The Peak Condition Project - Sean Anderson

Day 90, Done.

2008-08-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

...And, yet, I’m just beginning.

(Please do note that I will be adding more pictures as the week goes on so please stick with me and enjoy the celebration)

Wow, I almost don’t have words enough for this post. Funny that for the first time in all of these 90 days with all of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of words and experiences and ideas that finishing something that’s been such a huge part of my life for the past three months has left me nearly speechless. But perhaps I’m grasping for something deep when that really isn’t necessary. No, I think that I’ll just celebrate with you all, give myself a good and hearty pat on the back, and let the thanks, acknowledgments, reflections, and future plans fly as high as I am right now.

Speaking of celebrations, I just remembered that about this time last year was when I first decided to become a vegan. It was about mid-August and I had just finished watching a movie called Earthlings which is all undercover video taken at factory farms, science labs, circuses, etc. and is free to watch on Google Video. I’m especially proud of that commitment I’ve made and I’m looking forward to how the next year and years will turn out. Whoo!

I’ve got to thank Patrick first and foremost. Without him and his example and guidance I never would have taken the first step toward improving myself like this, in fact, I’m absolutely positive that I would still, at this very moment, be stuck on a couch wiling away my life with all of the horribly unhealthy habits that so possessed me and my daily life before the project. Without him I would never have broken those crippling, destructive habits that dictated my life and kept me in a perpetual state of sloth. Without him I never would have built the knowledge and habits that are so present in me right now and that will stick with me for the rest of my life--a long life, I’m sure now, because of all of the beneficial effects the Peak Condition Project has had on me.

So thank you, Patrick, you do truly rock. Your unfailing enthusiasm never ceases to amaze me. You’ve taught me more about myself, and from so many miles away, than I could ever have hoped to learn.

My fellow PCPers, Corry and David, well, We Did It! I almost didn’t think that we’d be celebrating this day together that’s how much I got to myself in the early days of the project but you two, man, you two helped pull me through the tough times I was having at the beginning by your optimism and all of the gentle and inspirational support. Your words, in your comments and in your own blogs, gave me something to anchor myself to. You guys were my lifeline that I could climb up on whenever I was sinking. You two helped me keep my head above the murky depths of my own self-doubt and made me able to skim on the surface of this great ocean of improvement.

You two are beautiful people and I won’t be able to forget you guys or what you gave to me, never asking for anything in return. I’ve so much enjoyed our journey here together and I so hope to keep hearing from you guys as time goes on past these tough days of the Project. Despite the distance separating us three, I believe we were a team in the best sense of the word--a stable support for all of our ups and downs and some of the best cheering sections we could ever hope for. Thank you, thank you.

And everybody, both online and in my personal life, who followed our journey through our blogs and offered help and support and advice, well, this simply wouldn’t have been possible without all of you. All of you out there in the wild land of the internet who kept up with us all the way through the project, and even those who came and went and maybe came back, kept us going. You gave me a reason and a drive to keep going, to keep sharing my experiences with you, to keep you all in my life. I would never have forgiven myself if I had quit on all of you sometime in the middle of the Project because it didn’t feel as if you were simply just unknown eyes scanning through the sometimes random and incomprehensible tales I set before you, no, I felt as if there was a conduit linking me to all of you, like we were one and the same and if I quit and let myself down then I would be letting all of you down and there was no way that I could do that.

Thank you all from the bottom of me.

- - -

So what did I learn from all of this?

My body can take and do a heck of a lot more than I ever thought it could. I was never out of shape and by the time the Project started I was considering myself a pretty fit person, certainly not in top physical condition but healthy and strong. Boy was I wrong. There was so much more to me just hiding under all of that fat under my skin and lining whatever muscle I did have and the Project showed me that all I had to do was take a little time out of my day, put some effort into myself, and believe that I could be better than I already was.

Boy did I come out a believer in myself. I now know that I am capable of so much more than I would have thought of at first and even now I can see that I am capable of improving myself and becoming so much better than I am at this point. I’m capable of anything.

I’ve learned that jumproping takes a little practice to get into (and squatting jumpropes even more so) but once you do it’s as if a whole new world opens up for you. I never thought I would have enjoyed a “classic” workout (read, not karate related) as much as I did. It started out as a bit of a love-hate relationship but by now...it’s all love, baby. I love the feel of the jumprope in my hands and how I feel after a couple thousand jumps and the sharp snap of the rope on the floor. It’s wonderful and I would recommend it to absolutely anyone.

I’ve learned that I love fruit. Before the project I was already into fruit but now, after three months of having to eat it every single day, I dig biting into the stuff so much that I can’t imagine going a day without it. I especially love papaya spears and pineapple rounds and if you ever happen upon any of those, my fair readers, then hop on the bandwagon and ride it straight on through to amazing taste city.

Surprisingly it does not take much money at all to get in the very best shape of your life. I spent only, maybe, a hundred dollars on everything (jumprope, resistance bands, blender, scale, etc.) and I wasn’t being frugal by any means. Gyms are not necessary at all and there is a particular kind of satisfaction that comes with getting into just as good a shape as those who spend thousands a year on gym memberships that they hardly use and at places where the employees hardly care whether you succeed or fail. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they’re rooting for you to fail just so that you will keep paying up on your gym membership plans (and the personal trainers they keep trying to talk you into).

Making close to (probably) 300 soy protein smoothies within a 90 day period will make you a master smoothie craftsman. I can make them in my sleep now, I’m sure, and they all taste delish. My nightly banana infused smoothies are something that I will continue to make because they are oh so tasty. Let me tell you, if you ever plan on making a fruit smoothie then please add a banana in the mix, it will make it so much thicker and tastier. You can thank me later about that.

Ah, the very last "Project" banana smoothie. I'll miss those the most, I think.

The strength of your body directly impacts how you live and how much you get out of life. Simply enough: a strong, healthy body will produce a healthy, happy life while a sluggish, fatty body will make life miserable.

Nearly all of the Project is mental. Patrick put it best when he said that the project is 90% mental and only 10% physical. The hardest part about the project is getting over the hurdles you set up for yourself. The thing is though, that, your body desperately wants to get over those hurdles--it craves it--all you have to do is give it the means to do it and BAM! your body will do things you never thought possible and will consistently surprise and please you. Give yourself a chance.

These satisfactions are permanent.

- - -

There doesn’t seem to be much more for me to say here that I haven’t already said right now and over the past 90 days so I’ll end with looking towards the future.

My Post-PCP Plans

The 29 Olympics started just at the end of this Project and has inspired me to become even more healthy than I already am and greater than I imagined myself could ever be. It’s been a huge inspiration seeing those people who have trained for so long to be the best they could be and to be as strong as they could be that I want to follow in their footsteps, so to speak.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a bike, a very nice Specialized number, hanging upside down from big black hooks in my garage. I’ve never put much effort into riding it which has been a shame. I want to do something about that.

I’m working on developing a post-Project Project for myself that will have me becoming one with that bike and have me driving myself to a better condition than I am even now.

My PCP blog will be up for ever and I want to tell you all about the struggles and triumphs I will have as I go from a very novice rider to, hopefully, someone very skilled, in shape, and driven to be as good as I possibly can be. I’ll be starting off slow around the neighborhood and will build myself up to zooming around the town, with all of its hills and straight, smooth paths, until I’m able to compete with the big guys (possibly, probably). I want to share that experience with all of you, possibly in a weekly posting (that's the plan, at least) with all of the routes I’ve taken and my experiences with those rides, how I’m adjusting to it all, my thoughts on everything, etc., because I know that you will give me the support I need to keep myself on the path to my goal.

Thank you in advance for all of that.

It seems that I’ve said what I wanted to say here. I’ll be putting up as many pictures as I can and I hope that you’ll all be coming back to check those out as they come up.

This is me, signing off for now. This has been an adventure I will never forget.

Thank you all. Have a nice day.

Day 89, Nearly there...

2008-08-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

It almost felt like this time would never come but here we are, one day away from Day 90, one day away from completing this three month odyssey, one day away from satisfaction and having completed something that I didn’t think I would be able to complete.

I’m feeling pretty good about it, not nearly as good as I will on Wednesday knowing that I won’t have to write another blog post for all of you. I mean, I enjoyed my time here on this blog but this was one of the absolute hardest parts of the project for me. I am totally proud of myself for having consistently kept up with this blog, writing a post every single day of this project. I didn’t think I’d be able to do that--I thought that I may get through a month of this and then cool things down to maybe three or four a week. That might certainly have been easier on me but I don’t think I would have gotten the same sense of satisfaction if I did that. This whole journey on this blog have almost been a project within a project--can I keep up a daily log of my experiences? I think I did pretty well on that count.

I think I will be missing the structure of my meals and having everything laid out for me. It was kind of weird to consider that essentially I was being told what to eat every day since I haven’t had to do that for the last twenty or twenty-one years. Sure there was a lot of room for variation and experimentation but if stayed within the confines of the gram measurements and didn’t go overboard on the weekends then, well, I would succeed. It’s going to take a lot of self-control to keep myself from slipping back into habits from before the project that are still lingering way, way deep down in some dark crevasse inside of me. I’ve said it numerous times before, though, that these habits that I’ve developed during the project will also be difficult to break, and I don’t want to break them.

So I should be good there.

The interaction between everyone on these blogs has been wonderful and I know for a fact that I would have crumbled very early on if it weren’t for the support from my fellow PCPers and those people reading and commenting on my blog. Thanks for all of the wonderful advice, it’s all something I will cherish forever and take with me into my daily life as something to live by.

It’s all so wonderful and I hardly have the right words, or enough of them, to truly tell all of you how much I appreciate your help. You’re all awesome.

Have a fantastic day.

:-)

Day 88, In the spirit of the Olympics

2008-08-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

...I guess.

There is a 24 Hour Fitness (I’ve always thought it odd that it isn’t actually open for 24 hours...what’s the point of the name?) about a ten to fifteen minute drive away from my house--sometimes longer depending on how the evil 91 freeway is faring during the day--maybe nine or ten miles away whose front looks out onto the freeway and its passing cars. It’s always interesting to see people sweating away on the treadmills that line the windowed front of the building as I drive by--they never look happy to be there.

Some friends of mine and me went to that particular fitness gym because a couple of them have a membership there and they were able to get a free day pass for me and the other one in the group that didn’t have a membership. Let me start by saying that, man oh man, are they pushy. Before I could even think about walking out onto the workout floor I was marauded by two or three of their relentless employees and had membership packages and rates and coercions and trickery thrown at me from all sides. It was all they could do to keep themselves from strapping me into a chair and forcing me to endure unimaginable pain and torture unless I agreed to become a member of their particular club (slash, ahem, cult). I’m not joking when I said I had to listen to their spiel for an insufferable twenty minutes while trying to talk my way out of it and just sign the freaking paperwork to get my limited guest pass.

For that reason alone I will never again desire to join a 24 Hour or Bally’s or L.A. Fitness gym. Ever. Never ever.

There were two things that my friends wanted to do at the gym while they were there: one, lift some weights and two, go swimming in their indoor swimming pool. Lifting weights was the idea that some of my bigger friends had; I wasn’t totally into it because, well, who needs free weights anymore now that I’ve got resistance bands and a jumprope? I went along with that, though, and I could tell right away that I was getting looks from some of the other more muscley gym rats that were hanging around in their too tight shorts and sweat drenched tank tops. I’m sure that they were wondering how a relatively skinny guy like I am could do what I am capable of doing. I didn’t mind their looks as I stepped onto the benches, I was rather happy with myself actually.

The swimming pool was another story, though. We had tried swimming at one of my friend’s grandmother’s condominium pool but unfortunately chose the worst time to do it. If anyone ever tries to convince you to try swimming early in the cold morning after a particularly chilly night then do yourself a favor and slap them in their face. A rather uncomfortable thing happens to your body when you try and swim in quite possibly 40 degree water, your body nearly stops functioning (and for you guys out there, well, let me say that my nether region should not be popsicled and then sucked up into my body like that...not fun at all).

I have never been terribly good at swimming, just terrible. I can certainly keep myself afloat and, obviously, I haven’t drowned myself trying anything laughably simple in the water but beyond that, well...I won’t go into any details. For my pride’s sake, you know? I didn’t spend too much time in the pool which was really a bit of a shame because swimming has got to be one of the better exercises out there for you--it’s low impact and it work out every muscle in your body.

There was a jacuzzi and a sauna there so the actual pool was quickly abandoned in favor of the more heated distractions offered. I will admit that it was my very first time in a sauna and man is it hot in there. Ha ha? Why is it that saunas are designed by people that apparently are in desperate love with sharp edges and slippery tile? Where’s the fun in that?

We left soon after that because people had things and work to do during the day and I went home confident in my promise to myself never to go to another gym again in my life. If the employees behavior there is any indication of other gyms then you couldn’t force me to go to another one anyway. Besides all that, there’s absolutely no need to “prove myself” to protein bar chomping, energy drink guzzling muscle heads (who I’m sure really are nice guys who don’t deserve my berating them) that naturally gravitate to those places because they’re unaware that all you need to be healthy and in shape are vegetables, a jumprope, and a set of resistance bands. That’s all people, nothing more is needed, cut up your gym card, find a Sports Authority near you, and forget that you were ever a part of an organization like that.

Also, how inspiring is the Olympics this year? Makes me want to actually give swimming another try or get my bike down and really start turning myself into a cycling monster.

Have a fine Sunday. Two days left.

Day 87, Three days left?!

2008-08-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

Well, the exercise plan will remain the same because, well, what more can be added or modified that will change or improve what we’ve already done and already know how to do? It almost seems, in some ways, that we’re on auto-pilot at this point--we know what we need to do with our bodies, we know what we need to put into them and how much we need to put into them to keep them running smooth and strong, and we’re beginning to understand just what to do to keep our progress moving forward safely by ourselves.

Besides, I don’t think that I want to subject myself to another one of Patrick’s new sadistic workout routines (squatting pushups and pull up and v-sits?! what’s the deal?).

Patrick also sent us s a bit of advice to carry us through our non-PCP lives and keep our bodies humming along at pleasantly wonderful levels. That bit of advice, short and, I’m sure, deceptively simple, is:

No numbers.

Screw them, they aren’t necessary, apparently. He tells us that it’s a life rule, probably the only one we’ll ever really need, and at first glance it seems to make a lot of sense and would be easy to follow. And I’m sure that it is, but the American consumer in me is puzzled by that rule.

For as long I’ve been aware of what I’ve been putting into me I’ve been, hmm, bombarded by nutrition labels and % Daily Values and fat percentages, etc. that something that’s really no more difficult to understand and live by than the knowledge that putting your hand over an open flame will burn your hand. Of course, it’s the food industry’s job to spread that misinformation about, but it’s still disheartening to realize that I’ve been tricked into worrying about stuff that isn’t something that should be worried over.

It’s as simple as this: you know your body, your body knows itself and will respond in actual physical ways to let you know that what you’re doing to it is either cool or not groovy at all. Those numbers on the back of the box are designed around a person’s body that is not your own so therefore those numbers should not be of any concern to you whatsoever. What you should be paying attention to, like I just said, are the signals that your body will only too readily give to you. That’s its job and it’s damn good at it.

So listen to it--if those burritos you’ve been eating frequently over the last month are leaving you feeling sluggish and down then obviously those poisons should be taken out of your system, no matter how much salty goodness is packed into them.

Have a wonderful day. You’re all wonderful.

Day 86, Updates and such

2008-08-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Another one of these, I will admit, but of course this would in fact be the very final diet plan update because, well, after Tuesday Corry, David, and my part of the Peak Condition Project will be no more. It will continue, of course, because the ground we’ve laid over the past three months would take a concerted effort of will and physical strength to actually break.

So I’m not worried about any of us falling into disrepair, no, I’m confident that we will only continue to grow and develop and continue on with us until the very end of our days. It’s what the PCP’s all about, as I’ve said before, folks.

So onto the update-that-isn’t-much-of-an-update. This last weeks diet plan is...to stay the course, tried and true, taking me to Day 90 and beyond. That diet plan, which was also last week’s diet plan, is:

Breakfast, 170 g carbs, everything else the same.

Lunch, 130 g carbs, everything else the same.

Dinner, same.

Again, nothing difficult there, in fact if this last week has proven anything then this last week should be some sort of cakewalk in the park.

I do believe that tomorrow we will be graced with an updated exercise plan...or this last week’s one will continue on. I have been given instructions to totally shred my chest and shoulders this last week so that’s what I’ll be up to, you know, in case anyone was wondering.

Have a nice day, all, and I hope the beginning of your weekend will rock as much as I’m sure mine will. Ta-ta.

Day 85, Not quite an "indulgence"

2008-08-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

But I think for these purposes here that it’ll do just fine, folks.

The indulgence I’m speaking of is soy yogurt. Yes, soy yogurt, wonderful and creamy, filled with fruity goodness and able to stuff my stomach full like no other snack type item I’ve yet to discover.

For a long while after I became a vegetarian the prospect of a soy yogurt kind of food was a foolish man’s pipe dream--I dared not to even dream that such a thing existed and I resigned myself to my future of a yogurtless existence. Hard as that was I persevered and lived on, hoping that one day the soy gods would grace me with some creamy, fruity goodness.

And then I came across the farmer’s market about five minutes away from my house. It was, first of all, a wonderful find for me because now I do a lot of my shopping there since I’m able to find everything my vegan body needs there, and then some. (Although, I must say, rather embarrassedly, that I was surprised that they sold meat there. Ah, the hilarity of my youthful naivete, “What? Why is a farmer’s market selling meat?! I thought they weren’t into all of that. My world is being rocked!”). Strolling around those aisles led me to their dairy section which contained, among some other vegetarian items, this little bit of some sort of heaven:

This is the peach flavor cup but they also come in Plain, Vanilla, Raspberry, Strawberry, Cherry, Lemon, Blueberry, Apricot Mango, Strawberry Banana, and Mixed Berry. So far I’ve only had the pleasure of tasting the Apricot Mango, Strawberry, Blueberry, Cherry, Peach, and Vanilla flavors but each one has been it’s own unique delight.

Obviously, being vegan, it’s free of saturated fat, cholesterol, lactose, and it’s gluten free so even if you’re not a vegan or vegetarian it’s a wonderfully healthy substitute to cow’s milk yogurt. Frankly, if memory serves, I think it tastes much better as well. Right off you notice the taste--sweet, it’s very sweet and the flavor hits you like a battering ram in full force right away. It’s very smooth and creamy and it’s a sensory delight to swirl it about in your mouth, to let it play over your tongue and seep between your teeth and feel it cool every corner of the inside of your mouth.

It’s very high in calcium, about 30% DV, and it’s sugar and sodium level are some of the lowest you can find in a yogurt so all of that is definitely a plus. It’s pretty affordably priced, too, and can come in between a dollar to a dollar-fifty a cup, depending on where you shop (I like to splurge a bit and by several whenever I’m at the store because, honestly, they go so quickly and they’re quite addicting).

So if you happen upon a cup of this lovely goodness go ahead and give it a try. A lot of you may be a bit skeptical and hesitant to try it since it is a soy product but, as I said before, it’s smooth and creamy and not at all gritty or chalky as some soy products can be. So give it a try, I can almost guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.

Day 84, Ruh-roh

2008-08-06T09:11:00.001-07:00

These waning days are having an odd effect on me. Curse me and my lethargic ways!

I’ve very oddly been feeling less and less inclined to pay attention to what I’m eating throughout the day and how much exercising I should be doing during my normal workout times. Bad, bad, yes I realize. I shouldn’t be letting these final days of the project effect my thinking and all of the work that I’ve put into myself over these last three months--nothing would be worse for me if I just let the excitement of finishing this thing turn my thinking into something lazy and wholly un-PCP like.

That would certainly be a tragedy.

And I’m not entirely sure what brought this about or why exactly it’s been happening, I mean, these last days are, if nothing else, a time when my resolve needs to be as strong as it possibly can be and I need to kick everything into overdrive rather than letting myself sit on the back burner and idle my way through to the end.

I think that this whole feeling of lethargy is due to the day or so when I was physically unable to devote myself entirely to my exercises, when I couldn’t jumprope to save my life. I guess my mind enjoyed that brief respite and longed for more of the same.

I need to tell myself, “No!” Now is when I need to persevere and push on through to the other side of all of this because if I can do that then I will be set for as long as I am able to be. If I let that negative thinking take a hold of me, if I let those thoughts lingering in some dark, dripping area in the back of my head, the ones telling me that skipping out on my exercises would be okay, then everything will have been...well, not entirely pointless, but not too far off that mark.

Send me some confidence. Help me and David and Corry through these last few days. Keep us strong, energized, and focused because, oddly enough, the end of this project is no real downhill slide, it’s just as demanding as any other bit.

It’s nice to think that we’ll have accomplished something, though. Smiles abound!

Day 83, The well's run dry

2008-08-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve been almost dreading this day since before the project ever began--today I’ve realized that I don’t have much of anything to talk about. There’s nothing that I have to talk about and nothing that I really want to talk about (well, I’m sure there are things that I would want to talk about, if I knew what those things were then of course I would talk about them). It’s like the spigot’s been opened up for the last three months and now all the water’s been let out; what once was a torrent is now a trickle. The ideas are drip dropping out, gone is the waterfall of ideas.

Actually, there still is the indulgence day to consider--and I had better get a move on with that or miss my opportunity completely--and of course there’s the matter of the small assignment that Patrick gave us three recently, what that is you’ll have to wait and see because I’m not going to ruin the surprise for you all (that is unless Corry or David mention it first).

Well, I suppose I could go over an interesting little tidbit that Patrick divulged to us in yesterday’s e-mail. It was one more way for us to better continue our awesome progress into truly better health and a wicked new lifestyle that I’m sure will stick with us as long as we put ourselves to it.

As far as our diets go, the ratio of food has been pretty simply divided now and easy to follow. I’m sure it’s been pretty obvious as to how it’s been divided, as you could tell with my regular diet plan updates, but Patrick presented us with some pretty clear percentages that put things into a much clearer light for me, at least.

Instead of standing at the kitchen counter at every meal, weighing out the correct amount of food (which gets tiresome, let me tell you), there is actually a much easier and more efficient way to dish out our meals, by eye rather than by exact measurements. That ratio being:

50% vegetables
30% protein
20% carbohydrates
With fruit in between meals as snacks.

Simple and straightforward, just as it should be when it comes to something like this. It’s something that is easy to follow and can definitely ensure that I’m getting everything I need, without going overboard on the stuff that I don’t necessarily need, and all the while keeping me on track to a healthy, strong person.

I don’t know why I never saw something as simple as that before but I’m glad it clear to me now.

7 days, one week left...

Day 82, Sunday schmunday

2008-08-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

Boyo these weekends are getting tougher to deal with, let me tell ya. And seemingly for no apparent reason, nothing clear has pooped its head up in front of me and given me a clearly defined answer. Annoying, it is.

For me, weekends have always been a challenge to keep anything--resolutions, projects, hobbies, potential life creating paths, etc.--going for as long as it’ll last. I know I mentioned this before, ages ago it seems, but the weekends are really just treasure troves of temptations for me and as the project is continuing on its way as well as getting closer to its end, all at the same time, well these past weekends have infamously become grueling mental and physical challenges.

In fact, I recall just yesterday wiling away the mid afternoon hours on my bed reading page after countless page of a new book all the while trying not to focus on the packages of dried fruit sitting on the kitchen counter, or the soy yogurt (peach and vanilla and delicious strawberry) chilling away in the refrigerator, or the delectable cinnamon raisin whole wheat bread and the vegan cream cheese resting in drawers in the fridge.

How screwy it was. How beguiling! What tricks my mind played with me.

Of course, I was able to stave off the temptation and keep my sticky fingers to themselves and out of the potential food overload that would have taken place had I let my mind wander. Not that I was even hungry or anything, just bored, and you know what boredom can do to something like a diet and exercise plan.

Hee hee. All this worry over some yogurt and fruit. Funny. I’m still amazed at my newfound conscientiousness and the power it has over my everyday life and actions. Had one of these long weekends occurred before the project began the I would have been in the kitchen straightaway pulling object after object out of the fridge and collapsing onto my couch with a great sigh, ready for the feast that I’d be partaking in. Remembering those times also brings to mind the couple hours after the great gorging when my body would react to all of the food and begin cursing my weak willed mind for letting it stuff itself with all of that crap.

I’m sitting pretty now, about to go and enjoy squatting jumpropes, and imagining life after the project.

It’s filled with fruit and vegetables, and more jumproping.

Day 81, Whoops

2008-08-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

So I made a mistake about the whole timeline of this project--it seems that things changed through the course of this thing and instead of the project ending on August 15th like I originally thought and mentioned before it will instead be ending on “Day 90”. So that would mean that, as of writing this, there are only nine more days in the project for Corry, David, and me.

Things are winding down, it seems, but things don’t seem to feel like they’re ending, oddly enough. I’m sure that’s because we still do have nine days left and in some ways that’s still quite a long time; many things can happen, and will happen I’m sure, and there’s still a lot of work to be done, so many things to explore and discover, so much more jumproping to do.

I’m hoping that within the next nine days that I’ll be able to partake in my final Indulgence Day and describe my reaction to those always interesting experiences. Perhaps there will be one last exploration of a new and unique (for me, at least) foodstuff for all of you. I’ve really enjoyed doing those and I’d like to continue trying exotic new things because variety is the spice of life and if your life isn’t spicy then there isn’t bound to be much fun to it, now is there?

Any ideas from all of you faithful readers as to what I should subject myself to in these last few weeks? Something crazily awesome, I hope, because going out with a bang is always the best way to go (I mean, really, who would want to go out with a whimper?).

Yesterday was Saturday and judo was fine for all that it was. It certainly was painful at some points but those instances were broken up by my getting to help teach some of the other younger students instead of being the guinea pig. I’ve never really taught anybody during the judo classes before so that was an entirely new and weird experience. I did my best to teach them correctly but I didn’t have the years of experience it like I do with karate at hand so it ended up being me there trying my best to explain the intricacies of one of the more basic throws, all the while my mouth was moving faster than my head (what an odd sensation that is, let me tell you). It’s also very complicated trying to teach someone how to throw a person when you’re the person being thrown. That takes multitasking to a whole other level.

So judo was fine, karate, on the other hand, wasn’t as cool. Funny that it takes getting punched in the ear twice, almost losing all ability to hear out of both ears, and turning my left wrist into a red, yellow, and green mess of a bruise to make me realize that there has got to be a sport or exercise driven activity that would be better for me physically, and mentally at that. Kung fu was giving me that satisfaction for a while but the money I was spending on tuition and the sixty mile trip to the school and back was becoming not worth it. That was hard to realize since I really enjoyed taking kung fu and I wish there was a school closer to my house but what are you going to do?

Perhaps I’ll take up yoga again. Or something else...knitting?

Day 80, Calling it quits

2008-08-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

On fast food, that is. Not that I ever really ate any of the stuff, especially recently. It’s been, oh, maybe six or seven months since I had my last bit of fast food (Del Taco, if I remember correctly) and even then it was only french fries since fast food joints don’t really cater to the whole vegan crowd (Baker’s is making an okay vegetarian try at it but who cares, really). But I think that I’ve gotten to the point now that whatever temptation that food and those places had for me is now entirely gone, replaced with a stronger craving for vegetables and fruit, especially fruit.

Why the change of heart? Trans-fats, the nasty buggers.

Trans-fats are unsaturated oils that have hydrogen infused into them. They’re used in a lot of fast food frying techniques (see where this is going?) and any food which seems like it shouldn’t be solid at room temperature. Already it’s sounding grosser than most anything I’d put into my mouth. You should consider that it’s responsible for screwing with your cholesterol levels and wreaking havoc on your heart. Is it any wonder that it is the cause for so many food related deaths?

Really, when you’re putting something so fabricated and unnatural into you--and for so many people, especially in America, they’re ingesting the stuff many times a week when it should be maybe once a month or, preferably, never--it should be no surprise when your heart starts struggling to pump blood through your stiffened, cholesterol clogged arteries.

It’s silly to me that so many still persist in becoming well known, preferred customer customers at their local fast food restaurants and are oblivious to what it that behavior is doing to their bodies. I see and read so frequently about the obesity epidemic (and really there should be a stronger word in place of epidemic there) and marvel at how nothing changes in people’s eating habits. I’m aware that to some extent we’re creatures of habit, especially nowadays, and quick meals are convenient but it shouldn’t take a coronary to snap people to attention.

Of course, this is just one man’s amazement against the entire fast food industry. I’m sitting pretty on my resolution to stay away from my local McDonalds and Burger King and Taco Bell and, yes, even Del Taco because it just isn’t worth it. Honestly, I’m not sure why I ever thought it was.

Day 79, Squatting jumpropes?

2008-08-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Thursday which means that yesterday was new exercise plan day. Here it is for all of you to ogle at:

Day 1

Jumprope : 1 set x 15 mins

Chest Dips : 10 sets x 15 reps

Push-Ups : 4 sets x failure

Rear Chest Flys : 5 sets x 30

Biceps Curls : 4 sets x failure

One arm curl : 3 sets x failure

Shoulder Press : 4 sets x failure

V-sits : 5 sets x failure

Day 2

Squatting jumprope : 5 sets x 30-40 jumps

Pull-ups : 10 sets x 10 reps. Last 3 to failure

Rowing : 6 sets x 30 (last two to failure)

Triceps Dip : 5 sets x failure

Triceps Extension : 3 sets x failure

Forward Shoulder Raise : 5 sets x failure

Standing Shoulder Fly : 5 sets x failure

Side crunches : 4 sets x failure

Day 3

Jumprope : 1 set x 15 mins.

So yippee skippe I’ll be ringing in the new month, the last month (or half month) of the project, with this kind of kooky craziness.

There is basically nothing radically changed from two weeks ago and it should be something that I’m used to, or about to be getting used to soon, so I’m not dreading going through all of it so much. The whole jumproping for fifteen minutes straight deal is definitely not going to be my cup of tea but I’ll get through that with wheezing and cursing, I’m sure.

Take a look at “Day 2”, though...go ahead, I’ll wait. Squatting jumpropes? Yeah, that is typed correctly and, really, it is just as it sounds. Basically, from a squatting position, the jumprope cinched up higher on your hands or wrapped around your hands a couple of times to shorten it up, you go about your normal jumproping movement. Only from a squatting position. Yeah. Pure craziness, I’ll tell you. If the days work out right then I’ll be enjoying those bad boys on Saturday. I’ll be sure and tell you all about them if I’ve fully recovered from what I’m sure will be a butt-kicking workout.

Whose butt? My butt.

Day 78, Like lightning

2008-07-31T09:05:00.000-07:00

A speedy quick update for all of you because matters are pressing, and they’re pressing hard. We’re coming into the final days but that doesn’t mean that things are going to stop changing and stagnate, oh no, far from it. In fact, things are going to continue chugging right along.

Here’s this week’s diet plan update:

Breakfast, 170 g carbs, everything else the same.

Lunch, 130 g carbs, everything else the same.

Dinner, same.

So nothing too major. I am curious why the carb count seems to be the only thing that’s changing and fluctuating as the weeks progress. My understanding of carbs is probably still a bit like most people’s--a very Atkin’s diet kind of limited understanding.

I’m sure it’s all got to do with energy for the body and how it relates to our workout times and how best we can turn the food into energy so I’m not going to worry or obsess over it. No, I’ll just ride the continuous wave here and trust in the plan.

Have a nice day. I mean, as much as you can on a Thuuursday. Bleh.

Day 77, A weird find

2008-07-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

So it was Monday night that I found myself at the farmer’s market about five minutes from my house shopping for the necessities, you know, protein powder, some project food, soy yogurt and these babies...

These were hanging out by the cash register, rows and rows of them of all kinds of different flavors like “Hot ‘n Spicy” and “Ginger” and the ubiquitous “Original”. I picked up the Ginger kind because it seemed interesting and exotic and I don’t get too many chances to taste anything classified as “ginger” very often.

I couldn’t walk out of there without getting myself the stuff and still be happy with myself. I mean, how could you live with yourself if you passed up on an opportunity like that? I know I couldn’t have so I bought them.

First of all they were pretty expensive for what they were. What they are are tiny strips of pressed soybeans in the form of beef jerky that look a little bit like this:

They ended up costing about $2.50 which seemed a bit much until I realized that I wasn’t just paying for the jerky (around 50 cents I’m sure) I was paying for the fancy plastic packaging and the colorful label on the front. I’m so not a fan of that particular aspect of shopping.

The texture is nothing like I remember beef jerky tasting like even if the stuff looks pretty dang similar (which, by the way, brings a question I’ve had in my mind for a while, if the whole point of vegetarianism and veganism is to get away from eating animal products then why are those companies making their foods look so very much like foods made from actual animals? Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?). It ended up being just as chewy but not nearly as, um, stringy? I guess, and it didn’t take anywhere near as much effort to tear strips off of the bigger pieces.

The taste? Well, weirdly enough, and I don’t know if it was the ginger flavoring or if it was my odd taste receptors but the very first thing I thought of when I started chewing it around was...sunflower seeds. I have no idea why that came up first but it did, and strongly, too, so much so that I nearly tried to spit of the shell I thought was in my mouth onto the floor. Luckily I didn’t because I don’t need to clean up a gooey brown wad off of the floor. Beyond that, well, it’s hard to describe, it seemed smoky and what I guess ginger tastes like, but unfortunately the aftertaste is a big deterrent to actually buying anymore of the stuff from now on.

It was an interesting taste experience that I don’t think I’ll be taking again for quite a while. Oddly enough, though, my cat seems to love the stuff; I think she may be becoming a vegetarian herself, which could be bad for since she’s, well, a cat and they can’t groove like that.

Day 76, Oh ho ho!

2008-07-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well it seems that I forgot to mention on Sunday’s post some pain that I incurred on Saturday’s judo class. This came from the squats that we were made to do at the beginning of the class. Of course, these weren’t just any ordinary squats, either, but crazy, who-thought-of-that? kind of squats.

The squats we had to do were the kind where you and a partner stand back to back and hook your arms through the other persons so that you’re locked up next to each other. From there one person leans forward in their wide and, hopefully, stable stance until the other person is off of the ground, in the air, dangling from the other persons back. From that position the person still on the ground proceeds to squat down as low as they can without falling to their knees or onto their face and then stands back up again.

Fifty of these we had to do.

Now, why didn’t I mention this on Sundays post? Well, honestly, I didn’t notice any discomfort in my legs on Sunday. In fact, besides the whole slamming my knee into the ground pain I was riding on, my legs were feeling pretty okay. Okay, that is, until yesterday morning when I got back into my exercise routine.

The jumprope came first and if I wasn’t determined to get back into the swing of things I would have said, screw it, and laid back on the couch where my legs could rest and recover further. Like I planned earlier I only did about half of my normal jumprope workout routine but, man, was that enough to make me feel like my legs were turning to jelly and dying. It was almost funny and I found myself giggling whenever a sharp pain shot through my legs because it felt better than crying through the pain.

Work turned out to be an adventure as well. Working at a karate school demands a lot of standing and moving around as well as all of the physical activity that goes into teaching all of those kids. Physical activity including a lot of leg work. Luckily yesterday was light and I was able to take it easy on the kicks so there wasn’t much need to complain a whole lot yesterday.

Lesson learned: come late to judo so that I’ll conveniently miss the squats portion of the class because it doesn’t seem to be worth it. No sir, not at all.

Day 75, An admission

2008-07-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe two.

First, though, why does today feel like another “milestone” day? Another twenty-five days done and over with. Sure I can think that I conquered them in a way, but beyond that then today is just today.

So the first of my two admissions:

I didn’t do any jumproping yesterday. I know. I know. It’s a really horrible thing to have neglected, I’m right there with you in your shock and awe at that revelation. There is an excuse for it, though, and I’m sure you have read it in yesterdays post. I was actually physically unable to do any of the jumroping without an unbearable amount of pain. So what kind of a dummy would I have been if I were to have gone through with my exercises like normal, pushed through the pain, and been left, I’m sure, lying on my back on the floor without any hope of getting up again without screaming wildly like I was being stabbed through the chest repeatedly?

No sense, in that. No sir.

So I’ll be climbing my way up the exercise hill again and taking it easy on the knee. Perhaps I’ll do only a few sets of three or four minute jumping rounds instead of the full eight minutes that I’m supposed to have been doing. I’m sure that’ll still average out to be about 1000 jumps and that isn’t too bad at all.

The second:

I haven’t been eating all of my meals during the day these last few days. It’s been a real challenge to do that and I don’t know why exactly. It’s a bit of a mystery even to me because there’s nothing that should be stopping me from doing something as easy as eating a bunch of vegetables. I think I had just gotten a little burnt out with the whole schedule and proportion of meals that I’ve been following pretty strictly for so long. It seems that I’ve been wanting to eat those meals on my own time and if I’m just so worn out from eating 250 grams of vegetables a day than screw it I’ll skip those vegetables the next day.

Bad thinking, I know. There’s a reason that I’m eating all of those vegetables at specific times during the day. That reason would be that if I didn’t then my body would switch over to fat storing instead of energy expenditure and then boom I’m back where I started before the project began. So I need to get out of this destructive frame of mind and back on the track set out for me. There’s only a few days left, I can make it to the end the way I’m supposed to.

Phew, that’s a load off. I think now I can resume back on the track I started on knowing that I’m not hiding anything else.

Have a nice day.

Day 74, Add one more notch to the injury list

2008-07-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

Gah, it just keeps growing longer and longer, doesn’t it?

Yesterday was Saturday, you all know what that means, right? That is right, folks, yesterday was judo day, or the day when I get to injure myself and then complain about it to all of you the next day. Which is today! Count yourselves as some of the lucky ones, most people never get to hear this. (Well anyone within earshot usually does hear about it but they generally don’t really care enough to have it register).

Yesterdays class was a mighty interesting one--it started off as it normally does with all of the basic falls and rolls and then progressed onto a very fast-paced bout of something that I cannot recall the name of, something very Japanese, I’m sure. It was during this exercise that the first and worse of my few injuries took place. During one of these quick throws I had the misfortune to land first, with nearly all of my weight, on my left knee followed by the rest of my body. Now the whole goal of falling in the judo sense is to distribute the force impact on the ground over your entire body, whether it be landing on your side, your back, or your front you want to land flat and, oddly enough, slap the ground hard. Well, that didn’t happen in this case, on this particular throw (and by the head instructor, too, some kind of sadist, he has to be) which happened to be a hip throw where I was picked up and thrown over this persons hip, something went screwy with it all and I ended up driving my knee into the mat before the rest of my body.

To illustrate the throw, here’s a picture of something like it being done

Here’s another one

In this case I would have been the guy in blue, the one falling very rapidly and from a great height, to the floor.

So there was that. My knee has swollen up a bit and walking is painful but it shouldn’t last too long. I’m still young, right?

The other annoying injury is my neck which was full nelsoned into a tight bundle of dull neck pain. For those of you who don’t know this is what it looked like:

This was, again, done by the overenthusiastic head instructor and, man, was this one annoying. I could literally feel it pulling the muscles in my neck at the very same time as it was cutting off the flow of air into my throat. Let me tell you all this, if you ever have the chance to be suffocated while the back of your neck is stretched like taffy then, please, pass on it. It is so not fun.

Well, that was my yesterday. Here’s to hoping that todays exercises go well considering everything that’s been beaten up. Have a nice day and here’s to looking forward to next Saturday when I’m sure I’ll be going through a lot of this same exact stuff again.

:-)

Day 73, Blehch?

2008-07-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

Can you guess what this is?:

-Dehydrated potatoes

-Modified food starch

-Sugar

-Corn oil

-Salt

-Soy lecithin

-Leavening (Monocalcium phosphate and sodium bicarbonate)

-Dextrose

Any ideas? Anybody?

Those, my dear friends, would be the entire ingredients list to Lay’s Original Naturally Baked Potato Crisps.

A couple of nights ago I was standing around in my kitchen later on into the night looking for something to do...well, to be honest, I was looking for a little bit of something to munch on because my stomach was growling pretty fiercely and I was worried that if I didn’t feed it something then it would begin to literally eat itself in a crazy, blind frenzy. I happened to look at the corner of the counter that usually is home to our various chip collection, a place that I haven’t much looked at in the past month and a half, and saw those babies. My interest was piqued and I tentatively took the bag out and unrolled it all the time looking over my shoulder in case someone should be watching my insidious indiscretion. The bag was nearly full and the chips inside looked out at me longingly. I slowly took out a chip, a pathetic, cracked little thing, and put it on my tongue. And then I bit down, and around and chewed and moved it around and swallowed.

It was immediately salty, almost unbearably so, and it shocked me. I had once eaten bowls full of these things? I had once thought that something like these were delicious and, because they were baked, not very bad for me at all? I had once looked forward to having these after a long week and would crash down on my couch and gladly inhale piece after piece?

Weird.

I had another one after that but that was all I could take. I gladly rolled the bag back up and stuffed the entire thing back into its corner, happy to be rid of the things. My mouth was in violent throes due to the saltiness. I might just as well have spooned salt into my mouth and gotten the very same effect, plus I wouldn’t have ingested all of those chemicals that keep those things alive and well and capable of living through a nuclear blast.

Cockroaches and potato chips--all that will be left in the fallout.

Let me have my dried fruits. Let me feast upon risotto and quinoa. Let me partake in fresh vegetables and all of the wild concoctions that can arise from having to eat those things. At least with all of those natural, tasty things I won’t be left with the ability to accurately describe what monocalcium phosphate tastes like. I have no need to be able to pick that stuff out of a lineup.

Day 72, Another resolution

2008-07-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

So after yesterday’s post Patrick sent me a comment suggesting a change of pace. Jumproping has been a great new find in my daily life and I’m loving doing it everyday, honestly it’s become the very best part of my workout--challenging and tiring but fun and rewarding. I’m not sure if you reading this ever peruse my comments pages but I’ll go into it anyway.

It seems so very obvious to me now but at the time of reading it the suggestion seemed like such a revelation, like a blindfold was being pulled from in front of my eyes and I was suddenly able to see clearly what I’ve been keeping from myself. Patrick’s suggestion to me after my relating to all of you just how amazing and incrementally beneficial the jumprope has been was that I should...wanna take a guess?

Go running!

Laughably obvious, right? Not to me, apparently, since I haven’t been on a proper run since maybe March. I can’t begin to tell you why I haven’t considered going out to the park a few minutes away from my house and running a few miles around the track there. If I had to bet, though, it’s because I’ve let myself get locked into the daily schedule of jumproping and resistance band exercises that have been set out for me by Patrick and Chen and have so narrowed my focus on those things that I’ve neglected to realize what other things are out there for me to do.

So that would be my “Nearly At the End of the Project” resolution. I’m actually looking forward to going out for a run; it’s been so long--the last time being the fateful night when I must have sprained my ankle on a cement curb while trying to avoid running into somebody else on the dimly lit track. That wasn’t a fun night and I think it put me off the whole business of running for a long while, but now that my ankle is feeling very much recovered and I’ve developed this wonderful new endurance that I’ve literally never had before in my life the track and my running shoes are looking mighty tempting.

I can feel them calling out my name and I think I’m going to answer that call.

Day 71, Continually surprised

2008-07-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

So every once in a while (read once in a blue moon’s blue moon) at the karate school we’ll go ahead and do something different and entertaining, of course, to be honest, anything other than a forms review is different and entertaining. Yesterday was one of those days.

During my class we broke off into partner groups and did focus bag drills, focus bags being the smaller handheld bags. These drills consisted of, from a fighting stance, throwing a forward and a reverse punch to the pads which are held up at about face level and then returning to the original fighting stance position. That was one drill. The other one we did was done from, again, a fighting stance except that this time the bag holders stood facing to the side with both bags held up in front of them, one on top of the other, and the other person burst through the bags throwing out a backfist to bag at head level and a reverse punch to the bag held at stomach level.

I’ve always enjoyed this particular exercise one, because we do it so rarely that it hasn’t lost any of its enjoyability and luster and two, because it is a mighty fine cardio workout. Whenever we get the chance to do it I am secretly smiling inside because it’s rather fun.

I noticed something today doing the exercise that had never before occurred whenever we did this particular exercise in the past, today doing the exercise I wasn’t literally dripping sweat off of me by the end of it. I wasn’t wheezing and clutching at my knees to keep myself from collapsing in an embarrassingly out of shape wet pile.

What was the deal? Well, of course it was the project, but more specifically I would have to say that it was all of the massive amounts of jumproping that I’ve done these last two and a half months. I blame the jumprope and at the same time I praise its wonderfulness. Without dedicating myself to doing upwards of 2000 jumps a day then I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near what I was able to do in class today.

I was already aware of the benefits of the jumprope but now, especially now since I haven’t really worked out very hard in class lately (I have no idea why really), it is just so abundantly clear that the jumprope is mightily effective and not something that I want to give up readily anytime within the next, oh, sixty years. Or however long until I finally keel over and croak.

Day 70, Some kind of food related post

2008-07-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

I tend to go through cycles of food obsession where one particular food or type of food is close to all I eat--papaya spears is one of them, before the project Pop-Tarts were a breakfast staple that I wouldn’t quit for anything in the world (except for this project, apparently), and those Gardenburger BBQ Riblets were my Achilles heel. Lately, though, I’ve happened upon something that may in the end replace all of those as something I obsess over and something that I eat more than once a week. What is this mystery food, you ask? Well, thanks to Alton Brown of Good Eats fame, I have recently become addicted to

Risotto

Now you may be asking what business I have eating risotto when the tradition is (that I’ve heard anyway) to sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top. Now I realize that vegan me wouldn’t go in for something like that so risotto would seem like it would be out but the funny thing about parmesan cheese is that it is easily left out of the whole concoction.

Now I realize risotto isn’t anything exotic or new but if you’re like me then you probably haven’t had much of an exposure to this wonder dish and therefore believe that most other people haven’t either. I’m sticking with that assumption here.

Risotto is unique in that while it is a rice dish it is prepared using a medium grain aroborio or carnoroli or vialone nano rice (I use arborio since it’s easier to find around here) instead of the more commonly used long or short grain white rice. It is also pretty freaking cool that while cooking that particular type of rice the grains produce their own creamy, rich sauce. Yes, you heard me right, this rice self-sauces. Very awesome.

The typical way to cook this stuff is to first coat the rice grains, about a cups worth, in olive oil or butter (I tend to use very little of that stuff since a lot really isn’t necessary) and then boiling water or stock (I use water with a boiled vegetable bullion cube in it), about a cupful at a time, and stirring pretty much constantly until all of the vegetable water is absorbed into the rice. Five cups of the vegetable bullion water tends to produce a very creamy rice texture in the end but it all depends on how creamy you want your rice to be.

It’s really as simple as that. It takes a bit of time because the vegetable water needs to absorb into the rice one cup at a time but by the end of it...BAM!

You have one mighty tasty serving of carbs for lunch or dinner. If you like then I hear grating some parmesan cheese over the stuff makes it even tastier. Add in some more exotic treats, spoon in some mushrooms, chop up some greens and mix those in. Have fun with it and I hope you enjoy eating it as much as I have been lately.

Day 69, Another find

2008-07-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Finding vegan food at the local supermarket has always been a challenge, heck finding vegetarian food at the store has always been a difficulty but vegan food is difficult in and of itself. Most organizations still don’t know enough about it to offer anything remotely close to eatable food that looking just isn’t worth the hassle most of the time and I’m left with making my own meals from rice and vegetables (which certainly isn’t a bad thing but sometimes my day has been a long one and I just want to pop something in the microwave).

Every once in a while something slips through and I happen upon something tasty, quick, and, in a healthy body sense, none too bad for me. Last week was such an event. Lately, with the project nearing its end I’ve been doing what I can to make sure that I’m not taking in too much stuff prepackaged in an eye-catching technicolor box but I’ll make some exceptions every once in a while. Like these:

Chungs Gourmet Quality All Natural Vegetable Spring Rolls

(phew, what a lot of adjectives)

I found these this last week, like I said, and I was happy to learn that they are vegan. Vegan grocery store spring rolls! Crazy, isn’t it? And they’re pretty tasty as well, which is always a plus. I will say, though, that they tend to be on the greasy side but that’s nothing that dabbing with a paper towel can’t fix.

So that’s a wonderful little once in a while surprise that I think I may indulge in today...just one or two.

Day 68, You'd think I'd learn

2008-07-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

Welp now, Friday was an okay day, nothing to get too excited about but certainly nothing to get all disappointed or mopey about. I mean I did see The Dark Knight that, um, night so that was a plus. Apparently, though, in my haste to get through the day and to the evening where I would spend a few wonderful hours watching a wonderful movie I neglected to stretch for karate like I really should have done.

Now as far as I can remember I stretched the same way I normally do, I didn’t diverge from my routine there and I was feeling good during class and into the night, so I was feeling fine and pretty upbeat, for the most part. Then Saturday came along and my morning exercises made their way into my world and things became apparent very quickly that all was not cool down in my legs muscle-wise. It was so very odd that I honestly didn’t think much of it, I mean I had stretched the same as I always have so what could possibly be the problem?

I still haven’t figured it out entirely, was it the way I was sparring Friday night? Standing in line for over an hour doing nothing but fidgeting and trying not to bump into the guy in front of me or the group of girls talking about their dream weddings behind me (and is it bad if the first thing I notice about them is that they’re all overweight? What a weird side-effect of the project, I never thought it would make me judgmental like that...that’ll have to stop)? Could it have been the jumproping from earlier that day? I don’t know but what is infinitely clear to me now is that my right calf is killing me.

Yes yes, a calf ache again. I’m just as tired writing about those as I’m sure you are of reading about them but that’s what’s on the forefront of my mind right now, as all aches and pains are sure to be, so I thought I would write about it and have something to post today. Call this “filler”, I suppose, as I try to think of more substantial things to discuss.

Both Saturday and Sunday were exercises in not buckling over as I walked, luckily it was the weekend and I didn’t have any pressing appointments or things that I absolutely had to get done so it turned into a couple days of healing for me. I hope that I’ll be back to my normal self by either today or tomorrow’s exercises, all I can say is that those floor jumps are mighty interesting (never having had to do them before) and the calf aches will only add an extra bit of hilarity to them, imagine me hobbling along trying to get some distance, cursing all the while in volumes that I’m sure can be heard in the next city.

So that’s how my weekend’s been--nothing horrible, just annoyingly painful and kind of uneventful. Nothing bad, don’t get me wrong, just interesting. I hope yours went well.

25 days until the project is over.

Day 67, Wanna guess...

2008-07-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

What I’ll be having for dinner tonight?

Well, it took me forever but it finally happened, yes yes, the day has come and now you can rejoice along with me because I have finally found (and at a store I shop at all the time, no less)...

Vegan Won Ton Wrappers

Whoo!

So I’m pretty excited about that and the prospect of making something that I have eaten before but have never had the chance to make myself because of the won ton/dumpling/egg roll wrappers that I’ve seen until now always had egg or some such thing in them, but not these babies.

I’m thinking of trying out this recipe, sans egg (and maybe some other things that I can’t find at the grocery store), that I found on the Food Network site. It’s from Alton Brown’s Good Eats show (awesome show, by the way):

Vegetarian Steamed Dumplings

1/2 pound firm tofu
1/2 cup coarsely grated carrots
1/2 cup shredded Napa cabbage
2 tablespoons finely chopped red pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped scallions
2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Bowl of water, plus additional water for steamer
35 to 40 small wonton wrappers
Non-stick vegetable spray, for the steamer

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.

Cut the tofu in half horizontally and lay between layers of paper towels. Place on a plate, top with another plate, and place a weight on top (a 14-ounce can of vegetables works well). Let stand 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, cut the tofu into 1/4-inch cubes and place in a large mixing bowl. Add the carrots, cabbage, red pepper, scallions, ginger, cilantro, soy sauce, hoisin, sesame oil, egg, salt, and pepper. Lightly stir to combine.

To form the dumplings, remove 1 wonton wrapper from the package, covering the others with a damp cloth. Brush the edges of the wrapper lightly with water. Place 1/2 rounded teaspoon of the tofu mixture in the center of the wrapper. Shape as desired. Set on a sheet pan and cover with a damp cloth. Repeat procedure until all of the filling is gone.

Using a steaming apparatus of your choice, bring 1/4 to 1/2-inch of water to a simmer over medium heat. Spray the steamer's surface lightly with the non-stick vegetable spray to prevent sticking. Place as many dumplings as will fit into a steamer, without touching each other. Cover and steam for 10 to 12 minutes over medium heat. Remove the dumplings from the steamer to a heatproof platter and place in oven to keep warm. Repeat until all dumplings are cooked.

Wish me luck with that and if you have any other won ton wrapper recipes or tips on cooking them then definitely feel free to send them over.

Day 66, I hardly knew ya...

2008-07-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

...“Day 3”, you came and went so fast but now it’s time to go, apparently. Our honeymoon was so short and now here we are but vague memories of each other, left to say, “Farewell”.

:-)

My new exercise plan with, as you can tell already, the absence of my beloved “Day 3” workout:

Day 1

Jumprope: 2 sets x 8 mins.

Chest Dip: 8 sets x 10reps

Push Up: 3 sets x failure

Rear Chest Fly: 4 sets x 30 reps

One Arm Bicep Curl: 6 sets x 20reps (last set to failure)

Outer Biceps Curl: 5 sets x 20 reps (last set to failure)

V-sits: 4 x failure

Day 2

Jumprope: 2 sets x 8 mins.

Floorjumps: 4 sets x 10 jumps

Chin-ups: 8 sets x 8 reps

Lawnmowers: 6 sets x 20 (last set to failure)

Triceps Dip: 4 sets x failure

Triceps Extensions: 4 reps x 25reps

Standing Shoulder Fly: 5 sets x 25 reps

Forward Shoulder Raise: 5 sets x 25 reps

V-sits: 4 x failure

My Day 1 is essentially the same as it always has been except that now all of the exercises, save for the chest dips, are to be done until muscle failure which is a good thing since the chest dips have always been difficult for me and I have a feeling that if I tried to do those until failure then I might end up hurting myself.

Day 2 is where it gets a little bit different, well, not by much. The only difference there is the inclusion of floor jumps which I have not had to do before until now. I suppose I’m kind of looking forward to making myself look silly by jumping all around the house like some kind of kangaroo. It’ll be nice though since it’ll be the first time that I’ve gotten to do some leg exercises in well over a month. I said before, I believe, that I was missing those a little bit and now, bam, there those are.

Time to get going now and exercising. Have a nice day.

(Oh and this has nothing to do with the project but if you haven’t had a chance to see The Dark Knight yet then you should make your only goal today to see that film. It was beyond gloriousness)

Day 65, A little cooling down

2008-07-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

My my wasn’t I a little heated with yesterdays post? Eh, fiery spirits will only put out harsh words that may have been a little unnecessary at the time. Of course I stick by all of it and my confusion concerning the way things were done there hasn’t lessened at all. It still seems like some enormous bit of craziness that wasn’t necessary at all but whatever, I’ve received some nice information and comments from some people that I think will make things better for me.

I didn’t post it yesterday so I’ll do it today. Another minor diet update:

Breakfast

150 g carbs
150 g veg.
100 g fruit

Morning Snack

80 g fruit
1 spoon protein powder

Lunch

150 g carbs
250 g veg
1 spoon protein powder

Afternoon Snack

100 g fruit

Dinner

50 g carbs
200 g veg

Evening Snack

2 bananas
1 spoon protein powder

No huge major changes here. My dinner carbs continue their downward slide into near nothingness. 50 carbs, you’ve got to be kidding, right? I certainly do wish it were so in some ways. Actually what I really wish would happen is that I’d be able to split some of my lunch carbs off and transfer those to dinnertime because it’s getting harder and harder to finish lunch these days. I don’t think it’s because I can’t stomach vegetables anymore, I’m still enjoying the taste of them for the most part, no I think it’s just due to the fact that my stomach has become smaller than it ever has and the massive amounts of food at lunch has put a bit of stress on it.

I’ll definitely push through though because, well, we’re so close to being at the end of three months and there wouldn’t be any point in letting the project beat me now. Heck, going through so much of the project has given me the strength and confidence to complete the project. So the project is going to kick the projects butt for me.

Weird how that works, isn’t it?

Day 64, The confidence is rising

2008-07-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

So yesterday afternoon left me in a bit of a funk. Like I told you all with Wednesday’s post I was going out to apply for a new job and I did during the early afternoon, around one or so. I got there at the store and went up to their customer service desk to see if I could talk to the person in charge of hiring on new employees. Right then, so early on in this process, things went in a completely different direction than the one I had imagined they would in my head.

I’m sure that this isn’t the case but their answer seemed to me to be a brick wall that shot up right in front of me as I was running toward my goal. Their response was that they didn’t have a dedicated person that handles that particular kind of thing, no instead every so often they do a group interview with potential applicants to decide who they want to hire. I wasn’t aware of this seeing as how nothing I’ve seen at the store or online at their site gave any indication that this was how they did things. Things began to crumble away and my good feelings and bright outlook on the day immediately took a turn. What was I to do? It seemed like I had no option other than to leave them with my application and hope that it got into the hands of someone high up there where it would wow him/her enough that they would call me up regardless of how they, apparently, generally did things there.

I walked out of the place feeling pretty low and despondent. Suddenly it seemed that things would forever remain stagnant and I would be stuck working at a job forever that I didn’t want to do any longer. Of course, there are always other places to work at but this place was somewhere that I could have enjoyed working at and gotten a sense of fulfillment from. There are other places but, and I ask you this very seriously, what the hell is the point of working someplace if you can’t feel good about the work you’re doing and about yourself while you work there. I’m going to be so bold as to say that there is entirely no purpose in doing something like that. Frankly, to me, it would be a waste of ones life, and they’re already so short anyway (like I’m old enough to actually realize that :-) so why do it?

I got home after a quick bit of shopping around (those would be tickets to see The Dark Knight, baby!) and settled in to take of some other things. The mood that I was in was a dangerous one to be in. Bad things could have happened to my progress with the project. Normally I don’t see myself as someone who eats when they’re in low spirits but at that point that was what i was about to turn to. My head wasn’t clear and my mouth and fingers were developing minds of their own, completely separate from the one inside my skull. Food seemed like the place to turn to to ease my dispirited self and I was more than ready to give in to those mindless urges.

But then the progress from these last months kicked in. My hands stopped their idle wanderings and my mouth stopped salivating in anticipation of sweet “pick-me-up” indulgences. I regained control of myself and stopped me from giving in and going overboard with the fruit that I was craving but shouldn’t have eaten at that time. Yes, yes, it was only a bit of fruit but that’s not the point of this at all, the point is is that I could have slipped into some pretty nasty pre-project behavior that could have set me back a ways but I didn’t.

It seems that I have grown the confidence and control to say “no”. One of the simplest and, at the same time, most difficult and complicated things to do. Boy, was it worth it. I’m sitting here now thinking back on it and I sure am proud of myself, even now so far into the project I am still amazed that I’m able to do something that at first glance seems like it would be the easiest thing to do. Congrats to me.

This all brings to mind a quote that I may have mentioned way back but one that I’ll repeat here:

“Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. ‘Easy’ doesn’t enter into grown-up life.”

Day 63, The shortest yet?

2008-07-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

This one will have to be a very quick one, I’m afraid, because my day is very quickly filling up to the very brim with stuff for me to do and try to accomplish.

First up is the workout. Yesterday was my “Day 3” workout meaning that it was just the jumprope, and now that today is back to “Day 1” I can certainly say that I wish it were “Day 3” again. I can get that kind of a workout done so much quicker leaving me with much more time to do all sorts of things during the rest of the day. Oh well, though, having these days spread out and rotating through like this makes me appreciate the jumprope days even more. They taste so sweet when they get here and, much like Christmas day, they’re gone in the blink of an eye.

I’ll be going to apply for a new job so wish me luck with endeavor. We’ll see how that one goes since it’s been about four years since I’ve been in the position that I’ll be in today. The weird thing with this is that in our yesterdays edition of our daily e-mails Patrick went into this book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (which he says is worth the read) which goes into the whole maxim which says that “you only get one chance to make a first impression” on the same day that I’m going into a potential new work place where I’m going to have a prime opportunity to make a good impression on someone.

I’m looking forward to how it’ll turn out. I’ll have to dial up the charm and win them over. Man, this wooing people is tough work. I think all of my progress with the project and the confidence it has instilled in me will only help my chances.

I’ve got to get to exercising so I’ll sign off now. I hope everybody has as wonderful a day as I’m sure to have (especially since I also have today off of work at the karate school which is always a nice break for me).

Day 62, Worthy of the title "Doctor"

2008-07-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

Me, that is. And, yes, normally I don’t like to toot my own horn but I think that in this case it is entirely justified and would, in fact, be a crime against humanity and the greater science community if this particular revelation of mine were kept secret and away from those public eyes out there so desperate to learn just what exactly the cause of this unexplainable phenomenon is.

First, the unexplainable phenomenon, spontaneous human combustion. I think I’ve hit upon the true cause of this heretofore confounding occurrence that has stumped many for an explanation and has left families of the victims scratching their heads in curiosity.

For those who don’t know, spontaneous human combustion is when the body suddenly and without warning or reason ignites into flame or spurts flame from a centralized location somewhere on the body. There have been accounts of this happening in real life and I think I know the culprit:

Glucose

You see, a funny thing happens to your body after a sustained, intense exertion/workout our bodies skip the direct fat burning stage that our bodies go to during a light workout and straight to the emergency glucose, or sugar, stores around our body. Now after a workout our bodies need to replenish those stores of sugar so it turns to fat which it turns into sugar. Now for fat to be turned into glucose it needs to be broken down which requires energy that is lost as heat. The burning, hard to cool down feeling one gets after a heavy workout is in actuality our bodies turning fat into glucose.

I think that’s one of the cooler things I’ve read all week so far. I find I’m becoming more and more interested in the physical work of our bodies and our bodies themselves and this bit of information from Patrick has certainly whetted my appetite for more. Of course I blame it on the project, I’ve found that it a wonderful side effect to worrying more about what you do with your body, you pay attention to stuff that you might have found boring at an earlier time in your life and then start to search out more of that wonderful new stuff.

So, as to what I said earlier, and in response to my claim of finding out what exactly causes spontaneous human combustion, I believe that it is no real mystery, I believe that all of the people who have experienced it were simply in the throes of a really, really intense workout. Their bodies had to replenish their glucose inside of their bodies and those bodies just kicked into such an overdrive that, well, FOOM!

Ashes...

And, yes, everybody I will retake those pictures from yesterday either today or tomorrow (sometime in the near future at least) for your viewing pleasure.

Day 61, A crusade

2008-07-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was Sunday over in these parts which means that it was also one of my days off (and now, ugh, it’s the start of another week, stinkin weekends never last as long as they should). With nothing to do all day it became a perfect time to go and shop, for clothes that is. So I hopped on over to Target on a quest for new pants and shorts, well, mainly shorts since it’s still around 95 degrees here in southern California, and that is totally unnecessary.

I’ve never really enjoyed clothes shopping and for the most part I will do whatever I can to avoid it and find something less painful to occupy my time with like, you know, eating glass and affixing leeches to my groin.

This particular visit won’t exactly go down in the history books as the least painful clothes shopping experience ever but it certainly wasn’t the most painful and horrifying, either. I had good company and I was able to actually find some things that I can picture myself enjoying while wearing. All in all it was an okay Sunday made better by the fact that I can now rock the socks off of many more people in clothes like these shorts (sorry about them being so blurry but that's what I get for using Photo Booth in such a hurry):

Some dark green, hard to see ones

And some nice plaid ones

Also bought yesterday were some shirts that caught my eye. I've been noticing how well my shirts have been fitting me lately, like they were tailored specifically for me, it's a very nice feeling. I would have kicked myself later on if I hadn’t bought these because my wardrobe was in desperate need of sprucing up (I can only get away with wearing plain white and black shirts for so long). Plus, well, they were fancy and the fabric is oh so nice to the touch:

A tannish, multi-image thing

My favorite, with birds flying out of the sun

This blue shirt with a sitting Buddha on it and, for some reason, a tiger embroidered on the left hip

I hope your Monday goes well. Have a good mood.

Day 60, One month left!

2008-07-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

Whoo-hoo, peoples!

And I never would have thought that I would make it to this point in the project--honestly I thought that after a month or so of it then I would have called it quits because of how hard it was--but no! here I am and there Corry and David are rocking this thing, saying that it will not defeat us, that we will prevail, we will charge ahead and become something better than ourselves. And we are, and we will.

Hmm, certainly not Mel Gibson in Braveheart but that’ll do nicely I think. Whatever it takes to give me that extra boost of energy and confidence for today and the next days of the week and month.

So I’ve been continuing on my downward slump of a mood here with all of this food business and I’ve yet to really pinpoint what exactly the cause of this funk is. At first I thought it was the tedium of my daily breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that was putting me in this mood and I still think that that may be a part of the problem--I’ve been finding myself missing some of the pre-project foods every now and then (and at weird, inexplicable time, too). There’s quite a lot you can do with vegetables and a little bit of elbow grease (or olive oil...olive oil tastes better than elbow grease) and I’m certainly willing to try anything once, especially when it’s the recipes Corry’s been giving me...yum, but those strong cravings for the boxed items in the freezer section can sneak up on ya and make you think bad things.

Curse them all, I’ll say now. CURSE THEM! ...Would it be too pessimistic or cynical to make that my mantra?

But now, ah a light up ahead, I think that I’m coming out of it with the realization (now? It’s only coming now) that all of this downtrodden gloominess about all of the food is all totally mental and that I don’t have to give in to those feelings of blahness about the food. Those pesky feelings do not control me, I control them, right? Right. Said and done, period.

So it’s going to be the start of a new week. Who here is excited? I know I am, and not just because the sharp, breath-catching pain I get whenever I walk is gone. Blame that one on the judo class. Whoever thought that being thrown over someone’s hip and back and landing on, oh, a half inch of very old padding would be painful? And why do I keep going to the class if I’m complaining about it every week? Maybe it’s the impact of the falls scrambling my brains inside my head and making me think every week that it’ll be different. That could be it, or, and I think that this is the reason, I do enjoy it despite all of its agonizing pain, and if that makes me a masochist then so be it.

Also, it’ll mean that we’re one step closer to August 15th. Now I’m not necessarily counting down the days until the end of the project, I’m trying to enjoy the journey here, but I’m planning a lot of changes in my life by that day, one of them being (and I’m most excited about this one) finding a new job, because I am so overdo for that that it’s not even funny. Celebrate with me.

I wonder what wonders will be in store for all of us this coming week. Let’s go and find out.

Day 59, Some kind of cresty-troughy thing

2008-07-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

Let me give you a picture to mull over:

or if you want something prettier to look at, here's this:

As, I hope, you all are aware of waves are characterized by their crests (highs) and troughs (lows). They go up and down and are able to be seen clearly as ripples on the surface of a lake (or pond or river or whatever) or as the reason why surfing exists in the ocean. They are also indicative of life itself to a degree, clearly mirroring the ups and downs of day to day life as things get better and then get worse and then better and then down and up, etc. etc.

Lately, I’ve been riding a pretty high crest during my day to day life on this project and I’ve been happy and thankful for it and for my body that’s been gracious enough to keep me up and smiling at that peak. It’s lasted longer than I could ever have imagined it would and, frankly, I’m really surprised that it lasted as long as it did since those kinds of crests in my life rarely last that long.

I’ve been noticing lately that my daily meals are becoming a cursed chore that I’m forcing myself to get through every day. I’m not sure why that it is and why it suddenly, very suddenly, decided to become a trudge through the mud since for the most part the meals have been one of my favorite parts of the day. I was even okay with the mountain of vegetables (that lunchtime vegetable portion is quite literally enough for two people to dine on comfortably) I was eating three times a day but now I find myself skimping on meals, cutting short some grams at lunch and, horror of horrors, not even eating my dinner allotment. I find myself not looking forward to these meals anymore.

The exercises have always been difficult to get through so I’m not too upset about that (although 200 freaking v-sits a day seems a bit much, ya know? :-). I’m putting this down as just one of those trough things and not something that I should worry myself over too much but at the same time, well, there’s still a little over a month left and, man, I so do not want to go through another few days like I had in my first few weeks. Anything but that, please.

Of course, I’m confident that I’ll make it through unscathed because when I set my mind to something, even if I’m setting my mind against itself (because that’s what this trough is all about--I’m fighting against myself), then I can make it through. I’m confident in my determination to see something through to the very end, especially if it’s something like the PCP. But I will tell you that any encouragement will certainly help here. And I've got a great base of support here with Patrick, Corry, and David and I would have to kick myself in the butt if I didn't thank all of you readers and commenters out there who make this a heck of a lot easier than it would be without you guys. So tell me to get off my butt and stop whining, or something. I know, tell me how all of those world champion eaters get through eighty hot dogs in five minutes without puking it all up, hopefully that’ll make it easier to stomach all of the food I’m eating. Don’t indulge in the telling too much though because I would like to be able to keep all of those vegetables down.

Day 58, Dread!

2008-07-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

As in “Holy dread, Batman! What’s happening to us now?”

Well, if all goes well then I will be building insane, heretofore incredible masses of muscle that I never would have dreamed about in the past or, heck, even a million years. Yes, a million years.

So Yesterday was exercise update day so you know what that means...nothing much has changed. At least not on the surface of things. I will still be going along with the Day 1/Day 2/Day 3 workout plan that I have been doing for the last few weeks:

Day 1

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chest Dips (6 x 8)

Push Ups (6 x 20)

Rear Chest Flys (6 x 20)

Biceps Curls (6 x 20)

Outer Biceps Curls (5 x 20)

Standing Shoulder Fly (5 x 20)

V-sits (5 x 50)

Half Plank (4 x 45secs)

Day 2

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chin-ups (6 x 6)

Rowing (6 x 15)

Lawnmowers (5 x 15)

Bench Dips (5 x 10)

Small Base Pushups (5 x 15)

Triceps Extensions (5 x 15)

Forward Shoulder Raises (4 x 15)

Sideways Crunches (4 x 15)

Leg-ups (4 x 15)

Day 3

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Rest

There will be one huge, major, gigantic difference now that I alluded to earlier. What’s that difference, I hear you all asking? Well, the difference is that now instead of doing a specific number of sets with a specific number of reps I’ll be doing those same amounts of sets until muscle failure.

Now muscle failure is that point in any of these exercises where my body, the specific muscles that I’m working absolutely cannot do anything. It’s the point where my muscles are screaming and quivering and dying and begging me to stop. Why would I put myself through something as horrendous as that? Well, I’m doing that because that’s when the muscles are really being torn and worked to the max and consequently it’s the point when those same muscles will end up, after they’ve repaired themselves, with the biggest muscle gains.

So all that pain I’ll be putting myself through will be rewarded with strong, flexible muscles the likes of which my body has never known. I don’t know if it’s a trade off that many would be willing to take but I for one am actually kind of looking forward to my workouts today and the following week (we’ll see if I’ll be saying the same thing later on...), I tend to, once I get to a certain point, revel in that pain, it lets me know that I’m really pushing myself and it makes my body feel alive and energized.

So that’s what my next week and probably more will be looking like. Wish us all luck with these things now because we’re going to need it to get us through tho the end of the project. Have a nice day and a wonderful start of your weekend.

Day 57, Curiouser and curiouser

2008-07-10T09:16:00.000-07:00

I hit upon a realization yesterday at about maybe 5:30, right in the middle of helping out a class at work, that these vegetables, for the first time since starting the project are really starting to wear on me. It was an odd realization since, for the most part, the vegetables had always been a part of the day that I looked forward to. I mean, they’re a hell of a lot more enjoyable than all of the massive amounts of exercising I have to do every day so I don’t know exactly what brought this on.

Well, I may have an inkling of an idea. I think that I’ll be blaming this weird occurrence on the recent indulgence day I treated myself to. Eating those foods of old reminded me of a time when 250 grams of vegetables was an unthinkable amount of the green and leafies to be stuffing into my body day in and day out (heck 250 grams of anything is an almost unthinkable amount of food). Of course that odd to say since before the project I was probably taking in close to that amount of sodium packed, carbohydrate laden, calorie bombs without so much as a second thought.

So what of this rift in the force of the PCP? Well, I think the indulgence day did something for me (ah, one more thing that it’s good for, the wonders never cease), it cleared up the lazy fog I’ve been wandering around in these last few days. I can’t pinpoint exactly the last time that I had vegetables that weren’t the ones that spring to mind readily when you think of vegetables: carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, corn.

I think I’ve hit upon it there, I’ve driven myself into a deep rut of sameness that the vegetables that once were fairly bright and new are now dulled and grey, a chore to eat and certainly not a joy to cook all the time. Instead of branching out and trying new stuff, expanding my food horizons and discovering new oral wonders I’ve sunk into an old habit of relying on the same food to get me through my days and weeks.

And that’s not what the PCP’s all about, people, no, not at all. So what’s to be done about it? Well, the obvious of course, and in that I’ll ask for your help first, what can you, my loyal readers, suggest that I try as a way to break out of this rut I’ve dug for myself. What different and exotic vegetables are out there that I’ve yet to try and are just waiting to be devoured by me in a fit of curiosity and wonder?

Any suggestions would be perfect.

Also, a quick diet update: nothing much has changed except that now, instead of 100 grams of carbs at breakfast I can now have 150 grams. Maybe I can use full size burrito tortillas instead of the dinky soft taco sized ones for a morning breakfast burrito if I so choose. Huzzah!

Day 56, Koos-koos

2008-07-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

I remember a day, a several years ago when me and a friend of mine that I don’t see anymore were out and around at night with absolutely nothing to, and I mean really nothing to do, like we were literally just wasting gas driving around town. We ended up eventually back at his work, a local barbeque eatery, and met up with someone that he either knew from somewhere or worked with (I’m still not sure which). After spending time playing pool and doing nothing much we ended up back at this other guys home nearby (and about five minutes from my house, luckily) to play pool on his own pool table (I promptly sucked up the entire game) and hang out and watch t.v. because, well, what else are you going to do at one in the morning? We all ended getting fairly hungry, enough so that the guy treated us all to this, so he said, Indian food consisting of stuff that I can’t rightly remember but can recall as being very meaty and bready. The one thing that I do positively remember eating, because one of us asked him about it, was what I’m going to talk about today. (And then I had to drive my friend home because he had been drinking quite a bit and could hardly walk straight and was spouting various nonsensical gobbledigook...sometimes being the permanent designated driver of the group does have its drawbacks).

That food being, if you haven’t already figured it out from my phonetically worded title:

Couscous!

Yes, folks, couscous, the food so nice they named it twice. The food so carbohydrate loaded that you could choke a yak with the stuff, or some such thing. The food so versatile that it’s almost like the rice of the Maghreb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb). Tasty and filling, it’ll puff up in your stomach and leave you content to sit around basking in the glow of post-couscous stuffing euphoric happiness.

Couscous itself is made by sprinkling semolina with water and then rolling the wheat to form small pellets, sprinkled with dry flour to keep the pellets separate, and then put through a sieve. Those pellets which are too small fall through the sieve and are put through the very labor intensive process of being sprinkled with semolina and rolled with flour. Couscous was traditionally made from the hard part of the hard durum wheat that resisted the millstone grinding. Now the process is largely mechanized.

One of the very first written references to couscous is from an anonymous 13th century Hispano-Muslim cookery book called, in translated English, “The book of cooking in the Maghreb and Al Andalus” that boasted a recipe for couscous “known all around the world”. Whether it was or not, I don’t know, but I certainly am glad that the knowledge was passed down from those humble origins through Granada, through a Syrian historian from Aleppo in the 13th century, through Provence and Brittany in Europe in the 17th century, and etc. The process of cooking couscous, steaming the couscous over a broth in a special pot, may have originated in West Africa in the 10th century in the area now made up of Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Ghana, and Burkina Faso.

To cook couscous is surprisingly simple, requiring only a quick blanch in boiling water if you’re cooking pre-steamed couscous which can be found in most places in Western supermarkets. All that needs to be done is to boil a pot of water, the measurements being about a cup and a quarter water for every cup of couscous, stir the couscous in quickly, remove from the heat, and let stand for about five minutes. BAM! Done. Season it or combine it with something else as you want. And then, voila! light, fluffy couscous awaiting your eager consumption. It’s easy enough that an untrained monkey could do it, which must be why it turns out so well for me.

I hope this all helps you and I desperately hope that you’ll go out and find some couscous the next time you’re out visiting the ol’ local supermarket or farmers market. It’s tasty and light, fifty grams of the stuff will end up looking like an entire meal in itself, and, man, is it filling.

Have fun with it, people, and start looking for crazy, exotic things that you may not have ever tried before because it is totally worth the risk. T.V. dinners and spaghetti and tomato sauce get old quickly, why not try something new?

For those who are interested in something tasty I found this while looking around (I personally would get rid of the garbanzo beans but that’s just my allergies talking, looks delicious):

Vegetable Couscous Stew
Recipe courtesy Kathleen Daelemans

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
Coarse grained salt and cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
3 zucchini, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
3 yellow squash, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 pound mushrooms, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 clove garlic, minced
4 tomatoes, peeled and diced, or 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 (19-ounce) can garbanzo beans
1/4 cup chopped parsley, plus 1 tablespoon
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh basil
2 cups couscous, prepared according to package instructions
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes and drained

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute until softened, approximately 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Add thyme, zucchini, squash, and mushrooms. Saute for 5 to 10 minutes.
Add garlic and stir.
Add tomatoes, stock, and garbanzo beans. Let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Add more stock if dry.
Add 1/4 cup parsley, red wine vinegar, and basil. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Add the raisins and remaining parsley to the prepared couscous, and stir to combine.
Plate couscous and spoon stew over the top.

Day 55, Further proof

2008-07-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

That while indulging in the off limits stuff of life can be fun that it certainly isn’t something that I really want to do anymore. Yesterday was my second indulgence day and I’ll tell you right off that it was one of the more anticlimactic things that I’ve ever experienced.

This time I decided to go with my first choice and instinct and revisit an old favorite of mine from before the beginning of the project, Tofutti Cuties and chocolate Silk. In my recollection the Cuties, these mini sized vegan ice cream sandwiches were the stuff dreams are made of: sweet, rich, cool, just the right amount of chocolate covering a thick block of soft, creamy ice cream and the chocolate Silk, well, I remember living on the stuff for days at a time. So that’s what I binged on, two Tofutti Cuties and a couple of small glasses of the Silk.

The Tofutti Cuties

Right off the bat I can tell that something is definitely not right going on in my mouth and on my tongue. Something is different. And then I know what it is, gone is the blind stuffing of food into my mouth and is replaced with knowledge. Scary knowledge. It is apparent to me that what I’m eating is no longer a vanilla ice cream block sandwiched between two layers of chocolate.

No, what I’m now stuffing into my mouth is an amalgam of chemicals and strange and artificial ingredients, many of whose names I will never have any hopes of being able to pronounce. It is not how I remember them tasting. Certainly they are sweet but now they are almost too sweet and after the first one the intensity of the vanilla ice cream mixed with the layers of chocolate I couldn’t imagine eating another one, but I did for the sake of science, yes, science.

The Chocolate Silk

Nothing special here. For the most part it is exactly how I remember it, it has that distinctly Silky taste mixed with a hint of chocolate.

But, again, something was odd. Something was off and like with the Cuties it took me a while to figure out what it was, and then it hit me: it wasn’t as intense as I remember, in fact it was almost bland and tasteless. That didn’t make any sense to me at all since these indulgence days tend to make noticeable how intensely chemically flavor packed everything I used to eat is. But the Silk was different, it wasn’t as intense as I could have sworn it used to be. It just goes to prove that a whole lot of this project, especially these indulgence days, is mental and not just physical, which is what it would appear to be at first glance.

The Effects

There was an almost immediate discomfort when I tried to stand up and walk around and I didn’t think until after I had eaten all of that stuff that I probably shouldn’t have done this before I went off for a full day of work where I would have to stand and move around teaching multitudes of children for six hours. I became much more intensely full after eating that stuff than I get after eating a regular PCP meal which only added to the overall feeling of discomfort. If there was a sugar rush then I hardly felt it and it certainly wasn’t as intense as after my last indulgence day which was quite a relief since that last one made me fear for my life. Luckily there wasn’t much of a crash but I did wish that I hadn’t forgotten to bring my dinner to work to eat and regain my normal feeling of alertness and regular, sustainable energy. Live and learn, eh?

All of this proved to me, once again, that I don’t need these foods to have a normal, healthy diet and day. Whereas at one point I couldn’t imagine going a single day without all of this stuff now I couldn’t wait for it to pass through me so that I could get back to my newly normal self. It’s ingraining new habits into me even as I’m indulging in my old ones and, like I’ve said before, those habits are what’s really important to me now and the best thing I could ever hope to get out of the project.

Have a wonderful day, kind ladies and sirs.

Day 54, Mighty surprising

2008-07-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

And a little bit annoying.

Over the last few days of this weekend I’ve been doing a lot more walking around than I usually do because a friend of mine was back in town after having spent over a month away. Of course I’m not about to say that that’s a bad thing, it certainly isn’t by any means and really I should be doing more of it, but it’s not a normal thing for me (or anyone in southern California I suspect) because of all the driving that I do during the week.

So while it was nice to get some more bipedal motion and exercise going on it made abundantly clear just how my body has changed in relation to my clothes, particularly my pants and shorts. I expected this to happen as Patrick’s Day 35 (http://peakconditionproject.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-35-waistline.html) entry made it clear that awesome things would be occurring but like all things in life you never know what it’s going to be like until it’s right there staring you back in the face, making you stand up and say, “Whoa”. So I was curious to see how much exactly I’ve changed in relation to my clothes and, boyo, the results were as surprising as Patrick’s. Also, those same results have caused me to develop this annoying habit of constantly having to pull up my pants every minute or so to prevent them from slipping down to my ankles, and don’t even get me started about walking around with keys and a wallet and a phone weighing my pockets down.

Now before I started the project I wasn’t by any means overweight so these results are even more incredible.

Some pants I’ve had for years that have never slipped past my hips:

These shorts were always a little loose on me but now, wowie:

And last, some denim shorts...incredible:

So now I’m standing up for all of you to utter an enthusiastic, amazed, “Whoa”.

Day 53, For your reference

2008-07-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

First, though, may I say, Indulgence Day upcoming! I would have indulged on some sweet, delectable treats yesterday but I think something might have been weird with the food I ate yesterday so my stomach was giving me problems. Remind me to never again eat green beans that have been sitting in the refrigerator for over a week since they apparently take a turn for the worse after that time. Eating rubbery, bland sticks of...unappetizing blandness is not good eats.

And it never will be.

Also, sleeping through your alarm clock for two hours is not my idea anymore of a good way to start off the day. I mean, what the heck was that about? I went sleep way earlier than I normally do and now I'm struggling to get this thing written and sent off (and with a keyboard that doesn't want to cooperate) so I can get to my exercises before it gets even later than it already is. Man is that frustrating.

So renovations are still ongoing so this one may be short since I need to get my exercises out of the way and hurry up to get everything ordered the way I want it to be.

It seems, my fair readers, that the drink industry is screwing us again (wait, was the precedent?). There is a long held belief that we are supposed to be drinking a certain amount of water each and every day otherwise our bodies will cease to function and we’ll all become mindless vegetables, bed-ridden and near death. Or something like that. I wasn’t necessarily raised on that, I don’t know if both of my parents being in the medical field had anything to with that (maybe they knew something everyone else didn’t), but there wasn’t a daily water quota to fill under any circumstances by the time we were put to sleep at night. I, of course, knew that drinking water throughout the day was probably a good thing to do but it certainly wasn’t forced on me or my brother.

So imagine my surprise when Patrick told us that all of that was a hysteria fueled fallacy created years ago that has thrived and still lives today when we are living in an age where we are supposedly more intelligent than we were when the eight glasses of water a day thing was concocted. Heck, it’s still alive on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water#For_drinking. Crazy, isn’t it?

So let me summarize Patrick’s enlightening lesson for all of you: it ain’t necessary. Sure drinking water during the day is undoubtedly good for you and I’m sure even strongly recommended--for we can’t survive on soda alone (although I’m sure Pepsi would like us to believe that)--but what everyone, including the Wikipedia article, forgets to mention is that while, yes, we do need approximately 2 liters of fluid a day, well, the key word there is fluid. Not just water but any kind of liquid beverage (well, besides, alcohol).

Crazy, right? I never would have known and now I do. So I can stop trying to consume bottle after bottle of water a day and just trust that whatever liquid I do take in will be enough when combined with all of the food that I have to eat while on the project, because food itself does have water inside of it which will make up for any deficiency that may occur during the day. I can relax and sleep easy now.

So there that is, off to floss now, you know, to keep my heart healthy. What am I talking about, you ask? Well, go ask Patrick because he can explain it better than I can, also I have exercises to do. Have a wonderful day.

Day 52, Painting = exercise?

2008-07-05T10:15:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, my bright and shiny day off from work, had the misfortune to let itself be turned into a day full of work. My bit of the house was in desperate need (apparently) to have everything stripped from it--bookcases, gone! desk, gone! computer and t.v., gone! bed...um, still there--my closet doors taken off, clothes moved to a different part of the house, etc. until it was left as some ghost-like version of itself, abandoned and empty. Ready to be totally renovated. The walls turned from a charming light blue color (like living in the sky, it was, my head could float freely and my thoughts and ideas lived unhampered by gravity) to a dark, earthy beige (yes, beige). My old, dirty wooden closet doors were replaced with fancy mirrored doors that slide easily on a track as quiet as a whisper, and the baseboards and molding everywhere replaced with newer versions of themselves.

It’s been quite an undertaking that I luckily haven’t had to be too involved in thanks to my obligations to the PCP and you guys. I certainly have helped, of course, it is my room, and that is why I’m writing about it right now.

Something occurred to me a few hours after everything inside of that place was painted, I’m not sure why I didn’t realize it when the painting was taking place but if I had to guess I would say that it had something to do with the oppressive heat (I do like that saying :-) and the cramped angles and corners of the room, all that made everything uncomfortable and made my mind screech to a halt. I began to realize, after all of the sweat and muscle aches were showered away that the whole undertaking would have been considerably more difficult had it not been for the PCP.

First of all, the whole business of painting is a great endurance challenge in itself, it made me realize that I would not want to spend my days doing that as a living (not my idea of personal fulfillment, no sir). But the all of the massive amounts of jumproping that I’ve put myself through these past eight weeks and change has turned me into a lean person with a stamina to be envied. Not that I’m suggesting you all to envy me. Ha, my ego will never be that big and ugly.

I also was slapped with the realization that all of the muscle newly unencumbered with fat has become much more stretchy and pliable, easily maneuvered and able to bounce back readily from any stress that I put on it through the day or while painting my ceiling to floor walls (how else would they be?). I always thought I was pretty flexible before starting the project thanks to all of the karate training I’ve done over the past nearly fifteen years but, man, I didn’t know what I’ve been missing. Cramped corners were easily conquered like the puny things they are under my new found advanced flexibility and high edges fell under my rolling brush like so many dominoes. In fact, I laugh in triumph now and say “Ta-ta” to my tight, clumsy body of old, lying there in the cold, dark past where it belongs.

Even the very act of rolling paint on the walls itself became as easy as pie thanks to my developing muscle mass. The benefits are noticeable instantaneously and they made what could have been a grueling, “turn your arms into jelly” piece of work into something more like a relaxed pleasure (despite the heat in the room). All the while I was able to watch the muscles in my forearms expand and bulge, contract and move as I ran the roller up and down, side to side along the walls in, what I’m assuming is, record speed (for me, at least).

So I’ve been aware of the changes taking place because of the project for some time now, you’ve read all about the things that have happened so far, but now I’ve had a real world example of just how changed everything really is. I’ve had a practical demonstration of what exactly has happened to me and what I’m able to accomplish which is much more valuable and meaningful to me than stepping on a scale and watching the numbers go down. Because in the end it doesn’t matter what number the scale shows, all that matters is how do you feel and what are you able to accomplish? Those are the important and meaningful things.

Day 51, Happy 4th!

2008-07-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Of July, that is, all you United Statesians here and abroad. A very good friend of mine is back in town from Monterey Bay so this one will have to be short since I’ve got to be getting out there doing my exercises as well as some fresh air. Speaking of exercises...BAM!

I'll continue on with my Day 1/Day 2/Day 3 workout plan except that now, instead of doing four sets of 25 v-sits, I have to do four sets of 50. Yes, you heard right, freakin 50! I don’t know what I did...or didn’t do or what but, man, that’s almost mean. I’ll see how that one goes over and I’ll try to communicate it to you guys later if I’ve not been hospitalized from 200 v-sits in one day.

Also, I now have the option of eating 50 grams of carbs before my workout. Why? I’m not entirely sure, well actually I’m sure it’s for the extra boost of energy but still it’s new and interesting. I’ll give that one a try as well.

Wish me luck, friends, and hope that I’m not permanently injured after todays exercises.

Day 50, Celebration?

2008-07-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

Not quite, I don’t think. Normally fifty days of anything would be cause for celebration but this particular fiftieth day doesn’t seem like one of those times. I know fifty days is considered a milestone of something but after having had so many of those so far--one month down and coming up on two months, indulgence days, etc--this one doesn’t seem like it’s anything all that special, to tell you the truth. I mean, fifty days is fifty days no matter how you slice it so in the end all I’ve got to say is, whatever. It brings to my mind peoples obsession with the simple piece of green ink-stained paper that is known as money. It is just paper yet it’s also the most intoxicating thing on the planet, I believe. Yes, I know that those things themselves aren’t important, it’s the meaning and the obsession behind them fueled by the people, but still. Still...

As is my custom, though, I will keep you updated on my Wednesday diet plan change and here it is for you guys:

Breakfast

100 g carbs
80 g fruit
150 g veg

a.m. snack

100 g fruit
1 spoon protein powder

Lunch

180 g carbs
250 g veg
1 spoonful protein powder

afternoon snack

100 g fruit

Dinner

70 g carbs
200 grams veg

p.m. snack

2 bananas
1 spoon protein powder

As you can see there are only a couple of changes, very minor stuff here. My morning carbs have been increased slightly and my morning fruit has been cut down. A.M. snack is the same. My lunchtime carbs have increased a small amount, dinner carbs decreased. Everything else is the same. So like I said, minor stuff, but important too because every little change is only going to help me achieve spectacular awesomeness.

And your continued readership on these slow day when I can’t think of anything else to write keeps me inspired and thankful. You’re all wonderful.

Day 49, Help me out a little

2008-07-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

So this is the moment you all have been waiting for, I know I’ve been wondering when this would happen again and out of the clear blue sky, like some kind of crazy coincidence, it’s here:

Indulgence Day, Part Deux!

I’ve got to tell you, though, I’m a little bit wary of these things seeing as how my last encounter with one of these gave me a slight hint as to what my death might feel like. If you think I’m exaggerating there then feel free to read about my experience with dark chocolate, Day 30, Decadent Indulgence.

I’ll give this one a chance, though, and keep an open mind about what could potentially happen. I’ll also have to lock myself into my room in case I go temporarily insane and start writhing around while screaming and cursing the heavens.

But I’m at a loss here. I’m up for another indulgence day, more out of intellectual curiosity than for a day to enjoy something previously off limits, but for the life of me I can’t think of what to indulge on. It’s very annoying since the last one came so easily.

So I’m here now asking for your help, people. Help me come up with something unique and interesting to indulge on. Help me find something that normally wouldn’t come to mind as something that a person normally stray away from.

I do have a few ideas but I wanted to check with everyone else first because perhaps you guys have a clearer head than I do and would be able to think of something less boring. So far I’ve come up with,

Tofutti Cuties

Before the project I used to have one or two of these a day sometimes and I always loved the stuff, mostly because it was the first vegan ice cream I was able to find easily that didn’t taste like cold, bland styrofoam. I’m leaning more toward these as of this moment because I’m feeling a little nostalgic for their creamy, chocolatey goodness but we’ll see.

Vegan Sloppy Joes

Yes, that picture isn't of a vegan sloppy joe but I couldn't find any if those sitting around on the internet so whatever. Same situation here, I used to eat these all the time because they were easy to cook up and they were tasty tasty tasty. I’d heat up some Yves vegan ground...stuff and combine it with the Manwich sauce and then BOOM! good eats.

My last idea was just to cook up a nice pre-PCP Sunday night family dinner using stuff that I used to have all of the time before I started the project but I’m thinking that that wouldn’t be in the spirit of Indulgence Day at all and, while nice, it wouldn’t really give me any more reason to stay away from all of those indulgent foods that I used to eat all the time. And that’s the real purpose of these days.

I’ll try and put more thought into this but, please, help me out, you all are far more imaginative than I am.

Day 48, Keen-wah!

2008-07-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

If any of you out there have had the distinct pleasure of buying and watching David Lynch’s Inland Empire on DVD then you will already know what I’m talking about and have probably already discovered the wonders and sheer taste extravaganza of the South American wonder grain known simply (or not so simply as the name is likely to trip you up on first seeing it) as:

Quinoa

Haaailing from the Andean region of South America, this high protein (14g protein for every 100g quinoa), high in dietary fiber, phosphorus, magnesium, and iron, gluten free food, packed with essential amino acids is considered worldwide as being one of the most important foodstuffs in the early pre-Columbian Andean civilizations and has continued to be so for over 6,000 years. Did you know that this delectable grain is also an unusually complete food for all of your eating needs? You can eat this tasty food and rest easy knowing that your body is humming along nicely thanks in part to...quinoa!

Like I said up top, anyone who has the Inland Empire DVD is probably already aware of this wonder food because of the special features included with the movie. On the second disc of the DVD set David Lynch, always the groundbreaking and eccentric auteur, cooks for himself and for us a bowl of quinoa (see the comparison I’m making here? It’s also kind of like Robert Rodriguez’s 10 Minute Cooking School...except without all of the unappetizing cooked pig flesh) while regaling us with a story from a trip he took into...um, somewhere in the Middle East, I think (I’m not sure, it’s actually been a while since I’ve seen this particular special feature video).

So that’s what piqued my interest in quinoa, for all of you wondering why I’m going on about it. Within a week of seeing the video by Mr. Blue Velvet I found a local farmer’s market that, conveniently for me, has tons of the stuff. So I jumped on the chance to make some of the stuff for myself.

Cooking quinoa is astoundingly similar to cooking ordinary rice, in that you take two parts water for every one part of quinoa. Firstly, though, if the quinoa you find is still covered by saponins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saponins) then remove the stuff by soaking the grain in water for a few hours, then changing the water and resoaking again, or rinsing it in ample running water either in a fine strainer or in cheesecloth. Hopefully you’ll be able to find quinoa that is presoaked. So once that’s done with let’s say that you wanted to make one cup of quinoa, well then you would cook it in two cups of water. Bring to boil the two cups of water and add the one cup of quinoa after turning the heat to a low simmer. Cook for 14-18 minutes (I usually do about 16 and a half to 17 minutes). Voila! You now have cooked and delicious quinoa!

Or, for a more appetizing look,

Looks de-lish, now doesn’t it? And just wait until you see the cooked stuff in front of you, it’ll look even tastier! Also, those tiny curls coming off of the actual quinoa are the germs of the stuff and are totally edible (there’s no way it would be worth it to eat the stuff if you had to get rid of each and every one of those things). They should have a slight “bite” to it, like al dente pasta, and really add some flavor and fun to it.

So look around your local supermarket or farmer’s market and see if you can snag yourself some of this amazing stuff. You won’t regret it, trust me (and check out Inland Empire, it’s full of weird, crazy goodness).

Hmm, I enjoyed this entry, perhaps I’ll have to make this unique food exploration thing a weekly event. Yeah, that sounds cool (I wonder if I’ll stick with it...any suggestions from you fine people?). Coming up next week...Couscous.

Also, for those of you who are interested, a basic recipe I found while hanging out on the Food Network web site (amazing, aren’t they? But I wouldn’t use much of the oil, it never seems to be worth it):

Quinoa and Veggies

2 cups quinoa
1 cup wild rice
1 tablespoon olive oil or peanut oil
1 cup mushrooms, diced
1/2 cup diced chives
1/2 cup diced orange bell pepper
1/2 cup diced yellow bell pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon cayenne or crushed red pepper

In a large skillet, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Add the quinoa and cook, stirring occasionally, until it expands out of its shell, about 10 minutes; be careful not to overcook it.

In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add the rice and cook, stirring occasionally until done, about 20 minutes.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the mushrooms, chives, bell peppers, salt, and cayenne pepper. Cook, while stirring, for about 3 minutes. Add the quinoa and rice and stir until hot. Serve immediately.

Day 47, Violent attacks of the noxious kind

2008-06-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon was an uncomfortable time for me, yes yes, and I didn’t think I did anything to deserve it. But the human body has its own very unsubtle, and in some cases funny in retrospect, way of letting us know that what we’re doing to it isn’t what we should be doing. It has its own special way of asking, would you please stop doing what you’re doing? Thank you. Because that kind of stuff isn’t going to help in the long run and as a lesson for the future how’s about something you’ll never forget? Good.

Every so often I’ll buy a steam-in-the-bag bag of vegetables from the freezer section of the supermarket because chopping and peeling vegetables is definitely not my favorite thing to do. It’s just easier and sometimes I think I’m entitled to a little bit of ease (even if I haven’t been working too hard). Well, concerning this particular incident, I bought and ate one of those bags of vegetables for lunch on Saturday, an Asian Medley variety of vegetables consisting of broccoli florets, julienned carrots, mini corn (anyone else think that’s as crazy and weird as I do?), and sugar snap peas. I tend to get rid of the peas because I don’t think that those will react well to my body and its numerous allergies (take a look at my Day 17 entry for the reason for my concern).

That particular variety is also “Specially Seasoned”, meaning that it’s not PCP-kosher but whatever. Now compared to all of the other “Specially Seasoned” varieties of bag vegetables in the freezer section the Asian Medley is by far the least “Specially Seasoned” so I don’t feel bad about getting and eating it. The calorie, fat, and carb levels are almost exactly the same as any other mixing of vegetables so the problem isn’t there. There are only two differences, one is in the level of sodium listed which is obviously more than plain vegetables, not much more but more. The other difference is in the taste of the actual stuff: intensely noticeable right off but it soon turns into this mish-mash of indistinguishable flavors blending together to become something salty, unidentifiable, and eventually, admittedly, unsatisfying.

Which brings me to my Saturday afternoon. Let me start by telling you about the e-mail Patrick sent to us all on Saturday afternoon (well, Saturday afternoon for me, at least). This particular e-mails topic was about salt and why we are all limiting our supplementary salt intake to as little as humanly possible before we start going into salt withdrawal and die (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt#Health_effects). (Also, how weird is it that I have a problem concerning my salt intake on the exact same day that I get an e-mail by Patrick about our salt intake? It’s creepy, almost).

In the e-mail he enlightened us as to why we are trying to limit our salt intake and the basic gist of it was this: there is already enough sodium in vegetables and fruit and etc. in our diets that we don’t need any additional salt added to it, either by the manufacturer of the food we eat or by our own hand. There is enough in all of the PCP foods that any extra is superfluous. Now since we are on low sodium diets and have been for forty-seven days now any extra sodium we put into our systems that isn’t already in the vegetables we’re eating will certainly make itself known to us.

Hence this posting. It seems that the extra sodium in the Asian Medley bag of vegetables was enough to slightly tip my new daily required amount of sodium over the edge, enough to send me on a slippery slope of gastrointestinal displeasure. Yippee skippee, eh? One of the side effects of going over my new limit of sodium, according to Patrick, is an uncomfortable bloating sensation and, boy, is that what I ended up with about three or four hours after I ate that Asian Medley. The bathroom never looked so inviting.

So, touche, body of mine. Lesson learned. But how about next time you just “accidentally” cause me to burn up that stuff in the microwave or on the stove where I’ll be forced to eat something tastier and healthier for me, instead of putting me through that crap again because that was almost unbearable.

Are we cool on that? Let’s hope so.

Day 46, So begineth...

2008-06-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

The second half, sirs and ladies. It certainly has been interesting and difficult, and rewarding and a big learning experience, and frustrating and exhilarating, depressing, fulfilling, tasty, tiring, muscley.

Those first few weeks had me worried, I must tell you. I can’t believe that I made it past those arduous days where everything was changing and my body and my days were becoming radically different in such a short time. I wasn’t ready for it, looking back on it now at the time it felt like I wasn’t ready to change. I fought it at every turn when I should have been riding that wonderful new wave and smiling at all of the changes happening with me.

Eh. Live and learn, right folks?

But then, whoa. Things started to get easier and easier, certainly not any less tiring or challenging but it felt like I was growing and adapting to all of the changes. I was becoming used to the speed that my body was traveling at while at the same time, unconsciously, preparing myself for all of the future changes (that are still at this very moment happening).

These times are exhilarating and I’m enjoying nearly every minute of it now, I mean, except for those freaking v-sits and chest dips but what are you gonna do? These improvements are rewarding and definitely empowering. I’m not sure what switch inside of me suddenly decided to flip itself on a while back but, boy, am I glad that it chose to and at the most perfect moment.

I want to thank all of you faithful readers (and the occasional ones, too) for the support so far. Without you guys along with Patrick, David, and Corry then I would have been lost weeks ago. I have no doubt in my mind that without the pushing that you all have given me then I would be sitting here right now, chips in hand wishing that I had stuck with it instead of buckling under the pressure I was putting on myself.

So it’s been an exciting and interesting forty-six days so far, let’s have an equally wonderful final month and a half. Good luck to you, David and Corry, and have the most wonderful day all of you readers. You’re what makes this whole thing possible.

Day 45, A resolution

2008-06-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Of sorts. And it’s not even January 1!

So yesterday was Friday which means that it was sparring day at the karate school (ah the very last sparring day at our current location, new building coming on Monday). Sparring day is usually something to look forward to during the otherwise dismal week spent there because, well, first it is Friday so that means no work the next day, that’s always good, but it also means that I get to have some real time to train and get in a great cardiovascular workout all at the same time.

Mostly my time spent there is devoted to teaching all of the other students--that being my job because unfortunately I can’t get paid to just train for a few hours a day...or for reading or watching movies. Monday through Friday from four in the afternoon until nine at night are classes that I teach and very rarely do I get to work out on my own during those times. Hence the reason why I started taking kung fu and judo classes, because I can’t spend five hours a day teaching that stuff and then expect to be fulfilled from it, I’ve got to spend some time developing my own self not just teaching others.

Friday is the one big exception. Granted there are still three other classes during that day that I have to teach but at six o’clock the advanced belt class, my class, rolls along. Sparring class is different from any of the other “kata” classes in that I don’t have to be standing in front of a big group of kids counting numbers and telling them to bend their knees to be able to teach something. In sparring class I am able to get in there and spar the students myself, so I’m able to (hopefully) impart some of my earned knowledge to them while physically interacting and moving with the other person like everyone else in the class.

Like I said before, it gives me a way to train and further develop my abilities in a way that I wouldn’t be able to do any other time of the week due to my obligation to teach. It is also a fantastic cardio workout. For about forty-five minutes there is continuous movement, and when I say continuous movement I mean continuous movement, only stopping about every five minutes to change partners. So every bit of my body gets a thorough workout:arms from punching and blocking and other strikes, hips and core from moving constantly and keeping my balance in those fast and stressful moments when the other person is all over you, and legs from all of the kicks and leg blocks. It’s very intensive and very enjoyable.

Much the same way that the PCP exercise program is.

I realized something at the end of the class yesterday, I had spent the two or three previous sparring classes sitting out due to either a stomach issue or just plain laziness, and now after going through an entire class and getting to move around a lot, I kind of miss it. Even with all of the limitations imposed on the sparring (nothing to the legs or back, it being very “linear”, few acceptable strikes and kicks) I miss the physicality of it all and the interaction that you get with sparring your partner. All that is odd to say because, generally, I try to be and believe I am a very nonviolent person who normally avoids any kind of situation that would involve using what I know, I try to be the definition of “peace” (key word there is “try”). When it comes down to it though I see those sparring classes as a workout with a little training, something like: 90% workout, 10% training.

So my resolution? I resolve to get off my lazy butt and spar every week, every chance I can. I’m missing a great opportunity to really maximize my effort and potential to reach peak condition by sitting out those sparring classes. I enjoy them and they are a great workout, something that I’m used to but ends up being totally different every week because of the wide array of people and their different styles of sparring. I could be doing so much more than I have been these last few Fridays and I’m going to do my best to be my best.

Day 44, I must apologize

2008-06-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

. . .

For the short post today.

Had you going there, didn’t I? That’s okay, we need to get a little suspense here with these things, keep you on your toes, you know? Otherwise these could get mighty boring and that wouldn’t be good at all, no sir. So if I have to make it seem like I totally went off track with my diet or have been lying about doing all of those jumpropes then so be it. It’ll keep you guessing and that’s the name of the game folks: what’s going to happen next?

Honestly, though, these past few days have been pretty slow as far as things on my side of the universe are concerned so I don’t have much to say today. I really should be making more of an effort to be looking around for new and clever exercises and ways to do the exercises that I am doing right now. I should be looking about on the Food Network web site or on AllRecipes.com for wonderful new PCP-themed and vegan related recipes for all of you, my faithful readers, to try out on you own time. I really should be doing things but I’ve been in a really lazy mood lately, also I’ve been afflicted by a stress induced annoyance down right below my belly button caused by unnecessary crap happening down at the ol’ job.

So instead of getting off my butt I’ll just keep you all updated on my diet and exercise programs because, as you all know, Wednesday and Thursday (for me, at least) are diet and exercise plan update days. I will warn you, though, don’t get your hopes up thinking that there will be a great many radical changes to my plans. I’m telling you not to get your hopes up because they will be slightly crushed. The changes for my diet and exercise plans are exactly...nothing. Nothing will change for me for another week. I will still be on the same diet plan, that you can find in earlier postings, and my exercise plan still consists of the “Day 1/Day 2/Day3” schedule.

So, I do apologize. Nothing tantalizingly new there but I do, as always, appreciate you keeping yourselves updated on my daily life. If you’re looking for some changes then go and ask how David and Corry’s plans have changed (because they have) and in the meantime I will go and do my jumproping--the jumproping that I still do every day, fear not--and I will definitely, most certainly think of something more interesting for all of you to read for this coming weekend.

Oh, that’s right, the weekend’s coming up. I hope all of you have a wonderful one and have much celebrating/partying/fun-making planned.

Day 43, Might I say, "Ugh"?

2008-06-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

What an odd day yesterday was. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened, in fact, some may say that yesterday was a completely normal day with nothing different about it compared to any other day in the last month and a half. So why was it such an odd and peculiar day? Well, you can blame that on the exercises.

Blame it on me, too.

So yesterday was my Day 1 exercise schedule day so that means that I was busy doing exercises that I’ve been doing frequently for the past two or three weeks--they were, well, old exercises and frankly ones that I’m getting used to and a little bored with. Sometimes you get to a point where bicep curls are just bicep curls, nothing much else and when you’ve busted through your heavier resistance bands and are left with your weakest band then it just doesn’t feel like you’re getting much of a workout. Sure you might still be getting a pretty decent workout but the exercising is more mental than anything else so if it doesn’t feel like you’re working then you may end up doing something potentially damaging like overworking your body. After a point your body and mind become so inured to what you’re doing that they just shut off and turn on the autopilot which doesn’t help me all that much. I just don’t get the same workout as I would if I were totally invested and focused on what I was doing.

Anyway, yesterday I got to the point, for the first time since starting the project where I really, really didn’t want to do any of my exercises. I may honestly would have rather been repeatedly punched in the stomach by some sweaty, burly, somewhat smelly guy named Jimmy-Joe. As unpleasant as that sounds, doing the exercises seemed like a far worse alternative.

I will tell you right off that I did end up getting off my tired butt and trudging my way through all of the exercises that Wednesday had in store for me but, man oh man, did it take a lot of effort to get though. It took great strength of will, people! and I was nearly bested by my own lethargic mind and body. Curse those things.

But...like everything else with this project, once you get going the difficulty and the desire not to do what I need to do melts away and is replaced with a wonderful, warm, satisfied feeling of accomplishment and muscle tears. My body may have resisted, and resisted hard, at first but as I got into the swing of it, jumproping my way to sweatiness and busting out those pushups like there was no tomorrow things started to get much easier and the resistance that I started with faded away. I was greeted with that familiar tired euphoric feeling that comes with a nice workout and by the end of it all I was feeling rather proud of myself for overcoming my first big, resistance hurdle and coming out on top, above my lack of desire laughing triumphantly all the way to a better physique.

Day 42, Alright, point proven

2008-06-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

There’s no need to tell me more than once what I should or, in this case, shouldn’t be doing.

I suppose I should be happy, though. I’m beginning to gain a better understanding of how my body reacts to all of the food I’m putting into it and all of the strenuous exercise I’m subjecting it to.

Yesterday, in an effort to get everything done and settled away as quickly as possible so that I could get out and to the stores to spend the cash that was burning a rather large hole in my pocket, I do believe that I overdid some stuff. I sped through everything I was supposed to do so that I could get to the stuff that I wanted to do much earlier. While it did work I was left feeling sore and unpleasant.

I again woke up about a half hour earlier than I usually do and after putting in my contacts and using the other bathroom utilities I rushed into the kitchen and, in a veritable tornado of activity, made a vegetable burrito, glass of fruit juice, and morning protein powder drink. I honestly may have set some kind of eating record as I scarfed that whole meal down which is never good because if you can’t sit back and savor what you’re eating then what is the point of eating at all?...I mean, besides not dying a slow, horrible death.

Yesterday was my Day 3 exercise routine that consists only of jumproping. I knocked that out in record time too. That was definitely a big mistake because if I can get through all of that stuff without breaking a sweat or even getting slightly winded then all of that exercise work is for naught. For naught, kind sirs and ladies!

On the plus side I was able to get all that I wanted to do done and out of the way before lunch time and was able to sit and actually enjoy that meal while watching a new movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. Yeah, not much of a plus side.

Much to my surprise my body did not like all that I was doing to it. Who would’ve thunk it, eh? I mean I was able to get everything done faster than I ever have before and I was able to do everything that I wanted to do before noon. So what was the problem? Well that was exactly the problem, I went through everything so quickly without paying attention to the signals and cries my body was giving me that I was left with something that felt like somebody was slowly grinding their balled up fist into the right side of my stomach, right below my ribs (the “oblique” section of my torso).

The body gives you those signals for a reason. Those signals are a desperate sign emanating from your body telling you to SLOW DOWN, for pete’s sake, and to not overdo it because overdoing it could potentially be very damaging, perhaps permanently, to your body. Who would possibly want that? Not me, not anymore.

So yesterday was a bit of a learning experience for me, I learned that while speeding through everything might get me to what I want to do quicker but at a much greater cost than I should ever be willing to take. It was an uncomfortable lesson to learn but I am glad I learned it. I only wish that I learned it sooner and wasn’t so closed off to realize all of that earlier on in the project.

But that’s what this is all about.

Have a nice day :-)

Day 41, When you're up

2008-06-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

You stay up.

Sure, that doesn’t make much sense but how about for a little while we kick our feet up and say, “Screw you, Newton!”

Yesterday was a mighty day, let me tell you about it. I woke up much earlier than I normally do so I was able to get my breakfast cooked and eaten nearly forty-five minutes earlier than I usually do which as a nice side effect allowed me to be able to start and finish my exercises at a record time. Wonderful.

Last friday I finished the story that I had been working on for a few weeks (much too long a time I think) so, after putting that one away for another few weeks, I began another one last afternoon. So far it’s about a photographer named Joey, his deaf girlfriend named Laurie, and a long dead chef newly risen from the dead by some sort of otherworldly intervention. I’m feeling really good about it and if the first few pages are any indication then this will be a story that I can be really proud of. It makes me feel very happy to be doing something as fulfilling and fun and challenging as that. This story came together the way most stories tend to: in a blindingly fast flash of inspiration combined with inspiration from a few movies that I’ve recently watched (thank you Park Chanwook and Ang Lee).

I’ve noticed that the films of Hayao Miyazaki have given me a few things, most notably, 1) a great sense of happiness and well-being and 2) a huge surge of creative inspiration that leaks into the words I write every day. If you ever come across any of his movies then do yourself a favor and pick it up, give it a watch, and be stunned.

Today looks to be just as wonderful. Today is my Day 3 exercise day which consists of...anyone remember? That’s right, jumproping and resting. So nothing to difficult or strenuous there. Today is also Tuesday, which means that the new movies come out on dvd today which always, always makes my day better, also the new album from Sigur Ros comes out and I would advise anyone to check that one out.

I’m sure you’re all asking yourself, “What is this guy babbling about? He’s not talking about anything PCP-related. I oughta give him a piece of my mind, yeah, that’s what I’ll do.” Well I’m going on about totally unrelated stuff because of the peak condition project. I’ve talked about it before but it’s always nice to touch on it whenever I can because it’s something so mysterious and welcome that I can’t help but go on about it, that thing being my mood. It’s been steady as a pond. I will admit that it does still go up and down every so often because that’s what is supposed to happen to people and if it didn’t then something would be seriously wrong. But I no longer find myself swinging wildly from my highs and lows multiple times during the day (and sometimes within the same hour). As written above I’m currently enjoying a nice, continuous mellow mood since yesterday and of course it won’t last forever but the key word there is continuous, it has not flown up and then bottomed out over and over many times in the course of one day. I have gained controllability thanks to the PCP and for that alone is reason to do whatever you can to make yourself healthy and happy.

Thanks to the PCP. How sweet it is.

Day 40, Almost kind of. . .

2008-06-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Halfway done, kind of.

I’ve gotten to the point where my mind is taking me on some weird fork in the road where it seems to think that it can do whatever it wants to at points during the day, usually about an hour after my morning exercises when I’ve refocused on the world, no longer happily delirious from the workout, fresh as a daisy. At that point my body’s had time to cycle the endorphins brought on by the exercise through my body, I’ve taken my daily photo and uploaded it, taken a shower, and had my post-workout smoothie and eaten my lunch. So by that time I’m feeling wonderfully sore and mellow.

I’ve noticed lately though that I’ve taken to snacking on raisins, figs, apricots, etc. throughout the day, sometimes out of boredom, but mostly because I think I’ve recently and unconsciously developed these weird thoughts like, “A few raisins won’t hurt” and “A couple of crackers during the day, who going to know?”

Now those concerns might not seem like anything to really be, well, concerned about, I mean, raisins and apricots? I’m certainly not gorging on those things all day so what’s the problem? Well, mostly nothing but there is something of a psychological danger there, I think. If I keep doing something like indulging on a few extra grams of raisins or prunes during the day then there is a possibility that slowly my progress with the project may shift off course.

But more dangerously, those small indulgences may over time develop into a full blown indulgence habit that will spin way out of control until, gasp, I’m right back where I’m started! Horror of horrors. I have a feeling that I’m overreacting here, I mean I’d have to really fall off the wagon here for me to turn a bad corner and end up in my pre-PCP lethargic, bulgy state. So should I worry my silly little head about all of this?

Let me answer that one for all of you: No.

While taking in that stuff all of the time would be bad for me it’s certainly not like I am taking in that stuff all the time every day. I really shouldn’t get too hard on myself for some extra raisins during the day because there’s no reason for me not to. They are just raisins, healthy raisins, so there’s nothing there that’s going to ruin the project for me.

Now if you suddenly find me on a “big indulgence” binge like the kind I might have been found enjoying before the project then definitely, absolutely give me a big slap in the face and tell me to snap back to to my senses because that’s not the kind of person I want to be anymore.

In the meantime join me on looking forward to the big halfway point of the project coming up super soon. Exciting.

Day 39, Hitting a trough here, people

2008-06-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

So, does anyone here want to guess just how hot it was yesterday (and probably today) while I was going through my exercises?

Go ahead and guess.

Do you give up? It’s not 87. Or 93. Nope. Get ready for it everybody, drumroll please...

110 degrees. Are you a celcius person? Well then it was 43 degrees.

Hmm, as a fahrenheit person working out in 43 degrees celcius sounds like it wouldn’t be difficult at all, enjoyable really after you get going and warmed up. That would be the difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world, right? Blame the schools, people.

Anyway, it’s getting to closer to the beginning of the fire season in California and that only means one thing: pretty soon the atmosphere above the Inland Empire here will soon ignite turning this place into a hellish volcano of a place to try and live in. It makes me groan just sitting here thinking about the full workout that tomorrow is going to bring with all of its jumproping, resistance band training, and all of the other exercises that Day 1 consists of.

Frankly, it almost makes me want to not do anything but sit under a fan in my underwear eat strawberry popsicles and watching nothing but movies all day. Hmm, is it bad if that doesn’t sound like a bad idea regardless of the oppressive heat during the afternoon? Possibly not, I’m sure those ups and downs are totally a part of the project and it’s totally understandable to have them, heck, I’m sure it’s actually a sign that things are going well with me body and the project and how I’m handling everything. I know that sounds odd but I can’t honestly expect every single day of this project to be a total walk in the park, piece of cake thing, that would be completely unreasonable to expect something like that. I think if I ever get to that point then I need to take a step back from everything and reevaluate how my body and, more importantly, my mind is handling everything.

So it might be 110 degrees out today and probably will be for the rest of the week it is that time of the year I should expect it to be a bit tougher. The hardest thing to do now is not think about how nice it is for Patrick to be working out in his 75 degree weather with nice, cooling rain otherwise my spirits may sink a little bit, dripping off of me like my body weight in sweat will be dropping off of me today when I’m in the thick of my workout.

Day 38, A speedy one

2008-06-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Normally around this time of the week I’d be able to present you all with an updated and improved exercise schedule for all of you wonderful readers but not today. I know, I apologize, I do, really it’s not my fault. Actually there’s nobody to blame for anything because the current version of my exercise plan is doing what it needs to do just fine. In case you’ve forgotten here is the exercise plan I am working with currently:

Day 1

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chest Dips (6 x 8) If you're feeling strong do the action until muscle failure each set.

Push Ups (6 x 20) Legs elevated.

Rear Chest Flys (6 x 20) See attached file.

Biceps Curls (6 x 20)

Outer Biceps Curls (5 x 20)

Standing Shoulder Fly (5 x 20) See attached file

V-sits (5 x 25)

Half Plank (4 x 45secs)

Day 2

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chin-ups (6 x 6) See my blog for ideas about where to find a bar. The fingers curl over the bar away from you. If they curled pointing back to you it would be a pull-up.

Rowing (6 x 15) Anchor the band about a foot off floor, sit on your rear, and make a rowing motion.

Lawnmowers (5 x 15) With the band anchored at the same point as the rowing, stand, take both handles with one hand, and pull back as if you were trying to start a lawnmower. Repeat on the other side to make one set.

Bench Dips (5 x 10) Legs up on a table if you can. See attached file.

Small Base Pushups (5 x 15) Place your hands close together, just under the shoulders, and do a pushup. This will work the triceps.

Triceps Extensions (5 x 15) See attached file.

Forward Shoulder Raises (4 x 15) See attached file.

Sideways Crunches (4 x 15) See attached file.

Leg-ups (4 x 15)

Day 3

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Rest

So I’m sticking with this plan for at least another week which is nice because I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it. The Day 1 is no longer much of a problem since I’ve been doing those same exercises for a while now. I’m getting so used to it that it’s almost beginning to get boring. The Day 2 exercises are enjoyably different and I’m starting to really feel the effects of those particular exercises. I haven’t been able to find a really adequate chin-up bar or some sort of equivalent thing but I’ll keep looking for something around the home that is basically the same thing.

The only real problem is that I’ve broken two of my resistance bands already and am now forced to use the yellow band which is the band that offers the least resistance. I may have to go out soon and buy another resistance band set as a back up in case the yellow band is rocked hard enough by my awesome newly developed upper body muscles.

Well now I’m off for most of the rest of the day to a tournament that my karate school is putting on. I’ll be judging and trying not to fall asleep as I watch a couple hundred kids do the same form over and over all day. Luckily Saturday is “Day 3” so my exercises for the day will only consist of doing the jump rope so that won’t take up too much of my late afternoon.

Wish me luck.

Day 37, Another sustenance update

2008-06-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

If you’ll remember my post from about this time last week my daily diet plan did nothing but continue on the same course as it had been the week prior, which was fine, I was getting used to the course sizes and I was doing my best to mix it up to keep it from getting boring (although I do tend to have the same breakfast most days since I’m still too drowsy to really care about variety).

Yes, I realize I’m making it sound like there’s been a world rocking new development in the project, my part of it at least, but really that hasn’t been the case. Not at all really. There have been some changes--some minor, some that will take some getting used to--but all in all it should make for an easy transition within the next few days, luckily for me because the diet changes have been some of the harder parts of this project for me (for some weird reason).

So here you have it, the newly improved diet plan, we’re really cooking now...(a bit much? Yeah, I thought so):

Breakfast

80 g carbs

100 g fruit

150 g veg.

[nothing new here]

a.m. snack

100 g fruit
half spoon of protein powder [haven’t had to do this before, luckily it’s only a half scoop, otherwise...]

Lunch

170 g carbs [20 more grams than the last version]

250 g veg.

1 spoon of protein powder

afternoon snack

100 g fruit

Dinner

80 g carbs

200 g veg. [100 more grams]

p.m. snack

2 bananas
1 spoon protein powder

In addition, have two spoons of protein powder within 30 mins of finishing your workout.

So, as you can see, there hasn’t been any huge or drastic changes there with my daily meals since the last version.

Except for my dinner meal. Yesterday was my first official day with these updated measurements and, by and large, it was easy and I was filled up after every meal. There wasn’t much added to any of those meals to make me take a step back from my counter and go, “Wait, wait, wait a sec, Patrick, why the heck are you trying to pull here, eh?” Except for my dinner meal. As you can see above, I am now eating 200 grams of vegetables every night for dinner. I had been used to eating 100 grams each night for dinner but now I have to kick it up a notch; my stomach’s going to be in for a wild ride in the evenings.

Of course it’s doable but there must have been a look of shock on my face when I saw how much was on my plate for dinner. Now, I know that I eat fifty more grams of vegetables a day for lunch but that’s for lunch, my eyes aren’t used to seeing that much food in the evenings anymore so there’s a bit of shock going on there.

And I’m still laughing at myself for being so shocked and full after my meals considering that 200 grams of anything before the project would have just been a starter meal on my way to the main course for dinner. Now 200 grams has me floored and wishing for 100 grams again. How odd.

It will be nice, however, to have a full regular sized meal for dinner on the weekends with the family. 100 grams of vegetables and a mere 80 grams of carbs just wasn’t saying “cozy meal with my loved ones”. Now I’ll have something resembling more of a usual Sunday night meal to enjoy in the company of people that I enjoy.

Have a fantastic day.

Day 36, What a relief

2008-06-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

In an e-mail Patrick sent to Corry, David, and I on Tuesday he gave us all a little bit of information that made my day. I mean, really made my day. There was a gasp of relief and everything as I sat back and read a bit of information that calmed the worries I’ve been having about my personal physique. More specifically, my abdominal physique.

A few days ago...possibly, could have been more than a week, I’m not entirely sure, I made a prediction about when the final remaining bits of unnecessary fat hanging out around my lower midsection would finally disappear and stop plaguing me, turning the bathroom mirror from something to be despised into something to enjoy and respect. The original prediction I made was that all of that fat would be gone within a week or a week or a half. Well, it hasn’t happened yet, not completely anyway (it is decreasing, albeit slowly), so my prediction was wrong but I’m not too broken up about that.

No, really, I’m not. Honestly.

Do you want to know why? Well, I’ll tell you, friends, that layer of fat tissue that hangs around the torso refusing to retract its claws from the developing layers of abdominal muscle tissue is called “adipose tissue”. What is adipose tissue? I’ll tell you about that to, adipose tissue is loose connective tissue composed of adipocytes whose main role is store energy in the form of fat--as well as cushion and insulate the surrounding areas. Since my body hasn’t completely bypassed the stage where it turns the food and drink I take in into pure energy, it’s still turning that food into fat to be stored. Well, possibly not, I’m sure that that process is giving its dying gasps and letting loose its death rattle as it struggles to keep on like it used to. Pretty soon I’ll be enjoying the benefits of food turned straight into energy to keep me going through the day.

For a visual reference here are white adipose tissue cells:

And brown adipose tissue cells:

So this stuff hangs on until the very bitter end despite all of the dieting and exercise that I've been doing only to give up and shrink away when all of the other fat stores around my body have gone.

(I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I do so love Wikipedia. Where else could you get all of that information about adipose tissue? And for free! Now, I can’t attest to exactly how truthful it is given that it is the internet--who knows, it may just be a bastion of lies--but, jeezy creezy, is it interesting. Way more than YouTube or that rotten MySpace--which I complain about but am still a slave to. It redeems itself every so often when truth breaks on through to the other side like a leaky dam. Something will shine through and fill me with wonder and curiosity, a rare thing to be found while on the internet.)

The best part about that e-mail? Well, my prediction wasn’t entirely wrong, no, it was just off by about a week. According to Patrick that annoying layer of adipose tissue should finally give up and shrink away within, get this, two weeks! Who else is excited? I know I freaking am. Now that following the diet plan isn’t much of an issue anymore and the exercising is, while difficult, definitely doable all I really have to do is sit back (figuratively) and watch the transformation, the drastic improvements occur. Absotively posolutely wonderful.

Do you see why I’m giddy now? One more step to peak condition. And what a step. It’s been something that I’ve wanted to accomplish for a long while now, getting rid of that abdominal fat, and now it’s happening and quickly, too, much quicker than I would have thought before I started the project.

Wonderful.

Day 35, Back on track

2008-06-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

It feels mighty good, I must say. If you’ll all remember on Sunday I was feeling pretty disappointed with myself for not having been able to complete my daily exercises that previous Saturday after judo class because of my lingering injuries.

Well, I’m happy to proclaim that as of yesterday that has no longer been an issue for me. Might I say,”Whoo-hoo!” I did a little personal rebuilding the last few days so that when yesterday rolled around I would be able to come back with a mighty vengeance and knock that exercise program down a few notches with my powerful, newly developed muscles. Ironic, I know, since the exercise program was what has given me those newly developed muscles, but whatever.

Anyway, I was able to knock my way through those exercises easily since I gave my body time and room to heal the way it needed to. I’m glad now that I did that despite how tough it was to stick with it and not do any of those exercises. It was pretty difficult, let me tell you, to fight against myself and my desire to push past those injuries in spite of the pain but it was the right thing to do. I see that now and I’m hoping I’ll be carrying that knowledge with me, well, forever. You should listen to your body, it never lies.

Those Day 2 exercises are pretty grueling, though, not so much for the fact that they’re particularly difficult (they are tough but not overly impossible) but because they’re so new. I’ve not ever had to do any “Rowing” or “Lawnmowers” or “Leg-ups” until yesterday and I was in for a big surprise. I felt very good immediately after the workout and that feeling carried me through to the late afternoon, right about until my dinner, when I became pretty fatigued. It almost took me down for the count. Lately I have been feeling tired at that time because of the amount of time in between lunch and dinner and now with this brand new set of exercises, well, let me just say that last night was a struggle to get through without passing out in the middle of the karate floor.

But I’ll get used to it because I want to and my body is still very resilient even if I do whine about my troubles a lot. It will only make me stronger, and that’s what this whole thing is all about, now isn’t it?

Day 34, Look what I found...

2008-06-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

So in my surfings around on the interwebs I was able to find this amazing little thing on the Food Network web site. They’re called Fruit and Tofu Shooters:

Fruit and Tofu Shooters
Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence

1/2 pineapple, peeled and chopped
1 banana, peeled and sliced
1 cup strawberries, quartered
1/2 cup soft tofu (1 block)
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 lime, juiced

Combine all ingredients together in a blender and puree until smooth. Serve immediately.

I’m not sure when exactly I’ll have the time or the desire to make something like this despite how wonderfully tasty they seem even after (or, should I say, especially after) I replace the whole milk with soy milk and the honey with agave nectar. Actually it seems to be less of a matter of when and if I want to make it and more a matter of if I can make it. Obviously I am physically capable of putting all of the ingredients together inside of my trusty blender and pressing the “blend” button to turn everything inside of it into a smooth, sweet concoction that fills the stomach up something good. No, I’m more worried about if I’ll be able to have something like this soon and not stray outside of my diet plan. That’s the real concern.

Unless I give it some thought and modify the amount of ingredients that I try and put into the blender, creating single serving smoothies instead of a giant blender size serving that would probably cause my stomach to, first, tear and then explode very dramatically. I’ll think I’ll give the first one a try since it seems a heck of a lot less messy and definitely more enjoyable for everyone around me (people don’t like to be splattered with the insides of a somebody, right?).

Any hints on how to go about something like that since I am far from a culinary mastermind?

Until I do decide to do that I may just go ahead and look at something like this as a post-PCP indulgence. You know, something to look forward to along with August 15th. It’ll be something to keep me striving towards the end goal and keep me from going off track and doing something unwise. Plus after that whole long wait the thing will have developed in my mind as something epic and possibly mythic so that when I finally do have one it’ll be like the beautiful end scene of the movie Ratatouille where the hard-hearted reviewer Anton Ego takes a bite of the ratatouille that the rat, Remy, makes for him and is transported back to his fondest childhood memory of eating that very same dish at his mother’s table after a particularly bad day outside in the world.

Now that’s something to look forward to.

Day 33, Let me regale you

2008-06-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

With Saturdays happenings.

Since I can’t think of anything explicitly PCP related I’ll let you all in on a little personal victory of mine. This last Saturday afternoon was spent at my uncle and aunt’s house for my cousin’s high school graduation party. Looking back on it today it seems that it would have been better for me if I were just to have stayed home that day but I wanted to see them all so what are you gonna do?

So, as you can imagine, there was a lot of food. I mean, a lot of food. Most of it, I’d say 90%, of the food there I couldn’t eat due to the constraints of my vegan diet, so that wasn’t difficult to avoid (also, why is it that the majority of food everywhere you go is fat laden refined sugar filled sweets and cake or pounds and pounds of mutilated animal carcass? It does not make any sense to me, literally, I can’t comprehend it). Really the only food there that I could have eaten were the general party snacks, i.e. chips, salsa, bread, small amounts of vegetable cold cuts (why are the hors d’oeuvres always carb bombs?).

That’s where the awesomeness starts happening and where I have to praise the PCP. At the party, for the entire three or three and a half hours that I was there I only had one, count ‘em one, tortilla chip. It was one of those half dollar coin sized round chips suitable for dipping that I ate and that was all I ate. I didn’t plop gobs of salsa onto it, either.

It was quite a test of my strength of will not to completely gorge on all of the appetizers there at the party but I found out something as the chip was being eaten and went through my system--first, that chip was horribly salty, really salty, like I could have had a tablespoon of salt and not have been able to tell the difference. It really was that bad and it would be difficult for me to go through that again even if I was forced to. Second, despite all of the other food there at the party about halfway through the whole thing I discovered that my craving for all of that food wasn’t really much of anything at all, just a lingering remnant from before the project. The massive amounts of food there and everybody urging me to eat them (yes, literally urging) was no longer a problem for me.

It turns out that my self-control was much stronger than I originally thought. Apparently, I can even go to a big shindig and if I put my mind--or stomach--to it I can keep myself from straying away from anything. Huzzah!

Day 32, Slight personal disappointment, and a cursing

2008-06-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

With a hint of thoughtfulness thrown in.

Let’s get the cursing out of the way, shall we? Because that’s what fascinates people, doesn’t it?

In the name of all that is groovy and painless, I curse to the bottom-most depths of all that is agonizing and annoying, judo. Aaa, judoooOOO!

No, I’m blowing that out of proportion. Really judo has become an enjoyable weekend recreation and learning experience now that karate isn’t doing it for me the way it used to. But, unfortunately, given the intrinsic nature of judo it just isn’t a good class if it isn’t filled with pain of the sort that makes you feel like dying wouldn't be such a bad alternative all of the time, which makes absolutely no sense since the definition of judo is “the gentle way”. Odd, I know.

As for the slight personal disappointment, well, let me start by saying that yes I know all of this being hard on myself stuff is not healthy for me at all, especially considering how intensive this project is. Despite that, I’m still a bit disappointed in myself, probably more so than is necessary but that’s my intense perfectionism for you. The physical nature of judo has had some nasty side effects on my shoulder and ankle so that when I went to exercise yesterday afternoon after the class I found that I wasn’t able to do much of anything beyond the jumprope. Yesterday was the first time in 31 days of this project that I haven’t been able to finish my daily exercises. So you can see why I’m a little upset with myself.

I need to keep telling myself that while it was a disappointing setback yesterday, it was only one day and it certainly isn’t indicative of the rest of my work in the project. More importantly, by taking it much easier on myself yesterday I may have avoided even greater injury that would have required a much longer rest period than one night.

Still, it’s hard to get over myself. I’ve always been my harshest opponent and critic (just like everyone is with themselves) and I forget to rein myself in whenever my overactive self gets too hard on itself. While that does keep me going, always trying to better myself, and keeps me from quitting in a most embarrassing fashion it also makes being proud of the work I’ve done so far hard to be satisfied with.

Well, there we go, another goal for me to try and accomplish in the future: stop being so hard on myself.

Also, for those of you who are interested, my shoulder is suffering from something called subacromial bursitis. Ah, how I love Wikipedia. Now if I could just find out what's beguiling me ankle.

Day 31, There are no words...

2008-06-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

Day 1

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chest Dips (6 x 8)

Push Ups (6 x 20)

Rear Chest Flys (6 x 20)

Biceps Curls (6 x 20)

Outer Biceps Curls (5 x 20)

Standing Shoulder Fly (5 x 20)

V-sits (5 x 25)

Half Plank (4 x 45secs)

Day 2

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Chin-ups (6 x 6) The fingers curl over the bar away from you. If they curled pointing back to you it would be a pull-up.

Rowing (6 x 15) Anchor the band about a foot off floor, sit on your rear, and make a rowing motion.

Lawnmowers (5 x 15) With the band anchored at the same point as the rowing, stand, take both handles with one hand, and pull back as if you were trying to start a lawnmower. Repeat on the other side to make one set.

Bench Dips (5 x 10)

Small Base Pushups (5 x 15) Place your hands close together, just under the shoulders, and do a pushup. This will work the triceps.

Triceps Extensions (5 x 15)

Forward Shoulder Raises (4 x 15)

Crunches (4 x 15)

Leg-ups (4 x 15)

Day 3

Continuous Jumprope (5 x 3 mins)

Rest

Oh man, well there that is.

But I’m not too worried. I went through the Day 1 activities yesterday and while it was tiring and wore me out for the rest of the day so that when I got to work and work out later that evening I could hardly lift my legs it was also fairly easy...relatively. If you’ll compare my Day 1 activities with the exercise plans I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks you’ll notice that there isn’t much of a difference save for another additional set of everything.

So there’s nothing to worry about there, it’s nothing much new or different.

Until you get to Day 2, which I will be having the pleasure and privilege to force myself through as soon as I finish writing this blog entry. As you can see above the Day 2 activities are nearly completely different and totally new. There’s a lot of familiar band work that has been modified to stimulate different sections of muscle that I have already worked out in the past but, mostly, it’s a change. I can handle it though and I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of wonderful burn I’ll be getting when I run through these. The only thing I am worried about is trying to find a chin-up bar, which are sorely lacking around my area and certainly in my house. I may have to pay a visit to my local playground since those places seem to have a plethora of hidden workout equipment just waiting to be used.

Also, I cannot wait until Sunday, Day 3. Only the jumprope? Wonderful. It’s like a shiny beacon in the distance lighting my way to relaxation and rest for my weariness.

Day 30, Decadent indulgence

2008-06-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Indulgence

So-o-o-o, yesterday was indulgence day. And what a day! For my non-PCP food I chose to have a few pieces of 72% cocoa dark chocolate since that’s basically the only chocolate that I can eat anymore that I don’t have to shop at an obscure health food store to find.

The box comes filled with eighteen bite-sized pieces but to stay within the 400 calorie limit I only ate ten pieces of the chocolate putting my calorie intake at the high end of 300.

The taste? Interesting, to say the least, and not at all like I remember it tasting in the past. After not having eaten anything at all like it for the last thirty days my memory of the stuff was dull and faded, my taste buds unused to the intense chocolate-iness. It was intensely sweet, and at the same time bittersweet, making for an odd combination of tasty sensations bombarding my brain. It was so strong that the first few bites and pieces attacked my mouth, making my tongue and the back of my throat feel like they were burning almost (that from only 72% cocoa, I shudder to think what 85% would do to me...or even 80%).

The first thing that hit me while I was eating was how worried I was that eating even this little bit of chocolate would ruin all of the hard work I’ve done so far for the PCP. Even though I hadn't totally binged on the stuff I felt bad about eating it. I knew at the time that I would only have to work out for, what, a day to get back to where I was but still, it feels like I lost a full day, like I might as well have not exercised for that day instead of eating the chocolate.

The First Noticeable Sensations

About a half hour after I had eaten the chocolate I went to a nearby supermarket to return some moldy bread (by the way, moldy bread is not a nice surprise). Walking through the aisles to find a replacement loaf startled my legs into a frenzy that I haven't felt in...I don't know how long. Certainly not like this, anyway. It seemed that I could literally feel the muscles of my legs underneath my skin twitching and pulsing along to both the rhythm of my heart and, because of the chocolate, the uneven stride I was taking because of the sudden, intense rush of sugar and carbohydrates.

I was zipped, I was wired, I was a hummingbird after a huge meal of flower nectar. It felt like my heart was throwing itself against the inside of my ribcage, turning a lump-lump into a great, resounding BANG-BOOM! There seemed to be a giant inside of my chest beating his way out with his meaty fists, angry at his forced imprisonment. My mind became a young Russell Terrier, starved of attention, in a backyard full of butterflies and young children.

I was atwitter with energy and had nothing to spend it on being stuck in my truck driving to work (which is an amazingly effective depressant when flying high on a stimulant as potent as chocolate).

About an hour after I had eaten the chocolate my heart sped up even more, which seemed to be an unhealthy thing at that point. My heart doesn't usually beat like that unless my brain has just signalled my body to release a massive amount of adrenaline. That's not supposed to happen when you're just sitting around doing nothing but listening to music.

Worry, at that point, overwhelmed me. I had expected some craziness to occur but nothing as great as what actually started happening to me. Weird, troublesome thoughts abounded, "Do I lay down and do nothing until this thing passes?", "Do I check myself into the hospital in case my heart literally starts to melt from overactivity because that's what it seems to be doing?", "Do I start weeping?"

All very serious considerations. All of them I was about to take.

And then...the dizzies. I stood up and nearly fell over. No, this was no head rush, this was my body about to spontaneously combust into a glorious, chocolatey bonfire like that which has never been seen before. We could have made s'mores but the chocolate in those s'mores would have made the entire thing redundant.

I very nearly went home at that point because I was very seriously scared. I mean, what do you do at that point? I would have started screaming but that didn't seem like it would have helped me or anyone else.

My stomach began turning against me, it cramped up slightly, not enough to make me keel over but enough that it was uncomfortably noticeable.

My breathing became erratic and sharp like the dying gasps of a gunshot victim.

Because of the huge crests and troughs of energy that the chocolate brought I became irritable, and at the worst time possible--during the first kids class of the day at the karate school. It was something I couldn’t control and it’s something that I don’t want to have to repeat anytime soon.

What was I to do? Who the heck knew that eating chocolate after thirty days of not having anything remotely like it would do this to me. It’s amazing that the chocolate, this stuff that I used to eat frequently and in much larger quantities, would have this kind of an effect on me seeing as how it never has before, not like this. Really, I should have expected it but it blindsided me totally.

And it wasn’t even that much chocolate, that’s the really astounding thing about it. Normally I would have polished off every last bit of chocolate and probably licked clean the wrapper that it came in. I couldn’t even finish (although at the point that I stopped I didn’t want to finish it). The sheer density of the stuff combined with the guilt (unhealthy, I know) of eating it left me feeling very full very early on in to it.

The Crash

As far as aftereffects go...well, there weren't really any at all. The inevitable crash was avoided by chowing down on half a slice of bread before I came down off of the sugar high. The extra cards kept me going and let me off of the rush slowly replacing it with a calm, steady feeling of normalcy that was much needed and appreciated. Really it was rather anticlimactic which is almost disappointing given the craziness from before.

It’s odd, now that I’ve indulged in something not on the diet plan and felt the effects of something like that I don’t really have the desire to indulge like this anymore. While it was tasty at the time the benefits of the PCP far outweigh having chocolate anytime I want and the very temporary effects of eating that chocolate. The vegetables and fruit have become a wonderful replacement for all of the junk that I used to eat and I have no problem with that. I’m happy about it really.

Coming up tomorrow...the new exercise plan. Prepare to have your jaw drop to the floor like mine did when I first saw it.

Day 29, Another minor physical annoyance

2008-06-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

They just keep coming, don't they?

I’ll make this one short since I need to get up and at ‘em with these exercises of mine and, given the annoyance, these exercises will probably take a bit longer than usual...

Which also leads me to my topic for the day, drum roll please...

My left shoulder is bugging me to no end. Now this is a bit of an old, um, I don’t want to call it injury because I don’t remember ever actually injuring that particular shoulder anytime in the past (unless when I injured it I injured it so badly that the resulting pain completely blacked out the incident from my memory. Wouldn’t that be interesting?). It’s bugged me in kung fu class whenever we went through our drills that required us to keeps our arms raised or rotate the shoulder frequently and it became noticeable yesterday during my jumproping as my hands twirled the rope around over and over for those four sets of three consecutive minutes.

I’d guess at first that it’s just a strained muscle but it’s been a common occurrence for the last six months or so and it’s getting to the point where it’s almost distracting. I’ll be doing my best to take it easy on that shoulder during my exercises today and especially for the new workout plan coming soon from Patrick. I’m not entirely sure what to do about the discomfort it causes when I jumprope, perhaps a slower spinning speed but I honestly don’t want to get to that point since it won’t feel like I’m getting as good of a workout as I do at full speed.

Off to muscle building and sculpting. In the meantime, any suggestions, my fair readers? It would be greatly appreciated, especially now that we’re going to really be getting into the nitty gritty of the PCP.

Day 28, The magic hour

2008-06-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

In 1978, Terrence Malick released his amazingly beautiful Days of Heaven starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, and Linda Manz. Featuring a poetically sparse story, atmospheric soundtrack, and great performances. But that’s not what this movie is known for, no, it is known for something else, and if you have ever had the fortune to see this movie then you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t then here’s the trailer:

As you can see, it’s downright beautiful in every sense of the word. Terrence Malick and his director of cinematography Nestor Almendros employed a technique that many have tried to duplicate but have never really quite captured in the same way. Pretty much the entire movie was filmed during the early morning and late afternoon hours. Terrence Malick’s desire was to have a light sky with no real view of the sun. These times are called the “Magic Hour”.

You may be asking yourself, “Um, what the heck does this have to do with the PCP, Sean? This guy’s run out of ideas and is going slightly loopy from the over eating of vegetables.” But, no, that’s not it (I know, a shame, that would have given the project a wildly dramatic turn. This whole thing could have turned into a soap opera).

Let me have you guys do something, it’s rather fascinating believe me. Let me have you head on over to Patrick’s blog (be sure to come back) and look at his daily photostream on Flickr. I want you to compare his day 27 photo with his photo ten days later, day 37. Crazy, isn’t it? Now I realize today isn’t day 27 anymore but I had something more important to talk about yesterday. Anyway, today is day 28 and it’s the beginning of what I’ve been thinking of as the Magic Week. See the segue there? Nice, right? And yes I’m aware that it’s ten days between day 27 and day 37 but then the term wouldn’t work, so whatever.

I’m getting totally excited about these next days. Patrick informs us three that this stretch of days is when the body finally gives up the ghost and stops storing and forming fat around the body in the same quantities that it has been. As you saw in the Patrick pictures, between those ten days he became lean and cut, most especially around the midsection. I’ve been looking forward to getting rid of that unnecessary store of fat around my midsection since, well, forever and now, put on a giddy laugh with me, it’ll be happening. My body will run out of its stores of fat around the rest of my body and turn to its emergency stores of fat--the midsection fat.

Who else is excited? I know I am. It’s going to be a whole lot easier to see exactly how my muscles are developing and shaping if I don’t have that last bit of fat hanging around on my body. I’ll be able to see where I’m lacking and what I need to do to really form everything in the way I want to reach my peak condition. So yippee! I hope you all follow me and my daily photo closely in the next few days and watch as my body turns into clay, ready to be molded into something...amazing.

Have a nice day.

Day 27, All you naysayers...

2008-06-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

“Be who you are and say what you think, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

That quote above is usually attributed to Dr. Seuss even though he never actually said it originally, that was Bernard Baruch. I like thinking that Dr. Seuss made it what it is today because it makes him seem more fatherly and wise than you can normally come across.

And it ties in pretty perfectly with a phenomenon that I’ve noticed happening ever since I started this project--the tendency for people to fight you, ridicule you, and generally try to make anything good you do for yourself as hard as it possibly can be.

I have never understood this way of acting and I don’t think that I ever will, really I don’t think that I ever want to because understanding something like that makes me think that I’d be more inclined to accept their close-mindedness and almost even empathize with the people who don’t want to improve themselves.

Being a vegan, I come across this way of thinking (or non-thought, rather) almost on a daily basis. People--not all people but a lot of people--don’t understand why I do what I do and why I believe what I believe and and can only meet my beliefs with ignorance. That sort of thing can lead people down a bad road.

Sounds crazy and like I’m lashing out at people but that is, very unfortunately, the way of people. That which is new or different to a person or society is very commonly met with ridicule and sometimes even hostility. It’s caused a whole heap of problems in the world and it will continue to forever.

I’m sounding pessimistic and preachy here and that’s not really my intention. Despite all of that bad energy coming our way there are always people that think the opposite and will fight to keep rationality and compassion in the world and our actions. You, my fellow readers, are some of those people and I’m eternally appreciative and grateful for you guys. By taking the time to follow Patrick, Corry, David, and I on our journeys you’re showing that you are interested in turning yourselves into better people and that you are not susceptible to falling into the tempting destructive thought patterns that poison the people who will fight something as harmless as the PCP.

Because really when it comes down to it the peak condition project, being a vegan, etc. are all personal things that in the end don’t hugely affect anyone outside of them--except for for those people who are interested in bettering themselves. Perhaps it’s that others feel threatened by the positive changes that one makes and the positive things that happen to a person because of those changes that those threatened people lash out verbally or physically but when it comes down to it there is nothing inherently threatening about those things.

I’m not really going anywhere with this because I can’t solve something like this; it’s to be expected from certain people. So what can you do? How’s about this: think of it not as an impediment to your goals but as a driving force. Your main reason to better yourself should not be to show everyone that their negativity doesn’t matter and that you’re better than them. That would be walking down the wrong path. Think of those negative things you happen upon in daily life as reasons to do something, if you make yourself better than you’re another step further away from becoming like those toxic people who spew out negativity. As for those poisonous people? Keep away from them because they aren’t worth your time or energy and never will be.

I’ll have to start paying more attention to that advice, too.

Day 26.5, Pictures

2008-06-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Well, these weren't the pictures I was planning on taking for all of you and they aren't in the manner I envisioned but I took some anyway because I wanted to show off a little bit. I bought this Under Armour shirt a while back and have only worn it once before on a bike ride. At the time I almost felt embarrassed wearing it because of some fatty protrusions but now...

I'm thinking that in another week or two I'll have to start wearing this thing to the karate school on my class days. Very awesome.

I'll be sure to take the pictures that I had planned on taking sometime in the future.

Day 26, Funny bodies

2008-06-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

More specifically, what funny things our bodies are capable of doing.

So my brother has been back in town these last two weeks after having been away for about six months for naval boot camp training and all of the schooling that comes after graduating boot camp, whatever that schooling might be and how much of it he has to go through I do not really know and probably wouldn’t fully know unless I myself actually joined the Navy. But that’s not going to happen. Anyway, yesterday was his last full day back here in Corona on leave so as a bit of a going away present/goodbye to him the family all went out to eat at an Italian restaurant (or something close to Italian).

Now going out to eat on a diet, especially the PCP, is hard enough as I found out, yesterday being the first time since starting the project that I didn’t have any major meal here at home. Not only did I have to find something that would fit in with my vegan diet (which is always a great difficulty, even still during these changing days in the food industry), I had to find something that wouldn’t completely ruin all of the hard work that I’ve put into my PCP these last three and a half weeks.

So I settled on the basic house salad with the tiniest bit of vinaigrette (like a quarter of a tablespoon, probably less) sprinkled over it, a small slice of sourdough bread, and a laughably small portion of spaghetti, small enough that I could have counted the strands of spaghetti on both hands and still had fingers left over. You know, I say laughably small because it seems that I’m still getting used to the portion sizes of this diet and when I think back to how much spaghetti I took and how that little bit wouldn’t have filled me up in the slightest before I started the project then I sort of chuckle a wee bit.

Whenever Patrick mentions how much he is eating now compared to how much he used to eat and how the portions he eats now, or when he was about where I am now, would always fill him up like his pre-PCP meals I always thought that he was exaggerating. That little bit of food fills you up completely? Nah, that can’t be right. You’re just telling us that to make it seem like the project is more dramatic than it actually is.

Well let me squash any of those same thoughts that some of you readers may have, the dinner meal that I had last night filled me. Totally. I had difficulty drinking down my evening protein smoothie and I had that hours after that dinner. Believe me, I was astonished myself. It seems that serving sizes that once used to be mouthfuls, mere nibbles before the project have become meals that floor me and make me lethargic and make me vow never to eat another bite of any food ever again!

So what’s going on here? I’m being defeated by my meals, my miniscule meals? There must be some funky supernatural voodoo happening here because there is something not right about this. But, nay, I say, it seems that my body is adjusting to my daily diet sooner than my initial generous estimate. It seems that my stomach is shrinking to the point that even a small dinner such as the one I had last night has a noticeable impact on the evening. Now that’s just downright odd to consider given the veritable mountain of food I have to eat daily for my lunch. It seems that our bodies are varied, fickle things that change on whims that we, or at least I, don’t know about and faster than you realize.

Which shouldn’t come as a too much of a shock. I’m assuming everyone reading this has gone through puberty and you all know the weird changes our bodies went through then. But I wasn’t prepared for this one, it blindsided me, folks, and best of all...

It lets me know that the project is having wonderfully beneficial effects on me far greater and much quicker than I could have ever guessed. It shows me that my steps towards a better me aren’t in vain and that I’m on the right track. It shows me that my determination isn’t foolhardy and can produce amazing results if combined with something amazing. And how cool is that?

Day 25, Something of a grand day

2008-06-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

...although not much of a grand entry (um, as in large, you know).

I’ll tell you why:

I just spent the last, um, maybe two hours typing up the first bit of a story I’m working on so my fingers are a bit tired and my mind’s a bit fried.

But that’s not the exciting part about all of this and it doesn’t have much to do with why I’m writing this particular entry for today. This last week I’ve been able to really get the diet and exercise plan down to a point where I don’t have to focus on it as much as I was doing in the first couple of weeks. I’ve been able to go through everything, aware of it all, but without much resistance from myself and without hardly any scrambling around trying to get everything done.

As I’m sure you can imagine that’s left a lot more time for me to do the things that I love to do--writing, reading, talking with friends, and the like. I’m most excited about the writing. Like I said on Tuesday I want to make my living as a writer. I also touched on Tuesday at how much things have been improving inside of myself because of this project.

Well, I’ve got one more thing to add to that growing list of things that are wonderful about a project like this, or any personal improvement project. I haven’t been able to figure out why the writing has been going so well lately until just a little while ago but I think I’ve hit upon it now--this project has turned my mind into something clear and free of a lot of the distractions that were plaguing me before I started the project. I’ve become aware just now of how much better I am able to sit down and just focus on things that are important to me.

The writing has been easy this last week because there isn’t so much bouncing around in this noggin of mine. Now, I do know that all of my writing days won’t be as easy or confidence filled as the days this past week have been but it’s an exciting thing to realize especially when it concerns something that you love doing and want to do for the rest of your life. It makes it so much easier to break through the obstacles standing in your way and come within reaching distance of your dreams.

It’s day 25! Whoo-hoo! Shouldn’t there be some sort of grand, overly extravagant party for a day like this?

And, gah, is it warm today or what? I don’t know exactly what the weather’s like with everyone else but I may just end up reaching my target weight just by sitting here and sweating it off. There is definitely something wrong with that.

Day 24, Muscles aflame!

2008-06-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

--First, I’ve got to apologize profusely to all you, my few readers, because despite what I said yesterday I will not be able to post a newer, non “Daily Photo” photo due to an annoyingly untimely living room repainting and remodeling. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I don't have anywhere to take this photo that doesn't require me to own a tripod for my camera (any suggestions on what I can use instead of one?). If I can’t get one tomorrow because of the same problem than there is no reason that I won’t be able to get one on Monday. Thank you for your patient understanding.--

Weh-heh-hell now. Is it bad if your arms are so tired that your fingers are having trouble making their way across the keyboard? I thought so.

So yesterday I spent my morning enjoying the souped up exercise plan that Chen and Patrick gave me to toil away on and, man...there are no words to describe it. What’s worse, I’m sure is that this is undoubtedly just the tip of the iceberg that is the exercise plan I have to look forward to in the next month. I wonder how David and Corry are handling their own new exercise plan? Hmm... I’m betting that they’re feeling just the way that I am right now. Especially with our new jumprope regimens. Might I say, “Holy jeez, those things suck.” I was really starting to enjoy the jumproping even with my ankle difficulties and then BLAMMO! I’m stuck with having to do three minute long chunks of jumping instead of counting them out. Those three minutes have turned into the longest three minutes of my day, and I have to do four three minute chunks, one right after the other. How’s about that, eh? And in very nearly 90 degree weather. Makes me long for the days of 1000 jumps.

But enough whining. It’s all energizing at the same time and, man oh man, does it make looking in the mirror for results so much more inspiring, and that’s what it’s all about, people, because without that then there would hardly be reason for doing all of this stuff (stuff that seems crazy to everyone that I talk to concerning the project). Even after one day I’m seeing new lines and definition where I don’t remember seeing them before. Now I don’t know exactly if that is just the cumulative effect of having been on the project for three weeks or if it’s a loopy hysteria brought on by the abundance of vegetables and grueling, sweaty to point of being funny strength training.

I have a feeling it may be both of those things.

Well, despite all of the difficulties that naturally come with a workout plan as tough as this one I am definitely having fun now, more so than I thought anyone could have with something like this. I hope that Corry and David are, too.

Day 23, What's the deal?

2008-06-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

. . .

You know, if I didn’t know any better I’d say that Patrick was picking on me for some reason. Let me clear my throat because this will take a while, ahem, the exercise plan for the following week:

Jumprope, You're also going to start timed jumping. 3 mins at a time, continuously, with a 10-15 second break, then another 3 mins. Do this a total of 4 times.

Chest Dips 5 x 8, Holding onto the backs of two chairs with your feet off the ground crossed behind you inhale and lower the body. The elbows are at 90 degrees and the chest tips slightly forward. Exhale and lift back up, the elbows stay stable and the feet are passive. Go slowly.

Push-ups 5 x 20, Feet on a chair.

Open Chest Flys 5 x 20, Put the door anchor a little above your head level. Face the door, and open the bands out to the sides, like the Jesus statue in Rio. Hold at maximum resistance for a second, and slowly bring the arms together.

Shoulder Flys 5 x 15, Standing on the band, arms lifiting out to the sides as you've done before.

Forward Shoulder Raise 4 x 12, Stand on the band, and lift the arms in front of you as if you were trying to stop a bus from running over you. Hold at the top for a second.

Biceps curl 6 x 20.

Outer Biceps curl 4 x 20, Start with the elbows out to the sides and the fists facing forwards. Exhale and lift towards the center of your chest, so that the knuckles touch. The elbows are steady.

V-sits 5 x 20, The body starts flat on the floor, exhale and fold the legs and torso together like a hinge, making a “V”. Your fingers should lightly touch the feet at the highest point. The back and the legs reach the floor at the same moment when lowering down.

Half Plank 4 x 30 seconds, Lie face down on a mat. Place your elbows under the shoulders and lift up, keeping the body straight. Keep and breathe evenly for 30 seconds. Repeat 4 times.

The upside (because there has to be with an exercise plan like this otherwise I would go crazy)? The upside is that I have to do this only every other day. Either way this is going to be a very interesting and incredibly tiring week. Luckily I have my days off to look forward to and keep me from breaking down and weeping uncontrollably on my knees begging for this project to just be over already because I can’t take it. Although, to tell the truth, I am kind of looking forward to it because with these crazy exercises it’s going to feel like I’m really getting closer to peak condition instead of playing around with my jump rope and rubber bands.

While the jumproping is tiring out my legs I am kind of missing the leg workouts, although I’m sure David and Corry would love to get rid of them. Oh well, I say, I’ve got those evil V-sits to look forward to today, so yipee skippy. The arm, shoulder, and chest workouts do seem to be doing their intended job though and looking in the mirror today have sent a rush of enthusiasm my way. I’ll have to post an awesome photo of me showing off tomorrow for all of you showing just how I’m looking.

So, I’ll sign off now since all of these extra exercises will take up a lot more of my time this morning. I hope you all have a day that’s not as tiring as mine is sure to be. Farewell.

Day 22, A minor annoyance

2008-06-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

So it seems that I’m going to take the ol’ bike off of the hooks in the garage, dust off the seat and frame, and go for a sunny day bicycle ride.

Several months ago, I’m not entirely sure when anymore, I sprained, or very nearly sprained, my right ankle while sparring at the karate school. I was out of commission for a while, only able to teach classes instead of participating in them. Ever since then the pain and irritation has come back intermittently, usually at the most annoying times.

Lately has been one of those times. More specifically, jumproping is when it peeks out its head and makes itself known. It’s very unwelcome and gets in the way of things especially when it lasts into the evening and makes working out at the karate school a bit of a chore. It makes the actual act of jumproping a bit of a bother as well since that repeated jumping is all ankles and calves.

So, since the jumproping is a very repetitive activity and exercise I think that I’m going to have to mix things up a bit more than I am right now. I think that would be beneficial to me even if my ankle weren’t being annoying like it is right now since any activity like this is bound to send the muscles I’m working into some desensitized unworked delirium. The muscles that I’m working can very easily get too used to the exercise and not benefit in the way that I want it to.

So I’ll do that. My bike is in dire need of fresh air and asphalt on its tires since it really has been quite a while since I’ve taken it out for a spin, and it was a birthday gift too so that’s all the more reason to set out on the local trail. I could use some vitamin D coursing its way through my body. Also, I’m sure that the Under Armour shirts I bought a while ago would look great on me now, so that is always a big plus.

One last thing, today is Thursday and you all know what that means...that’s right, a new diet plan! But don’t get your hopes up too high because not much has changed for me specifically, my daily diet remains essentially the same except that now after I eat my lunch I have to drink one spoonful of my soy protein powder mixed with water.

Wish me luck with that endeavor.

Day 21, Weird cravings galore

2008-06-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

Or should I say, um, normal cravings?

First of all, by the end of today it will have officially been three weeks since the project project actually started for David, Corry, and I. Whoo hoo! This is an event that can only be matched by by the elation brought on by getting through two weeks of the project. Week four, bring it on baby! You’ve got a lot to live up to, you better rock it like a sprocket.

Now then, on to the actual post for the day. I’ve been noticing the last few days, along with all of the amazingly awesome physical changes that are occurring, all of these strong and insistent cravings for stuff that I’ve never felt a craving for before and most definitely not as strong as this. It’s very odd and I almost don’t know what to do about it. On the one hand if I give into those cravings then the project could potentially be set back a few steps that would be difficult to catch up on not to mention how much of a struggle it would be to keep my determination and discipline at the high it’s at right now. On the other hand do I just let those cravings sit and stew inside of me until I can’t take it anymore and start lashing out in other ways like freaking out at work or becoming something altogether indescribable?

Hard to decide there. Of course it would help if I actually told you all what those particular cravings are, now wouldn’t it? Over the last few days I’ve been feeling a strong craving for fruit. Lots of fruit and sometimes some vegetables (although the vegetables aren’t tempting me too much considering how freaking much I have to eat on a daily basis already). It’s very odd and something that I’ve never really experienced before, well, not with fruit, which is also odd because I’m a vegan, you would think that that would be all I eat, fruits and vegetables. Truthfully though, I was much more into the prepackaged vegan meals that you can find in the freezer section of your local grocery store and fruit eating was something that only happened maybe once every other day.

With the diet plan that Chen has me on I am able to get a pretty good amount of fruit into my daily meals but, as with any good thing, that little bit is not enough to sate me nowadays. I only get to eat maybe 300 to 400 grams of fruit a day but I desire more. I find myself staring at the fruit bowl in the kitchen thinking, “Who’s going to know? Patrick’s way over in Japan, there’s no way he’s going to know if I sneak an extra nectarine or fig or piece of pineapple.”

It’s a brand new feeling for me, a great feeling I must admit because I’m no longer craving all of that crap that I used to live on (although my desire for Pop-Tarts is going to be a tough one to kill and isn’t something that I really want to get rid of. I mean, they’re Pop-Tarts, come on!). It’s nice to know that while I am craving something more, at least I’m craving something healthy for a change. It lets me know that I’m on the right track, I think, and gives me an extra boost of confidence and invigoration. It keeps driving me to the next day when I can eat more of the oh so good stuff that I want to have.

Have a mahvelous day everyone.

Day 20, New revelations

2008-06-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

Like regular revelations...but better.

It seems that the middle of week 3 is when all of the good stuff really starts to kick in, you could see it in Patrick and it is currently rocking Corry, David, and me. Gone are the incessant unhealthy cravings, gone are lazy afternoons spent not exercising, gone is the general lethargic cloud hanging over our heads and permeating every small nook and cranny of our bodies and minds. Things are electric now, more or less, and in addition to all of the physical changes we all are experiencing now on a literally daily basis, things are beginning to be clearer and easier to notice. I can only speak for myself but the fog of daily life seems to be lifting and showing us all exactly what is happening to us during our days without anything obscuring reality from us.

My head has become clearer than it ever has before. What a grand feeling that is! Ever since I consciously started to develop into a person of my own I’ve felt that there was something keeping me from reaching my true potential, both inside and out. It felt like everything I felt was really interesting to me or what I truly believed to be right (a subjective term, I know) was there inside of me but was covered by a blanket to heavy to lift. Now that I’m knee deep into the project and am really starting to feel the positive effects of something like the PCP I realize that I’m able to push aside the veil of regular life and see what exactly I’ve always wanted to become.

Without all of these distractions my mind is free to develop into something amazing, I’m able to focus on what I’ve always wanted to do. Because of the changes in me I’m able to see the changes that I want to make in my life and in the world around me.

My current job is not something that I want to turn into my career, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy training in karate and the students I teach there are awesome but I can’t and don’t want to imagine myself working there ten years from now. My dreams are clear to me and, for the most part, the way to reach those dreams are clear as well.

I want to be an author, scratch that, a published author. I get a great sense of euphoria when I sit down to put my stories to paper, to feel my characters and places, and ideas work their way down through my arm, into my fingers, through my pen, and become something alive in front of my eyes. Despite all of the amazingly difficult work it takes to create a living, breathing world with real people there is nothing I would rather do than spend an afternoon sitting at a table and writing.

It’s very clear to me now that that is what I want to do. It is clear because of this project and all of the newly free mental space and abilities that have been opened up to me. This project is, if for nothing else, worth it because of that. It’s one of the most wonderful feelings in the world to have and is something that everyone should experience.

Day 19, Cha-cha-cha-changes

2008-06-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

David Bowie sure got that one right.

You know, it seems to me that whenever I take a look at the daily pictures I post for all of you what I see in those pictures is not all what I’ve been seeing when I look at myself in the mirror. With all of these changes happening in me and with my body I’ve been struck with the desire to show off like I never have before. So first of all I am well aware of what that desire could entail and, no, it isn’t exhibitionism. Believe me, I realize that it would be easy to slip into a state of mind that would let my ego take control of everything and turn me into a giant, arrogant jerk. Of course, I am totally against that, I have a big problem with people that walk around with an undeserved sense of self-righteousness or ooze this attitude of being better than anyone else.

So I doubt there will be any issue with me turning into something like that. I remember all too well the Greek mythological story of Echo and Narcissus (which, by the way, was actually written by the Roman poet Ovid). I will not scorn all those who around me and then fall in love with my own reflection so much that I am frozen and transfixed by it until I die and wither away to nothing more than a flower that grows in my deserted place.

That certainly won’t happen. I do wish that I could really show you what awesome things are happening, though. Perhaps I’ll have to go out and buy a new higher resolution camera for my daily pictures...probably not. You’ll all just have to take my word for it when I tell you that I have not looked or felt as good as I do now. How wondrous this all is. Sure it takes a heck of a lot of work and the diet has been harder than I ever thought it would be (although, not too worry, it is getting easier by the day) but boy, oh, boy are the results wonderfully affirming!

Energy that I never knew existed is coursing through me, I feel healthier, and I can walk around happily and heartily knowing that I am doing something great for me and my future. I can look at all of the brightly colored fast food advertisements and say, “Nah-ah, you will not tempt me anymore. I do not desire you at all. Forget greasy french fries, show me stalk of broccoli!” I am so continuously surprised at everything that is happening with me and I am able to marvel at the changes that are happening all of the time.

How delightful. Have a good mood :-)

Day 18, Soy protein smoothie

2008-06-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

Um, might I say...BLEHCH!

So last Thursday when I was given my new diet plan for this week there was one brand new addition to my daily meals: within twenty minutes after I complete my workout I am to drink 2 spoonfuls of my soy protein powder mixed with water.

If there was ever any question as to what pure EVIL tastes like then I want you to do this: find some soy protein powder and mix it in with some water, plain water. Enclose yourself in a brightly lit room with no furniture or windows. Sit on the floor and place the glass in front of you and stare at it, long and hard, for this will be the last real thing you will see for the next two and a half hours. If you believe in a god then pray to him or her or it for your own personal safety in the next few hours. If you don't believe in a higher power like that then please, please line the walls with some sort of thick rubber padding because that's about all that will keep you from death. Then, once you've done all of this, drink the brew.

Let me give you a warning:

You will see dark, horrible things that a persons mind was not meant to see in his lifetime. You will know what it is like to feel that your tongue is slowly melting away at the back of your throat only to slowly slide forward out of your mouth and onto the floor and you will wonder, sincerely wonder if that is actually happening or if it's just your mind turning against you. You will wonder that because that is exactly what will be happening to you. Of course, that will be the very least of your worries as you try to find out how to stop the snakes from crawling out your walls and the chimera from sneaking toward you on the ceiling like the baby in Trainspotting.

The safest thing to do at that point would be to curl up into the fetal position and hope that the remaining two hours and fifteen minutes won't be as utterly terrifying as the fifteen minutes you just lived through were while trying to stop the uncontrollable crying.

Now, it sounds like I'm exaggerating but, honestly, I'm really not. It's quite an experience that I imagine can only be replicated by hard drugs of the type that would have been appropriate in one of Hunter S. Thompson's frenzied reporting sessions. It's all so strange really considering that the protein smoothie I have to drink in the evenings is rather tasty and something that I've begun looking forward to during the day. In the evening around 9:30 I drink another protein smoothie but instead of two scoops of the powder I only put one scoop in and I'm also able to put two bananas into the mix. It's a testament to the amazing flavor packed into a single banana.

Well, I'm off to my exercises...and my two scoop protein drink.

Day 17, 1 of about 3,000,000

2008-05-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

In America, at least.

So let me tell you about my morning:

At the karate school I train and work at every Saturday is judo day. Judo is a martial arts sport involving lots of throwing people around, falling after being thrown to the ground, using your partner's weight against them. Today was the first judo day we've had there in two weeks because of holidays and incompatible schedules and I had been looking forward to it for a while.

So after stuffing my breakfast into me as I drove to the karate school and hoping I wouldn't see that food again as I was being thrown around, I got uniformed up and got going with the class. All was going well until about a half hour into the hour and a half long class. A half hour into the class brought with it an unbearable itching in three places: both armpits and, ahem, the perineum. First, let me tell you having a wild, uncontrollable itch down there is SO not an enjoyable experience. Not in the very, very slightest. Now, I knew right away that I was having an allergic reaction to something but I didn't know what, all I knew was that it was going to get the best of me. After trying to fight it out I gave up, because it was getting that bad, and went to the bathroom, baby powder in hand, to try and alleviate the itching. That didn't work. I was excused from the class to go and sit up in the office and wait this thing out.

In the meantime, the itching didn't stop, it did however decrease, and my face turned a pretty bright red. Right down the middle of it. It looked like I had been hit in the face with a burning hot piece of thick metal, funny but uncomfortable. All of this did subside eventually to where I'm now sitting at my computer, with a normal face, feeling pretty all right.

I bring all of this up because the reaction I had was due to the fact that I have numerous and pretty serious food allergies to legumes and beans. The worst of the worse are my allergies to peanuts and hazelnuts. Whenever I eat any of those things my throat constricts, I break out in itchy hives, and I get horribly awful stomach cramps for about one to two hours, sometimes longer. Well, apparently, one of the other students at the judo class either eats a lot of food cooked in peanut oil or cooks a lot of food in peanut oil. It seems that my peanut allergy was a lot worse than I originally thought it was and just by being and breathing around this person I inadvertently took in some of the peanut oil particles coming off of him through his sweat.

What an interesting morning it's been.

By the time I got home I was feeling well enough to go through my daily exercises, but not well enough to train like I normally do. I took it much easier than I usually do because of how I was feeling (and also because of the Benadryl coursing through my body, making me sleepy). I was hoping I would never get to a point in this project where I wouldn't be able to train as well as I know I can but things do happen, whether I want them to or not. It's a part of life, sucky as that part might be.

I need to keep in mind that while I might not have been able to work today like I have in the past few days it was a necessary sacrifice. I definitely do not want to push myself beyond my physical limits and have to take even more time resting and not doing what I need to do to be successful with this project. Letting my ego get in the way that much would be a very bad move on my part. That would all be a horrible tragedy.

Day 16, Hooo boy...

2008-05-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

I don’t want to say that I didn’t expect this but, well, I didn’t expect this. Here it be, the new exercise program for your viewing pleasure:

1000 jumpropes

Elevated Pushups 8 x 15, Same as last week, legs on a chair

Shoulder Flys 4 x 10, Same as last week

Chest Flys 4 x 20, Put the band on the door anchor about eye level and stand with your back to the door. Start with your arms open and back, and slowly bring the arms and fists together. Hold a tic and with control open again.

Triceps Dips 6 x12, Same as last week

Biceps Curls 4 x 15, Stand on the band with your elbows by your side. Without moving the elbows, lift the forearms.

Crunches 6 x 25, Same as last week

So, might I say, what the heck happened?! This thing just exploded into something that, might I say, begins with a “cah” and ends with a “razy”. I was totally rocking the last weeks exercise program and then BOOM! this happens out of the clear blue internet. I mean, come on! There has to be a more subtle way of telling someone that they need more muscle mass on their shoulders and chest.

:-)

Okay, I actually knew this was coming and I think anyone who knows even the slightest little bit about strength training will have seen this coming, from a mile away even. So there really should be no surprise. I do wish that we would have gotten straight into the cycling through of these strength training exercises instead of continuing with hammering the same group of muscles that I’ve spent the last week just exhausting to the point where it feels like my muscles are literally turning into some sort of jelly like substance.

But have no fear! Patrick sent along a little bit of fine print saying that we will eventually begin spending more time on other muscle groups and cycling through the different exercises, giving our muscles time to rest and heal themselves from the self-inflicted tearing asunder, instead of focusing on the same muscle groups every single day. Which is wonderful, when that day gets here, I mean. For the time being we’ll have to try and find some sort of fun in these daily exercises which will, admittedly, be difficult because, as those of you who have done something like this in the past will certainly know, working the same muscle groups day after day can get 1) tiring, really tiring and 2) boring.

I’ll have to find some way or system to make these exercises a bit more enjoyable for me the next week because boredom is a killer. Too much boredom can easily spell the end to, well, anything.

So I’ll rock this week, I will, I will. Honestly, I was beginning to enjoy it anyway--the burning sensation (that sounds worse than it actually is and if I weren’t talking about muscles then it would sound really bad), the veins bulging from my biceps and forearms, the euphoric sweatiness of it all. It makes me feel amped up and ALIVE!

Keep sending the love and you all have the best day ever!

Day 15, Some small changes

2008-05-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

So it's the beginning of week #3 and you all know what that means, don't you people? That's right, it's a brand new diet plan! Well...kind of brand new, I mean, it's new but only during the evenings for the most part. So here it is for your wonderful viewing pleasure:

Morning - same:

50 grams carbs

100 grams fruit (no bananas)

150 grams vegetables

a.m. snack - same:
100 grams fruit (no banana), around 10:30 a.m.

Lunch - same:

150 grams carbs

250 grams vegetables

p.m. snack - same:

100 grams fruit (no banana), around 3:30 p.m.

Dinner - Cut to 80 grams carbs (used to be 100 grams), and 100 grams vegetables

evening snack - 2 bananas and 1 spoonful of soy protein, around 9:30 p.m.

In addition, within 20 minutes of finishing your workout, have 2 spoonfuls of soy protein with water.

So, yes, there that is. I'm digging it, I think that this one will be a lot easier for me to stomach this diet plan than the last one. Yes, yes, I know that doesn't make a whole bunch of sense since the new diet plan is almost basically the same as last weeks diet plan but I still believe that this one will be easier to handle now that some time has passed and I've been able to get accustomed to it.

So essentially the deal with this weeks diet plan is that we're all working on taking our BMI's (body mass index) and, by eating less, dropping all of that unnecessary body mass that we don't really need, especially when we're trying to reach our peak condition. Our intake will keep decreasing more and more until our BMI's are down to...however little Patrick and Chen are looking for. Once we get to that point, when our bodies start bypassing the fat developing process for the most part and instead turn the food we take in into energy, then we'll start increasing our intake again until we reach the point where we're eating pretty good sized meals again (or should I say gigantic, hard to finish meals).

So that's part of what's in store for this coming week, the new exercise plan will be coming today and I'll post about that tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty alright with it, especially now that that I'm starting to feel better about this whole project--I'm learning how to make things work for me and, if not enjoy, then live with the big changes that are happening with me. Plus, I'll be able to sit down with the family on the weekends for dinner and have something more than a protein smoothie for the meal. Which is always good.

Day 14, What's behind door number 3?

2008-05-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

Who knows what's in store for all of us with tomorrow's diet and exercise update, perhaps more fruits? More carbs (I doubt that one very much)? More vegetables (Whoo-hoo?)? Who knows...who knows.

Well, if Patrick's latest e-mail to us three PCPers is any obvious clue then it won't be so different except for one major factor that I don't think we'll fully appreciate until the time between meals when we're clutching our stomachs and listening in hushed fear as those stomachs try to eat themselves because that's the only way they're going to get something to sustain themselves. That major factor is, folks, less food. I know that sounds unnecessary and to that I say to you, "Really? Unnecessary? First, 400 grams of vegetables a day is a freaking trial, not only to cook but to try and eat. Second, now that our metabolisms are lean, mean, fighting machines cutting down on all the food should make us lose fat mass like crazy."

Truth be told, though, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it...in a way, I have no doubt that if this last week was as difficult as it was then this coming week will probably be difficult, too. Or maybe it won't, who knows? It will be nice, I think, to not have to cook as many vegetables as I am right now and I'm hoping that this next weeks diet plan won't actually have me cooking and eating more vegetables than I am right now. We'll see, we'll see.

Have a wonderful day, peoples.

Day 13, Writer's block

2008-05-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

Aaah! I knew it had to happen sometime I just thought I would have another couple of weeks before it did.

So, come one! Come all! I welcome you kind ladies and sirs to the greatest, most spectacular spectacle in the whole world! Known as my current worst fear. Heights? I spit in their face! Public speaking? Bah, I revel in it! Creepy-crawlies? Not my favorite thing in the world but what-heck-ever!

No, my current greatest fear is sitting down, opening up my writing journal (or, in this case, turning on my computer), taking pen in hand, and sitting wide-eyed and dumbfounded with my mind at a dead stop. I try to force the ideas, try to make them come through some force of will but that never works and I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.

So that's what's plaguing me right now. So instead of spending most of my morning trying to force some kind of intellectual and philosophical entry on weight loss, muscle gain, and self-reflection I'm just going to give you all an update on how I'm doing (which, I guess is the point of this blog anyway). Things seem to be going pretty well nowadays, better than last Thursday, at least. I think I've figured out how to make the daily meals work for me in a way that is easiest for me. The exercises are still relatively difficult--the jumprope is still enjoyable but, man, those strength building exercises are annoyingly time consuming and difficult. One of the harder parts is this blog, as you can well see. Let's hope I gain some kind of inspiration by tomorrow when I sit down again to, hopefully, write something for all of you.

Day 12, Noticeable changes

2008-05-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

Three of them, right off the bat, smacked me in the face yesterday during all of my needless moping. Here they be:

First off, and most obviously, are the physical changes this project is having on me. It was bound to happen, and how could it not considering how few calories I'm taking in (which just has to be a heck of a lot less than Patrick and Chen are telling me, if Corry's diet plan averages out to be about 2000 calories with all of the extra carbs and protein she's taking then I have a hard time believing mine is 2100 calories)? According to Patrick the diet plans we're on for the first week are designed to ramp up our lazy metabolisms and turn them into super fat burning monsters so that when we start dialing the diets down even more (yes, even more than they already are, but I'm looking forward to that because that just means less food to cook everyday) the unnecessary fat mass we're carrying will just melt away and we'll really slim down. What a pleasant image. Despite that I'm already noticing lines I've never had before and I'm mysteriously attracted to the bathroom mirror more than I have been before, not that I see myself as grotesquely vain or anything, it's just something new and pretty freaking awesome.

I don't know if the second thing I've noticed has anything to do with the PCP but this started happening soon after I started the project so I'm assuming it's not just a coincidence, but it seems that my skin is clearing up and becoming better looking and more manageable. Now, I've never really had any big problems with bad skin in my past it was just always noticeable...but not anymore! I hope it doesn't turn out that I'm speaking too soon but for now it's pretty awesome. Massive amounts of vegetables don't just make us feel better and give us more energy--apparently, they have powers stronger and more mysterious than we will ever know...

And lastly, I've noticed right this very second that these daily blog entries seem to fluctuate--big entries, smaller entries, bigger entries, and on and on. They seem to want to act like wave patterns or something.

Day 11, Add a dash of doubt

2008-05-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Breaking deeply ingrained tendencies is difficult work.

First, let it be known that I want to do this. I want to see this project through to the end. I want to become better and stronger and healthier.

But man have these first weeks been getting to me. I'm sure that it all has to do with the whole suddenness of the project--I didn't know about my acceptance into the PCP until maybe five days before it started and I was, and still am, excited about it all but I have not had the foresight to mentally prepare myself for all of the changes and struggles that something like the PCP can bring.

Which brings me to this last Thursday... Thursday when we all received our new diet plans and the messing around was officially done. The real stuff started and we had to get down to the business of cutting down what we eat from day to day.

Sticking to a diet this ridged, or any diet with not a whole lot of wiggle room like the grapefruit diet or the Special K diet, can get tedious. After a few days of eating two to three bowls of Special K then dropping the whole thing and falling back on everything before you started doesn't seem like a bad idea. I'm having problems finding variances in this diet with not trying to overdo anything or eat too much of what I'm not supposed to. I'm having problems finding different, unique recipes for this new diet, what has essentially become a macrobiotic diet for me (the only difference being that I'm cooking the food instead of eating it raw). Without being able to change things about within the diet plan and make new things with what I have to work with something like the PCP seems bigger than Everest and even harder to climb. Of course, that's not to say that I have it any harder than any of the other PCPers just that it's just plain hard.

Which is what made Thursday (and the following days) so interestingly difficult. Truth be told Thursday was the closest I've come to just saying, screw it, and cooking up a bit of rice with some vegan steak strips. At that point I wouldn't have felt bad about that. I don't think I could say for certain what exactly made fight through that, I like to believe it's my Rocky-like spirit and tenacity (maybe I shouldn't put it that way, makes me seem much too full of myself). Plus it would be dangerous to see this project as some scary Russian boxer guy to be beaten instead of a challenge to enjoy and live in and with.

Though, nothing is static, things are always changing, even though things are difficult now they will get easier (and harder and easier and harder...), the hard days will not be hard forever.

So how does one deal with these things when they're brand new and right there in your face? How can you be aware of all of the changes and face them and overcome them without giving up in the process? How can you be mindful of all of these difficulties when you aren't as practiced in being aware of those kinds of things? I'm not sure, but it seems that that's one of the most important parts of the PCP and one of the best things you can take away from something difficult like this.

Send some support, it's always appreciated.

(And I'm sure tomorrow's post will be much cheerier :-)

Day 10, Becoming a rabbit

2008-05-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

Like The Metamorphosis but funnier.

Phew! What an interesting few days these have been. Well, like Corey and David have talked about and I mentioned on Thursday the new diet plans came in when none of us were really prepared for them...well, we may have been ready for them but really had no concept as to exactly what was really in store for us when we all took our food scales out of their boxes, set them up on the counter, and started to slowly pile on the veggies while shaking our heads as the little counters weren't anywhere nearer to 250 grams than when we started measuring them out.

And then you try and make a meal out of them with the 150 grams of carbs (or however much the other two have to have) because there's no way you're going to try and fork 250 grams of vegetables plain into you without some kind of variation or a more noticeable flavor. There's no way that's going to happen, believe me, because after doing that for this mornings vegetable requirement I can say for more certainty than I've had for a lot of things that doing that would be a drag of the very absolute worst kind.

Of course, you can work your way around those things--laying down some spinach on a tortilla and spilling all of those veggies onto it with some salt-free mustard and wrapping it all up makes for delectable eats, a good, regular sized artichoke averages out to be about 250 grams of vegetable when all is said and done with those things and even if it doesn't make it all the way to 250 it's close enough that you don't have to eat as many vegetables to make up for the remainder. Low calorie dressings always make powering through those big bowls of veggies much easier and, guess what, they have vegan dressings in all sorts of different flavors:

So thank you Nasoya, you've made me totally happy.

Now if I can just keep my skin from turning orange from all of the carrots I'm eating...or from growing big fuzzy ears and a puffy tail and developing a nose twitch then things should be totally cool.

Day 9, More exercises

2008-05-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

We all knew it was coming, I was just secretly hoping it would take longer to get here but no point in delaying the inevitable. Also, without this strength training exercise plan the PCP would not really be helping me work toward my peak condition.

From Chen and Patrick:

Jumprope 1000 times

Pushups 6 x 15, With feet raised on a chair. So your body will be at an angle.

Squats 5 x 20, Go slowly.

Triceps Dip 5 x 10, Put the palms of your hand on the edge of two chairs or a bench, with the chairs or bench behind you. Slowly lower yourself down, hold at the bottom, and lift up.

Shoulder Fly 4 x 10, Step on your band. Slowly raise the handles out to the side, like Leonardo's Vitruvian man. Hold at the top, and with control, come down.

Crunches 5 x 25, Lay on your back, knees up but not too high. Roll your body up like a newspaper, hold a tic, then with control come down. This week we're not doing obliques (the side abs), but don't worry, we will. Oh, we will. Go slowly.

Everyday. It should take about an hour.

That’s quite a tall order and it will definitely take some getting used to and I’m going to have to find some extra willpower reserves to get myself to do this kind of workout every day but like I and everyone else has said before, it may be difficult now but if you stick with it and envision the end result (Stephen Chow) then things will get easier. Of course, they may get harder before they do get easier but that’s part of the process and while it may be one of the hardest parts of the process it’s also one of the more rewarding parts. You see, the hard thing to do and the right thing to do (in this case keeping with it) are usually the same thing and tackling and accomplishing the hard things in life will always make you stronger and better.

Day 8, The new diet plan...

2008-05-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

Ho boy, this is going to be interesting, an interesting challenge, downright difficult, all of that. At least for the first couple of weeks until I can set down some kind of schedule that doesn't drive me crazy with all of the massive amounts of chopping and steaming and eating. So here it is:

Morning
50 grams carbs
100 grams fruit (no bananas)
150 grams vegetable

A.M. Snack (around 10:30 am)
100 grams fruit (no banana)

Lunch
150 grams carbs
250 grams vegetables

P.M. Snack (around 3:30pm)
100 grams fruit

Dinner
100 grams carbs
Drink 2 BIG spoonfuls of the protein powder, 1 banana, blended with water.

Evening Snack (around 9:30 pm)
1 more banana.

Doesn't sound horrible, right? I mean, yeah, it seems pretty sparse and at first glance it very well could be...until you start chopping and weighing everything out. Then you realize that you've never eaten that many vegetables that early in the morning. It's such a drastic change that I can apparently only get used to by whining about it here, but I'm blowing things out of proportion. Anything is doable and with a little imagination and preparation this can be a whole lot of fun really. I think the hardest part for me will be getting up early enough to cook everything and eat it when I need to. I'll need to get to sleep much earlier than I have been this last week to be able to do everything that I need to do for this.

So there that is, for the next however long it will be my daily diet will be exactly that, nothing much more. Honestly, I'm still very excited about all of this and about the changes this diet plan will help produce (all I'm wondering now is when I'll be able to drink soymilk and fruit juice like I used to). I definitely need to keep a positive mindset throughout these first weeks otherwise it will be very easy to slip back into the unhealthy thinking of the past. I'll keep you updated on how it goes and my process of getting used to it.

Wish us all luck, fair readers, and a good day to you, too.

Day 7, The, um, other last meal

2008-05-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

Per Patrick's suggestion, last night I cooked a final "pre-PCP" type meal:

Shown here in the bowl is about half of the normal amount of short grain white rice and orzo pasta that I would normally eat before I started this project. I figured I would cook that for my dinner last night because after yesterdays post it just seemed appropriate that that would be the bang that I go out on.

An interesting thing happened while eating that bowl of soy sauce covered rice and pasta, keeping in mind that I used to stomach twice that amount numerous times a week, after polishing off that bowl and settling down for the evening my stomach started to disagree with me. I had cooked it the same way I always did and it tasted just fine but, man, it did not sit well. Believe me, I was pretty surprised. Never before with a meal like that, in any size really, had I had any trouble with it in the few hours following the meal but this time I was feeling really uncomfortable with it sitting in my stomach. I don't know if it was some newly ingrained psychological block to eating a meal like that since starting the PCP or if my stomach was just not ready to take in all of those carbohydrates after a few weeks of not having them combined with a lot of exercise. It's a mystery, but I have a feeling that my stomach, scratch that, my whole body is starting to get used to and enjoying the fruits and veggies that I have been eating frequently during this last week. My stomach is really starting to dig having those kinds of food around instead of all of the junk I was feeding myself with in the recent past.

Writing that I realize just how amazing this project really is and how quickly my body is changing and adapting to this new diet (which in itself is funny to say because it's not so much adapting as it is reverting back to what it was originally supposed to be used for, it's best state of being).

Also, it is day 7 and can anyone else believe that it's been a week already? I almost didn't think it would ever come but here it is, staring me in the face, telling me to get ready because the hard stuff is coming...

The new diet plan is coming.

That's going to be interesting. I have a feeling that this weeks, and all of the following weeks diet plans, will start to mirror more of what Patrick was doing when he first started his project. If all of the powders and massive amounts of fruits and vegetables and blenders he's having us get are any clue then this coming week will be an interesting one. It's going to be exciting, though, because now we're all going to be getting into the real nitty gritty of this project and really working our way toward our heroes. We'll see how it goes and how everyone else does with it, but I for one am totally thrilled about it, I'm very excited about really burning through the extra fat mass that has collected around my body, even more so than this last week has done, and building up the awesome amounts of muscle that I'm sure is just waiting to form.

Day 6, Vices

2008-05-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

You never know what you've got until it's gone.

Before the project started on May 15th dinnertime was a good fifteen to thirty minutes spent spooning food into my mouth, or chopsticking it into there, while watching television or the computer. A horrible habit, I know. Dinner was usually whatever my eyes fell on first when I swung open the pantry door. More often than not, though, dinner for me was "comfort food". You see, I eat dinner after work at the karate school where I'm teaching five hours of classes numbering about twenty to thirty, sometimes more.

So you can see why comfort food is so downright, well, comforting after a day like that.

My bigggest addiction, and something I would eat frequently (three times a week was not uncommon) was a bowl ful of short grain white rice and orzo pasta cooked in water with vegetable buillon and garlic powder and then sprinkled with soy saice. I love it, but that's a lot of unnecessary carbohydrates to be taking in three times a week. Maybe once every other week would be slightly better for me, but even then...

My other addiction is fruit juice. That in itself doesn't sound bad and it's not hugely horrible, I only drink stuff labeled 100% fruit juice and I try not to overdo it. Sometimes it does get the better of me as I've used it as a replacement for all of the soda I used to drink. The problem with that is that I've learned that you should not drink the majority of your daily calories, it offsets things. Plus, unless it an alcoholic beverage, the no real social aspect to drinks like there is for food so it's very easy to not pay attention to what you're taking in.

(By the way, if you wonderful readers have any suggestions for low or preferably no caffeine drinks with no calories I would really appreciate them. Thanks)

Now that dinnertime, or anytime, has become more of an event for me (no more mindless Pop-Tart eating, another habit) I've been willingly forced to watch what I'm cooking and drinking instead of just picking some junk from the freezer and frying it in oil. It takes a lot more work and thought and, believe me, giving up those comfort foods is damn tough (they're called comfort foods for a reason) but to succeed with something like this or anything else you have to look toward the end result as well as how much better you feel now and weigh the potential benefits against your present cravings. Ask yourself, is it really worth it to sacrifice wonderful health and a great, fit body for a bowl of rice and orzo pasta (or macaroni and cheese or mashed potatoes and gravy)?

It's not for me anymore, I can see that now, and I'm loving the food that I am eating (all the extra effort seems to make it tastier). And you know what? I'm totally cool with that.

Day 5, D.O.M.S.

2008-05-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

Sounds serious, right? Like it should be accompanied by a DOM-DOM-DOMMMMMS

D.O.M.S. is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and, as you can probably figure out from the name of it, DOMS is the pain or discomfort that can often be felt 24 to 72 hours after exercising and subsides within 2 to 3 days. The most commonly held belief as to why this occurs is because when the demand for energy is high during activities like sprinting or jumproping lactate is produced faster than the body can get rid of it. This theory is thought to be out of date and false. A more recent theory as to why DOMS occurs is that it caused by by tiny tears in the muscle fibers caused by eccentric contraction. Eccentric contraction is what happens when a muscle elongates while under tension due to an opposing force being greater than the force generated by the muscle. So, basically, eccentric contraction is a braking force that helps keep motions smooth and helps slow movements like at the end of a punch or a throw.

Alright, that’s my bit of technical stuff for the day. I bring this up as the topic for this days post because, well, my left calf is killing me. You can see by the picture that pain is literally radiating from my calf, unless the post exercise haze is getting to me. But I’m not going to blame the jumprope, even if that is the reason why my calf has been hurting.

So the plan from now on? Get smarter about things and start stretching more, way more than I have been (which is already quite a bit). Muscles need to be stretched, they crave it, if they didn’t none of would have to worry about pulling or straining anything with all of our exercise and daily activities. Warming up before and after exercise, cooling down, warming the area, etc. should be as daily a routine for me as the jumproping has become.

It all seems pretty obvious and I should keep that in mind, it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort and it would be pretty dumb of me to exercise like I am without doing those things. How can you benefit from all of the exercise you’re doing if you can hardly stand on your own feet? Better to be safe now with a little bit of pain then sitting out for a long time doing nothing but sitting around recovering from my mistakes.

Here's a few calf stretches that seem to help me out and make the daily jumproping a bit easier:

http://physicaltherapy.about.com/od/flexibilityexercises/a/calfstretch.htm

Day 4, The most cursed of days!

2008-05-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

Oh yes. Yes it is.

I've never been able to really explain it but for every diet, exercise plan, project, job, etc. the fourth day of any of those things has always been the most difficult monster day to fight my way through. I have a feeling that it's caused by your body waking up out of the dazed stupor of the first three days of any of those things and saying, "Whoa buddy! What the heck are you doing? Look, I'll forgive you for the past few days, I know you like trying new stuff, but now it's time to stop messing about and get back to business. Now where's that bag of tortilla chips?"

It's very annoying.

I can remember four times in my life where I've tried to get down to a slimmer, muscular figure and every time the fourth day had been my undoing. Although, more accurately, the first two times I just got bored with what I was doing and fell back into old habits. First was following the daily serving sizes on the food labels. Didn't work for me. Second, the Special K diet which was about the closest that I'll ever come to eating cardboard two times a day for a week. Those two seemed to make sense at the time and they did work slightly but at the time I didn't have the drive to see them through to the end (whatever the end was).

The third and fourth times were decidedly more stupid. Third was Christian Bale's diet for "The Machinist" which, depending on where you look, consisted of an apple with cups of coffee throughout the day. As you can see things were getting much more desperate. The last one I tried before the PCP--which was over a year ago so you can see what kind of an effect it had on me--was the fasting diet. I tried to convince myself that only doing it for seven days would be healthier than some Gandhi-esque three week thing but you can see that I wasn't thinking it through clearly. I got through those seven days of constant torture and never tried another crazy fly by night diet again.

For each of those four bouts of delusion (I say "delusion" because I was thinking that they would all magically turn me into something like my hero, Stephen Chow) the fourth day was the most unbearable. That fourth day was when giving up on those things seemed like the best thing I could do for myself which, considering what I was doing, probably would have been a good idea. Ah, the rash thinking of a young teenager, there's really nothing like it.

But things are feeling different with the PCP. For all of its difficulties it's been fairly easy so far and I'm sure it will stay that way as long as I'm always aware of what I'm doing and putting into my body. I'm sure I'm right on target with saying that the hardest part of the PCP, or any diet plan, is the breaking of old habits but with the diet plan Patrick and Chen have us on where we're forced to really think about what we're eating and what we're doing things seem to be just downright peachy.

And I'm learning that no matter how difficult something might be if you stick with it you will be a stronger and better person because of it.

Of course, I can't forget about all of the outside support from you readers and commenters because, well, you guys rock!

This fourth day doesn't seem so bad now.

Day 3, The weekenders

2008-05-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

Even before this project started I had been worrying about this day, yes, this particular day. Now I wouldn't say that I've been dreading it but I certainly wasn't feeling totally cool about it either. For as long I've been really aware of what I was eating (since about the time I started high school, when that kind of stuff seemed to matter. Superficially, I see now) I've also been aware of how consistently difficult the weekends have been when it comes to watching what I eat. For me the weekends, nearly every single one of them, have been a challenge to keep myself from going overboard. It has been consistently difficult to keep myself from letting my attention slip away from what I was putting into a bowl and letting myself overindulge in the worst kind of way. For the most part that was my weekend routine: a whole lot of food in big bowls followed by a whole heaping, heavy feeling of guilt afterwards that was as difficult to get over as the uncomfortable feeling I got from shoveling all of that food into my body. It's something about all of the free time I have during the weekends and the general laziness of those days when there's nothing much to be done, it's very conducive to stuffing my cheeks like a chipmunk during the wintertime.

There's been many a time when my afternoon has looked exactly like that, except without, you know, the fur.

Of course I realize that I'm only into my third day of the Peak Condition Project but I think it's safe to say that this fresh realization as I'm knee deep in the PCP will guarantee that I'm going to be hyper-aware of what I'm putting into my breakfast, lunch, and dinner bowl from now on. I'm also sure that by the time August 15th rolls around those horrible weekend eating habits of my past will have been replaced by healthy PCP eating habits. Instead of mindlessly stuffing myself with the worst and fattiest junk that the food industry has to offer I will have developed the kind of eating habits that will keep me slim, healthy, and happy.

And, you know, I am very excited about that. In many ways I think that is going to be the most meaningful and important thing that I get out of this project, not just a muscular, good looking body but a better knowledge of myself and a mindset that will keep me strong and healthy for the rest of my life.

And, really, who wouldn't want that?

Day 2, Like Richard Simmons

2008-05-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

Except that I don't have any oldies to sweat to.

The Cardio and Strengthening Plan

First off, the legs are the target of this first weeks strengthening exercises because, well, how can you expect to do anything else involved with this plan if you can hardly stand on your own two feet without feeling a burn?

So, every day it's going to be squats, as deep I can without lifting the heels of my feet off of the ground. Every day this week Patrick will have us all really feeling our legs turn to jelly as we do five even sets of twenty squats. Really, though, it's something light and, compared to what I'm sure will be coming in the next few weeks, generally rather easy. Of course, that may just my opinion of it because after fourteen years of a very leg-centric sport like karate which has built up my calves, quadriceps, and hamstrings (as well as the surrounding muscles, I'm sure) the daily squats work, but not as much as they could be, or should be. I think perhaps I'm going to have to hold those low squats for a bit longer than I was yesterday.

And then there's the jump rope. By the time I got about halfway through all of the training exercises yesterday the day had hit its peak temperature of 100 degrees which, combined with all of the sweat that was pouring off of me, made me feel like I was actually melting in a very Wicked Witch of the West kind of way (complete with the high pitched screams of "I'm melting, I'm melting! Aaaaugh!"). I think I'm going to end up developing a love/hate relationship with that thing, sort of a begrudging respect for it during the first few weeks until I can really get the hang of it and until I can develop the kind of endurance to get through my daily jumprope training without having to stop and rest as much as I need to right now.

For the jumprope: 500 to 1000 jumps. I've been doing the full 1000 because I'm a perfectionist in a huge way. These need to be done everyday, as well, because that's what's going to burn off all of that unnecessary fat stored all around my body and get me down to a lean figure ready to build up all of the muscle that will take me closer to my ultimate goal. So I'll deal with it now because while it may be hard at this point it will get easier as my body becomes a bit more accustomed to it and as I get stronger because of it, as everything does.

Off to more exercising, wish me luck.

Day 1, And so it begins...

2008-05-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

That sounds a bit more ominous than it actually is.

But today is the first official day of the Peak Condition Project 2.0 and it's exciting. A lot of life changing events (and I do very much see this as life changing) seem to sneak up on the person that they're happening to and don't make themselves known until after they occur, sometimes well after they occur. This seems different than those other things, this is much more obvious and in your face and not only does it give it an immediate quality, it makes everything much more real and meaningful. It's so easy to be mindful of everything that you're doing if you're conscious of everything that's happening around you.

Also, it almost feels a bit anti-climactic. Like I said in my pre-project post there was so much build up to this day that my mind just went wild envisioning every little obstacle and difficulty that could possibly arise with something like the PCP. And then it gets here, and I eat my morning breakfast, and I'm going to be doing my exercises after I post this... and I'm calm about it. It's very refreshing, I must say, to realize that so far all of my worries were pretty much completely unfounded. Once you start something like this you realize:

As long as you're willing to put the time and effort into improving yourself it's not that difficult.

At least, that's the way it is for me.

Diet Plan

Easy as pie, and just as tasty! Patrick and Chen have graciously prolonged the diet plan that they began with (although being the masochist that I am I was looking forward to only eating a small bowl of vegetables and fruit with a side dish of five grains of rice) and came up with something very simple: cut out half of everything you eat. Easy-peasy...lemon-sqeezy. So I had a small bowl of cereal with some tasty Silk and an apple and you know what? That was two hours ago and I feel just as full now as when I had finished eating my breakfast.

See? Nothing to be worried about. Well, we'll see how true that is after I finish all of the training exercises. I'll go into that tomorrow.

For the record, my final big meal. I'm sure a meal of this size will soon become a thing of forgotten memory. Here it is, in all of its low resolution glory!:

Sourdough bread and salad with vinaigrette

Spaghetti with marinara

My Journey of a Thousand Miles

2008-05-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

And here is my first single step.

I figured that if you're here reading my posts and following my progress then you all know Patrick in some way or another and while he didn't need to have some sort of personal introduction as his first blog post, I do unless you're one of the people I personally know who are reading this blog. So, obviously my name is Sean Anderson and this is my

Peak Condition Project

For those who don't know starting on May 15th and continuing for three months until August 15th I will be on my own personal journey to my peak fitness, strength, and flexibility level. I will willingly and proudly subject myself to a stripped down diet and vamped up exercise plan to become someone that I've always wanted to be but never had the drive or resources to take me to that point.

As for me? You know my name already and if you've been following Patrick's blog then you probably already know a little bit about me through his grand introduction (there was so much exciting build up to it that it feels like there should have been a parade...with elephants, right?). I'll try to say a little bit more about me but I'm sure a lot of it will have already been covered by Patrick, although I'm keeping a bit of myself to myself as material for future posts.

I am twenty-two years old and I live in the United States, in California. I am a vegan and will be writing about whatever ease and/or difficulties that diet will present with this project. For the last fourteen years I have been training in an American style of karate that was based on Shorin-ryu karate; more recently I have also begun training in Eagle Claw kung fu and judo, and as you can see from this blog's banner that training will be a big part of my journey through this project.

Peak condition for me is Stephen Chow of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle fame.

So that's my goal: useful, practical muscle, amazing fitness levels, and awesome flexibility, just like Stephen Chow, as well as good eating habits and a positive image of myself that will last a lifetime. I hope all of you will continue to follow along with me on my daily journey, show me some love, and I hope that you all can support and encourage me and my other two wonderful fellow peak conditioners, David and Corry.

What a ride this will be.