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 121, Productivity

This week I got a commission to do 35 personlized logos for each member of a bank staff for an upcoming bank event. I had 5 days to finish this task.

I got it done in two, and the logos look awesome. I'll post them in this entry once they've been used.

I've noticed over the course of this project that new ideas come faster to me now that I'm fit and I can simply sit down, think about a design problem, and come to an elegant solution. Before I would spend hours in trial and error, or just procrastinating.

So the PCP is really paying for itself, if I take into account how much more work I can get done in a given day now.

7 a.m. yoga in the park lesson tomorrow, so I better get to bed.

Day 118, There Was a Star Inside Me the Whole Time!

All of the PCPers and I have been going on for weeks and weeks about how different we feel eating right, getting stronger, and learning how our bodies work. This project is definitely one of discovery.

Some of the discoveries are just plain neato, and I've been meaning to share this one with you ever since I noticed it a few months ago after I lost all that weight.

As I wrote about at the time, when you lose weight you lose it from your arms, your butt, your face, everywhere. In fact, the place you lose it last is your belly and love-handles, which is frustrating because that's where you want to lose it first!

Well, one of the places you lose that fat layer is your chest, and I don't just mean your man-boobs (which I had) but your actual chest wall, as in the skin covering the solar plexus. Well, once that fat layer was gone, I found the coolest thing. For some lighting reason it's really easy to see as I get out of my shower, so that's where I took this picture, after my shower today.


Can you see it? Right there on my solar plexus there's this meeting point of cartilage which I can only describe as a starburst. Here's the pic from one step closer.



In my 28 years of life, I had never seen this part of my body before. It was there the whole time, just under the fat I guess. I think it's so funky. I feel like I've seen similar things on other people, but I couldn't find any pics on google images. What should I search for? Starburst cartilage on chest?

Anyway, I'm going to use this little star as a kind of yardstick. As I mentioned yesterday I'm quite happy for my weight to fluctuate throughout the year and season, but I'm making a little rule for myself. If that star starts to get faint and disappear, it means I'm slipping back into some bad habits and need to address whatever's going off track.

Does anyone else have this star? And what is it exactly? I have a ton of anatomy books, but I can't find what exactly this thing is. All my books skip right to the muscle, then the ribs!

(want to find out things about yourself you never suspected were there? Apply for the second round of the PCP at thepeakconditionproject (at) gmail.com)

Day 110, Protein Surprise

As I wrote about on Day 93 I've been drinking this whey protein powder stuff after my workouts and before sleep. These days my workout isn't as intense as it was in the early and middle periods of the PCP, so some days I go light on the protein and others, when I do a heavy workout, I drink a good two or three scoops more at night. So that's the background here.

In addition, as you know I'm working hard to achieve box splits before this project ends. If you've forgotten what they look like here's the master of them, Jeanne Claude Van Damme. They can be seen at 1:50, 2:30, and 3:25. I've heard VanDamme is a tool in real life but his high kicks and splits are unrivaled.



So, I'm doing a lot of stretches to get to those splits and some days I am really sore the next day. Not the kind of sore you get from over-exertion, just feeling a little beat-up around my groin area.

But I noticed something as I began drinking the protein powder. On those days I downed a lot of powder due to a tough workout, I noticed the next day I wasn't nearly as sore feeling from the box splits.

I have been thinking of the protein powder only in terms of muscle growth, but it seems to have an equally salutary effect on strains and soreness.

This makes perfect sense of course, since what you do when you lift weights is to tear the muscle fibers so that they can be reknit overnight bigger and stronger (with the help of amino acid building blocks, also known as protein). Why wouldn't the protein do the same thing for a stretched out, tired, beat up feeling hip abductor?

This is a pretty cool discovery for me, even though I'm sure it's been well documented in medical literature. Upping your protein consumption will help you get over injuries faster! So I think I'll always keep some protein powder around, and on a tough day when I know I'm going to be feeling a lot of soreness the next day, be it from yoga, hiking, martial arts or whatever, I'm going to drink 3 scoops of it before bed. I want everyone else to try this to and see if my observation is true for you too!

If so, it would be a pretty big boon to yoga students who feel sore for days after their yoga class.

Day 105, When Carbohydrates Are Scarce

Felt very strong and limber today. Maybe because I had one of those perfect sleeps where you lay your head down, fall into a deep dreamless sleep, and wake up the next morning totally clear headed and ready to go with no jostling around in the night to pee or open the window or anything.

I've been really cruising with my evening meals, especially letting the extra carbs slip through. The truth is that it's very hard to have anything resembling a familiar meal when you only have 50g (I piece of toast's worth) of carbs to work with. Pretty much any kind of tortilla, bread, or pasta based dish is out as the required vegetables and protein will swamp the measly carbs.

So I'm working on figuring out entirely different meals that don't require a starch to hold them all together. One of the easiest ways is to stuff something. Stuff a zucchini or a bell pepper and you're doubling your vegetables with the same bite. It's funny though, because most of the stuffed recipes ask that you fill your outer vegetable with rice or bread crumbs, which gets us back into carboland. So I'm working on various vegetable mixtures that will hold together without being like baby food.

One thing that does work is rice paper. Because the stuff is so thin but strong you can put a ton of veg in them with very little carbohydrate. But the fine chopping and rolling take time.

So most nights I end up eating a big bowl of steamed vegetables over a little pasta or rice with some kind of fish. I alternate between 3 or 4 low calorie dressings (radish, basil, sesame soysauce, tomato vinegar) to put on top.

Did you ever see Castaway? Like in his first week on the island he's all cooking the fish and stuff, and then they fast forward 4 years later and he's spearing and eating live fish right on the beach, with a wordless 200 yard stare the whole time.

Wilsuuuun!

That's kind of where I am with these steamed vegetable meals. They are my nutrition source and beyond that I don't expect a lot from them, either in taste or presentation.

I know most people will feel this is kind of a sad state to be in, and in a way it is. But it's also incredibly liberating to be free of the idea that every meal will have some kind of big flavor sensation. Our overly spiced and complicated modern foods are very out-of-sync with how people ate for thousands of years (those agricultural based thousands of years themselves being out-of-sync with the millions of hunting and gathering before them)

As I have lived in the developing world I have noticed the local people getting very excited about this or that feast coming up, or that this or that fruit is finally in season, and I also got excited. But when we actually sat down to eat this special food, I found it unremarkable and not really worth all the fuss. I realize now that we were operating from a different palate. For them, used to blander and less varied diets, it really was a treat to have, say, a marinated sheeps gonad (real example). From my McDonalds and Pizza Hut upbringing however, it was just some more odd and slightly gross food.

I'll never forget the time I visited a family in Turkmenistan and with pride they offered to cut me a piece of meat from a rotting goats leg, sticking straight up in the air with flies buzzing around it. For them it was a real honor to serve meat to a foreign guest. I made some excuse about how I couldn't accept such hospitality and was already full from visiting so many people that day, but what really took away my appetite was the enormity of the economic gulf between our two countries.

Every single day in America is a feast, and if you think about it, that's a little messed up. Our bodies also don't know what to do with such culinary overload, and it's making us sick. So, maybe something is lost with my rather bland and predictable dinners these days, but something is also lost when every meal is an extravaganza.

Day 104, Alcohol

I've been thinking over how to present this post for a great many days. I'm still not sure what exactly I want to say so I'll just muddle through as usual.

One of the things you stop doing on the PCP is drinking. Alcoholic drinks have a lot of calories considering you aren't getting any nutrition out of the beverage. People in the business refer to these as "empty calories" and they are the first thing to go when you want to cut fat and get lean.

It was also one of the harder things for me to let go of. One of the nicest parts of my day was getting home, kicking back and having a cold beer. It's probably the most prototypical male thing I did, actually. Always just one beer. About 5 times a week give or take.

I noticed that I was looking forward to that beer more and more, especially during stressful times. I would start thinking about it first on the way home from the station, then it would be on the train home, then it would be in my last class before getting on the train, earlier and earlier.

This puzzled me because I never drank more than one beer, and was never really tempted to. My craving didn't seem to be just the drug content of the alcohol, although surely that was part of it. I think it had just gotten to be my routine. And I didn't realize how attached to it I was until I had to break it up with this project.

But I just stopped. I had one beer on day 15 and that was it. So I was satisfied that it wasn't a physiological thing, like my body had to have beer or anything. Why then was it such a big deal for me to give it up?

I try to winnow down my attachments every day but beer still sticks around. I pass the cold beverage aisle now without even going down it, because if I do I really crave a beer. But just one. I don't get it.

If you take the novice vows of Thich Nhat Hanh's order, which Gwen and I have, you promise not to consume stimulants of any kind, all the way from cocaine to beer to mind-polluting TV shows. We grilled a young nun about what was so bad about having a glass of wine with a good meal. The nun explained that every time we spend our money on beer or wine we support a system that ruins untold lives through alcoholism, drunk driving, liquor fueled violence and domestic abuse. If we are truly mindful of all the pain that our choice to drink comes with and can still enjoy that glass of wine, then we are quite free to have it.

This argument gets me pretty good, because it is the same one I use to explain vegetarianism to people. "If you can truly understand all the stuff that happened to that animal for it to arrive on your plate, then you are welcome to have it. But if you're just eating it carelessly there's something wrong with that."

The nun's explanation is an extension of the Buddhist concept of interdependence. Every action results in numerous consequences, most of which we have no way of guessing. But some we can see if we just look a little deeper. The negative effects of alcohol and supporting the alcohol industry being one of them. So I feel really guilty whenever I dwell on that side of my beer routine. But I also really like beer. So I go around and around about it.

I know most people think this is far too much analysis over something as small as a can of beer after work. But that is what the PCP is all about. Not just accepting things being "pretty alright" but being the absolute best you can be. Setting high goals and not accepting mediocre results. Most people will think it's overthinking the issue but that has stopped bothering me. Many of those people are the same ones who don't understand why anyone would do the PCP to begin with.

High-reaching goals that require all of my resources and creativity are the only kind that interest me recently. Maybe I can make getting beer out of my life forever on of those as well. I'm still undecided and sitting with the issue. This is usually the only way I can resolve anything, so I'll let "just sitting" do its magic

Day 103, Evaluation

Today is the first day of July. Three years ago today we opened Yoga Garden. It's also the month Gwen's and my birthday is. And it's also the month that my Peak Condition Project will end. It's very strange to be here. I remember starting in March and looking at the calendar and thinking I would never make it to July, that everything would be so different in July.

But change happens so gradually I can't exactly say what's different. Of course I've got some new muscle and less fat, but that stuff is only the beginning of the PCP's effects. When you succeed in something like this your mind changes in a subtle way. When you look at a challenge the first question isn't so much "can I do it?" as "how will accomplishing this help me?" or perhaps "what will I do after I accomplish this?"

Every other project seems much more plausible when you've gotten control of your own body. It's easy to focus your energy when the wetworks is all running smoothly and supporting you.

If you've ever ridden a bike or run with a tailwind, you'll know how much a little push can help you and make you feel like you're flying. Well, when you're in Peak Condition you feel that push all the time, and it makes everything more fun. (I suppose being in really bad shape and carrying around a bunch of extra weight would be like pedaling into a headwind)

So I find myself in the odd position of feeling like myself but also knowing I've been changed by this project. I'm still figuring it all out but I hope that by the end in 22 days I'll be able to make a more complete report on the big mental rewirings that happened through the process. I'm going to start with tomorrow's post which will be about my relationship with alcohol. See you then!

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 94, Yucky

Today it rained heavily all day, it was hard to have much gusto for anything. But strangely, I kept seeing fire trucks racing around everywhere.

For a few weird reasons (getting too deep into a 4 a.m. project and 7 a.m. yoga in the park) I didn't get to eat any breakfast this morning, the first time that's happened in over three months. So it was getting to be 9 a.m. and I knew if I didn't eat something I wouldn't make it through the day.

So, for the first time since the PCP began, I bought something at a convenience store. (I might have bought a bottle of water on my way to the print shop two months ago, I can't remember too well). I chose an egg and potato sandwich...


...and a tuna onigiri.



They were really gross. I've been eating so much Food that I forgot how nasty pre-packaged stuff tastes. I used to eat one of those sandwiches a few times a week, with a "nutrition" bar for desert. Today I could barely get through it. It wasn't that it tasted bad, it just tasted of nothing. Filler. Preservatives. Salt. Designed to be kind of halfway tasty to anyone.

It reminds me of that online experiment a few years ago, where a researcher put thousands of jokes online and asked people to rate the funniest. After months of rating, he supposedly had "The World's Funniest Joke." Here it is in its entirety:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

Yep, that's it. The World's Funniest Joke. If you're saying to yourself, that wasn't funny at all, you're right. Because it's not the world's funniest joke. It's just the one joke that everyone in the world could agree that they didn't hate. Its utter mediocrity is what made it the winner.

Well, pre-packaged food is the same thing. People spend months testing these things, trying to find a flavor that nobody really loves but isn't so bad people will spit it out. After you've been cooking all your food yourself, it surprises you that anyone buys the stuff at all. But of course, they do, just like I used to, simply because it's cheap and right there in front of us.

I'll never go back to eating convenience store lunches.

Day 91. Satisfaction

For the next few days I'm dialing back training and the strict diet. As I've mentioned here a few times there are points when you can feel your body is getting strained, and if you don't take it easy in those periods you end up sick or injured, which sets you back more than easing off for a few days ever would.

I seem to hit these patches about every 3 - 4 weeks. This one comes at a good time as I am finished with the heavy training and have a lot of other stuff on my plate.

So, tonight I didn't worry about my diet and ate a normal sized, healthy dinner or Korean barbeque (with vegetables and tofu of course) in Pita pockets.

I'm not going to lie to you, I sit here a very satisfied kid. I haven't had a truly full stomach past 9 o clock in months. It feels warm and comfortable, and I feel happily drowsy.

It's a wonderful thing to have a good dinner. But we have to realize that it is seeking this feeling night after night that leads to vast overconsumption of carbs and fats right at the time our bodies do the least amount of physical activity, meaning all that food mass goes directly into fat storage. (In fact as I type this I can feel that weird prickly feeling in my love handles that means a new layer of fat is getting laid down right now)

One of the biggest gifts of the PCP is learning that this feeling is nice but absolutely non-essential for wellness. There is more to life than being fat and happy at 10 pm. The other 16 hours of your awake life improve dramatically as a result of tamping down the night eating. Unfortunately the evening is when our fatigue is highest and our willpower is weakest, so no one ever gets to feel the effects of not eating so much after sunset.

Well, you can take it from me, Corry, David, and Sean, it's worth the trade off to wake up bursting with enough energy, motivation and ideas to get you through the whole day.

Day 87, Daily Photo FAQs

If you've been reading my blog I'm sure you've also browsed through the Flickr stream on the right side up there. I thought I'd address some questions that have come up about the photos.

1. Why do you do the same pose every day?
I thought it would be the easiest way to see what's really changing. Plus, when it's all over I'm going to make a time-lapse movie and we can all see the transformation happen in just a few seconds.

2. Some days you look bigger and stronger than other days that come after them. What's up with that?
A few things. Sometimes it's just a matter of lighting. When I take the photo at night (due to a one-off scheduling conflict) I turn on the overhead lights. Those cast a lot of shadows which make the muscles look more defined.

Other times I take the picture after a tough workout and my muscles are pumped up a little bit. Some days I'm forced to take the photo "cold".

And lastly, I'm still not very good at flexing. Before the PCP I thought bodybuilding competitions were kind of a joke, but now I know how hard it is to make certain muscles flex at the right amount for best effect. Some days I get a good one, others, I totally mess it up and look weaker as a result.

oops, screwed another one up...

I try to throw in some photos from other angles in the blog so people can get a better idea of my progress.

3. How do you feel when you look back at the earlier daily photos?
It's weird, I look at those pictures and I totally remember thinking, "damn, you're looking pretty good there Patrick." I didn't really give much thought to improving my physique.

I was watching a Bruce Lee clip one day and it just occurred to me. "You don't look anything like that. You act like you're in good shape but you still suck your gut in when you go surfing. If you keep fooling yourself like this you're going to wake up a 45 year old man with a beer belly and jowls and it'll be too late." And I just decided to change. It was like, a 5 second process.

So I hope this sheds some light on the photo taking process. It's actually quite a deep topic. Everyday we see pictures of fit, beautiful people selling us stuff. The Daily Photo has made me realize that what we're actually viewing is the following:

• Winners of the genetic jackpot

• who are paid to spend hours a day on their appearance and physique

• in a picture taken by a professional, with the best cameras, make-up, and lighting available

• and the picture we see is the very best out of hundreds taken at that one shoot.

We all know this intellectually but we still see the image and compare ourselves to it, and find ourselves wanting. It's a pretty insane situation but something in human nature just can't help it I guess.

But try to remember it the next time you see something like this.

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 80, Sore

Today I was sore from every damn direction. Yesterday I did a ton of pullups at the community gym (still no luck finding a pull-up bar) so my whole back felt somehow leaden. When your back is sore it's not like regular muscles being sore. It's just a sheet of weariness draped over your whole body, like the iron vests you have to wear when you get a dental x-ray.

The other soreness was from the bottom, from my top secret leg stretching technique. Hip abductors were not happy campers.

When I'm sore like this, it gives me a great deal of compassion for my weaker or older yoga students. Today during class I was having a hard time demonstrating correct form. It wasn't that I didn't understand what to do, I just didn't have the fine control over my musculature that I needed. It was a good reminder to be patient with people who struggle in class, and of course, to Help the Aged.



Being sore also has another positive side effect. There's no better way to learn anatomy than to have a sore muscle. All day you get to feel exactly when and how that muscle is used. For example, tonight I was chopping bell peppers and I noticed from the soreness that the cutting action used just the slightest bit of my trapezius, right where it tapers off at the deltoid. How interesting!

Okay, you don't have to say it. I'm a geek.

Day 75, Sliding Scales

Human psychology is an endlessly baffling thing, especially the fact that no matter what happens, our egos never seem to be satisfied or at peace.

Case in point. Today, I caught myself mentally berating myself for overeating. I was doing some housework and everytime I passed the kitchen I would take a dried prune from the jar I have on my counter and eat one. Then, 5 minutes of cleaning, and another dried prune, and so on. I wasn't eating because I was hungry, just because the prunes tasted good and were there for the taking.

After an hour or so of this I felt full and starting giving myself a hard time. Was I so weak minded that I would just eat something because it was there? What kind of Peak Condition am I going to be in with that kind of mentality. A few minutes of this passed and I realized that I was sitting there giving myself a guilt trip over eating a dozen dried prunes.

Rewind the tape to three months ago and the same self-berating head conversation would have been happening, only that time about a tray of donuts or an entire tube of Pringles. Intellectually I know that the prunes are good for me and that I'm eating better than 99% of people in the world, but the ego doesn't pay any attention to facts like that, and just keeps up the mental hammering no matter what the situation.

I've found the same thing with my physique. Although almost near Peak Condition (my back needs a lot of work, more on that in future posts) I still get frustrated that I don't look more like my vision of what the final product should be, or that this muscle group isn't as toned as it looked last week. And this dissatisfaction has been in the back of my head the whole time, right from day 1. And it will continue into the future.

Be it fitness, wealth, or career, nobody ever seems to say to themselves, "Ok, I think I've done enough. This is good enough for me. I'm going to finally relax and enjoy my life now." The ego works on a sliding scale. When we get close to what we imagine will satisfy us the mind moves the bar a little further away. And why? Buddhist thinkers will tell you that the ego needs dissatisfaction to perpetuate itself. A truly happy person doesn't have anything for the ego to cling to and obsess about. This state is pretty much what I think of as enlightenment.

It's interesting to see the same ego mischief applies to fitness. Getting into awesome shape will not soothe the little voice inside your head, although it will quiet it down. Only a lot of meditation and awareness will really deal with the underlying issues.

And that's harder than any diet or exercise plan could ever be.

Day 72, Costco

Tonight I went to Costco. I hadn't been there for a few months, and certainly not since I started the PCP or was even thinking much about my diet.


As I've mentioned before, roundabouts day 40 pretty much all cravings for the foods from my old life had faded away. Chips, muffins, cheesy stuff, sweets, these had all been replaced by fresh vegetables, dried fruit, and whole grains. And it wasn't like I was forcing myself to eat steamed vegetables when I really wanted donuts, I actually wanted to eat the vegetables.

So I went to Costco on a mission for dried dates. Before they had California Dates which were pretty tasty, and most importantly, cheap. When you eat as much fruit as I do, the supermarket bills add up. As it stands now dates are a luxury I can have once every two weeks or so.

As it turns out, Costco doesn't have dates anymore, so that sucked. But what I found was that all of my old cravings came rushing back as I was in the megastore. All the packages in such big sizes, promising week after week of tasty goodness, and for such a low price! Of special craving intensity were the over-sized Costco pizzas, which have a diameter about equal to the length of a basset hound, the Costco dozen muffin pack, which is actually 12 rather large pieces of cake in muffin shape, and the everything bagels, which would go nicely with a 3 pack of Rondelle herb cheese spread.

I had to stop and tell myself, "Dude, what's wrong with you? You don't really want that pizza. You've had it before, and it wasn't that good and it will totally kill your diet plan for 5 days." And it was true, I really didn't want the pizza. But the craving was still there.

This puzzled me as I walked around, picking up frozen berries, tortillas, and a pack of 16 apples. Gradually the realization came that what people crave when they go to Costco isn't actually the food, it's the idea of having a lot of good food in their house at once. Costco is selling a feeling of security. Do you really want a 40 oz. jar of artichoke hearts? No. But what is appealing is the idea that you could have an artichoke heart anytime you wanted, that you would be prepared to eat an artichoke heart salad even in the event of a nuclear attack. Shopping at Costco makes people feel like they will be ready for an uncertain future.

And also I found a funky swimsuit in the boys section. I now wear a boys size 14. All of the mens stuff, even the smalls, swallowed me. I'll post a picture of it if I'm not feeling too shy.

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 67, Wave Patterns

Today I really dogged it man. I ate too much, and I did my training halfheartedly. I still stuck to the PCP but only in the letter of the law, not the spirit. Sometimes that's all you can do to get by.

I get these low energy days after about 4 weeks of consecutive training. I think the body just knows when it's getting pushed too much and powers down some systems.

Everything in the universe works in wave patterns, from the atoms in your hand, to the light coming from your screen now, to the cycle of your breathing and heart. We seem to think that we are somehow exempt from this cosmic law, that we can keep going up and up without ever experiencing the downs. Of course a wave that only has a peak and no trough is impossible.


The wisest people I know have an innate sense of these patterns and work to attune themselves to them. I am trying to be more like them, and so won't beat myself up over being lazy and inattentive today.

Day 60, The Style of No Style

What made Bruce Lee a remarkable martial artist was his openness to new techniques and ability to blend styles. He grew up doing Kung Fu, but was not bound by the rules of that discipline. When he found something that worked better, be it from the world of jujitsu, boxing, or street fighting, he incorporated it without complaint or clinging to his old ways.

This went for training too. He mixed Western bodybuilding and sports science freely with ancient Chinese strengthening techniques. He tried everything, even gimmicky gadgets from the back of martial arts magazines. He built his own weight lifting machines, designed his own protein drinks, and constantly asked if what he was doing was really the best way.

Eventually this all evolved into his martial and life philosophy, Jeet Kun Do, or "the style of no style." The emblem he designed for his school looked like this.


The Chinese characters read, "Using no way as way" and "Having no limitation as limitation." The arrows and yin/yang indicate the constant flux and malleability of reality, and by extension, of Lee's martial style.

This kind of open mind requires an enormous intellect. We use tradition and formality to bring a feeling of security into our daily lives. Clinging to a single tradition is, from this perspective, a kind of mental laziness. Someone is giving us all the answers and we follow them without question, usually out of sheer lethargy.

I am not a serious martial artist, but I run up against the same thing in the world of yoga. Yoga is just as splintered as the fighting world. Hatha, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Sivananda, Bikram, Anusara, Vini, Kundalini, these are all styles who, to an outsider look almost identical. But within the Yoga world there exists a certain distrust if not outright hostility to styles other than one's own.

So, it was with Bruce Lee's example in mind that I set out a few months ago to find a new stretching technique, outside of the world of yoga, to get me to the hanging splits I mentioned in Day 50. I've tried a lot of different things. I've queried kung fu teachers, ballet dancers, physicians, a reiki master, and tried all their techniques. I've dived down deep into the yoga sutras looking for clues regarding hip flexibility.

And after all that I've found a technique that I think is the best. I won't share it until I can definitively prove that it works, but, like Bruce, I will joyfully keep searching for better ways of doing things. That's where the fun of personal growth lies!

Day 59, Field Trip

Yesterday Chen and I went to a small, local community gym to do some research and development. It was a happy, dog-eared little place, and if you saw the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog's Story, it was a lot like Average Joe's Gym from that movie, which you can see a bit of in the background of this clip.



By the way, I only watched Dodgeball because it was being shown on a plane trip I took. What excuse do you have?

The main reason we went is that Chen wanted me to learn exactly which muscles I need to target by doing the actions on machines, then trying to replicate the movement with the resistance bands or my own body weight. I'm reaching a point now where I have to be more and more targeted with my exercises, or I'll plateau in terms of muscle growth.

The gym was busy, it was a Saturday afternoon. There were some guys in there who had obviously spent a lot of time in the place, they knew all the machines well and were talking with the staff. But I couldn't help noticing that they just didn't look that strong. I checked how much they were pumping on the machines, and it was a lot of weight, certainly more than I could do, but it wasn't translating into a good physique.

I figured out after a few minutes that those guys must have no diet control whatsoever. All their big muscles that they've trained so hard to get are buried under a half inch of subcutaneous fat tissue. It's the difference between this.


and this....


After pounding out their sets they must feel pretty good about themselves and go out for ramen and beers. I used to be like this too, back when I had a gym membership. What I didn't realize is that to really get strong and fit, you have to change your whole lifestyle, starting and ending with diet. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that my version of The Peak Condition Project is 70% diet, 10% strength training, 10% cardio, and 10% flexibility work.

So that was pretty eye-opening, and re-energized me to stick close to my plan, even though I can get away with cheating now.

And if you're pumping iron at the gym, good for you, but wouldn't it make sense to have all that time, sweat, and effort actually show up on your body with a little diet control? I'm amazed at these guys who can spend hours lifting at the gym but can't say no to a heavy, unhelpful dinner that same evening.

Day 58, An Old Photo

About three years ago I went through the 10 Rolfing sessions. If you have no idea what I'm talking about go to the Rolfing Homepage. Rolfing is great and I highly recommend it.

Part of the Rolfing process is taking a before and after picture, to check how your posture has changed. I kind of forgot all about the pictures. But then last week I ran into my "Rolfer" and the photos popped into my mind. I asked him if he could send my old photos to me via email, and they arrived yesterday.

I couldn't believe them. Are you ready for this?

When this photo was taken I was coming off of two years at a desk job, and it really shows in the curved shoulders, turtle neck, and of course, extra flab. I'll never go back there!

And, I know someone's going to ask, so here's a shot I took this morning in my bathroom.

This is the skinniest I've been in my life. And I'm still two months away from Peak Condition.