The following is the update of my second week going primal.
 

Nutrition

* 97% Compliant to Primal Blueprint nutrition (I took 3% percentage points off for having cream in my coffee daily). I ate nothing processed at all and stuck to vegetables and low glycemic fruit such as strawberries.
* Average caloric intake per day: 1712
* Macrobiotic percentage breakdown: 66% fat, 22% protein, 12% carbohydrate
* Average carbohydrate per day: 66g

Exercise

Once again, due to work constraints combined with low energy levels and in conjunction with “woman monthly issues”, my workout for the week was pretty light

* Monday: Bodyweight drills (25 mins total)
* Tuesday: Muay Thai (90 mins total)
* Wednesday: Rest
* Thursday: Muay Thai (90 mins total)
* Friday: Rest
* Saturday: Run for 25 mins + Muay Thai for 120 mins (145 mins total)—Not a good idea!
* Sunday: Walk 35mins/Run 10 mins (45 mins total)

Results

Once again, without trying that hard I went from 232lbs (July 8th) to 229lbs (July 14th) for a total of 3lbs lost in week 2. That is 12.5lbs lost in two weeks of primal living. Now that’s crazy…..
 
Random Thoughts

I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I like it! What’s crazier is that I’m not even trying all that hard. My cravings for sweets and carbohydrates are almost non-existent but for some strange reason has been replaced by a craving for almonds.

I have had low energy levels in the evenings these last two weeks. It took every ounce of willpower and determination to make it to my Muay Thai sessions on Tues and Thurs. The good news is that by the end of the week and for no apparent reason, my energy seemed to start picking back up. I didn’t increase my carb intake either, it just happened and I welcome it. I am hoping that I’ll be fully adjusted to primal living by the end of primal week 3.

Stay tuned for week 3

I’ve always been an athlete. I’m sure some of you are laughing right now, but really, I’ve always been an athlete. Before my parents got divorced, remarried and had other children, there was my four brothers and me. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been playing sports with them in some capacity. Soccer, basketball, cricket, badminton, squash, table tennis, heck even football. All my brothers were natural born athletes to the point where the one who I considered the least athletic growing up is now elite NFL athlete and a pro-bowler 3 times over.

Even when I was a little girl going to school at a preppy boarding school in Birmingham UK, I was always more athletic at a much higher weight than any of the other girls in my school. It was my natural athleticism that propelled me to be the captain of the netball team, the tennis team and the lacrosse team. I remember going to play against other teams where I would promptly get a laugh because of my size (also race…being one of the only black kids in a high society preppy boarding school for girls had it’s negatives) before the games. Then my team would commence to beating the daylights out of them with me leading the thrashing.

I’m relaying all this information because even when I was 350lbs I still believed I was an athlete. It was that belief that led me to participate inMuay Thai training. Had I not believed I was an athlete, I wouldn’t even have attempted it in the first place. It’s all really a testament to the power of the mind. In my case, I refused to believe that I wasn’t an athlete no matter that the external appearance suggested otherwise. At some point my inner athlete went from being dormant to being more active and it’s on its way to being a full blown epidemic.

I encourage everyone to find that inner athlete that either was once visible to everyone and now is dormant and let it come to light. If there was never an inner athlete in the first place, you can always pretend as if it existed. It all leads to the same place…….

 
People have asked me the kind of look I’m going for as my end result in this whole fat loss saga. I’ve always said that I’m going for the 15% bodyfat look…whatever that is. I’m singlehandedly obsessed with that number for some reason. But realistically, I have to have an image in my head of what my end result should look like. Well the picture above is a pretty accurate vision of what I want my end result to be.

When Janet Jackson is in shape, I don’t think there is a better body out there period. I particularly love the look off of her “Janet” album. I’m really not sure what bodyfat percentage Janet has in that photograph, but it has to be below 18%. So there you have it folks. That’s where I want to be in about a year or so.

Enjoy

Ever since I learned that the best time to do cardio was first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, it’s been a standard for me. The kicker is that I extended that to everything, weight training, Muay Thai etc. I haven’t been able to psychologically get past this phenomenon. It is to the point that I don’t even count cardio done in the evening as effective. I’m wrong about all this of course, but that didn’t stop me from carrying on like I knew what I was doing. The best time to do cardio is whatever time of day you can do cardio. End of Story.

Well given the changes that need to be made in order for me to see results, I have to say goodbye to morning anything for a while. It’s not easy for me and so I’m going through the 5 stages of grief…but it’s really all about the workouts in the morning:

Denial: This isn’t happening to me! I was doing 2 workouts a day. Mostly in the morning, I would do either HIIT or weight training and then go to Muay Thai training in the evening for 2hrs. I was extremely tired, but I chose to ignore…..or should I say deny the fact that most of it had to do with the morning workouts. I kept doing it for 8 weeks till I got to the second stage.

Anger: Why me? Why can’t I do 2 intense workouts a day for a total of 3hrs and work 10hrs a day and commute 2hrs a day like superwoman and not be tired. I want to be superwoman damn it. This is wrong, anyone should be able to do this. Why can’t I? This leads me to the next stage:

Bargaining: Please God….please help me do these 2 workouts daily. Pretty please with cherries on top. I’ll be a better person. I won’t goof off in Muay Thai training as much. How about if I move the two workouts to the weekends. What about not taking any rest days off for recovery and recuperation. How about if I change what I’m doing while I’m working out, but still do the 2 workouts a day. Come on….it could work!…….Onto the next stage.

Depression: I can’t do this. I suck. I’ve tried my best and I suck. I hate everyone that has nothing to do with the way my body doesn’t respond to these workouts. I hate myself for only giving it 120%. Why couldn’t I give it 200%. The hell with workouts anyway. It’s not like they’ve helped me lose 130lbs so far. F it!…….Onto the final stage.

Acceptance: Wow, I really can’t do 2 intense workouts daily. My body is not responding and that’s alright. However, I’m finding that I can do one intense workout daily and have enough recovery for the next one. Hey…working out in the evening ain’t so bad…sure there are more folks in the gym, but they are pretty considerate with the equipment. I feel rested and unrushed when I get up in the morning to go to work. I’m having fun again and looking forward to my workouts like I used to, so that’s good news. I like this evening workout thing!

I’ve been acting like a crazy person the last 8 weeks. I’ve really been busting my butt at the gym, but being a little too liberal with the nutrition on the weekends. Making a change has actually started yielding results. It’s unfortunate that it took me weeks to come to that realization. Better late than never I guess. However, there are changes that also had to be made with regards to workouts. I was really just doing too much. More is not necessarily better. I was behaving as if I was still in Thailand and had nothing to do all day but train, eat, sleep….train, eat, sleep.

Unfortunately, I live in the real world just like everyone else. I have job that consumes about 50hrs a week and I have responsibilities just like everyone else. Doing all this and also trying to fit in 3hr workouts a day was not the most efficient use of my time. It was downright wearing me out. It was to the point where I was dreading going for my beloved Muay Thai training because I was just too tired from the 5.30am morning workouts to do an additional 2 hrs of Muay Thai in the evening from 7pm – 9pm after a full day at work. Then I would attempt to do another intense workout at 5.30am the morning after on about 5 hours of sleep. That plan was unsustainable. In addition, I was always tired, my performance wasn’t getting any better and I had no enthusiasm. To make matters worse, the scale hadn’t moved at all in 8 full weeks. With the workouts I’ve been putting in and with a single minded goal towards fat loss, this is unacceptable. I gotta tell you folks….that’s no place I ever want to be in again.

The decision now is to do just one very intense, highly efficient, highly effective fat burning workout each day and no more. These workouts incorporate compound movements using both free weights and body weight in a superset format followed by HIIT cardio. My only interest is fat loss.To understand what I’m talking about, please so to Alywn Cosgrove’s website. Read all his posts and all his archives like I’ve done and get a better understanding of what this all entails. I started doing his afterburn program as of this week and I’m a believer that with these new changes, there is no reason why I should not be seeing a 2lbs drop in fat weekly. Just no way.

I ain’t playin around no mo’.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m only interested in fat loss and muscle preservation. If I build more muscle in the process, then fine. I just don’t want to lose what I already have. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about some of the workouts that I’ve been doing and it’s effectiveness. More importantly, I’ve been taking the time to research the most effective means of fat loss. What I’ve been able to gather is that while what I am currently doing will yield results, it is actually not the most effective means for fat loss.

The current program that I’ve been on for 8 weeks now requires bodypart training. What that means, is that I do a certain amount of set/rep structures per bodypart i.e biceps, triceps, quads etc. Each set requires some rest in between and so forth. This is great for a bodybuilder who is concerned with aesthetics and symmetry. However for someone like me whose only goal is fat loss, it’s not the most effective means. From my research, the most effective means of fat loss with regard to weight training is utilizing compound movements in a superset format without resting in between. This essentially allows you to do a cardio workout using weights because it keeps the heart rate elevated.

I’ve been reading the blogs of some of the best in the fat loss business such as Alwyn Cosgrove who created the Afterburn program, Tom Venuto who created the Burn the Fat, Feed the muscle Program and Craig Ballyntyne who created the Turbulence Training program. There are many more out there for sure. However these pros advocate compound weight training movements that go from lower body to upper body in superset formats with no rest. All of them also advocate HIIT as the best form of cardio for fat loss.

Coincidentally. this week I started doing Alwyn Cosgrove’s Afterburn program. I have to say that it looked so easy on paper. When I actually did it, I was in agony during and after. It’s to the point where it will probably take me 6 weeks to get through the initial 4 weeks of the program with the proper sets and repetitions. Pray for me!

About a year ago, I couldn’t run. To be truthful it was more like I refused to run. In my mind, I couldn’t do it period. I hated it. Well as I began to get more involved in learning Muay Thai, I knew that my relationship with running had to change. Running is a requirement for the sport of Muay Thai. So I began to run….or should I say, slowly jog.

In about a month, I could run what I thought was a mile without stopping. I found out a little later that I was only actually running 0.8 of a mile. I actually had to run one more lap around the track to make it a mile. I soldiered on anyway and was able to finally complete a mile without stopping about 6 weeks after I started. I really didn’t care that it was taking me just about 22 minutes to complete that mile.

On Saturday, almost a year later, I ran that same mile on that same track in 13 minutes flat. I know that might be a cakewalk for some, but it’s a HUGE milestone for me. I’m pretty fired up about it to be honest with you. The next goal is to cut the time down to 11 minutes by the end of the summer. I think I can do it. What do you guys think?

If you’re interested in knowing a little about how far I’ve come in a year, please check out my new page called “My Journey”. It will take you through a very brief synopsis of where I was exactly a year ago and where I am today.

Enjoy!

My buddy is actually doing the 12 Week Challenge (might extend to 16 weeks) with me. We touch base pretty much everyday for encouragement and motivation. She has been trucking along just great, doing intense HIIT sessions, aggressively weight training like she’s never done before and eating cleanly. In the last two weeks she’s actually seen results (she’s already in good shape), felt better, clothes fitting different and motivated. Then came an injury. Not sure how she sustained the injury but the pain was in her glutes and hip flexor region. She could hardly walk for a couple of days, had problems sitting down and was in pain.

In my opinion, this injury was a result of a combination of incorrect form coupled with too much weight. In attempt to push herself on weight training, she might have overdone it. This happens all the time. It is imperative that weight training is intense and the body is pushed so that muscle can grow. However, this should be done with gradual increases. You can’t barely bench press 45lbs today and decided to go to 65lbs the next day. Why not try 50, then 55, then 65. Be reasonable. If the weight is too easy, then make a note of it and increase the weight at the next workout. There is no point in sustaining a major injury such as torn ligaments and muscles just because of overeagerness. Use your head and be wise. Be reasonable.

When minor injuries occur….and they will. If icing and heating don’t work, then next best thing is rest and recuperation. Also it is imperative that you stay on your nutrition plan. I know it can be frustrating when an injury is sustained and depression might sometimes set in. However it’s not very wise to undo all the accomplishments by going on eating frenzy. Stay positive, keep it together, nurse yourself back to health and hit the gym with intensity the next week. Heck add another week to your challenge.

The good news is that all should be well by the end of this week so the challenge is still on. What started as a 12 week challenge might actually become a 13, 14 or 15 week challenge for her which is all good.

I finally got back to my beloved Muay Thai Gym on Saturday after a two month hiatus. It was great to see all my old friends as well as all the new faces that have joined the gym. The place has exploded in a positive way since I’ve been in Thailand, and I am happy to see all the progress that has been made. Most importantly, I was happy to get back to the sport I love which has been mostly responsible for my physical fitness accomplishments this year.

I reminisced a little about the first time I stepped into the gym almost a year ago and where I am today. The difference is miles apart. Sometimes I can’t believe that when I started this journey a year ago, I tipped the scale at 350lbs. I’m 229lbs today. Through the support and help of everyone in that gym, I was able to push through a lot of physical duress. It wasn’t easy, however, here I stand today. It’s really a testament to resiliency, resolve and persistence. I am truly looking forward to what can be accomplished this year.

A special thanks to Vic, Joe, Ray, Liam, Frankie, George, John W, OT and the rest of the knuckleheads.

I constantly sabotage myself. To put it more bluntly, I often manage to wrestle defeat from the claws of victory. This hasn’t necessarily made me an unsuccessful person by any means. However, I think I could have been even more successful in life but for self sabotage. So what do I mean by self sabotage? The way I define it for is a process of setting what should be lofty long terms goals for myself with the anticipation of accomplishing them in a short period of time and thereby undermining the accomplishment of those very goals. Did you just get that?

When I started out losing weight, I realistically calculated that with proper and adequate nutrition combined with a healthy dose of exercise, that I could realistically reach my ideal weight within 2 years. I knew what to do, when to do it, how to do it and where to do it. However, when I actually started implementing the plan, I decided 2 years was all of a sudden not good enough. I had to get it done in 1 year. I would then proceed to get angry with a healthy weight loss of 8-10lbs/month. I would psychologically punish myself for not losing more weight. I would sometimes just give up and go on a random carb binge until I came back to my senses. I would over train with the anticipation that doing so would assist in more rapid weight loss which in turn made me tired. I would then get discouraged that my 2 year plan was not materializing in 1 year. The preceding actions and reactions that I just mentioned are pure self Sabotage!.

The irony of the situation is that because of sabotage, I will probably have to tack on a couple of extra months to reach my goal. So instead of 2 years it’s going to be now 2 years + 2 months. If I had just stuck to the original reasonable plan, I would have succeeded at an earlier date. It’s a vicious cycle with no end in sight when we do this to ourselves. Needless to say that sabotage manifests itself in all aspects of our lives be it health, finances or whatever. When we continue to repeat the same patterns of self destructive behavior expecting different results, we truly have crossed over to the land of insanity. So what gives?

Rule #1: Be realistic: I’m all for dreaming big and making it happen. It is my belief that things change and things happen when you put yourself in the position to make those things happen. However, we also have to accurately access where we currently are, where we want to go, find the gap and address how to get to the destination in a way that makes sense. It’s impossible to get to the desired destination on time and without pain without going through this process.

Rule #2: Plan: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This applies to all areas of life without exception. You don’t have to make a detailed plan of action, however you have to have some sort of a realistic plan of action to make it to your desired destination. No plan, no destination.

Rule #3: Action: Take daily action to get to where you want to be. If you truly desire to accomplish something, you will stop at nothing and nothing will come between you and the achievement of those goals. You will work towards it in some capacity daily. Get a calender and start marking down the days.

Rule #4: Reassess: It’s important that you just don’t blindly keep marching forward despite having a cliff right in front of you. It’s important to reassess those goals and why they are important periodically. Also if there are changes that need to happen to the plan, you can make them to either steer you back on track or move you in another direction entirely. The choice is yours.

I struggle with confrontation. I don’t like it. I struggle with telling people no. I’ll always say yes to things I have no desire to actually do because I feel that the person making the request has feelings that are more important than mine. In my quest to please the world, I have more than oftentimes not pleased myself. In addition to being unhappy, I’ve become unreliable and sometimes undependable. The reason for this is that since I didn’t want to fulfill the request in the first place, I’ll find a reason or an excuse to not do so in the end. It in turn creates bad habits that are hard to break. The bad habits have manifested itself into actually not picking up the phone when I know a request deadline is due and then making excuses for the absence or unfulfilled request at a later date. This is unacceptable behavior and it’s one I have struggled with for years. For the religious and religious types, there is is passage in the bible (Matthew 5:37), that reads

let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one

That is a profound statement in itself. I’ve come to realize that my “Yes” and “No” mean nothing. They mean nothing because:

1. I never so “No”
2. When I do say “YES” and either deliver or don’t deliver when I never really wanted to deliver in the first place, then the request serves no purpose and means nothing to me.

I’ve never been a selfish person. I’m generous to a fault even. However, I find that with the current path to transformation that I am currently on, I’m starting to grow a spine. I think that as an overweight individual, I tried to overcompensate for the issue by overextending myself in almost every situation with friends, colleagues, strangers and family alike. The feeling of letting people down no matter how incredulous the request was unbearable for me. The irony is that in most cases, I ultimately did let them down and then started the vicious cycle all over again the very next day.

I can trace this characteristic from back to when I was 7 years old in preppy British boarding school, where I was trying to get the other rather snotty, upper class, elite little princesses to like me; to just last week when I invited someone on a trip that I really didn’t want them to go on in the first place. Can you now see how I bring destruction and disaster to myself at every turn?

I really can’t say with relative certainty that it’s been all bad. After all, all those years of acting has made me quite a personable person to get along with. I’m the easiest person in the world to deal with….honestly. However, I want to finally rid myself of the negative aspects of this behavior because it’s brought me quite a lot of pain, frustration and aggravation and sometimes all three at the same time.

The solution for me is that before I agree to something, I will gauge my decision based on who is asking and whether or not I really want to do it. Based on that, I will then promptly decide whether or not to do it. If I’m not sure at the time, I’ll say so and then follow up with the person within an agreed upon time frame to let them know my decision. In other words, I promise that from this day forth my “Yes” will be “YES” and my “NO” will be “NO”…..and for the most insane requests it will be a resounding “HELL NO”.

I have a tendency to procrastinate to my own detriment at times. I tend to leave things to the last minute and then get very anxious when the deadlines approach. Procrastination has not served me well. Indeed, it’s one of my greatest nemesis. As my cleanse continues, I find that I am actually getting things accomplished at an alarming rate. I just went through a stack of mail that had been accumulating for 4 months (was in Thailand for 3 months). Not sure what to attribute to this sudden burst of productivity, but I must say that I am enjoying it. It’s easy to get lazy and let things stack up to the point of ridiculousness. Pretending that that pressing issues don’t exist doesn’t make them disappear. However, we can triumph over procrastination if we can summon the will to get things moving in the right direction. Indeed it’s the only way to be successful in life in general. I have come to realize that procrastination has been an enabler to my feelings of living an unfulfilled life, and I’m really trying to turn things around this year. I know it’s not always easy to manage time effectively, but at least we all can try to give it our best effort. There is a feeling of accomplishment and sheer happiness associated with finishing tasks at hand. You’d be surprised how your stress levels go down dramatically. I know mine have.

As I move ever so slowly and cautiously into a new way of life, I feel the need to explore and research as much as I possibly can. I’ve always been the kind of person that adopts a sort of “all or nothing” type of attitude towards all things. I’m either going “all out” or I’m not going at all. One of my favorite sayings has always been….“go hard or go home”. On further reflection, I have come to realize that it hasn’t been the smartest strategy to apply to life in general. The reason is because with an attitude like that, you tend to set yourself up for massive failure and disappointments that take time to recover from. A recent example of this attitude was displayed when I was in Thailand.

In Thailand, I was training at a Muay Thai camp where the training was voluntary. The training schedule was three hour sessions, twice a day. Before I even set foot in Thailand, I already set the standard for my training. I was going to do both training sessions everyday regardless of the circumstances. Easier said that done! It took just about one day of training to realize that it was impossible for me to train as I had intended to. I just wasn’t physically able to handle that kind of strain and rigor for 6 hours a day. But instead of accepting my physical limitations, I started getting very angry with myself. I started punishing myself for not living up to my own ill perceived standards and I almost got on a plane to come back home. My reasoning at the time was that if I couldn’t train for 6 hours a day, then I shouldn’t be training at all…..Sound familiar? Had I returned home, I would have missed out on one of the best three months of my life.

I could give countless examples of how I’ve always managed to sabotage or almost sabotage my progress because of this attitude. It’s taken me some time, but I’ve realized that it’s self destructive. The way to go about things is in steps. Small steps become larger steps which become runs and eventually sprints. You have to start from somewhere. You have to accept and appreciate exactly where you are and then proceed to make small steps to get to where you need to be.

I know that once my cleanse is over, I’m not going to be a raw vegan. I’m not even going to be a vegetarian. Whether I’ll ever be these things, I do not know. What I do know is that a change must occur. I also know that I will be incorporating more raw foods into my diet by way of abundant healthy green leafy salads, green smoothies, fruits and vegetables. I also know that I will be cutting down on eating a lot of meat and focus on fish. These are positive little steps in the right direction. It’s a setup for failure and disappointment for me to proclaim that I will be a 100% raw vegan or a vegetarian going forward. The simple reason is that I accept and appreciate exactly where I am at this point in my life and I’m making the necessary small steps towards a healthy transformation. (picture is of Buddhist monks blessing the camp in Thailand)

Please join me as we transform together!

Congratulations Osi for making the NFL ProBowl. We are so proud of you keep up the good work!

Now all I need is my first class ticket to Hawaii…..You didn’t think I was going to miss that did you?