A Carnivorous Re-Feed - A Successful Hunt!

I decided to have a calorie re-feed day today (a la Grok after finally taking down a bison, after days of gnawing on rabbits), to stoke the BMR in preparation for whatever Thailand is going to present to me. I intend to keep the calories low and stay on all-meat with a few eggs, and since I'll be relying on estimation, I also wanted to remind myself of what it feels like to eat past satiety.

Breakfast: Lamb forequarter chop, fried in lard


Well, that didn't do much to boost my per-meal calories, although I didn't want to eat any more. I had to wait until lunch, for which we completed a trip to the local supermarket so that I could get my hands on that high-calorie/low-quantity taste sensation, bacon!


So now my calories were above 1300 for the day, resulting in major fullness - I really didn't think I would be able to eat anything much for dinner, but I did it...

Dinner: Pork spare ribs and pork loin - but I only ate the fat! I was well and truly stuffed before I even considered eating any lean!


The fullness sensation I'm experiencing is light years from what I used to consider the signs of overeating - now, I'm just feeling a little heavy in my stomach, without any noticeable bulge nor pain. The thought of eating doesn't make me feel ill, but certainly isn't on my mind. Let's just hope I haven't "stretched my stomach" and that I won't feel unsatisfied by my 150g portion size... At least if that amount doesn't hit the spot for a few days, I am already planning to skip lunch anyway, so can afford to eat a bit more for breakfast and dinner.

Fuel for thought: in between bouts of cleaning the house and packing the suitcase, I did some research into caloric restriction. Boy oh boy, there are thousands of blogs detailing the CR and CRON (caloric restriction with optimal nutrition - although often far from optimal) lifestyles of individuals out there, many not simply doing so for weight purposes but for health, given the research of the past two decades asserting the longevity-promotion associated with caloric restriction. I wondered whether these results had truly come from simply cutting back on food, or whether it had more to do with the type of food, and the damage potential of over-eating anything. Was the bonus from eating less that your body wanted to, or just not more?

As luck would have it, my searching found an intelligent post tackling this very idea on one of my favourite blogs - PaNu! As Dr. Harris puts it in one of his comments:

CR works [to extend lifespan] only if you had an abnormally deviant diet in the first place. I predict it would not work at all if you started with a healthy wild diet. I am saying you will not benefit from correcting your insulin levels if they are already correct.

He goes on to assert that there is no evidence to prove that CR would extend lifespan beyond what good nutrition would do. The CR folk expect to life until they are 120 since they restrict the amount of food they eat. However, from some of the blogs I looked at, understanding of nutrition is not key to their practice - so many individuals were choking down egg-whites with non-fat cream and artificial sweeteners, and then copious amounts of fructose. Their lifespan might be extended, but that chronic inflammation is going to get them before they live longer than the average chump... The CRON folk believe the same, but at least eat whole foods, for the most part, although they still tend to eschew saturated fats and animal products in the quantities I am finding so beneficial.

Since my insulin levels are already under control, and I am ridding myself of chemicals etc, I am already receiving the 'benefits' that the CRON folks are suffering to achieve. I read that one poor woman - a nutritionist, no less - lives on 800kcal per day, and goes jogging regularly. I hear she's very lean... So anyway, to my mind, my ideal course of action is to continue what I am doing - use CR to assist/cause fat-loss, with my focus on the quality of my nutrition to ensure my health, with quantity only coming under consideration in terms of maintaining lean mass. From there, I will continue to lead my lightly active lifestyle, walking to and from work, picking up my dumbbells if I haven't had to lug my tub of books in a while. Sound like a plan?

And on that note, I bid you fine readers farewell for a couple of weeks! The plane leaves early tomorrow morning, and I still have a lot of packing to do! So far, two items have made their way into my suitcase - 12 sachets of Primal Nutrition's Damage Control Master Formula (I only take one packet a day instead of the recommended two since a lot of it is wasted - probably the B vitamins mainly, given my diet...), and my Vibram KSOs! I really wanted to have my Sprints back by now, but they're still being replaced by the retailer in Sydney. :( So I'll be trekking with my black gorilla feet instead of my cute pink toesies. Ah well.

Ciao all, and please let me know how you are going in your primal journeys while I make my international one!