Two weeks back I shared a post about a health and life transformation I’ve recently experienced, which has led to the creation of a new venture for me and the family – Older Bolder Fitness.
The flood of kind and encouraging emails has been much appreciated, and I thought I’d share some of what I’ve answered in terms of the many questions that have come in. If you’re damned happy with the food you eat, the way you feel every day, how you’re aging, and your overall fitness and function – move along, you’ll find nothing to see here.
In a Nutshell, What in the Hell Have You Guys Done to Change the Game?
Embarking initially on a journey geared to shed excess pounds, we totally changed our food game, based on the simple fact that eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) puts the emphasis on the wrong fuels in the wrong proportions at the wrong times.
The SAD way of eating floods your system with refined carbohydrates and sugars which simply put, evoke a hormonal and physiological response to store the spikes of easily absorbed excess fuels, and it’s stored mainly as fat along with a small amount of more-accessible reserve in the form of glycogen (principally in your liver and muscle tissue).
The core element of our game change was to dump the crap carbs (highly refined grains are particularly offensive, as is sugar in most forms) and replace them with whole-food sourced, healthy carbs – yep, mainly the vegetables your grandmother told you to eat years ago.
Dropping the offensive carbs from your food plan (and consuming protein with a common sense approach) automatically defaults you, again by SAD standards, into a lower carb, moderate protein, higher fat approach to food (the higher fat intake makes up for the lost calories previously supplied via carbs), which appears to be, when you dig down into the science of nutrition and metabolism, much more aligned with how the phenomenal human machine was designed (some will argue evolved) to run. By the way, most of us overeat protein, and pending your overall health and activity demands, it’s child’s play to nail down how much protein you should be eating every day.
It’s of course much more complex than the elementary explanation above, with an incredibly intricate and highly nuanced regulatory system managing the conversion of food you eat into energy and the raw materials your body needs to run every day, and pending one’s activity demands and metabolic health/fitness, needs for protein and fat vary greatly.
Adding a bit of intrigue to the discussion, the medical establishment (which I was a part of for decades) hasn’t used the best science, or paid attention to all the evidence, in declaring full-out war on saturated and mono-unsaturated fats and promoting refined carbohydrates as the foundation of the now-debunked classic food pyramid.
Has the food change worked for us? Hell yes; as of last weekend I’m down 172 pounds, have lost 20 inches of waistline, and we’ve never eaten this well it all our married lives. But that’s not the most interesting part of the story.
Dropping Pounds Is Great, But the Real Benefits Are Even Better
Shedding excess body weight has been great, but somewhat to my surprise (even though it probably shouldn’t have been), there’s been a flood of even more useful, and welcomed, benefits, including –
More consistent and sustained energy for all activities during the day.
Astounding improvement in mental clarity and concentration.
Kissing cousin to the above: dramatic improvement in creative and problem-solving thought.
Sharper memory.
After a period of adaption, no more hunger; in fact, sometimes forget to eat.
No more chronic heartburn.
Vastly improved sleep (and no more snoring!).
Diffuse muscle and joint aches virtually gone (97% better).
More mobile on the river, in the boat, on the trail than since my late 20’s.
Dramatic improvement in exercise ability, with impressive strength gains.
Vastly improved recovery ability (exercise and aggressive play).
Normalized metabolic markers and blood chemistry.
Much more stable mood and outlook on life.
Better sex!
Healthiest cold and flu seasons in decades.
Skin healthier.
Heightened appreciation, and taste, for great food.
There’s more, but you get the point: fine-tuning (or for some of us, an all-out change) the food game can revolutionize your day to day and stave off some inevitable health consequences that come along as unwelcome, and deadly, baggage of the standard American diet.
The information you need to get this done is at your fingertips today; I’ve invested 2500+ hours over the past few years in studying what’s out there, read a pile of books you can find easily, and made the changes.
If you’re looking for a jump start and to shave off some months conducting your own N=1 experiments and problem solving on your own, I can help.
A Thank You to Our Chi Wulff Friends
As a way of saying thanks to our Chi Wulff friends who have followed, fished, and eaten great food with us over the years, for the month of March I’m offering 30% off any of our coaching packages, just mention you’re a Chi Wulff reader when we chat on the exploratory call we do before engaging with any coaching client. More details about our coaching options here.
Git ‘er done my compadres, and see you chasing native cutties on the harder-to-access, backcountry headwaters this season…
