40 Day Detox

It seems yesterday’s combination of High Intensity Interval Training; new extended resistance training; and eliminating dairy and wheat products has worked wonders on me today. My weight dropped 0.9kg to 67.9kg, my Body Fat dropped 0.6% to 17.5%, my Body Water went up to 56.7% and my Body Muscle rose 0.3% to 42.9%. 

Compared to my readings on the morning of day 14 following my HIIT session on an empty stomach the day before (weight stayed the same while my fat went down 0.1% to 18.1% and my other readings both went up 0.1%) it seems as though I got more results from doing HIIT on a fuelled stomach compared to an empty stomach. Therefore I will henceforth incorporate HIIT into my training schedule on a fuelled stomach. 

Quinoa, soy milk, banana, blueberries and Agave Nectar

For breakfast I had my hot lemon juice followed by soy milk with quinoa, banana and blueberries. 

Mixed seeds

During the morning I snacked on a handful of mixed seeds. 

For lunch I had the Channa Dal with brown rice. 

I was very tired today. My body was screaming out for protein. I had recently banned dairy products and had run out of protein shake. It feels as though, on a restricted non-animal based diet, protein sources are diluted with carbs. It feels as though I need to consume more food in order to get enough protein. I’m not sure this is a good way to go in the long run. I’m not sure what this will do for my body fat content. Is it possible I may end up putting on more fat as I try and feed my body enough protein?

Where do vegans get their protein?

I was very hungry today too. I ate lunch twice. 

I took a rest from my resistance training today and just did 2 laps around the park which took me 57 min 04 sec. When I got to the cross trainer, someone was using it. I listened to the fat guy within and decided to go home. 

This is me with my wife a few years ago, fatter than I am now

I Beat Anorexia - LMBFAO - Laugh My Big Fat Ass Off

Over the last few days I have developed my own prep talk. If I ever feel like quitting I tell myself: “Don’t listen to the fat guy!” The fat guy is me, or an aspect of me. The fat guy is the guy who wants to binge on chocolate and sugary foods. The fat guy prefers to stay in bed rather than get up and do something about his health. The fat guy is the couch potato who’d rather watch TV all day. The fat guy is the one who makes pragmatic excuses to avoid exercise. He is the one who tells me to stop pushing myself harder and give up before my muscles cave in. The fat guy is the one who complains that it’s too hard, give me a break! The fat guy is the one whose eyes are bigger than his stomach, who fills his plate with too much food and then forces himself to finish it because he doesn’t like wasting food. The fat guy is the one who loves eating buckets full of KFC and loves chomping down his Big Macs. The fat guy is the one who eats like a pig. The fat guy is weak, he is pathetic, he is a wussy, and today he won my heart. 

Tomorrow morning I am sure that I will have to pay for listening to the fat guy. 

Being fat is a choice. 

Life is all about choice. Isn't it?

Hold up! Do you really think I would throw a cheesy line like that at you? Do I look like a personal development guy who thinks he knows it all, but doesn’t have the brain to understand that his philosophical view of the world is completely contradictory and utterly flawed? Most personal development and self help gurus go on about positive thinking and how life is a choice. Shut the F$%* up! Then they will say “Aha! But do you choose to live at cause or effect?” Sit down before I bitch slap you into place. What on earth are you talking about? We are living in cause AND effect and we are never free from that chain. First of all, their approach to helping people is based on one major assumption that they take for granted… namely that we have free will.

Free what? Free will. I can tell how deep a person currently thinks simply by asking them their perspective on free will. If they start responding with how we have freedom in society and don’t live in a dictatorship and generally talk about free will as if it is a social class issue, then their depth of thinking is projected outward at society. They do not understand what is meant by free will. If they talk about how of course we have free will because we make choices all the time, then they are thinking slightly more deeply, but not deep enough to realise that their perception of making a choice is just an illusion of what is really happening. Not choice. Rather a calculation. That’s right ladies and gentlemen if we live in a world governed by the law of cause and effect how are we exceptions to this rule? We’re not. Free will is a myth spread by those who wish to make the task of controlling us simpler. We are not free, never have been and never will be… I think.

Free will

Rebel without a cause? Wrong. There are causes that make you rebellious.

So being fat is not a choice. Being fat is the direct result of a chain of causes that have led you and me to the effect of being fat. We all have different causes that have led to your and my fatness. If you “choose” to do something about it, you’re not freely choosing to do so; rather your mind calculates that is the way forward. It’s not a choice. It’s a calculation. Just as you would input certain variables into a computer and it will come out with exactly the same output every single time if you repeated the procedure with exactly the same variables and exactly the same software kept identical, we will continue to calculate to do the things that aggravate our fatness if neither the variables or the programming changes. Perhaps reading this blog post will be the trigger cause in having the effect on your mind where you calculate that being fat is not good for you and you will do whatever you can to do something about. Maybe it will have the opposite effect and you will react with rebellion and feel who the hell is this guy to criticise me for being fat? I love being fat. Fat is a good shape. Why does it matter? It’s my personality that counts etc. 

That's right. You're a rebel with a cause.

How you react will also have many causes for it.

So what to do? First of all lets accept ourselves for who we are. Let’s accept that we are perfect just the way we are. There is nothing wrong with us. There is no point in blaming ourselves. Blame implies that we have free will. We don’t possess free will. So blame is nonsensical. So let’s instead try to understand the individual causes that have led us to being fat. Is it poor diet? Is it our beliefs (programming)? Is it poor exercise? Is it a genetic handicap that makes us more prone towards obesity? Is our body misbehaving and not working properly? If any of these things are true, lets try to understand them and in a way empower ourselves with this information, upgrade the software in our brains, and act accordingly to help our bodies to be more healthy. 

Black man abs

Sure I’d love to have the genetic make up of many  Black men who seem to be born with abs, or Slovenian men who can eat what they like and still stay slim. But I don’t have those advantages. My body does not react with the same generosity as other peoples bodies do. My relatives come in one package. Short and round. I’d like to change that. I want to work with my body and try to understand it so that I don’t have to be round. Short maybe, but not round! 

For my evening meal I had a fresh carrot juice, Channa Dal and salad, followed by some water melon.

Channa dal, salad and carrot juice

Water melon