Primal Blueprint Update – 2 Months

12st 12lbs at the last weigh in. Can’t believe the weight is still coming off. 

I’ve stopped using Fitday.com now as I feel I’ve got a good handle on what I’m eating. Still got plenty of energy and still loving my food. Getting to the stage now where I’m getting more adventurous with my recipes – you have to when you’ve cut out a huge chunk of foods that ‘normal’ people eat. 

I find I can eat out pretty much anywhere with few compromises. Best places are buffet restaurants – you can just throw a ‘no go’ cordon around the rice, chips, pasta, etc and eat everything else. Chinese food is great for this – minus the rice. 

I’m not trying to lose weight any more. I’ve found an equilibrium where I feel full and the end of the day, and have got enough energy to ride my bike and do my normal daily stuff. If I lose more weight, then so be it. 

Here’s a list of today’s foods as an example of what I’m eating

Breakfast

2 Scrambled Eggs

Creme Fraiche with Brazil Nuts

Lunch

Chicken Fillet in Tomato and Basil Sauce

Carrots

Salad

Snacks

Apples

Brazil Nuts

85% Cocoa Organic Dark Chocolate

Dinner

Seafood salad with Tuna, Mussels, Cottage Cheese, Coleslaw, Spinach, Peppers, Red Cabbage, Pickles, etc

Greek Yoghurt with Raspberries

Tell me I’m on a diet!

Links:

www.marksdailyapple.com 

www.fitday.com 

Primal Blueprint – 5 and a bit week Update

13st 1.2lbs on the scales this morning. The weight is still coming off slowly but surely. 

The further away I get from my old carb laced diet the happier my body seems to be. Its getting to the point where I’m so satisfied with my food intake that it’s hard to eat over 1800 calories a day without really trying or really feeling bloated. I’m trying to push it up to around 2000 calories per day, which will still leave me around 900 calories in defecit even on a really sedentary day. 

My body fat is down to just over 20 percent now, which is great. I’ve been upping my bike riding and walking, plus doing Tabata sets and free weights every other day. 

Above: Primal gearing for a Primal Blueprint kinda ride? The country bike in singlespeed mode.  

I’m also going to convert my green country bike back to singlespeed (how it started life) to give my ride some ‘muscle confusion’ as Mark Sisson would put it. 

You see, cycling seated at a constant cadence isn’t a very good primal exercise – Grok didn’t do turbo sessions. He sprinted, climbed, stooped, lunged, lifted and stretched. 

I think that a one speed bike will encourage me to use more of my body when climbing or muscling the bike through mud and rooty sections. Plus it will give me natural variations in cadence, torque and so on. Sometimes I’ll have to get off and push/carry – i.e. more variation – more primal. 

Plus I get some valuable shed time… Always thinkin…

Primal Blueprint – 4 Week Update

One month in a 1 Stone down. 

On the scales today I’m 13st 4.5lbs. From a starting point of 14st 5lbs one month ago. 

Can’t believe how well things are going. Still loving the food that I’m eating – enjoying eating real food every day. 

Had my most ‘Primal’ day to date – took a day off work and spent the day outside sorting out the shed. So lots of slow movement and lifting heavy stuff, lugging timber, toolboxes and storage crates around. Kneeling, stretching, bending, painting. All very primal movements in a modern day context. Being outdoors makes it so much more primal and in touch, if you know what I mean. 

Primal Blueprint – 3 Week Update

This Week’s stats: 

Weight: 13st 10lbs

Body Fat: 23%

BMI: 26

Resting Heart Rate: 43bpm

Blood Pressure (resting for a minute, lying down): 104/60

 

3 weeks in and I’m feeling really good. I’m full of energy, never bloated, never ravenously hungry. I’m not getting the sugar lows and highs that I used to get pre-Primal and I’m not feeling guilty about not making every bike ride hard, long or both.

I’ve started adding in tabata intervals three times a week, and I’m going to start some heavier weight sessions too.

In terms of weight loss however, I seem to have hit a plateau of 13st 10lbs to 13st 12lbs. Whether my body composition is changing toward more lean mass I’m not sure – it’s hard to measure accurately with a hand held body fat monitor, but I certainly feel leaner.

My resting heart rate and BP have lowered which is great. I’m moving doctors in a few weeks so should be able to get a full check up for cholesterol, blood sugar and a body fat calliper measurement.

My carbs are coming just fruit, veg and the carbs in dairy products – I’m not going to push them too low and risk ketosis – kidney problems aren’t something I’m keen on.

My plan is to keep a food diary for a few days and use www.fitday.com to work out my calorie intake. Don’t want to get into the rigmarole of daily calorie counting, just want to get a handle on how much energy I’m consuming on the new diet and how many grammes of carbs. Then I can move forward knowing that I’m eating a healthy balance that’ll shift body fat and keep me out of ketosis.

To give you an idea of what I’m eating, here was yesterday’s food intake:

• 2 eggs scrambled, 1 rasher of back bacon, 3 mushrooms, all scrambled in olive oil
• 1 apple chopped and topped with cottage cheese
• 1 pear
• Tuna mayonnaise and cottage cheese with a big green salad
• 1 apple
• 2 smoked mackerel fillets with stir fry vegetables and a dash of soy sauce, cooked in olive oil
• Small bowl of Greek yoghurt, with a handful of blackberries, grapes and mixed nuts.
• Semi skimmed milk in tea and coffee 

All delicious, satisfying, non-bloating and pretty Primal! I’ll number crunch this lot on fitday.com and post the results later. 

Primal Blueprint – 2 Week Update

Two weeks into the Primal Blueprint diet and exercise plan and I’m really beginning to reap the benefits. I weighed in yesterday morning at 13st 10.8lbs. That’s a weight loss of 9lbs in two weeks. 

Not missing any of the carb heavy foods which still amazes me – I was a bread-aholic. Even more impressive are my Body Fat Monitor readings. My starting point was Body Mass Index of 28 and Body Fat Percentage of 27%. 

Mark Sisson says that the diet will target body fat and he’s right. While my BMI has dropped 2 points to 26, my Body Fat Percentage is down to 22% which proves that the diet isn’t stripping me of lean mass. 

Did a 1 1/2 hr steady ride on Saturday too see how I felt without carbs as fuel – the result – no ill effects – and no making a bee-line for the bread and cereal when I came through the door. 

My wife is starting to get seriously interested in the diet as she starts to see my weight shift. And, last but not least, I’m one belt buckle notch thinner – the most important scientific measure of all!

More: http://www.marksdailyapple.com  

Primal Blueprint – Update

Primal Blueprint – Update 

Four days into radically changing my eating in accordance with the Primal Blueprint.

So, four days without bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, beans and pulses. I really thought I couldn’t do it. The foods listed about made up a huge amount of my normal intake and were in food terms, my best friends. But here I am, not craving any of them, not feeling bloated or hungry and not experiencing that ‘boom to bust’ sugar feeling that I used to get when eating lots of carbs.

I’ve been exercising normally – lots of walking, commute-paced cycling, plus some weights and today, 1 ½ hours of swimming with Harry and his friend. No food cravings, no feeling that I’m running on empty.

I don’t feel that my digestive system is working overtime anymore and my moods seem really stable, something which in the past, fluctuated with my sugar intake. I used to blame caffeine, but now I think I’ve found the culprit.

Looking forward to my first weigh in on Tuesday morning, where I’ll find out if there has been an initial loss. To be honest I won’t be too fazed if there isn’t. I’m not ‘dieting’ in the conventional sense. So if I lose it slowly but find a way of eating that I can stick with for life, without obsessive calorie counting or self-flagellation, or indeed obsessive exercising, all the better. 

Primal Blueprint Day One

Spent last night reading Mark Sisson’s excellent interview in the Rivendell Reader and I’m really struck with the Primal Blueprint exercise and diet concept.

Mark is a former endurance athlete and expert in nutrition and exercise, best known for his site Mark’s Daily Apple. On his site, Mark has built a community of like minded individuals who have followed his regimen of low carb eating and exercise focussed squarely in the fat burning zone.

The primal bit comes in because the dietary and exercise patterns mirror that of the hunter-gatherer, whose diet would have been mostly protein and fat based, and who would have engaged in lots of low level aerobic exercise. 

My exercise habits tend to follow the Primal Blueprint laws which are:

1. Move frequently at a slow pace
2. Lift heavy things
3. Run really fast once in a while

However my diet has always tended towards the high carb bread, pasta, rice and potato focussed diet that is everywhere in our culture and which only became the fuel of choice when hunter gatherers became farmers, planting grains or starchy tubers and using these as their staple. According to Primal Blueprint theory, that’s when the rot set in. 

I’m going to blog my progress on the Primal Blueprint and let you know how I get on. 

Here are my starting stats: 

• Height: 6ft
• Weight: 14st 5lbs
• BP: 120/68
• Body Fat: 27%
• BMI: 28

I’ve limited my carbs for the last 24 hours, eating plenty of oily fish, vegetables and just getting minimal carbs from fruit. Weird thing is I don’t feel hungry at all… 

Time will tell but I think this could change my relationship with food for life. I’m that excitied. 

More info:  http://www.marksdailyapple.com/