SUPERSETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These supersets are crazy.  Start with the pull ups now go to the chest dips now run around the block and go to the creep and start floor jumping now do the hokey pokey and spin yourself around.  Really?

I really don't have that much to say right now.  Every time I finish a superset I just lay on the floor for about a half an hour.  I'm going to pull through and complete all these supersets but I will in no way lie and say that I'm having fun doing them.

Beds rule.

Yodo: welcome to the jungle

So Patrick commented with this link yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT5HPiYY6p0


Talk about intense.  Unlike the 8 min abs vid there is nothing funny about it.  The intensity and timing of the dude's voice combined with the crazy music makes me feel like I'm on some guerilla mission in the jungle.  I had to watch the video at first to see the order of it and I thought to myself, "I can't do this, what the hell is he doing?!"  But I'm not the type to turn down a challenge so I got to it, and actually completed it.  I was pretty surprised that I could do it, and to Patrick's/Chen's credit I don't think I could have before this project.  I definitely felt my abs working in different ways and guess what I did 8 min abs right after (probably because I'm a lunatic).  That burn could start a forest fire.


With Kim's post yesterday and Ramiro's comment about "Think of where I'll be in a year" it's crazy to think that in the last week I realized that this is just the beginning.  Now that we know how to eat right and the science behind exercising the possibilities are endless.  I mean Rock Climbing?  I wouldn't have thought about doing that before this.  Shit, last night my friend brought up skydiving and immediately I said, "I'm in."  Oh and that's another thing:


Will-power:


I was basically forced to go to a BBQ last night.  I was actually really pissed about it.  I didn't want to be around a bunch of food while I'm basically at the end of this.  But when I showed up I just refused the food.  I sat there and watched everyone eat and I didn't even think for a moment about joining in.  And then a friend said, "Stu, you're being requested from the little ones."   So I went to where the kids were and started playing with them.  While everyone was barfed out with the BBQ and carrot cake I had the energy to be a human punching bag to a bunch of young hooligans.  Thinking about how Patrick said that this will help the whole family and friends thing.  I'm basically these kids uncle and instead of passing out on the floor I can pay attention to the, "hey stu, watch me body slam and then elbow this."  and, "hey stu, this guerilla (stuffed animal) died the moment I punched it."  Those kids are hilarious, and I enjoyed the BBQ after all.    


I thought that this would be a short post but since it turned into a long one I have one more thing to say.  I've heard of some friends of friends that have done the PX90 (or whatever it's called).  I guess it's  a workout plan and has nothing to do with diet.  All of them have returned to their unhealthy body form after the thing ended, and I'm assuming because they don't know about the diet.  I'm glad that I found this project instead of the other one.  

8 Minute abs

This is a post for team JFD.  8 minute abs might be a little tough and you might not want to do it.  But believe me, the more you do it the easier it becomes.  When I started doing it the time went slowly and I just wanted to get through it.  But now it seems like I'll blink my eyes and I'm at the last section of it.  So if I were you I would start doing it consistently as soon as possible because those ab muscles are pesky funkers.

Family reunion of sorts

I went to a musical family reunion last night.  At one point there was 25 musicians playing at once.  Two trumpets, two trombones, two flutes even, I don't even want to list it all.  It was nuts and fun.  But that's not the point of this.  My band was basically born out of this musician lineage, and so some of the people have known me forever.  The cats I haven't seen for awhile all commented on how I look better "then I have in my entire life".  That felt really great because some of them said, "man being a musician taking care of themselves is a rare thing."  Anyways what I wanted to write about was when they asked me what I did and I responded, "eat right and workout."  They all looked at me like I was lying to them.  It can't be that simple, I must of found the fountain of youth and drank from the holy grail or something.  Nope, eat right and workout, that's it.

As for our homework assignment I've figured it out.  I actually didn't want to go to a gym, just had no interest in it.  I'm really about going to this mma style gym where it's athletic and fun, but a homework assignment must be done.  I'm meeting up with a friend of mine that goes to a gym, but he goes to climb their wall.  Rock climbing has always seemed awesome to me.  It's like a chess match climbing up those walls, and any sport that involves the mind like that is enticing to me.  I'll walk around and see what the gym is all about but then I'll get to the wall and maybe find a new permanent activity.

I just had an egg explode while I was cooking it hard boiled style- weird.

Oh yeah, thanks for all the chest hair suggestions.  I don't think I would have ever gone through with it in the first place.  With this mop on top of my head I would look hilarious without chest hair, as if I were photoshopped or something.

I'm so hungry I could eat a LAG

Last night I went to bed hungry which hasn't happened for awhile ever since the bigger dinners came.  And still with the small dinners I rarely went to bed hungry.  The only thing I could think of is that I've had a little cold the last couple days, and I usually eat a lot when I have colds (and I always get colds around this time in chicago when the weather is getting colder).  It's a pathetic cold in my opinion.  I can go about my days just fine I just have a little fatigue and sinuses.  Little sniffles aren't going to stop me from doing anything.  I can get through the exercises just fine with a little fatigued throughout it, but then again the workouts are harder.  I'm just making sure that I get plenty of sleep, and although I still have some signs today I'm definitely better than yesterday so I think I'll be top form real quick like.  But the hunger caught me off guard since our diet is definitely large and in charge, it was a little strange to me.

My pics yesterday sucked.  I don't know why after all this time I can't take a consistent photo.  I know nothing of lighting, and when I look in the mirror and then look at the pictures I see two different things.  I guess it doesn't matter that much because I know I'm doing well and all that, but to be honest I would just like to take a good picture.  I've been thinking I need to go out and just take pictures and try to get better.  I know this isn't really part of the project but I've always wanted to have decent skills at that.  

I showed a friend of mine my progress and he said that I've got to get rid of my chest and ab hair.  I've got this scruffy chest hair that is kinda in the way of my pecks.  I'm not really sold on the idea since winter is coming through.  I still have to think about it because it kind of annoying to have the hair, so maybe I will.

Sleep sleep sleep, tea tea tea.

Delirium- Final Indulgence

I had trouble figuring out what to do for the final indulgence.  A unhealthy large meal?  So. . . go to any restaurant in the city of chicago.  Ummm. . . too many choices, what to do, what to do.  And then yesterday happened.  We had band practice as we always do but this time one of my band members was fired from his job.  It was 6:30 and he was drunk, and I mean hammered.  He was talking on the phone to people about the matter and me and my other band member looked at each other like, "what's in store with this band practice."  We started trying to get things together and just work on something (we hate not being productive) and then we were surprised that he came back and we got to work.  I thought to myself this would be an excellent time to use up my indulgence and go out to eat.  When I brought the indulgence up they said, "nice it's half price burgers at smoke daddy's."  Smoke daddy's has been around since the 20's and has some of the best BBQ in the city.  Done and done.

The first bite was a smack in the face.  I got dizzy and started laughing.  This is what unhealthy food tastes like.  My mouth was instantly coated with flavor.  I quickly ordered a glass of whiskey (you said unhealthy and I went unhealthy) to wash the salt down.  I was surprised on how I reacted to the salt.  It tasted great but just made me thirsty.  I had sweet potato fries for my side and I thought I wouldn't eat them all but once I had one it was over.  Some of them fell off my plate and I said, "Don't think you can run from me, because I'm going to eat every one of you."  In a weird voice and my friends started to laugh.  And then it was over, me and my band started acting up like we alway do: loud and obnoxious.  Laughing extremely loud and cheering on the band.  The other quiet couples probably hated us, but the waitress loved us.  That's the misconception about waiters and bar tenders.  They don't want some quiet and cold table of four that whispers to each other.  They want the fun table that will keep them awake and have fun with them.  You've got to make them feel like your enjoying yourself and then they'll want to sit down and talk to you.  That why my dad knows everyone in this city.  My family is the most loud and obnoxious family on the planet, but we are always the only table that gets free plates of food.  When the chef comes out to talk to us with are normal street cloths, the couples with the fancy suits and diamonds in their ears always look at us and wonder why the chef isn't talking to them.  It's a business, do you think it's good for business to sit there and hold your breath and nibble your food?  Of course it isn't.  And of course I've gone completely away from my point.  The point is my good friend lost his job and by the end of the night we were laughing in the streets and he sounded great today and has high hopes for the future.  I think that was more important to me then the unhealthy food.

Today is a different story.  I knew I wouldn't look different, but my mouth sure did.  I can tell that the salt and grease did horrible things to my gums.  I flossed right away and got to the bike and jumprope.  I still haven't done a trick but as of yesterday I started doing to alternating foot steps like the boxers do.  Sometimes I get caught up but still I'm happy that I can do that.  My healthy breakfast tasted great.  The hamburger tasted great too but the weighed down feeling didn't feel great at all.  I'm glad that I ate that stuff and am really happy to get back to my healthy diet.  Back to it.

Question Everything

(This post is philosophical and has nothing to do with my pcp development)

Question everything, especially me.  Being american I hear about the obesity problem more then I would like.  Sure it's a problem and it definitely is a environmental condition, but there are other things.  My sister went into the hospital for anorexia in high school and it was definitely scary.  People are so focused on the exterior that they are willing to starve themselves to "look good".  The thing that is so great about this project is that it is a healthy process to creating a "good body".  Eat, enjoy, live life to the fullest.  Why are the social comments I've recently received based on, "Looking good stu, you've been working out?"  instead of, "Looking good stu, you've been eating a healthy diet?"   I know that sounds stupid, but I think about it from time to time that we've been ingrained with propaganda telling us life is more about a killer body and money than a healthy and happy life.  In the last two weeks I've been tired of telling people that have noticed my fitness level of what I'm doing and having them respond, "I should do something like that."  Replace the word should with will and there you go.  That's what everyone on this project has done and the progress is well deserved.

After I wrote that last sentence I snapped out of it and got back to reality.  I'm done with my rant now. . .

Peanut Butter

I had this weird craving for peanut butter last night.  I didn't run out and get some but I thought that the craving was really weird.  I never even had peanut butter around my house before the project.  Sometimes I would get almond butter for an almond butter sauce (with the coconut milk the almond butter seems to make it seem richer), and then sometimes I would get cashews because I'm a sucker for cashews.  But peanut butter was never a big staple in my kitchen.  I could only assume that it's some childhood memory or something.  PB & J was a staple growing up.  PB, Banana, and honey was my favorite.  And the mega tasty PB and bacon which was a random treat.  But honestly thinking about that sandwich makes me want to throw up right now.  I don't crave it today, which is really weird to me that I was craving it last night and then didn't have any and now I don't crave it at all.  I was satisfied with my normal breakfast and am looking forward to lunch.  Cravings are weird.

I can't believe we are so close to the end.  Time just kinda slipped by.  The workouts are harder so it's not like I can just coast through the next couple weeks, but knowing the end is near makes it easier to just do the workouts and eat the right way.  I guess it's just the feeling it would be pointless to give up now, it would a waste of the time we already put in.

I want to pull off some badass jumprope trick.  I'm getting really loose and comfortable jumping around but in terms of the tricks I haven't pull off anything.  I try and fail.  I guess I just have got to try try again.

I was walking down the street the other day and got really angry at my belt.  My pants were about to drop to the ground, and I was on the move so I got a little frustrated.  But then I was like, "this is what it's all about right?  Feel proud instead of angry, and buy a new belt."  Simple enough.

Mantra

I was listening to one of the reggae mixes I made and this chorus got stuck in my head all day and I couldn't stop singing it.  It goes, "me say forward ever ana backwards never."  You know, forward never backwards without the patois.  And then I thought about it later and it's a perfect mantra for PCP, at least for me anyways.  Each week the workouts get harder but not to the point where you can't do them, and then use the will power to get those extra reps in till failure.  So that's what I'm going to think before every workout.

Yep, that's it.

Goals

So when I went to dinner with my parents the other night they reminded me of something by saying, "How are your hands?"  I completely forgot about my hands and why I even joined this project to begin with.  You see earlier this year I had to go to physical rehab for my hands.  I could do any physical activity you could imagine and was in decent condition but my hands would go numb during work and playing guitar.  After a lot of tests and all that crap they found that it wasn't my hands but an upper rib bone sticking into my shoulder muscle which in turn caused my hands to go numb (probably from repeated bike accidents).  As I've said before I can handle pain (and evidently don't even notice it), but that numbness was really kinda scary.  So I went to physical rehab and fixed the problem. . . sort of.  They went about it in a way that seemed like it was for a sixty year old person.  I actually "graduated" extremely early so they say, and on my last day my therapist yelled to everyone, "look at this guy, he got better because he put in the work".  All the other people would just show up and complain and had lesser problems than I (or so they say).  They just seemed to not want to get better, as if they were comfortable with their condition because it gave them an excuse to complain.  Anyways I got out of there and I was doing better to the point where I could perform a show but the problems would come back if I played longer.  The exercises that they gave me were the most minimal ones you could imagine and I thought it was a half-ass approach to solving the problem.  I'm still young and have a lot of years ahead of me so I was not content with the situation with my hands.

So on to my goals of joining this project.  I saw pcp and liked the idea of exercise and a healthy diet and thought to myself, "If I can get my body into peak condition and my hands don't work then I don't know what I could do."  Well. . . my hands haven't gone numb for awhile now.  I would probably say about a month or so.  SUCCESS!!!  I had a feeling that all I had to do from the get go was get in shape.  I'll admit that the physical rehab did start it off with solving the whole rib/shoulder thing but it didn't finish the job.  So I guess you can say that my PCP goals are complete.  What?  Fuck that, my goals at this point are to finish strong.  I think once the hand problems faded away I had new goals, and I've been living them out.

I just had to sit back in my chair because I'm kind of in shock right now.  I'll sum up the other things because I can't really think about them right now, I'm just in shock of how this "test" of joining PCP actually worked.  I'm amazed.

Dinner: My dad told them that if they brought out extra stuff that he'd kill them.  My dad's no one special he's just the most social person ever and is kind of an anomaly.  I got halibut and cous cous, and it tasted extremely decadent (I like the light food that we're eating).  Good talk, good times.

Primus:  Ummmm. . . . awesome.  fuckin' awesome.  The younger generation don't seem to know how to mosh, so my friends and a bunch of other cats my age started one and it was all love.  Chicago mosh pits aren't about hurting people it about making a circle of raw energy.  We all gave each other high fives afterwards.

Workouts:  failure to the extreme.  I'm really going to try my hardest to finish this project as well as I can.

Are egg whites literally flavorless?  I don't mind, at least they don't taste bad.

Had a mango yesterday and god damn was it awesome.