Thursday, January 31 - Genetics and the Hot Guy of the Week

31 days. I have been on my healthy kick for 31 days, and while I cannot say my weight has changed all that much over the course of that time, I do have to say that my body is finally waking up from it's metabolic sleep. Yesterday, I actually got a compliment for looking "buff," both from a lesbian co-worker and from a dude in a bar. So, it was a good ego day for me.

When I started out on December 31st, I took a picture of myself shirtless in the mirror, and I made it the wallpaper on my computer at home. I even went so far as to write all around it "THIS is the Reason You Need to Workout." For someone who was pretty happy with his body at the start of 2007, I have to say the picture is pretty horrifying, made even worse because I have two monitors. So, there really isn't a way to avoid it. Plus, I made sure it was at time when my hair was longer and unruly, just like those "before" pictures on TV. You know the ones, where they look like they're in a dark room and semi-suicidal, and then on the "after" picture, they're in a good light, tanned, and smiling like they just banged Angelina Jolie. Today, I will take another picture, and while I do not expect miracles, I will enjoy seeing the progression. And no, I'm not going to post them here. I will do a true "before" and "after" when I reach my goal.

When I was working with a personal trainer, I made progress pretty quickly. I went from a pretty gelatinous guy to relatively trim buff dude in about 9 months. Granted, I was under 30 then, and I do not expect to replicate that this time, but one time when the supervisor of my trainer was shadowing him, he commented that I must have good genetics to make a transformation so quickly. This made me laugh because if you look at the whole of my family they are all pretty thick and overweight, except for one strange uncle who has always been thin. He's a bit of an idiot, too, who got gored by a deer he was trying to raise (yeah...a deer). That's another story though. Anyway, it seems I am genetically predisposed to having a good upper body, because it appears that my arms are back after only a month. Thank you, genetics! Unfortunately, the same genetics makes it almost impossible for me to ever have a lean midsection, let alone abs of steel. Even at my thinest, I still kinda of had a ridge around my belly that I just could not jettison. I cannot wait for warm weather so I can get back on my bike and work off this gut!

To help things along, I have started taking a fat loss stack proposed by BodyBuilding.com. When I first tried to loose weight back in my early 20s, I did it using Hydroxycut, which at that time still had ephedra in it. It worked wonders on me, but it also made me HIGH as a kite. I remember sitting in my 13th floor office and feeling like my head was on the 28th floor. While I lost the weight, I always felt that I did it pretty unhealthily, and I vowed to not use anything more than your basic supplements again. So, this is a bit of departure for me. However, I feel that since I'm older now, I need to do a little bit more to whip myself into shape. Here is what I'm taking:

• Protein - this one was easy because I have been drinking protein shakes twice a day for a long time. I do one in the morning as my first meal, and then one after my workout.
  
• Nutrex Lipo 6 - this is a fat burner. I just went with the one that was the best selling on BodyBuilding.com. So far so good. I am NOT high as a kite.
  
• Selenium - this will aide my body in the synthesis of all the protein I am consuming. It also helps lower bad cholesterol and helps increase the production of good cholesterol. Additionally, it helps balance the thyroid, which is where your metabolism is controlled.
  
• Zinc Picolinate - Zinc is pretty much a super mineral that helps in everything from boosting the immune system and cell reproduction to vision and fertility (just what I need). It is also an important part of testosterone, which is great for muscle tone.
  
• DHEA - This one of the most abundant androgenic hormones in the body, BUT just like Human Growth Hormone you are losing a lot of it as you age. Taking this will aide in facilitating weight loss and the promotion of lean muscle mass.

So yea, along with my daily multivitamin, I am a big pill popper now. Plus, I'm loading creatine for a week, and then maintaining it for 4 more weeks. So, I guess I've become one of those weirdos!

Finally, the Hottie of the Week: Brandon Russell. I have been wanting to do this all week, but I have had other things on my mind. As I blogged about last week, I started watching Trading Spaces again because they brought back a lot of the old designers and most importantly, Paige Davis to host. Imagine my surprise when I see this glorious hunk of a man as one of the new carpenters. Of course, he's another "former model," but he continues the tradition of gorgeous handy people on home improvement shows. The best part of Saturday's episode was Brandon trying to suck start the siphoning of a waterbed. Umm.......