Category Archives: Life

Update on The 1-3-6 Weight Loss Experiment

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This post’s an update to the one I wrote on 10th July, 2011 about a weight loss experiment. The numbers don’t lie…

Current (May 2012) weight: 82 kg (181 lbs)

That’s just 1 kg (2.2 lbs) less than nearly a year ago and way off the target weight of 77 kg by 31st Dec, 2011.

What Went ‘Wrong’?

First of all, I was not on a diet. Never have been, in fact. (Other than the ‘sea-food diet’ i.e. when I ‘see food’, I eat it…)

Joking aside, here are my comments on the three actions I planned to take that would increase the odds of achieving my goal.

Increase Daily Walking:

Planned: 10 to 20 minutes

Actual: 50 minutes (30 AM and 20 PM)

This is working out well and allows me to ‘power walk’ twice daily (Mon to Fri.)

Add 7 Minutes Circuit Sessions:

Planned: Add after running-in-the-park sessions.

Actual: Completed twice weekly during the warm summer and early autumn mornings or evenings. Stopped once it became too dark and cold…

Climb Stairs:

Planned: Walk Up 9 Flights of Stairs Approx. 3 Times Daily:

Actual: Walking up 9 flights of stairs (28 m vertical height) approx. 5 times daily. Maximum daily climb was 13 times. A round trip (up and down) the stairs takes about 3 minutes. This adds at least 15 minutes to the daily exercise routine.

In addition, since beginning the ‘7 Summits Challenge‘ I’ve noticed both my leg strength and toning have noticeably improved.

Two out of three isn’t bad, especially when their implementation in daily life went beyond what was planned.

But what about those ’6′ things I was to stop doing?

1) Planned: Eliminate all snacking after 9 pm: This was probably 50/50. Sometimes I’d have a coffee and biscuit around 10pm but at least there was very little secret munching of big choco bars…

2) Planned: Stop all weekday beers: Epic Failure. A 350 ml can is about 12 fluid ounces. Mid-week, I’d down two cold ones (not every night haha!) – perhaps a subconscious ‘reward’ for the evening walk homeward?

3) Go to bed by 11 pm: Actually, I was lucky if I was in bed by midnight and then up again at 5:30.

4) Stop Buying TGIF Chocolate: Another 50/50. I still feel a need to treat myself. But for what?

5) Start Standing Up More: This is on track because the stair climbing has me doing something active every 60 minutes.

6) ?? I still can’t find a sixth ‘cease and desist’ (lol!) that fits this rubric…

Is The Ladder Leaning Against the Wrong Wall?

It’s quite possible that 77 kg is a goal I’m unlikely to achieve without half starving myself to death. And that’s because I was probably only ever less than 80 kg (176 lbs; 12.5 stone) in my teens! Once weight training for running became a part of my early 20s lifestyle…

Looking now at a 2002 health check report I had here in Japan, I was also 82 kg.

Nevertheless, I’m keen to see the inches melt away from the ‘jelly belly’. I’ll therefore continue working with the 1-3-6(5) system described above, but will modify the target goal to be:

Decrease waist size from 37″ to 35″ ( 95 cm to 89 cm) by 31 Dec 2012.

My expectation is that toning up the waist line will naturally reduce the body mass…

I plan to use a great core abs workout video as my guide – thanks to my daughter for pointing me to the folks at Sparkpeople.com.

I can include some of Nicole’s workout in my morning and evening push up / sit up routine – now at 26/74. (See this post on ‘rediscovering willpower‘ for details.)

However, as my ‘core’ is somewhat weak in relation to legs, shoulders and arms, I’ll start by adding the Sparkpeople exercises every other day.

Break-Fix Exercise Habits

So, that’s where I’m at with exercising this 51 years old body.

How about you?

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Seven Summits And Otsuchi’s Curtains of Love

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OK, it’s settled. After posting “Everest or Rust” – all about reinforcing a habit two (physical) steps at a time – my next project is to link this er, unusual habit, with serving a greater good.

Otsuchi, a small coastal town in North Eastern Japan, was badly damaged in the earthquake and tsunami of March 11th, 2011. So much so, that just one public building, a community center on a hill, escaped destruction: and over 1,500 people took shelter there that night.

However, it was very cold and so parts of the stage curtains were cut into makeshift blankets for children and the elderly.

Now, just a year later, the world’s media has largely ignored the ‘post-disaster’ impact of ‘Japan’s earthquake and tsunami’ on the people of Tohoku.

Alas, Otsuchi’s residents and refugees cannot forget so easily, as evidence of destruction and displacement lies all around them. It’s not just the damaged buildings and vacant plots, once filled with life, laughter and livelihoods. It can also be found within hearts and minds –  in private spaces, where memories and half-remembered dreams paint painful pictures of how things were and should have been…

But they are a hardy lot, these people of the North East: and their desire to recover and restart is becoming stronger.

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances…” William Shakespeare; ‘As You Like It’

In Otsuchi, their hilltop community center has taken on added significance because local people need a place where some form of cultural activities and art can offer ‘escape’ and happiness, if only for a little while, from the world outside.

Unfortunately, those torn curtains are a constant and unpleasant reminder of terrible times… as this short video will explain.

Jeffrey Jousan uploaded the video so that others can learn of this project to replace the curtains on the stage (and upstairs too, from what I recall.) If  you can help financially in any way, then details of how to do so are below the video on YouTube.

You can also help to spread the message of this video’s existence by:

- Adding a ‘thumbs up’ to show you liked the video on YouTube.

- Emailing the link to your friends.

- Sharing the link on FaceBook and on Twitter (it’s easy to do from the YouTube Page.)

- Retweeting this post, clicking the Google+ icon, Stumbling it, or by FaceBook ‘Liking it’ .

The Seven Summits – No, Make that Eight…

My plan to help is by ‘stair-climbing’ the equivalent of the seven summits on a 28 meters high, nine-storey building, in Tokyo.

Technically, there should be just seven of these mountains – one for each continent. But when has that ever stopped humans from disagreeing about anything?

Take a look at this screenshot from the ‘seven summits’ Wikipedia page:

seven summits mountainsI’ll make it ‘easy’ on myself by ascending all eight peaks.

That works out to be 45,542 meters OR 1,627 times up the stairs.

The goal is to finish it by 31 March 2013 or sooner (starting on Monday 2 April; I’m in ‘training’ at the moment…)

All being well, and at 1 yen per meter, I plan on giving 45,542 Yen (about US $ 542, at today’s rate) to Otsuchi Community Center’s ‘Curtains of Love’ Project. Of course, they might have raised the money before I finish. If they do, well, I’ll find another project (through my contacts with volunteers on the ground) and help that one. However, their fundraising goal is an ambitious one – even though local craftsmen will provide labor for free; the amount of quality, curtain material required is quite large; and is therefore expensive.

If you’d like to donate ‘in step’ with me, please do so. Leave a comment here or contact me privately. Heck, do it anonymously, it’s the inner drive to help that really counts, not the world’s acknowledgement. I’ll post updates on this blog every time one of the seven er, eight, summits is completed.

Note for Bloggers and Other Publishers: I encourage you to repost this blog as long as the content remains unaltered, including all hyperlinks. If you translate it to another language, please include a link to this original post in English.

- Mark McClure

PS: (2012-04-07 Update: I’ll update the climb status – probably on a monthly basis – in the comments.)

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Book Review: “Pure Heart Simple Mind” by Charlie Badenhop

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Charlie Badenhop’s new book, Pure Heart Simple Mind, has been my ideal reading companion this week on Tokyo’s efficient but sometimes overcrowded trains.

pure-heart-simple-mind-book-seishindo

pure heart simple mind

The book is only 130 pages and can be read in a few hours. However, just as the space within a tatami room adapts to fit the form required, some of these stories had a similar effect on my beliefs about life in Japan.

There’s much to ponder here and you could take almost any of these stories as a contemplation on life. Ten minutes spent doing so between Takadanobaba and Shibuya on the JR Yamanote line might a big change make…

The stories can also be enjoyed by themselves as fascinating glimpses into the lives of ordinary Japanese people. In that sense they are both interesting and educational. Of course, it helps that Charlie is an astute and patient observer of the world around him. He leaves judgment to others.

I have fond memories of the author’s Saturday afternoon workshops in Tokyo and his ‘somatic wisdom‘ has influenced my thinking since 2009. Looking back, I suspect the attention payed to breathing techniques in those classes, as a way of entering the body’s own ‘wisdom space’, led to my future interest in barefoot running and nasal breathing.

What is Pure Heart Simple Mind?

seishindo pure heart simple mind

In the book’s introduction (page five) Charlie describes the three Kanji characters that make up the name of his human potential discipline, sei-shin-do.

The first character he identifies with “refined and pure”.

The second is “heart” but in a life-living sense, beyond the physical function of the organ itself.

And the third he borrows from the “path” or “way” that followers and practitioners of Judo, Chado (tea ceremony), Shodo (calligraphy) and Aikido know well.

Taken together, these three characters compose and create Charlie’s “seishindo” response to the reality of life.
A response he defines on page five as:

“… an artful path for discovering your pure heart, simple mind.”

Now, as to the meaning of “Pure Heart, Simple Mind”?

I think this will be different for each reader.

There are no great secrets revealed in this book – the stories are taken from previously published Seishindo articles. But discoveries wait to be made and although I ‘ve never studied ‘Aikido’, I was drawn to accounts of Charlie’s experiences with this discipline and was surprised to learn how strong, yet gentle, the ‘ki’  appears to be.

My favorite passage from the book is on page 65, in a section dealing with peak performance, or “no mind”.
An architect is describing how he likes to be in this state and leaves Charlie with a quote from the “Tao De Ching”, a revered Chinese wisdom text. The quote reads:

Doors and windows are cut out from walls to form a room.
It is the emptiness that the walls, floor, and ceiling encompass, that provides a space to live in.

Thus, what we gain is Something, yet it is from the virtue of Nothing that this Something derives. 

Associating this idea with the emptiness of a traditional Japanese room now has me thinking about my family and our six-mat tatami room.

The final line on this same page is a very beautiful thought to behold, and I’d like to quote it here:

The experience of emptiness is an invitation to empty one’s thinking mind, so that a new, innocent reality might appear.

‘Pure Heart, Simple Mind’ is a wonderful book for the whole soul.
Thank you, Charlie, for writing this fine ‘body of work’. (^__^)

- Mark McClure

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“They’re out of touch, they’re out of time”

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Time for another visit to God’s wee country where, despite the media’s obsession with localized rioting and anarchy, most people are just trying to get on with life.

The view from the “Far East” is somewhat different, as fallout from political and financial nukes exploding in Euroland, seemingly on an almost weekly basis now, drifts this way.

Quite simply, the economic fates of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are in the hands of others. One’s locked into externally-imposed austerity and the Euro-project. The other’s dependent mainly on state largese and how deep go the government’s public sector cuts.

There are, however, some chinks of light in the financial gloom; the entrepreneurial technology sector being one.

When a good idea meets well-educated people and the necessary seed capital, great things can happen. A superb example is Andor Technology’s prowess in the scientific digital camera market. (Andor was started in Belfast and maintains its head office there.)

Of course, these successes are relatively minor in the greater scheme of things and the reality is that smart, ambitious and (often) young Irish people are again emigrating in increasing numbers.

And who can blame them?

I did something similar in 1987 and, while I miss my family and the green, green grass of home, the gains have outweighed the losses.

And yet, mortality will have its say one day. In more practical terms, the vitality of youth knows no bounds till tempered by experience. Not sure who may have said that but the message is usually clear enough by mid-life.

And it goes something like this:

Is it true that your career is your own and you form it?

- Mark ‘mid-career changer’ McClure

PS – The post title’s a play on lyrics from that wonderful Hall and Oates song, “Out of Touch”. Are ‘youse’ listening? :-)

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1-3-6 Weight Loss Experiment

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This post’s based on the 1-3-6 method I blogged about back in Oct 2008.

Current Weight: 83 kg

a) The 1 important outcome is:
Goal: Achieve target weight of 77 kg by 31 Dec 2011

b) The 3 things I can do that increase the probability of achieving the desired outcome:

1- Increase my walking from (approx) 10 minutes to 20 minutes per day.

2- Add a seven minute circuits session (using own body weight) to running-in-the-park sessions.

3- Walk up nine flights of stairs an average of 3 times per day (rolling monthly average.)
This is natural weight training for the legs and really does tone muscle, in my experience.

And now comes the harder part.

c) The 6 things I need to stop doing (or reduce) so I have more time and energy to focus on a) and b) above.

1- Eliminate all snacking after 9 pm. (Melted butter on toast, a cup of coffee and a slice or two of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk around 11:30pm…and I could write well into the wee hours. Boy, am I addicted to the stillness of the night haha!)

2- Stop all weekday beers. (Beer goes well with the salty nature of many Japanese dishes but it also makes me drowsy after 8pm, as well as pile on the calories.)

3- Get to bed by 11 pm (so I can get up early enough to run, take the dog out, and avoid the crazy heat / humidity).

4- Stop buying chocolate most Friday lunchtimes… this is my contribution to TGIF. Out it goes.

5- Eliminate sitting still for more than an hour at a time. I often do this when writing or studying. The plan now is to move about every 20 minutes or so.

6- ??

Well, in the time allotted to write this post I could only come up with five of the six things to stop doing. If #6 pops into my mind later, I’ll add it this post.

The plan’s to write an update on this project around year’s end.
(March 2012 Update: Sorry for the delay. Writing an update to this post  is now on the agenda!)

- Mark McClure Today

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