Emiko: Day 19, Rest After the Rope

Hello, there!

Today was fairly uneventful, PCP-wise. Tuesday is my heaviest school day, I'm pretty much tied up between 1-9pm, so there isn't much opportunity for recipes or revelations of that sort. Although, Adrian did get us limes at the grocery store the other day, and they are most delicious squeezed over a spicy-turkey-patty, tomato, avocado, whole-wheat-pita wrapped sandwich! mmm! (Patrick is right, PCP round 2 is totally obsessed with food! But all the better for the PCP Cookbook, right?)

As far as exercises went...well, they didn't really. I took my rest day today. I was planning on going through my Work Out 2 exercises, but after finishing the jump ropes I was all outta steam. I got a side cramp about half way through the 1,500 jumps, and had to limit my last sets to about 100-150 jumps. I also kept tripping a lot more than usual, and kind of wanted to make a noose out of that twisted jump rope (as displayed in Tim's Day 18 post...he he). I stretched out in between, swirling my body around and stretching from side-to-side, but that cramping just wouldn't pass! So after finishing with the jumps I went upstairs and called it a day. It is really nice to have a rest day when you need it.

Still haven't settled into a balance between work, PCP, and school. I will begin working less next week which will help, but both the PCP and school feel like full-time jobs unto themselves!

Thus it is time to get to bed. I must get my required 8-hours of sleep, and I still have to finish my drawing hw for tomorrow's class! Hope you all are well out there, and good night!

P.S. Spilled the beans about the PCP to my Dad today, and he was equally unsurprised as my mom!

Emiko: Day 10, Pressure Cooking

As you all know, Adrian and I are the first couple to go through the Peak Condition Project together. It has really made us learn about each other, and I know we will continue to reap that benefit throughout the process. 

With our new, gigantic diets for Week 2, the stress of preparing that much food for two people —with slightly differing requirements for our individual meals— has been a bit challenging. Having to think about what food to make that fits our diets, then preparing, cooking and actually eating all of that food is pretty time consuming. 

We both also started school last week. I am going full-time, and Adrian is going part-time. Along with my cafe job and Adrian's bookselling business, we have little time to rest. Our schedules look completely different, so we haven't been able to slide into a routine yet. We have even had to cut our usual amount of meditation by almost half to accommodate our new, fuller days.

Today, our third day on the new diet, the tension rose between us. We realized that the meal we had somewhat-planned last night was not as planned as it should have been. We knew what we wanted to eat but were not really prepared come lunch time, and that made the tension boil over. But in the end we were able to put our meal together and work things out.

Something you learn after being with someone for three years is that you will never know everything about that person, you only become aware of that person. The Project is also definitely a learning process, and I think we are lucky that we are doing the PCP together as partners. Adrian and I not only get to learn how to cook, but we are learning more about ourselves and each other. 

Although we are sitting on the cushion much less, we have had to bring our practice into our daily activities a lot more. This is such a necessity, and we have both been trying to be more mindful of everything that we do. But this week it was really forced upon us because you must pay attention to what you are doing. I am really appreciative of that, even if it is hard right now.

We definitely haven't hit our groove yet, but that will come. Balancing our tasks efficiently while still remaining sensitive and aware of each other is our newest challenge, and one that we have to face together. 

I love you Adrian!

Adrian: Day 10, eats

Improvised a few new dishes today.  Patrick's advice was to make a lot of food in advance so we wouldn't have to spend so much time cooking every day, but Emiko and I have yet to find a meal that we can eat without feeling sick, so we're trying a bunch of new things.  It's time consuming, but it's fun, and it requires you to think creatively.  For the first time, Emiko and I are learning how to use a kitchen.  We never spent much time preparing meals before starting PCP.  We were the type to buy bread, milk, eggs and sandwich meat at the grocery store, and eat out every other day.  These are the new dishes:

Lunch

baked home fries w/onions & garlic

broiled chicken breast strips w/onions, garlic, squeezed orange juice & apple slices.

whole grain brown rice

Dinner

broiled turkey patties

1.25 lbs 99% fat free turkey

1 c bread crumbs, whole wheat

1/4 c yogurt

green onions

1 clove minced garlic

1 tsp cayenne pepper

a sprinkle of curry powder & thyme

2 T dijon mustard

My veggie serving for dinner was slow cooked beans seasoned w/onions, garlic, thyme & bay leaves.

If you make 9 turkey patties with this recipe, then each patty gives roughly 50 g of meat & 10 g of bread.  It's pretty simple, and it was tasty too.

I'm struggling a bit with the new exercises.  I can't do the incline pull-ups without overstraining my neck.  Hopefully I'll get that worked out soon.

Adrian