Bodybuilding Blog Entry #2, D-Day 4/16/15

Well, my first week of bodybuilding has been going pretty well. I'm trying to do 2 to 3 hours a day, but it's shaping up more like every other day. With Arnold's guidance I'm working much harder and much smarter than before. But I still lack that raw edge where I'm going to push myself 30 reps past my breaking point. I can hit that 110% fine but I categorically can't go to that 150% point that I feel like may be very crucial to building muscle. Arnold says the only way to build muscle is by telling your body you need more, by pushing it past those limits. My strategy has always been to do more sets with fewer reps. That way I can work out for 3 hours instead of an hour & 1/2. I've always been the type of person who would rather walk 10 miles than run 4. But if I'm being honest with myself, that strategy may be incompatible with bodybuilding. If I really want to see my results, I may have to start pushing way harder than ever before.

The good/bad news is, I have a goal set, and it's coming up fast. My original inspiration was to get fit for the volleyball tournament next fall. But there's an event quickly approaching where I'd be even happier to show my work off. While I've no doubt the grecian behemoths at the volleyball tournament take pride in their flawless physique, a nudist event isn't really a place for showing one's self off. You're essentially supposed to ignore it.

But a convention, well, costume play is one of the primary hallmarks of a convention. And we have an anime convention here coming up this spring. And the really fun thing about this one is, I'll get to be around more people that I actually know. So frankly I'm much more dedicated to looking good here than I am for next year's tournament -- it's just a shame that the anime con is so damn soon!

The convention starts April 16th, and I have a peeeeeerfect costume planned out. It'll be absurdly easy to put together, almost stupidly easy, and it will secure me with an ironclad excuse to show off my body.

Master Roshi hails from my second favorite anime. He's Son Goku's sensei and the creator of the iconic Kamehameha. He's also ripped as fuck when he wants to be -- and as far as I can gather from the site rules, guys are allowed to be shirtless in the con. I definitely won't be as ripped as he is, but if I can get tone enough it'll be more than worth showing off.

I have about 3 & 1/2 months until D-day. Bodybuilding takes years. Is it even physically possible to see the results I need to see, in such a short timeframe? Maybe yes, maybe no. But I'm gonna goddamn fuckin' try until I am face down in the dirt. I'm dead set on this happening. I will fade into dust before I go to Tekko with a scrawny body.

But hey, that's part of the fun. All my heroes, the ones who've inspired me to get fit in the first place, they had to face even greater odds. Aang didn't think he could learn all the elements in less than a year to stop the conquest of the world. Goku and the Z-warriors didn't think they could train hard enough to defeat the almighty Saiyans in less than a year. I have three months to change MY world. Am I up to the challenge? We'll find out.

I've gained A LOT of fat in my stomach over the holidays. I love, love sweets, and I made the conscious decision to let myself eat sweets for Christmas since it's a cherished part of many of my favorite holiday traditions, and Christmas Eve/Christmas are my two favorite days of the year. It's been a hard habit to fully kick, though. I'm also struggling with trying to eat enough that I can build muscle, without eating too much. This will be perhaps the hardest part of my journey, trying to find that balance. But I've happened upon some cardio techniques that are much more palatable than running, so I should be able to slim down when I need to. I may or may not be able to build those abs, but at least I can have a flat stomach.

I'd really prefer not to do a gym, luckily I have some decent equipment at home. But it's inevitable eventually. I'm looking into the LA Fitness near my job, which would be fairly convenient, except that they have a $100 initiation fee... which, um, is the stupidest thing I've heard in my entire life. You expect me to pay $100 for the privelege of PAYING FOR MEMBERSHIP? It's not like you have to pay $100 up front and that covers the first 4 months or anything. You pay the $100 -- money for which you are receiving absolutely positively nothing but having your name entered into a computer -- and on top of that you have to pay $60 for the first two months -- the regular membership fee, not even a discount. It's exactly like if McDonalds charged you $5,000 for a hamburger AND you had to pay $20,000 for the privelege of buying from McDonalds.

If I can't talk them into waiving this ridiculously fucking tyrannical fee, I'll have to go to a different gym -- luckily there's a different one every block. But I reckon I'll start gym training about a month & 1/2 before "D-Day." Arnold frequently talks about "shocking" your body into response, so I figure this will give me that extra boost I'll need before the big event.

Well, crew, we know what we have to do. I'm off to Kami's Palace, I'm off to Kaio's Planet, I'm entering enemy territory to find a Firebending master.

Bodybuilding Blog Entry #1: Phase 2 Begins...

This past summer, my brother finally convinced me to tag along to this event they call "The Superbowl of Volleyball." Not only is it one of the higher caliber volleyball tournaments you're likely to see -- it also happens to take place at a nudist colony. And, yes, the competitors, and spectators, are all nude. What's more, unlike the majority of nudist activities, the participants in this tournament are young, sexy, and fit. People at the utter peak of physical prowess. Well, gee, something about my flabby ass rubbing elbows (does an ass have elbows??) with an interminable, objectively inarguable pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses made me want to get in shape myself.

When I was a teenager and my metabolism was at its lightning peak, I unfortunately had a lot of teen crap to work through and I didn't have the luxury of working out. But as an adult now, it occurs to me most glaringly that I fully possess: 1) the time to work out, 2) the resources required to work out, and 3) the energy and physical ability to work out. The one and only variable is whether I have the dedication to succeed at bodybuilding. And, heck, that's the only variable I actually have any control over. So when I looked at it that way, it became clear that I owe it to myself to start sculpting my frame, because literally all I needed was the resolve to do it.

The Superbowl of Volleyball is an annual, family friendly event held by the White Thorn Lodge.

But it wasn't until this girl, who honestly I've liked for a couple years now; she started showing some interest in me and that provided the incomparable stimulus to really kick my exercise into high gear. It's essentially what carried me through that difficult period between a short-term habit and a long-term one, it carried me from the 3 or 4 week marker to the 'two months and counting' bench post. Ultimately, things with the lady didn't pan out the way I would have hoped. But...... realistically speaking, the gift of sustainable fitness is probably more valuable than whatever longer term relationship we would have had anyway (no matter how awesome it would have been, and owing to the fact that the vast majority of relationships don't ultimately result in marriage/lifemating.)

Looking back at some finite dates, I've been doing serious exercising for about 3 and a half months already. And to my great chagrin, it's really worked. I haven't gained much muscle, but I've slimmed down. In September I was at an unsavory 36-inch waist. Today I'm down to 30 and I'm fitting in pants from when I was 20 years old! There's pretty much nothing I'd rather have on my body than a flat stomach. And getting to this point was pretty easy, honestly. I guess I just had the dedication this time. I'm someone with a 'sweet tooth' ten miles wide, so all I really had to do to lose this weight was 1) cut out 99% of my illustrious intake of candy & sweets, 2) exercise 4 or 5 days a week (starting at about a half hour per, increasing to 1 & 1/2), and 3) skip a few meals a week (not in an anorexic way, more like "do I need that second helping of pizza at 10am after I just ate at 5am?") 

Magneto's like 80 years old and he could win Mr. Universe!

Phase Two

Now that I've lost the weight and slimmed down, the complicated part begins. I've tried this stuff before and I've never been able to build muscle, because I don't know anything about bodybuilding. Things like diet, what kind of exercises to do in what configuration, I've always just winged those and as a result I've never been successful. But I got a handy little book, in fact it's considered the Bible of bodybuilding, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. It's an enormous book and I'm working my way through it but I've already been able to gleam some essential facts on what kind of diet to create and how to maximize the results of my workouts.

One thing I'm going to have to do now, is eat a lot. I appear to be relatively "ectomorphic" despite certain problems with my waistline, which means to build muscle I'm going to have to pack on the calories. Ideally these will be good calories, from lean protein, vegetables and whole grains. But even so, I'm very afraid that instead of bulking up, I'm just going to bulk out and lose all the training I've done over the last three & a half months. I want to keep my flat stomach!! I'm terrified of what this phase 2 will hold. But... in the end... I can take solace in the fact that -- yeah, it wasn't that hard to lose the weight to begin with. If I fail to sculpt the haughty physique of a comic book hero (or in my case, villain), I can always go back, redo what I've done up to this current point, and at least I can be legitimately thin.

We shall see. And I'll get back to you when the results are in.

As a final aside: If you're wondering why Entry #1 starts with Phase 2, well, it's easy to get a lot of enthusiasm for something, for a short period of time. It's easy to tell yourself "I'm gonna train hard and get in shape," for a day, or a week. It's hard to say that and actually do something about it, it's even harder to keep doing something about it for months. In my experience, the kind of projects where your first step is to start a blog, aren't the kind of projects you're going to follow through with. Unless of course your goal is blogging itself, it's generally more effective to put that effort and mind power into starting the project and then leaving the blog until after you've made some serious progress. It's also a lot less embarrassing to start from a place of proven dedication, rather than gushing about a dream project and then falling flat on your face in the execution. I've done the latter so many times, I figured I'd err on the side of caution this time.

They have this thing called "Thinspiration" to inspire people on a diet. But what do you call it when you're being inspired to lift? Rippedspiration?