I said yesterday that I had found my groove. This was not entirely true. Not that I lied. I would never lie to you. At least not about his. No. Surely not?
Turns out that as long as I am home, or ambling along on my walks I am fine. Or as fine as you can be when it feels like you are on a hunger strike to free Palestine or a similar worthy cause. But when I set foot in the shops, strange things happen. Today I went to get more juice supplies, and as soon as I walked through the doors candy bars started floating around in my head, and coke commercials started running in front of my eyes. And as I walked past the shelf with Guinness and Kilkenny I could swear I hard a voice with a Brit accent say: “Two pints of bitter and a packet of crisps, please”.
In the end I stayed mostly strong and ended up with only a small flask of banana, passionfruit and mango smoothie in addition to my planned supplies. At 120 calories, I would not count that as a major disaster. But it was not terribly good either, which might make my next visit even harder…
I also got a comment saying I should eat and boulder instead of this fasting crap. I had hoped to explain it well enough, but maybe I have taken a shortcut or two in that department? Or maybe I just assume everyone will see the wisdom of my choice and agree with me? Upon thinking about it I realize that even though I feel I have sound arguments for doing what I am doing, there still might be people who disagree with it. And that is certainly fine. In fact, I invite it.
In case I have not thoroughly explained the situation, the basis of my decision, and the rationale behind the process I will explain it here as well as I can.
I am currently somewhere between 10-15 kilo overweight. It is hard to say exactly, because I started gaining weight (aka getting fat) when I was 20. At that time I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 kilo. I have obviously matured, and it is probable that my body (sans fat) is now closer to 70 kilo. But I am still a skinny little bastard underneath the fat so I really doubt my “normal” weight is above 70 kilo. And so it stands to reason that at my current weight of about 82 kilo, I am ca 12 kilo overweight. Anyone climbing will know that such a burden makes it hard to scale steep terrain.
All my experiences show that when I go through a period of not climbing, but dropping weight, I climb harder grades upon my return to climbing, than I did when I left off (typically an off season process). It is also generally accepted in training circles that if you are overweight, the single quickest way to increase strength relative to your body weight (as in ability to do push ups, pull ups, etc) is to lose weight because it is a much quicker process than increasing muscle mass and strength.
Now, prolonged dieting will reduce muscle mass as the body uses the protein in the muscles for fuel. This is why I have generally stuck to the “one kilo per week” approach. It is considered to be healthy, and has allowed me to train hard at the same time, both cardio and strength. For various reasons, I have not followed my traditional regimen this spring (post trip depression and what have you), and so I am behind schedule. There is also a trip to Thailand coming up in 2,5 weeks. This has made me decide to jump-start the process of achieving “match weight”. Originally planned for completion around christmas, with a standard “one kilo per week” schedule. The goal is still to get there by christmas, but I am attempting to increase my relative strength as much as possible before my trip.
One week of fasting will, according to the literature I have read, not compromise my muscles in any significant way, while I can reduce my body weight significantly. The only worry in this set up, is that only one week between the fasting will not be enough to reverse the “famine response” and make the body store most of the energy I consume that week as new fat, and continue to work with a low metabolism during my second week of fasting. I will monitor this closely, of course, and if it proves to be the case I will reduce energy intake in the second week, and abort the next fasting cycle.
Of course my knee trouble greatly affects the benefits of my fasting week, and will limit my ability to train as hard as required in the following cycle. It remains to see how this affects the net result, but I am still hoping for a significant reduction in body fat.
I will also put it to you, that if you are thin, and has always been thin, you are not really in a position to understand my situation. A situation where my use of good technique is limited because I simply do not have the strength to hold on while flagging, performing a drop knee, etc. And yes, regular bouldering would increase my strength. I do not at all dispute this. My point is simply, in terms of speed and “value for money”, reducing my body weight will give me greater gains than any other approach to this issue. In addition, I will be certain to avoid any tendon issues arising from a sudden burst of intense bouldering before the trip. I will be healthy and able to climb, which is also an important consideration, as I have bad experiences with sudden hard bouts of bouldering. One 3 week period resulted in me being not only out of climbing for 6 months, but also unable to do my job for a number of weeks.
All in all, this approach is, in my mind, the best choice for me. I do not recommend it to anyone else, especially not if your level of body fat is within a range which is considered healthy in the first place (mine is not).
And you will all see a tremendous shift in focus on my part when I reach a body weight where excess baggage is no longer an issue. At that point, I will surrender completely to the wisdom that “the best training for climbing, is climbing”.