Days 8 & 9 - A new diet

I think that we all knew that the first week was when we'd just be asked to dip our toe into the water and that Saturday was the day when the real challanges commenced. It was with this in mind that I enjoyed my last meal on Friday night. Half a portion of Norweigan salmon and some grilled vegetables. I went to bed knowing that the weekend would have some treats in store!

Saturday morning I woke up and tried to think what to have for breakfast. I'd been to the supermarket on Friday so my fridge and counter were overflowing with fruit and vegetables and I had my digital scales all ready and waiting. First quandry of the day - is avocado a fruit or a vegetable? My gut says that it's down to semantics so for the purpose of PCP (and unless Patrick sends me to the naughty step) I think that I'm considering that avocados and tomatoes are vegetables (cue dissent in the ranks). Consequently I enjoyed a delicious combination of poached eggs on avocado with wholemeal toast. Very tasty and amazingly rather a lot to eat. I couldn't be happier. By the way, if you don't already have one, you can buy these little silicon egg poachers - they're genius http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZDI7W8veA

I followed breakfast with a an 8km hike up and round The Peak (if I can work out how to post pics I'm put one up - one of the world's great city views), before returning home for some broccoli, grilled chicken and wholemeal pasta. So far so good.

The afternoon included a little gym visit to tick off the day's exercise routine. I don't mind telling you, my cardio is pretty horrendous at the moment. I'm hopeing that it picks up as my lunges and the skipping if hurting at the moment!

Dinner included some bok choy, salmon and the left over pasta (mental note, pasta gets heavier when cooked, lots of other things get lighter).

I woke on Sunday morning and the sun was shining so I decided to head outdoors to train. One of the joys of HK is that there are a multitude of small, well-kept public parks that are equiped with rubber tarmac and exercise stations. It was a different feeling to being in the gym but just as enjoyable to be outside. Skipping is still hurting me (I hope that this will improve somewhat over the coming days) but the rest of the exercses were, whilst challenging, enjoyable.

I had friends in town so the next stop was Zuma (again) for brunch. This was both a success and failure. Great fun yes, but less easy that I anticipated. Sushimi is perfect in that what you see is what you get, rice is just about okay, but it was hard to get hold of a decent quantity of vegetables. I ended up with spinach with seasame seeds. On a normal day I'd consider this to be a healthy option, but I fear that I won't be able to go down this path again.

The afternoon included a Chinese Tea Ceremony in HK Park and a foot massage (another joy of HK life and a god-send when it came to my aching legs!).

It was the evening however that I was dreading - a staff party. Firstly, who has a staff party on a Sunday night? Secondly, I work for a wine company - 'piss-up in a brewary comes to mind'. Luckily I had an ex-pcper at lunch and he gave me some good advice. Rather than arriving at the dinner and trying to pick food that works, eat first and abstain. I'm pleased to say that it all worked out. With a stroke of luck, all the food was brought to the tables on platters. It was an Italian NY pizza place so there were mountains of pasta, pizza, chicken wings etc. Because I'd eaten before I wasn't hungry. I helped myself to some salad which I pushed around my plate, and a glass of wine that I never touched. I'm pretty sure that no-one noticed. A big sigh of relief all round!

Busy day today, but will read everyone else's posts a little later.