Catchup the second: Personal stuff. Diet, chickens, and family.

Last week we updated my work life.. which while important is pretty singular and can be summed up with a whole lot of "I work here now, and I don't do this anymore.. again."
Personal stuff is more complex. There are just a lot of moving parts.
So this is going to be completely disjointed.. Yay!

1) Babies. We had another one. At the end of March. He's awesome. Henceforth on this blog he will be known as Coco. This nickname comes from about a week after his conception. The grizzly was playing in his sandbox, I was absentmindedly looking at my phone. The grizzly without looking up from his sand, says "my sister is coming." I thought, "weird there is no way you could know that.. ok smartass here's a question."  I asked him "what's your sister's name?" he (once again without looking up) "Coco."
So that's that. He's Coco, and a he not a sister but you know.. close enough.

2) Chickens.. we have them again.. and the raccoons, can still go F#ck themselves! I invested a good amount of time and some monies into fortifying the coop, then added an electric fence on top of it. We have had a couple recon missions from our friends in the genus procyon with zero success on their side and a lot of Muhahahaha on my side. Hopefully that is a trend that will continue. Hopefully in a few months we will have eggs.

3) Diet.. this is really a training thing, but that post is going to be massively gigantic as it is, so I'm putting it here. You can't stop me. I'm the boss of this blog. Ok. So for some reason when my wife is going to have a baby I get fat. 100% of the time. 2 for 2. I saw a picture of myself on the bookface that a neighbor took at the grizzly's birthday party and though "jeezus, I've gotten fat." I went to jiu jitsu a few weeks after the birth of Coco (see above) and just thought.. hmm gotten a little soggy.. Wonder what I weigh. 219.2 lbs. Oh boy.. that's too big. So an old friend was going through a protein sparing modified fast. I pondered that.. too far for me. Buuuut there are things to be learned from stuff.
I was getting tired of sucking down cold eggs from home at work and I just didn't have time to cook and consume at home. So SHAKE FOR BREAKFAST!!!  So my shake contains:

Berries (some. I don't really measure)
Peaches (some.. see above)
Milled flax (2 Tsp)
Hemp Protein poweder (mostly for fiber, but for some proteins.. 3 Tsp)
Fermented Coconut milk (some.. less than 1/2 cup for probioticness)
Kale (some)
Coconut oil (1 Tsp)

This shake creates an interesting factor. If consumed as a breakfast I would be maybe ending up with a net loss of a few hundred calories. However, because it ends up taking me many hours to consume this beverage/meal I end up eating lunch somewhere about 1:30 (sometimes later) and thus I end up cutting out 2 snacks from where I was before, and thanks to my morning cup of joe I've actually ended up "accidentally" engaging in a form of intermittent fasting. I usually eat my last meal of the day at 8:30 or 9, and don't start consuming my shake till 9:30 or even later. So I've ended up with a net reduction of calories, and I'm quite comfortable I can eat this way indefinitely.

In less than 8 weeks I'm down 12 lbs. so 207, how far is far enough?
This is where physiology meets psychology. I've always had a hangup about getting under 200 lbs. I've never really admitted it aloud, but the truth of it is there is no good reason for it. I've just always been a "big guy" even though I'm not really that big 5'10" or so. I have built my self image around that, and there's no reason for it. When I was playing rugby I worked like hell to get my bodyweight up. It felt like losing ground, like taking armor off. There is no reason for me to be above 200 lbs. None. Combine this with two awesome boys that I want to see be awesome adults. The more body you have the more food you consume. The more food you consume the more oxidative stress your body has to deal with. The more oxidation the greater the instance of cancer, aging, and other stuff that kills you. Not wanting to be dead, it's time to get smaller.

So along side breakfast shake, I'm cycling my carbs a bit.
Monday: is a higher carb day
Tuesday: moderate carbs
Wednesday: low carbs
Thursday: high carbs
Friday: low carbs
Saturday: high carbs
Sunday: moderate carbs

I'm not tracking them much, but since my lunch is consistent. I just have to modulate my dinner and the food that I consume pre-training.. as follows:

High days: banana or dried fruit pre-training. starchy vegetables at dinner (sweet potato, hard squash, every once and a while potato)

Moderate days: other fruit pre-training, no starchy veg at dinner.

Low days: high protein, low to zero carbs pre-training, and no starchy veg at dinner.

Other notes:
I've really focused on changing HOW I eat. I have always eaten notoriously quickly. Taken large bites and chewed.. not much. I am actively changing that. taking bites 1/2 the size and chewing at least twice as much. This has made a significant decrease in the volume of food I take in, and has improved how I feel after meals.

I'm keeping to the code. Pretty strict paleo. No grains, legumes, and the only dairy is grassfed butter and the occasional grassfed cheese.

Weekly treats are off the menu consistently until I hit 190.

Couple re-feeds. The weekend of the 17th I had a little bit of sugar, and some extra calories. I'll put the diet on hold for a few days in September (big weekend planned.. more on that later). The difference in calories are only a few hundred, just slightly above maintenance.
The training component up next!

4) Life otherwise is good. Friends are friendly, I cook dinner and will post more pictures of that, I have been reading some books.. I have things to tell you if you.

Mahalo!