Day 56: mood shift/pic/assessment

OK… getting back to my semi-abandoned blog…

Have manage to hush up the little voices these days that had been predominating me especially week 5-6 ie/  'how can something so painful possibly be good for me??' 'I'm supposed to be listening to my body.......but what if its crying and telling me its need rest for 3 consecutive days??'

Took a mental shift to.... 'Beauty is pain'   (....im sure partick mentioned something about health benefits as well..... what were those agian? ) 'No pain no gain' 'Keep going if body is just crying.  If it dies on me and wont/cant move, then stop.' 'JFD'

Still reluctant to do bikini shots (maybe for the finale pic..) but currently looking something like this.

-Shrinkage in breast area appears to have plateaued.  ....underwear shopping?

-Some work left to do in inner thigh area.

-Got over 'chicken legs paranoia'

-Improvement in ab area…. More definition would be good.

Scales appear to have frozen over........but let’s not freak out. @ -4.9KG, -3.something % body fat.

Day 46 : The week's summary

This week's downs:

-Had a super intense week at work.....….. Wednesday was a particularly bad day and I went on a bit of a fruit binge.  On hindsight & thinking about the bigger picture I actually think it’s sort of cute, considering the nasty food groups I would’ve turned to pre-PCP life..... but at the time I felt SO guilty…. Never again!  (Contrary to expectations though, for some unkown reason the scales showed quite a drop the following day.. which I took was a sign from god that he’s giving me another chance.......)

-Amidst work chaos missed one too many egg whites in the morning.

-I think I’ve been fiddling around too much with the diets without confirming the validity of my choices, out of reluctance to add further complications to life.  Eg/ having ‘0 fat yogurt’ and ‘regular milk’, if that’s all that’s available during the day.

…..maybe I should check.

-Discovered the technicality issue that I will never be able to post comments on other peoples blogs via my own/office pc, ever.   ………sigh.         

This week's ups:

-Successfully worked my way around a social event!   I made modifications to the other meals prior to the event by cutting down portions, but had told people in advance about my initiative and they were all very supportive, making sure I got fed salad with the least amount of dressing on, and got the privilege of picking off all the veggie toppings on the pasta etc.  –I’m sure no one had any issues about eating my portion of pizza/ dessert…..

In terms of cost in VS food out,  it makes no sense whatsoever especially with the all-you-can-drink arrangement, but nevertheless it was nice to be partaking in regular social human activity for a change! 

-Statistics:   In order to set realistic expectations, before I enrolled in PCP I told Patrick my stats and asked how much weight I can expect to shift in 3 months if I bust my ass off..  He said 5-7Kgs.  So I decided to aim for –8Kgs, just to out do his predictions. But to ensure that actually happened I set my personal goals to -10Kgs. (I’m an ‘aim for the moon and land in the stars’ kinda gal)  

Day 46, I am -4.7Kgs :-D  I’m on track! (well… technically depends on where I perceive the actual goal to be I guess… but anyway). 

I know that numbers are not the universe…. But what the hell.    For now, yey, Go quantifiability!

Pics will follow soon.

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Re:comments

Tracey:  no doubt I would have troughed it down and out a long time ago if it weren’t for everyone else doing this..!  horaay for team spirit & SNS!

Helen:  Arigato!   Thinking white sand…blue sea…. pinacoladas….

Brent:  Thank you!:-D  I think I’m becoming a bit of a coffee addict as well…  I would ask Patrick how much coffee is too much… but why complicate life further?

Mini:  chicken legs on the beach, that’s’ the plan…!;-)  

Kos:   passing the half way mark really feels like an achievement doesn’t it?  Counting the days til freedom!!  (….and a life long obsession worrying about the calorie content of any food after all this educational brain washing, with the continual & ever lasting rigorous work outs to ensure the 3months of effort are not reversed..? oh well we shall see…)

Day 39: Emotional crash & recovery.

Mental state Monday-Friday 6pm:

Exhausted, in pain, over worked, over worked out, depressed, teary, philosophical. Ie/’what is the meaning of happiness?’ ’isn’t peak condition a relative term?’

Mental state Friday 7pm~now :

Marcus tells me we are going on a beach holiday once PCP is over,,,

Okey, motivation and energy levels back on track!!  

Meg… Just f-ing do it.

Post-depressive/philosophical & re-energized me on day 39.5>

Day 31 to 37: The Ups & The Downs

The Ups:

-Visited Hong Kong to see Marcus on the weekend!  :-D
Met up with some of the team mighty mouse crew (so........is this our official team name then?)          
From the right: Me, justin, terri, fergie, marcus.

Was great meeting you all.........  hope to see the rest of you guys in the near future too!

-Figured out what some of the workouts are actually supposed to look like. 
※Memo to self....: if everyone is complaining that something is excruciatingly painful but I'm not feeling it.... its most defiantly because I am doing it wrong.
Floor jumps are not cute, little & piddly-  they're long and high and make you want to kill your self.

-Didn't have one big indulgence, but had several moderate indulgences through out the 3 days I was in HK which was lovely,  eg/ more salad,  an odd dim sung here and there, a glass of wine etc.  (Well... the wine was lovely when I had it.  defiantly not so the next morning.  I don't know whether this counts as an 'up' or a 'down')


The Downs:

-Crazy work week...... complete lack of sleep. missed one work out and felt like such a loser afterwards.  Still trying to get over the self loathing

-I'm turning in to a PCP-centric bitch. 
When I first started out, I somehow thought I would be hating PCP by now, but what I am really hating is not the program itself but the circumstances/people that try to impede it.  I'm thinking things like........
'Welcoming party??..... why the hell did you have to join the organization now of all times??'
or
'Seriously,,,dont you f*->%+ dare talk to me when im jumping around between conference calls and I only have 4mins to consume my 150grams of fruit......cant you see the criticality of this apple?!'

-Forget the man arms I've been openly expressing my concerns for on the question thread..... what's the deal with my calves??  I am seriously starting to freak out.
I did not sign up to get chicken legs!!

-Weight went down on the weekend to -3.8kgs, but then came back up to -3.3kgs.
Weird.  Either gravity being different in HK, Marcus's scale being nice to me, me building more muscle or alternatively maybe I'm just somehow genuinely getting fatter on less food and more exercise..  I wonder which?  
Decided not to add more stress to life by thinking too much about it.

Shall flickr later.
Another week is upon us.... with one more egg white and one less banana for me!


Re: Comments
Justin:  Will probably post some paranoid chronicle w/pic about my enhanced calves soon....watch this space!
Kos:  Yeah... one of my challenges right now is not to get too caught & tied up with the micro-prespectives.  I MUST NOT TURN IN TO A BEAN COUNTER....,
Tracey: Thank you for the support!
Terri:  Voila-  enjoy the pic!  great meeting you guys, hope to see you again soon& thanks for the yoghurt info!
Patrick: There is 'toned' and then there is just plain 'butch'.  I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes....
Helen:  thank you!  aah so they do come back? thats nice.  But do I dare ask...does anything else come back??            My curiosity keeps growing for life post day 90.....

Day 29- Picture.....avec critical self assessment.

DAY 29.5

A: More definition needed,,,,  Kill off the little hump in the middle

B: Hmm. interesting, my rib cage is smaller than I thought it was

C: Lose this softy area inside

D: I hope I dont build more muscle here!

E: Definitely smaller...but never mind. At the end of the day its only body fat (....you don’t mind do you marcus?)

F: yeey progress area:-)

G: Was wearing these shorts for my banner pic -they actually feel a bit loose.  That’s rather nice:-)

A month in, and I'm on track in terms of milestones....(as in post below) however the concern is that I don’t feel like I'm owning the situation at all yet. (I feel like the workouts are owning me, not the other way round),

& also the paranoia that the slow progress I have made will be instantly reserved if I have that single bite of indulgence....

Am hoping to have a positive shift in mental state over the next 4 weeks...!

Next month, I am fully assigned at work (I am an interpreter) and it looks like its going to be back- to-back meetings right the way through July.  I'm anticipating more stress to come along... but I can because I think I can (....right?):-D

By the way.... If I'm meticulously & desperately checking my schedule to see when I can possibly sneak in my fruit snack, before wanting to make sure I have enough time allocated to nail down briefing time with the presenter before we're on.....

This must mean I'm evolving in to a true PCPer...........!

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Re: Comments

Partick- That’s reassuring to know....thanks! 

Kos- I hope I stay on track…! There’s always a weight loss curve that I struggle with when things come to a stand

still… praying on my egg whites!

Marcus- minus 3.1Kgs now, so even better;-)

Day 24: The cloud & it's silver lining

Firstly, Re: Comments (...I think I’ve almost given up on fixing my crippled blog)

Bruce> Support much appreciated! Hmmmm…better than my motivation picture?  aim for the moon & land in the stars! :-D

Jason> I’m still managing to stay focused on the program, but these days I am actually developing concerns regarding something else…. I worry that I’m turning in to a nasty person who you wouldn’t want to be friends with!  
I mean… who would want to get buddy with snow white’s step mother??

Justin> Wow…. Really, that’s so cool!  Speaking of late night posts… I can’t seem to get decent sleep at all these days!  I thought it was just work, but I’m increasingly convinced it’s more to do with PCP-related stress.

Tracey> I actually tried to leave a comment on your blog just then but failed L  
You are so creative with your food, its amazing! I almost feel embarrassed reading about everyone’s culinary wonders,  the reason my kitchen is cleaner is because I’m not doing a hell of a lot of work in it these days!  Eating things raw, or just throwing everything in a pan and squeezing lemon over it later. (….80% of my meals end up tasting.. zesty)


Ok, so....about the cloud and the lining:


I'm feeling pretty miserable these days as I feel like I have no life...!  (Probably because I don't as such)  All work, no play!!!! (Job, side job, schooling, exercising, nutritionalizing....no socializing, no shopping, no comfort-dessert, no down time to chill out in general and unfortunately not enough sleep either)

But the one (......& perhaps only) consolation is that PCP-ing is on track (is it ironic that this is the cause of my pain and also the alleviator of it) and I am down 3KGs.

.....its not an overwhelming number compared with other peoples progress I've been seeing on their blogs...(how the hell do you guys do it??)   but it's still quite a big deal for me on a personal level, as I realize I have actually not been this mass since I was....15? 
(I am 26 now.  Over the past 10 years my height has changed by maybe 2CMs, weight has been pretty stable with some occasional fluctuations...but always one of an upward nature.)
-However back then I didn't have much going on in the bosom & booty area, so I think over all I'm evolving in to a better form.  Horaaaay :-D


Annual health check at work today:  & the nurse called me in to her office........ to ask me why I've suddenly lost weight (she's seen me around the office) and she asked me what my secret was...!  She did also tell me that it is not advisable to lose more than 1KG a month... but decided not to listen to her and did some PCP PR-ing while I was there.  She was intrigued. (Patrick....... I may have found you a new candidate for the next round!)

Also according to this health check...... I seem to have grown 3MMs since last year - which I assume is (an ever so slight) good news for the BMI too :-D  Joys!

Day20 -Observations

Firstly....
Re: Blog comments (sorry some of them are so late! was waiting for my blog to fix itself... which it never did)

Tracey: Hey I'm back to feeling hungry too after Partick cut my carbs! :-(  Good for you for staying off the chocolate!            I'm bracing my self for the next set of dietary requirements....

Terri:  Hope you had fun in italy!! (...the food temptation almost sounds torturesome) by the way it occured to me the other day that my shoe/hand size is not going to change becasue of PCP...
maybe it would be motivational to set monthly milestones to reward my self with shoe/bag shopping to push the process along..?

Marcus:  Ditto! ;-)

Karim:  I find window shopping is definaly a motivation booster for me!  I think I may want to start setting up a post-pcp splurge fund now.... weight goes down, fund goes up!

Patrick: Damn right...I used to feel bad about sending guilt waves around the office by passing on snacks as they came around, but now I actually believe I'm doing people a favour now.  Surely it couldn't hurt them to be more health conscious either!     Photos, will be on to it



Ok, so moving on to Day 20 Observations.

Assessed my current status after patricks email yesterday.... and it goes something like this:

Stress levels:  difficult to tell, becasue for the past 1.5 weeks I've been stressed with other non-PCP related stuff.... but I think this is exactly the kind of time I would be justifying a cookie stuffin'.... so I suppose not having to deal with added self loathing is a plus.

Yearning for dessert:  fluctuates. -Had to make an international call to marcus the other day so he'd talk me out of it.  It worked!

Hunger: its suprising how a 20-30gram reduction of daily carb intake can make a difference........ I'm back to being hungry again :-(

Strength:  I feel that my work outs are going better (no collapsing on the floor once I'm done, consistant control over bands as opposed to letting my arms drop on the way down with the davinchis etc), however in all hoestly, In my every day life  I feel totally drained from energy all the time!  this is worrying me.  a flight of stairs I used to be able to happily run up is now feeling like a great chore as my legs are still hurting from jump roping in the morning,,,, I hope this is just a passing transition phase.

Skin: Constant

Bowel movements:  Positive.

Libido:  increased

Body: I see.... hip bones?  coolio.

Sleep:  sub optimal... (but this is not becasue of PCP) I still dream about dessert.

Other things I noticed during the week:
External: -Women apparently dont really care about weight loss on other women....men are definalty more vigilant!  & more supportive.
-My kitchen is cleaner these days.
-Not many people in the world are actually that physically/health conscious!  A lot of people want to know about what I'm up to, but I have yet to come across anyone who wants to get on board with PCP them selves to eat better and exercise more.(no doubt I will out live them by 30years in a waay hotter body.)

Internal: 
-This whole project is really more a mental challenge than it is anything else.  the physical challenge of forcing out that last situp when I feel like my muscles are being ripped apart from within is one thing.....   but telling my self 10 times a day 'I am a goal orientated individual that likes to get shit done-  and the shit WILL get done! -i can becasue i think i can i can because i think i can......'  and actually focring my self in to believing & executing it is another thing.    So... inner strength. up!

-Intra-personal Communication.......I talk to my self more!  (I talk to my self a lot anyway... but they used to be more like mumblings.  Now they have turned in to articulated, enunciated full blown dialogues.   eg/   'Meg, I am going to tell you why you should not reach for that cookie.  First and foremost, ask your self whether you want it more than wanting to look like hot celebrity X,Y, or Z?  ...I thought not.  Now, let's cast our minds back to when you were 16 and used to work part time at millie's cookies at the arcade....   ')  
Yeah I know - verging on psychotic perhaps.  but it works!


Ok now...for some flickr-ing around....!