Today during Taiji class my Shifu, Grandmaster Shi Deru, talked about health and why we do what we do. He regularly sees people who are sick recover and get well again naturally. This is a huge topic of interest to me as it is the direction my personal training as well as the focus of my business has taken in the past year or so.
The founding fathers of Physical Culture-like George Hackenschmidt-knew the importance of developing the mind as well as the body.
I've always found it interesting that the fitness industry has become so far removed from health. It has become all about cosmetics, drugs, pills-look good at any cost. Unfortunately, in the fitness industry (I refuse to call it the health and fitness industry until things change) those who often look the healthiest are in fact very unhealthy. I fell victim to this myself. Supplements, pills, anabolics, fat burners, you name it; I tried it all in the name of (health) and fitness.
Then I had a realization. We have everything we need to be fit AND healthy. If we are not producing something, if we are getting sick, if we are not recovering-it does not mean we need to take a pill, potion or powder. It means we need to fix something within ourselves. I believe for most people this means developing the mind as well as the body. This is not just an eastern concept-it's a theme that is quite obvious in George Hackenschmidt's excellent book "The Way to Live in Health and Physical Fitness".
Shifu's comments about health today led me to ask him a question about why he thought that people who eat well and exercise still get sick. His answer was very simple but incredibly brilliant and insightful. He said they fail to do the internal work, to develop their minds. They succumb to negative energy and negative thoughts that ultimately manifest in unhealthy ways in the body.
Make no mistake, pumping your body full of chemicals and non-natural substances in an effort to "get fit" will result in anything but. Sure, you might look like Hercules for a little while, but there will be a price to pay for chemical and physical abuse. Many will argue this, and I would have to as little as a couple years ago.
Shifu told me we need to bring the mind back into training and focus on internal development as well as external development. Working hard is good. Training hard is good. However we cannot neglect the development of our mind. Strong healthy minds and positive thoughts will produce good energy and strong health bodies.
Meditation is one way to strengthen the mind, but don't let it end in the lotus position. Meditate in everything you do. Why is this important? When you meditate, when you truly quiet your monkey mind, when your mind becomes blank and allows thoughts to pass without attachment, you are now present. You embody your true nature which is pure being. Why not be present in all you do?
Shifu teaching us about the importance of mediation.
Think about how much of your time-your life-is lost to regretting past events and fearing future events. When your mind is living in the past and future it is preventing your from being here, in the now. And guess what? Now is all there is. The past is nothing more than a previous series of now moments and the future is a series of now moments that have yet to occur-so why let them rule you?
Instead, try to be present in everything you do-whether it is sport, exercise, study, driving, talking with friends and family, etc. Be present and give the present moment your full attention. I believe this is why people become addicted to adventure sports such as rock climbing-it's hard to be terrorized by the past or worry about the future when you are hanging off the side of a cliff by your fingers and toes!
When we bring our mind into training, we encourage internal development in addition to external physical development. If we truly want to be fit AND healthy we must connect the mind and the body.
I believe when good health is achieved, and all aspects of physical and mental development are in line, our potential is limitless!
"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." -Lao Tzu
I had my annual physical yesterday and am incredibly happy with the results. I had a full work up done and everything checked out in the ideal range except for random glucose - that was still within acceptable limits but not ideal, so no worries - and this is the first time it's all been this good. This is a concern as there is type 2 diabetes in my family history. I just need to tighten back up on my use of raw sugar and the occasional junk that has made it's way back into my diet, and focus more on lower glycemic fruits.
In the past when I was weighing 220-230 my BP and lipid profiles were always a concern and not in good ranges - this was my main health concern for switching from a cannibal diet to a predominately vegetarian plan and it's worked very well based on yesterday's results.
As a Cannibal:
BW-220-230 lbs
blood pressure - usually around 125/85 when it was "good" to 135/90 when it wasn't "good"
total cholesterol - 220 mg/dL
HDL - 41 mg/dL
LDL - 130 mg/dL
triglycerides - best was usually 135 mg/dL worst was just over 300 mg/dL
As a Pescatarian:
BW-178-182 lbs
blood pressure - worst was 112/72 best was 102/67
total cholesterol - 151 mg/dL
HDL - 43 mg/dL
LDL - 95 mg/dL
triglycerides - 65 mg/dL
To say I'm thrilled with the results is an understatement! My goal now is to continue to improve these levels and continue getting healthier. Screw aging gracefully, I'm kicking ass the entire way to my next lifetime!
So that's it. One month on the raw plan. I'll try to keep this a short wrap up as I'm sure you guys are sick of reading about food.
Progress
At the start of this month I was at 190 lbs and down from 220 when I started a mostly raw diet at the end of September 2011 - I haven't been south of 180 lbs since 2000.
As you probably read in my last blog post the most dramatic drop is in my bodyweight. The cool thing is that I've actually cut back on my training volume and intensity - this proves that if you want to lose weight it is mostly about nutrition, not training. The old saying "you can't outrun a doughnut" is definitely applicable.
My body-composition has changed for the better, I'm much leaner with better definition. My energy during training is outstanding and my focus and mental clarity (particularly during taiji class and practice) is great.
My joints feel really good, even after periods of heavier training.
My eyes are very clear and my skin is good - no cracking or drying - I attribute this mainly to the good fats in avocados, flax seeds / meal and flax oil -- but I could be wrong, sounds good anyway!
Planning
It's true!
The raw foods diet was very easy for me to follow. Probably because I've been eating predominately raw vegan foods since end of September 2011 this wasn't a very dramatic change, I could see how it'd be tough to jump in 100% if you don't eat that well right now.
Here's what I recommend if you want to give this a try:
start small, begin with one meal a day and a snack or two 100% raw and transition over time
no matter what make sure the bulk of your raw diet is 80% or better fresh veggies and fruits with some nuts and seeds -- do NOT rely 100% on dehydrated foods and "transition" foods - use these as a treat or variety occasionally
most dehydrated and transition food recipes call for a lot of nuts, dense calories still add up!
drink a lot of water
incorporate juicing - don't give me that crap about juices not being whole foods, yes, I know. What juicing allows you to do is extract the micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, etc. from a TON of veggies and fruits to get s super boost of healthy nutrients. Much easier than eating 10lbs of veggies and fruit in one sitting.
incorporate blended green smoothies - blended your greens allows you to ensure that you unlock all the chlorophyll out of the greens and extract as much nutrition as possible, plus the blended drinks utilize whole food nutrition, so you're getting the fiber and bulk from the fruits and veggies. If you have the time to graze all day and properly chew your food like a cow or horse, skip the blended drinks. I also recommend a Vitamix or Blendtec - they are worth the cash.
raw vegan eating will assist in detoxification - however if you want to go deeper explore juice fasting - I highly recommend looking at www.juicefeasting.com they are a GREAT resource and have info on healthy fasting for up to 90 days. This has been a very effective approach ion helping people recover from major diseases - it's worth your time to educate yourself at the very least.
there's nothing wrong with going 80-90% raw - you'll still reap many of the benefits and it will make things like travel and eating out much easier - this is essentially my maintenance plan except when I detox or fast annually from now on.
at the bare minimum - try to get at least 50-60% of your daily nutrition from raw fruits and veggies - i.e. living food. Want to make it easy? Eat one meal a day 100% raw, the rest of your meals aim to make 50% of the meal raw. Simple.
don't neglect your fiber.
a good blender and a good juicer make this stuff really easy.
I could go on and on so if you have specific questions about my experience post a question or email me directly at sshetler613@gmail.com.
Where do I go now
Now that the month is up I'm going to stay mostly raw, my goal was 80-90% for the end of this. I never planned on staying 100% vegan, as I will most likely eat some eggs and a little fish or cheese occasionally; but over time I see me getting closer and closer to pure vegan nutrition - but for only doing this a little over a year now (April 2011 is when I stopped eating meat and fowl) I've made some huge improvements in my overall health and fitness.
Mainly I'm looking at getting my training dialed in and building my strength back while maintaining a lighter body-weight right around the 180 I'm at now.
Thanks for following this month long experiment! I hope it inspired you to take a look at your nutrition and maybe make some changes for the better!
As I write this blog it's Day 22 of my Raw for 30 Days birthday plan. So far it's been an outstanding experience! This morning my body-weight was at 180 lbs. I haven't seen 180 lbs since 2002, and I'm definitely a lot leaner and carrying more muscle than I did back then, so at least something good came from being a fat and bloated 220 lbs for all those years.
#1 question I've been asked for the past 22 days - Where do you get your protein? If I had a dollar for every time, I'd have a Bugatti by now...
Despite the lack of "direct" protein consumption I have not atrophied, gotten sick, become "skinny fat", or spontaneously combusted. Yet.
If anything my body composition is changing for the positive, I'm leaning up, getting tighter and definition is improving and the cool thing is I train less than I did before. I still put effort into the workouts, but I have cut my training time down tremendously. Plus my recovery is better and overall I feel a lot better.
This cracked me up! It's funny, this is the type of crap I always used to say about vegetarians and vegans - now I'm on the receiving end. Karma I guess. Oh well - you can't argue results!
Where do I go from here?
With one more week left on my 30 day experiment I've been thinking about this quite a bit. Will I stay 100% raw vegan? Nope. That was never my intention. My goal was to improve from the 70-80% raw vegan plan I was following since September of last year. I wanted to go the 30 days for a couple of reasons, one to prove to myself I could do it since one of the biggest obstacles I see with my clients is motivation and discipline to change their nutrition habits.
Look, I'm just as busy as everyone else. I work 6 days a week, run my own business and do all the domestic stuff everyone else does. I still have time to eat healthy and workout.
I'm sick of hearing excuses from people. You are responsible for what you put into your mouth and it takes the same amount of effort to put a handful of goji berries into your mouth as it does a handful of M&Ms. More people need to take ownership of their lives and stop making excuses.
In addition my goal was to use this 30 days to detox and cleanse a bit as well as tighten up my nutrition so that I can maintain an 80-90% raw vegan plan with only 10-20% coming from cooked vegetarian foods. Basically I will continue to follow what I'm doing now with 1-2 servings of cooked food a day. However there will probably be 2 or 3 days a week that are 100% raw and I will continue to do 100% raw periods as well as periods of juice fasting throughout the year to detoxify and maintain the improved health I am experiencing now.
One reason is personal, I want to be healthy and have a very high quality of life through my twilight years and when it's time for me to trade this body in I want to make that transition as strong and healthy (mentally, physically and spiritually) as possible.
I also need to be a role model for my clients. How can people take health, weight loss, and training advice from someone who doesn't embody what they teach? One of my top rules "Don't be the fat trainer selling a fat loss program, DVD or book!"
As a side note - I recently read Dr. Gabriel Cousens' book and watched his DVD on reversing diabetes naturally, due to the fact I have relatives who are diabetics as well as knowing many people who suffer from this horrible disease. It was incredibly informative and enlightening, then my friend Antony posted a link about Dr. Cousens recently on Facebook which reminded me about this - his approach to treating diabetics and getting both Type 2's and 1's OFF insulin and medications is a raw food nutrition plan. Here's a great video intro of his program:
And here's a link to the preview for Dr. Cousens' video I purchased my father:
I'm looking forward to seeing what the last week has in store! Also, last year for my birthday 6/13/11, I conducted a personal fitness test. I repeated the test for my birthday this year and will be posting my 1-year comparisons in the upcoming week.
After two weeks of raw vegan eating I feel like I'm in the groove with it. This is good and bad. It's good from the standpoint that I can pretty much find the right kinds of foods no matter if we are going out to eat or staying home. It's bad because I can see how falling into the trap of eating the same limited menu over and over would become easy. However this was a problem before I switched to vegetarian nutrition as well.
Preparation is simple - that's one of the things I love about eating this way, nothing to cook! The foods that take the longest are things that I have to prepare in the dehydrator, but even with that it's like 10:00 of prep time to get it ready to dehydrate.
The dehydrator has really opened up some great new options for raw foods, my favorites so far have been the raw sweet bread and flax seed crackers. In addition I've made some guacamole and some awesome raw hummus to eat with them.
Guacamole!
Raw Flax Crackers!
Raw Hummus - a MUST with the Flax Crackers!
Since this was my birthday week, I loaded up on some raw desserts - raw cheesecake (macadamia nuts, sea salt and dates for the crust and cashews, honey, lemon juice, coconut oil and vanilla for the filling) and some raw chocolate (raw cacao, honey and coconut oil).
Raw Cheesecake!
Raw Chocolate! Happy Birthday to ME!
For my birthday dinner we went to R Thomas Deluxe Grill in Atlanta for dinner. R Thomas has a very healthy, diverse menu with tons of vegetarian and vegan meals and for the resident cannibals they use only free-range hormone-free meats. They have a great selection of smoothies and juices as well. I got a raw vegan entree that had flax chips, sweet potato chips, a mixed veggie salad, mixed veggies, hummus and a couple other raw spreads. I also had a green smoothie and raw apple pie for dessert. Lisa had a raw vegan entree with a veggie / fruit juice. The meal was amazing and if you are in Atlanta check out R Thomas-great food!
Birthday Dinner at R Thomas Deluxe Grill in the ATL!
As I wrap up week two I have to say the experience thus far has been great. I feel better, I recover faster after workouts, my energy is great, my body composition is changing rapidly, I'm much leaner and tighter and my weight is down to 181.5 lbs as of today (190 lbs when I weighed in on June 1).
Scary but this is probably closer to the truth than we'd like to admit!
Even though I only have two weeks of my 30 days raw plan left, I am definitely going to keep up 80-90% of my daily nutrition as raw vegan, and most likely a lot of days will be 100% raw.
I'd have to concur with legendary turn of the century strongman, George "the Russian Lion" Hackenschmidt, who in his book "The Way to Live in Health and Physical Fitness" said, "I believe I am right in asserting that our Creator has provided food and nutriment for every being for its own advantage. Man is born without frying-pan or stew-pot. The purest natural food for human beings would, therefore, be fresh, uncooked food and nuts."
Alright - today was a big day. Aside from being 12 days away from my birthday, and today being the day we pulled the trigger on a sweet new business venture, I finished my 6th 4-week strength training cycle and had PRs in all lifts and today is day 1 of my Raw for 30 Days to ring in my 37th year on this planet!
The Strength Stuff
The ECF Gym - Atlanta, GA
Basically my strength has gone down the crapper since losing 30-40 pounds last September. Truth be told I don't care about competitions anymore. All I want now is to rebuild my strength while maintaining good levels of conditioning, flexibility and mobility. My main focus lately has been on my practice of internal martial arts. However, I do love lifting weights so I wanted a good, simple strength program to rebuild the strength I'd lost due to such rapid weight loss.
I decided to follow Jim Wendler's now legendary 5/3/1 supplemented with some kettlebell work and have made good, slow, steady progress.
When I weighed a sloppy 220-225 my best lifts were a 350 squat, 255 bench, 375 deadlift and a 135 overhead press. I had considerably better lifts in powerlifting competition with the use of powerlifting gear (squat suit and bench shirt) but that isn't important. Right now just basic, raw strength development is my goal. I may or may not compete again. Meets are a blast-but it's so far off my radar of interests right now I don't even care to think about it.
Last September I made a huge nutritional change and began eating about 80% raw vegan and about 20% cooked vegetarian or pescatarian food. Basically 80% raw fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds with about 20% beans, eggs, fish and a little bit of rice and sprouted breads. This resulted in a 40 lb drop in weight in about 3 months from 220-225 to 180-185. With this drop in weight came the equivalent drop in strength. I decided that since I was going to continue eating mostly raw vegan (I'm actually gravitating towards >80% - more on that in a second) that I wanted to do the impossible and rebuild my strength even though my weight is decreasing.
So I set the initial goal of regaining the numbers I had at 220-225. On 12/23/11 & 12/24/11 I tested my gym lifts and hit the following: squat x 245, bench x 185, deadlift x 275, overhead press x 115, and bodyweight was 186 lbs. Yes these numbers sucked and I know many women who warm up with these weights but honestly I don't care. With how good and healthy my body feels from the reduction in fat and clean nutrition I'm fine with it.
The following week, using these numbers as my baseline I began Wendler's 5/3/1.
This week marked the end of my 6th 4-week cycle (I did the program as laid out, 4 days per week, 3s in week 1, 5s in week 2, 5/3/1 in week 3 and deload in week 4-and didn't alter anything). My results this week were bodyweight at 184 lbs, squat x 275 x 1 rep (30 lb increase), bench x 205 x 1 rep (20 lb increase), deadlift x 315 x 1 rep (40 lb increase) and overhead press x 120 x 2 reps (only 5 lbs over my initial max but this was for a double not a single, so it's definitely an improvement).
While these numbers are nothing spectacular, it is improvement. The program is great, it's flexible and doesn't require a ton of time in the gym-it's perfect for me considering most of my interests are outside of the gym and the gym and training / coaching people is my business which consumes a considerable amount of my time.
Day 1 of 100% Raw Vegan
Breakfast
Alright, 30 days is underway! Today was great, it wasn't much of a challenge as I had been eating this way most of the time anyway, but today starts 100% total immersion in raw vegan eating! I just finished my last meal for the day as I type this and I feel great. Energy has been great all day, despite averaging 4-5 hours sleep at night. I thought coffee would be the toughest thing to cut out, but I feel good so far.
Here's a totally awesome video of Danny Dalton, a raw vegan bodybuilder - this is what inspired me to pursue raw instead of just vegetarian nutrition. Oh, don't forget to tell this guy he needs to eat tons of meat to build muscle!
I am not going to list my daily nutrition in detail every day, but I do want to give an overview.
bodyweight - 190 lbs (okay, pigged out a bit last night! Damn sprouted grain bread and raw almond butter!)
3:30am - wheatgrass juice + 2g blue green algae and chlorella
4:00am - fresh juice: kale, spinach, celery, cucumber, carrot, apple, pear, lime & raw apple cider vinegar
7:30pm - raw oatmeal (raw oats, almond milk, 1-apple, raisons and cinnamon - made in Vitamix)
*Also drank a LOT of water throughout the day
Supplements - vitamin C, vitamin D3, chlorella, blue green algae, bee pollen / propolis, zinc, magnesium
Training - early morning - meditation, qigong, tai gong, taiji practice; mid-morning - deadlift, 45 degree back raise, sit-ups, kettlebell swings.
So that's basically it. I plan to follow a similar approach for the 30 days. I probably won't be so detailed in future blog posts but I plan to try to post daily updates or at least 4-5 a week and discuss more that I learn following the raw vegan approach as well as the effects I'm experiencing. So far, so good!
"And the times have changed my friend, I'll be here til' the bitter end, and I'm here to make my stand, with a guitar in my hand." -Social Distortion, Still Alive
