Lets start at the very beginning...

Ok, Maybe not the very beginning, but there are things you need to know about my past to understand my present.

In November of 2004 I was living in Southern California. One night, I recieved a call from my Father. My mother had colapsed at home and had been rushed to the hospital. She had been diagnosed with diabetes. Now to a normal person that's a life changing thing, but my mother had not been a healthy woman in many many years. In my lifetime I could never say I truly new her as healthy. On top of the diabetes she now had pancreatitis, and had only one leg (due to a car accident 10 years previously). She was on both depressants and antidepressants to combat a chemical imbalance in her brain. This kept her out of the black hole of depression she was in most of my early life.

I had moved to California 2 years previous, and even though it now felt like home, I had always had a guilt for leaving my mother, that crept into my dreams. It was always a different thing happening flood or fire or whatnot, but I would always wake up with that same horrible feeling of my mother dying and I wasn't able to get to her.

So as Father described her current condition, and how he felt she needed round the clock care, it didn't take me much to decide to drop everything and move back to Utah to help her out. Little did I know that this would become my most healthy time in my 20's which would lead to my biggest weight gain rolling into my 30's.

Stay tuned... CM

Showering after a workout

I've been working out off and on for 10 years now. Along the way I've learned a little tricks and things for a better workout. One of the best hints to a more pleasant work out has to do with showering afterward.

The reason your body gets DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) when you ache in the days afterward, is because of lactic acid. When you lift, you are tearing muscle fibers, that's a good thing, because what your body does is rush to repair it and makes it bigger and stronger. Well, when these muscle fibers rip, they release lactic acid into the muscle. This is what gives makes you miserable for the days afterward.

Well in Massage school I learned a trick. In your shower afterward, turn on 3 minutes of hot, and 30 seconds of as cold as you can. alternate a few times, I usually do 3, and end on cold. The heat expands your blood vessles and the cold makes them contract so your blood system acts like a pump. This way you are helping your body flush out the stuff you don't want in there.

Never, never NEVER, get in the Jaccuzi after your workout. What you are doing is encouraging your body to flood those areas that are now healing with blood, and it just pools there. Yeah it feels great right after a workout, but this will intensify your DOMS. Now if you are a massocist, which in this instance I am not, you could sit in the jaccuzi for 3 minutes and then jump in the pool for 30 seconds and repeat a few times. but really, who does that?

You will hate the hot cold thing at first, and you never really get used to that shock of going from one to the other, however you will come to love it and look forward to it after your workout, knowing that in the days to come, your muscles will be tight, but the good kind of tight, but will not ache. You will be apt to staying with your programs and not quitting because you hurt so much.

Hope that helps CM

Personal Trainers

Well, It is time for me to take this transformation that I've started to another level. I've decided I'm going to start a 12 week training program. It's an online personal training video series. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/12_week_daily_video_trainer_main.htm Thank you to Bo Dixon for sending me the link. I will be sharing with you everything I experience with this.

I've been looking for a Personal Trainer for a very long time. I've started with several over the years and have never continued with more than a few sessions. I'm to the point where I'm very picky as to who I would choose to train me. My problem with most trainers is that they are thin and toned. That's not my goal. I need a personal trainer that I can look at, and say, that's where I'd like to be. A trainer that is not where I want to be, may know the steps, and how to get me there, but how do I know this? My bigger concern is that most trainers want you to do it their way, no question. But if their way has not gotten them to where I want to be, why would I want to go where they choose for me to go?

I have a good friend who has a personal trainer right now. I was asking my friend questions about his goals, and he had none really. All he could definitively tell me is that he wanted to be able to take off his shirt and not be embarrassed. For everyone that would be different so he obviously doesn't even know where he's going. This makes me wonder what the trainer is doing for him. He's been with this guy for more than 6 months and there are small improvements, but I don't see much. But even more to my point, the work outs the guy has him do sound more like building, and not toning. Just knowing my friend, I think he'd be happier with a more toned sleek look than big non defined pecs and arms.

A week or so ago, I was talking with a guy I've known for a while. He's apparantly now a Personal Trainer. He was giving me tips and I questioned him on some of them, because they were exactly contrary to what I've been told by other trainers. I'm still waiting to hear back from him after I threw out some logic that pointed out, he wasn't giving me advice that fit my goals.

For the past 2 years, my goals have been focused on weight loss. I'm now back to slightly better stats than I ever was in my 20's. My Goals have now changed. I am now concentrated on measurements and not weight. My chest is currently around 48", my short term goal is to get it to a 50". Long term 52"+. My arms are 16". My short term goal is 18", Long term is 21"+. My waist measures 45" around. Short term is 40", long term 36-38" However as long as my pecs and arms get bigger, if my waist were to not get smaller, that would be fine.

As you hear all the time, goals are extremely important. You have to know where you are going, or else how will you know when you get there. CM

Thanksgiving '09

Since Thanksgiving is the holiday most dedicated toward eating, I figure I need to post something. Because of my work schedule I had celebrated thanksgiving on Wednesday this year. I invited all my friends over for an all day event. Eating and Movies all day long. No one really showed up til 5 anyway. As for eating I wasn't really that hungry all day long. I took a Stacker 3 in the morning for the energy, and granted it staves off the appetite, but I just never got that hungry. I think it was mostly because I was hosting the party and always trying to be thinking of what the guests needed.

My other theory of the lack of hunger is this; I'm a big fan of eating 6 meals a day. It ups your metabolism, and helps your body work better. Your body is constantly proccessing food, and most of all, is not in starvation mode, so it won't store fat. When you do this, your stomach shrinks, and you are no longer able to eat such large portions. Yes, you can always stretch it back out and eat more, but right now, my stomach is pretty small. I've been complaining for the last few weeks about the fact that I can't eat a lot, cause I get full fast. Now the disadvantage to the 6 meals a day diet and getting out of starvation mode is that you have to eat often, and if you wait a little too long suddenly you are starving and feel like you want to eat everything in sight. I'm thinking the fact that I was snacking all day long yesterday, kept my tummy happy.

Soon, I will post some blogs, detailing my diet and how I've actually come to loose all this weight, but I do want to stress, that my diet has not changed a lot. True I try and eat salads daily, and in general eat healthy, but I still eat pizza, and starchy and fatty foods on a regular basis. The biggest thing about me is portion control.

Well readers, I'm gonna go to bed, so have a good night, and again thanks for following my blog. CM

Did you get your tickets to the gun show?

I am a fan/follower of Bo Dixon, on Facebook. He's a very hot Bodybuilder/model. It's actually due to one of his posts that i started this blog, but that's a story for another night. So the other day, for a topic of discussion, he asked people to post their favorite muscle pick up lines. Ones like, "Someone call a vet, cause these pythons are sick." I love those quotes. The guy who uses them on me and can pull them off, I will give him anything he wants (My body mind and soul, money, credit rating, anything.) LOL. Well, I started using them on everyone at work. We were laughing so hard, and it was just a fun day.

As the day went on, and I kept finding people to use them on, my ego started to really get inflated. I found it interesting that even though I was doing these as a joke to make people laugh, I was still digging into a part of my subconcious that enjoys the fact that I have huge arms and legs and retain muscle easily. It really was alot like a high. I can see why guys can get that huge egotistical attitude going, it's very addicting.

Another interesting thing I found is the response women had to me. Most of the women I work with pretty much laughed because they knew I wasn't serious, although some are still annoyed with me.

In the last year or so, I've noticed certain women, ones in their late 30's and 40's, will extra attentive to me, flirting with me in a way. In fact I had one lady tonight tell me I was Gorgeous. Not even subtle, although she was drunk. So anyway, yesterday I was on my high, and I found I had negative energy coming at me from the same type of women, without me even saying anything about my guns or pythons. I tried to compliment one lady on her bracelet, that was quite spectacular, and she replied, "all guys tell me that" with a snotty attitude.

I really think those women were sensing that ego bubble that I was floating on, and did not like it.

Well these were just some thoughts of mine that I thought I would share.

In the words of the legendary Miss Britney Spears,
"Confidence is a must, Cockiness is a plus" (I love Britney, she just gets me) CM

Fat Pride: the Beginning

First and foremost, I have to confess, Fat Pride is a blatant rip off. I have a very close friend in LA that came up with the idea. He's a large man, loves being a large man, and loves other large men. He came up with the idea of starting a fat pride movement. We are told so much that fat is unhealthy, unattractive, and undesirable, and yet as a country we are becoming fatter. Fat Pride is about loving yourself, about knowing that at any weight you are beautiful, and with this blog, I am taking it a step further and proposing that it's about figuring out who you are inside and becoming that on the outside. When you take pride in your fat, you've decided how you are going to wear that fat, instead of it deciding for you.

A friend of mine recently helped me realize that a very large portion of feeling fat, and being ashamed of, or hating your fat is psychological. Because of this, I will share with you my most intimate feelings and fears, hopefully to all of our benefit.

I thank you friend for taking this journey with me. CMG