Back from holiday

Back to HK and feeling the benefit of 2 weeks off work

So this was my big PCP obstacle.. 10 days in the land of pizza, pasta and gelato not to mention the wine! Glad to say although I will admit it wasnt the perfect PCP week it was as close as I was gonna get in the circumstances and was happy  I didnt abandon the diet, exercises or ethos. So I have come back motivated to see this through to find that what I thought was tough yesterday is the same but with one more set today!

Patrick made mention of a happy meal in his email about the endulgance.. Im sure his point was that on eating something fried or salty that we had craved and on tasting it we discovered that our "endulgance" wasn't really an endulgance at all and the healthy real foods were in fact far tastier and left us feeling better?!?!?.. Maybe not and he is just a nice guy giving us a day off? (doubt that.. The exercise plans show no other signs of this!!)To be honest he had this argument won with me a long while back and there was no way I was wasting an endulgance on bloody McDonalds! I therefore counted my endulgance as to these few meals where I went a little beyond the usual PCP diet whilst in Italy.. probably not the way its supposed to be done...

Italy is pretty PCP friendly I discovered.. They eat either incredibly healthy food with an emphasis on grilled vegetables and fish mostly all local and bought from a market rather than a supermarket and there seems to be a noticeable absence of processed foods from theyre diet as a result.. Fine they put too much olive oil on it all and eat too much pasta and bread but they certainly seem to go for "real food"... They then however go and totally ruin this by eating cream cakes and ice cream almost religiously or simply coating everything in molten cheese.. whilst in the arrivals hall of Catania airport awaiting Sachiko's flight.. I was the only person not eating Gelato at 10am.. They didn't show Don Corleone sucking away on a strawberry cornetto for his breakfast but honestly that's the reality people!! Stand outside either of the 2 Sicilian airports.. There will be a line of men in dark suits, shades on, next to a black merc getting stuck into 2 scoops of chocalate chip! Anyway found that fairly easy to skip and with the variety and freshness of the meat, fish and vegetables available it made the PCP diet "fantastico" which Italian Radio seems to use every other word.. Even when describing Bon Jovi!


Couple of friends in HK asking me about the plan and signing up for the start of August.. which is great news.. as part of the conversation I realised that 40 odd people started at the same time as myself and as far as I can tell they are all still here 50 odd days in.. have to say Im impressed with my fellow participants and it says a lot for the program.. anyway anyone thinking of signing up.. nothing to lose give it a crack!

2 weeks off

Currently on my 2 week holiday, which is being spent back home in England and a little trip to Italy...

This has been looked forward to for around 6 months although is very different a prospect to what it was going to be when I first booked it!

from a PCP standpoint it nicely breaks the 90 days up, gives me more time in the day to sleep workout and prepare the meals as well as benefit from relaxing and enjoying other things. The downside is that I had a great routine in Hong Kong and it was working and PCP is all about discipline and sticking to the plan every day and routine is the best friend of that. I have also entered a world of temptation.. try telling your mum you don't want her lasagna and you will have an egg white instead!

Anyway going well so far, managed to deal with the flight although did end up eating the airline meal and haven't missed a workout yet and have managed to stick to the diet as best as possible.. Although I would really appreciate a "indulgence" before the 22nd Patrick! See what you can do mate!

Good luck to those on week 1!!

Good luck to all the new joiners on the PCP.. Great to see a few familiar faces joining up!! Good for you..  Can honestly say for 1 months experience, the hardest thing is without doubt signing up, taking those photos and committing to this project....So you're done! I genuinely felt a lot better in less than 10 days and that for me was better than anything.. Ive been impressed at how this program gets you results fairly quickly both in the way I feel and improvement in the workouts which is vital as it provides the confidence and encouragement to press on. At the start of each week I have been daunted by the week aheads plan.. But by the end of the week been pleasantly surprised by thinking "well that wasn't so bad!"

So yet again I look down the list of next weeks workouts.. diet... And  think Oh Shit this is not gonnna be fun! In the good ol' days.. my pre-PCP workout regime involved running on a treadmill and when I was in relatively good nick (relative for me) then I could do around an hours run.. with the assistance of a few towells, decent aircon, one of those poor guys at the  gym whose job it is to mop up the gallons of sweat being produced by whale-like-wannabe-Paula Radcliffes such as myself, a bit of Jay-z "I got 99 problems" blaring away in my ears - yeah we all got fukkin problems Jay.. And a bottle of water from whichever mountain spring is currently in vogue..

So as I smuggly marched past the treadmills armed with my jump rope, pressup bars and a look of "yeah.. That's right.. I know what Im doing.. Despite the fact theres ALL this equipment I bring my own gear to the gym!!" it came back to me just how hard that used to be... for the guilt of my infrequent visits.. I would work really hard and got myself to the point of exhaustion seemingly for no real long term benefit.. Probably coz I was killing myself to the point of hating it and not being able to move for the next 3 days. But however unfit and infrequently you train it still hurts when you do it and you need to mentally deal with it.. So for one hour runs the lowest point would be that 20-30 mins.. Your knackered and not even half way! So you tell yourself just get to half way.. Then its downhill.. or get to 40 mins.. And then youre on the home straight and that'll feel good... And in terms of my PCP.. I feel Im at 23 mins... Its seems a long way to go despite feeling as though Ive been running for ages!!  So Im trying to tell myself... Just get to half way then you can hang on and let the competitive stubborn Al do the rest..  The other thing Ive noticed that's different is that despite being shattered after the workouts Im not getting the same muscle aches and stiffness the following days as I would have after a game of football or a run.. Im giving Patrick credit for this (begrudgingly) as it seems as though he steps the workouts up at enough of pace to test your limits without breaking you (although jury out for 2 months on that) but Im also hoping its something to do with getting fitter as well!!


Anyway speaking of targets.. got one out the way... promise not to think about it anymore.. just need to make sure that I dont let myself slip above that again!