Ok… So 90 came and went.

So you may or probably may not be asking yourself, why hasn’t Jeremiah posted his last post.  There are two reasons:

1. As always I am on the road.
2. I couldn’t find my camera.

So I am going to tell you my story and add shot from someone else because I have that.

Don’t ask me who this is in the picture. I was conferencing last week. I threw some parties and there where lots of people there.  I also take a lot of daily booth photos with the webcam and you can see the slim new me daily.

So lets get real

What did I achieve:

• I lost 15 lbs.  
• I am now a size 33 jeans down from 36
• I am a size 16.5 dress shirt down from 17.5 
• I had to get my glasses tightened.

Overall I am so happy, but there is another side too..

• I wasn’t very good at the social component.
• I traveled a lot more than usual during the PCP.
• I still have not found equilibrium in sleep
• I miss beer like I miss my mom.
• My stomach still needs work.
• I suck at pull ups.

I’m there… I am not there

I have arrived at the end of this a much healthier person, but if you have read my posts you know that I wasn’t out of shape.  I am just not in my goal shape.  That also said if you have been reading my posts you know that I am working on a lifestyle of fitness.  I want to live a simple balanced life.  You see the dirty secret is that I nearly had a mental and physical breakdown in February of this year.

I was under so much stress.  Microsoft had take the last shred of energy I had and beaten it out of me.  I don’t blame anyone, other than myself. I had made choices in my career that put me in a bad job and I worked 16 hour days trying to prove to my manager I was good enough.   So in March at the advice of a friend and my doctor, who both told me I was killing myself,  I quit.  

Yep, I quit a 100k plus job in the worst economy in 50 years. Because unlike most people I do know that it isn’t what I do that gives me value.  My faith, My Family, My health; they all mean more to me than a paycheck. The PCP came at a time when I have been redefining what it means to be me.

I still work hard.  Very Hard.  I also push myself in ways that many people probably don’t.  (I prefer big failures to mediocre successes)  but along with PCP I am working on refocusing all of my life.

What is to be gained?

I have never been accused of humility. I am a ceaseless self-promoter and amassed some relationship and political capital that I have spoiled on businesses and endeavors I have not believed in.  But that is changing. I found work almost right away after leaving MS, but I make time now to meet with my out of work friends and counsel them.   I workout daily to improve my health and as much as I miss the sweets that once were a part of my life they have been exchanged for seasonal fruits and vegetables.

 

I have recommitted myself to my faith and to my family; which has only added to my travels.  See as funny as the picture is above, (this was taken as a part of a friends art project.)  I want to be known for so much more than this.

I have very much enjoyed seeing your posts show up in my Google reader.  Reading them from 30,000 feet encouraged me to jump rope when I landed.   Patrick’s mails have been an inspiration to me and I look forward to re-reading them. The truth is that I don’t know any of you but I was sure pushed by you guys. 

On to the next thing.

So what is next?  I asked patrick last week, Can I start over? I want to do it again from the beginning.  And the truth is I am going to follow the diet week by week again, but I have decide that I was jealous of the personal attention some of you were able to get from Patrick.  So I pinged an acquaintance who writes the Sweat and the City blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a studio she is a trainer at in Redmond.

So starting tomorrow, I will be getting some weekly one on one attention at ZenRock fitness in Redmond. Jennifer and I have met and I talked about the PCP and where I struggled and she promises to have me doing pull-ups in no time.   They focus on functional training and yoga.  I loved the studio as there is almost no equipment there.  I will be focused on using my bodyweight to keep moving forward.  (Funny where have I read about using my bodyweight.)  I am also glad they have such a quiet place where I can practice my Yoga in a 1-1 setting for a while.

Patrick’s email about checking out fitness centers really resonated with me because I am in and out of the places all over the country when I travel.  Most of the places are sad attempts to capitalize on people not achieving their goals but guilting them into another month.

The outcome

I highly recommend the PCP to anyone, I am really hoping to see Patrick when and if he makes it here to Seattle.  We can do a workout at ZenRock.  There is a pair of Ultimate Ears in it for you.  Has the PCP turned my life around from the nearly broken person I was when I left Microsoft. Nope. It has been just a part of the turn around. I couldn’t have done it all though with out the help of Patrick and your inspiration.

Disturbing food trends

An interesting exercise.

So I was stuck in SFO for a few hours and I wanted to get some exercise.  I took advantage of the few hours and began walking the mile length of the terminal.  I made 10 laps and then ate lunch.  I did ten more laps after that. It was simple, but it just goes to show you don’t need a lot of equipment.  I was carrying a laptop bag which helped with resistance.

Never stop moving.

Jeremiah

Time magazine is full of poop.

There is a some truth in this article, but it left me frustrated.  There are too many fat people who will say hey damned if I do, Damned if I don’t.

Instead of this little story how ‘bout a positive article on the benefits of exercise and diet.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857,00.html

What would life be like.

So I am in the middle of my return flight back to Seattle, and I have been tearing through the book “In defense of food,” by the author of the article that Patrick sent us when we first got started.  So here we are in the middle of our last 30 days and I am thinking about all the things that we have learned and while reflecting on the content of this book I realize that I have had some very concrete examples in my life of the power of food over the nutritionism that has dominated our public heath thinking for the last generation.  

So I decided I would jot them down real quick in a post.  (WOOT! In-flight WiFi. Bitches.)  I grew up in rural North Dakota and my Grand parents were the first generation children of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants.  These immigrants ate a mixed diet of grains and fish prior to moving to the US.  Based on where they live and the traditional foods that I grew up eating on special occasions meat was prized but not abundant.  Potatoes, beets, and rice were the primary food source.  Needless to say they loved meat, creating some very unique preservative methods for fish.  Check out Lutefisk or Pickled herring.

Growing up with my parents managing a restaurant I actually spent a lot of my days as a kid at my grandparents house. Now I am particularly blessed because at 30 years old my grandparents are still alive and as healthy as a pair of 80 year olds can expect to be. But their lives, although not without health problems, have not  been unusually long for immigrant families in my home town. (Our town once boasted 15 Centenarians of Scandinavian descent.)  

I would attribute much of their health and long lives to a couple of factors.

• Activity
• Religious discipline
• Quantity and quality of meals

I am going to discuss each of these in a little detail.

Activity

My grandpa retired in 1994 from the home construction and moving business. Instead of fishing and relaxing he continued to remodel homes, drive van at the local old folks home and began creating an incredible wood working shop in his basement.  He always gets up at the same time and goes to bed at the same time.

My grandmother and him walked places in the summer and have always been a fan of local auctions in the summer.  This is not exercise in the traditional sense, but in a world were most people are sedentary the one activity that was rare was TV. The most notable exception was the evening news and wheel of fortune.

Religious Discipline

It is not my place to tell people how to believe, but it seems with faith traditions there is a discipline for those that truly practice that I believe must have a positive outcome.  My grandparents are the kind of Christians that are rare. They are certainly not loud about their convictions, but the live the practice they believe in. Every morning begins with prayer and before the go to bed they would read the scriptures and pray for each and every member of our very large family.

I think this played an important role by keeping them focused on things that matter (Family, Self improvement, Relationships, maybe other things.)  My generation is so focused on self, ego, and stuff that we don’t enjoy life or each other. 

Quantity and Quality of Food

Growing up, I have participated in every kind of meal at my grandparents house.  I want to describe a couple of things I remember from their meals.

1. My grandparents ate 6 times a day.  Breakfast, Coffee break, lunch, coffee break, Dinner, Coffee.
2. My grandparents ate small portions of meat. (Meat is expensive and they were frugal).
3. Food was often combined into stews or “hot dishes”
4. Vegetables were plentiful and required.
5. Vegetables were almost never the same. 
6. Bread was important to every meal. What else would you dip in your stew.
7. Composting was a regular activity when it was just dumping the leftovers in that bin with the leaves and grass clippings.
8. Growing food is for fun, profit, oh and eating.
9. Rhubarb is poisonous, unless baked in a pie
10. Did I mention Lutefisk?
11. All meals took at least an hour, this includes coffee breaks.
12. All meals meant having discussion like: What are you working on? What do you think of the heat? What do you think of the Cold?  Did you hear who died?
13. Coffee breaks included … Coffee, lots of mixed nuts. I remember copious amounts of mixed nuts.
14. We were never in a hurry.
15. I was always in too much of a hurry.

My grandfather once lamented to me that he felt like a failure as a parent as his children did not drink coffee. While he may have been talking about actual coffee, I have always taken this to mean that he was sad they didn’t stop and drink coffee with them; or something like that.  I don’t know.  But I have decide the key to health and long life is lots of coffee, long meals and food (real food). 

I highly recommend reading this book, because when I think about the way I want my life to be I want it took look a lot more like my grandparents where the thought of nutrients vs. eating foods that were enjoyable and practical almost always landed on the side of the food.

When my project ends what will my life be like?

Jeremiah

This is why I PCP…

Because I could eat lots of these:

http://www.geekologie.com/2009/07/pie_suckers_i_could_probably_e.php

Sugar… Ugh.

So I haven’t had an indulgence or even thought about cheating in weeks.  Last night I was tempted to some twizzlers.  I failed I ate about 8 of them (a single serving).  I woke up this morning and thought I was going to vomit.  I just felt all gross.   Sugar made me feel gross. 

just saying

FOR FUN: Another picture of my niece with thin Jeremiah…

I was not as exhausted as the new mother, but I had only 3 hrs of sleep the night before.

Jeremiah