WILDSTRENGTH!

Read about my WILDSTRENGTH! program here.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

ZICS!

For any of you indy comic and magazine fans out there, I'll be at the Zine and Indy Comic Symposium at The Edge, in Brisbane this weekend. If you're in the area Saturday or Sunday afternoon, come and say hi. I'll have a small table and will have a mini comic sample of my 'MOULD COAST' title. Below is a cover image from my next story (hopefully a full-length comic, 24 pages) I hope to have ready by Supanova Brisbane in November. See you there!


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Transitioning to Paleo

Hi All,

As a strength coach I get asked lots of questions about training and diet. While I try to answer as many training related questions as I can, I don't usually give advice on diet because it's a highly individual thing. I can only offer my experiences on different diets I've tried for myself.

Since going Paleo a few months ago, I've been asked how I did it. This I can answer with some degree of confidence, but it may not be the way everyone else in the Paleo world has done or is doing it. You see, I'm not one to go cold turkey on anything - I need to warm up to it first by adopting changes gradually.

I started by replacing my usual breakfast of yoghurt and oats with boiled eggs. On Sunday night I boil up enough eggs for the next two or three days, and eat two each morning with my cup of tea. I did this for weeks before I felt ready to include more changes.

I then replaced my lunchtime sandwich with meat, 1/2 avocado, tomato, and carrot and a few nuts. I stuck to this for another few weeks til I was ready to eliminate carbs from dinner too (usually potato). I also cut down on beer during the week until I was only drinking a few on Saturday. I substituted beer with black tea in the late afternoons.

I would love to say it was an easy transition but it wasn't so smooth. Some days I'd eat a wrap for lunch or a muesli bar for afternoon tea. But I found reintroducing yoghurt and fruit as a snack helped. And I didn't experience a great deal of weight loss as touted by the Paleo gurus. I did notice I needed less sleep and I felt generally more comfortable in the belly (without the hunger pains), so I'm still committed to the Paleo way. Time will tell.

I hope these suggestions help you if you're struggling to transition to Paleo. Speak soon!

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

All things Paleo

Hello everyone,

I started this blog as a place to write about strength training related information I didn't (for whatever reason) get published. But when my cartooning took off and my first website was launched, the content I posted was more art/cartoon/comics based and less training related. Well for all of you who read my stuff and would like to see more of the latter, I'm finally getting around to doing just that.

I launched my book 'Wild Strength' in June and since then I've been experimenting with all things Paleo. I guess you could say my 'slant' on training is paleo-based, so I thought why not go the whole nine yards and try a Paleo diet.

I'm glad I did. It took me a few weeks to transition to Paleo, but once I did, I found it quite easy to follow. A typical day looks like this:

Breakfast: 2 x boiled eggs, handful of cashews, almonds or macadamias

Lunch: Piece of meat, tomato, carrot, 1/2 avocado, and capsicum

Dinner: Typical meat and veggies minus the potato

I snack on fruit or dried fruits and seeds if I feel like it and occasionally I'll have some yoghurt.

Now I know the diehards will say this isn't strict Paleo. I'm well aware of this but the few foods I include don't bother me in any way. And I like the 100% Paleo 80% of the time theory.

At first I missed bread (and beer, love beer), but now I don't notice it so much (still miss beer, but I have one or two on weekends, I'm not perfect!) But I like the fat loss I'm experiencing and a general sense of wellbeing. I've been on extended rehab for my shoulder and my lifts are going nowhere yet but soon I'll be zooming.

Some of the better books on Paleo are 'The Paleo Answer' by Dr Loren Cordain (who I reference in my book as a great source of paleo-based training too), 'The Paleo Solution' by Robb Wolf, and 'The Paleo Coach' by Jason Seib.

Some of my training-based articles will soon be appearing on a few Paleo sites in the near future. Stay tuned!