I woke up with pain in my bottom jaw and teeth in one of the areas it had got fractured in September last year. I wasn’t sure what was wrong. At first I wondered if I may have been gritting my teeth in my sleep. The uncomfortable feeling stayed through the day and evening. While looking into reported effects of detoxing I came across a perspective that says: during stage three (day 8 to 15) of a detox, old wounds can feel painful again. It is said that this is due to the body healing that area properly, as during a detox, the body runs at an optimum healing capacity. When the healing took place originally, it was done with the nutrients and capabilities my body had, based on the lifestyle and nutrition I was providing it with then. With the new improved nutrition and less toxic body it is said that the body is able to revisit the old wound and heal it properly. Whether my pain in my jaw and teeth and my chest feeling filled with fluids is just a coincidence, I don’t know. But it is interesting to see that what I am experiencing is correlating with what has been recorded by people who have previously undergone detox regimes.
I did the second part of my experiment by repeating the same exercises completed the night before but this time first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I weighed myself before and after completing two laps of the park (took me 1 hour 48 seconds) and doing cardio on the cross trainer for 11 min11 sec. My readings before were: Weight: 69.2kg; BF: 17.9% BW: 56.4% BM: 42.7%. After the exercise my readings were: Weight: 69.2kg BF: 17.7% BW: 56.5% BM: 42.8%. That’s a fat reduction of 0.2% and a muscle increase of 0.1%. This is some useful evidence in favour of the idea that doing cardio on an empty stomach can burn fat stores as long as you don’t over do it, which will lead to muscle burning too. I will continue to monitor my weight and do follow up experiments with shorter but more vigorous forms of cardio to see which approach will give the optimum results for my body.
Muesli, raspberries, blueberries, almonds and Agave Nectar
For breakfast I had a hot fresh lemon juice followed by protein shake. An hour or so later I had low fat yogurt with muesli, blueberries, raspberries and the last of the roasted almonds with a drizzle of low GI Agave Nectar.
For lunch I had green lentils with coleslaw and a slice of wholemeal bread with peanut butter.
A couple of hours later I did the second part of my workout. Apart from my first set of lat pull downs in which I did 200 reps, the rest of my workout was not as good as previous days. This may have been partly due to the hot weather, or possibly because I had divided my workout into two and this was the second part (normally I would do resistance first followed by the 2 laps). After my resistance training I did an extra 30 min on the cross trainer.
Post workout I drank carrot juice and a protein shake.
Corn on the cob
A few hours later I ate corn on the cob. Shortly after it was followed up with cottage cheese with salad, coleslaw and houmous. The rest of the evening I drank detox teas.
For breakfast I had a fresh lemon hot drink and muesli with blueberries, blackberries and almonds.
Green lentils, almonds and lemon zest
Beetroot juice
For lunch I had wholemeal couscous with green lentil curry, almonds and lemon zest with a vegetable juice (beetroot, cucumber, carrot, celery, ginger).
We were running out of food so I went to Sainsbury’s. I bought Sainsbury’s Taste the difference soft wholemeal multiseeded batch, its only 3p more than the white bread version. It doesn’t taste as nice as the white version though. Maybe I just need to get used to wholemeal bread.
Trash all breads and starchy carbs?
After all the confusion with breads last week, my initial findings led me to believe the best bread is wholemeal bread. While writing this I thought I’d check the Glycaemic Index (GI) of breads. White bread, as expected, has a high GI of 70. Wholemeal bread has a GI of 69. 69! That’s just one GI less than white bread! And all this time I thought wholemeal bread was way healthier than white bread. Granted, because it’s less processed, wholemeal bread has more nutrients in it. However its effect on insulin levels is virtually no different than white bread. If you eat bread, white or wholemeal your insulin level will shoot up. If your body doesn’t work well with insulin, e.g. you’re diabetic or insulin resistant then it seems eating either is probably a bad idea! From past experience I have personally noticed that my waistline does not respond well to bread. I had hoped wholemeal was going to be different. At this point it seemed reasonable to me, that if you’re going to indulge in bread you may as well just take the one that you like the taste of as there is only one GI difference between white and wholemeal bread. Maybe we should just trash all bread!
Holy Grail
Wholey Grain
Stop! The search for healthy bread is really like the search for the Holy Grail. It’s a long journey with many twists and turns. There are many deceptive imposters which pretend to be the real deal when they are not. So I have continued to search and here is what I have found.
The Wholey Grain of Breads? Burgen Soy Lin Low GI Bread
Stone ground whole wheat bread tends to have lower GI values than just ordinary wholemeal bread. If it’s got whole seeds and nuts in it as well, then it’s even better. For example Cranks Organic Honey & Sunflower (available at Sainsburys) is made from stoneground (not stonebaked!) wholemeal bread and has sunflower seeds in it. I’m not sure what its Glycaemic Index is though.
Here are some other low-medium GI breads to consider.
Food: Pumpernickel Bread, Glycemic Index: 41, Glycemic Index Rating: Low
Food: Buckwheat Bread, Glycemic Index: 47, Glycemic Index Rating: Low
Food: Oatbran Bread, Glycemic Index: 47, Glycemic Index Rating: Low
Food: Wheat Bread, Glycemic Index: 53, Glycemic Index Rating: Low
Food: Pita Bread, Glycemic Index: 57, Glycemic Index Rating: Medium
Food: Rye Bread (Whole Wheat), Glycemic Index: 58, Glycemic Index Rating: Medium
It looks like another trip to the grocers is due to find myself a “Wholey Grain.” I’ll let you know in due course if I have any luck!
I started an experiment today to compare the effects of working out whilst being fuelled versus working out on an empty stomach. I limited the experiment to cardio. For today’s workout I did the two laps in 58:25 and cross trainer for 11 min 11 sec. I weighed myself immediately before and immediately after the workout. I did the workout in the evening, an hour or so after eating. My readings stayed constant at: Weight: 69.6kg; BF: 18.0%; BW: 56.3% and BM: 42.6%. Nothing changed immediately after the workout. The rest of the experiment will be conducted tomorrow morning.
I noticed that I still had some problems with liquid in my lungs. On my way to the park I was feeling really good and positive. However by the time I finished I noticed my mood had swung completely the other way. I was grumpy and clumsy when I got home (spilled carrot juice all over our new kitchen units). Mood swings are apparently a common experience during a detox.
Carrot juice
When I got home I had a carrot juice and protein shake. For my evening meal I had corn on the cob, cottage cheese and some celery.
Checking my weight, body fat, water and muscle percentages first thing in the morning is like turning up at school results week to find out my exam results. There’s a level of excitement and nervousness about it. After all the hard work I put into the workout the day before I wonder if I let myself down by eating too much, or not eating properly. Recording my progress on a daily basis has been a huge help in motivation and understanding how my body responds to certain foods and exercises. As well as body stats, recording how many reps I did a certain exercise; how long it took me to walk two laps around Valentines Park; and how long I did cardio on the cross trainer motivate me to push harder and beat previous records. By recording and trying to push myself further beyond previous personal records I can insure that I am progressing with my goals.
Coke
I have worked out in the past without recording what I have been doing each session and I have found my motivation during each session as well as the motivation to stick with it overall hit and miss. By recording what I achieve and how my body responds I am finding myself in a position to experiment and see what works best for me. We are all different with different body types. Some of us can eat crap; drink Coca Cola as though it were breast milk to a newborn baby, yet stay skinny, whilst some of us (me) can no longer fit in our jeans after two days of eating the same as the skinny person who is addicted to coke.
So far I have not found the food aspect of this detox hard. As long I have a variety of nutritious food in the flat at all times and don’t go out hungry I do fine walking past takeaway shops and curry houses no problem. If I go out hungry however, then it’s a different story! Within days of starting the detox, I noticed my sense of smell intensify. I can smell bad smells like body odour more intensely and I can smell people’s cologne a mile away. If they come close (within say 5 metres), their scent, good or bad can be overwhelming! If it’s really strong it hits me like a wave and nearly knocks me off my feet. So, naturally, this means walking past a place that’s selling delicious food whilst hungry can be very tempting.
Yeh you
Having a more enhanced sense of smell is actually quite an interesting experience. Normally I would just walk around in my own head or at most explore my surroundings visually. Now, on top of my visual perception, my sense of smell is far more pronounced. I am literally walking around the streets of East London experiencing them olfactorily. I’ll sit next to a homeless unbathed person on a bus and it would seem as though I am sat next to a rotting corpse. I’ll walk past a 12 year old Romanian gypsy bad boy with a silver earring and a silver chain and smell his Jean Paul Gaultier aftershave ten metres away. As he walks towards me and crosses me the scent grows into a pungent tsunami wave overwhelming me, making me cough as I inhale it through my mouth and nose into my lungs. I’ll cough to desperately gasp for air. I’ll be ten metres behind a chubby English girl in a tracksuit smoking a fag and her potential lung cancer feels contagious as I inadvertently take in her smoke. Though I am a smoker, who, prior to the detox was smoking a few everyday, whilst detoxing, the smell of cigarette smoke smells like an unattractive cancerous poison. I feel like the main character in the movie Perfume.
Speaking of lungs I’ve started to notice my chest feeling clogged up with some sort of liquid. At first I was a bit disappointed as I’m expecting to feel fantastic as a result of this detox. It’s day 10 and last time I did a detox I felt fantastic at day 10. That has not happened for me yet. After looking into the effects of detoxing I’ve discovered this symptom is a normal response to detoxification.
In the morning I went out and fetched some lemons. I was tempted by the aroma of Subway again and decided to buy a wholemeal salad sandwich. As I was running out of dairy products in the flat I said yes to the offer to put cheese in the sandwich. I ate the sandwich with a hot lemon juice drink when I returned home.
Chinese rice with Tofu and Almonds
Green lentil curry
For lunch my wife made delicious Chinese rice with brown rice, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, peas, sweet corn, carrots, tofu and almonds. The brown rice, almonds and tofu provided complimentary forms of protein. I felt hungry again a few hours later and ate the Chinese rice with a green lentil curry my wife made. I added almonds and a garnish of fresh lemon zest which made it taste even better!
I went out for my workout quite late again. I had a fantastic workout hitting 160 lat pull downs for my first set and beating my 2 lap record by 1 min 17 seconds by completing them in 57 min 2 sec. I also extended my cross trainer cardio to 30 minutes for the first time.
Bat
There are definitely bats in Valentines Park, Ilford. I was enjoying my cardio until 20 minutes into it a bat flew with a metre of my head! For a few minutes I was wondering if I had the wrong decision in wearing a red t-shirt. I wondered if bats are attracted to red the same as bulls are or because it’s the colour of blood! Despite the bats I continued training for the full 30 minutes.
Why did the rat cross the road?
The journey home was eventful. I was feeling good walking home until I came across a mouse about to cross my path, but then it turned 180 degrees and hid behind a bus stand I had to walk past. If that wasn’t bad enough to give me the creeps, about 5 metres further on I had an awkward moment with a rat. You know when you’re walking down the street, and then someone needs to cross your path and walk into, say, a shop to your left. Neither of you are sure who should go first. You both try to offer the way to the other, or, you both try to go through yourself while you make the other wait. Well this dilemma happened between me and this rat. I just dodged stepping on the mouse, and then this rat wanted to cross my path. In my mind I was like “Before you sir rat” and I waved him through. He was in two minds too as if he was giving me way. Then when he realised I was letting him go through he crossed the path into the park, where he joined who I assume were three of his pals waiting for him to cross the road to them. As I took a few more steps further another rat darted across the path in front of me. Bloody selfish rodent! He was nowhere near as considerate as the other fella! After playing hopscotch with the mouse and rats and without catching Weil’s disease, I made it safely back home.
At home I had a fresh vegetable juice (cucumber, beetroot, celery, carrot and ginger root) and protein shake. For my evening meal I had a corn on the cob and then green lentils with almonds and lemon zest.
Carrot, beetroot, celery, ginger root and cucumber (forgot to include in photo!) ready for juicing
My weight dropped 0.6kg today to 69.1kg. My Body Fat dropped 1% to 18.5%. My body water increased to 56.0% and my Body Muscle increased 0.5% to 42.4%. It looks like I’m finally getting some consistent results!
I started my day with a hot freshly squeezed lemon juice. I was out of fromage frais so I had my muesli with low fat yogurt, blueberries, blackberries and almonds. The yogurt felt lighter than the fromage frais and had a creamier taste to it. It was a tasty alternative to the fromage frais. They are both delicious, just different.
Wholemeal couscous with sweetcorn, tomato and lemon juice
For lunch I had the spinach with quinoa and fresh orange juice. I got hungry again a couple of hours later and had the spinach with wholemeal couscous that was mixed with sweet corn, tomatoes and lemon juice. Got hungry again a few hours later and ate the same meal again. When you exercise regularly your appetite can increase quite a bit. It’s not good to starve yourself. So if you feel hungry, eat. But you have to be thoughtful about what you eat and how much you eat. You can never go wrong with salads, vegetables and fruit. They are nutrient dense, but relatively low in calories. Its very easy to snack on nuts, which as mentioned before can lead to putting on fat if you’re not careful.
I did my workout in the evening again. This time I restricted it to just cardio. This week I’m experimenting with doing resistance training and cardio one day, followed by just cardio, to give my muscles a chance to rest and grow, followed by a day of resistance and cardio again and so on until the seventh day where I take a day off.
I completed my two laps of Valentines Park in 58 minutes 51 seconds. Didn’t quite beat my record of the previous day but did still do it under an hour. I had wanted to do an extended cardio session today. But by the time I got on the cross trainer I was starving. However I still pushed myself to workout for 15 minutes rather than just the normal 10 minutes. Because I was hungry I didn’t enjoy today’s session as I did the previous night.
When I got home I had a mixed vegetable juice with: beetroot, cucumber, celery, carrot and ginger root followed by a protein shake. For my evening meal I had cottage cheese; corn on the cob (boiled for 5 minutes) garnished with Bertolli Light (made with mild olive oil), sea salt and a sprinkle of garlic and chilli; and a roasted large fat mushroom seasoned with soy sauce and garlic puree covered in melted mozzarella. Bellissimo!
Hard water map of the UK
Earlier this week I looked into whether London tap water has toxins in it or not. It turns out as with any subject there is a huge debate raging about what type of water is best to drink. Some people don’t like the hardness of London water due to the extra minerals in it. However from an alternative perspective some of the extra minerals in hard water (i.e. calcium and magnesium) may well be good for you. It’s why people drink bottled mineral water after all - due to the extra minerals you get in them. Then there is the bad stuff that could end up in tap water (e.g. chlorine, lead and heavy metals) or controversial stuff like fluoride. There is a huge debate raging about the fluoridation of tap water. Some governments say they would like water companies to put fluoride into tap water in order to fight tooth decay amongst children who don’t brush their teeth. The West Midlands for example has been serving fluoridated water since 1964. Check this map of the UK to see if your water supply is being fluoridated. Others, like Alex Jones believe that fluoride is a poison and governments are deliberately fluoridating their populations to make them stupid.
evian
Then you have those who shun London tap water for bottled water and swear by the results of what they experience: e.g. less skin problems, less spots etc. Others argue that bottled water companies do not have the same strict regulations to abide by that tap water companies do, therefore you don’t really know what you’re drinking if you drink bottled water. You’re also paying an arm and a leg for bottled water. Did you know that Evian is French for Naive?
Aqua Optima water filter jug
Another suggestion is to drink filtered water. Filtered water also has many perspectives. The most affordable is the filter jug variety. You buy a jug with filter cartridges, poor tap water into it, and drink the filtered tap water. You can currently (15/08/2010) buy a water filter jug for as little as £4.99 and get 12 months worth of water filter cartridges from £15.29.* Filter jugs, depending on the cartridge used, can reduce: chlorine, calcium carbonate, heavy metals, herbicides and pesticides, while letting magnesium and potassium through (which your body can benefit from). They are not capable of removing fluoride and the particles of other pollutants which are too small to be filtered using their technology.
Whole house water filter
More expensive filtration solutions are attachments to taps, and filtering the water supply of the whole home. There are many kinds, no one system is perfect. Some are capable of removing fluoride; however every system has its pros and cons. If you live in an area that has water supplied which is fluoridated and you believe the evidence that suggests it’s not good for you, then having a system like this fitted in your home may well be a good investment. Fortunately my water supplier, Thames Water, is not currently fluoridating our water supply.
* I’ve just ordered and reserved my Aqua Optima water filter jug and cartridges as I write this. Maybe I have finally found the fountain of youth?! Will let you know in due course if it works!
Al-Khidr and Alexandra the Great and The Fountain of Youth
…Ok it’s not that simple. Many variables have altered in those two days to simply pin the fat loss on just eating Subway sandwiches. Another factor that was in common with both days was that I lost fat the day after I socialised with friends. Can socialising make you lose fat? Well I bet it’s possible. Why? Because socialising with friends might help you relax a bit and relieve stress. When you’re stressed the body releases the stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol can cause your body to store fat in you abdominal area. This seems to be something I might well be effected by as I do look like a pregnant man. The rest of me doesn’t seem to have too much fat, its mainly my stomach and chin. I watched a video earlier when looking into alternative perspectives on exercising on an empty stomach. I saw a video which suggested that people who have more belly fat are likely to have more cortisol in their body and exercising first thing in the morning on an empty stomach was more likely to lead to starvation mode in people who fit this profile.
Could that be me? Well later this week I shall experiment on this and find out what is actually happening to me if I do exercise on an empty stomach versus exercising whilst fuelled.
Other factors that could have lead to today’s results: I rested and gave my muscles an opportunity to rebuild; I ate more salad type food; I didn’t eat starchy carbohydrates the night before; I’m spreading out my meals into smaller snacks; and I cut down on my nut consumption…
Nuts
Nuts are good for you if you eat about a handful a day. But as they are high in calories, if you eat them in excess you will gain weight. Also different nuts have different nutritional values. I’ve just been doing some research and have come up with the following key facts when it comes to nuts and their nutritional values.
Nuts highest in Protein value per 100 grams:
Peanuts: 25g
Almonds: 21g
Cashews: 20g
Nuts lowest in Protein value per 100 grams:
Chestnuts: 2g
Coconuts and Walnuts: 6g
Pecan nuts: 9g
Nuts highest in Fat value per 100 grams:
Pecan nuts: 70g
Pine nuts and Walnuts: 69g
Brazil nuts: 68g
Nuts lowest in Fat per 100 grams:
Chestnuts: 3g
Pistachio nuts: 30g
Peanuts: 46g
Nuts highest in Carbohydrates value per 100 grams:
Chestnuts: 52.96g
Cashew: 32.69g
Pistachio: 26.78g
Nuts lowest in Carbohydrates per 100 grams:
Brazil Nuts: 12.27g
Pine: 13.08g
Macadamia nuts: 13.38g
It is important to note that not all fat is bad. Nuts tend to be high in good fats which lower cholesterol. See this link for a break down of the different types of fat in nuts. However it seems pine nuts are the third highest in terms of saturated fat (generally considered bad) and me snacking on these a few days ago may well be a factor which has contributed to my increased fat percentage in previous days.
Peanut butter on wholemeal bread
It is clear from the above nutrition facts that peanuts may well be the bodybuilder’s best friend when it comes to nuts. They are the highest in protein and one of the lowest when it comes to fat. Almonds are also up there in terms of protein content. This may well be one of the contributing factors to me gaining muscle the following morning after my night out on Saturday. Almonds combine well with whole grains and legumes to create complete proteins. So the wholemeal bread in the Subway sandwich I also ate on Saturday night must have combined well with the almonds I ate earlier leading to an increase in muscle the following morning.
In conclusion I will only eat a handful of mixed nuts a day. And if I choose to snack on any other nuts on top of that I will choose to eat either peanuts with wholemeal bread (peanut butter on wholemeal toast sounds good) or almonds in muesli or almonds thrown into cooking so that I get the benefit of their high protein content. Cashews will also be considered close to a workout for their high protein and high carbohydrate value.
Spinach and quinoa with fresh orange juice
Back to today’s routine: I drank a hot lemon drink, followed by my muesli in the morning. For lunch I had Quinoa with a spinach curry my wife made. I sprinkled the spinach with freshly grated lemon zest. To help my body digest the iron in the spinach more easily I drank freshly squeezed orange juice with my lunch.
There are two types of dietary iron. Heme iron and non-heme iron. Heme iron is from haemoglobin in blood found in red meat like beef. Non-heme iron is from plant sources such as spinach. Heme iron from animals is more easily absorbed by the body than non-heme iron. However vitamin C increases the absorbability of non-heme iron. This is why it’s important to consume something high in vitamin C (like a citrus juice) while eating a vegetarian meal high in iron.
I did my workout quite late. I left the house at 19.30. Sunset was an hour later. My workout takes me about two hours. On my way to the park, my mind tried to seduce me into doing a shortened workout. It came up with suggestions like… “Why don’t you skip the resistance training and do it at home.” “Skip the walk; you can do that on the street.” “Only do the dips and lat pull downs and exercise the rest of your muscles at home later using bodyweight exercises.” “Skip the cross trainer. You’re going to do loads of cardio tomorrow anyway.” I was tempted. This temptation was obviously clothed in “pragmatic” thinking about the fact I would only have an hour of sunlight to deal with. Despite the fat devil on my left shoulder giving me all these suggestions, I listened to the slim toned angel on my right shoulder and carried on as normal. I’m glad I did. Apart from my crunches I exceeded the amount of reps in most of my other exercises. For my first lat pull down set I did 140 reps!
Slimer from Ghostbusters
By the time I started my walk around the park it was dusk. When I was first walking through the darkest part of the park in the thick trees near Valentines School, I did think about heading back and reversing my route so that my second walk through this bit was not half an hour later when I knew it would be a lot darker. Was I experiencing fear of the dark? Perhaps. It’s not that I was afraid of the dark, just what could be lurking in the dark. Rats, foxes, something worse? A bhoot? What is wrong with me? Do I even believe in such things? I’d need to believe in a soul first, before being able to believe a spirit of a dead person was out for a stroll in Valentines Park! When fear kicks in our thinking can be quite irrational, contradictory, and defensive. Fear enhances a perspective of separateness. Even if there are such things, or non-human intelligent entities, wouldn’t I want to communicate with such beings? What if there are, and it’s our fear and close minded beliefs that stop us from perceiving them? Why should I react with fear as my first response even at the thought of their being something out there in the dark?
Anyways, despite this brave talk the darkness propelled me to exceed my previous performance. Perhaps it was the fear of the dark that sped me up. I crossed the one hour threshold! I completed my two laps 2 minutes 24 seconds faster than my previous record a day before my break. I completed it in 58 minutes and 19 seconds! Woohoo! Only a couple of days ago I didn’t think it was even possible to cross the one hour threshold.
Bats at dusk
A couple of times I could have sworn I sighted bats flying in and out the tops of trees. Do bats even exist in this country let alone Valentines Park in Ilford? Could I have mistaken a bird for a bat? Maybe. But I’ve seen bats fly in Kenya and other countries and the way these things were flying seemed just like bats. And this was around dusk too. I’ve just Googled and found that bats do exist in London. Perhaps a vampire was lurking in the dark after all!
After my walk I went onto the cross trainer. By this time it was almost completely dark and I was one of the only people left in the park. I really enjoyed my cross training session. It was cool, dark and I was alone in what felt like the wilderness. I could see a plane fly overhead in the distance as I exercised. I could see bats flying in and out of the tree ahead of me on the right. I felt energised and felt as if I could carry working on the cross trainer for the next hour. I really felt good. I wondered if I was close to feeling that “fantastic” feeling I felt on day ten of my detox 6 months earlier. I felt good, but it wasn’t quite that good yet. I wanted to stay longer than my usual 10 minutes, but it was really dark and I was concerned I might get locked in. As I walked home. I felt great. I felt peaceful and when I walked home it felt like I was gliding smoothly on the footpath rather than walking.
Post workout I had a fresh apple and carrot juice followed by a protein shake. Before going to bed I had salad and cottage cheese for dinner.
