Wednesday, February 09, 2011

The Turbo Transition Diet


I wrote a simple-to-follow transition diet a long time ago that I often use at the beginning of serious training periods. I’ve been tweaking for a couple of decades and the latest version was just published here (the weird Star Trek transport-like photoshop oddity was not my concoction).

I find this diet is easy for a lot of people because you eliminate certain things from your diet each week but can otherwise eat however you like. It starts simple, with only the deletion of junk at your discretion. My theory is that junk is most people’s dietary white whale. Once it’s gone they find that diet is pretty easy to control. Most diets sabotage this by trying to do everything at once. The broccoli for M&Ms swap is an awfully big step that I find, more-often-than-not, leads to excuses for giving up. But when you just eliminate junk, but can eat absolutely anything else, it’s pretty hard to come up with an excuse to quit.

But I eat pretty well these days so I don’t need as gradual a transition. So for the next 50 day period of my winter training program I’m going to start a turbo-charged version, where I lump the first 5 weeks into one, spend most of time on week 6, and transition to a full raw food cleanse for the final push. It’s no coincidence that week 6 is the “if man makes it, don’t eat it” phase, coined by my buddy Jack.

Admittedly this was inspired by Romney and family unity, as her birthday challenge this year is to go raw for 34 days. Since I don’t want to go raw—or copy her—but also do something that makes it simple for us to eat together I’m allowing myself the modern invention of fire and the pretense that I’ve got a lot of training to do outside and it’s winter. So she can eat her soup to 116 degrees and I can leave mine on the stove to warm-up while I’m riding or running in a blizzard.

pic: beam me up or wtf?

15 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks Steve. I have sent the article to my Fit Club members! I'd love to see us all do it together and watch the results!

Josh said...

Um, aren't bourbon, beer, gin and wine made by man?

You're just talking about solids, right? I mean you can still drink.

I dunno man. Raw foods? What about elk jerkey? Or elk stew? Or, well, elk anything?

I had this crazy lady say to me once, "You know food is a fuel, not a hobby?" To which I replied simply by looking at her as though she was a turd.

I prefer the Jim Harrison way of looking at it: Drink and eat as you want, so long as it doesn't kill you. For the simple reason that that would be the end of your drinking and eating.

-J

Steve Edwards said...

I said eat, not drink. However, currently only wine is being considered as it's raw and should be vegan, though some companies cheat so you need to research. I haven't researched raw beer but I'm sure somebody must make this. Raw bourbon... hmmm... I have to look at this as the antithesis of the martini challenge, I guess.

There's a huge bull elk who harasses me on my runs up Grandeur Peak. Maybe I'll show him who's boss and go on an elk diet. Probably not though.

Anonymous said...

Alcohol slows your metabolism greatly. Drinking on occasion is okay though.

Josh said...

Um Anon,

Reading you post slowed my metabolism. Thinking about your life slows my metabolism. Go sell your morality whack somewhere else.

I only drink on occasion. And any occasion will do.

Josh

Fast Metabol said...

I think my metabolism is too fast. I'm like Moocher. He eats 3 times a day but his metabolism eats 5. I need the alcohol to keep from gettng too skinny.

Unknown said...

Cows, Deer, Elk, and Moose to name a few are all vegitarians. We are what we eat, are we not?

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Moocher's dad sold their house yet.

Hey, are you really gonna shave your legs?

Cyril

bob banks said...

I sympathize with Romney's diet. I went raw for a few weeks once several years ago. It hyper-sucked. Worst diet I've ever been on (as well as the most expensive).

Dr. Ferrari said...

If you exercise enough you need alcohol to slow your metabolism enough to sleep so you can receive all those excellent hormonal recovery shots. So the harder you exercise the more you need to drink in order to sleep in order to recovery without banned substances. The perfect combo is like legalized doping; a natural Kreb's Cycle enhancement if you will.

Mean Boss said...

Don't forget to punch the clock, shorty.

Anonymous said...

I think I'm in love with Josh....

Mean Old Man Mike said...

Some country, the women don't shave their legs.

Mr. Stoller said...

I want American food, damnit, I want French fries!

Anonymous said...

Bourbon is totally made of whole grains, I recently went to a famous bourbon distillery in Loretto, KY, and they showed every ingredient...even limestone filtered water..its the ginger ale you gotta curb...