All Over Rover

What a buzz reading Patrick's final email. In fact all the daily emails have been immense and motivational.
Friday nights were always the hardest for me personally, but I got to accept no boozing much quicker than I thought. At the start it was the lack of food that troubled me, but at the end that switched to the fear of planks and v-sit ups. I really got comfortable with the diet after day 70-ish, in fact zero-fat natural yogurt with fruit and/or main meal is a serious pleasure.
I've learnt an awful lot on this project, I've always worked out 4-5 times a week but only ever maintained a weight and slowly but surely increased way into my 30's. PCP can help you actually work out less but achieve more. I will definitely be using most of the platform for maintenance and next steps, so many simple fixes that I never understood.
Dropped 12 kilos and knocking about 10% body fat. Really can't complain.
All your blogs have been great, congrats to all, and huge thanks to Roland for listening to my daily moaning and quoting me Winston Churchill at my lowest ebbs.

Patrick = legend, nuff said.

Superset hell

Even though we have only 3 days left, there were moments on tonight's exercises where I still doubted I would reach the end. Serious burn. But as Jackie Chan say: "Pain is just weakness leaving the body".

Final indulgence

No sooner had Patrick hit send for the big last calorific indulgence then I was off.
Picked a kids one year old birthday party for the venue, where I power-ate cupackes and icing laden biscuits.
Come back home smashed a bottle of rose then a large pizza then 2 biscuit boosts.
It was not pretty, neither was my stomach-ache when I woke up on the sofa at 2am. I went massively over what was allowed and felt bad, but then figured this was pretty much standard MO for me pre-pcp so the fact I moved on quickly today on normal healthy course, and punished myself with alot more skips and lunges made me realise I am making good mental progress.
Down 10-11kg and body fat down 8% too, so in a good position and will be 110% game-on for the final 12 days of pain that lies ahead. Good luck chaps - final few hurdles ahead.

Ella and Gingerbread

We just had a new baby girl Ella on Thursday, all lovely 4.5kilos of her. Carrying her around lets me shave off a rep or 2 from the bicep curls. Mummy and daughter are going great and enjoying the treats of Matilda hospital. Everytime I visit, I have a slight slippage of PCP allowance. Maybe a Champagne toast with friends, or a gingerbread biscuit (homemade too....gingerbread is becoming a real problem area for me, last month I buckled on my sons gingerbread men ate 4 on the bounce and had to throw the rest down the rubbish chute before I completely derailed the project), or stuffing my noggin with grapes.  But if you can't slip a bit on your daughters birth, when can you....right? RIGHT ?
Kept up tight on the exercises though, and notice significant step up this week already. Not sure how the doorframe will hold up to 48 pull-ups tomorrow, but I got the toolbox out the cupboard just in case.
Big congrats to the Davisons and Collett for finishing last week, very impressive stuff.

Indulgence week

So I'm reading all these posts about how well people are sleeping and wondering why I am so knackered today, my sleep patterns are really fitful and sporadic. As I sat there drinking my 87th coffee of the day (to stave off hunger pains) wondering why this was the case, it dawned on me to ask for advice. So will buy anyone a quadruple espresso if they can help me solve this problem.

Indulgence week this week.. and I intend on using every single one of those 700 extra calories at Rubochon on friday to celebrate our 5th wedding aniversary. Don't tell the wife though, its a surprise. I've told her we're staying in as I need to weigh some eggs and aubergines.

Skipping is going beautifully, except for last night which was the first time I skipped to music. Stuck the ipod on shuffle and got going, unfortunately first song was a classic house anthem from the 90's, I got a bit carried away and did 800 revolutions in 12 seconds, and had to spend the next 2hours in a dark room with a cold flannel on my head waiting for my heart rate to come down from 900bpm.

Welcome to the new PCP'ers and congratulations to all those lucky ba$tards into their last week.

New Talents

New skills I have after 40 days of PCP
I can chop a carrot in under 4 minutes.
I can separate an egg white from the yolk in less than 7 attempts
I can do 5 floor jumps without getting shin splints
I can get through my morning skipping and only wake up half of the building at 5.30am

Pretty chuffed with all that.

Also I have kind of persuaded 4 people to sign up for the Sep 15th PCP sessions, so I really can't fail now.

One month down

Good feeling to have broken 1 month of this project today.
I'm finding friday nights the toughest to negotiate. I think I have been hardwired since a very early age that fridays are a day to let it all go. Its difficult coming back home in the evening for a piece of steamed fish, when everyone else I know in the world is smashing at least 6 pints of strong continental lager and moving on from there.
Went for a run with Roland and a few pals yesterday morning and that made me insatiably hungry all day, but have been good and yet to succumb to the temptations, it really does get easier mentally.
Its great never to be plastic Dad too at the weekends, I am all there, no hangovers or energy slumps.
Could make a habit of this.