How To Live Forever: Laird Hamilton

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-0521-laird-hamilton-20160521-snap-story.html

Ask Your Beer Belly Where The Hell Your Penis Went.

Wheelchair Bodybuilding competitor Jason Greer.

And you thought YOU were having a hard time getting to the gym.

I like my penis and I like the idea that when I look down, there it is. I can see it. But there are millions of men who haven’t seen theirs in years — even decades. They carry around this huge, ponderous, balance-challenging belly, many even as a badge of honor. I admit I was at the same time both fascinated and repulsed finding out that there are women and gay men who have sexually fetishized men with huge guts. But that’s another story, best addressed never.

Health-wise big guts are a screaming red flag indicating imminent health danger. A big gut is also a major factor in falls in both men and women, both due to people not being able to see their feet and the tripping obstacles before them, but also because their center of gravity is thrown off balance. This means, hire somebody to patch your roof rather than climb up a ladder to tackle it yourself.

Other medical views include the belief that the beer gut is not filled with beer, or fat, but oftentimes with feces. That some people are carrying around twenty pounds of petrified shit 24/7 which cannot be expelled naturally, and they do nothing about that, is just downright disturbing.

As humans we possess an uncanny ability to adapt to diminished mobility and health. This fascinating phenomenon was highlighted in the ‘80s and early ‘90s when emaciated people with AIDS were admitted to hospitals with infections that might have killed a healthy person, but somehow they recovered. Despite being faced with life threatening challenges, in many of these cases the body was able to fight off infections, both bacterial and fungal, that no one believed the patient could ever survive.

Such as it is with all kinds of adversity. People adapt to a serious threat or inconvenience, especially if they believe they cannot overcome it. We endure by convincing ourselves that the adversity is only temporary, that we will somehow resolve it at some point.

We really can’t control much of anything, but we are in total control of what we ingest (eat, drink and inhale) as well as our physical activity. Old age is absolutely the wrong time to nurture a beer gut, whether caused by beer or not. We can begin resolving a big gut, which is as literal an obstacle to a great sex life as it is  to our health, mobility and safety, by reconciling that it didn't just happen suddenly, all by itself.

More Stupid Bullshit From Salon.com

According to this fear-mongering cesspool of a website, America's poor put-upon men are suddenly suffering intolerable pressures to look like a superhero...

...or so claims this expert on such things.

The Great Bob Paris On Ego and Steroids.

Bob Paris was always the voice of reason in the bodybuilding world.

Psychology and Weight Loss

Chris Pratt before and after.

In all that we read or see in the media about obesity and fat loss, the words "deprived" and "deprivation" crop up continually.

People say the hardest thing about "going on a diet" is feeling deprived of all their favorite foods. They intentionally fail to connect the uncontrolled eating of their favorite foods to the inevitable result of that: obesity.

The psychology of it all is complicated. 

It comes down to choosing your brand of deprivation. "Depriving" one's body of the foods that made one fat in the first place in favor of a better looking, better feeling, better functioning body sure doesn't sound like deprivation — it sounds more like a well-deserved reward.

Weighing the momentary pleasure or comfort of eating whatever one wants whenever one wants it in any amount one craves, against feeling, looking and functioning better 24/7 is no contest. This is why people concoct the most complicated and convoluted justifications for the poor physical state they are in, because the solution is so obviously simple: eat less, move more.

I like snack foods almost as much as the next guy, but being in shape, knowing I can run or climb from danger, looking good, feeling great physically rather than feeling diminished and old rather than worrying about the outcome of my poor condition, FAR outweighs any temporary minute-long satisfaction I get from gorging on pizza or ice cream. 

I do eat pizza and ice cream, but the frequency and amount I can enjoy without it taking a physical toll are well known to me, because I pay attention. Often I read that seeing one's self in a photo or video in their obese state is what snapped people out of their obesity denial. It's intriguing that someone can be carrying around 50 extra pounds or more night and day and psychologically speaking not be aware of what a constant burden that is, yet one view of themselves as others view them can change their entire outlook.

Your Body Is Out To Get You! Excuse-Making In The New York Times

As a fitness author and instructor allow my opinion that competent journalism might compel the writers/film makers of this New York Times piece of May 2, 2016 to balance their story just a tad by spending as much time and effort highlighting those who did NOT revert to their former ways. The Times' sympathy and bias are all too blatant.

No one here, neither writers nor commenters, address the truth: it requires cramming a gargantuan amount of food down one’s gullet to achieve such an astonishing and destructive weight gain as 100 pounds and more. Metabolism my foot!

The core issue is the uncontrolled eating that none of these people admit to (notice how she distracts by carefully weighing her seeds/nuts; I challenge the film makers to return on a surprise visit and open their cupboard to reveal shelves of snack foods), because, it’s all the fault of their bad metabolism! The former excuse of “thyroid problems” from back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, once accepted as fact, has now been laid to rest in favor of a metabolism disorder justification. What a bunch of ongoing denial BS.

No one is THIS hungry. This is compulsion in a tailspin. These people went right back to their former ways, the ways that led to their gross obesity in the first place. And my using the term “gross obesity” is not a judgement — it’s a literal, medical fact.

REVIEW: "Soup" as Dessert: A Fascinating New Idea From Campbell's.

Campbell’s Tomato Basil Bisque “Soup” tastes fucking disgusting.

It is hard to imagine that people sit around at Campbell’s headquarters to taste-test this glop without having vomit buckets at the ready. The amount of SUGAR in this gunk is absolutely horrifying, and I say that as someone with an almost insatiable sweet tooth. SOUP IS NOT DESSERT. To add such a shameful amount of SUGAR to a food item that by tradition requires absolutely NONE is criminal.

 After a few spoonfuls of Campbell's Frankensoup it occurred to me that I had turned down the offer of a couple of chocolate chip cookies earlier in the day in my quest to eat more healthily, when in fact those oatmeal-chocolate chip-walnut cookies would have been a far healthier choice than this slop.

According to the label — and don’t believe for a moment that these companies are being honest or accurate as per the information on their labels — this package claims to contain two servings, when in fact for a grown man it is a single serving. It also states there are 40 grams of sugar (!!!) contained in the package. Forty! However, I dispute that figure as being too low since this “soup” is as sweet as an equal serving of pudding.

Forget for a moment about it being disgusting, it’s literally a threat to your health. No wonder diabetes is rampant in developed countries; sugar is dumped in virtually every packaged and canned food.

Keep a couple of cans of chicken broth and canned chicken breast in your cupboard and a package of frozen veggies in your freezer. It takes less than one minute to open those cans, pour the contents into a saucepan, dump in some frozen veggies and as fast as it takes to heat up this Campbell’s abomination, you’ll have a far better tasting and nutritionally superior COMPLETE MEAL.

Take it from someone who worked for three years in a Los Angeles restaurant super-popular with celebrities — you never want to let other people prepare your food.

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Fitness Saboteurs; Part 2

Those people in our lives who are threatened by our desire for success are our saboteurs. They do not want for us what we want for ourselves. They will, either overtly or passive-aggressively, work hard to discourage us.

Saboteurs can be coworkers, friends or family who are threatened in large part because they have always thought of themselves as being superior in some regard. Relatively few people are secure enough to pursue as potential friends others who they feel are superior to them in important ways. Most people want friends who they feel comfortable with, their so-called “equals.” But in many instances if not most, that comfort is in fact about their feeling slightly superior — smarter, better looking, more talented, from a better family, etc. — than their friends. 

Most people have someone in their lives who is uncomfortable with others’ ambition. As a fitness trainer and author I have found this most commonly true when it comes to weight loss and fitness. The common term many use to describe these people is “jealous.” I feel the term jealous is too simplistic. One dictionary definition of jealous is “feeling resentment against someone because of that person's rivalry, success, or advantages.” The term “threatened” is nowhere to be found in any definitions I looked up, but “threatened” is the key component to jealousy. Threatened in this case meaning “You’re making me look bad in comparison, and I won’t tolerate that.”

Many people suffer insecurities which result in their being more attracted to those over whom they feel some measure of superiority. So when the supposed inferior individual breaks out of that mold, when he or she pursues or accomplishes something admirable or impressive or ballsy that they themselves have not or cannot, like losing weight or getting fit, this is interpreted as a threat:

1 — Failure. Your success brings into sharper focus their failures as they pertain to the way they view themselves, and how they perceive themselves as being viewed and judged by others.

2 — Balance of Power. Your success upsets the dynamic. You are accomplishing something impressive that they have not been able to.

3 — Abandonment. You were once in solidarity with them, they believed, regarding a shared lack of interest in weight loss or fitness. But now you've broken out of that alliance by pursuing an unshared goal. You are leaving them behind and they are upset with you for that. It doesn’t matter that you may well have invited them along with you. They don’t want to go along, or are not ready to go along. Because you went ahead anyway on your own they interpret that as having been left behind.

Calling someone “jealous” rather than the more accurate “threatened” minimizes the real problem. Often our saboteurs are those we are closest to and love the most, which makes coming to terms with the phenomenon painful. 

The bottom line is this: don’t allow saboteurs to get under your skin. 

Bad Genes vs. Bad Jeans

There are two guys at my gym, both in the Social Security age range, who came into the gym a few minutes apart last Friday wearing jeans. The difference between the two really struck me, as does the fact that so many guys of any age, but especially those over 50, are so clueless about clothes.

One of the gym guys never works his legs, which for an old guy is crazy. He has a decent upper body for his age, but is shriveled from the waist down, with a paunch that proves he doesn’t work his abs either, and he has no ass whatsoever. He was wearing ill-fitting thin droopy dad jeans which greatly accentuated his overall frail appearance.

The other guy looks like he’s been hitting the gym all his life; on leg day he goes at it heavy for well over an hour, going from leg machine to machine with a minimum of rest between sets. He walked into the gym wearing the classic Levi’s 501s, a style well over 100 years old and still the world favorite. He looked amazing because he filled up his jeans - his thighs and buttocks are better developed than most guys half his age, and dressed in a roomy but well-fitting polo shirt, his 501s, and boat shoes with no socks, he attracted a lot of admiring eyes. Also, because he works his legs and has impressive muscle, he WALKS like a young guy, while the other guy SHUFFLES along like he's ready to topple over at any minute.

It has only been in recent years that men’s fashion media has made the obvious point that clothes look a hell of a lot better on guys who are in shape, no matter their age. But even more so for older guys who work hard to build muscle, this means that they will be treated more respectfully in all kinds of social situations — in restaurants, the DMV, at the airport, etc.

People who don’t give a damn about how they look are sending the world a very negative message, and then they want to complain about being disregarded, or “invisible.” In the computer age, with endless blogs and websites to instruct and inspire, there’s no excuse for not searching online for role models. Although when it comes to our looks we might be tempted to blame bad genes, there’s no excuse for bad jeans. Lose the belly and go try on some 501s at Sears.