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. 

Not for you

I've come to the realization that most of the things I see are not for me.  It's a sad situation where the advertisements just simply aren't what I need or want. 

See, I'm a scrawny white male.  I'm not trying to lose weight.  I'm in relatively decent shape.  I'm not really into the "lose 10 pounds quick" and go with the flavor of the month HIIT workout.  I've done enough of that.  Practical strength type stuff.  Except there's no comparison and no feeling of going anywhere.  No progress.  I can't look at a number and see any improvement. 

Is this thing going to improve me?  What are my starting metrics?  What about ending metrics?

See, being a hard gainer is something that alienates you from the rest of the world.  Take a look at the most recent information from MyFitnessPal.  Which is basically a site for fat people trying to get skinny.

Not for skinny people trying to gain weight.

"Healthy" always means lose weight.  "Unhealthy" always means gaining weight.  And that's wrong.

Why is it that every time I gain weight (which is my goal) the system tells me nothing?
Why does the system declare how great it is when I lose 2 pounds since my last weigh in?  When you are trying to gain weight, a movement in the scale downwards is a failure.

And the system asks "are you trying to lose or gain weight"?

Maybe the submit feedback thing will actually work and cause MyFitnessPal to fix their system.

I think I'll finish with something I heard from Jocko Willink.

Don't count on motivation.  Count on discipline.

The inability to count

People I know...  I'm not naming names...

They don't seem to be able to count.  Simple math kind of count.  The electricity or water gets cut off every other month.  Some sort of crisis is always happening in that household.  And the funny thing... several years ago, I thought they were doing awesome. 

I know it's strange.  But 6 years ago, I knew several families like that.  All of them seemed to be going somewhere.  Everything was just awesome, and the world was rocking along great.  It was 2010, and the world was wonderful. 

Now, we're entering 2017 and I wonder what happened to those families.  I know what I did.  I started making a budget and following the thing.  It doesn't help if you make a budget and don't follow it.  I got my wife on board, and we look at the budget regularly.  We adjust as needed.  She tells me she needs things and I try to fit it into the budget.  We discuss everything.  The budget makes that possible. 

The other families?  They lurch from chaos to chaos, barely surviving what are normal and expected rocks of the ship.  See, emergencies happen.  So they aren't really emergencies.  Those "catastrophes" are normal occurrences.  You just have to plan for them.  And a stack of cash helps.  It's not a lot of cash.  Just $1000.  But that's a life changer.  It's just enough cushion to keep the big bad from beating down the from door.

But the people I know... they get payday loans. 

Six months ago, they said "payday loans are the devil". 

I guess that's the biggest trick of the devil.  He convinced the world he doesn't exist.

But then there is another side of the coin.  The part I don't understand.  I don't have to.  I just have to believe.  And I do.

See, I started going to church six years ago.  And it was a church that preached the new testament, and told me what the Bible said.  It wasn't about what someone thought.  You had to argue against the Bible.  Not against some random person.  Not against the thoughts of the world.  Against the word of God.  And there's a lot of parts in there that don't make a bit of sense to me.  But those parts are the ones that are the most important. 

As I heard someone say once... If you hear someone say "It doesn't make any sense" then that person has an invalid perspective of the world.  The world always makes sense.  It's not the world that doesn't make sense.  It's our view of the world. 

Now, the average person would tell me that the budget made all the difference.  But I know going to church and doing what the Bible said had an effect.  "Have faith and believe" it said.  I did.  That's all that was asked for. 

See, you really need to read the new testament.  It's a hard book to read.  Not for the words.  The words.  The words are easy.  They concepts are hard.  It's filled with a lot of differing and complicated stuff.  I don't pretend to be the greatest scholar of the Bible in the world.  What I do know is the main portion is so stupidly simple it's hard.  "Have faith in the living God and his son Jesus.".  That's the main thing.  

Because a lot of what people teach is flat out wrong.  Or at least contradicted by other parts of the new testament.  And if we're getting into a Paul vs Jesus interpretation, I'm taking Jesus any day of the week.  I think Paul is the problem with a lot of Christianity.  But that's an argument for another time.

I guess the biggest thing I want to leave with is this: Jesus is knowable.  I'm not saying you are going to understand it all.  But he is knowable.  And it's worth knowing him.

Still not believing (in global warming)

I don't believe in global warming.   My argument is pretty simple.  I haven't heard anything that points out otherwise.   I haven't actively searched, either.

Simple argument is thus: quantifiable inputs to global warming follow an exponential growth curve, not a linear growth curve.  I think I'm getting my wording right here.  The point is best illustrated by a finance joke.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet walk into a bar.  The average net worth in the bar goes to $30 billion.

Not much of a joke, but it illustrates the Pareto principle pretty good.  Let me add another couple of lines.

In one corner, a man is losing his entire net worth gambling on a horse race.  By the end of the race, the man will have lost $500,000 dollars of his net worth and he will be homeless.  The average net worth in the room will be completely unaffected.

In another corner, a woman has won the lottery.  She just won $5 million dollars.  The average net worth in the room will be completely unaffected.

Now.  Let's go re-examine that story.  It well illustrates the power of exponential growth curves to destroy averages.  That doesn't mean those lives weren't affected in the gain and loss.  It just means the average is unaffected.

Now, lets apply the idea to pollution.  Of all the polluters in the world, 20% of the polluters produce 80% of the pollution.  It's the same concept as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.  Let me give you an example.

A household is told to reduce their pollution by turning the AC up 5 degrees in summer.  That will "solve" global warming.  Compare then a TV studio and audience.  That building uses energy at a greater rate.  Given common electricity usage rates, that TV studio probably has monthly electrical bill of $3,000.   The house has a monthly electrical bill of $100.   I'm guessing on both of those.  So one studio is the equivalent of 30 houses.

The other part of the equation is the house has a higher use rate than that TV studio.  The TV studio probably runs about 10 hours a day at high capacity.  Lets say 70% occupation.  The rest of the day, it runs closer to 10% occupation.  It is either empty, or has very few people.  The house is a study in contrasts.  It runs at 0% occupation for 8 hours, and 60% occupation for the other 16 hours of the day.

Which building is better capable of reducing electrical usage?  The TV studio.  The changes in that single building would easily dwarf the changes to 30 houses.

Now, the second part of this is in the implementation allowance.  Or should I call it the "put your money where your mouth is" tax?  The people most likely to declare the need for changes regarding global warming are, by a high percentage, unwilling to make meaningful prolonged change.  Despite everything, that person wants to continue their lifestyle while you cramp yours.

Let's look at this another way.  How many large metropolitan areas have city ordinances against windmills and solar panels?   Why?  Because solar panels are reflective and remove the picture postcard view of the city.  It narrows down to the "not in my back yard" problem.  So people want you to change, but won't change themselves.  If you are that adamant about something, you'd do it first. 

I think I've covered that section pretty well.  Next...

The next part is one that drives me up the wall.  It really does.  It's the lack of a failure state in global warming. The lack of a failure state is invalid in most events.  There is a failure state built into all weather forecasting models.  That's why you get a percentage of a chance of rain.  That's why forecasts longer than five days are negatively correlated.

In global warming, there is no failure state.  If the weather gets colder, it's global warming.  If the weather gets hotter, it's global warming.  If the weather stays the same, it's global warming.

There is no condition where the global warming crowd is ever wrong.  Except when they are.

Anyone remember acid rain?

I remember acid rain.  It was the rain the was going to fall and burn our faces off.  I was a kid, and had assumptions about what acid did.  Mostly the horrible, horrible kinds of acid that destroyed things badly.  You can still see such idea propagated to movies.  And when you hear it, it causes you to stop.

Because there never was any acid rain.

But the people who declared there was going to be acid rain suddenly changed their position when it didn't happen.  Amazing how that happens. And it was like they never preached to the choir about acid rain.  It just quickly disappeared.  And then suddenly global warming is here.  And then global cooling.  And then global weirding.

Yeah.  There is no failure state.  There is no point where these scientists sit back and declare "yup, I'm wrong".   Everything has a failure state.  Everything.

The third part of all of this is the lobbyists.  Yes, the lobbyists come into play.  But not the science ones.  No, these are the lobbyists from the power company.   Why would the power company have lobbyists?  Simple: remember that 80/20 rule discussed earlier?  Who's the 20% doing 80% of the damage?  The power company.   Who's the 20% that is likely to suffer the most from individuals generating their own power?  The power company. The power company builds its business model off of monopoly.  It's not designed to compete.   It's designed for winner take all, and loser becomes illegal. 

There was a point when that was required.  But I think we're beyond that point.  There will probably still be the need for a public utility company.  But that company needs to have to compete with private individuals in order to become more efficient.  There is no need for the power company to innovate due to the nature of their monopoly.  And they will protect that monopoly to the best of their ability for as long as they can. 

And the thought of individuals living off the public grid is something that does not appeal to them. 

So what would it take to generate an off the grid solution?  You'd need some sort of solution or a partial solution.  And an electrician.  The solution would probably be a one box solution.  And you need an electrician to safely wire the thing into your house.  There's a giant boom for the electricians and a major loss for the electric company. 

I wonder what the lifetime loss is of one person leaving the grid?  What about 1% of the population?  I'm guessing its astronomically huge. 

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.