Unleash The Animal

Things have been hectic around here, and they’ve finally slowed down enough to stop in and say hi

Last week wasn’t a good week.  I haven’t been to the gym since Tuesday for various reasons, but they’re irrelevant.  I didn’t go…period.  No excuses.  Still, The Animal has kept me eating right, and that led to another two pounds and 1% body fat gone for the week.  Not the week I wish I’d have had, but I’ll take it.

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and it makes it hard to focus on stuff here.  That completely sucks, since this place helps keep me trigger my inner desire to be fit and healthy.  However, that desire hasn’t left me in the least.  Luckily, I’m still fired up and motivated…and this week should be a bit easier on the old family unit so hitting the gym all the required times shouldn’t be an issue

Unfortunately, at this moment, I have no great pearls of wisdom to share…but I’m sure I’ll come up with something sooner or later

First, let me mention that this idea actually springs from the movie "The Replacements".  I’ve mentioned this movie before, and frankly it’s just a fun, goofy movie.  Pro football players go on strike, scab players come in, hilarity ensues.  However, something many people don’t know is that some profound statements and ideas can come from the oddest movies.  The Replacements has one such moment.

During a team meeting, the coach (played by Gene Hackman, one of my all-time favorite actors) starts asking players about their fears.  They go through things like bees, spiders, and other odd things, until the coach clarifies that he’s talking about fear on the football field.  The starting quarterback (played by Keanu Reeves, who shares my birthday so he’s instantly cool) says quicksand.  He goes on to explain that quicksand is where everything is going great, then you make a mistake.  Then another.  Then another.  Next thing you know, you’re fighting to keep your head up, but you just sink further and further…like quicksand.

However, many of us here have to worry about quicksand as well.  For example, you may eat something you shouldn’t, or you miss a workout, or any number of things.  Then, you feel bad, and something else happens.  Then something else.  Next thing you know, you feel like  you’ve shot yourself in the foot to the point that there’s no point in going on and go polish off a whole cheesecake.

However, that doesn’t have to be the case.  Understanding that quicksand is out there, you can watch for it.  In real life, the secret to surviving quicksand, or so I’ve been told, is to be totally relaxed, like you’re floating in a pool.  Well, chilling out and relaxing about the setbacks works for the quicksand I’m talking about as well.  So, you ate KFC completely out of extra crispy.  No biggie…just do better next time and don’t sweat it.

Bad things happen.  Only you can keep cool enough to make it a nothing.

Dear The Darkness,

Bring it any time you want, and I’ll kick your dark butt all over the yard.

Best Always,

The Animal.

Well, I broke out of my funk!  I don’t know what caused it, but I think I pushed through it tonight with a killer workout.  The Animal definitely kicked The Darkness’ ass today!  The Darkness will need some time to recoup from that one!

Also, I started back with cardio before working out.  I had taken a break from it since my legs always felt tired, but damn it!  I need that boost!  I haven’t had any meaningful fat loss since I stopped, so I started back.  We’ll see how it works for me.

I came home to fix a wonderful dinner of grilled talapia, green beans, and brown rice.  Honestly, it just LOOKED good…which was pretty damn close to how it tasted too .  I’m just really stoked to be me right now, and punching through a funk that has sent many people running to Dairy Queen for a large dipped cone is always a good thing!

Excuses are gone.  The Animal won’t have them!  The Darkness feeds on them.  Hence forth, excuses are banished from my presence.  The Darkness will have to feed on something else from now on!

Spartan women would tell their husbands this before the left for battle.  The thought being that, if a warrior were to run, they would throw their shield at the enemy before taking off.  The presence of a shield with the returning warrior meant that he didn’t run in the face of the enemy.  Either that, or their corpse would be carried home upon the shield.  Now, this might seem like pointless ramblings, but it’s not.

You see, cowardice was totally unacceptable.  Excuses for running were irrelevant.  Their laws clearly stated that you stand and fight.  Period.  No discussion of reasons.  You simply did what you were trained to do.  However, we all have excuses for our perceived failures.  I missed my workout yesterday.  My son was sick and he was a priority over me.  Is that an excuse?  No.  I could have found a way to get the workout in, but I didn’t.  Jenn ate some potato chips the other day.  She felt she needed salt.  That’s not an excuse either.  She could have found other alternatives, but didn’t.  We made mistakes, and that’s all they were.

However, excuses have a nasty way of multiplying.  First, it’s a sick kid (even though you’re not a single parent).  Next, it’s a movie you’ve been waiting to see for ages.  Then, you just don’t feel up to it.  After that, who has time to work out?  You’re a busy person, so the gym will have to wait until next week.  Then next month.  Then next year.  See how they multiply?  They’re worse than rabbits.

However, they don’t have to.  Understand, first and foremost, that if you had tried, you probably could have found a way to work out or eat right, but you didn’t.  If there was absolutely no way to do it, then why sweat it?  Either way, it happened.  Accept it and move on.  You can’t change the past, only guide yourself through the future.  You don’t have to accept your old life back because your pizza craving was to much for you.  Instead, just acknowledge the setback and move forward.

For the last couple of days, I’ve seriously lacked motivation.  I honestly don’t know why, but I have.  Well, that just won’t cut it anymore with me.  Most of these damn blogs are supposed to be motivational, but I slipped and The Darkness almost caged The Animal.  However, The Animal is to fierce to let this setback be a permanent one.  Instead, he will begin striving to cage The Darkness, now and forever.

Tomorrow, as I walk into the gym, I will hear Jenn’s voice (whether she says anything or not) echo throughout my soul.  She’ll say "With your shield, or on it."  No more excuses.  It’s time to seriously kick some ass.

We all have them.  Yesterday was mine.  I didn’t feel very well, and apparently I was running a low grade fever myself (Jenn has been for a little while), and was in a bit of a depression.  Honestly, I have no idea why, but there I was.  I was ready to chuck the whole thing.  Honestly, my scheduled cheat meal saved my ass.

My last two cheat meals weren’t really that bad.  About 640 calories, low fat and high protein.  All in all, a pretty decent meal.  All it really did was spike up my calories just a tad, and still lower than BMR+Lifestyle…much less activity levels.  Last night though, I went a bit wild, and the psychological impact was great.

All week, there was temptation everywhere.  People at work were bringing in leftovers from the night before, offering to share with any and all, and they were all favorites of mine.  It was horrible, but I made it through.  However, by last night, I was shot.  I just couldn’t do it anymore I thought.  Well, that planned cheat meal really bailed me out.  I’m still not as energized as I want to be about lifting, but instead I’m ready for it.  More like a "I’m ready to take a shower" kind of thing…that thing you do every day.  If that’s the worst it gets for me, I can deal with that.

Everyone, even the most motivated of us, will have off days.  We all have days we don’t even want to see the inside of a gym, much less set foot in one.  However, we have to push through those as best we can.  I can’t really tell you how.  I don’t know if I’d have gone last night even without the fever, but I’d like to think so…but I don’t know how healthy for the mind that would have been in the long run.

Tomorrow is scale day.  I’ve decided that the only number I’m really worried about is body fat percentage.  The scale didn’t budge last week, but BF% went down, so I’m doing well.  There’s still a long way to go, but by this week I should be down to 22%, which is a far cry better than I’ve been in a long, long time.  Also, I suspect my measurements to be down even more since I found I can take my 38" waist jeans and pull them down to my ankles while buttoned and zipped.  I’m sorry, but that’s just cool

Remembering the past gains is really the only thing I can do to keep myself motivated today I suspect.  Luckily, it’s working!  I’ve done pretty well in the last month, and I’ve got to remember that.  So what if I don’t lose a bunch of weight…if I lose body fat, then I’m gold.  Besides, even independent testing (from the gym) confirms I’m losing fat and gaining muscle, something people seem to say is impossible.  Sure, they’re newbie gains and newbies like me can do anything.  However, if newbie gains happen fast enough, I won’t care, because I’ll have reached my goals

So, we all have good days and bad days.  The trick is to let the bad days be rare, and the good ones so common you barely notice them

The last thing any of us wants to hear when we’re trying to choke down yet another can of tuna or another chicken breast is that this is how we have to eat for the rest of our lives.  Sure, some folks on here get great results eating more crap than the rest of us (I hate them, don’t you?), but for most of us, this is forever.

I made a comment on another blog about how weight loss has to be a forever thing.  I remember a commercial for some new wonder pill that was like $200 or something a bottle.  They say it’s not for the "casual dieter".  WTF is that?  I thought casual dieter was someone who wore jeans and a t-shirt while grilling their chicken breasts outside, rather than a tuxedo or something.  The idea of a "casual dieter" struck me as idiotic, but they’re out there.  Once a year (Jan 1 perhaps?), they swarm into the gym, make a run on tuna, drop they 5-10 lbs, and then you don’t see them again…until next year.

However, for me, this is something I’ll have to do for the rest of my life.  My 18 year old metabolism is long gone.  To remain lean, I’ll have to work at it every day.  Just getting enough protein, carbs, fats, and total calories in the delicate balance is tricky.  And this delicate balancing act isn’t something I do until I hit 185.  Nope.  I’ll have to do this for the rest of my life.

I suspect that some of the folks on this site have dieted down, reached their goals, and then ballooned back up.  Hell, I know some of you have.  The only reason I haven’t, is that I’ve never actually reached my goals, but that’s the only reason I don’t have a key to that clubhouse.  The problem was, in my opinion, they didn’t accept the changes as being forever.  They wanted the weight to remain the same, but went back to old habits.

For me, the key to weight loss must be in permanently changing bad habits into good ones.  As anyone who’s ever quit any bad habit can tell you, that’s easier said than done, but I can’t help but feel it’s essential.  We replace bad food with good food all the time.  However, we don’t realize that often we have to replace one form of obtaining food with another to make that happen.  For example, instead of hitting a fast food place for dinner after I hit the gym tonight, I cooked before Jenn got home.  Dinner was cooked before I ever left for the gym.  Why?  Because then I didn’t have to worry about how I was going to get dinner, which can lead to hitting up the nearest Wendy’s.

The trick, however, is to cook that dinner well before hand every single day.  Prepackaging foods can work for that, but some folks don’t know what they’ll want from day to day.  I can relate to that.  However, you’d be amazed at the times you can find to cook things in a day.  For example, I cooked two chicken breasts this morning.  One was lunch, the other was cut up for Tom’s Chicken Ranch Wraps.  They were good too…and this was before I even took a shower

Time management is the key to making this thing a forever thing.  If you can’t get it worked out now, you never will be able to make it work for the long haul…so get off your ass and figure it out!

I’m feeling down at the moment, and it’s actually a good thing.  Last  night, I was really feeling my oats for some reason.  I thought I was just half a pound shy of Ronnie Coleman or something, I don’t know what the deal was.  I notice a "two pack" in the ab area, and the blubber there isn’t nearly as thick as it once was.  That’s great.  However, today I started realizing I still have a long, long way to go.

Am I being to hard on myself?  Not really, and here’s why.  I have to be realistic if I hope to have a shot in hell of succeeding at this.  I could lie to myself and say I’m OK now, since my body fat is only at 23 % as of Sunday (It’s probably less now) and move on.  After all, 22 is supposedly not so bad according to oh-so-many tables floating around.  However, I still look like shit, and I have to remember that I do else I let The Animal get caged.

Instead, I felt blubber in various places and was motivated to kick my own ass at the gym tonight.  Jenn hasn’t been feeling well, so I told her to take the day off and rest.  I think her diet has gotten screwed, and she’s feeling ill all the time, so we’re going to try and fix that.  However, I have to sieze it as an opportunity.  I’ve got a killer leg routine worked out…so killer that abs are getting bumped to tomorrow night!  Besides, leg lifts don’t work when your legs can’t move

Sometimes, feeling down about some factor can be a motivating thing, so long as you don’t obsess over it.  Instead, use it as fuel to push yourself farther than you ever have before.  I’ll be thinking about the fat as I power up weights, envisioning the fat going away more and more with each rep. 

I feel horrible about myself, and tonight I’m going to make my ass pay

Yep, sure enough, I have found that I have a new friend.  He’s with me during and after every great workout.  He sticks around for a while, and when I don’t think he’s around, I find him.  I can always count on him to show up.  His name?  Pain.

First, some clarification.  Pain is defined as physical suffering or distress, as in an injury, illness, etc (per dictionary.com).  There are different types of pain.  One, that everyone knows so well, is the kind that comes from an injury.  This is a very bad kind of pain, one that we need to be very careful of.  Another type of pain is soreness.  Try doing some heavy squats for the first time in ages, wait a day or two, and try telling me you’re not suffering…I dare ya.  However, soreness (aka DOMS), is a good thing.  It means you’ve pushed yourself hard, and your body is trying to adapt.

The real trick is knowing the difference.  Honestly, I’d love to tell you how to tell.  However, it’s more of an instinct with me I guess.  Either that, or I just don’t know the difference and I’ve been lucky.  Either way, I can’t tell you.  What I can tell you is that pain is a new friend.  It has to be, for me at least.  Why?  Frankly, I want more than just normal workouts will give me.  I want to be huge and ripped.  That just ain’t going to happen the way things normally work for me in the gym.  I had to hurt.

Injury is bad, we can all agree.  However, I can’t help but think that my lack of gains as a young man weren’t because of bad genetics (though that probably didn’t help), but because I just didn’t know how to really train.  I’m not sure I do now even…though I’m ready to push more and more into that realm of pain to find out.

As I’ve said before, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

Average /?æv?r?d?, ?ævr?d?/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[av-er-ij, av-rij] typical; common; ordinary: The average secretary couldn’t handle such a workload. His grades were nothing special, only average.

Most people, by definition, are average.  I, however, am not.  I’m an athlete.  I compete day in, day out.  My competition isn’t against another team, but a darker enemy.  Within myself is a beast most foul, the Darkness.  The darkness is the part of my that, until recently, ruled me with an iron fist.  The Darkness makes one ordinary.  It tells people to eat the donut.  To have a slice of cake.  Have some fried chicken.  The Darkness held all the cards.

However, within myself, was a revolution.  The Animal came out.  The Animal is a primal force that doesn’t tolerate mediocrity, doesn’t tolerate average.  The Animal is The Darkness’ worse fear.  The Darkness tries to cage the Animal as much as possible, but it won’t last.  The Animal refuses to surrender, and will never break.

The Animal doesn’t tolerate average.  Instead, he strives for excellence in all things.  He never stops pushing to be better at anything he sets his sights on.  The Animal’s presence is what makes me an athlete. I am more than most.  They sit around and watch TV, wondering if they can get in shape, but doing nothing about it.  They pray for a miracle drug that will not only burn fat, but make it possible for them to run a marathon.  The Animal knows better, and even if it did happen, it wouldn’t matter…that’s the easy way out.

The Animal fights The Darkness every day.  The Animal feast for battle on iron and quenches his thirst with sweat.  He battles the Darkness to keep my soul from falling into average or worse.  Each day they fight, The Animal to keep The Darkness away, and The Darkness to cage The Animal once again.  It is an age old battle, as old as time itself within my soul.  Some day, The Darkness may cage The Animal, but it will not stay that way forever.

Only the Animal can help me reach my goals.  It shows it’s fangs when I growl during a workout.  It unleashes itself during the Rite of Iron.  The Animal must fight this battle each day anew, lest The Darkness cage him again.  Each day, The Darkness tastes steel and is vanquished for the day.  Only The Animal can do this within myself each day.

I am The Animal.  To The Darkness I have just one thing to say:

Bring it bitch.  You ain’t got shit!