Concept2 Forum

Since I've been hitting the erg 3-5 days/week I've been searching for a daily meal plan, but can't find any. I have changed what I eat; cut out lots and lots of saturated fat, cut out junk food and eating more healthy. Since I'm not interested in competition right now and my age and weight what is the best type of diet for those that their workout is all erg? I want to get fit, loose fat and trim down some. Although I'm not overweight I think; 47 years old, 163 lbs, 5'10.5". What does a sample/daily eating plan look like?

Regards!

Like a Pyramid; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_eating_pyramid

Banana Splits, Peach Melbas and suchlike are always amazingly satisfactory, as well as a Carbonara or minestrone. Milk is the best drink there is beyond any doubt, and with bread and fruit makes up an almost complete diet.

I wouldn't think a little erging makes a special diet necessary; these are more likely needed by those who do not exercise.

Sorry, Jamesg... I whole heartily disagree.
IMO, WAY too high on carbs...
Sure prescription for metabolic syndrome in many folks that follow such a diet. Along with the concomitant HTN, Dyslipidemia, increased Uric acid, insulin resistance, to name but a few.

I posted a link to Dr Peter Attia's presentation elsewhere. It's drastic, and definitely NOT for everyone, but if you read it you will get the gist on carbs. He also has a good blog on diet. Also look at Dr Robert Lustig's lecture on sugar.
Sadly, milk today from the cattle we raise in CAFO's, pasteurized etc, full of omega 6 fatty acids, hormones, and antibiotics is not a good choice for drinking. Clean water is best (hence do your homework on your water source and at least filter it with a carbon filter if you drink straight from the tap).

You must have a lot of trouble finding things to eat: I follow a different protocol, I've always ate everything I see in front of me, from stewed bear to fried scorpions. So far so good, but then I'm only 73; a little exercise I guess is what keeps me going.

macher wrote:Since I've been hitting the erg 3-5 days/week I've been searching for a daily meal plan, but can't find any. I have changed what I eat; cut out lots and lots of saturated fat, cut out junk food and eating more healthy. Since I'm not interested in competition right now and my age and weight what is the best type of diet for those that their workout is all erg? I want to get fit, loose fat and trim down some. Although I'm not overweight I think; 47 years old, 163 lbs, 5'10.5". What does a sample/daily eating plan look like?

Regards!

If you are trying to get your bodyfat levels downs try and cut out wheat and dairy products and introduce alternatives like oatmilk, almond milk, porridge oats, oat flakes, cous cous, quinoa, gluten free pasta, basmati/brown rice, fresh fruit, vegetables, fresh oily fish, poultry, nuts, seeds, beans and pulses. Also cut out carbohydrates after 5pm and have fish or poultry with vegetables (except potatoes) in the evening, this should get you on the right track.

For a more personal plan see a sports dietician in your area.

Don't know if the comment about difficulties finding foods was in regards to my post.
I rather think it was just a more general statement?
Surely!

I am a Paleo person. Only thing I eat thats not so much paleo friendly is lots of sweet potatoes since I row a lot and also crossfit. Id stay away from that food pyramid stuff. Skip the milk and bread too. Gluten is horrible for your body!! Bad bad bad.. Milk is incredibly fattening too.. Check Paleo out. Ive been eating that diet for almost exacly a year now and I feel incredible.No processed crap, no sugars...

I'm sort of a vegetarian.....I only eat things that eat grass. I evolved beyond the caveman years ago and have learnt to graze the aisles of the modern supermarket.
Carbs are simply fuel for your body and your body loves them......a little too much.
Plan your diet around your exercise / lifestyle programme for best results. Eat only what you will use.
Complex carbs ( rice, pasta, vegies ) an hour and a half - two hours before the workout will be good. If you feel like a snack a little closer to the workout, have a banana.
Protiens....meats, fish etc help with cell repair and should make up the bulk of your evening meal. Your body does most of its repairing whilst you sleep.
I like cereals and fruit to get me going in the morning as well as a nice cup of coffee
You should also have a small meal straight after the workout if possible. Tuna and rice works well. (brown rice if possible). Protien shakes work well.
Keep a bag of almonds close by for snacking throughout the day. They are a good source of protien and natural fats as well as keeping the back end working smoothly.
All things in moderation and avoid the extreme.......lifes too short and meals should not be difficult to source or enjoy.

Xsquid wrote:I am a Paleo person. Only thing I eat thats not so much paleo friendly is lots of sweet potatoes since I row a lot and also crossfit. Id stay away from that food pyramid stuff. Skip the milk and bread too. Gluten is horrible for your body!! Bad bad bad.. Milk is incredibly fattening too.. Check Paleo out. Ive been eating that diet for almost exacly a year now and I feel incredible.No processed crap, no sugars...

How about the Massai One of the most healthy and strong people in the world. The drink lots of milk and blood for that matter.

Paleo is a hoax, there is never been a Paleo way of eating. humans have always been opportunatists, we ate what was availeble and that differs a lot depending on where we are on the planet.

The part that makes sence is processed crap, sugar... That is the main culprit nowadays. Just empty energy which also is very easy on the digestive system, so very easy to overeat.
Most people who eat paleo came from a very unhealthy starting point, if you start eating whole foods and start exercising, yes your health will improve lots, but that is not paleo that did it, but the whole package.
Most people can handle grain fine, but the problem is often they can,t keep it in moderation, they go overboard eating mostly carbs as food and that where they go wrong. Carbs are fine as long as you need them, and you need them for your brain and for non aerobic work. Modern people don,t do much work, so carbs are less needed.

hjs wrote:Paleo is a hoax

You are right, but you are also wrong - and wrong for the very reasons you mentioned. The end result of a paleo diet is something very healthy. I don't agree with how you get there, but that's just my opinion. There's lots of smart people that disagree and think the science behind paleo is sound. I don't see why it matters. What matters is the quality of the diet itself.

Casting a wide net and avoiding whole families of foods (like paleo does) really isn't a bad idea. Allergists use elimination diets to uncover food allergies. You first exclude the suspect food and then add it back and note how your body reacts. When you try to determine what types of foods to start with, there's a pretty standard list of foods we are most likely to have a problem with. They are legumes, grains, soy, dairy, nuts, sweeteners (natural and artificial), and eggs. That not a comprehensive list, but it isn't a fluke that there are lots of overlaps between common allergens and foods that are avoided while doing paleo.

I excluded the above and added each thing back one at a time only to discover I was lactose intolerant. I actually enjoyed my new diet and decided to leave out those foods except for eggs and nuts. I eat the same calories today as I did before, but lost 30 pounds in 3 months. My activity level is also the same. I track all of that in a food diary - always have. The end result is a very paleo diet without actually ascribing to the science of the craze. I stuck to the science of the food instead.

I guess my bit of value add to this string is that paleo is a sound approach to eating and that it showed me that a calorie really isn't a calorie. Your body handles different foods in very different ways. I eat much more fat and cholesterol than before and a lot less carbs. (my total cholesterol is now 124 FYI) I've learned that we're all amazingly different and that we don't all respond the same to the same food. I've also learned that we have a lot more to learn.

One item about paleo has me curious. Non-processed. To me that would definitely mean not cooked, since heating makes very profound changes in most of our food, especially proteins. I checked out paleo-diet on Wikipedia and found there are some paleo-diet practioners that do stick to raw foods only. But I get the impression from a lot of messages on the 2 C2 forums that this practice is not very widespread. With the foods that are available now, there is considerable hazard to eating uncooked meat due to bacterial contamination that can be eliminated by heating. It is not such a problem with roots, leaves and fruits, since the contaminants are on the surface and can be removed by cleaning and/or peeling. With modern food sources, even those can be a problem if the plants were treated with systemic pesticides, but cooking would not eliminate all of those.

What is generally considered to be paleo, raw only or some cooking allowed?

One item that I am familiar with is the result of overcooking fats (and to some extent meats). As a chemist, I would call this process pyrolysis and it is well established that it produces carcinogens. Cajun foods, i.e. "blackened" would be particularly susceptible to this.

Bob S.

What it all boils down to regarding diet, is to eat a well balanced diet that includes fruits, veggies, carbs, meat-red and white, fish, some saturated fat, some unsaturated fat, dairy, including prepared foods, et.al..
But it's all about portion control. Too much of something will add weight and may result in some body malfunction or increased risk of disease. But over all your body does a good job in processing what it needs and expelling the rest. For those here against any "chemical/artificial ingredient" all food breaks down into chemical components. Your body doesn't care what the source of the chemical is, a chemical is a chemical; all chemical break down the same (high school science).

Any diet that is restrictive in any way or that seeks to induce extreme weight loss, it deficit in something the body needs. Too much of something at the expense of something else can lead to problems. They are finding now that even vegetarians can get diabetes because veggies and whole grains are simply carbs in one form or another and carbs all break down to glucose and fructose and too much fructose is behind the risk of diabetes. So again, at the risk of getting flamed, eat a broad range of food and monitor how much you are eating relative to your daily caloric needs.

To lose weight, do "push-aways", push away from the table, and "frig leans", lean against the refrigerator door to keep it closed. . To gain the muscular and heart strength (yeah, I know the heart is a muscle), exercise regularly. The combination of both will help improve your overall health over time,just not in a week.

Bob S. wrote:One item about paleo has me curious. Non-processed.

I have no doubt that there are lots of different takes on this in discussion threads, blog posts, and other internet forums. From what I've read in book form, mechanical processing and cooking are ok. We know that paleo man did this. For example, this was posted on National Geographic last week:
Hot Stew in the Ice Age? Evidence Shows Neanderthals Boiled Food http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... n-science/

How you cook it is critical. You are right about it changing fats. I've seen this in multiple books and it goes back to just being good science and not necessarily a benefit of recreating the paleo lifestyle.

I agree that balance is good in the sense that we should eat a broad range of foods. That’s one of the benefits of living in this time and place. We have the ability to eat a broad range of foods which makes a lot of micronutrients available to our bodies that may otherwise not be. However, I believe that the ratio of macronutrients is really what is critical when it comes to weight loss. That’s where I disagree with the ‘common sense’ approach to dieting. Applying the first law of thermodynamics to human diet oversimplifies a truly complex thing.

It is not about portion control. A calorie is not a calorie. It is not a matter of willpower. Each of us will handle an identical calorie in different ways. Why this happens is pretty complex and I think we’ve gotten cause and effect mixed up until recently. Science is finally starting to sort it out.

For example, I could naturally be more insulin resistant than you and therefore more likely to store energy as fat and less likely to burn that fat as fuel. I can alter and influence this by eating less carbohydrates and exercising more. Both are shown to help increase insulin sensitivity. However, these are burdens that are unique to me because I’m genetically different than someone who is naturally insulin sensitive.

I believe that we will someday be ashamed of our commonly held belief that people are overweight or obese because they lack self-control. Recent research is starting to reveal that weight may be the effect and not the cause. Books by Gary Taubes, Jeff Volek, Michael Eades, and Mark Sisson summarize a lot of new research that shows how much we’ve gotten wrong when it comes to understanding diet and the human body.

I just lost 8 pounds last night, with no exercise and no diet plan. I was just following my special "High Desert Weight Loss Plan" which guarantees a loss of 4 to 8 pounds a night - every night. Anyone out there, with marketing skills, that can help me promote the sale of this miracle plan? The only catch is that the weekly weight gain/loss is zero, but, what the heck, no plan is perfect. Well, another catch is that there are a number of interruptions of sleep, but seeing the result on the scale in the morning is worth it. (Don't tell anyone, but the secret is drinking a lot of water during the day.) In any case, with the right promotion, it aught to make a bundle.

Bob S.