burgers

First cravings hit me today. First the guy next to me at work had fries with lunch. Not little shoestring fries, but big thick fries that were drowned in a vat of oil for far too long. First time I really wanted something off the plan. Next temptation was after the close when they started taking orders for Friday lunch. Every week the junior guy on the desk orders lunch for the desk on Friday, random junk food. This week is Firehouse burgers. Mmmm... burger. Saying no while everyone else on the desk was ordering was a bit tough, but only stung for a minute. Sitting tomorrow eating lunch out of tupperware while the rest of the desk are downing burgers will be harder. Just keep looking forward to an hour or two after the burgers when the rest of the desk are feeling lousy and have no energy and I'm feeling good. I'm going to keep telling myself that until I believe it.

too much food?

The grams are interesting. I thought once the switch went on I'd be eating less food and would be hungry. On the contrary I'm eating more than I normally do and it is almost too much. Breakfast is huge, lunch is large, dinner a bit smaller than normal. For eggs this morning I went with hard boiled and felt like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke trying to eat them after all the carbs and veggies.

Can definitely tell this is different food than I'm used to eating. The standard post-lunch energy drain around 2pm hasn't been there the last few days. Things are looking up.

Yesterday was a day of rest. No exercise for the first time in over a week. Not that I'm looking forward to the workouts (I'm not), but it almost felt strange skipping it yesterday. Workout was good today, starting to mix things up a bit and get more muscle groups involved. I figured out where I can anchor my band and do rowing and standing ovations, but haven't found anything good for inclined pullups yet. Will keep on looking.

the grams kick in

Went down to Yokohama yesterday and worked out with Patrick. The trek to Yokohama is a pain, but awesome to have someone showing you how things are supposed to be done. Made the move to grams, kicked the exercise up to the next level.

I'm with everyone else on the grams, it is a lot of food and a lot of cooking. Breakfast like this is going to take some getting used to. This is a full actual meal, never done that before. Like Blocky said, might need to start waking up earlier just to get through breakfast. Brought lunch with me to work for the first time ever, new habits here we come.

eating out

After a week of eating every meal except for 3 workday lunches in my apartment I decided I needed to get out for lunch today. I'm not on grams yet so still have a lot of flexibility in what I eat. I went for a walk around Akasaka looking for something that comes close to the concept of real food and realized the options were insanely slim.

The walk was an eye opener. Obviously McDonalds and Burger King were out, but there are lots of non-chain restaurants in Akasaka. Some of them need to be healthy. There is a macrobiotic place that might fit the bill, but it was closed. Some of the rest might not be horrible, but couldn't find much that would live up to even the simple standards I'm on at this point. Avoiding salt, taking it easy with oil, eating "real food" and avoiding the processed stuff. Really shouldn't be that hard.

Ended up at a sushi place, figured how bad can that be? I got a maguro set. Fish, rice, wasabi, nori... all should be ok. Skipped the miso (no idea what's actually in that) and barely touched the shoyu or gari. Talked to Benson later and he told me that shari has sugar and salt in it. D'oh! Moral of the story, eating out looks like it is off the table for a few months. I can understand why the PCPers who are traveling are having such a hard time. I'm in HK for a few days in 2 weeks, need to start thinking now about how to handle that.

time management

One week in. I've gotten the exercise in every day, but this week was easy. No work Monday and Thursday made it simple to find time for the workout. Friday I didn't get home from work until 7, dreaded working out for a bit, started the workout at 8 and ended up not making dinner until about 9:30. I suspect that's going to be more and more standard. I'm going to have to think about how to manage my time better with full work weeks coming up. I suppose the answer is to wake up earlier and get the workout out of the way early, but I really, really hate mornings.

The revelation for today was realizing that I've felt great at the end of every workout, but still dread starting them. I'm hoping at some point my brain decides this is good for me and makes me feel good and I can start looking forward to the workouts, but for now they're a chore and my brain doesn't like the idea of it.

so it begins...

Eating better, exercising, blogging. Off the booze, off the Diet Coke (that could get rough), trying a whole new thing.

It really began last Friday, but officially today was the first day. For now the diet isn't bad and the exercise is relatively simple. That said, at the end of the cardio, legs and abs I'm panting pretty hard and sweating a lot.

I guess that might be my first revelation. In the past when I've tried (half heartedly) to get in shape I haven't done that much on the diet side and have tried to ramp up the exercise beyond what I could handle. For now the diet is a bigger change than the exercise. The thing about the exercise is that it is consistent. Not 2 or 3 days a week of trying to kill myself, but 6 or 7 days a week of steady work. Looking forward to getting into the full swing of things this week.

Brian is making changes!

All of them GOOD.