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 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 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 97, Pizza Time

Today I took my first daily photo in a week. (and what a relief it's been to not have to always remember my camera) In my "week off" I put on some weight around my middle and lost some definition, but everything has stayed pretty much in place. It's not the kind of change you could notice with clothes on, except that my face has filled out a bit which people tell me is a good thing.


And, in other news, tonight was an indulgence night, and I finally got around to eating pizza. I considered going to a local pizza place but I know it would be too much for me, so we decided to make pizza at home, at least that way I could control what was going on the pizza and try to cram some vegetables on there to make it more PCPy.

Pizza number one, Margherita with three cheeses. The basil is from my own garden on my apartment veranda.


Classic taste, very cheesy, yummy!

Pizza two, Japanese style, potatoes and brocolli with mayonaise. Western readers may gasp at this combination but it's actually pretty good, and the Nihonjin love it.


Great taste and with the brocolli it has the merest wisp of being healthy. The mayonnaise was low fat.

Pizza three, pesto base with onion, zucchini and eggplant slices.

Overcooked this one a bit and the pesto didn't really come through. Plus the pesto separated from the oil and it was a little greasy. Not bad though.

Pizza four, fresh Mozzerella and eggplant.


Too much cheese on this one, oops! The eggplant was good.

Taste
After a while the cheese kind of shorted out my palate and it was just a dull cheesy sharpness to everything. Couldn't pick out many individual flavors although this may speak more to my pizza cooking that anything else.

Effects
A strange giddiness at first. And I was able to eat 8 small slices and not feel stuffed beyond the point of reason. I guess thin crust helped. For some reason I wanted to eat this standing up, so I did.

Aftereffects
Severe stomach pain, a heavy dopey sleepy feeling, and several trips to the bathroom. That old nasty itchy feeling in my love handles and man-breasts as layers of oily fat get laid down. Not pleasant in the least bit.

I'm happy to announce this will be the last time I suffer through an indulgence. I'm going to stay super clean and lean in my last month on the PCP. I might even switch back to apple and egg smoothies, which I really miss believe it or not.

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 93, Giving the Eggs a Rest

I've had just about enough hard-boiled eggs, man. They're a pain to prepare, a pain to peel, and they taste like nothing, but like a bad, eggy nothing.

Plus, the worst part is that they make you gassy. I hate that feeling, especially as I usually find myself in teaching situations where I have to hold the gas in. (which leads me to a question. If you have to fart but you don't, and then a few minutes later you don't have to fart anymore, where did that gas go? Did it go back into your stomach? If anyone has the answer I'd be grateful to hear it)

Still it was important to me to do the entire PCP with nothing that you couldn't find in a regular grocery store. I was so sick of seeing sports clubs and gadget manufacturers taking advantage of people's desire to improve their health, filling their pockets, and offering no real help in return. So I stuck with the eggs, and they worked.

But now that I have reached Peak Condition, I don't need to gain any more muscle and I'm happy to say goodbye to 5 egg whites a day. But I need to keep my protein levels high in order to maintain and refine the muscle that's here now.

So, with Chen's blessing, yesterday I bought my first protein powder. I didn't know what to get so I just picked the mid-price one that said it would maintain muscle. I chose cocoa flavor.



It's pretty nasty and chalky. I'm drinking it mixed in with decaf coffee tonight which helps. But let me tell you, it beats 5 egg whites. I have two scoops after my workout and two before bed.

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 79, Must Have Been Something I Ate...

I worked hard today and trained hard as well. So I had a nice "big" dinner when I got home. 2 tortillas with steamed vegetables and shrimp, with some fresh salsa I made a few days ago and wanted to use up. For dessert I ate half and apple and half a banana and some dates with a crumbled gingerbread cookie in milk.

I think the salsa had gone off, and when that milk hit my stomach I felt pretty bad. And it's been regular trips to the toilet ever since.

Sorry to be gross. But there's a great lesson here. After a long day of work and or training, there's a tendency to eat a meal that is as unhelpful as your day was tough. Hard day at the office? Finish it off with a few beers and some fried food! All that stress and weariness will really be helped by taxing your liver and arteries. Those organs just love when you make them work double shifts!

The truth is, after a tough day, we need to come home, eat a piece of bread, some thin soup, and a bowl of vegetables. Our bodies don't need anymore work to do, they're still recovering from the stuff that happened 9am to 5pm, why give them a whole new load of stuff to deal with from 9pm to 5 am?

I'm not preaching at you here. I'm having some serious stomach issues now because when I came home I thought I deserved a few extra ladles of that tasty salsa slathered over my entire meal.

Day 77, How to Eat 5 Egg Whites a Day...

... and not go crazy.

Egg whites are not the most appetizing thing in the world. Especially considering you are eating the cytoplasm of an unfertilized chicken ovary. But you gotta have them if you want to build muscle. Why? The things are pure protein. Nothing but amino acids, which your body uses overnight to make new muscle. But, all hope isn't lost, there are some tricks you can do to make the things more palatable. I eat 5 a day now, so I'll put up 5 different techniques, although there are many more.

1. Pepper

Pepper adds a spicy and 0 calorie way to liven up egg whites. Use freshly ground pepper for extra bite.

2. Mustard

I love mustard. Plain old yellow mustard is great, and the fancy stuff with the peppercorns still intact is great too. At 5 calories a tablespoon it's no problem if you're sticking to a close training diet

3. Red Wine Vinegar

This is one of my favorites, and has the added benefit of improving circulation. You can also use Chinese black vinegar if you are truly hardcore. Use the hollow of the egg as a kind of cup.

4. Ginger

This is something you can find in any Japanese food store, a tube of emulsified ginger. Very spicy and fresh taste! Also keeps your breath fresh and not eggy.

5. Pesto

This is the least diet friendly of the bunch, with Pesto's oil and salt content. But it tastes so good and works when you can't stand the thought of eating one more egg white.

So there are some ideas for anyone crazy enough to eat a lot of these things. Chen was telling about one of his bodybuilder friends who eats 20 a day. I can't imagine. Does anyone have any more ideas for dressing up the blandest food on earth?

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 71, Cottage Cheese

I like cottage cheese. I eat about 2 tubs of it a week. Low in fat, high in protein, and very versatile. In fact, I was going to write this blog about all the ways you can use cottage cheese, and in the process I found this site...

The Cottage Cheese Page

... which has all the recipes I've figured out for myself plus many more. Why I didn't look for cottage cheese recipes, uh, 71 days ago, is beyond me. So there's no need to reinvent the wheel. All the recipes I was going to give are on that page in one way or another.

I remember when I was a kid just the sight of cottage cheese made me feel queasy. Now I can't get enough of the stuff. I love the tacky texture in the mouth and how you can take it sweet or savory.

Day 64, Early Indulgence

As you know every 15 days I go off diet both to reward myself and see how I react to "regular" food. My next indulgence day was supposed to be Day 67, but I went ahead and took it today because we were having a staff meeting that ended up at....


I was never a huge ice-cream fan but today it was hot and sunny, and we were sitting outside, so it was really nice.

I ordered the Cheesecake Fantasy which looks like this.


If you've never been to Stone Cold Creamery you should know that all the ingredients are mixed in right in front of you as the employees sing, yes sing, like they just spent a summer backpacking through Smurf village. I would pay an extra 30 cents if it meant they served me my ice cream without singing. But I haven't seen that choice on the menu.

Taste

Very, very rich. It felt a little unreal to eat something so rich after weeks and weeks of getting used to the somewhat muted sweetness of fruit. It was good, but good in the way that being given 10,000 dollars that you can only spend at store that sells feather boas is good.

Effects

After about 10 minutes, a sugar high that gave me the shakes and made me a little dizzy. I was riding in a car at that time and I just kind of lolled my head out the window and watched the pretty colors. I could feel my heart racing in my chest throughout all of this. A bit unsettling.

Aftereffects

A mild sugar crash, but not as bad as I thought it would be. A lingering sense that I didn't want to look at food for the rest of the week. And, as I write this a few hours later, I can literally feel the extra fat on my midsection. Really, I can pinch something that wasn't there before. When you're down below 10% BMI you can feel new fat as soon as it forms. It doesn't bother me as I know from past indulgences that it burns off in a day or two, but it's a real eye-opener to actually feel the cause and effect of eating a 710 calorie dessert. It certainly makes me want to stay away from that stuff. And I got the smallest size of one of the healthier choices.

Here's a list of all of Stone Cold Creameries offerings and their caloric content. Some of the choices come out at over 1500 calories, which is pretty much my allowance for a whole day. Don't eat that much ice cream, dear reader. That's the equivalent of a whole supermarket basket of fresh veggies.

So, the next indulgence day will be day 82. As always I would like to hear your suggestions for what to eat that day!

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 57, All You Can Eat (not very much!)

Tonight I went off diet at an all you can eat macrobiotic buffet. I say I went off diet but really I can't go off diet anymore. To put it simply, my stomach (the organ itself) has shrunk to about the size of my fist. I quickly reach a point where my stomach is physically full. No more food will go in there, and it's uncomfortable even attempting to eat more than I usually do on the diet.

Tonight, I was uncomfortably full after eating a bowl of miso, some salad, a piece of smoked fish, and a small serving of pasta. I had some eggplant and burdock tempura on top of that because it looked so good, but it was too much and I soon regretted it.

A few weeks ago I would have considered my meal just the starter trip in a long all-you-can-eat bonanza. I made sure I got my money's worth at those things.

What still baffles me is how now, I am doing perhaps double the daily exercise I used to on half the calories, without ever feeling hungry or low on energy. If anything I have more energy than ever. And I'm using the few calories I get to build new muscle. Where was all that food going before? I guess it was just passing through my system, because a lot of it was processed junk without a lot of nutritional value. Still, it doesn't seem to add up.

All I can think is that my body has learned that the free ride is over. Calories aren't just going to rain down in abundance like before. So when a meal comes, my body is like "Ok, I gotta get a bang for my buck with this energy, cause the rivers of milk and honey have stopped flowing."

Oh, and my PCP is 8 weeks old now! Every four weeks I've promised to post a photo in a Bruce Lee pose, you can see the last one on day 28. Here's today's, I was practicing nunchaku and just put the camera on timer shot.

Day 52, Wine and Cheese

Well, if you've been reading you'll know that every 15 days I choose something to indulge myself with, something not on the diet plan. On day 32 it was a chocolate chip cookie and on day 22 it was a beer. Aside from a nice reward the off-diet foods often give me weird sensations. The beer made my stomach hurt and the chocolate chip cookie aroused my libido.

15 days have rolled around again and this time I chose wine and cheese as my indulgence.



A few years ago there was a study that found eating cheese kind of short circuits the taste buds and doesn't allow the palate to make out the subtle distinctions of fine wine. A lot of people were wringing their hands about how this was the end of a wine tradition, but I immidiately had the thought that I could buy any old cheap Carlo Rossi, pair it with a strong cheese, and it would be just as good as the high end stuff. Whether this speaks to my ingenuity or cheapskateness I don't know.

So tonight I bought the smallest possible blocks of smoked cheese, parmesian, and a funky gouda that was cultured with basil, and a bottle of red table wine.

To make the evening even more sumptious, I ate said cheese and drank said wine while watching season 3 of Top Chef.

Taste
After 52 days with nothing beyond a little cottage cheese in the morning, the cheeses were too rich for me. I enjoyed them but it wasn't how I used to enjoy cheese. It felt like work to get through the plate. The wine was nice.

Effects
No weird effects from the cheese. I was pretty tipsy after two glasses of wine.

Aftereffects
A stomachache, which has been the case after every 15 day indulgence. Which is fine with me, because it makes the indulging have an overall negative connotation in my mind, which makes it all the easier not to indulge. In fact, I found that this time I wasn't really craving anything, and just went with the wine and cheese because I knew it was something I used to like. Truth be told, the PCP Pig Out which I described in Day 48 would have suited me just as well.

So, the next indulgence will be day 67. Any suggestions readers?

Day 49, Coffee

I love coffee and like to think that I can tell the difference between good and bad brews. But I also have a guilty pleasure for mochas, hazelnut lattes, frappacinos, and the like.

One of the important rules of The Peak Condition Project is to not drink your calories. There are few enough calories as it is, especially in the fat loss stage, and you don't want to waste any of those on a beverage, even something healthy like vegetable juice, or not so good, like beer, wine, and chocolatey espresso drinks.

Recently I was at a Starbucks for a meeting, and, out of curiosity I asked the clerk how many calories were in a tall sized mocha. She had to go to the back to consult a manager or a book or something, and came back with the answer.

384 calories. But she reassured me the whip cream accounted for 90 calories. Would I like to hold the whip cream?

I had a coffee.

But, recently, I've found some relief from the tasty coffee beverage injunction. A part of the coffee market that coffee snobs turn their noses up at. Flavored coffee.

I like this brand called Royal Kona. The plain versions aren't so great, but the flavored varieties are awesome.


Brew up a cup of Chocolate Macademia Nut, add a splash of lowfat milk, and your pretty damn close to a 384 calorie mocha, at a cost of about 2 calories.

I also like Honey Macademia Nut. The Vanilla is a little too sweet for me.

Day 48, Pigging Out

Today after lunch I still felt really hungry. This is a kind of hunger I get sometimes, where I just have to have something sweet. I'm sure it's tied in with some sort of glucose/low blood sugar thing. I tried to ignore it but after an hour I had to eat something. Before, when I felt like this, I might polish off three or four manju, (sweet Japanese cakes), or a bagfull of cookies, or a tray of mini donuts. Today I went overboard too, but it was a very different menu. Here's how I pigged out on the PCP.

In a bowl, combine (chopped)
1 orange
1 apple
8 dried dates
4 dried figs
8 dried prunes
4 dried apricots
3 tablespoons of honey
enough lowfat milk to cover the bottom layer of fruit.

It was a ton of food, and so sweet and delicious, especially drizzled with honey. It was almost sinful. I ate too much and my stomach hurt a little bit afterwards (as it always did with the cookies and donuts of before), but what a difference a few weeks can make. I wouldn't even dream of eating that junky stuff now, not because I'm trying to get fit, but because my fruit bowl tasted better than all the sugar and processed crap in my old sweet cravings.

Which is what I've found out time and time again. The actual diet and exercise isn't that hard, it's the changing of old habits that takes time. After you've done that, the Project takes care of itself.

Day 46, Restaurant

Today I met someone for lunch at.... eek! a restaurant! For the first time since the PCP began I didn't have a hand in what was put on my plate. Trying to follow this diet, there's really only one kind of food that will work if you're going out to eat. Japanese.

So I chose to meet my associate at Ootoya, a traditional Japanese food chain.

Remember, here are my lunch requirements:

100 grams carbs
180 grams vegetables
130 grams protein

So, this is what I ordered.

To get the carbs, a bowl of plain rice.


For the protein, Sumibiyaki Saba, (wood roasted Mackerel)


And for the vegetables, Yasai no Seiro-mushi, (steamed vegetables)

Pretty tasty! But my portions were definitely off. Way too many carbs and a little too much protein, and since two of the steamed vegetables were potato and sweet potato (more carbs) I didn't get nearly enough vegetables. But not too bad.

Also, after eating my own weighed out meals for so long, the portions seemed incredibly large to me, and I was really full. And this is a Japanese restaurant with Japanese sizes. If I went to an American chain I think my stomach would rupture.

So, I managed to "eat out" and stay on the PCP diet. Albeit barely and by ordering the smallest dishes at a healthy restaurant with tiny portions. Still, it was nice to be a normal person. (for lunch at least!)

Day 43, Final Diet Plan (?)

I know these diet plan posts can be boring, but the truth of the matter is that the PCP is diet. The training and everything is just icing on the cake.
If you've been following the diet stuff, you'll know that I was on the evening smoothies for over a month, and when I had lost enough body fat I tried to switch back to a solid dinner and more protein. My stomach was not happy with that, so we switched up to a lighter version, spacing out the meals so that a bunch of matter didn't hit it all at once.

I did that for a week and my stomach has gotten a lot stronger, so we're going to move onto what I hope will be the final diet plan of this project. Later I might add more carbs. The idea is to give my muscles a lot of protein and energy to work with. Chen thinks I will gain a kilo with this plan.

It's funny, a few weeks ago, I would have jumped for joy at the chance to eat more. Now, it almost seems like a chore. But it is good to have some carbs for dinner again.

So, here it is, The Peak Condition Project Diet Plan, Final Version (?)

Breakfast
50 grams carbs
1 whole egg
1 egg white
250 ml lowfat milk
as much fruit as I like

Morning snack
1 egg white
50 grams vegetables
fruit if hungry

Lunch
100 grams carbs
180 grams vegetables
130 grams protein
fruit if hungry

Afternoon snack
1 egg white
1 serving of fruit

Dinner
50 grams carbs
170 grams vegetables
70 grams protein

Evening snack
1 egg white
fruit if hungry

By the way, all these numbers are calculated for my height, weight, and conditioning goals. Don't try these for yourself, unless you're my long lost twin. If you're interested in trying the PCP, we're accepting two more participants. Email thepeakconditionproject (at) gmail.com before May 15th to apply!