40 Day Detox

It’s day five and I’m still not getting results. Today my weight went up by 1.1kg to 70.9kg. I wouldn’t have minded this as long as it was a gain in muscle. But this again was not the case. My Body Fat went up 1.3% to 19.4%, Body Water went down to 55.4% and Body Muscle went down 0.6% to 42.0%. 

Albert Einstein on Insanity

Albert Einstein defined Insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I don’t want to be classed as being insane so today I decided to not exercise on an empty stomach at all and see what would happen if I exercised later in the day after fuelling my body with food first. 

I started my day with a double lime and honey hot drink, followed by muesli with fromage frais, a handful of nuts, a handful of blueberries, a handful of blackberries, a handful of green grapes and a teaspoon of honey. 

I use Sainsbury’s Be Good to Yourself Natural Normandy Fromage Frais. Per 100g it contains 50 kcal; Protein 8.0g; Carbohydrate 4.2g; and Fat 0.1g. Its Protein to Carbohydrate to Fat ratio is better than 100ml of Cravendale skimmed milk which contains 37 kcal; Protein 3.6kg; Carbohydrate: 4.9g; Fat 0.3g. It’s also better than 100g of Sainsbury’s Be Good to Yourself Natural Probiotic Yogurt which has 55 kcal; Protein 5.6g; Carbohydrate 8.0g; Fat 0.1g. Higher protein content is also the reason I’ve started to consume Sainsbury’s Be Good to Yourself British Natural Cottage Cheese before going to bed. It contains 75 kcal; Protein 10.8g; Carbohydrate 4.6g; and Fat 1.5g. So when I want to consume more protein I go for cottage cheese and fromage frais, and when I want to fuel or refuel my muscles with carbohydrates as well as get some protein I will consume milk and yogurt close to workouts. 

Blueberries

Blueberries have the highest antioxidant capacity of all fresh fruit which has many benefits including boosting your immune system and fighting the aging process by neutralising free radicals. Blackberries are also high in antioxidants. They can also apparently help relieve diarrhoea and intestinal inflammation. If only I had known this the other day when I first started drinking protein shakes. The morning after my first protein shake I suffered from what is affectionately called the “protein shake shits”. Anyways, I digress, back to the health benefits of my breakfast. Ah yes, grapes. Grapes can help fight heart disease. It’s the reason why French people get away with their high fat diets and yet not suffer from as much heart disease as say Americans and Brits. It’s due to their high consumption of grapes and wine (which is made of grapes). 

As I didn’t do a long workout on an empty stomach this morning I had more energy than on previous days and managed to get a blog post up by 3pm.  I then ate one peanut butter on multiseed toast and an avocado with peanut butter (strange mix I know) to fuel me for my workout. I figured my body would need some time to process the food before being of benefit so went shopping for groceries as we had started to run out of fruit for juicing and other wholesome stuff. I’m quite surprised by how much food I have managed to get through in less then a week since starting this detox. Maybe that’s why I’m getting fatter? 

My Route Around Valentines Park, Ilford

By the time I got home it had been over an hour since my pre-workout snack and I was feeling hungry again. So I ate a banana and munched on a handful of almonds as I made my way to the gym. My performance in the gym was by far the best it had been to date. I went past the 100 mark and did 110 Lat Pull Down’s and 110 Crunches in the first set. My second and third sets were also improvements from the previous days in these two exercises. I struggle most with Dips and Chest Press. The most dips I’ve managed so far is 30 since the beginning of the detox and on the chest press I only managed 40 reps in the first set. But overall I was pleased with my performance. I also beat my walking record by 23 seconds, completing my two laps in 1 hour 1 minute and 35 seconds. I’ve mapped out my route on Map My Run. Turns out in total I’m walking 7.14km. It’s therefore taking me 13:52 minutes to walk a mile. That’s 1.92 m/s. 

Brown male with a beard = Islamic terrorist

When I returned to the gym to get on the cross trainer there was an orthodox Jewish girl on it surrounded by other Jewish kids and adults. While I waited, I wrote down my latest walking record on a piece of paper and I noticed some of the Jewish adults looking at me in a suspicious kind of way. It was hot, I was tired and well, I just didn’t want any trouble. I’ve been in similar situations before. 

Thirteen years ago one January afternoon, I was stood outside King Solomon High School waiting for a lift from some work colleagues. I was doing one of the most boring jobs in the world: stocktaking. (Listen up kids, this is what happens when you rebel against the system and quit education – you end up doing shitty jobs. So don’t do it. Learn from my mistake. Figure out what you want in life early on and just get on with it. Have some dreams and make them happen. Leave the philosophising to me).

Zaheerjeel Ahmed

Anyways, back to the January of 1997. I was stood with an old school friend. My memory fails me as to who it was. I think it was either a friend called Zaheer or Nafeez (Oops I’ve just been informed that the fellow usual suspect was Sherjeel Ahmed, sorry Sherj!). Our colleagues were going to pick us up and we were going to head to somewhere in St Albans to stocktake a La Senza women’s lingerie store. Embarrassing? Yes… As I stood there I noticed the CCTV camera near the school gates move slowly from left to right and then focus on me. It felt like the Terminator rolling his head left and then right and then staring straight at me. Then I noticed the electronic school gates close. I think it was within 5 minutes I noticed a police car circling Fullwell Cross roundabout. I must have seen it go round and round at least 3-4 times. Neither of us had yet clocked on what was going on. 

I spy with my little eye something beginning with T and ending with T… (Click image for answer)

Within the next couple of minutes we were surrounded by four police cars and two police vans. Talk about excessive! When they parked up they screeched to a stop and jumped out of their cars – just as you see them do on The Bill and marched towards us. I wasn’t scared. No not all. I thought the situation was absolutely hilarious. You see this was back in 1997. This was pre-911, pre-7/7, pre-Jean Charles de Menezes. We bearded brown people weren’t yet fully embraced as the enemy within. Sure we could easily get locked up and be treated as guilty until proven innocent for accusations of domestic abuse – because that’s obviously what brown men with beards did to entertain themselves. But it took a couple of false flag operations the next four to eight years later for us to be put up onto the pedestal of the most wanted terrorist list. So being eighteen and a little naïve perhaps, I did the unthinkable. I had fun with it. 

They split us up and questioned us separately. One of the female police officers said to me: “What are you doing here?” I said, “I’m waiting to get picked up for work.” She then said, “What do you work as and where do you work?” With a grin on my face I said: “I am a terrorist and I work in a semtex factory.” WARNING: Do not try this at home! Leave such sarcasm with the Police to the professionals. I wasn’t shot in the head 7 times, or battened in the ribs, or handcuffed and flung into the back of a police van. On the contrary she responded with disarming embarrassment. Rather then getting me into an arm lock and throwing me to the floor they were completely embarrassed for being there and having to deal with us. She asked me a few more routine questions, mentioned that the school had noticed us behaving suspiciously outside the school and were simply doing their job. When it was clear to them that the school were just being paranoid and we were just two harmless brown blokes waiting to get picked up to go to work they apologised for inconveniencing us and let us be.

Beardos are not Terrorists

Those were the good old days when the Metropolitan Police Service asked questions first and acted later. Not like now. It’s unlikely that I would ever attempt to pull a stunt like that again in the current political climate. They’ve probably enacted laws now (thanks to my old schoolmate Lamine) giving the police the right to keep you locked up without any evidence for even whimpering such a thing! 

When I got to work I realised how lucky I might have been that they decided against searching me. I was carrying a book I was reading called “The Vanished Imam: Musa Al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon”. 

How did I get onto that story? Oh yes, the Jewish girl and the cross trainer. Well I decided that I would not stand there and wait for it to become free. Consciously I thought to myself that I’m tired now, I can’t be bothered to wait and I’ll go home and make up the exercise by using my wife’s indoor bike for 30 minutes. That’s what I was thinking consciously. Subconsciously it seems a lot more was going on in the back of my mind! 

When I got home I drank freshly squeezed pear juice. In the previous days the citrus drinks didn’t seem to be doing the trick of stopping me from feeling exhausted. A few months back when I experimented with fresh juices post workout I did notice pear and apple juices doing the trick and making me feel energised again. So I thought I’d try that again. I also had a protein shake with skimmed milk. 

For our evening meal I made roast vegetables to go with the black-eyed beans my wife had made earlier. The roast included: two bell peppers, a carrot, an aubergine, two courgettes, three handfuls of okra, a handful of mushrooms, one large onion, 5 green chillies, some root ginger, 4 cloves of garlic a handful of fresh basil leaves, and seasoned with olive oil, sea salt and pepper. I also grated some mozzarella cheese on top. I’ve made this a couple of times before and it came out really nice. This time however it was ok, nothing special. Perhaps I cooked too many vegetables at the same time and failed to season it properly. I ate my evening meal with a glass of fresh carrot juice. 

I thought about getting on the bike and treating myself to half an hour in the tub to relax my aching muscles. But thinking about doing both activities was about as much energy I felt like investing in either activity. Instead I took a 5 minute shower, ate 5 tablespoons of cottage cheese and had an early night.

Today my weight stayed constant at 69.8kg for a third day on the trot. However my Body Fat went down to 18.1% my Body Water was 56.3% and my Body Muscle went up to 42.6%. Could this rise in muscle percentage have been due to the high protein, low fat cottage cheese I consumed just before going to bed? Possibly. Maybe it was the almonds. 

Despite the slight improvement I decided to make some changes. High fat cheddar was now banned. There is some mozzarella in the fridge which I am going to sprinkle on roast vegetables later this week. But once I’ve finished that pack, I will no longer be consuming high saturated fat dairy products. My dairy product consumption will be limited to skimmed milk, low fat cottage cheese, low fat fromage frais and low fat natural yogurt. I will restrict starchy carbohydrates to before and after workouts to fuel and refuel my body. I will avoid carbohydrates and fruit in the evenings as my need for the quick access energy will diminish as the day comes to a close. My training regime will also see some changes. I am considering the very real possibility that by doing a two hour workout on an empty stomach I may well be going into starvation mode and melting away the little muscle I have whilst keeping the fat. So this morning I decided to limit my empty stomach workout to just walking around the park twice. My new personal record is 1 hour 1 minute and 58 seconds. 

I came home to a double lime and honey hot drink and a protein shake. For breakfast I ate virtually fat free fromage frais mixed with a handful of blueberries, blackberries, green grapes, muesli, mixed nuts and a teaspoon of honey. It was a breakfast fit for a king. It beat any off-the-shelf cereal I have ever eaten hands down! 

By not doing an excessive workout in the morning I also found that my energy levels were not as low as in previous mornings. I was able to sit at my computer and start work on this blog. 

A couple of hours after my first workout I prepared for my next training session by eating two multi-seed toasts with peanut butter and a banana. I wanted to make sure I had enough energy in me so that I would not go into starvation mode during the workout. While I was eating, I got a text from an old Woodbridge High School friend of mine asking me to join him and a group of lads at Valentines Park for some cricket. Yes of course, how could I forget? Earlier in the week I had opted into the idea when his brother contacted me on Facebook trying to arrange a session for Sunday. 

A taped ball, not quite as manly as a cricket ball, but a step up from a tennis ball

At the park I was greeted by Ihetsham, his brother Waqas and a mixture of young and old guys who I think were mostly Sham’s relatives. In the end there were twelve of us in total and we played a couple six-a-side games. I had fun. I might have played embarrassingly bad and single-handedly lost us one of the games, but, I did have fun. And that’s the most important thing. The first over I balled, I started off ok, but as the game progressed I found it difficult to control the ball. Or should I say hand. My hand refused to obey my orders. Fingers: “Let it go.” “Let the ball go.” My fingers just refused to let the ball go in time. So I’d end up balling a crazy bouncer that was ridiculously wide. I tried again. “Let it go.” “Let it go.” Hand says: “Let me think about it.” This time the ball travelled really fast. But not in front of me towards the wicket and the batsman. No, no, no, no, no! Not even that. No, not even a crazy wide. This time the ball went flying behind me 180 degrees completely the wrong way. It’s as if my right arm, hand and fingers mutinied against me and decided they wanted to play with the other batsman stood behind me and aim towards the wicket at the other end of the pitch. It’s a conspiracy I tell you! 

Then it was my turn to bat. Perhaps I would perform better at this? No. First innings out for a duck, balled out on my second or third ball by my old classmate Ihetsham Ashraf. My second innings I was out for a golden duck (facing the first ball). My third innings I did a lot better. I got thirteen runs not out. The baller I was facing was a young man. I think he was 8 or 10 years old. Did I feel bad for hitting him for a four on his first ball? Hell no. I was enjoying every moment. I needed this. I hadn’t played cricket in almost a decade and I needed to get comfortable in the crease. I needed to ease my way back into cricket. I needed to boost my confidence because all performance is 95% confidence after all (scientifically objective statistic courtesy of yours truly). I needed to remember what it was like feeling the bat hit the ball and watch it whizz off into the air. I needed to feel my heart beating as I ran across the crease. It felt good. 

Even when it came to balling it wasn’t all bad. I balled my old classmate Ihetsham out twice during the course of the afternoon. The first time he knocked me about for a few twos and maybe a four here and there, but then I balled him out middle stump. I can do this. I can put down the mutiny of my right arm, hand and fingers. I can make them obey. I can make them cooperate. I can make them excel as a team and perform. The second game I got to ball an over, I think I balled Ihetsham out first ball. It was a beautiful ball. As I let the ball go I pushed down on the ball with my middle finger and thus twisted the ball slightly to the right. It landed in front of him inline with the off stump and it swung in. It swung in! He went for a shot; it flew past his bat and knocked the leg stump out of the ground! I was getting good at this. My confidence was up. 

But then it seemed those treacherous imbeciles were conspiring against their master again. The rest of the over lasted about two and half overs. Mostly wides and no bowls, a lot of fours and sixes. That over lost our team the game despite its promising start. 

Regardless of my treacherous performance, those two hours were a lot of fun. If I got the chance to play again I definitely would. Practice makes perfect. 

After the game I headed over to the outdoor gym and continued with my resistance training. It was hot and there were lots of people around especially kids pissing about with the gym equipment. This was very off-putting. After doing my first set of dips I considered quitting and going home. Then I remembered the quote: “Turning up is 80% of the battle”. Simply by being there and getting on with it even if it wasn’t to the best of my abilities it would contribute towards my goals. My performance was a mixture of some sets being better than previous days and some worse than previous days. But I’m glad I did it anyhow. 

When I got home I had another double lime with honey hot drink, protein shake and a mango. I then ate a black-eyed beans curry my wife made with brown rice. A little later in the evening I went to my parent’s house for a visit. There I ate pink lentils that my mum made that evening and urad dal that my dad made the day before. Both were seriously delicious.

When I got home, as I didn’t have any cottage cheese left in the house I had about 10 teaspoons of fromage frais hoping it would do the trick and then went to bed.

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is weigh myself on the scales and get a break down of my Body Fat, Body Water and Body Muscle readings. From day one to day two I went down only 0.1kg from 69.9kg to 69.8kg. From day two to day three I stayed at 69.8kg, and no I did not convert fat to muscle. From day one to day two my Body Fat, Body Water and Body Muscle stayed constant at BF: 18.8%, BW: 55.8%, BM: 42.3%. From day two to day three my weight stayed the same at 69.8kg but my Body Fat went up to 19.5%, my Body Water went down to 55.3% and my Body Muscle went down to 41.9%! This is despite all the exercise and cutting out many things from my diet. I thought of a few reasons this could be happening: 1) I’m consuming too many fat and carbohydrate calories (e.g. Cheddar Cheese and Quinoa); 2) The reading might have detected more fat due to The Body Shop strawberry butter I put on my body after coming out of the shower the night before; 3) My two hour training on an empty stomach in the morning is forcing my body into starvation mode and it’s starting to burn my muscle as a form of fuel, rather than just fat and carbohydrates. 

Whatever is going on something is not working! These thoughts were going around in the back of my mind most of the day. 

Anyway, back to the morning gym session I did on an empty stomach again. My resistance training generally improved with an increase in reps in most sets from yesterday’s session. However, my 2 laps around the park were slower by 41 seconds. I completed my 10 minutes on the cross trainer as usual. 

When I got home I had a double lime with two teaspoons of honey mixed with hot water drink, a fresh mango, a protein shake with milk and flaxseed oil and two toasts with peanut butter. The hot water is supposed to boost the “kick-starting the metabolism” effect. 

Despite the attempt at refuelling I was once again quite exhausted after my work out for the rest of the morning/afternoon. 

For lunch I had quinoa with the last of the vegetable curry. Through the day I snacked on nuts to try and boost my energy and give me a continuous source of protein. 

Me eating a bowl of fruit in the smoking area of Tiger Tiger in Piccadilly Circus, London

A couple of my friends had been in touch asking me to join them for a night out. I wasn’t sure if I’d be up for it due to low energy. However by the time it was evening I was feeling normal energy levels again and decided to go out with them. We ended up at Tiger Tiger in Piccadilly Circus – I would not recommend it, not on a Saturday night anyway. There were lots of fat unattractive people on Stag and Hen dos trying to unconvincingly dance to crappy 80’s music. It was hot, the air conditioning was broken and leaking and thus there were lots of sweaty smelly people everywhere. Yuck. Definitely not my kind of scene. Though it’s possible I felt like that because I was completely sober. No alcohol. No drugs. No tobacco. Just almonds. Which, mistakenly I left in the cloakroom. At one point I got the munchies and so we went on the hunt for something I could eat. Luckily across the road from the club was a Spar. There was a large variety of foods on offer. I would have loved a wholemeal salad sandwich. No chance. The vegetarian sandwiches they did have, like, the Ploughman’s Lunch, though in wholemeal bread, contained mayonnaise, and mayonnaise contains egg – which is a no, no. The only foods that suited my detox regime was a bowl of salad which was £2.89 or a small bowl of fruit which was £1.69. So I went for the fruit. I ended up bringing back the bowl of fruit and eating it outside the club in the smokers’ area. Yes that’s right, I’m taking this detox thing hardcore! And when I was inside all I was drinking was water with a slice of lemon. Lovely. After completing my midnight munch I reluctantly went back inside with the boys. 

Despite the shitty venue, there were however, two great things that came out of the night. 1) I got to meet up with a couple of my friends who I hadn’t seen in a while – always good to see them. 2) I was inspired by a Chippendale-looking shot-serving guy who had his top off and had an extremely well carved body. I looked at him and then thought back to the photos I’d taken of myself over the last couple of days (I’m taking photos of myself every day to track my progress) and thought, man! I need to get my act together and stop looking like a pregnant man (really). I looked at him and contemplated how I was not getting any results the last few days and thought I really would like to share my before and after pics with you guys at the end of the 40 days. In order for that to be possible I must get results. The only way I could show you topless photos of me now is if I have something impressive to show for this 40 day detox and I have to at least have a flat belly by the end of it. So I decided I would up the detox regime. I will start looking into how to train and fuel myself properly. Sure, these last few days I have proved to myself that I can eat incredibly delicious meals without the crap and dead animals I would normally eat. However I need to realise that my body is a biochemical machine and food is its fuel. I must treat food as fuel. I make the commitment to myself to understand what I need to eat, when to eat it and abide by the rules I will soon discover. 

The chicken at KFC is not suitable for vegetarians

At the end of the night I went on the hunt for munchies again. When I asked the lady working in KFC if they had anything vegetarian she simply said “What? Here?! No”. McDonald’s salads all seemed to have meat in them. McDonald’s Spicy Veggie though delicious comes in white bread, which meant no. Finally I sourced a Subway. There you can choose exactly which bread and exactly which fillings you desire. Perfect! After finding out their veggie patty had potato in it (no potatoes allowed) I bought and consumed a 6 inch salad sandwich in wholemeal bread with no sauce. It was delicious and only £1.99. 

On my way home on the night bus I started Googling how to burn fat while keeping muscle and read through a few articles on bodybuilding.com. All I will say for now is that as a result of my preliminary research, when I got home I ate the rest of the cottage cheese we had left in the fridge before I went to bed. And while I slept, my body was busy working away at rebuilding my muscles…

Last night I dreamt of befriending dogs and cooking brightly coloured organic vegetables with succulent looking meat (not sure what kind of meat it was). Seems my subconscious is missing my love affair with the flesh of dead animals already, whilst embracing the increased use of plant based food. 

This morning I decided to exercise on an empty stomach. No caffeine and no lemon or lime juice. The only external things fuelling me during my two hour workout was a litre of water and fresh air. I improved my performance on my resistance training by slightly increasing the number of repetitions on each exercise. Though my second set was not much better than yesterdays, I didn’t feel a sudden crash in energy after my first set. I also completed my 2 laps around the park about 8 minutes faster than yesterday. 

After completing my 10 minute sprint on the cross trainer I returned home to a fresh single lime and double orange juice. Lime juice in the morning has a similar effect to lemon juice when it comes to cleansing your liver. However as I just worked out I needed an extra shot of carbohydrates to replenish my muscles with energy so I thought I’d fill the rest of the glass with orange juice rather than water. 

For breakfast I had muesli with a fresh sliced banana, a sprinkle of mixed nuts (I have every kind you can think of – try me!), a teaspoon of flax seed oil, a teaspoon of honey and skimmed milk. The oats and whole wheat in muesli have many benefits including helping to reduce blood cholesterol and have a lower GI (Glycemic Index) than more refined breakfast cereals – which means they digest more slowly and release energy into your muscles over a longer period of time. I chose to eat a banana to help restore my energy and it also has many health benefits including reducing depression. I have 11 varieties of nuts in the flat. Most are stored in my freezer for long term use. A handful of these provide me with protein, long term energy and numerous vitamins and minerals! If that isn’t a good enough reason to include them in one’s diet their monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat helps reduce blood cholesterol and contribute to a healthy heart. A handful of nuts everyday has been shown to increase one’s life expectancy according to numerous research studies. Flax seed oil contains Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids and numerous other nutrients. Omega 3 is good for the brain and cells and Omega 6 maintains healthy skin, nails and hair (wish someone had told me earlier!). Honey has numerous health benefits too – my main reason for including it in my muesli was to give me a quick boost in energy that I lost during my work out. 

After this my wife had cheese on toast which tempted me into indulging in making a cheddar cheese on toast, with fresh slices of green chilli and tomato. I was just being greedy! 

Despite all this eating I felt very tired again. I didn’t have the brain energy to concentrate on this blog so I started Googling for alternatives to caffeine pick-me-ups. Whilst researching I came across many articles claiming the benefits of drink green tea for weight loss and detoxing. I found out that many of Green Tea’s benefits can be enjoyed in its decaffeinated version. I had also recently read how skincare products, toothpaste and other toiletries can also contain toxins that can enter the body through contact with the skin. I decided to do something about it and went out on a mission to find decaf green tea and buy natural toxin free toiletries. 

The Body Shop Strawberry Shower Gel

I went into Holland and Barrett, The Body Shop, Boots, Sainsburys and a local store in Ilford called Health Mantra. I bought some herbal detox and cleansing type teas from Holland and Barrett. At The Body Shop I bought soap, deodorant, antiperspirant, lip balm and hair conditioner. You might be wondering what I’d want to do with conditioner with my shaved head? I prefer using conditioner instead of shaving gels and foams for shaving. I find it’s smoother to shave with conditioner. You should try it. I have to admit I found the men’s products in The Body Shop quite lame and overly priced. At one point I was really tempted to buy the ladies strawberry perfume for myself. I mean it smelled so much better than anything they had for men, and hey who says smelling like a strawberry is only for women?! At first I thought The Body Shop was quite pricey, but after the £5 discount they gave me at the till I walked away with £20 worth of products for £15 which I later discovered was pretty good when it comes to natural and organic products. I didn’t find decaf green tea anywhere. At Health Mantra I bought natural organic toothpaste and a vegan all-natural protein shake made from pea and hemp proteins. The toothpaste was nearly £4 and the 462 grams of vegan protein shake was nearly £25! I was desperate as I had already started the 40 day detox and couldn’t wait around for deliveries to arrive after shopping online so I went ahead and bought them. The Body Shop seemed like a bargain in comparison! 

For my lunch and dinner I ate quinoa with the mixed vegetable curry my wife made the day before. I also had a couple of thin slices of halloumi cheese with my dinner. 

I felt more energised towards the later part of the day and stayed up until 00.30. Before going to bed I drank a serving of the protein shake. Not the most delicious, but definitively tasted more natural. It was like drinking a mug of unsweetened mushy weetabix!

Day one of my detox. Not only am I focusing on healthy eating, but also committing to exercising every single day, with perhaps one day rest a week if I feel the need to. Normally what I do on an exercise day is I have a black unsweetened coffee first thing in the morning. I then head straight to Valentines Park in Ilford for my morning workout. It’s only 5 minutes walk from where I live, its beautiful and has many facilities, so while its summer I have no excuse for exercising at home. It has a free outdoor gym run by The Great Outdoor Gym Company which is fantastic to use in the sun. Exercising outdoors is good for two reasons, you can benefit from the fresh air and you also get your daily dose of Vitamin D from being exposed to the sun. Vitamin D is good for fighting depression, strengthening bones, building muscle amongst many other essential benefits. 

I have the coffee to kick start my metabolism and also encourage my body to burn fat while I exercise. It’s virtually calorie free and the caffeine also slightly boosts my performance in the gym. However as of the detox, caffeine is a no, no. So I wondered whether I should continue to do my workout on an empty stomach or start my day with fresh lemon juice. Lemon juice first thing in the morning also kick starts your metabolism, acts as a detox and though contains citric acid has an alkalizing effect on the body. After a few minutes of deliberating I decided to have juice before going out. I figured the extra energy would boost my performance whilst in the gym and also probably be burnt off by the time I start my pace walking exercise in time to burn my body’s fat. Then I realised I didn’t have any lemons so had the juice of one whole lime mixed with water instead. 

As I left the house I noticed I got a bit of a headache and was wheezing on my way to the park. Not a good start. In the gym I do circuit training using four of the apparatus: Dips, then Lat Pull Downs, then Chest Press and finally Crunches. I do each one for as many repetitions until fail (I’ve noticed for me this is usually giving up psychologically rather then physical failure), then move onto the next machine until I’ve completed the whole set. I repeat the process two more times. When I started my second set I felt as though my energy crashed – this is not something I’ve noticed before whilst doing these exercises on black coffee or on an empty stomach. It felt as though having the lime juice before coming out was a bad idea. 

Once I completed my three sets of resistance training I briskly walked around the park twice. To get an idea of the size of the park, it took me 1 hour 14 minutes and 20 seconds to complete both laps. I am choosing to walk for the entire 40 Day Detox as I have a history of injuring myself every time I get adventurous and try and jog or run. Last time I injured myself my right foot was so sore I couldn’t walk without limping and suffering from a lot of pain for at least two weeks. To reduce the risk of injury and to consistently exercise everyday for forty days I shall continue to briskly walk rather than jog or run. Although this isn’t my primary reason: briskly walking is a more efficient way of burning body fat compared to running or jogging the same distance. Once I completed my walk I then returned to the outdoor gym and vigorously used the cross trainer for 10 minutes to get my endorphin fix. Endorphins are the body’s natural feel good chemicals which boost your mood. Besides, it doesn’t feel like I’ve exercised enough unless I’ve broken a sweat! 

Speaking of exercise liquids, I consumed a litre of water during my whole morning workout. One down, one more to go! 

On my way home I called my wife Naadira and asked her if she would be so kind as to squeeze me a glass of fresh orange juice. She did. It was ready when I got home (thank you Naadira!). Post workout, I’ve found, a natural alternative to sports drinks to provide quick carbohydrate energy to your fatigued muscles, is the fresh juice of a sugary (fructose) fruit. It certainly has worked for me in the past. 

I was visualising what I would have for breakfast on the way home. I thought I’d be adventurous and try something new. I wanted to make a vegetarian fry up. It would be high in protein and with some carbohydrates to contribute to energy for the rest of the day. 

I fried 4 slices of Tofu in olive oil with 5 small chunks of onion, 4 small-medium sized mushrooms, 1 ½ fresh tomatoes, all flavoured with a sprinkle of soya sauce, sea salt, pepper, cumin seeds, a clove of garlic and 1 green chilli. I also chucked in 3 slices of haloumi cheese. This was accompanied by 1 slice of multiseeded wholemeal toast with peanut butter (peanut butter is high in protein). What can I say?! It didn’t look great, but it tasted absolutely divine! Yum! Though I felt I over did it a bit and decided next time I would reduce how much I ate for breakfast. 

When I finished, I remembered reading that chocolate milkshake was a good post workout recovery drink. Couldn’t have chocolate, but settled for a glass of skimmed milk instead. 

Quinoa with vegetable curry and a glass of cucumber, celery and ginger juice

For lunch I tired out quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”) for the first time ever. Uncooked, they are small round grains about a millimetre in diameter. You boil them like rice, and once cooked they expand to 2-3 times their original size. You would normally consume quinoa as a substitute for rice or couscous. Its Glycemix Index is 53 (less than rice and couscous). Not only is it a source of slower digesting carbohydrate but it is also a source of complete protein needed by humans. It has all the amino acids needed by the human body which is rare for a plant-based protein source. To prepare quinoa it is best to soak the grains in water for 15 minutes and give them a rinse. You then boil them in water for 15 minutes (add sea salt while boiling to taste). I ate this with a mixed vegetable curry that my wife made and both were absolutely delicious! Really I think I am in love with quinoa! It has a light feel to it, even lighter than couscous and has a fluffy texture, whilst being soft and springy. It just feels and tastes so good in the mouth and its great for you once swallowed! 

I ate my lunch with a glass of fresh cucumber, celery and ginger juice, courtesy of my juicer. Cucumber is good for the skin, celery is good for the blood and ginger is good for all kinds of things including the digestive system. 

Yellow Pakistani Sindhri Mango

During the day I snacked on a handful of green grapes, a Pakistani Sindhri mango, an avocado and a handful of nuts. Please note: if you have sweet tooth and love mangos then you must try Pakistani mangos. They are unbelievably delicious. You can get them from most Asian or Pakistani grocers during the summer. Make sure that the mangos are yellow, and firm. They are not cheap to buy but worth every penny. Trust me one this one! 

Despite all this eating I must admit I felt very tired most of the day and went to bed around 10.30 (I normally go to bed about 2am)! I am writing this on the night of Day 2. It’s 12:30pm. Looks like I’ll have to write today’s (Day 2) entry tomorrow on Day 3. This seems to be the way this blog is working out so far. Good night!