Dietary Bullshit: Skippable History

Since I created this blog partly because I wanted to cover this while it was still fresh in my mind (and not on the other one), I figure some context is in order. Feel free to move ahead - the next entry will be more relevant.

Back in 11th grade, when I got off my ass and finally started lifting things, I spent about six months on Mauro DiPasquale's Anabolic Diet. This was a terrible choice for a financially-restricted stick-shaped high schooler, as it resulted in my gaining a grand total of about 10lbs in a period when I probably could have packed on about 50 (I added something like 20 in the first month off), but I've missed something about that period. The general idea was that by keeping carbohydrate intake low during the week and then refeeding on the weekends, you can optimize a crapton of endocrine factors that I didn't entirely understand then and have forgotten about now, with the ultimate effect of putting your testosterone through the roof and enhancing your lifts. I didn't feel the latter one, but I DID spontaneously go through the "complete asshole" phase of puberty during that year and see a dramatic increase in my sex drive. I suspect the lack of truly immense lifting improvement had something to do with my living on about 2,000 calories per day and training like a complete pussy for most of it.

Once I got to college, I could whatever I wanted, but I was still poor and followed something approximating the "See Food" approach for most of my freshman year. Once I'd moved out of the dorms and gotten a job, that evolved into something more paleolithic, with a corresponding improvement in my mood from the lack of gluten consumption. For the last eight months, I've mixed that with (very simple) carb cycling to help manage fat gain/loss, but then I hit a small hurdle: Lab work. Working in a lab (now two labs) and actually dedicating to it isn't conducive to cooking three meals per day, and since I'm a cheap asshole with some restrictive food prohibitions, it's pretty inconvenient to eat out. I'd been introduced to Jamie Lewis a few weeks before the job picked up, and after my first "accidental fasting day" decided to just go all-in and try the Predator Diet. That was about a week ago (the actual switch started Monday). A recap/overview of basic reasons for my choice:
1) For all but one day per week, this approach has you consuming nothing but low-carb protein shakes for most of the day (pretty handy when your job sticks you in a sterile environment for 8 hours per day) and then gorging on meat in the evenings (pretty handy for a guy who, y'know, loves meat). It's technically "semi-gorging," though - after a certain point in a carb-free meal, your brain throws in the towel and you suddenly need an incredible level of willpower to take another bite.
2) The remaining day is a structured carb refeed with a 3-hour cheat window. This should sound familiar, given that with this piece in place you're basically following the Anabolic Diet with some modified fasting.
3) Jamie Lewis has been doing this for a fairly long time and is an absolute monster, which suggests that it at least CAN be executed with effective results.

Oh, and there's a decent clinical reason that alcohol won't hurt it. I'm not a big drinker, but at least with this I can get a single-malt Scotch without worrying about progress consequences. I doubt this will come up very often, though.