Day 85 - and 5 more days to go

This morning was hard - mainly because I didn't get enough sleep last night - but I crawled out of bed anyway, got dressed, and stepped out into the rain to do my jump roping and floor hops (man the last two reps were killer) and began to wake up and feel better. I know that we've had a lot of rain this spring, but I am delighted that it came to wash the skies clean. No yellow film over my car this morning!

Doing the shoulder-fly exercises to failure was hard - because it took forever, and failure was not preceded by burning, but a funny ticklish feeling that was uncomfortably weird. The chicken wings were an easy burn, as were the V-sits.

While I feel so much better after my workouts and I'm glad I've done them - this week it's been harder than usual to motivate myself to start them. I tell myself it's because I've had such a crazy schedule and have not been getting enough sleep but still I'm worried about my post-PCP habits ... and I've looked at the workouts ahead and am (squeak) intimidated. I'm definitely going to need to be getting enough sleep and allowing a little extra time for my workouts next week!

And we have a mini-gun update:

Growing slowly ...

Food

Post PCP snack

egg white and yogurt

Breakfast

egg and couscous and asparagus

milky coffee

mid-morning snack

yogurt

Lunch

chicken on whole wheat
red bell pepper

mid-afternoon snack

yogurt

Dinner

Egg whites and broccoli rabe.

Evening Snack

Egg white and strawberry milkshake

Day 84 and 6 more days to go.

This morning - the exercises nearly killed me. No, wait, that was the pollen. We've had unseasonably warm weather the past several days (well, the whole season has been weird) and yesterday it hit 91!!! This morning when I got up at 4:45 to jump rope, it was 71.

It's been out of season warm and the plants are going nuts. There is a yellow film over the cars in the parking lot, which does not give me the warm and fuzzy.

So I started jumping rope and by 5 minutes into it I was sneezing and crying up a storm. I didn't quite make the full 18 minutes, I was so miserable, and hurried inside to shower and clear my sinuses. Thank goodness for working in an air-filtered building!

Last night I made banana bread - using up some well-past-done bananas and relieving some stress. My idea was to bake the bread, take it to work, and have a small slice as part of my breakfast. Pushing the boundaries of my last week of PCP, I suppose.

So I ate my egg and broccoli and settled down with a slice of banana bread. I was done with it after 3 or 4 bites. It sat there on my desk for half an hour before I looked at it and thought - I don't want anymore. So I tossed it.

I don't know that I would have ever done that pre-PCP.

Food

Post PCP snack

egg white and yogurt

Breakfast

egg and broccoli. And banana bread.

milky coffee

mid-morning snack

yogurt

Lunch

tuna and chicken on pumpernickel and rye
steamed broccoli

mid-afternoon snack

yogurt

Dinner

asparagus. Egg white.

Evening Snack

pineapple. milk. egg white

Day 83

I stumble on this article while searching for ab exercises (note that it's on an egg PR site :)):

Eating eggs for breakfast helps reduce calorie consumption throughout the day by 18 percent. A new study demonstrates that eating protein-rich eggs for breakfast reduces hunger and decreases calorie consumption at lunch and throughout the day.

Ah, the lovely egg.

I couldn't find the ab exercise that I used to do when on the spring-board diving team (a great sport for core exercises, btw), probably because the name we called them was straight on wrong. They require a partner but are pretty good exercises.

The person doing the exercises lies on the floor, prepared to do leg lifts while their partner stands in their armpits, facing their feet. Grab your partners calves/ankles and start doing leg lifts. Your partners job is to throw your feet back towards the ground (reasonably gently) - your job is to make certain your feet don't touch the ground. For added difficulty, the partner can throw your feet off to the side.

Food

Post PCP snack

egg white and yogurt

Breakfast

egg and asparagus with toast

mid-morning snack

yogurt

Lunch

pumpernickel, tuna, and arugula with red bell pepper salad

mid-afternoon snack

yogurt

Dinner

Egg whites and asparagus

Evening Snack

milk and pineapple and egg white

Day 82 - Good lord how quickly time flies

One bad thing about going away for the weekend and having a social activity Monday evening: it sucks to feel sleep deprived early in the week.

And despite getting to bed late, I woke about an hour before my alarm, so something within me was not interested in sleeping any longer. Grr. Arrrggh. Since I was up - I did my PCP workout, but now I'm lagging.

Food

Post PCP snack

egg white and yogurt

Breakfast

egg and couscous with toast and asparagus

mid-morning snack

yogurt

Lunch

pumpernickel, tuna, and arugula. Well, and some carrots

mid-afternoon snack

yogurt

Dinner

Egg whites and asparagus

Evening Snack

milk and pineapple

Day 81 - The Gym

Patrick asked us to go to a gym and look around.

Well - this is easy. I belong to a gym, and I went there this morning.

I joined the gym almost six years ago for one reason and one reason only: to use the treadmill in the winter when it may be too cold, too icy, and most certainly too dark for me to run safely outdoors. I chose this gym for three reasons: they had what I considered sufficient treadmills to ensure that I could use one when I wanted, the price, and proximity to my apartment. Everything else is just gravy.

And this is not just a long preamble to explain why I belong to a hokey gym. I actually got very lucky and it's a very good gym. There are all sorts of free classes (I think I took one spinning class, but haven't taken any of the others), a lap pool, free weights, weight machines, and a variety of aerobic machines (stairs, treadmills, bikes, rowing, other ones whose names I don't know ...), a free monthly session with a trainer and nurse (if you choose).

What I like about the gym, is that the people who go are, by and large, fairly serious and sensible about working out. We do have our share of mirror lovers (mostly men), people who drape themselves over the console to make their workouts easier (why not just choose a setting you can manage?), and men who are there more to look like they're working out when they are really after some quality male-bonding/gossip time (nothing really wrong with that, expect when someone is waiting to use the equipment, and they are usually pretty good about moving if you ask). There are a few who I think are looking just to bulk up and not so much about being functional, but in general, it's a pretty good gym membership.

Then again, my selection might be a bit biased - those who go to they gym at 5 am instead of 5 pm might self-select differently.

So many other people have had negative experiences with their indulgences, and I ... I'm still waiting. I ate more than I should have Saturday night, and consequently wasn't feeling all that comfortable - and I'm happily less comfortable feeling uncomfortable than I used to, if you follow - but still no negative side effects. Hmmm. I've always had a pretty good stomach, but still wondering ...

Exercise

I will confess to not exactly following Patrick's instructions to the letter this morning regarding our workouts. After a good night's rest (with bizarrely peaceful dreams about hunting a serial killer), I went ahead a "made up" the parts of the workout I missed yesterday because the gym was closed. Mainly because pull ups are something I can see myself avoiding on purpose and am now over-compensating. Sometimes I think I'm so concerned with not cheating that I swing too far the other way.

Sigh. Nothing like raising the bar too high to get over it. My superpower.

Food

Breakfast

egg and broccoli with couscous

mid-morning snack

yogurt

Lunch

tuna, pumpernickel, arugula salad
spinach and salsa

mid-afternoon snack

yogurt

Dinner

Egg whites and carrots. (I know, boring. but it's what I have on hand. Weekends away make meals more boring)

Evening Snack

milk, egg white, pineapple

Day 80

Short post -

Got up early to do as much of my PCP workout I could, saving the pullups and jackie chan sit ups for after I drove back to New Jersey - needing the gym equipment and a mental restart after 6 hours in the car.

Cranky and headachy, I unpacked and made myself go to the gym ... only to discover they are having holiday hours and were closed. So I'm going to bed.

Day 79

You know ... it didn't occur to me until about 9:30 this morning but ...

Getting up at 3 in the morning to get most of my PCP workout in before driving up to Boston. I am NUTS.

Of course, it was a nice morning for it. And the jogger that ran by as I was doing my jump roping - also NUTS.

This trip I remembered my resistance bands. But forgot part of my PCP meals. Sigh. Arrrgh. Put one thing in memory and another thing falls out (and you know it's never one of the useless marbles at the bottom, like what the 20th digit to pi is ...4 but a useful number like bringing your coupons to the store)

Two semi-funny things today (as in, more funny if you are not me):

1. While struggling to carry all my groceries to the car, my pants nearly fell down. Mental note - possibly not a good strategy to postpone the dreaded clothes shopping until I've done changing shape.

2. While doing the 90 second planks, desperate for something to distract me from the trembles, I looked down at my stomach: the remaining saggy fat just hanging there. A bit disturbing that I couldn't see it move... even if I clenched my stomach, even while breathing heavily. Ewwwww!

Decision to not take my indulgence taken out of my hands: I left part of my PCP meals back in Jersey and Mom had bought the fixin's for Easter dinner for me to cook.

My favorite.

Roast Duck.

That whoooshing sound? My decision to not indulge flying out the window.

Food

Post PCP snack

nothing - too rushed to get going

Breakfast

hard boiled egg. Chapati. chocolate milk (whoops). carrots

mid-morning snack

driving

Lunch

chapati. tuna. spinach and arugula. red bell pepper

mid-afternoon snack

yogurt

Dinner

roast duck and steamed asparagus and half a glass of wine

Evening Snack

Are you kidding? didn't happen.