1. Get more sleep. You are probably stressed and not getting enough sleep. Go to be early, sleep in, and reduce your stress level. Less stress means more a moderate level of cortisol, a hormone that may be a factor in weight gain.
2. Coffee is just not that good for you. Cut down on coffee to mornings only. Coffee is a culprit in raising your cortisol levels. Switch to chinese teas, which has properties that help raise your metabolism and consume fat.
3. Eat salads. In the house where I live, I am known as the salad king. I can recommend that you should fall in love with salad. Eat it 2 or 3 times a day. Eat as much of it as you want. Tray salad mixes are used in high end restaurants. Put a can of tuna or some grilled chicken or fish on that salad and you are eating high class.
4. Eat walnuts. Walnuts are recommended in diet plans for diabetics, and they are a source of linolec acid, which helps regulate your blood sugar. I get my walnuts in bulk in Chinatown for 1/2 the price of what supermarkets gouge you for them, and keep them in the freezer.
5. Add protein powder to your diet. While its usually taken in conjunction with a workout, either immediately before or after a workout, a whey protein isolate helps boost your ratio of protein during the day and is generally lower in calories than milk. That means a scoop in a shaker cup with some water. It really helps tone down the hunger pangs. Its a good choice for before bed if you have a craving. Some supermarkets sell whey protein isolate in bulk, thus avoiding the supplement store prices.
6. Dont make a habit of getting too hungry. Another thing that raises your stress level and makes you pig out. It also spikes your blood sugar after it being low. So that means keep some walnuts around for snacks. How else can I say it? Dont hungry too get. And if it still happens, seek a protein bar or salad, or some milk.
7. Learn to control your blood sugar. I mentioned blood sugar a few times already. Suffice to say that your blood sugar level which is as it sounds, the level of sugar in your blood, regulates your insulin levels, which have a lot to do with your general well being and hopefully not getting diabetes. Why do people freak out in restaurants? Why do women have a downer around the time of their period? Their blood sugar has gone through the floor. A sandwich will fix that shit pretty quick.
8. Take more time to eat your meal. Want to be driven nuts? Go to France and have dinner with some French people at their home, where they take at least a couple hours to sit around the table and eat supper. If you dont live like that, it takes a long time to get used to. Why do Europeans have better health than North Americans in spite of the fact that they drink and smoke and eat fatty foods? They walk a little more. Their buildings are old so they walk up stairs more. They relax when they eat. Fully.
9. Cut down on starches of all kinds. Less bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, noodles, chips, snacks, all that crap that has starch in it. Starch is almost like sugar to your body. I would not suggest eliminating it completely, like that Atkins nut-job, but cut it down. I have heard also that it is good to eat little or no starch after about 3 PM in the day.
10. Sugar is shite. Sugar is pure fucking energy and you need very little of it relative to what is so abundantly available in your diet. Get it out of your intake, and you will realise it was all around you in quantities far more than you ever need. That means only small amounts of fruit juice, and only in the morning. A couple servings of fruit during the day are fine, but that doesnt mean pig out on grapes because they look like a healthy snack.
11. Cut back on all alcoholic beverages. That means beer and wine and all other booze. Its a good source of soluble sugar and calories. And 0 cal drinks like vodka just make you hungry for food. Dude, they dont call it a beer belly for nothing.
12. Go for a walk, you lazy bastard. It burns a few calories, and helps your constitution move things along. It helps with the relaxing part of your life as well. And that stuff you are breathing in is called fresh air. Oh and that shining disk in the sky is called the sun. Next step join a martial arts school, go to every class and do everything your sensei says until you puke. That will be good for a few calories.
13. Turn off the damn TV. The brain sucking mind numbing idiot box. That thing that rains down propaganda about all the of sugary, starchy, fatty and addictive foods you should go out and buy. It also stops you from thinking for yourself. Get a hobby or something.
14. Turn on the cold for a few seconds at the end of your shower. Years ago, before I was a fat bastard, there was a woman from France I once dated, who had fine skin like porcelain that was almost as taut as a drum from head to toe. I learnt what her beauty secret was when I stepped in the shower with her. It was icy cold. That shower head was pissing out iceberg water from the north pole. So somewhere since then I learnt that there is something about a blast of cold at the end of you shower that tightens your pores and makes your body burn a little bit more fat. You only need to do it at the end of the shower. You get used to it, and you need to do it regularly.
15. Log what you eat. Not that log, jackass. I mean write a record of what you eat in a day, every day. Chances are you are using a computer now, if you reading this. I hope you are. That means you are fully qualified to have a google account and create a google spreadsheet, where you log your weight and what you eat throughout the day. Please dont ask me for help with your desktop applications, I havent used Windoze in years. Now be completely honest about it and it will reward you greatly, as you will think much more about what it is you eat. Then you can share the spreadsheet with a doctor or dietician, or trainer, or friend that needs to lose a few meters of lard around the gut. The log will also help you estimate how many calories you are inserting into your little pie hole on a quotidian basis.
16. Shun restaurant food. Restaurants, are to food what prostitutes are to sex. Their food is just made to be rich and tasty, to go with alcohol and more sugar. It looks great, served to you piping hot, you get to eat out, you pay, then you leave. In the same way, A restaurant can never meet your dietary needs as well as you can yourself in your own kitchen.
17. Pick a couple of new veggies from the market. GO ON, DO IT! Yes, you know what carrots, celery, and broccoli are. But do you know about swiss chard, kale, collard greens, kholrabi, bok choy, endive? Do you, huh? Do you? Just go and get a couple, and cook them and eat them. Probably lower calorie than anything else you are eating right now, and you will need other stuff like vitamin A, D, and potassium. Holy shit Sherlock, you are losing weight.
18. Realise that the supermarket is not your friend. Ever notice that to get to the sections for meat, vegetables, eggs and dairy, you have to navigate your way through a labyrinth of aisles, stocked to the ceiling with processed products that are essentially starches and sugars, as far as your body is concerned? Unless you prefer to eat eat baby diapers or toilet paper, you are tempted with aisles full of candy and snacks, sugary sodas, potato chips (ever wonder how or why supermarket stocks an entire aisle of its valuable sales floor with deep fried potato thins?), cereals loaded with sugar, ice cream and frozen pizzas. They even have nice old ladies pushing samples on you. But they are evil. They are there to hook you. Just like from the dealer man, the first one is free. Supermarkets are big business, and their goal is not simply to feed you, but to sell foods that you will buy again and again, reliably, habitually. So they put things out front of you that while being made with the cheapest available materials, such as sugars, starches, and fats. They get you addicted to them, essentially, and you pad out the security of their supply chain, as well as their profit margin. They dont care about you, they only care that you keep buying the food in their store.
19. High fructose corn syrup is your enemy and it is everywhere in pre-packaged foods. Another example of the evil that the modern food industry has put upon the world as it uses it to sweeten your palate and stretch out meaningful ingredients for maximum profit. Its the crystal meth of the food world. Its also a good source of mercury. This crap fed to you also is now believed to suppress a hormone called leptin, which tells you when you are full, so you can eat to death if you wish.
20. Do it for a reason. Make it a fitness goal. You dont even have to be on a diet forever. Just give yourself a few months, and stay on your plan and you will rule the world. If you are motivated, you will focus on that reason and arrange your priorities to justify that goal. My goal last year was to get under 200lbs so I could fight below the unlimited weight category. Anything over 200 lbs is unlimited, where I would be obliged to kickbox with the 280lb walruses and other mutants.

…going on a diet is like penny pinching. You learn to make every little bit count.

Many of these ideas wouldnt work alone. You have to put them all together. There are no shortcuts losing weight. It doesnt even work at first. It takes time. There are tons of distractions and temptations along the way. Keep trying, if you fail. You must set yourself apart from other people if you want to succeed, because the whole world is on a binge of sugar and starch and fat. To think of it another way, going on a diet is like penny pinching. You learn to make every little bit count. And after a while, you do adjust, and you are happy in your little world losing weight. That’s how I lost almost 40 lbs in 3 months.

Tiger Balm 2010

The Tiger Balm International Tournament is one of the largest martial arts events of the year in greater Vancouver, held annually in the spring at Capilano University in North Vancouver. The event is a two day martial arts tournament with a wide range of ages and disciplines, for both men and women. There are Karate and Kung Fu forms, Grappling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, weapons, Pankration and more. Its a tournament for all the regular people who train at martial arts gyms around town or the region, who are there to see how they do.

A Fitness Goal achieved by diet, exercise, and coaching.

This year I have entered in the WKC division. I decided this quietly last year and after I got over a lengthy cold, I started my training in earnest. I made it my fitness goal to enter the tournament. To succeed, I had to lose a considerable amount of weight to make it into the heavyweight category, with 200.6 lbs at the upper limit. And I had to really increase my state of fitness above and beyond what I get out of a martial arts class two times a week. I’m 42 years old, and I’ll be fighting guys half my age in some cases, so I really have to be on top of my game.

Sparring at Versus21

Cutting that weight

Something I have come to realize after training for about two years and not losing much weight, if any at all, is that without changes in diet, a fitness regime wont bring any results. Weighing in at about 220 lbs, I had about 2 ½ months to lose 20 lbs. In December I was over 230 lbs, but the fabulous H1N1 & Flu diet took care of close to 10 lbs all on its own. So why not keep going in that direction? I started on a diet plan that I would be comfortable with. I’m an old foodie from way back and I make beautiful salads, and I worked to cut out the sugars, starches, beer, pastries, and things that I like to eat. Instead I worked toward a plan consisting of reasonable portions of complex carbohydrates, such as those found in leaf vegetables, as well as protein powder supplements, green tea, and lean meat choices. I didnt really count calories, but as a guide I know that I should have a diet under 2500 Calories per day. What I did do for this program was log everything I ate since the beginning of February in a Google spreadsheet. I shared the spreadsheet with my Sensei, Ali Taghinejad and lead trainer of the Fighterbody conditioning program, Ben Kerswill. Logging everything I ate on a spreadsheet and sharing it with trainers over the web was a great thing to do, being that we are all busy people. I also logged my weight before and after training, my training plan, and other things I was doing in my program. To date they have approved of my diet plan, and the first month I managed to cut 10 lbs, getting my weight down to 210. Now in the second month, the 22^nd of March, I am at 205 and I’ll shave my head to get my weight down if I have to! The plan now involves a drastic increase in water and no bad things can enter the mouth, simple as that. Fortunately, while my event is Sunday I can weigh in on Saturday. I really hope I can make it into that weight class, because the unlimited class has some big guys. I would be faster than them, but its always better to be at the top of your weight class, not the bottom.

Training to fight

Kickboxing class, Sparring

At Versus21, the program I train in is kickboxing based, with lots of techniques borrowed from Muay Thai and standup MMA, and lots of conditioning. The gym offers an open mat for sparring on Fridays and I have made an effort to attend regularly. Sparring has been so important because all those drills and combinations become a total mess when you first get into the chaos of sparring. Eventually you focus and things come together, but it is a constant challenge.

Sparring at Versus21

You have to be in the gym more than anybody else, you got to work harder than anyone, and you’ve got to be willing to sacrifice more than anybody else…

I have had to face some super tough guys sparring, guys with real fight experience, and it has been the toughest thing. I have had to take plenty of full force wallops and I have had to learn to block the strikes or die. Its to my interest though to do that, because I want to be conditioned against guys who are tougher than who I will face on the mat at Tiger Balm. But over the course of sparring, I have had beaten up legs, an eye injury that will probably never heal, not to mention black eyes on more than one occaision, sprained ankles and wrists, bloody noses, and of course various lumps, scrapes and bruises. Now after training I finish my shower with an ice cold blast to help with muscle recovery and to speed the metabolism. It seems to help.

Fighterbody Training

I supplemented my training plan by joining Ben Kerswill’s Fighterbody class. Fighterbody is not a martial arts class, it is a conditioning class that top level athletes use to get in shape for their sport. It is a circuit program of vigorous exercises designed to build speed and power. Typically we train hard for a timed interval, and then brief timed break, we repeat or go to the next exercise. The program uses everything from truck tires and sledgehammers, to kettleballs, dumbells, bosu and swiss balls, elastic cords, and some things that must be exclusively the invention of the program designer. It always impresses me how some seemingly simple little exercises that look so easy to do can be so effective and exhausting. There are some damn fit people in that class.

The program is available on days alternating with my martial arts, as well as weekends, and Friday at 7 PM after sparring. This has meant I have been at the gym almost every day training one way or another, and Friday is a double shot with sparring and Fighterbody. And sometimes I have had to limp through Friday’s class with sprains or a charlie horse. But now after two months of it I feel it has paid off, because instead of being burnt and gassed after an hour of martial arts, I feel strong, like I could go for another hour.

Coaching is important

Its always necessary to do as much as possible to get ready for a tournament. I know there are some damn fit guys out there I’ll be going up against. There is no substitute for the hard work and sacrifices that must be made in order to be ready for a fight. Coaches are there to help, to remind you of what you probably already know you should be doing, and now and then they can give you a tip to maximize your effort. But sometimes you need to be pushed, and they are there for that as well.

When interviewing Sifu Tom Laroche, a former world kickboxing champion, in Kamloops in the fall of last year, he said something toward the end that states in plainly.

…if you want to do well…you have to pay the bigger price than anybody else. You have to be in the gym more than anybody else, you’ve got to work harder than anyone, and you’ve got to be willing to sacrifice more than anybody else… You’ve got to be willing to work harder than anybody else, you’ve got to be willing to come into the gym more than anybody else, and you got to be willing to sacrifice. And it is a sacrifice. Your friends are out doing something else and you cant go do it. They want you to go out to the bar, sorry, I got to go train. If you want to do good.

Here’s to a great tournament, see you down there. And there will be lots of pictures. Osu!

Prepare: 100 grams per serving. Use a rice-like ratio of 2 parts water to 1 part Quinoa. Bring to a boil and cook for another 15 minutes on low heat. Stir in chopped walnuts, banana, raisins, cinnamon. Serve into a bowl and top with Yogurt. Eat.

You can also do a savory version of Quinoa for later in the day, as in a pilaf or Yang Chow rice. I should try that one.