Day 16 - O Brave New World

It's a brave new world out there.

Temptation lurks everywhere

And that not just from maidens fair

But also finely coiffed oreo hair:

...the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious
Or else...

...So, yeah, I borrowed something of the above from Shakespeare.  Can you guess which part?

That's right, it was the hair.  Not many people know that about him.

Day 14 - Pictures, #'s, a nagging thought

I added a couple Day 10 pics, from post-Patrick workout.  The sweet red splotches on my back are from where he was helping me up on the pull-up bar.  Boy am I white.  At any rate I think there are some small improvements just in those first 10 days, but I'm not too concerned with it either way.  I'm also not concerned with immediate weight loss, though I am down about 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) in these first two weeks.  I started at 81.1 kg, and am now at 78.5.  I would actually be perfectly happy to finish the program at 78.5 assuming it was comprised of a lot less fat and a whoooole lot more muscle.

Here are some other #'s I got from Patrick's fancy scale on Day 10:

Weight: 78.4

Body Fat%: 19.2

Visceral Fat%: 7.5

Basal Calories: 1771

Muscle Mass%: 35.0

Subcutaneous Fat%: 12.0

BMI: 23.4

Body Age: 38

I'm only 35!  I turn 36 in about a month but dammit, when I am finished that thing is going to say 29.  Patrick can you remind me what the basal calories thing is again -- is that the # of calories a day I need to maintain my current state of not so awesome?  And it should go...down, as I slowly morph into totally awesome?

One thought that's been with me the last few days.  It has to do with brain wiring.  I've read here and there on the blogs of PCPers who are further along than I that it's not just their bodies that are changing, but their brains as well.  That somehow along the way, their hardwiring is being re-done without them even realizing it, and their whole life approach and especially diet approach is different now.  As I walk the aisles of the grocery store, I wonder if that will happen to me, and I wonder how I will feel about it if it does.  I mean, at the moment I am totally cool with this diet but I don't see myself ever NOT loving fritos, pizza, blueberry cheesecake, etc.  Only time will tell.   

Day 13 - Catching up

Packing on Wednesday night for a 4-day trip to Tokyo I discovered I'd lost my jump rope.  PANIC!  It must have fallen out of my bag when I was changing after playing hoops (we played 2 halfcourt games, and by halfway through the 2nd game I had NOTHING left in my arms).  Anyway after I thought it through I calmed down and realized I could use the one in the gym before flying out Thursday morning, and since I was planning a trip down to Yokohama to train with Patrick on Friday, he would have one, and then I just needed to pick up a new one after that for Saturday.  Crisis averted.  While buying the new one at Don Quixote in Yokohama I also came across this lovely set of pink boxing gloves & pads:

...obviously it made me think of fellow PCPer Jason Block, and that foxy boxing phase he went through in college, back when he had his hair in pigtails.  These would be perfect for him, though I think he had his "sexy punch" tattoo removed in Thailand a couple years ago.

Anyhoooo, back to that workout with Patrick...intensity was the word of the day.  The jump rope didn't go so hot, thanks to a few factors:

- performance anxiety in front of sensei

- general crappiness at jumping rope, especially the slightly-too-short one he had for me

- the dual distractions of hurricane force winds and my agape jaw as a result from the casual yet intense jump rope clinic Patrick was putting on a few feet to my right.

When I finally finished my jumps though, he asked me how long I thought the rest of the workout would take, and I looked at all the exercises and said, hmm, about 30 minutes?  If I recall, we did it in 19.  It made me realize that my 20 second breaks are probably closer to 30+, and Patrick really drove home the burn and drove home the message.  It was exhausting, obviously, but felt terrific.

I finally uploaded some Day 1 pics, let the bidding begin ladies! No Block that does not mean you.

 

Days 5 & 6 - Two very different days

Doing Sunday's workout, less than 24 hours after reading Patrick's message saying we shouldn't be breathing too hard during the "low-intensity" workout, I got totally gassed jumping rope just in the first couple sets.  I mean my heart was pounding.  I'm usually a big stretcher but for whatever reason just didn't warm up enough and started doing it too cold.  I finished the workout but it took about 30 minutes, and I vowed that I would warm up a little better going forward.  I hadn't gotten this winded so quickly during any of the previous 4 days so I hope it was really just a lack of proper warming up.

So this morning (up at 6:45am on a holiday while my wife & daughter are out of the country?  Me??) I got on the treadmill first, put it on a slight incline and had a brisk 5 minute uphill(ish) walk to get the blood flowing, then did some stretching, then proceeded to bang out my first flawless jump rope session of the project so far.  Buh-BAM!  In fact, I went 70x4 and then did 100 on the last set to see if I could.  It really felt great.

Hey, do you know what I don't like?  Lunges.  There are a few problems.  In no particular order:

- They have a lot more moving parts than a squat, so much like my horrible, horrible golf swing, I feel like I'm rarely doing them the exact same way twice.

- Because of the above, I feel like I might frequently be doing them wrong, and generally feel like an idiot doing them.

- I don't like the word "glutes", but about halfway into a standard lunge workout, I generally start feeling it in the ol' ass muscles.  And then my thought process usually goes something like this: glutes --> gluteus --> gluteus maximus --> Maximus --> Commander of the armies of the North, general of the Felix legions, loyal servant to the true emporer Marucs Aureliuwait a minute how many lunges was that?  Dammit!

What I'm trying to say is lunges, they vex me.  I am terribly vexed.

Tomorrow: our first jump-only day. Trying to decide how to break down the 500 jumps.  I'm thinking 75x4 followed by 100x2.

Day 4, I want some more...

...to EAT that is.  It took me less than 30 seconds to eat that half sandwich for lunch.  And it would have been faster if I didn't take a couple seconds to hunch over and literally suck off the plate a small piece of tomato that had fallen out.  Anyway, I think my body will soon get used to these smaller portions but it hasn't quite happened yet.

The barbeque last night was fantastic.  I had 1 grilled prawn, half a piece of chicken, and small portions of 3 different salads (one of them was lettuce, crabmeat, figs, blue cheese, some other stuff...it was a whole lotta awesome.)  I also had a small portion of their homemade blueberry & raspberry crumble for dessert.  This was a victory of epic proportions since as recently as Tuesday I would have absolutely gone to town on that thing.  Everything, even in half portions, was really, really delicious.  Great evening.  Thanks Eddie & Chi.

I haven't been sleeping well since PCP started.  I find my mind racing at night, thinking about the next day's workout, about food, about all kinds of things.  So even though I said yesterday the morning workout was the way forward, today I shut the alarm off when it rang at 7:15, and slept until about 11.  Really needed that.  Woke up, had a quick bowl of cereal, and headed out to our first softball game of the season.  There's a reason we don't play in the summer in Hong Kong.  Holy sheee-yit was it hot out there today.  Anyway I did the workout after getting home and that wasn't easy.  I didn't feel like I had much energy during the game at all, and even less during the workout.  I wonder about how softball will be effected over the next couple months.  We'll see.

Lastly for today: I noticed a few other people said their feet are hurting.  Me too!  I'm a little sore all over, chest & calves mainly, but nothing so bad as the feet.  Guess I haven't used those good ol' feet muscles much lately.  I have a massage booked for tomorrow, can't wait.

Day 3 - Early morning workout, BBQ for dinner

Today was the first day I got up bright and early to do the workout, and it is definitely the way forward.  I have not been up that early (for anything not baby-related anyway) in a long, long time.  5:45am alarm, a couple of snoozes, some dilly-dallying, and off to the gym by 6:15.  It felt great not necessarily to "get it over with" per se, but just to start the day by being so productive.  Even though we're still in the very early stages, doing the workout that early gives me a sense of accomplishment, and I suspect it will every day that I make it the first thing I do.  Plus the jump rope was a lot smoother, I managed 4 of 5 sets straight through so I think it will all come together soon.  That said I am simultaneously both intrigued by, and fearing, the Day 7 500 jumps.  Like playing my brainiac cousin in Facebook scrabble, I know I might lose but I embrace the challenge.

Since this started, I have tried to eat not just halfsies but also healthy - salads and whatnot.  But tonight I think there will definitely be half a cheeseburger with my name on it as I head over to my buddy's BBQ.  

One thing I have noticed early on is how involved and committed PCPers past & present are in commenting & offering tips and encouragement.  And I've gotta say, it's awesome.  Thanks for the support.

To Block, McElwain, and anyone else on the road - stay strong!

Things are taking shape

...my gut is of course not yet one of those things, but it will be.  Ohhhh it will be.

What is taking shape, slowly, is my understanding of the program and of my own eating habits.  My rhythm jumping rope got a little better too.  It definitely helps to jump in front of a mirror.  I have to say, I was glad to see I wasn't the only one who had some problems with the jumping on Day One, and the flip side of that is that I also hope others are slowly finding the rhythm as well.

I am very hungry as I type, in the office at the end of Day Two, before heading home for half a dinner.  Half a dinner, which I have to condition myself to accept as a full dinner: the new portions aren't small - the old portions were too much.  There is no spoon.  But it's going to take some getting used to, as halfsies just ain't easy, and -- this may shock you -- I like eating delicious things in large quantities.  I split a mid-morning banana with Jasper; that was fairly pathetic, and then I had half a salad for lunch.  My office constantly has snacks lying around.  I don't even know where they come from half the time.  Every once in a while someone will do a Marks & Spencer's run to pick up a boatload of cookies and chocolate, or someone will pop some microwave popcorn, or someone will have brought chocolate back from a business trip.  There's just always something to munch on, and while restraint hasn't proved too hard yet...well yeah, I like eating delicious things.

By the way, speaking of microwave popcorn, The Microwave Popcorn (TM)  is one of two patented, original dances that I invented about 15 years ago down the Jersey shore.  Yes, that Jersey shore, but back before its cheesiness became syndicated.

Mmmmm, cheeeese.

...And so it begins

Workout 1 of 90 in the books, great to get it rolling.  It turns out that jumping rope is harder than I thought.  I knew it would take me a while to get the timing down, but of the 5 50-jump sets, I only did the 4th one clean, straight through with no hitting my feet or screwing up the timing.  Jumping rope will definitely take me a few days to get used to.

The rest of it felt good, and while the reps don't seem like much it gets tiring quickly with so little rest between sets.  I am stoked to be starting this project.

I might have to change my fitness pic since already 2 people have remarked that it looks like I'm getting arrested.  They were jumping jacks people, ok?