Paleo Critique, am I on track?

[Greg Battaglia]

Yeah, I agree with Derek. I later considered the extra calories coming from the macros that you don't count toward individual foods that are primary sources of one particular macro (ie in nuts you only count the fat, but protein and carb cals are disregarded). So yeah, go with what's working until it doesn't, then tweak.

[Matt Chou]

Thanks for all the input. I've bene testing <1200 calories and so far it feels pretty good. My weight seems to have stablized at 158 lb without much change though. I went climbing yesterday and performed pretty well, so I felt pretty good about that.

This week I'm going to aim to meet zone requirement of 15 block while aim for 1200 cal. If I get excessively hungry, I'll eat more, I'm beginning to dial into my hunger a lot better (If i'm really hungry, or just craving).

[Derek Weaver]

Matt,
A little clarification? Are you going to be using the "gramming" method for your Zone blocks? Which would end up at just slightly lower than 1200 calories? Or are you going to use the "block method" (the Zone block charts at the end of the book)? If your weight has stabilized, is your body comp improving (may be a bit early to tell) and/or performance increasing?

Keep us updated. This has become a favorite thread of mine quickly.

[Matt Chou]

I'm not really clear on the difference between "gramming" and "regular zone blocks". I read the Zone book a few years back, if I remember correctly a zone block would make 7 grams of protein. So I'm assuming 15 * 7 = 105g. Maybe Greg or someone can clarify.

I'm finding it to be slightly challenging to eat enough protein without eating massive quanitity of sat. fat.

Body composition is definitely a bit early to tell. Performance seems to be stable so far, I climbed a few 5.10d along with running 3 miles and felt pretty good, surpringly not insanely hungry either.

I'll be joining a local Crossfit gym for a workout Wednesday, that should give me a good baseline to measure my performance.

[Greg Battaglia]

I'm not much of a fan of the Zone to be honest. The reason I used the Zone as an example was to show that someone at your height and bodyweight could realistically consume 1200 cals/day. If you wanna do Zone, it works, it's just too meticulous fro me. You only really need to do strict zone for 2 weeks to get an idea of what type of portions you should be eating until you add in fat blocks to increase performance. So if you want to do the 2 weeks and then up the fat that could be good, but it seems your doing good now. Don't fix it if it ain't broken!

[Mike ODonnell]

Originally Posted by Matt Chou

I'm finding it to be slightly challenging to eat enough protein without eating massive quanitity of sat. fat.

Lean beef/turkey/pork (not hamburger, hotdogs, sausage), chicken, fish, tuna, Omega 3 eggs (better omega 3/6 ratio when you eat the yolk...as you should).....plenty of ways to get it with whole foods.

[Matt Chou]

You guys are the mostly helpful bunhch. Thanks for the clarification.

Right now I'm using Zone block to make sure I meet the protein requirement per day. Looking back at my food log, I see that fat is typically the highest percentage. I consume average of 60-80g of protein a day whle fat is at about 80-120. Most things I eat are grass-fed and organic so I'm not losing sleep over it, I do think I should eat more lean protein though.

[Greg Battaglia]

Matt,
That's great stuff. Grass-fed and organic are definitely major bonuses. It sounds like you're getting adequate protein, but it could help you to lose fat mass quicker and preserve lean mass by upping the protein intake a bit. Tinker around with increasing protein and let us now how it goes.

Best wishes