Guide To Getting Huge Do you wanna get ripped?! Have muscles stretching the fibers of your shirts? I'll give you the exact recipe to be HUGE. I'll give you the expert advise you need to have that body you've always wanted!

Okay, maybe not.

I have, however, been researching the ins and outs of weightlifting, nutrition, diet, and supplements. I have been having many, many people ask me in the recent weeks whether I have been lifting lately. Well, duh, why do you think I am bigger? I have not been lifting any harder than before. I have just gotten smarter at it. Your diet and supplements have so much to do with the effectiveness of your workout.

Most people know that protein is the main building block for muscles. Therefore, if you lift weights and your muscles are looking around for something to build more muscle with (because your workout has signaled them that you need more muscles to handle the load you are putting on them), then it needs some building blocks. To make that more clear, I'm saying that a workout is nearly wasted if you do not have excess protein available for your muscles to build with.

That means that you should take some protein in after a workout is over. For even better effectiveness you take protein all day to really saturate your body with protein.

Another helpful item that comes naturally in chicken, beef, fish, and certain other foods is "creatine monohydrate". You usually eat 2-3 grams of creatine a day. For those of you that took college chemistry you might remember learning about how ATP is basically an energy store your body uses when you need to move. Creatine is naturally stored in your muscles as one of the sources of ATP (You also store glucose - a sugar - and fat as other sources of ATP). Anyway, if you take your daily intake of creatine from 2-3 grams up to 7-8 grams...you'll have way more ATP. What does that mean? It means that you'll have an extra burst of energy and endurance while lifting weights. For example, say you try lift for 3 sets of 8, but you actually get 8, 8, then only 6 because you ran out of steam. With creatine you'll get 8, 8, 8, and probably another 8 because you have a strong store of ATP.

Creatine powder will just pass through, and you don't want to "piss away your money". Therefore, creatine should be taken with a bunch of dextrose. The purposes of that is two-fold: First of all, know that dextrose is just another term for glucose, a main source of your body's ATP (energy). The main reason, though, is dextrose works as a delivery system. Basically you take the creatine in with the dextrose, and your body freaks out because you just increased your blood-sugar levels a bunch. Therefore, your body pumps you full of insulin to handle that sugar. Insulin takes sugar and packs it into your cells. Guess what? While it's packing sugar into your cells, it's taking creatine along for the ride and packing it in there too!

BEWARE: That sugar is NOT GOOD if you are not weightlifting. If you just take your creatine/dextrose mix without lifting weights then it will convert itself into fat and you will increase your chances for becoming diabetic. However, with lifting, it all gets converted right away for ATP and all is good. The other side effect is that you will be very thirsty because the packing into your cells requires excess water. This has a pro/con effect. You will be drinking water/peeing ALL OF THE TIME. However, your muscles will fill up with water weight and you will appear to be much, much bigger in your muscles.

Wow...I had no idea this would take up so much space! Well, I have covered the top two supplements so far. I will finish up the last couple in my next post. Until then...keep on working out and staying healthy!  ¶ 1:52 PM 10 Comments

  Strein Wedding Photos My batteries were operational for the Strein wedding, so I've got more of these to show. It also helps that I was recruited to drive all of the out-of-towner wedding party around town to the various photo shooting locations.

Anyway, check out the photos. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of me when I was eating a potato bug (rollie-pollies for you out-of-towners).





  ¶ 11:40 AM 17 Comments

  Brian and Cheryl I forgot to post much about the Brian and Cheryl Hockett wedding I went to a few weeks ago. I'll toss a few pictures in here, although I don't have many. My batteries were dead and the replacement ones I grabbed were also only 1/5 charged. Sorry Brian and Cheryl. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures:


I also went to the John and Jerilyn Strein wedding this past weekend. I'll get pictures up from that wedding as soon as I can.  ¶ 12:49 PM 8 Comments

  100th Post This is my 100th post and it's only a week after my 1 year anniversary for blogging. I looked back on my first post where I had this to say: "Anyway, I'm sure this will be yet another fad for me. In another 6 months I'll be posting useless news about once a month."

Well, that has sort of come true of late. However, it's not because I've grown tired of blogging, it's just that I've been so busy I had to either get rid of sleep or blogging. At any rate, I've looked at my previous posts and this is what I've been writing about:

• Tab and Keith's Wedding
• TJ thinks I'm a hero
• I complained (a lot). About computers, debt, time management, and about my weight about 72 times
• Tommy and April's wedding
• The Best MoviesEVER
• Kelly's Quotes
• Parties!!! (Mullet, Dan's crazy one, Housewarming, etc)
• My old crappy house (with long lists about how awful it was)
• Our Chicago 1 year anniversary trip
• How Kelly joined then quit Mary Kay
• I brought you all on a workout escapade for 14 grueling days
• The E.R. for choking on food
• House Hunting
• I reached 100 Gigs of MP3s
• We bought our house in Brunswick Hills!
• Stories from my Alpha Table
• I was a doctor for Halloween
• I taught the kids how to B.S. through English
• What are the best Superpowers?
• I kept on complaining about my weight a lot more
• I gave the complete History of Jason
• I DJed the CD7 banquet
• I got hung up on Conspiracies
• Plenty of pictures of my house getting built
• Various surveys because I was getting so lazy
• I CHOKED ON FOOD, AGAIN
• I came up with this photo sharing idea
• We packed and moved into the house
• Software Engineers have the world's best job

I finished things up at 99 with something about potatoes, but that didn't really have much to do with anything. I hope I can keep on getting time to dedicate to blogging. I also hope Sammon and DaveD stop scaring people away from my blog. I started out by getting lots of very good comments. Then it moved to me getting hoards of comments (but most were just Sammon having arguments about pooping on the lawn with himself). That turned into me getting like 2-3 comments at a time (and I'm pretty sure most people don't even read my blog anymore).

Anyway, it's not about the comments, it's about me expressing myself through my blog. So here's to a great year and 100 posts, and to a spectacular new year and hundreds of more posts to come.  ¶ 3:44 PM 26 Comments

  April May and June Lots of things have happened during April, May, and thus far in June...but it all seems too boring to post about. Yet, I guess I'll fill in the details as best I can.

April:

• April 1: We moved into our new house in Brunswick Hills
• Later in April: We had cable tv and cable internet installed, a new phone line run to the house, and we finished unpacking all of the boxes of junk (of which those that helped us move know how exceedingly much junk it really was).

May:

• May 1: My birthday
• At work I transitioned off of the SecuReach project and on to the ActionLink and Vista7 projects. Things are getting busy at work.
• We started to paint the master bedroom a dark red. The ceiling color needed to be changed a number of times because it was always way too light. We also ordered a new bedroom set.
• May 13: Housewarming party at our house.
• End of May: I have secretly decided that I am fat. I am partially in shape (muscle-wise), but I have a layer of fat that is way too thick.

June:

• I have decided to start getting my body back into shape. This means running more than once a month (which is what I was doing before).
• Work is officially insane. I'm starting to work extra hours to get things done.
• We finally got our new bedroom set. Check it out here and here
• We went to the Hockett wedding (Cheryl and Brian)
• This weekend I have lots of family coming in to town since it is my Aunt Jerilyn's wedding to John

  ¶ 8:03 AM 7 Comments

  Potato Potato So when you are talking to somebody and you start to compare and contrast things but you end up realizing that it's all the same thing you might say, "Potato potato". The only problem with that is when you read what I have just typed it's just not the same. An even further problem is for me to further explain the pronunciation I have intended. I mean, what if you read it correctly the first time?

The first time I read it it sounded like this: "POH-TAY-TOE POH-TAY-TOE"
What I intended you to read it as is "POH-TAY-TOE POH-TAH-TOE"
That's right, "Tah-toe".

Anyway, Potato potato.

So I was wandering around the internet when I accidentally ran into the tree sweater lady. I mean, it makes me sick to see these ladies get tiny dogs and put outfits on them. Well, by sick I mean it's so cute that I want to punch somebody in the face. Anyway, this sweater tree lady took it a step further. Please take a look, so you can enter the same state of mind as I am in right now.

Quick, take a look at your right hand. Are you holding a knife? I know, so am I. Weird, right? Anyway, before you think or do anything else grab a pillow. ... Wait for it...GO!

[Slash] [Stab] [Puncture] [Rip] [Sigh]

Don't you feel better? And all you lost is a pillow (much better than a random passerby).  ¶ 11:38 AM 12 Comments