Evolving Diet and Sample Day
I have made it no secret on my blog that I prefer a diet rich in fat. As an athlete who has done a fair amount of "guinea pigging" myself, I have found that I feel better when my diet is comprised of at least 50 percent fats. I have known for over a year now that I prefer this method of nutrition, but what I have been experimenting with lately is what types of fats do the best job. I like to think of my high fat diet as continually evolving as I put into practice new things. A while back, I posted a snap shot of what I ate one day. After an interview with Ben Greenfield (will be posted later on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Website), I would like to do that again, but with a few tweaks I have been trying. First, when eating nuts (say almonds) I now look for raw almonds. Second, when buying meat I effort a trip to the farmer's market. I have found that things like liver are actually cheaper at the farmer's market. I pay a bit more for grass fed beef, but feel the tradeoff is worth it. When I say tradeoff I am more concerned with the fact I am putting money into the pocket of a hard working farmer, who takes pride in the quality of his/her product, rather than a big company who values dollars over consumer health. Third, I have been trying to reduce the amount of dairy I consume on a daily basis. When I do eat dairy I try to find a raw version (something that has not been pasteurized, homogenized). If I can get it for a reasonable price, I like to get goat milk products. I was listening to a podcast a while back, and an argument was made that goat milk products are better received by the human digestive system, because when you look at an adult mother goat her size is much closer to that of a human. Theory being that the milk she produces is designed for a creature that mimics the size of a human much closer (baby goats apparently weigh close to that of a human infant).
Below is a sample day of exercise and food consumption that I recorded. Like last time, keep in mind this is a one day snap shot and in no way means these are the only foods I will or do eat. I have a large group of foods I eat routinely, and these are the ones that got picked on this particular day. Thanks for reading!
Sample High Volume Day
Workouts
- AM 15 miles
- 3 mile warmup
- 5x 1 mile repeats (5:30/mi), 1 mile recovery jog between (9mi total)
- 3 mile cool down
- PM 7 miles easy, 30 minute stretch/circuit routine
AM Pre-Workout:
- Coffee w/ tbls. butter, tbls. coconut oil, ½ tbls raw honey
- Vespa concentrate
Breakfast:
- ½ avocado
- 1 sweet potato
- 3 tbls extra virgin olive oil
- ½ cup of wild caught samon
- 1 medium carrot
- Small bowl of spinach
- Unrefined sea salt (liberal amount)
- 1 oz of sharp cheddar (preferably raw)
- 4 extreme endurance, 1 extreme omega, 1 extreme joint, 3 extreme immune, extreme gut (probiotic) 1 NOW k2/D3, 1 CoQ10, 1 NOW Magnesium, 1 NOW kelp, 1 NOW blue green algae
Lunch:
- ¼ cup of flax seeds
- 2 tbls spoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 2 oz sausage
- 1 oz of sharp cheddar (preferably raw)
PM Pre-Workout
- ½ cup of raw almonds
- 1 tbls of extra virgin olive oil
- Unrefined sea salt (liberal amount)
Dinner:
- ¼ cantaloupe w/cinnamon
- 4 oz fresh calf liver
- 6 slices of bacon
- 2 cups of cabbage
- 3 tbls of sour cream
- Turmeric (liberal amount)
- Oregano
- Unrefined sea salt (liberal amount)
- 1 avocado
- 1 tbls butter
- Herbal tea with coconut milk, ½ tbls honey
- 4 extreme endurance, 1 extreme omega, 1 extreme joint, 3 extreme immune, extreme gut (probiotic) 1 NOW k2/D3, 1 CoQ10, 3 NOW Magnesium, 1 NOW kelp, 1 NOW blue green algae
Your diet is very similar to what I have been doing the past few months and it works for me too. How about tomatoes? Great source of potassium to make sure you have your sodium/potassium balance down. Also have you tried out UCAN? Seems to work pretty well for fueling.
ReplyDeleteHi Jason! Thanks for the comment. I eat tomatoes pretty regularily. I don't use the UCAN product. I like the concept of the product for workouts, but not racing. In races I actually welcome the insulin response. I just don't want to trigger it for too long and completely exhuast all storage carbs. That's why I use vespa. I can get the insulin response from a gel but then the vespa allows me to force ketosis, and not slip into continual carb burning. Hope that makes sense. But if it works for you by all means use it!
DeleteI've used the Vespa and the UCAN together. I have been staying away from gels and just eating orange slices or bananas at aid stations. I will take some UCAN prior to start and around the 2 and 4 hour marks and Vespa before and around 3 hours. Of course, I am out there quite a bit longer than you Zach so our fueling may differ. I have been taking in between 400-500 calories during 50Ks with no bonking or energy lows. Plus as a fat-adapted athlete I always have the option to start hitting the sugar if I feel like crap.
DeleteGreat post Zach. I too have been working with the high-fat (low carb) diet and have seen great improvement in my recovery and overall health. Thanks for sharing your diet from one day; it helps to gather new nutrition ideas. I find Greek yogurt shakes to be very convenient when my time is short; add to blender in this order: 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1/2 cup Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup half-n-half or cream, 1/4 cup whey protein powder, blend to smooth.
ReplyDeleteHey Dave! Thanks for the comment. I love hearing the different stories of folks who are or have tried the low carb endurance concept.
DeleteI don't usually respond to other people's diets, because I find it's always contentious. It looks like you're getting your B vitamins solely from liver and kelp/algae and maybe not enough B1 at that. Even with all the fat, it looks like you're not getting enough omega-6 fats (not a problem for most people!) The amount of zinc might be low as well. As you say... it's one day, so it's hard to say.
ReplyDeleteI found the site cronometer.com does an amazing job of tracking nutrients in diet. It, however, was developed by people who favor a very different diet, so you'd probably have to manually add all your supplements to their database.
Hi Steve! Thanks for the comments. Firstly, as you stated this is only a one day sample. I'm sure if you micro analyze it and project that I eat this same thing every day I would like be in deficit in a few micro nutrients. I do eat lots of vegetables. I am picky about fruits, but will eat them on high intensity days. I get plenty of vitamin B in my diet, as I have tracked my intake closely for a large window of time. Any lack of certain vitamins are met in my suppliments. Zinc is actually higher than I would like in most cases. I think you would be surprised how much zinc is in fatty foods (salmon, flax seeds, pork, egg yolks), and also in spinach, which I eat daily as a portal for fatty foods like extra virgin olive oil and avocado. Same thing with omega 6. I would actually be fine with a reduction in omega-6. When you are eating a high fat diet omega six is nearly impossible to avoid.
DeleteI have used myfitnesspal.com and nutritiondata to track macro and micro nutrients. nutritiondata breaks everything down as much as I desire.
Another interesting topic here is daily values of some of these nutrients. We assume you need these daily values, which we base on a typical "healthy" diet. My diet is far from what the people who established these daily values would consider "healthy." Peter Attia raised an excellent point about this. He said, "we don't know how the body changes in what micro nutrients it needs, and at what levels for people who eat a high fat diet." I utilize his website extensively as he went much lower carb than I have, and for a much longer time with much success. I would encourage you to check out his site. He is a renaissance man of sorts.
Thanks again for the great comments!