Day 97, Pizza Time

Today I took my first daily photo in a week. (and what a relief it's been to not have to always remember my camera) In my "week off" I put on some weight around my middle and lost some definition, but everything has stayed pretty much in place. It's not the kind of change you could notice with clothes on, except that my face has filled out a bit which people tell me is a good thing.


And, in other news, tonight was an indulgence night, and I finally got around to eating pizza. I considered going to a local pizza place but I know it would be too much for me, so we decided to make pizza at home, at least that way I could control what was going on the pizza and try to cram some vegetables on there to make it more PCPy.

Pizza number one, Margherita with three cheeses. The basil is from my own garden on my apartment veranda.


Classic taste, very cheesy, yummy!

Pizza two, Japanese style, potatoes and brocolli with mayonaise. Western readers may gasp at this combination but it's actually pretty good, and the Nihonjin love it.


Great taste and with the brocolli it has the merest wisp of being healthy. The mayonnaise was low fat.

Pizza three, pesto base with onion, zucchini and eggplant slices.

Overcooked this one a bit and the pesto didn't really come through. Plus the pesto separated from the oil and it was a little greasy. Not bad though.

Pizza four, fresh Mozzerella and eggplant.


Too much cheese on this one, oops! The eggplant was good.

Taste
After a while the cheese kind of shorted out my palate and it was just a dull cheesy sharpness to everything. Couldn't pick out many individual flavors although this may speak more to my pizza cooking that anything else.

Effects
A strange giddiness at first. And I was able to eat 8 small slices and not feel stuffed beyond the point of reason. I guess thin crust helped. For some reason I wanted to eat this standing up, so I did.

Aftereffects
Severe stomach pain, a heavy dopey sleepy feeling, and several trips to the bathroom. That old nasty itchy feeling in my love handles and man-breasts as layers of oily fat get laid down. Not pleasant in the least bit.

I'm happy to announce this will be the last time I suffer through an indulgence. I'm going to stay super clean and lean in my last month on the PCP. I might even switch back to apple and egg smoothies, which I really miss believe it or not.

Day 82, Lemon Bars

Today you may remember was my indulgence day.

So far the indulgences, which come every 15 days have been;

Beer

A Chocolate Chip Cookie

Wine and Cheese

Ice Cream

and today's was...

Homemade Lemon Bars!



I love desserts that aren't overly sweet and have more than one flavor going on at once. Cheesecake, bitter chocolate, etc... so Lemon Bars have always been one of my favorites.

But in Japan you're never going to find lemon bars so we've learned to make them.

Here's how the sheet looks before cutting.




and here's how they look going into my mouth.



Taste
Tangy and delicious. Great texture. Homemade things just have that extra something to them. I ate 4 5cm by 5cm bars.

Effects
After 10 minutes, an intense bout of the shakes as the sugar hit my bloodstream. I just can't take that much concentrated sucrose at once anymore. My stomach was also a little confused as to what to do with all the flour hitting it at so late a time (9pm) I haven't eaten more than a piece of toast's worth of carbs past 6pm in 82 days.

Aftereffects
Upset stomach, occasional twitches in the back of my neck. A heavy sleepy feeling (sugar crash). Churning intestines. A desire to put the leftover lemon bars out of sight. Tired in body but mind racing.

Phew! Next indulgence, day 97. These things are a real trial for me. It blows my mind that I used to eat this stuff that now turns my world upside down like it was nothing. My question is, is it necessarily good to be this sensitive to rich food? Isn't there something to be said for having an iron stomach? My body has gotten much stronger but my stomach is a real wimp these days.

Day 64, Early Indulgence

As you know every 15 days I go off diet both to reward myself and see how I react to "regular" food. My next indulgence day was supposed to be Day 67, but I went ahead and took it today because we were having a staff meeting that ended up at....


I was never a huge ice-cream fan but today it was hot and sunny, and we were sitting outside, so it was really nice.

I ordered the Cheesecake Fantasy which looks like this.


If you've never been to Stone Cold Creamery you should know that all the ingredients are mixed in right in front of you as the employees sing, yes sing, like they just spent a summer backpacking through Smurf village. I would pay an extra 30 cents if it meant they served me my ice cream without singing. But I haven't seen that choice on the menu.

Taste

Very, very rich. It felt a little unreal to eat something so rich after weeks and weeks of getting used to the somewhat muted sweetness of fruit. It was good, but good in the way that being given 10,000 dollars that you can only spend at store that sells feather boas is good.

Effects

After about 10 minutes, a sugar high that gave me the shakes and made me a little dizzy. I was riding in a car at that time and I just kind of lolled my head out the window and watched the pretty colors. I could feel my heart racing in my chest throughout all of this. A bit unsettling.

Aftereffects

A mild sugar crash, but not as bad as I thought it would be. A lingering sense that I didn't want to look at food for the rest of the week. And, as I write this a few hours later, I can literally feel the extra fat on my midsection. Really, I can pinch something that wasn't there before. When you're down below 10% BMI you can feel new fat as soon as it forms. It doesn't bother me as I know from past indulgences that it burns off in a day or two, but it's a real eye-opener to actually feel the cause and effect of eating a 710 calorie dessert. It certainly makes me want to stay away from that stuff. And I got the smallest size of one of the healthier choices.

Here's a list of all of Stone Cold Creameries offerings and their caloric content. Some of the choices come out at over 1500 calories, which is pretty much my allowance for a whole day. Don't eat that much ice cream, dear reader. That's the equivalent of a whole supermarket basket of fresh veggies.

So, the next indulgence day will be day 82. As always I would like to hear your suggestions for what to eat that day!

Day 52, Wine and Cheese

Well, if you've been reading you'll know that every 15 days I choose something to indulge myself with, something not on the diet plan. On day 32 it was a chocolate chip cookie and on day 22 it was a beer. Aside from a nice reward the off-diet foods often give me weird sensations. The beer made my stomach hurt and the chocolate chip cookie aroused my libido.

15 days have rolled around again and this time I chose wine and cheese as my indulgence.



A few years ago there was a study that found eating cheese kind of short circuits the taste buds and doesn't allow the palate to make out the subtle distinctions of fine wine. A lot of people were wringing their hands about how this was the end of a wine tradition, but I immidiately had the thought that I could buy any old cheap Carlo Rossi, pair it with a strong cheese, and it would be just as good as the high end stuff. Whether this speaks to my ingenuity or cheapskateness I don't know.

So tonight I bought the smallest possible blocks of smoked cheese, parmesian, and a funky gouda that was cultured with basil, and a bottle of red table wine.

To make the evening even more sumptious, I ate said cheese and drank said wine while watching season 3 of Top Chef.

Taste
After 52 days with nothing beyond a little cottage cheese in the morning, the cheeses were too rich for me. I enjoyed them but it wasn't how I used to enjoy cheese. It felt like work to get through the plate. The wine was nice.

Effects
No weird effects from the cheese. I was pretty tipsy after two glasses of wine.

Aftereffects
A stomachache, which has been the case after every 15 day indulgence. Which is fine with me, because it makes the indulging have an overall negative connotation in my mind, which makes it all the easier not to indulge. In fact, I found that this time I wasn't really craving anything, and just went with the wine and cheese because I knew it was something I used to like. Truth be told, the PCP Pig Out which I described in Day 48 would have suited me just as well.

So, the next indulgence will be day 67. Any suggestions readers?

Day 37, A Chocolate Chip Cookie

On Day 22 I blogged about my experience having a beer after three weeks on a strict diet. Today I thought I'd see how eating something sugary would go over.


I was meeting someone at Starbucks, and decided to have a chocolate chunk cookie along with my coffee. The cookie was 175 calories, which isn't enough to break the bank, but enough to be an indulgence. I was mainly interested in how my body would react to that much sugar at one time. For the past 37 days I haven't had any refined sugar, just whatever comes from fruit and vegetables. And I've had absolutely no chocolate during that time period.

So, here's how it went.

Taste
Delicious! I thought that maybe after my sugar sabbatical the cookie would seem abnormally sweet, perhaps too sweet to be enjoyable. Wrong-O. That sucker was tasty. I savored every bite. I've always liked Starbucks cookies because they aren't sugary sweet (maybe because they use brown sugar?) and the chocolate is pretty dark. Yummy. I loved it.

Effects
I immediately felt a sugar rush, and became more chipper. Ideas started flowing freely. This must have been how the Europeans felt when they first encountered chocolate. Some people even sought to ban it because it was considered a drug along the lines of hashish. There's a book I enjoyed about this period called The Coffee Trader, by David Liss.


In addition, in just a few minutes I could feel my sex drive gearing up, and for lack of a better word, felt more "manly." Perhaps from the chocolate?

Aftereffects
Within two hours I could literally feel the fat from the cookie, especially along my love handles. You might not believe me but I'm just telling it like it is. I can feel a layer of something there that wasn't there before, and it ain't muscle. This doesn't bother me, it'll come off with tomorrow's workout. But it's an interesting and somewhat gross feeling.

So, all in all, another very informative eating experience. Especially considering just a month and half ago I ate one of those cookies about once a week without a second thought.

The glass of beer was 15 days ago, so I'm thinking, why not make this a routine? Every 15 days I will eat something definitely not part of the PCP diet, and report on the effects. So, the next "out of bounds food" experiment will be day 52. And suggestions readers? What should I eat that day?

Day 22, A Half Glass of Beer

Tonight I was out in Tokyo for a bit, and on the way back my friend wanted to get something quick to eat. I had already "eaten" my egg-white smoothie, but I went along. So we went to an Udon canteen. I was planning on just having water, but I saw that they had small size draft beers. So I ordered a beer, because there's not much lamer than just sitting and watching someone eat. Beer is empty calories that don't help me towards my goal at all, and it was my first alchoholic drink in 3 weeks.

I got the beer for a number of reasons.

1. The first and most important in my mind was the story of Suzuki-roshi going stopping at a diner on a road trip with one of his students, a strict vegetarian. At the table, Suzuki ordered a hamburger, much to his student's shock. The student ordered carrot sticks or something like that. When the food came, Suzuki simply said, "Let's switch" and turned the plates around.

The idea is that the vegetarian was so involved in his vegetarianism that it was turning into an attachment, in this case, an attachment to not doing something. I was finding myself in the same situation. I've put so much energy into this project that I could feel a part of myself saying, "No, even if you want that beer, you can't have it, that's not the kind of thing you do anymore. It's the same part of me that can obsess about getting my calories or repetitions right, and it's the part of me that could make this project no fun.

I said in a ZIS podcast that the PCP is not about privation. It's about gaining something, a high level of fitness and a bunch of healthy habits. Always saying "no" to yourself and feeling guilty when you ultimately say "yes" (and you always will eventually) is not my idea of healthy. More like neurotic.

2. The second reason is that I was curious how my body would react to alcohol, even just a small half glass. It made my stomach feel a little strange and made me sleepy as hell in the train on the way back, and as I type this I feel a headache coming on!

3. Reality Check 1. The beer tasted great, but it also just tasted like beer. We all know that the second you say "You can't have something" that thing becomes infinitely more appealing. It was good to ground myself and remember that beer (or wine, or nachos, or second helpings, etc...) are nice but not all that, and certainly not as valuable as Peak Condition. I don't think I'll be tempted for a long while.

4. Reality Check 2. When you're weighing your food out, you can get into a mindset that every single unnecessary calorie is somehow doing harm to you. It's not. A glass of beer is not going to make any difference to the outcome of this project, and it would have made me kind of a jerk to just sit there drinking water while my friend had noodles. What's the point of being fit if you're constantly worried about losing your fitness if you eat this or drink that?

But, the most interesting thing about tonight is, as you can see above, how much thought and mindfulness went into ordering the beer. Before, I would have gotten a large without a second thought, except for the price maybe. So I think that's the best sign of all, much better than a shrinking waistline or growing muscles.