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.

Dos

I woke up feeling pretty sore in the legs from my bike ride yesterday and thought "oh boy, jumping rope is gonna suck today". Turned out to be not so bad. I decided to go to the gym for my exercises today, which was a good decision and one that I will probably continue provided I have the time (although happily my gym is less than a 5-minute bike ride from my house). Jumping rope in the yoga room on the rubber floor was great - I think I got a clean set of 60 in with no trips. Small piece of advice for fellow rope jumpers - don't wear shorts that are even the slightest bit loose. They will fall down.

Completed the other exercises with no issue (felt slightly stronger on the last push up of the last set, but still a struggle) - and I actually did 4 sets of lunges, because I thought it odd to do 2 sets on one leg and only 1 on the other.

Breakfast was eggs scrambled with chicken breast and pesto. For the 3 of us I used 5 eggs and took out 2 yolks. I ate my portion and felt full enough, but then got hungry again 2 hours later. Ate some marinated chicken breast and steamed broccoli from last night's dinner, then proceeded to imitate a pack mule on my bike ride to work. Behold the contents of my messenger bag:

1 laptop + power supply

1 random orbital sander

1 vintage fan w/cast iron base

1 Canon Digital Rebel camera

Lunch (bowl of potato/mushroom soup plus some raw string beans)

Change of clothes

Pair of flip flops (I rock it casual style at my shop - especially when it's hot. No AC!)

And probably some other random nonsense.

Total weight, 28 lbs. May as well have been hauling my son around on my back (although at least the bag didn't wriggle and squirm the whole way).

Day One! The excitement begins!

Warning - this is a LONG POST. I will not be offended if you don't make it though the whole thing!

For the last three days, since I signed up for the PCP, I've been thinking about what I'm going to write on my first post. Lots of different things have gine through my head, but of course now that day one is halfway through and I'm sitting down to write my first entry, I don't know where to start! Maybe a little bit about what brought me here in the first place would be helpful.

I can thank Twitter and Gwen Bell (who is one of the thousand-odd people that I follow there) for turning me on to the PCP. I happened to catch one of Gwen's tweets about the PCP, which brought me to the website, which got me to thinking "holy crap, this might be exactly what I need right now". A few emails were exchanged with Patrick, some doubts were quelled, and here I am. I'm really excited to be here because, maybe for the first time ever, I have total confidence that I will be able to see this thing through. I think the whole transparency/blogging portion of the program is totally brilliant - anyway, it hits the nail right on the head as to why I've never been able to really succeed with an exercise or diet plan (even if it just means getting up early and doing some yoga or whatever). However, when "the whole world" could potentially be watching - it kind of reduces one's tendency to want to flake off on the whole thing.

So, let's get right into my first day experiences. I completed my first day exercises (and then some, more on that later) with no major issues. I did 3 sets of 15 squats, 3 sets of 8 "real" push ups (although I pooped out on the very last one) and 3 sets of 15 sit ups. An aside - I can't believe I've never figured out the magic of the push-up grippy bar! I was pretty much resigned to never doing push ups again after shattering my wrist (it complains very loudly if I try to bend it back that way and put weight on it). However, the bars totally redistribute the weight, and make them totally possible, almost easy. Yay!

I must admit that at this point, I have a total love-hate relationship with the jump rope. I bought one a few days ago, and started practising with it seriously yesterday. At first, I just wanted to throw the thing across the yard, I could hardly get through 3 jumps without tripping. Then, all of a sudden I got into a groove and did maybe 30 jumps in a row, and thought "hey, this is kind of fun!" So, yesterday I did a total of around 250 jumps, with 59 in a row being my best number.

So, I felt pretty confident today when I went outside to do my jumps, and immediately a) whacked myself in the wrist with the rope, HARD, b) whacked myself in the head with the rope, HARD, and c) all of the sudden couldn't make it though 5 jumps without tripping. Again. However, after sticking with it, I got through the 250, and it did get easier, although I wasn't able to get up to the 59 in a row that I did yesterday. I'm finding that possibly the most challenging thing about jumping rope is finding a place to do it. As you all probably know by now, it takes a decent amount of clear square footage to do it, and there's literally nowhere in my house that I could do this without moving large heavy pieces of furniture. So, outside it is. The backyard is problematic because the ground is uneven, and I have a bad right knee (torn ACL), and I'm worried that if I come down a little funny on my right side on uneven ground, my knee could go out, which is the last thing I need. So, the other immediate option is the driveway or sidewalk out in front of the house, which I guess is OK for now, but I think once we get into doing more and more jumps, the concrete will be less than forgiving.

Now, it's not like I don't have any other options. I do belong to a gym, and they have a nice room with a padded rubber floor that sometimes gets used for yoga classes where you can just do stretches or exercises or whatever (provided, of course, that there's no yoga class going on). There's also an area at the park where I take my son to play on an almost daily basis that is this very strange sort of squidgy asphalt. It's almost like roofing material or something, but it's on the ground on the playground, and is quite soft and springy (presumably so the kids won't hurt themselves as bad when they fall off the monkeybars or whatever). However, the problem with this is that most of the time there's lots of kids running around, and I wouldn't want to whack one of them with my rope! It is an option, though. I'll probably try the gym for now, but I feel kind of silly going to the gym, jumping rope for 5 minutes, and leaving.

After I finished my exercises and took my son to preschool, I decided to go on a bike ride (he started preschool 2 weeks ago and I've decided that on Wednesdays I'm going to go on a long-ish ride after I drop him off). Today I rode out to Forest Park (which is one of the largest in-city parks in the country) from my house (a little less than 15 miles round trip) then up the fire road that goes through the park (about 6 miles up and another 6 back). When I got to the top I somehow took a wrong turn and ended up going down the wrong side of the mountain, which dumps you out on Highway 30 - which is a 2-lane, 55mph highway - that also happens to have a bike lane (only in Portland!). The whole trip took about 2 1/2 hours. A good ride for sure(28 miles?), and I would be lying if I didn't say that my legs were more than a little jello'd when I finally got home! I need to get a bike computer so I know exactly how far I've gone and how fast I was going.

Now for the diet. I told Patrick that, to be honest, I'm already fairly conscious about my portions. I'm not exactly a "big mac and a large fries" kinda guy. When my wife and I go out to eat, we almost always split an entree. However, even so, I get that I could probably be a little more careful. Patrick advised that I should try to cut my intake somewhere between 25-50%. Normally, for breakfast one of us (whoever gets up first) will do up a scramble for the whole family using 5 or 6 eggs (for 2 adults and one 2-year old - but I swear sometimes he eats more than we do!). However, today Kelly had to get up super early for school, so I ended up just cooking for myself. I did one egg plus one white, and diced up some of these adorable little purple potatoes that were part of this week's CSA share (more on that later in another post). Fried those with a tiny bit of olive oil, a little salt and pepper, and some fresh rosemary from the backyard, added the eggs, et voila! Washed it all down with half a glass of organic strawberry lemonade.

My mid-morning snack was a lemon Larabar which was eaten at the mid-point of my bike ride (sorry Patrick, I ate the whole thing! ;-)). When I got home I was, shall we say, VERY ready for lunch, so I heated up a baguette that I had left over from last night's dinner, cut off about a 4" chunk of it, and made a sandwich with some pepper turkey, tomato slices, fresh pesto and a tiny bit of low fat mayo. Paired that with a SMALL bowl of beet & rosemary soup that I made last week. It was yum.

The main differences between these meals and what I normally would have eaten: if I was cooking breakfast for myself, I probably would have used 2 or 3 whole eggs in my scramble instead of 1.5 . Sometimes if I use 3 eggs I take a yolk out, but sometimes not. Also I would have had a whole glass of lemonade (or OJ or whatever). For lunch I would have had a bigger bowl of soup, would have used 3 or 4 turkey slices instead of 2, and would have probably cut off an extra 2" of baguette. The result? I ate lunch a little before noon. It's now 3:20, and I'm starting to get hungry again. Not too shabby.

I think that's it for now. Congratulations for making it through this extra long post, I guess I had a lot to say (and will probably continue to, as time allows)!