Today is my third day on my 30 day experiment with Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts & Protein, either Tofu, Fish, Turkey or Chicken.
I was surprised to see that in 3 days, I had taken off 1% of bodyfat and 5.2lbs. Granted, I am sure that there was alot of water weight, and hopefully so because I have been doing my best to make sure that I do not lose any muscle, mainly by focusing on squats and deadlifts. I did strength training both Monday and Today, yesterday was squats and pushups and today was deadlifts and pull ups.
If you did not see yesterday's post, check it out here https://staging.hashimashi.com/progress-slow-but-steady-for-day-2-198-2lb-23-3 where I speak mainly about my motivation, not wanting to give up, and instead wanting to build something new. Believe me, I know, like you know, that it would be alot easier to just let it go. I guess I am stubborn and have had enough of the roller coaster ride. So for today, here is what I have had so far today:
Weight Loss Progress ~ How to Lose 5 Pounds in 2 days ~
Hashi Mashi Day 3
Vegetables
Onion
Yellow Pepper
Garlic
Spinach
Mixed Greens
Tomato
Red Onion
Broccoli
Mushtooms
The base of every meal, shoot for three meals a day, that is if I get hungry. My experience with vegetables is that I do not get as hungry with vegetable based dishes as I will with a bread based dish. And that held true for today as well. In the morning I started with a grapefruit and grapes, worked out as I will detail a bit further on, made an 3 white 1 whole egg omelette, had another meal four hours or so later for lunch which was mainly a salad with Turkey and avocado.
Not for nothing, I would like to mention here that when I have been on the vegan style, macrobiotic style, low fat high carb style which has mainly potatoes, pasta, rice, bread as the center of the meal, I personally find it difficult to include much vegetables. There is no way that I would have had 9 vegetables in one day. One sandwich would keep me craving bread and something sweet with sugar for the entire day, whereas today, after three days, I have not been craving sugar or junk food at all, yet I have been eating all day, some fruit here, an omelette there, some walnuts for a snack and a pear as well as raspberries, a turkey avocado salad, an apple and almonds for a snack and in an hour or so, I will have broccoli with tofu and chicken.
So look at the number of fruits and vegetables, at least for me, when not eating bread, compared to when I do have bread. With bread, I could go the whole day without any vegetables, toast and jelly, peanut butter sandwich, turkey sandwich with some token lettuce and by evening I will be craving a muffin. If you love bread, go for it, perhaps your physiology will allow you and present no problem, but if you have been struggling to lose weight, why not try out a month, 30 days mainly focused on vegetables, fruits, nuts and protein? What have you got to lose other than your belly?
Fruits
For snacks, such as apple, berries.
Today started the day off with grapes, a grapefruit and a persimmon and I just had a Fuji Apple with almonds for a snack before dinner, which will be broccoli and tofu with a little chicken, made spicy, ya!.
Apple
Pear
Raspberries
Grapefruit
Grapes
Persimmon
Walnuts
Almonds
Then did my strength workout and then made breakfast as mentioned above.
Nuts
For snacks as well, but go easy.
Truthfully I felt hungry last night and had raw cashews and almonds, I did not go so easy and I was surprised to see that nevertheless, I was still lighter today than yesterday.
Today's nuts were
Almonds
Walnuts
I am avoiding peanuts because I have read that they can be toxic to some people. Will have to expand on that in another post, I do love peanut butter, so this exclusion hurts, ouch!
Protein
Either Tofu, Tempeh, Eggs, Fish or Chicken
So far today I had organic eggs, 3 whites and a whole, a few slices of turkey and will have steamed tofu and chicken for dinner.
What am I not going to have?
Grains, any grains, including bread, pasta, rice, quinoa, oatmeal, barley.
Legumes, any beans, because they always give me heartburn. I am going to miss peanuts and peanut butter though.
Alcohol, even the touted red wine, I just want to go an entire month without red wine and hope that it is a plus.
Dairy, cheese, milk, even parmesan for sprinkling.
Oreos, the toughest part of this, but no oreos or any other junk food for that matter.
In addition, I want to lift weights and walk, so for today as an example:
I did 5 sets of pullups with 90lbs on the stack and 5 sets of deadlifts, starting with 95lbs and then increasing up to 1125lbs.squats.
That whole workout took about 45minutes.
After two days of weight training, I can tell you that I am pretty sore, especially in my legs, so I am hobbling around a bit when I first stand up, but today is the best that I have felt in weeks and I can feel the effects of just 2 days of squats, deadlifts, pushups and pullups. For tomorrow, I will go back to squats and pushups and I believe I will be stronger.
Later on today I will take a walk for 30 minutes as I do not usually enjoy running on a treadmill, but I am going to be open to changing around my workout routine as I get leaner.
Would be great to have some company here! So please join me for a 30 day Adventure, let's see how it works for all of us!
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Ben Isaac is the author of