Day 30 - Induldgence, +Ve Result and a Missed Day.

First of all congratulations to everyone on their successful completion. I was looking through the pics and I could see a world of difference. Excellent work !!

The week was pretty hectic and had some relatives over for dinner on Thursday. I couldn't do my workout on Thursday but thank god that we have an easy day on Friday. I did the jump ropes for Friday in the morning and finished my Thursday's workout in the evening. After finishing the workout I realized that the skin on my toe had peeled off and was hanging loose. Thankfully, it was painless.

Saturday we headed off to Macau for the weekend. I had packed my jump ropes and resistance bands but could not get around to doing my workout. I had thought that would swim instead of the jump ropes. My calves were crying out and the loose skin was still hanging there. We went out for dinner to a Portuguese place - had steamed cod and boiled kale. Had egg pudding and if that wasn't enough forced my wife into having a double scoop of tiramisu gelato and happily volunteered to help her. Well good indulgence and that too for dinner.

Today I managed to swim for a short while in the morning and after coming back to HK finished my work-out. It was quite difficult but managed it somehow. I managed 1000 jump ropes in one stretch which made me quite happy and then did my usual weight and body fat measurement. Here it is.

	23-Aug-09	31-Aug-09
Weight	88.8	87.5
Fat %	26.3	25.1

I guess with the carbs disappearing from dinner the weight should hopefully look better with every passing week. Fat%, i am pretty sure the killer exercises will take care of. I will upload my photograph tomorrow.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week 5.

Day 25 - This is not going to get any easy !!

Just finished my workout and was probably my worst till date. This is seriously getting tough. I was trying to look up the right technique for the floor jump and I bumped into one of the PCPer's (Corry MacDonald) blog. Guess what i found. She was trying to compare her workout and diet towards the end with what they were doing in their sixth week. Read at your own peril. :)

Towards the end.

Jumprope : 4sets x 5 mins

Floorjump : 4 sets x 20 reps

Push Ups : 3 sets x 40 reps...I do these with my feet elevated on a chair and as of yesturday can do my full 40 reps per set! YAY! You can do it too if I can, I never did more than a few 'men's pushups' before the PCP.

Lawnmowers : 4 sets x 20 reps

One Arm Biceps Curl : 4 sets x 20 reps

Triceps Dip : 4 sets x 20 reps

Shoulder Press : 4 sets x 20 reps

V-sits : 5 sets x 50 reps


Week 6' s workout-

Jumprope 4 x 3mins

Floor Jumps 4 x 10

Push-ups 6 x 15

Triceps Dip 4 x 15

Biceps Curl 5 x 20

Forward Shoulder Raises 4 x 15

Standing Shoulder Fly 4 x 15

V-sits 4 x 20

Leg-Ups 4 x 20

Locust pose 4 x 30 seconds

what the f***? Will we be doing this. Well, I would definitely want to do all of this but going by the workout i had today, this looks almost impossible.

Need a lot of inspiration for what's coming. Nadal's poster, i thought was a laughing matter, I seriously need it. Here is another song/video i find quite inspiring.

Hope the rest of you had a great day.

Day 23: Sad Stats.

	9-Aug-09	16-Aug-09	23-Aug-09
Weight	90.3	88.3	88.8
Fat %	26.8	26.9	26.3

Well my fear regarding the weight was correct. The weight has actually gone up. So some thought needs to be given to that. Body Fat % has gone down which hopefully means that my muscle mass is increasing. If not for that i would have been pretty despondent. Well, i am sure i will have lots of questions for Patrick when i catch him online next. :)

Hope rest of you are having a good time and seeing some motivating results.

Day 21.

Hi Everyone ! Hope you all are having a good time. Haven't been able to update the blog regularly. Work has been hectic, don't get much time after the work and the workout. The past week went well in terms of exercise except for my struggle with the pull-ups. I tried doing it on our neighbour's massive door frame but there is not much space and am always a bit cautious that the door might open any time and it would be a pretty unpleasant site to see someone hanging from your door-frame. Don't want to imagine the expression on their faces. :)

Having a few problems with my diet mostly because of the timing. I wonder if you guys face the same problem. I do my workout in the evening after coming back from work so that is around 8-9ish and so by the time i finish my dinner, it is already 10 and then i would normally sleep by 11-12 if I have to get up at 630 as my work starts early. I am really bothered about the fact that i am not getting enough gap between my dinner and sleep and also the fact that I am not getting enough sleep. Sleep, I can manage over the weekends and even otherwise that doesn't bother me as much. That is just making me a bit anxious and i am getting a feeling that tomorrow when I measure my weight, things might not look good. I know the obsession with the weight is not right and results would show up eventually but it is good to see some change. Let us see what happens tomorrow. I do notice a few changes though. Went for the soccer today in the morning and i think i did pretty okay stamina-wise. Just that it was so hot and only 8 of us had turned up, we were knackered within 45 mins to 1 hour.

We had gone out for dinner to a Chinese place yesterday. Didn't want to explain as much as they were mostly senior ex-colleagues who left my company over the last two years to work else where. Veg rolls, Sea-food soup (was pretty salty but i hope it was natural salt), Deep Fried Prawns (I know, I know !!) and then pecking duck with pan-cakes. Except for the deep fried bit, i think it was okay. Hopefully. Dim-sums, noodles and dessert followed but i avoided them. It wasn't too difficult as i had snacked on some carrots before the dinner. I came back around 10:30 and then waited a while for the food to settle down and did my jump-ropes around mid-night :) and normally i would go over the top with the jump ropes but i just did my 1000.

Have you guys realized that we probably have the best possible schedule. It changes every Saturday and Friday is the jump-ropes day. It is like just before the weekend and you are already pretty tired after 5 days of work and you get a nice little (i think much needed as well :)) break. Sat when I have all the time in the world it is the start of a new week so easy to plan and motivate myself.

Digression. Today we have the semi-finals of the Cincinnati open. Nadal plays the Joker and I hope Nadal wins the semi-final. The other match would also be quite interesting as Murray plays Federer. Am pretty excited.

Happy Week 4 !!

Day 16: Seeing Some Results.

Here are my vital stats :)

	9-Aug-09	16-Aug-09
Weight	90.3	88.3
Fat %	26.8	26.9

That is not too bad. I am pretty excited about it and looking forward to all the exercises and diet. Was a bit taken back by the increase in Fat % (Even though i have less fat now because the weight has gone done but still obese) but i think it is just a matter of time before it starts to go down.

Still haven't been able to resolve my pull up problems. My fear from last week was not unfounded. The kitchen counter came off while doing the inclined pull up and it was a bit funny. It was good that it happened before i even started otherwise might have caused some minor injury. My wife took it with a smile, just that she is getting a bit skeptical about my installing the pull-up bar. She thinks I might bring the door down this time :). Well, if I lose a few kilos more she might relent otherwise will try to use our neighbour's door for the pull up. They have a big big door with a massive iron frame that could be used, possibly, will find out tomorrow.

Rest things are going well. I am trying to generate "the burn", it definitely makes a bit of difference by just being conscious about it. I am especially proud of the fact that even though we had friends over for lunch and dinner, I was able to stick to my diet. They had ice-cream for dessert and I wasn't even tempted. I wonder if that is really a good thing though :)

Hope everyone is having a great time. Results are showing up and it will only get better from here. Keep at it guys. Happy Week 3 !!

Day Eleven.

Hope everyone is having a good time out there. Weekdays are a bit hectic but I am glad that the exercises are going on smoothly except for a few hiccups here and there. Was pretty excited about using the push-up bars and the resistance bands after the weekend shopping. While I was barely managing the push-ups before, it was almost impossible to complete the four sets using the bar. Instead of doing 4x12, i had to do it 2x12 + 3x5 + 1x0 + 1x0 .... I just could not finish it. Jump ropes I am enjoying. Managed a neat set of 4x300 + 1x400 but I need to keep E's post in mind. Just want to make sure that i don't over-do it to the extent that I burn myself but it is just a way for me to compensate for the missed push-ups and my struggle to get the inclined pull up done. I tried doing it using the kitchen counter but was scared that the whole thing might come off. I will have to improvise tomorrow.

Diet has been alright for now. I just got an email from Patrick about chickpeas and green beans, so both of these are out for the rest of the project. So as you guys can see, diet hasn't been going great in the real sense. Making mistakes in food selection, stumbling but learning.

Mike, the ironman video was quite inspiring. E and Jessica, you both have a great sense of humour and excellent posts. Amy, we will get the rewards. Some of it would be psychological to start with as I am pretty sure that i will not be short of stamina in the soccer game this weekend but I am sure as time goes by we will see real change.

I am pretty sure most of us would have heard the following african proverb.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.

Let us keep running !!

Day 9.

Well the past week was so hectic that I managed to do the shopping only today. Got the resistance band. Since I didn't have them yesterday, I tried improvising by holding two 2.5 liter water cans for the Da Vinci but today when i did the forward shoulder, I realized yesterday's improvisation was a sham. I tried pouring some water from a jug and my hands were shaking. While buying the bathroom scale got a bit excited and got myself something that measures body fat, muscle mass as well. The stats don't look too good but here they are:

Weight 90.3
Fat: 26.8%
Muscle Mass: Garbage#$@?

While trying to write the numbers, I realize there isn't much information and the muscle mass that i got, there is something wrong with it. I don't know why i have it as 62.7 . Need to check again. The only thing i realize while googling these stats is that i am obese. Well i don't have to google the stats for that, just need to look at myself. But I am going to get this down.

(To be continued .. )

Day Five & Six.

Did I by any chance say that i would do an extra set of push-ups because I missed one the other day. I was kidding :). I seriously tried doing it and it felt like my hands would just give in. So in spite of trying really hard I couldn't do it.
And while jumping ropes today. I kept on going and almost ended up doing 592 jumps without tripping at all. I have been doing a bit extra on the jump ropes because i felt I could go on. I know Patrick said not to over do it but it was done keeping in mind what was to come -- chilly crab. Didn't go to that super spicy chilly crab place yesterday because of the crazy rainfall in HK. Ended up going today and I couldn't resist. Feel bad but want to make up for it. Any thing that I could do, anyone?
Would keep the post short. Just been managing enough time to get the exercises done. Would need a good sleep over the weekend.
So we are coming to end of our first week. Hope everyone is having a great time. Happy Day 7.

Day Three & Four: I am the Highway !

As expected, had a very hectic start to the week and that is how things would be i guess. Managed to get the exercises done. Was feeling good about it until I read Mike's blog and realized i missed one entire set for the push-ups :). Arrrrgh. Never mind, will try to see if i can manage a 5th set tomorrow.

Diet has been going quite well too. Have been going to Starbucks with colleagues at least twice a day but still manage to return empty handed. So far so good but i will have to tough it out tomorrow when we plan to take my father-in-law (who is visiting us in HK) to "Under the Bridge" where you probably get the best chilly crabs in HK. Not like Singapore though which probably has the best chilly crabs in the world. Sorry guys, i know talking about chilly crabs and custard prawns doesn't help anyone here but those are the wonders that i would want to enjoy keeping myself in PC. Sometimes I wish I were Michael Phelps, that i could eat 12000 calories a day and still break world records. Who am I fooling? if not Michael Phelps, I just want to be in good health and someone who enjoys his food as well though not every day and every meal :)

I just thought i will share a video with you guys that i came across while I was reading about mountaineering. One thing led to another, mountaineering led to skiing and that led me to Doug Coombs. I don't know anything about skiing and i can't really relate to the video but it does inspire.



A bit of a disconnected post with my drifting towards the watch time and again. Hope you all had
a great Day3/Day4. Happy Day 5.

Day 2.

Soccer after a 4 week break and PCP activities did cause soreness. Why i fail to stretch, I don't understand. Need to work on it. Otherwise, I had a very relaxing and lazy day. Diet wasn't a problem especially since we didn't go out. Rarely does it happen that on a weekend we don't go out.
I have been reading "What I talk about when I talk about running" by Haruki Murakami. It is not his best work for sure. I like "Norwegian Wood" better but this is inspiring in its own way. Imagine a writer in his late 40s running a gruelling 62 mile ultramarathon in Japan. I didn't even know it gets as crazy as that. It is testing one's physical and mental limit. Murakami san actually ran it in 11hours and 42 minutes. It scares more than it inspires right now but there are other good things about the book how he bends philosophy, nostalgia and running. A good read.

Exercises went okay too inspite of the soreness. I think if its not a pain but just soreness exercise probably helps. Stretching probably helps even more and that is what i plan to do from today. I know it is already Day 3. I got up at 6 AM and I am sore so i thought instead of doing the exercises in the morning I will update my blog. (I normally do the exercises in the evening so not slacking off). I intend to get the exercises in morning starting week 2 that is why trying to get some practice of getting up early :). I must rush now as I have to get ready for work. This week would be quite hectic at work and home. No matter what, PCP will go on !!

Hope everyone had a good Day 2. Happy Day 3.

Day 1 - Contd.

First of all, i would like to congratulate and thank everyone of you for doing such a wonderful job. I was having my doubts about starting PCP this month and reading your blogs did help a lot in taking the plunge.

Just going through Mike's Blog and I realize I exactly went through the same confusion when it came to the diet. Weekdays have a certain pattern to it but weekends are so hap-hazard. Just had a banana before the game of soccer and by the time i came back it was already 12 and there was no time for breakfast. I though may be having half the diet means having half the no. of meals :) so as I am having no breakfast, may be i can have a normal lunch. Well, we all are so good at rationalizing, aren't we? I think in the end i managed okay, didn't stuff myself, avoided eating out and eating junk. Had dinner at 8:30 pm, i know it is a bit late but we had gone for a late night movie so by the time we came back was pretty late and there was enough gap between the dinner and when i hit the sack.

The activities went smoothly. Tripped a couple of times on the jump ropes but did alright in the end. Sit ups had me sweating a bit. Hong Kong's humid weather and all the fat that i have didn't help either. The only thing I am scared about while jumping ropes is shin-splints. I think i should be okay considering we are not doing a lot of it but normally when i would tend to run on the treadmill after a long break and after putting on a few extra pounds, i inevitably tend to get superexcited and over-do a little bit on day one and it would only cause my shin to hurt so much i end up taking a break. Guess that is the whole idea behind take it slow and easy.

Hope others had a good day one. Happy Day Two !!