On the Road to become the Next Arnold

 On the road less traveled...

Once you're in the groove of a diet, you basically have everything bought, everything organized, and every thought of temptation and diversion planned out.  It makes it even tougher while traveling because you can't even cook your own food conveniently and places you can stop along the way may not have the choices you want to fit into your diet.

However, like a diet this is easily remedied by foresight and planning.  Which I don't do on purpose because what's life without a little risk?

Yet, I had it all figured out pretty easily.

I had a 14 hour drive, (divided into 4 and 10 hour blocks) and here is what I packed:

For the first day of the 4 hours of the journey, I had smoked salmon and brisket beef which were left over previous dinner menus.

I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE A MONSTER, EVEN IF I HAVE TO BE ON IT

For the second day, an epic discovery.  Now keep in mind, my macronutrients were of the following:

Fat:135g Protein:235g Carbs:30g Fiber: 10g

Now check this out:

I love weiners in my mouth... for the purpose of dieting.

If I ate the whole pack in 1 day.  That's 15 sausages, then it would total:

Fat: 135g Protein: 255g Carbs: 30g Fiber: 15g

I was 20g of protein over.  Terrible.  I know.  Diet ruined.

I went into this trip weighing 193.5lbs... and came out of the trip 193.5.  Didn't lose a single pound.  Diet ruined.

Keeping in mind I sat in my car for 14 hours not moving at all.  Diet ruined.

Terrible Terrible

Yup... and this moved into my first Carb Nite.  By my calculations, I needed about 600g of carbs and I did the first third of the carb requirements with white rice to honor my ancestors, but I used minute rice because I had to hurry to the wedding which was 4 hours away.  I dishonor my family.

Box of white people food.

So... like 2.5cups of dry rice, which is about 5 cups of cooked rice.  That's a lot... especially for a guy who went without carbs for 14 days, but minuscule for an Asian.  So it worked out.

Not your typical bodybuilding diet at all.

As for the rest of Carb Nite?  Well there were lots of delicious food catered from Qudoba and lots of fermented liquids.

BUT I DIDN'T GET ANY PICTURES OF IT.  #AznFAIL

Maybe I was having too much of a good time... or my brain was overloaded.

But I ate a lot of cup cakes... and apparently I was craving milk.

DIETS ARE HARD

So what was my weight right after?  201lbs.  ALL MUSCLE.

But I'm already down to 197 as of today, (Wednesday morning) and still dropping steadily.  So all is terrible since I lost all that muscle in so few days...

 Also... Denny's on the way back:  RATED GAF

GAF: GOOD AS FUDGE(But better than Fudge)

On the Home Front

So when I got back from the wedding back home to Rochester Hills, which turned out to be beautiful once the Michigan winter passed away, I was actually back for the first time in 2 months.

So all I had in my fridge was frozen chicken, frozen bacon, and frozen stew meat.  SCORE.

Yet, not much of it.  So Prep Time here we go!

Chicken thighs to make her leave her guy.

They also have a lot, A LOT of fat.  The left is all meat, the right is a pile of skin and fat.

Breast cause boobs.

Also real meat.

Company Business

Company 'business' calls me now to Deutschland.  Which means 11 hours of flights both way.  This puts an extra challenge on my ever so challenging 'diet' because of the restrictions they place on flights, which I am still very confused on what they are.  I know about liquids and gels, but can we bring beef since the whole mad cow deal?

Who knows, but I think these are okay, but probably not for your heart.

My heart is forever broken anyways.  Tears (of fat).

Yet, they fit my macros.

Then I wanted to act badass and like any road trip, needed to operate a little drug manufacture and packaging.

"Yo, do you even lift?  bitch?" - Jesse

I dear hope not they take these away.  "They can take away my freedom, but not my gainz."

The only problem I see with this trip is I won't know how internet will work, so I will have to mental math to calculate my nutrition.  Shit.  Only if I had some sort of applied science degree along with some sort of health certification.

Yet it will not matter, I will return as the Asian Arnold.

Catching up and Kicked out

Story so far

Well I got kicked out of my hotel today.  It may have been related with an incident involving a birthday party of one of the front desk girls, a lamp falling, and the pool.

Turns out it was because they accidently had me booked to check out a day earlier than I requested.  Engraged?  Not really.  I was pretty hungry this morning, like usual, so I wasn't sure if I was mad at them or mad at people eating their Cliff Bars this morning.  Cliff bar is da bomb.

Like that one time when I was a personal trainer when they gave me these to share...

Only kids share, duh.

It's just too bad there's carbs in them.  One day I'll be at 10% BF.

BF as in Big Father.  It's like Big Daddy, except more of a father figure and less catchy.

Anywho, it doesn't matter because I'm about head back to Detroit and I am packing for my road trip.  Which some epic meals are planned for.

On Topic

Yesterday and today I weighed in at 193.5lbs.  Two days of the same weight means it's actually a very stable weight for me as on a normal diet, I've fluctuated +/- 5lbs.  Am I in ketosis?  I don't know.  I taste metal in my mouth and I haven't done a ketone strip test.  So I don't know if I'm a stripper.

Legit looking chart which is actually legit.. except I left out the first 3 days.

Yeah, all you non-educated, yet politically motivated 'free thinkers,' this is the same shit you pull.

Just Michael Moore-ed my diet data.  Bloob.  (cause he's fat)

So starting at 198lbs then going to 201lbs then back down to 193.5lbs isn't too bad for 9 days.  Carb refeed day in 3 days.

Interesting Stuff

So here's a few of the things I've been eating to meet my diet requirements.  I am not doing paleo or cavemen diet because I am actually living in the year 2013 and I will intelligenty abuse our caloric dense, yet readily available nutritional source for my 'diet.'

Pics along with their macros attached.  Yes all of these foods fit within my macros and YES, by looking at these pictures, you will realize how tough diets can get.  I did not include the vegitable macros, but most of it is 2oz of broccoli and 2 oz of green beans.

Proof is in my diary in MyFitnessPal.

Well I guess you could assume I made up the diary, but making stuff up is hard work when I can just not.  Believe me, I end up lifting more weight than I have some times just because I'm too lazy to take a plate off.

Stay tuned for my epic road trip meal though.  I found the most ridiculous and perfect macro fitting source for me for Friday's ride back to Motown from the South.

Smoked Salmon Fleurretes - 250g
50/30/0

Lunch Everyday - Chicken Breasts / Chicken Sausage - 7oz
52.5/42/0

Beef Brisket with Mushrooms -5oz
35/32/5

Spinach and Mozza Sausage - 2 Links
36/12/0

Beef Brisket with Fancy Looking Trimmings.
It just looks nice, same macros as above.  Also more on that dressing later.

Sunday... I caved and ate breakfast... oh em gee.

CN - Commitment Negativity

Motivation

CN actually stands for Carb Nite and I'm going to be on it.  The main reason I'm doing it is because I like posting pics of foods that I cook up and create, but want more than the reason of being an Asian about it.  There were also recent studies that food-pics were done which concluded fat people like to post pictures of their food to satisfy a mental need to look at more food, which is redonc, but who knows, non-Asians are different people and do their own thing I guess.  Or they are wanna-be Asians, which I can't blame them for.

Usually I don't believe in diet fads, except all the time.  I used to and still do tell all my clients  that 'diets' are dumb and stupid, mostly because I wanted to tell them nicely they're the ones that are actually ignorant and stupid, but hey, they paid me to tell them that.

In the original sense, diet is defined as "food and drink regularly provided or consumed; habitual nourishment," yet the last 100 years or so, it has taken the opposite meaning of a temporary change of eating methods, normally to lose weight.  It's dumb because once one is "off" the diet, they just go back to their normal habitual method of plowing through troughs of junk.  They go back to the body they were.

So why am I joining the masses of people I think are foolish and ignorant?  Because like I said, I don't believe in diet fads, except all the time.  Whenever a new diet comes out, I actually look at why that diet would work.  Most of the time, it's just a simple calculation of net calories.  It's a pretty hard concept to understand, but let me try to explain this:

IN - OUT = LEFTOVER

If leftovers are positive, you gain weight, if they are negative, you lose weight.  That being said, what kind of weight (fat or muscle) will be different dependent on the micro-nutrients of fats, carbs, and protein, along with what sort of activities you lead.  It can then break down into timing of insulin levels dependent on these activities and so on and on and on.

That being said, like as I mentioned above, it follows a hierachy of importance, the primary being the macros.

I'm losing interest in this subject.  Time for food pic.

So meals like these are very possible if macros are met:

DIETS ARE HARD AND UNSATISFYING

On to Carb Nite

Initially Carb Nite was written with the intent of people who are mildly active but with some modification over the years it's adaptable to people who also do some major training. The trick is figuring how to properly fuel yourself using the protocol's and knowledge at hand to your advantage.

Carb Nite is the theory of priming your body to use fat for energy instead of carbs and stop all the processes that make it easy to store carbs as fat. This is done by following an ultra-low-carb (ULC) diet for 10 days. Eating approximately 30 grams of carbs or fewer per day is supposed to induce ketosis.  Ketones (also called ketone bodies) are molecules generated during fat metabolism, whether from the fat in the guacamole you just ate or fat you were carrying around your middle. When our bodies are breaking down fat for energy, most of the it gets converted more or less directly to ATP.

Then after the initial 10 days and every 4 to 5 days after, you refeed on carbohydrates during a 6 hour window like crazy.  Appetite and metabolism are tightly regulated by ghrelin and leptin, hunger and fullness hormones. Overfeeding causes a delayed rise in leptin and a concomitant increase in metabolism and fat loss. Fortunately it’s a lagging hormone, so leptin will stay elevated for longer than your overfeed period, and stay elevated for around 4 days (varies according to individual). Hence while you’re fasting immediately after an overfeed, BMR and fat loss will be through the roof. Additionally, fasting allows fat mobilisation to continue without being mediated by leptin. By continuing to cycle overfeeds and underfeeds over the week as we’ve described, leptin will be elevated frequently enough to keep metabolism high.

So by combining the above two, one can achieve... or at least hope to achieve radical fat loss combined with maintaining muscle mass.  There is actually a bit more that goes into this program, but you can do your own research.  The above is just a quick summary.

Current Progress

You can follow my detailed stats on BodySpace and MyFitnessPal

I started on moderate carb-back-loading which was great for gaining muscle, but keeping fat, but I want to drop down to 10% bodyfat from 18%.  I am on day 8 of my glucose depletion and most of my lack-of-carb pissiness is gone.  However, I am usually grumpy so who knows.  I started this diet at around 198 lbs on June 10th, Monday, went up to 201 around Friday at some point, now down to 195 and still dropping.  I have some before pics, but they are in Detroit and I am unfortunately in warm and sunny Charleston...

From what I understand, there are three stages to the prep phase:

1. Days 1-4: depleting glycogen stores – expect to lose a few pounds here since the body stores 3g water per 1g carbohydrate. You can shorten this stage by doing high intensity exercise since this will burn through glycogen stores faster.
2. Days 3-6: Ketone production starts up. Ketones are a great source of fuel for the body and can be used for short-duration exercise & brain activity. You will feel the worst during this phase as your body will run out of carbs before your body has fully gotten around to ramping up ketone production.
3. Days 7-10: Fat burning mode. When you stop feeling tired, this is a sign you have reached the fat burning stage.

So maybe I'm in the fat burning mode... I think?

What I eat is exactly the picture I posted above.  Fats and Protein.

Currently my macro is around here:

Fat: 140g
Protein: 230g
Carbs: 25g

I usually don't eat breakfast... though breakfast is my favorite food.... ever.  Reasoning for this is because cortisal levels are actually highest in the morning... along with hunger... bah.  This also comes with muscle loss... but I have too much of it anyways.  Yeah, that's what's up.

Though my refeed day would be Wednesday of this week, it will have to be Saturday as I will be attending a wedding.

Honestly... this might blog might be just to post pics of food.... cause Asian.  Etc.

We shall see.

Oh and no cardio... cause I don't run away from anything.


Sources:

Taken from everywhere.  Check out www.dangerouslyhardcore.com or... google it for more info.