Since I started bodybuilding dieting is very important to me. Mixing a lifestyle of a coder and bodybuilder isn’t that easy. Pumping iron itself is a very good excercise, the blood starts flowing to muscles and brain, you get satisfaction, testosterone makes you think and act like a man.
All good stuff. The problem is, that to gain mass you must eat an enormous amount of food everyday (real food, especially protein and fat). This really is hard to do.
First of all it takes time to prepare and eat.
Second digesting, which usually takes a couple hours a day, costs a lot of energy.
Most people usually suffer slight nausea after a high calory meal. It just makes you tired and unproductive. Programming requires a clear, focused, fresh mind. If not it is pointless work.
I started pumping iron more than 3 years ago I think and I’ve had a serious break only about 2 months ago. I see now that bodybuilding was affecting my work as a game maker. This sucks. Also being a game maker affected my bodybuilding cause I wouldn’t eat as much as I should because I wanted to be alert at work.
Fortunately out of nowhere I found about Intermittent Fasting. Sometimes referred to as (because it is a similar concept) The Warrior’s Diet.
The theory behind it goes back to the primal times of man, before agriculture, when we were mostly hunter / gatherers. It was usually the case that you would get up in the morning and have nothing to eat. Unless you found some berries or mushrooms you didn’t eat until you hunted an animal. Which would be in the evening. If you slaughtered a wild pig or something with your giant toothpick, it was time for a feast. The rest of the day was spent on just eating – getting that stomach full to face another day. After the meal you would be tired and go to sleep while your body would build muscle at night. This is probably how men lived for millions of years (it is only a small time period of thousands of years were we own land and animals for food). Obviously the body had to adapt to this lifestyle. So obviously our bodies today are made to not only survive a whole day or more without eating but they are built in a way to actually have MORE energy when you are not eating. This energy comes mostly from burning fat and specific hormones that give you more power, flexibility and mental capabilities. It is needed to find prey efficiently.
Fast forward to today. My prey is game designing and programming. I started intermittent fasting a couple days ago. I don’t eat for 16 hours and then I eat all the calories for the day in an 8 hours frame. I don’t eat at night and since I get up in the morning I don’t eat till its dinner. Only water/tea/coffee. So I work during the fasting time and after that is done I train, rest and eat until sleep.
I haven’t started working yet cause I had a break but today I’m ready.
Fasting makes me feel like on steroids and caffeine. I’m really excited to see how this will work. I’ll keep you updated.
Hmm. Just make sure you follow the guides properly and make damn sure that their results are officially proven. Small screw ups in a diet can also cause the body to gain bad weight.
Also and I can’t stress this enough, so please take it very seriously – you need to drink the proper amount of water to your weight ratio. I’m 190 lbs and so I require 12 to 13 glasses a day. If you are say 220, you may require up to 16. It doesn’t have to be straight water, you can get hydration from coffee, juice, tea, anything that has water in it – just remember that caffiene and alcohol dehydrate. If your body consumes enough water – it greatly helps your immune system and also helps your body take care of fat. If you drink to little, you of course retain water and your body will hold on to fat as a survival mechanism. Fat has energy – so keeping it, keeps you alive longer, if your body is in stress.
Google water to weight consumption. There are many sites that have a simple calculator on them where you just enter your weight.
Anyway good luck with this. I too am very interested in this particular diet. I need to gain some proper mass, but there is no way in my life at the moment where I can eat right or excersize.
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If the corpses of players had softbody physics it would just rock, be more realistic and awesome.
http://walaber.com/index.php?action=showitem&id=16
Of course, if you haven’t made a physics wrapper thing switching from Box2D might be pain.
I completely understand (if?) you aren’t going to change Box2D to anything.
check your email mm
What kind of tea do you drink?
Interesting post Michal. I also work as a developer (not games though) and am a bodybuilder.
It is very hard, and you sometimes get distracted from eating when you’re knee deep working on something.
I’m thinking of investing in a mini bar fridge to have stocked with everything I am supposed to eat during the 8 hour work day or so
right next to me so that it becomes trivial to eat while working.
I’ve personally found the help of a good nutritionist (former bodybuilder) has helped as well, for example, you want to ensure you snack on low-gi foods so that you don’t get a peak of energy and then a big lull an hour or so later.
Looking forward to your next post!
I’m trying this diet, too. I’m using 5/19 frame
It’s really good idea.
I’m eating huge amounts of raw meat and dark bread with butter in the evening. During the day I only drink tea with lots of sugar and lemon juice.
Oh! And I smoke a lot (it helps to forget about hunger, you should start smoking).
I love calories. But I can fight that urge.
I need calories, but that’s something I can’t do nothing against.
With 97kg weight at 188cm (screw you non-metric chaps and blokes!) I run every second day for 5,5km at 10,5km an hour. IF I eat a solid meal 3 hours before. If I don’t, I quickly feel sucking at the stomach, weakness and generally the need to puke my burning intestines out. And my time is much worse. A meal of meat and potatoes works best.
Now if I eat very little during the day, I’ll basically trip over my own feet and puke if I try to run.
Same thing goes for bodybuilding. Currently I’m living in a place where the nearest gym is 10km away, but when I was in Gdansk either I ate a solid breakfast or lifted 30 to 40% less than normal.
Fasting may make the mind clearer but holy fuck, I love to eat. When fasting the only thing I can think about is eating. Not coding, not work. Food, damn it. Physically I’m much weaker too. Although I don’t feel like having less energy, I tire more quickly, my strength diminishes, my endurance falls down to ground level ( słowem kondycha glebuje i zaciąga się mułem )
You guys are crazy (not you MM, that seems like a perfectly natural albeit unusual diet). How did any of you manage to get to a point where you need to go that far out of your way in order to stay healthy?
I survive on roughly 20-30 USD (28-42 EUR, 32-48 GBP) worth of food a week. I buy from local farms, and eat very small meals (usually they consist of two foods each from different parts of the food pyramid that complement each other. It’s not a concious decision, it’s just whatever goes together). I also bicycle to work, and take public transportation. Getting somewhere on your own two feet pretty much balances everything out regarding muscle and fat. Whatever I do, I have to work in order to get there. Sure, I propigate every so often, but besides that there’s no extra “working out,” it’s just a sensible and somewhat disciplined lifestyle.
Snow: there doesn’t seem to be a lot of research about this. I need to test it out myself. I can take risks.
I don’t believe in this water consumption theory. The body is not stupid, if it needs water you get thirsty, it doesn’t need math to count glasses. I tested it once and don’t see any difference with drinking more water and less. If I drink more I just piss it. This is why I’d rather test it out then read science.
//What kind of tea do you drink?
Green mostly.
Andrew: yeah but the fridge won’t solve your mental energy problems required for coding. This is my main reason for trying this diet.
papatoma: do you like sausages?
archont: maybe different people have different reaction to hunger. I can go all day without eating and I just feel a slight tension in my stomach. It’s nothing like I HAVE to eat.
niko šveikovsky: where do you live? It’s not a city? But you got a good point. If it takes a bit of effort for everything there is no such thing as lazing off and gaining fat.
With the water consumption – I tried it. I feel better when I have my required amount. I can also go a day without being thirsty – I guess I’m strange that way. I simply suggest it to people, as of course if you have enough hydration – technically your body should perform better. Some have said to me, it does nothing. Others have said they felt better. So it doesn’t have the same results for everyone. Personally I still think it’s important, but, yes, you’re right, the body isn’t stupid – it’s pretty dynamic and we can survive extreme hardships as well.
MM: For now I live in the Catskills, it’s in rural New York, USA, and it’s basically farmland on mountains (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/meanestindian/2415190777/). Woodstock is nearby, a hippie town that brings tourists here.
sounds stupid
fasting is definetely a powerful tool that enhances brain function. sometimes i eat mcdonalds everyday but still will not gain weight and it doesnt detract from my muscle health from what i can tell. im sure that this will change as a grow older but right now the best thing for me is too eat nothing or one or two bites for one meal..a medium sized/small portion meal for another(these are interchanged with breakfast and lunch) and then to eat a big dinner early…but not too big. the key is the timing of the big meal. if afterewards there is a solid 12-16 hours of consuming no food…..this is good for your body. if your body is constantly in a state of digesting calories from food… this is like intertia for your body.
also.. taking a crap is one of the most important things in the world for a human. most people are unhealthy in this respect and carry chemicals in their body for the rest of their lives because they have unhealthy bowels. if you feel like shit….ask yourself whens the last time you took one. if you are gonna use a stimulant to get it going….use coffee….not over the counter laxitive.
the self discipline aspect of fasting is the most satisfying reason for me to do it. it carries over into lots of things. one thing i like to do if im gorging myself on some good food is to… spit out a mouthful of it after chewing… just that simple reversal of momentum is a small but effective reminder of what it really going on when i eat and shows me that i dont NEED to eat the entire portion in order for it to taste good. try it with your favorite food..
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