Well hello there friends. I feel fantastic, simply smashing. Let me tell you why!

You probably have heard of it before, but let me tell you a bit more about ‘public bath houses’ and Japan. I live across the street from a public bath house which is open every night until 11:00. If it was free, I would not only bathe there every night, but I would in fact live there. Unfortunately it costs a converted 3.907 US dollars per use. So although living there would be less expensive than my dorm, it wouldn’t be as nice sleeping.

It works a little bit like this: you walk in the first door and there is a step in front of you where you MUST remove your shoes. Place them in the locker, and turn left into the actual building. Pay the nice old lady at the counter, and proceed into the men’s locker room. Once you’ve gone inside, remove all clothes; put them in a second locker, along with the key from the first locker. Take the towel and bathing supplies (which you brought with you to the bath house!) and proceed into heaven.

The room you’ve just entered is full of showers that are about waist high, which is fine because you’ll be washing yourself while sitting. This is genius: taking a shower while sitting. It amazes me that shower stools/extendable nozzles are not more common in the US. Sitting and bathing yourself is one of the most soothing things I have ever experienced. Wash yourself, and do it well. Make sure none of the Japanese people around you can even SUSPECT that you have a piece of dirt on you. Do this not only so they cannot accuse you of being a typical foreigner, but because the Japanese do a damn good job of cleaning themselves as well. You would in fact be the dirtiest one in there if you spent any less than 10 minutes pulling the dirt from under your nails before getting in the tub(s).

Tub(s). The best part – there are three tubs. Start on the far right – you sit down and the water level is about up to your neck. A ton of bubbles and warm water to sooth the muscles. After being in there for a couple minutes, get into the middle tub. VERY HOT. It’s hard to stay in there for more than a few minutes. Do your best, get a nice sweat going, and hop into the medicine bath. I have no clue what they put in the water, but you feel damn good when you’re in there. I swear it’s liquid steroids. I like to get a quick cold shower in before I get dressed, so I can cool off and walk home.

Get back to the dorm: stretch.

< Quite the experience.

Dj Krush. I’ve been a huge fan of this guy for a long time now. He makes some of the most creative, twisted songs I’ve ever heard. Recently I acquired Krush’s latest album, Stepping Stones. Let me tell you, it’s a keeper.

The album is made up of two CDs, a vocal side, and an instrumental side. Here’s the cool part: it’s a greatest hit’s CD, with all the songs remixed and remastered by Krush. Trihedron, the song from my the sideflip tutorial, has been one of my favorites for a long time, but the remix just takes everything to a whole new level. Intro starts with some backward sweeping drum hits, soon thereafter the beat drops – sounds amazing on a pair of nice headphones. Duality, which ranks in my top 10 favorite songs of all time, follows suit with an amazing remix, possibly topping the original piece. If you haven’t heard the song before, you’re doing yourself a shame. Duality was co-produced by DJ Shadow and has the one of the thickest atmospheres I’ve ever heard in a song. LIstening to it is a bit like getting a full body massage in a very heavy fog.

Final standout on the album is Stormy Cloud, and amazing jazz-like piece that drops the ground out a minute in – changing styles completely, while using all the same instruments and notes. wicked beats.

In other news I did comfortably well on my first major Japanese exam and have plans to meet the girl from yesterday again Excited? You bet I am!

“Check this out, it’s my favorite live performance of all time: “

Man, I had a fantastic day today! Two significant events to speak of.

First, I went to the famous keio and waseda baseball game. Talk about crazy; imagine the exact opposite of American baseball. Instead of sitting back and enjoying a beer, everyone, literally everyone, is on their feet the entire time the home team is batting. Yes, I did not sit once while our team was up to bat. not only that, but there are cheerleaders that stand on top of the dugout and direct the commotion. Everyone is cheering the entire time, and everyone cheers in unison. Although we lost, I had a fantastic time and ended up meeting some new people.

Secondly, and more importantly, I met a ridiculously nice and cute girl today! We went out for coffee and a nice chat in Yoyogi Park. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had since coming to Japan. Yokatta ne!

“This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. “

Here’s what’s up. So I finally met up with those breakdancers that I was talking about before and ended up tricking/teaching them for a good 3 hours. They both landed backflips by themselves by the time I left. I was like CHYEA buddy you guys rule! They’ll be amazing in no time. It was an experience that reminded me how good it feels to teach – makes me excited to think about doing it for a living.

On a different branch (lol), I went to the most amazing coffee shop I have ever been to today. Again, it was with Luke and another guy from the dorm named Andrew. Very small, very strong Jazz like environment. Imagine it this way: the older, more mature, more refined starbucks. There I met a guy from Amsterdam and talked about traveling across Asian on the Tran Siberian Train line. Sounds like one incredible experience – 10 days on a train from Moscow to East China. The coffee was amazing and the man working there was the perfect balance of friendly and subtle. Gotta love clerks like that.

On the way home we got caught in a typhoon that had me cracking up until I got in my room. Is it funny to get soaked to the point of squelchy socks in the most crowded place in the world? Typically I’d say no, but I started cracking up while I was walking back. Being with your friends makes all the difference.

“The guy who lives next to me right now also has a video blog. Here is a sample from when we went to the Yagami Festival!

“

but when you get the caffeine, don’t get it from soda. if you do that you’re just a lameboy

Today was the first time in a whlie that I felt really, really solid about my Japanese. I have a friend named Hitomi who I’ve met up with several times now. The first time we met I could hardly understand anything she said, but today I understood a fair amount. man she cracks me up lol. Also, I had my first big japanese test. that’s an interesting story by itself.

For those that don’t know, caffeine is the quickest adapting drug. If you have never had it, a small amount will make you nuts. If you have it everyday, your body won’t even notice. Here’s the fun part: a week without caffeine is all it takes to rid your body of the dependency. So, if you have caffeine everyday for a month, but then wait a week before having it again, it’ll be like your body has never touched it. So, I waited a week before my test, and then had two espresso before the test. Needless to say I was WIRED. For those that don’t really drink coffee or soda, I suggest that you keep it this way, and save it for a special occassion. Caffeine before tricking is like tricking on steroids. Give it a try!

“Another sweet post.

There is a common misconception to think that a good diet needs X amount of calories. Or that calorie consumption is the most important part of your diet. Believe me, this is the wrong way of thinking about it.

You will hear people that have done some research on nutrition tell you it’s not how much you eat. It’s what you eat, how often you eat, and how you feel when you eat. True, but more so than that look at how and why your body burns fat. This is gonna be a bit long winded, so bear with me.

The key word here is metabolism. Your metabolism is really just how fast your body converts food into energy. In other words, this is what determines how much food you should eat. However, your metabolism is not just some number, fixed at a certain amount. It is dynamic, ever changing, and is influenced by a number of different factors. Most importantly, the amount of muscle tissue you have. Followed by exercise, what you eat, how you structure your meals, and water consumption.

Ok, this makes sense right? Your body tries to anticipate your meal structure in order to see how fast it needs to burn the food you’re giving it. It also knows that the more muscle you have the more energy you need to keep everything working. So, when morons skip breakfast and eat 2 meals a day, their body tells them “”Oh crap I’m not getting any more food for like 12 hours, i better burn this very very slowly as to keep my energy somewhat high for as long as possible.”" So how does the body store energy for long periods of time? It makes fat deposits. Also, when people have very little muscle tissue, the body realizes it doesn’t need much energy to function, so less food is required to keep that energy level up. So when a person with low muscle tissue eats a big meal, the body only converts a little bit into energy, a lot more of it is stored and discarded.

These reasons are exactly why when my friends come to me and ask “”how do I lose weight?”" I tell them eat more often and go to the gym and gain muscle.

So now I’m starting to get around to helping your actual question regarding calorie intake. Losing weight can be tricky so it’s important to understand exactly what’s going on with your body as to not screw it up. In order to BURN fat your body needs to be in 2 states. 1 is it needs to require energy. So maybe you ate 2 or 3 hours ago. Your body probably needs more energy at this point, so it’s looking to where it has deposited energy from that meal. The second state is you need to have a low amount of insulin in your system. WTF!? ENGLISH PLEASE. Your body burns fat deposits with a chemical called glucagen. This is a naturally secreted chemical that you have most of the time, and your body will make more when it needs more energy. However, the production of insulin inhibits the production of glucagen. Guess what, atkins was right. Carbs can be the devil. Anytime you eat carbs your body produces insulin to help the digestion process. It’s not exactly that carbs make you fat, its just they stop you from losing it.

Ok that was a lot of information right? Hopefully you will find some of it helpful. I haven’t even touched the things that you need to stay away from that will lower your metabolism (HFCS and hydrogenated oils in particular). So now, what to do to lose weight.

Eat 6 meals a day. Small meals, try to keep about a 40%carb 40%protein 20% fat ratio on most meals. Earlier in the day you should eat more carbs (especially before and immediately after your workout). Later in the day you should eat less carbs more protein and fat. Good fats mind you. Try to have your last meal about 2 hours before you sleep. Ideally this meal should have almost NO carbs in it. And it should be your smallest meal (while breakfast should be your largest). Typically for me, this is something like cottage cheese and mixed nuts.

Toning and cardio workouts burn calories, yes. However, exercises that promote a large amount of muscle and strength gain give your body an additional area to place energy into – it requires a lot of energy to make muscle tissue. The additional muscle tissue will help further increase your metabolism – making your body want energy more often, increasing the rate that you can burn fat. Plus, if you’re getting into tricking you want fast twitch muscle, not slow twitch. So – when in the gym, toss on lots of weight.

Keep asking questions and good luck.”