The Peak Condition Project - Tara

Final post

2010-08-31T20:54:00.008-04:00

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

2010-08-29T09:50:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-28T21:36:00.002-04:00

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

2010-08-27T11:19:00.003-04:00

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)

2010-08-26T14:39:00.005-04:00

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!

2010-08-25T14:59:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-24T12:43:00.002-04:00

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!

2010-08-23T19:58:00.004-04:00

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

2010-08-23T11:42:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-22T20:32:00.002-04:00

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!

2010-08-20T14:25:00.003-04:00

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!

2010-08-19T13:03:00.002-04:00

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

2010-08-18T19:43:00.004-04:00

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??

2010-08-17T11:50:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-16T11:14:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-14T21:30:00.002-04:00

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

2010-08-13T16:46:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-12T09:29:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-11T16:36:00.001-04:00

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....

2010-08-10T14:38:00.002-04:00

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!

2010-08-06T14:40:00.002-04:00

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

2010-08-05T09:39:00.004-04:00

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

2010-08-04T10:18:00.004-04:00

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

2010-08-03T10:21:00.002-04:00

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!

2010-08-02T14:28:00.004-04:00

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

2010-08-01T14:00:00.003-04:00

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.... :)

Day 61: Krazy Kravings

2010-07-31T19:46:00.003-04:00

What is going on the past couple of days? Craving salt and sugar like nobody's business. I thought I was past this! The only reason I can think of is that it's a certain time of the month. Maybe that's causing it? I don't know if Patrick can speak to this, but maybe the ladies in the group have some insight. I usually want a LOT of sugar around this time, and I usually have some pretty bad moods. I know, it's so stereotypical, but I'll find myself being really pissed off by little things, maybe in tears over something stupid, and then I look at the calendar and it all makes a little more sense. On the upside, I'm not having any real mood disturbances at the moment so maybe this new regimen is helping with that.

On the downside, I had some crackers. Salty, delicious crackers. Dammit! There is just too much non-PCP stuff in my house, mostly still leftover from my daughter's birthday party. I forgot about most of it, but found myself prowling the pantry this afternoon. I have hardly "cheated" at all so I'm not too mad at myself, but I don't want to do that again. I'll be interested to see if these cravings go away after a couple of days. Who knows if they're physical or mental or both?

Anyway, workout was good again this morning, yay! Having a great music playlist is helping soooo much. I find myself dancing a little bit during my rests. I also paid more attention to moving through the exercises quickly, and finished in 59 minutes today! It's nice to just get it done efficiently.

This is a bit of a tough weekend -- my husband is working all day today, all day tomorrow, overnight tomorrow, and then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. (Then he gets seven days off, so no worries!) The daycare is closed on the weekend and my mom is still out of town, so it's just me and the toddler, all...day...long. I've been getting up at 5:30 to make sure I get my workout done by the time my husband needs to hand off to me and get out the door. Today I took a nap while she napped, which was just luscious. Tomorrow we do it all again!

Hope everybody has a great weekend!

Day 60: Out of the valley?

2010-07-30T09:48:00.004-04:00

I think I'm done with this whole PCP Valley thing. Yes, this is hard. Yes, I still have a lot of work to do. But the rewards are so great -- and not just physical.

Here's what I've been thinking about for the past couple of days: integrity. To me, integrity means that your actions match your thoughts, your intentions, and your beliefs. I believe in self-discipline, curiosity, openness, continuous improvement -- and yet, I wasn't really carrying out those beliefs when it came to my physical health. My intellectual, spiritual, musical, and professional development have always been important to me, and I've always pursued those areas. But I neglected my physical health and somehow decided that it wasn't as important.

I've written before about how I was sick a lot as a child -- serious asthma, a couple of cases of pneumonia that landed me in the hospital for a couple of times, most recently when I was 18 and had to be on IV antibiotics for a few weeks -- and I know that as a result of those experiences, I turned inward and turned to books. I was never very good at physical things (that B in gym class always ruined my chance for straight A's) so I didn't try very hard at them, but I won those spelling bees left and right.

As I've gotten older I've started to realize I can no longer neglect my physical health, because I don't want to spend the second half of my life hobbled by preventable illness or obesity. I see people all around me, especially here in Kentucky, who spend most of their energy just trying to cope with their poor condition. I don't want to be that person.

I also don't want to be the person who is ignoring an entire realm of her being, her body. So I feel that in order to really live with integrity, I need to be doing just what I'm doing: exercising and paying attention to what I eat. Although this body is temporary, it's the only one I have for this life.

And here's how hard the leg exercises were for me today: I was excited to do the ab exercises because I could lie down. Ab work is the toughest for me, but my legs were super-wobbly after all those sets of creep, then standing for all the shoulder work. Woo hoo!

And since many of us are thinking about good music for working out, I'll share a few of my current favorites. Most if not all of these songs are available on iTunes. I'd love to hear what you're listening to -- always need some new tunes!

ART BRUT -- Alcoholics Unanimous, DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake, The Replacements, Twist and Shout, My Little Brother, Modern Art (I think "Modern Art" is my favorite -- I scream right along with the screams in the chorus)

BEASTIE BOYS -- Sure Shot, Bodhisattva Vow, Body Movin

BECK -- E-Pro, Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat

BEN HARPER -- Shimmer and Shine, Boots Like These

BJORK -- Army of Me (dear sweet little Bjork gets medieval on your ass)

THE BLUE VAN -- Silly Boy

CAKE -- The Distance, I Will Survive (best disco cover EVER)

THE CLASH -- London Calling, Know Your Rights, White Riot

DESSA -- Children's Work, The Bullpen (a new discovery for me -- amazing rapper from Minnesota)

GOMEZ -- Hamoa Beach, Airstream Driver

JANELLE MONAE -- Tightrope, Come Alive (Tightrope is THE song of the summer)

JILL SCOTT -- Hate on Me

K'NAAN -- Dreamer, Waving Flag, ABC's (if you don't know K'Naan yet, you're missing out)

NICOLAI DUNGER -- Way Up High, Hunger, Soul Rush (one of my very very favorite musicians -- Swedish singer-songwriter, shades of Van Morrison with a dash of drunken crazy genius)

RADIOHEAD -- Bodysnatchers

TROMBONE SHORTY -- Backatown, Suburbia, Where Y'at (New Orleans funk-groove)

Day 59: Grateful

2010-07-29T13:30:00.003-04:00

As they say in the church, y'all really lifted me up. I have to say thank you, thank you, thank you to my PCP teammates who all posted helpful comments after yesterday's rant. Every one of you said something useful, which kept me going yesterday when I felt like c-r-a-p. Such a beautiful thing about this program -- that I feel like I can speak honestly when I'm struggling, that I know other people will understand, and that I can feel supported and encouraged by you beautiful people who I have never even met in person! Thank you again!!

Today has been much better. Last night we had a bunch of people over for dinner again -- two couples, with two kids each, plus my dad, so there were 7 grownups and 5 kids running around our house. It was utter pandemonium but it was fun. We grilled some steaks and had rice salad and green beans, and I ate my egg white & apple without a care. Seriously, it was sooooooo easy. I was cutting up my daughter's food and helping her eat, so I really didn't have much time to eat my own dinner anyway, and I really didn't mind. I'm comparing this to my first experience of eating egg white & apple while everybody else was chowing down on "regular" food, and I can definitely tell my mind is stronger.

Then last night, after everybody left, I sat down at the computer and made a "serious workout" playlist -- any song in my iTunes library that really had GREAT energy went on the list. I've had a "running" playlist for a while, but I'm sick of all those songs and most are too gentle for what I need now. If I work out in the morning, I usually listen to Morning Edition but the pleasant civility of NPR is not helpful in this situation!

So this morning, hopped up at 6, went to the basement, turned on my music and had a GREAT workout. I had a sense of humor this morning (as opposed to yesterday, when nothing was funny) so I didn't mind when I tripped while jumping. Triceps exercises are TOUGH for me but I got through them. Kung fu sit-ups are still just hilarious. I have no idea if anything is happening anywhere but my shoulders and upper back but I'm doing my best.

It's tough to get up early and work out first thing, but my day goes so much better when I do that. Otherwise I avoid and procrastinate and rationalize until I'm almost out of time, then I feel under pressure and I'm rushing to shower and eat afterwards. I think I'm going to plan on the early morning workouts for the foreseeable future.

Thank you again for all the help. You kept me going for another day! Only 31 days left!!

------

OH! Forgot to mention, I was listening to this Radiolab podcast during my disastrous, angry workout. It was really, really interesting -- about the limits of the human body. The story about the woman crawling across the IronMan finish line made me feel even more like a wuss for complaining about some bicep curls. Maybe not the best thing for motivation (I think I'll stick to my music for the time being) but I would really encourage you all to listen. I'm thinking differently about pain now, because of it. (And listen to all of Radiolab, too. Such great stuff.)

Day 58: Tired, Angry, Frustrated

2010-07-28T13:45:00.003-04:00

Well, there you have it. Just finished today's workout and I am PISSED. I simply do not feel capable of doing everything on the page today. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, who's to say? I'm so happy for the progress I've made so far, but I still have SO FAR to go. I'm not having much success connecting with my "inspiration person" at the moment because it feels like I'd have to work out this hard every day for the next year in order to get there. I started off SO FAR from where I want to be and I'm angry that I ever let myself get that far out of shape. The workouts used to feel tough but doable, and I thought that if I just worked hard every day I would be able to keep up. Today, I don't feel like I can keep up. I feel like the difficulty has just whisked right past me and I'm left in the dust.

The stupid f'ing planks are getting me every time. I feel like I'm going to vomit. I had rivers of tears running down my cheeks during the one-arm curls today, because my arms just hurt so badly. I managed to get through them, though, so maybe my "inability" to get through the planks is just a mental problem, not a physical one. And that actually makes me feel worse -- if my body can't do it, that's one thing, but if my MIND is failing me somehow, then I feel like a *real* weakling. I'm trying to be proud of the work I've done so far and remind myself that I'm working harder than I've ever worked. But right now I just feel discouraged.

Tomorrow is another day. I'm not throwing in the towel. I'm going to take a shower and get some lunch and try to enjoy the rest of my day. I don't like sharing these feelings of weakness with other people, but I'm hoping that writing it all down will help somehow. I have to find something within that's going to help me through next time.

Help me here, PCP friends: what am I forgetting? What am I not seeing? I don't know why anger is my reaction right now, but do you have any suggestions for being less angry? I'm not going to quit this, but I would like to feel less angry and more positive about it.

Indulgence (a few days late)

2010-07-28T09:25:00.003-04:00

I haven't had a chance to write about Indulgence #2 yet, so here it is! We went to a restaurant I've been wanting to try, Wiltshire on Market, with another couple. It was nice to get dressed up and go out! This particular restaurant is only open 3 nights a week (they started out as a catering company) and they focus on fresh, seasonal, mostly local food. They come up with a totally new menu every week.

Here's the cold glass of rose I enjoyed. Just one! And it was totally enough. I actually felt a little buzzed. When I was pregnant and also not drinking, my already low tolerance for alcohol shrank to just about nothing. I think the same thing's happening again. Hey, I'm a cheap date!

My starter: gazpacho with basil olive oil, plus some little toasted bread thingy with a little crushed olive. Gazpacho was delicious! Bread/olive were crazy salty.

My entree: prawns stuffed with crabmeat, and that pile in the middle is some fried onions atop some corn and tomato stuff. All incredibly delicious. Note that there are only three prawns. Something I really liked about this restaurant was that the portions were pretty small, at least compared to most American restaurants.

Dessert, shared with my husband: lemon tart, with a thin layer of dark chocolate between the lemon and the crust. This was the real eye-opener. Y'all know about my struggle with sweets -- sometimes I think I could just exist on sugar alone. The lemon tart was good, don't get me wrong, but the REALLY good thing on this plate was those raspberries sitting in whipped cream. I had a couple bites of the tart, then commenced to picking the raspberries out (I don't really like whipped cream) and moaning about how wonderful they were.

So, what did I learn? One glass of wine IS enough. I could easily have skipped dessert. The real pleasure of going out to dinner is being with friends, having a good conversation, and enjoying the surroundings. This kind of meal, enjoyed on an occasional basis, isn't going to cause a problem for me, especially if I approach it mindfully. Getting my day-to-day eating in a good place is much harder, although I'm starting to feel like I can do that.

2 downsides: I ate pretty much everything on my plate, because I'm not thinking about when I'm full these days. After I weigh my food, I eat it all because that's what I'm supposed to eat. I noticed that I was just finishing everything at the restaurant, out of habit. I'm hoping that in this last month I'll start to get a little bit more in touch with how much I should be eating. And I also had a stomachache when I went to bed. Nothing serious but I was uncomfortable. Maybe that's my lesson about eating everything on my plate!

OK, enough reminiscing. Workout time!

Day 57: Back to life, back to reality

2010-07-27T12:14:00.003-04:00

The last time I blogged was on Friday, now it's Tuesday -- that's probably the longest I've gone without checking in. I can honestly say that writing every day is a HUGE part of this program for me, and a big help in focusing my thoughts. So, it's good to be back!

I got back from Florida late last night, happy to be home with my family again. I had a really nice time in Florida, despite the insanely hot weather. My mom's best friend has a house about 1 block from the beach, and it was great to have some relaxing time with no schedule. I read an entire novel while I was there, and one rainy afternoon we all watched a movie. (An afternoon movie is basically unheard of for me!)

PCP world was challenging, but I did the best that I could. I thought we would be eating mostly at home so I thought it would be totally no problem, but the other three women were in "vacation mode" and wanted to go out to eat. A lot. Fortunately, in Florida it's easy to get grilled fish and salads, so I was in pretty good shape. One night we went out to a reallllly swanky restaurant and I was sad because I was supposed to be eating egg white & apple -- instead I ate a green salad with no dressing and some sushi. I felt a little guilty about the sushi (which I ordered because I needed some protein) but then I realized: I'm out to dinner at a fancy place, and I had no bread, no wine, and no dessert. Normally that kind of dinner would have included at least a couple glasses of wine, a couple pieces of bread with butter, a salad, a main course, and at least sharing a dessert. How far I've come! I was plenty full after my salad & a few pieces of sushi.

In a way, the weekend was like a test run for being back in "the real world." I felt like I was taking off the training wheels for a couple of days, learning to make good choices on the fly. I'm really proud of myself that I never said, "Oh, f*** it, I'm on vacation, I'll just have some ice cream" or whatever. I'm sure I took in more salt than I needed, and I'm not sure about the size of the protein portions I had. I ate some grilled shrimp that I'm pretty sure had butter on it, although I asked for it to be plain. I had a really sorry salad at the Chicago airport last night on my way home. So, no, not perfect, but I know I made the best choices I could. It's really hard to eat healthy out in the world!

As far as exercise, long brisk walks on the beach beat jumping rope any day! I was able to get the rest of my group to join me for sweating in out on the beach in the morning, then we went back to the house where they had breakfast and I did bicep curls, etc., in the living room. They were very supportive of my efforts, so that was helpful too.

I was feeling all this angst on Sunday, that I wasn't strictly keeping up with my diet, oh no, what is this going to do to me this week -- and then I had a realization. I CHOSE to have a little less progress in my body in order to have this relaxing weekend away. Mentally, I really needed it. I love being a mom but sometimes the best thing I can do is have a little time away from my daughter. It was so nice to be able to sleep in without having somebody wake me up at 6:30 singing the ABC's. (Although I LOVE hearing her sing...) So that was the tradeoff I made, and I think it was worth it.

And now I'm back, and grateful to be home where I can have more control over my food and my routine. I'm feeling REALLY motivated to redouble my efforts this week and make it a great one. Only 33 days left, gotta make them worthwhile! I'm working at the classical station today, and almost ready to eat the lunch I packed this morning. Mmmmm, roasted salmon... :)

I really missed reading all of your blogs this weekend and feeling like part of the team. Glad to be back!

Day 53: Travel day

2010-07-23T15:26:00.006-04:00

Posting from my iPhone in the Orlando airport today. This is the land of tired kids in Mickey Mouse hats, and a GIANT poster advertising the new Harry Potter theme park that I would LOVE to visit. Just wanted to check in with my PCP peeps today during my layover. From where I'm sitting, I can see McDonald's, Sbarro, Freshens, Au Bon Pain, and Starbucks. I used to take solo airplane travel as an opportunity to eat junk -- after all, I'm never going to see these people again. If it wasn't fast food it was candy. I wondered how I would react to being in that situation today, and I can honestly say: no problem. Not tempted. I think I'm going to hit up the Starbucks for an iced tea but since I'm not hungry I think that'll be it. I scoped out a food stand with lots of fruit & veg on it, though, so I'm covered if I need something.

I worked out this morning before leaving home, and I brought my lunch to the airport and ate it at the gate. A funny thing happened while I was munching my carrot & celery sticks. (I brought them because they were what I had ready in my fridge and what I thought would still be good in an hour.) A very nice older lady next to me patted my arm and said, "You're doing a great job on your diet." I smiled and said thank you. It was funny, though: I guess the assumption is that anyone eating carrots and celery (in public, no less) must be "on a diet." I mean, I guess technically I am, but I can honestly say i preferred my fresh veggies to the Quizno's subs or whatever that people were eating nearby. Airport food, blurrrrgggh!

My mom has been at the beach house for a day already and went to the grocery store earlier today with the list I gave her, so I'll be all set once i get there. I feel more relaxed already!

Indulgence dinner was wonderful last night -- delicious, seasonal food served in reasonable (read: small by American standards) portions in a lovely setting with fun companions. I have more observations and pictures but I'll wait to write a real post about it. One interesting takeaway: the lemon tart with dark chocolate was so-so but the fresh raspberries nestled in whipped cream as a garnish were f'ing amazing. Funny, huh?

Day 52: Careful, careful...

2010-07-22T11:29:00.002-04:00

Just finished my workout and my post-workout snack. Mmmmmm! I'm feeling much better today, seem to be totally over my cold. I don't think I've ever recovered so quickly from a bad cold like that. Wow, resting works!

But I'm seeing the aftereffects of having skipped one day's workout. Even though it was a conscious decision and I did the right thing, it's been a little tough to get mentally restarted. When I did yesterday's workout, it had really been TWO days since a real workout (Monday was jump-rope only, I was sick on Tuesday) so I was almost mentally unprepared for an hourlong pain extravaganza. I could really see my sneaky sneaky mind, trying to talk me out of doing all the sets or paying attention to the muscles I was trying to work. I went to the grocery store for chicken, yogurt and eggs, and all of a sudden, the junk food that I hadn't paid attention to in a while suddenly looked interesting. What the hell??

I spent 49 days making sure I got all my PCP tasks taken care of, and then I have ONE day where I skip the workout -- still stuck to the diet, mind you -- and my brain is ready to relapse? Wow, so interesting. In today's workout, I could see that impulse to cop out a little bit as well. I'm not worried about a grand crash-and-burn where I eat 15 donuts at once or something -- more likely is that I'll cut corners here and there, but still think I'm doing everything correctly, and then be puzzled when I don't get results. This is what I need to look out for right now.

Indulgence tonight! Reservations at the restaurant, babysitter booked, friends going along. Should be a fun evening!

And in other news -- I just booked a somewhat spontaneous trip to Florida for the weekend. My mom's best friend has a house in Ft. Myers Beach, and the two of them are there for ten days. My mom's friend's daughter lives in Ft. Lauderdale and is going to drive over for the weekend, so I asked my mother-in-law to come for the weekend to help take care of the baby (my husband is working this weekend) and I'm headed down from Friday afternoon to Monday evening. My mom, her friend, her friend's daughter and I usually take a weekend girls' trip somewhere every year, so all of a sudden, we're doing it this weekend. Woo hoo!

I'm really looking forward to a little beach time, a little girl time, and a little me time. I don't anticipate any problems keeping up with the PCP while I'm there, since we'll be in a house with a kitchen, and it's easy to pack a jumprope and resistance bands. (Yet another reason to love this exercise plan!) Usually our weekends together are full of restaurants and booze, but for various reasons, I think we all need a break from that. I'm sure there will be plenty of wine consumed, just not by me this time.

I don't know how much I'll be able to post while I'm gone, since I don't think there's a computer at the house. But I'll check in when I can, and I'll be sending all of you good vibes! (And I'll wave to Jenny as I fly overhead tomorrow afternoon!) Hopefully I can do a short post about the indulgence tomorrow before I leave.

Hope everybody is getting through the PCP Valley as best they can. :)

Day 51: Because you're not hardcore...

2010-07-21T09:19:00.002-04:00

...unless you live hardcore...

I decided to heed Patrick's advice to rest when I was sick instead of trying to be hardcore and working out anyway. It was really hard for me to do -- I was unsure about making the decision for myself. But I felt so terrible yesterday morning that I knew I needed to rest -- so I decided to get some HARDCORE REST. Once I decided I was resting, I wasn't going to do some half-assed rest, hanging out on the computer, doing chores around the house but skipping my workout. This was going to be a HARDCORE day of resting.

It's funny but that's how I approached it! After I dropped my daughter off at daycare, I basically spent the next three hours horizontal on the couch, listening to the radio, sleeping a bit. I cannot remember the last time I did anything like that. I basically forced myself to stay still. I went to pick her up at noon, brought her home and got her in bed for her nap. As soon as she was down, I made my lunch then headed for my bed. Nap #2! Unbelievable! I had a shower after that second nap and felt soooooooo much better. She and I spent a quiet afternoon, going to the farmers market for tomatoes (I'm making it my mission to try as many different kinds of tomatoes as I can this summer) and hanging out with my mom for a bit. I went to bed early and woke up feeling loads better. Not 100% yet, but lots better.

As others are reporting, my boobs have also shrunk a lot. I'm okay with that -- they were too big anyway. After being pregnant for 9 months, then nursing for nearly a year, they'd been every possible size, and the bras I have don't really fit anyway. 5 more weeks and then I'll get some new ones!

I'm going to go do my workout in a few minutes. New pics are up! Everybody is looking awesome this week!

Day 50: Sick

2010-07-20T09:13:00.002-04:00

I've got a cold. I've been feeling it coming on for the past couple of days -- some post-nasal drainage, sore throat -- but I was willing it to go away. It came roaring in last night and, as of this morning, is firmly settled in. Rivers of snot, stuffy in the head, achy in the body. Blaarrrrghhh.

I just dropped my daughter off at day care and went to go jump rope. I re-read Patrick's email about what to do when you're sick on the PCP, and I thought I'd give my workout a try, but wouldn't sweat it if I couldn't do everything. After the first set of jumps, I was woozy and dizzy, so I think I'm done for the moment. I have about 3 hours before I have to pick her up, and then my rest time for the day is pretty much over. So I think I'm going to spend the morning just taking it easy, and hopefully go for a walk or a swim later in the day if I'm feeling better.

This is a delicate mental moment -- in my previous life, I would take just about any excuse to skip a workout, but now I really don't want to give an inch. I want to keep moving forward and giving it my all. I haven't missed a workout yet, in 50 days! That is incredible for me. The perfectionist Tara says that I should put my shoes back on and get back in there. But, wow, I feel like crap. So I'm going to listen to my body and take it easy this morning at least, see how things are later.

Interesting that this happens just as I start to feel like I'm climbing out of the valley! Mentally I am soooooo ready to do that workout today, which is a rare and beautiful thing. I wonder if I can bank that feeling and pull it out another day when my motivation is flagging...

Day 49: A little rest

2010-07-19T13:48:00.002-04:00

These jump-rope-only days seem to come along just when I need them. When I'm at the point where I want to throw my resistance bands into the river and I desperately need to sleep a little later in the morning -- yippee, only jump rope today! It just drives home how intensely pleasurable a break can be when you've been working hard. And the hard work is exactly what makes that break such a treat.

And speaking of a treat -- seems like everybody is super-excited about the upcoming indulgence! So am I, and I'm trying to decide exactly how to spend it. I'm thinking about going to one of the restaurants I wanted to try the night we went to the downtown gallery hop -- it's a seasonal cooking kind of place, where the menu changes every night depending on what's good at the market. Some part of me says I should go for the gusto like Jenny -- Chick-fil-a here I come! -- but I was thinking about what I really want to eat, and it's good fresh food. I want to try something a little more interesting and creative than what I'm normally eating, I don't want to have to shy away from cheese or oil or (gasp!) a glass of wine with it, but if I'm honest I don't really want fast food. Not at all. I want something delicious and surprising, prepared by somebody who really knows what they're doing, in a beautiful setting. We're checking on babysitters and hope to go sometime this weekend.

I really feel what Jenny was saying about social isolation in terms of the PCP -- food is SUCH a part of social interaction, it's hard to step back from that and set yourself apart. But I think it does get easier, especially if you can eat at home (yours or someone else's. Restaurants are still near-impossible.). Last night I was at my parents' house for a birthday dinner for my aunt -- apparently, this is Birthday Week -- and I just brought my food with me and explained to everybody what I was doing. I alternated my bites of egg white with feeding my daughter beef ribs, pasta salad, fruit & cake -- so the food was right in front of me the entire time, on my fork. Temptation doesn't get much closer than that. But I really wasn't so tempted. The meat smelled really good, the cake looked good, but this was the easiest time I've had so far in this kind of situation. Sometimes I can hardly believe this is me, feeling okay with my little plate of boiled egg & fruit.

Feeling a little less tired today, a little less Valley. But I know that email with diets & workouts is coming soon -- who knows what it will say this time?? In the meantime, I'm hanging in there and hoping you are too.

Day 47: Misery Loves Company

2010-07-17T18:37:00.002-04:00

I wouldn't exactly say that what I'm experiencing now is misery, really -- maybe ennui, maybe angst, maybe a little some other fancy foreign word. I'm not miserable -- that would be more active somehow. I'm not struggling against the PCP, I'm just feeling subsumed by it at the moment.

But the really powerful and amazing thing is to hear that my PCP compatriots are going through the same thing right now! I don't derive joy from someone else's suffering (that would be schadenfreude, by the way) but it does make me feel better to know that I'm not a uniquely weak individual who can't cope with the challenges of this project. To hear that my feelings are normal and predictable and that other people, regardless of where they started, are having similar feelings makes me feel... right on track.

I got some extra rest today, which really helped. I got up super-early so I could work out before my husband left for work -- and I was planning to be on solo kid duty all day long, so I wanted to be able to just relax and eat my lunch while she napped. I ended up sleeping for about 90 minutes while she slept, even though there are so many things I wanted to get done around the house. Then my husband got through with work early, came home and said, "I'm taking her for the afternoon, go do whatever you want." Oh I love that man. They went off to the zoo while I got a manicure and pedicure, a nice treat for my jump-rope-roughed-up feet. I've been sitting on the couch reading a magazine for the last 30 minutes and just breathing deeply. If I get one more good night's sleep tonight I think I'll be in great shape tomorrow.

I can question why I'm feeling this physical fatigue all I want, but it doesn't really matter. I'm not sick, I'm just tired. So when I'm tired, I need to rest. I haven't been making an effort to do that until today.

The mental fatigue is easier for me to understand. I'm making major changes in the way I live my daily life, rewiring my brain in a lot of ways, so it's going to be tiring. I've gone from exercising sporadically and half-assed-ly (is that a word?) to exercising EVERY DAY, deliberately and with attention to what I'm doing. I'm carefully considering everything I eat, and I'm trying to break old habits that evidently still have a foothold within.

My worries about the post-PCP life come from friends asking me "What happens after 90 days?" and I don't really have a great answer yet. I know that any "diet" can work for a certain length of time -- you can lose a lot of weight doing Jenny Craig or Slim Fast or whatever, but if you don't learn how to make your own decisions about eating, you'll go right back to where you were. Patrick's email today about explaining why we do certain things on the PCP made me feel a lot better -- I have more confidence that by the end of this, I'll have the knowledge to keep doing things right, not just because Patrick tells me to eat so many carbs or whatever.

So, in closing: slogging through, hope you are too, onward and upward, time for some egg whites. (Which, I've just discovered, are realllllly improved with a dollop of Grey Poupon!)

Day 46: Tired

2010-07-16T12:48:00.002-04:00

I am tired. Really tired. Like, I want to sleep for a few days tired. I'm tired of working out every day. I'm tired of making food, cleaning up after it, and then making food again as soon as I turn around. I'm waiting for some water to boil for my lunch and my eyelids are practically closing themselves.

Why am I so tired? I don't understand. I thought this program would give me more energy, not less. Maybe it has given me more energy and I just haven't noticed it? Maybe I need more than 8 hours of sleep? Maybe it's the fact that my daughter is just randomly saying the word "no" to everything? (We're in a bit of a difficult period at the moment...)

I think now that we've passed the halfway mark, I'm looking ahead to life after the PCP and "borrowing some trouble." I'm already worried that I'm not internalizing this stuff as much as I need to if I'm going to continue living a healthy life after these 90 days are up. I'm still not immune to the siren song of sugar like I had hoped to be. I guess it really has a hold on me. I'm taking comfort in the fact that I'm much less tempted than I used to be, and I'm going to have faith that if I continue to resist, I'll become even more powerful over my cravings.

But the exercise -- am I really going to keep this up after 90 days? I know I shouldn't be worrying about it now, but there it is. I still don't really like it. I like the feeling of satisfaction afterwards, but every workout has at least a few moments where I am completely hating it. What is wrong with me? Shouldn't I be feeling more positive about it by now?

Arrgh, sorry for the brutal honesty. But trying to be transparent and thorough in the hopes that writing some of this stuff down will help me see through it. I'd love to hear how the rest of you are dealing with any negative thoughts!

Day 45: Halfway, baby!

2010-07-15T09:54:00.003-04:00

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS to the folks who just finished! You all look amazing, and your guidance has been invaluable. I look forward to hearing how the first few weeks *after* the PCP are going!

Uh oh. This means we're the big kids now. Yikes!

So I have to report on the dinner party last night: wonderful. There were 8 of us in all, my husband, my parents, some old friends who we hadn't seen in years, and some new friends who we just met last year after moving back to Kentucky. It was a nice mixture and we had some really interesting discussions.

Since this was kind of a Bastille Day party, all the food was French. One friend brought some lovely munchies -- baguette, cheese, sausage, cornichons, olives. Everybody snacked on those while my husband cooked an amazing dinner: fish poached in wine with tomatoes and zucchini, potatoes au gratin, and green bean salad with tarragon. There was lots and lots of wine too.

And here's how I handled it: I talked, I sipped lime Perrier in a wine glass, I inhaled deeply all the wonderful smells coming from my kitchen, and I sat down to eat with everybody else and had my egg white & apple & milk (also in a wine glass -- thanks Elena!). I explained to everybody what I was doing and they all said, "Good for you!" I won't pretend it was easy but it was easier than I thought it would be. Since we ate kind of late, my dinner and my evening snack all kind of got folded in together, which meant I had plenty to eat and didn't feel deprived. I looked around the table at my friends all having a good time and I felt very rich indeed.

One of our friends is a professional pastry chef, so she brought dessert:

Beautiful, right? I had my yogurt with honey & pumpkin pie spice (thanks, Royce!) while everybody dug in and tried all the desserts. Again, not totally easy but easier than I would have thought. I had the tiniest taste of the lemon curd tart and I can honestly say I didn't want more -- super sweet. About a third of this stuff is still in my fridge. This is a huge victory for me: to have these kinds of lovely sweets (made by hand by someone I know and love) in my home, and I'm not raiding the fridge at midnight.

One of the reasons it was easier to stick to my plan is that I was wearing a dress last night that I bought in 1994. I don't think I've ever worn it comfortably before, but since I bought it on a trip to France, I've hung onto it. I decided last night was the time to pull it out -- and it looked great! Sooooooo rewarding.

It was also easier to stay with my plan because everybody knew what I was doing. I've taken Patrick's advice very seriously to tell everyone I know, and that really helps to keep me on track. If nobody in the room had known I was changing my habits, it would have been a lot easier to eat with abandon. I've been posting a link to my blog on Facebook every week, and it's amazing the people who are cheering me on and helping to keep me honest.

And now, the morning after the dinner party, I'm tired because I stayed up too late, but I'm not hung over from too much wine or too much food. The kitchen still smells amazing and I'm enjoying that too. I had leftover salmon for breakfast, which was weird but surprisingly okay. Getting ready to go work out.

Wow, halfway through! The changes are just amazing.

Day 43: New pics!

2010-07-13T14:19:00.004-04:00

New pics are up! I didn't get a chance to post pictures last week -- things were really busy and I didn't see my husband for a few days, so didn't have his help to take them. I took a few myself but it took forever to work on the setup and in the end didn't have time to keep messing with it. There are eggs to boil, people!

So I'm really happy with the progress I'm seeing, especially in my upper body. My back and shoulders are making me really happy. My boobs have gotten smaller, which is really okay by me. They seem more proportional to my frame now. My legs, butt, and belly all still need a LOT of work. But I've seen a lot of improvement in six weeks and I'm confident that I'll see even more in the next half of this program.

Today's workout kicked my ass! (I could pretty much write this every day.) But I did it all -- with the usual plank failure, but tried my best -- and then really enjoyed my lunch. Big thanks to my husband for cooking some chicken for me so I didn't have to cook later when I was really hungry. :)

More eggs and "protein" for breakfast instead of an egg means gotta plan ahead more. I'm usually in a hurry in the morning -- trying to make my daughter's breakfast as well as my own -- so eggs have been working fine since they're so quick to make. But chicken or fish takes a bit longer. I have to confess that I have some culturally-ingrained ideas about what breakfast is, and in my world, it doesn't include chicken or fish. It's not donuts and coffee either, but I'm really not used to veggies and meat at breakfast. But once I wrap my head around what I'm going to fix, I like it.

We made a change to our social plans for today -- instead of taking my mom out to her favorite French restaurant, we're just going to celebrate with her tomorrow night at home, when we're already having some friends over for dinner. My mom agreed that it didn't make sense for me to try to go to this kind of place to eat -- either I would have to eat literally nothing there, or I could try to pick a "healthy" option but still be off plan. (My husband joked, "I don't think Patrick is all of a sudden going to say that butter and duck fat are okay!") So we'll visit the restaurant again sometime after the PCP is over, and we'll have dinner at home tomorrow where I can eat what I need to eat and enjoy everybody's company.

OK, toddler nap is over, back to work!

Day 42: Celebrations and PCP

2010-07-12T10:53:00.003-04:00

Having just gotten through the toddler birthday party with flying colors, I have more challenges ahead this week. When did social events start to look like challenges? When I started the PCP, that's when.

Tomorrow is my mother's birthday, and I know there will be food involved in the celebration. (I'm not going to mention where we're taking her because she reads this blog and I want her to be surprised. No hints, Mom!) And then Wednesday is our daughter's *actual* birthday, which is also Bastille Day, and we're having some French friends over to celebrate. One of the friends is a professional pastry chef (she made our wedding cake and now runs a thriving cake business) and I'm betting she's going to bring something gorgeous and tempting. We might have dinner plans with other friends on Thursday, and then another kid birthday party is coming up Friday.

Wow, just writing all this down surprises me! Since we moved back to Kentucky a year ago, our social calendar has been pretty bare, but it's nice that we're making some friends and having more things to do. But it comes up against one of the hardest things about the PCP: dealing with the social pressure to eat, drink, and be merry.

My friends and family love me and want me to succeed with this, so I'm lucky that I don't have any underminers in my life at the moment. At the same time, I don't like being the one on the "special diet" and having to bring my own food, etc. I don't want to look like the crazy anorexic neurotic person who has to control every bite she puts in her mouth. I want to be the healthy, fit person who has balance in all things. I'm hoping that this week's diet brings a more "normal" dinner instead of the apple/egg white situation, but I'm not holding my breath. :-)

Whatever I'm supposed to eat, I'll eat it. I'll figure it out. I'm very happy with my meals these days, it just becomes tougher in social situations. Just like I did with the birthday party, I'm going to work on focusing on the people around me instead of the food, and I'll make the best choices I can.

Here's a BIG incentive to stick with it: I went to a store and tried on some clothes today, in a dressing room with one of those mirrors that lets you see your back side. Not usually a good thing, in my opinion, but today I was loving it! I'm certainly not where I want to be yet, but I can see SUCH a difference. The most surprising thing was that I can see a lot less cellulite! The lumpy bumpy stuff is going away and my overall shape is getting smoother. Yippee!

Day 41: Recover & Regroup

2010-07-11T11:14:00.005-04:00

It's been a busy few days around here, culminating in the 2-year-old's birthday party yesterday afternoon. We had about 25 people here, including 4 kids, and everybody had a wonderful time. Our daughter Maya was delighted to have all 4 of her grandparents here, her aunt & uncle & 1-year-old cousin, and other neighbors and friends. Our friend Izumi from Tokyo played Maya's current favorite song on the piano (the theme from "Ponyo") and then everybody sang Happy Birthday. We let Maya stay up past her bedtime, then she happily went to bed and we heard her singing to herself as she fell asleep, "Happy birthday to you... happy birthday to you... happy birthday to you..." I feel truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family and a great little kid.

From a PCP standpoint, I did really well. I got my workout done in the early morning, then stuck absolutely to the diet through lunch. The party started at 4, and from that point on I ate only fruit & veggies. (I made sure there was plenty of both on the table, along with the sandwiches and cheese and meatballs, etc.) I had one bite of birthday cake, which was so delicious, so rich and so satisfying that I didn't even want more. I forgot to eat my evening egg white & milk -- the last guests didn't leave until about 10pm -- but I'm okay with letting that slide a little bit. My perfectionist tendencies tell me that I should have kept exactly to my PCP diet NO MATTER WHAT, but when I think realistically about it, I think I did great. I had a houseful of guests to tend to and lots of un-PCP food around, and I managed to stick to fruit/veg and have a wonderful time.

So many people told me how great I looked and asked what I've been doing to lose weight. I usually said, "Oh, you know, boring stuff like exercising a lot and changing what I eat." When people asked for details I told them, and it was fun to watch the shock on their faces. "Wow, that's really strict! No sugar? No alcohol??" It's amazing how I'm not really feeling deprived anymore, because the rewards are really wonderful. I had a fabulous time at the party, and I didn't really miss what I wasn't eating. I was actually focused on my guests instead of what I was going to eat next.

And now it's the morning after, and I'm back on the PCP track. I'm so happy that an unusual day like yesterday doesn't mean I'm tempted to throw the whole thing out, like I might have in the past. Today it's just, okay, back to business. Since my in-laws are visiting and sleeping in the basement where I normally work out, I didn't work out this morning and I'll do it later in the day instead. Had my normal breakfast while everybody else had pancakes, and it was fine. Looking forward to a lighter exercise day again tomorrow, and to seeing what the next week's diets will bring.

I'm posting a few pictures of the birthday party below. Hope everybody has had a great weekend!

Day 39: Sore, awesome

2010-07-09T11:41:00.002-04:00

Lots to do to get ready for the kiddo's birthday party tomorrow so blogging will be brief. Did my whole workout this morning, feeling all the more virtuous because I know that I'm burning more fat than I would if I were working out later in the day. I do the morning workouts because they fit best with my schedule, though, so it's nice to know I'm getting added benefit from something I'm already doing! How often does that happen?!

My legs are sore, sore, sore. So much leg work this week! I can really feel my muscles getting stronger, though, so it's worth it. Abs and back also sore this week too. My arms aren't sore today but I am loving the way they look so much!

And I just have to brag a little bit on my Jedi move this morning: opened a bag of M&Ms and didn't eat one. Let me explain... we're using M&Ms to help my daughter in potty training. A friend suggested we give her one M&M every time she uses the potty, and it really is working. (I'm starting to question this, actually, since I don't want to set her up for a lifetime of feeling rewarded by sugar, but here we are...) We have a little tin of them that had been a party favor somewhere, but when the tin was empty, I bought another bag. This morning, I opened the bag, refilled the tin, wrapped the rest of the bag up and put it in her closet. A month or two ago, I would have helped myself to a few because, well, they're M&Ms and they're there. A couple of weeks ago, I would have had "just one" because, duh, chocolate. But today, I wasn't interested. I know there's an open bag of M&Ms in her closet, I can get some anytime I want and nobody has to know, but it's just not what I want right now. They're really not that appealing. (Uh, who am I again? Wow!)

Hope everybody has a terrific day!

Day 38: Planks!

2010-07-08T14:01:00.002-04:00

This is a really tough workout week overall -- lots of new exercises, all of them difficult. The new ones are interesting because I get to figure out how they work and where I should be feeling the burn. The old ones are interesting because I'm still figuring out how they work and where to feel the burn.

I used to do a lot of yoga before having my daughter, and one of the most important things I still use from my yoga practice is being aware of my body -- paying attention to what my muscles are doing, how my joints are moving, what happens to my hip if I rotate my foot outward, etc. It keeps my mind engaged and makes the exercise more interesting. So I'm trying to apply that same kind of attention here.

I also did a lot of prenatal yoga classes when I was expecting, and the best thing I think I learned there was how to keep a calm mind in an uncomfortable situation. Not that I always know how to do this, mind you -- but it was really helpful during delivery, when I had my ankles in the air and lots of pain. (Funny aside: there was a medical student in the delivery room who held one of my legs, saw everything that was going on, and I never even learned his name.) Calm breathing helped me get through the contractions (and later, so did an epidural) and in the end I can say I had a positive birth experience.

So I took that experience, and the advice from all of you guys, and tried to focus on my breathing today during those $&*@# planks. I changed my music too -- I was listening to something really energetic and kind of aggressive, but I put on something quietly ecstatic instead. When I got to a point in the plank where my muscles started to shake and I was inclined to freak out, I focused on getting quieter and calmer, instead of throwing more aggressive energy at the problem. I tried to relax my jaw and relax my forehead.

And guess what? It worked!

Well, mostly.

I got through the first 2 planks for the full time. Yippee! On the third one, I freaked out and bailed at about 25 seconds. It happened so quickly -- I didn't even think about bailing, I just did it. Then I was lying on the floor, thinking, "What just happened?" Instinct had taken over. I took a couple of deep breaths, and was able to do the last plank for the full duration, focusing on calm, quiet, deep strength.

This time, they were happy tears.

Day 37: Cry Me A River

2010-07-07T12:55:00.004-04:00

So, somebody remind me again: why are tears a good thing in PCP-world? Because I had a very good workout.

It was the long sets of creep that got me today, after pistol squats, after jumping rope. It doesn't help that I'm really tired -- got up at 3:30am again this morning to do the early shift at the radio station. (But that's all for radio this week.) After the last set of creep, I just fell backwards in relief and spontaneously started sobbing. Since nobody else was home, I really let it fly. I got up after about a minute, wiped my tears away, and started on the chest dips. A couple more times before the end of the workout, I thought I was going to cry, but I didn't. Got through it all and gratefully took my shower.

I don't know where these tears come from or why they surface when they do. Yeah, some of these exercises are hard, but the pain is really temporary. And it's a totally different pain from when you stub your toe or wrench your back or something -- it's not an "I'm hurt" pain, it's a "working hard" pain. But I can say for sure that I've never worked this hard in my life. Every single day I'm doing more than I've ever done before. Which is awesome, and difficult. And awesome.

I'll be the first one to admit that I have a tendency to cry rather easily, in sad times and in happy times. But I've rarely cried during any kind of workout before this. The only other time I can remember was during a very long pigeon pose in a long-ago yoga class. Crying usually means I'm overwhelmed, and I usually take it as a signal to back off. But maybe crying doesn't mean that here? It's hard to know when to push harder and when to release a bit.

The big problem with crying in a workout is that it makes me feel like a weak whiny crybaby, even if I finish all my exercises. It's macho to grunt and holler and curse through that last set, but to cry through it feels really wussy. I hate feeling that way, and I know I was stalling this morning on starting my workout because I was afraid it would happen.

And my day rolls on... just finished lunch, hoping to close my eyes for a few minutes while my daughter naps, then headed to a "launch party" for the July issue of Louisville Magazine, which includes my article. (If you want to see the article, click here, then click through to page 34, where my piece begins.) I'm psyched about having all these good things going on, I just need the world to stop for a couple of hours so I can rest. Tomorrow, Friday & Saturday are going to be all about the birthday party.

Hope everybody is doing well and hanging in there with these tough workouts!

Day 36: Mind games?

2010-07-06T13:48:00.002-04:00

My alarm went off at 3:30am this morning -- what time did YOU get up??

Actually, it was all okay. I had packed up my breakfast and morning snack the night before, ate some at home, ate in the car, ate at the radio station. Sometimes I feel like I'm just constantly eating. (But better than being hungry all the time, like every other time I've tried to lose weight or get in better shape.) I finished at 9am (thanks for listening, Jenny!) and headed home to work out.

Guess what? Jumping rope can actually be fun when you don't have knee pain! I really enjoyed my 1000 jumps today. I can tell how much stronger my cardiovascular conditioning is these days -- I don't get nearly as out of breath as I used to.

The Pro Tip of the day made me laugh: "If pistol squats are difficult for you..." IF?? Uh, yeah, they're difficult. Thank you, bathroom counter!

Also difficult: bicycle. Here's a problem I had with bicycle and with leg-ups: cramping along the outside of my left hip. I'm guessing it's because my abdominals are just not strong enough yet so I'm using some other muscle to do the motion? Any suggested stretches? It's really distracting.

But planks really got me today. Oh, plank, you are unforgiving. I could not stay up for 40 seconds at a time. First set, got there. Second set, more like 30 seconds before collapsing. The next two were even shorter so I just kept trying to stay up as long as I could, repeatedly, until I was a puddle on the floor. Am I really supposed to be able to get through 4 40-second planks at this point? Or is it an unattainable goal that I'm supposed to work towards nonetheless? I was feeling really discouraged, because I was giving everything I had and still couldn't do what was prescribed for today.

Or was I really giving everything? How do I know? I felt weak, wobbly, nauseous. I was grunting and yelling and gritting my teeth. (My throat is sore and scratchy now from yelling -- not a great thing for a radio announcer...) My point is: it was extremely intense, but how do I know I was doing my best? Could I have done more today? I just don't know.

I conked out for a 15-minute nap right after my shower, before I had to pick up my daughter, which I think will give me the energy to get through the rest of the day. Later on, I have to go right into the belly of the beast: going to this wonderful bakery to order a cake for the birthday party this Saturday. I'm not sure what kind of cake I'm going to get, and my mom suggested I sample a few to decide, but I think I'll let the toddler do the sampling and see what she likes. No reason to confuse my system with a bunch of sugar.

Back on the early shift again tomorrow morning!

Day 35: The clouds are parting

2010-07-05T13:50:00.003-04:00

I'm starting to feel like the funk I've been in is lifting. I'm C-ingTFU. (See day 34 post if you don't know what that means.) Just feeling more optimistic, more capable, and more motivated. I think this jump-rope-only day came at *just* the right time. I needed to have an easier exercise day before I dive into another week.

And here's what's amazing: 900 jumps felt like an "easier" day. (I'm still working my way up to where the rest of the group is, but adding 100 a day.) On the first day of the PCP, I struggled to get through 250 jumps. I did them in sets of 50 and I think it took me almost 20 minutes. Today, I did 900 jumps, in sets of 200 (last set of 300) and it took me about 20 minutes. I like seeing how I've come so far in a relatively short time.

What else is different? I've gone down a whole dress size, which is awesome. My whole body is thinner but I can see it especially in my face, shoulders, and torso. (My hips and thighs are smaller too, but I've got more to lose there.) I'm really enjoying my food these days, instead of scarfing it down and then feeling guilty about it. When I go to the farmers' market, I feel like I'm in a candy store -- look, eggplant! Green beans! Beets! Eggs! And when I get through that last set of leg-ups or bicep curls, I feel like a badass. A tired badass, but still.

This is going to be a challenging week as far as work and personal things. I'm filling in as the Morning Edition host on my local NPR News station tomorrow and Wednesday, which means being on the air from 5-9 am. (If you're up, click on over and listen!) Wednesday evening I'm going to a reception for the July issue of Louisville Magazine, which includes a story I wrote about a local farmer & sustainable food activist. (The article's not online yet but I'll post a link when it is!) Then on Saturday we're throwing a party to celebrate our daughter's 2nd birthday. The party means I'll be planning and preparing a lot of food that I'm not going to eat myself -- yikes! But I'm excited about seeing some friends & family who haven't seen me in a while, and that motivation is going to help carry me through the week.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who posted encouraging comments to me this week. It really helps! Hope you guys all enjoyed your weekend and are looking forward to heading into week 6. Can you believe we're almost halfway through??

Day 34: CTFU

2010-07-04T14:47:00.002-04:00

CTFU = cheer the f*** up.

This is a little in-joke between me and my husband -- when I'm feeling unreasonably grumpy, he says, "Hey. CTFU." And it always makes me laugh.

It's time to CTFU about the PCP. I've been grumping my way through the workouts, I've been gazingly longingly at all the food I'm *not* eating, I've been "poor me"-ing through the past few days. I'm doing the plan the way I'm supposed to, but my thoughts are making it a lot worse than it has to be.

I've heard it before: pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Any day that includes 4 sets of 25 leg-ups is definitely going to contain pain. But can I find a way to let go of some of the suffering?

I'm saying all this in a purely theoretical way at the moment -- I already did my workout this morning and I was in a wash of pain AND suffering. I went to church with my parents this morning and sat through the post-church potluck lunch munching on raw carrots -- that was pain (because I was hungry) and suffering (because all the food looked really good). Several people said, "Oh, you're not eating?" Um, nope. This is a Unitarian church so it was heavy on the vegetables/grains and I considered getting myself a plate -- but we're still in the South so I decided to pass, thinking everything would be full of oil and salt. Better to wait until I got home and could eat exactly what I need.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and my jump-rope-only workout (I did 800 jumps today with no pain! Adding 100 every day, and I'll be caught up to the rest of you by the end of this week.) and I'm going to take the time to really think about why I'm doing this in the first place and see how I can be in less of a bad mood about it.

Thanks to my PCP team, who have been giving me the good thoughts and words when I need them! I'm so proud of all of us!

Day 33: Keepin' on keepin' on

2010-07-03T19:24:00.004-04:00

Got up at 6am to do my workout this morning, because my husband is working all weekend and there's no daycare today, tomorrow or Monday. I can always exercise when my daughter is napping, but it's really nicer to be able to take that time to enjoy my lunch, read a little bit, and maybe have a short nap myself. I don't really enjoy when that alarm goes off at 6 but I'm happy when I'm finished with the workout and I feel very virtuous as I eat my breakfast.

I have to be honest and say that I've been dreading the workouts all week. They've gotten so much harder that I am really pushing myself to get through them. I'm proud of myself because I have done every single rep of every single exercise, except for the day I misunderstood and substituted 8MA for the leg-ups and planks -- an honest oops. But I'm definitely not enjoying the workouts as much as I used to. On one level, it doesn't really matter how much I enjoy them -- I'm doing it anyway, and I'm giving everything I have. I was complaining about this to my mom yesterday, and she reminded me that I won't have to work out to this extent every day for the rest of my life. That was really helpful. Plain and simple, I'm not used to working this hard. But that's why I was in the condition I was when I started the PCP, and if I want to change my condition, I have to change my actions.

But damn, these workouts are rough!

This is a point in my monthly cycle when my energy is pretty low, though, and that also explains the crazy sugar cravings. So, gotta push through, keep doing my best, rest when I can, and maybe things will be better next week.

Last night my husband and I went to a "gallery hop" in the growing gallery district here in Louisville. It's in an area of downtown that's just coming back from ruin, which of course is the hippest part of town. Lots of amazing field-to-table restaurants, interesting art galleries and other shops. There are always a couple of bands that just show up and play on the street, and especially on a beautiful summer evening, it's fun to wander up and down the street, popping into whatever gallery catches your eye. We saw a very large photo last night that we both found totally captivating -- here's a link to the image.

Every single place we entered had some wine, cheese & crackers, etc, set out -- normally I would have been snacking my way up and down the street, but I didn't have a single bite. It was easier than I would have thought -- I had already eaten my dinner and really wasn't hungry. But I also felt somewhat isolated. The gallery food wasn't the big temptation -- yum, warm sweaty cheese and cheap wine! -- but the lovely restaurants and big tables of people enjoying themselves were. We've gone to these evenings before, and normally we have dinner somewhere in the neighborhood before. It's nice to feel like part of society, even if that society is not in "peak condition." I know that this is what I have to do now, and I'm looking forward to that day when I can eat in a restaurant, making better food & drink choices than I used to, but still enjoying the setting and the company.

Hope everybody's having a great weekend!

Day 32: Sore but smiling

2010-07-02T09:17:00.002-04:00

Three quick thoughts for this morning, before I go do my workout:

1. I'm sore! I haven't been this sore since the first week, but yesterday and today I'm sore all over. I think that doubling up on the exercises, as we've started doing this week, has been a shock to my body. As usual, I'm of two minds on this: I'm glad that I'm sore because it means I'm doing something, and being sore makes it harder to get started on the next workout. I crawled out of bed this morning and got some ibuprofen, feeling better now.

2. Sugar craving insanity! I don't know what's going on with me this week, but I'm reallllly wanting some sugar. It's what I reach for when I'm stressed, and I've had a few rough days this week. And for some reason, I keep finding myself in the grocery store around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, picking up some carrots or some milk or whatever, and the candy is just speaking to me. I have managed to stay away and I'm very proud of myself. I even found a container of gumdrops in the back of my pantry that I had completely forgotten about, and I had a moment of "Oh, just one...." but instead I THREW THEM AWAY. With great effort, I'm managing my behavior, but still struggling internally with this habit.

3. Smaller pants! I put on my jeans this morning and just decided they looked too droopy to wear. Tried on some other jeans -- even worse! Woo hoo! Dug deep, to the bottom of a basket, for some pants I haven't been able to wear in a few years, and they EASILY went on. They're a size smaller than what I've been wearing in the last couple of years. One of the reasons that I started the PCP is that I refused to buy new clothes -- my larger stuff wasn't fitting well but I was NOT going to spend money on even bigger things. Looks like I need to go shopping again... but I think I'll wait until the end of August. :) It's wonderful to have this reinforcement that the soreness and the no-sugar plan are worth all the effort.

Happy Friday, everybody!

Day 31: Come on, gang! Get tight!

2010-07-01T09:09:00.002-04:00

Yes, I did 8 Minute Abs this morning. Too funny! I think the low production values and goofy vibe made it totally entertaining. But I definitely felt it!

I'm struggling this morning and feeling grumpy. The workout today really kicked my ass. I was a quivering ball of exhaustion after the floor jumps. (But felt like I had done them correctly!) I couldn't sustain more than one set of elevated triceps dips -- on the second set, I actually fell onto the floor, so finished up the sets with my legs straight but feet on the floor. Double katanas are pretty much impossible -- even with standing only one foot on the band, I can move my arms about two inches, so that's what I'm doing. And I just could not bear the idea of planks today, so 8MA it was.

I'm trying to get my head around this idea that failure is good here. That when I'm rolling on the floor moaning after the last set of floor jumps, that's actually a sign of success. My intellect tells me that reaching the point of failure means I am making progress. My ego wants to stop feeling like such a weakling, wants to do what I can do well and be proud of that. Everything feels upside down when I try to look at reaching my limits (or whatever my limits are today) as a positive sign. Sometimes I can only focus on how pitiful those limits seem to me.

But, as my husband said this morning, "You're less of a weakling than you used to be!" Thanks, honey. (At least he made me laugh.)

I've had a couple of other things happen in the past couple of days that have undermined my confidence. I had a small car accident on Tuesday -- nobody was hurt, just me vs. parking garage gate, but it did some damage -- so I'm spending my time taking the car in for estimates, talking to insurance, and being mad at myself for rushing and making an error. And parenting really kicked my ass yesterday too. My daughter is almost 2 years old, very verbal, very independent, and she's interested in exploring her (my) limits too! Normally she's a lot of fun to be with, although she can be tiring, but yesterday she was repeating one particular aggressive behavior and it took a long time and a lot of work to get her to stop. I was really grateful when the day was over.

I'm glad I got the workout done early this morning again -- at least that's over! I think today I'm hitting more of the "grim" in GRIM ENTHUSIASM. Some days are like that. I think I'll take the next couple of hours to chill out and see if I can get my mojo back.

Hope everybody is hanging in there! And welcome to the new PCPers! As Royce would say, WEEEOOOOOOO.

Day 30: Change in routine

2010-06-30T13:47:00.002-04:00

Just time for a brief post today, but I decided to change things up and do my workout first thing in the morning instead of once my daughter goes to daycare. I crept out of bed at 6am and was finished by a little after 7, then had time to shower and eat breakfast since my daughter slept uncharacteristically late. It was good! I really like getting it taken care of early, and then I have her daycare time and her naptime to do other things. The downside? I was in bed by 10pm, but couldn't get to sleep until somewhere around midnight. I know I didn't get enough sleep but I feel pretty good so far, at almost 2pm now. I'm going to try another early morning workout tomorrow.

Chest dips? Nuh-uh. I don't have enough strength and control to lift myself up and down, so I settled for just getting my feet off the floor and holding myself up. Over and over and over. That seemed to make my chest muscles burn, so I think that's a good way to start. Leg-ups were murderous today. Creep made me laugh because I just collapsed backwards onto the floor at the end of every set.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: I'm jumping again! Yay! A few days ago I realized that I wasn't having any more knee pain. I started with 100 jumps and have been adding 100 jumps a day, so now I'm up to 400. My jump-roping technique needs some work but I think I'll be back up to speed before long. I'm reminded again of how hard it can be, and how frustrating sometimes, but it simplifies my workout so much to be able to just jump. I like having the option to walk or swim if I feel like it, but I'm really happy to be back to jumping.

30 days, baby! That's one-third of the way through!

Day 29: Acceptance or Aversion?

2010-06-29T15:12:00.004-04:00

Funny things happen when you start to see results on a program like this. At the very same moment, you can feel re-energized and re-committed to your efforts, and also ready to slack off a little bit because you don't look quite as bad as you used to. This is the conundrum I find myself in today. I have lost an incredible 12 pounds (this is astonishing to me -- how is that possible?) and people around me can see the difference. There are clothes in my closet that haven't fit in a long time, and now they do. So while part of me is like, "Awesome! Wonder how much further I can get with 8 more weeks of this?" there's another part saying, "Awesome! Time for a break!"

I haven't given in to the "take a break" impulse but I can definitely feel it's there. It manifests as resentment. Somehow one part of my brain thinks I'm the only person in the world who has to exercise and eat right in order to be in shape. I see other people eating and drinking "normally" and I start to feel sorry for myself. I'm trying to remind myself about the difference between momentary pleasure and the long-lasting effects of good health. I'm trying to remind myself of how rotten I felt after that piece of cake. Patrick said most of the food cravings should be gone by now -- I've been very strict, no cheating, but some of the cravings are still whispering to me.

My parents kept my daughter overnight last night (as they do once a month) so my husband and I could go out. We wanted to go out for dinner, but I was nervous about where I could go to get anything PCP-friendly. We settled on a nearby seafood restaurant where I was able to order a piece of grilled tilapia (no salt, no oil, please leave off the shallot butter that usually comes with) and a double serving of steamed veggies (no salt, please) instead of veggies plus mashed potatoes. I sipped Pellegrino with lime. I was glad I was still eating according to plan (although I had to guess on the portion sizes) but it was annoying to see everybody around me eating crab cakes, oysters, fried shrimp. One of many reasons why it's easier to eat at home these days!

I have to admit that the new diet for this week has thrown me for a loop. Fruit and milk and egg white for supper -- really?? My husband and I have reached a detente on the salt issue, so that we've been able to eat dinner together for the past couple of weeks, but this throws a real wrench into our plans. I don't mind it so much for myself -- it's actually kind of appealing, especially in this hot weather -- but since I am largely responsible for feeding 2 other people in addition to myself, this kind of meal isn't ideal. BUT -- we'll figure it out, we always do.

When I looked at today's workout, I thought, "Oh cool, we get to choose which leg exercise, and which back exercise, and which ab exercise..." HA! It took me a second to realize that we're supposed to do BOTH. Things are really getting cranked up! The plank today did not make me break down in tears, but it was plenty tough, especially after 100 sit-ups!

I want to say again how grateful I am for my PCP teammates. I love that we're all in different places in our lives and in different places around the world, and we're supporting each other so wholeheartedly. Each of you is bringing your own viewpoint to this project and I'm finding it so helpful to read your blogs and be reminded of those different perspectives. Thank you all, and thank you Patrick and Chen!

UPDATE: a sobering piece of news about my home state.

Day 27: Indulgence Coma

2010-06-27T07:20:00.003-04:00

Here it is, the carrot cake that served as my indulgence yesterday. We didn't have time to go to the bakery I really wanted to visit but my husband reminded me about another good place closer to us. Look at this massive hunk of cake. Even before PCP I would have been happy with a slice half this size. I am still stunned at restaurant portions of food and what people think is a "piece" of cake.

The cake was yummy, moist and full of nuts, and spiced just right. The icing was a little gelatinous, not really great. Usually the icing is my favorite part of carrot cake, but not this one. All in all, it was pretty good, although I couldn't get anywhere near finishing it all. After a few bites, I felt like I had tasted it and didn't need to eat more. And it was, to use Elena's word, meh.

The funny thing was what happened afterwards -- a wave of fatigue just hit me suddenly, about 45 minutes after eating the cake. I was driving and I started yawning uncontrollably. We got home and all of my limbs felt heavy, my eyelids felt heavy, and all I could do was sit on the couch. I was tempted to take a nap, but there wasn't time. Wow. I never remember having such a strong reaction to sugar before. Maybe I didn't realize how much better I've been feeling. It took about 20 minutes to recover and start to feel like myself again, and then I really enjoyed my healthy dinner.

It was nice to eat something "indulgent" without feeling the least bit guilty, so that in itself was a new experience. I'm not sure that I really had the best carrot cake in town, so the Platonic ideal of carrot cake is still sitting there in my mind, taunting me a little bit. But the way I felt afterward was so awful that the temptation is much less powerful. This exercise was extremely instructive, in showing me that what I think I want really doesn't make me feel good at all. It's not about some external idea of what is "good" or "bad" behavior, but about how I want to feel. The whole time I was feeling zoned out, I was trying to pay attention and remember those sensations so I can call on them the next time I want some sweets.

And here's the kicker: I had a bowl of beautiful ripe cherries for my evening snack, and they were soooo good. With every bite, I kept saying, yum, these are so delicious. I enjoyed them a lot more than the cake, and I didn't feel terrible after finishing them. I can hardly believe this is me saying that cherries were better than carrot cake, but I can also hardly believe I'm the person working out every day. (I'm also the person who's lost 10 pounds this month so BOO-YA.)

Oddly, looking forward to the workout today too. What is happening to me?? :-)

Day 26: Tears and Carrot Cake

2010-06-26T13:53:00.002-04:00

First PCP tears today, after third 30-second plank. I read about the other group doing 90-second planks and I am incredulous, but I try not to think about it, because my job now is to do 3 30-second planks with 15-second rest. I got through it all today, with much trembling and grunting and teeth-clenching, and then after the final one, collapse on the floor and spontaneous tears. I'm not sure where the tears came from -- relief, maybe? Exhaustion? Going to a place I haven't been before? I was okay after about 30 seconds and I feel just fine now, even cleansed a little bit. I feel like I just passed some kind of test.

Good news: my knee is feeling a lot better! I did 30 minutes on the elliptical today but then did 100 jumps, just to see. OK, a little twinge, not great, but better. I'm really happy to feel some improvement.

Going for my indulgence later today: it's going to be carrot cake. (Royce, are you doing carrot cake too? My brother!) I've done some research and it looks like this place has the best carrot cake in town. My husband and daughter are going to come along, too, and we'll all enjoy a little something sweet together.

I'm looking forward to it, although my bad habits *never* included going to a cafe in the afternoon for a piece of cake. I'm thinking I may also pick up something junky at the grocery store and have a bite or two, just to see what that's like, because that was my habit until last month. It's embarrassing to admit that this is what I used to do -- I never told anybody about it, and now here I am writing it on the Internets -- but I'm hoping that the embarrassment I feel will help keep me from picking up that habit again in the future.

I hope everybody -- including our vacationing PCPers -- is having a lovely Saturday!

Day 25: Making it work... again

2010-06-25T14:05:00.003-04:00

OK, here's how my day has gone so far:

5:30 - Alarm goes off, get dressed, scramble an egg, drink some milk, put coffee in to-go cup, grab rest of breakfast and fruit from fridge (measured last night), munch the remainder of breakfast in the car.

6:30 - Get to radio station, play 4 hours of classical music.

11:00 - Race back home, grab swimsuit & goggles stashed in the car, swim 30 minutes. Dry off, change, pick up my daughter at noon.

12:30 - Daughter in bed for her nap, go change clothes again, do rest of the workout. Holy CRAP v-sits are hard. Awkward is not the word. I laughed my way through them because I felt so silly. Floor jumps were scary in theory but really fun in practice.

1:30 - Showered, made lunch, eating. Daughter will probably wake up in the next 30 minutes, then we're going to the library and the grocery. I'm on duty until she goes to bed around 7:30, at which point I will probably pass out.

Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it all. But I got my workout in today and for that I'm happy. The new exercises were fun, and I'm totally surprised to hear myself saying that.

I was excited to see Patrick's email about the coming indulgence, and I have to say that it also makes me a little nervous. I've done so well with resisting certain things that I'm afraid I'll unleash the beast again, so to speak. I'm trying to decide if I should get what I *really* want or go for something a little less sugar-laden. I'm leaning towards going for what I want (I think that would be carrot cake) because I don't want to waste my indulgence on something so-so. It still might not be all that but I want to put in my best effort here too!

And just in case Patrick's rules for eating get you too confused, or you get tired of following them, here's another set of rules I found online today. This list reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Dr. Nick tells Marge about a new diet: she can eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Marge says, "Wow, and you still lose weight?" He shrugs and says, "Well, you might. It's a free country!"

Happy Friday, everybody!

Day 24: Cravings? What Cravings?

2010-06-24T15:39:00.006-04:00

Patrick's post today about changing habits and being strict at first really hit home with me. I've had a bad habit of picking up a "treat" for myself every time I go to the grocery store, drugstore, Target, wherever there are sweets near the checkout. A couple of months ago I decided that if I could just cut out those treats, I'd be in a lot better shape. I stopped cold turkey for a while but then backslid, and then was continuing to get those sweets up until the day I started the PCP. Since then, I haven't done it once, but I've thought about it every time I was in a store.

This morning, I ran into Target to pick up a new battery for my food scale, and it was only as I was walking out the door with my purchase that I realized I hadn't thought about getting myself something sweet. It just didn't come up. I walked all over that store looking for the batteries, and I looked at a lot of other things, but not food.

(Let's not discuss how pitiful it is that I've been eating crap from Target. We're not here to judge, people. (I'm saying that to remind myself not to judge, just observe and make changes. Blurrggh.))

So hurrah! Something is actually changing inside!

Something that's not changing so quickly is my knee, which is still giving me varying amounts of trouble. Patrick had advised me to stay away from the jumprope until it's better, but that I don't have to wait until I'm totally pain-free. So this morning, after my 30 min on the elliptical but before I started the rest of my workout, I picked up the jumprope. Ouch! Nope, still can't jump. Frustrating!!

If I can't jump, this makes my day a lot more complicated. I either have to drive 15 minutes to the gym (and my membership expires at the end of June because I decided I didn't need it anymore), or walk an hour in the blazing heat, or go swimming at the pool which doesn't open until 11am (which is an hour before I need to pick up my daughter at daycare). If I can't jump, it's tough to get in my workout on the days that I'm on solo with my daughter, because I can jump and do everything else while she's napping, but I can't leave the house. Not jumping means more time spent working out, which is the one thing I have to manage most carefully. I'm thinking of every possible alternative -- I may have to get a sitter for a couple of hours, or I may be working out at 5am for the next few days, just to make sure it gets done. Add to the complication that I'm going to be working at the radio station several times over the next few days, and I'm just not sure how it's going to get done.

But it will get done. For 24 days straight, I have gotten it done. Every day feels like a victory. I just have to stay one day ahead of things and make sure I have a plan for tomorrow.

I've been inspired by all of you really digging in to your workout and going for the burn, so I took that inspiration into my workout today. It was really tough but I didn't mind it! It felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my sockets on the last set of plank. Does that mean I'm doing it right? It didn't look that way in the picture. ;-)

Michelle Obama is awesome

2010-06-23T20:07:00.000-04:00

And here's how I know that to be true.

Day 23: Resistance is futile

2010-06-23T13:36:00.004-04:00

It was 85 degrees F (29.4 C) at 9:00 this morning so I went to the gym to get on the elliptical. I don't know anything about soccer but I watched the USA-Algeria match anyway. 30 minutes went by quickly. Felt good, sweating buckets.

Triceps dips = hilarious. I tried for the first time to do them with straight legs, and my ass just fell right on the floor. OK, then, I guess I'm not ready for that. I did the maximum number of reps with bent legs, while paying careful attention to make sure I was using my arms to get up and down, rather than just lifting my butt up and down. Youch.

LEG UPS. ARE. AWFUL. I was getting a little cocky because they had been getting a little easier, but something was different today and I was groaning before the end of my first set (of four). I was glad that nobody else was home because I was yowling through the last two sets. I considered skipping the last set. I reallllly thought about it. After all, who's going to know? Oh, right, me.

This is marking a major shift in my thinking about diet & exercise. Before PCP, I tended to eat pretty well in front of other people because I didn't want to be judged, but I ate all sorts of crap when I was alone. (This post from Patrick really made me think.) This is hard for me to admit, but there it is. But my body didn't know if I was alone or in a crowd -- calories are calories. I don't know why it took me so long to get that magical thinking doesn't work in this arena, but I finally understand.

Same with exercise -- I could skip that last set of leg-ups and nobody would be the wiser. But the muscles I was working won't get that last wringing out. I realized, as I was lying on the floor, that the only way to get the benefit of the exercise was to DO IT. Major duh, I know. But when you're trying to find a way to get out of doing something painful and difficult, you can be incredibly creative. You've heard the phrase "the wisdom of no escape?" There was no escape from the friggin leg-ups. So I did them. Yowling.

Is it possible to eat too much avocado on the PCP? Cause I'm digging in nearly every day now. Big ups to my husband, who made guacamole last night and set aside a separate salt-free portion for me!

OK, naptime. Hope everybody's day is going well!

New pics are up!

2010-06-23T09:15:00.003-04:00

This week's pictures are up! I'm so thrilled that I can actually SEE a difference. And I've lost nearly 8 pounds (3.6 kg) since the beginning of this project. I still have a long way to go but I'm really pleased with the results so far. (Note: I have not worn shorts in FOREVER.)

Off to do my workout! Here's a picture of a gorgeous sunset we had here the other night, taken from our porch.

Day 22: Habits

2010-06-22T16:15:00.003-04:00

I read somewhere that it takes 6 weeks to effectively change a habit and/or establish a new habit. If that's true, we're halfway through!

I enjoyed Elena's post from last week about how she noticed she was reaching for food when things got stressful at the office, because I'm the same way. We had a hectic morning at my house, after a night with very interrupted sleep -- my daughter is a little under the weather and was up much of the night coughing, so we decided she needed to go to the doctor. My husband is off work today and he agreed to take her so that I could exercise (yay, husband!) because I'm working this afternoon. (This post coming to you from the studio of Classical 90.5 WUOL -- I'm on the air until 7pm if you want to listen in!) Just as I was leaving for work, my husband and I were talking about a myriad of things that need to get done around the house, and I started to feel a bit overwhelmed. As I pulled out of the driveway, I was thinking about stopping at Starbucks for an iced green tea (it's a delicious minty blend and really refreshing on a hot day) and then I automatically thought, oh, and I can get a cookie or something too! Yessss!

The next thought, which followed immediately, was, but I'm not doing cookies right now. Why was I thinking about a cookie? Because I was feeling stressed out and that's my habit. But a cookie's not going to help in any real way. Cookies don't clean my house or give me more hours in the day or make my daughter's ear infection go away. They do give me a brief moment of pleasure, but I can tell you, I have been enjoying these gorgeous cherries I'm eating every night more than a damn industrial cookie from Starbucks, of all places. It was very interesting to watch that process and see where I instinctively reached in a stressful moment.

I'm spending so much time working out and dealing with meals (planning, shopping, cooking, cleaning up) that some other household tasks have fallen by the wayside. It's starting to get on my nerves. I'm hoping I can get better at the food angle, more efficient, so I'm not eating the same things all the time but not putting three pots on the stove for lunch anymore either. I'll figure it out. We're in the middle of an extreme heat wave here in Kentucky -- temperatures above 90 degrees F for the last week at least, and due to continue for the next week too -- so I think that's making me a little irritable.

I am infinitely cheered up by my shoulders, though. I think I'm in love with my shoulders. I don't want it to sound as though I'm only complaining -- I'm really enjoying the changes I'm seeing. My body is responding to what I've been doing, and my mind is coming along too.

Day 21: Success and paranoia

2010-06-21T13:19:00.002-04:00

OK, it's been almost 3 weeks on this plan as of today. I can hardly believe it's been such a short time, because I'm feeling so many changes already, inside and out.

I can look at myself in the mirror and see some definition in my arms, my waist is smaller, my hips are slimmer, and my legs are thinner. This is amazing, after only 3 weeks. I can feel how I'm getting stronger, by virtue of how many sets I can do of certain exercises -- I was feeling the burn a lot earlier a couple of weeks ago, but now it takes more reps to start to feel it. I am so proud of myself and my PCP teammates!

So now the paranoia sets in, because I have this funny thing about success: I'm always sure that I'm failing somehow, even if everything looks good. Today while I was swimming, here's what was going through my head:

Even though I've been walking or swimming every day, I still haven't gone back to the jumprope because my knee is still painful. I wonder if that means I won't lose any weight this week. Am I somehow doing something wrong and don't even know it? Am I measuring my food correctly? Is there just something about my body that's going to make it stop responding to these efforts?

On the one hand, I feel fairly confident that because I'm doing all the right things, the results will show. OK, so I had one bite of birthday cake. But that's not going to derail all my good efforts. (And I'm especially pleased that the bite of birthday cake was ONLY one bite -- it didn't start a descending spiral of sugar.) Whatever the results, however quickly or slowly they show up, I know that I'm eating so much better than I was a few weeks ago, and I'm exercising every single day, which is a huge improvement. I'm trying to focus on the process more than the results.

But on the other hand -- there goes that chattering voice, saying I won't be as successful as other people have been because... why? Because I can't imagine myself really being fit. I've never been in that state before in my life, and I don't know what it would feel like or look like. I'm caught in my own self-image. I'm so accustomed to failing in this area that I'm expecting it to happen again.

So what do I do about this? I think I just keep plugging ahead, doing everything to the best of my ability, weighing that food, swimming those laps (and hoping my knee gets better) and, as instructed, BLOGGING IT OUT.

Oh, and one other thing: shrimp + avocado = made for each other.

Congratulations everybody on three weeks!

Day 19: Better!

2010-06-19T12:16:00.003-04:00

My knee is feeling better! Still not 100% yet, so I took another long walk this morning. I really enjoy walking, especially when I have something good to listen to. I love my neighborhood and it's nice to walk around on a Saturday morning and see what everybody's doing. The only bummer about walking instead of jumping rope is that walking takes a lot longer -- I can do my jumps in 20 minutes but I spend an hour walking, then I still have to do my strength training exercises. I hope I'm back to jumping rope soon!

I've mentioned before that I've done Weight Watchers several times before, but I'm finding many ways in which the PCP is better than WW. Let me say first that I think WW is a pretty sane program -- the main focus is portion control of regular food, not special food that they provide -- and for the right person I think it can be great. It worked for me for a while, but I never got to my goal weight. I would always wind up having a "bad" week, which would turn into two bad weeks, which would turn into not going back because I was embarrassed to step on the scale. Here is how the PCP is better than WW:

Diet
There are no forbidden foods on WW, which is kind of a relief at first. If you want to have some cake at a birthday party, you just have to plan for it and then eat only the amount you've planned for. You can easily go out to a restaurant and just try to make good choices. So it's not so shocking as all the PCP diet rules. But even then I had trouble sticking to what I was supposed to do. I would buy those 100-calorie packs of cookies or mini cupcakes or whatever, to stash in my pantry as a daily treat, which is totally permissible by WW standards. But then I would eat the whole damn box at once, blasting past my self-imposed limits, therefore making me feel like I had already failed so I might as well see what's in the fridge. I don't plan to live the rest of my life without sugar, alcohol, or salt, but for right now, it's actually easier to just stay away from those things as much as possible rather than try to consume them in moderation.

Exercise
WW doesn't talk too much about exercise. You're supposed to get so many minutes of "activity" every day, and they leave it open so you can choose whatever you like. If you do extra activity, you can literally translate that back into more food you can eat. I found that to be kind of crazy-making, like how exercise bulimics get started. I mean, I know that the more active you are, the more you can eat -- I just didn't like the incentive process of exercising in order to eat more. It wasn't healthy for me, at least. I also really appreciate the very specific exercise instruction we're getting. WW says "just get moving," which is really good if you have to lose 100 pounds and you have no clue about exercise at all. I like having my daily exercise sheet and all I have to do is complete what's there, and I know that I will get good results if I do it all to the best of my ability.

Social support
This is where WW has been a pioneer in commercial weight loss, because the meeting is a huge part of the program. In a lot of ways, I think it's like an AA meeting: the leader has been successful on the program too, and it's a time to talk about your struggles and celebrate your successes. Sometimes everything clicks and a WW meeting can really help. But like so many other things, if you don't have the right leader, or the group dynamic is unhealthy, the meeting can also drag you down. I've also seen meetings where everybody really enables each other's neurosis -- they're having such a good time together, they don't want to tell the truth. These are often people who can quote you the calorie content of anything in the grocery store, but have been coming to WW meetings every week for a year and are losing the same 5 pounds over and over. The PCP group is working so much better for me because it's finite, and because we're all at the same point in our journey. I like making everything as transparent as possible. I don't want to just hang out here forever in a holding pattern.

I will credit WW with helping me to think about food differently, especially the idea of portion control, and for helping me to avoid being 20 pounds heavier than I am now. I don't think it's all bad by any means, and I know that a lot of people have had success there. I also know that a lot of people have joined and rejoined over and over, spending lots of money and essentially spinning their wheels. WW touts its successes but really, those re-joiners are the company's bread & butter (so to speak) so it's not really in their interest to see people succeed. (Once you reach your goal weight, you don't have to pay for meetings anymore, as long as you stay at that weight.) The last time I went back, about a year ago, I was so half-hearted about it that I only stayed about 4 weeks. I plan on never going back.

Yay for day 19!

Day 18: Chugging along

2010-06-18T13:47:00.002-04:00

Managed to do a one-hour fast walk in the searing Kentucky heat this morning. If I walk tomorrow, I'm going earlier! It was fine, though, and I felt good afterwards. Thank goodness for podcasts -- listened to a recent This American Life that I had missed and that kept my brain occupied.

My knee is still pretty painful, and actually seemed worse after swimming yesterday. The sideways action of swimming breaststroke was pulling something funny. I'm still frustrated about it -- when you're hanging out with a toddler, you spend a lot of time on the floor, and it's painful to get down on the floor or to get up. I'm taking ibuprofen regularly and just hoping that some time away from the jump rope will help. I think I went back to jumping too quickly, so I'm going to continue subbing in something else until I am pain-free. I know that continued weight loss will take some pressure off the knee, and I hope the muscles around the knee are getting stronger to support it.

I feel like I've turned a corner on my acceptance of this whole thing. Yes, I have to do a lot of planning, cooking, and cleaning. Yes, I have to make time to exercise. Yes, life would be "easier" right now without those things. But today I'm kind of feeling like, okay, whatever, let's see what's for lunch. Not agonizing about it, not obsessing about it, just doing it. I'll deal with the knee annoyance one day at a time.

Almost out of fruit & veggies! Good thing my local farmers' market is tomorrow.

I wanted to share this article from the NY Times about the metabolic effects of exercise. Interesting stuff.

Happy Friday, everybody!

Day 17: Time Management

2010-06-17T20:40:00.002-04:00

Today was really frustrating in terms of time spent, lost, wasted, or frittered away. I didn't have much to do today, and my husband was off work, so one would think that getting a workout in would be a snap. Yeah, not so much.

I'm still struggling with the knee pain so I'm taking advantage of the advice to walk or swim instead of jumping rope. I like walking and I love swimming, so that's no problem -- the only issue is time. Both walking and swimming take more time than jumping. I can drive to the pool at the gym (20 minutes each way) or I can go to my neighborhood pool (5 minute walk) but that pool doesn't open until 11am. We've had highs in the mid 90s all week so unless I can walk early, it's not really "brisk walking" weather.

I won't go into all the details, but the two appointments I had today didn't happen on time, things got pushed back, I had to pick my daughter up from school, one thing overlapped onto another, and then it was 4:30 and I hadn't been able to exercise at all. All three of us packed up and went to the pool, where I did laps while my husband played with our daughter on the other side. A few times she started crying for me so I walked up and down the length of the pool (in the water) as fast as I could with her in my arms -- that's not bad exercise either!

I didn't get to do my strength exercises until after putting her to bed, because my husband had to go out, but I did finally get them all done. Incline pull-up still feels like a joke -- all the muscles tense up but nothing happens!

So I did get it done, but I was anxious all day about it. This is why I prefer morning workouts.

I see why Patrick warned us that this week is tricky from a mental standpoint. I remember Royce said he usually wound up quitting any new health regimen around three weeks in, and I think that's about when I usually quit too. I'm just sick enough of the disruption to my regular life, and I haven't seen enough results to feel re-energized. I'm just going to keep moving forward, doing the best I can every day, with the faith that by next week I'll feel better.

One thing I do is imagine how I would feel if I quit today -- if I told everybody that I'm just not going to be able to do this, thanks for watching. When I really imagine it, in great detail, I'm reminded about how much I really DO want to do this, even though it's hard. I also imagine what it would feel like to cheat -- to go get some ice cream, to skip a workout, to have a couple of glasses of wine. That doesn't really feel good either. I'm proud of myself for the work I've done over the last 17 days, and I want to keep building on it.

Hang in there, everybody!

Day 16: Delayed Gratification

2010-06-16T21:14:00.002-04:00

This is going to be my first really grumpy post. I usually manage to keep a good attitude -- especially in public -- but tonight I'm bringing the bad attitude.

It's been a challenging day for the PCP. Today is my dad's birthday, and all he wanted for his birthday is for all of us -- him, my mom, my husband, my daughter and me -- to go to this quirky little theme park near Louisville called Holiday World. (Every section is themed with a different holiday, including Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Halloween, but it's basically your standard carnival rides. Small, cute, fun.) I managed to do my workout this morning before we left, and I was really pleased that I got through all the jumps and even the lunges with minimal knee pain. Happy and tired after the workout. Crammed down my lunch before we left. Left my morning snack (banana) on the kitchen counter because I forgot to eat it before lunch. Didn't see how I could bring afternoon snack (yogurt) to an amusement park -- what, am I going to carry around a little cooler? -- so decided to skip it and just do my best.

Food at the theme park wasn't a problem -- I didn't eat anything! I wasn't hungry, and there ain't nothing PCP-friendly about a funnel cake and unlimited Pepsi. (Seriously, this place has free unlimited Pepsi for everybody. Crazy.) The problem began when my knee started acting up. The pain got worse and worse, and it became hard to chase my daughter around. Stairs got really tough. I hobbled out of the place when it was time to leave.

Then came dinner: we stopped at a decent chain restaurant where they have a lot of different things on the menu. I think I did pretty well: I ordered the Asian chicken salad, which was a pile of greens and other raw veggies, with a piece of chicken in some kind of sesame sauce. I'm sure it was salted but there weren't any other options. I skipped the dressing, skipped the fried wontons on the plate, skipped the chips & guacamole my dad ordered, skipped the wine my mom ordered... I got plenty to eat but I have to say I felt pretty deprived.

Then we got home and had cake for my dad's birthday. The traditional birthday cake in our family is a butter cake -- kind of like pound cake but better -- that my grandmother used to make, so my mom made it for today. I had a bite. One bite of my favorite cake, which is like my madeleine and takes me back to my childhood. Everybody else was chowing down on big pieces of cake and I just watched them, as my knee continued to throb.

So today feels like a bit of a bummer. I did my best to do everything right, despite some challenges, so I'm proud of that. But I'm also annoyed that I'm in so much knee pain (I've never had knee trouble before) and it was really tough to be around people eating "normal" food and I knew I wasn't going to partake. I'm happy for the weight I've lost and for the muscles I'm starting to see, but I'm really pissed off that I'm having this knee pain and it's making it difficult for me to get up and down stairs, etc. I'm also feeling tired all the time and ready to feel energetic.

I have to say that my parents and my husband are all in good shape and eat pretty healthy food, and they are supportive of me. I was bitching to my husband about how I feel and he just said, "It'll get better, you're going to do this and you're going to be glad you did." I know he's right. I'm not quitting, I'm not ready to blow everything, but at this moment I am definitely disliking these rules that I've decided to follow. I'm just feeling a little bit sorry for myself and hoping that tomorrow is better.

Thanks for reading my grumpfest.

Day 15: Smile, dammit!

2010-06-15T15:42:00.003-04:00

I was soooooo nervous before starting my 800 jumps today. My knee was feeling a lot better but still not pain-free, so I was worried about how much the jumps were going to hurt. I dawdled and procrastinated and threw another load of laundry in the dryer and checked my email again and... finally put on my exercise clothes and my shoes and grabbed that jump rope.

Guess what? It was fine. Totally fine. A little twinge, but nowhere near as bad as the last time I jumped, two days ago. My form was definitely off, though, and I couldn't sustain many consecutive jumps. I started to get frustrated, and then I reminded myself to smile.

The physical act of smiling, even when you don't feel like it -- especially when you don't feel like it -- can really improve your mood. It feels kind of fake at first, but then the brain chemicals kick in and then you start to feel a little bit lighter. I find this especially useful when I start to take myself too seriously. (Which I do all the time. And I often forget to smile.)

So I grinned like a goofball as I tripped my way through 800 jumps. Lots of stretching before, during and after, so it took me a while. I worked up a good sweat, though. I took an awesome pic of the pool of sweat I left on my floor after doing the incline pull-ups (which are still an exercise in futility) but I can't upload it at the moment. If anybody reallllly wants to see a picture of a pool of sweat, let me know and I'll make the effort. :)

In other news, I'm mourning the loss of carbs from dinner as of today.

In other, other news, I'm down 6 pounds from 2 weeks ago, and I can see some muscles in my arms. So I guess I can take the carb thing in stride.

Happy week 3, everybody!

Day 14: Listen to Uncle Tim

2010-06-14T12:55:00.003-04:00

Today was a "make it work" moment. And I made it work!

First, I am just amazed by the support of my PCP teammates (and PCPers further along the path) after my post yesterday about knee pain. This is one of the greatest values of this program: to know that we're all doing this together, even though we don't know each other, even though we're spread out all over the world. We have a common goal and we're going to work to get each other through this process. All of your comments made me feel so much better.

I like to do things perfectly. I know this about myself. Sometimes I find that if I can't do something perfectly, I don't want to do it at all. Until yesterday, I had been perfect on this program, but then I was faced with knee pain that made jumping difficult. So the choice becomes: continue to try and be perfect (i.e., jump anyway and maybe have even more pain) or try to make a wise choice that will keep me moving forward in a healthy way.

My husband (who is a doctor) advised 600 mg of ibuprofen every 8 hours, and then he suggested I go swimming for my exercise today. I used to love swimming laps, but I haven't done it in probably 20 years. I cancelled my membership at the YMCA before starting the PCP, but I still have privileges through the end of June, so I have a pool I can use. He's suggested swimming before, as a good non-impact cardio exercise, but I've always been put off by a) wearing a swimsuit, b) having to buy goggles, c) dealing with my long wet hair afterwards. Etc etc etc. I can always find a reason to avoid something.

But this morning I went to buy goggles (after getting my new PCP diet sheet printed & laminated -- woo hoo!), then I headed to the pool. I swam 20 lengths of a 25-meter pool, which took me about 20 minutes. Wow, swimming is tough! Full-body exercise, really had me panting, but happily was putting no pressure on my sore knee. I feel lucky that today is our "rest" day with no strength training, and I'm planning to just chill out for the next couple of hours (daughter's naptime) and rest that knee as much as possible.

Elena's reminder that diet is 80% of success here was super-helpful in lessening my anxiety, but I feel really good that I didn't skip a workout. Going to the pool is still a hassle -- 20 minute drive there, have to tote all my stuff, wet hair, 20 minute drive home -- so I don't think I'll make it a habit. I'm very grateful to be able to jump rope at home and then just hop in the shower.

So thanks everybody for the support. And congratulations to all of us for completing 14 days! Big changes have already occurred, and more are on the way...

UPDATE: I just have to share this link with all of you, in the spirit of bacon chocolate chip pancake mix. Turns out, Jimmy Dean had it first!

Day 12 & 13: Frustrated but not discouraged

2010-06-13T14:01:00.002-04:00

It's been a busy couple of days, and I haven't had time to write or read my teammates' blogs this weekend. I'm sorry I haven't been able to be more supportive of you guys! I'm going to remedy that as soon as I finish writing this.

This is a bit of a tough weekend for me, because my husband is working all weekend which means I'm on solo kid duty the whole time. My husband doesn't work a M-F schedule, and it's relatively rare that he works all weekend, but it happens. My daughter goes to daycare in the mornings on the weekdays, so that's when I've been exercising, showering, and prepping my meals. I haven't had that time these couple of days. She naps for about 2 hours in the middle of the day, which is just enough time to work out, shower and make and eat lunch. That means little time to do other things around the house that need to get done too. I find myself feeling a little envious of my child-free friends who have so much time for themselves, and I have boundless respect for moms who stay at home full-time with no outside childcare. It's exhausting being with a little kid all day, and when I have a break (i.e., her nap) the last thing I want to do is go jump rope. But jump I have!

This leads me to the first problem I'm dealing with: knee pain. Yup, it's come to get me too. My left knee cracks frequently, but it's never painful. Yesterday during my last 200 jumps, the left knee started talking to me, softly at first, then more loudly. Nothing snapped or popped or happened suddenly -- it just gradually got more sore. I finished the jumps and was able to do my squats without too much trouble. But for the rest of the day I noticed the pain.

This morning, knee pain was still there, and a little sharper than yesterday. What to do? I don't want to injure myself, and I don't want to wimp out. So, I took some ibuprofen and I jumped. My form has gotten a lot better and I can usually do 30-40 jumps without stopping now, which is pretty fun (and amazing to me). After 500 jumps I was about to cry because my knee was hurting so badly. I took a break, did 100 more, and then decided I was done with jumping for the day. Couldn't do the lunges either -- I did one set of each and it really did not feel good.

So I'm not sure what to do tomorrow. I hate the idea of missing a day. The only reason I can face each day's workout is that I know I did it yesterday. If I'm nervous about the number of jumps, I just tell myself that I did almost that many yesterday, so what's another 50? Resting, really resting for the rest of the day isn't an option, since I have a 2-year-old to deal with. I think I'll just see how the knee feels tomorrow.

I'm disappointed that my body isn't cooperating right now. I was seriously ill as a child and again as a teenager, and I've always felt like I can't trust my body. I don't know how else to explain it. The first time that I felt like I could trust my body was when I was pregnant -- I had an easy pregnancy and an uncomplicated birth, and I was so proud to feel like a normal person, maybe even a strong person. When I trained for my first 5K, I did the "Couch to 5K" program, gradually introducing running into my walks. But I found that I couldn't keep up -- when the program said I should be moving ahead with more running, I wasn't strong enough and had to take it more slowly. So far this program has been great, and I feel like I'm able to keep up and getting stronger all the time. I don't want to jeopardize that now.

The positives: I can see a difference when I look in the mirror. I don't know if anybody else can see it, but I know my body and I know that it's changing for the good. That is a tremendous incentive to continue, to make the most of every workout, to watch my food carefully, and to keep writing about it all.

Hope everybody is doing well -- I'm going to read your blogs right now!

Day 11: Shopping

2010-06-11T18:26:00.003-04:00

So today I took a little shopping trip to Whole Foods, and I bought... whole foods. Blueberries, kale, carrots, peppers, bananas, mushrooms, tomatoes, yogurt, chicken, and whole wheat tortillas. There's a lot of yummy stuff at Whole Foods, chocolate of all kinds, luscious pastries, sushi, but I bypassed it all in favor of FOOD. (Craziest item spotted: bacon chocolate chip pancake mix. Say what??) And the funniest thing is that it wasn't too hard to leave all that other stuff out of my cart, because I have a goal, and those things won't help me get there. (I keep telling myself they'll be waiting for me on the other side of the PCP if I still want them. That's a big IF, but it makes me feel better.)

I usually shop with a list because I have certain recipes in mind, but today I just picked up things that looked good. It was kind of strange, but I felt really proud of myself checking out. I'll head to the farmers' market near me in the morning and see what looks good there too. I feel like I'm learning a whole new way to cook.

Workout was tough again today, but I did it all. Most thrilling thing: the first set of leg-ups was relatively easy. Shockingly easy, actually! Leg-ups are so hard for me that I was putting off doing them -- the last exercise of the day, but I was avoiding getting started because I was dreading them. And then the first set was like whoosh. Second set was harder, third and fourth were murder. But that first set was worth all the work.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Dinner success!

2010-06-10T21:32:00.006-04:00

Just wanted to share a successful supper that both my husband and I ate tonight. Here's the recipe for Soft Tacos with Fish & Spinach.

It didn't start out looking so promising: tomatillos pureed with cilantro, garlic, jalapeno, and onion. (I left out the salt, figuring my husband could put some on his portion later.)

It had a really terrible green color that reminded me of witches' brew. It also reminded me of a legendary bad dish I once made with fish -- so terrible that neither of us could eat it. But it smelled good, and it brightened up quite a bit once I blended some more fresh cilantro into it.

I also had to steam a mountain of spinach.

I got whole wheat tortillas for me and regular white flour tortillas for my husband. Here's how my plate looked:

We both agreed it was delicious! I sprinkled a tiny bit of feta cheese on top (as the recipe suggested) which cut the heat of the jalapenos nicely. The beer my husband was drinking presumably did the same. :)

It was a ton of work, and seemed to use every dish in our kitchen, but it was tasty and healthy and I have lots of leftovers for tomorrow's lunch.

And Jenny, this is for you:

This is the Mario Batali salt cellar that my husband got me for my birthday a couple of years ago. Note that there are two wells for two different kinds of salt -- because sometimes you need kosher salt and sometimes you need table salt. I don't think I use much salt when cooking at home anyway, and I bet that eliminating processed food will cut most of the salt I was eating. But I'm sticking to plan and not adding any salt to my cooking, just to see what happens. So far it's fine, but I definitely feel the urge to sprinkle in a little bit anyway.

Hope everybody had a great day 10!

Day 10 Thoughts

2010-06-10T10:26:00.003-04:00

In a bit of a hurry today so just some quick thoughts on Day 10! Woo hoo!

I don't think I've ever exercised every day for 10 days straight. Ever. In my whole life.
Same pain in the back of my legs during jumping today. Almost brought me to my first PCP tears. (I said almost.) Stopped and stretched a lot between sets of 100. Hoping this is just a strengthening issue that will work itself out over the next few days.
I added some gentle twists, hip openers, and a 5-minute savasana to the end of my workout, and it was lovely. I remember reading somewhere that the last part of an experience is what you tend to remember most -- so, for example, if you end a workout with the hardest exercise and you're really struggling, that will be the largest thing in your mind when you think back on that workout. I got up from my workout feeling refreshed and nicely wrung out, in a good way. I think I'm going to continue to build in time for those stretches and a little savasana at the end.
Vegetables for breakfast are so not my thing. But I'm eating them anyway!
When hard-boiling eggs, make sure the water is really boiling before you turn it off. Otherwise, you get somewhat-hard-boiled eggs with this nasty goopy yolk.
Fresh cantaloupe is a most excellent snack.

Hope everybody has a good day 10!

Day 9: Ouch! And really walking on my legs

2010-06-09T13:01:00.002-04:00

Woke up this morning with real soreness in the muscles just under and behind my armpits. I don't know what they're called but they were talking to me pretty loudly. I caved and took some ibuprofen, and now they're feeling better. I don't like to take painkillers often, but lifting my daughter was actually a challenge this morning so I decided I needed the help.

But the soreness in those back muscles was nothing compared to the way my lower legs were yelling at me during my jumps! I don't know what this is called either -- above my ankles (so not my Achilles, I think) and below my calf muscle. Yow!! I stopped in between sets of 100 jumps and did a lot of stretching and ankle circles. I think I need to start stretching better before jumping.

The rest of the exercises went fine, although the leg-ups were really tough. I found myself wondering if and when I will ever really enjoy exercise. I enjoy the feeling that comes from having done it, but I wish I enjoyed the exercise itself. I started running about a year ago, with the encouragement of a good friend who has become a runner and really loves it. I dutifully went through the Couch to 5K training program, although I found it hard to keep up with -- you alternate walking and running, but I always felt like I was struggling to do the running. I've now done 2 5K runs, and while the events themselves were fun and exciting, I never got to the point where I really liked running. Is it possible I just didn't stick with it long enough? Or will I never really like exercise? At the moment, it doesn't matter so much: I'm doing this program whether I "like" it or not, and I'm committed to it. But in the long term, it's going to be hard to sustain an exercise program if I'm always dreading it. This is something to observe and see what happens.

I found a really yummy salsa at my local market that really zings up my pasta and chicken/shrimp -- I checked the ingredients carefully and it's only tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, lime and mango, no salt or oil. There's very little mango so I'm counting it as vegetable. I took out a few grams of veg and put a couple of spoonfuls of salsa over my food & mixed it all around -- deeeeelish. No issues with the food at this point, just working out time to fix everything. But I can see right now how prepping a bunch of things at once will make a big difference on an daily basis.

One positive thing I'm already noticing is how I'm standing taller and really walking on my legs. I noticed this after I first started doing yoga, a few years back -- I'm aware of my legs being strong and really carrying the rest of my body around. It's a little hard to describe but that's the best way I know to put it. It feels wonderful and that's one thing that's keeping me going.

It's naptime for my daughter so that means it's naptime for me. When she wakes up, I'll be taking to a place we affectionately call "bouncy castle madness." It's basically a big room (you can rent it out for parties) that has a bunch of different bouncy castle things in it, and they have a few open play sessions each week. It's a rainy day here in Louisville so an indoor activity will be nice today. She LOVES going to "bouncy castle" and I have to agree it's pretty fun, although it can be exhausting. (Maybe I should have waited to do my jumps there!) This is one of the benefits of being home with a toddler: my Wednesday afternoons never used to involve jumping around like a lunatic and falling down and laughing. (Or if they did, it was a really, really bad day. And no laughing.)

This is one of the reasons I'm doing the PCP: I want to be able to take my daughter to the bouncy castle place and not dread it. I want her to see her mom being active and healthy and optimistic. I want her to have happy memories of her childhood and I want to be able to enjoy it for a long time to come.

Happy day 9, everybody!

Quote of the day

2010-06-08T12:47:00.004-04:00

This quote came my way today and really spoke to me. See what you think.

"The only way to relate with the present situation of spirituality or the neurotic state of the moment is by meditation. I don't mean sitting meditation only, but relating with the emotional situations of daily life in a meditative way, by working with them, being aware of them as they come up. Every situation then becomes a learning process. These situations are the books; they are the scriptures." -- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

I am currently learning from the situation of steaming kale.

Day 8 Thoughts

2010-06-08T10:37:00.003-04:00

So, it's the first day of our new diet plans and our upgraded exercise plans. I'm eating my mid-morning snack (130g of blueberries, which is actually a lot) and my current thoughts are: really? Really?!

First, the food. I could not believe how much I ate for breakfast this morning, even though I was careful and weighed everything out. I spent a lot of time doing Weight Watchers, which allows you to make choices based on "points" which are calculated through the ratio of fat, calories and fiber in any particular food. You get so many "points" a day that you can eat, and you can have anything you want as long as you stick to your points limit, making sure you include 5 servings of fruit or veg, 2 servings low-fat dairy, and "limited" sugar & alcohol. Never a word about salt. I did okay on WW a couple of times -- I do realize that's like saying I quit smoking a couple of times, didn't really work, did it? -- but I got used to very small portion sizes. I was terribly hungry for much of the time, but I did lose weight. There was only so long that I could stick it out to be that hungry, though, so I would eventually slack off and then quit altogether. So in the end, WW didn't work for me in a sustainable way, but my mind is conditioned to smaller portions if I'm trying to lose weight. My very full plate at breakfast was a little disconcerting, but I'm very glad not to be hungry.

Second, the exercise -- if I felt like a badass for doing 500 jumps yesterday, I *really* feel like a badass today, with 600 jumps followed by all the strength training. The 600 jumps were pretty tough. The incline pull-ups were a total bust -- if I keep my body rigid as instructed, nothing comes off the ground when I pull up. So I just did all the reps, with nothing coming off the ground, and felt kinda silly. I thought I had some better upper-body strength from lifting a 25-pound kid all day, but I still have a long way to go.

One other thought that came into my head as I was getting through those jumps: maybe I've taken on too much. I was asking myself, "Why did I think I could get into peak condition? I'm not even in average condition. Maybe I need to do The Average Condition Project first." I'm half-kidding and I was kind of laughing to myself as I was saying this, but it's also kind of true. I'm seeing how much time and effort this is going to require and I can feel part of myself start to pull back.

BUT -- the important thing is that I did all the exercises ANYWAY, I'm eating according to the plan I've been given ANYWAY. I have doubt about my own abilities but I'm not going to listen to that at the moment. I think part of me is a little afraid of what life will be like if I'm really in good shape, since I've spent so much of my life being out of shape. It's funny to think about being afraid of something you want, but I know it happens all the time. I'm going to focus on today, and the workout I just gave my best effort. And lunch. What's for lunch?

How's everybody else doing?

For Naoko...

2010-06-07T20:06:00.001-04:00

...and everybody else who saw SATC2 this week. (I didn't, don't plan to.) I think it's funny that the actress who voiced Carrie in the Japanese version found her kind of annoying!

Day 7: Glass half full

2010-06-07T09:36:00.002-04:00

(Get it? Glass half full? On the last day of the half-diet? Ha, I crack me up.)

Still hanging in there on the half-diet, and doing pretty well. My husband and I have recently established a tradition of Sunday dinners, when we invite a couple of friends over, sometimes my parents too, and have a nice dinner together. We have some very close Israeli friends in New York who always observe a Friday night Shabbat dinner, and we loved the idea that there's one night a week when everybody tries to be home, we take our time with preparing food, we invite guests to join in, and we take a moment to appreciate and reflect on the week. Last night we had some grilled beef ribs with a Korean marinade (yum!), roasted asparagus, a lovely salad with strawberries, and then my mom made these amazing little chocolate egg-white souffles. I ate small portions of everything and had only one glass of wine the whole evening. Luckily the company and conversation distracted me from obsessing about what I wasn't eating, and I had a great time.

Which brings me to my current fears: when we start our "real" PCP diets tomorrow, I'm nervous about what it's going to be like. I really appreciated Patrick's email telling us to get prepared and to let friends and family know that things are going to be different. My husband and my parents are super-supportive, but I know that I'll still have to make some hard choices.

As far as I can tell, I'm the only one in our group that lives with a partner -- is that right? (Sorry if I've missed something.) I usually cook dinner for both of us, so I'm going to have to get creative with making sure I'm eating what I need and finding a way to have something he likes too. (He's the one with the full-time outside-of-the-home job, working 12-14 hours a day so I kind of feel like one thing I can do to help him is make dinner. I have some issues about being the "housewife," can you tell? I worked full-time until about a year ago and I'm still negotiating this stay-at-home mom thing in my head.) He likes healthy food but I would say he prefers to eat a little more "traditionally" -- more meat, more foods with sauces, etc. He doesn't have any weight issues, though, and doesn't want to be "doing PCP" with me, although he is totally cheering me on. It's tough when one partner decides to make a change and the other one is not. So this is one challenge ahead of me: he and I will have to figure out how to get a meal on the table that we can both live with.

Getting ready to go jump rope -- kind of nice to have a day off from strength training, eh? -- and I really appreciate everybody's thoughts about jumping. I think there has to be a balance between thinking and not thinking about it. Like, to a certain point you have to think about it, because there are basic physical and technical things that have to come together in order to jump. But then once a certain competency has been reached, it's probably better to NOT think about it. I'm still in the "need to think about it" stage with jumping -- and there's no shame in that, considering I never did it at all before a week ago. I'm curious to see what it will be like to do 500 jumps today.

Go team! You guys are inspiring!

A note on jumping rope

2010-06-06T13:34:00.002-04:00

"Arthur eventually learned to fly, basically by falling and then forgetting to hit the ground. The thing about flying is not to realise that it is, in fact, impossible, or then gravity will suddenly notice you again and take exception to being ignored."

I found this quote by Googling "Arthur Dent" and "flying," although I couldn't quickly locate the actual passage from the Hitchhiker's Guide books. But the upshot is that the schlubby Earthling learns to fly, but anytime he thinks, "Hey, wow, I'm flying!" he falls to the ground. This is how it is with me and jumping rope right now. I start in and do 20 jumps just like zing! and it feels great, and I think, "Cool, I'm jumping!" and then I trip. I restart and can't do more than 3 in a row. It's hard to consciously LET GO and RELAX about something you're trying to LET GO of. I'm just mildly annoyed at this point but I restart and restart and restart and eventually get all my jumps done.

I would love to learn how to make it smoother, though. Anybody got some form/technique tips to share?

Rock on!

Day 5/6: What I'm Learning

2010-06-06T07:19:00.003-04:00

First, this public service announcement: when you're setting your alarm clock, just do a quick check to make sure the AM/PM thing is set correctly. :)

I'm at another of my part-time jobs today, hosting Weekend Edition Sunday on my local NPR news station. I got here in enough time to be prepared for my first newscast, but it wasn't the best start to the day. I managed to throw some fruit and a granola bar (not ideal but it was what I could bring) in my bag on my way out the door, since I'll be in this studio until 11am.

I've learned -- or maybe should say, RE-learned -- a couple of things already this week, and I'm feeling so grateful. If I were to go no farther with the PCP than this point (don't worry, folks, I'm in for the long haul), I would have these things to take with me.

First, the half-diet has been revelatory. I do not need nearly as much food as I think I do, and I've been eating way too much, just out of habit. Look, I love food, and I think it's one of life's great pleasures -- but really, the first few bites taste the best, and the awareness I've had to summon this week has made me realize that I don't need as *much* food in order to enjoy it.

Last night, my husband and I went to a Palestianian restaurant for dinner, one of those places that isn't much to look at but has fantastic food. We split their sampler platter with baba ganoush, falafel, chicken kebab, lamb shawarma, a couple of different kinds of salads, and pita bread. (The only problem was they were out of hummus -- what kind of Mediterranean restaurant runs out of hummus??) I tasted everything and it was all great. But I STOPPED eating much earlier than I would have had I not been paying attention. At the point I stopped, I felt like I could eat more, but I really wasn't hungry anymore. It was probably still more calories than I should be having at this point but I'm proud of myself that I made such a big change. I understand that much bigger food changes are ahead for us, but this has been terrific all on its own.

The other thing I've relearned is how good exercise makes me feel, both physically and mentally. Whenever I've gotten into a regular exercise habit, I've been able to maintain it by reminding myself that exercise is as much for my mental health as for my physical health. When I'm getting enough exercise, my state of mind is sunnier and I feel more capable of taking on difficult things. I believe there are very real biochemical effects from exercise that can be as good or better than any antidepressant medication. Even though our workouts have been short this week, just the act of getting my heart rate up and getting all sweaty has done wonders for my state of mind.

I'm super-inspired by what's gone on so far. I know things are going to get harder, so I'm happy that I already have some things to take away even before I see any physical results. And it's a pleasure to be on this journey with my PCP teammates -- you guys are terrific!

Happy Sunday!

Rev your engines!

2010-06-04T20:58:00.002-04:00

I just have to share -- here's the general horoscope for all signs for this week, courtesy of AstroStyle.com. I'm not a big believer in astrology but I think it can be helpful sometimes. I'm choosing to see this as VERY helpful for all of us PCP-ers. :)

General Astrology Overview for All 12 Signs:

Rev up your engines. Mighty Jupiter leaps forward from Pisces into Aries from June 6 until September 8. This is a rare cosmic occurrence, as Jupiter generally stays in one sign for a full year. Since January 17, 2010 we’ve had the planet of luck, expansion and higher consciousness in Pisces. For better or for worse, life has been but a dream. Going with the flow was a better answer than forcing the issue. Sure, we longed for results, but it’s been all about trusting the universe and waiting for divine timing to give us the green light. Now, the switch has been flipped to “go!” With Jupiter thundering into Aries for three months, it’s time to summon forth the warrior princesses, queens and kings within us, and do battle with the resistant forces that are standing in our way. Uranus, the planet of social change, already made a similar leap from Pisces into Aries last month. Through September, the two cosmic forces unite to help us move mountains in the name of progress. The revolution has begun, and yes, it will be televised. This may be a sneak preview of a full-length feature that’s set to air in 2011, but one thing is for certain. Embracing change and taking the initiative is the only way to stay on top of your game now.

Day 4: Jump Rope Breakthrough!

2010-06-04T11:38:00.003-04:00

(Coming to you live today from one of my many part-time jobs, in addition to being a mostly stay-at-home mom -- I'm playing classical music on the radio today! 11am to 3pm Eastern today, listen here if you want!)

It's so nice to feel a little bit of progress, like I'm getting just a hair better and stronger. I had a jump rope moment this morning that really made me happy.

I've been struggling a bit with finding the right rope and figuring out my technique. The first rope I got was vinyl, so-called "EZ Jump" made by Reebok. The middle section is thicker so it's weighted, and theoretically will be easier to jump with. Two problems with this rope: it was all folded up in the box and those bends from folding are still in the rope, and the handles don't really rotate. So after about 15 jumps or so, the rope starts to get kinked and twisted and shorter and then I bonk myself in the head. I have to stop and unwind the stupid thing.

I bought another rope, a better one with handles that rotate well, but I had a hard time figuring out the right length. It was way too long at first, I shortened it but still thought it was too long, so shortened it again, then feared it was too short because I kept hitting myself in the head anyway. I looked up a couple of jump rope videos online to learn more about good form (as Patrick says, we're living in the Matrix and you can find almost anything online) and that really helped. Today, during the last 20 jumps of my last set, everything aligned: my hands were in the right place, I was swishing the rope just right, the rhythm was perfect and it felt great. I'll probably trip again tomorrow, but having just a hint of doing it right was really fun and encouraging.

The food is going okay. I still get a little anxious when I look at what I'm about to eat -- the little voice inside is yelling, "Not enough! Not enough!" But then I eat and everything's okay, it really is enough. Breaking habits takes a lot of repetition. I think about how many times I've eaten more than I needed and I know it'll take many times of eating less to get used to it.

Boy, who knew that a simple comment about laundry would spark so much conversation! But these are the hidden "costs" of getting fit. It's not only the time you actually spend exercising but the time around it. In my case, with a little kid at home, having enough time to shower every day can be a little challenging. (I know, gross, right? But it's true.) I get so sweaty during these PCP workouts that I absolutely have to hose off afterwards, so I have to build that into my workout time. I'm sure that next week when we get our "real" PCP diets, there will be plenty of food prep time. (This is something I see other PCP-ers mentioning a lot, so I expect it to be time-consuming.) I have to remind myself to build in the time to do all those things to keep myself healthy.

After all, every morning at about 8:00 my daughter (who's almost 2) goes to the basement door and says very expectantly, "Dance party?" This is our post-breakfast thing these days: we go downstairs where we have a stereo and lots of space, and we put on very loud music and jump up and down and spin until we get dizzy and bounce on the bed in the guest room. There's a lot of laughing and a lot of shrieking and I'm tired within about 15 minutes. My daughter just runs everywhere by default so keeping up with her is no easy feat. This is why her picture is with me at the top of my blog -- I want to be able to do things with her and provide a good example for her, instead of always just saying, "Mommy's too tired." I was not an athletic kid but maybe she'll have the chance to be one.

After Day 3 workout

2010-06-03T10:02:00.002-04:00

I'm glad to hear that my PCP teammates are all feeling sore -- not because I want them to be in pain, but because it tells me that all the soreness I'm feeling is normal! I'm actually liking it, though, because it feels like my muscles are waking up. It's not so bad that I can't do my normal activities, but just a little reminder throughout the day that I'm actually using my body and pushing it a little bit.

I find my mind jumping ahead to the workouts we'll do in a few weeks and wondering how I'll ever get through them. Then I bring myself back to today's workout and try not to think about the future. I have faith that I'll be prepared when I get there.

PCP = lots of laundry! When I was going for a (half-hearted) run three days a week, I only needed three sports bras. Jumping rope is super-sweaty, though, so more workout clothes needed per week. I always remember some old Nike ad that said "a good running week is a bad laundry week." May we all have bad laundry weeks!

This is fun.

This is interesting

2010-06-02T21:31:00.003-04:00

The thought process that goes on as I'm preparing a meal during this half-eating week...

"OK, I really want a [whatever] but I'll have [something else healthy]. But I can only have half of this salmon burger? But it's so small already!"

Now I'm so dispirited that I barely want to make anything to eat, but my stomach is grumbling so I know I need to eat something.

Talk myself into it: "It'll be fine, I don't need as much food as I think, it's just for a few days, I'm not going to starve to death, just suck it up and be strong, transitions are hard but this will be worthwhile..."

I sit down and eat. It's definitely less than I'm used to -- that's the point! -- but it's okay. When I'm finished, I know I could eat more, but I don't. (That is a weird feeling. The fact that that is a weird feeling is really important and good to be aware of.)

And then here's the most surprising thing: I managed to not be obsessed with food all day, even though I ate much less than I normally do. I was hungry, but I was busy so I wasn't thinking about food so much.

Once in college I lost a lot of weight because I basically stopped eating for a while. I knew it was unhealthy behavior but the social rewards were so great that I continued doing it. Two of my best girlfriends sat me down one evening and told me that I was on the verge of a serious problem, and that woke me up enough to change my path. Since then, I've tried to focus on being sane in my eating and not doing anything too extreme, so this "eat half what you normally do and ignore your rumbling stomach" rang some warning bells for me. But it really has been okay so far. I'm happily surprised.

A word about leg-ups

2010-06-02T10:47:00.002-04:00

They're HARD! Wow. I had to talk myself through every rep of that last set.

This is one reason I'm glad I'm not working out in a gym: nobody else around to hear me talking to myself, sweating, panting. I'm all for transparency and accountability -- that's why I'm glad to keep a blog, and why I emailed all my friends this morning and told them about it. But the actual WORK of the working out -- I'm happy to do that in private, at least for now.

Day 1 & Day 2: Liftoff!

2010-06-02T07:48:00.000-04:00

The starting date for my PCP was a little inauspicious: I was out of town for the holiday weekend, visiting my husband's family. We had a 3-hour drive back home so I didn't get to do my workout until the early evening, which is definitely not my favorite time of day to exercise. But because I'm not letting any excuses get in my way this time, I put on my shoes and did it just after putting my daughter to bed. A friend gave me some good jump-rope tips and it wasn't too bad! I tripped a fair number of times but it was fun anyway. I haven't jumped rope since elementary school so I expect it'll take a few days to get the feel of it. I felt very virtuous sitting down to dinner after doing the workout.

I think I need to develop a good sense of the difference between "difficult" and "requires effort." Patrick says the Week 1 workouts are pretty easy, and I think he's right. But they do require effort. I was sweating before the end of the first set of jumps, and I felt tired afterwards. In my mind, that has often been a marker that something is wrong -- if I'm tired, sore, sweaty, shaky, then I must have been doing something that was too hard for me. But I'm trying to remind myself that all of those signs are indications that I have been challenged, and that whatever I'm doing is going to help me grow. (And I also know that dizzy, passing out, can't stand up, etc., are definitely signs of too much.) I've had a problem with fear while exercising, and I want to take that fear on, look at the roots of it, dismantle it, and not allow it to stop me anymore.

The halfsies diet is going fine, although I was a little hungry yesterday. I reminded myself that people all over the world are way hungrier than that every day. I felt a little absurd leaving half an apple on the breakfast table this morning -- I didn't get to where I am now because I ate an entire apple. But I know that it's not just about calories. In order to eat "about half of my usual diet," I have to think about what my usual diet is, and it's good to see that I can eat much less than normal and the world doesn't collapse.

I currently weigh more than I would like, but I'm mostly okay with it. Sure, I'd like to be in better shape, but if I were at this current weight forever, I think I could deal. The problem is that in order to just stay at this current weight as I get older, I'm going to have to work harder. I don't want to have to work hard just to be at this weight -- if I'm going to work hard, I want to weigh less. I recently moved from New York City to Louisville, KY, where the average person is heavier, so I feel skinnier in comparison. That factor makes it even easier to coast and just say, oh, I'm fine. But I'm not where I want to be, and I know that unless I change my current habits, I'm not going to have the energy and confidence to do the things I want to do.

Grateful for this program, grateful for my team members, grateful for my family who are supporting me, and grateful that my body can at least do this much. Keeping my expectations quiet and focusing on the process!

What I'm giving up vs. what I'm getting

2010-05-30T09:13:00.000-04:00

This is lemon gelato. Creamy, sweet, delicious, incredibly refreshing on a hot day. It's also the last lemon gelato I'll be having for a while.

Starting Tuesday, I'm changing everything. I don't know the details of the new diet & exercise plan I'll be doing, but I can bet that there is no "lemon gelato" allotment. (Right, Patrick?)

It's time to make some real changes, to commit to getting myself in better shape. To ease back on the sugar and ramp up the activity. I know what I'm giving up -- but at this point, my idea of what I'll be getting in return is a little more amorphous. My hope is that I'll be more energetic, more confident, and a few pounds lighter. I'm going to take it on faith that even if I don't know what I'm getting, I'm going to be glad I did this.

90 days. The lemon gelato will be there on the other side, if I still want it. We've got a great group all starting this together. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can all do.

Let's Do This

2010-05-29T03:36:00.000-04:00

June 1st, Tara gets PEAKY!