Day 90 - It's just the beginning

Day 90 (Rather Day 92!) - It's strange, that this is the day I look forward to so much, the driving force to push on. Now that it's here (or was here), I really miss it. I miss the routine and I miss the food. Rather, over the last few days of "indulgence" (not exercising and not weighing out my food), something is amiss. I felt kind of crappy and unease. I do not know if it's physiological or psychological, somehow, somewhat, I just feel weird these days.

Anyhow, this 90-days challenge is really quite cool, and aside the physical change, the PCP had brought about more realization on myself that am sure, will help me in my future endeavours.

1) Discipline - Outside in vs Inside out
I am not a very disciplined person. That was one reason why I took up the PCP. Health had always been an important aspect to me, but knowing and doing something about it is just a different ball game. Everyone knows that good eating habits and exercising are vital to keeping healthy. But who does it consistently? I for one had been feeding on my self-motivated strength to keep up a program, but the sustainability is doubtful. Hypothesizing that an outside-in approach could work better on me than a self-perpetuated/motivated one, I signed up for the PCP. It's interesting how this could work wonders - I realized that my accountability to someone else's requests outweighs accountability to my own requests. PCP's rules are far more demanding than if I had set rules for myself, yet, I was able to keep up to 90% of the program. Now, this is warped, (this lack of self love is intolerable). All I can say is, the Outside in approach hypothesis is proven. From henceforth, I need to feed on this momentum towards an Inside-out approach :)

2) Public declaration / support / reminder
My PCP had been a topic for the past 3 months. Or at least my BHAG of 6-packs had been talk of the town in my little community of family/friends. Making the public declaration had helped me throughout this process as everyone around me knows my intention and it's cute how people around me got involved in the process unknowingly. They started to take note of my "deviation" when I missed my exercise or if I had not taken my protein shake and started to question when I took up an offer of (someone's else's birthday) chocolate cake. They even celebrated my progress as we counted down the days left when I could finally join them for an indulgence (yes, I was entitled to 2!). It's lovely to see the involvement and I believe that the first step to make it public had allowed me to really focus on the process. Either via outside pressure or inside guilt, the fact that everyone knows about it means I got to make it work to my best ability!

3) Not-too-short term project.
90 days is good. It's not too short, and not too long. A period that needs strong commitment yet, it allows a foreseeable breather as I know it's not that long. The 90days challenge set a pace to my life, it's like, counting down to something tangible, makes it easier to track. I am able to see progression, and pace myself. I believe that's what people meant when they say "set a goal" and "break it down into chew-able size". That's what PCP is about for me. Set the goal of Six-Packs and start taking it a day at a time. Though I am still working towards my goal, along the way, I can see progression on my physique and strength. There's also breaks for celebration (indulgence!) and pushing towards my goal had been a main source of conversation and focus for the past 3 months! Possibly, that's why now I feel a tad lost and missing the daily mails that I get to help me focus on the end goal :) Moving forward, I am looking at more of such "not-too-short/long term" projects/challenge that I can embark on!

4) Finishing Strong
I realised that I am not a strong finisher. Towards the end of the PCP, I find myself letting me go a bit, which is, disappointing. It may be due to the birthday hype/celebrations (yeah, last week was my birthday week!) so that took focus away as I celebrated over dinners (there goes my weighed meals!) and skipping my exercises to chill out with friends after work. Okok, excuses, but I do notice that I have a great tendency to start gungho and towards the end, things dwindle down. Tsk tsk. Starting strong is as important as finishing strong. As I gained awareness on this gap, it is important for me to remind myself constantly and be firmed to close this gap in my next project / challenge!

5) PCP Community support
All in all, I couldn't have push thus far without the guidance of Patrick and my fellow PCPers. I do believe this PCP community, who was going through or had gone through the same process, displayed empathy and support towards one another's journey. I am really glad that I took this on as I had learnt from others and enabled my growth. I will continue my endeavor towards my Peak-er condition and maintaining it as I believe strongly that that's the support system to living my best self.

It's been a wonderful journey and I am truly grateful for this awesome experience!

THANK YOU!!!!

Day 84 - Body Fat %

I had not measured my weight / fat% during the course of my PCP. The only way I could tell if there had been a progress was via 1) visual (from the photos that I took every week) and 2) My clothes size (my jeans are looser, so it's time to buy new clothes!)

A friend sent me a link to a body fat content test - no harm giving it a shot. I counted mine, 17.3%! That brings me out of the category of "below average asian women" and into "top athletes"! Haha, 3 cheers for PCP :)

Day 83 - One week dash!

I think my mantra for the next week is " I AM FINISHING IT - GREAT!!" It's only one more week to the end of my 90 days PCP challenge! Humans are really creatures of habits - it felt incredulous that 83 days had passed yet it seemed like just recently that I had started the PCP. The habits on diet and exercise are somewhat integrated into my daily life - even if there's a moment of letting go to have a handful of sweet delights (chocolates!!) or contemplating if it's too late to start my skipping (at 1230am), the continuous routine that had been instilled allowed decisions to be made at such moments easier. It's much easier to weigh the consequences of doing something un-PCP and action in the rightful manner, or bearing (with greater clarity) the outcome of whatever "un-rightful" action taken.

So for the last Tuesday of light skipping, I am all ready to go full on on the last week of challenge!

Bring it on!

Day 82 - I am not an Athlete

Well, I am not an Athlete - that doesn't mean I will not keep my fitness in tiptop condition. I like the adrenaline rush after my jumps and I love the burn after the last set of each exercise. I like perspiration pouring when I work out and to know that my body is working really hard. I love conquering the lethargy and drag myself to put on my running shoes to start my jump and I love the lightness on completing the last set of exercise for the day. Though I am not an Athlete, I love what I do, to keep myself in peak condition.

Keep up the good work PCPers, work for your cause :)

Day 78;79;80;81 - Sustainability

I know it's the last lap, and I am doing my best to keep up the intensity on my diet and exercises. It felt kind of weird when I said "10 more days to go!" when asked by my peers "how long more are you doing this?". It felt too fast and the next daunting questions from them would be "what are you going to do after this program?" "Are you going to continue this?" etc. I had the same thought - how am I going to make this sustainable? (Especially when I am faced with my favourite rice crackers and chocolates).

I must keep the faith - this journey had somewhat re-tuned my alertness on "bad" food and there is a need for continual awareness of what I am putting into myself. At least now, when I see fast food, the impulse to gorge the soggy fries had subsided. As for the exercise, I am really glad that it had been made portable and no-frills. Momentum is now needed to keep it going.

Day 76 + 77 = Pace up!

My neck's fixed! Woot woot! Went to a chinese physician for a session of acupressure treatment and it's back on track! Though it's just jumps today (I love Tuesdays!), I did the strength training section that I missed out on yesterday. Can't tell you how glad I am that my body is working as a whole again!

Sometimes, I just take the every micro movement I make for granted, like being able to turn my neck to see what's on my side or even walking effortlessly to point A to point B (something much appreciated when I sprain my ankle). Our ability to do just day to day stuff is often overlooked till something happens to remind us of it. It's pretty amazing how our bodies operates and function so seamlessly. Time to give thanks and I am so very glad I can pace up in the last 2 weeks of PCP with my neck fixed!


*beams*

Day 74 & 75 - Slow down

I just sprained my left neck-shoulder, or at least pulled it during the legs-ups yesterday. It hurt when I look down and I could not turn to look to the sides without turning my whole body. It felt like my neck was stuck!

Woke up this morning and my upper back and shoulder was froze up. Ironically, the pain went away when I worked out - guess getting my body "warmed-up" helped ease the tension. But alas! Once I'm done and my body cooled down, the naggy pain struck again.

Boy oh boy, how one appreciates the function of the body only when one gets hurt! At least now there's incentive to do my jumps - pain will go away!

Day 72 and 73 - Surrealism

Sometimes, life is just too surreal, and I feel like I am standing on the verge of reality and lala-ness.

Things happened too fast and time zipped by too quickly. Sometimes, it's hard to keep track the events and people that whizzed by us.

The two days felt too long, chain of events from planning for my yoga course to changing it, comp-let-down to revival, people-come-people-go, pushing through the last burn to recovering in the next set. All is just like a pendulum swing - to and fro, continuous yet bringing about a new cycle when it seemed to end. I guess the only constant is change. Things change, people change, events change, I changed.

Changes are typical "I know" scenarios, yet when change comes, we're often taken aback and find it hard to embrace it.

Guess the only way to really live it up is to soak up the experience and live in the moment of joy/pain in gratitude. All changes that come are to bring about the best in us. There's no good or bad, only consequences that aid as a feedback to ourselves on how to better ourselves.

***

This reminds me of an old favorite of Dali's. . .

It's all about perspective.

Day 69, 70, 71 - Don't look back

The new exercise regime for the week is killer. KILLER! Interestingly, the new requirement for the shoulders today - DaVinci: 5 sets x failure - shifted my paradigm on how the mind can push further when there is no limit set. I was able to push on to 25 reps (the usual was 20 reps) till my face was scrunched up and there was tremendous burn in my shoulders. Reach for the sky and you'll touch the tree top!

The power of mind.

Otherwise, jumps are getting easier and after watching a video on rope jumping, I even did different kinds of jumps in between my regular jumps. It's kind of nice to think about nothing else and just jump/skip along - therapeutic.

19 more days to go, there's no looking back now except to push on forward - full on!

Day 64, 65, 66, 67, 68 - Back in the game

When I see running number (of days) on my blog, that's a sign of laziness and ill-disciplined. For the past 2 weeks, I have been following my diet pretty much, missing my exercises probably once in every two days (that makes 2 times a week for 2 weeks in a row) and blogging once every 5 days (apparent from the latest 2 entries). This is unbearable. The last lap is always the hardest, just like the last set in every exercises in PCP, it takes much more to complete. This is like the last dash before the finish line and I find myself dwindling in spirit. It seems like the inertia is getting greater when I would expect it to be easier to just push on.

I reverted to morning exercises. Made myself wake up to jump and finished my sets for the day.

It's only 22 more days to go. I do not want to waste any more of my PCP period wallowing in this negativity!! I am back in the game! It's gonna be full on for the next 3 weeks!!!

Day 59.60.61.62.63 - Computer Hangover

My computer went dead. I was not able to boot up my parallel and it's annoying. Sometimes, it's a slap in the face when I realised how dependent I am on certain things in life and their failure brought annoyance to my state.

Anyhow, a rant. My discipline on exercise is also proportionate to the emotional/mental (down) state caused by my computer failure. Staring at the clock now past midnight and I had yet to start my workout.

Must push on. ARRGGHHHH.