30.5 Ow my iliopsoas??

Is it your iliopsoas that you feel burning in your inner thighs when you're doing leg-ups? Whatever it is, I totally got a cramp in it during the last set of leg-ups. Might have possibly been the most acutely painful thing I've ever felt. But I powered through that last set and then rocked the v-sits. Is it weird that I like them? Everyone else seems to hate them; maybe its from doing them all the time for crew in high school?

I too like Elena and Sarah, cut the dawdling out of my workout and went with an active resting time of 15 seconds. Boy does speeding things up make a world of difference, not necessarily in the burn felt during the exercises, but with the mental attitude. I didn't feel like I was slogging away today. Listening to Sam Cooke might have helped too.

I'm going to have to get some stools. My antique dining room chairs can handle triceps dips but would have cracked if I braced myself on their backs, so I did mini-chest dips from the seats. Better than nothing. Next time will be better.

30. Would the real PCP please stand up

So yesterday was the first day of the "real" PCP, I think we're on to the second real PCP but I'm not sure. I say bring it on. The workout felt good, it went well. The combination of floor jumps and lunges were brutal. Brutal I tell you. I like the floor jumps, they're painful but totally fun, but I hate the lunges. They take forever and hurt my knee, so I went easy on them, but then I was angry at them and myself because I spent all this time doing half-assed lunges.

The total highlight of the entire thing was the DaVincis. I've totally made progress on those guys. for the first time I didn't feel like the bands were snapping my arms back down to my sides. Those muscles are growing! (I know the other ones are too but this progress is dramatic from the first day of them).

I even like the light dinner. Today I'm going to switch it up to banana, milk, raw egg smoothy with the apple separate, as yesterday I ate them all on their own and the banana gets me every time. There's just something about the texture that squicks me out. I was a little hungry and thrown off because my day started late and I haven't quite figured out the right times to be eating yet with these updates.

Also, does anyone have any advice on what to use for chest dips? Patrick's chairs look like they have a nice flat surface on the back to hold. Can I use regular chairs and just adjust my grip? I guess I'll try and see if I either tip the chair over or hurt my wrists.

29. Suckitude

Ok Patrick, I promise to never miss another workout again. Yesterday's made up workout was terrible. Well not the jumps, I did all the jumps with no knee pain so that was awesome, but everything else was terrible. I couldn't do nearly as many reps as I usually do, push-ups were particularly bad and my focus was just not there. I know it wasn't worthless but I feel like I got nothing out of it because I couldn't manage to put anything in to it.

About to tackle today's workout. I'm totally scared but hopefully I'll pull through.

28. So I indulged

That's right I actually indulged instead of a half-assed sortof indulgence. Monday night I was yet again at the gourmet hotdog bar playing trivia and had some tatertots with lots of dipping sauces. Trying to decide what to have was pretty hard because I've been pretty satisfied with what I'm eating lately, but I am missing some of that mental satisfaction or feeling of satiety and feel like maybe I'm missing some of the umami taste that comes from salt and fat and sugar. So that's how the tatertots came up. I'm missing intense tastes so what better way to get those than with a bunch of dipping sauces with fried potato puffs as the vehicle for getting them to my mouth.

I split a plate with two other people because an order of tots is huge even by normal standards and chose five sauces: housemade ketchup, chipotle hollandaise, black truffle honey mustard, saffron aioli, and tomato and garlic jam. The tots were surprisingly good, not too salty, but abotu half-way through mine I was full. I should have stopped then, but continued on and ended up uncomfortably full. The sauces weren't as great as I imagined. The tastes weren't as intense as I had hoped, they mostly tasted the same as they did before although the black truffle honey mustard tasted a lot sweeter and the chipotle hollandaise was almost disgustingly rich. It was weird, as I was eating I started to feel light-headed, almost high. The feeling passed and I was left with just a super full stomach.

The feeling full messed my plans for the evening. I was planning on working out after we got home to get the junk out of my system, but there was no way I was going to be able to with how full I was. It would have been a recipe for disaster or vomit. So I went to bed feeling super guilty about skipping the workout and planning on getting up and doing Monday's workout Tuesday morning and Tuesday's workout in the evening. Tuesday morning rolled around and I was tired. I don't know if it was too many kindof late nights catching up with me or the heavy work of digesting all those starches but there was no way I was getting out of bed to workout, or even go to work. I rolled over, grabbed the phone and called in a half vacation day to work and slept til 11.

I finally managed to workout around noon. I did half the day's jumps and my knee feels great. I got a new rope that's made out of rubber or plastic or something and it makes a huge difference. I totally don't get how to do the creep but went with it. The planks make me want to cry and the cats totally love to bother me while I'm doing them. I didn't end up working out in the evening. I went to a block club meeting that lasted forever and then came home and passed out. So I'm still a workout behind, but I'll do it tonight with the day's jumps. I know it's supposed to be a rest day, but the guilt of not doing the workout is gnawing at me and I feel like one slip-up and I'm on the brink of this huge lazy downward spiral.

I really need to recommit to blogging every day and checking in with everyone. I feel totally disconnected.

25. Ahoy there!

I got a worried email from Ilan, so I guess I need to get back in the swing of blogging. I haven't not been blogging because I'm concealing any horrendous pcp slip-ups or having any mental issues with the program. It's just it feels like life now, not so extraordinary to need blogged out. I make my food, I exercise, I don't really have any cravings except for when we go out to the bar that serves gourmet hotdogs with a choice of 50 different toppings or when I walk down the frozen pizza aisle at the grocery store when I'm already hungry, but I got those cravings before pcp too, so even they are nothing special. The way it is now, with the diet and the exercises, I could do this forever. I don't feel deprived or weird or wiped out or resentful. I feel like this is real life!

My knee still hurts so I'm not back to jumping yet, but I am walking and seeing huge progress in the exercises.

I am having an issue with the indulgence. I don't really want anything. Well that awesome hotdog, but that's way over the calorie limit and I'd really like to break myself of the association of eating a hotdog every time I go to that bar. It's my grandma's 80th birthday next Saturday and I think I might use it then so that I can get something besides a bowl of iceberg lettuce with some shaved carrots and red cabbage. So maybe a side of mac and cheese? I just don't know.

21. Ouch!

So I've hurt my knee or really it's more like my knee hurts, since I didn't do anything to it except PCP stuff. I've been trying to take it easy but it's really hard. After skipping lunges and squats for a few days and walking instead of jumping today, it felt better so I decided to try jumping again this morning.

Bad idea.

The knee hurt super alot and I only managed to do half the jumps. Then as I was walking back inside I got super nauseous and threw up in the yard. What a way to start the day. I am however really glad the neighbors weren't outside.

I know I need to chill out and let my knee heal so I don't mess up the rest of this, but it's so hard. Every day I feel the time flying by and every day that I rest or even don't try as hard as I possibly can feels like this missed opportunity. It hurts to jump but it hurts not to as well.

18. And I'm back

It has been a whirlwind of a week that probably culminated yesterday in me breaking down into tears 5 times in 3 hours (twice regarding food, twice regarding a take-home stats test and computers not running the needed software and once for having to work and being so so sick of work). I'm really looking forward to the emotional stability that Patrick talked about in today's email, because I'm obviously not there yet. I guess I'm still stuck in the zit stage.

Actually, I'm in the hello cheekbones stage. I woke up the other day and it was just like bam! I've got mega cheekbones. The lack of salt and booze is working wonders; my face hasn't been this un-puffy-chubby when I haven't just been sick in I can't remember how long. I can't stop looking at myself in the mirror, I still look mostly the same, but it's like when you get a dramatic haircut and every time you see yourself you just pause for a little bit to verify that you are indeed looking at yourself.

This weekend was mega stressful with work and a math test and more work and surprisingly enough, what kept me feeling grounded enough so that I didn't totally lose my mind was the diet. The diet is maybe not habit, but it definitely feels natural. I feel so good and really am not craving anything, except when I let myself get hungry by going too long between meals and then I get a sweets craving. I have no desire to drink at all, which is really surprising to me. I thought that I would miss it more, but I don't.

The exercises still aren't like that for me. I know that I'll probably never be a person who LOVES to workout, but I'd like to get to the point where I don't dread working out, well dread is too strong a word as I'm definitely making some progress on that front. But I still don't enjoy it really, especially the jumps. I love the resistance band stuff and the push-ups but the jumps and the lunges I'm not such a fan of. The lunges have been killing my knee so I only did two sets of them today. Getting down to exercising brings out my add tendencies. I get distracted, I dawdle, I stay on the internet after downloading my workout, I procrastinate. Starting tomorrow I'm printing out my workout sheets so that I have no reason to be on the computer when it's workout time. Hopefully it helps.

Oh and I ate the first tomatoes out of my garden today and they were intensely amazing. The flavor was almost overwhelming. Here they are:

A Green Zebra and a German Johnson. The Johnson is all cracked and looks ugly, but that's just what heirloom tomatoes do, and they make up for their looks with their amazing flavor.

14. Oops + Deliciousness

So I messed up a little bit. Once consciously and once unconsciously.

The conscious one I don't feel bad about at all. My partner Jordan, my friend Liz and I brewed our first batch of beer a little while ago and it was time to bottle it last night. After the bottling was done we all tried a little of the beer to see what it tasted like. I figure that I will never again have the chance to have the first sip of the first beer I brewed. I just had one sip and that was enough. The beer obviously needed more aging but it tasted like it was supposed to.

The unconscious one happened at work today. I'm taking vacation from my day job to work at my second job while the owners are on vacation, which is at a gourmet chocolate shop that also sells beer and wine. Everything is amazing, but so far it hasn't been too tempting. If anything I was craving feta or something equally as salty and cheesy. But this afternoon as I was standing around talking to my coworker, I just popped a chocolate in my mouth and didn't even realize it until I started to swallow. My coworker was like 'I thought your weren't allowed to eat that' and I'm not.

It's not really a big deal, not the end of the world. But now I can't stop thinking about the chocolate, I'm craving more. It's crazy how much of an effect that one chocolate had on my brain. For dinner I was eating some amazing garlic-y shrimp and all I could do was think about that chocolate. My tongue is tingling and the thoughts won't stop. It's interesting, because normally I don't even really like the chocolate that much and the chocolate I ate didn't taste that great to me (it was filled with salted caramel which tasted so salty). I guess this is a very visceral reminder of the pull food has over me.

On a happier, more delicious note, I made the most awesome shrimp today. I want to eat them for every meal. I had these when I was in Nicaragua and they were amazing then and they they are amazing now. I have been searching for a recipe that recreates them for two years and this morning I improvised almost a perfect match. Here's a recipe:

Camarones al Ajillo

Garlic, the fresher the better. I used a head from the farmers market that still had the greens attached.

Shrimp, frozen is fine maybe even better than fresh/thawed

Olive oil, if you so choose

• Chop up a bunch of garlic, like seriously a ton. I used an entire head of garlic for about 1 lb of shrimp.
• Heat up a pan, add a little oil if you're using it. I didn't and it was great.
• Add garlic, stir it around until it gets a little bit of golden coloring
• Add shrimp, and stir them so they get all coated with garlic. Maybe add a bit of water if your shrimp are not frozen.
• Cover your pan and let the shrimp cook through and then uncover and let most of the water evaporate.
• Eat! Yum! I ate mine with brown rice and asparagus. Add a little of the cooking water for extra flavor.
• Pack a tooth brush if you're eating this at work

12.5 FAIL

As weird as it sounds, I'm in love with doing the last set to failure. I'm slightly worried that the fact that I can do most of the exercises past the max reps means I'm doing them wrong, but I really like the goal that going towards failure gives me. I thrive on structure and the concreteness of failure really works for me. I had a really spectacular push-up fail where my arms totally gave out and I hit the ground forehead first.

And with the failure -- triumph, I actually moved myself during incline pull-ups!! It wasn't all the way up but it was motion, which is more than I could say when I started with them.

12. So much food

Does anyone else feel like they're eating massive amounts of food? Now that the initial hunger has worn off, I'm slightly overwhelmed by the food and the frequency of the eating. I feel like I'm just shoveling the food down the hatch and by the time I've finished feeling full from breakfast it's time for fruit and then lunch and so on.

I actually cheated a bit this weekend. I didn't eat the evening fruit on Saturday and skipped dinner and evening fruit yesterday. Saturday was honestly an accident, I totally forgot about it and didn't remember til I saw my apple on the counter Sunday morning. Last night, it was just exhuastion and poor planning. I got done work at 530 stopped by the store, did my workout, and then got to cooking dinner. By the time everything was done it was almost 10 and I wasn't really hungry and 8 hours of sleep seemed more appealing than eating.

I surprisingly wasn't starving when I woke up this morning but I was supper groggy. I packed all my food for the day and then instead of working out I laid on the couch with the cats. I meant to get up but then all of a sudden it was almost time to leave for work and I needed to shower. This is a pretty good illustration of my morning working out issues; I need a good hour or so to wake up enough to do anything other than go through the motions of the workout, but I can't really make an extra hour in my morning schedule without forgoing my 8 hours of sleep. But on Mondays and Wednesdays when I have class til 9, if I workout after I'm so wound up that I can't sleep well. Oh well, I'll work it out. The results are worth it. I don't drink coffee and don't really want to start, but maybe that's the key to revving myself up in the mornings.

Speaking of results. I still need to take week 2 pictures, and I don't have a full length mirror so I'm not sure whether there are any visible changes going on, but my body definitely feels different. My skin feels sortof tighter, especially on my calves. Also, I'm more aware of my muscles when I'm moving, or something like that. Also, I can do push-ups now! That is awesome. Hopefully by next week I'll have an handle on the triceps dips.

10. Small progress all around

This is going to be really quick because I have a hot date with my pillow for 10 hours of sleep.

Eating was way better today. I think because I managed to eat things that were more like what I normally eat, like a sandwich and pasta, instead of quinoa, plain chicken, and raw veggies. I like quinoa as much as the next girl, but the austere diet I've been keeping the past two days has been getting me down. There's a lot to be said about the power of bread to increase my (completely in my head) feelings of satiety.

It's crazy how much better I am at push-ups than 10 days ago. They actually look like push-ups now instead of me just flopping around on the floor. Still can't really move during the inclined pull-ups but I can feel it in my back now.

9. Lost my rhythm

The past two workouts have been super meh. I’m not sure what’s going on if it’s the enthusiasm wearing off, that I don’t deal with change well, or that I’m just an inveterate slackass (I hope it’s not this one). The jumps are fine; it’s the exercises that I just can’t seem to get going. The new exercises threw off the rhythm that I had and I’m struggling both with how to do them correctly and whether I’m putting the maximum effort into them. I was having the same feeling that I get at the gym, where the uncertainty just wells up and gets in the way of actually focusing on things and getting down to business. Once I finally got going though, I found that I really like the resistance band exercises. I don’t really understand how to work the inclined pull-ups. If I can’t get anything to move while keeping my body stiff, should I just strain against the table edge and my weight or should I bend at the waist and just pull my top half up?

With the new exercises and the diet starting at the same time and making some mediocre food choices that left me unfulfilled and hungry, I think it was just too much. Hopefully I’ll get the hang of the new exercises and the diet fairly quickly.

Today’s eating has already been better than yesterday’s. In my rush to get everything cooked and packed for work I ended up eating cold quinoa and a microwaved egg for breakfast and banana for snack. I don’t like eggs really to begin with and add to that the super mushy consistency of everything and I spent the morning until lunch feeling nauseated. Today I scrambled the egg and made chapatti, which was a marked improvement. I can tell that my perfectly seasoned cast-iron skillet is going to become my new best friend. Thursdays are my csa pick-up day and I can’t wait to figure out how to eat everything from this week. Also, carrots for breakfast rock.

I could use some guidance on when I should be eating. At work I tend to get absorbed in what I’m doing and not manage to eat til I’m starving, which then leads to mega hunger the rest of the day. Another question: potatoes – carb or veggie?

7. Jumps only!?!?!

So it was jumps only today, which was totally unexpected. When I opened the workout, I kept trying to scroll down for the exercises figuring my computer was displying funny. The lighter workout was appreciated today as my legs are the tightest and sorest they've been so far. I think I overdid the running and swimming at the beach. Even without the exercises today's workout was a struggle. I just couldn't get off the ground. It was like my legs were full of lead. I found my rhythm after a while, but I still tripped more than usual.

I'm looking forward to the diet tomorrow. I've got a bunch of veggies in the fridge and picked up some bananas and nectarines yesterday and I'll pick up my csa box tomorrow evening. That said, I'm super glad it isn't starting today. Mondays and Wedesdays are my hardest days because I go straight from work to class until 9pm, so it'll be nice to get a little experience with the cooking and food packing before I have to take almost all the food for the whole day with me.

I'll see how I'm feeling after class as to whether I go out for my last gourmet hotdog or if I'll just go with yesterday's dinner of lettuce and grapes (and too much wine, oops).

6. The first week is mental

Patrick said in one of his emails that the first week is mostly about mental changes and that's one of the reasons for the half portions. I don't know if this is the mental change that's supposed to be happening, but I've lost most of my interest in food. I don't know if it's the half portions, the anticipation of the new diet on Thursday, or the heat, but my interest in eating is gone. I still feel hungry, but nothing sounds good to me. I'm about to eat lunch and nothing around sounds even vaguely appealing. Greasy diner - no. Chinese buffet - no. Overpriced deli - no. Indian - no. Fancy sandwiches - no. Mediocre sushi - no. Sweets from the coffee shop - no. I need to eat, I'm hungry and my lunch hour is dwindling, I guess I'll pick up for gazpacho from the the sandwich place next door, but I'm not enthusiastic about it. I guess I'm succeeding in breaking the spell food holds over me, so that's good. I am completely ready for a more regimented eating schedule as I have devoted way too much mental energy to lunch today.

Workout is scheduled for the evening. We'll see if I can transform the swampy weather into a sauna with the power of positive thinking.

5.

I managed to do yesterday's workout without falling through the floor, which is always good. And also made it through the party only having 2 beers and didn't make up for the lack of drinking by eating everything in site. I just had a cupcake and some popcorn. I saw the most intense home fireworks display I've ever seen. They had big speakers with karaoke screens and fireworks going at both ends of my friend's street. I'm really surprised no one blew their hand off or started their house on fire.

As for today's workout, it was fine. I jumped outside and even at 8:30 it was really hot and humid which made for unpleasant jumping and difficulty breathing. It's like a swap here these days. The fourth set of jumps I tripped almost every other jump. It was super frustrating, but all the other sets were fine.

The exercises are good too. I'm still struggling with the push-ups but am enjoying the squats alot.

And now it is beach time again.

4. Beachy Keen

Haven't managed to workout yet. Woke up too late to do that and be on my way for everything else in the morning. Is anyone else sleeping tons? I slept for 11 hours last night and still didn't want to get up. I did, however, make it to the beach for lake running and swimming like I do every Sunday. Love the water so much. It was really wavy so I didn't get much actual running in, but I did some jumping and side stroke and I was way less sore when I got out. I've got tomorrow off, so I'm going back in the morning.

I'm about to go workout now, but it's an inferno outside so for the first time I'm going to jump inside. Hopefully I don't take out any light fixtures or break through the floor (my house is 115 years old and the wood floors are thin).

Barring any major injuries that might result from falling through the floor I'm going to a barbecue tonight. I'm really thankful we're still on halves because that means I can still drink. I have pretty bad social anxiety that I deal with by drinking too much usually, but even with half the drinks I think I still should be ok. It's nice to have a transition step between normal socializing and sober socializing.

Ok. Time for jumps. Hooray.

3. So hungry

Just got done with the day 3 workout. I am really loving the workouts, especially the jumps. I could jump all day if I had the time. The exercises are good too, although most of them feel awkward. I don't know if that's just I haven't done any of these for years or that I'm just really uncoordinated. I don't know if it's just enthusiasm for the brand new or if the gym just made we feel that uncomfortable, but I've never really enjoyed working out before, but I got out of bed today looking forward to exercising.

Sarah, this was probably the best push-up video I found. Patrick, does this look right to you?



So the workouts are great, but the eating is throwing me for a loop. I'm starving. I'm hungry when I wake up and still hungry after ever meal. I'm still doing the half-portions but after two days of constant headache from being hungry, I'm thinking about going back to normal portions but better food. Maybe it's an indication that I'm not eating too much, just eating too poorly and definitely drinking too much. I'm really looking forward to the actual diet part of this thing.

Day 1!!!!

I should be working and not blog posting so this will be short.

First off, hello fellow PCPers!

Next a bulleted list:

• Jumps! I did them! Woo jumps! I actually did 6 sets I think because I lost track and figured I should do another for good measure. I trip less when I go faster.
• Squats. I think I need to work on some flexibility too because I can't seem to get my thighs down as far as Patrick is in the picture.
• Push-ups. I don't understand the mechanics of them with the push-up bars. They were a big mess. I'm going to nerd out tonight and see if I can find push-up videos on youtube to add to my viewing along with strongest man in the world videos (to learn how to pick stuff up for the firefighting test).
• Sit-ups! Love them. I've always done them with my legs in the air and this way I felt my abs working way more. It was like hello little ab muscles, we've never met before.
• Breakfast. It's almost 11am and I'm starving. The half bowl of cereal isn't quite cutting it.

Okay. Bye for now. Lunch is soon, hopefully.