About Vimal | A Valentine’s Day Special

Arghh! Where do I even begin?

Some things in life are meant to be together…

– Salt & Pepper

– TV & Popcorn

– Toothbrush & Toothpaste

– Vimal & Me

Best friends, partners in basically everything we do, travel buddies, confidants, study buddies, shopping buddies, fellow Mauritians currently studying Medicine.

I met Vimal 5 years ago, in 2008. I knew of him through some common friends and like the culture was back then, I decided to add him on Facebook. We started talking. And we never stopped.

It’s been years now and I doubt a day goes by when we are not in touch. He is my go-to guy, for EVERYTHING. I swear, sometimes I feel I am a pain in his backside. But then he has this ability, this amazing ability to assure me that I am not and that he will always be there for me, no matter what.

And he has been. Comes hell or high water, he is the one thing that’s constant in my life. Whether I am depressed about school or I want to lose 23 kg (51 lbs.) or I need a way to make money while still being in med school; he’s always been my magical solution.

And it does not hurt that he is HOT! I mean, look at him.

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Crazy arms with crazy veins popping out. THAT chest and let me not even get started on his back.  A walking, talking Greek God with more knowledge about fitness than anyone else I know. A tech and computer genius. The most wonderful person ever.

And though I don’t say this often, I don’t know what the hell I would do without him constantly looking over me; wiping my tears when I cry, turning my every frown into a smile, giving me the best advice and listening to me even when I make no sense whatsoever. He is my own personal guardian angel.

Week 1, Day 4

This s going so well! For the last year, I’ve been trying to lose weight but each time I would start, after a day or two, I would feel like a cheat meal. Then a cheat meal becomes a cheat day, a cheat day becomes a cheat week and a cheat week becomes a cheat month. Ever since I lost all that weight in 2012, I haven’t been able to commit like that again.

But I think, this time, it’s actually happening. I am eating healthy, drinking the water I need to and going to the gym almost religiously. This feels awesome. Definitely when I look at myself right now and when I think about where I want to reach, the journey seems long and tedious and challenging. But baby steps, right? Ok, maybe not baby steps, small steps at a time. For now, as long as I don’t cheat and I go to the gym, results will follow.

So tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I have plans with my friends, which will obviously involve eating out and drinking things other than water. So here is what I am doing to be able to afford a night out with my friends without causing any harm to my weight loss streak: I am borrowing the technique from the book Eat Stop Eat (by Brad Pilon) and Rusty Moore’s take on carb depletion before an event to compensate for the expected caloric excess on that day. I say “borrow” because this is not exactly what Brad Pilon advocates (Eat Stop Eat is about fasting 1 or 2 times a week for 24 hours, in combination with weight training at least 3 times a week).

So I fasted the whole day today and tomorrow I’ll do the same. I will then break my 48-hour fast with, obviously, an amazing dinner.

I KNOW! It might seem crazy to some of you that I would go without food for such a “long” period of time. But fasting is a real technique, used by a lot of people for weight loss AND health benefits (most of them explained in the Eat Stop Eat book). I am a medical student myself, and having studied the physiology and biochemistry of the human body, I can personally vouch for fasting to be a valid and efficient weight loss technique (in normal, healthy individuals).

Valentines day

So the whole day today, I’ve had nothing but water. I am at 2L right now and it’s only 19 00 at my place. The things you do for Valentine’s Day huh..!

Well then, since I had nothing to eat today, I don’t have any meal plan to share. Let’s move on to what happened at the gym.

Gym

Steady rate cardio at speed 7.5 for the first 10 minutes and speed 8.0 for the next 10 minutes. I followed the steady rate cardio with 10 minutes of HIIT at speeds 5.7 (walking speed) and 10.0 (sprinting speed).

W1D4

Week 1, Day 3

Ah man, gym was hard today. I barely made it to 30 minutes and at least 3 times, I had the urge to just get off the treadmill and walk home. But I don’t have my whole life to lose weight. I only have till summer and pushing through these bad feelings and thoughts is the only thing that will get me there.

The point here is, even if you feel you can’t do it, don’t give up, at least not readily. If you are getting cramps and you feel you will fall off the machine or something then that’s a different story but if you are only feeling tired or slightly weak, PUSH THROUGH IT. It’s just your body making excuses for not working out.

Food wise, again I had 2 meals and one snack today.

Meal 1: Tuna and 2 slices of brown bread (at 17 00)

Snack: A glass of milk with vanilla essence, a pear, 8 grapes (at 19 30)

Meal 2: Chicken and vegetable soup, 2 slices of brown bread (at 22 30)

This brings my vegetable and chicken soup phase to an end because there isn’t any left.

Gym

My shoes

Steady rate cardio at speed 7.0 for the first 10 minutes, at speed 7.5 for the next 10 minutes and speed 8.0 for the last 10 minutes.

Sidebar:

Going to the gym everyday is no joke. It’s hard. It helps though to keep a time to go to the gym (in my case 15 45) and when the time comes, just get ready and leave the house. Don’t think about it. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t think that you can make up for a missed day at the gym by working out twice as hard the next day. It won’t happen.

Week 1, Day 2

Today went just like yesterday. See, I hate cooking. I am really good at it (or so people say) but I just hate cooking for one. So, when I made soup yesterday, I made enough so it would last at least 3 days. I am lazy like that.

Right so, after working out, I got home and I had my first meal. After 2.5 hours, I had a snack and at 22 30, I had my last meal of the day.

Meal 1: Tuna and 2 slices of brown bread (at 17 00)

Snack: Plain, low-fat, low-calorie yoghurt, 8 grapes, 4 strawberries (at 20 00)

Meal 2: Chicken and vegetable soup, 2 slices of brown bread (at 22 30)

Meal1andsnack

Also, it occurred to me yesterday that I completely forgot to write about something very important for weight loss and that’s drinking enough water. I am so not a fan of water. I hate it. If I am not actively trying to lose weight, you won’t even find any water at my place; that’s how much I don’t do water. BUT, when you’re trying to lose weight, drinking water is a big fat must. There is no way around that.

I aim to drink 1.5L of water a day but I rarely stop at that; I usually drink up to 2L. You can spread drinking 1.5L of water throughout your day or if you are even remotely like me and you hate it, what I do is that I take my 1.5L of water to the gym and by the time I am done working out and I walk back home, I finish it. If at home, I feel like drinking some more water then I do that. I know you are supposed to drink water throughout the day but if I try to do that, it just won’t happen. I do what I know works for me.

Gym

Finally, let’s talk about what I did at the gym today. Previously, I used to alternate between cardio and circuit training with weights but for this first week, I will only do cardio. WHY? For one, it’s easier to just go to the gym and run for 30 minutes. Secondly, I think I need to lose a few kg before I can handle weights properly (squatting with the right posture, getting lunges right).

So I did steady rate cardio at speed 7.0 for the first 10 minutes (I escalated, that’s right) and at speed 7.5 for the next 20.

W1D2

Week 1, Day 1

And here we go! First off, let’s start with what I ate today. So I am going for an intermittent fasting (IF) based diet. There are different “styles” of intermittent fasting; Eat Stop Eat, The Warrior Diet, The Renegade Diet, etc., but for now, I am going with Martin Berkhan’s Leangains. I am actually doing an adapted (or modified) version of it, because I don’t currently do pre-workout and post-workout supplements.

Basically, what I am doing roughly translates to this: Everyday, I will keep an 8-hour window to eat, effectively fasting for the remaining 16 hours. This works two-fold for weight loss. 1) I am fasting 16 hours everyday and 2) I don’t have to constantly find healthy food to eat which can be a dire source of temptation. It happened to me so many times. In having to come up with 5-6 healthy meals a day, I just end up having two healthy meals and go to Burger King or something because it makes my life so much easier; No cooking, no cleaning, no running around to buy groceries. Just one trip to Burger King or KFC or whatever else that drips with oil.

So today, I kept an 8-hour window during which time I had 2 meals and one snack.

Meal 1: Mexican tuna (1 can ≈ 185 g / 6.53 oz.) and two slices of brown bread (at 17 00)

Snack: Plain, low-fat, low-calorie yoghurt, 10 red grapes, 1 pear (at 19 30)

Meal 2: Chicken and vegetable soup with one slice of brown bread (at 22 00)

Meals-1and2

Gym

Day 1 is cardio day. I went to the gym in a fasted state (at 15 45). I am not currently in a shape to be able to do HIIT so I stuck with steady-rate cardio for 30 minutes at speed 6.5 for the first 10 minutes and speed 7.0 for the next 20 minutes. After the 30 minutes, I felt I could go on so I took one minute to “rest” during which time I walked at speed 5.7. I then resumed running at speed 7.0 for the next 5 minutes. Basically, this is what you do: Aim to do your 30-minute cardio and at the end of it, if you can keep going, then just do that! Keep it reasonable though because you don’t want to pull a muscle or something.

Gym1