#AtoZChallenge – Pandemic Journal: Diet and Drills

Today’s entry is hearty and healthy! I tried to be poetic in the first two articles, but I feel doing so requires more work and thought (really it is!).

Why it is hearty and healthy is simple: I share two activities that have made me sane during my self-isolation — diet and drills. Or put simply, eating good and maintaining an exercise routine.

My indolence during Week 1 (Chinese New Year on Jan 19-25) was fine; it was a three-and-a-half-day work week and so I didn’t have much to do than just plan in advance and prepare the materials for my next articles. No sweat at all. At home, I would start binging on Korean movies, since, again, there was nothing much to do. But as the outbreak was declared on January 23, things escalated quickly. Then I did not have enough idea the situation would be grave.

The following week, Week 2, was the official holiday break. I was chill because I already had prepared my work for the following week, only that it would not resume until some 50 days after. I had the luxury of time–only that, because authorities instructed us to stay at home. Okay, this new situation was fine for a few days.

On Facebook, I saw a video of a man doing 100 push-ups daily for 30 days. Of course, the change was drastic–I knew it as I was a gym-goer myself: a month of push-ups alone cannot remove layers of belly fat. It has to be paired with eating healthy–and this wasn’t shown in that video.

Nevertheless, I thought it was a great way to force myself into a new routine, since I had not gone to the gym for half a year already. The only exercise I’d been doing before the outbreak was my 15-minute morning walks (from the subway station to the school). So the 30-day push-up challenge seemed easy.

But man, that was difficult.

My chest muscles lost their strength and my arms were limp. I knew that I won’t be able to complete the 100 push-ups in a day, or I would end up injuring my body so I toned the challenge down to just 15 reps of 3 sets (or a total of 45 push-ups). Easy peasy. Every two weeks, I would step it up and add 15 push-ups.

Now–in Week 10, when this entry was published–I was doing  90+10 push-ups. Why +10? Because that was a “punishment.” I forgot a session on March 25 (Wednesday), the day when I went home so drunk after a dinner with my close friend who’s returning to her country. That broke a 57-day streak!!! But it’s fine – I considered that a cheat-day, which it truly was! The +10 push-ups would continue for nine days from March 25, after which I would step the reps up again. So far, I plan to add more exercises and continue the program until I am back to a proper gym.

Next on my list was eating healthy. Living alone in Beijing has also forced me to learn cooking — not gourmet style. I just don’t have the skills to cut veggies perfectly. I can prune sentences, chop entire paragraphs, or sharpen my writing, but not cooking. But hey, I am proud of my food creations — I try to recreate the taste of my mom’s dishes, and so far, subjectively, I’ve succeeded. Only that I haven’t given her a try of my grub!

So far, all of my foods are edible and palatable. One central part of my cooking is I avoid sugar entirely and cut down on salt. I always cook chicken because I know it is healthier than any other kind of meat, except fish (I believe). I refuse to eat pork too because I just hate the fats!

The outbreak has given me some liberties to experiment with food, although I still lack the courage to try out recipes that involve ovens (because I don’t have one) or baking (I used to steam-cook a chocolate cake, yum!). Before this entry was published, I checked out YouTube videos to see some Korean fried chicken recipes. They are seemingly easy to do, so expect to see photos of my (hopefully) savory fried chicken on my Facebook account soon!

Photos: Keiji Yoshiki via Pexels; Andy Penafuerte III