Here’s a quick run-down on how some of my life-change experiments are coming along. I’ve talked about most of these on the blog.
Raw Food Diet: I went raw for a while last year to see how my body would react. I am by no means a raw foodist now, but experienced enough profound benefits to see that there is something to it. The experience changed my diet forever. I would say my diet is now consistently 30% raw, and some days I go mostly raw just for the heck of it. The biggest lasting changes are 1) I eat a lot more fruit now, especially tropical fruits 2) I eat a lot more greens, especially wheatgrass and 3) I snack on raw nuts quite a bit.
Vegan Diet: I am sticking with my commitment to go Vegan. I went Vegan over 5 years ago, and after 2 years, switched back to eating some dairy and eggs. I recently decided to weane myself off the little bit of lacto and ovo that I was getting. I am not militant about it (like I was before) which takes the pressure off. I feel great and it is the right thing to do for the environment and my health. So I am sticking with it!
Weight Gain Goals: I have been on a mission for the past year to gain weight. Looking back over my logs, I actually have made negative progress! I started last spring in the low 150’s, and eventually got up to 155 or so during the summer. During this time my bodyfat also dropped quite a bit. Net gain was +10lbs of lean mass.
However, I eventually developed some issues with my neck/back that made me tone down my lifting. While I still trained consistently, I couldn’t lift heavy weights. I also got lax with my nutrition (i.e. not keeping my calories up!). Then, I took December off to travel and didn’t do any heavy resistance training. When I came back from India my weight was down to 148! While my strength was still decent, I wasn’t happy with the weight loss. I am now restarting my weight gain plan, with the goal to get to 165 by April Fools Day (4/1/07).
Photoreading: I starting the technique with a goal to read 30 books in 30 days. In retrospect, this goal was unattainable from the get-go, given that I knew I would be gone travelling without access to lots of books during a large part of the month. That said, I photoread a dozen books during the couple weeks before heading off to India. My experience was enough to convince me that the technique does work (at least to some degree). I am by no means proficient at it, but am very hopeful. I am going to restart my daily photoreading practice soon.
Nose Breathing: This is perhaps the most powerful and life-changing technique I have learned in the past several years. It is so simple yet so profound. I have consistently focused on nasal breathing throughout my entire day, including DURING EXERCISE. I am still not able to run as fast as when I mouth-breath, but am making steady progress.
Meditation: I am still keeping up with my meditation routine. I have modified it slightly, to include a bit more pranayama (yogic breathing) in addition to the meditation, but it is still a regular part of my morning routine.
Getting Up Early: For the past two weeks, I have gotten up between 4-5am every day including weekends….except for this morning! This morning I got up at 8:15am….why? Because I went to bed at 5am last night. I can thank Kapil, Paul and Lee for that. At any rate….I am now officially becoming a morning person, and amazing myself with how much I can actually get done before dawn; even with a fair amount of foot dragging and procrastination.
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Strong guy. Very helpful. Thank you.