rawlife’s BodyBlog

   After helping my brother move the other day, my lower back is killing me.  I have slipped a disc or discs too many times to count and I can tell they are on the verge right now.  Been doing a lot of Mckenzie’s and stretching the hams and glutes quite a bit as well.  I think I’m going to make it through this one alright.  Another cool little bit of news is that I am starting to get little spasms here and there in my calf again.  I haven’t had full control over it for 2 years now and it would be nice to get that back-it’s much smaller than the other.  I just have to make sure that I don’t do any excessive sitting or anything particularly dangerous for the next few days/weeks.  Unfortunately though, I planned a little road trip this weekend to Malmö.  That’s about an 8 hour drive.  I’ll have to sit very straight for a good long time! 

  In other news: I am a dork.  I got into a great rythem last week of going to sleep at around 9.30-10 and waking up at 6 or slightly earlier and I loved it.  I want to keep it up.  I got off it a little with some late night conversations with my on again/off again girlfriend, but now I want to get right back on.  As I write this blog entry, I am chatting with her right now.  Sometimes it’s so hard for me to end a conversation just to go to bed.  I just have to keep in mind how much better I feel waking up naturally rather than with an alarm.  It literally changes the whole day in a huge way.  I think sleep is probably the most underrated thing in everybody’s health and bodybuilding repitoire-especially health!  The other thing I have to keep in mind though, is that everything doesn’t revolve around bodybuilding and fitness.  If I am going to bed early just to get enough sleep to recover from the workout, then I would rather stay up and talk to the girl or whoever.  I now consider enjoying life in general, more important than bodybuilding.  I have been so negligent of my social life that I feel like I really have some catch up work to do.  And I plan on doing it. 

   Went through a bit of a tough period there for the last two weeks.  First, I had a few too many cheat days and went through some pretty severe detox.  Then when I ate the high meat, I Really started detoxing.  I don’t know if it was just coincidence or what, but that was when I really started coughing up stuff.  I pretty much don’t ever train when I am not 100% or real close, so I missed about a week and a half there.  Had my first workout the other day, did some legs.  Then yesterday I helped my little brother move for about 8 hours which has left me with way worse soreness than the leg workout did.  Today, I did some back, bis, and forearms.  I never trained forearms much before, but I have to tell you how much I enjoy it now.  Same with midsection.  All the little nuance muscle groups are so much more enjoyable now.  Funny that I consider midsection a nuance muscle group, but for a guy that only carried about getting huge and seeing my chest, back, and thighs grow, it really was!  I really get a kick out of it. 

    I have to admit, I have been experiencing a renewed sense of enjoyment out of bodybuilding lately.  It doesn’t feel like it once did, but I don’t think that was healthy anyway.  I might just be starting to develop a kind of healthy desire to bodybuild again.  You might think this is funny, but a big worry of mine is having my head look too small for my body.  I don’t have a particularly small head, but I think people don’t quite realize how fast this happens!  This phenomenon is rampant in the bodybuilding community and it must be adressed.  I am growing a beard right to combat it.  I think even the average lifter often looks like his head is too small for his body.  Granted, it does have a lot to do with the fact that so many people have shaved heads or very short haircuts these days.  Well no more!  Those days are as good as gone for me. Good as gone baby, good as gone.  Goodbye GQ Paul. Hello Viking. 

Several weeks back, or maybe a month or so, I went off the diet a bit more than my body could handle, obviously, and now I am paying for it.  This is as close to a cold as I really come these days-still feel pretty much like myself but I’m hacking up all kinds of junk.  Anyway, I come prepared: about two months back a put a little leftover raw beef in the fridge to ferment.  I’ve been taking it out every week and exposing it to the air for a few brief moments before I put it back in the fridge.  Now it’s very old and very stinky: the perfect probiotic.  Anyone who knows me, knows I love my probiotics, as all creatures should.  The Native Americans used to make this ‘high meat’ for the feeling it gave them(from the bacterial content), hence the name.  I’m eating it to help clean me out a bit and assist in this detox I am already going through.  To be honest, I am at the very end of it anyway, but I thought I’d give this a go-I made this stuff for a reason, afterall.  I had some last night and I woke up very nauseous in the night, but didn’t actually throw up, so I had some more today.  It does not taste very good, but I feel very drawn towards eating it anyway.  I know that a lot of animals, maybe the vast majority, often instinctually eat putrid/fermented things when they are sick specifically for the additional bacteria.  My cat actually did this when he was towards the end of his life and very sick.  We had fed him regular cat food for the his whole life and at the very end, we switched him to raw.  He got dramatically better after barely having been able to move around.  Long story short though, he pretty much refused to eat the food until it had sat around and purtrified for a couple of days, then he would gobble it up.  Pretty neat how nature works.  He died in the end, but he really did get a whole lot better real quick when we switched him over.  I bet it didn’t take more than just a few days before he went from moving in literal slow motion and barely being able to sit down, to running and actually jumping around.

…is the way that suits you and your goals best at any given moment.  This is coming from a sold HIT trainee.  Sold in that high intensity, low volume work works best for me-it’s what most efficient.  Having said that though, I almost have to recant, because the truth is that HIT is only what works best for me most of the time.  There are times when I’m not mentally ready for a HIT session.  There are times when I don’t think HIT sessions are fun(and this is very important).  And there are times when I would rather just stay in the gym a bit longer and enjoy the pump and the exercises for more than just 15 minutes, or I want to hang around to impress some girls, or I want to socialize with people during the workout(yes, I do this and I am very proud of it). 

   How many bbers do you think didn’t make it to the O stage because they didn’t do Jreps?  How many do you think didn’t make it to the O stage because they didn’t do heavy negatives?  All of these tactics are still just different ways of reaching overload.  That’s it.  The most important thing is that you reach overload and let the body recover fully inbetween sessions-or at least enough to continue to make progress without running yourself down. 

   Everyone’s goals don’t revolve around getting the most muscle in the shortest period of time.  The gym is a place for people to learn and grow and should be left at that-people should be able to use it in the any way they see fit.  Long periods of time, short periods of time, whatever.  The most efficient way to put on muscle is to do the routine that is best for you on the day in question, rather trying to militarily stick to one type of training. 

   Every exercise is an exercsise for the weakest link in the chain, and every repitition is a repitition for the weakest area in that range of motion.  As long as you don’t ignore anything, you are always working your weak points!  It’s set up for you to succeed.  Just like everything else. 

    I’d just say I’m having a hard time seeing any reason to continue pushing my physique-in regards to how it looks.  I am kind of attracted to getting stronger; in fact, I think it’d be fun to be a whole lot stronger…but even then, what’s the point there?  What do you do with it once you’re there?  The constant awareness of being strong and a great physicial specimen only get’s me so far.  It’s become real clear to me that the point of all of this stuff is not to achieve it, not to have it; it’s to get there.  And if I am having a hard time seeing any reason to ‘get there,’ then it might be the case that I don’t have that much left to learn in regards to this particular subject-meaning, I’ve already learned pretty much all the lessons that I would going through the dieting, the intense training…etc.

   My interests nowadays are very dominated by the idea of taking what we have already and making it perfect.  Building the fully functional, strong, aesthetically pleasing physique within the confines of healthy living and sustainability-without that, it seems very destructive, selfish, and pointless to me.  It has become less and less important to me to be better than the next guy; in fact, I would say that I can see myself almost not caring about that at all real soon.  The fact of the matter is that I am, very likely, not going to be the next greatest bodybuilder that ever lived in regards to physique alone…but to be honest, I think that real soon pretty much everyone is going to forget about that goal anyway.  More and more people are going to start wanting to just be the best they can be, and the best we can all be encompasses a whole lot more than just a good physique.  It includes being healthy, definitely happy, and fully functional(haha, that’s something I need to work on).  This is the direction I want to lead people in.  One of the biggest things I have to work on is my tolerance for others and I guess you could even say, my arrogance.  I have known, deep within, for a long time, that everyone has to be allowed to do the things they are most drawn towards doing, but there are still so many occasions where I don’t ‘feel’ that thought.  There are many times when I just look down at the people who are doing the very same things I was doing just several years back-these are the times when I am most confused, because no one truly understanding of the nature of life would do that.  Everyone has to feel ok about living the lives they feel most drawn towards living, no matter how destructive-they have to be allowed to feel, to think, to be who they are.  But it’s not going to last long.  Bodybuilding is very symbolic of a lot of things that aren’t going to last long in the near future-the bigger is better mentality, the consume until you literally can’t consume any longer mentality, this banging our heads against the wall kind of lifestyle that makes people strive for years and years for the tiniest improvements-physical improvements, that are only noticed by others doing the same thing.  What it all adds up to is people worshipping their sense of comfort, or their ideas of how life ’should’ be(I am very guilty of this).  Instead of living for happiness, love, truth, health-things that last, we worship a constantly changing, ever increasing sense of comfort or mold that can never be reached for more than mere moments. 

Life just doesn’t seem exciting if I do the same things day in and day out, like everyone keeps telling me to do.  The idea of cultivating relationships and throwing myself into my work is appealing, but I’m just not quite at that level yet.  I definitely do those things at times, but the explorer/adventurer in me is still very alive and well.  It was awakened after being introduced to Arthur Jones(no personally).  I want his stories, I want his memories.  I want to have a lot of the kind of memories that just make me ahh in wonder and have to shake the chills off my own spine.  I’ve really just scraped the surface of that so far.  It’s something that I’m pretty sure I need to experience a whole lot more of or my life will not go according to plan.  I remember before I left for the arctic adventure on Svalbard and in northern Sweden, a lot of people were telling me that I was self destructive, asking for danger and they were even hinting at death.  That couldn’t be farther from the truth.  I wrote a bit about this one day on the back of a bill or something-when I get inspiration, I just feverishly write on whatever’s available.  When it comes to living life, you have to do just that.  The point of life isn’t to delay death.  Death is delayed in the process of living life as your spirit dictates.  Living life so as to put off death or, as most people do, so as to keep from being uncomfortable(that’s actually different from living to stay comfortable) is just going to draw those things toward you even more.  They have then become your focus; focus cannot not be on the negation of something.  Focusing on putting off death, is focusing on death.  Focusing of keeping from being uncomfortable is focusing on discomfort. 

   So what I ended up telling my family and friends in reference to my cautiousness and what not was "I’ll be as safe and and cautious as my sense of adventure will allow."  The point, first and foremost, was to have a great adventure.  It was NOT to be as safe as possible and try to have as good of an adventure as I could while attempting to not get hurt-my deep desire to live on tell stories about my advetures takes care of that part automatically.  I noticed, while writing my long diatribe, that there is a kind of give and take with danger and fun when it comes to adventures.  You know, you can have plenty of fun without any danger at all-ie: laughing and being an idiot with friends, but that’s not really an adventure.  Part of what makes the adventure an adventure is not being conciously aware of whether or not you are going to be ok in the end-that’s the exitement, and the real fun is when you get out of it and you have an awesome memory, another notch on your belt. 

   I really need to go somewhere, do something, be out in the wild, not eat for days, get lost.  I want to live James Bond’s life combined with Arthur Jones’. 

Seriously, my body is loving this raw chicken.  It’s been so long since I’ve had it.  Like I said in my last update, it’s much harder to find organic chicken here in Sweden than it is in the States.  Luckily, it’s easier to find organic beef.  But right now, my body is diggin this chicken and I think it shows.  I’ve gained about 2 lbs in the last couple of days and if I’m going to be totally honest, I’ve lost some bodyfat as well.  I’ve never gone this low carb either and felt so good.  I bet I’m under 75grams, maybe under 50. The key is the fat intake.  Not only are raw fats both nutritious and delicious but they’ll also sustain you a whole lot better than their cooked counterpart. 

  The workout went well today, rocked some chest/shoulders/tris.  That’s a new thing for me as well-a split routine.  For the past couple years I have relied totally on fullbody HIT style workouts.  I haven’t done splits for a good long time and it feels great.  Saying all this, I kind of feel like an old timer revisting his past, but it kind of is that way.  I’m combining a lot of what I did back in the day with my knowledge and understanding of today.  It’s kinda cool and feelin pretty good.  So basically what I’m doing now is a split routine like I used to do, but with high intensity and very low volume which I’ve learned works better for me today, on top of my raw diet which I’ve been doing for the last 3 years or so; and now my latest addition is the near cessation of all sugar.  I’ve become increasingly aware of how sugar addicted I am.  It doesn’t really matter if it’s just fruits, or fruit/protein smoothies(honey, raw eggs, unpast butter)that I binge on, it’s still sugar, and I now see what a huge impact it has had on my life.  I really feel almost like a new person.  Not tired at all, feel even more vibrant, definitely more muscular, and I even PUT ON weight.  We’ll see what my numbers are like next week, but if this keeps up then it could really spell lifelong lifestyle change for me.   BAM!

I’m in the middle of my fresh raw chicken here, and all of it’s goodness, and I thought of one last little thing that I didn’t mention in the blog below: I picked up a great tip from Dr. Aajonus Vonderplanitz at one of his seminars a while back and that was, if you’re trying to pack on muscle, always to eat the fat first.  Eat the energy rich, nutritious, organ sparing raw fat first and then after that go for the muscle meat.  This one little tip has been a great helper to me and I’ve used it or at least thought of it probably everyday since I heard it.  So right now I just had the big flap of raw fat inside of the chicken and in a couple of minutes, I’ll kill the meat.  And in case anyone’s wondering, of all the raw meats, raw chicken tastes closest to it’s cooked counterpart.

I really have to start converting everything from SEK to the dollar in my head now before I buy anything, because I bought a 60$ chicken today.  I am used to high food costs because I always buy EKO/organic, but that was a bit much.  Since moving back to Sweden, I have had to adjust my normally very regular diet a bit.  In the states, I’d eat fresh raw chicken pretty much everyday, but here it is much harder to find.  Strange, considering the average grocery store actually has far more eko/organic products than the average one in the states.  Anyway, I’m glad I found it because I am getting tired of beef-my body is wanting something else now.  Although, i have been eating a lot of raw salmon lately, which is something I’ve never done before-salmon has never appealed to me all that much.  Now that I’ve taken out pretty much all sugar though(most fruits included), I am trying to bump my fats to new heights-even though they’ve always been much higher than what most everyone else eats.  I remember researching the Inuits when I was college, their diet consisted of what, today, would be considered a frightening amount of fat. Still, until the western(sugar laden) diet made it’s way into their society, they were, for the most part, a disease free society.  So, as usual, I will eat not just the muscle meat of my chicken but the organs and some small bones as well.  I miss that with beef…it’s harder to find anything but muscle meat when it comes to beef.

I have about a a 3/4 kg of salmon that I am about to consume.  I just drank some Kombucha not long ago though, so I should wait a bit…I always wait about half hour after drinking to eat and then about 2 hours after eating to drink again. 

   In other news, I have pretty much given in to being lighter these days.  Life seems to be telling me to stay lighter and not try and force weight gain.  I’m just under 87kg(194lbs), very lean, and seemingly still putting on muscle despite the fact that I am currently consuming probably less than 75g of carbohydrates daily-and those that I am consuming only come from tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and things of the like-water rich, low glycemic veggies and fruits.  I feel great.  This sugar addiction is definitely waning.  I don’t actually mind being lighter, something about it really appeals to my desire to be as effecient as possible-you know, compact yet sturdy and strong.  Same thing with my measurements.  They are probably as small as they’ve ever been, and yet I am still pushing heavy weights in the gym and still feel…not quite heavily muscled yet, but getting there.  We’ll see if that’s in the cards for me. 

   Last, I have some raw meat in my fridge that I’ve been letting rot for the last 2 months or so(it stinks to high hell).  The native Americans used to prepare what they called high meat-it’s very old, bacterial infested, rotten meat that they would eat and get a kind of high feeling off of.  I have actually experienced that before with some really old kombucha that I have made myself and then drank…had to lay down for a while after that.  But anyway, I am not making the high meat to get high, I am making it for the additional influx of bacteria to my system.  I have not led the cleanest life lately and could use a little clean up.