Free Zone Diet Information Site

Take a look at this picture of CF East Bay Athlete Ynez A. doing a workout despite being on crutches. Now what's your excuse for not getting your workout on?

I think it is time to revive the "Excuse Board" and start perscribing healthy doses of "YBF".

It's one thing to stick with your diet regimen when you're at home, in control of the contents of your refrigerator and your portion sizes. But what about going out to dinner with friends? Worse, how do you stay on track when your dream vacation has you seated by the dessert cart at every meal?

Eating right when you're out of your comfort zone can actually be easier than when you are at home, so long as you think smart and plan ahead. Focus on these simple tips to help you enjoy your dinners out on the town without compromising your weight loss goals. Simple Plans

Incorporate meals out like any others. Don't skip meals beforehand. Plan. Don't be afraid to call ahead and find out what the specials are going to be and figure out a couple of choices. If that's not an option, ask someone with whom you're comfortable sharing your dietary concerns to help you.

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Around 90 g of carbs again yesterday.

My performance seems to be climbing again, now that I am eating a diet that agrees with me and am at a lower bodyweight.

WOD (1/2 volume week)

75 Wall-Ball Shots for time:

4:15

Happy with this, very painful!

I climbed well today @ GWPC:

"Falcon" 5.9; easy, no elbow pain
"Star Trek" 5.11a/b; way hard, made it to the top with two rests, some pain.
"Ultraman" 5.10d; this was some of the smoothest technical climbing I have done, minimal pain
5.9 cooldown, easy, minimal pain

Around 90 g of carbs again yesterday.

My performance seems to be climbing again, now that I am eating a diet that agrees with me and am at a lower bodyweight.

WOD (1/2 volume week)

75 Wall-Ball Shots for time:

4:15

Happy with this, very painful!

I climbed well today @ GWPC:

"Falcon" 5.9; easy, no elbow pain
"Star Trek" 5.11a/b; way hard, made it to the top with two rests, some pain.
"Ultraman" 5.10d; this was some of the smoothest technical climbing I have done, minimal pain
5.9 cooldown, easy, minimal pain

CFEB new Boxless Box

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I had 90 grams of carbs (all low-GI) yesterday, probably twice that much protein and a huge amount of fat, mostly in the form of Cashew-Macadamia Nut Butter from TJ's.

I took Robb Wolf's advice and saved a bunch of the carbs for post-workout recovery.

I feel absolutely fantastic today, and I'm still in benign dietary ketosis. I'm going to stick to this scheme, which, interestingly, is exactly the amount Robb is suggesting for folks with mild insulin resistance (18 blocks = 180 grams of carb/2 = 90 grams).

Yesterday's workout (scaled for .5 volume week)

25 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, left arm, 21 reps
25 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, right arm, 21 reps
21 Pull-ups
25 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, left arm, 15 reps
25 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, right arm, 15 reps
15 Pull-ups
25 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, left arm, 9 reps
25 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, right arm, 9 reps
9 Pull-ups

Time: 11:39

Not stellar, but I felt some exercise-induced euphoria again during and after which is a HUGE bonus. Pull-ups all easily unbroken (lower bodyweight makes a massive difference) mostly c2b, I think.

I climbed afterward, but my inured elbow shut me down repeatedly:

5.6 (warm-up)
5.10a (painful on elbow)
5.10b (slightly painful, technical route)
5.10d (elbow pain forced me to stop, slabby)

Evelyn hangdoged the 5.10d with two rests, very nice technical climbing with a bit of thugging at the top.

I took the carbs up to 60 yesterday, including a little bit of red wine, and I feel human again. I'm still in mild ketosis.

I really missed fruit more than anything! I got 2 lbs of blueberries from TJ's so that will be my main source of carb over the next few days.

It will be interesting to see what happens to my performance today.

Robb Wolf did a Blog post mentioning my Atkins experience today:

http://robbwolf.com/?p=110#comment-4715

I am pleased with the results of Atkins on my body composition, and I lost the expected amount (8# in two weeks), all bodyfat.

It is clear to me that Atkins is not for athletes, but I am sold on a carbohydrate-restricted low-GI diet.

I'm taking the carbs up to 60 today and will see if I still produce ketones tomorrow. Atkins' recommendation is to go up 5g per week (i.e. 25 g this week) and limits most people to 90 g carb ultimately.

If I took that route, it would take 13 weeks just to get to that level and that is 13 weeks I don't have to spare as far as working on my other athletic goals for the quarter in preparation for CF games 2009:

Quarter One:
Goals:

* Bodyfat 11% (currently 14%)
* Weight 165# (currently 172)
* Lean = 146 (currently 147)
* CFT 800: DONE
* Mile 6:30: DONE
* Fran 5:00 (currently 6:39)
* C&J 165 (UNK, might be able to do this now)

This diet was BRUTAL, even though there was no hunger, I felt pretty much like shit the whole time.

Even eating as much as I felt like yesterday, I still ended up with a caloric deficit of 2,147 calories (i'm very active). I felt ground down, and did not complete the two of the last three WODs. I'm chalking it up to the diet and considering it a sunk cost to have missed them. I am much closer to my weight goal for the quarter though (165, 11% bodyfat by Oct. 4th).

July 24th: 179.5 18% bodyfat (147 lean)
Aug. 2nd 171.5 14% bodyfat (147 lean)

- size 34 pants fit (barely) again.

The weight loss on Atkins seems to be as advertised, I seem to have low "metabolic resistance".

The mental/performance/physical benefits seem vastly overblown at least for me. I did experience some exercise-induced euphoria (perhaps the runners high occurs when the body is totally depleted of glycogen and has to use fat as fuel?). My performance overall was compromised as follows:

Strength/muscle mass: not affected
Stamina: down perhaps 20%
Endurance: totally compromised, perhaps on the order of 50%

Conclusion: a VLCD is fantastic for reducing bodyfat without loosing muscle mass. In addition, there is NO hunger on such a diet, which seems to reinforce Gary Taub's hypothesis that hunger causes fat and not the other way around. A VLCD does not, however seem to enhance performance, at least for me. Coach has stated that a diet much under 40% carbohydrate will not support CF-type metabolic loads, so this was not unexpected. Being able to loose 8 lbs of pure bodyfat in less than two weeks with no loss of muscle mass is pretty amazing, and this might be a great diet to pair with a two-week strength cycle at some point.

This is induction day 12. Yesterday I misread the WOD:

Row 1000 meters
85 pound Thruster, 21 reps
15 Pull-ups

Row 750 meters
85 pound Thruster, 18 reps
12 Pull-ups

Row 500 meters
85 pound Thruster, 15 reps
9 Pull-ups

Rest 2 minutes between each round. Time each round separately and post times to comments.

Instead I did:

Row 1000 meters
85 pound Thruster, 21 reps


Row 750 meters
85 pound Thruster, 15 reps

Row 500 meters
85 pound Thruster, 9 reps


Rest 2 minutes between each round. Time each round separately and post times to comments.

I realized my mistake as soon as I was done (I had printed out the WOD in tiny print), so I did a final round of:

Row 250 meters
85 pound Thruster 6 reps

Times were 4:35/3:30/2:29/1:23

I felt pretty good during this workout.

Today is the last day of my three-week full volume cycle, but, due to the performance-decreasing effects of the ketogenic diet and my error of yesterday, I owe: 10K, 24 muscle-ups and 36 pull-ups, plus Griff (and my 30 burpees owed for the challenge). I will try and get all of this done today, so I can ACTUALLY do my 1/2 volume week (last 1/2 volume week I did 3 full-volume WODs).

Perhaps I will do:

AM

For time:

Buy-In 30 burpees

Five rounds
run 2K
5 muscle-ups

Cash-Out; 36 pull-ups

PM

"Griff"

I did "Helen" yesterday, and it felt good, I actually felt a "runner's high" while doing it, but when I finished, I was surprised to see it took 11:59, I thought I was going MUCH faster, my best time on this is 10:13.

Today (Atkins induction day 10) my ketostix showed a pleasing purple color, indicative of strong ketosis, so perhaps today's workout will be better, although since it is not a benchmark, there is no way of knowing exactly what the time means