Day 61, A crusade

So yesterday was Sunday over in these parts which means that it was also one of my days off (and now, ugh, it’s the start of another week, stinkin weekends never last as long as they should). With nothing to do all day it became a perfect time to go and shop, for clothes that is. So I hopped on over to Target on a quest for new pants and shorts, well, mainly shorts since it’s still around 95 degrees here in southern California, and that is totally unnecessary.

I’ve never really enjoyed clothes shopping and for the most part I will do whatever I can to avoid it and find something less painful to occupy my time with like, you know, eating glass and affixing leeches to my groin.

This particular visit won’t exactly go down in the history books as the least painful clothes shopping experience ever but it certainly wasn’t the most painful and horrifying, either. I had good company and I was able to actually find some things that I can picture myself enjoying while wearing. All in all it was an okay Sunday made better by the fact that I can now rock the socks off of many more people in clothes like these shorts (sorry about them being so blurry but that's what I get for using Photo Booth in such a hurry):

Some dark green, hard to see ones


And some nice plaid ones


Also bought yesterday were some shirts that caught my eye. I've been noticing how well my shirts have been fitting me lately, like they were tailored specifically for me, it's a very nice feeling. I would have kicked myself later on if I hadn’t bought these because my wardrobe was in desperate need of sprucing up (I can only get away with wearing plain white and black shirts for so long). Plus, well, they were fancy and the fabric is oh so nice to the touch:

A tannish, multi-image thing


My favorite, with birds flying out of the sun


This blue shirt with a sitting Buddha on it and, for some reason, a tiger embroidered on the left hip


I hope your Monday goes well. Have a good mood.

Day 60, One month left!

Whoo-hoo, peoples!

And I never would have thought that I would make it to this point in the project--honestly I thought that after a month or so of it then I would have called it quits because of how hard it was--but no! here I am and there Corry and David are rocking this thing, saying that it will not defeat us, that we will prevail, we will charge ahead and become something better than ourselves. And we are, and we will.

Hmm, certainly not Mel Gibson in Braveheart but that’ll do nicely I think. Whatever it takes to give me that extra boost of energy and confidence for today and the next days of the week and month.

So I’ve been continuing on my downward slump of a mood here with all of this food business and I’ve yet to really pinpoint what exactly the cause of this funk is. At first I thought it was the tedium of my daily breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that was putting me in this mood and I still think that that may be a part of the problem--I’ve been finding myself missing some of the pre-project foods every now and then (and at weird, inexplicable time, too). There’s quite a lot you can do with vegetables and a little bit of elbow grease (or olive oil...olive oil tastes better than elbow grease) and I’m certainly willing to try anything once, especially when it’s the recipes Corry’s been giving me...yum, but those strong cravings for the boxed items in the freezer section can sneak up on ya and make you think bad things.

Curse them all, I’ll say now. CURSE THEM! ...Would it be too pessimistic or cynical to make that my mantra?

But now, ah a light up ahead, I think that I’m coming out of it with the realization (now? It’s only coming now) that all of this downtrodden gloominess about all of the food is all totally mental and that I don’t have to give in to those feelings of blahness about the food. Those pesky feelings do not control me, I control them, right? Right. Said and done, period.

So it’s going to be the start of a new week. Who here is excited? I know I am, and not just because the sharp, breath-catching pain I get whenever I walk is gone. Blame that one on the judo class. Whoever thought that being thrown over someone’s hip and back and landing on, oh, a half inch of very old padding would be painful? And why do I keep going to the class if I’m complaining about it every week? Maybe it’s the impact of the falls scrambling my brains inside my head and making me think every week that it’ll be different. That could be it, or, and I think that this is the reason, I do enjoy it despite all of its agonizing pain, and if that makes me a masochist then so be it.

Also, it’ll mean that we’re one step closer to August 15th. Now I’m not necessarily counting down the days until the end of the project, I’m trying to enjoy the journey here, but I’m planning a lot of changes in my life by that day, one of them being (and I’m most excited about this one) finding a new job, because I am so overdo for that that it’s not even funny. Celebrate with me.

I wonder what wonders will be in store for all of us this coming week. Let’s go and find out.

Day 59, Some kind of cresty-troughy thing

Let me give you a picture to mull over:



or if you want something prettier to look at, here's this:



As, I hope, you all are aware of waves are characterized by their crests (highs) and troughs (lows). They go up and down and are able to be seen clearly as ripples on the surface of a lake (or pond or river or whatever) or as the reason why surfing exists in the ocean. They are also indicative of life itself to a degree, clearly mirroring the ups and downs of day to day life as things get better and then get worse and then better and then down and up, etc. etc.

Lately, I’ve been riding a pretty high crest during my day to day life on this project and I’ve been happy and thankful for it and for my body that’s been gracious enough to keep me up and smiling at that peak. It’s lasted longer than I could ever have imagined it would and, frankly, I’m really surprised that it lasted as long as it did since those kinds of crests in my life rarely last that long.

I’ve been noticing lately that my daily meals are becoming a cursed chore that I’m forcing myself to get through every day. I’m not sure why that it is and why it suddenly, very suddenly, decided to become a trudge through the mud since for the most part the meals have been one of my favorite parts of the day. I was even okay with the mountain of vegetables (that lunchtime vegetable portion is quite literally enough for two people to dine on comfortably) I was eating three times a day but now I find myself skimping on meals, cutting short some grams at lunch and, horror of horrors, not even eating my dinner allotment. I find myself not looking forward to these meals anymore.

The exercises have always been difficult to get through so I’m not too upset about that (although 200 freaking v-sits a day seems a bit much, ya know? :-). I’m putting this down as just one of those trough things and not something that I should worry myself over too much but at the same time, well, there’s still a little over a month left and, man, I so do not want to go through another few days like I had in my first few weeks. Anything but that, please.

Of course, I’m confident that I’ll make it through unscathed because when I set my mind to something, even if I’m setting my mind against itself (because that’s what this trough is all about--I’m fighting against myself), then I can make it through. I’m confident in my determination to see something through to the very end, especially if it’s something like the PCP. But I will tell you that any encouragement will certainly help here. And I've got a great base of support here with Patrick, Corry, and David and I would have to kick myself in the butt if I didn't thank all of you readers and commenters out there who make this a heck of a lot easier than it would be without you guys. So tell me to get off my butt and stop whining, or something. I know, tell me how all of those world champion eaters get through eighty hot dogs in five minutes without puking it all up, hopefully that’ll make it easier to stomach all of the food I’m eating. Don’t indulge in the telling too much though because I would like to be able to keep all of those vegetables down.

Day 58, Dread!

As in “Holy dread, Batman! What’s happening to us now?”

Well, if all goes well then I will be building insane, heretofore incredible masses of muscle that I never would have dreamed about in the past or, heck, even a million years. Yes, a million years.

So Yesterday was exercise update day so you know what that means...nothing much has changed. At least not on the surface of things. I will still be going along with the Day 1/Day 2/Day 3 workout plan that I have been doing for the last few weeks:

Day 1

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chest Dips (6 x 8)

Push Ups (6 x 20) 

Rear Chest Flys (6 x 20)

Biceps Curls (6 x 20)

Outer Biceps Curls (5 x 20)

Standing Shoulder Fly (5 x 20)

V-sits (5 x 50)

Half Plank (4 x 45secs)

Day 2

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chin-ups (6 x 6)

Rowing (6 x 15)

Lawnmowers (5 x 15)

Bench Dips (5 x 10)

Small Base Pushups (5 x 15)

Triceps Extensions (5 x 15)

Forward Shoulder Raises (4 x 15)

Sideways Crunches (4 x 15)

Leg-ups (4 x 15)

Day 3

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Rest

There will be one huge, major, gigantic difference now that I alluded to earlier. What’s that difference, I hear you all asking? Well, the difference is that now instead of doing a specific number of sets with a specific number of reps I’ll be doing those same amounts of sets until muscle failure.

Now muscle failure is that point in any of these exercises where my body, the specific muscles that I’m working absolutely cannot do anything. It’s the point where my muscles are screaming and quivering and dying and begging me to stop. Why would I put myself through something as horrendous as that? Well, I’m doing that because that’s when the muscles are really being torn and worked to the max and consequently it’s the point when those same muscles will end up, after they’ve repaired themselves, with the biggest muscle gains.

So all that pain I’ll be putting myself through will be rewarded with strong, flexible muscles the likes of which my body has never known. I don’t know if it’s a trade off that many would be willing to take but I for one am actually kind of looking forward to my workouts today and the following week (we’ll see if I’ll be saying the same thing later on...), I tend to, once I get to a certain point, revel in that pain, it lets me know that I’m really pushing myself and it makes my body feel alive and energized.

So that’s what my next week and probably more will be looking like. Wish us all luck with these things now because we’re going to need it to get us through tho the end of the project. Have a nice day and a wonderful start of your weekend.

Day 57, Curiouser and curiouser

I hit upon a realization yesterday at about maybe 5:30, right in the middle of helping out a class at work, that these vegetables, for the first time since starting the project are really starting to wear on me. It was an odd realization since, for the most part, the vegetables had always been a part of the day that I looked forward to. I mean, they’re a hell of a lot more enjoyable than all of the massive amounts of exercising I have to do every day so I don’t know exactly what brought this on.

Well, I may have an inkling of an idea. I think that I’ll be blaming this weird occurrence on the recent indulgence day I treated myself to. Eating those foods of old reminded me of a time when 250 grams of vegetables was an unthinkable amount of the green and leafies to be stuffing into my body day in and day out (heck 250 grams of anything is an almost unthinkable amount of food). Of course that odd to say since before the project I was probably taking in close to that amount of sodium packed, carbohydrate laden, calorie bombs without so much as a second thought.

So what of this rift in the force of the PCP? Well, I think the indulgence day did something for me (ah, one more thing that it’s good for, the wonders never cease), it cleared up the lazy fog I’ve been wandering around in these last few days. I can’t pinpoint exactly the last time that I had vegetables that weren’t the ones that spring to mind readily when you think of vegetables: carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, corn.

I think I’ve hit upon it there, I’ve driven myself into a deep rut of sameness that the vegetables that once were fairly bright and new are now dulled and grey, a chore to eat and certainly not a joy to cook all the time. Instead of branching out and trying new stuff, expanding my food horizons and discovering new oral wonders I’ve sunk into an old habit of relying on the same food to get me through my days and weeks.

And that’s not what the PCP’s all about, people, no, not at all. So what’s to be done about it? Well, the obvious of course, and in that I’ll ask for your help first, what can you, my loyal readers, suggest that I try as a way to break out of this rut I’ve dug for myself. What different and exotic vegetables are out there that I’ve yet to try and are just waiting to be devoured by me in a fit of curiosity and wonder?

Any suggestions would be perfect.

Also, a quick diet update: nothing much has changed except that now, instead of 100 grams of carbs at breakfast I can now have 150 grams. Maybe I can use full size burrito tortillas instead of the dinky soft taco sized ones for a morning breakfast burrito if I so choose. Huzzah!

Day 56, Koos-koos

I remember a day, a several years ago when me and a friend of mine that I don’t see anymore were out and around at night with absolutely nothing to, and I mean really nothing to do, like we were literally just wasting gas driving around town. We ended up eventually back at his work, a local barbeque eatery, and met up with someone that he either knew from somewhere or worked with (I’m still not sure which). After spending time playing pool and doing nothing much we ended up back at this other guys home nearby (and about five minutes from my house, luckily) to play pool on his own pool table (I promptly sucked up the entire game) and hang out and watch t.v. because, well, what else are you going to do at one in the morning? We all ended getting fairly hungry, enough so that the guy treated us all to this, so he said, Indian food consisting of stuff that I can’t rightly remember but can recall as being very meaty and bready. The one thing that I do positively remember eating, because one of us asked him about it, was what I’m going to talk about today. (And then I had to drive my friend home because he had been drinking quite a bit and could hardly walk straight and was spouting various nonsensical gobbledigook...sometimes being the permanent designated driver of the group does have its drawbacks).

That food being, if you haven’t already figured it out from my phonetically worded title:

Couscous!



Yes, folks, couscous, the food so nice they named it twice. The food so carbohydrate loaded that you could choke a yak with the stuff, or some such thing. The food so versatile that it’s almost like the rice of the Maghreb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb). Tasty and filling, it’ll puff up in your stomach and leave you content to sit around basking in the glow of post-couscous stuffing euphoric happiness.

Couscous itself is made by sprinkling semolina with water and then rolling the wheat to form small pellets, sprinkled with dry flour to keep the pellets separate, and then put through a sieve. Those pellets which are too small fall through the sieve and are put through the very labor intensive process of being sprinkled with semolina and rolled with flour. Couscous was traditionally made from the hard part of the hard durum wheat that resisted the millstone grinding. Now the process is largely mechanized.



One of the very first written references to couscous is from an anonymous 13th century Hispano-Muslim cookery book called, in translated English, “The book of cooking in the Maghreb and Al Andalus” that boasted a recipe for couscous “known all around the world”. Whether it was or not, I don’t know, but I certainly am glad that the knowledge was passed down from those humble origins through Granada, through a Syrian historian from Aleppo in the 13th century, through Provence and Brittany in Europe in the 17th century, and etc. The process of cooking couscous, steaming the couscous over a broth in a special pot, may have originated in West Africa in the 10th century in the area now made up of Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Ghana, and Burkina Faso.

To cook couscous is surprisingly simple, requiring only a quick blanch in boiling water if you’re cooking pre-steamed couscous which can be found in most places in Western supermarkets. All that needs to be done is to boil a pot of water, the measurements being about a cup and a quarter water for every cup of couscous, stir the couscous in quickly, remove from the heat, and let stand for about five minutes. BAM! Done. Season it or combine it with something else as you want. And then, voila! light, fluffy couscous awaiting your eager consumption. It’s easy enough that an untrained monkey could do it, which must be why it turns out so well for me.



I hope this all helps you and I desperately hope that you’ll go out and find some couscous the next time you’re out visiting the ol’ local supermarket or farmers market. It’s tasty and light, fifty grams of the stuff will end up looking like an entire meal in itself, and, man, is it filling.

Have fun with it, people, and start looking for crazy, exotic things that you may not have ever tried before because it is totally worth the risk. T.V. dinners and spaghetti and tomato sauce get old quickly, why not try something new?

For those who are interested in something tasty I found this while looking around (I personally would get rid of the garbanzo beans but that’s just my allergies talking, looks delicious):

Vegetable Couscous Stew
Recipe courtesy Kathleen Daelemans

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
Coarse grained salt and cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
3 zucchini, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
3 yellow squash, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 pound mushrooms, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 clove garlic, minced
4 tomatoes, peeled and diced, or 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 (19-ounce) can garbanzo beans
1/4 cup chopped parsley, plus 1 tablespoon
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh basil
2 cups couscous, prepared according to package instructions
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes and drained

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute until softened, approximately 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Add thyme, zucchini, squash, and mushrooms. Saute for 5 to 10 minutes.
Add garlic and stir.
Add tomatoes, stock, and garbanzo beans. Let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Add more stock if dry.
Add 1/4 cup parsley, red wine vinegar, and basil. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Add the raisins and remaining parsley to the prepared couscous, and stir to combine.
Plate couscous and spoon stew over the top.

Day 55, Further proof

That while indulging in the off limits stuff of life can be fun that it certainly isn’t something that I really want to do anymore. Yesterday was my second indulgence day and I’ll tell you right off that it was one of the more anticlimactic things that I’ve ever experienced.

This time I decided to go with my first choice and instinct and revisit an old favorite of mine from before the beginning of the project, Tofutti Cuties and chocolate Silk. In my recollection the Cuties, these mini sized vegan ice cream sandwiches were the stuff dreams are made of: sweet, rich, cool, just the right amount of chocolate covering a thick block of soft, creamy ice cream and the chocolate Silk, well, I remember living on the stuff for days at a time. So that’s what I binged on, two Tofutti Cuties and a couple of small glasses of the Silk.



The Tofutti Cuties

Right off the bat I can tell that something is definitely not right going on in my mouth and on my tongue. Something is different. And then I know what it is, gone is the blind stuffing of food into my mouth and is replaced with knowledge. Scary knowledge. It is apparent to me that what I’m eating is no longer a vanilla ice cream block sandwiched between two layers of chocolate.



No, what I’m now stuffing into my mouth is an amalgam of chemicals and strange and artificial ingredients, many of whose names I will never have any hopes of being able to pronounce. It is not how I remember them tasting. Certainly they are sweet but now they are almost too sweet and after the first one the intensity of the vanilla ice cream mixed with the layers of chocolate I couldn’t imagine eating another one, but I did for the sake of science, yes, science.

The Chocolate Silk

Nothing special here. For the most part it is exactly how I remember it, it has that distinctly Silky taste mixed with a hint of chocolate.



But, again, something was odd. Something was off and like with the Cuties it took me a while to figure out what it was, and then it hit me: it wasn’t as intense as I remember, in fact it was almost bland and tasteless. That didn’t make any sense to me at all since these indulgence days tend to make noticeable how intensely chemically flavor packed everything I used to eat is. But the Silk was different, it wasn’t as intense as I could have sworn it used to be. It just goes to prove that a whole lot of this project, especially these indulgence days, is mental and not just physical, which is what it would appear to be at first glance.

The Effects

There was an almost immediate discomfort when I tried to stand up and walk around and I didn’t think until after I had eaten all of that stuff that I probably shouldn’t have done this before I went off for a full day of work where I would have to stand and move around teaching multitudes of children for six hours. I became much more intensely full after eating that stuff than I get after eating a regular PCP meal which only added to the overall feeling of discomfort. If there was a sugar rush then I hardly felt it and it certainly wasn’t as intense as after my last indulgence day which was quite a relief since that last one made me fear for my life. Luckily there wasn’t much of a crash but I did wish that I hadn’t forgotten to bring my dinner to work to eat and regain my normal feeling of alertness and regular, sustainable energy. Live and learn, eh?

All of this proved to me, once again, that I don’t need these foods to have a normal, healthy diet and day. Whereas at one point I couldn’t imagine going a single day without all of this stuff now I couldn’t wait for it to pass through me so that I could get back to my newly normal self. It’s ingraining new habits into me even as I’m indulging in my old ones and, like I’ve said before, those habits are what’s really important to me now and the best thing I could ever hope to get out of the project.

Have a wonderful day, kind ladies and sirs.