Planning Diets Natural Nutrition |

Hey Ray, 

  

   I keep forgetting to book an appointment to sit down to try and lose more fat off my tire, so I’ll try and type out my diet thoughts here.  It’s going to get long winded but here it goes. I’m sitting at 195lbs down from 242lbs after reading your book, and of course it’s not good enough for me.  I have been eating the same portions and food since day 1 when I set up the meal plans for 226lbs.  Here’s my game plan, let me know of it makes sense or not please. 

  

- Doing the wild rose cleanse this week starting Thursday. 

  

- At this point changing portions to adjust to 195lb BBE calculations but up the protein from .8/lb to 1g/lb.   Not a lot of change for my diet actually for the cleanse except for fish instead of poultry, plan to keep protein levels high just using fish (likely lots of salmon), everything else is a match… or close to anyway…. 

  

- When I am done the cleanse and go back to poultry, cottage cheese etc, I am looking at a few changes.  The carbohydratess are a no brainer, just cut back a bit.  For proteins I eat a pretty standard set of foods: Meal 1 - cottage cheese   2- chicken / turkey    3- chicken or salmon   4-chicken / turkey   5 & 6- burgers or pork chops, just something other than chicken or turkey.  My thoughts are to keep the daily proteins the same except maybe more emphasis on turkey, but change the night meals to white fish or some type - crab, cod, halibut, stuff like that with very low fat contents….  or should I be switching everything to white fish to try and cut fat from the diet? 

  

- Still have a protein shake at 10 am and eat ice cream at night (usually an ice cream bar) Ice cream is because I found myself getting dizzy a lot and realized it was lack of sugar, have felt a lot better since starting this…. anything I can do different as I realize its not the best thing for attaining a 6 pack! 

  

Work outs: Going to start running 3 miles, 2 or 3 days a week before work (this assumes I can drag my butt out of bed) to see if I can get things moving some more, otherwise I am fairly active in the evenings….  more so when my shoulder smartens up. 

  

Thoughts?   

  

Thanks again 

Mack 

  

From Ray: 

  

First I think you should start looking at body fat percentages now instead of the scale. I saw you the other night and you are getting really lean. I don’t know if you have a certain number you want to see on the scale, but if not, I would be more concerned with body composition than getting that scale to go down any more. After all, do you want to fight at 160 lbs and 10% body fat or 190 lbs and 10% body fat? Just a choice so let me know. 

  

Now on to the diet. The cleanse is going to make you feel awesome after and I think you will see great benefits from it. So that is a go. As for the BEE calculations, I wouldn’t drop as low as 195. I would only go for a 210 for now. Big changes usually cause the body to freak out and rebel. You don’t want that, you have to just tease it a little and not totally tick it off. 

  

With your activity level, I would not decrease the carbohydrates for the increase in protein. This is my opinion but I feel that if the carbohydrates are not available then your body is going to go after the protein next since it is not the macronutrient that is needed for survival, fat is. So it is extra muscle you are after, then add the protein on top but don’t decrease your carbohydrates right now. Not for an athlete. 

  

As for fat, you do not want to cut it out totally. Fat should be at least 15% of your calories. You need this for hormone production buddy. I like the way you cycle your protein sources, keep that up and I would actually go for more fatty meats at night along with fibrous carbohydrates if fat storage is a concern. If that makes no sense to you then we can talk about the science on that later. 

  

As for the ice cream at night, this is weird. You are considering cutting back on carbs for the sake of increased protein but then eating ice cream at night for the sugar you need. See what is happening there? This is another good reason why you need to keep your carb intake at the present levels or even bump them up just a bit. You only need to add a few grams of complex carbs here and there and the light headedness will go away. Try some oatmeal with a banana any time you need a sugar/carb fix. It will break down fast at the start and slow burn on the end from the banana and oatmeal combo. 

  

Now for the extra activity. I know you know the math of fat loss. 3500 calories per pound of fat is the magic number. Now how many calories are you in deficit when you calculate your classes, gym sessions and good eating. If you are in deficit then the extra running should only be because you like it or need to improve your performance in running. Doing excess work to burn calories can throw you into overtraining really fast. Watch yourself. I think you are doing enough activity already with the MMA, my class and the gym. If anything I would go with sprints in the morning if you must go for a run. 10 sprints for 100 yards with 30 seconds rest in between. 

  

Hope that helps buddy!

Ray Burton

www.buildingbodies.ca 

August 17, 2006

Cleanse day 2. I actually have nothing to report! I went to capoeira last night and felt a little sluggish but no more than I would on any ordinary off day. There is no problem with the pills you have to take and no cravings either.

It’s actually freaking me out a bit. I was expecting to be very grumpy. My girlfriend is already feeling the positive effects and I think this morning we both felt great after a breakfast together.

It will be time for some new recipes soon though, because I can see us getting board. Right now suppers are pretty consistent with using this lemon chicken recipe.

1 TBSP Olive oil
2 TBSP Lemon Pepper
¼ Cup Lemmon Juice

Combine all the ingredients and slop two chicken breasts around in the mixture. Put the breasts and remaining mixture into a deep dish and stick them in the oven for 40 minutes on 375. That’s the chicken.

For a side, cut up some carrots, potatoes and onions. Just a couple of each, only one onion though. Put all the ingredients into a deep dish add in some butter, salt and pepper to taste and put it in the oven beside the chicken! It tastes really, really good!

Last night had us going shopping to pick up all out groceries so we could start the herbal cleanse today. One thing about doing a cleanse is that your life has to change a little for 12 days. Things need to slow down and we actually like that. So my girlfriend and I sat down and went through some recipe books to see which ones we like and could use on the cleanse.

The next step after agreeing on recipes, is to write down all the ingredients to form your shopping list. Its really not bad because there are only certain ingredients you can use and they are replicated in many recipes. Kind of makes you wonder why they all taste the same doesn’t it? Just kidding, the foods are quite tasty once your taste buds adapt to real food instead of sugarcoated goodies.

So what can you eat on this cleanse? You can eat all the vegetables you want and they can be cooked or raw, your choice. You can have grains but just no flour. You can eat legumes such as beans but not too much. If a food causes gas it is because your body is having difficulties digesting it. It’s a know fact that a lot of illnesses can be traced right back to digestive problems.

This particular cleanse has some issues with fruit. Sweeter tropical fruits are not allowed because of the sugar content. Fruits like bananas, melons and pineapple for example. Other domestic fruits like apples, pears, peaches and berries are fine in moderation.

The one hard thing about doing a herbal cleanse for me as an ex bodybuilder is cutting back on the meat. The sweet stuff is not a problem because I usually tend to be low carb out of natural habit. The meat however has always been a large part of my diet. Herbal cleanses ask you to cut it back a couple of notches and add back in the veggies so the body can detoxify. It is amazing the amounts of growth hormones and antibiotics that are put into our mass produced meats. Such is the disadvantages of having such a convenient source of meat available. Some of us do not have time to hunt.

Water is very important on a cleanse, and this particular herbal cleanse recommends drinking as much as you can. This isn’t hard since milk and fruit juices are not allowed and this leaves pretty much only water left to have with your meals. As a minimum on this herbal cleanse you should drink six to eight glasses of water a day.

What is the hardest part of a herbal detox? I think the preparation is where most people run into trouble. You really have to plan in advance in order to not get sucked into grabbing a muffin or snack at the store. You have to have the groceries available and have time to wake up and make breakfast. It is hard and different than usual but what a nice change to sit down and eat breakfast with the girlfriend instead of just tagging off at the door with a quick kiss.

What was breakfast for herbal cleanse day 1? Four eggs with some diced red onion and red bell pepper. We kept the yokes in or I would be starving by the next meal. My girlfriend added some store bought salsa to her eggs and I will be making some salsa from scratch later on today.

I’ll keep you posted as we go through the cleanse. As well if you are doing my diet video tutorial series, I fully recommend doing a herbal cleanse before you start. Your results will be much, much better.