40 Day Detox

Pregnant man

I woke up this morning feeling fatter. My stomach felt as though it was protruding a bit more. Ahh man… was it a mistake eating the houmous and coleslaw the night before? Time to check. I got on the scales. Damn. It was a mistake. Though my weight dropped 0.4kg to 68.8kg my fat content had increased 0.3% to 18.2%. My body water dropped to 56.2% and my muscle dropped 0.2% to 42.5%. Was it the coleslaw and houmous responsible? Was I over doing it with the Bertolli on the corn on the cob? Was I overdoing the walnut oil in my salad? Or was this a consistent response to working out in the morning on an empty stomach? So many questions and possibilities and no definitive answers yet. 

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

Despite the doubt I continued with my experimentation and decided to see what would happen if I did a 20 min High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) session on the cross trainer on an empty stomach. HIIT is a strategy of doing cardio that burns fat in a short space of time, compared to hour-long workouts at a slower pace (e.g. walking). If you’re pressed for time, have a busy lifestyle and don’t have time to do cardio for more than 20 minutes then HIIT is the way to go if you wish to burn fat and boost performance. You can do any cardio exercise: running, cycling, rowing, cross training, whatever suits you. There are a few approaches to HIIT, however, in essence, the philosophy is the same: cycles of an intense workout period followed by a moderate period. For example a runner could run for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of jogging and so on. The benefits of HIIT include: improved endurance; improved athletic performance; an increased resting metabolic rate, which leads to burning fat long after you’ve stopped working out; and improved insulin action which means it could lead to prevention of type-2 diabetes. 

I exercised on the cross trainer at moderate levels for 1 min 15 sec and then 45 sec as hard as I could, followed by 1 min 15 sec at moderate and so on until 20 min was up. I weighed myself immediately before and after the session. My weight stayed the same; however, my fat dropped 0.5% to 17.7%. My body water increased to 56.5% and my body muscle increased 0.3% to 42.8%. This is what my initial readings are. The effect the empty morning HIIT cardio training had on my body throughout the day will be more evident when I weigh myself tomorrow morning. 

Coleslaw

After my workout I had a hot lemon juice. I was planning on having muesli, but then I saw my wife having a coleslaw sandwich and the temptation got the better of me (despite my doubts concerning my fat increase this morning) and I ended up having two slices of wholemeal bread, one with houmous and one with coleslaw spread on top. Whether they was healthy or not, they were both tasty. And if there was anytime I was likely to get away with eating either item it would be in the morning rather than the evening. In hindsight it seems one of the problems of working out on an empty stomach is that you end up feeling very hungry straight after which can lead to binging on whatever one fancies regardless of the consequences. After that I had my protein shake with a teaspoon of hemp seed oil. 

Moong Dal Chilka

For lunch I ate Moong Dal Chilka for the first time. It was really, really nice. My wife made it as a curry and we ate it with brown rice. 

I did my second training session close to dusk. Up till now I’ve opted to listen to a couple of Armin Van Buuren A State Of Trance (ASOT) sets. They are great as I love trance music and they make me feel good. I’ve only got three of his sets on my phone and started to get bored listening to the same thing again and again. Sometimes I prefer not to listen to anything so that I can aurally appreciate my surroundings, like the sound of the wind blowing or the sound of birds chirping as I walk through the park. For a change today I thought I’d put on some tracks of The Prodigy while doing my walk. The Prodigy are awesome to listen to whilst working out. The beat is fast, and the music gives me a boost of energy and a sense of aggressive confidence. Whilst listening to them it’s not surprising when I find myself walking to their beat. I’m not sure how this looks from a third person perspective, but it certainly feels like my walk has a bit of rhythm to it. Thanks to The Prodigy I completed today’s two laps in 55 min 45 sec! I couldn’t believe it when I saw my stopwatch. I wondered if I had made a mistake, or if the stopwatch had stopped working. After the walk I did 30 minutes on the cross trainer. As usual, as the sun set, a bat flew past me into the tree in front of me. It seems like clockwork, this bat makes an appearance everyday at the same time. 

The Prodigy

On my way home I avoided the bus stop by crossing over the street. I’m not keen on playing hopscotch with these rats everyday. Besides it felt as if I had worked out enough for the night! Once I got home I had a fresh apple and carrot juice and protein shake, followed by my evening meal which was corn on the cob, salad and cottage cheese.