Against The Grain (Pun Intended)

I’m less then two weeks away from the Men’s Physique competition. I have to admit, I’m kinda nervous. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m dealing with a little shoulder issue that’s stopping me from lifting as heavy as I’d like, but I’m icing, foam rolling and having a little physical therapy to help me make it to the show. It’s not an ideal situation for me to be in, but I’m not willing to back out now. The show must go on!

Some of you might be curious as to what I’m doing in the last few weeks and maybe some of you haven’t been paying attention to my past blogs to find out what I’ve done to get this far. I’d definitely recommend flipping back to some of my past blogs about my eating and workouts. Check out this blog from Sept. 6th to get you started.

This might seem strange to some of you, but as I get older I start to think about whether or not I can sustain this type of lifestyle. Working out hard six days a week and eating a very low carb diet. As for the diet, I think I can maintain that in a general sense. After this show, will I have pizza sometimes? Probably. Buffalo wings? For sure, but that’s not what I mean. I’ve changed my lifestyle completely over the last year. A little over a year ago I was mostly pescatarian(I only ate fish, no meat) and I was training for distance competitions like marathons and triathlons. Now I eat all kinds of meat, including fish, but very low carbs. My workouts have gone from taking sometimes 2 to 3 hours out of my day, to maybe and hour. The best part of all of this is I don’t think what I was doing before was wrong in any way, I was just learning. Figuring out for myself how my body will respond to different stresses and diets. That’s what health is about, I think. It’s not a cut and dry way of living, it’s a practice of trial and error, where you grow and evolve. I’m in a good place. My body feels like a machine that I can control and rely on. I’ll keep tinkering with it, which can be fun.

How I Tinker:

In the last month prepping for this competition I’ve almost completely eliminated carbohydrates. This is what I did for the last event I competed in, it served me well, so I’m doing it again. The only major thing I’ve changed is my protein shake intake. In fact, what I’ve done is eliminate it almost completely. Up until about 6 weeks ago I was taking around 30g of Jay Robb Protein with BCAA and Creatine powder as my post workout meal. Then I thought, is this how I want to be living 30 years from now? Drinking some synthetic powder instead of getting the same nutrients from real food. So, I’ve skipped the post workout shake with the exception of maybe 4 or 5 over the last 6 weeks and I feel great. Not to mention, you’d never guess I don’t drink shakes. Check out some of my pics. And the only reason I did have a shake those few times was because I knew I wasn’t going to have time to eat real food. I believe it’s better to eat something then nothing if you’re hungry.

I’ll post the last two weeks of what I’m doing for workouts in one of my next blogs. If you’re interested in the thinking behind my low carbohydrate diet, check out the book Grain Brain by David Perlmutter.

Last thing, as you can imagine I’m asked all the time how I lose all this weight and get ripped up for an event. I have no reason to lie to people about what I’m doing, it’s not easy to do, but it is simple. The reason most people don’t have the body they want and the health they deserve is because they aren’t willing to put in the effort. If you want to change your life, I’m here to help. If you want to just talk about it and not actually take action, nobody can help you.

The simple truth…stop eating sugar and grains. Eat everything else. In fact, eat as much of everything else as you like and you’ll probably still lose weight.

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Wild Boar Curry Recipe – Compliments of the Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf
• 1 lb ground pork • 1 tbsp olive oil • 1–2 tbsp curry powder • 1 bag baby spinach (~14 oz) • ½ can coconut milk (7 oz) • 2–3 cloves garlic In a pot large enough to hold the spinach, brown the pork in the olive oil. Add the curry powder as the pork browns, mix well. Break up any large lumps of pork. Once the pork has browned, add all of the spinach and the coconut milk. Heat until the spinach has cooked down and wilted. Add the garlic at the end, either mincing it or using a garlic press to crush it. Mix well, remove from heat, and serve. This recipe works well with stew beef, chicken, or lamb as well.