Day 111, The Goof Off Week

I have these periods in my life when I really just want to goof off. I slack off on all my work and just do things I like. These times don't worry me because they are always followed by periods of extreme productivity and new ideas. So I've learned not to beat myself up about these phases and just roll with them.

I'm in one this week for sure. Last week a lot of events and projects came to a close, and I knew I'd be cruising through this week, taking time to enjoy the simple things, electric guitar, One Piece, nunchaku, sunshine, blended frozen mango smoothies, just to name a few.

What's not so great about these goof off times is that I tend to not pay close attention to my diet and a lot of things slip through. Like the other day I really wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so I just made one and scarfed it down right at the kitchen counter. Peanut butter isn't bad but it's loaded with relatively empty calories. The jelly has too much sugar and the bread is just a waste of my daily carbs on fluff. It's a pretty dumb snack, all things considered. If you are mentally objecting that "there's nothing wrong with a PB&J!" then you aren't thinking like someone trying to reach or maintain Peak Condition. And that's ok, you didn't sign up for this. But we did, and so I had to just shake my head at what I ate.

And today I ate an entire pack of udon. I wasn't even hungry, but I had some extra dashii and the noodles were just sitting there so I threw them in the bowl and ate them while reading The New Yorker online. Again, the problem was my lack of mindfulness and mental laziness. Tonight I had an intense low blood sugar crash after spiking my system with all that glucose from the udon. I felt terrible, worse than I ever had on this Project, and I was reminded again that enjoying something for 2 mins on your plate is never worth the 2 hours of feeling gross from it, either with an energy crash, when you look in the mirror, or the next day when it passes through your system.

So I'm working on a way to have the goof-off week, which I need mentally, without a subsequent lapse in my diet choices. It's tricky and the best way I've found to deal with it is to go back to weighing stuff just like I did in the early stages of the PCP. 100 grams is 100 grams, and having weighed it all out you're not so tempted to go back for seconds, because there's no way that you can rationalize that an extra serving is still somehow 100 grams.

So, send me positive energy, because I'm struggling with the PCP this week!

Day 81, Weariness

Today for the first time in a while I was simply tired and fed up with trying to stay on the plan. Tired of measuring out my lunch, tired of eating egg whites (I only made it through 3 today), tired of the second day deep soreness I described in day 80.

The funny thing is that when you do something for this long you reach a point where it's easier to just follow the momentum that you've built up and keep doing it than veer wildly off course. For example, I could throw up my hands and say "forget this!" and go have three pizzas at Sisiliya, but the flavors would be overpowering for me and my stomach would hurt like hell within 10 minutes. You have these visions of finishing the project and having a big piece of chocolate cake with all your friends, but the truth is that at that point the cake is too rich for you and you've lost all your friends because they're intimidated by your killer physique. (well, maybe not)

Truthfully, today was just a busy day and the PCP felt more like a chore than a joy. It's my fault for overscheduling myself and spending too much time on one project I just wanted to finish. One of the most important mental changes that you have to make doing something like this is to realize that you do have to schedule in your health. The times I've strayed furthest from my plan is when I just leave myself 30 mins to magically get through 1000 jumpropes and 30 sets of exercises. It never happens but I still imagine it can be done when I see my appointment book filling up.
If you asked someone, would they rather be wealthy and successful or healthy, they'll always say "healthy." It's the most obvious thing that without health there's not much point to all that money and success. But crack open that same person's appointment book and you'll probably see that on the ground the pursuit of success gets a lot more scheduled time than exercise.

At least that's how my day was today, and my frustration flowed not towards the excess work but towards the PCP, which is just backasswards. The PCP only helps me and makes life more interesting. I'll try hard not to let it get bumped off the schedule for lesser pursuits.

Day 79, Must Have Been Something I Ate...

I worked hard today and trained hard as well. So I had a nice "big" dinner when I got home. 2 tortillas with steamed vegetables and shrimp, with some fresh salsa I made a few days ago and wanted to use up. For dessert I ate half and apple and half a banana and some dates with a crumbled gingerbread cookie in milk.

I think the salsa had gone off, and when that milk hit my stomach I felt pretty bad. And it's been regular trips to the toilet ever since.

Sorry to be gross. But there's a great lesson here. After a long day of work and or training, there's a tendency to eat a meal that is as unhelpful as your day was tough. Hard day at the office? Finish it off with a few beers and some fried food! All that stress and weariness will really be helped by taxing your liver and arteries. Those organs just love when you make them work double shifts!

The truth is, after a tough day, we need to come home, eat a piece of bread, some thin soup, and a bowl of vegetables. Our bodies don't need anymore work to do, they're still recovering from the stuff that happened 9am to 5pm, why give them a whole new load of stuff to deal with from 9pm to 5 am?

I'm not preaching at you here. I'm having some serious stomach issues now because when I came home I thought I deserved a few extra ladles of that tasty salsa slathered over my entire meal.

Day 63, Long One...

Today was a very long an unsatisfying day, I managed to squeeze in a little PCP during my lunch break, but had to wolf down lunch because I was late, which made my stomach hurt. Then working until 8 pm, and eating dinner at the way too late hour of 9pm, which has brought on a new round of stomach pain. I didn't even have a coffee break in which to eat egg whites or fruit, so my protein is way off today, and my energy is shot.

Fortunately, it's only the odd Thursdays which are like this, most other days I have plenty of time to eat and exercise well. What blows my mind is that I used to have 6 days out of 7 like today. I don't know how I did it, it makes me tired just thinking about it.

Going to sleep now. Another long day tomorrow, but at least it's my own stuff tomorrow and not working for the man.