Hardgaining part 2

This the followup to something  I wrote about being a so-called hardgainer. These are the scrawny guys who can't seem to put on weight. 

I've found it's pretty simple.  But the simplicity is confusing.  See, all you have to do is eat more. 

But the average hardgainer generally knows about when to quit.  As a general rule, I used to average about 2,000 calories a day.  I never gained weight.  

See, gaining strength and weight is not really about lifting weights.  You can spend a considerably shorter amount of time lifting weights than you do eating. 

Eating is a 3-4 time a day action.  You have to do this every single day. 

In comparison,

Yeah, 3 exercises a day.  And only 7 times in a month. Lifting is a considerably smaller amount of time.  Yet there are still obvious gains. 

My average weight in the last month has gone from 135 to 140. 

Granted, that's not a colossal gain.  But it's considerably better than what it used to be.  5 pounds in a month, and it only took an extra 1,000 calories a day. 

Essentially, eating is the primary thing you need to work on in order to solve your problems with gaining weight.  You don't need to spend more time in the gym.  You need to spend more time in the kitchen.

It's going to be uncomfortable eating all that food.  Sucking down another protein shake sucks.  You end up feeling bloated.  It's not fun.  But it's what you're going to have to do. 

Remember: 3-4 meals a day, and add another 1,000 calories a day.  My average went from 2,000 to 3,000.  And that resulted in a one month gain of 5 pounds. 

Thoughts

I read an article on Forbes a week or two ago about a person who was mad.  I don't remember what the title of the article was, but it was humorous.  It was one of the advice columns.  The writer complained they kept jumping into startups and then the startups sold.  The creator/owner made a killing while the employee didn't.  

What was more humorous was how the author declared that having these high profile jobs caused them to buy a horrendously expensive house due to California's expensive real estate market.

The part that bothered me most was the author/responder didn't tell the person a fundamental fact.  The person probably got caught up in the hoopla of the question.

The fundamental fact is this:

It is not your employers job to make you rich.

It is not your employers job to make you rich.

It is not your employers job to make you rich.

Do I need to say that again so that you hear it correctly and without question?

It is not your employers job to make you rich.

It is your job to make you rich.

Your employer agreed to pay you for the work you do.  You agreed to work for that price.  That is all.  If you want to be rich, then quit waiting for your employer to make you rich.

I'll go with a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but I've heard it attributed to many different people.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

If you want to be rich, start doing the things that will make you rich.

If you do not know how to be rich, go study people who are rich.

Quit waiting for someone else to make your future and go create your own.

observations

My wife had wisdom teeth removed on Thursday. I took a couple of days off from work to watch the kids.  During this period, I think I've made some strange but interesting observations.

I will start with a story or two.

I had one of my wisdom teeth removed in 2005, right after getting back from Iraq for the 2nd time.  It was part of that post deployment list of things you want fixed before you go off active duty.  I'd put wisdom teeth down at the end of the 1st tour. I budged at the point, just wanting to go home.

At the end of my second tour, I wouldn't budge on the tooth.  I have all four wisdom teeth, but only one didn't grow in properly.  There was a gap in between the tooth and the final set of molars.  I would have been messy down the road.  And I wanted it out.

Finally, the military capitulated and sent me over to the base dentist at Camp Pendleton.  Not much later, I was short one wisdom tooth.  I don't remember the instructions they gave me.  I just remember a couple of prescriptions and off I went.

11 years later, it's 2016.  My wife wants her wisdom teeth out.  Twenty minutes to numb the mouth, and twenty minutes to remove the two teeth and we're done.  We got our instructions and the prescription and we were out the door less than an hour after our appointment time.

My wife's family considers themselves medical experts.  They know everything there is to know about every single affliction.  On any given day, they will diagnose you with afflictions you have never heard of.  None of them are doctors, or even trained beyond basic medical care.  But they are medical experts.

They were very concerned with dry socket.  I have no idea what dry socket is.  It can happen after you get a tooth removed, I'm guessing.

Now here's the observation.  The medical professional who removed my wife's teeth didn't mention dry socket.  He didn't mention any specific issue.  He gave some simple instructions and sent us on our way.

Now this is the guy who has to treat the effects of mismanagement of the healing process in the mouth.  Everything I've heard from "experts" were not mentioned by the practicing professional. So the guy with the most experience and professional knowledge with didn't think it was important enough to mention this issue.

Only the amateurs were concerned with all these medical maladies.  The dentist had a success mindset.

My wife's family has a failure mindset.

The failure mindset finds every possible reason something can't succeed.  It point to specifics and tells good stories as to why something will fail.

Let me reiterate: the medical professional didn't think it was important.
The medical professional went to school to become a dentist.  He passed dental school.  He has been a practicing dentist in a dental practice for years.  He was asked to consult with one of the other dentists on the diagnosis while we were waiting for my wife's mouth to numb.  So at the very least the other professional dentists in the practice believed he was competent.  He didn't mention anything about failure.

How is it that the amateurs are often aware of every possible method of failure, but the professionals don't even contemplate how something can fail?

It's pretty simple.  The professional is aware of failure.  But the professional is also better aware of the likelihood of failure.  And he didn't feel the likelihood of failure was high enough to even bother mentioning.

It leads me to this idea: when starting something new, gather information.  But only enough to get started.  Because the more information you gather, the stupider and less likely you are to actually perform.

Breakfast thoughts

As a person who is chronically scrawny, I find the weight gain segment of the market heavily under served.  Though the solutions to both weight loss and weight gain are simple, it seems like ten thousand books have been written on weight loss, and only 1 or 2 on weight gain.  I guess people see it as a non-problem.

I've been reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  It's quite an interesting jaunt into the world of the highly improbable.  I've made it through chapter 5, and I'm beginning to agree with most of what he has written.  I'm guessing it's very easy to underestimate the importance of things the can scale.

The thought I had while sitting in church was fairly simple.  Maybe it's the one I should be paying attention to.

Are you working on a solution that scales?  If it doesn't, stop.  

Scaling is the only hope of financial explosion. 

Which, that fits correctly with everything else I've read.  It ties in nicely with Robert Kyosaki, and countless others.  The problem is a simple one: the employer only gets paid for the work they do.  If you want to get paid more, you have to put in more time.

The entrepreneur creates one thing that can be sold to many people.  The thing is created once, and then you sell it for as many as you can possibly make money on.  Because of scaling, your idea went from one to millions in a short period.  Your financial situation was thrown for a loop.  Why?  Because you realized a profit on your idea that scaled.

Anyways... the day is calling.

Time to go think of things that scale.

 

A New Beginning

It’s a new year and a new beginning.  What could I say about it? 

I’m not sure.  Because my current blogging status is based off whim, I really haven’t had anything to say.  Or at least I don’t think I have.  The problem with operating by whim is you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what you are going to say.  It’s time spent waiting for inspiration to show up.

Which is exactly opposite of what I normally teach. 

So maybe the answer is I should start talking about the complications and problems associated with trying to get something started.  But then, most of those are mental.  And the answer is “quit procrastinating” and do something.

It’s really that simple.

Whenever you get the idea, start then.  Don’t wait until the beginning of the week.  Start right then. 

Hopefully, you’ll get a small victory before the grind sets in and it becomes a lot like work. 

And if it doesn’t, happy grinding. 

The normal answer

I've been working like a crazy man the last couple of weeks.  Putting in hours the normal individual wouldn't consider sane.  But it's done.  Or at least at a temporary standstill. I started writing an article about the time spent.  It wasn't worth a shit.  I haven't moved on.

I started writing, and it seemed like a good thing.  Then I realized I sounded like a whiny little bum.

Too much "oh poor me".

And another part of me started speaking up.

"What would haji do?"  Do they care that you haven't slept in 36 hours?  Are you still sane?

When your friends die, what's your excuse?  Did you do your best, or did you roll over like a little bum?

What could you have done?  Why are you living a life of regret?  Grab the wheel and force the ship in the direction you want it to go.  Damn the torpedoes.

Quit making excuses.  Grab the wheel.  Put your back in to it.

And if it isn't moving, start kicking it.  Kick until it moves.  Make it move.

"Does haji care you had a bad day?"

"Does haji care you haven't slept?"

Move the damn wheel.

Make it move.

Haji will kill you and not think twice.  He will drop a bomb on your day and completely fuck your world.

Adapt.  Improvise.  Overcome.

Don't let that asshole keep you from your goals.

Don't be an excuse.   Be an answer.





Dedicated to 3/4 and 3/5.  The assholes that saved my ass in a firefight.  Because when I was weak, they were strong.

Ooh rah.