27 February 2012

Apex Predator Diet, Part 2- Dieting For Fat Fucks

It occurred to me over the weekend that this is going to be one hell of a long series, so I've decided to break it up into its component diets.  Given that they've the furthest to go, I thought we'd start with our tubby compatriots- they need a head start shuffling towards whatever destination to which we send them, and ample breaks to catch their breath and shoot insulin and the like.


The Fat Fuck Approach
I've actually not had to use this, as I have about the same ability to ignore the sensation of my abdominal fat sitting on my waistband when seated as those overly pretty people on the Bachelor have for admitting that they're actual prostitutes.  As soon as I start feeling that sensation, I start dieting my fucking ass off.  Once lean, I freak out when I lose abdominal vascularity, much less my abs in general.  As such, I've had to extrapolate from the diet I used to jump start my fat loss once I noticed that my abs were going the way of the the Kardashian family's collective personal pride.
I think I hate her more than I actually should because she's got one of the best asses on Earth.

As with everything I do, this diet is hardly a hard and fast dietary regimen, but rather more like a broad outline with suggestions on what you can do with the finer points.  Thus, you should experiment with a couple of different approaches to determine what works best for you.  From there, you can carry what you've learned into the succeeding phases and have an even better handle on your diet than the cast of that ridiculous show Mike and Molly, who apparently have made a pact to eat into immobility in recent years.

The Rundown
  • Kick it off with a 10-14 day keto run (no Rampage for 10-14 days)
  • Protein-sparing modified fast at least one day a week
  • 5 days a week, one solid-food meal a day, with one of those days being a fairly low calorie meal 
  • low- but not no- carb one day a week, punctuated by a 3 hour cheat window that is at least moderately reasonable.  This is not, then, a full on Rampage day, but more of a moderated eating spree.
  • One day wherein you eat more than one solid-food no-carb meal a day
Seems fairly simple, right?  As I've said before, this is hardly brain surgery.  The point in this phase is to get you looking at least decently while keeping your lifts up and not completely hating life.  One of my main problems with the PSMF, as I've mentioned, is the fact that they leave you insanely hungry and can be a distraction from training.  As such, I would recommend (based on personal experience) throwing that day in between your Rampage day and your higher calorie day.  As I almost invariably have my cheat meal on Friday, that works out pretty nicely- keep the calories low on Saturday, drink a shitload of protein shakes (at least 6), and then grub on every meaty bit of deliciousness I can on Sunday.

If you're concerned about calories, you will moderate your caloric intake according to your individual metabolism.  I'm not talking about some bullshit, low-brow, Easy Bake Oven BMR calculation- you will find your sweet spot through experimentation, because you're a fucking mad scientist and only you can understand your own insanity.  Additionally, my conception of a workout is considerably different tan that of most, so it would be completely disingenuous for me to suggest that I could tell you what caloric intake would result in the most fatloss and muscular gain.  I can tell you that your body will tell you when it's had enough fatty meat.  My sweet spot seems to be between 1 and 3.5 lbs of meat in a sitting, depending on the type, my level of activity, and where I am in a week.

 Luckily for you, "studies of ketogenic diets have found that when subjects are told to limit carbohydrate intake but to consume "unlimited" quanitites of protein and fat, they automatically limit caloric intake and consume between 1400-2100 calories."  (Ketogenic Diet 101)  That's a very cool biological cruise control you've got built in, and I can say that though I generally go a bit higher than that (2000-3000 calories) in my evening meal, I definitely hit a point where I can go no further, and it's not from being stuffed- my body just taps out and says and says "fuck it, I'm done."  The key here, especially for you tubby motherfuckers, is to stop eating before you're full.  Luckily, meat on the bone slows your eating considerably (I personally tend to scarf down my food like a wild, starving dog), so you'll have a better sense of where you stand in terms of fullness than you would otherwise.
There is one unfortunate caveat for you people, however- years of overindulging have fucked you harder than a big-bootied white girl at a black fraternity and you can no longer fully trust your body's satiety signals.  Leptin is the hormone made by fat cells that causes your brain to listen to signals of satiety, but overweight people, having much greater fat stores, have higher leptin levels and become resistant to the signal.  As such, I would start toward the lower end of the caloric spectrum and increase as needed, using your level of energy in workouts as a guide. (Russell 22)  One nice thing about the structure of this diet is that it will help to moderate the other side of the hormonal overeating coin- ghrelin.  That's the hormone that tells your body you're hungry, and it's suppressed with high fat diets.  As such, you'll likely find you're hungriest on your Rampage day, since you won't be eating such high fat foods throughout the day.

Many of you, upon seeing some quick results, are going to come to the conclusion that you should skip your Rampage day to prolong your fat loss.  If you choose to do so, I would add in another high calorie day (but not consecutive with another), and would not recommend that you go more than two weeks without a cheat meal, both for sanity and your metabolism's sake.  The reason I start this phase with a 10-14 day keto run is that the fatter you are, the harder it is for your body to get into ketosis.  Basically, if you think of your glycogen stores as a water glass, you filled that fucker up years ago and kept dumping buckets of water on top of the full glass for years, while leaving it out in the rain.  In Seattle.  Your insulin receptors threw in the fucking towel years ago, while you shoving Little Debbie snack cakes down your piehole and washing it down with a Coke.  You're completely destroyed your body's ability to correctly recognize its own metabolic signals, so you're going to have to suffer a bit to undo the damage you've done.  Additionally, Dan Duchaine was a big fan of starting ketogenic phases with 10-14 day keto runs, and that makes good sense- fat people produce ketone bodies much more slowly than do lean people.(Russell 22)  Thus, I can drop into ketosis inside a day right now, but the 308 lber trying to drop to 242 is going to take the better part of the week, for the reasons I outlined earlier in this paragraph.

In regards to how much carbohydrate you should eat, which I'm sure many of you are wondering, you should shoot to keep your carbohydrates to 30 grams or less a day.  "Although up to 100 grams of carbohydrate will allow ketosis to develop, it would be rare to see ketones excreted in the urine at this level of intake."(Ketogenic Diet 104)  Because you've spent the last several years stuffing your face with all manner of bullshit, you might want to go ahead and forgo it for the time being so as to get your body back to a state where it can better tolerate carbs.  The nice thing about dieting is that the leaner you get and stay, the more leeway you end up having with it, and the more rapidly you can make physiological changes for the better.  Think of fatloss like a massive freight train- it's a bitch to get that motherfucker moving, but once it's up to speed, nothing short of a nuke is stopping that fucking thing from reaching its destination.

Is this phase going to be fun?  In spots.  Eating every meal with your hands is fucking awesome, in my opinion.  There's less cleanup, you get to use wet wipes, and gnawing on a bone is a hell of a good way to avoid biting your fingernails.  The days you're not eating real food, however, are going to fucking blow.  That's the price you pay for years of eating like dogshit, however, and if you want to be a beast, you're going to have to go hungry like one every now and again.
I'm sure you wrestling marks just came in your pants.  Triple H actually uses a moderate-fat ketogenic diet, as it happens.

Sample Week Of The Fat Fuck Approach

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday:
  • 5-6 protein shakes throughout the day (and one overnight, which I'd leave on the toilet and chug while peeing).  I usually had Monster Milk in the morning, and followed that with Muscle Infusion throughout the day.  If I did a morning workout, it was a short workout (20 mins) usually consisting of one arm deadlifts, and I usually did not have a pre-workout shake.  On two of these four days I typically substitute one shake at lunch with wings or other no-carb meat.
  • 1500-2500 calories worth of meat, preferably on the bone, for your evening meal.  If you're eating chicken, make sure you're eating the skin.
  • You might want to think about a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (nothing but shakes) on Monday as well, especially if you want to accelerate fatloss.
Wednesday:
5-6 protein shakes with a less calorically dense dinner.  This is intended to rotate your calories and stimulate more fatloss.

Friday:
Watered-down Rampage day.  Keep you carbs reasonable, and focus on getting lean proteins throughout the day.  To give you an idea of how I did this to into single digit bodyfat, most Rampage days consisted of 94% lean meat tacos on low carb shells.  For my cheat meals, I went bananas, but I'd suggest that while you definitely want to make sure you eat a considerable amount of carbs, you should keep your calories in check until you're starting to see decent progress.  This is for two reasons- you need to learn dietary discipline and because your body still has massive fat stores on which to draw, so massive cheats are unnecessary.  I'll cover the Rampage Day in depth in an upcoming post, but for now I'd say eat lean and low-to-moderate carb throughout the day and cap the day with a carbohydrate bonanza the likes of which you've likely not seen since you saw undergraduate college girls descend on a table of free bagels.  In terms of amounts, I'll agree with Dave Palumbo and say your initial Rampage day should be in the neighborhood of 400 grams of carbohydrates.  If you don't lose more weight the following week, reduce that number.  If you lost plenty, you can adjust it up.  For you guys, however, I'd suggest you go easy, since you've mangled your insulin sensitivity worse than that broad who got attacked by a chimp a couple of years ago.
This is what your metabolism looks like.  Well done.

Saturday:
Protein Sparing Modified Fast.  Nothing but shakes in water today.  Quite frankly, you're likely going to want to skip the gym today and just occupy yourself otherwise, but if you do plan on training, be prepared for it to suck, so don't plan to hit PRs.


Sunday:
Keto day, but eat two meals today- one smaller and one larger.  Make sure you train on this day- your lift will be awesome.

What You Will Need For This Diet

  • A good multi-vitamin.  I cannot bring myself to eat offal, so this is a necessity for me.  If you like eating liver and kidneys and sundry other items you see falling out of hapless victims in Hostel, feel free to skip the multi.  I'm back on the Animal Pak bandwagon, and I'm fairly certain you could cure cancer with it.
  • Omega 3 fatty acids.  I'm not paying eleventy billion dollars for grass-fed beef.  I've not got the money for that silliness, and likely nor have you.  Pop Omega 3s like candy and you're gold.
  • Some permutation of the ECA/ECY stack.  I don't give a fuck how you combine them- just do it.  Neanderthals were huge fans of ephedrine, and so should you be.(Doweiko 88)  I've written about why you should love it here.  I use Stimerex or Lipodrene.
  • A good blended protein.  I've used Matrix 5.0, Muscle Infusion, Monster Milk, and Pro Blend 55 to good effect.  Just make sure that the carbs in that fucker are LOW- that means no Muscle Milk, no Syntha 6, no weight gainers.

A Note About Women And This Diet
Assuming you're a woman or have ever met one, you're aware that women regard carbohydrates like the last life boat on the titanic and will maul you like a fucking honey badger if you get between them and their potatoes.  There's actually a psychochemical reason for this- women appear to either have chronically low seratonin and tryptophan levels or are just addicted to high levels of the two chemicals.  This is especially true around their period, at which time the production of both chemicals in the brain is suppressed.  Additionally, seratonin reduces anxiety, from which every chick I know suffers, and tryptophan is the amino-acid precursor to seratonin, so it contributes to anxiety suppression as well.  (Sayegh et all, Christie)

Guess what kinds of foods stimulate the production of those chemicals?  Carbohydrates.

Protein-rich foods (i.e. the foods women typically ignore for carbohydrate-laden foods) increase dopamine and norepinephrine, which means eating a lot of protein will make you more alert and energetic.  This may be why men are so ready with solutions to any woman's problems, and happy to share them until she plants a fucking fork in his eye for doing so.
Her craving for carbs was so great, she had to wrap her face in a dirty blanket to restrain herself.

The reason why I'm including this is because women need a priest qualified for an exorcism and a psychiatrist far more than they need this diet.  I'm not saying you necessarily can't do it, but it'll likely make you miserable for a couple of weeks.  Men with high estrogen levels and might have this problem too, but that's just speculation.  The original sound guy for the Grateful Dead is apparently 100% carnivorous and had this to say about chicks and keto diets:
"The female hormones seem cause a strong craving for carbs, as the female body isn't fertile without a layer of fat. This makes this diet very hard for women to follow. Traditionally the women are the gatherers of fruits and (starchy) roots, while the men are the hunters. This is shown today in the different ways men and women go about buying things. The gals "shop" which is a trip through the entire store or mall in search of things to buy. They may not actually buy (gather) anything. The guys on the other hand know what they are after, and then seek it out (hunts it down) and buys it, usually then taking it home right away."(Stanley)
If you do decide to try it, I did a quick google search to see which kinds of cheese might work for this diet, since it's my experience chicks will consider eating dogshit if it's covered in enough of the right kind of cheese.  I'll say right off I know fuckall about cheese and despise it.  Thus, I'm making recommendations on macronutrient ratios:

  • Gruyere Cheese- This seems to be about as close to beef ribs as you can get in a cheese.  If you want to sit down to a pound of this shit a day, have at it.  40g of protein and 42g of fat per cup with <1g carbs
  • Limburger Cheese- Damn near as good for you as Gruyere, provided you can tolerate the smell.
  • Goat Cheese, Hard Type
  • Brie Cheese
  • Edam Cheese
  • Monterrey Chesse
  • Muenster Cheese
  • Camembert Cheese

Up next, dieting for the Not Too Fucking Fat But Not Too Fucking Lean and the Rampage explained fully and completely.

Sources:
Christie, Catherine.  Mood-Food Relationships.  http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Met-Obe/Mood-Food-Relationships.html#b
Doweiko, Harold E.  Concepts of Chemical Dependency.
Macdonald, Lyle.  Ketogenic Diet.
Russell, Sharmen Apt.  Hunger: An Unnatural History.
Sayegh R, Schiff I, Wurtman J, Spiers P, McDermott J, Wurtman R.  The effect of a carbohydrate-rich beverage on mood, appetite, and cognitive function in women with premenstrual syndrome.  Obstet Gynecol. 1995 Oct;86(4 Pt 1):520-8.  http://web.mit.edu/dick/www/pdf/909.pdf
Stanley, Owsley.  Diet and Exercise.  http://thebear.org/essays1.html#anchor496162



22 February 2012

Toughguy Hardcore Has Returned

For those of you who are woefully unaware, toughguy hardcore is the single greatest musical achievement in recorded human history.  Walking on the moon pales in comparison, for instance, to the refined brutality of Hatebreed's "Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire", which continues to stand as a beacon of hope for those of you who are considering the possibility that there's no hope for humanity.  I could go on for an eternity listing awesome beatdown bands of the 1990's, the wonders of wearing a jersey to a show and strangling emo kids with their white belts, and a time wherein people actually fucking hit each other at shows.  I was under the impression that our time had passed, and that toughguy hardcore was deader than disco, but I was even more wrong than that guy who thought he could get fucked by a horse and live.


COLD HARD TRUTH
Skip to 2:16 for the best breakdown written in the last 15 years.

That's fucking right- a hardcore band fronted by a guy with 17"+ arms and neck that plays shit designed specifically to accompany football hooligan riots.  I actually purchased their disc off Amazon due to the fact that I can't buy their merch here without paying a fucking arm and a leg (they're Brits), and because it's that fucking good.  I am not shitting you- I have not been this excited about a band since the first time I heard Throwdown in the now-defunct Repo Records and learned every fucking word to the disc in a day.  This shit is literally harder than trying to bang an Eritrean broad with Ron Jeremy's cock.


Get their cd here and their EP here (you're welcome, as that shit was hard to find) and put an instant 25 lbs on your max squat.  I know half of you will download that shit online, but if you have the loot, support the fucking band.
What have we here?


MURDER DEATH KILL
The other band to which I've been listening nonstop is Murder Death Kill, which you almost have to love simply for the name.  Just like the movie from which their name comes (Demolition Man, motherfucker.  Recognize.), they are fucking brutal.  Additionally, they bring back a 90s hardcore staple that's gone unused since the Hoods and Until the End sent one of their vocalists packing- dual vocals.  For the uninitiated amongst you, this phenomenon was so widespread in the mid to late 90s in hardcore that it seemed like every other fucking band had at least two, and sometimes five or six, vocalists.  Yes, it was just as fucking awesome as you're imagining.  In any event, MDK brings the motherfucking ruckus, and even went so far as to title one of their discs "Fuck With Us And Find Out".  The album title is so fucking tough it would have knocked out Ivan Drago in the first 12 seconds and then gone on to rape Bridgette Nielson, Rocky, and Adrian at once.

Forgive them the godawful opening line- it gets better.


For those of you who don't feel like watching the vid- the breakdown at the end is MDK and a bunch of fans beating the piss out of some hipster band, which apparently terrified some white belted fan of Evergreen Terrace into writing this "scathing" condemnation of alpha males and real hardcore while he champions trying to bang the wildly androgynous broad dancing onstage at the "Night to Remember" show.  Buy their shit just for that.
I bought this shirt to let anyone in Alabama who didn't already get the message know what I think of their shitty state.


Honorable Mention
HOMICIDAL
Holy balls, this is the most insane hardcore supergroup on Earth, and you've never fucking heard of them.  Members of Bulldoze (the band that started the toughguy scene), Skarhead, and 25 Ta Life bringin' it back '92-style.  Shit sounds like Bulldoze in a blender with Fury of Five and Madball.


Knuckle Up!
NJHC from the same label that brought us MDK.  If you ever liked Shutdown in spite of their shitbox vocalist, you'll fucking love this band.  I'm not in love with the lyrics, but this shit is definitely worth blasting with your windows down at the very least.




Lastly, Hatebreed rerecorded a couple of songs from Under The Knife (fucking awesome) and two B-sides, which you can get here.


This weekend will be the follow up on the Predator series (it actually has diets in it!) which is taking forever and a fucking day to write.  Until then.

17 February 2012

Baddest Motherfuckers Ever #24- Stan "The White Rhino" Efferding

A couple of years ago a competition was arranged at the Arnold Expo to determine the World's Strongest bodybuilder.  The competitors were Branch Warren's apparent BFF Johnnie Jackson and a guy of whom I'd never heard named Ben White.  The results were fairly unspectacular, and prompted a challenge from a third party dark horse who was only on your radar if you had it calibrated to identify threats who were about as freakish in nature as an echidna's dick- Stan "The White Rhino" Efferding.
Echidnas have 4 heads to their penises, only two of which work at any given time.  This is incontrovertible proof that if there was intelligent design, the gods were drunker than 1980's Nick Nolte when they designed the shit running around Australia.

In 2010, The White Rhino got his opportunity to compete in the World's Strongest Bodybuilder versus the aforementioned Ben White and made like he was Godzilla in the old-school game Rampage- Ben White was his bitch, and he destroyed Johnnie Jackson's two lift total by almost 100 lbs.  After that, Efferding was even showing up on the Bhutanese Air Force's Gilligan's Island-style bamboo and chewing gum radars.

Amusingly, Efferding's sudden rise to fame would have been called the result of years of hard work, if it wasn't for the fact that he took 10 years off from competition to make a shitload of money.  Although I cannot locate my source to properly cite it (it was the Muscular Development wherein the above pic was first featured), Stan started out competing in bodybuilding and powerlifting in the early 1990s and continued until 1997, when he quit to start a telecom company.  Going from memory, The White Rhino pulled a couple of moves that make Oskar Schindler seem like a shitty boss in comparison, buying a fleet of Hyundais and renting them to his lower-paid employees who lacked cars for $100 a month or something ridiculous, and after a couple of years of living on ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches ended up rich as all hell.  Since then, he's started a couple of other companies in a variety of industries and gotten even richer, to the point where he lists his Rolls Royce Phantom as his favorite automobile.  HIS Rolls Royce, not THE Rolls Royce, which lists at Jesse Marunde-style heart exploding $380k-$450k according to Kelly Blue Book.

Discontented with merely flying in the face of established American tradition in the treatment of line workers as if they were mildly retarded and offensive-smelling Mexican day laborers, Efferding decided to jump back into the competitive waters and taking a steaming shit on convention there as well... "out of boredom", according to the man himself.  At 38, he returned to the bodybuilding stage and won the Superheavyweight class in the 2006 Emerald Cup.  Two years later, he won it again, pulling down the Heavyweight and Overall trophies.  The following year, because he fucking felt like it, The White Rhino competed in the APA "All RAW" Northwest Regional Championships and totalled 2,070lbs at 275.  He then switched back to bodybuilding and won his pro card at the Masters Nationals Bodybuilding Championships by winning the Superheavies, five months after his meet.  Then, just fucking because, he competed in  the SPF Sanctioned Raw Powerlifting meet less than two months after that show, crushing the holy fuck out of everything in his path and looking goddamned good while doing so.  Less than two months after dieting like a motherfucker for a bodybuilding contest, he totaled 2,221lbs in 275lbs category.  The next time you think about skipping a fucking workout, put that shit in your pipe and smoke the fuck out of your workout..

To recap, after taking ten years off from lifting hard to make millions of dollars and be, by all accounts, an awesome boss, the White Rhino is the #1 ranked raw powerlifter in the US and the #3 ranked raw powerlifter in the world with a 2,226lbs total.  He's ranked #1 in the squat and bench, and 10th in the deadlift, and was the bad motherfucker who unseated Konstantin Konstantinov as the leanest and baddest 275 lb powerlifter to ever walk the Earth.    Not only has he kicked ass in the world of powerlifting of late, but he continued to bodybuild as well, and pulled down his pro card in record time, nabbing it 3 years after he stepped back onto the platform.  Compare that to NPC staples like Dave Palumbo, who attempted for nearly two decades to get his pro card before throwing in the towel- grabbing your pro card in three years is not an easy thing.  Essentially, Efferding is to life what Teddy Roosevelt was to the Presidency- he's a rich, good looking badass who bends over whatever he wants to do and fucks it til it loves him.

Powerlifting PRs
Raw Bench press: 606 lbs (US Record)
Raw Squat: 854 lbs (US Record)
Raw Deadlift: 793
Equipped Deadlift: 825lbs
Raw Total: 2,226 (US Record)

Bodybuilding History
2010 Europa Show of Champions
2010 Phoenix Pro
2009 Masters Nationals, Super Heavyweight and Overall Champion, Earned IFBB Pro Card
2008 Emerald Cup, Heavyweight and Overall Champion
2006 Emerald Cup, Super Heavyweight Champion
1997 Emerald Cup
1996 Emerald Cup
1992 Junior USA, Heavyweight, 6th
1991 Mr. Oregon Overall

Because he's richer than Scrooge McDuck and wanted to a place to train, he built a gym in Calicalled Super Training that appears to be affiliated with Mark Bell, and co-owns Flex Fitness in Dallas with Flex Wheeler, where he does all of his training now.  To my understanding, he simply invested in the gym because Wheeler wanted a gym and The Rhino wanted a place to throw his monolift while managing a conveyor belt company or somesuch.  This is how you roll when you're 43, wiegh 275 lbs with 5% bodyfat, and are a multi-millionaire and world record holder.

Training Takeaways

  • Credits training with people stronger than him with his success in strength sports
  • Says "Cardio is the least effective tool you have to burn bodyfat" (Bell), though he does brief intese fasted cardio upon waking.
  • Ices his shit every day for a couple of hours
  • Doesn't use cortisone or NSAIDs for any extended period of time because they weaken the joint and prevent them from rebuilding themselves
  • Avoids exercises that hurt his joints
  • Lifts heavy 3x per week
  • Has one light and one heavy bench day per week, one squat day per week, and one deadlift workout every other week.
  • Trains each bodypart once a week, 2-5 reps for powerlifting and 5-12 reps for bodybuilding, using one heavy basic and one assistance exercise for two hard growth sets per bodypart
  • Keeps his workouts to less than an hour a day

Diet Takeaways
  • Does progressive overload with dieting- he adds food incrementally to ensure digestion and assimilation.
  • To get lean, recommends you "eat at least 5 meals a day, consume 50% of your calories from quality lean animal protein sources... then 20% of your calories come from complex carbohydrate sources eaten at breakfast and post-workout meals only.  The remeaining 30% of the calories are primarily from mono and polyunsaturated fats.
  • Getting strong and lean is 90% nutrition- two grams of animal protein per pound of bodyweight, complex carbohydrates, and mono and polyunsaturated fats like coconut oil, macadamia nut  oil , olive oil, or peanut butter
  • To lean out he adds a meal and drops his carbs, getting up to 9 to 10 meals a day

Additionally, it helps to be richer than all fuck, so you can sleep in a hyperbaric chamber Michael Jason-style, get all of the best training aids, equipment, and supplements, and be able to set your own hours so you can train when you want.  If that's not the best reason I've heard to make some fucking money, I don't know what is.  The key, however, like all of the other Baddest Motherfuckers, is that you do shit your own way- if you do everything like everyone else, you'll suck just as fucking badly as they do.


Sources:
Andros, Sean.  The Big Picture: The Stan Efferding File.  Flex Magazine, May 2011.  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_3_29/ai_n57431667/pg_2/?tag=content;col1
Bell, Mark.  Interview with Stan "Rhino" Efferding.  Power Magazine,  Sept/Oct 2011, Vol 2 #5.
Efferding, Stan.  About.  http://stanefferding.com/about
Hildebrand, Bryan.  Efferding's Two World Records.  http://www.rxmuscle.com/strength-articles/3181-stan-efferdings-two-world-records.html

15 February 2012

Repping The Shirt- Booty and Tats Time

Spreading the love.  Efferding post is almost done, by the way.
How hot are the fucking stocking tats?  

14 February 2012

Leave Britney Alone!


This post began as an entreaty to get guys to leave chicks the fuck alone in the gym on Valentine’s Day and became a rather dire insight into my 1) total lack of game and 2) complete inability to understand women.  In any event, I find it amusing, if for no other reason than I manage to get laid in spite of myself.

Over the course of my 18 years of lifting, I’ve noticed a trend even more disturbing than the fashion choices of 1990’s era bodybuilders and even less logical- the tendency for guys who are clearly outclassed in terms of physique and intellect to annoy the fuck out of serious chick lifters in the gym.  They will follow those broads hither and thither, offering “advice” like they're Tony Robbins on speed and make a fucking production out of mixing their NO2 shake while they flex their 15” pythons.  The serious chicks are generally  exasperated by this unwanted intrusion, but for some reason deign to remove their headphones long enough to reply to those fucking jabroni and then try to get a set in.  At some point, they then find themselves pinned between said jabroni and a piece of equipment, incapable of movement unless they bodily force their way past the orange-tinged asshole, knocking him and his ridiculous peri-workout shake to the ground on the way to another piece of equipment.
Sweden appears to have a very serious problem on their hands.

The most interesting thing about these encounters is that other than the occasional not-grimace in the general direction of the male populace of the gym, these broads don’t appear to be initiating contact with anyone around them.  As such, I’m left to wonder what the fuck enters into the minds of these dickbags as they saunter over and begin their harangue about how she should keep her pinkies up during lateral raises or whatever the fuck it is they blather about.  In any event, it’s a fucking disgrace.

Due in large part to the fact that I like to be left right the fuck alone in the gym, I assume other serious lifters feel the same way.  That, combined with the fact that they’re usually under seige by assholes throughout their workout, I never even make eye contact with chicks in the gym if it can possibly be helped.  If I notice them checking me out, I will do the utterly ridiculous and walk the long way around the gym to get to the water fountain so as not to go near them.  Fuck, I’ll generally do that irrespective of whether or not they've looked in my direction.  I do not, however, ever engage them in casual conversation.  I’m there to lift, they’re there to lift, and there’s no reason why I would fuck that up in order to make some half-assed attempt to bang a chick from the gym.  If you’ve not noticed, fellas, that shit usually ends in fucking disaster, anyway.

There's a better chance that I'd squat while standing on a bosu ball than chat Rizylex Rivera up in the gym.

One instance wherein this causes problems with the aforementioned females is when I’m talking to a couple.  I generally address the guy, out of respect and to forestall any weirdness that might arise as a result of any perceived flirting (I’m incapable of telling when I’m being flirted with and have game so bad it makes the skinny fuck from Superbad seem like Ryan Gosling), and ignore the chick.  This has, on more than one occasion, caused some bitching out of the girl from a distance but within earshot of what a misogynistic asshole I am.  Though I am an asshole and find misogyny hilarious, my intent’s often misconstrued.  As such, I generally just avoid talking to couples as well.

I was discussing this with a friend who's a female Olympic weightlifter recently, and she found my position to be about as sensible as the skinny gay guy's wardrobe choices on Big Bang Theory.  Amusingly, I signed her up at her first gym and have no recollection of doing so, in spite of the fact that I broke her balls like a steamroller on a Putt-Putt course throughout the process.  Bear in mind, in reading this, that I know perhaps five peoples’ names from that gym (only because I worked there), although I have been lifting at that gym off and on for over ten years.  As such, it is perhaps my status as a social leper and pariah that’s led to my opinion on on chicks in the gym, though I can name at least three chicks who’ve thanked me for telling guys to fuck right off after watching them badger the holy shit out of the chick for an hour. As such, I am perhaps not completely insane.  In any even, here’s Spugs’ opinion on the subject:

So here, Mr. CNP presents an interesting opinion on females lifting in the gym.  It’s an opinion that I obviously don’t share (as has already been pointed out,) but I do believe has some validity.  However, I see a logical fallacy that seems to fit CNP’s personality— he deems that because he wants to be “left the fuck alone” in the gym as a “serious lifter,” every other like-minded lifter will appreciate and want the same.  He also asserts that the only people who talk to females in the gym are Arnold wannabes who spend more money on spray tan than their actual education, but that also seems to be a repercussion of his own action or, rather, inaction.  He’s the one ignoring the chick, allowing these boneheads the opportunity to give unsolicited “advice,” and in effect, furthering the idea that female lifters should be left the fuck alone, whether it be in the weightlifting community or in the gym itself.    
Unwittingly and unintentionally a total asshole to every chick in a gym where I've lifted for almost 2 decades.


I guess I have a bit of a different background on this whole gym thing.  First off, I have a vagina.  That’s right, boys— a vagina! I’m assuming from this point forward that the majority of people reading this believe that women are a strange species who act as irrationally as Whitney Houston on crack.[  Too soon?  I think not. (it is, however, wholly redundant to write “Whitney Houston on crack”, as that was her default state- ed.)] Well, I might just concede that point because… well… I can’t win this one.  I also started weightlifting in a bit of an interesting way—I started playing rugby, decided that I wanted to start pushing some bitches around on the field, and wandered into Iron Sport Gym.  Thinking back, it was probably the best and worst decision of my life.  I learned the basics (squat, deadlift, and bench,) the Olympic lifts, and eventually some Strongman.  I had the best coaching that one could possibly want and a community of lifters who talked shop and were actual friends.  But when I left Iron Sport for bigger and better things [read: college,] I had a bit of an awakening.  I was spoiled rotten at that gym.  I had never experienced a dickbag coming up to me and telling me to raise my pinkies on a lateral raise for two reasons: one, I did none of those shenanigans and two, there was a sense of respect in that gym for every lifter who came in every day and left everything on the platform, no matter the gender. 
Just off-camera, some asshole in Under Armor is lunging toward her, barking about her pinkies.

I would say the thing I’m getting at is the sense of community that CNP does not want for himself.  It’s understandable but interesting, nonetheless.  It might be just me, but if I go through an entire two hour workout and leave without seeing a friendly face or chatting just for a little bit, I get a little squirrely.   Maybe, it’s the vagina talking, but I would say that I’m not alone in this.  However, I do think I need to clarify just who is a friendly face and what chatting actually amounts to.  A friendly face is someone who had the balls to come up to me, to introduce him- or herself, and either to ask an intelligent question or just to bullshit.  In effect, none of this “pinkie raise” shit. 


In some ways, it depends on how you think of weightlifting in general.  Do you view it as a sport or do you see it as something totally personal?  This is where, I think, CNP and I diverge.  I see Olympic style as a sport, as with powerlifting and Strongman, that denotes a community of like-minded thinkers who share common goals.  [I do, in fact, consider the aforementioned to be sports, but don’t associate myself with any of them.  That’s not because I think I transcend them or am better than them, but rather because my training style doesn’t fit theirs and thus excludes me therefrom.] Because these individuals share common goals, they have business to talk about, whether it be form, supplements, diet, etc.  So these people talk, develop bonds, and benefit from doing so.  The sport doesn’t discriminate by gender—it discriminates by inherent talent, hard work, and in essence, giving a fuck.  Building a group that shares all of those ideas only allows every individual within that group the knowledge, guidance, and examples that keeps someone going. 


So in effect, I ask you on Valentine’s Day not to leave Britney alone in the gym but be willing to accept her as a weightlifter and know limits on just how much to say and what to say.  No one wants his or her ear talked off, so be reasonable with it.  If you’re a decent lifter with something intelligent to say, I would suggest going for it—because your actions, dedication, and sheer tonnage in the gym speak louder than anything that could come out of your mouth.         
         
In other words, people, there is the rare occasion that I have no idea whatsoever what the fuck I’m talking about, and ladies, this is why I generally avoid giving you people advice- I understand you about as well as Rick Santorum understands quantum mechanics.

But wait!  Apparently, Spugs and I were coming from two sides of the spectrum.  A quick google search for pics for this thing actually yielded an article about as misguided as an Iraqi scud missile written by a Pick Up Artist for AskMen.com, which included the following:
“Essentially, there are two types of women that work out in the gym: the mutes and the chatterers. Knowing one from the other will help you focus the right charm and the correct moves on the woman you want with minimal trial and error.
The Mute
Consider this woman one to avoid. She is there to exercise and will see your approaches as an annoyance. She’s there to workout, not to be bothered by your attempts at game. Leave her be.
Spot the mute: Her workout attire normally includes a baseball cap, earphones, an MP3 player, and water. She avoids eye contact and conversation with others. She looks at the floor as she moves from machine to machine.
The Chatterer
Here’s your target. The Chatterer is there to meet people and you’re there to meet her. She likes to socialize and converse. The Chatterer enjoys working out, hanging out with friends, checking her Facebook status, getting some male attention, and boosting her self-esteem.
Spot the chatterer: Being a social creature, she will normally gravitate to the water fountain before the exercise equipment. She’s there to talk more than to workout. Her training regimen is sporadic and her technique is probably in need of some work. This is a perfect chance to swoop in and give her some pointers. Consider even inviting her to train with you.”
I seem to always find myself encountering the former and either ignoring the latter or simply never coming into contact with them. (Player)
LET'S GO SARGING!  Jesus Tittyfucking Christ.

This gets to a distinction that we haven’t really discussed in the article-- the difference between a real lifter and someone like “the Chatterer.”  I would say I worked with a general assumption that the women who need to be left alone are the females who are serious lifters that don't get trapped by some moron in a conversation.  I don’t think I would call “the Chatterer” a serious lifter-- I wouldn’t call “the Chatterer” a lifter to begin with.  And, I couldn’t give a fuck whether or not guys come up to this sort of person because she’s usually looking for it.    

I think, however, a useful distinction can be pulled from that monstrosity of an article, which is that people should pick their battles in the gym.  If a chick seems congenial and open to discussion, aka "The Chatterer", people should utilize Spugs' advice.  If she’s a mute, stay the fuck away- if she wants to talk, she will.

And this is where the crazy of women starts to show.  We aren’t going to initiate a conversation.  Seriously.  We may want to, but we don’t.  It’s irrational as all hell, but the fear of getting a cold response from a fellow lifter will cause many not to open their mouths at all.  

... and also justifies my reticence to speak to them at all.  In it's place, I will usually drop the "what's up" nod at a chick- a slight, abrupt inclination of the chin.  Speaking of that- what is your take on a guy giving you the “what’s up?” nod in the gym?  As you can well imagine, that’s about the limit of my interaction with chicks at the gym, save for one or two whom I’ve been roped into addressing directly, much to my (amusing to others) discomfiture.  Good idea or bad?

It depends.  If the nod comes from a regular, it is seen as a sign of respect and sheer acknowledgement.  If it’s one of those creepy “come hither, I want to bang you” nods, it will not be accepted well.  Usually in disgust, in fact.

I’ve not seen one of those, I don’t think, unless it’s the move that’s the sole purview of black men at clubs, and is often accompanied by an air kiss or a wink.

Yep.  Those are the ones.  I thought I was going to vomit the last time I got one of those (that and the real risk of getting raped leaving the gym after my workout.)   
Don't be this guy.
So, lessons learned: 1) I am socially retarded, 2) pick your conversational targets in the gym, be respectful, and don’t talk to chicks if you’re a shitty lifter, and 3) try your hardest not to be black.

Enjoy your day of commercialized romanticism as shoved down your throats by Hallmark and Chaucer!

Sources:
Player, The.  “The Player: How To Pick Up Women At The Gym” http://www.askmen.com/dating/player/36_love_games.html

10 February 2012

The Apex Predator Diet, In Glorious Detail Part 1

In the event that you're not one of the readers hanging on my every word or who is new to the blog, this spinoff originally started with the Evolution Of My Diet series, which starts here.  In it, I outlined the diet I'm currently following, which I've called the Apex Predator Diet due to the fact that it consists of little more than that which an apex predator would eat, supplemented with protein shakes because I'm much more inclined to hedge my bets with a protein sparing modified fast than place my faith in the clinically unsupported yet theoretically sound Intermittent Fasting approach.  The following blogs will expand upon what I've previously explained, give greater detail for why this diet kicks more ass than Gina Carano in Haywire.
Gina Carano knows ass.

An Overview of the Apex Predator Diet
The Apex Predator Diet is a at its core a cyclical ketogenic diet, not unlike those I've supported in the past.  On this diet, you'll be keto dieting on 30 grams of carbohydrates or less per day for 5-6 days a week (or more, depending on your bodyfat levels).  During the non-carb days, you'll be consuming 1-2 meals of fatty, preferably bone-in meat per day, supplemented by 5-7 low carbohydrate protein shakes.  The other day or two are referred to as "Rampage" days, during which time you'll replenish your glycogen stores and satisfy your desire to wreck pizza and cookies.

The reasoning behind this methodology of dieting is that I found protein-sparing modified fasts like the Velocity Diet gave me just enough energy to put in a workout that would embarrass an undergraduate girl trying to drop her freshman 15 before going to the beach for cock over the summer- I was truncating my workouts horribly and thinking about nothing more than fucking killing myself out of shame.  Thus, I did some research and discovered those diets are really only suited to the morbidly obese and people who suck at lifting weights, rather than people trying to be so fucking superhuman they make Superman seem like a shiftless, limp-dicked, weaksauce layabout by comparison.  As such, I experimented with a variety of evening meals and finally settled upon beef ribs and bone in steaks, which are eminently satisfying, calorically dense, and restorative in ways you cannot possibly imagine.
This shit works.  

This diet, though similar to many you've likely seen, is vastly superior (if you're training hard 4+ times a week) to existing frameworks for a couple of reasons.
  1. My macronutrient percentages are different.  Conventional wisdom on CKDs is that 65-75% of your calories should come from fat.  Fuck all that.  According to my biggest fan on Earth, Lyle McDonald, "when subjects are told to limit carbohydrate intake but to consume "unlimited" quantities of protein and fat, they automatically limit caloric intake and consume between 1400 and 2100 calories."(Ketogenic Diet 101).  I don't give a fuck who you are, that shit is not going to support heavy training.  Not only is that a caloric intake suitable only to the Olson twins and 19th Century hunger artists, but at the macros suggested by the gurus, you're not getting nearly enough protein, either.  2100-1470=630/4=157.5 grams of protein.  My protein shakes have more calories in them than that, for fuck's sake, and I mix them in water.  The Predator Diet is much higher calorie (3000+), most days, with 50-60% of your calories coming from protein and the remainder from fat.
  2. I cycle calories.  For those of you who are not already incredibly lean, calorie cycling kicks in to keep your metabolism humming.  I've not seen another CKD or TKD diet that tinkers with calories in this way to accelerate fatloss.
  3. It's fucking easy.  One of the things I see people constantly blabbering on about with the IF diet is how easy it is to not eat for half the day.  I guarantee you it takes no more time to make a shake than it does to make a cup of coffee, and those fuckers must be chugging coffee if they're not eating.  As such, their argument's as fucking stupid as the Predator Diet is anabolic.
  4. It's anabolic.  Though you're operating in a caloric deficit for the majority of the day, you're getting a constant influx of protein to stave off muscle catabolism, and the high fat meats at the end of the day provide saturated fat and cholesterol, both of which boost testosterone levels, which in turn increase aggression, which in turn makes you tear shit up in the gym, making your system even more anabolic.  Basically, you become a perpetual-motion machine of badassery.
  5. You're not insane with hunger at all times.  When hungry, "people tend to conserve energy rather than expend it."(Russell 148)  That's definitively not a good thing if you're training hard, especially if you're dieting for a competition and/or training twice a day.  I used this diet to cut for two meets and ended up on the underside of 7% bodyfat, making my water cut easier, increasing my strength to weight ratio, and allowing me to look fucking amazing while lifting big weights.  
  6. You have planned, insane, gluttonous cheat meals.  These serve a variety of purposes, and they match the occasional gorge of a predator nicely.
Because I realize experimentation is scary, and I've already done plenty of experimenting, I've got four basic permutations of this diet- Fat Fuck; Not Too Fucking Fat, But Not Too Fucking Lean; Lean As Shit; and Whiny Bitch.  The first three are fairly self- explanatory, and will be broken out by bodyfat percentage (see the chart below).  The last is because I get a lot of emails from people whining about pre-and post-workout carbs.  They're of the opinion that they're indispensable, though I would dispute that opinion.  For those ladies out there who absolutely must have your carbs or you will turn into a raging ball of hormone-fueled fury, laying waste to everything in your path as you make for the counter at Auntie Annie's in the mall, this should suit your purposes nicely as well.

Components of the Apex Predator Diet
Before we get into the finer points of the diet, let's cover a couple of basics- food and supplement choices.  The reason why I've christened this diet the Apex Predator Diet is due to the awesome food choices you'll be making.  Nowhere will you find bland, tasteless, rubbery bullshit like chicken breasts and steamed broccoli.  Fuck it- on this diet, you won't even need utensils, most of the time, because your food should come with a built-in handle- bone.  Bone is an integral part of meat, and ripping an animal's flesh off its bones with your teeth is a primal, visceral, ethereal act that stands in stark defiance to modern life and harkens to a time when men were men and women appreciated real men, in addition to being tougher than most of the "men" you see waddling their sloppy asses around the mall these days.  As such, it would stand to reason that if we want to regain that former glory, strength, and aggressive awesomeness we had in times past, we should eat like our forebears.

For those of you who are staring, incredulous, at that statement, consider the following:
"The connection between flesh and bone is primordial and fundamental.  Yet today, bones have fallen out of favor.  We are all familiar with the expression, 'The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat,' but we demand everything precut and prepackaged, and that is, increasingly, all we can buy.  Our world is full of recipes for boneless, skinless (and often tastless pieces of meat, chicken, and fish, and we can scarcely recognize whole fish or birds.  We have become so obsessed with ease of preparation and speed that we have lost touch with the visceral appeal of cooking with- and eating- bones." (20  McLagan)
They understood this, because they were stronger, smarter, and tougher than the lot of us.

"There is a universal understanding that bones and meat are inseparable.  Yiddish: Bones without meat are possible, meat without bones is not possible.  Hebrew: There is no such thing as boneless meat.  Greek: Meat is sold with bones. Norwegian: He who buys the meat has to take the bone with it.  English:  Bones bring meat to town.  He who eats the meat let him eat the bones.  You buy the land you buy the stones: you buy the meat you buy the bones."(119 Bones)

Eating boneless meat is thus not only effete, ridiculous, artificial, and offensive to the soul of the slaughtered animal, but it's fucking stupid.  Bone in meat tastes better and is healthier, as cooking it in that fashion "enables the bone nutrients to infuse into the meat, imparting wonderful flavors"(Shanahan) in addition to added nutrients.  After you've cooked it that way, you eat it with your hands, as your primal ancestors did, using the bones as the handles for bearing meat to your mouth as they were fucking intended.  Eating becomes more satisfying because you're restoring the tactile sense in your hands to the process of eating.  As such, it becomes a richer, more natural, more intimate experience and produces greater satiety as a result.  As one probably hot hippie put it, "eating with your hands gives you a deeper sense of your food, because you are bringing more sense receptors to the table. Temperature and texture become more profound when you can feel them on your fingers first, and the experience of consumption is extended even longer for a more pleasurable process."(Urban)

Worries about a mess on your hands?  Buy some fucking Wet Wipes and be glad you have fewer dishes to do.

Additionally, you're going to be consuming a shitload of low-carb, blended source protein shakes, multivitamins, EFAs, and fatburners, and will try to mix in some offal if at all possible.  I'll get into all of that good shit in the next installment, however, leaving you with the fact that offal tastes fucking awful, so I generally just take a shitload of multis.

Exactly.
Sources:
McDonald, Lyle.  Ketogenic Diet.
McLagan, Jennifer.  Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
Russell, Sharmen Apt.  Hunger: An Unnatural History.  New York: Basic Books, 2005.

07 February 2012

Holy Balls! The New Shirt Is Finally For Sale

Shit's fucking rugged.

I decided to go with a different printer, a heavier-weight shirt, and a whole new design.  These motherfuckers are nice- in face, I'm wearing one as I type this.  They're Hanes 9.1 oz Heavyweight Tagless 100% cotton shirts, so they'll grip the bar when you're back squatting and won't be too easy to rip while kicking people in the face at a Murder Death Kill show or fucking.  Get them now at by clicking the Paypal button on the side.  I know there will be several of you clamoring for Google Checkout, but Google's a pain in my ass and I'm going to avoid it unless I'm overwhelmed with a tide of whining (which I fully anticipate).  Email me at chaos_and_pain@yahoo.com to bitch.

As an FYI, these run kind of small- the Medium fits me like it's make out of spandex and is best for people 165 lbs or under.  The Large is comfortable, but not tight, on me, if a bit long.


That's how a medium fits on a 194 lb guy.  

You asked for 'em, and you got them.  I've got a couple of hoodies as well, but haven't decided if I'm going to sell them or what.  Anyway, grab the shirt by clicking the button on the left.

02 February 2012

RAW UNITY 5- Post-Weighin, Meet Day, and the Week After Diet

Apparently, my incredibly detailed run-down of my meet prep and meet were insufficient.  As such, I'll expand upon them further.  To be covered: my meet day diet, post-meet diet, the reasoning behind my use of reverse grip bench press, and why I eschew the use of a belt.
Sodium, carb, and glycerine loading leaves me looking like I haven't slept in 6 weeks, apparently, but big as shit- I weighed in at ~180 and weighed 198 in this pic.

Diet
I began planning my post-weighin meal at about 1PM the day before my meet.  I arrived at the weigh-in with 3 one-liter Powerade Zeros and a G2, all of which had about 3 oz of glycerine in them.  Within minutes of weighing in, I'd drunk 2 of those, then sat down to eat a 6oz burger and drink a Diet Coke.  In the next 3 hours, I alternately napped and watched the girls and lightweights compete, and in process consumed half a box of Cinnamon Life and 4 packages of Trio-Plex cookies.  Somewhere in there I drank the G2 and another liter of water.  I then went to Sonic and got a large popcorn chicken and tater tots with a humongous Diet Coke, and shortly thereafter to Landry's for another burger, since I despise seafood.  Interesting to note is the fact that I'd drunk well over a gallon of water by the time I got to dinner, but didn't actually piss until my fourth or fifth Diet Coke at dinner.  Before going to bed, I ate half a large thin crust pizza topped with pepperoni and sausage and drank the last Powerade Zero.
Unfortunately, I had a fat, congenial, mustachioed Mexican Dominos delivery person rather than this broad.

Upon waking, I ate the other half of the pizza, had a Monster Milk shake, and went downstairs.  During the meet I ate a few Titan protein cookies and a roast beef sandwich and fries.  I was attempting to get as much in the way of calories, carbs, and sodium into my system, all while keeping my protein higher than a fratboy at a Dave Matthews concert prior to his obligatory festival of date rape and douchebaggery.
Even made some bulgogi maki for a marathon of Call of Duty (since I don't take pics of my food I just stole that from Flickr).

Following the week of the meet, I took a sort of "regain my sanity week".  I only lifted three times, ate whatever I wanted each day, and relaxed a lot.  The only thing I ensured during the week, diet-wise, was that my protein stayed extremely high to ensure full recovery.  Before you ask, that means above 300g a day, and within shouting distance of 400g.  I've been dieting hard and training between 5 and 12 times per week nonstop since last May, so I felt it was time for a bit of a vacation.  This week, I'm probably as lean as I was, having awesome dreams at night and sleeping like I got snuck with a sack of wet pennies.  Additionally, my strength is good and I'm acting like a fucking animal in the gym again instead of doing the clock-watching I had been for the last couple of weeks prior to the meet.

The Reverse Grip
Initially, I started doing reverse grip bench presses because my left shoulder was bothering me.  As it turned out, there was no real injury there- I simply had the most incredible knotting radiating from my armpit to my wrist that anyone's seen since the Incans tried to calculate the circumference of the Earth (google quipu if you aren't nerdy enough to get the reference).  In any event, I found I progressed rapidly in the reverse grip and actually doubled 375 once a couple of weeks out from the meet, which I'd never come close to doing with regular grip.  Additionally, I'm a bigger proponent of making a spectacle of myself than Caligula, so going reverse just kicks that up another couple of notches.  Fuck, if fatassed Anthony Clark could succeed with it, I sure as fuck can.


The Belt Issue
A couple of years ago I had my belt stolen out of Mark Bartley's gym, SC Barbell.  I rarely used the fucking thing for anything other than heavy partials, and quickly came to realize I didn't need a belt for them, either- I've gone over 1200 lbs for back squat lockouts without a belt, so I'm relatively confident that the only thing that could injure my lower back or abs is a low-yield tactical nuke.  Given that one rarely encounters those in  powerlifting meets, I felt that the use of one would be superfluous.  Additionally, I found in a meet at SC Barbell (the first time I deadlifted over 600 in a competition or without straps) that I actually deadlifted less with a belt than without one.  As such, fuck belts.

This guy.

One dude, Jason Manenkoff, with whom I chatted during the meet actually made a fairly witty comment with which I didn't totally agree, but thought was hilarious- he compared having my belt stolen to getting his track cleats stolen.  To him, just saying "fuck it, I don't need it" was akin to him saying "fuck it, I'll just fucking run barefoot" at the NCAAs.  In that scenario, though, I'm pretty much akin to a Kalenjin runner competing barefoot in the Olympics- they don't fucking need shoes.

There you have it.  Simple enough, right?  Eat a shitload, and fuck everybody.