Finally! Something I’m use to seeing—the diet plan with all the gram allotments all measured out. I know it sounds a little weird, but I like those little listings. Makes me feel like I’m in control of what I’m eating. (Yeah, I know I’m in control the other times too, but numbers just feel more real to me than trying to eyeball the whole thing.) I will say, though, that I wasn’t at all expecting this:

Where’s the eggs? During and after the PCP I was so use to eating egg whites (two for breakfast, one for morning snack, two for lunch, and one for afternoon snack) that the sudden lack of them took me by surprise. In it’s place was cheese. Now I don’t mind cheese. I absolutely love cheese. I was just use to egg.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a vegetarian. I guess under a technical clarification, I’m a lacto-ovo vegetarain. That means I eat dairy products (lacto) and eggs (ovo). So, while most people on the PCP and KFB have a gram allotment for their favorite protein source, I get cheese and eggs. I love cheese and eggs, so it don’t bother me. During my time on Peak Condition beans, tofu, tempeh, seitan, and most of those meat substitutes were verboten, so eggs and I became great friends. On KFB, I can visit them once in a great while but they’re not a protein—they are a carb. That’s cool too.

So now, it’s like that favorite old hymn: “What a friend we have in cheeses!” We’ll see how long we’ll get to be friends. Certainly hope I don’t grow a tail and start squeeking.

I will say that I’m lovin’ the KFB exercise schedule, mainly because it mimics my old PCP schedule—Friday is the “end of the week” and therefore the easy workout day. This is perfect for me because Friday is the day that me and my friends gather for a potluck dinner and a movie of some sort (usually a bad one). These “easy workout days” gives me enough time to leave work, get home, exercise, make something fresh and simple, and meet everyone by 7pm.

This is a great time of year to begin a program like KFB. All the little farmer’s markets are starting to pop-up like daisies in a field. It’s the one thing I miss in the wintertime.

Now, I’m not totally opposed to the big supermarket chains as they have their own niche to fill, but there’s just something disconcerting about overpriced food! I don’t like how they seem to take advantage of everyone. The farmers suffer because the supermarkets don’t pay them enough to grow the food, the town suffers because the supermarkets usually don’t support local farmers, the environment suffers because the food has to be transported large distances, and the consumer suffers because they jack up the price to outrageous levels.

But then comes summer and the playing field starts becoming level again.

On Saturday, the huge Regional Market is open for business. That’s the first day of the week I buy my vegetables. (Amazing how my food buying has synced up to our diets and exercise “week”.) The Regional Market is doing quite well this year as they have had to expand to allow more farmers to sell their produce.

Next will be Tuesdays, as that is when the Downtown Market opens. (Only a week to go before it begins!) It’s quite a bit smaller than the Regional Market, but you can still get a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. As an extra bonus, it is close to where I work. A quick ten-minute walk gets me to the market, another ten minutes to do two circuits around it (one to view the produce, the second to buy) and then a final ten minute walk back to work with my purchases. Exercise and food! Woo-hoo!

Then there is the CSA that we belong to. “CSA” stands for Community Supported Agriculture. The basic idea behind it is that we pay a local farmer a certain amount of money in March with which he buys everything he needs for that season’s crops. Around June we go to a nearby pick-up point weekly to get our share of the produce that he has grown. It’s a little hard to plan meals around this type of program, but I will say that it’s fun to get a box of food that you have no idea what’s in there until you open it up. I guess you might call it “Vegetarian Christmas”.

That’s the beauty of summer—fresh food for three to four months. If I work it just right, I will not have to take a step into a big chain supermarket for much of this time. What a way to “stick it to da man”!

One of the things that I knew was going to happen, before I even started the Kung-Fu Body program, was that my summer was going to be full of travel. Some people might consider that fact to be a bit of a deterrent, especially when starting a new exercise regimen; I think of it as more of a challenge to be undertaken.

The first thing that made the Kung-Fu Body appealing was the fact that there are no resistance bands to be used during the program. I’m not adverse to using the bands, mainly because I use them all the time in my exercise routine, but I was having to do a bit of mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to use them in some of the locals I’ll be in during the summer. I knew it wouldn’t be impossible to use the resistance bands as long as I could do some MacGyvering to attach them to something. (There are rarely any doors in the outdoors.)

The Kung-Fu Body focuses quite a bit on flexibility and agility, which really don’t require any extra equipment. All you need is some floor/ground and you’re ready to work out. The other two components to the program are the jumprope and some strength building.

The jumprope is pretty easy to pack and meets the same requirements as the flexibility and agility—just some floor space. For the most part, the strength exercises don’t require much equipment beside a pull-up bar and a chair. The chair is pretty easy to find in most places, and I’m sure I can find a suitable substitute when I’m on an outdoor adventure. The pull-up bar alternative may be a bit trickier, but that is something I’ll solve when I encounter it.

Which brings me to my next item—traveling. Yes, today I will be leaving for the first of many trips this summer. It’s time to test out some of my ideas on how to do the Kung-Fu Body program while on the road. I’ve got all my portable internet devices so I’ll be able to more-or-less keep in touch. I’m also bringing a pad of paper and a pen in case I want to blog without having access to a good Wi-Fi signal. (In that instance I’ll just upload the information later.)

So, here’s to the first big adventure on my Kung-Fu Body journey!

This is the final day of my Spring juice fast. It has been a ritual I’ve done for a number of years. It just seems to be a nice way to start the season. Spring is a time of renewal and rebirth, and a juice fast does that for the body—it helps clear out the toxins and bad stuff and resets the taste buds for more healthier options (aka anything not loaded with sugar and salt). A bit of spring cleaning, so to speak.

Typically I do a 7-day juice fast. The first few times I did a 7-day fast, I would feel a bit out of it with a headache by day three. That hasn’t been the case in the recent years. In fact, it usually seems to go by pretty quickly and easily now.

So I decided to shake up the ritual a bit. This year I went little longer and do a 10-day fast. Who would have thought that three extra days would create some very interesting feelings?!? For the first time in two years I actually had a craving for meat. This is something I haven’t felt since a became a vegetarian, but there it was. I’d walk through the meat section of the grocery store and my mouth would suddenly start drooling for steak or chicken or fish. That was just the weirdest thing!

I also noticed that the moment I make a rule for myself, I can’t seem to break it. For example: while on the juice fast, the only thing I’m allowed to consume is juice, water, tea, etc.—nothing more substantial than that. It’s a rule. During the past ten days, there were many opportunities to cheat and eat something—free pizza at work, a couple of potluck gatherings, going out to a restaurant—and yet I wouldn’t break the rule. The same thing occurred when I was on the Peak Condition Project. There was not a cheating bone in my body.

And yet, I found that beyond the Project and before the fast, I gave myself far too much leniency. It was okay to eat too many cookies; it was alright to have ice cream for dinner; it’s perfectly fine to order lunch out from one the myriad fast food places around the workplace. Luckily those bad food choices didn’t impact my body so horribly that a day or two of good exercise couldn’t fix it—but still, why did I allow myself to do that in the first place?

I think the issue isn’t the fact that I allow myself to do it so much as I’m not being very observant and mindful of what I’m doing. Think about it. While on a juice fast or a diet program, you’re constantly thinking about it—especially what you’re eating. You know what you should be consuming and what is totally taboo and you are constantly on the lookout for the bad food to prevent it from entering your body. Once you finish the programs, your attention to the food starts to drift. You’re no longer vigilant, you start getting lax, that one cookie you allow yourself to eat suddenly becomes a mindless two, three, four, or five cookies. (Or in my case, an entire plastic wrapped row of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies.)

So my goal is to be mindful of what I’m putting into my body and why. Basically create a “new rule” in my head to be followed. It works while on a program, so why not off?

The rain came down in a steady sheet, giving no sign that it let up anytime in the near future. A blonde-haired woman stood on the side of the road near the intersection, attempting to flag my car down. The signal light was red in my direction so I had no choice but to stop. She approached the driver’s side window an knocked on it, attempting to talk to me through the glass. I rolled it down a bit so I could hear her story. She was trying to get to work but her car ran out of gas. She had walked to her friend’s house through the pouring rain, but that person wasn’t home. She wondered if I had any money I could spare so she could get some fuel for her car.

I did have some money in my pocket; however, I knew that I was going to need some of it myself. Then I decided I really didn’t need all of it and could spare part of it so she could put gas in her car. Eventually I pulled out my wallet and gave her half of what I had.

She then asked for a ride to her car. She was sopping wet and it just didn’t seem to be the right thing to make her walk back to her car in the rain. I unlocked the door and told her I would give her a ride.

No sooner had she closed the door, a white van pulled up beside my car and the driver in the van was blowing their horn in an attempt to get my attention. The woman in my car was obviously rattled by the person in the other vehicle. I was pretty sure what the individual wanted to tell me—that there was no “car out of gas”, that I shouldn’t give the woman in my car any money, that she was just going to use it on drugs or alcohol, etc. I decided that I wasn’t going to listen to that other person and finish my mission to assist the lady who had been standing in the rain.

I drove her to the vehicle that she claimed was her car. She got out and thanked me for the assistance. As I drove away, I watch her out the rear view mirror. She had crossed the street and let herself into a nearby house. I continued on my way to work.

For much of the day I thought about that whole incident. Did I do right? I had a stranger in my car, which is pretty brassy in a world where you can’t seem to trust anyone anymore. Did she really use the money for gas or did she spend it on drugs or alcohol? Was that house hers and she just went inside to change into dry clothes, or did it belong to someone else for their own nefarious purposes?

The circular thinking continued until my mind remembered this zen story:

The Zen monk Tanzan and a younger monk were approaching a river and saw a woman washing some clothes along the banks. As they reached her, she asked if they could help her ford the river.

“Ah, we are sorry, kind lady,” said the younger monk. “You know a monk is not allowed to touch a woman.”

But Tanzan, having compassion for her, offered to carry her on his back and, lifting her, proceeded to wade across the water. He put her down on the opposite bank. She thanked him profusely, and the two men went on their way. Walking in silence, Tanzan realized the younger monk was upset.

“What is wrong, brother?” he asked.

“You know we have taken vows and are not suppose to touch women,” said the younger monk. “How could you?”

“My friend,” Tanzan replied, “yes, I did pick her up and carry her across the river. But there I put her down. You, however, are still carrying her.”

I had spent a good portion of my day wondering and worrying about whether my actions were right or wrong, and whether or not I had been scammed. I was expending mental energy on something that was over and done with when I should have been fully concentrating on what was before me in the here and now. I assisted the woman, I dropped her off—there was no other reason for me to continue carrying her in my mind.

Now I can let her go.

The cold grey sky combine with the wind whipping the snow past the window has put my co-workers and I in the mood to talk about snow storms. What we’re getting here is mild compared to the experience the people north of us are having, but there have been periods where the falling snow and blowing wind have been enough to prevent us from seeing the building across the parking lot. Ah, to be a kid again praying for a snow day!

Somewhere along the way, our conversation turned to the Blizzard of ’77. Although most of the people I work with have heard of it, very few of them experienced it and I had that momentary feeling of a tribal elder telling a story of long ago to wide-eyed children hearing it for the first time. There are two simple factors as to why my co-workers and I didn’t share the same memories: The first being that some of them are younger than I am, and the second is the fact that I grew up in a town that was much closer to where the storm hit than where I am currently residing.

I grew up in a small, rural town and my brother and I were at school the day the storm hit. Yeah, snow was falling and the wind was blowing it around, but that was typical for the area in Western New York State. It got worse and worse as the day went by, and I don’t think anyone really realized the magnitude of it until it was too late to do anything.

It was around one or two in the afternoon when the principal made the announcement over the intercom that school would be closing early because of the storm. Being kids, we were totally thrilled to leave the establishment of education and head home to start the weekend early. We were told to stay in our classrooms until the buses arrived to take us home. I was in seventh-grade at the time and our teachers had to shuffle us around a bit as our lockers were located in our homerooms. (The high school kids could stay in their classrooms because their lockers were in the hallway, and the elementary kids didn’t have to move around because they were always in the same classroom.)

Eagerly we waited for the announcement that the buses were there and we’d soon be on our way. At first the time seemed to drag because we were just anxious to be gone, but as the minutes grew longer a sense of trepidation started to fill us. It shouldn’t take the buses to go from the garage to the school. It was only down the street—approximately a football field and baseball field away. The more minutes that passed, the more we got worried.

Suddenly, the intercom came to life and the principal addressed the students and teachers. The blizzard hit so hard and quick that the bus drivers were having a hard time getting the vehicles out and the roads were treacherous because the snowplows weren’t able to keep the road clear for any length of time.

Two buses had managed to reach the school and they were quickly trying to rearrange to routes to get as many kids home as fast as possible. They started loading the buses with the students who lived the furthest away from the school. My heart sank a bit. I wasn’t one of those students. With my parents house only three miles from the school, I was considered to live closest which meant I’d be stuck in the classroom for a while.

Time passed. More buses managed to make it out of the garage and more students were on their way home. Eventually the whole fleet was out on the almost impassable roads, but there were still many kids left in the school. (On an average day, there would two bus runs—an early one for the high school students and a later one for the elementary students. We had enough buses for that usual routine. However, there just weren’t enough buses to take everyone home at once if the situation arose, which it did that day.)

My homeroom teacher did her best to keep us entertained while we waited for the buses to return and take us home. One or two would come back to the school, the principal would announce who should get on the bus, and off they would go again. The room started emptying out as my classmates left to go home.

It wasn’t until around 5pm that the principal announce there was a bus ready for our street. I quickly grabbed my things, bundled up, said goodbye to the few remaining classmates left in our homeroom, and headed for the driveway circle where the bus was waiting. I climbed aboard and took a seat on the nearly packed vehicle and looked around for my brother. He wasn’t there yet. Anxiously I waited for him, afraid that the bus was going to leave without him being on it. A few minutes later, one of the elementary school teachers led some children through the harsh winds and blowing snow to the bus and my brother got on. Once everyone had a seat, the driver closed the door and we were on our way.

On a normal day, the trip from the school to my parents house only took a little over five minutes. On that day it was almost a half-hour of travel on extremely nasty roads with practically zero visibility with nighttime starting to fall. Our bus driver made sure to drop every kid off at the end of their driveways. (Many times during better weather, my brother and I and our neighbors would get off at one drop-off point and walk across the yards to get to our houses. This was not one of those times.)

We entered my parents house all covered in snow even though our driveway was not that long. My mom was anxiously waiting for us and quickly made some hot chocolate to warm us up. My dad still wasn’t home yet. It was going to be another two hours of nervous waiting before he made it home.

My mom kept herself busy during that time by making and feeding us dinner. That’s when I learned that my brother was pissed off that they forced him to leave school and get on the bus. It seems that the cafeteria staff stayed to make dinner for the students who were still at school. (I think some of them didn’t leave until 6:30 or 7pm that day.) Dinner was going to be pizza and my brother didn’t want to leave school because of that.

Eventually dad made it home and we were all safe and sound inside the house will the blizzard raged outside. That would be a good ending to the story, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. Some time during the middle of the night the storm knock out the power. We had no lights and we had no heat for the four-to-five day duration of the storm. (It was actually seven days before we got power back to the house.)

Luckily for us, we loved to go camping! Our stove/oven was gas so we could still cook food and we periodically used it to heat the house. Even though the refrigerator wasn’t working, we had lots of ice chests so all the perishable food went into them and outside in a snowbank to stay cold. We had lots of candles and flashlights and lanterns to use for light. We took our sleeping bags and put them under the sheets, blankets, and comforters on our beds. (Mom had lots of those.) We had a battery radio for music and news and lots of games and books for entertainment. All-in-all, we had a blast waiting out the storm!

My co-workers were amazed by my story of the blizzard and began searching online for more pictures and information about it. That was when one of them made a startling discovery. The Blizzard of ’77 began it’s fury on January 28. That was today’s date. It seemed to be a strange coincidence to have a minor snowstorm which prompted me to tell my experience of the Blizzard on the anniversary date of its occurrence. Just weird.

Happy 33rd anniversary Blizzard of ’77 survivors!