Day 008: "Helen"

There are just two things that matter to me in my life right now: eating Paleo and training CrossFit.

Today I am taking care of those two things. You can take that to the bank.

"Helen" is a nice workout. I wish. I mean the CrossFit workout by that name.

Day 007: -11.4 lbs for week 1

Paleo eating and crossfit training goals: achieved.

I couldn't get in to the gym this morning to try repeating my "Fight Gone Bad" workout (which annoyingly requires a machine rower because part of the score is rowing calories), so I took my bike to my favorite single-track ride in New Jersey, "Clayton Park". The stats of the ride seem impressive to me:

Length: 4.8 miles long
Average speed: 4.1 mph
Elevation changes: Up 2278 ft. / Down 2303 ft.
Duration: 01:09:32

Its nice, I can try this again in a few weeks and see how my performance is changing.

I will say I remember taking Elliot hear last year, and finding the ride impossible to finish without some protracted stops to recover, and I walked most of the uphills, but today I was able to pound out the uphills quite a bit, and only having to resort to walking relatively few times.

Day 006: Nose to the grindstone

Paleo eating and crossfit training goals achieved.

I love how all bike rides from my house start with a downhill and end with an uphill (the return). I was able to pedal all the way up Ocean Blvd, which is a probably 1000 ft of elevation change on a snaking S-turn road that ends up at 250 feet above sea level. I was walking some of that fairly recently so it could be that there are some endurance changes being noticeable.

The Warrior's World ~ Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Windhorse is a translation of the Tibetan lungta. Lung means "wind" and ta means "horse". Invoking secret drala is the experience of raising windhorse, raising a wind of delight and power and riding on, or conquering, that energy. Such wind can come with great force, like a typhoon that can blow down trees and buildings and create huge waves in the water. The personal experience of this wind comes as a feeling of being completely and powerfully in the present. The horse aspect is that, in spite of the power of this great wind, you also feel stability. You are never swayed by the confusion of life, never swayed by excitement or depression. You can ride on the energy of your life. So windhorse is not purely movement and speed, but it includes practicality and discrimination, a natural sense of skill. This quality of lungta is like the four legs of a horse, which make it stable and balanced. Of course in this case you are not riding an ordinary horse; you are riding a windhorse.

By invoking the external and internal drala principles, you raise a wind of energy and delight in your life. You begin to feel natural power and upliftedness manifesting in your existence. Then, having raised your windhorse, you can accommodate whatever arises in your state of mind. There is no problem or hesitation of any kind. So the fruition of invoking secret drala is that, having raised windhorse, you experience a state of mind that is free from subconscious gossip, free from hesitation and disbelief. You experience the very moment of your state of mind. It is fresh and youthful and virginal. That very moment is innocent and genuine. It does not contain doubt or disbelief at all. It is gullible, in the positive sense, and it is completely fresh. Secret drala is experiencing that very moment of your state of mind, which is the essence of nowness. You actually experience being able to connect yourself to the inconceivable vision and wisdom of the cosmic mirror on the spot. At the same time, you realize that this experience of nowness can join together the vastness of primordial wisdom with both the wisdom of past traditions and the realities of contemporary life. So in that way, you begin to see how the warrior's world of sacredness can be created altogether.

Excerpted from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (pg. 114), by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Day 005: It's a two-way thing

Paleo eating and CrossFit training goals achieved. I didn't do my second workout tonight, but very much enjoyed watching Don Jon, which I was right in suspecting would deceive everyone into thinking it was about who will win in the war of "Coke" against "Diet Coke", but it turns out being just as fucked up getting addicted to the one-way ness of porn, as it is to the one-way ness of the myth and stories about how a princesses charming love should be. His little sister nails it when she says she thinks Barb always had "an agenda". Julianne Moore shows some actual compassion, and demonstrates what real love looks like. Very inspiring.

Day 004: Staring to believe my own hype

Paleo eating and CrossFit goals achieved.

I just stayed up until 3am going through a nearly infinite recursion of backup folders, such priceless document paths as:

/Windows7Backup/Desktop/Needs Organizing/Needs Filing/Thinkpad/Desktop/Needs Filing/<customer name>/<project name>/deliverables/<the stuff I did>

I tell you, it's practically archaeological this search through the things I've done. I see them after the years, and I can scarcely believe that I worked those weeks and months on these client deliverables. It's like it was another person at another time. I don't know who I am any more.

All this was predicated because I have to revise my resume with more details and I needed to do an audit of a deeply nested set of backups, from 2 computers past, to find everything I can refer to in a marketing piece about myself.

I'm starting to believe my own hype, which at this point might be a good thing.

Day 003: Words are superfluous

Paleo eating achieved:

• Got a protein shake snack in to the afternoon right after my workout
• I am liking the food, and I am not really hungry. The calling of my habit foods is feeling kind of hollow and insubstantial.

CrossFit training achieved:

• Workout in the afternoon, quite hard involving box humps and sleigh pulls (across a parking lot)
• Evening walk was lovely as 'always'

On my walk I look into the dark woods and I wonder, with trails like 'Foxes Hollow', are there any foxes in there that know that is the trail they are supposed to take? How does one meet a fox? I was playing my National guitar on the porch after the walk and I wondered if it could be heard in the distances across the street in the woods, and if anyone, remaining distant was curious without being able to be observed. I know it's borderline delusional, but I'll have you know at know time to I actually see any foxes that tell me to kill anyone. :-)

In my time of dying

Day 002: Walking in the stars

TODAY:

Paleo eating:

• Accomplished
• I'm under-eating, only 2 meals and one protein shake. The objective is 5 smaller meals nearly constantly. Those long gaps are dangerous.
• I was better about no dairy, starting to enjoy coffee black. I like my coffee like I like my . . .
• WATER!!! I am ridiculously under water today. I need to POUND down 1 liter every 3 hrs. Must do this.

CrossFit training:

• Accomplished
• WOD at my gym at 9am
• Nice walk in the hills in the evening. Most beautiful experience of my day by far (including all this facebook nonsense. Who would have thought you could enjoy a very decent number of stars in the sky (which I only say because I don't live in Finland, or somewhere away from the light pollution of the city, which I still want to live in.
• It's strange but in the evening you can imagine you are completely alone in this neighborhood. I suspect it won't feel like that in Manhattan ever. I like that. I want to drown and die in a sea of people that I can pretty much never escape.

Day 001 - "FIGHT GONE BAD"

Today I take on the commitment to 30 days in a row (my CrossFit gyms 'Paleo Challenge') with workouts and strictly following a Paleo diet. For now the goal is as simple as making it through 30 days without significant deviation, and I kid around about wanting to win, but I'd really just like my effort to be as inspired and joyful as possible. That'd be enough of a prize, but that being said, being very unfit might even give me an advantage to having the best track record of change by the end of the challenge.

Commitments for the next 30 days (until Wednesday October 23rd):

Paleo eating:

• Every day, no exceptions and no excuses
• No grains
• No dairy (a little cream or butter sparingly)
• Aim for 5 smaller meals every 3 hrs
• Have plenty of green leafy and non-starchy vegetables
• Have plenty of animal protein
• Luxuriously use good fats like coconut oil, and only sparing use of other fats
• Eat nuts and drink protein shakes for in-between meals and snacks.
• Drink 4 liters (128oz) of water (at least, half body weight recommended)

CrossFit training:

• Every day, no exceptions and no excuses
• One CrossFit WOD in the morning (in or out of the gym)
• One more workout in the evening, if only a walk.
• Once a week repeat the final performance test

Benchmark Measurements:

Weight: 366.6 lbs (dressed without shoes)


Benchmark fitness test.

• "FIGHT GONE BAD"
• Scored for AMRAP
• 3 Rounds / Rotating every minute (no rest between exercises)
• 1) Wallball - 10lbs
• 2) Sumo Deadlift High-pull (
• 3) Box Jumps - 12"
• 4) Push Press - 
• 5) Row for Calories
• Rest 1 minute between rounds
• BENCHMARK SCORE: 183

TODAY:

Paleo eating achieved.

• have to watch out and avoid sugars in sauces
• have to watch out my *sparing* use of cream or butter
• only ate 3 meals, need to get my inbetween meals happening

CrossFit training achieved.