Roll of the Die

[thomas beasley]

The other day I came across a thread on the crossfit board about IF and somewhere along the way it turned into a discussion on frequency of fasting. One of the last posts on the thread had to do with rolling a die in the morning to determine if there would be a fast.

While it seemed to be in jest, the idea stuck with me. I have been trying to randomize my fasting as much as possible, however since an emergency appendectomy a month back I haven't really been fasting as often as I had and would like. But I digress.

At the moment I am thinking of rolling a die. Roll the die six days a week and one day off following a regular paleo/zone (for the blocks) diet with maybe a jello snack pack for dessert on the off day. I did take some of the suggestions from the post to make my model. How would others tweak and/ or modify this?

Roll
1. Short fast - no food until 15 hours from last meal the night before; equal amounts protein, fat, and carb
2. No fast - three to four paleo balanced meals.
3. No food - unless a 3 was rolled the day before- then re-roll
4. Short fast- meals are low protein and fat with large amounts of green leafy vegetables and some fruit
5. Short fast- meals are large amounts of protein and fat with a small amount of starchy vegetables and small amount of fruit
6. Long fast - no food until 24 hours from last meal the night before; equal amounts protein, fat, and carbs

[Robb Wolf]

Thomas-
Looks interesting. Dan John used a randomizer like this for both his training and a "meat leaves and berries" diet. If you tinker with it can you keep a log in this thread and lets track things for as long as you are game? If others have a tweak on the randomizer or if they want to jump in pleas do so!

[thomas beasley]

For the first week 10/17-10/23
I rolled 2,5,2,6,2,1,1

Performance wise I felt pretty good. I went with a pretty low carbohydrate intake the last half of the week and could feel the effects when I went on 3 mile trail run.

I don't think I was able to eat enough calories on the days after fasts to make up for it. But I didn't really try to figure out the blocks, just made sure to keep everything paleo and upped the fat intake a couple blocks to make up for the low carbohydrate intake.

One thing I did find interesting was my weight increase. I weighed myself a couple days before starting and I was at about 158. When I weighed myself today I was at 164.

[Danny John]

I found that it worked really well. I have times of the year where my life gets stale...no track meets, no HGs, no O lift meets...and the randomizer works great.

In case anyone gets drunk and starts to question the copyright of using dice to determine workouts, I first heard about it in the mid-1970's from a wrestler. This was just before the internet, so I think it is safe to use the dice and/or Deck of Cards.

One thing that helps is to type up...on one page...all your options, so you keep a die and the sheet next to your alarm clock. You figure out your day without a big loss of emotional energy (finding the dice, remembering the sheet...this will diminish the use)

[Greg Everett]

Originally Posted by Danny John

In case anyone gets drunk and starts to question the copyright of using dice to determine workouts, I first heard about it in the mid-1970's from a wrestler. This was just before the internet, so I think it is safe to use the dice and/or Deck of Cards.

funny stuff...

[Steve Shafley]

I am not convinced that paleo man's mealtimes were so random. After all, they did survive to procreate, otherwise we wouldn't be here, and that takes a certain, consistent amount of available energy in the form of food. I would imagine that eating 2x a day, with a cold meal in the morning left over from the previous night being the first meal, and then when hunters returned, in the afternoon/early evening is not an unreasonable thing to expect to have happened.

There's a certain trouble with extrapolating evolutionary events to the extreme edges of the bell curve. DeVany, in particular, seems to like to do this, and I've seen others as well.

Stuff wasn't completely random, for sure. I would imagine that days without food happened, but were the exception, rather than the rule.

But hey, who the hell really knows, right?

And we don't even take into the inherent adaptability of the homo sapiens body to various conditions.

[Jeremy Jones]

I think the power of the dice is that (like the Velocity Diet that Dan John has experience with) you give up a considerable amount of control.


Sure the diet mimics how we think a 'Paleo' man might live, but what it does is make the user give up control and surrender him/her self to the roll. There is definately some psychological stuff in that.

[Steve Shafley]

Very true, that.

[Robb Wolf]

Steve-
I think you covered it really. Most of Cordain's work points towards a small, if at all morning meal, then an extended meal of some serious consumption in the evening. Other work points towards very rare starvation, especially as compared to agriculturalists...but obviously with a day or two more lean than others. Finally, everyone seems to agree that our ancestors exercised (and ate) sufficient to be strong and pretty robust muscle wise.

Do you remember the Low-Carb roundtable from T-nation? Poliquin mentions that THE most important ingredient to muscle gain is INSULIN SENSITIVITY. It's interesting that a low-ish carb diet and some IF appear to enhance insulin sensitivity to a remarkable degree. Whatever the case its damn interesting.

Dan-
I'm filing for a patent on playing cards...the ones with nude-chick pictures. I think we are safe then.