2 days a week are devoted to my Advanced class with the solid group here in Mumbai. I always begin the day with the Bikram Beginner’s class, then take an hour break, have something light to eat, (right now, that means 2 oz of chicken or prawn), and then we head into the hot room again to tackle the advanced series, over 100 postures with very little break in between. It takes about 2 hours, with everyone trying various postures that remain elusive, (you have to start somewhere and just keep trying!), and I find this to be one of the most intensely enjoyable ways to get ready for an event. I would never be able to do this amount of cardio on a machine, and even I did, I would be killing my joints and cardiac tissue, instead of rejuvinating them, nourishing my glands and organs, and having fun like a kid, (albeit a kid on a training team!)
On these days, I am on a very low carb protocol, less than 40 grams, mostly vegetables, and a few grams from some nuts like cashews, and the cup of strawberries that I have after the two classes. I am finally into ketosis, as I mentioned yesterday, and my digestion is switching over, which means it is getting more difficult for me to digest vegetables unless they are cooked, and I am naturally craving fats and proteins. I can literally see my body “eating” itself, as my muscles and veins start to come up closer to the skin. I am keeping a much better blog update for future dial-ins, because this was probably the softest I’ve ever been at the start of a program, and I only have 4 weeks to get ready. I did sick later in the afternoon, and I had a big crash in energy after I finished teaching a Bikram class. I literally ate my meal, and crawled into bed for 2 hours, feeling achy and chilled. But two hours later I’m feeling better, and I’m making up my meals for tomorrow. I wonder if there is a link between making the switch to ketosis and this kind of reaction? I felt similar in my dial in last April, but I actually ended up getting really sick, so it’s hard to say.
I also haven’t dialed in this fast before. I’m only on day 9 yet I can see the transformation from morning to night, and again in the morning when I wake up. Really researching bodybuilding diets and keeping complete nutrient composition food logs really honed my understanding of foods. I am now able to whip up tons of recipes that stick to the diet plan I’ve devised for myself, and am much clearer about the secondary nutrients in foods so there are very few loose ends. What do I mean by that? I mean I know look at a cashew and see that it is mostly fat but still has contributing amounts of carbs and proteins. I can look at the difference between a fat like coconut milk as a sauce, and a fat like full-fat yogurt, and see that the coconut milk has neglible levels of carbs, but that the yogurt has twice the carbs as protein, so if I am already getting close to my carb quota, I’ll make a coconut curry sauce to go with my meal, and skip the nuts and milk products.
Tomorrow I am trying out Jean-Jacques’ back/pec/abs training, so I’m pretty excited about that. I haven’t trained my pecs in a long time, except for push-ups in my metabolic workouts.
Have a great day everybody!
