Eating Healthy. Should you be eating organic, raw, vegetarian or what?
I’ve been going through some huge changes this month and I hope these changes might light a spark in your life to make changes where you need them too.
First, my personal training business that has been running in the same gym since 2001 has been transformed like a butterfly into something even better. It’s now a private studio where my trainers and myself can do one on one training with clients as well as Muay Thai and JiuJitsu in our spare time. I stepped through the door the other day, looked around and smiled. Finally I knew this was right.
I’ve also cancelled my boot camp class called commando cardio that was at the same gym. This kind of hurts me because I enjoyed it so much but I don’t feel bad about it. This tells me that something better is on the way and I just have to figure out what really cool thing is going to be filling those hours each week! Maybe it just means more time for clients that need my help. Who knows.
One of the biggest changes has been my diet. Seriously, the last two months have been ridiculous. I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s almost like I stepped into the movie “The Matrix”. “Here, take the red pill…” Back to the diet. Every now and then I have a huge fear of death. It makes me angry to the point where I’ll want to bash something if I think about it before I fall asleep. The only time I don’t get it is if my girl is beside me (love and fear sort of thing). I really think this feeling is tied into how much my life is ruled by meal timing. I get really cranky without food. I mean bad. It’s a survival thing.
I feel ruled by my stomach.
At any rate..
After years and years of bodybuilding and following the rules I’ve decided to break them all.
I’m going on a 30 day trial of organic-slashy-raw kind of guy and I am going to see how it effects my body, my performance and my spiritual development. Whenever I say eating raw from this point on, I actually mean a semi-raw with organic foods only. This of course with a touch of “take it as it comes”.
This is where I am at now morally and nutritionally.
IS THIS EATING “SEMI” RAW FOODS, A LACK OF DEDICATION?
No. It’s not a lack of dedication. I know I can do dedication from my years in the Army and bodybuilding. It’s a life changing experience where I am not well enough educated on these new concepts to decide the best approach yet. I am also heavily engaged in learning more about Paul Check and his approach to eating in his book: How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy!
I’m putting it all together and seeing what happens to my body. If I don’t like what happens, I know I can always get back to my current shape because I know how that is done. Just like rich people can make millions starting from scratch whenever they want.
Why Start Eating Raw Foods From Organic Sources?
I’m changing my diet for several reasons but one of them is a sense of freedom and to get more out of life. So with that in mind, if I go over to someone’s house and they have prepared a soup and there is chicken in it from a non-organic source, then I’ll eat it if it’s between going hungry or not. I am going to eat everything that I can raw. If I feel like cooking an egg now and then at this point then I will. If I feel like having some cooked free range grass fed Bison then I will do that as well.
Kind of like running into a rouge desert.
What are my major reasons for eating raw organic foods? It’s a combination of things.
First Reason For Eating Raw Organic Foods: I’m getting really tired of getting food that is full of things that nature didn’t intend. I’m actually scared when Paul Check talks about 1 in every 2 people getting cancer. This just isn’t normal! There are things going into our foods that are causing damage to our DNA. At this point in my life I not only want to be ripped and muscular but full of vitality and health. Anything less than fully functional is unacceptable for my personal pride and as an example to my clients.
Here Is A List Of Food Additives That Are Added To Most Spices, Salad Dressing And Prepared Foods: If there is no link from the food additive then I have to research to prove it’s something you shouldn’t eat yet. That doesn’t mean it’s safe or that it is unsafe. It just means I don’t know what it is yet.
Second Reason For Eating Raw Organic Foods: The conditions that animals are kept in on commercial factory farms and the resources they use from the environment.
I have a really hard time looking at a chicken that was raised so fast that it cannot support it’s weight, laying in ammonia getting chemical burns on it legs and thinking that its justifiable so I can get my protein. I’ll stop there because those thing are not the major focus of this particular article.
Third Reason For Eating Raw Organic Foods: I want to know if a Bodybuilder/MMA guy can actually do it. I know folks have done it before. But they are second hand accounts and I don’t have statistics. So I am measuring myself, taking my bodyfat levels and recording my strength over the 30 days to see what my body does with this change of diet. I want to know if I’ll still be able to kick butt and have a sex drive or if I’ll just want to pick daisies, play video games and smoke pot…
Making The Switch Over To Eating Raw Organic Foods
I’m sure there are lots of ways to make the switch from being a hardcore meat eating supplement taking fitness nut into eating only organic foods mostly raw. At this point I eat 5-6 times a day and every one of those meals has 5-6 ounces of factory farmed meat in them. So as I write this I have about 2 pounds of cooked factory farmed hamburger in my fridge and 5 pounds of whey protein on my counter. The whey protein powder obviously comes from commercial dairy milk, but again that is another article.
There are a couple of things I could do. A) Throw it out. B) Give it away. C) Eat it until its gone.
I’m choosing option c. I can’t afford to throw or give food away so I will taper off everything until it’s gone (it’s gone now that I’ve finished writing this article).
Here are my physical statistics at this point:
Body-fat 13.8%
Arm: 15
Forearm: 12.25
Chest: 41 3/4
Waist: 33 1/2
Legs: 21.5
Calves:14.5
Neck: 15.25
13.8% bodyfat @ 173 pounds
My flexibility is about the same as a 2 x 4 chunk of wood. I bend enough to do head kicks but everything else is pretty rough. This is also something that I will be paying attention to.
Becoming Strong Eating Raw Organic Foods:
The last thing I want is to go from lion to zebra (although stallions are quite muscular…
) so I am keeping close tabs on how the change in diet will effect my strength levels. Here are my choices and my performances for them at this point.
Pistols: At this point I require a pretty good warmup to drop straight into pistols. I can but it’s uncomfortable on my right leg (flexibility) and downright painful on my left because of something going on in the knee area. When I’m warm, I’m good to go for 5 per leg.
Deadlifts: Deadlifts are pretty straight forward and I’ve been on a steady pace of about a 5lb increase every 2 weeks for a while now. Right now I do 5×5 in this fashion:
135×5
225×5
315×5
365×5
365×5
HSPUS: Handstand pushups are my thing lately. I can’t wait to master this skill in the freestanding version. Right now I am still against the wall for balance support. The most I can get in a row is 12. I’ve started upping the resistance by increasing the range of motion. The goal being a point in the future where I can do them between chairs touching my hands to my shoulder in the bottom position. Here is where we are right now:
HSPUS:
6 inch box x 2 + 3 on the floor
5 on the floor
5 on the floor
5 on the floor
5 on the floor failure
Turkish Getups:
Again, these will be done for 5×5 and I’ve got them in the routine (thanks to Mike Mahler) for flexibility and functionality reasons more than muscular development. Of course the difference between the two is almost non existent but it is still there.
For me these are a joke. I see “a lot of room for improvement” as they used to say in the army. Right now it’s 25 lb until the form improves.
When checking on some eating plans to get started, I found some helpful stuff again from Mike Mahler that I have adapted to suit my tastes.
Breakfast Shake:
1 scoop of Whey Powder (switching to rice protein soon)
2 organic raw eggs?
1 cup of frozen strawberries
1 carrot
1/3 cup uncooked oats?
One tablespoon of flaxseed oil.
I also add in 1 tablespoon of Greens plus
Breakfast right now is the only stable and predictable meal. For the rest of the day I snack on almonds,mixed salads with nuts, raw eggs, broccoli and a variety of fruits. When supper comes, I decide if I want some sushi, Bison or maybe cooked eggs with raw veggies. This may all change a little as I learn more about what is best for my body.
I am building a list of resources to make life easier for those that need to source out raw and or organic foods as well on another page. I will post that up soon.
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