90

It was perfect.  I was anticipating the rain and the the last day of PCP, and a thunderstorm broke out during my last work out.  It felt great.  It was a nice comparison for day 1 to day 90 as well.  On day 1 I felt kind of weird going to exercise on our deck with the neighbors around, but on day 90 I couldn't of cared less about how I might have looked working out in the rain.
Thank You's
In public speaking courses they warn against thanking people by name because they say you're bound to forget people, but rules are meant to be broken.
First off my wife Steph who is supportive of me in everything.  I love you and thank you for all the help.  So many things, like groceries or cooking some extra stuff if you saw I was low, but mostly for being loving and caring.  Love you.
Group members
Greenie and Wei,
When I saw you day one photos I thought whoa these two already look like fit rock stars.  But, you pushed on to the super fit rock gods.  You were both so strong through out the 90 days I found it really helpful how serious you took it and you seemed to do it with ease and a lot of energy.
Lukas,
Didn't hear from you much, but it was good to see how that approach can work.  Every now and then you would post throw a picture up and soldier on, it was good to see how that can be successful.
Lori,
Loved reading your posts.  I like how you seemed to reach out to the group to make connections in the beginning it helped to bring us together.
Tony,
Just typing your name brings a smile to my face.  I felt like you kept gaining momentum as it went.  When I crack my first beer (probably tomorrow) I'll be sure to say a cheers to you.  Your posts were funny, honest, and I liked knowing there was someone else working around a lot of good food and drink during the program.     
David,
Your posts were very inspiring and motivational.  I loved hearing about how your health and mood was getting better and better (maybe I'm having a selective memory of the positive ones lol).
Jackie and Julia,
Not sure if you will be reading this or not, but if you do.  It was great to make a brief connection with you.  If you are still pursuing an interest in fitness and well being I hope you have found something that works for you, and you can always try it again if you want.
Other people
Jason B.,
Got to thank Jason he was the one who passed this on to me.  It was challenging like you said.  I'm glad I did it.  Thanks for the posts, and it was nice to know someone who did it first.  From time to time I would check in on you old blog posts and find almost identical feelings on the same day in the program.  Thanks again.
Molly,
Thanks so much for the consistent check ups and feed back.
Patrick,
You got a great system.  I'm already curious about some of the other programs, but I think I will try to integrate this one first.  I appreciate all the work you do through out this.  You can tell you live and breathe this life, especially in reading all of your past articles.  So many of the messages came at just the right time.  Thank you.
Chen,
No idea who you are, except what Patrick has told us.  Thanks for doing all the nutrition work and with no concern for being in the spot light.
Now I'm starting to wonder who I'm forgetting so let me throw a few pictures up and see what else comes back to me.

Hey dough boy I got a pair of jeans for you.  I always thought these to big pants pictures were always kind of fabricated (pun intended).  It's not that I thought people were straight out lying I just thought, "well a lot of people" wear baggy clothes so if you pull the waist it will stick out".  So I choose a pair that fit me pretty snug.  In fact I mentioned it to Steph as she was taking the picture and she said something about how they made my a** look before that was not very flattering.






I really thought I had more muscle then that back there.

Well in one of the photos you can see some muscle.  The funny thing is I feel like I'm just in good enough shape now, to think about getting into peak condition. But, I'm also ready for a little break.




 Alright it's getting late I got to wrap this up.  There are a bunch of photos on the flicker site.  I'm sure I am forgetting tons.  Oh one last thing.  I think the most important lesson from this project has just been to learn how consistent effort is what makes a difference, probably in whatever you want to do.


Couple of other photos I like from the last day.

No Arms.
    and
Cringe/Smile

Day 86 "Mommy that guy is shaking"

That's what I heard as I was working out at the YMCA today.  I was just finishing my exercises and doing the second or third set of V-sit/Plank super sets. The mom just said he working hard dear.  I'm pretty sure the little girl was used to the scene, because mom was kicking butt on various exercises and dad was dead lifting like 300 lbs. and when mom and dad were both busy the girl would go off on her own and bust out hand stands and other crazy gymnastic moves. 

Surf and Turf for Dinner.

I lost that little slice of burnt squash on the side to the fire.  Almost everything on the grill is PCP compliant, except for that veggie burger, I hear there good with bacon.  










And what picnic is complete without your digital scale.  Taj is already in bed, and Nico out grew that bib a long time ago, but he threw it on to keep his pajamas clean (it didn't work). 





I almost forgot.  Yesterday I was tired not really interested in working out and I hopped into the car to go over to the Y.  I turned the car on and guess who's on the radio?...nope guess again alright I'll just tell you.  Anthony  Robles.  Who?  Well he was one of the guys I considered for the motivational piece of the project.  He was the college wrestler who won the NCAA championship for his weight class despite only having one leg.  Hearing him talk about his path of coming in dead last his first year of high school wrestling to NCAA champ his senior year of college changed my mind set drastically.  Then later in the day Nico was asking me about wrestling and he started to talk about "that one legged wrestler we watched on TV" there really must be something to a collective conscious.   

Only a few more days left.

Day 83

Had a few days in a row without PCP exercise and a loose PCP diet.  However, I was doing about three yoga classes a day and still eating a lot of veggies just not a lot of animal and probably too many carbs.  It felt great to be doing yoga again.  The asana practice felt really easy in terms of strength, and it was nice to be part of a yoga practice that took a more in depth look then just an exercise practice. I camped out while I was there.  Here are a few photos to give you a feel for the camp site. 
A camp site has gotta have
A slide into a lake                                                        Bingo

Lots of RV's (this wasn't even close to the biggest or most plush)               A pancake gathering








I liked the camp site.  It was pretty hokey, but kind of charming too.

Pictures of the Ashram.

Main room

gurus got a swag table

Sri Dharma Mittra

And to top it all off one of my favorite people Jesse Giggles

It feels good to be doing the PCP work outs again, but its nice to add in some breath work and meditation too.  More to come soon.  I hope everyone is feeling well for this last week.

Day 76 And Indulgence

I have to admit I always feel like I am kind of rushing the indulgence when I do it.  But this one wasn't didn't leave me feeling too bad.  I had three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (small raisin bread) and a glass of whole milk.  I'm sure there are some out there who think that's a pretty lame choice, but that's been my craving.  The whole milk felt kind of weird, like drinking half and half.  Then later I had a hot fudge sundae.  That was really good.  I'm pretty sure I went over the 1000 calories. 
The work outs are getting tough.  60 chin ups damn.  And I have been having a hard time with doing lots of planks at the end of the work out, but the other day I was able to pull off the 5 90 second planks which felt great.  I'm sure there's more to talk about, but that's all for now.
Oh wait I know. If anyone in Portland who reads this has some music to listen to while exercising I would appreciate it.  I need something new on the ipod.  Anyone got the white stripes or rage against the machine.  I'm open to suggestions too.  Prince was great for jumping rope last week.  Up beat.
 

Day 71 Wow!

Only 19 days to go.  I can't believe how fast it seems to be going by right now.  It's kind of hard to realize how close to the finish we are.  Although one of my goals has been to be ready for our summer league tournament on July 30th so Patrick if you have any tips feel free to pass them on.  You've mentioned the patterns of trough and peak from the process of breaking down and building muscle so it would be nice to be hitting a peak around that time.   Almost fell off the diet last night.  I was feeling exhausted physically and emotionally and I was ready to reach for some comfort in the way of calories.  Oddly enough I put on the TV and Man versus Food was on.  If you haven't seen this show it is about a guy who travels around the US eating at different restaurants.  But here's the catch he always takes on one of those eating challenges.  For example 15 dozen oysters, or five pounds of hot dogs drowned in chili, nacho cheese and french fries, or a milkshake made with 1/2 a gallon of ice cream + 1/2 a gallon of milk + a sandwich as big as my head.  Oh lets just see a clip to get the point across.  I think Detroit is a good place to get a gross clip of too much food. 

This one doesn't show him eating the burger but you get the idea.  Plus that burger is way bigger then most of the challenges I've seen.  So anyway, my point is watching this show pretty much takes away any desire to eat or at least to binge for me.  Alright got to go.  More soon.

Happy Fathers Day! A little late.

Check out this great MSN video: How To Use Your Kids To Work Out At Home




I thought this was pretty funny for fathers day.  

Day 62

Feeling good.  Got the work out done this morning in under an hour (about 50 min) with the jump rope (16 min) included.  Might try to get to a yoga class this afternoon, but it also depends on what the Reed-Smith family is up to cause they are leaving Maine for N.C. They will be missed.  More tomorrow...or later.

61 hard to believe

Hard to believe we now have less then a month left.  I think that second month got tough for me.  But I am really looking forward to the last third.  Still have some abdominal pain usually the day after kung fu sit ups.  I didn't think the exercises looked any harder, as Patrick had mentioned, but I've been feeling it.  Yesterdays leg workout crushed my legs pretty good.  Also it looks like I need to pick up the pace on my work outs.  We heard the other day they should be taking an hour with the jump rope time included (16 minutes).  I've been more around the hour fifteen to hour and a half with the jump rope included. 
Gotta thank Alberto, the mix he made me a couple months back has come in handy.  The first few songs have been great for skipping rope;
1. Pretty Voice, Cloud Cult
2. Skin Is, My, Andrew bird
3. We're From Barcelona, I'm From Barcelona
4. Bear, The Antlers
5. In the Night, Basia Bulat

If anyone else wants to pass on music please do.  It'd be nice to have something new or to be reminded of something I haven't listened to in awhile. 

Broke my first resistance band doing curls... yeah that's right biceps 1 resistance bands o.

Found a drisde a focus point.  This leaf landed directly in front of where I jump rope, it's the only one stuck to the fence and has held on for a couple of weeks so far.  I've been using just the speed rope lately and it feels like it's flying with out any effort from me.  I counted a hundred in about 35 seconds the other day, although my pace is usually slower then that for the longer duration.  Knock on wood I hope it continues. 

OK I got kids to get to that's all for now.

Feeling good on day 57

It took me a few tries to get through my work out today.  I did the jump rope in the morning, my legs were bit tired from ultimate the night before.  We had an exciting game went down 11-5 and came back to win it 16-14.  It helped that our two best players showed up when the score was 7-4.  Anyway this isn't an ultimate blog.  So I did the jumps legs a little tired, later set out to do the rest, but only got through the legs before I had to run some errands.  Legs were burning at the end of the floor jumps.  Later finished the shoulders and added in an ab series.  Feeling great. More later.

Indugence, Binge and wondering if I give Robert more material then Dumas in a Gandalf costume

Alright the indulgences throw me off.  First off I tend to think of it as a whole day affair instead of a single meal.  Next it was rushed, I didn't really enjoy it and I felt awful all night and most of the next day.  What's worse is that I ended up binging the next night.  I had a bunch of ice cream, hot fudge, and homemade whipped cream left over and well now I don't.  One of the things that is odd and all too familiar is I feel like I am playing out a scene I saw over and over growing up.  My mom was often dieting and then breaking it late at night.  Although I will say PCP is healthy unlike most of those diet fads.  So the big question from this is what happens after day 90.  Is this like an all or nothing approach like AA or can I find a way to say eat half a desert or even just one.  It seems like there should be a way to open the flood gates just a little before they build up too much. 

OK. Now for those of you from Portland, let me know what has given Robert (and others) more material to work with Greg in his Gandalf/Dumbledore costume or my PCP blog.  Looking forward to hearing the results. 

Also congratulations to Robert and Talya who went in to have their second little one this morning.  They have named him William Wallace Vetese tell your friends.
Teo

Day 51

Steph snuck out with the camera while I was exercising today so photos are up for this week.  There are a lot of advantages to working out at home; your gym fits into a back pack, you don't need to pay to go take a class from anyone, no driving, no waiting for machines to be free.  Now on the other hand sometimes your on the other side of the kitchen window while this is cooking.

  

Guess which half was mine.  It was really good, which made me wonder if it had more salt then regular bread.  Lunch was good.

Alright I've been talking a lot about ultimate so here's a highlight clip.

I want to be able to lay out for some reason my feet feel stuck to the ground.  More to come soon.
Teo

Down and UP

Felt great today.  Kind of riding the PCP roller coaster.  I'm digging the new change to the diet, and the work outs.  I haven't spent much time doing 8MA so that might have to change in the next week or so, but I've also been sore in  the lower abdominal area so we'll see.
Out for now photos tomorrow.
Teo 

Day 49

Felt awful most of the day.  Did my jumps this morning that went alright, but I was exhausted and impatient all day.  In the afternoon I felt like I could of fallen asleep and slept through the night.  But I got out to play frisbee this evening and felt much better.  Do I need to exercise in order to feel good?  Or was it the honey I had this morning (I know it's not on the diet)?  Too much caffeine (three cups of tea and a cup of coffee)?  Not enough sleep, Taj has been getting a bottle at around 3? Or the weird dreams?  Last night I dreamed I had five kids I was taking care of by myself.  The night before I dreamed Taj was back in the hospital and not well.  Maybe I am just over analyzing.  Anyway looking forward to the next week starting up.  Oh yeah we have our next indulgence coming up...I have a few ideas.
Also, welcome to the new group getting started.  It's not as bad as this post made it out to be lol.  Some parts have felt challenging and others fantastic.  Alright pictures to come soon, and I got to add something more fun to this blog it is getting really text heavy.
 

47

Played in our second ultimate game last night, had a blast and we got our second win which was nice too.  Morning work out went well this morning.  I've been getting on my bike for the past couple of days instead of jumping rope and the change has been nice.  I feel like I could be a bit faster on the ultimate field but hopefully that will come with time, maybe I should add in some running.  Digging the diet, it hasn't been perfect but going way better.  Alright just a quick post to stay up on it.  Hope everyone is doing well. 

Feeling way better

Sunday night I got home from work around 1 AM, but Steph had Monday off so I got to sleep in a little and then do my work out.  It was a real treat.  It was nice to do the work out with out the thought looming over my head of "I need to get this done before Taj wakes up", and to not have to watch Nico while exercising.  It's a little hard to hold plank and get hit in the face with a broom lol.  I've also been able to get the exercises done in the morning and then have breakfast which seems to work well.  It seems to set up cravings for more healthy food.  After the morning exercise I just want a ton of greens.  When I get out of work at night I tend to want a bunch of carby, sweet or fatty foods... or a good IPA.  Anyway feeling much better with the PCP.  We have an ultimate game tonight, so I'll see if the double session of exercise crushes me.   

still tough going

Diet has been challenging.  Work outs have been tough.  Minute long planks used to feel tough but now I'm getting crushed at around the 30 sec. marker.  I have been running around during the days a lot with family visiting and working extra shifts at night at a busy restaurant so there's that.  Feeling a little too dependent on caffeine these days.  Overall I would say it's going well just hard to feel like I am really nailing it right now, where as last week I was feeling like I wanted to start doing double sessions. 

I'm missing the last group already.  I found a lot of inspiration reading their blogs, there were a lot of members in that group really pushing it and it was nice to see their enthusiasm.  A little voice is saying "be the change you wish to see" right now...shut up little voice...alright I'll listen.  I'll have to get photos up soon.  Done for now.
Teo

Yikes!

Fell off the wagon the other day.  Went out with my sisters and had a beer then another, plus some nachos and a hot fudge sundae.  I just felt that if I was going to let the diet go then I really wanted to enjoy it.  Now all of that non PCP food lead to feeling like I was going to throw up for like three hours and then I felt awful in the morning.  The surprising thing is that just over a month ago that wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but now it doesn't sit well with me.  Back on track now and feeling that the lesson of moderation is really important and also just seeing how food seems to have a lot of addiction aspects to it.  Ultimate started today.  I think PCP has helped, but still lacking in the cardio area.

38

Been having a few little slips here and there in the diet lately, which seems a little odd since the amount of food has practically doubled this week.  Patrick said to expect this around this time.  I guess he has this dialed pretty well.  It's not so much craving the food, it's more about having to choose to not take part in what family and friends are doing so much of socializing takes place around food and drinks.  Our ultimate games were canceled last week so I'm hoping to get a chance to get out and run around on the field this week still curious to see if I see a positive affect or if my legs will be beat from pistol squats.  It's kind of funny reading the blogs of everyone in Japan because its as if they could be down the street.  The weather has been remarkably similar.  Alright I just wanted to get a quick blog in. 

Day 35 New Photos

I still feel weird about posting photos of myself with my shirt off on the web, but I have enjoyed watching other people change as they went through PCP...so no big deal.  I'm sure I look exhausted in the current photos, but it's not from the PCP (pun intended), Taj has been sick for the past couple days witha fever and throwing up, but he seems to be on the mend.  My weight is down to 175 lbs. or 79 Kg.  I think I've lost about 15-20 lbs or 7-9 Kg.  I know I was at least 195 over the winter, but I can't remember what I started the program at either 190 or 195.  When I started the program I knew I would lose weight although it was not a specific goal.  I thought 175 would be my bottoming out weight, but I feel good and I'm not sure what is coming next so I guess we will see.  Patrick says I should be able to jump a foot higher with the weight I've lost and exercises done, so I should be able to dunk.  Place your bets it's time to test it out.  I tried the 8 min abs today for the first time.  It didn't seem so bad.  I also have a copy of Ab Ripper X so I might trade off between the two.  That's all for now

Day 34

Inspiration

How long before we can do this?