- Very happy with the diet changes this week - egg whites with the snacks, AMAYW veggies at lunch.
- Kung fu situps are going to be challenging - Patrick took me through how to do them; it's going to be tough at first!
- Results serve as positive reinforcement - over the past 4 weeks I've been seeing incremental improvements in my overall weight (losing about 1 kg a week). But this past week in addition to that, some of my other numbers showed good improvement (bodyfat decreased from 18.2 to 15.6%, visceral fat decreased from 8 to 7.5, muscle mass increased from 34.5 to 35.8%, and subcutaneous fat decreased from 11.5 to 10). Seeing direct results like this really reinforces my resolve to continue the attack on my fat for the next month and a half! Not only that, but it also shows me that change will not happen on a weekly basis, but as long as I stick to the plan, good things will happen! Really looking forward to finishing the second half strong!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Day 38
Wow, lots of stuff to catch up on!
Patrick: Welcome back to Japan! Looks like you had fun at the grocery stores in Hawaii (from that Lucerne cream cheese package, I'm guessing you went to Safeway). Looking forward to more posts on the state of American food!
Saya/Mike/Minami/Kaz: Thank you so much for running the weekly PCP sessions for the last two weeks! :)
New exercises: The pistol squat and the bicycle are seriously kicking my @$$ right now, but it's going to be awesome when I can get to the point where I can do them confidently and in proper form.
New meal plan: No positive spin here - I've been sticking to the decreases for the past few weeks, but it is REALLY HARD. Mickey hit the nail on the head when she describes it feeling like your stomach is eating itself by snack time! Over the past few weeks, I've noticed the following pattern every week the portions decrease:
Days 1-3 - constantly hungry (except after lunch)
Days 4-7 - not as bad, but ONLY if I time all my meals perfectly
That's the thing, if I don't eat that snack EXACTLY 2 hours (or earlier) after the previous meal, I get extremely hungry and irritable. If I'm at home, it's doable, but at work more often than not something happens and I can't nail the timing. I'm hoping as I continue to experience this, I can become more accustomed to controlling my irritability due to my body feeling hungry...
In terms of exactly what we are eating and the no salt/no sugar thing, suprisingly I am not having that hard of a time with that aspect. I think my sense of taste has actually gotten stronger because I am starting to enjoy the natural taste of things now (like steamed veggies, boiled egg whites, etc) with minimal or not additional seasonings. And the natural sweetness of fruit and milk...WOW! Call me strange, but I'm pretty content with just eating boiled egg whites alone with no salt/seasonings. Now if we could only up the number of boiled egg whites....;)
Indulgences: in the name of transparency, I have double-dipped in this - one planned and one unplanned. The planned indulgence was 2 beers and 5 sticks of kushiyaki (breaded, fried veggies/meat on skewers) because I was meeting a friend I haven't seen in a long time and the original place we planned on going to (which serves yakitori - barbequed chicken on skewers) was full. The unplanned indulgence was at a work gathering last week where I had 1 beer and a very small slice of margherita pizza (the rest of the night I ate vegetable sticks). It all tasted REALLY GOOD, but the next day my stomach did feel "heavy". One thing that I do like about what we are eating is that even when I was eating a lot in week 2, my stomach never felt "heavy" (the way it feels after I eat a bacon barbeque cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate shake). PCP has made it even clearer for me what foods my body can digest easily and what it cannot.
Patrick: Welcome back to Japan! Looks like you had fun at the grocery stores in Hawaii (from that Lucerne cream cheese package, I'm guessing you went to Safeway). Looking forward to more posts on the state of American food!
Saya/Mike/Minami/Kaz: Thank you so much for running the weekly PCP sessions for the last two weeks! :)
New exercises: The pistol squat and the bicycle are seriously kicking my @$$ right now, but it's going to be awesome when I can get to the point where I can do them confidently and in proper form.
New meal plan: No positive spin here - I've been sticking to the decreases for the past few weeks, but it is REALLY HARD. Mickey hit the nail on the head when she describes it feeling like your stomach is eating itself by snack time! Over the past few weeks, I've noticed the following pattern every week the portions decrease:
Days 1-3 - constantly hungry (except after lunch)
Days 4-7 - not as bad, but ONLY if I time all my meals perfectly
That's the thing, if I don't eat that snack EXACTLY 2 hours (or earlier) after the previous meal, I get extremely hungry and irritable. If I'm at home, it's doable, but at work more often than not something happens and I can't nail the timing. I'm hoping as I continue to experience this, I can become more accustomed to controlling my irritability due to my body feeling hungry...
In terms of exactly what we are eating and the no salt/no sugar thing, suprisingly I am not having that hard of a time with that aspect. I think my sense of taste has actually gotten stronger because I am starting to enjoy the natural taste of things now (like steamed veggies, boiled egg whites, etc) with minimal or not additional seasonings. And the natural sweetness of fruit and milk...WOW! Call me strange, but I'm pretty content with just eating boiled egg whites alone with no salt/seasonings. Now if we could only up the number of boiled egg whites....;)
Indulgences: in the name of transparency, I have double-dipped in this - one planned and one unplanned. The planned indulgence was 2 beers and 5 sticks of kushiyaki (breaded, fried veggies/meat on skewers) because I was meeting a friend I haven't seen in a long time and the original place we planned on going to (which serves yakitori - barbequed chicken on skewers) was full. The unplanned indulgence was at a work gathering last week where I had 1 beer and a very small slice of margherita pizza (the rest of the night I ate vegetable sticks). It all tasted REALLY GOOD, but the next day my stomach did feel "heavy". One thing that I do like about what we are eating is that even when I was eating a lot in week 2, my stomach never felt "heavy" (the way it feels after I eat a bacon barbeque cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate shake). PCP has made it even clearer for me what foods my body can digest easily and what it cannot.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Day 26
Apologies for not updating in a while, I think I still have to get into the habit of blogging regularly... Rest assured though I have been keeping up with what's going on with everyone else. I'm so jealous to read that some of us have large amounts of food that they have to get used to eating!!! While I am finally beginning to get used to the smaller portions allotted to me this week, I have to say that it is a constant challenge. While in week 2 I sometimes had a hard time eating the snacks and afternoon teas, now I am literally counting down the minutes when I can eat next. It seems like my portions now are just enough to get me to my next meal, and that's all!
My main motivator right now is the fact that I can definitely see and feel the difference in my body since beginning PCP. Similar to others, I am experiencing a significant increase in energy (I no longer feel constantly tired sitting at my desk all day), better skin condition, and I have an easier time concentrating and focusing on things.
Visibly seeing my fat decreasing is also another great thing (both in the mirror and in my numbers). Shivani asked about how I measure body fat. Once a week I'll go to Patrick's yoga studio and do a PCP workout with him, Ai (one of the other Japan PCPers), and alumni of the PCP program (I've met Sean, Kaz, and Kazue so far!). At the end of the workout we will measure some key numbers via something like the following:
It's a scale made by Omron, which is one of the more reliable makers of scales here in Japan (you can get this model for around USD 70 on Amazon). You basically input some information about yourself into the scale (age, sex, weight, height, etc), stand barefoot on the metal slides while holding the handpiece with the numbers on it, and it will tell you your body weight, body fat %, muscle%, visceral fat level, and other useful and not so useful numbers. While I was stoked with my numbers two weeks ago, I also had a pretty good showing this past week also. Overall, I lost 2 kgs while maintaining the same fat % and muscle %. The big acheivement for me was decreasing my visceral fat level (which is basically the stubborn fat around the organs) from a 9 to an 8.5, which according to Patrick is good progress!
Done for now, but I will definitely make it a point to update more frequently going forward :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
