Day 90: The View from the Top of The Mountain

Hey Faithful Readers--and anyone who just skipped to the end of this blog to see how it all turned out. ;-)

In my first year in Japan, I climbed Mount Fuji. It was hard work--damp, dangerous, and suffocating. However, when I got to the top and saw the sun rise out of the clouds like a sphere of molded fire, I knew it was worth it. And, to this day, I still consider my Fuji-climb to be one of the greatest achievements in my life. And now, I have conquered one more mountain. This mountain is not the thing of natural beauty Fuji-san is. It is the horrible mountain of my own ignorance and lack of self-worth when it came to my own body.

Back on Day 1, I wrote I thought I was a little crazy joining the PCP program, but it turns out joining the PCP was perhaps the most sane thing I've done to date. Before meeting Patrick and joining his his program, I was truly crazy. I embraced ignorance regarding food and an absence of regular exercise. I overate. I ate salty chemically-enhanced junk food with reckless abandon. And, worst of all, I believed my own bullshit for the longest time that I did not have the inner strength or time to get out of the grave I was slowly eating myself into. I was blinding myself to the real truth. If you don't have your health, you don't--or you very soon won't--have anything.

It took pneumonia and the thought of losing my time with my wife and son, and all the other people and things I love to make me see clearly enough to want to change. I just thank God Patrick was standing there when my eyes were finally opened.

Yes, while, at my core, I'm not much for church and its ceremony, I believe in God--fiercely. I believe he guides us through the events and people around us, and sets up opportunities for us at every turn. Gosd was there for me when NOVA GROUP was about to start its fall. He gave me a good friend who appeared just in time and helped me move to Senzoku Gakuen High School. Senzoku lasted just long enough for there to be an opening at my current school. And there, I met Patrick. God bless Patrick. I hold him among the best of my friends, and I hope one day he will hold me in the same regard. Is Patrick responsible for my change? In part, yes. He showed me a path--a path he has worked hard (with Chen) to create. However, It was up to me to stay on that path and walk on it to the end--all up to me.


Was my PCP perfect? Did I follow the diet 100%? Did I do every single exercise the way it was supposed to be done? No. But, I know this: I did my best evey day against the imperfect human being I know I am, and for me that is a triumph. The biggest challenge in life isn't someone else or something. It's you. It's always you.

So, here on the last day, I went to Patrick's studio at 5:30 P.M. for my workout and, in order to emphasize how far I had come, Patrick had me do my Day 9 workout. Let's go back a bit in time shall we and look at my Day 9 post, shall we?:

Day 9: Rope Revelations!

Today I was given the greatest gift I could have asked for: the solution to my jump rope problem. As I said before, my rope is not too short, but I thought it was, even today, as it hit me in the head and feet. And, now I know why! God. Finally, I know why! I feel idiotic and elated at the same time.

After I finished skipping for the first time at Patrick’s yoga studio, I just tossed my rope in my bag. Since then, I have been outside trying to skip successfully in the early morning. What happens to a plastic skipping rope when it has spent the night just tossed in a bag? It ends up tangled like an old phone cord. And what happens when this same plastic skipping rope is taken outside into the cool morning? It maintains its tangles! The air is cool, so the rope cools and loses its slack (Insert appropriate chemistry term here). Basically, I was trying to jump with a rope that wasn’t straight. And, when I would start jumping, it would tangle up worse and seem shorter! God. Eureka! So, I spent the next ten minutes heating the rope with the body warmth from my hands until it was nice and slack and guess what?

The rope flew around me like bloody wind itself. I did 150 jumps without screwing up. Man, I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.

And now, todays’s stats and stuff.

Weight: 96.4kg (-00.8). Go baby go!

Fat percentage: 27.0 (-00.7)

Jumprope. 600 complete! See above. God.

Lunges: 16 x 4 sets. My legs feel really worked out after these.

Rowing: 12 x 3 sets. Gently down the stream! Complete!

Standing Ovation: 12 x 3 sets. Complete! Hold the applause-heh.

Triceps Dip: 8 x 3 sets. Complete! This went smooth, too smooth. I think I was using my legs too much. I will straighten them out the next time I do this exercise as per Patrick’s advice.

Forward Shoulder Raise: 10 x 3 sets. Complete!

Leg lifts: 12 x 4 sets. Complete. I did these on the grass in the park. Fun, but not as nice as the tatami in my house.

Diet is rolling along, although I’m lagging a bit in the protein. I just have to coordinate my shopping with my wife’s shopping better.

Breakfast, same as yesterday except I had pasta instead of bread this time, and I didn’t have the egg white because the wasted egg yolk would have annoyed my family. Patrick, Team, any other way to get egg white short of drinking them on the sly at work?

Lunch: two subway chicken salads—for the protien, no cream cheese this time, but did have their red wine vinegar sauce. This may have salt, so will stop using it and switch to an alternative Patrick introduced to me. I ate four pieces of whole wheat bread for my carbs. Then, I ate bananas to round out the fruit requirement at lunch and snack time.

Dinner: Fish with seaweed soup, tomatoes, a bit of cheese, lots of sliced pumpkin, and bamboo rice. There were small blocks of tofu in the seaweed soup. I hear tofu is seriously processed, but I don’t know for sure. Should I be eating it?


And finally, I have a cold. WAAAACHOOO! Sniff. Sorry. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends with the PCP, work, my novel, and this blog. I guess my body decided to tell me I need to slow down a bit. I will, but don’t worry team. My PCP will not suffer. WAAAACHOOO! Sniff. Sorry. I’ll just cut back on my novel writing a bit—save it for the train and the weekends. I have to take of myself. As Count Rugen said in The Princess Bride, “If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.”

Love to all!

More tomorrow,

Sean

Hmmm, I guess this day went pretty well then, and it went well again once more. But, to a healthier stronger Sean, this workout was about as difficult as a walk in the park. Oh, and the cold I mentioned on Day 9 turned out to not be a cold at all. It was just an allergy attack.

So, tonight to celebrate my last day on the PCP, I joined Patrick, his fiance Kasue, and former PCPer Kazuhiro for my end of PCP party. We went to Beer Gardens atop the Star Hotel in Yokohama and were treated to a lovely view as we threw caution in the wind and ate an assortment of the unhealthy. We also went to another restaurant for pizza and eneded with dessert at Starbucks. However, the special food event for the night was:

Patrick asked me to buy my usual jumbo bag for this evening, and I have to confess when I bought them on day 89, I felt a little bit dirty. I had not touched these chips in three months and now they represented everything I used to be. Before the PCP, I used to be able to polish off a bag of these in about ten minutes. What would happen to me on Day 90 when I ate them?

We popped the bag open alongside the rest of the food we ordered at Beer Garden and...

They were salty as hell and tasted like greasy nacho cheese soap. I ate about three.

However, when we left the restaurant, I took the still loaded bag with me thinking I might have more later. Doritos was an old friend. I couldn't just abandon them and the money I spent. But, as the night went on and I consumed pizza and a Starbucks Short Vanilla Frappuccino, I started to get a little woozy. At the end of this feast, a feast I would have thoroughly enjoyed prior to the PCP, I felt so ill that I looked at the bag of Doritoes in a plastic bag on my wrist and did something I have never ever done in my entire life. I threw a full bag of Doritoes in the train station garbage. I'm still having trouble believeing it myself, but there it is.

So, here I am at the top of the PCP mountain. Am I in peak condition? No. but I'm in far, far, far better health at 35 than I was at 30, and I now have the knowledge to keep improving my health for the rest of my life. I've lost a ton of weight, and I am no longer embarassed to look at myself in a mirror. I've got my life back in more ways than one, and it's wonderful. Fat Sean is forever dead and healthy Sean will live as long as God will let him. That's a promise.

The PCP is finished, but this blog won't be for a day or two yet. There is an Epilogue still to come and the matter of some pictures to wrap everything up. I hope you'll stay with me to the end.

I did it! I blogged every single day on the PCP. Way past cool.

More tomorrow,

Sean