Free The Animal

Here’s another blog for you intermittent fasters out there. Just started, looks really well done. Into my RSS reader it has gone. Oh, I found out from Chris.

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Got an email today from a reader interested in cheese and whatnot in my diet. I love getting stuff like this. It repeats much of what I’ve written, but what the hell. The main point I’m trying to get across is that it’s the fasting that dramatically changed everything. Up to that point, it has always been a struggle. Adding lean mass through the workouts helped. Eating in more of a Paleo fashion helped a bit more, but nothing so turned on the fat loss, plus fundamentally altered my appetite like the fasting. Here goes. A: Mine has been an evolution. When I began pushing weights last May I wanted to focus on that, so I did and I built muscle and lost a little fat. Tried to eat good some of the time, but still lots of burgers (which are fine, without the bread). I was losing about 1 pound per month net (I was also gaining muscle). Then around October I began to eat well most of the time. Probably the closest approximation is “Paleo.” This is the authoritative resource: http://thepaleodiet.com/index.shtml http://thepaleodiet.com/faqs/ http://thepaleodiet.com/articles/2006_Oxford.pdf Now I was losing maybe 2 lbs. net per month. However, I kept hearing about…

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One of the things I’ll be doing over the next few days is linking to some of the other EvFit (evolutionary fitness) blogs I’ve been browsing now and then. First up is Robb Wolf, and not only do I like his demonstrated knowledge and approach, but he’s a no bullshit guy (i.e., honest) and there are far too few of those in the world. Biological- When folks mention they are yo-yo dieting they are NOT having a problem eating meat, veggies, nuts and olive oil to excess. Whatever the clueless Mcdougalites may say, it’s not being ON the low carb diet that’s a problem, it’s going off the rails and eating every carbohydrate in site down to the bark on trees! Calorie restriction doesn’t work and just feeds into neurosis. It sounds great and plays into our puritanical leanings but it is a failed venture. I’m not sure why but everyone from the government to doctors to theologians LOVE this whole calorie restriction thing…”Eat less, be prudent..have more water dense vegetables…drink a glass of water before a meal to blunt hunger.” Bullshit. None of that crap works and it just leads people down a path towards failure. And everyone with…

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Well, who doesn’t, anymore? Have a blog, that is. Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, does. I discovered this by checking my referrers, today. See the PS at the bottom of this post. I had a wonderful moussaka at Thea Mediterranean last evening, with stuffed calamari for starters, and a nice salad of mixed greens, red onion and tomato. Two glasses of scotch whiskey and a nice red out of Lodi, of all places. I like to think of moussaka as Greek lasagna, only with sliced eggplant for the pasta and lamb instead of ground beef. They make it wonderfully moist, which is essential. Dry moussaka is lousy, just like dry lasagna. Lite breakfast this morning, being sure to allow at least 12 hours to elapse from when I last ate anything (two jumbo eggs, scrambled; four slices of bacon, fried; a small helping of full-fat cottage cheese; and a small apple). Lunch was a large bowl of leftover chicken and vegetables in a white-wine creamy citrus sauce I made up the other day. Now I go 30 hours with nothing but water and coffee, polished off with a very strenuous workout tomorrow afternoon. My point? Given that to…

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I’d been meaning to follow up on this post. I had recommended two online books on fasting, Fast-5 and Eat Stop Eat. What I didn’t mention is that the first of those is a free download and takes about an hour to read. The second is a purchase for download and while I get no benefit, the second work is I think far more complete in terms of the nutritional science behind fasting; and I like the recommended program far better. The author, Brad Pilon, is a lifelong “health nut,” studying clinical nutrition journals from the age of 16. Went on to college and degreed in nutrition. And then: Immediately following graduation, and with a surprising mix of good luck and great timing, I was hired to be a Research Analyst at one of the world’s leading supplement companies. Fast forward to June of 2006. I had just spent the last six years of my life working in one of the most secretive industries in the world. During this time, I had been entrusted with protecting some of the most confidential information in the entire industry. I was the person responsible for the inner dealings of our Research & Development…

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