Back in 2010 at the ripe age of 38 I went back to college at University of Nebraska as a double major in Business and Public Health. (Yes I have a BS in Business 
! ) anyway. I remember I had this hard azz professor (whom I went on to study Ebola with for 3 years) that opened my eyes to sugar. It started out with a simple experiment of showing how metabolism and cellular respiration works. Starting out with just two pop bottles with a little bit of water, spoon full of wheat germ and then putting a spoon full of sugar in one and Splenda in another and throwing them in a closet for 3 days. Essentially bets were placed based on what we know at the time as to which one is going to have carbonation in it. Low and behold when the caps were twisted 3 days later, they both emitted the audible “pfft” of having carbonation in them. In the absence of light the artificial sweetener would be processed by the wheat germ. Mind blown.
Without going down the nerd path of cellular respiration, Krebs cycle, ATP etc. (I’m not a science teacher.) I had approached him with a question. “You mean, regular sugar is immediate energy that the body has an opportunity to use/burn off before converting to fat, but Artificial Sweeteners go straight to fat and then the body must enter a stage of pulling out fat (Ketosis) in order to get rid of the fat that was the artificial sweetener?” He stated, “You got it.” Then I asked, “But artificial sweeteners if your concerned about weight, may not be the best even if they advertise 0 calories because you still have to work to burn it off later.” “Correct” that’s when I discovered how calories are not always the same even when they state “0 Calories” when it comes to watching your weight. My mind was blown as I think of all the things especially diet products that advertise 0 calories with people trying to keep their weight under control.
The conversation then shifted to the addiction of sugar and how artificial sweeteners trigger receptors in the brain just as sugar does, thus still creating that addiction to sweet. At this time I had just quit smoking cigarettes and could understand the addictive nature of the brain. A couple years later I had this professor in both my Epidemiology glass and my Science of Brewing (yes brewery class, one of the hardest classes ever). As I’m letting my batch of wheat and barley sit in protein rest to extract the sugars from the grain to make a nice Bavarian Hefeweizen, I get to chatting with him. I had just watched a documentary a week or two before called “The Perfect Human Diet.” He had also had weight problems in the past and we discussed how it seems everywhere you look there is sugar added to processed foods and the food industry is getting trickier and trickier at how they list sugar and artificial sweetener on food packaging. Gone is where you saw Gluc, Suc, Sac, Lact, Tame, in a word it is probably sugar or artificial sweetener as Acesulfame K really does not give much of a clue as well as several others that the food industry it trying to list differently by its elements bonding chain.
A week or two later we talked again and he had mentioned he watched that same documentary and we discussed it. I was very intrigued in trying it out. It wasn’t really paleo, it was going back to a diet before we had all these grocery stores available with all the ready to go meals etc. He wanted me to monitor my results and keep him in the loop as I met with my VA doctor and nutritionist of my plan. First no sugar (none, NADA) from the neck down for 2 weeks as a pallet cleanse. Sounds simple just follow Atkins right? Take into account not just what is sweet on the tongue but also coverts to sugar in the human body. So no dairy (Lactose), No Soda (Artificial Sweeteners), Atkins bars, low carb pasta, keto chips anything, Nothing processed. The only thing I could eat was found in the outside ring of a grocery store namely the produce and meat dept. You find out how creative you can get eating a lot of meant, fish, mussels, squid, shrimp and lots of green veggies, nuts, butter and non tubular veggies.
Second thing I was doing I was getting into strength training with a dual sport athlete that was a running back and sprinter. Those first week was absolute hell in the gym as I got back into the routine of working out that I had abandoned when I left the Army. But this workout was no 6:15am Physical Training in the Army, though the seriousness of the Friday Runs could compare to my workouts at UNL. 5 days a week my workout partner and I would show up at the local YMCA during a slow time so we could jump back and forth from machine to machine. We worked in super sets of two exercises with no rest going back and forth and then only resting 2 minutes before going to the next two set of exercises until done with all 4 super sets. Once done we would either bike, work the battle rope, push a 35lb weight plate across the gym floor on a towel and then hit the pool and sauna for a quick in and out of the gym within an hour. I quickly had to adapt my protein intake as I could not yet have carbs to give me the quick burst off energy I needed for workout. I learned the body can only absorb 30g of protein an hour. This meant I was nibbling on some kind of protein every hour. Seafood was the easiest to give that boost.
I noticed by the second week, my endurance was there though I did not yet have the quick power we were hoping for as I started with a measly 115lb deadlift on my first day as I was getting used to the motion of the exercise. I was fighting those cravings for sugar on day two and at the end of week two just as I had when quitting smoking cigarettes. I recognized the signs, the willingness to kill a nun if she walked by sipping a coke. Maybe not but anyone who has quit an addiction realizes it. The plus side, I was alert and restless during the day looking for something to do. Off days from the gym were anxiety for me as I would go for a long walk to keep me occupied.
When the 3rd week hit and I could not have grains, carrots, peas, dairy, fruit I was excited. I was not counting calories, I was however looking at the % of each item on my plate. Things that contained sugar from the neck down was only maybe 10% of my plate. I could now also add a protein shake in for a pre-workout 30 minutes before the gym and eat within 30 minutes after the gym when the muscles need the nutrients the most. In the gym I turned into an absolute savage as I now had the quick carb load of a pre workout and had a great meal waiting to rebuild my muscles when I got home. I almost immediately doubled the weight I was working with in the gym and was noticeably more explosive. By the end of the first month I had lost 50lbs. Each day I was averaging 1 1/5 lbs in weight loss despite eating nearly 3000 calories (all good made from scratch good food choices) I was hyper alert during the day and slept well at night while still doubling my previous workout weight every other week, by the end of the 3rd month I was pulling a 900lb deadlift and had lost 150lbs and gained a substantial amount of muscle back as I felt more fit than I had at 21 in the Army. I went from being embarrassed at nearly 6'7 450lbs "Whats that fatty doing here." to 300lbs "Lemme get the F out of that savages way" at the gym at the age of 43 in 3 months.
I want to say by my 3rd month my cravings changed a lot. I ate 2 slices of pizza and was nauseous and lethargic for 2 days before I felt “normal” again. I had a similar experience trying to eat a piece of cake. I quickly no longer craved those things as they were too much for me. I would die for Mussels in wine sauce with a salad and pineapple. My cooking skills improved so much as well as I could make delicious food by using simple ingredients found at nearly any store. No specialty vegan, keto or other uncommon ingredients. I didn’t worry about how to make a pizza crust because I didn’t want pizza. I didn’t worry about Keto Chips because I did not want chips period. I would often start in the produce to see what they have for fresh herbs and think of a meat or fish I could use it with, lookup a simple recipe online and go with it. The only thing out of some of the norm I think is I avoid almost all dairy except cheese. I prefer Unsweetened Almond Milk for milk and also use it in conjunction with Coconut Cream to make a substitute for Heavy Cream or Whipping Cream as well as half and half for recipes. Which is fine because it lasts way longer in a can that dairy in the carton. I also use Coconut Palm Sugar instead of white sugar due to a much lower sucralose and less refining process. Oh, and I make my own yogurt, because after trying fresh yogurt in Germany you'll never eat that sour crap in the store that has to have fruit and syrup to make it palatable, (And it's stupid easy to make).
I find this diet is very easy to abide by when you look at it the right way and really does not seem like a diet. I grew up in the Midwest, eating, meat, potatoes, vegetable for sides at dinner and pizza night on Fridays. When I went away to the Army my pallet was opened up. When I did this diet (And now) I'm looking at recipes from different cultures (Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese, India, German, Norwegian etc) as they often do not demand all these processed ingredients and they are not trying to imitate an unhealthy choice. I’m still learning new things everyday as one day my hot Asian wife asked me if we had any rice ready for supper. I just looked at her like a deer in headlights as the rice cooker just went off and I point that out to her. “No, that is not ready.” She says. “Rice cooked yesterday is better for you.” Dumbfounded I look it up and sure enough, if you leave rice out overnight it develops a protein layer and reduces the sugar spike you get from it. Huh, who woulda thought that?
I really wish I would have stuck with that diet as after graduation in 2014, my workout partner parted ways, life changed, and I could not keep up with the gym routine. I’m too old, heavy and old injuries plaguing me putting me at high risk to go back to the gym like before. 3 weeks out of surgery and I’m tracking back to changing my diet back to my previous as I completed the sugar cleanse again. I'm fighting the urge to go get horny with the weights again as I feel good. My anxiety/energy level is up. I clown around with the wife a lot more and I'm overall in good spirits. I just noticed people here wanting sugar free products to satisfy the sweet cravings. I just thought I might share my experience with people who may see a better alternative. Eliminate those sweet cravings or satisfy them with sugars found in natural fruits and veggies. Your body needs 130 grams of glucose for proper brain function every day. Your not giving your brain that with artificial sweeteners and you in my opinion the fat they turn into is harder to work off later by having to put your body into a state of ketosis rather than use it now. Consume the stuff that gives you the glucose your brain needs, give your body the fiber it wants and you have a chance to use right away. Just be aware, sugar is more as addictive as cigarettes and cocaine as your little receptors in your brain get triggered and satisfied. However, you can live without cigarettes and cocaine, you cannot live without glucose. Just be aware of your consumption amounts.
Nerd stuff I paid $70k to learn but Google has is for free.
! ) anyway. I remember I had this hard azz professor (whom I went on to study Ebola with for 3 years) that opened my eyes to sugar. It started out with a simple experiment of showing how metabolism and cellular respiration works. Starting out with just two pop bottles with a little bit of water, spoon full of wheat germ and then putting a spoon full of sugar in one and Splenda in another and throwing them in a closet for 3 days. Essentially bets were placed based on what we know at the time as to which one is going to have carbonation in it. Low and behold when the caps were twisted 3 days later, they both emitted the audible “pfft” of having carbonation in them. In the absence of light the artificial sweetener would be processed by the wheat germ. Mind blown.Without going down the nerd path of cellular respiration, Krebs cycle, ATP etc. (I’m not a science teacher.) I had approached him with a question. “You mean, regular sugar is immediate energy that the body has an opportunity to use/burn off before converting to fat, but Artificial Sweeteners go straight to fat and then the body must enter a stage of pulling out fat (Ketosis) in order to get rid of the fat that was the artificial sweetener?” He stated, “You got it.” Then I asked, “But artificial sweeteners if your concerned about weight, may not be the best even if they advertise 0 calories because you still have to work to burn it off later.” “Correct” that’s when I discovered how calories are not always the same even when they state “0 Calories” when it comes to watching your weight. My mind was blown as I think of all the things especially diet products that advertise 0 calories with people trying to keep their weight under control.
The conversation then shifted to the addiction of sugar and how artificial sweeteners trigger receptors in the brain just as sugar does, thus still creating that addiction to sweet. At this time I had just quit smoking cigarettes and could understand the addictive nature of the brain. A couple years later I had this professor in both my Epidemiology glass and my Science of Brewing (yes brewery class, one of the hardest classes ever). As I’m letting my batch of wheat and barley sit in protein rest to extract the sugars from the grain to make a nice Bavarian Hefeweizen, I get to chatting with him. I had just watched a documentary a week or two before called “The Perfect Human Diet.” He had also had weight problems in the past and we discussed how it seems everywhere you look there is sugar added to processed foods and the food industry is getting trickier and trickier at how they list sugar and artificial sweetener on food packaging. Gone is where you saw Gluc, Suc, Sac, Lact, Tame, in a word it is probably sugar or artificial sweetener as Acesulfame K really does not give much of a clue as well as several others that the food industry it trying to list differently by its elements bonding chain.
A week or two later we talked again and he had mentioned he watched that same documentary and we discussed it. I was very intrigued in trying it out. It wasn’t really paleo, it was going back to a diet before we had all these grocery stores available with all the ready to go meals etc. He wanted me to monitor my results and keep him in the loop as I met with my VA doctor and nutritionist of my plan. First no sugar (none, NADA) from the neck down for 2 weeks as a pallet cleanse. Sounds simple just follow Atkins right? Take into account not just what is sweet on the tongue but also coverts to sugar in the human body. So no dairy (Lactose), No Soda (Artificial Sweeteners), Atkins bars, low carb pasta, keto chips anything, Nothing processed. The only thing I could eat was found in the outside ring of a grocery store namely the produce and meat dept. You find out how creative you can get eating a lot of meant, fish, mussels, squid, shrimp and lots of green veggies, nuts, butter and non tubular veggies.
Second thing I was doing I was getting into strength training with a dual sport athlete that was a running back and sprinter. Those first week was absolute hell in the gym as I got back into the routine of working out that I had abandoned when I left the Army. But this workout was no 6:15am Physical Training in the Army, though the seriousness of the Friday Runs could compare to my workouts at UNL. 5 days a week my workout partner and I would show up at the local YMCA during a slow time so we could jump back and forth from machine to machine. We worked in super sets of two exercises with no rest going back and forth and then only resting 2 minutes before going to the next two set of exercises until done with all 4 super sets. Once done we would either bike, work the battle rope, push a 35lb weight plate across the gym floor on a towel and then hit the pool and sauna for a quick in and out of the gym within an hour. I quickly had to adapt my protein intake as I could not yet have carbs to give me the quick burst off energy I needed for workout. I learned the body can only absorb 30g of protein an hour. This meant I was nibbling on some kind of protein every hour. Seafood was the easiest to give that boost.
I noticed by the second week, my endurance was there though I did not yet have the quick power we were hoping for as I started with a measly 115lb deadlift on my first day as I was getting used to the motion of the exercise. I was fighting those cravings for sugar on day two and at the end of week two just as I had when quitting smoking cigarettes. I recognized the signs, the willingness to kill a nun if she walked by sipping a coke. Maybe not but anyone who has quit an addiction realizes it. The plus side, I was alert and restless during the day looking for something to do. Off days from the gym were anxiety for me as I would go for a long walk to keep me occupied.
When the 3rd week hit and I could not have grains, carrots, peas, dairy, fruit I was excited. I was not counting calories, I was however looking at the % of each item on my plate. Things that contained sugar from the neck down was only maybe 10% of my plate. I could now also add a protein shake in for a pre-workout 30 minutes before the gym and eat within 30 minutes after the gym when the muscles need the nutrients the most. In the gym I turned into an absolute savage as I now had the quick carb load of a pre workout and had a great meal waiting to rebuild my muscles when I got home. I almost immediately doubled the weight I was working with in the gym and was noticeably more explosive. By the end of the first month I had lost 50lbs. Each day I was averaging 1 1/5 lbs in weight loss despite eating nearly 3000 calories (all good made from scratch good food choices) I was hyper alert during the day and slept well at night while still doubling my previous workout weight every other week, by the end of the 3rd month I was pulling a 900lb deadlift and had lost 150lbs and gained a substantial amount of muscle back as I felt more fit than I had at 21 in the Army. I went from being embarrassed at nearly 6'7 450lbs "Whats that fatty doing here." to 300lbs "Lemme get the F out of that savages way" at the gym at the age of 43 in 3 months.
I want to say by my 3rd month my cravings changed a lot. I ate 2 slices of pizza and was nauseous and lethargic for 2 days before I felt “normal” again. I had a similar experience trying to eat a piece of cake. I quickly no longer craved those things as they were too much for me. I would die for Mussels in wine sauce with a salad and pineapple. My cooking skills improved so much as well as I could make delicious food by using simple ingredients found at nearly any store. No specialty vegan, keto or other uncommon ingredients. I didn’t worry about how to make a pizza crust because I didn’t want pizza. I didn’t worry about Keto Chips because I did not want chips period. I would often start in the produce to see what they have for fresh herbs and think of a meat or fish I could use it with, lookup a simple recipe online and go with it. The only thing out of some of the norm I think is I avoid almost all dairy except cheese. I prefer Unsweetened Almond Milk for milk and also use it in conjunction with Coconut Cream to make a substitute for Heavy Cream or Whipping Cream as well as half and half for recipes. Which is fine because it lasts way longer in a can that dairy in the carton. I also use Coconut Palm Sugar instead of white sugar due to a much lower sucralose and less refining process. Oh, and I make my own yogurt, because after trying fresh yogurt in Germany you'll never eat that sour crap in the store that has to have fruit and syrup to make it palatable, (And it's stupid easy to make).
I find this diet is very easy to abide by when you look at it the right way and really does not seem like a diet. I grew up in the Midwest, eating, meat, potatoes, vegetable for sides at dinner and pizza night on Fridays. When I went away to the Army my pallet was opened up. When I did this diet (And now) I'm looking at recipes from different cultures (Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese, India, German, Norwegian etc) as they often do not demand all these processed ingredients and they are not trying to imitate an unhealthy choice. I’m still learning new things everyday as one day my hot Asian wife asked me if we had any rice ready for supper. I just looked at her like a deer in headlights as the rice cooker just went off and I point that out to her. “No, that is not ready.” She says. “Rice cooked yesterday is better for you.” Dumbfounded I look it up and sure enough, if you leave rice out overnight it develops a protein layer and reduces the sugar spike you get from it. Huh, who woulda thought that?
I really wish I would have stuck with that diet as after graduation in 2014, my workout partner parted ways, life changed, and I could not keep up with the gym routine. I’m too old, heavy and old injuries plaguing me putting me at high risk to go back to the gym like before. 3 weeks out of surgery and I’m tracking back to changing my diet back to my previous as I completed the sugar cleanse again. I'm fighting the urge to go get horny with the weights again as I feel good. My anxiety/energy level is up. I clown around with the wife a lot more and I'm overall in good spirits. I just noticed people here wanting sugar free products to satisfy the sweet cravings. I just thought I might share my experience with people who may see a better alternative. Eliminate those sweet cravings or satisfy them with sugars found in natural fruits and veggies. Your body needs 130 grams of glucose for proper brain function every day. Your not giving your brain that with artificial sweeteners and you in my opinion the fat they turn into is harder to work off later by having to put your body into a state of ketosis rather than use it now. Consume the stuff that gives you the glucose your brain needs, give your body the fiber it wants and you have a chance to use right away. Just be aware, sugar is more as addictive as cigarettes and cocaine as your little receptors in your brain get triggered and satisfied. However, you can live without cigarettes and cocaine, you cannot live without glucose. Just be aware of your consumption amounts.
Nerd stuff I paid $70k to learn but Google has is for free.
