Going Primal

So quick post because I don't have a ton of time and I don't want my last post to be a negative one. Anyway long story short since going primal at the beginning of June, I have lost 18lbs, dropped 15 points on my blood pressure, and this is the best I have felt in 5 years. Stay tuned...

If Clemenza and James Gandolfini Had a Baby...

...Then it would be me

 Mexican families can be rather cruel and my family is no exception. For instance, let's role play a typical holiday with the always classy Ramirez clan:

Me: (steps through door of family party fresh from the 6 hour drive from San Francisco) Hi everyone Merry Christmas!

Family: It's Tuka! Hey Tuka (the name "Tuka" is a blog entry for another day)

Bitter Cousin: Fuck your fat!

Rest of Family: Yeah damn...thought you worked out a lot?

Me: le sigh (proceeds to drink 1/5 of bourbon and eat tamales)

 This is just another family gathering at the Ramirez household where I somehow usually draw the shortest straw. Note to others, don't leave home unless you are ok with the black sheep title.

Just another party at the Ramirez house

So what does this have to do with anything?

Well after 4 years of hearing this, I decided I would like to weigh what I did in college, so I got back into triathlons. And I thought I was doing really really well. I was swimming faster, riding longer, running sort of better. I even placed in a race or two.

me on road bike

So having the reverse problem of anorexia - when I look into a mirror I see a fine muthafucka, I went to my doctor's appointment thinking she[doctor] was going to be like "damn you are a fine muthfucka". Instead it was: hey fatty so your kind of fat and not healthy...hmmm.

My diagnosis: You're fat as fuck

What was the problem? I inherited those lovely genes from my Mexican side of the family you know the ones that turn your circulatory system into gravy and and have congestive heart failure. Oh not to mention every other heart and blood pressure problem from the white side of the family. So literally I was what Turkish would call "Proper Fucked". The sexy lady doctor laid it all out for me:

Cholesterol: 257

Triglycerides: 225

HDL: 50

Blood Pressure: 137/88

Weight: 209.5lbs

I'm sorry sir, I keep trying to draw your blood but come up with nothing but gravy and cottage cheese

So the fact that someone in their 20's has the health of a 300lbs 50 year old man should tell you something about how well I was apparently taking care of myself. So I did exactly what anyone in this position would do:
Did nothing for a few days and then said ok I can do this. Combine triathlon training with low cholesterol eating. This lasted approximately long enough to spit out my dinner and say fuck this then proceed to walk directly to Absinthe and drink half of their Bulleitt Rye.

I was at the point of saying great I am my father's son, so bring on the Lipitor, stints, and every other advance in modern medicine. Might as well start now.


But there was one more option....Crazy Larry and his bullshit diet
So Larry on my water polo team was not fat by any means so what led him to this crazy diet? I would probably say it was the benefits it had for his girlfriend who is sick with Crohn's Disease and his desire to torture/make her feel better. What is this diet? Well its going primal.

The primal diet/paleo diet is something that is kind of a buzz lately. Return to pre-agrarian society eating habits of high protein, lots of vegetables, fruits, natural as possible. Nothing processed, no grains, no sugars. So naturally I would encourage Larry's new healthy lifestyle right? No I fucking made fun of him everyday I saw him for believing some bullshit hype. But alas! I was out of options and I couldn't go back to sexy lady doctor weighing the same or worse even more...So I ate crow and dug in like the tubby bastard I had become. You had me at you can eat steak....you had me at you can eat steak.

Just another Sunday Night

Essentially 3 weeks into it and this diet has become the catalyst for everything going well in my life. I enjoy food again without feeling guilty. I don't feel sick after I eat, I don't need any of my meds for every kind of GI problem I have, and I am actually doing better in sports. Is it because of this diet or is it the placebo? I really don't care, I just know I am happy and this is best I have felt in 4 years. So I have 9 weeks to go before my next test with sexy lady doctor and this is where I am at so far:

Blood Pressure: 126/77

Weight 197.1lbs

Goal by middle of July would be to hit 185lbs. In the words of Fifty "Get Rich or Die Trying".

I am Jack's Broken Heart

Rode for 15 miles this morning
Followed by 9 min pace run for an hour
Max heart rate 187bpm

Fat. Drunk, and Stupid is No Way to Go Through Life Son

I woke up one day and said, "I would like to do triathlons again." Then followed that with, "I think Wildflower long course should be my first one back." This was immediately followed with, "What the f--- is my problem."

I not only decided that I wanted to do triathlons again, I decided that I would pick a half-Ironman on one of the most grueling courses known. Why you may ask? Because I am not rational and therefore I make stupid and sudden decisions. The only good thing I can say about this decision is that at least I decided this 25 weeks out from the event and not 5 days before.

For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about (this is the part where I pretend anyone reads these posts) the Wildflower long course consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run.

Now the last time that I did such a thing was 5 years and 30lbs less ago.So needless to say, I needed to train ASAP for this thing to make sure I finished and did it in a reasonable amount of time.

So in my initial assessment I would say swimming is my strongest discipline of the three and therefore I can focus less on it. However those of you who play water polo with me would argue that they have seen manatees float faster than I can swim to the other side of the pool. First) F--- you, second) I'm a great distance swimmer.

Nom nom says the manatee...nom nom

Next I would say I'm decent on a bike, but should spend a lot of time on this because it is the longest distance and most time consuming part of the race, but also the fresher your legs are on the biker the stronger you will be in running.

Finally I got to the running part and immediately said "f--- I hate running. Why do I want to do this again?" in which I told my inner-monologue, "Quiet down fatty, no one cares what you think." See the problem is that I don't necessarily hate running for the sake of running, it's just that I am built in the opposite way that Kenyans and Ethiopians are built. I am built more like, well like this...

Meet Bailey the wiener dog and his stubs for legs

So anything more than a half marathon, is asking for trouble and although that is the distance of the run in this race, I also have to do the bike and swim before I can even think about running.

I am now 5 and half weeks out before the race and things seem to be coming together. In this final month I am going to start taking it seriously as well as post updates in the training. Expect lots of post about "wanted to go run, but ate ham sandwich instead." 

My Brain is Dying...

At least that's my feeling anyway. First I guess I should provide context so that anyone who cares actually knows what the hell I am talking about.

Remember the short story that you had to read in junior high school "Flowers for Algernon"? Well for those who attended schools that didn't enjoy making students feel like they came home and found out their old man ran over their dog, I will explain. "Flowers for Algernon is incredibly sad. We are talking watching a little kid with progeria cracking all his ribs catching a Nerf ball kind of sad (thank you Venture Brothers). The story is about Charlie who works I think as a janitor and is mentally disabled and has an IQ of 68. He is selected for an experimental procedure that increases brain capacity after it was first successfully used on a lab mouse named Algernon. Charlie's intelligence increases rapidly and eventually his IQ triples. Eventually Charlie uses his new found intelligence to study the experiment and realizes that the procedure will eventually reverse and go back to how he was. This is proven when Algernon begins to decline and eventually dies. Charlie soon follows and returns to his original mentally impaired state. He tries to return to his old job but can't stand everyone looking at him with so much pity so he quits. However, before he leaves he asks that someone put flowers on Algernon's grave.

That is some heavy shit. Especially for a 6th grader to read. Anyway short story short I have a fear of losing any moderate intelligence that I currently have. I started out like Charlie. Ask my sister she will tell you that I was a little dumb dumb in my early years of school. She likes to remind everyone that they thought I had Aspergers as well. She will also spend an early part of my life convincing me that I was originally a girl and that's why they named me Rudy, Rudy from the Cosby Show. However when I was born more boy than girl they raised me boy. Yes my sister told me for the first 10 years of my life that I was a hermaphrodite, and in a very convincing fashion I might add.

So I was almost held back in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades, until one day I apparently decided, "Ok Ok this was just a 4 year long running joke I can actually read I swear." Or at least I like to think that's how it went down. To be honest with you I can't remember much from my elementary years. Yes I know I went to a Catholic school, yes I remember friends in school, but no I can't remember anything in class. So who knows what happened. Maybe I did just decide to wake up one day and say "I want to be a real boy".

Anyway, mom decided that most schools in Oxnard sucked and I should probably go somewhere outside of the city, hence my exodus along with many of my fellow classmates to a school in Somis. It was here that I actually started doing well in school and my parents went "Holy shit you? Honor roll? Nooo way." So yes I finally could handle school and in addition to this new found intelligence, I also found my athletic coordination that went missing most of my youth and started doing very well in sports. I also used the new found intelligence to aide my wannabe superhero persona and desire to rid the school of shitty teachers and tenured hacks. It is was the final skill-set that got me in lots of trouble in junior high and presumably led some of my teachers to excessive drinking or crying or both. So yes I have been a smart ass and a button pusher most of my life for those of you who were going to insert joke here.

So without trying to completely toot my own horn for three more paragraphs one can assume that this carried on into high school and college. But as of a lately I feel this all changing. For instance, it takes me a lot longer to get words on paper than it use to. Before I could also write something and be done in a draft or two. These days I stress and agonize over every single word and sentence. I can't recite facts that I use to know at the same speed as before, or look at data and instantly know what it is saying. Long story short I am becoming Charlie, mentally incapable youth, to academic rock star, to practically early onset Alzheimer's.

So is my brain really diminishing? Probably not, but am I completely being obsessive compulsive and hypochondriac about this? Very possibly. But it is also why I am starting this. Well for several reasons: this is the first time in awhile that I can write and not scrutinize every word(a.k.a be ready for grammatical and spelling mistakes). Also I think free flow writing will help me overcome my fear of diminished brain capacity. And finally, because I am no longer on facebook and my level of narcissism can't handle not telling the world about my own feelings of self satisfaction. So I hope you can read this blog and laugh at my level of stupidity, trouble my sister and ask if she was really that mean to me, and more or not just be entertained at my shortcomings and my inability to cope with them. At the very least this will serve as a record me being actually able to read and write when I reach my catatonic state. If that happens, just remember to leave flowers for Algernon...