Day 5 Plant-based challenge

     Let's get to the ugly stuff first. I weighed in this morning at 173.5lbs. Amazing! But, the Tanita scales showed my BF at 15%. The Omron handheld device gave my BF as 12.1%. What the heck? My body fat went down and my weight went up. I packed on 1.5lbs of lean mass over night. Yes! Buffalo Wild Wings are like anabolic steroids! I've packed on 6lbs of mass over two days. I need to write an ebook. Not so fast scooter. I'm bloated like a toad. I have so much sodium in my body I'm denser than the Dead Sea. I'm carrying around so much water a fire truck could hook on to me and put out a 5 alarm fire. My face is so swollen it looks like my granddaughter really hit me with all those punches she landed with the Wii sport boxing game we played last night. Inflammation!

Roller Coaster.

    So what did I eat yesterday to pack on the 1.5lbs of lean mass, er...inflammation. I had a salad for breakfast. I ate this around 11am after teaching to fitness classes and going to the expo to see if the Mud Run was still going. It wasn't. I did do some wine sampling though. More about that at the end of this article.

    Supper was where I really choked down the calories. We took the granddaughters to Buffalo Wild Wings. They like to eat there. I don't. I won't go into a rant about it though. I had boneless wings, a few french fries, and a salad. It sounds innocent.

    I consumed 4,133 calories yesterday. 2,948 of those calories were from the wings and bleu cheese dressing. Unbelievable. Look at the amount of sodium, most of the sodium was from the wings and dressing. I'm not sure how much salt was on the popcorn, it was a lot. I didn't record it. But I had 9,688mg of sodium recorded. 8,887mg was from the wings and dressing.

   I didn't exercise much yesterday. I did three rounds of the four during one of the Primal Fitness classes and participated in some of the team activities in the other. I played with the granddaughters in the pool and played some games on the Wii.

     I didn't wear my HRM any yesterday. But here is my activity overview and summary from yesterday. I was active for 7 hours and 39 minutes. I logged 13,951 steps. I burned 2,792 calories. My sleep wasn't too good last night either. I had a granddaughter that decided she was hungry at 3am. I should have let her eat my wild wings. Poor sleep contributes to inflammation

    I only took one BGL yesterday. It was 93mg/dL upon rising. I was too busy doing other things and I forgot to take it. Plus I only ate 2 times yesterday.

    Today I'm eating unsalted cantaloupe. I might have some watermelon too. We'll see how my inflammation is tomorrow. See if I can lose 5lbs overnight.

    So about the wine sampling. There was a Winery with a booth at the Mud Cat noodling event. Diamondhead Wine is located between Pryor and Adair in Oklahoma. The reason I'm mentioning them here is because not only did their wines taste great, but they source as much of their ingredients from local farmers as possible. They also harvest their own wild blackberries and other fruits. They had a mead that was sourced from local honeysuckle. So if you drink wine you might want to check them out.

Day4 Plant-based Challenge

     Yesterday I ate beans and tortillas again for most of the day. I had my Mexican blow out meal for supper. I had a long list of food. Chips, salsa, guacamole, queso, spinach enchiladas, black beans, beer, and kamora. This gave me a total of 2,817 calories yesterday.

Click on images to enlarge.

    Yesterday I taught two Primal Fitness classes and I ran 5.93 miles. My active time yesterday was 9 hours and 42 minutes. I logged 28984 steps and burned 3368 calories. During my run my average HR was 136 bpm. My maximum HR was 162 bpm and my minimum was 66 bpm. I burned 596 calories on my run.

  

My BGLs yesterday were 94 mg/dL at rising, 98 mg/dL after breakfast, 98mg/dL after snack, 105 mg/dL before supper, and 86 mg/dL before going to bed.

    I weighed 167lbs yesterday morning when I got up. This morning I weighed 172lbs. WHOA!!! That is 5lbs over night. But wait, I burned 3368 calories yesterday. I taught 2 fitness class, ran almost 6 miles, and I was active for almost 10 hours. I only consumed 2,817 calories. How could I have gained 5lbs over night when I ate less and exercised more? This doesn't add up. But it really does and here is why. Dairy, processed oils, and alcohol are very inflammatory. I gained back that water weight I loss on Tuesday by eating those three items. If I had eated 2,817 calories from fruits, vegetables, and roots the results would have been different. I'll prove that to you later in the challenge.

    Here's something else to think about, plant-based (vegan) doesn't necessarily mean healthy. Everything I ate yesterday except for the queso was plant-based. You can be sick, overweight, and unhealthy on a plant-based diet. It depends on the choices you make. Processed foods and alcohol can be all plant-based, but they are not healthy. Foods to avoid are processed oils, alcohol, refined sugars, refined grain products, and dairy.

   Exercise is an efficient way to lose weight. It also caused inflammation. When you exercise you break down your tissues. When the tissues get broken down your body will start the healing process by sending fluids to the tissue and it will retain that fluid. 

   I'm eating plant-based healthy foods most of today. But, tonight I'm going to have some animal products. Check back tomorrow and see how that spins my body.

Day 3 plant based challenge

     Yesterday I ate greens, berries, and fruit. I was going to eat just berries and greens but I couldn't get enough calories eating just greens and berries. I had to include pineapple, grapes, bananas, and some dried cherries to get over 1,600 calories. Here's the food log:

    You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. I had a little over 1,700 calories. 445 grams of carbs, 4 grams of fat, 29 grams of protein and 59 grams of fiber. Be sure and click on the picture and read how much food I ate. I had fruit by the cupful!

   Yesterday I taught two Primal Aerobic Kickboxing classes and I mowed my lawn. I also taught one Primal Fitness Class. I wore my HRM during the kickboxing classes and while I mowed the lawn. Here's the calories I burned and my heart rate.

This is the Kickboxing classes. I wore the monitor for both classes. I burned about 600 calories. So about 300 calories per class. My max heart rate was 160 bpm and my min was 59 bpm. I had an average heart rate of 88 bpm. 

This one is of my lawn mowing activity. I had a max of 224 bpm, min of 59, and average of 86 bpm. I burned 386 calories.

 
I was activity for 9 hours yesterday. I burned a total of 3349 calories yesterday. I logged 27,815 steps. At one point during the day I sat for more than an hour.

     I had a BGL of 83 mg/dL upon rising yesterday. After breakfast it dropped to 75. I got a little hot and shaky so I had some pineapple to boost my level up. After lunch I was at 142 mg/dL. I finished the day at 89 mg/dL. 

    

    I felt great again this morning when I rolled out at 3:45am to go lead the 5:00am Primal Fitness Class. I weighed in this morning at 167lbs. I dropped two pounds over night. I lead two classes this morning and ran almost 6 miles this morning before I ate anything.

   But tonight will be the night I fall off the wagon. I'll have some great Mexican food tonight and a little cerveza. Check back tomorrow to see how that goes. I'll be have beans and tortillas today and then El Charro's tonight.

Day 2 Plant Based Challenge

Yesterday I ate tortillas and black beans, all day long. I ate Great Value black beans and some Bush's seasoned black beans. I had 3 cans of them with El Charro's salsa. I had some interesting tortillas I picked up at Whole Foods.

I had Engine 2 Plant-Strong Brown Rice Torillas. Some of you might be familiar with the story of Engine 2 firehouse. It was a group of firefighters that adopted a plant based diet and they improved their health. The tortillas were good. They are gluten free, low fat, with no added oils. But they have guar gum and a couple other additives. I might buy them again, but probably not. Because of the additives. They have a nutty flavor from the almond meal.

These tortillas were great! Very tasty, they had a really good corn flavor, sort of like a tamale. They are made with sprouted corn which is considered to be a healthy way to eat grains. Read about the benefits of sprouted grains here. These tortillas have only four ingredients. They are ingredients you would recognize as food. They are sprouted corn, water, sea salt, and lime.

Here is MyFitnessPal report from yesterday:

I ate 6 of the Sprouted corn tortillas and 3 of the brown rice tortillas. I was stuffed but I ate anyways to try and reach 1,600 calories. I didn't count the salsa calories or the homemade kombucha I had. So I was probably over 1,600 calories.

So that is what I consumed yesterday in the way of food and calories. Let's look at my activity and exercise from yesterday to see how many calories I burned.

Remember to click on pictures to enlarge them. I was active for 6 hours and 22 minutes yesterday. I logged 19,720 steps. I was inactive a one point for more than an hour. I burn 2,912 calories yesterday. That is a lot of calories to burn since I only ate around 1,300 calories on Tuesday.

Here is my run from yesterday:

    Next we'll look at my Blood Glucose Levels (BGL) from yesterday. I started off the morning with a reading of 86 mg/dL, which is good. About an hour after breakfast my reading was 152 mg/dL, not bad. After lunch my reading was 106, again good. After supper was 116, again good. I took a finally reading before bedtime and my BGL was 83 mg/dL, excellent. Guess what it was this morning? You'll have to come back tomorrow and read my blog to find out. :-)

    The final question is what did I weigh this morning? Remember I dropped 5.5 lbs yesterday. This morning I was back up a pound. WHAT!?!? How could this be? Mostly water. A person is going to bounce around 3lbs up or 3lbs down on a daily basis. When I weighed Monday morning I was inflamed from the junk I ate over the weekend. My body was retaining fluid to help it dilute the poisons I had put into it. It wasn't happy, by the way. Yesterday I had loss the buffering water my body was retaining. This morning my body had settled back down a little bit seeking homeostasis. Oh, I also forgot. In addition to running yesterday, I taught two classes in the morning and did one of the fitness class in the evening. So my muscle were retaining fluid in them too.

   So that wraps up day two of my challenge. Today I am eating greens, berries, grapes, and pineapple. Don't look for this exact combination on your 30 day challenge calendar. It isn't there. I added pineapple because the one I had setting on the counter was ripe and needed to be eaten. I added the grapes cause they are delicious. Any bets on what my weight will do tomorrow? I almost forgot to log my body fat percentage. This morning it was 11.9% on the Omron device.

  

Plant based Day 1

    Yesterday I started my 30 Day Plant Based Challenge. As I pointed out in the rules you don't have to follow the days strictly by the calendar, unless of course sticking strictly to the calendar helps you stick with the plan. So, anyways, I started the challenge yesterday by only eating bananas and peaches. I was only going to eat only bananas but I had to save some peaches from bugs and other critters. Animals were starting to eat the peaches on my tree, so I picked the peaches and ate them before the animals had a chance. I also picked up some peaches at Whole Foods.
    I ate a total of 9 bananas and 8 peaches over the course of the day. Here is the results from MyFitnessPal:

Click on picture to enlarge it.

    I stuffed myself with bananas and peaches and still only ate 1,249 calories. I normally wouldn't recommend this low of calories for myself. As you can see on the chart I had set a goal of 1,600 calories but I just couldn't stuff myself any more.
    I took my BGL three times yesterday. My morning fasted BGL was 87 mg/dL. After breakfast it was 93 mg/dL. Then I took it before bedtime and it was 112 mg/dL. For those of you that are new to my program, I'm not diabetic but I track my levels when I do experiments so that I have the data.
    So how many calories did I expend yesterday? I'm glad you asked. Because I got a Polar Loop for Father's Day. The Polar Loop is a piece of wearable technology that allows you to track activity, steps, and calories. It will also link up with a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) to allow you to track your heart rate. I got a Polar H7 HRM for Father's Day also. Yay me!
    My Polar Loop said I expended 2,629 calories yesterday. This is about my normal expenditure. It is usually somewhere around 2,400 calories. So I consumed 1,400 calories less than I expended yesterday. But, the scales show an even bigger difference.  A pound of fat contains around 3,650 calories. Tuesday morning I weighed 174 lbs. This morning I weighed 168.5 lbs. That is a lot of water weight, huh? The Loop says I was active for 6 hours and 53 minutes yesterday.

   Today I taught two class and ran before I ate my first meal. I ran 6.32 miles in 58:19 minutes, which is about a 9.25 minutes per miles.

So it wasn't too bad of a run for someone who consumed 1,400 calories less than he burned the day before. Running in a fasted state.
    I'll be posting my diet and exercise over the next 30 days. I might even take a picture or two. But here is the thing. I know that I'm going to be eating at least 2 or 3 meals per week that will not adhere to the program. I know that. I'm planning on it. But over the course of the week I will have at least 30 feedings, 28 at the very least. That is 4 feedings per day for 7 days. I aim for 80% compliance. So I know I'm going off the plan for a couple of meals. I'm not perfect and don't intend to be. Plus I can't afford to lose much more weight.
    I'm having black beans and tortillas today. Be sure to check back tomorrow and see what special tortillas I'm eating. See how many calories of beans and tortillas I can stuff down. See how many calories I burn and what my BGL are.

30 day plant based challenge rules.

    I finally had some questions come in about the 30 day plant based challenge I posted this past Sunday. So here are some rules to go with the challenge to help clarify what the 30 day challenge plant based diet is all about.

The ideal behind the 30 day plant based diet is to eliminate all animal products for 30 days. It should also be low fat. So there is a limited amount of nuts, avocados, and added oils. No processed foods! Only fruits, vegetables, legumes, tubers, nuts, and seeds. There is plenty of vegan and vegetarian junk food on the market, they are not part of this 30 day challenge.

     Salt, pepper, and vinegar are fine to add. Uses spices and herbs to add favor. Using ketchup and mustard are fine too, just don’t go crazy with them.
No mayo or margarine.

     You can substitute foods on any day. You can also pick any day you want. You don’t have to go in the order listed. The idea is to be plant based and simple. Eat only 1 to 5 different foods in a day. If there is a day on the calendar you don’t like the food choices, pick your own. So let’s say you hate every food on day 17, get rid of it. Pick a different day that you like, maybe day 21, who knows. However, its not as big of a challenge if you only eat the foods you like.

    Grains should be minimally processed. It should be just the cooked grain, like boiled rice, quinoa, or oats. Avoid wheat! So the tortillas should be corn or some ancient grain like spelt. Avoid GMO grains by shopping at Whole Foods or one of the other grocery stores that specialize in organic, GMO free products. So on days 11 and 28 eat tortillas that are made for organic GMO free ancient grains or corn. On day 7, boil up some rice, quinoa, oats, or other organic GMO free grain.

   Day 30 is root vegetable day. You could use potatoes of any kind. Yams of any kind. Carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, taro, or cassava root. All root vegetables are game. But, you could just do potatoes or sweet potatoes. But challenge yourself to experience a new root vegetable, or one you used to hate as a kid. By day 30, your taste buds might have changed. Or not, who knows unless you give it a try.

Summary:

Eat simple unprocessed plant based foods, preferably organic and non-GMO
Eat low fat.
Challenge yourself.

I'll be doing the challenge for the next 30 days and blogging about it here, so stay tuned.

30 Day Plant Based Diet

Everyone seems to love a 30 day challenge. So here is one for everyone.
This is a 30 day plant based diet challenge. You can only eat a plant
based diet and can only use the foods listed. Eat only the foods listed for
that day. If the calendar reads "watermelon", then you only eat watermelon on
that day. Do not eat any other foods on that day. Eat as much watermelon as
you want on that day. You eat as much of whatever food is listed on that day,
as much as you want, unlimited. But, only eat the listed food. Only drink
water, tea, or coffee during the challenge, nothing else. Why not try it? You
have nothing to lose except 15lbs of fat. Well, you will probably lose aches
and pains too. No alcohol during this challenge.