Dear Abs...

Dear Abs,

Why yes, I did deliberately start incorporating a medicine ball into those sit-ups that you hate so much.
Why did I add in the extra weight?  Because fuck you, that's why.
I'm done screwing around with you, so get your shit together.

With Sincerest Hostility,

Jon

It Was The Light, It Was The Angle

I am tall and I am thin
Of an enviable height
And I’ve been known to be quite handsome
From a certain angle and a certain light
– “O’Malley’s Bar,” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
After stepping off the elliptical machine, I officially finished my Captain America-inspired workout yesterday morning sometime around 4:30 AM.
In talking about the results I attained from my month-long commitment to the routine, I mentioned that there is no documentary evidence of said results in the form of pictures.
That’s primarily because there’s no one to take the pictures, and my attempts to do so myself – yes, I did actually try taking some pictures – didn’t really pan out.
Some of that was due to issues of timing and blocking and whatnot, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that a lot of the results just aren’t visible in photos.
In particular, the gains in terms of tone and definition.  They just don’t show up in photographs.  Ultimately I end up looking like the same shapeless mass I’ve always been.
For the results to be seen, I require a certain angle and a certain light.
In my bedroom, with the light above and behind me, for example, my reflection looks pretty cut in the mirror.  In my bathroom, with the light in front of me, not so much.
Anyway, getting back to 4:30 AM on Friday, I had finished up my workout, taken off my sweat-soaked shirt, and I was standing in the kitchen, taking some painkillers (which would be needed as the day wore on), drinking my post-workout protein shot, and taking my creatine supplements.
I happened to catch my shirtless reflection in the kitchen window, and I found myself really wishing I could capture that image to share with the world, because damn.
Much of it was illusion, of course – as Nick says later in the song quoted above when he catches his reflection and sees how handsome he looks, it was the light, it was the angle – and I’m sure the exhaustion was playing tricks on my mind, but I really wished that I looked like that all the time.
*Sigh*  Oh well.

Neither Super Nor Soldier

Tomorrow marks the last day of my own version of Project:  Rebirth, the month-long Captain America-inspired workout program I’ve been following faithfully.
So what are the results?
Well, I’m pretty sure I could land a pretty solid blow to Hitler’s jaw, but I wouldn’t last long against the Red Skull, or even Baron Zemo.
I could probably take Arnim Zola down (in his pre-robot body days, at least).
And I would just flat-out refuse to be seen anywhere near Batroc just on principle.  (Still, cheesy as he is, he’d undoubtedly kick my ass.)
I have no pictures to show you my results, because who would take (or have taken, to document the “before”) pictures?  I’m not about to do some MySpace-style bathroom mirror self-shot, and even if I were willing to ask Scott to take pictures (Note:  I’m not.), I haven’t actually seen him since before I even considered starting the workout.  And without any “before” pictures, you wouldn’t really be able to see the results in the “after” shots anyway.
When I went in for my regular check up the other day, I found that not only was my scale lying to me about my body fat, it wasn’t even giving me my correct weight.  At the doctor’s office, I weighed in at 168 pounds while fully-clothed.  My scale, just a few days prior, put my weight at 174.  It seems unlikely that I lost that much weight in that short a period of time.
So I’m not sure how much weight I actually put on.  I think that was about what I weighed at my last check up.
More subjectively, I can say that there has been a visible increase in my overall bulk, especially in my upper body.  My shoulders are broader, and my chest is bigger, firmer, and more well-defined.
My biceps are only slightly larger, but are substantially more firm, and better-defined than they were a month ago.  Triceps are also more defined.
Forearms don’t appear any larger, though they are more defined (and even more veiny).
As for my legs, only my calves appear visibly larger, though my thighs (and my butt) are both firmer…under the layer of permaflab, at least.
My abs show the least improvement, though there is a noticeable difference.  To be fair, the workout didn’t really do a lot to target the abs.
Beyond my own observations, a few people at work have commented on the changes to my physique, so it’s not just (or at least not entirely) wishful thinking on my part.
So what’s next?
I’m not sure.  I want to take another crack at eliminating the permaflab, so I may put in a solid week of cardio, along with a decrease in caloric intake (focusing on low fat, high protein to a greater extent than I have the past month).
Then I may go back to my previous routine, simply adding in more reps/and or more weight.
Obviously I didn’t expect dramatic results, and I’m both surprised and pleased by the results that I did see, though I wish I had seen some more growth in my arms.
Still, I wasn’t in anywhere near the same kind of shape that Chris Evans was already in when he started preparing for the role of Cap (and, in fact, I’m still nowhere near it), so I knew that I wasn’t going to see the same kind of results.
Then again, a guy can dream, I guess, though ultimately maybe he shouldn’t.

Muscle Memory

(While resting in the midst of a dumbbell fly set)
Me:  (To my muscles)  Look, I don't want to do this any more than you do, but the fact is, we're doing it.  So just suck it up and get through it, and then you can go back to not growing or getting any stronger as a result of this wasted effort.  Deal?
...
So that's kind of the thing.  Increasingly, I begin to suspect that when I recover from a workout, that's literally all I'm doing:  recovering.  As in, getting back to exactly where I was before I started the workout.
All I'm really doing is providing a minor inconvenience to my muscles, which gives them an excuse to ache for a little while before just getting back to normal (or slightly less than normal).
The term "Sisyphean" comes to mind...
Of course, it's pretty well applicable to most other aspects of my life beyond my attempts at getting into better shape...

Saturday Randomness

Earlier, as it was a nice day and, being Jon, I had nothing better to do, I decided to go for a walk.
In the course of my walking I eventually found myself – again, being Jon, having nothing better to do – idly wandering around an all-but deserted Office Depot.
I saw something that I briefly considered buying, but, given that I didn’t need it and could easily find it much cheaper online if I ever did need it, decided against it, and decided that it was time to make the trek home.
However, I decided that, because I didn’t feel like going anywhere else and I was there, I would grab something to drink on the walk home from the cooler near the register.  With limited options, I went with a diet iced tea.
I got up to the register, and the unhappy older man working there scanned it, grunted, then looked over to the desk where people picked up print orders and whatnot, where two other employees were standing around chatting.
”Pat,” the man said, holding up the bottle, “this one never scans.”
The other man – “Pat,” apparently – said, with a certain amount of disdain, “Just scan something else. They all cost the same.”
The man grunted, walked out from behind the counter and over to the cooler, and spent far more time than was necessary trying to pick something to scan, and I stood there thinking, “Of course this is what happens.”
Eventually, the man came back, pushed the bottle towards me, and said, “Take it.”
”Er, what?" I said.
”I don’t want to do that,” he said.  Then he mumbled something that ended with, “customer service,” and said, “Just take it.”

****

Last night I was sitting around watching some show about supermassive black holes on Science Channel, because of course that’s what I was doing on a Friday night, and just idly flipping around through applications and settings on my cell phone.
Out of curiosity, I hit the “search” button and entered, “Why do I suck?”  This brought up results that included an online quiz titled, “Why do you suck so bad?”
Lacking anything better to do (See “Jon, Being”), I decided to take the quiz.  The results stated that I suck because I’m boring.
I said, “I could have told you that.”

****

As boring as I may be, as I went out for my walk and noticed all of the neighborhood kids idly sitting around on the big rocks lining the cul-de-sac, or riding their bikes in circles, I thought, “At least I have a little more excitement in my life than that.”

****

Last week, inspired by multiple viewings of The Avengers, I started on a four-week exercise program based on the program that actor Chris Evans followed to get in shape for his role as Captain America.
After the first day, I found myself wishing that I could just get a shot of the Super Soldier Serum and be done with it.  I’d even be willing to do without the “Vita Rays” that were an essential part of that fictitious program, the lack of which ultimately causes recipients of the serum to go insane.
It’s a pretty intense and difficult workout.  I take some comfort from the fact that the majority of the (extreme) pain resulting from it is muscle pain rather than joint and ligament pain, which indicates that at least I’m probably not doing more harm than good.
I’m setting my expectations pretty low.  Certainly I don’t expect to end up looking as good as Evans, given that I’m a much smaller person than he is and that he was already in much, much better shape than I am before he went through the program.
Even so, I’ve already noticed some amount of benefit from it.  Not so much in terms of size, but in terms of firmness.  At least, once I press through the doughy layer of permaflab and get to the actual muscles located far below the surface…

****

Each day of the program – four days on, three days off – involves a series of one hour and fifteen minute-long workouts, with an hour of that devoted to resistance training and the final fifteen devoted to cardio.
By the time I climb onto the elliptical for the cardio portion, I’m drenched in sweat and pretty well exhausted, and I think, “You know, I could probably afford to go a little easy on the cardio.  Maybe just do ten minutes, or reduce my speed and the resistance level.”  Then I think, “No.  My stupid body needs to learn who’s in charge here, and it has to know that it can’t expect mercy.”
To drive the point home, I sometimes go for more than fifteen minutes.
Of course, the end result is that getting back upstairs, removing my sweat-soaked workout gear, and engaging in simple tasks like washing my hair become a challenge, as I have very little strength left, and throughout the day, I move with the speed and grace of Tim Conway’s old man character.

****

Oddly enough, one of the more difficult aspects of the workout program is that I have to eat a lot more than I usually do.  Given how much I’ve restricted my diet over the past two years, it’s been a bit of an adjustment, and I’ve been making up for my lack of appetite by seriously increasing my intake of protein supplements.
I had briefly considered following the workout that Robert Downey, Jr. followed to get in shape for his role as Iron Man, but that involved taking in over 5,000 calories a day.  No way in hell.

****

The other strange thing has been that I’ve been getting a lot more sleep than usual.  All week long I got at least eight hours each night.  It’s bizarre.
And, given how ridiculously early I get up in the morning, it means that I’ve been going to bed shortly after I get home from work, which only serves to make me even more boring.

The Tale Of The Tape

For anyone interested, here are some figures on my, er, figure:

2010 Starting Weight:  199 pounds*

Current Weight:  165 pounds

Lowest Weight (2011):  158 pounds

2010 Body Fat:  26.1%

Current Body Fat:  19%

2010 Waist Size:  36”

Current Waist Size:  29”**

My lowest weight in 2011 was prior to adding any significant amount of resistance/weight training to my exercise regime; I was focused pretty much entirely on cardio until sometime in the late summer of 2011.  Given that I’ve gone up about 7 pounds, and my body fat actually decreased by 1% since then, I have to assume that muscle mass accounts for much, if not all, of the weight gain.

Overall, I’m pleased with my progress (particularly in terms of my blood sugar levels) and with how much better I look, though I’m still pretty unhappy about the look and feel of some areas.  My body tends to be kind of like a rubber band – when I stand up, it’s stretched tight and I look thin, but when I sit down, it all sort of…collects in the middle.

And while some people talk about having “buns of steel,” I, apparently, have buns of mercury.

Sometimes the looseness and flabbiness makes me feel like I’m a thinner person who simply moved into Jon’s old body and never got it taken in so that it wouldn’t be lumpy, wrinkled, and just generally ill-fitting.  Kind of like the alien in Edgar’s body in Men In Black.

I’m also not as strong as I’d like to be.  What muscles I have seem to be purely for decorative purposes.
And those muscles seem to have absolutely no interest in burning the fat as fuel…

Ultimately, and I admit that it my be a perception issue, I feel that while I look very good relative to how I used to look, I don’t look especially good objectively.  That is, no one who had never seen me at my heaviest would ever be terribly likely to look at me and be impressed.

There’s no way to prove that suspicion, of course, but by that same token, there’s no way to disprove it either, and so, here I am.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I’ve done all this work just to get to the point of looking like a guy in a “Before” picture in an ad for some sort of weight loss/bodybuilding program.

*That was my weight on my first visit to Urgent Care.  I had been at around 210 pounds prior to that, but, as a result of my diabetes, I had mysteriously dropped eleven pounds – unexplained weight loss is one of the symptoms of diabetes.

**It depends on the pants.  If the cut is right, I can comfortably fit into pants with a  29” waist, but, in general, I tend to favor pants with a 31” waist, as 30” and below tend to be kind of binding in other areas, even though they’re loose in the waist.

Pay Attention, Arms And Torso

It was a beautiful day today, with temperatures in the upper 70s, following on the heels of several unseasonably warm days. (Yesterday wasn’t so great compared to the rest of the week, but for mid-March, it wasn’t bad at all.)
As a result, it was considerably warmer in my house today than it’s been for quite some time, so, after I went out and did my usual Saturday morning things, I came home and changed out of my out in the world clothes and into my around the house clothes, and I opted to put on a pair of shorts.
While I was on the patio smoking a cigarette, I happened to catch my reflection in the window of the back door, and thought, “Huh.  My legs are ripped.”
I guess it really shouldn’t come as a surprise, given how many hours I spend each week trudging along on the elliptical with the resistance maxed out, but today was the first time I actually looked at my legs in a while, so it was a bit of a revelation.
In any case, as I stood there turning and flexing and studying my reflection, I said, “Hey arms and torso, see what legs have done?  I want you to do that.”
I don’t think they were paying attention, though.
Of course, the fact of the matter is that I don’t actually work them quite so hard as I work my legs, but honestly, it’s because they won’t let me.  I mean, my legs complain a little about all of the trudging, but they don’t just flat-out give up the way my arms and my core do, and while my legs actually get stronger and defined, the muscles of my upper body seem to get wimpier.
*Sigh*

Sad Little Man

This morning I was listening to Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails while I was on the elliptical.
When I finished - over 1,600 calories in about 50 minutes - I got off and grabbed a towel to wipe off the sweat, and I'd left my Bluetooth headphones on and kept the music playing.
The song featured in the video below was playing, and it occurred to me that it was pretty much the perfect soundtrack music for a sad little man going about his sad little morning routine:




Which is, perhaps, not the most charitable view to have of myself, but what can I say?  The endorphins were wearing off...

You’re So Vein

As much as I hate (HATE.) working out, there have been definite, noticeable positive results from my efforts.

Beyond the improved health that comes from having my blood sugar levels out of the danger zone, and just feeling better in general because of the weight loss (and, I must admit, feeling at least a little bit better about myself), there are the more superficial benefits.

For example, I can actually see the lines that define my muscles, and, though the gains haven’t been quite as significant as I would like, my biceps are considerably larger than they were.

But I think that my favorite change has been the bulging veins in my arms, and in particular in my forearms.  For some reason, more than the lines of definition and the increase in muscle mass, having those big, ropey veins, that are, to my nerdy sensibilities, vaguely reminiscent of the analogous roots that covered the Swamp Thing’s muck-encrusted body, seems like a real sign of progress.

Just thought I’d mention that.