more cheats

Beautiful weather in the morning so I did jumps outside in front of my building. Being on a hill I find it a tad easier to jump facing downhill...maybe it's all psychosomatic?
Came back up to the apartment and cranked through 8MA+; yes it still hurts, and I was REALLY concentrating on the side crunches keeping burning tension the whole time. Don't have a pull-up bar so did the pull-ups under my dining room table, which was probably MORE of a workout than real pull-ups because I did full sets and was quivering with failure at the very last rep of each set.
Also did not do the Kung-Fu sits again because no pull-up bar, but I did the full bicycles, alternating forwards and backwards pedaling each set, and only used my hands a little to support my quivering-in-the-fringes-of-failure thighs.
Figured I would hit the gym at lunch or in the evening and use the pull-up bar, but it didn't happen; ended up working hard straight through until 7:30, heading down to a co-worker's leaving drinks (ice tea and  veggies sticks, pass on the mayo dip thanks), then back to the office before coming home around 10pm to prep a bunch of food (Wednesday is the day groceries are delivered so lots to prep and chop and steam) -- cooked up a big batch of brown rice, mixed a bunch of veggies, grilled up some shrimp and scallops and garlic, steamed some veggies, weighed and packed some fruit...

So, various cheats of the day:

• Used my hands a bit to help my legs on the bicycles
• Did inclined pull-ups instead of proper
• Jumped facing downhill
• Skipped the Kung-Fu sits
• Put blueberries in my organic whole bran sticks cereal (zero salt!)
• Put too much soy milk in my organic whole bran sticks cereal
• Mixed some strawberries into my protein powder bananamush this evening

Then again, none other than The Kazu himself said eating fruit is totally OK, so I am reasonably guiltless about the blueberries and strawberries.

And seriously I do have to say one of my absolute greatest discoveries on PCP is bananamush. Whenever I get the urge to have something sweet and thick and filling, instead of grabbing a bar of chocolate and nougat, or some other tasty chewy evil snack, instead I can mush up a banana with a teaspoon of cinnamon (maybe powdered carob or cocoa would work too?), toss in some berries, maybe the occasional nut or coconut slice or something, and indulge effectively.

Skipping the pull-ups and Kung-Fu sits sucks; doing inclined pull-ups and 8MA+ anyway is a feeble excuse.

I am weak. Day 80 behavior this is not. Must. Man. Up.

Bran sticks and soy milk I can fix -- just gotta use less bran sticks cereal, requiring less soy milk, to keep at the carbs allotment. Will probably consciously continue to add unnecessary fruit though, because it's damn good, and it is just fruit. So unless Patrick explicitly tells me to put that extra fruit onto the forbidden list (with the raisins and mayo), I will finish off all the blueberries and strawberries in the fridge.

And tomorrow I am attending a funeral in the AM. Actually two deaths this week: friend's elderly father passed away last night after a long and valiant struggle with cancer, and an old acquaintance from when I first came to Japan (16 years ago!) died this weekend at a relatively young age (early 40s) apparently from some seriously fast and lethal cancer.

More on that tomorrow, after I actually attend the funeral and the reality sinks in appropriately.

Needless to say it gives pause for thought: one the one hand, being generally healthy and eating wholesome, healthful foods will surely reduce the cancer risk...but on the other hand, nothing to be done about getting hit by a bus tomorrow.

Like I told my friend whose father passed: I could say something  deep-sounding and zen about and living in the moment etc. etc. but that is just way too trite and feeble. The reality is, well, reality. Here we are, doing what we do. Net-net, I'd rather be eating well and feeling good. And if I STILL get cancer, or hit by a bus, there's nothing to be done about it but leave a fit-looking corpse and hope my life insurance policy makes things a bit easier for my family.