The Tom Experiment
This will be my feeble attempt to publicly track my diet and training. I am a scientist by nature and as a scientist my brain tells me you must thoroughly experiment to achieve the correct path to your desired outcome. Unlike the physical sciences where you can replicate experiments with all the same variables, the human body is one variable that cannot be replicated. We are all different and thus we can react differently to the same input. As a result we must identify what works for us as individuals; the only way to effectively do this is by logging all our inputs (diet, exercise, sleep, etc) and outputs (performance levels, mental and emotional state, weight, body composition, etc). With this information we can derive conclusions and adjust our inputs accordingly.
My goal is simple, I want to achieve the best physiological/emotional me I can be. Note: this doesn’t include personality, as none of this will prevent me from being an ass :) I figure the best way to pursue this experiment would be through this blog. What better way to hold myself accountable, even if no one ever reads this? So in the spirit of open source I will document this in a manner that is not only easily accessible to me but open to anyone interested.
I am an avid crossfitter and have been doing crossfit since 09/2007. I have followed the Zone in the past and achieved mixed results. Weight loss was achieved however I also realized a drastic loss in performance over time; both in strength and workout scores. A broken foot in the later part of 2008 preventing me from working out along with stress from work allowed the weight to pile on relatively easily (poor excuses I know). I gained 15 pounds in a 3.5 month period, my lipoprotein profile conducted in late ‘08 also showed a marked setback in my results (next time I get my results I will post the historical results as well). This can easily be accredited to the poor diet and lack of exercise which therefore caused my weight gain.
Starting 1/27/2009 I will be back on the Zone but after reading Robb Wolf’s “42 Way’s to Skin the Zone” I am changing my blocks. When I zoned before I was @ 17 blocks 5-2-5-2-5, this time around I am going to 19 blocks but eliminating some carb blocks and replacing some of those with fat blocks. My blocks should look like this: 19P - 10C - 49F. I have a hard time getting in all those carbs when I clean up my diet and will still have a hard time getting all the fat in. To shake things up in the future I plan to add in some IF (intermittent fasting) on occasion. My starting weight is 227.5 as of the morning of 1/27. I have not been below 200 since the first half of my freshman year of high school (almost 2 decades ago). At this point I am not sure what my target weight will be, since my number one goal is health over weight but if I can keep my strength levels up, 199 lbs would be nice.
I came across a blog on the web, BrianPCF, that I thought would work for me as well. On a daily basis I will post the weight my scale tells me in the AM as well as meal information for the day. I will also post my training information along with any information about my general state of being.
