I have had similar stomach aches in the past, to the point of salivation and nausea. After ditching gluten and dairy from my diet those aches and nausea went away. I have been able to down goats milk without any adverse affect but have recently added a whey protien isolate shake twice a day and have noticed a resurgence of stomach issues. After minimal investigation I deduced that my chosen “protien isolate” had a significant dose of maltodextrin in it. If I were you I would check out either goats milk or alfalfa fed whole milk (costco) and examin the contents of your protien drink for wheat based invaders.
My $0.02 on olive oil: eat it, drink it, bathe in it, just make sure its actually olive oil. About the only way to be sure is to buy 100% california olive oil certified by the California Olive Oil Councel. Otherwise it is most likely second rate, rancid, oxidized, and imported in a rusty tanker formerly used for linseed oil.

I was at 17 blocks pre starting strength and was leaning out, but wanted to put on some muscle mass. I am back on the zone @ 18 blocks for 2 weeks doing crossfit again (no more SS) and I am down to 210. From bfat testing my lean mass is pretty constant and I am losing mostly fat, so that is good. Do you think I should up the protein to help maintain my lean mass? 18 blocks * 7 grams = 126 grams / day, well short of the ~200 grams I get with 1 gram / lb of bodyweight. I am losing a little bit of lean mass and would like to hold on to as much as possible!!

Also, when do you think I should add fat blocks? I am at ~18% bodyfat right now, id like to be significantly less. Would adding fat blocks (or replacing some carb with fat) now help performance or would it be better to wait until I leaned out to 10% or so?

Thanks

I’ve been on this for a week, and have gone up to 136 as planned, but I am getting horrible stomach aches every morning around 8, and they last til around 12. Occasionally I get them right before bed too. My question is: can these stomach aches be caused by too much protein?

I really dont like being so small, and I really dont like feeling like this, but I dont know where else I can get some cals, because I cant handle a lot of fat without getting messed up, and lotsa carbs make me fat.

Any information you can give me is really appreciated.

Thanks

Coach Glassman mentioned in one of the early CFJ’s about running the Zone “hot” with lower carbs and more PRO and FAT, which back then I though was pretty interesting. Glad Robb came up with detailed plan!

My Zone Rx is 13-14 block and I’ve been runnning at 16blocks PRO, 8 CHO and 48 FAT for a little while now and I’ve been feeling pretty good all-round. Zone carb levels leave me really spacey. I’ll likely up the FAT to 4x soon.

I have to agree with Greg though that once you start doing that, you’re not really doing Zone. I personally like the Zone accounting system, but I’ve learned not to go OCD on the stuff and it actually gives me some mental freedom knowing that I’m getting in what I need (if I don’t do it and eyeball I always go too high carb, not enough fat).

Cool insights from Greg and Welbourn.

It’s been a while since I have had the opportunity to post on here, but I dig the new site, and have enjoyed the “on the road” meals. However, this topic has hit an issue I have been dealing with in my attempt to prepare for the upcoming games. I think you and I have very similiar body types in that, if I don’t work at it, I drop lbs and strength rather than get fat and weak. At my bastardized version of the Zone, I am at about 185lbs. I basically make sure I eat 3-5 blocks protein/ meal and a little less than that in carbs, and a lot more in fat- using paleo food.
Now to my question:
I feel like I need to up my baseline strength in order to make the biggest improvements in my overall performance (and as such have started the CrossFit Strength bias program)- sounds like you were able to do that but also increased you food intake by double. In your experience with the mass gain, do you think this (the mass gain route) is the best way to efficiently increase overall lifting strength- when incorporating more heavy lifting, or is there a middle ground between that and what I am doing now? I don’t think at this stage in the game, I have time to do a mass gain program before the games, but would consider trying it afterwards. I am playing with using my current ratios and simply increasing the numbers (calorically). Any thoughts.

If this is too personalized a question, e-mail me and I will set up a time with you. Just thought it fit the mold of this discussion…

Since giving up grains in earnest back in Nov, I have seen serious benefits in the ways of BF reduction. I went from a fairly lean 205 down to 190. The problem was that there was a total bw loss in the form of “I better not anything that I know isn’t grain free” (i.e. major caloric restriction). And I can also attribute some of that to weight lost from the stress of moving the gym. I ran with the anabolic diet for about 4 months last year, and had mixed results (to much Metcons, not enough sleep and heavy lifting), but I did learn how to get the protein and fat in. I just didn’t have the time to do it right.

I had no less than 5 people say to me at the last CF event I was at “Hey Jeremy. . . Oh shit, what happened to you?” (most of them hadn’t seen me since the games when I was pushing 220, I was sleeping about 5-6 hrs a night from working 3 jobs, and drinking even more alcohol than I do now). This was definitely a wake up call to spend more time eating.

I keep trying to sneak dairy into my diet (adding milk here and there, downing some hefty cheese when I can), but my gut can’t be fooled. I knows, and my wife pays the price in auditory and nasal offenses.

I am almost back up to a solid 200lbs while still maintaining a vein or two at the belt line below the belly button. I have done this by downing my sweet potatoes or fruit (and basically most of my daily carbs) PWO. Eating at least 6 eggs a day (usually 8 or more). IFing only when I am not hungry, and when I don’t feel ‘run down’. And by drinking a whey isolate shake if I can’t get at least one huge chunk of meat down my gullet that day.

Most of my meals are high protein / high fat when it comes to Zone proportions (see, I told you I’d use that phrase), and carb low. The next month or two should help me stabilize and find out what bodyweight this maintain. . . and honestly I don’t care as long as I get my squat/deadlift numbers up and my 400m/100m run times down.

When it comes to recommendations, I send people down the Paleo Path first. It is stuff that most people can get conceptually (I can convince them that meat and veggies are good for them). Once they have cut out sugar and the other refined poisons, I can see where they are at and how to get them where they need to be.

Biggest complaint from people after asking people to eat more Zone-ish after a month or two of going Paleo: “It is too much food! I can’t eat enough fruit and veggies to get all my carb blocks in.”

-jj

“Cast thine out, yee the pullers of the pud, for they shall smite, blight and make uptight yee who follow the way of the good, the righteous and the Paleo-inclined”

or as Legendary North YorkshireIndian ‘Eavy Metal Dj’s Des and Mick Bailey sayeth ‘Rock not pop’ !

You bring up a very legit downside of the Zone. I have launched 2 clients into straight up food melt-down with the zone. They both had eating disordes in the past, started weighing and measuring and they were seriously fudged up from the experience. This IS why I generally recommend basic paleo eating. It delivers 90% of the Zone with virtually no hassle. Thanks for the reminder on the G.

Zone seems to work fine for CFers and the typical generalist who is spending plenty of time working the glycolytic machinery… but for those of us for whom “cardio” consists of 3 reps, a 40% carb/30% protein strategy is, well, silly.

For me, at 231 lbs, I’d need just under 33 blocks of protein to meet that 1.0g/lb/day guideline (which I like, by the way). If I stuck with Zoner proportions, I’d be then doing 297 g/carb/day. As much as I’d like to pound 300 g worth of pizza every day, it seems apparent to me that this is a touch beyond beneficial. At this block RX, I’d be looking at ~3000 kcal/day, which for me is likely not enough to maintain my bodyweight. I burn that just rolling over in bed (the EPOC on that movement for me is stunning). Sure, I could jack the fat blocks up along with some ox bile, but I’m still left with that 300 g of carbs doing nothing for me but tasting delicious and giving me diabetes.

Finally, I think the Zone just makes already crazy people fucking certifiable, and once they’ve crossed that line, it’s impossible to retrieve them. They’ll be counting calories for a long time, and losing hair over it, EVEN when their discipline is demonstrably failing to produce much result at all.

But considering I get all my nutrition info from Robbiekins, maybe I need to change my position.

Glad you were able to take time away from your Internet pissing contest to write this post!