (so 1 tbls)

1/4 tsp cinnmon
1/4 tsp nut meg
1/4 tsp ground ginger


coconut
coco (Frys - amazing)
sunflower seeds (husked)


Here's what you do:

1/2 cup at a time make dates into a paste.  I warn you it's quite sticky. 
You can use a blender , I used my muscles. I mashed them into a bowl using my rolling pin. I have the type with out handles, it worked quite well. You can mash and mix them together.
Add in your banana to the sticky paste. You can mash them up before or during the mixing of the two.
I added my ground almond and then just used my hands. (clean of course) I found it much easier to mix them all together. Once the ground almond is in the mix, it makes life a lot more easier, messier and a whole lot of FUN.
Add you spices and sunflower seeds, mix well... I used a (dinner) table spoon to mix this.

Roll out into little balls onto a  pan.
Once that is done make them perfect by rolling them into the final touch.
I like to mix and match , some coco, some coconut...a few sunflower seeds. Trust me all are delicious..

Chill in the fridge for an hour and serve with fruit. So far berrys are the best compliment.

Bon Appetit !

Pull ups/Ring push ups

Monday 5 April 2010

Snatch grip high pull 3/3/3/3/3

Don't go too heavy on the high pulls. These are to get practice fully extending your hips under load. once your form starts to go you are heavy enough.

21 / 18 / 15 / 12 / 9/ 6 / 3 reps of:
Pull ups / Ring push ups.

finish with one minute of aggregate work doing front lever.
Start with tuck lever and as you get stronger we'll progress from there.
If you can't yet do a tuck lever, do 5x5 knees to elbows with 3 second negatives

I highly recommend you pick yourself up a pair of rings. They are the single most useful piece of strength training equipment I have ever bought. Those, as well as my Vibram Five Fingers and grip chalk, get more use than anything else I have ever owned. You can get e cheap pair from Amazon and they will last you a long time and they will get a ton of use, trust me.