Fat Message in a Thin Bottle

A friend I met at fat camp earlier this year has been struggling every since he got home, so much so that he took another trip back to fat camp, only this time at another location.  Dwayne has his own blog, which you can read here.  You will see large gaps between his posts, during those spans of time he is usually beating himself up and making things worse.

I am here to deliver a little tough love, and for the most part hope to shift his paradigm from short term unsustainable activity to long term sustainability.

A quick digression and backdrop, he’s had similar issues with his weight that I’ve had, a constant ying-yang of ballooning up into the high 300’s and then getting back down to the high 290’s.  When he’s on, he’s on and pushing hard, when I first met him one of his goals was to achieve his RKC (Russian Kettlebell Certification) you can check them out here. 

When he’s on he’s kicking ass, and giving everything he has, yet when things start to head in a less positive direction he really starts to beat up on himself, which turns into a defeatist attitude. 

I say that line with love Dwayne.  One big belly to another!

There is video below of my fellow red shirted fat brother doing a beach workout with Sam at fat camp.  Notice when the tiger is prodded it fights like a tiger.

Back to the main point. 

Dwayne!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After reading your recent blog posts, I’ve made an assumption about one of the issues you are having…stop buying all that technological horseshit which tells you nothing.  Body Bugg, Fitbit, Jawbone, Up it’s all crap. 

Do not use the information those devices give you as if it were providing some type of accurate empirical data.  It’s shit, it’s a huge heaping pile of cow dung, I don’t care about the science, the human body is too complicated for some $100 device to accurately tell you how many calories it’s consumed in a day, and I’m sure most of those devices are based on certain scientific assumption which in and of itself could be completely inaccurate.

I see you posting the number of calories you bruned in a workout, or the steps you have taken in a day, it may feel good, but what is it really doing to how you are conditioning yourself?  I truly believe your desire to purchase these devices is the core of your problems when you get home. 

By using devices like Up, or Jawbone you will end up justifying poor food choices with the idea that you can just work it out.  This is a great idea in theory, and if you do this all the time they have a term for this “EXERCISE BULIMIA”.  Yes I am telling you that when you do this you are acting like a teenaged girl with an eating disorder. 

Are you going to live the rest of your life, having to get on an Arc Trainer or Treadmill every time you have a scoop of ice cream, or a donut as a treat?  I thought the whole point of all of this effort was to have a better quality of life.  In living in this type of cycle doesn’t sound like a better a quality of life, just a more insane one.

I’ve been down this road before, and it allows you to eat shit, because in your mind you think “Oh I’ll just go run or get on the elliptical for an hour and it’s all better”.  This is also the road that got most of us down the road of obesity. 

You say to yourself I can eat this crap now, and I’ll go workout in the afternoon.  Then your insulin levels are so high you are probably having a diabetic attack, so your body shuts down and you pass out.  You don’t go workout, and then tell yourself I’ll go do double the work tomorrow.  Of course you don’t, and then you start this shitty cycle all over again. 

It’s fucking maddening!! 

Horseshit!

If it were as easy as the “calorie balance”, I would already be 200 lbs, be married to Jessica Alba, have a male endowment resembling a donkey, drive a Ferrari, and use my G5 to take Jessica to the Oscars, and I would get to comfort her with the donkey in my pants…point made.

While you are still at fat camp you have to stop trying to balance your calories like a checkbook, because in that checkbook there are no allocations for your hormones, insulin levels, or just general chemical imperfections.  How many times after a weigh in do you see people pissed because they did all the work, ate what we ate, and lose nothing? 

Then the people at the ridge just say, “I don’t know, sometimes you just don’t lose weight”.  What Fitness Ridge does is give you a place to pull yourself from your life, and work on you, it’s a vacuum, but they are by no means a scientific team.  Do they even have a Staff Doctor?    

With your remaining time, start mentally getting ready to go home…

 In your workouts start find other means to push yourself.  During a Mountain Session on the Arc Trainer try and exceed the distance you traveled from the previous session.  On the hikes, try and finish the same hikes at a faster pace, during cardio intervals pick a speed you will carry for the top minute and do it every time, then the next time beat that shit.

Your inability to stay on the path is not because you are lazy, or lack the effort it’s because your head is completely in the wrong place.  Counting calories to establish portion control is vital, I’m still doing it today.  Because I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life eating 10,000 calories, I have to teach my dumb fat brain what 2500 calories looks like in a day.  In this light, count away.

I have a regular commenter on my blog, who says the same fucking shit over, and over, most of the time I think he’s full of shit, but on this one point I agree 100%, YOU CAN’T OUTWORK BAD NUTRITION!

Teach yourself to eat before you teach yourself to work.  Focus on the food, focus on the right foods, and things will get better, but using the manipulative computerized shit just programs your brain to think you can always save your bad eating with good exercise.  That’s crap!

I think of the Jawbone, UP, Fitbit, and Body Bug like all the crap bad golfers buy to improve their golf swing.  I know you have made fun of someone you know who has every fucking gadget to improve his swing, but never takes a lesson, or goes to the driving range to work on his, or even attempt to study what is wrong with his swing. 

It’s because we all want a magic bullet, that secret recipe, well buddy I hate to tell this to you it exists, and you can’t buy it.  It’s inside your head, and it’s in you.  You have change how you think about the work ahead of you.

In returning to the work part, don’t just think about time, or purely distance, make it competitive.  Competition helps to breed success; if nothing else from Crossfit I’ve learned how to sustain a constant high output. 

It’s hard for me to keep the intensity on my own all the time, doing the same bullshit cardio machines over and over, and it’s hard to find the fire, but when my brain is challenged all the time to beat specific personal thresholds, I find the will, and when pushed to beat certain people I not only find the will, but the mojo too.

We did a WoD today that involved doing one handed kettle bell snatches.  I’ve never done these before, but my work with Michael C in Malibu makes confident in working with Kettle bells.  The prescribed weight was 53 lbs, most of the people in my class picked the 35 lbs kettle bell, even people who normally do the workouts prescribed picked the 35 lbs kettle bell, being the big bitch that I am I grabbed both.  I started with the 53 lbs, and used the 35 lbs as safety net if the other one got too heavy.

I never touched the 35 lbs kettle bell, because inside I said to myself fuck this today I am going to out work these guys on this one thing because I fucking can. 

With your remaining time there stop using all of those useless technological devices, don’t even use a heart rate monitor.  Set a target, like running 8 mph on the treadmill for each part of the top of the Cardio Intervals, or doing Mountain all on the treadmill running, no walking, run the entire time. 

Don’t deprive yourself of food, if you’re hungry eat fruit, eat a snack, and eat the extra egg you get in the morning.  There is a difference between controlling your intake, and depriving your body’s innate desire to survive.

I guess what I am saying you have to fix how you think about this endeavor; it’s not a fucking journey, journey’s end at some point.  This is an evolution; evolve your thinking, yourself, and your life. 

The name of the game is long term sustainability; we can do anything for a short time in a vacuum.  You learn far more when you expose the vacuum to the outside air.  Find a way to make it work for you in the long run.  Pick a path that is sustainable, you have tried other ways when you go home, and we both know they weren’t sustainable. 

They guy I met in Malibu, who did the Beach Workout with Sam can handle this shit, he just has to get his mind right, and change the way he thinks about the work.  On a personal level you and I both know, you can’t make any more trips back to Fitness Ridge, beyond the financial cost, there are bigger issues involved now, don’t let your fear of change be the reason you bring stress to your life.

You can finish this strong, you can finish this all the way, and I don’t want to have to come out Indiana to whoop your ass.  One because I want to go to Indiana as much as I want to visit Juarez during a cartel war, and two because I would probably get lynched whooping a white man’s ass in public.

Video below from my WoD today.  You have that same fire, find it, and learn to fuel it.