“Menopause” is defined as “a point in time 12 months after a woman’s last period“. More generally, the term “menopause” refers to the end of a woman’s reproductive years. Even though menopause technically occurs once in a woman’s lifetime, the symptoms leading to it can last a decade. The decade preceding menopause is known as “perimenopause”.
Perimenopause
By “perimenopause” we usually refer to the lapse of time that precedes a woman’s menopause. In most cases, such lapse of time lasts about 10 years and begins sometime between 35 and 45 years of age. Undoubtedly, the perimenopausal transition causes the most physical, mental and emotional distress in a woman’s life. Indeed, it presents a woman with a variety of symptoms that upset both her life and her identity. In particular, the most common symptoms are:
– hot flashes – night sweats – insomnia – mood swings (with anxiety and depression bursts) – blood sugar fluctuations – energy crashes – fat-storing around the waist – loss of life purpose – identity crisis – shorter, lighter periods – shorter, longer or altered cycles
Common symptoms
Is Exercise Good or Bad for Menopause Symptoms?
Excessive exercise can lead to early menopause
While strength training has a beneficial effect on women’s health, excessive exercise – especially cardio – can lead to early menopause. Indeed, in response to the prolonged stress generated by frequent, strenuous sessions, the hormone cortisol is produced (as explained here). However, cortisol competes with progesterone, as they both are made from the same substrate, pregnenolone. Therefore, when the body prioritises the production of cortisol over progesterone (aka the “pregnenolone steal theory”), a woman gets light, short periods, or starts missing her periods altogether. In the worst case scenario, she can face hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA), clinically defined as the absence of a period for at least 3 months. When HA is not taken seriously and treated, early onset menopause can occur.
Exercise can be good for perimenopause symptoms
However, strength and power training sessions have a beneficial effect on perimenopausal symptoms. Moreover, when combined with proper rest and nutrition, strength and power training can even help reverse HA. Thanks to the positive effects of strength training on bone mineral density (BMD), blood sugar and mood, weight sessions can help most women reduce symptoms. More specifically, strength training improves sleep quality and insuline sensitivity (thus decreasing the chances of gaining fat around the waist), and it boosts endorphins, fighting both anxiety and depression. Lastly, it can help a woman redefine her sense of identity, as it helps her find new ways of assessing her skills and value.
Best Exercise Routines for Perimenopause and Menopause
1. Weight Training
For the aforementioned reasons, weight training is the best form of exercise to alleviate menopause symptoms. However, make sure you keep your sessions short and effective (45-60 minutes). In terms of frequency, 2 or 3 sessions per week are more than enough, unless you are an advanced athlete.
2. Yoga, Pilates and Stretching
To boost your mood, improve sleep and reduce anxiety, make sure you incorporate yoga, pilates or stretching sessions in your routine. As these types of exercise do not require much time to recover, feel free to have as many sessions as you please. Great additions are also Thai-Chi and Qui-Gong. To get the most benefits, make sure you train outside as often as you can: such a mood-booster!
3. Walks and Hikes
Lastly, make sure you include long, daily walks and/or frequent hikes in your weekly routine. Walking is an amazing way to lower blood pressure, reduce stress and improve sleep. Moreover, it allows you to burn a lot of calories effortlessly; for this reason, it is an excellent exercise to manage your weight and prevent fat-storing.
To Conclude
Hormones and energy
The transition from pre to post-menopause can be a long and painful experience for a woman. While excessive cardiovascular exercise can make such a transition worse, a good balance of strength training, stretching and walking can have a positive impact on symptom management. As I explained in my previous post, a woman’s energy fluctuates with her hormones. However, when exercise, nutrition, lifestyle and work-schedule are synchronised with your hormones, you can be productive all month long.
Want to know more?
Do you want to learn more about how your hormones affect your performance, and how you can organise your monthly schedule to work with your cycle? Would you like to know what foods to eat and what workouts to do in each phase, to be your strongest self all month long? Do you need recipe ideas to support your hormones? Do you want to get rid of cramps and migraines for good?
Join my Masterclass here and learn to work ‘with the flow’, not against it. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Book your FREE consultation today and balance your hormones in 12 weeks!
Remember: my biggest mission is to help you build your strongest body, sharpest mind and most connected Self.
If you need an extra boost to feel strong all month long, support your energy with ActiveIron: the only clinically-proven iron supplement on the market. It has 2x better absorption rate than other OTC supplements, and causes 6x less gut irritation. Get 10% with the code ‘GAIA10’. Just make sure you speak with your GP first.
Aren’t you tired to compete with your male coworkers, just to show your boss you are equally ‘good’? Well, this is not what it means to be a strong woman. As someone who has been often called ‘strong as a man’, I have felt the pressure of gender competition my entire life. However, such pressure and competition should not exist in the first place.
Indeed, whilst men and women share many qualities and deserve the same rights, they also differ largely in nature and genetics. Most importantly, men’s internal clocks are designed to work within a daily circadian rhythm, while women have a 28-day cyclical internal clock. For this reason, comparing men and women’s performances on a daily basis is a mistake; on the other hand, a monthly comparison would be a much fairer option.
Even more than this, if women neglect their cyclical nature – and strive to compare themselves with men all month long – they will end up renouncing their biggest strength. But what does it mean, therefore, to be a strong woman? To answer this question, we will have to provide a new, holistic, definition of ‘strength’. And to do so, we will have to go through some brief genealogy of modern masculinity and femininity.
What does it mean to be ‘strong’?
What defines ‘strong’?
When you look up ‘strong’ on Google dictionary, here are the definitions that come up:
‘having the power to move heavy weights or perform other physically demanding tasks’;
‘able to withstand force, pressure, or wear’ (italics added).
As it emerges clearly, physicality is the main characteristic of strength. But is it the only one?
Can we redefine ‘strong’?
For as much as I dislike using the word ‘patriarchy’ and adhering to an exclusively feminist narrative, I don’t know of any better ways to put it: history has been written by men. And both our grammar and thinking pay the consequences of it. However, masculinity itself has been scrutinised and challenged over the past 30 years, and this process has had a relevant impact on the notion of ‘strength’.
In the early 90’s, American post-Jungian poet Robert Elwood Bly (Bly 1990), analyst Robert Moore and mythologist Douglas Gillette (Moore & Gillette 1990), became the main advocates of the so-called ‘mythopoetic men’s movement‘. The objective of the movement was to challenge the traditional notion of ‘masculinity’, all centred on physicality and violence. By so doing, men would be enabled to reconnect with forgotten qualities, such as wisdom and care, and reclaim their so-called ‘mature’ masculinity.
At the same time, new definitions of femininity also made their appearance in the 90’s (most notably thanks to Clarissa Pinkola Estés), claiming the same rights: a more comprehensive, less stereotypical idea of femininity. Both notions of masculinity and femininity initiated a new debate on strength: can strength be more than just physically strong?
Albeit relevant to both men and women, a new definition of ‘strength’ will mostly benefit women, as we shall see in a bit.
What makes a woman ‘strong’?
What Makes a Woman ‘Strong’, Then?
Let’s go back to the cyclical nature of women
As already pointed out, women’s physical, mental, emotional and social strengths vary over the course of their menstrual cycle. Here is exactly how:
Menstrual Phase (Inner Winter). In this phase, basal body temperature (BBT) and physical energy are low, whilst introspection, long-term planning and emotional connection are highest;
Follicular Phase (Inner Spring). BBT is still low, however, due to increased physical and mental energy, women can excel at medium-term planning, marketing skills, physical strength and skill practice;
Ovulatory Phase (Inner Summer). BBT is now high, and energy is peaking. Women have the highest physical energy, social skills, short-term planning, physical, mental and emotional endurance;
Luteal Phase (Inner Autumn). BBT is very high, however, physical energy and social skills are running low. In this phase, women have high emotional connection and care ability, and highest organisational skills (e.g. decluttering, reviewing and revising, etc.).
How different phases of the menstrual cycle affect different energies: emotional strength, mental strength, physical strength, social strength
Different ‘strengths’ across the month
When we replace the old definition of ‘strength’ with a new one that includes mental, emotional and social components, women can be ‘strong’ all month long. In fact, women can be physically and mentally strong around follicular and ovulatory phases; they can connect emotionally with themselves in the menstrual phase, and with others in the luteal phase; they can perform challenging social tasks (like closing deals, meetings and trips) around ovulation time; and they are best suited to review, revise and declutter in the luteal phase.
To Conclude
Strong men and strong women
Whilst both men and women’s hormones fluctuate over the month, hormonal fluctuations affect women in much greater measure than men. By virtue of this, a woman’s ‘strength’ shifts continuously from physical to mental, through emotional and social. Therefore, a ‘strong’ woman is a woman who is:
connected with her emotions in the menstrual phase;
engaged in goal-setting and planning, as well as in physical strength and skill practice, in the follicular phase;
wiling to give her best physically, mentally and socially in the ovulatory phase;
able to connect with, and take care of others in the luteal phase.
Interested in learning more?
Do you want to learn more about how your hormones affect your performance, and how you can organise your monthly schedule to work with your cycle? Would you like to know what foods to eat and what workouts to do in each phase, to be your strongest self all month long? Do you need recipe ideas to support your hormones? Do you want to get rid of cramps and migraines for good?
Join my Masterclass here and learn to work ‘with the flow’, not against it. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Book your FREE consultation today and balance your hormones in 12 weeks!
Remember: my biggest mission is to help you build your strongest body, sharpest mind and most connected Self.
If you need an extra boost to feel strong all month long, support your energy with ActiveIron: the only clinically-proven iron supplement on the market. It has 2x better absorption rate than other OTC supplements, and causes 6x less gut irritation. Get 10% with the code ‘GAIA10’. Just make sure you speak with your GP first.
Thanks for supporting me through my Amazon Influencer account: I will get a very small commission at no extra cost for you.
And thanks for supporting me on my journey: your presence means the world to me! A new podcast is also coming soon: stay tuned!
By the way, if you want to learn all about women’s hormone health, follow my new Instagram. I post daily and look forward to seeing you there. Moreover, I am going to give away free coaching sessions soon: you don’t want to miss the chance. But make sure you follow my old account, too, for daily fitness contents.
Last but not least, please, help me improve. Would you like to see more posts about hormones? I would appreciate it, if you could take some time to complete this survey. Your feedback means a lot to me. Thank you!
Who has never dreamed of being able to master the most complicated yoga asanas, such as the majestic Eka Pada Rajakapotasana ([One-legged] King Pigeon Pose), or the legendary double-hand Natarajasana (lord of the dance)? However, how embarrassing is it, when you step on the yoga mat for the first time in your life, feeling as stiff as a board, while everyone else around you looks like they were born on that mat? Good news is, you don’t need yoga classes to become a yogi, and you don’t need to be advanced to improve your flexibility.
Working on flexibility has a lot of benefits for your overall fitness
This is why setting a flexibility goal for yourself is a great idea:
the greater the ROM around a joint, the more efficient the movements produced by that joint. This means that you will be able to target the muscle correctly, stimulating all the fibres, and recruiting as many motor units as possible. In turn, this will help you achieve your strength or hypertrophy goals;
stretching a muscle group after exercising can help reduce DOMS and speed up recovery;
the more relaxed your muscle, the more relaxed your mind: regular practice of yoga and/or other types of stretching have been associated with stress management and overall, individual wellbeing.
1 Item that will make your yoga practice fun and easy
Yogi-me Yoga Mat (by @yogimeuk) is a revolutionary item that will turn your at-home yoga sessions into fun moments to look forward to: it is a yoga mat, with a full, laser printed flow on. It was originally designed for children however it can be just as helpful for beginners, too.
It comes in many different colours and 2 different flows to choose from: sun salutation, or freedom flow. Choosing the right colour was hard for me, as they all looked amazing however, I decided to go for the purple one, purple like the colour of my aura, according to someone who saw it. As to the flow, the choice was hard, too, and I eventually picked the sun salutation, as it is a different variation from the one I am used to doing, and I wanted to see how easy or hard it effectively was, to learn a new sequence just by looking at the images and reading the captions.
Well, the time-lapse down below speaks for itself: easy, fun, and QUICK!!! This mat will make it possible to improve your flexibility at home, without stress, and in as little as 5 minutes a day.
Feel free to check out and supportYogi-me on Instagram, for daily yoga inspiration. If you are considering purchasing Yogi-me Yoga Mat, I would really appreciate it, if you could use my Amazon Affiliate link: it is a free way to support both me and the seller. 🙂
You might have heard that muscle is also called the ‘organ of longevity’
Podcast
On 9 July 2020, I recorded a podcast with @Wildmanstrengthpt Taylor Thompson. Our discussion was mainly focused on the benefits of muscle growth, strength and power training for health, longevity and independence in old age. In that occasion, Taylor also presented his Wildman Strength & Longevity protocol for the first time. However, as we ran short of time, some topics were left uncovered, which are relevant to the process of muscle growth – such as micronutrient intakes and supplements. While you can read about, and watch the podcast here, I will attempt to give my 2 cents on what I consider to be the best hacks for muscle building in this post.
Sarcopenia and mortality
Before we dig into muscle building, it is important to understand why it is so important to our health. To do so, let’s start from the definition, and health implications of ‘sarcopenia’. The the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP) has defined sarcopenia as ‘the loss of muscle mass plus low muscle strength or low physical performance‘.
To asses how sarcopenia relates to human health, several studies were conducted between 2013 and 2014, in different countries and regions. What all those studies found was a strong correlation between sarcopenia and increased mortality in elderly population (80-85 years of age) (Arago-Lopera et al. 2013, Duchowny 2019, Landi et al. 2012, Landi et al. 2013). What it means, is that sarcopenia can be thought of as the direct responsible for natural mortality. Consequently, it also means that the more muscle you carry and the stronger you are, the lesser chances you have to die from sarcopenia.
Therefore, building as much muscle as possible at a young age can delay or prevent sarcopenia, hence extending one’s lifespan.
Power and independence in old age
Moreover, other studies have specifically associated strength and power training with increased functionality and independence in old age (De Vos 2008, Hazell 2007, Marsh et al. 2009). What this means, is that building significant strength and power at a young age can also extend one’s lifespan.
For these reasons, I like to refer to muscle as ’the bank of longevity’: invest in muscle now, live a better future.
How do we build muscle?
The four most important elements for muscle growth
1. Resistance training
In order to grow, muscle needs to be stimulated. Muscle growth is indeed a consequence of the body adapting to a consistent stimulus. As is of common knowledge, the highest hypertrophic response is achieved within a 8-12 rep range performed at 60-80% 1RM. However, sets of 5-6 reps can also promote hypertrophy, while building strength at the same time.
2. Leucine
This is by far the most important amino acid for muscle building, as it acts with insulin to activate the mTor pathway, which is responsible for cell metabolism and growth. To activate mTor, just as little as 2.5g of leucine are necessary, corresponding to 80-120g red meat, poultry or seafood; 17g whey protein isolate; 3 eggs; 70g hard cheese; 140g cottage cheese; 400g tofu (not very practical); 380g lentils (not very practical, either); 120g almonds (again, not very practical) (source: https://www.sportsdietitians.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/110701-Protein-Supplementation_General.pdf). While all protein-containing foods are great to build muscles, those high in leucine play the most important role in the process.
3. Carbohydrates
Although dietary carbohydrates are non essential nutrients in the human diet, meaning that the body can manufacture glucose from fat and protein (the process is known as ‘gluconeogenesis’), post exercise carbohydrate intake facilitates insulin production, activating the mTor pathway, and creating the ideal environment for muscle protein synthesis. However, highly processed carbohydrates (such as high-fructose corn syrup) can play a detrimental role in insuline sensitivity, in the long term. Therefore, try to prioritise fruit, raw honey, starches, gluten-free grains and legumes.
4. Sleep
Muscle is stimulated in the gym, nourished with adequate leucine and carbs but it is regenerated while resting. Human growth hormone (HGH), which is responsible for all growth mechanisms in the body, is indeed secreted by the anterior pituitary gland while sleeping. Adequate sleep is therefore crucial to muscle building. Furthermore, an optimised sleep-wake cycle regulates the melatonin-cortisol ratio, hence reducing stress and promoting muscle-building even more.
My favourite supplements for muscle growth
1. Pre Workout. L-Arginine
It is a precursor of nitric oxide and has two important roles, as it:
stimulates blood production – potentially facilitating nutrient delivery in the muscles –
has been shown to increase growth hormone levels in the blood.
Even though the literature on taking L-Arginine supplements is still controversial and further research is probably needed to confirm its efficacy, taking 3 g dissolved in 50ml water as a pre-workout can potentially increase both performance and muscle growth.
2 Intra Workout. EEAA (essential amino acids)
To sustain high-volume workouts, dissolving 15g EEAA in 500ml water, with ¼ tsp Himalayan salt and 1tsp unsweetened berry jam or organic honey has become a must for me. During high volume training, glycogen stores might run low, so sipping high GI sugars (from berry jam or honey) will replenish glycogen fast, while adding EEAA will prevent further energy from being taken from muscle fibres. I also add Himalayan salt to replenish the electrolytes that get lost through sweat.
3 Post Workout. L-Glutamine and Creatine
Glutamine is a conditionally essential amino acid, meaning that, although it is produced by our body in otherwise sufficient amounts, in particularly stressful circumstances, the body tends to run low and it needs to be replenished. 5-10g post workout are proven to speed up recovery in some trial studies (e.g. Legault et al. 2015).
Creatine is a compound produced by the liver, made from the amino acids arginine, glycine and methionine. As you might know, it is also used by the muscle cells to produce energy. Therefore, ensuring that creatine stores are always full, assists muscle recovery and facilitates energy production in muscles. The debate as to whether it is advisable to assume creatine before or after a workout is still open, however I personally prefer adding 1 scoop to my post-workout whey protein shake, alongside l-glutamine.
4 Before Bed. Tryptophan
Tryptophan is a precursor of both melatonin and serotonin (the happiness hormone). Melatonin being essential for HGH production and release, drinking 3g of tryptophan with 50ml water before bed can potentially facilitate muscle growth.
Conclusion
Even though the debate is still open as to whether taking supplements can significantly improve muscle growth, research seems to unanimously agree on the health benefits of muscle mass, as well as on the functional role of strength and power training. One more caveat concerns the quality of supplements.
Indeed, the supplement industry is a relatively new one, and substantial studies on long-term supplementation lack to this day – to give an example, tryptophan was banned for well over a decade (from 1990 to 2005), as tryptophan produced by a certain company was proven to cause eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS), due to toxins elicited by the genetically-modified bacteria used by that company in its fermentation process (you can read the full story here). Whether deciding to take supplements to help muscle growth is your choice – and so are the potential risks involved – you can surely control the quality of such supplements. Here are some easy tips to do so:
make sure you read labels carefully and avoid those with too many additives (these are usually encoded as an ‘E-numbers’ code, so you basically want to avoid as many ‘E’s as possible);
try to always choose the brand which contains the highest possible percentage of supplement (and the lowest of additives);
before purchasing supplements from an unknown brand, do some research and check if, and how many peer-reviewed studies exist on that specific product: even though such studies might be highly biased by the interests of the supplement company, reading through what some scientists have found out about a product, is always better than knowing nothing at all.
Remember, when it comes to health, make sure you always choose quality over quantity. Stay strong everyone!
Book a FREE consultation today, and learn how you can build muscle quickly and effectively:
A disciplined and focused mind can achieve anything. This is no secret, even in the bodybuilding world. In fact, some of the greatest bodybuilders ever, such as 6x Mr Olympia Dorian Yates and ‘bodybuilding yogi’ Ben Pakulski, have compared training to meditation, and emphasised the importance of mind training to improve physical training too. Moreover, more and more athletes have been experimenting with visualisation and some of them have even attributed their success to their constant visualisation practice (e.g. 2x Ms Figure Olympia Erin Stern). Lastly, the motivational benefits of self-talk in sports have been exhaustively explored and reviewed (see Hardy 2006). But how does this translate into your everyday’s workout?
I’ve always regarded my workout as MY moment, in which nothing else is allowed but training-related movements and thoughts. There is no room for stress or preoccupation, nor is there any space for looking at my mirror reflection and analysing my physique. When I lift, I just lift, rest, sip some water and lift again. I might listen to some music or greet a friend, as long as these ‘distractions’ don’t affect my workout. When I train, I want to be present in the moment, I want to train mindfully. As any other routine, you want to perform every single act in the same way, as a sacred ritual, however, you want to do so intentionally and purposefully. And, I can say, when you train this way, your physical strength, mass and technique will also improve. On top of it, you’ll feel less stressed out and more relaxed. Below are a brief description of what a mindful workout should look like, and some quick strategies to make your workout mindful.
Mindful Workout Structure
In order for your workout to be mindful, there are 3 points to concentrate on:
Feel muscles activating. When you focus on the ‘here and now’ in the weight room, it translates into shifting your attention from the surroundings to your own muscle contraction, trying to feel your muscle fibres shortening and lengthening as much as you can. Don’t worry if you can’t feel your muscle contraction very deeply initially, it will improve over time, as long as you keep your practice consistent.
Control muscle activation. This step comes immediately after feeling your muscles activating and enables you to become aware of your ability to control your muscles, and to feel such ability. Again, your skills will improve over time.
Isolate exercise execution from gym environment and noises. This is the hardest part of a mindful workout, as it means that you should be able to isolate yourself from the gym environment and not let distractions interfere with your training. For advanced mindful athletes, this also means being able to not let inner distractions, such as thoughts or emotions, interfere with their workout. As a beginner, trying not to look at the person using the machine next to yours for the entire exercise duration is enough.
Strategies to Make your Workout Mindful
Here’re some strategies to practice mindful fitness. Some are meant to help you get into a mindful state, others are to be used during your workout, some others are general tricks or tools which you can implement in your everyday life to help your workout become mindful:
Scan your body before warmup. Individuate stiffness, pain or aches, or areas that need to be focused on when training.
Focus on stiff areas during warmup and try to loosen them up (you can also use a foam-roller or a lacrosse ball).
Focus on muscle contraction and relaxation during each rep and try to control muscle activation. You can literally visualise your muscles shortening and lengthening, as well as your brain pulling your tendons through your nervous system, as if it was a puppeteer pulling the threads.
Make sure you breathe deeply throughout, and don’t let your increased heart rate make your breath too shallow (you want to bring in as much oxygen as you can and you want to feel in control of your breath all the time). Needless to say, this doesn’t apply to intense cardio (I’m mostly referring to weight training).
Keep a training journal in which you record parameters such as ‘ability to feel the muscles’, ‘ability to control the muscles’, ‘ability to concentrate on exercise in a busy environment’.
Always start your workout from those exercises in which you feel you struggle to control or activate your muscles and see how they improve over time (again, a journal is the most helpful way to do so).
How Long for?
I encourage you to keep a mindfulness journal for at least 4 weeks, and to review your progress both at the end of each week and at the end of the full programme. If you need some more advice, or if you’d like to use my Mindful Fitness Journal, schedule a FREE session today.
Apply here to work with me:
I hope you’ve found this article helpful. If so, feel free to read more of my posts and articles.
After quitting veganism in April 2019, I started experimenting with a ketogenic diet, to see if I could: 1) fix my digestion, 2) improve my performance at the gym, 3) burn some body fat more easily. I was also curious to understand what kind of impact it might have on my energy levels and overall focus. I officially began my experiment the last week on May, and concluded it at the end of November.
My Protocol
As I was expecting (based on the literature I had read and the video I had watched), the first couple of weeks were the toughest ones. The principle of ketosis is that, instead of using glucose from carbs as your primary source of energy, your liver produces ketone bodies from short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) which travel across your body and supply energy to organs and tissues (thus sparing glucose supplies for your brain — as it can’t work without). Shifting from carbs to fats can take some time and can cause brain fog, lack of energy, headache (the so-called ‘keto flu’). So, as you can imagine, the first couple of weeks can be very painful. To reach ketosis and stay in it, all you need to do is:
Fast until you’ve depleted all of your glycogen stores
Consume a diet high in fats (60-75% of your calories), moderate in proteins (20-30% of your calories), and very low in carbs (5-10% of your calories, usually coming from low GI vegetables and fruit, such as cruciferous veggies, green beans, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, berries etc.)
Avoid high GI foods (starch, grains, most fruit, sugar, syrup, honey, etc.)
Limit your daily meals to 2-3, as you don’t want your insuline to spike, or it’ll prevent lipolysis (the process of fatty acids being released from the adipose cells to be used for energy).
As I work out everyday, and as I like to keep my workouts’ volume quite high, I adjusted my macros so that my carbs would never go below 50g a day, to be split between pre- and post-workout meals (what is commonly called a ‘modified or targeted ketogenic diet’). So my typical day looked like this:
4-6:30 am. Breakfast: water and lemon, coffee, peppermint tea
2-3pm. Pre-workout shake: whey isolate 97% protein powder, 1 small green banana or 1 cup of grapes
6pm. Dinner: salmon/lamb mince/beef mince/steak/liver/kidneys/lamb heart cooked in butter or coconut oil, steamed or baked vegetables (courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes, bell peppers, spinach, green beans), coconut yoghurt with frozen berries, 100% dark chocolate.
My Results
As I’ve anticipated, the first 2 weeks were really tough and my performance at the gym suffered quite a bit. Due to the lack of glycogen in my muscles, I couldn’t cope with high volume training, so I decided to lower my rep range and increase the weight (this way I could solely rely on the phosphocreatine energy system, in which ATP is more efficiently replenished than in the lactic acid energy system). Once in ketosis and fully adapted to using fats, however, I was able go back to my usual workout routine for most exercises. As the body becomes more efficient at using fats, indeed, the process of gluconeogenesis (namely the production of glucose out of fats and amino acids) also becomes smoother and glycogen can be stored in muscles just as easily as when running on carbs. However, I never managed to go back to my usual range of reps in exercises such as hack squats and pull-ups, in which the demand for glycogen is too great for the tiny amount produced by my liver and kidneys from other macronutrients. According to some studies on rats (Fournier et al. 2002) and on humans (Fournier et al. 2004), glycogen can be replenished even in the absence of food. However, it also depends on genetic predisposition, and, at this point, I think my body is not as genetically efficient at producing glycogen as someone else’s.
The other aspect I wanted to scrutinise was my digestion. Although I was on a lowFODMAP version of a ketogenic diet, the high amount of fats would occasionally get me bloated and slightly constipated. However, my energy levels were always high (after the first couple of weeks), and my appetite significantly decreased (as I wasn’t relying on insulin anymore). This subsequently improved my focus and my sense of balance and stability.
Surprisingly, although most people go keto because it is one of the most effective ways to lose weight, I must admit that the aesthetic effects of the diet is the only aspect of my experiment that has disappointed me. Regardless of what the literature says, my muscles never seemed to be fully replenished with glycogen and would appear flat most of the time (as I said, it might be that my genetics is not really efficient at producing glycogen). Moreover, even though staying in ketosis can be an excellent way to lose fat, it makes it really hard to gain weight. When I started my usual bulking after summer, I found it really difficult to put on weight beyond my maintenance. For this reason, at the end of November, I decided to go back to my typical 5-6 meals a day, increasing my carbs and lowering my fats until next spring (at least).
My Advice for You
Overall, I’ve become more efficient at using fats and much less sensitive to blood sugar fluctuations. Moreover, increasing the amount of fats also increases the amount of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) that can be absorbed and can be beneficial for your health. For both these reasons, I would encourage everyone to try. Here’re my tips and strategies if you’re interested in trying:
Set a realistic timeframe for results to occur (at least 8-12 weeks) and be mentally prepared for the first 2-3 weeks being extremely tough
Plan your meals and shopping list in advance: although most keto recipes are very easy to make, you might not be used to cooking with butter and eating fatty cuts of meat or fish, or, in the initial phase, you might have some sugar cravings that you might want to satisfy the ‘sugar-free way’ (there’re plenty of keto-friendly dessert recipes online and many require just a few ingredients). The further you go with your diet, however, the less cravings you’ll have
Make sure you eat enough calories (i.e. make sure you replace the calories you’re taking away from carbs with the same amount coming from fats). The rule of thumb is this: 1g of fat has slightly more than twice the amount of calories of 1g of carb. Therefore 50g of pasta or rice can be easily replaced with 20-25g of butter or hard cheese, to give an example
Make sure you keep your diet varied and never boring. Try to learn 1 new recipe every week using 1 different low GI vegetable and 1 different fatty cut of meat or fish. You’ll be surprised by how delicious such recipes can be!
Enjoy the process and don’t be too hard on yourself if you cheat from time to time. Remember to embrace the growth and the wisdom that experimenting with a new lifestyle will bring you but keep it fun, easy and realistic!
If you’ve liked this post, stay tune because I’m planning to share some ‘guilt-free’ keto recipes for delicious cakes or desserts. 🙂
References
Fournier PA, Bräu L, Ferreira LD, Fairchild T, Raja G, James A, Palmer TN. 2002. ‘Glycogen resynthesis in the absence of food ingestion during recovery from moderate or high intensity physical activity: novel insights from rat and human studies’. Comparative biochemistry and physiology. Part A, Molecular & integrative physiology (Nov)133(3):755-63 (DOI: 10.1016/s1095-6433(02)00254-4).
Fournier PA, Fairchild TJ, Ferreira LD, Bräu L. 2004. ‘Post-exercise muscle glycogen repletion in the extreme: effect of food absence and active recovery’. Journal of sports science & medicine (Sep)1;3(3):139-46.
In the Nietzsche Haus in Sils Maria (Engadin) is a collection of gadgets and various merchandising inspired by Nietzsche: among these, some energy bars stand out, upon which a stylised superman [Übermensch] is sketched out. There is a common tendency to implicitly connect Nietzscheʼs Übermensch with athleticism. Other concepts of Nietzscheʼs have been sometimes applied to the sports or other forms of physical activity –– for example, Nietzscheʼs idea of the ʻfree spiritʼ has been recently compared to football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Portier 2014). Moreover, Nietzscheʼs relationship to dance has been exhaustively analysed over the years (Müller 1995; Reschke 2000; Röller 2001). However, albeit widely acknowledged, Nietzscheʼs actual impact on fitness and bodybuilding is still to be explored.
In the essay ʻOrchids and Musclesʼ, Alphonso Lingis portrays bodybuilding very critically, in what could be arguably described as a negative way. This is his opinion on bodybuilding:
In the absence of a public cause before them and before us, the public mind can only rummage around for psychological causes producing these cases […]. One sees them narcissistically pumping themselves into ostentatious sex symbols –– but symbols that sexually liberated public recognizes as the obsolete figure of virile protector, who was also phallocrat and wife-beater. When the mind finds itself seduced to look where there is no cause inscribed, it turns away in resentment (Lingis 1988: 103).
At the very end, Lingis describes bodybuilding ʻas the monstrous excrescence of maternity in the virile figure of powerʼ, and relates it to Nietzscheʼs idea of ʻpowerʼ, as well as to narcissism (ibid: 115). Although I quite disagree with the author’s view on bodybuilding as an expression of narcissism, I sure agree on pointing out some Nietzschean elements too, but I want to extend the concept of ʻpowerʼ to its two manifestations as: self-overcoming and self-becoming.
Power and Self-Overcoming
What is Nietzscheʼs understanding of ʻpowerʼ?
Beside the popular book which Nietzsche had never agreed to publish but was nonetheless released posthumously by his sister and Peter Gast, based on one of Nietzscheʼs private publication plans, the idea of ʻwill to powerʼ appears in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886).
In both works, Nietzscheʼs understandings of ʻpowerʼ and ʻwill to powerʼ are to be read in terms of interpretation. So he writes in Zarathustra: ʻWhat urges you on, and arouses your ardor, you wisest of men, do you call it “will to truth”? Will to conceivability of all being: That is what I call your will. […] That is your entire will, you wisest men; it is a will to power, and that is so even when you talk of good and evil and of the assessment of valuesʼ (Za II, ʻOf Self-Overcomingʼ, KSA 4: 146). According to Nietzscheʼs understanding, ʻwill to powerʼ means nothing but life itself, that is to say, no individualism or social implications are implied in the conception, given that such concepts are created by life in its own evaluation process and are given merely as a result. So Nietzsche carries on, through Zarathustraʼs mouth: ʻWhere I found a living creature, there I found will to power; and even in the will of the servant I found the will to be master. […] The living creatures value many things higher than life itself; yet out of this evaluation itself speaks –– the will to powerʼ (ibid, KSA 4: 147-49). In Beyond Good and Evil, the same meaning is expressed through the famous sentence, at the end of aphorism 22, with which Nietzsche anticipates a response to possible criticisms to his notion of ʻwill to powerʼ: ʻSupposing that this also is only an interpretation –– and you will be eager enough to raise that objection? –– well, so much the betterʼ (JGB I, 22, KSA 5: 37). So long as everything is subject to interpretation, in fact, the concept of interpretation itself stops making sense, when understood in terms of ʻtruthʼ.
In this sense, this concept goes also hand in hand with that of self-overcoming: there must be no ego, life must be allowed to transcend and constantly overcome itself. Such an idea is elsewhere defined by Nietzsche as ʻAmor Fatiʼ, a latin phrase for ʻlove for fateʼ, representing the condition of someone who has learnt not only to accept their own impotency towards their own destiny, but also to love and embrace such unfathomable, inescapable, destiny. The concept appeared for the first time in a fragment from Autumn 1881 (15[20]), was re-elaborated in another note a couple of months later (16[22]) and also in a letter to Nietzscheʼs life-time friend Franz Overbeck (5 June 1882). It was then officially introduced for the first time in the Gay Science (1882/1887, § 276), and then re-elaborated again in a few private notes (NF 1884, 25[500]; NF 1888, 16[32]; NF 1888 25[7]), to be finally redelivered to his readers in Nietzsche Contra Wagner [1888] (1889, ʻEpilogueʼ, § 1) and Ecce Homo [1888] (1889, ʻWhy I Am So Cleverʼ, § 10; ʻThe Case Wagnerʼ, § 4).
Self-Overcoming and Bodybuilding
How does this all relate to bodybuilding? As I will show in this section, there are several aspects of Nietzscheʼs idea of ʻself-overcomingʼ that can be easily related to bodybuilding –– the most obvious one being the constant hitting and breaking PR: every time you hit a new record, you’ve automatically overcome your old self –– to put it in a more Nietzschean way, life (the ʻwill to powerʼ) has overcome itself through your hitting a new pr. Likewise, your constant improving your strength, your physique, your endurance, etc., can all be thought of as examples of self-overcoming.
Even more than this, however, one should point out the egoless element of a real bodybuilding journey. First of all, a true bodybuilder dissolves him or herself in the workout; they put concentration before anything else, and their egos ultimately undergo a dissolution: when training, a bodybuilder becomes humble, they start from a low weight and then slowly, religiously, increase it, improving their strength over time.
Finally, and this is the most important aspect, like Nietzsche, as a bodybuilder, you acknowledge that your progress is not really yours but belongs to something greater, of which you’re just a part (e.g. constant training, proper diet, genetics, motivational environment, etc.).
You might raise the objection that this kind of discourse applies to other philosophies too on the one hand, and to any other sport or discipline too on the other hand. And that’s sure the case, after all this is precisely why Nietzsche considers everything as an expression of the ʻwill to powerʼ. However, if we proceed further with our analysis, we shall see how another corollary of Nietzsche’s understanding of ʻpowerʼ resonates with bodybuilding even more, namely, the idea of ʻself-Becomingʼ.
Self-Becoming
What does it mean to become who one is?
In Ecce Homo (1888), Nietzsche dwells upon the concept of self-becoming extensively, although without explaining what he means by that. He just talks about how he has become who he is. And this means that there’s no one-size-fits-all rule when it comes down to self-becoming. However, Nietzsche gives us some advice to become who we are –– the most important one being to reconnect with our instincts. Interestingly, knowing one’s own ideal diet and exercise is one of the key elements of self-becoming.
Indeed, Nietzsche used to self-prescribe diets and exercises to fight his painful migraines; he was into hiking, ice-skating, swimming, and found the typical German diet totally unhealthy. As he writes in EH, ʻWhy I Am So Cleverʼ, §1, Nietzsche seems to perceive a correlation between not only diet and overall health, but also between diet and individual, as well as collective, morals:
Indeed, I can say, that up to a very mature age, my food wasentirely bad—expressed morally, it was “impersonal”, “selfless”, “altruistic”, to the glory of cooks and all other fellow-Christians. It was through the cooking in vogue at Leipzig, for instance, together with my first study of Schopenhauer (1865), that I earnestly renounced my “Will to Live”. To spoil one’s stomach by absorbing insufficient nourishment—this problem seemed to my mind solved with admirable felicity by the above-mentioned cookery. (It is said that in the year 1866 changes were introduced into this department.) But as to German cookery in general—what has it not got on its conscience! Soup beforethe meal (still called alla tedesca in the Venetian cookery books of the sixteenth century); meat boiled to shreds, vegetables cooked with fat and flour; the degeneration of pastries into paper-weights! And, if you add there to the absolutely bestial post-prandial drinking habits of the ancients, and not alone of the ancient Germans, you will understand where German intellect took its origin—that is to say, in sadly disordered intestines…. German intellect is indigestion; it can assimilate nothing. But even English diet, which in comparison with German, and indeed with French alimentation, seems to me to constitute a “return to Nature,”—that is to say, to cannibalism,—is profoundly opposed to my own instincts. It seems to me to give the intellect heavy feet, in fact, Englishwomen’s feet…. The best cooking is that of Piedmont. Alcoholic drinks do not agree with me; a single glass of wine or beer a day is amply sufficient to turn life into a valley of tears for me;—in Munich live my antipodes. Although I admit that this knowledge came to me somewhat late, it already formed part of my experience even as a child. As a boy I believed that the drinking of wine and the smoking of tobacco were at first but the vanities of youths, and later merely bad habits. Maybe the poor wine of Naumburg was partly responsible for this poor opinion of wine in general. In order to believe that wine was exhilarating, I should have had to be a Christian—in other words, I should have had to believe in what, to my mind, is an absurdity. Strange to say, whereas small quantities of alcohol, taken with plenty of water, succeed in making me feel out of sorts, large quantities turn me almost into a rollicking tar. Even as a boy I showed my bravado in this respect […]. Later on, towards the middle of my life, I grew more and more opposed to alcoholic drinks: I, an opponent of vegetarianism, who have experienced what vegetarianism is,—just as Wagner, who converted me back to meat, experienced it,—cannot with sufficient earnestness advise all more spiritual natures to abstain absolutely from alcohol (translation by Anthony M. Ludovici. 1911. Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis: 30-32).
The first thing we learn from the above passage is the necessity of a diet being: personal, individually designed, egoistic (in the sense of being perfectly adapted to individual needs). Indeed, he blames his youth diet (a typical German diet) for being ʻimpersonalʼ, ʻselflessʼ, ʻaltruisticʼ and therefore Christian –– which according to his mature understanding means opposed to life and instincts (as he explains inThe Anti-Christ; [1888], 1889). So Nietzsche advocates a reconnection with one’s own, individual, ʻinstinctsʼ, for both optimal physical health (he speaks about ʻdigestionʼ) and best intellectual activity. In his specific case, one can deduce that Nietzsche prefers to avoid: excessive ʻfat and flourʼ; heavy cooking (ʻthe degeneration of pastries into paper-weightʼ); excessive alcohol. Interestingly, we also learn that Nietzsche had tried a vegetarian diet on himself at the time of his fascination for Schopenhauer and Wagner, and been dissuaded from this type of diet by this latter himself (later in his life, Nietzsche will notoriously discourage young students of his from attempting vegetarianism by using Wagner’s own argument indeed).
Then he makes his point of what a balance diet should look like:
A heavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. The first principle of a good digestion is that the stomach should become active as a whole. A man ought, therefore, to know the size of his stomach. For the same reasons all those interminable meals, which I call interrupted sacrificial feasts, and which are to be had at any table d’hôte, are strongly to be deprecated. Nothing should be eaten between meals, coffee should be given up—coffee makes one gloomy. Tea is beneficial only in the morning. It should be taken in small quantities, but very strong. It may be very harmful, and indispose you for the whole day, if it be taken the least bit too weak. Everybody has his own standard in this matter, often between the narrowest and most delicate limits. In an enervating climate tea is not a good beverage with which to start the day: an hour before taking it an excellent thing is to drink a cup of thick cocoa, freed from oil [entölten]. Remain seated as little as possible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion—nor in one in which even the muscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices take their origin in the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Spirit (ibid).
The first condition for optimal digestion is simplicity (ʻa heavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. […] the stomach should become active as a wholeʼ). The other conditions can be translated as: avoiding snacks between meals; avoiding coffee; drinking tea sparingly and in the morning solely –– however tea should always be strong––; drinking fat free, thick hot chocolate one hour prior to morning tea in ʻenervatingʼ climates; being as active as possible and mostly outdoor(ʻRemain seated as little as possible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion—nor in one in which even the muscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices take their origin in the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Spiritʼ). So, later in § 10:
these trivial matters—diet, locality, climate, and one’s mode of recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness; self-love—are inconceivably more important than, all that which has hitherto been held in high esteem! It is precisely in this quarter that we must begin to learn afresh. All those things which mankind has valued with such earnestness heretofore are not even real; they are mere creations of fancy, or, more strictly speaking, lies born of the evil instincts of diseased and, in the deepest sense, noxious natures—all the concepts, “God”, “soul”, “virtue”, “sin”, “Beyond”, “truth”, “eternal life”. … But the greatness of human nature, its “divinity”, was sought for in them…. (ibid: 52).
Therefore, a return to what was traditionally perceived as ʻtrivial mattersʼ, such as ʻdietʼ itself is key, according to Nietzsche, to accomplishing the ʻdivinityʼ of ʻhuman natureʼ, its ʻgreatnessʼ.
In his Letters From Turin (1889), Nietzsche explains what a usual meal of his at the restaurant looks like: ʻminestra or risotto, a good portion of meat, vegetable and bread—all good … I eat here with the serenest disposition of soul and stomachʼ; in other words, carbs, protein and just a little bit of fat, the typical bodybuilder diet (let’s forget about the bread for one moment). One of his favourite carb sources has always been risotto, as we learn from a few letters, whose prep technique Nietzsche was taught by his housekeeper in Genoa (very interestingly, I found a reproduction of his recipe on this website: https://paperandsalt.org/2014/03/31/friedrich-nietzsche-lemon-risotto-with-asparagus-and-mint/). Ultimately, in a letter to his mother and sister written in Genoa (Italy) on 6 April 1881, Nietzsche claims that his diet is ʻso changeable […], depending on the place or the climateʼ –– as mentioned above, Nietzsche was very sensitive to his somewhat poor health, in particular concerning his migraine and digestive issues.
Although, on a general level, there are certain principles which most individuals should benefit from (such as consuming simple meals and being outdoor as much as possible), in Nietzsche’s overall idea of ʻself-becomingʼ, individuality is key. Such individuality, however, manifests itself through one’s own diet in the first place. Understanding how important and unique one’s own nature and instincts are is the only way for a man or woman to become who they really are; however, it also means that the first thing they have to learn is to abandon their egoistic prejudice (Nietzsche dwells upon the ego delusion in the first part of Beyond Good and Evil extensively), and embrace the uncontrollable chain of inner instincts and surrounding events that has built their individuality over time, and that will continue to do so. This is why I like to think of Nietzsche’s idea of ʻSelf-Becomingʼ as a ʻcorollaryʼ of his ideas of ʻwill to powerʼ and ʻamor fatiʼ. In Nietzsche’s view, connecting with one’s own instincts and individual needs is the best way to become who one is. As we shall see, this has much to do with bodybuilding too.
What Does ʻSelf-Becomingʼ Mean in Bodybuilding?
The aforementioned individuality that is so important in Nietzsche’s idea of ʻbecoming who one isʼ finds its equivalent meaning in the bodybuilding idea of fulfilling one’s own genetic potential. First of all, in bodybuilding, understanding and mastering concepts such as ʻbody typeʼ, ʻmetabolic rateʼ, ʻindividual dieting and trainingʼ is the basis for success. Every good bodybuilder knows whether their body type is ʻectomorphicʼ, ʻmesomorphicʼ or ʻendomorphicʼ, and designs their workouts and diets accordingly. Secondly, knowing how a bodybuilder’s body reacts to certain foods, beverages, stress and certain exercises is paramount to tailoring the best workout programme and meal plan a bodybuilder can benefit from. For instance, some individuals do well on high carbs and low fats, as opposed to others who perform at their best on a high-fat diet; some people (especially women) have genetically strong legs and weaker upper bodies, some others are stronger in their back and chest and not so in their legs; certain people respond well to steady cardio, versus others who prefer HIIT; some individuals need to consume more or less calories than others to achieve the same results, etc. Thirdly, this discourse applies to the division choice: to give you the most obvious example, typically, a Bikini competitor can hardly do well in a Women’s Physique or Bodybuilding contest, and vice versa; whereas a Figure competitor can potentially move up or down her division, but will have to work really hard to achieve her goal physique. One could even argue that:
bodybuilding is the constant pursuit of the ideal body, based on acknowledging one’s individual strengths and weaknesses, and striving to realise the full potential of the former, while working hard to compensate for, and minimise, the latter.
Another element from Nietzsche’s idea of ʻSelf-Becomingʼ deserving attention is his emphasising the role of one’s diet in their ʻbecoming who they areʼ. Diet is obviously as important as workouts in bodybuilding. As everyone knows, one needs to eat in a caloric surplus, if they want to build muscle, however ʻabs are made in the kitchenʼ, meaning that one has to eat clean and below their maintenance caloric intake, if they want their hard-built muscle to finally stand out. Even closer to Nietzsche’s idea, however, is the fact that bodybuilders don’t eat for personal enjoyment, but consider food as fuel, constantly calculating macros and adjusting their ratio based on their personal needs (bulking, maintenance, cutting). As it was for Nietzsche, here simplicity plays again a pivotal role: meals should be simple, effective and easily digestible. Moreover, it is important to point out the role of certain foods and drinks (such as carbs, salt and water) during peak week and on show day: often time, restricting carbs and manipulating sodium and water intake during the week leading to the show, and then carb-loading on show day, can really determine a competitor’s placement in their competition. Lastly, timing is also imperative, if one wants to succeed as a bodybuilder: whether you intermittent fast or not, consuming small meals in a certain time window, possibly the same everyday, is common practice among successful bodybuilders. Similar to Nietzsche’s advice, bodybuilders want to stick to the same amount of meals everyday, and not to snack in between.
The Übermensch at Mr Olympia
Self-Sculpting and Self-Experimentation
What is accounted in Ecce Homo represents Nietzsche’s own, personal and unique, self-becoming. If one wanted to find a more generalised ideal of self-becoming, the figures of the Übermensch and of the ʻhigher manʼ described in Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, respectively, are to be looked at. Both types of men are depicted as something that has yet to come; they appear far away from the men of the crowd, able to incorporate their instincts in their personality, without rejecting them or being driven by them. They are the only ones that can bear the ʻdeath of Godʼ without falling prey of the so-called ʻshadows of Godʼ (see The Gay Science, §§ 208-209). These ideal men are brave enough to reject pre-established values and belief systems, and to experiment on theirselves until they find their own belief systems.
As Paul Bishop has recently observed, Nietzsche’s representation of the Übermensch can arguably be considered a form of ʻself-Sculptingʼ, belonging to a wide tradition that can be traced back to late Antiquity (Bishop 2017). The ideas of constant self-experimentation and self-sculpting are naturally predominant characteristics of bodybuilding too; so is the strive to return to a certain Greek ideal of perfection (as I’ve previously suggested; see Schwarzenegger 1985; Fair 2015).
Nietzsche’s Idea of the Athletes
On top of that, Nietzsche makes use of sport metaphors in his published texts. For example, in The Genealogy of Morals (1887), Nietzsche compares the ʻphilosophersʼ fighting ʻa war […] against [a] lack of enthusiasmʼ to ʻsportsmen of “holiness”ʼ [sportsmen der “Heiligkeit”], who have ʻin fact found a real release from what they were fighting against with such a rigorous training [training]ʼ. In the same section, references to the impact of a diet on ʻoneʼs physical well beingʼ –– and to physiology more broadly –– recur throughout. In fact, Nietzsche tries to address religious, psychological and moral categories as responses to ʻa feeling of physiological inhibitionʼ which cannot ʻenter peopleʼs explanations, due to their ʻlack of knowledge about physiologyʼ (GM III, § 17).
Conclusion
If Alphonso Lingis righteously guessed a little bit of Nietzsche in bodybuilding, his reducing such little bit of Nietzsche to the social implications of his representation ofʻpowerʼ does not suffice. So writes Lingis: ʻevery great epoch of culture, Nietzsche wrote, is not only an epoch of humankind’s cultivating of nature –– transforming of nature’s resources in accordance with its own idea –– it is also an epoch in the history of humankind’s cultivation of its own nature –– transforming its own nature in accordance with its ideal. Every great culture, marked by distinctive intellectual, artistic and moral productions, has also set up a distinctive icon of bodily perfectionʼ (Lingis 1988: 101).
As I’ve argued throughout this post, in my opinion, Nietzsche’s strive for self-overcoming, self-becoming, self-experimenting and self-sculpting are the real elements to be emphasised, when one wants to compare Nietzsche’s philosophy with bodybuilding. Moreover, Nietzsche’s stress on body and ʻphysiologyʼ over morals and metaphysics, as well as his emphasising the importance of rigour and discipline (not to be forgotten, Nietzsche was first of all a philologist), his comparing philosophers to ʻsportsmenʼ are all signs of his will to attribute a certain value to the body that goes beyond its separation from the mind. Lingis is right to point out Nietzsche’s idea of humankind’s ʻtransforming its own nature in accordance with its idealʼ, but he is wrong in identifying such an ideal with mere narcissism, forgetting the strive to self-becoming that underpins bodybuilding. It is not just about building a body; it is also about building a better version of oneself –– hence self-becoming ––, through constant self-experimentation and self-overcoming. The idea of self-sculpting is no merely an aesthetic one; it is the idea of working on oneself (getting rid of what does not suit one’s own nature and sticking with what really works for oneself), towards the full realisation of one’s ultimate self.
Bishop, Paul.2017. On The Blissful Island With Nietzsche And Jung: In The Shadow Of The Superman. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Fair, John D. 2015. Mr. America: The Tragic History of a Bodybuilding Icon. Austin: University Of TexasPress.
Lingis, Alphonso. 1988. ʻOrchids and Musclesʼ.InDavid Farrell Krell, and David Wood (eds). Exceedingly Nietzsche: Aspects of Contemporary Nietzsche Interpretation.London and New York: Routledge: 97-115.
Müller, Farguell Roger W. 1995.Tanz-Figuren: zur metaphorischen Konstitution von Bewegung in Texten: Schiller, Kleist, Heine, Nietzsche. Munich: W. Fink.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1967 ––. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke Nietzsches. Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin / New York: De Gruyter.
––. [1888]. Ecce Homo. Translated by Anthony M. Ludovici. Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis, 1911.
––. 1887. On The Genealogy of Morals. A Polemical Tract. Translated by Ian Johnston. Arlington: Richer Resources Publications, 2009.
––. 2009 ––. Digital Critical Edition(edited by P. DʼIorio).
Portier, Sylvain. 2014. Zlatan Ibrahimovic ou comment retrouver le sérieux que l’on mettait dans ses jouets, étant enfant Friedrich Nietzsche. – [Vallet] : Éditions M-editer, 2014. – 44 S. : Ill. – (Livre’L).
Reschke, Renate. 2000.ʻDie andere Perspektive: Ein Gott, der zu tanzen verstündeʼ.In: Volker Gerhardt (ed.). Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra. Berlin: Akademie Verlag: 257-284
Röller, Gisela. 2001. Tanz als Form des Denkens: Friedrich Nietzsche, Denen jenseits von Schluß und Dialektik. Jansen, Lüneburg: Jansen.
Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 1985. The New Encyclopaedia of Modern Bodybuilding. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998 (2nd edition).
Although our modern concept of symmetry appeared for the first time in the 18thcentury, Plato’s Idea of beauty seems to be strongly connected with the question of symmetry (Lloyd 2010). In the Timaeus, for instance, the concept of bodily “disproportion” is brought forward, whereas in the well-known Symposium, the character of Philebus distinguishes between a beauty “of animals or picture” and a “beauty of form”, which is the kind of true beauty, namely that characterising solid geometric forms. Still in the same dialogue, Socrates’ final speech, known to the many as “Diotima’s speech”, emphasises the role of “physical beauty” towards the contemplation of the ultimate kind of beauty, its principle itself, or, to put it with Plato’s own notorious vocabulary, its “idea”. As is well known, Plato considers physical experience as a less pure version of ideal experience: through the objects we reach the ideas. And beauty appears as one of the highest ideals, attracting people and leading them to knowledge. As brought up by David R. Lloyd, the concept of beauty as symmetry is put forward quite clearly in Plato’s Timaeus (33b), when it is stated that “similarity is ‘incomparably superior to dissimilarity’”, and then the so-called “harmonic series” – namely a combination of ratios derived from the mathematics of music – are introduced (ibid). Plato’s idea of perfection culminates in the “sphere”.
But this is not all. In the Republic (401a), Plato compares outer grace and harmony with inner temperance and goodness. However, whereas the body does not affect the quality of the soul, the opposite seems to be true: a good soul can improve the body’s appearance to a certain extent (ibid: 403d), and, as Alexander Nehamas (2007) puts it, “it is not possible to cure the body if something is wrong with it without curing the soul (156e–157a)”. Moreover, according to Plato, physical beauty leads to “the beauty of the Forms”, that is to say, to the idea of beauty itself (Symposium 211d1-2). Such an idea of beauty, ultimately, leads one to virtue and brings him or her closer to the divine, thus perfecting human existence. In Plato’s Symposium, the connection between beauty, goodness and happiness is predominant. In this sense, Nehamas draws an interesting parallel between the Symposium and the Republic:
“Each part of the soul, the Republic tells us, has its own appropriate pleasure (581c) and each, we learn from the Symposium, has its own appropriate erōs. But since the pleasures of the soul, despite the fact that they differ immensely in degree, are still for all that pleasures, so the beauty of the objects of erōs, however humble in comparison to the beauty of the Form of Beauty itself, is still the same sort of beauty and, however dimly, a reflection the Form’s light” (Nehamas 2007).
Although seemingly contrasting the Christian dichotomy between body and soul, such a linkage between beauty (in the sense of symmetry), virtue and the divine was subterraneanly carried forward by Plotinus and the Neo-Platonics and has somehow remained in certain Western subcultures, bodybuilding itself representing one of its most striking examples.
As acknowledged by the few scholars that have dealt with bodybuilding so far, a return to the Greek ideal of bodily symmetry as an expression of human superiority lies at he core of the first bodybuilding contests, such as Mr America (Fair 2015: 2 and 17-36). As the great Arnold puts it:
“At the end of the nineteenth century a new interest in muscle-building arose, not muscle just as a means of survival or of defending oneself, but a return to the Greek ideal — muscular development as a celebration of the human body” (Schwarzenegger 1985: 30).
Even deeper than a “celebration of the human body”, however, bodybuilding can be arguably regarded as a means to achieve a higher stage of human completion in the Platonic sense. First of all, symmetry plays a pivotal role in bodybuilding contests, and it’s the main characteristic to aim at when building one’s own body. In this sense, one can argue that bodybuilding’s idea of beauty is a platonic one. Second, a bodybuilder can’t build and sculpt his or her body, without a certain mindset and willpower; therefore, the bodybuilder’s soul reflects his or her body in a Platonic sense (as I wrote above in relation to Plato, “whereas the body does not affect the quality of the soul, the opposite seems to be true: a good soul can improve the body’s appearance to a certain extent”). Finally, when showcasing their impressive physiques, bodybuilders also let the viewers figure out all of the hard work and sacrifice they’ve put in, and, by so doing, the beauty of their bodies allows them to come across as higher human beings, gifted with virtue and godlike attributes.
Conclusive Thoughts
If one really wants to interpret bodybuilding in a Platonic sense, the question has also to be raised, as to whether bodybuilders reach a higher knowledge and, by virtue of this, happiness. My opinion is that, through the strenuous work on themselves and the estrangement from social life, bodybuilders surely achieve a level of introspection, comparable only to that of monks and holy men. Moreover, through their constant seek for self-improvement and their withdrawing their energy towards their inner space, they’re also more likely to detach from mundane issues and contingent happiness than the average man or woman, arguably reaching a more stable level of contentment.
At the core of Plato’s Republic is the analogy between the utopia of a perfect state and the perfect example of human being. As the state is characterised by 3 different classes, namely the producers, the auxiliaries and the guardians (the philosopher-kings), so the human soul is characterised by 3 parts: the rational or logical (λογιστικόν, logistykon), the appetitive (ἐπιθυμητικόν, epithymetikon), and the spirited (θυμοειδές, thymoeides). As in the perfect state the philosopher-kings rule over the other two classes and in perfect balance, so in the perfect soul, the rational part rules over the appetitive and the spirited parts, which have however the function of supporting the former and balancing it out. In a sense, Plato’s view can be compared to the Hindu distinction between the 3 guans (sattva, rajas and tamas), as portrayed by the Samkhya system and popularised by the Bhagavad Gita, which has become extremely popular among many enthusiastic yogis worldwide (myself included).
In my view, real bodybuilders represent Plato’s ideal of the perfect balance between the three parts of the soul and, because of it, can be considered virtuous and therefore happy (in a Platonic sense). The appetitive part of the soul is that controlling basic appetites, such as hunger or sleep, and bodybuilders have learnt to listen to it, without being controlled by it. The spirited part gives us the desires of honour and personal glory: bodybuilders are driven by such a desire, in order to pursue their goals, however without identifying with the desire itself. The rational part of the soul is the mind that sets goals, schedules meal plans and workout routines, plans prep in details and listens to the other 2 parts creating harmony and balance. In light of their relation to the 3 parts of the soul, bodybuilders represent the true platonic ideal of perfect human beings, even beyond their return to a Greek idea of muscular body and symmetry-based beauty.
Fair, John D. 2015. Mr. America: The Tragic History of a Bodybuilding Icon. Austin: University Of Texas Press.
Hyland, Drew A. 2008. Plato and the Question of Beauty. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Levy, David. 2013. The Republic’sBlame of Eros. In: Eros and Socratic Political Philosophy. Recovering Political Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342713_2
Nehamas, Alexander. 2007. ‘Only in the Contemplation of Beauty is Human Life Worth Living’ Plato, Symposium 211d. European Journal of Philosophy 1-18. doi:.10.1111/j.1468-0378.2007.00240.x
Plato, Republic.
— , Symposium.
–, Timaeus.
Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 1985. The New Encyclopaedia of Modern Bodybuilding. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998 (2nd edition).
Yes, it seems like every ex vegan is coming out right now, and I happen to be one of them indeed. Although this phenomenon might appear as a propagandistic tendency, it has in fact much deeper roots, which very easily translate into: veganism is not a sustainable diet. The reason why everyone is quitting veganism at the same time is because we all nearly started at the same time, and are now experiencing its effects on our health. My main reason for quitting it, however, is an ethical one, to which a psychological component is to be added too. I’m briefly breaking down my argument in the following paragraphs, but you can also watch my latest video, in which I not only discuss it extensively, but also share some rare footage of me trying beef for the first time after 15 years.
My Main Reasons
Ethics
As you might remember, a few month ago, I wrote a post about Veganism and the Paradox of Living an Ethical Life, in which shared my many doubts on the ethics of a plant-based diet, versus eating grass-fed beef. My reflection on the subject had become so intense and overwhelming, that I could no longer look at my plate of quinoa without thinking of those poor ladies in South America consuming their hands and starving themselves just to produce my “cruelty free” meal. A similar discourse applies to cotton (check out what’s going on in Mexico because of cotton production), avocados and legumes. On top of it, I couldn’t stop thinking about all those poor rabbits, birds, insects and lizards that get unjustly killed every time a crop field is created. As I wrote in my previous post, if you compare the figures, you’ll find exponentially less cruelty in a grass-fed ox liver than in a plate of lentils. It’s impossible to grow grains and vegetable without killing thousands of lives in the process.
As I educated myself on meat and dairy industries when I went vegan, so I decided to educate myself on crop production. The first thing I found out about is the figures. The most shocking discovery is this: other than in the US, cereal and soy (!!!) crop production is for HUMAN consumption. There’s only a small percentage (around 20%, if I’m not mistaken), which isn’t fit for human consumption and is therefore used to feed livestock which are, however, mostly grass fed. This means that the horrific deforestations that are taking place worldwide have nothing to do with the meat industry and could potentially be aggravated if everyone went vegan (as the crop demand would significantly increase). Moreover, CO2 cow emissions are not as dangerous for the planet as some vegan propaganda is trying to advocate: bovines have always been around and in pretty much the same amount (we have definitely more cows now, but how about those poor bisons that are slowly extinguishing?). How can one even think that their natural CO2 emissions might cause harm to the planet, more than the aircrafts used to transport tempeh, avocados and quinoa across the globe? Lastly, did you know that farms actually protect lots of animals which would never survive otherwise, by providing them with food, shelter and good care? Most of the bovines and chickens out there would never make it to 2 years of life, as they would fall prey of bigger predators.
Factory farming is surely evil. But so is the crop field industry. If one really wants to be ethical, the best thing to do is to buy from local farms. Fair enough, but are animal products really necessary? Can’t one just thrive on self-grown or locally-sourced fruit and vegetables? The answers are: yes, animal products are necessary (if you want to perform at your best), and no, one can’t thrive on self-grown or locally-sourced fruit and vegetables solely. But this leads us to the next point.
Health
As you might know, when I first went raw vegan, back in 2014, my IBS improved a lot, but when I started incorporating cooked foods in my diet (because a raw-vegan diet could no longer sustain my workouts), my symptoms got worse and worse. In 2018, I went low FODMAP and my IBS symptoms improved dramatically. However, that restricted my diet even more, and because my protein demand was pretty high, I was forced to consume unbelievably great amount of soy products, such as tofu and tempeh. In the aforementioned old post of mine, I had already expressed my concern about soy consumption, and the truth is that, because there’s no substantial scientific evidence to support theories in favour or against soy phytoestrogens, it was hard to make up my mind once and for all. So I decided to stay in the safe zone of 100g tempeh and 150g tofu a day, and to supplement the rest of my protein intake with: pea and rice protein powders, quinoa, buckwheat, nutritional yeast, tahini, nuts, some lentils and beans here and there. Phytoestrogens aside, however, bioavailability is another unescapable truth to be considered.
In my first 4 years of veganism, I felt great most of the time (beside my IBS, of course): I felt energised, light, focused and kind of happy. That’s essentially due to 2 reasons: 1) I was bulking (meaning I was eating extra calories everyday, and, because of that, my body had plenty of energy sources available in my body); 2) when I started my vegan journey, I was in great need for detoxification, and a vegan diet is one of the most effective ways to detox your body. However, when I did my first vegan cut, in Spring 2018, my energy levels suddenly dropped, and I began to feel fatigued, dizzy, lethargic and sluggish out of the blue (I must say that my cut had just started, so my calories were still pretty close to maintenance level, so you can’t blame it on their being too low). I got my blood tested and everything was within the range. Around the same time, I also started craving high protein foods, such as tempeh, intensively. On top of that, I developed depression, anxiety, paranoia and a constant feeling of emptiness, not in its metaphysical, existential meaning, but in the sense of physical hollowness, like a lack of grounding. Exactly the same happened early this year, during my second cut. In both occasions, my daily protein intake would never go below 140-120g, so it wasn’t a matter of not meeting my requirement. All of my macros and micros have always been religiously accounted for, so l wasn’t theoretically lacking anything.
My constant tiredness was due to the bioavailability of the nutrients I was intaking everyday: plants have anti-nutrients to protect themselves, making it hard for humans to assimilate the nutrients. Hence, when you consume 140g plant-based protein, you actually assimilate something around 70-80g of those (the same applies to other macros, as well as to micros, such as vitamins and minerals). When you’re on a bulk, you exceed your daily macro and micro need, so you assimilate enough nutrients to feel good (reason n.1); when you’re cutting, though, you suddenly deprive your body of too many nutrients. Could eating more have helped me out when cutting? Probably yes, if I had increased my protein consumption, but, as I’ve already said, my proteins were mainly coming from soy products, and I’ve already expressed my concern about them.
Detoxing is an excellent practice and all cultures and religions incorporate fasting in their practices. However, it doesn’t have to be carried on for too long. Veganism is a fasting-mimicking diet, which works wonders for your body, when practiced for a few months, or even a few years. When your body gets rid of all the toxins in excess, however, and gets ready for its normal tasks, you no longer need to detox it (just as a side note, this discourse is entirely wrong, as your body naturally detoxes itself everyday, and what we mean by “detoxing” is just supporting it in the process by not overloading it too much). So, if you don’t provide it with the right amount of nutrients it needs, it’ll start to slowly decay, leaving you tired, sluggish, fatigued and empty (reason n.2). Finally, only animal fats are able to balance our hormones out effectively, making you feel grounded, focused and happy. And, again, this is because of their bioavailability: as a species, humans have evolved consuming fresh organs and other easily available meats, our bodies are perfectly designed to assimilate animal nutrients faster and more effectively than plant based nutrients (as I said, we can thrive on plants too, but only for short periods of time), or even lab-synthesised surrogates.
Psychology
As everyone knows, a 100% plant-based diet is not complete. You need to make sure you get enough B12, omega 3 (and in a good ratio with your omega 6), and the list goes on and on… Vegans typically turn into nutrition scientists, constantly calculating their macros and micros, knowing which foods should be combined with which for best results, always carrying supplements and protein powders in their bags. I had enough of it all.
Although I believe in meal plans and strict schedules, when it comes down to food, I also believe in simplicity. The simpler your meals, the more digestible and effective. On a vegan diet, I found that I had to constantly combine my foods to meet my requirements, not to mention the supplements I had to take. Moreover, most of my food was also highly processed. Finally, I was eating the same foods over and over again, same meals throughout the day and throughout the year, it had become so unnatural and counterintuitive that was really clashing with my ethics and belief system. I could only imagine spending the rest of my life that way. I felt totally disconnected.
What My Diet Looks Like Right Now
Since I went back to animal products, I’ve been trying to be more ethical than I was as a vegan. My rule of thumb is this simple: harming as few lives as possible; impacting the environment as little as possible; feeling one with nature as much as I can.
Most of my food comes from wild-caught fish (mostly salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna, haddock), duck eggs, grass-fed beef (whose taste I don’t even enjoy that much) and lamb. I also have some organic, locally sourced Skyr yoghurt, grass-fed butter, goat butter, and Feta or Halloumi cheese. As to my carbs, I still consume plenty of (low FODMAP) vegetables, potatoes, swedes, turnips and parsnips, which I buy from my local farmers market (alongside the meat). Sparingly, I still consume organic oats, bananas, berries, basmati rice and buckwheat (I’m not ready to cut them completely to reduce my environmental footprint, and I also believe in balance — I’ve experienced the effects of a restrictive diet on myself to the point where I really understand the importance of balance and happiness in one’s overall well-being). In terms of meat, I buy a lot of organs, such as livers, kidneys and hearts, for 2 reasons. First of all, people don’t generally want them, and I don’t want animals to die in vain; second, because those are probably the most nutritious foods in the world: they contain most of the essential vitamins and minerals which are also extremely bioavailable — our bodies are just designed to eat organs because this is how we’ve evolved. For both reasons, I believe that consuming organs is the most ethical way you can eat.
How Do I Feel?
I feel good. Not only do I feel more balanced, grounded, energised, focused and overall happier, my bloat has gone away, my digestion has improved a lot, I’m still dieting but don’t feel exhausted anymore (in fact I don’t even feel that hungry in between meals — although my macros and micros have stayed exactly the same as when I was vegan).
The most impressive improvements concern my performance in the gym: my recovery is much faster and my muscle appearance is much better (on my rest days, my muscles used to look a bit flat, when I was vegan; now they always look full).
The most important change, however, is that I finally feel connected and spiritually balanced. On top of it, I’m sharing meals with my husband for the first time in 14 years, and that’s an indescribable feeling, which most people probably take for granted, but which I was risking not to experience ever in my life. Just for that, I’m so glad I made that decision.
My Gratitude
I’m grateful to veganism for making me aware of what’s going on in the meat in dairy industries. I’m also grateful to it, for opening my eyes and helping me understand that compassion is real. However, as a scholar of Friedrich W. Nietzsche, I cannot but transvalue my own values, the first one being veganism indeed. In the path towards my self-becoming, in my seek for self-realisation, I need to go beyond veganism itself and ground my own ethics; I need to incorporate what complies with my own belief system, and to reject what doesn’t. Compassion does comply with it, exploitation doesn’t; for this reason, I decide to go back to eating locally-farmed meat and wild-caught fish, rather than pretending to be “cruelty free”, when in fact supporting the unjustified killing of thousands of insects, lizards, birds, rabbits, as well as the exploitation of poor countries and people.
My last thought of gratitude goes to Bobby Risto from Bobby’s Perspective (go and check him out, if you haven’t yet), for speaking out for those vegans and ex vegans in struggle with their diets and ethics. Bobby is currently working on a documentary to denounce the truth behind crop fields, and I honestly look so much forward to it!
Don’t forget to watch my video, if you haven’t yet! 😉
Let’s face the truth: who wouldn’t wish to be lying on the beach right now, soaking up the sun, listening to the rhythmic sound of the ocean waves, drinking some fresh coconut water to stay hydrated and planning what to order for dinner at the local restaurant? However, if you suffer from IBS, your holidays might turn into nightmares: you’ll most likely feel bloated or constipated; you won’t know whether or not you can enjoy most of the food; coconut water is a taboo; you’ll feel anxious and restless, and also uncomfortable in your expensive swimsuit, after all of those months of hard dieting and training at the gym. I can confidently say so, because that was exactly the description of my old self during my so-long-awaited honey moon in Thailand. I had no notion of low and high FODMAP foods back then, and was following a highly raw vegan diet. I spent 13 out of 17 days in constant pain: bloated, nauseated and frustrated. I remember I would mix up a variety of fresh local fruit for breakfast, in the hope that that would help me detox my body, and I would often have some fruit after my workouts and for lunch – not to mention all the coconut water I would drink throughout the day, to “balance my electrolytes”.
Ko Samui, 2015. I was in constant pain: bloated, nauseated and frustrated. I would mix up a variety of fresh local fruit for breakfast, in the hope that that would help me detox my body, and I would often have some fruit after my workouts and for lunch – not to mention all the coconut water I would drink throughout the day, to “balance my electrolytes”.Ko Samui, 2015. Practicing Yoga, desperately trying to detox my body
Fast forward 3 years (2018). I spent an amazing week in Tenerife, experiencing little or no symptoms of IBS, although I often enjoyed some high FODMAP foods, such as avocados, kombucha and onions. What did I do differently? Well, if the motto “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” applies to most situations in life, it certainly suits holidays best. Over the last 4 years, I’ve come up with a list of items that I carry with me whenever I travel, no matter how far my destination is, or how long I’m staying. Such items draw my attention away from “right and wrong” foods, and reassure me that symptoms can be defeated, should they appear. The first time I tested the efficacy of that list was last summer, when I went to visit my family in Italy. I put myself on a strict low FODMAP diet, and made sure I had with me all of the 7 items listed below (some of which were still missing in my previous holiday to Tenerife). I had the fewest IBS symptoms of my entire life, and could enjoy every single moment of that holiday (I even had a few vegan ice creams!).
Beside some more traditional advice, such as “make sure you drink plenty of water and protect your skin with a good sunscreen, if you’re travelling to a sunny place”, I would recommend that travellers with IBS try out my 7 staples below.
Enjoying Tenerife (2018), with just some bloating (as you can clearly see from the picture). I wasn’t fully aware of high and low FODMAP yet. Italy, 2018. My first fully low FODMAP holiday. Almost no bloating at all (the picture was taken on the very last day, after 2 weeks of low FODMAP chocolate and vegan ice creams – a little bit of bloating was perfectly normal).
1. Vegan Probiotics
Whether or not you have IBS, taking probiotics on a daily basis will do wonders for your gut. However, recent research has suggested that probiotics can be extremely beneficial for IBS sufferers, although symptoms might reappear, if their consumption is discontinued (you can find some interesting stuff here). Whenever I travel, I always make sure I have vegan probiotics with me, which I have first thing in the morning, at least 20 mins prior to my breakfast. If you’re not vegan, you still want to make sure your probiotics are at least dairy free: you don’t want to take the risk of ingesting lactose. Probiotics keep best in the fridge, so make sure your room has one, when you book your hotel!
2. Protein Powder
Breakfast and snacks can be a real pain in the neck when you’re on holiday, as sometimes it’s hard to find low FODMAP options. This is why I always pack some protein powder in my luggage. I usually buy my supplements on Bulk Powders, but protein powder normally comes in soft bags which are not always safe to carry in your luggage, as they might open up and mess up your clothes. Two great substitutions are the Vega Essentials Shake and the Garden Of Life Raw Organic Protein Powder. The former is more affordable and tastes real great; the latter is raw and the ingredients are highly certified, but, I have to admit, I don’t particularly enjoy the taste, and it’s also a bit pricey. I’m a fan of vanilla, when it comes to protein powders, but chocolate is also a great choice, if you don’t enjoy the vanilla flavour. Just read through the ingredients, to make sure there’re no high FODMAP sweeteners. 😉
3. Oats And Oatcakes
If you’re renting a holiday flat (highly recommended), you might want to bring along your favourite oats, in case you need a quick breakfast or meal. Oats saved my life so many times when I went away, and they’re also quite cheap!
If you’re staying in a hotel, however, you might want to consider having oatcakes always with you. A protein shake, 5-6 oatcakes, 1 kiwi (usually available in every hotel breakfast) and possibly some nuts will be an excellent, low FODMAP breakfast to start your day off the right way. You can also keep oatcakes in your bag or backpack, and have them as a snack throughout the day.
4. Mixed Nuts And Seeds
My go-to mix: almonds, walnuts, pecans, Brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.
Nuts and seeds are always a holiday staple, whether or not you have IBS. Just mix up some almonds, walnuts, pecans, Brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and bag them. You can snack on them at any time. Just watch your intake, as they might become high FODMAP, if you overdo them.
5. Protein Bars
Protein bars are an awesome snack when you’re away. Just bear in mind that most of them have a lot of high FODMAP ingredients. My favourite bar is the Pulsin’s Maple and Peanut. It’s vegan, with a pretty decent macro ratio and tastes great. I found that I can tolerate it quite well, although I can’t have more than 1 a day and possibly not everyday. I really love the brand and highly recommend you try all of their flavours, if you’re not on a strict low FODMAP diet. Otherwise, just stick to the Maple and Peanut flavour and won’t be disappointed, I promise! 😉
6. Resistance Bands and Hip Circles
Exercising is paramount for your gut health and is recommended in all IBS therapies. Resistance bands and hip circles are great tools, when your hotel or flat doesn’t have a gym, or when the weather outside is not so great. There’re a variety of exercises that can be performed with just resistance bands and your bodyweight: just get creative! If you really don’t know where to start, you can draw some inspiration on YouTube.
7. Running Shoes
Lastly, I always make sure I travel with a pair of running shoes, so I have no excuses not to go for a run or a hike. Hiking is one of the most enjoyable experiences to discover new places and breathtaking views, especially when you’re close to the woods. Trekking can also be an amazing option, if you’re in the mountains (just make sure you wear proper shoes and socks though!). Anyway, even when you’re just visiting a city, you can prefer walking over taking the bus, and exploring hidden neighbourhoods or mews. Just make sure you keep a map always with you, and you’re able ask the fundamental questions in the local language, in case you get lost! These are my current shoes. I love them because they’re very light in weight, quite affordable and extremely comfy – plus I just love wearing bright colours!
Go and Explore!
Don’t let IBS stop you from enjoying your holiday. Everyone deserves unforgettable holidays to recall, when outside it’s rainy and cold, as well as future holidays to plan and look forward to, when work stresses you out.
These were my basic holiday tips – I hope you’ve found them helpful. What are yours? Are there any more things to take care of, when you travel with IBS? Comment down below! 😉
