4HB Day 3/50 - 9 May 2012 & notes

Breakfast:
Chicken breast, side salad. Green tea.

Lunch:
Steamed fish, minced meat, Chinese spinach. Green tea.
Decaf black coffee.

Snack:
Hard boiled egg.

Dinner:
Minced meat, chicken breast, salad.
Green tea.

Snack:
Decaf coffee, black with a pinch of cinnamon.

The cinnamon in the coffee was an experiment which turned out to be a nice treat. Smelt heavenly.

Couldn't add anymore food to the cheat day list, think I've exhausted it. Although... I did fall asleep thinking of a drink which might satisfy 80% of my cravings: an Oreo cookie, peanut butter, caramel frappe with whipped cream drizzled with caramel and chocolate sauce, sprinkled with violet crumble. Maybe a tall size will do. I don't think they have this drink yet. They have not added peanut butter to their repertoire of drinks at Starbucks but maybe.... Maybe soon :)

Funny that I do have almond butter that is allowed on non cheat days, but I know the first taste of it might send me into an all out binge and it's just so not worth it. I've worked hard the past few days and have come off feeling amazing, cleansed and lean physically and psychologically, I feel a sense of achievement somewhat at keeping to the rules and eating well. By the way, I say eating well because the diet advices to keep away from added sodium/salt, sugars and non healthy fats. So my salads are only dressed with a tbsp of balsamic vinegar (this is the only dressing I take with salads because I absolutely love it and would drink it if my body could take it haha) and I add healthy fats like half an avocado a day to help keep up metabolism, apart from all the other health benefits of good fats.

Oh yes, also no processed food if possible. So at the moment I haven't been including beans or legumes in my salads because I haven't had the time to get raw beans and prepare them from scratch. Waitrose does kidney beans as well as cannelloni beans without any sodium so I could consider that, but the thought of eating canned stuff daily isn't attractive to me.... It's just a preference. If it comes in a box or can, I somehow don't trust it so much. So I eat more fresh veggies and a little bit more protein to replace the calories.

About calorie counting, I've put a stop to it since last Sunday. I was doing it for the past 2 or 3 weeks and it got me so stressed it wasn't enjoyable anymore and it caused me to obsess over junk food and worry about what I eat, even on supposed cheat days, which definitely isn't healthy psychologically.

I wasn't officially on the 4HB until 7 May 2012. I was kind of straddling eating clean and 4HB, hence allowing myself cheat days on Saturdays. Eating clean allows fruit all day and complex carbs as a post workout meal. Somehow the mish mash of the 2 approaches don't work for me. Maybe the daily fruit intake caused me to crave more sweet stuff? Maybe I just couldn't decide if having complex carbs on non cheat days was ok. So I decided it would be simpler to implement if there were clear rules. Hence the official start of the 4HB.