EFL Blog

A couple of months ago Nate Green and I met up for beers up the street from EFL, and over some delicious Hopworks organic ale he told me about a book he was working on that had him glued to his laptop for the better part of every day. No wonder he was looking a little paler than one would expect in summer, even in Portland. The premise of his book, “Bigger Smaller Bigger” is a self experiment on gaining weight, losing it all in 5 days, then gaining it all back again in one day ala fighters/wrestlers.

Nate went on at length about how much the whole process sucked, yet how cool it was at the same time. Now, he is normally a self-deprecating guy but I thought he was playing it all up a bit until I heard that he gained 21 pounds in twenty eight days, then tried to lose it all through weight cutting methods in 5 days, then gain as much of it back as possible in 1 day.

Yeah, that would suck. I’ve seen firsthand how drained and mentally/physically fatigued athletes are who have to undergo drastic weight cuts. Yet one more reason why I’m more than happy to have not competed in wrestling.

This past week Nate told me his “book”, which is really a website, launched. And now you can read it for FREE right here.

Not excited about your book Nate, or just bloated?

I dug in right away not knowing exactly what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised at the wealth of tips and knowledge everyone can use for their own purposes.  So while the take home lessons are cool I kept reading because Nate is an entertaining writer. He has a way of putting rather complex nutrition and physiological processes into language that is not only simple to understand, but entertaining. The accompanying layout of his diet and workouts are pretty cool too, and the photos give you a real idea of just how much or how little he had to eat to make it happen.

But I’m not writing this just to hype Nate’s book, but after reading it realized there are many gems that can help EFL members and anyone else reading this. So I’m going to boil down some of those points into action steps that you can use.

1. Have a plan. No matter your goal I can’t overestimate the importance of having a realistic plan. Many people attempt to lose weight but quickly give up many times because they didn’t know what to do when they went off the plan for a day – which is why its a good idea to develop your plan together with a good coach. This person will likely provide a framework and steps that you wouldn’t know to take. Case in point is that Nate had two coaches for his experiment, Dr. John Berardi who designed and monitored the nutrition componenent, and Martin Rooney who handled the physical training portion. Despite that fact that Nate has trained other people, and writes about nutrition and training for a living he knew he needed others more knowledgeable than himself to design a safe, effective plan.

2. Develop a support network. We all know everything is easier with support from others, and the same holds true for losing fat, gaining muscle, training for a race or whatever the goal. We are more likely to follow through when we are accountable to others, especially those who might be putting an effort in to help.

3. Organization. Planning out your meals for the day is one thing, but how do you plan out your meals for the week? And what do you do when shit happens? This is where organization becomes crucial. Through trial and error Nate discovered how much advance planning it took to eat all his meals when he was supposed to. Most of us will never have to get to that level of planning, but if you are trying to make a change, say lose fat, then you will have better results by planning meals in advance and putting together a shopping list, then taking the time to shop and prepare those meals.

4. Commitment. We all know following through is key, but many fail to grasp that changing your body means changing your lifestyle, which is hard. And it takes time. More time than many initially have patience for. So it’s best to be aware in advance that creating lasting change is not a 21 or even 60 day event. It will take longer and entail some commitment. But hey, it’s either that or yo yo like everyone else out there.

5. Discipline is a skill. The mental fortitude to stick to a plan and see it through is not something that some have and some don’t. We can all do it, but developing the discipline is a skill that is gained over time. I learned it through martial arts, as did Nate. Many people learn it through lifting weights and over time accomplishing things they never thought they could by showing up day after day. In part this relates to the psychology of habit building – in other words the more you stick to doing an activity and see it through the easier it is to apply that skill to another activity.

Even if you read the book and don’t come away with some valuable tips and strategies at least hopefully you’ll have empathy for Nate’s girlfriend Richelle, who had the limits of her tolerance tested!