Jenny Ruhl’s book, Blood Sugar 101, is also excellent in terms of metabolism information, diet help, whether or not you are diabetic.

When you start to gain weight, it is as you say, because you have higher insulin levels. These higher insulin levels typically go along with damange to your pancreas. When people are diagnosed as diabetic, they have lost 50% to 80% of their pancreatic function . When you are prediabetic with tummy fat, you have probably lost 20-30% of your pancreatic function. Once you start to lose pancreatic function, you are on a spiral to more and faster loss, so it is critical to start working on it early. Your blog is right on in terms of diet, omega-3s, exercise. Good stuff, thanks!

Great post! I’ve been lurking around here for quite a while (directed from the fitnessblackbook).

When you say “Keep your carbs in check” in the above reply, are you referring to carbohydrates in general or just “bad” refined carbohydrates like breads, pasta, etc. If it is in general, wouldn’t this violate the idea of “eating as much healthy food as you like” like you mention in the IF report.?

IE: When monitoring my carbs, should I take low-GI wholefood carbohydrates into account..like an apple or other fruit/veggies? Can excessive fruit/veggies contribute to the “glycogen spill over” effect you mentioned above or does this ownly apply to carbohydrates that cause insulin spikes?

Maybe you can shed some light on this for me…

Thanks!

Scott

One last question: from what you wrote to me and elsewhere, I gather that it is possible to “bulk” (hate that word!) while eating a low carb diet? Now I don’t have a problem upping my protein or fat (love fat!), but I am really wary of upping my carb intake too much. In the past, whenever I’ve done that, I would “bulked” up but not in a good way! But then again, I was not eating Paleo before, so maybe better carb selection would make a difference?

The reason I asked is because from you and crossfit I got the idea that a low carb/moderate protein/high fat diet is fantastic for shedding BF and getting very lean (and it definitely worked for me) but I was wondering if a high cal version of that would work for gaining mass?

Just wondering if you can give me some advice here:

Currently I’m 5′ 8″, 137lbs, around 7-8 percent BF. My diet is 95% Paleo, very low carb, moderate protein, and high fat (usually the ratio is around 10% carb, 25% protein, 65% fat, averaging around 2300 calories). I also have been doing IF for the past 3 months.

I’ve been doing crossfit for a year but recently decided that it’s time to try to put on some good weight. So, on the workout end, I’ve decided to do Rippetoe’s Starting Strength Program and just concentrate on getting basic slow lifts for awhile.

However, the eating part is where I am kind of stumped. Obviously since I am eating paleo, Rippetoe’s “gallon of milk a day idea” is out ,but I know I need more calories. So:

(1) How much more calories do I need but I am not sure how much more.

(2) I know I nned to eat more protein but after that, what else should I eat to add calorie? More Fat (fat is around 150-170g rught now) or more carb (carb is around 60-70g a day right now)?

(2) What about PWO? What kind of “paleo carb” is good to consume after a workout and how much of it should I eat?

Thanks

I struggled for awhile to gain weight on an IF/Evolutionary fitness plan, but to gain weight I did exactly what Ben mentioned: I simply lifted heavier and let my appetite follow the lift.

I’ve been doing interesting set combos lately, with powerlifting moves. I’ll do 3×5, 5×3, then 5×1 with a <1 minute rest between sets, except for the 5×1s, where I use only a 5-10 second rest between each rep. That’s 35 reps total for each lift, which supposedly puts you in the strength/hypertrophy optimal range.

I’ll start a workout with either DLs or Squats, then do incline press or weighted dips, then weighted pullups or standing pulldowns. During and after all of this, I’ll do explosive bodyweight exercises. For these, I’ll do pullups where I try to get as much air as possible on the top of the pullup and catch the bar on the way down (I can get a good 6″ consistently!) or dips where I launch myself backwards off of the dip bars and land in a squat. I’ll also do box jumps, one-armed pullup negatives, and a few shoulder moves for my messed up shoulder cuffs (4 years of competitive swimming).

I’ll fuel these workouts with unlimited amounts of clean, paleo food, respecting my 8 hour eating window.

I’ve put on a pretty clean 6-8lbs in the past few months by doing this. It’s the first time I’ve been able to gain weight since eating low-carb/paleo.