My Current Diet, And A Brief Overview Of It's Evolution (or, "Where's My Shirt??")

Edit: You should probably just skip to the last list in this post if you're looking for something remotely useful, but my egocentric head tells me maybe some people will get a little inspiration and/or confidence in my approach from seeing my dieting evolution through the years.

My diet over the past few years has been an ever evolving approach. It began in 2007 with a low carb approach that had me shredded in months. It was simple, not terribly effective at building muscle, and not overly extreme, but it stripped the fat off me in short order and had me really seeing all of my abs for the first time, despite being a lifelong bean pole. I started dieting because just as I was getting highly motivated to make some transformations in the gym, I broke my wrist and couldn't train hard, so I decided I'd do what I could and one of those things was diet. I had already been training using a conventional (and ineffective for me) body part split for some time, with excruciatingly slow progress. And since I unabashedly love to post photos of myself, and gave up shirts before I even gave up empty carbs, here is a shirtless photo timeline to tell the magical story of my diet:

The year was 2007, and I learned the horrors of diet ... not how difficult a good diet was, but just how bad for me and my physique a bad diet was:

Earlier in 2007, trying to look sexy sans diet. Tanning and a good twisting pose only does so much. 

At a concert, minutes before snapping my wrist in a mosh pit. Shockingly, I'm the one who's shirtless.

I knew something was wrong even though I wasn't a Doctor; call it solid intuition

The phycological effects of breaking my wrist where obviously far reaching, but got me on my first diet for a lack of anything else to do physically.

And a little later that year afer the cast came off ... I realized processed carbs are the devil in a delicious but dangerously evil package

I couldn't stop now, not after that revelation. It honestly wasn't that bad of an adjustment, because I made choices that worked for me. This detail is something I plan on writing about a lot more in the future, as I feel it made "dieting" a livable lifestyle choice as opposed to a painful short cut to an end. Anyways, I found my new diet not only motivated me in a positive reinforcement way based on my results, but I also had clearer drive both in the gym and in other aspects of my life. So 2008 saw me experimenting with healthy low glycemic carbs in the morning and massive cheat meals that I had to work for in the couple hour window after a hard gym session. If I started gaining a little more fat than I liked I'd make a little better choices in my cheat meals. It was a consistent and livable approach to dieting, and served to both maintain my leanness and start to grow a little more. Honestly I think the quick results from 2007 could also be attributed to having some difficulty in finding convenient food choices that fit my self imposed restrictions, there by lowering my caloric intake. At this point I was still attempting to get the majority of my calories and protein through whole food choices, which I still believe is best, but also very difficult when you try to bring the calories up to gain muscle, if that's your goal. OK, I've gone 5 minutes typing without posting a shirtless photo of myself, so here's 2008 in photos:

    

   

In 2009 life got the best of me and fitness was the last thing I thought of. It wasn't all bad; I had bought a horse named Rooster and he kept me sane. By 2010 I was back on track. I knew this because suddenly I couldn't find any shirts again:

I look back at these next two photos in horror. Why was I wearing a shirt? Is there some dark memory I'm suppressing? Why didn't I take it off the first chance I got? I'm hesitant to dwell on this for fear some repressed memory that explains this inconceivable situation comes to the surface and emotionally cripples me (But my arms look decent so I'm posting it):

 I also found the joy of keeping exercise fun, like practicing explosive polymetrics by setting up a video with my friends where I get to drop kick one of them. Poor Duane, but he took it like a champ, especially considering we took 20-something completely unnecessary takes:

Now that I've turned this diet post into an all about me post I guess I should share something useful: 

In general here are the things I learned dieting over the years:

• You can't diet if you don't know the nutrient make  up of the food you eat, so start reading
• You need go-to foods that meet your criteria and are convenient.
• There is a balance to things and the rewards of a full ketogenic diet don't justify the unpleasantness of it long term for me
• Protein is necessary. Scratch that HIGH protein is necessary for the kind of body and strength I want, but fats are almost as important, especially in the absence of carbs. Additionally studies show (I don't have time to reference this now but will in the future) that high fats enhance the complete utilization of nitrogenous (protein) foods in building muscle tissue. This is very often overlooked today but nothing new as this information has been around for almost a century.
• Carbs are bad, but fat+carbs and processed carbs are the real villains
• High protein, high fat, lower carb diets make my brain just plain work better and improve my focus, drive and energy, but only after an adjustment period the length of which is determined by how much of a carb-aholic you started as.
• Nutrient timing is a valuable way to satisfy cravings and improve the effectiveness of your diet.
• There is real value in learning and choosing your own approach to dieting. It becomes self-denial as opposed to a restriction imposed by a dietitian or a program in a book you read. There's convenience to following a predesigned strict program, but making choices based on an understanding of the consequences completely changes the psychology of dieting. I wholeheartedly believe this is a necessary component of making the changes to the way you eat permanent, as well as individualized to your personality and goals. This point has value in many aspects of fitness and life.
• Most importantly: the diet you chose and evolve into needs to be livable for you individually. This is a broad topic that I will expound on much further, as it's the only way I see to make long term changes. From finding ways to satisfy your cravings to finding go-to foods on the road, this is key for me.

Recent Gym PR's

I promise I'll get to the how and why and all that good stuff soon. I have a busy night ahead of me with a friend's stag party and then off to the casino for another friend's birthday party. Debauchery is so exhausting.

I just wanted to get out of the way where my lifts are at currently. Here are some of my recent max lifts at the gym at a body weight around 190 over the past month. I'm 6' 2" with a short torso and long gorilla arms and stilts for legs. I also injured a muscle in my lower back January 20th. My physical therapist called it a muscle herniation, where the myofacial tissue tears and the muscle pops through. While it looked hideous, it wasn't incredibly painful, and it healed fairly quickly, but slowed my progress for a month or two. Here are the videos starting with most recent first:

March 22nd, 2012 - 295 lb Reverse Grip Bench Press:

When I can't chew solid food anymore, and you notice I look a little different, this will be why. Other than the risk of rearranging my face, reverse-gripping feels so much better on my shoulders. I definitely have more in me but my triceps and tendonitis where giving me some trouble. Incidentally all of my current problems like elbow and patella tendonitis are most certainly caused by my complete lack of any flexibility work. While becoming Gumby would be counter productive to my goals and hurt my strength, my current level of inflexibility is well beyond that line and needs immediate attention on my part.

March 20th, 2012 - 585 lb Deadlift From 18":

 The camera angle's horrible, but I'm pulling from the bottom pin on a power rack, a couple inches below my knees. With my height (6' 2") and long legs I feel the carry over to pulling from the floor is very good as long as the rack pull is from below my knees. It was an unfamiliar start position, and the bar didn't flex resting on pins the way it normally does with the plates on the ground, so it took me a couple tries to find my groove, but then the weight went up relatively easy.

March 16th, 2012 - 495 lb Zercher From Pins:

Hit a PR on Zercher Squats this day. It was oddly similar to my last relationship: hurt like hell and not quite as fulfilling as I thought it'd be. In all seriousness you do get a little more used to the pain of holding the bar like this with practice. I find the discomfort makes me pull harder and more aggressively. It's my go to lift when I'm pissed off and need to let it out on the iron. To me, this lift feels like a mix between a deficit deadlift and a front squat, and I find it a valuable exercise with good carry over to other similar more conventional lifts.

March 13th, 2012 - 545 lb Deadlift:

This was my 2nd time pulling since back injury January 20th. My lower back strength is slowly getting better. Body weight is in the low 190's here.

March 9th, 2012 - 495 lbs x2 Deadlift:

This was my first time deadlifting in almost two months after tearing the myofacial fiber in a lower back muscle. I was actually a little scared even though I felt fully recovered. I ended up not pushing it past 495 lbs, but it felt easy for a double and I definitely felt I could do more.

March 6th, 2012 - 495 lb Back Squat (a couple inches high): 

After failing with this weight 2 days before, I figured I'd give this 495 lb squat PR another try. Ended up doing it, and pretty easily, but very sloppy and a bit high. I've been trying to save my svelte narrow hips by squatting a little more narrow but my leverages work much better with a wider stance like this. This was pretty much the extent of my workout, with maybe 50 or 60 pullups throughout my squat warm ups and sets to stretch my back and get a little upper body work in. I'm weighing about 192 lbs here.

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February 17th. 2012 - Testing My Back With Squat Partials:
4 weeks after tearing the myofacial tissue in my lumbar lower back, my trusted chiropractor gave me the go ahead to start working up to some heavier weights again. He said "slowly start working up in weight and see how I feel;" I heard "do a quick warm up and see if I'm invisible again yet"...

My next post will be a little more detail about my history of training and where I started, and then I'll start going through the list of training and diet topics I have. 

The Boring Introduction

My name is Jonathan, and this blog is about all things wonderful in life: mainly me, lifting, and Blueberry Morning cereal.

Or maybe I'll just write about the things that people ask me about or things that I wish I had known about sooner, and hopefully it'll be useful to some people. I also plan on using this forum to log my strength training and progress towards fitness and powerlifting goals. And seriously, Blueberry Morning cereal is incredible.

I've spent a lot of time lately answering questions from friends and acquaintances on my diet and strength training. I love sharing the things I've learned through trial and a shit load of errors. I'd like for this blog to become a resource for people that want to know my training and diet methods and a forum to share my thoughts with friends and like minded individuals. My physical training is an ever evolving system, and it allows fine tuning for individuals, which is important because while the majority of my core tenets I believe apply to everyone, some things need to be individualized to your specific goals and genetic make up, and I will try to keep that distinction clear.

I'm completely contrarian by nature. It's not that I need to be an individual so much as I'm not satisfied with average, and neither should you. I'm constantly curious, ever doubtful, and devoted to improving myself on all levels including physically. The direction of my physical efforts is to become as strong as possible and look damn good while I'm dong it. I could say I want to be the best I can be, and there's some truth in that overused phrase, but that's a crappy goal ... I want to be the best ever at whatever I devote my time and energy to. We all have limitations, but those limitations are rarely fixed, and I enjoy moving them. It is entirely possible; I've seen countless examples in my own life.

A common look for me: with a mouthful of good eats

If there's a core manifesto to this blog, it's to log my journey in strength training as it evolves more and more into a livable and healthy system of extreme hard-core training. The results I continue to see are continuous muscle mass increases and increasing strength levels, along with body fat levels that never leave the single digits. I'm not happy unless I can go to the beach, look like a Greek god, and pick up at least four massively obese chicks while I'm there ... I mean literally pick them up. With my current deadlift numbers I figure I'm good for 2 or 3 right now; maybe I'd have to do some physical training and dieting with the 3rd one to get her down in weight a little. 

Picking up girls for Strongmen: Derek Poundstone

Now the important part: the answer to every difficult question you've ever had. This is a big secret, and I picked it up from picking the minds of world class athletes like Derek Poundstone and a who's who list of record holding powerlifter's and strongmen. Drum-roll ... write this down:

Work harder and longer!

It's four words but don't underestimate their power. You'll see as I continue posting that most of the details of my somewhat contrarian training methods fall back on this core tenet. Forget everything you've learned about training; this is the answer. No exceptions. It is the definition of success. It is difficult some times, but incredibly effective. Follow this mantra and I guarantee you will be a better person for it. 

Here's another quick one-liner of advice that could save you a lot of wasted time in reaching your goals. This is a fact; there are no holes in it. It is completely indisputable. Again don't underestimate the simplicity of this:

You can't out train a shitty diet!

If you think about those two things in the context of your physical goals, you'll see it really narrows down your choices for executing a path to where you want to be. 

My next couple blogs will be all about little ol' slightly narcissistic me. I want to get out of the way my current personal records in the gym with some video from the last few months in my major lifts and a quick overview of my most recent training program and diet. I also just really want an excuse to post a bunch of half naked photos of myself to show where my body fat and muscularity is at right now... of course solely for record keeping purposes. I'll also post a photo timeline of sorts of the past 10 years so you can get an idea of where I started from.

From there we'll get into the science and anecdotal evidence behind how I train and how you can adapt it to yourself, along with continued updates on how my training is progressing following a program built around those tenets.

Souces:

• Me and my lifetime of having to learn everything the hard way
• "The harder I work the luckier I get" is a quote from Samuel Goldwyn and a favorite of Dennis Leary