Incremental Progress

In today's world we expect everything to happen fast. Fast food, fast transport, instant weight loss, same day delivery, we want more of everything and in less time.  While this is (probably) fine for things that are mechanical, it doesn't work so well for biological processes.

Let's use diets for example. You can indeed lose a lot of weight very quickly if you take radical action, such as cutting out all carbs (done it) or only eating apples for a month (no, I'm not that nuts).  But it won't last, it isn't a lifestyle, it is a transient fling with food and before you know it, you are back to where you started.  Nature doesn't like being rushed.

What brought on this line of thinking you may well ask? Well, today I looked back on my running times from way back in July 2010, when I had first started into running.  I did 3.8km in 29 minutes and 47 seconds, or 7:50 per km pace... and I remember that run, I honestly thought I might die.  Seriously, visions of lungs exploding or feet falling off were going through my head.  That wasn't even my first run, it was just the first I recorded with an app on my phone.  My first "run" involved a run/walk "strategy" whereby I would shift my fat ass for a few hundred metres before falling back into a gasping zombie-like lurch until the pattern could be repeated over and over. 

Post run

Flash forward a little less than 3 years later and I can comfortably bang out a half marathon in less than an hour and three quarters (~4:45 pace) on any given weekend for the sheer joy of it.  Now that's progress!

Upon reflection, this has taught me a number of important lessons:

• Keep a log of your progress.  Change doesn't happen quickly, but if you capture the metrics, you will be able to look back and take pride in what you have accomplished.
• Don't rush it.  Looking back, most of my injuries came from pushing too hard too early.  4 weeks of slow progress beats 1 week of awesome and 3 weeks of limping around cursing yourself.
• The best stuff in life is worth struggling, striving and fighting for.  Seriously, life is one hard slog after another, but totally worth it.  Consider the alternative.
• Running is awesome. Everyone hates it at first, but if you stick with it, what you get out of it far exceeds what you put in.  It becomes fun to do, fun to stop doing and makes everything else in your day better.  

So while my progress thus far has been aided immensely by my new plant powered life, it is all built on a solid platform of constant effort and steady payoff.  Sustainable change rocks :) 

Healthy Podcasts

Rich

I listen to three, very different, podcasts on nutrition and health - the Rich Roll podcast, Ben Greenfield's podcast and Vinnie Tortorich's podcast.  Taken individually, they are each totally entertaining, each presented by fascinating people and subscribe to very different approaches to a healthy athletic life.  Collectively they highlight that the "standard American diet" that has been exported globally, is killing us bite by bite.

Ben

I've spoken about Rich Roll before, the plant powered athlete with the qualities of personal determination and holistic ethos that is something I can both admire and relate to in equal measure.  He doesn't push a specific carb/protein/fat ratio that many others do, instead Rich leads with his vision of a spiritually more connected world where we use plants as fuel and medicine for our bodies and minds. His primary message? Eat more plants. Can't go too far wrong with that concept, making it beautiful in it's simplicity and adaptability for each person's situation. 


Now Ben Greenfield is something different altogether. His approach is much more bottom up, which focuses the details and how the individual variables can be tweaked and tuned to "hack" our systems. This appeals massively to my inner geek - I'd love to think of my body as something I have as much control of as my PC.  Don't like how it is running? That's fine, just take this supplement, do this exercise, use this programme or take this test.  While he does stray quite far into pseudo-science at times, usually it is fairly rooted in a modern understanding of health.

Vinnie

Last up we have Vinnie, "America's Angriest Trainer", who for someone who is supposed to be so angry, he sure likes to laugh a lot!  Vinnie's #NSNG (no sugar no grains) approach is basically a healthy low-carb approach that helps simply the process of cutting out all the processed crap that we normally shovel into our mouths with great abandon. I cut out excess sugar a long time ago and have reaped massive benefits to both my energy and weight.  While I still think that carbs have their place, I totally agree that sugar's place should be complementary, not superior to, fats and protein.  Vinnie also swears a lot and occasionally says completely inappropriate things - something I can certainly relate to personally :)

The more I read and learn about nutrition and health, the more I'm confronted with conflicting and contradictory advice and views.  Especially around the topic of nutrition and fitness.  However I think this is actually quite wonderful!

Why? Well, we only understand a tiny fraction of our world, so no-one has all of the answers. Each of us is trying to work out how to best function within the system, based on our own knowledge and beliefs. These three guys are each trying their best to get out of the rut of apathy that is quite literally killing us. Each of them is advocating change.  When I realised I was getting increasingly more sedentary, fat and heading for an early grave, I had to change as well. 

I'm now in a constant state of change; evolving my diet, attitudes, ethics, beliefs and training. Trying to find that sweet spot that works for me. And do you know what? That probably won't work for you - you have to find your own system that works for you.  In the meantime, I'll take what I can from people who have something to share, see if it fits and even if it doesn't, I'll have learnt something else new about myself.

Love the journey :)

The Diet Jouney - Part 2

In part one of my journey series I described how I employed low-carb diet to successfully shed a lot of weight and kick start my exercise.  In this one I want to go into my journey from a low-carb, meat-centric diet to one that is now wholly plant powered.

Which brings up a point around motivations.  One of the key drivers underpinning my dietary choices has been the daunting task of managing my weight.  While I enjoy being fit and care a great deal about both animal rights and the sustainability of our fragile planet's ecosystem, much of my drive has come from a delightfully vain desire to look good. Or look the best I can in any case.

With this as a major motivator, I was happy with a lot of the changes that had taken place with my body. Gone was the chubby cheeks, flabby arms and budding man-boobs. To achieve this I was running three times a week, doing some weights at the gym and eating (somewhat) moderately.  However my dilemma was that I was stuck in the dreaded "fat and skinny" zone.  As demonstrated by the photo below, taken not long before I went vegan:

Fat and skinny

It is clear that while I'd lost a lot of weight, I was carrying a lot of fat around my belly.  Not exactly the 6-pack that men aspire for.  So I had plateaued at this point, the tummy fat wasn't going to budge, it was here to stay. If I wanted to break out of the deadlock with my body, I needed to change it up a gear.  Since I wasn't prepared to starve myself or try out another fad diet (no shortage of those around), I needed something sustainable.

Enter the vegan super athletes!

Inspiration comes in many forms, for me it was in endurance athletes.  Check out this photo of Rich Roll, plant powered ultraman extraordinaire:

Rich Roll - spot the difference much?

Now he isn't some 20-something who is just naturally buff, this is a 40-something year old family man who has transformed himself into one of the fittest people in the world, the plant powered way.

This got me thinking.

So I started researching and the more reading I did, the more people I found who were plant powered and amazing athletes.  I've mentioned Scott Jurek before as another example of someone who has achieved prominence as a vegan athlete.  I started the tally up the pros and cons and decided this was something that really meshed with me.

The positives:

• I don't have to control portions.  Quite important since I suck at it.
• I was able to eat a much wider variety of foods than when I was low-carbing it.  
• I don't have to think about it too much.  Just eat lots of plants of different types.
• It feels "right" to me.  The moral choice to not eat meat just agrees with my psyche. It feels like a load has been taken off my spirit/soul.
• It has proven to be a healthy choice for top athletes.
• Finally, it is a lifestyle change, not just a diet or shortcut.  It is sustainable over the long term - this is possibly the most import of all the points.

The negatives:

• I wouldn't be able to have cheesecake any more.  On second thoughts, this might be a positive.
• Eating out can be a right pain in the ass.  That said, I probably shouldn't be eating out so much anyway.
• I wouldn't be a cool meat-eater any more. Oh for shame! I'd have to forgo the extremely masculine task of hunting my prey down in the meats aisle of my local Tescos.  

It wasn't such a hard choice to make when it came down to it.

So how is the 6-pack going?  Quite well thanks - 5 months in and the flabby belly is nearly gone. No photos though, I think this post has quite enough manly-ness already :)

Instead, here is a fry up I made post long run yesterday, proving once again that being vegan is never without variety!

This is my new version of a fry up - garlic spinach, fried mushrooms and onion

Race Report - adidas Silverstone Half Marathon

Last weekend I did the adidas Silverstone Half marathon, my first race since going plant powered!

The starting straight, feeling good

I picked this particular race as I thought it was quite unique, set on the Silverstone F1 racing circuit. I pictured myself tearing through the track, kissing the corners and zigzagging through the chicanes.  The reality was much more sedate than that, averaging 13.5km/h rather than 135 :)

The race itself went really well. The new-improved-plant-powered Matthew entered the race feeling good and a full 7 kg lighter than when I did the Royal Parks Half. I felt really strong throughout and my only enemy was my own mind.  I realised that you need to train mental strength just as much the physical, which is something I need to work on. Since this wasn't an A race, I had to push myself to keep up a good pace, with a constant inner struggle of "slow down, no one will mind!" competing with "run faster you lazy bastard!"over and over.

Just before the finish line, smiles all round

Made it through strongly in the end, finishing with a personal best of 1:34:58.  Since my target was 1:35, I'd call that a success.  Based on that performance, my marathon should be 3:30 or less.  I need to get down to a 1:30 half to target a sub 3:10 marathon (and entry into the London Marathon)... Which gives me something to aim for in any case. 

Really happy with everything on my first running test, so a big thumbs up for vegan athleticism! 

The Diet Jouney - Part 1

It has been quite some time since my conversion to plant powered and I've been reflecting a bit on my diet and the road I've taken getting to where I am today.  I realised it is quite difficult to separate the improvements brought about from my not eating animal products from the general improvement due to my taking more care with what I put in my body.  Applying conscious thought to what I am eating is almost as important as what sort of thing I decide to eat...

Those who know me will already be aware that I went from some 99kg down to 80kg using a low-carb diet called the TNT diet from Men's Health.  For a year and a bit, I cut down my carb intake to less than 20g a day, started going to the gym to do resistance training and a bit of cardio (primarily the elliptical initially, later more running).  While the diet was massively successful for me, I wouldn't recommend this diet to anyone, as I believe it isn't particularily healthy.  The near-daily fry up breakfasts of bacon, eggs, tomato, cheese (yes, melted onto the bacon) and mushrooms will probably kill you.  It will be a delicious death, granted, but possibly not worth it in the long run.

Like this, only not as healthy looking...

All that said, it was successful.  However... why did it work???

I think the success came down to three main things:

1. It broke my sugar addiction.  Since I couldn't have carbs, I finally gave up casual chocolate, muffin and chocolate-muffin consumption.  This alone probably accounted for 50% of the weight loss, due to the removal of low nutritional content, high calorie and low satiety foods from my diet.  
2. I started to learn what is in or added to food.  I found out about the evils of HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), learnt to read labels and generally become more aware of the crap I was putting in my body. Companies put a lot of stuff in food to make it taste better, make you want to eat more of it and make it cheaper to produce.  Almost none of those things are aligned with a goal of making anything healthy.  So I learnt to read labels and start being much more picky about what I bought.
3. Exercise.  Doesn't matter what sort you do, but do as much of it as time allows.  You will feel better, live longer and be able to do more in life.  As a certain mega-corp admonishes - just do it.

Each of these opened up new processes - I could eat a muffin as a special occasion (making it all the more delicious), or choose a healthier option when out shopping, or actually enjoy group physical activity without being the guy at the back gasping and wheezing - that changed my life for the better.

After I lost the weight, I dropped that diet and went back to a "balanced" diet, keeping the knowledge I'd gained and employing it in a more natural way.  I stayed off chocolate for the most part, kept exercising and always checked the labels of anything I bought. I also stopped the fry up breakfasts.  Seriously, after a year I was utterly sick of meat and cheese.

In the next post I'll go into why I think the vegan diet has been the logical progression from this and how it has taken me from somewhat healthier to truly healthy.

Moroccan Strength Training

We recently got back from spending three days trekking through the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. It was a fantastic adventure, tromping up the mountains and back down into the valleys...

The elevation profile looks like a roller coaster with over 2,500 metres of elevation gain over the first two days before the GPS died.  I forgot to bring spare batteries.  *sigh*

Anyway! While on the adventure we had a mule...

And a dedicated chef, Mohammed! He was more than happy to prepare a delicious vegetarian (and I'm fairly sure vegan) meal for us three times a day. Now you know why the mule has so much stuff on it :)

So, food was awesome, sights were brilliant and walking up and down hills for hours on end was amazing strength training for my legs.  I had started introducing some into my training hills recently and this has convinced me I really need better leg strength. From what I've read it has the dual benefit of being lower impact and reducing the chances of injury.  On the downside it is really hard and not fun at all.  But then again, speed intervals aren't exactly the most enjoyable thing to do either... Wait, why do I do running again?

Oh right, I'm clearly I'm a unrepentant masochist. Good to know.

Final bit is the diet and exercise are clearly working very well, I got this great news from the (yes, probably highly inaccurate) set measuring thingy at the gym:

Ooooooooooh yeah baby.  Another milestone reached thanks to plant power :)

Racing and Food

Okie dokie.  So training is going well, just 16 weeks out from the Edinburgh Marathon now.  My long run is back up at 22km and increasing each week.  I plan to be at 32km within 8 weeks or so.  I'm also working on my speed and I've currently set myself three tiers of goals:

• Tier 3 - Worst Case - Complete the damn thing.  No matter if I have to walk, I don't want a DNF (Did Not Finish) on my first marathon.  Or worse yet, a DNS (Did Not Start) due to injury.  Must get this tier at a minimum!
• Tier 2 - Reality Check - 3 hours 30 minutes.  Based on my existing times and proper preparation, I should be able to clock this time.  Not easily, but should be doable.
• Tier 1 - Platinum Standard Awesomeness - Sub 3 hours 10 minutes.  This is my primary goal, as it will get me a good for age place at the London Marathon. It is a stretch, but if I train well, I feel I have this in me.

So there you have it, I've outed my expectations.  Let's review again after I've done my warm up races.

Next up, I thought I'd do a walk through of a recent stir-fry extravaganza!

Step 1: Get lots of stir fry ingredients.  Here I have carrots, broccoli, mushroom, baby corn, Chinese lettuce marinated tofu, and sweet pepper.

Step 2: Cook in a wok until, you know, all cooked and stuff

Step 3: Add some sauce and put in a plate. People like plates, they tend to add a touch of refinement over eating directly from the wok.  Fancy chopsticks are totally optional.

Why I don't have a cooking show on TV is a mystery.  Clearly I'm a genius.

Or not.  You know, since it didn't actually taste that good.  Word to the wise: don't use a BBQ stir fry sauce with tofu that has a completely different flavour.  They compete.  And not in a good way. 

Back to the drawing board...