Day 54, Mighty surprising

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 52, Painting = exercise?

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 41, When you're up

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 28, The magic hour

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 26, Funny bodies

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 20, New revelations

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

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 12, Noticeable changes

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.