I'm Back and Bigger Than Ever!!

That's right ladies and gents, the old Gut Chronicles is going to make a comeback and thank God because I've gotten a little large.  Above is a photo of me from a few weeks ago.  Check out that bulging gut and three chins...I'm a specimen of good health.

Here's what's happened in the last 16 months since my last post...in a nutshell:

• Got a  new job
• Moved to NoCal and commuted back and forth to Orange County for six months
• Moved the whole family to an undisclosed NoCal location
• Along the way, I ate and drank everything I could possibly get my hands on.  I was like Agustus Gloop AND his mother in Willy Wonka....I just let it go and loved doing it!

So...in an effort to become normal again, I'm starting the year off right with cutting out so much booze, eating healthy, and getting my fat ass back into the gym I pay for every month but never go to.  To try and hold myself to a better standard, I plan to try and update the Gut Chronicles again too!

I just want to be pretty again...stay tuned for more hot Gut Chronicles action

RIP...

I try to keep this blog funny and entertaining for the most part but some times, with the shit life throws at the world, there really isn't anything funny to say.  Case in point...

The woman pictured above is Sarah Leaf.  Sarah was the person responsible for the incredible weight loss and fitness level I achieved before I let it all go back to hell.  The 'program' I am on now and a lot of the things I post about on my blog are straight from her and, when followed, seem to universally make people lose weight and get healthy.  Point being, this perfectly healthy, beautiful, 29 year old certified nutritionist was killed yesterday while riding her bike on PCH.

Without getting too dramatic, I'd like to point out that Sarah was a true professional, someone who was passionate about her client's health, and an all around good person.  Sarah could be a hardass and that was exactly what me, and about ten of my good friends needed to get our collective asses into shape.  If its possible to add some levity to this situation, some of my favorite interactions with Sarah when I was one of her clients (I lost 54 pounds in four months and was in the best shape of my life since high school when I saw her) went as follows:

Sarah:  "So what are some of your favorite things to eat when you're snacking?"

Me:  "Saltines"

Sarah:  "OK, so how many saltines do you eat?"

Me:  "A sleeve"

Sarah:  "What?  You can sit down and eat a whole entire sleeve of saltines?"

Me:  "Yep...just open one end and don't stop until I'm done"

Sarah:  "HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL WHEN YOU EAT AN ENTIRE SLEEVE OF SALTINES???"

Me:  "Like I want more"

Sarah:  "ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!??"
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A voicemail from Sarah when I was her client:  "Hi, its Sarah.  I'm just calling to confirm our appointment for Thursday this week.  By the way, I saw Alisha today and she told me about last weekend so you can just forget about trying to lie about it because I already know."

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On my first consultation with Sarah, I told her I was going on a road trip to Chicago and on one of the days I was going to be there I was doing a big day/night out that included a Cubs game and all the awesome stuff that comes after.  Sarah told me that was perfect and that I should keep track of what I ate and drank on the day of the Cubs game so it could give her a good idea of what my work travel was like.  When I got back and met with Sarah, the conversations was:

Sarah:  "Ok, so lets start with the drinking.  List for me what you had to drink the day you went to the game and then out with customers after."

Me:  "So we got to Murphy's Bleachers at around 10:00am, had a few old styles..."

Sarah:  "How many Old Styles?"

Me:  "I don't know, probably four or five"

Sarah:  "This was before noon..."

Me:  "Yeah, it was at Wrigley, a day game...you know about baseball?"

Sarah:  "OK...just keep going"

Me:  "So we did the game, then went to some place called Sheffields or something and I had a couple of car bombs.  After that, we went to this bar that had batting cages and I did a bunch of jello shots while I was taking swings in the cages.  Let me tell you, I can still hit.  From there we hit Hugos Frog Bar and I had a couple of Woodford reserves before dinner and then probably like a bottle of wine during dinner with my steak.  Then we had a Wild Turkey and ginger for a night cap and went to bed around 2:30am..."

Sarah, interupting me:  "You seriously had that much to drink?"

Me:  "Yeah.  You should probably throw in another twelve beers or so that I had during the game"

Sarah:  "OH...MY.....GOD!"

Me:  "What?  You ever been to Chicago?  You should go."

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Long story short, Sarah was freaking awesome.  I fully admit I'm not the healthiest guy on the planet but Sarah changed my life in that fully understand now that when I decide to be healthy, I can do it and she gave me the tools to understand what actually eating healthy and being healthy is.

Rest in peace Sarah, you were one of a kind.

Oh m'Legs Ache

I got to the gym today and decided to do some leg lifting for the first time in a long time.  This chick was next to me showing me how its done.....ok maybe not, but holy balls my freaking legs are sore already.  Pure agony.

On the nutrition and weight front, I'm doing good, down 20 pounds and feeling like a champ.  Last night I let temptation get to me and I got into the Triscuits.  Triscuits are awesome but you can't eat just one of those babies, I think they were made by the devil to tempt me.

Holy Fatness

Yes, I'm fully aware that my posting hasn't been up to par lately and I apologize but I just haven't felt much like doing it.  On the good side, Beast Mode is still in full effect and as of this morning, I've dropped 18 pounds.  To give you an idea of how much 18 pounds of fat is, check out the photo above.  The chick in that photo is holding five pounds of fat so I've dropped nearly four of those suckers.  On the down side, I still need to lose another 25 pounds but hell, I'm well on my way!

There is Now Less of Me

Sorry I've been off the radar for a while, beast mode and job searching have been taking up a huge amount of time.  The good news is, I've lost 12 pounds in the past couple of weeks and I'm going full steam ahead with the workouts and eating right.

Instead of chowing down on delicious fast food and hooch all the time, I've been watching the booze intake and most of my meals look something like this:

That's right people, the kid is getting it done!

Running Sucks

Even though I love to get on my bike and ride, I decided this weekend I need to start mixing in some runs so I got up this morning and went for a run.  Some passerby got this photo of me and emailed it to me.  Haha.  I know I fooled everyone, but that's not really me in the picture!  FOOLED YOU!

Anywho, even though running is hard, especially when you haven't done it in a while, everyone knows running burns more calories faster than bike riding (if you run five miles, you burn about three times more calories than say biking three miles).  Why did I decide to start running you ask?

1. I need to lose 800 pounds
2. Its good for you
3. It gets the blood flowin and the energy a pumpin!
4. I like pain

If you don't believe me, then read this thing I found on the internet.  If its online, it must be true!:

http://www.active.com/running/Articles/6-Benefits-of-Running.htm

Highway to the Danger Zone!

There was no post on the Gut Chronicles yesterday because even though I rode my bike and did an upper body workout, I was clearly not on my game due to many beers all day Sunday.  I was a mess and just the fact that I didn't shit myself on my bike ride was victory enough...felt no need or desire to write about it.

This morning, I realized that even though I've been living the high life, I am dropping a couple of pounds so I decided to get off my arse and go for a run.

On today's run, I decided to do something I've always wanted to do...risk my life for this stupid blog.  There's a stretch of dark path that connects a park by my house to the main trail I jog on and for years, this 1/4 mile stretch of un-managed trail has lived in dark neighborhood legend like some sort of forbidden zone that swallows up puppies and causes even the bravest of men to turn and run in fear.  It is that place where ye must not go.  Since I'm a big brave stud, I decided to check it out today....

Bike Jam 2012

I decided to get on Serena this morning and do a ride for my Saturday exercise.  I rode 15.25 miles at a brisk pace so I'm pretty proud of meself.  I chose to ride north on the SART this morning because I wanted to be able to pedal unobstructed for the full hour.  To my unpleasant surprise, I think the rest of Orange County decided to ride the SART this morning.  There were literally a couple thousand cyclists on the SART this am, it was nuts.

Most of this morning's riders were large packs of 30 or so dudes all going berserk on their road bikes.  Then there were a couple hundred casual riders who were doing their thing too.  The lame part was that there was a whole lot of expensive equipment out there moving waaaaay too slow and blocking the lanes.  Normally you just fly by these douchebags on two wheels but the SART was so busy this morning, you had to really wait for a golden opportunity to make a move.  Fortunately for me, Serena is awesome and I'm a total badass so everything worked out fine.  One guy got a little miffed that I passed him and two other people on a curve going uphill but screw him, he was in the way and the rule on the SART is survival of the fittest!

I looked up some stuff on cycling etiquette and there's some pretty good stuff for group rides (see link below) but very little on what the proper procedure is when you're solo and some assclown is taking up the whole lane and going too slow.

http://www.bamacyclist.com/articles/groupridetech.html

Trials and Tribulations of Operation Savage Fist

This morning 's breakfast was a triumph.  Lean Canadian ham, eggs (no butter), and fresh cherries.  Its cool being able to have breakfast with the kids and enjoy the time I've got with them.  On the dark side, the past two days have been filled with end of school activities and that includes eating not so healthy.  Don't get me wrong, I've been working out and eating fairly well but its not as easy as I thought it would be.  Take yesterday for instance, my oldest girl won some prestigious awards at school so I took her to a decidedly unhealthy lunch where she ordered this massive sundae and made me eat some of it:

Yes, I've taken to blaming my own children.

Potpourri!

I think my buddy in Cincinnati liked his taste of fame when I mentioned him yesterday on the Gut Chronicles and he wants more of it.  He's clearly got bike fever now and he told me he was going to go mountain biking this morning.  Later on, he sent this shot of his bike...doing nothing.  Something in his email mentioned how he had to take a break after a three mile ride (pussy) and whatever.  But there you have it...Gut Chronicle's Ohio office is in full effect!  Feel free to send in your biking photos.  If I like them, I'll post them.  If I don't like them, I'll print two of them out (one to shit on and one to wipe with).

Ok, now that the vulgarity is taken care of, lets get on to the fact that this could possibly be the most boring post of all time.  I'm not satisfied with just kind of boring so I've decided to post a video shot this morning.  The first part is my six year old giving advice on health and fitness, the next is me showing of my finely tuned basketball skills.

The Low-down on the Gut

I was at a fund raiser carnival thing yesterday at my kid's school and while I was waiting in line for a sno-cone, one of my friends walked up to me holding a deep fried chimichanga and said hi.  After talking for a minute or two, he smacked me on the gut and said "Hey man, what's this, I thought you had this big workout thing going? You're starting to look like me!" (as he patted his own prominent beer gut with the hand that wasn't holding the massive chimichanga).  I explained to him that while I do workout on a very regular basis and with great vigor, you're pretty much not going to make any real progress unless you stop putting so much food and drink in your mouth.  This fact, that I thought was known to everyone, seemed to surprise my buddy.



Bottom line is, the science is in and there is no way anyone's going to lose weight unless they stop eating so much...me included unfortunately.  Some good points are made in this article from a Dr. at the Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/weight-loss/AN01619).:

"The key to weight loss is burning more calories than you consume. Because 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of fat, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose 1 pound. So if you cut 500 calories from your diet each day, you'd lose about 1 pound a week (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories)."

Obviously, this is no shocking news to anyone but its important to just do the simple math.  3,500 calories is one pound.  I'd say the average workout for most people is roughly 500 calories burned.  So if you just bust out the old calculator, you'll note that fewer (and better) calories means a hell of a lot more than exercise if you're just considering weight loss.  Some food for thought below (pun intended):

• One can of coke is roughly 155 calories.  Say you have one of those babies per day, that's 1,085 calories or a little less than 1/3 of a pound per week added to your panza just for having one soft drink per day
• Chick Fil A - my favorite fast food by a mile and, as far as fast food goes, much healthier than other fast food joints.  One #5 (12 nuggets, small fry, and a medium coke) is 960 calories.  Three of those adds a pound to your fat ass or if you look at it another way, it takes two full cardio workouts (for most people) to burn off one of those delicious badboys.
• Just going to have a salad you say?  A grilled chicken Caesar salad at Chilis is 680 calories.  That's not very healthy...never mind the 22 grams of fat and a heart stopping 1,500 grams of sodium in that badboy.
• My buddie's chimichanga you ask?  According to my internet machine, there are 425 calories in a regular chimichanga.  The forearm sized chimi that my buddy was about to down was probably the size of three regular chimichangas so, even though they are delish, you're looking at three days of cardio to burn off that one chimi.
• Last but not least, our good buddy In-N-Out.  My usual, the #3 (Double double, fries, and a big coke) - Hold on to your hats and glasses folks because this $hit's about to get real!  1,265 calories.  Roughly three cardio workouts or a little over 1/3 pound straight to the old boilermaker.

Long story short, it's probably known by most but rarely thought about, but you can work out all you want and it won't do much for your weight unless you quit strapping on the feedbag and eating high quality food in normal sized portions.

Here's another good article on the subject:  http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/best-healthy-weight-loss-plan-diet/

This concludes our lecture on the painfully obvious

Back in Town and Back on the SART

Ahh yes, nothing like being back home, waking up in the morning to a delicious fruit smoothie and taking to the SART.  Since I've been on the road quite a bit, the wife decided to make a super charged super food breakfast with spinach, goji berries, cinnamon, mango, strawberry, banana, and my good friend Mr. Spirulina.

After I powered down my breakfast beverage, I hopped on Serena and started riding.  As an added bonus, my buddy Jed decided he's going to ride the SART with me from time to time and today was his first day.

Here's Jed, making it happen, on his virgin run on the SART this morning.  Jed's been off the exercise circuit for quite some time but he seemed to enjoy the ride and the sights, sounds, and smells of the SART.  He's got to ride about four miles before we meet up so I'm interested to see how he feels about the ride home this afternoon.  That's the thing about commuting by bike, once you get on the bike and start riding, you're fully committed for the day.  Whether he's in pain or not, I'm sure he's feeling good about burning several hundred  calories, being green, and saving a few bucks in gas all before work even starts.

On the ride, we kept at an even pace and didn't try to go full Tour De France on his first ride.  A couple of times along the ride I stood up on the pedals and crop dusted Jed but I don't think he noticed since he was focused on pedaling but hey, nothing says friendship like a nice fart in the face when you're taking in lots of air!

Well done Jed....well done!

Run Like The Wind!

Ok, so maybe I'm not quite running like the wind but I got out of bed this morning, had some coffee, built a log cabin that could withstand a tornado, and then hit the road for a five mile run.  I'm still thinking about possibly doing the OC Half Marathon in May and I have just over a month to train.  My buddy Mark suggested that I just start trying to get miles under my feet and not worry about speed so that's what I did.  All in all, I'm feeling pretty good and confident that I'll be able to train enough to at least finish the damn thing.  Here's a brief capsule of today's epic run:

Bonus Material- My aweseome playlist during my run this am:

Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) - The Buzzcocks

The Cave - Mumford & Sons

Times Like These - Foo Fighters

Young Dead Men - The Black Angels

Little Lion Man- Mumford & Suns

New York City - Steve Earle

Kickstart My Heart - Motley Crue

All You Wanted - Michelle Branch (tee hee)

Three is a Magic Number - Blind Melon

I Don't Care About You - Fear

Head Over Heels - Go-Gos

Ignorance-  Paramore

The Sun Always Shines On TV- Milk Inc.

Feel IT...FEEL THE MYAN SUPERFOOD!

There was no bike ride today since I had a tax appointment this morning but the good news is, I was well behaved and very physical yesterday so I lost three pounds in one day.  Yes, I realize its only one day and I need to partially divorce myself from my near addiction to wine, but I'm proud and feeling like a champ.  One day down....784 more to go to reach my goal weight.

To celebrate my one day of greatness, I started off the morning with one of my wife's patented green smoothies.  Yes, the picture above shows that this morning's smoothie was not green but gray, but who cares, it was good and it was loaded with spinach, spirulina, grapes, some banana, and one or two other things that I can't remember.  On top of the green/gray smoothie, I decided I needed some Mayan superfood to top it all off so I took a heaping spoon full of organic cacao, straight, no mixing, like a man.  As usual, the cacao had an immediate effect and I punched the air fifty or sixty times, ripped two huge farts (the second one was quite a bit more wet than would normally be acceptable), and shouted "AAAAGGGHHHHH YEAH!  MAYAN SUPERFOOD!" at which point my youngest daughter ran into the room and acted like she was punching me in the balls.  After that, I was raring to go.

On the fitness front, today I plan to time myself running three miles.  I packed my GPS watch and I'll most likely have Mark driving me to put up a great time for a guy who weighs a metric ton.

Fitness is a journey folks, not a destination.

Getting Back On It

Last night was a huge rain and hail storm that made me think the apocalypse was upon us but we made it through.  Undaunted by the wet conditions and filled with resolve to get my ass back on track, I took to the SART again this morning for my bike commute to work.  As you can see, the mighty SART was flowing with water from the storm.  The problem was, I got extremely wet and dirty from all the water and debris on the trail and there were several times where water was splashing up in my face going through the underpasses when I was convinced that said water was bum pee I was probably contracting conjunctivitis from a bum's dick.  Makes me sad.

On to bigger and better things.  I weighed in this morning, had a healthy smoothie made of spinach, Greek yogurt, spirulina, and all sorts of other goodness.  I plan on making some changes that should get me back on the right path to fitness.  Mainly:

• Consume more water - I've been bad about that
• No snacking or drinking booze during the week
• Start bringing a healthy lunch to work again

I realize this is the 453rd time I've decided to 'get back on track', but dammit, this $hit is tough!

Soccer 101

You've probably all been wondering just where the hell I've been for the past few days.  Well, the answer is that I partied like it was 1999 on Saturday night, had a beach day with the family on Sunday, and yesterday I didn't post because I was preparing for my first ever soccer match.  I know it's difficult to believe that a well rounded and much decorated athlete like myself has never once played in a soccer game, but its true.  Needless to say, I was fired up and ready to show the world that pure athleticism conquers everything and that I would be a natural wonder at the most popular sport in the world.

This is how I envisioned myself playing in my first soccer game:

This is a more accurate photo of how it went for me:

So, unfortunately for my team and me, it turns out I was not a natural at soccer but at least I had a great time and tried with everything in me to make a difference.  I have to be honest, I was somewhat surprised and how clueless I was out there because I've watched my fair share of soccer on TV and I know the basics.  For instance, I know that Robert Van Persie is a wuss who just hangs out by the goal waiting for an easy shot, Lionel Messi is awesome, Theo Walcott is always man of the match for whoever is playing against Arsenal, Dutch footballers all have extremely hot girlfriends, and Wayne Rooney digs going to low rent brothels and paying for naughty business with 50 year old wh0res (allegedly)...all these things I know, so I should have been totally great first time out right?  Even though I still have room for improvement, I did learn a few things about the great game of soccer:

• There are rules - who knew there were so many rules in soccer?  For instance, I learned about five minutes into the game that it is not acceptable for me to destroy a guy half my size from behind just because I think I can get to the ball.  Turns out a move like that means the other team gets to kick the ball right at your goal from very short range and all you're allowed to do is stand about ten yards away, cover your nuts, and hope for the best.
• Law of probability - When the above situation takes place, the other team is highly likely to score against you upon kicking the free shot.
• Law of probability 2.0 - When a team consisting of guys who are mostly in their late 30's and early 40's plays against a team of dudes in their early 20's who all come from places where soccer is a religion taught at an early age, things will most likely not go well for the older team.
• Don't defend ten yards behind the rest of your defense - Holding the line was the most mentally challenging thing for me.  I understand that if you're the Lone Ranger ten yards behind the other guys defending, you are essentially f*cking your own team because they're expecting you to be on the same line as them so the other team can't go behind you without getting caught offsides.  Unfortunately for me (and my team), I kept getting suckered into drifting back by some crafty little bastard on the other team.  Next thing I knew, it was an all out jail break and I was the responsible party.  Stupid offsides rules.
• Never, ever, pass the ball in front of your own goal - Seems like a simple enough concept but when you're out there in the thick of things, it gets all confusing.  Case in point, at one point in the game, I had a moment of brilliance and actually stole the ball from my competitor.  All of a sudden, dudes were coming at me from left and right, and like some half witted rookie, I spazzed out, saw my buddy Mark to my right (standing directly in front of our goal), and I passed it to him.  What happened next probably took less than three seconds to unfold but it seemed like an eternity at the time.  I made the pass and as soon as I kicked the ball, Mark looked at me with a look that combined total despair and shock that he knew someone who was that f*cking stupid, then there was a blur that flashed by him, then a sound similar to a whip cracking as the ball hit the back of our net at about 350mph.  My bad dawg!  My bad!

When the final whistle blew, the result of the game was decidedly not in our favor but what the hell, I had a blast, tried something new, and got a healthy respect for the game of soccer.  Even though I didn't get to do a righteous goal celebration complete with fireworks, chicks making out with each other, and a live mariachi band playing 'One Ton Tomato' (I've played the scene out a thousand times in my mind), I've quickly developed a love for the game and can't wait to get back out there.  OLE! OLE OLE OLE!!!...

Bonus material - note the vicious battle scar just above my ankle.  That's what happens when you play like a man: