30 Days To X

The days keep changing, will you?

Final rep

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“IT’S STILL YO MUTHA F*CKIN SET!”

– C.T. Fletcher

Since it’s the end of the month I’m obligated to provide a recap of my challenge. So, without further ado, here’s a summary of my activities during the past two months.

  • Squats

Following the Super Squats program not only made me bulk up, but also gave me a ton of extra strength. At the current moment I can squat almost twice my body weight, which I’d never even imagined doing before. Unfortunately the program does have a downside, a lot of the mass I put on was fat. While I’m not obese, I’m also not as lean as I used to be.

  • Deleting my Facebook

Deleting my Facebook hasn’t really hurt my social life in any noticeable way. With that said, my decision to become more anonymous is kind of moot since the NSA is monitoring every thing I do anyway.

Because George Orwell is too mainstream.

  • Dressing better

This was surprisingly easy. Once ditched my graphic T-shirts and picked up some new duds from Nordstroms Rack I was in the clear.

All in all this challenge was pretty simple, yet immensely rewarding.

Selling out

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“You can look the other way once, and it’s no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that’s all you’re doing; compromising, because that’s the way you think things are done. You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren’t, they weren’t bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised… once.”

-Jack Bauer

The greatest benefit that I got from doing 20 rep squats wasn’t the muscle mass, but the strengthening of my willpower.

After spending an entire afternoon roofing a building under the hot sun, lifting weights was the last thing I wanted to do. Despite this I still went and did my best. I’d down how much weight I’d lifted during each session, and set a goal to do five pounds more during my next work out.

There were a lot of days when I just didn’t want to lift. I thought I was “too tired.”  I’d tell myself that it was okay to take a day off, I’d craft excuses as to why I should just go home instead. While I came close to caving in, I never ended up missing a day.

I wanted to the results and I knew I needed to complete the process before I could have them.

Reddit doesn’t build muscle.

While I don’t have a lot of convictions, at last count there were about seven, I never break them. In fact, I don’t even bend them. The moment that you have to start rationalizing your behavior is the moment you’ve lost.

All those unhappy fat guys with nagging wives and bratty kids didn’t get like that overnight. They made the slow and painful descent into unhappiness, somewhere along the way they sold out. They decided that being in a band, or writing a novel, or going on a cross-country adventure was stupid; and that they should get a job at H&R Block instead. Rather than pursue their desires they choose to settle for mediocrity, a decision they have the rest of their lives to regret.

If you do choose to compromise, don’t worry. The goal wasn’t something you truly wanted anyway. Otherwise you wouldn’t have cheated yourself out of it.

M.O.P.

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“You cannot blame porn. When I was young, I used to masturbate to Gilligan’s Island.”

– Ron Jeremy

While researching methods for putting on a lot of muscle in a short amount of time, I came across a lot of strange theories. Most of them seemed pretty stupid, but there was one that caught my attention. The basic idea was to not whack off, in turn this was meant to somehow raise testosterone levels and help build muscle.

Although the idea sounded a little too much like bro-science, I decided to give it a shot. For two months straight I decided to make “muscles over porn” my mantra.

Here’s what happened:

  • I became easily angered.

Everything made me mad. A car would doddle at a green light and I’d start yelling at it, someone would act stupid and I’d call them out, I’d hear an annoying pop song and my blood would boil; to put it mildly, I had a lot of angst.

  • I was super productive.

For reasons unknown, I became a workaholic. By not playing a solo on the devils clarinet, I was forced to put my energy elsewhere. I studied Spanish more, read harder books, started some new websites, and tinkered with a bunch of different activities. In addition, I began pushing exponentially higher weights while in the gym and was always in the mood to go work out.

  • I thought every girl was hot.

No really, my standards for attractiveness went down to “has a pulse.” On a happier note, I also became far more motivated to go out and talk to girls. Also having sex felt like the most indescribably awesome thing ever.

  • Overall I had more energy.

Every morning I woke up early without hitting the snooze button. Sometimes I’d even get up before the alarm went off and start my day an hour earlier than scheduled. I ended up quitting coffee during this time, simply because of how energized I felt. It was like I was perpetually alert and functioning at my fullest.

  • Conclusion.

While it may sound like I spent the past two months punching dudes and hooking up with “big boned” women, that wasn’t the case. After about the third week I managed to dial in my anger and, thanks to a little thing called self respect, managed to never try anything with any girls who I wouldn’t introduce to my friends. Once I got into the hang of things I actually found not whacking it to be immensely enjoyable. In fact, I liked it so much that I’m going to stay on the program indefinitely.

Lastly, if you’re on the fence about trying this type of program I highly recommend watching Gary Wilson’s excellent TED talk on the subject.