Day 54: Exercise Victories and Indulgenge #2

Hey all,

I woke up this morning with a star in my spirit. You know, that little something extra that tells you can work a little harder today than you have before and still feel good afterwards? Anyway, with this little bit of joy inside, I headed out into the rain to begin my workout.

Today, my J-ropes were...wait for it... AWESOME! Why? Because, I stretched! Ever since my shoulder trouble a while back, my left trapezius muscle has been extra stiff in the morning. So, I spent the first five minutes of my workout stretching my trapezius muscles and my calves to see if the stretching would make a difference. Boy, did it ever. I was blasting through my sets today. Now, of course, my sets aren't perfect. There are still trip-ups. So, I've added an additional 30 seconds to all my J-rope sets to make up for these trip-ups (and moments when I need to catch my breath). This way, I make sure I get my full three minutes jumping--give or take.

Also today, I did two and a half sets of standard push-ups! Do you hear me? No knees on the ground! What a victory. I finsished 25 push-ups with no knees on the ground! WOW! Yipee! I'm so pleased. The rest I wrapped up on my knees, but this is definitely the start of something better.

The last exercise on the list today was The Plank, but by the time I got to it, it was raining pretty hard, so I went in the house to finish up. Do you have any idea how much harder the plank is to do with my three year old son crawling under me and then climbing on my back and laughing? I was laughing too, which didn't help matters. Heh, what a good time.

And now, to indulgence #2.

Again, I stayed awy from the junkfood I've loved over the years. Instead, I joined my wife, son and mother in law for an Italian course-lunch at our favorite Itallian restaurant, Mokichi--which, incidentally is a five minute walk from my house.

First up on the menu was a seafood salad with an oil-based dressing. It was pretty tasty, but something interesting happened when I finished. I reached for my bread intending to mop up the dressing with it, but I remembered my oil-trouble when I ate geoza a while back and stopped. I left the dressing alone on the plate and just ate my bread. That's a definite first for a sauce/dressing lover like me.



Next up was a fire-baked, thin-crust, pumpkin, eggplant, tomato pizza. This was devine, and a pretty far cry from the large thick crust pepperoni and double cheese pizzas I used to eat. This pizza was oily too, but wow what a tasty main course.



Dessert was a small piece of fruit cake with a touch of whipped cream and a cup of panacota (sp?) pudding, both were subtly sweet and tasty.

My beverages were iced tea and water.

A tasty indulgence indeed, but not as junky as one would expect. As for side effects, I had some of the runny shits afterwards, and was a bit tired, but that's all. To my suprise, I wasn't sweating oil in my workout this morning as I thought I would be considering my geoza experience. And, after consuming this feast, my weight only jumped up 00.1 of a kg, so that was nice too.



Now, as a contrast, I offer the Mokichi kids plate. This was the meal my son had. Note his hand in the picture. On the plate, there is one fried breaded shrimp, french fry wedges, a salad with a dressing my son doesn't like (so he gave the salad to me). Two korokes full of potato and some mystery meat, a sausage, and some ketchup-white rice. I felt weird watching my son eat this. Before the PCP, I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but now, for some reason , I felt a bit guilty. Why am I letting all this fried food and oil go into my son's system? Why does Mokichi offer such a dish to children? Kai eats very healthy food at home, but this Mokichi meal made me think. Team, any thoughts?

Well, that's all for today.

More tomorrow,

Sean