(no subject)
Me at 140lbs.
Ok, I’m starting this journal all over. If you’ve read my past journal entries this should be completely different. These will be less personal and based around the topic of my heath. From now on this will be my health journal. Read it, don’t read it, do what you will gentle reader, I wish you the best:
OK, in case you don’t know I’m an actor currently finishing up school in NYC so I can get out and get serious about my career. Part of getting serious about my career is getting serious about my health. Lets face it, my product is myself and therefore I need to take care of myself. But I want to be a super star, are at least feel I’ve done what is needed to be a super star and hope the fates favor me this life time.
Being healthy is about feeling good, being energized and having a body that does what you ask of it. I have not always been good to my body. In high school I smoked lots of weed, drank allot and stayed out to all hours of the night. I’m 22 and I can already tell I’m no spring chicken anymore.
It’s been two years since I quit smoking. I used to inhale two packs a day no prob. It was easy; I worked on bikes all day, then went out at night and drank. By the time I stumbled home two packs were gone and my liver and lungs were cursing me. But it didn’t catch up with me right away. After a while I started getting sinus infections every month or so. I couldn’t run, and I had a tolerance that started to be embarrassingly strong. I noticed I could go head to head with people I considered alcoholics no problem. So I stopped. Just like that I stopped. I went to AA for 6 months but don’t really think I was ever an alcoholic, though I will say if I hadn’t gone who know where I was going. I will also say I never drank while depressed. Even nights where all I wanted was a drink, I was able to look in the mirror and say if your drinking to deal with your problems then you better stay home. This is why I think I survived. Today I like to drink, but I do less frequently. A friend called me up Friday and said he was in my neighborhood and wanted to know if I new any good places to get a drink, I realized I didn’t. Go me!
I’ve also stopped smoking, though I’ll say it’s taken me two years of grabbing a pack here and there to really say I’ve quit but I have. Still I want a smoke from time to time. Just the other day I finished a big meal, and all I wanted was a Lucky Strike. But I told myself it was OK to want it so long as I didn’t have it. This has been my strategy, and all I can say is I don’t smoke no more.
OK, I charge that by summers end I will have gotten significantly and noticeably more healthy. I’m talking I expect friends to come up to me and say, “Damn Sam, you look great!” While I admit this is somewhat for vanity’s sake (I love to look good) the main reasons are that:
1. Exercising and healthy living have made me feel happy and great in the past.
2. When I take good care of myself I get more work done, and have more time to relax.
3. I find living healthy make me feel smarter and quicker day-to-day.
4. As an actor Image is an important part of the biz.
5. I want look good naked. *Hey I’m honest.
What has come before:
When first moved to NYC I weighed approx 148lbs at 5’6”. I had been working construction all summer, and eating nothing but cheeseburgers and pizza. I had no fat on me, and I looked like I could put my fist through a brick wall. By Thanks giving of that fall I was getting all A’s but had dropped to 122lbs. Since then I’ve been trying to get back to where I was.
What happened?
1. Not enough exercise.
2. Bad nutrition
3. Inadequate sleep
4. Stressed out life style
5. Drinking to much
6. Smoking cigarettes instead of eating to save money
7. In taking lots of caffeine and Adderal.
8. Thinking my body could handle it.
This is embarrassing to write, but I’m doing it in the interest of full disclosure. I’ve fucked up. I’ve treated my body like an amusement park; I’ve suffered the consequences. And if this makes you stop reading and say there’s nothing I can learn from this guy, then maybe you’re right. But if you read on know I’m no professional, I’ve made poor decisions in the past, and am apt to make them again.
That being said...
Today I weigh a healthy 140. I get plenty of sleep, don’t do drugs, barely drink, and eat healthy, while maintaining a decent work our routine.
About January I was a meek 130. I was tired of girls always saying how they wished they were as thin as me. A friend of mine had just gotten a whole hell of a lot buffer in what had seemed like no time at all. I asked him if he wanted to work out with me. We started working out and immediately it became apparent that while he was in far superior health than me I new more about healthy living than he did. Prior to this experience I done sports in high school (wrestling and cross-country running) and worked out with a personal trainer. I had also taught skiing and rock-climbing and taken an Anatomy and Physiology class in high school. I had read a few books and bodybuilding and nutrition and new some basics that my friend did not (like why it’s important to warm up prior to lifting and why stretching post work-out is more important than stretching before). So we came up with a routine together and did it 3 times a week for that past semester. He has gotten bigger and I gained 10 pounds rather quickly. But we were merely focusing on the exterior image of our bodies and not the deeper importance of overall healthiness. Which is a nice way of saying we were trying to look good for the ladies. But a peculiar thing happened. We started getting addicted to working out, we started noticing that we felt less stressed and overall better the more we worked out.
But priorities have changed:
About two months ago had run out of food and was too lazy to get my ass to the grocery store. I looked in the fridge and to my delight I found a large block of cheese I had forgotten about. Delicious awesome Vermont cheddar-my favorite!!! This block probably was about 12 ounces, and I ate the whole thing. Yum! To my chagrin the next day I discovered my face was completely broken out with Acne. Now Acne has always been a problem for me, I’ve gone to dermatologist and doctors and they’ve all given me things that helped but nothing ever cleared up the problem. And short of going on serious drugs like Acutain I felt I had tried everything.
Note: serious drugs scare me. I don’t trust our health care system (or lack there of), and don’t believe stuff like Acutain or antibiotics are appropriate for something like acne.
So seeing this Acne appear so quickly after such a short time of pigging out so horribly on cheese I felt the two had to be connected. So I conducted an experiment. I stopped Cheese in my diet all together DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE CHEESE, AND HOW IT WAS IN EVERYTHING I AIT EVERY DAY!!!! Well let me say this was a feat. But I stopped. Within 3 days the acne on my face was completely gone; better than it had ever been before in my adult life. I couldn’t believe it! So I said it has to be the milk products. After that I stopped milk all together and a few weeks latter I noticed all the acne on my back was gone too. I now had nearly perfect skin, something I haven’t been able to claim since before puberty!!! Today two months later with no dairy in my diet my skin still looks great, aside from the small zit here and there which goes away in a day this is still the best my skin has ever looked. It makes sense! I’m not a baby cow, why should my body like milk. They say you can’t absorb milk after the age of nine anyway.
So this has gotten me thinking. What else am I taking in that isn’t doing me any good? Of course beer. I like beer I’ll drink one beer form time to time but it’s nothing I go crazy over, but I’ve stopped drinking it even more now. And so far I’m at least saving money!
OK the present:
Yesterday I started doing my Capoeira classes again. That’s Brazilian fight dancing, if you don’t know You Tube it you’ll come up with some great stuff. I had stopped because school was taking up all my time. I had done it before for about 6 months and loved it. The people are great, the music is great, and the dancing is thrilling. For those 6 months it was basically the only exercise I did, and it was awesome!!! Capoeira keeps your body strong, limber, and fast while forcing you to think on your feet and do things you never thought you’d be able to do. I’m so happy to be back at it again.
That being said, going back was hard. I was worried the friends I made wouldn’t take kindly to me just coming back after 5 months of not showing up. I thought they would feel I wasn’t a team player, or a some sort of flake. But when I showed up they seemed happy to see me, and lord knows I was happy to see them. There good positive people.
The training is intense. Not as bad as some things I’m sure, but way worse than what they made us do for wrestling and that was hard. Yesterday we worked it for two hours with only a min break here and there in the 80-degree heat. I’m not a sweater, but it was poring off me like a waterfall yesterday. I got a huge blister on my right foot and today my back hurts.
What I did and should have done.
Yesterday I woke up (kinda late) and had a breakfast of Honey bunches of oats. Oats are good because they contain carbohydrates that your body can convert to energy quickly. This is perfect for stopping your body’s catabolic rate when you wake up.
Note: while you sleep your body feeds on its own muscle to keep you alive. When you wake you want to stop this right away with a good hearty breakfast containing carbohydrates. The faster you body gets nourishment the sooner it stops eating itself thus giving you more gains. But before I even had my oats I drank 22oz of water and took a shower. This ensures that I not only smell nice, but that I flush my system of all toxins before I start my day.
Then I went about my day. About an hour and a half later I should have had a protein shake, but I was out and short on cash so I just got some smart water (1.5L) and had 100ml caffeine and went to the Capoeira class. ---I take my caffeine my pill form so as to not stain my teeth with soda or coffee while I shouldn’t be having caffeine at all still rely on it and hope to stop in the future. My plan is to continue eating healthy and stick to schedule until I just can phase it out. This has worked in the past. Also 100ml isn’t bad that’s about half a cup of strong Joe.
I drank about a third of the water before class and then the rest during. After class my foot hurt like hell so I limped home and cleaned it before having a protein shake and hopping in the tub. I wanted to soak in Epsom salts to help my muscle recovery and help start the healing process on the gigantic blister on my food. After the tub I stretched. I wasn’t as warm as I thought I was because today I feel sore and stiff. Usually when I stretch right after a heavy exercise routine I feel fine the next day. (This means stretching for at least 20min) But I waited so I’m sore today. I went about my day and had half a chicken sandwich an hour or so after the shake and then later that night I woke up hungry and ate the other half and two pita bread disks with hummus.
Note: My protein shake has 1010 calories in it. For anyone trying to loose weight this is not the shake for you. My shake is called quick mass and is added to what I already eat, not a substitute for good nutrition. I should have had more vegetable yesterday but was feeling lazy. My shake also contains Creatine, Argine, and Glutamine, all products I’ve found safe and helpful, but do your own research and consult a physician before tying anything you’re not familiar with. I had a little trouble going to sleep, probably because I had slept in that morning and because I was hungry last night and chose to wake up and eat.
Today I woke up after 8 hours and felt tired. I thought of going back to sleep but wanted to try and maintain some sort of schedule despite the fact that it was the weekend. I skipped the water and went straight for the oats this morning because I was hungry. I shouldn’t have. I skipped lunch because I was running late but had pancakes for dinner about 5 with two cups of coffee and home fries. I shouldn’t have had the coffee but it went so well with the pancakes I had too. After this I was stuffed and waked around NYC doing some errands. About 7 O-clock I noticed my throat was hurting and decided to stay home. I had some vitamin C pills and ate a big plate of steamed string beans with a different kind of protein shake. (This one has only protein nothing else. Its perfect for the evening because there is nothing it to keep me up) Then I felt a little more exercised. Now (about an hour later) I’m going to eat something before I go to bed (probably chicken or turkey).
My Health Outline.
Work out:
Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays-Capoeira
Thursdays & Saturdays- Heavy lifting at gym
Everyday stretch
Everyday eat well.
Everyday do voice training.
This should have me looking and sounding great in no time at all.
Right now my throat hurts a lot and I’m thinking I should go to bed. So ta ta for now and happy Memorial Day!