Normally, vacations are all about lounging on the beach with six pack abs ablazin’. For me, however, the six packs will be afreezin’ because I’m letting Dr. Jeckyl come out to play.
For ten days (the length of my vacation), I’m completely unleashing my diet. Nothing will be off limits. Or should I say, everything will be things that are normally off limits.
Beer. Wine. Pizza. French Fries. Nachos.
Everything.
For these ten days, I’m going to document the specifics of my journey.
And then I’m going to document my climb back out from the hole I’m putting myself in.
There are a few reasons for this experiment:
- I want to see the extent of damage that can be done in ten days.
- I want to see how well an experimental cutting template of mine works. (AKA: Work for my upcoming Nutrient Autoregulation eBook that will accompany both the Athletijacked and Skinny-Fat resources.)
- I want to see how long it takes to reverse ten days of bad habits.
- I want to see it takes for me to get back to “normal” body composition.
- I want to be reminded of how difficult it is to reverse ten days of bad habits.
As for my training, it will be either heavily scaled back or non-existent.
Remember, I can eat a twelve egg omelette without remorse. So when I say I’m unleashing myself, I mean I’m unleashing myself.
Since getting super sloppy isn’t exactly “fun stuff,” I wanted to spice thing up and somehow manage to have a good time through it all. So I’ll regularly be posting pictures of my meals on social media and, I imagine, holding some contests. For instance: how many beers did I drink, or how many pieces of <insert pizza picture here> did I eat?
Winners will get a copy of my book, An Athlete’s Guide to Chronic Knee Pain, or perhaps other fitness schwag that I’m getting rid of (like my pair of 13.5 sized Olympic weightlifting shoes, for instance).
So maybe you should only tag along if you want to dream about food porn and drool in your sleep.
Unlike other heads, I don’t have my accounts (Facebook and Twitter) synced. I treat them as separate entities, so if you have both, be sure you’re following me on both for a live look at what’s going down as contests, pictures, and updates will be exclusive to each platform.
A complete rundown with all pictures included will be reserved for an “aftermath” document that I will put together.
BACK TO ATHLETICISM
The past few months have included a lot of talk about the sexiness:
But lucky for you, I’ve been working like a madman to queue up some blog posts so that you will have something to read while I’m on vacation. (No, I don’t take time off. <3) And the best part is that it’s all about athleticism and athletic movement—specifically about motor repatterning and similar succulent sweetness.
One of the reasons why I took a break from the athletic content was because *hush-hush* I was offered to contribute to a little project, and my “piece” was on beginner athletic movement—I needed balance out some peanut butter with some jelly, if you know what I mean.
And speaking of food, has anyone tried mascarpone cheese? This stuff is unrealistically delicious. Tastes great with my oatmeal bites (made from the oatmeal volcano base) and protein pudding.
SO LET’S RECAP
- Click here to follow me on Facebook.
- Click here to follow me on Twitter.
- Be prepared to get athletijacked because I’ve been working triple overtime to have mad blog posts ready for you while I’m away.
This is disgusting… and awesome. Are you going to get blood work done and look at those values as well? What factors are you basing the negative and positive changes on?
No blood work. I’m doing it simply to test how it affects body composition, and the only real markers I’ll be using are scale weight and daily pictures.
Just make sure you’re enjoying those 10 days of feasting.
It will serve as a nice reset button
This is honestly why I’m doing it. I’ll come back super motivated.
Sometimes I miss classic bulking techniques because nothing makes you feel more powerful than 4 cheeseburgers from the dollar menu…
In other news, here’s a trainer who did something similar.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/05/health/drew-manning-fit2fat2fit-lessons/index.html
Good luck!
Yeah, I heard about him. Mine won’t be as extreme. Then again, I don’t think he can eat as much as I can
Ha! This is madness. I did something like this a few months ago. The plan was to eat whatever I wanted without any restrictions.and No training, just some meditation was “allowed” for at least 10 days. (I dont know why 10 days, 10 sounded official) Thing is, after the FIFTH day I was doing push ups, kb swings and martial arts stuff at the eight day I was fasting again hahahaha. On the other side, its psychologically healthy to even consider something like this.
Would you be true to the 10 days no matter the results?
Nice experiment man, will follow up your food porn.
Regards
Yes, the 10 days will happen no matter how “bad” things get.
Hi Anthony,
Good on you to “free yourself” of the restraints we apply to ourselves. and for what? Honestly, with your current muscle mass I don’t think you will suffer much long term damage to your overall composition. Not training for 10 days could be very beneficial to both your chronic foot and hip injuries.
I am interested to see our findings.
Best,
Randy
p.s. my calf muscle tear is much better,but I still am limping slightly if I walk at a normal gait. I need to continue my stretching and strengthening exercises and to remind myself to not overdo it for another week or so to make sure it really is healed.
Randy, I feel your pain on rehabbing from injuries that affect the ankle.
1.5 years later and it’s still not “right.” Good luck.
And thanks for pointing out the positives here. You’re absolutely right. I might come back all healthy
But I don’t have hip injuries. Just the nerve pain in my foot.
Hi Anthony,
…Have a good time at your vacation…
Try no to think of the hole you are putting yourself into…no self limiting behavior…I really want to see you go all out
Awaiting your next book…Awesome topic
Maybe I’ll film myself eating a pizza in your honor. “This one is for Rajat!”
Please do…:) I will have a pizza here in your honor
…
I think this is a great idea. You should post before and after pictures. Oh, and marscapone cheese is amazing! It’s great on french toast.
Thanks for the reply, Javier.
I will be doing that all in “the aftermath” document. And french toast idea sounds sexcellent.
I for one am really looking forward to your end report. I actually did this sort of experiment on a 10-day vacation in Maui. I gained 10 pounds, about 1 per day. Being a lean ectomorph by nature, I was able to remedy things within 2 weeks of my return home.
Are you still adhering to the 2 meals a day IF approach you outlined in a recent article? That article completely changed my approach to “dieting” and helped break the calorie/macro-counting I’ve been stuck on for several years now (I’m also one of Martin’s earliest LeanGains clients). So thank you for that. Since the day I read it, I’ve quit the micro-managing cold turkey and everything is perfectly fine.
Chris,
I follow my two meal play daily. I won’t be doing so on vacation though.
It’s good to see you’re looking at the fun side of things. You should get some joy from this. I will be looking forward to that food porn! The commenters’ collective envy should make things better! Hmmmm, nachos. Crunchy and cheesy delight. If you’re ever in Florida, I’ll show you some joints that serve great nachos.
May your taste buds relish in these ten days and ten nights of food paradise.
Florida, nice! Where at?
There’s a good place up in Hollywood called “Orale!” that serves a sweet cheese sauce with their nachos (I really just love the cheese sauce) and there’s an authentic restaurant in Miami Lakes called “Los Magueyes” that serves up some pretty good eats. My sister was a big fan of this restaurant. She loved to eat there all the time. And she’s picky about Mexican food, haha.
I personally loved it as well. It’s a small place but they’re pretty generous with their meat, unlike some restaurants down here. I highly recommend it. But do get the cheese sauce of that other place. It’s pretty damn tasty. It goes with anything!
If I’m ever in Hollywood, I’ll give it a shot.
Excellent. Just went today, actually. Yep, pretty damn good cheese sauce, haha.
Hah, nice.
Nice!! I will be following! I did something very similar two weeks ago, except I only did 2 days ( a weekend) and had a very large specific list of “off limits” foods I wanted to enjoy. I wanted to do this for very similar reasons to yours. I found that I went overboard for two days- I enjoyed thinking about all the food I was going to eat more than actually eating it.
I gained 22lbs and its taken me about 2 weeks to get back to where I was.
Good luck & enjoy!
You gained 22 pounds in 2 days?
Lol. Yes. I went from a depleted 199 fri night- to 221 mon morn when I woke up. I had been on a very strict & long cut starting at 245. Im currently about 207 and feel & look good. Recovery took me about two weeks. I did alot of damage in 2 days! Lol.
Im going to have a couple cheat meals today- im currently experimenting with my cheats to see how my body reacts so I can figure out the right protocal to maintain or even improve my body comp.
That’s a hell of a cheat. What did you eat? A cow?