Scott’s BodyBlog

Inspired by the hillarious thread on bodybuildingdungeon.com, "You Know You’re a Bodybuilder When…", I’ve decided to list my own top 10.

How I Know I’m Bodybuilding Training

10. My cell phone has alarms set at intervals to remind me when to eat.

9. It’s Friday night, I’m training in the gym while everyone else is out partying.

8. My kitchen counter looks like a science lab.

7. I have skin firming lotion and stretch mark cocoa cream for pregnant women in my bathroom.

6. My legs are smoother than most girls I know.

5. I never pass up an opportunity to flex (triceps!) in a mirror or something reflective.

4. I eat not for taste, but for results.

3. I wake up thinking "it’s squats day!" then I’m anxious all day like how I’m gonna have to fight the bully after school.

2. I read the nutritional content labels — on bottles of water.

1. The Arnold Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding is in "the library".

One of the things I enjoy about my life is going to church every Sunday morning. I only started recently doing this about 2 years ago, out of thankfulness to God for everything He has done in my life. I was raised as a Christian, but didn’t feel it was part of my life until I realized much later how much God has done for me, and I became overwhelmed with gratitude.

The Pastor at church today gave a message of optimism and how we should be thinking always about the positive to the point where we think and speak a language of optimism. The Holy Bible has a great declaration about this, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8)

He gave an analogy, that a pessimistic person looks at a glass half full of water and says, "My glass is only half-full, where’s the rest of the water?" whereas the optimistic person says of the same glass, "Wow! Look, a half glass of water, how wonderful! Thank you!"

This is a choice we make. We don’t have many choices, but to be optimistic is one choice that we can make.

The Pastor was in Honolulu and visited a big historical church. He walked around, admiring the museum and ended up in the church cememtary. He looked around at all the headstones in the cemetary — some big, some small, all kinds of shapes and sizes with all kinds of epitaphs and quotes. But each headstone had 4 things in common. Each had the person’s name, the date of birth, a "-" dash, and the date they died. Thinking of how to relate this to the coming sermon this Sunday, he thought, "Well, we can’t control our name, really. That’s given to us. We can’t control when we are born. And we don’t really control when we die. So the only thing we have that we control is the "dash". That’s our life, a very little space in time (squeezing two fingers close). That’s where we have the choice every day to be optimistic. And a choice we have to live as good examples of Jesus Christ. We are stewards of a dash, and we should be optimistic with it every day."

Friends, the smallness of the dash of life and that I’m a steward of that dash impacted me not just as a Christian, or someone training to be a bodybuilder, but just as a person sharing this time with you. Be optimistic, surround yourself with optimism, think and speak a language of optimism. On our headstones one day will be our name, when we were born, the date we died, and the dash between those two dates is our life. Make the best of it and be optimistic at home, at church, in the gym, and in all that you do.

Train hard. God bless you, and aloha

I don’t watch TV. But I flipped it on for about 15 minutes today.

Not since moving to Hawaii in 2007, I haven’t watched TV hardly ever. There’s just so much to do here in Hawaii on the Big Island outdoors all year-round, that I don’t have any desire or interest to turn on the TV. There’s hanging out at any number of beautiful beaches — from ones which have plenty of people, to totally secluded postcard-pefect "Corona commercial" beaches that you have to drive 4×4 to get to (the ones I prefer), plus there’s scuba-diving from the shore, kayaking around the coast, and I’ve also taken up stand-up paddle surfing ("SUP"). TV is about the 89th thing on my list of things to-do.

But today, Saturday, the Pacific Island Fitness gym in Kona closes early at 7:00 pm. So I got my workout done just in time for closing, had my creatine and protein shake, came home and showered and it was only 8:00 pm. No one was writing me e-mails or posting comments on my BodySpace page and I didn’t want to talk on the phone, so I was trying to think of something to do. Somehow I ended up in my rec room, sprawled out on the couch, and flipped on the energy-sucking-device. Immediately I was confronted with food ads — Olive Garden (we don’t have one here in Kona, why are they advertising?!?), Wendy’s burgers, Papa John’s Pizza. I started to get hungry. Now, if you looked at my Progress Photos, you’ll see that I went from 278 lbs in late February to 247 lbs just this mid-May — a loss of 30 lbs in less than 90 days! I got this far by training hard with complete dedication… every. single. day. And eating clean. In the beginning of my training, I was eating clean but nutritionally poor. I was basically living off of meat, protein powder, and protein bars. I was having health problems and got on the meal plan offered by the nutritionalist Carol, of Carol’s Cafe of Hawaii at my gym. I’ve been eating ultra-clean (no cheats, except 1.5 pieces of sushi, 9 french fries, and 5 chocolate covered almonds) in the over 1+ months I’ve been with Carol’s great and delicious meal plan.

I’ve never had cravings for cheat foods either, really.

Until the ads for creamy fat-rich garlic-cream sauce pasta dishes were splayed out on the Olive Garden commercials on the TV I turned on tonight. The oozing mozzarella cheese and crispy pepperoni of the Papa John’s Pizza commercial. The saving grace is that NEITHER of those establishments are here on the Big Island of Hawaii (they’re probably in Honolulu on Oahu island). Here, we have yucky Italian restaurants and Domino’s.

I hadn’t eaten dinner and I knew the signs of cheat-cravings coming up on me. So I flipped off the TV with a "Damn you, energy-sucking-device!" (it was only on for 15 minutes, as much as I could bear of it), and went upstairs and dished out the grilled chicken salad that Carol the nutritionalist at the gym prepared for my Saturday dinner meal. I think I dodged a bullet to my clean eating from the TV as the smoking gun with its alluring food commercials, and realized that a big part of my success in staying focused on my fitness goals and eating clean has been the absence of TV in my life. I plan to keep it that way.

My nutritionist at the gym, Carol, who’s also a bodybuilder / fitness / martial arts competitor, sent me an e-mail at 5:04 am, "Scott, I think you should really add the hot-yoga class to your program. It will remove toxins from your body, and stretch the elasticity of the sheath covering the muscle so your muscle will grow, and not be muscle-bound."

At 5:04 am, you could tell me that grunting in Austrian when I lift weights would increase my muscle volume by 5% and it would have made sense to me at the time. What I was doing up at 5:04 am is a mystery to me, even now.

So what is "Hot" Yoga? Well, they crank up the heat (or bring in space heaters) into the aerobics room and heat the room up to about 104-degrees, and then force you to become a pretzel. A balanced pretzel at that. In the bread world of people, I accept that some people are born-pretzels. Me, I’m a big heavy loaf of dark whole wheat. I don’t bend well. In fact, bending me will produce one of two things — a punch to your mid-section, or fart-noises if I’ve had anything carbonated.

I made it a point all day: No carbonated drinks (i.e. Monster Energy Drink, see previous posts). I also made it a point to stay away from all cabbage and broccoli today, just in case.

So, how was hot-yoga?

Let me put it this way: from the introduction, I thought it would be something else and it turned out much worse and never got better. The room was a balmy 104-degrees. All the lights were turned off. The only lights were the erotic flickering flames of scented candles placed all around the padded mats. The background music was Enya, or some other aaahhh-eeeeehhhh-iiiyayehhhhh kinda music. The entire session (I’ve never done yoga before, but I have done yoghurt! Nobody there liked my joke either…booo) Anyway, where was I… Candles. Enya. The next eternity was spent with me profusely sweating buckets while I attempted to follow the slave-driving yoga instructor. I discovered A) I have no balance, and B) my sweat on old gym clothes smells like pee. I mean, I stunk. And I was drenched, from head to toe. My shorts were even drenched. Now, bear in mind that I JUST RAN 9.25 MILES FOR 65 MINUTES ON THE ELLIPTICAL TRAINER right before the hot-yoga class. So I was already exhausted and sweaty.

At the end of the class, we were supposed to say something ("namaste"?) to the person next to us as some kind of greeting/aloha/whatevah’. I turned to Carol and said, "I’m gonna kill you. God bless."

I’m only human.

But that’s not good enough for me. I need to become a dedicated machine. Dedicated to the cause of getting lean, mean, and ripped from traps to calfs.

Although I’m on a meal plan set by the nutritionalist at the gym, I got a call from a buddy to meet him for lunch. I ordered a grilled whole steak sandwich, and when the server asked "for your side, do you want fries, salad, or rice?" (rice? check where I live)

At first I said "salad…" and said it like I wasn’t happy. I was thinking of my set meal the nutritionalist had prepared for me for my dinner — salad with grilled fish. Last night was salad with grilled chicken. The night before was salad with ahi tuna. I basically have a salad every dinner. Somehow, I came up with thinking that since I was going to have salad for dinner, therefore I could have something carby for lunch. "Make that Fries", I said.

Lunch comes, and I toss aside the sub roll. Nope, no bread for me — I’m still good on that, and I don’t like bread much anyway. The steak sandwich, which is now reduced to a steak and tomato and lettuce no-bread sandwich, was a whole steak, about an 8 oz steak which I ate with a fork and knife. The fries. Oh, dear God. I ate about 8 or 9 fries with ketchup and called it quits. I just could not bear the guilt and the shame.

I felt fat(ter) all the way home. I got home, peeled off my shirt in front of the mirror, felt gross about myself, and proceeded to call myself every insult I know and some I made up. "You stupid idiot!" "How could you?!" "F*%#! A@##@&!!" I have printed quotes from my Bodyspace friends which I have taped to my bathroom mirror, "You’re doing great Scott!!!", "Keep up the hard work Scott!", "Wow what progress!", "One more rep for all the pretty ladies!" and I felt I just let them all down. I felt their sad eyes on me, and I was ashamed and disgusted with myself. 9 french fries will do that to ya.

Was it worth the 9 Fries and ketchup? Hell no. I didn’t really want them that bad, I’ve lived without them for months without craving them. Same goes for white rice, and I’m half-Filipino living in Hawaii. White sticky rice to me is like pasta to an Italian. But I haven’t eaten any white rice for 2 months (minus the rice that was in the 1 piece of sushi I ate last weekend, and regretted ever since), so I don’t know what came over me to eat 9 stinkin’ french fries.

I’m sure the damage isn’t as bad as I make it out to be – the physical damage.

But what could be more damaging is the emotional and mental damage I did. I need to get over this and move on, and remind myself that I can be dedicated machine if I want it bad enough, and I really really do.

Our gym in Hawaii has 2 workout areas, the main free-weight "iron" gym and the air-conditioned cardio room. At least when I’m there, most of the girls are in the cardio room, and the iron gym has got all the big Hawaiian dudes (damn, some of them can move some iron).

So I’m working on my Upper body routine in the iron gym, and I’m on shoulders which is about halfway through my workout. I notice everyone looking towards the corner of the iron gym, where the squat cages are. Over there, is a thick (not fat) white woman with tree trunk legs (not fat, BUILT!), and she’s there with two young girls. These girls look maybe, 20-something. The woman is their trainer (so it appears) and she’s coaching one of the girls on high-rep clean and jerk. Wow, did that get my attention and everyone elses! This young pretty girl is doing high rep barbell clean and jerks, and what form! She had great — no, awesome — legs. Strong legs and very shapely! Her form was flawless throughout and she moved some heavy weight.

Well, for some weird reason that cleared the iron gym. Most of the guys pretty much moved out of there, and there was me and just a few guys left working on our own training. I even overheard some sneers about "pink"-something. I just don’t get it — why can’t girls power lift in the same iron gym as the guys? Probably because those girls were lifting more, and lifting better! Man, did I find that sexy.

I’m experimenting with Monster Energy Drink immediately pre-workout. I want to see if I get an energy boost, if it’s long-lasting, or do I run out of steam. It may be too early to be conclusive, but I had a pretty darn good training session. I almost doubled the number of exercises per muscle group than I usually do, however I was not able to increase the amount of weight. I did have that aggressive burst at the end of my sets and was able to push out 1-2 more reps than usual on the last sets. My time in the gym including cardio warm-up was about 3 hours, and I did not run out of steam. I stopped because I had done everything in my plan plus more, and I needed to eat my planned meal before it got too late.

I wasn’t sure whether to try the "green" Monster Energy or "blue" lo-carb Monster Energy drink. I went for the green, figuring the sugar would give me the energy rush.

I’m curious if anyone else uses Monster Energy, and which one you recommend the green or the lo-carb blue. Or, if you recommend totally against it as a pre-workout drink.

One side effect I did not like was the carbonation. Last thing I wanted was to feel gassy and burping during my training.

In the past two months, I’ve dropped a lot fat and been building muscle by controlling my diet and working very hard in the gym. I’m dedicated to this and look forward to working out every day. The temptation to cheat and eat the foods that got me trouble has been all but eliminated. I don’t crave those foods.

But at last night’s poker game at a friend’s house, while everyone was gorging on the pot-luck of food people brought for the game, I quietly sat eating my nutritional salad and grilled ono (wahoo fish) I brought which was prepared for my dinner meal by the nutritionalist at the gym. I was happy eating my salad and fish, but my friends couldn’t help but make fun of it. Worse, they kept trying to tempt me with the bad foods — white rice sushi rolls, desserts, chips, cake, etc. I ate one piece of sushi roll and about 5 chocolate covered almonds and stopped. I felt bad, I didn’t really want that food, it was just there. But the guys kept trying to push it on me, not only trying to get me to eat bad food, but saying that my gym work wasn’t doing much good and before when I was heavier I was "filled in better", and it was relentless all night long.

*I* know I’m doing good and it doesn’t change one thing for me. It actually, if anything, makes me madder and wanting to push out extra reps at the gym to "show those jerks I’m serious."

Wish my local friends would be supportive like the people here on this site. I just don’t get it with all the bring-down crap.

I’m thinking of blogging my meals each day. I signed up for a meal plan at the gym with a nutritionalist. I eat 5 small-medium meals a day.

Teriyaki Flank Steak, Brown Rice, Steamed Veggies (typical lunch)

I’d really like to blog this so I can track how it’s helping me, tie it in with my performance, weight loss, motivation levels, mood, and everything.

Well, let’s start with today:

• 8:00 am Breakfast – My own protein-oatmeal-berry shake. See my BodySpace page for the exact ingredients. The nutrtionalist said it’s dialed-in pretty darn perfect!
• 11:00 am Snack — Half papaya, plain yogurt, chopped up fruit, avocado slice
• 1:30 pm Lunch — Ground beef spaghetti, whole wheat pasta, half sausage, steamed broccoli
• 3:30 pm Snack — Half of a potato skin, stuffed with ground beef, sausage, chopped onion, broccoli, cheese, sour cream (or maybe it was yogurt)
• 8:00 pm Dinner — It’s only 3:38 pm right now (just finished the snack), but I’ll describe last night’s dinner: Grilled sashimi ahi tuna steak, a ton of salad (lettuce, tomato, onion), wasabi dressing, sliced pickled ginger

Grilled Ahi Tuna Steak, Mixed Salad, Wasabi Dressing, Pickled Ginger (typical dinner)

So, this is a typical day of food prepared for me by the nutritionalist at the gym. I workout in the evenings, so I pick up my food at the gym to eat the following day. The dinner I eat that evening when I get back from the gym.

Typical mid-morning snacks

I’ve done several things today, first was to post my Progress Photos. Immediately I had 2 people add me as friends and give me positive comments — thanks! So I also posted my starting weight and waist size when I began training on February 24, 2009 and my present weight and waist size. I feel that I’ve made huge progress in 1.5 months and I’m very excited and encouraged by it. My friend Jeff is a bodybuilder and has a closet full of trophies, and he’s been tracking my progress and giving me pointers. This is really, really exciting for me.

One of the major problems I’ve had in the past is eating right. I wasn’t. So, to take all the guesswork out of it, yesterday I signed up Carol’s Cafe at our gym for my meal plans — 3 meals a day plus 2 snacks for $27 bucks a day. How can you beat that?! Carol is a Nutritionalist, Chef, Personal Trainer and has won awards in women’s bodybuilding, fitness, and martial arts competitions. She said my breakfast routine is actually dialed-in really good, so she’s only having me do lunch, dinner, and snacks with her. She will prepare 2 meals for me to take home, usually a hot meal for lunch and some kind of salad meal for dinner, plus 2 snacks. I just pick up the bag of meals every day at the gym. Here’s my own breakfast:

• 2 scoops whey protein
• 1 tsp micronized creatine
• 1000 mcg (1 dropper) liquid B12
• 1 tblsp flax seed oil
• 1 banana
• 2/3 cup raw oatmeal oats
• water and ice

Blend it, pound it. Take a multi-vitamin with it. The only thing Carol is having me change up is switch to 1/2 a banana, and vary it sometimes with blueberries or mixed berries. Sometimes I’ll have a 6-egg white omellette, in which case she told me to use one less scoop of protein powder and I can add in a link of breakfast sausage, which brings us to…

Shopping at Costco. I just came back from Costco where I bought frozen blueberries, frozen mixed berries, and the sausage that Carol recommended for me to get. What sausage is that? It’s in the deli section of Costco, it’s called "Amylu Apple & Gouda Chicken Sausage". It has no nitrites, no nitrates, no MSG, and only 5g fat per serving. I think this is going to be a very common item for me.