Last Supper Syndrome…and the New Year’s Day Epic Bridge WOD

The best way to lose weight on the Bulletproof® Diet is with Bulletproof® Intermittent Fasting.  But if waiting for results just isn’t your thing, you can use this Bulletproof® Rapid Fat Loss Protocol . . . .  However, you need to understand that your body stores toxins in fat that your liver couldn’t excrete, so when you lose weight very rapidly, those toxins are released and can make you very sick.  This Bulletproof® Rapid Fat Loss Protocol helps you avoid any side effects from this toxin release, so it’s important to follow the plan carefully.

In a nutshell: the plan uses 6 days of ketosis – when your body burns fats for energy – followed by 1 day of carbohydrate loading along with constant toxin binding supplements to help your body get rid of the released toxins.  This protocol isn’t low-calorie, and you don’t run the same risk of causing metabolic problems that you do when you follow a low-calorie diet.

H and I both decided that we have gone way-hay-hay down the road of gluttony. I think it’s ‘cos his job is stressful, which makes him want to counterbalance by eating “good food and drink” – and of course, I am the perfect enabler in that respect. ;-)

We have tried more “moderate” starts to eating plans, but we always fall off. Back in the day when the Master Cleanse “maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne” thing was all the rage, we actually did that for a couple of weeks – and doing something so dramatic really helped us to break out of the habits that we had fallen into. Even though I know nutritionally that the Master Cleanse is NOT the way to teach your body to burn body fat, we actually felt okay doing it, which is important. If we feel crappy, we’re going to quit.

I’ve tried just about all the “eating plans” that you can think of – since I’m over 50, I’ve lived through and tried South Beach, The Zone, Dukan, high carb/no fat, high protein/no carb, Atkins, Perricone, Rosedale, Suzanne Sommers, David Hirsch, etc. I’m sure there are others I am forgetting. I never went for the “grapefruit” diet or the “cabbage soup” diet, but I’ve tried all the others.

The problem? It gets boring, and it often doesn’t work that fast.

I finished Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof Diet book over the holiday, and found it very inspiring. His podcast always has really great information and guests, though he seems a bit “full of himself” on them. I generally use the podcasts as springboards to find new experts to read. The book, thankfully, doesn’t have any “self-promotion” feel to it. The one thing I do wish that it had was a “Supplies” index – he talks about “finding purveyors online” for some of the things that he recommends, but it would have been helpful to have had them listed. (My guess is they are on his website, but there wasn’t a “quick and easy” link in the back of the book to tell me that, either.)

Hubby and I discussed going on the protocol in the book, but we’re both way over the mark on our body fat now (as I posted previously). My husband has been doing a “head in the sand” thing about this for some time now, but when I got my body fat/lean muscle tested, he saw that it galvanized me into action (after some frustrated tears, mind you) – and that helped him decide to change, too. As everyone knows, it’s a lot easier to start a diet when everyone in the house is doing it.

We have a super-duper “electrical impedance scale“, that measures your lean body mass, body fat percentage, etc. My husband won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. ;-) But this morning, I set it up for him (you need to input age, sex, height, etc.) and told him I didn’t care what it said – I didn’t have to know – but he had to know, because if this protocol isn’t working (if either of us loses lean body weight instead of body fat), then we have to stop. I weighed and “body fat-ized” myself this morning, and our couple weeks of gluttony have pushed me up on the scale, but as my body fat is about the same, I think I’ve likely retained water because of salt and junk in my system (as in, about 5 pounds’ worth).

When I got home from Crossfit, hubby was super grumpy, and the scale is in a different part of the bathroom, so I’m guessing he now “actually knows” his weight, and his body fat percentage.

We have been living the Last Supper Syndrome for this holiday season in “anticipation” of going on this protocol. You know what that means – eating and drinking everything in sight, because you “know” that you “won’t be able to” as soon as you “start.” It’s such a stupid thing to do, but amusing, too. Like, last night, we were eating everything in the house that is going to be “forbidden” for the next few weeks (months?). Anything we didn’t eat, I was going to throw away.

Oh for goodness sake! We chowed through a bottle and a half of champagne, “faux” gras (foie gras is illegal in California, this is a goose liver pate), brie, Stilton, guacamole, crackers (yes, GLUTEN crackers), bacon-wrapped pork roast with melted blue cheese and MORE guacamole on it, palak paneer . . . And that was just dinner. The whole day was a “clean out the fridge and eat garbage” Last Supper Day. Brandy-filled dark chocolates, chips left over from our New Year’s party, ranch dip, more chocolate, chilis rellenos with mole, poached eggs and bacon, grey-mosas (champagne with grapefruit juice) . . . Oy!

our team

After a dessert of yogurt with mixed in coconut flakes, chocolate chips and granola topped off by three huge dark chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons, I went through the fridge and dumped out everything that is no longer “allowed.” Soy sauce, A-1 steak sauce, honey mustard, jams, jellies – you know the drill. Even (sigh!) big jars of bacon fat, which are no-go until we “reach the body fat percentage that we want” – which is going to be a long, long time from now.

Learnings From The Epic Bridge WOD.

On New Year’s Day, our Crossfit gym does the “Epic [Golden Gate] Bridge WOD” at 9:00 a.m. Last year, I had been at the gym for only a couple of months, but I did it anyway though I didn’t really know anyone – this year, I knew most of the folks who did it. Last year was pretty straightforward – a hero WOD on our side of the Bridge, run across, another hero WOD on the San Francisco side, run back, then a final hero WOD. You do it with teams – last year, it was 2 per team, and even though our team had 3, we came in dead last. (It was fun though.)

This year, they gave “points” for doing various things – and you could choose what your team wanted to do. Teams were made up of 4 people. If you got “bystanders” to join you in whatever you were doing (and took a video of it), you got extra points. (My favorite was convincing a guy to do cartwheels with us on the Bridge – or maybe it was the Christian gal standing all dressed up by her Be Saved sign, who we convinced to do a kettlebell swing in her long skirt! I will say that the ridiculous amount of walking lunges Claire and I have been doing in the KMC protocol made the walking lunges on the Bridge a piece of cake!)

The whole experience was a blast, especially as you had no idea “where you were” in the WOD vis-a-vis other teams.  HERE is a write-up of the day from our gym’s blog, if you’re curious, and it contains a link to what we did, for how many points. As you’ll see if you read the blog link, our team came in first (though we were the last ones to finish), because you got 5 points per kettlebell/dumb bell if you carted them back across the Bridge (1.7 miles), and we brought 6 across. We had 4 dumb bells at 30 pounds, and 2 kettlebells at a “pood” each (36.11 pounds).

We realized half way across the Bridge that this was way too ambitious, which lead to good teamwork and strategy. Mikaela carried the 2 1-pood kettlebells most of the length of the bridge, then Kevin, Jessica and I traded off the 4 30-pound dumbbells for at least half the Bridge because of a miscommunication with Suzanne. (She ran ahead because we said that we should do a “trade off” with one person staying fresh, but we meant between light standards not half way on the Bridge!)

Kevin and I basically had to trade off carrying 1 or 2 dumb bells each for the first half of the Bridge, and Jessica carried one. Sometimes Kevin and I would each carry 2 to let Jessica rest (There were a lot of rests in there.) Once we caught up to Suzanne mid-span though (meaning there were now 5 people instead of 4), I took off with one of the 30 pound dumbbells, leaving the 4 of them with the 2 1-pood kettlebells and the 3 other dumb bells to trade off. I walked straight without resting to the other end of the Bridge, up the stairs to the parking lot, down the LONG set of stairs under the Bridge, crossed under the Bridge, then back up the LONG set of stairs to where the cars and the other teams were waiting.

I dropped the first 30 pound dumbbell in the  parking lot, then went back, carried Mikaela’s two kettlebells a portion of the way for her (I did mention the LONG flights of stairs to get down under the Bridge, then back up the other side, right??), then ran back and took one of Kevin’s 30-pounders under the Bridge and up the stairs, then finally got Jessica/Suzanne’s 30-pounder down the stairs, under the Bridge, and up the other side. (Must be my Marine background – No Dumbbell Left Behind!)

The most instructive part of the whole thing for me was actually when I carried that first 30 pounder by myself from the middle of the Bridge to the cars (about a mile). I had been carrying one, two, trading off, etc. from the San Francisco end to the middle, but usually that meant that Kevin and I were walking together. Once we had re-found Suzanne, I took off alone, because I knew that I could walk faster and get more done that way. I also knew it would go faster if I dropped that initial weight off, then go back to help “ferry” the other weights in for the team v. trading off and resting along the way.

Thirty pounds is about the weight that I have to lose right now. Carrying that doggone dumbbell was like something out of The Biggest Loser. It made me realize just how much I’m asking my body to cart around. When I’d get to the parking lot and heave that thirty pounds down onto the ground each time, my body felt like it was floating.

I need to remember that feeling. I wish I’d thought to have a member of my team take a photo of me while I was doing that carry – I’d print it out and put it on the refrigerator!

To all of you who are starting something – an eating plan, a workout plan, or any other “Resolution” today – I wish you well! Leave me a comment if you like, and let me know what is on your goal list for 2015, so I can cheer you on!