Day 13; Week3, here I come!

Today’s blog is going to be long because I want to review the last few days as a whole.

My PCP group and I end this week’s PCP diet and workout regime today. Looking back on this week, despite having some difficult days, overall I’ve really enjoyed the food and the exercise sessions have been relatively enjoyable too and, at least they’ve been quick.

I do hate lunges though; I find them so boring and not very effective.
I also think I have fear of them because of my old knee injury, I’m probably afraid of taking myself to the edge with my lunges, so I’m not entirely focused or relaxed when doing them. I’m aware I’m holding back with these and need to work on my technique.

My week has been very busy with attending Law Society seminars and undertaking a lot of new pro bono legal work involving a lot of travel through the City. I’ve also just started a new meditation course and I’m looking for a new French language course so I’ve got a lot on.

Because of this change in my schedule, I’ve felt tired and sometimes hungry when I’ve not been able to eat a lunch other that some fruit.

But on the whole, I’ve dealt with the situation and not got anxious or agitated as I would have in the past. Perhaps this is a reflection of the PCP diet allowing me to develop more control over my food, whereas before I think my food controlled me.
So far this week, I’ve not craved any high salt/fat/sugary snack foods – also probably because I’m being so well fed.

So this weekend was quite special. Saturday was my friend’s Hen Party, and a few girls went down to the South Coast to celebrate her few final days of ‘singledom’.
I am aware that these are the times when, taken out of our routines, the PCP is going to be tough. Especially when being invited somewhere where we don’t get much control over what food‘s on offer.

So lunch was afternoon cream teas, sounds lovely doesn’t it? And very English.
Just look at those delectable cakes and sandwiches!!!




Don’t they look nice? Well, yes maybe, but I didn’t touch one! Not even the champagne.

I drank my Darjeeling tea and ate my fruit salad (which was lovely), whilst the other hens around me clucked; “Well she’s doing that diet thing, isn’t she?” and “Are you sure you can’t eat one tiny scone?” and “What about some jam?” or “Champagne doesn’t have any fat”!

They did make me laugh. Quite endearing really.

As if I’ve never eaten all these weird and wonderful foods before me and the very sight of them is torturing me inside. Surely I should give in to temptation. But I wasn’t particularly tempted anyway, so I didn’t.

I do think my fruit salad was drenched in some kind of sugared fruit juice, which made the fruit taste a bit artificial, but I did my best to drain the fruit pieces and drank my wonderful tea. Yummy!

I’ve noticed from speaking to people this last week, that image generally controls people’s perceptions of health and fitness. So that slim is synonymous with healthy and fit and certainly does not require any kind of controlled eating.

A very svelte friend of mine has just come back from a week’s detox retreat where she was regularly told off by the much larger participants for not needing to be there because she’s “so skinny”. Why does she need to justify wanting to do something for her health and mind just because she’s thin???



My choice to do the PCP is partly because I want to be able to feel what it’s like to be at the fittest, healthiest and strongest I’ve ever been, but also because I want to take on the metal challenge itself. So I guess it’s an intellectual choice as well as a health choice.

So many people around me are happy to settle for the norm or what they perceive to be satisfactory and, aren’t willing to push themselves in order to be living life at its very peak.

Or, they push themselves in one area only; academically or professionally, to get the best grades and promotions but never get the chance to really challenge their intellect by studying things vastly different to what they read at university or practice at work. And they end up knowing very little about the real world around them. But that’s fine for them, because it’s familiar and comforting.

Which is everything that this PCP is not, and I’m glad!

So despite a few mishaps along the way, this week was great and I’m feeling really positive about next week’s tasks.

Also, I do want to add that lot’s of my friends and family are genuinely impressed by the PCP and very supporting and they particularly love the idea of the blogs, which I must say, is my favourite part!

DAY9: Ate breakfast this morning...

with the sad realisation that I can't eat Marmite for 81 days

Woe is me.



Marmite, I love you

DAY 8: So I got what I asked for, didn't I?

Well, I ended last week wanting to eat more and now. Week two of the PCP and I've clearly got what I asked for, with Patrick telling me to eat two eggs a day (!!!), together with my quota of veg and carbs., and that's just breakfast!

Will this change everyday or am I literally meant to eat 14 eggs every single week for the next 3 months???

Looking at my PCP diet, kind of freaks me out, because there's SO much there and I've quite got used to eating my small portions.

Breakfast was delicious today and despite my egg calculation earlier, I didn't actually eat any eggs for breakfast because I had none. Woopsee! But I've got some now for tomorrow and ever after, so don't worry Patrick!



So breakfast (obviously short of the two wonderful obligatory eggs) included two slices of wholemeal toast, with half an avocado chopped and spread on top, together with fried tomatoes (in 1/2 tsp olive oil). The important bit is that the tomatoes were sprinkled with paprika, black pepper and my special ingredient, which will be my personal substitute for salt from here on;cumin seeds. Yum!

Lunch, in which I needed 130g fish (130grams!!!) was a light tortilla filled with;

1 can of tuna
1/2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tbsp spoons fat free Greek yoghurt
loads and loads of lemon juice to keep the mix moist
The other half of this morning's avocado
1 tomato
Season with paprika, black pepper and, of course cumin seeds.

Et voila.....



Dinner tonight's going to be harder with friends coming round, so I'm going to have to seriously adapt my parmesan crusted haddock and crispy roasted potatoes, so that I don't bodge up the diet on day 1 of trying it. And obviously, no alcohol *sigh*

Exercise was definitely taken up a notch today, but I really enjoyed it and ended with some simple, calming poses and pranayama.

So, I've already identified where I'm going to have the most problem; I know that I'm going to crave for condiments most to begin with.

I love ketchup and chilli sauce and horse-radish sauce and tartar sauce. But most of all, I really do love ketchup.

One saving grace is that I'm allowed my balsmic vinegar which works perfectly with all vegetables and salads, and even fruits..Seriously, try it drizzled over some strawberries! It really brings the sweetness out.

Anyway, my plan to avoid going without ketchup for 90 days; I'm setting myself the task of perfecting a wholly natural, fat-free, salt-free, sugar-free home-made PCP-friendly ketchup! Yay!!

So get your orders in!

DAY 4: "Please Sir, can I have some more?"

Wow! Am I moody today or what!? I just want to eat more! The exercise is fine, I could do it 3 times over but the diet is poop!

I actually woke up this morning feeling nauseous and totally lacked any appetite.

After eating, I have to admit I still don't feel physically hungry, but I just want to eat some comfort food!!! I had a dream last night about a really large, plate overflowing with pasta and it actually repelled me and, I think that's why I woke up feeling a bit sick (and I'm definitely not pregnant). Anyway I felt fine after eating my mini-breakfast.

Channel 4 are currently broadcasting a great new documentary called Alone In The Wild.

The documentary is about Ed Wardle, a camera man who is dropped by plane into the Yukon wilderness in the northwest corner of Canada, with basic provisions and cameras to film himself, together with the intentions of living there completely alone for 3 months. I think the nearest human inhabitants are something ridiculous, like 300 miles away. It's a great, thrilling, ride of a documentary.

Why this is relevant is because food has been a big thing for me so far this week, as you can imagine. I'm basically in the process of reconditioning the way I feel about food and now at day 4, I'm feeling a bit emotional.

Food is clearly on my mind a lot at the moment if I'm even dreaming about it!

Anyway last night was episode 2 (maybe 20 days into his challenge) and, in summary old Ed is having a tough time. Not only has he got to deal with the constant fear of bears, relentless solitude (which is really causing havoc with his emotions) but he has practically no food. Well he has rations, which are measly, but so far he has managed to catch a little under 1 decent sized fish a day and a porcupine! Yuk!

Basically he can't find any food at all (see clip)

Anyway, he cried a lot in last night's episode and considers quitting. The lack of food and solitude is making him depressed and during his video diary he says to the camera "What would you do if you woke up and there was no food?".

Probably because of the PCP, this pricked something in my mind.

I've never ever had to think like that. Food has never not been available. Food, as with most of us in the Western world, has always been readily available and we have access to as much food as we want, whenever we want; every type of food we could ever desire.

So I question whether this is why we often over eat, and over indulge. Because we have so much of it, because it's always SO readily available and so we develop this emotional attachment to it. And we want more. Even though we're full. This, I can see is why we often crave comfort food and this is what I'm doing today.

So Patrick, I've learnt my lesson, can I eat more now? :) (just joking!)

Anyway for those of you who have not seen Alone In The Wild, you can watch a clip here...(it's not possible to embed)
Alone In The Wild

A state of mind thing

I don't like throwing food away. Especially if a) it tastes good b) it was homemade and c) it tastes good :(

It feels almost sacrilegious. I feel like I'm doing something incredibly mischievous.

But I can see that this is a state of mind conditioning process and I appreciate this for the following reasons;
(i) since eating my mini-portions, I don't feel hungry after a meal, at all.

(ii) I do find that I need to ignore my mind when it urges me to finish every last morsel on the plate.

(iii) And every time I eat something, my mind, like clockwork, says "eat it all, it's tasty and you'll feel more satisfied if you do"

I don’t feel ‘satisfied’ by eating everything on my plate – why would I? That’s a false sense of security I’m conditioned to believe. So that begs the question; why did I eat more than I needed to before?

I'm not going to be hard on myself at this stage in the game and try to psychoanalyse my eating habits, as I'm sure I have more challenged ahead. And I do have self- control when it comes to eating unhealthy food.

But one think I want from this challenge is to get to the stage when I am eating more mindfully by habit, and where I’m no longer compelled to eat every last crumb, just because it's sitting on a plate in front of me.

DAY 1

I love the intro that the guys made me; "Naomi's going to blaze a path...". I've just finished day 1's PCP workout and I think this fiery analogy is most fitting to how I'm feeling right now; really motivated, stimulated and ready for the challenge ahead.

So this is day 1 of the PCP and I'm going to keep my blog short and sweet like today's workout plan.

I had a bad start to my day today; missing my yoga class which really put me in a bad mood. But I came home and started my workout straight away. Exercise is such amazing therapy ....it turned my mood around almost immediately.

So I put Vampire Weekend on the stereo and started my 5 sets of 50 jump rope. I actually think I did 6 sets of these as I lost count!

Note: Need to confirm with Patrick whether hop style jumps (i.e. one foot hits the ground before the other) are allowed or whether boxer-style jumping is what I should be doing.

Squats were fine as my legs are used to these from daily hatha yoga practice.

I felt the chest presses the most and really began to feel the burn at this point; my mind started to recall all of those high intensity gym sessions I used to do week in week out for the past 6 years, up until about 8 months ago when I injured my knee from too much road running.

So today’s workout took me about 30 minutes. A nice soft introduction :)

My boyfriend's on a bit of a health kick at the moment too, swimming every morning, so there's a lot of mutual encouragement already.

I ended my session with some asana for about 35 minutes and then some seated meditation. Nice!

This week's diet is based on half portions, of what we're used to eating. This sounds fine in theory but in practice a bit strange to get used to. I started eating an apple, but had to think twice about eating all of it - should I have? It’s just an apple.

And what about lettuce portions? Surely that's not included. I ate half a yogurt and left the rest in the fridge for later, but obviously I won’t want to go back to the now unappetising splodge.

Being a vegetarian I’ve never dieted before so that’s going to be the main challenge for me. I realised today that I’ve been a vegetarian for 17 years! And I still clearly remember the day when I decided to become a vegetarian at 13!

But all in all, day 1 is fine; 89 more days of increasingly harder exercise and stricter dieting – eeek!!

We’ll see how my diary compares to today’s joyous entry, 3 weeks down the line!

Wish me luck!

Note: Not happy that the spell check on this blogger is US English and keeps telling me to substitute z's for my s's!!!

Naomi In the House

This is where Naomi will blaze a path towards maximum health!