12st 12lbs at the last weigh in. Can’t believe the weight is still coming off.
Tag: nutrition
Primal Blueprint – 5 and a bit week Update
Primal Blueprint – 4 Week Update
One month in a 1 Stone down.
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.
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:
- Move frequently at a slow pace
- Lift heavy things
- 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/