Fitness Safari

Today we're going to discuss various types of exercise and where each type fits into Intermittent Fasting. What you're about to read is pretty much my own opinion based on about eight years of experience with Leangains-style IF. When I first stumbled upon Leangains and began the training, it felt like I wasn't doing enough. Three to four movements each workout, sets of 5-7 reps, a whole lotta rest time...how could this possibly work? To my surprise, I found that I became freakishly strong and was smaller and lighter than I had ever been in my adult life. I think when I started IF in 2011, I weighed 128 lbs at 5'2" tall. This was not muscle, in case you were wondering, and you can go back to my early blog posts to see the photos here  and a year in pictures here . I don't have any current pics, however, because I tumbled off the wagon after life threw a heap of shit at me. It's 2019 and I'm back on the Berkhan bandwagon again. My left knee is he...

This post is a continuation of Fasting and Food, Part 1 which you can read here . CALCULATING CALORIES AND MACROS You use energy no matter what you're doing, even when sleeping. The BMR Calculator will calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day. You may have noticed that every year of your life it becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim. You've also learned that your BMR decreases as you age. Likewise, depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight may also decrease your BMR, a foil to your intentions. However, a regular routine of cardiovascular and strength exercises can increase your BMR, improving your health and fitness when your body's ability to burn energy gradually slows down. Find your BMR here: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ Unless you are sick or just get too busy on occasion, NEVER eat below your BMR. Now, once you know your BMR, you can calculate y...

"Hi, thanks for adding me to the group. I started 16:8 fasting. Does this look like a good eating plan? This is what I'm eating: 1200 pm - protein shake 12:30 pm - gigantic salad with chicken or fish 3:00 pm - light snack of Greek yogurt 6:00 pm - dinner, another gigantic salad with chicken or fish I see some form of this post in the Facebook group (Fierce Fit Fearless 2.0) just about once a week. There is no cut-and-dry answer to this. Without knowing some key pieces of information, there is no way to answer this question. How old are you? How tall are you? How much do you currently weigh? What do you think is a realistic goal weight for you? What are your goals - Fat loss? Muscle gain? body re-composition? Other? What is your BMR? TDEE ? Tell me about your fitness program - do you lift? What do you do, how much of it do you do and how often do you do it? Answer these questions and then, and only then, can we can get started with your meal plan. The fir...

How long should I fast? This is probably the most common question I see among women new to Intermittent Fasting. Unfortunately there is no hard-and-fast definitive answer to this question. We all react to stress differently. Yes, I said stress. Fasting is a stressor to the body - especially the female body. Like money worries, relationship drama, and exercise, fasting will cause the body various levels of stress which can, and often will, result in negative consequences regarding our health. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing most of you have jobs and financial responsibilities, relationships, some of you have children or are care takers of family members. You probably rarely get eight hours of sleep and, let's face it, who has time to meditate daily when living in the real world? All of these things are life's stressors. Now, add lack of sleep, job and family/relationship stress to a boiling pot of intense daily e...

The 950' vertical climb at Jamaica's Dunns River Falls was  a piece of cake for this 40-something. I have always considered myself an athlete. I was a three-sport child excelling in basketball, softball and soccer. I dabbled in track & field and spent many afternoons scrambling up trees or playing football with my big brother or my bff. As an adult, distracted by marriage and motherhood, I floundered sport-less for nearly a decade until I discovered surfing at age 30. Still, despite traveling often in pursuit of perfect waves, I wasn't particularly strong or healthy. I was skinny fat, unable to complete a single unassisted pull-up or chin-up and had no idea what a deadlift even was. Almost exactly two years ago, I made a discovery that would change my life forever and start me on a new path of self-discovery that continues to teach me new lessons almost daily. It was Martin Berkhan's  Leangains  website. I couldn't tell if it was a diet or a tr...

I know I just posted yesterday, and don't get used to daily postings from me either, but "<<<<<" This is how  this is how I felt today in the gym. I think my 9-10 days off for vacation were just what I needed to recharge because I just couldn't get tired during my workout. I started with 10 1-minute sprint intervals /  2 min rest and followed with flat bench. I had recently been struggling with my bench because I stopped doing it regularly, but it still felt pretty light after 5 sets of 6-8 reps as I continued increasing the weight. After bench, I did 12 bodyweight neutral-grip chin ups for the hell of it and they were easy - and I'm about 5 lbs heavier than I was pre-vacay. Go figure! Must have been all of that good food in New Orleans and on my cruise coupled with tons of R&R because I've been low carb since I got back five days ago and I feel amazing. So I wanted to post to remind you all that rest and a bit of a refeed can be a...

One of my FB friends posted this photo the other day and it got me thinking about daily habits.  We all have dozens of habits that have been ingrained in us over the years; some good - rising early each day and making the bed, brushing our teeth, showering (optional but highly recommended), getting dressed (not optional), eating our veggies, etc. And there are the not so good habits: not getting enough sleep - which ultimately leads to bad habit #2, hitting snooze six times before getting out of bed, not returning phone calls or emails, arriving late to work, etc. In addition to the daily habits related to our personal hygiene and grooming, what we put in our bodies every day and how much we move are also habits. Do you grab a muffin or donut on your way out the door in the morning or do you chug down a protein shake? Do you pack a healthy lunch or hit the drive thru at lunch? Do you opt for a cheap sugar rush from the vending machine when your energy wanes at 3 pm, or do...

Fresh fruit will not make you fat. I don't know about you, but my favorite part of any food store is the produce department. I love the rainbow of colors, shapes and sizes on display. The playful misting of the lettuces, the exotic vegetables I've never heard of from parts of the world I've only read about. I can't imagine anyone getting fat by eating a variety of any combination of the foods you find here. So why do people think fruit will make them fat? It's the F-Word - Fructose Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple monosaccharide and one  of three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion. Unlike glucose which can be immediately available to the muscles, however, fructose must first be processed in the liver, giving it the lowest glycemic index of all sugars. Naturally, fructose is fou nd in fruit, many plants and some vegetables, but not in very high concentrations....

I just finished a 38-hour fast. I had never fasted that long before, and I don't plan on making it a habit but, after a 5-day fun and food fest in New Orleans with my family for Christmas, I felt the need to do something drastic to get back on track. Going a day and a half without food was actually much easier than I thought it would be. Perhaps this is because I've grown accustomed to going 16-18 hours without food daily anyway - of all the things that taking on intermittent fasting, a la Leangains, has taught me is that I can control what I eat and when I eat it. I was traveling home yesterday and have to admit that the airport was the hardest for me. We had nearly a 2-hour delay in which I watched the folks around me scoff ice cream, cinnamon rolls, po-boys and all manner of chips and pretzels while I was inundated by amazingly delicious smells all around me. Then, when I finally boarded the plane, the man next to me pulled out an industrial size bag of trail mix - one of my...

It's Day 5 of Jenny's road to fat loss via the PSMF highway and I wanted to give you all an update on how I'm feeling and how the "diet" is working out. Day 4, yesterday, was a definite test of my mental fortitude. I was hungry most of the day - even shortly after eating 10 oz boneless pork, piles of fibrous veggies, and a 2-scoop casein shake. In the afternoon, I met a friend at the local fairgrounds where he was working a horse show. His company was one of the sponsors, so we got to hang in the VIP tent which, btw, was loaded with FOOD. Cheese, crackers, fruit, those giant cookie and brownie squares, pasta, sausage and peppers, and some kind of crabcake sliders...and I couldn't eat ANY of it. On our way out, I grabbed a teeny square of cheese which my dear friend, bless his sole, immediately wresteled from my hand and promptly threw away. It's so good to have support! For dinner I had chicken and broccoli and then went out to meet friends at the...

A friend of a friend reached out to me recently. She's frustrated and looking for a weight-loss approach that actually works and is sustainable - same as the rest of us. I started typing her response, but, what came out was a fairly detailed outline of what I've been doing and why it works. It's not super technical or scientific. If you want to read about the science behind the theories, go to www.leangains.com . Martin always does a thorough job of explaining things in fairly simple terms. What follows is more of how I would explain my lifestyle on Leangains to a friend. It is in no way complete and does not cover all aspects of IF, but I think it's a decent introduction to the average person who may be curious about what IF is and why the way we eat is primarily responsible for how we look. .................................................. No matter whether it's 10 lbs or 100 lbs, I see people every day killing themselves in the gym on treadmills and elliptical t...

It's been a few weeks since the Warrior Challenge and my strength has been steadily gaining. I'm nearly back to my PR of 205 x 3 for deads...about 5 lbs and another couple of weeks away and I'll bust through that plateau. Weighted pullups and chinups are increasing again as are weighted dips, bench and DB military press. I've also added stiff-legged deadlifts to my 20-rep breathing squat day and I feel good..I'll give a more specific accounting soon as I don't have my training log with me right now. The diet - going to a 2-day rest period interval in between workouts instead of just 1 day. So workouts will look like this: Day 1: Deads, weighted chins Day 4: flat bench, incline dumbbell press, seated dumbbell military press OR standing barbell push press; calves and dips if I have anything left. Day 7: breathing squats, stiff-legged deads, weighted pullups For macros, on rest days, I'm keeping carbs at 50g or less and eating the rest almost split be...