Change of plans. (more food/gym stuff)

When will I ever shut up about food and gym related things? Probably never. Sculpting the perfect body is something that takes a lot of time. It is a custom job every time. Every body is different so you have to figure out what works for you. There are always exceptions to every sound rule. Sometimes the theory may be correct for most cases but, since the body is not a machine, it is possible you react different to something. You just have to figure out if you really are an exception, you're doing it wrong, if there are other factors that are influencing your results, or if you haven't taken enough time.

 

In my case it's either the exception indeed or there other factors. I'm talking about the cheat days for the Man 2.0 program. I do know I have a concentration disorder and that could be a factor. I still haven't completely figured out concentration disorders (I'm not a medical researcher alas) but I do know carbohydrates have a big influence on them. The idea of a cheat day is to boost fat burning hormones by eating loads and loads for one day, including a ton of carbohydrates. It's actually a really old trick in the book. People have been using that trick for ages. It works. For most people. Not for me though. I gained fat mass and lost muscle 2 weeks in a row. The opposite of the goal. I also felt horrible. The cheat days themselves were hell. The day after even worse. And it took me pretty much the rest of the week to recover and get my energy back. I felt dead tired and didn't have the energy to use the strength I had.
I have to admit things have been rather stressful lately with work in various ways so that could have something to do with it. A friend suggested it might be I'm spending too much time at the gym but that is not the case. I haven't been to Kung Fu in 3 weeks which makes me sad because I really miss it. I also haven't been doing any regular fitness. The program said I should do lots of reps with relatively low weight. That's the same type of training that focuses on red muscle tissue as you do during BodyPump which I teach so I have just been doing BodyPump. It felt silly to do the same training twice in a row. It doesn't give you the wanted results anyway. It actually would just damage my body. So that's not it. Stress and lack of sleep could be major contributers. Also I haven't been eating like I should. I had been keeping track of my marco's (fat, protein and carbohydrates) but had been too tired to cook and just ate the bare minimum, replacing meals with protein shakes. So I haven't been getting my vitamins and minerals. No wonder I'm not feeling too great.

 

But even without all those other things the cheat days made me feel poisoned and I'm sure my body just does not agree with such amounts of carbohydrates. I have always had trouble with my energy levels and concentration when I eat too much carbs. They make me feel tired and depressed. I'm pretty sure the cheat days aided to the miserable state I am in right now. I am never, ever doing it again. It just does not work for me. Right now my body feels polluted and drained of energy. I was supposed to have one last cheat day last Sunday but I skipped it. I did eat unhealthy but didn't keep track of what I ate and to be honest I'm not even sure if I reached my normal caloric need. I just couldn't be bothered.

 

Today I am pulling myself together again and am setting up a new food plan. I am moving on to the next phase in the Man 2.0 program and am forcing myself to cook today. I've had Indonesian spiced beef with bell peppers and a salmon salad with avocado and olives so far. I'm having some of that gluten free pasta that I still have left in the evening with chicken, tomato, mushroom sauce. I'm taking the day off from the gym as I have had very little sleep this weekend and am dead tired. There is no point in trying to lift heavy weights when I have trouble lifting my own body out of a chair. So tomorrow I will start training again. I hope I can undo the damage quickly and will be feeling fit and healthy again soon.

 

I do find it amazing how different people react to things like this. The theory is sound. It really is. It just doesn't work for me. Let's just say I'm special. I don't think it has anything to do with me being trans. This should be a universal thing. I did learn a lot. Especially the first cheat day was very insightful. But I also know I should be keeping carbs low, period. Every one needs carbs and I will not ban them completely, but I will limit them a lot more then most people. Now on to health! Time to fix dinner.

https://www.facebook.com/TylerFokker

Cheat day 2. Oh my!

Last Sunday I had my second cheat day. If you want to know why I'm doing this and how the first cheat day went, check THIS blog post.

This time I went for complex carbs as in starches. I was hoping I would feel less bad eating slow carbs and to some extend I was right. My concentration wasn't as bad as the week before. I also didn't feel so incredibly hungry all the time. Since I was aiming to eat close to 7000 calories that was actually a problem. The first time I was hungry all the time so I would continue to eat. This time I had to remind myself. I also felt full quite a lot. I absolutely love sushi but it really does make you feel full so I had to stop eating and wait for a while before I could continue. I found gluten/wheat free cookies and ate 4 packs of different types during the day. Those were relatively easy to munch away on but I really noticed they did have processed sugars in them as I would get a sharp headache after eating them. Luckily that would go away after a while again and didn't linger like it had the week before. I also didn't feel shaky. I just felt full. Really full. In the evening I made gluten free pasta with tomato sauce. I could not get it down. I really tried but I just couldn't manage it. I felt so full and was afraid that if I would force myself to eat it I would throw up. I managed some more crisps but not all of them either. In the end I ate 5,716 calories which was 1,200 calories less then the week before.

In some ways it was the total opposite of the week before. I didn't have sharp headaches. I didn't feel shaky and dizzy. I didn't feel insanely hungry. I did feel full, really full. Where my insides felt toxic the first week this time they felt sticky and filthy. My bowels were not happy at all. When I went to bed and laid down I had a hard time not throwing up. Again it took ages to fall asleep and I woke up a bunch of times. I didn't sweat as much as the week before though so that was less bad.

The day after was also different in some ways but the final result was pretty much the same: I felt horrible. In the morning I just had a dull headache which was better then the sharp one I had the week before. I managed to stop by the hospital to get some blood work done without much trouble. I felt tired and groggy but nothing I couldn't handle. But when I came home early afternoon I pretty much collapsed. I started feeling really shaky and faint and dead tired. I ended up on the sofa for 2 hours before I managed to make myself a cup of tea. And I started to feel hungry. The first time I had no trouble not eating the next day but this time I actually got worried I would fall over if I didn't eat something. In the end I gave in and had some nuts. I still had a meeting in the evening so I couldn't just go to bed. Maybe it was because I had eaten 1,200 calories less then I had aimed for. Maybe my entire system just backfired. Or maybe your body just wants you to keep on eating again the next day to get in as much carbs as possible before winter comes.

Fast sugars were somewhat worse on the day itself but less bad the day after. Slow sugars were not too bad on the day itself, though at the end it got somewhat unpleasant, but the day after was horrible. If I would have to choose which one to do again I would prefer not to at all. They were both terrible in their own ways. In reality most people combine these two types of food and I can see how that can create some sort of balance and a vicious cycle. I also felt how unhealthy it is and can cause a lot of damage in the long run. The human body is not meant to do this every day.

Next week I am going to try to do this Paleo style. I'm not sure yet how I will manage to get in enough carbs that way but I am going to try. I should probably check my friends page on facebook . She has loads of Paleo recipes for desserts and such. Like Paleo apple pie! And Paleo brownies! Now that I am looking forward to. If it doesn't contain enough carbs I'll just add a spoon of honey. I'm sure I can live with that.

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Man 2.0, engineering the Alpha.

Five weeks ago I started a program called Man 2.0, engineering the Alpha. It's an American program designed for overweight non movers (people who don't work out and walk about 5000 paces a day). The goal is to lose fat mass of course but mostly it is meant to reset your hormones. It should boost testosterone, repress estrogen and cortisol (the stress hormone) and reset your hunger hormones and fat burning hormones. All in all it should make you feel fitter, stronger, more energetic and happier. It should also make you look better. I know that I have female plumbing but I also know that there are transmen who try to become more masculine all on their own, without synthetic hormones. And some of them succeed very well. I have noticed the synthetic testosterone that I am taking is still making me nauseas. Plus, it's a nuisance to have to remember it all the time. Most of all, I prefer not to be dependent on doctors and my insurance in order to be able to be myself. Right now my meds are still covered but they are cutting back on every possible thing here in Holland and I heard rumor that the psychiatry for the screening is on the shit list. The less medication I need the better. So I decided to try this program.

The first few weeks I just felt horrible. I talked to some friends about it who know quite a bit about this sort of stuff as well and realized I had forgotten a tiny detail: I'm not a non mover. Those 5000 steps a day I already spend inside my house. I don't have a car. I ride my bike to the gym or walk. I stand many hours a day. I also teach BodyPump, do kung fu and yoga. All those things count. If I would stick to the calories the program told me to I would have only 90 calories a day for all those activities, spending the rest on my basic metabolism (this is the energy you need to not die, as in keep your heart beating, breathing, that sort of thing). No wonder I wasn't feeling well. So I started eating more and indeed my fat mass dropped and my muscle increased.

The program is divided into 4 phases, each lasting one month. I am now in phase two which includes cheat days. During a cheat day basically you just binge all day long. The reason behind this is to boost certain hormones that become too low when you are eating a bit below your maintenance need, slowing down your fat loss. Most of the time you eat low carb (sugar) but this day it's all about the carbs. Normally I eat less then 100 grams of carbs a day which really isn't a lot. But on a cheat day you take in loads and loads. There are several ways to do this. I have 3 cheat days so I decided to try 3 different methods. Cheat day 1: processed sugars. Cheat day 2: slow carbs like starches. Cheat day 3: Paleo, eating lots of fruit and such. I wonder if I will feel different on different types of carbs.

So how did cheat day 1 go? And what did I eat? Here is the list:

25 g dark chocolate: 131 cals

250 g negerzoenen: 933 cals (Officially they are called zoenen these days as they used to be called nigger kisses and that was racist so they changed it. In the US I think they are called angel kisses. In Germany Schaumküsse. At least everyone agrees on the kissing part.)

4 tompoezen: 1152 cals (see right image)

600 g huzaren salad: 1020 cals

75 g white chocolate: 406 cals

216 g nougat: 900 cals

75 g butterscotch chocolate: 490 cals

1 piece of brownie: 264 cals

100 g chocolate raisins: 388 cals

200 g Brie: 676 cals

125 g cassava crisps: 613 cals

Total calories: 6973

I had expected to feel sick but I didn't. I was really surprised. I had expected to feel full and my bowels did but my stomach didn't. I kept feeling hungry all day. Even though I did get a bit queasy I had no trouble continuing eating because I felt so hungry. I hadn't felt that hungry in ages. It was like trying to fill a bottomless pit. In the evening I had about 2000 calories left and I felt slightly panicked because I knew I would still be hungry. I've always wondered how people get obese. Now I know. When you eat loads and loads of carbs you just feel more and more hungry. It's horrible.

Other then the constant hunger I had trouble concentrating, not understanding what people said all the time and constructing sentences took a lot of effort. If I would have had to drive I surely would have caused an accident. I felt slightly spaced out and shaky all the time. This feeling continued throughout the next day. I had a hard time falling asleep, feeling restless. I woke up in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat. In the morning I felt like I had slept on a plane. My entire body felt sore and stiff. I had a sharp headache and I was dead tired. I went for a walk to get the blood flowing again and clear my head which did help to make me feel a bit better. But in the afternoon I just felt completely exhausted again and fell asleep on the sofa twice. I didn't feel as hungry as I had expected, less hungry then the day before actually, and managed without food just fine the whole day. I had plenty of fluids though. I felt sticky on the inside and really just wanted to wash it all away.

All in all it was quite a nasty experience. I felt really miserable. I hope next Sunday will be better with the starches. I do need to find some gluten free pasta though. I haven't had pasta in ages as I don't eat grains at all these days. I may be willing to make an exception for this one day but gluten is just too much. Just that, even in small amounts, will make my belly so unhappy it will be hard to tell how I feel from the starches.

One things is for sure. I am permanently cured from processed sugars. I might have a tiny bit sometimes, but just for the taste. Then again, a lot of the foods that I had been looking forward to actually tasted quite bad when I finally had them. It's pure, white and deadly alright. Once you are no longer addicted to sugar you can taste what it really is. Pure poison. Quite a wake up call.

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