Devauld.ca

Since the New Year, my daily routine no longer involves following the herd out for lunch, and instead eating a lunch prepared at home, and read for a while during my break.

Through my internet wandering, I came across this wonderful article about Nutritionism. The author, Michael Pollan makes a great deal of excellent points about the Western Diet, and has a great deal of history of how we ended up this way. I particularly liked:

...fat doesn’t make you fat; carbs do. (Why this should have come as news is a mystery: as long as people have been raising animals for food, they have fattened them on carbs.)

I have put myself through more than my share of crazy diets. From the Anabolic Bursting through the Cycling of Diet and Excersize (ABCDE) and the 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass (You try eating 160 grams of protein a day), to the macronutrient balanced plans and the Body-for-LIFE program, I would like to say I've seen and done a lot of silly things to my diet. I even gave the old Canada Food Guide a shot (it's pretty good); although I was never stupid enough to try Atkins. A few of the programs make good sense and are very healthy for you, but Michael makes sense.

If you don't have the patience to read through his 12 page dissertation, skip ahead to page 11 where he covers his nine points to a healthier lifestyle.

The weekend was plagued with volunteer work for The Canucks Rugby Club. I spent two days sitting and counting other people's money, but I did manage to fill a majority of my obligations to the club. The best part of the adventure, was meeting the newest coach that we are going to be using for my grade of rugby. We shot the shit for a bit, and he asked me where I played. I mentioned to him that I usually filled in second row (also referred to as the Lock), loved it when I was put at flanker, and am an aspiring 8-man. He gave me a once over, and told me that if I lost a little weight, and had good fitness, that he would make me Eight!

For the first time, in a long time, I've been inspired to train like a madman. Now that Russ no longer flogs me to train, I now have the determiniation to be Eight to be my guiding light in this endevour. I'm definitely not a rookie when it comes to fitness. I've used The Body For Life plan, been on the Zone Diet for a while, tried out the Hacker's Diet, had a partner force me through the ABCDE program, I've implemented The Poliquin Prinicples and spent a good deal of time jumping around for Chu's Plyometrics. Heck, I even took all the courses to become a Certified personal trainer, but never took the test (I think I was out getting drunk at the time).

I'm going for a hybrid approach this turn around, because I'm not out to lose weight, but instead lose fat. If I can keep my weight, and take my body fat percentage (BFP) from the sloppy 21% it is at now to a more lean and lanky 10-12% then I'll be very happy. For me that means a transition of 20 pounds from fat to muscle. Already, I'm planning meals and workouts, and have started monitoring my progress.

Monday was my first stint at the gym in a long time, and I think I may have hit it too hard. On Tuesday, the boys had their first run around. I'm glad to say, that even though I pretty much slacked off for a whole year, that I'm probably above the median for fitness, which brings my Provincial Championship as an 8-man that much closer. I'll let you know how it all works out.