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.