The One Good Thing About Having A Bad Cold

Stay Home If You're Sick: https://www.liveabout.com/should-you-exercise-when-you-are-sick-415392

I've had two colds in the last 15 years. The first was mild, but the current one, the second, has reminded me just how miserable a bad chest cold can feel. I had to stay home from my Thanksgiving Dinner invitation. I watched The Irishman.

After 3 days of incessant coughing and hacking I discovered the one perk to that: my abs and obliques burn.

I feel like I’ve had a killer ab workout, which makes sense, as the constant deep coughing produces abdominal isometrics all day long—times three.

Having said that though, I want this shit to be over so I can get back to the gym.

My message to those who don't feel well is, stay out of the gym. The rest of us don't take kindly to such selfishness.

Empty Calories = Empty Muscles

It goes without saying that what we eat should have nutritional value. What we choose to eat either takes us closer to our goal, or takes us father away from it.

Forgetting calories for the time being, the more nutritious our food or snack or drink, the better it is for our health and fitness. But even more so if we’re trying to build and sculpt muscle.

Things go south when we choose high calorie / low nutrition foods, say for example, cheese puffs or pork rinds. Lots of calories, high fat, very low nutrition — and easy to shovel large amounts mindlessly into our mouths while our attention is focused on other things like TV or the internet.

Knowledge requires a whole 5 seconds of research, which can be as instant as a Google search: Enter “nutritional content Big Mac.” This will open a handy chart on the right side of the page with the calories and fats at the top followed by the basics. If we’re serious though, we’ll dig deeper through the list of search results for a complete rundown on whether the nutritional values of a Big Mac make it a smart choice. (Nope.)

If you search “nutritional content mcdonalds french fries” the chart on the right shows a picture of the product and states “378 calories” and 18 g. fat. But at the top of the search results, McDonalds paid-for advertising shows the same picture but states “270 calories” and 0 g. trans fat, which seems to contradict the chart to the right. But “0 g. trans fat” doesn’t mean 0 g. fat, or fat-free. Trans fat is just one of the fats contained in McDonald’s french fries. They don't mention the others in this ad. McDonald’s wants to deceive you by not divulging the true total fat content, so again, you have to look close, read slowly, and not be eager to fool yourself or allow others to fool you.

Facebook Post Of The Day

https://www.facebook.com/david.hamilton.31337194?__tn__=%2CdC-R-R&eid=ARDN4kHXMybETlAQixcTAwncZ0hKCwuTsG2OAK72XL5KeTajbM0lNtnJHqmv1wbHk3BXhjWsF7F7dCly&hc_ref=ARSOhvKgtnQDKPIJBFUijxEYyP0Ctf46pQSvtSF5pVL2Z-KaIMryO_-wiovvc_iJ9PQ&fref=nf

Transformation Of The Day

Mark's facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/mark.dargan.77?__tn__=%2CdC-R-R&eid=ARDZrIs5E9gdLK64xel2peNB3WYoXA5IsVuUUjBSODkLdvkuXr2M0zGuA8ZEH_L3HL5ZPJaUcwpNfku2&hc_ref=ART5PqAGOjf8X9mhuLTUT2jb345O3hgoHPrdEJ0CscJTHfu524tJMwEGFp8EtvqS0Fg&fref=nf

Food, Supplement and Gizmo Fads Appeal To The INSTANT-FIX Crowd

Thousands of years before crossfit, Pelaton, steroids,  pre-workout

supplements,  Fitbits, and infomercials for workout gizmos like Total Gym, there

were only The Basics.

Uhhh...no.

Recognize bullshit when you see it.

If you’ve been alive 25 years or more you’ve seen quite a few fads come and go. Especially around the new year a host of articles and online discussions center on the NEW: new workouts, new “super foods” and more.

What you may have also noticed is that people who got all excited about these things last year are no longer doing them this year. That’s what a fad is all about —a temporary popular thing.

I have a friend who throughout the years bought into a lot of fads. He installed a floatation tank in his man cave. He extolled the virtues of coffee enemas, of taking as supplements oregano and capsasin, of drinking distilled water, then alkaline water, eating carob instead of chocolate, gorging on quinoa and flax seed, swearing off meat for a while—you get the picture.

On the TV show Mad Men, Don Draper says something to the effect that “the greatest idea ever conceived in advertising was the word ‘new’”. I agree, as little piques our interest more than something new and different and shiny that promises to change things up for us. We’re always searching for the latest and greatest, and sometimes we actually do find the latest thing beneficial.

Lifting weighted objects to build and sculpt muscle has been around since the ancient Greeks, as can be seen in 2500 year old statues in our museums. So has eating basic foods like meat, fruits and vegetables and grains. These are basics because they’ve always worked. There’s nothing wrong with investigating the shiny and new, but the next time you’re tempted, recall in your own personal experience how many of these that may have once caught your eye have since faded away with time, while the basics endure.

Why Don’t More Gyms Have A Butt-Blaster Machine?

In my travels I’ve noticed that many gyms have newly purchased hip-thruster machines that are supposed to be the latest and best way to build your glutes, but I disagree. 

The butt-blaster machine I’m using in this video completely wrecks my butt, isolates it highly efficiently, and leaves me unable to sit on the toilet without screaming for two days. The hip thruster on the other hand, despite my trying it every which-way, hits my glutes not nearly as much while adversely affecting my lower back and hips.

I’ve said in the past that there’s no such thing as a bad gym machine, just people using them with bad form, but I might take that back. There’s no way I can isolate my glutes on a hip-thruster machine as effectively as I can on the style of butt-blaster seen in my video.

Fitness fads are successful in the short term because everyone wants to believe there’s some newly discovered magic in new technology, when in fact there’s not, whether it be hip thrusters, Pelaton or other brands that require a monthly subscription for “personal” training, a FitBit, or other machine or monitoring device. 

Perhaps a Pelaton appeals to some who do not like the idea of a gym membership, but as far as efficiency goes, old school—meaning the ongoing challenging each muscle group using proper form—is the bedrock to building strength, bone and muscle.

Doug's Gym in Dallas, Opened in 1962

Doug's Gym in Dallas, opened in 1962: a great photo essay from The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2019/nov/12/dougs-gym-dallas-five-decades-in-pictures

UPGRADE? Here We Go Again: New Year's Resolutions Scamming

The only way to UPGRADE our workout is to the raise the bar by setting more challenging fitness and dietary goals for ourselves, and by not thinking that spending a few months' salary on a fucking Pelaton bike is going to be the answer to fitness and a great physique. 

Gym Aboard The Titanic, 1912:

Delicious vs. Tasty: Maintaining A Stable Weight

Lots of people fluctuate when it comes to weight. We’re oftentimes good one week, then bad the next when it comes to food and drink. But if we want to have the sort of physique we claim we want to have, that requires self-control; we can’t eat everything we crave in the amounts that we desire. I for one always want to eat more calories than I burn, which is especially hard when confronted with the delicious food vs. tasty food conundrum.

Something that works for me is having tasty food in the house that I enjoy eating but do not have a desire to gorge on. My personal nemeses are ice cream, Ghiradelli Brownie mix, or home baked bread that I make myself, because I can eat half a loaf right after it comes out of the oven if I have butter and raspberry preserves in the house. If I don’t have butter and preserves in the house I have a lot more restraint. The plain bread tastes great (tasty), but slathering warm bread with butter and preserves makes it irresistibly delicious—which means I lose all control.

So what it comes down to is my having food at home that I like and enjoy, while avoiding buying craveable delicious foods that I want to never stop eating. Granted, unlike many people, I do not easily leave the house just to go buy a food I'm craving, so I have that advantage over others. But knowing I can’t eat what isn’t in the house, like ice cream beckoning me from the freezer or the amazing smell of something baking in the oven, I don’t buy these items very often. Instead of ice cream in my case I buy big bags of frozen mango chunks and blueberries, which I love, and I eat while still frozen. This combo has about 1/3 the calories or less of the ice cream. In my case this satisfies the ice-cold mushy part that ice cream does. Another of my problems with ice cream is that I can polish off two large tubs in a day, which amounts to a massive amount of calories. I just cannot leave it alone—I’m never satisfied, whereas with the mango/blueberry combo, one bowl is plenty, and quite satisfying.

All things being equal, the key becomes knowing what tasty alternatives satisfy you and quiet your cravings.

Making healthful lower calorie foods that I cook taste better by experimenting with spices and non-creamy sauces like salsa or Old Bay or soy sauce increases the flavor allowing me to eat more of the nutritious muscle-building stuff so I don’t have room left for the low-nutrition snack foods craving to set in.

Having said that, people who "can't" cook and have no desire to learn how are screwed. Allowing others to make your food is the death knell to weight control.