Epiphanies and Shit

Most of the people that read my blog are also friends on Facebook, so I don't have to talk to you about the emotional hell my week has been as I started my new job. Lots and lots of panic attacks all around, and a crippling fear of failure has gripped me all week, but most of you know that already, so moving on...

Today, my wife and I had to go shopping, but we stopped at a coney island because a) We had no food in the house (hence the need to go grocery shopping), and b) a coney island was all we could afford.

While we headed to the restaurant, I felt the same familiar feelings hitting my body once again.

Crippling fear. Anxiety. Feelings of impending doom. The fight or flight response.

Yep, I'm having a panic attack. Again. Just one of many this week.

For those that are friends of mine on Facebook, I've told you in detail about the panic attacks this week. I would sit in my classroom training for my new job, and I kept having an emotional response that said:

"You're gonna fail. You're gonna fail, and they're all gonna laugh at you!"

This was different. For the first time, sitting in the coney island, I had the guts to tell my wife:

"I'm having a panic attack right now. It's been going on for about ten minutes."

Writing about past panic attacks is one thing. Telling anyone (even my wife) that I'm currently experiencing one is another. It's not something I do.

I grew up thinking that men aren't supposed to talk about emotional problems. Admitting that I was in a total state of freak out is a hard thing for me to do.

I'm plenty strong on the outside. I'm stronger than the average guy physically. But when I have a panic attack, emotionally, I feel like a small child. Fragile, easy to break. I want to run and hide from the world. I have to deal with being an adult with two children when I'd rather just curl up in the fetal position. Having a panic attack is hard. Having a panic attack when you have to adult with kids is the fucking worst.

My wife did her best to console me and take my mind off of things. She did a good job. She held my hand. She told jokes. We found other people in the restaurant to gossip about, whether it be good or bad. It took my mind off things for a while.

The thing about my panic attacks, is that they last for A VERY LONG TIME. I'm talking several hours at a time. When they happen, they come in waves. I go from slightly depressed to HOLY FUCKING SHIT DONALD TRUMP IS ABOUT TO PUT YOU INTO A REEDUCATION CAMP GRAB YOUR GUNS for at least six hours. So my wife consoling me helped to calm me down to at least keep me in the "slightly depressed" position for a while.

During those hours, I found myself entering a period of contemplation. I kept looking at what was causing me to have these panic attacks.

While I was having the panic attacks during my job training, I realized it happened mostly when my new employer was talking about all the ways they could fire me. They activated my fight or flight response. All the tales they were telling me about how tight a ship they were running, that response was activated, and I nearly sabotaged my new employment by telling them all that they should go and fuck themselves with a very sharp object before I walked out. I thought about getting out of the business of private security and finding some new job where I would be my own boss. Maybe mental health, as I love to study the subject, if only it's so I can figure out what the hell is wrong with me.

During this time, I had an epiphany. I realized what I really wanted.

Freedom.

Just fast-forward to the :30 mark.

There's many kinds of freedom that we have in the United States, but there's a type of freedom that's not guaranteed by our Constitution. I want economic freedom. I want the freedom to be able to pay my bills by just working my job without having to beg for overtime. I want the freedom from my job to be who I choose to be after hours. I want the freedom to not have to worry about money.

My new employer has said during my training that they won't offer this freedom, and that's why I've been having constant panic attacks this week. I've been freaking out over my lack of freedom to have a job that doesn't have an overbearing employer.

When I go to my new job site, maybe I'll find out that my employer isn't as overbearing as they made themselves during my off-site job training. It'll be good if that happens. I've worked under plenty of people in private security that were great bosses. They let you do your job and just left you alone. If you fucked up in some way, they'd defend you so you kept you job. I'd be fine working under someone like that if I made enough money to pay my bills.

If not, for the sake of my mental health, I'll have to look for a new line of work. All of these panic attacks are not worth the small amount of money I'll get to pay my bills (which, given my larger-than-before-promised-salary, still means I have to beg for overtime). If I have to choose between sanity and paying bills, I choose sanity. I choose mental freedom. I'll deal with paying the bills some other way.

In the meantime:

We Are Warriors, Tired Though We May Be

This is my post for Veterans Day.

Or as I've long known it as: Free food at Applebee's Day!

I joined the Army Reserves on my 21st birthday. 9/11 had happened just a few months prior, and I wanted sign up both to do my part, and also to protect one of my friends that was also in the Reserves (hi, Ger!)

I had planned on signing up the year prior, but they said I was too fat. I wanted to join because of the college money, but also because my heavy training in martial arts gave me the mind of a Samurai, and I wanted all the warrior training that Uncle Sam was willing to give me on the taxpayer's dime.

Still, I was too fat to join.

But after 9/11, they were willing to take just about anyone. So I went to the MEPS station, sucked in my gut, dipped my neck, and a month later I was at Fort Jackson.

I signed up to be a 71L, what was known then as an "Administrative Specialist". It's admittedly the most wimpy MOS (Army job) of all MOS's. "Administrative Specialist" is a fancy term for "file clerk".

But that was the only job I could take to be in the same military company as my friend, so I took it.

I ended up liking the job. With that job I took two overseas tours (including one in Iraq), that for the most part, had me working behind a computer with access to the internet. It's how I found my love for blogging.

There's a slang for people that do our job: Chairborne Ranger. I wore that label like a badge of pride. We were office workers, but we were also combat ready. I told people, "We are the toughest secretaries on the planet!"

Being an office drone for Uncle Sam didn't mean we were exempt from danger. In Iraq, we had attacks on our base from insurgents, and I nearly died the day after Christmas in 2005 from an IED during a convoy mission. Fortunately, it was found before it could blow anybody up.

I met some of the greatest people I will ever know during my time in the service. There's something about being in the military that connects you with those that also serve. There's very little that we found offensive in terms of humor (where else can you make jokes about kicking babies and everyone around you laughs?) and our personalities just clicked.

Then, we went home. We went back on Reserve status, and had to go back to civilian life.

Most of us didn't re-up. We had done enough time on behalf of Uncle Sam, and decided that our time was over.

Adjusting to civilian life has been hard for some of us, and not as hard for others. Some of my friends went on to have good careers, while many of us struggled to pay the bills.

I tell people about the military, "We had a bunch of problems, and none of them were about money. Now, we have 99 problems, and every one of them involve money."

The civilian world still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, even though I've been home for over a decade. In the military, no matter how bad it sucked, we always had each other to look out for one another. But in the civilian world, it seems like it's every man for themselves. You're on your own out here, whether you like it or not. It's a dog-eat-dog world, so they say.

Of all the problems with civilian life, that tops the list. Why are there so many people that just don't care about the well being of others? I just don't get it.

Now, most of us are married or divorced, and ended up with kids. We're in our 30s now, and even with the spirit of the warrior in us, we're tired.

Just after Basic Combat Training, I could get four hours of sleep and run two miles the next day. Now, I have to keep a strict diet and exercise regiment to have enough energy to be able to function.

I miss being that young warrior and having all that energy.

I also joined the Army while having General Anxiety Disorder, even though I didn't know I had it at the time. The military and the combat zone cranked that disorder up a few hundred notches. Living for a year in a desert everyday where you're not sure if the next day is even going to come will do that to you. It's why I struggle with alcohol and other drugs (mostly weed) to self-medicate. Some days, I'm still stuck in that desert, and I need to get wasted to come back home. It is what it is.

Despite being old and tired, there are days where I still know that the warrior spirit still dwells within me. A while back, I stood guard in another Army buddy's front yard because his neighbor was threatening to kill him (he lives in a fairly bad neighborhood). I had no problem putting my life on the line and being willing to bring all sorts of pain to anyone that dared cross us that evening. I've had people threaten me or my family in the real world and I dare them to come at me, refusing to back down to them, even when I know doing so might bring death. I switch from mild-mannered guy to war-ready psycho in a matter of seconds.

We vets are still warriors, tired though we may be. We are old, we are tired, and we have mental issues. But we are still fighters, and always will be.

If anyone feels like thanking a veteran today (or any day), do more than just use words. Write your congressman to tell them to do more to help with the clusterfuck that is the VA health care system. Tell them to have better mental health so that vets aren't stuck with some nurse that just pushes pills on them. Tell them to do something to deal with the veterans that are sleeping in the streets tonight. None of us ask for anything more than to be able to work for a living, to have enough money to provide for our families, and to be able to retain some degree of mental sanity. We did enough for you to have earned that much.

If anyone needs me, I'll be eating free steak at Applebee's.

Two Gym Fails, One Funny One

As promised, I made a video attempting my calculated one rep max on the squat, bench, and deadlift.

Enjoy!

Time to Start Cutting

A few weeks ago I decided to start reverse dieting. It wasn't done with the intention to gain weight, but I did need to work on getting more protein into my body. This is not an easy task when you've had bariatric surgery, even if it's been nearly three years later. I've been eating an insane amount of protein shakes and cottage cheese to get it done.

But after a week of that, I decided that after gaining weight for months, it's time to lose some body fat. I had my wife take a set of calipers to my chest, stomach, and thigh, and found that my body fat percentage is currently a little over 28%.

I want to get that down to less than 18%, and if my knowledge of basic math is sound, that means I need to lose about 30 pounds of body fat. Losing fat is easy. Doing it without losing muscle is hard.

Last week I created a calorie reduction meal plan with an emphasis on keeping my protein levels high, but I had to quit that because there's still some foods that my body can't tolerate. So now I'm just cutting out carbs.

Or rather, I planned on just cutting out carbs, but Halloween.

After raiding my kid's stash from a trunk or treat outing we had on Friday, that plan got shot to shit. So I'm restarting that plan today.

I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes back in 2008, and was only functionally cured of it after the surgery, so I've been pretty averse to eating sugary and starchy stuff for years. Low carb diets tend to be easier for me to follow (when we're not around holidays that are excuses to give free candy to children) as a result.

I'm also going to have to make damn well sure I get some cardio into my workout routines. I need to do that anyway. While I may be the stronger now than I've ever been in my life, I sacrificed a lot of endurance and speed to get that way.

So...thirty pounds to go.

A Review of Candito's Six Week Program, and Why I Love Exercise

I just completed week five of Candito's Six Week Strength Program this afternoon. Week six is a deload week, so I think it's safe to review the program now.

My review is this: It's awesome. It's just fucking awesome.

When I started the program, my five rep max on my squats was 205 pounds. It's now 230 pounds. My one rep max on the bench press was 205 pounds. I can now do at least four reps at that weight. My calculated 1 rep max on the deadlift is now 320 pounds, and I did four reps at 290 pounds today.

I'll be doing another review of the program in six weeks to see if I hit another plateau. The program is meant to prevent plateaus, but we'll see.

If you're beginning in weight training, I still recommend either the Stronglifts 5x5 method or the Starting Strength 3x5 method. Once you reach the limits of what those programs can provide for you, go on the Candito program. My previous plateaus are busted. In the case of my squats, what was once my limit on my weight is my warm-up weight now.

Today, I had to reluctantly drag my ass to the gym. I woke up tired, and stayed that way through most of the day. I knew I wasn't going to skip the gym because my workout was simple - one set of deadlifts - but I really wasn't in the mood.

When I got to the gym, I did my warmup sets, and nervously racked the barbell for my final set. I had never deadlifted 290 pounds before, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it. Still, I put myself into position, grabbed the barbell with an iron-tight grip, and lifted.

First rep up. "Well, that was easy enough."
Second rep up. My grip strength was barely enough to hold the barbell, but I completed it.
Third rep up. At this point, the lifting part itself is easy, but my grip was so loose that I was barely holding the barbell by the tips of my fingers.
Fourth rep up. Holy shit, I fucking did it.

After dropping the barbell, I had finished the week performing a new personal record on all of my major lifts. I went into the gym tired and reluctant, but after finishing that set, I was full of energy and had a shit-eating grin on my face.

I don't show strong emotion often. In public, I'm fairly stoic, holding a poker face and not letting too much of my thoughts show. But at that moment I had a smile a mile wide and I had to remind myself not to completely lose my shit and run around wild cheering in the gym. If I had no ability for self-restraint, I would have started doing a victory lap around the gym, my arms flailing in the air, screaming, "WHOOOOOOOOO! FUCK YEAH! I FUCKING DID IT!", ending my victory lap at my barbell and doing shadow boxing in my moment of celebration, while every person in the gym looked at me like I had lost my goddamn mind.

I talked about this a while back in my post called, "The Best Part About Exercise", but I'll repeat it now. I love fitness because it's the great equalizer. I don't believe in the positive thinking garbage about money or your economic situation. There's very, very few people that are living in poverty or struggling because they aren't working hard enough. If anything, most of us are working harder and working longer hours than generations before us. I'll even go so far as to say it's insulting to claim such things, as I have to beg my bosses for overtime just so I'll have enough money to pay my bills. I earned a college degree and an EMT license under the GI Bill and I'm still looking for a job where I can work an average 40 hour work week and not have to worry about getting my bills paid on time. The idea that you can change your economic situation through sheer force of will is a lie. If that could happen, I would have done it by now.

But in the gym, I am in control of my destiny. I have the ability to achieve greatness. I can choose to be the best person I can be. Fitness is the one thing that I can choose for myself without a greedy boss, a corrupt bank, or what is the myth of the "free market" holding me back. I may be broke, I may be struggling, but in the gym, I am a fucking god, standing by lesser beings that have just begun their path to fitness (and many that will quit within a few months), and greater gods that have spent their lives lifting more than I can; those greater gods, that I watch lift and know with confidence that one day, I will be stronger than them because I choose to drive on and not quit, but still look at with admiration. It's the time that I can live the lyrics from Spose (a singer which you may have noticed by now, I take a lot of inspiration from) and say confidently:

But I was supposed to curl up, I was supposed to back down
I was supposed to fade, evaporate into the background
I was supposed to never be nothing but made it to something
I knew I could do it, I will make it through it
I'll prove it, I was just another human who was supposed to be... 

Nobody 

That truly is the greatest thing about fitness. Control over our own bodies is the only real freedom that we have. It's with that, that the gym gives me real freedom.

Enjoy the song:

Thoughts on Getting Old

"Once scared of the banalities and annoyances that they believed defined adulthood, Everything Sucks is the Descendents realizing that their worst fears had come true. Growing old, they found, sucks. Judging by the songs, in fact, it’s safe to say that it’s even worse than they might have thought." - A.V. Club

 “I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.” - Douglas Adams

"Don't trust anyone over 30." - Jack Weinberg

The other day a friend of mine on Facebook said that her teenage daughter had just turned old enough to get her own Facebook account. She didn't want it because it's for old people.

For a while I had known that at my thirty-five years of age, I was slipping away from youth culture. New music comes out and I don't get it. I listen to teenagers talk and I have to resist laughing at them as they try to sound like adults but completely lack the life experience to do so. They try to sound profound but just sound self-absorbed. I knew I was getting old.

But knowing that teenagers don't even want to be on Facebook nowadays was the realization that I'm not getting old. I am old.

Ugh.

I never wanted to get this old. When I was 14 I told my history teacher that my main goal in life was to make sure I died before I reached 30. He asked what I was going to do if I made it to one day before my 30th birthday. In my dark sense of humor, I told him, "Suicide by cop."

Bruce Lee was 32 when he died. Shortly before his death he expressed fears of getting older. Getting older meant that he'd be getting weaker. It would be harder for him to fight other men in their 20s that were up and coming in the martial arts world. I wish that were the half of it.

The physical part of getting old sucks. There is no doubt about that. My first day home after Initial Entry Training in the Army (when I was 22) had me hanging out with friends until four in the morning, getting four hours of sleep, and running two miles before doing it all over again the next day. I got less than 12 hours of sleep the first three days I was home and did a workout routine that would kill weaker men on a full night of sleep. I miss having that kind of crazy energy. Now, if I don't drink enough protein shakes and take vitamins, I'm a dead man walking. I didn't have calcium deposits in my shoulder back then, because shit like that doesn't happen when you're 22.

The physical part is only one part of it, though. The hardest part is the uncertainty that comes with knowing that the world is changing all around you and you aren't able to keep up with it. So kids don't want to do Facebook anymore. That's fine, but could someone PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK SNAPCHAT IS?! I have no idea what it is, nor do I know why I would need to use it. While I'm still up to date on most forms of technology, any bit of social media that isn't called Facebook is a complete mystery to me. The only other social media account I have is Twitter, and I don't even use it.

Then there's the financial aspect of it all. The odds of finding financial security get worse and worse every year. Am I going to spend the rest of my life in debt and working overtime to pay the bills, missing my daughters growing up in the process? Why can't I just get a 40 hour a week job with the weekends off that will take care of my financial needs? I'm not even asking to be rich, just middle class, and it seems like every year that's getting harder and harder to obtain and keep. It's beyond frustrating.

When you're a kid, other adults train you for adulthood (even if you don't listen to them). They tell you to go to college, get a good paying job, get a 401(k), and to save your money. What they never prepare you for is what comes after that. How do you deal with a world that's changing all around you too fast? How do you deal with having responsibility and loss of freedom that comes with having to take care of other people? What happens when your friends all get married and start having kids? What happens when you watch them getting divorced? What about when they start dying?

If I had to guess, the adults didn't have the answers to those questions because they were just starting to experience all that for themselves.

I was born in 1981. I'm the very last remnant of what's known as "Generation X". I lived most of my life well. I didn't become a teenage parent. I served my country when the nation ended up suffering the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. I have a college degree, although I got it much later than most. Yet here I am, getting older and constantly asking myself, "Where do we go from here?"

I honestly don't know. The only thing that's left now is uncertainty.

Reverse Dieting (When You Have no Stomach)

After I started the Candito program, I realized that I also need to eat more food. A lot more. Way more than I'm accustomed to or comfortable eating. This is especially true of protein.

So, last week I started trying to fit every piece of solid hunk of meat and dairy product into my mouth, but I got full very quickly. It's been nearly three years since I've had bariatric surgery, so I can eat an average size meal in one sitting, but eating all of this food was getting to be too much, so I had to start getting creative.

My previous nutrition goal was to eat at least 250 grams of protein a day. Now, I'm eating 300. I also have to consume some carbohydrates on days that I workout so I'm not sluggish when I hit the gym. This is what I eat to make sure that I get the calories I need to get stronger:

1. Protein shakes
2. Protein shakes
3. More protein shakes
4. Cottage cheese
5. Greek yogurt (the big containers of the plain stuff, not the sugar-stuffed bullshit that comes in one-cup portions)

Basically, if it's a liquid or a food with a paste-like consistency that contains protein, I'm eating it.

Carbs are easier to consume than proteins, but if I'm working out, I drink a couple bottles of Powerade throughout the day so I'll have the energy to lift.

I used to eat every three hours so I could fit in my macros. Those days are over. Now, I'm eating every time I can fit food into my tiny, tiny stomach.

Here's a video of Alan Thrall doing some extreme bulk dieting. You'll be both enthralled and disgusted at the same time: