Final post

Like Jenny, I want that COMPLETE stamp! Time to wrap it up.

It's been a weird couple of days since the PCP formally ended. I've had to resist the temptation to weigh my meals, I've been on a bit of a sugar bender, and I've eaten a couple of things that have made me sick. Not seriously sick, just stomachache sick, don't-need-to-eat-that-again sick. Patrick has been assuring us all that we won't want some of the bad stuff we used to eat, but I've been skeptical. I thought my old, bad habits were pretty damn ingrained and that I would probably just slide right back into them as soon as the 90 day framework was over. I am proud (?) to say that I've tried to readopt some of my old habits, just to see what it's like, and I really, really don't want to eat the way I used to eat anymore. I think it's going to be so much easier because I'm not trying to enforce some external "ideal" of what I "should" eat, but I'm going to be eating what I actually want: good, healthy, fresh food. Today I reverted right back to my standard PCP lunch, which was so delicious -- grilled chicken, avocado, tomatoes, whole grain tortilla.

I have to be honest here and say that my final pictures make me pretty happy but not entirely satisfied. I started off so very far from fit, there's only so much that can be done in 90 days.


This picture is from last summer, sitting on my parents' porch watching my daughter play in her baby pool. I was looking around for something that showed my body better, but I was pretty good at avoiding cameras then. But I see the softness in my shoulders and arm, the roll of my belly, and my thick legs and hips. I also see that I'm slouching and I'm kind of wrapping myself up, trying to hide.

And here I am today. Three months ago, I could not have imagined posing for a picture with this small amount of clothing on. If you look back through my Flickr stream, my early weekly photos show me wearing pants because I just did NOT do shorts. I ran 2 5K races last year in pants. And now here I am, in my favorite new workout shorts -- because I don't have to hike them up when I do creep and floor jumps.

My delight is somewhat tempered because I still have some work to do -- I don't look at my final pictures and see my ideal shape... just yet. But I'm going to focus on what I've accomplished in the last 3 months, which is more than I ever imagined. I have:

Eaten vegetables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I've always liked vegetables, but I used to kind of forget about them. Now, a meal doesn't seem complete without them.

Remembered how good eggs & milk can be. Again, something I just kind of forgot about.

Learned a new way to cook. Go to the store or the farmers' market and buy what looks good and in season! Whatever's in the fridge, just cook it and eat it! Recipes and cookbooks are fun for special occasions, but day in and day out, that amount of planning and work just weighs you down (literally). I now know how to shop and prepare simple, good food for daily consumption and it's really nice to be able to take care of myself this way.

Finished something I started. This is huge. I'm great at beginning projects, at getting instruction books and buying lots of exciting supplies and reading up on new ideas. Then, a few weeks in, when my enthusiasm starts to wane or when things get hard, I usually quit. Not this time. I can take this one waaaaay beyond the PCP.

Woken up at 5:30 am for days on end to work out. Uh, who am I again?

Learned to focus on the company and the setting when going out to eat. Restaurants are fun because someone else is doing the work and has created a nice place for you to relax and enjoy whoever you're with. Going out to eat is much more enjoyable when it happens infrequently and with people you don't get to see often, rather than just as a default setting when you don't feel like cooking.

Lost 20 pounds on the scale and 1 or 2 dress sizes. I was just about bursting out of my size 12 jeans when I started this program, and I absolutely refused to buy bigger clothes. Two days ago, I tried on some size 8 pants and they slid right on.

Become a better parent. I have more energy and more strength to do things with my very active two-year-old now. Parenting requires a lot of physical strength! Try bending down to pick up a 25-pound child while carrying two bags of groceries and a diaper bag. Oops, she dropped her sippy cup! Bend over -- with allll of that stuff and the kid -- and pick it up off the floor. Thank you, floor jumps and squats. Plus, I'm just in a better mood more often, so I can be silly and play with her more instead of getting frustrated about every little thing. I want her to have happy memories of our times together, not mom shoveling cookies in her mouth or being irritable and exhausted.

Some thank-yous are in order. First, my husband, Alex.


(This was the look on his face when I told him I was cutting out salt.) He'll be the first to tell you he was initially skeptical about this program. Who is this dude in Japan and what kind of cult are you joining? But I told him that I had done my research and thought this would be the right thing for me, and he said he'd support me. And he did it, every step of the way, from taking Maya to the playground so I could work out, to his solo meals for the 7 weeks (I think) that I ate apple & egg white for supper, to encouraging me to keep going even when I was deep in the PCP Valley and hating everything, to nodding appreciatively when I showed off my biceps. He saw the results and he saw that what I was doing was sane and sustainable. He posts on Facebook maybe 4 times a year, and here's what he posted on Monday:

I have to give my wife her props.
For 3 months she got up at 5:30 am, worked out for an hour, stayed true to a strict diet, kept the house and the kiddo together, wrote magazine articles, dj'd and...(if this weren't enough) in the process looks even more gorgeous than before!
Madam, I tip my hat!

Really sweet. Thanks, babe.

I also have to say thank you to my parents, especially my mom, who has been through a weight-loss journey of her own in the past year and was very inspiring. One of the reasons we moved home to Louisville from New York was so that Maya could spend more time with her grandparents, and I'm so grateful that my parents take good care of themselves and are able to do things with her. I hope they'll be able to take her swimming and to "bouncy castle madness" for a long time to come.

Thanks also to my friends who followed my progress on Facebook and in person and cheered me on. You don't know how much it meant to me!

And of course -- Team SEXAAAAAY. I am so grateful to have met you all and to have shared this experience with you. The social support aspect of this program really knocked my socks off -- anyone can make changes in their diet or exercise, but having those other people there to pick you up when you're down makes a TREMENDOUS difference. I was always surprised, too, by how much I helped myself when I reached out to someone else to help them. I always felt connected to you, wherever we were around the globe, jumping rope together. Please keep in touch as you can.

Thank you to Chen, who I presume is back there somewhere, calming devising our weekly grams and giggling to himself about putting creep and floor jumps together on the same day.

And Patrick. Oh, Patrick. Opening a can of whoop-ass when needed, offering a calm "don't worry about it" when needed. It's wonderful to have an adviser who not only knows about the physical stuff but the mental stuff too. You're doing good work in the world. It's been a pleasure, sir.

To the teams behind us: keep going and finish strong! I'll be watching you! You're going to be so glad you finished this, no matter where you wind up. To anyone considering doing this program: this is the real deal. It's not a gimmick, it's not a cult, it's not a waste of time or money. But you may experience serious inner change, so be ready for that.

This is not the end of my journey, by any means. I'm enjoying my little break right now, but I've still got some work to do. I think tomorrow is a good day to pick up the jump rope again, and maybe hit up a yoga class. But I have knowledge now -- knowledge about what my body needs, and knowledge about what I can accomplish. Love you all. Bye for now.

Day 90: Wow

So it's Day 90. I had my usual PCP breakfast this morning and am just getting started on revising my magazine piece that's due tomorrow. I don't really feel all that different from yesterday, except I know that I've got to do a workout later that's probably not going to kill me. :-)

Actually, this is one very important thing I've learned: none of these workouts have killed me. I've felt very tired, very sore, and sometimes not very excited about working out, but nothing really bad has ever happened because I worked out. It sounds kind of silly when I write it down like this, but I think it's important to remember. Every day that I work out is an investment in my health and my future, and although it's been really hard at times, I've never thought afterward, "Well, that was a bad idea." I've only missed one workout over the course of 90 days (ONE!) and that was a day when I was pretty sick, so I rested instead -- and that was an incredible learning experience in itself, because I got better so quickly.

This is not the big sum-up post just yet. I still have a lot of thoughts to get in order, and I want to see what comes up for me when I'm not eating according to my little laminated sheet anymore. I can admit that I'm nervous about going out on my own and not counting everything. I think we've all known people who have lost a lot of weight and then, 6 months later, it's all back and then some. I'm not going to be that person. 6 months from now, I'm going to be in even BETTER shape than I am now. (Lucky for me, I still have some work to do!) But I know that in order to do that, I'm going to have to listen to my body and my mind in a way that I've never done before, not even during this 90-day program.

One thing that keeps coming up for me is an idea from Women, Food and God, a very interesting book that might be of benefit to anybody who's had issues with emotional eating. The author repeatedly goes back to the point that whenever you reach for food to handle emotions, you are telling yourself that you'll be destroyed by those emotions unless you eat something. And when you can be conscious enough to avoid that unnecessary eating, you are acknowledging that you won't be destroyed by whatever is bothering you, that you can deal with the emotions directly and you won't fall apart. For people who don't reach for food when they're upset, this may not make much sense. But I know that this is still an issue for me, even with all the knowledge I've gained about physiology and nutrition and exercise. The idea that I am emotionally strong enough to handle whatever comes up is very powerful, and it's helped me this week when I've been stressed out by a number of things. I know I'm going to continue working with this going forward.

In a way, I feel like it's helpful not to make TOO big a deal of "Day 90." Yes, I want to celebrate all of our hard work, and the fact that we ALL made it here! We have stuck with this program and more importantly, we have stuck together. That is incredibly valuable and I am so grateful to you all. I hope we can keep in touch a little bit too.

And on the other hand, it's just a Sunday in August. Summer is starting to fade and we're already talking holiday plans in my house. I have work to do, laundry to fold, and a child to raise. Life goes on.

Sending big PCP love to you all -- more soon.

Day 89: A Swirl of Emotions

Several things are coming together this weekend to make me a little bit emotional. The PCP is ending, I have a big writing deadline Monday morning, my in-laws are visiting, I'm about to start my period -- there's a lot at once. But somehow I'm not freaking out. I'm just doing what I need to do and taking it one step at a time.

Today's workout was really tough, but I felt pretty good afterwards. I liked setting up my little stations to move from one exercise to the next. I felt kind of badass. I have constant problems with confidence, and I kept thinking to myself today, "Look at what you're doing! You are really strong!" I was so proud that I made that workout my BITCH.

And now my shoulders are killing me and my legs are talking to me a little bit. I'll probably be sore as hell in the morning.

And I'm very curious to know more about the special Day 90 workout, since I haven't seen it yet. I'm guessing it'll be 5 minutes of levitation, followed by bending a spoon with my mind. Am I right, Patrick?

I have a lot of thoughts about what this whole process has done for me, but not enough time to put them all down right now. I've got another busy day ahead of me tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep. Thinking of all my PCP pals tonight, as we start to move into the post-PCP world.

Day 88: A simple plan

Here's my simple plan for getting through 5 sets of any exercise:

Before first set: OK, this'll take a while, but I can get through it all.

After first set: No problem! Barely felt it.

After second set: Yikes, that's starting to hurt. I'm never going to make it through 5 sets. F*** it, I'm only doing three sets.

After third set: Ouch! But I'm going to feel bad if I wuss out after 3 sets. OK, fine I'll do four sets, but that's IT.

After fourth set: &*%^$! That hurts! But if I just do ONE MORE set, I'll be done. OK, fine.

After fifth set: Woo hoo! I did it!

Works every time. :-)

P.S. The "temporary" smaller pants I bought at the outlet mall in Florida a month ago are now huge in the waist. I officially have nothing to wear but jeans and yoga pants. Yay? Yay.

Day 87: Takeaway (Food)

It's mid-afternoon and I haven't done my workout yet -- not feeling great today. Allergies have risen up and my head is full of goo. Bluurrrrrrgh. Also sweating a couple of deadlines and nervous about the next few days in terms of work. It'll all be okay but I think I'm internalizing the anxiety and that's contributing to the headache. I had lunch, 20 minutes with my eyes closed, now a cup of tea while waiting for my husband to come home. He's going to take our daughter out for the afternoon, and then it's workout time for me.

I wanted to write a little bit about how my thoughts and actions regarding food have changed over the course of this 3 months, and what I plan to do going forward.

In the past couple of years, I've gotten more and more interested in the "where our food comes from" questions that are becoming so prevalent, at least here in the US. Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma really made me start to think differently. I also co-produced a series of radio essays written by an organic farmer outside of New York City, and talking with her about her life and work was really formative, too. New York is lucky to have so many great farms right outside the city, and a local food culture that values those farms, in the form of abundant farmers' markets and lots of restaurants that feature seasonal and local food. I've really started to see that eating locally is not only the most responsible thing to do for the planet, but it's a great way to invest in your own community and the other people who live there. And the food is way better than anything at the supermarket.

But when it came to my own daily meals, I've had trouble putting all of this knowledge into practice. I've always enjoyed cooking, but I'm definitely more of a cookbook & recipe person. I've always been amazed by people who can just put some things together and make a meal. I took a French cooking class a couple of years ago, which was incredibly helpful in terms of basic techniques. But I would still be stymied when I went to the farmers' market. I would buy beautiful things and then let them languish in my fridge for lack of ideas. (Which felt almost sacrilegeous, given how much hard work I knew went into producing them.) We joined a CSA one year (anyone who doesn't know -- you "subscribe" to a farm before the growing season, then get a weekly distribution of whatever is ready to harvest) and it was not a good experience. The whole pick-up was badly organized, nobody helped out like they said they would, and we got mountains of greens and turnips that we didn't know how to prepare.

Now that we're in Kentucky, I'm happy to see a vibrant local food culture here as well. There's a farmers' market within walking distance of my house, and I have a list in my kitchen of all the markets in town, organized by day of the week. So if it's Thursday and I need tomatoes, I can check the list to see what market is going on that day. There are a number of restaurants here that focus on local food -- in fact, there's a new one opening in the fall that will get 80% of its ingredients locally year round, which I think is rather daring. I even wrote a magazine article earlier this year about one of the leaders in the local food community.

When I started eating PCP meals, I knew that my regular meals wouldn't work anymore -- too hard to measure each category separately, and I couldn't figure out in advance how much was 100 grams of protein or whatever. So I started cooking reallllly simply -- meat, veg, pasta, rice, whatever. Just cooking. Whatever was in my fridge, I cooked it. I don't know why this was a "aha" moment for me, but it was. I hadn't figured out that you can just cook your food (or in some cases, like perfect cherry tomatoes, not even that) and it doesn't have to be a "recipe" or a "dish," it's just food. And all of a sudden, the local, seasonal, farmers' market way of eating finally made sense to me.

So yesterday I signed up for another CSA, this time through Grasshoppers Distribution, a very cool company here in town that aggregates products of local farmers and helps them find a market, whether direct-to-consumers through a CSA or to restaurants and institutions. For the next 12 weeks, we'll get 4-5 produce items, a dozen eggs, a half gallon of milk, and one rotating item like honey, maple syrup, gourmet mushrooms, salsa, and drinkable yogurt. (There are also options to add things like cheese, meat, and bread, but we're going to start with the basics first.) I had wanted to do this before, but frankly, we didn't eat that many eggs or drink that much milk, and I hated the idea of more beautiful produce going to waste because I didn't know what to do with it. We now easily go through a dozen eggs and half a gallon of milk a week (actually, we probably consume more), and I feel ready to cook up whatever produce I get. My whole family's eating habits have changed along with mine and I'm so excited about getting our first CSA distribution next week.

I just started reading another interesting book about eating locally, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She's a novelist who also has a strong interest in the natural world, and she writes about the YEAR that her family spent only eating things that could be sourced locally, preferably from people they knew. Pretty challenging! Her daughter is craving fresh fruit in April, but there's no such thing in southern Virginia at that time of year -- until they find some early rhubarb at the farmers' market, then cook it up with some frozen apples from the year before. It really makes the most sense to eat this way -- the raspberries you get in February are produced at tremendous cost, and they aren't necessarily that good either. Plus, it's kind of nice to remember that we have seasons and certain things are only available at certain times of the year. Makes them more special.

Anyway, this turned into a longer post than I intended. Maybe I'm avoiding the creeps and floorjumps ahead for me today! (Really? Both on the same day? Damn, Patrick.) But I've been thinking about how my food habits have changed (are still changing) and how glad I am that what is good for my health is ALSO what my values support. And also the most delicious.

Day 86: Super!

I am surprised to say this, but I like super sets! More interesting to mix it up than just doing the same motion for 5 sets in a row. I felt tired but invigorated at the end of today's workout.

And doing planks to failure -- that was a revelation. I have had real issues, shall we say, with planks. So much emotion comes up, and it's so difficult to stay with the position, that I have struggled to keep up with the prescribed times. I watch that time tick away and watch my mind get louder and crazier, despite my efforts to breathe and stay focused and calm. So far I have been able to do maybe 60-80 seconds at a time, once or twice reaching 90 seconds under great duress. Today, I just set my stopwatch and then looked away, just because I was curious to see how long I could hold. Uh, first one was about 1:40 (and I think I probably could have gone longer, if I'm honest). OK, ok, I finally get it. Planks are a mental exercise, at least for me. This is hugely encouraging.

I would really love for my developing ab muscles to become visible, but they're still mostly hidden underneath my "wrinkly elephant belly," as Sarah put it. Things really never are the same after a baby, and that's okay. My amazing body gave me a fantastic kid, and if wrinkly elephant belly is the price I pay, I'll take it. But I'm interested to see how good I can make it. I can feel my abs underneath a layer of pudge, and they're pretty hard. Sometimes I just stand in the kitchen, poking my stomach joyfully and looking like a goof. I started out with more fat to lose, so there's still some work to be done in that area. It's coming, though!

Happy day 86, team! Starting to get nostalgic in advance for you guys.

Day 85: Ass, kicked

Wow, I asked my PCP buddies to bring it and it was brought. (Brung? Brang? Broughted?) Thank you all for such a delightful ass-kicking. If you have any further ass-kicking to share with me, I'll still take it. But your words helped me get through today's workout, and I only felt wrecked for about 20 minutes afterward, instead of hours.

Pistol squats followed by floor jumps are hard but kinda fun. I wasn't really sweating that much after my jump rope, but the waterworks started right after the floor jumps. At least floor jumps produce a nice breeze.

I had trouble finding failure on the shoulder fly. I did about 50 during the first set and then realized something wasn't happening correctly. I changed my distance from the wall, I adjusted my feet, I tried a wider or smaller range of motion, and I tried holding for a second at the point of highest tension. I still never really got to that point that I recognize as "failure" from some other exercises. So in the end, I just did a ton of them and will try to figure it out next time.

Damn, those ab exercises are tedious.

I am once again delighted by the general absence of anger, fear, or panic in my workouts. Boredom, difficulty, a little intimidation -- yes, yes, and yes. But I'm not feeling resentful or tearful or anything that I used to feel during a tough workout. If I can push myself and do all the reps, great. If I can't do all the reps, that's fine too -- that means I hit today's limit and that's a good thing. Whatever "today's limit" happens to be, that doesn't reflect on me as a person in any way. It's just where my body is today.

Time for lunch -- shrimp, avocado, cherry tomatoes, tortilla. Yummmmmmmmmm...

Kick me, please!

Here we go, blogging it out:

So we only have a few days left of this thing, and I'm so proud of all of us. Each one of us has taken on our own habits and neuroses, and we've pushed through the pain and the fatigue and the "I can't" and the "I don't wanna." Each one of us has changed, inside and out. Awesome job, everybody!

Wait -- why does this sound like a Day 90 post? Because I'm getting a case of senioritis. Remember that? Only a few months left to go in that last year of school, and your every impulse is to just coast till the end. That's kind of how I'm feeling today. Today's jumprope was just fine, enjoyable even. We're getting these emails from Patrick that are going to help us keep up our success in the post-PCP world, and part of me is already there. Add to that, I am pretty scared by this week's workouts, and I am inclined to just...kinda...wait out the next few days. I wouldn't dream of skipping a workout or going on an eating rampage, but I can tell that my natural laziness is trying to surface, and I could very possibly take it easy until Day 90. I should also mention that I have a couple of big writing deadlines coming up this week, so there's additional pressure to slack a bit on PCP world.

So, I respectfully ask you, my PCP teammates (and anyone else who is reading this) to kick me in the ass. I want to finish this 90 days feeling really strong. I want to surprise myself again, even in this last week. I want to surmount my tendency to retreat in the face of a challenge. I want to do more, and do better, than I think I can do right now. I want my will to be strong and my goal to be clear.

Let the ass-kicking begin. (And let me know if you need yours kicked!)

Day 84: Gym visit

About a year ago, when I had just moved from New York to Louisville, I did a lot of research to find the right gym in town. I knew that I was going to have more time to take care of my health, and I wanted to make a commitment to doing that -- and the best way at the time that I knew was to join a gym. I looked at three places: a fancy-pants "wellness center" (partially run by the hospital where my husband was working), a kind of run-of-the-mill commercial gym, and the YMCA. I settled on the Y because it was mid-priced, had everything I needed, had free childcare, and I liked the vibe: no preening, no loud music, everybody just nice and doing their own thing.

Of course, my membership was woefully underused. My daughter already goes to daycare for 3 hours each morning, so I felt bad about putting her in childcare again for another hour or so later in the day -- so I wound up going in the morning, when she was already at daycare. Pretty much all I did was get on the treadmill or elliptical, which was useful when I was training for the 5K races in the winter. They offered loads of classes at the Y and I always meant to try one out, but just never got there. They had some personal training options but frankly, the personal trainers there kind of worried me -- I had asked one about some leg pain while running and he gave me an completely useless answer while looking me up and down. Blechhh.

My membership at the Y ended in June, at the end of my first PCP month. I spent some time on the elliptical trainers there while waiting for my knee to improve after a couple of weeks of jumping, but once I went back to jumping rope, I didn't need the Y. It's a 15-20 minute drive away from my house, too, which took up valuable time in my day. So much better to be able to work out at home, whenever I have time, even when my daughter is upstairs napping and I can't leave the house. We have a neighborhood pool that we've been using all summer, so we didn't need the pool at the Y either. I'm looking at a couple of other options for indoor swimming for both of us over the winter.

Today I decided to visit a different place, about 3 minutes from where I live, just to check it out. Snap Fitness is a franchise that seems to be growing really quickly -- this place wasn't even open last year when I was looking for a gym. The deal is that the place is open 24/7 and you enter with a key card. There's only a staff person there a few hours each day. It's got treadmills and arc trainers, plus a bunch of other machines, free weights, exercise balls, etc. -- pretty much anything you would need. When I visited today and had the manager show me around, there were 2 people working out, both pretty heavy. The place was clean, bright, and spacious and I liked the idea that I could come anytime and nobody would really bother me. (Weird: they also have a tanning bed, the use of which is included in your membership. Uh, yuck.)

It seemed a little expensive for what you get: $50 a month for a couple, plus $45 fee to start. It's month-to-month, though, so no contract, which is good. They offer personal training services and a weekly "boot camp" for extra fees. If I were going to join a gym, I think I would be happy to go there and just do my thing. My husband was talking about buying a treadmill for the basement, but I would rather join this place and use theirs instead.

BUT -- I don't want to join a gym. I don't need to join a gym now. During this whole process, I've been really glad to be at home where I can sweat and curse and look like hell and not worry about what anybody else thinks. I work out in old shorts and a sports bra, not something I'm going to wear in public. On a rainy, cold morning when it would be hard to get in the car and go to the gym, I have one less deterrent keeping me from exercise if I only have to go downstairs. Before starting this program, I didn't know what to do to exercise at home -- maybe some DVDs? But those get old reallllly quick. I feel so much stronger now with the knowledge of how to get it done at home, on my own, without paying a monthly fee to anybody.

Day 83: Busy

It's been a busy few days around here, and the weekend is winding down. I'm grateful for that, because I am TIRED. All good, though.

Friday night we went to a baseball game with my parents and some of their friends. My dad says the (minor league) baseball stadium isn't really a stadium, it's a food court where some people play baseball. The food options were truly dizzying. Every 10 feet, another stand with different things. I packed my own supper, though -- chicken & mushrooms in a teeny bit of soy sauce, and whole wheat bread. Can I tell you, I was so HAPPY to have my good food with me and not have to try to find something decent there? Everybody else with us pointed to my food and said, "I think I want some of that!" I gave myself permission to have a beer, but I wanted to wait until I had eaten something first -- then as it turned out, I didn't really want the beer, so I skipped it.

Last night was Indulgence #3. We headed to this French restaurant called Le Relais, a classic bistro in an unusual setting. It's located in a wing of the old airport in town, which is now a private airfield. The airport building is very art deco, and the whole place kind of captures the romance of flying in the 1930s and 40s. We sat outside on a beautiful evening and watched the planes take off and land. We ate very well -- crab cakes, grouper with vegetable risotto, creme brulee, wine, and bread with BUTTER. (Oh, butter, it's been a while...) Being a good French restaurant, though, the portion sizes were fairly small and I didn't feel overstuffed when we left.

It was all really good, but I have to say, not as exciting as this meal would have been a few months ago. What I really enjoyed -- and I experienced this during the last indulgence when we went to a restaurant -- was being in a beautiful setting with my husband, having the time and luxury to focus on each other and talk without telling a little person to "put that down right now." It also felt very luxurious to have someone else prepare the food and then take the dirty dishes away! So, lesson learned: restaurant meals out are nice for the experience, but the food has become a lot less important.

Today we went to a friends' house to go swimming this afternoon. I crammed in my workout this morning (58 minutes! Boo-ya!) and let me tell you, jumping was rough this morning. I didn't experience any particular side effects from my indulgence last night, but it took me a long time to get my jumping groove today. Maybe too much butter and wine? Who knows, but it was not pretty for a while there. I thought I'd be exhausted this afternoon but I spent about 90 minutes in the pool with my daughter, and feeling fine. It's so nice to have energy and endurance to do all the things this 2-year-old wants me to do.

OK, time to catch up on Project Runway from this week. Hope everybody has had a good weekend -- will be reading your blogs soon and catching up with you all!

Day 81: Sore!

It's legs day again here on PCP Street. Yeeeee-ow! Creep is such a killer. I'm not even going to mention how many steps we're doing because I don't want to scare the newbies. :) Suffice it to say, it's a lot. But I can actually do it, which is amazing to me. I was thinking about what Louise said, how she was grateful that her muscles didn't pay attention to her brain telling them what they couldn't do. I wasn't sure about making it through that last set of creep, but I decided to let my muscles tell me instead of my brain. And, of course, I was able to do them all. Then my muscles yelled at me for a little bit, because they were TIRED.

This was all after a little walk/run outside. Today was one of those days where I just did not want to see that jump rope, and the humidity here is finally below 98%, so outside I went. I intended to walk for a while, but I felt so good that I just kept breaking into a run for a bit. THIS IS STRANGE.

Before starting the PCP I was a beginning runner. I did my first 5K almost a year ago, and I did another in April. A good friend of mine is a very happy new runner -- she's really taken to it and now goes all over the place doing 5K and 10K runs -- and she encouraged me to try my first 5K. I was terrified but she came along with me and it was actually pretty fun. I had to take some walk breaks but my overall time wasn't bad. Then we teamed up with 3 other women and did a marathon relay in Louisville (my portion was 5K, hers was 10K) and that was fun, too. Really hard, but I enjoyed the excitement of being around all those people and the whole hoopla of the event.

But I really didn't like running. It was really difficult for me to run for any length of time -- 5 minutes felt like an eternity. Basically I was doing it to be more active, hopefully lose some weight, and do something with my friend. I didn't really lose any weight, probably because I ate like a horse, rationalizing that I had "worked hard" today so I "deserved" a cookie or whatever. (Now I really see the folly of those ideas.) I did the training I needed to do to get through those races, and then I said I'd see how I felt after the PCP.

I'm still not sure I'm going to be a real runner, but I can say that running today was easier and more fun than it has EVER been. 20 pounds less of me to move around makes a big difference. I'm lighter and stronger, and my cardiovascular conditioning is so much better, but I hadn't really noticed those things until I tried to do something that I used to do. I can't wait to go try another yoga class now -- I used to do a fair amount of yoga before my daughter was born, but have only done it a few times since then. But I'm willing to bet I'll enjoy it more now.

Big fun weekend coming up. We're going to a baseball game tonight with my parents -- there's a nice little minor-league stadium downtown, right by the river, that everybody says is great, but we've never been. (I'm packing my supper to take with me -- hot dogs, no thank you!) Then tomorrow night is my third indulgence, a little late because of my husband's work schedule. Our anniversary is next week (married 9 years, together for 14 years), so we're going out for a lovely dinner on Saturday night. Sunday we're all going to a friend's house for the afternoon for swimming and dinner. I'll have to cram in my workouts amongst all that fun, but it doesn't seem quite as hard as it used to be.

Hope everybody is hanging in there -- my Day 81 pals as well as my Day 51 and Day 20 buddies.

Day 80: Get off my lawn!

I feel like I'm becoming a grumpy old man when it comes to food.

Let me explain. I don't watch much TV but when I do, the commercials for food and/or restaurants totally gross me out. I can't stand to see ads for big juicy burgers, or those "bottomless" pasta bowls at Olive Garden. (Doesn't "bottomless" sound dirty?) The food just looks repulsive, too shiny, and just too much.

The ad that really got to me today is for Carnation Instant Breakfast, a "nutritional shake" that you're supposed to consume for breakfast. The premise of the ad was that your kid won't do well in school without breakfast. A boy slogs down the hallway of his school, his feet encased in heavy weights. Because he didn't have breakfast, he doesn't have the energy to do anything at school. Cut to a shot of kid at home in the kitchen, Mom looking on with a beatific smile, as he chugs this chocolate shake thing. The kitchen counters are completely empty, totally clean and gleaming. There is not one shred of evidence that there has ever been any FOOD in that kitchen.

And then here's me, yelling at the TV: "What about giving your kid some eggs and toast? Is that too much trouble??"

Oy, I'm becoming a grumpy old man.

But seriously, is this what we've come to? I understand being busy in the morning, and I guess something is better than nothing, but is the best you can do giving your kid a Slim-fast? I wouldn't have dreamed of giving my daughter something like that for breakfast even well before starting this program, but I can tell that I've become even more disconnected from the typical modern American way of eating. (And that's a good thing.)

On another note: no coughing child last night, so I got a full night of sleep! And she's spending the afternoon with her grandmother, so I'm enjoying a day to myself. I organized my office, I'm going to get my eyes checked (yeah, I know how to kick back) and then it'll be workout time.

A word of advice to people who are talking about having to get up all night to pee: if you make sure not to turn on any lights, you can get back to sleep much faster. I can vouch for this as someone who used to get up all the time at night with a little baby -- if you turn on a light, even for a couple of minutes, your body will start to get the signal that you're supposed to be waking up now. If you need a nightlight to find your way or whatever, that'll be okay as long as the light is fairly dim. But don't go into the loo and flip on the light or you'll have a harder time getting back to sleep.

Day 80! Wow, hard to believe!

Day 79: Yawn

It's been a couple of days of "life intersecting with PCP" and I'm pretty damn tired.

My daughter has a mild cold which doesn't cause her too much trouble during the day, but at night all the congestion makes her cough her little head off. So last night and the night before, I was up several times during the night, administering medicine, water, and hugs. (If she's having a really tough time, I sit up with her in a chair for a bit -- being vertical seems to help.) Both mornings I was planning to get up at 5:30 to do my workout, but both mornings saw me heading back to bed at 5 after being up with her, then deciding on a couple more hours of sleep instead and turning off my alarm clock.

I have time to do my workout later in the day, while she's at daycare, but it makes such a difference in my day to get it done earlier. I prefer to use that daycare time to run errands or work on my writing -- I have a deadline looming for my next magazine piece and it's slow going. But yesterday and today it just felt impossible to work out at 5:30 after not sleeping more than a couple of hours uninterrupted. (And before someone asks why my husband didn't get up with her -- he was working an overnight shift at the hospital and is as bleary-eyed as I am right now!) So I'm feeling rather behind on a few things -- but exercise is getting done!

The funny thing is that it's really, really hard to get started when I feel exhausted, but then it generally goes okay, and I'm glad afterward. I know that if I weren't still on a "program" I probably would have skipped exercise both these days, but I'm going to try to remember this feeling and at least do a little something every day, even if I've had a rough night. Luckily my daughter is a great sleeper and these kinds of things are rare.

And here's one other funny thing: my body feels like two bodies at once, the hard and the soft. I can really see my muscles, in my arms and legs, and if I dig a little bit, I can really feel my abs. But the soft parts -- the extra fat that's still there -- feels softer than ever, like it's just hanging off my frame. It's really strange. I was almost 20 pounds heavier before starting this program, and I know I've lost more than 20 pounds of fat because I've built so much muscle, but I felt like I was more solid then, more integrated. It's like I can see the shape that I'm supposed to be, underneath the fat -- I just have to keep working to get rid of it. No complaints here, mind you -- it's just really odd to be harder *and* more squishy at the same time.

Ten more days! Yikes! I'm going to take Patrick's suggestion and do 8MA every day from here on out, and we'll see where that gets me. Yes, I'm making a public vow to do *extra* ab work. What's happening to me??? :)

Day 78: Really? Really??

It's day 78?? Wow, I think I am actually going to finish this thing! ;-)

Just finished today's workout, it went really well. Jumping 7 minutes at a time is hard, but I bet we're going to have to do even longer stretches. I still trip pretty often but I just restart as soon as I can. By the end, I'm panting and sweating, so I guess I'm doing it right!

I REALLY DISLIKE AB WORK. I don't know what it is about the feeling of working ab muscles that I find much harder to tolerate than, say, burning leg muscles or shoulder muscles. When I really get into ab work I feel like I'm going to throw up.

BUT... it doesn't really matter because I'm doing it anyway! I'm thinking that, like my other angry/frustrated/aversion feelings about exercise, those feelings about ab work will slowly get a little quieter. In the meantime, grrrrrrrrr......

My husband made a statement last night that was so simple, so obvious, yet I hadn't really thought about it before. He was saying, "Well, you only have a little more time left on this program, so you'd better really hit those workouts hard." I said something like, "I'm really happy with the progress I've made, but I'm not finished -- I still have a lot of work to do. I'm not going to reach my ideal shape in 90 days." And then he said, "I've got a feeling it's not really about the 90 days."

--mind stops for a moment--

OH, he's right! It's good to have a fixed time period to focus on, to help keep me going when I feel tired and frustrated. "Only 46 more days left..." But, yeah, it's not really about the 90 days. And guess what? That statement doesn't make me feel depressed and trapped, like I'm going to be on some horrendous exhausting program for the rest of my life. It makes me feel like this has been an amazing apprenticeship of sorts, learning how my body works and what to do to make it as healthy as possible. It's not really about the 90 days.

That said, 12 more days! Ay yi yi!

Day 77: A Slippery Slope

Lesson learned yesterday: a half-assed workout can lead to a half-assed day.

I'm not happy about admitting this, but I didn't really try very hard in my workout yesterday morning. I was really tired and just had a hard time getting going. I finished everything, but I did the minimum reps and didn't really keep up the pace between the exercises. Okay, not great, but no big deal in itself. There are energetic days and there are slower days, and I expect that I won't be able to push myself to the limit every single day for the rest of my life.

But then I noticed that I felt much less inclined to be disciplined about my food for the rest of the day. I didn't go seriously off the rails, but I found myself prowling the pantry in the afternoon looking for something sweet. I ate some extra bread that I didn't need to eat, and a little bit of chocolate too. I felt bad afterwards just because it was so dumb and pointless.

I've been doing morning workouts as much as possible because it's easier for me in terms of timing. But I think it also really sets the tone for the day. If I'm up at 5:30am jumping rope, I'm much less likely to sabotage my good work with unnecessary eating. I'm also becoming aware of the emotional situations that lead me to start eating when I'm not hungry, so that's helping too.

Just to be clear, I'm not beating myself up about this. But I am trying to learn a lesson from it. I stuck to my eating plan for the rest of the day yesterday, and the jumping was just fine this morning. I've got many, many more chances to get it right.

Day 75: Family PCP

One of the most surprising things to me about doing this project has been how it's changing the way my family eats.

I've written before about how my husband is very supportive of me, and has continued to be my biggest cheerleader the more he sees the positive results and my continued commitment. But we've had a lot of difficulty with figuring out how to eat together in the past few weeks, especially during that long stretch of apple & egg white suppers. He likes healthy food but he has more traditional tastes than I do -- his favorite meal is going to be meat, potatoes, and veg. Usually I shop & cook for the both of us, but I haven't been doing that so much. He's a great cook but I figure that if I'm home during the day and he's working 12 hours, I can do something nice for him by having something ready when he gets home. So he's had to figure out some meals for himself recently, and I've noticed that just by virtue of the fact that there's more healthy food in the house, he's eating better.

Tonight we were both really tired (he worked all day today, and I got up at 5:30am to work out before he left), and I had that feeling of "let's order a pizza." Which is not, by the way, equivalent to "I want to eat pizza." "Let's order a pizza" means "I'm too tired to figure out what to eat, let's pay someone to bring me something to shove in my face." But since ordering a pizza isn't an option for me at the moment, we both had to figure out something else from what we had in the fridge. I didn't have anything great (some leftover chicken, a few shrimp, some carrot sticks and some cherry tomatoes) but it did the trick. It's nice to know that I can rustle up some dinner without having to think too hard.

My daughter had a totally PCP-friendly supper tonight: plain boiled shrimp, chopped cherry tomatoes, applesauce, milk. Again, we're more likely to serve her good stuff if we have it in the house. I know that I haven't always been great about feeding her the healthiest possible stuff, partially because we tend to feed her around 6 or 6:30, then we make our own supper after she goes to bed at 7 or 7:30. So I'm not about to cook a whole meal just for her, and I confess that I have relied on things like mac & cheese or frozen chicken nuggets (but the good, organic, white-meat-only kind) because they're quick, easy, and she'll eat them. But I'm learning how to string things together to make a meal, and that it doesn't have to be a big deal to throw some chicken tenderloins in a grill pan with some lemon juice. (In fact, I think I do this pretty much every day now.) It's really important to me that she grows up to enjoy healthy food, but I hadn't been able to figure out how to make that happen on a daily basis.

I also love that when she sees me in my sports bra and shorts, she says, "You goin' to do your exercise?" Too cute. When I started this project, she was a big inspiration for me. I want her to have a healthy mom, and to be able to see me as a role model for an active life. Standing halfway inside the pantry and shoving cookies in my mouth, hoping she doesn't see me, is not the lesson I want to teach.

Today's been good. Workout tough as usual (blah blah blah, say this every time), food is pretty much YUM.

One other funny thing from yesterday. I ran to the grocery store to get a few things: cherry tomatoes, kale, mushrooms, whole wheat pasta, chicken, yogurt, soy milk (for lactose-intolerant husband). My grocery store has this thing where the receipt machine spits out automated coupons based on what you bought. I get a lot of coupons for baby wipes, for example, if I'm buying diapers. Well, yesterday the coupon was for... Lean Cuisine frozen dinners. I guess the assumption is that if you're buying all of that kind of minimally processed food, you must be on a diet. So, of course, you want some salt-infused nearly unrecognizable frozen crap! 50 cents off!

Day 74: Creeping towards Peak Condition

So, what does failure look like when we're talking about Creep? Here's what I think happens: after about 35 steps, you wobble, tip to one side, overcorrect and tip to the other side, get your balance back and do a couple of hops up and down in place, unable to put one foot in front of the other, counting under your breath, then you try to scoot that right foot ever so slightly forward but the whole thing collapses and you tumble forward, howling.

Sound right? Yeah, I thought so.

In my case, it also led to a serious case of the giggles. No kidding! I can't believe it either.

I had the day to myself, with my daughter at my mom's house. I got a lot of work done, both around the house and on my current writing project. I ran some errands. I kept putting off the workout because I knew that Creep was on it. But then it was time, I couldn't put it off any longer. It was really tough to get started.

But then once I got through that last set of Creep and I didn't die -- everything got a lot better. Still difficult, but my mindset was much, much brighter. I found myself pushing to get another couple of reps out, looking for that feeling of failure. And then in the shower afterward I had an epiphany.

The moment of failure is the moment of growth.

This probably isn't news to the rest of you, and I think it's what Patrick has been telling us all along. But it was powerful to be able to put it together in one sentence like that.

Failure hurts. It can be physically painful (see: Creep, Plank, jumprope whiplash), but even more than that, it's ego-bruising. Who am I if I can't do this thing that I set out to do? If my self-image as a competent person is reliant on my ability to accomplish something, it feels incredibly unsettling -- even destructive -- to experience failure. I know that in many parts of my life, I have chosen to avoid failure. It's hard for me to admit that and to write it down, but it's true.

But when I can look at failure as instructive, and as a short-term goal in itself, that changes everything. That's when I see my limits and I know that I've pushed them just a little bit, enough to grow a tiny amount. I'm learning not to fall apart emotionally when I experience that failure.

OK, deep thoughts finished for now. One idea to share: yogurt, cherries, egg, and a pinch of cardamom (trust me) in a blender = evening snack heaven.

Day 73: Milestones

I don't have much time to post today but here are a couple of milestones that I wanted to share.

I am officially at the same weight I was in high school, some 15 years ago. There's been only one time since then that I was at this weight or lower, and that was in college when my boyfriend told me I wasn't skinny enough so I quit eating for a while. (That boyfriend is NOT the person I'm married to now!) And of course, as soon as I started eating again, the weight just piled back on. I still don't feel like I'm in my ideal shape but I can honestly say I'm in the best shape I have ever been. Not only is the number on the scale lower than I've seen in a long, long time, I am loving the muscles that I'm seeing! So this is even better than my high school condition.

And, also related to that weight, I finally have a "normal" BMI. (Here's a calculator if you want to find yours.) I don't know if people in other countries use this scale but it's pretty big here in the U.S. I know it's not the be-all, end-all of determining someone's health but I'm happy to see this indicator looking a lot better. When I started the PCP, I was square in the middle of the "overweight" category, and now I'm near the top of the "normal" range. Again, there's still room for improvement, but I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the progress I've made.

The other thing I want to mention is my feelings about the workout. I was finding myself often very angry about having to exercise. I can't explain where those feelings come from, but when things would get difficult or painful I would just feel really, really pissed off. A little bit panicky and scared but mostly angry. The anger itself kind of scared me -- what am I so angry about? Anyway, in the last couple of weeks, that anger has totally gone away. Interesting how the anger disappears even though the workouts feel harder than ever. But how much easier to actually do the workout when I'm not just feeling pissed off about it. Something has changed inside of me and I hope it never changes back.

UPDATE: Check out this article from today's NY Times!

Day 72: New pics

I've got some new pics, after totally forgetting to post any last week. Wow, I can really see a difference! It's encouraging to see some progress.

Workout was fine today. Hard again, miserable at times, even. But done and done. Food is all good! Really enjoying having "real" food for dinner last night.

Day 71: OOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOoooooo....

Hello dear PCP teammates! I am writing to you from beyond the grave.... because today's workout killed me.

Yes, I'm exaggerating. But, damn, it was hard! I glanced down the list of exercises just before starting and thought, okay, nothing new here. But 5x20 floor jumps was probably the death of me. For a few moments after finishing the last set, I really, truly thought I was going to throw up. I had to sit down for a couple of minutes to get my breath back and to feel like I could stand up again. I pushed through the rest of everything but it was definitely a struggle.

On the plus side, I feel like I'm finally learning how to get to failure! It still seems funny to me to be excited about failure, but since that's what we're going for, I'm hitting it. I'm learning how to keep going, even when I'm getting tired, even when I feel the muscles starting to give way, for just a couple more reps. And I feel like every time I do that, I'm really making progress.

I think I just need more sleep. It's been a very busy few days around here, which is why I haven't posted in a few days. I had a writing deadline yesterday morning, so I've been getting up at 5am to squeeze in a couple of good writing hours before anybody else is awake, then doing my workout during my daughter's naptime. This has meant a little less sleep at night and no chance of a nap for me. The good news is that a good draft of the piece is done, the editor likes it, and I'll only need to make some minor changes from here. Yippee!

Also yippee: regular suppers again! Yes, friends, I have emerged from the land of apple & egg white, and I am stronger for the experience. I think I've said before that I don't mind apple & egg white in terms of what satisfies my hunger. It's also kind of nice to not have to play the "what's for dinner tonight" game. I love that I have this simple supper in my back pocket, so to speak, that I can use anytime I want something lighter. But from a social point of view, it's been one of the hardest aspects of this project for me. We're having some friends over for dinner again tonight, and I'm looking forward to having steak & asparagus with them.

Just over three weeks left. Hard to believe. I'm trying to just give every day my best effort instead of worrying about how I'll handle myself when I'm "on my own." Anybody else worrying about this? I'm hoping that my good instincts will take over and I won't forget all the progress I've made so far.

Day 67: Wrecked!

That's how I felt after today's workout. Yikes, was it tough! Those long sets of creep are killer. Anybody watching would literally think I'm dead for about 30 seconds after I finish: I'm just sprawled face-down on the floor. Legs, shoulders and abs all in one day means that no part of my body is spared the soreness.

Unbelievably, though, none of this is complaining. I'm not objecting to the difficulty or the soreness or the fatigue I'm feeling now. Those things are all facts, and I'm not resisting them. Today, at least, I'm feeling pain but not suffering. How interesting.

Day 66: In the groove

Thanks for all the nice words about my awesome new dress! I'm especially feeling proud of my upper body these days so it's nice to have something that shows it off. Lower body... still needs some work. Luckily I still have a few more weeks with you guys!

I have another great incentive to work hard right now: we just booked a trip to NYC in early September. (So Elena, I won't get to see you before the PCP is over, but let me know if you'll be in town Sept. 5-9 and we'll definitely meet up!) The last time I was in New York was late March, when I was almost 20 pounds heavier than I am now. Our daughter stayed home with her grandparents, and my husband and I had a super-fun few days in the city, visiting everybody we could find, endless lunches and coffees and dinners and drinks, plus a fabulous Passover feast. (We're not Jewish but our best friends are, so we always celebrate the holidays with them -- and this upcoming trip is scheduled around Rosh Hashanah.) We walked a lot but we also ate a LOT. We had some really good food (anywhere Mario Batali is cooking is going to be fab) but what I really remember about the trip was the visits we had with our friends. That has been the very hardest thing about leaving New York a year ago -- we were there long enough to make some very close friends, and we miss them all.

So I'm excited about getting to see some people I haven't seen in a while, getting to feel the pavement of New York under my feet again, and showing my daughter her hometown again. Yes, she's coming with us this time, which will bring its own challenges. (We took her last September, and if you happened to be there and saw a vomiting child on the High Line, yeah, that was us.) But she's old enough now to be able to enjoy some fun things, so I think we'll hit up the Bronx Zoo -- I used to work at Fordham, just down the street -- and maybe the Natural History Museum if she seems up for it. And I want to show off my new bod and my new sensibilities!

I just have to share a little story about our Israeli friend who's hosting us. She's an amazing person, and I want to be just like her when I grow up. She's a doctor (that's how we met -- she and my husband worked together) and very healthy herself, mentally and physically. She's an outstanding, amazing chef, yet she never seems to overindulge. She sees food as a great pleasure of life but is able to keep it in its place. She and I traveled to India together a few years ago, and I remember sitting down for dinner with her one night and when our food finally came, she said, "Oh, good! I'm hungry! I love eating when I'm hungry!" That, right there, seems beautifully sane. If we eat when we're hungry (duh), the food really does taste better and the whole experience is more enjoyable. It's this eating when we're not hungry, eating to solve any other problem than hunger, that has given me so much trouble over the years. Slowly, with a lot of help, I'm learning another way.

Day 65: The Dress

Well, here it is! Imagine this picture with better hair & makeup, as opposed to this snapshot taken hastily at the end of a busy day. But the dress is fab, no? It wasn't until Naoko mentioned it that I realized the one-shouldered dress is not unlike the dress that Kate Winslet is wearing up there in my blog banner. Something subliminal, maybe? Anyway, it's pretty exciting to be able to wear something like this. And it's well-made enough that I would be able to have it taken in someday if necessary. ;-)

Just one other thought before I run off to do today's workout: I was making a quick run to the grocery store this morning (yogurt, eggs, chicken) and I happened to pass by the frozen dinners. Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice, all those things I used to eat. Miniscule portions of salty, processed horribleness. I think Woody Allen had a joke about people complaining about the food at a Catskills resort -- it tastes awful, and the portions are so small!


Mmmmm, doesn't that look delicious, kittens? I used to eat this kind of thing when I was on my own for dinner and didn't feel like cooking, or I would bring it to the office for lunch. As I passed by the freezer case, I just felt this intense wave of gratitude that I'm not eating that shit anymore. Seriously. It's not good for me (or anyone) in any way. It makes me sad now that people who are trying to lose weight think that they have to eat this stuff instead of some actual food.

OK, gotta run, jump rope is calling!

Day 64: Sweet rewards

I just went to look for some new pants -- I have maybe two pair that fit me decently, and one of those I bought while I was on vacation last week. I've been rocking the baggy yoga pants lately, which is just too, too sad, especially for a stay-at-home mom who doesn't want to look like one. :) I hit up my local TJ Maxx -- the most awesome store in the world, in my opinion -- and... jackpot!

Didn't really find the lightweight pants I was looking for BUT I found some fabulous jeans that actually FIT me well, plus a couple of cute t-shirts. (Most of my shirts are too baggy now, too, but the pants situation is worse.) The real winner, though, was a totally smokin' Calvin Klein cocktail dress -- black, one-shouldered, fits like a dream. And did I mention it was $40? I'm not sure where I'm going to wear it, but if I don't find a party to go to soon, I'll be the best-dressed woman at the grocery store. (I'll post pictures later today or tomorrow.)

It is so, so nice to find clothes that fit me well. I have a pretty curvy shape, no matter what my weight, and I tend to carry most of my weight in my lower body: hips, thighs, and butt. So finding clothes that fit can be a real challenge, especially dresses. If it fits in the butt and hips, it'll be too big on top. But today I was trying on things in the next size down from what I normally get, AND just about everything worked! I don't really care about the number on the tag as much as I just want it to fit well. This is a real, tangible, visible result of my hard work and it feels great!

Today's workout was a killer! It took me a little over an hour today, too, as I had to lie on the floor whimpering after the floor jumps. I actually fell down in the middle of the last set -- the legs just gave out. I hopped back up as soon as I could and finished the set, plus a couple extra ones. Felt like things moved more quickly today, though, with more reps of fewer exercises. Dare I say I actually felt good afterwards...? Yes, yes I do.

Day 63: Jumping!

I did my jump rope today while watching last night's episode of Mad Men. I adore this show. I'm not much of a TV person but my love for Mad Men knows few bounds. So it was a good incentive for getting my jump rope done: a new episode! I haven't jumped rope in front of the TV before, and I don't think I'm going to make it a regular habit. Everything went fine but I think I prefer my music, especially when I'm going to do a full workout. But for today's jumps, it was fun.

I ate my lunch while I finished watching the episode, once again marveling at the copious amounts of alcohol everybody takes in. I read an interesting article recently which proposed that one of the reasons Mad Men is so popular is that we love watching people live such flagrantly unhealthy lives -- smoking, drinking, rich food, unprotected sex -- while we all work out and eat right and quit smoking and drink our nightly glass of red wine because of the antioxidants, not because we like it. It's an intriguing idea. It does seem like office life was a lot more fun in those days -- especially last night's episode, the Christmas party where there was an un-ironic conga line around the office and cartons of Lucky Strikes were handed out as party favors. But the show doesn't shy away from showing the dark side of this kind of life, as people stumble into the office the next day with a headache, keep Maalox in their desk drawer, and make some really bad decisions.

I don't want to live in that world -- I just want fabulous clothes and a beautiful martini now and then.

And I might like to look like this, please:


(An interesting aside: I read somewhere that the actresses on this show love their jobs because they don't have to be super-skinny like on other TV shows. Joan Holloway here might not be in Peak Condition, but there is a certain amount of health that she exhibits that you don't see in anorexic starlets. And you don't see Joan getting wasted at the office party, either.)

I can hardly believe the time is passing so quickly -- we're in the last few weeks! The salt & sugar cravings are dissipating, or else I'm feeling stronger about resisting them. I'm resolved to make these last weeks really strong and get the most I can out of this time. I can eat well and exercise anytime but it's not often that I have this kind of amazing support to make those changes. Looking forward to new diet & exercise later today...

Day 62: Checking in

A largely uneventful day on the PCP. Interesting that it's starting to feel routine.

Workout was fine this morning -- tough, sweaty, 58 minutes. I'm not dreading the workouts anymore -- just mildly rejecting the idea of working out up until the moment I start jumping. (This is progress!) I don't feel totally wrecked afterwards either. So of course I think this means I'm not working hard enough. We'll see what next week brings.

Salt and sugar cravings are a little less powerful today but still present. A very small piece of dark chocolate, dissolved on the tongue, took the edge off. I still don't like that these feelings are happening, and I don't really know how to deal with them. I'm reminding myself of my goals, reminding myself that cravings are just thoughts and therefore like clouds passing in front of the sun. But, damn, they're persistent! Hence the dark chocolate. Trying to appease the monsters a little bit, maybe even welcome them in, and then they might go away.

Naptime.... :)