Me Caveman...

When I went for hypnosis earlier this year I learnt that I've been doing self hypnosis for as long as I remember. It was just intuitive. Essentially, when you're in a relaxed state and you visualize deeply you are in self hypnosis.

Many mornings before I wake up I'm in that state and I'll often plan my day in that state. If I have some major things at work to do and training, I'll visualize the order of how and when I'm going to do it all. By the time I wake up I know my plan for the day and virtually every time it gets accomplished.

Last night was similar, except I started self hypnosing myself since last nights snooze-fest on the sofa and then when we got to bed. All I was thinking about was going on the Paleo diet and sticking with it. Something feels different about this one. I've had this strong of a feeling before and they are powerful in keeping focused.

The first thing I did when I woke up was get the Paleo book. I felt like I started the Paleo diet the minute we left Tin Cup after my pig-out session. Now I needed to read the book before I put anything in my mouth. I was starting to read from the beginning and they started the diet explaination near the end of the book, so I flipped to that section.

The principles are super easy. It didn't need a book to explain, a sheet of paper would do. Essentially you can only eat lean protein, vegetables, fruits, nuts and as much as you want and nothing else. (Have to take it easy on the nuts if trying to lose weight). You stay away from dairy, wheat, legumes and alcohol.

This was a hard book for me to read, not because you can only have alcohol sparingly. It was hard to read because I was still out of it. Since IMLP I've had beers every single night and lots of them, I was in a brain mush zone. It was similar to an out of body experience. Kind of a numb feeling. Alice said she checked on the Keg today and it was near empty. That's a first at the Pig & Whistle, from full to near empty in one night. I definitely had my fair share.

Somehow I figured out the principles and had my first meal. A piece of chicken for lunch. The other part of the program is for athletes and it essentially says, "hey, use all your gels and powerbars and drink mixes, but only up to 2 hours before, during and about 30 minutes after excessive exercise or racing. It kind of felt like they took this Paleo diet for normal people and don't adhere to their full priniciples for athletes because that would be crazy. They have each foot in two worlds. Either way I don't care, I'm ready to try something new and I got two people that are athletes are on it and swear by it. That's good enough for me.

After lunch I got a flash of motivation to get on my bike and go for a ride. I remembered that in 14 days I have the Steelhead 70.3 and as much as I'd like to do nothing except eat properly and lose weight, I need to train. I don't want to show up and suffer for a half. Going for a bike ride was just what the doctor ordered. By the time I got home my head was clear. All those dead brain cells seemed to be flushed and I was back normal. I had some clarity. I started to re-read the book and it was much easier the second time around.

I got an email of some photo's from Derek (Drog). It was a couple his sister took at the finish line. It reminded both of us something I forgot to put in the race report. When I finished and came across the line I saw Derek and we started talking and congratulating each other. Not to long afterwards a guy finished and as he was coming by he commented, "did you go to Kona last year?" I said yes, he said, "I thought so. You beat me by a couple minutes last year wearing that goofy hat". He was in good spirits and it seemed that it did bother him jokingly. I beat him last year and now I beat him again this year in my goofy hat. Turns out he's going this year to Kona on a Sponsor spot. I can only imagine that all of last year he was upset that he missed going to Kona by two minutes because he was beat by a guy wearing a goofy Captain's hat. He's the guy in the picture who started off pointing at me. After that we were laughing about something, I can't and Derek can't remember.

For the first time in a long time I felt hungry today. Even though I started this diet today there was no way I wanted to stand on the scale. It would be too depressing. I'm thinking in the low 190's. If you look at one of the photo's that Derek sent it looks like I have a mini fat guy belly. When I saw that it added even more motivation for me to keep on my Paleo diet. There's no way I want to show up to Steelhead 10 lbs overweight. It will be interesting to see how much weight I'll drop before then. I'm told that for the first two to three weeks you feel like crap and have no power when training. After that you start feeling great.

I also started another supplement today. It's called Beta Alanine. A strong older cyclists at Rueben's party suggested it. He's on it and he say's his cycling as never been stronger. It's all natural and helps prolong lactic acid build up. The lady at the supplement store also had very good things to say about it. Body Builders use it to prolong the burn, it helps them push more weight longer. The one thing I know is that no one know's nutrition and how your body will react more than body builders. Only now are endurance athletes realizing that they do not have enough protein in their diets and are starting to learn from body builders. I was going to try creatine, I bought some a year or two ago, others swear by it. I'm going to hold off until I see the effects of the Beta Alanine first. Some of the creatine actually has beta alanine in it as well. Dave, the older cyclist told me that he too takes creatine.

The rest of the day was sleep, sleep and more sleep. IMLP and the late night partying has finally caught up to me, not to mention starting a new diet. I did manage to wake up for a little while and went to the store with Alice to pick up some food. We were out of fruit and meat. Alice and the kids don't like seafood, I do. I picked up some shrimp, scallops and salmon. First thing I did when I got home was barbaque some shrimp and scallops. They were great. Now I got to get some calamari and start to grill it like the Tin Cup does, they make it taste awesome.

It was an early night, bed right after American Chopper. I love that show. Now that the father and son are fighting and haven't spoken in two years it reminds me of my situation. Paul Sr. is such a jerk. This was the best episode. They are both building a bike for Cadillac, head to head. Sr. uses technology, Jr. pulls it out of his head. The second part is next week. I couldn't wait to see the results and pulled them up online, Jr's bike kicks Sr's bikes ass. And the worst part is how Sr. and all his ass kissers at OCC put down junior all the time. I love it. Can you tell?

Oh I found the lost photo from the Pig & Whistle on Thursday. It was me taking a pull and Alice's reaction. A picture is worth a 1000 words. So is the picture of my back peeling. Ouch, it hurts bad.

Mod Bike - 1:26:17 / 44.31 km / 30.8 kph / 119 avg hr.