Haitus Recap: Health

My health has always been a problem for me, whether it's been my lungs or my poor sleeping habits, I've never been the pinnacle of well-being. And I guess you could consider my bodytype to be unhealthy too.

I mean, when you're used to surviving off 1 meal every 24 hours, how can you expect to look?

Like so.

But things have been getting better and I'd like to attribute it to heading to the gym. For example, I've started eating breakfast again! Yes, after over half a decade of skipping this meal I've been trying to add it back to my routine.

Because is it ever hard to get enough calories in a day with just 2 meals.

Why do I skip breakfast? Easy. Because I'd rather sleep in for another half an hour than get up to eat a bowl of cereal. Though, I guess I could just grab a banana on the go and eat that but again, the laziness of older me was too much to even do that.

Vector cereal is really good though, also lots of protein.

I've also been taking this new mass gainer. For a while I was barely able to breach 160 pounds but after a few weeks on it, I easily pushed myself to 165. The biggest problem? Despite being the best tasting mass gainer I've ever been on, it still tastes kind of gross.

I mean, how can you manage to make "chocolate" taste eggy and sour? How do you manage to turn "cookies and cream" into... Well, there are cookie bits that taste like chocolate but the cream... I don't like whatever "cream" flavour this is.

Who knows what the vanilla is like. I am so sick of vanilla, never again.

My stomach cringes at the thought.

The added benefit of this mass gainer though is that when I miss one or miss a meal is that I get hungry. I haven't felt "hungry" in ages so maybe this is my body finally adapting to wanting to eat more? That's a good thing right?

My sleep schedule hasn't really improved though. I'm still tired most of the time though whether it's from poor sleep during the night or the workouts is hard to say. Fortunately I have an appointment in July where I'm going to begin the process of booking another sleep study.

Except this time I'm going to be sleeping in a lab with a ton of things hooked up to me while getting monitored.

Yay for people watching me sleep.

My lungs haven't been bothering me too much despite the increased loads I've been lifting at the gym. In fact, the only times my lung ever seem to bother me is excessive cardio. I had one temporary trainer who pushed me and I was just winded, light-headed, and actually nauseous.

No more cardio. Cardio isn't going to get me big, lifting heavy weights will.

Haitus Recap: Project Jason

Project Jason is my attempt at getting more muscle. Too long have I been a sack of organs barely held in by a thin membrane of skin. I've slowly noticed changes like my arms getting slightly bigger, clothes not fitting properly, and I say to myself, yeah, I think it's working.

And then I take a look at myself from a picture from before I started working out and THEN the differences become truly noticeable.

Those gains...

I guess it's because I see myself everyday so the changes aren't all that apparent. Hence the importance of progress pictures. I know I didn't take a picture back in August when I first started because of how embarrassed I was. But the closest thing I have is a picture from November and that was when I gained about 20 pounds.

And since November I've gained about another 15 pounds. It scares me to think of how thin I used to be. In fact, browsing various online fitness boards has lead to a startling realization. After all my hard work, I am only now considered "skinny".

Let that sink in for a moment. Almost 10 months of going to the gym has finally allowed me to be promoted to skinny.

So what was I considered before? Well, they have a lovely term for men who have noodle limbs and visible ribs: "Auschwitz mode".

Other acceptable terms include "hungry skeleton".

No matter, I'm still going to keep pushing to reach what they call "Ottermode" or the body type most associated with swimmers. For the first time ever, I'm at a healthy BMI at 165 pounds. My goal is to be around 200 pounds of muscle.

But this goal also puts me in an awkward position. Ideally, you want to be able to bench/overhead press your own body weight and squat/deadlift DOUBLE your bodyweight. Over the last few weeks I've finally been able to squat/deadlift 1 plate (45 pounds each side) and I can bench/overhead press maybe half of that.

I'm proud of myself, but I have a long way to go.

What's also funny is that I've developed somewhat noticeable pecs. And I can't stop touching them. Seriously, I'll be standing around and I'll poke them to make sure they're still there. What can I say? They're nice.

I imagine that it's similar for women when they first start developing breasts.

Ok, they're not that impressive yet, but maybe one day.

I'm still with my original trainer Eli, and things are going well. My other trainer (simply named Trainer D) finally had me lifting weight and not nitpicking over form before he disappeared. Yep. High turnover rate for trainers at that other gym.

So they slapped me with another trainer who we'll call Trainer E. He's nice, I like him but he doesn't have the technical knowledge or training that Eli or Trainer D had. I only have 2 dozen sessions left and after that, I'm just going to workout with Eli non-stop for the rest of the summer.

Systems Functional

This is extremely awkward posting once a week. But no more! Thanks to my friend Terry (who some of you may remember also helped me with car hunting a few months back), my computer is virtually back to normal. He had to disassemble my hard drive though, fix some of the damage in my manic attempts at repair, and reinstall most of the software.

He got a steak dinner out of it. So I think we're even.

Help me out and I feed you. Good deal.

So while it's great that I can finally start blogging consistently again (and following up on everyone), January has not been a very productive month for anything that require the use of my desktop computer. My laptop doesn't have the power to do anything from Project Pandering or the information to help with Project Raven.

Which only leaves Project Derp which can be done from anything with a keyboard, and Project Jason which requires a gym.

I know I've been talking about working out a lot, but it's probably the most interesting thing that I do the most of these days. I'm averaging 4 times a week, with a maximum of 6. I'm constantly in a state of pain but it's a good sort of pain.

I only need Sunday to rest right? Right?

My biggest problem is still maintaining weight. One weekend I pushed myself and was eating 3 kilo-calories a day.

And lost a pound the following Monday.

Discouraged, I slowed down on eating, which reduced my diet down to 2kcal and I lost an additional 4 pounds by Wednesday.

I'm bumping it up to 3.5kcal a day in hopes that some of the weight will start staying with me. I don't expect any sympathy from you guys. I have an unorthodox problem here. I'm counting the calories of everything I eat to make sure I'm getting enough. I'm reading nutritional charts at restaurants and ordering the items with the most calories.

And this still isn't enough. At the end of the night, you can find me chugging down a litre of chocolate or homogenized milk to help hit my caloric goals.

I`ll never be like Joesph Gordon-Levitt at this rate.

But the increase in eating is helping somewhere I think. I am noticing a bit more size gain this month and I kind of wish I took a progress pic when I started back in August so I could compare. I was kind of embarrassed at how thin I looked so I opted out.

Ah well, what can you do. Posting should be back to normal now and I actually do have other things to discuss. I`m excited to finally talk about Project Derp and my experience so far with the ridiculous Dogecoin.

Project Jason: New Schedule

One week back into classes I think I've finally gotten a hang of things. Note that because I'm an open studies student (a.k.a. not actively working towards a degree), I can only take 2 courses a term. Which is fine, I'm only missing two per-requisites for the after-degree program that I want to get into. And because I managed to cram both of them on Tuesday and Thursday, this gives me a very nice 4 day long weekend AND Wednesdays off.

Unfortunately, this does not mean I get to relax any time. Oh no, if anything, I'm working as hard as ever.

Yeah! Motivational pictures!

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday consist of me going to the gym with Eli, my personal trainer. Some days things don't work so to compensate, we do double work-outs like chest and back on the same day, or chest and shoulders. It's not fun, I mean, I'm in the gym for over 2 hours on these days. Still preferable to leg day though.

God, I hate leg day.

BUT, I still have those sessions that I purchased from the gym that Eli quit from. I have a bunch of people that are still considering taking them off me, but they're taking such a long time deciding. So, I do another round of working out with who we'll call Trainer D on Tuesday and Thursdays after class, and on Saturdays before work.

For those wondering, No. No I still don't like Trainer D.

Some of you probably think I'm working out way too much now. But that's the thing, despite my heavy work-outs with Eli the day before, I'm fine. Trainer D's workouts do nothing to me. What we've been mostly doing is form.

Listen, I understand that form is important to doing things like deadlifts (which are supposed to be great for mass gain) but it makes more sense to (to me) to do these with low weights, adjust my form during/after each rep/set and go from there.

Do we really need to spend half an hour with me flexing my shoulder blades to make sure my back is straight? Yes, I've had bad posture most of my life and I'm starting to work on that, but if I really wanted to work on posture and flexibility, I'll sign up for a yoga class.

Seriously, the only times we've ever done anything that left me kind of sore after is anything regarding legs. But I've "missed" leg day for a few weeks now, so he only gets half points. Also, I know that if we did these with Eli, we would have kept pushing until I was left a hobbling cripple.

And waddle like this for the rest of the week.

Oh, and another thing that bothers me about Trainer D is the inflexibility of his schedule. Last Saturday I couldn't make it to my session on time, so I text him and let him know. He then responds back saying that "Sorry, but I still have to charge you for the session. You need to let me know at least 24 hours in advance.".

Well that's just great. Good workout.

Eli never had that problem when he was my trainer back then, and he still doesn't. In fact, that's why I signed up for half a year's worth of sessions with him, because he knew the volatility of my schedule but still allowed me to cancel at nearly any time. So fine, I now proceed to cancel in advance all the sessions that I have that I may not be able to make on time. Trainer D doesn't really like this either.

Too bad.

For those that don't want to turn upside down, it says "Deal with it".

I literally have no good reason to stay with Trainer D. The sessions are more expensive (more than double what Eli charges), the sessions are shorter and are cut short even if we don't finish everything planned, cancellations are inflexible, I don't feel sore at the end of the sessions, the list goes on.

We are working on "foundation" he says. It feels like we're just doing a bunch of warm-up exercises. Welp, the "end" of foundation is coming up and maybe Trainer D will have a second chance to impress me. I've had about half a dozen paid sessions with him so far and I'm unimpressed. Eli impressed me so much with 2 free sessions that I was convinced to buy half a year of training with him.

Anyone interested in buying the rest off me? I really don't want them.

Project Jason: The Pain

Project Jason was about working out and no longer looking like a twig. In my last post I've discussed how I got a personal trainer named Eli because I noticed that I wasn't getting that much out of my workouts anymore. Or rather, I wasn't satisfied with the rate of progress.

Things were going good with Eli, I was satisfied with the intensity of the workouts. Back when I was working late overtime shifts I was still able to pop in late at night and get in a session before going home and Eli didn't mind, he was flexible. And since being laid off I've been trying to go every day. Might as well do something instead of sleep in all the time.

And then suddenly I get a text saying that he quit. Sound familiar?

This is an unpleasant trend.

BUT WAIT. He wasn't quitting being a personal trainer, he quit being a trainer at that gym. He was fed up with management there so he decided to become independent. I liked him as a trainer so eventually we met up and discussed how to continue our sessions. I'm actually paying half as much to just have him (as opposed to before) so I'm saving money. Plus, because we aren't at that gym anymore, we can go longer, be more flexible with times, etc. etc..

Everyone wins.

Well, I'm not entirely in the clear yet. Unfortunately, I purchased a set number of trainer sessions at the old gym. I now need to find a way to sell them off or be sneaky and exploit some loophole and talk my way out of them. Preferably the latter, put my Psychology degree to use right?

Wouldn't be the first time I've talked my way out of something.

Eli is also recommending protein drinks, specific foods to eat, and vitamins to take. And you know what, it can't hurt, especially if it'll supposedly make me bulk faster. The protein shake is a bit gross to be honest, or maybe this vanilla flavouring is just bad. I've been mixing hot chocolate in it to make it more palatable, shhh....

Actually I've noticed more visible progress in myself and I'm not the only one. My fast food job is the only place where I'm forced to wear a short-sleeved shirt and my coworkers claim my arms are larger. Well, my forearms are a bit, but not by that much.

Still, it's nice to see someone taking notice.

With that being said, the workouts have been hurting. One thing that Eli suggested to do to help the soreness is taking a bath in Epsom salts. I haven't taken a bath in years, and the tub in my bathroom is tiny, but I decided to give it a try after a particularly rough back workout session.

Feels good man. Even if it means half my body is sticking out of the water at any given time.

I still hate leg day though. Friday for whatever reason has been dedicated to leg day. And let me repeat, I hate leg day. I am still hobbling around from last Friday and it hurts to bend over to pick something up. If this is what it feels like to be old, I am not looking forward to it.

And my butt hurts. From working out. This is uncomfortable. It hurts to sit.

But hey, might as well do something with all this excessive spare time. Work-out, come home exhausted, and then fall asleep in front of my computer with a half drunk protein shake in my hand.

Is this how other people deal with unemployment? It's not bad.

Project Jason: Getting swole

I've been consistently working out now since the beginning of July, 2-3 times a week whenever I can. When a fitness center opened up in the mall where one of my part-time jobs was, I really didn't have an excuse anymore for not going to the gym. After about a month, I haven't really noticed any chances to my physique but hey, this stuff takes time right?

Generally I try to get an hour or so before I start a shift at work but sometimes things don't go in my favor. This results in me trying to get in a quick work-out during my short, half an hour break. It's a good thing I don't really sweat that much. It's also a good thing that I'm working around grease all the time so that's all anyone can smell anyways.

Mmm... French fries..

Somehow, I got roped into getting a personal trainer for a little bit. It was pricey, but my rationalization was that because I haven't worked out in a long time, it might be a good idea to make sure that I'm using all the equipment properly. Don't want to hurt myself. Plus, there are tons of new machines that I haven't used before and I wanted a chance to learn how to use the free weights.

And so my sessions start. Nothing too crazy. I like my trainer, he was pretty good, I liked what we were doing and I went home feeling more sore and tired than I normally would. Which is a good thing, what's the point of heading to the gym or getting a personal trainer otherwise?

And then suddenly I was informed that my old personal trainer had suddenly disappeared.

Wut.

It was really weird too, because we were scheduled to have a work-out at 1PM. He calls me in the morning, asking if we can move it to 3PM. Sure, no problem. At 2PM, the gym calls me and says that he's no longer working there.

I'm given a new trainer, and while he was nice, I certainly didn't feel as exhausted as I was accustomed to. In his defense, we were doing more free weights and posture related things. And it was to make sure that my form was correct for future exercises.

My last session is on Friday. And unfortunately, I can't really afford to keep hiring a personal trainer. So that's that. Time to start working out again on me own.

Project Jason: Time to Lift

I've been blessed cursed with a ridiculous metabolism. It's to the point where I can eat anything and not gain weight. I mean, you'd think you'd notice some change in your physiology after eating an entire dinner of just fatty pork belly, working in fast food for years, sleep, stress, junk food, etc. etc..

I've maintained the same weight for the last decade, thin as a stick. I have abs thanks to just being so slender, I don't even need to try. Fellow bloggers like Matt and Mark are around my age, both were/are unhappy with their physical appearance, and both have been hitting the gym. And often have to go through hoops and hurdles to get there and back.

So when a fitness center opened up in the mall where I work I realized that I didn't have an excuse anymore. So I went in and purchased a year-long membership and hired a personal trainer for a bit.

No time like the present to get buff.

The idea is that because it's in the mall where I work AND it's open 24/7, I can drop by right before I start a shift at my fast food job, work-out for an hour, and then head to work. The facilities are fairly decent, new machines, I don't have to wait for equipment like some of the other gyms I've been to.

Oh, and private showers. Yeah, I'll be honest, there are few things I hate more than communal showers. Give me a little bit of privacy and we'll go a long way. Private lockers are also nice, just make sure to bring your own lock.

I'm considering buying towel service too, because I don't want to lug around a towel, and have a damp piece of cloth sitting in my work bag during my shift.

Seriously though, I don't like looking at other naked guys. Not for me.

So I went in for my first workout in years today. And it wasn't so bad? I hope I'm using the equipment properly because again, I haven't touched some of these things in ages, and some, not ever. I guess that's what the trainer will come in for.

I'm slightly stiff, my joints feel more sore than the rest of my body so far which worries me a bit. Suggests that maybe I was using at least one of piece of equipment wrong. I generally work 3 times a week so that's 3 workouts a week.

In theory. Public transit is horrendous at best. It's hard to tell if you missed a bus or if it's 10 minutes late.

I guess I could also walk/run to work. It'll only take half an hour.

Note that almost no one except you guys are aware of my work-out sessions. My extreme thinness has been a bit of a sore spot with me so I don't want people to find out I'm trying to fix it. Well, until it becomes odd that I'm not longer so thin.

I especially don't want my family to find out. I know parents can mean well, but I also know that if I decide to sleep in one day or something I can hear my Mother already. "Why aren't you at the gym? Why are you sitting around? You should be at the gym right now. What a waste of money and time, you could be working out.".

So few things are more demotivating than having someone nag you to do it. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, the end result is the same.

Can't lecture me about something if you don't know about it.

Oh, and for anyone wondering why this project is called Project Jason, it's because one of the staff members working at the gym is named Jason who happens to be an ex-coworker of mine. And if I can't land a full-time job anywhere, I might just take up one at the gym.

Money and free gym use? I'll definitely consider it.

I Really Need to Gain Some Weight

I think I've talked enough about how I'm really tall and ridiculously thin. I mean, one of my New Years resolutions was to bulk up. I'm literally a sack of skin with some bones in it. People will lean on me or Theresa will try and rest her head on my shoulder and I can tell it's not a comfortable experience.

I do not make a good pillow.

Probably a similar experience.

It really doesn't look that bad when you see me in person. But that's because I try and cover it up by wearing baggy pants and dress shirts. It's like a pufferfish blowing itself up to make it look bigger than it really is.

And it works too. I always win at those Guess Your Weight games. The clothes add 10-20 points to my frame. So I guess that's always an advantage.

And then someone comes over to give me a hug and the facade is gone. My shirt squishes down to my body and it reveals my true nature.

Not so big are you now?

This point was further driven in the other day when I needed to buy a new suit. I've had this suit since about Junior High so it's about time. People will generally have to buy new dresses and suits as they grow older. Usually because of an expanding waistline or something to that effect.

My old suit doesn't fit because I've lost so much weight.

The thing is ridiculously baggy when I put it on. The coat looks too big, I need a belt to hold the pants up, the original vest doesn't even fit me anymore, etc.. I'm not saying skinny guys can't look good in suits, but when it's not nice and tight, you look kind of silly. Like a clown almost.

What really honed the point in was when the salesperson measured my waist. It was kind of comical the way she said my waist was 28 inches.

That bolt is 28 inches.

So, I need to stop looking like an anorexic Korean boyband member. Keep trying to gain muscle. I can do nearly 40 consecutive push-ups now but I'm thinking it may be time for me to start going to a gym.

I wouldn't look forward to that though. I haven't been to a gym in ages and I don't enjoy working out in the presence of others. It just feels weird when everyone else is really bulky. Yeah, I'm a touch self-conscious.

Yeah, kind of intimidating.

Ah well, maybe it's not such a bad thing being a skinny guy. I do get abs by default.

Who am I kidding. Time to find a way to hit the gym again as soon as possible.