Kana and I didn’t go climbing yesterday. Instead I made waffles for breakfast, I did four loads of laundry (Kana hung everything to dry), and then we went to Costco.

Tonight (Monday) for dinner, I’m making ribs in a certain infamous electric pressure cooker, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. I will takes some pictures tonight. Hopefully everything turns out delicious!

I’m going to a wedding this weekend and Kana said that the suit I currently have isn’t really that formal. But I know she really just wanted me to get a new suit. So we go to the store together and the guy points us in the direction of a nice black suit. I looked at the price tag and it was $500. I almost jumped out of the suit right there and then. Then I realized that everything was on sale at the moment and it was half off. So after deciding to get the suit the guy brings up the fact that right now they have this deal where you buy 2 suits and they bring the price down a little more. So all of a sudden instead of buying 2 suits for $500, they will give me 2 suits for $480. I bring up the fact that this doesn’t really seem like a deal to me. Can they make it more worth my while? So he says depending on what suit you get then he might be able to make a deal. So we pick out a suit and the half off price is $195. The price is $445. The “special sale” price is $430. So I say to the guy “Ya know. I’m not just going to buy a suit. I have to buy 2 ties, a belt, and a decorative handkerchief (for the pocket). Can you knock the price of these two suits down to $400 even?” He says “depending on what you pick out we’ll see.” So long story short I get a $50 belt and 2 ties. I’m not even sure how much the ties cost. They had another deal where you buy any shirt, belt, or tie (three items, you are free to mix and match) for $80. So the 2 ties and a belt instantly became $80. So after everything gets totaled up. He only ended up knocking the price down to $420. I should have called the manager and I will do that from now on. I even signed up for their stupid credit card to get an additional 5% off. I’m definitely going to cancel that as soon as I get it in the mail. That is if I get approved for the credit card. I have yet to get approved for credit while living in Japan. But that is an entirely different post, mostly discussing foreigner discrimination. So in the end I got some 2 new suits, 2 new ties, and a belt. Although I did have the thought today about what I should do for shoes.

So what do we do when we “battle”? I’ve come up with different challenges. And here they are.

Continuation Challenge: Just plain jumping rope to see how many you can get up to. This is what I try to do mainly.

Health Challenge: This is to see how “healthy” you are. It is basically an endurance challenge. What it actually basically is, is interval training. HAHAHA! That’s right. I’m making the kids do interval training. So what you do is do 10 very slow jumps followed by 10 fast jumps and just repeat that as many times as you can. I think a kid yesterday got up to 70 or so doing that. It is quite tiring.

Variety Challenge: A kid came up with this the other day. Basically you do a variety of jumping. First 10 using both feet. Then the next 10 using only one foot. Then the next 10 using the other foot. Then repeat the cycle.

Health Variety Challenge: Basically the above two challenges combined. Very tiring.

5 Step Health Challenge: I just thought of this and I’m going to try it today. A variation on the health challenge where you start increasing the amount of jumps by 5. So the first set would be 10. Then the next set would be 15. Then 20. Then 25.

By far the most grueling aspect of jumping rope is jumping slowly. Jumping fast it easy. When you are jumping fast it takes quite a while before you run out of energy and then it gets grueling towards the end. Like when I finally broke 300, around 280 or so I really started to feel it and I had to push myself to get to 300. After 300 I was basically trying to get as far as I could. Around 220 or so I thought maybe I could get to 400 but that changed pretty quickly.

However, when you are jumping slowly, you instantly feel it. It is so crazy. My calves just instantly start to burn. The Variety challenge those is interesting in that you are only jumping on one foot. So in effect you are kind of giving your feet a rest. Yesterday when I was trying this challenge I instantly noticed the rejuvenating effects of jumping on one foot. I think mixing the Variety Challenge with the 5 step challenge might be a pretty good workout. Basically because the more that you jump the more that you will be able to rest your feet, perhaps saving up energy to go the distance.

My current goal is 500.

Also this morning I weighed myself and I’m down to 68.8 kilos. That’s only 151 pounds, and it might seem like I’m crazy for trying to lose weight, but I am trying to lose body fat for climbing. Eventually I’ll be gaining weight again, but this weight gain will be in the form of muscle mass. Wish me luck!

However, during my research I found some very conflicting information. It is very frustrating to try and figure out what is fact and what isn’t. For example, there are a lot of people in the world that drink milk. But there are some people out there in the world that say drinking milk isn’t healthy. But then on the other there are people that say that drinking soy milk is unhealthy. Then you go with an alternative like almond milk and people say that is unhealthy. So what am I supposed to do? Give up drinking altogether?

Then there are things like “meat is fatty and unhealthy.” Then on another page I read about the “dangers of soy foods.” Then I come across literature saying “don’t eat wheat based products.” I’m literally flabbergasted by all this contradictory information. However, since most of this information is on the internet, and I think a large portion of it may also be anecdotal, you can’t really believe it. But still it makes you wonder.

For example, one of the big things I wanted to try and do was limit our meat intake. I thought that it would be nicer to eat more beans and vegetable proteins. Except I start reading stuff about how soy beans when they aren’t very nutritious for you and can actually cause health problems. For example, soy beans have a chemical in them that is the exact same shape as estrogen. So when we eat it we are getting doses of estrogen in our systems. Some doctors believe that soy bean consumption may lead to breast cancer. And in men it can cause sterility. But I don’t really care about that. I care more about phytates.

Phytates are chemical compounds that lock up minerals in the seeds of plants. Once the plants start to grow they start to release an enzyme called phytase that breaks down the phytate. This then allows the plant to start using the minerals stored up. So you know that big bowl of oatmeal with raisins that I eat everyday for breakfast? Yeah, I’m probably not getting more than 25% of the vitamins and minerals that are locked up in the oatmeal. But I also eat yogurt and drink milk with my oatmeal. In my stomach the phtates present then bind to the calcium, iron, etc from the milk and yogurt. So I’m not really getting anything out of my food. This can however be fixed by soaking the oatmeal, wheat, or beans in an acid solution. For example, a cup of water and a tablespoon of lemon juice. This will allow time for the acid to break down the phytate releasing the minerals locked within. This method can also be used with beans.

Soy beans have the highest phytate content around. Basically you are getting nothing out of soy beans. Also I read some pretty scary stuff about soy products. Not just the stuff about cancer and what not. Like how during the process of making hydrogenated soy bean oil, there is a lot of leftover waste. So the soy bean industry decided to take this waste product and try to make it sellable. What they did was take the product and extract all the plant proteins out of it. This is called “Soy Protein Isolate” or SPI. The SPI is then used to make soy burgers, tofu dogs, and soy milk. So these products are basically being made with sterilized industrial waste. I’m not quite sure how to feel about this.

Simply soaking soy beans won’t cause a major portion of the phytates to break down. Instead the best way to do this is to ferment the beans. Japan and Indonesia has been doing this for years. By fermenting the bean with natural occurring bacterias the phytate breaks down and the bean becomes digestible. So foods like tempeh from Indonesia and natto, miso, and soy sauce from Japan are okay sources of soy protein. But since the estrogen compounds are still present we have to limit consumption of these products anyway.

I guess really I’m not supposed to eat or drink anything. But then I realized that I’ve lived till the age of 26 eating and drink this stuff. So really why should I stop now? If I’m really worried about getting sick and dying early then I should instead probably give up rock climbing which I’m much more likely to die from. That isn’t going to happen so instead I think I’ll just eat whatever I feel like. I think though I am going to try and limit soy based products. And drink low fat milk.

But apparently the fat in milk is responsible for…

Speaking of bouldering gyms, Kana and I went to a new bouldering gym in Shimokitazawa. It is pretty nice. A little taller than the gym I’m going to right now. It is a branch store to the gym I go to in Takadanobaba. So I can go to either gym. Kana wants to go climb there this Saturday night after work, so I’m a little excited to go climbing with her in a gym. It will be our first time going to a gym together. I’m looking forward to it because we will both be able to climb an equal amount. When Kana and I have gone outside, I’ve spent way more time on the ground while Kana gets to climb. So we’ll both be able to get a lot of climbing in.

Speaking of climbing, I’ve returned to the gym this week. I went on Tuesday and I’m going again tonight (Thursday). I’ve been climbing with a group of guys recently that are very skilled. What this means is that I’m climbing the same routes they are doing which is pushing me to my limits. This is one thing I don’t like about climbing in groups. Everyone is always trying to outdo the other. So I think I’ll try and have more fun this even and climb a lot of different problems instead of attempting to climb something and end up not climbing anything at all.