I received my Precision Nutrition (PN) materials last Friday, & have read through a lot of it. In fact, I read through enough of it that it influenced my grocery shopping on Saturday, mostly be leading me to buy more fruit than I had been previously.
Because of how I’ve already been eating thanks to the influence of my previous reading & research, especially as influenced by Diana Schwarzbein, I’ve found that there’s not really that much modification that I need to do in order to bring myself in alignment with PN’s 10 Habits. I think anyone who is familiar with PN can read my current eating plan as described in my previous post, & see how close I already am to what PN recommends.
Note that Schwarzbein is a practicing endocrinologist. Her Schwarzbein Principle books are very much geared toward metabolic healing, with lots of emphasis on the problems of Type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, & related problems (Syndrome X, aka metabolic syndrome). As an insulin resistant person, I find it a very good sign that John Berardi’s 10 Habits in PN are so similar to what Schwarzbein had already influenced me to do. I continue to be impressed by John Berardi’s attention to insulin resistance/insulin sensitivity, even as he is careful to claim no particular expertise on Type 2 diabetes or its precursors.
(For those who aren’t familiar with the 10 Habits, seven of them are discussed in an article on Berardi’s site, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs”. Apparently the habits were expanded to 10 later on; an abbreviated form of the 10 Habits can be found in another article, “ Built Like A Neanderthal, Part 2 – Evolution, Diet, and Body Type”, about three-quarters of the way down.)
The biggest modifications I need to adhere to the 10 Habits:
- Although my 20-25 grams of carb per meal are low GI & come from whole foods, they still come a lot from grains & other non-fruit/non-veggie starchy carbs. By PN’s recommendation, I should only be eating those types of carbs in the two hours post workout. Otherwise, my carbs should come from fruit. So, I’ll need to start buying & eating more fruit. This means changing some of my standard meals: no more Wasa whole grain crackers or Finn Crisps with my can or sardines or kippers, no more steel-cut oats for breakfast — at least not for the three to five weeks that I intend to give over wholly to the “one size fits all” portion of PN before I being individualization.
- I have been eating five small meals per day, beginning at 6:00 AM & then every three hours thereafter. Though sometimes the evening meal (theoretically at 6:00 PM) has often tended to be later. Under PN, I should add in another evening meal, & I will be endeavoring to do so.
- I’ve been consuming lots of omega 3s through fish or fish oil capsules, but looks like I could stand to add in a bit more.
- I have been eating two eggs every morning scrambled with onions & mushrooms. Since that’s usually the only eggs I eat (though sometimes I might make up for a dearth of other protein in the house by eating hardboiled eggs during the day), I’m not going to worry overmuch about eating “just egg whites.” But I think I could probably stand to add a bit more veggie into those morning scrambled eggs.
All these changes will be contingent on a couple of things:
- Maintenance of blood glucose control. Now that I’ve got a bit of cash again, I’ll be getting some test strips for my glucometer again, & tracking my blood sugar. But I don’t really anticipate any problems. (I’d track my insulin response if I could, but unfortunately there is not such thing as a insulin-meter for use on an individual basis.)
- Maintenance of mood. I’ve already discovered over the past few months that if I go too low in my carb intake, I have real mood problems — irritability & depression (which is already an issue I’ve had a lot of life experience with). So if my mood starts going down, I may begin to individualize my program a little early by adding back in some grains in non-post-workout breakfasts (as suggested in the individualization manual). Until such an eventuality, though, I’ll count on fruit for breakfast for the first three-five (pre-individualizatoin) weeks.
I haven’t yet begun on strictly following the PN 10 Habits because of time constraints in meal planning/prep time as we get the last things done with our move. But, I am beginning to eat less starchy carbs & more fruit.
Re: getting with the changes to exercise: I anticipate getting on board that later this week too. Got to print out the first Turbulence Training workout manual for myself. I plan to get a gym membership this Friday with my next paycheck.
