40 Day Detox

Its day 14 and it’s my one day out of every 7 days off. I’m not exercising today, nor am I writing a blog post. I’ve been writing everyday for the last 13 days. I need a day off! 

My weight stayed the same at 68.8kg, however my fat went down 0.1% to 18.1% and my other readings both went up 0.1%. Body Water was 56.3% and Body Muscle was 42.6%. 

I had a hot lemon juice in the morning and muesli with fromage frais. 

Orange Wednesdays

I wanted to have a day out and relax. I decided to go to the cinema and watch Toy Story 3 with my wife. As it was Orange Wednesdays, I text Film to 241, queued up at Cineworld in Ilford and waited for my code to allow me to buy one ticket and get another one free. We had missed the 2D showings of the film and so the only option was to watch it in 3D. By the time we got to the front of the queue I had not received my code. I spoke to the ticket issuer and told her what the problem was. I asked her if she’d let us come straight to the front of the queue if it did arrive, as we didn’t want to queue all over again. She agreed. We went outside of the building. Still nothing. We walked into the High Street. Still nothing. I thought of what else to do. I text Orange two more times. Still nothing. Buying two 3D tickets was out of the question, it would have cost a fortune! I thought I’d get on Facebook and ask if someone had a spare Orange Wednesdays code. Such pleas have worked successfully in the past, thanks to some generous friends on my friends list. However it seemed there was a problem with reception in the area and I could not get online. It was getting quite frustrating. I switched my phone on and off. Still nothing. I started walking home to get online at home or maybe reception would be better at home, but then I checked my watched and realised that even if I went home, by the time I got back to the cinema with a code it would be too late and we would have missed the start of the film! I wanted to relax today, and instead felt stressed at not being able to get hold of an Orange Wednesdays code in time for the movie we wanted to watch. 

Josie Lawrence from The Comedy Store Players

I decided to give up waiting for the Orange Wednesdays code, try and stay positive and do something else in the mean time, and perhaps watch the movie later on in the evening by which time the code would hopefully have arrived. I decided to go to the Comedy Store in Piccadily Circus. As it was a Wednesday it was improvisation night. These nights are always good. The comedians have to be comical on the spot in response to suggestions from the audience. If you go to watch someone doing stand up, they can be hit and miss. Sometimes the comedian isn’t that funny, or if he is famously funny you might have seen some of his routines before. 

As we swiped our oyster cards in at Ilford station and got on the platform I finally received my Orange Wednesdays text! Grrr… the timing couldn’t have been worse. 

Covent Garden Apple Market

We had some time to kill before the doors opened at 6.30pm so we stopped off at Covent Garden for a wonder. I vaguely remembered it had a few eco-friendly shops and hoped I might find something of interest there during this detox. There were lots of street entertainers doing their thing. We had about an hour or so. I wasn’t hungry but as we were in Covent Garden I imagined there might be a vegetarian or vegan restaurant about. I’ve never been to one and was looking for a new experience. As we walked about half looking for somewhere to eat, half looking for something interesting to pique my interest we walked past a Lush a fresh handmade cosmetics shop. I was on the hunt for a natural bubble bath that could make me feel as relaxed as Radox. 

Lush Covent Garden

We walked in, downstairs and around. It was like an underground maze. Actually it was more like an underground science museum! There were lots of staff handy. There was a member of staff at each display and they were doing lots of demonstrations with their products. We went around sniffing the merchandise. They all looked colourful enough to eat, however upon smelling each cosmetic we noticed most of the products smelt very similar to each other. And they had a very soapy, dull fragrance to them. Nothing like The Body Shop, where each line has a very distinct fruity smell. Their cosmetics were really expensive as well. A bath bomb for example would be used for just one bath and would set you back £2.95. I hadn’t tried their bath products before, so maybe after trying one I would find that it was worth the money for treating myself on the odd occasion after all.

The Comforter from Lush

What I really loved was the energy and enthusiasm of the staff. They were all clearly very passionate about the company, the products and the ethical business model. I felt obliged to buy something just from the joyfulness of the staff. We found one Bubble Bar that had the aroma of a delicious fruity sweet. It is called The Comforter and has the scent of blackcurrants. Its fragrance made it seem good enough to eat. It set me back £3.95 but can be used four times. Its scent made every penny seem well spent. 

At the till I asked the member of staff if there were any vegetarian restaurants around worth checking out. Whilst pointing out that most if not all Lush members of staff were either vegetarian or vegan she said there was a vegetarian/vegan restaurant called Food For Thought on Neal Street. I said thanks and we made our way there. 

Food For Thought, Neal Street, Covent Garden, London

At first glance it didn’t seem like a posh restaurant. It looked more like a local café. To eat in we had to walk down into the basement area. It seemed quite busy. We looked through the limited menu and tried to figure out what was what. There was some food on display. I recognised a salad dish that was made from quinoa. I hadn’t tried quinoa as a salad dish before but had read somewhere that it was worth a try. I’ve been eating quinoa hot as a substitute for rice. I asked the lady behind the till what it was. I knew what it was. But I had never heard anyone say it before and I wanted to make sure I had the pronunciation correct. With the warm look of someone who imagines themselves to be more civilised sharing her knowledge and wisdom with a heathen she said: “That is keen-waaaaaaaah”. “Thanks” I replied. It sounded like an oriental food even though it is South American in origin. Fantastic. I had the pronunciation correct down to a tee. Whilst trying to discern what the different things on the menu were, a couple of customers ordered ratatouille. It may be a sign of me being uncultured, but I have to admit I wasn’t sure what it was. So I waited with anticipation to get a glimpse at what they had just ordered. It had vegetables in it, was grainy and seemed warm. It looked quite nice. But I also wanted to try the quinoa salad.

Quinoa Salad, Lettuce Salad, Beetroot Salad, Ratatouille and Stir Fried Vegetables

I ordered. My wife wanted stir fried vegetables and I ordered the ratatouille with a little bit of the quinoa. The lady looked at me, thought something, paused and then said: “Do you want all four salads or just the quinoa?” “All four salads!?” I thought. I just wanted to try some of the quinoa that’s all. Not two portions of food. But as it seemed she was going to charge me for the ratatouille and a full blown salad meal, I considered my options. I looked at the salads on offer. Quinoa salad – good. Lettuce salad – good. Beetroot salad – good. Pasta salad – bad. No white pasta for me as it is out for the purpose of the detox. “I’ll have the quinoa, beetroot and lettuce but no pasta thanks.” As she gathered our meals together I was gobsmacked by the large portions she gave me. I don’t like wasting food, however there was a whole day’s worth of food on my plate. I wasn’t even hungry. I had some time to kill so wanted to try something new. This was going to be a tough task ahead of me.

We took our seats. I sat with my back to the stairs whilst facing the rest of the room. I don’t like facing the wall when eating or in any situation I guess. I like to be fully aware of my surroundings. I guess it’s partly a security-conscious thing. I looked at the food on my plate, thought here it goes and dug in. First the ratatouille. It was warm, grainy, quite nice. I’d give it a 6.5 out of 10. Next quinoa salad. Nothing special to be fair. 6 out of 10. Lettuce, well lettuce is lettuce, 6 out of 10. Beetroot salad. Now this was good. It had a creamy texture and tasted lovely. 8 out of 10. I tried my wife’s stir fried vegetables. Had more flavour than my ratatouille. 7.5 out of 10. To me good food is amazing, if it’s capable of momentarily making a theist out of an atheist. When you look at it, when you taste it, feel it, and indulge in its aroma, if it doesn’t make you thank God or sing praises to Allah – even though you’re not necessarily a believer at other times then it hasn’t quite hit the spot. Overall I thought the food we tried at Food for Thought was so, so. Nothing special. And frankly I believe over the last few weeks I have really enjoyed the food both I and my wife have been making. Many times a day, the food we have been eating has made a believer out of me for those few moments.

One thing that stood out for me at Food for Thought was the punters. At Lush the staff were young and looked healthy, with smooth skin, good complexion and just had a great vibe about them. However in Food for Thought the customers were generally an older crowd. To my eyes most of them seemed very pale and they also looked as if they might be a little bit neurotic, like grumpy, stern. I started to wonder… does a vegetarian or vegan diet over the long term have that effect on people? Do you become more neurotic? Does it make you pale and make you look like a zombie? It seems I may well be onto something.

Michael Cera at the Premiere of Scot Pilgrim Vs the World in Leicester Square

After eating, we made our way to Leicester Square. Scot Pilgrim Vs the World was premiering at the Odeon cinema and the stars of the movie were given the red carpet treatment. We were walking by just as Michael Cera, the lead playing Scot Pilgrim came out to greet his young pubescent screaming fans. I wasn’t sure who is was at the time; he just looked like any old regular nerd. It turns out he was in Superbad, which I vaguely remember was pretty funny. Oh yeh! How could I ever forget McLovin!?

The Comedy Store Players Line Up for Wednesday 18th August 2010

We queued outside The Comedy Store. My wife pointed out how one of the bouncers was quite rude to me on a previous visit. He was tall, stocky, black, shaved head with a beard. I have to admit, I think I pull off the shaved head and beard look much better myself. It was very strange… as she mentioned him; he came over to us and asked me if I was paying by cash. I said yes. But then he carried on checking and explaining that the credit card machines were not working downstairs and I needed cash to pay. I’m not sure why he took his time emphasising this to me rather than the other people in the queue. I wondered if it had something to do with my apparent race or class. We were the only Asian/Black people in the queue. I was wearing a white blingy t-shirt with a silver necklace. Most other people were white middle-class in suits that had clearly come from work. Throughout the evening we communicated with each other and overall it seemed he was really polite to us this time compared to his poor attitude last time we had seen him working there.

We took our seats at the front. I was in the middle seat on the front row. On a stand up night people on the front row get picked on by the comedians. This was less likely to happen in this case as it was improvisation night. I wanted to laugh hard tonight, and thought if something happened by sitting at the front it be something interesting to blog about. Nothing of the sort happened. Overall it was an ok night. I didn’t laugh as hard as I have done in the past. Maybe it was because I was sober. Or maybe we were sat too close. Or maybe I just didn’t find it that funny anymore. The comedians looked stressed and warn out prior to starting their performance. Maybe it had become a job to them and it had lost its spontaneity? Or maybe I am the one who is too stressed at the moment?!

On the way home we stopped off at a few cinemas but by then it was too late as they were all closed.

Moong Dal Chilka, Lemon Zest and Almonds

For my evening meal I ate Moong Dal Chilka with a sprinkle of lemon zest and almonds.

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.

Healing old wounds?

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.  

My weight rose 0.5kg to 69.2kg. My Body Fat dropped 0.6% to 17.9%. My Body Water rose to 56.4% and my Body Muscle rose 0.3% to 42.7%.  

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.

My weight dropped 0.4kg today to 68.7kg. However my Body Fat went up 0.5kg to 18.5kg. My Body Water went down to 56% and my Body Muscle dropped 0.2% to 42.4%. 

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. 

It seems the lowest GI bread is Bürgen Soy Lin, however it’s targeted at women due to the plant-oestrogens in it. It is currently on offer at Sainsbury’s for a £1. Bürgen do other breads all with low GI. 

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.

Corn on the cob

Exam results

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. 

My weight stayed constant at 69.1kg. However my Body fat dropped 0.5% to 18%. My Body Water increased to 56.3% and my Body Muscle increased by 0.7% to 42.6%. 

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

Vegetables being juiced by me

Looks like something a bat would drink!

Vegetable juice ready to drink