iamshendy

It’s been a while since my last update. I have officially been following the Clean program for 13 days plus 4 days of the ‘elimination diet’. Everything is going well – I have got accustomed to the meals and have been freestyling them a bit. I’ve actually grown a taste for cardamom (crave it in my smoothies in the morning).

I have lost 17lbs since I started 17 days ago. Not bad progress if you ask me! I’ve had one day off from the gym/exercise but other than that I’ve been to the gym or yoga or hockey every day (sometimes 2x a day).

I have been leaving the gym feeling like a million bucks – I spend about 10 minutes in the sauna after every workout and drink at least 1 liter of water while I’m in there.

I managed to put my back out on Saturday (5 days ago) from prolonged sitting with bad posture so my running has been derailed for now. However I took to the pool instead. I swim for 15-30 minutes every time I’m at the gym.

18 days until Cuba. My current weight is 233lbs. I set a public goal (on facebook) of 225lbs. I hope to lose the remaining 8lbs in the coming 18 days. We’ll see!

Shendy.

I’m officially on day 5 of clean. 16 to go! Getting a good feel for the routine, and the recipes. Adjusting to a new poop schedule (haha), but surprisingly I’m not hungry at all. The biggest thing I noticed is a somewhat lack of energy/stamina at the gym. This could be due to the fact that I haven’t worked out in about 6 weeks, or something lacking in my diet. I’m going to start doubling my protein for lunch and see if that makes a difference. I also want to make sure that I don’t lose size with this clean.

The results are in…

As of today I am down 11lbs (including the elimination diet) since last Monday. Not bad for 8 days. I was 249.5lbs when I first weighed in and am 238.5 today.

The energy smoothie has grown on me. Frozen peaches, almond butter, a sprinkle of cardamom and water. I now crave it!

I stumbled on to a quinoa and chicken salad in the book that’s delicious. I did also found a recipe for a quinoa and apple salad with curry dressing. Sounds delish!

The program continues and I’m hitting most of my goals. I only did yoga once last week, but was at the gym/exercising every single day. Yoga has now become my “day off” but I still make sure to run a mile before hand.

I’ve come to love the sauna. It feels so good after workout. I force myself to stay in there until I have consumed a litre of water. After that it’s a hot/cold alternating shower. You certainly feel refreshed after that!

Massages have been hard to come by. We’re trying to get into a couples massage but Thunder Bay seems limited for that. Only a few places to go in town and they’re booked up for at least a week or two.

Just booked a trip to Cuba in 27 days, so it’s nice to have another hard goal. I want to hit 225lbs (13 more lbs) or just under 4lbs a week. I will probably need to add an extra cardio session (probably 45 min – 1 hour of stair stepper/elyptical per day).

Stay tuned,

Shendy.

The real program begins today. Up until now my girlfriend and I have been following the “Elimination diet” portion of the Clean program. They recommend 3-4 days of eating recipes that cater to the foods that aren’t on the exclusion list. This has been a good intro to some of the recipes, concepts and ingredients in use during the clean program. It has also been a good introduction into “hunger”.

Most people feel “hungry” and eat immediately. The book talks about how hunger is more a emotional condition rather than a physiological one. I can’t say I’ve been starved on this recent elimination diet but I have definitely been conscious of the ‘hunger’ feeling. Our plan has been a smoothie for breakfast (at least 12 hours after the previous evening’s dinner), a solid lunch of meat and veggies, and a solid dinner of the same (different recipe from lunch). Now that we are embarking on the ‘clean’ portion of the program we will have 21 days of the same except having a soup for dinner. Apparently having the veggies blended eases the digestion. We’ll see.

I am beginning to get back into my normal workout regime of 5-6 days a week of intense exercise. I will monitor my performance closely and see if I need to increase my protein intake. If so I will have an extra portion of meat at lunchtime.

Yesterdays menu:

Breakfast: Berry Smoothie

Lunch: Roasted lamb with rosemary and asparagus

Dinner: Grilled chicken and vegetables

As I’m writing this I’m finishing off the ‘energy smoothie’. I think I perfected the recipe this time. It wasn’t actually half bad.

I’ll be playing hockey today for an hour instead of my normal lunchtime gym session, but may go to the gym this evening with my girlfriend.

The scale at the gym is still broken – so will be interesting to see what kind of loss I’ve had 4 days in.

Shendy.

10 minutes intervals (1min @ 4.5mph, 30 sec @ 9.9mph) on the treadmill

Standing barbell shoulder press (behind the head) (3 x 8 x 135lbs)

Pull-ups (8,4)

Deadlifts (3×10x135lbs)

Dumbbell bench combined with straight leg raises (8×60lbs, 8×65lbs, 8×70lbs)

Easy-barbell curl (3×8x80lbs)

Standing dumbbell tricep extension (8×75lbs,8×70lbs,8×65lbs)

Meal plan:

Breakfast: Mango smoothie

Lunch: Warm salmon and asparagus salad

Dinner: Roast lamb with rosemary and asparagus

The mango smoothie was meh although my girlfriend really liked it.

The lamb was amazing! I don’t know that I’ll be cooking it again though as it was a little too fatty, and also very expensive.

I posted my workout from yesterday already.

The scale is broken at the gym so no updates there.

Shendy.

5 rounds of:

• 400m run (6mph)
• 15 free squats
• 15 air squats
• 10 double dumbbell bent over rows (45lbs)
• 10 pushups

Then I did a 45 second plank and 2 15 second side planks, followed by shoulder rotations with 7lbs.

Shendy.

Another success! Meal plan was as follows:

Breakfast: Energy smoothie

Lunch: Stir fried chicken and vegetables

Supper: Warm salmon and asparagus salad

Still struggling to find a good smoothie – the energy smoothie had almond butter and cardamom in it. I think cardamom will be an acquired tasted. I guess cardamom is good for you – here’s an explanation of some of the health benefits.

The salmon was very good, although I overcooked it. The salad was simply arugula with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. It was very good! I’m excited to it again today.

I made my first yoga class of the new year (I’ve actually only been once before). It was a quick 45 minute one. I went a little early to get a spot and then ran a mile before the class (10 minutes). I will try for 9 minutes today.

After my gym session I had a longer Sauna (between 5-10 minutes) and then a hot and cold alternating shower.

I also weighed myself – and I’m not generally a fan of daily weight as it’s misleading. That being said, I’m down between 4-5 lbs. We’ll see what today has to offer.

Shendy.

Day one is complete! Meals were as follows:

Breakfast: Berry smoothie

Lunch: Roast chicken with Wild Rice

Supper: Stir fried chicken and vegetables

I had a cup of hot water and lemon in the morning in place of my coffee – no caffeine withdrawal, but I’ve never really ‘needed’ coffee to get me going in the morning anyway.

I drank my water all day (peeing every hour as the book recommends).

I even managed to eat a clove of garlic raw (sliced thinly with apple).

I made it to the gym:

• 1 Mile Run: 12 minutes
• Close grip pull-ups: 10,5,5
• Incline bench press: 10 x 3 x 65lbs
• Dumbbell curls: 8 x 3 x 45lbs
• Incline sit-ups: 15 x 3
• YTWI’s: 2 x 7lbs

I hit the sauna for about 4 minutes after my workout – it was so hot I could barely breathe! Then I had a shower alternating hot and cold for 1 minute a piece 2 times.

Also, I weighed myself. Just over 249lbs. A long shot of the 215lbs I was 18 months ago!

Shendy.

A recent issue of Outside magazine featured an article about a new book called Clean by Alejandro Junger. The article looked interesting and convinced me to pick up a copy of the book. You can read the article here.

With a recent change in jobs gaining the ability to work from home, my fitness has become less desirable to say the least. Knowing that I wanted to get back to my old self (last year’s self, not the self from before then) I ploughed through the book quickly.

The clean program can be found at a glance here: http://www.cleanprogram.com/files/clean-planner.pdf

I planned my meals for the next 3 weeks and went shopping.

$75 at the local health food store, $190 at Super Store and $170 at Safeway and I had my essentials (things like almond butter, agave nectar) and 1 week’s groceries. I’m hoping next week’s shopping trip is not as expensive.

The program calls for the elimination of fatty red meats and has a few recipes that use lamb instead. I spent $45 on 8 lamb chops which seems expensive considering the same amount of chicken breasts are about half the price. I may cut out the lamb as well at that price!

My goals for the next three weeks are:

• Follow the clean program laid out in the book as close as possible
• Exercise every day (gym, yoga, hockey or light cardio)
• Do yoga 3 times a week
• Sauna after every workout
• Have an alternating hot/cold shower for 5 minutes after every workout.

I’m going to try and blog daily about my progress and will include progress pictures as I make it and take them.

Shendy.

I was running into a problem with copy and paste not working. I tried a number of different things but eventually found this post that fixed the problem.

http://blog.wpfwonderland.com/2007/05/29/fix-virtual-pc-clipboard-stops-working-on-host-pc/

It was caused by Virtual PC taking over the clip board. This fix is a little haxxor, but it does the trick.

Also found a great little utility that will tell you which process has locked the clipboard:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/temp/GetOpenClipboardWindow.zip

Shendy.