Day 90 (b): COMPLETE

Very sorry for the delay in posting my FINAL blog post, but needed some time to reflect, and also have been taking Patricks' advice to heart, to take a break and rest (read: been out on the piss almost every night).

So, without further ado:

Before/After:

Here again are the final stats:

-Final Weight 67.6kg, -7.1kg (15.6lbs), -9.5%

-Final Body Fat 16.5%, -9.0%

-Final Visceral Fat (gut) 5.5%, -3.0%

-Final Muscle Mass 35.1%, +3.6%
-Final Subcutaneous Fat 10.0%, -5.6%

Assorted pumped-up shots from Day 90:

Obligatory old pants shot:

Obi-wan and the Jedi Knight:

And...The Situation:

First and most importantly I would like to thank your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave me the strength and courage to see this through to the end. Next I'd like to thank the Academy, Team Running Rats, Patrick, my wife Reiko and baby girl Jessie, my family and friends, and all of you out there in PCP land. You love me, you really love me!

***

"You love yourself, go ahead, say it!" As many PCPers have blogged before me, at one point during the Project I found myself starting to wear very little clothing around the house. The wife, who on many occasions I have blogged about her extreme, undying support over these 90 days, started teasing me, trying to get me to say, out loud, that I love myself. It was all very good natured and we both laughed about it, and out of principle I would not say it, but it got me thinking, that yes, I DO love my new PCP body, both the way it looks and the way it feels. But it goes beyond looking lean, fit and trim, or feeling lighter and stronger. As Patrick has prophesized, I now understand my body better than ever before: how it responds to exercise and diet, and the signals it sends to adapt and adjust to changes, stresses and breakdowns.

Being in such a great state of body and mind, it is only natural to want to spread the gospel and get others to climb aboard the PCP Express. But it is a tricky proposition. As Patrick blogged about The Deflators, peoples' natural reaction to others' success or progress is to feel threatened, so they would likely be negative about the idea. I counterblogged about The Inflators, people who are very supportive and truly happy about others' happiness. But being an Inflator (or just NOT being a Deflator) does not make people automatically open to constructive criticism (you can call it what you want, but telling people how to get into better shape implies that they are NOT in good shape, or at least that is the way they might take it). No matter how good the benefits/results may be, being too pushy/preachy will only turn people off, to both the program and to the new you. It is a very fine line that we all need to discover how best to tow.

The question that I keep coming back to is who WOULDN'T want to look and feel as good as we do? Surprisingly, not everyone. Similar to my homework blog post about people in the gym, I think people can be put into 3 different categories. Category 1 is people who, like us, are not happy with their bodies and are motivated to do something about it. These people can start out in a very wide range of in/out of shape, but share in common the drive to do something about it. Actual results would vary based on the program they choose and how closely they stick to it (and some people invariably will NOT and slip into Category 3), but for starters they are the best candidates for PCP and would be the most receptive to our guidance/preaching. Category 2 is people who are content the way they are. These people also come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, although some would appear to need to get into shape more than others. Even though they are happy with themselves the way they are, as PCP alumni I feel it is our duty to share what we have learned, and hopefully some aspects of the PCP diet and/or exercise may make their way into their daily lives (if not the full PCP), for which they will be better off. A subset of Category 2 is the people that are so out of shape that their long-term health and lives are in danger, in which case it is everyone's duty to try to get these people to change their ways, but these people are probably the toughest nuts to crack. Category 3 is people who are not happy with their bodies but are not willing to make any kind of commitment to change. These people would not be open to any sort of advice, are probably Deflators, and are generally just grumpy and annoying. Not really sure what to do about them but leave them be...

The moral to the story is, you can teach or preach all you want, but even if people understand, it is impossible to impose these changes on them, especially when it requires such a high level of commitment in order to achieve the desired results. But if we believe in the system, and believe in ourselves, we set an example that hopefully will inspire others to come along for the ride.

The Peak is not a destination, it is a journey, and despite the stamp we receive after Day 90, it is never "COMPLETE". It is a commitment to a lifetime of eating and living and being well.

And with that, I will leave you with some inspirational words from our fearless leader, Obi-wan:

Don't suffer in silence, blog it out!
The road to Peak Condition has many paths!
So embrace the burn. It's your friend.
Hear the doubt, acknowledge its presence, and do the right thing anyway.
There is no merit in numbers, the only thing we value is pain.

Illuminate your own path, you already have all of the answers.

See you on the other side!

Day 90 (a)

First and foremost, a disclaimer: I am DRUNK! After the Day 90 workout, went out for a celebratory beer with Patrick, TWO BEERS later I'm 3 sheets to the wind! But we earned it! Congrats to Team Running Rats!

Day 90 workout: without giving too much away to the newbies, let me just say that it was very enlightening, to see how far we have come...

Final stats: the last "weekly" stats were actually for a period of 11 days.
-weight: lost 0.6kg, 7.1kg total, final weight 67.6kg. Good.

-body fat: unch, down 9.0% total, final 16.5%. Very good.
-visceral fat: down 0.5%, 3.0% total, final 5.5%. BAM!
-muscle mass: down 0.2% (no worries considering the super sets), up 3.6% total, final 35.1%. BOO YA!
-subcutaneous fat: down, 0.1%, 5.6% total, final 10.0%. Sweet.
-body age: down 1yr, total 11yr, final 33. WOW!. I turn 40 next month...

Final post: I am splitting the Day 90 post into 2 parts, (a) today for knee jerk reactions and (b) to follow a day or 2 later with the Deep Thoughts.

Day 90 knee jerk reactions: a few different feelings swirling around in my drunken head. It will be very odd waking up tomorrow without a daily email waiting in my inbox, and not jumping rope, and not counting grams, and not going to the gym at lunchtime...it feels like the last day of school, obviously ecstatic that it is over but at the same time a bit of anxiety about how to best spend my time without the usual structured daily schedule. It feels like I just bought a brand new car, excited to get it out on the road, but at the same time terrified of getting into an accident.

I asked Patrick what we are supposed to do tomorrow morning without him telling us, and he said "illuminate your own path, you already have all of the answers"...whoa, dude...I leave you with that for now...

Day 89: Homework

Supersets: these past couple of workouts I can really feel and see the difference, my muscles seem to be kicking into overdrive.

Homework: OK, peer pressure, I will submit my gym report. I didn't have to go for a free trial since I have been going to the gym to do my daily workouts 3-4 times per week during lunchtime, not because I'm using the machines (I book one of the aerobic studios, have bands/push-up bars will travel, but because I prefer to workout during the day (not after work) and there is no shower at my office. Here are my observations:

-I think there are 3 kinds of people that go to the gym: 1) people that know what they are doing, 2) people that think they know what they are doing and 3) people that are posing/socializing. The first 2 groups' intentions are good, Group 2 just needs some guidance. Groups 2 and 3 intentions are different, but unfortunately for Group 2 the results are the same. I honestly have no beef with Group 3, as long as they are happy paying the fee, happy with their "results", and not inhibiting other peoples' workouts, either by hogging machines or causing a distraction (which many times they are).

-It would be very difficult to get a proper read on peoples' workouts from just a 1 day fly-by. As often as I go, I see a lot of the same people there every day, and in general they fall into 2 groups: cardio and weights. Although running on a treadmill might not be as efficient for fat burning as jumping rope, if it is regular then I can't see the downside (except on the knees), especially if people actually enjoy running (or the running motion, on a treadmill). If watching TV or listening to an ipod while running does not reduce the level of exertion, I see no harm in that either. The weights people I see 2 different styles: heavy lifting and circuit training. Circuit training is not unlike PCP, mixing in different muscle groups on different days. Heavy lifters are the pump-you-up guys that are focusing on 1 muscle at a time. Very difficult to guage to what extent either type is lifting/exercising to burn, so tough to judge how efficient of a workout they are getting. But from the looks and sounds of it, I'd say many are doing OK.

In general the people at my gym seem to be in pretty good shape and many of their workouts vaguely resemble something that might get the PCP stamp of approval. But I think a more important quesiton is how do they feel? If they feel like their workouts are producing results (and I'm sure most are producing results, just to varrying degrees), and they are feeling good about themselves, then isn't that what counts? In a perfect world, everyone would be doing PCP, and everyone would have ripped bodies and squeeky clean pipes. But not everyone has the means/motivation to reach the Peak. The ones that do and seek it out are better for it, but those that don't but are happy with their results/lives anyway are no worse off....(the exception of course is Group 2 above, or the grossly misinformed like me and my fat back from enema island).

We are only talking about the gym for this assignment. A natural extention of this topic leads me to my PCP Deep Thoughts that I am saving for my Day 90 post...stay tuned...

Day 89: WHOA WHOA WHOA slow dooooown!!!

As I sit here typing at my desk in Tokyo, it is 15:34 JST on Mon 12-Jul-10, DAY 89 of Team Running Rats' PCP. Someone got a little ahead of themselves and moved us from Active PCPers to Recently Complete on the PCP home page status bar. I'M NOT READY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 88: Mixing and Matching

Super duper sets take longer, Fri was OK but Day 89 looks like it would take too long to squeeze in the full workout during lunch time, and although Patrick said it would be OK to break off the abs and do them later (I already jump separately, in the morning), would like to stick to full workouts in 1 session, sooooo swapped in Day 89's bicep/tricep/shoulder 4 exercise Stoopid Set for Day 88's bicep/tricep Super Set, and today's workout took almost 1 hour, serious stuff, especially doing the back-to-back Davincis and Shoulder Raises 2 days in a row. Oh Momma...

(was that the longest run-on sentence in PCP history?)

V-sit/Plank Super Sets, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways....did not come close to Brett's 4:03 Plank. The first set was about 3;30, the other 4 were between 2:00-3:00. V-sits were all between 20-30 reps...

T-minus 2 days and counting...wow. Returning to the Mother Ship on Tue for Day 90 workout with Patrick. I'm expecting candles and hooded robes and some sort of either animal or virgin sacrifice....

Day 87: Hot in, hot in herre...

Yup, the same heat that has been sweeping the globe has hit Tokyo, giving our last few days of super sets that extra umph!

Super duper sets:

-Legs: technically not a super set, but I think this was the first time we've ever done Creeps and Froggyjumps in the same workout. Yikes, burn to the point of nausea....hurts so good.

-Shoulders: a super set of Davincis and Forward Shoulder Raises, followed by individual sets of Chicken Wings and Shoulder Flys, I would call that a Shoulder Super Duper Set...

-V-Sits: 3rd day in a row, to failure, 1st set of 35, then 30, then 20, 20, 20. The burn got to a point that it almost felt like my abs were going to pop.

-Side Crunch: to failure kind of tough to make sure they are done right, so did sets of 20, at the end of each held arms and feet up in the full crunch and did between 10-20 quick crunches from there (not sure what that's called, pretty sure it has a name).

In other news, played golf and did a lot of hanging out with

Jessie the Baby, who turns 6 months this week....good times.

Day 86: Accentuate the positive...

Struck down by the PCP gods for lambasting my doorman (for simply doing his job), I understand that with only 4 days left there is no room for negativity. I did my jumprope penance (see pics). Onwards and upwards!!!!

Supersets: love them, but really the only thing to talk about is the V-Sit/Plank sets. V-Sits did 35 the first set then between 20-25 the rest, and tried to keep my legs as staight as possible, especially on the way down, simulating the leg-ups to get more lower ab action. After the 1st set they got much harder much faster w/ the Planks in between. Same for the Planks, harder with the V-Sits in between. I did 1:45 timed sets and made it thru all 5, so technically was not to failure, but w/ the V-Sits in between I was happy that I was able to do 5 full sets of 1:45. And boy was I sweating/shaking by the end the last 3 sets. (NOTE: after seeing Jennifer's post about her KICK ASS 3 minute Plank, I am ashamed and motivated to FAIL OUT THE PLANK next time...maybe I need to do a little more jumprope penance for my Plank sins first...).

Only 4 more days to go. I'm expecting some sort of an epiphany....I'm also expecting the last remnants of my belly to disappear, maybe I should start jumping 3x a day?