Day 22 : Time

Both Nate and Emiko & Adrian have posted recent blogs on the effects of PCP in terms of changing the eating and exercise habits (or lack of them) that we know are bad for us but that we do nothing about (until now).

The knock-on effect of last night's karaoke has got me reflecting on another aspect that hopefully will be corrected - time "management". Karaoke is fun and so inevitably, I had to do a song or two more before leaving the group I was with, still singing their socks off. I told myself that as long as I got out of there by between 8.30 and 9, I would be home by 10, have time to eat dinner and be in bed by 10.30 to get 8 hours sleep before the morning exercises.

Hah! I think I left at 9.25, got home at 10.45 and got to bed at 11.30 (and didn't manage to go straight to sleep, either). I moved the alarm back to 7.30am thinking I would leap out of bed and get everything done. No chance, of course - I still have most of Workout 2 to complete.

So that set me thinking - what is the problem?

I don't know about the others, but I've created this bad habit of trying to do "too much". I stay longer than I need in the office (maybe because I feel I need to get "my day's work" finished when there really is no definition of what that means) and then fill my evenings with other fun/interesting/necessary things and get home too late, (used to) eat out a lot because that "saves time" and consistently didn't get enough sleep (past tense because I am trying to follow the PCP directive). Even then, I use being "busy" as an excuse for not doing some necessary things in a timely manner - the laundry and other housework, for example. And I don't even watch much TV.

So in the same way that we eat to much, we do too much. Or like eating too much of the "wrong" things, we do to much of what is really unimportant or unnecessary and not enough of what would be good for us!

"Keeping busy" is the driven search to find and do something "fulfilling" and that search probably is looking in the wrong place. It just fills time rather than finding balance. Maybe PCP will, by the end of the 90 days, have rearranged at least some of my priorities so that I can get a new perspective on things.

In terms of a "three week" report, a few random comments :

1. the lunch box I bought three weeks ago is now too big - my lunchtime rice ration is now half of what it was.

2. on the question of saving time, I've been eating quite a lot raw - salad vegetables and I've been mixing my whole egg uncooked into my morning rice (carbs) - a very Japanese thing to do that most foreigners cringe at but which is actually quite good to eat, particularly with brown rice that has a lot of flavour

3. my weight this morning was just a touch above 86kg, 6kg down in three weeks.

4. the massage did have an effect. My legs were quite sore afterwards and it wasn't until yesterday evening that I realised I'm able to walk downstairs without the stiffness that I've had for most of the last three weeks

5. Patrick asked for comments on physical changes - I'm smelling different (unfortunately for the worse) and my breath is smelling. Undoubtedly down to the change of diet. I hope my body gets adjusted to it quickly.

6. my new diet has me eating fewer carbs. meat and vegetables but more fruit; and my frugal outlook has me cringing at the thought of throwing away THREE egg yolks A DAY. I always liked the yolks better - but I know that four a day would definitely not be good for my heart.

7. I'm going to run out of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies signs to hold up in my photos soon. I've been looking through the Road Runner cartoons but I've only identified three more at the moment. Yikes!

Oh, I nearly forgot, on the subject of time management, I've wrecked this weekend already (no time for the household chores) but maybe in a good cause. I mentioned NLP before (sorry Adrian, I haven't written more yet but it is on the list), and there is this amazing guy called Leo Angart who corrected his own eyesight after wearing glasses for 26 years. He came across the use of hypnosis that had been used to correct vision, researched the background and other techniques, and devised a methodology for correcting "incurable" eye conditions - like mine. Leo is in Tokyo this weekend giving a two day workshop and I am signed up. I'll feel pretty silly, although very pleased, if I can improve my eyesight after wearing glasses for 52 years. For more information, read http://www.vision-training.com/.