Speak it, believe it, achieve it!

So I’m in the classroom and a student looks at my hand and asks, "What’s that?" I looked at my palm and replied, "Those are calluses. They’re from lifting weights."

The child, a second grader, immediately responds, "YOU lift weights???"

Oh, YEAH!   There’s one for the Self Esteem book I’ve been writing.

Or maybe a diary entry…

Dear Diary,

Today I canceled my gym membership. This muscle building thing is obviously not working.

Still, it made a great story for the gym and also for my fellow gym-going teachers. There are quite a few who exercise.

THEN    (Jan 7, 2008)

Height: 6′1.0"
Waist: 36"
Weight: 183 lb    
Thighs: 23.5"
Calves: 15"
Chest: 45"
Forearms: 12.25"
Arms: 14.5"
Shoulders: 49"  
Hips: 38.5"
Neck: 14.5"

NOW    (January 27, 2008)

Height: 6′1.0"
Waist: 35.75"
Weight: 174.5 lb  
Thighs: 23.5"
Calves: 15"
Chest: 44.75"
Forearms: 12"
Arms: 14.25"
Shoulders: 48"  
Hips: 38.75"
Neck: 14.5"

One flu/cold bout later! Well, it’s about a ten-pound loss in weight, but not much change otherwise. If I disregard all the changes that were only 1/4" then there’s been basically no change at all. I mean a frigging quarter-inch could mean I was pulling on the tape too much or not enough to register that small of an amount. I boldfaced the stuff that made a significant change. My shoulders took a dump. One entire inch. And I lost 8.5 pounds between those two readings. Bah! Actually, the scale registered at 186.5 since that January 7 posting, so that’d be a whopping 12-pound loss. AAARRGH!!!

I’ll see tomorrow and through the week’s training how much strength I’ve lost. I’m sure my squat is down and probably all other lifts. Still congested and my throat is not right, but I’m heading to the grocery store today to stock the fridge.

Update: 1/28’s numbers were 246 grams protein, 3548 calories, 387 grams carbs, and 4360 mg sodium.

test  

FAIL!

Okay, that actually worked.

Happy Birthday to you, Dr. King.

Pro Bodybuilding Weekly celebrates its 100th show with a rare interview with Mr. Olympia Sergio Oliva!

And it’s apparently been expanded from sixty minutes to a 90-minute format! Suh-WEET!

Big Vic tore a tendon.

Saw "The Bucket List” and “Cloverfield” today and give the nod to Bucket as most enjoyable. I head that Bucket sucked, but found it entertaining and touching. Clover had a pretty cool monster and was fast paced and tricky enough to keep my attention. Hadn’t been to the movies in a theater in a pretty long time.

I didn’t lift today and I think I’m going to give a pass on tomorrow, too.

bring the heat   (verb) The act of adding power to anything. A term typically used in pool. It can be used when a person adds a ridiculous amount of force, often more than needed.

And since a kilocalorie is a unit of heat equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree at one atmosphere pressure and is used by nutritionists to characterize the energy-producing potential in food then "bring the heat" is especially appropriate in the context of gaining some added weight and muscle!

I’m going to up the calories to 4000 and the protein to 250 grams per day. Spending some time this weekend researching low-sodium and high-calorie food items because I’m not messing with that whole water retention "big foot" syndrome again.

Next stop, 200 lbs. This cold seriously p!ssed me off. Here I was all worried about an injury and I get a freaking head cold that knocks ten pounds off my bodyweight and sets back my lifting progress. Bah!

BodySpacer and Gaspari Nutrition representative deserusan wrote:

"Curt,

We’ve selected you as the testimonial of the month which means you won the full line of products. E-mail me your address so we can get the ball rolling and if you are cool with being featured on our website. :)"

Here’s the review journal that got me the positive feedback:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=5751781

Incredible! :)

I was 149 lbs. on Halloween and then jumped to nearly 190 lbs. in just a relatively few weeks. I credit a 3000 calorie per day diet along with 200 grams of protein each day in combination with Gaspari Nutrition’s Novedex XT and SuperPump250 for my increase in weight and strength (bumped up my bench, close-grip bench, and squat by 30 lbs. in all lifts).

So I’m not too shook up that I’ve lost ten pounds during the past few days as a result of one of them thar common colds (thankfully not too common for me, actually). My bottle of NyQuil was nearing its expiration date, so I count it pretty rare for me to suffer from those flucold-type symptoms.

The scale at Planet Fitness had read 190.2 lbs about a week ago and today I could only squeeze 180.0 out of the sucker. Zoinks! Where’d that weight go alla sudden??? Of course I’ve only been eating jello and DayQuil recently, sooooo…

Still have some pretty good congestion and a sore throat, but I’m feeling a lot better. Didn’t miss a day of work and only skipped one workout, but have to say that a few of them were simply going through the motions at best. Interesting to me was that two of the workouts at the very beginning of the cold were really strong workouts even though I was feeling like absolute D-I-R-T.

Anyway, looking forward to resting up this weekend and then hitting the iron and the refrigerator hard and heavy once again.