rawlife’s BodyBlog

   I’m home now, but I’ve never had jet lag like this.  I didn’t get to sleep until 3 last night.  The night before was almost 5am-I’ve never had to wait 7 hours to fall asleep.  I get nervous when I don’t sleep, something about it really freaks me out, like I’ll never be able to sleep again.  I’ve found that I can so easily fall into negative cycles, and when I see a potential one, I get really worked up about it….and then, of course, I’m not able to sleep.  As is usually the case though, there was a silver lining.  That anxiety has caused me enough problems over the years and I think life just decided to take over and teach me a lesson in relaxation.  So as I was laying, not sleeping, I kind of consciously went through my whole upper body and relaxed it bit by bit, calmed my breathing and said certain phrases, whichever ones felt right, over and over again.  It was really therapeautic.  The night before was just awful, I was nauseaus the whole next day. 

    Anyway, since I’m home I figure I’ll start writing a bit more.  I’ll keep updating with weekly pics too, time to get my butt back in shape, yo.  I decided to change the workouts a bit.  After that last HIT workout, I got a bit hooked again.  I’m gonna do a split for now, but still do it in high paced HIT fashion.  Today I busted some chest, front and medial delts, along with some tris.  Good times.

   So here’s what’s happening: I’ve been eating a lot the last couple of days.  Being vegan for those few days and visibly losing muscle pissed me off a bit and I ending up going too far in the other direction.  That’s alright, it will come off when it is time for it to come off.  Right now I don’t mind too much though because the main goal is to pack on the lbs.  In other news, I have been filming a bit: filmed my first HIT workout in forever as well as dinner preperation.  It was fun. 

So, I went totally vegan for about 4-5 days(the first two weeks were primarily fruit and lean chicken) and I saw a noticeable difference in muscle size…in that I was losing it.  Then I re-thought my whole process and just decided to go back to what has always worked best for me in the past-low carb, high protein and fat.  I made the change yesterday, that’s why I’m holding water today.  I was noticing a couple of things with the raw vegan/real high fruit that I wasn’t loving, the first being the state of my stomach-I don’t necessarily think it was the actual food I was eating, but rather the food in the amounts I was eating…although it was handling it much better than I ever thought it would, my stomach still wasn’t taking 50+pieces of fruit a day.  Having said all that though, 811 still makes a hell of a lot of sense to me and I will probably keep stabbing at it in the future until I either adopt it entirely and for good, or let it go for good.

Legs, Legs, almost an inch.  Arms, quarter inch.  Chest .5 inch.  I don’t understand why the weight isn’t increasing though if all the measurements are-still at 190, just as lean.  Having a hard time getting calories in-4000 a day from fruit, vegetables, and a tiny bit of nuts is real tough.  I just switched over to totally vegan again.  The first week and a half was half fruit half meat(raw chicken).  You’ll notice that I posted some of the worst pictures along with the best this time around.  Decided I need to get a lot more honest with myself about how far I have to go.  Back needs a LOT of work, same with triceps.  Chest does too, but that won’t be a problem.

     So, the time for the big revealing has come.  I’ve been hard at work writing this ebook/manual and I needed a marketing piece to go with it.  I figured since I have been out of the game for so long, I’d use myself as a guinea pig and do a month long experiment, somewhat resembling the Co. Experiment with Arthur Jones and Casey Viator, to build some interest in what I’m doing.  Today I took before pictures.  A month from now, I’ll take after pictures.  I’m sure the training won’t be done then, but I should have come a good long ways and have something to show for it.  But if I don’t, then we’ll know that I’m doing something wrong and that’s good too(although, I get the feeling that’s not going to be the case).  It’s all information we didn’t have before.  So, as I’ve said many times before, I’m not in the same kind of shape that I was in the pics you’ve all seen of me.  That was prior to the paralyzing portion of the back injury.  These are after, but on the mend.  I’m going to REALLY try to keep all stress on the back to an absolute minimum while I’m here(I’m on vacation in the States) so I don’t think I’ll be doing a ton of blogging.  More like little updates here and there.  But I’ve been thinking about a lot of stuff lately so I’m sure when I go back to Sweden, I’ll have a lot to write about.  Enough blabbing, here are the before’s:

  I think I got up 9 times.  No sleep for the hungry.  Anyway, I’m crushin this raw vegan diet like it’s nobody’s business.  It’s costing me about $80 a day-but for learning purposes, I"m willing to accept that.  At the moment, I’m trying to develop a base program(a control, in other words), so I know, in the future, if throw something else in the mix(a variable), I’ll be able to pinpoint the cause of cause of the results. 

   I’m honestly feeling pretty good; my energy is through the roof and my skin looks absolutely flawless.  It’s the NOT being tired in the middle of the day though that I really really love-so much so that it would be really hard for me ever to go back to a diet that ever had that effect on me.  It’s a little hard to admit all that, eating raw meat has actually been a part of my persona for that last five years(it’s even harder admitting that!).  I just have to think about doing what’s best though and let my feelings for who I am and what defines me go by the wayside.  Maybe in the future those things will be more important but right now, this is what has to be done. 

   On the downside, I am losing quite a bit of weight.  I’m lean as all get out, but I think I’ve dropped some muscle too-I know that I am sore for WAY longer than usual on this diet-so it probably needs some fine tuning, probably should throw some nuts in the mix(as of yet it’s been 95% fruit, 5% leafy vegetables).  If that doesn’t work, I may go back to meat but I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the combinations I was doing before as they were causing me obvious blood sugar issues.

   In other news, I’ve become a nudist.  Not really, but I am tanning in the birthday suit wherever I can these days.  It’s pretty damn nice-just got to find a spot without a lot of trafic.  I usually climb to the top of some local…rock formations, for lack of a better word, and lay out there.  Yesterday, some old lady sat about 10m away from me and read her book.  She was cool with it and I decided I was too, so I didn’t get up. 

  Moving on, I’m coming back to the states for a month on the 4th of July.  The plan is to do some filming for the new site.  The back is feeling really improved and I think I’m ready to give a month of intense workouts a try.  It’s been basically 2 years since I worked out regularly and intensely, so this should be good.  My only qualm though is whether or not my diet is going to support it.  My knee jerk reaction is no, but I have a goofy kind of feeling that it has the potential with a little fine tuning, like I said.  There are some people out there that seem to have broken the mold when it comes to diet and it’s relation to muscle building-I’d like to see if I can get a little bit of what they’ve got goin on.  As I crush my second head of lettuce for the evening, I think I can. 

   Last, I want to apologize yet again for being so bad with the blog.  No good excuses, just been busy being excited and stressed at the same time about other stuff.  Hope you’re all well.

   I’ve made another push towards the raw vegan end.  The more I read, the more I write, the more convinced I am that, at the very least, our bodies are vegan or real close.  For some reason the idea that there is more to it than that, that our own development as a soul plays a role as well, comes up quite often though.  I get the idea, and have heard it spoken about, that what we really take from food is it’s energy…or it’s life.  I wonder if the more developed or advanced a soul gets, the less dense food it needs, or lower on the food chain kind of food it needs.  One thing I can’t deny is that basically almost every person I would call a real master or close to it, was vegetarian or I suspect was vegetarian despite what ancient texts might imply-few actually go right out and say. 

   Anyway, my gut is killin me right now.  I don’t have the flora for this yet.  There’s only one way to get though, so here I am.  Which brings up another interesting point-studies have shown that an animal’s gut flora is a reflection of its diet-I guess that almost goes without saying.  I wonder then, though, if most people’s problems like candida and IBS and what not wouldn’t clear up if they just kept eating the same raw foods over and over again like animals in the wild do, instead of eating an entire Earth’s worth of variety on a weekly basis.  I think if they’re eating cooked, it wouldn’t make too much of a difference given that the food is sterile, but I think this works, in theory, with raw.  Interesting idea, I think. 

   In other news, I am still not done with this puzzle I am doing.  I’m not even 1/10th done.  This is suckee suckee. 

   My back has been acting up a bit lately, mostly I think because of the excess sitting I am doing writing this manual.  Also suckee suckee.

   My shoulder has also been acting up.  This, too, is suckee suckee.  I don’t have a great reason for it either.  There are A LOT of nuances in anatomy and biomechanics that I’m not aware of that I know are affecting my structural health.  I have to study more.  All the external rotations, shoulder adductions, cervical retractions and extensions, and lumbar extensions in the world are not making too much of a difference right now in regards to my back and shoulders.  I know I’m missing a piece or two somewhere and I don’t have too much of a choice other than to find it.  Having said that, I’d like to point out: I think the motivation people have to do what they need to do often stems from the fact they they are, simply, very uncomfortable. 

  Everything has been going pretty well, but it’s been a bit much lately-and I think it’s showing in my blogs and even my personality.  I’ve been a little more aggressive than I feel like I really am lately.  That’s usually a sign of some kind of disomfort.  On the other hand, I’ve really been making a conscious effort to not ’put people in their place’ when a disagreement arises.  Lately, coming out a loser doesn’t bother me all that much.  In fact, it’s really what I’ve been longing for, for a while.  Throughout my life, I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to win and be the best and to come out on top(especially in arguments) but even more than that, to impress people.  I need a break from that, at least from it’s intensity.  People don’t like it and I don’t either.  It’s a little difficult though to swallow your knee jerk reactions and do something that you think is theoretically better though.  Even more difficult is doing it if you are pretty sure that you are in the right, but think that in this situation what’s best is to just avoid the negativity of the argument.  I’ve been particularly bad at this my whole life.  Most of the time I’ve been in the wrong though-so that makes this quality of mine even worse.

   In other news, I was late to a client the other day and a ruined my whole 1 minute at a time running program.  I ran all the way to work which took roughly 10 min and my back was through for the rest of the week.  I’m still feelin it.  As is usually the case, it worked out for the best because I ended up finding a major leak as a result of it, but it was still damn uncomfortable.  You know, I always kind of thought these people were full of it, but I’ve had two dreams now that, upon awakening, immediately gave me the answer I was looking for in regards to my back.  I went right to the gym after waking up, did what I needed to do and it felt awesome afterwards and now I also have a fuller understanding of the problem.  Pretty cool.  Anyways, I’ll talk to you guys later, hope everyone is well.  My brother is living at my place for the next two weeks or so and I’d like to get some cuddling time in before we go to bed, you know how it is.   

    Might not sound like anything to you, but to me it’s a lot.  I experienced only very minimal leg and calf pain afterwards and my back was basically fine.  That’s exciting to me!  I decided that there is a lot of potential in running in regards to therapeautic value for my back.  One the one hand, it’s a very intense hip extension which is gold for me.  On the other, it’s very many intense bounces for my discs to take and they almost always do not take them lightly.  I’m looking at that as a good thing though-specifically because of the discomfort it gives me.  It leaves me somewhat uncomfortable and sensitive in my lumbar spine which keeps my motivation to improve high, all the while being muscularly therapeautic…so it’s a win win situation here.

   In other news, I’m putting the finishing pieces of my book together now.  I can’t really say finishing touches yet, but I’m getting there.  Most of the rough draft, which isn’t that rough, is done.  Currently, I’m training both my best friend and my sister to see how big of a change we can induce between now and the release of the book.  I took the before pictures this past weekend and am going to do a full assessment on both tomorrow, hopefully. 

   In regards to diet, I’ve been crushing almost a whole jar of raw, unheated honey daily this past week.  It’s insane, but I’m craving it like mad.  This happens every now and again-I’ll crave something really intensely and eat it in inordinate amounts and feel pretty damn good afterwards, whereas I would normally feel like cow dung.  Anyway, a jar of honey daily and no candida breakouts.  Pretty damn good, yo. 

   Last on the bill for the evening is my secret hobby: puzzles. I’m working on one right now that’s 5k pieces and it’s crushing me.  It’s an old antique map from the 1600s, I believe, and for the first time ever while doing a puzzle, I feel pretty down and out.  I’m not going to quit, but this thing is hard.  Lots of pieces fit together perfectly but don’t belong together-I’ve never experienced that before.  It’s pretty sucky sucky, if you ask me.  I’ve had to take apart the border a friggin hundred times because I have extra pieces at the end or not enough or one side ended up longer than the other or bla bla bla…and it’s still not right!  Thing’s friggin impossible.