Petra Fortnightly Summary 15 days later...
Day 15: 60.1 kg Day 0: 64.7 kg
28 km run, 18.3 km of which with me, 6 weight training sessions, 3 emotional breakdowns with crying, - 4.60 kg, and an average of 4.38 cm slimmer body parts in 15 days.
Before I write anything else, I want to make one thing clear. I am very proud of Petra. She is handling the diet and workouts far better than I expected. Petra was in a very bad emotional and physical state at the beginning of the program, but most importantly, she had very serious issues with her self-esteem. I am proud of her because she is holding her own day after day with the diet, the workouts, and at her workplace, where she has now been appointed to some leadership position at OTP. She oversees Serbia and Montenegro, some factoring job or something. It doesn't matter. The pictures and data speak for themselves. In 15 days, she lost 4.6 kilos, and the measuring tape showed 8 cm less in some places than two weeks ago. This is a good, a very good result. This is what happens when you don't slack off, don't look for the easiest diet, don't try every crappy thing with a catchy name, and don't expect salvation from creams, heat therapies, or whatever other nonsense people have come up with recently. But I'm already waiting for those toilet-bowl-brained pheasants in the comments who will explain why this isn't real change, and that Petra didn't actually lose weight, it's just the lighting and the angle are different. I prepared Petra for everything at the beginning, including this. She tearfully asked me not to post her picture because she didn't want to be seen like that. I don't care about these faint-hearted stupidities, but I prepared her for the fact that there would be detractors. Those malicious, petty little people with ass-faces who are unable to tolerate the progress of others, who scream upwards from their own stagnant swamp, who are unable to add anything extra to life and to the lives of those around them. When they see someone doing this and moving forward, they desperately flap around and try to drag everyone back to their own level of nihilism, because they are unable to face the fact that they are incapable of this, or don't even have the courage to try. Everyone should get rid of these "people" from their lives as quickly as possible, because believe me, everyone has quite a few of these rejects around them.
Despite this, Petra stood strong, and although she knew it would be incredibly difficult, she started and is steadily moving towards her goals, the first stop of which is these first 15 days. We are in daily contact; I constantly talk to Petra via email, phone, and Facebook. I couldn't do otherwise, because Petra is a typical woman who needs a lot of attention. She needs support and someone who tells her what to do when. From now on, Petra should be a role model for every woman who reads the blog and has excess weight and has been postponing her diet for months; well, those women should feel terribly bad and please do something about it, besides lying to themselves that they work out once every two weeks and go zumba dancing.
Petra writes reports, which you can find on the right side of the blog, so everyone can get a pretty good idea of what Petra is going through during the program. But she writes this. Now I'll tell you what I see. If I take someone on, it means they can call me at any time of the day if there's a problem, I'll help them, meet with them, they can always turn to me for help. I motivate them, help them overcome deadlocks, and make them believe they are capable of it and can do it. We laid down the rules. They can make one mistake, there's no second chance, we illustrate the program with photos, they write at least one report per week, and they strictly adhere to the diet and training plan I wrote for them. I honestly didn't believe in Petra. I didn't believe she would be able to handle it, and I was convinced that the critical and most difficult first 12 days would kill her.
I was wrong. Petra proved me wrong in almost everything, because she was enthusiastic and a partner. She strictly adhered to everything we discussed, didn't whine about the food, didn't look for loopholes, but determinedly did the workouts and followed every piece of advice I gave her, whether it was about training or eating. This went on until day 8... This is where the problems began, as this was the point when the stupid questions started coming. "Can I eat yogurt I make at home?", a phone call in the evening, asking if she was very hungry and if she could eat SOMETHING, "I'm at a party, how much alcohol can I drink?", and then the first story emerged, when her colleague brought cake to the office and Petra had to leave so she wouldn't eat any of it, as this hadn't been a problem before. Of course, after every such move, I ruthlessly chewed her out, but in that devastating style. I have a theory that connects stupid thoughts, sweets, and bad foods with a strong negative experience, so that when she thinks about being an idiot again, she'll have a bad feeling and know that she's about to go down a dead-end road. This has worked so far, but the end is still far off.
As I mentioned, a critical period began from day 8, which only got worse. Despite her friends unhesitatingly remarking how much she had lost, and how noticeable the change was on her face and stomach. So we reached the phase of brutal emotional swings, which looked like her calling me giggling about how good she was starting to feel and that her cellulite had disappeared after 6 years, which she topped off with a message like this...
Then this is followed by a huge low point with crying, when she completely wavers and becomes insecure in herself, and basically doesn't dare to go out on the street because of her complexes. I can't quite place these, although she's a girl, so I should have gotten used to completely unrelated things by now.
I've talked a few times about the critical first 12 days. Well, for Petra, this came a little later, specifically on days 13-14, but it arrived. Now she needs to be very careful, and so do I with her. If she slips, I think now is the biggest chance, and in the next week. Now the food has become shitty and monotonous, now the workouts have become unbearably difficult, and generally everything is really bad now. Well, yes, that comes with it. All the crappy eating and the 2 years spent in a relationship have consequences, and Petra is now paying the price for it. It's not out of the question that the breakup is also hitting her now.
When I posted the "Petra is emotionally drained" entry on the Facebook blog, she was with me, and I witnessed a huge crying meltdown. It happens, not that I particularly cared, but I think I found the best cure for it. We ran 11 km, and by the time we finished, a few things were sorted out in her head too. This is what I call the beneficial effect of sports. Interestingly, I have a tenth of these problems with Dani, even though it's not easier for him either. He's currently going to Germany for a three-day business trip, where he also has to stick to his diet, but more on that later in his weekly summary, in the meantime we'll continue with Petra. She's a bit better now, which of course doesn't mean everything will be alright in 2 minutes.
Petra, I can only say this going forward...
