Day 74 - unmotivated

Haven't blogged in a few days, haven't been motivated. I've been doing my jumps, I've been doing my exercise, I've been hitting my grams... just kinda bored. Workouts are tough, but I'm digging them. Changes in the body are great. Been doing a bunch of thinking about how things work after PCP and what kind of balance I'm going to strike, and my attitude changes daily.

Over the weekend I was thinking about how to extend things because I'm not quite "where I want to be", not that I know where that is. Yesterday I was thinking about what kind of balance will be realistic in terms of things like bringing lunch to work vs buying lunch. Today I just want it to be over. I'm not slipping, I'm not quitting, I just want to be able to grab dinner with friends. I want to be able to go out on the weekend and not have to plan my food ahead of time. I want my friends to ask me what I'm up to and if I want to hang out without immediately following it up with "oh, sorry, forgot you're still doing PCP".

Really, I'm not in a negative place right now despite the tone of the post. I'm thrilled with the progress I've made. I'm in an incredibly better place both mentally and physically. Just after doing this for nearly 6 of the last 7 months I'm ready for a change of pace.

Until tomorrow that is when I'll probably start thinking about how to keep pushing this forward again.

Day 69 - back in Tokyo

Got back to Tokyo last night. First thing I did was drop off my bag and head for the supermarket. Used to be first thing back from a trip would have been ordering a pizza, unpacking and watching tv. Maybe instead of ordering a pizza I might have cooked dinner, would have been plenty of food in packages in my place. Not anymore. Everything is perishable now. Uncooked grains were the only thing in my apartment I could eat. Eggs, veggies, fruit and protein all no problem. Milk and yogurt on the other hand were nowhere to be found. I bought some big bottles of drinkable yogurt because it was the closest thing they had, but even though I can't read the ingredient list I can tell it is full of sugar. Oh well, will keep on looking. Anyway, got home, started boiling eggs and making a mix of brown and long grain rice. Good stuff.

It was relaxing to be back in my kitchen and have control over my food. Breakfast of whole grain bread topped with avocado, tomatoes and sliced hard boiled egg? Done. Lunch of rice, peppers, tomatoes and chicken? Great. Dinner of... well not so much with the dinner. An apple is an apple.

One thing I figured out last week that might help other PCPers on the road was how to handle eggs while traveling. I was having real trouble for a few days until I figured out that almost all hotel rooms have an electric tea kettle in them. Turns out tea kettles boil water and boiled water makes for hard boiled eggs. Shocking I know. Was a bit skeptical at first but it worked like a charm every time and egg problem solved.

Off to do the day 69 workout, happy to have a pull-up bar and be able to actually get it done right. Not that I can actually do pull ups yet, but getting closer.

Day 65 - a tough week

Haven't blogged in a week, it has been a bit crazy. I'm still in HK, have been here for a week and now in my 4th hotel. Should have just booked something longer term when I got here, but wasn't planning on being here more than a few days. With the influx of folks from Tokyo and the HK 7s coming up next week hotels have gotten tougher to come by. Work has been crazy, this was a week of 12+ hour days every day and sleep has been far from consistent and certainly nowhere near 8 hours daily. Excuses, excuses. I'm pretty upset about it though. In the first 60 days I think I missed two workouts and the diet was spot on when at home and damn close the one week on the road. To drop the ball with so little time left is annoying although there are certainly extenuating circumstances. Maybe that's really the lesson I should take from this. Not every day can be perfect, life gets in the way, you do what you can, be honest with yourself, make your choices and move on with head held high.

Exercise has been rough... think I missed 3 days this week. Diet hasn't been awful, but hasn't been good. Nick was an absolute life saver doubling up on his lunch prep and bringing lunch to the office for me. The other meals were about 50%. Odd that a "bad" meal used to be one full of food that was bad for you, now I get upset with myself for missing a meal or not eating enough. I think they know me by name at CitySuper at this point. Would love it if you could buy hard boiled eggs in the stores here, but haven't been able to find them. My mind has definitely changed how it thinks about food. Resisting pizza dropped on my desk is no longer much of an issue, cravings are fairly rare. When faced with an imperfect set of choices for a meal or snack my mind automatically breaks the choices down into PCP categories and the decisions I make are much better informed. This is all proof of deep changes, so all good.

I'm off to buy clothes today. I've wanted to put if off until after PCP, but can't really justify another week in the office here in vacation clothes. Should be interesting and will be nice to be in clothes that aren't insanely baggy for the first time in months. After Foundation my clothes looked silly, now it is just ridiculous.

Less than a month left. Need to buckle down and get it done. HK or Tokyo, hotel or home, time to find a way to step it up and crank out those workouts, get the diet closer to perfect and rock the last month of PCP.

Sorry for the long stream-of-consciousness posting. Lots of thoughts to get out from the last week and didn't even talk about the indulgence among others. All good though.

Giddyup (that's what all the cool kids are saying)

Day 58 - have rope, will travel

Looks like I picked an even better week than I thought to go on vacation. I was on the beach in Phuket when the earthquake hit Tokyo. Was due to get home this morning, but decided to stay in HK instead and work from here for a few days. No suit, no shoes, no problem. I have my trusty jumprope and resistance band tucked away in my backpack so all good.

Thailand was fun. I stayed way up the beach away from the main town in Phuket and did not much of anything for a week. Not my normal kind of vacation at all, but it was just what I needed. I kept looking for something to have for my indulgence, but haven't had it yet. Where I was staying there was mostly just junk beach food and I had no real desire for it. If I'm only going to indulge occasionally I'm going to make damn sure it is something good, interesting and that I actually want and not something I'm having just because it is there. I'll probably grab a meal here in HK today or tomorrow with friends.

PCP on the road is very different from PCP at home, but learning that it is very doable, just a different experience than normal traveling. Clients really don't care that you're eating fish instead of steak. Restaurants are hit and miss in terms of just how close they can get, but everyone can handle "no salt, easy on the oil" and a side of steamed veggies is fairly easy to come by. Even bars don't worry me any more. Soda water is available everywhere. Not the same, not as much fun, but we're on a mission here. 90 days is nothing.

Day 53 - in Thailand

I have to say, PCP on vacation is a whole lot better than PCP in the office. Not that this should be a great surprise. Woke up around 8, cranked out the workout, had breakfast, hit the beach, had some papaya on the beach, you get the idea. When it cooled down this afternoon I came back to my room and was going to do 8 min abs, but decided to go with an extra round of jumprope instead. I figure ultimately it isn't the abs that are the problem, it is the fat that is the problem so might as well spend extra time there over building up ab muscles. While I was outside jumping it began to rain. Jumping in the rain makes you feel like a badass.

Digging the new workouts. All kinds of failing, but I really feel the burn all over. Now it is raining so I'm going to hang out, blog and read my book. Sounds like an awesome Tuesday night to me.

Day 50 - Day 50!

We're 50 days in already? When did that happen?

Today's workout was awesome and horrible. Still not jumping so went with the bike again, but decided with all the leg work today that I should do the floorjumps. Hurt a bit, but got through them all. Shoulders killed me as always. Then I got to the abs. V sits and side crunches? First thought was "cool, easy ab day". Amazing the change your brain can have in 50 days. I'm at the point now where anything that doesn't involve bicycles or planks I count as a good ab day.

During Foundation I kept putting off vacation because it didn't seem to make sense to go away while it was going on. Didn't get a chance to go away in the month after Foundation ended and then I jumped right into PCP. I was going to wait to go away until after PCP but changed my mind for two reasons. One is that I'm going slowly insane and need a break! Second is that the idea of a vacation while on PCP is no longer so daunting. The thought of a vacation without drinking or eating all kinds of crap still seems like it can be a good, relaxing vacation. So I'm off to Phuket on Monday. Figure it should be relatively easy to keep to the diet and will have plenty of time to do the workouts for a change. I also still have my indulgence in my pocket. There's a small chance I'll use it on Indian food tomorrow, but I'll probably wait to eat something fun on vacation.

Day 48 - on the bike

Well the good news is my foot is getting better, but not quite back yet. Skipped a day of jumping outright and have been spending some time on the bike for cardio. Had to look back at that early email about other cardio to see how much riding I needed to do (a LOT!), but the good news was I saw that swimming is also on the list. Since I'm going on vacation next week that might come in handy.

Workouts are going well, food is going well. One more day of work and I'm off for a week. Rock on.