The Man Behind The Words
Hi my name is Richard Gardham and I’m the content editor here at Peak DNA Nutrition. Over the coming weeks and months I will be delivering various articles which I hope you will find educational as well as enlightening. I will be covering all aspects of Performance, Fat Loss, Recovery, Gut, Hormones, Brain, Beauty and Brawn. But first off all let me tell you a bit about myself. I am 52 years old and live in East Yorkshire. At the age of 16 I joined the Royal Navy and travelled the world. After eight years I decided to leave the Royal Navy and became a Police Officer and joined Sussex Police in 1992. The majority of my career was spent as a Detective Constable investigating Serious Crime. It was during my police career that I started to train at a gym. Initially my goal was to get fit as my role required it however I soon became interested in bodybuilding and all aspects of nutrition which complimented that. In 2017 I retired from the Police Service and was excited about where my next career would take me.
In the past five years my fitness and nutritional goals have changed from bodybuilding to Health, Wellness and Longevity. It was the passing of my father and brother from cancer related illnesses that motivated me in this direction. My interests are in the new world of biohacking. For those of you that have never heard this word biohacking consists of making small, incremental diet or lifestyle changes to make small improvements in your health and well-being. Bio-hacks promise anything from quick weight loss to enhanced brain function. But the best biohacking results come from being well-informed and cautious about what works for your body. I will cover this fully in future articles.
So if your wondering about my current protocol and daily nutrition lets get started.
The picture above was taken in April 2019 and at that time I weighed 80kg. My body fat was around 10%. On the 1st January 2019 I started Intermittent Fasting with my goal being to complete a full year to see what the results were. I had tried fasting before but never really stuck to it. If your wondering what is Intermittent Fasting I will fully cover this in future articles but to summarise intermittent fasting is an eating pattern where you cycle between periods of eating and fasting.
There are several methods to choose from. I chose the 16/8 method. This is basically a 16 hours fasting period followed by an 8 hour eating window. On the 1st January 2019 I weighed 84kg and my body fat was around 15%. So as you can see the fasting works. I am now 10 months into my fasting and as I find it so easy I’m going to adopt it as a lifestyle change. My diet consists of mainly clean unprocessed foods. I do allow myself the odd treat but try to restrict these to the weekend. What has helped with the fasting is the use of the product we’ve developed called Peak DNA Diet Collagen. I take this during my fasted period prior to my workout. The MCT oils give me an energy boost and the due to the fact there are minimal carbs It doesn’t invoke an insulin response due to glucose. I will fully cover its benefits in a later article but I can say it definitely helped me get through that 16 hour fasted period. A days typical food intake would be as follows
10 am Peak DNA Diet Collagen shake
10:30 am Workout which mainly consists of compound exercises
12pm First meal of the day which for me is 60g of jumbo porridge oats made with almond milk. I also add flaxseeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, almonds and cinnamon.
Along with this I will have a Nutribullet smoothie. This will always consist of broccoli, fruits of the forest and some form of protein powder. I will also add in some natto for the added vitamin K2. Im currently transitioning from whey protein to collagen protein. (Due to having multi kilograms of whey in my cupboards). I will explain the pro’s and con’s of both types in a future article.
4pm A snack of some sort. This can range from a protein bar to some of my homemade soup or bone broth.I will also have a few tablespoons of homemade sauerkraut again for the probiotic support
7pm Last meal of the day. This will usually consist of a lean protein and vegetables. I always try to refrain from heavy carbs for my last meal as I want my body to start burning fat as soon as possible. My dessert will usually be fruits of the forest and my homemade full fat coconut milk yoghurt.
I will finish the day with a Peak DNA Collagen Hot Chocolate which gives me my daily chocolate hit. It tastes amazing.
This in total gives me over 20 grams a day of collagen protein. I can honestly say that in the time I have been taking it my skin has improved vastly.
As you can see from the above protocol I technically miss out a meal during the day. What I do find is the fasting stopped me from my late evening snacks. If your thinking this looks difficult I can assure you it isn’t. As your body becomes fast adapted the process just gets easier as time goes by. I am also trying to go dairy free to stop the inflammation that dairy causes to the body.
I don’t count any of my calories and restrict treats to one day a week. I call this my cheat day.
I also refrain from fasting when I’m on holidays.
Well I hope that has given you an insight into myself and I hope over the coming weeks and months I can enlighten you to the new up and coming hacks out there.