Occam's Protocol

One of my dearest friends bought us a copy of The Four Hour Body, by professional madman, Tim Ferriss. The book is huge, funny and chock full of intriguing life-hacking tips about creating a better physical reality for yourself, everything from losing fat and gaining muscle to better quality sleep and sex. Totally worth owning and experimenting with.

Knowing that my dependancy on HCG is permanently over, I've eagerly seized upon many of Ferriss' recommendations as a path to maintenance and further improvement. I know that if I don't start adopting a new regimen, the future will be a long slow slip back into old habits and my old body. Experience has taught me so.

I've been toying with what techniques to try first. In all actuality, I'd probably do best to try what Ferriss calls the Kiwi's butt-building workout, lol. In all seriousness, this workout regimen that centers around the kettlebell and other functional fitness movements involving free weights and plyometrics (such as the Turkish Get Up - awesome name, right?) is probably the best for me. However, just glancing over what this workout entails, I know that I would be uncomfortable and probably most foolish to try it without the benefit of a personal trainer to show me correct form and approach to these movements without say, ripping arms out of sockets or planting a kettleball in someone's face. But we are so very very broke. Thank you, emergency mid-West trip and drunken Valentymes day shenanigans. Also, and this is sad, my gym appears to NOT stock kettleballs. How can that be, in this elite fitness day and age?

Since I've already paid for this month, and I decided to try something different for at least the next six weeks. I settled on what Ferriss terms "Occam's Protocol." The theory behind this training, like much of Ferriss' book, is maximum results for minimal effort. Efficiency in training. This one in particular focuses on massive muscle gain in a very short time through two half hour sessions a week. That's right, my darlings. Better than any comic book back page ad promise you've ever read!

The secret? Two sessions, spaced several days apart and progressively further as you gain, two different lifts for each session, done to extreme failure. Plus an optional short abs/kettlebell session (IF you have one of those snooty fancy gyms that have them. Apparently. Sheesh!) Plus eating 1.25 grams of protein per lean body mass weight per day.

Just did the first session yesterday. It takes a while  to calibrate your failure weights the first two different workout sessions, so it took longer than the half hour. But I did that for both upper body exercises. Felt like nothing, though I had noodle arms for the rest of the night. Today? I feel my entire upper body beginning to lock up like a seized engine. Oh My God Soreness! I plan to slather on the Arnica gel (the real stuff, not the Homeopathic, you have to search like crazy to find it) like I'm putting out a fire in a minute. Note to self: Do It The Night Before! Though to be honest, soreness has never really bugged me or stood in my way. I really do think I'm gonna like this.

Here's the thing. It's meant to put on MASSIVE amounts of muscle. Up to 2.5 pounds a week! It isn't meant for weight loss. Do I have weight to lose? Totally. Do I care? Hmmmm...

I decided, after looking at many pictures of people my height/weight that those people look far, far more in shape than I, after reducing from Morbidly Obese to JUST barely HWP according to the BMI charts. They don't appear to have my spare tires and bra hanger fat and overall Jellyness. I think I do in fact fall into the "Skinnyfat" category.

In case you've never heard of it, it's definitely a thing. It means that your body composition is still fat for your height, though you weigh what is considered normal. In other words, you are lacking in lean muscle mass and making up for it in fat. I must have lost too much lean muscle mass along the way. With clothes on, people go on and on about how trim I appear to be. Even the owner of the gym, who I have not seen since I lost the last 25 pounds or so, had a shitfit about how skinny I look now. If they saw what I see every day when I am getting dressed, I am sure this would not be so. I am now somewhat compact, but lack most tone and have quite a fatty layer on top. Naked, without Spanx-like garments, I look, as one blogger put it, like a melted snowman - the same shape as before, just much much smaller.

The dieting process has become less and less effective for me. Exponentially so. As it does. Diminishing returns, no matter how strict my living, or educated my eating. Plus, if I keep whittling away, I can pretty much just expect to keep losing fat and muscle together. Getting skinny-fat, but eventually just skinny. That is NOT what I want. Plus, so very tired of deprivation. I want to LIVE. Eat. Move. Enjoy.

So, tired of the diet diet diet phase of living, I have decided instead to build muscle like crazy, in hopes of toning up, then thinning out. Ferriss' prescription should help keep it mostly muscle gain, but I will probably put a little fat on. We'll see. However, the more muscle you put on, the better your metabolism functions. I have read many arguments about this, but I keep seeing better and better studies supporting that building muscles really does support more efficient calorie-burning metabolisms. I will need to track those down and support my assertions, but right now, I am lazily ditching work to write this, so it will have to be later. Suffice to say, I've convinced enough to try, for six weeks at least.

After that, we should hopefully be able to afford personal training and possibly switch gyms to responsible kettlebell-owning establishments. Which makes me sad, because I love my gym, and the owner/manager/whatever he is who is so sweet and makes me feel skinny. I can't use them at home, because I won't go out in the constant grey downpour that is my home to use it, and inside the ceilings are so low to as to be troublesome for my 6'6" fella not to constantly whack a hand on it when carelessly gesticulating. Even I do, sometimes.

So, here's to the first great experiment of how to live without HCG 101. Wish me luck!