Well done Stacey, and I like the beard. Maybe one day, you'll be beefy enough to beat out Stef at the next Burger Eating Challenge
Maybe!!!!
jp
Imagine how shocked--nay, horrified--I was when, during a visit to my in-laws' this past week, I spotted this old photo of me on the mantle. I was so stricken over how I looked, I figured I'd come home, crop it down and share it with you:
The picture on the left was taken over three years ago. The picture on the right was taken the day after Christmas '09 (I'm 210 lbs).
A little history. Started this little journey of mine in 1999. Like a lot of folks, I took up running because I equated being able to run for miles/being skinny as being fit. Like any true running addict, I couldn't get enough of pounding the pavement. I was sick in the head, but you couldn't have stopped me, nosiree. I topped out at 60 miles of running a week in late 2002, just finished my 3rd half-marathon. I'd also started martial arts and picked up a little resistance training around this time (dumbbells, situps, crunches--you know, the shit you read about in magazines). I weighed (drum roll, please) only 130 lbs. at a height of 5' 10."
Fast forward to the time of the picture on the left. Running was but a memory, overuse injuries had taken their toll. Martial arts filled my life with hours and hours of what amounted to cardio (attending classes, teaching classes, trying to do extra form-work on my own), and underfeeding didn't help things much. During the last five years, I had managed to take myself from a grotesque 130 lbs. to a meager 165 with increased eating and weight training built around silly bodybuilding splits. Pathetic, but it was an upgrade from what I'd been doing all those years ago. At this time, I had begun looking into 5 X 5 training via the internet, then CrossFit and finally good old Uncle Rip.
I like who I see in that picture on the right. He could break that guy on the left in two. I've got a little pudge around the middle, sure, but I've got no desire to trim up anytime soon. Being stronger has its privileges. My wife doesn't mind things, she likes someone beefy to hold on to.
So to all you guys worried about getting fat on SS or whatever your poison of choice happens to be at the moment, I say "I've been there and done the skinny thing. I like this better." Trust me.
-Stacey
Well done Stacey, and I like the beard. Maybe one day, you'll be beefy enough to beat out Stef at the next Burger Eating Challenge
Maybe!!!!
jp
Dude, you're right. We DO look alike. Weird.
I know how you feel. I'd much rather have the guy on the right on my side in a fight.
This will come off as dogmatic/religious/cultish. Fine. But I believe we as mammals respond more favorably to the guy on the right than the one on the left based on some deep down genetically wired coding. He's no waif, but he's not the bodybuilding combination of grotesqueness and vanity. He's just...solid. It's like height and symmetry. You just respond to it better than puniness and ugliness.
Good job, Stacey.
dude its like the left is opie taylor done growed up (right ) and now does MMA!!!
if thats 3 years im in for that-aint got nowhere to be than here bro. i hate seeing pics of some skinny dude on ss and 3-4 mos later he's sportin supposedly "ripped" pics on how much muscle he grew. and im like lookin ......where? i dont see it...still lookin.