DocFen’s BodyBlog

So for about 20 days now I have been out of commission with a series of ear and sinus infections. Just two weeks ago I got maybe 20 hours of sleep from saturday night to friday night. Last saturday I took a bunch of allergy meds and forced myself to sleep through the pain, pressure, and lack of breathing. It has been a week now that I have been on something self-perscribed… and on wednesday night I had my first 10 pm to 5 am full night of sleep.

That thursday I went to the gym for the first time in about 3 weeks. I tried to do some simple compounds… but it wasn’t happening. I did a whopping three squats at 200 LBS (plus my fat butt) before the room started to spin. I tried to do two deadlifts and wednesday’s lunch tried to come back up.

How evil is the body for letting me become so weak after not working out for less than a month?

So Monday I will pretend I am fully healed and begin my old training program… and I will start a training blog in the forums. hope to se you there!

Okay… I think I have thouroughly confused a few people…

In 1991, fresh in High school I started lifting! I joined the Navy and was still lifting, but I began to learn about competing. This was about 1996… after boot camp (RTC) I went to electronics school - while there I met my buddy Angelo "Bruno" Bisbikis. He turned me on to the whole lift hard, grow big, and win the competitions thing. I was in 6 competitions from 1996-1997!

The fact is that I never grew big enough to win, but I did compete and my best was a 6th place in Chicago. I got a itty bitty trophy that met its end when I forever misplaced it.

In late 1999, I began training again after I had been discharged from the navy in 1997 because I Blew out my ankle…

In 2000, I started developing headaches and my ankle was killing me. So I went to the VA to see if they could fix my head and my ankle again. This is when I found out I was sick (Liver - genetics) and they put me on some heavy duty medication for the next 6 years. I also had my ankle fixed at that time. After 5-6 years, a new medication came out, KP and the VA placed me on it. After one year I am now "fixed" but I am still sick…. I have a fine line between what I can eat, take (supplement), and do (No extreme sports and no marathons)… but in march I was cleared to lift heavy again, and my docs/nutritionist said that I should be able to take the Gaspari SP250 for a little bit of energy (as it contains some liver vitamins or something).

So there it is… as I lose the weight and pack on muscle my overall quality of life should improve. I was pretty down on myself, because I had figured I would never be healthy again and I would never be big and strong. A buddy of mine found out about John Hansen, Mr. Natural O, and I got his book thinking I could maybe try a few things. The book, and therefore Mr. Hansen, has not only made me believe I could get in shape again, but I could in fact one day compete without having to resort to "assistance". You know all the diet and self-help people are so full of crap… I read and bought their stuff, but the only person that ever made me think I could have a chance was John… He is so my hero!

So there is me in a nutshell. My liver things are always there and will never go away. My muscles will only ever grow through the use of work + nutrition + rest. I am trying a few products to get me started and hoping things work out with them. My doctor likes the Novedex XT product and says if it works he will tell some of his patients about it… I hope I get a commission from Gaspari for it. The superPump product has really helped. Even when I don’t feel like going, I take a swig of the stuff - its like liquid motivation. The sizeon product was nice, but it gave me gas, and farts at the gym are never a good thing, even when you are doing squats… so that will stay on the backburner for now.

But for now I am fat and out of shape! I am working on it… almost at a sacrifice to social-time! My goal is to maybe do something in 2008, but with work, school, and health… maybe 2009 is more realistic!

hmmm…

What makes people give up? At what point does something become so hard that you just give up? maybe you shut down emotionally… possibly you commit suicide… or you simply walk away from something?

When I joined the gym this past March, the place was packed every night. I had to wait a few minutes for every piece of equipment and the "workout" portion lasted almost 1.5 hours. I joined at a bit of a wrong time as the class I was taking sucked all my free time away… and that snuck into gym time as well. I had time to lift, but little was left over for cardio (which with my weight I needed both!)

I asked the gym guru where all the people have been lately… he told me that they signed up over 4,000 people in the few months they have been open, yet only about 600 of them show up routinely. I know on my night visits I recognize about 20 people… but since I don’t speak spanish and they speak little english, we mostly nod to each other. I asked him about memberships and he claims that only the buyer can cancel them and several people have memberships going, but have not been there for a few months.

You know, with my health problems… I may not live to 40… but I refuse to go out as a fat and bloated corpse! I am not saying that I will be thin or light in weight… but I absolutely refuse to be bubble-shaped as I continue with this life. Today went to king soopers to buy some plums and I saw a guy and girl…. both easily wearing clothes that  had at least 4 Xs in them… their cart was loaded with cookies, sodas, sugar this and that, and a whole mess of chips… I passed them twice - the first time they were in the chips aisle they were both sweaty and looked uncomfortable…. the second time they were in the frozen foods, loading up ice creams, and they were both wheezing - loudly out of breath - standing there with a few freezer doors open. Okay the Chips aisle is about 6 or 7 aisles from the freezers. Lets say they went up and down each aisle and each aisle is 150 feet long (that is typical-ish for grocery stores)… so that means after walking about 900 feet, BOTH of them were near-ready to pass out!

HOW IN ****’S-SAKE IS THAT A LIFE??????

So my vent is over - people quit and whine about things being to hard. Its too hard to workout, its too hard to get in shape, its too hard to stay in shape, its too hard to do the right thing, its too hard to give a damn about my kids and their future, its too hard to put up with people, its too hard to get a good job, its too hard to stay at the job I have, its too hard to get an education, its too hard to turn off the TV, its too hard - its too hard to live… BOOM!

Hmmm….

Was it too hard for that one guy to die for your sins?

Sacrifice is a reward!

Deal with it!

Working out ROCKS!!!

Lifting ROCKS!!!

Cardio sucks…

Why can’t the world be perfect? I would make walking only a so-so ‘good for you’ and I would make Pizza the healthiest thing you could eat!

So my nutritionist (who is a DILF - Doctor I’d like….) put me on a simple meal structure. She has me eating 3,000 healthy calories in 6 to 8 meals a day - about 150 to 200 grams of proteins & about 200 carbs total… Dr. Atkins is seriously choking on that one! As I said before I love me a white woman with black hair and Dr. Heather now has my heart… she didn’t say yes… she didn’t say no… maybe its the whole doctor/patient thing???

If you have seen the movie "Pumping Iron", there is a part where Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about how the pump after a good workout is as good as cumming. This, of course, is a stretch… but damn if I ain’t a little High right now… The Pump ROCKS!!!!!!

Only thing missing is a lady….

So as I have written of recent…

I am single… I am fat… and I am now 5 weeks into changing myself for the better.

Each workout I have been keeping stats on reps and weight… I have steady gains each visit to the gym, which I am hoping is a good thing! It could also mean that my body is simply remembering what I could do SEVEN years ago and is trying to get there again. Seven years I have been on varying amounts of medication and junk food addictions… damn me!

So now I have been doing the whole weight/nutrition thing for about 5 weeks… This weekend is my "Goodbye to your old life weekend"… So far I have had McNuggets and Pizza on Friday and today I had Brats and barbecue chips. Tonight, after I post this, I will finish it all off with a huge bowl of extra buttery popcorn (yes real butter) and then call it a night. I know with all these carbs I will need help sleeping so I will also pop a few valerian sleepers then hopefully 8-10 hours later I will begin to actually 100% invest myself into the new me!

I am following a simple four day program that is basically upper body on monday, lower body on tuesday, thursday upper, friday ABs Blast, and Saturday lower body. Each day I want to do (as a minimum) over 60 mins. of 3.0 MPH treadmill on the random hill setting or the sit-down bike and read a book. I really would like to do 20 mins in the morning and 40 - 60 at night pwo… but mornings suck!!!!

I will most likely start posting pics of me on the first of every month… and I ask any readers out there to torment and encourage me every chance you get.

I am VERY light on friends and family (near zero for both) so in this world If I have no cyber-friends then I will actually have nothing at all!!!!

If anybody gets the chance to make it to the Longmont Fitness 19, say hi to me as I plan on being there every night from about 7:30 until 9-9:30ish.

Life is just too damn short… and expensive!

Why is it that you can get married for as little as $30, but a divorce generally starts around $1,000? Test drive, baby. Always test drive!
One of my favorites, back from when I worked at PP, is, "If you don’t love her, a Quarter can save you $300 a month for 18 years!"

So Kelly and I are over… Four months… for me and a girlfriend, it was a good amount of time? at least I think we are done, she hasn’t returned my last two calls and we haven’t seen each other in June… which is actually fine because my schedule is again being stretched too thin! No worries, there are always more fish, even in the little pond of Longmont. In fairness, I have already saved over $160 since I haven’t gone to see her… She may not have been high maintenance, but she sure cost me a lot !

The gym is going great! I am making steady gains on my weight lifting and the treadmill tests me for about 45 mins each night! My body weight and body fat hasn’t changed, but hey it took me over five years to get up to 300 lbs… I obviously can’t expect to lose it all in a month… Heck, make that a year! but my arms are filling out nicely… actually they are returning to way back before I got sick. I was always proud of my arms… at the biggest they measured 19 inches around, which is respectable for a steroid free bodybuilder…. even on my medication, my arms never really got fat, they just got soft and at my worst weight they actually measured 13" around. Now I am at 15.5" flexed, so the process goes on… (go ahead and measure yours, I know you want too!) Do you remember when Hulk Hogan would brag about his 24 inch pythons?… But the bad part is that I am about 71 inches tall and oh, 55 inches around my belly…. working’ on it tho….

I started real estate school… don’t know if it will lead anywhere, but the key thing is to always keep learning.
Adding to your knowledge and Understanding and taking care of your self / body is the only way to truly thank God. (I have a weak excuse in that I was medicated - sometimes heavily - for over five years!) but I never stopped learning, nor did I drop out of school! So now I am allowing both Honors to Him as I work not only on my mind (Doctorate and Real Estate) but I also work on my body… finally!

Now this doesn’t excuse my sins of past and recent, but I will get to those in due time… needless to say I have sinned everyday of my life, so if the Big Guy wants an honest apology, He is going to have to be a little patient with me and my Ego… ya’know?

Aside from all this, I plug along at a job I really don’t want, in a place I really don’t want to be, in a town I no longer want to live in, & in a county that I am slightly ashamed of (Boulder - yikes).
Calgon, take me away!

Ok, I easily admit I am fat. In fact I will demonstrate it when asked!

I do have some large wide shoulders and I at one time had the arms to go with those shoulders. But after I got sick back in 2000 or so, the Veterans Administration started trying me on different medications here and there to see what worked.

The longest running med I took was called Cyproheptadine. I took this because I have a liver disorder that causes me to itch (Urticaria) and Cypro relieves or blocks it. One major side effect is as the dosage goes you ability to control your weight goes haywire.

In 2001, Before my final Ankle surgery, I was IN SHAPE! I could pick up a buick and throw it across the parking lot. After my surgery, my body had a reaction to some medication which somehow involved my PBC (liver thing). My docs increased my Cypro dosage and put me on the heavy duty stuff to fix the PBC. After about three years, my PBC was returning to normal, almost reverting to a late stage 1, but never getting there. My docs switched me to a "lighter" PBC medicine and decreased my Cypro back to normal. Well after being on the "light" stuff for about 6-7 months, the drug company pulled it off the market because it was reacting with several OTC drugs. The reaction was an increase in estrogen levels for both men and women. In guys, this resulted in Gynecomastia or simply man boobs. Nothing could be done to reduce them (well surgery) but the medication was pulled from the shelf and I was given a new prescription.

About the time this happened, my doctor thought I might benefit from a cycle of testosterone therapy. And in fact I did. But as all the stories about steroids go, I had some fierce mood swings! For proof, you can ask Jessica. Usually I could keep a level head at work, but when I was around her, I really had self-control problems.

Well the testosterone worked. My hormones all returned to normal, I had to start shaving almost daily, and my last checkup was good.

Now today, I am a big guy… fat, but also thick and meaty. Unfortunately, I still have boobs, but they can hide under a thick shirt. At the gym, I have no thick shirt… so what does everyone do? They friggin stare at me. Now it is not as if I have boobs that go in playboy, but I can stick my shirt under them… I think you can tell in my "heavy" pic in my photo album.

So Now that I have Finally been given the green light to start lifting weights again… I expect both my fat and my boobs to disappear, with time.

But to be honest, I am definitely not used to being the freak in the crowd… especially when I am trying NOT to draw attention to myself (i.e. Goths, piercings, or tattoos).

Wow, I just asked over 1oo people to be my bodybuilding friend… what a way to spend a saturday night!

 It is just little ol’ fat me saying hi to everyone. I am just getting back into lifting after about a 5 year "off-season". I am (I believe) currently more fat than muscle, but if my body still responds as it did when I was in the Navy… I should be okay.

As it goes I am finally embarrased by my weight / belly for the first time. The other day I dropped my pen and couldn’t see where it landed. Well it fell right in between my feet and I couldn’t see it until I bent over.

So the starting gun has gone off and now I look to try to make quick work of this fat loss / muscle growth phase-thing-a-majigger. I want to do it naturally, with red meat, ON protien (best and cheapest), and Plenty of water.

The only thing I am missing (besides a girlfriend) is a 4-on-1-off training buddy!

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