Find out the first month’s results as our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun attempts yet another diet.
“History repeats itself.” That’s one phrase that our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun always remembers. Why? Because the soon-to-be 40-year-old is once again fat.
Last year, P.K. reviewed a diet for our Japanese site called the Hybrid Method Body Remodeling, which left him in good shape afterwards. He’s also tried numerous other diets over the last few years, but unfortunately, he has never made it last. Recently, though, P.K. has been giving his almost four-decade-old body a lot of thought. Is he satisfied to just leave it because, well, he’s already almost over the hill? Or should he give it his all and finally, really make an effort to get into good shape?
P.K. has chosen to fight for his right to be sexy! Congratulations P.K.!
- A sinful body (and perhaps not in a good way)
Because he’s tried out so many diets, P.K.’s readers often assume that he purposefully gets fat before he tries a diet, but that’s not true. P.K.’s weight gain is a steady, natural phenomenon, in spite of a rigorous training regimen of visiting the gym twice a week.
It’s also no surprise he’s gained weight again since he has a massive sweet tooth. To P.K., no meal is complete without dessert, and he’s also a big fan of carbs. If he could gather all of the Dragonballs on the planet Namek and make a wish of the Eternal Shenron, one of his three wishes would be to be able to eat and still be thin like Gal Sone, a competitive eater of idol status.
Still, in the past, P.K. never really minded what his body looked like, so he only attempted a diet for about a month each time. Even when he lost a lot of weight on the diet, after the trial period ended he always returned to his usual eating habits.
But one day, while watching TV (and presumably eating carbs), he heard SAM, member of ’90s Japanese pop group TRF and legendary singer and dancer, say:
“The cells of the human body take three months to fully regenerate.”
And he figured that if you really wanted to get in shape, you need to keep to a diet for at least three months to get results.
So he decided that this time, that’s what he was going to do. Since this was his first ever three-month trial, he decided to go with what he calls the “King of Diets”, the low-carb diet.
- Month #1: A no-carb challenge
When he started his diet one month ago, P.K. weighed 69.5 kilograms (approximately 153 pounds), and his body was composed of 21.6 percent fat. After finishing the Hybrid Method Body Reformation last year, he ended with 64.8 kilograms (143 pounds) and 18.9 percent body fat. That means he gained about 10 pounds and 3 percent in body fat in the course of a year.
P.K. chose the low-carb diet because it’s simple to execute: just don’t eat carbs. For the first month, he wanted to go all out and make it a no-carb month. Well, not entirely. He did eat a small amount of fruit every day. That, and he still needed to eat some fiber to prevent some..ahem…stoppages from happening, so he did eat some All Bran cereal in the morning.
P.K.’s daily meal plan for the first month:
Breakfast: Yogurt with nuts and All Bran cereal
Lunch: Soy bean salad with chicken breast and gizzards
Snack: Green smoothie (with some fruit mixed in)
Evening Snack: Same as lunch
Dinner: Oden
P.K. diligently repeated this menu for a month, but didn’t change anything else about his daily habits. He even kept his workouts to twice a week to see how taking out carbs would affect his body weight and composition.
- The First Month’s Results
Since for P.K., food is one of the things he lives for every day, this diet was a struggle. He missed his daily after-dinner ice cream, and longed for a bowl of his favorite ramen, or just a bite, just one bite of a hamburger. His cravings were so strong that he decided that if this didn’t work after a month, he would quit.
▼ Although he assures us he didn’t eat them, he still bought his favorite rum raisin ice cream bars.
But he persisted. When he got on the scale after the conclusion of the first month, he found:
*drumroll*
Body weight: 66.5 kilograms (146.6 pounds)
Body fat percentage: 20.5%
In short, he’d lost about 6 pounds and dropped his body fat percentage by 1%!
But looking at his before and after photos, P.K. felt a niggling dissatisfaction. This was not it. This was not enough for him. Although he’d lost 6 pounds, he could still see an indisputable pudginess. Or rather, he felt that it was obvious that he had over 20 percent body fat. He thought about excusing it because of his age. Maybe his dad-bod just wouldn’t show results like a young body would. Even if he did the same thing for the same amount of time as a twenty-year-old, his middle-aged body just might not be able to respond the same way.
But no! No excuses! P.K. is not giving up yet. This is not the hot bod he’s looking for. As promised, he’s going to persist in his diet and charge forward into the second month.
Since he didn’t see the results he’s looking for, he’s not just cutting carbs in Month Two. He’s going to add cardio to his diet and every day he’s going to jog 5 kilometers (3 miles)! What’s going to happen to P.K.’s middle-aged pudge with this added regimen of daily exercise? Will jogging really burn off that fat?
Tune in next month to find out!
In the meantime, if P.K. has inspired you to make a lifestyle change, make sure you avoid these seven diet-sabotaging Japanese foods. Or if you got hungry watching P.K. eat only salads, like we did, then go ahead and eat those things, like we will.
Good luck P.K.!
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