Joining the Rebellion!!

[TheDraydle]

Hello everyone!

 

My name is Dradin and I recently stumbled upon the NerdFitness website a week or so ago. After consuming every bit of information I could from what was easy to click on the website (I think I read every article on there) I did more research. Because that's what I do, I'm a college student and I'm eager to learn. Not only am I a college student but I am a Nutrition major and I was baffled by some of the ideas that I started reading about (specifically paleo). I was currently in the middle of classes that were teaching me how elite athletes need tons of carbohydrates in the form of grains for peak performance. I have read articles on the awesome stories of people benefiting from going paleo and even some about athletes that saw leaps and bounds in performance even in middle adulthood. Just last night I watched "The Perfect Human Diet" on Amazon Prime and it literally blew my mind with how much SENSE the paleo diet makes. I have recently (like this weekend) really tried to embrace eating paleo. So far, so good... I am having hiccups (I was eating peanut butter the first couple days and I had a campfire and got a little s'more crazy the other night, something I NEVER do) but I am feeling GREAT in just a few days’ time. I don't know if it’s me being hyped on this knowledge, or if I really am functioning at a higher level! But let me tell you a little bit about myself before we dive into what I hope to have in my future.

 

I have always been a overweight, pretty much since I was about 12 or so. Going into high school I started getting pretty heavy (I played tons of video games and ate terrible) until the summer going into my junior year I said no more. I decided that I was done with being overweight; I started running, eating salads, meats, and really monitoring my caloric intake. I began doing a lot of self-research on nutrition, I was hooked. From that moment on I knew I wanted to get a degree in nutrition, and hopefully go into pharmacy, but nutrition was the main thing I wanted to learn, it was wildly interesting to me. My weight loss came; I went from a whopping 220 to 160 pounds in a short four months. Being 5'8" (and 3/4's lol!) being 220 was quite heavy, and 160 is pretty lean! The only problem was that I was not eating enough calories and I became skinny fat, I lost weight since that was the goal but came out with a terrible physique, something I wasn't going for. I'd always "dreamed" about six-pack abs and having girls be swooned over my body, but that's not how I looked even though I lost 60 pounds. Besides that, my mom got worried that I was getting too skinny. I was working out, wrestling for my high school and even running in the mornings sometimes. I honestly probably ate 2000 calories a day with that exercise regime, which at 16 years old doing that much work EVERYDAY of the week I was probably needing around 3500. At a 1500 calorie deficit for extended periods it’s no wonder that my mom thought I was sick, I WAS! I got into researching again, I read and read and read about nutrition and what I needed to do so that I could get this "rockin bod". I started lifting heavy (followed Huge In a Hurry by Chad Waterbury for a while) but not religiously, I hardly took it super serious. I had gains, I saw my lifts getting bigger and my muscles showing up, and I felt/looked healthy. But I still felt overweight. I had a gut still, all I wanted to do was to take off my shirt at the beach and not feel uncomfortable. I got up to about 170-175 and was able to bench 230 (5 reps), squat 210ish (5 reps) and deadlift 290 (5 reps). I felt better, was a senior in high school about to go to the University of Idaho to study nutrition, I felt good and was living it up! Then college hit.

 

No need to worry about college hitting me actually! I never gained my freshmen 15 and was aware of my food intake, but not at ALL the quality of the food. If I felt my weight going up a little, I'd drop some food in my week. I picked up weights once in a while and got off and on a couple different programs but never really found focus and routine to be strict to a diet and a lifting regime. I was partying (its college!!!!) and drinking a lot of calories in liquor/beer/MIXERS and noticed a little weight gain but I fought it off with lifting/running/intramural sports. Same thing my sophomore year; almost exactly actually, I was taking a couple nutrition courses but nothing that got into any real interesting substance. I am going into my junior year and have just completed a summer session of 5 online nutrition courses ranging from Vitamins and Minerals to Global Nutrition. All summer between work and school I have been online just TRYING TO LEARN MORE!!! I LOVE nutrition and reading about it all the time; learning new information, what vitamins do what, why these minerals work with our cells to make certain enzymes and the works. Furthermore, this summer I wanted to get into the shape that I was going for when I started my journey in high school. I started off slow (really slow) and didn't get a gym membership till July and then started trying to watch how I ate. Adding lots of fruits, vegetables and lean meats along with adequate whole grains that's what my diet was based around. A friend of mine recently lost a lot of weight and said that he quit eating dairy and gluten and he swears by it because he honestly looks great! He was almost as big as I was in high school and he looks better than me now. I think I am stronger (and more muscular) but he doesn't have the gut I have! So I did some research on it. I decided to choose that dairy was something that I am going to cut out of my diet because of my research and the claims that I felt were backed well with rational thought and knowledge. I ate a lot of rice... occasionally corn tortillas, and rarely but sometimes wheat (REAL whole grain, not just "brown bread") and got into a lifting program one that I see as pretty laughable looking back now. I had the goal of getting from 170 - 160 by the end of summer, 10 pounds, 10 weeks. I thought, EASY! I did 60 pounds in 4 months back in high school so if I am more focused now as a young adult and backed with some nutritional knowledge I'll do this easy. I was wrong. I thought I had my diet on lock-down, I felt good, I was losing a little weight and only got to 164 in 8 1/2 weeks (this last week, right before I found NerdFitness). So now I've been reading paleo articles on NerdFitness, lifting articles; getting back into some of the stuff that I read about my senior year of high school (when I was gaining muscle doing Madcow 5x5). I started the transition into paleo, and started this Monday. I'm not full, I really can’t cut out teriyaki sauce and sriacha and some other condiments that aren't TECHNICALLY paleo but make me happy and honestly aren't that caloric or bad for me in my opinion. I like to call it "neo-paleo", I don't drench my salads in dressing, light olive oil will do, but I like to add balsamic or even use my teriyaki sauce as dressing. I am doing only meat, fruit, seeds, nuts, and LOTS of vegetables; with my delicious sauces. I also drink coffee (black) for a pre-workout or with lunch (I don't crash though, and I love it). But besides that I feel I am eating fairly paleo and proud of it!

 

Wow, that was a mouthful; I hope I didn't bore anyone. But here I am, working hard to eat paleo, and now lifting HEAVY three times a week (right now I am just doing squats, overhead press, pullups on one day; deadlifts, bench, inverted rows one day; and squats, dips and chinups another day). I am only 4 days in; but I am ready to make it a lifestyle. I go back to college in a week and half and am a little scared about being able to keep up paleo (for another post) but I will adapt. Regardless, from what I've read I am hoping to see drastic changes in my body composition in the following months (let’s get that flat stomach!). With paleo eating and heavy lifting I am hoping to get a flat stomach (10% body fat), do 10 pull-ups and once, 10 double unders (jump roping) by November 1st and have all of my lifts (deadlift, bench, squat) above 200lbs by the time Christmas comes along! I am here for the journey and am ready to feel better from eating better and become the best I can be!

 

I am glad to join the rebellion. And I hope that wall of text wasn't too much for someone to read; support is always welcome!