and on the third day...

...Ren did more atrocious jump-roping.

Seriously, WTF? Am I really THAT uncoordinated?

Yup, apparently so. Slobbered through the requisite sets. Dare I say slightly less lame than the past two days, but still, can I get through ONE set perfectly? Obviously not on day 3! Then again, in my defense, it IS only the third time in my life I even attempted to actually jump rope for any serious amount of time. Gimme a week at least.

Did actually order a new rope though -- when in doubt, blame the tool!

Squats were fine; dare I say I got plenty of lower body strength. Thighs did that tingling thing, but it was nothing even remotely unbearable (and no Patrick I am NOT asking for more or harder as I am sure they will come soon enough.)

Push-ups are definitely working: can get through them all but those last ones set my nipples afire (well actually the edges of my pecs, near my armpits, mainly. But that sounds better so giveth me my artistic license.) However I did discover that there IS such a thing as "too cheap push-up bars" -- the ones I got are not very wide and I almost have a bit of a wobble going on sometimes. Not safe, so maybe I will upgrade to the "second-cheapest push-up bars" that I saw at the mighty donki...actually maybe this weekend I shall put my daughter into her chariot and head down to a proper sporting goods store to load up -- I need more shorts, as I work out every day and only have 3 pair, 3 being less than 7, them maths don't add up and I am unlikely to increase the number of times I do laundry in a week.

And then we have abs. Ah, the abs. Decided to head to fighting again today and for whatever reason sensei thought we needed an ab workout in the middle of class. That hurt. And then I did my crunches tonight and really, REALLY felt them. My muscle fibers pulled together an emergency quorum and cast a vote to motion for immediate withdrawal to the couch. Sadly they are yet to learn that my body is not a democracy and that I AM IN CHARGE.

So that was today's Small Victory Number 3.

Small Victory Number 1 was politely but firmly declining not one but TWO offerings of shu cream. The fact that they are stuffed with enough creamy dairy to put me in the hospital helped too, but still.

Small Victory Number 2 was having a 7pm "meeting" at a bar down the street with a co-worker to get caught up on a number of strategic initiatives and successfully consuming nothing but two iced teas. Alcohol is easy: I don't drink to begin with, so that's not a temptation. But that bowl of pretzels, so close, so salty...and so untouched.

Funny, I remember a couple of weeks ago I had a conversation in which I actually said "Pain just hurts", which is really kind of stupid and obvious, but my point was there is pain and there is PAIN.

PAIN is your body saying "Serious damage! Stop now!" like sticking a hand in an open flame, the PAIN is instant and there is no time to think "Endure!"Some primordial little piece of brain at the top of the spinal column just pulls that hand back way faster than is possible to move consciously.

But pain is just...pain. I guess it is possible that I could try and do SO may situps that I would seriously damage my abdominal muscles, but come on. It just hurts.

Hunger is a form of pain, too I guess. I mean, it's uncomfortable, and at some point, not eating for days or weeks on end, I would eventually die, but no snack for a couple of hours? Whatever.

I have also been, for no reason I can understand, entirely capable of utterly ignoring headaches. Sometimes, particularly 4-6 hours after having some caffeine, I get a stunning headache and think to myself "Ow, my head hurts." It goes away eventually, usually after sleeping for the night, but until then it's like a pebble in my shoe that I eventually take out.*

Also vaguely related, my brother told me that if I cut out sugar before 2pm, my cravings for it will drop considerably and it will be much easier to eat right. And the proof is he's looking pretty fit himself. But as I told him, sadly I don't actually have much sugar to begin with. I start the day with a half cup of black (decaf) coffee. Any real sugar I get comes from a right and proper chocolate binge, which I have not done in a while because the caffeine then gives me a stunning headache (which I deserve and ignore anyway.)

I do wish I had a crack habit or something so that I could give it up and feel like I was really SACRIFICING something on the PCP...oh well, plenty of time to suffer appropriately I am sure.

* My dad told me this great story when I was little: he had a friend who would put a little pebble in his shoe every morning. Guy would walk around all day with an annoying pebble in his shoe, digging into his foot, bugging him all day. No matter what happened that day, though, at least he could go home and take the damn pebble out of his shoe!