Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end

Well, it’s another week of holiday in the books. Honestly I struggle a bit to remember what I actually DID do! I struggled a bit early in the week because I planned a 4-5 day rest cycle, depending on how I felt on the fifth day. As is turns out it was a 5-day rest cycle but I was seriously missing my exercise-induced dopamine by the afternoon.

Earlier in the week I had acupuncture (my side is healing, but I was encouraged to do yet more stretching and told that the intensity of my exercise was slowing my complete healing). Quite a hectic session actually, lasted 90 minutes and kind of kicked my ass.

Tuesday I spent with some friends (and friends of friends) having an extended brunch and afternoon at the Constantia wine farms. Wednesday was supposed to be the day the contractor came over to do a bunch of repairs but due to various issues we had to reschedule so I ran a bunch of errands. Just, you know, stuff …

Long meals and catch-ups with Roland, Kerry, Charlotte (did I miss anyone? I hope not…), beach and movie with Keith, more beach, a few workouts at Virgin Active (the local mass gym), getting back to CrossFit (yay!) for a particularly killer power clean/lateral burpee workout and then a beach workout with the Ballistix crew early Saturday, and some quality time setting goals for work and sport. The latter involved going through my old log books so I could see what my PRs actually were. This was a surprising amount of fun! Such anecdotes as:

• My first ring dip (2010/10/13)
• My first pullup (2010/11/16)
• Bench press PR of 51kgs from about a year ago (note that I did 55 reps of 48kgs in a workout a week or so ago)
• My first benchmark girl: Grace (not my best performance …  I forgot how to clean for about a minute, I seem to recall!)
• Such amusing comments as: “Yech! Not very explosive” in reference to a clean complex we were doing at CFNE, “opening hips! :) PAIN…” (no idea what this was all about), “paleo zone + 2 bottles of wine” (ummm…. … then the next day “feeling kinda under the weather” hahaha) “it really hurt!” (in reference to 100 burpees for time … probably explains why I haven’t done this one since!)
• Amusing notes from the original CCF log book such as: “Toss 20kg of ice cubes into the bathtub…” (seriously … where the hell are we supposed to get 20kgs of ice cubes from?? Must be a joke)
• The 12 days of Christmas workout Laa-Laa and I did after a liiiiitle too much wine the night before

As I did last year here is a quick look back at 2011:

Q1 in which I won two athletic events (first time I’d ever won one!); Fittest in Cape Town and the Summer Trail Series, then proceeded to sprain my ankle by my own stupidity, an injury that lingers to this day.

Q2 in which we started to accelerate our portfolio, I got introduced to the South African music scene through the mesmerising experience of being sung to by a rock star-in-the-making, and qualifying our team for the CrossFit Games.

Q3 in which we competed in the Games and while it was good fun, I was disappointed in myself, humbled mightily, cleared out my storage locker and realised a bit too late that life really doesn’t revolve around me.

Q4 in which I learned just how good it can be to compete as part of a strong team, somehow managed to get my stress under control, battled a mentally tough injury, and celebrated ramping up staff at work while at the same time mourning a brand lost through poor execution.

It was a year of new friendships, new experiences; my goodness I learned a lot. I’ve set my goals and intentions for 2011 (some of which need to be revised up if the weights at Virgin Active are even close to accurate), and now it’s time to get on with life. Life is, after all, what happens when you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I’ll leave off 2011 with an SMS I just got from a friend: “A simple wish for you for the New Year: May 2012 be a year in which you exceed your own expectations. Put the past behind you and move forward with a clean slate. Learn to forgive yourself. Happy New Year!”

The past is just that. 2011 had some ups and quite a lot of downs.  I’m looking forward to 2012 because I have a feeling this is the year that a lot of things are going to come together for me, and hopefully for a lot of other people I care about.

• “Obviously if you feel you’re losing feeling in your toes you might want to stop. But it’s a give and take, right?” – Roland
• “I don’t want to become better at being crappy.” – Roland
• “The most effective training methodology is the one that you do.” – Roland
• “No milk or sugar but you show up with a box of chocolates?” – Rowan
• “He’s on the mountain looking for edible bulbs.” – Sarah
• “You could tell who I was talking about just from that?” “Uh, YEAH.” – Ellie & Craig
• “Long Street should just be renamed Moron Boulevard.” – Keith
• “Why would you deprive yourself of ice cream?” – Keith
• “There are certain physiques that …. Well, you see them all the time at your gym.” – Keith
• “Do you believe in evolution? Are you religious?” “Are you kidding? That’s like asking me if I’m a vegetarian.” – Charlotte & Ellie
• “You’re on Clifton Beach, so you’re a f*cking poor recluse.” – Keith

The detox diet

I don’t like diets, or dieting, or any such thing. It generally doesn’t make sense to do something that you won’t be able to maintain long-term. Much as I’ve been cheating recently (!) I am probably still 95% paleo-compliant in my eating. And, apparently, when it comes to cheating my performance leaves a lot to be desired. Seriously, if I ate all that I think I would need to go to the hospital to have my stomach pumped.

However, rules are meant to be broken. Just as having malva pudding on Christmas is kind of necessary, sometimes so is a self-imposed challenge. So from January 1^st (emphatically NOT a New Years resolution, just that I did want to be able to drink on New Years Eve!), I’m going on a detox diet. Why?

Partly because I can, and I have been noticing recently just how crap I feel after small little cheats. It used to be I would cheat and feel guilty. Now I cheat and feel sick. I preferred guilty. So, I’m interested to see just how awesome I can feel if I am very strict.

Also, I think it’s generally a good idea to do a general detox every so often … kill off any parasites or other nasties that might be living inside you.

Last but not least, I went in recently to have a brain scan. Sounds more hectic than it is, but there is a type of machine that scans the electrical frequencies of your brain (alpha through theta waves) to determine the health of various aspects of my body. Not surprisingly this correlated highly to the results of a questionnaire I filled out, which indicated that while overall quite healthy (apparently my stomach, heart, and lungs are particularly healthy), my liver and digestive system have room for improvement. What does that tell you? Time to clean out the system.

Happily, though, the scan did confirm that my stress levels are much lower than normal. So I’m not fooling myself when I say that I have managed to get my stress under control.

I’ve told a few people about this planned detox and a few (actually four or five!) people have said they want to join me. This blog post is mainly for them (to see if they are crazy enough actually to do so!).

Note that this also relates to my post of a few weeks backabout stress and hormones. Diet is one aspect that is necessary to regulate/maintain/repair proper functioning of the endocrine system. Regular exercise is another, keeping stress levels low, and removing the chemical toxins from our environment, to the degree possible.

If you haven’t already, try to do some or all of the following in conjunction with the detox (remember: we’re one creature, everything is connected, mind and body):

1. Exercise regularly, 3-4 times a week
2. Sleep at least 7.5 hours a night. Preferably 9 (I’m clocking in at about 8 currently, and I can feel that I do need more)
3. Do what you can to reduce stress. Meditate. Do yoga. Go hiking. Play with children (ok, maybe don’t play with children …). But find what works for you, and make time for it.
4. Get rid of all your chemical and petroleum-based products. If it looks like it’s a petrochemical it probably is. Beware also of the cheap foaming agent sodium laureth sulphate (found in almost every beauty care product). I still am keeping a few ‘cheats’ here … but do your best.
5. Drink lots of water. LOTS. Without water your body is going to have a hard time detoxing.

 

OK, on to the eating part. Because I am, after all, obsessed by food.

One thing to note – it turns out that I am my mother’s daughter in more ways than one. Turns out I have an intolerance also for members of the nightshade family (tomatoes, eggplants/aubergines, and peppers). Hopefully this will resolve itself in time but I’ve been told to take a break from these for the next three months. This does not apply to everyone, however.

Here’s the deal, the diet is basically strict paleo. We’ll start with what is not allowed:

• Dairy
• Grains of any sort
• Sugar of any kind (including fruit, honey, etc)
• Alcohol
• Vegetables that are high in sugar (sweet potatoes, any winter squash, carrots, beets, corn, etc.)
• Processed food (most especially including soy!!) … exceptions being some of the protein powders & supplements I explain below
• Beans/legumes
• Coffee (almost all coffee contains mould of some form, and aside from this it puts a strain on the central nervous system AND while caffeine can be good for athletes in competition, having a lower tolerance is only a good thing)
• Vinegars
• Mushrooms (while we are trying to kill any bad fungi in our body, best to keep away from all fungi – they are, after all, taking over the world. Just ask Eric Stromberg)

What does this leave you ask?

 

• Proteins: eggs, fish, hemp/spirulina, and healthy meats (properly-raised chickens, grassfed game & livestock)
• Carbs: Pretty much all other vegetables. My staples will be: salad greens, kale, swiss chard, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower.
• Fats (stupid blogger won't let me indent!!)
•    Oils: Olive oil, clarified butter, coconut oil
•    Seeds: Pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, hemp, chia, etc.
•    Nuts: Anything except cashews (which are not actually a nut and often contain low levels of mould, believe it or not…)
•    Other: Fresh coconut, coconut milk/cream (the kind without preservatives!), avos

 

A word on nuts: make sure they are fresh. Nuts stored longer than 3 months not only get stale but can get mould, and one of the things we are trying to do is clear our body of toxins.

To make this even more fun (quite the opposite, but no one said this would be easy) for the first three weeks no meat products and vegetables are to be eaten as raw as possible (i.e. raw or steamed). Oils can, of course, be added on top and seasonings are allowed (so long as they are things like Himalayan salt and dried herbs, not MSG!). Meat products can be added for the second six weeks. Add them back in SLOWLY ...

Cool, so we’ve covered diet. The next thing is supplements. These are:

• Zeolite powder. This natural volcanic ash has negatively-charged ions that bind to non-organic compounds in your system. Apparently it was given to residents and put in the soil after Chernobyl. What I know is when I first started taking this in high doses I could feel the heavy metals on my tongue. Unfortunately this stuff tastes vile so what you do is mix 3 tablespoons in a liter of water, shake it up, and wait for the large particles to settle to the bottom. These aren’t useful anyway and taste terrible. The good stuff stays in solution. Apparently, zeolite also helps reduce hangovers. Actually if you read the web site it’s pretty much a wonder-compound doing everything from the above-mentioned heavy metal removal to fighting free radicals, alkalinising the body, delaying muscle tissue oxidation, I could go on but it’s all on the web page. Take a few swigs of this solution morning and evening. I’m going to go take some now.
• Psyllium husks. Basically a super fiber: expands quickly in contact with water, and sweeps out garbage that’s been stuck in your intestines (probably thanks to the gluten … but that’s a subject that’s been covered elsewhere on the web). Take 1 tablespoon of this 2-3 times a day, mixed with some water. Drink quickly, then drink another full glass of water immediately.
• Wormwood, black walnut, and cloves: in combination these kill parasites. The wormwood and black walnut kill any live parasites, and cloves kill the eggs. These must be taken in combination. Now, dosages vary depending on whether you get these things in capsules or tincture form, so I’m not going to suggest anything there. I'm going to do this combo for the first month.
• A good probiotic (I’ve been told the best SA brands are The Real Thing, AviPro, and Intestiflora), once a day in the morning on an empty stomach. This replaces the bad stuff you are killing with good, healthy gut bacteria.

In my particular case the demands of my recreational activities are such that I need very high doses of protein. We will see how I do for three weeks without meat; I may not be able to hack it! But I’ll give it a shot; I’m planning eggs for breakfast, protein shake snack, fish for dinner, and another protein shake after training. I will be substituting xylitol for the banana in the smoothie (drinking one now and it tastes acceptable). While it may not taste very good, spirulina turns out to be wonderful. Even 1 teaspoon and I feel full for hours. But that’s without hectic training so we shall see.

That’s about it. Wish me/us well!

The six weeks happens to wrap up at Fittest in Cape Town so, if all goes according to plan I’ll be a lean, mean, happily energized machine in mid-February and after that, on to the rest of the competition season. To a healthy 2012!

My first Southern Hemisphere Christmas

I really used to love Christmas. It used to be my favourite holiday by a loooong way. Not sure what it was: the excitement of Santa, the fact that everyone got gifts and not ‘just’ the person whose birthday it was, that it was about not just food but also gifting, the decorations, the carols, the fun of secret Santa even into my teens … no idea. Nowadays I’m not sure I have a favourite holiday. In America it would probably be Memorial Day, Labour Day, or 4^th of July … a good long weekend with food, friends and drink.

But then somewhere along the line my love for Christmas kind of died. In California I just never got into the spirit … a non-white Christmas just seemed kind of wrong. Then, when I moved back to the east coast I kind of got back into it again but there also seemed to be so many people who were SO down on Christmas. It always bothered me a bit. If you don’t want to get into the holiday cheer, fine, but for the love of God don’t make everyone else around you miserable. I think maybe it was the weather and seasonal affective disorder affecting people in the greater Boston area, I don’t know. But there is something magical about the autumn turning into the harvest festival of Thanksgiving, then the days get dark and cold, it snows, you huddle by the fire and drink hot chocolate and put up your Christmas tree, and maybe go carolling with candles.

For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about my teenage years recently. Maybe it’s that was the last time I really thought of myself as an athlete. Who the heck knows? But I have this one memory of leaving the gym in the evening, it was probably around 6pm but it was already dark and I was rushing out behind Ford O’Connell (the details you remember, geez), we were late for seated meal and I still had to shower and the moon was glistening on the newly-fallen snow, which was a thin layer of big snowflakes on top of a frozen crust. THAT is Christmas to me.

But now I’m all grown up so I don’t need to be romantic, right? On Christmas Eve I woke up, guilted the washing machine delivery guy into actually doing what he was supposed to do (hook up my machine and not just deliver it), did my mobility drills, and went to pick up my friend Keith to go to the beach.

It was hot: 32.5 C when we got back to the car around 4pm. That’s about 90 F, so it was probably a few degrees warmer during the heat of the day. Maybe that was why the water didn’t feel so cold. But as usual it was a nice mix of getting all hot on the sand, jumping in the water to cool off, napping, chatting, people-watching, etc. Then we went to get frozen yogurt. There’s this cool place in Kloof Street where the yogurt tastes like yogurt and not sugar. And the décor screams Pinkberry ripoff.

Later on that evening I went to a Christmas Eve dinner over in Sea Point with a bunch of other randoms: expats, people whose families didn’t live in Cape Town, etc. Sam made me homemade eggnog which was amazing, as was the food, desserts (eggnog cupcakes! Malva pudding!), and of course Studio 7 wouldn’t be Studio 7 without a performance, in this case a couple quick songs by Diesel Vanilla. It was lovely, actually, just very chill with some people I knew well, some people I knew only a little, and some people I met for the first time. Oh yeah, and the table caught on fire. Briefly. That’s what made it funny and not tragic.

Of course the wheat went right to my gut and I got a stomachache, I had managed to get a sunburn on a few places where we missed spots with the sunscreen and I wanted to get some sleep so I begged out around midnight. The next morning I woke up and headed over to Pete & Mandy’s where we first went out to the shops for some last-minute grocery shopping then took the dogs for a walk. It was even hotter I think than the day before but it was nice to get the body moving (active rest).

Christmas lunch was actually quite perfect, and then we had some desserts (more malva pudding with rum & raison ice cream), and chocolate, and some Irish coffees. I think it was the heat but I was literally unable to drink alcohol all day; all I was wanting was water. The body is smart.

I think overall it was an incredibly relaxing holiday. Aside from on the hike we kept the work chat to a minimum, and talked rather about dogs, and CrossFit, and the naivete of children. Think of it: of course no child ever considers the logistics of Santa going to every child’s house all on one night. Think of the quantum physics. But this also got me thinking, as I had been mulling over things we take for granted, about the assumptions that we make as adults. Like: that our politicians represent our interests. Even basic things we are taught (whole grains are healthy) that turn out actually not to be true. And don’t even get me started about blatant lying.

Just makes me glad, again, for the people I have in my life. Although I’m beginning to realise just how much I suck at things I don’t fully commit to. Workouts slide by at 95% effort, emails go unanswered for days or weeks, things I meant to accomplish weeks ago remain unstarted, I go out of my way to make time to see some friends and others not, not so much out of anything other than inertia or inattention.

Oh well, I’m not perfect. One of these days I’ll quit trying. Ha, and maybe pigs will fly.

But one thing I can say about Cape Town is that there are more people happy and smiling at this time of year than I ever saw in Boston. From the security guards to the SAN Parks staff braaing on Christmas to the neighbours, everyone is just a little happier than normal. I think it’s the weather. 

• “Uggg! It looks like Coca-Cola threw up all over the beach!” – Keith
• “Don’t you want to do a sport where you’re not, you know, getting injured all the time?” – Keith
• “Does everyone know everyone? Wait, what’s your name?” – Paddy
• “Nothing is permanent in my life. Except for my morals.” – Tintin
• “Um, guys, the table’s on fire.” – Tintin

I need a plan

Vacation has been nice. I’ve mainly chilled out; done a couple of things that really needed to happen like buy a steamer and a washing machine. It’s been over a year and a half since I’ve had access to a washing machine and it makes me remember to appreciate the small things in life.

The water here in Cape Town is cold and the waves can be a bit powerful. This combination makes it challenging to get into the ocean. Compounding this is that after I sprained my ankle every time I approached the water it was with fear that the force of the waves would knock my ankle in a bad way, and knock me over/re-injure me. In the last week I was able to go into the ocean without fear. It was one of those moments when you really recognise a change in how you relate to the world around you. A little thing, but it was important to me.

Another thing to make you appreciate pretty much anything about life is a near-death experience. I had one about a year ago. It still haunts the hell out of me and gives me nightmares on occasion. In this last week my friend, and coach, and someone I care about a lot was hit by a car while driving his scooter. He could have been killed. While as far as I can see he faced this with a lot of bravado, it scared the living hell out of me. You just never know what day might be your last, now do you? And you never necessarily appreciate the people around you for who and what they are until you either lose them or realise you might lose them. Just the very concept of losing Chris (never you mind about Chris’ family losing Chris, or the impact on Chris’ CrossFit Games ambitions, which also crossed my mind!) was so horrifying to me that it really got me thinking.

When I was in high school, I took my stunningly beautiful surroundings for granted until the last two months. But boy did I appreciate them then. I’ve been thinking about who and what I take for granted now, and who takes me for granted (or took me for granted in the past). As much as I do stare in amazement every day at the beautiful surroundings I live in, I also see in the faces and comments of newcomers to town that I am taking things a bit for granted. Similarly, as much as I talk up my gym and my coaches and my work and my co-workers to people, I probably do take them for granted too. You know you can so easily assume that things will continue as they have, because inertia is a powerful thing. But nothing lasts forever, to quote Guns’n’Roses. That’s not actually true, but you get my point. I better appreciate Chris and Jobst and Mandy and Peter while I have them because who knows what could happen next year, next, month, or tomorrow. And that’s not even starting on my less professional relationships.

Speaking of trying to learn lessons, as many of you know and have pointed out (to my face or behind my back but the great thing about people talking behind your back is that you don’t have to hear it!), I have a tendency to overwork and overtrain. I try and use both to balance me out, to varying degrees of success. But one thing I’ve learned is that I can’t continuously train 5 days a week every week because my body can’t take it. I have theories that I can train twice in a day with more extended rest cycles (because if there is one thing my body is REALLY good at, it’s fast recovery). We shall see; I’m going to try listening to my body even more as it relates to training, how I feel and how much I actually want to train on a given day.

Long way of saying, I planned my rest cycles for the next 6 months, to peak for the various competitions we have upcoming. The next thing is to plan my training (CrossFit plus some supplemental Olympic lifting coaching from Mona). We were hanging out a lot in the last week, because we could, and this included two lifting sessions. In one we did sets of 3 hang squat cleans and 3 squat cleans from the floor up to 50kgs, sets of 3 jerks up to 55kgs, and then clean pulls. In the second we did 3 hang power snatch and 3 power snatch from the floor for a few sets up to 35kgs, and then some absurd number of overhead squats, which remain a major weakness for me. Kill your weaknesses, right?

I really enjoyed the first session in particular. It was cool, I was sweating like you wouldn’t believe and it was just from lifting weights and I didn’t even feel like I was working hard. I am really enjoying it though: Mona’s been really into her lifting since she started training for the Olympics and I must say I understand. When I have the time to spend the better part of an hour just on squat cleans or snatches and I’m not rushing through it like I am in CrossFit (i.e. 8 minutes to find your 3 rep max power clean). If I feel rushed, my technique goes which is particularly bad when you get near your max. But there is something so fun about these fast lifts. But this lifting combined with 3 CrossFit sessions in 3 days made me very tired. By the final CrossFit workout my legs were fried and the fact that I finished 12 seconds behind my PR on the workout was I thought quite excellent considering my level of tiredness.

Monday was also the first day my body has really felt like itself again since the injury: we were doing a workout called Cindy: 20 minutes of as many rounds as possible of 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 squats. I got to 15 rounds mainly because I didn’t cheat on the pushups and your muscles just get tired. But the body felt quite ok.

Friday was the annual CCF holiday workout, which I missed last year because I was in the U.S. I actually want to repeat one of the 12 Days of Christmas workouts I did last year with LaaLaa this year, maybe in one of our open gyms. But anyhow the workout is called Linda and is 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of deadlift, bench press, squat clean. The prescribed weights are 1.5x bodyweight deadlift, 1x bodyweight bench press, and 2/3 bodyweight squat clean. This workout obviously was designed for men. I can’t even bench my bodyweight once. However, to be honest, that deadlift would be so close to my 1 rep max that it would probably be dangerous for me even to try.

So the advanced scaling for women was 1x bodyweight deadlift, 2/3bw bench and 1/2bw squat clean. Those weights were (73/160, 48/105, and 36/80), respectively. As expected, the squat cleans were easy and gave me good technique practice. I did the deadlifts slowly because there wasn’t too much point in doing them too fast and possibly hurting myself and I got stuck on the bench press. Not ever completely stuck, but waiting 10-15 seconds between reps to make sure I could lift the bar after the first couple rounds. I remember when I was younger my mother used to brag that I could bench press 100 pounds (I couldn’t). Now I can do it 60 times in just over 30 minutes with a bunch of other stuff. Pretty cool, huh?

Not sure anyone cares to hear about my grocery shopping, fighting for mall parking (holidaze), or other such boring nuances. There were a few times in the week I thought about going out but thought better of it. Hermann once said it best: I am happiest when the sun is out, not when it’s gone down. I had a lovely early morning breakfast with Lauren on Tuesday, and then a couple coffees with Misha, Gary, Mo, and Shirley from FutureFit on Friday. Thursday afternoon (once I finished my 13 hours of sleep!) and kept Mona company while she got her hair done, I went over to Peter & Mandy’s for a braai. That was fun but as humans do we spend most of our time talking about either the past or the future, and I think we are each just waiting for 2012 to begin.

I started off by saying I need a plan, and it’s true. I have a lot (and I mean A LOT) that I want to get done this holiday and I haven’t even started any of it. So I need to plan not only my next few months of planned training, but planned article and book-writing. Which I will do just as soon as we get these holidays over with. In the meantime the rest from work and most things computers has been good.

A while back I posted about how I didn’t much care for goals, because they are transitory. So what if I have a goal of 20 consecutive pullups, that’s just a bump on the road to 30 or 40 or whatever is next, if you’re going in the right direction. Now I finally get it: it’s not about making sure you’re going in the right direction (but it does help to remind you), but it’s about making sure you’re going the right speed, and focusing on what’s important to you. Now the trick will be not to be so conservative that I sandbag all my estimates or so aggressive that I beat myself up for not hitting my goals. Moderation in all things (except arsenic and, soon, wheat!).

At least there was a lot less tequila this week!

• “Openness isn’t weakness.” – Emma
• “I didn’t think it would be that bad!!” – Hermann (his first experience with New Skin)
• “Woman, it’s pathetic to see you try and load weights!” – Mona
• “Want a little cheese with your whine?” – Jo
• “No, yours were legit.” – Grant
• “Can you do what you do and be a vegetarian?” – Misha
• “This is a disaster. You know that?” – George 

Protein shake recipe

I’ve gotten enough requests for this that I’m posting it, with explanations. The base is water (obviously), and banana. If you’re going sugar-free you’ll need something to sweeten it (unless you’re more hardcore than I!) and xylitol is a good choice because it’s doesn’t spike the blood sugar. Most of these things taste absolutely AWFUL on their own … most especially spirulina and hydrolysed marine collagen. Yech.

And because I love you all I’ve put links to the web site for The Real Thing and Superfoods where you can read even more details. 

So, here we go:

• Water
• 1 large banana
• 1/2t powdered vanilla (for flavour, optional)
• 1/2t cinnamon (or to taste)
• 1/2t Himalayan salt
• Handful of nuts (for fat, optional, I’ve been omitting recently. Almonds soaked overnight work well, as do walnuts and brazil nuts)
• ½-1t MSM powder, from The Real Thing. Supplement for helping with joint/connective tissue health, and also antioxidants
• 1t hydrolysed marine collagen powder, from The Real Thing. Protein. For bones, cartilage, and connective tissue
• 1t Green Power, from The Real Thing. Protein and carb. This is a combination of sea vegetables and grasses, and is high in various vitamins and minerals notably iodine
• 1t camu camu. Carb. For vitamin C, antioxidants, immune system support, and reduces inflammation. This one is particularly expensive so I use it sparingly.
• 1t mesquite powder. Protein and carb. Good flavour plus contains L-lysine, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and zinc
• 1-3t baobab powder. Carb. VERY high in calcium (important when you don’t take dairy!) and high in antioxidants and vitamin C. Also contains iron, potassium and magnesium.
• 1-3t hemp protein powder. Protein. Contains all 10 essential amino acids, and is an amazing 65% protein.
• 1-3t spirulina, Protein also (also about 65%, and also contains all 10 essential amino acids). Also high in vitamin B, calcium, and iron.
• 1T cacao nibs, carb and fat. This is essentially 100% raw dark chocolate (crushed cacao beans). Anti-oxidant, and all those wonderful anti-depressant and neurotransmitters that are in chocolate.
• 1-2T cacao powder, similar to the nibs but without the fat, which is quite bitter. This quantity is pretty high because I found that it helps with flavour.
• 1T chia seeds (when I remember!). Protein and carb. For fiber and ati-inflammatory. Also adds a cool texture as the seeds expand when put into the solution, but for this reason you can’t put them in the night before.

There are a couple other adaptogens things specific to me that I add (taheebo, maca, and bee pollen if you’re curious), that aren’t important for a general audience. You can also throw in zeolite powder to mop up non-organic items in your body (read: heavy metals). 

You may also need to add additional sugar to taste. Honey I have found is the best choice. I don’t really like the maple syrup flavour in this, plus it’s insanely expensive here. Dates work but the blender has a hard time getting them chopped finely enough. Honey is easy, and plus it’s a natural antibiotic and anti-inflammatory. 

In general I mix up the exact proportions based on what the workout is going to be. Heavier strength I put in more protein, more of a metabolic conditioning (aka cardio) workout and I’ll throw in more carbs to help with recovery. For people not training with heavy weights you probably don’t need as much of the MSM and marine collagen (but who couldn’t use more collagen, right??).

It doesn’t taste great but the hemp protein powder is a very cheap and AMAZING source of protein. Spirulina costs about twice as much and tastes unpleasant (you can also take it in tablet form).

Stay tuned for the details of my 2012 detox (oh this is gonna be FUN….).

I’m off now to the gym to do a workout called Linda (aka “Three Bars of Death.”). Should be fun, right?