Welcome to the Peak Condition Community!

Patrick

Hello and let me have the honor of breaking the digital bottle of champagne over the bow of this new project.  But of course we always have to be a little different around here:

Ah... that was cathartic.  Now on to business.

You are looking at the first post of the new Peak Condition Community blog.  I and many of the other PCPers have found that one of their favorite things about doing the project is getting in the habit of keeping a weblog about the journey to better health.  When you're feeling awesome it's so great to share that, and when you're feeling down it's crucial to connect with others who will pick you up, or at least commiserate.

I also just really missed all the good friends and interesting viewpoints that came from the PCP blogs.

So a few of us hatched up this idea to pool our efforts into a community blog.  Basically it will work like a regular PCP blog, except that instead of just one writer there will be 7 graduates of the PCP at any one time, each writing one post a w

eek in a revolving authorship.  That means this blog will be piping hot every day of the week!

Thus, with new post-PCP diets from Chen, we're all trying to get back on track after an indulgent winter holiday season This time around the focus will be on sustaining and maintaining the energy and good habits we learned during our projects.  There won't be months spent learning how to jumprope and eat well, we'll all hit the ground running.  It'll be cool to see what happens.

With that preamble, let me catch everyone up with my own condition.  As I mentioned in my personal blog, I had been training in one way or another every day for 7 months.  That was totally awesome, but I could feel my body getting worn down, so I decided to take it easy for December and January.  I also thought it would be a good experiment to see how my body fared without the workouts and strict diet.  Would I blimp out as I've experienced in the past?

In December I took a trip to the States to see Gwen, and she can attest that I was far from timid about my indulgences.  Every night saw a parade of cheesecakes, beers, pizzas, onion rings, and so on.  The culmination was the night before my return to Japan, drinking a large Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Mocha from a 7-11.  It was so nasty but it was all in the name of research.

Since then I haven't done much beyond my usual activities.  And here is a picture of me from today after completing my first serious workout for about 8 weeks.

I'm pretty impressed by how well everything stayed together despite the nutritional beating I put it through.  If I had been at all sensible I for sure would still be in great shape now.  But it was nice to know that even at my most wicked my metabolism and muscle did their part to sustain fairly good condition.

Now that I'm back on diet and training regimen again, the changes will happen incredibly fast.  I even took a picture of myself holding today's newspaper to have some evidence when the doubters cry "no way".  I've gotten used to the way my body responds to exercise and I know what it is capable of.  So check back on Mondays when I'll be posting to see the changes.

I can't wait to read about everyone else's experiences post-PCP.  Together I know we can come up with some good strategies to carry our projects into the rest of our lives!

Till next Monday, have a great week!  I pass the ball now to a dapper young man named Nate Belle-Isle.