Benefits of The Renegade Diet

February 19, 2013

Yesterday I posted my results from my Renegade Diet case study and I started to think a lot about the benefits of fasting and actually following a sound diet. If you have spent any time at all on this site you already know that I have never really cared much about diet. I purposely work as hard as possible so that I can eat whatever I want and still look good. This isn’t ideal for everyone and for some people, well, they just can’t work that hard. It is what it is and it works for me.

I started to think a lot about what actually happened with the renegade diet experiment. Not the fact that I was “manipulating insulin levels” or any of the scientific claims made by fasting (again, not disputing them at all….I fully believe there is more to the diet now than caloric deficit). I reflected back on what I ate, more importantly what I didn’t eat. I ate protein sources, vegetables and carbs for every meal. I rarely ate wheat products during this time frame and I felt a lot better.

As I get older (yes I am terrified of turning 30) I am starting to realize that I might not be able to physically work as hard as possible as I age. I am not laying those cards down yet, just saying that at some point it will happen. Maybe there is more to diet than just eating healthy though, what if you could avoid foods that make you feel worse? I can fully support not eating certain foods that cause inflammation in your body and are bad for you. I could still care less about counting calories and all that BS but if I could just not eat a few bad things and feel a whole lot better then why wouldn’t I do that?

I started to do a bit of research and came across this article again….I always come back to this when I am learning about different foods and what they do. I feel that it is definitely worth checking out

The number 1 worst food that causes aging

Do you need a quick fat loss tune up?

February 18, 2013

Lose fat without cardio? Blasphemy! I hate to say it, but I just concluded my intermittent fasting case study and did just that. I introduced the case study here and stuck to the plan for 5 weeks. I kept a weekly update journal and updates on the process at Everything Simple But Well….you can read the final update here. I’ll post the before and after pics and exactly what went on during this time period.

Before

I am going to cut right to the chase here since I have already written a similar update that you can read about my Intermittent Fasting Case Study .

This is exactly what I did to get some results in a month.

1. Purchase The Renegade Diet (you can do so through this link..it is an affiliate link so I do earn a small commission) and give it a read through so you understand what you are doing.

2. Start using and incorporating compound movements into your workouts. If you aren’t strength training already then you are missing the boat…big time Check this out

3. Set a goal that you will stick to this for at least 4 weeks. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and let the diet do it’s work.

Why Intermittent Fasting or The Renegade Diet For Women?

I have recommended this diet to a few people that I work with (one is a male) and they are starting to see results. Without being salesy (which I have been told I am….I prefer to call it convincing ) there are definite reasons WHY this is a success.

I get asked about weight loss and things of that nature on pretty much a daily basis. I then usually get frustrated because A. It isn’t complicated but it’s hard B. No one actually WANTS to make the changes that I recommend (see A). This really bothers me when I give a well thought and detailed answer to hear “I don’t like to exercise and I can’t give up ice cream or sweets every night.” I usually have to bite my tongue from saying “fine, be fat…I don’t care.”

The experiment that I did with The Renegade Diet was a bit different than last year’s hill running case study. That was an exercise in complete lunatic behavior and it got great results. This intermittent fasting experiment was much more calculated and for a good reason. I wanted to see if the diet (or any diet) would work without me sprinting like a maniac everyday. I physically could not perform cardio due to my knee injury so this was a perfect time to try out the diet again. I also needed a post holiday cleanse after my extremely self destructive eating and drinking habits.

What about breakfast and fasting?

This is the biggest question…..don’t I need breakfast? The same people that ask that question usually could afford to skip more than one meal per day if you catch my drift. I can honestly say that I didn’t miss eating breakfast at all. Now, there are numerous intermittent fasting protocols out there, Eat Stop Eat being an extremely successful one. I’ll be completely honest, I feel that Eat Stop Eat is a much better product for the money but that is neither here nor there for this experiment. There is good reason why I chose the renegade diet vs eat stop eat. The simplicity and the fact that it is less of a dramatic change makes the renegade diet a great transition into the world of fasting.

I am not sure if I could incorporate two full days of fasting a week like the other programs suggest. I do not doubt the effectiveness of those programs at all… just saying that I don’t think I could do it. This was a main reason that I used the renegade diet, it’s basically a small change that ANYONE can make. If someone asks you how they can lose fat and you tell them “simple, don’t eat for two day per week” then they will most likely look at you like an idiot and walk away. The renegade diet holds your hand a little bit during the process and gets you used to both fasting and feasting.

The protocol that I followed was essentially a 16 hr fast followed by a small 4 hour under eating phase and a 4 hour feasting phase. What this means was that I had a window of time where I couldn’t eat at all and then a window where I could eat everything in sight. I did keep carbs under control and there is a set system for how you eat that basically autoregulates your carb consumption if you follow it correctly.

We all love instant gratification, it keeps us going when things get rough. It is far easier to stop eating for a few more hours then usual and REWARD yourself later on in the day than it is to completely eliminate foods that you love. This is the SIMPLEST and MOST LOGICAL way to change your eating habits. Dieting is basically a mental battle and that is the main reason why people can’t do it. It’s so hard to sacrifice and be rigid and strict with your meals. For that reason alone I would rather run hills until I barf and then eat whatever I can find. The renegade diet has basically tapped into that problem and offers you a solution.

I was completely pumped to see my daily progress upon waking. I felt like every morning I would stand in the mirror and get confirmation that things were working and I was on the right track. I also want to be completely transparent and mention that I continued to drink beer at probably a much higher frequency than most and I ate chicken wings at least 3 times a week two weeks in a row. When I say that I eat chicken wings……I don’t mean 2 or 3 wings… It is more like 20+ in a sitting. Not healthy in the least, but I still got results and was happy the whole time.

Is this for me?

As I have stated before, I will not be sticking to the renegade diet for the time being. I have some new strength goals set and I need to consume more calories to achieve these goals. This just isn’t possible in a four hour period. However, I think that the renegade diet would be great for anyone that needs a tune up for spring break, the beach, vacation or any time that you have found yourself a little off the beaten path fitness wise. I am fully recommending that you give the renegade diet a shot for 4 weeks just to see what happens.

Remember, I did this without any walking, running or any cardio at all. I know that the strength training does have to be acknowledged because it definitely contributed to my results. I also know that for some of you, strength training is completely intimidating and you won’t want to do it or won’t know what to do. Because I get excited when I find things that I know will work for everyone, and I want you to be successful I am going to offer a nice little deal.

Head over to the Renegade Diet sales page and purchase the product. This is a digital ebook so it will be emailed to you directly after you buy. After you get the email confirmation I want you to head over to the Q/A page and copy then submit your receipt to confirm that you bought the product. I will then email you back where we will discuss your situation and give you a strength training program that will SUIT YOUR INDIVIDUAL NEEDS. This won’t be a cookie cutter program because I will personally tailor each program to the individual….the way things should be done. Keep in mind that this is quite a bit of work for myself FOR FREE (you just buy the book and follow the diet) so I might have to limit this should I get in over my head. Hopefully the emails start to fly in and we can get results ASAP before the warm weather hits!

Intermittent fasting mental blocks

January 12, 2013

Today is the 6th day of my intermittent fasting case study and so far I am seeing immediate results. I have been updating both on this site and Everything Simple But Well with my thoughts and the process so if you are extremely interested, go there and subscribe to my email list and get the updates.

I started this case study for a few different reasons, the first being that I physically cannot perform conditioning and need to get my diet dialed in before I get a lot fatter than I want (the way I have been eating and drinking during the holidays was out of control). The second reason was to actually test the effectiveness of this type of eating vs caloric deficit (which we know works) to lose fat. The last was to hopefully inspire just one person to TAKE ACTION in their life. If you are sick of being unhappy then make a change. I woke up last sunday, thought about how unhealthy I would be if I continued to eat like a pig and started a change immediately.

As with any diet, there will be some mental blocks and hurdles that you need to overcome if you want results. These are a few that I have been experiencing and hopefully can offer some insight for those of you that want to go down the intermittent fasting road. Once again, I am not a female, so the negatives of intermittent fasting for women should be at least considered (I feel the need to say that but honestly, every diet is going to have some negative effects).

Negativity from your peers- I won’t lie, I consider myself very mentally strong but this is very difficult to deal with…especially if you are on edge because you’re hungry. You need to surround yourself with the right people or get some sort of support group to help you stay on track. That could be both in your “real life” or at least someone through social media/text/skype that can get you focused (which I have a bit of experience with Anyone that you can vent to will help you get through rough spots. There are a lot of people that don’t understand what you are trying to do and they will criticize you. Part of this criticism has to do with jealousy because you are making a positive change in your life, it is far easier to tell someone something won’t work than to actually make a change yourself….remember that. The other situation you will face are the “enablers”. These are your friends that will try to get you to cheat regularly, “c’mon, you can eat this”. These are the real dangerous ones, the ones with no will power and sap your discipline from you. I am not saying that you need to become a hermit and not talk to anyone but just be aware of these people if you aren’t getting results.. are you cheating frequently? Those small brain farts and bites add up fast.
You will be hungry in the morning- Yes, you aren’t eating. When you aren’t eating you are hungry. You need to resist the need to pick and snack until it is time to eat. The whole concept of intermittent fasting relies on the fasting part……otherwise you are just eating a huge dinner every night. Here is the deal, there is a difference between hungry and starving so get it through your head. You aren’t starving, you are hungry. If you can’t fight off hunger (like every other diet) then you suck. That might be harsh reality for some of you but it is what it is. If you can’t prevent yourself from eating something because you feel hungry then you deserve to be fat and out of shape. The reason that I chose the renegade diet and am combining with with some other principles to prevent aging is simple, the renegade diet is a 16 hr fast daily. What does this mean? You fast for all night when you sleep and basically start eating around noon-1pm. That means you just have to get to lunch time before you can consume food. There is a reward for your pain, an immediate reward. If you can just not eat breakfast then you will get results. Now, keep in mind, the undereating phase is mostly just salad but you still are eating. The real reward comes at dinner when you get to feast. I personally love this because it’s like you are looking forward to that meal all day and it tastes awesome. This brings me to the last mental block.
Don’t be an idiot at dinner……at least not every night. Yes, you can cheat a bit here depending on your goals. I don’t need to lose a ton of weight so cheating won’t really hurt me compared to those that are trying to drop a large amount of weight. The problem arises when you start to cheat regularly because you think that you can. I will be honest, if I want to have a few beers…. I am going to have them. If I want to eat a whole pizza and chicken wings while the Denver Broncos play, I will do that too. I am NOT WILLING TO GIVE UP CERTAIN THINGS just like everyone else, and that is why most diets fail. I don’t really want to go into detail about ketogenic diets and knocking yourself out of ketosis with a diet slip up so just take my word for it. The whole point here is that a cheat is ok with fasting but don’t turn it into a habit.

I am positive there are more mental blocks with fasting but these three are the ones that I personally have dealt with during the last week. My experience was usually something like this. Go to work and have my coworker ask what we are eating for lunch? Salad just like I have said every other day.. I don’t care that you don’t want it and we don’t have to eat together, that is what I am eating. You are weak, I am strong. Around 1030 I start to get hungry, like really hungry. Visions of slices of pizza for lunch start floating around and I want them bad. I usually have to focus in and tell myself that not every meal has to be amazing (salad for lunch certainly isn’t) but dinner will be. A fair amount of negative self talk occurs at this point and I tell myself how much of a loser I am if I can’t stick to the plan…which I have so far. 5pm rolls around and I am ravenous, all I want is bacon cheeseburgers and chicken wings and pizza and anything bad. I did let myself eat eggs with bacon this week but for the most part I ate really clean for dinner. The fact that you are eating is usually a reward in itself. I really struggled to put down enough food during the feast but I am sure that my stomach will get used to this. Remember, I am a regular person, not some freak that enjoys dieting and eating horrible tasting food. If I can do this then you all can too.

Intermittent fasting weight loss experiment

January 7, 2013

A new intermittent fasting weight loss experiment is underway…

I contemplated going back to intermittent fasting for the last few weeks, out of sheer boredom really…no other particular reason. Yesterday, I noticed that my knee was feeling a lot more sore than it normally does, I have a feeling that my meniscus injury is going to rear its ugly head in a bad way. This morning solidified what will probably be a longer process than I want to undergo when I walked outside, slipped on ice and promptly fell on my back. I got a stinger up the side of my knee and things felt a bit tender for the rest of the day. I know I will need to get surgery sooner rather than later and that sucks.

It occurred to me that I probably won’t be able to condition and run hills like I normally do from late February to the end of summer and eat the way I want and still get lean. As of late, my conditioning consists of riding a stationary bike for 5 minutes to warm up which is not what I would call working hard at all.

Last year, I did an experiment where I combined intermittent fasting with a brutal hill running protocol and got some damn good results in like 3 weeks. I wouldn’t say that the experiment was actually controlled though, I never really found out what was more effective, the hills or the diet. I firmly believe it was the hills but I guess we will find out soon. I decided that I would follow intermittent fasting again sans the conditioning to see what happens. In the worst case scenario, nothing happens and I have consumed more vegetables than usual so I think this is a good decision.

Regardless of the circumstances, my co-worker came in today and told me he needed to watch what he was eating a bit better (diabetic with blood sugar out of control from eating lunch together like two pigs everyday). I was actually pretty happy because most of the time when you decide to make a change, you will get some friction from those around you. This time we were both on the same page and I see this going very well because we can motivate each other. By motivate I truly mean belittle and degrade into eating healthy.

I will post the entire protocol as I follow it, I am going to also add this post over at my other site to encourage both sexes to follow and learn. There has been a lot of talk in terms of whether or not intermittent fasting is appropriate for women, so I feel that I should direct you to this post just to give a little background information on what you can expect.

If you are interested in getting a bit more free information on intermittent fasting feel free to check out THIS GUIDE that I put together over there.

Here is the basic protocol

Breakfast- nothing but black coffee and water

Lunch- Salad loaded with vegetables, tiny amount of protein, oil and apple cider vinegar dressing (if possible)

Dinner (feasting period)- This is where I will consume pretty much what I would for breakfast and regular dinner as well as whatever else I feel like until around 10pm. I won’t stay away from carbs, but I do have a general guideline to follow

Each “meal” starts with a salad, baby spinach, assorted vegetables and oil/ACV dressing
Following this salad is the “protein” portion. I get sick of eating protein but this isn’t rocket science, eggs, chicken, beef/steak, the occasional fish serving are normal
Carbs- If I feel the need to have more food, I will eat carbs. I struggle to do this as I normally don’t enjoy carbs that often….I force myself to eat them. For this experiment I’ll stick to the usual sweet potato and rice combo. I am going to work to eliminate wheat/bread but I don’t eat it that often so I guess it doesn’t matter. I won’t be extremely anal about this either, so, if I have some eggs and I want some toast I’ll eat it and not feel bad at all.

I will repeat this process as necessary until the 10pm cut off. To be honest, I am more concerned about EATING ENOUGH. I really want to see if the benefit of intermittent fasting is the actual “science” of manipulating the hormones in your body or if it is a clever way to get people into a caloric deficit because they won’t eat three meals for dinner. When I say meals, I mean meals….Not like the 6-8 “snacks” other diets suggest

I am basing this protocol from the Renegade Diet for this experiment. (full transparency-that is an affiliate link, if you decide you would like to buy the product you can do so through that link and I receive commission and I thank you, if you don’t want to then that’s cool too.)

I will update tomorrow and take the before pics (which I think is extremely dumb but I’ll do it anyway) and my weight. Another side note-if you are looking to gauge progress do so through pics, the scale will mess with your head.

To be honest, it isn’t my goal to lose any weight at all. I would prefer to not lose weight if possible, but we will just see what happens and learn as we go.

Here are a few thoughts so far based on today

I was extremely hungry through lunch today- This is bound to happen with any diet, you just need to block it out despite the fact that it is uncomfortable.
Look forward to the eating phase- The best part of this protocol, you will get to eat so take the discomfort for what it is because in a few hours you are free
I don’t drink enough water- As of 7pm I feel at bit shaky and hungry, I need to hydrate much better
I need to make it a point to at least eat what I normally would during the day or this is a stupid experiment
I need to eat enough to not have an adverse effect on my training. I know that I am at a bit of a disadvantage with my knee, but I still need to be able to step on the gas. I thought I might go into a mass phase but I wouldn’t be able to eat enough to sustain the training, I will stick with the 3x a week full template plan and keep squatting everyday until my knee says “no more”.

That is it for now, I am about to eat my second dinner and extremely excited to do so. Keep checking back and I’ll keep updating progress and results as well as some more information on the process.

Are you ready to make a change in 2013?

January 1, 2013

I have had quite the eventful closing to 2012 and to be honest, it took most of 2012 to build up to it. While sparing a bunch of personal details, I confronted a huge fear head on. After the way that things turned out and the journey that I took myself on, I ended 2012 feeling better, stronger and validated for what I had been through.

The last few days I have been reflecting a lot, about where I want to go in 2013 and how I will get there. I am sure that many of you have done the same. Maybe this is the year that you will decide to lose weight and/or get healthy. I know that for me, personally, I have some specific goals that need to be addressed.

I was headed down a slippery slope towards the end of the year and I am glad that I am fully aware of what was happening so that I have the opportunity to make some adjustments. I plan on launching a new site in the next few weeks (hopefully sooner rather than later) that will be more about personal development and taking action/making change.

Much of my writings deal with the psychological aspect of taking action anyway, as I feel that this is a much larger determining factor in your success as compared to the “correct” fitness program. I have decided that what people need is not a perfectly planned program, it’s someone that will hold them accountable and push them in the right direction…this goes for weight loss/ or pretty much any aspect of life.

I question a lot of my weaknesses and what I do or the reason why I do them. I thought a lot about simply the fact that I will eat a food knowing full well that it does nothing good for me. Let’s be honest, pizza is awesome, but is it really going to make anything better? Not really. I have even peeled the layers of the onion away further to discover “why do I want the pizza if I know it’s bad…..what am I hiding?” That is pretty scary stuff when you get down to it. I will not let myself continue these weak behaviors, I am better than that. We all are better than that.

I think that a lot of goal setting also requires those same in depth thoughts before success can be achieved. If your goal is to lose weight and you want that more than anything else, is that going to truly give you happiness? Is there something else that is being masked and projected onto the weight loss that will still remain when you reach your goal? If that is the case, I firmly believe you will never reach your goals…why? You are AFRAID TO. You know that deep down you might still not be happy after all the work and you might have to actually face some fears and issues that you hide from yourself. Let’s take another niche that people are always interested in, making more money. There is the thought that “if I can just make more money things will be ok,” yes maybe and maybe not. Are you looking to make money to buy cool things? Will that give you validation or is there something else that is missing in your life. I guarantee that the money won’t come until you have cleaned up the other aspects that are creating your fear of failure.

At the end of the year, I faced some of those issues and it felt fantastic. It was probably the most important thing that I have done in my life so far. There was piece of mind and clarity that I had never experienced before. I now just want people to experience that same feeling and feel what I had felt. If you want to lose weight, I can easily help with that too, but sometimes I think that there is more to it then that. I know that I am not a psychologist and have no actual authority on these subjects other than my own personal experiences but I feel that is enough to help motivate others.

Push your own personal limits this year, find your weaknesses and eliminate them. It is my goal to purge my system of anything that I feel is weak, whether it be thoughts, actions or fears. I truly feel that we have the opportunity to be reborn at any time in our lives and come back much stronger than before, I know that for me personally, I am starting this year off strong and willing to fight.