Month: June 2020

Early morning, no sleep, get on the floor, bang out a fast high rep set of mantra pushups.

Now stand, and hold rocky pose for a little while thinking good thoughts.

Get back on the floor and repeat, this time using a wide grip.

Stand back up into rocky pose.

You’ve now done 100-120 pushups, said more than that many positive affirmations, and stood with winner’s posture for a moment a couple of times. All in under five minutes.

Catch your breath, sip some cold water.

Reflect on the reality of the situation.

You are healthy, fed, clothed, and sheltered. That’s rich.

You cheated nature, having developed yourself more muscularly than it ever had intended.

Lockdown? You’re able to be heavy and strong, just with a set or three of pushups on the kitchen floor daily.

Cheating nature, and all it took was over a decade of daily PT.

It’s that easy.

People lie to themselves saying they can’t get physical results.

It’s not difficult, it only requires consistency. Show up for a decade plus, you’re now an easy gainer.

Many don’t see that because they never stay consistent for long enough.

They quit before everything works.

Physicality is a natural thing.
Get out of the gym mentality.
You’ll soar.

Persistence & Tenacity

In my teens I used to watch a lot of the prison documentaries, lockup raw, etc.

One thing that struck me as being truly cruel was some inmates who had been in solitary for so long, but who’s yard time if they had it was still indoors under florescent light.

Now I can play devil’s advocate here, and say that which does not kill you makes you stronger, but I’ll stand by zero freedom to feel the sun on your skin is a cruel thing.

Vitamin D, sunlight is how we tan, I remember one inmate, a hispanic man, saying how when his solitary status changed he came out looking like a vampire, just pale, I think he even said his black hair had lightened some to a shade of brown. Scary stuff. Crazy he still seemed healthy, which I think falls back to that devil’s advocate thing.

I’d been feeling pretty low. While I hadn’t watched porn I had chosen to look at the instagram account of someone I don’t know, and while I didn’t jerk off, I felt bad having for the second or third time in roughly the last two weeks done this. It’s not fully cheating on no porn in my eyes, but I don’t like it when I do this as I’m the guy who looks at other guys doing this thinking “jesus christ dude, stop thirsting”. I almost required myself to go clean shaven for having done this cheating-lite again. I ended up trimming my beard, after swearing to myself to do better, to not even do the lite version.

Now I’d been feeling low.

Why?

Not socializing enough. Not maximising the sunshine that comes with the season.

Just talking about cheating-lite makes me feel unwell, here I am telling you so you can learn from my mistakes.

I woke up at about midday. I trimmed the beard. (“Half shave for half a cave.”) I then went for about an hour long shirtless bike ride.

Probably 45 minutes in, cruising, man I felt alive! I’m on top of the world with a leg pump, mildly panting, and cruising at top speed.

You need activity, and sunshine.

I wasn’t getting enough of that.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the staring I got riding around either, as I had noticed a couple attractive women looking.

On the phone the other night I verbalised why I’d first watched porn :

“I was feeling so alone in the world, no friends, no family, no girl that I typed in xvideos thinking I’d pretend to have that.” and despite it not being seen speaking with my hands I did the wanking motion.

I’ve noticed somethings about me :

If I’m busy I don’t jerk off.

If I talk to attractive females I don’t watch porn.

The higher activity I am, the better I sleep, when asleep you don’t watch porn or view lite stand ins.

There was a medieval concept of witching hour, between 3am and 4am, often times when I’d caved to porn I’d be watching in that timeframe.

The more mature I get the less and less acceptable I find masturbation and lite versions of porn.

(If I was to cave to video it would have been to a homemade clip of an athletic german blonde in her late 20s fingering herself. I know the exact keywords almost 8 months later. My mind was spinning off and on for two, three weeks trying to rationalize watching this as being ok, though remember my views on porn-lite, I find less and less and less acceptable as I mature. It’s not okay!)

So all negativity aside, I trimmed my beard and got some good sunshine and activity riding my bike shirtless.

I know how to not do what I shouldn’t, I fill my time up with what I need to do.

The bike ride was productive in other ways too. I was looking at leasing/for sale signs.

Really, I have a blessed life.
I’m thankful for my conscience being so finely tuned, I know clearly what I don’t stand for. Though I feel pain deeply, I feel!

There is no doubt in my mind as to the existence of the soul.

6/5/20 ~530pm

Walking by he greets me, so I greet him back, he stops, and starts talking.

I go with it, no need to be rude to an 8th/9th/10th grader. I’ll talk to anyone, he likely needs to talk.

I often find myself as the much needed ear to young men. Taking the role of an older brother that they don’t have. Being a good man, I can’t not be this way, as it would’ve been helpful to me in my teens/earlier 20s.

He’s a fat kid, 13 (but big enough I thought him 15 just like people did with me), but is speaking of sports, and had been dribbling a basketball, so I assume he wants that to change.

I let him vent some, and I told some stories.

I never once insulted him, I did talk about going from 212 to 174 as a freshman riding the exercise bike nightly for 6-9 months, I told of quitting football and wrestling the same year, I told how to make weight once as a junior I did burpees and high knees for 20 minutes straight, layered up and under a heat vent.

I spoke of how I’d have enjoyed school more.

One of my first weight loss stories you could see his face discerning whether I was just mocking him or not. He read my vibe, saw that I try to have a big heart full of compassion, and didn’t take offense.

His listening went from “is he making fun of me” to “wow, it’s possible”.

“Honestly man, at your age my problem was too much snacking and too much playstation.”

“That sounds like exactly where I’m at.”

Looking at him, I saw and heard myself from the gate.

Height, weight, personality, I saw myself back then.

Pretty much everything he said I’d assumed rightly by thinking about my own grades 7-9.

Knowing where he’s at, I know that a pretty miraculous change can happen at that point.

With summer ahead, he could walk back into school next year completely different.

I know what I did at that age wasn’t perfect, but I did lose weight. That kid was mentally on the cusp of making it happen, I saw it in him, I remember it in me.

So I was talking to him like he was athletic and had already made the change. Just telling him what I experienced.

Seemed the outlook to take to build him up.

He was outside with a basketball, that’s what I was doing at the exact same age.

At 13 I was thinking about it then, a year and a half later was when I made the decision.

Without training the kid, what he comes up with on his own is going to be somewhat misguided, but it’ll work.

I hope I helped the seed grow more quickly.

I did it second semester freshman year.

He’s about to enter 8th grade. He has the potential to make that change a full year and a half before I did.

Starting fat I had three years of athletics in highschool. This kid could have all four, even have 8th grade.

If your parents eat garbage and watch tv sure it’s a struggle, but not perfect is good enough.

A fat kid who takes matters into his own hands and changes that, it’s a coming of age thing.

A conversation like that with a man in his mid 20s, speaking of being in the same place…

I never had that,

I hope I helped him.

-J

P.S. And honestly a gym done right would make money from adults, but be free or nearly so for youth so as to make positive change in the individual young adult and the community as a whole. Space. I need the space/place. $30/month youth dues could be work/traded at the rate of clean the place once a month for membership, and now you can have 30 kids taking pride in themselves and the place.

Also I thought about what I’d have this kid do : a couple bucks would build a tire sled to drag, otherwise holds/postures, and walks. Transition into calisthenics and sprints as strength is gained and weight lost. Though there’s probably a level of “fat boy strong” already present. Keep that, add movement, change him for the better. When I lost weight there wasn’t enough strength stimuli. Massive cardio is what I did, I would’ve transformed to a higher level if there was strength training present. This means I know how to do it, and teach it.

You can feel your level of vitality.

Intuitively you know.

You sense you should be outside, shirtless, and active, yet due to habitual inactivity stay inside.

That only makes it worse.

When what you “want” to do is part of the problem, you have to override that “forcing” yourself to take positive action, and start moving up.

Staying up at night and sleeping during the day factors in.

How you eat factors in.

The television and video games impressively keep many a boy inside.

My buddy used to shoot hoops for hours daily. His family moved maybe a mile further from that community center, he’d been playing video games for a few years at that point, and just stopped going to the community center.

Visiting at 18 (it’s Cali) I ended up falling into the same pattern, also ending up depressed as hell.

It’s experiences like that, sitting inside all summer at an xbox, instead of being at the beach, basketball court, pool, gym daily that blow my mind looking back.

I was a teenager, barely an adult, in SoCal during the summer, but essentially hibernating indoors!

Sleeping till 2pm? ✓
Not eating right? ✓
Not enough physical activity? ✓
Not enough vitamin d? ✓
Video games out the ass? ✓

It’s a whole lot of checks. Thinking about it, the only girls I talked to were his sister and her social circle.

(And one staff member at an amusement park who was throwing herself at me.)

Everything lifestyle that summer was fucked up.

Super low, in depression, I wasn’t living!

Why?

Cause through the action of inaction, my energy was shit.

Looking back, I can honestly say you only feel depression when you are not active and busy enough.

That summer wasn’t maximized since I chose to live a fucked up day, playing gta all night instead of sleeping. Sleeping during the day instead of being out of the house.

You gain a lot of internal power when you have the honesty and courage to admit your life, your day, is all on you.

Maybe you wasted time.
You don’t have to anymore!

You choose life, or death, every second with every action.

Every breath, life!

Persistence & Tenacity

Early 1950s Royal Canadian Air Force PT is basically identical to the testing developed by the US Army in WW2.

You’d do fine using these standards.

Training the obese presents it’s own challenges.

By not being used to being active, the obese tend to have a lot of excuses as to what they can’t do.

If they didn’t grow up playing sports everything is perceived as impossible pain.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, here’s what they must do physically at square one, alongside dietary improvements :

•holds/postures
•walks

I want my client to truly make change. I want them getting into healthy habits that they’ll keep for life.

So they’ll be doing this daily.

Start with a little, and we’ll build them up.

Day 1 in the morning they’ll walk 2½ minutes out, and back. A 5 minute walk.

At some point in the day they’ll do a series of holds and postures, with little movement, covering the whole body.

Day 2, we have the client do a little longer on everything.

As weight is dropped, and strength is gained, calisthenics are implemented. Some running mixed into the walks after the walks are sufficiently long, and weight has been dropped.

I’d advise outdoor as preferable to indoor. Down the line the walking will transition to roadwork in the old school sense, moving with varied pace, and some stops to do a calistenic exercise.

The advantage of the obese is that there’s a good chance that a lot of strength is going to be there when the excess fat is lost.

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. You don’t move around under your own power while obese without some decent muscle strength in there.

With increases in movement better eating comes naturally, I’d likely not be too restrictive to start, just limit eating to meat and vegetables.

Most people can be a healthy weight within a year, less when driven.

There are many impressive transformations.

You only don’t lose weight because you’re not moving towards it.

Honestly work towards it, you’ll get there.

I’m rooting for you.

-J

Yesterday morning (6/2/20) I did 10 supersets of 15 bodyweight squats, and 15 “pullups” on the total gym.

Dripping sweat, I had worked some stuff out.

I’ve had amazing results over the years from pushups, as relatively light stimuli done consistently will get you strong.

Since I’ve mostly experienced this with pushups doesn’t mean it’s not possible full body with other exercises.

It is.

As I write (yesterday night) I actually have doms in my quads from the session, kinda surprising, as I thought my legs were more used to work than this. However, it’s proof that the session worked well.

It’s something of a secret that you have to intuit and discover in your own training, that light muscular stimuli ends up being the most effective as it both builds you up and is conductive to longevity.

Rationally, it’s obvious that strong individuals aren’t required to get that way from a gym. And looking to a lot of those who insist on maxing out, they often end up broken. It’s said that Hermann Gorner, up to and including his record lifts, never maxed out.

The prisoner or soldier well served by calisthenics ends up very strong by way of +/- a million reps.

The laborer end up strong due to being physical all day long.

Your max strength is always going to be higher than what you rep, and honestly going hard on high reps does build strength.

Whether it’s pushing to get the 5th, 50th, or 500th rep, the body is getting stronger.

If the body finds it challenging it’ll grow stronger. It will, do the work!

Just do enough volume, that overrides a lot of variables.

With this in play your upper body will be served by pushups, the lower by bodyweight squats.

You’ll walk around always strong, as you train consistently, and are never without the necessary equipment.

Use what you’ve got. If that’s you, that’s fine. You’ll be plenty strong.

Though sugar water it may be, the snapple cap says “get thou fat ass outside for a walk, thou shalt sleepeth better“.

Real fact # 698, from sugary hydration, walk to lose weight, and sleep better.

Nothing wrong with walking, do it outside though.