Day 90 completed!

Sorry I have been MIA in blogging!!  Since my last trip, things have been nonstop with the twins and daily maintenance, but I always tried to fit my exercises in and follow the diet as best as I can!

Looking back at the past 90 days, how time flies!!  When Patrick asked us to pick any workout from Week 1 or 2 for our Day 90 workout, I thought to myself: "That's it?  That's our Day 90 workout?"  I thought it was kind of a waste to finish off with an "easy" workout compared to what we have been given in the last few weeks.  But hey, after my 500 jumps, it was A PIECE OF CAKE!  I think the lesson learned is:  WE HAVE COME SO FAR IN THE PAST 90 DAYS!! I have learned some very valuable lessons and know more about my body than I otherwise would have known.  I now know a lot more about what different kinds of food do to our bodies, as well as how our bodies are tuned in to the kind of exercises that we do, and on a more personal level, what my body is actually capable of. We are definitely creatures of habit and each and every strain of muscle in our bodies succumb to the lifestyle that we choose for ourselves.

After these 90 days, I have a whole different perspective of skipping, pistol squats, push ups and planks to name a few!  2000+ jumps a day is just a "warm up", and I never would have thought I could do 2 minute planks (however torturing it may be!).  I even got compliments from personal trainers as I was doing my pistol squats at the back of the gym.  I think people were very curious to see what this short girl was doing at the back area all the time when everyone was acting very busy on the elliptical or treadmill, watching TV.

Well, I may not have achieved a six pack, nor lost tremendous weight like others in PCP had, but we all started at different places and were in different stages of life to begin with.  My body has definitely downsized from my post pregnancy state, when I used to feel constantly bloated and just plain unfit.  Yes I definitely had cheated a little bit here and a little bit there, especially when I was travelling, but I thoroughly enjoyed the PCP journey, and YES!  I have actually come to love the PAIN and the BURN!




A special thanks to Patrick and all my fellow PCPers this round.  I hope we will all continue to do what is best for our bodies and health going forward, and always be happy! :)

Looking forward to some vinos and beers on our Team get together on Thurs! 

Day 71 - hurt my knee cap

Last time I felt pain in my left knee cap after workouts, today it is the right side.
I felt a little funny in my right knee tendon or muscle before skipping but I skipped anyway and didn't feel pain after.  When I started the pistol squats, it was painful!  I stopped and did some squats instead.  The pain was still there but lesser in degree.  A few hours later, the pain got worse, I almost couldn't carry my son walking around.  So now I am limping around the house, and its super painful.  Better lie down and be still...

btw, I was thrilled to have non egg white protein in my dinner again!  Hurray!! The steamed chicken I had tonight was so much tastier than all the egg whites in this world! 

For those of you in HK, a friend just recommended Farm Milk who delivers fresh milk to your door 3 times a week.   They are fresh local cow's milk, which is hard to find in Hong Kong, and they taste good (tried it for the first time today).  They have full fat, low fat or skimmed.  Call 28329218 if you are interested.

Day 65 - Back from Paradise but my shape is Hell!

We got back from our 9 days on Paradise Sardinia, Corsica, and Italian Riviera this morning and felt totally jetlagged!  So were we able to sustain our PCP rituals during that time?  Well....

Exercise  - 85-90%, but lost momentum in 8MA..."hey gang, I missed the safe, effective, and fun exercises..."
Diet - I think about what I am supposed to be eating 70% of the time, but in reality, I dare not say it here for I will be ostracized!

It's funny when I indulged at home the last 2 times, the after effects were horrible! But when I indulged while on holiday, I felt great!  I wonder why that is the case?  perhaps my mind and soul were totally chillaxed?

Anyway, I was totally derailed yesterday as I had no time to do my exercise as we had an early flight to catch, coupled with gross plane food on the way.  When I got home this morning I was a walking zombie after 4 movies and no sleep on the plane.  I don't understand why Cathay Pacific's new economy seats are designed to slouch down instead of leaning backwards!  Horrible design I have to say.  Anyway, upon arriving home, I was too excited to see my babies and when I knelt down with one of them in my arms,  I pulled something on top of my left knee.  It hurts even when I bend it.  I decided not to skip today for fear of straining it even more and went straight to the sets.

When I was just finished with my standing ovation, I was preoccupied with my daughter, who has been crying nonstop as we try to sleep train her.  The moment I picked her up, she went silent, but then she suddenly gagged and vomited all over my back! Smells wonderful of soured squash with courgette and milk.  A quick shower and lots of cleaning up later, I lost any drive to finish my sets.

So here I am, writing my blog fervently for fear I will get kicked out of the program for my MIA in the past 9 days.  But in reality, I am beginning to feel that given my physical condition and mental stamina right now,  I feel that I do not belong with the rest of you high achievers with fantastic results so far!  I envy you!

OK, OK, will stop whining and call it a night and get back into the mode tomorrow!  At least I don't feel hungry as I have a super painful mouth sore in my inner lip that stings every time I move my mouth.  So that's a good start!

Keep up the good work guys.

Terri

Day 55 - Sore galore

I woke up this morning with a feeling that my body did not belong to me.  The workout session with Team Mighty Mouse the day before defeated me.  That feeling of soreness felt good!  I actually like the pain, it sounds a bit sick but it's true.  Thank you teammates! 

Had lunch with some girlfriends and I was so good that I stuck with the antipasti buffet.  I helped myself to a few extra oysters from the bar.  I figured it's natural, no extra added salt, and it's protein.  They tasted good!  SLURP! My friends had a burger, pizza, AND desserts, and I prevailed!  I am proud of myself!

It seems that the visceral fat around my belly is really adamant and resilient.  I have yet to find a way to conquer them and kick them out!

Day 53 - Indulgence #2 of this week

Patrick sent out the email about our 2nd indulgence, and I replied saying I will skip this time because the withheld truth is I just had my unofficial indulgence 2 days ago on my bday.  However Patrick insisted that we need to have our indulgence, it's an order!  So Fergie and I went for yummy Indian food that night.  It was yummy yum yum yumsters galore!  I missed my carbs for dinner.  The roti was singing in my mouth!!! 
The aftermath of it was a funny feeling in my stomach, bloatiness, and gasiness....Why did Patrick make me indulge.  Not only does he want to torture us with our diets and exercises, he also want to turn my desire for yummy normal food a nightmare in reality.   He has succeeded, yet again.

Day 51 - Happy Birthday to me!

I didn't feel the excitement of my birthday week this year as dinners are dictated by an apple, an egg white and a glass of milk EVERYDAY!  Well I am not complaining but how excited can you get when there are no more countdown dinner binges leading up to your birthday? 
My hubby took me to a nice lunch at Ritz Carlton's Tosca on the 102nd Floor, the view was spectacular and we didn't have any bubbly, just bubbly water, and pasta without salt.  It was good and tasty even without salt, or should I say, especially without salt.  This is something PCP have taught me, that food can taste really good without salt.  OK the pasta had sausage in it, which was salty, but what the heck it was my bday afterall! 

We had extra veg, no dessert, just coffee. 

Overall, a great time with my great partner overlooking a great view of HK.  What a picturesque city!


I indulged over dinner with my family at a newly opened French restaurant.  Had 2 glasses of wine from my birth year (how can you say NO to that!?) appetizers and mains.  I couldn't take the saltiness of some of the dishes, but overall it was good.  Made a wish and blew the candle on the dessert plate but didn't have any dessert!  I couldn't believe it, but the dinner itself already made me so full that I didn't want any sweets. 

My stomach has shrunk!  yeah! 

Day 47

Patrick was right...again! This is indeed a trying time in the program as I find myself losing the excitement about what I do or eat daily and slacking off!! I am finally fine with the apple, egg white, milk, veg dinner, it's funny I can't actually imagine myself eating anything else! It has become habitual and despite the lack of indulgence at dinner time, i am actually used to my monotonous dinners. However lunch is a different story. I eat out mostly during lunch and the temptations are great! On Sat I went berserk with the chirashi rice. I knew i overdid the carbo grams as i felt really full afterwards. Mentally I knew I will stick to the dinner allowance so I always let myself go a teeny bit, then a teeny bit more during lunch.
Today I had Char Siu for lunch!! Pork is supposed to be a no-no I know...I just couldn't help it. It started with thinking that a piece of it couldn't kill me....I am a bit ashamed to have weak fundamentals with shaky disciplines.
The Kung fu sit ups are a killer today! I was only able to lift my legs at most at 45 degrees. It's super hard when you are already dangling like a chimp and feel every strand of muscle fibre tearing in your arms, and still have to lift your legs using your abs! Planks seem so much easier in comparison.

Sent from my iPhone

Day 38

Though my results to date have not been as obvious as Fergie's, I have been sticking to my diet as best I can and doing the workouts.  The jumps are getting better, I can do them without much problem.  I usually skip at home out on the balcony around 5/6pm when it is less hot.  I am shortening my resistance bands as well to give myself more burn in some of the sets.  The only thing I am skimming on is the incline pull-ups/pull ups because I still cannot find a place nor a way to do them.  The 8MA is good, sometimes I do it twice in a day if I can.  The weakest part of my entire body is likely to be my abs, and since my skin around the abdomen had been stretched out to its MAX during my pregnancy, I have quite a bit of way to go...

I hope the next few weeks will be effective PCP weeks as we are off to Italy again end of the month.  This time we hope to stick to the diet as much as we can.  I wonder if PCP will grant an extra birthday indulgence day?  I need it!

Taking my "medicine" now, though I am dreaming of sushi or some carbs...I will persevere!! 
Yes we can!  :)

Day 34

I could not get myself to do the skipping today for reasons only women would know, but I manage to do the other stuff including the floor jumps.  I did them right for the first time, thanks to Marcus for pointing out that we are supposed to jump up high, instead of little skips down under like creep-jumping.  I felt the real BURN this time and thought to myself "no wonder everyone's been complaining about how tough they are!" 

The plunges have improved for me.  I didn't scream out at the last 10 seconds until the last set.  The idea is not to take count and just use a stop watch.  I found counting makes time seem slower when your entire body is on fire!

btw, I haven't been weighing myself much for the past month since I started PCP, and today I just found out I only lost 1kg since June 2nd!!!!  Is it normal?  Am I not pushing myself enough?  Maybe I have stored away too much fat during and post pregnancy and as I am changing those fat to muscle, my weight wasn't able to come down?  Help! :(

Day 31

Am I the only one who's not enjoying our dinner?  Let's put it this way...I don't mind eating the apple, the banana, and the egg white but there is just nothing to look forward to the whole day in terms of food.  I guess this is all a mental game.  Anyway, I have a few observations & reflections about myself:

1) I don't feel "hungry" much at all because the food that I am eating is not that exciting.  I guess this is a good thing. I am actually reminding myself to eat that fruit for my metabolism sake.

2)  I can sit in front of a whole table of yummy oily, salty, food and not feel a strand of hair on my body twitch.  I have developed immunity towards normal food temptations!  Yeah!  Today I sat through a whole dim sum lunch and only ate boiled veg, boiled cod, and boiled shrimps.

3) All of a sudden, my babies' food look tempting as a spread for my morning toast!  I decided to opt for noodles or rice over dry crunchy tasteless whole wheat toasts for breakfast carbs.

4) My abs are still flabby and my belly button is still talking to me when I take deep breaths.

5) I haven't tried the 8 minute abs workout yet but just looking at the video makes my abs tired!  Must give it a try tomorrow!

6) Doing floorjumps facing your hubby while holding each other's hands can be a great way to share the burn together!  :)

7) I am happy I forced myself to finish the 1300 jumps today, and added another 60 on top in preparation for tomorrow's 1350.  I am even happier I gave Fergie Nazi pep talk by making him finish his jumps when he wanted to give up after 300 today. 


8) We both realized afterwards all this is mental, and not physical.  We CAN do it.  It is just a matter of whether we WANT to do it.

9) But I am not sure if pull ups and 8 minute abs at this point apply to my point above.

10) I wonder if I can fit into my black leather dress many sizes too small, by this October....

Day 27-28 indulgence....my arse!

I have been so looking forward to my indulgence day but when it finally came without me having planned it you realized it was not that big of a deal....in fact, it was a tad bit disappointing because I felt sick afterwards with all that oil and salt in my system!

Fergie and I had dinner plans at this greasy spoon organized by some foodie friends to bid another foodie friend farewell. It's a Hokkien restaurant, a hole in the wall in the middle of a wet market in North Point.
The food was good but full of grease and more grease! We tried to have steam fish without oil and veg but it was the kind of place that doesn't serve anything without grease in it, and would be frowned upon (and likely asking for a friendly spit) if you actually had the guts to order a "no oil no salt" special.
So I decided upon getting there and seeing all that greasy delectables in front of me, that tonight is the night I will indulge, simply because there is no way I can sit through the entire dinner without tasting any of the dishes!
I didn't take pics of all the food because I don't want to shock my fellow PCPers who have been so disciplined in their diet regimen. I only took a pic of the infamous Hokkien noodles of which I have I inhaled 3 bowls of! Yumsters!
I regretted it the moment I put my chopsticks down at the end of the meal. I glanced across the table a few stools down where Fergie was sitting. We have sinned. BIG time!
The rest of the evening was feeling like shit and drinking water like a whale.

Sent from my iPhone

Day 26 Starvin' Marvin!

I don't know why but for the past 2 days I have been always thinking about food.  I feel hungry again, especially at dinner/after dinner time.  I'd like to think it's my metabolism speeding up instead of my piggy habit coming back.  so hungry...


Floorjumps was bearable (for now) but the Creeps gave me crazy jellified legs!!  I couldn't do the pullups so today Fergie actually supported my lower body so that I could attempt to use a tiny bit of back muscle to pull myself upwards.


I don't know anyone called Marvin but I am definitely Starvin' Marvin these 2 days!

Day 22-24 Status update

Body: evenly aching when I get up in the morning which actually feels quite good

Sleep: No trouble sleeping at night.  Average 8 hours a day and actually crave for a short afternoon snooze from time to time.  I think it's the exhaustion from being a mother of twins.

Exercises: completing the routine so far, but always sweating like a dog afterwards.  Continuous first 200 jumps today before I tripped, a first for me.  I am really struggling at the pull-ups/inclines.  Davincis really make my shoulder bones cackle on the way down (Is this normal?  I have always had this problem even when I rotate my entire arm in large circles) The standing ovations don't seem to give me too much burn.  Perhaps I am using the wrong muscle (arms instead of chest)? And yes! I do feel the BURN from the plank!

Physical changes: pants seem to be less tight.  less "muffin-top" effect.  Got a few compliments on skin condition. :)

Hunger: not really hungry during the day but can get hungry around 11pm due to 0 carbs for dinner.  Maybe I should go to bed earlier so I can sleep through the hunger phase...

Mental status: somedays I find myself dragging the thought of exercises but once I get myself to start skipping, all I aim for is to finish the set and take a nice shower.  The thought of all of us going through the same thing and the imagery of my inspired person do help tremendously to get me going!

Day 18-19 Awfully Chocolate...

I just typed out a long blog entry and lost it all!  Here's another try..

Fergie and I both appreciate the effects of this no salt & oil portion controlled diet on our body.  A friend of ours invited us to a BBQ this Sat and we requested unsalted meat beforehand.  It was good but I think we ate a little more than what we are allowed.  We turned down the Dom Perignon and opted for the Perrier instead.  Although we caught each other eyeing the bottle which was just arm's reach, that didn't constitute cheating right?

Then came my nemesis  - Chocolate Banana cake by Awfully Chocolate (a cake shop in HK, originally from Singapore).  My eyes lit up as I saw the cake!  I had ONE bite and underwent a gruelling 5 minutes of internal conflict.  Surprisingly, all of a sudden, the torturing sensation just melted away~~

On the other hand, Fergie stood up and ran away from the cake and didn't come back until 15 minutes later! :)

It is actually quite hard to follow the diet when we dine out, especially when it comes to Chinese food.  I consumed a few food items with salt and oil in it (miso soup and some chinese banquetting dishes on my grandma's 90th birthday celebration), and I felt the adverse effect the morning after - water retention, puffy eyes, etc.  I think my palate for salt/MSG has changed for the better. 

It's a beautiful sunny day in HK today.  Have a great week guys!

Day 17 - Sore and steady but can't stop wondering...

A small victory for me last night.  After my ramen obsession the other day, I was dying for some munchies at the movies last night when Fergie and I decided to catch "Super 8" (good movie btw...).  We made a mistake forgetting our night fruit snack at home for our 10pm show.  In the end, I just had a Oolong tea after much internal debate.  Both our stomachs were growling during the show.  It was embarrassing but luckily the loud sound effects blurred our rumblings out.  :)

Exercises are slightly better today as I finished skipping and all the sets this morning (rather than doing half skipping in the morning, then the other half plus the sets before dinner), but I am still not able to do any pull-ups at all.  Feeling at a lost here....any advice?  I can't help but to think I may be physically unable to do it.  Like a wrestler unable to point in ballet....hmmm....