"Anything that is of value in life only multiplies when it is given." Deepak Chopra
A little longer than I planned. I really like exploring new areas, and now that I’ve moved to Downtown Bellevue, there are plenty of new areas to explore. Today I ran through Clyde Hill and Medina, past Bill Gates house and back along Lake Washington Blvd to Bellevue.
Details about the route here.
I’ve been watching Tim VanOrden’s energetic YouTube videos for a while, but just today ventured over to his website. He’s a Raw Vegan and on a mission to show that that you can achieve world class athletic performance on that kind of a diet, and at an older age.
Tim is 40 years old, setting personal records and beating runners over a decade junior to him.Here’s a taste of his goals for 2008:
I’ve been searching for a top Raw Vegan athlete that managed to improve performance radically after embarking on a Raw Vegan diet. I know of a few Raw Vegans who were top athletes, but they were either super fast before going raw, or stopped racing seriously altogether after cutting out cooked foods.
It looks like his diet is mostly fruits and raw food bars during the day (Lara Bars is a sponsor of his), with a monster salad in the evenings. No supplements either! He’s been doing this since late 2005, after several years as a vegan.
If someone like Tim can achieve significantly improved performance at an age where most would say his career as a top runner is over, then I would have to say there is something to his dietary approach. If this diet can power him to this level, just think about what incorporating more living foods in your diet could do to your energy levels at work or school?
Skip the sandwich, go for the salad.
I’m on my way to the Arnold Sports Festival. It’s one of the largest Bodybuilding and Fitness competitions in the world, with a very large health and fitness expo. For four days I’ll be hanging out with thousands of other health and fitness enthusiasts……looking forward to meeting people, getting motivated and learning some new things!
The past week has been a tease, and I am actually starting to believe that the sky is indeed blue and the sun does actually exist! Winter in Seattle can be an ordeal. It feels like you are hunkered down in a bomb shelter. I remember my first winter here7 years ago; we had 70+ consecutive rainy days.
Today was awesome though. Warm (high of 55 or so) and very sunny. I originally had plans to go snowboarding, but given the weather,…opted to hit the driving range instead. A fair trade I think.
Finished day 1. 780 miles to South Bend, Indiana via Saylorsburg (PA), Cleveland (OH) and Toledo (OH). No sightseeing….just driving.
I fogot how green the rolling hills of PA are in the summer. A start contrast to utter flatness of Ohio and Indiana.
Tommorow we’ll head to Fairfield, Iowa.
At Arsha Vidya Gurukulam in Saylorsburg, PA.
Technicolor green from I80 in Western PA.
Utter flatness of Indiana at 80mph.
Vegan meal in Toledo, Ohio…..Thai to the rescue!
Drove to Saylorsburg (2.5 hrs) to receive blessings from Swamiji and say bye to our parents before starting the drive west. Now we are driving on I80 Through central PA on our way to Toledo, OH. no plans to see maor sights today.
I’ve been following a HIT <high intensity training> training protocol for the past 12 days. The routine, as mentioned on Tim Ferriss’s blog and outlined in The Colorado Experiment, calls for training less frequently, using very slow reps whereby you reach muscular failure in a single set.
Want a sure-fire way to make every day interesting and stress-free?
Empty your cup EVERY DAY.
What does this mean? It means, empty out the expectations and baggage you carry around with you every day, and just experience life assuming that anything can really happen.
I saw it for the second time last weekend at the Cinerama. It’s awesome. Go see it (twice) if you haven’t already! I’m waiting for the IMAX version to come out in my neck of the woods.
I just Netflixed season 1 of HBO’s The Wire. AMAZING.
It depicts the life of street-level heroin delers in the ghettos of Baltimore, and the challenge they pose to the corrupt, yet persistent police.
I’m a firm believer that most of the PROBLEMS we think we have, are nothing special. Most of us have NO PROBLEMS. Watching this series you learn about people who have REAL PROBLEMS.
No positive family or social structure. No money (for everyone but the top-level dealers). Major physical and psychological addictions. Graphic violence. Little concept of what opportunities could exist outside the ghetto.
Constant FEAR. Constant TERROR.
REAL PROBLEMS.
Absolutely NO MONEY. People trying to KILL YOU.
REAL PROBLEMS.
Makes my own “problems” seem petty. Stress about my next presentation. Stress about how my next performance review will go down. Stress about how customers will react to my next “pitch.”
NOT REAL PROBLEMS.
These are not problems. These are choices I made. These are chances to learn and grow. My life doesn’t hang in the balance. Boy am I blessed.
Alex has a nice post about John Chow.
I just ran across his site last week, and his header self-proclaiming “dot com mogul” definitely got my attention. I must have spent 10 minutes (an eternity in Internet time) trying to figure out what the story was about this guy. Was he a billionaire (my definition of mogul). Was he a multi-millionaire? Was he an early Google employee?
To be honest, I still DON’T KNOW.
All I know if he has a website writing tech reviews. Does that qualify you as a mogul?
I have no clue if he is a mogul or not, but am now intrigued enough to be a subscriber and reader of his blog (his posts are interesting). Marketing gimmick or not…he got me hooked! Nice tagline.
Stopped by Whole Foods for dinner and some shopping. What an extravaganza. Their salad bar is an 8th wonder of the world.
TODAY WAS SANDWICH DAY. Build your own and freshly grilled. I was beside myself. Fresh bread, and anything else I wanted! It was Christmas in February.
I started naming off some ingredients to the “sandwich wizard” behind the counter. Before I got halfway through my list, she cried out “oh my god…..I just had the same thing for lunch!”
This was no small coincidence given that the first three ingredients were Ciabatta bread, Vegan Field Roast Cutlets (I mean…how many people actually order that?) and avocado. I figured I’d let it ride…..I’d have whatever she had. Turns out she had lettuce, mustard, grilled peppers and onions on hers. I did the same.
Seeing the thing on the grill…..I started to get nervous.
THIS WAS A REALLY BAD MOVE.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY eat a sandwich with grilled peppers and onions. Everything slid all over the place. I tried putting the peppers on the Field-Roast side of the bread, no luck. I tried the lettuce side….even worse. I tried burying it into the bread…..hopeless.
Every bite and the damn sandwich would disembowel itself.
I adopted a strategy of eating the thing in a circular fashion….taking bites at 90 degree angles to one another. This at least kept the cutlet fairly well contained. It is all just took far too much work.
I eventually ABANDONED the grilled onions and peppers. They made a nice topping for my salad.
If you have ideas on proper strategy for eating a grilled onion and pepper sandwich, I would LOVE TO HEAR THEM. Meanwhile, I’ll be sticking to less exotic toppings.
What do you think?
I love walking around downtown Seattle on a weekeday evening. Even at 9pm, the heart of the city seems asleep. It’s like your own private playground. Fresh air blowing in off The Sound. No traffic. Hardly any noise. Coffee shops on every corner in case you get thirsty. I love this city!
It took me 4 hours to get home today from work. It took me almost two hours to get to work (taking the bus). I live <15 miles from the office. This just isn’t right!
