The Living Doorway Fit Club, Part Three

Welcome to part three of my weekly installment of FIT CLUB. This time around I will tackle the BIG ISSUES, which are:

1) Diet/Nutrition
2) Fighting Shelby Cobras
3) A head-to-head weight loss contest with WFH
4) Sick jamz

Lets dive right in, shall we?

PART ONE: DIET & NUTRITION
First off, I'm not a dietician, nutritionist, personal trainer, or even anyone that currently has visible abdominal muscles, so I suggest you completely ignore everything I have to say in this section and just go pick up a copy of Muscle & Fitness. All I can do is tell you the basics of my diet back when I was pretty lean and hope that it works for you. That said, if you are new to this whole fitness thing, let me make it clear that if you are overweight, you can do as many fucking jumping jacks, sit-ups, and halfhearted jogs around the dog park as you want, but if your diet sucks, you are basically fucked. Diet is the cornerstone of effective weight loss (calories in, calories out) and if you can't reign in the pizza and ice cream consumption, your quest for ultimate rippedness is a big waste of time.

So let's make this shockingly simple, to the point that you might even think that I'm kidding: 95% of what you eat is skinless chicken breast, fish, eggs, non-starchy vegetables, brown rice, steel cut oats, and water. That's it. That's all there is to it. Don't count calories, don't pump yourself full of shitty overpriced why protein powder, and don't make it any more difficult than it needs to be. Just eat clean, whole foods three-to-five smallish meals a day, get some exercise in there, and you will lose weight. I ate pretty ONLY those foods for six months, worked out regularly, and lost nearly 60 lbs of bodyfat. Every Sunday I'd eat an epic cheat meal (usually some sort of Lebanese feast or maybe a whole small pizza) and then get right back on the wagon on Monday. There are some caloric alternates in there, of course: beans and legumes, natural peanut/almond butter (in small quantities), raw almonds, and maybe some tofu or tempeh here and there, but as long as you eliminate as much sugar and processed carbs as possible, you will be in good shape.

Side note: If you happen to dislike vegetables, I suggest getting into sprouts. They are low calorie, nutritionally dense, and can be grown at home, in the office.... or at sea. The only reason I even know about sprouts is because we have friends who used lived on a sailboat, and sprouts were the only 'produce' that could be grown and harvested right in their own living quarters. Since they only need water, dim light, and a couple of rinses a day in order to flourish, they might just be the world's best post-apocalyptic food, so stock up on as many cute little life-supporting seed mixes as you can. My girlfriend and I ordered a few seed starter kits from Sprout People a few weeks ago, and we are absolutely glowing with healthitude right now. Also, you can feel good about supporting them because it turns out they like death metal, too:


PART TWO: GET A MORTAL ENEMY
Taking a stab at a fat loss journey entirely solo can be daunting for some individuals, but a little company/competition is a healthy way to keep yourself motivated and on track to your ultimate fat-loss goal. Many people participate in office weight-loss pools (everyone pitches in $50 and whoever loses the largest bodyfat % wins the whole enchilada), or start running/biking/rock-climbing/whatever-the-fuck clubs so they will have the support of other like-minded folk to keep them focused. OR, you can just pick one dude and be like 'I'M GONNA SMASH YOU WITH MY RELENTLESS DISCIPLINE' and go totally head-to-head in an epic fitness battle just for sheer bragging rights. I was originally planning on having Shelby Cobras (my favorite bro-tard from Illogical Contraption) as my mortal fitness enemy for this weight loss project. He's recently been on a fitness kick so I thought he'd be totally down for it, but it turns out we are just going to have some sort of street fight or something, instead. I don't know. I just got into knife throwing so I'm pretty sure he's fucked. And even on the off chance that it WAS a fair fight, we're long lost twins and instinctively know each others moves, so the whole thing would play out exactly like DOUBLE IMPACT ("Double the Van Damme, double the Van Damage"). So whatever. He totally blew it and I wasted 9 minutes of my life making this awesome image:


PART THREE: MAKE SOMEONE SUFFER WITH YOU AND CALL IT 'BEING BROS'
Misery loves company, so I've focused my competitive sites on my fellow blogger, music collaborator, and dear friend WFH. Like myself, he has triumphed over bulging waistlines in the past, and I have no doubt he will be a fierce gym combatant in the war against flab. He has unwittingly agreed to go head-to-head with me in the quest for smaller pants, and I salute him for allowing my bullshit to crap up his life for the majority of 2012. The battle will commence on February 1st, and end on July 1st, which will allow a full six months (that's half a year!) to get our muscles as big (and our body fat percentages as low) as possible. As with most things on this blog, the rules of the competition are pretty simple and stupid:

1) No steroids, human growth hormone, or other illegal fat-burning stimulants
2) No quitting

Whoever loses the highest bodyfat % (as measured by an approved local fitness instructor) wins a free hot fudge sundae, courtesy of the loser. I'd also like to point out (on the off chance that WFH ever even reads anything I post here) that I just ate two bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch while writing this.

PART FOUR: STEAL MUSIC FROM THE INTERNET TO LISTEN TO WHILE LIFTING WEIGHTS
Anyway, last week I promised some sick workout jams to fuel your workouts, and that is exactly what you are going to get. But before we go down that road, I have to mention that a couple of days ago, Cobras appropriated my entire Fit Club idea and claimed it as his own (which is why he's obviously the scummier Van Damme twin), and even had the audacity to criticize my photoshop skills in the process. What he doesn't realize is A) I don't even know how to use photoshop, I just use the basic edit modes in Flickr/Picnic, and B) 95% of the music he listens to is recommended by me. It's true. He said so himself.

So get into some sweatpants, grab some iron, and dig these sweet tunes I put together:

JGD'S SELECT GYM JAMZ AS COMPILED BY S. COBRAS PART ONE

JGD'S BRUTAL SLAMMAGE AS COMPILED BY LOWLY ASSISTANT SHELBY C. PART DEUX


COMING NEXT WEEK:
I don't fucking know. Maybe just a bunch of shitty bodybuilding gifs.