What I learned from 365 days of perfect nutrition

It all started with a little experiment that is described in a blog I wrote about a year ago called “My no carbs, no running 5K program”. Check that one out HERE.

At the end of that blog I mentioned that I was going to go a little further down the rabbit hole and see where it took me. The rabbit hole did lead me to an encounter with Dr. Evil in Las Vegas…but we will get to that later. I’m back to blogging one year later to talk about what I learned.

Here are the basics of the nutrition plan that I followed:

• I broke up my nutritional program into two phases.
  • Phase One would be a no carb and no cheat day/meal diet plan. The only “carbs” I ate were from green vegetables and nuts.
    • In this phase I focused on protein, healthy fats, and veggies. I did allow myself to have grass fed beef to help me up my healthy fat and overall calorie content as I was not trying to lose weight.
    • I was going to stick to this phase until I felt like I was not performing well with my workouts and needed to add in some carbs.
    • I ended up using this plan for the first 9 months of the program.
  • Phase Two is the same as Phase One except I added in one healthy carb (fruit only) load day on Saturdays.
    • So on Saturdays I was allowed to eat fruit with each meal.
  • During this entire 365 day experiment I was 100% gluten free and 100% artificial sweetener free. Just by doing these two simple things I saw some amazing results with my energy levels, digestive tract, quality of my sleep, and my workouts.

So what the heck was the point of this? I obviously enjoy eating healthy and reaping the benefits of that. I also enjoy being able to lead by example with our clients. The REAL driving force behind this 365 day experiment was that I really enjoy a good challenge. I feel like, as human beings we have to consistently push ourselves outside of our comfort zone and do things that are difficult. We GROW and get better or we become weak and slowly die each day. I have always enjoyed doing things that other people would never do. When I was in college I competed in powerlifting and the squat was my weakest lift. I did some research and found a crazy Russian program that involved squatting almost every day of the week. All of my buddies and coaches said it was a bad idea but I was up for the challenge. I couldn’t walk correctly for about 6 weeks but when I tested my squat again I had added about 60lbs to my max and I was a lot mentally stronger as well.

So I attacked this nutritional challenge with the mindset that I was going to learn everything I could along the way and come out the other end better. I didn’t weigh myself or track any stats because my goals weren’t oriented towards those things. I can tell what I look like in the mirror when I weigh between 220lbs and 225lbs with low body fat and that was all the verification I needed this past year. I mainly wanted to focus on attacking each obstacle as it presented itself. I know that this is a huge issue for people that are trying to follow a nutritional plan. What to do when “life happens”. A few times a year I will get a client email that sounds something like this:

“I need to put my program on pause because “XYZ” has happened. I’m under a lot of stress right now and something had to give and that is going to be my nutrition for now.”

We are always there to support clients in this situation but when I read emails like this I always think “WHY?”. Is eating poorly going to help you deal with stress? Aren’t you going to have to eat anyway? Doesn’t it take the exact same amount of time to eat something healthy as it does something that is not healthy?

So with this 365 day challenge I wanted to really analyze each life situation that popped up and learn from it. I had to figure out how to stay on my plan no matter what came my way. I kept track of some of the things that I had to learn how to deal with. Here is the summary list:

• Every single holiday and holiday parties
  • What I learned: When you aren’t focused on feeding your face during a holiday meal it helps you focus on the people. I had the best holiday season in recent memory because I was 100% focused on the experience of connecting with the people around me. This was truly awesome!
• My birthday, my son’s birthday, everyone else’s birthdays, and kid birthday parties.
  • What I learned: In this category the most intense situation was taking my kid to other kid’s birthday parties. Large groups of small humans STRESS ME OUT. That added stress factor combined with the seductive aroma of unlimited pizza was a test….at first. Then something happened. My four year old Henry was offered some pizza at one party and he said “NO, but can I have a bowl of broccoli?”….NOW I SWEAR that I didn’t put him up to this…the kid actually hates pizza! So that inspired me to stay strong and then it was no problem from then on.
• Sickness and injury
  • What I learned: I push the limits pretty hard with my body and when I’m sick or injured I become a super wimp. I was only sick once, nearly puking during a Wednesday 6am FBI class (Shout out to Coach Kerri for taking over mid class!). Once I was able to resume eating I just found some organic/all natural chicken and veggie soup. I’ve been dealing with back spasms for about the entire year also. Injuries can stress some people out but they really just motivate me to go into super recovery mode and be extra healthy to speed up the process.
• The health of friends and family
  • What I learned: I had two pretty scary incidents of having to make visits to the emergency room. I sat and watched my father get his heart zapped back into rhythm on one occasion and the other was a great client and friend who had a seizure. Traumatic events like this can drive some people to eat due to the stress. Again, I had to look at the situation and consider “Will eating poorly in this situation help or hurt?”. Do I need to spike my blood sugar and go into a food coma?…..HELL NO! It is moments like these that your friends and family members need you to be sharp and at your best so eat accordingly.
• Travel (Chicago/Las Vegas)
  • What I learned: I take a business trip to Chicago four times per year. This trip is easy because I know my surroundings, where I can score some food, and I can bring lots of supplies because I drive and have a fridge in my room. Vegas was a different animal altogether. This trip was during my last week of my challenge also so that made me extra motivated to dominate the experience! I just had to really plan each day and learn as much as possible. I had plenty of protein shakes, bars, almonds, jerky, etc to get me through as needed. Then I found places to eat where I could get veggies and meat. Not even Dr. Evil could stop me from eating healthy!
• Work Stress
  • What I learned: Any business owner will tell you how stressful it can be to run the show. Stuff happens all of the time that needs to be taken care of. I admit that I do have a huge advantage that my work environment is 100% healthy so that helps tremendously. I’m always motivated to be a product of the product so work stress is never really an obstacle to me staying on my nutritional plan.
• The birth of baby Hannah
  • What I learned: This would have been a very easy time to break the rules and everyone would have understood, but I just couldn’t go there! We lived in the hospital for four days and welcomed our new daughter to the world. I just had to make some trips back home or to the gym to pick up supplies because the hospital food was always questionable. I kept a cooler in our room and once again…I was able to focus on the experience….the WONDERFUL experience…instead of stress eating.

Here are a few takeaway thoughts:

1. The concept of food addiction is tricky. Food addiction is unlike any other addiction because you HAVE TO EAT in order to survive. We can’t just quit eating like we can with smoking, drugs, etc. After this experience I feel a little differently about the word “food addiction” though. I kind of feel like it is more of a combination of having cravings, some low willpower, low self esteem, and high stress more than being addicted to things like oreo cookies. The good news is that one thing can fix all of those things and that is POSITIVE MOMENTUM. The further I went along with no cheat days/meals the easier it got. To tell the truth…I kicked this challenge’s ASS!
2. I know that some of you are starting to think about how you can apply all of this info to you. My advice would be to start small, make it low pressure, and include someone else. A great example would be to do a no cheat challenge with a family member or workout buddy for one month. Build from there once you have positive momentum established.
3. What happened on day 366? Protein and veggies baby! It would defeat the entire purpose of this challenge if I broke the rules on the first day after the challenge was done. That would be like going through rehab or alcoholics anonymous and then celebrating with a beer at the end. Day 366 just meant that I had successfully completed what I set out to do and I was pretty damn proud of myself. Onward I go!

If you have read this deep into my little manifesto I thank you! Here’s one last little take away for you. Your nutrition, and really life in general, all come down to choices. When you come to an obstacle or a fork in the road will you choose to make the strong minded decision or the weak minded decision? With each strong decision made your willpower muscle builds and life gets easier. I challenge you all to challenge yourselves and push outside of your comfort zone every chance that you get. THAT my friends will enable you to truly LIVE and have amazing experiences along the way!

Be sure to kick me an email and let me know when you push yourself outside of your comfort zone and CRUSH an obstacle that life throws at you: [email protected]

Until next time…..Make Progress Not Excuses!

Adam