October Update: I Lost Five Whole Pounds in One Calendar Year!
Part 1 of 2
October 3rd, 2024
Hello, my darlings! Have you missed me?
Welcome back! On this seaon of The Life and Times of the Goodhearted Criminal Cosmic Queer Next Door we find Martin, our main protagonist--and antagonist only to himself--on a new set of adventures, as he journeys toward his new accumulation of karmic wisdoms. Watch as he navigates his path, evading the agendas of a new set of foes. He discovers new powers within himself, and he embarks on a new set of endeavors. This season has in store a plethora of Universal trials to see if he can really stand up to become who he believes he is meant to be. Will he perservere? Will he prevail? Will he overcome his own shadow in order to transcend to the next level of his evolution? Stay tuned to find out! But for now? Wine.
You guessed it, your boy is still an alcoholic...
Just kidding. Actually, I've been doing very well for myself in beginning to let that behavior slowly, yet steadily, fade away. Will I continue to enjoy wine and the Lord's good grass in the form of a gumdrop for an indefinite amount of time? Yes. But that brings me to a perfect segue. In order to tell you about my current situation, I must go back in time to tell you about when I got charged with an OWI back in 2022.
Before we get there, let's take a moment for me to gloat about losing five pounds in a year! Omg, I must have worked so hard.
If you haven't noticed. I often drop the back double biceps pose as my hook because my back is currently one of my strongest assets as this point in my bodybuilding journey. It may be difficult to believe, but there is only a difference of a five pound weightloss between the two photos. One year. 367 days in between, to be exact. All I have to answer for myself are five pounds. I guess, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.
Here, you can see a significant reduction in body fat. There's lean mass growth at the shoulders, arms, traps, and lats. My glutes and hamstrings are firmer and maybe a tiny bit more plump. You can see my (growing and more defined) quads peeking out from the sides. I want to make note that I actually got bullied in high school for having a flat ass. More on this later.
This front facing photo is quite honestly my kryptonite. I hate the way my body looks when I don't have clothing or flexing to hide behind. I've been cursed in this lifetime with the perfect genetic conditions to harbor man boobs! I was also definitely bullied for this growing up as well as the majority of my life. Part of my maturing has been taking ownership of the karmic hand I've been dealt. My life will continue the same until either the Universe or I decide to implement change. Yes, the only constant in life is change, but that doesn't mean you're going to suddenly wake up on morning with a brand new dream house overnight. I was ready for this change.
As you can see, the body recomposition process goes hard, but damn, it goes slow. Most notably, a significant sheath of belly fat has gone. Pectoral fat has reduced and the skin has shrunken a bit, lifting the nipples higher. This givers the effect of a flatter chest, although if you look closely enough you can see some dimension building in the upper chest growing outward. I'll discuss this more with the profile comparison photo. As I have also built mass on the shoulders at the same time as shrinking the side boob fat--technical, I know--I now, have the effect of more squared of shoulders which will over time contribute to a tapered waste--the ratio of the width of the shoulders across down to the width of the hips across at the belt line.
Part of the necessity for me to take a slower approach to weight loss has been so that I have enough calories in order to build muscle, but to be in enough of a caloric deficit to aid in burning fat. In addition to this reasoning, I have also needed to lose fat slowly enough in order for my skin to have enough time to shrink in line with my fat loss. To the best of my ability, I really want to avoid having excess skin when I begin to approach my goal body fat percentages. The final part of why I've taken so long in trimming down is that I enjoy getting to eat as much as I do. From a self-analysis standpoint, I would guess that I have an above average appetite. My appetite has served me in my lean muscle gains over the last year, but I think I may have leaned into the higher calories just a bit too much.
This photo is rather exciting to me!I will first acknowledge that i didn't begin to take half naked (side) profile photos until the end of October 2023. This photo, as a result, is only about an eleven month transfomation. Nonetheless, there are some tangible differences. First, I want to draw attention to my posture. Without any change in the pelvic tilt, I'm simply standing taller. The curve in my lumbar spine is a little more pronounced. I attribute this to both fat reduction at the lower back but also to a stronger spine. Perhaps this due at a small amount to a slightly different camera angel, but I find that is mostly unintelligable.
To comment on my tits (gymspeak), I would actually say that from the profile, they look bigger in the after photo! If you look toward the top, there is more density building outward from the spine. My dumbbell bench pressing is really paying off. Around the same area, I want to draw attention to my back. You can see both development in the trapezius muscles and also the lattisumus dorsi. The thing I really appreciate about my lats and traps gains are the fact that it's a large growth in density. To complement my good pectoralis growth, I am denser from front to back at the chest and upper back. A good kind of bigger!
As you see both my lower back and abdomen slimming down, I want to draw attention to my glutes. The peach. Peep those booty gains! There is absolutely more to grab a hold of, and I love that for myself! I would also like to mention that although the view is slightly obstructed by the placement of my hands. I also think there's some density gaining from front to back of my legs. I mean to say that both my quads and hams are bigger. Yay me!
I am glad to say that I've been a bodybuilder for all of my thirties, even though I only just turned 31 on September 22, 2024. Check out this picture of me on the last day of 30 years old.
Here I'm at Wilson's Orchard in Iowa City spending the day with my boyfriend of five years, Brent. You can see I'm feeling joyful taking in the weather, setting, and company. I'm clearly chunky, and maybe you can't tell that I lift weights, but I think I look healthy.
Now, the first day of 31! These were from my birthday cocktail party.
Again, maybe it's unclear whether or not I lift weights, but I feel I look strong in these photos, and I'm beginning to appreciate my bodybuilding aesthetic just a little bit more. I feel this half candid photo is flattering of my chest, waist, and arms.
I have learned that one of my dear friends, however, has a talent for capturing severely unflattering photos of me. I love her and these next photos.
Regardless, of whatever I looked like, i adore these photos. I love them because I know how happy I felt in that moment. I was at ease, surrounded by the people I love, surrounded by THEIR love, free to be my authentic self.
That being said, this outfit was a SLAY, but I have a lot of work to do on my body. Hey! I'm excited about it too. I'm going to be a hot ass 40-year-old. Can you spell D A D D Y?
The photo below concludes Part 1 of 2.
February 2024 Update: Routine Integrated
February 1st, 2024
Hello, friends!
Can you believe we are already at month two of the New Year?! Wow! I have a friend who used to say that when time flies by, it's because you're not being present enough moment to moment. When you choose to be present everything takes longer because you are quite physically deepening time with your awareness. The quantum mechanics of it are much beyond me, but I'll quit while I'm ahead of the wormhole. See what I did there?
My update for you isn't going to be too riveting. It may also be fairly short, I say as I am thinking this out. Oh! If you haven't noticed, I don't do much planning with these blogs. I kind of just treat this blog like a jounal, documenting my stream of consciousness. I do gently reference an essay format, but I'm clearly not too strict about it.
January was challening in a way, but also highly successful. I didn't mention this in either of my previous updates, but theres is a significant emotional and mental element--spiritual even--to the process I am undergoing at the moment.
Adopting a growth mindset and discipline is a serious business. I have had to weed out a number of thought processes, thought cycles. I have to eliminate them as they have proven to not serve me well in my pursuit of meaningful action and achievement. I supposed I crave to feel fulfilled. I've always known that about myself. It has deepened and intensified with age, but all the best in life ripens with time and patience.
Part of me would like to say that I'm shedding away the weakness, cultivating a heroic strength and determination, but that is simply not true. The truth of the matter is that I'm shedding away all of my inefficiency. I am slowly eliminating all of the wasteful slips of energetic expenditure on meaningless thoughts, people, and events. I am learning all of the ways in which I get in my own way, slow myself down, and in a philisophical sense, cause my own suffering.
If practicing yoga on and off for 14 years has taught me anything, it's that any and every action has intrinsic wisdom from which to harvest. Physical repetitive actions and disciplines, offer the deepest wisdom to those practitioners present and reflective enough to observe their own actions and techniques whilst contemplating on the function and higher purpose of it all. Practicing yoga poses, musical scales, weightlifting, running, moving, BREATHING in any and every setting has within its study a unique wisdom to extract.
What I am trying to say is, that having begun this transformative process of truly following a bodybuilding lifestyle, I am beginning to learn about who I am, what I can do, and what it will mean for me to pursuit my highest calling and purpose. I'm balancing realistic expectations and idealistic hopes, stumbling and course correcting, and repeating. I am becoming a new individual.
My very first run this year, a humbling 3 miles, brought me to sobs. Not the entire time, no, but at a couple unpredicatble moments, the processs of running and regulating my central nervous systems, brought up emotional traumas stored within my body. Healing was necessary but only going to happen for me moving my body with intention, awareness, and honesty. I had worked so much stress, guilt, shame, sadness, anger, and other pains, for months and years. School, romances, frienships, work dramas, abuse from strangers from being gay, poor, and of Mexican heritage--so many different stimuli create a deep anatomically nervous state of being. No wonder I fucking ate my feelings and gained a severe depression's worth of weight! Don't worry this is not a woe is me. This is Whoa, that's me! Bitches, I am here. I am ready to serve CUNTNESS.
Let's take a peak at some of my progress photos.
Above: One month tranfromation. Below: Two month transformation.
Not that I owe anyone a defense or apology, but I wanted to highlight the distinctions between one and two months' worth of progress. It has been maddening to see sometimes minimal changes month to month knowing damned well the VALIANT effort I'm investing. I am living like an athlete. Truly. And to see a body that doesn't scream athlete is quite honestly disorienting. I recognize I am a baby weight lifter and bodybuilder. This is where I am at in the process. I know that I have done the work researching and designing my lifestyle to be as effective and sustainable as possible knowing I am pursuing goals that are not necessarily average nor common.
I showed the following picture to a couple of close friends without the dates on it. Neither of them were able to recognize the chronological changes, at least not right away.
I don't blame either of them. Some of these changes are almost inconcievable, but I'll spell them out for you. For this month, I primarily saw a difference in reduction of chest and belly fat. To my satisfaction, my skin is holding up well in its elastic recoil. Although you wouldn't necessarily know of those changes when I am fully clothed.
My feelings were hurt for a brief moment, but I'm such a fucking real ass baddie, that I quickly hit eject from that egotistically fueled, emotional rollercoaster of a bitch. No. I will absolutely not let external validation fuck with my self worth and fulfillment. I am doing absolutely everything in my power to achieve my body. Should I start considering nuritional supplements to aid in my recovery and wellbeing? Should I consider sports massage? Ice baths? Yeah, probably, but I am following a highly calculated regimen that I have fine tuned for six months of weightlifting and about nine months of mindful eating and tracking macros with caloric budgeting. I sleep as best as I can. Although I am an alcoholic, I do my best to monitor my alcoholic consumption with growth and recovery in mind.
My body will reflect my dedictation, all with due time. In January, I successfully followed my first month of marathon training, and I achieved two weeks of a pristine six day per week weights regimen post finals, holiday, and snowstorm recalibrating. Not to mention, I teach yoga from the mat! That's a big accomplishment.
Enjoy a few more photos. Love y'all! Until next time.
January 2024 Update: Part 2 of 2 Goals for the New Year
January 7th, 2024
Hello again, everyone!
Thank you for the patience with the blog entry. As I was traveling away from home for a week to stay with my boyfriend in Dallas Center, I decided that I wouldn't push myself too hard as I welcomed in the New Year. Astrologically, we won't really pick up speed until Tuesday, the 9th, so you all can relax knowing that you can start your resolutions a week late.
Skip this paragraph if astrology doesn't concern your interests. Mercury stationed direct on January 1st as Venus and Jupiter were already working together in each other's signs. Simply stated, we entered a moment of clarity in the first week of the new year. Mars entered Capricorn on Thursday, the 4th which is going to help you fuel our ambitions. This will occur especially as they relate to the domain of your life--known as an astrological house--which is ruled by Capricorn. Week 2 of the year will allow for better taking of action aligned with whatever revelations discovered during week 1 clarity. Mars sextiles Saturn which rules Capricorn on Tuesday the 9th which will just add to the steam and brute determination of this wave. There are a lot of big astrological markers between now and mid-March that are perfectly geared at highly developing two--maybe three--signifacant projects. However, we will each need to monitor our own limitations and productiviy analytics to troubleshoot and course correct AS we go. Mid-March into April will just be messy for everyone, so it's best to build some solid habits in the first quarter of the year.
As a slow star for the first week of January, I took the first step toward a huge goal of mine for the year. It is my mission to run the Chicago marathon, and I intend to accomplish that this year, the 13th of October. This week, I executed my first four runs of a 16--week training program to build of to a half marathon: 13.1 miles. I think for at least the first 16 weeks, this will be a healthy complement to my weightlifting regimen. I will eliminate cardio at the gym other than a brief warm up on the stationary rowing machine.
The final Sunday of week 16 will land me on Sunday, April 21st which happens to be the public Drake Road Race Day in Des Moines, IA. The longest distance race they're holding is for the half marathon. This requires the 13.1 mile course to be run in under a 3-hour time limit or about 14 minutes per mile. The plot twist is the week of the half marathon, on Monday the 18th of April 2024--before the Sunday race--I am scheduled to give my Junior Year Flute Recital at the University of Northern Iowa. I am currently assigned an ambitious, but achieveable program of repertoire that I'm roughly only sixty percent through with my preparation. Any musician would tell you that means there's a significant amount of work to be done. This will be one of my highest stakes performances for me to date, as the junior recital is a cornerstone to the music performance degree.
Beginning week 17, I will begin my 18 week preparation for a full marathon: 26.2 miles. I'll be using a modifcation of the template below to better suit my schedule and weightlifting regimen. Week 18 of this program will put me to run my first marathon on Sunday, the 25th of August, after the classes resume for week 1 of the 2024 fall semester. I'm not sure if I will try run a specific race, or if I'll simply run the marathon on my own. I have yet to determine what I will be doing during the thirteen week interim between August 25th and October 13th in Chicago, but I know it will include a lot of maintenance training.
To be sweet and to the point, I'll list out my other goals for the year.
1. Win 2024 Concerto Competition with the Aram Khachaturian Flute Concerto in D minor. (This will occur in late October into early November).
2. Get in the best shape of my life. Post a shirtless transfromation photo on my Instagram. (It can be a casual beach photo or of similar candidness, but it will communicate a message).
3. Run the Chicago Marathon
4. Pay off my new flute
5. Get my first tattoo. (Most likely at the center of my back).
6. Begin my 300-hour yoga teacher training in pursuit of achieveing RYT-500 status. (The master's degree of teaching yoga, albeit much less formal and resource demanding than the collegiate education). These are often done in weekend-modules, with some programs giving a self-paced 3 year completion time maximum.
Those are my hard goals for the year. Each of these goals will help me respect myself more but also grow truer in the integrity of my own intrinsic and greates potential. Speaking more intanglibly, as a resolution, I intend to work on my husband material worth and status. I know that may sound superficial, but I genuinely want a partner, friends. Someone who is my equal in passion and curiosity. I know that the man of my dreams is out there working hard on himself, and I wanted develop myself in a way that is worthy of his time and love. This may be a several year's long process. I want to work on all of the hard measurements of my life circumstances, but also continue to develop my personality confidence, charisma, and charm. I want to continue to develop my character in harmoniousness, discipline, and respect. I expect these measurments of my future husband.
Quite simply, I know exactly what I want to achieve this year. The hard part is carving out the human to execute all of it.
For next month, anticipate an update on how marathon training is blending with the weightlfiting, but by February 1st, I will have made significant progress on my recital program, as well. Expect an update on the music study.
Peace, y'all,
Let me know your thoughts of feedback, support, and concern by leaving a comment below!
January 2024 Update: Part 1 of 2 December reflections
January 3rd, 2024
Hey, y'all! Happy New Year! I am so sorry to have kept you waiting for the update. I've been traveling, but I made sure to take progress photos on the appropriate dates. It's life, y'all. We out here doing our best.
Okay, so the vibe and general consensus: This shit is not easy. Plain and simple. I know to many people, an individual's growth appears either linear or not. Looking through an objective lens, you either make progress and see it physically, or you haven't made progress. Well, this month proved to be quite the challenge for me. Fall semester 2023 was brutal. Academia came for my life. Maybe that's a touch dramatic, but it really felt that way for weeks. The first week of December was the last official week of classes, with the second week of December being finals week. I genuinely feared I was going to lose my scholarship by going under my 3.0 minimum GPA. I thought this was the semester I was going to have to drop out, and figure out WTF else to do with my life. Somehow, I survived... biologically, academically, existentially. Barely, though.
Looking back at when I began weightlifting on August 7th, 2023 through now, my only concern is that I genuinely love it. I love this lifestyle. I love this journey. I love this challenge. The problems I'm facing have to do with budgeting time AND budgeting energy. I've been spending about 15 hours per week in the gym. Thats not including the full semester load of classes for which I registered, and the two jobs I worked waiting tables and teaching yoga. Weightlifting kind of became my double life. I couldn't tell my mentors and professors that I was spending 2-2.5 hours of my day at the gym, when I should have been practicing music, doing homework, studying. The truth is that our current system for higher education is not only oppressive to the average aged student who doesn't come from the most priviliged upbringing and background, but the system is ENTIRELY not geared nor meant for the non-traditional student. Me, the 30 year old. It's not meant for me to succeed AND live an average fucking 30-year old life. I have bills. I have a quality of living to uphold. Honestly, this shit people expect of me is genuinely absurd to me. I managed to get by this semester, but it took a lot out of me, and I have yet to recover from that burnout.
So, I'm a different person now. Genuinely. I feel more acutely focused. I feel like I'm leaning into my cold, ruthless logic a little bit more because in order for me to execute everything I desire to achieve, there's simply no room for a weak heart. The concept I'm developing as a solution has to do with balance. How do I find balance with everything I'm attempting to pursue? How do honor my limitations, but in the same vein, how do I wring the greatness from my innate potential? How can I learn to be strategic about my rest, about my recovery? How do I build momentum to elevate myself to the next level?
Back to December, the last couple of weeks were a little bit of a mess. The first week after finals week, I slept in a lot. Yet every day, I still could feel the months' worth of cortisol built up in my body. I've been trying to heal. I continued my weight training while working my two jobs. Then, Christmas came around, and I just let myself eat--mindfully--but with ease.
These graphs are screen shots from my Strong app which helps me keep track of my weightlifting workouts. As you can see, finals week affected me the most, but I recovered the week after, and prepared for the week of Christmas. My regimen is 6 days per week, so I technically only came up two workouts short for the month of December. Not bad.
My diet, albeit not a complete mess, lacked discipline throughout December. I am a stress eater, and because my emotions were high and being directed toward my academics--thus creating other spirals--I broke a 126 day streak of tracking my meals. This happened right before Christmas (December 23rd), and I only just started tracking again on New Year's Day. Generally speaking, my macros were off for the whole month. I did really to aim to get enough protein every day, but I know I ate way too much fat.
Thus, judging from these photos, I inadvertently bulked. I definitely added muscle mass. You can see my shoulders are a bit more prounounced in the flexed photos. There is a greater length from the top of my biceps to the bottom of my triceps. The spread on my back across my lats is wider; and my quads are more defined. But the chest and belly fat is still there. Oh, I needn't forget disclose. After finals, and really until just a few days ago. I have had A LOT of alcohol. A lot. It makes sense that I didn't shed as much fat, as I would have hoped with how hard I worked in the gym this month. I'm a beginning weightlifter, so I'll be riding the body recomposition phase for a while. Eventually, bulking AND cutting, respectively, become more difficult processes.
Let's end on a high note though! Look at this back shot in jeans! I mentioned last month that my whole body needs to follow suit with my back, but look at the entire posterior chain. I'm so happy with how my hams are becoming more dense. My glutes are rounding out and filling out those back pockets. Of course, my back is carrying the photo. Long story short, I'm kicking my own ass by training my ass... and its paying off, no?
Stay tuned. I'm dropping another blog tomorrow mentioning my goals for the coming year.
December 2023 Update
December 1st, 2023
Can we please tell the rest of my body to follow suit with my back? I'm loving the progress you can see in both the development and definition when I pose like this. Additionally, I'm not so upset by how my midsection looks from the front when I'm fully engaged through the core. My astrologer said I should start a blog, so here we are!
I've been so poor! This is the first time ever that I've shaved my own back. I can't believe how difficult that was. It was truly an acrobatic effort. All this weightlifting is actually doing horrors for my shoulder flexibility, but look at those puppers growing!
I'm not loving how much fat I still have all over my body. I know... I let myself get to this point, but it's amazing how easy it felt going on versus how much I am working to get it off. That being said, I did not gain all that weight over night, and I'm not going to achieve a competitive physique over night either.
November progress seems more subtle to me than the transformation between September and October. I just didn't lose as much fat this month which I will discuss. If we consider the comparison photos in my undies, from the back, you can clearly see a sharpening of the angles from neck down traps to delts. I'm wider, in a good way. You can also see the creases of my folds at the small of my back and top of the love handles to be a little less deep. The love handles, however, are as furiously present as ever. From what I understand, love handles and belly fat are of the last fat storages to go. So it will be a long term goal. From the front, there is a slight narrowing of the waist toward center with a thin sheath of belly fat removed from front and center. If you examine really closely, you can see that each of my tatas are a little less full and ever so slightly lifted. I've really been training my chest hard, and although you can't yet see the muscular development, the fat around the area is changing. There is a little less fat around the biceps and thighs. There is development in the quadriceps. Overall, this month is still a success. The problem I find with this is that I literally have to spell it out for you. It looks like minimal progress, but perhaps I'm being critical. Hey! I'm almost four months into this program.
I do want to mention a few variables. In November, I entered a depression. For those of you who have known me longest, it probably comes at no shock that my mental health entered the deepest and darkest of waters. However, the surprise was all mine. I know you have seen me struggle in the past, but theoretically I have everything going for me these days. Sure, I have to work hard, but about WHAT could I possibly be depressed?! That's the thing. I don't even have an answer for that. This month, I struggled attending class, keeping my bedroom clean, and meal prepping. Leave it to me, the work horse, but I always went to work, and I never missed a workout unless I had already scheduled a makeup routine because of some other obligation. I kept lifting, and believe it or not, it kept me moving forward. I suspect that if I had not been continuing my lifting regimen, I'd still be in emotional dissaray.
Oh, yeah. I got better. The first day of Sag season, to be exact, is when I felt the energetic tipping point toward the better. wednesday before Thanksgiving. I woke up with a surge of energy, did my workout for the day, deep cleaned my apartment, packed and headed for the DSM area to stay with my bf. I've taken note for next year that perhaps I'm not simply seasonally depressed but possibly Scorpio season depressed.
Still however, Scorpio season really took me out. I wasn't meal prepping as well as I should have. Marinating and dicing up chicken breast and veggies seemed overwhelming, where browning ground beef and boiling spaghetti seemed much easier. Pizza and wings sounded acceptable too many nights this month. In general, my macros were OFF. I had way too much fat in my diet while not getting enough protein. However, I managed to track calories, and I didn't go over by too much nor too often. I had previoualy been aiming for 1800-2300, but this month it became more like 2300-2800 per day. If I bought junk food, I was going to make several meals out of it--maintaining my daily caloric budget.
Another way in which I struggled, was with cardio. I haven't been running recently. From August through November 17 , I have always started my weights sesh with a half mile jog followed by a 800-900m row. I have started nixing the jog, opting for either just the row or adding .4 mile incline walk. I teach yoga, so I at the very least get my two vinyasa flows per week. Running has just seemed daunting.
Finally, I did drink a bit more wine this month. Nothing alarming, but more than I had been all semester.
All in all, I burned a few less calories per day, and consumed a few hundred more per day. Based on my photos, I was still in a modest deficit, but not by much. I'm definitely grateful to be such a novice lifter, so that I may ride that body recomposition wave for as long as I possibly can. It makes me wonder, if I didn't eat as much as I did this month, would I have made a many gains? Also, what if I ate that many calories but in the appropriate macros. I could have gained so much more! Idk though, y'all. Sometimes, I just want that fucking Mcdouble.
Truly, y'all. I'm doing so much better. I'm wrapping up the last few weeks of the semester. Emotions, who is she? I don't have time for her right now. This week post Thanksgiving. I am on my meal prep game succeeding hard. This Monday, November 27th, I started taking creatine. I'm super sensitive to anything, so I can definitly feel it's presence in my body. I do think it's going to be a positive game changer. I've showed up to the gym every day--no surprise there. I'm getting on top of my assignments and final projects. Next week is the last week before final. Y'all better send me some positive vibes, prayers, and woowoo juju, cuz ya girl needs it right now.
These last couple photos are a new outift I'll be using for some future comparison. The last gym fit I was sharing is baggy and unflattering--a good problem to have. So check out this tight outfit. No, I mean tight, as in it's too fucking small, but maybe that will change.
Peace and love for now, y'all!
Martin
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