In the Zone

A friend and I squeezed out for a late round of golf yesterday.  For those who know Japan, we played Glen Oaks Country Club which is about 15-minutes past Narita Airport.  Perhaps the first positive spill-over effects from PCP, but I was absolutely blasting my driver and long-irons yesterday for whatever reason.  Don't think it was added strength as much as it may have been from added flexibility and less body-mass around the mid-section allowing for better rotation.

Aside from one short I missed putt from 2.5 feet, it was the best half-round of golf I've ever had - shooting a score of 40 and hitting about 5-pars (which for self-professed "hacker" like me, is about as good as its going to get...-).  Our tee off time wasn't until 2:30pm so we played through...with only plums for lunch lost a bit of energy and concentration on the back-9, hitting one of my drives OB and notching a double-bogy on a par-3.  End result was a disappointing 46 on the back-9, so failing to break my personal best of 83 by 3 strokes.  Oh well, goals are supposed to be hard to accomplish so will need to work a bit harder to better the P/B in the coming weeks.  In any case, really felt in the "zone" yesterday and was a really awesome day which I'll chalk up to the PCP training to date.

More on personal goals:  I've seen some PCPers have put in goals of where they'd like to get their weight / body-fat percentage to by the end of the program.  As things in writing usually have more meaning, figured would post a few goals myself.  Weight wise - would think a 68kg from my 76kg starting point is a good weight to shoot for -the weight I had back in high-school senior year.  Agree with Patrick on the point that weight basically does not mean anything, should be more a function of how you look and feel.  So on this theme, would think a body-fat content of 15% is a challenging target to set by the end of three months versus my beginning percentage of 21%.  Let the games begin!

Pray for Peace

The senseless terrorist attacks that occurred over the weekend in Norway, with so many youngsters losing their lives, has made me so extremely sad and angry.  I offer my sincere condolences to all our Norwegian friends affected by these events and will pray for the people that so tragically lost their lives.

On the PCP front, the dieting is proceeding more smoothly now with the daily grams posted on the fridge for easy reference.  yesterday's spaghetti lunch (110g carb) with tomato sauce including large chunks of zuchhini and eggplant was tasty.  Realize that I'll probably need to swap out our normal pasta for something of a whole-grain variety that is less carb dense.  Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Work-outs feeling slowly stronger, albeit a bit "burnt out" the next morning.  Hopefully the feeling fades with more conditioning.  Was able to do a 7-6-5-4 pull-up set the other day, fast becoming my favorite exercise.  

Thanks, but no thanks Domino's

Armed with our new PCP diets this week, the big change was our carb content was dropped to "zero" for our evening meal.  Not sure about everyone else, but this was the first time I've legitimately felt hungry during the 3-week stint and actually went to sleep last night with hunger pangs.  Man, what a difference a 100-grams of carbs can make.  I actually like the slow iterative process of the diet...had I tried to go cold- turkey no-carbs from Day-1, I doubt I would have made it.

I've been weighing myself every morning.  Typically I'll "float" 200~300grams over night, last night without the carbs I actually fell by 500-grams to 72.3kg.  No pain, no gains sort of thing I guess.  Whereas it looks as though some of my stalwart Team Echo compatriots have already kicked their cravings (way to go!), I'd be lying if I said I was to that point yet.  I will say the physical addiction to have a beer or glass of wine at dinner when I come home has largely disipaited (ironically, thought that would be the toughest one to go).  Biggest cravings are still for something sweet and sugary in the afternoon hours, so this one is proving the toughest habit to shake.

Carbs I'd label as the second hardest to break, a'la the no-carb dinner intro last night.  With the wife away until later today, I'm at least proud to report that I resisted ordering my Spicy Deluxe Dominos large pie (sometime the Hawaiin Special) with thick crust and extra-sauce.  Had I not been on PCP now, I'm positive I would have ordered it and it's probably like 5-times over a nine-year period that I haven't ordered at least one pie in a month.  C'ya Dominos, throwing out your stupid coupon today, you don't deserve a place on the kitchen wall.  (Even though two days left to expiry, prob a safe precaution to throw it out before the wife gets home later...)

Yup, White Men Can't Jump

After yesterday's gym session, today's jump-roping day / rest-day was very welcome.  My entire body was sore and achy when I awoke this morning, a good sign I guess.  After ribbing Brent on his blog yesterday (just kiddin' man) for his lack of agility with the jump-rope, I must admit I was't much better at all today..basically sukked again. I guess the rhythm was just off and after about my 15th miss, ended up throwing down the jump rope on my balcony in disgust.  Felt guilty about two minutes later, put on my jogging shoes and went out for a light 4km jog.   As the typhoon has swept by in tokyo, it's nice and relatively cool now - actually perfect jogging weather.  On a very tangential note (but what links in to the title today), ended up renting a video last night with Ethan Hawke and Wesley Snipes called "Brooklyn's Finest" (about dirty cops chasing drug-pushers, really not that original); realized poking around on internet afterwards that our man Wesley is actually serving 3 years in the slammer for tax-evasion - ouch.

Wife and kids away so truly tried my "own hand" in the kitchen today.  Breakfast: one English muffin conveniently weighs exactly 70g; the carrots, burdock root and onions actually work out as a decent topping.  Lunch:  fried to fry up some daikon, carrots, onions and peppers for my rice allotment at lunch but they came out soggy (probably because I added a bit of water to the frying pan) and didn't taste too tasty on top my genmai even with pepper and a bit of dressing.  Carbs fly out the window from our dinner menus from here....we'll see how this experiment turns out.  anyone hungry yet?

Day 20 - Pull-ups, ouch...

Kids and wife left this afternoon for a long onsen weekend with the in-laws.  Sad to see them go but happy won't be tempted by the non-stop dinner courses and my father in-law's sake.

Weight seems to have stabilized around the 73-kg mark.  Diet at least this morning and lunch went well with broccoli, peppers and onions becoming my staple vegetables and plums, cherries, bannanas and kiwi the "go to" fruits.  Thought of buying some blueberries today in the supermarket but when I saw they wanted like 600-yen (~$8) for a small pack, gave it a pass.  Have been also getting into the mango recently - mixing either that or kiwi in with my diet yogurt.  I used to eat at least a bowel of cereal every day...cutting out that sugar now feels good.

I had a nice stretch at lunch for my yoga class.  Made it to the gym by 4:00 but was really hungry and forget to bring my fruit from home.  Weak moment - bought some chocolate covered biscuits from the Lawson convenience store and had about four from the pack before hitting thegym.  Not a great display of will-power but felt very drained and knew i wouldn't make it through the workout without a little sugar pick-up.  I'll need to plan the afternoon fruit sessions better from here.

Highlight of the gym was the pull-up session.  I remember doing loads of these when I was a kid but struggled today to complete my 3x5 pull-up sets.  I finished off with two sets of 8 of the inlined pulls which amounted to a nice stretch in the end.  Must have burned off some calories because still quite peckish after my PCP dinner and feel like scrounging around for more to munch on...heading to the watermelon now.  Look forward to a long jump rope session tomorrow.  -rp

Day 19 - Interval training better

As Patrick suggested in his e-mail that others may start to see changes as we approach 3-weeks, got my first "compliment" today.  Not exactly what I had in mind though, the compliment was from my 80-year grandpa / neighbor who commented "nawatobi ga jouzu desu ne" as I was jumping-rope inside the small parking lot by my apartment building.  Nevertheless a heart-felt gesture I'm sure, gladly accepted.

After the sub-standard workouts last weekend, I had a better day yesterday - doing my 75-minute hot yoga class at lunch and then heading over to my gym at 7:30pm where I completed the daily PCP circuit.  This time, I concentrated on keeping the time between sets to the minimum time and pushing the muscles to exhaustion.  Perhaps because we have a typhoon coming through in Tokyo, it was like 200% humidity which led to a good sweat and a bit of an aerobic work-out going too.  The nice thing about banging out sets in quick succession is that...surprise, surprise, you actually finish much faster and have time at the end for that last quirky exercise that one typically blows-off when on a tight schedule.

In terms of time managment, closing in on three weeks on PCP, I'm getting a bit closer to where I need to be.  I printed out and brought two of those menu sheets to the shop on Saturday to get laminated but have not picked them up yet.  Something for tomorrow's list.  It would be much better to plan out a few meals in advance instead of always living on the fly.  I did manage to get to the store today and bought an extra set of push-up bars and resistance band to keep at home.

The question thread thing is getting interesting as different group members weigh in with questions - this is really a big benefit about doing this sort of program in a group...Group Think? -)  Really though, eating tons of vegetables and fruits at least fills me up and stops and keeps me away from the fattening stuff.  Certainly cleans you out as well.  A picture of my half-eaten morning breakfast...fried peppers and onions on a piece of raisin bread;  kiwi and cherries on side...apologies if mish-mash sounds a bit gross.

PCP Rock Star - Brian Glazer

Uploading my Week-2 pics today for Patrick and the team to review.  Limited discernable physical difference at this point although the weight has declined from 76kg to 73kg this morning.  As I understand it, the first two weeks are mainly a loss of water and muscle weight so hopefully the fat loss begins to kick in as the evening carbs invariably come down over the coming weeks. 

That said, feeling stronger overall in terms of exercises, specifically on tri-related stuff like push-ups and dips.  Today being a national holiday in Japan (Sea Day), gym was closed and tried to get most of my exercises done in the home circuit.  For those with kids will understand, easier said than done with the 2 1/2 year old jumping playfully on my back after the third push-up and my one-year old sitting on my face (usually with a poopy diaper...) during the sit-up routine.  Enough excuses, gym opens for biz again tomorrow and will need to re-double my efforts with more attention planned on doing the exercises in tight routine with just prescribed amt of rest in between them.  I too am guilty of sending out e-mails / checking the Web in-between sets in the living room.  

As the diet routine has gotten tougher, have found myself searching for motivation vis-a-vis reading random blogs of a number of the earlier PCPers.  Yup, it's definitely inspiring to witness the proverbial before / after transformation of so many of the guys and to understand that they've lived through the same exact challenges we're experiencing today.  Also by chance ran into a friend and former colleague, Brian Glazer the other night who has made one of the most terrific transformations I've seen of anyone on the program ("The Foundation", check out his blog on the site).  Down over 20kgs from the time he started the program, has given up the Whopper Deluxes (I remember the lunch-time raids to Kanda BK with Eddie) and basically continuing the "healthy living" theme in an everyday, realistic context.  The biggest thing I noticed was aside from a normal waste-size, that Brian literally looked about 10-years younger from the time I knew him working on the desk.  An inspiration to me and will make me think twice before complaining about the hassle of banging out a few sets or crying about the lack of beer in the summer, because here's living proof that bigger feats can be accomplished through will-power. -rp

Ulysses and the Sirens

Last night my first "night out with the boys" since PCP training began two weeks ago.   Previously, good work-out with the exercises and tension bands at the gym.  Next - a short train ride to a yaki-niku restaraunt where I met my friends.  En-route, passed my favorite "M&M stand" in the subway followed by...what have my eyes seen...?   a new Krispy Kreme here in Tokyo (only knew of the one out in Shinjuku, this one in Akasaka).  Normal times, would have popped in for a glazed donut, or even better, one of the Boston Creams.  This time, was able to tune it out - and kept on my merry way. (peer pressure guys because I know you're watching - thanks!)

Two of the four guys at  dinner ordered draft beers - two of us ordered uron-tea.  Ended up having three teas over the course of dinner which suited me fine, and did not feel tempted.  The meat, not to mention the kimchee, was quite salty and I'm sure was over our official threshold.  That said, stayed away from rice and has a nice helping of salad and cooked mushrooms to balance things out.  All in all, not a bad experiment for my first social night out in a while.  Still doesn't' beat what I've been eating most nights at home...a big salad with broccoli and some fish (salmon) on top.

Thursday - just went for a light 5k jog today and did some stretches, push-ups and dips.  My calf has been twitching for a while, finally felt better.  PCP schedule gets tougher tomorrow - time to watch some British Open golf then go for the kip.  -rp

Cherry Bomb

Two excellent days in the gym here on Monday and Tuesday.  Feels like I'm starting to gain a bit of "core" strength on account of the cable work.  for kicks, tried a few straight-up pull-ups at the end of my workout (it's been years, and was tougher than I expected), but felt better today for the second time.  Weather has been steaming here in Tokyo (33 - 36 degrees C during day), and the added bit of sweat I suspect fools me into thinking I'm actually working harder  than I am -)

Slow progress on the weight-loss front --- trajectory seems less dramatic than that of other PCP team-members from what I can see in their Blogs.  From 76kg at the start of the program, I've come in to 73.8kg today but still really feel the extra fat around the middle.  Most evident when I do the jump-roping...big, heavy and not agile as I should be.

Temptations - the bright side is I've managed to circumvent the sugar-cravings over the past week which typically would hit me square in the stomach at 4:30pm, daily.  Snacking has been a major pit-fall of my dieting for a long time.  Managed to swap-out what was typically a bag of M&Ms or chocolate bar with some fresh cherries which worked like a dream (another Claudia idea).  That and a glass of skim-milk, makes the day more manageable.  Off now to cut up some vegetables in different shapes...have on my to do list to buy a pressure steamer tomorrow.  -RP

Day 10 - Dips, Soy Cafe, Fresh Tuna

First time "eating out" today - went with the family to the Soy Cafe around the corner for lunch.  Had the "tofu hamburger" set which was quite tasty.  Came with a "daikon" (Jpnse radish) salad, miso-soup, brown rice, okara (another soy extract) and small piece of carrot cake.  Felt quite surfeited afterwards -ended up giving the cake (which was the size of my thumbnail anyway) - to my 2 1/2 year old who loved it.  A bit embarrassing, but all this vegetable eating with beans etc. left me feeling like a methane tank all afternoon ("natural gas" as I tell my wife).  Hopefully just a transitory condition...will need to ask Patrick "off-line."

Solution for dips - discovered the wrought-iron chairs on my balcony work quite well.  Got in three sets while I was washing the deck with the kids in the pool.  Made it to my hot yoga class for 75-mins this afternoon - a nice stretch to finish the weekend.  felt good that the sweat was all natural, i.e. not the beer from the night before.

Dinner - more tofu, one-third -bowel of brown rice and Claudia's tuna, avocado and tomato salad - thanks for the recipe!   Also learnt out to use the body-fat counter on our bathroom scale -a whopping 21.5% - oh well, only one way to go from here.  -RP

Day 9 - Hey Captain America, that's my corn!

Just over a week into PCP and my best day yet on both the diet and the workout front.  My breakfast below consisting of a bagel (first time ever sans cream-cheese!), broccoli and tomato.  I add a few swirls of half-calorie lemon dressing to the broccoli to "enhance the edibility" of the veggies.  Realize that bagel calories high...just a matter of time before need to swap out for some whole-wheat toast etc...  Not pictured on my plate was a third of boiled corn on the cob piece...which mysteriously disappeared...?

Stolen in fact, I soon discovered, by "Captain America", my second little guy Takuya who recently turned one year old (and has recently himself discovered the joys of eating fresh corn within reach.)

After yesterday's lackluster performance in the gym, felt like I did a pretty good job of "making up" for it today -hitting ~90% of my exercises.  (The 10% missing was my inclined pull-up set...both Smith machines unfortunately occupied for the extent that I was out the gym, will need to find a natural work-around the house like some of my fellow PCPers have done).

Jump-roping - knocked out 500 skips in the yoga room in the gym.  Discovered that jumping while watching yourself in a big mirror is WAY easier than without, probably reduces your misses by like 30~40%. The result of a more efficient jump session is that you also finish your set also about 30% faster.  No doubt,  more pleasant experience / less painful but wonder if stable heart-rate is the aim, if measuring by time/ # of minutes perhaps the more "honest" way to go?

Tried the cable / rubber-band arm lifts today for first time.  Felt quite strained after only my first set of 12-reps...realized that my gym had three different "tensions" and this was the tightest one.  Eased on down a notch to the easier one...we're still "ramping up", right Patrick?

Tomorrow PCP work will contain some vegetable shopping and more importantly, some recipe look-ups on the Internet.  Nine days now without a drop of beer or wine, feel a smidge healthier.  -RP

Day 8 - Morning on the links

Woke up at 5am to pick up mate, James, for a round of golf.  Banged out push-ups and sit-ups, but unable to complete the rest of my sets...

Quickly scoffed down a bagel and 4 slices of tomato, which along with a cup of OJ, served as my morning breakfast.   Golf match started at 7:20am.  Because of long-drive, no warm-up time on the range and promptly sliced my first drive into the trees....ahhh.  The swing action fortunately improved from there, 47-front nine, 43-back nine.  Very cool island green as well - one-on, three-putt...ahhh again...

Lunch at the Clubhouse - stuck with a Ceasare Salad, small-bowel of clam chowder and one small piece of bread.  Resisted the temptation to order one of the "monster burgers" a heaping tray of chop-meat, bacon and toppings with fries.  Near-miss on a 1,500-calorie pitfall -)

Got home, took care of the squats.  Then was off to a farewell BBQ party for a teacher at my kid's school.  Tomorrow got to get my Week-1 picture updated...motivation for a better day in the gym and jump-rope.  meanwhile, Tokyo summer, steamy, humid and hot.  fortunately stunting the appetite.  -rp

Day 6 - Life in Veggie-Color

Desperately need to spruce up the vibrancy of the meals if this dieting is going to hold my attention going forward.   One day left to go before stricter weighing of all our meals kicks in, I'm sure this is still too much portion size.  Lovingly prepared by my wife Yumi, the small white dish in the blue bowel is of a Japanese mountain potato with some fish flakes on tip.

Also discovered that we've been using vegetable oil to cook, so will need to get the conversion going to "olive oil" today.  Still eating a bit of rice at dinner (suspect that's over my carb limit...) topped with vegetables and supplemented by miso-soup.   All in all feels healthy, but unsure as to whether this exceeds the weight limit.

Day 5: Ready to Rumble...

Took my 2 1/2 year son on a drive with me to Jinbocho where there are a bunch of sports outlets.  Went searching for a better jump-rope and ended up getting this Asics plastic type.  Also found this really cool Gel Kayano - this color a "reverse import" from the US back to Japan so you can't find them at the normal Asics shops.  Really nice dude at the store, he also sold me these support socks.  Looking fwd to trying the jumping now with a lighter rope!

Day 4 - The more you "sweat" in training

Slightly better day on both the training and diet front...met a buddy for breakfast at the American Club where I ordered the Eggs Benedict.  Ate only 1.5 of the two eggs, ordered a grape-fruit juice and threw out the fried potatoes that came with the dish.  Two cups of coffee, light milk.

Headed up to the gym by about 11:30 where worked on my exercises.  Got a good stretch going during the leg-lunges....realized it's quite good for ones balance as well.  Push-ups felt good, easier than the other days  as well as the sit-ups.

Thinking the light-breeze outside would help, decided to go for a jog around the palace from the gym in Akasaka.  Despite the breeze, turned out to be still a warm day and quite humid (tail end of rainy season here in Japan).  Total jog about 8k, but really started feeling it - esp. in my right calf...possibly b/c of the leg lunges, around halfway through.  Sweat pouring down my face, nearly laughed when then the guy on my I-phone audiobook about the Navy Seals started saying, "The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle."  Right....

Lunch - one plain yogurt and one plum.

Dinner- mish-mash of steamed broccoli, 2/3 a bowel of genmai rice, miso-soup, fried zucchini, chicken, small piece of salamon.  Desert - two biscuits.

Day 3 - Vegetable shopping

Loaded up on as much green vegetable stuff as I could fit in my green plastic basket in the little shop around the corner.   I made the mistake of not checking where all the stuff was grown first however.  My wife, understandably so, worried about Cesium and other radio-active particles in the broccoli and spinach was not happy.  Pledged to be more diligent next time - won't give any to the kids, just my PCP supply.

Breakfast:  1/2 kiwi cut up, one-cup of plain yogurt, one English muffin, lightly buttered, half-portion of sausage franks, two-cups of coffee with small skim-milk, fried onions, leeks and chives (too much salt though - need to cut down), one apple pastry -  freshly baked.

Lunch:  Half-sandwich (ham and cheese and tomato), half a basket of steamed broccoli with 1/2 calorie lemon sauce, water, two small biscuits

Dinner:  Chinese food - half portion of broiled gyoza, mabo-dofu, fried leeks,  half portion (half bowel) of vegetable ramen, one cup plain yogurt, two plain biscuits

Workout - felt sore in the chest from the handle-bar push-ups yesterday.  Sunday generally our day with the kids and honestly not my best work-out day.  Plan to hit the gym hard and early tomorrow.  -RP

Body Pic - PCD Day 2

Weight:  76kg....ughhuuugly

Greetings Team Echo

Hi guys - look forward to blogging and completing this three month journey with you guys!  Best, robby p