Body

Vegan experiment – where can I get my protein from?

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I’ve always thought that the best place to get protein from is meat: steak, lamb, chicken, eggs, fish. And I’ve always wondered where vegans get their protein from and especially vegan athletes.

I found this article on the net which shows how much protein there is per 100g of food stuffs. Here’s a screenshot from the article:

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Credit for screenshots: 

It’s very clear from the above that plant protein as a category has a lot less protein per 100g than meat and dairy does as a category. 

How much protein does a person need? From articles I found, a sedentary man needs around 54g per day and a runner might need around 75g. A weights guy might need 120g a day. From the table above, you might get all you need to get for running from 200g of steak (smaller than a normal steak of around 285g).

To compare that with protein from plant sources, you would need to eat around 800g of chickpeas or a kilo of tofu to come somewhere close. That’s a lot of beans and tofu.

But maybe it isn’t that hard to do on a vegan diet. A normal can of baked beans is 415g in total and half a can (one portion) has around 10g of protein in it. A carton of 300g of tofu (one portion) has nearly 20g in it. 100g of hummus from chickpeas would be close to 20g as well. So it’s definitely possible to get protein from plant-based sources. Phew!

I took cold showers for 7 days. Here’s what I found

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I’ve heard about a lot of benefits to taking regular cold showers and ice bath therapy. Sportspeople swear by ice baths to speed up recovery after intense workouts. Wim Hof has popularised cold therapy with incredible feats of swimming in ice and climbing mountains like Kilimanjaro without a top on.

Purported benefits of cold showers include:

  • Improved discipline and mental toughness
  • Boost to immune system
  • Boost to mental state and positivity
  • Invigorating wakeup and start to the day

It’s amazing that something so simple has the power to give immense benefits like these. So let’s give it a go!

Day 1

I always take a shower first thing and this morning, I hopped in and had a nice hot shower. It wasn’t until about a minute in that I realised that I was supposed to start the cold showers today! Doh. So I decided to do what programmes recommend which is to make the last 30 seconds a cold shower.

I turned the temperature down as far as it would go and stepped under it. Boy was it cold. It was fine on my head but as the cold water hit my chest, it made breathing in and out difficult, almost as though my chest was constricted. I stepped away from the jet and just put my head under the water. Cheating a bit I know. So I had to have another cold shower that day.

After my morning run (which was a 10k, the longest I’ve done in years), I went in for a full cold shower, from start to finish. It was still hard to stay completely under it, full-body, but I managed to wash and rinse under the shower. How did I feel afterwards? Pretty invigorated! Angelique had put Eye of the Tiger on the speaker and I was flexing and grunting in front of the mirror! Grunting?! I can see why this is recommended for those with anxiety and depression. It definitely picks you up and you do smile/beam for no reason at all.

Day 2

Straight into a cold shower today. I turned the temperature down as far as it would go from the start and went under face first, with my body slightly behind and just outside the water flow. What a wuss! Realising how wussy that was, I went fully under and sudsed up. I found that I could control my breathing from getting too tight and constricted by taking deep and slow breaths. It felt good again today, and I can already feel that the water doesn’t feel as cold as yesterday.

Day 3

It felt easier today. I just turned the dial to the coldest and turned the water on. I stepped forward into the jet and it was easy to do. Turning around so that the water hit the back of my head and my back was harder though. I felt that familiar constriction in my chest and I had to remember my breathing. Time to go longer tomorrow!

Day 4

I didn’t hesitate today and I actually thought that the water could be colder than it was, even though the dial was pushed all the way to the coldest it could go. I still felt invigorated after and super alert afterwards. At the end of the shower, I turned the temperature back to its normal setting (for Angelique, much like putting the seat down :)), and I felt a bit of hot water, and it felt nice but also like cheating so I dashed out!

Day 5

I almost looked forward to getting into the cold shower this morning. It really does wake you up! I’d had a couple of beers the night before and whilst I wasn’t hungover, I could feel that I wasn’t my sharpest. That all changes once you stand and shiver under the cold water.

Day 6

There was a glimmer of hesitation just before I turned the shower cold and then jumped in. I still get the feeling of invigoration.

Day 7

Straight into the cold shower today and again, it was super-invigorating. Any fogginess from the beers the day before evaporated. Even though it day 7, it won’t be my last cold shower. I love them and I love the effects!

What did I get from this experience?

  • It’s not easy to articulate it but a feeling of capability – a sense that you can attack the day. I remember a few times say I was running, and I’d think about whether to run further and I thought to myself “Why the hell not?! Do it!”
  • An invigorating energy shot every morning. I’ve read that some people report not needing any caffeine after a cold shower. It’s a definite jolt out of your pre-shower physical and mental state.

So how can you start your cold showers regime?

Just start! Commit to a week today and make sure you don’t quit early. It’s just 7 days. You’ll feel cold at first for sure. You’ll shiver and want to end it early. But the feeling after that first cold shower with have you beaming from ear-to-ear and you’ll feel ridiculously energised and positive.

Let me know in the comments below how it went!

Getting a Covid-19 antibody test

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Even though I was pretty sure that I had coronavirus back in March, I still wanted confirmation of that by test. Up until now, the tests for antibodies have had some bad press for not being too accurate, but there is a test centre in Hammersmith which uses South Korean tests which have high specificity and high sensitivity, as opposed to tests that have high specificity but low sensitivity. Here’s a screenshot of the test compared to other tests (taken from the Corona Test Centre’s website): 

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The antibodies they are looking out for are IgM and IgG. IgM are produced around the time of the infection and during recovery, but tail off some time after the event. IgG are also produced around the time of infection and they stay around quite a lot longer than IgM after the event. Here’s a screenshot from the Corona Test Centre website of the relative levels of IgM and IgG:

The test would show positive or negative figures for IgM or IgG. A positive figure for either would indicate presence of antibodies for Covid-19.

I cycled over to the Test Centre, which was in a small side street and in an old hall. They gave me a forehead temperature check, checked my details and then took me through to a refashion old hall to see the nurse. There wasn’t anyone else having a test there that I could see. The nurse was really friendly and put me at ease. She administered a pinprick to my finger and drew some blood into a pipette. She then sealed in a bag and that was it. Simple.

8 hours later, I got my results emailed to me. I had positive results for both IgM and IgG antibodies which they said indicates that I still recovering from a bout of Covid-19 but had a level of immunity.

They are careful to point out that this doesn’t mean that I couldn’t catch it again, so my behaviours shouldn’t change based on these results.

Do I think it was worth the cost? (The tests are offered at £175) Yes, I think it’s just about worth the price. It’s good knowing that I should have a good level of immunity going forward, at least for the medium term.

No alcohol for a month – here’s what I found

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I wrote the below in August 2019 but it’s been in draft until now. I thought about it again now I’m basically dry until the baby arrives.

I’ve never done a period off booze. Not that I’m a heavy drinker or ever have been. I’ve enjoyed social drinking and good binge session for more than 2 decades now and never felt the need to do a dry January.

In recent years, I’ve enjoyed boozing less and less. I still love the taste of craft beer and good wine, but my hangovers are getting longer and longer. Sometimes they last until the third day. 

It isn’t always throbbing headaches. It’s also a feeling of not being too sharp and slightly foggy-headed. I’ve toyed with the idea of would my life improve greatly if I just gave it up.

At the end of July, I went to a craft beer place with one of my best mates and some of his mates from Sussex, and one or three turned into 6 or 7 strong ones, and before I knew it, I couldn’t remember how I got home. I haven’t been like this for a long, long time.

I decided to stop drinking any alcohol for the month of August. I’ve heard about One Year No Beer, where you sign up for a year-long challenge to not drink any alcohol. Testimonials rave as to the benefits of clarity and clear-headedness. A year was a bit too long for me and my Dad was surprisingly sceptical about me giving up booze. His main reason was that he didn’t want me to beat myself up if I ended up having a drink. Surely, it isn’t that hard to give up drinking? I’m not an addict. I don’t drink on weekdays and I generally steer clear of getting drunk these days. 

People who give up alcohol generally report vague words like: “more clarity”, “more energy”. It’s all very vague. For me, the thing I’ve noticed the most is that I feel like I have a To-Do list that I just want to keep adding to and I have this urge to consistently smash my to list. I suddenly want to get things done that I would normally put off such as emptying the vacuum cleaner. I get up early on Saturdays and Sundays and go swimming. I just feel ‘on it’. Sharper and more mentally agile. My aggression levels are up a bit (not that I’m shouting at people) but more that I push harder in the gym and better shrug off things that would normally give me anxiety.

I’m also sleeping better. I’m starting to feel tired around 10pm and actively yawning. My eyes start to feel heavy and the pillow on my face is a welcome relief. I don’t sleep all the way through unbroken but this is a serious improvement on my normal sleeping patterns. 

Could this be down to something other than not drinking? Quite possibly. I’ve also been exercising a lot. Lots of cardio and lots of weights. That could be raising my testosterone levels. But it could be down to no alcohol. Alcohol increases oestrogen, so it makes sense for the opposite to reduce oestrogen and therefore increase testosterone. My sleep is also better quality and for longer which also has a direct positive effect on testosterone.

I also like the feeling of exerting self-discipline. Not cracking when I would normally fancy a beer, particularly on weekends or at social events. It’s been fortunate to coincide the dry month with a month where I have very little in the calendar in terms of socials. If it had been a month full of 40th birthday celebrations, then it might have been a bit more of a struggle. Peer group pressure is a powerful thing even if wielded with subtlety. I find that there’s even self-peer group pressure, as you don’t want to be the party-pooper. 

Do I miss alcohol? Not for the first weekends. I still love the taste of craft beer and good wine. And I still like feeling tipsy and drunk (but not too drunk). That first drink after the break will be interesting. I wonder what I’ll like and dislike about it.

So back to today! How did the rest of August go? By the end of the month, I was gagging for a beer or three. Particularly on some of the blazingly hot and sunny Bank Holiday weekends, when all I wanted to do was have an ice-cold beer. The last weekend fell on the 31st Aug, and it would have been easy to capitulate but I resisted, just to get the full calendar month.

I’m doing it again at the moment as the due date for baby Chan is Boxing Day, and I don’t want to be a bit pissed if suddenly labour comes on. It’s been two weeks without a beer (bar a couple of afternoon glasses of wine last Saturday in the pub). And I’m starting to feel similar effects to what I felt in August: feeling more ‘on it’ and more ‘getting shit done’ and it’s probably no coincidence that I went swimming this morning and about to go for a run.

Give it a go. Commit to a month without booze and see what the effects are. If you’re a social drinker, I’m sure you’ll feel the positive effects!

This app will change your life AND this video will change your wife’s life

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I’ve started using an app called Streaks app. It’s on iOS and you set a goal you want to do daily and each day, you mark it off when you’ve done that goal, and leave it unmarked when you don’t do the goal. If you do it two days in a row, you’ve built the smallest possible streak. The aim is to do the goal daily so that you build a huge, unbroken streak, and therefore built a habit.

My Streaks app tracks me doing 5 mins of core workout a day, reading 25 pages a day, doing 12 glute raises (can you tell I’m trying to improve my core strength?), writing 200 words a day etc. I’m not always consistent but over the past month, I’ve done more in these areas than I did for months and months before that, if at all.

What do you want to do? Give up smoking? Set it as a goal in Streaks and track that. Read more? Set a simple goal of reading 10 pages a day. Too much? Read 5 pages a day. Ramit Sethi says that instead of setting a goal to floss everyday, if it’s something that you haven’t done for ages, just aim to floss one tooth, just one. That’s such a small goal that you’re likely to not feel overawed by the goal, and it’s so easy to do, you’re more likely to accomplish it. You might even go on to floss another tooth and another. Same with press-ups. Instead of setting a daily goal of 50 press-ups, just aim for 1 press-up. This will lead to another. And another. Before you know it you’ve built a solid habit.

Check Streaks out to help you be consistent and do the day-to-day things that lead to your longer-term goals.

If you’re on Android, then you’ll have to find another app I’m afraid. There is one called Streaks on the Play store but I don’t think it’s the same company. The official Streaks app website only lists iOS on the site. (i’ve been gushing about this app but trust me, i haven’t been paid a penny for this 🙂

The video

I mentioned above that I’m using Streaks to do 5 mins of core work a day. This is because I’ve got a back like glass these days, and with a kid on the way, I don’t want to be crocked by the constant bending over and picking up that I’m sure is going to be a large part of my life for the next 5 years.

My brother in law Dan put me onto this great workout on Youtube by Ashley Conrad that focuses on core strength. It’s hard! I couldn’t do it all the way through for a couple of weeks, but stick at it and it’ll become easier. My core strength was appallingly weak and my belly was squishy. My obliques were so weak that I’m shocked I was able to hold myself up. But after a month or so, it’s not yet a corset 6 pack (or anywhere near) but I feel it’s stronger all the way round. My wife has been enjoying the results so far.

And with that I’ve done my 200 words today – tick off that goal on the Streaks app. 🙂

Have a great week!