the last post...again

You da man! No YOU da  man!




Let's end by going back to the beginning. I originally wrote out my KFB goals thusly.
So let's check them one-by-one:
I wanna look good nekkid.
Nothing further needs sayin'.

I want my six pack back.
Back. With a vengance, and some serious core muscles underneath it.

Wanna knock out 10 pull-ups straight.
Done and doable. Wide spread lat grip, tight reverse grip chin-up style, whatever.
Not easy, but so far east of impossible as to be considered routine.

10 hand-stand pushups.
Against the wall, sorted. And as a bonus, I can easily pop into a headstand and chill there for tens of seconds until all the blood pooling in my head makes me wanna pass out.

I want my splits back.
Welcome home. And please say hello to your new friend, the deep wide-angle forward bend. Rotational hip agility is mine and I am loving it.

Balance.
In spades. one minute easy in one foot crane, resting buddha, flying crane. Even better, I have less tendency to fall over when walking around on both feet. (Smacking into furniture in the early morning is still an issue, though. But that's more mental cloudiness than anything.)

What I did NOT get on KFB, but still think is a win: skinny. Actually, I ended KFB several kilos heavier than PCP, but my pants still fit great, and I feel much, much stronger thanks to a truly enlightened core and some serious inner-muscle and inner-ear development.

To wit, compare:

End of PCP in June (flexing hard):


End of KFB this weekend (no flexing, just chillin'):


This is also NOT something I could do at the end of PCP:


Also, at the beginning of KFB I could barely jump up and touch the line, now I can easily clear it:


However my ability to enjoy fine chocolate has not dimished at all:


In all seriousness though, I started PCP and then KFB because I wanted to get healthy wellness, and ultimately see some results in my martial arts training. And I certainly have: I am much more stable, centered and focused. I am physically stronger yet tend to use less strength to move; I feel more efficient and effective, I tire, both physically and mentally, less easily, and generally seem to have a more grounded, stable, and relaxed intention in whatever I do.
Which leads me to my final words...

What To (Not) Expect From KFB (aka, It's Not PCP)
* Change comes from within
PCP changed me in massively obvious ways; muscles replaced fat and anyone who saw me noticed the changes, in my face and arms and back. With KFB, the changes are much more subtle; better posture and balance, developed inner core muscles which are not externally visible, more poise, confidence, and efficiency of movement.

* Notice yourself
On PCP, every morning when I woke up and looked in the mirror I was skinnier and had more muscles. On KFB, every morning when I woke up and sat meditating in zazen on my zafu cushion I felt...tired? Bored? It took a while of really, really paying attention to myself to notice the changes, but they were there. And I am guy who has spent the past decade training in an arcane 300 year-old martial art, even to the point of relearning how to WALK. For the Average Person who doesn't really think about themselves that much, noticing how KFB affects you will be tough. So you need to be mindful, which means the meditation part of KFB is NOT optional. A mirror will not reflect the changes adequately, a zafu will.

* What you eat, how you eat it
On PCP, nutrition is key. Patrick says it's 80% diet, 20% exercise. You can easily skip a workout or two on PCP and not affect your overall results much if at all. But if you stray from the diet, it's a slippery slope from which you will struggle to return.
It is the same on KFB, only what's more important is how you eat, not just what you eat. And by how I don't mean 'chopsticks vs. fork', I mean the attitude you bring to your food. Do you eat  breakfast scanning your email on the laptop, with the TV on and the newspaper spread across the kitchen table? Or you do consider the effort you put into steaming your vegetables and scrambling your egg and slicing your fruit? Do you actually notice and enjoy the sweet burst of sugar from every crunchy apple bite, versus the tongue-scalding slimy goodness of shredded cabbage buried inside your over-easy omelet? And can you taste the basil and black pepper? Notice how the flavors hit different parts of the tongue? Does every well-chewed mouthful make you smile? Do you even realize you are full when you are almost done eating? That satisfied but not bloated feeling of well-fed contentment?

A key to success on PCP is focusing on results: do your three months to get it done, to "get in shape" physically and via good wellness habits.
But for KFB, the focus is on the journey; the transformative activities and attitude of DOING it. The results WILL come, but KFB is not to be DONE, it is to DO.
That's not to say PCP is all about mindless exercise and getting ripped, but KFB is much less about measuring the results with the scale and the mirror, and much more about gauging your progress day to day, zitting on a cushion, or in a deep wide-angle forward bend, or walking down the street, or chewing on a tasty fruit snack.
The habits healthfullness I developed on PCP I think prepared me for a life of wellness.
But the self-perception and inner strength (both physically and metaphysically) I learned on KFB have better prepared me for a life of mistakes and imperfection.

Or take massacre an over-used analogy:
PCP taught me how to ride the horse well.
KFB taught me how to get back in the saddle after falling off the horse.

And now, after all this healthfulness, I will take a few year-end weeks off to get fat and lazy. Maybe sometime in spring of next year, I will find myself on my next Patrick-led adventure...6WC...?!

Initial final thoughts

Just finished my final workout with Patrick. The progress I have made with pullups is tangible; knocked out three sets of ten with minimal struggle, completely unimaginable a few months ago. 90 second challenge took me about five attempts before I could get through a full freestyle set on three targets without missing. THAT is all a mental game, especially with Patrick encouraging and giving subtle pressure from the sidelines, timer in hand!
Afterwards we checked progress: vertical jump higher by several centimeters, flexibility way, way up, core solid with abs and torso feeling solid and looking good.
The real test will be tomorrow, when I take my promotion exam. Been gearing up for it all year, and in fact one of the main reasons I started pcp and kfb was to be prepared for this test. Will write more about it tomorrow, but I already know that pass or fail I will never be more prepared than I am now.
Not to say this kfb has been perfect, though. Part of the problem is timing: end of year party season is a tough time to stick with a healthy diet and exercise program. But I can't blame external factors only. The real issue is that I know exactly what slacking on the diet or skipping some exercises will do, so I easily justify to myself that I can make up for today's shortcuts with extra effort tomorrow. Sometimes I got it right, paying it forward allowed me to indulge today without being a finicky party-pooping curmudgeon. But more often than not I couldn't catch up and had to pull myself out of potential death spirals. All in all a good lesson, reinforcing what I learned on pcp and re- establishing my badly lacking humility.

pre-breakfast workouts

Science confirms what we already knew: working out before breakfast is best.

thirsty

Too many damn bonenkai (End of Year Parties)!
Last night was the final office dinner for all the juniors: pizza. My nemesis.
I did well this time: started with a big plate of vegetables, skipped the garlic dough balls entirely, and didn't eat the crust. Still had too many slices, but at least I wasn't puking and dying.
However, I did wake up really, REALLY thirsty. I have been so detoxed from salt since PCP that eating anything like "normally salty" pizza really feels nasty afterwards. My tongue feels like it's kind of inflated and dry, and my throat is scratchy, but drinking lots of water just makes me feel bloated.
Ick.
Anyway I Manned Up this morning, got up at 5am, checked some email, and knocked out the workout from 6am-7am. Jumping rope actually felt great; haven't been jumping but instead running, so it was nice for a change for a change. Rest of the workout was fine: kung-fu push-ups are the new Suck. For the plank, decided to just go nuts and do the whole 3 minutes 20 seconds as one long, painful slog through abdominal and back/shoulder hell. Shadow-boxing felt pretty good, too, though I definitely get into some routines subconsciously that I need to mix up more. Also managed to sit for about 15 minutes before my kids woke up and demanded my presence at the breakfast table.

Have ANOTHER bonenkai tonight, at my boss's house. Will take the family which should help distract me from all the amazing food that will be there!

balance, aka the law of averages

One thing that I figured out on PCP, and am proving again on KFB, is that the stats of my body at any given point in time are utterly irrelevant. As Patrick says, we are biorhythm machines, always cycling through various stages of weight, sleeplessness, stress, etc.
It doesn't matter one big what I happen to weigh at any given point in time; I have seen my weight swing 2 kilos up or down depending on how much I eat, exercise, and poop in a given day.
What is much more interesting is the trend over the week and month. I know this from having two kids: what they happen to eat (or not eat) for a given meal or three is irrelevant. My kids do really dumb things quite often (case in point: son recently enjoys sitting on a regular chair at the dinner table, not his high chair, and regularly falls off the chair, head-first, backwards, whenever he tilts his head back in an attempt to drink from a cup on a table that is far too high up for him) but they are not stupid enough to actually starve themselves. For the week, they eat enough to grow at a healthy clip, and if they are missing sleep for a day or two, some strategic napping the following day evens them out.
I am apparently the same; weekends are generally less strict and more binge re. diet, especially with guests and/or eating out with the family. I adhere to some basic rules; no or minimal carbs at night, eat lots and lots (and lots) of veggies before eating anything else, pack lotsa fruit snacks to nibble on when it's snack time. And obviously come Monday I weigh generally more than I did on Friday, but it's never more than 1-2 kilos, and I can usually knock half of it off just by sweating alot and spending some quality time on the toilet (generally two separate activities, though I have been known to work really hard on the toilet, especially after a particularly roughage and fiber filled meal.)
Interestingly, the six-pack generally looks the same, and my pants still fit like they did at the end of PCP. Yeah, I still have a gut UNDER the six-pack; some nice marbleized collection down in there between the organs that I could certainly stand to lose. But now that is joined by some seriously toned core inner muscles, which I certainly cannot see and I don't think the fancy-schmancy techno-scale knows how to measure, but I can definitely feel, especially when I walk to or from work carrying a 10 kilo backpack (45 minutes one way), or on the weekends schlepping 25 kilos of kid and equipment for hours on end. Daughter much prefers riding on my shoulders these days, and can even fall asleep up there, hands folded under her chin, gripping my bald head like gecko pads as I hold her ankles and wonder about the upper vertebrae damage being done with my neck uncomfortably supporting far too much of her weight.
Which all helps me discover the REAL reason for being healthy: sure, lookin' good nekkid is pretty key, but being able to keep up with my kids is the true accomplishment! (Assuming I ever get there...)

four years old

Is my daughter today. So as she and her little brother take a nap (a rare occurrence that they both go down at once) I knocked out a shortened workout, her ridiculously fancy French Bakery Down The Street Run By An Actual French Guy birthday cake chillin' in the fridge.
The holiday house-guest rush begins today, too; I like having a full house but the logistics get complicated so I think most of my workouts will be done at the gym during/after work for this last week.
Last.
Week.
DAMN.
Exactly 7 days to go.
And THEN I get to eat and sloth my way to spring. ;)

two wrongs don't make a right...

...but three lefts do!
Wrong #1:
Having a reasonably inappropriate dinner until way, way too late, thereby going to bed at 2:30am
Wrong #2:
Being rendered utterly useless at work given less than 4 hours of sleep, having a thoroughly inappropriate beverage to jumpstart the brain and body.

The sugar and caffeine hit is already helping...but I am gonna need another one of these in about six hours. And then: I am going to crash and burn.
Welcome to the death spiral!

Jumpkicks suck

More accurately: I suck at jump kicks. Especially near six minutes of
them, particularly when combo'd with a starting kick.
I guess technically I am jump kicking, because both feet are in fact
off the ground at the same time for a very, very split second.
Then again, is it really a jump if my head stays at the same height
the whole time? Would be cooler if I could claim to be doing that on
purpose. Sadly that is not the case.
In other news, I am still sore. Walking to and from work every day in
the finally seasonally cold (high single / low double digit celcius)
weather is great though. I love walking. And apples. I love apples.
With honey. And cinnamon.

git some!

Did my weekly workout with Patrick: awesomeness. Knocked out the first set of 10 pull-ups easy, the next 10 doable, and the last 10 to utter failure.
Checking the numbers was interesting. Weight is up slightly, muscle is up, fat is down. I weigh several kilos more than I did when I finished PCP back in March, but my abs are more distinct and my waist is about the same. Patrick's theory is that on KFB, first I saw some serious weight-loss and muscle gain because I was in PCP-mode. But then I wasn't really exercising those PCP muscles, instead focusing on the core, inner stuff. So the weight crept back up, but now finally I am really seeing and feeling the results.
Words cannot describe the awesomeness of a solid core. Past couple weeks I have been walking to and from work; 45 minutes each way. Tonight I walked home (munching on a baked sweet potato), after running 3 klicks and doing my KFB workout at the gym.
Actually a couple days ago at the gym at lunch I saw something rare: a guy doing what looked like a reasonable workout. He was alone, no headphones on, moving through his sets unhurriedly yet with determination and efficiency. Resistance band pull-downs, tricep dips, kung-fu sits...he checked the clock between each set, strictly adhering to his alloted breaks, and never once looked at the clock or drank water or talked to anyone. Except me, since I noticed he had a folded up piece of paper with pictures of Patrick.
"PCP?" I asked.
"Yup." he replied. "Day 85."
"One of Fish's guys? Thought so. I'm KFB."
And off he went to finish his abs before heading back to work.
After showering, when I was getting changed I noticed my back. I was most surprised on PCP by how much back definition I got, but now I seem to have more. I guess all those pull-ups and punches are doing something, because my back and shoulders have all kinds of stuff going on. I mean, I ain't knocking PCP at all, but KFB is a whole new level!
Just over a week to go; gotta keep the faith. Daughter's birthday this weekend, but we actually celebrated last weekend, so I won't be too tempted. Work dinner on Wednesday of next week, but I am in charge of the food, so I will order pizza for the posse and a nice plate of veggies for myself. It's good to be in charge.

Hot breakfast

Turkey soup, miso soup with egg, cabbage, meat loaf.

Big breakfast

Miso soup with egg, bagel with bananacinnamush, veggies and tofu.

Harajuku gyoza

Sunday breakfast

Spinach, carrot, onion with egg and chicken burger, bagel with bananacinnamush.

Carrot cake!

You can't tell from the photo, but Miri The Awesome drew my girl's favorite anime character Marin in icing on the cake!

Daughter's birthday lunch

company holiday party: 3 views

Pessimist
I blew it; after all this good progress the past week, I lost my will-power. I overate in general (including fried shrimp!) and even put the literal nail in the coffin by having a piece of roll cake for dessert. All that work up until now, erased in a couple of hours of stupid, short-sighted self-indulgence.

Optimist
Well done! A hotel banquet hall full of tables piled high with amazing food, and I displayed amazing self-control. I stuck to salads (shredded carrots and radish, sliced tomato, minimal or no dressing), vegetables (mainly mushrooms, some mini tomatoes, carrots, and greens), and fresh fruit slices from the dessert buffet. Passed on all carbs, and proteins were mainly seafood. I allowed myself a small piece of roll cake, which wasn't actually very good and turned me off from bothering with other desserts. Even after several plates of food, I stopped well before I felt uncomfortably stuffed.

Realist
I ate some things according to plan, left room for the inevitable break-down of will-power, and averaged out about even. Didn't have much lunch; kids' holiday party at school in the morning and then to work in the afternoon, so calorie-wise the day was probably about right. Did my exercise in the early morning, too.
I was sensible, indulged, I managed well, I had fun, I could have done better, I don't feel guilty, I will be fine.

Rainy morning breakfast

Triple greens with onion, chicken burger, egg, side of apple with bananacinnamush.

What does my core look like?

I suspect it looks a bit like this; various cables of sinew matching and extending the diagonals of the ribs, accentuating the hip bone, connecting deep into the thighs, and flanked by strong wings of trapezoidal muscle.
Patrick taught me the names of all this physiology, but all I know is: I wanna look good nekkid!

Breakfast with daughter

Cucumber, onion, mushrooms with fish and egg, bagel with bananacinnamush.

T-20

Still a bit sore from the 10k run this weekend. Plus yesterday I overdid a back kick or something and tweaked out my lower back. It's basically annoying if I sit at my desk. But I went to work out with Patrick tonight and felt good.
Especially since we didn't have to do any KungFu Pushups today. DAMN but those are humiliatingly painful. The poor chubby-cutie who works at the gym was giving me the Are-You-OK-Old-Man? look again as I wheezed and panted through 3 sets yesterday.
Then as I stretched I watched some dude knock out like 20 pullups in a row. Nice to be all skin and bones skinny, eh.
Anyway some decent progress; fat down, muscle up, core strong, flexibility greatly improved. Next three weeks are going to be a blast!

Many plates lunch

Salad, various veggies and veggies and veggies...

Tuesday breakfast

Spinach and carrots, long onion with egg and satsuma - age, bagel with bananacinnamush.

kung fu masters

I found a couple of awesome inspirational kung-fu master videos on teh internets:

• Super punch
• Combo technique

Update: fixed! Videos should be visible now.

Taiyaki vs taiyaki

Family dinner

Chicken sticks and various veggies.

Sunday breakfast

Spinach and sweet potato with egg, sausages.

Kungfu girl

new 10k record!

Despite the fact that I got home and in bed at 1:30am, and that it was plenty cold when I woke up a short 5 hours later, I had a good run.
Finished the 10k in 53 minutes, beating my previous record of 58 minutes. My running strategy: pace myself against the cutest women immediately in front of me. Luckily, it was easy this time.
We ran two loops around the palace, and just as I was finishing my first loop the winner crossed the finish line: 25 minutes.
He ran 10 kilometers.
In 25 minutes.
That's nearly 20 kph (about 12mph for you metritards). For TEN KILOMETERS.
I don't think I could sprint 100 meters at that speed, let alone maintain it for 10 klicks.

In the afternoon I took the kids to Appi, the local community kids place; basically a giant room with lots of toys, a changing area, etc. Today that had lots of balloons, so I tried Patrick's shadow-box-the-balloon challenge.
The good news I was in a room full of kids, so although I looked like a completely uncoordinated idiot, after a few minutes all the kids were doing it too, and we had balloons flying all over the room.
The hardest part is the waiting. Balloons are SLOW, and waiting for them to float down, to be in range, when all I want to do is flail about, is actually quite difficult. I found the entire exercise illuminating; reminding me just how uncoordinated I am.
Then again I DID run 10 kilos this morning, so gimme a little credit.

I also discovered that I can do deep wide-angle forward bends in my shower, just. If I jam my nekkid ass against the door and stretch out, my right foot reaches the tub and my left foot just barely makes it to the wall. Then I can lean down and let the hot shower pummel my neck and back from above. Stretching whilst wet and warm is most excellent.

Run for the cure breakfast

Spinach omlette, various veggies, bagel with bananacinnamush.

Bento lunch

Greens and scallops, chikuwa and grandma's dried persimmon.

Colored veggies breakfast

Miso soup with egg and big slimy mushrooms, carrot with spinach, namuru and kimchee with grasshopper topping.

grasshoppers, and other non-vegetarian topics

Yes, real grasshoppers. And damn tasty, too. I am all about my alternative proteins.
In Japanese they're called inago, usually prepared tsukudani-style; sweet and delicious and crunchy.
My kids are absolutely mad for tsukudani little shrimps and fishes. Actually, my kids are mad for all kinds of fish. This weekend they both totally nommed on several ayu-no-shioyaki (salt-covered and grilled on a stick; my wife's favorite), and I have become most proficient at pulling off the head and dragging out the entire spinal column with nearly all the bones. The key is to rip off the tail and squish up the meat to loosen it off the bone, then the whole head-and-bones just slides right out.
Daughter loves the skin, so once the bones are out she just starts picking and nibbling.
My son also lacks in subtley and just stuffs his face onto the place, taking big bites out of whatever is near his mouth. This weekend he got lucky and scored a fat komochi; biting into the fish he was rewarded with a mouthful of roe and he was smiling ear-to-ear as he squished the little fish eggs.
Speaking of which, last time I went to sushi with a bunch of tourists from the USA, they seemed to have the biggest issue with ikura. No idea why. I mean, you eat chicken foetus, so what's wrong with unborn fishes?
Then again I also love me some uni, though I am not a big fan of shirako, and no I'm not being pesci-homophobic.
I also don't really groove on mollusks, raw or cooked. Except for hotate. I am an absolute fan of the mighty scallop.

Damn, I am glad I live in an island nation. I will take quality sushi over a nice steak any day!

Leftovers lunch

Sukiyaki veggies, corn soup.

Yummy breakfast

Spinach and sweet potato with egg, side of grasshopper.

'tis the season

I go away for a long weekend, and it all goes to hell!
Seriously though, this is a rough time to stick to any kind of program that requires discipline. By 5pm it's dark, at 5am it's COLD, and various holidays and visiting friends/relatives means huge social pressure to eat, preferable unhealthy and/or sweet and/or in serious quantities.
What can I say besides some corny, canned platitudes? We all do what we gotta do.
I certainly know I have no excuses; I know exactly how eating / not eating various foods will affect me. Likewise for exercise.
Yeah, my discipline slacked this weekend, too; had some awesome sushi by the ocean, killer traditional meals at the resort, grandma's home cookin' with veggies fresh from the backyard. Although I did skip most of the dinner carbs and snacked mostly on all the awesome apples and persimmons...and instead of a couple of the workout routines, I made do with carrying 15 kilos of child around as we checked out the waterfall, picked 60 kilos of apples (!), and explored the aquarium (dolphin shows rock!)
But after all that fun, I dragged my lazy ass outta bed this morning and did too many damn leg swings and smacked around ball-on-a-string and knocked out some pull-ups and kung-fu sits until the pull-up bar calluses on my hands (yes, I have them; hard lines of skin at the base of each finger, on the palm) were cracked and sore.
And then I had way, way too much awesome vegetarian Indian curry for lunch, and skipped all my snacks because it was just work-work-work, and then I did sword at night for two hours with my boy and it was awesome.
And now I have hard-boiled some eggs and sliced a bunch of fruit and ate two small carrots with spicy rayuu sauce.
Tomorrow 5am will be here in...well in about five hours actually. It will be cold, and possibly even overcast, and I have all these OTHER things to do, like dry out the stinky compost pile, boil and prep veggies, fold the laundry, put away the washed dishes, take out the trash, check a bunch of emails and update facebook and contact the Salvation Army about donating all those old clothes and asking the landlord to fix the paper screens in the guest bedroom...and then the kids are up and it's time to feed them breakfast, diaper changes, pajamas off, clothes on, teeth brushed, hair combed, shoes found, toys fought over, to school, to work, work work work...
Then again, I think I like the messiness of life. The busy-ness. The crazy big-city-livin' hustle and bustle. And I especially like taking 10 minutes to sit on the cushion and do some zazen after a gnarly workout.
I like it when my youngest son stands in the doorway starting at me as I stare at the wall. Then he silently comes in, stands right next to me for a moment, sits down on my legs, delicately balances his toy car on my knee, reaches up, and shoves his adorable little finger deep, deep into my nose.
Well, I don't really like the finger-in-the-nose part. But talk about being in the moment. He then invariably poops and I have to change his diaper, or daughter is having a crisis because her favorite blue princess t-shirt isn't clean and she can't find her princess tiara headband and is simply not in the mood for oatmeal until it's been sitting on the table for 20 minutes. At which point she declares that it is too cold to eat, completely missing the snide mockery when I respond "It was plenty warm when I made it!" and simply says to me: "Make it again, warm."

I won't belittle anyones choices in life. Just reminding me/us that it IS all choices we make. Some of the choices suck utterly, but still we get to, we GOT to, choose. "Doing nothing" is a choice, too. Often the biggest one, but also a great excuse to blame fate or God or whom/whatever.
Can choose to fight for every inch; clawing every little success no matter now ugly and hard it is. Can choose to be totally apathetic, not actively DO anything, and just let life slide by. Can choose and combination, any variation or gradation. Actively pursue that which we enjoy, are engaged in, curious about; hobbies, friends, Glee. Ignore and dismiss that which is beyond reasonable influence or scope; taxes, North Korea, Glee.
Finding that balance, that's kung-fu, methinks.

I guess this is MY kung-fu life; alternating between freestyle punch sets and microwaving oatmeal.

Yoga stretches with morning cartoons on the TV.

Working 12 hour days at my desk, then hitting the dojo to swing swords.

Sitting zazen with son's finger in my nose.

Veggie curry

At Nataraj in Ginza.

Spicy breakfast

Carrots and cucumber with chikuwa and onions, egg and spicy rayuu.

Sushi lunch

At nakaminato, ibaraki

Onsen breakfast

Onsen dinner

Cows!

Taking anotherrest stop break after mookun puked.

Saturday Breakfast

Veggies and apple and pear, eggs with greens and mini sausage

Raw dinner

Carrots, cucumber, mini tomato with garlic rayuu.

Fruit party

Apple and strawberry!

Yummy Leftovers

Pasta with spinach, oden, Peets decaf.

two-thirds down, one-third to go

Day 60: done.
I sit here munching on some pear and apple slices dipped in cinnamon, I reflect back on the past two months, and I extrapolate a month into the future.
First of all, I am finally, really, seriously starting to feel the effects of KFB. I find it almost reassuring that the numbers are monstrously misleading.
All the suit pants that I had taken in after PCP still fit just fine.
I have lines on the sides of my stomach, going down into my pelvis, indicative of the serious core muscle build-up happening below the surface.
I ran 10k in 58 minutes and recovered in 10 minutes.
I planked for 3 minutes straight. It hurt like a bitch, but I did it.
I can balance on one foot, body extended in various positions, for over 30 seconds at a time. 1-2 of those seconds I am totally and completely stable; rock-solid steady and perfectly balanced, effortless.
The muscular definition I had at the end of PCP (after pumping my muscles expertly for the final day photos) is still there, joined by some new lines, especially on my legs, arms, and abdomen.
I can deep wide-angle forward bend deeply and widely.
I can punch and kick a ping pong ball on a string hundreds of times in row without missing.

And what does the next month have in store?
First, food:
I think I will use the next 30 days to fine-tune my "normal" eating habits. For example, I really, really don't want to eat carbs at night. The more I think about it, the more it is and has always been a bad idea. I feel too full and my blood-sugar spikes just when I need to wind down and sleep.
Yet every meal I encounter is carb-based, especially in this the-land-of-white-rice Japan. So I am developing strategies: don't order rice with Korean BBQ. Instead get a couple salads and a bunch of sangchu (Korean lettuce) and a pile of kimchee. Have the soup with the lunch set. Buy osozai instead of a bento with a pile of rice in it. Raw fruit is king.

Exercise:
Need to figure out how much running I want to do. It obviously is not conducive to keeping high muscle mass -- no mystery that all long-distance runners are skinny -- then again it is a great way to keep the body-fat percentage down and build cardio strength. As the weather gets colder I prefer running on the treadmill at the gym. Preferably late at night, when it's practically empty. Headphones on, speed set to a constant rate, staring at myself in the window-become-mirror, I can definitely zone out and knock out 30 minutes no problem.
Most likely I will run 3 days a week, keep going to fighting 2-3 days a week, and do a bunch of pull-ups and sit-ups and stretching most mornings. We'll see; whatever catches my fancy, I reckon.

Meditation:
This one is easy. I have already been sitting daily fairly consistently for several years now, and I will continue to do so. I find it much, much easier to sit after a workout. With the body tired out, it's less of a distraction and it's nice to sit down, catch my breath, and find my balance again.
Also I don't feel bad about "only" doing 5-10 minutes; I think a solid 10 minutes of zazen is better than slouching on a cushion for 30 minutes thinking about the crap I have to do at work and what's on TV this weekend.

For now, I got 30 more days of slapping a little white ball on a string, hundreds of leg-lifts a day, and some deep, wide-angle forward bends to get into!

Oden bento

Oden with veggies and corn soup.

Japanese breakfast

Miso soup with egg, oden, raw veggies and miso.

Catered Wednesday

We ordered food for dinner at work. Awe. Some.

Keyboard and bento

Veggies and salmon with mushrooms, carrot, potato, corn soup.

Leftovers breakfast

Bell pepper, mini tomato, small carrot with egg, salmon and mushrooms, bagel with bananacinnamush.

Way too busy this morning lunch

Veggies and Leftovers, corn soup.

Big plate breakfast

Veggies and egg, leftover chicken, bagel with bananacinnamush.

weekend recap

So the wife was out on Saturday, leaving me on single-parent duty. Kids both got flu shots on Friday so weren't feeling great, but a friend from school was having his 4th birthday party, and that needed attending.
Loaded the kids onto the bus and headed down to Shibuya, then walked to the park, getting lost and finally arriving thanks to excellent navigational instructions from my cell phone.
Kids ran about, slid, dug, popped baloons, looked at the fish, fell down, etc. for a couple hours until the required amount of snot was running and it was getting cool as the sun started to dip.
Walked back to the (closer) station and took the train back to Shibuya, then the bus home.
Son passed out in his stroller on the train, daughter started nodding off in my lap on the bus. Managed to get them both home and on request ordered pizza (and pasta, and sausage, and gnocchi, and a spinach salad.)
Son woke up just as the food arrived. Kids ate like they had never seen food before. I had some sausage and spinach salad and no-cheese thin-crust pizza. Yeah more carbs than necessary, but I had walked all damn day, hardly ate, and was bonding with my kids.
Into the shower, pajamas, teeth brushing, and to bed. Son not interested, so back to the couch we go to watch TV. Daughter promptly passes out. Son still not having any of it, crying for mom (aka breast milk). Hold him for about 20 minutes in the dark bedroom until he figures out he ain't gettin' none. Lay him down on the futon, chant Kaigyoge to him about 50 times, and he is snoring. (Works every time. I mean, what's more boring than listening to Buddhist sutra chanting?)
Get daughter off the couch and install her into futon, too.
Retire to kitchen table, surf teh internets until wife comes home. Duly impressed, she rolls a natural 20 and I get double Husband Experience Points, immediately leveling up and earning a +1 Laptop of Sharpness.

Sunday, I get up reasonably early and deep wide forward bend forever whilst checking email. I rented a tango dance studio up the street for two hours, so head over to practice iai for the first time in forever.
This is Totally Awesome.
Whatever core building KFB has done for me, my iai is absofuckinglutely rock solid.
I feel totally light on my feet but am effortlessly thumping heavy on every cut. And due to the low ceiling in the studio, I am in deep stances or on my knees the whole time, feeling stable, solid, centered, and generally ass-kicking. All those goddamn leg swings are totally paying off. Can also feel the strength in my back and shoulders, and on top of that had no tension; I was loose, smooth, and light, yet fast and heavy. It was the best workout I have had in a very long time, and has convinced me KFB is on.
Recently, been in the "middle third" valley -- more than half-way, but not quite near done yet. Sticking to the diet is tough, though I know exactly what's happening, and plowing through the exercises sometimes is a chore. BUT, FTSP! I don't care that I could stand to lose another couple kilos on the gut to rock the chiselled abs. More importantly, my iai is better, my posture is better, I feel strong and agile and generally fit.
Sure, I'd like to LOOK better, too. But for now, given the choice between having the six-pack and eating the extra chocolate with my cinammon and honey apple slices...

Really, really late lunch

Steamed veggies, hanpen with kimchee, bacon and veggie mix, corn soup.
By the time I got around to eating lunch...it was dinner time!

What week is this? Breakfast

Steamed veggies with egg, bagel with bananacinnamush.

Indulgence

Apple with cinnamon, honey, three kinds of chocolate.
Actually, a bit too much chocolate. Probably the caffeine more than the sugar, but got a bit of a headache after eating this. Next time, will limit it to only a couple of pieces, but I will melt them and dribble them all over the apples, just like the honey.
But damn, dark chocolate is GOOD.

Family dinner

My wife is Teh Awesome. I did so well as dad on Saturday, for Sunday dinner she cooked one of my favorites: thinly slice carrots, rencon, gobo, and ground chicken, mixed together and fried.

Yeah, it's fried. But it's So. Good.

Plus chicken and greens on the side. AND cabbage with boiled chicken. AND salmon with mushrooms and potato in white miso sauce.

My wife is an amazing cook. Throw in two seriously bad-ass kids, and it was a proper goddamn awesome Sunday Family Eats.

So yeah, I busted the Mindful Indulgence to 11!

Late breakfast

Veggies and pepper sausage, oatmeal with cinnamon.

the rest of friday

Hit the gym at lunch-time; ran slowly for about 30 minutes then did some pull-ups, and a nice big long deep wide forward bend stretch. I discovered that the stretch area and the two running machines next to it are within reception of the restaurant dowstairs. Which has free wifi. So now I can use teh internets whilst I stretch. Wrote a long email to me brother today.
Went back to my desk with every intention of eating my bento, but ended up going out to lunch with one of my bosses (I have at least five. Don't ask.) We went to West Park Cafe, where I had my Chinese Chicken Salad, with a small starter salad. Right next to Japan's first Hooters. Meh. Huge line outside, but empty inside. Saw some of the wait-staff. Sorry, but not impressed.
Ended up going to dinner late (about 9:30) with a friend I hadn't seen in forever. Chinese food; not the healthiest, but coulda been worse.

Friday breakfast

Veggies and kimchee with egg, chicken, rice bread.

Simple dinner

Veggies, mainly bell peppers, chikuwa.