Day 8 of this 35 day journey. 27 Days left
Today has not been the best day, I have felt tired all day and a little hungry. This probably ties in with the healing crisis I spoke about yesterday (read yesterday’s post – see below this post).
With feeling tired and a little hungry it would have been tempting to cheat and break fast. This is especially the case as my wife and I decided we would go out for dinner. There is an Indian shopping center in Nairobi call Diamond Plaza, it does the best Punjabi food, and I love the tandoori meat (I like tandoori meat so much I built a tandoor in the garden). Anyway my wife ordered her food and I order two juices, and kept to my fast, and I am pleased I did. I just reminded myself these feelings will pass soon enough and I will start feeling great in no time. I did however let myself daydream about eating tandoori chicken once I break fast (looking forward to it). It was nice to know that I was able to get healthy juices at Diamond Plaza and was happy drinking them as my wife ate her food, proud of myself for not buckling.
Exercise
Another quick gym session today.I am enjoying my 45 min focused sessions. Back in the UK when I was in good shape, people would ask me how long I would train for, I used to reply 2 hrs a day (6 days a week). However I also used to say all you need is 45 mins. The fact is my wife was at the gym working and as such it was an opportunity to spend time with her. this meant I could train at my leisure waiting for her to finish. My sessions were still intense and I was probably over-training. People would chat to me and delay me. Now I am keeping focused and direct, I do not have time to chat. I put my headphones in and get to business, and people seem to know not to interrupt me (probably due to my growling at people if they look like speaking). I have always used a timer to time my rest periods. This helps to keep the period to the minimum and speeds up your whole session. I used to take a magnetic digital egg timer and I used to stick on the equipment I was using. I now use the timer on my Ipod as it is one less thing to carry.
I was a little diappointed that my DOMS (Delayed onset muscle soreness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness) was not that severe today. Don’t get me wrong I have some soreness, it jut isn’t as severe as I would have hoped for. I am not a sadist but there is a slightly proud feeling when you have trained so hard you can barely walk. It makes you feel like you put it all in. Therefore when that feeling isn’t as strong you are left questioning if you could have done more. Next leg session I will try even harder.
Today’s training (Chest Session):
- 9 mins skipping (jump rope) sprints to warm up
- Chest Press Machine – 1 set of 15 reps at 70Kgs 1 set of 15 reps at 80Kgs 1 set of 15 reps at 85Kgs 1 min timed rest between sets
By doing this high volume heavy warm-up i was hoping to pre-exhaust my pecs. This I hope will shock the muscles into growth. I think I did it too well as for the next exercise I was knackered.
- Bench Press – 3 sets of 7 reps at 60 kgs + Olympic bar (20kgs) = 80Kgs (1 min rest between sets).
I felt particularly week during these sets, the chest press took it out of me. I did push on though and believe i benefited from this.
- Cable Pec Butterflies (low to high) –4 sets of 12 reps at 20kgs (each side) I was using these to train the upper and inner upper pecs in isolation. This is a great exercise and I can really feel that it has worked.
- Cable Pec Cross-overs – 4 sets of 12 reps at 30 kgs (each side) Another exercise for isolating the pecs. This time the aim was to isolate the lower and inner lower pecs. The lower pec has always been my chest weak part and as such i do like to try and push it.
All Chest exercises were completed with the rest pause on every set. Rest pause is where you reach a sticking point you pause (I count to 10) and then lift again for as many reps as possible then pause again and do the same. This is a great way of getting past your fatigue and can often result in great gains.
Juices, Nutrition and Supplements.
Menu for Today:
Warm Lemon and Ginger Water (pint)
Juice 1 – Pineapple, apple and grapefruit
Juice 2: Green Juice: Apple, Cucumber, sukuma wiki (a Kenyan spinach cross between spinach and kale), broccoli, celery rocket and lemon juice.
Juice 3: Carrot, apple, and ginger
Juice 4: Green Juice: Apple, Cucumber, sukuma wiki (a Kenyan spinach cross between spinach and kale), broccoli, celery rocket and lemon juice.
Juice 5: Pineapple and Mint
Juice 6: Beetroot, Carrot, Lemon and pepper (no idea what the pepper was as this was purchased from the restaurant).
Juice 7: Apple (with Psyllium husk, bentonite clay, and zeolite clay) followed with an additional pint of water.
Sorry it seems yesterday’s post i accidentally missed off two juices, see day 1’s juices and it mirrored these.
plenty of water drank throughout.
Supplements taken:
- Green Tea and chili capsules
- Hemp Protein
- Spirulina
- Dash of Maple syrup after training
Maple Syrup health benefits: Some of you reading may think that this was cheating, however on the contrary Maple Syrup is an amazing health product (also I only had a small amount). if you have proper natural maple syrup these are the health benefits: as the same calcium content as whole milk, it has niacin, biotin, folic acid, potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, iron, thiamin, copper, and vitamins B2, B5 and B6, Zinc and manganese . The list goes on. It is also great at being a post training vehicle for carrying protein to the muscles as it is a simple natural carb.
Weight: 188 lbs. (85.27 Kgs)
Lets hope tomorrow i feel more awake and less hungry. If needs be I will have more juices to stave the hunger.
Juice Beast's 30 Day Juice Detox Diary 