Day 43 – When does that fat drop off?

I am amazed that the little bit of fat covering my abs is so persistent and sticky. I can feel my abs larger and stronger than I ever remember them but they are covered by a relatively thin layer of fat obscuring them from all the world to see. I guess I’m finding it rather frustrating since my weight is down to 209 lbs. – thats 16 pounds down from where I was 43 days ago and I would have bet anyone that at 10-15 lbs off I would have been cut. At 6’3”, 16 pounds is harder to see coming off then if I was smaller but still I have lost 7% of my mass.

I know now why so many fail, it's because they don’t see much results from quite a bit of work. It's been over a month and I’ve worked extremely hard if I do say so myself but perhaps my expectations were a little tall.

So today I am realigning my goals and taking a longer range view. I commented to Tanya that I’m going to stop looking at my waistline and focus solely on the food and workouts for the next week. Hopefully that tiny bicycle tire will be gone soon enough. Maybe I should drop it as one of my goals since it will come if I complete my other goals.

Here I am at week 6:



Here are my critical stats

BMI: 26.1
Fat Percentage: 16.6%
Height: 160cm
Weight: 94.8kgs
Arm: 37cm
Chest: 112cm
Waist: 94cm
Hips: 95cm
Thigh: 61cm
Resting Heart Rate: 57 bpm

See you tomorrow.

Day 42 – Kids

My kids make me laugh. My eldest constantly reminds me of what I can and cannot eat, sounding a lot like my wife and I’ve come to really appreciate his sensibilities. Because I am constantly talking about the PCP, diet and exercise it’s rubbing off on him in a very positive way. So I find myself not wanting to let him down because he’s asking how the workout is going, do I like the food, show me your muscles etc. and looking up to me.

I’m also thinking about how I used to do things – I’d tell my kids to finish up their food even if they were full, essentially telling them to gorge themselves. Not very wise and to top it off I would eat their leftovers. Now we portion out the foods since little bodies adjust food intake sporadically and they may need more food one day and much less the next. I now don’t have to finish what they’ve left, there rarely is any except what wasn’t portioned out and that’s good old leftovers.

I blogged a while ago about obesity in children and it must be a priority for adults to show children what to eat and how to eat plus give them a very good impression of their bodies. My eldest asked why I was doing the Peak Condition Project and I told him to get into the best shape and top condition of my life. He asked me if he could start getting into his best shape right away too – pretty cool.

See you tomorrow.

Day 41 – Good Friday

My Parents are staunch Catholics and brought me up to be one too, but something happened on the way to growing up and I’m a little more liberal and eclectic in my views than I think they wanted. Nevertheless I value all viewpoints on any subject and believe someone’s viewpoint is as valid as any other, within reason and as long as it helps and doesn’t hurt.

So today being Good Friday I decided to partake in the Catholic tradition of eating no meat, only fish and went to the store to pick up some salmon for dinner. Unfortunately a bunch of other people had the same idea and only a lone package of out of date sardines were left, seriously just those sardines. Who knew it would be like this, so I wearily opted for a packaged frozen salmon that stated “no preservatives” and “no additives” and headed home. On my way home I passed a McDonalds and had a sudden urge for a Big Mac. I didn’t do it mind you but it reminds me of something that happened to me long ago:

During my first year of university I was trying out for the football team(not soccer) and was trying to bulk up my weight. I was eating lots of everything especially protein in the form of red meat. I was young and ate a lot more than I can now and it was hard increasing my weight. On Easter weekend I went to my Parents for their traditional dinner where they take it one step further and eat precisely no meat of any kind and have a sort of fasting meal. I tucked in and was finished before I knew it but was still hungry. Upon leaving I promptly headed straight for the Burger King and with more guilt than I could have acknowledge back then, had a double Whopper with everything on it. What happened next was both mortifying and kind of cool. As I left, my Dad was just parking his car to go into the drug store and our eyes locked. I think he smiled slightly, raised his hand and walked into his store, never saying a word. I know he didn’t tell my Mother(she would have laid into me hard) and he hasn’t said a word about it to me in almost twenty years. I gotta believe that if I secretly send him a Whopper on Good Friday one of these years, without my Mother knowing of course, he’ll really appreciate it.

By the way, the salmon was great and at least this year I’m still in my Mother’s good books.

See you tomorrow.

Day 40 – Sick Again

There’s a cold going around and I thought I could head fake it out but I’ve now got it. I wanted to skip today’s workout but I managed to get through it relatively unscathed. I did feel extremely tired and winded during and after but I also felt better for it too.

I’ve read that as long as you don’t have a fever there are benefits to working out and may even make the cold go away more quickly.

I know from the workout today that I got a good endorphin buzz from the pump and cardio but I remember reading that a workout also increases the white cell blood count helping fight off colds. It may be that I pushed myself a little hard after being sick last week but usually I don’t get sick and attribute that to generally being healthy and active.

According to research done by the American College of Sports Medicine, people that exercise in general tend to catch fewer colds than more sedentary counterparts and if done regularly, exercise could halve the number of days you spend with cold symptoms.

I already feel the tide turning on this cold and hopefully in a few days I’ll be 100% again. I’m going to stay hydrated and keep my workouts intense but won’t overdo it.

See you tomorrow

Day 39 – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A friend of mine has been worried that he may loose his job. The company he works for is apparently not doing so well and there have been some rumours of lay-offs. He is a hard worker and recently he told me that he was working extra hard to show management that he’s worth keeping. He is fearful, depressed and tired which is not a good combo. I asked him if he was getting enough sleep and he responded by saying that he was working extra hours, coming in early and going home late and when he did get home the stress kept him up at night.

I sympathized with him but told him that he has to get more sleep and sustain a healthy lifestyle and while he argued that it was easy for me to preach this I told him that limiting his sleep wasn’t going to save his job, it was probably going to do the opposite.

Sleep is crucial to the success of any PCPer but what does it do to the everyday Joe during their daily work?

Shortening your sleep time by as little as one hour dramatically cuts into cognitive performance. Research shows it diminishes your ability to concentrate, multitask, pay attention, retain information, problem-solve, react quickly, and make good judgments. Worst of all, you think you’re doing just fine.

Getting six or fewer hours of sleep each night is like being drunk. When you’ve been up for eighteen hours, studies show that you function as if your blood alcohol content were .07(in most states and provinces, the legal blood alcohol limit is .08.) After 24 hours without sleep, you’re at .1 – the same as a drunk driver.

Even if you resist tiredness and drink or eat stimulants, sooner or later your body will rebel, so sooner or later your body is going to have to sleep and it may just be on your way home from work.

Harvard Medical School recently released a study that showed that lack of sleep causes the brain to become 60% more reactive which translates into losing your cool, overreacting and being a real crank. In addition your emotional control is one of the first functions to go when lacking sleep and one of the last to return when you’re getting some sleep. In a survey I found, 44% of the respondents said that they were likely to be unpleasant without enough sleep.

Lack of sleep also makes you three times more likely than an eight-hour sleeper to catch a cold.

With the research that I’ve done on this I know I have to get more sleep – its actually quite scary when I think about being tired and driving my kids around town – I’m actually more scared of the other drivers but I’ve got to get my sleep too.

I told my friend that working the extra hours is not going to save his job if he’s cranky, making mistakes, with poor productivity and an unsociable nature. I’m not sure he bought it all but I did convince him to get some sleep tonight rather than watch the game with me – it’s a start.

And so I’ll catch a bit of the game but I’m going to get at least 8 hours of sleep tonight too.

See you tomorrow.

Day 38 – Red Meat

I was thinking about my dilemma with eating meat along side enjoying it and read this article:

Researchers have shown that those who consume 10 portions or more of red meat a week are nearly 50 per cent more likely to experience deterioration of the retina in old age.
But tucking into chicken at least three times a week can have a protective effect, reducing the risk of blindness by more than half.
The findings, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, are the latest to suggest a strong link between diet and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), Britain's leading cause of vision loss. he macular is the central and most sensitive section of the retina. It allows us to see fine detail for reading and writing, as well as our ability to see colour.
The disease affects an estimated 500,000 people in the UK. It usually develops after the age of 50 and is caused by the growth of new blood vessels under the centre of the retina.
These blood vessels leak fluid, causing scar tissue to form and destroying vision in the centre of the eye.
For many sufferers this process can take several years. But in extreme cases, it can take place within a couple of months.
The latest evidence suggests curtailing red meat intake could help some people ward off the disease.
Researchers at the University of Melbourne, Australia, studied 6.700 people aged between 58 and 69.
They documented how many had early signs of AMD and matched the results up with dietary habits gleaned from food questionnaires.
The results showed those who ate an average of ten portions of red meat a week – such as roast beef, meatballs or lamb chops – were 47 per cent more likely to be suffering the early symptoms of AMD than those who ate it less than five times a week.
In contrast, those who ate chicken at least 3.5 times a week were around 57 per cent less likely to have vision loss than those who ate it 1.5 times a week.

Now I know that life itself is a terminal illness but this article can be looked at like all things as a lesson in moderation. For several weeks I have been eating my fair share of red meat but this week I am going to eat more chicken and salmon. I know red meat is probably the worst of the proteins to eat but I love the stuff and will continue to eat it in moderation.

I have been concentrating so hard in my workouts to have correct form and balance and I've found myself sweating like crazy. I am drinking water during which helps and after I drink several more glasses. I have never been a heavy sweater but through shear concentration I am Niagra Falls. It is helpful though since it lets me know how hard I am working.

See you tomorrow.

Day 36 – Back in Action

I’m back from dropping off the face of the earth. I was sick last week with the flu and on top off that it was a very hectic week with all my time spent researching and with work. I know it may happen again I just hope next time I will be able to manage it and PCP.

Anyway I still worked very hard on the PCP diet and exercises last week ensuring that if work or sickness takes time away from blogging it won’t touch the core PCP stuff. I was happy with my workouts since I missed a few days and they were a little quicker than normal so I made sure they were 110%. Same goes for the diet, I had several big cravings during the week but worked through them. I am finding that the food just seems too much to eat and I have cut back the carbs and vegetables a little.

I can’t believe I have to eat 7 eggs now! I can feel my wife roll her eyes as I write this. I know it is a great source of protein but that is alot of eggs and in the end a lot of gas.

I also got back to drinking more water this week. I realized that I was not drinking enough and stepped it up a little. In addition I am finding that with so much protein I am not craving meat and especially steak as much. Its funny because I cooked some beef this week and was not even remotely interested in it, I ate it but was sdisapointed that a food that usually brings me pleasure did nothing for me.

My abs, shoulders, lats, pecs and legs are all sore. I’m glad I only had to do ropejumps yesterday because my muscles needed a rest. I love the idea that a person really doesn’t need a bunch of fancy equipment to do the PCP. It is simple and effective plus light on the wallet!

As for me, here I am at the end of week 5:



Here are my critical stats

BMI: 26.6
Fat Percentage: 17.6
Height: 160cm
Weight: 96.6kgs
Arm: 37cm
Chest: 111cm
Waist: 98cm
Hips: 96cm
Thigh: 61cm
Resting Heart Rate: 56 bpm

Its good to be back with you!