Day 90: Nothing Changes on New Year's Day

This is not an end, but a beginning. I'm afraid that my PCP journey is going to have to end in a rather anticlimactic fashion. No fireworks, no celebrations, no indulgences (except maybe for taking a few days off from gym/workout duty). I signed up for the PCP to accomplish a few things. Of course I wanted to lose weight, get stronger, and look better. However, the main thing I wanted to achieve was mental focus and clarity. I'm happy to say that I have lost weight, gotten stronger, and look better. However, unfortunately, my main goal has not been met. I still have "foggy brain" much more often than I would like. This is, of course, not the PCP's fault. I have other things going on in my body that I have yet to fully understand that are causing this compromised mental state. I was hoping that the increased exercise/activity and bulletproof diet that the PCP brings would help me achieve this, but I have come to the realization that the problems run deeper.
"So", you're probably wondering, "what kind of problems are we talking about here"? Well, there are several. I have mental issues going on that may or may not be ADD related. I also have gastro-intestinal issues that range from mild to not-so-mild. Overall they have been mild enough so that I've never truly pursued a solution, and thus they remain. I also have pretty lousy posture. Although these three things may seem completely unrelated, I think they may be connected. I've started seeing a chiropractor, who is going to help me with the posture issues (which will also hopefully indirectly help my bum knee, which he says is getting further stressed because of the way I hold my hips). He says that bad posture can in fact be a major cause of gastrointestinal issues such as what I have (constant gas, bloating, general abdominal discomfort, etc). Consequently (and pardon me if I butcher this - clearly this is an oversimplification), if you're having issues with your digestion, and thus your brain isn't getting all the nutrients it's supposed to be getting, you can eat the healthiest diet in the world and still have all kinds of trouble, mental health wise. Food sensitivities can also cause both the G-I issues and the mental issues, so that's yet another thing I'm exploring.
I saw a new doctor yesterday and gave him the run down of all this stuff to see if he could put anything together. He said that the first thing I should do is go on the "elimination diet" for a few months. So, just as soon as I get off the PCP diet, I have to immediately jump into something even MORE strict (no dairy. no wheat. no tomatoes or potatoes. no shellfish. NO COFFEE (although he said I could have green tea, thank God). Of course no fried or processed crap. and that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more "nos" that I'm forgetting). It is with a certain amount of irony that I notice that several of the things I'm not supposed to eat on this diet are CORNERSTONES of the PCP (mainly milk, yogurt and cheese). So could it be that the PCP diet actually made me feel WORSE? Of course, I don't really know if I'm actually allergic to dairy. The idea is to eliminate all of these foods and then introduce them back into the diet one at a time and see when and where the problems re-appear (assuming that they went away in the first place). So...we'll see how it goes. I'm not super excited about the diet, but I am super excited about the possibility of feeling better, so I'm willing to give it a whirl.
As if all this weren't enough, I'm also going back to school. Just a few classes here and there, nothing major. I'm going to be taking one marketing class and one yoga class, and possibly something else. Today was my first day of both classes, and so far I like the yoga class a lot. It's far from ideal, in that there's about 30 people in a big-ass room and depending on where you are in the room, you may not even be able to see the teacher...but it's a start. I have the feeling that I'm going to continue on with it. Just today's beginner session, while it certainly wasn't anything I couldn't handle, did show me that while I'm fairly strong in some ways, if I added yoga to my repertoire, it could make me WAAAY stronger...and I like that.
So...have I arrived at the place I wanted to be when I first started the PCP journey? Well, unfortunately, no, I'm not. Am I in "Peak Condition"? Well, probably not. Obviously Peak Condition is a relative thing, but even so, I know I could still be in better shape and stronger than I am now, no question about it. However, like I said at the beginning of the post, this is not an end, this is a beginning. I think that the PCP was instrumental in helping me really clarify my desire to feel as good as possible, mentally and physically, as often as possible. While the PCP in and of itself did not allow me to achieve that goal, it definitely set me on the path that will, with any luck, get me there eventually.
Oh...and I'll upload some pics in the next few days. Need to charge the battery for the camera.

To Gym or Not to Gym

So Patrick seems to be kind of a gym hater. Honestly, I can't blame him too much, most of them suck. But then again, most of everything in life sucks, it's all about ferreting out the 2% of stuff that DOESN'T suck. And I'm here to say right now that all gyms are not created equal. If your standard is Gold's Gym or 24 Hr Fitness or any of the other mega-corporate gyms out there in our fine country, who lock you into year-long contracts, and force you to work out in huge, open, agoraphobia-inducing rooms packed with sweaty fat people (or sweaty muscled people)...I can see how you wouldn't like the gym. However, I've been fortunate enough to be a member of two delightful independently owned gyms (the Olympic Health Club in Seattle and West Coast Fitness here in Portland) that I have very much enjoyed patronizing.

Patrick's main beef with the gym, as far as I can tell, doesn't seem to be with the actual gym itself, but with the people who go to the gym. Honestly, I don't really understand what that has to do with anything. I mean, come on, Pat, there are lame people EVERYWHERE. If I decided not to go someplace just on the basis that there would be lame, unhealthy people there, I WOULD NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE. I mean, doesn't it make more sense to base one's opinion of a place on the place itself, rather than the caliber of the people who go there? Anyway - my point is, the gym is what you make of it, no more, no less. There are lots of weights and machines and thises and thats that you can use in any way you want. You can do an entire PCP routine at the gym, and more - or you can do a bunch of stupid exercises that will get you nowhere.

The thing I like about the gym is that by going there and leaving the house, it allows me to really set aside that part of the day for ME and for exercising. There are no distractions at the gym (or way fewer than at home, anyway). Everyone who is there is there for the same reason - to achieve or maintain fitness (whether or not you agree with their methodology). All the equipment you'll ever need and then some is laid out there right in front of you (I never have to search for my door anchor when I'm at the gym).

My current gym has many other advantages that you may or may not be able to find, depending on where you live - i.e. it's a little over a 5 minute walk from my house. It's VERY underused, so it's never crowded. It's not too big, but has pretty much everything I need. It's affordable ($38/mo, I think). Oh...and it's attached to a video store. For real. Before I joined, I would walk past the place thinking "that's gotta be the most bizarre combination of businesses - video store and gym". However, they have three locations in Portland, all with the same combo (both are owned by the same people), so it must be working for them! I'm not a big movie watcher at all, so I've never even set foot in the video side...but it's just funny. As we like to say, "Only in Portland!"

Today we drove up to Olympia, WA to visit my brother-in-law. He has had a massive struggle with drug addiction and mental illness over the last five years or so, and is finally, seemingly on the mend and in recovery. The downside is that the meds he's on for his mental health issues have caused him to gain massive amounts of weight. He's been a very fit guy the whole time I've known him, but since the last time we saw him, I think he's put on 50 pounds. It was a shock to see him that way. However, the meds are also making it possible for him to lead some semblance of a normal life, so there's a tradeoff. He is currently living in a halfway house where he has to be gone for most of the day (the idea is, of course, that he would be working during the day). However, due to his mental health issues, he literally can't work (he would get his supply of meds cut off if he did). So, he's basically forced to wander around Olympia all day with nothing to do and no money. The last time he talked to my wife, he bemoaned the fact that he had neither a skateboard or a guitar, either of which would allow him to spend his days at least doing SOMETHING. My wife told me this, and I said "I bet we could find a skateboard on craigslist for not much money". Sure enough, she found one for $50, and we bought it for him. When we gave it to him today, it was almost like he could hardly contain his excitement over it. It really struck me at that point how such a simple, inexpensive thing could make such a difference in someone's life. We had him skate around a parking lot for a few minutes to show our little boy "how it was done" (he had developed a great affection for the skateboard during the few days it was in our house - he called it a "bo-bo") - and he got winded just from a few minutes of skating.
I know that going forward he will spend a lot of his free time on the skateboard, which will allow him to lose weight, get in better shape, and probably improve his mental state.

I just realized how long this post was. If you're still reading, I sure hope you enjoyed it. ;-)

Back in action. Sort of.

So I had to take 2 days off due to my cold and a whacked out shoulder. Today I am feeling about 80% better from the cold and my shoulder seems to be OK (although the shoulder issue on the right has been replaced with a large knot on the left side of my neck/shoulder)...so I felt like I could get back in action. Jump ropes sucked, but I got through. The rest of my exercises were spotty as well. Push ups (still doing regular ones. I tried the elevated ones and could barely do 10 on my first set) were weak, managing sets of 14-12-10-8-7. Dips were passable - I can't remember if I did the 6th set or not - ovations were pretty good. Biceps - curls were fine but I can't figure out how to do the show-off on the machines at the gym (I lost my door anchor awhile ago, and thus have been replicating the door anchor exercises on the free weight machines at the gym).
I have an appointment with a chiropractor tomorrow, so hopefully he will be able to sort out whatever's going on in my shoulder and neck.
We've only got 10 days to go, and I can't help but feel like I'm limping to the finish line. Not exactly what I'd hoped for, but we do the best we can.

If it's not one thing it's three others

So today I have a cold. Not a horrible cold (Mel), just a mild sore throat, stuffy nose and (further) diminished energy. Plus I somehow threw my right shoulder out of whack. It doesn't hurt when I'm just sitting, but when I do something drastic, like, say, do dishes, or shift gears while driving my car, or pick up my son, I get a mild/medium pain that just feels like something's out of alignment. If it doesn't feel better tomorrow I'll make an appointment to see a chirporactor.

Today is our "day off", so we went and had lunch at a Mexican place (fish tacos for me - I'll have to catch up on my veg intake later) and then took Asa to the nearest park, which happened to be Mt. Tabor (incidentally, one of the only dormant volcanos in the country). We had a nice time at the playground...but now I'm ready for a nap.

A different point of view

The last two days have been challenging. Low to no energy, low motivation, just feel like going slow, which is pretty much out of the norm for me. Yesterday was hot and I rode my bike to and from work. On the ride home I kind of dragged my ass, which I hardly ever do, and thought how it would be a perfect day for a shady porch, a rocking chair, and a mint julep. I don't think I've ever actually had a mint julep, but it sounded like just the thing. Today at work I just could not get started. It didn't help that my wife decided to embark on a major reorganizing project in our fabric area of the store. Organizing makes me tiiiirrrreeed. At the gym this evening I thought of about 100 places that I would have rather been at that moment, chief among them, at home in bed. So I slogged though most of my workout and drove home.

All of this is made even more frustrating by how good I felt on Friday. For no apparent reason, I just woke up feeling really great, and the feeling lasted thoughout the whole day. I was happy, energetic, felt present and in the moment, and pretty much enjoyed whatever it was I did the whole day long. I thought "gee, this is how I, as a human, should feel more often. This should be my baseline". Unfortunately, even with the PCP, this feeling is the exception rather than the rule. I don't know what the deal is, but I don't like it.

Last night, I hooked up with a friend of mine who I haven't seen in almost 10 years. We had a really nasty falling out at that time, and I pretty much vowed that I would never speak to him again. However, time heals all wounds, or whatever, and I ended up discovering (through Facebook, of all things) that he was living in Portland, so I got a mind to consider reconnecting with him. After a few hesitant emails, we agreed to meet up, and we ended up hanging out for 3 hours, just like old times. It was great.

The main reason I bring it up here is that he spent 5 of the last 9 years in the military as an Intelligence operative. When I knew him 10 years ago, he was about 5'7", 120 lbs. A scrawny little shit. He told me that when he was in the military, at his heaviest, he got up to 185 lbs! He said "you would have never believed it, I was actually buff!" However, he also said that he was extremely depressed for most of the time that he was in the service, so in addition to gaining a lot of muscle, he also gained a lot of fat. He said that in the 4 years since he's been out, he hasn't exercised once. Says he hated it, and will be happy to never do another push up for the rest of his life. He has since shrunk down to closer to what I remembered him as 10 years ago (albeit a little bulkier). The point is that he had absolutely no interest in maintaining the muscle that he gained while in the Army.

Now, as someone who is actively trying to gain muscle, get stronger, and look better, this struck me as rather odd. I wonder how much of his experience with working out and being strong is inextricably tied to his experience of being in the Army, which was quite negative, for the most part. I am making the choice to become stronger and look better by working out, whereas he was sort of forced into it. It doesn't sound like he ever owned it, but rather always struggled against it. I guess it's all in how you frame it, isn't it?

Tired and Sore

2 nights ago when I did my workout, I did something horrible to my back. I have no idea what it was, but it hasn't spoken to me since. Especially odd since I wan't actually doing any back exercises! At any rate, I woke up yesterday morning with a massive knot in my lower back! It hurt like hell all day (although I did manage to ride my bike to work and back). I figured if I rested it would be better this morning, but last night it was bugging me so much that I hardly slept, just kept tossing and turning (which is kind of a chore in and of itself when your back is messed up!). Finally at 5am I took some ibuprofen, which helped a little bit - enough that I was able to get 3 hours of sleep before the 2 year old human alarm clock went off. It was still bothering me through most of today, and I was also pretty tired doe to lack of sleep. This evening we went to the Kennedy School soaking pool (the Kennedy School is an old elementary school that's been converted into a hotel with a restaraunt and several bars, a movie theater, and a big soaking pool which is basically like a giant 30-person hot tub) and that was nice and relaxing. Felt a bit better after that, but it also completely drained me of what little energy I had left. Oh, and to add insult to injury, we've had two of the most stressful money (or, rather, lack thereof) related days in recent memory. This too shall pass, but gawd, it can't pass soon enough. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel more on the mend.

Jump Rope Rant #472

So I'm sure y'all are pretty tired of hearing me bitch about my jump rope issues. Well, too bad, here comes another one. You'd think that after over 2 straight months of doign something EVERY SINGLE DAY (practically) that I'd be at least a smidgen better at it than on the first day I started. Well, you'd be mostly wrong. There are still days (like today) where I can't seem to get through 20 jumps at a time without tripping. And let me tell you, 2000 jumps is a LOT of jumps when you're doing them 20 at a time!! There ARE days when things go much more smoothly, and I'm doing sets of 100, 200, 300 jumps without tripping...but those days are WAAAY too few and far between. Everyone else seems have the jump ropes totally nailed by now, but not me. Now, to add insult to injury (or, rather, to add injury to insult, I guess), my left calf muscle all of a sudden has decided that it does not like jumping one little bit. The last 2 days, I've gotten through maybe 200 jumps and my left calf starts to hurt like hell. Yesterday I was able to power though my 2000 jumps, but today I got to about 1200, I was tripping every other jump and my calf was screaming in protest, and I said "fuck it. This is not happening today". So, I don't know if I just need to rest my calf muscle, or if I need to start stretching before my jumps, or what, but something needs to change. Patrick offered that if I send him a video of me jumping he could offer a critique and see if I was doing anything wrong, but that would involve me having a video cam, which I don't. I need to get one anyway, so maybe that is the next step.

Back to the Grind

So we're back from vacation. I would like to say that I was a good PCPer and stuck to the program all three days, but alas, I would be fibbing. First was the issue of jumping rope. Because of my bad knee (and just overall bad joints - listen to me, I sound like an old man), I'm pretty picky about my rope-jumping surface. My choices were A) gravel drive in front of the cabin; B) grassy area in front of the cabin; C) bouncy deck in the back of the cabin; D) hard packed sand near the ocean on the beach. All in all, choice D probably would have been the way to go, but I never quite made it to the beach with the rope. Choice A wound up being the best option - best being relative, because it involved flinging bits of gravel around, many of which collided with my legs while I was jumping, which caused me to curse profusely, which caused my wife to yell "hey, maybe you can finish your jumps later at a park or something".

So, long story short, Wednesday saw maybe 600 jumps, and Thursday none. We got home this afternoon, and my intention was to go to the park and jump, but there was grocery shopping to do, and it was raning. I did get in about 800 jumps at the park before the rain started coming down in earnest, and now my calves hurt like hell. You can't win. Back at it in earnest tomorrow.

Diet wise, we ate pretty well, mainly because we brought our own food and cooked the whole time. We ate only one meal out, which turned out to be a major disappointment (except for Asa, he got a pinwheel which he was very happy with). However, I forgot my scale, so all portions were "ballparked" - but I think I did OK on that front.

Overall, we had a really nice time. If you've never been to the Oregon coast, you really should. It's seriously some of the most beautiful country in the whole world. Not that I've been to the whole world, but I just can't imagine too many places topping it. So, without further ado, here are some pics.

Rockaway Beach. This is where we stayed. The town kind of sucks but the beach is absolutely beautiful...and was pretty much deserted, as you can see.

Rockaway Beach, looking north.

Asa tromping down the beach.

Give me 15 minutes and a beach and something like this is likely to happen.

Cape Perpetua. My favorite place in the whole wide world.

Cape Perpetua, down on the rocks.

Me an' the boy @Cape Perpetua.

We were taking pictures of each other at the same time.

Even with the camera phone, my wife takes better pics than I do.

Vay-Cay-Shun

Yay!! We're going on vacation in 2 - count'em - 2 days!! This will be our first "extended" (i.e. longer than a single overnight) vacation in OVER THREE YEARS. Can you say "we deserve it"?? I sure can! We're not doing anything too fancy - just renting a cabin at the coast - but 3 nights away from city and work and bills and customers and business sounds pretty...damn...awesome. Add to the fact that the Oregon coast is literally one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and, well, let's just say we're pretty stoked. A big bonus is that we've made time to go to a place called Cape Perpetua, which I haven't been to in over 10 years. I've been to the coast many times since then, but the Cape is a good hour and a half south of the usual spot we go to (Cannon Beach, which is a straight shot about 2 hrs west of Portland), so we've never made it back there. However, it's one of the most inspiring, amazing, incredible places I've ever been. Maybe THE most inspiring, amazing, incredible place I've ever been. Anyway, I'm super excited to go back there - and super excited to just take some time off. I don't think our cabin has Wi-Fi, so this may be the last post for awhile. We'll be taking most of our food with the intention of making most of our meals ourselves (not many dining options in the teeny little beach town we're going to). Hopefully we'll bring enough. As usual, finding a spot to jump rope may be a challenge, but I'll figure something out.

On the jump rope tip, yesterday I had kind of an interesting experence. I put off jumping until the evening because I had too much stuff to do in the morning. As I trudged to the park with wife and kid in tow, I was totally dreading my jumps. I was tired, worn out and just did not want to do them. However, once I got going, I actually had the best jump rope sesh I've had in a long time. Sure, there were trips, but I knocked out 1800 jumps with the majority of the sets being in the 100-300 jump range. After I was done, I was definitley tired, but felt surprisingly good considering how I felt before starting!

Today I didn't have time (or food prepared) to pack a lunch, so I visited my favorite food market like I usually do. For some reason they had a "Southern Sunday Dinner" theme going, with fried chicken, buscuits, hush puppies, pork roast and collard greens. I decided to go with the least offensive option (which was still fairly offensive, on the PCP-meter, anyway), a slice of pork roast and some collards. Of course, the greens were done up "southern style" with bits of bacon and god knows what else. They felt greasy when I ate them, and now the whole meal is sitting like a goddamn lead anchor in my gut. I still have to do my jumps and workout for the day so hopefully that will make me feel a little less yucky.

Oh yeah, I posted some new pics. Look, ma, I have abs! Sort of. Furry abs. But at least we're getting there.

PCP Brekkie/general update.

This was my PCP Brekkie this morning (although I had already eaten my 100g of carbs - Bob's Red Mill Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal has become a daily ritual). 150g "Squa'ash" (squash hash - recipe to follow). 30g sliced heirloom tomato. 2 fried eggs (use just a skosh of cooking spray). 80g flank steak (leftover from dinner the other night). The cool thing about this meal is that you can either eat it all mixed together or one thing at a time, and it's equally good.

For some reason while typing this, I just got the craving for BiBimBap (which, if you've never had, is the best thing to ever come out of Korea short of Bulgogi). It must have been the pic of the fried eggs.

Anyway, here's the deal with the Squash Hash: take 2 or 3 of your favorite summer squashes (zucchini, yellow squash, flying saucer squash, whatever) and dice them up very finely. Do the same to a medium size red pepper and half a red onion. Throw some garlic in there if you feel so inclined. Fry the mixture up with a little olive oil, until the veg has softened and is starting to brown. Season with lots of black pepper and a little salt. Voila! Great for mixing up with fried eggs.

In other news, I finally had a good workout today. Jumps were still off, as usual - but I figured out how many jumps are in a 4-minute set. I counted my last 2 sets and logged 450 and 420 respectively. That was including QUITE a few trips, so I imagine that for someone who can actually jump rope competently, it would be 500+. My problem has been that I don't have a timer, nor a watch. I want to get a watch, but I'm super fussy about what kind of watch I want...and I haven't found it yet. I should just go buy a kitchen timer, but I haven't gotten around to it. So, the upshot is I've been counting my jumps this whole time. I usually do at least 1600, sometimes up to 1800 - which it looks like is what I should be doing to equal out to the timed jumps.

I was able to complete most of the exercises today (plus I threw in bicep exercises which I had skipped yesterday because I didn't have my resistance band with me when I went to the gym), with the exception of a few pull-ups, which started to really bother my wrist after the 3rd set or so.

Anyway, it's late and I need to go to bed. Gonna make another attempt at this whole "getting up early and exercising" thing.

Anniversary Indulgence, etc.

So it's been a few days since I've written, and boy have they been action-packed. I won't get into too much detail, 'cos most of it is work related, suffice to say I've been busy busy busy. Overall my workouts have been OK - I had two truly great jump rope days in a row (I did 475 jumps in a row yesterday! I could hardly believe it!), although today kind of sucked. My main problem as of late is that the leg exercises are almost universally making my bad knee very unhappy. Last week when there were lunges on the menu, I did them all, but the next day my knee was feeling super wonky and kept threatening to give out. It didn't, but I also didn't do my jumps that day. I'm waiting for Patrick to give me his feedback on the problem.

So, then, on to the main topic of discussion - the indulgence! I didn't really have my indulgence last time (although I did have a few "mini" indulgences - like a few spoonfuls of Tapioca pudding, etc), so this time needed to count. Or something like that. It was our 5-year wedding anniversary on Friday, but we didn't quite have it together enough to get a sitter and actually go out for dinner, so my wife had the great idea to get take out from a local Tapas place called Lolo. Now, Portland has a few Tapas joints that are supposed to be as good as any place in Spain, and consequently have a line out the door constantly. Lolo, while still really good, for some reason has not caught fire like these other places, the upshot being that you can always get a seat, or order take out! We got 5 plates:

From L to R, they were serrano ham & manchego cheese croquette w/ smoked paprika aioli; sautéed octopus w/shaved celery, farga olives & piquillo pepper confit; chorizo & marinated figs; fried almonds w/ espollette pepper, sea salt & lemon wedge and chicken skewers w/moorish spices & sherry syrup.

All the dishes were pretty great, but I will give a play by play.

I really had no idea what to expect from a "serrano ham & manchego cheese croquette w/ smoked paprika aioli", but I was not expecting the intensity of this dish! I think that if the devil were incarnated in a foodstuff, he might become one of these delicious little balls of salt and fat. They were fried crisp on the outside (but not greasy) and had an incredible creamy, cheesy soft center, with tangy, salty, spicy aioli on top. Did I mention that these were SALTY?? But oh my god they were so good. My wife couldn't eat these because the crust was breaded and thus had gluten, so I was on my own, and I think they were my downfall. I only ate one, but that was more than enough!

The octopus was amazing - tender, meaty, perfectly spiced. The shaved celery added an interesting dimension, I actually thought it was fennel. Octopus is like the kobe beef of seafood.

It's pretty hard to screw up the pairing of fresh figs and salty cured meat, and thus the figs and chorizo were total winners as well.

The fried almonds were yummy, not too salty and perfectly spicy. Perhaps a touch on the oily side, but still damn delicious.

The chicken skewers, while still quite tasty, were maybe my least favorite dish. They were basically doused in Indian/African spices and roasted. Very good, but not as good as the octopus or that devilish croquette.

It had been so long since I'd had food this mouth wateringly good, I definitely ate too much. I couldn't stop munching on the almonds. After we finished eating, I sat back and thought "well, I feel like I ate too much, but apart from that, I feel fine". UNTIL...about 1/2 hour later, after my wife had left to get some work done and I had put the kid to bed...when I was sticken with the worst gas pains I've ever had in my life! They were so bad I literally passed out for a second and ended up on the bathroom floor, somehow managing to split my bottom lip in the process! Fun and exciting! It was seriously the weirdest thing. My wife is convinced that it was actually a gall bladder attack. I have no idea, but after it passed, I felt OK for the rest of the evening (apart from my lip, that is!).

However, it's DEFNITELY not a scenario I wish to reproduce, so I shall be taking it VERY easy on the fried-salty-cheesy-hammy items from now on!

Be afraid, be very afraid.

I don't know how to embed a video into my blog, but just click on the link and be terrified. I've never eaten this way my whole life, so to see America's eating habits called out like this is totally disturbing.

http://healthyfood.idatablog.com/abc-news-how-to-get-fat-without-trying.html/

Cross Blogging

So yesterday evening I wrote a short post called "Refund". It said this - "So I'm not going to bore you with the gritty details of why my day sucked so hard. I'm just going to say this: "I. want. a. refund."" I posted it and went to bed. The thing is, as I realized a minute ago, I was in the wrong browser, and accidentally posted it to my STORE blog (janushomevintage.blogspot.com) instead of my PCP blog! Er....OOPS.
So, anyway, yesterday sucked ass in a myriad of different ways, which I'm STILL not going to get into. Today was better, but still iffy. I got most of the things done that I needed to do, the glaring exception being the majority of my PCP workout. I got up too late and only had time to do my jumps in the morning before I had to go in to work. Then this evening we staged a 3000 square foot house (loaded furniture on to truck. Drove to house. Unloaded furniture into house, up a minimum of one long flight of stairs. Moved furniture around house), after which I was pretty much completely spent. No juice left.
Tomorrow, for real, I'm going to get up when I wake up and head straight to the park.

Back in action

Today was pretty good. I woke up in a foul mood, feeling tired, defeated and totally overwhelmed. I waited too long and didn't get to the park until about 10 to do my jumps. As I rode my bike to the park I thought to myself "jumps are gonna suck today 'cause I'm in a bad mood. Just make the best of it". And while they could have been a lot better, my jumps weren't too terrible today. Most importantly, I got through actually feeling BETTER than when I started, a distinct change from the last few days when they've just made me mad. Went to the store and had another crazy nonstop day, but good. Hit the gym on the way home and rocked about a workout and a half (to make up for the days I missed in Seattle). Decided that if I'm going to exercise in the evening, I MUST go before I get home. If I get home and sit in my chair and take my shoes off and start interacting with my family, it's all over. Going on the way home worked well, though. I STILL have not found something the proper height to hold onto while doing pistol squats. Very frustrating. I did, however, find a little corner of the gym that had something the perfect height for me to hold onto while doing lunges, which made them about 100x more tolerable. Wish I'd figured that out a month ago! Did the kung-fu situps, and felt more like Tarzan swingin' thru the trees than anything else. At the gym they have these elbow harness things hanging off the pull up bar that you can use in lieu of hanging on to the bar. I dunno if this is cheating, but if nothing else, I think it's much easier on the hands.
More tomorrow...

PCP Vacation

Er…a vacation FROM the PCP, that is. In the last few days, I found out exactly how hard it is to keep up with the PCP when removed from the safe, familiar confines of one’s own home. The Seattle trip was good and productive, but most PCP activity, sadly, went out the window. I did manage to do my jumps every day, and it’s not like I ate BADLY, but I didn’t exactly have egg whites and fruit for dinner. The first day, I took the train up with my bike (see last post), with the intention of riding my bike from the train station to the old house (a good 10 mile ride at least). When I got into Seattle, it started drizzling lightly. I rode my bike to the antique mall (a mile or two), browsed around for 45 min or so, got ready to leave, looked outside, and was greeted with a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. I hung around for a little while thinking “maybe it will stop”. It didn’t stop. So, I called my friend Kirk who I had planned on seeing, and he rescued me and my bike with his pickup truck. Here’s where things started going awry. Since I just got into town, I obviously hadn’t had time to go to the grocery store, but I was super hungry, and the plan was to go grab a bite to eat. Kirk wanted to get a beer, which I ordinarily would have been happy to indulge in…but not this time. Anyway, we ended up at the Elysian Brewery, where I had a grilled chicken sandwich and green salad. Not exactly what I was supposed to eat, but a far cry from the big sloppy burger and fries that Kirk ordered! From there, Kirk drove me back to the house, and I walked to the grocery store to procure some more PCP-friendly fare. Hot cereal for breakfast, eggs, milk, fruit, some collard greens, zucchini, and some chicken breast. I realized when I got back from the store that I had forgotten my scale…but I think I’ve gotten pretty good at eyeballing portions at this point.
The next day started out alright, I went to the park close to the house to do my jumps (had to jump on concrete – not much fun), then back to the house for a proper breakfast. Unfortunately it was pretty much all downhill from there. I managed to get about half of the day’s exercises in before the running around commenced. Snacks didn’t happen, and once again I was with a friend around dinnertime and we ended up getting Thai food. I had duck curry, and I have to admit it was one of the more satisfying meals I’ve had in a long time! Saturday was all about packing the truck, and at that point I had started running out of some of the necessary food items, and once again resorted to restaurant food – Mr. Gyros (best Gyro in Seattle)! Drove back to Portland on Saturday evening, got home a little after 10pm. My wife had made curried rice noodles with pork, which at that point I was in no position to argue with, so I ate some of that.
Today was unloading the truck day (and the first day at work for my new assistant), so things were just crazy. I ate half a lunch at home then jetted off to work, picking up some veggies and meat at my beloved Sheridan Fruit Market. Later in the afternoon I was feeling super tired, and cursed that all the coffee shops close to the store were already closed. Then I happened to look in my bag and realized that I never ate the rest of my lunch! Maybe THAT’S why I was so tired! I scarfed it down, and whaddya know, my energy returned post-haste. What with one thing and another, today ended up being another day of jumps but no exercises. Tomorrow I will get back on track, for real, as right now I'm too tired to even THINK about exercise.

Seattle bound - on a train.

I’m writing this on the train from Portland to Seattle. No wireless internet on the train, of course, so I will have to post it later today. This will be my first “time away from home” on the PCP. I have to go clean out a house that we used to own up there – long story. Anyway, there’s a bunch of furniture in the house that I need to pick up and bring back to Portland. So instead of renting a truck and driving both ways, I decided to take the train up and bring my bike with me. It will end up being a whole lot cheaper (a grand total of around $250 for the train ticket, truck rental, and gas home vs. over $500 for a round trip truck rental for the time I needed!), plus I get the added benefit of the bonus exercise of riding my bike all over Seattle. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. So far it’s been partly cloudy all day, but no rain. Hope it stays that way!
This morning I actually got out of bed early, drank about half a glass of smoothie (left over from last night’s nighttime snack) and hit the park for my jumps and pull-ups. Once again, my jumps were total crap! Not as bad as yesterday, but considering the fact that I was in a decent frame of mind, wasn’t feeling rushed, was basically alone on a cool morning at the park, I just don’t get it. One the plus side, I rocked the pull-ups pretty well. I did one set of 10, then one set of 8, then did my jumps, then went back and completed a set of 9 and then 7. So, not all in a row, but hey, I did a set of 10 pull-ups! Just that in and of itself would have seemed impossible to me just a month ago. When I got to the park (around 7:15 am) there was an impromptu aerobics/training class going on under the pavilion, which was kind of bizarre. 3 women and a trainer doing their exercise thing to the tuneful accompaniment of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. Which begs the question, why do all exercise routines or music played by personal trainers to “pump you up” have to be absolutely horrible? I mean, really, people, there’s GOOD music out there that energizes and inspires. Anyway.
Getting my PCP on in the next few days is definitely going to be a challenge, what with all the work I have to do (and friends I want to see – I have the feeling that at least one alcoholic beverage has the potential to be consumed – no beer, though!). However, I will do my best to keep it on the straight and narrow. I have all my accoutrements with me (rope, resistance band, door anchor), and there’s a park pretty close to the Seattle house, so I’m not really all that worried, but still it might be a challenge to fit everything in. Wish me luck!

My j-ropes were utter garbage today. Rubbish. Another "couldn't get through 50 jumps without tripping" deal. I was honestly surprised, because the last 2 days have been pretty good (even one day where I went to the gym to jump because the park was overrun with kiddos), and I was even in a pretty good frame of mind. Regardless, around jump #1050, I got so frustrated that I actually stopped counting. This worked OK for a little while, and I got maybe 3 sets of 50 in before I started tripping again...and I basically just said "today is not my day" and quit. That's actually the first time I've ever gotten fed up and quit before I reached my number. I then tried to make up some of my leg exercises from yesterday by doing the creep around the park, but I was so irked from my jump ropes that I couldn't even do that right...so I pretty much gave up and went home. Tomorrow is another day, yes?
I interviewed 4 people for my assistant position today. I really don't like interviewing people.

Confession time

I have to admit, I've had a HELL of a time getting my leg exercises in in the last few days. Not because I can't or don't want to do them, it's just that they require special apparatus. I still haven't figured out a good solution to my "Pistol Squat Problem", or what the hell to hold onto while I do the damn things. Couch arm - too tall. Chair seat - too low. Chair back - too tall. Dining table - too tall. Ottoman - too low.
Get the picture? I mean, I own a furniture store, fer Chrissakes, you'd think I'd be able to come up with SOMETHING? Even at the gym, the only thing I could fingure to use was a moveable pull-up bar, but it spins around when you lean on it! So...any suggestions?

Apart from my workout (the rest of which I did), my day was entirely consumed with people handing me resumes. I had probably 50 people drop them off today in person, and got another 80 or so via email. All this for a $10/hr, 20-hr/wk position!

Bad PCP Day.

Today was pretty much a big FAIL as far as PCP activities go. Started out OK, with the family accompanying me to the park for my j-ropes. My wife then started on a rant about our financial situation (which is currently a bit of a downer), which kind of got me down, and threw my jumpropes completely off. It's amazing how much your mental state can effect physical things. I also did pull-ups at the park, but that's where it ended. I am, however, feeling stronger on my pull ups. I've been doing 2 sets before j-ropes and 2 sets after, and both times today I did a set of 8 followed by a set of 5. Better than a set of 6 followed by a set of 2!
Lunch was not particularly PCP-friendly either. I was out running around with my boy and decided to stop for lunch at my favorite market with the best hot-food case in the city. Unfortunately their weekend selection is not nearly as good as the weekday, and the best I could do was a shrimp quesadilla (which, in addition to shrimp and cheese, featured cherry tomatoes, rice and avocado). My intention was to share it with Asa, but he only ate a little bit, and was much more interested in the pint of blueberries I bought for him.
Evening came and went and exercises did not happen. It seems like if I cross the 9pm threshhold, the exercises just aren't gonna happen. Tomorrow I think I'm gonna try the whole roll-out-of-bed-with-a-jumprope-in-hand thing, see how that feels.

In other swell news, my fabulous assistant gave his notice today. I can't say as I blame him, as he got offered a full time job at Nordstrom making 50% more than I can afford to pay him. However, I'm more than a little bummed. So we have the stress of finding a new employee added on to the stress of possibly moving, and we're shaping up for an interesting month.

Gratuitous photos of fruit...and RATATOUILLE!

If you ever see a nectarine that looks like this,

EAT IT.

Seriously. I have never had a nectarine that looked like this, all golden red and freckly, taste like anything less than nectar of the gods. Amazing.

Now, it should be noted that my hands are pretty small. Still, these raspberries are frickin' GINORMOUS. The size of small strawberries.

This is not fruit. This is a big pile of ratatouille that I made last week. My mom used to make it all the time, but I've never made it myself. I kind of forgot about how good it is til I saw a small jar of it at Trader Joes for like $4, and thought "shit, I could make this"! I've been eating it for breakfast practically every day mixed in with my eggs (and lots of Parmesan cheese!). I put one container in the freezer, and I'm only halfway through the first one!

How to make Ratatouille:

Take an eggplant. Chop off the top. Chop it into 3/4" cubes. Put in a bowl and sprinkle with 1-2 teaspoons of salt. Stick in the fridge for 1/2 hour. Pour off the liquid that gets extracted, and rinse the salt off the eggplant. Chop up a few zucchinis or yellow squash, a few peppers (green or red or both), an onion (preferably red but whatever works) a shallot, and some muchrooms if you like. Saute the onions and shallot in a big pan for a few minutes, then add the other veg's and cook for 5 minutes or so more until browned and cooked down. Add a big can or two of diced tomatoes (depending on how tomato-ey you want it), and 1/2 a small can of tomato paste,and a few good glugs of red wine. Simmer for 15 minutes or so. Finish with a few dashes of red wine vinegar. Serve over rice, pasta, or grain of your choice. Also really good mixed in with scrambled eggs and parmesan cheese (and lots of pepper!).

Life Gets In the Way (again)

So as if our lives weren't hectic and stressful enough, we have decided, rather abruptly, to move. See, we're one of those families you read about. We bought our house at the exact wrong time, about 2 years ago. It has gone down in value about 10% since we bought it. While it's a cute house, it's tiny - not nearly enough room for us to really be comfortable in. While technically we can afford the mortgage payment, if we were renting, we could have a house that was twice as big for a little more than half of what we're paying now. Also, if we kept the house, we would probably have to live in it for at least another 3-4 years before we could sell it and merely break even. So, we have decided to "let our house go", and become renters again.
Consequently, the last few days have largely been spent trolling Craigslist looking for places, and going and looking at houses. I'm kind of a house junkie, so I actually enjoy the process, but it still takes a significant amount of time...that usually I would spend at least some of exercising. However, in the last 2 days, I've only been able to do my jumpropes, and nothing else! At least I got those in, but I REALLY don't feel good about missing 2 days in a row. I'm going to get up early tomorrow and make sure to get the whole circuit in before 10AM.

Pistol squats are motherfuckers. No other word for it. It's not even so much the exercise that's hard for me (which, gon't get me wrong, is hard as hell), it's more the balance. My balance totally sucks - I can hardly do lunges without falling over. So these are practically impossible. It would help if I had a table or something that was the right height - something in between the height of a chair seat and a sofa arm! I'll probably just go to the gym tomorrow and find something there and trrryy again...

My jumps have been pretty good for the last few days, but today they SUCKED. I haven't thrown the rope for a long time, but today I flung it mightily after tripping after less than 10 jumps like 7 times in a row. I mean, COME ON. I don't know if it was because my head was preoccupied with moving stuff, or because I was wearing a different pair of shoes than I normally do, or WHAT, but it was a mess. Oh well, c'est la vie.

11:29

This morning when I was doing my jumps at the park, I tripped on jump #1129 (among many others, but those aren't important). Just then, I happened to pull my phone out of my pocket and check the time. It was 11:29AM. Cue spooky music. ...ooo-weeee-ooooo.....

Much more to talk about, but I should have been in bed an hour ago, so it will have to wait til tomorrow.

Causing a Spectacle

Today I had the interesting phenomenon of not being able to keep track of my jump ropes because people kept coming up and TALKING to me! There were a lot more kids & moms out at the park today than usual, and people kept commenting, things like "hey, where'd ya get that jump rope, that's great!" or "So you jump rope while your son plays? That's great!" The most entertaining was this little 4-year old boy who just talked my ear off for about 5 minutes, saying how he had a jump rope but didn't really know how to use it, asking me how old my son was (almost 2 1/2), then saying that his brother was 2 also, is your son older than my brother, etc etc etc. It was simultaneously funny and annoying (just 'cause I was jumping the whole time, trying not to be a jerk and ignore the kid completely, but trying to keep track of where I was in my head)! Eventually I just gave up and let it be. So I did ABOUT 1350 jumps today.

In lieu of floor jumps, Patrick told me to do jumps out of a squat, which seem to be working OK. They also have the added benefit of being EXTREMELY amusing to my boy. Seriously, last time I did them in front of him I thought he was going to fall out of his chair from laughing so hard. My mom thinks he is a reincarnated Bhuddist monk because of how much he laughs. There are worse things.

After 2 days of temperatures above 105 and one day of almost 100, the weather is finally starting to calm down a little bit, thank god. It's only supposed to be 88 today! That's still about 15 degrees warmer than my ideal temperature, but it's 20 degrees cooler than it was 2 days ago (broke all kinds of records), so I'm not complaining. This morning was actually very pleasant and cool (say 65 or so), and I rocked my jumps. Broke a personal record in 2 ways - I did 22o in a row, and in my 1300 jumps I had a total of 3 sets of over 100! Yay! Intermittently there were still sets where I didn't get through 10 without tripping, but overall it felt good.
Yesterday I realized that I'm going to have to go to the gym to do chest dips - which isn't that big of a deal, but a minor pain. See, my wrist will NOT bend back the way it would need to in order for me to do them with 2 chairs. I'm also quite worried about floor jumps - I have a bad right knee, and I just know that doing those would be a really bad idea. I can just see doing a bunch of them just fine, then the one time I land a little funny, my knee goes out, and I'm limping for a week. Wouldn't want that. I'm still waiting to head back from Patrick about what I can do instead (please no more lunges!!).
Diet is going pretty well overall...although today I came to the realization about exactly HOW MUCH yogurt I'm supposed to be eating this week. It's a good thing I like yogurt, because, man, 380 ml a day is a lot of yogurt! It's mainly a planning issue more than anything else. I just need to get a big tub of it to keep at work so I'm not constantly ferrying little plastic containers back and forth.
And...oh yeah...100 leg-ups is a lot of leg-ups!! Just sayin'.

The 9th Ring of Dante's Hell...er...Portand, OR.

It was 106 degrees today. A HUNDRED AND SIX DEGREES, PEOPLE. It's going to be 105 tomorrow. Or maybe 107, who can say. Mind you, this is Portland, OR, we're talking about here, not, say, Palm Springs...or Phoenix...or the middle of the Sahara Desert. A place much better known for its evergreens and rainy-ass winters, not so much for its scorching summer heat. But today the weather didn't read that book. Needless to say I went to the gym today to do my jumps. I like the park so much better, but even at 9am it was pushing 90...and I don't hate the gym THAT much. I'm sure I'll be doing the same tomorrow. Thank GOD our house has A/C. My store, however, does not...but thankfully I don't have to go in tomorrow. By Thursday, when I have to go in, the temp is supposed to drop to a balmy 100 degrees, so I should be fine. ;-)

Talk me down!!

Dunno if you guys ever watch the Rachel Maddow Show, but if so, you will be familiar with her segment that she calls "Talk me down!", wherein she proceeds to get extremely incensed about some issue or another, then has a guest on the show "talk her down" out of her righteous liberal rage. Anyway, today I need to be talked down about my results (or lack thereof) so far.

This morning, I realized that during my first week on the PCP, I lost 4 pounds. In the 2.5 weeks after that first week, I have lost exactly ZERO pounds. In fact, I may have gained one back. Fer chrissake. Now, I've said before that I'm not really in this to lose weight, which is true - however, it seems like it would be an inevitable side effect of all the exercising and eating right we've been doing. On the positive side, I have noticed some (very subtle) changes in my body - I can see the veins popping out on my arms a little bit for the first time in my life, and my wife says she can start to see "dents" where my abs are (down there, somewhere) - so, I guess the beginnings of a...er..."4-pack"? Heh.

Pull ups continue to give me hives (although I'm sure I'm not alone in this). I mean, come on, Patrick, 4 sets of 6-8 reps?? I can't even do 2 sets of 5 in a row yet! I'd be happy to just fill the rest out with incline pull ups, but I don't have a good place to do those other than the gym - and if I'm at the park doing my jumps and pull ups, the last thing I want to do it head over to the gym to bang out a few incline pull ups. So I've been trying to hit the park on the way home from work and get a few more in before the day is done, but it's still; not adding up to the requisite number of reps. Sigh.

I should also say that there are a few things I have been allowing myself all along in order to make sure that I continue to feel like a human being and not some robotic dieting machine. I put a little half and half in my coffee every morning, as well as a splash of agave nectar. I still salt my food (although I have become MUCH more conscious and aware of my salt usage and intake, which I guess is at least half the point). Most of the time I don't steam my veggies - I fry them in a pan with some cooking spray, salt & pepper (when I don't eat them raw, that is). Parmesan cheese is my new best friend - it has less salt than salt, and it's low fat cheese, which I'm supposed to eat anyway. I ate a few chips with artichoke/jalapeno dip the other night at a party - and had a whiskey & ginger beer drink. I've been having trouble getting all of my egg whites in every day, as well as all my cheese.

So, the point/question is, are all of these "minor" "miniature" indulgences that I allow myself in order to feel like a person in the world actually putting the kibosh on the results that I'm expecting/hoping to see after all this damn jumping rope, exercising and (mostly) staying on point with my diet? Or am I just being impatient as usual? In looking through others' completed PCPs, I notice that most people start to see the most dramatic results after day 50-60. So maybe I just need to chill the fuck out, be patient, and keep on keepin' on. Or something like that.

On a more positive note, I decided to share the vista I get to take in every morning when doing my jumps (or one of the vistas, anyway - I just decided to turn around and face a different way this morning and saw this corridor of trees leading up to a very nice house across the street from the park). I decided to be thankful that I get to jump rope in such beautiful surroundings rather than be cross at myself because I mostly still can't get through 50 jumps without tripping. Obviously this new positive attitude is something of a work in progress. ;-)

They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn...

I was riding my bike home from the store yesterday and for no apparent reason the song "Meet Me in the Morning" by Bob Dylan made an appearance in my brain. I sort of hummed it to myself midlessly for a few minutes, then realized the import of what I was actually singing - "They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn". Kind of a cliche, I guess, but just noticing it and drawing the connection between that random lyric and my life as it is right now was pretty powerful. The last few years have been nothing but struggle for me and my family. It's just been one thing after the other after the other. We're at a point right now where we can sort of faintly see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's still not a given that we'll actually get there. Of course, I believe (as one has to in order to keep going) that we'll get there. However, as one roadblock gets lifted, it seems that another comes down 50 yards ahead of that one. So, today, I'm going to thank ol' Bobby Dylan for the wisdom that carried me through another day. I'm going to keep that quote in the back of my mind and pull it out whenever things just seem hopeless or overwhelming or whatever. Your past is not your future.

On another note, my Mom sent me this great article yesterday on the Dalai Lama and his perspective on happiness. Highly recommended.
http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/the-doctor-is-within/?emc=eta1

What day is it again?

Had a pretty good day today. I dropped Asa off at preschool at about 8:30, and walked to the park to do my jumps and my pull-ups. Still not able to get 4 sets of 5 (or 6, or 7) pullups in (seems like an awful lot of pullups for those of us who've never ever done a pullup before this week!), but I can do 5 or 6 on my first set, so I'm happy with that. Since I was child-free, I was able to go home and knock out the rest of my exercises right after that. It's really nice when I'm able to get everything done at the same time, even though it doesn't happen all that often. Gets the day off to a good start. After that I went to a coffee shop to do some work, and ran into my wife, of all people (who was supposed to be in school!). I find that it's much easier to get work DONE at a coffee shop than at home or at my store. In the familiar locations there are innumerable distractions, plus my lounge chair at home is just WAY too comfortable and I always end up nodding off if I'm doing boring computer work. So, note to self, need to get to the coffee shop more often. Today's meals were much more orderly as well - yesterday was a hodgepodge of random leftovers and whatever I could scrounge out of the fridge ("OK, 80g of tuna salad, that means I need another 80g of meat...50g of leftover kale, let's just eat 150g of raw string beans - that's easy").

Crabtastic.

Woke up "on the wrong side of the bed" this morning, feeling grumpy and a bit depressed. I've been talking with various important people in my life about how I have more of a negative than a positive outlook on life, and how I need to figure out how to become an inherently happier person. This is not as easy as it sounds. We are conditioned over the course of our lives to think in certain ways, and in my case, I seem to have been conditioned to a "glass is half empty" mindset rather than the other way around. My wife and I were talking about it last night, and she thinks I should start doing yoga/meditation. I've dabbled a little bit in it here and there, but never stuck with it even remotely seriously. So, I think I may give it a shot.

As usual, once I got out and moving, my mood improved slightly. I took Asa to the park and did my jumpropes (thankfully right before the sun started beating down on my special jump rope spot). 1000 jumps felt easy today. Not like they were super smooth or anything, but I wasn't particularly worn out after I was done (which is odd, because after yesterday's 900, my calves were super sore). Go figure. Yesterday was another "I'll do the exercises later in the day" day, and then 10pm rolled around and I was too tired, go figure. However, I happily noted that that I only had to do 1000 jumps today, so I'd just roll yesterday's exercises over to today. Not a bad plan, except that things being what they are, I ended up in the company of the kiddo while trying to do my exercises. He thought my lunges were HILAROUS, and kept trying to grab the resistance band while I did shoulder raises. Overall, I got everything done, but I'm sure I spent over 1 minute in between exercises trying to distract him with something or other.

Currently the kid is sitting on the couch watching "Bob the Builder" while I'm listening to "Everest" by Arcwelder - good workout music. Kind of a strange combination - but thankfully he doesn't seem to mind.

PCP vs. Life

I have a feeling that this is the time in most people's PCP where the novelty starts to wear off, and thoughts like "oh, God, another 800 (or 900 or whatever) jumps? Another 1/2 hour of exercises? Another 1/2 hour of weighing out my portions? Can't I just eat a fucking sandwich? (I know I could eat a sandwich, but weighing it all out just seems to take the fun out of it)" start to pop up with more frequency. Yesterday once again started out fairly well with my jumps done in the morning at the park. Due to time constraints I once again had to put off the exercises until later in the day, then found that I barely had the energy to drag myself from the easy chair to the bed, let alone do push ups and sit ups and davincis and whatever else.

This morning was another son-daddy date at the park - except that unbeknownst to me, there was a big hootenanny happening at the park today, involving food vendors, a swing band, and lots and LOTS of kids and parents. I got through 450 jumps before Asa got completely distracted by the musicians warming up (just like mama & papa, he LOOOOVVES music, which makes me very happy)...so I took him over to watch for a little while. So...it's almost 4pm and I still have another 450 jumps plus all the other exercises (including a second try at pull-ups - this morning at the park I managed one set of 5, then 3, then 2). However, I am planning on hitting the gym on the way home, so I WILL get everything else done today.

The wife and I had a long "discussion" this morning about my PCP activities and how they make life more difficult for everyone else. Not that she's trying to get me to quit the project or anything like that, just expressing frustration that sometimes she doesn't get to do all the things that SHE needs/wants to do, because I'm so busy exercising, jumping rope, preparing meals, weighing food, etc etc., not to mention all the other stuff that I need to do for my business. We sat down to try to figure out a schedule so that we could both get everything done that we needed to do (she's been complaining that she hasn't had time to go to the gym or do the banking, etc), but all she wanted to do was complain about the problems that we were trying to solve by sitting down and talking. I had the leave to go open the store, so it was a rather frustrating moment. To her credit, later she did create a Google calendar that has all of her stuff on it, so hopefully that will solve (or help solve) the problem.

The main thing I seem to be having trouble with is getting all the exercises in. I seem to be able to get the jumps in, because I make it a priority to get those done in the morning (and it helps that I can do them at the park while Asa is playing), but the exercises seem to fall by the wayside. The solution, obviously, is to get up earlier, but I have been having a really hard time with that as well. Our little human alarm clock decided that 6:30 would be a good time to wake up this morning, and I was SERIOUSLY dragging my ass until I actually got out the door on the way to the park. Sluggish, tired in mind and body, and just kind of miserable. Thankfully, I felt a lot better once I started jumping rope.

Oh, yeah, and I finally broke the 100 mark on my jumps! I should make a whole separate post on that! 139 jumps in a row, right out of the gate! Didn't come anywhere near repeating it in the rest of the 450, but hey, that felt really good. So, I guess the moral of the story is - DRAG YR ASS OUT OF BED, no matter what you feel like, eat some food, start exercising. . So many things to work on/work out.

On and Off the Wagon

Yesterday started out pretty good - I took the boy to the park early-ish in the morning, took my rope, and was able to knock out my 800 jumps at the park on the squidgy asphalt stuff. It was nice doing the jumps outside, and I actually had a more consistent run. Still no sets of 100, but I was doing sets of 30, 40, and 50 the whole time. I didn't have time to do the rest of my exercises in the morning, so I figured I'd do them in the evening. Then I remembered that my wife and I had a date set up for that evening, and she was going to pick me up directly from the store. So, I thought, maybe I can do some exercises at the store. Didn't happen. Date night was very good, though - we went to a free concert in front of Portland City Hall put on by PDX Pop Now (a local organization that exists to promote local music), then went to a soiree at this fancy loft condo that I helped to decorate that's part of the Street of Dreams tour. Up until that point, things hadn't taken a major turn downhill PCP-wise - we had gotten some food at Whole Foods, and while it was an un-sanctioned meat (pork), it was still pretty much meat, carbs and veg.

Then, after the party, we decided to go to Savoy, this charming little pub owned by a friend of ours. Needless to say, things went downhill here. Not horribly so (half a cocktail, a few french fries and an olive salad plate, which I have to say, was absolutely divine and I don't regret for one second), but certainly not on the program. We got home at about 11pm, and I briefly contemplated finishing up my exercises, let's just say that I did not.

However, today I am definitely back on top of things. I went to the park again to do my jumps (and, conveniently enough, there's a pull up bar installed there as well), which went fairly well. I think I might have actually gotten the elusive set of 100 under my belt, but ironically, I couldn't remember what number my set began at, so I don't know for sure. However, it was a good set, and that's really all that counts. I did my other exercises before hand at the house, jumps and pull ups at the park (1 set of 4, 2 "sets" of 2, not horrible for my first time, I think), rode to work (with a pit stop at a great warehouse clothing sale where I scored some great cheap new duds in my new size 30), now at work eating my lunch which was mainly procured from the venerable Sheridan Fruit Market (a piece of salmon and a rice & sweet potato cake with some string beans and sugar snap peas I brought from home).

I will confess that I've had a hard time getting those egg whites in with my mid day fruit snacks. it's just one extra step of preparation in the morning, and I'm not in the habit yet. Today, however, I cooked up my 2 egg whites and put 'em in a little to go container, and I'm good to go.

My new Vita Mix blender...and more J-rope angst.

I scored this killer unit today for $24 at one of my fave resale shops. They sell on eBay for around $75 (plus shipping of course), so not bad. I've been looking for a new blender ever since we broke the glass cylinder on our Waring Blendor (one of the best blenders ever made, A), because it's called a BLENDOR - how cool is that?, and B), because it looks more like a rocket than a blender. Oh yeah, and it blends the shit out of anything you put in it). However, the Vita Mix might be even better - especially since the container is metal, and thus impossible to break! If you're looking for a really good blender, please don't buy a new one. They're all plastic pieces of shit, unless you go and spend a ton of money on a commercial grade one. These vintage ones are super sturdy, incredibly powerful, and absolutely bombproof (assuming that you don't go and break the glass).

I also scored one of these lamps for $22 at the same store, so it was a good morning! ;-)

However, my J-ropes totally SUCKED today. I mean, I think this was my worst set ever. The best run I had out of the whole 800 was 39 jumps. 30-FREAKIN'-NINE. I mean, COME ON. That's pathetic! I think the average number of jumps I did before tripping today was probably somewhere between 10-15 - no joke. And there were MANY times that I didn't even make it through 5 jumps! 1,2, trip. 1,2,3, trip. 1,2, trip. 1,2,3,4, trip. .
The thing that's weird is that I don't feel like there's anything especially wrong with my form. The jumps that I DO get right are super smooth and feel really good. It's just that I can't get enough of them in a row! I swear there's some mental component to it. Invariably, if I get on a good run (which for me is 30-40 jumps), I start to think something like "hey, maybe I've got it, maybe I can do 100 jumps this time!", and INVARIABLY I trip like 5 seconds after those thoughts roll through my mind. I've been trying to figure out how to not think those thoughts and just keep my mind on the number that I'm currently on and not get ahead of myself, but that doesn't seem to help much either. The exercise itself isn't even that hard - it's just so damn FRUSTRATING!!

On a happier note, seeing that we were going to start doing real pull-ups, and never actually having done one in my life before, I decided to give it a try - and I was able to do one, no problem! I doubt I would have been able to do too many, and I decided not to push it (the time will come soon enough), but it felt good to be able to even do just one. Small victories, right?

...and on the 12th day, there was a gimped knee.

My knee still felt wonky this morning so I decided to ditch the j-rope for one more day. Hopefully tomorrow I can get back to it. Overall lazy day - although I rode my bike to work, I had my wife come pick me up with the car because it started to rain and I didn't even have a jacket with me. Did about half the PCP exercises this morning and may or may not actually do the rest of them tonight. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

I made another bomb-ass meat protein dinner dish tonight. Trader Joes' has some pretty nice looking frozed tuna steaks for pretty cheap ($5.99/lb, I think?), so I bought a few of those the other day. I marinated them in some lime juice soy sauce and a little sesame oil, then coated the steaks in sesame seeds. Fried in a pan with a little cooking spray so that the outside is seared and the inside still raw, like sashimi. Then squeezed a little more lime juice over the top when done. The fish would have benefited from marinating longer (I only left it in there for 15-20 min) but even so it was really good. I paired that with some apple-walnut kale from our favorite cookbook and some fresh corn on the cob. I realized that you have to eat 2-3 pieces of corn on the cob to get your 150g of carbs! Tried to get the kid to eat some corn on the cob. He didn't quite get the concept of eating it off the cob, so I cut off some kernels for him, which he was much more interested in playing with them than actually eating. Sigh.

On the exercise side, after an obnoxiously stressful morning, my knee decided to go out on me on jump #544. It wasn't horrible, but it was enough that I bagged the rest of the jumps as well as the lunges. It's feeling pretty much OK now, so hopefully I will be able to resume as normal tomorrow. Other than that, the workouts are going fine for me, although my thighs are ALWAYS SORE.

I'm actually kind of enjoying the diet as well. It's not too far off from how I usually eat, for the most part - but it's just forcing me to plan all my food for the day, which means that I actually have ENOUGH food and don't go hungry in the middle of the afternoon, which used to happen all the time. I'm also enjoying preparing off-the-cuff recipes (as you can probably tell from my last two blog posts). The food that we're eating does not have to be boring OR bland, and you don't need to slave in the kitchen for hours to prepare a delicious meal.

On that note, it is bedtime for me. Guten nacht.

...and on the tenth day they ate Baked Pesto Parmesan Chicken.

I pulled this dish out of my brain tonight, and it was quite delish, and dead simple to make.
Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup pesto
2 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
4 or 5 good olives chopped fine
a good handful of grated parmesan cheese
1 heirloom tomato, sliced (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Remove skin from breasts if not already removed. Sear both breasts in a hot pan until nice and brown. Mix up your pesto, garlic & olives, and spread it all over the chicken breasts. Sprinkle the parm all over the chicken breasts. Stick in the oven for about an hour. In the last couple of minutes of cooking, put the chicken under the broiler. This will turn the parm into a nice golden crust...et voila!
I ate my requisite 140g of chicken with a nice fresh sliced heirloom tomato...which was great if you're into that sort of thing.

In other news...I really need to start getting up earlier. If I don't, my workout usually ends up getting pushed to the end of the day, and as previously discussed, I really don't like working out at night. Today I was able to get a daytime workout in because our little friend was in preschool all morning. However, because I didn't get up early, my workout ended up cutting into my work day, and I ended up not getting a whole hell of a lot accomplished today. So, tomorrow it's the alarm clock for me.

Take 2 chicken breasts (I bought plain split breasts instead of boneless/skinless, they were half the price), remove skin. Sear breasts in a hot pan on all sides (obviously not the bony side if you're not using boneless). Take about 1/4 cup of pesto, mix in 2

...number nine...number nine...number nine...

Just got back from another late night workout. Have I mentioned that I REALLY don't like late night workouts? However, today was another one of those wacky days where there was just no time to get it in anywhere else in the day. My wife had an acupuncture appointment at 8:30 AM, and my thought was that I would get up early and go to the gym before she had to leave...but let's just say that didn't happen. The rest of the day was one hectic mess after another, which I won't elaborate on - but long story short, I didn't get to the gym til 10pm. Stumbled through my jumps 20 or so at a time, cursing the whole way, grunted through all 128 lunges (16x4 on each side), etc etc. I tried to get the door anchor thing to work at home but was having issues, and thought, "hey, I have a gym membership, I can just do these exercises there". So I did the chest press at 80 lbs (3x12) and the row at 160 lbs (also 3x12). Heavy enough that I barely made it through all the reps, but light enough that I DID make it through. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do the tricep dip because of my wrist (it doesn't like to bend back that way) but it ended up being OK. It took a few times to get the hang of the motion, but by the last set I think I got it down.
Because of my rushed morning, I was only able to take my fruit snacks and 200g of veggies (raw string beans again) with me to work, and had to rely on my beloved Sheridan Fruit Market for the rest. The Sheridan Fruit Market is this fantastic little spot about a mile from my store that has the best hot/cold lunch deli case in the entire city. Best as in delicious, high quality, imaginitave food for ridiculously cheap. We're talking broiled salmon with lemon & dill for $6.50/lb, or grilled flank steak with kumquats also for $6.50/lb (just a few examples of delicacies I've enjoyed there in the past). Today, my assistant ended up going and called me with the day's choices when he got there. I ended up with two grilled shrimp skewers and 1/2lb of coconut rice with squash and pineapple. Both were good, but the shrimp skewers were notable in that they had something OTHER than shrimp on them. Each skewer had 3 good sized shrimp, and a piece of some mystery substance on either end. I tasted the mystery substance and literally could not for the life of me figure out what it was. I gave a piece to Matt (my assistant), who said "I hope it's not chicken!" (he's vegetarian). It wasn't chicken. After much deliberation, we both came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, cheese. Grilled cheese on a stick with shrimp. Ummmm...WTF?? I mean, it was tasty and all (if overly salty), but wow, talk about unexpected!
Because of the crazy day we had at the shop, I didn't eat lunch until aboput 3pm, by which point I had already eaten all my string beans as well as my morning and afternoon fruit snacks. However, I was hungry for dinner (a repeat of last night's pot roast) around 7, which I found kind of surprising. It's now 11:15 - I shall have my evening fruit and milk and hit the sack. Night, all.

...food coma...

I didn't eat dinner until about 8:30pm. Even then I wasn't really hungry, but I still somehow managed to eat it all...but now I'm in a post-Thanksgiving food coma. I somehow don't think the "evening snack" is going to happen, and I think those squats that I was "saving for later" are out the window too. Good thing I rode my bike a few extra miles today, yeah? I'm still really confused as to how eating past the point of fullness (which I've always been told is a big no-no - it even says so on the front page of the PCP!) is going to get us into peak condition. I guess I will just have to wait for Patrick to explain the mystery. I'm sure there's a method to the madness - I just haven't the foggiest notion of what it is at this point.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing!

I have somehow managed to power down all the food I'm supposed to eat today. This was breakfast:

On the left, we have 160g of Bob's Red Mill Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal (which I highly recommend, BTW) with some fresh raspberries (and, I must admit, a bit of maple syrup and a touch of half n half, because it was leftover from yesterday. From now on I will add milk instead - but I don't think I'll be able to leave out the maple syrup entirely).

On the right we have my 180g of veg scrambled with 1 egg and about 30-40g of cheese (mixed, Gruyere and Parm). Somehow I ate it all. I was full, but not overly full. I was able to do my exercises about 15-20 min after eating all this. I forgot about the milk until later, but I did get that down as well.

Exercises went well. The jump ropes are finally starting to get easier. I've found the secret is definitely to slow down. I still trip quite a bit, but at least I don't get whipped in the wrist 'cause the rope's going so fast, and although I still haven't done a clean set of 100, I got up to 85, so that's something! I did the jumps and the incline pull ups at the gym (using the moveable pull-up bar they have there) then went home to do the rest. I was a little weak on push ups today (2 sets of 11, then one of 6, then one of 5). Davincis were tiring but totally doable. Bicep curls seemed really easy. My resistance band actually came with 3 bands so you can add a band to increase resistance, so I think I will add one band for the arm curls next time. All the other went fine - except I haven't done the squats yet. Saving those for later.

In my bike ride to and from work today, I actually felt stronger despite all the exercise I'd done previously. My legs were sore, but they were willing to keep working. I think all that jumprope is definitely having a positive effect.

After I came home, I got out my lunch that I had put together last night (it was about 1:30), and thought "wow". 2 pieces of chicken, 4 falafel patties plus a piece of pita bread, and a ton of raw stringbeans...literally twice what I would normally eat! However, once again, I was able to put it all away. I was full for quite awhile, ate my fruit snack at about 4, and now it's 6 and I'm still totally full.

I just finished making a pot roast for dinner (probably not strictly PCP approved - for one, it's beef, for two, there is wine in the recipe, plus a little olive oil, plus some salt...but it was in the fridge and needed to get cooked, so there you have it. Plus I was able to throw in a ton of veggies (potatoes, carrots, parsnips, fennel) that we had laying around and make use of those), plus there is leftover salad from the other night that has with it this amazing dressing that's made mostly of tofu. A little olive oil, but much less than in a standard dressing. Tastes a lot like "goddess dressing" if you've ever had that. I'll post the recipe sooner or later.

Holy CRAP, that's a lot of food!!

So I just got back from the store after buying my little scale (I had the choice between spending $7 on a lo-tech luddite version or $39.99 on a schmancy digital one - I chose the $7 option), consulted my diet, and started weighing out some of my food for tomorrow. And...like the title of the post says...holy CRAP that's a lot of food!! Par example: my veg portion for breakfast broke down to half a zucchini, 3 good sized mushrooms and 1/3 of a bell pepper. That weighed out to 180g raw - and I'm going to cook them, so it's really going to end up being less! But seriously - that's about the amount of veggies that I'd put in a 5 or 6 egg omelet for the whole family! So this is going to be one lopsided omelet in the morning! That plus 160g of carbs?? Am I going to be able to eat all that?? I guess I'll find out in the morning!

I also bought a special container with which to take my lunch with me every day, and quickly realized that I'm going to need 2 or 3 such containers to contain the vast quantities of food that I'll be putting down every lunchtime! So, lunch is going to be 2 leftover pieces of chicken from last nights' dinner, an enourmous handful of raw string beans, and 6 (count 'em, 6) leftover falafel patties from a few days ago. I'm finding it odd that we were meant to cut our portions in half, and now that things have started in earnest, we're meant to eat twice as much as we did before!! What gives?

In other news, our trip today to the u-pick farm was a minor letdown, as there weren't really any berries to pick - at least not that we could find! We trapised around the fields looking through the underripe/overpicked raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, and after a half hour, pretty much gave up. However, there was plenty of pre-picked stuff to buy, which we did. Spent a little over $50, which got us a half flat each of raspberries and blueberries, 3lbs of rainier cherries (which, sadly, are not nearly as good as the ones I posted about a few days ago), 3 or 4 lbs of string beans, a few lbs of yellow squash & zucchini, some pickling cucumbers, a canteloupe, a mini watermelon, and about 3 lbs of apricots. This should cover my fruit & veg intake for at least a week! That is, if my little boy doesn't scarf them all down first!

Day six.

Today was all over the place for me as far as PCP activity goes. I had to take my wife to school in the morning, then had the kid with me the rest of the morning, then went to pick my wife up, she dropped me off at the shop, was there until 5pm when I had an appointment, came home around 7, made dinner, put the kid to bed...oh yeah, I have to do my &!%$# jumpropes! I did my other exercises at home no problem (4 sets of 9 real push ups!), but the jumpropes...

I don't like jumping rope at night. It's harder for me to focus, and overall the exercise just seems more difficult. If I do it in the morning, I'm fresh, have more energy, and in general have a better time of it. However, as today illustrated, circumstances do not always allow for that. So, 10pm, I walked to the gym (it was a nice night for a walk) and slogged through my 350 jumps. It was not easy. I think I literally have welts on my wrist from being punished by my rope for tripping. I actually threw the thing across the room once or twice after 3 times of not making it through 5 jumps. Grrrr....

I'm still trying to decide if it's better to jump faster or slower. I've been trying to get into a fast rhythm, but tonight I seemed to do better when I slowed down a bit. Any suggestions? Also, I think all the jumping is starting to hurt my back a little bit. Hopefully that will pass.

Tomorrow we're going to a u-pick farm on Sauvie Island to pick raspberries and in general stock up on fresh fruits & veg! I'm stoked about that. It will be Asa's first u-pick experience, and judging from the enthusiasm with which he gobbles up the respberries in our back yard, I'm sure he'll have a ball.

I'm Melting!!!

Let's just get this out of the way: I hate hot weather. Hate it, hate it, hate it. For the last 15 some-odd years, I'd been living either in Bellingham or Seattle, WA, both places that may have some of the coolest summers in the country. Then we had to go move 3 hours south to Portland, OR...and while I literally love everything else about PDX, one thing I do NOT love is the fact that in the summer, it's regularly a good 10 degrees warmer here than in Seattle. I was talking to my best friend yesterday (who lives in Seattle), he said "how are you", I said "hot". He said "yeah, it's pretty hot here too. It's got to be at least 80". At which point I wanted to reach through the non-existent phone wire and strangle him, because I was sitting in my non-air-conditioned shop with the thermometer registering a not-so-cool 92 degrees. Now, for practically everywhere else in the country, this is par for the course, but what can I say, I'm spoiled.
At any rate. I wasn't able to get my workout in in the morning yesterday, so I had to do it in the evening - fine, but that meant that when I went to work out THIS morning, I was a little more sore than usual. I took my son to the park this morning, and took the jump rope with me. Unfortunately the cushy asphalt part of the playground was in full, blaring direct sunlight, so that was not an option. I tried jumping rope on the grass in the shade, but the rope kept getting caught up in the grass and whacking me on the back of the head. After trying for a few minutes with the same results, I gave up and ended up going back to the gym. I'm really glad I have that gym membership, otherwise I really have no idea where I'd jump rope! I got through the rest of the workout just fine, although the extra set of push ups were not quite as successful as I would have liked. I did 3 sets of 8, but on the 4th set my arms said "nuh-uh" on #6. However, I AM doing "real" pushups, not on the knees, so I guess that's OK.
In other happy news, I got on the scale this morning, and it read 158 (I was 162 at the beginning of the project)! I don't really care how much I weigh - like Patrick said in today's email, it's all about how you look and how you feel, the number is arbitrary - but at the same time, it feels good to have lost a few pounds already!

I fear that I may turn into a Rainier cherry.

Seriously. These things are unreasonably delicious. I found out that there's a sort-of farmer's market (really it's organic prodice warehouse that has a retail market once a week) 2 blocks from my store. They have Rainiers for like $3/lb. In the stores they're $6.99/lb. I bought a pound and proceeded to...eat almost all of them. Then on my way home I went back and got more. They are like crack. Perfectly crunchy with an incredible sweet/tart flavor. So, if it's possible to overindulge in fresh fruit, I guess I just did. If you're curious, all you ever wanted to know about Rainier cherries can be found here.