Have you ever wondered why that many of the today’s fitness enthusiasts suffer from food addictions?
What are the reasons behind the development of those massive eating disorders and why they seem to be so common amongst all of those incredibly fit people?
Why that many individuals involved in bodybuilding believe eating 10000 calories from junk food is the way to enjoy life?
Why a lot of them proudly show on every social media platform, they can’t wait for their pre-scheduled binge eating days while glorifying their addictions?
I am sure your answer comes in two words: Junk Food and I will accept it because I can’t deny it is correct, but even though you might not currently understand it, this is just the top of the iceberg.
We can all agree the processed foods are awful and addictive, but in a lot of situations they are not the real cause why people develop those eating disorders.
There is something else which leads to that point. Something which lays the foundation for all those conditions and is also common amongst most of the persons somehow involved in this way of life.
With the huge risk to disappoint many I would like to say: The real cause is hidden in the conventional bodybuilding diets and the promoted by today’s fitness industry lifestyle.
Before I share with you my personal experience with probably all of them “gold standard” protocols I would like to make clear few things:
I love fitness and growing muscle as much as you do or even more, but I believe this should not alter any other aspects of my life. I sincerely believe it should give me freedom and not suffering. No, I do not believe I should feel any guilt or shame and you shouldn’t neither.
My experience:
During my whole teenage years I was eating the regular cooked in vegetable oils bad foods including some total crap occasionally. Those were mostly home prepped meals and some of the processed or fast foods from time to time, but I never felt addicted to them whatsoever.
Please do not get me wrong even though I had cravings and brain fog almost 24/7, this was nowhere near the uncontrollable desire to eat I developed later.
After I started lifting I quickly figured out the nutrition was the key to success, so I became interested in it. Since I did not know anything about it, I started buying the flashiest fitness magazines and reading the top notch bodybuilding websites. They were my main source for information and dieting strategies.
Quickly I got brainwashed and jumped on the typical so called healthy muscle building diet based on plenty of grains and isolated or lean proteins in form of powders and poor quality meats.
Because of what I’ve been told I was eating up to 6 or even 8 meals spread during the course of the day. Most of the time those were containing complex carbohydrates such as oats, brown rice, Ezekiel breads or whole grain pastas. As long as for the proteins the sources I was using were lean chicken breasts, protein powders or cans of tuna. Every meal consisted protein and carb while relying mostly on low calorie foods. I was avoiding fat and high cholesterol foods by any means.
After one year my cravings became insanely strong and I was no longer able to control them. I felt addicted to food. I was constantly thinking about it. I was visualizing what I am going to eat on my scheduled so called cheat days and nervously checking the time left to my next meal. Even though I was eating every 2 to 3 hours I felt hungry constantly.
Does all of the mentioned sound familiar to you?
If your read this blog you will not once hear me pointing out this was one of the most unproductive periods of my life. My whole day was entirely consumed by the food, and different things related to it: tracking calories, macros cooking and measuring food I was not really enjoying.
It did not take too long and that transformed into obsession. I was writing down all of the processed foods I planned to stuff my face with on the scheduled cheat days.
I never felt like this before I started following the conventional fitness diet.
They had my phone number in the local Domino’s spot and knew it was me every time I was calling to make an order.
During the other part of the week I was doing everything possible in order to create deficit of calories relying on foods with zero nutritional value: of course those were low calorie and no fat containing products.
Fast forward to the moment when I adapted to a ketogenic diet for the first time. I did the totally opposite on what I was told. I replaced all of the complex carbs with saturated and animal fats. I switched the lean chicken breasts, cans of tuna and shakes for high quality complete proteins such as wild caught fatty fishes, grass fed beef and whole organic free range eggs.
Instead of counting calories and eating meals spread out during the course of my day I reduced their total number to not more than 2 per day. I kept them in a period shorter than 8 hours.
For one month that entirely changed my life. I had absolutely no cravings whatsoever. I had no need for a cheat day, because everyday was one since I was enjoying all of the foods in my diet and most importantly my life.
I started feeling differently. For the first time since I was born I was able to enjoy free of hunger and cravings days. I realized how much time those diets wasted me. I also noticed I became more driven, inspired and determined to put effort in everything I was doing. I guess this is what the biohackers call to have my brain back online!
Later the two meals merged into one. Until today I live like this. Even though it completely contradicts to the conventional wisdom preached by the magazines, I became leaner and muscular than ever. I swear in God this is how I made my best gains!
I started seeing veins, arteries and definition on places I never had before: Lower abs, inner thighs and Christmas tree.
My muscles became rounder and fuller, which is something exceptionally rare for 6’4 male with long, heavy and relatively big bone structure.
I was not only growing new muscle tissue faster, but my physique became way more proportional and aesthetically pleasing.
It may sound weird, but my body started knowing to where exactly add the size since it was no longer overtaxed with sugars, grains and multiple meals.
I was not able to believe how all of it was possible, since I was eating only one meal per day, half of the amount of food and remarkably less protein from completely different sources?
How on top of everything I was experiencing no hunger nor cravings? What was the thing that formed my food addiction and what was the one which entirely freed me from it? Why I was staying leaner while I was eating more fat ?
I desperately needed the answers of all of them questions, so I did some research and found the real cause for all of my problems.
Those were the conventional bodybuilding foods and the highly recommended by the fitness magazines approaches.
All of my cravings and hunger were actually caused by the so called healthy whole grain complex carbs, packed with sugar powders and low quality meats.
Later I learned about the reward mechanisms of the brain and the role carbohydrates has on them. Similar to the crack, cocaine, alcohol and other heavy drugs they trigger the release of the neurotransmitter called dopamine. People addicted to carbs and sugar are not that different from the ones addicted to drugs.
You know how those addicts always up their dosages?
The same thing happens when the person develops a desire for more processed higher glycemic foods.
I found I was heavily brainwashed by this industry I noticed the fake agenda was actually is spread out the whole internet. Plenty of people are blind to see how illogical those myths are.
Have you ever saw a list of top muscle building/ fat burning foods where things like oats or other whole grains are placed on one of the top positions ?
If analyze it and just for a moment think logically you will find that makes no sense.
How a food which contains virtually no protein can be a muscle building food ?
Even the kids from the kindergarten know proteins are the building blocks of the muscle tissue.
How a food which causes spike in blood sugar and puts your body in carb burning aka fat storing mode can be good for fat burning?
Do you really think this year award winning protein powder’s amino acid profile can be somehow superior to the one of a high quality complete source such as whole free range eggs, wild caught low mercury fishes and grass fed meats?
If you are passionate about fitness or bodybuilding and suffer or suffered from the same addictions than you probably made that far in the article, so congratulations and thank you!
I do not want to provoke you do the same as I do. I simply want to inspire you start thinking and asking questions, do researches and most importantly read the signals of your body.
You will not loose your gains. You do not need to suffer in order to look at your best year around. You can build an amazing physique while living free of hunger and addictions life.
The fake gurus spread those myths in order to scare make you pay for their services and supplements, but later this costs the quality of your time on this planet.
Start thinking today.
I hope that makes sense.
Yours truly:
Peteonthebeat
