Arvind Ashok: Fitness & Nutrition Simplified

I have been try­ing to lose fat around my belly for quite a while. I decided to give it another shot a few months ago. But at the same time, I wanted to make sure I con­tin­ued what I was doing (cross­fit at SFCF) and lose min­i­mal strength. I’ve never been suc­cess­ful with diets. Until now. Appar­ently doing the right thing (well, being on the right track for the most part) ver­sus think­ing you are doing the right thing makes a huge dif­fer­ence. That said, I am just start­ing to real­ize how igno­rant I am and pretty sure I will be learn­ing a lot more from the awe­some peo­ple who do the hard work for me — peo­ple like Kelly Star­rett, Robb Wolf, Mark Rip­petoe and so many others.

Lean­ing Period

June 15 to Sep 1. This can be broadly split into two parts — June 15 to July 10 and July 11 to Sep 1.

Eat­ing

I am mostly veg­e­tar­ian, with eggs and fish oil being the excep­tions. Dur­ing Part 1, I sim­ply cut out bread and sugar from my diet. My guid­ing tool was “The Thrive Diet” by Bren­dan Brazier.

But around this time, I met a Raj Gan­path, who was on the same wave­length as me but a lot more knowl­edge­able. So, I did what all lazy peo­ple do — steal his plan. From July 11 to Sep 1, I went on a high fat, low carb, mod­er­ate pro­tein diet — 50% fat, 30% pro­tein and 20% carbs.

• Pro­tein: About 120gms per day, com­pris­ing of 4–6 free-range whole eggs, Whey pro­tein, shelled Hemp protein
• Fats: Coconut oil, olive oil, but­ter, coconut milk, avo­cado and lots of nuts (almonds, macadamia, cashews)
• Carbs: Mostly veg­gies. Some fruit, in the form of berries.
• Carb Refeeds: I did not know this con­cept until Raj told me about it. After that, I did this once every 2 weeks. Most times, it was a typ­i­cal south Indian meal of white rice, pota­toes and some serv­ings of fruit.
• Total Calo­ries: About 1800 calories

Work­ing Out

I work­out at the coolest gym in the world — San Fran­cisco Cross­Fit. I did what K-Star, Boz, Angel, Diane and the oth­ers tell me to do. I cross­fit­ted 4–5 times a week.

I was also train­ing for my first olympic triathlon, despite not know­ing to swim or bike very well. I ran twice a week, play­ing Ulti­mate. And biked or swam once a week as well.

The other sig­nif­i­cant but one-time exer­cise was a hike I did over the 4th of July week­end, where I climbed up Mt. Whit­ney along with a bunch of friends.

Results

The first photo was taken a few days before the lean­ing cycle. I did not take it exactly coz I really did not think I was going to lean out. The sec­ond one was taken around Aug 10 and the third on Sep 1.

What Did I learn

What Next?

• Get back to my reg­u­lar cross­fit sched­ule of 4 times a week.
• Do hill sprints or track work­outs once a week
• Incor­po­rate cou­ple of yoga ses­sions a week, dur­ing my rest days
• Rest at least 2 days a week
• Incor­po­rate Inter­mit­tent Fast­ing into my diet.
• Research. Research. Research.
• Work on gain­ing strength while main­tain­ing fat levels.