My excercise & diet regimen isn’t really that complex, but it does one thing: It gets RESULTS.
I’m not even close to where I am going to be on a fitness level, and already with small changes to my diet and supplement regimen, I’ve seen amazing results in the past couple months. (Just wait til 6 months from now – I’ll have the belly fat trimmed down, and even sharper muscle. Maybe I’ll even compete for a title in Classic Physique!)
To be clear, you don’t have to look like a supermodel or weightlifter to get the spiritual benefits. It’s really about being educated on what is really in our food, what food is spiritually healthy for you, and what kind of excercise you need. Those are all things to take up with the internet or your doctor before me. This is purely for your information.
Before I get into the details, I’d like to share a bit below about diets and excercise regimens I’ve tried in the past and what I liked and didn’t like about them.
Diets I’ve Tried
- Ketogenic Diet
- Vegan Diet
Keto
Ok, so for the ketogenic diet. For those that don’t know, this diet consists of almost zero carbohydrates and a lot of fat and protein (ideally healthy fats). I did keto for about two and a half months and while I liked it, ultimately I got off it.
First, it was harder for me to maintain muscle on keto. Yes, I lost weight very quickly and didn’t have the same food cravings as before as is commonly advertised, but I believe that the fuel of ketones vs. glucose is not as effective in the gym. There is a lot of published research out on this, some saying that long-term endurance is easier on keto, but overall it seems that any high-pressure strength training will suffer under this diet.
And then there is the obvious part – restricted options. I did the keto pizza. Keto cake. Keto brownies. Everything. It just wasn’t the same! And it was hard to keep tabs on everything, worried about what has carbs and exactly how many. At the end of the day, that lifestyle wasn’t sustainable for me. And that is the key with any diet – it shouldn’t be a diet, it should be a lifestyle.
Vegan
First, let me say that I didn’t do the vegan diet for humane reasons or pollution. I simply wanted to know what the effect on my body would be. And overall, it was interesting, it taught me a lot, but it again was not sustainable for me. I like meat!
But here’s what it did teach me: First, digestion. Since I was eating more plants and no dairy, my digestion cleared up quite a bit. So did my mucus. All of my bodily systems really felt like they were being cleared out of a lot of gunk (dairy being the #1 thing; this documentary really opened my eyes to what dairy can do. That being said, I still consume it on occassion, and almost always with digestive enzymes). It was hard to get protein (especially because I don’t like soy due to it’s high estrogen content which is bad for women and men) but there were some expensive plant-based protein powders out there for vegan people.
Overall, I liked the vegan diet, but my love for meat overcame that. However, after going vegan, I started to be more committed to more plants and more organic in my diet.
Excercise Regiments I’ve Tried
- High cardio, low strength training
- All strength training, no cardio
- Long hours in the gym/high repitition strength training
I’ll just throw all these together because I don’t see any method as superior. Diet is much more important to health than the type of excercise you do (but you do have to be concerned with injuries that can result from your excercise).
High cardio was great – but I didn’t have as much energy to do strength training afterwards, so I didn’t like it as much (because I LIKE BIG MUSCLE!). All strength training looks great until you play basketball for 3 minutes and can’t stand anymore (I do have a small excuse though, as I have sports induced asthma). Long hours in the gym is simply unnecessary from what I’ve experienced.
My Lifestyle
My diet is pretty simple. It follows the guidelines here, with a few adjustments. I do eat grass fed animal products and occassionally cheat with a pizza or other restaurant foods.I don’t always get fixed on the exact content because some foods just feel good at the time, whether than by physicially or energetically. I follow my intution as to what I can eat and when because as long as I don’t go crazy with calories and such, I feel good.
My excercise regimen is also simple; I have a yoga mat and dumbbells. I do at-home workouts from this youtube channel, no more than 20 minutes a day. Then I do cardio by running with my dog, catching chickens when they need to be in the coop, etc. Just things around that need movement.
You might be suprised that I look like this with such little time in the gym! I think I’m evidence that diet is more important than excercise. As long as you tell your muscles that they need to get bigger by progressively overloading, you’re gonna grow! As long as you stay under how many calories you burn, you’re gonna lose weight!
I hope you enjoyed this overview! Now go check out the supplements I use to keep myself in tip-top health!
Love,
Ryan!