Yesterday I was actually quite ill and I don’t really know whether it has anything to do with my exercise or not. It might just as well be a random cold.

Yesterday’s 5 a day were blackberries in my yoghurt, an apple, a cantaloupe melon and mushrooms with my pasta (makes 4). I didn’t meditate, because I had a very strong headache and my bad habit … well that’s not going well either. All in all not a very successful day, but considering that I was ill, it wasn’t too bad.

Today I had an apple, a banana, a large mandarin, half a cantaloupe melon (thanks to my house mate Miro for that) and some dried currants in my blinis – the currants probably don’t count towards my 5 a day though I didn’t exercise, because I’m ill and I probably won’t be able to meditate, because of my awful headache. There will always be setbacks, so I won’t give up!

Today I actually allowed myself a treat anyway: after all I’m ill and need to keep the spirits up. My treat was pasta with salmon – smoked & fried and I absolutely loved it. Food is ridiculously expensive in England compared to Germany (to be honest everything is way more expensive) and fish is about as expensive as it can get! Sometimes this kind of giving myself something absolutely unnecessary and special just is all it needs to improve your mood. Being ill makes me grumpy. Apart from that the kitchen was a mess and I spilled my yoghurt so I was even more grumpy. Then I had the salmon and since that I’m in a really good mood even though my brain feels like someone was playing football with it! Being nice to yourself is sometimes as important as being nice to other people!

Today was an exercise day. I did some stretching (legs and feet, back, disassociation of upper and lower body, mostly tango stuff) After stretching I went over to my 1 set of body weight exercises: crunches (10), oblique crunches (10), floor hip extensions (10), push ups (5) and squats (10). I know I’m starting out very low. I also walked to work (10 mins) and back twice today, because I went home for lunch as usual. This means I walked for 40 min today. When I stopped exercising I usually did 3 sets of 15 with 2 kg weights and I was doing pull ups for fun. Now I’m not used to anything and my body is still recovering. I intend to increase to a set of 15 next week and steadily increase every week to see how much my body can take so far.

5 a day: I had a banana in my amaranth pops this morning, 1 large mandarin and a stew with 2 carrots and 100g mushrooms. That makes 4 and is pretty decent!

Meditation: Yesterdays meditation was brilliant. I didn’t have any problems to concentrate even though there were people outside my window. Afterwards I slept like a baby and I felt quite awake this morning. Rather unusual: normally I’m quite grumpy and don’t feel very well in the morning.

Bad habit: Quite a challenge also today. I’ve done pretty alright, but it’s still only about 80% under control. I struggle with this bad habit for 10 years now, therefore it’s really quite normal that it doesn’t just disappear over night! I’m working on it and partly it’s working quite well, partly it’s really hard to control.

At the end of the week I will make some nice little diagrams how all this is going. Attempting this challenge gives me a good feeling about myself, because it needs self discipline to keep to the every-second-day routine and the daily meditation. Today I was tempted to forget about the 5 a day, because it meant cooking twice, but in the end I was pretty close to my goal

Nothing here is set in stone: I might fail with this, because my body might not be up for exercising every second day yet! I won’t beat myself up about that if it happens, but it’s also time to get a bit normality (meaning exercise) back into my life! I never thought I would ever say something like that about sports!

Exercise: My leg muscles are a bit sore from the squats, but it’s rather moderate considering that I didn’t do any exercise for about a year! Of course muscles need time to recover as well which is why I decided to exercise every second day. Therefore I didn’t exercise today, apart from a 20 min walk which I currently do every day due to my living situation.

5 a day: Today I had 1 cantaloupe melon for breakfast, a banana and 2 mandarins sometime later and pasta with a delicious avocado, tomato, prawn sauce (scroll down for the recipe). That covers 5 a day

Meditation: I usually meditate before going to bed, which is sometimes hard, because I might be very tired. I haven’t meditated yet for today, but yesterdays meditation was good, even though I had problems to concentrate in the end. Currently I meditate for 100 breathing cycles.

Bad habits: The only thing that didn’t really go well today. I won’t specify what exactly my bad habit is, but I usually fall into it when I’m either nervous or distracted. I wasn’t really distracted today, but certainly nervous. I seem to be like that lately and I don’t really know the reason. Maybe it is due to my research project that is getting closer to completion now. I wouldn’t like it to fail so I’m double checking everything and probably I’m being a bit too perfectionist here. Today I was a little worried, which probably led to the bad habit kicking in big time. Tomorrow will go better I hope! I’m hoping for 7 days without.

Pasta with prawn avocado tomato sauce

(for 2 portions)

• 250g of spaghetti or linguine
• a handful of prawns (can be substituted by 3 rashers of smoked bacon or left out)
• 1 soft avocado
• 2 big or 3 medium tomatoes
• olive oil
• freshly ground pepper
• Optional: white balsamico vinegar
• Optional: soya cream substitute

1. Half avocado to remove the stone and remove skin (you can use a spoon to get the flesh out of the skin). Then chop the avocado into smaller chunks. Chop tomatoes into chunks of approx the same size (you can remove the skin if you like, I don’t mind it in the sauce).
2. Cook some pasta (Spaghetti, Linguine) to go with the sauce.
3. Fry the prawns in a little olive oil. When done, add the avocado and tomatoes, some pepper and about 100ml water into the pan (If you like it vegetarian you should add some salt). The avocado should make a nice creamy sauce together with the tomatoes. How long you leave it on the hob depends how “chunky” you like your sauces.
4. Optional: You can add a sprinkle of cream to make the avocado a little less dominant
5. Optional: Just before draining the pasta, turn the hob off and add some white balsamico vinegar (about a spoonful) to give it a bit of a tangy flavour. Don’t cook the balsamico for too long or else you won’t taste it at all and you just waste the vinegar on the sauce!