Day 94 (Day 59 Revisited): The Good Daughter

My mom thinks I'm crazy: I worked out this morning (4 minutes x 4 sets) and then I worked out tonight (strength exercises). And today on our trip into Boulder, I bought two new tank tops to exercise in for another boost of motivation. But you worked out yesterday ...

So my Mom .... I love Mom. We aren't much alike but she allowed me to shine and be who I am. Her mother didn't allow that for her, and Mom's personality quirks could have followed suit but she didn't. It's a miracle I am hers. Haven't seen her in three years because of time and money on both our parts. She drove out to CO with my Kid Sister, who is 8, from Kentucky. They are visiting for a week; they leave Monday morning. Mom has always been the Dieter. As a kid, I remember the Dexatrim bottle on the counter. Then the various fad diets. Then the pans of brownies and cake that were gone quickly. The XXL tees she scored from the Dollar Store. Sometimes she was heavy; other times she was gaunt. As for exercise, she liked to walk; her timid, cautious and low-key personality prevented her from really trying anything beyond that. She's been into Curves the last year, but stopped going earlier this summer; her reasons were vague. She does, however, wear these Velcro sandals with curved soles which "help" you tone muscle as you walk (?!?!??). I just nod uh-hmmmmm!


Oh yah. This is them. Imagine them with white athletic socks. And sweatpants.

It makes me angry at these companies who sucker these women in; I also am frustrated with these women, including my dear and well-intentioned mother. Sure, she is trimmer than I have seen her in the past but I wouldn't say healthy. On the first day of her visit, we got into a debate because she believes that organic chocolate milk is healthier than regular chocolate milk, therefore she allows Kid Sister to have "only" two glasses of organic chocolate milk PER DAY. I walk downstairs, and Kid Sister starts the day off with 1. a glass of choc milk 2. a chocolate PopTart. Lunch is fries and a shake and a burger patty. Every day she has had a bowl of chocolate covered raisins. Every day so far there have been treats in addition to these "meals." Kid Sister got winded walking around the block with us! As a mother and a PCPer, I totally cringe. I mean, my kid gets the occasional Oreo or whatever but she also gets fruit, vegs and unbreaded protein every day. And Kid Sister prefers to sit on the couch than hit the playground or backyard to play with my Kid, much to Mini Me's dismay. But if I try to engage Mom about their exercise and food habits, she is vague, changes the subject, or shuts down completely. As a former newspaper reporter, I am used to pressing people for details or seeing through the smoke and mirrors to get to the goods. But handling my mom in this manner seems cruel so I have to stop the inquisition and highlighting the giant holes in her beliefs. But I don't want to give up on her.

Hiatus: And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Today I heard something I hadn't heard in two weeks: a grumbly tummy. That's right, folks! My appetite is back. I've been slowly introducing dairy and meat back into the diet as much as I could stomach it. I also had some a.m. and p.m. snacks the last two days. Would like to try to include protein shakes tomorrow and see how that goes. After that, I should be pretty close to normal PCP schedule. Hoorah!

Also I was worried that my energy shortage would never end. I don't think I can stress this enough: I live a full schedule. But I kept coming home from work day after day after day just zapped and, after the parenting and house duties, I would crawl into bed soon after my daughter fell asleep. And then yesterday it seemed to get worse: I went to bed at 8 p.m. and awoke this morning at 8 a.m. WHOA. Twelve hours of sleep? When will my old routine return? Is this a relapse? But I got home from work today, did the Mom thing, felt peppy even and after some reading homework with the kid, I thought I would try a few sets of arm band exercises.

It felt good.

Especially with the Biggest Loser premiere on tonight playing in the background. Especially when I used to watch that show last season while eating ice cream (!!!!). Oh how much has changed!

Hiatus: Lectures and Listening

Argh. I'm embarrassed, perhaps ashamed to be writing this. I thought I would be up for hitting the jumpropes this week or maybe just a little arm band action. But after full days at work to catch up from my sick days and my trip away last week, as well as coming home each night to my other full time gig, motherhood, I was spent. Like truly exhausted. This night owl is now hitting the hay just after the kid. And this light sleeper is falling asleep quickly and deeply until the munchkin wakes her up in the a.m.

I also heard (endured?) a few lectures from caring loved ones about taking it easy, i.e. NOT exercising, to avoid relapse. This includes my friend, the freelance reporter who writes health stories, my cardio kickboxing instructor, co-workers and oh yea my mom. And I thank you and love you all for wanting to protect me and keep me safe and healthy. Asthmatics already have compromised immune systems and I continue to cough, sniffle, use my inhaler and feel fatigue. And while I might *feel* up to it or want to get back into the swing of things, I could fall victim to another bout of lung infection or worse (the university where I work is now inching towards 400 cases of probably flu, regular and swine), they warn me ~ and I worry. It's a concern I have and one I know well. As an energetic kid with asthma, I had a lot of relapses from not taking it easy, i.e. allowing enough recovery time, after lung infections. I hoped back into regular life, playing on the playground or playing my sports and my bad cold at home morphed into a few weeks later with me back on meds, or worse, exhausted and struggling in the hospital or the emergency room hooked to an oxygen machine.

But how much time is enough to recover? How do I know it's not just me being a wuss or, say, avoiding exercise coz it's hard and sweaty and smelly?

My appetite continues to increase in small ways. Dairy is still questionable, as is meat though I try. I often just get a few bites or sips and then stop. Vegs and fruit are more successful; I craved my cucumber bits and cherub tomatoes, and my beloved fuji apples. I've lost some weight, though I worry it's my hard-earned PCP muscle and not that darn sticky fat.

Tomorrow should be a low-key day here at the homestead, so I would like to try any arm band exercises if I have any energy after doing the normal day stuff (parenting, cleaning, laundry). The weather has turned cool here in Colorado, another factor that can affect my breathing. It was in the 50s and rainy today, very chilly. Warmer air is typically best for me. Again, just listening to my body and what it needs at the moment. And hoping it's the right reasons.

Day Eight: Why Was Nine Afraid of Seven?

(Coz 7 8 9!)

DUUUUDES, I'm stuffed. And I'm not even done with my first true PCP dinner and bedtime snack. I feel like a kid who's doing their homework at the last minute racing to finish before the classroom bell rings. I definitely need to finagle a better system to prepping the meals ahead of time. Dinner's not so bad, but here I was trying to parent a kid who has itchy bug bites and is in need of anti-itch cream, who wants a glass of milk, who wants to go for a bike ride, in addition to trying to get laundry done post road trip because I have no clothes for work and exercise clothes stink to high heaven, and (!!!) I was cooking and exercising for the PCP. Yo, I'm tired.

So yea. Can you say Week One: Famine, Week Two: Feast? As did my fellow PCPers, I ate a ton of food today. For me, it was a struggle as I switched to eating most of my food during daylight hours instead of the previous habit of mindless nighttime eating. Also, I'm not a fan of fruit and here I am eating it three times a day. My coworkers saw me gag down an afternoon snack of grapes (a couple is fine, but how many grams?!?!?), more grapes than I ate in 2008 entirely. But I did it, so I consider this success. I just felt so full, I had to pace myself and found I was eating almost every two hours. I happily went to stores after work to pick up some last minute PCP equipment (pull up bar, resistance bands, steamer) and by the time I got home I was starving. Huh. If you had asked me at 2p.m. MST today if I wanted to eat, I would have said No thank you I'm full for the next week, please come again. And then once I got home commenced the chaotic scene in the house I described above. But the kid is almost in bed and I'm almost done with dinner (whole wheat angel hair, steak cut into strips, a salad, followed by snack of apple and milk). I can only hope I wake up hungry tomorrow and not still stuffed like a pinata with PCP foods.

In wonderful news, my garden is starting to produce, well, produce: broccoli, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, onion, etc. Can't wait to put those to use in the PCP. Bon apetit!

Day Five: Red Glare

Last night I visited with friends at a home BBQ for the Fourth of July. It was a hoot. It was also a challenge.

The kiddo and I were there for about five hours, and I was offered food and boozy drinks often. Sure, I ate my dinner portion (one kabob of grilled chicken, mushroom and zucchini; a five Doritos -- instead of five handfuls -- and one salt-less, butter-less ear of corn, and a glass of ice water) and it was a wonderful meal with loved ones and I felt full, both in tummy and heart.

But when faced with the repeated question of well-intentioned hosts who asked Are you sure you don't need a drink? Are you sure you aren't hungry? I definitely felt the little angel and little devil on my shoulders debating that very issue. Even though my mouth said No, I'm fine thank you for asking, my mind, and later my stomach, struggled with issue. But rules are rules, and I really didn't want to bend the rules less than a week into the PCP. If I thought it was hard now ...

But near the end of the night my very good friend commented on how she was proud of me. And that's the best kind of positive reinforcement if I ever saw it and was grateful that anyone noticed I was truly, really trying.

The exercise routine (jumping rope followed by a series of some combination of sit-ups, lunges, push-ups and squats) currently continue to be the easiest part of the PCP. The mental struggle with food, for me, is the worst. I am realizing that I eat out of habit rather than actual hunger, I eat most of my calories in the evening rather than throughout the day, and that my decreased calorie intake is making me grumpy and very sensitive to things I would not normally get bent out of shape for, like my child asking for her dinner once we got home from school/work (and an insane lady who momentarily stepped into my body and stole my brain instantly thought at this request GAH you selfish child! Um yeah. That was weird.) or how my right contact lens is a little dry and therefore makes me want to lay down and sob on the floor of this coffeehouse right at this very moment and how my brain wants to rationalize that the second half of my morning bagel would make it all go away.

But, I take a deep breath, and I remember this.

Day One, Vol. II: They're All Gonna Root For You

Just finished my first PCP workout in my new "gym" aka the backyard patio.

jumping rope
push-ups
sit-ups
squats

Nice but think I will definitely have to switch to a.m. workouts (the neighborhood is alive, noisy and busy in the afternoons, as it should be; neighbors and my kid wanted to know what was up with me and the jump rope, and I felt like my social hour in the suburbs was missed). I would have done PCP this a.m., but I'm still in the throes of my boot camp, session two, for the summer. I have two weeks left. Which means for the MWFs of the first two weeks of PCP, I will do boot camp in the a.m., and PCP workouts in the p.m. I kept telling myself It's only six days (five now), but truth be told today my body was already tired when I got home from work. Lucky for me, the PCP exercises align nicely with what we do in boot camp. On my non-boot camp days, I'm definitely going to start my day with PCP to ensure nothing at the end of the day gets in my way. Which is saying a lot, considering I'm a night owl.

The first week of PCP "diet" (oh how I loathe that word! I've never been a diet kind of person, and I don't believe PCP is anything even close to a diet. We need something better to call it. How about food solution? cuisine opportunity? fit fuel?): Just eat half. Whatever we normally would dish out for ourselves, eat half. Sounds easy. And it is easy to do ... until you're hungry an hour later. But I really stuck with it, and I realize today might be the easy day of it all.
Small bowl of cheerios instead of large. One morning coffee instead of two; one tsp of sugar instead of two. Five almonds instead of 10. Even half a nutrigrain bar when I was famished on the commute home (this PCP could really make the drive home dangerous for others if I continue to drive hungry). I noticed I really paid attention to my food so I wouldn't snarf it all down and that I could really enjoy the food. And that even with "half" portions, I felt satiated (but not stuffed) which snowballed into really looking forward to and appreciating the next time I got to eat.

Today I had a lot of people ask about PCP, and I was happy to share. Once I got over my embarassment and worry about revealing the blog, it was really awesome to see people outside the PCP are cheering us on, too. Viva la revolucion!