JOLIET JERRY'S DORM ROOM

I thought long and hard about how to write this. It’s never easy to write about your failures. Failing is part of life and setbacks make us stronger and more aware of what we need to do differently to be successful…I can intellectualize this very easily. Translating this into real life is the part I struggle with. I can tell everyone else how to do it, but when it comes to putting it into practice in my own life, well that can be a different story. Let me back up and try to explain where all this comes from…

As many of you know, at the beginning of this year I started a DC training program. I went through a blast, then a cruise, then another blast. After that last blast I went on a cruise cycle and never came out of it. I started working out with my kids at the beginning of summer, but the intensity of the training has been crap as the real focus of the sessions was on them (as it should be). My diet has been crap as well.

What happened? Where did all this come from? Arrogance. See, the DC training is intense beyond belief…which I really enjoyed. The idea is to get BIG. Getting big means eating big. Initially this scared the crap out of me. My past struggles with food made me really leery of the idea of consuming mass quantities of food, even if it was healthy food. But I decided “in for a penny, in for a pound” and decided to just give myself over completely to it. I knew I would put on some fat…this is inevitable when adding large amounts of mass. The basic idea of the diet was simple…eat meals consisting of either protein and carb combinations or protein and fat combinations. Consume massive amounts of protein, no carbs after 6 p.m. other than those found in vegetables and consume lots of green tea. As I said, simple. And the best part is it WORKS. I got stronger than I have been since high school and bulked up pretty nicely in a short period of time.

But here is where the wheels came off. With such strong emphasis on quantity of food, I began to let the quality of the food I was eating deteriorate. A protein/fat meal soon became 30-40 wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. A protein/carb meal soon became two double quarter-pounders. Before I knew it, I wasn’t paying any attention at all to what I was eating and I got FAT. Not fat like I was a few years ago, but fat at a level that I could never be happy with.

See, this is the arrogance I spoke of. I am not like other people. In relation to food, my brain simply doesn’t work like the normal person’s does. I require extremes. When I am on the end of the spectrum of extremes that I have been over the last couple months, I don’t understand the way normal people behave. I don’t understand ordering the 10 ounce steak if there is a 20 ounce one on the menu. I don’t understand sharing a small scoop of ice cream with my wife if I can order a three scoop sundae for myself. I don’t understand moderation when I am in this “state”. The problem was that I had been out of that state…in “recovery” or “remission” if you will, for so long that I thought I beat it. I thought I had successfully rewired my brain to not be that way anymore. Arrogance. Hubris. Cockiness. Call it what you want, but it all ends in the same place. People really don’t grasp what it’s like to struggle with this issue. The psychology of addiction is the same no matter what the substance. I often say that people with food issues have it hardest. Tell an alcoholic he HAS to have one drink a day…no more, no less, and see how he handles that. People with food issues HAVE to consume their vice every day

This self-awareness is critical and it came at a better time than it has in the past. It isn’t a hopeless cause yet. In 2-3 months I can get back to a place where I am happy with myself again and I cannot wait to be there. I need to move on and do the things I am supposed to do and I am SO ready to do so. There is an upside. I DID put on some nice muscle mass when I was DC’ing. I have added a lot of fat, and all muscle tone and definition is pretty much gone but I have held on to the muscle. I am looking forward to shedding this fat and seeing what’s under there. I have been working out, though the sessions seem laughable compared to what I had been doing but the point is, I won’t totally be starting from scratch this time and I am happy for that.

A couple things I want to be clear about. My experience is in NO WAY an indictment of the DC training and nutrition program. This program works as well as you work it. Do you have years of gym experience and want to get huge, strong as hell, and pack on the muscle? Go to IM.com and spend hours and hours reading, taking notes, and formulating a program. I promise you, if you do it right it will work. The problems I have experienced are because of me, and the screwy gray matter between my ears. I think I will take a lot of the principles of DC and create some hybrid program out of it for use as a mass cycle in the future…yes, I know this will mean it isn’t REALLY DC training and that’s okay. I do want to be big and muscular. But I want to look good at the same time. I don’t want to spend 9 months a year with a powerlifter’s build so I can diet off the fat and look good for a few months before I repeat the cycle again. I spent my entire life being “the fat guy” and I want to live my later years with people saying, “Damn, I hope I look half that good at his age”. A big part of my epiphany in all this was the result of a thread I read on Intense Muscle about the negatives of being so huge…can’t buy clothes that fit, can’t walk up a couple flights of stairs without being winded and sweating like a whore in church, struggling to bend over and tie your shoes, your entire days being centered around what and when your next meal will be. I read all this and realized that I have spent my whole life dealing with those things…but from being fat, not muscular. But it doesn’t really matter the reason…those were the things I hated about being obese. Why would I want to experience those same things again, even if it was in a more healthy way? I have nothing but respect for you guys that can carry around 280 pounds on your frames and live happy lives, but I have realized that I am just not interested.

So I know enough about myself to understand that when I am trying to get back into a healthier place in my life I need one thing…STRUCTURE. I always said to myself that it’s to bad I didn’t know anything about these big body transformation contests when I was first starting down the path to a healthy lifestyle because I have no doubt I could have done very well. I thought about doing that now, but I realize that I don’t want it to be about a contest, or prizes, or impressing others…I just want it to be about me, and making myself happy. So even though I won’t be participating in the contest portion of the program, I will be following the three month Rock Hard Challenge program from Muscle & Fitness. This provides the structure…exact sets, reps, exercises, training split, supplements, and most importantly a meal to meal nutrition plan. There is nothing ground breaking in the program and I could have put this together in my sleep but that’s not the point. It gives me what I need now…that ever important structure. I will be starting this on Monday and will plan to blog my progress weekly. Along with structure, a big thing for me is accountability so I am holding myself accountable to my RA friends.

The very last thing, provided I haven’t lost my audience or put you to sleep yet is to apologize to you all. I highly value the friendships I have made here and I haven’t done a very good job of expressing that lately. I haven’t been on the forum much and I just realized I had a couple private messages that I never replied to…I swear I never got an e-mail alerting me to them. I haven’t felt like I was in a position to be giving others advice when my own mental state was in such an upheaval. I see there was a thread started by my great friend Jeremy asking where I have been and I am touched by that. Jer, I hope you can understand a little bit. I needed to step back for a while and reassess my situation and get to a place where I was ready to own all this. This has been very difficult for me to write and I am thankful there is a place where I can lay all this out.

So, for now I will say “I’m back” and looking forward to beginning this training and nutrition program on Monday more than I have looked forward to anything gym related in a very long time. I cannot wait to keep you all posted on my progress.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your friendship.

Jerry