What Chuck Does

Egg McMuffin - What’s Unhealthy?

Here’s my take on the Egg McMuffin.

• Tastes great
• Bread, margarine, Canadian bacon, egg, and cheese
• 300 cals. 18 grams of protein who cares about the fat.
• Easy access at thousands of McDonald’s locations

Question is, is it “healthy”? Read on if you’re curious…

What happens to your body if you drink a Coke right now

gregbrown:

robot-heart: apsies: funtime: 24freedinners: noahkai: jaie: thewayoftheworld:

Have you ever wondered why Coke comes with a smile? It’s because it gets you high. They took the cocaine out almost a hundred years ago. You know why? It was redundant.

• In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
• 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
• 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
• 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
• >60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
• >60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
• >60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

This will all be followed by a caffeine crash in the next few hours. (As little as two if you’re a smoker.) But, hey, have another Coke, it’ll make you feel better.

Re-blogged while drinking my lunch-time Mountain Dew.

F_ing Coke… No more Coke for me. I never liked it that much anyway.

What does 200 calories look like?

I found this very entertaining. 8 Hershey kisses = 200 calories! Gotta stop eating these… yum…

What does 200 calories look like?

What did you think was going to happen?

This is a rant to myself. Ever since coming back from the honeymoon, I’ve been less physically active. I’ve been to the gym 15 times in about 10 weeks. Over the last 12 weeks (including the 2 weeks of wedding/honeymoon) I’ve accumulated the following caloric surpluses 918, 2822, -395, 1627, 1316, 899, 1637, 1695, 2133, 992, 1168, 393; a surplus total of 15,135 calories. The damage in my results? How about less strength, more fat, less muscle, less body hydration %. While my weight has stayed relatively constant at about 145.5 lbs, my body fat has increased by my Tanita scale readings and also by how I feel (i.e. I can grab more flab around my midsection).

Based on my daily caloric log of taking in a surplus of 15,135 calories over 12 weeks, I essentially gained 4.32 lbs. of fat. How is that possible when my weight says I’m still 145.5 lbs? Well here are my speculations:

1. My body does not convert excess calories into fat at a 1:1 ratio
2. I lost muscle weight and gained fat therefore resulting in a 0 lbs. weight change
3. I underestimated my daily caloric expenditure
4. I overestimated my caloric intake

I believe there is a little truth to each factor. Genetically I’m less prone to storing fat so there is likely not a 1:1 conversion rate for each excess 3,500 calories become exactly 1 lbs. of fat. Secondly, I know for sure I’m physically weaker. I can’t do as many pull-ups nor can I bench press the same weight I used to 10 weeks ago. I also likely underestimate the caloric expenses of my physical activities as well as my baseline daily caloric need. Lastly, while I try to estimate as closely as possible my daily caloric intake, it’s likely I sometimes overestimate… sometimes I just get really lazy and don’t count the exact number of calories of each meal and go with a “rough number” of how many calories it felt like I consumed.

All in all these are reasons for why my weight hasn’t increased but I’m becoming increasingly flabby and less toned. Seriously. Eating 15,000+ calories extra in 10 weeks without adequate exercise. What DID I think was going to happen?

Confused

Something definitely happened. Larry experienced this. I experienced this. I’m sure Dai has experienced this. “Binge” eating (or maybe just eating a little more) immediately after staying on a strict diet and exercising religiously has resulted in virtually no weight gain, slight gain in muscle, and overall decrease in body fat percentage according to my scale. According to how I feel, I think I’ve gained a slight amount of weight comprised of both fat and muscle.

I base the scale results off of my five most recent weighings:

8/27/08 146 lbs, 11.1% body fat, 64% hydration. This was the night before I left for Maui and the temporary end of my strict diet/exercise plan.

9/1/08 147.2 lbs, 10.9% body fat, 64.3% hydration. This was during our layover from Maui to Tahiti. I weighed myself about 5am after eating Jack-In-Box.

9/9/08 144.3 lbs, 10.8% body fat, 64.3% hydration. This was right after getting off the plane. I had not had food nor had I had water in over 8 hours. Basically dehydrated and hungry. Yet still in the 10’s?

9/9/08 144.4 lbs, 10.4% body fat, 65% hydration. This was immediately after getting home before eating dinner.

9/9/08 146.2 lbs, 10.8% body fat, 64.6% hydration. This was immediately after eating dinner.

So basically going off my diet and relaxing and sleeping has resulted in a slight decrease in body fat % per the Tanita scale. Weight-wise I seem to have gained 0 to 1 pound. The weight gain is so marginal that it is well within the limits of my daily flux. Muscle-wise I feel like I’ve gained muscle because my body feels a little swollen. Could it be that my body basically rebounded and recovered the muscle that it lost while I was under extreme dieting? Or could it be simply that I am fooling the scale by a temporarily changed body composition that is perhaps in flux as I digest and absorb all the extra calories that I’ve been eating? I won’t know for sure until a couple more weighings. I need to stabilize my diet and get back into my exercise routine.

The 6-Pack Challenge: Day 84 of 104

larrychi:

I’m getting sick of this shit. Look at what I eat every day. I’m going to throw up if I eat another banana or another bowl of Joe’s O’s cereal (f-you Trader Joe). I’m going to pierce my eardrums with a chopstick if I listen to “The World’s Greatest” one more time (f-you R. Kelly).

I’m starting to think that it’s biologically impossible for me to get rid of the final few inches of fat on my lower belly. I’ve spent over 6 hours of my life on an elliptical in the past 2 weeks. What else is a Chinaman supposed to do?

I just want to get through the last 20 days without losing my mind…

I know exactly what you mean. I get cranky sometimes from either lack of sleep or lack of tasty foods. Keeping the body in a constant state of flux basically sucks. Counting calories sucks. Eating chicken day after day sucks. Doing what we do requires serious willpower and can seriously drive one completely bonkers.

The difference is my challenge doesn’t end on day 104…

Three 11’s Does Not a 10 Make

Yesterday I weighed-in within the 11% range again. While I’m happy that I’m now pretty consistently in the 11% fat range, I know that I’m not in the 10’s yet.

But I’m so close.

I haven’t let up all week. Training has been spot on. My nutrition has been pretty consistent. But it’s hard. I’m getting cranky because I eat faster (cuz I’m hungrier) now and therefore don’t feel as full with the same amount of food. That and I really want to eat some greasy-ass junk food but can’t. Actually it’s more like “won’t”.

But I can feel the difference.

I used to be able to grab .75 inches of lard around my waist by leaning forward. There isn’t .75 inches of lard there anymore. I’m still in the stage where I’m in “flux”, so I definitely haven’t plateaued yet. I’m hoping when I do plateau, I’ll settle in at the 10% fat range.

Men’s Fitness: Get Ripped in 7 Days

Click here to see the original article.

I’m sorry but this is false advertisement at its best. Look. No one is getting ripped in 7 days. I don’t care who you are or what you do, but unless you’re already ripped, you ain’t getting diddly in 7 days.

I’m not saying these exercises aren’t good. In fact they’re great. Some of these are ones that I swear by. But anyone who thinks they can achieve any real results in 7 days, is absolutely delusional.

As much as I should continue ranting on the author for false advertisement, a lot of the blame goes to you and me. As a society, Americans are a nation of “quick fixes”. Everything is “Your way, right away!” (Burger King). All those infomercials are designed specifically to satiate our expectations for overnight results. Viagra, Hydroxycut, Starbucks… fuck them for giving us this shit and and fuck us for subscribing to that shit.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say as Americans we are some of the laziest assholes in the world today. That’s why so many Americans have shit jobs and lead shit lives. People bitch and moan about how much their lives suck but never do anything about it. That’s exactly why they fall for articles such as the one above. Americans are always looking for a “free ride”. To get something for nothing. Well let me tell you, nothing in life is free.

What did you think was gonna happen when you stuffed your face with food for 30 years? You think you can reverse that kind of damage in 7 days? Comon, man up. Grow a pair and commit to making a change. Stick with an actual decision for once in your life. And stop looking for shortcuts!

Breaking Into the 11’s

I thought I’d share my excitement about breaking into the 11-12% fat range. For the longest time (before I started trying to get a six-pack), I was in the 14-17% fat range. I was not “fat” but in retrospect, I wasn’t that “thin” either. At the time I did not think I was carrying around that much extra weight, but I never made an effort to shed fat while preserving muscle.

In hindsight, I now realize I was so wrong about so many things. For years I figured the scale was wrong because I couldn’t have that much body fat. Furthermore I “heard” the scale was skewed against athletes and since I considered myself an athlete, it registered a higher fat percentage. Thirdly, I doubted the scale’s internal algorithms and figured that one would have to lose a lot of weight to register a single percent drop in fat.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Numbers don’t lie. Metrics are how we’re all judged. Just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t mean it’s not true. Over the past week and a half, I’ve seen a true reduction in body fat. I’ve seen the scale reflect this change in my body and I realize I was wrong on so many levels. The biggest realization was how I could be in so much denial about what was possible. I was even wrong about the hydration level staying constant as one sheds fat. It’s not possible to retain the same hydration percentage over time because muscles tissue hold more water than fat tissue. Therefore as one drops fat, the hydration % will naturally increase as muscle makes up more of ones body - Source

I’m not saying that I was wrong about all things scale-related. The FAQ I’ve written still holds true. The mental barriers for what I thought was possible, were what was wrong.

If you’re wondering why I posted a picture of a Corvette Z06, it’s because the Z06 can run 11’s in the 1/4 mile all day (and break 10’s on a good day!).

Week in Review

149.25lbs.
12.60% fat
62.16% hydration

These are my weekly averages. This is the first week that I’ve convincingly broken the 150lbs. mark. I’ve also (mistakenly) included my prior week’s average (the 2nd row) for reference. For that week you can see that my average was poor as a result of my bout with food poisoning.

For this past week however, I think I’ve done rather well for myself. If you look at my fat %, I’d would have averaged 12.5 of less if it weren’t for the outlier in the 14% range when I was dehydrated. Also, if you look at my hydration it’s consistently higher than the week before. I made a special effort to delay my weigh-ins until as late as possible since I can usually rehydrate by the time I go to bed. The higher hydration levels are also partially why my fat % has dropped.

This past week I also caught up on sleep. I was pretty drained from my bout with food poisoning last week so I made an effort to turn-in earlier. I’m going to try to get to bed earlier this week now that I’ve finished my most recent “project”. While it still needs a little work here and there, it’s mostly done and won’t require the heavy amount of time needed initially. Then again, I foresee that I will be spending some time post-processing the pictures that I took over this past weekend… it’s hard to get enough sleep when you want to actually have a life outside of work.

Based upon my calculations above, I took in a caloric deficit throughout the week. Much of this came yesterday when I played a combined 2 hours of tennis and basketball. I know that one day’s work does not a week make but with the revamping of my caloric models, I will be more accurate with what is actually happening to my body.

Oh and another nice thing about this past week. I put in quite a few cardio sessions and exercised more than 400 minutes throughout the week.

For this upcoming week I foresee some pretty intense workouts while holding my caloric intake steady. We’re so close to the end that I can’t let up now. That and I beginning to see the side lines for #5 and #6 so I’m pretty excited. Let’s see if we can’t take some good pictures sometime this week!