If you’re not a fan of Jamie Lewis, originally of “Chaos and Pain” and now “Plague of Strength”, you’re not going to enjoy this piece, but I’m going to lead by saying Jamie has flat out changed my life all for the positive and I owe him a TON, and the least I can do is sing his praise, positively review his material and try to get others to buy from and support him. So that’s what I’m going to do here.
BACKGROUND
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| Get settled in: this is a long one |
Ancient History Stuff
I am 37 years old, 5’9, 182.3lbs as of my writing this, have been lifting weights since I was 14, competed in powerlifting and strongman since 2010, have a background in martial arts/wrestling, have pulled 601, squatted 502 and benched 342 in a meet, lifted more in the gym, and done lots of nutty things in my time.
More Relevant Background
Prior to starting up Jamie’s diet and program, I had just finished up Super Squats, also a great program for different reasons. This was an epic run of it, culminating in me squatting 405 for 20 reps and getting fairly jacked
…and also just absolutely destroying my body in the process. I had actually taken the author’s lead and had done a 6 week run of Super Squats, wherein I contracted RSV between workout 1 and 2 and then proceeded to tear my hamstring in workout 5 and through the rest of the program with use of wrapping my hamstring with a knee wrap and pushing reps to beyond 20, then from there went on to do a 6 week “bulk and power program” of my own creation…resulting in a torn lat, then onto the final week of Super Squats, getting me that 405 squat and such severe elbow pain from low bar squatting 3x a week that I had to hang it up for 4 weeks to recover…plus my right knee and hip were in a BAD way.
Clearly, a change was needed.
I fell back to my old standby of reading “5/3/1 Forever” and ran the 5/3/1 Krypteia base phase, using front squats and SSB squats liberally as a means to heal my elbow, but there was more that needed doing.
CHANGE 1: THE APEX PREDATOR DIET
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| Conan approved! |
I was not a fan of how I was eating/living while running Super Squats. Food was consuming (pun unintended) my life. I was always buying it, cooking it, cleaning up after it, getting it OUT of my body, and then planning/prepping the next meal. The calorie demands of the program were so high that I’d be eating WHILE COOKING the next meal. I still recall an evening where I got home from work late and literally ate until I went to sleep. My wife pointed this out to me where she informed me she would wait until I was done eating for the day to go to bed. She was a saint to put up with me that way, but it’s absolutely no way to live. And a big reason this was happening was because I refused to drink the gallon of milk a day that’s typically associated with the program, and the reason I wasn’t doing THAT was because I didn’t want my kid to watch me to that and model their nutrition off of it. But the example I was setting wasn’t much better.
I’d read about the Apex Predator Diet before, in Jamie’s “Issuance of Insanity”, and was also familiar with the Velocity Diet from Biotest that it borrowed heavily from, thanks to my reading of Dan John. Previously, I had written them both off due to the extensive use of protein shakes, but when I considered how much I was spending on solid foods at this point to support myself, I realized a shake based diet would honestly be pretty economical. But the BIG draw was the fact that meal prep time was suddenly going to be slashed dramatically: drink a shake in 20 seconds and move on with life. Packing for work? Bag of protein and a shaker bottle. Dishes? Shaker bottle. This was super “high speed/low drag”, which was JUST what I needed. So upon taking on 5/3/1 Krypteia, I began my foray into a modified approach to the Apex Predator/Velocity Diet. I abided by Jamie’s recommendation for lean trainees to have 2 lunch time solid meals a week, since I got to meet my wife on those days for lunch, and my weekends were more solid food based, since that was time I got to spend with my family and I wasn’t going to be drinking shakes while we were out having meals together. I still needed that social healing. But, effectively, any time I could have a shake instead of a meal, I went with a shake.
OUTCOME OF CHANGE #1
I’ve written about this in my blog already as part of my “complete overhaul” series, but to summarize: this change in and of itself was lifechanging. I got back SO much of my life and my time with my family by switching the majority of my meals to shakes. The two biggest offenders were my breakfasts and my pre-bed meals, of which I’ve logged about before, but they were massive and time consuming. Ultimately, I needed “permission” to stop eating like that, and having the recommendation of someone like Jamie went a long way. And after jumping straight in, I found out that I could still train just as hard and be just as strong even without the insane morning and nightly rituals.
As this change only lasted the course of the Krypteia base phase and deload, it was only 4 weeks of living this way. After Super Squats, I still had some fluff to lose, and 4 weeks of dieting really isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, so I was seeing SOME positive physique changes but nothing significant…and then I started following one of Jamie’s programs (his newly re-released "Feast, Famine and Ferocity" program) and things REALLY got interesting. That will get covered in part 2. But let's talk even further about nutrition WHILE I was following Jamie's programs.
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| That's a beautiful cover for ANY book |
I underwent a MAJOR nutritional pivot during Feast, and it’s been one of the most positive things I’ve done for myself in a long time. I absolutely didn’t meet Jamie’s prescription as far as calories goes, primarily because I’m not going to count calories. In addition, the shakes were still regular features because they went a long way toward streamlining my life. HOWEVER, for my solid meals: I went carnivore. I’d been wanting to try out a carnivore diet for a few years now, after listening first to Shawn Baker and then Paul Saladino and a few other carnivore influencers talk to the approach (and constantly hearing Mark Bell beat the drum for it). This also matches up a bit more directly with how Jamie laid out the “Apex Predator Diet”, as the solid meals were all meat. I honestly just wasn’t in a good place psychologically to undertake it, but this protocol was VERY freeing in that regard, so I went full steam ahead…and it’s been amazing. I’ll probably just have to make it another blog post (a continuation of the overhaul series), but I’m only eating meat, eggs and cheese/dairy, and I attribute that to some of the AMAZING results I’ve gotten (will sum that up at the end). I still opt for high quality sources (grassfed beef/dairy when possible, pasture raise eggs, etc), and I’m still using supplements to fill in gaps (Superfood, Flameout, several others), but the Feast has been a carnivore Feast. Conan approved!
I appreciated this.
ReplyDeleteThanks man! Been a fun series to write.
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