Day 87 - Bananas, report, my mother

I feel like I'm going bananas! This post is in three part, moan, report, and my inspiration who is my mum. If you're in a hurry, just go to the end!

1. The moany bit

The following things have drained me and led to tears in the last three days, but I'm all over that now. Thank you for your encouragement!

1. Three consecutive late nights but my body was waking up naturally and getting up at 5 am.
2. Different WO (Patrick swapped round a superset so we could do one together.) and feeling out of the loop.
3. Guesswork with meals, eating too much salt, hurry, some packaged food. 

The elusive balance between nutrition, sleep, stimulus is lousy when it's out!


2. Report

Sleep

As I said, a pitiful - under 6 hours on top of a debt from the previous day. Missing only a bit of sleep at this stage is BAAAD. I'm now in a late night exercise rhythm and snippy about it.

Work out

I honestly cannot remember much about the morning WO, other than I did it quickly and hard and still ran out of time to go to the park for bar work. I wasn't prepared to break my perfect attendance on exercise on Day 86!

At home station at 10.50, pullups and KF sit ups at park near my station (wearing a long skirt)
Through door at 11.15 ish, failure ab sets. Felt sick and stupid.

Couldn't tell if I was in failure as my form was so poor from the start.

I certainly gave my all. Sometimes 'giving your all' doesn't feel really RAH!
It feels like nothing except the task at hand.

Nutrition

Some guess work - protein at dinner was sashimi, then a 53 cal. packet of dried fish with all kinds of nasties in it, and a bit of leftover fish at home. Everything else was on the mark.

3. Inspiration

This is my mum, Pauline, with William. She's shy of having her photo taken, but this gives you a sense of her personality.

It's her birthday today and I miss her. I've sent her present and am going to talk on Skype, but sometimes, living abroad is tough.


Doing the PCP has sometimes reminded me of things she said as I was growing up.

1. Don't overschedule. Living healthily means giving yourself enough time to do things.

2. Enjoy the physical world around you - gardens, flowers, and as you see in the photo, cats.

3. Sit at the table to eat. During my childhood, she spent about 3 months with a naso-gastric tube with liquid food, but she always sat at the dining table to be with everyone. And did this without bumming us out. 

And one obvious one, that no PCP-ers need reminding of

4. Don't smoke.

Did I mention I miss her today?

I dedicate my workout tonight to my mother, Pauline Lewis. 

Day 77 - Walk on

Today is the end of Week 11! Feel like the hardest is to come, so I 'm going to get tougher on myself, before the 'Super sets' come in.

I'm going to report each day on my performance in the three areas needed to build muscle and get fit.

1. Muscle stimulus

Did I give my all in my workout or not? Give my all (GMA) is my way of saying 'Do my best on the day'. It might mean a wonderful workout or a mediocre one depending on the muscle group or the number of reps.

Some of the thing I can control are 'Did I concentrate on the exercise or just wish it was over?' 'Did I waste time between sets?' 'Did I feel a burn?'

2. Nutrition

Did I hit the grams? Did I introduce something I shouldn't? Did I eat my last meal 1.5 hours before sleeping?

3. Rest

How many hours did I sleep the previous night or during the day?

I'll report the previous day, so Day 78, Tuesday will reflect how I did on Day 77.  Feel free to hassle me if you see an area where I need to work harder or smarter!

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Some of the practical changes I will make in the last 14 days.

1. No turning on my PC after 9 pm. I want to turn off the light earlier, get up earlier, get the WO done on a well-rested body.
2. Keeping breakfasts a lot simpler. A raw egg on rice, sashimi, a salad. Breakfast fritatta can be on the weekend.
3. Preview exercises the day before. Imagine what I will do. (Image training)

How about you guys? Is there any screw you can tighten up? Now is the time. 

Walk on gang!

Day 68 - The role of 'Ma' and chopsticks in weight loss

Well done those who identified the whale as a rest for chopsticks.

Here is one Yoko gave me, and it also brightens the table as a tiny vase.

Chopsticks are a very important tool for portion control - as Patrick said, you eat less. Or you learn to be satisfied with less. Japanese serve smaller portions, on smaller plates, and take their time over their meals.
This is not out of a sense of righteousness or a desire to diet. It is part of the cultural norm of eating well.

As PCP-ers, we have much to learn from the traditional Japanese attitude to food.

To eat well is to be reverent about food and that means eating faster or slower depending on our energy needs at the time. We often overestimate how quickly we need to eat and feel uncomfortable with a little bit of hunger. We see food and food images around us so much that our brains are constantly suggesting we eat - even when we don't need to! Modern people have stopped listening to the body. Cue the chopstick rest.

To listen to the body, we need a bit of 'ma' 間 or space. This is impossible if the chopsticks or fork or spoon constantly hovers over the food, like an eagle about to descend. Sometimes we need to 'rest the  chopsticks' (a Japanese idiom I think).

Inject a little space into meal times and it becomes easier to let the brain catch up with the stomach. I find there is a kind of quietening and calming that happens shortly after eating. It's a good feeling, tingly, and warm.

There are other things that the Japanese do - say a kind of grace 'ittadakimasu' before eating, which means 'I receive' and 'gocchisosama' after eating which, pleasingly enough, translates to 'it was a feast'.

Let's observe 'ma', the quietening when we receives vital energy from food. Be reverent, and take pleasure. It was a feast.

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PCP-wise, today was a strong day. Made two homemade obento and just about to enjoy my evening fruit. Did a 2.5 hour capoeira class which was gruelling, but very satisfying when Cacapa made us do planks that were shorter than the ones I'd done that morning!

And here's a shot of me skipping in the park on my lunch break yesterday.

Day 58 - Jewel-like sashimi

Delicious and beautiful. From a supermarket near Tokyo's famous Tsukiji market last night. And I correctly estimated their weight - around 60 g.! Anyone know what they are btw!?

Day 54 in pictures

The Chosen One - Queen of Marron and matcha icecream.

But I'd gone for this before!

My best mate from North Gloustershire, Hayden. He had an apple caramel cake and I blame him for not eating more of the icecream....(C'mon, what's not to love about matcha icecream!?)

Other people around during Saturday were the fabulous people at Fab Academy, Kike (the teacher) and Brad. More of them later. Kike is a superb teacher and I've learnt so much from him about how to be a sassy girl...The video shoot is next Saturday and I'll be posting it!

April is a Brit in the class who has learnt all the moves and I copy her shamelessly. It was her birthday, and the Fab. duo provided champagne and cake. Patrick, no hints there for how to treat us PCP-ers!

On the theme of Brits - yesterday was St. George's Day and I made a boiled egg in his honour. (Note to self - don't let pastels get on the boiled egg itself). The sushi you see is a little wonky, but it was my first time. Here it is being assembled....

A random Youtube video on sushi making with soppy music gave me an idea on how to start, but Yoko told me the rice should be spread out. Cooking is all about screwing up and eating your mistakes experimenting. Also, having everything ready to roll! Like getting your bands/mat/push up bars together before a workout. 

And finally, here is a blurry shot of my torso for your viewing pleasure. 

Day 46 - 'If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't

Here is my morning snack of 140 g. fruit (mandarin left over from yesterday, two-thirds of a grapefruit) and an egg white with shisho-dressing. I really like the fruit snacks in spite of the extra work they involve because I get such a big energy swoop out of them. The water in the fruit has suprised me during the PCP so far (confession, I ate an entire apple last night pre capoeira). Some fruits like grapefruit, apples, oranges seem to go along way. 

Fruit is THE true 'convenience food'. You give a quick rinse (or not with citrus), cut (or just bite) and then get a huge hit of taste, freshness, and water. 

Compare the abundant gift a piece of fruit gives you to the cost to your body of eating packaged foods. They pack a high salt content, additives, preservatives that stop the raw materials going off but also strain your digestive system. The taste of almost all processed foods (often called 'oyatsu' in Japanese) is certainly more intense on a savoury level than fruit. But packaged foods invariably drain us of energy about 20 minutes after consumption because of the energy required to digest. 

I see people in my office snacking on cookies, salty sembei rice crackers, popcorn and sometimes people ask me if I miss what they are having. 

I don't miss the energy slump and the dry feeling in my mouth or the knowledge that I've just put a 200 cal or more hurt on my body that won't satisfy me. The snack pictured was eaten 10 minutes ago. Now my body is energized, fresh, and light. Isn't this 'convenient'? 

Food that is ridiculously simply to prepare, fun to eat, and smoothly digested. Some things about the PCP are a breeze!

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On another topic...

I sometimes wonder about whether I should go onto free-range or more humanely farmed eggs given how many whites I am eating a day though. The whole factory farming thing makes me queasy even though I adore eating egg whites. 

Day 41 - PCP curry.

I'm all for Zen and 'ma' and white space and all that, but surely they could have arranged this a little more intelligently! It's screaming 'Look Mum, No Nan Bread!' I went to this curry house in Kawasaki 30 minutes before meeting Japanese grandma and told them what I'd like by the gram. I wanted to get tandoori chicken, but I'm trying to do my PCP with fish as my main protein source, so I asked for tandoori prawn. This was very dry and I'm sure it was not 120 g. so I bought 20 g. of dried fish from a station platform afterwards.  Not good. 

Going back to this culinary extravaganza, the red dish is vegetable curry and was rather uninspiring. Usually I'd get a two-curry set with nan, rice, and salad. I'd usually pay 950 yen. For this, I paid 1, 500 yen because of the tandoori prawns. Meh. All this grousing is wholly unimportant compared to the pleasure of spending time with my delightful Japanese grandmother, Yoko. I missed meeting her for a month. The world is a better place after seeing her. 

After I got back to my part of Tokyo, I went to Toshimaen for a bit and had this...squid and salad. It came to 1,200 yen which is more reasonable than the curry, but in truth, I'd paid someone to chop and arrange some vegetables and then grill some squid. If I did this at home, I'd have arranged the squid properly.  It tasted good though, ordered sans salt, sans mayo, salad with vinegar.

I don't mind paying to eat this when I can look at a huge pink sakura lit up against the night sky.

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Did I mention that I did all my WO before breakfast? I think I'm over that throat thing now. Maybe I have a stronger immune system already. 

Let's finish Week 6 in style with some sexy jumps tomorrow. Go TEAM IO!

Day 39 - Second PCP meal 'out'

Feeling a bit lost as I tried my second PCP meal out. The first, at Toshimaen onsen, was really good and they weighed everything for me. The second, at my local mom'n'pop sushi place, was less successful. They don't have scales they told me, so they advised me to just eyeball it. The 'mom' started looking at pictures of fish to find a 'low-calorie' one, but I told her sadly that weighing was everything. So had a mixture of squid, tuna, mackerel sashimi with shredded daikon (surprisingly heavy veg. as it has so much water), small amount of pickled cabbage and two pieces of tofu. (I know, I know).

I estimated the fish to be around 70 of my 100 allowance. This was a mixture of eyeballing and how my stomach felt. Not great. Then went straight out into the shotengai, and got 3 sticks of yakitoria (shitake/chicken, onion/chicken, straight chicken). The amount of meat was pretty small, and I was still feeling like this didn't match what I 'should' be having. So I asked for one more, got one as 'service', and obviously ate both.

Sometimes I wish I WAS on the banana/apple/egg thing in the evenings - no pesky weighing or guilting. (Is that a verb? It is now).

Moral of the story is...if you think that it's not worked out in a restaurant or other culinary establishment, then quit while you're behind. Put down the chopsticks, walk into a place that sells produce, buy it quickly, take it home and weigh a conservative guess on what you missed. This IS why I tend to cook more at home. Hey ho.

In other fails, I misjudged my fruit (don't ask how, it's my special secret) and forgot how many pullups I needed to do when I got to my 'bar' in the playground, so I did 40 in 4 sets. Now I check, I see that I was right, huzzah!

Today's highlight was a set of scarily fast jumps just after noon. Done in a wraparound dress under the sakura surrounded by salarymen and kids on their lunch break.

Day 38 - I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made

Today's been a great day so far, so I thought I'd 'use up' this amazing quote I've had in mind for a blog post.

I woke up naturally today! At 5.55 to be exact. Felt suprised and for a change did not roll over but decided to roll out of bed. Jumps were done on my doorstep and I moved through the WO at a steady pace. I do look like an old geezer with the piston squats, but that's going to change. And the cycling was fine at first, but I was close to failure on the third set. In fact, I seem to be close to failure in a few of my third sets.

Another recording session at the NHK studio, this time for a lighter show (Radio Japan Focus). I got there earlier than expected, had more time to rehearse on my own, and felt the benefits of better breathing.

BREATH! It's something I have to think alot about during workouts but then I stop caring afterwards. I'm trying to be more aware of it. When it's good, everything is good.

Came back to my office in time for our annual hanami party. Got a compliment on my dinner (everything in one tupperware tub) and it was really nice to have tasty food that I had control over. I was satisfied, but not stuffed, and in fact the handstand and bridge were AFTER lunch! This would not happen with a shop bought bento!

Most of today, not just during exercise, but during rising, moving around, walking through stations, doing my radio announcement, I've felt awesome power in my body. Long may this continue!

Day 37 - The REAL workout is in the kitchen

This is a quickie as I should be in bed!

Prepared a lot of food this evening as tomorrow night is capoeira, plus time in the studio and the office. Tomorrow night is a late class - so time for cooking will be cut short. I find myself fighting the tendency to 'store' bits of food for interesting but as yet unknown combinations in the future. It's better just to chop/steam everything! Kitchen and fridge space is working out better as I'm spending more time on this.

Whoever said 'the real workout is in the kitchen' was dead right!

Morning exercise seems a looong time ago now, but I'm playing around with the bands and feeling where the burn is better these days. Jumping was this evening and I had a few bursts of levitation-like jumping where you don't hear the rope on the floor. Just a whizz and a hum.

In other news, I read the news on NHK radio for the first time today. It'll just be once a fortnight, but it's live, and I'm going to need good breath control. I'm excited to have PCP-ing and something in my career come together so well.

Day 1 - Hungry for it

"Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance" Epicurus

Today I began by eating half of what I would normally eat in a given day. I think I did okay and was pleased that I did keep to it. I usually try to eat a lot of fruit and veggies in a given day, so cutting back on them was a bit odd. The novelty value, plus the fact that I have been eating like a horse over the last week or so, helped me get through.

Eating in moderation has always been a huge challenge for me. I'll be drawing on a few tips that have helped me curb my enthusiasm for food as a toy, a diversion, a playground. Namely, think about whether you have a craving or real hunger (cravings are in the head and usually for something specific). You know hunger as it builds slowly and is not for something specific; you'll take your time to decide what to have even when you are hungry.

I don't like feeling hungry for long, but I do like a bit of hunger as it makes food taste better.

I made a mistake of getting too much food today and I gave some of it, a tuna and egg sandwich, to a guy on the street who needed it. He was one of the people that is pushing a cart along with stuff like newspapers that he is going to sell somewhere. I got a big smile, then - this killed me - he started rooting around in the cart saying 'Yasai jusu ga arimasu yo!' (I've got some veggie juice) Homeless dude was going to repay me. Reciprocity is a big thing in Japanese culture and he wanted to do the right thing. I was touched, but at the time thought he needed it more than me. Maybe I should have just accepted it, but I'd then have to find another person to give the juice onto (I avoid juices). Grrr!

Going back to the tips on how to deal with hunger. One thing is to be grateful for the food we have and the opportunity to make good choices for our health. It is a big deal to be able to choose what to eat.
Eating right is hard for me, but I'm looking forward to learning more about how to eat better.