How to Hardstyle kettlebell swing part 2 - between the heels deadlift

Start with the kettlebell directly  between the heels.   A common mistake is to have the bell in front of the heels so make sure you have the bell deep between the heels.  Let the handle line up or be slightly behind your ankle bones.   It is very important to pick up the bell from between the heels and put it down in the exact same spot.   This alone is the beginning of learning to understand how to load your hips, hamstrings and glutes.  Proper shoulder and arm position is important too because this teaches the client how to pack their shoulders and engage their lats.  The shoulders and always down and back as you pry the chest open. 

Engage the between-the-heels deadlift by starting in the finishing position.  This means before the very first rep you stand up tall and straight with all the appropriate locks engaged as if you just finished a rep with a heavy bell. By "locks" I mean, lock your legs fully straight with kneecaps lifted, contract your glutes as if crushing a walnut between your cheeks, brace your midsection as if preparing to be punched, shoulders down and away with chest lifted.

I initiate movement by pointing my fingers to the bell with arms locked fully straight.  Start the lift by pulling your hips behind you, not squatting your ass downward!  This is a learned movement pattern that will probably take some time for you to get right.  If you are doing it right you should feel a deep stretch in your hamstrings as you get to the bottom portion of the pickup.  Remember to keep your shoulders higher than your hips and hips higher than your knees.

After the pickup we are using the touch-and-go method for the next rep.  This means that you put the bell down (right from where you picked it up, between the heels!) and let the bottom of the bell just barely kiss the ground.  Don't collapse in the bottom, stay tight!  The touch-and-go method is preferred to the reset-each-rep method because it keeps you in position, again staying tight!

I use this lift not only to teach the client how to hinge at their hips but also to build strength through the range of movement we will be using for the swing.  Before we do our first swing I make sure the client , both male and female, is capable of deadlifting the 48kg for 5 sets of 5 reps with good form.  Strength wise this is not such a big feat for anybody over 100 lbs bodyweight but it can be a problem for a person with movement issues or a very large belly in the way.  I will keep these folks on the BTH deadlift until their movement improves or they lose some bellyfat! 

As a side note I should add that I don't as my very overweight clients to swing.  The swing is frustrating enough and I want clients to feel successful, not beaten down after every session.  For these clients I start doing double bell deadlifts to challenge their musculature and tendons.  I also make it very clear that if they don't want to diet all of the training in the world wont make a difference.

Calories, enzymes and how they relate to fat-loss or muscle gains.

A couple of things have been on my mind recently when it comes to food as it relates to fat-loss and strength/muscle gains.

First,  I do believe "calories-in, calories-out" is an important part of a fat loss program.  No matter what we eat fat loss will not happen if we are eating above calorie maintenance.  It's a mistake to say that calories do not matter or we should never count calories.  I ask clients to count calories and report them to me for a few weeks so we can get an idea of what their  calorie maintenance levels are.  Once we establish how many calories we need to lose fat/gain muscle then I ask clients to eyeball their food portioning.  If you can not eyeball your portions after a few weeks of doing it "right" you are not paying attention.

NOW THAT BEING SAID

What controls the amount of food we eat on any given day?  Appetite!  And what controls our appetite?  Proportions  and quality of macronutrients (protein/fat/carbs).
So yes, we could lose bodyfat on 1,500 calories a day of candy bars but why don't we do that?  We do not eat this way because  so much sugar will destroy our leptin sensitivity.  Leptin is one of the hormones primarily related to appetite.  The more refined foods/sugars we eat the more leptin insensitive we become.  Our appetite becomes endless and those 1.500 calories a day of candy bars will leave us feeling starving (for more sugars!) all day.  If we replaced the candy bars with a well-balanced diet we would still be a little hungry (too little calories for anybody over 100 lbs) but appetite will be much less of an issue. If we instead focus on eating reasonable portions of fats, proteins and natural carbs our appetite will slowly normalize.  The greatest day of my life was after about 45 days on a ketogenic diet when I went  bed  one night and possibly for the first time in my life I was not obsessing about food as I closed my eyes to go to sleep.  I had a neutral appetite and it was a novel and incredible thing at the time! 

The 2nd thing I have been thinking about often lately is how 'living' is our food and how does this relate to fat-loss/muscle gains?  Well, first off let me say that pure raw foodists are onto something when they put a tremendous amount of stock into eating uncooked/raw foods.   The more raw foods we can eat the better since these foods improve our beneficial gut-bacteria levels and the easier we can digest all foods.  The problem with raw foodism, as is the problem with any unbalanced method of eating, is that we evolved cooking and some foods need to be cooked for humans to access their macro and micronutrients.   Carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers and many other vegetables supply more micronutrients when cooked instead of eating raw.  Cooking has a point of diminishing returns as I do believe that overcooking/charring meats is proven to be carcinogenic, that is why I put a good deal of emphasis on eating cooking our meats just enough to make them palatable.     This is the one thing that separates  us from other animals, we cook and evolved cooking!

In my opinion it is all about enzymes in the gut- you have probably heard of probiotics, beneficial gut-bacteria.   I am positive that if we looked at the enzymes in the guts of overweight/physically weak people we will find low levels of beneficial bacteria.  These people have slowly lost the ability to digest nutrient/protein/fat dense foods (quality meats, eggs, raw milk, raw vegetables) so they start relying on low-nutrient/low-fat foods (grains, sugars, over-cooked vegetables) that have high levels of palatability  to get their calories.  This in turn makes them hungry all the time as they never feel satiated.  They overeat these foods, gain bodyfat, lose strength and further diminish the strength of their digestive systems.

This is why I am putting a good deal of emphasis on eating as much living, high-enzyme foods as I can at every meal.  I could care less that a 100% plant-based eater looks at animal flesh as a dead food.  It's my opinion that death starts at decomposition.  Otherwise vegetables would have to be considered as dead as raw meat but that is not the case!  Vegetables are alive, containing their enzymes, until they start decomposing.   So while I may eat a few overcooked foods (mainly pork products) I try to balance these foods with plenty of raw vegetables, raw milk, raw eggs and meats either slow-cooked at low temperatures or to a medium-rare state.

Summary:  Know how many calories you need for maintenance but don't obsess about calories and eat as much enzyme-rich food as you can!

Motivating new habits.

I am a creature of habit  but I am always looking for different ways to break bad habits.  One thing I did for years was tell myself, "you're going on a diet this Monday!  Nobody starts a diet on Saturday, start it on Monday!"  This is really just an excuse to pig out for the weekend and then hope somehow I can get a handle on my foods Monday morning.  It rarely worked.  The only thing that motivated me to eat 100% natural pre-agricultural era foods  was the day I realized how tired I was for so many years and was most likely pre-diabetic and possibly already a Type 2 diabetic.   
For the past 2 years I have been eating very well overall but the past few months I've been eating moderately shitty.  Instead of waiting until I feel sick/tired again and telling myself to start a diet this Monday morning I want to focus on the things that are tangible, things that I can measure.  I view this as a method of self motivation, just a way to get the ball rolling as I try to  restrict processed foods and sugars. 
Instead of simply weighing myself and focusing on 1 specific thing, the scale, I am going to measure the following things every morning for a week or 2.  
Weight
Morning/fasted blood sugar
Waist size
Caliper measurements at waistline
Morning appetite
I know from previous experience that:
My weight fluctuates between 165-low 170's.
My fasting BS can go down 10-20 points just by restricting sugars and processed foods for 1 day.
I have not measured my waist for a long time but when I did it was usually 33-34 inches.
Previous waistline caliper measurements are anywhere from 9-12 millimeters.  9 when I am very lean, closer to 12 when I am pudgy-for-me.
My morning appetite is very weak when eating crap all the time but when I am eating clean I wake up hungry for a full meal.  Waking up at least a little hungry is ideal.  I will rate morning appetite on a scale of 0, 1 or 2.  0 for no appetite, 1 for some appetite and 2 for hungry for a full meal.
And let me recognize that this behavior is a little obsessive/compulsive/controlling but look, I am a fitness professional so it is important that I look and feel awesome all the time.  It's my opinion that I can never be a good trainer/coach if I am pudgy and tired.    We need great energy and attitude for our clients, we must teach by example. 

Dieting tips

1)  Set short-term goals that are reasonable.  If you have been eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's and a bag of Oreos  (or similar junk foods) every day for an extended period of time is unreasonable to think that you are going to stop eating these foods completely  tomorrow.  A better approach is to set a goal of eating only 1/2 of a pint of Ben and Jerry's and 1/2 of a bag of Oreos for a week.  The next goal is to reduce portions to 1/4 of a pint of Ben and Jerry's and 1/4 of a bag of Oreos the following week.  When you reach the longer term goal of 1/8 of a pint of B&J's and 1/8th of a bag of Oreos you will find yourself eating what amounts to a reasonable amount of junk food that most people with healthy digestive systems can handle just fine.  I do not believe in giving up our childhood foods 100%. 

My diet theories

I am not posting any sources here because these are just my personal diet theories  based on my own research and experience with all different kinds of diets over the past 20 years.  This post is not about who is right or wrong, it is just a tool to use to help educate yourself in addition to the many tools available online.    There are so many contradictory studies there is a lot of faith involved when it comes to diet and these theories represent something of my own personal faith-based beliefs on diet.  I have practiced all kinds of diets including vegan, vegetarian, bodybuilding (high protein) and ketogenic (high-fat) diets.  Ultimately I believe an ethically sourced and balanced omnivores diet (about 40% fat, 40% carb and 20% protein) will serve 99% of the population very well for both health and fat-loss.    Some of my thoughts here could easily be questioned but this is just my opinion and I know I can not be 100% right about anything concerning diet.  Metabolic flexibility is a real thing, we can get our energy from either fats or carbs, it is mostly a personal choice.  I have seen people of all ages succeed on all different kinds of diets. 


Theory #1 -  People under the age of 30 can follow almost any type natural foods diet and get great results when it comes to their health and fat-loss goals.   Up until the age of 30 your hormones (specifically insulin, leptin, testosterone and growth hormone) protect you from eating excess carbohydrates, protein and/or man-made fats.    As we age our natural hormone levels change.  We become more insulin/leptin resistant and levels of testosterone and growth hormone decrease.   The number of people successful on fruitarian, raw food, raw vegan, vegan and vegetarian diets goes down as you look at people by age.  Most people who succeed on these diets are under 30 and most of them shift up in diets as they age.  So fruitarians become raw vegans as they age, raw vegans become vegans, vegans become vegetarians and vegetarians become omnivores.  The exceptions to this is people who do not feel their health failing and/or do not find fat accumulating around their belly.  

2) It is said that you can not exercise off the effects of a bad diet but I disagree.   Up until about the age of 30 many people use exercise to counteract the fat-accumulating effects of a poor diet.  Men and women under 30 are often naturally in a anabolic (muscle building) phase of their life.  They have high levels of testosterone and growth hormone.  They can eat diets high in refined foods and not be totally insulin resistant yet.  As these folks enter their 30's they try the same approach (lots of exercise) and wonder why they keep getting a little fatter each year.  Metabolic disorder can take years to show its symptoms in many people, particularly people who were not overweight in childhood and their teens. 

3)  A superfood is a food that you need to eat very little of to get large amounts of macro and micronutrients.  Grass-fed beef is a superfood because you only need to eat about 4 ounces of grass-fed beef  to get a good dose of  B-vitamins, beta-carotene, vitamin E,  vitamin K, iron and trace minerals like magnesium, calcium, and selenium.  Broccoli is not a superfood because you need to eat 25 ounces of it to get similarly sized amounts of protein and micronutrients.  Broccoli is still a great food because it has a very low Glycemic Load but 4 ounces of grass-fed beef is infinitely more palatable than 25 ounces of broccoli.  This is not to say that I don't eat or recommend eating broccoli.  The best diet has a balanced approach, I recommend eating both.

4)  All naturally occurring foods are health positive.  The only foods that are bad for our health are refined/processed foods and man made fats. 

5) All diets are better for health than the Standard American Diet (SAD).   This is the reason why so many people do well on 100% plant-based diets.  They are making the switch from SAD to whatever plant-based diet and get tremendously good results.

Wendlers 5/3/1 routine

Monday
Barbell Military Press 5/3/1
Kettlebell Clean and Press 5 sets of 10 reps
Pullups - 5 sets as many sub-max reps as I can up to 10
Tuesday
Barbell Deadlift 5/3/1
Barbell Deadlift 5 sets of 10 reps - 
Thursday
Barbell Bench Press 5/3/1
Kettlebell incline bench press 5 x 10
1-arm kettlebell rows 5 sets 10 reps
Friday
Barbell Squat 5/3/1
Goblet Squat 5 x 10 reps
2-hand swings 10 reps on the minute for 12 minutes

Percentages and reps for main lifts - assistance exercises I am going to do by feel but stick to around 80% effort. 

Week #1 3 sets of 5 reps @65, 75 and 85% - last set 5 or more reps to near max-effort
Week #2 3 sets of 3 reps @70, 80 and 90% -  last set 3 or more reps to near max-effort
Week #3 1 set of 5 reps, 1 set - 3 reps, 1- 1 rep @75, 85, 95% -  last set 1 or more reps max-effort
Week #4 Deload week -  3 sets of 5 reps at 40, 50 and 60%

Deadlift day is going to be all barbell deadlifts with no assistance exercises.  This is one of the ways Wendler recommends.    I want to put as much practice into my deadlift as possible.  I may throw in some sumo style during the 10-rep sets. 

Not sure if my spine can handle heavy barbell squats  and I don't own a proper power rack yet so I am going to keep the load below the recommended percentage.  I am still going to do heavy Goblet or Front rack squats with kettlebells. 

Natural Omniores Diet

 What is the Natural Omnivores Diet?
This is  my way of referring to  a diet rich in foods that we find in nature.  This diet includes all forms of  animal flesh,  above-ground vegetables and  starches like potatoes and rice.    The main foods I avoid are modern agricultural products which means no wheat, soy, corn, quinoa and the many variations available of these foods.   This diet definitely avoids oils made from these foods, these have been proven to be highly toxic even in moderate doses. 
I am also pretty specific about the kind of meats I eat and  how I cook them.  I consider meat to be living unless cooked too hot and long.   This means that all meat is cooked rare to medium-rare.  I avoid meats that are artificially made lowfat, chicken being the best example.  After a lifetime of eating chicken breast I currently try to  eat all my chicken in a 50/50 ratio of dark to white meat.  No animal in nature would neglect the fatty part of an animal, it is the most nutrient dense part.  I'm finally adding organ meats to my diet since they are extremely rich in both macro (fats/protein) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).
There are some 'in-between' foods like nuts, legumes, raw and fermented organic dairy. A person could easily live without these foods.  Nuts and legumes are avoided because they are high in natural toxins.  I will eat raw nuts if I am in a pinch to find something to eat.   I personally do also eat plenty of eat raw milk and organic yogurt  but this is an individuals choice.  Animal husbandry has been around only as long as modern agricultural so it could be argued that milk is an un-natural food source.  I view drinking milk as a luxury we are allowed as the worlds top and most intelligent predator.

Vegan diet for Diabetes

Main difference between the vegan approach to diabetes control and the natural omnivores approach is that the vegan approach uses foods have a glycemic load of 0-20, the natural omnivores 0-9.

It's important the we understand what glycemic load  (GL)is and how it differs  from the more commonly used term, glycemic index (GI). GI is a measure of the degree to which a carbohydrate is likely to raise your blood sugar.   GL measures the amount of available carbohydrates in a typical serving of a food AND the GI of the food. 

Glycemic Load is a more accurate measure of a foods effect on blood sugar levels and here is why.

Take a carrot as an example, a food with a high GI but low GL.   7% of a carrot is made up of  useable carbohydrates. A 50g carbohydrate content is employed as the standard measure for a GI rating of individual foods to show how fast blood sugar level are raised.  You need to eat 1.5 lbs of carrots to get 50 grams of carbohydrates and nobody eats this many carrots in one siting.
So GI rating often overstates relatively small carbohydrate content in a food item like a carrot.

The reverse is also true, i.e. the glycemic effects of foods containing a high percentage of carbs like spaghetti which has a low GI but high GL.   This is due to the fact that almost nobody eats 200 calories (50 grams) of spaghetti in a sitting, the average portion size is 2-3x this.

 The vegan diet works because it bring a persons blood sugar levels to the range accepted by the American Diabetes Association, between 70-130 mg/dl.  This number actually depends on whether or not the person is experiencing low blood glucose symptoms.  A person with no symptoms can have higher BSL.

The natural omnivores diet will bring blood sugar levels below 100

So diabetes is "cured" even if the person has a BSL between 100-130 but the quest for optimum health wants our blood sugar under 100, ideally in the mid 80's.

The vegan diet has a greater effect on a person depending on how overweight they are.  The more overweight a person is the more dramatic of a shift they will have in all of the measurable bio-markers when making the shift from SAD to vegan.   

The vegan diet has less of an effect on a person who needs to lose smaller amounts of weight.  Females trying to lose 5-10 lbs/Males trying to lose 10-15 lbs will struggle to lose these pounds because of the lowfat- high-carbohydrate nature of the vegan diet.

An important but lesser known biomarker for future health conditions is our A1c levels.   A1c levels are a measure of our daily blood sugar levels over a period of time, usually 3-4 months.  It is generally accepted that an A1c level of 5.6-5.8 indicates that the person has good control over their diabetes.  A vegan diet will do a great job of bringing A1c levels down to this 5.6-5.8 range but the newest science says that we should have our A1c levels below 5.2 if we want to have optimum health.   There is some interesting research that also says that having an A1c levels of 5.6-5.8 puts us in the higher categories of risk for cancer, dementia and brain shrinkage. 

The 2 main advocates of the vegan diet for diabetes control both say that eating saturated fats found in animal products causes   insulin resistance but this turns out to be based more on their own personal agendas (don't eat meat!) than an awareness of the newest studies done on saturated fats.  While eating protein does effect our blood sugar levels all animal foods have glycemic loads of near 0. This means that eating animal flesh has very little to no effect on our blood sugar and insulin.   levels.  As it turns out we were wrong about red meat and saturated fat in particular.  Modern science is determining that saturated fats are healthy fats and a necessary part of achieving robust health.  This is not a dialogue on lowfat vs hi-fat.  This is already old news and as you can see one of my source links is from a systematic review and meta-analysis of these kind of studies.

I look at diabetes as a spectrum disorder and the diagnosis of diabetes and level of diabetes depends on measurable bio markers (blood sugar levels, insulin levels, A1c levels) as well as whether or not the person is experiencing diabetic symptoms (excess bodyfat, headaches, poor sleep, daytime lethargy, poor mood and allergy like symptoms such as sinus problems). 

Whether or not you chose to pursue the vegan diet as  a method of controlling diabetes depends on your goals.  If you have very high goals, lets say being very lean and muscular the vegan diet will be challenging due to its high-carbohydrate content.  If you have moderate goals and don't mind a little bellyfat and are feeling well with your blood sugar levels between 100-130 then the vegan diet is a great approach to manage and control diabetic symptoms.


http://diabetesmanagement.insulitelabs.com/glycemic_index.php

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expert-blog/blood-glucose-target-range/bgp-20056575

http://chriskresser.com/how-to-prevent-diabetes-and-heart-disease-for-16

http://www.nealbarnard.org/books/diabetes/

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2009nl/dec/diabetes.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885952/

http://www.drperlmutter.com/important-blood-test/

Connection between diet and strength training

The connection between diet and strength training is absolutely undeniable.  If a client does not eat well it will manifest in their strength training within 90 days, less if the person is older than 30 and already overweight/de-conditioned.  What happens is this:  Client experiences progress without fixing their diet.  The progress is a product of them having a "beginners body", a body that is unaccustomed to strength training.  Their nervous system gets used to the moderate intensity of strength training and they do develop some new muscular strength.  So the person gains some strength, sees some new muscle developing and gets excited.  They think this can continue w/o proper diet so they don't make the necessary nutritional changes.    Somewhere between day 30 and day 90 this progress stops, the body can no longer grow due to poor diet.  I believe a person can be overtrained even if they are not actually training too often/too strenuously.  I have seen it a few times this past year.   A person seems to be doing well initially but the stress of their diet puts them in an overtrained state due to poor nutrition.  You can identify these folks easily because their strength gains will stop and you will find them often yawning in the middle of a session.  This is why most programs are "90 days", this seems to be the limit to how long a person can train with any level of intensity w/o modifying ther diet and lifestyle.

I am convinced that many of these people find themselves attracted to cardio/conditioning/endurance work because this work is often untracked and non-progressive. You can just mindlessly bang out the miles and get the "feel-good" sensation of endorphins and cortisol running through the body I believe there is no better proof than can be found in mid-level marathoners/triathletes (not high-level, these folks usually understand nutrition).  If you look closely at a mid-level biker, runner, swimmer, they all carry certain  physical traits, mainly excessive bellyfat.  So a person can be "in shape", have the ability  to do long duration medium intensity exercise, but are most likely experiencing degenerative health conditions.   The bellyfat tells it all, we have known this for decades but the truth of it is just now being slowly revealed.


I can not tell you how many bad eaters have asked me, "can I just do cardio?  You know, get on the bike and bang out an hour or 2 to help me lose bodyfat?"  No, the answer is no!  When we eat poorly the body is accustomed to burning glucose for fuel.  When a glucose-burner runs out of energy their body starts breaking down muscle tissue for fuel.   This is the beginning of metabolic disorder, the body can no longer work with efficiency.    When a person eats "right", basically a fat-burner, their bodies do everything it can do in order to burn fat and retain muscle mass.  Cardio is absolutely a waste of time for a person who does not eat "right".  The lean "cardio-bunnies" always look the same, their body never changes.  Their bodies are sick on the inside and they have the same health issues an obese person has.

A laymans description of overeating, insulin and how your body processes food

You don't "burn" your food off through exercise. You burn most of the energy you get from food simply by being alive.  You will burn way more energy (calories) during your 22-23 hours a day sleeping, thinking and moving  around when you are simply living life.  The energy burned during simply living your life is much higher than the energy burned during the 1-2 hours a day you may spend in training. 

When  you overeat regularly in an effort to "fuel"  your body your are sending a signal to release higher and higher  levels of insulin to help you store and manage this food as energy.  Insulin is the primary hormone that helps us process food and turn it into energy for later use.  When you overeat regularly  your body can not release enough insulin to help you store this food as fuel.  This in turn causes excess nutrients (mainly sugars) to pour into the bloodstream.     This is how Type 2 diabetes gets a hold on your body.  Type 2 diabetes is a progressive disease that gets worse when you continue to overeat, particularly overeating carbohydrates. 

Your fuel for training is stored primarily in your musculature.  Think of your muscles as sponges.  When you pour more water into a sponge than it can hold what happens?  The water spills out of the sponge.  When you eat more food (primarily carbohydrates) than your insulin can handle the sugars pour into your bloodstream.  This is the primary cause of bellyfat accumulation, low daily energy levels, headaches, allergy-like symptoms, foul mood, etc. 

Pros and Cons of Ketogenic Diet

I look at the ketogenic diet the same way I look at the vegan diet,  it is a diet that should only be followed  to fix certain health problems and is not a balanced long-term diet.

For my clients who are trying to lose bodyfat I recommend they start with a 2 week ketogenic diet followed by 2 weeks ketogenic diet + 1-2 starches/day depending on activity levels.     We follow the ketogenic diet until the body is fat-adapted and our appetite for sweets is diminished.  Once we reach these goals it is time to start following a more balanced diet.  The only time I recommend a person stay on the ketogenic diet more than 2 weeks is if they are more than 15-20 lbs overweight.  Once a person is this many lbs overweight they qualify as sick and unhealthy, the health benefits of the keto diet outweigh the negatives for these folks.  For these people getting the excess weight off becomes our #1 priority. 

Pro: You will lose weight quickly on this diet, many people lose 5-10 lbs during their first 10 days following this plan.

Con:  You will probably lose at least some muscle mass from this quick weight loss.  Clients who are 20 lbs or more overweight can afford to lose a small amount of muscle mass as they lose fat but  for clients trying to lose mainly bellyfat this can be disastrous.

Pro:  Your appetite will change so drastically by the 10-14th day it will feel like you have no appetite at all.  This is a beneficial thing when trying to change eating habits BUT

Con:  This "no-appetite" feeling can be addictive for some folks so they stay on the pure ketogenic diet for more than 2 weeks.    This almost always causes people to undereat.  If you undereat on the keto diet you are missing the point and the body will react as it always does to nutritional stress, mainly by storing calories as bellyfat instead of burning this fat for fuel.

Pro:  The diet is simple to follow.  Meats, eggs, vegetables.  That's it! 

Cons:  The ketogenic diet does not teach a person how to eat a balanced diet.  Many people try to turn this into a beef and bacon diet but this is not the proper way to do it.  Digestion will be poor and a 0% carbohydrate diet followed in the long run will make some folks feel terrible.   A true ketogenic diet has some carbohydrates but all of these carbs must come from above-ground/low-glycemic load (no starch) vegetables.  Vegetables have almost nothing in them energy-wise so even on the keto diet you can eat them almost unrestricted.  It is not as easy as most people thing getting a couple hundred calories a day from vegetables only!

default diet plan

Want to lose bodyfat and maintain/gain muscle?

Eat 3 meals a day.    No snacking,  no fruit.  Cheat 1 meal a week. 

Each meal is either

Vegetable + meat
               or
Vegetable + meat + starch

Eat as many vegetables as you can as close to raw as possible
Eat 1-2 palmfuls of meat as a serving, cook meat in coconut oil, butter or ghee.
Eat starch 3x/day if training, 1-2x a day on non-training days.
The only food you initially have to be vigilant about when it comes to serving size is starches.
A serving of starch is a  medium potato or 1/4 cup rice dry.
Yes, you can add butter to the potato or rice.

Yogurt and raw milk should be eaten alone, do not combine with other foods.

If you have to snack eat only  vegetables or fatty protein sources.  There is no fruit on this plan.  You can eat fruit when you reach the desired body composition.  Listen to your mother, snacking will ruin your appetite for your meals and you want to be hungry come meal time.

We highly recommend you study why eating your eggs raw is the best way to consume them. 

default diet foods

Drinks
Water
Black coffee
unsweetened tea

Vegetables allowed on sugar detox plan         
Eat as close to raw as possible
Broccoli                                                                                                                           cauliflower                                                  
brussels sprouts                                                            
asparagus
spinach                                                                   
lettuce                                                                      
cabbage                                                                
celery                                                                    
rhubarb.                                                                
squashes (including pumpkins)                            
tomatoes                                                               
cucumbers                                                            
all  peppers           
eggplant                                                               
okra                                                                         
green beans                                                             
carrots                                                                      
parsnips                                                 
beets                                                                       
radishes                                                                   
turnips
onions
garlic
all green leafy vegetables

Recommended starches  - not allowed on sugar detox diet until 15th day
all forms of rice and potatoes

Meat  - allowed on sugar detox diet
Beef
Chicken
Fish
Pork
Lamb
no processed meats except uncured bacon

Animal-based proteins -
Organic eggs  - allowed on sugar detox diet
Raw milk - not allowed on sugar detox diet until 15th day
Full fat plain organic yogurt - not allowed on sugar detox diet until 15th day

Raw nuts are allowed but not on the sugar detox.  No roasted nuts.
Raw nut butters are allowed but not on the sugar detox

No vegetables oils. Olive oil is acceptable as dressing but not to cook in.
Cook in ghee, coconut oil or grass-fed butter

2/24 & 2/25 training

Took a week off to get over some sort of illness that got me stuck in bed for 2 days followed by 5 days of feeling congested and tired.  Did a couple of lightish break-in sessions these past 2 days, feeling pretty decent.

I hardly do any complexes in my training but this particular one seemed to fit my needs since I am putting a good deal of energy into making my cleans better and am also squatting for the first time in years.  In addition to the complexes I am also practicing Getups, Weighted Hammergrip pullups (no weights till next session) and hands-up pushups.

Here's the blog post from The Chief I got these complexes from.
http://www.strongfirst.com/moving-target-kettlebell-complex/

Getups 12kg, 16, 20, 24, 28kg

"Moving target" kb complexes

Following with a pair of 16kg bells

1 clean, 1 press, 2 squats
1 clean, 1 press, 3 squats
1 clean, 1 press 5 squats

1 clean 2 presses, 1 squat
1 clean, 3 presses, 1 squat
1 clean, 5 presses, 1 squat

2 cleans, 1 press, 1 squat
3 cleans, 1 press, 1 squat
5 cleans, 1 press, 1 squat

Finished with a pair of 20kg bells

1 clean, 1 press, 5 squats
1 clean, 5 presses, 1 squat
5 cleans, 1 pres, 1 squat

2 hand swings

10 reps on the minute for 10 minutes w/28kg bell

2/25 training

alternated Hammergrip pullups - 4,4,3,2,1, reps with
hands-up pushups 10, 10, 5, 5, 5 reps

training update

No idea why I have been so flaky blogging my training in recent months.  I've been training regularly and things were going good until early this week when I got sick.  Feeling much better now but probably not training again until Monday.  Whatever I caught took me off my feet for 2 days and a few days later I still feel fatigued.

My last session was this previous Monday 2/17

Clean and Press w/pair of 24kg bells - 3 ladders of 1,2,3,4, reps.  The presses felt good but the cleans were sluggish as shit.  I think I was already sick at this point but didn't realize it until the end of the day.
2 hand swings (5-6 lighter weight warmup sets)  32kg x 10 reps on the minute for 10 minutes
Swiss ball pushups 5 sets of 5 reps with feet elevated about a foot.  Next step with these pushups is to see if I can do any with my feet and hands on a ball.
Hammer-grip pullups - 1,2,3,4 reps with 12 lb chain on neck
Front Squats w/double bells (# indicates total kilos) 16kg, 24, 32, 44 x 5 reps,  48kg x 5 sets x 5 reps

I have not squatted under any sort of load since my mid 20's so I am slowly working my way into these Front Squats..  I don't think I will ever do any back squats as I feel that it puts too much compression on my spine.  I think I have one of those glass spines Pavel has written about.  I have not had a problem with my lower back for almost 2 years and I want to keep that trend going.  Like anything else I am going to go as heavy as I can and make progress a priority with these squats but I am going to do it at as low of intensity as I can handle.  Max's 80% rule sounds about perfect for my introduction to heavy front squats.

1/29 and 1/31 training

Did the same 4 exercises on both days, only exception is swings which I did 1-arm variation on 1/29 and 2 hand on 1/31.    It's been 3 weeks since I could train heavy due to a problem with my neck but I am feeling just about 100% as of this moment.  Looking forward to pushing bigger weights next week :)

Getups 8kg x 1/1, 12 x 1/1, 16 x 1/1, 20 x 1/1, 24 x 3/3
Double kettlebell Clean and Press - 8kg x 5, 12 x 5, 16 x 5 x 4 sets
1/29 - 1-hand swing practice, 10 sets 5/5 with 16kg bell
1/31 2-hand swing practice 10 sets 10 reps with 28kg bell
Swiss ball pushups - 65cm ball, 5 sets of 5, feet on ground

1/27 training

Took the last 2 weeks off due to a problem with my neck.  Spending this week slowly breaking myself back into training.  Planning on spending at least the next couple of months emphasizing the   double bell clean and press, 1 and 2 hand swings, swiss ball pushups and getups.


Getups 8kg, 12, 16, 20 and 24kg
Double clean and press - 8kg x 5, 12 x 5, 16 x 5 x 4 sets
2-hand swings 10 sets 10 reps each, 16kg x 1 set, 20 x 1, 24kg x 8 sets
Swiss ball pushups  - smaller ball, 5 sets of 5 feet on floor

12/27 training

Medium pressing day

Double Military Press

8kg x 2 sets x 7 reps
12kg x 2 sets x 7 reps

Single Military Press

16kg + 16 lb chain - 6-7 sets 5/5 reps

2-Hand powerswings
15 minutes on the minute

24kg x 5 sets x 5 reps
28kg x 5 sets x 5 reps
32kg x 5 sets x 5 reps

Swiss ball pushups

5 sets of 5 reps with feet on ground

1-arm swings

12kg x 3 sets x 5/5 reps
16kg x 3 sets x 5/5 reps
24kg x 4 sets x 5/5 reps

12/30 training

Double Military Press

8kg x 7 reps x 2 sets
12kg x 7 reps x 2 sets
16kg x 5 reps x 2 sets

Single Military Press

24kg x 3/3 reps x 1 set
28kg x 3/3 reps x 1 set
28kg + 8lb chain x 3 failed attempts
28kg x 3/3 reps
24kg x 8/8 reps

2-Hand powerswings
15 minutes on the minute
28kg x 5 sets x 5 reps
32kg x 5 sets x 5 reps
36kg x 5 sets x 5 reps

Post by Yogi Steve Hkc.

Post by Yogi Steve Hkc.