First, an email from reader Prescott:
...I recently read your post "Nothing for Breakfast" and was very intrigued by the intermittent fasting concept. If you have space and time at some point, could you make a post about what a "typical" day looks like in terms of when and what you eat? Even just rough calorie counts and how everything would be great! I eat paleo/primal but have been doing 5-6 meals a day because of all the (supposed) benefits. i do feel that smaller meals make it easy on my digestive system; did you have trouble adjusting to getting in your daily calories in an 8-hour window in terms of gastrointestinal issues? IF and 3 meals a day would be much easier!I don't weigh or measure my food, so my caloric intake's a mystery even to me. A while back, I posted about what I ate during a typical week. But if you want to get more granular, here's what I ate on a couple of days earlier in the week: Sunday (a rest day) and Monday (a workout day):
Sunday
After running some errands with the family, we grabbed lunch at the Old Port Lobster Shack. I had a "Shack Louie Salad" with lobster, crab and shrimp, which -- shameless plug alert! -- you can read about here on M's just-launched food blog, Nom Nom Paleo. (She's posting about what she cooks and eats on a regular basis -- and I pretty much eat the same stuff she does.)
In the afternoon, I snacked on a cup of dried flake coconut and a handful of macadamia nuts.
We made dinner for friends, and ate a ton that night: sous vide shortribs and carrots, cauliflower puree, braised cabbage (from the recipe that Mark Sisson stole), roasted broccoli, Creminelli salami with various cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery, spiced almonds, roasted peppers with balsamic, and fresh strawberries.
I was stuffed by 7 p.m., so I stopped.
Monday
After my 5 a.m. workout (done on an empty stomach), I swigged some coffee before heading to the office.
I got caught up with work and didn't get around to eating lunch until noon: Leftover shortribs, cabbage and carrots.
During a short break, I walked over to the Golden Gate Meat Company counter at the Ferry Building and grabbed a $2 "sausage-on-a-stick": A spicy Italian sausage link on a skewer, served with German mustard.
I also snacked on some of Alfieri Farms' Cajun-spiced almonds (I have a little bag of 'em in my desk drawer), some pistachios, and a hard-boiled egg. And when I got home for dinner, we had sous vide chicken breast with roasted delicata squash and cherry tomatoes, with a generous dollop of guacamole on the side.
Afterwards, I was still hungry, so I topped off with some flake coconut and mac nuts (my snack of choice). And at 7:30 p.m., I stopped eating for the night.
As you can see, I don't stick to a regimented meal plan. Rather, I eat whatever (as long as it's lacto-Paleo-compliant) and whenever (as long as it's not before lunch or after dinner). I eat until I'm full. And while I'm sure I end up downing a lot more calories than I'm "supposed" to, I still look, feel and perform just fine.
Next up: A question from an anonymous commenter:
You made some fantastic gains with P90X, but the progress pics stop after round 1 (unless I'm too computer illiterate to find the others). I'd like to see how far you've come now that you're doing the paleo thing along with Crossfit.This isn't the first time I've fielded requests for more up-to-date progress photos. A few months ago, I wrote:
As for your question about putting up more recent photos, I explained in one of my posts a while back that I've decided not to post them. My goal during Round 1 was to get fit, and taking/posting my progress photos was a good way to keep me accountable. But at this point, I'm just working on maintaining what I achieved during my first 90 days -- so I don't have any visible "progress" to show off. (It's not like I've become Lou Ferrigno or anything; I look pretty much the same as in my 90 day photos.)This remains true. There's no visible "progress" to show off because I'm not trying to lose fat at this point -- I just want to keep on keepin' on.
But I get the sense that I'll keep getting requests for updated pictures until/unless I give in. So if you must look, I posted a new photo after the jump.
Happy now?
I wish I'd taken the time to arrange for more flattering lighting, but with my two-year-old trying to explore my armpit hair, I managed to take just one snapshot. You can probably tell that I'm not as "ripped" as I was after 90 days of exhausting P90X workouts, but on the flip side, I haven't (yet) turned into a big tub of goo (or reverted back to my flabby pre-P90X body composition) -- despite adopting an all-you-can-eat, fat-filled paleo diet and dialing back my workouts to three short sessions a week.
