Cleaning House

I'm lactose- and gluten-intolerant.  Does this mean I avoid foods with these ingredients?  Sadly, no.  And my GI system has been paying the price.

Also, in my quest for ever-dropping body fat levels, I think my BF loss is also paying the price by slowing to a halt.  I feel sorry for my roommates as well ... eating as much dairy as I've been consuming recently certainly doesn't produce the greatest smells...

So, now that I've gotten my feet on the ground training-wise with this whole bodybuilding bit, I feel it is time to start locking-in my nutrition and cleaning it up a bit.  I'm not one for making too drastic of changes, so I have no plans of eating nothing but oats and chicken breasts for the rest of my life, but I do think I need to re-exorcise the dairy and gluten from my diet.  Quite frankly, I won't miss it after the first few days.  The bloating and farting is not pleasant.  Time for a change.  I'd also like to start getting really cut and these two food allergens are notorious for getting in the way.  They are addictive and inflammatory and provide no real tangible benefits.  I can get my calcium from broccoli, thank you very much.

I'm a big proponent of Martin Berkhan's LeanGains approach to Intermittent Fasting, http://www.leangains.com/, so I plan to continue fasting through the morning hours.  It is quite enjoyable and only enhances my workouts because I feel so light and ready-to-go.

I just bought frozen strawberries and some pea protein (no clue how good this is/how it tastes, hopefully the berries will mask any bad flavor) for my protein smoothies post-workout.  I'll basically eat lots of chicken (which I LOVE, thanks Mom ...I've eaten chicken every night since I was 2 ... slight exaggeration, but not by much) in the form of whole rotisserie-style and breasts (we have like 10lbs of frozen breasts that no one ever eats), Proats (protein-oats), sweet potatoes, berry smoothies, eggs and bacon, and probably some apples.  I also love chicken wings and cobb salads so I'll probably splurge on these every once in a while; I'll just cut out the bleu cheese (sadly).

So here's roughly what a normal day for me looks like, using IF'ing.

Fast through the morning (cup of coffee is very enjoyable and does wonders for energy during the fast ... you don't get hungry btw) sometimes I'll do a short workout in the morning ...  HIIT or light sprints or walking
- Around 1 or 2 pm, eat a salad, chicken, or some proats
- Pre-workout BCAAs
- Lift
- Post-workout, 50-75g protein with berries to taste, blended as a smoothie with water
- Dinner (soon after the smoothie ... I generally get pretty hungry within an hour of lifting), whole chicken, or several breasts with marinara or salsa, a sweet potato, and maybe another smoothie, some fruit, or chocolate proats for dessert. I try to shoot for around 150-200g of protein in my dinner.
Drink lots of water, maybe an evening coffee or diet soda.  Let the food settle in your stomach and fill you up.


Generally I aim to fast for at least 16 hours, but I like to push it, sometimes going up to 24 hours when I'm feeling saucy.  It really isn't that difficult after you get used to it.  And you maintain muscle really well while simultaneously shedding fat, but you have to make sure you eat hearty and healthy post-workout or you may run into a different scenario.