Just another photo example

Here are some photos of Dr John Berardi that were in an article on elitefts.com.  The article is about intermittent fasting, and can be found here: http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/nutrition/intermittent-fasting-big-help-or-big-hype/

Interesting short article.

Anyways, he attached the following two photo sets.  The first one is him at 10%, and the second is him at 4%.  With all lean body mass remaining, this would be my general condition at 210lbs, and then at 196lbs.  Dr Berardi is obviously far more well developed than I am, so I would not be quite so bomb looking, but this gives another glimpse at different body fat percentages.  I am currently sitting at 253lbs and about 25%, which is admittedly far away from my goal, but way closer than it seems.  Just a little dietary discipline and the addition of cardio, and I think I could be within spitting distance of single digits by next mid-Summer for sure.

Anyways, on to the photos.  The first set is 10% bodyfat, the second is 4%.  Had trouble locating his bodyweight and height.

ou'll probably observe that the most noticeable difference shows through in the abdominal definition and back definition.  Some of this is due to the dramatic lighting of the second set of photos.  You may also notice his face actually leaned up a little bit, even though it was certainly not chubby or anything in the before photos.

I don't have a great set of before and after photos, because I frankly was just not that interested in photographic proof of my fatness.  So, in light of that information, here are the best I can do.  These first two are from when I hiked the Grand Canyon in October 2010.  This was actually not my top end weight.  In these I weighed about 280 or so, and I estimate that I was easily over 40% body fat.  Probably in the range of 45%.  I topped out by the end of the year at 300lbs, and probably close to 50% body fat, but I literally have NO pictures of this stage of my life. 

Now, this is the best I could do for progress pictures.  This is me all bossed up for a night out with Blaise.  This is very recent, and I'm about 258lbs and 26% body fat.  Obviously, since I'm wearing a suit jacket you cannot really see much, but for those in the know, I went from a size 56R jacket in January at my largest to a 48R in this picture:

Sometimes When You're On, You're Really Fucking On

An interesting thing happened today.  Interesting enough to warrant a post.

I was at the gym today (I had today off, because I worked Saturday for someone).  Did some shoulders and chest and a little bit of arms.

I asked the personal trainer guy there if he wouldn't mind checking my body fat percentage for me (I offered to pay, but he said that was not necessary).

Here are the results:

Weight..................................256 lbs
Body Fat.................................26.5 %
Lean Body Mass........................188 lbs
Fat Mass.................................68 lbs


This is interesting, because my long-term goal has been to get to 185lbs. For anyone not following this on their own, if I were to retain my current LBM and also achieve my previous goal of 185, I'd be dead.  I'd be negative body fat.

This is actually a great thing.  This means that I'm much closer to being in a desirable body (desirable to ME, fuck you society and your shitty standards) than I'd previously thought.  Here are some new goals:

Short-term weight goal.........225 lbs
Long-term weight goal..........200 lbs

These weight goals are associated with a presumptive retention of the same level of LBM (although, an increase would not be a bad thing either).  This means the following:

At 225 lbs, I'd be about 17% body fat.  The last time I was around 17% body fat, I weighed about 187 lbs and felt fucking fantastic.

At 200 lbs, I'd be about 6% body fat, which is ludicrously ripped.  I may in fact not even want to be this low.

Here are some picture examples that I lifted from: http://www.myfitnessstudio.co.uk/what-different-body-fat-percentages-actually-look-like/ and http://www.naturalphysiques.com/144/body-fat-percentage-guide-for-men-by-jeremy-likness

30% (this is not me...none of these are me):

25% (definitely look/feel fatter than this):

20%:

~16%:

10%:

~6%:

So 6% may not look too good on me.  I think I'd look a little emaciated.  I guess we'll see.

Anyways, every now and then, it can be awesome to have a day in the gym that is not JUST disappointment and disgust.

Also, abject heartbreak can be a great reason to drink.  It can also be a great reason to improve yourself. Your choice.

Progress

Progress has always been a funny little thing in my life.  Whenever I think that I'm totally prepared and pointed in the right direction, I end up falling on my face, coming nowhere even close to whatever goal I thought I wanted to progress towards.  I have started to think of these occurrences not as failures, but as corrections.  I thought for a very long time that I was destined to be a healer in a literal way.  A doctor.  A person who saved another person's life.  So I went to school for it.  I completed a degree in a field of health that legitimately interested me, and still does, in fact (holistic and progressive approaches to health).  I planned on working for a little while, then going to medical school of one type or another.

This obviously has not happened.  This is a good thing.  I've realized that I am just too far at odds with medicine to ever be satisfied practicing it.  I want to be proactive, not reactive.  Medicine is ultimately a reaction.  Everything that medicine has ever come up has been as a reaction to an existing problem.  Once that problem is "solved," nature is still unsatisfied, and comes up with a new problem, and medicine goes back to responding.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I employed a strategy that has worked for me in the past.  When I once wanted to be a firefighter, I anticipated that I would feel underutilized if I remained only a firefighter, so I started going up the line and increasing responsibilities.  I thought maybe I could be a paramedic, and then work on promoting up the chain and get onto the administrative level (Chief, Captain, etc).  Then I realized that I would still just be following policies put in place by people who were supposedly smarter than me.  So I kept going, and going, and going, and eventually decided that the only place where I could practice life saving medicine and not have to answer to anyone would be as a neurosurgeon (I know now that I was wrong, and that even there I would have to answer to administrators and whatnot).  Anyways, this is how I ended up in school for medicine.  Then I thought that naturopathy would be even FURTHER down the line, since most people really only turn to naturopaths after western medicine has already repeatedly failed them.  Whatever, I'm getting bored talking about this right now.  The point is that I spend a lot of time thinking of the possible results of every choice I make, and I proceed accordingly.  I almost always end up having to change my plan, or the plan doesn't work out at all even when I did everything right.  This is a good thing.

Without this phenomenon, I would never have stopped to ask myself, "What is more important than life saving medicine?"  The answer is, "An innumerable quantity of things."  I've already mentioned my modern belief that it may not be the most honorable quest to try to save the life of every person who is born, so I will not expand upon this any further than to bring attention to it now.  If medicine is not the answer, what is?  Stop looking at the situation from your own point of view.  What do third world peoples need?  Food, ultimately.  It does not help however to just deliver food supplies to these people.  Population dynamics will win.  If a peoples can not support themselves, then those peoples will ultimately be destined to die away.  The only possibility for a third world population to really be able to rise to second and first world status is for that population to pull itself up without help.  So how does a nation suddenly provide food for itself?  By obtaining and maintaining a steady supply of water. 

Hence my further education plan:  I intend to go to UA in Fall 2012 to begin studying Environmental Hydrology and Water Resources.  This is a Science college program, but I will be able to take (and hopefully pass) the Engineering test, if I so desire (I do).  I will be able to take skills from this program (actual skills!) and use them in the real world.  I will be able to choose where I work.  I will be able to work internationally and in crisis areas.  In fact, a few of the faculty helped set up water systems in Haiti following the earthquake there.  I would be able to stay in Arizona if I wanted to (up in the air right now), since water supply is a constant source of worry in the desert.  The point here is that I'd be able to go to a third world area and impart the tools and ability to sustain water supply, which could be used to maintain a food supply, which could be used to bolster an economy, which could be used to improve infrastructure, which could be used to expand the economy and build connections with other peoples and other nations, etc ad modernum.  Or, I could focus on engineering better and cheaper water related supplies, like ground water pumps or filters.  Either way, I would be impacting an entire population in one fell swoop, instead of working with one patient at a time.  It's all about maximizing your impact, right? 

Then there's body image.  I have recently sort of come more to terms with my body.  I don't have an unreal image of myself in either direction anymore.  I have a healthy and accurate image of myself, and I'm okay with it.  With this "revelation," or whatever you want to call it, I have found that I've also been better able to lose weight.  Weird.  I have been slowly but regularly losing since May.  I estimate that I topped out this year at 298 lbs sometime in January.  On February 14th, I was 295.  On March 1st, I was about 288.  Now I am 263.5.  This is a full loss of just under 35 pounds.  I'm still moving down.  I'm getting some of my strength back in a big way.  This is all good stuff.  I have lifting goals that are realistic and impressive.  I think that I can get there.  I'm not worried about these things. 


"Do you ever feel like you just landed
On this earth?
See the creatures all do their dances
Back and forth
You get restless and then you join them
On the floor
Suddenly it's tomorrow
It's not today anymore"

Hi-Speed Soul - Nada Surf


"When I accelerate
I remember why it's good to be alive
Like a twenty-five cent game
Maybe this weight was a gift
Like I had to see what I could lift
I spend all my energy
Walking upright"

Do It Again - Nada Surf


The lips of time, they kiss again
When I walk alone into the night
They know my voice, they know my name
My need for love, my fear of heights

So I keep my wit, my running game
My shoulders straight, chin up high
But it's all a lie
It's all a lie, it's all a lie

And I forget how the time, it flies
When my fingers crossed, I hope in vain
That you'll be home with sleepy eyes
To fix it all, cause you know my pain

And I forget how the time, it flies
When the day is long, and it keeps me dry
Cause it's all a lie
It's all a lie, it's all a lie

There's no perfect way to clear the mess
We both have a past in a silver frame
See my heart, it died a slow weary death
In the tainted arms of another man

You and I we're no different
Than the rest of the world when the morning rings
Everyone wants a piece of the love of God
Everyone sings, everyone sings

I know you can tell that I can't help myself
Can't help myself
Cause it's all a lie
It's all a lie, it's all a lie, it's all a lie, it's all a lie, it's all a lie

The lips of time, they kiss again
When I walk alone into the night
They know my voice, they know my name
My need for love, my fear of heights

But seen I'm not different than the rest of the world
When the morning rings
I just want a piece of the love of God"

It's All A Lie - Keren Ann

One More Time, With Feeling

Today was different.  In a physical way, it was different because I began using NOX as well as Creatine.  It was different in a preparedness way, because I brought a gym bag and used a locker.  I don't think that I can really overstate the gym bag.  In my mind, it is extremely important.  I think that the thing that has been stopping me from being successful in this aspect of my life is a lack of ritual.  I used to have this mental calendar, and the gym was not even officially represented on it.  A doctor's appointment would be a red bar.  A work shift would be a long blue bar.  A social outing would be a green bar.  All of these would have white words superimposed on them, explaining what they represented.  However, the gym was different.  It was just a black space.  No words.  Just a blackness.  Sort of like sleep.  In other words, it was an unavoidable certainty in my life on that day for a particular span of time.  It was not a rescheduable (neologism acknowledged) event.  Part of this inevitability was due to a ritualistic process immediately before and after the actual gym-going.  I would wake up, and immediately begin to make my breakfast - 1 cup oatmeal with two scoops of protein - and drink an enormous cup of water.  I would already have a gym bag ready to go with my wrist straps, weight belt, and towel.  My wallet, keys, and phone would get added to that bag.  I'd already be dressed by this time, and be on my way.  This whole process took nearly an hour, but it was an important part of my morning, I think, because it gave me time to prepare mentally for the upcoming workout.  The gym bag would also carry my water bottle for when I used one of those, and my post-workout shaker bottle thing.  Sometimes, I'd bring some pills or whatever I was taking immediately post-workout.  When I used a journal, it went in the bag, too.  This point has to be made by now.

So tonight, when I pulled out the bag, I felt something shift.  The water in the moon's surface melted a little bit and the surface slid slightly to the left.  The tides of the earth's oceans then ebbed and flowed in response, and retook the lands which used to be their floors.  Something in my mind clicked, and I felt stupid.  I felt stupid for not recognizing earlier something so obvious.  You cannot expect to be a serious gym-goer if you do not take going to the gym seriously.  You cannot just throw your keys and wallet and such in your pockets and head over whenever you feel up to it.  It must become a black bar of hellish seriousness.  You cannot take this too seriously, frankly.  You cannot be afraid to sound like a loser or a nerd because you make this a priority. 

Tonight, I have visions of a piano player.  An older man with tearful expression hewn into his medium-level talent which he displays regularly for friends and others in bars and the such.  A man for whom the world has become a sad display of a regrettable truth.  Now, amputate this man's hands.  Remove his only means of expression and connection.  Re-isolate him in a very real way.  Give him two years to realize that the human being is only so adaptable, and that once one loses one's ability to connect with other humans, that ability is truly gone.  It does not shift from music to suddenly being dance.  We all have only one way to say anything important, and it certainly can go away.  After two years, give him his hands back, and watch as he sits back down at the piano to express himself.  The past two years will come out in a soft approach.  Nothing as impressive as he played before, but a certain reminiscence will be undeniable.  A familiar sound will waft through his most used chords and melodies.  His blood will pump again, and his clothing will become cosmic dust.