Day 73 - Can't think of much to write.

Had a pretty uneventful week. No bloodied paps, no broken bands. (but while doing the jump ropes today, i realized that the jump rope has worn out, and the metallic wire inside is getting exposed so i need to get a new one, i guess the guys down at the store know me pretty well now, managed to get a discount last time around and hard to believe but they gave me money back for my broken resistance band. I actually went there to get it exchanged as they had been kind enough last time but something got lost in translation and they returned me the money :). I did order the bands from amazon so that i am not left stranded if this one breaks.) Workouts went on schedule. Had a mid-week hiccup last Tuesday and i am still trying to make up for it. Now with the workouts getting really hard it is almost impossible to make up for a lost day until you get a holiday in between or have a quiet weekend. I hope to make up for it this weekend.

I have been slipping on the diet and i hate myself for that, especially on the weekends I have been letting up and last week I was eating a slice or two of bread in the evening. I try to justify it by saying that since we have to get back to normal life in a few week's time i might as well try getting used to it. On the other hand there will be enough time to get used to that life but now is the time to go for the kill. Everything that we have worked towards over the past 1o weeks will be a waste if I can't consolidate it. I don't want that to happen. I have come this far and if I let myself down now, I can't think of it ...

Here is the weekly assessment.

	4-Oct-09	12-Oct-09
Weight	82.9	82.4
Fat %	23.3	23

I think the diet is showing up here in the results. Am pretty sure it is. This week no compromises.

Hope everyone else is having a good time. E ! you have been rock solid. Jessica, Keep that horse running :). Mike you need to get back on track and I wonder where amy is? Hope she is keeping well.

Adios.

Day 66: Of Broken Band II, Bloodied Pap & Indian Sweets.

Hey ! Hope everyone is having a great time working out and taking care of their diets. A pretty eventful week this last one.

I snapped my resistance band again for the second time and this time I was at a total loss of which one to buy. HK sucks when it comes to getting these things. I found a few shops today and these guys were asking anything between 40$ to 80$. What the heck? I had the misconception that it was breaking because of the light tension level and without realizing i ended up getting one which was pretty heavy, heavy enough that i couldn't even do the standing ovations. Obviously a bit frustrated with the whole resistance band thing. The light one breaks apart and the heavy one, i can't lift. Obviously there are ones in between but HK sucks anyways. I came home and checked on amazon and realized i had paid 3 times more for the resistance band. I am thinking of ordering these. In the meantime, i will have to figure out how i manage my resistance band exercises. Some of them should still be do-able using these bands that i have. I will try to get this one changed to something lighter but will see if they give in to it.

After my soccer game on Saturday, I decided to get the jump-ropes done right away. I was already quite sweaty and didn't realize my vest flapping against my chest non-stop. When i finished my jump-ropes and looked myself in the mirror. Guess what i find. Two red spots in and around the pap. Well, i had just bloodied myself doing the jump ropes. :). It was scary at first and then a bit amusing.

Last week, we found out that a very good friend of ours is getting married. He came over with a box of Indian sweets. People need to try it to realize how sweet and rich these things are. Normally, i wouldn't have succumbed but it was a joyous occasion and I ate pretty heartily. I have had too many of these digressions lately. We also have this big Indian festival coming up on the 17th. That is one day when things would get tricky and if at all there has to be any digression between now and the end, i have to save it for the 17th. Hope nothing else happens in between.

Finally the weekly measurements were carried out and things look on track.

	27-Sep-09	4-Oct-09
Weight	83.7	82.9
Fat %	24.4	23.3

I know it is not just about these no.s but also about getting these principles ingrained in our lifestyle. Slowly but surely the metamorphosis is taking place. I will be uploading the photograph tomorrow.

Have a great final dash everyone and let us all cross the finishing line together and in peak condition.

Day: 58. Too many Digressions. Champagne, Red Wine, Gratin -- oh My !!

The usual weekly measurement.

	20-Sep-09	27-Sep-09
Weight	85.6	83.7
Fat %	24	24.4

Last week was full of digressions and was super challenging in terms of the diet. A few senior guys were in the office and inevitably went out for dinner twice on Tuesday and Wednesday and lunch on Friday. I was able to more or less avoid the non-pcp stuff but still it was dinner. Friday we had a dim-sum lunch and it wasn't too PCP-friendly. Yesterday night we were invited for dinner at a senior colleague's place and observing me over the past week i was particularly categorized as being very fussy and was asked yesterday to avoid being so finicky for once. I had to relent and the yummy food wasn't helping either. Here is the description of the assaule that followed :-

A glass of Champagne
A glass of red wine + Chicken Stew
Potato Gratin
Beef Curry
Just the smallest bit of pok choy you can imagine :). (This was the only PCP friendly stuff)
Cheese Cake (Generous Serving) + Dessert Wine

Even the PCP indulgence was not as bad as this one. My wife was nudging me to stop but i don't know what happened :). I did enjoy the food but the guilt came knocking right after.

Well one other thing that i have learned on PCP is that it is okay to make a mistake (I am not giving my self an excuse to keep committing them) but it is more important to get back on track. I finished my workout today on time and I plan to stick to the diet going forward. I just hope we don't have these office outings for some time to come.

Feeling a bit tired today so will keep it short for today. Hope everyone is having a good time. Happy Week 9.

DaY 51. Indulgence, Frustration & Relief.

Hi Everyone !. First of all welcome to the newbies :). Feels good to be saying that. I remember my Day one when I was quite excited about this whole project. It has been a tremendous journey full of ups and downs but I have never felt more frustrated as today when i climbed on the weighing machine but more on that later.

Last time i did not take my indulgence too seriously and i can't even remember what it was about really. I think it was PCP friendly in spite of being indulgence. This time around i decided to live upto it. We went to this Italian place. We decided to go for a penne lobster pasta but couldn't keep myself to it and so we ordered a pizza. I didn't exercise much restraint but kept my hands off the dessert and drinks. Felt pretty full after that and felt a bit guilty. I am sure i far exceeded the calories. My stomach didn't feel too good though an hour or so later was having a stomach ache but this could just be a result of gorging on the food rather than a reaction to the food.

I normally weigh myself on Sunday nights after the workout but i thought I will do it first thing in the morning and when i saw the results I was so frustrated that i couldn't even do my jumpropes properly ended up lashing it on the floor. I was seething with anger, took a few minutes break but i think it was the anger which helped me cream the jump ropes later. I measured myself again after the workout and i weighed a kilo less - that did help a little bit in cooling me down. Even without it i think it is a good time to just think about what i have been following the diet and the workout. Workouts have been very disciplined but diets there have been slips every now and then in terms of timing and quantity. I need to think about these things and may be re-evaluate. Good that it happened in the middle of the PCP. Hopefully it will help me put things in perspective. In the evening, i finished my Day 55 jump ropes and did my routine measurement as i should have done and this is how the results look like.

	13-Sep-09	20-Sep-09 (Mng)
Weight	84.8	85.9
Fat %	24.3	25

	20-Sep-09 (After Workout)	20-Sep-09 (After Evening Jumpropes)
Weight	84.9	85.6
Fat %	24.3	24

Seeing so much swing within a day I don't know what to make of it. I was able to fit into a jeans that I haven't worn in a year's time. I had lost 10 kgs last year before my marriage and it is good to see myself fit into those clothes again. It hasn't been a long time since then but i did put on a lot of weight.

Today morning when i was doing my Day 50 workout I thought Patrick had a made a mistake when i saw 5 sets of 18 for the floor jumps. I thought he meant 3 sets. Did you Patrick? :). I already know the answer but the leg exercises today were a killer and i know they won't get any easy in the future. Looking forward to it.

Hope the gang is having a good time with the workout and with everything else in Life. Happy Week 8!

Day 44. Broken Resistance Band, Fish and Planks !

Last week while doing the pull-down the handle of the resistance band came off. I would like to believe that my muscles are suddenly generating more power but that surely was not the case. I somehow got through the whole week using them and yesterday got them replaced. I was not expecting the shop to replace them because there wasn't any warranty but those guys were kind enough to give me a new one. God bless them.

After sticking to chicken for the first month it was natural to get fed up of it. I have been eating fish last two weeks and loving it. I have suddenly re-discovered my love for fish. I am used to eating fresh-water fish and was a bit apprehensive about eating fish in HK but i forget that these days you can get whatever food you want and where ever you want. It is just a matter of looking around and there is always a whole variety of them available.

Today, I was able to make up for the lost PCP day. After erring for the first time, it took me two weeks to get back on track. Yesterday after the soccer I did my Day 42 jump-ropes in the evening and today morning I did my Day 49 Jump-ropes and in the evening finished my Day 43 workout. I wanted to do Day 43 and Day 44 today so i am in sync but I was dreading the plank and the push-up (still !!) so much that i couldn't get myself to do it. I think the way the exercises have become intense now it will get very difficult to make up for a lost day. Obviously the idea is to not miss any workout but then sometimes things aren't just in control.

Finally, it was time to do the weekly measurement and things are looking right on track. Sometimes i want to guess what would these no.s look like at the end of the PCP but it is more exciting to see them change every week and feel motivated rather than get fixated on numbers.

	6-Sep-09	13-Sep-09
Weight	85.9	84.8
Fat %	24.8	24.3

Hope the rest of the gang is getting through the grind smoothly. Have a nice week 7 everyone.

Day 38: Weekly Assessment & Making up for lost time

Here is the result from the assessment yesterday.

	30-Aug-09	6-Sep-09
Weight	87.5	85.9
Fat %	25.1	24.8

Think it is alright. Just need to keep up the tempo. After Patrick's comment on the blog about not tweaking the schedule and not skipping the Jropes, I managed to make up for the lost time yesterday by doing the Day 36 workout in the morning and jumping ropes again in the evening. Jumpropes have become quite smooth and in the last three sessions I have managed a neat 1500 without tripping.

Well, ofcourse my calves are hurting and had to wear an anklet to work. The area between the calves and the foot on the back of my left leg has been hurting a little (courtsey: pistol) and yesterday while doing the pistol, i realized that my left leg is a bit weaker compared to right one. Surprise Surprise :). Well i thought my left wasn't too bad but anyways. I had to take support on both sides for doing the pistol squat for the left leg but today was even worse and i had to do that for both the legs.

Even after 5 weeks, push up was still a struggle after the third set. Had to resort to the knee support in the final set.

Hope everyone else is having a great time. It is becoming difficult every passing day and that is making me even more determined to see it through.

Day 36: Break, Tweaks and Jumpropes !!

Hope everyone is doing well. Have been a bit irregular on the blog. Will try and update the blog more regularly.

I had missed the workout last saturday and had thought of doing it twice sometime in the week and Friday seemed like a good day to do it because of a relatively easy day that it is. On thursday i only got started on the workout by 11 pm and then i just couldn't get myself to do the jump ropes friday morning. I am really scared of missing out because of injury or sickness and i didn't want to stretch myself too much. Friday evening i came back and did my regular work out for Thursday. So all in all i have missed a day of workout and which doesn't make me feel too good about it and if that wasn't enough i decided to take it easy today. We had gone for soccer early morning and the heat was merciless. We played for about 90 minutes and it was a good game. Pretty Intense.

So now i am thinking of tweaking the program a li'l bit. Just push everything out by a day. So my jumprope gets replaced by soccer on Saturday mornings and the week starts on Sunday for me. Patrick, does that work? I don't want to be a slacker but just think that soccer is a bit harsh on the legs and then doing jumpropes might push me over the edge. It might not for all i know but i don't want to take chances.

Last week was quite good. I could feel the change when it came to jumpropes. I did 1500 twice in the week without tripping or stopping at all in between. Today i felt much fitter and was tirelessly running around on the soccer ground. We play on a smaller 5-7 a side field. Real test would be getting through a full game on the standard field. Will get there for sure.

V-Sits and floor jumps have been challenging but they would get easier for sure but now we have the new devil in the form of pistol squat. Will get through this as well. :)

Have a nice week 6 everyone.