My Atheism is Complete

So, for a shot time this weekend I thought there was a chance I had a serious medical condition. I had some indeterminate symptoms that could have indicated something serious or been nothing much at all. Fortunately, it appears to be nothing, but for a few minutes I found myself contemplating my mortality in ways more seriously than I've done before. I've done the normal mortality facing that happens when you are 30 years old. And the things you think about when you have kids, but this was a little more personal.

I was pleased to notice that not once did I fear for my soul. I wasn't afraid that maybe I was wrong and I'd end up in hell after all. I didn't worry that maybe I should try to get right with Jesus just in case. I didn't even feel the need to meditate and align my chakras. I didn't waste any calories thinking about any make believe magic stuff. I did think about my family and my hope and dream and goals in life. These are things that I consider important and useful. In fact the only time anything religious came to mind was when Lori told me that I'd better be okay because she didn't want to deal with all the people that would tell her "that is terrible . . . it's so sad he turned away from the Lord".

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If anyone is curious, I was having lots of muscle pain and trouble using my hands. The closest it got to a serious condition was when I couldn't get my pants off to go to the bathroom. Had a blood test and the diagnosis was Rhabdomyolysis. I must have exerted myself too much at the gym this week. The other thing I'm proud of here - besides my lack of religious guilt - was my ability to combine my major themes of atheism and body building into one post.

Recent Thoughts on Bodybuilding

It has been almost 3 months since I walked out on stage in my underwear. Most of that time has been filled up with my outside the gym activities. I went to TAM6, and Alaskan cruise. I did my best to support my wife's Triathlon training by baby sitting. And I've traveled a bit for work. The end result is that I haven't spent that much time in the gym. Something like 3 days a week with several interruptions of about 7 days at a time.

The difficulty I've had getting a routine gym schedule going this summer makes me wonder how I managed to put in the time before my show. I'm sure part of it was the motivation of having a goal I was working toward. I've definitely felt a drop off in desire and intensity now that I don't have anything concrete I'm trying to achieve.

I've also not felt the urge to try another show lately. That means another show this fall is not in the cards. I'm sort of thinking that trying to diet twice in the same year isn't the healthiest choice either. I've put on about 28 lbs over the last three months, so I'm weighing in just a hair under 170 these days. I don't know if any of that is quality muscle mass or if I'm just packing on the body fat with the summer ice cream I'm eating.

I'm starting to open my mind to other fitness pursuits, though I won't ever give up on the weight lifting. Seeing Lori do her triathlon was very inspiring as was the whole atmosphere of the event. I could see myself trying that once, but I'm still terrified of the swimming. I'm not the leanest guy around but I don't really float without a wet suit on. I guess we'll see where I end up. For now I'm enjoying shorter workouts and I'm playing around with my training splits. I've split my leg training up so I lift legs twice a week. The idea is that big muscles stimulate the release of more HGH than small muscles. Theoretically the whole physique an benefit from the extra leg work. That might not work for me. My legs are pretty small.

Looking Ahead

Well, some Empire Classic photos were posted at bodybuilding.com this weekend. It has taken a few days, but I'm getting over the embarrassment enough to post the link to my brief appearance. In my head I looked much better than I did in the pictures. I may have looked a bit better at the pre-judging as well. I'd had a few meals and some water before those shots.

Now a week removed from the event I'm somewhat uncertain about how I want to proceed. On one hand I have a NPC card that is paid for and good until the end of 2008. Which makes the Nov. 8 show in Olympia tempting. On the other hand is the fact that I was too tall for lightweight and I weighed 141, which is bantam weight, and I still needed to be leaner. I'd look like a beanpole next to a real bantam weight. Which makes taking a year or two off from competition to see if I can add some mass to my back and legs, seem tempting. I think I will get out the measuring tape and get some baseline measurements after vacation. Then come the end of Aug. I'll see if I've made any gains. Then I'll make the call on another show for this year.

Even though I didn't do as well as I'd hoped and I didn't look as good as I could have, I don't regret the experience. This quote popped up on my Google page today and I thought it applied.

The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.
- Helen Rowland

2 Days

I didn't work today. Just spent some time with the family taking it easy. Went by the gym to get some last minute instructions on my diet and posing. And tomorrow we travel to Spokane.

I'm doing well with my water drop. The day is almost over and I've only had about 20 oz. I did eat broccoli and cucumbers which upped that a little. Tomorrow is 20 oz. maximum.

I'm excited about tomorrow though. I get to eat rice cakes and and jam and sweet potatoes and yam. I weighed in at 150 lbs. this morning so I get to carb up. I'm sick of chicken and broccoli 7 times a day. I know the rice cakes are not that exciting, but it is a change. About 36 hours until I can eat a real meal!

5 days

Just a quick update. Brad got third place at the Emerald Cup. I thought he'd be second, but it was a really tough class. Rumor is the winners secret weapon was General Tso's chicken. He though the MSG really dried him out. Something did because he looked tight.

My weight to day was closer to 152 lbs. I may get to eat some carbs after all. I'm getting really excited for the show. The week can't go fast enough. My enthusiasm was tempered a bit when I remembered that lots of guys from the Emerald Cup will be coming over for the Empire Classic since it is only a week difference. Could be stiffer competition than I was hoping for. I guess we'll see who shows up.

1 Week

Just a few more days until I can be a normal person again. My friends and family are pretty much sick of me. Food is such an important part of most social gatherings, and I haven't really participated in that part of it for about 6 weeks now. But more than the food part I've been pretty low energy most evenings. Last night I left early to go to bed. Fortunately I made it through the last social week end before my show, so hopefully I'll be more fun to have around the next time I get to hang out.

Yesterday morning I went to the Emerald Cup, to see Brad my friend/mentor compete. The Emerald Cup is the biggest show in the region and there were lots of quality competitors. Brad has usually owned his weight class at the there, but there were two other guys who were in amazing shape. I haven't heard how he did yet. The expo was great too. I came away with a bag full of free samples. That alone was worth the price of admission.

Seeing a real show again was definitely inspiring. I'm very excited for my own competition now. I managed to pick up a few tips on the posing and get some advice on my last few days of dieting. I came home and worked on a few things with my posing before bed. I felt really good about it for once. I'm usually discouraged after posing. The key may be the lighting. I posed in a different room with less intense direct light from in front.

I'm a little concerned about my weight again. I'm stuck at 153.5 lbs. I'll make my weight class, but I need to drop a little lower if I'm going to carb up. I think the water drop will take care of that. I had some carbs yesterday too, and didn't do cardio so dropping the carbs and some more cardio sessions should get me back on track.

2 Weeks

Time is getting short now. I think I should be a little more excited, but the diet is tough and the workouts are painful. I'll be a little more excited in a week I think. Or maybe just scared.

I've dropped a little more weight. Now I'm at 155 lbs. It is looking like I'll drop out of the 150s. Something needs to happen. I'm not really happy with how I look in this weeks pictures. I hope I look better on stage. Any way here they are. I'm off to do some posing research. I'm really liking some routines by Milos Sarcev. And since I can't seem to get the hang of a 3/4 back pose I need some new ideas.



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Edited 4/15/08

I wanted to add a few more lines to this post now that I have a little more time. I spent the last week laying in my stockpile of distilled water for the flushing phase of the diet. I think I'll be switching over from tap water on Saturday afternoon. The idea is no minerals means nothing to encourage the body to hold the water. I have been drinking between 2 and 3 gallons of water a day. Hopefully when I stop suddenly, the I'll keep excreting the water at a high rate. I've also started supplementing with the dandelion root extract to encourage my body to shed water.

I'm not sure if I'm not sleeping well, fighting a cold or just feeling the lack of carbs in my diet, but I have been dragging so far this week. I carbed up on Sunday for my leg workout (which went well), but since then not much energy in the afternoons. I get through my workouts with some peanut butter, but posing practice afterwards is hard. No excuses though. I'll keep working on the routine.

Looking ahead, I need to figure out when to apply my ProTan, and a few other last minute hygiene things. Not much back hair to worry about, but I'll need help to make sure that is all in order. Then, drop my carbs, drop my water and hit the stage.

3 Weeks

Once again I'm a few days late with this week's post. I should just make my goal to post on Tuesday then I'd be free from guilt. Any way this weekend was Jamie's 1st birthday, so there were lots of guest staying with us and a party and party food. Saturday was a tough day to stay on the diet. I've also noticed that I'm fighting some irritability lately in addition to some noticeable energy drain. I kind of tore into Lori for wanting to make brownies Sunday night. In my defense she was taunting me just a little bit. Still, I'm over all a little touchy especially about forbidden food.

Dropped a few pounds again over the last week. I'm in the 157 range now and have been for a few days so it should be legit. I need to start getting the water out though. In the next few days I'll be switching to distilled water for drinking and I had the last of my multi-vitamins this weekend. I should be cutting the lunch time carbs by the weekend as well.

An item of interest: my wedding ring doesn't fit well any more. It fell off in the shower this afternoon. Didn't think I had fat fingers before.

Also got a few words of support from the owner of my gym. That was nice. He also said I can expect to grow like crazy once I start eating extra calories again. He thinks the first contest diet is as good as steroids for gaining some mass. I'm excited by that idea.

It's in my Head

I really must be obsessing about this bodybuilding stuff. I'm sure it is normal for a first timer to spend a lot of time thinking and planning and researching, but now I'm dreaming it too. Last night I dreamed that I was in a show and I was supposed to do an individual posing routine (something that has been on my mind a lot this week). The problem was I thought we were doing mandatory poses so I just stood there waiting for someone to tell me what to do next. Also, I'd forgotten my posing suit and was wearing some spare underwear instead. Interestingly, I got second place because another guy just walked off before the end.

I know I say this every time I post, but I need to spend more time with my posing practice. Maybe then it will be automatic and I won't be wasting dream time on it.

4 Weeks

I can't say that I really feel like posting today, and I'm not sure why. There is quite a bit to talk about, but I'm going to make it short.

On Friday I finally got down to doing some number crunching on the diet. I probably should have done that weeks ago. Any way now is the time where I need to keep close watch on my carb intake so I started counting. The good news is my intuitive seat-of-the-pants method had me eating about 150 grams of total carbohydrates a day based on the numbers from nutritiondata.com. Which seems to be a wonderful resource for calorie counting and such. The bad news is that might be a little low for everyday at this stage. I'm going to be doubling my carbs a few times a week (like on legs day) to keep the metabolism running fast.

I weighed in at a comfortable 160 lbs. today. I'm no longer worried about making the 154 lb. light weight class. Now I just have to worry about being in good shape. I still have a little squishy around the waste. I am stressed about the individual posing routine. I don't know why that has popped up all of a sudden. It isn't likely to influence my scores, but it does involve being a little bit creative. That part always gets me concerned. I need to spend more time on my posing overall. I'm sure that will help the anxiety. Oh yes, I've also managed to narrow my choices of music to 2 selections which I have edited to 60 seconds and burned 2 copies of. That part of the planning is finished at least.

With that here are the 4 week photos that turned out.

5 Weeks

The days keep dragging by, but slowly I'm making progress. Last week was kind of tough. My weight fluctuated up and down every even though I was eating good and working my ass off on the treadmill. I was starting to get a little stressed about it. Then the weekend came and Lori made me take off my shirt and pose for our guests again. The general consensus was that I did look leaner than a few weeks ago. That helped a little. Then today at the gym I ask my bodybuilder friend to check my conditioning. He says I'm on track so I guess I can de-stress a little bit. The last bit of good news was the scale finally told me what I wanted to hear. I've been about 162 for consecutive days, so I call that progress.

On the diet front, I've dropped my evening carb. Only been doing that for a few days, but it has been fine so far. Sundays have been consistently hard on me. I don't know why but I'm always hungry. I was wishing I had about 3 weeks to go instead of five this weekend. I've been fantasizing about bowls of raisin bran and pancakes with maple syrup.

In other news I sent off my application last week, and the tickets I'd ordered showed up today. I guess that means I'm committed. My goal for this week is to get my posing music selected and CDs burned.

6 Weeks

One more no cheat weekend down, though I must confess to half a glass of beer. It was a tough one because we went out to eat Friday and the service was slow. I was starving by the time everyone else's appetizer nachos came out, but I had to wait for my chicken salad. The rest of the weekend was pretty easy after that.

I'm one the home stretch now, but it will be the hardest part because I know I can't eat anything bad. I also have to start planning to cut out my carbs and sodium. I really don't think I can eat enough chicken to have that be my only depletion protein, so I'm going to have to have some eggs too. They have higher sodium that I should be eating, but I hope I can get around that by being really clean with my other foods.

I've been trying to keep my cardio workout over 1 hour every day, but it is hard to find that much time and lift and eat too. My weight loss has been sort of slowing down. 163 today. I need to drop more than that. At least my definition seems to be improving. I'd never be able to keep this up if I didn't see some progress.

I feel like the posing is getting better too. Still need to work on my timing and endurance. I guess that is it. I have some of this weeks photos as well. We tried shooting from a lower angle hoping that it would make my legs look a little better.

7 Weeks

Not much interesting this week in the gym. I maybe loosing a little bit of strength. I was struggling on the incline bench presses today. I was kind of worried all week because I wasn't loosing any weight, but today I was 164. Sunday is always low for me though. I go earlier in the day and I think I drink less water. I'm upping my cardio time to be safe.

I survived my first no-cheat weekend. That was kind of tough. When it comes carb drop time I may need to curtain my social schedule. It is the worst watching everyone else eat the treats.

Beyond that I'm just getting tips on my posing and practicing that when I can. Lori made me de-shirt and pose for some friends on Friday. They were at least polite enough to say I looked okay. The feed back I get from Brad at the gym is less inspiring, but more constructive. Posing does not come naturally to me. And it sure is tougher than it looks. I need lots of practice.

8 Weeks Photos

Finally, here are some more photos. I've just had a hard time getting a photographer to be available at the same time that there is enough light.

A small update: I forgot to weigh myself yesterday, so I was posting out of date information. Today my weight was 167 which I think is pretty accurate.

Based on these pictures I need more work posing my back. I'm hoping that it is just the camera angle that makes my legs so small. I know they are my weakest link, but they don't look very good. They need some more tanning too.

What do you think of the new posing trunks?

8 Weeks

I just can't seem to have perfect training week. I got the back strain rehabbed nicely, and was feeling good when I had a tanning accident. I don't know if this is typical, but the stand up beds at my gym seem to be much hotter than the regular beds. I've been tanning for just over a week now, and I thought I'd try the stand up because it is supposed to help even the tan out. I'd been doing ten minutes a session and thought that would be safe. Nope. I'm still a bit pink on the hips, but not enough to slow me down. I really dislike having to tan and I think I was trying to rush to get it over with. I guess I'll just have to slow down and pace myself.

I had a big cheat day this weekend and went out to Mexican food. Sadly, I think that is my last major cheat. I'll allow myself some smaller indulgences from time to time, but no more all out gorging.

I haven't had much weight loss this week. I'm still hovering between 168 and 169, but I'm definitely not lean enough. I'm starting to get the abs to poke through the belly fat a little which is encouraging. The arms still look really soft and there is more belly fat to get off too.

On the up side I'm feeling good about my posing practice. I don't have the endurance for all the mandatories at once yet, but my technique is improving. I'm even narrowing my list of songs to pose to. I'm thinking it will be something by Joe Satriani, but I'm going to go through my Steve Vai collection too.

9 Weeks

Yes I skipped the 10 week post. There really wasn't much to say and I was busy skiing so I just took the week off.

Over the last two weeks, I've ordered some supplies (posing trunks, ProTan), signed up for a tanning package at the gym, and begun working on my posing. So far I'm just practicing the mandatories and the symmetry poses. I did get an instructional video to help me out. Not sure it was worth the money, but it is somewhat helpful and has helped me relax about that part of the process.

I did pretty good sticking to the diet over the ski weekend. I was somewhat worried that I'd have a hard time, but I guess this is supposed to be hard. It has paid off and I'm now below 170 lbs. The weather has improved so I busted out the grill and cooked up some buffalo steak. Not too bad, but I'm still getting used to it.

The bad news is I've had an odd work shift this week and have had to commute into the city for classes. To get my workouts in I had to go at 0500. I'm sort of short on energy at that time of day and not as limber as I should be. I ended up with a strained back on legs day. So I haven't lifted much since then. I'm still trying to keep up the cardio, but walking is uncomfortable. I hope it clears up fast. At least I can still work on posing. that actually loosens me up. I'll try to take more photos this week.

11 Weeks

Once again a few days late on this week's post. I'm short on new information as well. As always, I have good excuse. This weekend the baby's cold turned out to be something slightly more serious and we spent a few days in the hospital. That is why I'm not sure of my weight this week and I don't have any pictures. I didn't do too much damage to the diet though. The hospital has a pretty good cafeteria. I even tried my very first steak. While it wasn't the most exciting thing, I think I prefer it to chicken.

I am slowly progressing on the hair removal. No major incidents so far, though early on I nearly removed a nipple. I really do look pale with out the hair though. I need to get serious about the tanning booth this week. I also need to get serious about posing practice. That part definitely needs some work.

Hopefully I'll have no more major life event for awhile and I can get into a rhythm. Time is running out.

12 Weeks

I'm a few days late getting this up, and I'm short on time. So, straight to the point. Weighed 174 today. And I have new pictures.

14 Weeks

First the Excuses. . . No pictures again because we are homeless still, and I haven't had time to set the laptop up to manage photos. I know it is a mac and should be easy, I just haven't done it.

Everything else is going well I think. I had a major cheat day on Saturday, pizza and ice cream. It was great and no adverse effects. I'm also becoming a better cook. I'm a rookie at the carnivorous diet so I've been experimenting. My discoveries will probably seem obvious to those more experienced, but it has been exciting for me. I'm pretty sure I'll never eat boiled chicken again. I tried hard for awhile, but I've discovered that pan fried is so much better that I can't go back. Once we have a house again I'll breakout the grill which should be good as well. I've also learned that the $8/lb free range chicken tastes better than the cheap stuff. I'm telling myself that it is more nutritious as well. Makes spending the money easier.

The other exciting thing is I'm starting to feel leaner. Probably just my imagination, but I thought I saw some signs of emerging cuts in the mirror. Results sure are good for the motivation. The scale said 176lb this afternoon. That is good. Slow and steady weight loss is what I'm hoping for.

The weight loss is creating an interesting mental struggle for me. If I'm not losing weight I'm worried I'm not dieting right. If I am gaining weight it goes against everything I've worked for for the last 10 years. I'm curious to see what this might develop into. Maybe a good question for some more experienced bodybuilders.

Last thing. I took the plunge and removed my body hair above the waist. So far it isn't too bad and not that much to keep up with. I'm still getting used to how it looks though. With my pale skin I think it makes me look softer. It maybe about time to look in to the tanning bed.

Oprah Rant

I'm not the biggest Oprah fan. As far as I'm concerned she give far too much credulity to anti-vaccination wooers, among other things. But that isn't what is bugging me this time.

As part of my training, I've started putting in some treadmill time after lifting most days. I'm usually there at about 4:00pm which is when Oprah comes on around here. She is always on one of the TVs in the cardio area. I'm not sure what her theme has been lately because I don't listen to the audio, but I do know that she has been devoting a lot of time to pizza and ice cream the last few days. I'm trying to stick to a diet.

So there I am sweating on the treadmill looking ahead to a nice piece of flavorless boiled chicken and some dry salad or something and Oprah is poring fudge on her cold stone creamery cone. I'm not very pleased. Maybe next week will be fashion week or something. Some anoexic models might leave me in a more productive state of mind.