5/2/24
Three summers ago I both hated my job and in another way felt on top of the world.
Now?
Now it’s rebuild myself (my psyche – from a whole lot of pain), and physically transform.
Daily walks.
Daily kettlebell.
Eating clean.
My stomach definitely hurts on a delay after eating oatmeal, which was why for years I didn’t eat oatmeal.
Sitting here on the toilet typing, just after midnight, feeling the oats turning my stomach – I flashed back to how uncomfortable it all was at the beginning.
A teenager with his stomach turning from the newness of it all – the training, the eating (lots of eating the wrong food choice at the wrong time of day as well – our stomach are an individual thing – and in the opposite, a right choice for me was chicken breast tenderloin, buttered white rice for breakfast as a high school wrestler – it was the only thing I could stomach in the morning at that time)
Heck, as a beginner, and to this day lactic acid affects my stomach, makes me nauseous, eventually makes me need to shit – I’ll feel this with certain conditioning type stimulus, felt it a bunch as a teenager not pacing my all out mile runs, feel it to this day with harder conditioning.
Though who cares?
Either you’ll do the work or you don’t.
Most won’t, like I can’t work out for my giant 6’7″ ish fat boy cousin.
Bro don’t even walk his dog GERMAN SHEPHERD!
Like Rich Piana always was saying “whatever it takes” though I’m not willing to juice.
Saw a dude at the grocery store yesterday, recognized him side profile as he walked away from grabbing his eggs, prior to that just saw a noticably big very muscular and fairly short dude.
A year or so ago (walking by him in the store) he had ;
•full head of hair
•big arms, like an xl pair on an otherwise large frame – dude always did a million cable arm supersets, lots of arm days, and I got the feeling he was not only doing high frequency, high volume, but hard contractions with good mind-muscle connection (back when we went to the same gym)
A stocky, muscular, dark skinned asian, 5’7″ or so, probably always over 200lbs, now heck he must’ve been 250 and almost lean.
A year ago, full head of hair, normal neck, big arms.
Yesterday?
More tatts, giant arms (probably over 20″ – xxxl on a now xl development on a large frame), and double the trap size, double the neck size.
The moment I recognized his face I thought to myself “he must’ve jumped on the juice in the last nine months”.
Late last summer he still looked as I remembered him from a gym floor a few years back – NO ONE gains like that that quickly.
But that’s enough steroid and natty, natty or not bullshit – simply an observation I made while buying my clean foods.
I shrug. I’m a folklorist, a story teller, observing the world around me.
“Doomed” to the choice of not dabbling in the dark side, “doomed” by my choice to stay forever natty.
Still gonna eat my daily cup of oats for a little longer – maybe my stomach will stop turning on a few hour delay, we’ll give it a bit longer.
I’ve been enjoying them otherwise.
Porridge with some brown sugar – takes me back to about five years old – I remember my dad and I making it on saturday mornings.
…..
It just took time, not a developing of discipline, to get to a relatively clean diet.
I’ve been exploring recipes online, and think I’ll cook myself either meatballs or meatloaf from scratch.
Pork rinds as suggested binding agent was a breakthrough.
How difficult would it be to cook a 2lb/1kg brick of spiced ground meat as a days ration every one to three days at a time.
I’m not much into ground turkey, but I think just like having steak with chicken breast – a 50/50 mixture of ground turkey and ground beef would work for me.
…..
On “Weird” Food Combinations :
If it’s good together to your taste buds, the fuck do you care if it’s a “normal” combination (in your part of the world, somewhere else in the world, or otherwise) or not.
Just eat it.
I don’t think there’s a single hot food I wouldn’t add mexican mix cheese to for instance.
…..
430am
•reeses – 24g carbs, 210 calories
•12oz coffee milk
This is preworkout, kettlebell swings coming up at 5am.
Amping myself up inside in cookie monster voice “wearing a sweater that has cooking, cookies, no cooking stains on it”, headphone up to “why should I worry” (oliver & company – lifting music it is – olive oil stains on the sweater “shit” lol), gave that about two listens as I got outside, then switched to a playlist of two songs “hard lessons” by terror and “demonstrating my saiya style” by rise of the north star
(both songs porting from 17yo lifting sessions to my current 40kg 2h swing sessions)
demonstrating my saiya style – rise of the north star
515am
2H Swings 40kg
15×7 in 1:10 intervals
BUP 16kg
x8/side
then for a thirty three minute walk, slightly longer than yesterday’s in distance – amazingly close in total time
all in all, 510am to 610am, then drink some nice chilled water in the shockingly chilly (I could see my breath) May morning.
7am
•12oz coffee milk
•last night’s meatball and egg dish leftovers with ketchup
…..
Don’t worry of the training is the most efficient, or approved by some coach or website or influencer…
If you enjoy it, just do it.
Cause what you enjoy you’ll put more effort into.
And that’s what drives progress ; the effort.
So go be all around, train movements and rep ranges that don’t generally go together, train skills that interest you/are fun to you, play whatever sports you want – don’t identify as some internet term “hybrid athlete” (unless it brings you joy to identify as such and makes you put in more effort), but just go out, and enjoy being all around.
Maybe I’ll add bjj or boxing or mma.
Maybe I’ll add pickup sports.
Maybe I won’t. That’s what the smart money bets.
I’ve been putting off and putting off some more multiple athletic avenues.
As is I’m very into the kettlebell ; mostly bottoms up work, but too some other heavy and high rep ballistics (two hand swing more than clean now interestingly – this is new to me), and developing the skill of soccer ball dribbling.
Maybe I’ll work the handstand skill again soon. Maybe not.
It doesn’t really matter.
I SHOULD purchase that 20lb sledgehammer.
Then choke my way down the handle with high rep sets on a daily basis til I’m easily levering it with either hand from both the side angle and the front angle (maybe even a third angle – 45° halfway between the two)
…..
What are my hobbies?
kettlebell bottoms up press – this is passion level, higher than just hobby
youtube – probably a step or two below the kettlebell bup, higher than just hobby – I want it to be career to support everything else
soccer ball dribbling – a silly physical skill that I genuinely enjoy as a “enjoy the journey” laissez faire challenge, something like handstands could be added or replace this in the future in the same approach/outlook
russian язык – self teaching for no reason past the challenge – I doubt I’ll ever be able to go to the russophone world due to present politics, will probably never be in an american enclave where there are native speakers, will probably never be paid for my knowledge of it (which at this point is AT BEST equivalent to maybe a toddler’s fluency – though I doubt it – in spanish I’m confident in my ability to speak as well as a toddler, maybe even a tad older than that) – maybe I’ll take a course just to improve – honestly maybe I shouldn’t picked polish – there’s no weirdness about going to poland, my childhood best friend was born to polish immigrants so I had some exposure in youth, but as a teenager I thought “I’ve interest in learning a eastern european language” and rationally picked russian as it’s the most spoken slavic language, interestingly my 11th grade spanish teacher thought this a cool interest as she knew a little from her mom’s side being ethnically russian – one thing I can say though is that learning russian does allow more understanding of slavic language youtube kettlebell content
…..
Ten minutes of soccer ball – 14ct (not yesterday’s 26ct PR dang it)
…..
Dinner ; 1lb package of the same precooked meatballs as yesterday – baked them in the oven to get a browning, ended up having to microwave them as they were still a tad lukewarm, and enjoyed them by themselves far more than cooked into eggs like last night.
Finished the quart of coffee milk.
Tomorrow night – Friday night, and Saturday I’m going to allow myself to cheat.
Probably cherry pepsi and a pizza.
I’ve got plenty of eggs, sausage, onion, and a cold rotisserie chicken which are all on menu.
If bw x 12 is real low calories, that’d be 285×12 = ~3400, and right now, having eaten twice today at ~5am and ~6pm, I’m at only ~2200 calories.
These are weight loss days, and awesomely psychologically I’m into this.
After dinner wanting activity fifteen minutes of soccer ball (and better with my left foot) then 50 total reps of 24kg bottoms up press right – this against the clock, the whole thing from 645pm to 715pm.
I am smoked with legs all wobbly.
815pm
•chocolate bar
•16oz glass of milk
this is about 800 calories, brings me to ballpark 3000 today – with two kettlebell lifts, a thirty three minute walk, and twenty five minutes of soccer ball dribbling
Frankly I was really enjoying those meatballs.
Two packages, 2lbs would cost $17, a bit over the $15/day I try to keep food costs under, but hey – they’re definitely a quick healthy option, and I could experiment with making meatballs and meatloaf from scratch.
Food prep those.
Still got a zillion eggs in the house, breakfast sausage, philly cheese steak sausage, rotisserie chicken – this eating clean thing seems easier than it ever was.
Skipped the cup of oatmeal today, we’ll call this sorta postworkout chocolate bar and milk a replacement for that.
Interestingly it added about 250 calories, the chocolate bar vs a cup of oats, but a negligible difference in carb content which is what matters more to me right now.
…..
Pushups
2×10
…..
It’s weird some of the posts or whatever they’re called in youtube that pop up – it says “india landed on the moon for less than the cost of making interstellar”.
I assume that’s a movie.
A country can do great things for less than a hollywood production budget?
Doesn’t surprise me (if true) one bit.
Great things can come about with lots of effort and low dollar cost.
You want to be built?
Son, get your ass outside and do your burpees, pushups, flutter kicks, and lunges
RIGHT NOW
Take a little off your grocery bill, drive a little less, stop wasting money eating out, on video (whatever form you’re spending on), and put that towards a kettlebell fund.
~$250 gets you a 16-32kg adjustable kettlebell.
That could be YEARS of high rep, high volume base building progression.
(~$30 to build a up to 300lb sandbag.
Ditto YEARS of high rep, high volume progression.)
Little bits here and there for heavier bells.
What’s a bell every so often if you’ve no gym dues anyway?
People don’t have hobbies but television, cause they say everything is so damn expensive, but man – taking your health, strength, and fitness serious (and playfully) is mandatory, and…AND! It’s something that DOES take up time.
Fuck your netflix.
Panting after some burpees (cause you’re at stage poor or just chose to do them) or after some kettlebell workout (cause you made the investment) that’s a better five, or twenty minutes spent by a long shot.
What if you really went all in on getting FIT with these accessible for life tools, and didn’t place no limit on how far you can go.
Is it nuts to think you may hold a girevoy record almost by accident, by surprise of purely consistency and effort?
Is it nuts to look at the largest bottoms up presses online and think “I could get there – likely surpass that”.
Is it nuts to say “I don’t care where life takes me – if I was on the streets with nothing level homeless I’d be banging out my daily pushups regardless!”
It’s a choice.
Fat boy wants to be fat.
People don’t make transformations cause they lazily dabble instead of going nothing can stop me beast mode.
…..
Pushups
2×10
Persistence & Tenacity