Tag Archives: Fat

Home Gym vs Commercial Gym

Posted by Tim on

Whenever I’m with someone and we start talking about lifting weights or anything along those lines, the question is always asked – “So, what gym do you go to?” My response has been the same for a long time – “My basement.” There are a number of reasons why I bought my own equipment instead of going to a gym.

That’s not to say that I never went to a commercial gym. Of course I did. I went to the YMCA for a little while, I went to it’s competitor, the “Wisconsin Athletic Club”, for about a year, and I went to a hardcore bodybuilding gym a half hour away called “Animal House”. They all had different problems for me, and in the end I decided to invest in some good equipment and just deck out my basement. I had a few weights sitting around, a bench, but I didn’t have the main piece of equipment that kept me paying commercial gyms to use. The squat rack. Once I bought a rack I never looked back. (Hey, that rhymes!)

The reasons I finally pulled the plug on commercial gyms vary quite a bit. Some problems were minor nuisances, others annoyed the hell out of me. Here’s a short list of the reasons why commercial gyms suck.

1. Limited Hours. Most gyms are not open 24 hours. I don’t expect that to change. While there are a few gyms (Snap Fitness, Anytime Fitness, etc) that are open all day, these gyms usually lack the equipment I use. When I gym is open 24 hours the owners don’t always have someone working there. That means they have to limit the type of equipment they have. Anything that can be stolen isn’t there. That means there won’t be dumbbells, barbells, plates, or kettelbells. It’s most just machines.

So, we’re back to gyms that have the equipment I want, but aren’t open 24 hours. I work late some nights, and I occasionally get the urge to work out after midnight. I can’t do that at most gyms; but I can do it at home.

2. Driving Distance. Again, this isn’t always a problem, but for a picky lifter like myself, it is. The coolest gym I found was an old school bodybuilding style gym. This place looked like it hadn’t changed since the ’80s. It was (and still is) awesome. The problem? It was a half hour away. It’s hard enough to find a gym that’s made for people who actually want to exercise (instead of socialize), but finding a gym like that in a comfortable driving distance? Not likely.

Driving became a real pain. Get in the car, drive for 20 minutes, work out, then be sore and tired and have to drive another 20 minutes home. Forget it.

3. Equipment Availability. Ever have to wait to use the machine that you want to use? I’ve been there countless times. It’s especially frustrating when you’re timing everything out. I should only be resting for 30 seconds, but I’m forced to wait for some idiot that’s been hogging the pec-deck all night. Not only are the machines often not available, but when they are available they’re covered with sweat. Just great – I had to wait 5 minutes to use the machine, and now I have to sit in some strange guy’s ass-sweat.

Why wait for equipment? Just buy it, and that way it’s available whenever you need it. No waiting ever again!

4. No Annoying People. I don’t want to hear your cell phone ringtone. I don’t need to hear about your party this weekend. I don’t find your laugh the least bit tolerable. People annoy me. They especially annoy me when they wear white wife-beaters, smell like cheap AXE body spray, and talk loudly. I can’t handle it. Then there are the other people. The disgusting old people that walk around the locker rooms butt-naked. Their junk is just hanging out, and they come over and talk to you all nonchalant like. These are the same guys that choose to use the machines right behind the girls on the ellipticals, just so they can look at some young girl’s ass.

All these kind of people I can do without. I think we all can. Unless you’re on of them. Then you deserve to be around people just like you.

5. Music. I love music. It’s a huge part of my life. And like most people, I like listening to music while I work out. I don’t, however, like to listen to Top 40 while I work out. I don’t have anything against Ke$ha, or Katy, but it’s just not good workout music. Give me some DevilDriver, Pantera, or Rage Against the Machine, instead. I also hate earbuds. For one, it’s damaging to have music going directly into your ear (instead of using the entire earlobe, like it was designed), but it’s also a pain when I’m working out. I move when I work out. When I do power cleans those earbuds come right out. Music from external speakers is a must.

I don’t put up with music I don’t enjoy when I work out. Therefore, I work out at home and I can blast heavy metal or gangsta rap all I want.

In the end, I invested about $4000 in my home gym. I slowly bought little pieces of equipment, until I had everything I wanted. If you are seriously interested in lifting, I strongly encourage you to get out of the commercial gyms. For me it changed the way I work out, it changed my mood, and it saved me time and money in the long run. If you can invest a little money at a time, and slowly build a good gym, you’ll reap the benefits for a lifetime.

Do Your Priorities Match Your Budget?

Posted by Tim on

“You’re such a health nut!” Yeah, shame on me, right? All I want is to be healthy. You know, feel good, have lots of energy, get sick less often, live longer. Silly old me. Well, if I’m a health nut, what’s does that make the people who aren’t health nuts? Unhealth nuts? Death nuts?

(Before I go any further, I’d like to admit that I stole the whole “death nut” thing. I’m not positive, but I think Chris Shugart wrote about that on T-Nation a few years back. He used to (probably still does) have regular posts in a section of the T-Nation forum called “Shugart’s Hammer”. There’s a lot of good reading there, so I suggest you check it out.)

Back to the point! Why exactly is being a “health nut” a bad thing? Why is taking pride in your body and well-being something we should feel ashamed about? On the list of “most important” in our lives, isn’t health pretty high up there? For me it’s #3, right after a relationship with God, and my family. (Yes, I would put my family before my health. How altruistic of me.) I argue that what we say is one of our highest priorities really isn’t. In fact, it’s probably pretty far down on the scale.

I understand God being #1 in people’s lives. (I also understand God not being on the list. I really don’t understand God being somewhere in the middle.) I also understand family and close friends being high on the list. After those two, what else is usually next? For myself, and for a lot of other people, it’s health. Our health is more important than our jobs, it’s more important than our houses and cars, and it’s more important than money. That makes sense. You can survive in a crappy house, but you can’t survive (at least not for long) with a crappy heart.

So, we say health is more important than our jobs, but be honest with yourself. How often do you eat a quick crappy lunch, probably from some fast food joint, just so you can get back to work in time. That 30 minute lunch break doesn’t allow much time for cooking a healthy meal. So, instead of staying at work longer to make up the time, or just asking for a longer lunch break, we put our jobs first, and shovel poison into our mouths. (That’s right – poison. Call it like I see it.)

Is your house more important than your health? Of course not! No point in having a house if you aren’t alive to live in it. Sure, it might be nice to die in, but that’s a rather negative view on what a house should be for. So we buy a house that might be a little more than we can afford. Not to worry; we’ll cut back on other things. Like… Food? Gym memberships? That healthy grass fed beef is too expensive; those cage free chicken eggs are too expensive; those organic vegetables are too expensive. You know what else is expensive? Heart surgery. Cancer. Diabetes.

Take a close look at your priorities. We may say one thing, but what do our actions represent? The health of our nation is absolutely embarrassing, and there’s no excuse for it. We go in debt for just about anything else (cars, houses, clothes, electronics) but how about we put that money where it matters. Do your priorities match your budget?

The Seven Deadly Sins (Part III)

Posted by Tim on

About time for part III of this series. I must admit I almost forgot about it. Whenever I can’t think of something to write I’ll go back and reread my old posts, looking for ideas. Well – here’s an idea for ya, Tim! – Finish what you started!

In case you’re unfamiliar with the last two posts, this is a series of blog posts on the “Seven Deadly Sins”. The sins are pretty simple, and they’re things that are ridiculously common in the world today. Already discussed are wrath, greed, sloth, and pride. You can find the earlier posts here >> (Part I, Part II). That leaves only three left – lust, envy, and gluttony.

Lust is pretty much rampant in 90% of guys in America, myself included. Lust not only includes the random one night stands, but also just the lustful thoughts that so many of us have. Women are guilty of it too, by the way. Instead of looking at the opposite sex as individuals with value, we often look at them as sex objects. I know I’m guilty of judging a book by it’s cover. Look good? Ok. Not so good? Eh… Stay over there. How many problems does this produce? I bet the whole feminist movement would have been drastically different if it weren’t for men and women being so lustful. And think of the countless marriages that lust destroys. Lust, although it can be fun – can be dangerous.

I don’t know if any of the sins has received more news coverage in the last year than envy. Maybe you missed it, but it had to do with 99% vs 1%. Oh sure, “income inequality” was the guise, but envy was the reality. Some people were jealous of other people’s money. But where does this kind of talk get us? Instead of looking at what other people have, look at what they don’t have. Someone may earn a bigger salary than you, but they also might have a bitter ex-wife, and estranged kids because of their awesome paying job. Jealously leads to friendships ending, marriages getting tangled up over money and houses, neighbors fighting, and just unhappiness all the way around. Envy is a leading cause of hate, and hate is a leading cause of unhappiness.

And how could I forget. My favorite sin – gluttony. Well, America (and Australia too, actually) have taken this to a whole new level. In general, gluttony is just consuming too much. It doesn’t need to be food, but that’s just what everyone thinks of when they think of gluttony. Nickelback came out with a song late last year titled When We Stand Together. One line says “We could feed a starving world with what we throw away.” How true! But it’s worse. We could feed a starving world with what we overeat! Take some of your fat and give it to a starving kid in Africa. Do you really need 3 Big Macs?? Our health problems, many of our money problems, and once again, our happiness problems would be solved if we cut down on the gluttony.

As I’ve said before, I don’t mean to sound preachy. These are sins that we’re all guilty of. The point of this is to bring these sins to the front of our brains. Perhaps if we actually think about what we’re doing we’ll try to not do it so much. We’re always going to have sin in this world, but if we minimize the sin in our own lives, we can not only set an example for the rest of the world, but we can change our own lives for the better.

Ranting About Fat

Posted by Tim on

So, I’ve been on this Netflix documentary kick for a little while now. I recently watched one called “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”. It’s the story of an Australian man who is sick, and fat. He comes to America to talk with people about diet and lifestyle. During his time here in the US he consumes only juice. He literally travels around with a juicer in his car.

By the end of the movie he’s lost a lot of weight, and his odd-ball skin condition is gone. He’s also performing better at work, exercising regularly, and helping other people do the same thing. One man he helps loses an astonishing 90 lbs in 60 days! The magical diet – juicing. Put your vegetables in a juicer, and drink up. That’s it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It’s amazing to see these stories. People who are a burger away from a heart attack decide to turn their lives around. And it doesn’t take surgery, or any drastic exercise regiment. It takes a diet of fresh vegetable juice – full of nutrients, and NOT FULL of preservatives, chemicals, and all of the other toxins that are making us sick.

So I watch a movie like that – and then I need to go pick something up from the local grocery store. Boy, is this depressing. I wish it weren’t so – but just looking at our population is nauseating. Rolls and rolls of fat. Everywhere I look. All of them hunched over, using their carts for support. I’m just there to buy some of Uncle Ben’s rice, and this is what I’m forced to look at?! How dare you!

My depression turns to anger. They say depression is rage turned inward. I’m not going to feel sad – I’m going to feel angry. Much better! Their carts are all filled with junk. Chips, cookies, crackers, soda. Tubs of ice cream, huge jars of mayonnaise. Not a fruit in sight. (Well, actually I did see a gay couple buying seafood… eh… never mind.) Not a vegetable in sight.

But seriously. This is our population. It’s certainly worth getting angry over. Do you understand how insurance works? You want to know why health insurance rates are going up? They go up to cover the costs of all the big fat slobs who are constantly in need of diabetes medication, blood thinners, knee replacements, colon cancer treatment… the list continues forever. And it’s all preventable! Hear that? PREVENTABLE. Get your act together, America!

Dangers of the “Dirty Bulk”

Posted by Tim on

I noticed I hadn’t told this story in a while, and I feel it may be helpful to a lot of guys out there doing the old “dirty bulk” style diet. In case you’re unaware of the term, “bulking” is when you eat more than you normally would in order to put on weight. A “dirty bulk” is eating a lot of crappy food. While this food may be high in fat, cholesterol, sodium, and a ton of other stuff humans shouldn’t eat (especially on a regular basis), it’s packed with calories, which is essential to putting on weight.

This was me a few years ago. I did the whole “dirty bulk” thing, and it worked. In about 2 years I managed to gain over 50 lbs. Not all of it was muscle, but the majority of it was. Needless to say, I was happy with the results. Triple Whoppers were a staple of my diet. Hey, if you’re trying to gain weight, a 1200 calorie burger is the way to go! At one point I was consuming about 10,000 calories a day. A good portion coming from a disgusting weight gain supplement, and the rest coming from anything I could get my hands on. Fast food, junk food, microwavable food. I ate so much I didn’t even enjoy eating anymore.

So I hit my goal, and I kind of backed off. I didn’t know where I wanted to goal as far as training was concerned. I weighed about 220 pounds, and was pretty jacked. Although I had gained some fat, I wasn’t a fat guy by any means. I’ll brag a bit – I was a beast. But I didn’t want to get much bigger, and that was good because I had a lot of trouble getting much heavier without gaining a lot of fat. So, I was at a point of confusion. I’d work out, but didn’t have a real goal in mind. But while I was doing this – I didn’t change my diet. I was still eating crap.

A few months went by and low and behold – I went to the dentist and was told I had to have my wisdom teeth taken out. Good news! I decided that I would get the whole nine yards – all four teeth, and plenty of anesthesia. Might as well make the best of it, right? Dope me up, doc! But before they put me under they took my blood pressure, and told me it was pretty high. I don’t remember the exact number, but it wasn’t good. They put me under, cut open my mouth, and yanked those four teeth out. No problems there. All done.

After the appointment I went to the local Wal-Mart and sat at one of those blood pressure readers. Now, I know they probably aren’t the most accurate, but I wanted to see if my high blood pressure was due to being nervous for the operation, or if it was because of… my diet. I can’t remember the numbers the machine spit out, but on the chart listed next to the pressure-reader it said I had “hyper-tension”. Crap! That’s what big fatsos have! How did this happen?

It took a whole car drive home to realize that I’d done this to myself. How did this happen? – I knew how it happened. I ate a steady diet of processed garbage day-in day-out for two years straight. I decided to get my health in order. Being big is great, but not at the cost of my heart. I cut out all fast food, cut out all alcohol, and drank only water. I started biking to work too.

I scheduled an appointment with my doctor. I wanted to see if anything else was going on in my body that I should be concerned about. The visit was scheduled, and a couple weeks later I went in to see my doctor. He weighed me, (I’d dropped to 210lbs at this point), measured my height, (5’11′, right up there with Magic Johnson), and took my blood pressure. And you know what? It was back down to normal ranges! A month of a strict diet got my back on track. I had learned my lesson.

The doctor also took some blood samples and ran a few tests. I’d been into the whole “get jacked” thing for a few years, and I wanted to know what, if any, damage had been done to my kidneys and liver with all the protein, creatine, and other supplements I took. It was all stuff that was available at GNC; no steroids or anything like that. But still – you hear stories about “too much protein” being bad for your kidneys. Tests came back – liver and kidneys were in good shape. Surprisingly, my cholesterol was also really low. (I thought high blood pressure and high cholesterol usually came together? Guess not.)

I’m young enough where I can come back from little things like high blood pressure. But I realized that I’m not immune to it either. A “dirty bulk” is a fast way to put on muscle, but you pay the price one way or another. I noticed that since I switched my diet to good food I have a lot more energy throughout the day. I sleep better. I poop better. (Good to know, right?) Everything is better. Would I change what I did and take the slow and steady route? No, probably not. But I would watch my diet a little more. If you don’t need to be eating a ton of junk food, don’t.

Use the dirty bulk sparingly. It’s an easy way to put on weight, but don’t stick to the dirty diet for two years straight. Just because I was able to get my blood pressure down doesn’t mean that everyone will be able to. Take it easy, don’t damage your health, and take everything in moderation.