So my current goal is to get to 197lbs by September 30th 2008. As of this morning I’m at 236lbs. I haven’t been under 200lbs since 1993 when I first got to this country. I have achieved both the American dream with respect to life in general in addition to the American nightmare with respect to diet all at the same time. So I would say that I still have a half full glass to work with. Every cloud has a silver lining they tell me…

The goal of fat loss is constant and my sole pursuit with respect to fitness. What has changed though is the method:

I’m throwing away all conventional wisdom (CW) nutrition, training techniques and practices and doing the complete opposite instead..

Following the CW has yielded me absolutely no results whatsoever in the last 10 weeks. To be honest, the only time I’ve ever gotten any worthwhile results is when I do the complete opposite of what the CW of the moment would have me do. For example:

1. At 350lbs I was training Muay Thai at my gym for 2hrs a day instead of taking slow walks around the block. It wasn’t easy, but I did it with the help of very supportive gym members….(Hey Vick, Joe, Ray, John W, Frankie, George, Liam, OT and all my NJMT friends!)

2. At 300lbs I was training in Thailand for 3 months with Muay Thai fighters at least 3 hrs a day in the scorching heat instead of taking slow walks around the block.

3. I’ve completed a 40 day Master Cleanse because I wanted deep tissue healing and cleansing when the CW thinking is that I’ld starve myself to death and lose all my muscle. However, not a single pound of muscle was lost.

Now I’m not saying all these things to brag because at 350lbs, taking slow walks around the block is a good starting point. I’m just saying that the only time I’ve ever gotten significant results is doing almost the complete opposite of what I’m expected to do. When I decide to go against my inner rebel and conform to societal norms, I get no significant results.

Here are some of the CW things I’ve been doing for last 10 weeks that have yielded me very marginal results:

1. Eating 6 small balanced meals a day: Doing this has made me not only hungrier during the day, but feeling deprived which has made me crave all the wrong sorts of processed sugar that is really bad for me. This eating style lead me to have weekends of binge carb eating. Not good for fat loss! It has also made my life revolve around food. I’m either preparing it, thinking about it, eating it or worrying about it in some form during a period of a single day. It’s too much work for no results.

2. Weight training 3 times a week + HIIT: This is great, but the frequency of training is not optimal for me. I’m substituting an extra day of Muay Thai for a weight training session that isn’t needed. I’m not trying to be a professional body builder. Moreover, I don’t need to build extra muscle when I already have so much of it. What I need is the muscle maintenance and functional strength that comes all inclusive with Muay Thai training.

3. Muay Thai training 3 times a week: This is the great, but I need more. You can never do enough Muay Thai in my opinion.

Changes:

1. No more eating 6 meals a day: It’s not working for me. I don’t care what the current CW is. It just doesn’t work for me. I truly believe that I’m insulin resistant (I’ll post a topic on insulin resistance soon). My best option is underfeeding during the day and overfeeding at night. It’s the exact opposite of the CW which tells us to eat more during the day and eat less at night. Please check out Ori Hofmekler’s blog on the warrior diet. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page for more information. Also check out Mike OD’s website on Intermittent Fasting. I’ll be using a combination of those above methods. Please read those sites carefully before you give me the ignorant starvation mode CW bulls**t. Results speak for themselves. It might actually do some folks a lot of good to go hungry from time to time.

2. Reduction in weight training days: Weight training 3 times a week is great. However, it takes me away from what I love most which is Muay Thai training. These summer months are the best times for training because the body really responds to the heat. I prefer the functional strength of Muay Thai calisthenics to the non functional typical weight training routine even though I’m doing full body compound movements in the gym. I’m going to take full advantage of the summer heat while it’s here. I’m cutting this down to 2 days a week.

3. Muay Thai: I’m upping my Muay Thai training from 3 days a week to 4 days a week. There is just nothing that works the entire body for strength, endurance, agility and definition than 2 hours of Muay Thai training. Check out my Things I learned in Thailand post for more about this.

There you have it. My countdown to 200. Wish me luck!

So I’ve been been MIA lately. It’s not for lack of focus my friends. In fact I’ve been highly focused on doing a lot of research on what the most effective and efficient methods of fat loss are. I’ve been really putting a lot of work in at the gym and I haven’t been seeing the results that I should have been seeing. I’ve stayed true to the 6 small meals a day routine and it’s yielded me at net fat loss of zero pounds in the last 10 weeks. Not good! When things go wrong I tend to lean heavily towards complication instead of simplicity. This time though, I decided to go a simpler route. So I went in scourging through the internet to find anything that could help me. I hit the motherload with IF Life Blog. I learnt all about intermittent fasting and how to do it, and I decided to give it a try. This link by Mike OD at his blog explains all the details quite nicely. I decided to try the two methods of fasting:

Experiment #1: Alternate day 24 hr fasts

Last week I did two 24hr fasts and one 18 hr fast. On Monday, I ate 6 small meals and stopped eating 6pm. Then I didn’t eat again till 6pm on Tuesday where I ate quite a bit of healthy food at night. Ate all day on Wednesday and stopped eating at 6pm. Didn’t eat till 6pm on Thursday where I ate a hearty healthy dinner. Then I ate regularly on Friday and stopped at 6pm. I didn’t eat till 4pm on Saturday. Then I ate regularly on Sunday with one of my meals a good bit of chinese food. I didn’t count calories in this experiment. I just made sure to eat healthy food and I upped my fat intake significantly. I used a lot of real butter and olive oil in my cooking. I also did my 3 days of Muay Thai training and 3 days of weight lifting + HIIT.

Results

I lost 4lbs. I felt very clear headed and focused on my fasting days. Interestingly, on the days for regular eating, I wasn’t hungry and had to force myself to eat food all day. My craving for processed sugar diminished significantly. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Not too shabby. The next experiment will be daily 16 – 18 hr fasts which I am currently in the middle of. I’ll keep you posted.

What is IF?

According to Mike OD at the IF Life

For those that may not be familiar to the term, intermittent fasting is just taking times of fast (no food) and working them into your lifestyle. This can be either daily or a couple times a week (will get into that more below). Benefits include improving insulin resistance (which you will hear alot about as being the #1 key marker in so many health factors including weight loss, muscle gain, performance, recovery, anti-ageing and disease prevention) and giving the body a chance to do some internal cleaning (or housework), which can lead to improved immune function and overall health.

How do I begin to IF?

Once again Mike OD at the IF Life

Is there only one set way in which to do IF? No. I could easily come up with 10 different IF protocols based on 10 people’s individual’s needs, lifestyle, exercise, goal, macronutrient ratios, and so forth. We will keep it simple and give the 2 most frequent and basic options.

* Daily Fasting: Typically done every day and only giving the person a smaller eating window in which to get their calories. (for example, a 18hr daily fast would mean someone would only eat every day between the hours of Noon and 6pm). You will see varying times from 15-19 hours for daily fasting.
* Fasting 1-3x a week: This could also be called alternate day fasting/calorie restriction (for those doing it every other day). This is just fasting of usually longer periods 18-24 hours but only 1-3x a week. Many variations to play with here.

I really suggest taking a couple of hours and perusing Mike’s Website. It’s the best out there in terms of information regarding intermittent fasting and all it’s benefits.