Trusting in the Process...and Carbs

This week was chaotic. I started some new jobs, packed, unpacked, repacked, discovered my scale wasn't properly zeroed (I thought the baguette and a half at lunch was more then usual), jumped almost 400 jumps without stopping, finally got a chance to box and punched out the stressed about moving day, which is tomorrow! Finally! A home. A place to do my incline pull-ups without breaking furniture. A huge kitchen in which to experiment with fish.

As far as our new diets go, mine looks almost the same as last week. It did make the skeptic in me go hmmm. Especially since the other peakers have reduced carb grams. But, alas. I must continue to devour loaves of salt-free whole wheat bread. Que pena! For a moment I thought about secretly slashing grams myself, because I just can't believe I deserve all this bread and pasta! What's up, dude?

Remember when Lindsey Lohan gives Regina those Caltine bars in Mean Girls, promising weight loss? And then...you know what happened.



Jokes aside. My insides feel hella clean and I have a moderate amout of energy despite having slept for two hours last night (must work on that). So, here is my Week 3 photo. This is what happens when I have to set up cameras myself. Good luck, my fellow Peakers!

Day 11: Pushing, Slipping

Yesterday I did my workout in the gym to avoid destroying my friend's furniture (last week I had some close calls with the living room furniture, the ceiling light, and his dog).

There was a class going on in the mirrored "group fitness" room in which I like to do my thing, so to kill time I hit the treadmill. I haven't been on one of those in months. I thought I missed running. I watched CNN, I lost myself. But twenty minutes into it I was so bored and resentful. My knees were angry with me. I wanted to start the real workout.

Finally, I got to my PCP moves! Completing the push-ups with the bars, though a gazillion times more difficult, are yielding some serious results. I feel myself sitting straighter on the subway, in class, as I type this little here blog! I can't wait to build a stronger upper body so that I can actually pull and lift myself up and out of just about anything - a fence, a window, a horse.

Now for a confession.

I debated ignoring this little Saturday night slip up (what happens on Saturdays stays on Saturdays??) but what's the point? We're here to be transparent, to admit our mistakes and grow from them.

So, on Saturday I found myself unusually stressed out with the apartment search, and after a rough conversation with an old friend, I felt defeated. At a birthday party later that evening, I couldn't seem to relax. I also didn't eat enough that day, having taught from 8 am - 3 pm with no food (it's just too hard to eat that much while teaching!). My mind kept racing with negative thoughts; I felt anxious, unsettled. Rather than talk myself out of sabotaging my health, my promise to myself, I had a drink. Just one. But it was a big one.

I know this slip does not signal the end of the world, but I'm embarrassed about how I cheated myself of the opportunity to maintain discipline during the first week of this plan.

So...who else is having these issues? And what are you doing to stay strong?

DAY ATE: Can't handle the pollo.

I'll admit, I was highly unprepared for day 8. Still between apartments, I spent the night at my sister's house, where we had our last dinner of popcorn (my weakness, sometimes my dinner of choice), veggie dumplings (with like a quart of soy sauce...how I will miss you, shoyu), a tofu salad thing that was made in a factory, carrots and hummus. It's what we call a smorgasboard. Usually we pick at it while watching vapid TV television (gonna miss you too SNOOKS! Long live Jersey Shore summer 09!). We shared everything, but...I probably went over my 1/2 limit. Throwing it all away before the race. Sodium heavy self-sabotage.

I woke up bloated, disoriented, and thirsty. Luckily I had my jump rope.




When it comes to protein, I am generally a lentil/tofu/fake meat product kind of girl. I love those Chinese restaurants that serve "mock sesame chicken," i.e. MSG-laden doughnuts dipped in hot and sour sauce. I know those soy items are very processed, but I'm a little unaccustomed to (and straight up scared of) preparing chicken and fish. The smell, the fleshiness, the glistening gooey pinkness. The danger of contamination.


Being Indian, I didn't grow up rubbing down steaks and searing/braising/brining animals. This protein thing is going to be a challenge. My friend, an Italian, is going to help. We'll start with fish. Things you can wrap in foil and stick in the oven. Things that don't involve a cup of soy sauce and some brown sugar (part of my fave teriyaki recipe. You, who can still eat sugar, try it: Aloha Shoyu, agave, ginger, and star anise with green onion for garnish).

GO TEAM 2010!

Yogamotions

It's the fifth day. Cinco de Diet. Things are going swell eating wise. I thought I'd be reaching for all the stuff I know I won't be able to eat/drink, in oh, two days, but I just didn't have time. I'm going through a demoralizing process called the New York (in this case, Brooklyn) Apartment Hount. Worse than holding plank for six days. Worse than giving up chocolate for life, which I would so do if someone could just hand me my dream apartment on a platter. Slathered in butter cream frosting. With a cherry on top.

Today I was at a friend's house for my workout. I'm sure both his neighbors and his dog appreciated my thumping. Sans jump rope, I tried to emulate the motions and intensity of skipping by doing something my boxing coach taught me: jump forward and back instead of just straight up and down. My knees were hurting a bunch so I hit hot yoga, where I proceeded to sob through half my poses. Google confirms that shedding tears is normal when stretching, but I wasn't ready.

It's a good thing I was also sweating buckets, so no one noticed my tears of...joy? Sorrow? Stress? Something had to be released, emptied.

So I'll say later on and leave you with a quote by Isak Dinesen. Words to live by: "The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.”

Day 3: Revolutions not Resolutions

I approached last night (Saturday) with some fear, knowing that I was going to see friends with whom excess drinking and eating is routine. I left the house hungry, because like an idiot I'd only had a small lunch (no breakfast--never again, never again will I skip this meal) of egg whites, broccoli, and half an apple.

So there I was, with the people and treats I love most in the world, all at one table: friends, family, and french fries. And I mean, hella frenchfries. French fries heaped on plates surrounding me like a barricade.

My line of defense involved chicken soup. I tried a friend's fry, and ended up drinking two glasses of wine (this is an accomplishment people--seriously). Instead of the usual sugar-salt-liquor induced buzz that accompanies most of my restaurant meals, I was focused on the food, the conversation, and the newlywed bliss of my dear friends, Toni and Scott.

Later, I felt like a failure for having the wine. Or maybe just half of a failure (since we're cutting back on food, why not self-flagellation too?). Instead of scolding myself for being a wimp who couldn't just follow directions, I kept thinking about next week's picture, what I was going to look like, and why I couldn't stop obsessing about my image.


Here's a sampling of my destructive inner thoughts: You're so vain. People around the world are suffering, have lost their homes, their loved ones, and you're twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to decide if you should reach for that goddamn fry. GET A LIFE.

Surprisingly though, this morning, when I finally figured out how to upload my first day picture, I thought, hey, that's not so bad. I have always been self-conscious of my lower body, and was surprised that the photo didn't reflect what my usual dysmorphia.



A picture can tell us a lot, but our thoughts speak the real truth.

Rather than simply resolving to let go of the pressure I put on myself to look a certain way (isn't it funny how we can see the beauty in others, and not ourselves?), I am going to make it my goal, my mission, to be motivated with thoughts of how a stronger body is going to REVOLUTIONIZE my life. How when I'm fit, I'm happier, faster, calmer, nicer...you know the drill. Better prepared to change the world. One plank pose at a time.

Sending my fellow PCPers lots of luck, high fives, and fist pumps. You guys rule!

Day 1: Overnourished. Apparently I am.

Aloha! Welcome to my blog.

I'm kind of scared to be here, and a little nervous that there are pictures of my bare midsection on the interwebs, but whatevs. Maybe you'll want to rock the PCP after reading, just like I did after watching my girl, Emily, from last season, become even radder and badder than before (didn't think that was possible. You rule, gurl!)

This is what I was thinking as I approached my first day as a PCPer:

Once upon a time, when I was a high school teacher (that project also lasted around 90 days, yet did not yield the same results I'm hoping this will. And p.s., every high school teacher on the planet, especially my mother, deserves a medal/hope diamond/gold star the size of Kansas), I was required to watch some videos on classroom management by this guy named Harry Wong.


As much as I wanted to hate on him, I kind of loved the guy. He made a good, pretty obvious point about teachers and their responsibilities to students on the first day of school, a rule that applies to all "beginnings," which is that THE FIRST DAY CAN NEVER BE DONE OVER. How a teacher behaves on this non-refundable day sets the tone for the rest of the year. We can never go back. The children will remember it always (i.e. if you come off as a slacker, they will attack.)

I hope this rule doesn't apply to diets, or to this blog, because all day my inner monologue was full of slacker-isms. I kept wondering if this week's task, to "only consume half" of what we normally eat meant that I could drink half a bottle of wine tonight.

Yeah, I'm greedy. I probably eat way too much. I hope this, among other behaviors, will change over the next 90 days. I am determined to prove that I can stick to a program this structured and rigorous, which is an important challenge to meet since I've been on the verge of quitting so many other projects in life (more on that later).

Thanks for reading, and good luck to the rest of my team! I'm so happy you're here.