Day 17 - whiny

So I woke this morning uninspired. I didn't want to do my work out. I felt.... whiny and peevish. And I didn't like it. But still, I didn't want to work out. Was I tired? No. Stiff? No. I just didn't feel like it. For no other reason than because I had to. I felt boxed in. But I did. And I felt better for it. But am still distressed at being unmotivated.

Food

Breakfast

Chai

egg

corn & paprika

chapatis

mid-morning snack

grilled pineapple ...mmmm

Lunch

crackers

avocado

egg

mid-afternoon snack

grilled pineapple

Dinner

whole wheat pasta

calamari with thai curry paste

squash soup

Evening Snack

mango & milk shake

Exercise

Not bad - but was really unmotivated

Day 16 - My Birthday!

So - there's nothing like a day of pain and nausea to make the next day FANTASTIC!

I woke after 10 hours of blissful sleep rested and pain-free.

Food

I have to say I am much happier with these portions!

Breakfast

egg and steamed corn omlet

rice

chai

mid-morning snack

was out and about and missed it

Lunch

Was taken to California Pizza Kitchen - had a grilled vegetable salad with grilled shrimp. Undoubtedly had salt added (yum) and n

o carbs ... but I didn't feel at all temped by the less PCP-y items on the menu.

mid-afternoon snack

grilled pineapple

Dinner

boiled broccoli pureed with a spoonful of basil,

whole wheat pasta

clams

Evening Snack

mango and milk shake

Exercise

Did my work out at the gym this morning - toooooooo cold for jumproping outside... my lungs would shriek! But it felt great!

Day 15

I woke with a migraine ... which is never good. Pushed it to the back of my head with painkillers but spent the day challenged to be functional and holding my head delicately.

While I did stick to the PCP diet, I did not do the PCP exercises but instead went to bed early and slept the migraine away.

Food

Breakfast

egg

mid-morning snack

oatmeal and peaches

Lunch

rice

hake

avocado

mid-afternoon snack

fennel

Dinner

bread

avocado

egg

Evening Snack

mango and milk shake

Exercise

none - went to bed early

Day 14. In which I am slightly less sore.

I woke this morning stiff and sore in my shoulders and arms - but not so bad as yesterday.

I also woke with no appetite whatsoever and contemplated my breakfast with a very real sense of fear. One thing I will say for this weeks diet: it does marvelous things for eliminating temptation. I baked a cake for friends this evening:

which is dead easy, and consists of simply butter, eggs, chocolate, sugar ... and 1 tablespoon of flour, which makes me rather wonder why they call it a cake ...

Anyway, I was too full to be tempted to try it!

Food

Breakfast

Oh, but this was a fight to eat. Not at all hungry

steamed broccoli

milk

duck egg - soft boiled (colleague has ducks and apparently doesn't want to eat that many eggs)

mid-morning snack

oatmeal and peaches

Lunch

eyed a spiced mozzarella ball but was easily able to leave it alone. SOoooo not hungry.

rice

steamed tilapia
steamed zucchini

confession: I only managed a little more than half before I began to feel ill and stopped

mid-afternoon snack

carrots

Dinner

rice

steamed Hake

steamed fennel

avocado

Evening Snack

not feeling well. none.

Exercise

Did my longest straight round of jump-roping! So did my 800 in 3 sets, with brief breaks in-between.

Day 13 in which I am sore all over

Energy Levels

*******(8/10)

About the same as yesterday

Food

I keep expecting/fearing that I will get accustomed to eating all this food, but no sign of it so far. 2 more days. Hold on for 1 more day.

Breakfast

scrambled egg with steamed zucchini and ground sage

milk

mid-morning snack

oatmeal and peaches

Lunch

quinoa and rice

steamed tilapia with lemon zest

steamed broccoli

mid-afternoon snack

forgot

Dinner

rice

steamed hake

steamed arugula, fennel bulb, and avocado

Evening Snack

mango and milk-shake

Exercise

I am sore pretty much all over. Which shouldn't be a huge surprise as I finally managed something approximating the inclined pull-up, got my push-up bars, and accidentally did lunges two (now three) days running. But this morning I was excited to do my jump-roping in only 3 discrete sessions (with about a 40 second break between). Maybe by next week ... oh, wait. The number's probably going to ramp up ...

This is what pushing yourself is like. Trying to play catch-up :)

I do need to do more stretching - my legs feel tight and I had to do about half a mile of intervals this morning before my legs felt even close to nice and loose.

Day 12

Energy Level

something must have clicked last night! I went to bed early (early enough that I was confused to wake up midway through the "night" to see that it was 10)

******** (8/10)

Food

Breakfast

egg
arugula braised in veg stock and lemon zest
zucchini braised in veg stock with ground sage
oatmeal
milk

Oh-la-la ... hating the feeling of being stuffed. One way to dodge tempting "shunned" foods: eat so much else that thinking about food is unpleasant. I keep expecting this to get easier, but it isn't.

mid-morning snack

1/2 mango

Lunch

rice

steamed tilapia
zucchini braised in veg stock and ground sage
carrots

mid-afternoon snack

mango

Dinner

quinoa

tilapia & tuna

broccoli

Evening Snack

mango&milk shake

Exercise

I am still nowhere near being able to do all my jump-ropes at once - the most I've been able to manage has been about 200 before my feet cramp up (not that I don't appreciate the little breather) and it took me about 15 minutes to do the full 700 this morning. Sigh. I went to the gym this morning to get a little run in because it's still raining out and used the counter-balance chin-up machine instead of doing the incline chin-ups as I've yet to find a good way of doing that at home. Then, forgetting that I'd done them yesterday, an extra set of lunges. No wonder they were so difficult.

My push up bars (you know, if you just transpose 2 letters ...:) arrived. My push-ups have now officially slid from a train wreck to a disaster. I had been warned. And I can see how they help with form and focus ... but they're a disaster on the personal pride/motivation front.

I'm pushing myself, which I like, but I am not enjoying it. Yet.

Day 11

So today I woke in a grumpy I-want-to-stay-underneath-the-covers mood for no apparent reason. I went for a little run to try to put myself in a better mood, but it didn't really work as my energy levels are low. Not so low I couldn't get through my work out ... but low enough that it felt like I was working harder than I should have to.

I'm not so good at pushing myself.

Energy

****** (6/10)

Food

Breakfast

oatmeal

carrots

egg

milk

mid-morning snack

apple

Lunch

Quinoa

steamed tilapia and tuna

cabbage

Afternoon snack

apple

Dinner

cabbage

rice cooked with V8

steamed Tilapia

Evening snack

mango&milk - shake ... mmmmmm

Exercise

Ran intervals for 20 minutes but my energy was low. I was unmotivated all day today. I got enough sleep, am certainly eating enough - just meh all day. Of course, it's also been pissing down rain all day, which didn't help.

End of day thought: I am very very tired of eating.

Day 10 - Reflection

I woke this morning a little bit sore and stiff - which I figure is either because of the PCP exercises, or (more likely) doing the exercises and then going to sit in a car for 5+ hours. I slept like the dead for a solid 11 hours (a little sleep deprived and a very long day). Although I woke briefly at my normal time, I rolled over and snuggled back into my dreams (which involved a magic school. A Disney version of Hogwart's. With infants. And fast cars. And Michael Keaton.)

Food

Patrick gave me the thumbs up to spread my eating out, so I hope to be better able to finish my portions for the rest of the week.

Breakfast

1 egg

1 cup milk

2 pancakes

mid-morning snack

1/2 mango

Lunch

2 pancakes

carrots

(no protein - forgot to be prepared for my drive home)

mid-afternoon snack

forgot to be prepared for drive home. Had carrots instead of fruit

Dinner

Steamed Tilapia

Quinoa

cabbage

carrots (sigh ... no more carrots for a day or two)

Evening Snack

mango&milk-shake

Exercise

Today I managed the jump-roping better than yesterday. But jumping out of a car and jumping rope is not a great improvement over jumping rope and then jumping into a car. Blech. The rest of the work out went fine, with two exceptions:

• I still haven't found a good option for the inclined pull-ups. There was one possibility (or so I thought) at the neighborhood playground, but it was too low to the ground for me to get any leverage for pulling myself up.
• Push ups - blech. They start out fine, but I had to do the last 3 on my knees. If anyone was listening, there were NOT any whimpering sounds coming from my apartment. I deny everything.

Day 9 - Adapting

This weekend I'm up in Boston visiting the folks. I drove up this morning and am a bit annoyed with myself for waking up ahead of the alarm and then being unable to get back to sleep. Even I, the morning bird, think that waking up a 2:15 am is WAY too early. So I just dozed until I couldn't take any more and got up to do my PCP workout before leaving at 4:30 to drive up to Boston.

It may sound abit like I'm beating my chest about getting up early ... but I sound absolutely pathetic when I need to get to bed by 8. Or earlier.

So I did my workout, and pressed through. The squats are really beginning to burn and the push-ups ... ughhh. To collapse. Feels good AFTER ...during .... not so much. Ditto the leg lifts. Did the jump-roping in as close to continuously as I could manage .. but had to take brief breaks occasionally.

Breakfast

1 hard boiled egg

1 cup milk

1 bowl oatmeal

carrots

This was

a) not as good as yesterday's, but (aside from the oatmeal) easier to travel with

b) finished ... over about a 3 hour interval.

Mid-morning snack

half a mango

I think I managed the mid-morning snack partly because I ate breakfast over a longer window (which might have been cheating) and partly because my morning was a few hours longer than usual

Lunch

spinach

tuna

rice

The weights were estimated, but I think I did pretty well. Except for the spinach. (I think I'd have to eat a carload of spinach to hit the vegetable weight and that was out of the question). But I'm pleased by what I managed away from home and without a scale. I was reheating pizza for my Dad for lunch and spent a moment or two contemplating it. It's still early enough in PCP that I didn't find it difficult to rummage around in the fridge to find what I could to follow my PCP diet... but I definitely got a sense for what I might be craving in the next days/weeks.

Melted cheese. Salt. Sigh.

Dinner

A challenge - Dad wanted Mary Chung's for dinner so ... I attempted to do my best by my PCP diet - rice and baby bok choy (mmmm bok choy), and chicken velvet.

Now ... sleepy ... bedtime for bongo ....

Day 8 - New Diet. You're Kidding. Right?

Patrick sent us an email summarizing what we should have taken away from last week’s half-portion diet. Of the three typical responses, I hit two:

· Hey, I was probably eating too much.

· Hey, I never thought so much about what I was eating.

The restrictions on this (an following) week’s diet are not too much of a surprise. I don’t have a huge sweet tooth (but do need to sweeten my morning oatmeal), but I’m going to miss salt. Sigh. I expect my taste buds will adapt.

But as to how much we’re to eat …

These numbers did not seem intimidating until I actually put together my first breakfast.

You’ve GOT to be kidding me.

Breakfast

1 bowl of steel-cut oatmeal (cooked in apple cider for sweetness and to use it up) with half the milk

1 fried egg

Bell peppers sautéed with cayenne and paprika – and half an avocado because I didn’t have any other vegetables prepared and used up my bell pepper

½ the milk

Wow, that’s an impressive amount of food – easily 3x what I normally eat. Because I was running late, I wolfed down my breakfast and headed to work.

And then got progressively more uncomfortable as my stomach got around to letting my head know how much I’d eaten … and how unhappy it was. I felt a bit ill. The morning snack? Didn’t happen. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to finish my lunch.

And did I?

Nope. No way.

Lunch

Arugula, half-avocado, tuna, and bread

I had maybe a little more than half my lunch before I just couldn’t bring myself to eat any more. My Friday workouts are in the evening, because I’m out late Thursday nights – So perhaps I’ll be better able to manage this meal plan after a hard work out – or after I’ve made a meal plan as opposed to trying to eat out of my fridge. But right now … No way. I still ate more than I feel comfortable eating. Blech. I’m looking forward to digesting what I was able to eat and work out.

Mid-afternoon snack?

Didn't happen. I didn't want to throw up during my workout

The workout went pretty well, and while I like the pick-me-up in the evening, I wish I'd had the time in the morning. Since Patrick said the jump-roping was meant to be all in a row ... I gave it my best shot, but my lungs just aren't there right now. That and my arches began to cramp up. The inclined pull-ups will have to be a no go until either I find some place in the neighborhood where I can do them, or Patrick suggests a work-around.

Dinner

Quinoa cooked in vegetable stock with a spoonful of Thai green curry and a few stalks of lemongrass

steamed Tilapia

Avocado and cabbage.

Nearly finished. But I wanted to stop after it was 1/3 eaten.

Evening snack?

I don’t think so. I’m going to have a hard time with this one, as I get home between 5 and 6 and go to bed at around 8 …. (I get up at about 4 – I’m a morning person, what can I say?) I may have to start taking my dinner to work so I can eat it before I go home ...

I’m going to bed now – I’m getting up at 3 for a 6 hour drive up to Boston to visit my folks, who aren’t doing so well. I’ll try to manage this diet the best I can in the next day or two but may just stick to shunning the things I ought to shun.

I should be able to manage most of the work outs, with the possible exception of the incline pull-ups.

End of Week 1

Day 7 has arrived -

I slept better last night (Woot), but will confess to lying in bed a few minutes longer than I needed to, momentarily intimidated by doing 500 jump-ropes.

Food

I'm expecting that our week 2 diets (which should be arriving this afternoon) will be more restrictive that our week 1 diets. Which, on one hand I'm looking forward to - I think I'm much more of an abstainer than a moderator - which is a way of saying I'm better and find it easier to give up something entirely than to allow myself "moderate" portions. Mostly, I suppose, because "moderate" is not clearly defined and I start playing mental mind games with myself - and have to devote a lot more of my attention to the issue. My main frustration with this past week of half portions - where, with rare exceptions, has been a non-stop argument with myself about how big my "regular" portions would have been.

On the other hand, I'm expecting to have to give up some foods that I really enjoy - say, cheese - and I'm not so much looking forward to that.

But I am curious and (at least initially) excited. I'm going to try to think about what I expect to miss the most in the coming weeks and see if I can squeeze in a half portion today.

other half of my omelet

1 cup coffee

1/2 bowl squash soup

1/2 salad

1/2 plate cheese and crackers

(was going to have 1/2 bowl broccoli cheddar soup .. but didn't like the taste when I got home so tossed it. Not wasting my last half a meal on stuff that doesn't taste good)

Exercise

It turns out the jump-roping was not so bad as I feared. I wasn't sure if we were meant to do them in reps of 70 or not. There was no way I was going to be able to do a straight 500 in a row - so I did them in as long a rep as I could manage. Which turned out to be 100 before my lungs and legs took over my body and stopped the madness.

Was kind of headachy all day - definitely need to get enough sleep tonight!

Day 6

Good News, Bad News.

The good news is that all my soreness has disappeared.

The bad news is that I think it'll be coming back tomorrow. I also didn't sleep well last night (had trouble falling asleep, which for me means ~30 minutes, kept waking up, and accidentally set my alarm an hour earlier than I'd intended. Grrr). I also had weird dreams involving a warehouse full of early 20th century children's literature and fear of getting frostbite while doing the Tour de France in Chicago. Trust me, by my dream standards this was not particularly strange.

Food

So far so good. Except I made a giant pot of vegetable soup a week ago as part of my resolution to try to clear out my freezer and I am sooooo tired of it. I may just have to abandon the last two servings. Done. What a relief

Peach, raspberry, and almond milk smoothie

1/2 bowl oatmeal

1 cup coffee

1/2 bowl squash soup

1 meatball

1/2 chocolate turtle

1/2 omelet

1 glass wine

Very much to my surprise, I haven't been that hungry today. Hmmmm.

Exercise

Yay! I had 3 clear reps of jump-roping! Maybe I'll graduate to first grade soon :)

I began to feel some strain in the final set of lunges - I expect that will bring back some of my soreness.

The push-ups? The slide from ugly to train wreck has begun. My last two push-ups were a whimpering disaster. I suppose that my first set looked better than when we first started ... but unfortunately, the last push-ups are the memory I'll carry away with me today.

Hey - I finished! And despite not getting a great night's sleep last night, my energy levels were pretty high all day today.

Hope this keeps up!

Day 5

Well here we are at day 5. I'm not sure if it feels like it or not ...

Food

I am still wrestling with the concept of half-portions. It's interesting to realize how little awareness I had/have on portion sizes - with the exception of breakfast ... it's easy to remember how many eggs I'm likely to have - and how little my "usual" (meaning not-at-all) menu is amenable to regular sizes. It would be a whole lot easier if I had a sandwich for lunch. The hardest meal for me is dinner - when I'm tired and the most hungry is not a great time for making honest evaluations of what a normal sized portion would be. But I'm trying.

But enough whinging. Today I had:

Blueberry and Almond milk smoothie

3 cups of tea

1/2 bowl oatmeal

1 bowl vegetable soup

1/2 chocolate turtle

1/2 serving cabbage and pork

I think I'd be a little preoccupied by food today if I hadn't been so busy at work.

Exercise

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm ever going to have a clean sweep of jump-roping reps ... I'm enjoying them, but I feel like an idiot catching my feet so often. Like maybe I shouldn't have graduated from kindergarten ...

I've been doing my jump-roping on the sidewalk outside of my apartment because my ceilings are too low to do them inside, it's nice and cold outside, and there's a streetlamp to see what I'm doing. My rope is beginning to get a bit fuzzy where it strikes the concrete ... I'm curious to see if it makes the 90 days!

The lunges and sit-ups so far are less of a challenge - but the push-ups are my wall of shame. If these exercises measured fitness imbalances ... well I'd be the anti-Popeye. So I expect to see the most progress in my upper body. The leg lifts run a close second.

I think I've found a place to do pull ups in the children's playground down the street. Though I'm not sure the equipment was designed with adult use in mind. I'll keep my eyes open for an alternative.

Overall

It's not so much of a surprise to see that I'm finding the diet portion of the plan so much more of a challenge than the exercise. I love exercise and going to work out. I've always been active: skiing, figure skating, and swimming in high school; running and springboard diving in college; running and Tang Soo Do in graduate school; running and hiking as a post-doc; running now.

But I've loved cooking and eating almost as long - and I keep finding myself tempted to cook - even though I've already prepared meals for the week (thinking to save time and limit my opportunities for nibbling). I think that I use cooking to relax and relieve stress.

I guess that I'll need to find something else to serve the same function

Day 4

Well, here we are at Day 4

Food

I'm still stressing about the half-portions. I have to worry about something!

Almond milk and blueberry smoothie

1 cup herbal tea

1/2 bowl oatmeal

1/2 bowl vegetable soup

1 dumpling

pinch o'pretzel

half a handful of carrots

1/2 serving cabbage and pork

And I'm beginning to notice that I'm a tiny bit more preoccupied with food today.

Exercise

For some reason, I kept getting tripped up on the jumprope this morning. Serves me right for being so cocky after yesterdays workout.

I'm a bit stiff and sore - so I was worried about the lunges. I needn't have worried, I warmed into them all right. But ramping up the push-ups .... they've now slid from ugly to a car wreck ....

I hope for some improvement when my bars arrive.

Overall

Pleased so far ... I'm missing running, so might see if I can squeeze the time in for a light run tomorrow.

Day 3

Well here is the reason I'm doing PCP:

I'm not very comfortable posting this picture.

That is inaccurate. I'm pretty damn uncomfortable posting this picture, but I'm posting it anyway. Lying to myself about how I've let myself slide out of shape and over-weight just makes it easier to find excuses not to do anything about it. I want to remind myself what I'm working towards, and I think some straight-up honesty will help.

I'm going to steal Marissa's approach of PCP blogging; right now I'm thinking about this project as a diet project and as an exercise project.

Food

I'm pretty sure I blew the half-portions yesterday. I will note that I set the bar pretty high for myself, but even accounting for that ... I think I strayed.

So I'm learning that I should pay more attention to what I eat. My eating habits are a mixture of good and bad.

The good:

I eat a lot of vegetables

I don't eat a lot of meat

I eat practically no processed food

I do not have a particularly strong sweet tooth

The bad:

I tend to eat when bored

I tend to eat when tired

I tend to comfort eat

If something tastes good, I don't stop when I'm full

It takes a long time before my stomach lets my head know that I'm done.

I have a weakness for the salty and fatty. (Cheese, glorious cheese ... )

If I can learn moderation - and the world doesn't stop spinning - I'll be ok.

Exercise

So that happy zing of yesterday became a slight soreness today. Which I like. I've missed that reminder that I've been pushing myself. Probably because I haven't been - lazy me.

Jumping rope is getting easier - even though we added a few hops today. This is 100% my getting more efficient and 0% getting stronger. I noticed, when I accidentally did a set with a double hop, that I found it easier to double hop than single hop. Which made me realize I was putting more effort into my single hops than I needed to.

Push-ups, on the other hand... they're still ugly. Possibly getting uglier.

Day 2

I was much happier this morning to do the exercises first thing - and to realize that I am slowly getting my jump-rope legs under me. After I was done, I had that happy zing that comes from using muscles seldom used. Of course, it was only 9 or so hours after my first round, so that may have had something to do with it.

I'm finding the half-portions more difficult than I expected. Not so much because I'm starving, but because I'm beginning to realize that I don't have terribly regular eating habits and I'm not at all sure how much is a half serving. I am paranoid that I'm cheating. Perhaps I should plan meals that can more easily be split in two.

But I like that I'm starting to pay attention to what I eat.

Day 1

So here it is - the close of Day 1.

So far so good. Going half portions is easy in some places (I know how much oatmeal I usually have for breakfast), less easy in others (how much would I normally have for dinner? Really?) but so far so good.

The exercises ... I was disappointed to have to schedule my workout in the evening (I am SOOOO much more of a morning person) but I couldn't manage both getting enough sleep and getting to work on time - never mind adding a workout - after my regular Thursday evening activities. I not only prefer morning workout because I'm awake - but they rev me up for the day, and I'm always afraid that something will come up, or I'll invent an excuse or distraction to abandon a workout in the evening. And when I am tired I am more prone to insensible decisions like wanting to veg out instead of work out ...

But I did it -

Wow. Jumping rope let me know that I'm not as coordinated as I thought I'd been. I guess I knew that I didn't have any upper body strength, but still managed to get the push ups done. They were ugly, but they weren't on my knees. The squats and crunches were ok - those are exercises I'm used to.

Looking forward to tomorrow - but not so much the loading of my "before" photo. Sigh. You need to face it to address it.

This is it! La Premiere post

Welcome to Heather's PCP blog. She's going to blow your mind!

Wow. I wish.

Well... maybe:)

So I'll dip my toes into this project. Though I'm really much more of a jump-right-in sort of person. I may circle the waters a bit beforehand - is it cold, are there jellyfish? - but sooner or later (generally sooner, especially if people are watching) I'll just leap right in. Except for that one 4th of July a few years back, when the pier wasn't quite long enough (and the water wasn't quite deep enough) and I found a painful way of marking the date of my last tetanus shot, it's served me well.

So here I go.

I am both nervous and excited to be a part of this project. I am excited to dive in and start a more varied exercise program than I usually do. I am hopeful that 90 days will be long enough to see some serious progress and develop habits I'll carry into the future. I'm looking forward to the benefits of a support group, and (hmm) the visibility. (all right, looking forward to the visibility might not be precisely accurate. ahem).

I'm a bit nervous that I'll fall short and disappoint myself - or that I'll throw myself into it too hard and burn out my enthusiasm. And I'm a little worried that I haven't adequately recognized how much time this will take out of my daily routein.

But overall, I'm more excited than nervous.

So while the enthusiasm is high ...

Bring It On.