Illusions of control and superstitions of the non-superstitious

This morning at 9am, like most mornings, I went down to the gym in my building for some cardio. As the door to the elevator opened, I prepared to smile, nod, and wish good morning to the person already in the elevator. I'm not naturally an outgoing or friendly person, so this is one of those micro-improvements of the self that I've decided to undertake.

Vancouver is one of the least friendly/neighbourly cities in North America, so maybe 30% of the time, I do the smile/nod/greet thing, and people awkwardly avert eye contact, or rush to mash the "Close Door" button. I nevertheless am committed to smiling/nodding/greeting not just as a micro-improvement exercise, but also because I believe in a world where people should be -- at a minimum -- cordial with their neighbours. It's not like I feel we need to invite one another over for dinner parties or anything like that; but if we are staying in the same building, we are at least going to see one another regularly, so there might as well be some modicum of positivity in these interactions, right? Right.

So imagine my surprise when as the elevator door opened, the lady in the elevator immediately started mashing the Close Door button. I mean her finger was on the button not just before my vocal cords could warm to form the first syllable of my greeting, but before I had even began my motion to walk through the threshold of the elevator. She didn't so much jump the gun as jumped before the invention of gunpowder.  I am not generally good at hiding my emotions, so I imagine I was quite the sight with my mouth agape and eyes wide open in disbelief. Indeed, when the elevator arrived at the gym floor, she was noticeably slower in putting her finger on the trigger.

The funny thing is that the elevator in this building is actually fairly quick. The lag between the door fully opening and the door auto-closing is perhaps 2-3 seconds, which I consider a solid time. The close door button is functional (as typically the case in newer elevators) but the benefit of pushing is mostly psychological given the short lag time. As I mentioned in a previous entry on elevator manners, it's unlikely that all the elevator button mashing in the world could save much more than one minute per day.  Considering how blatantly unneighbourly and downright stressful trying to mash that button is, it hardly seems like the benefit is worth the cost.

In the end, elevator button mashing (and its cousin, pedestrian crosslight button mashing) is one of those weird illusion-of-control things. It's almost like modern-day superstition for people who aren't superstitious. I don't think that any of the people who mash buttons are say, fearful of black cats, throw salt over their shoulders, or buy balance bracelets. Yet they do this, because it's a tick that makes them feel like they have control, when they really don't.

What are other modern examples of tedious illusions-of-control, or superstitions for the non-superstitious?

Country air, sustainability, and the end of the world

I'm a city boy, born and raised. I've always loved the city, and the bigger the better. The first time I was old enough and had enough money to travel (age 24), I did as so many do: I went to the big cities of Western Europe. Then I started to see the big cities of the USA, Asia, and Latin America. I've been to a few dozen major metropolises now.

I bought a home and moved to Hong Kong in 2008, taking advantage of residency opportunities there. I loved living in central Hong Kong, despite the constant noise and air pollution. When visiting Vancouver, I strongly prefer to stay downtown despite higher rents and less space. Not only is my gym there, I think it's really the best part of Vancouver. Tremendously walkable. All the amenities you could ask for. And yes, insanely expensive, but you can see why.

But in the last year or so, I've been yearning for a simpler and greener lifestyle. I've never lived in the country, or even spent more than a few days there. I don't know how I would enjoy it. But lately I have been fantasizing about acres of sprawling farmland, chickens, goats, vegetables, clean water, and country air. And my antisocial side likes the idea too.

On fighting hurt

This post was written on Friday, September 9, but will not be published until a later date, for reasons that are about to be obvious. I've mentally committed to myself that I will hit the publish button on this post whether I win or lose this fight, and regardless of whether or not it happens.

Friday, September 9:

On Wednesday - two days ago - I sprained my ankle in practice. It was an unlucky accident. My partner and I were doing fairly light wrestling drills with only 50% resistance. He attempted a takedown and I stumbled backwards and just fell with all of my weight on my bad ankle.

A strange weight cutting decision

Today I woke up to a strange announcement for the promotion I'm fighting for in two days:

Summary: In the last 18 months they have had three fighters hospitalized due to weight cuts. So for this card they have decided, with about 30 hours before weigh-ins, to increase everyone's weight amount by 3.5%. Instead of fighting at 125 lbs, I am now fighting at 129 lbs. Guys scheduled to fight at 155 are now fighting at 160, and so on.

This is really bizarre. If you watch the video it's a claim about fighter safety, but if they just start implementing this policy frequently, you'll simply have people moving down two weight classes instead of one. What I suspect has actually happened here is that there are a small number of individuals on this card who expressed that it will be difficult to make the weight, and that they were worried about those fighters' specifically having to cut a bunch of weight.

On one hand, I'm always happy to cut less weight. It means I won't have to be in the sauna tonight, and 129 is a very easy weight for me to make. On the other hand, it encourages guys who should certainly be fighting at 135 to drop even further. On the gripping hand, if other organizations aren't following suit, then I might not get fights at my proper weight class.

Weird stuff. In general I'm very happy to see a movement towards less weight cutting in MMA, but this is a very bizarre way to go about it. Will be interested to see how it goes forward.

The perils of fighting a winless fighter

As a fighter at the regional level, there's tremendous variance in whom you might fight. The range is huge. First, record-keeping is also not great at the regional level. My opponent back in April was listed on Sherdog at 0-1 (now 0-2), but I've seen videos of him winning by both KO and submission, and a saw a poster listing him as 10-6, so clearly there are fights that aren't on his record.

There's also a tremendous range is skill and dedication at the regional level. You might get some wannabe tough guy who just wants to say he was in a cage fight. Or you might get a superstar in the making whom nobody knows about just yet.

I know that my next opponent isn't either of these. Fighting since 2011, his Sherdog record is 0-2. On paper I should be a favourite given that I am 2-0. But his losses are to legitimate regional fighters, and his last fight was up a weight class at 135 against a former Battlefield titleholder.

When you're fighting an 0-2 fighter, it can mean you're fighting a wannabe who doesn't take it seriously (like when I fought this guy), or it can mean he is very hungry but has just had tough opponents. I'm assuming that it's the latter; based on his Twitter, he's in the gym, and even travelled to Montreal recently to train at Tristar under Firas Zahabi.

Every day that I haven't wanted to show up, and every day that I haven't felt like training hard, I remember that he is desperate. I think about what I would do and how I would be training if I were the winless fighter taking on the undefeated fighter. I am training like I am the one who is winless. I am training for him like his record is 15-0.

I can honestly say that I have put my full 100% into this training camp. It's 12 days away, and they can't come fast enough.

It's a fight. Never, ever, underestimate anyone in a fight.

How I lose weight and keep energy up during fight camp

Professional poker player Dan Smith, gave me the following feedback on Twitter as to what he'd like to read about:

@tchanpoker i would be v interested to read about how many cals you're eating, your BMR, and how much you're burning while training etc. GL!

— Dan Smith (@DanSmithHolla) August 24, 2016

@tchanpoker and generally how you feel. I would expect energy levels to be super low?

— Dan Smith (@DanSmithHolla) August 24, 2016

It's a great question -- how can a person who is already fairly lean lose 10-20% of his bodyweight in 4-8 weeks and still manage to fuel something as demanding as an MMA training camp?

Well, I've been messing with this stuff for a while and put a lot of thought into it. But first a disclaimer: in the past I've been accused of broscience and being sloppy with "shit i read on internet". What follows is just what has worked very well for me when we're talking specifically about diet and nutrition the context of a mixed martial arts camp.  Now I've studied and read and re-read obsessively. But I'm lazy and this is just a personal blog, so I'm not going to be providing citations. This is all simply the result of n=1 experimentation and yes, it involves shit I read on the internet. People are free to disagree and tell me I'm an idiot for doing what I'm doing, and I'm very much open to the possibility I'm wrong about things (which I have been on many occasions in the past).

Okay first up, BMR (basal metabolic rate). The calculator suggests 1557 calories for a person of my size and age. Estimates of my daily caloric burn in a day (even with the "heavy" exercise multiplier) usually fall way below my usual intake, and yet I don't gain weight. Caloric burn is a function of so many things going on inside bodies that until they actually start putting microchips inside our bodies, I don't worry about it too much. But I would say on a typical training day I'm eating/burning between 3000-3500 calories.

Cutting weight over a training camp

Anyone will tell you that it's better to shed weight throughout camp than it is to simply cut a ton of weight. Losing 15 pounds in the sauna is a terrible experience: it's dangerous, it hinders performance, it creates the potential for getting sick on fight day. All kinds of bad stuff. And yet there is basically no one at the elite level competing without some form of water manipulation in the last 24-72 hours. And that's because if you've dieted down to a point where you are losing zero water, you're going to come in as the much smaller guy, simple as that.

But yeah, back to cutting weight. My philosophy is that prevention is better than solution. As a 125-pound fighter, I'm never letting myself get over 145. Ever, ever. This is rare. I know many 135ers who are hovering around 170 when they're not near a fight, and 170 lb fighters peaking well over 200. I pretty much never eat garbage and let myself go completely because I don't want to be the guy running a huge caloric deficit during a tough camp.

Most of my vegetable intake is organic and all of my meat intake is grass-fed/pasture-raised. When I'm eating out a lot and being social, I have some cheats but I'm still being reasonably selective off the menu. My girlfriend jokes that I am orthorexic. I don't actually think that I am, but I admit I'm more strict than basically anyone I know. Something like pizza or cake is around a once-a-year proposition for me, which even I have to admit is a bit strict.

Eating like this keeps me between 141-145 most of the time. When it's fight camp, becoming even more strict gets me usually about 1-2 lb of weight loss per couple of weeks. So ideally i'm around 135-137 when i'm 7 days out while doing not much caloric restriction. I don't count calories at all until the final two weeks, although I'll make some small adjustments (I'll talk about that shortly).

Beyond Calories: Winning at the Micros

Everyone is obsessed about calories, but here I want to focus more on micronutrients than macronutrients. For the uninitiated, micronutrients are basically the vitamins and minerals that make the body work. When you see a label like the one below, the micronutrients are in the bottom section:

There are a shit-ton of important micronutrients, many of which are presented here in a word cloud for some reason:

Compared to micronutrients, macronutrients are simpler for most people to understand because they know them all: protein, fat, carbohydrates, and alcohol.

Macronutrients get all the play because they are generally easier to talk about in sound bites and blog posts, but micronutrients are massively important and I focus way more on getting micronutrients in a bioavailable form. (This is the tricky thing about micronutrients; basically every micronutrient is available in a bottle, but it may or may not be well-absorbed by the body.)

I don't pay too much attention to calories and macros. I don't really care if I'm 40/40/20 or 50/35/15 or whatever. But I do pay attention to micronutrients and if I'm going to do a food log, it's mostly to ensure I'm getting enough minerals and vitamins. Usually I do a pretty great job; here's a randomly selected day out of my food log:

(Hope it was sunny outside today.)

Regardless of what my protein/fat/carb looks like, if I'm hitting well over 100% RDA on most vitamins and minerals and my digestion feels good, I think everything is dandy. And I feel great and energetic.

I make it a goal to choose really nutrient-dense foods, which is usually in the food department. The biggest single thing I do is choosing vegetables over grains, since gram-per-gram and calorie-per-calorie, vegetables destroy grains. Note the comparison of the three leftmost columns to the three on the right.

Source: In search of optimal nutrient density: veggies or whole grains?

Even in the case of more similar comparisons, sweet potato and squash destroy rice and pasta.

Another thing that sets me apart from most athletes is that I tend to avoid over-reliance on sports drinks. Not drinking calories is one of the best things you can do for nutrient density, since liquid carbs in general are very low in nutrients.

That said, I sometimes use a few high-end sports drinks, like Superstarch and Vitargo, as well as coconut water. I think it's useful to think of simple processed carbs like sports drinks and white rice as performance-enhancing drugs (except of course, not illegal). They're great for optimizing performance and endurance, but they are not providing much nutritional benefit, and a significant side effect (weight gain/insulin spiking). The regular public doesn't fast carbs at all (in much the same way the public generally doesn't need steroids), but athletes in high-intensity sports benefit from a quick, easily digestible way to shuttle glucose into muscles. So I don't avoid them completely, but as much as possible, I simply drink water. When I need to lose weight quickly, the sugar drinks are the first thing to go.

Talk more about carbs!!11

Carbs are not necessarily the enemy of weight loss when it comes to the high-intensity athlete. As I mentioned, I don't really track this stuff, but I probably used to be too low on the carb side, clocking in around 20-25% carbs. I've increased this to 40-50%, especially deeper into fight camp where I'm doing a higher number of high-intensity rounds and my muscles need this fast fuel.

When do i eat those carbs (and fat)?

On days and weeks where I am not training, or it consists of either low-volume or low-intensity training, my carb consumption is back down near 20-25%. This improves three things for me personally:

a) body comp (I stay leaner)

b) brain function

c) better digestion (slightly)

On days I do train, I will load up on carbs+protein in the 2-3 hours after training, and eat mostly protein+fat the rest of the day. I try not to have very many meals that have fat+carbs together, because those can really cause weight gain (think of most things people overeat -- pizza, ice cream, potato chips -- and it's notable how many of them are this simple fat+carbs combo).

During fight camp, where usually I am mostly doing light workouts in the morning and lengthy high-intensity activity in the evening, I do a cyclical carb or a "carb backload", meaning I eat very few carbs before dinner, but eat a ton of them (and less fat) after training.

This day was 40% carbs, but 80% of those were during/after training.

Final hacks:

I do a daily 12-hour fast, so I do not eat from 10pm to at least 10am, usually past that. Obviously I'm sleeping a lot of this time, but doing a little light aerobic work in the morning in a fasted state helps me burn off a little belly fat.

I also do a 24-hour fast once a week, usually Saturday dinner to Sunday dinner, so I do not eat before 8pm or so once a week. This is just a good practice to give the digestive system a break, and losing weight is just an extra benefit.

So how do I feel?

Losing the first 8-10 pounds in 6-8 weeks, even on a lean frame like mine, requires discipline. But it isn't horribly hard. I feel pretty good most of the time. My energy levels are high most of the time, and when they're not, it's not because of lack of calories but rather because the intensity of the training has worn me down. Fasting, a lack of junk food the rest of the year, going high-carb only after workouts, and keeping nutrient numbers high gives me tons of energy to train at a high level throughout the camp.

The hard part is the last 8-10 pounds on the final week. Once I'm 7 days out from the weigh-in, the carbs and eventually the entire meals start getting reduced, to deplete glycogen from my muscles (which I don't need too much anyway since I am not training intensely in those days). Then we get into sodium loads, saunas, and all the water manipulation. This is the part that really feels awful, and so ideally you do as little of it as possible. In a perfect world, I might be something like 130 with seven days to go, but it's hard to lose that kind of weight and train as hard as I'd really want to.

Questions or comments? Comment below (may require you to click on the title of this post).

A week inside my fight camp

I've trained at a number of gyms throughout the world, but when I'm in Vancouver I train at Lions MMA, where I started training MMA in 2010.

Coach Paulie (he typically only goes by his first name) separates his competition/fight team from his regular clientele. The fight team is on any given day less than 10% of the people who attend classes, but of course they are also the people who have been around a long time and show up the most consistently. Paulie is very tough, and does not allow people to fight who are not willing to train to his standards. We put in a ton of hours on the mat, and today I'll talk about that.

Meta-blog: What would you like to see here?

I'd like to ask for help from the people who read this blog and like the MMA stuff.

I've had people say in casual conversation that they'd like to hear more about my MMA training, but I don't necessarily know how exactly to go about doing that.

So what would you actually like to hear about?

My next fight, and my future in this sport

I'm excited to be returning to the Battlefield Fight League cage on September 10! My opponent this time is Vaz Lep. He trains out of Titan MMA/10th Planet in Coquitlam BC. I know that he's been around for a while; here's an amateur fight of his from 2011.

This is the only video online, but I haven't bothered to study it. It's unlikely that his game in 2011 looks anything like it does in 2016. My first amateur fight was also in 2011, and I know my current game doesn't look anything like the 2011 version. I expect him to be a tough opponent and that's that.

Discipline and extrinsic motivators

It is often said discipline is like a muscle & fatigues with use. Muscles, of course, don't just fatigue -- they also strengthen with use. Exercise is an attempt to break down muscle tissue so that the body can respond by building back stronger tissue. 

People around me often praise me as a disciplined person. It's one of the few compliments that I really enjoy when I get it, because I pride myself on working hard on my discipline. But in truth, I don't actually think I have discipline that is substantially better than my peer group. Among the general population, sure, perhaps I am 80th percentile or better. But I know many successful and diligent people, and most of them are much more disciplined than I am.

There are some ways in which my discipline is very poor. I've been without a traditional job for the last two years, and without deadlines to meet, my procrastination is often ridiculous. This entire blog post is being written at a time when I have many other errands that I have been meaning to do for at least a couple of weeks.

But there are many aspects in which I am very disciplined. Nutrition is probably the one area where I am very good relative to the field. I eat very clean, even by the standards of a serious athlete, and often to the chagrin of my girlfriend (who has at times accused me of orthorexia). But even this "discipline" is just a hack. I am not disciplined in the sense that I am much better than average at avoiding an open bag of potato chips or a carton of ice cream in my living room. But I am very good at walking past the potato chips and ice cream in the grocery store. I am very good at keeping my fridge full packed with vegetables and meats. 

One skill which I have developed is a very high ability to delay gratification. I have managed to frame things in a situation where I am often able to convince myself that the thing that I want right now will be much better if I simply wait until the future. It doesn't really matter what the thing is; I have learned to become very good at delaying its consumption. Particularly in the areas of diet and saving money, this skill has been very useful.

Should we incentivize discipline, or punish a lack of it?

All In Or Knocked Out, Part 1

After a ton of painstaking work, Part 1 of our audio documentary "All In Or Knocked Out" is finally online.

Check it out at www.allinorknockedout.com. Let me know your thoughts!

Olivier Busquet / JC Alvarado fight audio documentary

Over the last few weeks, myself and PokerCast producer Ross Henry have been working hard on a behind-the-scenes all access audio documentary on the $270000 fight between JC Alvarado and Olivier Busquet.

We've interviewed both men in-depth about their stories, their backgrounds, their reasons for taking the fight, their fears, their concerns, their ups and downs. We'll also have interviews with coaches, training partners, friends, and fellow gamblers. It's a compelling story, and one that we think deserves to be told well.

Fight recap: My "thrilla" in Manila

That was a crazy trip to Manila! This was my second time travelling away from home to fight -- the other time was to Suncheon, South Korea -- but I expected it to be a lot smoother than that trip. On this trip, I would be travelling with a teammate, coach, and girlfriend, and figured logistics would go a lot smoother.

Manila observations, weight-cut, and 24 hours to the fight

(Preamble: If you only came here to get info on how to watch the fight, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

I have been in Manila a little over 24 hours now, and I will be fighting in a little over 24 hours as well. It's the first time in about five years since I've been here. The last time I was here, I made the final table of the APPT event, so I saw nothing other than the hotel and the casino. The time before, I stayed at the house of a jiujitsu friend, and we shuttled back and forth between the competition and his family's mansion. So suffice it to say I'm not really knowledgeable about the city, nor am I now.

Brief (tourist) Manila observations

Fight fight! Saturday! Saturday!

I'm excited to announce my next fight! And it's happening in six days!

The story of this one is a bit of a wild one. I was originally supposed to fight this weekend in Hong Kong for Impi World Series, but that event got cancelled and postponed to August. So then I was offered a fight in Underground Battle MMA in the Philippines. I wasn't super-excited about cutting down to 125 lbs in the Philippines away from the comforts of home, so I turned it down.

A new guy started training at our gym in the meantime, and he accepted the fight. But he effectively pulled out of the fight over the weekend, so I decided hey, I'm in shape, I've been training for months without a fight, and I'm only 139 lbs right now anyway. Fighters fight, so let's do this shit. I called up our contact, and here we are.

PokerVIP AMA

I did an "AMA" for PokerVIP a few weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. A mixed bag of questions about MMA, mindset, and old school PokerStars.

 The thread is locked now, but you can check it out at PokerVIP's forum here.

What are your predictions about data storage?

I'm in the market for a new computer, likely another 15-inch Macbook Pro Retina, and so the question arises whether I want to pay an extra $500 (USD) to upgrade from 500 MB flash memory to 1 TB.



Here's what my usage looks like now. I'm pretty full, but there's a bunch of movies I could delete and not miss. So I think I could easily be fine if I were better at hard drive housekeeping.

This gets me to thinking: what about the next 3-5 years of storage?