A great post by Glenn Pendlay here. Motivated me to start writing some zombie apocalypse inspired WODs.
Zombie WOD of the Week, 11/1/2011
Carry a wounded child two miles (or to nearest farmhouse) for ALBLAP (As Little Blood Loss As Possible.)
Post pints of blood lost to comments.
Everyone who’s ever been on a diet knows all to well the anxiety that this simple piece of machinery can induce. Nowadays, when there are scales that tell you your weight within a .1 lb margin of accuracy, people are even more likely to obsess over every tiny change in the readout. Well, I’ve got news for you. For some it might come as a relief, for others a negation of weeks of hard work; changes in your weight don’t necessarily mean anything about changes in your body composition!
Changes in body weight can come from numerous things. First and foremost, our bodies are made mostly of water. When we drastically change our eating/training habits, it can take our bodies time to adjust. One place I see this most often is when people go from a Standard American Diet onto a low-carb diet; they tend to lose astounding amounts of weight in the first few weeks, sometimes as much as 10+ lbs! While a bit of this weight loss is surely fat, a lot of it comes from the fact that a carbohydrate and calorie restricted diet will deplete people of the glycogen stored throughout their bodies.
Glycogen is the form of carbohydrate that is stored throughout the body in muscle cells, fat cells, and the liver as fuel reserves. For each gram of glycogen within a cell, it brings with it 3-4 grams of water. So, let’s say you’re carrying with you 1000g of glycogen – during that first week of dieting, if the majority of that glycogen is depleted, you will also lose 3-4kg of water – upwards of 10-15 lbs!
Also, to a lesser extent, you can even lose a pound or two by taking a good shit. Sorry for the vulgarity, but hey, when you’re talking about the human body, shit is bound to come up sooner or later, I might as well break hearts now.
So, if our weight can fluctuate as much as 10 pounds in a week without indicating any truly significant fat loss, how should we approach weighing ourselves? Well, you have two options, depending on your level of meticulousness. And despite which path you choose, there are some rules you should always abide by.
1) Always weigh yourself at the same time of day:
I recommend first thing in the morning. At this time, you will have a fairly consistent amount of fluid in your system, and it will have been quite a while since your last meal, minimizing the effect that has on your weight.
2) Write your weight down:
Even if it’s not a number you like to see, you won’t be able to keep long term track of your progress if you ignore it and try to forget about it. Write the number down somewhere! Oh, and don’t fucking lie to the notebook and round down, you’re only hurting yourself when you do that.
This method is for people who like to keep very careful track of their progress. I personally weigh myself each and every morning, first thing out of bed, and jot it down in a spreadsheet. Now, let me say, this method is not for people who obsess about the tiniest uptick in their weight. Only do this method if you are able to see sometimes drastic swings in your scale readouts without freaking out, jumping off the wagon and binging on a dozen donuts. Weight loss is never linear! I recently went off a very low carb diet (for many reasons) and immediately saw the scale jump 5 lbs. Was I shocked? No, because I understood what was going on, and had the data to back it up. Why then, if things are so inconsistent, would you want to weigh yourself every day?
Trends. With a few weeks of daily weigh ins, you will be able to see past the day to day fluctuation in weight and be able to see the trends. A fairly consistent downward movement from week to week, despite the few large swings up and down, indicates progress, and that’s all we need to see. I highly recommend this method for anyone who has already dialed in their fitness for the most part, but who would like to approach lower body fat percentages, or possibly put on some more lean mass.
This also works well for people experimenting with carbohydrate refeeds. Day to day fluctuations in weight are a good way to measure whether or not you are ingesting enough carbs on your refeed days to properly replenish glycogen stores. If you don’t know what a refeed is, then that probably means you don’t need to be doing them yet.
This method is for the ruminators out there. If you find yourself weighing in multiple times a day, just to see, or you lose your shit over a weight gain of .2 lbs, this is the way you should be weighing yourself. Every other week, pick out three consecutive days on which you know your diet will be dialed in, and weigh yourself first thing in the morning those days. So, if you normally have a cheat meal on Friday, weigh yourself on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, since the cheat meal would certainly effect your weigh ins later in the week. Then, average these three weights, write that number down, put your scale away, and don’t even think about weighing yourself for the next two weeks! Trust your plan is working, and just let it work! The last thing you want to do is raise your cortisol levels by obsessing so hard about your diet… that would prove counter productive.
By weighing yourself over 3 days and taking the average, you will minimize the effect of the slight fluctuations in water weight, and will be able to better see the actual trend of your fat loss. If over the course of two good weeks of dieting and exercising you don’t see any change in the 3 day average, you need to make a change of some sort. If you do see a loss, then keep it up until it stops working for ya!
For lots of people, measurements and photographs are all the proof they need. I know that, personally, a photo means much more to me than a number, and having a piece of clothing fit better than ever (or perhaps fall off) is enough of an indication that I’m on the right track.
At the end of the day, no matter what the scale says, stick with it. Eat good, whole foods. Exercise smart. You might have to tweak some things along the way to reach your final goals, but by doing anything about your health and fitness, you’re in a better place than you were when you were sitting on your ass eating Fritos and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night. Don’t get discouraged and slip back into your old ways… we all know where those were getting you.
…Mmmm… Fritos.
Here’s a great PSA running in Minnesota.
There’s always going to be “tomorrow.” Meanwhile, you get fatter today. Quit making excuses. Make changes today.
Hey Everyone,
I apologize for the brief hiatus. Been really busy keeping my school life together, so I had to give the blog a break for a few days. Well, I finished up some huge projects that were looming over me, so now I’m back in action!
I’ve been a little lost as to which way I want to actually take this blog. I intend to finish up my fat kid stories, and put out a few posts about my general training/nutrition beliefs, but beyond that, it’s up in the air. I guess I’ll just let it happen naturally, but if there are certain things you’d rather hear about, let me know, and I’ll definitely keep it in mind!
So, while I’m in what might be the best shape of my life, I’m still not content with my fitness. There’s always something to improve upon, so over the next six months or so, I have two particular goals.
Doesn't that look fun?
Goal 1: By the new year (January 1st, 2012,) I will have between 5-6% body fat. I might actually get it measured in some fairly accurate way to keep myself honest, but I’d be willing to judge by appearance. Long and the short of it – I’m going on a South American tour with my singing group, and I want to be cut out of fucking wood.
Goal 2: In 2012, I will maintain single digit body fat while adding lean mass and preparing for a Tough Mudder event. I don’t know if I’m just a masochistic fuck, but that looks like one hell of a good time to me. But what that means is that I can’t keep doing a low volume, mass building split. That simply won’t prepare me for a 10+ mile long obstacle course in any reasonable way.
So that’s what the next 6 or so months have in store for me. Plenty more posts about my experiences/progress with those as I go!
Cheers!
John Berardi over at Precision Nutrition just put up a great e-book about his experiences with intermittent fasting. It’s a protocol I’ve been playing around with for about 6 months now, on and off, and I’m convinced that it can be a great way to manage hunger and lean down, especially for people trying to get into the lowest of body fat ranges.
Check it out here! It’s a great read, and provides a couple different popular protocols for people interested in giving IF a shot!
I particularly like his little schpiel on self experimenting in the conclusion. There’s no better way to get started with a fitness plan than to find something that intrigues you and just give it a shot for a month! If it doesn’t work, change it! Only by keeping track of your actions and results over a period of time can you truly know what is or isn’t going to get you to your goal.
I use two basic principles to guide my day to day existence:
1) Life should be enjoyable
2) There needs to be a balance in everything we do
Obviously these are easier said than done. People get caught up in the rat race of life. We forget to slow down and take a step back from it all. In isolation, insignificant things can seem enormous. When put in perspective, however, they become easily manageable.
Ok, enough of that hypothetical cliche bullshit. Let’s talk tangibles. What does this have to do with diet and training?
People who subscribe to the primal lifestyle will already be familiar with the 80/20 principle. The basic concept is as long as you follow your diet and training program 80% of the time, you will be on the right track, and you will continue making progress toward being healthier and happier. Trying to stick strictly to a diet and training regiment 100% of the time is unsustainable, especially in the long term. I’ve put my time in with crash diets and I have to say, slow and steady is the only way to go.
When you have it in your head that you will eat right 100% of the time, what happens when you mess up? If you tell yourself that you will never miss a work out, what happens when something comes up and you don’t make it to the gym? You call your sponsor? Only if you’re one of the lucky few. Otherwise, you have to face the fact that, on some level, you just failed. So now what? You just forget about it and move on, happy with 95% adherence to your diet for the day? Nope. You ruminate on it…
Those little voices start. “You already had a piece of cake, why not have another? You already fucked up!”
“Why bother going for a nice long walk, you didn’t even make it to the gym! Oh well, might as well just sit and watch TV all day.”
“Why would you order a salad for dinner, you ate one of the rolls! Might as well dive off the wagon, tubs, go down in a blaze of glory!”
So, before you even know it, that one piece of pizza or that day off from the gym turns into a whole weekend of eating crap and a week of not working out. And the worst part of it all? You can’t even enjoy it! You feel too guilty for promising yourself you’d be good and not being able to follow through.
I don’t do 100%. I don’t try to do 100%. I don’t ever recommend people try to do 100%. I aim for somewhere between 80/20 and 90/10 myself. 80/20 is more than enough for most people to get phenomenal results.
People always ask, does that mean that 1 in 5 days you can just forget about your diet and go crazy? Does it mean that on any given day 20% of your calories can be from crappy foods?
I couldn’t tell you. It means different things for different people. Personally, I have planned cheat meals a few times a week.
Mom's Banana Bread... High calorie and far from Paleo, but god damn delicious!
Last night (and this morning) turned into one of the bigger cheat meal(s) I’ve had in a long time. I had a bunch of friends visiting from out of town, so we went out to dinner at Bertucci’s and then had a little get together. In the course of the night (and the morning) I ate pizza, bread, beer, punch, a donut, some banana bread, and a Big n’ Toasty. Some people would call it a binge, but it wasn’t. I knew last weekend that this day was going to be my cheat day for the week. A binge implies a lack of control. I control all the variables around these cheat days to make them enjoyable and relatively harmless.
Leading up to my cheat meals, I’ll restrict my calories slightly. If it’s going to be a whole day affair (like a wedding, for example,) I will try to cut back a few hundred calories on the days leading up to the event. This gives me a little buffer, and helps keep me from feeling like I’m negating all my hard work for the week.
Also, I’ll either try to go into the cheat meal either fasted or having eaten a few small, super high protein meals, depending on when in the day the feast is going to be. Putting an emphasis on protein will ensure the most satiety while limiting excess calories from fat/carbs.
So, when it comes to the meal itself, I know that I’ve made the necessary efforts to be able to enjoy myself while doing minimal damage to my progress. This means that I can eat my little heart out guilt free. None of those annoying nagging voices. Just pure, unadulterated, gluttony.
But what about the unplanned fuckups? Everyone, especially people who are trying dieting for the first time, experience those times when they just can’t walk past the tray of cookies in the break room without grabbing one. The important thing there is making sure that that one cookie doesn’t turn into 10.
Everyone who has ever been on a diet has fucked up at one point or another. Here’s where the 80/20 works nicely. Chock it up to the 20%, and move the hell on! By setting a realistic goal of being good 80% of the time, you’re not failing yourself when you have that cookie. Don’t sweat it. Get right back on that little saddle, cowboy!
If you’re an overthinker, I recommend using a food log (a more involved post about that coming soon.) You can log your fuckups (along with the rest of your food) and factor them in to your daily caloric goal. There ya go – a fuck-up is no longer a fuck-up. It’s an error that has been calculated and resolved. Sure, you might have drifted off your primal or paleo plan, but no serious damage was done, no need to feel guilty, and there’s definitely no need to fall off the wagon.
Never let perfection get in the way of excellence. You can eat an excellent, healthy diet without being perfect every minute of every day. You can let it go every now and then and indulge your inner glutton. You can (and will) fuck up. Keep it in perspective. It’s the way you live and eat 80% of the time that will determine how you feel and look in the long run.
Fat Kid, Awesome Hat!
So. A fat kid has successfully been made.
I still remember the first time I looked back on these photos in High School; I honestly didn’t remember ever being that fat. Even my parents told me that they couldn’t recall me being that big. However, photos don’t lie. Unless my older brother played some elaborate prank on me by Photoshopping all our family albums, I was most definitely “that fat.” I guess that’s what some good ol’ fashioned mutual denial will do to people; if we don’t acknowledge it, it’s not an issue!
All denial aside, by the fifth grade, I had started to realize that I wasn’t the same as most other kids my age. I was different. I was, to be gentle, bigger. A few faded / partially repressed childhood memories in particular stand out:
First of all, there was an event that happened after a swimming lesson at summer camp. The camp was on a lake, and there was a very nice man-made beach leading down to the water. One day, after enjoying a brisk morning dip, I was sitting on a bench on the beach drying off. The act of sitting, of course, forced the flab on the front of my body to be confined to a significantly smaller space than when standing. Not terribly attractive, but I was tired, and it’s hard to dry your feet off while standing in sand. Plus, who was going to judge? It was an all boys summer camp, everyone was there to have fun!
But, of course, there’s always someone around to spread some hate. Some cruel little kid, probably a year or two younger than myself at the time, walked over to me from a small group of kids and asked, “Hey, do you have a six-pack?” I was somewhat taken aback by the question, and, not sure how to respond, I just said “umm, yeah?” Clearly I didn’t, but what was I gonna say? No? Left at that, this exchange would have been degrading enough, but the kid responded, “Yeah, a six-pack of rolls!” before jogging back to his group of friends, all of whom giggled at their wittiness, satisfied with having ruined a fat kid’s day.
Cookin breakfast this morning... in 32" waist jeans.
Second, there was shopping for clothes. Pants were particularly difficult.. I got to the point where I couldn’t find jeans with the proper dimensions for my body without having to get them altered; I had a 32+ inch waist and twenty-some-odd inch legs. That isn’t exactly a popular cut at Kohl’s, certainly not in the kids section. So, we’d buy the proper waist size and my mother, in her infinite kindness, would hem the legs short enough to not drag on the ground. Plus, when I grew into my body, we could let the hems down and I wouldn’t need to buy new pants! The other option was to purchase “husky” jeans which involved a trip to the equivalent of a Big n’ Tall store designed for children. That’s it… I wasn’t fat, just “husky.” In any case, it sucked. I kept waiting for the day that I’d “grow into my body” and be able to buy pants that actually fit, but it never came.
Lastly, there was the yearly physical. Normally, I’m a fan of doctors; I’m planning to attend medical school at some point in the future. But going in for those yearly physicals was miserable. First of all, I had to get weighed. If you’re reading this, you likely know how much of an emotional torture device a scale can be, and if you don’t, I envy you. The stupid nurse wouldn’t even let me take my shoes and pants off to cut the readout down by a meager pound or two. Isn’t that the least she could do?
Plus, I had to take my shirt off, or I was supposed to at least. After the nurse finished weighing me and taking my height, she would leave, telling me to “strip down to my boxers” while I waited for the doctor. I’d gladly drop trow, but I always left my shirt on for the doctor to awkwardly have to lift up so he could press that cold stethoscope against my flabby chest and back. “Your lungs are clear!” Yeah? You can hear my lungs through those slabs of meat? I guess that’s good news!
Then there were “the charts.” The nurse would plot my height and weight versus normal ranges for kids my age to make sure I was developing at a normal pace. At the end of my physical, my doctor would look at these charts and “interpret” my height and weight for me as if I walked around with blinders on, unable to tell my relative size compared to those around me. I would always be somewhere in the 90th percentile for height and, without fail, “off the charts” for weight. Oh well, since I’m almost off the charts for height, being off the charts for weight is fine! I’ll grow into it they said, again and again; just wait for that growth spurt! Well I got tired of waiting. In 5th grade, I put myself on a diet.
I wish I could recall exactly what it entailed, but that was a long time ago now. I remember frequently buying chicken soup for lunch in the cafeteria and eating just the broth… none of the noodles and none of the freeze-dried “chicken” particles that floated alongside them. This lunch, when coupled with “instant breakfast” shakes in the morning and painfully small portions of the family dinners, meant that I was able to lose weight, but it wasn’t fun, and it definitely wasn’t easy. I’d often get headaches, probably from a combination of low blood sugar and the added stress of constantly trying to eat next to nothing. In general, I felt constantly deprived. The changes I made, while effective, were completely unsustainable. Hence began an adolescence of yo-yo dieting! My experiences with that, in addition to my first foray into the world of “bodybuilding” coming soon.
What is your most poignant memory from being a fat kid, and what effect did it have on you?
Who doesn’t like some food porn?
One of the most frequent questions I get asked recently is what is my diet like? Lots of salads with low fat dressing? Boneless skinless chicken breasts? Steamed broccoli at every meal?
Mmm... Looks flavorful...
Hell no! I love food! Good food! How do you think I got fat in the first place?
So, while I am careful with what I eat (timing, macronutrient breakdown, etc.), I have to say, I’ve never enjoyed a “diet” more in my life. No choking down bowls of flavorless, previously frozen vegetables. No having to chase bites of dry chicken breast with water to get them down my throat.
So, to show people what I get to eat while still losing weight, I’m going to post some food porn every Sunday!
Here’s my breakfast today (not a training day):
Now that's a damn breakfast...
I started off by cooking up 7 breakfast sausages.
I like 'em crispy
And then I used all that glorious pork fat to sauté up some baby bok choy (quite possibly my favorite vegetable… when cooked quickly over high heat it caramelizes and becomes pretty sweet.) I tossed in a little bit of Sriracha sauce to give it a kick.
Baby Bok Choy with some Sriracha. Delicious.
Lastly, I scrambled up 6 eggs, and topped it off with some shredded aged Gouda (which didn’t melt terribly well, but it was still damn good!) One hell of a satisfying meal! Tasted delicious, and I’m not gonna be hungry again for hours.
Meal Breakdown:
Calories: about 1,000
Carbs: 15 grams
Protein: 75 grams
Fat: 73 grams
Yes, I eat like this every day. No, I don’t have high cholesterol. No all that protein isn’t going to hurt my kidneys.
Do you have any pictures of an epic meal you’ve eaten recently? Send them my way! I’d love to feature some other people’s photos in the future.
Eat up!
Welcome to the blog!
First of all, sorry for the lack of content at the moment. I’ll do my best to fill this bad boy up quick, so keep checking in! I’m excited to share some of my experiences with all you beautiful people on the interwebs.
Secondly, I need to talk about a recent experience of mine. I’ve been doing Crossfit for the last six months or so and have never gotten better results. I feel stronger, faster, and generally more fit than ever before in my life. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Crossfit, it’s all about constantly varied, functional movements done at a high intensity. They post a different workout to their website every day, and you do it… that’s it. That’s all it takes, and it works.
Recently, I’ve been pretty satisfied with my conditioning, but I wanted a bit more of the strength elements (I guess I just missed doing heavy squats/deadlifts/bench/press on a weekly basis, something you do occasionally in Crossfit, but not terribly often.) So, I switched to Crossfit Football. They post two work outs every day – a strength one, and a conditioning one. You do both. And you train 5 days per week… So, without upping my food intake, I went from doing a single WOD per day on training days to doing two… so I got in amazing shape right?
Wrong. I overtrained… and it took a toll fast. In less than an hour a day, five days a week, I was putting my body through way WAY more than it could recover from while running at a caloric deficit. My macronutrient breakdown was good, more than enough protein, carbs post workout to replenish my glycogen stores, but it didn’t matter. I was doing too much. My main symptoms were insatiable thirst (literally 3+ gallons of water a day) and sleeping like shit. I’d feel a need to nap almost daily, and then when it came time to actually go to bed, I could never fall asleep. When I did manage to get to sleep, I’d be woken up every few hours by my bladder because I was drinking so much god damn water.
This happy Kent was nowhere to be found...
Also, I used to feel good after a work out. I’d go home, eat like a fucking horse, and then go about my daily business in a generally good mood. That all changed. I’d be irritable, lethargic, and entirely unproductive. Basically, anything that I needed to do on training days that wasn’t done before my workout wasn’t going to get done. I’d also still feel a need to eat despite being stuffed almost to the point of discomfort. Clearly something was wrong, and it took me a month of feeling this way to finally sac up and admit that I was doing more than I could handle.
We live in a world of more is better. If going for a walk is good, going for a run is better, right? And five miles is better than two, right? If lifting heavy is good, lifting heavy every single day is better, isn’t it? In the world of fitness, the answer is usually no (the one exception I would make is walking, walk all you can, always.)
So, with a heavy heart, I’m saying farewell to Crossfit for the time being. While I still feel it is one of the best ways to develop and maintain an extremely high level of fitness, it just doesn’t line up with my immediate goals. I’m still trying to lose a bit of body fat (I’ve never had a chiseled six pack… ever… so I’m gonna do that) while building (or at least maintaining) muscle mass. That means that every calorie I spend on conditioning is a calorie that I can’t spend recovering. Hence, I’ve switched over to a lower volume strength program. More about that in the future. Within a week, my mood has improved, I’m sleeping better, and I can see the fat starting to melt away again. I’m interested to see how it goes over the next month or so.
Whatever your training or diet looks like, never stop asking yourself “is this going to get me where I want to be?” Are you trying to get as powerful as possible? Or are you trying to lose that last bit of body fat? You can’t do it all at the same time. Pick goals, short term and long term, and do what you need to to get there. Sometimes, that means you need to do less. More isn’t always better. Accept it, embrace it.
What is your immediate goal? What are you still doing that is stopping you from getting there?
No one is born fat. Well, some babies are pudgy, but that’s more of an adorable Michelin Man kinda deal than really being fat. People get fat over a long period of time, and most don’t even realize it’s happening until one day they wake up and can’t see their toes any more. How’s that for a wake up call?
Me at 7, a skinny kid forever, right?
For some lucky people, the insidious weight gain doesn’t start until they’re older. These people get to enjoy a youth full of more or less unrestricted eating without putting on an any extra weight. For a few short years, I was one of these lucky people. I remember eating mountains of cookies as a late night snack, plate after plate of pasta at the neighborhood social, and basically all the sweet crap I could get my hands on. My nickname among family members was Kent “I’m-still-a-little-bit-hungry” McCann, because I’d always need seconds, if not thirds, of whatever it was we were eating. But, despite gorging myself regularly, I stayed skinny. And, in my head, I’d always be that way, so why not enjoy it?
One memory in particular stands out for me. My mom had baked cookies, as she often did, and they were in a tin on the kitchen counter. I wasn’t tall enough to reach the tin, but I could open a drawer, use it as a stepping stool, and climb up on to the counter to get to the cookies. Normally, this would piss my parents off because they thought I would fall and hurt myself, but they had also told me that I couldn’t have any more cookies for the night. A double threat, but I really wanted a few more god damn cookies.
So, I snuck into the kitchen, opened the drawer, and managed to get on to the counter without drawing any attention. I went to open the tin, and as I pried the tight fitting metal lid off, it let loose an unmistakable “thunk” sound that grabbed my Mom’s attention. I’ll never forget what she said. She didn’t scold me for sneaking around behind her back, disobeying her wishes, or putting myself in harms way by climbing the counter; she said “If you keep eating that many cookies you’re going to get fat!” Hah, me? get fat? Never! How could I get fat? I was a skinny kid, and a skinny kid I would stay… right?
It just kinda snuck up on me...
Nope. By the third grade, I had started to get a bit “husky.” I wasn’t an unrestrained glutton or anything, I was just eating like a normal kid. Cereal for breakfast, school lunches or a sandwich packed by Mom, whatever dinner my loving mother prepared, and standard kid snack food: chips, cookies, ice cream. Sure, I had a healthy appetite, but it was nothing extraordinary. I even avoided sugary soda while growing up because my parents only bought Diet Soda! I was pretty active, too. I played outside a good deal, like a normal kid. I also played community ed basketball and baseball, because what good fat kid story would be complete without the constant and repeated humiliation of having to publicly display his complete ineptitude at any and all physical activities?
In the fourth grade I got whooping cough. I didn’t mind too much because I got to miss a bunch of school and watch TV all day, but I became entirely sedentary. I couldn’t play any sports any more. I couldn’t even go outside to play because I was coughing so much. So what did I do? I sat and I ate. And I got fat.
Yeah, full blown fat kid
Here I am on a trip to Israel with my family and my grandparents. That’s me with my brother and my Nana. And yup, I’m fat. Not husky, not chubby, I was fucking fat. Bitch tits n’ all. At least I rocked a badass bucket hat, right? Not only did I not realize it as I slowly and steadily gained the weight, but even at this point, I didn’t acknowledge that I was fat! I knew that I didn’t like the way I looked naked, but I thought (and was repeatedly told) that I’d grow into it, that I was just a bit husky, or that it’d magically disappear when I grew up. It’s the job of a parent to be supportive, and I’m sure my parents whole heartedly believed that I was perfect the way I was, but god damnit the least you can do is acknowledge the problem so that something can be changed. Don’t leave a fat kid on the fat trajectory and cross your fingers that he grows 8 inches one year and magically thins out.
I didn’t bring up genetics yet. I am a firm believer that everyone has it in their genes to be fit. However, very few have it in their genes to be fit eating the way most people in this ass backward country eat, and I have a particularly unfortunate pedigree in that regard (see any family resemblance in the photo?) Let me just say, growing up in a husky family, no one was gonna point a finger and tell me to get on a treadmill. No one wants to be a hypocrite. But don’t let that atmosphere breed a mutual apathy – that never helps anyone.
Nothing says self esteem like swimming with a shirt on!
One last photo for today: Here I am on a family trip to Hawaii the next year… and yup, I’m swimming with my shirt on. Not because I didn’t want to get a sun burn or because I was an exceptionally modest person. It was because of the bitch tits. The big ol’ round belly and the bitch tits. Welcome to vacation fatty, sit down, relax, and stew in your lack of self esteem!
That my friends, is how you make a fat kid. A fat, weak, shy kid with the self esteem of… a fat, weak, shy kid.
Read the 2nd part of my story here!
Also some posts that are actually about nutrition and training… but I thought it would be nice to give everyone a bit of background to start off…
Recent Comments