Dietary Update

Well, that didn't take long.

I'm currently sitting (or, rather, sliding) around 180lbs with pretty respectable sustained weight loss. However, due to a variety of factors, I'm switching from the straight up Apex Predator approach as Jamie writes it into the "actually fasting" equivalent.

I have a few reasons for doing this:
1) Convenience. Drinking a tasty 500mL protein shake is a hell of a lot easier than going out and actually making food, but it's considerably more annoying than not consuming anything at all, especially given that I'm somewhat limited in how often I can go to make more. This is a relatively weak reason, but it certainly played into my thought process on this.

2) Expense. In fairness, I doubt this will actually save me a whole lot of money, but protein powder - while cheap - gets a little pricier when you're buying 15lbs of it each month. I know I haven't actually hit the month mark yet, but I'm a nerd and do budget calculations in my spare time, so piss off.

3) Gas. This could be avoided if I switched back to straight Whey Protein Isolate rather than using the Concentrate that ON sells, and it's not a huge factor, but I actually get gas now. I haven't had gas in a fairly long time (pretty much since I cut out all pasteurized dairy).

4) I was planning to do it eventually anyway (partly for the above reasons and partly because I seem to have acquired a small amount of my girlfriend's dislike of casein...and partly for the below reasons, I suppose) and figure that I might as well use the period right as my classes end but shortly before my finals start to do it.

5) I recently found myself inundated in (relatively) famous and respected people jumping on board and saying it's at least decent, probably because of a recent study demonstrating that while there's no difference in mass lost between IF and Caloric Restriction protocols, the IF one actually does do a better job of preserving lean mass. These famous people then enlightened me about a metric asston of other benefits, notably including longer life, clinically-verified improvements in insulin sensitivity, and better cognition (though I should note that the last one seems somewhat conditional - John Berardi noticed that his creative thinking seemed pretty inhibited during the fasting window, at least on the daily IF protocol he tried [see Leangains, Warrior Diet]).

So, the plan is essentially the same as it was before, only now I'm nixing the protein shakes and presumably making up the difference with more meat. For those who care about specifics, the layout will probably be roughly:

Sunday - Fast. Possibly small dinner, depending on how much this day winds up sucking
Monday - Medium/Large "lunch" and massive dinner. (8-hour window) (TRAIN)
Tuesday - Massive dinner
Wednesday - Small "lunch" and massive dinner. (8-hour window) (TRAIN)
Thursday - Medium, lower-fat dinner
Friday - Small "lunch" and massive dinner (8-hour window)
Saturday -  Textbook Rampage day, but with only an 8-hour total eating window (TRAIN)

Training on Saturday will take place before the Rampage window. Once my bodyfat's down to single digits, I'll add a "Lunch" to Sunday and Tuesday. I may take all fasting-related restrictions off on Saturday, depending on how I feel.

So yeah, it's basically textbook Predator Diet, just sans all protein shakes and with more specific windows imposed for eating. The actual windows will probably wind up being more like 6 hours because I'm a busy man, but whatever.

I will provide progress pictures today.

EDIT: Oh, and carb-free liquor is allowed. I think I mentioned this previously, and the "I drink like twice a year" thing still applies, but I figure I should throw that out there.

EDIT 2: From rereading Lewis's material, I've suspect that my first Monday "lunch" may be rather on the large side. We'll see how this goes.