In my quest for vibrant and dynamic health I have focused intently on learning as much as possible about nutrition and eating. This has led me to change my omnivore diet to a vegan diet. I made the transition between omnivore and vegan slowly over roughly two years. My first goal was simply to start creating meals in which animal protein was not the focus. This led gradually led to more vegetable, legume, rice or grain based meals.
It has also been roughly two years since I began to increase my physical activity through the study of Hung Ga gung fu. Ever since adopting these lifestyle changes, I have watched my body begin to change. At the time that I started to make these changes, I was very sedentary and slowly gaining weight. The trend has now reversed over the last two years, and I have lost roughly 30 lbs. Weight loss was never an intentional goal. It simply came as a result of embracing diet changes and exercise.
Now I am at a point from which I do not want to lose any weight. At my last weighing, 3 weeks ago, I was 177 lbs. So give or take a few pounds, that puts me at 175-180. I do not feel that it would be healthy to lose weight beyond this point. I plan to continue, if not increase the amount and intensity of my exercise routine now that spring has come again. It is the season for re-dedication, transformation and new growth. I am setting forth with these goals in mind. But how should I be sure to avoid further weight loss? Since I have changed my diet and begun to exercise regularly, I have watched the fat burn off and the muscle build. At the same time, I worry that I have created momentum in the direction of losing body mass. My hope is that the body mass that I lose will be only fat and will be replaced with lean muscle. To this end, I will be consulting with a friend studying nutritional science.
In my first conversation with him, he encouraged me to make sure that I am eating enough calories in the day to sustain my activity level. My first assignment in determining this was to keep a food log. For 4 days I jotted notes every time I ate something. This was often as he also recommended eating more and smaller meals throughout the day. It has been a week since I kept the food log, and I still need to send it off to him, but I’m having doubts about my first attempt at eating “more often, smaller meals”. In my first attempt, I feel that I have been eating too often. Nearly every time my stomach becomes empty, I’m finding something else to eat. My occupation is quite conducive to this as I can easily snack while working on the computer.
At the moment I feel that this regimen of nearly continual eating has put a strain on my digestive tract. One of the new sensitivities that I acquired by doing my first master cleanse is sensing the fullness of my body. Once you completely empty yourself, you are able to tell with a more fine grained sensitivity what it is like to be full. I’m not just referring to the stomach, but my lower abdomen where all the food is processed further as well. Aside from feeling fullness, I can more easily see the shape of my gut after losing fat from all over my body. Yesterday I felt that this gut area, the area just under the belly button and between the hips, was quite full. I believe this is where the intestines sit. In the afternoon I almost felt that I was developing a pot belly! Now, I don’t really think that its possible that I could start a pot belly after a week or two of increasing my caloric intake. My theory is instead that the constant flow of food has caused this lower adbominal bloating. To confirm this theory, I’m taking a 1 day liquid diet of tea, fruit smoothie, and lots of orange juice. If at the end of the day the pot belly has said goodbye, I’ll have my answer: too much food too often.
