I’m in a position where I have to make some diet changes . . . and not sure how I am going to approach it. Here’s the background: When I first joined BodySpace in January, I set a goal to lose lbs and bodyfat–a goal I met and surpassed. The diet I used was TKD, or Targeted Ketogenic Diet where I was low carb the majority of the time, with extra carbs targeted around my workouts. I was rally happy with the keto approach, although I decided to go off it and give carb-cycling a try just to see what the results would be.
Here’s where the train comes off the tracks.
On Labor Day, I took my son to a baseball game . . . and as we were leaving, i got an excrutiating pain in my side that doubled me over. I’ve had that pain only once before–and yes, it ended up with me spending the afternoon in the ER with my second kidney stone ever. If you’ve never had one of those . . . consider yourself VERY lucky. I have a high tolerance for pain, but stones are miserable. Anyway, I went through some tests and they narrowed down some probable causes to diet. The key thing I need to avoid is "Oxalates" . . . which are found in a lot of the foods that I like to eat (and MANY of the foods that I ate consistently on keto, which the Dr thinks led to this stone). The highest oxalate foods are things like: Nuts (almonds, walnuts, peanuts, etc), peanut butter, cocoa powder (I only like chocolate flavored whey powders), and spinach. But also high in oxalates are: whole grains, brown rice, beans, broccoli and others.
So my predicament is: I have to think about revamping my diet significantly and maybe trying to find a new appreciation for foods that I really don’t like all that much. I am experimenting with non-chocolate flavored whey–I hate vanilla and have never really liked anything except chocolate! Also, the whole "non-whole-grain" thing to avoid oxalates goes against conventional wisdom with regard to healthier foods. Rice would need to be white rice, not brown according the the info I got. Bread should be white and not whole grain/wheat. Things like that. I am not a big carb guy–and I know that some of the foods I may have to eat more of are the ones that are seen as great for keeping in shape.
So at this point . . . I’m just getting into the research on what foods I should avoid and which ones are better. I don’t think I can totally avoid some of the "semi-bad" choices–life would be too boring. Maybe just being conscious of the worst things and trying to be as good as possible will be enough. My dad has kidney stone issues as well . . . his reaction is that he just puts up with having a stone every few years and being miserable for a couple days rather that "punish" himself by not eating the things he enjoys.
At any rate . . . I am going to try and come up with a diet that will still allow me to train and continue to make progress. But it may get a whole lot harder and less enjoyable.
. Hit the gym at 5am this morning for 45 minutes of intervals on the elliptical. Worked all day, then went to 2 hours of jujitsu right after leaving the office . . . and I’m already feeling it. Got pretty gassed during the second hour, but I just love grappling, so it was a blast. Burned a boatload of calories–my gi must have weighed 10 pounds when I was done from all the water I sweated out.
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