That is Completely UN Scriptural

I have been working out off and on for about a month or so. I wanted to note the following as I proceed to the next phase of my goals – one of which is to lose weight and increase muscle and have a body like Van Damme by time I am 33. I am 31 now. Good luck with that you arrogant son of a gun… 🙂

Where am I today?

I adjusted a vegetarian diet back in May of 08. Back then I weighed about 210-215lbs. I call it a “fast” so I don’t freak people out. What do you mean you don’t want to eat dead animals? Is there something wrong with you? I could ask – have you ever looked one of these animals in the eyes as it was being killed? No? I didn’t think so – let me eat my rabbit food in peace please 🙂

I have been told my numerous individuals that I “look better” since doing the vegetarian thing; however, my weight is now come back up between 225-230lbs and I am not happy about this. 🙁

Digging far back into the ol’ mathematics memory bank, I decided that I needed to look at the body as a differential equation of sorts. It seems that relationships are much the same and I have noticed that many things in life tend to have analogies else where on how things really work behind the scenes. Relationship dynamics equations vs. body equations… perhaps similar to how there are equations in the electrical and mechanical world that are basically the same but just use different methods of representation… for example, a capacitor stores / dampens electrical energy and so does a compressed spring. You may remember physics from back in high-school that the equations for modeling eletrical and physical things are often very much the same even when looking at very different things. A spring and capacitor may be a  bad example, but I hope you get the point.

So, for some reason, ever since 3rd grade I have been over weight. I played outide, sports, worked, etc. yet was still overweight. I do know what started it – bologna sandwiches all summer long with a grandpa who thought I was starving even though mom fed us very balanced meals. Something then triggered either genetically or I somehow managed to reprogram my body to retain fat during that summer and it has been the same ever since. I am now 6 foot 1″ and am often referrred to as “big guy” due to the bulkiness of my muscles. Sheaaah.

Here we are though today. I look okay, but I’d like to improve the weight thing for health reasons and so that my wife will be irresistably drawn to my new van dam like appearance (yes tongue in cheek). Now don’t get me wrong, for the second time in my life – women are finding me attractive again. There seems to be some sweet spot right at about 220lbs where I start getting hit on. That’s not exactly what I want, but it does give the ego a little boost when I get down waiting on my beloved wife.

So… here is the goal, lose 30lbs by next summer. That means I need to somehow spend 105,000 calories by next summer if a pound of fat is 3500 cals. If I currently go with the 2200 calorie a day diet and shave off 1000 per day – that could put me at the desired loss in 100 days give or take provided that the burn rate remains constant. That’s the problem – the body adjusts as caloric intake is reduced. It’s all very simple actually – they teach stuff like this in engineering classes. Since the body then compensates by dropping the metabolic rate – perhaps there are ways to better lose weight than starving for a 100 days? You seeing some parallels with relationship dynamics yet? 🙂

Okay, is there another way? I’ve done the Atkins thing and it works for the first 20lbs or so until the body catches on. Ultimately, no matter what diet I try, or heck even since I have been exercising more and generally eating quite healthy – my body has still decided to convert bell peppers and brocoli into … fat. This may be analgous to the success with the marriage last year. There are still some underlying issues though that need to be solved. Time to break out the jack hammer and relay the foundation.

I suspect that what may be occurring is that due to the vegetarian thing, I probably had a loss in muscle – not that I had any muscle to start with other than being a big guy. This loss of muscle may have then allowed for less burning of energy maybe. In addition, my body was somehow reprogrammed to gain weight when I was a young man. It must be reprogrammed.

Firstly, to counteract the lack of protein – I started working out and ingesting something called whey protein. I’ve been told that I am looking thinner – though my weight does not reflect it. Did I somehow gain 15lbs of muscle over 5-6 months? I doubt it, though my strength did go up tremendously within the span of 2 months. I shall continue with this program; however, I need to make some adjustments.

I’m going to investigate the role of the thyroid gland in regulating weight gain / loss. I may look at extra iodine for the old’ thyroid.

I’m going to see about accupuncture treatment for weight loss. I had been doing accupuncture to help with my blood pressure. It concert with other holisitic healing thingies, it seems to have dropped my blood pressure by 30 points in about 3 weeks. Eat your heart out Dr. Jinx – Topral XL and Diovan is for the birds…. the body already had what it needed to drop the blood pressure and I hope the same is true because I really don’t want to starve myself for 100 days thus resulting in further lowering of my metabolic rate.

Beyond this, I’m going to see if I have any food allergies that may contribute to a lower metabolic rate.

That’s all for now. As of this writing I weight 230lbs. I would like to weigh about 200lbs. 215lbs seems to be my lower limit. I had gotten down to 205lbs at one point, but that was during the early stages of the divorce proceedings when I didn’t eat for like two months straight almost 🙂

Other things in the news… me and my mother in law have been doing Bible study together and she has been coaching me on a number of areas as far as better relating to women. Learning a lot still.

One effect is the emotional shutdown and clam up effect. I have known about this for about a year now, but unsure of how to deal with it. I’m still not sure if this is specific to women or not, but I’ll continue to investigate.

I have been looking into options for emergency food rationing and what not over the last year or so. Not to freak out or anything, but apparently the US economy may take a hit or two in the coming year. My sources were right on the money with respect to coming changes in the oil price (down) and a big hit to occur in this month. I’m not saying the sky is falling, but that it is good to be prepared. Preparedness reduces worry in my opinion. To do this, I had to develop a strategy.

One of the things  that comes to mind, is reducing the necessary caloric intake and allowing the body to operate more efficiently and reducing the storage required for emergency rations. I read one report of a man who could survive on water and 9 grams of pond scum each day. I also found sources for cheese and learned on the history channel that cheese can be stored for long periods of time.

So just in case Kroger’s runs out of milk – I figured it would be good to get some emergency rations. I didn’t want to stock the garage full of powdered milk and pinto beans so I looked for a possible alternative – although I do have gallons upon gallons of beans, rice, flour, and various staples stored up. The alternative is called Spurilina.

Spurilina is some sort of dried algae (pond scum) that is supposed to be very high in protien and nutrients that a lot of us under nutrioned but obese Americans are missing. So, I figured I would test out this susbstance not unlike how I am testing accupuncture. I need a test subject…. any volunteers? Me me me as usual is the only volunteer.

I have already been fasting for two days now for another purpose, but did have a shot of whey powder with water yesterday because I didn’t want to give up my strength increases from weight training. I felt that this was cheating a bit though. It was only an ounce of whey powder, but still. This is for spiritual purposes and I need my stomach empty.

I plan to try this spurilina stuff as a fasting supplement and see what it does to my health. It doesn’t look very filling which  should work out okay with my fast. They say it “reverses” cancer. I don’t know about all that, but maybe it will help my hypertension. I also read that when fasting, one should execute a detox otherwise there is no real benefit.

FYI – public service announcement be careful when fasting… when you come off – if you eat a lot of bad stuff (e.g., fried jalopeno sticks and Dr. Pepper) or don’t slowly come back – you can shock your body and the next time you fast it will spend the whole time preparing for the shock instead of purging that cigarette you secretly smoked when you were seven.

Also, don’t avoid water. Drink lots of water. I once did a three day fast with no food or water. Turns out, that was a bad idea to go without water in more literature that I read.

A year ago, if you had told me I would be eating pond scum and water I would have told you are nuts. Times are a changin…. speaking of which, Rosh Hoshana starts tonight.

I really wanted to try out that ol’ Jewish tradition, but since I am fasting… I guess I’ll have to mentally eat an apple in honey. I’ll do that part later, but this coming evening is a time of newness…. the new year for some and hopefully for me.