Guest post by my little sister (Day 31)

So I was telling Patrick yesterday how awesome my family was and how they help me in the PCP. My younger sister reads this blog shamelessly, spots me when I do my Plank, takes dorky pictures of me, and steals my nectarines. I see your sneaky little paws... Anyway, she is here with her friend, and I asked her to come up with something related to exercise, fitness, and my PCP-ing. Take it away, Lulubell...
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Poem
31 days ago Jessica said "NO!"
Her one time friends are now her foes
Fritos, Tostidos, and even Cheetos
Are now on her list of things to veto
She no longer channels Danny DeVito

She flexes her muscles and sticks out her bum
Coz diet and exercise are barrels of fun
V-sits, planks, lunges and squats
Make her body full of knots

Yet every day she pushes on
Eating her veggies from dusk til dawn
Eating and beating
Defeating her flab

Making her body Peak Condition fab!

Also they want me to add this:

MALAYSIA FRIND(Day 28)

The Stages of Cheesecake Consumption may include:

Seeing the face of god:













Grief:

















Nyorm num num:














Spent the last few days fighting a nasty trojan virus on this computer. I think it is GIVE #@MONY TO MALAYSIA FRIEND FRIRRRRND gone. Heheh. I made E's tomato sauce last night!!! There were tomatoes seeds dripping from the walls when I was done squeezing them. Tonight I will eat Amy's beets, 375 degrees, 30 min covered in foil...mmm.

I have been enjoying everyones''' (where does the apostrophe go?? I should know!!) blogs and empathizing, like E for example has the same knee stuff and katakana? katanka? kanakata? challenges that I do... (We play kanakata every day at the old folk's home!) And of course the rest of you lot have my affection too. ;) :D

Congrats day 90 people, you all look amazing! I am really happy that our new diet has unlimited vegetables for dinner, gasp gasp!! I never thought that I would say this, but I hate my daily cheese and like my veggies. I would have begged Patrick on my knees for cheese at the beginning, but he is tricky, that fellow.

Indulgence:
So, I decided uncreatively on cheesecake. The first few bites were amazing, and then slowly lost their power to delight. Oh, but how bravely I soldiered on. The cheesecake felt cold in my stomach...really weird. I then passed out in what can only be described as a cheesecake coma for three hours. That night when I slept I had nightmares and woke up to the sound of dream-screams.

Oh, and also my perturbed equine visage is enpustulated in wens this week. Aka my cranky horse face is covered in zits, just like Patrick said it might be AHHH! Wooo...just breathe and release the toxins I guess. I posted new pictures!

Sad dog face (Day 25)

Maybe our indulgence will get rid of the frequent PCP nightmares I've been having where I'm driving around in a pizza delivery truck. I have other dreams where I am eating a non-PCP approved food and wake myself up in a panic; "no, noooo, chocolate raisins aren't approved..." I'm deliberating my indulgence Mr. Burns style. Cheesecake? Excellllent. I like that we have to eat our indulgence before sunset. It's like, "they ate their cake after the night fell. Thus began the rise of the CHEESECAKE VAMPIRES."

Am still cursing my knee. It doesn't hurt too much, just makes odd creaking crunchy noises as I squat. Oh god, will it explode when I floorjump? Oh, and my poor little sister came home from a trip pestilent with something, just waiting to attack my system. Will I get the pestilence? WILL I?!??










Nah, totes kidding. I think that it's runner's knee, judging by E's pictures (thanks for that site, E). Or the Hanta virus, judging by WebMD. Ha, my mom told me to nut up, so nut up I shall.

World's worst Hooker

RAAAH! HULK SMASH HULK SMASH! I've been a little frustrated today and yesterday because my right knee is hurting and a little stiff and my right foot and ankle are all stiff from meditating. It isn't that bad, but I'm kind of angry at myself for running. I stretched a lot, but try telling that to my reproachful eyes. I thought of E to give me courage and am going to buy a knee brace and keep RICE-ing it.

I once joined a rugby team because my friends invited me and I had it confused with lacrosse. Imagine my surprise when there were no sticks. I was absolutely terrified of getting hit, and I literally bounced off the front of girls whenever I tried to tackle. I carried fake Halloween blood in my pocket the one game they wanted to put me in (they didn't), just in case I was getting hit too much. I wondered why blood was dripping from my pocket the next day in English class. Did I mention that I didn't believe in underage drinking? Apparently rugby people enjoy alcohol. At every afterparty I would carry my glass of water and sit in a corner.

My coach never explained the basics of the game to me, so whenever I went on the field the other players would just yell until I got in the right spot. I kept waiting for someone to take me aside and explain the rules better than "today we're going to run an Elephant Fire Truck Fleaflicker to the left, GO!", but somehow it never happened. I was busy working and going to school, and wikipedia was no help. The season ended with a drunken speech from my coach about how I was "the backbone of the team, and you'll take us all to Disneyland." I was the world's worst Hooker, but I stubbornly finished out that damned season with my cups of water. Rugby was good exercise.

p.s. Patrick, there is a playground, but no bars for incline pullups.

Strictly bizness (day 21)

Today I decided to forgo the jumpropes... (AND SIT ON MY COUCH AND EAT CAKE, A GIANT WHITE CAKE WITH RASPBERRY FILLING!!! TOOTHBRUSH!)Instead, I jogged 7.78 miles (12.52 kilometers...gentle sighs from Canadians and the rest of the world). I am impressed with E's knee perserverence and triumphs, Amy's running, Mike's crazy bicycle feats, and Anshu's muscle gain.

Things I have been having trouble with lately include: Eating too much cottage cheese (I'm a fiend I tell ya), not being able to do a pullup or incline pullup (crappy table, slippery hands, not enough strength), bending my arms during Da Vinci's/shoulder exercises, and not eating enough cheese. TOOTHBRUSH, TOOTHRUSH!!!

I put up new pictures. Go, see my crabby face! Today I found that if I squidge my fat rolls together it looks like the smiling face of a Bulbasaur. Hi to Sidney and Fred!

Buddhist Magic (day 18)

I like brussel sprouts now. Patrick, what have you done to me?!?!? Well, I have you beat! You can't use your Buddhist magic powers on me anymore:


I am so so tricky.

Oh god, I take it back! AHHHHHH!




Just joshin'. This sprout's for you!

Suck-cess (day 16)

*A "gassho" is a Buddhist bow. Or something. Look, I added new pictures of myself.

Afterthought: After receiving Patrick's undeserved praise, I realized this comic looks like I'm actually bragging about losing 3 pounds. I don't know what the eff my weight is. I think I gained four pounds, and maybe lost two. The scale is a tricky mistress.

Don't eff with Patrick... (day 14)

A day in the life, Part I (day 12)

A day in the life of PCP:

Drag my soggy ass to the grocery store.




The hunter becomes the hunted.



Push-up bar disco? Yes please.

































Friends until death...


































Nothing but muscle

















































Cottage cheese is a condiment.
















A black belt in tongue-fu
















For Mike:

Learnin' Stuff (Day 11)

I’m heading to the library tomorrow for some good readin’ so here is day 11’s post in advance. I still welcome book recommendations. Here is some stuff I learned this week:

1.) Buying healthy foods isn’t that expensive. I thought it would be because I was looking at fancy products, but you can buy vegetables, low fat milk, and meats in bulk. And they’re far, far less deleterious to your health than pizza or 6 cheeseburgers. Ouch.

2.) I have muscles somewhere under my skin. Some of them live in my shoulders and arms, some of them live in my stomach, and some of them live in my legs. I would like to nurture them.

3.) Cooking isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. The trick will be learning how to spice things. I cooked 4 things I’ve never cooked before. I am in danger of overdoing it on olive oil and cottage cheese. Tasty, simple recipes are joyfully accepted. Unless they include shallots. I don’t trust shallots.

4.) I enjoy jumproping a lot, especially to cheesy things like “Give it to you” by Sean Paul and Girl Talk stuff.

5.) I am near a playground with a pull-up bar

6.) You need a special door anchor for your resistance band for certain exercises. Just shutting the door on it won’t work, nor will hanging it on a coat rack hook and pulling. The latter will result in two painful welts on your back until you learn better.

7.) No good thing comes out of using a metal table for incline pullups when your hands are slick with sweat.

8.) Being a beginner at stuff gets under my skin sometimes. Especially when I grab onto a table to help my creaky legs get into lotus and then end up rolling off the zafu like a Weeble. It's like...Buddha...dammit! Consarnit!

9.) According to Michael Pollan, food scientists tend to isolate a particular nutrient/element of a food and tout its helpfulness. This ignores the complex interaction between that element, the rest of the elements, and the human body. We can be pretty sure that vegetables are good for us, though.

Also, I learned that whole grain is not the same as whole wheat. Whole wheat is more refined, and thus contains less nutrients than the whole grain. Multi-grain is pulling similar malarkey. Sneaky bastards.

10.) Low-fat cheese isn’t real cheese. No matter how many times I put my lips to it trying to suck a bit of delicious cheese essence from its pores, it will never become real cheese. Won’t stop me from trying, though.

Finally, RIP PC RIM. Good luck sitemates!

Burn by my MOM (day 10)

Jessica: Mom, feel my stomach! It's a baby muscle!
Mom: Good job, honey.
Jessica: What should I name it?
Mom: Preemie.



I think these folks love jumproping as much as I do.

Shenanigans (day 9)

It occurred to me that I haven’t much thought of my inspiration, runner Kara Goucher. And what good’s an inspiration if you don’t use it?


Jessica: Patrick wants us to get really really fat and DIE.
Kara: Hello, sport! Why no, he doesn’t want you to die, he’s just helping your body to retrain—
Jessica: Really really really fat and die--
Magical pink unicorn: Jessica, you’re a gooood person.
Kara: So, I see you’ve been doing your exercises and cooking more than you ever have in your whole life. Congratulations, champ! When you reach day 58 I’ll appear to you in a dream and show you your spirit vegetable.
Magical pink unicorn: I LOVE you!
Jessica: die, diiiiiiiie…
Magical pink unicorn: Together we will sing the praises of yam fries for ever and ever.

Day ate

Curse you gram scale. It told me to eat like, 9 pieces of bread today.

Breakfast:
Tons of peppers and tomatoes with little egglets mixed in. FAIL
A giant breadwich, like a massive ball of bread FAIL
Milk SUCCESS

A plum. SUCCESS

Lunch:
Garlic salmon FAISESS
Much more bread. One bread slice is only a few grams! FAIL
Yam french fries. So many yam fries. SUCCESS
My tears from eating too much bread SUCCESS

Yam french fries:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5108006_cook-yams-healthily.html

To be continued...
HAN SOLO HO HO HO!


(And also I am just being dramatic. If it takes 9 pieces, or 500 to get me in Peak Condition, I'm there.)

Oh snap! crackle pop (day 7)

Your cereal is talking to you. It's saying that you too can enjoy the prehistoric hijinks of Fred and his dinosaur pals. It knows that you like bright colors and sugar. Your cheeseburger is talking to your body too, in a perfected language of fat and grease.

Some foods are more agressive then others.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/choccy/

I didn't realize how addicted I was to some foods until I stepped out of my culture into one where they weren't available. Nearly every day in my last year of college I drank:
1 grande cafe mocha + 2 shots of espresso
1 Redbull
1 tall Monster drink
1 Vanilla Coke
1 coffee
2 shots espresso

I would sit in my yoga class, jittery and miserable, and wondering why yoga wasn't making me calmer. I didn't fully feel the negative effects of these drinks until I went to a faraway place where the only caffeine was Nescafe, and I hated Nescafe. After the final caffeine fumes wore off, I wondered what the hell I'd been doing. Was I some secret superhero that I needed all that extra energy? My body was so happy to be free of the constant adrenaline rush. Since I've returned to the US I've only had a few coffees and I've always felt like shit afterwards.

Which leads me to foods. The entire time I was away, all I did at night was think about foods, and for the first few months, talk about them. I had a little picture of cheesy bread sticks that I carried around like it was a lost cat poster. Every chance I got to cook I poured salt and grease over the sauces I made. In short, I'm a little afraid that I won't be able to break free easily of these lifelong addictions that even a prolonged stint of seperation couldn't accomplish. I'm also curious to see if my body will say, "finally! What took you so long, ya dingus?"

So for today I bought green beans, plums, brussel sprouts, carrots, and blueberries and I'm going to listen to what they have to say. Cuz I think I trust Patrick more than a sneaky burger.

P.S. I added some new pictures :)

Tu va bien (Day 6)

I took some end of first week pictures. In one of them I look cross-eyed and like I’m about ready to snorfle a chocolate cake and I have this little ledge of fat hanging out over my belly button like it’s trying to shelter the young bellybutton from harm, but it’s all good. I unclogged a particularly tricky toilet today. It was like the divine spirit of the PCP was flowing through my arm pecs.

Today it gave me great joy to jumprope along to Mariam and Amadou’s “Senegal Fast Food” so I will share it with you in preparation for tomorrow’s 500.


Workouts have been going ok. I am still bad at pushups, enjoy the jumpropes, and am indifferent to crunches and leglifts. I brought happiness to my sister’s friend by sharing half a cheese sandwich yesterday. I’m really nervous about cooking and also about eating vegetables (we hates them, precious). But if I had gentle Russian voices urging me to eat one more spoonful, I might:



Notice his increasing whimpers and how he bangs his helpless baby fist on the table in horror. He can't talk, but he's trying to communicate: "no, dear God, not the vegetables!"

Finally, does anyone here enjoy literature? Have any books to recommend me? That is probably one of the first things I would ask you if I met you. My favorite is Nabokov.

I can't help it, it's my major (Day 4&5)

Transparent Things




I think that one of the main unspoken themes at PCP is awareness. Awareness of our body and awareness of our food, and making hidden things, like muscles and food culture, visible. Zazen has a lot to do with awareness too. I think awareness is a difficult thing, and that its opposite is vices, like smoking or drinking three beers. I’ve always wanted to ask a Zenner what’s so great about awareness of the present moment. In my limited opinion it definitely feels more pleasant to escape in a vice than to be present with sadness and a headache. I do believe that awareness is important, though, probably one of the most important things we can do for each other as human beings.

This spring I was feeling dried out and looking for some beauty and coincidentally found myself in Paris. It didn’t take long to find the two things I was looking for: a good sausage and butterflies. I found the butterflies in Deyrolles, a naturalist’s shop with a stuffed giraffe and tables and tables of butterflies. Beside them, a once-living snake was reconstituted into a tiny ivory staircase under a glass dome, and I said, “ah, so that’s what a snake looks like inside.” It reminded me of the plastic eggs vending machines dispense. I was always disappointed by those eggs. My imagination filled them with far better things than the crappy plastic toy they held.

I always wanted to create my own version. It would be a 25 cent haiku for adults. I would make them out of glass and fill them with the replica of a mouse’s heart, a button mushroom, a bee’s wing, three cherry blossoms, or a scoop of river mud. Once, I bought a plastic one and cracked it in half. I took out the plastic toy and pasted a desert scene around the edges, and filled it halfway with sand. I added little matchsticks for scrub and a placed a green agate in the middle. It was a start.

One day, I was sitting with my friend listening to some African singers when he grabbed my arm and crowed, “that’s hemiola!” Hemiola* is a musical pattern that is rare in American music but common in renaissance and African rhythms. My friend gave a name and history to something that I thought was random noise. We can do that too. There is a history to cans with their syrups and brines and there is a history to soda, with its early alembics and phosphorus cures. And when I sit in the doctor’s office feeling the way that early sailors felt about the dark continents of my body, there is a history and a name for them too. It’s important to see inside of things. Maybe it will be difficult and we will give up, or maybe we will stand in awe of things made transparent.

PCP Proper:
Completed my workouts and my meditations. Still not much luck with my push-ups, but can feel my pecs (all of them). During meditating I had “Life Sucks” by No Cash (which is actually a pretty funny song) stuck in my head the whole time. It’s like a freakin’ radio station in my head. I also boiled my first piece of chicken, and when I was yelling at my salad cookbook (“fennel! I’m not touching a fennel, you perverts!”) 20$ fluttered from the pages. Exactly the cost of a wet-suit rental I’ve been coveting. Boogieboard, here I come!

*For an example of hemiola, listen to the song “Benja: Ma Mere Leila.” Try clapping along.

Thanks for reading and major respect to PCPers, especially those with jobs and families! I give you not one, but two movies:

Day 3

PCP stuff:

The workout today was soooo great! It was like angels were kissing my biceps. Just kidding. By the end I was giving little pizza flavored burps of distress and gasping, "fat is my body's tears. FAT IS MY BODY'S TEAAAARS."* Then I ran to to mirror and squidged my stomach together to make abs. Patrick, are my pecs everywhere? Cuz that's where it hurts.

Patrick, help us to be more like Tarzan:

*According to one web-based dietician

Other stuff:

Fun: 2 points. I went to the beach and played with some sea anemones. I was like, "I'm pokin' you with....my FINGER! I'm pokin' you with...my FINGER." And they were like "we're injecting our sea anemone poison into your brain!" I also practiced the moonwalk in my attic in my socks. Meditating was o.k. but I had to wiggle around a lot to get in the right position. I would definitely get dirty looks in a zendo. Patrick, please help us to be more like Tarzan:

Uh...burritos?

Patrick, I only did fifty "Shouts" today because my eyes were bleeding too badly. I'm really, really sorry. Patrick has me on a special program where I shout "I'M A FAT PORPOISE! I'M A FAT PORPOISE" with every push-up and then I have to rub my eyeballs with a toothbrush if I think about cake. (Totally kidding).

Nah, this morning I zombie shuffled sideways downstairs and did my exercises. It's surprising how sweaty I get with so little exercise. Still couldn't do the pushups, even on my knees. I did this little fledgling flop forward on my face when I tried to dip down. My toe is all red and purple and ready to molt the toenail from jogging, so I'm going to take a break from that for a while and ice it a lot so jumpropes don't mess it up more.

Tomorrow I'm going to take my sweet new ride:
http://www.payless.com/store/product/detail.jsp?skuId=070849110&productId=56857&subCatId=&catId=cat10376&lotId=070849&category=&catdisplayName=Brands++
and buy a scale, since our bathroom one is broken. I was like wow, I lost a lot of weight since yesterday. Then I thought, "wait a minute, 6 pounds in one day!?"

Meditated yesterday to the sounds of "come MR. Tallyman TALLY me BANANA" in my head. Totally failed on the fun front. I looked up "fun stuff to do for free" online. Yeah, one, Monopoly is not fun, and two, I'd need real, not Monopoly money to buy it. Some people would say, "get a job ya damn hippie, that's fun." Crimeny, I'm tryin'! If you want to have fun, I suggest reading "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell. It is a very fun book.

Oh, the other day I won 10 bucks on a scratch-it when I was buying PCP stuff. What should I spend it on?

I'M YOUR POPTART (Day 1)

"You did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better."-Maya Angelou

Why do we want our food to hurt us?

I was thinking about this as I was drinking strawberry kefir, which is pink, effervescent, and friendly, the food equivalent of swallowing a bag of kawaii charms. It contains probiotic organisms, which I imagine swimming helpfully in some intestinal grotto filled with singing clams and sea grapes festooned from the ceiling. Definitely a food "for to make you feel pleasant and cozy" as my old roomate would say.

On the other hand, I've been seeing a lot of commercials promising flavor "explosions" or to "pack a punch." One commercial asks a burger customer, "do you want it to hurt now, or later?" We want our food to do tricks. I can't watch a full SpongeBob episode without seeing a food commercial with some kid's head swelling up or performing some action that would normally result in a trip to the ER. Like in the recent commercial where a kid takes a bite and two flavor ninjas kick him in the face. It's like, you little bitch, I'M YOUR POPTART.

I was learning how to boil eggs yesterday. Did you know that the French have a name for each level of boiledness? Like, "sun lying in the shell of the white valley" or something. I think food is tricky enough without ninjas.

But dude, if gum did this, I would totally buy it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmyKFDL5Uto&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fuser%2FExperience5Gum&feature=player_profilepage

PCP Stuff:

I 'finished' my exercises and can't move my arms or my legs. I physically couldn't finish my sit-ups and fell on my stomach with every pushup, but I do want to puke up my half glass kefir. Progress? My extra goals are to do one fun thing per day and to meditate and make meditating stop killing my right ankle.

My dad called and sounded slightly worried about my new regimen, so I'm going to start referring to Patrick as my 'guru' and signing off phone conversations with "under the sun of Patrick's love." That should reassure him, right?

I made a playlist to get us moving. Your socks will be crying in joy and awe:

1.) "Chicken soup for the f**k you" by Shout out out out out
2.) "Giving up, giving in" by Catch 22
3.) "South of France" by Harlem
4.) "Fever fever" by Melody Club
5.) "Senegal fast food" by Amadou and Mariam
6.) "A-Punk" by Vampire Weekend
7.) "Myke Ptyson" by Starf***er
8.) 51 seconds into "Ode to Joy"

Thanks for reading, good first day dudes!