Thursday, August 8, 2013

Some times it gets worse

There was a time, about two years ago when I thought it couldn't get any worse. I was right.

Having a brother pass away is hard. Its hard for you, your mom, any other family members you may have. For us, it was truly hard. That's all we had, was us. Then Ben passed away. My mom's boyfriend of many years. He lived next door, came over in his bathrobe and would plop down on the sofa and chat away. It was almost like a tv neighbor. But he was amazing, the dad I never got to have. He was there taking pictures for prom, took me to the dealership when I bought my first car, he never over stepped his parenting. I knew my mom was in safe hands when I had to leave again after Andrew passed. But then Ben was gone. And I don't think my mom was ready for the hurt that it left me. She took it so well, but then again.....her stoic personality. I have just been breaking down left and right. Her, nothing. She doesn't let people see her upset, ever. But to me he was more than just her boyfriend. He taught me what a real man was made out of, the characteristics, pride, and abilities. I wanted that. I looked up to that. My father was none of those. He could barely pass the test. He was only philosophical in nature. No man was there, just a hollow shell of some washed up want to be.

Thank you Ben.

You will never know how much I appreciated you and always wished I could have called you dad.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Weightlifting and that fun sausage casing feeling.

When I first started my journey, I had no clue what I was doing. All I knew is what I wanted the outcome to be. I wanted to be healthy and after Andrew passed I was left with this fear I dying. Yeah, every couple hours I would go into hypothetical situations in my head of me or someone I knew dying and it was always something preventable. Like bones shattering from osteoporosis, dropping dead from climbing up stairs and not being able to breathe, or just something ridiculous that my brain told me was possible. All day. So I started working out. Not only to get my brain from going down a morbid path that would leave me teary eyed and in fear for my life and my friends and mom's, but for the sake of my health.  And you know what, there are some shitty things that happen to your body.

Like SAUSAGE CASING THIGHS

Look mom, I'm deadlifting 185.

Now, I'm no scientist, trainer, expert phd in kinesiology. But I can explain in the best way possible what the fuck is happening to your thighs. I know that feel, that gross feel. It's like your bloated from PMS in your thighs and not your stomach. All your pants make your thighs feel straight up like kielbasa when you try to put them on. I get it. We all do.

Let me guess, you are three weeks into a program ( starting strength or new rules for women?) and someone told you that you should be eating 500 a day more above maintenance.

Let me guess this too, you are eating totally "clean" and give yourself little snacks once a week as a cheat meal. Only egg whites, chicken, asparagus, and broccoli. And it somehow totals like 2700 a day.

LIES

Please, you arent eating 2700 calories worth of plain white chicken boobs a day. Not unless you live on a chicken farm and hate pooping. Everyone likes pooping and no one likes protein poops.

But with the pooping and programs aside, congrats on your newly found muscle. Feels weird right? Well, welcome. If you are choosing a bulking program then yeah, you will get bigger. If you do a recomp then its going to be slower and you wont even have the scale move.....I gained weight because I now have more lean muscle than I previously had body fat. Pick what you want, but dont complain half way through that you are gaining weight. You will. You will also lose a shit ton of inches, hell I lost 6 off my waist. There is no use complaining anymore, you have to plow through it and suck it up. When you start picking up weights you really need to stop relying on what the scale is telling you. You need to be looking at your lean body mass, inches not pounds, and for fucks sake, take a picture. Take them at the same time of day, in the same light.


Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Re-meeting yourself for the first time

Sometimes life sucks.


I have a friend who currently is in a rut. She feels so alone, the feeling each one of us has had before. It instills some sort of paralyzing fear for your future and future relationships. It makes you dwell on future so much that it impairs the present and your current relationships. Sometimes people feel pressured by society and social norms that tell us that we need to meet these milestones at exactly the same time as everyone else. Social media only permeates that feeling, you get to see all your high school friends with their happy marriages, baby showers, and slues of posts you can't unread about baby shit. It's great. Or on the other end, you see your friends that have embraced singlehood and are living it up in skeazy micro minis from forever 21 and drinking rum and cokes until the cows come home. Where does this leave some of us. Meh, somewhere in the middle? It depends on who you ask. My friend will be on the borderline of losing it. She is constantly fighting to keep up with the Jones's as a singular unit. I want my best friend back, I miss her.....I just miss HER. I want to find out who told her that this is her goal in life, because it's not. She is better than that, by a god damn metric shit ton. Recently my boyfriend broke up with me (okay so it was last night) I got sad a couple times, the anger passed quickly, then denial, then why, then accepting. I am pretty sure this happened in a span of 20 minutes. I want so much for her to be okay with it, being alone. Putting pressure on someone drives them away, I have done that too. Its like in hockey, you can annoyingly check the backs of the ankles or just high stick.

Friday, May 24, 2013

I changed while I was gone

Well I think. I hope. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing anymore. I forgot how to write and let my aggressions go.

When I last left writing I believe I was here:

This was right after Andrew passed. I ate my feelings off a Costco flatbed and it's not as if I looked huge fully clothed. I looked decent, huge tit tent shirts aside. 
I wrote a post on reddit:

So I started weightlifting almost one year after my brother tragically passed away from a heart attack. He was 29 at the time, we are/were barely a year apart. It was the most life changing event, ever. He meant the entire world to me, he was a king amongst men. Valhalla has him now, and I know he has a chair waiting for me. But it was a jolt, a realization. Your health is not only meaningful to you, but other people. Your livelihood and health are not only detrimental to you, but the ones you love. It made me feel like I was being selfish because I saw how his death affected not only me, my family, but so many others. Love yourself and others. Become and stay healthy. Please. I will be very honest when I say, I have not lost much weight at all. MAYBE 10 pounds. My waist was 30-31 when I started, now its 24.5. I have lost about 7 inches off my hips and my ass looks pretty damn good. Because now I have one! I cut out dairy and gluten, which was way easier than I thought. I started eating way more protein and lifted as heavy as I could. I never ever ran before. My thought was, unless the cops were chasing I wasnt running. Last month I finished my first 5k ever under 30 minutes. Yeah....I didnt know squatting could help that. I plan on another 5k next month. I started cardio within the past two months, never did it prior.




I was rather large and needed to start working out.  Here is me last August:


 So I change my life. Actually, I changed my life for one hour a day four days a week. This is what happened:


Here is a post I made on reddit about how I went through it.


 I didn't do anything super drastic. I listened to my body more, ate things that made me feel good, I relearned to love myself. 

My quick tips:

Fork put downs and table push aways. Stop eating until failure, pick up heavy things and stop being a bitch about lifting weights. Cardio is giving you a saggy ass and waifs are as attractive at 12 year old boys.