Brent Worley Fitness

Anyone who knows me and my philosophy on fitness and body composition knows that I believe weight to be a “high level watermark” only and not something to pay a lot of attention to.  My opinion is that your body fat measurement is the key indicator of your health along with your measurements, in particular the waistline in males.

But, I do track my weight.  I use it to get  a quick gauge of progress.  If I stop losing, then I go to body fat and inches measurements to make sure I’m still progressing.  And I do this for one simple reason:  It takes more time (and another person) to measure my body fat and inches.

With that being said, I’ve been paying attention to my weight after this first week of primal eating and P90X.  And in the first week, I’ve dropped a tad over 9 pounds.

9 pounds!  Are you kidding me?

Of course, disclaimer:  I’m the first to realize that most of that is holiday bloat.  After all, I went on a cruise where I ate (a lot), came back to Christmas where I ate (a lot), and basically sugar binged for nearly two weeks.  By the way, I love sugary foods, which does make keeping accountable to plans like this tough(er).

But, I have noticed less bloat in my stomach.  I am going to wait until next week to measure inches and body fat, and then will measure at week 4 of P90X and take a set of one month pictures.  Well, technically day 28 pictures, but whatever…

After eating like this for just over a week now, I’ve learned a lot about eating primally:

1.  It is easier than it looks.  Giving up grains/carbs is not that difficult.

2.  Giving up sugar is harder.  In fact, I’m looking for primal diet friend recipes to satisfy the “sweet tooth” but keep me within my goals of primal eating.

3.  But even giving up sugars, I have not had any major cravings.

4.  Energy level dips at time.

5.  It is nice not counting calories, but sometimes tough keeping an eye on carbs (in particular, making sure I’m getting enough most days).

I’ve kept this plan fairly simple:  Eat when I’m hungry, don’t when I’m not.  If I get hungry and I do not have anything on hand to eat, I just do not eat and deal with the hunger (after all, would Grok have done the same?).  Only once have I felt hungry, and I simply ignored it and just drank more water.  Once the hunger has subsided, my energy level actually increased somewhat.

Now, I have also learned a few things about doing this plan with P90X, even as altered as my round is so far.

For starters, keep sweet potatoes on hand.  You’ll need them for post workout nutrition.  I usually use mine for breakfast.  It’s not that I’m trying to quickly replenish muscle glycogen, but rather just get some good carbs into me so that process can begin (even if it is slower because I’m taking in fats and protein…the body will work it all out).

Also be aware on days you need more carbs/less carbs.  If I had my choice, I’d take more carbs in on the lifting days, if I were lifting heavy.  Instead, I take in slightly more carbs on Plyo days and my Legs and Back day, since these are the hardest two workouts I’m doing as far as force and power.  I try to hit right around 100g on these days, and keep a bit above 50 on my other days.

What is my overall impression after a week?  This diet is easily maintainable while doing P90X.  If you are doing a full round, you may take your carb intake higher than mine (I suggest either sweet potatoes or Shakeology…preferably the Shake, but some Primal types want to lean towards chewable foods only).  But in a week or two, I should see a significant reduction in body fat, and I’ll post my results then.

On another note, I miss P90X Chest and Back and Shoulders and Arms routine….very much!