Survival Simulation Diet. Don't try this at home.

Dylside, I forgot to tell you, when I did it, I was running about 3 miles a day, usually 4 times a week. I was kind of in the same mode as you, just a little less intense. It was more of a "test" than a diet.

I hear what you are saying about the vitamins. I didn't take any for the first week or so, but started to get a little concerned about the long term effects and because there were no calories or fat involved, figured it was not a big deal.

BTW, I don't necessarily agree with the "your body will eat the muscle, not the fat" crowd. My weight stayed off for a LONG time and my abs were pretty ripped at the end.

I do agree giving up the brew for a while was the hardest part.

Good luck bud.
 
lvbuckeye27 said:
if it has a top yeast fermentation, which Boddington does, then it's ale by definition. bitter is a flavor characteristic, dependent on hops.
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I'm sure youre right from a technical point of view, but if you asked for a pint of ale in a real English pub you wouldn't get anything that tasted even remotely like Boddingtons!
 
texastonydobbs said:
Correct...Good advice.... You may lose mass but the weight will come roaring back if not done correctly....snack healthy thru the day ,smaller portion and the weight will come off !
I am doing the smaller portion thing and watching what I eat... and if I crave a Dr.pepper I drink 1-2 8oz cans a week( a wee 8oz goes fast)..... 95% of the time I mainly drink water.I cut back my Coffee due to all the sugar & cream I put in it... I use to drink up to 3 12oz cups a day,now I am down to one & using packets of sugar(2) instead of using a spoon from sugar container,it is hard .... Keep up the good work D-man !:D
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When I decided to start cutting back on sugar the first thing to go was coffee and sweet tea. I used waaaaay to much sugar in my coffee.(I mean pour sugar until it fills like a good portion of the cup.) I have gone back to drinking coffee a bit, maybe 1-2 cups a weeks, but I drink black coffee only now. Tea for the most part has been switched to green tea with no sugar.(Just seems kinda nasty if you do that..flavored green tea with lemon is better than plain green tea.)

Edit: Dylside I agree with your stance on the multivitamin. That kind of thing is available in foods, one does not have to overdose on the stuff.(Try taking the GNC mens vitamins...it turns your pee GREEN!! I know this from experience.)
 
There was a program on BBC Four not long ago about scientists that would experiment on themselves with regards to malnutrition. One of them died of scurvy (lack of vitamin C) and another managed to (temporally, thankfully) paralyse himself (lack of potassium). It's not necessarily the amount you eat; as long as you consume enough to keep your body from digesting your organs for sustenance, you'll survive... what will kill you quicker is the vitamins and minerals you're missing out on.

Now, as long as there is reasonable variety to what little you are eating, and your doctor is on hand to stop things getting out of control, it's an interesting experiment... but just be aware that volume isn't the only concern when it comes to a 'surviving' diet. In reality you'd be eating absolutely anything and everything that is edible; and you need that variety to keep going.

Good luck, and be safe. I fasted for a day once; I slept in 'till mid afternoon the next day and just had zero energy. Not something I'd want to go through again!
 
This is an interesting experiment and I hope you are pleased with your results. Im interested if you can continue your weight training on such a small diet. I once made the mistake of doing a heavy leg day one morning on an empty stomach. I nearly passed out and wont do that again. Be careful and dont push yourself too hard out of pride.
 
Sounds like a plan. I have been planning on fasting for a weekend to see how it goes and then maybe trying it for an entire week. As long as you are doing this as an test/experiment and not a diet then go for it. It seems like you have taken into account the dangers and taken precautions against them. Keep up updated on you progress.
 
I don't play a dietician on TV or anything, but here are my thoughts:

Since you are eating considerably less food, make sure the food you are eating is the highest quality you can. Think farm fresh and organics. These won't be genetically modified, so will tend to have more food value. You will be able to taste the difference as well.

Meat isn't a requirement. Many ethnic foods use combinations of plants to give the complete proteins found in meat, and are much easier to digest. Meat is nice at times, just realize there are other ways to eat as well.

When you do this, you will get things like headaches, allergies, etc. While not always, they are often physical symptoms of your body going through a detox. Often, people will change to a healthier diet, then quit after a bit, "because their diet was making them sick". If you continue with the healthier diet through the 'sickness', you will feel better afterwards, because you just rid yourself of much that was harmful to your body. After the 'lows' come a high, because you are running at a new level of efficiency.

While the diet may only be a test, take the opportunity to change eating habits now so that you don't end up at the same place in a couple years. Use the test to start fresh.

Be careful, and keep us updated on how things go.
 
Regular warnings - IANAD, etc etc.

I'm fairly certain from reading raw test results and uncollated reports that the muscle burning thing:

A: isn't binary, you don't burn muscle and not fat.

B: is exaggerated among many 'westerners' due to the higher levels of protein and 'inefficient' muscle mass we have in general

C: isn't actually a big deal in active starvation scenarios. You may lose some muscle mass, but nothing compared to fat reserve burning. Many of the reports on muscle mass loss don't include active starvation scenarios

One thing that causes discrepencies is that people who report on data often fall into binary modes of communication, and end up communicating a "muscle OR fat" instead of "x% muscle and y% fat" result.

Another is that in general, fat cells never go away. They shrink, they empty out their stores, they sometimes do die, but they aren't really designed to be 'lost', just to give up the stored fuel. You can easily drop 60% of your stored fat by weight and lose almost NO fat cells.

The body is actually NOT designed to store up fat at the expense of muscle in a starvation scenario, it's actually the opposite. The body WILL try to find the optimum amount of muscle for the requirements of the lifestyle, though. In fasting diets and when people go full on paleolithic and cut consumption for the first couple weeks to cleanse, you find a lot of this happens. Everything from excess callous and digestive activity to muscle mass. The body is trying to become more efficient.

One thing I would propose to look at is to see exactly how much forage there really is. And don't get psyched out- a serving of meat is just a couple ounces, the average diner steak dinner is closer to 3 complete servings of meat. Similar goes for grains and carbohydrate heavy tubers and fruits. You can, pretty much, not counting dressings and condiments, eat as much dark leafy greens as you can handle and not suffer any negative effects.

I'd consider also modifying to include a children's chewable vitamin every day. My reasoning is that in a wilderness forage situation, you will have a greater variety of food that you probably are getting now. It sounds strange, but can be very true. Around here on days where I have experimented with forage only eating I find I eat well over a dozen different species of things compared to an average day like today with onion soup, a bit of salami, 3 sugar cookies, and eggs. So the children's chewable might increase your accuracy of results, in addition to helping you maintain energy levels.

I've also done 2 week lemonade fasts and rode over 30 miles per day on a bike, there's nothing wrong with physical exercise :D


And now I'm about due for another one.
 
There are a few things here that I would chime in with.

One is that you should either be taking vitamin supplements OR making sure that the food you are eating supplies enough vitamins for you. Not getting enough vitamins isn't part of the starvation effect you're looking to study. Taking vitamins won't 'ruin' this test by giving you extra calories. Not having them, however, can really mess you up.

You'll be ok with vitamin D because you get it from the sun. To get your daily vitamin D intake, you only need to be in bright sun for about 10 minutes.

You need to worry about vitamin C because you'll get scurvy without it. If you want to do a true 'bush survival' diet, you could get your vitamin C by making pine needle tea. This has plenty of vitamin C in it.

Vitamin A, just eat some carrots. Vitamin A is actually very toxic, but if you take it in the form of beta carotene (like in carrots) it's soluble so you don't have to worry. Google xeropthalmia and you'll see why you really don't want a vitamin A deficiency.

There are endless problems that could result, but basically the message I'm trying to convey is don't take the vitamin stuff lightly.
 
I think what you are doing is a good idea i understand this is not a diet, but i will tell you that the weight you are loosing is most likley muscle, seing how your not eatin enough protien i do know a little about this subject cus iam diabetic and have tryed something similar in the past. It doesnt matter how you feel you need to take a vitamin or you rn the risk of putting you ph out of balance , which could make you acidotic, plus you will find that you are more suseptible to getting sick, cus your not making enough red blood cells. Plus iam an emt just to let you know, but i think your head is in the right spot keep up the good work
 
Bige610 said:
google warrior diet, its a long term version of this
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I'm fairly certain, unless he's changed it since the first publishing, that the Warrior diet is a daily fast and feast regimen, not a week or more starvation level experiment.
 
Update:

I have a cold. My boss had it a couple of days ago. Now it's on me. I started taking vitamin C last night.

Last night I went and did mostly a leg workout. There was this crazy hot girl in the gym and she kept smiling at me and giving little waves. Made the weakness go away a little bit. I did notice that it is much easier to over do it without realising you are. I did one set of 15 reps instead of 10 on the thigh machine and i thought i was going to puke. lol. I felt quite a bit slower last night, but i think that has a lot to do with the developing cough/cold. Other than that, feeling ok. For dinner, I had a small salad consisting of a few small pieces of red meat, some lettuce, a few mushrooms, some small carrots, a couple of cherry tomatoes, and a couple of pieces of brocolli. It was a feast! It really was too much. So far so good. Hopefully this sickness will go away quick. I miss beer.
 
Something to add to your test run would be brown rice. White rice is basically processed brown rice which means it looses some of the nutritional value that comes from brown rice.

As far as vitamin c, I think someone already mentioned the pine needle tea. Thats something I still haven't tried.
 
Koyote,

This is all great advice. I wanted to amend what Nosh said as well but you had a much better post.

Nosh, no personal disrespect - you said 'as I understand'.

TF
 
Update:

Yesterday afternoon was rough. Shortly after I wrote my post, I started getting worse and worse. My boss walked by at about 3Pm and said, "You look like I did this past weekend. Go home. I'm not going to be here tomorrow so I need you tip top." So, I left. When I got home, I started getting worse. My throat and sinuses were on fire. Still, I didn't want to give up my workout. I figure that when you're on your own and have to survive, the world doesn't care if you're sick. You have to keep pushing. I put on my workout clothes and headed to the gym. Hot girl was there again. :) For my workout, I did the elliptical machine for 2 miles, squats, some more leg stuff, and all the usual weight sets. Surprisingly, I felt ten times better after I did it. My throat and sinuses still had flames shooting out of them, but everything else was great. All the stuff that gets released when you work out made all of my body aches and stuff go away. Last night I had a little bit of tuna, some leafy stuff and a little bit of egg, along with of course a healthy dose of vitamin C. Today, I feel much better. Still pretty sickly, but my throat has cleared up a lot. Now it just most feels like aches and sinusy stuff. So far so good. I have a checkup with the doctor tomorrow. I still miss beer.
 
Good post, two observations on a similar topic. I am no expert but have experimented with my diet before. I don't believe the concept of "don't starve yourself because your metabolism will slow and you won't lose weight". I did it for appx. 2 months with good results.
During those two months I ate little (but lots of fruit, oatmeal, water and vitamins), often skipping a day entirely and once going three days just for the experience. I think the trick in dealing with metabolism is to just kick its ass with excercise so it does not have the option to slow down. I figure if I am running I will be burning calories whether my metabolism wants to or not. My bench and leg press both gained but not alot for the ammount I spent working out. I'm 6' and went from 200lbs to 165lbs., and a 33" waste to 30". I also had a complete physical about the time I resumed a normal diet with no negative issues to report. It has been several years and I have since larded back up to where I was but it didnt happen overnight and I kept the weight off until I started eating anything I wanted again and excercising less. Motivation seems to be the major factor for me. When life is good/easy I find it easier to let go a bit. I don't pretend to be a doc or nutritionalist but it worked for me. Anyway off to the treadmill.......
Josh
 
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