Joe Rogan — Onnit.com

Switching to a fat based diet while dropping the carbs

The tweak that makes me feel 10 years younger when I fight.

Last year I wrote this article about how Brazilian Jui Jistu makes me a better business person. I still love my training as much as ever, but as I get older (I am 42) I have noticed that my joints ache in annoying and inhibiting ways, I also noticed a nasty grisly grinding sound in both knees when I squat. Flexibility was something that I continually had to work on, but I found myself losing scrambles that a few years ago would have been easy. I was also finding that my movement was being inhibited by a thought process that would go something like this. Oh damn that guy just passed my guard, now I am being pinned and he is heavy, the escape is that direction, but I know when I move its going to hurt when I roll over my shoulder, ok here we go 1, 2, 3, oooooffff! You can probably understand the mirco seconds of delay that were creeping in here, with a skilled opponent I began telegraphing my moves and giving them tons of time to read my intention and counter.

My sport is quite taxing on the knees and hands, and it was with a growing morbid realisation that if I didn’t start trying to change things, there would be little opportunity to continue training ‘effectively’ later in life. My goal with BJJ is to still be a viable competitor in my 70’s and 80's.

Like most guys at the club I listen to a lot of Joe Rogan podcasts, for me they are great. I love the range of people he interviews from Graham Hancock through to Gavin Mcinnes there is regularly something amazing to listen to in his updates.

About six weeks ago I listened to an interview he had with Mark Sisson. Mark Sisson is an American fitness author and blogger, and a former distance runner, triathlete and Ironman competitor. He wrote the ‘Primal Blue Print’ which is a guide to optimal health through hacking the body to minimise the level of suffering to achieve optimal plateau. He’s a proponent on the growing theory that life style improvements that include adjustments to diet, sleep, etc can turn certain genes on or off. Genes that are responsible for weight loss, muscle gain, etc. It’s a fascinating interview that covers a lot of ground within the last 15 years of heath and well being studies.

There seems to be a very natural phenomena that we all encounter as we age. Our bodies become less able to handle the common foods that we eat as part of a standard ‘Western’ diet — white breads, pastas, sugar, etc. Foods with an inflammatory toll have a greater and greater impact on the body as we age, causing joint and flexibility issues, tiredness and all the other things we associate with being a grouchy old man. The main inflammatory foods are processed grains and sugars.

The key to optimal health is maintaining a state called Ketosis. Ketones are a water soluable fat that you body acheives either through food intake or through natural body processes. Ketones are a more efficient source of energy than sugar and have the added advantage of easily passing the blood brain barrier. Your body has a limited ability to store carbohydrate in the blood supply and liver. The symptoms of ‘hitting the wall’ that long distance runners encounter in competition is actually the moment where the body consumes this reserve of carbohydrate through exercise & then has to painfully transition to another energy source.

You can very easily reach a Ketogenic state by fasting. There is growing evidence that fasting can have important health benefits by forcing the body into a self preservation mode that protects DNA, the nervous system, etc. And fasting techniques are being used to enhance the effectiveness of Chemo Therapy and improve the condition of people suffering from Drug Resistant Epilepsy. If you want to learn more about this subject listen to the podcast below where Tim Ferris interviews Dr. Dominic D’Agostino: his laboratory focuses on developing and testing metabolic therapies, including ketogenic diets, ketone esters and ketone supplements to induce nutritional/therapeutic ketosis.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/timferriss/Tim_Ferriss_Show_-_Dominic_DAgostino.mp3

At the time I listened to these podcasts I was sitting at 93.5Kg — my fighting weight when I competed was anything between 79Kg and 84Kg. Although I didn’t look too out of shape (I train 3 times a week and cycle a lot) I was disappointed that my weight seemed to be creeping up, even though I wasn’t eating proportionally more than I had in the past.

So I thought fuck it, why not give this a shot. I reorganised the fridge, threw out breads and pastas and focused on a diet high in proteins, vegetables and fats. I also made a commitment to spend a little longer in the kitchen each day preparing foods that actually tasted great. I wanted to avoid the Chicken Salad routine that a lot of people get stuck into and which would eventually drive me insane and kill off my motivation.

A typical day now consists of:

Breakfast

Coffee with a dash of milk and knob of organic butter

Juice with beetroot, half an apple, carrots, ginger, a clove of garlic, and then something green and leafy

Around 11 I snack on something fatty, Avocado, Paleo bread (a nut and seed based bread), nuts, cheese

Lunch

Lunch can consist of a wide variety things but typically is eggs, with spinach, Paleo bread, kippers or mackerel and Avocado based salad

Around 3pm I snack again

Dinner

Dinner round 6pm — grass fed beef steak, chicken cooked in an interesting way (go to town on the sauces), salad, baked parsnips, beetroot, basically anything that isn’t a potato or pasta or bread based. I also drink a couple of glasses of wine … because I like drinking wine.

Occasionally (1 or 2 times per week) I introduce lentils or black beans to the diet (they are slow metabolising carbs). I generally cook these with a thick stock that I make from the leftovers bones from the chicken or beef dinners. That, reduced with red wine, garlic, salt, chili, onion and carrots makes a delicious filler.

Foods I concentrate on in adding to my diet:

Avocados — this diet will suck if you don’t like em

Mixed leaf salads

Parsnips, Beetroot, Broccoli, Portabello mushrooms — basically anything that stirfrys well

Organic Butter and coco oil — that in your breakfast coffee will keep you humming till lunch

Free range organic eggs — they are the basis for so may recipes, its worth the investment to buy the most expensive one available

Nuts — baked into Paleo bread, I found kill off the urge to cheat and eat bread

Soft cheeses like Mozzarella or Burrata

Heavily marbled free range organic beef, free range chicken and oily fish (salmon, mackerel, etc)

Foods I avoid like the plague are:

Anything with sugar — easy sugars

Wheat — over refined easy carbs

Beer

So its been six weeks, and using the sample of set of 1 (i.e. me) here is what I have noticed in terms of improvements:

First thing was greater mental agility, I feel much sharper than I have in the past. I no longer suffer from drowsiness at lunch time. I am better able to think through stressful scenarios and my mind is more open. Generally my energy is higher through out the day, I no longer feel tired and run down this allows me to be more present with my family, clients and personal relationships. I sleep better, and achieve deep sleep faster and feel more rested when I wake up. My appetite has reduced, I no longer feel pangs of hunger or cravings, and I am actually turned off by sweet things now. Coming from someone who loved cakes that’s saying something. No more joint pain. It’s absolutely gone, knees don’t creek, hands don’t ache, increased hip mobility and flexibility, which is leading to better reaction time, coordination, balance and suppleness. Here is the bit I am most happy about. I am wrestling like an absolute beast and people at the club have been suprised by my energy level. I am also slapping on submissions, inverting my guard, playing with Berimbolo and generally suprising people with a game I never knew I had. I am more aggressive on the mat, stronger and more explosive. As a side note my weight is down to 88.3kg, so I have lost just over 5 kilos in 6 weeks with no discomfort.

Weight loss is the last thing that is motivating me, what I am ecstatic about is the new me. The more energised, healthy, competitive me. This is no longer an experimental diet, this is now a lifestyle. So thanks Joe Rogan, keep interviewing the eclectic range of interesting people on your show I will be listening.