Month: August 2021

A buddy and training partner is mostly vegetarian.

(like he eats some chicken once every 4-6 weeks)

At 5’10” 200lbs +/- 5lbs he’s fairly lean, has a six pack, looks better/bigger shirtless, but he’s not as obviously big as I am.

He often says to me how he wants to gain a bit more weight but struggles to eat more.

I constantly tell him to add meat into his diet otherwise he’s going to really have to up his egg and dairy intake.

Plant food just isn’t going to supply a high enough calorie level for most with moderate to heavy physicality.

“Grains feed the masses not the jackedess.” – Me

You’d have to really up the egg and dairy intake.

Kushti is really the only sizeable group of jacked vegetarians, and their diet is comically heavy on dairy.

I’m pretty adamant that the only vegan thing I consider up there with animal products is chickpeas/garbanzo beans.

A vegan trying to be jacked?
Oh man how stupifyingly high chickpea and coconut oil intake would be.

Fruit juice is great energy, but it’s not saturated fat, nor protein.

That brings the vegan back to chickpeas and coconut oil, and I much prefer butter to coconut oil.

Heck, I don’t waste any animal fat either.

75/25 beef has all it’s fat poured into the noodles, or used to pan fry eggs.

Saturated fat is the #1 macro, and it’s sparse amongst plants, abundant from animals.

I’ve got a funny story :

You know how people eat egg whites alone?

You know about Jack Sprat and his wife?

I’ve eaten egg yolks alone…like Jack Sprat’s wife would.

My buddy was going through massive quantities of egg whites, “hey I’m hungry too, put the yolks aside not down the drain”, I fried up yokes after he was done with his cooking, I even went back home with a mason jar full of yoke for the next few breakfasts.

An egg is 6g protein – so the white is 3-4g, the yolk 2-3.

I realize up to this point I’d been spelling yolk yoke. Hmm, I’ll continue.

All the fat is in the yolk yoke, all the nutrients in the same.

The yoke tastes better.

I’d rather eat yolks only – I’m the only person I know who has, and that’s because I was hungry and my buddy was wasting massive amounts of nutrition in front of me.

8/1/21
Weighted Chins :
12 x bw+40

It cracks me up to be hitting all these high rep sets at whatever I weigh + x.

Probably 290lbs total for 12.

I can remember the time where it was up to 7 half reps, maybe 3 reps full range.

I was 14 years old.

That year (freshman) I went from 212 to 178 in about a semester.

290 for 12 easier than 178 for 2 –
I’ve come far.

I ended my sophomore year at 174.
Interestingly enough I threw the shot put almost as far at under 175 as at 225 the next year, which was only a foot shorter than at 255 as a senior.

Says something about the quality of the weight gain – we all made mistakes starting out, the important thing being that I was training and learning.

The funny thing is after junior year wrestling season I went from 195 to 215 in ten days.

My body was primed to grow, having gone from 185 to 195 during the season despite what amounted to a starvation diet of white rice, chicken breast, and half a pb&j sandwich each day.

You gain weight while running a 5k 4x weekly, having 8-10 hours of wrestling practice, morning PT (calisthenics, mile runs, lifting), and lifting whenever it fit in – mostly at home.

I’ve talked with guys from all over – ones who wrestled on the east coast, west coast, and in the midwest – no one has ever heard of someone other than I growing during wrestling season.

Whatever was going on in my body that winter – it disagrees wholeheartedly with science.

One doesn’t get taller and gain weight on a massive calorie deficit…only I did.

I’m glad for the experience.

The body is more capable than any study says, only look to real world examples of high potential.

What you expect and accept as belief you get – I’d have wrestled at a higher level, thrown further, been much stronger, and much leaner – all much earlier having held better beliefs.

What can I do isn’t a problem, it isn’t said in desperation…it’s said looking up at the stars, thinking on the actions to take, doing them, and soaring.

Persistence & Tenacity