Real Life Fitness – Getting Fit With Brent

If you follow P90X’s plan, you know you’ll eat 20% of your calories in fat (either 360, 480, or 600 calories a day).  Of course, you’ll eat the rest in lean proteins (i.e. low fat meats) or carbs/grains.

Which is counter-productive to the Primal Blueprint diet.

Instead of a 50/30/20 protein/carb/fat ration, I’m aiming for something that looks like 50/35/15 fat/protein/carb ratio.

And ideally, I’d rather be 55/30/15.

So in calculating what I’ve been doing while doing P90X, I’ve learned that I’m a bit low on carbs (need to be around 70-80g more often), okay on protein, and okay on fat.

Except there is one problem:  I’m not eating enough!  When I add things up, if I get to 1800 calories a day, I’m having a good day.  Now, I”m only eating 3 times a day.  I eat when I’m hungry, and eat until I’m full.  But now I’m wondering if I need to eat more often, maybe a nighttime snack (I get full at supper, but feel a bit hungry before bed sometimes).

For instance, tonight I had a pork chop, good amount of veggies, and some sweet potato/bacon hash (yes, the potato was cooked in bacon grease).  I was full after I ate.  Nearly 2 hours later, I’m almost feeling hungry.  I’m drinking water to see if it just thirst.

Right now I feel great with my exercise and my energy during the day.  I’m rarely tired after I wake up.  I only get tired around bedtime.  So energy isn’t the issue.

I measure on Saturday.  Depending on what I measure, I will probably increase my eating (i.e. my fat and protein) for the next 2 weeks.  And see what happens.  I’m going to gun for carbs in then 70-80g range (I see lots of tubers in my future).

And lets see what happens.

Brent P90X P90X, paleo, primal eating

P90X Plyo was a challenge today.

Yesterday was a two workout day (Chest and Back in the morning, and the PT in the afternoon).  To compound things, I got to bed late last night.  I had a cramp in my leg overnight which woke me up.  And then, I woke up ahead of my alarm clock.

Yeah, I know….woe is me.  It was just a rough night after a fairly tough day exercise wise.

So when I got into P90X Plyo X today, I was a bit (understatement) tired.  A lo w carb diet, not great sleep, etc, just makes it a bit harder.  It was a challenge from the start.  But I completed the main workout (skipped the bonus workout due to running behind), and felt exhausted by the time all was said and done.

Based on the cramp in the leg, I’m drinking more water tonight and, if I have more, will take in part of a banana tomorrow just to get the extra potassium in me to help with them.  I’ve had them fairly regularly over the last few weeks.

Today’s meals:

Breakfast – Shakeology + 2 eggs scrambled

Lunch – Chili and veggies

Supper – Fajitas on lettuce

My goal for the rest of the month is to cut down on dairy.  I’ll leave butter in as a cooking fat (and maybe some in a sweet potato), but going to cut out most of the cheese and use heavy cream as a occasional indulgence with my food.

P90X Shoulders and Arms tomorrow.  Hopefully this left bicep tendon doesn’t act up!

Brent P90X, Primal/Paleo Eating P90X, p90x plyo, paleo, paleo diet, primal diet

Short post tonight.  I’ve had a productive (but busy) night working with people on their goals for fitness, weight loss, building a business, etc, so I’m behind in my normal activities.

Today, I increased carbs.  Only to around 108g total.  Tomorrow, though, is a long day for me.  P90X Legs and Back and then PT in the afternoon.  I knew I would need more leading into tomorrow, and I know I’ll need more tomorrow to recover, so expecting another high carb day (I see a sweet potato in my future).

Today my eating was still spot on as far as what I wanted to accomplish.  I’m finding it easy to avoid the grains, but I’ll admit that when I saw an almond bark covered pretzel, I kinda missed the taste.  But, focused!  I skipped it.  Did Ab Ripper X in the morning (got through more reps), physical therapy in the afternoon.

Meals today:

Breakfast – Shakeology with coconut milk, almond butter, and a banana.  By the way, this kept me full for a full 3.5 hours.  Very impressive for only 480 calories.

Lunch:  Big salad.  3-4 cups romaine, a whole tomato (on the vine variety), half a cucumber, some scallions, around 8oz or so of pot roast left over from earlier this week, some of the veggies left over from last night, and my homemade salad dressing.

Snack:  Apple with almond butter.

Supper – Chili with some cheese and just a few pork rinds (not nearly as many).

So on track still.  Check in tomorrow and make sure I don’t pass out during the two workouts!

Brent P90X, Primal/Paleo Eating P90X, p90x ab ripper x, paleo, primal

This is hard to see, but this is my freezer.  It is packed full of meats:  Ground beef, steak, pork chops, chicken, and bacon!

This is just one part of my Primal eating strategy that I started talking about a while back.  If you have not had a chance to review what Primal eating is, I encourage you to check out The Primal Blueprint and Mark Sisson’s website.

This is a medium amount of meat.  My goal is that between this, Shakeology, eggs, veggies, fruit, and some whey protein, I have about 2 months of consistently Primal food intake.

So with all the food in place, now I had to think about what I was going to do for exercise.  I’m still doing quite a bit of physical therapy, but the sessions there are starting to resemble workouts and not just therapy.  The shoulders are getting stronger and impinging less, but I’m not quite released to do a full round of P90X or what I really wanted to do first, P90X2.

But, this presents an interesting scenario:

Part of Mark’s Primal Philosophy is that exercise should be fairly moderate overall:  3 days of lifting (P90X has it), 1 day of sprinting (can you say Plyo?), a few days of moving around or just resting.  The issue you can run into with P90X is the intensity and length of the exercises could cause you to deplete glycogen, forcing you to have to take in more carbs such as yams or sweet potatoes.  My goal is to stay under the 100g/day for the first 2-3 months and train my body to care more about burning fat than carbs, so I do not want to force my body into needing more than necessary.

But, with the use of PT in my P90X routine, I should only get close to depleting glycogen on Plyo days.  And that can be combated via a little pre-workout nutrition (half a banana, for instance).

So the plan is this:  P90X with the upper body days (Chest and Back, Shoulders and Arms, Chest Shoulders and Tri’s, and Back and Biceps) to be subbed in for the sessions with the therapist.  I will still do Legs and Back separate with the knowledge that all pull-ups will be done using an assist and will not be through the full range of motion at first.  The goal there will be to just engage the lats enough to cause muscle growth, but not torque the shoulders.

I’ll still follow the recovery week protocol, and will still do Yoga (I’ve learned to modify the vinyasas to not bother the shoulders too much).

The idea is that as soon as the therapist releases me, jump in to whatever week I’m on with the normal routine.  If it is week 6, jump in to CST, B&B, etc.

And really, P90X is a great Primal exercise routine and can be modified down to not deplete glycogen (hence the need for the recovery drink, but at 32g of carbs, in a weight loss phase that is just way too much for me).

So that’s the plan for now:  Eat lots of flavorful meals, do a modified P90X, act like Grok.  And enjoy life!

Got questions about incorporating Primal eating into your exercise plan?  Drop a comment here!

Brent P90X, Primal/Paleo Eating P90X, p90x2, paleo, primal blueprint, primal eating

6 weeks into rehab, here’s the latest:

First, the shoulders are getting stronger and with a greater range of motion.  That’s good.

But torque or load still bothers them.  That’s not so good.

Yesterday I had a 6 week follow-up with my orthopedic.  Described the progress, described the struggles, and we opted for two cortisone injections, one in each shoulder.  My hope is that in 2 days the soreness will decrease and I’ll get a first good feel for how the shoulders will react under torque.  I still have work to be done with the therapist, and the doctor still it not ruling out a labrum tear in the right shoulder, but things are progressing.

Right now, I’ve tested torque rotations on both shoulders and still have a small twinge of discomfort, but nothing near what it was.  I’m going to be discussing this with the therapist and see if we can be more aggressive in strengthening and working against the impingement.

That’s the good news shoulder wise.

My exercise has been a bit hit and miss while I search for the right combination of things to hold my interest.  I’m purposely limiting my upper body work, which pretty much leaves core, legs, and cardio.  Well, I’m not a big cardio junkie, and legs days are never my favorite, but I think I’m finding a good mixture, which I hope to start all out beginning next week (finishing out the testing/schedule this week).

In 2012, I’m making a major change to my diet.

This year, I worked my butt off (literally) and made great progress but never could get over the hump of where I wanted to be.  The only thing I allowed was cheat meals.  These usually consisted of burgers.

But I never could really cut the fat I wanted.  I never felt I was doing anything to my potential.

I have several friends on Facebook that have been doing the Paleo/Primal eating plan as well as some local peeps I know doing it as well.  The overwhelming thing I’ve heard from them is how awesome they feel eating like this.  Plus many of them are getting fairly lean.

So in 2012, I’m doing a budget friendly version of The Primal Blueprint (I’ll explain more about what I mean by “budget friendly below).

But here is what appeals to me about the plan:

1.  No grains, glutens, reduced carb consumption.  I admit that I hated the way I felt on the P90X Fat Shredder plan and could only do it over a small period of time.  But, with that plan, my other main source of  energy (fats) were limited as well.  This lead to long periods of time of being sluggish, but rapid fat loss.  But, I’ve learned as far as taste, I can do without starches.

2.  More meat choices.  To piggy back on point #1, again the P90X plan called for low fat proteins, low fat overall (20% of your calories should come from fat).  But what you learn is that flavor comes from three sources:  Sugars, fats, and spices.  Sugars are limited, fats were limited, and you’re forced to use spices to get any flavor.  With the Primal Blueprint, I get to open up my meat selection, which I’m rather excited about.

3.  More fat.  Yes, I said it.  I can devour something other than chicken regularly.  Bacon anyone?

My goal is as I get things going in 2012 to slowly get more and more in line with the true Primal eating (i.e. grass fed meats, etc), but right now it simply will not happen.  I’d have to buy a large purchase of beef to do this and be affordable, and need freezer space, so will be saving up for this.

So I will be buying a purchase of meat in bulk from one of my favorite local places for meat while I get the deep freeze in place.  This will include a lot of different meats/cuts from different animals.  Then it is saving back for a deep freezer big enough to hold half a cow, some pigs, whole chickens, etc.

We also plan to grow veggies this year.  I plan on going a lot, actually.  I hate to take up a chunk of my backyard with gardens, but at the same time, we spend a lot on veggies during the summer.  I’d personally like to grow squash, tomato, bell pepper, cucumber, maybe some peppers, maybe some onions. and maybe some other things (yet to be determined).

Doing this will limit how much we have to purchase at each trip to the grocery store.  Plus we’ll always have food on hand.

My big goal is to really get into the diet, experiment with cooking what we would consider less than healthy eats (i.e. desserts, paleo style), and then add in P90x/P90X2/Insanity/Asylum/Crossfit into my workouts and fine tune my body into performance mode.

Yes, there will be times when I increase my carb load.  If I am going to do a tennis tournament, I’ll take in more potatoes or wild rice before the weekend.

I’ll also be using BCAA’s to help through the workouts, especially initially while my body makes the metabolic conversion from carbs to fats.  I’ll supplement the best I can.

Brent Nutrition And Diet, P90X2, Primal/Paleo Eating crossfit, P90X, p90x2, paleo, primal