Favorite Protein Shake Recipe

I have engaged in a lot of mad science-y stuff in the pursuit of physical fitness. After much trial and error this is the recipe I’ve hit on for a Whey Protein shake that doesn’t make me gag.

The Recipe:

1 Scoop Optimum Gold Standard Whey
1 Tablespoon of Peanut Butter
2/3 Cup Trader Joe’s Frozen Strawberries
8 oz of cold water

Add 1 Scoop of Whey Protein to the cold water, blend for a couple seconds, add tablespoon of peanut butter, and blend for a couple seconds, and then add in the Frozen Strawberries until you get a smoothie like consistency.

Twitt

I Just Did It … Or … How I Lost 100 Pounds in a Year

Before and After….

image

(On the left, Me and Bertie Higgins in 2006. On the right Me and Bertie Higgins in 2012)

By Larry Madill

Since Fall 2012 people — some close friends, others perfect strangers, and more still those that just fall somewhere in between — have been asking me, How did you do it? How did you lose so much weight in a year? What’s your secret? My shrugging response has always been, “I just did it.” I would love to claim I was being purposefully vague in order to create an air of mystery around me but the truth? The hard truth? The real truth?

I just did it. I just made a decision, acted on that decision, and lost at least 85 pounds (and I suspect it might’ve been close to 100) in the span of less than a year.

C’MON! I can hear you cry in disbelief. I saw on Doctor Oz where if you take two teaspoons of cinnamon  while standing on one foot you can lose ten pounds in two weeks, that’s how you did it right? Nope. Its that new diet where you only eat a fistful of chicken breast and two handfuls of kale every day, right? Nope. You no carbed! Nope! You carb loaded! Nope. 

The honest to god truth is, I just did it. No tricks. No gimmicks. No outlandish diets.. I just did it. I worked out and I ate healthier. But for those who want a bit more than my typical taciturn answers this is how I did it.

I just did it. Okay, that time I was just screwing with you.

The Decision …

Somewhere at the tail end of 2011 I looked in the mirror and said, This is not who I want to be. This is not who I am. This has got to change. I wish I could be less cliché and say I came to this realization for selfless meditation, but that would be a lie. I came to this realization after the disastrous end to a relationship that started in Heaven and crashed into Hell. I fucked up. She fucked up. We all fucked up. We broke up. 

I ended up back in Los Angeles,Christmas 2011, staring in my roommate’s mirror asking, What happened to you? How did you become this … blob person?

My weight had nothing to do with the disintegration of that relationship really; other issues did (my other blog post in ten years from now). However, from a certain point of view, that isn’t entirely true. When you are obese, like ridiculously fat, you’re self-esteem is gone and your self-respect is non-existent. When you happen to luck into someone who doesn’t mind seeing you naked you tend to latch on and hold on for dear life.

I just realized I am tempering myself by taking the Is and changing them to Yous. This is what I did, and because I had zero self-esteem and zero self-respect I tolerated stuff during that relationship that I shouldn’t have because I honestly felt, welp, this is the best you can ever do, fat-ass, got to live with it. Until I couldn’t tolerate it anymore and I was out of there… 

… And back in Los Angeles, looking in that mirror, saying, Who am I? And more importantly, Who do you want to be? I knew that I didn’t want to be what I was anymore.  Did I look at GQ Magazine, see a picture of Brad Pitt, and say, I want to look like that? No. I did not want to look like anyone in particular. I just wanted to be better and be happier. 

The Action … 

I was fortunate in a few ways that I was never a great stranger to exercise. I had been exercising in fits and stops since 17. I knew that my problems were result of two things: terrible eating habits and a lack of movement. So I said to myself, after Christmas 2011, time to start moving, and time to clean up that diet and start eating like your 30 and not 16. 

The exercise was the easy part. I had, a couple years past, bought a copy of Power 90. Old school, pre-P90X, short shorts Tony Horton, Power 90. My original goal was to do P90X, but I knew enough about fitness to know that a 290 frame and an Extreme, hour long fitness program is a cocktail for injury and failure. So I started with Power 90. Every day, six days a week, alternating between Circuit Training and Cardio. I stretched a 90 Day Bootcamp program into a 120 day bootcamp program. And I was sore almost every day for the first 30 days, and I was tired, and I got tendonitis in one ankle, and I stopped and I started, and I could barely get through five push-ups. But I kept doing it, I kept pushing play and every day I got a little bit better, and a little bit stronger, and a little bit thinner. 

When Summer of 2012 rolled around I had graduated to P90X. By then I had dropped from 285 to 228 and Power 90 had really ceased to be much of a challenge. P90X kicked my ass around the block for three weeks just like Power 90 used to, and I was sore, and I hurt, and I was tired, and I didn’t want to get up at 5AM to do Back & Biceps so I could make a 7AM crew call, but I just kept doing it. I kept pushing play and I kept getting stronger and better and thinner.

In Fall of 2012 I went from P90X to Insanity, and guess what happened? I was sore and I was tired and I was tired, but I kept pushing play and kept doing it. And I got better and stronger and faster.

By the end of 2012 I was around 215. Around because eventually the number on the scale ceased to matter. The things that mattered were things like I could go into a store with the reasonable expectation of finding clothes that fit, I could run a 5K in twenty minutes. I was healthier. I was better. That’s what matters.

AH-HA! P90X that is how you did it! I guess, if you want to be simple and reductionist. I love P90X and Insanity and a lot of Beachbody’s programs because they are toolkits. Inside those boxes is the basic structure of how to live a happy and healthier life. Personally, I need a bit of structure, and using P90X as that super-structure works for me. Do you need P90X to lose weight? No. It is useful. But P90X is not a magic bullet. There are no magic bullets.

People always ask me about the This Diet or the That Diet, and what I think of the This Diet or the That Diet, and I tell them there are no magic bullets. Diets don’t work. What works? Affirmative decisions to eat better. More veggies. More lean proteins. More fruits. Good supplements like Shakeology and whey proteins and quality multivitamins. Cut out the tasty poisons — the Coke-a-Cola with the high fructose corn syrup, the Milk Ways with the unpronounceable ingredients, the Burger King pink slime whoppers — that are killing you. Cook for yourself and don’t let the restaurant industry shove whatever high calorie concoction they’ve dreamt up in a test kitchen in your mouth. Eat better and count your calories. That’s all you need to do. It is all pretty simple stuff. I know, because I did it.

People don’t listen though. They just walk away talking about the This Diet or the That Diet, insisting that that Magic Bullet is out there, somewhere.

Everyone thinks I’ve got a secret. What I think they are really asking me is, “How did you stick with it?” And, again, I just did. 

Why? Not because I wanted to look like Brad Pitt. If you approach weight loss and healthier living with the attitude of, “I want to look like BLANK” or “I want to have six pack abs.” just don’t bother. Your goals probably aren’t realistic outside of genetic engineering and persistent air brushing so why even bother?

I stuck with it, and continue to stick with it, because I wanted to be better. I wanted to feel better. I wanted to feel healthier. I wanted to do things I couldn’t do before. All in all I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to be the best person I could be, and to do that I had to fight through a lot of pain and pass up a lot of desserts. Was it worth it? Yes. I would never trade what I have now for all the desserts at the Cheesecake Factory.

So there is the long answer. I personally prefer my short answer, I just did it. You can do it too. Make a choice today and say, I want to be better than I am, then … just go do it.

Twitt

If I Was a White Guy Who Wrote for Forbes

Gene Marks wrote an excellent column yesterday about what he’d do if he was a poor black kid.

“I am not a poor black kid,” he wrote. “I am a middle aged white guy from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me.”

He’s right. He is really white. He’s so white that in a head to head competition with vanilla, vanilla lost to Gene Marks. Next to Gene Marks egg shell white looks so black that people would lock their doors and call the cops whenever they saw a can of it at the Home Depot.   He’s so white that it is hard to find an adequate comparison to things that are whiter to continue cracking these, “He’s so white … ” one liners. 

Gene Mark’s column got me thinking. I am no smarter than Gene Marks. I am probably not a better writer than Gene Marks. I mean, it takes a lifetime of honing your craft to replicate the exact same writing style you used in 8th Grade to write, “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” for a two page Forbes column. The ascendancy of Gene Marks as auteur voice of generation does not mean, however,  that there are no opportunities left for writers like me. I don’t believe that. In 2011.

And I am going to occasionally pepper this column with ‘in 2011’. In 2011. Because you bitches need remember that this is 2011. In 2011. Sure, 2012 is coming in less than three weeks, but right now it is 2011. In 2011. You may want to forget about 2011. Write 2011 off as that cheap one night stand you picked up at 3 in the morning after you drank that bottle of tequila. In 2011. Bury 2011 like that hooker you picked up in Long Island. In 2011. Tell 2011 ‘Hey babe, it’s not you, it’s me.” In 2011. But, nay dear reader, you need to look into the eyes of 2011 and remember, it’s 2011. In 2011. 

Where was I? Oh right.

Gene Marks column got me thinking. Just because he can write insipid drivel for Forbes does not mean that I cannot. The dream is not dead. You, me, that hobo on down on the street corner can all write for Forbes. I believe that. In 2011. 

It takes a seeping, quiet desperation. It takes the will to say, Yes, I am bald but instead of shaving my head I am going to pretend that my hair will return to the crown of my head just like that ex-girlfriend who dumped me in college for a freshman year Tim Tebow. It takes very little talent. And a giant disregard for the English language. It takes the ability and know how to make simplistic comparisons between your life and the life of people you’ve never met. Except like once. As a person who has made a career out of making simplistic comparisons to people I’ve never met, except like once or twice, I know this.

If I was a middle aged white guy who wrote for Forbes I would first and most importantly (because not everything that is first is important) make sure I held onto my job. I would make it my number #1 priority. I wouldn’t care if I was a columnist at the worst financial magazine / website / BDSM Dating Site for Steve Forbes in Upper Manhattan. Even the worst lack standards. Keeping my job is key to having money. And let’s face it if I can’t hack it as a columnist for Forbes who else would I work for? You get fired from Forbes and your options suddenly decrease. I’d have to go write for WorldnetDaily. Or maybe start my own survivalist blog about what to do when all those poor black kids who read Forbes.com get mad at me and decide to eat soup from my skull. Not saying that is going to happen. But hey you can never be too prepared for the day when someone of another race tries to eat soup from your skull.

And I would use the technology available to me as an employee of Forbes.com. I would use it to beat off to internet porn. Lots of internet porn. I know a few writers at Forbes and they tell me that they usually have or can afford cheap internet porn these days. That’s because (and insert adverb here) it’s oftentimes necessary to beat off to internet porn at home and in the office, because being a middle aged writer employed by Forbes.com isn’t exactly wowing the ladies. 

If I was a middle aged white guy who wrote for Forbes I’d use free porn too. I’d become a porn scholar. I’d visit sites like YouPorn and Fantsti.cc for my amateur lesbian fix. I’d go to Xhamster for the really nasty stuff, like fisting videos. And every so often, on those drunken Tuesday nights, I’d click the “gay” option. Just to see. You know. OH! Like you’ve never thought about it.

I’d watch so much porn if I wrote for Forbes. I could list like a dozen websites of all the porn I’d watch if I worked for Forbes. And they wouldn’t know. Suckers. 

Is this easy? To sit around and watch porn all day when I should be writing at a 8th grade level? No. It’s not. It’s hard, like ‘Hullo Ladies!” hard. And eventually I guess I’d have to write something because I need to keep this job to feed my ever growing internet porn addiction.

If I were a middle aged white guy who wrote for Forbes I’d think about poor little black kids, because that is not weird or creepy or wrong at all. I’d say to myself, what would I do if I was a poor little black kid? I know. Basketball. They used to make fun when I tried to play basketball when I was twelve. Said I was too short and called me Bilbo. Well, that wouldn’t happen this time. Because I would be black and good at basketball. 

Poor black kids still like basketball right? Or is that more of a Mexican thing now? Wait, what if I was a Poor Mexican Kid. Next column. Hint: I would sell tacos from a cart.

If I were a middle aged white guy who wrote for Forbes I’d tell those poor black kids what to do and how to get their lives in shape. Even the ones that weren’t good at basketball. I’d totally ignore their circumstances, their family life, their failing schools, and their drug infested ghettos. I’d tell them to go buy a computer even though their Parents barely have money to pay the rent and use food stamps to pay for food every month. Go out and blow that money on a computer and an internet connection. Because when you have a computer and an internet connection magic happens in America. You can be whatever want to be, especially in AOL Chatrooms. 

If I were a middle aged white guy who wrote for Forbes I’d be proud of myself for discoursing on all the problems of other people and offering them totally impractical and simplistic advice. I know all those poor black kids appreciate it. They’d be totally lost without a middle aged white guy at Forbes telling them stuff like “Get good grades” and “Use the internet”. 

I know technology can help these kids. I mean, look at me, technology has been great! I’ve got a Macbook Pro and an iPad and an iPhone. I can literally watch internet porn anywhere. Who needs chicks? I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one! Yeah, see that’s a song you poor black kids like. I’m down homey. We should rap sometime. This middle aged writer who works for Forbes “feels you”.

And, then, as I was handing in my column to my editor I’d think to myself, well, what if these poor black kids don’t read my column and take my awesome advice? What if they can’t buy a computer or get a decent internet connection? What if their home life is such a disaster that they can barely get to school every day? What if their neighborhoods have been so ravaged by crime and the war on drugs that their section of America is a literal war zone? What if their Parents can’t find a job because a Republican President that my magazine shilled for for eight years sank the entire economy into a depression right before leaving office? What if those poor black kids are going to bed hungry every night because a GOP lead House of Representatives is attempting to shred the last remnant of the social safety net that keeps a roof over their heads and food in their stomach?

What if life wasn’t as simple as I’d envisioned it? 

Fuck it. If i was a middle aged white guy who wrote for Forbes I’d say fuck it. Those poor black kids aren’t really my problem. Then I’d go back to my office, shut the door, and sink into my desperate life of simple solutions and made up reality.

Which is why I’m not a middle aged white guy who writes for Forbes

Twitt

How Not To Be a Genius

I recently found a ghost lurking in the bowels of my 2011 Macbook Pro. Since installing OS X Lion 10.7.2 and all the accompanying updates that rolled out with iCloud the subwoofer built into my MBP would cut out randomly. Everything (videos, music, alert tones) would get extremely tinny and have zero bass.

I fiddled with my sound settings to no avail. I blew out the headphone jack with C-Gas in case dust was causing my Macbook to switch into the wrong mode to no avail. I even packed up my Macbook Pro and took it to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store. Alas, this Genius didn’t know what compressed air was, or that the Macbook Pro had a subwoofer, and even if she had been up on this late breaking news I couldn’t replicate the bug in a noisy store. I was sent home.

The ghost was still in the machine, haunting my subwoofer and taking away my bass whenever it pleased. Until i brute forced a fix:

Step 1. Repair Your Disk Permissions

If you installed OS X Lion as an upgrade to Snow Leopard I will almost guarantee you you have some broken permissions. What are permissions? I have no clue but they’re broken so lets fix ‘em.

Go to Finder —> Applications —-> Utilities 

In the Utilities folder you will find a Disk Utility tool. Click Verify Permissions, and then repair permissions to fix any broken permissions. 

This should take about 10 minutes or so.

Step 2. Drain your Macbook battery to zero

You should be doing this on a regular basis anyway. Throw on a a couple movies, turn up the brightness on your screen, and run a dozen apps on another desktop space. Your battery will be dead in two hours easy.

Step 3. Reset Your SMC 

  1. Shut down the computer.
  2. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
  3. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
  4. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
  5. Press the power button to turn on the computer.  

Step 4. Zap your PRAM

  1. Shut down the computer.
  2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
  3. Turn on the computer.
  4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
  5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
  6. Release the keys.

And just like that you have slain the ghost and have a consistently working Subwoofer again.

Twitt

Explaining the Debt Ceiling to Tea Partiers

It appears that members of the Tea Party really don’t understand what the debt ceiling is or why it has to be raised. So I am going to break it down for all you Tea Party Republicans in a way you can all understand. 

Let’s say, this is you:

And this is your wife:

And this is the trailer park where you live:

And this is your car:

And let’s say that one day you decide not to pay the rent on your trailer. You can pay the rent on that lovely double wide, you just decide not to… You know what happens? 

And you decide not to pay the loan on your Camaro because you just don’t want to. You know what happens?

So America has to raise the debt ceiling otherwise we can’t pay for our Camaro or the rent on our Trailer at the Trailer Park.

So you understand now?

Twitt

Some Thoughts on Employment from an Unemployed

I’ve been either marginally employed or unemployed going on four years now. Before that I worked largely for myself as a freelance writer (this was a time before Huffington Post turned the art of writing into a content model where no one gets paid to write) or cog in the machine of the film industry. 

I have a fairly respectable resume … that when presented to your Average American Small Business Owner provokes a sort of odd befuddlement. Because I spent the bulk of my twenties working for myself most business owners tend to think this mean I have never worked at all.

It’s a misperception that has gotten worse with time and the economy. Thinking about this led me to think about the larger problems of unemployment in this country. I don’t think we have an unemployment problem. I think we’ve got an employer problem.

Before the economy crashed landed on the LOST Island known as the Great Recession getting a job anywhere (or getting a contract for a freelance project) was a hit or miss process of multiple interviews and hoop jumping.

There were always the high maintenance ass clowns on Craig’s List that would demand a freelance writer that knew Final Cut Pro, HTML and Flash, and had a Master’s Degree for a job that essentially paid $10 an hour. There were the Craig’s List Creepsters that demanded nearly nude body pics accompany an application for a bartender position.

But back in the Good Ole Days of 2004 the Demanders and the Creepsters were the oddball minority. Now? They’re everyone. Being unemployed in the Great Recession makes you a piece of meat in a buyer’s bazaar crossed with a King’s Fool always at risk of losing his head.

The American Employer, particular the “Average Small Business Owner”, who we are constantly reminded are the “backbone” or the “heart and soul” of the American Economy, has reduced his hiring practices to gladiatorial farce. And when the farce is refused them, they simply refuse to hire. 

Take a for instance. I was recently contacted by One World Fitness about the possibility of rewriting there Employee Handbook. Temporary, contract position. A fairly simple job really; the kind of writing job that entails putting a more poetic spin on, “Don’t be rude to customers, don’t steal, and don’t wipe your ass on the drapes.”

When I got a response back, One World Fitness didn’t want a writing sample, or an example of how I’d rewrite there current Employee Handbook. Nope. What they wanted was for me to drive forty five minutes and stop by for an aptitude test, a personality test, and an IQ test. 

I was flummoxed. Did I apply for a temporary writing job or sign up for Scientology? No, I’m not going to be a contestant on your private Reality T.V. Show. Screw off. They might have found some Harvard Grad desperate to participate in there version of America’s Next Top Handbook Writer, but if they didn’t I am sure the owner is moaning about how he’d like to hire people and how he just can’t find the right person. 

Another example from the other side of the world. The world of service. An add I saw on Craig’s List D.C. this Sunday for a Bartender position. It’s not exactly hard to find shocking ads that routinely violate U.S. labor law, but this one took the cake for being deeply misanthropic:

Server and Bartenders needed. Immediate openings (Dupont)

Small restaurant looking for team oriented individuals.
DO NOT reply if you
1.) do not like to have fun
2.) do not like to work with others
3.) sat in the school cafeteria with “friends” that were either
imaginary or action figures.
4.) people have told you about your dandruff problem, but you are “above it”
5.) the only common ground you have with the rest of the world is a
love of World of Warcraft or Family Guy
6.) think Menu Knowledge is for losers
7.) Always have the best solution for every problem.’

When I read this I felt I was reading the musings of someone who probably shouldn’t be serving food or alcohol to anyone (outside of perhaps Orcs) and who had most definitely peaked in high school, and yet they too probably bemoan the lack of quality applications and available hires.

All this and more has led me to believe that our current unemployment woes stem not from economic “uncertainty” but from shoddy H.R. Practices and simply ridiculous demands placed by those doing the hiring. 

If American Small business is in fact the heart and soul of the U.S. economy, these past four years tell me that our heart is rotten and our soul is poor.


Twitt

The Peep Martini Recipe

Just in time for Easter I give you my Peep Martini:

2 OZ of Grey Goose Vodka

1/2 OZ of SexyCat Liqueur

Splash of Cranberry juice

Chill a Martini glass. Combine ice, 2 oz of Grey Goose Vodka, 1/2 oz of SexyCat Liqueur, and a splash of Cranberry juice in a shaker. Swirl and strain into Martini Glass. Garnish with chocolate sliver.

Bottoms up. Happy Easter!

 

Twitt