IT’S SO HARD TO GET FAT

I genuinely have no idea where this one is going to go, but I’ve had this thought circulating for a bit now and it’s pretty entertaining to me.  I was thinking about Paul Anderson the other day, primarily because, as I said in the very first entry to this blog: when my mind idles, it defaults right to getting bigger and stronger, and I’ll think of WEIRD stuff when that happens.  So anyway, what I specifically was thinking about was how Paul was a firm believer in the value of sugar as it related to getting bigger and stronger.  Whereas most meatheads were…well…meatheads, and therefore focused on meat and protein, Paul believed that SUGAR was necessary for the digestion of all of that meat and protein, and it’s presence WITH the protein was crucial for the process of digesting the protein and getting bigger and stronger.  That’s honestly not too far off from the en vogue notion of pairing post workout protein with some manner of insulin spiker to create an anabolic effect via the “storage” mechanism of insulin to drive protein into the muscles…but Paul took this in an interesting direction.  Primarily, Paul had the habit of drinking HALF A PINT of honey during strenuous workouts, alongside a protein drink consisting of “ice cream, milk, soybean meal, and raw eggs”.  To crunch the numbers on that, there are about 60 calories in a tablespoon of honey, 17g of carbs, of which 16 are sugar.  Half a pint is netting you 16 times that amount: 960 calories, 256g of sugar…which was what was consumed DURING the workout ALONGSIDE his “protein” concoction of ice cream and milk, being a part of the OG “Gallon of Milk a Day” tribe.  All of this eating and drinking got Paul to a bodyweight of 360lbs at his heaviest at 5’9, and a competition weight of 304lbs when he won Gold at the 1956 Olympics.

Paul ready to crush dreams and break hearts

 

What’s the point of that history lesson?  At 304lbs in the 1950s and 360lbs at his all-time heaviest, Paul was absolutely a big man…but compared to today?  You can go into any Walmart and you’re BOUND to find at least one 5’9 360lb man, to say nothing of significantly heavier men than that.  We have a television series titled “My 600lb life” that documents humans that have massively eclipsed (pun partially intended) Paul’s downright diminutive 360lb frame.  And Paul got there by DRINKING HONEY AND ICE CREAM as though they were beverages.  He had a goal to get as heavy as he possibly could so that he could lift as much weight as he could, and he couldn’t catch up to reality TV stars of our current era…peculiar, no?

 

Let’s take another case study: Bruce Randall.  My love and admiration of Mr. Randall has been well documented, because any man who can get a 680lb squat after breaking their leg in 7 places from a motorcycle accident by employing a style on the good morning that makes the internet scream is definitely my kind of hero.  Bruce, like Paul, understood the direct relationship between how much he weighed and how strong he was, and he achieved an absurd bodyweight of 401lbs at a height of 6’2 so that he could be one of the strongest humans of his time, before then cutting down to a svelte bodyweight of 222lbs to win the 1959 NABBA Mr Universe.  And he accomplished his 401lb bodyweight employing a progressive overload approach to nutrition, gradually adding extra food to each meal, “an extra chop, glass of milk, slice of bread”, etc, eventually totally out to an average (as reported by Randy Roach) of “eight to ten quarts of milk a day along with 12 to 18 eggs” and a semi-regular breakfast of “two quarts of milk, 28 fried eggs and a loaf and a half of bread”.  Once again, because math is fun, that’s a breakfast of 1,171 calories of milk (64g of fat and protein, 88g carbs), 2,262 calories of eggs (145g of fat and protein) NOT counting the butter they were fried in, and (assuming 20 slices per loaf and a wheat bread) 2100 calories of bread, (about 30g of fat, 100g of protein, and 360g of carbs): a total of 5,533 calories, about 240g of fat, 309g of protein and 448g of carbs…for breakfast!

It's absurd to think that he was nearly 100lbs away from his al time high in this photo

 

And again, is a 401lb 6’2 man a big man?  Absolutely!  Is that the fattest a man can be at 6’2?  Not in the slightest.  Hell, at 1” taller, Eddie Hall was 433lbs, and ALSO a strong human, to say nothing of the people you’ll see at any public gathering that have “achieved” an even higher bodyweight through sheer “grit and determination”.  And examples are abound of this in other historical locations: the Saxon Trio were famous for their eating feats, which included a breakfast of “24 eggs and 3 pounds of smoked bacon; porridge with cream, honey, marmalade and tea with plenty of sugar. At three o’clock they had dinner: ten pounds of meat was consumed with vegetables (but not much potatoes); sweet fruits, raw or cooked, sweet cakes, salads, sweet puddings, cocoa and whipped cream and very sweet tea. Supper, after the show, they had cold meat, smoked fish, much butter, cheese and beer.”  If you look at the Saxons, none of them would even register as “fat” by today’s standards.  What about legendary J.C. Hise?  Along with also abiding by the Gallon of Milk a day, according to a report on the 1934 Senior National Weightlifting Championships, J.C. Hise “steadily ate for over two hours, consuming half a gallon of coffee, much water, and unaccounted for stacks of grub” prior to arriving to compete and finish third, beating out the legendary John C. Grimek.  Was J.C. large?  At 5’9 and 298lbs, most certainly.  Can he measure up to what we see today?  Not at all.  John McCallum, creator and consumer of the “get big drink”, made up of “two quarts of milk in a bowl, at least a day’s supply of the Quick Gain Weight, two cups of skim milk powder, two eggs, four tablespoons of peanut butter, half a brick of chocolate ice cream, a banana, four tablespoons of malted milk powder and six tablespoons of corn syrup”, consumed on TOP of a diet heavy in whole foods.  John was a meaty man, based off his photos, but definitely not some sort of land whale that you’d anticipate based off his dietary intake.

J.C. Hise and John McCallum, respectively.  Big men, yes, but not what society would call "mega obese"

 

I could honestly just keep on listing more and more examples here because I really find this stuff fascinating (oh hell, also go look up Hugh Cassidy and Louis Cyr), but I’m already at over 1000 words and haven’t even made my point yet, but considering the majority of the examples I’m listing trained in an era where steroids either did not exist or were merely in their infancy, it’s worth appreciating that they were eating in manners that common sense would tell us will ABSOLUTELY result in ballooning up JUST like the modern obese people we see today that have completely surpassed Bruce Randall’s 401lbs…yet Bruce remains the heaviest among the group.  In spite of ALL of their efforts to gain, these folks could NOT match the obesity that we see today…and why is that?      

Exactly how I feel whenever anyone brings up genetics

 

Because as I wrote in the title: it’s HARD to get fat.  People that have grown to 500lbs and up got there through a VERY dedicated and concentrated campaign of physical neglect.  They had to make some of the WORST nutritional decisions possible, and they had to do this consistently over a prolonged period of time, ignoring all the discomfort that comes alongside this lifestyle.  And, on the flipside of the equation, dudes that are out there training REALLY hard in the pursuit of trying to become as big and strong as possible are simply putting their bodies through so much trauma and toil that they simply do not possess the ability to grow so monstrously fat.  Hell, the best example we have is strongman competitor Glenn Ross, who grew to a top weight of 475lbs at 6’1, and in doing so remains the exception among the norm of athletes who eat like it’s their job and STILL cannot get mega-obese, as you’ll observe whenever you view the dietary videos of dudes like Brian Shaw and Thor talking about how “eating is the hardest part of the job.”

 

What sort of helpful conclusions can we draw from this information?  One is that, by referencing a “pre-steroid era” grouping of athletes, I’m also referencing a “pre-current nutritional debauchery” era of humanity, because our current state of nutrition is absolutely abysmal in the west.  These dudes simply didn’t have access to the ridiculous food-like products that we currently have: they had to “force” themselves to gain on good old whole foods, pasture raised eggs/chicken, grassfed cows, locally grown fruits, veggies, tubers and grains, etc.  Even their “junk” food was healthier than what we had, and Paul Anderson even had the wherewithal to appreciate that the honey he got from local beekeepers seem to provide him better energy than the stuff he got from the grocery store.  In turn, this leads to a second conclusion: you aren’t going to get “accidentally obese” in your pursuit of growing bigger and stronger.  It’s HARD to get fat: you have to make a LOT of bad decisions, and this includes a diet consisting primary of modern processed junk and foodlike products AND engaging in a campaign of NO physical activity.  The fears of “getting fat” are just as unfounded as the fears of accidentally getting “too muscular”: you have to make an effort to get there.

I suppose sometimes we can accidentally achieve one in pursuit of the other

 

Meanwhile, what DID happen to these dudes when they went out of their way to try to find a way to get in as much quality food as possible while training as hard as possible?  They ALL got incredibly big and strong, to the point that we’re STILL talking about them decades if not a hundred+ years later.  They became legends from their efforts.  Did you ever hear about the kid that ate a moderate surplus on a long slow bulk employing the optimal amount of frequency of 2x per week for all of their muscle groups?  Yeah: me neither.  Damndest thing really.              

BARBARIANS AT THE GATE

Despite the inclusion of my favorite character class, this is NOT a post about Dungeons and Dragons, but instead I wish to discuss barriers of entry and gatekeeping.  People say “gatekeeping” like it’s a bad thing, but consider the origin of such a phrase: WHY would we keep a gate?  What is the function of a gate?  The gate is there to protect something that we deem valuable.  You wouldn’t construct a gate to protect something that was worthless: you’d simply leave it out in the open, exposed to the elements, unprotected, raw, exposed and vulnerable.  We put our precious things behind the gate, lock them up, and keep them safe…and that’s exactly WHY we have “barbarians at the gate”.  The barbarians KNOW that all the good stuff is behind that gate: and they want in.  They WANT go get to all that good stuff, they want INSIDE your city, and they want to get AWAY from all that bad stuff that is out there in the raw, exposed elements.  The barbarians will storm the gate, crash the drawbridge, bring out the battering rams and endure the boiling oil, spears and arrows so that they can get BEYOND the gate.  These are the barriers to entry they must bypass, the very ones erected by the gatekeepers, because BOTH sides understand how valuable the stuff beyond the gate really is…do you?

Sometimes it's not a gate but a bridge....and it's the barbarians that are keeping it!

What inspired this post was an interaction I had online recently.  I was discussing 5/3/1 with a trainee and explaining the function of the assistance work: to build muscle.  Jim has said this on many occasions during his weekly podcast, specifically highlighting that the assistance work is where his athlete tend to exert themselves the MOST, because there’s minimal risk of getting hurt going to failure on a set of chin ups or push-ups compared to the core lifts, and this sort of effort is great for building muscle.  The trainee asked where I heard that from Jim and I explained it was in the weekly podcast, to which the trainee informed me that he didn’t listen to them because “There is an annoying sound in the background of a dying smoke alarm”. 

 

If you were to ask me to pinpoint the exact moment I lost my faith in humanity…ok, it wasn’t here, but this definitely helped re-affirm my decision to be a misanthrope.  That is the SMALLEST barrier to entry I have ever seen.  This isn’t gatekeeping: this is like a single blade of grass that is slightly taller than the rest of the lawn, and acting as though this is providing too much resistance to go forward.  Jim Wendler is a 1000lb squatter that was directly trained and mentored by Louie Simmons who has coached athletes ranging from high school kids to collegiate athletes and elite powerlifters, authored several books, and provides a FREE weekly podcast where he directly answers questions submitted to him by viewers on a wide variety of topics…and you can’t be bothered to benefit from this knowledge because there is an annoying sound in the background?  While you sit there in your climate controlled him in the most comfortable chair you own, munching on a snack with your favorite beverage and your designer headphones pumping in crystal clear sound, this minor annoyance has halted your ability to gain wisdom?

How long must I suffer!

 

Do you have any conception of the idea that, “back in the day”, the only way you gained this knowledge was to TRAIN alongside this mentor?  That there was no internet, no weekly newsletters, no 1-800 numbers to dail: the only way you had access was to actually ACCESS the person, in person.  And that meant you were SWEATING alongside them: loading and unloading plates and bars, going set for set, following them around the gym like a puppy-dog, and just hoping you’d learn something through sheer osmosis, to say nothing of if they actually took the time to REALLY explain what the hell it was they were doing.  THAT was the barrier to entry, and we barbarians were at the gate ready to tear it ALL down so we could get to the good stuff.  And that was just if you wanted the local “big guy” to share his knowledge.  Someone like Jim?  Dudes would drive for hours just for the chance to meet up one time and get whatever download of info they could.  There are SO many stories of folks back in the day getting to York or Gold’s or any of the Meccas of physical transformation just for ONE session to try to learn as much as they could…and you can’t be bothered to sit through an annoying sound?

 

Think of the other ridiculous barriers to entry that are keeping some barbarians at the gate.  How often do you hear someone say “I’m not a fan of” when discussing a food product.  Not a fan of?  Does EVERYTHING you put inside your face have to be the most delicious and opulent thing in the world?  Do you legitimately have no room in your life for food that provides a function outside of satisfying hedonism?  Do you have a childlike approach to eating: being a “picky eater” that will only subsist on a diet of chicken fingers, French fries and ketchup (ruled a vegetable by the government!)?  To say nothing of those who claim “I don’t know how to cook”, in an era where, once again, we have INSTANT access to information such that you can LEARN how to cook in the span of minutes.  And if you’re REALLY short on time, you can find a youtube video on how to cook and watch it at 1.5x speed so that you learn FASTER. 

However, don't try to COOK the food 1.5x faster by cooking it 1.5x hotter...

 

And really, the “I don’t have time” barrier to entry is so patently ridiculous.  Super Squats is my go to book for anyone interested in physical transformation.  It can be read in an afternoon and will give you all the tools you need for completely transforming yourself…and yet people REFUSE to read it.  And here comes the comedy: they then go and run what they THINK is the program, screw it up because they don’t know HOW to run the program, and waste 6 weeks of their lives.  They didn’t have time to spend an afternoon reading, but they DID have time to waste 6 weeks?  How does that even work?  Once again: reading this ONE book was the barrier for entry, and it was enough to keep some barbarians at the gate.  Each and every book you DON’T read is simply you allowing the gatekeepers to keep keeping the gate! 

Think of how diminutive these barriers to entry are, compared to the REAL ones that are out there.  Think of the barrier to entry that exists between rep 19 and rep 20 of Super Squats.  Or the barrier to entry as you’re 4 gulps away from finishing the gallon of milk for that day.  Think about the barrier to entry that exists between sets 6 and 7 (of 10) on Deep Water.  Laying on my back in my garage, within the 2 minutes of that rest period, I legit contemplated selling all of my home gym equipment and quitting lifting because I was feeling so miserable…and then my timer went off and I got up and knocked out another set of 10.  Because that misery was the barrier to entry, and I was a barbarian knocking at the gate because I WANTED IN.  Think of all those trainees who never even got to this GATE because they were denied entry into the first circle of the promised land from something as inconsequential as a yucky tasting food or an annoying background noise.  Some folks don’t even get to KNOW about the good stuff that is being gatekept because they don’t even get far enough to SEE the gate. 

Those who refuse to give up their abs will never see the gate of squatting 1200 f**king pounds

 

Be the barbarian you know you are.  Allow no gates to stand in your way.  Allow no gatekeepers to keep their gates.  Overcome all barriers to entry.  They wouldn’t have a gate up if there wasn’t something REALLY good on the other side: go get yours.    

‘IF YOU HAD TO PICK JUST ONE”

This is always a fun mental exercise: limiting ourselves and seeing what we come up with.  What initially inspired this was watching a video from Alex Bromley, where he totally blew my mind by performing cambered bar squats with an open trap bar, because it got me thinking about how awesome that piece of equipment is…which, of course, led to the question of “if you had to pick JUST one…”

 

BAR

I’m going to be a total cad here, because I DON’T own it, but because of that video, if I DID have to have ONLY 1 bar, I’d actually opt for an open trap bar rather than a conventional barbell.  I’m specifically a fan of the design of the Rep Fitness open trap bar design, which a few other companies utilize as well (I’m unsure who the originator is), primarily featuring a rounded tubing compared to the square style tubing typically seen in trap bars. 

 

The trap bar/hex bar/Gerard bar was originally conceived of as a way to allow those trainees with brittle lower backs to still have a manner of deadlifting available to them, as it centered the weight around the lifter rather than putting it out in front of them.  Paul Kelso shook things up quite a bit when he demonstrated that you can also press overhead with this bar as well, which is a unique training stimulus by putting the weight center aligned AND also creating a bit of a deficit, since the bar goes around the lifter rather than stopping on their clavicle.

This book will definitely sell you on the bar

 

But this open design also allows for cambered bar squatting, as I mentioned in the intro, alongside zercher cambered squatting.  THIS is huge, because though some folks argue the trap bar deadlift is more like a squat than a deadlift, this is simply ACTUAL squatting, which opens up a lot of avenues.  Along with this, lunges, rows, and even benching can be performed with this bar.

Mind...blown

 

But so far, I’ve said things that can ALSO be done with a barbell, but the OTHER movement we can do with the open trap bar is the farmer’s walk.  And yes: I’ve spoken before about how farmer’s walk handles are superior to the trap bar when it comes to a farmer’s walk, but ultimately we’re discussing a “Swiss army knife” approach when it comes to this one tool.  No one part of the Swiss army knife is going to be superior to an individual tool specifically designed for one function, but the knife is full of “good enough” tools to get you through whatever situation you encounter, and the trap bar farmer’s walk absolutely answers that mail.  NOW you have one bar that can train all the essential movements for getting bigger and stronger (squats, deads, presses, rows) AND you’ve got loaded carries covered as well.  You hit ALL the Dan John bases there (push, pull, hinge, squat, loaded carry) with just one piece of equipment, and it’s about the same price as a quality barbell as well. 

CAVEAT: If at all possible, I’d include some rubber patio pavers in this set-up. For one: It’d open the door for ROM progression training with the pulls, but along with that, you could go by with JUST the trap bar this way…meaning you wouldn’t need a rack or set of stands!  You could simply stack the pavers up like jerk blocks in order to elevate the bar high enough to set up for squats or presses, and THAT means that this whole set up could be stripped down and put away in between workouts.  SUCH a low footprint with such a high effect.

 

FOOD

Rocky was a chump

 

Eggs.  Keep in mind, I am saying “food” and not “meal”, because, of course, I already wrote a post titled “when in doubt: steak and eggs”, but also because I know some of you asked yourself this question and answered with “chicken, rice and broccoli”, to which I say of course, shame on you: how boring, and NOT in the spirit of the exercise. 

 

No: if I had to pick one FOOD, it would be eggs.  Why?  For one: they’re a complete protein, which is kind of important for a goal of physical transformation, to say nothing of simply STAYING ALIVE due to the whole “essential amino acids” concept.  And the same goes for fats: eggs contain all the essential fatty acids we need to survive, let alone thrive, especially if these are some good pasture raised eggs that have a solid amount of Omega 3 in them.  The saturated fat in eggs are crucial for testosterone production, and eggs also contain vitamin A, D, E, K, and a whole host of B vitamins.  So, already, eggs are awesome, but along with that…

They bring us so much joy! (props if you at all get this reference)

 

…just like the open trap bar, eggs are like the Swiss army knife of food, because there’s a million different ways to make eggs.  Of course, you can Rocky them and just drink them, but you can fry them in SO many different styles (sunny side up, over easy/medium/hard), soft/hard boil them, poach or scramble them, make them into omelets or frittatas, etc.  And along with THAT, you can change the macro composition of your egg dish by using either the yoke OR the white in varying degrees.  If you want to make it protein heavier, use more whites.  Heavier in fats?  Use more yolks. 

 

And funny enough, eggs even have a trace amount of carbs in them, for those of you that care about that sort of stuff.  They clock in at about .6-.7g of carb per egg, which may seem insignificant, BUT, if we ARE going full on Gaston mode here and eating 5 dozen eggs each morning, that’s 36-42g of carbs, which CAN be enough to stay out of ketosis, if you’re wanting to do just that.  AND, if you are antsy about carbs, once again: play around with the whites to yolk ratio.  It goes to show the versatility of this one food.  And hell: I’ve ONLY been discussing chicken eggs here: there is a whole WORLD of eggs to explore, each with their own unique attributes.  I still have it as a goal of mine to one day eat a platypus omelet: made with the eggs, meat and milk of this unique egg laying mammal.

 

BOOK

You probably had a coin flip between this and Deep Water

As challenging as this idea may have seemed for me, given how many books on lifting I’ve devoured due to my nerdery, I quite quickly settled on “Super Squats”, to the surprise of some and total and utter lack of surprise of others.  But allow me to discuss the merits here.

 

Like the other previous two entries, what I dig about Super Squats is that it CAN do it all, and it does it quite efficiently.  It’s a book you can read in an afternoon, but it can set you up for the rest of your life.  The book contains THE Super Squats program, for sure, but it also contains an abbreviated version of that program, AND a follow-on 5x5 program to be run AFTER 6 weeks of Super Squats, in order for the trainee to get some time away from the high reps and rediscover some low rep strength while their body recovers.  Along with that, it even has some alternative Super Squats protocols listed, to include 2x15, 3x10 and 1x30 approaches for the breathing squat sets.  With all this, we already have “programming for life”, for those out there that only ever want to read just ONE book.  But wait: there’s more!

Almost as good as chocolate and peanut butter

 

The book ALSO contains instructions on how to perform ALL the exercises in the programs, along with alternative exercises that can be used.  So, once again: with the alternatives, we open ourselves up to even MORE programming options, and, in some sort of desert island scenario where we have no access to the internet, we STILL have a resource that can teach us HOW to lift.  And don’t laugh: reading descriptions of HOW to lift is exactly how I learned.  Occasionally, I’d even get a picture!  So now the book is going to teach us HOW to lift and then give us all the programming we need…but it’s not done yet!

 

The book ALSO contains nutritional protocols specifically for achieve the goal of getting bigger and stronger.  It lays it out very plainly with simple, quality foods that are primarily single ingredient, not ultra-processed, and wholesome.  There’s no calorie counting, macros, etc, just a focus on taking in a large amount of quality food…and, of course, milk.  Is it perfect?  Of course not, but as far as the Swiss army knife approach goes, this will definitely get you to your goals.  And we still haven’t even discussed the parts of the book that go into the psychology of training in such an intense manner or the delightful retelling of the history of the squat/program.  Really, if you only had one book and this was it, you’d be set.  

Are there others out there that could do a fantastic job?  Absolutely, similar to how there are other answers to the other two questions that would be just dandy (a good traditional barbell has withstood the test of time for a reason, and folks have lived quite well on diets of beef, salt and water), but, for me, at this moment, I feel like these are the best answers I have.

NOW LET'S GET CRAZY

Get?  We're there dude!

 

What makes this mental exercise even wilder is if I actually thought about taking these 3 and putting it all together.  You absolutely COULD do Super Squats with the open trap bar.  In fact, squatting with that bar might be ideal for Super Squats, because failing with it wouldn’t be quite as catastrophic as what typically occurs with a barbell: you can simply squat down and set it on its feet, similar to a yoke. You may have to get creative with the pull overs, or just find a doorway to do radar chest pulls, but you can quite easily do rows, straight legged deadlifts, presses, some manner of benching, curls, calf raises, etc with this one bar.  You’d be limited on the follow on 5x5 program, since power cleans would be a no-go, but maybe we’ll just do some trap bar high pulls and call it good. 

 

As far as the nutrition goes, you definitely won’t have milk on your side, but eggs CAN be consumed as a beverage (egg whites, in particular, go down pretty easy), and you can also just plain eat enough eggs to facilitate growing, as I’m not going to say one NEEDS to drink a gallon of egg whites a day… 

 

Although now that I’ve said that, let’s compare the macros.  If we’re talking egg whites, I feel like the most accurate comparison would be against skim milk, as both are fat free protein sources.  A gallon of skim milk is going to be 1,440 calories, with 144g of protein, and 208g of carbs, of which 192 are sugar.  If we went with Fairlife, that’s 1280 calories, with 208g of protein, and 96g of carbs, all of which being sugar.  Compare this to egg whites, which will clock in at 1,872 calories, with 424g of protein and 29ish grams of carbs.  Technically, you rack up 6.4g of fat as well when you drink a gallon of them, and I’m sure there are some trace fats in the skim milk as well, but still…looking at how things shake out, a gallon of egg whites MAY not be the craziest thing you ever drink.

 

Hell, let’s just keep getting wild here and compare whole eggs to whole milk.  A gallon of whole milk clocks in at 2384 calories, with 128g of fat (80 of it saturated) AND protein, and 192g of carbs, all of which being sugar.  If talking Fairlife, we’re looking at 2400 calories, with 128g of fat (80 of it saturated), 208g of protein and 96g of carbs, all of which being sugar.  To do this with whole eggs, we’re going to call an egg 50g, understanding a cup is 243g (should it be fluid ounces/milileters?  It’s getting a little confusing at this point), that means 3,888g per gallon, which equates to 77.75 eggs.  We’ll round that up to 78, and realize that Gaston was a chump with his 5 dozen each morning.  There are a LOT of opinions on how big an egg is, but according to SOME stats that claim a large egg is 50g, drinking a gallon of whole eggs a day will get you 6,084 calories (it’s actually 78 squared to get there: how fantastic), with 390g of fat (125 of them saturated), 468g of protein, and about 47g of carbs, all of which considered sugar.

We all have our limits

 

Holy crap: drinking a gallon of eggs is some Bruce Randall stuff right there!  And, of course, price factors into this as well.  According to a quick google search, I can buy 60 large eggs from Walmart for $7.47, so to get to 78 I’m gonna be paying $9.70.  A gallon of milk will cost me around $3.50, and a gallon of Fairlife is going to run $11.05 (4.50 per 52 fluid ounces) For reference, I’m currently in the middle of the United States: your prices may vary.  …holy crap, the eggs are more economically viable than the Fairlife!

 

Man, this took a WEIRD aside, but I honestly had a blast writing it, so hopefully you had fun experiencing my insanity firsthand here.  And I never even got into the discussion on “just one movement” (log viper press, btw, if you’re keeping score, with keg one motion being a close second), or any of the other “just ones” that are out there, but go ahead and ask yourself these questions.  When you do so, you find out just how much “extra” stuff you have in your life.     

WISDOM OF FORREST GUMP

I know my readers are well aware of my age and upbringing in the 90s, but seriously, if you’ve never watched the movie Forrest Gump, stop reading now and go watch it: that’s your homework.  That and Fight Club.  You do that and you pretty much got to live the parts of the 90s that mattered, for those of you born too late to have that joy.  But for everyone else fully aware of the movie, you now it’s full of tons of quotes that I could easily steal to turn into a blogpost.  I could discuss the duality between Forrest’s mom’s quote of “Life is like a box of chocolates” as contrasted against Lt Dan speaking about destiny, or I could go into “Stupid is as stupid does” and how that relates to the man stupid things I’ve done in my training, but probably a lesser appreciated quote is a one off that Forrest says one day when checking his mail.  He relates to the listener that “Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company (for my readers, this was Apple Computers). So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more. And I said, that's good! One less thing.” 

Even with my most recent carnivore bent, I can appreciate the value of an apple

 

I love that quote.  I love the genuine innocence of Forrest there combined with a level of deep, profound wisdom.  The juxtaposition is absolutely delightful.  It speaks to another pithy quote: “Money is like oxygen: it’s no big deal, as long as you have it”.  Here, Forrest has classified money in the realm of “things”: it’s simple one of many things that one has to be worried about.  Now that the money “thing” has been sorted, it’s one less thing to worry about.  He can clear that thing from his mind and go on to focus on other things now.  That “penguin is off the iceberg”, to go with another analogy you may be familiar with.  And for most other folks, money is a HUGE “thing”.  It’s THE thing.  But to Forrest, it was simply A thing, and now that thing no longer needs to be worried about.

 

Consider that in the realm of physical transformation: how many “things” are you thinking of as “THE” thing, when really, they are simply “A” thing?  How many things could you actually relegate to the realm of “one less thing”?  That you could simply STOP worrying about those things, so you could focus on OTHER things?

Like settling this debate for instance

 

Pre-workout supplements?  I’ve literally never used one in 24 years of lifting weights, nor do I ever intend to.  When they first came out, I assumed they were going to be one of many gimmicks that were going to blow over, much like glutamine supplementation, D-aspartic acid, engineered creatine delivery mechanisms, etc.  I could not fathom how much they were imbed themselves into the culture of training to the point that some folks won’t even TRAIN if they don’t have a pre-workout supplement to take…and for me, they’re just “one less thing” to worry about.  Think of the sheer financial benefit (Hah!  Still worrying about money) I get from NOT needing to buy that stuff, along with not needing to worry about timing my workouts around it (helpful when you train first thing in the morning at 0400), not having that experience where I take the pre-workout and show up and the gym is closed, or I hit traffic, or any of the other variables that could be at play.  Think about how I don’t have to worry about developing a tolerance, having to up the dose or find a new product.  This is just “one less thing”.

 

And hell, one of the reasons I’ve never worried about pre-workout was because I don’t drink ANYTHING during my training.  I’ve never cared to.  I don’t like the feeling of fluid sloshing around in my stomach when I’m doing physical activity, which is why I’ve run 2 half marathons and 3 10 mile races with NO fluid intake, alongside all the hellish Deep Water workouts, Super Squats, Murph and Kalsu WODs, my insane ridiculous conditioning workouts, etc.  And with this “one less thing”, I’ve never needed to worry about making some sort of super shake to sip on in the middle of my workouts, never needed to worry about nutrient timing, never needed to worry about being overcaffinated and needing to poop in the middle of a workout, never needed to wonder where to put my stupidly oversized shaker bottle while I’m training, etc etc.  Heck, I’ve, once again, saved money never needing to BUY all this stuff.  It’s all “one less thing”.

 

At least go with a brand you trust!

And this is why I’m so attracted to nutritional protocols that are all about ELIMINATING stuff.  If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) is SO much the opposite of anything I’d ever care to employ nutritionally because there are SO many “things” you need to worry about with that approach.  You need to calculate 3 different macros in order to achieve a caloric goal, which means needing to weigh, measure and evaluate EVERYTHING you put into your body at any given time: how exhausting!  What was my first “love” of nutrition?  Low/no carb.  Why? Because I just eliminated an ENTIRE macronutrient from the equation.  I now have “one less thing” to worry about.  And again, to SO many people, carbs are “THE” thing…but are they really?  We have SO much evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, of how UNessential carbohydrates are, both for simply living AND for getting bigger and stronger, that the vast majority of those trainees interested in physical transformation could easily get rid of them and achieve all of their goals.  And from here, my nutritional journey has been one of constant elimination, which landed me in the realm of carnivore, because plants became “one less thing” for me to eat, and upon doing THAT I saw some AMAZING transformations.  But even before that, I had so many other “one less thing” nutritional interventions.  A gallon of milk a day for Super Squats?  One less thing to worry about: just get in that gallon.  A dozen eggs and 1.5lbs of meat for “Building the Monolith”?   One less thing: get in the eggs and meat.  The Velocity Diet?  Oh my goodness I LOVED that diet: you don’t count calories or macros, you don’t COOK, you don’t think about anything: just drink shakes dummy.

 

All you out there in internet land who are too cool for school and HAVE to have your own personally developed training program OR extensively modify an existing one: think about all the “things” you’ve just added to yourself to worry about.  Why do I like running premade programs built by people that know what they are doing?  Because it’s “one less thing” I need to worry about.  Who cares if some study out there says that you need to do exactly 12 sets of curls to get big arms: Jim Wendler says that Building the Monolith will make me bigger, so that’s what I’m going to do.  Once I start adding stuff to these programs, I’ve added more “things” to worry about.  When I just sit back, do the program as written, and get the benefits, I’ve got time to worry about OTHER things instead.

Like trying to remember how to feel joy again

 

It’s why “Chaos is the plan”.  When I don’t have to worry about “the plan”, I’ve got time to worry about other things instead.  When I embrace chaos and say “yes: that’s exactly what I planned on happening”, I never need to worry about things NOT going according to plan.  I give myself that freedom to have “one less thing”.

 

Make it a thing TO worry about all the things you don’t NEED to worry about.  Give yourself an honest self-evaluation and see what REALLY matters and what is simply A thing that could very well be “one less thing”.