Thursday, August 31, 2017

Finally some progress


Finally the hard work seems to be paying off. I have been relentlessly exercising and doing my recovery exercises 6 days / week, and it usually takes me between 1 and 2 hours every day - except mandatory rest day.
Working mostly on my Achilles  and plantar issues, psoas and quads stretches, and a ton of hip and core strengthening.

Wearing the dolphins colors
I started running again, following my prescription, with a tight 1 min run - 1 min walk program, for up to 40 minutes. The ankle reacts pretty good. Still tender and a bit sore, but nothing alarming.
Hopes are up again.
Overall it has been more than 14 months that I battled this thing.


Totally in love with my new Altra Road running shoes, zero drop, but non minimalist.

If I learned one lesson, it is that one : take it slow, damn slow, and even slower.
Likely, I will increase the running part of the run-walk a bit every week, hopefully during one month.
Trick is to listen to your body and slow down at the first sign of aggravation.
Way harder than it sound.

I am back at 80% on my left shoulder.
I started to work on my other really annoying injury, my left shoulder. The muscle started to answer again, at least partially, and we do a bit of work - in the range of motion that works. I have been told 6 months to one year for the damaged nerve to heal. So far, I have been lucky, It looks I will end up more on the low end of that range.

As for the psoas, it is way better. I was able to do real kiteboarding sessions without much pain, and even started to learn to foil, which - as this point - looks more like a swimming lesson holding a board and a kite than anything else.
Really humbling to be a real beginner again, after all those years.

Definitively not me.


I had a glimpse of the speed of that damn thing, and I can understand the fad.
This is really cool.
I mean, it will be really cool.
Eventually.


Wednesday, August 23, 2017

The Cove


Nothing really new - the documentary dates from 8 years ago, but like every year, the killing continue.

A very good documentary, indeed. Forgotten already ?

http://www.thecovemovie.com/


I do not see myself as an activist.
I don't think you need to be an activist to condemn those practices.
Basic ecology and humanity should be enough.


This is just meat

Coral, Cetaceans, Cows, ...
Every day the list grows ...

European people do it pretty well themselves every year

Activists are humanists, really.
They believe we can change and raise.

I don't.
I think it is fair.
As we are screwing our the planet, we will get what we deserve.
Pay back time.




Edit:
To defuse the typical Japanese counter argument : "What is with that specie ? You eat cow, we eat cetaceans. Dolphins are not an endangered specie.", the documentary goes lengths on the mercury issue and how dangerous it is to eat an animal that we are poisoning in the first place.
A bit hypocritical.
And I disagree. 
The only way for us to be credible is to stop eating cows. 
That simple.


Sunday, August 13, 2017

The July Project : Conclusions


We have been extremely busy polishing the Yoga and fitness studio we have built under the house.
Not that we are done, but the last "large" paint job has just been finished today.
It is time to reflect a bit on the July project.

The yoga studio - inside

Centered around 4 axis - veganism, sobriety, cold treatment, breathing exercises - the direct goal was to try to heal my Achille tendinitis and plantar fasciitis, but it was an excuse to see if it was possible to detoxicate my body a bit more deeply.

Long story short, I had mixed results.

On the bright side, the veganism experiment was a success. To be fair, we were not too far from it, but milk by-products , butter, cheese, it was not an easy win. In any case, the whole family embraced it. obviously, at this point, this is a no-brainer. Good for your health, good for the animals, good for the environment, and easy - albeit expensive - as all "healthy" major retailers on the island propose the complete organic vegan replacements for anything comes to mind.
To complete the picture, we decided (finally) to go solar. With the sun exposure we have on Maui, the taxes deductions,  it is criminal to not embrace the trend. 
Really.

Meco still use 50% of oil to generate electricity on Maui.
It was time to save a bit and contribute (a bit) to the effort for the climate. Photo voltaic is coming as well.

Easier than I thought, Sobriety did not pause me any problems. There is one half-hour before diner that felt a little awkward at the beginning without a glass of wine, but that is more psychological than anything else, and staying busy during that time made the transition a breeze.
We have a very limited social life on the island, it was not complicated to not drink at all for a month at all. Just an habit to get rid of.

Yoga studio - outside - finally painted.

On the negative, I gave up on the cold shower treatment - I did not see the benefits really - I tend to take my shower at night and not in the morning, then the vigorous shake up it gave me was not well timed.

The Hoff breathing is an interesting beast. I have to reckon this is powerful. After two weeks I was able to hold my breath easily for more than 3 minutes and able to generate this heat wave / endorphin rush  at will. But even with the obvious benefits, relaxing effects and whole body reset, I had hard time to find the 30 to 45 minutes needed to practice. I had too much things going on, between the body workouts and the studio and the real life job. A bit disappointing, but I made peace with myself and will revisit at a later time. There is definitively something.

As for the effective results of the detoxification and alkanization, well, it did not work that well. To the point that I stopped to run altogether and reorganized my workouts around those injuries. More to come on this subject. In a nutshell, from a tendonitis perspective, it was totally ineffective.

Anyway, there is no reasons at this point to change my new habits and go back to relatively unhealthy behaviors, and I can live with a few pounds less.
Vegan it is.
Sober it is.