Chuck's Simple Life

Experiment of One for One Week

An Experiment of One. For one week (okay, it’s actually going to be 8 days), I’m going to seriously modify my calorie intake and food choices.

I work 9PM to 5AM. I try to sleep from 6AM to 1PM or so. I will enjoy two meals each day. Meal one will be around 1:30-2:00PM and will consist of 3-4 eggs, a tablespoon of jam, sometimes with bacon added, sometimes not, and a 16-oz glass of milk. The eggs will be fried in butter, or maybe scrambled in butter, or I may even have a few hard-boiled as a change of pace. I will also be taking vitamin and mineral supplements. Again, this is meal one of two.

Meal two I am going to have around 7:00 - 8:00PM. It will be made up of a can of albacore tuna (5-oz.), a tablespoon of mayonnaise, a couple of teaspoons of mustard, some Tabasco sauce sprinkled in, and perhaps some pickle relish, all mixed together and eaten with a fork or spoon. Every other day, I will eat an avocado with this meal. Sometimes I may grate a hard-boiled egg into the tuna mix. My beverage with this meal is going to be iced tea. Again, this is meal two of two.

One of the days during this period, meal two will consist of my wife’s home-made chili. It’s been rainy and cooler, and if I don’t let her fix one meal for me during the experiment, I’ll never hear the end of it. There is a possibility that one of the meal two’s is going to be our own home version of a Cobb salad - two or three types of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, onions, spinach, well-cooked bacon crumbled into the bowl, some chicken cut up into small bites, an avocado cut into bite sizes, and a full-fat Bob’s Big Boy Bleu Cheese Dressing; no croutons, and no other additions.

I can live with these substitutions during this week to keep harmony in the family - my wife is not yet really aboard with the whole primal/paleo way of eating yet, nor has she completely bought into my attempts to bring minimalism into our lives —- my life, fine, our life; not yet, baby.

I’m starting this experiment at 182 pounds and a waistline of 41” (relaxed) at the navel. While I don’t expect too much change in eight days, it will be a barometer as to how I may proceed in the coming weeks and through the end of the year. With my job, I walk, albeit at a slow pace, about five to six miles throughout the night (courtesy patrol for an apartment complex) and so there is a component of applying #3 of The Primal Blueprint’s ”10 Immutable Laws” - Move Frequently at a Slow Pace.

This is a foundational beginning to how the last ten weeks of 2010 are going to be; adhering to metamorphosis I want to create in myself. If you believe in such things (as I do), keep me in your prayers once or twice over the next week.

Who dares, wins

I’ve Given It Some More Thought

My Primal Living Diet for Life –

This eating plan is made up of two diet philosophies: the raw foods concept as espoused by Dr. Doug Graham of the 8-1-1rv camp, and Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint, a program of paleo/primal foods.

Being neither an absolutist in one or the other, but an agnostic in what is sometimes called ‘common knowledge,’ I am taking what I consider the best of both worlds and applying them to an experiment of one – me.

On the one side, a raw foods diet is made up of fresh, whole, unrefined, living, plant-based foods: fruits, leafy greens, vegetables, nuts and seeds, which are consumed in their natural state without cooking or steaming.

Primal eating per the ‘Primal Blueprint’ is made up of lean meats, fowl, eggs, sensible healthy fats, and is very low in carbohydrates. It avoids most grains and sugars and focuses on eating foods as our long-ago ancestors ate.

So my diet will be a combination of the two programs – lean proteins from beef, pork (mostly lean ham and bacon), eggs (lots of eggs), chicken, and some whey protein powder in 2% milk. Along with this, I will eat abundantly from the raw side with fresh vegetables (mostly non-starchy ones), some fresh fruits, a handful of nuts every few days, and fats in the form of avocados, etc.

A common saying is “Eat real food, not much.” The true key to losing weight / bodyfat is to eat fewer calories than you spend in energy output.

This is true regardless of the number and ratio of micronutrients, be they protein, fats or carbohydrates. To lose a pound of body fat, one MUST consume 3,500 kilo-calories less than one burns – despite the “is a calorie a calorie” crowd comparing types of foods.

So “Eat Less – Move More” becomes a mantra for better health and fitness.

Eat less of the ‘right’ foods and get more physical exercise – a winning prescription. (Eat as little of the ‘wrong’ foods as possible, allowing for reasonable exceptions due to company and circumstances.) Do not become a zealot in this matter – it’s just food. Use it for nourishment and rebuilding the body, not for entertainment or comfort.

Eating less food, but eating the right kinds of foods, will allow me to rebuild the shape and health of my body. Getting more of the correct types of exercise (mostly body weight, suspension and low-level cardio) will reshape the physique into the lean, muscular build I want to achieve.

Eating this way will require that I know the calories I’m consuming as well as the energy output of my exercises.

This means for a short while – two or three months, I will be restricting the variety of foods to a known value and quantity.

What follows is a list of “acceptable” foods… there will be a few add-ons occasionally, but this will make up the bulk of the foods and drink I will allow on this plan:

Water, filtered/purified Eggs, whole

Tea, black & green Beef, lean

Coffee, w/cream Bacon/Ham, lean

Milk, 2% (limit) Fish (tuna/salmon)

Chicken

Broccoli, steamed

Cabbage, shredded Avocados

Carrots Bananas

Celery Grapes, seedless

Cucumber Lemons/Limes

Lettuce(s) Olives

Onions Oranges

Potatoes, dutch/baked Peaches, canned

Spinach, raw leaf Pineapple, canned

Tomatoes Watermelon

Zucchini, grilled

Almonds

Whey protein powder Cashews

Beef Jerky Walnuts

Two meals a day of approx. 800 calories each; as I work at night (9PM-5AM), my tentative meals will be at 2pm and 7pm; I have a ‘lunch break’ during the working hours, but will not be eating any food during it – drinking water and/or teas instead.

This will be my ‘eating plan’ from now (10/18/10) through the end of the year. An occasional modification for days off and meals out with my wife – but the main plan is the main plan.