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Last summer I slaved away at Lowe’s from march through august, making a pretty good sum of money along the way, but also despising the job and more than anything the managers and the retail atmosphere. Helping customers isn’t bad at all, but when the higher-ups start barking out random directions the job goes south quickly. That is why this summer I have applied to a variety of different outdoor jobs. The job that started me on this search was whitewater rafting guide. I remembered a coworker who had done that on the weekends and I also read this article, and so I applied to a few different places for that. I also thought I would like any sort of outdoor adventure jobs such as leading people to live in the wilderness for short periods of time, but I soon realized I don’t have enough experience to do that yet. So I ended up applying for a few raft guide jobs, an assistant guide job,a laborer job, and a camp counselor job.

So for I have interviewed for the counselor job, but I am starting to think I won’t do that. The assistant adventure guide job was already taken, so now I’ve decided if I get a raft guide job or the laborer job I will take those, otherwise I will have no choice but to work at Lowe’s or a similar place for the summer.

If you would like to embark upon a similar journey here are some links.
Adventure Jobs
Cool Works
Wildwater Rafting
Rolling Thunder

After being sick a couple weeks ago I lost some weight, but I’m still somewhere in the 190 range. I’d like to get up over 200 before starting a cutting phase. I know some people don’t like the idea of cutting and bulking, but to me it makes the most sense. Gaining muscle while keeping the same amount or losing fat sounds great, but it’s slower and more difficult. I’m not going on a “see food” diet to gain weight, I’m still eating mostly paleo/primal like I have been, I’m just trying to work out and eat more to get my body to add muscle.

One problem I’ve run into is that the stronger I have gotten the more I’ve noticed how screwed up my body is from sports and who knows what. My right side muscles work completely differently than my left side and you can visibly see the imbalance. I tried physical therapy, and while I liked the guy, it was not something he had ever dealt with before and I could tell we were taking stabs in the dark and if I ever started to heal it would be luck. It’s gotten to the point where it annoys me constantly and I think I’m going to see the people at Egoscue. Although expensive, they sound like they know what the heck they’re talking about and if they can guide me down the right path then it’s worth it.

I’ve been reading a lot of T-Nation articles recently, and plan on trying something like this out as an off week to heavy weights and big eating.

I haven’t updated in awhile, but I plan on soon compiling a list and posting on how to eat what I consider a healthy diet (meat, veggies, fruits, nuts) cheaply. Being at college certainly makes one think about cost more often and I’ve been trying to figure out what to get to maximize my health and my bank account, so I need to compile a list of foods I might eat and see which ones give me the most benefit per dollar, which I will hopefully get to soon.

As a side note I am now back up to about 190 lbs and feel much better than I did at 180. My experiment with intermittent fasting was too much, my body fat dropped too low and I think it shot all of my hormones down way too far. Now I just try not to eat too late and have that as my intermittent fast, during the day I eat at leas 3 solid meals with whatever snacks I have on hand or feel like eating. I eat almost exclusively no bread and only have sweets sparingly, so the majority of my carbs are vegetables, which translates to a fairly low carb diet.

I just tested my strength yesterday as I am about to start a more concentrated effort at getting stronger and more athletic. My squat max was 315, down from 330, my deadlift was 305, a lifetime high, and my bench was only 200, down from 230. I might have gotten 210 on bench, but I think I was helped a little. My goals are to get my squat up to 350, my deadlift to 330, and my bench to 250 before summer. I was able to do 17 chin-ups, and I’d like to get that to about 25. I’d also like to put a few inches on my vertical leap, which I need to measure.

My eating right now has settled into a decent place where I eat mainly meat with some vegetables and then an occasional sweet treat. I think my next challenge will be to go without sugar and possibly try intermittent fasting on a regimented schedule instead of randomly like I have been doing. I read Sugar Blues last summer and tried to cut out sugar for awhile, but I wasn’t eating like I am eating now and the result was feeling like I couldn’t eat anything. A few weeks ago I was pretty much eating no refined sweets, but I don’t know that I felt incredibly better. I am aware that a lot of the benefit of not eating sugar comes from not having free radicals running around your body or oxidizing and aging your body. I’d like to see how I feel if I went completely without sweets and I’d also like to see how my training improves or is affected since I’d like to redouble my efforts to improve my vertical and sprinting times. I’ll probably start Monday.

I finished Gary Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories several days ago. The book was an incredible read, easily the best book I’ve ever read on nutrition. It doesn’t cover everything I would like to know, which would be difficult, but it does an incredible job of examining the evidence from a scientific approach. This is not your average “eat good foods, here’s a meal plan, you’ll lose a pound a week” diet book. This is almost more like a textbook, which is a good thing in this case.

While reading the first part about nutrition history in America and how scientists have approached it, I was both angry and deeply saddened at the same time. It is shocking how most of our beliefs about food are based on suspect evidence and how the low-fat dogma spiraled into our everyday thinking so that we all accept it as a fact. Whenever people give out diet information they will generally recommend to get certain products as low fat because of it’s reputation.

The rest of the book is about how the body responds to different foods (namely carbohydrates), and what the scientific trials done so far have shown. It was enough to convince me that loading your body with sweets and even “good” carbohydrates is something to avoid. I found the sections on hunger particularly interesting as I would like to get to a point where my hunger dictates what and when I eat naturally. I also found the portion on calorie restriction/ semi starvation insightful and definitely symptoms to keep an eye out for and avoid. While I was reading that I thought better to eat some carbs that to starve yourself.

The books effect on me has been increased knowledge more than anything, as well as piqued interest in some of the more esoteric areas of nutrition. Overall I wholeheartedly recommend anyone and everyone to read this book, if you find it boring that maybe it’s not for you and maybe how we eat doesn’t interest you, which can be a good thing, but if you think you’ll be interested at all then you’ll love it.

One thing I’ve been looking into a lot lately is ketosis. Low carb research and dieting inevitably mentions it at some point. I’ve found that Eades has some nice information on his site, and I’ve also read most any other article I could find on the internet, including body building articles that usually propose a Cyclic Ketogenic diet. In a nutshell, your body goes into a state of ketosis when it runs out of glucose to run on and starts using fat for fuel. This is accomplished by a very low carb diet (or starvation or heavy duty and long workouts).

Last Wednesday - Thursday I ended up doing an intermittent fast that lasted almost 24 hours. A couple of hours after I ate I bought some ketostix to help me measure where I was, and they moderate-large amounts of ketones. The next morning I had small amounts, and then later that day trace, and eventually back to none. During the day Thursday I was pretty low in energy, very lethargic, which I’ve read countless times is a common side effect of ketosis. I’ve eaten very few carbs the past few days, so I’m going to try to go into ketosis by eating plenty, just no carbs. This morning I felt drowsy at times and laid down for about an hour around noon and waited to eat until about 3, when I ate a little steak, and then 5, when I ate a bunch of beef brisket and a little chicken. After that I felt a lot better and still feel good while writing this. I’m going to post my daily eating and its nutrition info here. I’m going to track what the ketostix say and also my energy.

I’m tempted to try the method of cycling ketosis in increments of about 5 days on, 2 days off. Many sites claim this is the best scenario because you get to have some of your cravings on the weekend and it makes it easy to stick to the diet. Bodybuilders take this a step further. They recommend going into ketosis for a little bit longer, and then doing a complete body workout that depletes any glycogen in the muscles and makes all of them hungry for glucose. At this point the carb loading starts and continues for a day or two. Supposedly the muscles get hugely pumped from the carbs. This is tempting to try, but all that I know and think about carbs, especially simple ones like flour and sugar, leads me not to try that at this point, although I might at sometime. Right now I think the huge insulin spike is something I’d rather avoid.

Last week I went to see the doctor to inquire about getting a blood test done to check my levels of various indicators such as cholesterol, testosterone, GH, IGF-1, etc. I had asked once before with a different doctor and he was very resistant, saying it was expensive and pointless. I guess I figured since this doctor didn’t know me he or she would just help me to get the tests that weren’t too expensive, but once again I encountered the same reaction. It seems to me that in America we have to have a noticeable problem to care about our health. The doctor asked me more than a few times if there was a specific problem, saying that then they might send off for the work, but otherwise they usually didn’t. I understand that there are plenty of people with problems who do need to get blood work done and that they have priority over those of us without any major concerns, but it’s not as if I’m stealing someones spot. It’s OK to explain that the tests are expensive, but it is sad that doctors take an attitude that asks “Why do you care at all, you are young and look like you’re in good health so the tests will just confirm that.” We have all been beaten over the head with the obesity problem in the country, as well as increasing diabetes, and it seems to me that perhaps if more people began to care earlier, before they experienced any problems, they might see what’s coming and take action, but no, we must have a noticeable abnormality to get any tests done. I also appreciate the fact that she was honestly telling me she felt like it wasn’t worth the cost, which I doubt it was to get ALL the tests done, but we could have looked at how much each one costs and talked that way. Instead it was just a fancy forget about it.

In an odd coincidence the school is about to offer HealthCheck Screening Options, which include tests that will measure cholesterol and testosterone for $20 and $85 respectively. That’s a bit expensive, but not the $400 plus I was hearing about all the tests. It seems fate has intervened to help me out here, so I’m going to be thankful and hopeful that eventually doctors will relish patients who care enough about their health to want to get tests done instead of discouraging the activity.

As a side not I have started tracking how much I spend each day on food and will be totaling that up once I get enough information. Today I totaled between $10 and $15 dollars, so I’m going to continue to try and tweak my eating to maximize quality and minimize price.

As I peruse many other sites and forums about how we should be eating, especially those that propose low carbohydrate diets, I find that many people are a little bit concerned with how much it costs to eat the way of our paleolithic ancestors. As a college student I can empathize with these cost concerns. For the past few weeks I have been buying and cooking my own food this way, but I haven’t really figured out exactly how much it costs compared to other diets. So as soon as I run out of food I plan on doing a challenge of walking to Publix each day to get what I need to eat. This will show me exactly how much I spend each day. I will try not to buy any package that would last me over a week, since cost per week is really what I hope to find out. This analysis will also not be perfect because I have 10 meals per week at the dining hall and I plan on using all 10 to get my money’s worth. Overall I think this will give me a very good idea for the expense of eating well. It will also be nice because I will be able to choose what I’m eating at the time and it will be more random and varied.

Quite some time ago I was looking around the internet for tips on recovery from workouts and encountered the idea of alternating the shower water between hot and cold to try and get the blood flowing into your muscles. I have recently come across the idea again, albeit a little differently. The concept of trying to help your body adapt is still the same, but I have found it explained more in depth on De Vany’s web site. You should read that post here, but to summarize he says the cold water in the ocean draws the heat out of our bodies. On top of all that it is a surprisingly good feeling, someone else said euphoric and I would say it is a rush. I’m careful to keep my breathing calm and not hyperventilate, as I have done extensive reading in buteyko (google it), and it is pretty sudden, but after 10 or so seconds it starts to feel really good. There is still a part of you that wants that wonderful warm water pouring back on your skin, but now another part of you is delighting in the cold water. I’ve started ending my showers with a minute or so of cold water and I feel absolutely great afterwards. It is also supposedly a good stress for your body because of the brief, sudden intensity that helps your body adapt to deal with stressful situations in the future. With nothing to lose except our love of warmth and comfort, it’s definitely something worth giving a shot a few times.