Fish Oil

Okay, so I started taking my fish oil yesterday. Fish oil is one of the supplements that is recommended by Life by Design. Other supplements include Vitamin D and probiotics. The purpose of the fish oil is to help reestablish and maintain an optimal Omega-3 : Omega-6 ratio. Ideally, the ration should be 1:1 or 1:2. However, considering what I've been eating my whole life, I would hazard a guess that my ratio is more like 1:20 (I don't know...never had it tested, but I can guess it's pretty skewed). So, as was recommended by mentor, Dr. Jamie Richards, I began with fish oil supplements to help restore the balance and to help my body get out of a chronic inflammatory state. Nothing good comes from a chronically inflamed body and nothing but good comes when you break that cycle.





So, as per Dr. Jamie's recommendations, I am megadosing fish oil for the next 3 weeks. The theory behind the megadosing is to force the omega-6's from my tissues so that balance can be restored. Megadosing in conjunction with Eating by Design willl really help me get on the right track.





To figure out how much fish oil I should be taking I used the Robb Wolf Fish Oil Calculator on Whole 9 Life. It's really simple. You just plug in your weight, the EPA and DHA values from your fish oil bottle and your factor. Most of us that are new to Life by Design are a factor somewhere between 0.75 and 1.0. I used 0.75 as my factor. So, when you enter all this information it will tell you how many teaspoons of fish oil you need per day. Mine came to 34 teaspoons (about 11 tablespoons)/day for the brand that I bought. That's ALOT! They don't call this megadosing for nothing! Wow! But, it's only for 3 weeks and then I can back down to a maintenance dosage.





I wanted to ease myself into taking fish oil. Dr. Jamie mentioned that I may experience some digestive upset if I start out take the full amount. So, yesterday I took 5 tablespoons at dinner time. That's half of my daily amount. And, you know, it wasn't all that bad. I'm taking the liquid form because it higher EPA and DHA values than any pill. It was citrus flavored and the taste was actually pretty decent. What I did have a problem with, however, was the oily-ness. I tried the first tablespoon by itself and didn't like it, so I thought that I would try the rest in a glass of hot water. My thought process was that it would be something like tea. Well, I was wrong. The oily-ness coated my lips and I just didn't like it. However, I managed to get it all down. Surprsingly, I didn't have any fish burps or digestive upset for the rest of the night. Maybe tomorrow I'll try mixing it in to my shake or using it as a dressing on my salad.





What I ate today:


coffee with heavy cream and agave nectar


whey protein shake


salad with left over chicken breast from last night's dinner, olive oil and salt for dressing


Ground beef, carrots, onions, garlic, green peppers with salt, pepper, cumin, and some tumeric





How I moved:


foam roller for mobility training


ramped-up full squats-added weight until I had 110 lbs on the bar and did 5 reps


ramped-up dead lifts - added weight until I had 100 lbs on the bar and did 5 reps


ramped-up bench press - added weight until I had 50 lbs on the bar (my arms are much weaker than my legs. Increasing upperbody strength is something I am focusing on for my body.