King_Marmoset!’s BodyBlog

>>> Folks, I just completed another 12 week challenge.  My goal was to add lean muscle.  Here is the last entry in my journal for this challenge:  

Week 12 1.19.2009

Protein: 30%
Fats: 50%
Carbs: 19%
Fiber: 21.5 grams
3,645 average calories per day

Vittles consumed: Free range eggs, raw milk from a grass fed cow, organic blue berries, canned tuna, unsalted raw almonds/walnuts/cashews/filberts, grilled chicken breast, organic natural peanut butter, organic spinach, organic broccoli, organic green peppers, onions, organic baby carrots, organic black beans, organic kidney beans, tortilla soup, grass fed beef, grain fed beef, jalapeno peppers, raw honey, brown rice, ezekiel bread, 1 handful popcorn (no butter), asiago cheese, organic chicken sausage, organic marinara, pepperoni, italian wedding soup, chicken soup

Booze: 2 sugar-free Red Bull and grape vodka

Whole eggs consumed: 64

Starting weight week 1: 202.5 lbs
Last Week (week 11): 210 lbs
Current weight (week 12): 213 lbs

Body fat % in the beginning: 8%
Last week: 11%
This week: 11% (according to the calipers, naturally)

Goal(s) I want to accomplish during this Challenge:
I’ve never put all my energies into gaining muscle before. I want to put on as much lean muscle mass as I can over the next 12 weeks and NOT put on any substantial fat. This challenge will be experiment heavy in a lot of ways; I’m hoping to learn as much as I can.

The Good: My main goal for this challenge was to put on muscle. Mission accomplished. Adding some mass to my arms, delts, back, and chest makes me very happy.

My body building brain took a quantum leap forward during this challenge in terms of learning what works. Lifting weight I can handle really helped my muscular development in areas I was greatly lagging in. Finding which exercises work for certain groups really helped me too. I find my success rate increases the more introspective I get.

The Bad: I added way more blubber than I wanted to during this challenge. In shifting my brain into a more anabolic way of doing things I didn’t stick to a calorie plan of any kind. I made sure to go out of my way to eat as much clean anabolic food as I possibly could. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you are eating, but if you over eat you’ll gain fat. This was my first "bulk" and I definitely learned as far as that goes.

During this challenge I wasn’t going to let my desire to eat clean impact social situations. There were a ton of birthdays, holidays, family get togethers, etc during this challenge. I’m not saying I pigged out, but I definitely ate more dirty food than I’d like. All that dirty food definitely showed up on my frame.

I felt I ate more for macros while mostly ignoring micros. I still ate a nutrient rich diet, but it wasn’t as nutrient rich as I liked. I’d like to apologize to vegetables for neglecting you from time to time.

The Ugly: Doing a fitness challenge when you have a death in the family is simply impossible. I should say that when the death involves a car wreck, protracted coma, and then death…the challenge simply has to be suspended.

While at the hospital for countless hours, I had to force myself and my family members to the cafeteria simply to make sure we ate something. As you can imagine, a cafeteria isn’t conducive to our way of doing business. My nutrition suffered greatly during this time.

It’s not possible to duck out of the hospital in that situation to get to gym.

I realize if I was doing a 30 challenge I certainly would have failed. So, this challenge was really 10 weeks out of 12. Thanks, peeps, for sticking with me while I dealt with that.

Final thoughts: Yeah, I did accomplish my goal of gaining muscle. However, I’m not very happy with the blubber I added. Did I save myself so I could save the world? No. Small battles were won and small battles were lost. This story continues on…

Beginning:

End

For 12 weeks, young King Marmoset was locked deep within the trunk of the Marmoset tree.  King Marmoset never had done a fitness challenge before; never kept logs of what he ate.  He did experiments on his body in regards to both diet and exercise (some things worked and some things didn’t).  Mostly important, King Marmoset did learn things.  He learned proper technique is SO, SO important to accurately target muscle groups.  He learned the true power of carb cycling.  

Here is the last entry of his journal on How To Make A Better Hockey Player (for those of you that are interested -  a few notes were added to make it easier to read on here):

(For the week of 10.20 - 10.26)
Protein: 38%
Fats: 47%
Carbs: 15%
Fiber: 20.9 grams
3,412 average calories per day

Vittles consumed: Free range eggs, raw milk, organic blue berries, canned tuna, unsalted almonds/walnuts/cashews/peanuts/filberts, feta cheese, grilled organic chicken breast, Ezekiel bread, natural peanut butter, spinach, lettuce, 99% extra lean organic ground turkey, broccoli, organic green peppers, onions, organic baby carrots, onion, black beans, tortilla soup, grass fed beef, jalapeno peppers, kidney beans, brown rice, grain fed beef, nachos, ground bison, Ethiopian beef and chicken, injera.

Aside from my regular cheat of sopa de tortilla, I also had nachos at a Penguins game and an Ethiopian meal.  For those that don’t know, Ethiopians don’t use utensils.  They use a bread called injera to eat with.  Thus, you can’t low carb and eat Ethiopian.  I know to avoid Ethiopian the next time.  As for the nachos, I wanted grilled chicken, but lets just say there was an "incident" between the cook and I that the manager had to get involved with.  Thus, I pissed away my only healthy option at the Pens game and had to get stinking nachos.  Danica, you said no to puss rockets and I obeyed.  

Note for you guys:  KM ate clean for weeks and weeks on end with only sopa de tortilla besmirching me.  No dirty food and NO booze.  

Starting weight:  208 lbs
Current weight: 202.5 lbs

Body fat % in the beginning: 18%
Last week: 8%
Final week: 8%

This week, the calipers are saying I pretty much stayed the same body fat% wise, but the mirror and the scale say otherwise.  I gained a very little blubber.  I blame the additional cheats and a lack of quality hockey.  

Overall, I only lost 5.5 lbs on the scale, but 10% body weight.  I consider that a huge success; much greater than I could have anticipated.

Goal(s) I want to accomplish during this Challenge:

From Day 1:  I want to get the maximum out of my body and mind to be the best hockey player I can be. At 33, I not only want to dominate my peers, but also the never ending wave of young fast punk kids that keep coming. I plan on ruling the ice with superior conditioning, brute strength, amazing athletic ability, veteran guile/caginess, a laser-like shot, and a Zen-like brain. "Goals" will literally be my goal. I will defy age!

So, was my challenge a success in regards to making a better hockey player?  I’m going to say no.  Sure, I got into the best shape of my life, but some unforeseen hockey problems arose.  A 6 week complete shut downs of all my teams was absolutely unprecedented.  While I worked hard to get into better shape none of my teammates did.  This lead to some very inconsistent hockey.  Throw in the schedule maker spacing the games poorly and some acts of god, getting any consistent hockey going the last 8 weeks hasn’t been possible.  I think in the next 3 weeks I’ll really get an idea of if the work I’ve done has paid off.    

What else we should know about you after this Challenge:

1.  You can’t build hockey players in the gym.  The game is simply too fluid and dynamic.  Hockey skills are built and sharpened on the ice.  <- this is actually a hockey cliche, but I proved it to myself.

2.  Regardless of the hockey side of things I have to say that I learned a tremendous amount of info during this challenge (the first challenge I’ve ever done).  I’m now a sworn witness to the power of low carbs.  

3.  I’m 33 years and in the best shape of my life.  Oh, I’m not done with all this yet.  Not by a long shot.  

Week 1

Week 12

Once, when King Marmoset was very young, but still incredibly good looking, he dined at the exotic locale known as Satanica Danica’s House of Mad-Crazy Vittles.  I’m sure all o’ y’all have wondered what Omahoans/Omahumans/Omahos/Omahumunculus/Omahayhowyadoin’ eat.  King Marmoset’ll now show you in pictures how a typical Omahuman meal is made and what critters they like to eat.  Note:  Sweet King Marmoset was unaware these pics were being taken at the time.  The notorious soul stealer known as the mighty, mighty DanicaX was the culprit.  What she is doing with the purloined souls is unknown.  Ha, "loin" is in that word!  Now you are thinking about loins, aren’t you?  See how I did that!  

Step 1.  All cooking is done on a grill type apparatus the Omahos call a "clam-shell fire pit".  The Omahowyadoins have developed a symbiotic relationship with a bird known as the Red Pecker Humper Thrush.  These birds are encouraged to make their nests in the clam-shell fire pit, but it’s all a trick!  There is no symbiosis between the people and the birds.  The Omahumunculus simply cook up the bird nests without giving anything back to them!  They say irony is what adds a special flavor to any meal.  This method of cooking meats does add extra Omega-666 fats (keeps Satan away) and vitamin-XXX (keeps one from falling into making low-budget gonzo-porn).  

Behold!  An authentic clam-shell fire pit ripe with Red Pecker Humper Thrush nest

Step 2.  Selecting which exotic and delicious animal to make into vittles.  What was on the menu this day?  This chap!  His name was Carl.

Don’t worry.  I partied with Carl first before we got down to business.

Step 3.  Enjoy your vittles!!  That DanicaX is not only incredibly shapely, but also a hell of a cook.  When KM hears these words, “Marmoset, get them vittles while their fresh off the clam-shell fire pit” he knows he is in for a warm belly full of delicious and nutritious exotic meats.  

What was for dinner the next night?

Anyone out there that can properly identify what creature Carl is King Marmoset will overthrow a country and name it in your honor.  Sorry, but you don’t get to pick the country.  Hint:  Carl isn’t a pig.  

In Marmosetia, we are beset with many calamities on a daily basis.  Strikes from the Raptor Guild, toxic feces flung into the trees by marauding Cuvier’s Skunk Ape, and a new invader that seems to be the Marmoset’s evil image from an anti-matter universe are but some of the dangers.  One of the more benign, but still obnoxious, dangers comes in the form of an ivy that grows in the trees of Marmosetia.  This ivy leaves an oil on the fur that can penetrate down to the skin.  This oil causes itching and can spread all over the body (it always seems to malign the "junk").  Lets refer to this ivy as a "poison ivy".  

Your humble, but brilliant King is here to report that the oils of this poison ivy are besmirching his armored yet supple skin.  It lurks in the corners of the mouth, the webbing of the webbed fingers, and don’t you just know where else it inhabits?  The junk.  Always the junk.  The witch doctor says KM wouldn’t get the ivy on his junk if he’d just keep his hands out of there.  Good advice for any Marmosets out there.

Peeps,

I used to be able to semi-keep track of everyone’s blogs by checking the "What My Friends Are Doing" section on my.bodyspace.com.  However, there are no more blog entries in there (and haven’t been for a long time).  Do you have blog entries in yours?  Is it just me?  I can’t remember if I checked Danica’s to see if she could.  Let me know.  I don’t want to holler at the developers if it’s a system wide issue.

It has taken young King Marmoset until this very day to convalesce after his armageddon conflict with the undying overlord of THE USSR!  Here is the tale!!  

Marmoset on the walls of the Kremlin

King Marmoset appeared out of the void one Saturday morning (some would say that he was still soggy with booze).  Lenin’s minions must have been tipped off by some unsavory friend of darkness that an attack was imminent (probably a monkey some beggar employed that appeared to give your handsome narrator the stink-eye).  Even the mighty King Marmoset had to wait in line for his chance at the Overlord; wait in line with actual Europeans.  It seemed King Marmoset was not alone in his thirst for vengeance.  The line was very long indeed.  

The stink-eyed monkey

Upon checking all cell phones, cameras, sabers, and nunchuks, King Marmoset was permitted to make the long walk to the tomb of Lenin.  Yes, my incredibly portioned reader, thou shalt not photograph the zombie master!  It is forbidden by orders of the Red Army their damn selves!  The long walk to the tomb was filled with great peril for there were many commie zombies buried along the red walls of the Kremlin.  All were dispatched for the sake of freedom and for living humans everywhere!  

Finally, the tomb!!  There, the Overlord was waiting for ol’ King Marmoset!  A great, great battle ensued.  Sucker punches and kidney chops were landed by both battling sides.  The tomb, the Kremlin, Red Square, and even reality itself was destroyed in the battle!  Who won?  Even King Marmoset knows not.  What is known is that upon waking up in the rubble of Moscow the authorities “obliged” with vodka for King Marmoset to rebuild everything by hand.  It took me 7 minutes to do so.  The zombie Vladimir Lenin was not to be found.  Yet, according to media reports on the Internets, it magically reappeared in its tomb the very next day.  Yes, King Marmoset knows not who won, but he gets the feeling it wasn’t him.  Dread to you, lord Lenin!!!  We shall meet again!  

The only penance for failing to slay the Overlord is to lift.  Lift hard!!  Lift with great vengeance and furious anger!!  I must be bigger.  I must be stronger.  I must seek out a great master of the weight and suffer under their cruel tutelage.  I shall travel west and seek out the singularly luminescent DanicaX.  So sayeth I, King Marmoset, now and forever!!!

The zombie of Peter the great and his bride.  I slayed them.  Note:  I built that church when I was two just to show off.

Hear ye!!  Hear ye!!  I, King Marmoset, shall now discuss what it’s like being a "body builder" (I use that term very loosely in my case) out and about in the world.  Basically, what’s it’s like to be completely out of your routine in a strange land.  If you’ve travelled before feel free to point out where I’ve misspoken and to call me an idiot.  If you haven’t traveled then still feel free to call me an idiot.    

Gyms - Just about every hotel has a "fitness room".  The web sites always show what looks to be a spacious modern gym.  Oh, how this can be such a damn lie!  Really, you never know what you are going to get until you get there.  Thus far, I’ve had one gym that was just a machine and a treadmill and another gym that was absolutely super-pimped out.  You just have to adapt.  Yes, I have resorted to lifting furniture in my hotel room before.  Curling a chair isn’t quite the same as a nice EZ bar.  Although, I find that squatting the mini-bar really sculpts the buttocks.  

Also, as far as gym etiquette goes, it’s the same everywhere I’ve been.  You can’t work out in your underwear in America and you sadly can’t do it abroad either.  The most I can seem to get away with in Russia is doing the treadmill with my pants around my ankles.  The gym managers seems to begrudgingly accepting of this.  

Food - HA!!  Do you think it’s even remotely possible to eat clean healthy foods in a place where you can not speak the language and you can’t even read a freaking menu?  When you come to a place that is super alien you just do what you can to get a good meal once in awhile.  If I find a place that has a buffet I’ll abuse it in a habitual and systematic fashion.  It’s just a fact that you’ll probably end up eating something that isn’t part of a clean diet while you are away.  Just eat it and move on.  

Hydration - A lot of places outside of America don’t drink water like we do.  Often times, you can spot an American in a foreign country because they are lugging a huge bottle of water around.  Thus, I find it hard to stay hydrated on trips like this one.  If you get water at dinner it’s generally an 8 oz bottle.  I usually drink about 40 ounces of water at a meal.  I roll a 40 ouncer no matter what I’m drinking.  

Also, if you are buying water in other countries there are two types of water - gas and still!  Gas if friggin’ carbonated water.  If you don’t specify what kind so water you want you’ll probably be getting gas water.  Feel free to now make your own "gas in water" jokes.  

Supplements - It’s shockingly hard to pack Super Pump, a 5 lbs tub of protein, and all the vitamins and crap a person takes in a day along with regular luggage.  Thus, you have to accept some supplement free time while you are gone.  And, if you think bringing powdered supps in plastic bags is a good idea to some countries think again!  Yeah, I can picture trying to explain to the Russians what the powder in clear unmarked bags is.  Of course, I’m sure the guards would snort it just be on the safe side.  In fact, a good party in Russia generally features snorting some protein, knocking back some Red Bull, and getting out the baby oil.  

Okay, enough of this jibber jabber.  Lets get back to some good old fashion Marmosetiness.  I forgot to mention this little tidbit the other day… Obviously, I thought that all of Russia is white people (basically, the typical Russian).  The first person I met in Russia was our driver.  Dude was friggin’ Asian.  I’m talking "me put pee-pee in your coke" Asian!  You see that tiny little Asian face and then that mongoloid Russian accent comes out when he says, "My name is Stanislas." That is just wrong.  Despite being "Russian" Stanislas still had one hereditary Asian trait that can’t be escaped - he was the worst friggin’ driver in this country!!!  

Lastly, tomorrow… LENIN!!!!!!  All accounts will be squared!!!  All ledgers balanced!!  Can the unstoppable juggernaut that is King Marmoset vanquish the undying overlord of the USSR?  Stay tuned, my buck teeth readers!!  

King Marmosettttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have actually been taking pics this entire time, but my stupid gay dad forgot to give me the stupid gay USB cable for the camera so they’ll have to wait until I get back.  Yeah, try going into Best Buy in Russia and getting the right USB cable.  Try even friggin’ finding a Best Buy in Russia, ya dang smarty pants!!    

Ha!!  Speaking of corporate greed mixed with good old Soviet jibber jabber, Starbucks here are called something like Republik Bucks!!  The name is written in Cyrillic mumbo jumbo, but those are the words you can make out.  I friggin’ love that.  

I’ll now tell you an amazing fact about the sexes (there are only two) here in Russia.  

Females - all girls are a mandatory 5lbs underweight here.  They only eat hot steam once per day and get all their other nutrients from cigarettes.  Their entire wardrobes consist of nothing but mini-skirts (this is actually true and not Marmoset speak).  Regardless of their profession they all wear mini-skirts.  It ain’t exactly warm here either.  Who wants to be the first to make a beaver comment?  Really, I encourage it.  

Males - Ladies and gentleman, the mullet is alive and well in Russia!!!!  No, take a few seconds to applaud reading that and come back when you’ve collected yourself.  I’m not talking the flowing mullets of 80s America.  These are kind of like baby Euro-mullets.  Just a few seedlings in the back poking out a little to let you know that the party-in-the-back is still blazing away.  I thought you’d all like to know that!  Note:  Mullet is French for mule’s tail.  That is a true story.  The friggin’ French have a word for everything.  King Marmoset in French is le Douchessoir.  Seriously!!  

Okay, on to the part you’ve been waiting for….

Yeah, King Marmost doth fly to Moscow today.  Instead of napping or eating anything but quiche he went out in search of his sworn foe.  Traveled high and low King Marmoset did until he finally came to the walls of the dreaded Kremlin and it’s cold war undead master, LENIN!!!  King Marmoset scaled the walls of the Kremlin, assailed mighty St Basil’s cathedral, took a picture of 2 monkeys who happened to be there at the time, and finally fell upon Lenin’s tomb!!  

But lo, my well muscled and possibly naked reader, justice was not served!  For the evil and undying Lenin was spared on this day.  Why?  Simply because the tomb is only opened until 3 and it was already 5!  Alas, the dread overlord of the evil empire continues on with his undead existence until Saturday (closed on Fridays).  Reports will be coming henceforth!!  

I’m taking the day off tomorrow from sight seeing.  I’m going to just chill, lift weights, and maybe buy Danica a few things.  Don’t tell her I said that though because I want it to be a secret.  

Until tomorrow, super pimps!!!!

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnngggggggggg Marmosetttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!
!

I’ve finally sobered up a bit to relay some tales of the Russ!!!  

I went to Ireland last year and was disappointed that the Irish weren’t as drunk as I wanted them to be.  The Russians are way, way drunker than I ever could have dreamed of!!!  I went to a big Russian style dinner with like 30 people tonight.  All of them had to stand up and give some long winded toasts in Russian.  You do the math on the vodka!!  These people are just lousy with alcohol!  After they get ripped they all pulled me aside and said, "Marmoset, there are no ugly women in Russia.  Vodka makes everyone beautiful."  I’ll drink to that!  

Another quirk, if there is an open door there is no being polite and letting people go through one at a time.  It’s every friggin’ man for themselves!  I imagine this is why all the older Russian broads are so tough.  Forget the Bolsheviks, WW2, and the new economy.  They are tough to survive these situations of great peril!  

Bryan and any other WW2 fans, there is a line outside the city were the Red Army held the Nazis for over 900 days.  They say you can dig anywhere in the soil and still find bones.  The friggin’ Nazis destroyed so many priceless cultural treasurers it’s not funny.  Stupid friggin’ Nazis!!  

I went out drinking with my mom last night.  If you hear this phrase out of your mom’s mouth you are in for a troublesome night, "I didn’t get a picture of you drinking that flaming shot.  You have to do another!"  

I saw a two humped camel on my way in the city.  For those of you keeping track at home, a one humper is from Africa, a 2 humper is from Asia, and a three humper is very rare.  If you manage to get 3 humps, well, you’ve had a good night!  

There isn’t one fat Russia person in this entire city.  Nor are there any muscular people.  Everyone is very slender.  They simply don’t have enough food.  Also, they never drink water like we do (the water is tainted with a parasite).  They only drink vodka.  It’s crazy.  They smoke a lot too.  And, I haven’t seen one gym yet, but that might be because I don’t know what the signs mean.  

I did see some works by Michaelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrandt, etc.  Basically, you name the famous old-school artist and I saw some of their work here.  However, their art pales to the majesty of the baby mammoths they have here.  I’m talking mummified mammoths I’ve been reading about since I was a kid.  SO. F’n. Cool!!  

This wireless blows so I’m going to knock this crap off for the night!  I’ll probably have 10 more vodkas and sleep in the fish tank in the lobby.  Nite, yinz!

The land is flat.  Not Kansas flat, but pretty damned flat!  

You ever here that Scandinavia has the lowest population density of the Western world?  That is true!!  You fly in and there are barely any houses or human structures as far as the eye can see.  This is in Helsinki too (not just out in the boonies)!  If you have ever been to Tokyo, Seoul, or Ireland you know that every single molecule of land is used in some way.  Finland is all trees and nothing.  It’s cool!  I’ll be here on vacation some day.  

The trees are all coniferous or birch.  I burned down a small forest just because I’m not nice.  

When you get off the plane, in order to get to the next plane they put skis on you.  Then, you grab onto some kind of even toed ungulate and it races you to the next plane.  I never saw this type of animal before and I know every animal that ever existed.  It looked kind of like a racing cow or maybe a reindeer with a super bitchin’ haircut.  When you want them to start running you just tap them on their ample nuts.  That is a totally true story.  Don’t question it.  

Okay, I’ve been awake for like 35 hours now.  I’ll write more my tomorrow/your tonight about Russia.  I’ll cover the gym, a 3 humped camel, the strange mammals I’ve eaten, avoiding radioactive blueberries, and so much more!!