Category: Exercise

5lbs in 5 days: Day Zero, A Final Thought

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Just a short postscript to the day before I toddle off for an early night. I’m exhausted from watching a very long but extremely exciting (no, really, it was) cycling Tour Of Flanders! Just in case you’re wondering, Peter Sagan triumphed after a long solo run-in and to celebrate, did one of his trademark cycling wheelies! My husband said, ‘I wish I could do that!’ to which I replied, ‘Don’t even think about it!’ He just had his first bike ride today after 9 months recovering from a bike accident and he wants to start doing stunts! To cap it all, our son texted he would show him how the next time he’s up.

But I didn’t start this to chat about cycling – honestly, I didn’t – although while we’re on subject, it’s a great form of exercise while doing the juice challenge.

No, I had a final thought about prepping for the juice challenge, which is that if you’re hoping to lose some weight, weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you begin and then put away the scales until Day 7! Ask your partner or someone else close to you to hide them if necessary!

Now I know you’re shouting at me ‘Day 7!! This is supposed to be a 5 day fast, not 7!’ Well, technically it is, BUT…

It is psychologically useful to look beyond the 5 days because you may be a little disappointed if you weigh yourself on the fifth day. Yes, you will have lost some weight, but if you wait until the seventh day, you may have lost another couple of pounds.

This is for 2 reasons: the first is that it isn’t so much what you’ve eaten that day that shows up on the scales, but what you’ve eaten for the past couple of days. So on day 6 and 7 you should still be benefiting from juicing on days 4 and 5. Also, since you won’t be jumping straight back in to ‘normal’ eating on days 6 and 7 but still juicing and adding in salads and vegetables, you will carry on losing a little weight.

I know you will find this difficult. Everyone wants to jump on the scales every morning, you’ve all heard of the fast weightloss that juicing creates and you want to see it with your own eyes. But trust me, the impact will be greater if you delay gratification

PLUS:

The emphasis of a juice challenge is on improving your overall health, improving your lifestyle, changing your relationship with food, not just on losing weight. Use the time to focus on that, to reflect on your lifestyle, how you can reduce any stress, make changes to your food shopping habits, meditate. Be good to yourself, don’t be testing yourself by jumping on the scales at every opportunity.

By far the best way to judge your progress is your shape: take your measurements before you begin and again a week later. If you’re exercising as well as juicing, this is where you’ll see the difference. Remember, muscle weighs more than fat so the scales may not tell you the whole story.

One last thought: you are doing a good thing. There is no pass or failure involved. There aren’t a certain number of pounds you have to lose or it hasn’t worked! Have fun, enjoy the challenge. Look forward to a healthier you.

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The Secret

That’s it. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read these posts. I hope they have been of some help. Have a good sleep and enjoy your first juices!

Copyright: Chris McGowan

Cycling, Juicing & Health aka An Excuse to Write about Cav!

I am writing this post under the guise that cycling is good for your health: fresh air, Vitamin D, exercise, camaraderie (unless you come off, that is!) It’s also good for the environment, no petrol or diesel fumes clogging up the atmosphere – or our lungs. (Except when you’re commuting). It lifts the spirits, challenges our physical and mental boundaries and gets us away from routine and stress for a glorious hour or two of communing with nature and the elements.

However, as many of my regular Twitter followers will be aware, I am a bit of a cycling groupie. In fact, when I sent a text to my son this morning, the auto type thingummy preferred Cav (as in former World Road Race Champion Mark Cavendish) to cat! (That’s him at the front of the pic in the Tour of Britain race 2013).

The off-season is a barren time for professional cycling followers with little else but reports of new kit, new sponsors and new team-mates to keep us going. There’s always the off-season weddings to distract though, and the off-season babies. But we have to bear the dark days of January without any of the sun, sea or outstanding scenery of professional cycling tours (I exercised restraint there, I could have included shorts, ‘seats’  ‘saddles’ and tan-lines!)

But, rest assured. Those dark days are over. One February morning the sun shone and the sky was blue – and that was just in the English Midlands – when first Australia and then Dubai showed up to fill the cycling void on tv.

After a winter on the track training to qualify for the Olympics, Cav stretched his legs in a warm-up in Oz and today came second on the first desert stage of the Dubai Tour. But mainly he stayed upright, so we can all breathe again! Great German rival Kittel came first, but he was due a win after an awful year of illness last year so we won’t begrudge him that, and Hour Man Sir Bradley Wiggins smiled his way to the front of the peleton like days of yore to remind himself how it feels to go the distance in his own Olympic preparation.

Riveting stuff, eh? 😉

 I will get around to cycling for your health, but first I just want to get this off my chest after watching the first tour of the season: how confusing it is when you’re still looking for Marcel Kittel in his black-and-white striped Giant-Alpecin kit instead of his new dark blue Etixx strip, and how it’s even harder to see the diminutive Cav hiding behind his lead-out team now he’s in the black strip of Dimension-Data and no longer last season’s light blue of Etixx!

And how weird is it going to be seeing Richie Porte in the red and black of BMC and not the turquoise and black of Sky? A rival to Chris Froome and no longer his trusty lieutenant.

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Cav alongside Chris Froome in Leeds at the Tour de France 2014 (yes, I know, but the first part is usually raced outside France!)

So this is what life will be like in this juicing household for the next 10-11 months. I had to warn you because you’ve only known me in the off-season when I had little better to do than think and write about juicing – which, by the way, a lot of professional cyclists benefit from nowadays. They also eat rice cakes and raw treats. (Nice segue there, don’t you think?!)

So, as this is meant to be a health blog, I shall justify this post’s existence by advising that now Spring is here, get your bike out of the shed or from under its tarp, give it a good clean, tighten everything up, oil what needs to be oiled, check your helmet – always wear a helmet, it saved my husband’s life twice in the last 3 years – and organise a family cycle at the weekend.

Get the kids on two wheels early and it will stay with them for life, and you will all have a common activity – and they may even let you talk about Greipel’s quads and Froomey’s watts and sit and watch highlights of the Tour de France with you in July!

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Amazing book of watercolour paintings of cyclists done during the Tour de France by the very talented Greig Leach.

(Ok, I’ll stop now).

Copyright: Chris McGowan