Day 125, Finished.

(This is going to be a long and in-depth post, so by all means, save reading it for an hour when you can settle in and mindfully enjoy the time it takes)

One Year Older

About a year ago, around the time I was turning 28, this video was featured on YouTube.



I smiled and laughed a little but inside I was thinking, "Dude, that's exactly how I feel." I have spent my whole life thinking of myself as a "young person," but as 30 approaches I am forced more and more to the realization that yes, age is happening to me too.

I'm not saying, oh gosh, I'm 29, I'm so old, poor me. It just hits me in the gut sometimes that I too will lose my youth, get aged, and die, and that's a new feeling that I'm still working with.

So, that video in the back of my mind, I decided that before I turned 29 I would do something about the slow slide my body was on towards being overweight and out of shape. I can't reverse the aging process, but I sure as hell can make sure this still-young body lives up to its fullest potential. So, I'm not going to make a song about it, but I made this photo composition. One picture is from July 22, 2008, the other from July 23, 2008.


This photo kind of sums up my philosophy on aging. A birthday is a chance to look into a brighter future, not a bleaker one. As we get older we only gain more knowledge to help us live as well as we can. For example, if I happen to have a free afternoon now, I really use it to do something that makes me happy, whereas the 25 year old me would have wasted it lounging around. And when I'm 35 I'll probably do something even cooler with that time. So although our remaining years decrease, the quality of those years can increase, if we are paying attention to how we are living, rather than how long we've got left.

The Origins of the PCP

I've always been a bit of a contrarian, so I decided last year that upon turning 29 I would be going the opposite direction of most of my peers, whose jobs and responsibilities are gradually leading them to neglect their health. Not only would I be in good shape, I would be in killer shape. As the thought process evolved I realized I needed some kind of target to keep my eye on as I went through this. I had always liked Bruce Lee but had assumed his level of fitness was far beyond a normal person. But one day I was watching some old clips and I noticed that Bruce didn't have a ton of muscle mass, he was just lean as a whippet and strong where it counted. And the thought just occurred to me, "I can do that." Bruce Lee wasn't superhuman. He just stuck to some kind of plan and worked hard. If I could only find that plan!


Just as all of these ideas were simmering in my mind, I met Chen Zhongtao, who lives here in Yokohama and works at an international school above my studio. He's done it all, he studied kung fu since he was a child, and after a tour in the Chinese military he became a policeman and then a police trainer, before meeting his wife and moving to Japan. Chen mostly teaches kickboxing, but I kept pressing him about how to get a Kung Fu style look. What did I have to eat? What exercises did I need to do? I pestered him for about 2 months, until he finally said, "You really want to do this? I can make you a plan. But it's going to be a little hard." That was fine with me. Nothing worth doing is easy. So, on the back of a bank envelope, he wrote my first week's diet. He was right. It wasn't going to be easy.


I knew that if I just haphazardly tried to follow this plan, it would collapse in on itself. I needed some kind of structure. I was going to Kyoto in a week or two, and I noticed that just after my trip was the first day of spring. So I would be well rested, and the first day of spring seemed like a great starting point for a project that was all about growth and living up to your potential. I also noticed that exactly 4 months later would be my birthday. 4 months seemed like enough time to change my body. So there was my scheduling structure. A 4 month, 125 day plan.

Now I needed some kind of social structure to support my project. If I tried to do it all alone there's no way it would work. I could keep a little online diary of my efforts, and maybe a few people in my family would read it. And, I could take a daily photo, and post it online, to keep myself honest and to shame myself into sticking with it!

Now all the plan needed was a name. "In shape", "fit", "lean and mean"... all of these usual phrases didn't encompass the kind of dramatic change I was after. I didn't just want to lose a few pounds, I wanted be as fit as possible. I wanted to be in peak condition. That had a ring to it.

The rest is history. And that history has been painstakingly blogged right here.

I never meant the PCP to involve other people, or to become a book. I never thought something could work so well. I got to a point where I was getting in such good shape that I felt almost a moral obligation to share this plan with others. It's like, if you see a really good movie, you go tell all your friends, "hey, go see such and such, it really moved me." That same kind of impulse was in me, because the Peak Condition Project was having such a huge positive impact on my physique, energy levels, and that all important quality-of-life. To not share it would have been miserly.

At the same time I was getting dozens of emails asking if I could tell people how the PCP worked and if I could "PCP them." But I knew just giving someone the diets and exercises would result in failure. The PCP is a whole package. You have to have the social aspects in place. You have to have a hero to aim for, a community supporting you and holding you accountable. So I decided to take on 3 people, but to try and replicate my experience as much as possible.

You see, a few times a week I was meeting with Chen. He was checking my gains and making small adjustments to my diet and exercises. I wanted the three other PCP participants to get that same "personal trainer" feeling. So we use the blogosphere and Flickr to keep in touch, along with a daily email. And David, Corry, and Sean have been doing great, each of them having a very different but successful experience with this plan. As my project ends I hope everyone will click over to their blogs and follow their progress with as much enthusiasm as you followed mine. And starting soon 6 new people will begin their path towards Peak Condition. 3 international and 3 Japanese participants.

Chen and I have also completed a book version of the PCP which anyone can use at home. It contains everything we've learned about how to have a successful project. We're in the process of looking for a publisher now, so if you have any connections in that area please please (please) get in touch with me.

Ok, so, you've all been waiting for the jumpsuit pictures. Here they are, along with some of the lessons I learned from the Peak Condition Project.

What the PCP taught me.

• Anything can be done. You just need 3 things. A plan. The discipline to stick with the plan. And the flexibility to change the plan when need arises.

• I learned that I love fruit.

• Having a strong, fit body makes a huge difference in daily life. It's like you've grown a set of wings.

• Drinking your calories is a dumb way to live. Sodas, mochas, frappachinos, even juices, they all aren't worth the caloric intake. It's much nicer to chew your calories.

• Flexibility is not lost with strength gain. If anything, it increases.

• Your body wants to be fit and healthy. It's desperate to be like that. Even the smallest encouragements of a healthy diet and some exercise will get it moving towards wellness. It's not an uphill battle.

• Keeping a daily blog for 125 days straight is not impossible. There are so many interesting and unusual things happening all around a person that there's always something to talk about.

• Bodybuilding really is a sport. I gained a lot of respect for those guys, especially the all-natural ones.

• For every fitness plan you find there's another one that will tell you to do the exact opposite. It doesn't really matter, just choose one and stick with it. Changing back and forth will only end in ruin.

• Box splits are really, really hard.

• The vast majority of the food we eat is spectacular in its unfitness for human consumption. If you stop eating crap you stop feeling like crap. Who would've thunk it!?

• Doing something like this brings the best out in people. They get a gleam in their eyes that says, "I can do this!" It's a beautiful thing, that gleam.

• 4 months is unnecessary to reach Peak Condition. 90 days is plenty.

• The kids section has pretty cool clothes.

• When you eat right, the people around you eat right. Assuming you care about the people around you, eating right is a supremely loving thing to do for them. You don't have to sign them up or force vegetables down their throat. Just eat right yourself. You'll see what happens.

• The entire fitness industry is a scam. You don't need to spend more than 20 dollars to get in the best shape of your life.

• What you do need is time. Everyday. This is much harder to come by than money. Which is why the fitness industry is so big, as they promise to deliver results without the investment of time.

• Jumpsuits are really easy to move in. I can see why Bruce Lee chose one.

• The key to losing fat is not eating less, it's eating more of the right things.

• The human body is capable of incredible energy levels, you just have to unlock them.

• Even skinny people have a lot of fat inside them. It's just inside the muscle tissue.

• 95% of the people at a gym have no idea what they're doing. If you're spending a few hours a week working out but you don't look like me, something is wrong. Probably your diet.

• The clothing industry mislabels everything so that people don't feel so fat. If you're wearing something that says 32 inch waist your waist is really 34 inches. And that "medium" shirt is really a large. When you get down to a body size that actually mimics what people are supposed to look like, nothing fits anymore.

• Peak Condition is a state of mind, not body. The moment I decided I was truly fed up with eating poorly and not looking my best, I was in Peak Condition.

• Anyone can do this. Anyone. You can do this.

Closing Thoughts

Finally, I want to end on a kind of serious note here. As you know Bruce Lee was my ideal and my inspiration throughout this project. No one else combined technique, discipline, and philosophy so completely. Bruce Lee was a self-made man. Through his own hard work he transformed himself from a skinny kid in the back alleys of Hong Kong to one of the most recognizable people in the world.

Throughout my project I kept a little Bruce Lee pin in my pocket or bag, and when times were tough, when I wanted to push through a grueling set or was really craving some cheesecake, I'd look at the pin and think, "Every good choice I make is a step towards Bruce, every bad choice I make is a step away." So in a very real sense the spirit of Bruce Lee infused this whole project, and infuses the others' PCPs, and I'd like to thank him, for whatever it's worth to thank a deceased person.

Which leads me to my second point. Bruce Lee should be 68 now. He should be around inspiring us, leading Jeet Kun Do trainings, writing books on philosophy, and kicking ass. But he's not. He's dead. He died when he was 32 years old.

There's a lot of controversy regarding cause of the brain swelling that killed Bruce, but one thing's for certain, his training and rigorous schedule were contributing factors. He had been working hard on two movies, on top of a training regimen that I couldn't even begin to do. His body fat was so low that he was hypersensitive to the drugs they gave him after a collapse the previous week. On top of that cannabis was found in his system as he sought relief from the pressures of fame and the pain of a back injury he suffered while weightlifting years before. And all of that stuff combined to end his life much, much too early.

It's clear to me that Bruce Lee, despite being "the fittest man in the world," was not in Peak Condition. Peak Condition is a matter of balance. Being at your absolute maximum without teetering over the edge into unhealthy overtraining. It's also keeping your schedule free for things you enjoy, keeping your stress levels in check, and choosing a lifestyle that makes you happy, not simply successful. It's having that piece of cake at a friend's birthday party, skipping a training session because you want to continue a good conversation, and realizing when you've achieved enough and dialing back your program.

It's easy to get carried away with this kind of thing. It's easy to suck the fun out of it and mercilessly hold yourself up to impossible standards. I was on the edge a few times, but with good friends who grounded me I kept my perspective and have learned how to live a normal balanced life while maintaining excellent physical condition.

Above the place where I do sit-ups, I put up this picture of Bruce Lee to inspire me. I took it down tonight, because I'm finished with that part of the project. Although I'll never say a bad word about him, I don't want to have the body of Bruce Lee anymore.

I want to have the body of Patrick Reynolds.




(Patrick's Peak Condition Project is finished. But he'll be back with more news and new participants very soon! Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!)

Day 115, Baby-Hands

One week when I lived in Morocco my community village decided to put in a concrete tarqua, which I guess in English is known as an irrigation ditch. (There is a whole range of agricultural words I only know in Berber and not in my own native tongue)

So anyway, the first step to make this thing is that you have to dig a big ditch through the village. So of course I'm trying to help out and show I'm part of the community or whatever. I get down there with a pickaxe. Within 30 minutes I got blisters on my hands and couldn't go on. Which leads all the guys of the village to laugh at my "baby hands." There isn't much going on in Berberland, so it became the running joke in the village for a few weeks. "Hey baby-hands, can you come rub my face with your so soft hands?" or "Which of these scarves is softer, baby hands? We can't tell because we don't have baby hands." Eventually my hands toughened up but my reputation never did.

Anyway, I've been doing all this bar work, with the chin-ups, leg ups, and the stuff I was talking about yesterday, and my hands are getting pretty raw, with raised callouses on the pads of my palm. Chen was like, "just get used to it" but I know he was thinking something along the lines of "baby hands"

I was down with getting toughened up hands again, that's no problem, but it occurred to me that this time around things are very different. I use my hands for my job, adjusting people in yoga poses, and for that you need as soft a touch as you can get. Would you like some rough scratchy hands on your shoulders as you're trying to move deeper into Up-Dog? I know I wouldn't.

So this time I decided to not try and be a hard-man about it, and just get some freakin' weight lifting gloves and protect my baby hands. So I went to Sports Authority today after classes and got these cool gloves.

Which is what I really wanted to talk about in this post before I got off on a Berber tangent. I was in Sports Authority, this huge mega sports store, and I swear, every person in there was either scrawny or overweight. It was almost funny. There was this guy with a huge beer belly checking out the protein powders. And a dude with little stick arms testing out the dumbbells.

This is ironic and funny of course but I also find it very uplifting. No matter what kind of shape people are in, there is something inside of them that inspires them to change. Companies take advantage of this self-improvement instinct by selling absolute beginners top-of-the-line stuff, but that's beside the point. What I've learned over and over in this project is that people want to be better. They want to take care of their bodies, they want to be the person on the outside that they know they have inside. And that's a beautiful thing.

But there is a risk that all that excitement that leads you to buy some weights or an exercise machine will fade away as soon as you find that buying stuff is the easy part, it's the actual work that feels like, well, work. And then you have a house full of exercise crap that you slowly grow to despise so much you end up throwing it out.

So, my advice to everyone is, if you want to take up a new sport or exercise routine, start off with the cheapest most beat up equipment you can find. This will tell you truly whether you enjoy the hobby for itself or if it was just a passing fling. And you get two bonuses.

One, your house isn't full of junk from failed fitness projects,

and Two, if you do decide to pursue the exercise, you'll know what you actually need because you've already been doing it. So today for example, I knew just what i wanted out of the gloves, where I needed the padding, how tight they should feel, etc... Who knows what I would've bought if I had rolled up in there on my first day of the PCP?

Time and time again I have seen beginner yoga students come to class with 80$ Lululemon mats and $150 yoga clothing ensembles. And you know what? They usually give it up after a few weeks. And you know another thing? Invariably, the people who most stick with it are the ones who come in an old beat up pair of shorts and a t-shirt, with a thin exercise mat they won in a contest a few years ago.

So don't buy any more stuff, until you can say exactly why you need it and for what purpose. Anything else is just throwing money at your idea of yourself as a better person, rather than actually doing it.

Day 111, The Goof Off Week

I have these periods in my life when I really just want to goof off. I slack off on all my work and just do things I like. These times don't worry me because they are always followed by periods of extreme productivity and new ideas. So I've learned not to beat myself up about these phases and just roll with them.

I'm in one this week for sure. Last week a lot of events and projects came to a close, and I knew I'd be cruising through this week, taking time to enjoy the simple things, electric guitar, One Piece, nunchaku, sunshine, blended frozen mango smoothies, just to name a few.

What's not so great about these goof off times is that I tend to not pay close attention to my diet and a lot of things slip through. Like the other day I really wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so I just made one and scarfed it down right at the kitchen counter. Peanut butter isn't bad but it's loaded with relatively empty calories. The jelly has too much sugar and the bread is just a waste of my daily carbs on fluff. It's a pretty dumb snack, all things considered. If you are mentally objecting that "there's nothing wrong with a PB&J!" then you aren't thinking like someone trying to reach or maintain Peak Condition. And that's ok, you didn't sign up for this. But we did, and so I had to just shake my head at what I ate.

And today I ate an entire pack of udon. I wasn't even hungry, but I had some extra dashii and the noodles were just sitting there so I threw them in the bowl and ate them while reading The New Yorker online. Again, the problem was my lack of mindfulness and mental laziness. Tonight I had an intense low blood sugar crash after spiking my system with all that glucose from the udon. I felt terrible, worse than I ever had on this Project, and I was reminded again that enjoying something for 2 mins on your plate is never worth the 2 hours of feeling gross from it, either with an energy crash, when you look in the mirror, or the next day when it passes through your system.

So I'm working on a way to have the goof-off week, which I need mentally, without a subsequent lapse in my diet choices. It's tricky and the best way I've found to deal with it is to go back to weighing stuff just like I did in the early stages of the PCP. 100 grams is 100 grams, and having weighed it all out you're not so tempted to go back for seconds, because there's no way that you can rationalize that an extra serving is still somehow 100 grams.

So, send me positive energy, because I'm struggling with the PCP this week!

Day 102, The Video is Here!

Alright everyone, I sat down with the editing software and made this little video to share my experience with the PCP. Watch it in high-res if you can! Send it to others and get people excited about the PCP!

Day 99, No, Sucka!

Today I woke up at 4 am, edited video until 8, then did carpentry work for a friend until 11. Following that was side split training. After lunch was voice-over work and then housecleaning. Followed that up with my workout. Went out to meet someone, drank a smoothie, went to the supermarket, and then jogged home for no particular reason other than I had extra energy and my legs felt a little wonky from sitting too much. And now I type this!

It's not that I'm not tired, I am. But I don't have any inkling to complain about it, because it's not a dull heavy, "I can't believe I have to get up and do it all over again" tired. It's a kind of empowered tired, if that makes any sense. The boost in energy levels I've gotten from doing The Peak Condition Project would have made the whole thing worth it even if I didn't lose a single inch or gain a single gram of muscle. Looking as good as I feel is just icing on the cake. I guess I should say it's just honey in the smoothie.

There is a downside though. You would think that with a clear mind, early rising hours, and a lot of energy, I would have all my work done before noon and spend the rest of the day in a hammock. But as my energy levels have busted through the roof, I've taken on more and more projects, because I feel like with my new powers I can handle all of them. This is something to be careful of. Because there's not much point in getting super-charged energy if you only run yourself into the ground harder and faster than you were before, right?

So, I have a new exercise I'm going to start. Not with resistance bands, not using any muscle except my tongue. (Whoa, don't even go there people!)

It's the training of saying the word "No." It's a tough one for me. I want to help everyone I can and with all this energy part of me feels like it's possible, but of course that's not right. Sooner or later, if I take too much on, I'm going to let someone down, and that is far worse than the short and shallow pain of simply saying, "I'd like to take this on, but I'm afraid at the moment I've got a little too much on my plate. But here's the number of someone who......"

Usually we associate "No" with negativity and ineffectiveness. In fact, in my 5 years in Japan I've maybe only heard the actual word "No" (いいえ) maybe 3 or 4 times. But, when used to give yourself a break, clear your schedule, and make time for what is important but not practical, (picnics, ukulele playing, surfing, and otherwise smelling the roses) it's a great word that I'd like to see more of in my life.

So, let's practice now. Ask me to help you out with a project. Go ahead.

Hmm... sounds interesting. But I've got a lot going on now, so there's NO WAY IN HELL AM I GOING TO DO THAT!

That wasn't so hard. But actually it was, I felt weird even typing it out. I'm going to need more practice.

Day 96, Gearing Up Again

Well, I took a few days off from the strictest parts of the PCP and I feel well rested and ready to pick up where I left off at day 90.

In my rest time I gained about 1 kilo but it's no big deal. It seems to have all gone to my love handles so I know it'll come off easy. The biggest difference has been in my energy levels.

As always, this kind of stuff is totally counterintuitive. In the last few days I've eaten more, exercised a little less, and taken it easy with long naps in the park and on the sofa.

And my energy has been way down.

The weird and inconvenient truth is that you have to move it and shake it in order to get the most out your body's natural energy levels. There's no way around this, it's often a pain, but if you want to feel good about yourself you've got to get those cells, bones, and muscles in motion!

So I'm back, look for a new photo tomorrow.

Day 89, More Shorts

Yesterday I wanted to buy some new shorts, because I was tired of my old ones falling off me. But I was having a lot of trouble. Somewhere along the way we've lost the "short" in shorts. Everything I was finding looked like this:


I think these baggy shorts styles look pretty stupid, especially if like me you don't have long legs. You can end up looking like Frodo Baggins in his hobbity half-pants:


But finally I found some pairs that actually fit me, didn't flare out like parachutes, and left enough room for high kicks. It was a relief to feel them sit snugly on my hips without a hint of sliding down. Here they are!



And where did I find these great shorts? Well, I happen to have the tag here in my pocket...

Here's my secret...

Ha ha, the kids section strikes again. What can I say? They're the only ones that fit. Plus kids stuff is cheap, and they actually have a straight cut for kids' little stick legs. If you're thinking I'm barely squeezing into these or that I too have become a stick figure, here's a look at the waistband.

The Peak Condition Project works.

Tomorrow big news coming! Thanks to everyone for reading and sorry for posting so many pictures of myself lately. I'm really not a narcissist, I just can't believe how much my body could change and I just want to show everyone that it actually happened!

Day 81, Weariness

Today for the first time in a while I was simply tired and fed up with trying to stay on the plan. Tired of measuring out my lunch, tired of eating egg whites (I only made it through 3 today), tired of the second day deep soreness I described in day 80.

The funny thing is that when you do something for this long you reach a point where it's easier to just follow the momentum that you've built up and keep doing it than veer wildly off course. For example, I could throw up my hands and say "forget this!" and go have three pizzas at Sisiliya, but the flavors would be overpowering for me and my stomach would hurt like hell within 10 minutes. You have these visions of finishing the project and having a big piece of chocolate cake with all your friends, but the truth is that at that point the cake is too rich for you and you've lost all your friends because they're intimidated by your killer physique. (well, maybe not)

Truthfully, today was just a busy day and the PCP felt more like a chore than a joy. It's my fault for overscheduling myself and spending too much time on one project I just wanted to finish. One of the most important mental changes that you have to make doing something like this is to realize that you do have to schedule in your health. The times I've strayed furthest from my plan is when I just leave myself 30 mins to magically get through 1000 jumpropes and 30 sets of exercises. It never happens but I still imagine it can be done when I see my appointment book filling up.
If you asked someone, would they rather be wealthy and successful or healthy, they'll always say "healthy." It's the most obvious thing that without health there's not much point to all that money and success. But crack open that same person's appointment book and you'll probably see that on the ground the pursuit of success gets a lot more scheduled time than exercise.

At least that's how my day was today, and my frustration flowed not towards the excess work but towards the PCP, which is just backasswards. The PCP only helps me and makes life more interesting. I'll try hard not to let it get bumped off the schedule for lesser pursuits.

Day 70, Tell This to Your Boss...

Damn! Today I didn't have time for any kind of workout. And by the time I got home in the evening I was too tired to even think about it. It's one thing to feel crappy and choose to skip your training for the day, at least then it's on you and you can accept responsibility and move on. But today I didn't even have 5 minutes for jumping rope. Working 9 to 8 without 5 minutes free is whack.

And the weird thing is, I was so hungry tonight. I stayed on diet but just barely. I know if I had gotten some training in that hunger wouldn't have been an issue. Once again, I don't understand how this stuff works, but doing more exercise leaves you feeling less hungry than just sitting around "resting."

The other day one of my yoga students was bewailing his tight hamstrings. I told him it just took a few minutes a day of forward bends to open them up, and if he was really serious, a 30 minute upavistha konasana in the evening.

He protested, saying that he didn't have any free time in the day and got home only in time to shower and sleep before waking up and getting on a train to Tokyo at 6 a.m.

I told him if that was really the case, he needed to think about getting another job, because that's no way to live.

He said half jokingly, "I wish you would tell that to my boss."

I don't know why but this pissed me off. And those who know me know that I get pissed off maybe once every two years.

I told him I truly felt sorry for his situation, but that, at the end of the day, it wasn't his boss's fault that he's working himself into the ground.

It was his fault. He chooses everyday to keep a job that is literally crippling him. Good on him for at least coming to a yoga class, that's more than 99% of people do, but I find it highly ignoble to blame a lack of self-improvement on your environmental situation.

No one else is in charge of getting "you" right.

Which brings me full circle to my overscheduled day in which I can't even find the time to jumprope. I can gnash and wail about how busy I am, about how many places I have to be at one time, but ultimately, it's my fault that I got in this mess. And I should either shut up about it or change it.

**PS. A few days after I wrote this post I talked to this person again , and he told me that the week after our conversation he had put in his resignation, taking effect at the end of next month! That's how it's done.

Day 54, Newton's First Law of Motion

For those of you who missed or slept through physics class, that would be the law that states:

An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion.
Where did Newton get his hair done? It's so Fab!

This law applies to all matter, from the orbit of planets to the atoms in our bodies. It is also very true for something like The Peak Condition Project. I do some sort of training every day, seven days a week, and I wouldn't have it any other way. For me, days off are not helpful to being in peak shape. The reason is that after taking a day off it's even harder for me to get back out there and resume my training.

Today I was sorely tempted to not do any exercise. I felt terrible. My body was aching from a physically taxing video shoot the day before. It was cold and rainy outside, and I had work to do inside. I sat in my chair and debated for a good 15 minutes whether to just pack it in for the day and do some extra stuff tomorrow. But I told myself, "This is what you do now, Tarek (when talking to myself I still use my Berber name) you get out of the apartment and train. You jump the damn jumprope and pull on the rubber bands and lift your body weight repetitively. This is not an option. This is what you do now."

So I made it out to the studio, and started jumping rope. The first few hundred were painful, my calves were tight and I got a side-stitch immediately. But after that, something wonderful happened. I could feel the heat of the exercise slowly going down into my legs, and up into my shoulders. I started feeling good. I put in 1500 jumps and was psyched to work the bands. I was really good about my form and did some extra sets.

Now, here's where the magic of Newton's first law kicks in. After my workout, I was feeling much better and still wanted to keep moving. So I went to the bank and did a transfer I had been putting off, paid an electric bill, did the grocery shopping for the week, got home and cleaned out my bookcase. All of this energy was completely absent as I sat in the chair wondering whether to even workout earlier that morning... where did it come from? Newton baby!

Sometimes we rationalize laziness, thinking "well, if I get good and rested now I'll have a lot of energy later and get more done." This doesn't work. I think about how I feel after one hour of yoga, vs. after one hour of watching TV. Technically, I should have more energy after sitting passively, "resting" in front of the TV, but we all know that's not the case. How many times have you said "Well, that was a fine hour of programming, now I'm really ready to get on with my day!" Usually it's, "I guess I have time for one more episode..." Am I right or am I right.

So, when feeling lethargic and unmotivated, remember Newton. The hardest thing is getting the ball rolling. After that you will happily tend to stay in motion.

No days off.

Day 16, Audio

With this project I am having to spend more time than I like jumping rope, pumping muscles, and holding deep, almost painful stretches. A lot of people listen to workout music along the lines of the fine album pictured here.

But I just can't get into the thumping upbeat music. It just reminds me more that I'm exercising.

Enter the podcasts and audiobooks. They stimulate my mind and get me off the pain of that 6th rep of some lame ass resistance band training.

I've always listened to a lot of podcasts but my cream of the crop, the ones I look forward to, that make my workout fly by, are as follows. These are all great because they last long enough to get me through most or all of a workout.

• This Week with George Stephanopolous

• The History Network (military)

• 1up Yours from 1up.com (this video game podcast is over an hour and a half long!)

• The Slate Political Gabfest

• The Slate Cultural Gabfest (this one just started a few weeks ago)

• Washington Week with Gwen Ifill

• The History of Rome

(oddly enough, since I started making a Buddhist podcast I can't stand to listen to Buddhist podcasts)

I listen to a lot more than those but they're the ones I'm excited to see in my podcast inbox.

In addition, I've gotten into audio books, and have listened to the entirety of the following.

• Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy

• Malcom Gladwell's Blink

• God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

• David Allen's Getting Things Done

• and a bunch of Robert Kiyosaki books, they're all kind of the same, I don't remember the names.

If I have time I'll link all these up if people are interested.

Day 10, Low Motivation

Today was cold and rainy. I stayed in, goofed off, and found it hard to do my weight training. But I did it anyway, it just wasn't very "fun."

That's the thing about any big project like this. There are times when it's just not fun, and those are the times when you feel most alone, and giving up doesn't seem so bad. More than any other time this is when you've got to "zen up"

If you've ever tried to keep a meditation practice, you will know that some times sitting is the last thing you want to do, and at the same time it's the best thing you could do. And you just do it. And it's usually the thinking about doing it that is hard, not the actual sitting.

Well, jumpropes, weight training, and egg-white smoothies are the same thing. You just do the thing, and try not to devote too much mental energy to how you don't want to, how it's hard, and how you could be doing something else.

Day 7, Over the hump

Well it's been a week, and I've done the hardest thing about this project... broken up my unskillful habitual actions that were keeping me from peak condition. Before, I would often eat things just out of boredom, and if I had an extra 10 mins here or there, I sure as hell wouldn't have busted out a few sets of crunches. (More likely I would have crunched on some chips and salsa) And I wasn't lazy or a glutton, it was just my habit to snack (healthily) when I had some free time.

I think the first week is hard not because of the new exercises or diet, but because you can't run on autopilot. You actually have to think about what before you just did... eating, drinking, watching YouTube videos for an hour.

Part of my plan for this project is to incorporate some healthy habits that, for one reason or another, I never got growing up. Some of the healthy habits I hope to integrate into my life are.

• Eating fresh fruit daily.
• Approaching food with less craving and more respect.
• Eating a set amount and not "topping off" just because I have a little extra room in my stomach.
• Seeing a mocha for what it is, a chocolate cake in a cup.
• Sticking to something because I want to, not because anyone told me to.

With this first week down I think I've made great progress towards picking up these lifelong habits!
Thanks everyone for your support.

Day 6, Not Being Microcharged

One of the interesting side-effects of the PCP is that I'm saving money. I keep on opening my wallet and finding more money than I expected in it. I'm spending a lot of money on vegetables and especially fruit, but I still have some cash left at the end of the day.

When you're online or on Itunes, and you're thinking about buying a song for 99 cents, you think about it a little bit. Do you really want this song? Even though it's only 99 cents, it's still money, and at the end of the month all those 99 cent purchases add up don't they? You already have a lot of music, maybe you'll let this purchase wait and see if you still really want it in a few days. Maybe it's just me but that's the process I go through on Itunes.

But it's funny, I never think twice about buying a 99 cent coffee can from a vending machine, or even a $4 dollar coffee drink at Staabaa. Or a 150 yen string cheese stick for a snack, or a 250 egg sandwich from the 7-11. But with this plan, all extraneous calories have been cut, so it's not even an option to go by the vending machine or the convenience store.

So I'm avoiding all these little microcharges that accumulate over the week and sap your wallet of it's 1000 yen bills ($10). And the money I do spend on food and drinks is for actual product. Real vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. I was surprised the other day by how heavy my shopping bag was after I went to the supermarket, even though I'd only spent 3000 yen. It was because the money had gone into plain, basic, food matter, rather than packaging and chemicals.

So even if you're not on anything like the PCP, evaluate how you're getting microcharged for things without even noticing it. The insidious thing is that these companies have spent millions and millions of dollars figuring out exactly how to sell things so that you won't really notice how much you're hemorrhaging in these nickel and dime purchases. Let's stop giving big corporations our extra cash and start putting it into our own health!

Day 4, Hungry

Last night trying to fall asleep I was really hungry for the first time in this project. As usual I found a lot of help from my zen studies. Hunger, just like sadness, anger, or craving, is just a feeling. If you take a step back and realize that this one feeling doesn't encompass all of you, that you don't have to be pulled around by the nose by it, everything becomes easier.

But it still sucks to be hungry.

The Peak Condition Project Blog

The Peak Condition Project

Starting the first day of spring 2008 and ending on my birthday (July 23rd), this is a personal project to reach peak physical condition just once in my life.

What is Peak Condition? For me, it’s my childhood (and adulthood) hero… Bruce Lee. No wasted body mass. Every muscle fiber on his body has a use. It’s not cosmetic, or what I call “dumb muscle.”

This project will combine diet, asana, and very selective use of weights. Unlike most people, my problem is too much muscle mass. The second I pick up a weight I get overly muscular. This is a hindrance to my yoga practice and also just doesn’t look good for someone like me who is on the short side. So, with my Kung Fu teacher’s supervision I’m going to slim down my upper body and tone my core. We’ll see how it goes. Check the Peak Condition Project blog for daily updates about how I’m doing, what’s changing, and what’s tripping me up.