Fat to Fit, but still hungry - My story part 3
Consistency – the secret of success
It took me a while to get “it” to be consistent. I put a few days together of good nutrition, then a week, then a month, then… well, no app needed!!
By the end of this process I was quietly obsessed, less in controlling my calories or macros any more, but where the extra improvements could be made – the next layer of detail. My food intake day to day or week to week was on point, i understood it and it was easy for me.
And guess what?? Within 6 months, I was in pretty good shape and wow! All my other metrics had improved!! Lifts, reduced fatigue, speed and so on.
It was now about looking for “super nutrients”, things that enhanced my day, performance, recovery, longevity, etc…
This is obviously the area I have focused my energy, I have done countless hours of research (SEEN HERE) and tested a good number of ideas, ingredients and “home blends” on myself.
Findings
One of the first things I learnt was in the research backing the benefit of a given ingredient – using great sources of information (SOME HERE). In short, it’s well worth clicking through and finding the studies cited in any claim to see the details. To see the size of sample, what other parameters are added to the study, the conclusion in results and in some cases what the actual study was aiming to do.
Worth saying, you don’t have to do this every single time you consider a new food, micro-nutrient or supplement source! Not for your own research, just do it a few times when you find a website that you like and is making claims.
Helps Sniff out the BS!
Another theme I noticed fairly quickly (this directly leading to Hence!) was how little people that should know better, didn’t! I went into micro-nutrients, “superfoods”, supplements and any other additives to diet that could be highly effective for a purpose – self improvement in broad terms but with the theme of overall health. Not growth or improvement and all cost or in sacrifice of another part of anatomy etc. This is often where wires cross.
A good number of claimed beneficial vitamin, minerals and supplements offer ingredients that are not required in many common diets in excess of normal food intake. So why take it?
To counteract this potential headache for the manufacturer of the product, the dosages sizes are heavily reduced. This also happen more often than I realised when an ingredient was expensive. So a potentially beneficial product just had a fraction of the recommended amount. £££ later you realise you have consumed lots of filler ingredients, artificial sweeteners (that have their own issues on gut health etc.) and just enough of the ingredient you actually thought you bought.
See the compromises now?
I started to build an understanding of what I and many others were lacking in our healthy, balanced diets. Not lacking in the sense of poor nutrition, so much as lacking in the “super nutrition” that could push us on to achieve more! A good number of these super nutrients simply come from how society’s evolution has guided us out of what is best for us and in to what simple and somewhat effective. A good example of this the best balance of omega 3 to omega 6 (simplified but acute).
Our body and mind would do best with a 1:1 balance of Omegas 3:6 (see here). A balanced western diet in generally somewhere between 1:15-20. 20 times Omega 6 compared to Omega 3. And Omega 3 is really important to any one pushing themselves hard to improve and progress! Benefits include
· Inflammation reduction reducing injury down time, risk of injury and illness -pretty much the key to all disease reduction.
· Improves Cognition – memory, verbal fluency, learning, attention improvements noted
· Mood boosting – happy people do more and achieve more
And many more.
Anyway, on with my story
Fast forward to 2 years later (time of writing this), I believe I still carry a little too much body fat (15-18%) partly because I still like a glass of wine from time to time. Also I’m guilty of easing down the “cleanness” of my diet from time to time. Once I’d built an amount of muscle up my body had tipped over into that magic place being able to eat a little bit more and not gaining body fat. Guilty!
When it comes to a super nutrient standpoint, I am way ahead of where I was…
· I VERY rarely get ill or injured.
· I Sleep soundly, every night
· I recover after strenuous workouts very quickly, in both cardiovascular and strength training
· I rarely fatigue given I train 6-7 days per week and play competitive basketball again
Thanks to the Greens Stack and Tracker, I know I have reduced blood pressure, resting heart rate, improved mood, increased nutrient absorption and all the other metrics covered in the tool
I also noticed a number of other factors, some could be down in part to nutrition as well as other factors
· I multi task much better – continuously holding multiple ongoing conversations, deal with a wide variety of content and conversation, Trade financial markets (the role as a growing business owner)
· Strength increase both in major lifts and bodyweight exercise. As well adaptability to new or alternative exercises (As a fairly recent CrossFit fan a lot of my recent progress is clearly down to this programming!)
The initial goals were just to look good, be fit and healthy while new focuses and drives come in (like Hence!) this will happen.
Moving forward
My work isn’t done on myself, far from it! But the amount of muscle mass makes it easier to maintain a healthy size and the habit of clean eating stick. The micronutrient, adaptogens, and “superfood” uses have opened up performance for me in a big way!
I stopped tracking any calories or macros and primarily focus on balance of diet, consistent micronutrient intake with periodic testing of different systems, ideas and potential product stacks!
Tracking food, macros and diet in general isn’t that much fun, but it really made the different. It also gave me social proof and the basic understanding I needed to go down this rabbit hole of advanced or as I like to call it “Super nutrition”.
Research and understanding has got much deeper and more complicated. I started this journey to improve a basic level of health on myself only and hopefully get fit enough to be back at my best in Basketball. What’s happened, well it is considerably more than that!
What defines me now is my interest in this idea of continuous body and mind improvement with no compromise to long term health.
Not just focused on me any more either.
I’m going to try something that sacrificed my health for a short-term performance gain, it’s just not in me. Particularly now I know enough to see and understand there is still plenty of low hanging fruit for me and others to see change.
Slowly sharing a better knowledge to others as my knowledge surpasses the tipping point of self-belief, lots of research and study into “unconscious competence”. Which, as I write this, feels close now.
I developed a better understanding fatigue, timing of nutrition and training, as well as best types of exercise fit seamlessly in to this.
I’m researching
· calorie and nutrient absorption
· gut microbiome & Lipids
· PEMF treatment
· The mental side to performance
Point of this 3-part epic…
This was me opening up and being a bit vulnerable – sharing my (less than) interesting story and hopefully explaining
why I am, not who I am.
I get obsessed. It starts to “define me”, meaning it’s all I think about. I test and research, Trials and results.
I came from going nowhere to going all in.
I’m now focused on goals and breakthroughs.
I train every day mentally and physically for improvement.
I research ideas, understand them, test them for a period of time and learn to grow.
Greens Stack came from this process – it was what I needed last time I had a breakthrough it my research and testing and it made major improvements for me and now for many others.
The next product will solve the next problem, and the next and next…
Its accountability for me and Hence to keep pushing.
Luke