Day Eight: I Can Tell We'll Be Spending A Lot Of Time In The Kitchen

Well, I managed to cook breakfast, and lunch, and have two snacks, and dinner is now in the works. Everyone mentioned the amount of food prep time, and it's no lie. My husband is a sweetheart and is sharing PCP meals with me--even refusing to add salt and olive oil or butter to dishes that would clearly be improved by them. I love that we're together in kitchen slavery, but it's also twice the chopping. Anyone get carpal tunnel yet?

The plan was to cook for the whole week today, but I'm not that sure of portion size yet. So I'll make enough at dinner for lunch the next day, and see where we are at the end of the week. Ideas and strategies humbly solicited from those with more experience. Tell us your best tricks!

Day Seven: So What's Next?

I busted out with a perfect set of 100 jumps in a row first thing this morning. Swung the rope, jumped, and just kept going. It was great. Of course the other sets were nowhere near perfect, but it felt fantastic to have even one. I find that I need to go kind of quickly. If I start slowing down, there's too much time between jumps to start worrying about the next one, and suddenly the cord is stuck between my toes again. (I jump barefoot.)

The best part about today? This was the last day of agonizing over half portions (lunch was probably a little too big; dinner was definitely a little too small). Bring on the prescriptive amounts! And the tougher workouts! I am ready.

Day Six: Habitual Thinking

So I got home, a little buzzed from half Friday beer (because half Friday food apparently makes one susceptible) and found myself thinking, "Better get to sleep soon--there will still be a workout in the morning." Of course, it was barely 8 at night, so this was not, strictly speaking, true. But it felt good to already be in the habit of working out every morning, just because that's what I do now.

Day Five: It's Worse When You're Hungry

I had an effing miserable day at work--some of it my own fault, some of it not. And I'm here to report, a day like that is worse if you're hungry.

Workout fine. I attempted music with the rope, and it was a bad call. Much smoother when I snapped it off. Half portions fine. Hunger present and annoying as fuck, but manageable. Haven't been headache-y the way I usually get when a meal is delayed too long.

Quick poll. If you could live in any of the following places for 2-3 years (furnished apartment provided), which would you pick?

Paris (furnishings not included)
Bratislava
Tallinn
Washington, DC (apartment not included)
Melbourne
Ho Chi Minh
Singapore
Bangkok
Tblisi

Day Four: One Perfect Set

I got very little for you today. This morning, felt too sleepy to get up and work out. But the barrier is so low--just stand up with the jump rope in my hands--so I did, and suddenly working out was somehow happening. The second set of jumps was perfect, and then the third, in reaction, was the worst one I've ever experienced--I tripped on jump #2.

Lessons in my normal diet keep happening. Today, I ate out for lunch and dinner (strict halves, don't worry), and really noticed how much I love citrus flavors. Also, how they keep slipping into my meals, combined with sugar, as a previously-unnoticed sweet treat. Does anyone else order lime soda the second they step into a Vietnamese restaurant? Lime juice, seltzer, sugar, and sometimes a handful of mint leaves. It's delicious. Tonight, I didn't stir too well and kept the straw high, so the sugar content was much reduced. And then I gave the sweet half to my husband and laughed at myself for feeling deprived.

Day Three: My Ears Are Still Ringing

I just saw Inception in a theater with really loud speakers and my eardrums are so whomped that it seems to be affecting my sense of balance and making it hard to type. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it's definitely affecting my ability to think. Anyone else seen it? Fun, but doesn't make a lot of sense.

Anyway, this is the day that the workout felt clumsy for the first time. I was quite stiff, tripped more than usual when jumping, and spent the day with a super sore right leg, from yesterday's squats most likely. But I'm pumped to show those muscles who's boss first thing tomorrow morning with more squats! Patrick says that along about week three, my body will get good at working out. Check this space on Day 28.

Day 2: What, Exactly, Is My Regular Diet?

I love these short intense workouts--they're leaving me with that pleasurable sore feeling, the one that means you're doing good work. The diet, on the other hand, is a problem.

For my entire adult life, I've been an irregular eater. Breakfast is standard, but lunch is a constant search for novelty (or comfort, depending on the day). Dinner, well, that's wildly variable. Sometimes it's a large meal out, sometimes leftovers from lunch, sometimes a bowl of cereal or an egg sandwich, and sometimes it gets entirely forgotten. What I'm saying is, I have no idea what my "regular" eating habits might be--I just haven't been paying that much attention.

This is making the early days of eating half my regular amounts very fraught. Would I regularly have a snack on a Sunday afternoon? Well, if I was hungry. But this time I think I'm hungry because of the half portions, which means that it's probably not allowable to have a snack. Or, is it cheating that two days in a row I've chosen half a meal from the larger end of my usual scale? And what if I'm craving noodle soup with fishballs, but know that half a bowl of that will leave me headache-y and starving by 4:30? Is it okay to avoid it in favor of something more filling?

Trying to keep up with the thought-circles is making me feel a little like a gerbil on a wheel.

The day is capped off by this:


A really nice coworker brought me back two bite-sized duck gizzards from Li Feng in Shanghai. It's a favorite of his. I'm pretty sure I'd normally try it. So if I have one, is that half?