STRONGMAN COMPETITION WRITE-UP: "HOW TO COME IN DEAD LAST AS A LIGHTWEIGHT MALE AND LOOK JACKED WHILE DOING IT"

I’ve competed in another strongman competition, this time my first time as a Lightweight Male in the 181lb class.  I’ll cut to the chase and say I came in dead last and zero’d more events than I’d ever done before.  I’ve dropped 35lbs since March, and I’m still adjusting to my new body in that regard, which helped make this one of the most challenging competitions of my life.  I’m pretty excited in that regard, and thought I’d share the experience.

And here is the video of the full comp

**PRE-COMP**

These guys still have it figured out

I ate the same breakfast I’ve been having every training day: 150g of egg whites mixed with 150g of beef bone broth with 1.5 scoops of Metabolic Drive and some powdered electrolytes.  A wild departure from my days of eating…nothing, so I could make weight, followed by some sort of sugary/fast food blitz.  I drove an uneventful 2.25 hours to the site and weighed in at 173.0 while wearing full sweats, shoes, and my strongman compression gear underneath.  

I set-up camp and actually dug into one of my meals before the first event: 4 hardboiled whole pasture raised organic eggs mashed into a paste with a serving of grassfed sour cream and 4oz (cooked) of ground venison, personally hunted and butchered by my wife’s Uncle.  Another departure from my glory days, which I’ll address next, but it was also weird being so hungry when I hadn’t done anything yet.  

**GOALS**

He's not wrong

Since I knew I was super behind the 8-ball on this due to my bodyweight, this was going to be a different kind of comp for me: this was about personal growth.  My goals were to not eat any junk OR carbs and keep it as carnivore as possible.  Not because I felt like this was more noble, but more to simply see if I could, and how it would go.  The Metabolic Drive was the closest “exception” and I packed an emergency Finibar in case I found myself crashing, but otherwise it was just going to be that mashed egg/venison mixture, green tea and water.  

I also was going to go limited caffeine: only the stuff in the green tea.  I have a 3 week streak without energy drinks of coffee going, and I wanna see how long I can keep it going.  Again: no particular reason, just to see if I could.  In the past, I’d be about 2-3 energy drinks deep by the end of the day.  Did I “need” that?

The third goal was to not re-tear whatever it was I tore in my right knee on week 2 of “Juggeryoke”.  The first event was where I was most worried about that, since I did it on the log, but I was going to keep my eye on it all competition.

And final goal was to leave it all out there and have fun.  It’s the whole reason I signed up.

**EVENT 1: 200lb Log Clean and Press Each Rep**

That's about as far as I got with it too

I was excited about this event, since cleaning each rep is awesome and gasses competitors.  Then I got to actually handle the log we were going to use and realized this was going to be a “ WHO can get a rep” contest for the lightweights.  The log handles were STUPID far apart, like the Rogue 10”.  

First guy got the clean but no rep.  Second guy got in 2 of the grandest reps of all time with a jerk and a JPS-esque “press the log off the head” technique. 

I got set, got my head right, grabbed the log, went to clean it, felt it feel like a jillion pounds, got stuck midway, somehow through sheer force of will get it all the way to my chest…and knew that there was absolutely no way I was going to press it.  I let it crash, thinking that, if I could do better on another clean and not be so exhausted, I might be able to set up for a stronger press.  Well, that didn’t happen, and I didn’t want to re-tear my left bicep on an errant log clean, so after a few more attempts, I hung it up.  The guy after me got a jillion reps and was the clear candidate for first that day.

**EVENT 2: Max Trap Bar in 3 attempts**

Good thing this wasn't strengthliftng...

I had been doing a ROM progression cycle on trap bar with 405lbs, so I knew I was good for that.  We were allowed to pick the starting weight in the rules meeting, so I asked for 400, knowing we’d go 20lb jumps from there.

The guy who also zero’d the log ended up asking for us to start with 380, and he missed that, so I knew if I got 400 I at least had a win there.  400 was grindy, but made it.  We were apparently pulling on the Eleiko Oppen bar, which was cool since it had knurl marks on the center of the handle, which made strapping in easy.  I had an issue with strapping in too far forward or backward in training and having the bar tilt.

No other MLWs went for 400, the next time one jumped in was at 460, so I went for that to match too.  460 felt WAY too damn heavy, but I pulled it.  Since we were doing “Rising Bar”, I decided to pass on 480 to allow me some recovery time, and asked for 500.  I really liked Rising bar for the strategic element of it, and it made a last man standing event tolerable.  I actually felt 500 ever so slightly start to break off the floor, but not enough to be worth chasing after.  My knee was holding up strong so far, and this was keeping it in place.

**EVENT 3: Sandbag and sled drag**

Yeah, that about summed it up

This and the 4th event are why I signed up: medleys in a competition.  I missed these so much.  Unlike previous comps, I did ZERO sandbag training to prep for this, which was for the best, because I usually end up tearing the hell out of my arms when I do that.  

I used some strongman cheating and put the sandbag on top of my feet as part of my set-up.  This gives a little bit of daylight between the floor and the bag, which allows for handholds.  I also ditched my competition shirt at this point and decided I was going to go for the Mariusz Pudzianowski/Jon Andersen Award for “Most Jacked Person at the Competition”, because if  can’t be the strongest at least I can look pretty while I lose.  You can actually hear some folks making commentary about it during this event.

The sandbag pick actually went pretty well, and the carry moved about as fast as I would expect with so minimal training.  The sled drag caught me off guard: about the only clue it was going to be so awful was watching the other competitors attempting the sled and being caught off guard.  So I went for the initial pull, realized it was going to be heavy as hell, and just leaned into it and pulled like hell, knowing that, if I ever stopped, I’d be dead.  Just like a shark.

I was surprised when I ran out of time.  I felt like I was moving at a good pace.  I had a slight technical error getting set up on the straps, and I lost a little bit of time on the bag, but ultimately I imagine I needed to move faster on the sled.

But I think this was the first time I had a sled in a comp where I didn’t fall backwards on my butt, so that’s a win.  This got me a last place finish.

**EVENT 4: Duckwalk and powerstairs**

It was absolutely my goal to be one jacked duck

Event was supposed to be duck walk 25’, do 3 reps of power stairs, then duckwalk it back.

Lotta dudes were struggling with those stairs, and I figured out where: those WIDE 100lb plates pretty much give you no opportunity to hinge.  I’m only 5’9, so I’m already sawed off as it is, but now that I have to take a sumo stance I was totally hosed.  

But also, you might be able to tell in the video: I about blacked out on the initial pick, and was basically jump zombie-ing forward until I went night-night.  I managed to fall forward, have the stars clear, do a quick pick and repeat.  I fell into the platform, corrected myself, and struggled futilely to get it to the platform.  But I gave it some solid effort, and loading my frame down with 100lbs over bodyweight was awesome for making every muscle in my body pop, so I got a cool facebook photo.  This, once again, got me last place.

**EVENT 5: Stone Medley**

Same technology as what was behind "Stay Put Socks"

I won’t bother listing weights and heights here, because as you saw on the video, it was a big goose egg.  This is the only event I have a bitter taste in my mouth about.  You might be able to see it in the video, but I was literally GLUED to the stone.  I applied a moderate amount of tack to myself, but the stone ITSELF was COATED in tacky from previous competitors, to the point that it was stuck to the platform.  So it didn’t matter about being strong enough to pick up the stone: I had to be strong enough to BREAK the tacky off the stone first and THEN pick it up, and then, once I got it lapped, it wasn’t going anywhere else.  With how high the platform was, my plan was to try to shoulder it, but I could never even get the momentum necessary, because it was like trying to walk through mud: each movement was about getting unstuck and then stuck again.

I realized at that point I’m a dinosaur in the sport: everyone else is using tacky shirts and stone sleeves and, in turn, has material that can help by pass the tacky issue, while I’m just applying sticky stuff to my body.  I the future, I think I’m just going to avoid tackying myself and just rely on what’s on the stone.  Zero’d here.

I will say that I got another great strongman win here: as I was standing there, bare chested and covered in tacky, another dude who was going that route was standing next to me.  He was definitely more “strongman built”.  He looked at me, there was a pause, and then he “Dude..are you, like, bodybuilding?”

I replied with “Nope: just not eating enough”.

He appreciated that.  Told me I was definitely the leanest dude there, and I said “Well at least I won that”. 

**LESSONS LEARNED**

I had a lot of the latter here

I knew coming in this light was going to be a challenge, and it delivered.  Doing no specific training for the comp also added to that.  But, that’s really the big thing: I grew up.  Strongman isn’t my life anymore: it’s a thing I do for fun.  And that’s absolutely what happened: I had a blast and I DIDN’T have to change my life for it.  I kept training the week of the comp, went for a 3 mile walk with my family after it was done (and after having an AMAZING dinner at our favorite BBQ place where I got the biggest, fattest pork ribs I’d ever seen in my life alongside some amazing sliced brisket) and just treated this like it was an events day.  I intend to keep it this way: if a comp looks fun, I’ll sign up and have a blast.  And I got to help out some folks along the way: the guy who took second in my weight class cramped up BAD, so I gave him some of the electrolytes I brought and it totally transformed him.  I also let him use some of the goo gone and paper towels I brought for tacky removal and got him sold of WD-40.  And I got to meet a few awesome folks off reddit as well.  A dude named John introduced himself to me: “Dude, are you MythicalStrength?  I’ve been reading your articles for 6 years!”  That was really cool, and honestly was one of the highlights of the competition.

**WHAT’S NEXT**

Well, about that: I originally had a competition signed up for 14 Oct…but I just went looking for it and it’s gone: instead, having been moved to 4 Nov.  That’s a less viable date for me, and currently I’m the only person in the 181 weight class, so there’s very little incentive to go do it compared to just a hard events day at home.  I have a 5k signed up for 15 Oct, and then I go for a Disney Cruise on 16 Oct.  So now that I don’t have a competition looming, I’m probably going to do 2 more weeks of Juggeryoke with a few movement alterations leading up to the cruise and most likely do a mini-famine there so that I can absolutely eat my face off the whole time I’m cruising.  After that?  Chaos is the Plan.  But I’ll be at this weight class for the next competition, whenever that happens.

STRONGMAN COMPETITION WRITE-UP: "STRENGTH GAMES V" @ "THE BAR" JOHNSTON IOWA: THE PRE-WRITE UP

 **INTRO/BACKGROUND**

The last time I competed was summer of 2022 in an Unsanctioned Competition at Testify Strength and Conditioning in Omaha, NE, wherein I came in 2nd out of 3 competitors in the 185lb category.  Since that time, I had radically switched gears as far as nutrition went and ended up walking around regularly at 166lbs: my high school weight.  It was a wild ride to get there that goes beyond the scope of this write-up, but it meant that this was going to be my first competition as a lightweight male.  Previously, I’d competed at Strength Games as a Middleweight, so I was excited for a new challenge, but also realized that coming in 15lbs under the weight limit against guys who most likely cut weight to get there meant I was definitely operating behind the 8-Ball.

 

To make things even more interesting, I actually signed up for TWO competitions: this one, and another one 2 weeks later.  I took on that second one primarily because it was in my current hometown, so it meant zero travel necessary.  But of the two competitions, Strength Games looked to be the more fun of the two, so I was the most excited for this one, but it also meant I had to consider balancing the two competitions against each other.  Again: new challenges.  Reference my post “Here Comes a New Challenger”: I need this in my life.

 

**TRAINING**

I made it a point NOT to train for this competition.  I signed up for it because the events looked fun, but also signed up for another competition that would be 2 weeks later with similar-ish events, and at that point decided that I was just going to get generally “strongmanny” again, as prior to this I was really just winging it and experimenting with my training.  The closest thing you could say it was before was “Crossfit”: just trying to get ok across a broad range of physical qualities.

 

I saw this as an opportunity to try out Dan John’s “Easy Strength” program to build up my ability to handle heavier poundages again while ALSO giving myself more training time to do some event/carry style stuff at the end of workouts.  And since I was so skinny, I blended it with “Mass Made Simple”.  You can read my reviews of that here and here

After 32 Easy Strength workouts, I found myself 6 weeks out from competition.  If I ran Easy Strength for the full 40 workouts, I would have been in an interesting spot as far as a follow-up program went, so I cut Easy Strength early and transitioned to Jamie Lewis’ “Juggeryoke” program, a review of which may occur in the future, but ultimately it looked like it would be a pretty beneficial approach.  It contained a solid amount of overhead work and focus on the arms, traps and abs: some areas I had been neglecting.  I made some slight modifications by allowing myself to use some of the implements that would be featured in the upcoming competition (log for push press, axle for strict press, trap bar for high pulls and shrugs), and would use weekends/ends of workouts to drill strongman style stuff like carries, stone loading, KB “throws”, and just general moving heavy stuff over distances.  Again: VERY general “prep”.

 

**NUTRITION**

Yeah, it was basically this

 

I went and did a VERY detailed overview of what my nutrition is like, and you can find that here

 

Which, if you want to contrast it against how I WAS eating, you can go to my previous nutrition post, found here

  

But ultimately I had fallen for the “keto junkfood trap”, where I had convinced myself that, as long as everything I was eating was “keto friendly”, it meant I was eating “right”.  This meant I was taking in an ungodly amount of artificial sweeteners, nut flours, and all sorts of other frankenfoods and alien substances, and my guts were an absolute wreck as a result.  I ran an amalgamation of T-Nation/Biotest’s “Velocity Diet” and Jamie Lewis’ “Apex Predator Diet” as something of a total system reset, and through experimentation arrived at my current approach, which I’ll give the highlights of below, as these write-ups always end up WAY too big as it is.

Seriously: this is NOT human food

 

* Overall, this is a cyclical ketogenic diet.  I have no idea if I’m actually IN ketosis, but it would make sense given how the rest of the diet shakes out.  I have a weekly carb-up meal (Sunday evening), and otherwise, when I eat, it’s carnivore: all meat/animal.  If I’m not eating, I’m consuming a blended protein powder (Biotest’s “Metabolic Drive”).  Which is why I assume I’m in ketosis: there’s pretty much no carbs.  I’m not consuming any veggies, grains, fruits, starches, or honey, and the dairy I do consume is consumed sparingly and frequently full fat, which means the lowest carb amount.  The weekly carb up is what makes it cyclical, and I also wave calories through the week.  Most of this comes from Jamie Lewis “Apex Predator Diet”.  On some weeks, I skipped the carb-up meal, but this was more due to schedule than intent.

 

* There is a “famine” phase and a “feast” phase.  Famine is 2 weeks, feast is 4.  They are run back to back.  

 

* On weekdays, protein sparing modified fast accomplished using Metabolic Drive blended protein powder.  I’ll fast either until the midday meal or evening meal (famine will be until evening, feast will be until midday). 

 

* On the above, some days I eat a whole food midday meal and some days I don’t.  This is part of waving the calories.  Even during the feast, I’ll have 1-2 days where I keep the PSMF until the evening meal.  One of those 1-2 days is ALWAYS the day after the carb-up meal.

 

* On weekends, I ditch the shakes and transition to pure carnivore eating.  3 meals a day at least.  On Saturday, it’s pure carnivore the whole way, while Sunday has the evening meal be the carb-up meal.  This is true even during the famine phase, because weekends are times with the family and I’m not going to go through a PSMF with them.  I WILL try to eat leaner cuts of meat during that time and fattier during the feast, but that’s about it.

 

For this competition, I decided to keep up with my current nutrition.  In the past, I’d legit eat an entire box of poptarts, along with a bag of hostess minidonuts and breakfast cereal and gatorades and basically take in like 800g of carbs, but given I was so rarely consuming them AND, whenever I did I’d experience some VERY interesting reactions (excessive sweating/overheating, extreme fatigue, etc), I decided not to mess around with that.  I also got off my excessive amount of caffeine I was consuming previously (nearing a GRAM of caffeine a day…) and didn’t want to play around with that during the competition either.  So I boiled up a dozen eggs, mixed it with some ground venison and grassfed sour cream and brought some extra meat snacks in case I needed it.

 

Is this egg salad or venison salad?  You decide!

 And in full disclosure, as I write this my competition is tomorrow, so we'll see how all of this shakes out.   Stay tuned for part 2!

WE AREN’T BAKING A CAKE: WE’RE MAKING A SANDWICH

For those readers that have been diligently tracking/being annoyed by my recent carnivore proselytizing, I’m sure this topic title seems just as bizarre as my behavior, but I assure you I possess the experience and faculties to discuss the topics of baking and sandwich making and how it relates to you!  And it’s honestly a result of trolling facebook carnivore spaces that I arrived here, as, much like in the lifting world, I’m finding many individuals keep asking the question “Am I allowed?”  For carnivore, it’s something like “am I allowed to use spices/spritz lemon juice on my food/eat food that has touched a leaf”, and in training we see the question of “am I allowed to add curls to Starting Strength/skip the conditioning in Building the Monolith/make rows a 5/3/1 movement?”  In both instances, we observe the individual approaching the process of physical transformation with the wrong mindset: these folks are cake bakers, when they NEED to be sandwich makers.

No...just stop

 

And, of course, now I do the explanation piece.  Anyone who has ever engaged in baking of ANY manner of baked good is fully aware of just how much of baking is a chemistry experiment. Baking requires the correct ingredients, measured to the CORRECT amount, and, often, at the correct temperature as well.  You could have all the ingredients assembled and in the correct amounts, but if your milk is cold and it’s supposed to be room temperature, your cake is now officially a delicious baked brick.  And then from there you need to actually execute the proper baking OF the baked good: bake it at the correct temperature for the correct amount of time.  Some baked goods need to be taken out of the oven and off the baking sheet ASAP, whereas others are left on the sheet to continue to cook OUT of the oven, and some are left in the oven with the oven shut off, letting the residual heat continue to cook it.  Everything is very precise and exacting, and if you screw up ONE part of the process, you screw up the entire cake. 

 

Sandwiches are FAR more forgiving, because whereas a cake is a specifically defined idea, a sandwich is more of an intent: put something in between something else so you can eat it.  And I specifically phrase it as “something in between something else” because to say “meat between bread” would technically NOT be true.  That is to say: it would be limiting.  You can make sandwiches with no meat whatsoever (hello classic PBJ), AND sandwiches can be made with rolls or other grains aside from simple traditional bread, to say nothing of the ever controversial topic of “is a hot dog a sandwich?”  They can be as plain as just a slice of ham between two slices of white bread, or you can make a true Dagwood of a sandwich.  Sauces and toppings are dealers choice, they can be savory or sweet or a combination of the two (hello Fool’s Gold Loaf…and goodbye waistline!).  Yes, sure, there are named sandwiches out there they have certain rules they have to conform too, like the Rueban or the Club, but even then you’ll find plenty of places willing to take artistic creative license with these things (you put avocado on any sandwich and suddenly it’s Californian, whereas pineapple makes everything Hawaiian), but for the most part, a sandwich is honestly more of an agreement than a hard defined topic: we took something and put it inside of something else so we could hold onto it while we eat.  Cakes tend to be a bit more stringent.

Just in case that Dagwood reference was lost on you

 

The process of physical transformation is a similar process: it’s making a sandwich.  Good ingredients help make good outcomes, and when paired with good execution we get even better results, but there’s no one singular ingredient or methodology that is going to make or break outcomes.  Trainees want to believe that if just ONE variable is askew, the whole thing will collapse.  “Did I ruin my results by getting 6 hours of sleep instead of 8?”, “Did I ruin my results by not setting a PR on this last workout?”  Akin to wondering if you ruined your sandwich by using mustard instead of mayo.  Nope: you just made it different.  A sandwich is effectively limitless in it’s potential: you have to REALLY start deviating from the norms to turn a sandwich into a “non-sandwich”, whereas cakes are pretty easy to ruin.  Your physical transformation process is similar: so long as we abide by the principles of effort, consistency and time, we can continue to transform.  It may take a slightly different route than originally intended, but it will STILL be transformation, and who knows: we might accidentally discover something more delicious than we originally intended.

 

Of course, it’s worth asking the question of WHY we want to deviate in the first place.  Quite often, many of you sandwich makers haven’t even TRIED the sandwich before you wanted to change it.  Like a child who only eats bologna on white bread with American singles (fun fact: it’s not called “cheese” because…it’s not cheese), if you’re not willing to branch out and try new things AS they were intended, you miss out ON those new experiences and, in turn, an opportunity to develop new tastes and preferences.  You might discover that you’re a huge fan of rye bread once you get yourself a reuben, or realize that cheesewhiz CAN actually be a sandwich topping when you get yourself a legit philly cheesesteak, or you possibly discover you have a toxic allergy to onions one day after avoiding them for years…but at least now you know.  Yes, this is not cake baking, you don’t need to have anxiety about making the “wrong” choice when you’re standing in line at Subway, but maybe instead of ordering your 400th ham and yellow cheese sandwich, you get a little wild and go for the meatball sub today. 

Or REALLY eat like a King

 

Who knows: you might like it.

“GOD IS DEAD”: CREATING OUR OWN PURPOSE WITH THE ABUNDANCE OF CHOICES

It’s no secret that I’m a total Nietzsche fanboy, so it’s always a delight when I can write about him (and DnD and Magic The Gathering for that matter, and I’m sure I’ll combine them all sometime soon, but stick with me).  Nietzsche is famous (or infamous depending) for the quote “God is dead”, which appears in many of his works, to include “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and “The Gay Science”, but many tend to take it at face value as some sort of rallying call for atheism, which severely undercuts the meaning and intent behind it.  Irrespective of one’s personal beliefs, Nietzsche was expressing the notion that the BELIEF in God had died on a cultural level, for era that Nietzsche wrote it was an era wherein the Church and God no longer had the cultural significance that they held during the presiding eras (from Rome to the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages to even the Renaissance).  Not only does this have an immediate cause for a crisis of faith, but it is also, in turn, the catalyst for an existential crisis: when God originally gave us purpose, and now God is dead…what is our purpose?  And what specifically is the SOURCE of our new purpose?  And to resolve this, Nietzsche proposed the following solution: we make our OWN purpose.  In that, he has many outstanding quotes as well, to include “I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible” and “Become who you are.  Do what only you can do.  Be the master and the sculptor of yourself”, and “One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art” and honestly a ton more, but this post could get VERY huge if I just keep slinging baller Nietzsche quotes, so let me just go into HOW in the world this relates to physical transformation.

Honestly, you could do worse as far as a training plan goes

Many who proclaim to be pursuing physical transformation are, in truth, “seeking God”.  I don’t mean in a true religious sense, but in the sense that these folks want the ONE TRUTH.  They want to know what is the 100% absolute most true and accurate way to achieve physical transformation, so they can cast aside all the false idols and beliefs and find their way to heaven.  And they want studies and facts to back it all up, which is comedic to me, given that religion is faith-based, yet these folks need hard evidence.  But that’s a discussion for another time.  Let’s, instead, take time to lament these poor misguided souls, because they seek monotheism in a world where the gods are many and exist in a pantheon, constantly bickering, plotting, scheming, but also partying, cajoling and causing mischief.  These God seekers are Christian Pilgrims that just stumbled onto a 2 week long Viking mead festival, and Loki is pouring with a heavy hand.

And while I’m sloppily applying religious metaphors to training, allow me to channel religious scholar AND track athlete AND amazing coach Dan John, who has gone on to say on multiple occasions “Everything works…for 6 weeks”.  And with that, I’ve finally arrived at the point of what I’m writing here: “God” is dead.  There is no ONE true way to achieve physical transformation.  But, in turn, we should not see this situation as lamentable but as FREEING, because what it means is that we have SO many ways to achieve our goals of physical transformation.  We are not BOUND to ONLY one way to succeed: there is, in fact, an ABUNDANCE of methods to get where we are going.  In turn, it means that the odds of us failing to achieve our goals are incredibly slim: failing in ONE approach could quite literally be the path of success on another avenue.

Redefine the terms of victory and you can never lose!

Let me go back to the religion bit again here.  Within the 10 Commandments (Judiasm/Christianity/Islam) is “Thou Shalt not kill”.  It’s pretty clear.  In Dante’s Inferno, the wrathful are condemned to an endless war against each other, constantly engaged in battle, facing dismemberment and “death”, only to be respawned and forced to fight again for all eternity.  Then we pivot over to the Vikings again, who believed that the greatest virtue was to die violently in battle, wherein they would be rewarded by going to Valhalla, wherein they would…engage in an endless battle against each other for all of eternity, experiencing dismemberment and “death”, only to be respawned and do it all over again.  One man’s sin is another man’s virtue, and one man’s punishment is another man’s reward.  This holds true in systems of physical transformation.

Did you oversleep and miss out on breakfast this morning?  That’s the most anabolic meal of the day!  Oh wait, no: you just did some accidental intermittent fasting!  Hey: there’s a TON of research on how valuable that is.  “Accidentally” binged on the weekend?  No way amigo: you’re doing the ABCDE diet!  Or the Zig-zag!  Or maybe you’re carb cycling!  You were doing carnivore and “caved” and had some peanut butter: cool, we’re doing keto now.  Or was it organic?  Today is a paleo day it looks like.  Oh, it was a full on PBJ on white bread with skippy and grape jelly?  Know who loves PBJs?  Dan John for “Mass Made Simple” and Paul Carter for Blue Collar nutrition/training.  And this is JUST the nutrition side of things.  In contrast to Deep Water’s 10x10 squats, you have a single set of 20 with Super Squats, or a set of 50 with your bodyweight with Mass Made Simple, or 6x1 with Easy Strength, or 3x1 with Conjugate, of the classic 3x8-12 with so many other protocols, that if you “mess up” a squat workout, you’re bound to have succeeded with a different one at the same time.

This guy is all set for success SOMEHWERE...

This drives “truth seekers” nuts!  They are constantly looking for studies to REFUTE the findings of other studies so that they can KNOW for sure that the path that they have personally chosen IS the “one true path”, but instead it becomes necessary for us to make our own purpose THROUGH this abundance of choices.  We construct a patchwork religion comprised of the various bits of pieces of information and approaches that suit US.  Because what we are discovering from all the studies and reports of success with so many different approaches to training and nutrition is that pretty much EVERYHING works (for 6 weeks!)  But, like religion, it works WHEN we believe in it.  When we fully invest ourselves into our approach, giving it diligent and authentic effort and intensity, when we know that it’s going to work because we know it’s going to work, when we are “bought in”, we make our own purpose.  It’s only when we merely dip our toes in the water while clinging onto shore that we find our results wanting, because we were never really “believers” in the first place there.

Read whatever studies you want to read.  Listen to whatever stories you want to listen to.  Believe whatever you want to believe.  God is dead, and through his death you have been granted unlimited freedom to create your own purpose.  

IT’S NOT THAT COMPLICATED

I’ve written/spoken to the title of this post several times and even have a rant video based around “quit overcomplicating it”, but while walking my dog (with a weight vest on, of course, because I AM that guy in your neighborhood) the other day I realized WHY things seem so complicated.  I was looking for a podcast to listen to while I walked, and had a Matt Wenning one queued up for quite a while that, by all accounts, I SHOULD be excited to listen to, but I’m just flat not.  And it’s because Matt tends to want to talk about powerlifting, which makes sense, considering he was a very awesome powerlifter and comes from that background.  However, I have minimal interest in actual real deal powerlifting these days: I don’t care about setting 1 rep records in 3 specific lifts.  I’m very much going in the opposite direction: strength at weird angles in various rep ranges alongside conditioning.  “Chaos is the plan”, and I am training for said chaos.  But, in turn, that means that my goals are far more general, and there’s minimal writing to be had in such general, broad reaching goals, primarily because it’s really hard to train “wrong” when you’re not training for anything specifically.  Any “mistake” I make is, in truth, me simply accomplishing ANOTHER physical goal.  If I do too many reps to build strength, I end up building endurance, which is also awesome.  And in turn, this led me to realize something: people don’t talk/write about achieving general goals FOR THAT REASON.  If someone IS going to talk/write about training, it’s going to be for a specific goal, like powerlifting, bodybuilding, strongman, weightlifting, etc.  Because those goals require a specific approach, and, in turn, necessitate discussion and advancement.  This, in turn, creates the false notion that training, in and of itself, is complicated, when the truth is that training to achieve physical transformation is so incredibly simple that no one feels the need TO write about it.

Really not that far off...holy cow I need to re-watch this series

We’re effectively observing a survivor bias as far as information availability pertains.  A new trainee, in pursuit of “mere” physical transformation, goes to a bookstore (yes, I’m dating myself here, I’m sure it’s more about going to social media and finding digital content, stick with me) and finds manuals on “how to train” that go into great depth about percentages for training cycles and accumulation phases leading into intensification phases and setting up for a peak week and maximizing performance, etc etc etc.  This leads the trainee to the (false) perception that training is VERY complicated, but this is merely because there is no DEMAND for simple training material because…it’s simple.  Writing a manual of obvious things (engage in resistance training and cardiovascular training, stay active, eat well, drink water, etc) tends to result in poor reception, because we all “know” those things, but when it comes to the “secrets” of the elite: THAT we will buy.  In addition, the knowledge of the obvious is possessed by many, whereas the knowledge of the elite is possessed by the few, making it far more valuable and, in turn, far more WORTHY of discussion.  But, in turn, one must come to appreciate that the things that ARE written are VERY specific and narrowly focused.  They’re complicated BECAUSE these individuals have maxed out what can be achieved with simplicity and needed to move on TO complexity in order to reach that “next level”.  Much like a business suit: you can buy and wear off the rack just fine, but they’ll never fit as well as one specifically tailored toward you.

But physical transformation is NOT a complex goal.  It’s not specific: not compared to “increase my bench press by 10lbs in 13 weeks”.  We can engage in the process of physical transformation daily, whereas hitting max numbers on meet day is a VERY precise process.  In turn, it’s too easy to dismiss the lessons of achieving physical transformation as mere hand-waving and not “getting it”, but, as Stan Efferding says: “Compliance is the science”.  We know HOW to achieve physical transformation: who is actually out there DOING it on a consistent basis?

If this is you every Saturday evening: you're not doing it

Dan John is a masterful author on this subject, and it’s BECAUSE Dan has the necessary degree of knowledge in achieving high level specific goals that he can also work backwards and achieve physical transformation.  Dan has performed at the top levels in the discus AND coached Olympic Level athletes alongside Special Operations operators and other high demand athletes, and he’s also coached high school kids, people in their 60s, and dudes lifting in their garage trying to be able to keep playing with their kids.  When Dan talks about physical transformation, it IS all obvious stuff, so much so that he’s able to sum it up into one run-on sentence that he throws into just about every podcast: push, pull, hinge, squat, loaded carry, go for a walk, eat more protein, eat more veggies, drink water, get 7-9 hours of sleep.  That’s so simple…so who is out there DOING that?  Every day?  Dan says he has 3 cheat days a year: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Superbowl Sunday.  Who out there is actually COMPLYING with this basic prescription 362 days a year?

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Mark Rippetoe: he attempts to force simplicity INTO areas of complexity.  I think “Starting Strength” is a fantastically adequate approach to getting a trainee under a barbell and building the habit of training.  The book goes into great detail explaining how to perform the movements, and the Starting Strength program gets a trainee in the gym 3 days a week practicing work with moderately heavy loads and building a habit of consistently progressing and building strength.  The issue is that Mark (and many of the victims of the telephone game) tends to continue this prescription BEYOND its scope, and therein it fails.  Mark has written an article titled “Conditioning is a Sham”, wherein the prescription for improving conditioning is to just get stronger in the basic barbell lifts, premised off the notion that a 400lb squatter will have light weights feel lighter compared to a 300lb squatter, and therefore they will have better endurance for moving light weights for many reps (which is what running/athletics is).  This definitely makes sense IF you have no background in athletics and really WANT to believe it, but those of us that have ever played A sport know about dudes that are monstrously strong in the weightroom and CAN’T apply it on the field (“Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane”) and also the contrast: dudes that can’t put it together in the weightroom and are MONSTERS on the field.  My first ever strongman competition, I was coming off the best powerlifting meet of my life where I crushed a 500lb squat and 600lb deadlift as a 181lb raw competitor, only to get humbled on a 500lb yoke walk by dudes who MAYBE could squat 315.  Herein we observe a case where we now have a SPECIFIC goal outside of basic physical transformation and require a more precise approach. 

Max strength does not always mean max conditioning

I feel like Jim Wendler is a fantastic middleground here.  I am a big fan of Dan John’s complete lack of prescription when it comes to movements and percentages (push, what kind?  Just push.  How heavy?  Heavy enough, but not too much) and Mark tends to be very authoritarian (YNDTP: You’re Not Doing The Program), Jim created a program to allow him to ESCAPE powerlifting and train for “being awesome”, premised it around 4 basic movements and 3 specific percentages, and then allowed for enough variation to vector toward a variety of generic goals.  You’re not going to use 5/3/1 to become an elite powerlifter (although we’ve observed powerlifters DOING just that) or an elite strongman or etc, but you can absolutely use it to become pretty damn awesome.  And as your understanding of programming and specificity grows, you can mold and change the programming to best suit you.  Or you could never do that and also be fine.

Why?

Because it’s not that complicated.  

Failed math, passed Occam's Razor

Effort, consistency and time reign supreme yet again. 

FLOOD MYTHS AND REBIRTH

 

If you look into it, pretty much every culture on earth has some sort of “flood myth”.  For most of my audience, the most easily accessible one is the “Noah’s Ark” flood myth from the Christian Bible/Jewish Torah, which for my readers who somehow AREN’T familiar with that story, I’ll quickly summarize: God realizes humanity was a mistake (I mean…) picks one man out of the lot, tells him to build a big boat for him, his family and 2 of all animals on the planet (because humanity was a mistake but the animals are alright, and if you’ve ever had a pet dog you surely agree with that), then floods the Earth for 40 days and nights, effectively etch-e-sketch erasing the species, then the family safely docks and generations of inbreeding re-populates the planet.  The Gilgamesh Epic has a similar such story to it, Viking “Ragnarok” is to lead to the eventual re-start of existence once the battle is done, Hinduism has a concept of a continual destruction and recreation of existence (meaning a non-linear timeline, and instead a cyclical one), and Nietzsche wrote about the eternal recurrence in his own philosophy, which he borrowed heavily from 19th century understandings of Hinduism and Buddhism. And outside of “myths”, we, as a planet, actually DID experience our own flood story.  It’s wild to think that, prior to the existence of humanity, there were f**king DINOSAURS roaming the planet, living full lives, eating mega-fauna and living in a balanced eco-system only to have a goddamn meteor strike the Earth, disrupt everything and set in course a chain of events eliminating one species and allowing the creation of another. 

If you want a quick summary

The fact these myths exist in all cultures AND that we’ve actually, as a global populace, have experienced a real-live version of this phenomenon is proof-of-concept that we, as a species, AND the universe as an entity have some sort of inherent and intrinsic desire to experience this wiping the slate clean and starting over.  There’s something appealing about it in the very fiber of our being as a sentient species AND within the cosmic energies that it’s simply an undeniable drive.  We will it from within AND it’s willed upon us as well.  In turn, fighting against this drive is to fight our own nature AND to fight against the will of the very universe, which, like fighting the tide, is a losing battle.  No matter how much we thrash, no matter how much progress we feel we are making, we will eventually succumb to this drive.  It is simply what we are.

 

And as grand-scale as this discussion may appear, it absolutely still relates to how we train and how we eat.  I’ve alienated some of my reading base recently due to my current obsession with carnivore style eating, but ultimately what I am expressing is a flood myth and rebirth within my nutrition.  I had one way I had been following for years (“low carb” via tons of hacks and cheats and VERY frequent food consumption) until a catastrophic flood event resulted in a total wiping of the slate clean and starting over from scratch.  The transformation happened live, all was documented, I was drawn to “high speed/low drag” and found myself where I’m at now, which is in turn the catalyst for the e-book I’m writing based off 3-sentences, which I’m honestly writing THIS piece JUST to give my readers a break from that book as I write it, because I know it’s not everyone’s jam.  But I’ve already digressed.

I am quite talented at this trick

 

This is NOT the first time I’ve experienced a flood in my training and nutrition.  This is one of several flood myths.  My first bit of ANY sort of formal training was martial arts when I was 8 years old, and martial arts consumed my life until I was 21, at which point I hung up my gloves and switched my entire focus to lifting.  Yes, I lifted before that time: to supplement my martial arts. Now, suddenly, I was married and had to pick my priorities: martial arts, lifting weights, being a loving spouse.  I could manage 2 of those: not 3.  And hey, at that same time, my nutrition experience a flood: I went from low-carb college dinning hall living to full tilt Dave Tate early 2000s style junkfood binging to put on as much weight as possible.  And this flood lasted for 3 years until I actually COMPETED in a powerlifting meet, at which point my reality got hit with another flood (you’re eating and training like an a-hole) and I had to wipe the slate clean and start over again.  And when I had my kid: a flood: it’s time to start eating and training like a role model.  And when I blew out my knee, a flood.  Etc etc.

 

And often, these floods coincided with me obtaining new (to me) information/education, for good or for ill.  Pavel Tsastouline’s “Beyond Bodybuilding” completely wiped my slate clean when it came to training, and overnight I switched from Muscle and Fitness workouts to sets of 5 for everything all the time.  Randall Strossen’s PhD in psychology was absolutely put to use when I read “Super Squats”, because he had me bought in hook-line-sinker on 20 rep squats and a gallon of milk a day, completely reversing my low-carb college dinning hall living up until that point.  After missing a 500lb squat the second time in a powerlifting meet, I decided to see what all this “5/3/1” was all about.  Mark Bell’s “Power Magazine” (which, at the time of its publication, my local Barnes and Noble would only ever order 2 copies of each issue, so I had to work FAST if I wanted to read it) is where I rediscovered Jon Andersen after having first seen him compete in a 2005 IFSA competition, wondering who that super-jacked strongman was, and my first exposure to Deep Water and the WILD ride that followed there.  A flood of new knowledge, to inspire a cleansing flood to change paradigms.

Perfectly built to survive flood

 

Which is why I speak to not fighting these floods as they occur.  We have within us both a drive to wipe the slate clean AND some inherent seeking of comfort in things NEVER changing.  That, alone, is a fantastic demonstration of the duality that is humanity.  But people forget the former, and instead get upset with their favorite sources of training and nutrition WHEN those very beings experience their own floods.  “Why does this person keep changing their views!”  Because they are GROWING.  They are BECOMING!  Nietzsche, alongside his eternal recurrence, wrote of “the overman”, noting that humanity, in its current state, was simply a stepping stone in the course of history that would eventually result in the arrival OF the overman.  We are not done growing.  And, in turn, if the source you turn to for training or nutrition changes their views on things, this should be an EXCITING time rather than a time of anxiety.  It means we still have more room to grow, more potential to activate, and, ultimately, more avenues for success available to us.  How awful would it be if there were, in fact, limits to the ways we can succeed.  If a former carnivore finds success with eating carbs: outstanding!  More ways to win.  Same if the reverse occurs.  If one was initially an advocate of super high volume and now espouses the benefits of minimalist training, this person is no “traitor”: they are a shinning beacon of periodization.

 

It is the “lukewarm” transitions that we must reject, as THEY are unnatural.  There is no myth about gradual change: that is evolution (which, yes, some may contend that evolution is the myth and the flood is reality…some other day, perhaps, we discuss that).  We are a species that exists in a universe that promotes and supports the belief in a radical, destructive change from which we are reborn like a Phoenix.  THAT story is far more compelling, and it’s impacts far more substantive.  Embrace the desire to just scrap everything and start over from scratch.  Take everything you know, throw it out, and start over doing exactly the opposite of what you were doing before.  Periodization through complete and total self-destruction, as soon to follow will be self-Reconstruction, and what will result is something unique and incredible.         

  

“CHAOS IS THE PLAN” GETS PUNCHED IN THE MOUTH

Readers, often I find myself struggling to come up with an idea of what to write about.  I’ve got a self-imposed deadline of at least 1000 words written once a week, and I’ve abided by it for over 10 years now, and sometimes I just plain can’t think of anything until the 11th hour.  Other times, I am blessed with an opportunity that is too surreal to be fake, and I have the gift of being able to simply tell a story that happened to me.  This week, THAT happened, and it was just incredible.  I will begin with the story, and try to make it a learning experience by revealing the lessons we can learn from it.

THE STORY

If David and Goliath got re-told like this, I'd pay more attention in church...

Allow me to paint the picture here: I had the day off work, and I’ve learned that, whenever I have time off, I go for walks.  Apparently, walking is something I enjoy, and I owe Jamie Lewis for helping me re-discover that.  I like to listen to podcasts, get outside, and get in vitamin D.  And to accomplish that last part, yes: I am that guy walking around shirtless all the time.  This summer has been awesome for that, and I am the darkest I’ve ever been.  Those of you that watch my youtube channel may have noticed my sick tan.  I was absolutely rocking it, having gotten in a solid workout that morning with Jamie Lewis’ “Juggeryoke” protocol and a light breakfast of some egg whites before I hit the nearby nature trail.

As I’m walking and listening to my podcast (which was, no joke, Dungeons and Dragons Lore, because I am STILL a nerd), another walker on the opposite side of the trail frantically flags me down.  He says something that my noise canceling earbuds canceled out (which should have been a warning that what was coming next was, in fact, noise rather than signal), so I removed one earbud, asked him to re-state, and he points at me and asks 

“How many calories?”

"Am I on 'Punked' right now?"

…I am STILL baffled at this point, so I ask him what he means.

“How many calories do you eat per day?”

This was STILL baffling, but at least I could answer and (hopefully…but not likely) get back to my walk.   I responded that I had no idea, I had never counted a calorie or macro in my life, and that it sounded like a terrible way to live.

“Oh, well I DO count calories, and you’re about the size I want to get to, so I was curious how much I should be eating.”

And here, I saw the golden opportunity to introduce “Chaos is the Plan: The Plan” “out in the wild”.  I informed him “When I eat, I eat meat and eggs until I’m no longer hungry.  I don’t count, weigh or measure anything.”  

Slam-dunk!  I just gave this guy all the secrets, and I did it in just a handful of sentences.  That’s exactly what my 3 Sentence Training Manual is going to be!  Well my 3 sentences just got beat by 1 sentence, spoken by one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th and 21st century.

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”-Mike Tyson

You can actually SEE the plan vanishing

“Yeah, well I’m eating 2400 calories a day, and I’m wondering if I should add 1000 calories.  I think I may be losing weight too fast.”

I stared blankly at this man.  To go with that quote from Mike Tyson, I threw what I thought was going to be a fight ending haymaker, and he managed to pull Anderson Silva on me and knock me out WHILE backpedaling.  Motherf—ker defied physics on me: he “Neo in the Matrix’d” me.  He pulled off the kind of combination you watch Scorpion perform in Mortal Kombat when your little brother says “Hold on: let me try out all the buttons so I can figure out my character”.  I was in no way prepared for his counter response.

For those of you that don't speak MMA: shutting down a man's CNS with a lazy job thrown while backpedaling is like hitting a 400 yard drive using a minigolf putter

Because allow me to take a moment to further describe this scene.  I speak not with malice but mere accuracy when I say that this man could best be described as “doughy”.  He had the typical “melted candle” physique one observes in middle-age-ish men (I turn 38 in Oct, I think I’m just about at that demographic as well): narrow shoulders, upper body mass that is a combination of some manner of muscle and adipose tissue, pear shaped midsection adorned with love handles, dutifully hidden with a too large t-shirt covered in sweat from the sheer exertion of the walk, and legs that appear to sport development primarily from the labor of locomoting its own body around.   

And here I am, talking to this fellow human, giving him the keys to the kingdom, FINALLY being at a point where I CAN take 23 years of training and nutrition and boil it down into 3 sentences…and my gift is spurned.  Rejected.  Not even genuinely acknowledged.  He deftly parried it to the side and continued the dialog on HIS terms.

I tried to re-explain myself.  “I don’t count calories.  I eat meat and eggs when I’m hungry until I’m not.  Once I’m hungry, I eat meat and eggs again.”

“Yeah, but I can’t do that.”

Rest in Peace Dale...

“..You..you can’t do that?”

“No: I’m afraid I’ll overeat”.  Remember; he was wanting to ADD 1000 calories prior to this moment, and was afraid he was losing weight too fast.

“You won’t overeat: you stop when you’re not hungry.  You won’t eat if you’re not hungry.”

“It’s something I struggle with.”

At this point, I’m already pretty upset.  I walk specifically to have time to myself, and now I was no longer walking NOR was I by myself, and I was trapped in an argument with this dude wherein there was no prize whatsoever for winning.  

I had plenty of raisins at that point...

He volunteered more information I didn’t ask for “I think I’m actually just thirsty rather than hungry.  I’ve added a 15 mile bike ride to my daily activity to burn more calories.  I’ve lost 70lbs.  All I eat is pure protein.”

Whereas previously it was an Anderson Silva backpedal  counterpunch he threw at me, this was more like a clusterbomb of pure Kafkaesque lunacy.  He just threw a “Brazilian kick” at me, which, if you’re unversed in the world of kickboxing, is yet another physics defying act of brutality wherein a combatant throws a kick where the knee is saying “I’m going low!” but the shin goes “haha jokes on you: this is a head kick!”  It breaks your brain in multiple ways.  

Notice how, in the example, you need 5 legs to pull it off!

I zeroed in on the two biggest red flags right away: “pure protein” and the fact that, up until this point, I only know that this dude walks and rides bikes.  

“Pure protein?  Dude, you need fat in your diet!”  Why did I care?  I genuinely don’t know.  Despite my misanthropy, I suppose I didn’t want this guy to be one of those rare humans that starves to death while being overweight…

“Oh, there’s fat in the meat I eat.  And eggs”

But then…then it’s not pure protein…

“What kind of meat are you eating?”

“Beef.  Sometimes chicken”.  What a “not response”.  The fat profile of beef jerky is vastly different than a chuck roast.  Give me some DETAILS here man!

“Are you engaging in any sort of resistance training?”

“Oh yeah, I do weights 3x a week.”  Again…what does THAT mean?

“I brought in the bike because it gives me a chance to really emphasize the lower body.  I feel like a lot of people neglect it.  You can burn a lot of calories that way.”

At this point, I switched to one word responses and grunts.  I realized we were simply a bridge too far here.  He was giving ME advice now…and all I wanted was to go for a walk.  A walk, mind you, that I WASN’T doing to burn calories…simply to walk.  Because I like walking.

LESSONS LEARNED

Aside from parents being absolutely right about “don’t talk to strangers”, this was a fantastic real-life case study both in all the issues I’ll experience when I release my 3 sentence training manual along with mentalities regarding eating and training in general.  Let’s examine here.

* This person sought ME for MY help, and when given it, tried to spin it into his preferred paradigm.  And the literal casual observer would be able to deduce who was successful and who wasn’t between the two of us in the pursuit of physical transformation.  Paradigm breaking hurts, it’s hard, and it’s necessary.  If you are asking someone for their help: ACCEPT their help.  Come at it with an empty cup.  Do you need to do what they say 100% without question?  No: of course not.  This isn’t about cult-leader worship, but it IS about being open to new information IF you find yourself in a situation where what you’re doing ISN’T getting you to your goals.  I had achieved this guy’s goal, and irrespective of the fact that we would NEVER look like each other simply because of genetics variances, I at least had a case study of n=1 to contrast his n=0 in physical goal achieving.  He had nothing to lose and everything to gain by at least TRYING my approach and abandoning his current one.

They wouldn't make it a meme if it didn't really happen

* Having the diet and training relationship flipped.  This guy saw training as purely a means to burn calories in his pursuit of losing weight…but not “too fast”.  I don’t even know what to do with that, but I imagine his fears were in regards to “losing muscle”, in which case it makes the LEAST sense to try to burn fuel with training.  Training is there to IMPROVE us, and the food is there to recover from and facilitate the process OF improvement.  When we approach it with that understanding, we tend to be exacting about WHAT we put into our bodies.  We recognize that the food is key to actually REALIZING the results of the training.  But when we train simply to burn fuel, we, in turn, put any fuel we want into the gastank.  This guy was eating “pure protein”, which, taken at face value, is a recipe for dying from essential fatty acid and vitamin deficiency, but all he cared about was putting fuel in his body so he could burn it all up.  

* Hell, from a “losing fat” perspective, he’d be better off skipping the exercise and just keeping the fuel low.  OR, if he DOES exercise, make it primarily resistance training focused so he can signal to his body to build/hold onto muscle WHILE he loses the fat.  Instead, he’s telling his body “Hey, everyday, we ride a bike 15 miles and walk a ton: you need to re-configure yourself to be optimal at that”.  The body is going to say “Roger that: let’s start by getting rid of ALL this heavy and metabolically taxing MUSCLE.  It’s really weighing us down on these bike rides and walks.  We’ll be MUCH more streamlined AND we won’t need as much fuel!”  If you remember “being that which does”, this dude was being that which does long endurance activities, and the body was responding in kind.  And he was EATING like a scavenger vs a predator.  You ever see a really jacked coyote?  Me neither.

* “Help me help you”.  I genuinely had no interest in the success of this person, and I STILL was pulling teeth trying to get details out of him that actually mattered in the pursuit of things.  Don’t say you’re eating “pure protein” when you’re not actually doing that.  I heard that and assumed this guy was following a protein sparing modified fast, only to learn that he most likely meant “meat and eggs”.  And as I’ve learned from Dr. House “Everyone lies”.  I know his “pure protein” included some off menu things at this point: cop to it.  I’ve told several people that I only eat meat and eggs, only to have those people agree with me…only to observe those very people loading up on all sorts of debauchery at an office get together.  Once, I struck gold: we had a “build your own fajitas” table at an office function, and I was going to TOWN picking out chicken and steak and leaving behind all the veggies, only to turn around and see another self-proclaimed carnivore with his plate dutifully loaded with several tortillas, salsa, fajita veggies, rice and beans.  Yes, this person ate a LOT of meat; they did not eat ONLY meat.  These realities are worlds apart.  And it does you NO good to lie when asking for help: don’t try to impress the person giving you advice with a fake lifestyle, because the REALITY is as apparent as the love handles were on this dude.  What his mouth said couldn’t be heard over what his body said.

* The simpler the solution, the more complex the excuses have to be…apparently.

But, if nothing else, this will make a great Q&A/Annex for my book, so I am thankful for that.