Paleo: not noticing any difference.

[Brometheus]

Agreed, that breakfast would kill me. Breakfast for me is a half pound of meat, 6 eggs, and some potatoes.

[Loren Wade]

I'll be honest, I haven't read this entire thread. I've mostly skimmed. I'm only replying to ask if you've read The Paleo Solution. Why? Because it answers many, many common questions about Paleo... especially the "It's not working" question. Haha.

[Brometheus]

What I mean is, you can be satisfied at only three eggs?

I always have to cook five, preferably with a piece of Polish sausage, and I have to go for some milk or cottage cheese after. Three eggs is starvation paleo.

The article = bulk buy affordable high calorie foods and eat a shitload. High saturated fat, high protein.

Hahahaha. Starvation paleo. That's both really sad and completely awesome!

[Guest Snake McClain]

What I mean is, you can be satisfied at only three eggs?

I always have to cook five, preferably with a piece of Polish sausage, and I have to go for some milk or cottage cheese after. Three eggs is starvation paleo.

The article = bulk buy affordable high calorie foods and eat a shitload. High saturated fat, high protein.

i would say it satisfies me at all but that's all I eat because anything past three eggs starts to taste bad to me and i feel like i want to puke. i will DEFINITELY try it with polish sausage. i usually have bacon with it as well. Right now it's mostly a budget issue.

I'll be honest, I haven't read this entire thread. I've mostly skimmed. I'm only replying to ask if you've read The Paleo Solution. Why? Because it answers many, many common questions about Paleo... especially the "It's not working" question. Haha.

No I have not read this. I will go find it i guess.

[qpop]

Paleo solution is a great read.

You sound like you expected paleo to revolutionise your life, but you're pretty fit/healthy to begin with I think so the effects will be reduced.

I recommed reading around the diet/nutrition area of bullshido.net - there are a lot of fighters that know a lot a lot about bulking up on there.

If you're skint then I hear GOMAD is about the most effective way to add bulk (Gallon Of Milk A Day).

If you did that along with paleo I reckon you'd be a killing machine in three months. (OK I know it's all fake really, but my experience has been with MMA fighters and you have similar needs I presume)

[Knightwatch]

If you're not absolutely married to paleo full time, I'll recommend Johnny Pain's "Swole", available from strengthvillain.com. It's pretty simple. But, beware, it basically comes down taking general guidance, blasphemies of blasphemies, from bodybuilding.

From the introduction:

The one statement out of the ones listed above that always gets me however is that bodybuilders are not strong. This one I always found comical because of its blanket nature. I am not going to say that bodybuilders are all beasts or are all stronger than members of this group or that group, lest I sound as asinine as the others for speaking in such unsubstantiated absolutes. I will however say that I have seen some of the most impressive feats of strength I have ever witnesses performed by bodybuilders and that I have never met a bodybuilder (the serious variety now, not the guy at Gold’s who goes in on Monday and bench presses 135 for ten for ten years) who had an impressive amount of muscular development who did not have grossly above average strength to go with it.

Am I going to send you all out to by Jan Tana and a pair of posing trunks next?

Of course not.

What I am going to do however is clear the air of all of the mythical trash talk bullshit that gets in the way of you learning the lessons that you can learn from the bodybuilding community. Think about it for a minute, if your initial goal or the goal that you have now includes or included building an attractive, muscular physique that you could be proud to display, wouldn’t those who compete in that very endeavor be good folks to borrow lessons from? Logic would tell you so, but you’ve been told otherwise.

Slow-go cardio was stupid and was not as good for getting you lean as high intensity circuits or barbell complexes were; yet bodybuilders regularly get leaner than you have ever been able to by doing exactly that.

Isolation movements are pointless and serve no purpose; yet you’ve never been able to get your shoulders to look like cannonballs, or get your calves to grow.

Shakes and other supplements are useless, you can get everything you need from food or milk; yet bodybuilders make heavy use of shakes and supplements and have much better results with the very goal you set out to accomplish than you ever have.

I really could go on here, but I will spare you the obvious at this point.

There are many lessons to be learned from the wisdom acquired by those who have sought out to develop lean, muscular, healthy bodies for many years now. This collective “bro science” (as it is so lovingly referred to by its opponents) is some of the most valuable information you can receive if you are truly interested in changing your body for the better, building a masterpiece of dense muscle with little fat in the context of this book.

In this book I will serve as your guide and help you to apply some of these lessons. You will all be graduates of my University of Applied Bro Sciences after reading and studying this work from cover to cover.

It's actually a pretty good read, as he pokes a lot of fun at both the Starting Strength and Crossfit communities, both of which he still works with, but both of which he has some good points regarding. As a staunch supporter of both, I can honestly admit he's dead on in some regards. (highly lol-able:

His initial goals of looking better had been replaced or moved to the back burner. He was told that a focus on aesthetics was just plain vanity, ironically by a woman trainer wearing a sports bra, knee socks, and short lycra shorts. He believed that his new, greater purpose in life was to serve his cult and make the “leader board” in the spaceship motor pool, which they referred to as the “box”.

and...

Now in his new home, his new online friends are telling him that it is all about how much weight he can move from point A to point B. He is being told that in order to be a man he needs to weigh a certain amount, which he finds himself about forty pounds shy of after cult life rid him of his muscle mass. He really needs to change things for the better, and this is just the direction he needs to go.

He has his new shoes, his new belt, which he will wait to use until his working sets of course, and his expensive new rubber weight set. All he needs now is what?

You guessed it, a few gallons of milk.

Spend much time on forums devoted purely to either camp, and, yep. That's about right.

In any event, if you're willing to stray a bit from Paleo, and no reason to if you don't want to, his program is is simple about adding steady, incremental amounts of lean mass. But, he calls for carbs, often in the form of oats and rice. He's OK with milk, but not a gallon of it at a time. He uses the ol' bodybuilding measure, protein and size of your palm, carbs the size of your cupped hands. Veggies are a freebie, eat as much as you want. Wanna drink a gallon of something a day? Make it water. Have a free day. Etc etc.

It's not at all Paleo. But you can likely make it paleo-ish, if needs be. It all depends on why you're paleo. Again, if you're happy with it, no reason to not do it. Whatever works for you, man, and brings you the best results and health. But if the bodybuilder-esque pro wrestler build is what you're going for, never hurts to read up on other options.

[Guest Snake McClain]

Paleo solution is a great read.

You sound like you expected paleo to revolutionise your life, but you're pretty fit/healthy to begin with I think so the effects will be reduced.

I recommed reading around the diet/nutrition area of bullshido.net - there are a lot of fighters that know a lot a lot about bulking up on there.

If you're skint then I hear GOMAD is about the most effective way to add bulk (Gallon Of Milk A Day).

If you did that along with paleo I reckon you'd be a killing machine in three months. (OK I know it's all fake really, but my experience has been with MMA fighters and you have similar needs I presume)

I've heard GOMAD was great for bulking up as well but i don't want the fat to come with it so I'll probably just stay with paleo. eat more than I am now but just end up wherever my body is comfortable.

I love that you said it's all fake. *shakes head*. For the record the only thing that is TRULY fake is the outcome and story telling. It isn't easy getting punched in the face. Even when it isn't full force. And this misconception that the ring has a pad makes me laugh.

[jdanger]

I've been vaguely aware of the Strength Villain stuff for some time but never really dug too deeply into it as I sort of recognized it as mostly in line with what I already know to be not terrible advice and moved on. That said, the line "spaceship motor pool" is likely the funniest thing I will read all week and is making me consider reading everything this guy has ever written. Like everything else in life, context matters. And yes I've preached this long before the Whole9 nutrition hipsters made it hip to say, I wish I was as good at monetizing the obvious but that's another rant.

SS and CF are easy targets because they are both dug so deep in their trenches against each other and everyone else they can't see all the wonderful things going on in the various no man's lands in between.

[Knightwatch]

I've been vaguely aware of the Strength Villain stuff for some time but never really dug too deeply into it as I sort of recognized it as mostly in line with what I already know to be not terrible advice and moved on. That said, the line "spaceship motor pool" is likely the funniest thing I will read all week and is making me consider reading everything this guy has ever written. Like everything else in life, context matters. And yes I've preached this long before the Whole9 nutrition hipsters made it hip to say, I wish I was as good at monetizing the obvious but that's another rant.

SS and CF are easy targets because they are both dug so deep in their trenches against each other and everyone else they can't see all the wonderful things going on in the various no man's lands in between.

Absolutely. And again! SS is my go-to lifting form resource. I train at a CF gym. Both kickass. The hardcore devotees of both can be a bit much.

I've really liked the SV stuff I've read. Doing his Greyskull LP program now, and I really do think it hits a near-perfect balance between Starting Strength and Wendler's 5/3/1. His "Viking Conditioning Drills" books are great lil' Crossfit-ish metcons with really basic gear.

(Greyskull used to be a CF affiliate, and he still does seminars for them, so he understand the value of their methods. He dropped his official affiliateion in protest of some of the politics, though, and what he felt was a decline in trainer quality)

[Guest Snake McClain]

Absolutely. And again! SS is my go-to lifting form resource. I train at a CF gym. Both kickass. The hardcore devotees of both can be a bit much.

I've really liked the SV stuff I've read. Doing his Greyskull LP program now, and I really do think it hits a near-perfect balance between Starting Strength and Wendler's 5/3/1. His "Viking Conditioning Drills" books are great lil' Crossfit-ish metcons with really basic gear.

(Greyskull used to be a CF affiliate, and he still does seminars for them, so he understand the value of their methods. He dropped his official affiliateion in protest of some of the politics, though, and what he felt was a decline in trainer quality)

I literally have no clue as to what you guys are talking about. I feel like such a retard on these forums. i'm going to go back to the comic book stuff. lol

[Knightwatch]

I literally have no clue as to what you guys are talking about. I feel like such a retard on these forums. i'm going to go back to the comic book stuff. lol

haha, sorry, we got off topic. Strength Villain is just another training site, with it's own forums and such, similar to NF but with its own theme and tone, of course.

Wendler 5/3/1 is a popular strength training program, designed by former powerlifting champ Jim Wendler.

If you get into the Starting Strength community (those that strictly follow the philosophies and book of Mark Rippetoe, a totally awesome expert on lifting) and the Crossfit community (those that do, um, Crossfit, a totally awesome general fitness philosophy) you'll find that there's some bad blood at the top of both organizations. Most of the individual fans of each are perfectly fine, but, as with any online community, both have their keyboard warriors that just want to skewer the other camp. The guy behind Strength Villain has been closely associated with both, and now just does his own thing, because he got sick of the bickering and politics, and, especially, both camps' disdain everyone else's ideas.

He's got a series of ebooks, one on linear strength training (his starting strength alternative), a couple on conditioning (his crossfit alternative) and one on nutrition (which I suggested above).

And now you're in on the loops! Anyways, sorry for the derail!

[jdanger]

Yep, sorry for the thread jack Bruce. Don't feel bad, we're just nerding out over fringe aspects of various exercise factions and the hilarity of their hardliners.

Incidentally, I really need to get cooking on the Danger Strength e-book apparently.

[qpop]

I've heard GOMAD was great for bulking up as well but i don't want the fat to come with it so I'll probably just stay with paleo. eat more than I am now but just end up wherever my body is comfortable.

I love that you said it's all fake. *shakes head*. For the record the only thing that is TRULY fake is the outcome and story telling. It isn't easy getting punched in the face. Even when it isn't full force. And this misconception that the ring has a pad makes me laugh.

OK, fair point ... BUT ... I've spent a lot of time socialising with guys in the UK MMA scene. The type of fighting you see in a bona fide MMA match (or muay thai for that matter) is on a different level.

That's not to say that the WWE style wrestling doesn't require immense strength/stamina/skill, I realise that it does, but taking a choreographed(ish) punch to the face and being hit over the head with a chair that you know is coming, is a different skill to an "actual fight". In my eyes you're kind of being a very brutal stuntman (which is awesome in its own right).

[spezzy]

wait.

so its been 3 and a half weeks.

your energy level has gone up.

you've gained muscle, yet lost weight.

i've read this entire thread, and still have yet to see where you're not seeing results.

[aj_rock]

wait.

so its been 3 and a half weeks.

your energy level has gone up.

you've gained muscle, yet lost weight.

i've read this entire thread, and still have yet to see where you're not seeing results.

Wah! That's exactly what I said

[macnip78]

Bruce, pay attention to what AJ and Spezzy just said. You are making very good progress. Be careful not to get caught up in instant gratification and lose sight of how much progress you are actually making.

[Loren Wade]

wait.

so its been 3 and a half weeks.

your energy level has gone up.

you've gained muscle, yet lost weight.

i've read this entire thread, and still have yet to see where you're not seeing results.

This. I really wanted to reply and say THIS.

[Mama T]

This. I really wanted to reply and say THIS.

ha ditto. what you're going through sounds about right, bruce. ever since i started the paleo + weight lifting lifestyle, it's been mega hard for me to gain weight. i lost a decent amount initially, and now am slowly adding back on. it's the progression. but it sounds like you're doing your body good, and honestly, it's going to be difficult to gain muscle and not any fat... comes with the territory.

[Guest Snake McClain]

And now you're in on the loops! Anyways, sorry for the derail!

Yep, sorry for the thread jack Bruce. Don't feel bad, we're just nerding out over fringe aspects of various exercise factions and the hilarity of their hardliners.

Incidentally, I really need to get cooking on the Danger Strength e-book apparently.

I don't mind the derail guys. i was just lost.

OK, fair point ... BUT ... I've spent a lot of time socialising with guys in the UK MMA scene. The type of fighting you see in a bona fide MMA match (or muay thai for that matter) is on a different level.

That's not to say that the WWE style wrestling doesn't require immense strength/stamina/skill, I realise that it does, but taking a choreographed(ish) punch to the face and being hit over the head with a chair that you know is coming, is a different skill to an "actual fight". In my eyes you're kind of being a very brutal stuntman (which is awesome in its own right).

Oh mma (and any total combat anything) is much much more serious than wrestling. i know this. It's just funny when i hear "fake". When really they should just be saying scripted. sidebar: taking a chair to the head is just stupid.

wait.

so its been 3 and a half weeks.

your energy level has gone up.

you've gained muscle, yet lost weight.

i've read this entire thread, and still have yet to see where you're not seeing results.

I guess what i'm getting at here is i expected more definition and trimming by now. I've been pretty strict about this and its just weird to hear people say "give it 30 days and you'll see", and the only result that is probably diet specific (and may not be at all) is the little fat loss around my midsection. I'm actually not trying to lose weight but fat but i see what you mean here. Again I think I could have the same results with just weight training and no diet change. I like the eating habits I have now though as I like the food and i feel better knowing it's healthy, even if its just mental.

None of this means I'm going to be going off Paleo. I was just trying to figure out if I was doing something wrong with all this here. Maybe I need to do more cardio? *shrug*

[qpop]

http://www.amazon.com/Paleo-Solution-Original-Human-Diet/dp/0982565844/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321467920&sr=1-1 Just buy the damn book

[Brometheus]

Diet is at LEAST 80% of the battle, if not 100%. And don't do cardio! It's pointless! http://everydaypaleo.com/2011/09/02/friends-dont-let-friends-do-cardio/

[Loren Wade]

http://www.amazon.com/Paleo-Solution-Original-Human-Diet/dp/0982565844/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321467920&sr=1-1 Just buy the damn book

Seconded. Will answer most of your questions.

[Guest Snake McClain]

Diet is at LEAST 80% of the battle, if not 100%. And don't do cardio! It's pointless! http://everydaypaleo.com/2011/09/02/friends-dont-let-friends-do-cardio/

cardio (as in running for a long time) is pointless for me. However endurance and stamina building (as in martial arts or body weight routines in cycles) type of cardio is exactly what I need.

regarding the book. I probably won't but it unless I can not find a copy to torrent. I'm a thiving bastard that way.

[aj_rock]

Bruce, with regards to what you feel is a lack of progress, look at it this way.

Say you want to build bigger arms; right now they are 12" in circumference. Cross-sectional area is then about 11.5". Lets just assume mass is distributed evenly to make things easy.

To increase your arms by 1" in circumference, you would need to make your new CS area to be 13.5". thats an increase in size of 2 square inches, which is a theoretical mass increase of 17%. This mass increase needed is even more pronounced in larger cross sections, like waist or legs.

The point is, progress from a measurement perspective is always slow in the beginning. The example I gave above is just one of many in which your body will mask how well you truly are doing. For a lot of people, simply gaining muscle without gaining fat, or losing fat without losing muscle is a dream come true; meanwhile you're losing fat and gaining strength. You're making great progress for less than a months progress. It'll 'look' more and more pronounced the deeper you get in.

[Guest Snake McClain]

Bruce, with regards to what you feel is a lack of progress, look at it this way.

Say you want to build bigger arms; right now they are 12" in circumference. Cross-sectional area is then about 11.5". Lets just assume mass is distributed evenly to make things easy.

To increase your arms by 1" in circumference, you would need to make your new CS area to be 13.5". thats an increase in size of 2 square inches, which is a theoretical mass increase of 17%. This mass increase needed is even more pronounced in larger cross sections, like waist or legs.

The point is, progress from a measurement perspective is always slow in the beginning. The example I gave above is just one of many in which your body will mask how well you truly are doing. For a lot of people, simply gaining muscle without gaining fat, or losing fat without losing muscle is a dream come true; meanwhile you're losing fat and gaining strength. You're making great progress for less than a months progress. It'll 'look' more and more pronounced the deeper you get in.

that is very true. i haven't considered it as such (the measurement angle). I'm just looking for definition definition definition because that's the thing i'm not seeing so far. my lifting numbers have been escalating really quickly (and i know it wont keep that way forever) and i've been happy with everything. i just expected the extra fat to fall off faster and was confused overall as if i was eating wrong some way. I will say i am firmer every where on my body and bigger in my upper body. Hard to tell if my lower body is bigger as the extra fat is trimming away a little in my legs and such and turning solid. but my torso is where i have very little real definition. Granted I have a year before i need the look i am going for and i'm not trying to be impatient i just expected the visual results to be more evident (not completed) by now. that is all.

Still that is a very good point in general.