Tag: slow carb

Lot’s of energy, getting thinner and feeling great were my side effects of being on a vegan diet. Not bad right? Right. Honestly I didn’t mind the vegan lifestyle which I held for over a year. In the beginning I don’t remember if it was my constant running that inspired me to eat vegan, or the other way around. I guess it doesn’t matter at this point. I can attribute both the running and vegan lifestyle to books like “how not to die”, “Born to run”, “The china study” and “Whole”. Great books, great research and really, a great lifestyle to live for many people.

The first months or so I lost weight, felt great and in general was impressed by how much food I could eat and not get fat. Pretty amazing. However, later on I quit running daily and realised that my weight started to come back and on top of that my body fat % was increasing. So I eliminated fats from my vegan diet, didn’t help. Just ended up being more tired, and I mean really tired. So I started increasing sugar and fruit intake. This didn’t help much either and instead I started to have energy crashing and constant cravings. The entire time during my vegan experiment I noticed that I had to eat constantly – at least 3-5 times a day, proper meals. I was always hungry. I’m not a scientists or doctor, but if the vegan diet is suppose to be the optimised human diet, why would I have to eat all the time? That was my thought process.

I also started fasting more, sometimes one day a week to just intermittent fasting, I don’t find the vegan diet to lend itself so well to fasting. My hunger would be ravenous quickly. Within hours of my last meal, I would be craving a new meal. When I woke up I would be desperate for food. When I would fast on a vegan diet, I would basically be lying in bed staring at the clock. I have a lot of will power, something I train daily. But I also like to use my willpower on issues other than food; like being a creative, productive individual to society. Reaching goals, building systems and running different businesses.

I also found that while I was quite happy living vegan, my family, not so much which often created unnecessary irritations in an otherwise excellent relationship. While I love animals and empathise with the plight of the factory farmed animal – the mental stress and bodily stress just wasn’t worth it for me. Sorry.

So where I have gone with my food then? Honestly after living vegan for a year, my body and mind was craving fat and meat. I felt it in my bones. So, I ate fat and meat. Lot’s of it. I am very much against factory farming, so I am in the process of getting my hunting liscense. I’m not sure there is anything more ethical or meaningful than being a hunter. (not trophy hunter killing near extinct animals.. those guys are pieces of shit) This is something I have learned over the last year or so of reading and studying hunting.  This is also what convinced me to drop the Vegan lifestyle in the end. I would venture to say that without hunters, many more animals would be extinct, many more animals would die of starvation, disease and pretty much any other cause.

Now I know a lot of vegans that will say “your doing it wrong that’s why it’s not working for you”.. perhaps, but being vegan is not that difficult. You don’t eat meat or animal fats and proteins among other principles. Maybe I wasn’t eating enough sugar and cupcakes. Also, you can pretty much make the argument “you not doing it right” with just about anything. Look at communism for example – has never worked, will never work and is an absolute plague among mankind. Yet people still long for the controlling hand of Mao or Stalin. Remember “It has just never been done right”

Keto 

I have read quite a bit about Keto, and it’s something I might want to try with more dedication in the future. But mentally I’m just not there yet. From time to time I drink bulletproof coffee after a long night of fasting, but haven’t found any positive cognitive functions or any noticeable effects on my body.. other than a higher body fat %. I do like the taste though. I recently did a 2 day fast only drinking water and found that I finally came into ketosis with a 1.3 mmol ketones level. Not sure the effort is worth the results. But again, this is something I will experiment more with in the future.

Slow carb

So I guess you could say I’ve landed somewhere between a keto diet and Slow carb. I have cut out all sugar, white carbs and fruit from my normal day to day eating. With a cheat day every week. I find that the cheat day is something that I look forward to, but when the day comes, I realise just how bad and uncontrolled my old diet really was. Things I would eat daily have now been pushed to a certain time slot one day a week. I also find that my insulin levels are low and my energy is high as well as an elevated cognitive function. Much clearer thinking and brain functioning than my year with veganism. As an added bonus I am losing weight and body fat rapidly and eat twice a day with barely any hunger pains in between meals. Amazing. In less than a month I have lost 6 kilos body weight and 3% body fat. No training or running of any kind as it’s been too damn cold here. Just a light Wim Hof training daily (breathing, some pushups, and weightless squats)

I usually eat my last meal between 18.00 – 19.00 and don’t eat again until 11-12 the next day with no loss in energy or cognitive function. Now that seems to be an optimised human diet, or at-least an optimised diet for my genetic makeup. I recently did a two day fast – just water for two full days. My energy levels held up, though I would say by the end of day two I was getting hungry.

Fasting

As I have written a few times, I have started experimenting with fasting, as there is a lot of research suggesting that fasting is excellent for long term health. My goal is to do a three day fast every month and maybe a 5 day fast once every six months. I recently did a 2 day fast without too many complications, though I did have to fight boredom a bit. I realised by fasting that I am a “stimulant” eater. I like to eat as it gives me something to do.

Going to the movies: gotta eat popcorn

Watching a movie at home: Popcorn, chips and nuts

Playing video games: candy is nice

upset: chocolate

Sitting on the couch: grapes, oranges, apples.. anything really

So boredom is definitely a factor in my eating process and something I am mentally working through. Especially now when I work mostly from home. Interestingly enough, I find using the local coffee shop as my office is great for the boredom factor and I don’t eat at all. Buy a coffee and I’m good to go.

Results of my fasting so far: not sure, forgot to measure everything. The only thing I did measure during my fasting was my glucose blood levels and my Ketons.

Conclusion:

Now I don’t think I will get any backlash here from the vegan crew out there as I never professed to be a vegan anyway. Barely ever mentioned it, and certainly didn’t build my reputation on being a vegan. I don’t believe in dieting to lose weight, for me it’s about optimisation. What works best for my body with the least amount of work, thought and foresight required without making me fat, stupid and disease ridden. I am always experimenting and I love the process of trial and error and measuring results. Veganism simply doesn’t work for me, maybe in the future I will give it a go again, when I’m rich and can have a full time cook working and preparing all my food. Until then however, I will go with an option that works for my body, schedule and laziness.