General Musings

By Tommy Leung on 10/17/2011 in Life

There are so many things that I want to write about that I can’t sit still and write about any single one of them. It’s a problem. Instead, I’m watching Weeds on Netflix! Great show. You need to watch it if you haven’t seen it before. And speaking of Netflix, I don’t have any problems with a single thing they’ve done in the last few months. Everyone else appears to be fuming and Netflix’s stock price has sunk like a faceless corpse tied to a stone. I don’t get it. Why are people still renting DVDs?!

Anyway, I poured myself a hefty glass of merlot–a little more than a quarter of a whole bottle. I figured it was going to help me with these allergies I’m having. Changing of seasons always tends to be slightly problematic. I’m not sure if it helped since I’ve also turned on my air purifiers. That probably actually did something. Oh well, the wine has other effects and since I didn’t eat much of anything today, there’s a magnified effect! I’m writing this a little buzzed. That’s where the best writing comes from!

What Hunger Should Feel Like

One of the things I wanted to write about is the feeling of hunger. I’ve been experimenting–trying, practicing, or whatever one would call it–intermittent fasting since the beginning of the year. I feel like I’ve mastered the idea of it. Intermittent fasting is exactly as it sounds. Fasting for short periods of time. In this oddball world where conventional wisdom tells us we should be eating small meals more frequently, why would I bother trying something so antithetical to the mainstream?

That’s actually a silly question since I’m all about trying things that are against conventional wisdom. I’m hesitant to just believe without some first hand experience on the matter. I’m all about making my own decisions. It’s the rugged individualist inside.

It’s a theme in my life which I’ll get back to in a little bit but, before I get way off track: hunger. Since January, I’ve been eating 2 or fewer meals a day. No, I’m not starving myself. I haven’t told you what my 2 or fewer meals consist of. You’d probably think I’m stuffing myself if you knew! The reality is that I am neither starving nor stuffing myself. My improved body composition–bigger, stronger, leaner–can attest to that.

It will probably be difficult for most people to imagine how it would feel to not have hunger control their lives. It used to control mine. I am sitting here right now having had some cheese, an apple, and two cups of coffee. It’s late in the afternoon and that’s all I’ve eaten today. It isn’t because I’m not hungry. At least, not hungry as most people understand it. I wouldn’t mind eating but, I am not crippled by this feeling of hunger.

See, the feeling of hunger that I generally have now is completely different than the feeling of hunger that I used to have before I found the paleo diet and learned about how the human body works. I don’t get pains in my stomach and I’m able to focus on other tasks while my body would like some nourishment. I generally eat something in the morning. Sometimes, I skip breakfast altogether! Don’t tell the Obesity Police or they might arrest me!

If I had a large dinner–which happens quite often, again, don’t tell the Obesity Police!–then I usually don’t wake up feeling like I really need any food in the morning. I am aware of all the studies that say eating breakfast is the key to staying lean but, let’s be honest with ourselves: eating breakfast does not cause you to be lean. There happens to be some high correlation which means we should look into why there is a correlation. Eating breakfast alone doesn’t guarantee you’ll be lean. I’m lean and I skip breakfast. There’s many people who are lean and do the same. Granted, there’s many who carry a few pounds too many and also skip breakfast. So this tells us eating breakfast doesn’t mean you’ll be lean or fat one way or the other. Don’t let pseudo science trick you!

So my hunger feeling is more a sense of heightened alertness. I am actually more alert during these periods of fasting when my body would like to eat but, doesn’t necessarily have to. I don’t let my body get to a point where it has to or it’ll die–that’s just stupid–but, I don’t let meal times dictate my day. I am so much more efficient not having to take lunch in the middle of the day.

I believe that’s how humans should feel when it comes to hunger. Chronic hunger is bad but, not this heightened sense of alertness. It’s hard to explain until you feel it yourself and the key to get to such a place is to stop eating bread, grains, processed foods, and carbs. Once you get lean–low teens or less–you can eat as many carbs as you want like tubers but, not bread or potato chips. Until then, you want to chow down on lots of fat and protein–err on the side of fat. Your body will then adjust to using fat for energy and you’ll be able to go hours and hours without eating. I did it. Many others have as well. A body that runs on sugar–carbs–is a very inefficient body. You want to run on fat; it frees you from having to eat every 2 – 3 hours and from feeling grumpy just because you missed a meal.

It’s a wonderful thing.

Occupy Occupy Occupy!

And now back to the rugged individualist thing. Occupy Wall St is still going strong. I’m a little surprised that there’s so much momentum behind this thing. I’m not a supporter of all the messages that are coming out of there but, I support the people’s right to assemble and freedom of speech. I’m not going to get into scum-on-the-bottom-of-a-barrel behavior and make fun of them like many Liberals/Leftists/Democrats decided to do with the Tea Party. I have my own gripes with the modern day Tea Party but, there is much in common between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall St.

I don’t want to get into that exactly but, I was an original Tea Partier. Back in 2007 when Ron Paul supporters donated $6 million to his campaign in a single day on December 16th–the day of the Boston Tea Party. That’s where the Tea Party originated. It was then co-opted by Fox News, Neoconsertives, and the far Right. It was sad. I was disappointed but, what can you do?

So with Occupy Wall St, I’ve been trying to convince some individuals that the focus should be on the real problems and not the symptoms and I’m not really sure I’m getting through. But, whatever. There’s an ideological divide that I have with the core of the movement and that is the idea of the 99%. I really hate collectivism. I’m all about being me. I love being me. I don’t like being another faceless person in the crowd.

Which, if I was in the 99%–and technically I am–then I would be just another faceless person and I’m really not willing to give up my individualism. That doesn’t sit well with me and I know I am a lot different than the folks who thought up this 99% thing. Firstly, I’m not out there protesting and I have a damn good reason not to. I don’t believe in protesting. I don’t see the point. I can’t change minds but being out there annoying the crap out of other people. If I want to change hearts and minds–and that’s what I want to do–I need to convince people without annoying them to death. It’s not so showy but, I think it works better if I can change their minds by listening, talking, sharing, and understanding where they’re coming from and why they believe what they do. And maybe I’m wrong but, I’ll never know if all I’m doing is out there making noise that will leave 99% of the people I’m trying to inform annoyed, disgusted, and generally displeased.

Marketers should understand what I’m saying.

I don’t like playing the victim. Yes, I know that these big corporations got a lot of bailout money. I hate that. I hate this corporatist system we have where Big Business is in bed with Big Government. This is all terrible and I shine the light of criticism on it daily–my Facebook friends can attest to that. But, I’m not just going to sit and complain hoping that something magical will happen. Yes, I see how incredibly broken this world is and the only thing I can do is work around it. I’m going to work my ass off and do what I can. I will take the information I have and make the best of it. I will not go and lobby for handouts just because other people got handouts. No chance in hell. I’m going to do it right.

And that might just be my biggest gripe with Occupy Wall St. The protestors are largely looking for something. They want to end all the corporate welfare–which is a good thing–but, they also think they deserve some kind of welfare. Whether it be their student loans being forgiven or free health care or more free education or whatever. These are people who want to abolish one form of welfare and replace it with another. I can’t support that but, I will absolutely fight for those people’s rights to express themselves and assemble peacefully.

The Fall of Men?

Now enough of that, let’s go to an entirely different topic. I’ve come across a few articles recently about the fall of men or basically how women are improving their standing in society–collectively–and men are falling behind. The fact that these are all things that take men and women as collective groups annoy me already but, I can understand the usefulness of it when it comes to studying groups.

The whole idea that men are in trouble and that women are leap frogging us is ridiculous. It makes for great books and editorials but, that’s about it. There is only a story here because we have separated people into two teams: males and females. If we just combined the two groups and viewed it as how the United States population doing, it would be good news. Apparently, good news doesn’t sell so we need to somehow make a story out of this and you can’t have a story without a conflict. So, let’s use the oldest rivalry known to man: Man vs Woman.

Does no one else see this?

It really couldn’t be more apparent. Why is this a story? Men and women have had different roles all throughout human history. In some cultures, women are on top. In others, men are. And if we were to look even further, gender roles change constantly. There are times when women were viewed as equals to men and other times when women were held in higher or lesser regard. So what? This isn’t some kind of danger for men nor is it a danger for humanity.

What is a danger for humanity is that we’re playing this game of dumbasses where we want separate into two different teams when in reality, there’s one team: human kind. Men and women have worked together for hundreds of thousands of years to get to where we are today so this tiny blip in human history–and in this country specifically–is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Whatever roles men and women are going to play in our collective future is likely going to be the right ones. It is a reaction to a changing society than a sign of the end of civilization as we know it. And for all the hardcore feminists: no, you cannot continue the human race by yourselves. So try not to use this fabricated story to gloat too much. I know you folks like to degrade men because you feel men have degraded your kind in the past but, how about you grow the hell up? You cannot make things right by doing wrongs. Also, your concept of history is entirely too narrow. Expand your understanding of how human beings have lived since the dawn of time and you’ll discover that neither gender owes the other anything.

A Shortage of Good Men?

On a similar topic, I’d like to address this other asinine idea that proponents of the men are doomed theory that there are no good single men out there. You’ve heard, I’ve heard it, your mother has heard it, everyone has heard it. There’s a shortage of good men out there!

And that might be true. I don’t know, I’m not out looking for men. However, I happen to have the insight of someone looking for the other sex! Of course, no one thinks the opinion of men in these editorials are important. I’m not sure why. You’d think these authors and editors would want both sides of the story–unless they’re fabricating a story, of course.

Let’s say there really are no good men out there. Well, I hate to break it to you but, there are also no good women out there. Well, okay, not none but very few. I’ve never complained that there’s few good women out there. Why? Because this is nothing new! Are we just expecting that every person we meet is going to be awesome? What kind of fairy tale story are we trying to live? To find that one person who is the most amazing, you’re going to need to look a while and meet a lot of people who suck–how else would you know what awesome is?

And, for the most part, it isn’t because awesome people only exist in small quantities and only a few lucky ones are going to ever find such a rarity. How could that possibly make sense? How could everyone in the world be looking for the same thing and only a few people hold such qualities? The idea itself is absurd.

But, that’s the idea we’re given and told to believe. Well, I have a different idea: maybe the problem is that we don’t understand ourselves. That we aren’t sure who we are so we don’t know what we’re looking for. It is impossible to find what you want if you don’t know what it is that you want! And it is close to impossible to know what you want if you don’t know who you are.

Yes, I am bringing this all back to the idea of individualism. Maybe it’s just my own bias but, I don’t believe there is someone else out there that “completes me”. I am a whole person by myself. Another person would not make me whole, she would make me two. One plus one is two. One plus one is not one–and no, multiplication wouldn’t make sense.

This isn’t to say I don’t believe in love. I believe in it just fine. I’m probably more of a romantic than most people. I just don’t believe in stupid senseless shit–how’s that for alliteration? I’m not some expert of relationships or love or any of that. I just happen to be a living person and I tend to distrust experts when my life experience tells me otherwise.

In a future day, I will elaborate on all of this. Until then, I’m going to leave it at that. But, speaking of living…

Look Amazing and Have a Life?

I have finally tried going to the gym only twice a week for a month. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to go more often. I still want to go more often but, I had to try this experiment. If I am able to make solid gains by just going twice a week then I have to ask myself why I bother wasting time going more often. There’s so many other things that I could be doing and I’ve been able to do some of them in the last month.

It’s a beautiful thing. The verdict so far is that I am making solid gains. I haven’t turned into a pile of weak mush or gained fat. I am as lean as ever and it does appear I’m putting on muscle. I know I’m getting stronger because the weights are going up. I also feel great because I am fully rested and recovered every time I hit the gym. It really is amazing that two times a week is able to garner results.

I will continue this twice a week plan because it frees up time for me to do other things while allowing me to make progress in body composition and strength–that’s why I go to the gym. I’ve had to be more creative about how I train because I can’t just bombard myself with more days. I need to do the most efficient exercises, rep/set scheme, etc. in order to get the most out of just two days.

If you really don’t know what you’re doing at the gym, a twice a week plan will make it glaringly obvious. The key? Big compound movements and intensity. There’s a little more to it but, that’s the core concept. My plan is simple and could probably use more improvements but, so far this is what I’ve come up with:

Warm Up Complex

• hang snatch x 5
• overhead squat x 5
• military press x 5
• hang clean x 5
• front squat x 5

This complex is performed as many times as I want. Usually, I just do it once since twice seems to affect my other lifts.

Front Squats

• 4 sets of 5
• 1 set of max reps at a solid weight

A solid weight is something that I can rep at least 5 times but, could also do more. The idea is to blast the last set with volume to trigger more hypertrophy than if I just did another set of 5 reps with a heavier weight.

Dead lift

• 5-3-2 set scheme

Bench Press

• 4 sets of 5
• 1 set of max reps at a solid weight

A solid weight is the same idea as for the front squat.

Pull-ups

• 50+ in shortest time
• temporary failure on every set

My 3000 in 30 experiment showed that going to failure on every set made the most difference in muscle growth and strength so leave nothing in the tank. I just chose 50 because after doing over a hundred a day for 30 days, anything else seems too little. You can scale it to whatever number best suits you. I also try to do them in the shortest amount of time possible because I can either do a lot of reps or do fewer reps in less time. Just tweaking the variables there.

That’s all for this edition of General Musings. It was scattered but, there was a lot swirling in my mind. I didn’t even get to all of them! Almost everything I talked about here deserves it’s own in-depth blog post and perhaps they’ll get one eventually.