100th Mutha----ing post! (Breakfast, Workout and Morning Snack)

This is the 100th entry in the blog (which is ridiculous) and we have a lot of material to cover.

I decided to try breakfast before workout, today, and had Nutricinnamon Squares Cereal.

My sides were wheat toast (carbohydrate), leftover salmon (protein) and a juice box (fruit).  This is a slightly unorthodox breakfast, but I was really looking forward to that salmon, and it was delicious.

Sadly, deciding to eat first was not my greatest decision.  Some people recommend you eat a small amount before working out, and I'd figured my meals were small enough to qualify.  It took me until around 9 for my stomach to settle enough to go and work out, and it was hardly a routine worthy of the moniker.

Here are some of the highlights of my workout routine.  As you might guess/know, I have some considerable back problems from various sources, including a certain difficulty with my neck.  Additionally, I do not often lie flat on my back, because of the enormous weight on my gut that makes it difficult to get a full breath.  Of course, several of the exercises require that you lay flat on your back on the weight bench.  I did this today, to my great personal and private embarrassment, and may decide to try these on an incline in the future.  Well, this whole thing is partially an exercise in self-flagellation, so I might just keep lying on my back and gasping like a dying trout during my workouts until I can do so comfortably and sexily, like I do everything else.

I did one set of weights, preceded by 15 minutes on the treadmill (walking at 3.5 mph) and followed by 3 minutes on the treadmill (walking at around 3 mph).  The thing that really killed me was the lying on my back.  This is almost certainly my most pathetic workout on record.

BUT I TAKE HEART!  All first workouts are pathetic, and seem more so if you've worked out in the past, because your most recent/fondest memories are of workouts much further along in the process of weight loss/muscle gain.  Soon, my pathetic T-Rex arms will be bulging masses of masculinity, and my keg will turn to a six pack, which I will be allowed to fill from a keg, but only if I run in the morning!

The important thing with a beginning workout is to remember that's all it is, your first workout.  It gets better, but you must not give in to the shame and despair demons.  I'm a firm believer in doing these things at home, if it's at all possible, until such time as it is not completely pathetic to do them at a professional gym.  Now, I've got some expensive equipment at my disposal in the treadmill that I'm using, which is necessary for a SERIOUSLY fat man who wants to use one, but there are a great many alternatives for an aerobic workout that can be done on the cheap.

Workout tapes: These are soft and womanly, and your drinking friends will laugh at them.  They are also the cheapest and most effective workout you can do in your living room without equipment.  The best stuff I've seen are things like the Billy Banks Tae Bo workouts and Step Aerobics.  Anyone who's tried these and put in the effort they require knows they're a good fucking workout, and a great many of us who went through gradeschool in the 90's were forced to do Tae Bo in gym at some point.

Craigslist-purchased Equipment: You might get raped by a man in a fur suit.  If you're not entirely comfortable with the idea of buying something from a person on Craigslist, you are sane.  Keeping this in mind: any exercise equipment you purchase from a classified ad is something that you are going to be responsible for picking up and bringing home, and there's about a 25% chance that the person selling it might be willing to trade sexual favors rather than cash.  You're probably primarily going to want to look at machines with few electronic components that are absolutely necessary and few parts that are under high stress.  Stationary bikes are your best bet, followed by rowing machines, ellipticals and treadmills. 

Test it at the seller's location (just to make sure it works, don't try and actually pull a full workout or do a load of laundry, like SOME people, you know who you are) and only pay or accept cash.  Checks, credit cards and PayPal have no place in a classified transaction.  Don't meet sellers at night or on farms (replace fur suit with bondage harness), and try not to meet them alone.  It's always a good idea to bring a friend (especially because you don't want to lift that 1950's rowing machine into the back of your hatchback alone). 


I'm not going to go into all the many rules of internet safety for Craigslist, because other people have written fine guides for the old and the stupid, although the stupid will never listen.  Look to the Internet for your answers on that front.

The other thing anyone looking to up their shape at home before possibly joining a gym needs are a couple of dumbbells.  You're probably going to need 2 sets of dumbbells to start with, and the 2 weights are going to be determined mostly by biceps and triceps.

Your triceps are pathetic, I just wanted you to know.  Anyone who doesn't lift has pathetic triceps, and most people who lift have pathetic triceps compared to their biceps.  So your tricep weights are going to probably be much lighter than your bicep weights.  Men, you're probably going with 10-15 lbs weights for most of your initial tricep exercises (as shown in the previous Lunch and Working Out article, and at the contained link here) and 20-25 lbs weights for your bicep exercises.  Ladies will be anywhere from 5-15 lbs and 15-25 lbs because that is the least sexist way I could come up with to say that they have weaker arms (but often stronger legs).  Weights can be picked up cheapest at a place like either Wal-Mart or Target individually.  Weightlifting/fitness stores tend to have a ridiculous markup on their dumbbells, and you only need to bother with them for the larger weight sizes (upwards of 40 lbs).

You should feel just fine doing 12 reps with a set of weights in the store, because we're not interested in useless muscle, and you're going to be doing many more than 12 reps.  No, we are here to build muscle that helps burn fat, and that means lean, strong muscle that can be punished for hours.  High reps and sets are the most important thing.  I only did 1 set on everything today, partially because I needed to gauge my reaction.  A good beginning set is 3 sets of 12 reps.  Eventually, you'll want to be doing many more sets in the same weight class, and then you will move on to higher weight classes where you'll do fewer sets, increasing your number of sets until you are ready for the next weight class, etc etc.

There are other schools of weightlifting, which are mostly designed to produce vanity muscle or competition muscle.  I'm not a bodybuilder, I'm not interested in putting oil all over my essentially naked body and flexing on a black stage next to women with a penis-like clitoris.  I'm primarily building muscle to be used in other aerobic activities like swimming and climbing (which are both a long way off) and that's what motivates the types of lifting I'll engage in.

You fat folks out there are going to want to pay attention here.  If you've been fat for any length of time, and you've not given up and gone Rascal on us, you've probably got slabs of leg muscle under your slabs of fat.  You've also got this nice, central weight which is going to be a major impact on anything that is a core or leg exercise.  What I'm trying to tell you is that you probably don't need to think about adding weight to your squat or lunge routine just yet




(radio edit)


Now, fat people, the next thing I'm going to tell you is this: fat makes you luckier than your skinny friends.  You are luckier, because even as you lose weight, you will burn more calories at a similar weight doing similar activities to your friends, because of your ridiculous thighs.  Bigger muscles require more energy to contract, it is that simple, yes?  This doesn't mean you can slack on your leg exercises, because your sweet muscles ARE covered in layers of disgusting fat, and you want nice, defined muscles to impress the ladies/guys/albatross.

NB: women with cut thighs kind of scare me, you can keep some meat on those things.

A quick note about gym people.  There are going to be basically 3 sorts of people you run into at the gym.
1.  People who understand what you're going through and think it's great that you're working out, and are patient with your pathetic ineptitude.  Men, you'll find many women like this, both fat and skinny.  Women, you're kinda fucked, here.  Women are bitches to you, and we men aren't interested in fat chicks.  Look for fat guys, they will be your friend (or the secret former fat guys, they will also be your friend)
2.  People who understand what you're going through and think it's great but don't really give a shit about you and want you to get the fuck out of their way so they can continue their workout.  Patient to a point, but not really ready to help you figure out the Nautilus machines.
3. People who want you to get your fat disgusting ass out of their way so they can workout.  Certain types of teenage athletes, bodybuilders, and gym rats are these.  There's nothing to be done but avoid these people.  No matter what you do (fat or thin) they are angry and impatient (and quite possibly dealing with profound testicular shrinkage).

You're going to most often run into type 3 at Bally's-type gyms, which should be avoided by people trying to get through serious weight loss.  A much better bet are YMCA or Gold's Gyms, where you'll run into plenty of regular gym folk who are courteous as well as plenty of other fatasses.

Damn, I went pretty far afield with this entry.


SNACK!

I ate another salmon morsel and a juice box for my snack (protein and fruit) and now I need to get my shower.