In a previous post I noted that one of my goals for 2009 was to play in a semi-pro basketball league. This is a very important goal to me because there was a time when basketball was my entire life. Unfortunately injuries & surgery ruined my college career and have prevented me from playing competitively for several years. As a consequence for being away from the game for years I have gain useless weight that is hampering my athleticism significantly. If I really want to compete again I need to drop my weight from 225 lbs to about 210 lbs (I am 6′4”). In addition to dropping weight I want to add muscle.

How will I do it? A combination of exercise, diet & supplement regimen of course!

THE DIET

The diet I will implement is inspired by a post I read on the blog of Tim Ferris. It is a variation of the “slow card” diet as used by Dean Karnazes, an ultra marathoner. The rules for this diet are very simple and practical. The is why I chose it to experiment with. I did a semi-test of this diet a few weeks ago and lost 5 lbs. Here are the rules:

1) No “white carbohydrates”.

2) Mix and match the same few meals over and over again.

This is important for any diet. Things get difficult to manage when you try to have to much variety.

Each meal will consist of one from each of the three following groups:

Proteins:

Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Turkey

Legumes:

Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans

Vegetables:

Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetable

3) Avoid high calorie drinks!

I will only drink water, unsweetened ice tea, & tea.

4) Take one day off per week.

I have designated Saturday to be the day that I can eat what ever I like.

THE WORKOUT PLAN

I will be working out 6 days per week with Sunday being my off day. This is somewhat extreme but necessary to loose the weight and gain the muscle I want to.

Weight training: This will include lower and upper body and should only take about 45 minutes. I apply Pareto’s law aka the 80/20 rule to weight lifting. The essence of the law is that 80% of all results come from 20% of the efforts. So if 80% of my strength will come from only 2-3 exercises why waste my time doing 10. I will do bench press, squats with barbell, deadlifts, curls into shoulder press. That’s it!

Dynamic Exercise: Dynamic exercise is anything where you’re not performing routine after routine and where you are moving in natural movements vs. fixed, robotic movements. I chose basketball as my dynamic exercise.

Calisthenics: These are bodyweight exercises. For lower body I will do lunges, squats, and calf raises. For the core I will do crunches, reserve crunches & For upper body: pull-ups, push-ups, and shoulder press ups.
Isometric exercises: These are basic bodyweight exercises, but where you hold your body in a static position. I will start of with planks.

Balance: Balance is the ability to keep your equilibrium when your center of gravity is thrown off-balance. For this I will do balance disc exercises.

The schedule will be as follows:

Monday: Weight training & dynamic exercise
Tuesday: Calisthenics, isometric exercises & 5 mile run.
Wednesday: Weight training & dynamic exercise
Thursday: Calisthenics, isometric exercises & 5 mile run.
Friday: Calisthenics, light dynamic exercise, balance
Saturday Play in basketball league.
Sunday Off day

Well that is the gist of my plan/experiment. I will provide weekly updates on my progress. Wish me luck! Better yet join in on the challenge.