Moderation Not Deprivation

Before I start, I'd like to say that these are my opinions on diet.  If something else works for you, bash on.  But these are my thoughts.

Social media, and the internet as a whole, is littered with weight loss and dieting.  What strikes me most is the overall theme of deprivation:
"I can't have ---"
"That's not allowed."
"That's dirty, I'm eating clean"

I have done diets involving deprivation.  I remember being told when I was younger that you weren't doing a diet correctly unless you felt hungry.  I'm sorry, but I hate feeling that hunger all the time.  The thing about these diets is they make their participant unconsciously associate food with guilt.  At no point ever should food equal guilt - either good or bad.  Ever.  What food you eat does not determine if you are a good or bad person.  Every time I hear someone declare that they were "bad" because they ate a fucking cookie a little part of me dies.

What's wrong with "clean eating"?  Many things. Firstly, unless you are dousing your sandwich in fairy liquid, this term means nothing.  It simply cannot be defined because it means a different thing for different people.  It can either refer to a low calorie meal, a non-deep fried meal, a gluten free and dairy free meal, no refined sugar meal, or unprocessed meal, for example.  There is no universal definition.  And if your dinner is clean because you eat a boiled chicken breast and brown rice does that mean that my steak and potatoes are dirty?  What if I have a bagel and peanut butter, is that dirty?  It's a bullshit term and the sooner people don't use it, the better.

The phrase I wish I could go around and tell everyone about is: Moderation Not Deprivation.  I'll let you into a secret - you can eat anything.  ANYTHING.

What.

Yep, anything.  There is no such thing as a food "not being allowed", being "bad", and "dirty" etc.  If you are involved in a sport then performance is important and as such you will benefit from eating nutrient dense foods (uhhhh why can't people just say "nutrient dense foods" instead of "clean"!?).  This does mean eating high quality meats, vegetables, carbohydrates, and fruit.  At the end of the day a protein is a protein, a carb is a carb, and a fat is a fat regardless of where you get it from, but you will notice an improvement in performance if you get the majority of these from nutrient dense foods.

MAJORITY!

Life is short and is to be enjoyed so there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating 80-90% nutrient dense foods and 10-20% YOLO foods.  Like, couldn't give a flying fuck if this slice of cake was dipped in the tears of someone on herbalife and deep fried.

Moderation not deprivation.

Three ways to improve your deadlift

I am not an expert, but I can pull a pretty decent deadlift.  I have been working on my deadlift technique for the past year and although I can still improve, I feel I have some words of wisdom that could help others to improve the conventional deadlift.

1.  Line up with the bar over the mid-point of your foot.

I wear the same shoes for deadlifting every time so I found this position once and then I know from that point where the bar should be.  On the sole of your foot find the middle, see which lace that lines up, then put the foot under the bar using that lace as a reference.

A lot of people set up with the bar either too far away from their shins (resulting in it not being dragged up the body, which is the easiest path for the bath, and is best for the health of the back) or too close to their shins.  By having the bar over the mid-point of your foot you then have room to bend your knees enough to have the shins touch the bar and no further.

2.  Determine stance width.

There are two widths you can use in the conventional deadlift - narrow and shoulder width.  Narrow will look like this:

and shoulder width will look like this:

  

I have been experimenting with these stances and I'll be honest and say I have found I feel stronger in the narrow stance.  This will be different for different people, but give it a try.  

3. Engage your lats before pulling.

Your lats are large broad muscle that runs from arm put across the trunk of your back.

It is the muscle that is used during pull ups, chin ups, rowing, swimming, and DEADLIFTS.  By engaging and contracting this muscle before pulling the barbell off the floor you will tighten everything up, turn your upper body into a solid, strong mass, and then pull a solid, strong mass off the floor using...a solid, strong mass.  Simple!  So it's all well and good me saying to you "engage your lats" but how do you actually go about doing this?  The easiest way I can explain it is once you get into position and grab the bar you then squeeze at your arm pits.  You should feel this in your arm pit and on your back almost behind/beside the arm pit.  Doing this will make your elbows rotate slightly outwards so don't be alarmed if this happens.  It'll all help the tightness!  Tight is GOOD.

Lifting things is good.

Diet

This last week has been difficult.  It was meant to be the second week of my bulk and I was hit with gastro flu and ended up eating less than 500 calories a day.  I managed to lose 6 pounds in just a few days.  DISASTER.

I definitely got upset.  I could have dieted down for this meet while retaining strength, but that's not what I wanted.  I wanted to bulk up and gain MORE strength.  But I thought of something that is quite important that reminded me that I can get past a stumbling block and, more importantly, I have the knowledge needed to get past a stumbling block.

Two years ago I looked like this:

It was at this point that I changed my life, started researching about diet, and began taking fitness seriously.  I would say this photo started the journey and took me to where I am today two years later, 5 stone lighter, a lot stronger, fitter, faster, and more importantly, happier.

I may not have a qualification yet, but when I talk about how I believe people should eat, believe me when I say I know what I'm talking about.  This is how I know I'll come back from this.  I know exactly what I need to do to regain the lost weight and get myself back to where I was, but I needed this photo to convince me of that.