Several years ago I lived in an apartment complex that had two big dumpsters for resident's trash. I distinctly remember taking my garbage out one day and seeing a sight that has stuck with me ever since. The two dumpsters were identical except that the dumpster on the left had its lid open while the one on the right had its lid closed. I noticed that the dumpster on the left, with its open lid, was so full of trash that some of the bags were spilling out over the side. There were even a few bags that had fallen over onto the ground. Logically I went to the dumpster on the right to check if there was still space in it. I opened the lid and to my shock there was only a few bags of trash in it.
I was taken aback by that sight. There must have been round after round of people who were simply too lazy to lift up a lid. Instead they chose to keep dumping trash into the one on the left even after it was overflowing. I thought to myself, "What a bunch of lazy bunch of pigs!" I think that day I really lost a lot of faith in humanity. I wondered to myself how could people accept such short sightedness. Were they really that lazy that lifting up a lid to a dumpster was too much to ask of them? Were they just that feeble minded that it simply didn't even register in their brains? While I wish I could say that this was just an isolated incident, that would be a lie. Everyday I see numerous examples of people taking the easiest route and forsaking everyone else in the process. Look at how much litter you will find everyday on the side of the road. Are you telling me that it is that difficult to wait until you have access to a trash can? No, of course it is not difficult but still people chose to take the simplest path with no regard for the aftermath. It sickens my heart to see such thoughtlessness and laziness.
Some people might wonder why is personal training necessary. With the widespread use of the internet, fitness related information is so readily available that with just a little research and a critical eye one could easily find all the information they need. I have always said that there are no secrets with it comes to losing weight and getting in shape. It really is as simple as combining hard work with a solid dietary plan. Sure, if you want to take things a step beyond the normal and be a bodybuilder or powerlifter things will get more complicated but most people do not want that. As I have already discussed, most people who go to a gym or hire a personal trainer just want to be healthy and to look good to the opposite sex. Only a very small percentage of the population would want to take things further.
Yes, I will come right out and say you do not need a personal trainer for that. On the same hand you don't need a mechanic to fix your car, just like you don't need a contractor to build your deck. However, most people don't have the skills nor do they want to take the time to learn the skills to do either of those jobs properly. Sure, there are a lot of unskilled people who make attempts. Hell, doing my normal nine to five job I see numerous examples of horrible looking decks and fences done by do it yourselfers. Luckily most people without the skills to perform such tasks wisely hire professionals to do it for them.
I will go out on a limb and say that most people are not going to be willing to put in the time researching different methods of training and dieting. And even those who might be willing to do some research will still be unlikely to spend a few years training diligently to find out what works best for them. That is where good personal training can come in. Just like it is wise to take a car problem to a qualified mechanic, it is also wise to trust your training and fitness related goals to an expert. Just like mechanics, or any other skilled tradesman, not all are created equal. There are plenty of shitty mechanics just like there are plenty of shitty personal trainers. Any asshole can tell you to do some exercises and to follow some cookie cutter diet and if you are lucky you might get some results. But if you want to get the best results, results that will be lasting, you need to find someone who knows how to analyze your goals and then to achieve those goals.
Now on to the meat and potatoes of this article. Most people who seek out a personal trainer want to look better to the opposite sex. While they are not likely to come right out and say this, it is still the primary motivator. As I have said earlier in the series, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. I mean, does anyone want to walk down the road and have people think, "holy fuck it is a walking manatee!" Maybe there are some people who want that but they should seek out a psychiatrist and not a personal trainer. For those who do not have psychological issues I am sure you would rather have people think, "wow that person has really taken care of them self." Actually that is bullshit and you know it. You want people to see you and think, "goddamn, I would sell my mother to a third world country for one minute in bed with you."
So without further adieu I am going to tell women how to attract the opposite sex. Don't worry men, you will get your turn in the next entry. This entry is all about women. This is going to be quite a bit easier for me to write as well. Being a heterosexual male it will be odd to talk about what women find attractive in men. I feel much less awkward talking about what men find attractive in women.
And let me get one thing out of the way before I get started. In no way shape or form is this my own opinion. Everything detailed in this article is based on scientific studies published in medical and scientific journals. I have done my utmost best to scrutinize every study I have read and discarded anything that had contradictory evidence against it. I also refuse to utilize findings from studies conducted under dubious standards. I could go through and provide numerous references for the things I am going to detail but it would probably bore the living fuck out of you. If you do want to know my references feel free to email our company at quickstrikefitness@gmail.com and I will happily provide them. However, if you do that then I will probably think you are a douche. Maybe that doesn't bother you but it should. Nobody should want others to think they are a douche. But by all means don't let that stop you from asking for the references. Just know that you will be officially crowned douche of the month. No pressure.
There are many things about women that determine how attractive men (and other women for that matter) find women. As a small side note I have to throw this fact out there. Heterosexual men experience arousal seeing attractive women but almost no arousal seeing attractive men. Women experience arousal seeing both attractive men and women. This bit of information confirms my belief that Missy and I should take up that female cashiers offer from the other night. On a further side note, women also experience arousal watching animals mating. I am not making that shit up either. People who know me know that I love to pull jokes on people but I am dead serious about that one. Scientist believe it has something to do with an evolutionary response to wanting to continue the species. I just think that women love to get down.
Many of the things that go in to determining how attractive a man finds a woman I will not be discussing here. The reason being that they involve things that cannot be changed. For instance men tend to rate high cheekbones as being more attractive. Having eyes more spaced apart is another thing that men prefer. A slight longer leg to torso ratio is also appreciated, by western men at least. A smaller chin is preferred by most men as well. Obviously these things cannot be changed by natural means and I would never recommend plastic surgery to anyone. From a physical sense, I have yet to see a person who has gotten a lot of work done that does not look plastic and fake. On a philosophical level, plastic surgery goes against everything I believe in. Finding happiness in one's self is the first step to becoming the best you. How could you be happy with yourself if you wish to change your very structure?
There are some things that are easily changed that determine how attractive a man finds a woman. Contrary to what some may think, men find darker haired women more attractive than blonde haired women, with redheads being a distant last. Oddly enough, there is compelling evidence that men find blonde haired women more approachable even though they find them less attractive. Brown eyed men have no statistically significant preference in a woman's eye color. Blue eyed men tend to prefer blue eyed women though. In regards to women of European descent men tend to find the lighter the skin the more appealing. Some believe this has to do with the richer classes being lighter skinned and the poorer labor classes being darker skinned. Oddly enough, women find the opposite attractive in European descended males. They prefer ones with darker skin. Tall dark and handsome eh? Men find long, lustrous hair attractive as well. These things are all fairly easy to change and do seem to make some difference in perceived attractiveness.
There is one quality perhaps more important than any of the others in how attractive men perceive women. That is the ratio of a woman's hips to her waist ratio. And yes, men find that ratio far more important than even breast size. Breasts are what men fixate on during most studies but it is the waist to hip ratio that determines how attractive they find the women. During one study they found that men preferred women with a waist to hip ratio of 0.7, regardless of breast size. This finding has been backed up by multiple studies over the years. And unfortunately for certain women there is evidence that women with high waist to hip ratios and large breasts are generally rated as the least attractive. Obviously this is an average. I have an uncle who would absolutely fucking love you if you have a high hip to waist ratio and giant set of knockers.
Kind of ironic right that men prefer women with a bit of curves. Don't get me wrong, most women online who say they are curvy are really just saying they have too much funk in the trunk and that is not what I am talking about. What I am saying is that men do not find that super model look appealing. Hollywood actresses who are obsessed with that razor thinness should take note. Men like women who look like women and not women who look like teenage boys. This is contrary to what many women are led to believe. Men find average sized women far more attractive than women who are thinner than average. I blame Hollywood and especially the modeling industry for spreading that myth. Shame on them! Think of just how many young woman suffer from eating disorders because they are misled into thinking that is what men want. Far from it! Maybe young girls should stop and think about just how much of the modeling industry is controlled by gay men. Is it a surprise that the ideal boy shape of a model is that of a teenage boy? I think not! Just don't use this as an excuse to pack on needless pounds. It is not healthy. But if you do happen to do that call my uncle, he will fuck the hell out of your fat ass. Hell, he won't just fuck you, he will make love to you.
The best part about this is that the waist to hip ratio can be improved through proper personal training. Focusing effort on lifts like squats, lunges, hip thrusts, and leg presses will build up the muscles in the thighs and buttocks increasing the hip size. By following a proper diet and utilizing cardiovascular training, you can reduce your waist size at the same time. Women tend to hold more fat on their lower body than on their belly which is not an altogether bad thing. Contrary to what you may have heard, spot reduction of fat is possible to some extent, especially in the legs. Utilizing the right kind of cardio training can help to ensure the new size you pack on the legs and ass does not get overly fat. This is why cookie cutter routines are not the most effective things to follow. Sure they can help you make improvements but what you really need is someone with a critical eye who can assess your body type and design a routine tailored to improving it. A woman with a small waist and big plump ass doesn't need to worry as much about hitting the lower body lifts. On the other hand a woman with a thick waist will need to really hone in on her diet and try to add some lean size to that backside.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Big Congrats In Order
I want to take a brief second to give a big congratulations to my Quickstrike Fitness Solutions business partner (also my wife lol). Today she received her new belt and rank of Sam Dan (3rd degree black belt) in Tang Soo Do from Master Joon Jum Kim. She had actually earned this rank before she moved out here but Master Kim has been away in Korea due to the failing health of close family member.
She now holds this rank along with her 2nd degree black belt in Goju-Ryu Karate. The dedication it took for her to achieve these ranks is evident in her dedication to training in the gym. She is one of hardest working people I have ever trained and keeps pace with me every day.
Congrats honey, you earned it!
She now holds this rank along with her 2nd degree black belt in Goju-Ryu Karate. The dedication it took for her to achieve these ranks is evident in her dedication to training in the gym. She is one of hardest working people I have ever trained and keeps pace with me every day.
Congrats honey, you earned it!
How to Attract the Opposite Sex Part 5
Let me just get something out on the table. I have a serious phobia of gas station bathrooms. Well I guess you could throw in, all public restrooms, but gas station bathrooms tend to cause me the most anxiety. This might seem a bit odd for a big scary looking man to be afraid of something as harmless as a gas station bathroom, but I can't help it. This is not a phobia that I was born with, say like being afraid of heights, but rather one that I have cultivated over the years. One bad experience after another has finally led me to this affliction.
While there are many people who read this blog that know me on a personal level, there are also a lot of people who do not know me. I know this because I check the audience stats and I have people viewing this blog from Russia, Britain, Australia, hell even Venezuela for fucks sake. In this past week alone I have had 19 unique views from Russia. I can safely say that I don't know one damn person who lives in Russia. I feel I need to explain a few things to those people, about myself, to make sense of my phobia of gas stations. My day job involves working in the field. This means that I spend long hours without regular access to a bathroom. I have no choice but to use public restrooms throughout the day.
This is probably not a big deal to most people but I am not most people. If at all possible I will avoid using a gas station bathroom at all cost, but sometimes I have no choice. My biggest issue with gas station bathrooms is that 95% of gas stations only have a single toilet for men and a single toilet for women. That means that if there is someone using the men's bathroom I have to wait around until their finished. Almost certainly every time there is someone in the bathroom when I stop. And because men are disgusting beasts every time they are taking a shit. It is the same story day after day. Americans eat too much crap food and then have the most disgusting bowel movements in history. I am sorry but the idea of walking into an enclosed space after some obese man just took a power shit is not my idea of a fun time. I actually have an unwritten rule that if I find the bathroom door locked I will wait no longer than 30 seconds for the bathroom door to open. Any longer than that and I know there is some god awful nightmare going on inside those walls.
Of course not every time is the door locked when I go to open it. There are those rare occasions the bathroom is not occupied. While this might seem like a good thing, it is almost always a very, very, very bad thing. Nine times out of ten, when I find the bathroom door unlocked, I walk in and find the results of some maniacs powershit sitting unflushed in the toilet. There is nothing on this earth that upsets me more than this. Public bathrooms generally have very powerful flushes. That means that all someone has to do is reach behind them and pull the lever down. It quite literally requires no effort at all and yet still there are some disgusting pigs out there that find themselves unable to complete such a simple task. I tend to see myself as a peaceful and philosophical man but something like that will quickly turn me into a raging bull.
So to get around the nightmare that is gas station bathrooms I will generally opt to use the bathroom at a grocery or department store. My personal favorite are grocery stores since most of them have bathrooms located at the front and most have a separate urinal. This tends to be the safest option although there can still be some hit and misses. Today was one of those misses.
You see, I had some drinks Friday night. Whenever I have some drinks about two days later I will have to urinate quite a bit. I have deduced the cause of this but that's not important right now. What is important to know is that when I left my office to get my work day started it wasn't very long until I had to take a wicked piss. When I am like this I have about five minutes between feeling like I have to piss until I get to the point that I have to piss so bad that it is about to squirt out of my ears. So I decided to go to my old standby, a local Krogers (a grocery store for the non-locals). By the time I parked my work truck I was to the point of squirming around. I affectionately refer to this stage as doing the "pee-pee dance". While this is a very horrible state to be in, relief was at least in sight. I made a sprint for the front door with no regard for the car that had to lock up its brakes to avoid hitting me. Passing through the double doors I was a man on a mission. And that mission ended in utter failure when I saw that the men's bathroom was taped off. I may or may not have let out an expletive under my breath at this point.
I had to think fast because things were reaching a point of no return. Now I do not recommend doing this, but behind the store there is a secluded spot that backs up to woods. If I position my truck just right I can piss into a bottle behind it and be completely unseen. Weighing my options this seemed like the best course of action. I sprinted back to my work truck and drove around the store to the back. Just wouldn't you know it but for some reason there was a family walking their dog behind the store. Seriously? I cursed them over and over again as I drove past. Of all the places to have a pow wow, you chose behind a fucking grocery store? Why not a park or a nice walking path? Idiots! So now things were looking bleak for me. The closest option was a nearby gas station but that was out of the question for the above mentioned reasons. I decided that instead I would make the 5 to 10 minute drive to the next closest grocery store, a Meijers. I actually prefer this place over Krogers because their bathrooms are located between two sets of doors so I don't even have to walk into the store itself. Not to mention the bathroom is bigger and that means more room for "funk" to dissipate.
I drove as fast as I could without breaking the speed limit. I was squirming and dancing around my seat the whole time. I tried the two finger willy shuffle and even meditation but nothing could soothe that urge to piss. I even began stomping my non driving foot but that provided no relief at all. All it would take is one delay and I would be forced to piss my pants. Luckily for me there were no car accidents and no downed power lines and none of the other things that might delay a drive. I pulled into the parking lot like a man on a mission and parked with a fury. I stormed out of my truck and marched, not walk but marched, my ass towards the front doors. As I made my way there one of those handicap buses pulled up to the front doors and the driver began helping to unload a man in a wheel chair. Now don't get me wrong, I have the utmost compassion for handicap people. I spent the better part of a year being unable to fully use my right hand (which is not even my dominant hand) and I know how damn difficult a minor disability like that can be.
But when I have to piss I am in war mode and I take no prisoners. I sprinted behind the back of the bus and came around and leapt over the wheel chair ramp and made my way inside. Now keep in mind, I leapt over the ramp like Walter Payton leaping over a defensive back to score a touchdown. In reality, I probably more closely resembled Walter Matthau stumbling out of a Puerto Rican brothel drunk as a skunk. It didn't matter to me, all that mattered was I now had a clear path to the bathroom. I darted inside. The urinal was beside a stall and I saw some feet and knew the guy next to me was probably taking a crap but at this point it didn't matter. I now had sweet relief. Generally in these circumstances I just breath through my mouth and not my nose and try to hurry as fast as I can. I was hoping against hope that I was there for the tail end of it and not the beginning.
Of course as luck would have it, I was at the beginning. Now you can sometimes hear some odd sounds in the bathroom but what I heard defies the laws of physics. Whatever was coming out of this man's bowels created more sounds than Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It sounded like some demon infused avalanche of unholiness. Holding my breath meant I didn't smell it but nothing can ever compare to hearing what that man did. Somethings a human being just shouldn't hear and that was one of them.
That is me. That is what I have to deal with. That is why I am the way that I am. And that leads me to the next rule about attracting the opposite sex.
Rule Number 6- If you sound like a symphony of destruction when you take a shit, don't ever let the opposite sex hear you because I guarantee you no one would ever want to have sex with the man who made that sound.
I know, I know, I know. Everyone is saying dammit Jason! When are you really going to tell us how to attract the opposite sex through personal training? Don't worry. The next entry is going to detail what men find most attractive in woman and how woman can utilize certain training principals to better achieve that look. The following entry will zero in on the men. And that is not the end of this series. It is not the beginning of the series either. Instead it will be the end of the beginning because building a better you is 1 part body, 1 part mind, and 1 part spirit and I will leave no stone unturned.
While there are many people who read this blog that know me on a personal level, there are also a lot of people who do not know me. I know this because I check the audience stats and I have people viewing this blog from Russia, Britain, Australia, hell even Venezuela for fucks sake. In this past week alone I have had 19 unique views from Russia. I can safely say that I don't know one damn person who lives in Russia. I feel I need to explain a few things to those people, about myself, to make sense of my phobia of gas stations. My day job involves working in the field. This means that I spend long hours without regular access to a bathroom. I have no choice but to use public restrooms throughout the day.
This is probably not a big deal to most people but I am not most people. If at all possible I will avoid using a gas station bathroom at all cost, but sometimes I have no choice. My biggest issue with gas station bathrooms is that 95% of gas stations only have a single toilet for men and a single toilet for women. That means that if there is someone using the men's bathroom I have to wait around until their finished. Almost certainly every time there is someone in the bathroom when I stop. And because men are disgusting beasts every time they are taking a shit. It is the same story day after day. Americans eat too much crap food and then have the most disgusting bowel movements in history. I am sorry but the idea of walking into an enclosed space after some obese man just took a power shit is not my idea of a fun time. I actually have an unwritten rule that if I find the bathroom door locked I will wait no longer than 30 seconds for the bathroom door to open. Any longer than that and I know there is some god awful nightmare going on inside those walls.
Of course not every time is the door locked when I go to open it. There are those rare occasions the bathroom is not occupied. While this might seem like a good thing, it is almost always a very, very, very bad thing. Nine times out of ten, when I find the bathroom door unlocked, I walk in and find the results of some maniacs powershit sitting unflushed in the toilet. There is nothing on this earth that upsets me more than this. Public bathrooms generally have very powerful flushes. That means that all someone has to do is reach behind them and pull the lever down. It quite literally requires no effort at all and yet still there are some disgusting pigs out there that find themselves unable to complete such a simple task. I tend to see myself as a peaceful and philosophical man but something like that will quickly turn me into a raging bull.
So to get around the nightmare that is gas station bathrooms I will generally opt to use the bathroom at a grocery or department store. My personal favorite are grocery stores since most of them have bathrooms located at the front and most have a separate urinal. This tends to be the safest option although there can still be some hit and misses. Today was one of those misses.
You see, I had some drinks Friday night. Whenever I have some drinks about two days later I will have to urinate quite a bit. I have deduced the cause of this but that's not important right now. What is important to know is that when I left my office to get my work day started it wasn't very long until I had to take a wicked piss. When I am like this I have about five minutes between feeling like I have to piss until I get to the point that I have to piss so bad that it is about to squirt out of my ears. So I decided to go to my old standby, a local Krogers (a grocery store for the non-locals). By the time I parked my work truck I was to the point of squirming around. I affectionately refer to this stage as doing the "pee-pee dance". While this is a very horrible state to be in, relief was at least in sight. I made a sprint for the front door with no regard for the car that had to lock up its brakes to avoid hitting me. Passing through the double doors I was a man on a mission. And that mission ended in utter failure when I saw that the men's bathroom was taped off. I may or may not have let out an expletive under my breath at this point.
I had to think fast because things were reaching a point of no return. Now I do not recommend doing this, but behind the store there is a secluded spot that backs up to woods. If I position my truck just right I can piss into a bottle behind it and be completely unseen. Weighing my options this seemed like the best course of action. I sprinted back to my work truck and drove around the store to the back. Just wouldn't you know it but for some reason there was a family walking their dog behind the store. Seriously? I cursed them over and over again as I drove past. Of all the places to have a pow wow, you chose behind a fucking grocery store? Why not a park or a nice walking path? Idiots! So now things were looking bleak for me. The closest option was a nearby gas station but that was out of the question for the above mentioned reasons. I decided that instead I would make the 5 to 10 minute drive to the next closest grocery store, a Meijers. I actually prefer this place over Krogers because their bathrooms are located between two sets of doors so I don't even have to walk into the store itself. Not to mention the bathroom is bigger and that means more room for "funk" to dissipate.
I drove as fast as I could without breaking the speed limit. I was squirming and dancing around my seat the whole time. I tried the two finger willy shuffle and even meditation but nothing could soothe that urge to piss. I even began stomping my non driving foot but that provided no relief at all. All it would take is one delay and I would be forced to piss my pants. Luckily for me there were no car accidents and no downed power lines and none of the other things that might delay a drive. I pulled into the parking lot like a man on a mission and parked with a fury. I stormed out of my truck and marched, not walk but marched, my ass towards the front doors. As I made my way there one of those handicap buses pulled up to the front doors and the driver began helping to unload a man in a wheel chair. Now don't get me wrong, I have the utmost compassion for handicap people. I spent the better part of a year being unable to fully use my right hand (which is not even my dominant hand) and I know how damn difficult a minor disability like that can be.
But when I have to piss I am in war mode and I take no prisoners. I sprinted behind the back of the bus and came around and leapt over the wheel chair ramp and made my way inside. Now keep in mind, I leapt over the ramp like Walter Payton leaping over a defensive back to score a touchdown. In reality, I probably more closely resembled Walter Matthau stumbling out of a Puerto Rican brothel drunk as a skunk. It didn't matter to me, all that mattered was I now had a clear path to the bathroom. I darted inside. The urinal was beside a stall and I saw some feet and knew the guy next to me was probably taking a crap but at this point it didn't matter. I now had sweet relief. Generally in these circumstances I just breath through my mouth and not my nose and try to hurry as fast as I can. I was hoping against hope that I was there for the tail end of it and not the beginning.
Of course as luck would have it, I was at the beginning. Now you can sometimes hear some odd sounds in the bathroom but what I heard defies the laws of physics. Whatever was coming out of this man's bowels created more sounds than Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It sounded like some demon infused avalanche of unholiness. Holding my breath meant I didn't smell it but nothing can ever compare to hearing what that man did. Somethings a human being just shouldn't hear and that was one of them.
That is me. That is what I have to deal with. That is why I am the way that I am. And that leads me to the next rule about attracting the opposite sex.
Rule Number 6- If you sound like a symphony of destruction when you take a shit, don't ever let the opposite sex hear you because I guarantee you no one would ever want to have sex with the man who made that sound.
I know, I know, I know. Everyone is saying dammit Jason! When are you really going to tell us how to attract the opposite sex through personal training? Don't worry. The next entry is going to detail what men find most attractive in woman and how woman can utilize certain training principals to better achieve that look. The following entry will zero in on the men. And that is not the end of this series. It is not the beginning of the series either. Instead it will be the end of the beginning because building a better you is 1 part body, 1 part mind, and 1 part spirit and I will leave no stone unturned.
Cheat Day Plus Another Sample Diet
I am posting up my cheat day list of foods that I had on Friday along with my daily diet for today (Sunday).
Friday-
The plan was to not have a cheat meal until the evening but upon waking I noticed that I was dropping weight at a rate that was faster than I would like so I made a judgment call and began carbohydrate loading immediately. I followed a carb loading pattern in the morning and transitioned to a more traditional cheat day by the evening. Here is a rough outline.
6:00 AM- A bowl of cheeze-its. Two rice cakes. A sandwich with natural peanut butter and sugar free grape jelly on two slices of Ezekiel Bread. 3 cups of low fat milk.
9:00 AM- 2 waffles with syrup. A scoop of protein powder mixed with water. Some more cheeze-its. Got scolded by Missy for leaving a bunch of crumbs all over the floor from the rice cakes I ate at 6 AM.
Trained Shoulders 11-12
12:30- I ate around 10 ounces of lean pork and 3 cups of potatoes with some BBQ sauce on the side.
4:00- Fish tacos at Bw3 with some tortilla chips on the side. Had a mojito with the meal.
6:00- Had some kind of iced mochachino type of drink at a starbucks with Missy.
9:00- Had quite a bit of Papa John's pizza. Had some reduced fat cheeze-its as well. Drank some southern comfort. At some point throughout the night I must of got hungry because I woke up in bed with a handful of cheeze-its in my hand.
I am thinking I ate something after the pizza, something of a dessert variety but for the life of me I cannot remember right now. Cheat meals aren't that appealing to me anymore. While I was indulging in food I found myself just wanting to be eating my normal diet with just bigger portions. I don't think this because I think a day like this sets me back, if anything I think it helps me to progress faster, I just am losing a taste for junk food because I know it leaves me feeling slow and sluggish.
Here is my diet for today-
5:00 AM- 2 slices of Ezekiel Bread. 1 Tablespoon of Sugar Free Jelly. 1 Cup of Liquid Egg whites and 1 Scoop of Protein powder mixed with water.
8:30 AM- 2 Scoops of Protein Powder mixed with water. 1 Rice Cake.
12:00 PM- 1 Packet of Grits. 1 Cup of Egg Whites and 2 Whole Eggs Scrambled.
3:30- PM- 1 Scoop of Protein Powder. 2 Slices of Ezekiel Bread. 1 tablespoon of no sugar jelly.
6:30- PM- 1 Scoop of Protein Powder (post training).
8:00- PM- 8 ounces of lean ground turkey and 1 cup of rice.
Totals.
Cals Carbs Fat Protein
1970 157 33 252
Look for Part 5 of my How to Attract the Opposite Sex series later tonight.
Friday-
The plan was to not have a cheat meal until the evening but upon waking I noticed that I was dropping weight at a rate that was faster than I would like so I made a judgment call and began carbohydrate loading immediately. I followed a carb loading pattern in the morning and transitioned to a more traditional cheat day by the evening. Here is a rough outline.
6:00 AM- A bowl of cheeze-its. Two rice cakes. A sandwich with natural peanut butter and sugar free grape jelly on two slices of Ezekiel Bread. 3 cups of low fat milk.
9:00 AM- 2 waffles with syrup. A scoop of protein powder mixed with water. Some more cheeze-its. Got scolded by Missy for leaving a bunch of crumbs all over the floor from the rice cakes I ate at 6 AM.
Trained Shoulders 11-12
12:30- I ate around 10 ounces of lean pork and 3 cups of potatoes with some BBQ sauce on the side.
4:00- Fish tacos at Bw3 with some tortilla chips on the side. Had a mojito with the meal.
6:00- Had some kind of iced mochachino type of drink at a starbucks with Missy.
9:00- Had quite a bit of Papa John's pizza. Had some reduced fat cheeze-its as well. Drank some southern comfort. At some point throughout the night I must of got hungry because I woke up in bed with a handful of cheeze-its in my hand.
I am thinking I ate something after the pizza, something of a dessert variety but for the life of me I cannot remember right now. Cheat meals aren't that appealing to me anymore. While I was indulging in food I found myself just wanting to be eating my normal diet with just bigger portions. I don't think this because I think a day like this sets me back, if anything I think it helps me to progress faster, I just am losing a taste for junk food because I know it leaves me feeling slow and sluggish.
Here is my diet for today-
5:00 AM- 2 slices of Ezekiel Bread. 1 Tablespoon of Sugar Free Jelly. 1 Cup of Liquid Egg whites and 1 Scoop of Protein powder mixed with water.
8:30 AM- 2 Scoops of Protein Powder mixed with water. 1 Rice Cake.
12:00 PM- 1 Packet of Grits. 1 Cup of Egg Whites and 2 Whole Eggs Scrambled.
3:30- PM- 1 Scoop of Protein Powder. 2 Slices of Ezekiel Bread. 1 tablespoon of no sugar jelly.
6:30- PM- 1 Scoop of Protein Powder (post training).
8:00- PM- 8 ounces of lean ground turkey and 1 cup of rice.
Totals.
Cals Carbs Fat Protein
1970 157 33 252
Look for Part 5 of my How to Attract the Opposite Sex series later tonight.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
How to Attact the Opposite Sex Part 4
My father passed away in January of 2011. He was only 59 years old and was in relatively good health up to that point, so it came as a sudden shock to everyone in our family. It turned out that he had developed a rare form of cancer that spreads extremely fast and is almost always fatal. In fact, in his case, it had spread so fast that he did not even know that he had it when he passed away.
That is a rather heavy and depressing set of facts to begin an article with. Even now, almost two and a half years later, it is still something that I don't like to think about. Growing up, my father was a very strict disciplinarian who had very narrow view on what direction my life should go in. When I was young I was very resentful because of that. I looked towards other kids in the neighborhood and always wondered why my dad was so much stricter with me than their dad's were with them. I should note that he was strict in certain ways. He wanted me to earn good grades and not get into trouble. He wanted me to keep my bedroom spotless and he wanted me to play sports in school. He wanted me to go to college and to get a degree in a field of study like engineering or computer science, something that would guarantee a certain standard of living.
On the other hand, he might of been less strict in other areas. I remember when I was 10 or 11 I got in a fight with another kid in the neighborhood. The kid's father must have seen us because I remember him coming out and berating his child for fighting. I remember a bit later having another fight just down the road from our house. Like most fights when you are a kid it happened fast and ended faster. I remember my dad got in his car and drove down to where we were after the fight had ended and some of the other kids were worried I was going to be in trouble for fighting. I knew better though, my dad was pissed off at me because I hadn't shoveled the driveway to his standard. He didn't care that I got in fights so long as I won the fight. If I lost he would of been upset because it would of been an embarrassment to him for his son to lose a fight.
I remember, as a very young child, I rarely would eat. I was very skinny and my parents were always worried about me. Around the age of 9 or 10 though, I started playing youth football and over the course of a year I packed on quite a bit of size. That wasn't a good thing because at that age the only size you are going to pack on is fat. I was never overly fat but I always carried some extra weight after that. I remember my dad always gave me a hard time about it. In his mind if I wasn't cut up and defined then the only woman I could get would be 300 lbs. and "white trash". He actually said those exact words to me multiple times. Just examine that mindset for a moment. It was as if the only thing that mattered was the weight of the woman I would be with. It didn't factor in to his thinking whether she would be a nice person or whether she would be industrious or ambitious. All that mattered was her physical looks.
I think this is what led to my attitude during my teenage years, that the path to landing a good woman was to either be rich and famous or to have a ripped and lean body. This led to those early attempts at bodybuilding with my cousin and experimenting with different diets. I did not find much success in those days despite many attempts. I did get lean a few times but it never led to a good woman just falling into my lap. It may not have helped that my experience with women at the time, was from the porno tapes I had stolen from my dad. Imagine my utter shock when I finally did start getting places with woman and I found out they didn't actually enjoy (**********edited for the sake of family************) being treated the way women in those videos are treated (well some women do but that is not for this article).
Something just kind of dawned on me, there is probably a strong correlation between the attitude of my father towards women and some of my failed relationships in the past. But this article is not about my past failed relationships. This is about attracting the opposite sex. I think something very important can be gleaned from my father in this regard, eventually my parents ended up divorcing. My father had not been single in two decades so he was certainly not in familiar territory. In fact, I think my father only left the house maybe a dozen times in those two decades, besides for work. Suddenly he found himself single and started going out to bars nearly every weekend.
I am sure he was hoping that going out to bars might lead to some kind of romp, whether a one night stand or a long term relationship. I remember asking him how he was doing in that regard and he told me of one possibility, but then lamented on that fact that she was short and fat and older. When I asked what he meant by older, I was shocked to learn that she was still almost a decade younger than him. His reply, to my shock was, "I am sorry but I want a young and attractive woman. Is that wrong? It is what I want, some girl who is in her 20s and is attractive." I had to put the phone down so I could muffle the receiver while I laughed my ass off. Once I picked myself up off the floor, I picked the phone back up and told him the following;
"Would you listen to yourself? Is that all that matters to you is that she is young and thin? You didn't once say that you wanted a woman who was young and smart. Or a woman that was young and ambitious. Or a woman who was attractive but also very smart and funny. No, all you said was young and thin and pretty. So all you are interested in is her physical looks. But, and I mean no offense, you are not young and attractive. You might be attractive for your age but you are not looking for attractive woman your age. You are looking for a 20 year old hard body, but you are not a 20 year old hard body. So then, I assume you would want her to be attracted to your personality and charm. So all you want her for is her looks but you want her to overlook yours and see something else in you. Does that make sense to you? I mean to me, that makes you look like a hypocrite. And what do you expect to offer to a 20 year old girl? I can guess what you expect from her and it is not good and meaningful conversations. But what can you offer to her? What qualities do you possess that will enrich her life?"
Missy hates when I put her on a pedestal because she is very humble, but I truly believe she is the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes on. The ironic part is that what attracted me to her was not her looks, not even in the least bit. I started talking to her online. I had actually met her before in person, but when I started talking to her online I was not aware of that. What attracted me to her was our shared interests. We both loved to read and liked many of the same authors. We were both kind of Star Wars nerds growing up. We both used to play with little action figures and make up our own little worlds for them to play in rather than what they were intended for. We both liked cheesy karate movies from the 70s. Suffice to say the list of things we share in common would be enough to fill a book.
So as I have always said, it was just a pleasant surprise to find out this witty and charming person I fell for also happened to be a stunning knockout. A real punch to the face for all these people that are only interested in people for their looks. I was completely uncaring about looks and found someone beautiful. I am not going to lie, that doesn't hurt things at all! Alright enough of that talk, Missy is going to be pissed because she is far too humble to want to be talked about like that. Of course if she wasn't humble and was instead obnoxious, then I would want nothing to do with her. Luckily for me she is anything but arrogant.
Building a good physique can be very similar in that respect. I found little success when I focused only on the "looks" part of training. When I shifted my focus to training for performance I found that I could stay motivated much easier. Instead of going into a training session thinking, "I want to get ripped", I started thinking, "I want to add 10 pounds to my bench press in 2 months." And you know what, I would add that 10 pounds to my bench press in 2 months. As a happy side effect, my body composition began to improve. That is the import thing to remember. If you train to perform better and combine that with a good diet, you will build an impressive physique and kill two birds with one stone. Performance is easy to measure and as you see yourself getting closer to your goals it keeps you motivated. The better body will come, rest assured, and with it will come a new and better you.
But always remember to not fall into the same mindset my father had. Building a better body is only one part of building a better you. Enlightenment comes from building the body, mind, and spirit. All three parts must be actively trained. Choosing a mate simply on one of those three parts is almost certainly a recipe for disaster. I would like to think of Quickstrike Fitness Solutions as not just an outlet for fitness training but an outlet for life training.
Of course it is all well and good to not focus on looks when looking towards the opposite sex but what if you are kind of a crappy person? I mean lets be honest, there are a lot of turds out there in this world. And what is that saying, you can't polish a turd? Yep that is it! I have to be honest there is a large number of people I see every day that really have no hope. The best part for them, and the worst part for the rest of society, is that they always find a partner and pop out some kids. They will never have a meaningful long term relationship but they will damn sure pass on their horrible genes to ensure a pitiful future for you and I. For those people I say, please do base everything on looks because you personality and charm quite frankly suck.
This brings me to rule number 5 for attracting the opposite sex- If you have a shitty personality you better be damn sure to have a banging body.
I am not going to name any names, but Jamie Bryant better start hitting the gym because otherwise he is fucked in life. Seriously dude, hit me up, I am like Obi-wan Kenobi - your only hope. You are an egotistical asshole and you don't have the kind of physique that can make people overlook that.
This series is all about my life experiences and how they relate to the overall picture. It was originally intended for a single entry and now it may keep going for quite a while. I am still barely scratching away the surface. Each entry brings me but just a baby step closer.
That is a rather heavy and depressing set of facts to begin an article with. Even now, almost two and a half years later, it is still something that I don't like to think about. Growing up, my father was a very strict disciplinarian who had very narrow view on what direction my life should go in. When I was young I was very resentful because of that. I looked towards other kids in the neighborhood and always wondered why my dad was so much stricter with me than their dad's were with them. I should note that he was strict in certain ways. He wanted me to earn good grades and not get into trouble. He wanted me to keep my bedroom spotless and he wanted me to play sports in school. He wanted me to go to college and to get a degree in a field of study like engineering or computer science, something that would guarantee a certain standard of living.
On the other hand, he might of been less strict in other areas. I remember when I was 10 or 11 I got in a fight with another kid in the neighborhood. The kid's father must have seen us because I remember him coming out and berating his child for fighting. I remember a bit later having another fight just down the road from our house. Like most fights when you are a kid it happened fast and ended faster. I remember my dad got in his car and drove down to where we were after the fight had ended and some of the other kids were worried I was going to be in trouble for fighting. I knew better though, my dad was pissed off at me because I hadn't shoveled the driveway to his standard. He didn't care that I got in fights so long as I won the fight. If I lost he would of been upset because it would of been an embarrassment to him for his son to lose a fight.
I remember, as a very young child, I rarely would eat. I was very skinny and my parents were always worried about me. Around the age of 9 or 10 though, I started playing youth football and over the course of a year I packed on quite a bit of size. That wasn't a good thing because at that age the only size you are going to pack on is fat. I was never overly fat but I always carried some extra weight after that. I remember my dad always gave me a hard time about it. In his mind if I wasn't cut up and defined then the only woman I could get would be 300 lbs. and "white trash". He actually said those exact words to me multiple times. Just examine that mindset for a moment. It was as if the only thing that mattered was the weight of the woman I would be with. It didn't factor in to his thinking whether she would be a nice person or whether she would be industrious or ambitious. All that mattered was her physical looks.
I think this is what led to my attitude during my teenage years, that the path to landing a good woman was to either be rich and famous or to have a ripped and lean body. This led to those early attempts at bodybuilding with my cousin and experimenting with different diets. I did not find much success in those days despite many attempts. I did get lean a few times but it never led to a good woman just falling into my lap. It may not have helped that my experience with women at the time, was from the porno tapes I had stolen from my dad. Imagine my utter shock when I finally did start getting places with woman and I found out they didn't actually enjoy (**********edited for the sake of family************) being treated the way women in those videos are treated (well some women do but that is not for this article).
Something just kind of dawned on me, there is probably a strong correlation between the attitude of my father towards women and some of my failed relationships in the past. But this article is not about my past failed relationships. This is about attracting the opposite sex. I think something very important can be gleaned from my father in this regard, eventually my parents ended up divorcing. My father had not been single in two decades so he was certainly not in familiar territory. In fact, I think my father only left the house maybe a dozen times in those two decades, besides for work. Suddenly he found himself single and started going out to bars nearly every weekend.
I am sure he was hoping that going out to bars might lead to some kind of romp, whether a one night stand or a long term relationship. I remember asking him how he was doing in that regard and he told me of one possibility, but then lamented on that fact that she was short and fat and older. When I asked what he meant by older, I was shocked to learn that she was still almost a decade younger than him. His reply, to my shock was, "I am sorry but I want a young and attractive woman. Is that wrong? It is what I want, some girl who is in her 20s and is attractive." I had to put the phone down so I could muffle the receiver while I laughed my ass off. Once I picked myself up off the floor, I picked the phone back up and told him the following;
"Would you listen to yourself? Is that all that matters to you is that she is young and thin? You didn't once say that you wanted a woman who was young and smart. Or a woman that was young and ambitious. Or a woman who was attractive but also very smart and funny. No, all you said was young and thin and pretty. So all you are interested in is her physical looks. But, and I mean no offense, you are not young and attractive. You might be attractive for your age but you are not looking for attractive woman your age. You are looking for a 20 year old hard body, but you are not a 20 year old hard body. So then, I assume you would want her to be attracted to your personality and charm. So all you want her for is her looks but you want her to overlook yours and see something else in you. Does that make sense to you? I mean to me, that makes you look like a hypocrite. And what do you expect to offer to a 20 year old girl? I can guess what you expect from her and it is not good and meaningful conversations. But what can you offer to her? What qualities do you possess that will enrich her life?"
Missy hates when I put her on a pedestal because she is very humble, but I truly believe she is the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes on. The ironic part is that what attracted me to her was not her looks, not even in the least bit. I started talking to her online. I had actually met her before in person, but when I started talking to her online I was not aware of that. What attracted me to her was our shared interests. We both loved to read and liked many of the same authors. We were both kind of Star Wars nerds growing up. We both used to play with little action figures and make up our own little worlds for them to play in rather than what they were intended for. We both liked cheesy karate movies from the 70s. Suffice to say the list of things we share in common would be enough to fill a book.
So as I have always said, it was just a pleasant surprise to find out this witty and charming person I fell for also happened to be a stunning knockout. A real punch to the face for all these people that are only interested in people for their looks. I was completely uncaring about looks and found someone beautiful. I am not going to lie, that doesn't hurt things at all! Alright enough of that talk, Missy is going to be pissed because she is far too humble to want to be talked about like that. Of course if she wasn't humble and was instead obnoxious, then I would want nothing to do with her. Luckily for me she is anything but arrogant.
Building a good physique can be very similar in that respect. I found little success when I focused only on the "looks" part of training. When I shifted my focus to training for performance I found that I could stay motivated much easier. Instead of going into a training session thinking, "I want to get ripped", I started thinking, "I want to add 10 pounds to my bench press in 2 months." And you know what, I would add that 10 pounds to my bench press in 2 months. As a happy side effect, my body composition began to improve. That is the import thing to remember. If you train to perform better and combine that with a good diet, you will build an impressive physique and kill two birds with one stone. Performance is easy to measure and as you see yourself getting closer to your goals it keeps you motivated. The better body will come, rest assured, and with it will come a new and better you.
But always remember to not fall into the same mindset my father had. Building a better body is only one part of building a better you. Enlightenment comes from building the body, mind, and spirit. All three parts must be actively trained. Choosing a mate simply on one of those three parts is almost certainly a recipe for disaster. I would like to think of Quickstrike Fitness Solutions as not just an outlet for fitness training but an outlet for life training.
Of course it is all well and good to not focus on looks when looking towards the opposite sex but what if you are kind of a crappy person? I mean lets be honest, there are a lot of turds out there in this world. And what is that saying, you can't polish a turd? Yep that is it! I have to be honest there is a large number of people I see every day that really have no hope. The best part for them, and the worst part for the rest of society, is that they always find a partner and pop out some kids. They will never have a meaningful long term relationship but they will damn sure pass on their horrible genes to ensure a pitiful future for you and I. For those people I say, please do base everything on looks because you personality and charm quite frankly suck.
This brings me to rule number 5 for attracting the opposite sex- If you have a shitty personality you better be damn sure to have a banging body.
I am not going to name any names, but Jamie Bryant better start hitting the gym because otherwise he is fucked in life. Seriously dude, hit me up, I am like Obi-wan Kenobi - your only hope. You are an egotistical asshole and you don't have the kind of physique that can make people overlook that.
This series is all about my life experiences and how they relate to the overall picture. It was originally intended for a single entry and now it may keep going for quite a while. I am still barely scratching away the surface. Each entry brings me but just a baby step closer.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
How to Attract the Opposite Sex Part 3
If you have been following parts 1 and 2 of this series so far you might be wondering what exactly my point is. Things have been so disjointed and at times over the top that you might be thinking that it is just a random collection of thoughts with no beginning middle or end. The truth though is a little more complex than that. You see, I have been kind of pulling a Mr. Miyagi on everyone so far. You have to remember that part in the Karate Kid when he had Daniel waxing his cars, painting his house, and sanding his floor among other things. Daniel became convinced that he was simply being used for free labor and that Mr. Miyagi had no intention of teaching him karate. Personally I think Daniel should of just considered himself incredibly lucky to not have been molested, but apparently simply not being molested was not enough for him. He had a tournament coming up and he was furious that he had not learned any karate from Mr. Miyagi yet.
Well you know the story. The truth was that Mr. Miyagi was secretly ingraining him with karate training the entire time but he was masking it as laborious chores. At least that is what the movie would want you to believe. I personally think that Mr. Miyagi was using Daniel for free labor and it was just a completely improbable coincidence that the moves related to karate. This series is kind of like that. Behind every outrageous story there is small tidbits of information to be gleaned from it.
Take for instance in part 1 when I discussed what is healthy and what is not. Most people who read it commented about how they can never look at chickens the same way now because my reference to fish having sex with them. The point I was making was to not get caught up in all these new fads. It seems like every year some new diet craze breaks out or some new way to workout becomes the in thing to do. I remember when I was a teenager it was all about low fat diets and training with a lot of sets and reps. Then in the late 90s and early 2000s the low carb diet once again returned to prominence. Also people began embracing the high intensity style of training once again, the concept of brief but very intense training sessions that were infrequent. Later on things changed again and primitive diets became all the rage and functional training was the new in thing.
It is enough to make your head spin. The truth is that there really are no new methods. The fundamentals of healthy eating have always been simple. Good lean protein sources, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, along with some dairy has never failed anyone. Throwing in some non-healthy foods are not a problem so long as done in moderation. Getting very lean requires some more advanced dieting techniques but how many people are honestly even close to approaching a very lean state. Training needs not be complicated either. Focus on the big compound lifts and round things off with some direct isolation work and some machine work as well. I have trained with quite a few different splits and routines over the last few years and everyone of them has worked to one degree or another when I applied intensity and consistency to them.
In part 2 I drifted through many subjects but there was a common theme running among them all. If you approach things with the wrong mindset you will get the wrong results. This applies to fitness, relationships, work, and all aspects of life. If I go to the gym because I want to look better to get noticed by other people chances are I will end up failing. Sure vanity can be a motivator but it can only go so far. It would be like going out to bars every night trying to get laid and then wondering why I could not find a decent long term relationship.
I found little success with training and working out when I had no set goals and purpose other than to look better. When I approached things different and set a definite goal and set a deadline for reaching that goal the entire story changed. Now I was actually working towards something that was easily identifiable but also realistically attainable. That can apply to more than just training. If I sit down and say to myself, Jason you need to work on making your business take off, then I will get no where fast. If instead I sit down and say to myself that to get my business to take off I need to get some gym shirts made and I need to get some logos on my car to advertise and I could also use some business cards. Then I tell myself that I need to have the shirts made by May 20th and the car logo done by May 28th and so on then I will accomplish those things.
Don't get me wrong though, there are something that need to be more spur of the moment. Relationships definitely fall in this category. I think we all know someone (and many of us have been that person) who may have been single for a snip of time and really want to find someone. It becomes almost a cliched joke that when you are looking to find a significant other you have an almost zero percent chance of finding them. Have you ever been talking to your friend and you want to tell them the name of a good song you heard the other day but for the life of you, you can't remember the damn title. Then hours later while you are laying in bed suddenly the name comes to you. Well if you are my friend, I am likely to call you at 3 in the morning and let you know that I just remembered it, which is why I probably don't have a lot of friends. The point I am getting at is that when you are trying hard to find something you will rarely find it.
It is kind of likely when I met Missy. I was certainly not looking to find anyone. I was at the very tail end of a very bad relationship and I planned on being single for some time. I even thought about all the cool things I could do and what freedom would feel like. And wouldn't you know it but when I was not looking the most wonderful person in the world fell into my lap. Well not literally, she is a good girl and not like that, but you know the figure of speech.
When I was in high school I worked at a local grocery store. There was another cashier there that my cousin thought was fantastically beautiful. I honestly can't even remember what she looked like, I just remember he definitely had a thing for her. I remember one day I was getting off work and my cousin met me at the store. He had worked up the nerve and wanted to ask her out on a date. But being that we were kind of morons back then it wasn't enough to just be himself and ask her. Instead he had to "pump up" first. No this isn't a reference to the penis pump he shoplifted, this is a reference how after you train a muscle it becomes more swollen than normal. Bodybuilders call this "the pump".
This presented my cousin with a problem of sorts. You see we were in fact not in a gym but in a grocery store so there were no barbells or dumbbells. Not one to be deterred my cousin decides to bust out some curls using a watermelon. So imagine the sight, a 17 year old kid in a sleeveless white tee shirt doing curls with a giant watermelon, in the middle of the produce department. Seriously, this really happened, I couldn't make this shit up. After about ten minutes and apparently satisfied with his biceps, he walked over to the cash registers and got in the girl's line. I am thinking her name was Anna, so we will just use that rather than I keep calling her "that girl". I was standing off a bit so I couldn't hear what my cousin was saying to her. Honestly I think I was a bit embarrassed. I mean I bought into that whole get big and jacked and get laid mentality but this was too surreal for even my 17 year old mind to handle. I was probably stoned too, which didn't help matters.
I am trying to remember events from over 15 years ago so things are a bit hazy, but I know that she turned down his offer. I know it is shocking that a stunning woman would turn down my cousin and his pumped up biceps but somehow she fought down her womanly urges and resisted his charm. My cousin was a bit upset of course. No one likes to be rejected. I still remember how he dealt with his rejection. We drove to the airport, I have no idea why, and he got on a pay phone. My cousin was and probably still is a master of throwing his voice. He used to trick me all the time. Well he called up to store and asked to speak to the manager using the voice of a much older man. When the manager got on the line my cousin voiced a complaint on a cashier named Anna. Using his older man voice he said, "I am quite embarrassed to say this but when I went through her line earlier she offered to give me oral pleasure. I am a married man and this made me very uncomfortable." I am not sure what the outcome of the phone call was. I had heard the next day that Anna was called to the manager's office but she continued working there. I doubt the manager took the complaint very seriously. Hell, maybe he did and she offered him oral pleasure to avoid being fired.
Rule Number 4- Don't curl a watermelon to pump up your biceps before asking someone on a date.
That might seem like a no brainer but apparently it is not. So far these rules for attracting the opposite sex consist of being alive, being human, choosing the correct sex for your orientation, and not curling watermelons. I think each of these are extremely solid pieces of advice.
Well Part 3 has now progressed to a part 4. That will come tomorrow.
Well you know the story. The truth was that Mr. Miyagi was secretly ingraining him with karate training the entire time but he was masking it as laborious chores. At least that is what the movie would want you to believe. I personally think that Mr. Miyagi was using Daniel for free labor and it was just a completely improbable coincidence that the moves related to karate. This series is kind of like that. Behind every outrageous story there is small tidbits of information to be gleaned from it.
Take for instance in part 1 when I discussed what is healthy and what is not. Most people who read it commented about how they can never look at chickens the same way now because my reference to fish having sex with them. The point I was making was to not get caught up in all these new fads. It seems like every year some new diet craze breaks out or some new way to workout becomes the in thing to do. I remember when I was a teenager it was all about low fat diets and training with a lot of sets and reps. Then in the late 90s and early 2000s the low carb diet once again returned to prominence. Also people began embracing the high intensity style of training once again, the concept of brief but very intense training sessions that were infrequent. Later on things changed again and primitive diets became all the rage and functional training was the new in thing.
It is enough to make your head spin. The truth is that there really are no new methods. The fundamentals of healthy eating have always been simple. Good lean protein sources, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, along with some dairy has never failed anyone. Throwing in some non-healthy foods are not a problem so long as done in moderation. Getting very lean requires some more advanced dieting techniques but how many people are honestly even close to approaching a very lean state. Training needs not be complicated either. Focus on the big compound lifts and round things off with some direct isolation work and some machine work as well. I have trained with quite a few different splits and routines over the last few years and everyone of them has worked to one degree or another when I applied intensity and consistency to them.
In part 2 I drifted through many subjects but there was a common theme running among them all. If you approach things with the wrong mindset you will get the wrong results. This applies to fitness, relationships, work, and all aspects of life. If I go to the gym because I want to look better to get noticed by other people chances are I will end up failing. Sure vanity can be a motivator but it can only go so far. It would be like going out to bars every night trying to get laid and then wondering why I could not find a decent long term relationship.
I found little success with training and working out when I had no set goals and purpose other than to look better. When I approached things different and set a definite goal and set a deadline for reaching that goal the entire story changed. Now I was actually working towards something that was easily identifiable but also realistically attainable. That can apply to more than just training. If I sit down and say to myself, Jason you need to work on making your business take off, then I will get no where fast. If instead I sit down and say to myself that to get my business to take off I need to get some gym shirts made and I need to get some logos on my car to advertise and I could also use some business cards. Then I tell myself that I need to have the shirts made by May 20th and the car logo done by May 28th and so on then I will accomplish those things.
Don't get me wrong though, there are something that need to be more spur of the moment. Relationships definitely fall in this category. I think we all know someone (and many of us have been that person) who may have been single for a snip of time and really want to find someone. It becomes almost a cliched joke that when you are looking to find a significant other you have an almost zero percent chance of finding them. Have you ever been talking to your friend and you want to tell them the name of a good song you heard the other day but for the life of you, you can't remember the damn title. Then hours later while you are laying in bed suddenly the name comes to you. Well if you are my friend, I am likely to call you at 3 in the morning and let you know that I just remembered it, which is why I probably don't have a lot of friends. The point I am getting at is that when you are trying hard to find something you will rarely find it.
It is kind of likely when I met Missy. I was certainly not looking to find anyone. I was at the very tail end of a very bad relationship and I planned on being single for some time. I even thought about all the cool things I could do and what freedom would feel like. And wouldn't you know it but when I was not looking the most wonderful person in the world fell into my lap. Well not literally, she is a good girl and not like that, but you know the figure of speech.
When I was in high school I worked at a local grocery store. There was another cashier there that my cousin thought was fantastically beautiful. I honestly can't even remember what she looked like, I just remember he definitely had a thing for her. I remember one day I was getting off work and my cousin met me at the store. He had worked up the nerve and wanted to ask her out on a date. But being that we were kind of morons back then it wasn't enough to just be himself and ask her. Instead he had to "pump up" first. No this isn't a reference to the penis pump he shoplifted, this is a reference how after you train a muscle it becomes more swollen than normal. Bodybuilders call this "the pump".
This presented my cousin with a problem of sorts. You see we were in fact not in a gym but in a grocery store so there were no barbells or dumbbells. Not one to be deterred my cousin decides to bust out some curls using a watermelon. So imagine the sight, a 17 year old kid in a sleeveless white tee shirt doing curls with a giant watermelon, in the middle of the produce department. Seriously, this really happened, I couldn't make this shit up. After about ten minutes and apparently satisfied with his biceps, he walked over to the cash registers and got in the girl's line. I am thinking her name was Anna, so we will just use that rather than I keep calling her "that girl". I was standing off a bit so I couldn't hear what my cousin was saying to her. Honestly I think I was a bit embarrassed. I mean I bought into that whole get big and jacked and get laid mentality but this was too surreal for even my 17 year old mind to handle. I was probably stoned too, which didn't help matters.
I am trying to remember events from over 15 years ago so things are a bit hazy, but I know that she turned down his offer. I know it is shocking that a stunning woman would turn down my cousin and his pumped up biceps but somehow she fought down her womanly urges and resisted his charm. My cousin was a bit upset of course. No one likes to be rejected. I still remember how he dealt with his rejection. We drove to the airport, I have no idea why, and he got on a pay phone. My cousin was and probably still is a master of throwing his voice. He used to trick me all the time. Well he called up to store and asked to speak to the manager using the voice of a much older man. When the manager got on the line my cousin voiced a complaint on a cashier named Anna. Using his older man voice he said, "I am quite embarrassed to say this but when I went through her line earlier she offered to give me oral pleasure. I am a married man and this made me very uncomfortable." I am not sure what the outcome of the phone call was. I had heard the next day that Anna was called to the manager's office but she continued working there. I doubt the manager took the complaint very seriously. Hell, maybe he did and she offered him oral pleasure to avoid being fired.
Rule Number 4- Don't curl a watermelon to pump up your biceps before asking someone on a date.
That might seem like a no brainer but apparently it is not. So far these rules for attracting the opposite sex consist of being alive, being human, choosing the correct sex for your orientation, and not curling watermelons. I think each of these are extremely solid pieces of advice.
Well Part 3 has now progressed to a part 4. That will come tomorrow.
How to Attract the Opposite Sex Part 2
Let me begin by saying that I really didn't think too many people read this blog. Recently I noticed a few people shared my blog on their pages and then some of their friends read it and now quite a few people are saying they like it. It is kind of funny up to this point I have just been writing whatever random thing I wanted and it was easy but now that I know people are reading I feel a sort of pressure to write something good.
Have you noticed if you just talk to someone, even someone you might be in to, but do not expect anything to come from it you can just be yourself and very natural. The words always just roll off the tongue and you can have the most amazing conversations. I remember this really attractive woman that I somehow started talking to and I was right away taken aback by her. She was smart and witty and funny and to top it all off she was gorgeous. The best part was that since she was all those things I knew she would have no interest in me so I could just say whatever I wanted to her. Basically I could be myself because so what if she didn't like it. Basically I wasn't trying to sell myself I was just presenting myself as I am. Then one day I found out to my utter shock and amazement that she was in to me. Wait is it into or in to? Fuck if I know. For all the writing I do my grammar is shit. Luckily my wife goes through and edits my blog entries for me otherwise they would be full of mistakes.
I always get side tracked writing. Things pop in and out of my head like a kid with ADHD. What I was trying to get to before was that once I found out she had kind of fallen for me then I felt the most intense pressure of my life. When I thought I had no chance in hell I could be myself because I had nothing to gain or lose but now I felt like I had to say the right things or else she could lose that attraction. For a person like me, trying to say the right things is paramount to suicide. I need a free atmosphere to let my words just roam around and play and once I try to constrict them in any way it is horrible.
Thankfully I somehow didn't fuck things up at that point, but I probably came close many times. I say thankfully because that smart and gorgeous woman is now my wife. It is kind of funny that way. I am a big ugly bastard. For most of my training career I was only interested in being big and "jacked" and as strong as I could be. Looking good was never one of my priorities. Of course things have changed as I have transitioned from being a powerlifter to now dieting down to be a bodybuilder but that change only happened recently. Suffice to say I am not the kind of guy who walks down the road and women just get wet in their panties.
Do women even do that? I mean they do in porno movies and stuff but in real life does a guy ever walk down the road and women's nipples just pop and they get all tingly down there? Men are predictable for the most part. An attractive woman walks past, or they see a nice car, or they have a nice meal in front of them. or a loud sound goes off, or hell just a slight breeze brushes against them while they are pumping gas and they will get hard. But women are a total mystery. Most movies (and especially most pornos) are written by men it seems, so they don't really give an accurate picture of what women think. Really the only person we can ask is our wife or girlfriend and they often won't tell us the truth. Men are brutally honest to a fault sometimes but women keep their secrets locked up like Fort Knox.
My whole point is that when people see me and my wife together they're not thinking, "wow what a good looking couple" but instead are thinking, "wow there is a hot chick walking down the road with a literal turd that has legs and arms." They see me as some sort of Mr. Potato Head, but instead of a cute potato, it is a giant turd. At least they are thinking that in the summer time when I get a nice tan. Who knows what they think in the winter. I think it is funny how taboo it is for a chick to be the better looking one in the relationship. Does any woman see a nicer looking man with a less attractive woman and think, "what does she have that I don't" or "I could steal him from her easily, I am much better looking." I doubt it. At least women never really admit to feeling that way. But men think those things all the time. If they see a guy that they think is less attractive then them with a hot chick automatically a guy thinks, "Wow, he must have a big penis."
I know this because at least four people I work with, who have met my wife, have said that to me. Those are just the one's who have openly said it to me. Not implied that I have a big penis, but they quite bluntly said, "Damn your wife is really hot, you must have a giant cock!" While that is very true, I know that is not what attracted my wife to me (of course I had to throw that in there, I am a man after all). Seriously, that is incredibly insulting to both me and her and I get really offended when that is said. Are you implying that she is so shallow that a big penis is all she cares about in this world? And are you further saying that the only thing I could possibly offer a woman is a big penis? It is like they are saying that there is no way I could attract a woman by just talking to her, listening to her, treating her nicely, and just by being myself. What a bunch of jerks!
Who am I kidding I absolutely love that they think that and it doesn't offend me at all. But I am sure it is offensive to Missy so I act offended as well, but please keep the remarks coming.
Yesterday I wrote that if you asked the majority of people who go to a personal trainer why they go to a personal trainer the three most common answers would be to lose weight, drop fat, and to get healthy. I discussed the part about getting healthy yesterday so now I am going to touch upon losing weight and dropping fat. You probably think they are both one in the same but they are not. Weight loss can occur from a loss of fat, muscle, and water. Fat loss can come from losing fat. It is impossible to lose only fat just as it is impossible to gain only muscle. How you do things determines the ratio (obviously losing more fat and less muscle is ideal).
I separate the terms though because some people are just obsessed with the number on a scale. I can understand this because it is an easily identifiable marker that you can quickly monitor your progress with. But that number on the scale only tells one part of the picture. Who is going to look leaner, someone who loses 10 pounds of fat but only 12 pounds of weight or someone who loses 30 pounds of weight but only 10 of those pounds were from fat (the rest being mostly water along with losing some muscle). Actually that is a really fucking dumb question. The leaner looking person is likely to be the one who started off leaner. Okay lets say they are the same starting size and leanness and then the lose as I described. The same amount of fat but one person loses more overall weight. I will tell you right now that the person who lost less than half the amount of total weight will look and be leaner. That person is now carrying a higher percentage of lean body mass.
Being short sighted and only looking at the small picture is a big mistake. When I was growing up me and my cousin would often talk about women because we couldn't get any. We had no "game" because I was shy and awkward and he was just creepy. He still is creepy for that matter. If you are ever in a bar and see a guy with a coconut shaped head and deep set eyes, run away fast, because he won't leave you alone. But I remember we would spend hours talking about our short comings with women. We thought the key was to be famous, like a movie star, it was a guaranteed way to land women. And there is some truth to that. It would be a guaranteed way to some one night stands and probably a lot of high priced prostitutes that are always scoping out celebs to make big bucks. And of course there will be the women who would look at you as a meal ticket. A way to live the good life. Are any of those situations ideal? Maybe if all you want is to get laid. I am not a teenage boy anymore though and getting laid is not my priority in life. Any man whose primary function in life is to sleep with as many women as possible, is nothing more than a teenage boy. A real man wants to meet a good woman and spend his life with someone who enriches his life. As I got older I realized how hard it must be for a famous celebrity to actually find a good wife (or husband) who is just into them and not into their money or persona. Being a teenager, I envied them and now I feel bad for them. I am glad I wasn't rich when I met Missy and wasn't famous because I know she is not attracted to anything but who I am.
The other way that my cousin and I assumed was the ticket to getting women, was to be in the best shape possible. Train our bodies really hard and then we would just take our shirts off and women would just get weak in the knees and fall all over us. I remember one day going over to my cousin's house and he had a gym set up in his bedroom. Above his bench there was a picture of a naked man with a huge dick. I initially assumed, okay... my cousin likes big penis's, that is interesting. I wasn't going to bring it up because I really didn't want to press it. Eventually though I just had to. I mean it is impossibly distracting trying to bench press with a giant willy practically staring at you. Finally I was like, "what the hell is up with the picture of the naked guy taped to your ceiling?" I will never forget what he said back to me, "Well I can never have a penis like his but I can train my body to be better than his. That's what keeps me motivated."
That is not meant to be some brilliant motivating speech by the way. Like I said earlier, my cousin is a creep. This is the same person who shoplifted a penis pump from an adult bookstore. And I am pretty certain he just likes cocks too, which would explain why he is so bad with women. It is so funny, every man I know who is mean and abusive to women, all have signs pointing to them being homosexuals that have repressed those feelings. I laughed every time I would hear some friend of mine make comments like, "all women are whores" and "women are worthless", because I know deep down they think that because they find themselves more attracted to men and cannot handle it. That brings me to rule number 2 of how to attract the opposite sex.
2. If you despise the opposite sex then focus on your own sex.
My cousin and I couldn't of been more wrong in our thinking back them. He was wrong because what he really wanted was men and not women and I was wrong because I wanted the wrong kind of women. How could I find a good wife if I wanted women who were only interested in money or fame or good looks. Wouldn't I want someone who was interested primarily in me? They were attracted to my personality and my drive and ambition? They loved the way I write and the way that I carry myself and my humor and intelligence. Of course I would want someone like that!
It amazes me how men can have attitudes that women are slutty and trashy. I have one person tell me that all women cheat. Yet this same guy would try to cheat on his wife all the time. What a hypocrite! If that is the attitude you hold then of course you will only have trashy women around you. Women that are decent and have self respect will never look twice at you. If you only seek out women to get laid and have one night stands and then complain that there are no decent women out there then you are a moron. Just like when I was a teenager and I thought the key to getting women was to have a lot of money and to lift a lot of weights. Just what kind of women could I attract with an attitude like that? Maybe some one night stands and some trash but never a decent girl to marry.
I guess for some people that is okay. I will tell them they should just get prostitutes if they want meaningless sex. It takes much less effort and you can get exactly what you pay for. But if you want to find a good woman you must go into things with a good frame of mind. Respect women and you will find women worth respecting. I know that I am speaking mostly from a male perspective but that is because I have a penis. I have never had nor will I ever have a vagina. I am sure there are very many of the same issues that face women but since I have never faced them I won't pretend to know them. I do know things are not equal though.
Say there is a husband and wife and they are mad at one another. The man decides he wants to get revenge so he walks over to the neighbor's house on the right. It is owned by a woman who is young, attractive, and single. He knocks on the door and blurts out, "I am mad at my wife, can I jack off on your face." The chances of him being successful is almost zero. Now say the wife goes to the neighbor's house on the left, which is owned by a young, single, and attractive male. The wife has seen some better days but knocks on the door and says, "I am mad at my husband, can you jack off on my face." Her chances of success are greater than 50 percent. That is why I say things are not equal between men and women.
This isn't just me talking out of my ass either. A university did a study with slightly different scenarios but basically the same premise. The men had a zero percent success rate where as the women had close to 50 percent success rate in propositioning strangers for sex. An amazing thing if you think about it. You might be wondering just what the fuck does this have to do with personal training or attracting the opposite sex? The answer is not really that much. I just felt like throwing it out there.
So most people workout to look better. Whether they are obsessed with hitting a certain number on a scale or shedding body fat, they all want the same end result. They want to appear attractive. If the person is in a committed relationship then they want to be more attractive for their partner. If they are single, they want to be more attractive to find a committed relationship. If they are in a committed relationship but are unhappy, then they want to be more attractive so when they leave their significant other then they will be seriously jealous. Kind of like fuck you jerk, I am hot now and about to get some ass. Then again if that is someone's mentality then the other person is probably better off.
There is one thing all three types have in common. They all want to look better to the opposite (and sometimes same) sex. Even people in a happy and committed relationship want to appear attractive to people. Hell, their significant others want them to appear attractive too. Think about it like this. Say I fix up a nice classic 70s muscle car. When I am driving it down the road I don't want people to stop and look and think, "wow that car looks like a nutsac." I want people to stop and look and be like, "goddamn that thing is a beauty" and for them to be jealous. That doesn't mean I want them to steal the fucking car! Hell no I want no one to so much as even accidentally brush up against the car, but I do want them to admire it. Of course my wife is not a car. That would be very weird and awkward and even in my wildest imagination I am not sure how it would work out. That brings me to rule number 3.
3. People are not cars. If you want to attract the opposite sex being human and not a car is a great start.
I have done it again it appears. This was originally meant to be a single entry but then suddenly it became a 2 parter. Now it seems that I must make it into a 3 parter. Stay tuned because we haven't even scratched the surface yet.
Have you noticed if you just talk to someone, even someone you might be in to, but do not expect anything to come from it you can just be yourself and very natural. The words always just roll off the tongue and you can have the most amazing conversations. I remember this really attractive woman that I somehow started talking to and I was right away taken aback by her. She was smart and witty and funny and to top it all off she was gorgeous. The best part was that since she was all those things I knew she would have no interest in me so I could just say whatever I wanted to her. Basically I could be myself because so what if she didn't like it. Basically I wasn't trying to sell myself I was just presenting myself as I am. Then one day I found out to my utter shock and amazement that she was in to me. Wait is it into or in to? Fuck if I know. For all the writing I do my grammar is shit. Luckily my wife goes through and edits my blog entries for me otherwise they would be full of mistakes.
I always get side tracked writing. Things pop in and out of my head like a kid with ADHD. What I was trying to get to before was that once I found out she had kind of fallen for me then I felt the most intense pressure of my life. When I thought I had no chance in hell I could be myself because I had nothing to gain or lose but now I felt like I had to say the right things or else she could lose that attraction. For a person like me, trying to say the right things is paramount to suicide. I need a free atmosphere to let my words just roam around and play and once I try to constrict them in any way it is horrible.
Thankfully I somehow didn't fuck things up at that point, but I probably came close many times. I say thankfully because that smart and gorgeous woman is now my wife. It is kind of funny that way. I am a big ugly bastard. For most of my training career I was only interested in being big and "jacked" and as strong as I could be. Looking good was never one of my priorities. Of course things have changed as I have transitioned from being a powerlifter to now dieting down to be a bodybuilder but that change only happened recently. Suffice to say I am not the kind of guy who walks down the road and women just get wet in their panties.
Do women even do that? I mean they do in porno movies and stuff but in real life does a guy ever walk down the road and women's nipples just pop and they get all tingly down there? Men are predictable for the most part. An attractive woman walks past, or they see a nice car, or they have a nice meal in front of them. or a loud sound goes off, or hell just a slight breeze brushes against them while they are pumping gas and they will get hard. But women are a total mystery. Most movies (and especially most pornos) are written by men it seems, so they don't really give an accurate picture of what women think. Really the only person we can ask is our wife or girlfriend and they often won't tell us the truth. Men are brutally honest to a fault sometimes but women keep their secrets locked up like Fort Knox.
My whole point is that when people see me and my wife together they're not thinking, "wow what a good looking couple" but instead are thinking, "wow there is a hot chick walking down the road with a literal turd that has legs and arms." They see me as some sort of Mr. Potato Head, but instead of a cute potato, it is a giant turd. At least they are thinking that in the summer time when I get a nice tan. Who knows what they think in the winter. I think it is funny how taboo it is for a chick to be the better looking one in the relationship. Does any woman see a nicer looking man with a less attractive woman and think, "what does she have that I don't" or "I could steal him from her easily, I am much better looking." I doubt it. At least women never really admit to feeling that way. But men think those things all the time. If they see a guy that they think is less attractive then them with a hot chick automatically a guy thinks, "Wow, he must have a big penis."
I know this because at least four people I work with, who have met my wife, have said that to me. Those are just the one's who have openly said it to me. Not implied that I have a big penis, but they quite bluntly said, "Damn your wife is really hot, you must have a giant cock!" While that is very true, I know that is not what attracted my wife to me (of course I had to throw that in there, I am a man after all). Seriously, that is incredibly insulting to both me and her and I get really offended when that is said. Are you implying that she is so shallow that a big penis is all she cares about in this world? And are you further saying that the only thing I could possibly offer a woman is a big penis? It is like they are saying that there is no way I could attract a woman by just talking to her, listening to her, treating her nicely, and just by being myself. What a bunch of jerks!
Who am I kidding I absolutely love that they think that and it doesn't offend me at all. But I am sure it is offensive to Missy so I act offended as well, but please keep the remarks coming.
Yesterday I wrote that if you asked the majority of people who go to a personal trainer why they go to a personal trainer the three most common answers would be to lose weight, drop fat, and to get healthy. I discussed the part about getting healthy yesterday so now I am going to touch upon losing weight and dropping fat. You probably think they are both one in the same but they are not. Weight loss can occur from a loss of fat, muscle, and water. Fat loss can come from losing fat. It is impossible to lose only fat just as it is impossible to gain only muscle. How you do things determines the ratio (obviously losing more fat and less muscle is ideal).
I separate the terms though because some people are just obsessed with the number on a scale. I can understand this because it is an easily identifiable marker that you can quickly monitor your progress with. But that number on the scale only tells one part of the picture. Who is going to look leaner, someone who loses 10 pounds of fat but only 12 pounds of weight or someone who loses 30 pounds of weight but only 10 of those pounds were from fat (the rest being mostly water along with losing some muscle). Actually that is a really fucking dumb question. The leaner looking person is likely to be the one who started off leaner. Okay lets say they are the same starting size and leanness and then the lose as I described. The same amount of fat but one person loses more overall weight. I will tell you right now that the person who lost less than half the amount of total weight will look and be leaner. That person is now carrying a higher percentage of lean body mass.
Being short sighted and only looking at the small picture is a big mistake. When I was growing up me and my cousin would often talk about women because we couldn't get any. We had no "game" because I was shy and awkward and he was just creepy. He still is creepy for that matter. If you are ever in a bar and see a guy with a coconut shaped head and deep set eyes, run away fast, because he won't leave you alone. But I remember we would spend hours talking about our short comings with women. We thought the key was to be famous, like a movie star, it was a guaranteed way to land women. And there is some truth to that. It would be a guaranteed way to some one night stands and probably a lot of high priced prostitutes that are always scoping out celebs to make big bucks. And of course there will be the women who would look at you as a meal ticket. A way to live the good life. Are any of those situations ideal? Maybe if all you want is to get laid. I am not a teenage boy anymore though and getting laid is not my priority in life. Any man whose primary function in life is to sleep with as many women as possible, is nothing more than a teenage boy. A real man wants to meet a good woman and spend his life with someone who enriches his life. As I got older I realized how hard it must be for a famous celebrity to actually find a good wife (or husband) who is just into them and not into their money or persona. Being a teenager, I envied them and now I feel bad for them. I am glad I wasn't rich when I met Missy and wasn't famous because I know she is not attracted to anything but who I am.
The other way that my cousin and I assumed was the ticket to getting women, was to be in the best shape possible. Train our bodies really hard and then we would just take our shirts off and women would just get weak in the knees and fall all over us. I remember one day going over to my cousin's house and he had a gym set up in his bedroom. Above his bench there was a picture of a naked man with a huge dick. I initially assumed, okay... my cousin likes big penis's, that is interesting. I wasn't going to bring it up because I really didn't want to press it. Eventually though I just had to. I mean it is impossibly distracting trying to bench press with a giant willy practically staring at you. Finally I was like, "what the hell is up with the picture of the naked guy taped to your ceiling?" I will never forget what he said back to me, "Well I can never have a penis like his but I can train my body to be better than his. That's what keeps me motivated."
That is not meant to be some brilliant motivating speech by the way. Like I said earlier, my cousin is a creep. This is the same person who shoplifted a penis pump from an adult bookstore. And I am pretty certain he just likes cocks too, which would explain why he is so bad with women. It is so funny, every man I know who is mean and abusive to women, all have signs pointing to them being homosexuals that have repressed those feelings. I laughed every time I would hear some friend of mine make comments like, "all women are whores" and "women are worthless", because I know deep down they think that because they find themselves more attracted to men and cannot handle it. That brings me to rule number 2 of how to attract the opposite sex.
2. If you despise the opposite sex then focus on your own sex.
My cousin and I couldn't of been more wrong in our thinking back them. He was wrong because what he really wanted was men and not women and I was wrong because I wanted the wrong kind of women. How could I find a good wife if I wanted women who were only interested in money or fame or good looks. Wouldn't I want someone who was interested primarily in me? They were attracted to my personality and my drive and ambition? They loved the way I write and the way that I carry myself and my humor and intelligence. Of course I would want someone like that!
It amazes me how men can have attitudes that women are slutty and trashy. I have one person tell me that all women cheat. Yet this same guy would try to cheat on his wife all the time. What a hypocrite! If that is the attitude you hold then of course you will only have trashy women around you. Women that are decent and have self respect will never look twice at you. If you only seek out women to get laid and have one night stands and then complain that there are no decent women out there then you are a moron. Just like when I was a teenager and I thought the key to getting women was to have a lot of money and to lift a lot of weights. Just what kind of women could I attract with an attitude like that? Maybe some one night stands and some trash but never a decent girl to marry.
I guess for some people that is okay. I will tell them they should just get prostitutes if they want meaningless sex. It takes much less effort and you can get exactly what you pay for. But if you want to find a good woman you must go into things with a good frame of mind. Respect women and you will find women worth respecting. I know that I am speaking mostly from a male perspective but that is because I have a penis. I have never had nor will I ever have a vagina. I am sure there are very many of the same issues that face women but since I have never faced them I won't pretend to know them. I do know things are not equal though.
Say there is a husband and wife and they are mad at one another. The man decides he wants to get revenge so he walks over to the neighbor's house on the right. It is owned by a woman who is young, attractive, and single. He knocks on the door and blurts out, "I am mad at my wife, can I jack off on your face." The chances of him being successful is almost zero. Now say the wife goes to the neighbor's house on the left, which is owned by a young, single, and attractive male. The wife has seen some better days but knocks on the door and says, "I am mad at my husband, can you jack off on my face." Her chances of success are greater than 50 percent. That is why I say things are not equal between men and women.
This isn't just me talking out of my ass either. A university did a study with slightly different scenarios but basically the same premise. The men had a zero percent success rate where as the women had close to 50 percent success rate in propositioning strangers for sex. An amazing thing if you think about it. You might be wondering just what the fuck does this have to do with personal training or attracting the opposite sex? The answer is not really that much. I just felt like throwing it out there.
So most people workout to look better. Whether they are obsessed with hitting a certain number on a scale or shedding body fat, they all want the same end result. They want to appear attractive. If the person is in a committed relationship then they want to be more attractive for their partner. If they are single, they want to be more attractive to find a committed relationship. If they are in a committed relationship but are unhappy, then they want to be more attractive so when they leave their significant other then they will be seriously jealous. Kind of like fuck you jerk, I am hot now and about to get some ass. Then again if that is someone's mentality then the other person is probably better off.
There is one thing all three types have in common. They all want to look better to the opposite (and sometimes same) sex. Even people in a happy and committed relationship want to appear attractive to people. Hell, their significant others want them to appear attractive too. Think about it like this. Say I fix up a nice classic 70s muscle car. When I am driving it down the road I don't want people to stop and look and think, "wow that car looks like a nutsac." I want people to stop and look and be like, "goddamn that thing is a beauty" and for them to be jealous. That doesn't mean I want them to steal the fucking car! Hell no I want no one to so much as even accidentally brush up against the car, but I do want them to admire it. Of course my wife is not a car. That would be very weird and awkward and even in my wildest imagination I am not sure how it would work out. That brings me to rule number 3.
3. People are not cars. If you want to attract the opposite sex being human and not a car is a great start.
I have done it again it appears. This was originally meant to be a single entry but then suddenly it became a 2 parter. Now it seems that I must make it into a 3 parter. Stay tuned because we haven't even scratched the surface yet.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Odds and Ends, and Another Sample Diet
We trained our shoulders last night. I am not at liberty to post up my current shoulder routine as it was designed by a professional bodybuilder who normally charges (not a small fee either) for his coaching but agreed to work with me on a limited basis to help me maintain what I have built up over the years while I diet down. Based on my current physique my side and rear heads of my deltoids are underdeveloped so all my direct shoulder work targets those areas. A lot of high rep work with drop sets and other crazy things. Imagine doing 70 + rep side lateral raises lol. It is difficult to say the least.
Here is what I am eating today to give you another example of my daily diet. The numbers are almost exactly as I have set my goals for the day. Some days I might have more fat and less carbs and other days more carbs and less fats, but this is pretty much my ideal.
Meal 1 - 2 cups of liquid egg whites. 2 packets of instant grits.
Meal 2- 2 scoops of a protein powder blend mixed with water.
Meal 3- The same as meal 2.
Meal 4- 1 Scoop of a protein powder blend mixed with water. 2 Slices of ezekiel bread lightly toasted with a tablespoon of no sugar jelly.
Meal 5- 8 ounces of grilled chuck steak with 3 ounces of potatoes and 1 cup of carbmaster skim milk.
Totals
Cals Carbs Fats Protein
1,994 141 41 241
This is as close as I can get to my daily goals. Normally I shoot for 250g of protein and 150g of carbs and the remaining coming from fat. The reality is that it is hard to determine fat intake when you grill a lot of meat so it is always a rough estimate but I usually go over on my fat content and go a bit under on my protein content. That is mainly because I have been utilizing some fatty cuts of meat like steak and porkloin rather than chicken or fish. All meats have their place though so I generally just go for what has the best deals. Today I am utilizing a lot of egg whites to counteract that but I don't think today is going to be any healthier yesterday when I had about 20 more grams of fat and less protein.
Here is what I am eating today to give you another example of my daily diet. The numbers are almost exactly as I have set my goals for the day. Some days I might have more fat and less carbs and other days more carbs and less fats, but this is pretty much my ideal.
Meal 1 - 2 cups of liquid egg whites. 2 packets of instant grits.
Meal 2- 2 scoops of a protein powder blend mixed with water.
Meal 3- The same as meal 2.
Meal 4- 1 Scoop of a protein powder blend mixed with water. 2 Slices of ezekiel bread lightly toasted with a tablespoon of no sugar jelly.
Meal 5- 8 ounces of grilled chuck steak with 3 ounces of potatoes and 1 cup of carbmaster skim milk.
Totals
Cals Carbs Fats Protein
1,994 141 41 241
This is as close as I can get to my daily goals. Normally I shoot for 250g of protein and 150g of carbs and the remaining coming from fat. The reality is that it is hard to determine fat intake when you grill a lot of meat so it is always a rough estimate but I usually go over on my fat content and go a bit under on my protein content. That is mainly because I have been utilizing some fatty cuts of meat like steak and porkloin rather than chicken or fish. All meats have their place though so I generally just go for what has the best deals. Today I am utilizing a lot of egg whites to counteract that but I don't think today is going to be any healthier yesterday when I had about 20 more grams of fat and less protein.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Leg Training Last Night and Blog Direction Change
I am going to expand the scope of this blog somewhat. While it will still contain some training and diet logs as well as training articles and write ups I am going to start focusing more on writing more personalized stories relating to training. Funny things that can happen in the gym, how rough working the day after training legs heavy can be, shitting yourself during a set of 20 rep squats, etc. For one thing straight training logs and articles are usually incredibly boring to read and even more boring to write. For another thing there is only so much you can say. Seriously what works has worked for years. There are no secrets. People quite literally make shit up to sell books or make them look like some "guru" when really their methods either suck or they are just taking old training methods and repackaging them under a new name. I could give you some examples but I am running out of time. Maybe I will later. I wanted to shower this morning so I passed out before I could shower last night but now I am running behind on time.
I wish I had enough money to hire a full time sniff checker for me. Their job would be to smell my arm pits, balls, and taint and let me know if I absolutely need to shower or if I could wait another 8 hours. I try to cover that ground myself but I am not exactly an impartial source and Missy unequivocally refuses to take up that job. She helps me in every other way, I am not sure what the problem is with that but she insists on playing no part in that. Well I think I am going to jump in the shower after all. So I better get on with the leg training thing.
Because my low back is still pretty sore from that last week of the weight loss challenge I decided to forgo a typical leg day for us that might look like this--
Squats (Back or Front) - 5 x 6-12
Leg Extensions- 3 x 10-15
Leg Presses- 3 x 10-15
Stiff Leg Deadlifts- 3 x 6-12
Dumbbell Leg Curls- 3 x 8-10
Back Raises- 3 x 12 reps
My low back needed a break so squats, stiff leg deadlifts, and back raises were out. Instead I did this--
Leg Presses- 5 x 10 reps
Leg Extensions- 3 x 10 reps with the last set being a drop set and closer to 25 reps
Leg Curls- 3 x 10
Hack Squats- 3 x 1-10 reps
I went really heavy on the leg presses and leg extensions and by time I got to the hack squats I could barely use my legs. I have not trained them heavy for a couple weeks so it was a rude awakening. I am not a big fan of hack squats but they can be used for variety or if you are having low back issues in place of squats.
I wish I had enough money to hire a full time sniff checker for me. Their job would be to smell my arm pits, balls, and taint and let me know if I absolutely need to shower or if I could wait another 8 hours. I try to cover that ground myself but I am not exactly an impartial source and Missy unequivocally refuses to take up that job. She helps me in every other way, I am not sure what the problem is with that but she insists on playing no part in that. Well I think I am going to jump in the shower after all. So I better get on with the leg training thing.
Because my low back is still pretty sore from that last week of the weight loss challenge I decided to forgo a typical leg day for us that might look like this--
Squats (Back or Front) - 5 x 6-12
Leg Extensions- 3 x 10-15
Leg Presses- 3 x 10-15
Stiff Leg Deadlifts- 3 x 6-12
Dumbbell Leg Curls- 3 x 8-10
Back Raises- 3 x 12 reps
My low back needed a break so squats, stiff leg deadlifts, and back raises were out. Instead I did this--
Leg Presses- 5 x 10 reps
Leg Extensions- 3 x 10 reps with the last set being a drop set and closer to 25 reps
Leg Curls- 3 x 10
Hack Squats- 3 x 1-10 reps
I went really heavy on the leg presses and leg extensions and by time I got to the hack squats I could barely use my legs. I have not trained them heavy for a couple weeks so it was a rude awakening. I am not a big fan of hack squats but they can be used for variety or if you are having low back issues in place of squats.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Commercials and Motivation
I would guess that I am best described as phlegmatic. I have no idea what that means honestly but it sounds like a cool word and I am going to roll with it like I know what I am talking about. I am the kind of person that when given a task and a deadline I rise to the occasion and work as hard if not harder than anyone else to achieve that goal. It doesn't matter if that task is writing another chapter in my fantasy novel and the deadline is by midnight tonight or if the task is dropping 45 pounds and doing it in 30 days. Once set upon I will make short work of the problem. On the other hand if I tell myself to "get my fantasy novel done as quickly as possible" I might be lucky if I write a single chapter in six months time.
I naturally tend towards the side of laziness. If given a task and a time frame to do something I will do it but other than that I ain't doing shit. In the past I have told myself I would change. I would apply myself to different tasks each and everyday and I probably did do that, for about two or three days and then just said fuck it and watched some television.
When I knew that I had to lose all that weight during those thirty days staying consistent with my diet was remarkably easy. I may have felt the desire to have a cheat meal here or there but I never felt the urge was overwhelming. If anything I felt like it was more on the side of underwhelming. I remember when I was actually allotted a cheat meal and I was trying to decide what I was going to have almost nothing sounded good to me.
Now that the contest is over, quite literally everything sounds good to me! Part of this is that I indulged for two to three days after the contest. I lifted all eating restrictions and definitely splurged. I had some pizza, an Italian sub, some great Mexican food, cheeze its, ice cream, hummus, steak and potatoes, and all those other things I usually crave. I even had some alcoholic beverages on the first night and maybe even a couple more on the second night. Much like visiting a whore though, afterwards I felt immoral and guilty and bloated and gross. It didn't matter though I knew I was starting the new phase of my diet and I would feel better just as soon as I started putting the proper fuel back into my body.
Yesterday I did just that. I started off with a nutrient packed breakfast of egg whites with a couple yolks thrown in and some Ezekiel toast. I felt great. For about an hour at least. Then I felt the worst hunger of my life.It is funny that when you are basically starving yourself you don't really feel that hungry but when you are eating well but just a little less you feel like your body is eating itself from the inside out. And oh boy did the desire to stray from the diet I had just literally begun hit me so hard it made me say oh my lard. Quite the opposite from my time during the cut, every damn thing sounded good to me. I wanted eggs and bacon and potatoes, I wanted greasy french fries and a big juicy hamburger, I wanted the bacon cheese and tomato panini that Tim Hortons decided to plaster all over the city in giant fucking mouth watering billboards.
But most of all I wanted pizza. Throughout my weight cut pizza was about the one thing that never ceased to sound good. I love pizza (good pizza not the crap that usually passes for good pizza in Columbus). I never had it during those thirty days though, I knew it would set me back too far. Instead I kept it in the back of my mind as the reward at the end of the tunnel. One of the first cheat meals that I had was to go to Missy and I's favorite local pizza place and grab a large pizza.
Just a quick note that this place was the best pizza place we had found in town. They didn't do the generic little square cut crappy Ohio style pizzas. Instead they cut their pizza like it should be cut, in big triangles! They were also a bakery so their crust was always cooked to perfection and it was overall a great a pizza experience. Up until about two or three months ago. I am not sure what happened but at some point the quality just went down faster than Kim Kardashian at an all-star basketball game. The crust started getting overly burnt, the toppings ceased to have seasoning and flavor, and the cheese went from whole milk mozzarella to something more akin to a rubbery texture. We don't get pizza often so the first two times we just assumed maybe it was an off night. The owner who had previously always been friendly seemed a bit more gruff than usual. I just assumed he had caught Giuseppe bending his wife over the brick oven or some crap like that.
Whatever the cause of the problem, all I know is that by strike three you are out and that last pizza we got was strike three. I remember eating the pizza and wishing it was papa john's instead. When you make me wish I was having a mass chain pizza there is something wrong. So imagine my disappointment of waiting all that time only to have a subpar pizza.
Well I guess Missy was in a mood to torture me because yesterday on my lunch break she just happened to see a Papa John's commercial and said, "we should get Papa John's next time instead of ******'s." That was exactly what I DIDN'T need to hear right then. My only answer was, "fuck it lets do it tonight." She probably would of been quite fine with that and honestly it is not like one more cheat meal would have made or broke me in a physical sense. I am almost assuredly going to have it by next Saturday so what did it really matter if it was yesterday or five days from now? Truth be told it only mattered on a mental level.
If I broke my dietary plan just hours after starting it I would be setting myself up for failure. With no immediate goal or deadline, just a vague sense of where I want to by in ten weeks I know that staying on track will be very hard for me. All day yesterday I came up with multiple justifications to have that pizza last night. I even made up my mind on a few occasions that I would have that pizza last night. But in the end I texted Missy and told her that under no circumstances could she agree to letting us have that pizza for dinner. It would still be around come Friday night when I have my next cheat meal, if I couldn't wait until then I might as well just pack it up now and head for Venus.
I was quite proud of myself. I came home and trained my butt off and was all set to have my perfectly planned out last meal of the day. Then a Papa John's commercial came on with a promo code to buy one pizza and get a second pizza for 26 cents. What the fuck? Are you kidding me???? Of all the days they could run that commercial, they run it yesterday. I cursed them fuckers over and over again in my head. I tried desperately to hint around to Missy that it was too good a deal to pass up. I know that she would of loved to taken the deal but she sacrificed her own self for me. She quietly ducked off to the kitchen and started preparing our dinner as I got on the computer to look into the promo code. By time I found out the details she already had dinner nearly complete.
I finished my day with a flawless diet hitting almost every number I wanted to. You cannot rely upon someone else for success or failure but it certainly doesn't hurt to have someone in your corner who will be there to help you to make the best decisions. If someone is constantly sabotaging your goals and efforts then you need evaluate how much that person really cares about you. Whether you are trying to get in shape, drink less, quite smoking, etc. if the significant other in your life makes your progress harder it might be a bigger sign of a toxic relationship and know that your chances of success drop to nearly zero without their support.
And also realize that that promo code better still be fucking working come this weekend.....!!!!!!!
I naturally tend towards the side of laziness. If given a task and a time frame to do something I will do it but other than that I ain't doing shit. In the past I have told myself I would change. I would apply myself to different tasks each and everyday and I probably did do that, for about two or three days and then just said fuck it and watched some television.
When I knew that I had to lose all that weight during those thirty days staying consistent with my diet was remarkably easy. I may have felt the desire to have a cheat meal here or there but I never felt the urge was overwhelming. If anything I felt like it was more on the side of underwhelming. I remember when I was actually allotted a cheat meal and I was trying to decide what I was going to have almost nothing sounded good to me.
Now that the contest is over, quite literally everything sounds good to me! Part of this is that I indulged for two to three days after the contest. I lifted all eating restrictions and definitely splurged. I had some pizza, an Italian sub, some great Mexican food, cheeze its, ice cream, hummus, steak and potatoes, and all those other things I usually crave. I even had some alcoholic beverages on the first night and maybe even a couple more on the second night. Much like visiting a whore though, afterwards I felt immoral and guilty and bloated and gross. It didn't matter though I knew I was starting the new phase of my diet and I would feel better just as soon as I started putting the proper fuel back into my body.
Yesterday I did just that. I started off with a nutrient packed breakfast of egg whites with a couple yolks thrown in and some Ezekiel toast. I felt great. For about an hour at least. Then I felt the worst hunger of my life.It is funny that when you are basically starving yourself you don't really feel that hungry but when you are eating well but just a little less you feel like your body is eating itself from the inside out. And oh boy did the desire to stray from the diet I had just literally begun hit me so hard it made me say oh my lard. Quite the opposite from my time during the cut, every damn thing sounded good to me. I wanted eggs and bacon and potatoes, I wanted greasy french fries and a big juicy hamburger, I wanted the bacon cheese and tomato panini that Tim Hortons decided to plaster all over the city in giant fucking mouth watering billboards.
But most of all I wanted pizza. Throughout my weight cut pizza was about the one thing that never ceased to sound good. I love pizza (good pizza not the crap that usually passes for good pizza in Columbus). I never had it during those thirty days though, I knew it would set me back too far. Instead I kept it in the back of my mind as the reward at the end of the tunnel. One of the first cheat meals that I had was to go to Missy and I's favorite local pizza place and grab a large pizza.
Just a quick note that this place was the best pizza place we had found in town. They didn't do the generic little square cut crappy Ohio style pizzas. Instead they cut their pizza like it should be cut, in big triangles! They were also a bakery so their crust was always cooked to perfection and it was overall a great a pizza experience. Up until about two or three months ago. I am not sure what happened but at some point the quality just went down faster than Kim Kardashian at an all-star basketball game. The crust started getting overly burnt, the toppings ceased to have seasoning and flavor, and the cheese went from whole milk mozzarella to something more akin to a rubbery texture. We don't get pizza often so the first two times we just assumed maybe it was an off night. The owner who had previously always been friendly seemed a bit more gruff than usual. I just assumed he had caught Giuseppe bending his wife over the brick oven or some crap like that.
Whatever the cause of the problem, all I know is that by strike three you are out and that last pizza we got was strike three. I remember eating the pizza and wishing it was papa john's instead. When you make me wish I was having a mass chain pizza there is something wrong. So imagine my disappointment of waiting all that time only to have a subpar pizza.
Well I guess Missy was in a mood to torture me because yesterday on my lunch break she just happened to see a Papa John's commercial and said, "we should get Papa John's next time instead of ******'s." That was exactly what I DIDN'T need to hear right then. My only answer was, "fuck it lets do it tonight." She probably would of been quite fine with that and honestly it is not like one more cheat meal would have made or broke me in a physical sense. I am almost assuredly going to have it by next Saturday so what did it really matter if it was yesterday or five days from now? Truth be told it only mattered on a mental level.
If I broke my dietary plan just hours after starting it I would be setting myself up for failure. With no immediate goal or deadline, just a vague sense of where I want to by in ten weeks I know that staying on track will be very hard for me. All day yesterday I came up with multiple justifications to have that pizza last night. I even made up my mind on a few occasions that I would have that pizza last night. But in the end I texted Missy and told her that under no circumstances could she agree to letting us have that pizza for dinner. It would still be around come Friday night when I have my next cheat meal, if I couldn't wait until then I might as well just pack it up now and head for Venus.
I was quite proud of myself. I came home and trained my butt off and was all set to have my perfectly planned out last meal of the day. Then a Papa John's commercial came on with a promo code to buy one pizza and get a second pizza for 26 cents. What the fuck? Are you kidding me???? Of all the days they could run that commercial, they run it yesterday. I cursed them fuckers over and over again in my head. I tried desperately to hint around to Missy that it was too good a deal to pass up. I know that she would of loved to taken the deal but she sacrificed her own self for me. She quietly ducked off to the kitchen and started preparing our dinner as I got on the computer to look into the promo code. By time I found out the details she already had dinner nearly complete.
I finished my day with a flawless diet hitting almost every number I wanted to. You cannot rely upon someone else for success or failure but it certainly doesn't hurt to have someone in your corner who will be there to help you to make the best decisions. If someone is constantly sabotaging your goals and efforts then you need evaluate how much that person really cares about you. Whether you are trying to get in shape, drink less, quite smoking, etc. if the significant other in your life makes your progress harder it might be a bigger sign of a toxic relationship and know that your chances of success drop to nearly zero without their support.
And also realize that that promo code better still be fucking working come this weekend.....!!!!!!!
Sample Diet (What I ate yesterday)
5:30 AM- 1 Cup of Egg Whites and 2 Whole Eggs Scrambled. 3 Slices of Ezekial bread.
8:30 AM- 2 Scoops of Protein Powder mixed with water.
11:30 AM- 4 ounces of grilled steak. 3 ounces of potatoes. Some asparagus. 2 Cups of Carbmaster milk.
3:00 PM- 1 Scoop of Protein Powder mixed with water. 1 Slice of Ezekial bread with a tablespoon of no sugar grape jelly.
5:00 PM-6:30 PM- Trained Chest
7:30 PM- 6 ounces of grilled steak. 6 ounces of potatoes. Asparagus. 2 cups of carbmaster milk.
Calories Carbs Fat Protein
2000 130g 60g 240g
8:30 AM- 2 Scoops of Protein Powder mixed with water.
11:30 AM- 4 ounces of grilled steak. 3 ounces of potatoes. Some asparagus. 2 Cups of Carbmaster milk.
3:00 PM- 1 Scoop of Protein Powder mixed with water. 1 Slice of Ezekial bread with a tablespoon of no sugar grape jelly.
5:00 PM-6:30 PM- Trained Chest
7:30 PM- 6 ounces of grilled steak. 6 ounces of potatoes. Asparagus. 2 cups of carbmaster milk.
Calories Carbs Fat Protein
2000 130g 60g 240g
Sunday, April 21, 2013
New Diet Plan
After much debate and deliberation I have decided on my new dietary plan for the next phase of my training. This training cycle is going to last ten weeks and will end around the beginning of July. The goal for this training cycle is to try to build back some strength that was lost during my previous training cycle while continuing to lose weight (though at a much slower rate). I am currently aiming for a loss of 2-3 pounds a week which will equal a loss of 20-30 pounds over the course of the ten weeks. This is more of a rough guideline rather than a rigid number like my last training goal was. I will be satisfied with any steady loss of weight.
My plan is to consume 2000 calories a day for Sunday through Thursday. On Friday I will consume my normal dietary plan until the afternoon which at that point I will begin a day and a half of refeeding. The macro-nutrient ratio I am shooting for is 50% of my calories from protein, 30% from carbohydrates, and 20% from fats. The protein is more set in stone than the carbs and fats. Some days I might consumer more fats and less carbs and other days vice-versa. The important thing is getting in 250 grams of protein a day and keeping my calories to 2000 calories. At four weeks I will evaluate both of my goals (building back strength and dropping fat) and make small adjustments to my diet if deemed necessary.
There is not set rules for the refeed day. Pretty much no limits within reason. Based on how many calories a day I need to consume to maintain my weight I have come up with a rough number of calories I can consume on that day and a half and still lose about two pounds a week. It is unlikely I could even hit that number without really gorging myself. I have found that erroring on the side of eating more during a refeed works better for me than erroring on the side of eating less.
Again though if I feel like I need less time I will drop it down to refeeding for only a day or I might up it to refeeding for two complete days if I think I can make better progress.
My plan is to consume 2000 calories a day for Sunday through Thursday. On Friday I will consume my normal dietary plan until the afternoon which at that point I will begin a day and a half of refeeding. The macro-nutrient ratio I am shooting for is 50% of my calories from protein, 30% from carbohydrates, and 20% from fats. The protein is more set in stone than the carbs and fats. Some days I might consumer more fats and less carbs and other days vice-versa. The important thing is getting in 250 grams of protein a day and keeping my calories to 2000 calories. At four weeks I will evaluate both of my goals (building back strength and dropping fat) and make small adjustments to my diet if deemed necessary.
There is not set rules for the refeed day. Pretty much no limits within reason. Based on how many calories a day I need to consume to maintain my weight I have come up with a rough number of calories I can consume on that day and a half and still lose about two pounds a week. It is unlikely I could even hit that number without really gorging myself. I have found that erroring on the side of eating more during a refeed works better for me than erroring on the side of eating less.
Again though if I feel like I need less time I will drop it down to refeeding for only a day or I might up it to refeeding for two complete days if I think I can make better progress.
New Training Split and our typical Chest Day
Now that the 30 day weight less challenge is done and over with we are beginning a new phase in training and with that a new training split.
Sunday- Chest
Monday- Legs *
Tuesday- Shoulders * **
Wednesday- Back *
Thursday- Arms * **
Friday- Shoulders *
Saturday- Off
* A.M. Forearm & Ab Training Session
** A.M. Calf Training Session
As you can see I have identified two weak bodyparts of mine I am trying to hit more frequently to bring up to par with other areas, my shoulders and my forearms. The calf training is kind of an aside. I don't frequently train them as they are naturally well developed (Like my traps which I don't directly train either), but I have decided to start training the calves as I am dropping weight to help bring out some definition.
Here is a typical Chest Training Session for us-
Bench Press - 5 sets 6-12 reps but sometimes ramping up to a heavy set of 5 or less reps
Incline Dumbbell Presses- 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Dumbbell Flys- 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Gall Presses- 3 sets of 6-12 reps
Decline Dumbbell Presses- 3 sets of 6-12 reps
Cable Flys- 3 sets of 10-15 reps
We have found that routine works well for the both of us. Sometimes we might do Incline Bench Presses and flat dumbbell bench presses instead, but other than that we stick with what works. The Gall Presses are a new way of doing dumbbell presses that we found hits the inner chest (and triceps as well) really hard.
Sunday- Chest
Monday- Legs *
Tuesday- Shoulders * **
Wednesday- Back *
Thursday- Arms * **
Friday- Shoulders *
Saturday- Off
* A.M. Forearm & Ab Training Session
** A.M. Calf Training Session
As you can see I have identified two weak bodyparts of mine I am trying to hit more frequently to bring up to par with other areas, my shoulders and my forearms. The calf training is kind of an aside. I don't frequently train them as they are naturally well developed (Like my traps which I don't directly train either), but I have decided to start training the calves as I am dropping weight to help bring out some definition.
Here is a typical Chest Training Session for us-
Bench Press - 5 sets 6-12 reps but sometimes ramping up to a heavy set of 5 or less reps
Incline Dumbbell Presses- 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Dumbbell Flys- 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Gall Presses- 3 sets of 6-12 reps
Decline Dumbbell Presses- 3 sets of 6-12 reps
Cable Flys- 3 sets of 10-15 reps
We have found that routine works well for the both of us. Sometimes we might do Incline Bench Presses and flat dumbbell bench presses instead, but other than that we stick with what works. The Gall Presses are a new way of doing dumbbell presses that we found hits the inner chest (and triceps as well) really hard.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Part 2
Well now I am a bit over my funk I can concentrate on finishing this blog entry.
When I left off I was in the middle of week three and I was beyond all reasonable levels of frustration. Like most things in life I began with a sort of beginner's enthusiasm that carried me through the first two weeks with ease. During week three I had worked my ass off and kept my diet strict but the weight loss slowed down significantly. This is the period of time I refer to as the moment of doubt. It is when the "newness" of something wears off and you realize you are now stuck with it for the long haul (well in my case another two and a half weeks).
With extreme training and dieting come many discomforts. You cannot eat what you want to. In fact eating has to get down right regimented and very, very, very boring. You cannot drink alcohol, at least not if you are me. I tend to retain water badly when I drink alcohol and on a short term extreme weight loss challenge that would be a disaster. You have to deal with increased aches and pains and muscular soreness. On an extreme lack of calories you cannot get the nutrients your body needs to function as a well oiled machine. You suffer from fatigue and a lack of energy. Imagine being tired all the time and then being cranky because you are tired and cannot perform to the level that you are used to. And strength levels in the gym tank completely. This is especially true if you are a very strong person who trains on a consistent basis. There is no way you can drop a lot of weight quickly and your lifts won't suffer. And no don't tell me about your cousin Bob who lost fifty pounds and increased his bench press by 50 pounds. Your cousin Bob could only do that because he was a piece of shit who never trained consistently (That line was inspired by the Late Great Mark Bell).
Do you know though there is still one aspect of extreme training that is worse than all those things combined? That aspect is the impact it has on your significant other. Now if you are one of those scumbags who hates women and treats his girlfriend/wife like a possession and not a partner than don't even bother reading this. Chances are you are probably single or will be soon and should spend your time wondering why you can never have a meaningful relationship rather than reading this blog. But if you are a person who values the person you spend your life with than read on.
I can deal with any personal discomforts sent my way. That sensation of extreme hunger fades after a few days. Sure you always feel hungry but the pain level drops significantly. You get used to the low energy levels and tend to compensate by drinking more coffee or just learn to live with it. The dull headaches and bodily aches and pains persist but again you get so used to feeling them that after awhile it becomes normal. The one thing I couldn't get used to throughout the thirty days was seeing my wife have to suffer for my sins. She starved herself right along side me despite me pleading for her not to. I kept telling her that she could eat whatever she wanted and it would not bother me but she would refuse. She is not the kind of person who can really afford to lose weight. She struggles to maintain her current weight and has to be reminded often times to eat.
She did not want to bring temptation around me. I can understand her mindset as well. If she is not eating I would feel weird to sit down and eat a pizza in front of her. I appreciated her loyalty to my goal but it frustrated me to no end. Seeing her suffer made me want to break my diet more than anything else. I never did break my diet, not once in fact, but I did struggle with it a few times.
Beyond her just starving, it also greatly limited what we could do. It is not like we could have people over. How could people relax and have a good time if I am in the corner not able to partake in snacks or some drinks? Sorry but I am not friends with Buddhist monks. And we really couldn't go out. What am I going to do go sit down in a restaurant and order a quarter of a steak and a water? We did catch a movie during that time and that was fun. We watched Oz the Great and Powerful and it was a thoroughly entertaining movie. Again though it would of been nice to have gone and have dinner afterwards. Whether you realize it or not so much of our entertaining revolves around drinking and snacking and that was two things I could not do at all.
Oh and by the way, at least for me, my temper grew much shorter while on this weight loss challenge. The littlest things would send me into a flying rage. I was able to keep it bottled up inside of me but I swear there were a few times that steam could be seen shooting out of my ears. While I think I did a great job containing my increased temper I am sure there were a few times it would slip out. In fact I know there were a few times it slipped out because Missy is quite potent with her look of death that sends a chill down my spine and I got a few of those looks over the last month. Missy never yells at me and is never mean to me but she doesn't need to be with that death stare. Fuck I have to change the subject before I get in another funk.
Damn I didn't intend for this to be another long post. I have already finished a 32 ounce powerade zero and fired off a missile while typing this out. I have to admit I love writing. I love putting my thoughts to paper (or the computer screen I guess). Some people love to talk. I hate to talk. I wish all communication was written. Well I take that back. Read facebook for fifteen minutes and you realize most people should do every damn thing in their power to avoid written communication.
I have to get back on track. Where was I? After that missile I kind of lost focus. I guess I will just skip ahead to the end of the challenge. The last day was probably worse than the 28 days before it combined. I knew going into the last week I would have to cut some water weight to make the 45 pounds loss. I pretty much assumed that going into the challenge but I wanted to try to get as close as possible to make the water cut that much easier. I think I achieved that goal admirably as I was within six pounds upon waking up the day before the weigh in. I thought a six pound water weight cut would be so simply that I could do it with no problem. I have cut ten to fifteen pounds in a day with no issue before.
Well it was a problem. I think I was a bit overconfident because six pounds was such a low number but I wasn't thinking about the 39 I had already dropped. My plan was that it would be a warm day out and I would sweat out some of the six pounds just by working throughout the day. This didn't go in my favor because of Ohio and its semi-retarded weather decided to be mild and overcast that day. The day before it was hot and muggy but on the day I needed to sweat is was cool and cloudy. The sun never came out once during my work day. I was like a giant version of Yosemite Sam throughout the day. I cursed Ohio, the local weathermen, and pretty much everyone I had seen throughout the day.
Just an aside. If you think it sucks being hungry when on a diet, imagine being thirty. Thirsty beyond belief. So thirsty you would give anything for just one sip of water. Now imagine that there is water all around you. Water in such abundance that you could keep drinking water until you drowned and it would still be available. All that thirst and all that water and yet you can't take one fucking sip.
I drove around a good portion of the day with the heater turned all the way up to get a sweat going. It was not easy but I did end up sweating out five pounds by time I got home from work. I was now just one pound over my goal and I could of just took it easy the rest of the night but that just wouldn't be my style. Instead I decided on a whim that making 45 pounds was too easy and fuck it lets just go for fifty pounds. I only needed to sweat out another six pounds. Sure why not? I swear I must just be a high functioning retard. I mean just what the hell was I thinking? I had just basically accomplished an amazing feat. Yes I was still a pound away but my weigh in was roughly 16 hours away so my body would of easily burned through another pound in that time. But I just had to push it. I should punch myself in the face right now. I am pretty sure Missy still wants to. That was one of the few times her death stare turned into a "I am going to punch you in your fucking face" thing. She had the perfect opportunity too. I could barely stand up at that point let alone fight back.
To try and squeeze out another six pounds I used a combination of hot showers with some physical work. I did a steam shower to get the pores opened up and then went and moved the grass and then did another steam shower. By time I was done with that process I had shed another four pounds but now I was getting dizzy and light headed. I ended up taking a nap on the sofa for about an hour and two and then woke up and did something stupid. I took a small drink of water. I had been working so hard to eliminate the water from my body and then in the momentary confusion of waking up from a nap I gulped down a half a cup of water. I am not sure if how much it actually set me back but I know that it mentally broke me. I was done for the night. I couldn't go any further.
I woke up in the morning and made one last ditch effort to shred down a few more pounds. I did one more steam shower and then hit the stationary bike. After about ten minutes on the bike I gave up though. I started to "see things" and my head was light and I just didn't have any more to give. I got dressed and went and did my weigh in and settled for a loss of 47.5 pounds in thirty days. I was at that point just happy to be able to drink some water and not feel guilty! I drank I think four big bottled waters and four powerade zeros over the next eight hours. I think during that time I pissed once and even then it was just barely.
I don't think I realized the physical toll it took on my body to do this until after it was over. My low back is extremely sore now and I still can barely eat any food without feeling stuffed and I have basically slept for about two days straight. I am using this time to just recuperate. I allowed myself two days to take a break from dieting and training and today I begin my new diet and training regime. I will post up about it later as I have spent enough time typing at the moment.
When I left off I was in the middle of week three and I was beyond all reasonable levels of frustration. Like most things in life I began with a sort of beginner's enthusiasm that carried me through the first two weeks with ease. During week three I had worked my ass off and kept my diet strict but the weight loss slowed down significantly. This is the period of time I refer to as the moment of doubt. It is when the "newness" of something wears off and you realize you are now stuck with it for the long haul (well in my case another two and a half weeks).
With extreme training and dieting come many discomforts. You cannot eat what you want to. In fact eating has to get down right regimented and very, very, very boring. You cannot drink alcohol, at least not if you are me. I tend to retain water badly when I drink alcohol and on a short term extreme weight loss challenge that would be a disaster. You have to deal with increased aches and pains and muscular soreness. On an extreme lack of calories you cannot get the nutrients your body needs to function as a well oiled machine. You suffer from fatigue and a lack of energy. Imagine being tired all the time and then being cranky because you are tired and cannot perform to the level that you are used to. And strength levels in the gym tank completely. This is especially true if you are a very strong person who trains on a consistent basis. There is no way you can drop a lot of weight quickly and your lifts won't suffer. And no don't tell me about your cousin Bob who lost fifty pounds and increased his bench press by 50 pounds. Your cousin Bob could only do that because he was a piece of shit who never trained consistently (That line was inspired by the Late Great Mark Bell).
Do you know though there is still one aspect of extreme training that is worse than all those things combined? That aspect is the impact it has on your significant other. Now if you are one of those scumbags who hates women and treats his girlfriend/wife like a possession and not a partner than don't even bother reading this. Chances are you are probably single or will be soon and should spend your time wondering why you can never have a meaningful relationship rather than reading this blog. But if you are a person who values the person you spend your life with than read on.
I can deal with any personal discomforts sent my way. That sensation of extreme hunger fades after a few days. Sure you always feel hungry but the pain level drops significantly. You get used to the low energy levels and tend to compensate by drinking more coffee or just learn to live with it. The dull headaches and bodily aches and pains persist but again you get so used to feeling them that after awhile it becomes normal. The one thing I couldn't get used to throughout the thirty days was seeing my wife have to suffer for my sins. She starved herself right along side me despite me pleading for her not to. I kept telling her that she could eat whatever she wanted and it would not bother me but she would refuse. She is not the kind of person who can really afford to lose weight. She struggles to maintain her current weight and has to be reminded often times to eat.
She did not want to bring temptation around me. I can understand her mindset as well. If she is not eating I would feel weird to sit down and eat a pizza in front of her. I appreciated her loyalty to my goal but it frustrated me to no end. Seeing her suffer made me want to break my diet more than anything else. I never did break my diet, not once in fact, but I did struggle with it a few times.
Beyond her just starving, it also greatly limited what we could do. It is not like we could have people over. How could people relax and have a good time if I am in the corner not able to partake in snacks or some drinks? Sorry but I am not friends with Buddhist monks. And we really couldn't go out. What am I going to do go sit down in a restaurant and order a quarter of a steak and a water? We did catch a movie during that time and that was fun. We watched Oz the Great and Powerful and it was a thoroughly entertaining movie. Again though it would of been nice to have gone and have dinner afterwards. Whether you realize it or not so much of our entertaining revolves around drinking and snacking and that was two things I could not do at all.
Oh and by the way, at least for me, my temper grew much shorter while on this weight loss challenge. The littlest things would send me into a flying rage. I was able to keep it bottled up inside of me but I swear there were a few times that steam could be seen shooting out of my ears. While I think I did a great job containing my increased temper I am sure there were a few times it would slip out. In fact I know there were a few times it slipped out because Missy is quite potent with her look of death that sends a chill down my spine and I got a few of those looks over the last month. Missy never yells at me and is never mean to me but she doesn't need to be with that death stare. Fuck I have to change the subject before I get in another funk.
Damn I didn't intend for this to be another long post. I have already finished a 32 ounce powerade zero and fired off a missile while typing this out. I have to admit I love writing. I love putting my thoughts to paper (or the computer screen I guess). Some people love to talk. I hate to talk. I wish all communication was written. Well I take that back. Read facebook for fifteen minutes and you realize most people should do every damn thing in their power to avoid written communication.
I have to get back on track. Where was I? After that missile I kind of lost focus. I guess I will just skip ahead to the end of the challenge. The last day was probably worse than the 28 days before it combined. I knew going into the last week I would have to cut some water weight to make the 45 pounds loss. I pretty much assumed that going into the challenge but I wanted to try to get as close as possible to make the water cut that much easier. I think I achieved that goal admirably as I was within six pounds upon waking up the day before the weigh in. I thought a six pound water weight cut would be so simply that I could do it with no problem. I have cut ten to fifteen pounds in a day with no issue before.
Well it was a problem. I think I was a bit overconfident because six pounds was such a low number but I wasn't thinking about the 39 I had already dropped. My plan was that it would be a warm day out and I would sweat out some of the six pounds just by working throughout the day. This didn't go in my favor because of Ohio and its semi-retarded weather decided to be mild and overcast that day. The day before it was hot and muggy but on the day I needed to sweat is was cool and cloudy. The sun never came out once during my work day. I was like a giant version of Yosemite Sam throughout the day. I cursed Ohio, the local weathermen, and pretty much everyone I had seen throughout the day.
Just an aside. If you think it sucks being hungry when on a diet, imagine being thirty. Thirsty beyond belief. So thirsty you would give anything for just one sip of water. Now imagine that there is water all around you. Water in such abundance that you could keep drinking water until you drowned and it would still be available. All that thirst and all that water and yet you can't take one fucking sip.
I drove around a good portion of the day with the heater turned all the way up to get a sweat going. It was not easy but I did end up sweating out five pounds by time I got home from work. I was now just one pound over my goal and I could of just took it easy the rest of the night but that just wouldn't be my style. Instead I decided on a whim that making 45 pounds was too easy and fuck it lets just go for fifty pounds. I only needed to sweat out another six pounds. Sure why not? I swear I must just be a high functioning retard. I mean just what the hell was I thinking? I had just basically accomplished an amazing feat. Yes I was still a pound away but my weigh in was roughly 16 hours away so my body would of easily burned through another pound in that time. But I just had to push it. I should punch myself in the face right now. I am pretty sure Missy still wants to. That was one of the few times her death stare turned into a "I am going to punch you in your fucking face" thing. She had the perfect opportunity too. I could barely stand up at that point let alone fight back.
To try and squeeze out another six pounds I used a combination of hot showers with some physical work. I did a steam shower to get the pores opened up and then went and moved the grass and then did another steam shower. By time I was done with that process I had shed another four pounds but now I was getting dizzy and light headed. I ended up taking a nap on the sofa for about an hour and two and then woke up and did something stupid. I took a small drink of water. I had been working so hard to eliminate the water from my body and then in the momentary confusion of waking up from a nap I gulped down a half a cup of water. I am not sure if how much it actually set me back but I know that it mentally broke me. I was done for the night. I couldn't go any further.
I woke up in the morning and made one last ditch effort to shred down a few more pounds. I did one more steam shower and then hit the stationary bike. After about ten minutes on the bike I gave up though. I started to "see things" and my head was light and I just didn't have any more to give. I got dressed and went and did my weigh in and settled for a loss of 47.5 pounds in thirty days. I was at that point just happy to be able to drink some water and not feel guilty! I drank I think four big bottled waters and four powerade zeros over the next eight hours. I think during that time I pissed once and even then it was just barely.
I don't think I realized the physical toll it took on my body to do this until after it was over. My low back is extremely sore now and I still can barely eat any food without feeling stuffed and I have basically slept for about two days straight. I am using this time to just recuperate. I allowed myself two days to take a break from dieting and training and today I begin my new diet and training regime. I will post up about it later as I have spent enough time typing at the moment.
Friday, April 19, 2013
45 Pounds in 30 Days Weight Loss Wrap Up
Whew! I made it, but just barely. I have to take a moment and pat myself on the back for a job well done before saying that I will never subject myself to that kind of torture again. It was a very rough road and those thirty days felt more like a half a year.
This weight loss challenge began on March 19th. I knew that I had thirty days to make a certain weight so I stepped on my scale and after a quick bit of subtraction I realized I had to drop a daunting forty-five pounds. I then sat down at our kitchen table and really let that number soak into my head. I kept visualizing a big bold number four and then a big bold number five. I became consumed with that number.
Actually that is total bullshit. I am pretty sure I just plopped down on the sofa and watched some television after getting off the scale. Maybe about an hour later it finally hit me just how much damn weight I had to lose to make that goal. Forty-five pounds in thirty days equals out to a pound a half a day. That number doesn't seem too intimidating until you multiply it by seven and realize that you have to lose ten and a half pounds a week. That is about the time I felt like I wanted to have an anxiety attack. I decided the best course of action was to go to the bathroom and fire off a missile. Sorry but it is really hard to concentrate on a problem when you have to take a wicked shit.
So minus the content of my bowels I finally sat at the kitchen table and began working out a plan of attack. I am the kind of person that likes to plan out every little detail when I do something. I know exactly what I am going to do each and every day. I come up with the plan and then analyze the plan, and then edit the plan, and then analyze some more, and then finally decide on the final product. Of course I never actually follow that plan. I almost always just wing it. You see I said I like to plan out every little detail, I never said I like to actually follow through with the plan.
So I came up with a basic plan of consuming between 700 to 800 calories a day, with all my food choices coming from lean protein sources. Things like protein powder, liquid egg whites, tuna, pork, steak, etc. would be the staples of my diet. I planned on allowing myself one full cheat day the first weekend. On week two I would allow myself a free meal half way through the week and then another on the weekend. On week three I would allow myself one cheat meal on the weekend and then no more cheat meals until the weigh in. My training would consist of a mixture of weight training and cardiovascular conditioning. I figured that I would work to get as close to possible to the forty-five pound loss and then on the day before the weigh in I would cut water weight to make the full forty-five pounds.
For the most part I did actually follow that plan. And let me tell you right now, it really sucked. The diet I followed was based upon a diet by a well known diet guru. I use that term loosely because I don't like gurus. While this guy does know his stuff and is definitely well read and educated, I will flat out say that the diet sucks and should never ever be used. Let me repeat that, NEVER EVER FOR NEVER EVER use that god forsaken diet. You need either some carbs or some fat in your diet for energy. Without either one you are simply short changing your weight loss goals. With no fat or carbs you get unreal headaches, memory loss issues, extreme lethargy and fatigue, and you can't train worth a damn. I seriously lost about fifty pounds off my bench press max after a week.
You are better off having some carbs or fats during your diet the entire time. Which one you chose is up to you because honestly when you are only consuming 700-1000 calories it doesn't really matter where you get your calories from so long as you make sure to get an adequate amount of quality protein. I think the benefit of having higher energy levels far outweighs having a couple hundred less calories a day.
Despite those issues I think weeks one and two were smooth sailing. Weight loss comes quick in the beginning when you do an abrupt dietary change like that. When the pounds are shedding down quickly each day it is easy to stay motivated. That is why many people can easily stay on a diet for about two weeks. The problem is that then weight loss can slow down to a crawl. That happened to me in week three I believe. I remember one day I was just hungry all day and I trained my ass off with both weight training and cardio and I went to bed just knowing I would wake up another three pounds lighter.
I step on the scale the next morning and I lost one pound. One lousy fucking pound???!! I was furious! I was tormenting my body and putting it through hell all for one pound. It didn't seem worth it. I went to work that day and was beyond frustrated. I remember texting my wife and telling her I was fed up with this weight loss challenge. That there is no point busting my ass so hard for just a pound. She told me I was silly and said all those things that I always tell everyone else. You see I know damn well that weight loss does not happen on a straight line but rather ebbs and flows. You might not lose any weight for three days and then on the fourth day you drop four pounds overnight. Most people kind of refer to that as a "woosh". I always tell people all the time just weigh yourself once a week, on the same day and at the same time. Then I go and break my own advice and weigh myself constantly. Then again I was working with a deadline so fuck the rules!
I remember on that day I told myself this was impossible. I could never make my goal of losing forty-five pounds in thirty days. I knew in my heart of hearts I bit off more than I could chew and I was going to fail. While I was sure that I was going to lose I still could not allow myself to give up. You see I am just one of those stubborn people. I hate to be wrong and I hate to lose. There is just something in me, maybe a deep rooted sense of being an asshole and I just have to prove the power of being an asshole. If I lose then assholes everywhere will have to hang their heads in shame. I couldn't do that to my fellow assholes. I had to keep chugging along. I wasn't going to make it but it was not going to be from a lack of effort on my asshole part.
I just want to say something really quick. When I say asshole I don't mean your typical definition of an asshole. I know some egotistical pricks and believe me I can't stand them. Don't ever equate me with those pukes. I am a higher form of asshole that they could never hope to ascend to. I am not mean or cruel or anything of the sort. I am a kind soft hearted asshole.
Okay where was I? Oh yeah, that dreaded week three. It was terrible, but I strongly believe that when you really push yourself past the limit you have to go through that moment of doubt and shame so to speak. Hell, if a moment of doubt and shame was good enough for Jesus, then it is good enough for me right? You know what, I just googled that and found out that song actually says Jesus's moment of doubt and pain. Every time I heard the song I always thought he said doubt and shame. Now my mind is blown.
Wow, that has completely put me in a funk. I am not even sure I can finish this post now. I guess I will have to put this is two parts because this will probably make me weird all day today. It is like someone just murdered a gopher right in front of me. I just feel weird. Okay well stay tuned for part 2.
This weight loss challenge began on March 19th. I knew that I had thirty days to make a certain weight so I stepped on my scale and after a quick bit of subtraction I realized I had to drop a daunting forty-five pounds. I then sat down at our kitchen table and really let that number soak into my head. I kept visualizing a big bold number four and then a big bold number five. I became consumed with that number.
Actually that is total bullshit. I am pretty sure I just plopped down on the sofa and watched some television after getting off the scale. Maybe about an hour later it finally hit me just how much damn weight I had to lose to make that goal. Forty-five pounds in thirty days equals out to a pound a half a day. That number doesn't seem too intimidating until you multiply it by seven and realize that you have to lose ten and a half pounds a week. That is about the time I felt like I wanted to have an anxiety attack. I decided the best course of action was to go to the bathroom and fire off a missile. Sorry but it is really hard to concentrate on a problem when you have to take a wicked shit.
So minus the content of my bowels I finally sat at the kitchen table and began working out a plan of attack. I am the kind of person that likes to plan out every little detail when I do something. I know exactly what I am going to do each and every day. I come up with the plan and then analyze the plan, and then edit the plan, and then analyze some more, and then finally decide on the final product. Of course I never actually follow that plan. I almost always just wing it. You see I said I like to plan out every little detail, I never said I like to actually follow through with the plan.
So I came up with a basic plan of consuming between 700 to 800 calories a day, with all my food choices coming from lean protein sources. Things like protein powder, liquid egg whites, tuna, pork, steak, etc. would be the staples of my diet. I planned on allowing myself one full cheat day the first weekend. On week two I would allow myself a free meal half way through the week and then another on the weekend. On week three I would allow myself one cheat meal on the weekend and then no more cheat meals until the weigh in. My training would consist of a mixture of weight training and cardiovascular conditioning. I figured that I would work to get as close to possible to the forty-five pound loss and then on the day before the weigh in I would cut water weight to make the full forty-five pounds.
For the most part I did actually follow that plan. And let me tell you right now, it really sucked. The diet I followed was based upon a diet by a well known diet guru. I use that term loosely because I don't like gurus. While this guy does know his stuff and is definitely well read and educated, I will flat out say that the diet sucks and should never ever be used. Let me repeat that, NEVER EVER FOR NEVER EVER use that god forsaken diet. You need either some carbs or some fat in your diet for energy. Without either one you are simply short changing your weight loss goals. With no fat or carbs you get unreal headaches, memory loss issues, extreme lethargy and fatigue, and you can't train worth a damn. I seriously lost about fifty pounds off my bench press max after a week.
You are better off having some carbs or fats during your diet the entire time. Which one you chose is up to you because honestly when you are only consuming 700-1000 calories it doesn't really matter where you get your calories from so long as you make sure to get an adequate amount of quality protein. I think the benefit of having higher energy levels far outweighs having a couple hundred less calories a day.
Despite those issues I think weeks one and two were smooth sailing. Weight loss comes quick in the beginning when you do an abrupt dietary change like that. When the pounds are shedding down quickly each day it is easy to stay motivated. That is why many people can easily stay on a diet for about two weeks. The problem is that then weight loss can slow down to a crawl. That happened to me in week three I believe. I remember one day I was just hungry all day and I trained my ass off with both weight training and cardio and I went to bed just knowing I would wake up another three pounds lighter.
I step on the scale the next morning and I lost one pound. One lousy fucking pound???!! I was furious! I was tormenting my body and putting it through hell all for one pound. It didn't seem worth it. I went to work that day and was beyond frustrated. I remember texting my wife and telling her I was fed up with this weight loss challenge. That there is no point busting my ass so hard for just a pound. She told me I was silly and said all those things that I always tell everyone else. You see I know damn well that weight loss does not happen on a straight line but rather ebbs and flows. You might not lose any weight for three days and then on the fourth day you drop four pounds overnight. Most people kind of refer to that as a "woosh". I always tell people all the time just weigh yourself once a week, on the same day and at the same time. Then I go and break my own advice and weigh myself constantly. Then again I was working with a deadline so fuck the rules!
I remember on that day I told myself this was impossible. I could never make my goal of losing forty-five pounds in thirty days. I knew in my heart of hearts I bit off more than I could chew and I was going to fail. While I was sure that I was going to lose I still could not allow myself to give up. You see I am just one of those stubborn people. I hate to be wrong and I hate to lose. There is just something in me, maybe a deep rooted sense of being an asshole and I just have to prove the power of being an asshole. If I lose then assholes everywhere will have to hang their heads in shame. I couldn't do that to my fellow assholes. I had to keep chugging along. I wasn't going to make it but it was not going to be from a lack of effort on my asshole part.
I just want to say something really quick. When I say asshole I don't mean your typical definition of an asshole. I know some egotistical pricks and believe me I can't stand them. Don't ever equate me with those pukes. I am a higher form of asshole that they could never hope to ascend to. I am not mean or cruel or anything of the sort. I am a kind soft hearted asshole.
Okay where was I? Oh yeah, that dreaded week three. It was terrible, but I strongly believe that when you really push yourself past the limit you have to go through that moment of doubt and shame so to speak. Hell, if a moment of doubt and shame was good enough for Jesus, then it is good enough for me right? You know what, I just googled that and found out that song actually says Jesus's moment of doubt and pain. Every time I heard the song I always thought he said doubt and shame. Now my mind is blown.
Wow, that has completely put me in a funk. I am not even sure I can finish this post now. I guess I will have to put this is two parts because this will probably make me weird all day today. It is like someone just murdered a gopher right in front of me. I just feel weird. Okay well stay tuned for part 2.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
4 - 18 - 13 Final Results
Well the 30 day weight loss challenge is now completed.
End Result is that in 30 days I lost 47.5 pounds so I exceeded my goal by 2.5 pounds.
I am going to keep this post brief. Tomorrow I am going to do an entire write up about the experience and aftermath, but tonight I am going to have a damn good time after all this hard work!
End Result is that in 30 days I lost 47.5 pounds so I exceeded my goal by 2.5 pounds.
I am going to keep this post brief. Tomorrow I am going to do an entire write up about the experience and aftermath, but tonight I am going to have a damn good time after all this hard work!
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Thirsty.... Soooooo Thirsty!!!!! Midday Update.
Well the final weight cut began this morning when I woke up. It is now 4 PM and I am almost to the half way point now. Well technically it is not the half way point because although I wake up at 5 I don't actually weigh in until around 8 am or so.
So far today I have had a sip of water at 5 this morning to take some vitamins with. I very nearly threw up for about three hours straight. I have had one slice of bread with some peanut butter on it when I woke up with my vitamins. So since 5 AM I have had absolutely no food or drink.
Things have not been going my way so far today. It was hot and sunny yesterday aside from when it was storming which is perfect weather to get some sweat out. Today it has been cloudy and 60 almost all day. Seriously the one day I would want it to be muggy and sunny and it is not. Ohio really is the most horrible place to live. There is no excuse for this crap. And to really kick me in the balls tomorrow, when it would be perfect to be cool and cloudy so I can rehydrate properly instead it is going to be nearly 90 degrees and sunny and muggy. Then the next day when I have a day off and can actually enjoy some warmer weather it is going to drop back down to 50 degrees. Absolute bullshit. If I could I would pack up and move to Europe where my ancestors should of never left.
I just weighed myself. Despite the setbacks I have one more pound to go.
So far today I have had a sip of water at 5 this morning to take some vitamins with. I very nearly threw up for about three hours straight. I have had one slice of bread with some peanut butter on it when I woke up with my vitamins. So since 5 AM I have had absolutely no food or drink.
Things have not been going my way so far today. It was hot and sunny yesterday aside from when it was storming which is perfect weather to get some sweat out. Today it has been cloudy and 60 almost all day. Seriously the one day I would want it to be muggy and sunny and it is not. Ohio really is the most horrible place to live. There is no excuse for this crap. And to really kick me in the balls tomorrow, when it would be perfect to be cool and cloudy so I can rehydrate properly instead it is going to be nearly 90 degrees and sunny and muggy. Then the next day when I have a day off and can actually enjoy some warmer weather it is going to drop back down to 50 degrees. Absolute bullshit. If I could I would pack up and move to Europe where my ancestors should of never left.
I just weighed myself. Despite the setbacks I have one more pound to go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)