Cliff Day 10: I pick things up and…

Posted in Cliff, Cliff Exercise, Cliff Progress by

I put them down.  My first trip back to the gym was a good reality check. I had dreams that I had not lost that much in the months while I was healing, but I was so so wrong.  I did a basic chest workout to get my muscles into the groove of things and nothing seemed to go right.  I was constantly worried about my elbow and I’m not even going to discuss how little weight I could do.  I have always been a skinny guy, and while this has its perks, it also has its downfalls.  Building muscle has been a huge challenge throughout my whole life.  I have tried many different supplements, and nothing has ever gotten me to the point I’ve dreamed of.  I am avoiding any until this detox is over, but I will list out my favorites at some point.  When I have ever come close to a muscle-building goal, I have sustained some sort of injury.  I mean once I had to  take a 4 month break from working out because I hurt my wrist while playing soccer.  That’s right folks, I hurt the thing you are not even allowed to use in that sport.  Now that I am fueling my body with the good food it can actually use, my hope is my gains will go up up and even more up.

NOW, onto the good stuff.  If I told you, you could make pizza out of cauliflower, would that be something you’d be interested in?  WELL, thanks to that magical girlfriend of mine, we had exactly that last night.  Not only that, due to Dena’s allergies, we had to substitute eggs in it with a flax-seed mixture.  It took a LONG time, a bit of “bickering”, and a huge mess in the kitchen, but after all was said and done, it came out great.  I’ve also learned, to never tell anyone I was a dishwasher in High School because my mom’s favorite line, and now Dena’s is…”But we need a professional to do the dishes!”  But I digress.  We used Tomatoes, Basil, and Ground Turkey as toppings.  While i would not call it your every day pizza, it certainly was pretty darn close.  And the best part was we had leftovers.  I haven’t been this excited for lunch since yesterday’s lunch of leftovers!  My weight has grown stagnant, which I am okay with because I am still looking and feeling better every day.  The world needs to understand weight is just a number, and that it is about how you feel, how you look in your eyes, and how you’re treating your body (although I wouldn’t object to weighing 170 built of pure muscle). Napoleonic Complex much?

Dena-Day 11-Time to Move!

Posted in Dena, Dena Exercise, Dena Progress by

I am not going to say that binge watching 7 seasons of Dr. Who this past Fall caused my weight gain, but there was sure indeed a correlation! While Cliff was going to physical therapy for his Tendinitis, my workouts went from hour long intense gym classes with Cliff at a new gym we were trying out (Epic Hybrid Training) to sprinting several blocks to catch the morning subway as I saw it approaching the station. When Cliff’s elbow starting bothering him, I thought he only needed to rest up for a couple weeks and I saw this as a little break for my muscles! But that turned into three months of physical therapy.  I know I could have gone to the gym by myself, but I was in a serious rut and I was secretly enjoying my evenings alone watching Netflix.  I could not wait to get home from work, make or order dinner, lay my expanding buttox on the sofa and watch some eps!

Everyone goes to the gym for different reasons.  For me, it’s not only for weight maintenance, but it really helps me with my moods.  In addition, I have loose ligaments (perhaps from doing years of dance and gymnastics as a child?) and it is important for me to keep my muscles strong around my joints or else I suffer from subluxation-mainly in my shoulders   (This condition is known as shoulder instability and may result in the upper arm bone (humerus) moving partially or completely out of the socket during certain arm movements).   Since I stopped working out, I have experienced a multitude of issues with my shoulder.  But for some reason, it was just sooo hard for me to get back into my routine.

As the new year approached, of course one of my goals was to get back to the gym. The idea of a packed gym filled with people beginning their New Years Resolutions was a bit daunting to me. On top of that, the first week of the detox left me pretty exhausted and I could not get up the motivation to get to the gym.  After about a week though, I began sleeping better and my energy went way up (especially at night for some reason). This combined with the numbers decreasing on the scale has given me that extra boost of motivation to get back to the gym!  I only did a quick work out today but I am on the right track to getting back in a routine

-Dena

 

Cliff Day 8…Sandwiches I Miss You

Posted in Cliff, Cliff Progress by

Sandwiches….All I can think of are sandwiches.  Sandwiches in the morning, sandwiches with bacon, and sandwiches inside even bigger sandwiches.  I want to take a bunch of ham add some american cheese and put it on a fabulously delicious French Baguette.  As you may be able to tell, the weekend was a rough one.  Dena and I went to hang out with some cats at Meow Parlour, a fun cat cafe, and I got Decaf coffee for the first time in my life.  If you have never had Blue Bottle Coffee, I highly recommend it because even their Decaf was great.  Earlier in the day I was not all that hungry for lunch so I had a small piece of chicken (big mistake).  By 3 P.M. I was starving, so I did the only logical thing and got Katz, just the pastrami, no bread.  Now, this technically falls under the allowed foods on the Detox, since it is just meat and spices, but I felt it was a bit of a cheat.  I really did it to try to satisfy this sandwich craving.  While amazing, the craving for a sandwich is still there.

Not surprisingly, Sunday was the first day my weight had not gone down at all, in fact it had gone up a little.  I attribute this to more water retention from the Katz.  Watched football all day while Dena made me almond crusted wings (absolutely amazing, Recipe to be posted).  For dinner we had turkey meatballs over spaghetti squash in a home-made tomato sauce.  If you really want to detox, I highly recommend just getting an awesome girlfriend that knows how to make yummy healthy food, makes it much easier.  Weight this morning was back down to 142.2 and my stomach is looking better every day.  This is day 8 now and we will begin our gym routine but this shows that just by changing your diet you can start melting off the weight, even without steady exercise.

For now, I will be overindulging in vegetables and listening to Galavant on repeat to drain away the pain of the Dallas Cowboys Loss.

-Cliff

Dena-Day 7

Posted in Cliff, Cliff Progress by

Starting a new plan and way of eating can be very daunting and appear to require too much work and effort on your part.  Last March, when Cliff and I did Dr. Hyman’s 10 Day Detox Diet, I stressed way too much over having to be perfect and I did not want to stray too far from the dinner recipes given in the book.  The best part of following the book’s recipes was that I learned many new recipes and found some new favorites which I have continued to make regularly.  If this is your first time trying to detox, I HIGHLY recommend following Dr. Hyman’s plan and trying as many recipes in the book as you can! They are super yummy! However, instead of following one of these recipes, Dr. Hyman does say that you can opt for choosing a green to steam or lightly saute such as broccoli, asparagus, arugula, spinach, kale or chard, and combine it with 4-6oz of protein such as chicken, turkey, salmon, shrimp, grass-fed meat,canned salmon, sardines or herring, hard boiled omega 3 eggs,tofu or temph.

So this time around, in order to save some time and relieve stress, Cliff and I are trying to make dinners so we have leftovers that will last us.  My favorite thing to make is a roasted chicken.  And by my favorite thing to make…I really mean my favorite thing I eat that I make Cliff make.  It requires very little effort to cook one of these and in my opinion, you get the most bang for your cluck…I mean buck. Now we have left overs that are versatile and can go in many dishes.  I was able to add some chicken to my salad I had for lunch today and Cliff and I had some for dinner tonight and there is still a bunch left!  Another cooking time saver I have discovered is roasting vegetables.  Drizzle a little olive oil, salt, and pepper over your veggies and pop them in the oven. I make sure I make extra so I have those leftovers.  Tonight’s dinner included chicken, left over broccoli and mashed garlic cauliflower (another one of my favorite sides!)
Chicken
ChickenDinner

Day 4 Cliff

Posted in Cliff, Cliff Progress by

cropped-cliffcarrotpic3.jpg

^—I may have taken the whole eating “as many vegetables as you want” too far.

The worst part of this whole Detox is the amount of times I now have to go to the bathroom every day and throughout the night.  Trying to do the whole 7-8 glasses of water every day has been a huge challenge.  No sugar, easy!  No caffeine, easy! (okay, easy after some major headaches) but battling a full bladder, harder than ever imagined.

I am looking much less bloated and my weight has been steadily declining:

  • Day 1: 146.8
  • Day 2: 145
  • Day 3: 144.2
  • Day 4: 143.4

As I am writing this, a coworker just sent my team a box full of cookies and muffins, time to test that self control of mine.  Forming a habit takes 21-66 days, so I can’t go breaking now, even though they look so damn delicious. (I’ve hidden some away until February)

Sleep has been another problem.  I have gone from 5-6 hours a night of sleep to 7-8 hours of sleep.  While I do feel more rested throughout the day, my nights are much more restless and I wake up numerous times throughout the night.  Could it be my body craving all those sweets?  Guess we’ll have to wait and see if it improves.

Today my meals are:

  • Breakfast
    • Strawberry Banana Peanut Butter Protein Shake (forgot the hemp protein, oops)
  • Lunch
    • Almond Crusted Chicken
    • Asparagus
    • Okra
  • Dinner
    • Salmon with a red onion marmalade
    • Whatever vegetable side I decide on

-Cliff

Day 5 for me/Day 3 for Cliff

Posted in Cliff, Cliff Progress, Dena by

You may be wondering why Cliff and I started the detox on different days… We originally agreed we would both start this past Monday and that would be our “Day 1”. Well…You see…I got on the scale last Friday night and got a reality check!  I know everyone weighs more at night but the scale was reading higher than I hoped.  At first I was totally convinced that the scale was off and that it was not zeroed before I got on it to weigh myself.  I demanded that Cliff “fix it” right away! After removing the batteries over and over again and restarting this scale, I came to the realization that it wasn’t the scale that needed fixing.  After some sulking, I am now no longer in denial about my weight gain. I can no longer blame my tight fitting pants on water retention.  I knew I had to start detoxing pronto and decided to start the next morning. The good news is I have lost 3 pounds so far and I am really excited for the process and seeing where I am at the end of January. Unfortunately I haven’t been sleeping that well the past few nights.  I have been waking up several times during the night and therefore do not wake up feeling refreshed. I took melatonin last night and listened to a meditation tape before bed.. but I still woke up in the middle of the night. I am rather foggy throughout the day and feel like I am on the verge of getting sick.  Is this my body detoxing?  Since I have been feeling under the weather, I decided to not increase my exercise at the moment and just concentrate on eating clean and not snacking at night.  Well.. that’s all for now. My brain is a bit foggy and it’s time for me to get to bed!  Night !

Cliff Day 2

Posted in Cliff, Cliff Progress, Uncategorized by

Cliff Day 2:

Day 2 of the detox begun with a rough night of sleep, but this is normal as my body is missing all of the things that it used to get every day.  So far, this whole detox is not so bad.  Obviously no results so far, but also not craving any of the sweets.  Although, I am missing the caffeine like woah at work today, and my focus is all over the place.  Hoping this will improve over time.

As for working out I plan on going back to the gym on Thursday.  I have had a bum elbow thanks to tendinitis for some time now and am hoping after this next physical therapy visit, I will be cleared to begin my upper body workouts again.  Worst comes to worst it’ll just be legs and cardio.