Jumbo Rider’s BodyBlog

In the West we live in a consumer driven capitalist society.  To sell more goods we are constantly presented with idealistic images.  Have you ever seen a Big Mac in real life that looks like the Big Mac being eaten in a commercial?  At the very least we are shown things/people at their best and often view an altered image that makes the things/people attain an unrealistic perfection.

This world of unrealistic perfection leaves us all wanting more and better.  When it comes to the body we accept surgery to make us look just right or go to a tanning booth. When did teeth whitening become the norm?  This is not making a moral judgment but simply an observation.  We do see that this makes life difficult to be contented with as you see the perfect people.

A person completely out of shape can view the attempt to get in shape as a lost cause when looking at the cover of Oxygen.  Women are especially at risk.  Yep, this brings me back to the premise that you must love/like yourself as you are to progress in personal change.  It is not bad to want to look like the model on the cover of Oxygen, but you need to know that what you see on that cover is not reality.  You might call the way the model looks on a magazine cover as super-reality or augmented-reality.

Looking at my own body I find that I am blessed with many gifts and cursed by a few.  In some cases a blessing may be a curse when viewed in the right way.  For instance, I am tall.  Trust me, this is a gift.  It allows me to hide my fat a little better than the short and allows me to store my beer on top of the refrigerator.  Being tall has its drawbacks too.  Have you ever seen a 6′4" guy squeezed into the backseat of an economy car?  It isn’t pretty.

People are built differently.  You may long for the long thin legs of a 6′ model but have a typical 5′4" body.  Learn to maximize your strengths and be content.  We are meant to be different.  This is what makes the world worth living in today.

Always remember, you are great the way you are!  Wait…I am not saying that you shouldn’t worry about getting in shape or building your biceps.  No, what I am saying is that you will drive yourself to depression if you only realize where you are not and never realize happiness where you are.

This is just a bunch of free form thoughts that are flowing through my head:

• Am I looking at the pictures of women on BB.com inappropriately?   Is there lust in my heart as I look?  I won’t try to deny that I appreciate the beauty found in many of the pictures, I honestly don’t believe that I am looking with a lustful heart.  There is a difference between looking at nude art and Penthouse.  My viewing of the women on the site is to view the work that has been done on their physique, be it weight-loss, muscle gain, or definition.

• What is up with all the tattoos?  I am not a big fan of tattoos but do not think any less of people with tattoos.  No, that is not true.  When I see a woman with a tattoo on the small of their back or anywhere else, I see it as a beautiful work, their body, of art with an ink blot messing it up.  Don’t get me wrong, I know the work and art that goes into the tattoos, but I think they pale in comparison to the work of art that is their body.   All of that said, I would never think less of the person’s person-hood.  I would hire, befriend, learn from, date, marry a tattooed person, but I will never really understand the why.  The good news is that it doesn’t matter what I think or that I know why.  It is really an age/location thing.  If you can explain the popularity, especially the popularity of a stamp on the small of the back, please change my point of view.

• I know bb.com exists to make money, but what a great site it is.  This site has really helped me focus on my goals.  It has motivated me and introduced me to people that motivate me.

• I would rather have my body completely tattooed than be fat.

• While I can’t say I have regrets, I can say that I would do many things differently if I had my 43 years to live again.  I would carpe diem every day.  I would take care of what I have better.  I would have less.  I would save more.  I would be outside more.  I would have a different career.  I would have gone straight through college and earned a PH.d.

• I am grateful to have been given life and lived in a prosperous nation.

I am so absolutely in a walking sleep.  There is no energy and I am struggling just to get through my work day.  This is probably because I have been eating junk for the past few days and my body is screaming for nutrition.  Simply picking myself up and moving forward.

Have you ever wondered why you do things that you know is wrong or bad for you?  Augustine said that man loved good and loved bad.  Both of those loves are very strong and competing for time and attention.  Fortunately there was another love in man.  That love loves the good and hates the bad.  I would lay you even money that Freud read Augustine when he developed his theory of the ego, superego, and Id.

Well, there is a part of me that loves getting fit and a part that loves binging on junk food.  There is a part of me that believes it is worth the time and effort to prepare my foods and a part of me that loves being lazy and simply calling for Chinese delivery.  There is also a part of me that is proud and enthusiastic that I have a love for getting fit and sick/embarrassed by that other part of me.

I finally made my move and saw a chiropractor that was ARTS certified for my shoulder.  It is difficult to describe my shoulder issue but I will try.  On a pain threshold of 1-10 with 10 being able to stand pure torture and 7 being labor, I have a threshold of maybe 1.2.

Both of my shoulders are "frozen’ which, basically, means that I have limited motion and pain.  The pain is an ache when not moving my arm and shooting/burning when I move my arm in certain ways.  More troubling for me than the pain is the weakness and fatigue my shoulders have.  It makes working out a problem.

I sought help from my doctors and went through PT and found no, zero relief.  Then I read about trigger points, soft tissue work, and started doing self massage.  The self massage made a remarkable difference but only took me so far.  This is why I went to an ARTS practitioner.

Basically the chiropractor applied pressure to certain muscle/nerve areas while moving my arm in a range of motion.  The outcome is a stretching of muscle fibers and the hope is that the stretching will resolve the pain and improve my range of motion.  After my first visit we focused on my left shoulder and I had a remarkable reduction in pain.  There was really no change in my range of motion, but I don’t feel the resistance to the motion as strongly as before the therapy.  The result was a night of sleep without discomfort in my shoulder.

I go back to the chiropractor Friday and he will work both shoulders.  When I say work shoulders I mean that he works all areas that affect my particular restriction.  This work involved muscles in my back, down my side, my pecs, down my arm, and the shoulder area itself.  So it is more than simply focusing on the spot of adhesion.  Between now and Friday the chiropractor requested that I do work that involved my shoulders so he can get a good indication of the change his session made.

There was no weigh-in this morning, but I finally broke out new pants.  My old pants were 56 waists and the pants I am wearing now are 52.  I need new shirts too but can get away with the shirts I have as long as they are tucked into my pants.  When I finished basic training for the Army my waist was a 36 but 38 was the waist that is most natural for me to carry.

At a blubbery 342 pounds I am no where close to competing in anything but I am ready to think about future challenges.  The problem is that I don’t know where or what I will want to do.  I will be 44-45 before I am really fit enough to be much of a competitor at anything.

Before I get any further, let me tell you a bit about my athletic history.

Growing up I played soccer and lots of it.  I was never fast but I was quick and strong.  My position was left or center fullback.  Later I would throw discuss and push shot in track.

I ride bicycles and enjoy them, but more for touring than racing.  A bad spill has forever made me cautious.  There is time in the pool which I like but I don’t see myself as a swimmer and I will never be a runner.  At the peek of my fitness I could only muster a 17 minute 2 mile run.

That is pretty much the extent of my organized physical challenges.

So I am 43 and will probably be 45 before I get this weight off.  I am 6′4" and shooting for 200-210 pounds.   What type of amateur competition exists that I can learn, train, and excel in before I am 51?

Tri/bi athalon - I don’t think so
Bodybuilding - not really for me
Power-lifting - maybe, but could I really be any good starting at 0 now?
Swimming - perhaps
MMA - I am more of lover than a fighter
Judo - interesting, but again am I too late

You know there are tons of challenges out there but if you are not aware of them then you simply are not aware.  Take Kettlebell competitions for example.  So, if you read this and have a suggestion please give it to me.

I have been encouraged by many people telling me that I am progressing very well and that I should be proud of my progress.  That support is appreciated because, frankly, I don’t see the progress, feel the progress, and find it hard to accept the progress.  Let the mind games begin.

I weighed in at 345 today which is down 33 pounds from November and 21 pounds down since Dec. 26.   Now, 33 pounds is not a small amount of weight taken by itself but it is only 18.5% of the 178 pounds I  wanted to lose.  It is only 8% of my original total body weight.  Depending on your frame of mind those are not very impressive numbers.  The sheer amount of weight to lose overwhelms the weight lost.

When you take the numbers and couple them with the physical feelings encountered in the body and you can get rather depressed.  What do I mean by ‘physical feelings’?  My body started out feeling fairly firm.  Yes it was fat, but it was dense.  As I lose weight I actually feel fatter as my fat breaks down and becomes looser.   My skin is looser and saggier.  This combination makes me feel less fit than when I started.  This combination of numbers and physical feelings is what I believe to be the greatest reason those needing to lose a lot of weight quit.  You put in all this effort and what do you have to show for it?  This is also why lifting heavy is so very important.  Not only does muscle help the MBR but it firms up that sagging skin and compensates for the loosening fat.

I am feeling stronger and the absence of 33 pounds has helped my endurance.  This helps counteract the feelings I have as listed above but if my mind is not right it does little to overcome the enormity of the task ahead.  Again, it is simply a mind game.

So have I done well?  Yes, but I don’t dwell on the accomplishments.  I accept the fact that 33 pounds down is good, that 345 is better than 378.  Then I focus on the moment, the now again.  If I focus on the past, even the good news of the past, I will stall or fail.  If I focus on the future too much I will stall or fail as well.  There is only today, this meal, this workout.  This is why support is so important.

I am in a marathon race or a long road march, not a sprint.  The focus is on putting one foot in front of the other and not the finish line and by all means not the starting line.  The cheers from the supporters on the sidelines of my race keep me motivated to put that one foot in front of the other and not to think of the aches and pains.  Hearing the advice from those around me that have run this race is invaluable.  They constantly remind me to pickup one foot, put it forward, and set it down.

Again, it is all a mind game.  Losing this weight is doable.  Heck, anything you put your mind to is doable.  The trick is keeping your mind on the task at hand.  The trick is ‘Keeping your MIND RIGHT.’

Two friends just told me that their marriage fell apart within a few minutes of each other.  One marriage was 16 years old and the other 31 years old.  In one case it was the man that left the woman and in the other the woman left the man.

Why am I writing about this in a bodyspace blog?  Because marriage, significant others, unions, deep friendships are extremely precious and fragile.  When those relationships are running like a top you can take on the world.  You can lose 100’s of pounds or win the Arnold.  No, you don’t have to have relationships to do these things, but a good relationship really helps you achieve your goals.

When a relationship falls apart it throws all concerned into a deep tailspin that can take years or decades to pull out of, or in some cases people simply crash and burn.  No one is immune to a relationship falling apart.  It does not matter how long you have been in the relationship, what your religious beliefs are, or even how great the relationship might be at any given time.  It does not matter how hard one person in the relationship works to keep that relationship working.  Relationships are a dance of two and both parties must put 110% into the relationship to simply keep that relationship alive and thriving.

I talk a lot about living in the NOW.  Now is the only place a relationship exists.  It does not matter what happened in the past or what might happen in the future.  Now is the only time that a relationship lives.  If you have that special relationship with someone I implore you to talk about this.  Talk about the need to work hard at the relationship every day.  If you don’t it may be better not to be in that relationship because the pain and devastation can be great.

Dave Tate brings up a great point about the egg that appears to never change until the chick begins to hatch.  I would just like to add a bit to the analogy.

That egg is filled with a great deal of fat and a bit of protein.  As the chick begins to grow it consumes both the fat and protein making the chick bigger and stronger.  You don’t see this from the outside of the egg.  You simply see that hard shell.

You can look at two eggs.  One egg is fertilized with a chick growing inside and the other is not fertilized.  Both eggs start out with roughly the same fat to protein ratio and the same calcium shell.  Both eggs look equally healthy from the outside but one is in the process of metamorphosis.  In the end one egg has changed that fat and a bit of protein into lean muscle while the other egg remains filled with fat and a bit of protein.  In the end one remains an egg while the other becomes a living being.

As I shed my fat and a bit of protein I too am becoming a living being.  Think about this if you are fat-fat or skinny-fat.  In the end it is not about the scale numbers but what you do with your body that counts.  Are you strong or just an egg?

I have always tried to use the lessons “Under the Bar” to teach many of the same lessons in life. Many of these lessons we miss and forget about. It is not that we do not know them we just get caught up in all the other stuff.

Last week after having my bodyweight stuck for more than 6 weeks (dropping Kcals by close to 1000 per day, plus adding in cardio) I relearned a very valuable lesson.

There was NO reason why my weight should not have dropped. Since day one my Kcals have dropped from 10,000 all the way to 3500. My weight dropped during the first phases from 297 to 270 and then held on regardless of what we tried to do with my diet. I even changed my training program twice. The one thing I forgot to change was my internal belief systems.

You may think this is some crazy made up crap but it is what it is.

My weight got stuck exactly where knew it would when the process started. My bodyfat also stopped right where I knew it would get tuff.

My internal beliefs were set to stop at 270 and was never changed. This was because while I knew where I wanted to go (8%) I lost sight of what was going on right in front of me.

After six weeks of this BS I changed how I thought about the weight (I convinced myself that this was a mental game and changed the way I began thinking about it).

Today I weighed in at 264 (JB’s note: down 6lbs in 6 days).

Now, I do not see this as a 6 pound drop over the past 6 days but a 6 pound drop over the past 6 weeks.

I just heard a great story about an egg.

If you look at a fertile egg and watch it over time you will not see anything happen. This goes on day in and day out. You expect to see something, anything, but nothing changes. Then one day the egg begins to shake and a chic pops out. While the egg sat idle things were changing under the surface.

We all spend too much time looking at the outside of the egg when we should stop and think about what is going on inside.

We all get frustrated with lack of progress, slow strength gains, injuries, and the 100 other things that never come as fast as we like.

Many times busting out of these slumps does not take external changes (special exercises, new diet parameters, supplements, programs, money) but how you are internally programed.

What internal beliefs do you need to change?

*****

This is an excerpt from Dave’s Blog at: http://asp.elitefts.com/qa/default.a…=43454&tid=124

A few posts back I wrote about the 350 barrier and that I felt my body stalling.  How can I describe that or explain how I ‘felt’ my body resisting weight loss?  I really can’t, but I know it is true.

My nutrition plan has been solidly in place since November 2007.  Prior to November I had been simply watching caloric intake.  Things that I now have a handle on that was foreign to me just a year ago:

1. I know when my body is thirsty.
2. I know when my body is in need of specific nutrients
3. I know when my body is fatigued and needs rest
4. I know when I have pushed too far during exercise
5. I know when I need to get activity in or backslide

Each of points above deals with physiological>unconscious>conscious communication.  I can honestly say a couple of months ago this communication was completely broken.  Worse, the communication was giving wrong messages.

The wrong messages came from a bunch of causes.  My blood glucose was severely out of whack.  High blood glucose would make me tired and weak, and low blood glucose would make me crabby, hungry, and weak.  I would rarely be at a good blood glucose level. The blood glucose roller coaster was a wild ride that left me literally sick, tired, weak, and ever getting fatter.

Another wrong message bearer was chemically induced by what I was drinking.  It was normal to pound down 2-3 2 liters of diet Pepsi in a day.  The Pepsi had a double whammy of caffeine and Aspartame. The caffeine made me edgy and placed me in a foggy state of non-sleep.  The Aspartame messed with my blood glucose and there are multiple studies showing that Aspartame inhibits weight loss and affects mood.  Drinking all day long you would think that I wouldn’t be thirsty, but I was in a state of waterlogged dehydration.  The caffeine and salt in Pepsi stole any hydration from the drink that may have been available.  That dehydration was mistaken for hunger.  That hunger was never satisfied by eating because I really wasn’t hungry but thirsty.  This led to binge sessions, which led to more weight, which led to more depression, which screwed with my blood chemistry making the whole matter even worse.

Chemicals in the form of anti-depressants mess with the bodies communication system in a big way.  The fatter you get the more your dopamine receptors are reduced.  Dopamine of course is the ‘feel good’ chemical your brain makes when stimulated by certain activities like feeling full.  Dopamine receptors are the things that take in the dopamine to give you that good feel.  Scientists are not sure why the receptors die but they postulate that it is caused by an overabundance of dopamine being released with all of the dopamine in the system the body tries to gain equilibrium by reducing the receptors.  The exact same effect is seen in drug addicts.  The lack of receptors of course means that the body seeks an ever increasing amount of dopamine creating stimulants, more food, increasing the cycle.  The same thing may be happening with serotonin and the common anti-depressants are SRI’s which increase serotonin levels.  Normally serotonin leads to a decrease in appetite but  people taking SRI’s  are shown to have a huge problem with weight  gain and  trouble with weight loss.

Every item I have mentioned leads to increase weight and a decrease in energy.  This makes exercise very difficult.  It is like a 5 pack a day smoker trying to run wind sprints.  A lack of exercise makes it harder for the body to lose weight but also creates a messaging problem in the brain.  Remember those dopamine receptors?  Guess what?  Those receptors are rebuilt by exercise!  Rebuilding those receptors in a big key to getting the body chemistry in line, but if you have no energy and weight too much to exercise at a level sufficient to create change you will never replace the dead receptors.

The lack of solid nutrition also sends wrong messages in your body/brain.  If the body does not get the nutrients it needs it craves more.  With my body out of whack that craving is seen as simply being hungry.  The problem is that if my body needs vitamins from a vegetable carbohydrate source but I give it a tub of Rocky Road that body will scream that it is not satisfied and wants more.  This is true even when you feel full to the point of sickness because of the volume eaten.

Another problem we find is that we through a ton of chemicals in our body trying to "figure" out a way to break the cycle.  This can be quality fat burners or protein powders that work well when all things are equal but only increase  the miscommunication going on in the system.  Think of a traffic light that is working properly.  A fat burner may be like making the green light stay on a bit longer to allow more traffic through.  If that light was flashing red and that same fat burner was used you would have a flashing red light and a solid green light on at the same time.  What a mess right?

All of this messed up chemistry produces a body that is quick to get sick.  The immune system is confused at best and failed at worst.  I can not tell you how often I was sick or how bad my allergies were prior to eating a sound, nutritional diet.  Being sick led to me taking more chemicals, drugs, which further confused my body’s chemistry.

In my next post I will begin to tell you how and why I was able to correct my body’s communication and why I think people who lose a great deal of weight wind up in the same predicament in a few years in my next post.