Mr Grey

I have always been blessed with a bit of baby face that has let me pass myself off as being a lot younger. At 27, if asked, many people would guess my age as being nearer 21. I was also blessed with a thick head of dark hair. The barber would always have to thin my hair when cutting it and often remarked that I had no fear of going bald. With the likes of George Clooney and Sean Connery going grey/sliver was never a concern of mine as a full head of silver seemed quite attractive to a large number of ladies adding a touch of distinction perhaps. 

Sadly, my genes disagreed with my barber. My father developed a 'helicopter' patch which gradually expanded forward along with an upwardly expanding forehead which finally met up leaving him bald on top. In my early thirties I could see the beginnings of this and it was amplified by the darkness of my hair. So, committed to going bad gracefully and escaping the comb-over I immediately trimmed my hair as short as it would go barring a razor blade. Thankfully I seemed to have the head shape to pull this off making it look more like a choice however a half head of grey hair was never going to achieve the Clooney look.

Despite starting to grey, the close crop has hidden this quite well as long as I cropped my hair right back once a fortnight. That is until recently. Alas that is not the case any more. Such is the extent of the grey /silver now that within one week it is clear as a bell and with it the chances of passing myself off as a thirty something have gone the way of the hair on the top of my head! Sob, sniff.

Intermittent Fasting

So..... two weeks into the 2012 Fat Dad's six pack challenge and I've gone from leading week 1 to trailing third in week 2. It's been an interesting week. Last weekend I stumbled across a website (http://rippedbody.jp/) that in turn lead me to another (http://www.leangains.com/) and an introduction to the concept of intermittent fasting. See above sites for more details as they can explain it far better than I.

Aside from the potential results (gaining muscle whilst losing fat and only training weights three times a week), what appealed to me was that the idea of an 8 hour eating window wasn't a million miles off of my current eating habits. I've never been one for breakfast so the idea of fasting for a 16 hour period then getting all of my food in in between the hours of 1pm and 9pm seemed do-able. Likewise the idea of training compound lifts 3 times a week suits me down to the ground.

I've always been anti-dieting and always viewed it as simply starving or depriving oneself of food but this approach seems more accommodating. However, I have been taken aback this week. In short the idea is I over-eat on training days with increased protein, high carbs and low fat. Then the next day, a rest day, I deficit my intake and go for protein but with low carbs and a more normal levels of fat. Seems straight forward enough.

In the past a normal work day eating pattern for me would be something like. Lots of coffee for breakfast, soup and a slice of bread for lunch, family dinner and then settle into the sofa with alcohol and crisps. Doesn't seem much but given that I've been gaining weight suggests that I have been eating more than my share of daily calories (approx. 2000).

So what soon hit me is that if you try and eat the appropriate levels of macro-nutrients (protein, carbs, fat) in the targeted proportions it equates to a lot of food. Most days I struggled to eat 1600 calories worth let alone my training day target of 2000+. They say 1g of protein or carbs = 4 calories, whereas 1g of fat = 9. So when you start watching your fat and lowering it you have to eat twice as much protein or carbs to replace it.

Case in point, I am struggling to come up with a 1000 calorie post-workout meal. A Burger King double whopper with cheese is 976 calories but has 61g of fat which accounts for 549 of its calories. On a training day I am only allowed about 30g of fat for the day. To put some perspective on it - 2 slices of rye bread toast, a large can of light choice baked beans, 2 turkey breast steaks, a four egg white omelette with low fat mature cheddar cheese, mushrooms, and tomatoes comes to 936 calories and only 11g of fat.

Seems the main problem I'm going to have dieting is eating so much!