Becoming Leonidas – Day 1
Day 1 is coming to a close and I've already had an interesting ride. The change in diet has been fairly drastic for me. I'm going to provide as much info as I can, to give an idea of what I'm doing. Don't worry though, future posts won't go into the gory details.
Breakfast
Eggs (salt & pepper, 1 whole egg and egg whites) - 200 g
I rushed this and didn't take the time to balance the macro-nutrients. Some people can't stand egg whites, but I've always loved them so I actually found this meal to be fairly tasty. However, it didn't leave me feeling very full. With a few modifications, the 4-5 egg scramble will probably become my staple breakfast for a while. I think a side of quinoa could be good.
Calories: 163 (i.e. nowhere near enough)
Brunch, Lunch, Supper, and Dinner
The vast majority of my food today was a mixture of ground beef (16% fat before cooking), pinto beans, and peas. I made 1.29 kg last night and used salt, pepper, and Pain Is Good, Batch #37
.
Calories: 1562
Post 'Workout' Shake
I met with a personal trainer today to get some starting stats and in the course of testing I underwent a very modest amount of physical exertion. Afterwards, I had a protein shake from the cafe at the gym. It probably doesn't strictly qualify for the diet because I didn't really work out today, but it was low fat, high protein so I'm going to allow it.
Calories: 235
Miscellaneous
There were a couple of other random calorie sources:
- 1 small glass of red wine before bed: 88 Calories
- 1 scoop NO-XPLODE
supplement: 25 Calories
For a grand total of 2073 Calories, which I suspect is a bit low. Tomorrow I'll step it up a notch and see how it feels.
Starting Stats
In order to get a more accurate picture of where I'm starting out, I met with a personal trainer for an hour and ran some tests.
Body Composition
- BMI: 27
- Waist-Hip Ratio: 0.96, anything under 0.95 is considered good
- Body Fat: 16%
- Lean Mass: 151 lbs.
The BMI puts me in the "Overweight" range of 25-30. I've never found BMI to be a reliable metric. If I put on 15 lbs. of muscle and lose 10 lbs. of fat, my BMI will go up 
. The waist-hip ratio helps to indicate where you carry excess weight. Since it tends to clump around internal organs, too much fat in the gut region correlates highly with disease. Fortunately, I'm not doing too poorly on this metric.
The numbers I really care about are body fat % and lean mass. 17% body fat would make me overweight, so there's plenty of room for improvement here. I don't have a hard and fast goal, but getting to 8-10% would make me very happy. Without gaining any muscle mass, I'd have to lose ~7 lbs. of fat. Lean mass is useful because it helps determine how much protein my diet should contain. Everyday, I aim to consume 1-1.2 g of protein per pound of lean mass, so right now I'm shooting for 150-180 grams in my diet. It looks like I hit that goal on day 1, but I didn't crunch the exact numbers.
Circumferences
- Chest: 40.75 in.
- Bicep: 13.25 in.
- Waist: 37.5 in.
- Hip: 39.25 in.
- Thigh: 24 in.
Other
- Height: 68.5 in.
- Weight: 180 lbs.
- Blood pressure: 114/80
Circumference measurements are just kind of a curiosity for me. My blood pressure is healthy, hopefully it only gets better. I'll re-take all of the measurements above at the end of the trial (and possibly at 2-weeks).
Supplements
In order to stay fairly true to Tim Ferriss' model, I picked up the supplements (or similar) outlined here. I skipped BodyQUICK as the store I went to didn't carry it. Otherwise, I plan to follow the supplementation plan outlined in the article except that I'm going to move one or both scoops of NO-XPLODE to 20 min. before a workout. I'll go into more detail on the suppliments in a future article.
Next Steps
Before I hit the sack tonight, I need to prepare more food to take to work tomorrow. The remaining provisions from yesterday's batch grow scarce. Tomorrow I go to the gym for my first workout; details will follow.
This trial has been a good bit of work for me so far and I'm thankful that it includes a glass of wine every night . In order to carry on with a new behavior, it needs to be sustainable. Once I get my bearings, I'll focus on streamlining things as much as possible so I don't get overwhelmed.
Becoming Leonidas
I like candy and spooky stuff, so it makes sense that Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Even so, I've never really gone all out when making a costume. Many I cobbled together at the last minute; Zombie-Pirate Elvis comes to mind. One of my friends makes the best costumes and consistently puts me to shame by cutting, sewing, painting, grinding, and sculpting custom latex molds, for months in advance. She's the queen of Halloween. This year, it's time to meet the king .
You expected a picture of the Burger King guy, didn't you? That hurts. While I could just drop eight hundred dollars on one of these beauties and call it a day, that just feels like cheating. So, the plan consists of four parts:
- Make all of my gear, learning to blacksmith along the way.
- Get in the best shape I've ever been in x10.
- Wax my chest.
- Prepare lots of witty comebacks.
For step two, I will attempt to recreate the results claimed by Tim Ferriss here. The 30 day trial concept has always resonated with me as an interesting approach to behavior modification. So, for 30 days I will follow, as faithfully as possible, Ferriss' high intensity training, specialized diet, and supplementation regimen. Hopefully, at the end of a month I'll be a good deal closer to a proper Halloween costume, while having established a disciplined diet and exercise habit along the way.
The experiment begins today, so keep an eye out for my vitals, meal plans, and workouts as well as updates as the month progresses.