As one may have guessed from my post last night, and as a follow up to my Levels findings post, I have opted to go strictly limited carbs. This officially started in my mind around the 17th of October, when I logged in to MyFitnessPal and adjusted my macros to be I believe 30g or less a day.
I have actually tweaked the macros a number of times since, and am presently sitting at 20g cap for a targeted goal. If I go over that, but still stay below 30g, I’m not beating myself up. As of the time of this post, my fats setting is 117g and protein at 175g. This should aid in a deficit target of 20%. I am proud to say that I’m around 265lbs presently, which means I’ve broken that 270s plateau that I seemed to be fighting for forever.
I will not deny I’ve been perfect with this, there are some cases where I’m intently eating some things that are notably high in carbs, like I had leftover frozen peas that I just didn’t want to throw away. There’s still one bag remaining staring at me any time I open the freezer. I also have some canned corn and a can of chili in the pantry that I know will wreck those numbers.
I also have to deal with the fact that I still appreciate beer sometimes a bit too much, which can also manifest itself in liking other liquors a bit too much, but at least those are zero carb, when not doing a flavored variety. Since the 17th, I can definitely tell better how much all of it does affect everything better, as I’ve been establishing some new baseline/normal.
For the most part, I’m doing well with sticking to my overall macros.
Intermittent fasting
On top of changing the type of food I eat, I’m also changing the time frame that I eat in. I decided to go with intermittent fasting which means I intentionally do not eat anything for a set window of time, and then in my food window, I get all my macros in for the day. I decided to go with a 16:8 ratio, where I don’t eat for 16hr and then have 8hr to do so. Specifically, I go from 2pm to 10pm for when I’m eating. Also a topic I haven’t been 100% perfect on, but it’s a target goal, not a failure. If I eat something before 2pm, not the end of the world, and I can retry the next day.
The only thing I DO intentionally consume outside of my 8hrs, is what’s been named “Bulletproof coffee”, which is for me comprised of 24oz french press coffee, 1 tablespoon of MTC Oil, and 2 tablespoons of grass fed ghee butter, blended all together as best I can with a little handheld mixer. This gives me some healthy fats to satiate while I get through the morning, without breaking the fast because there’s no protein and no carbs in the mix.
Gym
I have never intentionally taken a long extended break from gym training. There’s been the occasional brief hiatus if/when I’ve been asked to bird sit for my parents at the time, but that’s no longer the case as the birds are no longer around. Those would always be a week or two max.
This year however, I am looking at a month long break from working with Ned, simply because of temporary scheduling conflicts. He has some school/family things regularly at 5pm which is when we normally train, and for a month, we’re just going to put things on pause. Now, this does not mean I’m taking a month off from the gym. Instead I am very likely going to purchase a month of classes access through Anytime Fitness, and attend a few of those a week. I used to do these style of classes with FitLife in between weight training, which gave me 5 days a week of workouts. So, a nice little change up for a bit.
Summary
Reading back through my Levels post, there are parts that I’m not doing, but that’s because instead of trying to prepare and guard for carbs, I’ve simply taken the carbs variable out. I can’t say I’m gulping down apple cider vinegar much, I’m not really minding the order of which I consume what food I do have. I am still monitoring my glucose, but have also added in a ketone meter (that I need to order more test strips for), and I definitely did increase my fats and protein macros. Also I’m sure I’d get most of my daily steps in if I wore my movement tracker during the day and captured how many times I visit the bathroom. Thanks increased water consumption!
Never did get that physical checkup scheduled yet, and still need to handle that part. I hope whoever I end up seeing understands how a keto/low carb diet works.
