Research, Speculation, and New Ideas

Under the circumstances, I'm afraid this is going to be an excessively long post. At the very least, I'm going to include more pictures than usual. I've been taking pages of notes today, but I'm not going to include all of my thoughts. Oh well. I'll see what happens.

First, I will resolve a couple of issues. I am planning on continuing both Slow Carb and P90X at least until the beginning of July. I ate a lot yesterday, and I performed well doing the P90X Legs and Back DVD today, so whether or not there's a connection, I know that I am both capable of consuming as much food as I need and I am also capable of continuing to handle P90X. Whether there's causation, at least both are true on their own, which is all that matters to me at this point.

I now have a giant container full of mixed nuts and a freezer full of vegetables per Jon's recommendation. Thanks to formerly chubby guy from the P90X infomercial I watched today, I also know that he "couldn't do 20 percent of what those guys on the videos were doing when [he] first started" so I can now feel better about my 50 to 75 percent success rate. (Fine, I admit it. I've been closer to 20 percent on a couple of them.)

I changed my mind about writing a lot. Instead, look at this picture to the left. I checked these books out from the library. As I read them, I will include information I have gained. For now, all I can say is I'm looking forward to finishing The Blue Zone after reading the preface and introduction, and I may never again pick up Barry Sears' The Zone. Seriously, it's the most complicated and confusing math textbook/sci-fi novel I've ever opened.

The main reason I got it was to see what ratio he recommended for the "Zone." It turns out that's a diet with calories that come from 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fat. That's all I really wanted to know, and I found it by flipping through the book for a few minutes and finding a pie chart in Chapter 7. I then went to Scooby's "Free Fat Loss Calorie Calculator" and plugged in those numbers. It told me how many carbs, fat, and protein I should have at every meal if I want to follow the Barry Sears recommendations. I'm sure Sears has more nuanced advice written in whatever language he writes in, but I've learned everything I want to based on my ten minutes of research and calculation.

I somehow managed to take five or six pages of notes based around my crazy idea of going on a 1200 calories-a-day diet (because that's how much some of the world's oldest Asian mountain people consume) and making it consistent with P90X, Slow Carb, and Sears' Zone all at the same time. I think it was largely a logic and logistics puzzle, to see if it was even possible. I haven't researched it enough yet to realize how stupid and impossible it is, but for now here's what I have:

I would consume 240-calorie meals 5 times a day. Each meal would contain foods that are both Slow Carb-friendly and are present in the top 2 tiers of Michi's Ladder (per Beach Body/P90X recommendations). Each meal would also contain 18 grams of protein, 24 grams of carbohydrates, and 8 grams of fat.

I also have The South Beach Diet, McDougall Program, The Abs Diet, and Atkins, but I haven't had the chance to look at them in much detail. Well, I've looked at Abs a good bit actually, but it's not very specific in its recommendations. My assumption is that I've probably been following that one by accident already, and whatever diet I choose will be more or less consistent with it. It's basically the "eat reasonably healthy foods and lots of protein" diet.

Fine, that was more than enough for one post. Here's what I ate yesterday:


June 17

• 2 Boca patties with Daiya and pickle relish
• refried black beans
• 44 oz. of water
• 2 sticks of Double Mint gum
• a few small handfuls of sunflower seeds
• refried black beans with Daiya and sour cream
• High Country Kombucha - goji berry tea (I know. Liquid calories. I'm sorry. Only 80 at least.)
• handful of mixed nuts
• stevia-sweetened soy yogurt with vanilla and cinnamon
• mesquite-lime flavored seitan Primal Strip
• spoonful of peanut butter
• unsweetened chocolate almond milk with stevia added
• handful of mixed nuts
• wine and diet tonic water
• sugar-free cherry gel