Beyond The Peak Condition Project...

Life rocks on!!! http://greenieandwei.net
=)

Day 90 - A brave new world...

These past 90 days have been an exciting ride. In the past 90 days I've managed to start a new job, get married to GT and complete the PCP! After getting married, and now that PCP is over thing should hopefully start to wind down a bit...

The final pictures for GT & I. We've also already uploaded the final stock standard front/side/back pictures on the flickr side bar. Looks like both of us have lost a bit of weight over the past 90 days. My trousers were not particularly tight to begin with, but now there's a few inches to spare - I've also had to cut my belts for them to still fit.

Greenie's progresss in the beginning wasn't as dramatic, and she was worried that PCP "wasn''t doing it for her", but surely enough, about half way in she began losing the fat around her belly, and now she also has a few inches to spare.

Overall, I think PCP has also given us more structure and discipline in eating and exercise. It's funny in that some of the things stated were obvious to begin with, but sometimes it takes someone to tell you before you go about doing it the right way. Some things were less obvious and so this has also been a good learning experience. Eitherways, it's an eye-opener when you look at what's happening out there in the world - I read an article yesterday on SCMP.com - Balloon goes up on obesity problem - close to 50% of people in my age band now are apparently overweight in Hong Kong, so Asia is not immune from obesity and depressingly every second person (almost) my age is overweight; a sobering statistic. Even worse reading about all the stuff the government is trying to do about it in coming up with new ways or labelling packaged foods as being red amber or green in colour to let people know if they're good for you or not... why don't we just label any foods which need a label as being red - or educate people to think that way, they we wouldn't have to waste countless dollars and time coming up with silly schemes like this.... *sigh~

Anyways, onwards and upwards to bigger and better things - perhaps GT would like to post her own refelections on post-PCP, but from me, it's time to get out there and live life!

:) 

Signing out for the last time....

-

 Wei

Day 89 - Waiting for the finish...

Noticed that we've already got our complete banners up on the website despite it still only being Day 89! :p oh well, I guess we're close enough to the end to count as "Finished'!

After this morning's workout I feel mentally finished anyways! I kinda have an idea what's coming tomorrow despite not having received the email, based on previous PCP groups. Greenie and I have already booked ourselves a special treat for Day 91 - we're having dinner at Saint Germain, which is just down the road from where we live. The restaurant just recenlty opened and so they don't have a liquor licence yet - it means that if we bring our own bottle there's no corkage. Yay!

The rating on that site isn't super super good, but this place is close to home and we wanted to try it out once at least - and might as well do it whilst we can take advantage of the free corkage!

We also have farewell drinks for quite a few of our ex-colleagues tomorrow. Looks like we've got lots of calorifically rich activities lined up straight after PCP - better take the Day 90 photos tomorrow morning!

:p

P.S. oh, whilst I'm here, might as well quickly post up a couple of photos we took at Yeeman's pool party the other day. GT & I made her a black forest cake! Was pretty delicious; plus we got the chance to show off our PCP bodies first time this summer. Yay~

Day 88 - (Second) Last Supper

So we are literally days from finishing... The exercises this week have been pretty tough, and tomorrow (Day 89) looks like a killer! I can safely say that this is going to be the hardest day we've done throughout the entire program!

It's funny that, most of our exercise intensity peaked a bit past half way, and it stabilised, but now looks like it's picking up again. The other telltale sign of this is when my weight decreases, but so does my muscle; being ripped up by the exercises.

Just a quick post of our (second) last supper. This is dinner I prepared for GT whilst she was doing her exercises. Pasta with tomato, garlic, onions and basil blended chunky sauce, some grilled lamb with rosemary and some steamed broccoli on the side.

Almost there gang!
=)

Day 85 - The final countdown!

w00t! I'm not sure if it's because of all the wedding business and all, but the past few days have just shot past - I don't believe it's Day 85 tomorrrow - we are less than a week till Day 90!

This really feels like the final run now, so it's time to put in a bit more extra effort - or so I'm feeling right now; which is perfect timing since we've come up with SUPERSETS! Looking back at the exercises, they really seemed to peak at around week 8 or 9 and pulled back for the past month or so... Perhaps that was our little rest time before the final push for the end!

Good thing the supersets will be mostly on Friday Saturday and Sunday, which make it easier to go all out. Monday and Tuesday might be a bit tough - perhaps need to get up that tiny bit earlier to finish them. Let's see how this weekend goes first.

Also now wedding is over, I guess we can just concentrate on finishing strong. Diet has gone a bit off track in the last few days because of all the wedding/family dinners etc, but I'm not too fussed - we kinda know how to take care of our diets going forward, and even if it means we don't finish at absolute tip top peak on day 90, what's more important is that we know how to take care of ourselves going into the future, which is the invaluable lesson learnt from this "project".

Thinking back it hasn't been a super hard journey, but at the same time it hasn't exactly been a walk in the park... our group started with 7 people and is now ending with 5... that's almost 30% not making it to the end.

Will try to post up some new photos on Saturday morning. Yeeman's also having a pool party this Saturday. First time to go do something like this all summer. Should be fun. :)

Day 80 - Wedding banquet tomorrow!!!

All this wedding work has finally accumulated to us having our big banquet tomorrow! Very exciting times. Just did a big family yumcha this morning with Greenie's parents and family as well as mine. We've spent the past week tying up loose ends which we thought we could just do right at the end, but this has all taken up so much time!

Hopefully we'll have more photos to post up soon. I know we haven't put up this week's photos yet, and I have a feeling we may miss them - but don't worry Day 90 photos will be put up rest assured! Just to make this blog that touch more interactive, some random photos taken over the past week. I wish there were more photos (and there probably are!) But I haven't been taking any photos - just been to busy organising stuff, I just hope that my parents brother etc are doing all the recording of events!

Anyways, here we go... these first few are from Penang:

This first one is GT's legs after doing floor jumps - crazy veins running everywhere ARAGHH!... I can't believe these are my baby's legs!!!

 This is a "typical breakfast" we spotted at the hotel, someone had grabbed, and we took a snap of it - many MANY carbs (bread crossaints etc). After eating our own breakfast for so long it was quite refreshing to see something... "different" haha...

This is us chillin' in Penang at a place called Balik Pulau, where we had their laksa. This is a Malaysia fish stew soup. Here they had a special version called "lemak laksa" which also has Thai influences - very delicious!

 This is us at the same place literall 5 minutes later! haha... that's how good it is. After finishing, we all stacked the bowls up, and put them in the centre of the table. Dad happened to be sitting opposite me, and still pigging out soo.... ;)

This is myself, GT, Liza (sis in law), and my bro from left to right, getting ready to go out to banquet for our weddings in Penang.

Last couple is  from around Hong Kong in last week or so...

This is a lunch prepared by myself and GT yesterday for our family. Dad took the picture so not in it, but basically salsa, lots of fresh veg; my sourdough bread, and a white boiled skinless chicken... and THEN some white wine on the side. ;) why not...

Finally, in the midst of this all I've had the time this morning to pump out a couple of loaves of sourdough bread, which tastes pretty amazing...

Anyways gotta go clean up the house a bit so we can look good for tea ceremony etc. Lack of posts I know, but just to let everyone know that GT & I are going strong. Hope everyone else is doing well too.

- Greenie & Wei

Day 72 - Wedding registration!

Hi Gang,

Just a few quick photos from yesterday's registration. Greenie and I are in Penang now doing another banquet-esque type activity before heading back to Hong Kong to prepare for our Hong Kong banquet next Monday.

A lot of banqueting coming up! Hope it doesn't impact on our bodies too much!

This is us doing a "couple piston squat".

Will post our photos which we took this morning shortly. Still doing the exercises, and we'll make decent choices where we can, but diet will have to take back seat for the next few days, and probably on our Hong Kong banquet day on July 4th.

Hope everyone else is doing well!

Signing out from Penang, Malaysia - Mr & Mrs Wei and Greenie Sim!
:)

Day 70 - Just a quick update

Wow, I don't believe I haven't blogged in almost a week. On the way to work now - this is just a quick update blog to say all is fine and on track. GT's been travelling furioualy for work so hasn't been able to blog, and I've been wedding preparing and spending some quality time with my family. My parents have been around for almost a week, and my brother and his wife just flew in last night. We played a game of scrabble which was fun!

Dad's cooking has been... not very strict to say the least, but last night by golly gosh he got it right! Each day preivously he'd come up with a "oh I can't use ANY oil at all?" or "oh it' sjust a bit of salt - it won't taste good without it: etc etc.... Anyways, still appreciate him cooking dinner for me, and especially putting in the effort to cater for my eating habits. I know it hasn't been easy - THANKS DAD.

I had a glass of wine with dinner last night, because it was pretty special have Liang and Liza here. This morning I decided to do Day 71 workouts instead of day 70 because I thought I might want to take it easy tomorrow.

Tomorrow Greenie and I get (legally) wed. How exciting!!!

Keeping the flame alive... over and out.

Wei

Day 64 - Watching my back...

A new week in pcp land dawns & tho its Friday in the real world the "rest day" hasb passed and in Wei's PCP world it's a Monday...

Monday means a sligght twinge of Monday-itis at least, exacerbated by the fact that Monday also means floorump day which i am finding increasihngly draining,

Anyways, exercises for today are done & dusted - whats more, my parents arrive this afternoon!
=)

So, I went climbing with Yeeman last night & she kindly took my day 64 photos for me (see right). Took some in rested position as well as flexing...which looks kinda gross because my whole body looks stringy & veiny when i flex - but still skinny! oh well...

I thought photos of my back looked interesting. Ties back in to the email the other day from Patrick about "what does our back look like?" So I've seen what the rest of my body looked like when all flexed etc, but this was in fact the first time I'd seen my back, and I thought it looked pretty interesting:

Even when rested Yeeman pointed out there were two lumps under my arms... What were those? - I have no idea... I still have no idea (Patrick?). Secondly when I'm flexed, there actually seems to be a lot going on on my back - except I don't really know what. If you asked me to draw it, I don't think I'd be able to.... oh well, nice to learn the back is so complicated.

Oh, and Yeeman also took a photo of me doing some pull ups so I can what my back looks like when I'm moving/climbing. Here it is to share with everyone...

Happy Friday everyone!

Day 62 - The strangest thing...; The story of the sore biceps and Some further eggs-planation!

So a few topics today...

The strangest thing...
GT & I came home together yesterday. She was catching a midnight flight out to London, but had already done her exercises in the morning... anyway, whilst sitting in the taxi chatting on the way home she mentioned that she didn't feel her skips were that good this morning. No matter - you have good and bad days. End of story, or so I thought.
After getting home, I was preparing dinner and asked her to pack her bags whilst I prepared. After a few minutes she popped her head into the kitchen and said something I NEVER expected from her... "I'm just going to pop down stairs and do a bit of skipping...". Prior to PCP Greenie wasn't much of an exerciser, and even after doing the program for so many weeks, she'd been diligently following the program, but really following it to the T - no more no less... commenting on having a bad day, I'd seen before, but doing extra exercise!? This is something I'd never seen before... slowly but surely I guess it's all cumulated in having some impact on all of our mindsets - how we eat; how we exercise; and how we live. Slow transformations are everywhere, but this one I have marked as a little land mark - a turning point, which I hope we will never go back from. Good on you Greenie T!


The story of the sore biceps...
So, back to yesterday's blog where I mentioned that "I'd go into more details on why my biceps were SUPER drained..". Here is the reason:

The black resistance band is mine - the grey one is GTs... As you can see from the picture mine is about a foot shorter than hers. The reason for this is because my band has snapped a few times, and I haven't been bothered to go buy a new one (yet). PLUS I feel kinda robbed that these things have no warranty, and have only managed to last a matter of weeks (my silent protest). This is not sustainable, because as the band continues to snap, it continues to get shorter and shorter, thus increasing the intensity of my workouts, to the degree where they are really tough! To add to this, the more intense the workouts means the more pressure I'm putting on the bands, and the faster it snaps again! I'll be out to buy a new one tonight I think, but anyways that's the explanation. I'll keep these ones for some of the exercises, but I really need a new one for some of the ones which need less resistance.


Some further eggs-planation
So I blogged about eggs yesterday and the deliciousness of the cold soft-boiled egg. On the topic, one thing which was on my mind, but I forgot to blog about was my colour coding system. So I'll go into that briefly now... I'm sure that others out there may have a similar problem - right now I'm eating 4 eggs a day. One full egg, and three egg whites. When I pack my lunchbox every evening, I need to take two eggs with me to work. One full egg (which I liked soft-boiled) and one egg-white (which I do hard boiled). How do I tell the difference between the two when I get to work though? Simple... (the answer lies below)

We colour code our eggs! Brown one for soft boiled and white one for hard boiled! Sounds silly, looks a bit silly but works like a charm!


Wednesday = hump day. Down hill from here onwards. Enjoy the rest of your weeks everyone!

Day 61 - mmm... eggs...

OK, so a bit of a random post, but one thing that I really look forward to every day now, is my egg. Not the egg whites - they're OK; I get plenty of them now that I'm eating 4 eggs, but I mean the full egg. So what's so good about the egg? Well, since starting work, I've been mass boiling eggs such that I don't have to spend time doing it everyday. I started off just doing the hard boiled ones, but I soon discovered that you can actually soft boil eggs and just leave them in the fridge too!

Cold soft boiled eggs are the best! Not only do they retain the gooeyness of the soft boiled egg, but because it's not piping hot, you can also taste the egg more. It's like eating one of those caramello creme eggs EVERY DAY except
1.) It's much bigger.
2.) It's not sickly sweet.
and damn does that yolk taste good. Just like flowing caramel/custard all gooey and stuff... for those of you who haven't tried it yet, you HAVE TO give it a go!

OK, on to one serious topic: I have noticed that I'm finding the exercises a bit harder now. What I mean is that I'm able to complete less than previous weeks or days. I think this may have to do with the fact that when we're working one muscle group, we're actually working a few. So for example we might do biceps one day, and then the next day we do pull ups. I struggled with my pull ups earlier this week, moreso than I did last week - perhaps I was having a bad day, but I think it was because even though we categorise pull-ups as a "back exercise" you need to use a whole lot of bicep to get yourself up there too, and these were still SUPER drained from the workout the day before (I'll go into why this is in a more detailed blog later...). Eitherways, not necessarily a bad thing - just one of my observations.

GT's off to London tonight, and will be back on the weekend. My parents will be arriving in Hong Kong this Friday evening. Really looking forward to seeing them again. I can't believe we're getting married next Friday!

DAY 58 - Lonely park workout; new photos and bye bye Bowflex...

So it was a pretty lonely workout in the park this morning... perhaps 6am was too early. Eitherways it was pretty nice. The weather was overcast - not too warm. One one side, I had the view of the trams, and the other the racecourse. It was great just being able to skip whilst watching life happen around me. A lot of 老人家 (elderly people) doing their exercise in the park with me. It was kinda surreal, skipping whilst blasting The Prodigy - 'Breathe' down the ipod whilst watching the 老人家 facing the racecourse fence slowly doing their taichi... felt like I was in an MTV clip.

Anyway, once again since GT is still away I've had to self-take photos - new photos are up on the left. My stats haven't really improved - in fact I've gotten "fatter" again today (boohoo...) but at least the pics don't really show it.

Oh and finally, a disposal I made yesterday:

This is a quick picture I decided to take for the last time I'd ever see them... These are were my set of Bowflex Dumbells... I've had them for a couple of years, but they've been taking up considerable room at home , and had relatively little use recently. After beginning PCP I've realised that I don't really need them to achieve what I want, and so sold them for a nice little sum.
:)

Day 57 - Floor Jump Fear & return of the dinner carbs!

On the way home on the tram now. Looking forward to workout tomorrow morning... leg days are the scariest to me - especially ones that contain floor jumps! Today's 5x 20 jumps already had me from the first set.... perhaps it was from 4 days of not doing leg exercises, but man was it tough!

To be a true PCP-master I really gotta learn to nail these freakin' floor jumps. Apart from that not much else to add. Got 50g of carbs back for dinner. w00t! I can have... a mouthful or rice. haha...

Strange, I think with such a little amount I'd prefer just to not have carbs - what's the point in tempting yourself only having to stop at one bite... anyways I'll take it. Perhaps I should have some rice. I've been so into bread baking that I haven't had rice in weeks....

OH! big compliment today. Someone in the office said I was healthy bringing my own lunch (apparently lots of people have noticed, but haven't decided to say so to me till Friday afternoon drinks - but that's a different story), whilst I was toasting my bread at lunch he asked me where I got it from because it looked delicious!
YAY!


GT's back from India tomorrow...
DOUBLE YAY!
^^

Happy Friday everyone.

Saturday workout [Hong Kong] - 6am Happy Valley

Hi Gang,

If anyone's up for it, I was thinking of workout tomorrow 6am at the Wong Nai Chung Crescent Garden in Happy Valley. Not sure if it's open that early - I'll check tonight and confirm on this post by 9pm but just a heads up first. I'll be there if it is, doing Day 58.

Greenie T won't be back from Mumbai till later in the day, so those of you looking to workout with her, need to wait till Sunday at least, and see if she's up for it.

Update: - It's Open. See you there whoever cares to join...

Day 55 - Back on track!

After a good night's rest I woke this morning to find that my fat % had dropped a whole percent from 16.5% back 15.5%. My 5-day increase in fat % had finally abated! Let's see if I can see it fall past the previous lows of 13-14% this time around.

Workout this morning was decent. 50 chin-ups were still a struggle, but at least I can see some improvement coming through - I can eek out the 4th set complete now, whereas previously I could only get up to ardoun 6-7 before them becoming "half-chin ups" - the 5th set is still a case of 5-6 only... Legs have stopped feeling tingly from exercises 2 days ago, but funnily enough now my back is a bit sore from this morning's exercises... ahhha.. I can see this being a never ending cycle for the next few weeks. haha... how fun. ;)

Something I've noticed (apart from my face looking gaunt and everyone telling me to eat more), is that I'm veiny all over now. Not sure if anyone is in the same boat as me? But pretty much my arms are ALWAYS veiny now, my legs are sometimes veiny, and when I wake up and look in the mirror, even my abs are veiny. It's kinda weird....

Looking forward to rest day tomorrow. Haven't had a proper rest day for two weeks now, since we "cashed in" our last one, coming home from Boston and losing a day for Liang's wedding last week. Will be  nice to have a bit of a rest tomorrow...
:)

Get our new diets and workouts tomorrow night too - how exciting! Go on Patrick take me up to 5 eggs a day - I dare you! Time for my 8 min date with Mike... ttfn...

Day 54 - What a day...

Today's been painful. I suppose it was more so catching up from yesterday, but still... So yesterday was a public holiday in Monday. For me it consisted of doing the workout (which primarily concentrated on legs and shoulders), followed by a morning's worth of rock climbing, and an afternoon's worth of cycling.

This morning I woke up, and my legs were definitely not 100%... they weren't blown, but enough so such that I had to concentrate on my skips a bit more than I normally do (in my groggy state having just woken up) in order to ensure I didn't trip up... On top of that the tricep/bicep workout also started to work it's magic on me within an hour of doing them. By the time I got to work this morning, both my arms and legs were feeling fatigued... it's been a whole day, and still got the same feeling. The little positive takeaway from this is that my fast % has finally reverted from its 5 day rise by 0.5% this morning... woohoo~

I think it'll be a relatively early night for me tonight... Zzzz....

P.S. I see a lot of day 7 blogs, which is awesome, but would be nice to see some more "ahead group" blogs too, to see what's happening with everyone! Perhaps everyone's still on holidays..

Day 53 - I don't like it...

Something funny's happening here, I don't know why, and I don't like it... Anyways, thought I'd blog it out and see if anyone was experiencing the same thing. Ever since Day 50 when we started new exercise routine with new groupings, my weight has continued to decrease over the past few days whilst my fat % has gone up. This isn't what I want. Now, I wish I could say that the scales are lying, but if that were the case, then I'd have to negate all the good stuff which has happened since PCP started, which I don't want to do either.

The only explanation which I can come up with (which I like) is that due to the new level of intensity required by our muscles in the exercise, they're shredding up but yet to have regained yet... I suppose it's only been 5 days, but it's pretty disheartening to see such a consistent trend over that long a time. Let's hope we at least see one improving set of stats by the end of this week...
:(

On a different note, had a totally awesome workout session in the Caine Road Garden with Yeeman, Nick and Andrew yesterday. The logistics weren't entirely perfect, given we all had to share the jungle gym to do the exercise and workout where to chinup/hang our resistance bands, but overall found it a worthwhile experience 1.) meeting other people doing PCP 2.) finding some motivation with the exercises. A question from our group session - when doing the lawnmower, are we supposed to be front facing, or side facing during the pull?

Anyways, it was a good session guys, and thanks for taking the time/effort to trek out. Perhaps we can organise other group sessions every 1-2 weeks. After all it IS only a few weeks left! Next weekend in Happy Valley perhaps? Let me know if anyone is interested, and we'll setup a time.

Day 51 - Come workout with us [Hong Kong]!

Anyone in Hong Kong interested in meeting up for working out Day 52 tomorrow morning?

When: Sunday 5th June 08.00am 
Where: Caine Road Garden
Equipment needed: skipping rope, resistance band, ATTITUDE!
=)


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This is an open invite to everyone (current day 51s, day 4s, recently completed etc.) If you're finding day 4 too easy so far, perhaps you'd like to come join to see what you're in store for! ;) If you've just finished PCP recently and are feeling post PCP withdrawal, come join in a workout which will be challenging, but not overly demanding!

I'll be doing the exercises there with Yeeman at least, but of course the more the merrier!  GT's in New Dehli for work atm, so will be spending long weekend alone in Hong Kong. Come work out with us tomorrow morning! We bumped into Gilles the other day at G-bar, but It'd be cool to meet more PCP people in the flesh!

On a different note, just uploaded my day 51 photos... sorry about being so dark and wonky - I find it hard to take photos for myself, and I think my place in general just has bad lighting. Fat % has continued to steadily decrease, and can see it in my photos, but am I getting a bit too skinny?

I'm glad food proportions have increased, but I hope that I start to fill out a little in the coming weeks. Comments from ex-colleagues and people who haven't seen me in a few weeks is that I'm way to thin now. I guess I had a thin face to begin with, but the whole PCP hollowing out thing has just exacerbated that.

On a more exciting note, have invited a few friends over for a PCP dinner tonight. :) It's fun to have dinners with other people. I always used to be afraid that people would think PCP food tastes crap, but I've learnt that people actually appreciate a decent HEALTHY meal! If your social life has been going down the drain from lack of eating out with others, turn the table around and get them to come over to yours!
:)

Have a good weekend everyone.

Day 51 - Ménage à trois..?

haha...  I just noticed that next PCP starts in 27 days... so I guess we're moving from a group every 1.5 months to every month. Guess it makes sense given how large the groups are getting. It means for us, we'll be the first group to have two groups following our lead. Cool!
^^

Day 50 - You know that feeling...

Where you know that you'll be hurting the next day? I had that feeling at 6am this morning before I'd even finished the workout. Really upping the ante this week, with targeted muscle groups each day - today was the legs and shoulders. Legs are a funny one. You can typically push them more because they're bigger muscles, but at the same time they are also prone to cramping more (I don't think I've ever had my arm cramp or anything like that...). Anyway, after today's sets of 3x25 squats, 4x6 pistol squats and 5x18 (that's 90) floor jumps, my legs were well and truly spent. It was weird... if I put my fingers on my pelvis I could literally feel all the blood pumping to my legs!

By the time GT & I got to the ab exercises, I could already feel micro-twitches within my thighs. It's usually the feeling you get later in the day, or perhaps early the next day which signifies that I won't be able to walk properly for the coming day or two. I can't believe the feeling already came within an hour of the workout!

Well, hopefully the solid foundation that PCP has given us so far leading up to this will mean a faster recovery time over the coming days. - I'll need it... I'm sure we all will!
:)

Happy Friday everyone!

Freedom within boundaries...

Another one of my super quick posts. Ahh... another perfect breakfast - TOTALLY PCP COMPLIANT. For those of you in week 1 who had concerns about there not being enough food - fret not! I had similar concerns when I began especially since I'm a big eater! Hopefully this visual example will help put your concerns at ease.

Apart from the above, I'm still also missing my 250mL of milk - part of my breakfast, which I will perhaps have in coffee later or something.

So this is  my ciabatta bread - one white with garlic and one wholemeal which I both baked this morning. Both turned out awesome with great open crumb (see below). On top of that some steamed egg plant, sweet potatoes, baby corn and brussel sprouts, as well as some grilled salmon steak. I love grilling the salmon such that it's crunchy on the outside (keep the skin too!), whilst still pink on the inside - like sashimi!

Anyways, reason which prompted me to blog is that this breakfast (apart from being sizeable) reminded me of one of the more memorable mottos at my ex-company. They had many mottos, but one which stuck in mind more was "freedom within boundaries". I.e. they let us do whatever we want (within limits... and as long as we  made money for them. :p). PCP diet reminds me of this motto, as we are allowed to eat pretty much anything we want! (within boundaries of preparation and balanced proportions).

Whenever I tell people about PCP, and there being a diet component, the first reaction is usually a negative one. When people think diets and scales, they think of restricted eating as well as mandatory cutting of random foods from the diet. I don't blame them. There seems to be so many fad diets out there these days. One friend of mine was doing another one the other day which only allowed her to have some type of maple syrup water - and NO FOOD - for a number of days... doesn't sound very healthy does it? Neither sustainable. Weighing food is often associated with negative connotations of food restriction rather than of control - whether that be from eating too much OR too little.

Anyways, I'm starting to ramble a bit but for people just starting out, take comfort that you may feel hungry sometime over the first 1-2 weeks, but as your body adjusts, and more importantly as food intake ramps up over the coming weeks, you'll get fed plenty, of food, and be open to plenty of variety.

Bon appetit!

Day 49 - The sweetest thing...

Just a super quick blog. Just got home from a friend's surprise birthday party. Prepared some dough to bake the ciabatta tomorrow. I'm again doing two loaves, but have modified the recipes - one to include garlic chunks (white) and one where I'm trying to use wholemeal instead of white (the poolish still using white though.

Just finished preparing the doughs and letting them sit. Just past 1am now. Opened the fridge door to find the loveliest surprise!

My evening snack of milk fruits and egg, all measured, prepared with the egg all peeled and even de-yolked for me. It's so wonderful to have that last thing of the day all nicely prepared for you when you're ready to crash.

Thanks Greenie - you're the best!
:)

Day 48 - Wee less, poo more...

haha... OK, the title is a bit gross, but in general it's what's happening. I guess we've kinda talked about this before, but a few things I've noticed is that I am pooping more now, which is totally normal because of all the vegetables we're eating, but also as a result of perhaps less sodium, I'm also drinking less water during the day. I don't know if it's unhealthy or not - after all isn't the RDI something like 2L of water a day? But perhaps if we're eating less salt than the average person, then we can maintain a healthy balance with less...? Even drinking less water I still notice that my sweat is a lot less salty than it used to be... almost can't taste the salt anymore.

Eitherways, I have noticed that I feel less thirsty these days, drink less water and as a result don't need to go to the bathroom to pee as much. Poop a different story.

Oh, and also welcome to all the new PCP-ers!!!
:)

Day 47 - Back from Boston with a few pleasant surprises

So back from Boston for my brother's wedding. It was a fun event, with a mix of Chinese and Western activities including door games, tea ceremony, reception and picnic. Greenie and I tried to stay on diet, but a few little hurdles, or distractions from the strict diet:

1.) No scales for any public events - some of my sister-in-law's friends in the past have had eating disorders, and she was afraid that the use of scales by people such as Greenie and myself who are already relatively thin may cause them to go into relapse. I explained that scales were for regulating to make sure we ate enough just as much as to regulate that we weren't overeating, but also respected that it was their wedding - so no scales.

2.) You gotta eat the cake! - no need for explanation. Hey! It's my brother's wedding! The cake was massive! A triple-decker almond flavoured cake smothered with almond icing and bridges made of chocolate. Mm-mM! After the +100 dinner banquet, I think less than 1/3 of the cake was eaten (it barely looked touched), I had a slice then, and I had a slice at the picnic the next day. Oh... I also slipped in a couple glasses of wine during the wedding reception.

Despite these two hurdles, we managed to eat relatively healthy and eye-balled most of our food. I was pretty nervous though coming home and was anxious when I got on the scales this morning to see the damage that 5-days in Boston had done to GT & I. Funnily enough, we were both at our lowest body fat % since starting PCP! GT was down to 19.8%, and I had shot thru my previous low of 15.6% to 14.6%. I gotta admit though, as GT blogged in previously - the exercises are getting pretty tiring!

A couple of other nice little surprises from Boston - I took the opportunity of US visit to buy some stuff off Amazon which I'd been eyeing but not willing to pay shipping for to HK:

1.) a 14"x16" pizza stone. It's the perfect size to fit in my oven as a tray! Previously I only had one of those round circle pizza stones which meant I could make pizza, but my bread side was pretty limited - and most of the time I could only bake on loaf at a time. Guess who's going to be a-baking this weekend! ;)

2.) This second item is a multi-spice grinder. Super cool! If you have lots of different spices that need to be ground (as most PCP people undoubtedly will), but don't want to have 10 grinders sitting around, this one lets you change the cartridges of whatever you're grinding. This baby came with 3 cartridges, but I bought an extra 6, so I can have a total of 9 different spices on hand to grind. Can you guess what's inside those little jars? I'll give you a clue - looks like pepper, but it's not.

Alright gang... time for my date with 8min Mike, but before I leave just a couple more photos:

 GT & I at Endicott Estate for Eliza & Liang's wedding

My brother Liang, and wife Liza ripping it up on the dance floor!

This week's exercises are so tiring!

We can barley walk!
For the past 3 days, we did our exercise at the park next to The Holiday Inn in Boston and had breakfast at the lobby, their pancakes are delicious!
The breakfast is buffet style with hard boiled eggs, skim milk, wheat toasts - all PCP permitted! They also have a pancake maker called "The Popcake Machine" which delicious pancakes just come by pressing a couple of buttons!

I had one each day without butter and maple syrup (of course!) but it still taste awesome! It was the motivation to keep me going with the tough exercises for the past 3 days.
Now that we are leaving, I've to look for other things to replace the pancakes to keep me going for the next few days' exercises. Maybe we'll try making our healthy pancakes with fresh fruits as toppings. YUM!

Day 45 - Congratulations to all the recently complete!

Hi PCP-ers,

Greenie and I are at Boston Logan airport sharing some strawberries, orange and blueberries as our morning snack right now. We'd just like to extend a BIIIIG congratulations to all the Day 90-ers who complete today! To think that we're now the "ahead group" and more importantly that we're half-way thru PCP is simply amazing!

Once again, congratulations to all on your hard work - and awesome bodies! We're keenly waiting to "see you on the other side".
^^

Day 43 - Hi from Boston!

Just a super quick post to say that we're currently in Boston (Hi!) for Liang (Wei's brother's) wedding. We'll be here till Sunday EST before flying back to HK and arriving home on Monday evening. Eating has been more guess work than anything since scales have been banned by my brother and his wife as they have had friends with eating problems in the past and didn't want to cause any complications - which was fine by me and Greenie. We're trying to learn to eyeball the food a bit more, and have found it quite enjoyable to eat without having to measure to the T each time we do, but at the same time are also more aware of what we eat, even when we do.

It's 6am in Boston now, and we have Chinese door games starting at 10am today so time to get up for exercise and breakfast, then get ready for wedding! One thing we've noticed - the eggs in the US are HUUUUGE! I don't know if it's just the ones my brother buys, but they are soo large even compared to the XL eggs in HK!

Here are just a couple of pictures of Sim family (incl. Greenie) having breakfast in Boston. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

BTW new photos up for new week We took them a couple of days ago before we left, so a day or two early .

Day 39 - then there was the sourdough...

This was actually from yesterday (Sunday baking - Day 38) but only had time to upload the picture today. The sourdough took a bit longer to ferment vs. the ciabatta, as it was a two stage process; but turned out quite nicely in the end. There's two different methods I've tried for making sourdough so far. Last week was using a sponge as a starter; this week was the old dough method.

Day 37 - bad boy poolish COMPLETE!

The pictures kinda speak for themselves... the bread turned out awesome. Thanks for all the advice Molly! I can't believe that my home oven was actually able to produce this kind of bread! It was crispy on the outside and very chewy (that half translucent kind) on the inside, and it even tasted sweet, which was weird cos I added no sugar!

So apparently there's a technical term for "bubbles in bread", which I was trying to get - it's referred to as "open crumb". This bread wasn't CRAZY open crumb like the bad boy poolish, but open enough to have some really nice chewiness to the bread, and to way exceed an openness in crumb I'd ever achieved before.

Learning techniques such as  how to stretch and fold the dough was also a bread-epiphany. Finally, steaming up the oven before cooking also made a huge difference to the crust of the bread... WOWW!

P.S. We've put up our new Day 37 photos...

Update: ok, I've never tried to upload a video for our PCP blog yet, but here goes nothing...!

Day 36 - New peak; AMAYWs & bad boy poolish…

Aha, so Day 36 PCP & Day 2 new work… alarm went off at 5 this morning & jumped straight outta bed. Wanted to make sure that I was running on schedule so wouldn't be late for work.
Jumped on scales & what a nice surprise! Broke thru the 16% body fat barrier today! I'd been hovering around 16% for the past week or so, & thought perhaps I may have plateaued. I know we're still far from "Peak Condition" the ahead group blazing along to PC is testament to that, but to me, it's a little victory in itself anyway. Afterall, whens the last time my body fat was this low? Probably never, hence a new peak! I'm sure we'll be creating many new peaks over the coming weeks, but nonetheless…

15.7% really put me in a good mood, skips felt good, and though I fumbled around a bit with interval timer because it was still quite dark, I still managed to complete the entire workout within 50 minutes, and at the same time, toast my bread and boil my eggs. Also checked our new diets out for the week.... WOOHOO the much coveted AMAYW (as much as you want)! This is like striking the food jackpot! :D I didn't think these would come so soon, but I'm not complaining - it seems like a nice lil reward for my "new peak". Unfortunately the AMAYW is a lunch time one, which logistically makes it difficult, because I can't really bring AMAYW veges to work, but oh well at least I can bring more. I think I must've brought just a bit over 200g today. I'm usually quite satisfied on the 180g, but might as well utilise the extra if I have it, and see where it takes me.

GT worked till 4am last night, so no workout for her this morning... poor thing. I think maybe she should just skip today's workouts, have a good night's of rest and we can do a solid set of workouts on Day 37...

Finally, bread baking this weekend (yay!). It takes us time to eat the bread, but I've been eyeing this recipe for what the guy (I imagine it's a guy anyway) as "bad boy poolish". My bread's become "better", but I've never been able to have the awesome amounts of air this guy gets into his bread. Hopefully some carefully preperation and patient proofing will make a bread as wonderful as this! This one I'll probably try making white instead of wholemeal though...just in case. Pictures (hopefully successful ones) to come on the weekend!

Day 35 - First day of work and new iPoddy!

So today was my first day on the new job. Finally back to work! Was a pretty easy day given that:

1.) I had the whole day beforehand to prepare all my meals
2.) It was our "rest" day, so all I had to do was skips (though I paid a visit to 8min Mike too)
3.) I only had to start at 8.30am.

Tomorrow will be a different story. I've got the meals half sorted, but still don't know our diets for tomorrow yet. Tomorrow will be anything BUT a rest day, starting a new week, and work will start from 7am from now on... BUT AT LEAST IT'S FRIDAY!!! (yay~)

So - I also got a my new iPod shuffle delivered today! I ordered it a couple of days ago, and was hoping to receive it yesterday before I started work, but oh well.

So here's a picture of my new iPod shuffle vs. my old one. Th reason I had to go out and buy a new iPod is because the battery of the old one was pretty much dead. For some reason, it would only last for about 5 minute before running out of batteries. It was getting really annoying. The new shuffle is actually smaller than the old one, but has longer battery life (15hrs vs. 12 hrs) and better ability to switch between playlists! ahh... technology. Never ceases to amaze me. Impressive! (I'm starting to sound old and senile...)

I've always liked the shuffle because of its big buttons letting you pump up the volume or skip songs with ease when exercising. They did go off of that for the 3rd gen shuffle, which  was not impressed at - but apparently no one else was either! Luckily they brought back all the good things about the 2nd gen shuffle into their latest incarnation.

Not as fancy as all the other iPods, but definitely much more functional. The current gen nano seemed tempting at first because it also now has a clip, but when I considered the fiddly touch screen, and the more expensive price tag for something which didn't quite serve my purpose, I decided that this time more expensive was not necessarily better (which I am proud of because that doesn't happen often!).

Purchasing the iPod from apple we get free engraving too! Didn't really know what I wanted to engrave - I wanted to put my name at least in case anyone decided to claim it was theirs and not mine, but also wanted a message to keep me pumped whenever I work out - a motto if you will. After deliberating many minutes, I decided to go with No pain, no gain. Very cliched, and very late 80s/early 90s, but in my mind, also very appropriate.

P.S. don't ask me why I put the photos this way and that. I thought it'd look neat, but reviewing it now, it kinda looks stupid, but I can't be bothered to go back and change it anymore. Time for evening snack, then some digestion time and off to bed! 5am start tomorrow. Happy Friday everyone!

Day 33 - Is this Tandoori? Sourdough tomorrow!

So I decided to make Tandoori chicken for dinner tonight. I remember Yeeman telling me very early on (before I had even started PCP), that Tandoori was one of the foods they discovered making which was both PCP compliant AND tasty. So I looked up this recipe online which was one of the first hits on google and had a 5 star rating. Surefire bet!

Pictured above is my okra and grilled egg plants with some leftover Hainan Chicken, and my "Tandoori Chicken". I was kinda surprised I gotta admit. It smells like tandoori; it tastes like tandoori; but it sure as anything doesn't LOOK like tandoori (or the tandoori that I was used to), and I couldn't find any ingredients on the list which I could work out would make it look orange like the tandoori I'm used to. A quick google for me discovered: "What gives tandoori chicken its distinctive reddish-orange color? red food coloring!".  Traditionally this may have been caused by annatto seeds, but this was not one of the ingredients on my recipes...

Oh well, good to have another useless fact up my sleeve, along with some other of my random googles this week, such as finding out that white and brown eggs have the same nutritional content (WOW!).

Excited about tomorrow morning. It is my last day of unemployment (start work on Thursday boohoo..), but also I have been keeping this starter for sourdough for the past few days, and have finally been able to create a sponge to try making my own wholemeal sourdough!

Here's a lil peek of what it looks like so far! I've been keeping it in a plastic container, as I read online that this is a good way of letting things rise too, which seems to make sense, and with the container, I can put dought straight on, as well as tins like this. Neat! It's been sitting for almost 24 hours to proof and I finally get to bake it tomorrow morning for breakfast. Smells sour... YAY! Can't wait!

Day 31 - Indulgences, bread baking and snapping resistance bands...

GT and I finally got around to having our indulgence the other night. She was kind enough not to have it in Korea, but instead we shared half a bottle of wine when she came back instead. This with some grilled salmon and steamed vegetables made for a VERY pleasant meal!

I have been busy over the past few days baking too. Baked some wholemeal rolls on Friday, made a couple of wholewheat Turkish pides yesterday, and have also prepped some starter, to make sourdough perhaps in a few days time. Ever since the breakthrough of using cooler water and the oven as a means to let the bread rise (thanks Molly), my bread has become increasingly edible, and so I've been making more of it (plus GT enjoys it too).

Here are a couple of pictures of the bread, before baking, and another with one baked and the other about to be put in. I brushed the top of the bread with one of the egg yolks from our egg white quota of the day.

This morning's exercise was pretty tough. We had to get up at 5am to do our exercse, because GT had to be in NT by 7.30am for a friends wedding. I also start work next Thursday, which means that I'll have to wake up around that time everyday to fit my exercise in anyways. It was actually not too bad because the birds start chirping around 4am, and at least it was still quite cools when we did our skipping. I was relieved to find that we only had one leg exercise today instead of two... until we got to the actual exercise. 4x 16 floor jumps later GT and I were rolling around crying on the floor for mercy!

The rest of the exercises today weren't too bad, except that when doing my katanas, my resistance band snapped! I didn't keep the actual reciept for the purchase, but still have the credit card receipt. Hopefully that's enough to claim a warranty!

P.S. Whatever happened to all the comments from my previous post?! I'm sure there were at least 5 other comments apart from Shirley's before! grrr... st0pid blogger.

Day 28 - 加油 Day 73-ers!!!

Done our exercises for today - it's rest day, so only took 15 min for GT & I to get thru the jumps. Nice! Been reading the blogs for all the people in the group ahead, and it seems that the culmination of 10 weeks intense training and the introduction of "sets to failure" have left some of you feeling tired and unmotivated. All I can offer you from this point is 加油! がんばって！ You can do it!!!

So close, and yet so far away, I don't think I'd dare to brave any of these exercises with Yeeman anymore for fear of the pain I'd have to go through the next day, but I admire all the determination in you that has led up to this point and would just like to encourage you to give it all you've got in these final moments!

Just as a point of reference to let you reminisce on where we (the latter group) are now and reflect on how far you've come...

The picture portrays the eggs that GT & I are eating on a daily basis now. I was boiling our eggs this morning when I came to realise how many we were burning thru per day. Two for her and three for me.

Anyways, best of luck, and in the famous words of :08 min. abs guy: "Hopefully you won't have to dig too far gang - at least not for long!"