Some Personal Observations on the Results of “Evolutionary Fitness”

I have not had any measurements done (e.g., blood work or VO2) since I started “Evolutionary Fitness,” so I am blind to a lot of the effects. I didn’t have any measurements done before I changed what I ate and how I exercised, so I don’t have old measures to which to compare current measures, anyway. Oh, and I’m not big on measuring my biceps or thighs. I don’t want to get into all that — though maybe some day such measures might make for some interesting semi-scientific studies. If I’d measure muscle, I’d want to measure power and efficiency and such rather than size, rather than something like circumference of thigh. But there are visual differences. Belly fat — what little there was in the first place!! — has gone down so that I can see some veins under the skin of my abs, which veins I had never seen before (or at least not to this extent!). I don’t have a wash board stomach; but I’m not pursuing that as a goal. Maybe some day I will. I have developed more muscle in the shoulder and upper back area. I have had cut legs before this, so no change there. I need to tone and firm them more, but there is still clear musculature. One factor throwing things off is that I have totally changed how I work out; changes have not been from diet alone. No longer the same exercise routine week after week. I have a much broader repertoire now. So I am working, and thus building, muscles I have not worked before. I never (before this year) did any clean and jerks, deadlifts, etc., so I’ve had lots of visually unobservable muscle growth from those exercises. I can tell this is so as measured by my ability to do more reps, by my habituating good form and technique — and my ability to do more weight. I’ve gone from doing one-handed clean and jerks with 45 pounds (or 60, was it?) to one-handed clean and jerks with 80 pounds. I’ve noticed an increase in the weight I can do on one-legged exercises. And I’ve noticed a definite increase in what I can do on the abductor. Doing clean and jerks and such has definitely helped there. So there has been a lot of changes in basic core strength. An area where I’ve noticed change is in horseback riding. Doing explosive movements — instead of training myself to be slow — and core exercises, I have found that I can much better keep with my horse when he is at a run; I can move in unison with him, and I have more stamina for this. (I mentioned this in my blog post on sprinting.) There have been some good changes in my biochemistry, that is for sure. I used to get sick if I’d skip lunch and go work out at 2 PM or 5 PM. This was last year, after I had been on EF for about 6 months. Guess my biochem was so jacked up from years of eating/drinking ice cream, cookies, sweets, colas, beer, pizza, bread, pasta, cakes, etc., that it took a long time to straighten out! But I no longer have a problem with exercising in a fasted state. Nor going several hours after exercise without eating. My energy level seems higher and more uniform. It was interesting to observe that this Wednesday afternoon I was really tired and wanted some coffee, but that I felt better after I went out and exercised (light to medium) for half hour. Eating helped, too…of course. I had some pork ribs with some celery. I wanted more food, so I had more celery with some blue cheese. Then I dug into some almonds, Brazil nuts, and (unsweetened) dried coconut flakes. My heart rate is better, too, as I mentioned in a recent post. And my body temperature is lower. I think it used to be 98.6 or so in high school and in years before the last, but its now 97 or below.