I was reading through comments to some of my posts this morning and came across one from my running buddy Jon who has transformed himself over the last few weeks into a fat burning machine taking on board the Banting diet.   ( https://realmealrevolution.com/the-facts ) It really is worth a read as the results are amazing.

My lightbulb moment commenced as I was, for the  2nd time (unrelated) on same day  called Mr.Squishy! First one being as my son gave me a cuddle goodbye in the morning (cheeky git), and the 2nd one being by yours truly out on a lunch time run asI found myself dropped at the back of the pack (on an ‘easy’ run!)… what happened to me pushing the pace at the front, seems longer and longer ago in fact I think my age began with a 2 back then !! (approaching 36 now) Enough was enough, time to do something.

It was then I started an unsustainable ‘calorie restricted diet’, this is truly short term focus as never works long term, however a few weeks in I remembered an Ironman mate Toyney had mentioned several years ago about Banting (LCHF), I laughed it off at the time thinking along lines above loving my carbs too much !

Anyway, I looked at some of Toyney’s material he had given me at the time, and what I read seemed like perhaps this is what I had been waiting for all along ! Forget ‘calorie restricting’, instead eat and eat how much you like, caveat being based around a Traffic Light system (good enough for kids at school, yet as adults we have instilled good eating habits and moderation being the key?); Green eat as much/Orange in moderation/Red to avoid: http://www.bantingfood.com.au/banting-food-list.html Note: This list has actually been modernly adapted to now green/light orange/dark orange/light red/dark red ! (I’d recommend reading ‘The Real Meal Revolution 2.0 by Jonno Proudfoot’, about $30)

Bingo. Weight came off, week by week, in fact around 10% in 10 weeks. About 15/16 weeks in now, and weight has plateaued (anyone looking at me would say nothing left to lose !) – food seems and feels ‘sustainable’. To me, it doesn’t feel like a ‘diet’. Truly a clean way of eating. Who doesn’t love eating fresh food every day, it doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact its equal if not cheaper than the way I ate previously (but wasn’t about the cost). First weeks hardest adapting over to carb depletion, but since then training as usual.

Where to from here, well i haven’t missed my carbs (mostly); training and volume consistent. Still have plenty of energy for double days/long runs etc. I have several new gears in my training regime not seen for many years. I have new motivation to achieve some real PB’s so watch this space. I am testing out a shortened carb load in the marathon for that ‘intense’ effort, but otherwise carbs are gone (for now).

Jon has always been a good runner with a pb of sub 2hrs50mins and many sub3 marathons but he has struggled over the last few years to regain that high standard but lately the ‘old Jon’ is back and then some. What brought it home to me was his morning run yesterday. A 32k commute to work where he progressively got quicker and ended up running sub 2hrs50min marathon pace. He then backed up the morning run with another quicker 10k at lunchtime. That’s a marathon distance at, or close to, his marathon pace.

What really impressed me wasn’t the distance, though that is still pretty good re-work on a Winters morning, but the way he finished. If you look at his last 10k they were as quick or quicker than the middle section of his run. He was accelerating into the ‘death zone’ (that distance from 32k onwards where the body tends to start to malfunction, the wall as us marathon runners call it!) This is what really stood out, it wasn’t your normal long run where most of the time it is just watching the watch and hitting the ‘time target’, this was a proper test. To then get back out a few hours later and throw down another fast 10k brings home how Jon has transformed his cardio fitness and fat burning.

If you wanted proof the Banting diet works look no further than Jon, bye-bye Mr. Squishy, you will be missed.