Finito

Just hangin'

If there's one thing I've learned since starting PCP, it's that you shouldn't focus on numbers. If there's another thing I carry over, it's that you can't do everything Patrick tells you. Behold, the final graph of my Peak Condition Project:

It speaks for itself, but you're looking at a 12.5 - 13kg weight loss from day 1 - that's about 2 stone in old money. I don't put too much stock in the accuracy of the body fat % measure - but it has gone from 20% to 13% (and hit 12% on day 92!) - a solid result in such a short period.

In case that's not enough data for you, I have some more. These are body measurements on a weekly basis throughout the PCP. These were all taken in a non-flexed state when the muscles were cold (not pumped).

The graph is a bit muddled and many of the measures haven't moved dramatically but some have:

Measure	Day 6	Day 90
Upper arm	29	32
Gut	107	90
Belt-line	98	88
Hips (i.e. arse)	102	95

No wonder my trousers are looser. The real win is around my midsection where I dropped 17cm of ugly and dangerous fatty tissue. My waist-to-hip ratio - a key indicator for weight-related conditions has dropped from almost 1.05 (high risk) to under 0.95 (low risk).

The chest and shoulder measures are down or static, but I think that's from losing the moobs and some back-fat. Here's what that looks like:

Days 1, 14 & 90 Front

Days 1, 14 & 90 Side (Day 14 I am sticking my belly out - as several people have noted)

More Final Day Posing

So, am I happy with the result? Hells, yeah! Definition is improved, weight is much better and general sense of wellbeing is just awesome. I wanted to summarise my learnings in the other blog post because in a sense it's what's between my ears is the biggest change from the PCP (that's right, I had a lobotomy). It's about attitude, understanding and habitual change.

I've thanked most people in my previous post but final thanks to everyone who's done the project, past and current - your ultimate success is your own but it also leads to others' success. It truly is a virtuous circle. For others considering the PCP, if you care for your health or are just a bit vain give it a shot. If you stick to it, you will see amazing results. This has worked for far too many people for it to be a fluke. It is hard work but most good things in life are. Get into it.

Even more special thanks to team Puck. Kim insists we're the bestest group of all and I'll finally and happily accede. You guys have all been great. Bruce & Georgie - you've both done an amazing job; Bruce's photos have blown me away. Good luck with your other project ;-) (not sure if it's a secret so won't put it here). Kim & Richard - I hope the wedding is excellent and further enhanced by your gorgeousness and that it is the start of a long and happy path for you. Ashley, I apologise for never catching up, but would be great to have a debrief with you and other Sydney finishers when I get back. Pete & Mandy, you've been fantastic for our group and the project. I don't think I would have been able to stand the PCP if there hadn't been some levity, bitching and piss-taking; I actually asked the sorting hat to put me in Team Puck because this post made me snort milk out of my nose. What a great decision it's been.

Patrick and Chen - you've done an amazing job of putting together a system that is approachable, repeatable and that really works. From a workout and food perspective, nothing is revolutionary, but the focus on psychology is key and I think that's where the PCP really shines. It provides all the tools to get people over the mental hurdles that typically hold them back or compromise their goals. I can't thank you guys enough.

And so I'll close with the activity I started the PCP journey on - long may it last.

Skipping

Walking the 8-fold Path

The PCP is made up of three main components, but at the end of it, I've found myself with so many thoughts that need summing up that I'm going to subdivide. This post covers what I've learned during PCP from what I see as its main activities - and I'll then do a final post with pictures and statistics. Feel free to skip this one - it's long and there's no big reveal. You can just consider this my Dick Dietrick moment:

"Well, people. What have we learned?"

Writing
One thing I was a little ambivalent about at the start of PCP was writing about the experience as we went. On the face of it, the project is pretty boring; it's not something you want to go on about constantly down the pub or at a barbie for fear of being a bore. It's one of those activities that is so consuming that it is fascinating to those doing it, but could be stupendously tedious to everyone else. I decided I could keep a lid on it with non-participants unless they seemed genuinely interested (to all of my real-life friends, I apologise that I utterly failed to live by this decision).

But what about this insistence that I write about the whole thing too? Would I have anything worth writing about? Could it be entertaining enough that a non-participant would want to read it? Interesting enough? And then I decided it it got too boring I could just do fart jokes.

A few people have complimented the blog and I'm flattered and thankful that it went over okay. The writing was a small creative challenge and one I really enjoyed. In these days of one-line Facebook and Twitter updates, it's nice to get an opportunity to write something marginally longer without resorting to a full essay. Most of what I wrote was with the assumption that an audience would be reading and that I didn't want to bore them - and might even amuse them. This post, however, is primarily for me. This one is to look at where I am today and remind my future self of what I learned on the project. You can indulge me or you can just go look at some lolcats - I won't know either way. He he he; stupid cat is chasing the ball!!!

My writing probably saved the project for me about three weeks from the end. I was so over the whole thing and getting into a spiral of negativity that I could have just stopped and slipped away. Writing the blog post and having a good old whinge acted as a great circuit-breaker and put things back into perspective (not to mention the great support I got). Getting people to write about their experiences helps them engage with what they're going through on another level - to take a step back from the action and to observe and critique it - to not get so lost in the doing that they lose sight of what it's all about; it enables others to contribute to their thinking too. Even if it is just fart jokes. If any prospective PCPer happens across this - I recommend you participate in the blogging aspect actively. Write a few times a week - maybe just a few lines, a whine, an idea, something that will lift people's moods or your own. If nothing else it can be a memento for you later - and it might just save the project for you too.

I also had some behind-the-scenes correspondence, particularly with Pete and Inés and I'd like to thank them both for their communication and keeping me interested and entertained. I genuinely mean it when I say let's keep in touch.

Reading
It was a real pleasure every day to read everyone else's blog. Some were whiney, some nonsensical, some extremely terse, some pictorial (I'm lookin at you Makoto) and most brilliant - but I liked having them all there. I liked being reminded every day that there were 40-odd other people going through the same struggles or variations at the same time. It was inspiring to read about other people doing this shit while bringing up fucking kids and with proper lives to run. It was fascinating to see how people coped with interruptions, diversions, frustrations and the slog, the sheer fucking slog of getting through the valley.

It was also damn funny at times. Well done, especially, Coops; you played a blinder. I know I wouldn't have written much funny stuff without you; so thanks for lighting a fire under my arse as well. Richard, your posts were consistently strong and the descriptions you gave of where you were up to with each exercise were excellent. I kind of felt I didn't need to do something similar as I thought "well there it is - what am I gonna do - copy and paste it?" Inés and Mandy, great posts and great comments - always amusing and encouraging. Tracey and Conny - I am in awe of your efforts, of your pushing through the project through what sounded like some very disheartening periods and in Tracey's case while breastfeeding a freakin' baby (which has got to be awkward during floor-jumps). And then you both go and take the time to write encouraging comments to me and to everyone else; this is ridiculously far above and beyond the call of duty. What can I say, but a heartfelt thank you - enjoy your results (and they are amazing results); you deserve them.

Finally, I loved the "Unhappy Meals" article; I anticipated Patrick's daily emails and I eventually read every single blog post on the PCP Update. EVERY ONE. They're good, people in case you haven't scanned them all. So, thanks Patrick for creating an eminently readable and enjoyable resource on what could be some very dry topics - your mix of wisdom, random observation, science and a little whimsy to make the medicine go down is just right. Awesome job, man.

Sweating
Why would anyone want to sweat every day? Well, it turns out it's easier than sweating a few times a week or, I dunno, dying a few years early. So they're your basic choices - do a little every day, do a bit more a few times a week or die. Oh, and until you die, feel by turns more grumpy, agitated, ungainly, sick, lethargic, pained and sleepless.

Everyone knows that option three is a bad one, but why is option one better than option two? For me the answer is simple; for others maybe less so. If I am going to train 3-4 times a week, then I'm left with choices. Which days should I do it and which should be rest days? It takes at least an hour once you factor in changing and showering and your times is often tight. Some days you're sick or under the weather or not in the mood so you postpone to the next day - after all, you'll still get your 3 sessions in over the weekend. The problem is it's too easy to find excuses for not doing the work on any given day. Making excuses is habit-forming and before you know it a couple of days off has become a week and then it's really hard because now you're a bit more out of shape and the prospect of a half-hour run is a bit daunting - so you do something else and now it's a month and next thing you know - BANG - you're back to being sedentary.

With option 1, your default position is that you do it every day and for a short duration. So now each individual day is less daunting. It's harder to justify missing 10 minutes of training first thing in the morning than to just do it. And if you do miss a day, you're not shunting them along the track and filling your weekend with 3 dreaded sessions. You just miss one and you pick it up again the next day (and maybe a little extra if you feel okay). And if you miss a week on holiday - well, when you get your routine back it's only 10 minutes - so it's less difficult to get going again.

Of course this is never going to get you fit for a marathon, but if it keeps a base of fitness up and burns some excess calories who gives a shit? Only freakish cunts run marathons anyway!

Grunting
Also known as lifting and pushing shit. This was easily the hardest part of the PCP for me and what I dreaded and procrastinated about almost daily. I had plenty of excuses - a bodgy shoulder which has bothered me for years - problems with blood sugar making it difficult to workout before meals - having more fun things to do - not having the right equipment in the right places - being a lazy shit (it's a serious medical condition, people!).

In a sense, this probably means this is what I should have concentrated on most. I was stressed about not doing it right, whether it was not getting low enough in the chest dips, not doing full pull-ups, not jumping far enough in the floor jumps. Eventually, though I realised you've just got to do your honest best. If it hurts like hell, you're probably doing it close to right. If it doesn't, then you should make it harder by doing a few more reps. If you can't get every rep out but you genuinely got to failure, that's okay. If you can't do a pull-up that's okay too. The whole point is to push yourself as far as you can go and get yourself to the best place you can be. Not everybody has the same innate or trained capability - some people have injuries - some people don't pile on the muscle as quickly. And that's okay too.

In the final few weeks, I began to accept this and give myself less of a hard time - and that helped me get the eye of the tiger ... or maybe just the eye of the surly domestic cat - but determined anyway.

The flip-side of this is that you can take the recognition-of-limitations too far and start letting yourself off the hook on little things. If I'm honest, I did this more than once on planks and so had nowhere near the right level of stamina near the end. It's a lesson learned and a small regret - but I'm not going to hate myself for it; just commit to push it harder next time.

Eating
The food component of PCP is described as being 80% of the project. I have lost weight in the past before, have read many issues of Men's Health, had friend's who knew heaps about nutrition - so I would be lying if I said I learned lots about the facts of nutrition from the project. The discussion on salt was interesting and the philosophy around the nutritional component is as excellent as it is simple and common-sensical: eat a sufficient amount of (mostly) vegetables and unprocessed foods throughout the day. Or as the article we read early on put it, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

It's almost painfully obvious. It's almost embarrassing being told something so simple and fundamental. It's stuff we should all know from being grown-ups - from simply having grown up and being told this by parents and grandparents. And moreover, I think we we *did* know it, or at least most of it.

So why the fuck weren't we doing it? As Morpheus told Neo, "there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path". What, some Buddhist fellas said it first? Them feckin' eejits in the robes?

90 days of walking the path teaches you the truth of this simple message more than any amount of reading ever will. You know and feel fundamentally that this is the right and healthy way of consuming food only after it has become second-nature. The proof of this is in the freedom from cravings I've felt as time went on. It's one thing to be able to resist temptation but quite another to no longer be tempted. Only walking the path can get you there.

Drinking
This is a big topic for me. Before the PCP I actually ate a reasonable food intake a lot of the time - not going for huge portions, almost never snacking between meals, eating a proper breakfast every day (not all that different from the one at the start of PCP) and a salad heavy in vegetables and lean protein for lunch. But when work would finish or I would go out to dinner (most days), it would frequently be accompanied by alcohol and often by a lot of alcohol.

A big part of Irish, English and Australian social culture revolves around drinking. Whether you're going to the pub, eating a meal, going to the theatre or a concert, having a picnic, taking part in a quiz, watching a movie at home, you'll have a drink; you'll have a few drinks, and oftentimes you'll have too many drinks. And it's nice, it lubricates things, it makes pleasurable experiences more pleasurable. I love a bit of booze; I truly do. I enjoy the buzz, I enjoy the taste and I enjoy being properly drunk.

Unfortunately it also makes you more groggy the next day, it makes you forget chunks of your evening and incidentally, it carries calories. Lots of calories. As in, a big night out on the beer is pretty much an entire day's worth lots of calories. Note, I'm not one of those people who gets a kebab or some other crap when drunk, so I'm not even counting those potential calories. If I had stopped drinking for 90 days and done nothing else in PCP I would have lost weight - not as much, but a few kilos for sure. I know this from past experience.

I've given up booze for a month here and there - to prove to myself I could and to feel healthier. But you can be sure as shit that by day 31 I was back on it and celebrating my self-control with none whatever. The PCP gave me a structure, a reason and an excuse to stop for much much longer; to get past the point of showing I could to it to getting to the point where I no longer wanted to do it - at least not as an automatic response to any social situation.

I find myself in an interesting place in this regard. I will drink again (most nights this week, as it happens) and I'll enjoy it. But the last 90 days has starkly shown me how much my social life revolves around or is at least peripherally involved with drinking. I was surprised by how my friends were subtly or not-so-subtly pressuring me to have a few drinks here and there. I'm not judging anyone as I'm sure I've done the same countless times, but it was nice to have the PCP as a ready-made excuse to deflect them when I simply didn't fancy a drink. Without that there I'm going to have to become strong enough to just say "I really don't fancy a drink tonight".

The problem is that I have almost no repertoire of alcohol-free social activities. Boozing is fantastic, but sooner or later, unless you're a complete dullard, it also gets boring. I need to find a balance between social withdrawal (which did happen quite a bit in the last 90 days and is nothing to be scared of), enjoyable social drinking and sober socialising. Building that repertoire is something I have to work on.

Excreting
I know I already talked about sweating, but let's face it - the excretions you're interested in are the ones that come from my nether regions. What a journey that's been. From the painful rabbit pellets of dietary adjustment to the Tolkienesque bowel-rog monsters of yore - from the Bourneville tadpoles to the great brown trouts with their vigorous leaping into the briney orange waters Urinus Majoris.

There was the occasional stealth-poo that would lie in waiting until you were 5 minutes into a skipping session and then announce very firmly and uncompromisingly that it was coming out now and that your cardiovascular exercise would have to damn well wait. A terrorist-turd if you will; except unlike the USA, my foreign policy can't refuse to negotiate with these terrorists - because the last thing you want is their explosions in the regional areas.

The air-biscuits were of such novelty and variety as to be worthy of study in themselves. I have never experienced such diversity in my anal trumping in my life. The mid-afternoon cramped up sort got to me most - a nagging cripple of a fart which could bloom with such unexpected intensity as to floor a business meeting of 20 people. Sometimes I would just sit at my desk and percolate in my own eruptions throughout the morning. Sometimes a silent-warrior would turn out unexpectedly to have a voice and announce itself to the room. Or I would find myself waddling tight-cheeked to the gents' only to have each step announced like a squeaky shoe.

The most destructive exit-hole eructation though was surely the one that would happen in the middle of a workout and destroy the intensity of the moment. When you're chest-dipping down into a cloud of your own filth and already giggling from the parping sound I defy you not to just fall off the support and lose all self-control.

Supporting
One person put me onto this project - Barty Dunne. Barty is one of those annoying people who is enormously successful in his professional life but is not content to leave it at that - he also has to set himself physical challenges and goals that he then has the fucking gall to achieve and embarrasses all the normal useless schlubs who potter about their miserable unfulfilling lives. So when he brought up the PCP, it seemed like the kind of extreme, ridiculous project that only people of his outstandingly smug, superior asshole-ishness could achieve. Barty looked infinitely better before his PCP effort than I look after mine; and in the meantime, he's done a triathlon just to highlight his superiority further. And he does marathons, the freakish cunt!

Despite this, I became interested in the PCP and realised that maybe ordinary mortals could give it a shot too. Not everyone with a PCP Complete stamp looked like a model physical specimen of healthfulness (at least not in their before pictures) which encouraged me to look a bit further. I wanted to see if the PCP could work for a 'normal' - not having grokked that that's exactly who it's designed for. It was a big relief when on Day 1 when it appeared most people looked middle-of-the-road in their pictures with plenty of flab wobbling through the blogs. The relief continued when people started asking dumb questions about nutrition and exercise and expressing uncertainty, discomfort and confusion. These people were like me: useless fat lumps of faltering optimism with a soupçon of self-doubt.

We shuffled to and past the start line like participants in an overcrowded fun run - nervous, reluctant, unsure but undaunted, and trying desperately to find our strides. We turned to Patrick for help and guidance but when Patrick was lacking, we soon we began to turn towards each other; alliances were forged, encouragement was offered, banter emerged, because we knew despite the challenges that we were all in this together. People on the outside wouldn't understand it - so whatever painful shit was thrown at us, we would have to rely on each other.

Support is such an important part of the project - giving encouragement not only helps its target, but helps you. Every time you front up to tell someone to push through or try harder, you're implicitly telling yourself to do the same. You're giving yourself a responsibility to do at least as much as you're asking them to do. It's not just a fluffy touchy-feely thing you're encouraged to do; it's a survival mechanism to push through the 90 days of PCP.

I also inspired (maybe a bit over the top) one person, Mike Duffy, to sign up. I didn't mean to as this just doubled-down my responsibility to finish as a good example. But I'm glad he started; he's been a further inspiration to me and I recognise the mutuality of the benefits. You're doing a great job, Mike and I look forward to your Day 90 photos.

So I thank everyone for your support. Some it it was direct (emails and blog comments) and some was implicit (your just being there, plugging away on your own path encouragement enough). There's no need to pull out any more names - ultimately, all of you supported me even if you didn't mean to.

And finally, I would like to thank Barty and Jo. For all his cockheadedness, Barty introduced me to PCP, he encouraged me to do it as soon as I expressed an interest, he provided invaluable advice and lessons learned from his experience. Jo provided me innumerable cooking and preparation tips and both of you provided your friendship and support through the 90 days. I may not have expressed strongly enough how much I appreciated it, but I did and I do. Having had you guys in Sydney has been superb and never more so than now.

Now, let's go and get wrecked.

Ironic German

I once heard a story from good friend of mine (and wife of former PCPer) which struck me as interesting and instructive. When she was a teenager she went to Germany to help with her language skills and worked as an au pair.

Of course what happened is what always happens; which was that she hung out with all the other foreign students so they could speak English together. When they got together they used to joke about the Germans and their funny phrases and would mimic them to take the piss. As they spent more time there, their ability to mimic the Germans got better and better until one day they realised through their ironic German, they could suddenly speak German rather well.

Thus, they ended up truly skilled even though they didn't feel they were necessarily making a true and committed effort to learn all the time.

I think on the PCP (and especially in the Puck group), we had a tendency to take the piss out of the structure and it's funny rules and strange exercise routines. With my friends here, rather than talk it up like an evangelical, I would tell them it's all a bit silly, and over the top, but - ya know - I have to listen to the cult leader and all - otherwise I'll never achieve fitness salvation. This was a preemptive defence against their potential negativity, by being more negative about it myself and showing the appropriate ironic distance. (N.B. sometimes I was genuinely negative too).

Similarly, I'd be lying if I said I gave every single workout my all. But at least I turned up for 95% of them and did what was written on the sheet. And for 80% of them I did do my honest best. Same with diet - yes I had drinks a few times in the second half, but otherwise tried to stick to the prescribed meals.

Nevertheless, by mimicking the behaviours of healthy people under Patrick's tutelage, even though it was sometimes very clumsy mimicking, I gradually became a better and better simulacrum of a healthy person until at some point I realised I had actually become a pretty healthy person.

Now that the switch has been flicked, I'm loath to go back.

Antepenultimate Day

This day is substantially done and I'm feeling good though a little tired. I did find getting any reasonable time out in the planks ridiculously difficult and have to admit to some slackness in these over the last couple of weeks. I need to concentrate on these more in future. V-sits are much improved.

I had been having issues with sleeping during the PCP and found myself waking up unnecessarily early frequently. The switch-up in the intensity of the workouts this week seems to have addressed this problem. I went to the cinema for a bit of brainless entertainment last night and could happily have fallen asleep before it even started even though it was only 9pm.

The smells of popcorn and chocolate were actually kind of unpleasant - and intense. I always notice the smell of popcorn, but to be able to discern confectionary was odd. I notice smells a lot more on PCP; people who've had a drink really stand out; makes me wonder how offensive I would have smelled to the world's teetotallers.

I had my punnet of blueberries to nibble through and this helped drown out the other smells.

As an aside, this was the Ape movie and in reference to the original movie, one of the characters utters the line "Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape". Getting the reference I let out a little guffaw and realised I was the only person in the audience who did - don't these kids have any classical pop-culture training?

Stinging Balls

I got my day 88 workout out the the way relatively early today (relative being the operative word - on Saturday's I can usually drag it out till late afternoon). I was going to use the treadmill for a quick warm-up before starting the first superset but once I got going, I kind of liked it and decided it could act as my cardio for the day. I haven't hit the treadmill since near the start of the PCP, but I have been skipping in my Vibram FiveFingers every day - they protect the toes in the case of tripping but allot the foot to do its work.

I had no problem knocking out 20 minutes of running and the effort felt quite similar to skipping too which is good. Also, my calf strength and endurance seemed absolutely fine. Key Performance Indicator of effort is that I was sweating like a paedophile in a playground by the end. However, because I haven't been running in so long, I really felt it in the balls of my feet which is the first contact point in barefoot and bare-ish running. So, for my trouble I have stinging feet, but they don't look like they're going to blister.

2 days to go including the grand reveal of the final day workout. I'm kind of nervous anticipative as to what it could possibly involve. My guess is a little bit of everything to make the entire body look nice and pumped for the final photos. I'm considering taking the day off work to completely destroy it!

Bonus Cardio

I walk to and from work every day. In Sydney, this is often a pleasure, though over the last few months (i.e. PCP), we've had some of the crappiest winter weather I've ever experienced here - though still wonderful compared to Ireland's winters. Given that my pull-up bar and chest-dip bars were also outdoors, this led to some frustrating days.

When it's spring here, it is kind of the greatest city on Earth (in my limited opinion); today was one of those perfect spring days and I was due to work off-site in North Sydney, so I decided rather than taking the bus, train or a taxi, I would walk it. Bonus Cardio!

Oddly Sentimental

I just put some chicken breasts stuffed with roma tomato and basil in the oven along with a pile of vegetables and realised this is my final PCP mass-cooking event. This will see me to the weekend and then I can cook individual meals through Monday. I will be indulging a bit next week and then leave Australia for 6 weeks.

So I'm getting prematurely sentimental about the end of an era.

On the other hand - something the fuck other than fucking bland food for a while! Yeeee haaawww! Fuck the fuck off you fucking chickeney fuck!

Culinary Delights

Favourite food-related discoveries during PCP (aide memoir):

1. Country Valley low fat organic milk is superb. This is the first milk I've had since moving to Australia 12 years ago that actually tastes like milk. Amazing! I doubt I will ever buy any watery crap from a supermarket again and may even visit the farm to personally thank them. Pair this with fresh strawberries for the night-time snack and life seems pretty sweet.
2. Seasonal vegetables are cheap and easy. Whack a couple of trays-worth in the oven on baking paper or steamer and you're good for 3 days (with almost no cleanup required). Over my winter PCP focus has been cauliflower, butternut squash/pumpkin, courgette/zucchini, golden squash and broccolini.
3. Getting a meal with enough vegetables in a restaurant is often nigh impossible. They're buttered/oiled and/or the portion is tiny and/or they cost a bomb.
4. Good quality tupperware is a joy forever (John Keats).
5. It's always worth spending more on quality ingredients but even more so when you're eating plainly. The difference between a supermarket egg and a farm-fresh biodynamic one is huge (especially when eating the yolk).
6. Farmers markets and posh green-grocers rock. Also, as they don't have processed crap, you can't even buy any by mistake. Plus you can add to your smuggitude by convincing yourself you're helping local trade, supporting happier animals and reducing your environmental impact.
7. Cooking a perfect boiled egg every time isn't so hard. 3 minutes on the boil + 5 minutes off the boil with a lid on the saucepan. This makes for easy-peeling eggs and helps avoid the sulphurous deposits at the contact point of the yolk and albumen that can give the eggs and your farts that special character.
8. My dad was/is right and Golden Delicious is the best apple variety. He was also right about cheese and chutney sandwiches and curry being tasty but they're not PCP compliant.
9. Spices are awesome to the plain pallet. It is mandatory to have a selection of these knocking about.
10. Bananas are a waste of money after a major cyclone in Australia.

Afternoon Muffin

For those of us who are still carrying some flab around our midsections, has anyone else noticed how much worse things get through out the day? When I get up in the mornings, my sides are relatively straight and when I see that guy in the mirror, I think "heeyy, looking good".

But as gravity takes its effect throughout the day, the fat evenly spread around the torso all sags down until by the middle of the afternoon, a muffin-top has reasserted itself above the belt-line.

One thing's for sure: final day photos will be taken first thing in the morning!

Last Belt Notch

Belt Notch Day 76, a photo by Noel on PCP on Flickr.

A minor victory - I reached the final hole in my belt. Most trousers still fit somewhat because I had/have one of those belly shelves. It's just that now the overhang and overflow is much less.

So I don't look like a clown, but most pants are a little loose where before they were a little tight. Shirts tend to look worse as they had to have a lot of fabric to cover the gut which is now redundant. Unlike trousers, they make me look like a dude who's recently lost a bunch of weight.

Luckily I'll be in Italy in 2 weeks and can restock my closet somewhat. Taking an empty suitcase!

Plenary Indulgence

It feels like the third indulgence rolled around quite quickly. And what an opportunity - to have a pre-PCP style meal (though limited somewhat in calories). Yeah, I had a few ideas.

I settled on Pizzeria Lucio pretty quickly. Their Neapolitan style pizzas are fresh, made with superb ingredients and are all based on smile combinations of excellent flavours.

The only minor problem was that they were closed when I turned up! Luckily, Lucio's cousin, Mario (this is not a joke) has a similar place and so I got some extra cardio in making my way there.

My friend and I shared an insalata caprese and two pizzas - a salamino (con salame e ricotta) and a margherita con ruchetta e crudo. I ate three slices and had half the bottle of Montepulciano.

It was all excellent. The flavours of the salamino were perfect (though they used to have a salame providore way back in the day who, though unreliable, delivered an even more amazing variety that was super spicy - still this new one is excellent too). The prosciutto was also gorgeous; I haven't eaten any ham since the start of the PCP and this was an excellent reintroduction; certainly not too salty and paired perfectly with the rocket. I know the wine choice was unusual but my companion only drinks red and it all went together surprisingly well.

The conversation flowed, as did a shot of limoncello for a digestif and I slept like a log for 7 hours (which is actually more than I've been achieving lately - I've started waking early in the mornings and not being able to nod back off again as a rule).

I didn't feel bloated or nasty after the meal (which I feared). Perhaps before PCP I would have scarfed down a 4th or even 5th slice of pizza and maybe that minor restraint saved me. In any case I felt more than satisfied.

I did feel a little hazy this morning due to the booze, but nothing too bad, and by the time it came for workouts this evening, I felt fine again.

Indulgence WIN.

The Power of Negative Thinking

My whinge-fest yesterday seemed to clear out some psychological clutter. Everything went much more smoothly today. Only two weeks to go.

Every set, every rep, every gram.

And some food for thought - The Advantages of Pessimism.

The Whinging Wall

Right, to date, I've had ups and downs, some pain, some frustration and a lot of poor motivation, and this has translated into procrastination on many occasions. However, I have tried to do everything exercise-wise throughout the PCP.

This weekend I hit a motivational wall. It probably didn't help that for most of yesterday I felt nauseous and spent a couple of hours shivering from something but I just couldn't face the exercises. My right shoulder is still giving my gip which makes me dread all the things that support my weight through the shoulders. Plus Sydney has decided that Spring wasn't such a good idea and to try Winter again. And a bunch of mates were around last night having drinks before going out for the night. (how's my litany of petty whinging going?)

This morning I did my overdue quarterly taxes in the and prepared a batch of Shaona's tandoori chicken (what's happened to Shaona by the way - are you still with us, dear?) but eventually convinced myself to do the skipping by mid-afternoon. Started badly, but I picked up the pace and got it done. I didn't progress into the main work out though.

Instead, I visited my friends, Pete and Liz and their delightful daughter, Stella and caught up on the last few weeks. All day I felt shit about the encroaching workout - and felt horribly unmotivated. Finally, though, at 8pm I started and it was actually okay. Sure, my shoulder hurt, and the dips weren't deep enough and I hit failure too quickly and I'm a weak little pansy. But I did it and I feel much more positive again. Truth be told, I've been in a funk and not feeling great about my own progress, but I think I just need to talk myself back to a good state.

We have 2 weeks left on this project. Yes, it's tough; yes, it's a little stale and boring, and yes, it feels like my body is betraying me at times.

So I need to use all the great slogans everyone has thrown at me and dig deep for one last 14 day push and get the motherfucker done.

To inthinity and beyond!

Peak Condition Envy

It's great to see how far we've all come in the last 10 weeks, but if you really want to burst your bubble, try going to see a Cirque du Soleil show.

This was the major mistake I made with my life yesterday evening. Those people are incredible - the sheer discipline it must take to get in the kind of shape where you can do a plank on one hand without a fucking floor under your feet is phenomenal; to chuck other acrobats around like they're confetti; and let's not even get started on the contortionist or the trapeze people.

Anyway, this is about personal goal setting. Maybe I'll set mine to be about 1/5th as fit & strong as one of those dudes in a year.

Oh, and at least they have clowns too to remind us of how much shitter we could be too!

Missed Hake

For some reason I decided I would treat myself this afternoon to a processed drink. Granted, it was calorie-free Coke Zero, so not likely to do much in terms of calories.

It was pretty much undrinkable. Yes, there were some overtones of something resembling fruit, but they were swamped by a saltiness I wasn't expecting (salt is not listed as an ingredient) and left a bitter chemical aftertaste I couldn't stomach. I got about 50ml in and gave up. It maybe be worth breaking the rules for an odd alcoholic beverage, but Coke Zero is a waste of indiscipline.

Oh, so 'fessing up, I have had the drinking day I wrote at length about, another night where I had a few vodka-sodas (though I feel I made up somewhat by going for a 3.5 hour bush walk the next day) and two other evenings where I had a glass of red wine ... well, I couldn't finish one of the glasses. This has not been an alcohol free PCP but it has been mostly abstemious.

Max the Envelope!

Has anyone else had any slogans going through their heads more lately? It's funny how they pop into your head whether from an ironic source or a serious one and I guess they do actually help.

Of course there's the PCPer's favourite, "JFD".

From a personal trainer I once had (whose actual nickname was (I'm not kidding) Steve Machine) there's "Last set, best set" - great for pushing out those last annoying reps.

Another one from a great trainer was "Replace 'should' with 'must'".

There's a whole selection from Ranier Wolfcastle:

Now step over to the abdominator and I will shout slogans at you:

Push, harder, Go past the max! Reach over the top! Master your ass! Overshoot the extreme! Max the envelope!! 

Blast through the burn, ride the zone.

 And of course, my current favourite: "Honey badger don't give a shit!"

What motivational slogans help you get to and through your workouts?

A Leaahrrning Computah!

It's been a while since I presented any new data and I'm sure you've all been hungering for an update (except Coops, obviously). Well, here it is, kiddies - a map of some pretty aggressive weight-loss. I'm down pretty much 11kg since day 1 (or 10kg since day 0 which represents 1kg per week). This is about as much as I would want to lose per week and, while it has involved an amount of sacrifice and hard work, it hasn't been that bad - at least not from the diet side.

Yes, giving up the beer was tough at first, but needed to be done anyway given the regularity of my drinking. The food, on the other hand, was not that much of a shock. The first week, when we went to half-portions was by far the toughest. I genuinely felt like I was going to keel over at times. Since the nutrition plan started on week 2 though, I've rarely felt hungry (and only when I've been delayed in eating for some reason).

Here's where today's graph is up to. Pretty nice, huh?

But there's more to talk about in today's post. Remember, the Noel-inator is a Learrhnning Computah. My "detailed files" constitute a longitudinal study of my own weight loss efforts. First off, here's the first time I ever tracked such an effort in 2005. I was starting from a worse place than I was at the start of PCP and my long-term efforts revolved around cardio training (started on the stair-master and progressed to running a few times a week). Food plan was 3 meals a day, trying to be healthy most of the week - but alcohol wasn't cut out. I did lose a shed-load of weight, but it took much, much longer than on PCP. Notably, my muscle mass also suffered. Right now I'm 74kg and (if the scales are to be trusted) about 10kg of that is fat. When I was 74kg in this graph, I was 12kg fat (using the same scales). That's actually quite a big difference and a massive apparent  advantage of the PCP approach.

By 2007 I had put back on quite a bit of this weight though I was much more active than I had been in 2005. A friend and I gave ourselves a challenge to lose some weight and the element of competition (or at least mutual accountability) probably helped me achieve faster results. I lost 9Kg in 4 months. However, I still drank at weekends and really just managed to achieve the loss by doing a lot of cardio and most likely eating too little. Looking back on it I felt quite lethargic and moody during this process. By the end people commented that I looked a bit gaunt rather than saying I looked good.

Notably, my fat/non-fat ratio was as good or better than during PCP. This is especially surprising given I started at 20% at 80Kg (for PCP I started at 20% but at 85Kg). In any case, my body definitely looks healthier and better this time around - more muscle tone and better skin, etc.

So - what are the big long-term lessons from all of this? Here's my summary:

1. No matter what anyone says, graphs are a great motivational tool! Incremental changes can be hard to see, but being able to look back at a dataset and see where you started and where you've got to really helps the push ... if you're a giant nerd like I am.
2. I am a fucking idiot for ever putting weight back on after putting in so much effort to lose it. Note these graphs stop abruptly when I reach my goal. I need to make fitness a part of my life constantly and not just something I do intensely periodically. And, of course, this isn't just about weight control but general fitness too. I saw the other participant from the 2007 effort about a year later and, for shame, I realised I had put back on a bunch of weight while he had improved further. He had incorporated an approach to well-bring into his life in a much more healthy and consistent manner than I had (mind you, he has also become a personal trainer, so now he has a professional interest in remaining fit too!).
3. PCP does offer much more than just weight-loss. That said, I feel better, I didn't suffer the mood-swings of yore in getting to where I am now and - even if this thing was just about weight-loss - it has been much more effective on that simple measure too.

With just over three weeks to go, I may not quite get back to my leanest or fittest point in my life, but I also won't see the completion of the project as an end in itself. Rather, I see it as a springboard to more and bigger goals. I'll certainly be taking Patrick's advice and cutting back the intensity after day 90, but I'm already ready to take on another challenge after I get back from my holidays.

So, now, time to get the head back down for the last and presumably hardest 3 weeks of the PCP.

PCP Compliant Sex (Arnie's got it all wrong)

I've created a video of PCP Compliant Sex for you all to learn from. Note the strange exercises incorporated and the personalised nutritional advice from Patrick. Don't worry about the final scene - we don't have to do this till the final week.

Enjoy!

Fun Week

Well, I could start by complaining about various failings in my exercise regime, but instead I'd like to bask in the enjoyment of seeing not one but two great concerts last week. The reformed Pulp were in cracking form and Jarvis Cocker is a spindly inspiration of how to throw shapes will into your forties. All the old favourites were out - funny to think I was listening to these 17 years ago.

Elbow presented a very different concert. Live, their music is quite anthemic and yet retains the complexity that makes it, as I thought a few times in the concert, not shit (unlike other anthemic rock bands such as, oh, I dunno, let's say Coldplay - fucking shitty cunting Coldplay - who I hope never to see live, unless equipped with a sniper rifle). Yes, Guy Garvey is not exactly a PCP-like inspiration but his voice is astonishing and I found it hard at first to believe it was emerging from this fat Manc.

These were very buoying events in another cloistered PCP week. I managed to have one beer between both concerts which you could argue is one too many, but it was nice all the same. And now, here we are ending week nine and skating towards the end times.

So, now to the bad bits. Workouts are still showing some troublesome signs.

Skipping is still plagued by trips and stops, but all I can do is immediately reset and restart. I do try to keep to 100 a minute but if I've not done 400 by the end of 4 minutes, will finish them out (obviously if I do more, I do more). I also find myself accelerating for the last 50-60 in the set and in some ways this produces a better rhythm - but for now, it's unsustainable for 4 minutes. I am disappointed with all the stops but I guess if I'm sweating by the end of set 2 and buggered by the end of set 4, I must be doing something right.

For the strength exercises I've noticed a pattern in things I find hard to make progress on. I have a chronic rotator cuff looseness in my right shoulder which tends to cause me pain or screws up my form before I've really failed the target muscle (or so it seems). Most affected are chest dips, tricep dips and if I try to do Kung-Fu sit-ups with an overhand grip, I can hardly stand the pain after about 15 seconds (thankfully I can do a side-grip using some parallel rings). I have yet to complete a full pull-up and apart from being (a) puny and (b) fat I think the bodgy shoulder can again be somewhat implicated in this. Obviously on actual shoulder exercises I notice an imbalance between left and right too, but it's improving.

The other thing I find excruciating is the seated bicycle (but not due to shoulder - more due to these being ri-cock-ulously difficult). Thoughts pass through my head during these like "death cannot come soon enough". Planks are a stroll in the park by comparison. On both of these, I've noticed the fatigue in the thighs from the leg-work the previous day is a factor too.

So, what do I enjoy? Biceps are good. Triceps are decent notwithstanding the shoulder pain mentioned. Push-ups are variable (sometimes I knock out almost all reps on my toes, other times, I fail to knees half-way through the final 2 sets). Ovations look great in the mirror as do all shoulder exercises. It's great in Da Vincis to see a mass of shoulder-muscle gathering up the band. Leg-ups and V-sits are improved dramatically though the 3rd and 4th sets of V-sits are still a bit ragged. Side crunches are too easy which tells me I'm not doing them right. Leg exercises are obviously very hard (especially last few reps of floor jumps and creeps) but doable.

And that's about it. Nutrition plan is going 95% fine. I have the odd lunch out at weekends to pretend I'm a normal person - compliant lunches are easier to attain than any other meal. I don't find myself being hungry very often so have found myself eating an afternoon snack late now and then after forgetting. But I'm trying assiduously to stick to the prescribed quantities of everything. Weight-loss seems to have settled at about 1kg per week, which is awesome. More about that later.

Fifteen Percent

I now have the same fat content as mince beef.

Legless Again

I find floor-jumps difficult at the best of times; putting 90 of them after 75 squats and 48 pistol squats just seems cruel. I didn't feel like crying at the end, but I did find the last few reps murderously hard in each set.

In better news, I finally got a clean set of V-sits in and even a pretty good second set. After that, I can get my shoulder blades off the floor, but it would be generous to call the resulting shape a V. Maybe a tipped-over sun-lounge would be a better description.

Over the past  few weeks, my bowel motility has reverted to pre-PCP conditions. I certainly drink less water now as I'm just not all that thirsty - except when exercising of course. The gallons of anally-trapped air that resulted in scarcely forewarned eruptions (all sound and fury, signifying nothing) that were a problem a few weeks ago seem, thankfully, to have dissipated.

I still get the periodic Bristol "Type 1" turd (see chart below) but am mostly back to Type 2 and 3 - where I like to keep things. The rapidity of my evacuations has declined somewhat (relative to pre-PCP) but I can still usually drop trou, and get the kids into the pool in just a few seconds.

The noisy, heaving and clenching offensive I had to engage in while adjusting to all these vegetables is a thing of the past and I'm back to feeling safe I can attend a 2-hour meeting without worrying that I will have to take an emergency break at some point (unless of course I'm about to miss my protein window and need to eat an egg-white).

And so the obsession with everything that goes in one end of the alimentary canal and sweeps out the other continues. I think I might be becoming a little German. Time to install a European style trophy-toilet?

Back on the Booze Bus

It was my friend, Murf's birthday yesterday and he's been badgering me for weeks about whether I would come out and, more importantly, drink. Well, I decided a few weeks back to do both - you know, just to see what it would be like - and sort of a pat on the back for passing the half-way mark.

After a rushed post-workout snack (I ran out of hard-boiled eggs, so had to down my first ever raw undiluted egg-white - a much less bad experience than anticipated) a few of us went to the very cool Shady Pines. They make a pretty mean old-fashioned there, so I got into those. Instead of the free monkey-nuts on the tables, I ate my afternoon snack - a kiwifruit and a mandarin (highly complementary to the old-fashioned which comes with an orange-peel garnish anyway).

I was very conscious of not wanting to get utterly smashed, so I sipped slowly and also had water between rounds. I ended up drinking 4 of these bad-boys plus two Moo-brew Pale Ales (possibly Australia's finest beer and certainly all-natural) but over a period of almost 5 hours. I didn't get smashed but only because I was concentrating on not getting smashed, and that sort of defeats the fun aspect of drinking. I had lots of good banter with folk and got a few remarks that I was looking trimmer; and I was able to bore people with PCP related guff - it's their own fault for pretending to take an interest. Ultimately though, I just wanted to get home and get some kip; so at 10pm (I know - WILD) I made my excuses and walked back.

Still no boiled eggs, so I cooked up a couple of fresh ones and feasted on the whites. Decided with my extra alcohollow calories (I'm estimating now somewhere between 900-1,100) I would forego the rest of the food and went for a big snooze. Woke up at 5:30 slightly more dehydrated than usual, but fine. I feel a little tired, but not the "crap" reported by other folk. My general feeling is that it was a fun evening but the booze didn't add that much and I'm not in any hurry to repeat the experience.

Instead I'm off to Thomas Dux to stock up on food for the next week. Three-dozen eggs, you have been warned!

Brand New Graph

Week 6 is over so it's time for a new graph. Thanks to some rather non-constructive feedback from the more ... special-needs folk in our team, I have replaced my usual comprehensive and informative analysis with some more intellectually digestible annotations. I'm sure the rest of you can interpret the data yourselves.

Still, though - 16 fucking percent! Nice!

Sorely Kneaded

I have had a rotator-cuff problem for a long time on my right shoulder. I was kind of hoping that as the training for PCP went on, I would recruit it as normal and it would improve with everything else. It's been going reasonably well, though it has hurt on the chest and tricep dips. Today it finally decided to give me a serious telling-off at the end of set 1 of the triceps where I think my shoulder muscles were compensating. I'm glad I don't have to hit it up again for a couple of days.

I decided as we're approaching the half-way point and with this little pain nagging me, I deserved a massage. So off I trotted to the local Thai place (the nice one - not the one where the girl once whipped away my towel for some leg-work and then came uncomfortably close to touching my gland). I didn't realise how knotted up most of me has become through the programme. As the intensity increases, it might be worth doing this every week or two. In any case, I feel smashing after it - recommended to all of you as a PCP-compliant treat (I hope).

Dressing up Dinner

Oh - Patrick also mentioned:

If you search the web for "egg white recipes" you'll find people doing all kinds of cool stuff with egg whites.

Well, I finally did it just now. You've got to be having a laugh, Reynolds. 90% of the recipes are for meringues and pavlova (I'm no nutritionist, but I'm guessing these aren't on the program) and the rest are such inspirational gems as "egg white omelette" (though none specifically with apple), "egg white in flavoured milk", "egg whites with instant noodles" and my piquant little favourite:

Large fried egg - crack 6 egg whites + 1 yolk into a pan - I then fry it as I would a normal egg - over easy, leaving the yolk runny. Then I break the yolk and spread it out over the egg white so that it gains some flavour. Maybe add tomatoe (sic) sauce.

I can see them serving that up on the closing night at El Bulli.

Just let me eat the stupid hard-boiled eggs with a little bit of seasoning in peace like the reclusive obsessive monster I'm becoming.

Day 40 - Why Does That Ring a Bell?

Maybe it was because Patrick mentioned this on Day 0:

And trust me, around Day 40 you will have a very loud voice in your head telling you to quit!

So, do I have that voice? Not quite, but the last week has been hard motivation-wise. A lot of other people have alluded to the first-month milestone they were working towards and of course, the realisation that having attained it, there's no respite, no rest, no reward, just more (a fucking huge amount more) of the same to go, and worse.

At this motivational trough, when I realised I needed to lift my game to keep pushing myself for another 2 months, that nasty cold smacked me upside the head on Monday morning. So that day and Tuesday were pretty shit, but by Wednesday I was back pushing myself (particularly in light of Patrick's reminder and admonishment that when sick we absolutely should not drop skipping - which is exactly what I dropped Monday and half-assed Tuesday).

Interesting observation about the cold - normally when I wake up with a cold and blow my nose, there's a varying amount of green congealed snot - no surprises there - but in the past, whenever the snot has been fresh and liquid, it has also been crystal clear. I believe this was the first time in my life that I saw my body produce molten green-yellow booger. I would have been less surprised and alarmed had it been red with blood. Maybe it's because of all the vegetables I've been eating.

Diet wise things have been pretty alright. I've forgotten an egg white or a piece of fruit here or there, hopefully not to the detriment of the overall effort; it's so much easier on work days when you have a schedule, mind. I was actually getting quite into doing creative dishes when our meals resembled meals and had a little repertoire of compliant dinners I was working on. But now that lunch looks like dinner and dinner looks like - well let's not dress it up - a fucking apple - there seems to be less opportunity for trying anything interesting. This is not such a bad thing, but also makes grocery shopping a bit duller too.

So, poor time-management and the residual cold-related wheeziness have made all training more annoying than usual this week. In detail:

• I might sort of be beginning to get the hang of Pistol Squats. The first day there was about a millimetre between too low to push back up versus being too easy. I think they're starting to look more like they're supposed to and the follow-up leg work kills me, so I guess I'm doing something right.
• I have still not done a full Pull-up (I await Pete's discouraging words) though the are inching (millimetring) closer to a reality. Getting more clean reps on inclines each time.
• Bicycles are weird. Not sure I've done those well today seeing as I just noticed the Pro Tip not to touch your back to the chair.
• V-Sits - getting less awful - though still predominantly awful.
• Ditto, Planks.
• Side Crunches aren't that hard which makes me think I'm doing them wrong.

I was reminded of another prescient quote from the first day by Patrick:

In a few weeks it'll be plenty hard.  You will cry a few times.

After one of the Creeps sessions, I sort of fell over sideways, spent utterly, and was catching my breath when I noticed my chin was wobbling uncontrollably, like that of a toddler who's about to completely lose his shit after he's realised that the big lick they took from his ice-cream popped the nice part off and onto the ground leaving him with an empty conical wafer that looks like someone jizzed on the rim just to add insult to injury.

But I ... DIDN'T ... cry! HARD CORE!!!

Potentially Lethal Manflu!!!

After my huge night out on Saturday (downed 4 mineral waters in 2 hours and didn't come home till midnight - GO ON), I woke up on Sunday with a tickle in my throat. I felt increasingly lethargic as the day progressed but managed to do my training and produced a few days' worth of meals before retiring for the evening. By Monday, though, I felt like muck. I decided to leave the strength training till after work and abandoned skipping - taking the view that Tuesday would be all skipping anyway, so why risk a heart attack, embolism or worse.

Add to this the fact that my resting heart rate which had been wending its way down below 50 was suddenly up to 80bpm, I decided my body was definitely fighting something and to come up with a strategy. They say feed a cold, but that's verboten (unless I feed it tea and oranges that come all the way from China, and just when it means to tell me that it has no love to give me then I get it on my wavelength and I smash it in in its face (as L. Cohen would almost say)). So instead I decided to sleep the fucker away. I was in bed by 9, dropped a half sleeping tab to assure immediate off-noddage and was asleep by 9:30. Unfortunately I awoke at 11:20 and didn't get back to sleep until 3am. So instead of 9 hours sleep, I got about 6.

A crabby day ensues. I attempted skipping this evening, but felt immediately dizzy so went to the static bike in the building gym but was soon wheezing away with a skyrocketing pulse on a very low effort. Total workout time < 10 minutes.

Assuming I live through the night, I may try again in the morning.

And if not, it's been nice knowing you guys. Except Pete, obviously. And Patrick who suggested I deserved this dread-ailment.

One Month ...

...  and one third of the way. We're switching up again and it's only to get more challenging as time goes on. I know some will relish this challenge, but let me present an alternative.

Further Anal-ysis

Once again, my anally retentive nature has produced a wealth of useful progress-tracking data. That first week, is still a remarkable blip, but was a nice way to get started. As previously noted, that drop is somewhat unfair, as I was up more than a kilo from my typical morning weight on June 1st. Nevertheless that was the starting weight, so it counts (like taking a deliberately bad 'before photo' with shoddy lighting and a bad haircut and red eyes to make the 'after' look even better).

Now that we're all friends I can reveal that a significant portion of that initial loss (I would estimate 600g+) was accounted for through a swift but unusually prodigious dump that went crowned-to-drowned in under 3 seconds on the afternoon of June 2nd. It stays in my memory as the sensation was at once alarming and inspiring, terrifying but fundamentally satisfying (unlike so many of the more recent puny little bowel-movements).

In any case, the later weeks' progress has been much more measured but very much in the right direction. I seem to have dispensed with a further 2kg of pure fat and we're not even a third of the way through yet. After 10 days of grudging admission that I had, in fact, achieved a body fat percentage of 18%, Mr. Tanita finally had to concede that yet another percent was gone. So without further ado, je te présente le graphe:

Indulgence = Tastiness + Minor Nausea

To be honest, when I read that we were "allowed" an indulgence, I didn't feel inspired. I haven't been craving any particular food.

I am a booze-hound, but I'm really not feeling attracted to the idea of alcohol at the moment; I prefer drinking in company and recognise that when I stop at two glasses, my friends won't. Stopping drinking after two in company is harder than not drinking at all in my view.

So, maybe I'll save that for the next one. However, Patrick's mention of cheesecake put me in mind of Banoffe which I rarely get to eat and is not all that common in Australia. With a little research I found out the excellent Cafe Sopra makes one so decided that would be my mission for a Sunday mid-morning snack.

Behold Banoffe - in all her biscuity, banana-ey, caramelly, creamy, chocolate sprinkly awesomeness!

It was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed every bite over 15 minutes. My friend, Jo, ate about a quarter of it, but I relished the rest. I also had two coffees. Now, I haven't been drinking much coffee lately and found after an hour and a half that I felt a little nauseous. I'm not sure if it was the cake or the coffees but in any case, it wasn't horrible and I got through it.

I also picked up some excellent Italian pasta (no sodium, low GI) for later and half-a-dozen bottles of Santa Vittoria sparkling mineral water. PARTY!!!

New Exercises HURT

I genuinely think I did myself an injury on those V-sits; they seriously hurt my stomach and I think I ruptured something.

I was in quite a bit of pain, so I got my friend Larry to drive me to the medical centre. My other mate Quentin tagged along for the ride, and, got some embarrassing footage of me "belly-aching". Oh well, I suppose we're supposed to document the downs as well as the ups, so here it is:

http://youtu.be/IPThI4rrpLs

But Seriously ...

I notice I haven't posted anything about my actual progress in a little while. Generally, it's going well. I'm getting into the pattern of cooking and shopping on a regular basis and feel life has taken on a more cruisey pace. All expectations that I would have lots of free time have dissipated - it seemed like it on the first week but never since. Eating out and socialising have been passable (reduced but not eliminated). I just try to get fish or meat and a side of steamed veggies (though never quite trust that the only added ingredient is steam). When with drinking buddies I don't mind a soda-water if they can tolerate a dry-shite in their midst.

Getting started on the training each morning is hard but I always get through at least one of the strength or cardio exercises before work and get to the other after. Possibly not ideal but manageable.

• Skipping still requires short breaks for catching breath and tripping, but the runs are longer and the breaks are shorter.
• Push-ups still feel weak. On toes I'm not getting a real deep lowering and have to fail back to knees on the third and fourth sets. But I do flesh out the reps when this is necessary.
• Incline Pull-ups are still very tough and I'm only getting through two sets cleanly. Third set is half-motion and fourth is just a sort of vague strain that is wilfully upwards.
• Sit-ups are okay for the first set but become crunches in the second and later sets. I have a question for Patrick about this.
• Lunges are difficult and boring, but actually easier now that I'm returning to full standing position between each rep.
• Everything else is fine. Resistance bands make it easy to find a place which requires a lot of effort but is doable.

And that's it. No injuries, illnesses, excessive hunger or cravings to speak of. I'm a bit of a boring prick but I can live with that for a few months. I can always get back to being a grumpy, arrogant, dipsomaniac arsehole afterwards if I still feel like it.

Beware of Farmers

For those of you going to the farmers' markets for fresh produce this weekend, remember they're all scamming bastards after a quick buck.

Day # 21: I want to look like Gillian McKeith so ...

Breakfast:

Also, snacks, lunch and dinner!

OCD About NaCl

Patrick's been advising us to look for low-salt foods, but while I have an idea of normal/good amounts of protein, fat and carbs to eat daily, I realised I never really paid attention to salt. I don't seek out salt, don't add it to my food ever, but Patrick's convinced they're hiding it everywhere. Luckily he pointed me to this article as I had no idea what a large or small amount of sodium in food was. Turns out, 1,000mg a day is right (or 920 - 2,300mg according to the Australian government - I wonder why so wide a range and why so specific the lower number).

So having ignored that ingredient on most foods, I became a bit obsessed about it in the supermarket. Obviously, veggies have whatever salt they have (a carrot = 42mg, squash and zucchini/courgette cooked = 6mg).

However, in basic packaged and prepared (though unprocessed) food the amounts vary widely. Even in fancy swiss-bakery bread, there's a lot of salt - usually between 400-600mg per 100g. The lowest I could find was 195mg.

What about whole-grain pasta versus normal? Surprisingly, though wholegrain is better for you in terms of fibre content, it has more salt than the plain variety. By a factor of 4 (though still quite low compared to bread). Couscous is worse than both of these and brown rice has almost none.

Frozen green peas varies by a factor of 2 between brands with no other obvious difference.

And you think all tuna is equal? No? Well, how about all tinned tuna in spring-water - surely they must be about equal. John West sets the benchmark at 400mg per 100g but an obsessive monomanical search (call me Ahab) revealed a rare beast from beneath the seas, caught, trapped and tinned for Aldi and with only 114mg per 100g. Quite a catch, so I bought 10 to see me through the next few weeks.

Let the hunt continue!

Physiological Changes

Well, Patrick told us we would be noticing changes in our bodies at this point - hair in places there wasn't hair, strange bowel movements or, in this case, my balls appear finally to have dropped. Who knew this was the trigger they finally needed?

Seriously though, my digestive system seems to have mostly adjusted to the new menu. I'm feeling good most of the time; very rarely hungry unless I don't stick to the schedule. This makes weekends more difficult, but still manageable.

Mood is generally positive and not subject to the swings of drinking and hangovers. I haven't noticed any changes in my skin - but seeing as these sound like they're bad before they get better, maybe I should be grateful.

Most noticeably, and I guess because the food is blander than what I'm used to (still tasty) I think I'm getting more sensitive to subtle flavours. I had to eat an emergency lunch just now because I was at a film ("Senna", by the way; awesome documentary) and so just had a few slices of bread to make up the carbs. By Christ, I swear I could taste the salt in the bread. And last night I was having a soda water and was seriously questioning whether there wasn't something else in there (lemonade, salt or something).

Skipping is improving slowly. Maybe I would trip less if I stopped showboating:

Peak Practice reference

For those who care.

It really, really, really could happen ...

I got taken to Universal a rather nice restaurant today by a vendor. It was horrible. Fancy beers and decent wine and rich food all paid for someone else. And all fucking worthless to me.

Almost none of the food was suitable and they wouldn't even prepare me some steamed veggies. So I nibbled on some ridiculously expensive fish, ate a chunk of bread and waited to get back to the office to fill up on roast vegetables from my packed lunch.

And then I had to go out for a farewell drinks for a colleague. I don't mind soda-water but I'm beginning to see how ricockulous this whole thing looks from outside our cult. Oh, well; here's to another Friday at home watching Peak Practice with my life.