Day 11 - Back on the horse

I made a conscious effort to get back to following the program after a few haphazard days. As we had plans for the evening, I decided to do my shakes for breakfast and lunch. I had to make a trip to Costco for frozen berries (1.8kg for $10) and consciously did not pick up any fun snacks. However I did pick up salt & pepper pistachios. I've come across a few articles on the health benefits of pistachio's lately (here's one : http://holistic-nutrition.suite101.com/article.cfm/health_benefits_of_pistachios ) and I'm a fan of salt and pepper so I decided to put a bag in my cart and push it, push it real good. (If only one person gets this joke, it will have been worth it).

Didn't get a chance to go to the gym, however I did walk for at least an hour today while doing grocery shopping and then going to Mel Lastman square for Cultura (summer series with vendors, performers and an open-air movie with money going to chartiy).

Here's the recap
9am : Ionix Supreme, Shake (1.5 scoop)
11am : pistachios (about 30 shelled)
noon : raw broccoli and a little hummus
2pm : shake
4pm : pistachios (about 20 shelled)
7pm : Malaysian 'sandwich' with beef, beans and other vegetables. I wouldn't call it healthy, but I could have done worse. Fried plantain (not deep fried) without additional sugars etc.
10:30pm : 3 bites of my wife's KFC burger (we went to see Inception and she was hungry)

Workout : Walking for about an hour

Tip of the day : Parkinson's law states that "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". If you give me a week to finish a job, I'll take a week to finish the job. If you give me an hour..I'll finish it an hour. Applying it to our situation and eating, I find that if I decide to eat something in a big bowl, I'll usually fill the big bowl and eat what's in it. If I fill a small bowl, I'll fill that and eat it. Both will fill be adequately..but a big bowl is a license to stuff myself. So the lesson is to use small bowls to help limit portion size.

Day 11 - Pangs of guilt

After peaking around day 8 or 9, the last 48 hours haven't been stellar. Again, everything's relative so compared to my eating and exercise habits from a month ago, it's a vast improvement. However I haven't been following the program to a tee and I feel a little guilty.

I knew that my wife and I had dinner plans tonight, so I went easy on breakfast and lunch to save calories for dinner. I also decided to go to the gym at 11am today since I wouldn't be able to do a workout in the evening. For lunch, I got a salad from Salad House again which was filling. For dinner, we went for sushi and I got the Sashimi Silver special...18 pieces of sashimi which definitely filled me up. As I was eating the 12th piece and onward..I did think about the diet and having to post my gluttony tonight. But then the next piece of salmon sashimi was too good and I couldn't say no to the remaining pieces. Oh well. At least the food I ate was healthy, but I'm do feel a bit heavy and a little guilty I didn't have my two shakes.

Here's the recap
9am : Ionix Supreme
11am : Gym
12noon : shake with mango/blueberries
2pm : spinach salad with avocado, eggs, tomatoes, cucumber, blue cheese, raspberry vinagrette
6pm : green tea at Tim Hortons
8:30pm : 18 pieces of sashimi, miso soup, scoop of green tea ice cream,

Workout : 20 minute of high-intensity intervals that had me sweating buckets. Then pull ups, dips and deadlifts. Short workout that left me feeling pumped.

Tip of the Day : Don't go to the scale too many times daily. If anything measure yourself once a day in the morning or better yet once every 3 days. That way you don't get too upset if you gain a pound in 24 hours due to water (or poutine) retention.

13 Healthy Snacks

I love snacks. I could eat snacks all day. And truth be told, I've done this more than once in my life which is probably why I'm in my current predicament of wanting to lose weight.

I receive a daily newsletter from a fitness expert. Here's his webpage.
http://www.truthaboutabs.com/meal-ideas-fitness-over-40.html

In his post today, he had 13 fat-burning and tasty snacks and some of them look very satisfying. I'm going grocery shopping today, so I'll pick up a few of the ones he recommends. I especially like the last one on the list : Cottage cheese with cinnamon, apple slices, and walnuts.

Here's the full list :

• Apple or other fruit with almond butter
• Hummus with carrot sticks or sliced red/yellow/orange peppers
• Guacamole with carrot sticks or sliced red/yellow/orange peppers
• Ricotta cheese (grass-fed if possible) mixed with cocoa powder, stevia, and vanilla extract (delicious high protein, low carb snack!)
• Cottage cheese mixed with yogurt, berries, and walnuts or pecans
• A couple hard boiled eggs with carrot and celery sticks and hummus (roasted red pepper hummus is my favorite)
• Celery sticks with organic peanut butter or almond butter (a classic quick snack)
• My famous healthy chocolate FUDGE recipe
• Avocado slices wrapped in deli turkey breast (one of my favorite quick snacks)
• A piece of sprouted grain toast (sprouted grain preferred nutritionally over "whole grain") with nut butter and berries
• Fresh sliced pineapple with a handful of macadamia nuts
• a bowl of blueberries mixed with raw almonds
• my quick and healthy fat-burning chocolate pudding recipe
• Cottage cheese with cinnamon, apple slices, and walnuts (mmm, mmm good)

Day 10 - Another cheat day

Today was a busy social day which kept me out of the house from 8am to 10pm, so the diet definitely slipped. I didn't get a chance to do an intense exercise either, however i'm sure I walked at least an hour around downtown Toronto today.

Here's the recap

7:15 - Shake with 2 scoops, Natural Accelerator
9:30am - iced green tea at Starbucks
12:30pm - brown rice sushi
2pm - iced green tea at Starbucks
6pm - apple
8pm - 3 small slices of pizza (2 healthy, 1 unhealthy) and 3 wings

Had water throughout the day, but not as much as usual.

All in all, not a great day for the diet.  But tomorrow's another day and a clean-eats day will make up for today.

Tip of the Day : A good friend of mine (and loyal reader of this blog) shared this tidbit that he picked up -> for every bad meal you eat, have 5 healthy ones. So basically permit yourself one bad meal every two days. However the one bad meal should still be reasonable otherwise you'll drown out the benefit of your 5 healthy meals.

Day 9 - Good portion control, but too many portions

In general, a pretty good day. I did have a couple of snacking pangs, but I didn't want to nullify the good results from the morning so I limited what I ate. In the evening, I did an intense 30 minute weights workout and then went for an hour-long walk with the wife.

Here's the recap :
8am - Green tea
9am : Ionic Supreme, Shake
11:30am - 4 oz chicken, brown rice w/ sausage and peppers
1pm : 2 pieces of Laughing Cow lite cheese (about 50 calories
5pm : another small bowl of brown rice, isagenix snack
7:30 : half a BBQ sausage - I couldn't resist (about 140 calories)
9:30 : shake 
10:30 : small bowl of homemade tuna and pasta

Hmm..now that I look at the recap, this was probably my largest day of caloric-intake since I started Isagenix. Also I just noticed that I didn't really have many veggies, so that's something to work on. However my portion control has greatly improved. A small bowl fills me up rather than a larger bowl or plateful.
Tomorrow we'll be meeting friends in the evening, so I'm going to pretty lightly on the calories in the morning and afternoon in anticipation of a heavier dinner.

Tip of the Day : Try to plan your the night before so you know when to have shakes, snacks and meals.

Day 9 : Photos and Measurements

I have to admit I was looking forward to today. As soon as I woke up, I ran out of the bedroom to check the scale. I was very happy to see the figures 206.4 staring back at my dreary yet hopeful eyes. My wife took my measurements with the handy measuring tape that Isagenix included in the box. I've posted my measurements on the right side of the blog.
Here are some photos form today including the scale.

Day 8 : The first cleanse day

Today was the first of 4 cleanse days I have to go through in the 30 day program. Basically, it's you're taking the Isagenix Cleanse for Life drink mix 4 times over the course of the day. This means skipping the shakes as well as the normal 400-600 calories meal. Snacks are allowed.

To be honest, it wasn't brutal. At one point was a bit hungry and I ate an organic apple which quelled the pangs. I've read that the IsaCleanse tastes terrible. I got the powder and mixed it with 4oz of water as per the instructions and it was fine. Not something I'd choose to drink for leisure..but not gag-inducing either. I drank a tonne of water today as well..at least 100oz.

Here's the recap :

9am - IsaSnack (reminds me of a chocolate tablet..they call it a wafer)
9:15am - IsaCleanse
12pm - IsaCleanse
2pm - played squash for an hour
3pm - hard-boiled egg
5pm - IsaCleanse
8pm - apple
10pm - IsaCleanse

Workout : I did play squash for an hour and I totally noticed a difference in my energy levels. Even in the 5th game, I was able to move the way I wanted to and wasn't nearly as winded as I would have been two months ago.

Tip of the Day : I came across this quote a couple of days ago and I really like it : "If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse." - Jim Rohn

Tomorrow : The weigh in, the measurements and new photos. I'm actually looking forward to it !